History BreakTheCutie / LiveActionTV

** [[spoiler: Aaaand... now he's homeless.]]

* The Master of ''DoctorWho'' does this a ''lot'' in the season finale. By the beginning of the final episode, [[spoiler:he's done heavily implied squicky things to Jack and chained him up in the basement of his airship, which is only made more disturbing by the fact that Jack's immortal; done heavily implied squicky things to Martha's family to the point that, just before the cavalry arrives, they're sitting in a circle ''fighting over who gets to kill him''; aged the Doctor's body, done heavily implied squicky things to him, aged his body again, and locked him in a birdcage; and turned his formerly happy (albeit mostly trigger-happy) wife into a battered slave.]]. Fortunately, everybody gets better [[spoiler:except for Lucy]] by the end of the episode.

** ''Midnight.'' When a mysterious unseen creature strikes his transport, the Doctor watches helplessly as his "listen to me, I'm clever and I can help" attitude not only fails miserably but starts to turn the rest of the passengers ''against'' him and leaves him open to immobilizing MindRape, resulting in one of the most intense cases of HumansAreBastards in the whole series. If you don't find yourself wanting very desperately to [[TheWoobie give him a hug]] when it all ends and he's lying sprawled on the floor and clutching his chest gasping "It's gone...it's gone...it's gone..." then I don't know what to do with you.

* Sam from {{Glee}} seems to be headed this way, due to [[spoiler: Quinn cheating on him with Finn]], Santana's consistent insults about his mouth and dorkyness, and just general pressure.

** One Name: Cally. Shown as the cute deck hand and gofer girl to the chief, she stays cute and relatively innocent (like Kaylee from Firefly) up to Kobol and from there takes worse. [[spoiler: It wasn't too bad untill Nikki started playing up, her marriage was falling apart (like all bsg ones seem to) Then she tried to commit suicide but was murdered instead. This was one uber woobie moment.]]
* Happens in a completely mundane, underplayed, and painful way to Peggy Olsen on ''MadMen''. In the pilot, she's tiny, wide-eyed, hopeful, and naive; since then, she's had a disastrous affair with a {{Jerkass}} coworker (which he initiated just days before his wedding), been mocked and sexually harassed on an hourly basis, and [[spoiler: gotten pregnant, denied it ''until she went into labor'', been declared an unfit mother, and been forced to hand the kid over. Then her boss came and told her to just go on pretending it'd never happened. Yeah, that'll work.]]. Granted,she's made some great strides on the career front, and become miles more confident than she was in the pilot, but... to sum it up in one heartbreaking word? Playgrounds.

* Happens in a completely mundane, underplayed, and painful way to Peggy Olsen on ''MadMen''. In the pilot, she's tiny, wide-eyed, hopeful, and naive; since then, she's had a disastrous affair with a {{Jerkass}} coworker (which he initiated on the night before his wedding), been mocked and sexually harassed on an hourly basis, and [[spoiler: gotten pregnant, denied it ''until she went into labor'', been declared an unfit mother, and been forced to hand the kid over to her bitchy, controlling sister to raise]]. Granted, she's had a few lucky breaks on the career front, but she's looking a lot more tense these days.

** Over seven seasons Willow loses her first lover to the curse of lycanthropy, loses her new lover to a brainwipe, gets her lover back, watches her best friend die, loses her lover to her obsession with magic, gets her lover back, and just as they've finally reconciled loses her lover to a random gunshot that wasn't even intended for her. Bad Things ensue.

** Even before that, the script writers decided to pile the abuse on Elliot, [[DeusAngstMachina culminating with her being sued by a]] JerkAss [[DeusAngstMachina patient, causing her to get kicked out of her house and live in her moving van,]] ''[[DeusAngstMachina which then gets stolen with all of her stuff.]]''

** Don't forget Anya, who spends most of her time on the show as the perky and bubbly comic relief. Then [[spoiler:Xander leaves her at the altar]] late in season 6. She reacts to this by [[spoiler: returning to vengeance. She finds herself unable to do it properly at first, but when she does get back into the swing by slaughtering ten frat boys who humiliated a girl, she suddenly realises what she's done and plunges into [[DeathSeeker Death Seekerdom]] To top that off, when she begs D'Hoffryn to undo it (the price of which would be her life and soul), he instead kills her friend Halfrek in front of her as the payment. He then follows this up with, "Haven't I taught you anything, Anya? Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain."]]. She survives, and is still comic relief, but she's a little less perky now.

