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{{trope}}
* [[Franz Kafka]]: every protagonist of his ever written, every one, and he often put his characters out of their misery in the end.
* Agrajag in ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (
** Reading carefully, it seems indeed ''every single thing'' for whose death Arthur is in any part responsible is an incarnation of Agrajag, and every single incarnation of Agrajag is killed at the hands of Arthur. It's understandable that he'd hold a grudge....
** Also, Marvin, as he seems to get himself stuck in many horrifyingly awful situations, including having his leg stolen for some universe-destroying ritual, having constant pain in half of his body, and being left behind on a deserted planet to literally ''wait until the end of the universe'' for his friends to arrive. It doesn't help either that he is programmed to be permanently depressed. And the worst part is, nobody else seems to care.
* Rincewind, from Terry Pratchett's ''[[Discworld]]''. He doesn't just want to be left alone, he actually wants his life to be ''boring''. But due partly to being the [[Cosmic Plaything|pawn of Luck]], and partly to his own self-defeating cowardice, he always ends up in the middle of some gigantic disaster surrounded by people who want him dead.
** Lampshaded (hilariously) in ''[[Discworld
{{quote| '''Rincewind:''' I do not wish to volunteer for this mission.<br />
'''Lord Vetinari:''' I beg your pardon?<br />
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** This is, of course, a reflection of the philosophy of Sade's that [[Sick Sad World|virtuous people finish last]]. Every virtuous character in a story of Sade's is a complete Butt Monkey.
** A critic once remarked that De Sade's novels have a kind of inverted karma: ''good'' acts end up hurting the actor. For instance, Justine's [[Complete Monster|sister]] Juliette has no scruples whatsoever, and the one time she refuses to commit a crime it is because she is afraid of the consequences, not from any moral considerations. Nevertheless, by refusing to commit the crime she loses her favored place at court and spends much of the rest of the novel in poverty and misery, until by a long series of evil acts she finally regains her power and luxury. (What really clinches it is betraying her sister Justine, of course.)
* Many a Thomas Hardy protagonist, particularly Jude of ''Jude the Obscure'' and Tess in ''[[
* Mr Bagthorpe of ''The Bagthorpe Saga''. Yes, he brings a lot of it on himself, but fact remains he's bedeviled by more disasters, wrong bank statements, goats and awful relatives than anyone else in children's literature. If he doesn't break his arm trying to stand on his head he's accidentally bidding for hundreds of pounds of junk in auctions. And he's suspected of being a terrorist and murdering his wife in the later books. To quote, "I am the archetypal can carrier of all time!"
* ''The Duchess of Malfi''. Poor girl. All she wanted was to get married... and look at the horrors that unleashes! Imprisonment, mental torture, her eventual murder... Her hapless husband Antonio also applies. ''Malfi'' probably has the earliest instance of the hitman being something of a Butt Monkey too.
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** Harry himself is the [[Butt Monkey]] of the Dursley household until his 11th birthday.
** Life just seems to hate Severus Snape; his past isn't a cakewalk, to say the least.
* In [[
** There's also Bombur from ''[[The Hobbit]]'', who is a more classic comedic example.
* Children's fantasy novel ''The Hounds of the Morrigan'' has the Sargeant, who is [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|only ever known by that name.]] Almost his entire screentime in the book is devoted to having the [[Big Bad]] torment him in increasingly ridiculous, magical ways -- which he blames on drink, as he's a [[Muggle]]. They send him up the Amazon river on a rubber duck, change the cross-stitch wall hanging in his room to insult him, and do various, other cruel things to him {{spoiler|which include using him as a pawn to get close to the [[MacGuffin]]}}.
* [[
* Most [[Tom Holt]] main characters have things go hideously wrong for them more or less nonstop. Everything from jackass parents to being a pawn in century-old [[Gambit Roulette|GambitRoulettes]] to {{spoiler|''having the Queen of the Fey wipe your girlfriend's memory of you''.}} At the end of the story, they are usually given a lot of money and/or a vast region of land somewhere on the other side of the world as a karmic payoff for putting up with vast amounts of misery.
