Trauma Conga Line: Difference between revisions

[[File:one of those days 1945.png|link=Bigger Than Cheeses|frame|There's getting back-stabbed, and then...]]

 

 

You have reached a writer's block. You've created a hero so righteous, noble, good and pure that traumatizing them just once is not convincing enough to break them. Yet you want the intended audience to still feel like they want to reach into your work and [[The Woobie|hug the character]] in question.

See also [[Humiliation Conga]], where this happens to a villain who deserves what's coming to him. [[Deus Angst Machina]] is similar and there is quite a bit of overlap, but with the '''Trauma Conga Line''' more of it happens on-screen than in the backstory.

 

 

{{examples}}

== Advertising ==

* Somewhat spoofed in the [[Parody Commercial|parody commercials]] for Rhubarb Pie on ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]''. They always feature some [[Innocent Bystander|random, unfortunate fellow]] who happens to get caught in a series of increasingly bad situations, going from, say, locking yourself out of the car to being arrested for high treason. Good thing "nothing takes the taste of shame and humiliation out of your mouth like rhubarb pie!"

* On the other hand, Ayasaki Hayate of ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' is a most admirable example of Result A. You would think that being raised by two pathologically-unemployed con-artists of parents as a cash-cow only to be abandoned to [[Yakuza|some very nice people]] to pay off debt money with your organs would turn the boy Joker-Crazy. Wouldn't you know it, he is still a kindhearted fella who would [[The Messiah|give his life for a total stranger]].

** If you think about it, Hayate is kinda Joker-crazy. His childhood was crap, his parents were [[Complete Monster|complete monsters]], and the entire universe occasionally [[Cosmic Plaything|punts him around like an old football]] ("Watch out for this paint that will permanently stain a cashmere coat!" and "We will attack you with swords that cut cashmere really well!" come to mind). And yet...he keeps [[Stepford Smiler|smiling]].

* [[Kurohime|Zero's]] past was really horrible.

* Shiina Tamai from ''[[Narutaru]]'' is a brave, kind-hearted, upbeat [[Action Girl]]... who, as per the [[Deconstruction]]ist nature of the series, is put through a ''lot'' of crap. Between watching friends and loved ones die, and seeing that [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|humans are a truly terrible lot]], there's only so much trauma she can take before she turns into an example of Result C. [[Happily Ever Before|The anime version doesn't get anywhere near that far, mind you.]]

* Simon from ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' has basically everyone close to him die, and no matter how much [[Screw Destiny]] is the theme of the series there seems to be nothing he can do to prevent it. In the end, he {{spoiler|abandons Spiral Power entirely, because he knows first hand how destructive it is.}}

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]''. The anime traumatizes the characters enough already, and let's [[It Got Worse|just not get into the manga]]...

** After the series starts, the hits keep coming, including having his Innocence seemingly destroyed and getting a hole torn out of his heart thanks to Tyki; having his friends disappear one by one as the Ark disintegrates around him; and having the only place that he could ever call home, the Order, almost be destroyed by a Level Four Akuma attack. Think he deserves a break? [[It Got Worse|Not a chance]]. After nearly killing himself to fight off the Level 4 Akuma, he is told that he is {{spoiler|the host of the mysterious [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Fourteenth Noah]] who's going to [[Split Personality Takeover|take over his body]], and in the process of doing so, will destroy Allen's personality and force him to kill someone who he loves dearly}}. His mentor General Cross suddenly disappears under highly suspicious circumstances. Now Allen's being treated by almost everyone in the Order as a potential threat that needs to be ruthlessly eliminated at the smallest sign of stepping out of line. And in the most recent chapters, {{spoiler|the Fourteenth is not only awakening inside Allen, but is capable of taking control of Allen's body without any warning in his quest to become the next Millennium Earl.}} [[Iron Woobie]], indeed.

