The Woobie/Video Games: Difference between revisions

** Chris Lightfellow could also count, what with the beloved dead parents, and the fact that she's trying to be even a fraction as great of member of the military as her father was at the beginning while suddenly shouldering the leadership due to the recent deaths of the previous Generals. Then there's the whole "set up to be a sacrifice to fuel the war" part which leads to her killing [[The Scrappy]]. All around just a poor, pitiable soul [[Iron Woobie|who overcomes whatever is thrown at her.]]

** Let's not forget Hugo. What looks like a simple errand for [[The Chief's Daughter|The Chief's Son]], delivering a message to the Zexen capital about the cease-fire agreement, goes astray when the Council decides to treat him like crap just because they can, delaying him for several days before having a go-between just take the letter, denying him even an audience with them. Then they decide "Hey, the Chief's kid could make a good bargaining chip!" and try to kidnap him from the inn, setting off a [[Stern Chase]]. And when he finally makes it back home, it's to find Karaya in flames. His best friend goes into an [[Unstoppable Rage]], [[Leeroy Jenkins|charges one of the soldiers]], and is promptly cut down right in front of him. And that's all just in his first chapter!

* ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'':

** Everyone to some extent: Deionarra and Dak'kon deserve special mention though.

** Wolf herself is also somewhat of a [[Woobie]] - she even confesses just before her senseless death that she's essentially spent her entire life waiting for someone to come and kill her.

** Not to mention Raiden in the fourth game, who not only suffered head breaking unreasonable torment before the game even begins, but ends up suffering and bleeding in quite literally every single appearance he makes.

** Solid Snake himself is also a great example of this trope. He's been betrayed many times by people who he felt were good friends and by the time of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' on the original Playstation, [[Knight in Sour Armor|he's a jaded, cynical and unwilling soldier.]] When you see all the crap he goes through in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' it's nearly impossible not to shed tears.

** And then there's The Boss, Big Boss' mentor. She is arguably the biggest [[Badass]] of the series but the lengths she goes through to protect the country that she loves is what makes her such a tragic figure. {{spoiler|While it at first appears that she betrayed the United States, she was actually set-up to by her superiors and would go down in history in America as the greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold and one of the worst war criminals in Russian history and she would have to be killed by her student And she did it with that knowledge.}}

** From what it looks like, the female protagonist of ''[[Super Robot Wars Z]]'', Setsuko Ohara, is going on this direction. On the course of a single game, she gets... {{spoiler|to see her chief and friend killed in front of her eyes and gets herself constantly tortured mentally and causes dimensional jumps here and there... which suggests that she may have not been born normally. What kind of tortures that she endured? Well there's being beaten up to the point that it's implied that she's been raped, see her friend come [[Back From the Dead]], only for him to shoot her from the back and reveals himself to be her usual torturer, then there's also the said torturer going to the [[Alternate Universe]] and convince the AU version of her friend and chief to believe that she is evil...}}. To make matters worse, {{spoiler|attempting to take revenge on Asakim by killing him would actually be treated into letting him win, because he is a [[Death Seeker]] and giving him death would be exactly submitting to defeat.}} Poor, poor [[Fan Nickname|Sexsuko]]...

** They're all preceded by Tytti Noorbuck, actually. So when we first hear about her past, it's about {{spoiler|Her parents being killed brutally in front of her, by [[Psycho for Hire|Lubikka]] [[Complete Monster|Hakinnen]], followed with him gloating that he would take extra delights on seeing her shiver in fear and terror.}} Later on, {{spoiler|Lubikka reappears and [[Brainwashed and Crazy|brainwashed her]] into attacking her lover Ricardo Silvera, which he managed to pull her out of the brainwashing stance... only for Lubikka to shoot him dead in front of her AGAIN, then Ricardo died just after Tytti officially returned his love, and from thereafter, she became [[Allergic to Love|fearful of striking a relationship with another man.]]}} And this is just the earlier version, let's see if OG (if she ever appears there) will crank this up to an eleven.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'':

** Terra is the closest thing the game has to a main character. Her first memories are being brainwashed by the empire to kill people. Feared by people both because she worked for the empire and because she knows magic, she questions her ability to feel love. She finds that she is half "esper" and that her people are being tortured to provide the empire with magic, at which point she goes crazy and flies into the sky as a flaming purple banshee.

