History IronWoobie / VideoGames

** Jack from [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 the second game]] is this and JerkassWoobie. She was kidnapped as an infant from Cerberus, forced into an experiment that was pure horror day in, day out, for the sake of finding out if trauma increases biotic power. When she escaped, she flew with pirates, was used as a sex object repeatedly, dropped a moon onto a colony. Providing if she survives the events of the second game, she will cement herself as this as she becomes a BadassTeacher who is hellbent to the safety of the biotic children under her watch. While she is abrasive as always, she is more than willing to socialize with others.
--->'''Jack:''' ...and that's the boring shit.

** Jack from [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 the second game]]. She was kidnapped as an infant from Cerberus, forced into an experiment that was pure horror day in, day out, for the sake of finding out if trauma increases biotic power. When she escaped, she flew with pirates, was used as a sex object repeatedly, dropped a moon onto a colony...

** Link is but 10 years old at most at the start of the game. [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive Ganondorf's ambitions kill the closest thing Link has to a father figure]] and force him to leave the forest he calls his home and face monsters no child his age should be getting close to in order to stop Ganondorf from reaching the Triforce, [[AlForNothing only for it all to be for naught]] as [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Link unwittingly opens the path to the Sacred Realm for him]] ([[EvilGloating something Ganondorf makes sure to rub in]]). Then [[RipVanWinkle he's put to sleep]] for [[TimeSkip seven long years]] because otherwise he would be too young and weak to even try to amend his mistake, and as he travels the land to awaken the Six Sages he learns that not only has Hyrule turned into a dystopic hellhole while he was taking a power nap, but also that he's not even a real Kokiri and thus never really belonged in the forest, all while the monsters he faces become increasingly nightmarish and his former friends either fail to recognize him after his growth spurt or [[MarriedToTheJob part ways with him permanently when they awaken as Sages]]. But does he lose heart through any of this? No; he carries on forward, slays evil where he finds it and slowly returns peace to Hyrule. His sheer {{determinat|or}}ion becomes the reason why he bears the Triforce of Courage: no matter what terrors he faces, he never gives up and never stops fighting.

** Link is but 10 years old at most at the start of the game. Ganondorf's ambitions kill the closest thing Link has to a father figure and force him to leave the forest he calls his home and face monsters no child his age should be getting close to in order to stop Ganondorf from reaching the Triforce, [[AlForNothing only for it all to be for naught]] as [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Link unwittingly opens the path to the Sacred Realm for him]] ([[EvilGloating something Ganondorf makes sure to rub in]]). Then [[RipVanWinkle he's put to sleep]] for [[TimeSkip seven long years]] because otherwise he would be too young and weak to even try to amend his mistake, and as he travels the land to awaken the Six Sages he learns that not only has Hyrule turned into a dystopic hellhole while he was taking a power nap, but also that he's not even a real Kokiri and thus never really belonged in the forest, all while the monsters he faces become increasingly nightmarish and his former friends either fail to recognize him after his growth spurt or [[MarriedToTheJob part ways with him permanently when they awaken as Sages]]. But does he lose heart through any of this? No; he carries on forward, slays evil where he finds it and slowly returns peace to Hyrule. His sheer {{determinat|or}}ion becomes the reason why he bears the Triforce of Courage: no matter what terrors he faces, he never gives up and never stops fighting.

** Eve Brea is no slouch either. She's a [[CloningBlues clone]] of Aya, held in a secret underground facility where she's treated as little more than a [[TykeBomb living]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction weapon]] and is manipulated by the BigBad to try and kill Aya. Still she survives, and is later HappilyAdopted by Aya...until the third game, where [[spoiler:Eve spends the entire game [[AmnesiacDissonance believing she's Aya Brea]], only for it to be revealed at the end that Aya was DeadAllAlong and that Eve was the one who killed her, thus [[NiceJobBreakingItHero triggering the events of the game]], culminating in [[PlayerPunch the player being forced to personally pull the trigger and kill the real Aya]]]]. On top of that, she's forced to kill most of her closest friends and has recurring nightmares of her [[BloodSplatteredWeddingDress wedding]] [[WidowedAtTheWedding day]]. But at the end of the game [[spoiler:Eve-as-Aya commits herself to continue her work as a government agent to carry on Aya's legacy, even though the original Aya has been [[UnPerson erased from the timeline]] and [[RippleProofMemory Eve is the only one who remembers]]]].

** One of the main characters, [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Ragna]] the [[GoodIsNotNice Bloodedge]] was a young man who lived happily with his [[{{Jerkass}} brother Jin]] and his [[IllGirl sister Saya]]. Then a psychotic hipster named Yuuki Terumi burned down his home, killed his adoptive guardian, brainwashes Jin to have him chop his arm off and stab him through the chest, and kidnaps Saya for good measure. He gets a new arm called the Azure Grimoire from a girl who rescues him, which grants him awesome power but will probably one day kill him horribly. He also has many people out to capture him either for his arm or the enormously huge bounty on him for going against the NOL and a psychotic {{Yandere}} clone of his sister whose method of showing affection toward him is to repeatedly stab him with the hundreds of blades she has on her disposal. Yet, despite these horrible events, he still goes on to keep kicking ass (preferably Terumi's).

** VideoGame/MortalKombat2: Not only is Kitana's father is killed by Shao Kahn during his bloody takeover of Edenia, her mother Sindel [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide out of grief for her departed husband]]. Shao Kahn then manipulates the poor girl into serving as one of his assassins and makes her falsely believe that he is her birth father. He also creates a disfigured clone of her to act as her "sister" and ultimately off her should Kitana prove to be unreliable. Who knows how long this lasted for, seeing as Kitana is ''[[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld over 10,000-years-old]]''. When she finally breaks free, Kahn then revives her mother and brainwashes ''her'' as a tool for his invasion of Earthrealm. Eventually, all of this is sorted out. Then comes Shinnok. And after ''that'' is resolved, Kitana proposes to her love interest Liu Kang, only for him to reluctantly decline due to his status as Earthrealm's Champion. Then Quan Chi and Shang Tsung get the jump on him before ''Deadly Alliance'' and kill him. And then ''she'' dies in battle with Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, and is later revived by Onaga and -- you guessed it -- brainwashed to serve him. The ''one'' time she breaks down (her ''Unchained'' ending) is justified, as her premonitions about {{the end of the world|AsWeKnowIt}} are coming true (as seen in ''Armageddon''). The girl's got it ''rough''. It gets more devastating in [[VideoGame/MortalKombat9 the 2011 reboot]] when she finds her "sister" and hears from her so-called father that he killed her real father and nearly gets executed. [[spoiler:Then her mother gets brainwashed and unlike last time in the original timeline, she gets killed by her brainwashed mother who doesn't realize what she has done and is an undead warrior who is brainwashed.]]

