The Woobie/Theatre: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

** You've got to hand it to Cosette, too, when it comes to woobiedom. First, she gets separated from her mother. Then she gets berated, teased, overworked, starved, beaten, and deprived of adequate clothing by the Thenardiers. At one point, she wraps a small knife in rags and sings to it, pretending that it's a baby doll. Things do improve considerably for her, but still.

** Jean Valjean himself. Granted, he dies happy, but throughout the course of the book, all his suffering (and there's a lot of it) is derived from his desire to simply help other people. The man spends nineteen years in jail because he was trying to feed his sister's family (granted, fourteen of those years are his own damn fault) and only gets the law back on his trail because he saved a man's life.

** Bung a vote in for Fantine, too... Falls in love, gets pregnant, man goes off and leaves her as a ''practical joke'', ends up sending the child to be looked after, loses her job because she's trying to look after the kid, so she sells everything she has (including her hair and teeth), and, finally, her body. Gets helped out by Valjean, but dies before she ever gets to see her daughter again.

** What, not the Barricade Boys? The fact that they ''all die'' helps. Mostly a fanon development, as though they do have personalities in the novel, they aren't explored in huge depth. Extra woobie points go to Grantaire, who's cynical, hard-drinking and emotionally wounded, as well as [[Ho Yay|pretty much enamoured with Enjolras]].

* Erik (the Phantom) in ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]''. He has huge issues about his physical appearance, exacerbated by being put in a freakshow and beaten by his captors. He eventually escapes and is able to compose his music underneath the Paris opera house until he falls in love with, and gives lessons to, a beautiful young singer who isn't repulsed by him, but, in the words of [http://cleolinda.livejournal.com Cleolinda], "prefers the Missing Hanson Brother to [him]." Granted, he's a bit crazy and kills people, but he has a [[Freudian Excuse]]. And he's sexy.

** He's only sexy in the movie version with Gerard Butler. In the original novel, the Phantom is ugly as sin and even ''more'' psychotic... but still can come off as rather sympathetic.

* While its merit otherwise can be debated (and it being canon is... questionable, to say the least), ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' musical managed to woobiefy ''Gollum''--or, more specifically, ''Smeagol'' -- largely owing to actor Michael Therriault's performance. Smeagol actually wants to change for the better and physically fights with himself over whether or not to kill Frodo and Sam in their sleep, to the point of holding a sword to his own throat instead of allowing Gollum to stab them, then collapses, sobbing "We ''changed''!" to Gollum's accusation of cowardice, and finally curls up to sleep by Frodo's feet. All made sadder by most of the audience knowing that he will eventually lose out to Gollum... about thirty seconds later.

* Yonah from Stephen Schwartz's ''Children of Eden''. Her song "Stranger to the Rain" is especially [[Anvilicious]]. "I'm a daughter of the race of Cain/I am not a stranger to the rain."

** If Herbert isn't played as a [[Sissy Villain]], he'll be played as one of these. There's not a lot of middle ground.

* The title character of Benjamin Britten's opera ''[[Peter Grimes]]''.

* Jack Point in [[Gilbert and Sullivan]]'s ''[[The Yeomen of the Guard]]''.

** The movie version makes it even worse, since the depictions of Pirelli's physical violence were so much more extreme (and bloody) than it generally is in stage productions. Not to mention the fact that in the movie, Toby really looks like a ''little kid'', whereas he's generally played by a guy in his mid- to late-teens or early twenties on stage, since it's really not child-appropriate material.

*** Toby doesn't ''look'' like a little kid, he ''is'' a little kid.

** To a lesser extent, the boy who Judge Turpin sends to be hanged for stealing food. In this troper's production, he was played by the directors SEVEN YEAR OLD SON. Then audience as a whole was horrifed by the woobie face he made.

* Tracie Thom's portrayal of Joanne in the on-stage version of ''[[Rent]]'' made the character into more of a woobie than she had been previously. It's probably her sweet face. In general, Joanne is more of a Woobie in the stage version than in the movie, simply due to some of the dialog removed from the film as well as because of her helplessly annoyed stage play-only solo "We're Okay".

