History FreudianExcuse / WesternAnimation

** Bloberta herself had issues with her parents. Much like Clay, she got along better with one parent (her father) than her other -- her mother who clearly showed ParentalFavoritism toward her other siblings. She was also afraid of never getting married, as everyone around her in a [[TheFifties fifties]]-esque Moralton was.

->'''Malory''': He'll be back! Crying for his mommy! Just like that Christmas break when I moved and forgot to give my new address to his stupid boarding school. I mean, he rode the train into the city all by himself; he couldn't pick up a phone book? Nine years old and bawling in that police station like a little girl! Huh -- what's that tell you?
->'''Cheryl''': Kind of a lot, actually.
--> --'''[[WesternAnimation/{{Archer}} Malory Archer]]''', ''unintentionally explaining her son's [[{{Jerkass}} personality]]''

* ''WesternAnimation/MyAdventuresWithSuperman'': Lois Lane implicitly explains to Clark in "[[Recap/MyAdventuresWithSupermanS1E03LetsGoToIvoTowerYouSay Let's Go to Ivo Tower, You Say]]", You Say" that the reason she's almost self-destructively driven to uncover the truth of anything is because [[spoiler:her father never told bothered to tell her anything while she was growing up, including the fact that her mother was terminally ill.]]

** [[Characters/TheSimpsonsCharlesMontgomeryBurns Mr. Burns]]. Despite being an evil, cruel and heartless businessman who has done a lot of evil things, we find out that in his childhood he was a [[CheerfulChild light-hearted and pleasant child]], who was even nicknamed "Happy" because of his pleasant nature and had very loving parents. But his own grandfather, a twisted and heartless millionaire, lured him away from his loving parents and forcibly adopted Burns. His grandfather was a coldhearted businessman who cared only about greed and power, and is directly responsible for transforming Burns from a carefree and pleasant boy to a miserable evil old man. There's also the loss of his teddy bear, Bobo, but that may or may not have actually contributed to it. He ''did'' resolve to change his evil ways once the bear was returned to him, but unfortunately couldn't take note of it since he didn't have a pen handy.

** [[Characters/AmphibiaKingAndrias King Andrias]] is an example of this, being manipulated by his father. Shortly after gaining power, [[spoiler:Andrias's friend Leif]] has a vision after touching the [[AncientArtifact Calamity Box]], Leif has a [[spoiler:Doomsday vision of the world being destroyed by the moon, which is actually {{Foreshadowing}} and does happen, but it does deeply effect him when he thinks Leif betrayed him and ran away, which was only made worse by his father being a ManipulativeBastard.]]

** [[Characters/AmphibiaSashaWaybright Sasha Waybright]] also appears to follow this principle, as it is revealed in "A Froggy Little Christmas" that her parents are divorced.

** [[Characters/GravityFallsGrunkleStan "Grunkle" Stan Pines]] has a pretty painful one that explains why he's such a greedy, miserly con-artist: [[spoiler: he accidentally ruined his brother Ford's chances of getting into a top-tier university and potentially becoming a millionaire scientist. This causes their father to disown Stan, claiming that he won't be welcomed back until he can repay the family for the potential income they lost because of his actions. He lives a miserable existence well into his 30s and, after a fight with Ford causes Ford to become lost in another dimension, channels his talent for lying into turning his brother's home into a tourist trap, allowing him to maintain Ford's home and secret lab so he can fix the dimension gate to bring his brother home. His greediness comes from his father's ultimatum making him believe that earning money was his only value to his family, and considering his only talents were lying and fighting while his brother was a genius, his self-esteem wasn't good enough to let him refute that]].

** [[Characters/StevenUniverseAmethyst Amethyst]] [[StepfordSmiler typically acts mischievous and rambunctious]] to relieve herself of the fact that she is the product of Ancient Space Nazis, and her troubled past including [[spoiler:A FriendlessBackground in the Kindergarten, and watching her mother figure die before her very eyes]].

** Marceline acts like a rambunctious prankster to distract herself from the fact that she is immortal, and will live long enough to see all of her closest friends die before her very eyes. If she even allows herself to make any real emotional connections, that is, as she had a troubled childhood wherein everyone close to her would ultimately abandon her for one reason or another: her birth mother when she was a child ([[spoiler:so she wouldn't have to watch her die of radiation sickness]]); her surrogate father when she was a preteen ([[spoiler:who turns out to have been Simon, who left when the crown's influence was starting to be far too much]]); her birth father shortly after that (he was just a deadbeat dad in general); and a tribe of humans in her late teens ([[spoiler:they wanted to leave the continent that would become Ooo for safer lands]]).

