The Woobie/Film: Difference between revisions
→top: replaced: [[Lord of the Rings → [[The Lord of the Rings (2)
m (remove image pickin/quotes page inline comments) |
(→top: replaced: [[Lord of the Rings → [[The Lord of the Rings (2)) |
||
| (15 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:oliverkitty_8498.jpg|link=Oliver and Company
It might be worth pointing out that the term "Woobie" perhaps was first used in the 1980's Michael Keaton movie ''Mr. Mom''. And incidentally, Kenny, the boy who owned the blanket he called "Woobie", was played by Taliesin Jaffe, who eventually grew up to write and direct numerous [[Superlative Dubbing|Superlative Anime Dubs]], including both TV and OVA versions of ''[[Hellsing]]''. Which means, yes, the boy with the Woobie wrote [[Cluster F-Bomb|Jan Valentine's dialogue]].
Line 12 ⟶ 11:
* ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'' has two Woobies living in a [[Crapsack World]] called Skid Row: Seymour Krelborn and Audrey. Seymour was an orphan, raised by his boss, Mr. Mushnik, who treats him like dirt and forces him to sweep the floor. Seymour was in love with Audrey and would do anything to win her heart, and that's where Audrey II came in. Meanwhile, Audrey was in an abusive relationship with Orin Scrivello D.D.S., a crazy and sadistic dentist, but she actually has feelings for Seymour.
* Andrew in ''Bicentennial Man.''
* [[The Boy in
* Michael from ''[[The Blind Side]]'' is so much the Woobie that the Tuohys take him in and {{spoiler|eventually adopt him}}.
* ''[[Ben X]]'' is a Flemish film about an autistic teenager who is mercilessly bullied at school because he does not know how to stand up for himself. The film is pretty much all about his misery and self-pity and does not explore anything else about his personality.
* Gary at the end of ''[[The Last American Virgin]]''.
* Eduardo Saverin in "[[The Social Network]]", especially when you realize that this is all based on a true story...
* Harry Osborn from the ''[[Spider-Man (
** Sandman from ''Spider-Man 3''. He just wants to cure his daughter from some mysterious illness but since he doesn't has the money for medical care, he was in desperation forced to do crime in order to get them. In one of his robberings, he {{spoiler|accidentally killed Uncle Ben}}, a mistake that would hunt him with much remorse and guilt. When he got his super powers, he decided to use them in order to get the money, but not before visting his daughter, giving her the post cards he had written for her but wasn't allowed to send. After the final battle with Spider-Man, in which both {{spoiler|Harry and Eddie}} died, he's obviously in deep regret of the sistuation he played part off that went out of hand and the last scene has him asking Spider-Man for forgiveness for the pain he had caused him.
* Donnie Darko from ''[[Donnie Darko]]''. One one hand he has a loving family, but on the other hand he experiences {{spoiler|mental illness, unrelenting paranormal apparitions, a moronic and restrictive education system, puberty (and its associated existential angst), assault at knifepoint (twice), and the tragic death of his girlfriend (which drives him to second degree murder).}} And after all that {{spoiler|he elects to be fatally crushed by a rogue jet engine in order to protect his family, girlfriend, Frank and possibly the rest of Earth's population, according to which hypothesis you subscribe to.}} And after all of that {{spoiler|his sacrifice remains ultimately unsuspected.}} On top of that, he is portrayed by (a teenage) Jake Gyllenhaal, whose cuddly face and baby-blue eyes render him an Extreme Hardcore woobie, aesthetically if nothing else.
** To say nothing of [[Maggie Gyllenhaal|his sister]]. Seeing her at the end, you just want to hug her brains out.
*** Very true. Both the Gyllensibs are adorable.
* Laura Palmer, from the [[Twin Peaks]] television series and especially in the Twin Peaks prequel film (which is the only time she's seen alive). Given how the entire town mourns her death, and all the horrors and torment she went through, she's the ultimate Woobie. Death was an improvement over her life.
* Norman Bates, from ''[[
* Milton Dammers, from [[The Frighteners]]. He is a mass of phobias and nerves, highly-strung to the point where he seems on the verge of pain. We find out that his early FBI assignments all involved going undercover in satanic cults, where he had to tolerate intensely mentally-damaging experiences, as well as physical and sexual trauma. When we see his bare chest, it is covered in ritual scars and his nipples seem to have been burnt off. It's hard to watch the movie without wanting to wrap him a blanket and massage his temples.
