History WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds / LiveACtionTV

* ''Chloe'', a 2022 MiniSeries from Creator/TheBBC has the protagonist Becky who has NoSocialSkills, an AmbiguousDisorder looking after a mom with dementia in Bristol( a British equivalent to Rust Belt American cities), and she's got a StalkerWithoutACrush obsession about the titular Chloe, who is a PosthumousCharacter (apart from in flashbacks) which is the DrivingQuestion. Becky's main sympathetic qualities are her poor home and work life, and lack of friends, aside from Chloe in her past in high school, although it's an AmbiguousSituation if they were friends or more [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]].

** Jack Bauer almost winds up becoming this. Throughout the entire series he's been betrayed, used, exploited, and almost all his friends and loved ones have wound up dead. In season 8 his last potential love interest is killed and the President betrays him which proves to be the last straw, sending him on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge to expose the conspirators behind the day's events which in turn lead to his love interest dying and then mercilessly '''slaughter''' them, which turn out to be [[spoiler: former President Charles Logan and Russian President Yuri Suvarov]]. What sets him apart from most of the others is he does still have some rationality and does overall still refuse to harm any innocent life; when pressured into the fact that going down this path would lead to several casualties in the ensuing war between the United States and Russia, he realized what he was doing was in the wrong. He may have stopped himself after ''realizing'' what he was doing would kill more innocent than guilty, but prior to that he pulled some pretty risky moves, including opening fire on a crowd of civilians in order to get to said [[PresidentEvil corrupt President]] which could have backfired horribly and killed someone. I'd say he qualifies.

%%** Also, Jimmy is revealed to be one in season 2.

** Willow, in the season 6 finale. Her RoaringRampageOfRevenge over [[spoiler:the death of Tara]] ended with a magical overload that briefly attuned her to the thoughts and feelings of everyone else on the planet. Overwhelmed by the world's collective pain, she decided that [[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery "your suffering has to end"]] and turned her newfound power towards bringing about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. She was finally stopped by the ThePowerOfLove.

--->'''The Doctor:''' All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four-year-old looking for his mummy.... There isn't a little boy born who wouldn't tear the world apart to save his mummy — and this little boy can.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]]: characterises the Master this way — outrageously evil and destructive, but due to the Time Lords intentionally tampering with his brain when he was a child, leaving him permanently tormented by hallucinations of war drums.

** The Twelfth Doctor temporarily becomes this in the final three episodes of Series 9 when NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished results in a TraumaCongaLine. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven "Face the Raven"]], Clara stops him from going on a rampage when [[spoiler:she — his MoralityChain! — '''must''' die when her efforts to stop a plot go horribly awry]], but it's clear that he can only keep his anger and anguish in check for so long. Next in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent "Heaven Sent"]], he is trapped in a torture chamber [[spoiler:and spends ''billions of years'' '''''and lives''''' escaping. The culprits were '''his own people''']]. He emerges at the DespairEventHorizon and hot for {{Revenge}} and succor in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent "Hell Bent"]]. It turns out he underwent most of the torture to [[spoiler:get the means to save Clara from her fixed-point-in-time death]], and in pursuit of this TragicDream risks the entire universe's safety, heedless of the wishes and entreaties of others — all because '''''he can't take it anymore!''''' [[spoiler:When he tries to mind wipe her to keep her safe, she tinkers with the device. Upon being told this, and uncertain whether the tinkering had any effect, Clara and Doctor agree to push the button together and let fate decide; ultimately, ''he'' loses most of his memories of ''her'']], but he accepts this fate as a proper punishment, having already realized/admitted the wrongness of his actions at last, and allows things — and himself — to return to their proper state. This is in many respects an uber-example of the trope because far from being a potential "Destroyer of Worlds", for a brief period the Doctor is actually headed to become Woobie, Destroyer of ''Time''.

** The second half of Season Seven introduces two more ones: [[spoiler:Jack/Nick and Gothel.]]

** When Tenaya 7 invades her lab, [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech she mocks her]], saying, "You pride yourself on how smart you are, don't you? But you still [[NiceJobBreakingItHero royally messed up]], didn't you?"--after which the usually cool Dr. K completely loses it and angrily starts firing her sound cannon in random directions. After the flashback ends, she appears emotionally exhausted, most likely because of the guilt she faced for her mistakes, thus cementing her status on this page.