* In ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', we have Samantha of the Crimson Blades. {{spoiler|Though technically an antagonist, she appears to be a sympathetic character who [[Tragic Dream|dreams]] of gaining immortality with her lover, [[Dark Messiah|Guildernstern]]. However, Guildenstern eventually stabs her as a sacrifice for his own 'cause'. His final words to her are "I love you, Samantha. As God is my witness." to which she responds "[[Was It All a Lie?|"I...too, once thought so..."]] before [[Tear Jerker|falling off the Grand Cathedral's rooftop]].}}

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'':

** And then...there's [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Xion.]] [[Trauma Conga Line|Poor]], [[Break the Cutie|poor,]] [[Cloning Blues|Xion]].

** Kairi in and out of game. She is first separated from the people she cares for most and eventually kidnapped, then she learns that {{spoiler|her closest friend sacrificed his heart to save her}}, then she is separated from her friends further, and later when she finally {{spoiler|receives a keyblade}}, she is still cut off from Sora and Riku by Xemnas. Oh, and the real kicker? The [[Fan Dumb|fangirls]] [[The Scrappy|hate]] [[Ron the Death Eater|her]] [[Die for Our Ship|guts]] for all this.

* [[Badass Princess|Melia]] in ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]''. {{spoiler|Four of her trusted friends die trying to protect her, she becomes the target of an assassination plot made by her stepmother, her father is killed, and to top that all off, the majority of her people end up being transformed into mindless Telethia by the [[Big Bad]], including her half brother, who she is then forced to fight against.}} She takes all of it surprisingly well, though.

* How come [[Siren (video game)|Siren]] isn't here yet? Harumi just makes you want to hug her on sight, and then there's [[Tear Jerker|Tomoko...]]

** Bonus points if she's the [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]] during the playthrough.

** Her woobification works to a degree. Some fans just want to give her a big hug, like Lloyd, the object of her affection, does in one of the scenes in which she's going through her first [[Painful Transformation]]; [[Internet Backdraft|others want to kill her dead]].

** Satsuki is the [[Chew Toy]]. Len and Nanako however are legitimate examples. The biggest woobie in Tsukihime is however {{spoiler|the real [[Tragic Monster|SHIKI.]]}} This will not make the slightest bit of sense until you've beaten every route of course.

* Wally, the little ginger pirate wannabe from the ''[[Monkey Island]]'' series. He actually had a scene where he is stranded on a raft and his monocle falls in the water, he then falls in trying to retrieve it; this was taken out because the developers felt so sorry for him.

** It's not that he's emotionless. He's just not very emotional. He clearly has affection for Milla, a borderline hatred for tackiness, and is obviously angry as hell when he encounters the ''[[Big Bad]]'' near the end of the game. Which may only enhance his appeal to fangirls...

** How could you put Sasha without also mentioning Milla? The {{spoiler|entire family of orphans she took care of died in a fire. By listening to her nightmares, you can tell she blames herself for not being there to save them.}}

*** Rosea perhaps ends out the worst - in Path C, she {{spoiler|murders Lieselotte out of anger, but then proceeds to have a [[My God, What Have I Done?]]. Depending on who you recruited and if they're alive (Darius or Earnest and Natalia) she is surrounded by the most broken and least sympathetic characters of the game (''Especially'' if you recruited the Bloody Twins) with the exception of Duwain. She is then forced to fight Lenneth Valkyrie and then is forced into a brutal war, wandering from town to town in a demon-infested world where [[Anyone Can Die]]. The player can do even ''worse'' things to her, such as Pluming Duwain right in front of her and then forcing her to fight him in the final boss. If she's not sent to Nifelheim in aiding in attacking Lenneth, then perhaps the best thing you can do to her is plume ''her'', so that she can live on as an Einherjar.}} And she's one of the nicest characters in the game, [[Beware the Nice Ones|beware the nice one aside]]

* Polka from ''[[Eternal Sonata]]''. Because of the myth that her fatal illness is contagious, most members of society treat her like a leper. People don't even bother to thank her when she uses her magic to heal injured people because being able to use magic is possible only if you're going to die soon. In spite of it all, Polka is still a good person who wants, more than anything else in the world, to simply help everyone she can while she still has the time.