* Charlie Baileygates in ''[[Me Myself and Irene]]''. He gets taken advantage by everyone, even his own wife, Layla, who remarries to a black dwarf limo driver. All that sadness Charlie has and being taken advantage by everyone years later lead to {{spoiler|[[Split Personality]] Hank to appear.}}
* Private Jones, of ''[[
** Of course, the woobie factor of Private Jones is pretty much evaporated {{spoiler|just before he dies, as he didn't seem to have a problem with the soldiers executing Jim, and he also wasn't trying to stop the other soldiers from trying to rape the women.}}
** Jim, if anything, is an even bigger woobie. He wakes up all alone and naked in an [[Abandoned Hospital]] and [[It Got Worse|things continue to go downhill]] for him from there. He finds his home city is completely wiped out, gets chased by the raging infected loons, is mistreated by Selena, finds that his parents commited suicide, gets attacked and chased by the infected some more, is forced to kill an infected child and almost [[Mercy Kill|forced to do the same to Frank]], and then almost killed by West's depraved soldiers who are about to rape Hannah and Selena. After [[Break the Cutie|all of this abuse]], it's not suprising to see Jim [[Beware the Nice Ones|snap the way he did]].
* 2 of the 3 leads in ''[[My Blue Heaven]]'' qualify for this trope. While [[Iron Woobie|FBI agent Barney Coopersmith]] was keeping an eye out on troublemaker Vincent "Vinnie" Antonelli so that he doesn't get in trouble, Barney's wife leaves him for a younger man, one of the reasons being how Barney eats his pancakes. Woobie #2 is policewoman Hannah Stubbs, who appears to be having a worse life than Barney. She and her husband are divorced, but he still visits her and their kids. {{spoiler|At some point in the movie, it proves that being a Woobie is what Barney and Hannah have in common, and they have a romantic attraction to each other despite how they first met.}}
* The film of ''[[
** And his daughter dies (several times) of Old Movie Disease.
* Michelle from ''Elephant''. It's hard to not draw parallels between her, Eric, and Alex, but for choosing to persevere through the bullying she endures, she's simply the first to die. Not that anyone expects Eric or Alex to survive the day.
* ''[[The Breakfast Club]]'' is about five Woobies locked in a room together for a day. They share. They commiserate. They cry. ''And it's still funny.''
* Another [[John Hughes]] example is Sam from ''[[Sixteen Candles]]''.
* Arguably, three of the four main boys of ''[[Stand
* Most characters that [[Alan Rickman]] plays/voices seem subject to this trope. NOT [[Die Hard
* ALL the main characters in ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]] 3''. The whole film is about them weighing their options about whether they want to be thrown in the trash and be compacted/killed in the garbage system, stored in the attic for God-knows-how-long until their owner's own kids play with them again (if they're lucky), OR be donated to a day-care center! All while facing the fact of how their loving owner will never see them again. And don't forget that toys DO NOT AGE. Living in a world where everyone else changes and you don't is not fair, and it just makes you wanna' keep playing with your toys and love them forever!
** It's also not hard to feel bad for the toys, such as Wheezy and Bo Peep, who {{spoiler|had been sold or given away before the start of the film since they've experienced what the others fear most. Equally troubling is not knowning what actually became of them.}}
** Also, Big Baby. His previous owner abandoned him, albeit unwittingly, and then he was lied to by Lotso and forced to do the bear's dirty work.
* ''[[King Kong]]'' may well be the tropesetter in film. In production, they literally cut out less flattering footage of the monster's monstrosity when preview audiences cheered Kong's swatting a plane down on the Empire State pinnacle. It's rare to see attention to public opinion that strong, so not only is the mythic megagorilla possibly film's first Woobie, he's likely the first ''official'' Woobie.
** In the [[Peter Jackson|2005 film]], we can also add Ann Darrow onto the list. To paraphrase Carl Denham, she's the saddest girl ever.
* As in the books, Faramir from the ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' movies personifies Woobie as he rides out grimly on a suicide charge to [["Well Done, Son" Guy|please a father who can't be pleased]].
** And there's Frodo, who in the book was less woobieish than Sam, but when combined with Elijah Wood's enormous blue eyes becomes angst incarnate.
* Balian from ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]].'' {{spoiler|his son was stillborn, his wife committed suicide, he kills his brother which forces him to flee his home and his father dies mere days after they met for the first time}}. As the movie progresses he becomes de-woobiefied, though.