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': [[TheHero Rex]] is quite the [[ThePollyanna chipper young lad]], but he's had to put up with a ''lot'' in the 14 some years he's been alive. His parents died not long after his birth on the outskirts of the Leftherian Archipelago, he had to take to being a professional Salvager [[ArtisticLicenseChildLaborLaws from a young age]] to keep Fonsett Village from going broke without realizing that Bana's transportation methods took a majority of his donation cuts, Jin outright ''[[DisneyDeath killed him]]'' upon reaching the Ancient Ship, he witnessed firsthand [[spoiler:the death of Vandham]], he lost Pyra to Malos at the Genbu Crown and [[HeroicBSOD nearly quit his adventure]] out of the guilt of failing to protect her, he was betrayed by Amalthus when trying to scale the World Tree, the Architect put him under a ''brutal'' SecretTestOfCharacter that caused him to feel as though he was a bad friend before the façade was lifted, and most painfully of all, [[spoiler:he was unable to prevent Pyra and Mythra from [[DeathSeeker committing suicide]], with Poppi promising them to prevent Rex from going back for them]].

* Poor, poor Isaac Clarke of ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' is just an engineer who was sent on a clean-up job in space. What he finds is a ship simply filled bow-to-stern with NightmareFuel. Yet, in spite of it all, he goes through Hell and back to not only complete his repairs but also save his girlfriend Nicole, [[spoiler:who, it turns out, has been DeadAllAlong.]] After the spoiler makes him undergo a HeroicBSOD (that lasts for about five seconds), he sucks it up, moves forward, [[spoiler:[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu destroys]] an EldritchAbomination]], and escapes, unfortunately haunted by[[spoiler: hallucinations of Nicole]]. He is confined to a mental institute, where the government keeps him in and out of stasis for three years, [[spoiler: using his madness to construct another ArtifactOfDoom]]. Another Necromorph outbreak later, Isaac not only has to worry about the space zombies, government agents out to kill him, and the ChurchOfHappyology trying to kidnap him, but also [[spoiler: the hallucination of his girlfriend trying to drive him to suicide.]]
** The worst part about it all? [[spoiler: Isaac tried as hard as he could, but in the end, TheBadGuyWins, with the Brethren Moons arriving to consume the human race]]
* The main character of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV''. No other character in the entire ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series compares to him. Where to even begin. [[spoiler: His father is murdered right in front of him as a child. He lives as a slave for the next ten years constructing an icon of blasphemy. He and his wife are turned to stone for another seven years, mere days after his twin children are born. They get separated during this, and she does not get unpetrified until well after he is. And as probably the biggest PlayerPunch in the entire series, his mother, who he and his father had been searching for the entire game, is murdered right in front of him just ''minutes'' after he'd finally found her.]] And yet despite all this, he NEVER [[HeroicBSOD breaks down]]. If that's not an Iron Woobie, what is?

-->'''Shepard:''' [through labored, steadying breaths] W...what do you need me to do?

* ''VideoGame/SteppenwolfTheXCreaturesProject'': The Steppenwolf himself, Alan Kane, was forced into hiding after the Heruka Incident, which led to the massacre of every scientist on the Gene-X research team. He was led to believe that his wife was killed in a plane crash when in reality, she had been transformed into the bloodthirsty Heruka. He wandered the world in search of the X-Creatures, eventually coming to realize the truth about his wife and watching her die in front of him before he finally earned his revenge against Donovan.
* Ryu of ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' fame becomes this in the ''Anime/StreetFighterIVThetiesThatBind'' anime OAV, the prequel to the VideoGame/StreetFighterIV game. He has been dealing [[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha for years already]] with a horrifyingly strong SuperpoweredEvilSide known as the Satsui no Hado, said SuperpoweredEvilSide has begun to become stronger, he gets involved in a massive conspiracy due to such a side, [[spoiler:[[SplitPersonalityTakeover almost loses himself to it]] when one of his friends is beaten within an inch of her life]] and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone is terribly shaken when that happens]] [[spoiler:and it turns out he could've severely beaten his HeroWorshipper while under the SES's influence]]... but ultimately he refuses to fall in despair and anger, [[CameBackStrong and with his friends' help he comes out stronger than he was before.]]

* [[spoiler: Asriel Dreemurr]] from ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}''. He loses both his SOUL and his best friend, causing his existence to be one of indescribable loneliness. And while he doesn't exactly take it in stride as [[spoiler: Flowey the flower]], upon being [[spoiler: briefly restored to his true form and getting his compassion back]], he seems happy to let you and your friends go, even though this means he will have to go back to living this way.

%%Good Evening Editors, If you wish to add more woobies, please consult the cleanup thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15391212720A38366900&page=1

%%If you see a character listed as a Complete Monster, they don't belong here.