** [[Characters/AdventureTimeIceKing The Ice King]] has one revealed for all of his obsessive princess-kidnapping in the episode "Holly Jolly Secrets". [[spoiler: He obsessively kidnaps princesses in order to replace the "princess" he lost to his sanity degraded by an ArtifactOfDoom, his fiancée Betty, when he used to live in the pre-apocalypse world as Simon Petrikov.]]

** Marceline acts like a rambunctious prankster to distract herself from the fact that she is immortal, and will live long enough to see all of her closest friends die before her very eyes. Not to mention the fact that she has had a troubled past including [[spoiler: Being abandoned during/after the mushroom war and seeing her surrogate father, Simon Petrikov become the crazy Ice King.]]
** Inversion: [[Characters/AdventureTimeFinn Finn]] is a righteous hero because of an experience he had as a baby. He was alone in the woods, crying and stuck to a leaf with his own excrement. Several people passed him by and flat-out ignored his cries. Margaret and Joshua came by and picked him up, took him in, and raised him as their own; thus, Finn developed his ChronicHeroSyndrome. (He still cries when he poops. Thanks for being cool, guys.) However, he still has a great deal of personal problems such as locking traumatic moments into a mental vault. Having been a hero since 12 or younger and only having his adoptive older brother as a mentor doesn't help with dealing with the possibility of being the last human, especially since as he grows older, he won't have anyone who can help him with more complex matters.

** The villainous [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderZuko Prince Zuko]] was raised in a nightmarish, back-stabbing court where his sister was always more successful and favored, his once-renowned war hero uncle breaks down after losing his son in battle only to later lose his place on the throne, his [[MysteriousParent mother killed his grandfather the night she disappeared]] in order to keep her husband from killing Zuko, and his [[WellDoneSonGuy father]] not only publicly ridiculed him when giving him his trademark [[GoodScarsEvilScars scar]] and banishment from home, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking but is voiced by Mark Hamill]]. Let the ''Franchise/StarWars'' parallels begin! (Even his voice actor couldn't deny it.) And the key motivation of the outburst that got him burned and banished was [[TheMenFirst caring about the common soldiers]] of his father's army and being morally offended by a [[{{Jerkass}} general]] calling new recruits [[WeHaveReserves fresh meat]]. Show traits that could lead you to be a caring leader someday, experience agonizing pain and lose everything you have. Is there such a thing as a Skinnerian Excuse?

* The eponymous Dr. Thaddeus S. 'Rusty' Venture of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' has his horrific upbringing by his father to blame for his {{Jerkass}} tendencies, something that Season 3 goes out of its way several times to point out. Several times, it's hinted that Rusty was forced to murder several people in his childhood by his father. That would screw up anyone.

[[PracticallyJoker Quackerjack]] was the owner of a toy company that went out of business. Quackerjack blames and attacks things like video games, parents, and various toy fads for eclipsing his own works' popularity, [[NeverMyFault never stopping to think that his highly dangerous toys were why his company folded]].

** The Ice King has one revealed for all of his obsessive princess-kidnapping in the episode "Holly Jolly Secrets". [[spoiler: He obsessively kidnaps princesses in order to replace the "princess" he lost to his sanity degraded by an ArtifactOfDoom, his fiancée Betty, when he used to live in the pre-apocalypse world as Simon Petrikov.]]