Line 48 ⟶ 47:
** Particularly interesting is how [[WALL-E]] develops into WOOB-E; in the first half of the movie, seeing him get hurt is [[Amusing Injuries|usually funny]], as he's the [[Butt Monkey]] until M-O appears. By the end of the movie, however, it's [[Dude, Not Funny|not funny]] ''[[Dude, Not Funny|at all]]'' -- and [[Funny Aneurysm Moment|suddenly it never was]].
*** It's bad enough you already wanna hug him by just ''looking at him''.
** This is precisely what got the guy nominated for five Academy Awards, one for Best Animated Feature, and the top slot of [[Time (magazine)|TIME Magazine]]'s "Best Movies of the Decade." Say "wuh-ALL-ee" to any of your friends, and they'll smile and probably respond with "EEEE-vuh." [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|You know a movie company's awesome like that when they can get the world to fall madly in love with a TRASH CAN.]]
** Special mention should go to BURN-E, who suffered mishap after mishap in his own bonus-content special just trying to replace a light post on the ''Axiom''. After experiencing a ''2001''-esque acid trip, getting baked in the Earth's atmosphere, and smashed into the dirt in an escape pod, he finally gets the light post turned back on...only to have it promptly smashed by the rogue door to the escape pod. Some days it just don't pay to get out of bed.
*** Whether he's a [[The Woobie|Woobie]] or a [[Butt Monkey]] is often up to the viewer; it could easily go either way depending on how sorry you feel for him.
* An evolutionary predecessor to WOOB-E was Johnny Five from ''Short Circuit''. Similar-looking, he gets the crap beat out of him by a gang of thugs in ''Short Circuit 2'', which evokes a great deal of Woobie reaction from the audience (it made me cry as a kid). Cathartically, though, Johnny rebuilds himself into a robo-punk (complete with a leather "jacket" + mohawk) and gets his revenge with Bonnie Tyler blaring in the background... God, the 80s were awesome.
* Monty from ''[[
* Billy Bibbit in ''[[One Flew Over the
** Brad Dourif tends to [[Myst|play woobies]] when he's not playing [[
* Seymour from ''[[Ghost World]]''. Unusual in that he has an aggressive trait (road rage), but his self-loathing and romance woes easily makes up for it in Woobifying him. They filmed two separate versions of the fight scene in the convenience store -- one in which he wins, and one in which {{spoiler|he ends up in the hospital.}} Guess which one made it to the finished version?
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' fans seem to either accept [[Romantic Runner
** [[Our Mermaids Are Different|Syrena]] in ''On Stranger Tides''.
* Of course, when it comes to [[Johnny Depp]] characters, Sparrow can't hold a candle to poor [[Edward Scissorhands]] in terms of Woobie-ness. He loses his "father" and his only hope for a normal life all in one moment, his attempt to please Kim (who won't return his affection) turns the town against him, and although she comes to see how sweet he is, {{spoiler|her [[Jerk Jock]] ex-boyfriend Jim makes matters worse out of jealousy and spite. Edward's eventually forced to retreat to his castle, and while she follows him, so does Jim. Edward kills him in the ensuing fight, sealing his own fate -- only if the lovers part can he survive. And he accepts this ''without question''.}}
** Even worse, you want to hold poor afflicted Edward ... but he ''can't''.
* Speaking of Depp, the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's ''[[Alice in Wonderland (
** The look on his face when he realizes that Alice is going to leave him just makes you want to cuddle him.
** A lesser-known Depp role which qualifies is ''[[Don Juan Demarco
* John (Nicholas Cage) in ''Knowing'' spends the entire film drinking to dull the pain of his wife's death, and witnessing gradually more horrific disasters. He is clearly traumatised by this, and by the end of the film (which I will avoid spoiling here) he just curls up in the rain and cries himself to sleep.
* Diane Selwyn from ''[[Mulholland Drive]]'' definitely qualifies. Naomi Watts' performance really makes you feel for her.
* George Bailey, George Bailey, George Bailey! ''[[
* Rogue of the [[X-Men (
** {{spoiler|Teenaged Cyclops}} in ''[[X Men Origins: Wolverine
*** Plenty wanted to give him a hug during ''[[X
** [[Magneto|Erik Lehnsherr]], as a [[Used to Be
* ''[[Carrie]]''. Okay, so she {{spoiler|killed about a hundred people}}, but it wasn't her fault, she was abused 'til she went crazy. And then her own mother {{spoiler|stabbed}} her. Look at her cringing in the corner trying not to look at her mother, don't you just want to give her a hug?