* The title character in ''VideoGame/{{ICO}}'' has been through a lot. He's been taken away from his family to be sacrificed for God knows what reason, he is trapped in a castle without knowing a way out, and he probably hasn't eaten or drank in a while. However, he is still strong-willed enough to find a way out of the castle, fight monsters, and help a girl—whom he doesn't even know—from getting her body taken over by her powerful and evil mother even if he has to fight her.
* Aribeth de Tylmarande from ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'', whose entire life story is a TraumaCongaLine of epic proportions best summed up as the tale of a woman who tried very hard in the face of [[CrapsackWorld a universe that hated her]] and ended up failing anyway, fighting tooth and nail to get an EsotericHappyEnding at the end of the last expansion pack. She somehow puts on a calm public face through a series of tragedies that would make strong men weep in spite of all this.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** Jack from [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 the second game]]. She was kidnapped as an infant from Cerberus, forced into an experiment that was pure horror day in, day out, for the sake of finding out if trauma increases biotic power. When she escaped, she flew with pirates, was used as a sex object repeatedly, dropped a moon onto a colony...
--->'''Jack:''' ...and that's the boring shit.
** The amount of suffering that [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]] can be put through (losing the entire family to Batarian slavers/growing up an Earthbound orphan, losing a squad on Akuze, facing routine accusations of being crazy by the very people he/she's trying to protect, [[spoiler:losing a love interest in either game]], [[spoiler:dying at the beginning of the second]], being forced to work with the people responsible for Akuze, facing the consequences of ''The Arrival'', and possibly [[spoiler:dying for real during the Suicide Mission]]) is almost comical, yet none of this will stop him/her from shrugging it all off and saving the galaxy. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', S/he experiences an enormous amount of losses, experiences serious SurvivorGuilt, and is forced to carry the fate of the entire galaxy on his/her shoulders. Joker notes at one point that ''while resting'' s/he's under more stress now than s/he was in his/her background (which involves either holding a platoon by him/herself, watching his/her squad get devoured by {{Sand Worm}}s, or leading a suicidal assault against an enemy fort). By the end, s/he's so exhausted that s/he can barely keep his/her eyes open, has suffered third-degree burns, is bleeding to death from a stomach wound, and got caught in a blast from [[EldritchAbomination HARBINGER]], but when Admiral Hackett calls him/her, [[HeroicResolve s/he immediately gets back up and responds.]]
-->'''Shepard:''' [through labored, steadying breaths] W...what do you need me to do?
** Javik, the downloadable [[spoiler:Prothean survivor squadmate]], never seems to be anything less than calm and in control. However, talking to him reveals a lot of suffering in his past. Not only is he the last of his species, but if you tell him to use the Echo Stone, he shares with you the fact that he was the commander of a ship like the Normandy... except that, when the Reapers had it attacked and the crew carried off, they got ''everyone'' except for Javik himself. He singlehandedly stormed a Reaper fortress, desperately trying to save his people... but they were already indoctrinated by then, and he was forced to MercyKill them all to escape.
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'':
** Selvaria Bles. It's hard not to feel sorry at the way she willingly put herself through hell ([[spoiler:and later sacrifices herself]]) for a man who doesn't care about her - and she probably ''knows'' it. The way she faces her fate with pride and keeps leading her soldiers to the bitter end makes her very admirable. Even in her final defeat, all she asks of the FatBastard who came to take her as a prize and steal Squad 7's merits is that he spares her men...
** Imca from ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesIII''. Suffered from DoomedHometown, is put into a penal legion, [[FantasticRacism endures the standard crap Darcssens live with]], and [[{{Revenge}} is driven by a singular purpose]]: KILL SELVARIA. That she knows is waaay out of her league.
--->'''Imca:''' I ain't need no help from anyone.
* Take Marona from ''VideoGame/PhantomBrave''. Now take all the hate, and loathing directed at her; and take Ash away. That's Carona. Willing to be considered a villain, willing to save the world anyway. Willing to train the people she's being forced to bring into a trap so that they're strong enough to break out of it. Willing to go ''back'' to her world even though Marona and Ash would have welcomed her in theirs and she refused to take Ash with her when Marona offered.

