History Main / TragicRobot

* Although ''Series/BlakesSeven'' was notorious for killing a bunch of characters, many fans find the death scenes of the two starship computers, Zen in "Terminus" (slowly dying from an alien fungal infestation, he constantly apologises for having "failed" the human characters), and Slave in "Blake" (shutting down after ''Scorpio'' crashes, he for the first time addresses another character by name instead of as "Master"), among the most emotional in the show.

** From the Fourth Doctor serial, aptly titled "Robot", the eponymous bot in question was built to be ThreeLawsCompliant, but an organization of Elitists force him to violate those protocols for their own agenda, driving the Robot mad. The Robot ends up running amok due to the conflicts caused by accidentally killing his creator, and has to be shut down.
** The Fifth Doctor story "The King's Demons" features a shape-changing android named Kamelion who is being manipulated by the Master as part of a plan to change history. Kamelion joins the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough in the TARDIS at the end of the story, but the technical limitations of the prop used to portray him when he wasn't transformed into another character [[note]]The prop's designer died without leaving instructions on how to operate it.[[/note]] meant he wasn't seen again until the Fifth Doctor's penultimate story, in which the Master tries to regain control of him. In the end, rather than submit to the Master's control, Kamelion begs the Doctor to destroy him.
** In "Victory of the Daleks" we meet Edwin Bracewell, professor, working to support England during the Second World War. He is revealed, very quickly, to be a creation by the Daleks as a cover, and outfitted with an Oblivion Continuum in order to divert the Doctor from pursuing them while they escape. Bracewell is on the verge of detonation, and it takes a bit of Amy stirring up the human feelings the Daleks had installed in him to deactivate the bomb in him.
* ''Series/{{Fargo}}'': Gloria discovers her step-dad was a sci-fi writer in the '70s after finding his novels hidden under the floorboards. One of the novels is titled "The Planet Wyh", and tells the story of a robot named MNSKY who crash-lands on earth. His scientist companion dies, but MNSKY believes he can seek help. He travels earth for millions of years, only saying "I can help". He witnesses every destructive event on the planet until he is finally rescued by aliens. MNSKY is recognised as the oldest sentient being in the universe, and his archived recordings are of immense use. All he can say is "I can help", to which the aliens agree. He has served his purpose, and after two million years, shuts down.
* ''Series/GuestFromTheFuture'', Werther, a robot working at the Institute of Time, starts as more of a comic and even annoying character, being an ObstructiveBureaucrat whose job is to make a register of whatever the time travellers bring from the past. However, as he befriends Kolya, it turns out he has a dreamy, poetic disposition, feels hollow and unsatisfied with his mundane job, and also feels unrequited CourtlyLove for Polina, one of the Institute's employees. [[spoiler:He ends up getting fried by the pirates' blasters in a YouShallNotPass HeroicSacrifice, as he stands in their way to buy some time for Kolya to escape]].

** Data's daughter, Lal, "dies" because of cascade failure in her positronic brain after she develops the ability to feel.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' has one kid capable of making gynoids. One episode has a gynoid he created search for him, after he has abandoned her as a [[Sexbot girlfriend]] after having found himself a living girl. The gang has to find her as she is [[SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaid beating the crap]] out of boys that try to pick her up. Buffy sits with her at the end of the episode as she comes to accept her redundancy and begin to shut down. Another episode has the same kid coerced by Spike into making him a copy of Buffy to dominate and simulate a relationship. She sacrifices herself as part of a plan to trick [[BigBad Glory]] and cause the failure of her latest evil plan.

-->-- '''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic''' on the robot character in ''WesternAnimation/DougsFirstMovie''

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{xkcd}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/p_36.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''[[WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans We've lost my pal, ROVER.\\
That's what bothers me most...]]'']]

* Milan, the robot mother from ''Manhua/MyBelovedMother'', to the RaisedByRobots protagonist Sinbell. Who repeatedly rejects his robotic caretaker due to society having FantasticRacism towards robots, and that the revelation of Sinbell having a robot for a mother would make him the school's laughingstock. [[spoiler:And then it's revealed how Milan came to existence in the final chapter's flashback - Sinbell's biological mother, Aya, sacrificed her life to save her son from a gas explosion, and her DyingWish before she succumbs is to have her mind reprogrammed into an android body, codenamed Milan]].

* ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence'': The protagonist is a child android named David whose owners adopt him after their son is put in an induced coma. He bonds with the mother at first, but the son wakes up and resents the ReplacementGoldfish. The mother feels guilty for connecting with David. They try to make it work for a short time, but David's difficulty socialising and integrating with the family causes his adoptive mother to abandon him. David struggles throughout the film with his [[PinocchioSyndrome desires to become human]], but is inspired by the story of Pinocchio to have his wish come true. He spends two thousand years submerged in a watercraft. An evolved race of mecha rescue him and grant him one day with his adoptive mother, who they animate using her DNA.

[[folder:Art]]
* Mel Hunter's Lonely Robot, who appeared in his covers for ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', walks the Earth (or whatever planet it is) alone, without even any other robots for company, after the people have long gone. He interacts with objects as if they worked, when they don't in any practical sense - sitting down to listen to a radio system when there are no signals, rowing a rowboat on sand - as well as painting a picture of what was on the now-dead landscape, reading old boxes of magazines and occasionally discovering the remains of his creators in the ruins of their achievements.
* Matt Dixons ''[[https://www.mattdixon.co.uk/?category=Transmissions Transmissions]]'' series, showing sweet but sad little robots, beat-up and neglected in a world without people, experiencing the quiet wonder of the world. Some struggle to find something to do, some keep working, and some just stop there and wait to deactivate.
[[/folder]]