History ButtMonkey / Literature

** Ricky Beamer in ''Calling All Creeps'' is constantly harassed by everyone at school, most notably the [[GangOfBullies four eighth graders who pick on him sadistically]], and every time Ricky blows his chance to stay on the school paper, it's always ''THEIR'' fault. [[spoiler:[[FaceHeelTurn It says a lot when he decides to enslave the whole school at the end when they refuse to listen to his warnings and go back to picking on him.]]]]
** Samantha Byrd in ''Be Careful What You Wish For''. She's a [[TheKlutz total klutz]] who is very inept at basketball and is mercilessly picked on by [[AlphaBitch Judith]]. Her home life isn't much better either, as her parents, while not abusive or neglectful, are emotionally aloof towards her and don't relate to her well, and her older brother picks on her just as much. [[spoiler:It says a lot when she decides being magically turned into a bird is the happiest moment of her life.]]
** Michael Webster in ''The Cuckoo Clock of Doom'' is blatantly TheUnfavorite of the family, as his parents dote on their youngest daughter, [[EnfanteTerrible Tara]], who has an excellent reputation of making Michael's life miserable, and when he does tell them about his sister's torments, they refuse to concede this and assume he's lying. What's more is that even back when he was as young as four, it's revealed that his own father insinuates he's stupid just because he didn't tie his shoe sooner. [[spoiler:Thanks to his sister's birth year being knocked off the cuckoo clock after Michael returns from his time traveling expedition, Tara no longer exists, and for all the shit she put Michael through prior to the ending, it's implied that he probably might never go back in time to get her back.]]
** Carly-Beth in ''The Haunted Mask'' is considered the biggest scaredy-cat in school, as she is often a victim of cruel practical jokes, mostly from Chuck and Steve, and even her brother often takes advantage of this when messing with her duck costume. She does eventually grow out of it in the sequel when she GrewASpine though.
** Evan Ross in ''ALL'' the ''Monster Blood'' books. He's constantly abandoned by his parents to relatives who don't like him, gets used as a guinea pig by his nerdy cousin Kermit and often has the latter's experiments horribly backfire on him, is constantly treated like garbage by his science teacher, gets ruthlessly bullied and beaten to a pulp by Conan, and is also stuck in situations involving the titular green substance.
** Arguably the ''BIGGEST'' one out of all of them is Gary Lutz from ''Why I'm Afraid of Bees'', and to put it bluntly, calling him a loser is a HUGE understatement. He has literally ZERO friends, is spurned by everyone else and even beaten up by a group of bullies ForTheEvulz, his beekeeper neighbor sadistically torments him with bees, and even his family seem to take great pleasure in picking on him for laughs. It's at the point in which he's considered the biggest [[TheWoobie Woobie]] of the protagonists of the series.
** Sarah Maas in ''The Curse of Camp Cold Lake'', though admittedly we don't know much of her life aside from her horrible camp experience except that she had trouble making friends. After she accidentally offends each of her bunkmates, they take it upon themselves to bully and shun her to the point where she becomes the camp pariah.
** Matt Amsterdam in ''Don't Go to Sleep'' is TheUnfavorite to his older brother and sister whom his mother believes he should look up to and respect since they take care of him when she's busy, when in reality they bully him and make sure he's miserable. At the end of the book, he gains greater appreciation for his life and family after all the alternate realities he endured due to falling asleep in the guest room, though said life and family doesn't get any better.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov: ''Literature/FoundationSeries''' "Literature/TheMule": Magnifico Giganticus willingly tells Bayta and Toran about the various indignities that the Mule has subjected him to for entertainment, such as being held upside-down by his ankle while reciting poetry.

*** Even while he [[spoiler: still was a rat, he was a Butt Monkey - it was repeatedly pointed out how shabby Scabbers (MeaningfulName) looked, and Ron, despite loving his pet rat, was also a bit ashamed of him]]. And in the third book Hermione got the big cat Crookshanks, which made life difficult for Scabbers.

* Children's fantasy novel ''The Hounds of the Morrigan'' has the Sargeant, who is [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep only ever known by that name.]] Almost his entire screentime in the book is devoted to having the BigBad torment him in increasingly ridiculous, magical ways -- which he blames on drink, as he's a {{Muggle}}. They send him up the Amazon river on a rubber duck, change the cross-stitch wall hanging in his room to insult him, and do various, other cruel things to him [[spoiler: which include using him as a pawn to get close to the MacGuffin]].