** Mark definietely qualifies, especially if you've seen the stage version of ''[[Rent]]''. "Halloween" gives a lot of insight into Mark's character, it reflects on his intimate feelings on the loss of hope, confidence and coping with the harsh reality that he is being faced with in his life. After watching {{spoiler|Angel die}}, he must come to terms that Mimi, Roger, and Collins will eventually suffer the same fate. This also shows how loveless his life is; he was dumped by Maureen for Joanne, and by this point in the show, Roger is leaving for Santa Fe. Not only that, but he is also failing at his filmmaking career, so much so that he resorts to working with Alexi Darling. This is when you realize/are reminded that among all the chaos that is going on in the show, Mark has been in the middle of everything this whole time.

** This troper knows that the point of the show is that [[Adults Are Useless]], but even as a teenager it was hard not to feel sorry for Wendla's mother too. [[Fridge Logic]] ahoy!: Wendla's mother is a woman in the nineteenth century herself- how much preparation do you suppose ''she'' was given about matters of sex as a young girl? Isn't it more likely than not that she just told Wendla what ''she'' was told years ago?

* It's certainly very debatable, but depending on where you stand, Malvolio of ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' might well be this, despite having likely been written as a [[Butt Monkey]] (understandably, considering how unpopular puritans were at the time). If you're sympathetic to his conservative social views (which really don't seem unreasonable in practice), in particular, you'll likely see him as a very loyal, if somewhat dour, butler who was simply doing his duty in reprimanding his mistress's blatantly rude jester and arrogant drunkard of an uncle...and he gets rewarded by being humilated in front of his mistress, locked up in a mad house (notoriously horrible places at the time, of course), and victimised by his tormentors. And even after his innocence comes out, no one seems willing to offer him any real apology for any of this. May also depend somewhat on how serious or comical the particular production plays his character, but still...

* Pretty much everyone from [[Avenue Q]]. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in "It Sucks to be Me" and "Schadenfreude".

* Olive from [[The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee]]. Her mother lives in India and Olive never hears from her and she rarely hears anything from her dad, either.

** Once Archie stops acting like a [[Jerkass]], he becomes this, too.

* Carmen from ''Fame'', though she'd probably deny it.

* MacDuff from ''[[Macbeth]]'', who has lost his whole family to the title character's paranoia. And in the scene where he learns of this, it is revealed that Scotland is ''full'' of woobies.

* This troper would like to put forward a case for Horatio from ''[[Hamlet]]'' as Woobie. He turns up in Denmark for the King's funeral (presumably partly for his friend Hamlet's benefit, though it appears that he didn't actually get a chance to see Hamlet until Gertrude and Claudius' wedding). Then he gets his whole worldview blown out of the water by the appearance of the Ghost, watches Hamlet's emotional issues (or outright insanity, depending on the interpretation) take him over and can do nothing about it. And at the very end, most of the cast suddenly drops dead around him and Hamlet dies in his arms. No wonder he tries to kill himself.

To tell my story. }}

* [[Girl Next Door|Gertrude McFuzz]] from [[Seussical]]. She's in love with her next door neighbor, Horton, although he never notices her. Plus, she is really self conscious about her one-feathered tail.

* Audrey from [[Little Shop of Horrors]]. She's trapped in a relationship with the most [[Depraved Dentist]] in New York-and a [[Domestic Abuser]], at that. {{spoiler|He dies, but Audrey's next, more promising, relationship, with Seymour, proves to be fatal, when the carnivorous plant that he leaves lying around kills her. [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Her dying words cause the extinction of the human race, as she asks Seymour to feed her to the plant.]]}}

* [[Handsome Lech|Robert]] in [[Company]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taKy678J_jI You don't even have to see the whole show to think "Awwww!"]

* Beth from [[Little Women]] does everything for her family, and {{spoiler|dies before they can repay her}}. Well, except Jo.