History WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds / Literature

* Kriemhild. See {{Nibelungenlied}}.

* Maud in Creator/CatherynneMValente's ''Literature/TheGirlWhoCircumnavigatedFairylandInAShipOfHerOwnMaking'', whose life as a hero and a great queen in Fairyland was cut short when she was sent back to the real world and her abusive family, so she sought revenge after being pulled back to Fairyland by her friend.

** Raistlin is an ambiguous case, however, because his loneliness and isolation are entirely his own fault. Throughout his life, he was offered love and friendship by several people, but [[JerkassWoobie he drove them away with his own pride and bitterness]].

* The Lazar from the ''DeathGateCycle'' have this as their [[PlanetOfHats hat]] - they are undead beings caught forever in a state of hellish agony between life and death, and the only way they can have any release at all is by delivering others into the same torment. The only real exceptions are Jonathon (who's a straight {{Woobie}} mixed with MessianicArchetype) and, ironically, Kleitus, leader of most of the Lazar. He was enough of a MagnificentBastard in life to keep his head following reanimation (though, admittedly, he's a bit more AxCrazy now), and plans to use the other Lazar as his tools to purge the universe of sentient life, so he'll be left ruling an empire of the dead.

* [[HarryPotter Barty Crouch Jr.]]. He's a WellDoneSonGuy with a father who never cared about him whatsoever, who loved his wife and [[WhenYouComingHomeDad work]] far, far more than his own son. He's also incredibly brilliant, one of the few characters to get twelve Outstanding [=OWLs=] in the series (not even ''Hermione'' got twelve Outstandings), probably got all Outstandings on his [=NEWTs=], too, possibly just to please his father. After failing to receive the love and approval of his father, he joined the very faction his father despised, finding approval and a father-figure in Voldemort. Crouch was then sent to prison with little consideration by his father, who proclaimed that he [[IHaveNoSon had no son]]. He's well aware that his father saved him from Azkaban and eternal MindRape via Dementors because his mother begged him to save their son. She herself was dying. The only parent who loved him gave up her life for him and died, and by this point, Crouch was already halfway to madness. It's strongly implied that being under the Imperius Curse for too long has the same effect as MindRape, and he was under one for thirteen solid years thanks to his own unloving father. It's no wonder he stayed very loyal to Voldemort and helped with his ploy to get Harry killed and killed his own father.

*** Likewise, her son Voldemort, although to a far lesser extent, is a very dark interpretation of the trope. Evidence from the book suggests that it's not so much that Voldemort doesn't see the value of love and hope as it is that he is completely incapable of experiencing or expressing them, as his sanity and capability of feeling these emotions were destroyed when he was conceived via Love potion. Dumbledore even speculates that Voldemort's sociopathic tendencies might have been mitigated altogether had Merlope actually raised him as her child instead of leaving him at an orphanage.
*** Though this is a somewhat BrokenAesop, as Voldemort is portrayed as an AxCrazy [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour evil little freak]] from birth. He's not made into a murderer through horrible treatment at the orphanage; in fact he's the one torturing all the other kids there. Therefore Voldemort ''is not this trope'', because he lacks a key component: suffering. He never suffered at all; he was born evil rather than made.

* In ''A Kiss in Time'', it turns out that the evil witch who cursed Talia and wants to kill her [[spoiler:actually used to be a kindly fairy who helped the royal family. She'd been in charge of watching Talia's older brother (then an infant) while he slept, and noticed too late that he suddenly stopped breathing. She tried unsuccessfully to revive the baby using her magic, only for the child's nanny to walk in and declare that she cursed the boy to die. She was then exiled and reviled as an evil witch.]]

** Brittney has been enslaved, tortured numerous times in horrific ways, disfigured, has her only family killed and spends three months in a grave in the duration of the series. She's only in four books and Isn't even a significant character in two of them. Can you really hate her in spite of the genocide attempts and destruction she caused?

* Francis Dolarhyde from ''RedDragon''. Sure, he murders whole families and rapes their corpses, but good ''lord'', he had an awful childhood. It gets to the point where you want him to be caught, but you still kinda hope he gets out of the whole mess all right. It helps that Dolarhyde's character development throughout the novel is basically him FightingFromTheInside to prevent a SplitPersonalityTakeover, motivated by ThePowerOfLove. That's enough to make anyone sympathetic.

* Francis Dolarhyde from ''RedDragon''. Sure, he murders whole families and rapes their corpses, but good ''lord'', he had an awful childhood. It gets to the point where you want him to be caught, but you still kinda hope he gets out of the whole mess all right. It helps that his character development throughout the novel focuses on ThePowerOfLove, too.

* Francis Dolarhyde from ''RedDragon''. Sure, he murders whole families and rapes their corpses, but good ''lord'', he had an awful childhood. It gets to the point where you want him to be caught, but you still kinda hope he gets out of the whole mess all right.
** [[DepravedBisexual Jame Gumb]] is implied to be one. Hannibal himself states "Buffalo Bill wasn't born a criminal; he was made one by years of systematic abuse]]."

* Maud in Creator/CatherynneMValente's ''TheGirlWhoCircumnavigatedFairylandInAShipOfHerOwnMaking'', whose life as a hero and a great queen in Fairyland was cut short when she was sent back to the real world and her abusive family, so she sought revenge after being pulled back to Fairyland by her friend.