** Roger reveals that the reason he's such as selfish {{Jerkass}} is because it would literally kill his people to be nice: if they don't "let their bitchiness out" on a regular basis, it will turn into bile and poison them to death. Despite this, the Smith family does not seem to believe him on this as at that time, they were trying to reform him and to add insult to injury, Roger still gets chewed out for his behavior even though such behavior is necessary for him to survive. Of course, this still doesn't absolve Roger of the numerous crimes and atrocities he's committed. There's a fine line between being rude and bitchy and being an amoral sociopath, and Roger's crossed that line numerous times. His "Ricky Spanish" persona alone has done such things as defecating in the chest of a person undergoing open heart surgery to stabbing Avery Bullock's wife to death, all ForTheEvulz. Roger develops another one of these excuses when he finds out that he was sent to Earth as a crash test dummy, which devastates him for a month. It turns out that his own race lied to him about why he was being sent to Earth by telling him that he was "The Decider" and that he was to decide the fate of Earth. It's unknown why Roger deserved any of this but it's implied in a later episode that Emperor Zing did this to Roger in revenge for having an affair.
** Stan Smith is frequently {{abusive|Dad}} towards his son Steve, in hopes of toughening him up because of his own history as an unpopular kid, and in "Bully for Steve", a victim of a cruel bully himself. It's also revealed that part of the reason he does such a terrible job helping his son through any ComingOfAge moments is that his own father was never there to do it for him so he literally has no idea how to handle it. He also had to deal with his mother's antics during his childhood as well.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' episode "Mutantcy on the Bouncy", the villain Cement Head states that he turned to a life of crime because his parents disowned him for being born a cement mutant.

** In the second season, it's revealed that [[[[Characters/MiraculousLadybugChloeBourgeois Chloé Bourgeois]]; largely acts like a jerk out of a desire to impress her mother, who [[MissingMom left when Chloé was little]] to focus on her career. Of course, when Audrey comes back to Paris, she [[AbusiveParents constantly belittles Chloé]] -- even doing so ''on live television'' -- and doesn't even [[MaliciousMisnaming get her name right]] until Chloé brags about what a jerk she is. It doesn't help that [[DotingParent her father]] constantly [[SpoiledBrat spoils]] her, implicitly in an attempt to fill the void caused by Audrey's absence.

** Mr. Burns. Despite being an evil, cruel and heartless businessman who has done a lot of evil things, we find out that in his childhood he was a [[CheerfulChild light-hearted and pleasant child]], who was even nicknamed "Happy" because of his pleasant nature and had very loving parents. But his own grandfather, a twisted and heartless millionaire, lured him away from his loving parents and forcibly adopted Burns. His grandfather was a coldhearted businessman who cared only about greed and power, and is directly responsible for transforming Burns from a carefree and pleasant boy to a miserable evil old man. There's also the loss of his teddy bear, Bobo, but that may or may not have actually contributed to it. He ''did'' resolve to change his evil ways once the bear was returned to him, but unfortunately couldn't take note of it since he didn't have a pen handy.
** When [[EnfantTerrible Bart]] was five, [[note]]If you ignore the series' NegativeContinuity that Bart's always a been a bad kid since birth in the earlier seasons.[[/note]]his [[SadistTeacher preschool teacher]] belittled him and verbally abused him to the point that Bart considers [[DrivenToSuicide suicide.]] This probably lead Bart being a troublemaker that we know today.

** Homer's mother abandoned him because she was wanted by the law, while his father told him he would never amount to anything.

** [[FatBastard Cartman]] has a plausible one: [[DisappearedDad he has never had a dad]], his "[[WithFriendsLikeThese friends]]" [[YouAreFat bullied him nonstop about his obesity]], and [[SonOfAWhore his mother Liane is a prostitute]] who spoils her son to fill the void of not having any real friends. When she starts to discipline Cartman, he shapes up. [[StatusQuoIsGod But it doesn't (usually) last.]]

** Amethyst [[StepfordSmiler typically acts mischievous and rambunctious]] to relieve herself of the fact that she is the product of Ancient Space Nazis, and her troubled past including [[spoiler:A FriendlessBackground in the Kindergarten, and watching her mother figure die before her very eyes]].

** Lapis is a prominent example, as she nearly attacked the Crystal Gems (except Steven, the only one she liked) for leaving her imprisoned in a mirror for 5000 years (and because [[spoiler: the reason she got trapped in the mirror in the first place was because she was mistaken for an agent of the Crystal Gems by Homeworld forces]]).

