| 1 | %% |
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| 3 | %%If you see a character listed as a Complete Monster, they don't belong here. |
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| 6 | [[index]] |
| 7 | ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' has [[JerkassWoobie/StarWarsTheCloneWars its own page]], '''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'' [[JerkassWoobie/{{Fillmore}} does to]]. |
| 8 | [[/index]] |
| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | |
| 11 | * ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatianStreet'': Dylan. While on the outside, he may seem friendly and adorkable, he can be very insensitive, full of himself and quick to anger. It's especially evident in his treatment of Dawkins and Deepak. However, there are several episodes where he gets humiliated or harassed, plus he's in a near constant state of stress. He especially gets broken hard in "Poodlefall!" where his beloved tabletop character gets killed off. |
| 12 | * ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatiansTheSeries'': |
| 13 | ** [[ItsAllAboutMe Lucky.]] He has a massive ego and a tremendous stubborn streak. Also, he can be quite the brat as evidenced in "Splishing And Splashing" where he outright refuses to apologize to Lucy for splashing her but then there are episodes like "Lucky To Be Alone" "Watch For Falling Idols" and "Cone Head" where he gets hit with a pretty heavy dose of BreakTheHaughty. |
| 14 | ** [[TheBully Mooch.]] He pretty much has the reputation of a thuggish gang leader and bully on the farm but in "Twelve Angry Pups", he's blamed for a crime he didn't commit and in "My Fair Moochie", Cadpig crushed his heart pretty hard after he tried to make a genuine attempt to change. It's perfectly understandable why he bursts into tears and sobs on Lucky's shoulder after Cadpig dumps him. |
| 15 | ** [[MinionWithAnFInEvil Dipstick.]] Sure, he's part of Mooch's gang but just watching him cry in "Twelve Angry Pups" kind of makes you want to cuddle and pet the poor thing. He also had his collar stolen by Swamp Rat in another episode. |
| 16 | ** [[ShellShockedVeteran Lt.Pug]] is one of [[TheScrappy the most hated characters on the show.]] But after the torture Persian Pete put him through as a pup, it's easy to see why he's such a shell-shocked, bossy, mentally unstable loudmouth of a jerk. |
| 17 | ** [[DesignatedVillain Lucy The Goose]]. She has a very irritable and grumpy attitude but she only wanted to swim in peace without being splashed by the pups. |
| 18 | * ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': |
| 19 | ** The Ice King, [[spoiler:who was once a normal guy who was driven insane by his crown and the loss of his fiancee]]. "The Eyes" turns out to be [[spoiler: his attempt to learn how Finn and Jake are able to be happy; it ends with him [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments falling asleep with Finn and Jake curled up in his arms]], only to utter one last line before the episode fades to black: [[YankTheDogsChain "I'm... still not happy."]]]] |
| 20 | ** All the enemies from [[FictionalVideoGame Guardians of the Sunshine]] wanted was sunlight... and to kill Beemo for imprisoning them inside him for so long. |
| 21 | ** The Earl of Lemongrab. He's a jerk, (and really annoying) but he's absolutely ''pathetic'', in his social awkwardness, MommyIssues, constant anxiety, FriendlessBackground, and perpetual unhappiness. For some people, it's impossible to watch an episode with Lemongrab in it and ''not'' want to give him a hug or say something nice to him. |
| 22 | * ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'': Mozenrath. While he is undeniably one of the darker villains the series had to offer, it's implied he was raised by a man so ruthless that even Jafar feared him, and the source of his power is making his body decay, putting him at death's door at a very young age. He also works hard for all that he has and all that he seeks to obtain, [[HardWorkHardlyWorks but is always defeated by someone who "had his Genie handed to him on a silver platter."]] |
| 23 | * ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'': Killer. In the original movie, he has a bloodthirsty streak and wishes to squeeze Charlie's head with pliers but is also capable of kindness, such as when he helps pull Anne-Marie to safety. In the animated series, he's a rude and obnoxious complainer but at the same time, he gets pretty much no respect from his boss, Carface. In the episode "Sidekicked", he's pretty much given up any hope of Carface saving him yet he constantly badmouths Itchy. |
| 24 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': |