* In ''MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' by Steven Erikson, the Crippled God is in constant pain after being forcibly summoned and having subsequently crashed into the planet like a meteor. The Crippled God now tries to share his pain with everyone else. Several characters have speculated on whether or not his followers' twisted faith won't let him heal or is it that his pain twists the followers' minds [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity (even more)]]. He's also poisoning the goddess of the Earth, pushing him into full on OmnicidalManiac territory, as he spreads chaos and death across the known world.

* Inverted (and literal) in ''DeathStar'' with Tenn Graneet, the station's chief gunner. Rather than someone who commits evil acts because of his painful past, he is a somewhat naive JustFollowingOrders commander who believed that the Empire would never fire the Death Star at full power at an inhabited planet. When he realizes that [[StarWarsANewHope they would]] and he carried out that order, he becomes so full of self-loathing that you start to really pity him. Eventually, during the Rebel attack at Yavin, he stalls for a few critical seconds, allowing Luke to blow up the Death Star before the Death Star could blow up Yavin IV.

* Isabella Sordeno from Mindy Mackay's {{Peacebreakers}} seems to fit the bill. After being manipulated, abused, and [[spoiler:operated on while conscious]], she snaps and loses her mind, developing into a strategic mastermind and almost singlehandedly [[spoiler:conquers a country]] while exploiting and manipulating everyone around her ForTheEvulz. Eventually, as her malevolence snowballs, her reckless strike against an old enemy ends up [[ZombieApocalypse breaking the world]].

* Dear god, Aeglyss, the halfbreed from TheGodlessWorldTrilogy. After a lifetime of ostracisation and failed attempts at social interaction, he's so damaged that his very presence is contaminating the planet and poisoning the [[TheLifestream Shared]]. By the end, he's diseased, physically ruined, and ready to die, and tries to take the world that's rejected him along for the ride. It's not even deliberate: after failing to enslave the world, he just doesn't care enough about it to try and stop the destruction he's begun.

* Persephone in {{Ravirn}} releases the [[spoiler:Necessity virus]] that would have destroyed the entire multiverse without Ravirn's intervention in hopes of breaking Hades' hold on her. It's later implied that she would have done the same again when Hades [[spoiler:is one of the few candidates to replace Necessity and gain absolute power]], except that she trusted Ravirn to stop him instead.

* In AlanDeanFoster's ''HumanxCommonwealth'' series, Flinx's "sister" Mahnahmi is given this treatment in a big way. Considering how messed up she is and what she's suffered in her life, it's hardly surprising that she's become nihilistic, but for some reason, she insists on taking Flinx and everything he loves with her, even while he's busy saving the galaxy.

* Luke from ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians''.

* Most of the characters who play in "Literature/BattleRoyale", particularly [[spoiler: Yuko]].

* Most of the characters who play in "BattleRoyale", particularly [[spoiler: Yuko]].

* Kriemhild. See {{Nibelungenlied}}.

* Doesn't seem like it at first, but [[MagnificentBastard Petyr Baelish]] from ''ASongOfIceAndFire''. He was born as one of the poorest nobles, if not ''the'' poorest noble, in the realm, then separated from his family at a young age to live with another family in much, much better standing--throwing in his face what he will never have. He's small, weak, and looked down on by everybody. Nobody even calls him by his real name. Then, [[ItGotWorse just to make things worse]], he falls in love with one of the daughters, who he isn't allowed to marry because of his birth. He nearly gets himself killed fighting for her and, after he loses, she completely ignores him. Hard not to feel sorry for him...until he becomes a puppeteer in the royal court, [[spoiler:ruins his first love's family and [[ReplacementGoldfish kidnaps her teenage daughter]], kills people off at his convenience, and starts a frickin' civil war]].

* ''InDeath'' series: ''Holiday In Death'' and ''Portrait In Death'' have killers who could be considered this. Those killers suffered losses that was the end of the world for them. They turned to murder because for them, it's the only way to unleash the pain. Those killers are also implied to have been born with untreated mental disorders. Perhaps they are unsympathetic, but it can be agreed that they are pathetic.

** Catelyn Tully, who [[spoiler:turns into a homicidal, undead, noose-happy outlaw leader after witnessing the brutal massacre of her son, herself and companions at a wedding feast]].

* While most of the villains in ''SwordOfTruth'' are {{Complete Monster}}s or {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s, Nicci is more of this trope. The sixth book, ''Faith of the Fallen'', is mostly devoted to showcasing her mindset and point of view.

* The novelization for Disney's ''Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'' paints Queen Grimhilde as an extremely dark WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds instead of an unrepentent CompleteMonster (Try thinking along the lines of [[Characters/FinalFantasyVI Kefka]] being a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds). For starters, the novel gives her the FreudianExcuse that she was emotionally abused by her [[AbusiveParents father]], a mirror maker, who refused to acknowledge that she was beautiful since she was a child, leading her to be insecure in regards to her beauty. When she did marry Snow White's father, the king, she actually did genuinely care for Snow White as if she were her own daughter. Unfortunately, her father's witch cousins ended up giving her a gift (the magic mirror) that also housed her father's spirit, and it is heavily implied that it was thanks to her father's haunting influence that she started to go insane by the movie.