History Main / TragicTimeTraveler

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "The Time Traveler's Pig", [[Characters/GravityFallsDipperPines Dipper Pines's]] attempts to win Wendy over at the fair leads to the same outcome each time: Wendy gets hit in the eye with his baseball, and Robbie comforts her and asks her out. The one time Dipper succeeds in getting the ending he wants, his sister Mabel suffers instead, which makes Dipper feel guilty enough to set things back the way they were.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': During "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E12ElsewhereAndElsewhen Elsewhere and Elsewhen]]", [[spoiler:[[Characters/TheOwlHouseLuzNoceda Luz Noceda]] and [[Characters/TheOwlHouseLilithClawthorne Lilith Clawthorne]] wind up traveling back in time to the Deadwardian Era in order for the former to learn more about the first visitor to the Isles, Phillip Wittebane. Once they meet him, Luz tries to help him by revealing to him the Light Glyph and generally keeps an optimistic belief that he might turn out to be good. Sadly, he turns out to be anything but: not only being willing to sacrifice Lilith to a beast, but wanting to eradicate the witches despite living among them. The duo aren't happy about their discovery, and they leave with their hands empty and, in Luz's case, a BrokenPedestal]]. And while Lilith mostly came out unscathed, "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E16HollowMind Hollow Mind]]" has Luz become this when she learns [[spoiler:Emperor Belos ''is'' Phillip, and her trip to the past unknowingly aided him in his quest to wipe out witchkind, with the man himself twisting the knife once she finds out by thanking her for it]].

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': In Volume 9, Jaune ends up being this by accident. After landing in the mystical Ever After, he ends up finding a tree with Time Clocks as its fruit. He ends up unintentionally using one of the fruits, sending himself back ''decades'' before Team RWBY falls to the time when Alyx and Lewin (the latter a famous author of a beloved fairy tale back on Remnant) fell into the Ever After. Because they're extremely relevant to future events, and desperately trying to find some way to make up for the traumatic events that occurred to him in Volume 8, he tries to help them along according to what he remembers happened in the fairy tale. Unfortunately, this horribly backfires because Alyx and Lewin are not exactly like their portrayal in the stories, and his attempts at railroading them into what he perceives as the "right path" [[ManipulativeBastard (mixed with the manipulation of the Curious Cat)]] only ends up making Alyx paranoid and afraid of Jaune, eventually enough to trying to kill him just to get away from his manipulation. With his mission failed, Jaune ended up staying in one place, waiting for his friends to arrive but also reduced to a broken shell of the young man he used to be, stuck trying to play hero with a group of Afterans he perceives as "fragile and helpless" to avoid facing his personal trauma (the actual reason he was sent back in time).

* ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'': In Volume 9, [[spoiler: Jaune ends up being this by accident. After landing in the mystical Ever After, he ends up finding a tree with Time Clocks as its fruit. He ends up unintentionally using one of the fruits, sending himself back ''decades'' before Team RWBY falls to the time when Alyx and Lewin (the latter a famous author of a beloved fairy tale back on Remnant) fell into the Ever After. Because they're extremely relevant to future events, and desperately trying to find some way to make up for the traumatic events that occurred to him in Volume 8, he tries to help them along according to what he remembers happened in the fairy tale. Unfortunately, this horribly backfires because Alyx and Lewin are not exactly like their portrayal in the stories, and his attempts at railroading them into what he perceives as the "right path" [[ManipulativeBastard (mixed with the manipulation of the Curious Cat)]] only ends up making Alyx paranoid and afraid of Jaune, eventually enough to trying to kill him just to get away from his manipulation. With his mission failed, Jaune ended up staying in one place, waiting for his friends to arrive but also reduced to a broken shell of the young man he used to be, stuck trying to play hero with a group of Afterans he perceives as "fragile and helpless" to avoid facing his personal trauma (the actual reason he was sent back in time).]]

* ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'': Karl has the ability to time travel to both the past and future of the SMP to document the events as he witnesses and later experiences them. However, not only does he [[PowerIncontinence have basically no control of his time travelling]] -- both in terms of when and where he goes, but he is also gradually losing his memories and sense of identity every time he travels. The latter has resulted in some ''serious'' PoorCommunicationKills with one of his fiancés, with a devastating fallout. It's also implied that [[spoiler:[[GodIsEvil the server god]] who granted him these abilities in the first place will have him killed once his mind has deteriorated too much from the time travel, as it's occurred to his unnamed predecessor; given the abrupt ending of the series as a whole, it's likely that Karl's fate will never be confirmed.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'' has the BigBad of the first season, Nox. He's a [[TimeMaster Xelor]] who travels around the world in order to gather enough Wakfu to use it for some unknown motive. [[spoiler:Said goal eventually turns out to be to save his family, which died centuries ago. And he eventually ''does'' manage to gather enough Wakfu to turn time back... by mere twenty minutes, leaving him utterly despondent and broken once he realizes his actions were pointless in the end]].
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': During the episode "[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E11Desperada Desperada]]", [[Characters/MiraculousLadybugAdrienAgreste Adrien Agreste]] is briefly gifted the Snake Miraculous by Ladybug in order to become the time-rewinding hero Aspik. However, no matter what he does, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Ladybug falls and he's forced to reset the timeline]], a process that goes on for so long that by then he decides to quit, Sass, the Kwami of the Snake Miraculous, suffers from a brief bout of TimeLoopFatigue.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'': The episode "Tales of the Yokai" has the turtles hurled sixteen years into the past when Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki were still friends and Tang Shen was still alive. To make sure that the timeline goes the way it's supposed to after their interactions with the Hamato Clan threaten their future, they discover that they were partly and indirectly responsible for causing the violent feud between Splinter and Shredder. The tragedy is worsened as they had to do it in order to ensure their own birth by rescuing Yoshi so he would go to New York, become Splinter, and raise the turtles. The turtles are less than pleased with this revelation to say the least.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': During "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E12ElsewhereAndElsewhen Elsewhere and Elsewhen]]", [[spoiler: [[Characters/TheOwlHouseLuzNoceda Luz Noceda]] and [[Characters/TheOwlHouseLilithClawthorne Lilith Clawthorne]] wind up traveling back in time to the Deadwardian Era in order for the former to learn more about the first visitor to the Isles, Phillip Wittebane. Once they meet him, Luz tries to help him by revealing to him the Light Glyph and generally keeps an optimistic belief that he might turn out to be good. Sadly, he turns out to be anything but: not only being willing to sacrifice Lilith to a beast, but wanting to eradicate the witches despite living among them. The duo aren't happy about their discovery, and they leave with their hands empty and, in Luz's case, a BrokenPedestal]]. And while Lilith mostly came out unscathed, "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E16HollowMind Hollow Mind]]" has Luz become this when she learns [[spoiler:Emperor Belos ''is'' Phillip, and her trip to the past unknowingly aided him in his quest to wipe out witchkind, with the man himself twisting the knife once she finds out by thanking her for it]].

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': During the episode "[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E11Desperada Desperada]]", Adrien is briefly gifted the Snake Miraculous by Ladybug in order to become the time-rewinding hero Aspik. However, no matter what he does, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Ladybug falls and he's forced to reset the timeline]], a process that goes on for so long that by then he decides to quit, Sass, the Kwami of the Snake Miraculous, suffers from a brief bout of TimeLoopFatigue.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "The Time Traveler's Pig", Dipper's attempts to win Wendy over at the fair leads to the same outcome each time: Wendy gets hit in the eye with his baseball, and Robbie comforts her and asks her out. The one time Dipper succeeds in getting the ending he wants, his sister Mabel suffers instead, which makes Dipper feel guilty enough to set things back the way they were.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': During "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E12ElsewhereAndElsewhen Elsewhere and Elsewhen]]", [[spoiler:Luz and Lilith wind up traveling back in time to the Deadwardian Era in order for the former to learn more about the first visitor to the Isles, Phillip Wittebane. Once they meet him, Luz tries to help him by revealing to him the Light Glyph and generally keeps an optimistic belief that he might turn out to be good. Sadly, he turns out to be anything but: not only being willing to sacrifice Lilith to a beast, but wanting to eradicate the witches despite living among them. The duo aren't happy about their discovery, and they leave with their hands empty and, in Luz's case, a BrokenPedestal]]. And while Lilith mostly came out unscathed, "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E16HollowMind Hollow Mind]]" has Luz become this when she learns [[spoiler:Emperor Belos ''is'' Phillip, and her trip to the past unknowingly aided him in his quest to wipe out witchkind, with the man himself twisting the knife once she finds out by thanking her for it]].
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The plot of "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E20ItsAboutTime It's About Time]]" involves a future version of Twilight showing up to the present day version, one that comes from next Tuesday morning, and who has an important message to tell her. However, before her message can be delivered, she vanishes in a puff of smoke, prompting the present Twilight to prepare herself for the inevitable Tuesday morning her future self came from. [[spoiler:It eventually turns out that said Tuesday morning was a perfectly ordinary morning, the ''reason'' Future Twilight looked the way she did was because of Twilight growing overly worried regarding her future self's version, which led to a series of events that caused her to get injured and donning a spy outfit. By the end, [[StableTimeLoop Twilight decides to travel back to the past to warn her past self not to get worked up too hard]], something that her friends decide to leave alone.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'': The entire premise of the show revolves around [[BigGood the titular character]] being sent into the future by [[BigBad Aku]], where he has won and conquered the world, and he faces many obstacles while trying to head back to the past. This is tragic enough, but the final season makes this ''worse'' because [[spoiler:not only has Aku successfully destroyed every time portal, thus preventing Jack from ever going back home, but an unexpected side effect of the time travel has caused Jack to become TheAgeless, leaving him trapped in the future with no way out for ''decades'']].