* [[Pollyanna|Little Nell]] from Dickens' ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is a 14-year-old orphaned girl raised by her grandfather, who loses all of his money gambling. They are forced to flee his debtors and live as beggars, pursued by the villains, one of whom wishes to force her to marry him and one of whom wants only to torment them both. They finally reach relative safety. [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth|Then she dies.]]
** Also Smike in ''Nicholas Nickleby''. He's beaten and enslaved by Squeers and his family until Nicholas takes him under his wing. While the Nickleby family care for him, his love for Nicholas' sister Kate is unrequited. He eventually {{spoiler|dies, then it turns out the father he never knew is Ralph, Nicholas' cruel, uncaring uncle.}}
* Peter David's ''[[Sir Apropos of Nothing]]''. For three whole books.
* Nick Chopper (the Tin Woodsman) was the Butt Monkey of the [[
** Now here's where the Butt Monkey part kicks in. In ''Tin Woodsman of Oz'', he sets it upon himself to find out what became of Nimmie-Amiee. He finds that she had taken up with another man, Captain Fyter (who was cursed like he was, but isn't much bothered about the lack of a heart). He finds the tinner, who either owed the Witch a favor, was working for her, and possibly both. The tinner now has some "magic glue", and set about making new creations from it. His "first and finest" was a creature named Chopfyt, made from the body parts of both men. Topping it all off? Nimmie-Amiee married Chopfyt to essentially get the best of both worlds.
* Kitty from ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]''. She's always coming in second to her ''younger'' sister, and after Lydia elopes, she's told by her father that there will be no more balls or parties unless she's chaperoned by one of her sisters. The family's somewhat dismissive treatment of her is even more pronounced in the BBC mini-series. (Though Austen does mention at the end that her fortunes were significantly improved by being around the Darcy and the Bingley families).
** Also her father was JOKING when he said no more balls for her. (Mind you the dad has a weird, almost cruel, sense of humor.) The real [[Butt Monkey]], if there is one, is Mary, who Austen herself seemed to dislike and is only mentioned to prove how selfish and silly she is while thinking she's smart.
** Even though things work out for her in the end, Fanny Price of ''[[Mansfield Park]]'' would certainly count. She's constantly berated by her own relatives for coming from a poor family, despite doing nothing to antagonise them and is then relentlessly harassed by Henry Crawford, who just can't seem to accept she doesn't want to marry him.
* Bill in ''[[
* ''[[The Scavenger Trilogy]]'': Poldarn. Poor old Poldarn.
* Penlan, aka "Jinxie", from the ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'' series. Her bad luck hasn't killed her yet, heck, she even got promoted. Addtionally, she's rather popular with the rest of the 597th as it's believed that all the bad luck in her squad gets attracted to her and leaves everyone else alone. From the [[Overly Long Gag|what Cain has said]], it really does work out for her.
* In ''[[Swordspoint|The Privilege of the Sword]]'' the [[Genre Savvy]] Alec sets Katherine up to be one, but she is one (briefly) because she believes she is. She gets over it, though.
* Juro in ''[[
* Darkstripe and Snowtuft from ''[[
* Tanith Low from ''[[
** Fletcher Renn is traditionally on the receiving end of insults and jibes and got dumped by his beloved girlfriend, [[Jerk Sue|Valkyrie Cain]] in book 6 though he did get a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment at the end of the book, saving her from the clutches of a [[Yandere]] vampire.
* Cersei Lannister from ''[[A Song Of Fire And Ice]]''. She's beautiful, tough, resilient, brave, it's impossible not to like her. However she's sort of trying to be a [[Magnificent Bitch]] but [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|failing miserably]]. She's spent her life living in fear of a prophecy that one day her life would basically fall apart and then she'd be ignominiously killed so all of her efforts are dedicated to protecting her children and escaping this prophecy through manipulative attempts at power-grabbing that ineveriably blow up in her face. As Petyr Baelish points out, while Cersei desires power, she has no idea how to wield it and while she thinks she is a player in the Game of Thrones, she usually just ends up being a pawn. However she does now have the [[Complete Monster]] Gregor Clegane on her side so things should start looking up for her.
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