* Sam from ''The Descent''. It wasn't enough for Neil Marshall to [[Break the Cutie|traumatise]] [[The Cutie]], he went ahead and {{spoiler|killed her brutally.}} In front of her loving, maternal, protective older sister, too. Although individual cases could be made for each of the other women too. Anyone want a go?
Line 82 ⟶ 81:
*** He might have qualified for the [[Chew Toy]] if it weren't for [[Tear Jerker|those darn scenes]]. But for most who see a generally nice guy getting stuck with [[Future Loser|future losers]], yet trying to [[Screw Destiny|change his fate]] for happiness other than his own, it [[Sand in My Eyes|makes the eyes itchy]]. Not to mention he mostly can change his fate, despite how the cards may seem.
* Dr. Neville from ''[[I Am Legend]]'' certainly qualifies for this, having witnessed his {{spoiler|wife and daughter killed, then later having to strangle his diseased dog which was his only companion for three years in an apocalyptic world.}}
* Cameron Frye of ''[[Ferris Bueller's Day Off
* Lars von Trier has used this trope a number of times.
** Selma in ''Dancer in the Dark''. One of the most archetypal examples of this trope ''ever''.
** {{spoiler|Grace}} in ''[[Dogville]]''.
* Most of William H. Macy's roles qualify for this trope. ''[[The Cooler]]'' is actually a movie built around this trope.
* An interesting example can be found in ''[[Midnight Cowboy]]''. Rizzo starts off as a sleazy [[Jerkass]], but he slowly devolves into a [[Woobie]]. This is mostly due to his [[Incurable Cough of Death]].
** Even moreso in the book, where he's more or less woobie from the very beginning and also seems to take advantage of it when deceiving guillible fools like, well, Joe Buck.
* [[Repo!
* Despite him not really having major problems, lots of people want to hug Chekov everytime he's on screen in the latest 2009 ''[[Star Trek (
** This becomes more poingiant in "[[Star Trek Beyond (film)|Star Trek Beyond]]" when you realize its the last film the actor will ever be in.
*** By all accounts, Anton Yelchin was a woobie in real life. A bright young star who cared more for the love of acting than the money, who decided to buy himself a nice new car with some of it. Because of a fault he probably didn't even know existed, his vehicle either shifted out of park or never registered being placed in park to begin with, and he wound up being pinned to a wall and killed by it. Hearing his parents talk about the situation, and others talk about working with him just makes everything sadder.
** Spock also qualifies as the Woobie. {{spoiler|Losing his captain, witnessing the distruction of his home planet and death of his mother, being accused of not having loved her}} ...
* God''damn'', John Nash was a woobie in ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]''.
* Steve Wiebe of the documentary ''King of Kong''. He blows the big game in high school, gets laid off on the day his family signs the contract on their house, and plays his heart out at Donkey Kong only to be repeatedly denied the recognition he deserves. He even weeps on camera.
* [[
* Celie from [[The Color Purple]]. Let's see... she was raped by her father '''twice,''' had children both times and had both promptly taken away, her mother died yelling at her, she was forced to marry a man she didn't even know, let alone like, who abused, raped, and forced her to do all the work around the house, including taking care of his bratty kids, who literally ''made her bleed'' the ''very first day'' she came. When her sister, who was the '''only''' person who actually cared about her came to stay, Celie's husband made his move on ''her,'' and when she refused, made her leave and kept her letters from Celie, making her think she was dead! And this is the first half hour, people...
* In ''[[Downfall (
* Cameron James from ''[[
** Kate falls in there too, after {{spoiler|she finds out that the only guy who was not afraid of her and appreciated her for who she was only went out with her because he was paid. This led up to her reading the titular poem and crying as she did so. Oh, and she wasn't ''supposed'' to cry, the actress just teared up as she read}}.
* Bub from the original ''[[Day of the Dead]]''. An undead creature hungry for human flesh has never been more sympathetic. The masterpiece of Dr. Logan's experiment of mental conditioning of zombies, his affection to his "trainer" is both genuine and touching. You really just want to hug him when he screams and cries after realizing that the good doctor is dead and is not coming back.
* Huge Woobie played by Tobey Maguire in "The Wonder Boys". A decent writer who is first shown getting dumped on by fellow pretentious writers in one of the college classes he's taking, and is then shown to be obsessed with celebrity deaths or death in general, and possibly suicidal.
* About a Boy. 'Nuff said.
* If poor William from "Almost Famous" doesn't constitute a woobie, no one does. Based on Cameron Crowe's childhood, the movie shows a brilliant 15-year-old kid getting dumped on by everybody he encounters, many of whom are, of course, plenty nice to him at first.