* The lack of dialogue makes this highly reliant on [[Alternate Character Interpretation]], but in ''[[Yume Nikki]]'', Madotsuki's dreams (which make the entirety of the game) are filled with [[Nightmare Dreams|nightmares]] that may or may not be indicative of a past involving isolation, gender identity disorder, neglectful or possibly abusive parents, and possibly rape. Any of which may help explain why she [[Hikikomori|refuses to leave her room when awake]].

** Within the dreams themselves, there's Masada, who plays the piano on a spaceship, and generally seems to be very lonely in space, and is completely harmless to the player, and is easily one of the least threatening looking characters in the game. He will also run from you if you equip the knife. Whilst many characters do run from you if you equip the knife, Masada is easily the most obvious in this behavior, and looks terrified when doing so, thus often being assumed to be the only one who does so.

* Nina from ''[[Breath of Fire]] Dragon Quarter''. Whereas Nina is usually a princess in the Breath of Fire games, in this one she is a genetically altered orphan, designed to act as an air filtration unit (The poisoned air, of course, remains in her body), who had her tongue cut out. [[Crapsack World|Dragon Quarter is not a happy game.]]

** [[Earn Your Happy Ending|Not until the end, at least.]]

* Dana Mercer from ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]''. She is the ''only'' major character who is not evil or twisted (Ragland might count too). In her first scene, some Blackwatch asshole is about to blow her brains out. Alex saves her by ''punching through the guy's head right next to her''. [[It Got Worse|Things don't get any better for her]]. She finds out her brother has become a viral monster, she later finds out he ''eats people'', and then {{spoiler|she gets kidnapped by a Leader Hunter and taken to Elizabeth Greene, who does God knows what to her that renders her comatose (possibly Infected?)}}. It gets even worse after [[The Reveal]] that {{spoiler|the real Alex Mercer is dead and that he was the one who unleashed the Blacklight Virus in the first place. Not only is her brother actually dead, but the fact that he released the Virus knowing his sister was still in the city means that he didn't really care about her.}} At least {{spoiler|the Blacklight Virus itself [[Morality Pet|cares a great deal about her]].}}

* Several from ''[[Chibi-Robo!]]''. Welcome to [[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer|the Island of Misfit Toys]].

* [[Metroid|Samus Aran]] is [[Statuesque Stunner|a 6'3"]] ([[Power Armor|in armor]]) trigger happy bounty hunter who defines [[Badass]]. Why might she be on the list? Her parents were killed when she was 3, with her dad dying in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and her mom being ''eaten'' by [[Extreme Omnivore|Ridley]], and was adopted by the bird-like Chozo only for them to be possibly wiped out. To make matters worse, the guy who killed her mother, [[Arch Enemy|Ridley]], [[Why Won't You Die?|just won't die]], and attacks another colony she is on, forcing her to relive the murder of her mother. When she mentally and emotionally shuts down and begs for death, you want to hug her. [[Action Girl|More than normal]], [[Hot Amazon|that is]].

** Perhaps this is more an instance of a [[Just for Pun|literal]] [[Iron Woobie]].

* And in second place in the [[Action Girl]] compartment we have [[Parasite Eve|Aya Brea]]. Just watch her crumble in [http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-the-3rd/101620 the trailer] for ''The 3rd Birthday'', and join the Give-poor-Aya-a-break-already-she-has-experienced-her-share-of-[[Eldritch Abomination|Eldrich-Abominations]] movement.