** Peridot becomes hostile towards the Crystal Gems for destroying the things she worked hard to build, though this ends later as the series goes on. We get an explanation for this in "Too Short To Ride": [[spoiler: Peridot treats technology as an emotional crutch since, being an Era 2 Gem made for building and maintaining technology, she has no magic powers like Quartz gems or even Era 1 Pearls, who she has been taught are beneath even herself in the Gem hierarchy. Technology is literally the only thing she has, so her anger may stem from the Gems destroying what she considers her only viable contribution to a society that demands usefulness from all its subjects]].
** Pearl's crippling self-esteem issues, and all her issues that branch off from that, are because as a Pearl she was literally created to just look pretty and take orders. Despite her intelligence and insistence that she's no longer a slave, she still feels like she's only useful when she's being told what to do, fueling her emotional over-dependency on Rose and, later, Garnet.
** Rose Quartz turns out to have a spoilery one for her InnocentlyInsensitive tendencies.[[spoiler: As Pink Diamond, she was both isolated from her subjects and never taken seriously by the other Diamonds, and she lost one of the only friends she was allowed to have, her Pearl, when she injured her in a fit of rage over the other Diamonds' abuse (it's implied Pink never forgave herself for this). Pink basically had to teach herself social interaction from scratch, and developed bad habits it would take millennia to break.]]

** Inversion: Finn is a righteous hero because of an experience he had as a baby. He was alone in the woods, crying and stuck to a leaf with his own excrement. Several people passed him by and flat-out ignored his cries. Margaret and Joshua came by and picked him up, took him in, and raised him as their own; thus, Finn developed his ChronicHeroSyndrome. (He still cries when he poops. Thanks for being cool, guys.) However, he still has a great deal of personal problems such as locking traumatic moments into a mental vault. Having been a hero since 12 or younger and only having his adoptive older brother as a mentor doesn't help with dealing with the possibility of being the last human, especially since as he grows older, he won't have anyone who can help him with more complex matters.

** The title character has several -- and there's more than a hint that these continued piling up even during his adulthood. To start, there were his [[AbusiveParents parents]], who [[ResentfulGuardian resented him for the simple reason of being alive]] as they were [[ShotgunWedding forced to marry each other because of it]], with his mother, Beatrice, creating his InferioritySuperiorityComplex by giving him no intrinsical value other than to compensate for what he had done. There's also the way [[ALessonLearnedTooWell he took at heart the advice given to him]] by [[BrokenAce Secretariat.]] Still, he was able to grow up into a semi-normal horse.....who slowly lost his shit in between [[TheChainsOfCommanding the constant rehearsals of his show]], his [[WellDoneSonGuy still]] [[DesperatelyCravesAffection underlying]] [[LoveHungry issues]] accentuated by [[StageMom his mother still hanging up on his every word]], and last but not least, [[CorruptTheCutie his increasing corruption]], caused by [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll drifting around Hollywoo(d)]] and his overall [[TheCorruptible vulnerable, addictive]] nature. Most telling is his guilt at having [[EtTuBrute betrayed his friend and mentor, Herb Kazzaz]], for the sake of his career and [[TheShowMustGoOn keeping his and Herb's show ''Horsin' Around'' going]] and his [[TheOneThatGotAway unconfessed love towards Charlotte]]. By the end, the complications and inability to navigate through life, as well as [[JadeColouredGlasses his disillusion at achieving happiness on his own in any form]] has led [=BoJack=] to his [[TheEeyore current style of living]], all while being [[InternalizedCategorism convinced that he can't change at all]], [[SelfFulfillingProphecy which]] [[TragicHero only dooms him to wreak havoc on his few remains of humanity]]. This is ultimately gets {{Deconstructed|Trope}} by [[DumbassHasAPoint Todd]] in Season 3, after [[spoiler:finding out [=BoJack=] had sex with his girlfriend Emily]] and Bojack attempts to justify it by being drunk.

** Grunkle Stan has a pretty painful one that explains why he's such a greedy, miserly con-artist: [[spoiler: he accidentally ruined his brother Ford's chances of getting into a top-tier university and potentially becoming a millionaire scientist. This causes their father to disown Stan, claiming that he won't be welcomed back until he can repay the family for the potential income they lost because of his actions. He lives a miserable existence well into his 30s and, after a fight with Ford causes Ford to become lost in another dimension, channels his talent for lying into turning his brother's home into a tourist trap, allowing him to maintain Ford's home and secret lab so he can fix the dimension gate to bring his brother home. His greediness comes from his father's ultimatum making him believe that earning money was his only value to his family, and considering his only talents were lying and fighting while his brother was a genius, his self-esteem wasn't good enough to let him refute that]].

