History BreakTheCutie / LiveActionTV

* At the start of Season 2 of ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'', a combination of things at the end of Season 1 [[spoiler: including Ward's betrayal and his own brain damage from oxygen deprivation]] leaves Fitz broken mentally and emotionally.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': In flashbacks Laurel is shown to be sweet and a little naive. By the time the series starts she's understandably bitter about how her sister, Sarah, died while sleeping with her boyfriend, Oliver. She does forgive Oliver but she is still very changed by what happened.
%%** Also Thea.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'':
** Chloe Sullivan for most of Seasons 2 and 3 as Clark gets closer to Lana and the temptation of [[MagnificentBastard Lionel]]'s [[DealWithTheDevil offer]] growing stronger and stronger.
** Chloe again, only a lot worse, from the end of Season 7 to all of Season 8, and extending to Season 9. She actually had a LampshadeHanging moment at her birthday party when she recounted some of the things she went through, but it was dropped somewhat by the end of the episode, [[FromBadToWorse only to have more of it piled on her]]. Fired for protecting Clark, wedding ruined by Doomsday's attack, Jimmy being grievously injured, Doomsday kidnapping her to allow Brainiac to possess her, Jimmy making a scene and divorcing her influenced by Doomsday's manipulation and saying marrying her is the biggest mistake of his life, new friend and one ray of sunshine in this mire is a serial killer. At the end of the season, she is a frightened, trembling wreck. In a deleted scene in ''Injustice'', she is seen sitting, hugging herself, shivering, in the bathroom when Clark comes in, wraps a towel around her and hugs her. [[spoiler:Actually an imposer, but it is a very reasonable guise. In ''Doomsday'', Davis and Jimmy kill each other in front of her and Jimmy dies in her arms. Clark tells her that Clark Kent is dead and decides to sever ties with humanity and walks out of her life, and Lois goes missing. In ''Savior'', a grief-stricken Chloe begs Clark to use the Legion ring to go back and save Jimmy, which he refuses. Chloe tells Emil she has been haunted by her ghosts so much lately she had to carry a gun to fall asleep. She is pretty much broken by now.]] Here is a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS4pCBiLBaE rough summary]] of her many heartbreaks in Season 8, obviously with spoilers.
** The series began by breaking 3-year-old Lana while in her fairy princess costume. Every so often we hear about the hole in her heart where her parents used to be. However, it is only a one scene appearance and Lana's endless {{Wangst}}ing ruined the effect.

* ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'': Carole is introduced weeping at reception, having been recently cheated on and abandoned by her husband and left with post-partum depression and a baby to raise on her own. Then she loses her apartment and is forced to move into the leisure centre, falling pregnant to someone who she wasn't aware of the identity of and ending up having to raise three children in the drawers and cupboards behind reception. Then we find out that she wanted to be a pianist only for her parents to crush her dreams by selling the piano so that she can take beauty courses to attract men. Several times, Carole is teased with the possibility of a better life, only for said opportunities to be taken from her in the worst ways possible. And Brittas calls her unattractive and suggests she loses weight. With this in mind, no wonder she is quite TheEeyore in Series 1 and a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} for the rest of the series.

** Boomer is a naive young rookie pilot whose parents supposedly died in [[ConvenientlyUnverifiableCoverStory an accident]] when she was younger, which left her with a bad case of survivor's guilt nearly leading her to wash out, but for Adama's kindness. Her fellow crew are her [[TrueCompanions family]], Commander Adama's like a [[AFatherToHisMen father]], and Starbuck's like a big sister. She's having sex with the chief of the deck and thinking she's getting away with it, and she takes in one of the kids orphaned by the Cylon attack for a time. Then it turns out that she is [[spoiler:a [[TomatoInTheMirror Cylon sleeper agent]] implanted with hidden programming that makes her zone out and commit acts of sabotage she can't remember]], and everything goes to hell. She [[spoiler: finds herself shooting her beloved commanding officer against her will]], gets broken up with by the Chief, lied to, [[DrivenToSuicide encouraged to suicide]], confronted by [[spoiler:[[CreepyTwins creepy]] loving [[CloningBlues clones]]]], violently interrogated, publicly hated on, [[spoiler:shot, resurrected among the creepy loving clones,]] convinced to be a leader in a peace movement that fails miserably, and rejected by [[spoiler:her clone's daughter (whose father is her own former co-pilot)]]. Oh, and for a time her face is on the shooting range targets. Athena, her genetic twin, was the one who got the chance Boomer never had and crossed the finish line. Not only did she win acceptance from those who were aware of her true nature, but she got the guy, the kid and the life Boomer wanted. Oh, and Athena also earned [[spoiler:the respect from her model number for being the first Cylon to overcome her programming.]] No wonder Boomer is so bitter. [[spoiler:And now, she does some very, very vile things on board Galactica, possibly breaking ''Athena'' as a result. Then, in the finale, she finally returns the kid to Athena and is thanked with gut bullets.]]