* Mr Bagthorpe of ''The Bagthorpe Saga''. Yes, he brings a lot of it on himself, but fact remains he's bedeviled by more disasters, wrong bank statements, goats and awful relatives than anyone else in children's literature. If he doesn't break his arm trying to stand on his head he's accidentally bidding for hundreds of pounds of junk in auctions. And he's suspected of being a terrorist and murdering his wife in the later books. To quote, "I am the archetypal can carrier of all time!"

* Most Creator/TomHolt main characters have things go hideously wrong for them more or less nonstop. Everything from jackass parents to being a pawn in century-old {{GambitRoulette}}s to [[spoiler: ''having the Queen of the Fey wipe your girlfriend's memory of you''.]] At the end of the story, they are usually given a lot of money and/or a vast region of land somewhere on the other side of the world as a karmic payoff for putting up with
vast amounts of misery.

** In an extremely minor case, the Auror John Dawlish, who, though described by Dumbledore as a very good student in his first appearance, is the subject of a RunningGag where he is constantly being beaten up, by, among others, Dumbledore himself (twice) and Neville's grandmother.

* Bill in ''Literature/AliceInWonderland''. First he's catapulted out of a chimney, then Alice is kind of mean to him when he's part of the jury.

* The cast of Daniel Handler's ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents''.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** Tyrion Lannister. Born as a deformed dwarf, having his own mother die bringing him into the world, growing up being reviled and hated by his father, having his first wife gang-raped by his father's garrison, becoming the laughing stock of Westeros despite being wise and kind ([[BlackAndGrayMorality or at least not cruel]]), falsely accused of murder and imprisoned [[spoiler: twice]], protecting a city with his life only gaining more scorn, getting half his nose cut off, denied of his birthright, forced into a second marriage with a woman who finds him repulsive, [[spoiler: finding his lover in his father's bed and becoming an exile wanted by the whole of Westeros after [[Theatre/OedipusRex killing both]]]], [[spoiler: becoming a broken down drunk in exile, and getting captured, sold into slavery and nearly fed to lions for a momentary laugh from the audience of the Meerenese arena]]. Without a doubt one of the best examples of a dramatic ButtMonkey.
** Tyrion's sister, Cersei, is also this. She's beautiful, tough, resilient, brave, it's impossible not to like her. However she's sort of trying to be a MagnificentBitch but [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain failing miserably]]. She's spent her life living in fear of a prophecy that one day her life would basically fall apart and then she'd be ignominiously killed so all of her efforts are dedicated to protecting her children and escaping this prophecy through manipulative attempts at power-grabbing that ineveriably blow up in her face. As Petyr Baelish points out, while Cersei desires power, she has no idea how to wield it and while she thinks she is a player in the Game of Thrones, she usually just ends up being a pawn. However she does now have Gregor Clegane on her side so things should start looking up for her.
** Brienne of Tarth. She's an ugly woman warrior in an incredibly sexist world who has had to deal with one of her masters dying, another one mistakenly believing she betrayed them, being a suspect in a murder she didn't commit, attempted rape, getting put in a bear pit for [[PsychoForHire someone's]] sick amusement, and being constantly mocked. Not to mention her issues with [[ShipTease unrequited love]].
** Samwell Tarly. Nothing good happens to Sam. It's never played comically, but you never want to hit the people who do it, because Sam deserves it.
** Theon Greyjoy. He gets ''no'' respect, not even from his own kinsmen. the universe just seems to twist itself into knots in a deliberate effort to ruin Theon's life. On the other hand, he's such a massive jerk that even most of the other men in Westeros don't like him.
** On the "minor character" front, Edmure Tully, Lady Catelyn's sweet-natured brother who had the misfortune to be born a total dingbat with bad judgment and worse luck. Directly or indirectly, his mistakes manage to [[spoiler: lose the war for Robb, get Robb killed, and ensure that his sister will never get her daughters back. He also misses the fact that his king and family are being murdered down the hall because he's too busy having sex, spends half a book standing on a gallows with a rope around his neck as the world's most useless hostage, can't even take a bath without someone threatening to put his baby in a catapult, and had a popular and Actually Pretty Funny song written about his erectile problems. Also, tradition has it that he light his father's pyre by shooting a flaming arrow at it, but he continuously misses, so his uncle has to do it for him.]] Basically, if there's an opportunity for him to humiliate himself, Edmure will find it.
** The people of the Riverlands suffer the most in the war. Their lands have been ravaged by the Lannisters who had House Clegane and the [[PsychoForHire Bloody Mummers]] pillage every settlement in their path, leaving the Riverlands into a corpse filled wasteland.