** To be fair, Aya is pretty strong to cope up with her woobie-ness. But then, we have {{spoiler|Eve}}. Created as a {{spoiler|clone of Aya and kept in a facility at a very young age to control mitochondria creatures against her will.}} Check. And in [[The 3rd Birthday]], {{spoiler|poor Eve witnessed Aya got killed in the middle of her supposedly happy wedding, wished only to save her, but instead put her soul into Aya's body and resulting the birth of two kinds of [[Eldritch Abomination]].}} Check. Lost her memories because of the incident and manipulated by the [[Big Bad]] with it. Check. People who help her during the game had to die {{spoiler|because one of the Abominations habituating in their bodies}}. Check. Finally {{spoiler|by help with [[Time Travel]] she is forced to kill Aya to prevent all the incident from happening.}} And most of the gameplay you are forced to hear her wail or cry, or seeing her looking confused and lonely. Girl needs a terrible big hug.

** In story, [[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire|Wally]] and [[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl|Barry (Damion)]] count. Wally is a [[Ill Girl|sickly boy]] who wants to go on a journey but is too ill and must move to Verdanturf, the only town with clean enough air for him. Barry is a [[Keet]] who suffers [[Heroic BSOD]] when {{spoiler|[[My Greatest Failure|he fails to stop Galactic Commander Jupiter from kidnapping the legendary Pokémon Uxie]].}}

** Another ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl]]'' character that falls under this is Volkner. Due to a lack of challengers to his Gym in Sunyshore City, Volkner leaves for the lighthouse out of depression. But once you talk to him, he'll go back to the Gym, and when you battle him and win, he'll be in high spirits again.

*** To make things worse, {{spoiler|it's revealed at the end that several members of Team Plasma knew about Ghetsis' real plans all along and were playing charades with N to garner support from him and make the plan work. This is hinted at several times in the game, from the Grunts [[Kick the Dog|kicking a young girl's Munna]] [[Hypocrite|that they claim was "liberated"]] to the Sages referring to Ghetsis as their Leader. How does this make things worse? It implies that '''very few human beings in the world supported his ideals or could confide with him, from the very day that he was born.'''}} ''[[Tear Jerker|Damn.]]''

*** Though not quite on {{spoiler|an N}} level, it's hard not to feel sorry for [[The Rival|Bi]][[Genki Girl|an]][[Wide-Eyed Idealist|ca]] at times - heck, the game makes you [[Break the Cutie|break her]] yourself ''multiple'' times. She went on a [[To Be a Master|Pokemon journey]] despite his father's opposition, but she couldn't become a strong trainer and defeat you or Cheren no matter how hard she tried.

** ''Radiant Dawn'': Pelleas

* Kaori Yae of ''[[Tokimeki Memorial|Tokimeki Memorial 2]]'', very much so. The girl is so [[Heroic BSOD|deeply hurt, depressed]] and [[Broken Bird|completely closed to others]] after the cruel [[Break the Cutie]] moment she endured before the protagonist meets her, [[Fridge Logic|it's incredible]] that her parents [[There Are No Therapists|haven't took her to a psychiatrist]] already. Seeing her gradually [[He's Back|coming back]] to her former self through [[The Power of Love|patient affection and care]] from the protagonist, thus turning her into a walking factory of [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Crowning Moments Of Heartwarming]] (and conversely, [[Lost Forever|a powerful source of]] [[Player Punch]] if you fail to put her out of her [[Heroic BSOD]]), is what made her, with good reason, the absolute [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] of this game.