* ''Series/QueerAsFolk'': Played with in a Season 2 episode, when they have some sort of annual "fun for the whole family" day at Michael's job, and the newest employee have to stand all day, dressed up as a clown, handing out balloons to the children.

* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'': Niles Crane, in stark contrast to his (and Frasier's) frequent, minor, PlayedForLaughs BreakTheHaughty moments, get ''several'' of these. Ignoring his TraumaCongaLine of [[TheWoobie smaller bouts of torture]]: he seems to already be broken by his mother's death, Frasier's long absence, and a stifling, emotionally-abusive marriage at the series' beginning and gets ground into progressively smaller pieces by the latter during the first two seasons. Then his marriage falls apart and he manages to build himself up again, but Daphne, with whom he is smitten, is utterly oblivious to his feelings and unknowingly shatters his heart over and over. Devastated by this, he eventually gives up and then naively returns to his unstable, JerkAss wife after she "promises" that she'll treat him better this time, only for her to turn around and cheat on him with their marriage counselor weeks later. He eventually pulls himself up by the bootstraps, but then, after he rejects his wife's offer to reconcile again, she tears up their unsigned divorce settlement and proceeds to slowly torture and financially ruin him over several months. Then, when he finally gets rescued from Maris by a savvy divorce lawyer and is about to put his life back together, said lawyer immediately starts dating Daphne, and ''then'' broken once more, he flees into the arms of a manipulative carbon-copy of his ex-wife...etc., etc., etc...Thankfully though, this all turns out to be an EarnYourHappyEnding, as Daphne falls in love with him, and heals him after TheyDo.

* Happens and is reversed in the span of one episode of ''Series/HappyEndings''-Penny, the optimistic GenkiGirl, is trying to get her even more upbeat mom to face the truth about her not-great career and yet another divorce. Eventually, her mom takes it all way too hard, and then goes around giving [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech demoralizing speeches]] to the gang, before they all work together in get her back to normal.

** ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': Jimmy [=McGill=]. Flashbacks reveal that cracks were already starting to show when he was a kid, getting put down already by ParentalSubstitute Chuck and starting to steal as he didn't trust his (very kind, very gullible) father anymore. When the series begins, he's really trying to be good, but he finds out that Chuck essentially ''wants'' him useless, and from then on, a mix of terrible choices and a growing IdentityBreakdown give him a TraumaCongaLine until all he can think to do is flatten himself out and become Clown Bastard AmmoralAttorney Saul Goodman. Like Jesse, the writers outright said they spent half of the series torturing Jimmy.

** The 11th Doctor is a madcap bowtie-wearing, [[NiceHat hat-loving]] [[TheWoobie perma-Woobie]].

* ''Series/BlackMirror'': ''"Playtest"'' is all about this. Unlike most episodes where the main character is a VillainProtagonist or someone who could really do with a lesson, Cooper is an adorable NiceGuy who is put through immense psychological torture when the experimental horror game he's testing malfunctions and begins using his very deepest {{Adult Fear}}s on him, like making him think he's going to see his mother hanging from the beams in the ceiling and making him think he's contracted Alzheimer's. None of his torment is even remotely deserved, [[spoiler:and in the end it is revealed that he never even survived the malfunction and that in reality he died alone and in terror, screaming out for his mother.]]

*** [[DaddysGirl Her dad]] [[DarkAndTroubledPast died right in front of her]], her mother and sister will never think she's good enough, and then there's the pesky priest who won't stop bugging her to confess her sins and feel guilty like a [[RaisedCatholic proper]] [[SexIsEvil Catholic]].

* ''Series/BloodTies'': "Heart of Fire" is a good example of this: the ultra-handsome, charming and quirky Henry Fitzroy is physically tortured by a mad priest, who beats, drains and starves the vampire into confessing his sins so the priest can kill him. The priest also enthusiastically Breaks the Cutie by showing him videos of his ex-girlfriend betraying him, trying to get Henry to suck dry his love interest Vicki, and twisting a device that is LODGED around Henry's heart with metal spikes. As the final Break The Cutie moment, he even kills a cute little rat that Henry had spared despite his desperation for blood.