* Brandon Teena in [[Boys Don't Cry]]. 'Nuff said.
** What's worse is that this movie was based on the true story of one of the most notorious hate crimes of the 90s.
* Harry's character descends even further into the depths of woobiedom in the film version of [[Harry Potter]] and the Order of the Phoenix, even more so than the book. Any of his scenes with Sirius (especially being comforted by Sirius), or having painful visions, or writhing on the damn ground possessed...
* Jamal, from [[Slumdog Millionaire]]. And every non-villainous character associated with him.
* Lars of [[Lars and
* Somehow, [[JCVD]] manages to turn Jean-Claude Van Damme into a Woobie.
* Trainee Obara in the Japanese war film ''Ningen no Joken'' (The Human Condition)
* The hunchback Ephialtes in ''[[
* Poor, poor Larry Gopnik from upcoming movie, ''A Serious Man.'' An everyday, average Jewish man in 1967 suburban Minneapolis who suffers one moment of despair after another. He tries the be the best person he can, despite: (1) his wife leaving the marriage for the whale like Sy Abelman, (2) getting dunning phone calls from a record club he's never heard of, (3)a brother, who is more of a wreck than he is, (4) living with an anti-Semitic neighbor who frequently encroaches on his property, (5) living with two children who are too self-involved to think beyond their own needs, and (6) getting anonymous letters assailing his moral turpitude as a physics teacher in school." His only dubious relaxation is listening to bass Sidor Belarsky's rendition of Yiddish song "The Miller's Tears".
* Bill the malt shop owner in ''[[Pleasantville]]''. If you don't want to hug him and tell him it's gonna be all right {{spoiler|when the B&W mob destroys his diner and his art}}, you ain't human.
** Arguably almost all of the characters who first turn to color. They've basically achieved a form of enlightenment and now are thrilled by the discovery of new knowledge and sensations. And because of this, they are hated and persecuted by the other people in the community.
* <s>5</s> [[Fan Nickname|Angst Waffle]] from ''[[9
* Janet Colgate from the late '80s film ''[[Dirty Rotten Scoundrels]]'' is, in all appearances, the ultimate Woobie- having won a chance sweepstakes for $50,000, she selflessly spends almost all of it on Lawrence Jamieson and Freddy Benson's scam to get Freddy to "walk again" after a "tragic accident". In the film she's giving, kind, naive, and trusting... {{spoiler|until it is revealed at the end of the film that she knew what Lawrence and Freddy were up to all along and had been scamming ''them''.}}
* [[Dwight Frye]]'s [[The Renfield|Renfield]] is absolutely adorable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOYzlMT23g
* Alfredo Linguini from ''[[Ratatouille]]''. Poor guy.
* [[Peter Lorre]]'s characters. It doesn't matter what they do, up to and including ''[[M
* I'm surprised no one's mentioned Truman Burbank from The Truman Show. He was abandoned as a child and everything in his life including his family and friends, is fake.
* David from AI: Artificial Intelligence.
Line 124 ⟶ 125:
* Kirill from ''Eastern Promises'' -- by turns twisted, pathetic, in denial, and sick, yet by the end you really just want to hug him.
* Crawford Tillenghast in "From Beyond". My God. The poor guy gets attacked by inter-dimensional monsters, his mentor's head gets bitten off, he gets framed for the murder and is sent to a mental institution, he gets sent BACK to the house, he gets attacked AGAIN, his mentor returns and tries to kill him and his new friends, his love interest brings the monsters back, he almost gets eaten, he ends up bald and slimy, a tentacle pops out of his forehead, he eats his psychiatrists' brain, his love interest bites the tentacle off, and he gets eaten by his mentor, who is now a giant slimy monster. You feel like you should be squicked, but instead you just want to wrap him in a fleece blanket and give him a juice box. Maybe it's because he wears a giant fluffy sweater.
* Rosemary from ''[[
* Specialist Eldridge from ''[[The Hurt Locker]]''. First, he has two watch his mentor get blown up, and live with the knowledge that if he'd acted more quickly, he could have saved him. Then, he has to watch as {{spoiler|the therapist who's helping him get over the the above trauma}} gets blown up as well. And then his mentor's [[Jerkass]] [[Blood Knight]] replacement {{spoiler|gets him kidnapped by insurgents, and accidentally shoots him whole trying to rescue him}}.
* Remember Disney's ''[[The Sword in
** Wart has his moments, too, especially when Kay disparages him and Sir Ector punishes him unfairly.
* In the movie version of ''[[
** And even worse, {{spoiler|unlike in the book, his Master isn't still alive to rescue him. Instead, the movie ends with it looking like Snitter will drown, searching for an island}}.