* Sam from [[Glee Glee]] seems to be headed this way, due to [[spoiler: Quinn cheating on him with Finn]], Santana's consistent insults about his mouth and dorkyness, and just general pressure.

* The FatalFrame series ''lives by'' this trope.
** Wait shouldn't this go in the video game section???

** YourMileageMayVary, some of these don't really qualify. Just because someone is cute doesn't make them TheCutie.

* Wellard in the second [[HoratioHornblower Horatio Hornblower]] series. Also Archie Kennedy, though in his case the breaking took place mostly off-screen (first before the series even started, at the hands of Jack Simpson, and then after he was imprisoned for an indeterminate amount of time, including a month in an oubliette.). Archie at least seems to have recovered from most of his torments by the second series, but [[spoiler: Wellard is shot and dies before he has the chance.]] Additionally, Simpson tries to do this to Horatio in the first instalment, which is what results in the titular duel. (Well, technically a game of cards was what caused the duel -- but Horatio wouldn't have made the challenge if it hadn't been for everything else that had gone on.)

** Wait shouldn't this go in the video game section???

* Throughout the 4 seasons of ''{{LOST}}'' so far, Hurley, the series' comic relief and all-around nice guy, [[spoiler: has been revealed to be cursed with bad luck by the mysterious Numbers, which he used to win the lottery. Also, he's not quite right in the head, believes himself responsible for the death of some people in an accident years ago as well as for the crash of Oceanic 815. When he starts controlling his eating habits, a whole lot of food just pops out of nowhere, leading him to believe the island is inside his head, and almost commits suicide. He meets a girl on the island who is interested in him, but she turns out to secretly be another mental patient from the same institution he was at. Then she dies. Then he has to kill a bad guy to save his friends. Then his best friend dies. Then the camp divides and he picks the side that gets massacred, but survives, and starts being haunted by Jacob's cabin. Finally he leaves the island, but not before watching the freighter where some of his friends were explode. On the outside world, his family unintentionally tortures him, so he leaves them, gets arrested and thrown back into a mental institution, and becomes haunted by the people who died on the island, including his best friend.]] Not so nice anymore.

** Season 6 [[spoiler:Claire]], anyone? Granted, it all happens off screen, but still.

**** During the more [[FoeYay "serious"]] scenes between the Doctor and the Master, you can see the Master himself suffers this because of the drums.

* The FatalFrame series ''lives by'' this trope.

* Zack, from {{Bones}}, anyone? He was an {{Adorkable}} kid who was very socially awkward, but overall well liked and definitely a cutie. Then, we find out that he's the apprentice to a cannibalistic murderer, and he confesses to murdering somebody (although we find out later that he didn't actually kill the guy). He is then sent to a mental institution. Definitely qualifies as breaking the cutie.

** Don't forget Anya, who spends most of her time on the show as the perky and bubbly comic relief. Then [[spoiler:Xander leaves her at the altar]] late in season 6. She reacts to this by [[spoiler: returning to vengeance. She finds herself unable to do it properly at first, but when she does get back into the swing by slaughtering ten frat boys who humiliated a girl, she suddenly realises what she's done and plunges into [[DeathSeeker Death Seekerdom]] To top that off, when she begs D'Hoffryn to undo it (the price of which would be her life and soul), he instead kills Halfrek in front of her as the payment. He then follows this up with, "Haven't I taught you anything, Anya? Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain."]]. She survives, and is still comic relief, but she's a little less perky now.

* Zack, from "Bones", anyone? He was [[Adorkable an adorable little science nerd]] who was very socially awkward, but overall well liked and definitely a cutie. Then, we find out that he's the apprentice to a cannibalistic murderer, and he confesses to murdering somebody (although we find out later that he didn't actually kill the guy). He is then sent to a mental institution. Definitely qualifies as breaking the cutie.

-->'''Michael:''' She's sweet. At least she was until today. Today we drain her of her soul.