** In season eight, [[spoiler:they managed to make Doomsday to be something like this because of the horrible life Davis, his human host, has had.]] He was [[ForWantOfANail abandoned as a kid]] as opposed to [[HappilyAdopted having loving]] [[MuggleFosterParents foster parents]] like Clark, and is cursed to bring nothing but death and destruction.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Kevin Uxbridge, from the season 3 episode "The Survivors", was a powerful god being called a Douwd. He took human form and married a woman named Rishon and put aside his powers. Kevin also became a pacifist and took an oath to never kill another being. Moving to a Federation colony on Rana IV, the colony was attacked by aliens called the Husnock. Kevin tried to use illusions to drive the Husnock away, but after they killed his wife, Kevin destroyed all the Husnock, 50 billion of them, in a moment of rage and grief. Horrified at his actions, Kevin went into self-imposed exile on Rana IV, recreating his house and his wife on the ruined planet. When the Enterprise comes to investigate a distress call sent by the colony, Kevin tries to use illusions to drive them away. When Picard confronts Kevin for all this, Kevin breaks down and admits his crime, his actions still tormenting him.

** As of the season 9 finale, [[spoiler:Dean]]. His entire life has been devoted to saving others, to his own detriment more often than not, with no credit, or appreciation from anyone but his fellow hunters (even his own family constantly abandons him and yet expects him to clean up their messes), he finds out he was genetically engineered by Heaven itself, was raised as a warrior TykeBomb with little love shown him by his borderline insane father and now, after literally allowing himself to be murdered to keep from becoming a monster he's [[spoiler:the First Knight of Hell, the Demon that all other demons fear, more powerful than the King of Hell and only less powerful than Lucifer himself]] and all because he wanted to save the world and keep the angels and demons from having their gang war on his planet.

* ''Series/ColdCase'' tends to feature lots of {{Tragic Monster}}s and {{sympathetic murderer}}s, but a particularly [[AxeCrazy gruesome]] example is the Serial killer in ''it takes a village''. Surely someone who [[WouldHurtAChild tortures, mutilates and murders young boys]] just because they are able to [[WorthyOpponent beat him]] at a ''video game'' couldn't possibly have any sympathetic qualities right? As it turns out [[spoiler:the game is symbolic of a room in a particularly awful foster home where he spent his childhood]]. During which he and five other boys were made to stand naked on a square ''for days at a time'' by his counselor. He attempts to stand up to said counselor. [[RealityEnsues Instead of joining in, the other boys gang up on him]] [[{{Fingore}} and cut his finger off]]. He targeted boys who reminded him of the ones who attacked him and at times seems to legitimately believe its ''them'', even though its been over twenty years. By the time the detectives catch up to him, he's an [[TalkativeLoon incoherent mess]] who slips in and out of {{third person|Person}}. He finally comes to his senses long enough [[spoiler:to realize that his latest intended prey is just an innocent little boy who has nothing to do with what happened to him so he lets him go.]] As awful as his crimes were, even the detectives couldn't help but feel a tinge of [[SympathyForTheDevil sympathy]] for him, or at least for the little boy he was.

* Played with in ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Absolute Power" with Daniel Jackson, the show's typical {{Woobie}} of various other types. [[spoiler:In the episode, Daniel is trying to sensitively obtain information about the Goa'uld from a small child, who touches his head in an apparently hostile act, as it renders him unconscious. When he awakens, he proceeds to have all of the needed knowledge revealed to him and proceeds to build the weapon that would apparently defend the Earth, but at the cost of having become at least a JerkassWoobie if not outright evil. He fantasizes about very violent things until, finally, his goal is met. He then proceeds to take over the most powerful weapon in the world from his SupervillainLair and destroy Moscow before waking up and realizing that having absolute power to defeat the Goa'uld in one fell swoop is not such a good idea after all. He wakes up to discover that it was AllJustADream, but during]] the episode, it was implied that this trope actually simply a part of his subconscious, with or without special knowledge. Not surprising, really.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek "Dalek"]], the eponymous creature suffers several existential crises in a row, from being (it believes) the [[LastOfHisKind Last Of Its Kind]] to being part human thanks to the method of its healing. Ultimately, it is DrivenToSuicide over the pain of emotions it never even knew existed.