* Wybie, the Other Father, and the Other Wybie from the [[Film of the Book]] Coraline.
* Tom Bardo from ''Stuck''. The poor guy has lost his job, become homeless, and spends most of the film either stuck in the broken window of the car that hit him, or crawling around in agony. And no, none of these are spoilers - it's all in the trailer.
** The fact that he's played by Stephen Rea, with his hangdog face and big sad eyes, also helps.
* From ''[[
* Hiccup from ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (
* Mike Waters from ''My Own Private Idaho'' is a gay narcoleptic prostitute {{spoiler|whose father is also his brother}} looking for his mother. {{spoiler|He doesn't find her. He goes all the way to Italy and finds out she's just left.}} For much of the movie the only person looking out for him is his friend Scott (a rich guy who's just being a prostitute for fun) {{spoiler|who he is also in love with, possibly in an unrequited sense}} . His narcolepsy means that often he collapses just about anywhere, and falls asleep; Scott is there to pick him up until {{spoiler|Scott decides to go back to his respectable family and get married, essentially abandoning Mike to his fate, literally leaving him by the side of the road even though he KNOWS Mike loves him. The film ends with Mike falling asleep on a road in the middle of nowhere, all alone. Some people come along and steal his bag and shoes.}} Also he's played by the incredibly woobietastic River Phoenix. Seeing him cry will KILL you.
* George Falconer from [[A Single Man]] - whose partner of 16 years dies and he can't openly show his grief cause it's the 60s and all.
* Maurice and Clive, from E.M Forster's Maurice. At least in the book version, which detailed how confused and alone they felt in regards to being gay. However, Clive turns into a bit of a [[Jerkass]] so you don't feel too sorry for him forever.
* The eponymous [[The Elephant Man|Elephant Man]]. He's a real life woobie too.
* Rabbit in ''8 Mile''.
Line 150 ⟶ 151:
* Robbie Turner - and arguably Cecilia Tallis - from ''Atonement''
* Blanche Hudson from ''Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'' although the [[Twist Ending]] makes her Woobie status more questionable
* The widow played by Irene Pappas in ''[[
* Quasimodo from ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame''. Although particularly woobie-ish in [[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|the Disney adaptation]] (if you didn't want to huggle the man after being mocked and tortured after the Feast of Fools, you have no heart), he is quite the Woobie in [[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (
* A little earlier in Disney Canon was of course The Beast from [[Beauty and The Beast]]. At first, he's hot-tempered, nasty and really unkind, but then you start to take pity on him, especially when he starts to like Belle. This of course contrasts with [[Jerkass]] suitor Gaston, who is virtually impossible to have sympathy on. The Beast is even more of a woobie in the musical adaptation of the Disney film, particularly during his "woobie song" "If I Can't Love Her". Plus, being that fuzzy, he's probably not all that terrible to hug.
** Adding to that is the fact that he willingly lets Belle leave and expects her to never come back, even though it means he'll never turn back to normal and never see the only woman he ever loved again. This is a step up from the fairy tale, when the Beast just gives Bella a three day limit.
* [[Giant Flyer|Rodan]] from the [[Godzilla]] film series.
** [[Brainwashed and Crazy|Titanosaurus]] even more so.
* Some of Gerard Butler's character from the more recent films are this to SOME extent, even if just a little. ie: Gamer, P.S. I love you, The Ugly Truth, Law Abiding Citizen, heck even Stoick from ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (
** Not forgetting the Phantom of the Opera, whose murderous and possessive streak can be explained in that he was paraded as a freak show when he was a kid, and almost everyone has denied him genuine love. He even had a woobie song (which was ironically [[Cut Song|cut from the film]]) called "No One Would Listen". Awww.
* Winslow Leach in ''[[Phantom of the Paradise]]''. Sweet and woefully naïve, not only is his precious cantata stolen, but he's also beaten up, framed and sent to life imprisonment, has his teeth extracted, his face mangled by a record press, {{spoiler|signs away his soul unwittingly, endures his cantata being mangled by a mediocre pop band, is rejected by his love and loses her to his nemesis, and unsuccessfully tries to kill himself. Then he dies, sacrificing himself for his love}}.
* Amazingly, Jason Voorhees from ''[[Friday the 13th (
** Played up intentionally in ''[[Freddy
* In the short film ''Partly Cloudly'', both the cloud and stork deserve hugs.