** Harley's parents were emotionally abusive throughout her younger years, [[spoiler: and [[OffingTheOffspring try to kill her in the present day]] [[ParentalBetrayal for a bounty]].]]

** Ms. Helga G. Pataki, ooh boy. Ever since she was a little girl, she has always lived in her older sister's shadow and hardly got any attention from her parents. One day, because her parents were too busy listening to Olga play the piano, she walked herself to and from preschool, had her lunchbox stolen by a dog and fell in a mud puddle. The only one nice to her on that day? [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe Arnold, who complimented her bow and held out his umbrella for her]]. The next day, after Harold stole her crackers, he gave her his. Then all the kids started laughing at her when she fawned over him. Then she snapped and became the brash person she was in the present. She had a whole episode dedicated to explaining her character, which was generous of the writers to do.

** [[BigBad Amon's]] [[UnreliableNarrator Alleged]] BackStory is one of these. According to him, he was once a simple FarmBoy in a family of non-benders who were bullied and extorted by local firebending criminals, who killed his parents and permanently burned Amon's face after his father tried to stand up to the firebenders. Amon is revealed to be lying. However, [[spoiler:he and his brother, Tarrlock, still have a genuine one, having been raised by a crazed father who sought to use them as {{Tykebomb}}s against the city that once imprisoned him.]]

*** Aang, himself, has a Freudian excuse or two for his sub-par parenting. The first being that he was raised by monks; he has no idea how to be a part of a nuclear family. The second is his guilt for having been frozen and unable to help defend his people from the Fire Nation's genocidal attack on the Air Nomads. He focuses on Tenzin, his only child to have been born an airbender, because he's desperate to preserve the Air Nomads' culture and way of life.
** Season 4's [[BigBad Kuvira]] also turns out to be this, [[spoiler: though unlike many examples, the excuse itself is actually fairly [[AntiVillain Heroic]], befitting her FallenHero status. She was abandoned as a child and had to live on her own until Suyin took her in. Thus she doesn't want the Earth Kingdom to suffer like she did in the wake of the government collapsing, it's just that this belief eventually twisted her into a KnightTemplar WellIntentionedExtremist.]]

** In the second season, it's revealed that [[AlphaBitch Chloé]] largely acts like a jerk out of a desire to impress her mother, who [[MissingMom left when Chloé was little]] to focus on her career. Of course, when Audrey comes back to Paris, she [[AbusiveParents constantly belittles Chloé]] -- even doing so ''on live television'' -- and doesn't even [[MaliciousMisnaming get her name right]] until Chloé brags about what a jerk she is. It doesn't help that [[DotingParent her father]] constantly [[SpoiledBrat spoils]] her, implicitly in an attempt to fill the void caused by Audrey's absence.
** While [[TheLancer Adrien]] isn't a bad person overall, he's shown a [[EntitledToHaveYou nasty possessive streak toward Ladybug]] and [[ExtremeDoormat an inability to assert himself socially]], both of which stem from his upbringing. Adrien's father, wealthy fashion mogul [[AbusiveParents Gabriel Agreste]], obsessively [[ControlFreak micromanaged his upbringing]] while at the same time [[ParentalNeglect utterly failing to spend any time with his son]] (and it doesn't help that his own love for his wife Emilie is not overly healthy, as [[spoiler:his reaction to her going comatose was to become [[BigBad Hawk Moth]]]]). Not helping matters is that Adrien, due to his father's controlling nature, was unable to make any friends other than Chloé, who as mentioned above has her own issues [[note]]The episode "Gorizilla" implies that Adrien's mother had a professional association with the Bourgeious family, indicating that might be the reason Gabriel tolerated Chloé[[/note]]. The result? By the time the show begins, Adrien is fairly weak-willed and has some incredibly unhealthy views on love. That being said, being around more positive influences like Nino and Marinette is helping him grow past these flaws.

** Then, there's Starlight Glimmer. The creation of "Our Town" and getting the ponies there to surrender their Cutie Marks to be "equal" was because [[spoiler:as a filly, her best friend Sunburst gained his Cutie Mark, then disappeared for Celestia's school. Because of this, she feared of making any other friends because another Cutie Mark or even another ''difference'' could cause it to be ruined]].