* Poor, poor Isaac Clarke of ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' is just an engineer who was sent on a clean-up job in space. What he finds is a ship simply filled bow-to-stern with NightmareFuel. Yet, in spite of it all, he goes through Hell and back to not only complete his repairs but also save his girlfriend Nicole, [[spoiler:who, it turns out, has been DeadAllAlong.]] After the spoiler makes him undergo a HeroicBSOD (that lasts for about five seconds), he sucks it up, moves forward, [[spoiler:[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu destroys]] an EldritchAbomination]], and escapes, unfortunately haunted by[[spoiler: hallucinations of Nicole]]. He is confined to a mental institute, where the government keeps him in and out of stasis for three years, [[spoiler: using his madness to construct another ArtifactOfDoom]]. Another Necromorph outbreak later, Isaac not only has to worry about the space zombies, government agents out to kill him, and the ChurchOfHappyology trying to kidnap him, but also [[spoiler: the hallucination of his girlfriend trying to drive him to suicide.]]
** The worst part about it all? [[spoiler: Isaac tried as hard as he could, but in the end, TheBadGuyWins, with the Brethren Moons arriving to consume the human race]]
* The main character of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV''. No other character in the entire ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series compares to him. Where to even begin. [[spoiler: His father is murdered right in front of him as a child. He lives as a slave for the next ten years constructing an icon of blasphemy. He and his wife are turned to stone for another seven years, mere days after his twin children are born. They get separated during this, and she does not get unpetrified until well after he is. And as probably the biggest PlayerPunch in the entire series, his mother, who he and his father had been searching for the entire game, is murdered right in front of him just ''minutes'' after he'd finally found her.]] And yet despite all this, he NEVER [[HeroicBSOD breaks down]]. If that's not an Iron Woobie, what is?
* Ayane from ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' qualifies. She was born from her biological father, Raidou, raping her mother to get back at one of his enemies, and was hated and mistreated by her village of origin as a result, with the only two that ever treated her well being her friends Hayate and Kasumi, and her adoptive father Genra. Though she and Kasumi are friends and she's crushing on Hayate, the rest of the village tries to keep her away from them due to associating her with Raidou. Then she finds out from her mother that Kasumi and Hayate are her half-siblings, and that while they're treated like ninja royalty, she's outcast because her mother didn't claim her due to the trauma of her birth circumstances. Then Raidou comes back to the village seeking a technique they guarded, and while she's beaten aside easily, Hayate is crippled when she fails to protect him. Kasumi then leaves the village to seek revenge, and Ayane is assigned to kill her for breaking the code of secrecy surrounding the village. And this is all before leaving the backstory! She proceeds to have to face off with both her best friend and[[spoiler:her amnesiac love interest]] when [[spoiler:Hayate is brought back by DOATEC as Ein]] as part of Project Epsilon. Then in the third tournament, she finds out that her adoptive father [[spoiler:has been kidnapped by DOATEC and turned into the monstrous bioweapon known as Omega]], forcing her to enter the tournament, [[spoiler:whereupon she defeats and kills him to set him free of DOATEC's slavery]]. And past that, with Hayate back as of the fourth game, Kasumi is still marked for death due to HonorBeforeReason, and Ayane is still loyally serving her clan to take her down. And through all of this, the only hint of the pain we ever see going through her is a single tear [[spoiler:when she's cremating Genra's body after he dies.]] One really wonders how Tecmo could hurt her ''worse'' if the series had gone on.
* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'':
** Dr. Litchi Faye-Ling. She is a kind doctor who knew she's slowly being corrupted by the Boundary in exchange of a great power that she uses for fighting and trying to discover a cure for her lover turned EldritchAbomination. And for that, she even left her previous job as scientist and endangers herself with a court-martial. Interaction with the townspeople where she resided, townspeople that looked up to her, would make you think that they'll make good moral support for her quest, but she never tells them her situation, which means she's carrying her burden alone. [[spoiler:Then, when she sought help from her superior and got refused, the corruption is catching up to her limit, her only option to continue was to join the rival organization, which stores one person that she knew to be a DevilInPlainSight, and she [[FaceHeelTurn did so anyway]], knowing that her previous organization would do even worse than court-martial from that point on if they ever catch her. And while at first she thought the organization was just 'normal' or better than her previous one, she starts seeing that it is rather... shady and questionable, but she decided to bear all that.]] In her own words... "I can't go back. Even if I have to sacrifice some of my humanity."
** One of the main characters, [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Ragna]] the [[GoodIsNotNice Bloodedge]] was a young man who lived happily with his [[{{Jerkass}} brother Jin]] and his [[IllGirl sister Saya]]. Then a psychotic hipster named Yuuki Terumi burned down his home, killed his adoptive guardian, brainwashes Jin to have him chop his arm off and stab him through the chest, and kidnaps Saya for good measure. He gets a new arm called the Azure Grimoire from a girl who rescues him, which grants him awesome power but will probably one day kill him horribly. He also has many people out to capture him either for his arm or the enormously huge bounty on him for going against the NOL and a psychotic {{Yandere}} clone of his sister whose method of showing affection toward him is to repeatedly stab him with the hundreds of blades she has on her disposal. Yet, despite these horrible events, he still goes on to keep kicking ass (preferably Terumi's).
* Axl Low from ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' is a nice English guy who has been ripped from his girlfriend Megumi and his home to be thrown through time by the machinations of beings who just want a pawn in their schemes. Axl himself wants none of it and is just looking for someone who might know how he can get home. In ''Xrd: Revelator'', he finds someone who knows what's wrong with him and can send him home: [[spoiler:It's I-no, who tells him that he's actually a magical RealityWarper who can erase and rewrite timelines at will, just like her... ''and he can never go home because he may have already erased his own timeline and everyone in it''. This news makes Axl fall into a deep depression, and when he's given a chance to go to his home time later, it comes with the SadisticChoice that he'll erase his friends in the future, as the two worlds are mutually exclusive. [[IChooseToStay He decides to save his friends.]]]]
* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'''s own Samus Aran. The toughest warrior in the galaxy, destroyer of worlds... and everyone she knows and/or cared about dies in front of her. She has been forced by circumstance to wipe out entire species of super-predator (the sole survivor of one ''died saving her life''), and spends most of her time on-screen either wandering the crumbling ruins of the civilization she was raised in and its allies or hunting down the ones responsible.
* Craig Boone of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. You ''poor man''. Take off your [[StoicSpectacles stoic sunglasses]] and let us see your pain. He was present at the Bitter Springs Massacre and suffers immense survivor's guilt and PTSD as a result. He meets a girl who accepts him and becomes his wife but she doesn't get on with Boone's only friend causing tension between them. His wife, pregnant with his child, is sold into slavery by someone in their town. Boone tracks down the legion slavers to one of their biggest outposts where they are planning to sell her and faced with no other option kills his wife and flees (being outnumbered several hundred to one). When he gets back to Novac he can't trust anyone because any of them might have been the one to sell his wife and he can't fix his relationship with his friend. In various dialogue with him, he outright states that he's stopped expecting a break and thinks the universe is just waiting for him to let his guard down so it can screw him over again.
* [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Cubone]] is more of a straight-up [[TheWoobie woobie,]] having lost its mother and [[SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset filling her empty skull with tears.]] However, the evolved form Marowak is pure Iron Woobie material: a badass [[BadWithTheBone club-wielding warrior]] who's gotten over mama's death and uses past anguish as fuel for its ferocious battling.
* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/ZettaiHeroProject'', a HeroicMime who appears to be nothing but an OCStandIn and over-the-top example of ThisLoserIsYou, especially as a superhero. In Chapter 9, it's revealed that he actually has a backstory, and the countless [[HopelessBossFight Hopeless Boss Fights]] of the game are a reflection of his [[{{Determinator}} primary character trait]]. [[spoiler:Eight years ago, he and his sister were captured by a serial kidnapper/cannibal, and he protected her by getting the crap kicked out of him repeatedly until the police and Unlosing Ranger arrived. But she was so traumatized that all she remembers is him getting beaten up and crying, causing the whole family to blame what happened on his weakness, and completely tearing them apart. As in, his parents are getting divorced over who raised him to be such a wimp and his sister wants him to just die.]] After becoming humanity's ButtMonkey, he continues to protect everyone in the only way he knows how, even if they all mock him for it.
* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'':
** Everyone WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse knows either dies, disappears, goes into a coma, or falls to darkness, he's an utter failure at protecting the worlds and his friends and loved ones from the encroaching darkness, and his life is best described as "hell". He is also frequently compared to [[Franchise/StarWars prequel trilogy era Yoda]] in combat prowess, and despite over 12 years of constant defeat and failure, refuses to give up, and stays pretty optimistic. Well, at least he still has his supporting cast of the [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts Disney cartoons.]]
** The [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast Beast]] lives in a cold and dark castle in the middle of nowhere with a curse that had made him into a vicious-looking monster for several years can be depressing, no less with the fact that the curse can only be broken if a woman loves him for who he is. Depressed and angry for many years, a woman finally comes to his castle and after some hard time they learn to get along and Beast finally finds some happiness in his life. And [[YankTheDogsChain then]] the castle gets destroyed and the woman kidnapped by TheHeartless, and Beast ends up in nowhere of the universe. Through [[{{Determinator}} sheer force of will alone]] he ends up in Hollow Bastion and with all his strength fights through the forces of darkness to save his beloved without complaining or whining.
* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'':
** '''Scorpion'''. Dear god, yes. His entire clan gets killed, and he himself falls to the elder Sub-Zero, Bi-Han. Then after [[CameBackWrong being brought back as a spectre]], he's forced by Shang Tsung to work alongside the guy who killed his family. In life and in death his story is [[FromBadToWorse an endless stream of tragedy]], and his game endings are usually bad, [[spoiler:right down to becoming the vessel of Dark Kahn's rebirth in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatVsDCUniverse'']]. Yet he still continues on. Even worse, the Elder Gods are dicks to him. In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception'', they make Scorpion their Champion to deal with the threat of Onaga. He agrees on the terms that his family and clansmen be revived by the Elder Gods. When he delivers, the Elder Gods [[ExactWords uphold their end of the bargain]]... [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor by reviving the Shirai Ryu as undead abominations]] in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon''. No wonder he goes all RageAgainstTheHeavens afterwards.
** VideoGame/MortalKombat2: Not only is Kitana's father is killed by Shao Kahn during his bloody takeover of Edenia, her mother Sindel [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide out of grief for her departed husband]]. Shao Kahn then manipulates the poor girl into serving as one of his assassins and makes her falsely believe that he is her birth father. He also creates a disfigured clone of her to act as her "sister" and ultimately off her should Kitana prove to be unreliable. Who knows how long this lasted for, seeing as Kitana is ''[[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld over 10,000-years-old]]''. When she finally breaks free, Kahn then revives her mother and brainwashes ''her'' as a tool for his invasion of Earthrealm. Eventually, all of this is sorted out. Then comes Shinnok. And after ''that'' is resolved, Kitana proposes to her love interest Liu Kang, only for him to reluctantly decline due to his status as Earthrealm's Champion. Then Quan Chi and Shang Tsung get the jump on him before ''Deadly Alliance'' and kill him. And then ''she'' dies in battle with Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, and is later revived by Onaga and--you guessed it--brainwashed to serve him. The ''one'' time she breaks down (her ''Unchained'' ending) is justified, as her premonitions about {{the end of the world|AsWeKnowIt}} are coming true (as seen in ''Armageddon''). The girl's got it ''rough''. It gets more devastating in [[VideoGame/MortalKombat9 the 2011 reboot]] when she finds her "sister" and hears from her so-called father that he killed her real father and nearly gets executed. [[spoiler:Then her mother gets brainwashed and unlike last time in the original timeline, she gets killed by her brainwashed mother who doesn't realize what she has done and is an undead warrior who is brainwashed.]]
* Leon from ''VideoGame/FZero X'' onward. The kid was no more than '''four''' when [[WarIsHell invaders ransacked and virtually razed his home planet of Zou]]. Leon lost both [[ParentalAbandonment his parents]] and [[EyeScream his left eye]] that day. Eleven years later, the F-Zero GP races are gearing up for a revival and the people of Zou choose him to be their representative. All he has is a second-hand machine created by a [[TheAtoner guilt-wracked]] [[DefectorFromDecadence rebel]] [[HeelFaceTurn soldier]] from the big war years ago. His chances of winning are slim and Leon wants to make the children of his planet happy again. Yet, he never complains about the hardships he's had to endure even ''once'' and instead stays [[ThePollyanna optimistic]] and [[{{Keet}} cheery]], standing head-and-shoulders above the rest of the cast as the most selfless character of the series.
* Recette, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/RecettearAnItemShopsTale,'' [[ParentalAbandonment Not only was she abandoned by her dad in all but name, & her mom might be dead,]] she also lived alone for 3 months, might've been starving by the time the game's events roll around, and has to perform child labor in order to pay off the enormous debt her dad left her [[SocialServicesDoesNotExist (and she loses her house, & has to live in a box, if she fails)]]]. It's amazing she's able to put up such a friendly smile each day.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'': Lost your parents in the war? Surrounded by the hostile [[AMindIsATerribleThingToRead thoughts]], words, and deeds of paranoid warmongers on all sides? [[spoiler:[[NiceJobBreakingItHero Forced into destroying the country and endangering the world?]] Brother commits a HeroicSacrifice to prevent you and a friend from doing the same? Saddled with responsibility for an entire nation without the understanding to help them?]] Welcome to [[TraumaCongaLine another day in the life of]] [[CuteMonsterGirl Sveta Czamaral]].
* Nautilus from ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends''. Oh boy. He was a sailor who was left to die by his fellow seamen after he dived into an unidentified, pitch-black section of the ocean and was grabbed by ''something'' and dragged down. When he awoke after who knows how long, his heavy diving suit had been fused with his skin, and he was lost in complete darkness. With nothing else left to do, he walked. Too heavy to swim and weighted down by the suit, he walked along the ocean floor until he eventually hit the shores. However, he found that there was nothing left for him on the surface. No home, no family, no friend, nothing. The only reason he joined the eponymous [[GladiatorGames League of Legends]] is that ''someone'' might be able to help him discover something about himself.
* Ryu of ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' fame becomes this in the ''Anime/StreetFighterIVThetiesThatBind'' anime OAV, the prequel to the VideoGame/StreetFighterIV game. He has been dealing [[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha for years already]] with a horrifyingly strong SuperpoweredEvilSide known as the Satsui no Hado, said SuperpoweredEvilSide has begun to become stronger, he gets involved in a massive conspiracy due to such a side, [[spoiler:[[SplitPersonalityTakeover almost loses himself to it]] when one of his friends is beaten within an inch of her life]] and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone is terribly shaken when that happens]] [[spoiler:and it turns out he could've severely beaten his HeroWorshipper while under the SES's influence]]... but ultimately he refuses to fall in despair and anger, [[CameBackStrong and with his friends' help he comes out stronger than he was before.]]