* The whole point of ''Literature/{{Candide}}''. Everyone is a Butt Monkey.
* Carrie White in Stephen King's ''Literature/{{Carrie}}'' early on is described as both heavily abused at home, school, and summer camp, as well as a perpetual screw-up.

* Creator/PGWodehouse's [[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Bertie Wooster]] could easily be classed a Butt Monkey. He's forever insulted by everyone he knows, berated by his aunts, and is made to perform degrading errands by people who lean on ties of family or friendship to make him do those hideous tasks. Even Jeeves called him "mentally negligible". However, in the end he always avoids the worst, such as marrying girls he dreads and or getting beaten up by jealous guys, and returns to his comfortable IdleRich life.

* Nick Chopper (the Tin Woodsman) was the Butt Monkey of the Literature/LandOfOz. Ordinary Munchkin woodcutter, falls for a girl and wants to marry her. Problem: the girl, her family, or both (continuity wasn't Baum's strong suit) work for the Witch of the East. So, the Witch puts a spell on Nick's axe. When he tries to use it, he ends up dismembering himself. Adding insult to injury, the Witch dangled his hacked-off limbs from her broom like a bad pair of fuzzy dice. Oh, the tinner always came along and replaces his hacked-off parts with tin, but Nick was more machine than man by the time Dorothy found him. The reason he wanted a heart in the first place was so that he could go back to his girl and be a proper husband for her!
** Now here's where the Butt Monkey part kicks in. In ''Tin Woodsman of Oz'', he sets it upon himself to find out what became of Nimmie-Amiee. He finds that she had taken up with another man, Captain Fyter (who was cursed like he was, but isn't much bothered about the lack of a heart). He finds the tinner, who either owed the Witch a favor, was working for her, and possibly both. The tinner now has some "magic glue", and set about making new creations from it. His "first and finest" was a creature named Chopfyt, made from the body parts of both men. Topping it all off? Nimmie-Amiee married Chopfyt to essentially get the best of both worlds.

* Tanith Low from ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant'' by Derek Landy. She was meant to be killed off in the first book but the publishers said it was too depressing so Landy was forced to keep her in. He wasn't pleased about that. Now as punishment for surviving, in every book she gets tortured in some way. Now she's possessed by an evil spirit and has eloped with a psychopathic hitman. She hasn't been seen since.
** Fletcher Renn is traditionally on the receiving end of insults and jibes and got dumped by his beloved girlfriend, Valkyrie Cain, in book 6 though he did get a BigDamnHeroes moment at the end of the book, saving her from the clutches of a {{Yandere}} vampire.
** [[PluckyComicRelief Vaurien Scapegrace and his minion Thrasher]] are nothing but this. They don't actually affect the plot in any way, and keep showing up just to get humiliated by the heroes, or other villains. [[ThrowTheDogABone Things do start to go their way though in the final book.]]

* Most Creator/TomHolt main characters have things go hideously wrong for them more or less nonstop. Everything from jackass parents to being a pawn in century-old {{GambitRoulette}}s to [[spoiler: ''having the Queen of the Fey wipe your girlfriend's memory of you''.]] At the end of the story, they are usually given a lot of money and/or a vast region of land somewhere on the other side of the world as a karmic payoff for putting up with vast amounts of misery.

'''Rincewind:''' No, sir. It's very simple. I'm volunteering. I just don't wish to. But, after all, when did that ever have anything to do with anything?

*** Lampshaded (hilariously) in ''Discworld/TheLastHero''.

** Fletcher Renn is traditionally on the receiving end of insults and jibes and got dumped by his beloved girlfriend, [[JerkSue Valkyrie Cain]] in book 6 though he did get a BigDamnHeroes moment at the end of the book, saving her from the clutches of a {{Yandere}} vampire.

** Ron's favorite [[FictionalSport Quidditch]] team, the Chudley Cannons, are comparable to most teams in [[ButtMonkey/{{Sports}} the Sports page]]. Once the Cannons' drought reached 80 years, their motto "We shall conquer" was changed to "Let's all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best". [[http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/07/30/j-k-rowling-web-chat-transcript/ J.K. Rowling herself]] said the Cannons' only chance at a title would be to "replace the entire team and down several cauldrons of [[GoodLuckCharm Felix Felicis]]".