* The entire premise of ''Series/{{WandaVision}}'' is based on [[ComicBook/{{Scarlet Witch}} Wanda Maximoff]] being so [[SanitySlippage mentally broken]] after seeing her love interest, Vision, killed ''twice'' that she [[spoiler:enslaved the population of an entire New Jersey town to create a fictional sitcom world in which Vision was still alive]].

%%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
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%%If you see a character listed as a Complete Monster, they don't belong here.
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* Adam Monroe on ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' his path of destruction fueled by his heartbreak over [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses Yaeko]].

** The new series characterises the Master this way — outrageously evil and destructive, but due to the Time Lords intentionally tampering with his brain when he was a child, leaving him permanently tormented by hallucinations of war drums.

* ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy2019'' offers two different takes on the trope.
** [[spoiler:Harold Jenkins is a boy who was born on the same day as the gifted children, but suffered horrible abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father, who [[MaternalDeathBlameTheChild blamed him for his mother's death in childbirth]]. Dreaming of joining the Umbrella Academy, but being rejected and publically humiliated by Sir Reginald Hargreeves because he's just a {{Muggle}}, Harold kills his father, goes to prison, and starts plotting revenge against the Academy. After finding Hargreeves' discarded notebook and learning of Vanya's repressed powers, he befriends and manipulates her to goad her into unleashing her powers against the Academy to destroy it from within.]]
** [[spoiler:Vanya herself is the seventh of the Umbrella Academy children, as well as the most singularly powerful. Fearing that she wouldn't be able to control her PsychoactivePowers, Sir Hargreeves had her sister Allison use her hypnotic voice to make Vanya forget about her powers and put her on lifelong anti-depressants to suppress her emotions. Always being left out because she thought she was TheTeamNormal turns Vanya into an easy target for Jenkins' emotional prodding as an adult. Further misunderstandings cause Vanya to lash out against her family, then finally snap and decides to cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.]]

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': [[spoiler:Cassidy Casablancas]] was molested by his little league coach, belitted and picked on by his father and brother, and abandoned by his mother. It causes him to go crazy and blow up a BusFullOfInnocents.

** Jack Bauer almost winds up becoming this. Throughout the entire series he's been betrayed, used, exploited, and almost all his friends and loved ones have wound up dead. In season 8 his last potential love interest is killed and the President betrays him which proves to be the last straw, sending on him on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge to expose the conspirators behind the day's events which in turn lead to his love interest dying and then mercilessly '''slaughter''' them, which turn out to be [[spoiler: former President Charles Logan and Russian President Yuri Suvarov]]. What sets him apart from most of the others is he does still have some rationality and does overall still refuse to harm any innocent life; when pressured into the fact that going down this path would lead to several casualties in the ensuing war between the United States and Russia, he realized what he was doing was in the wrong. He may have stopped himself after ''realizing'' what he was doing would kill more innocent than guilty, but prior to that he pulled some pretty risky moves, including opening fire on a crowd of civilians in order to get to said [[PresidentEvil corrupt President]] which could have backfired horribly and killed someone. I'd say he qualifies.

** [[spoiler:Vanya herself is the seventh of the Umbrella Academy children, as well as the most singularly powerful. Fearing that she wouldn't be able to control her PsychoactivePowers, Sir Hargreeves had her sister Allison use her hypnotic voice to make Vanya forget about her powers and put her on lifelong anti-depressents to suppress her emotions. Always being left out because she thought she was TheTeamNormal turns Vanya into an easy target for Jenkins' emotional prodding as an adult. Further misunderstandings cause Vanya to lash out against her family, then finally snaps and decides to cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.]]

** [[spoiler:Vanya herself is the seventh of the Umbrella Academy children, as well as the most singularly powerful. Fearing that she wouldn't be able to control her sound/energy-based abilities, Sir Hargreeves had her sister Allison use her hypnotic voice to make Vanya forget about her powers and put her on lifelong anti-depressents to suppress her emotions. Always being left out because she thought she was TheTeamNormal turns Vanya into an easy target for Jenkins' emotional prodding as an adult. Further misunderstandings cause Vanya to lash out against her family, then finally snaps and decides to cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.]]