* ''[[Madoka Magica]]'' more or less is this trope. Much of the plot is about Sayaka going nuts because of everything that happens to her, which further traumatizes Madoka. Homura's past is one long string of things going horribly wrong no matter how hard she tries to prevent it.

* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'', Natsuhi seems to have a day from hell in the 5th game.

* Alice from ''[[Nemurihime]]''. In the space of eight chapters she has {{spoiler|lost her father, was stricken with a disease that will kill her in a year, was frozen for fifty years, learned that her doctor was in love with her but married another woman to have a family. His wife became so desparate for his affection that she figured they could only be [[Together in Death]], which caused the doctor's son to hate Alice so much he unfroze her just to torture her for the rest of her life -- which will be one year because there's still no cure for her disease}}. According to those who read the whole thing ''it gets worse''. [[Break the Cutie|Poor Alice.]]

* In ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', White goes through one over the span of what couldn't have been more than an hour, and to make things worse all this happens ''immediately'' after the highest moment of her life. Though it takes a little while, she {{spoiler|resolves to become a Type A.}}

* The title character of ''[[Inuyasha]]'' has so much of this it's ridiculous.

* [[X-Men (Comic Book)|Madelyne Pryor]] is a full-on Type D. After her husband abandons her and her infant son for reasons unexplained, she tries to get on with her life. Then she's ambushed by a squad of superpowered assassins out to kill her and steal her baby. They only succeed in the latter. Then she goes on the run with the X-Men...no one's idea of a relaxing vacation at the best of times...and starts falling in love with her ''brother-in-law.'' After finding some semblance of equilibrium with the team, she starts working as their tech support, and just happens to find her disappeared husband on a news broadcast...standing alongside a woman who looks just like her. Cue BSOD, and [[Deal with the Devil]]. Finally to top everything off, she meets a man who claims to be responsible for cloning her from the same woman her husband ditched her for! The resulting [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] comes as a surprise to no one.

* Roy Harper, the former sidekick of [[Green Arrow]], has had it pretty rough recently. In ''Cry for Justice'' he got his arm chopped off by Prometheus. Then Prometheus and his accomplice the Electrocutioner unleashed a [[Kill Sat]] on Star City, killing thousands including {{spoiler|Roy's daughter Lian}}. This drove him back to drug abuse, which just made things worse. To add insult to injury, when he and Cheshire got involved, he couldn't perform, so to speak. He became a Type E Jerkass, railing against his former friends and teammates, going so far as to blame Mia for {{spoiler|Lian's death}} and calling Donna a whore when she tried to sympathize with him. Later he became a full-on Type B when he agreed to join Deathstroke's Titans (a team of assassins for hire) {{spoiler|though it's heavily implied that this was an act he and Cheshire cooked up together in a bid to kill Deathstroke.}}

* Ultimate Reed Richards, as of the end of ''[[Ultimatum]]'', cementing himself as a hybrid between Types B & F.

* [[Iron Man|Tony Stark's]] ''entire life'' consists of one traumatic event after another, mixed with a morass of personal issues covering everything from alcohol to troubled romantic relationships, an angst-and-tragedy-ridden personal and professional life that include, but is not limited to, traitorous/murderous friends and business partners who have tried to destroy him and his friends multiple times, all combined with a ridiculous amount of overwork <ref>(running Stark Industries, churning out new inventions to keep it running, managing the Avengers' legal and financial problems, being constantly on-call to consult other superheroes on technology-related crises, being a founding Avenger and occasionally the group's leader, being a superhero on his own time, and dealing with enemies who want to kill him on both superhero and business fronts)</ref> that is directly responsible for most of the aforementioned trauma, to the point where he has had to basically completely rebuild his life from the ground up on several different occasions.