* The Wayne brothers from ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'': two {{Gadgeteer Genius}}es who produce advanced machines for the government in exchange for riches, only to discover said government using what they created for malicious conquest and aggression. Nonetheless, they take off in their SuperPrototype {{Cool Plane}}s and destroy their own war machines in order to stop the government, [[OneManArmy by themselves]]. The most emotion they show is some stoic pondering in their endings in ''VideoGame/ArmedPoliceBatrider''.
* [[spoiler: Asriel Dreemurr]] from ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}''. He loses both his SOUL and his best friend, causing his existence to be one of indescribable loneliness. And while he doesn't exactly take it in stride as [[spoiler: Flowey the flower]], upon being [[spoiler: briefly restored to his true form and getting his compassion back]], he seems happy to let you and your friends go, even though this means he will have to go back to living this way.
** It runs in the family. [[spoiler:His father]] Asgore [[spoiler:made a promise in the heat of the moment that has the biggest contribution to the basic plot of the game. It's a promise he can't take back, since it revived the hopes of his people who were once again on the brink of despair after what happened to Asriel, but it means he has to kill seven innocent humans and harvest their [=SOULs=], of which '''YOU''' are the latest, and the last]]. And yet, despite this, he can put a genuine smile on his face, acknowledge a good day, and is all around the big loveable goat-dad that Papyrus and Undyne say he is.
* VideoGame/ParasiteEve:
** At a young age, Aya Brea's mother and sister died in a car crash. Many years later, her spontaneous urge to see a play lead her to be [[SurvivorGuilt the sole survivor]] of [[BigBad Eve's]] initial massacre. Throughout the game she consistently [[JustInTime arrives just]] [[SubvertedTrope too late]] to save anyone from Eve, at best being able to comfort some of the victims in their last moments. On top of this, she's saddled with the enormous responsibility of being [[ItsUpToYou the only one]] who can fight Eve. Despite all this she carries on, not only saving New York from Eve but also returning for [[VideoGame/ParasiteEve2 two]] [[VideoGame/The3rdBirthday sequels]]. The second game allows Aya to save many more people (although several of these people can die if the player fails to do certain things). However, she also receives the revelation that all of the [[BodyHorror mutated monsters]] she's been fighting throughout the game [[WasOnceAMan were originally human]] and were mutated by being injected with Aya's own cells. Despite all this, she goes on to have a seemingly happy, normal relationship with Kyle Madigan.
** Eve Brea is no slouch either. She's a [[CloningBlues clone]] of Aya, held in a secret underground facility where she's treated as little more than a [[TykeBomb living]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction weapon]] and is manipulated by the BigBad to try and kill Aya. Still she survives, and is later HappilyAdopted by Aya...until the third game, where [[spoiler:Eve spends the entire game [[AmnesiacDissonance believing she's Aya Brea]], only for it to be revealed at the end that Aya was DeadAllAlong and that Eve was the one who killed her, thus [[NiceJobBreakingItHero triggering the events of the game]], culminating in [[PlayerPunch the player being forced to personally pull the trigger and kill the real Aya]]]]. On top of that, she's forced to kill most of her closest friends and has recurring nightmares of her [[BloodSplatteredWeddingDress wedding]] [[WidowedAtTheWedding day]]. But at the end of the game [[spoiler:Eve-as-Aya commits herself to continue her work as a government agent to carry on Aya's legacy, even though the original Aya has been [[UnPerson erased from the timeline]] and [[RippleProofMemory Eve is the only one who remembers]]]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': Oh baby, let me tell you about Mei-Ling Zhou. She's an Overwatch scientist at a research point in Antarctica that goes into cryogenic sleep with her friends because an ice storm makes a resupply impossible. So she goes to sleep, wakes up, everything seems relatively normal... and then everything goes horribly wrong. First, Mei learns she's been asleep for 9 years, way beyond any reasonable expectation of rescue. Why? On to number two: Overwatch was disbanded while she'd been asleep, so never mind being out of a job, nobody even knows Mei and her friends are still there. And then, the ultimate cherry on top: she realizes she's all alone in the station, and that's because all of her friends' cryochambers suffered a malfunction and they all died a horrible frozen death. So Mei's the lone survivor on the South Pole in a research station with barely any power, supplies, no means of communication with the rest of the world, no way to get out as all the vehicles are frozen, and only her robot companion Snowball to keep her company. Despite all this, not only does she vow to take the years worth of climate data to the world in the name of her dead friends, she actively creates her endothermic blaster Tony Stark-style with odds and ends around the station and sets off ''on foot'' to rejoin and save the world.