** her father, a former Holy Knight, {{spoiler|got kicked out of the army after a failed battle, in which he also became handicapped on a leg}}, and because of this [[Drowning My Sorrows|fell into alcoholism]] (and since [[Daddy's Girl|she loves her father very much]], she's terribly saddened by his decheance) ;

** because of this and also because Sophia's mother and brother are [[Ill Boy|Ill Persons]], the family is very poor and only holds on because Sophia works on [[Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?|a lot of hard-labour part-time jobs]] ;

** [[Mortal Kombat (video game)|Reptile]]. The [[Last of His Kind|last surviving member of the long-extict Saurian race]] (or at least he ''was'' until [[Adam and Eve Plot|Khameleon shows up in]] ''[[Mortal Kombat 3|Trilogy]]''), he's nothing more than [[Extreme Doormat|a hapless warrior serving the villains]] in the misguided hope that they'll restore his race to life. There's a joke among the fandom that if you don't off [[Butt Monkey|Reptile]], his superiors ''will''. [[Yank the Dog's Chain|He gets screwed over in almost every ending of his.]] In ''3'', he finds out that Shao Kahn had no intention of upholding their deal; Reptile kills him out of anger. In ''4'', Reptile defeats all of the heroes for Shinnok and Quan Chi. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WisBtqr_4lM His reward?] [[Your Head Asplode|He gets his head blown clean off of his shoulders by Shinnok,]] [[I Lied|who is not]] [[God of Evil|a god of his word.]] In the only fully canon ending of ''[[Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance|Deadly Alliance]]'', {{spoiler|his body becomes the vessel for the rebirth of [[Mortal Kombat Deception|Onaga, the Dragon King]].}} His dashed dream of the revival of his race [[Sanity Slippage|slowly drives Reptile into insanity]], to the point that [[Shapeshifter Default Form|he reverts into his original form]] by the time of ''Deadly Alliance'': that of a mindless, reptilian beast. Said beast also starts ''ragging on himself'' when he perceives himself to have failed his new master, the [[Manipulative Bastard]] [[Guile Hero|Nitara]]. The only consolation is that {{spoiler|he survives the events of ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'', but even then, he's simply a [[Jobber]]. However, seeing as Shao Kahn is dead--seemingly for good and at a ''much'' earlier point in time--and Khameleon appears to cameo in select scenes of Story Mode, [[Throw the Dog a Bone|this dog might be thrown a bone yet.]]}}

** [[Mortal Kombat 2|Smoke]]. Tries to escape the Lin Kuei with his best bud Sub-Zero. He's instead captured and [[Unwilling Roboticisation|forcibly converted into one of their cybernetic warriors.]] He's then programmed to hunt down said best friend (according to ''9'', [[Heterosexual Life Partners|the two are like brothers]]). The younger Sub-Zero manages to reach out to the soul of his buddy, allowing Smoke to regain control of his body, but somewhere along the way, Shao Kahn's extermination squads get to him and [[Dead Guy on Display|throw his deactivated body into Kahn's dungeons]]. [[Mortal Kombat Deception|Many years later]], [[Made of Evil|Noob Saibot]] finds Smoke's body and reprograms him to be subservient to him. It takes until ''Armageddon'' for Sub-Zero to bring Smoke back to the light.

*** And to make things worse, everyone save for Shao Kahn, Shinnok, Taven, and Liu Kang's spirit ''dies'' in ''[[Mortal Kombat Armageddon|Armageddon]]'', with [[The Bad Guy Wins|Shao Kahn gaining complete control over all of the realms]].

** [[World of Woobie|Then came]] ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'' [[World of Woobie|with its]] [[Fun with Acronyms|WMW]] ([[Up to Eleven|weapons of mass Woobiefication]]). [[Darker and Edgier]] [[Dark Messiah|Raiden]] (the [[Came Back Wrong]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] version of Earthrealm's protector god) initiates a [[Continuity Reboot]] and [[Fling a Light Into the Future|sends a message to his past self]] [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|with the hopes of preventing]] [[The End of the World as We Know It|Armageddon]], but things go horribly, ''[[It Got Worse|horribly]]'' [[Beyond the Impossible|wrong]]. Even excluding the specific examples below, {{spoiler|a [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] Sindel [[Super Empowering|empowered by Shang Tsung's soul]] [[Hero-Killer|kills]] '''eight''' of the heroes (Nightwolf, Kitana, Jade, Sub-Zero, Smoke, Jax, Stryker, and Kabal), with those guys, Sindel herself (who Nightwolf [[Mutual Kill|fells in a]] [[Taking You with Me]] [[Heroic Sacrifice]]), and Kung Lao (who was killed earlier by Shao Kahn [[Knight of Cerebus|to show that]] [[Anyone Can Die]]) [[And I Must Scream|having their souls controlled by Quan Chi in the Netherrealm by the story's close.]] [[Kill'Em All|Only Raiden, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade are left to defend Earthrealm.]] It's telling of how much of a [[Tear Jerker]] an event is when [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Ca]][[Deadpan Snarker|ge]], the comic relief of the series, goes ''completely somber'' and the rough-and-tumble army girl Sonya is on the verge of letting a floodgate of tears run down her face. It's ''that'' bad.}}