* ''Franchise/XMen'': Bishop has been put through the grinder several times:
** Introduced in late 1991, he is an Australian mutant from a Sentinel-dominated future where the X-Men have died due to a traitor (which becomes one of his reasons for [[TitleDrop his crossing]]). He follows time-traveller bad guy Trevor Fitzroy to the past (but not the past of ''his'' timeline) with two subordinates and friends, Malcolm and Randall, but discovers he cannot travel back.
** He is stranded in the past along with many future prisoners from his timeline, and his subordinates die in the present while they are capturing some of the fugitives. Later, he joins the X-Men and adapts to his new situation.
** In 1995, he travels back in time to the past to protect a young Magneto from being killed by Xavier's son Legion but fails and is stranded in the BadFuture Xavier's death creates (crossover ''Age of Apocalypse''). He lives 20 years of a hellish reality until he travels back in time ''again'' and succeeds in protecting Xavier this time. His past self (present-time version) absorbs the memories from the alternate Bishop, which fogs his mind for a time.
** In 1996, the ''Onslaught'' crossover makes use of the "X-traitor" plot point to reveal [[spoiler:Professor Xavier]] was the traitor, and not Gambit, as he previously thought. Bishop jumps in front of an energy beam cast by Onslaught and absorbs it, saving the X-Men from being executed.
** After some years in and out of the team, he returns as a main player in the X-books in 2007, with ''Messiah Complex'': Bishop [[spoiler:betrays the X-Men]] and searches for the baby mutant messiah, since, this time, she will grow up to be a maniac who kills humans, leading to the Sentinel-led future Bishop came from (both a ReimaginingTheArtifact and a {{Retcon}}).
* Silver the Hedgehog's depictions in both the Archie comics and IDW series place a stronger emphasis on this as opposed to the games, where he has experienced the events of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' in some form. The comics make his personality a lot more cheerful and idealistic, unlike his more dour counterparts from the mainline games and ''Sonic '06''.

* {{Downplayed}} in ''ComicBook/StarTrekDebtOfHonor''. Dr. Gillian Taylor, who came back to the 23rd century from TheEighties with the crew in ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', mentions problems adjusting to being a FishOutOfTemporalWater: among other things, she had to partially relearn English because the language has continued to evolve since her time.
* In ''ComicBook/FlashpointDCComics'', [[Characters/TheFlashBarryAllen Barry Allen (the second Flash)]] traveled back in time to save his mom, Nora, from her death [[spoiler:at the hands of Reverse-Flash]]. This came at a cost of breaking the DC Universe, creating the CrapsackWorld that is the Flashpoint timeline itself. [[spoiler:In the end, after realizing what he [[ComicBook/DoomsdayClock (and secretly, Doctor Manhattan)]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone did to the world]], Barry travelled in time again to prevent his mother from being saved, restoring the DC Universe and finally bring himself closure, though he has to go through hell with regaining his power and surviving in the broken timeline first.]]
* Samaritan from ''ComicBook/AstroCity''. [[YouCantGoHomeAgain His home no longer exists]]; he originated from a BadFuture in the 35th century and was sent to the past to fix it. In the process, he acquired superpowers that allowed him to prevent the ''Challenger'' disaster. He did fix the bad timeline, but in the process, his family was erased from existence.
* ''ComicBook/Venom2021'': Eddie Brock's travels through time lead to him getting caught in a time loop. He finds to his horror that he will be so broken by the knowledge of what is to come that he'll attack his own son on command, toady up to the cruel Meridius, and then ''become'' Meridius, putting his past selves through all that pain as a desperate plan to ''escape''. All of Eddie's attempts to defy the loop only end up perpetuating it.

* The Doctor from ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' is this in spades; they're an immortal, time-traveling alien that has loved and lost countless companions, has died and been reborn at least fourteen times, and has seen every part of the timeline from the Big Bang to the moments before the Heat Death of the Universe. This goes doubly for their companions since the 2005 revival: [[spoiler:[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Rose Tyler gets stuck in an alternate universe]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords Martha Jones had to travel a dystopian post-apocalyptic earth for a year to save the Doctor and was broken by the experience]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Donna Noble has her memories of the Doctor erased and will die if she ever gets them back]]... and that's just the Ninth and Tenth Doctor's companions]].

* The Doctor from ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' is this in spades; they're an immortal, time-traveling alien that has loved and lost countless companions, has died and been reborn at least fourteen times, and has seen every part of the timeline from the Big Bang to the moments before the Heat Death of the Universe. This goes doubly for their companions since the 2005 revival: [[spoiler:Rose Tyler gets stuck in an alternate universe, Martha Jones had to travel a dystopian post-apocalyptic earth for a year to save the Doctor and was broken by the experience, Donna Noble has her memories of the Doctor erased and will die if she ever gets them back... and that's just the 9th and 10th Doctor's companions]].