The Woobie/Other Media

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Music

  • The Dierks Bentley song "Settle For a Slowdown". The lyrics almost make the poor guy sound like an abandoned puppy...
  • The girl from Martina McBride's "Concrete Angel" song and video. Full stop.
  • The Decemberists' song "The Chimbley Sweep". Poor, poor kid. And the tune is so frickin' addictive ...
  • The girl in the Slayer jacket from the Pig Destroyer song of the same name. Just go read the lyrics, man.
  • Dr. Light in The Protomen's rock opera. That poor man spent pretty much his whole life enduring tragedy after tragedy, the abbreviated list including the death of his love, being framed and arrested for said killing, narrowly escaping the death sentence, getting chased out of town by a lynch mob that believed he deserved the death sentence, sending an innocent teenager to his death for a plan that didn't work anyway, losing his first son to the tyrannical dictator suppressing the city, having to watch his second son kill his first, then watching his second son abandon mankind to it's doom. Someone give the old lump a hug already.
    • On that note, Protoman himself arguably counts. He might not think humanity's worth saving (in fairness, they did just watch Wily's robots 'kill' him) due to their refusal to fight for themselves, but he wants so desperately to be proven wrong. Especially in "The stand", where humanity proves him right, again, and he's genuinely heartbroken- "They'll watch you die to save their lives! They will not stand here by your side..."
  • The subject of the song "Carry You Home" by James Blunt. The poor kid's apparently never had any friends, and seems to have leukemia or something. The only one with her when she Shuffles Off is James.
  • The runaway girl from Nuclear Death's "Days of the Weak". Overlaps very strongly with Nightmare Fuel.
  • The eponymous subject of Blutengel's song "Broken Girl".
  • All three girls mentioned in the song "Runaway Love" by Ludacris and Mary J. Blige.
  • The titular character of The Who's Tommy. First he's rendered deaf, dumb and blind after he witnesses a murder as a young child. Then he gets tortured by his cousin. Then he's given tons of drugs by the 'Acid Queen.' And then he gets molested by his Uncle Ernie. Eventually his sight, voice, and hearing are restored, and he becomes a Messiah figure to the fans he gained playing pinball. His followers turn on him shortly after.
  • Evelyn Evelyn's Eva and Lyn Neville.
  • Richard Marx's song "Hazard" portrays a guy who grew up with his single mother in a town where everybody refused to believe that there was any good in him. Eventually, he meets a woman who sees him for who he really is, but when she is murdered, the whole town naturally blames him. But the music video shows that the sheriff killed her, seeking to blame it on the protagonist and get rid of him for good. Fortunately, they can't prove him guilty, so he is released, and he packs his bags and leaves town for a brighter future.
  • The titular character of Steely Dan's song "Charlie Freak".
  • Len from Vocaloid. There's hardly a song without him dying in some way, like in the Story of Evil series, for example.
  • From the songs of David Bowie:
    • The "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud" (Space Oddity) is an innocent "missionary mystic of peace/love", but feared, imprisoned, and sentenced to hang by the denizens of a village simply for his oddness. He accepts this fate, but the titular mountain sends down an avalanche to save him, despite his cries for it to stop -- he lives, but the village is destroyed and he's in tears as he heads home.
    • The protagonist of "Jump They Say" (Black Tie White Noise), especially in the video version. The song is about a man who is Driven to Suicide by a world that does not understand him due to an unspecified mental condition that makes him "different". The video expands on this by establishing him as a businessman (played by Bowie) who has done no one any harm, has not rocked anyone's boat, yet is taken captive by his peers because of this difference and subjected to shock therapy. This is suggested to be what pushes him to that fateful jump. (Reality Subtext: This song was inspired by the suicide of Bowie's schizophrenic half-brother.)
  • Julie, one of the protagonists of the '70s pop song "Run Joey Run" by David Geddes. Her dad finds out she and the eponymous Joey have been up to things that the dad doesn't approve of and beats the crap out of her. Then when Dad goes hunting for Joey, rifle in hand... things got worse for poor Julie. The song's a bit on the manipulative side, but oh, how the listener feels for Julie! (And -- the hell? This song was performed on "Glee"?)
  • The title character of the 1970 hit "Jennifer Tomkins" by Street People. She's abandoned by her alcoholic father, her mother dies, she's forced into child labor, then when she grows up she dates a jerk.
  • The old country standard "Nobody's Child". It's about an orphan. An orphan that no one wants to adopt. Because he's blind.

Radio

  • Martin Crieff in Cabin Pressure. The poor guy lives in an attic, lives in Perpetual Poverty and doesn't get paid to fly, but he does anyway because it's the only thing he's wanted to do since he was six years old. His father always disapproved of his dreams, and passed away four months before Martin got his pilot's license and proved his father wrong. Oh, and what does he actually do to support himself? He does removals with the van his father bequeathed him in his will, rather than the 5000 pounds each of his siblings got. So, even though he did become a pilot, his father was still right about him. All of this is played for laughs.

Puppet Shows

  • Kermit the Frog. He tries so hard to be cheerful, friendly and positive that when he does become sad or even just exasperated by the madness going on around him, you just want to give him a hug.
    • His friend Fozzie Bear probably falls under this too. He just wants to be funny, but he keeps falling on his face.
  • Bean Bunny in Muppet*Vision 3D at the Disney Theme Parks, who pretty much spends the entire show getting ostracized by Piggy and Sam.

Toys

Other

  • New The Daily Show correspondent Kristen Schaal is making a career out of being one of these. See here what happens to her when she learns the truth about Chinese female babies. In another segment, she was forced to strip off an article of clothing for every baseless accusation made against a presidential candidate. Needless to say, that episode, everybody found out that Kristen wears a Wonder Woman costume under her suit.
    • Bizarrely enough, her stand up act runs on this as well.
  • Doll Face. Poor thing. Probably comes second to WALL-E on the 'robots you most want to hug tightly' list.
  • Lil' Orphan Orange. An orphan who looked strangely unhappy who a children's snack food mascot. Later incarnations of Otter Pops made her more cheerful, though.
  • St Kilda in Australian Rules Football. Also Fitzroy, before they merged with Brisbane.
  • The sauce packets at Taco Bell. [context?]

Back to The Woobie