** Discord, in his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Tirek, implies that Tirek thirsts for power because he feels [[InferioritySuperiorityComplex inferior to his Father]], king Vorak.

* Dr. Doofenshmirtz from ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' sometimes has these, played for laughs -- as part of his speech, he'll refer to some unpleasant past event that motivated his current act of villainy. Possibly the most outlandish was his deciding to steal all the lawn gnomes in the Tri-State Area because as a child, he had been forced to take the place of his family's lawn gnome after it was repossessed.

*** Catra has some serious tendencies toward NeverMyFault, usually blaming Adora for anything that goes wrong because Adora didn't stop it. This can be traced back to when Shadow Weaver would constantly punish Catra for her mistakes, while chastising Adora for not having stopped it, leading Catra to develop the habit of always having Adora there to take the fall. Having also pretty much no meaningful relationships outside of Adora also means that she takes her perceived betrayal ''very'' hard.
*** The same abuse caused Adora to have a serious GuiltComplex and a need to justify her existence. Since she grew up being constantly told that Catra's actions were her responsibility, she grows overly protective of her friends, frequently stifling them out of a desire to help and protect them. Being constantly put on a pedestal in an environment that does not tolerate failure also means that she feels she needs to live up to everyone's expectations, or else she has failed. This guilt complex is so extreme that when someone finally asks what ''she'' wants, the only thing she can say is "what's best for Etheria".
** Glimmer was raised in a war, and lost her father at a very young age. This caused her mother, the queen, to be overly protective and careful. Because of this, Glimmer has a InferioritySuperiorityComplex the size of a mountain, manifesting as a constant need to prove herself, usually ignoring her mother's orders so she can prove how right she is. This complete disregard for orders and safety becomes a big problem in Season 4, when she's [[spoiler:the queen, and still feels the need to prove how right she is, while also having the power to steamroll any objections]].
** Hordak [[spoiler:is a defective clone of the GalacticConqueror Horde Prime. His "youth" was spent as the only being with self-awareness in an army of non-sapient clones who's only purpose is to act out Prime's will. Further complicating things, Hordak has no idea that his "defect" is just his capacity for independent thought, so he's constantly trying to prove his capabilities when Prime would rather he just lie down and die.]]
** A FreezeFrameBonus implies that Entrapta was raised by robots, which would explain her ''complete'' lack of social skills.

** King Andrias is an example of this, being manipulated by his father. Shortly after gaining power, [[spoiler:Andrias's friend Leif]] has a vision after touching the [[AncientArtifact Calamity Box]], Leif has a [[spoiler:Doomsday vision of the world being destroyed by the moon, which is actually {{Foreshadowing}} and does happen, but it does deeply effect him when he thinks Leif betrayed him and ran away, which was only made worse by his father being a ManipulativeBastard.]]
** Sasha Waybright also appears to follow this principle, as it is revealed in "A Froggy Little Christmas" that her parents are divorced.

** The villainous Prince Zuko was raised in a nightmarish, back-stabbing court where his sister was always more successful and favored, his once-renowned war hero uncle breaks down after losing his son in battle only to later lose his place on the throne, his [[MysteriousParent mother killed his grandfather the night she disappeared]] in order to keep her husband from killing Zuko, and his [[WellDoneSonGuy father]] not only publicly ridiculed him when giving him his trademark [[GoodScarsEvilScars scar]] and banishment from home, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking but is voiced by Mark Hamill]]. Let the ''Franchise/StarWars'' parallels begin! (Even his voice actor couldn't deny it.) And the key motivation of the outburst that got him burned and banished was [[TheMenFirst caring about the common soldiers]] of his father's army and being morally offended by a [[{{Jerkass}} general]] calling new recruits [[WeHaveReserves fresh meat]]. Show traits that could lead you to be a caring leader someday, experience agonizing pain and lose everything you have. Is there such a thing as a Skinnerian Excuse?
** The series finale gives Azula her FreudianExcuse: due to Ozai's [[TykeBomb raising of her]], her mother was distant from her throughout her childhood, leading Azula to believe that she didn't love her and only loved Zuko who, according to her father's teachings, is doing everything wrong and ''shouldn't'' be loved. Her upbringing also gives her her extreme perfectionism, as she's afraid that her father will not love her if she screws up even once. She even {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it in the BeachEpisode, when ''all'' the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad teen villains']] Freudian excuses come out.