| 25 | ** Gumball Watterson, the titular protagonist, is a lazy, bratty, [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]], often arrogant, stubborn, impulsive and callous [[DeadpanSnarker snarker]], who often ends up causing a lot of trouble with his hairbrained schemes. Which he often does for very petty and selfish reasons. At his worst, such as in "The Saint", he can even border on becoming an outright ''VillainProtagonist''. But on the ''other hand'', Gumball is also the biggest ButtMonkey and ChewToy on the show, and possibly one of the biggest ones in Creator/CartoonNetwork history. (Before [[TookALevelInJerkass taking a level in jerkass in season two]], he could even be just TheWoobie at times.) He often ends up suffering, regardless of whether he's actually done anything to deserve it or not, or suffering highly DisproportionateRetribution. Is often put into situations where he's genuinely terrified for his wellbeing. He gets next to no respect from even his own loved ones (who, while at least ''generally'' nicer, aren't exactly saints themselves.). And on top of that, he [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold does have a good heart underneath it all and does often go to great lengths to help others]]. Making it kind of hard not to feel bad for him sometimes. |
| 26 | ** His mother Nicole can also qualify. She has a ''seriously bad'' HairTriggerTemper, can be very stubborn, overcompetitive, controlling, and in her worst moments, can even cross into AbusiveParent territory. But she also supports her family mostly by herself, do to being married to a (well meaning) unemployed, [[BumblingDad bumbling]] {{man child}}, has to deal with and clean up after Gumball and the rest of her kids' antics on a regular basis, while receiving little appreciation either at work or at home. And on top of that, her [[ObnoxiousInLaws step-mother is needlessly antagonistic to her]], she has some serious ParentalIssues of her own, and she's a [[TheAce very skilled, strong, smart, and driven women]] who could have had a very successful life if things would have worked out differently, instead of just barely being able to get by while dealing with lots of frustration from her family. And despite all this, she's still a very devoted wife and mother who would do anything for her family. |
| 27 | ** Miss Simian, Tina, and Mr. Robinson could count to some degree. As while they are all pretty big jerks, they also all have their own issues that can earn them a bit of sympathy; Mr. Robinson is constantly pestered by his neighbors and his wife hates him and is completely evil. Nobody likes Miss Simian, (admittedly for [[SadistTeacher good reason]]), she is willing to horribly injure herself just for an award. Tina is expected to act like a bully because her dad is one so she does, but doesn’t really want to. |
| 28 | * ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': |
| 29 | ** Roger Smith is this and a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. His AxCrazy behavior is because his species releases a toxic bile that kills them if they don't "let their evilness out". Made worse when it is revealed the reason he is trapped on Earth is that the others of his species wanted to get rid of him (Apparently only Emperor Zing wanted to get rid of him as its heavily implied that he sent Roger to Earth as a crash test dummy and tried to kill him to get revenge of Roger for having an affair with a human man and Zing kept this a secret that only he and the Majestic knew). In addition, there are moments where he really seems to care about his adoptive family. It is implied that Roger only acts that way because he was made to be evil, and not by choice and pure malice, and if you stop to think about it, it's sad and terrible being him. |
| 30 | ** Stan Smith also counts. It turns out that the reason why he turned out to be a bigoted, impulsive, and arrogant man with anger problems was because he had a very rough childhood. His dad left his mom at Stan's 8th birthday party because Stan's mom had an affair with the party clown and Stan initially believed that his father was fully to blame for leaving him therefore losing all respect for him. Plus Stan's mom forced her own son to kill a dog that he loved so much because she wanted to get into an apartment that didn't allow dogs. Even after all of this Stan had to put up with his mom's antics not to mention the training he had to go through as an agent of the CIA. |
| 31 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': |
| 32 | ** Slappy Squirrel becomes this in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo Clock". Sure, she's a grumpy and bloodthirsty ScrewballSquirrel who loves harming her enemies with dynamite, but in the episode, she suffers from a nervous breakdown and has her own nephew taken away from her. The SingleTear she sheds in the episode really sells this. |
| 33 | ** Baynarts "Charlton" Woodchuck. He's a very bossy and egotistical actor and director who keeps a list of everyone whose ever insulted him but he goes through a ton of slapstick violence. Getting beaten up by a bear several times, stung by a nest full of bees, getting stuck in a toilet. His cute character design alone kind of makes you want to hug the poor little guy. |
| 34 | * ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'': Carl's an obnoxious, rude, chauvinistic, perverted, unpleasant, and hygienically challenged loser, but seeing the sheer amount of shit that the Aqua Teens and the whole universe in general puts him through, he definitely deserves some sympathy: He's been harassed by a group of aliens, haunted by a mechanical ghost, raped twice by a genetically engineered dog, bought a recorder that took control over his whole body, nearly had his genitals mutilated by a fast food company, and lastly, his neighbors are prone to invading his pool and car without his consent, often damaging his property in the process. In general, he's a CosmicPlaything who suffers many {{Humiliation Conga|}}s. |