* ''Manga/{{Strider}}'': The [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]] Version of [[PlayerCharacter Strider Hiryu]] gets it worse than his manga counterpart. After being forced to kill his insane sister Mariya, he retired to a village in Mongolia to live in peace, until his former superior at the Striders, Vice-Director Matic, called him back into duty demanding Hiryu to take on a mission to assassinate his(Hiryu's) friend Kain/Cain after he was captured during a mission in Kazakh. However, Hiryu denounces killing him right away and instead rescues and brings him back to the Blue Dragon Station. As Hiryu learns of Enterprise's/the Syndicate's ZAIN brainwashing Project from Kuramoto, the Striders' Director, he was forced to defend himself from his friend Cain, getting the latter injured in the process. Learning that his sister Mariya and his friend Cain were guinea pigs in the Project along with Matic's involvement in it, Hiryu sets out to kill everyone involved. But as he travels the world to destroy ZAIN's terminals, Cain escapes. Later, Sheena, trying to find Cain, ends up being mortally injured. Moments before she dies, she asks Hiryu to get Matic. A dying Cain would later send a last message to Hiryu on the location of Matic's station, the Red Dragon Base. After killing Matic and stoppi
* ''VideoGame/SteppenwolfTheXCreaturesProject'': The Steppenwolf himself, Alan Kane, was forced into hiding after the Heruka Incident, which led to the massacre of every scientist on the Gene-X research team. He was led to believe that his wife was killed in a plane crash when in reality, she had been transformed into the bloodthirsty Heruka. He wandered the world in search of the X-Creatures, eventually coming to realize the truth about his wife and watching her die in front of him before he finally earned his revenge against Donovan.

** The amount of suffering that [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]] can be put through (losing the entire family to Batarian slavers/growing up an Earthbound orphan, losing a squad on Akuze, facing routine accusations of being crazy by the very people he/she's trying to protect, [[spoiler:losing a love interest in either game]], [[spoiler:dying in the beginning of the second]], being forced to work with the people responsible for Akuze, facing the consequences of ''The Arrival'', and possibly [[spoiler:dying for real during the Suicide Mission]]) is almost comical, yet none of this will stop him/her from shrugging it all off and saving the galaxy. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', S/he experiences an enormous amount of losses, experiences serious SurvivorGuilt and is forced to carry the fate of the entire galaxy on his/her shoulders. Joker notes at one point that ''while resting'' s/he's under more stress now than s/he was in his/her background (which involves either holding a platoon by him/herself, watching his/her squad get devoured by {{Sand Worm}}s, or leading a suicidal assault against an enemy fort). By the end, s/he's so exhausted that s/he can barely keep his/her eyes open, has suffered third-degree burns, is bleeding to death from a stomach wound, and got caught in a blast from [[EldritchAbomination HARBINGER]], but when Admiral Hackett calls him/her, [[HeroicResolve s/he immediately gets back up and responds.]]