** In Ozai's case, it's implied he was TheUnfavourite to his father Azulon, at best a SpareToTheThrone. ''The Search'' comic series gives another possible reason why Ozai is abusive to Zuko: [[spoiler:he thinks Zuko is the love child of Ursa and her childhood friend Ikem after reading his wife's letter to Ikem. It turns out that he knew all along that Zuko was his son and the reason why he abused Zuko was he was punishing Ursa for her lie.]]

** All of Vlad's evil tendencies were blamed on the pivotal portal experiment in college. But in spite of disfiguring his face, the positives started to pile up after a while. Vlad's [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney insanely rich]], and has super powers. What more could you want? The answer: love. Vlad lost the woman he loved to the one who accidentally caused the accident to start with, and Vlad's been bitter and lonely ever since. {{Deconstruction}} as the excuse is demolished when Danny goes back in time to try and stop the accident. However, circumstances are changed to where ''Jack'' is the victim of the accident. Vlad is married to Maddie and seems to be pretty stable. We later discover that he forbade Maddie from doing ghost-catching and he kept Jack and Maddie from communicating. Ultimately, it shows Jack and Maddie were meant to be together and that Vlad was doomed from his own bitterness.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': "The Last Adventure" reveals where Bradford Buzzard's vendetta against the [=McDuck=] family stems from. [[spoiler: As Isabella Finch's grandson and the first Junior Woodchuck, Bradford was dragged along on several dangerous adventures under the pretense of them being "educational". He grew up to resent adventure altogether, came to the conclusion that the world was far too dangerous for its own good, and set on a quest to eradicate everything adventurous. Scrooge [=McDuck=], being the patron saint of adventure and epicenter of all sorts of craziness that he is, was the thing Bradford concluded he needed to curtail most of all.]]

** Sarah Lynn within the same show had a [[StageMom manipulative, dream-crushing mom]] who insisted she continue down the [[FormerChildStar child star]] path as opposed to becoming [[ICouldaBeenAContender an architect]], a dream that would carry on even into her adult years, because [[CastingCouch "Mommy didn't do what she did to that Star Search producer for [Sarah Lynn] to be an architect"]]. It's heavily implied that her stepdad was [[PaedoHunt sexually abusive.]] From the more mild telling to Joelle that she didn't have any friends her age because she was homeschooled by her stepfather "...[who was] a photographer.," to the more telling offhanded comment about being able to [[ItMakesSenseInContext distinguish the taste of bear fur]] because "[her] stepdad was a bear", to the most telling design the artists gave him – one that imitated Terry Richardson. That being said, she had an unexplained DisappearedDad and looked up to [=BoJack=] as a [[ParentalSubstitute surrogate father]], even though he would use her in about a decade and a half to come. All of this has given an explanation for her extreme [[AddledAddict drug abuse]], slight ElectraComplex, and ultimately for being [=BoJack=] if he were a human female about two decades younger... who was actually successful in years following ''Horsin' Around''.

** Every single [[MoralEventHorizon horrifying thing]] Dr. Rusty Venture has ever done can be traced back to his just as horrifying childhood; more specifically, his complicated relationship with his father, which has left him with some very odd (and neglectful and abusive) notions about how to play father to his own teenage sons. This trope was played with in "The Doctor is Sin," in which Rusty is forced to relive "the moment that his father went from protector to tormentor/rival," and drawn upon even more heavily in "Assisted Suicide," with Dr. Orpheus entering and traversing Rusty's subconscious mind.

** Sarah Lynn within the same show had a [[StageMom manipulative, dream-crushing mom]] who insisted she continue down the [[FormerChildStar child star]] path as opposed to becoming [[ICouldaBeenAContender an architect]], a dream that would carry on even into her adult years, because [[CastingCouch "Mommy didn't do what she did to that Star Search producer for [Sarah Lynn] to be an architect"]]. It's heavily implied that her stepdad was [[PaedoHunt sexually abusive.]] From the more mild telling to Joelle that she didn't have any friends her age because she was homeschooled by her stepfather "...[who was] a photographer.," to the more telling offhanded comment about being able to [[ItMakesSenseInContext distinguish the taste of bear fur]] because "[her] stepdad was a bear", to the most telling design the artists gave him – one that imitated Terry Richardson. That being said, she had an unexplained DisappearedDad and looked up to [=BoJack=] as a [[ParentalSubstitute surrogate father]], even though he would use her in about a decade and a half to come. All of this has given an explanation for her extreme [[AddledAddict drug abuse]], AnythingThatMoves attitude, slight ElectraComplex, and ultimately for being [=BoJack=] if he were a human female about two decades younger... who was actually successful in years following ''Horsin' Around''.

* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'' short "Sonnie's Edge". Sonnie is a confident and tough-as-nails rape survivor who participates in evening {{Kaiju}} BeastlyBloodSports, and she always wins. Many characters believe her edge is the anger and hate she still feels over being gang-raped and torn apart. [[spoiler:It's not that. [[EmergencyTransformation Sonnie was so badly injured by her rapists that they had to permanently implant her consciousness into Khanivore]] and she controls her otherwise brain-dead human body via an implant chip. That's why she keeps winning: [[HadToBeSharp because she is the only competitor who is really fighting for her life every night]].]]

** In Ozai's case, it's implied he was TheUnfavourite to his father Azulon. ''The Search'' comic series gives another possible reason why Ozai is abusive to Zuko: [[spoiler:he thinks Zuko is the love child of Ursa and her childhood friend Ikem after reading his wife's letter to Ikem. It turns out that he knew all along that Zuko was his son and the reason why he abused Zuko was he was punishing Ursa for her lie.]]

** Sarah Lynn within the same show had a [[StageMom manipulative, dream-crushing mom]] who insisted she continue down the [[FormerChildStar child star]] path as opposed to becoming [[ICouldaBeenAContender an architect]], a dream that would carry on even into her adult years, because [[CastingCouch "Mommy didn't do what she did to that Star Search producer for [Sarah Lynn] to be an architect"]]. It's heavily implied that her stepdad was [[PaedoHunt sexually abusive.]] From the more mild telling to Joelle that she didn't have any friends her age because she was homeschooled by her stepfather "...[who was] a photographer.," to the more telling offhanded comment about being able to [[ItMakesSenseInContext distinguish the taste of bear fur]] because "[her] stepdad was a bear", to the most telling design the artists gave him – one that imitated Terry Richardson. That being said, she had an unexplained DisappearedDad and looked up to [=BoJack=] as a [[ParentalSubstitute surrogate father]], even though he would use her in about a decade and a half to come. All of this has given an explanation for her extreme [[AddledAddict drug abuse]], AnythingThatMoves attitude, slight [[OedipusComplex Electra complex]], and ultimately for being [=BoJack=] if he were a human female about two decades younger... who was actually successful in years following Horsin' Around.

** Sarah Lynn within the same show had a [[StageMom manipulative, dream-crushing mom]] who insisted she continue down the [[FormerChildStar child star]] path as opposed to becoming [[ICouldaBeenAContender an architect]], a dream that would carry on even into her adult years, because [[CastingCouch "Mommy didn't do what she did to that Star Search producer for [Sarah Lynn] to be an architect"]]. It's heavily implied that her stepdad was [[PaedoHunt sexually abusive.]] From the more mild telling to Joelle that she didn't have any friends her age because she was homeschooled by her stepfather "...[who was] a photographer.," to the more telling offhanded comment about being able to [[ItMakesSenseInContext distinguish the taste of bear fur]] because "[her] stepdad was a bear", to the most telling design the artists gave him – one that imitated Terry Richardson. That being said, she had an unexplained DisappearedDad and looked up to [=BoJack=] as a [[ParentalSubstitute surrogate father]], even though he would use her in about a decade and a half to come. All of this has given an explanation for her extreme [[AddledAddict drug abuse]], AnythingThatMoves attitude, slight ElectraComplex, and ultimately for being [=BoJack=] if he were a human female about two decades younger... who was actually successful in years following Horsin' Around.

** King Andrias is an example of this, being manipulated by his father. Shortly after gaining power, [[spoiler:Andrias's friend Leif]] has a vision after touching the [[AncientArtifact Calamity Box]], Leif has a [[spoiler:Doomsday vision of the world being destroyed by the moon, which is actually Main/Foreshadowing and does happen, but it does deeply effect him when he thinks Leif betrayed him and ran away, which was only made worse by his father being a Main/ManipulativeBastard.]]