 

 

* Used for a few chapters in the ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' fanfiction ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6160652/10/A_Son_For_A_King A Son for a King]''. Charlotte's banker husband demands sex from Tiana in exchange for giving her a loan and for not asking for the money back, and when she refuses, he tells Charlotte that Tiana tried to bribe him with sex so as not to have to pay back the loan. Charlotte then goes to Tiana's house and yells at her, and breaks off their friendship. Tiana's mother then persuades her to go on a date with a man she has no attraction to, and on the date, he is stabbed by racists and has to be taken to the hospital by Tiana where it turns out he has lied about his name, as well as the fact that he is married to a woman who then arrives at the hospital and chases Tiana around the hospital room, calling her a tramp and screaming at her for sleeping with her husband (which she didn't do). Once she gets back to her mother's house, it's revealed that her house and restaurant have been set on fire by the Ku Klux Klan. She then collapses on the floor, yelling, "I've been a good person my entire life. I followed all the rules. Why do these things keep happening to me?" It's all quite [[Narm|hilarious]].

* The ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[[Forward]]'' does this to most of the crew, ''especially'' for River. Aside from being {{spoiler|kidnapped and tortured by [[Complete Monster|Niska]],}} she's also {{spoiler|undergone multiple mental breakdowns due to her insanity, she's been nearly eaten by Reavers}}, and {{spoiler|has been repeatedly [[Mind Rape]]d by another psychic escapee from the Academy}}. Not a single "episode" in the story passes without River being repeatedly punched in the gut.

* Happens to Tommy in ''[[Rescue Me]]'' nearly every episode, although some are worse than others. He's a Type F, and remains a lying, scheming, womanizing, short-tempered, alcoholic, self-centered asshole for five seasons.

* While not technically the hero, ''[[Dollhouse]]'''s Topher seems to be the definition of this trope. Nothing seems to go well for the poor bloke.

* The Doctor of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is a prime candidate for having the worse life '''ever'''. Before the series even begins he's on the run from his own people, who never regard him as anything more than a madman and a renegade (and that's ''before'' he becomes the [[Last of His Kind]]). Every single person he loves or is close to in any way dies or leaves, though not before [[Doom Magnet|being inflicted with the horrors of the universe thanks to their association with him]], and he always ends up alone. [[Walking Disaster Area|No matter where he goes]] he [[Weirdness Magnet|frequently lands in the middle of wars and invasions and general misery]], enduring every pain and torture imaginable, including dying [[The Nth Doctor|again and again]] in horrible ways, and witnessing the deaths of uncountable people. And no matter how much good he does or how many people he saves, [[Joker Immunity|his worst enemies always survive]] and half the universe either hates him or fears him. It's nothing short of a miracle he hasn't just given up.

** The Tenth Doctor attracted [[Broken Base|both extensive praise and criticism]] for suffering everything that could possibly go wrong at every possible opportunity. By "The End of Time", everyone close to him had moved on, voluntarily or otherwise, the closest thing he had to a friend was one old man who still believed in him ({{spoiler|who he dies to save}}), and his almost maniacal desire to [[Screw Destiny]] and avoid his "song" ending was less about self-preservation and more desperately trying to keep hold of the last thing that hadn't been taken from him.

* Arguably Izzie Stevens in [[Grey's Anatomy]], who can fall into categories A, C and E at times. She started off being sexually harassed at work by her peers for being beautiful and minor hazing stuff from other doctors including a rather cruel learning experiment from a doctor she looked up to by giving her a patient she knew was going to die and making her responsible for seeing the patient through the night. Later on in the season Izzie lost the love of her life a heart patient at the hospital. She quit her job and became catatonic for days. She also went through a very realistic process of grief. A few seasons later they gave her cancer, killed off her best friend, fired her from her job, dissolved her marriage and then put her on a bus to never been seen again.

* Kurt Hummel from ''[[Glee]]'' comes to mind, even though a few of the things that happen to him is due to his own mistakes.