* Marky from [[Harry Brown]] is pretty close to being [[The Woobie]]. {{spoiler|While he is admittedly a bit of a dick, it seems to be mostly an attempt to blend in with the other chavs, who are far more inclined to savagery than he seems to be. Considering that he gets sexually abused by his uncle, kidnapped and tortured by Harry and then used as bait by Harry before getting shot in the head by one of his own mates, it's hard not to feel at least a little bit sorry for him.}}
* [[Cillian Murphy]]'s character from [[Inception]], big time. You ''will'' cry when you see him {{spoiler|crying over his dying father's accepting last words in Dream Level Three}}, which is all he ever really wanted. However, {{spoiler|since it's quite literally [[All Just a Dream]], he may or may not have gotten that acceptance after all and it may have only been a projection of what he ''wished'' his father's final words have been}}. Poor guy...
** Dom Cobb. I mean, ''holy crap'' look at what that poor guy went through. {{spoiler|His wife committed suicide because he incepted her into believing the world wasn't real and they needed to wake up}}, only {{spoiler|she was so insane she ended up framing him for murder so he would die with her so they could be together, and thus he has to flee the country and leave his kids behind}}. Plus the fact that {{spoiler|the closest thing the movie has to a real villain is his projection of his own guilt in the form of his wife constantly sabotaging his missions}} makes it even ''worse.''
* The two leads from [[Billy Wilder]]'s ''[[
* Terri, who comes across as both cute and sad in her desperation for what essentially amounts to friendship and/or love, from ''[[Hellraiser III Hell On Earth]]''.
* Rosencrantz from ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]''. He goes throughout the movie totally confused as to what the heck is going on. He is being manipulated by forces he cannot understand and keeps having his inventions and scientific breakthroughts torn down by the only person who cares for him. He doesn't do anything wrong and yet his fate is already sealed. This troper couldn't watch the scene where Guildenstern makes him cry without wanting to give Rosencrantz a big hug. Yes, ladies and gentleman, [[Gary Oldman]], is playing a woobie, and oh so well.
* Rudy from [[Horton Hears a Who!]]. It's really must suck being stuck to a [[Jerkass]] mother.
* Lilly from [[Alpha and Omega]] definately qualifies as a woobie.
* Tron and Quorra in ''[[Tron
** Heck, Kevin Flynn too. {{spoiler|All he wanted to do was help improve/make a better world, but ends up trapped in it for what was essentially ''thousands of years'', while his old partner-program Clu took over and majestically buggered up Flynn's work. To make it even ''worse'', he thought TRON died helping him escape, and was stuck with the knowledge that he'd probably never see his son again.}}
* Mr. Tumnus in the movie of ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe''. He was plenty of one in the book, but the movie really ramps it up with James McAvoy's performance. There's also the matter of an added scene in which he meets Edmund in the White Witch's prison and it's made rather clear that he's being starved and beaten. Even then, his only concern is that Lucy is safe. Oh, and when the Witch [[Kick the Dog|gleefully tells him he's only there because Edmund ratted him out]], the look on his face is ''heartbreaking''.
Line 180 ⟶ 181:
* Alex Russo, in the first half of the [[Wizards of Waverly Place]] movie. Though she's usually a [[Jerkass]] throughout most of the series, it's easy to relate to her situation-she just wanted to go to a party, and just when it looks like she's about to finally make her mother change her mind, Theresa discovers Alex's plan, and fed up with her refusal to give up, grounds her for two months, which leads Alex to cast a spell that accidentally threatens her family's existence. The fact that Alex wanted to go to that party so badly but couldn't make amends does make you feel sorry for her. {{spoiler|At the end of the movie after everything is resolved, she finally agrees to let Alex go for a little while, but Alex, having realized how important her family is, decides to stick with them, and the movie ends with the five family members together.}}
* Baby Doll from [[Sucker Punch]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSG-6xc-T4U Just watch the first five minutes of the movie]. [[It Got Worse]] and in the [[Bittersweet Ending|ending]] she finally reach "enlightenment'' in the [[Nightmare Fuel|creepiest]] way possible. {{spoiler|Lobotomized!}}
* Seita and his little sister Setsuko, in the animated film ''[[Grave of the
* Dr. Loomis from the ''[[Halloween (
** Jamie Lloyd. Her [[Parental Abandonment|parents are dead]], she is [[Kids Are Cruel|bullied by all the kids at school]], and her uncle is a [[Complete Monster|serial killer]] who wants her dead.
* Su-in from ''[[Dead Friend]]''. Poor, poor Su-in.