*** Tidus. He grew up verbally abused by his father, [[WellDoneSonGuy when all he wanted was love and acceptance]]. When Jecht disappeared one day ([[spoiler:when he crossed over into Spira]]), his mother died soon afterward, presumably of a broken heart. And despite [[AngstWhatAngst hiding it all quite well]], [[StepfordSmiler it's still easy to tell that he's deeply affected by this]]. And then we see Tidus' misfortune in Spira, and this goes ''way'' beyond his semi-ButtMonkey status because he's "new" to how things work there. [[LockedOutOfTheLoop Crucial pieces of information are witheld from Tidus]], and the one that hits him the hardest is that [[spoiler:Yuna, his love interest, will have to die if the Final Summoning necessary to defeat Sin is successful.]] He also discovers that [[spoiler:Sin, said EldritchAbomination that's been haunting Spira for many eons, is ''his father'']]. [[BlatantLies It gets better from here]]. Then Tidus learns that [[spoiler:he and his entire world are nothing more than the product of the Fayth's dreams, and if they were to wake up, Tidus would ''cease to exist''. They tell him that [[TheChosenOne they chose him]] to TakeAThirdOption in defeating Sin and ending the ViciousCycle without the Final Aeon]]. ''[[IronWoobie And Tidus goes through with it, with only the ever-slightest navel gazing]]''.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'': Fang. [[spoiler:She became Ragnarok to crack Cocoon's shell to complete hers and Vanille's focus. She mentions on several occasions that Pulse has a fear of Cocoon just like Cocoon has a fear of Pulse. Forgetting everything about her time as Ragnarok, she's tortured in front of Vanille by Orphan, watches helplessly as her friends are transformed into Cie'th and decides to go through with becoming Ragnarok to save Cocoon at the end of the game, becoming a crystal again. This woman has had it rough.]]
* Poor, poor Isaac Clarke of ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' is just an engineer who was sent on a clean-up job in space. What he finds is a ship simply filled bow-to-stern with NightmareFuel. Yet, in spite of it all, he goes through Hell and back to not only complete his repairs, but also save his girlfriend, Nicole, [[spoiler:who, it turns out, has been DeadAllAlong.]] After the spoiler makes him undergo a HeroicBSOD (that lasts for about five seconds), he sucks it up, moves forward, [[spoiler:[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu destroys]] an EldritchAbomination]], and escapes, unfortunately haunted by[[spoiler: hallucinations of Nicole]]. He is confined to a mental institute, where the government keeps him in and out of stasis for three years, [[spoiler: using his madness to construct another ArtifactOfDoom]]. Another Necromorph outbreak later, Isaac not only has to worry about the space zombies, government agents out to kill him, and the ChurchOfHappyology trying to kidnap him, but also [[spoiler: the hallucination of his girlfriend trying to drive him to suicide.]]

* Ayane from ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' qualifies. She was born from her biological father, Raidou, raping her mother to get back at one of his enemies, and was hated and mistreated by her village of origin as a result, with the only two that ever treated her well being her friends Hayate and Kasumi, and her adoptive father Genra. Though she and Kasumi are friends and she's crushing on Hayate, the rest of the village tries to keep her away from them due to associating her with Raidou. Then she finds out from her mother that Kasumi and Hayate are her half siblings, and that while they're treated like ninja royalty, she's outcast because her mother didn't claim her due to the trauma of her birth circumstances. Then Raidou comes back to the village seeking a technique they guarded, and while she's beaten aside easily, Hayate is crippled when she fails to protect him. Kasumi then leaves the village to seek revenge, and Ayane is assigned to kill her for breaking the code of secrecy surrounding the village. And this is all before leaving the backstory! She proceeds to have to face off with both her best friend and[[spoiler:her amnesiac love interest]] when [[spoiler:Hayate is brought back by DOATEC as Ein]] as part of Project Epsilon. Then in the third tournament, she finds out that her adoptive father [[spoiler:has been kidnapped by DOATEC and turned into the monstrous bioweapon known as Omega]], forcing her to enter the tournament, [[spoiler:whereupon she defeats and kills him to set him free of DOATEC's slavery]]. And past that, with Hayate back as of the fourth game, Kasumi is still marked for death due to HonorBeforeReason, and Ayane is still loyally serving her clan to take her down. And through all of this, the only hint of the pain we ever see going through her is a single tear [[spoiler:when she's cremating Genra's body after he dies.]] One really wonders how Tecmo could hurt her ''worse'' if the series had gone on.

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'''s own Samus Aran. The toughest warrior in the galaxy, destroyer of worlds... and everyone she knows and/or cared about dies in front of her. She has been forced by circumstance to wipe out entire species of super-predator (the sole survivor of one ''died saving her life''), and spends most of her time on-screen either wandering the crumbling ruins of the civilization she was raised in and its allies, or hunting down the ones responsible.
* Craig Boone of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. You ''poor man''. Take off your [[StoicSpectacles stoic sunglasses]] and let us see your pain. He was present at the Bitter Springs Massacre and suffers immense survivor's guilt and PTSD as a result. He meets a girl who accepts him and becomes his wife but she doesn't get on with Boone's only friend causing tension between them. His wife, pregnant with his child, is sold into slavery by someone in their town. Boone tracks down the legion slavers to one of their biggest outposts where they are planning to sell her and faced with no other option kills his wife and flees (being outnumbered several hundred to one). When he gets back to Novac he an't trust anyone because any of them might have been the one to sell his wife and he can't fix his relationship with his friend. In various dialogue with him he outright states that he's stopped expecting a break and thinks the universe is just waiting for him to let his guard down so it can screw him over again.

** The [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast Beast]] lives in a cold and dark castle in the middle of nowhere with a curse that had made him into a vicious-looking monster for several years can be depressing, no less with the fact that the curse can only be broken if a woman loves him for who he is. Depressed and angry for many years, a woman finally comes to his castle and after some hard time they learn to get along and Beast finally finds some happiness in his life. And [[YankTheDogsChain then]] the castle gets destroyed and the woman kidnapped by TheHeartless, and Beast ends up in nowhere of the universe. Through [[{{Determinator}} sheer force of will alone]] he ends up in Hollow Bastion and with all his strength fights through the forces of darkness to save his beloved without complaning or whining.

** VideoGame/MortalKombat2: Not only is Kitana's father is killed by Shao Kahn during his bloody takeover of Edenia, her mother Sindel [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide out of grief for her departed husband]]. Shao Kahn then manipulates the poor girl into serving as one of his assassins and makes her falsely believe that he is her birth father. He also creates a disfigured clone of her to act as her "sister" and ultimately off her should Kitana prove to be unreliable. Who knows how long this lasted for, seeing as Kitana is ''[[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld over 10,000-years-old]]''. When she finally breaks free, Kahn then revives her mother and brainwashes ''her'' as a tool for his invasion of Earthrealm. Eventually, all of this is sorted out. Then comes Shinnok. And after ''that'' is resolved, Kitana proposes to her love interest Liu Kang, only for him to reluctantly decline due to his status as Earthrealm's Champion. Then Quan Chi and Shang Tsung get the jump on him before ''Deadly Alliance'' and kill him. And then ''she'' dies in battle with Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, and is later revived by Onaga and--you guessed it--brainwashed to serve him. The ''one'' time she breaks down (her ''Unchained'' ending) is justified, as her premonitions about {{the end of the world|AsWeKnowIt}} are coming true (as seen in ''Armageddon''). The girl's got it ''rough''. It gets more devastating in [[VideoGame/MortalKombat9 the 2011 reboot]] when she finds her "sister" and hears from her so called father that he killed her real father and nearly gets executed. [[spoiler:Then her mother gets brainwashed and unlike last time in the original timeline, she gets killed by her brainwashed mother who doesn't realize what she has done and is an undead warrior who is brainwashed.]]
* Leon from ''VideoGame/FZero X'' onward. The kid was no more than '''four''' when [[WarIsHell invaders ransacked and virtually razed his homeplanet of Zou]]. Leon lost both [[ParentalAbandonment his parents]] and [[EyeScream his left eye]] that day. Eleven years later, the F-Zero GP races are gearing up for a revival and the people of Zou choose him to be their representative. All he has is a second-hand machine created by a [[TheAtoner guilt-wracked]] [[DefectorFromDecadence rebel]] [[HeelFaceTurn soldier]] from the big war years ago. His chances of winning are slim and Leon wants to make the children of his planet happy again. Yet, he never complains about the hardships he's had to endure even ''once'' and instead stays [[ThePollyanna optimistic]] and [[{{Keet}} cheery]], standing head-and-shoulders above the rest of the cast as the most selfless character of the series.