 

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Magnus the Red didn't exactly have it easy either, and was not only essentially forced to participate in aforementioned Heresy because of it, but the very reason he did so - to save his Legion - was make utterly pointless soon afterwards. All [[Gambit Roulette|Just as Planned]] for [[Manipulative Bastard|Tzeentch]].

 

** Special mention to Billy Lee Black who, in addition to his already tragic backstory, goes through an unbelievable amount of crap in less than ''24 in-game hours'' as summarized [http://lparchive.org/Xenogears-(by-The-Dark-Id)/Update%2074/ here].

* Rondo of Swords has a type E in one of the playthroughs. After all Serdic goes through he finally breaks after a [[Friend Or Idol]] decision that ends up in favor of the idol. Now while Serdic does lose a lot of his of warmth and idealism, [[Knight in Sour Armor|his ethics and morals don't really change]]. At the end of the game he does rediscover love again and has a peaceful, prosperous reign as king.

** Hell, {{spoiler|him becoming a forest ranger in the Epilogue}} was probably his way of ''getting away from it all''.

* In ''[[Silent Hill]]'', the Trauma Train has pulled out of the station [[Late to the Party|well before]] any of the player characters got there, so when it [[Player Punch|steamrolls through]] everybody it touches (including the bad guys!) gets affected to varying degrees, and how well the protagonists fare from the Conga Line depends on which of the [[Multiple Endings]] you get. (Here's a hint: {{spoiler|save from the wacky, out of left field joke endings, the best Silent Hill has to offer are [[Bittersweet Ending]]s.}})

* In ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'', Estelle during Part Two. She finds out, the hard way, that her healing artes causes Entelexia to go insane, then later learns [[Apocalypse Maiden|that using her powers could to destroy the world]]. ''Then'' she gets kidnapped by Schwann/Raven and [[Mind Rape|tortured]] into doing the bidding of Alexei, and [[Despair Event Horizon|sent over the edge]] by his hand that she begs Yuri to ''[[I Cannot Self-Terminate|kill her]]''. (Fortunately, he hauls her back). And after all that, She ''somehow'' manages to come out Result A! That girl deserves to be a saint!

* ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]'' has Kratos. Very much a Type D.

* Fou-lu in ''[[Breath of Fire]] IV'' is marched down a Type B/Type D Trauma Conga Line ''by the very empire he was the [[King in the Mountain]] for''; the increasingly extreme efforts [[The Empire]] takes in killing what is their ''literal'' founding [[God-Emperor]] eventually go to the point of the use of a [[Fantastic Nuke]] [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|powered by Fou-lu's]] ''[[Human Resources|GIRLFRIEND]]'' (said [[Fantastic Nuke]] explicitly works on the principle of [[Love Hurts]], the closer the bond, the higher the mega-tonnage), and—when THAT didn't work—having [[The Emperor]] run Fou-lu through with a [[Evil Weapon|soul-eating sword]] made from ''[[Body Horror|the botched summon of another god]]'' (which only resulted in [[Off with His Head|Emperor Soniel literally losing his head]]). This Trauma Conga Line eventually results in Fou-lu deciding that [[Humans Are the Real Monsters]] and the use of Mami as a tactical thermonuclear [[Country Mouse]] is arguably the event (in the MIDDLE of the Trauma Conga Line, no less!) that causes him to become a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]].

** Oh, and the [[Vestigial Empire]] that summoned Fou-lu in the first place buggered up the summoning, resulting in the god being split in twain and each half of the [[Literal Split Personality]] ending up on opposite sides of the world and temporally displaced 600 years. It's also outright stated that the Fou Empire and its [[Vestigial Empire]] predecessor the Muuru Empire still have not managed how to learn to summon a god in one piece and are involuntarily yanking the entities the world knows as "gods" from their own lives. (Yes, Fou-lu's Trauma Conga Line veritably began from the moment of his existence on that world.)

[[Category:Heel Face Index]]

[[Category:Sadness Tropes]]

[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]

[[Category:Depressing Tropes]]