* Po in ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' starts off a bit as a [[Butt Monkey]] in the first movie, but later in the movie when he shows just how insecure he is about being the Dragon Warrior, or how doubtful he is about being anything more than a noodle maker's fat panda son, you start to realize he had to go through a lot of crap for most of the movie. Sure, he gets to meet his idols, The Furious Five, but Shifu and them treat him awfully just about the entire movie. During those scenes you just want to hug him, and cheer for him as he gets up again and again even after all the hits and insults thrown at him. The sequel {{spoiler|also has moments where you just want to hug him. First off there's how bothered he is about how he doesn't know what happened to his real parents, and the flashbacks he gets with Shen. Then comes when he finds out that Shen slaughtered all the pandas in China, and Po has to come to terms that he's probably the only Panda left in the land. But you find out at the end of the movie that his father and other pandas are still living somewhere.}}
* "Heroin" Bob from [[SLC Punk!]]. Although he doesn't get as much attention in the movie as Stevo, his story unfolds piece by piece until the end. When he and Stevo were kids, they were both {{spoiler|geeks, getting picked on}}. However, while Stevo was from a fairly normal family, Bob {{spoiler|had no mom and was living with his alchoholic, insane father}}. Later, he tries to visit {{spoiler|his father for his birthday and brings him a present, but the old man chases him out with a gun, after not recognising his own son. After Bob falls in love with Trish, he admits to Stevo that he actually feels happy with her and he's willing to give the city they both hated for so long another chance}}. Finally, in the end he spills his guts to Stevo, saying he {{spoiler|wants to marry Trish and revealing that all this time he's had doubts whether he's ever been a good son and if he hadn't let his father down}}. And to top it all, he {{spoiler|dies the next morning}}. If that doesn't make you tear up and want to hug the guy, nothing will.
* In the first [[Christopher Reeve]] ''[[Superman (
* Hank [[
* Todd in [[Dead Poets Society]] could count -- his parents prefer his older brother to him, he doesn't have the same confidence or self-assuredness that most of his friends seem to, and {{spoiler|his best friend kills himself toward the end of the movie.}}. It helps that he's perpetually cute and vulnerable-looking. The scene when he's showing Neil the desk set that his parents gave him for his birthday two years in a row, probably because they just didn't care enough to give it more thought, cements both Todd's woobie status and Neil's as the best friend he could possibly have. Fortunately, he gets a good deal more confident and sure of himself by the end.
** Flipside of this being that as Todd becomes less of a woobie, Niel becomes more of one due to his [[Why Couldn't You Be Different?|relationship with his dad]] until the aformentioned {{spoiler|suicide}}.
* [[Requiem for
* [[Lawrence Talbot]], aka Universal Studios' ''[[The
* Loki from ''[[Thor]]''. Sure, he's the villain and we're supposed to be rooting against him, but the fact that he constantly looks like he's about to cry and has spent his whole life trying to get out of the shadow of his big ( {{spoiler|adoptive}}) brother and please his father doesn't help things.
* Alistair the llama from [[Open Season]] 3 is totally one of these.
* Tennessee from the live-action version of [[The Country Bears]] really seems to fit this trope, considering how depressed he is in the movie.
* Agatha from [[Minority Report]]. She was born to a heroin addict, and had the gift of precognition- specifically, she had visions of murders before they happened. Pretty bad, right? Well, ''then'' the government get wind of this, do all sorts of unmentioned -but implied to be nasty- experiments to her, and the precrime ystem is set up- meaning that she is [[And I Must Scream|forced to stay in a drugged stupor, wired to a machine having endless visions of murders]] so that the cops can [[Powered
* Who doesn't want to hug Kirk when he {{spoiler|is forced to blow up the ''Enterprise''}} in ''[[Star Trek III:
** Or, for that matter, when he sees the Enterprise for the first time in ''The Motion Picture''. The man's face just ''lights up''.
*** Why didn't you hug him when you could, Scotty?
* Both of the ''villains'' in ''[[
* Jim Prideaux, in the eyes of the [[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (
** And Peter Guillam, at least in the [[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (
* ''[[Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi]]'': Surinder
* ''[[Martyrs]]'': Both Lucie and Anna. Initially, our sympathies are with the tramautised Lucie, whose suffering we can understand as [[Fridge Horror|having occurred in the past and leading to her actions]]. The audience is then forced to experience the gruelling torture of Anna so vicariously as to want to break her free and give her the biggest hug imaginable.
{{tropesubpagefooter}}
| |||