* Ryu of ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' fame becomes this in the ''Anime/StreetFighterIVThetiesThatBind'' anime OAV, the prequel to the VideoGame/StreetFighterIV game. He has been dealing [[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha for years already]] with a horrifyingly strong SuperpoweredEvilSide known as the Satsui no Hado, said SuperpoweredEvilSide has begun to become stronger, he gets involved in a massive conspiracy due to such a side, [[spoiler:[[SplitPersonalityTakeover almost loses himself to it]] when one of his friends is beaten within an inch of her life]] and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone is terribly shaken when that happens]] [[spoiler:and it turns out he could've severely beaten his HeroWorshipper while under the SES's influence]]... but ultimately he refuses to fall in despair and anger, [[CameBackStrong and with his friends's help he comes out stronger than he was before.]]

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia'' has the Deliverance's SupportingLeader, Clive. He watched as the kingdom he had dedicated his life to serving fell into chaos thanks to the King's incompetent rule, and then after that as Desaix took the throne. He formed the Deliverance to fight back along with his lover, his sister, his subordinate/friends and his best friend, but it was clear from the start that it was a losing battle. Ultimately, he loses Zofia castle, seemingly [[AllForNothing rendering everything the Deliverance had done up to that point moot,]] and what is left of his ragged forces are forced to take refuge in Terror infested catacombs. Sometime after that, his girlfriend Mathilda was captured by Desaix and held hostage; he refused to surrender but was also too afraid to make any sort of move, leaving the Deliverance in a stalemate. It's little wonder that multiple characters note [[TheChainsofCommanding that the war and leading the Deliverance is taking a toll on him.]] He eventually tried to pass his role as leader off to Mycen and then Alm, but even that didn't fix everything: Fernand, his friend from childhood (and who [[DarkAndTroubledPast has his own issues]]), betrays him and calls him a mockery of his former self. He can potentially lose the love of his life and his beloved sister over the course of the game, and no matter what [[spoiler:Fernand will die in his arms with Clive powerless to save him.]] Yet in spite of all of this, he always acts kind and understanding towards all his troops, and only ever shows outward distress in the direst of situations.

** At a young age, Aya Brea's mother and sister died in a car crash. Many years later, her spontaneous urge to see a play lead her to be [[SurvivorGuilt the sole survivor]] of [[BigBad Eve's]] initial massacre. Throughout the game she consistently [[JustInTime arrives just]] [[SubvertedTrope too late]] to save anyone from Eve, at best being able to comfort some of the victims in their last moments. On top of this she's saddled with the enormous responsibility of being [[ItsUpToYou the only one]] who can fight Eve. Despite all this she carries on, not only saving New York from Eve but also returning for [[VideoGame/ParasiteEve2 two]] [[VideoGame/The3rdBirthday sequels]]. The second game allows Aya to save many more people (although several of these people can die if the player fails to do certain things). However she also recieves the revelation that all of the [[BodyHorror mutated monsters]] she's been fighting throughout the game [[WasOnceAMan were originally human]] and were mutated by being injected with Aya's own cells. Despite all this, she goes on to have a seemingly happy, normal relationship with Kyle Madigan.
** Eve Brea is no slouch either. She's a [[CloningBlues clone]] of Aya, held in a secret underground facility where she's treated as little more than a [[TykeBomb living]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction weapon]] and is manipulated by the BigBad to try and kill Aya. Still she survives, and is later HappilyAdopted by Aya...until the third game, where [[spoiler:Eve spends the entire game [[AmnesiacDissonance believing she's Aya Brea]], only for it to be revealed at the end that Aya was DeadAllAlong and that Eve was the one who killed her, thus [[NiceJobBreakingItHero triggering the events of the game]], culminating in [[PlayerPunch the player being forced to personally pull the trigger and kill the real Aya]]]]. On top of that she's forced to kill most of her closest friends, and has recurring nightmares of her [[BloodSplatteredWeddingDress wedding]] [[WidowedAtTheWedding day]]. But at the end of the game [[spoiler:Eve-as-Aya commits herself to continuing her work as a government agent to carry on Aya's legacy, even though the original Aya has been [[UnPerson erased from the timeline]] and [[RippleProofMemory Eve is the only one who remembers]]]].

* ''Manga/{{Strider}}'': The [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]] Version of [[PlayerCharacter Strider Hiryu]] gets it worse than his manga counterpart. After being forced to kill his insane sister Mariya, he retired to a village in Mongolia to live in peace, until his former superior at the Striders, Vice-Director Matic, called him back into duty demanding Hiryu to take on a mission to assassinate his(Hiryu's) friend Kain/Cain after he was captured during a mission in Kazakh. However Hiryu denounces killing him right away and instead rescues and brings him back to the Blue Dragon Station. As Hiryu learns of Enterprise's/the Syndicate's ZAIN brainwashing Project from Kuramoto, the Striders' Director, he was forced to defend himself from his friend Cain, getting the latter injured in the process. Learning that his sister Mariya and his friend Cain were guinea pigs in the Project along with Matic's involvement in it, Hiryu sets out to kill everyone involved. But as he travels the world to destroy ZAIN's terminals, Cain escapes. Later, Sheena, trying to find Cain, ends up being mortally injured. Moments before she dies, she asks Hiryu to get Matic. A dying Cain would later send a last message to Hiryu on the location of Matic's station, the Red Dragon Base. After killing Matic and stoppi