| 35 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Arcane}}'': |
| 36 | ** Deckard is a street thug who is introduced trying to ruff up Vi's gang but gets his ass handed to him. His battered body is then taken by Silco, who threatens him and later manipulated to drink Shimmer. Deckard felt desperate enough to gain some power, even if it meant damaging his body, and his transformations are quite painful, and he vomits every time he transforms. He eventually becomes an addict who can barely function without Shimmer. |
| 37 | ** Marcus is a RabidCop and PoliticallyIncorrectVillain who looks down on the people of Zaun, but he is tricked by Silco who kills his boss and compatriots in front of him and feels disgusted with himself for letting Grayson die. While he is subsequently complicit in a conspiracy with Silco for mutual benefits, he's shown to be deeply miserable, regretful, and evidently TrappedInVillainy due to having gone too far deep in their partnership. After the time skip, he's also become a single father with a daughter who he loves very much despite his faults, and he's clearly terrified when Silco subtly threatens her life. |
| 38 | ** Jinx moves from TheWoobie to this after act two after becoming a MadBomber, but she still has the same backstory and abandonment issues, while her mental state is deteriorating. She is constantly haunted by hallucinations of her dead family. |
| 39 | ** Silco is a brutal crime lord who's unhesitant to kill men, women and [[WouldHurtAChild children]] alike to achieve his high-minded goal of freeing Zaun from the shackles of Piltover. However, he's also explicitly traumatized by his perceived betrayal from Vander over their differing goals, having been left to suffer in squalor until he and his "brother" stood up in revolution. As the show goes on, Silco gradually begins to be put under more pressure as he's torn between his mission to free Zaun and keep his mentally ailing daughter, Jinx, safe and [[AbusiveParents always by his side]] due to his PsychologicalProjection and genuine love for her. By the end of the show, Silco is a broken man who's [[spoiler: willingly traded the dream he's fought for and his people's liberty for his daughter]], and even when Jinx [[spoiler: drags him away, binds him, and accidentally kills him]], Silco can't bring himself to hold any malice toward her and even tells her [[spoiler: that she's perfect]]. |
| 40 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'': Sterling Archer is an abusive, womanizing, and egotistical secret agent barely tolerated by all those around him... but every indication points that [[FreudianExcuse it was a terrible childhood that made him what he is]]. |
| 41 | * ''WesternAnimation/AtomicPuppet'': |
| 42 | ** AP ([[ForcedTransformation the former]] Captain Atomic) is the epitome of SmugSuper and tends to be [[GoodIsNotNice very rude]], but his transformation into a sock puppet has made him extremely unhappy. He's always afraid that his former friends won't take him back, the city's he's protected for years thinks he's abandoned them, and he's afraid of losing Joey, as it'll render him totally powerless (it's almost happened to him a few times). For the greatest superhero Mega City has known, he's pretty miserable as a puppet. |
| 43 | ** Ex-BumblingSidekick and BigBadWannabe Mookie has it even worse. Despite being a complete GloryHound responsible for turning Captain Atomic into a puppet, constantly unleashing monsters and villains to steal credit for defeating, and attempting to overthrow Atomic Puppet on a regular basis, it's implied that he turned evil because of [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal the constant humiliation and rejection he received from both Captain Atomic and the people of Mega City.]] |
| 44 | * ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': |
| 45 | ** [[spoiler:Azula]] becomes this via VillainousBreakdown. As evil as she was in the series, [[spoiler: the reveal of the [[FreudianExcuse reasons]] behind this and the showcasing of the full extent of her screwed-up mind caused many to pity her, including her foes, Zuko and Katara, in-show, and series creators, Mike and Bryan, outside of it. Her final scene can even qualify as a TearJerker.]] |
| 46 | *** It gets worse. In ''[[ComicBook/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSearch The Search]]'', one can't help but pity her more. Her mental health is even ''worse'' than before, and she agrees [[spoiler:to help Zuko find their mother. However, her suspicions about her mother not loving her all that much are confirmed, especially when she learns she has a half-sister, who is a much more playful, sweet, and well-adjusted child.]] |
| 47 | ---> [[spoiler:'''Azula''']]: [[spoiler:TELL ME, MOTHER: [[ArmorPiercingQuestion DID YOU HAVE TO HAVE A NEW DAUGHTER WHEN THE LAST ONE TURNED OUT TO BE]] ''[[TearJerker SUCH A MONSTER?!]]'']] |
| 48 | ** Zuko was this in the first season, in which he was the chief villain (though his villainous objective got hijacked by Zhao in the end), but lost much of his villain status in the following two seasons and became a straighter example of TheWoobie. |