** Samantha Byrd in ''Be Careful What You Wish For''. She's a [[TheKlutz total klutz]] who is very inept at basketball and is mercilessly picked on by [[AlphaBitch Judith]]. Her home life isn't must better either, as her parents, while not abusive or neglectful, are emotionally aloof towards her and don't relate to her well, and her older brother picks on her just as much. [[spoiler:It says a lot when she decides being magically turned into a bird is the happiest moment of her life.]]

** Theon Greyjoy. He gets ''no'' respect, not even from his own kinsmen. the universe just seems to twist itself into knots in a deliberate effort to ruin Theon's life.

* Douglas Pavlicek from ''Literature/TheOverstory tends to suffer a lot of injury and misfortune throughout the book. He participates in the StanfordPrisonExperiment, and gets shot out of a plane during a war and suffers burns and a bullet wound in addition to falling, gets pepper sprayed in the groin, has a truck crash into his car, falls eighty feet, and ultimately [[spoiler: ends up in prison, while having some kind of tumor that he is too dejected to even bother checking if it's dangerous.]]

** Sam. Nothing good happens to Sam. It's never played comically, but you never want to hit the people who do it, because Sam deserves it.

* Sarah Maas in ''The Curse of Camp Cold Lake'', though admittedly we don't know much of her life aside from her horrible camp experience except that she had trouble making friends. After she accidentally offends each of her bunkmates, they take it upon themselves to bully and shun her to the point where she becomes the camp pariah.
* Matt Amsterdam in ''Don't Go to Sleep'' is TheUnfavorite to his older brother and sister whom his mother believes he should look up to and respect since they take care of him when she's busy, when in reality they bully him and make sure he's miserable. At the end of the book, he gains greater appreciation for his life and family after all the alternate realities he endured due to falling asleep in the guest room, though said life and family doesn't get any better.

** Ricky in ''Calling All Creeps'' is constantly harassed by everyone at school, most notably the [[GangOfBullies four eighth graders who pick on him sadistically]], and every time Ricky blows his chance to stay on the school paper, it's always ''THEIR'' fault. [[spoiler:[[FaceHeelTurn It says a lot when he decides to enslave the whole school at the end when they refuse to listen to his warnings and go back to picking on him.]]]]

* Harry Dresden. Practically the poster boy for IronWoobie and for good reason. His mother was murdered by magic as she gave birth to him, his father was apparently also murdered - though he appeared to have an aneurysm - when he was six, his adoptive father and teacher saw him as nothing more than a future EliteMook, his [[FirstLove 'first everything']] appears to turn on him and go bad leading to him appearing to kill her in the duel that kills his adoptive father. Oh, and he makes a deal with the third most powerful faerie in the Winter Court, after the two senior Queens, the Leanansidhe. Remember this, it'll come back later. Then he gets put on trial for murder and only survives because Ebenezar [=McCoy=] [[spoiler:(his grandfather)]] stands up for him. He is thereafter on probation. After he finally escapes probation, he has to deal with living in a musty basement, trying to do good and being looked down on as a freak and weirdo at best or a walking TykeBomb.

* Oh so many protagonist from any ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' novel:

** Michael Webster in ''The Cuckoo Clock of Doom'' is blatantly TheUnfavorite of the family, as his parents dote on their youngest daughter, [[EnfanteTerrible Tara]], who has an excellent reputation of making Michael's life miserable, and when he does tell them about his sister's torments, they refuse to concede this and assume he's lying. What's more is that even back when he was as young as four, it's revealed that his own father insinuates he's stupid just because he didn't tie his shoe sooner. {spoiler:Thanks to his sister's birth year being knocked off the cuckoo clock after Michael returns from his time traveling expedition, Tara no longer exists, and for all the shit she put Michael through prior to the ending, it's implied that he probably might never go back in time to get her back.]]

* Oh so many protagonist from any ''Literature/Goosebumps'' novel:

%%** Evan Ross in ''ALL'' the ''Monster Blood'' books. He's constantly abandoned by his parents to relatives who don't like him, gets used as a guinea pig by his nerdy cousin

* Everyone other than the Bastard or the PFY in Simon Travaglia's BastardOperatorFromHell series of short stories.