Trauma Conga Line: Difference between revisions

[[File:one of those days 1945.png|link=Bigger Than Cheeses|frame|There's getting back-stabbed, and then...]]

 

 

You have reached a writer's block. You've created a hero so righteous, noble, good and pure that traumatizing them just once is not convincing enough to break them. Yet you want the intended audience to still feel like they want to reach into your work and [[The Woobie|hug the character]] in question.

See also [[Humiliation Conga]], where this happens to a villain who deserves what's coming to him. [[Deus Angst Machina]] is similar and there is quite a bit of overlap, but with the '''Trauma Conga Line''' more of it happens on-screen than in the backstory.

 

 

{{examples}}

== Advertising ==

* Somewhat spoofed in the [[Parody Commercial|parody commercials]] for Rhubarb Pie on ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]''. They always feature some [[Innocent Bystander|random, unfortunate fellow]] who happens to get caught in a series of increasingly bad situations, going from, say, locking yourself out of the car to being arrested for high treason. Good thing "nothing takes the taste of shame and humiliation out of your mouth like rhubarb pie!"

* [[X-Men (Comic Book)|Madelyne Pryor]] is a full-on Type D. After her husband abandons her and her infant son for reasons unexplained, she tries to get on with her life. Then she's ambushed by a squad of superpowered assassins out to kill her and steal her baby. They only succeed in the latter. Then she goes on the run with the X-Men...no one's idea of a relaxing vacation at the best of times...and starts falling in love with her ''brother-in-law.'' After finding some semblance of equilibrium with the team, she starts working as their tech support, and just happens to find her disappeared husband on a news broadcast...standing alongside a woman who looks just like her. Cue BSOD, and [[Deal with the Devil]]. Finally to top everything off, she meets a man who claims to be responsible for cloning her from the same woman her husband ditched her for! The resulting [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] comes as a surprise to no one.

* Roy Harper, the former sidekick of [[Green Arrow]], has had it pretty rough recently. In ''Cry for Justice'' he got his arm chopped off by Prometheus. Then Prometheus and his accomplice the Electrocutioner unleashed a [[Kill Sat]] on Star City, killing thousands including {{spoiler|Roy's daughter Lian}}. This drove him back to drug abuse, which just made things worse. To add insult to injury, when he and Cheshire got involved, he couldn't perform, so to speak. He became a Type E Jerkass, railing against his former friends and teammates, going so far as to blame Mia for {{spoiler|Lian's death}} and calling Donna a whore when she tried to sympathize with him. Later he became a full-on Type B when he agreed to join Deathstroke's Titans (a team of assassins for hire) {{spoiler|though it's heavily implied that this was an act he and Cheshire cooked up together in a bid to kill Deathstroke.}}

* Ultimate Reed Richards, as of the end of ''[[Ultimatum]]'', cementing himself as a hybrid between Types B & F.

* [[Iron Man|Tony Stark's]] ''entire life'' consists of one traumatic event after another, mixed with a morass of personal issues covering everything from alcohol to troubled romantic relationships, an angst-and-tragedy-ridden personal and professional life that include, but is not limited to, traitorous/murderous friends and business partners who have tried to destroy him and his friends multiple times, all combined with a ridiculous amount of overwork <ref>(running Stark Industries, churning out new inventions to keep it running, managing the Avengers' legal and financial problems, being constantly on-call to consult other superheroes on technology-related crises, being a founding Avenger and occasionally the group's leader, being a superhero on his own time, and dealing with enemies who want to kill him on both superhero and business fronts)</ref> that is directly responsible for most of the aforementioned trauma, to the point where he has had to basically completely rebuild his life from the ground up on several different occasions.

 

 

* Used for a few chapters in the ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' fanfiction ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6160652/10/A_Son_For_A_King A Son for a King]''. Charlotte's banker husband demands sex from Tiana in exchange for giving her a loan and for not asking for the money back, and when she refuses, he tells Charlotte that Tiana tried to bribe him with sex so as not to have to pay back the loan. Charlotte then goes to Tiana's house and yells at her, and breaks off their friendship. Tiana's mother then persuades her to go on a date with a man she has no attraction to, and on the date, he is stabbed by racists and has to be taken to the hospital by Tiana where it turns out he has lied about his name, as well as the fact that he is married to a woman who then arrives at the hospital and chases Tiana around the hospital room, calling her a tramp and screaming at her for sleeping with her husband (which she didn't do). Once she gets back to her mother's house, it's revealed that her house and restaurant have been set on fire by the Ku Klux Klan. She then collapses on the floor, yelling, "I've been a good person my entire life. I followed all the rules. Why do these things keep happening to me?" It's all quite [[Narm|hilarious]].

* The ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[[Forward]]'' does this to most of the crew, ''especially'' for River. Aside from being {{spoiler|kidnapped and tortured by [[Complete Monster|Niska]],}} she's also {{spoiler|undergone multiple mental breakdowns due to her insanity, she's been nearly eaten by Reavers}}, and {{spoiler|has been repeatedly [[Mind Rape]]d by another psychic escapee from the Academy}}. Not a single "episode" in the story passes without River being repeatedly punched in the gut.