| 49 | * In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', many of the villains fit into this category; |
| 50 | ** Harley Quinn is definitely one of them. First off, despite working with The Joker, it's a rare day that in ''this'' [[TheVerse 'verse]] that she comes [[AntiVillain anywhere near true villainy herself]] ([[TheDragon not that she's not dangerous per-se]]). Second, her boyfriend's ''the Joker''. [[FridgeHorror Think about it]]. The closest she gets to a VillainSong is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp6wLXj4-5A this lovely number]], which is her playing her own MasochismTango relationship ''[[PlayedForLaughs for laughs]]''. Which makes perfect sense given... [[VillainousHarlequin well]], [[DontExplainTheJoke you know...]] |
| 51 | ** Mary Dahl, aka "Baby Doll", was an actress who had a genetic disorder which prevented her from aging normally, and hence, leaving her stuck playing the same troublesome tot well into adulthood. All her attempts at breaking out in other roles backfired [[IAmNotSpock because nobody would accept her as anything but Baby Doll]]. It drove her so mad that she abducted her former costars to reenact the show, particularly one episode in which a costar supposedly humiliated her, and she was going to get back at them. Her VillainousBreakdown in the end is one of the most [[TearJerker heartbreaking]] moments in the DCAU. |
| 52 | ** Mr. Freeze started as a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds who would do everything to help his terminally-ill wife. Though by the time of "Cold Comfort", he has become merciless, bent upon destroying everything and everyone held dear to the people of Gotham City, because of his wife leaving him and [[spoiler:his body having deteriorated entirely except for his head]]. He does go back to the former personality by the time of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''. |
| 53 | ** Clayface. Unlike his peers, he's genuinely a jerk and little more. Yet he was originally a handsome man who was turned into a shapeshifting BlobMonster through a forced overdose and the BodyHorror he constantly goes through is nasty. |
| 54 | * ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': Willie Watt was bullied in school, picked on especially by the resident JerkJock and the gym teachers, and his own father is just as harsh on him. He has no friends, and the AlphaBitch only agreed to go to the prom with him to piss off the JerkJock who bullies him. So he steals his dad's giant construction robot called the Golem to act out revenge. After being arrested and sent to juvenhile hall, he undergoes a TrainingFromHell and gets PsychicPowers from the accident with the Golem, pretends he's the ghost of a dead student, and attacks the people who wronged him, even trying to steal a kiss from the Alpha Bitch with his psychokinetic abilities, until Batman arrives. In the end, he's defeated by tricked into knocking himself out with a tree sent flying by his own powers. As he lay unconscious, all everyone present could do is give him pity. It's later revealed that he was sent back to juvenile hall, where no one, not even his father, will visit him; they're too afraid. |
| 55 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'': |
| 56 | ** Gwen's EvilCounterpart, Charmcaster, is evil because she was raised and trained by an emotionally abusive uncle. In the third series, ''Ultimate Alien'', in which it's revealed that, [[spoiler: all along, she just wanted power to free her home dimension from an evil tyrant that had enslaved it and murdered her father. At one point, a magical chasm tries tricking her into jumping into it by casting an illusion of her father's voice, at which point, tears flow down her face and she says "...Daddy." At that point, her woobiedom is secured.]] Things went further downhill as the show has progressed, with her being put through such soul-crushing pain that she's become more of a BrokenBird than ever, and a very large portion of the fandom is hoping and praying for [[EarnYourHappyEnding a happy ending for her]] by the time it's all through. |
| 57 | ** Even if Phil wasn't a nice person, did he really deserve to get stuck in the [[PhantomZone Null Void]] for several years, [[spoiler: unwillingly used as a test expirement by [[MadScientist Dr. Psychobos]], and got his [[SplitPersonalityTakeover own mind taken over]]]]? |
| 58 | ** For some, Gwen's cousin Sunny, due to Verdona showing favoritism towards Gwen in front of her. |
| 59 | * ''WesternAnimation/BikerMiceFromMars'': Vinnie's old girlfriend Harley became this in the 2006 series' final episode "Turf Wars". While Harley wrongly accuses the Biker Mice of abandoning her, has betrayed the Martian mice to join their enemies the Nomad Rats, and actually tries to kill the Biker Mice, she's only like that because she was horribly scarred during the Plutarkian invasion and nobody came to help her until the Nomad Rats took her in. When she finally comes to her senses, she [[HeroicSacrifice risks her life to de-activate the regenerator before it goes critical and makes Olympus Mons erupt and is supposedly killed shortly afterwards]]. |
| 60 | * ''WesternAnimation/BlinkyBill'': Daisy Dingo. Most of her jerkishness seems to come from her upbringing. However, she seems to be the second least cruel Dingo. |