** Demons in general qualify as this once you find out their backstory: they're destructive, sadistic monsters purely because they [[spoiler:are humans who have undergone such horrific torture in Hell for so long that they literally lose their memories of everything except Hell and subsequently lose their humanity, turning just as depraved and warped as their torturers. How did they get to Hell in the first place? Maybe they made the unfortunate decision to sell their soul to a stranger at the crossroads for a wish. Or maybe the angels running Heaven decide they needed to be punished for something, barred them from Heaven, and sent them to Hell after they die. (By the way, crimes that warrant this range from getting tricked into doing something wrong to refusing to follow their screwed-up orders.) Or even just because the King of Hell has reapers on the payroll and can get ANYONE he wants condemned to Hell]]. '''''Jeez.'''''

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': [[spoiler:Cassidy Casablancas]] was molested, belitted, picked on by his family, and abandoned by his mother. It causes him to go crazy and a blow up a BusFullOfInnocents.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Survivors", the [[EnergyBeings Dowd]] Kevin Uxbridge abandoned his life-long pacifist beliefs and wiped out the entire Husnock race (of which there were about fifty billion in the galaxy) with a single thought after the Husnock attacked his home colony and killed his beloved wife. Immediately afterward he realized the extent of his crime and sentenced himself to the CruelMercy of living alone on the dead colony world with only a hollow copy of his wife for company and permanent reminder of his deed.

** River Song, a LaserGuidedTykebomb who attempted to destroy the fabric of time itself attempting to avert the inevitable death of the Doctor. Fortunately, the Doctor saw her potential, having known the [[BootstrapParadox good person she'd become after this event]], and married her.

* By Season 8 of ''Series/GameOfThrones'', Daenerys Targaryen has become this. Having devoted her life since her teenage years to [[RightfulKingReturns reclaiming her family's throne]], when she finally returns to Westeros, [[DudeWheresMyRespect she finds the people she considers her rightful subjects indifferent to her at best and hostile at worst]]. [[TraumaCongaLine She watches her best friends, her closest confidant and two of the dragons she considers her surrogate children killed]] trying to protect Westeros, sees the man she loves grow steadily more and more distant because of his discomfort with the discovery they are [[SurpriseIncest aunt and nephew]] and [[SanitySlippage her increasingly erratic behaviour]] openly scaring him, and while he has no interest in pressing his better claim to her throne, members of his own family and her inner circle have already gone behind her back to plot using him against her. It all culminates when her army storms the capital city of Westeros and her enemy's forces surrender; Daenerys [[RageBreakingPoint snaps]], decides that if her subjects will never love her, she will settle for them cowering in terror instead and leads her armies from the back of her last dragon in a blood-soaked massacre of the surrendering defenders and the civilian population of King's Landing.

* By Season 8 of ''Series/GameOfThrones'', Daenerys Targaryen has become this. Having devoted her life since her teenage years to [[RightfulKingReturns reclaiming her family's throne]], when she finally returns to Westeros, [[DudeWheresMyRespect she finds the people she considers her rightful subjects indifferent to her at best and hostile at worst]]. [[TraumaCongaLine She watches her best friends, her closest confidant and two of the dragons she considers her surrogate children killed]], sees the man she loves grow steadily more and more distant and afraid towards her because of the discovery they are [[SurpriseIncest aunt and nephew]] and [[SanitySlippage her increasingly erratic behaviour]], and while he has no interest in pushing his better claim to her throne, members of his own family and her inner circle have already gone behind her back to plot using him against her. It all culminates when her army storms the capital city of Westeros and her enemy's forces surrender, Daenerys snaps, decides that if her subjects will never love her, they will fear her instead and leads her armies from the back of her last dragon in a blood-soaked massacre of the surrendering defenders and the civilian population of King's Landing.

* Morgana from ''Series/{{Merlin}}''. She has magic, in a place were that is a death sentence. Aims to stop this but no one will help her. Is turned on by her former friends, as they ignore her and keep things she really should have been told. Merlin is the worst in this.