** Well, if it's any consolation at all, {{spoiler|she did push that [[Complete Monster]] calling himself her therapist right in front of a speeding train and killed him}}. All things considered, that was probably as much justice as she was ever going to get.

* [[Fear Effect]]. Rain is very much this. Why? {{spoiler|Her father is the first emperor of China, made immortal and forever rooted to one spot like a statue. Her mother is a scientist who engaged in experiments that transformed her into a literal monster and eventually an [[Eldritch Abomination]]. Her twin sister Mist is trying to help her father get out of his statue pose. Unfortunately, Mist's method of achieving this involves merging herself and Rain to their mother, and pretty much destroy the entire world. Rain ran away from this, and ended up with amnesia, as well as memories, dreams and nightmares that made no sense to her. Rain ends up having to kill off both her mother and twin sister}}. Hana is an [[Iron Woobie]] and Glas is a [[Stoic Woobie]].

* [[Stoic Woobie|Although it's not obvious at first]], Ethan, the [[The Quiet One|quiet]], [[An Axe to Grind|axe-wielding]] [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|amnesiac]] from ''[[Last Scenario]]'', is badly in need of a hug. When he first joins the party, he says he doesn't remember much beyond the fact that he used to work for the Rosehart Kingdom, but was betrayed and imprisoned. This means many of the people he's fighting used to be his friends, but it's a bit worse than that. {{spoiler|He used to be the head of [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|a prestigious special-ops group]], but he started to suspect that his superior, Castor, was hiding important information from them, and began to investigate on his own. An ambitious internal affairs officer, Helio, found out, and reported Ethan- as punishment, he was locked up as a test subject in Helio's [[Mad Scientist|laboratory]] and spent the next three years [[And I Must Scream|buried alive and semiconscious]] in a magical substance called biorite, which was responsible for his memory loss.}} Even early on, he worries that maybe since the things he remembers most clearly are the ones he wanted to remember, the ones he forgot were things he wanted to forget; when a few things start coming back to him, you find out he was right. {{spoiler|Fourteen years ago, his entire hometown was razed by the Imperial army, leaving him and his older brother as the only survivors. He wound up killing a soldier in a panic to protect his brother, and only avoided being killed himself by the timely intervention of Zawu. His older brother? Castor, the guy who had him sealed in a pile of rocks for three years, and the [[Big Bad]] of the game. Naturally, he remembers this just as Castor has started going into a full-scale mental and emotional breakdown which he was indirectly complicit in. And the man he killed when he was fourteen? His name was Wolfram, and [[One Degree of Separation|his father and best friend are in the party]]. Ethan's guilt-stricken and awkward attempts to tell Randolph are simultaneously heartbreaking and adorable.}} All in all, his life kind of sucks. A lot.

* Fiona Belli from ''[[Haunting Ground]]''. {{spoiler|Not only did one of the stalkers kill her parents, but he kidnapped her as well, and is trying to impregnate her in order to be reborn with her Azoth. She is also pursued by a hulking man with the mind of a child who thinks she is a doll and just wants to [[And Call Him George|play with her]], a homunculus maid who wants to cut her Azoth out of her in order to become "complete", and an old man who helps her at first, but then turns out to be the [[Big Bad]], and is also trying to take her Azoth.}} The only companion she has is a white German Shepherd that is also a Woobie itself due to the excessive amounts of literal [[Kick the Dog]] moments.

 

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