| 61 | * ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'': |
| 62 | ** The title character. He's a [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]] foul-mouthed alcoholic with a [[SmallNameBigEgo huge ego]], and treats others like garbage. He's also a self-loathing JadedWashout who is still stuck on his GloryDays, is desperately starved for any kind of companionship (as evidenced that he still hasn't kicked [[TheThingThatWouldNotLeave Todd]] out even after all this time, and is at best frenemies with his [[TheRival rival]] Mr. Peanutbutter). The revelation of his terrible childhood at the hooves of his AbusiveParents and his utterly broken relationship with [[WeUsedToBeFriends his former best friend Herb]] (who [[RejectedApology rejects [=BoJack=]'s attempt to make amends]]) definitely seals [=BoJack=]'s status as "the jerk you can't help but feel utterly sorry for". |
| 63 | ** Sarah Lynn. She matches [=BoJack=]'s [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]] and [[AttentionWhore attention-seeking]] behavior and, arguably, has an even worse addiction problem than he does. She's also excellent at manipulation and her mood swings [[SourOutsideSadInside abnormally fast]]. She sobers up at one point, [[OffTheWagon but blatantly says it's just so she can experience getting high for the first time again]]. She had a manipulative and dream-crushing StageMom, a bear stepdad who was [[PaedoHunt heavily implied to have sexually abused her]], relied on [=BoJack=] to be her [[ParentalSubstitute surrogate father]], in spite of the advice he gave her [[AntiAdvice that encouraged her to wind up just like him]], as well as his frequent rejections when she asked if they could came out and his using her fame to get his new TV show higher views when she believed he was the only real friend [[AloneInACrowd she had left]]. What really seals it is "That's Too Much, Man!" where various HiddenDepths are revealed, such as architectural knowledge (she'd always wanted to be an architect), an implied desire to go to college one day, [[WhatHaveIBecome the realization that she hates who she is]] right after [[spoiler: winning an Oscar]], and a reveal that the only reason she'd wanted to go to the planetarium with [=BoJack=] for the entirety of their six-week bender was because she admired domed buildings... [[spoiler: right before she died with her head on his shoulder, final words: "I want to be an architect."]] |
| 64 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Bonkers}}'': Skunky Skunk from the episode "Is Toon Fur Really Warm?". For the most part, he acts like an insulting jerk and is adamant that he "doesn't do birthday parties" because he thinks it will make him go soft. Keep in mind that the main episode plot is about him being framed for a murder and having to hide out. |
| 65 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'': |
| 66 | ** Uncle Ruckus. The guy is an over-the-top racist, but he's also a lonely old man who has no family and virtually only one friend. He seems to genuinely hate himself for being black and tries all he can to hide it with delusions like Irish ancestry and re-vitiligo. And if the events of the first season's finale are interpreted, even God hates his guts. Being a walking cultural paradox does absolutely no favors for him. He also had a terrible childhood. His dad and grandma hated him and treated him like crap, his dad kicked him out of the house when he was a kid, while dragging him into objects that damaged his face, and onto a bear trap. His mom's internalized racism leads her to constantly wear a blonde wig and contacts. She told Ruckus that he was adopted and had "re-vitiligo" so he can feel better about himself. |
| 67 | ** Uncle Ruckus's father, due to the constant racism and abuse that he suffered from outside his home, which he took out on Uncle Ruckus to prepare him for a harsh world. |
| 68 | * ''WesternAnimation/BrandyAndMrWhiskers'': Brandy Herrington. Many characters in the show dislike her for her bitchiness, but she's struggling to adjust to her environment and she must really miss her family. |
| 69 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Bunnicula}}'': |
| 70 | ** Chester is an interesting case. He's not quite as naturally mean as your typical example but he's known for his scathing sarcasm as well as a tendency to take revenge to the point of becoming a bully. The episode "Chester's Shop of Horrors" especially highlights this where after mercilessly bullying Bunnicula to get back at him, he goes on an emotional rant about just how insecure he really is at the climax of the episode. There's also the fact that he constantly suffers from both physical and emotional abuse and is pretty much a ball of nerves most of the time. In another episode, he tries to put up Bunnicula for adoption to get rid of him but after hearing Mina tell someone a story about him, he's legit moved to tears and feels guilty about attempting to do so. |
| 71 | ** The ghost of Rusty Bones from the episode "Scaraoke". True, he put a horrible curse on an innocent teenage girl for butchering his song on a karaoke machine but his life was absolute hell before his eventual death. |
| 72 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'': |
| 73 | ** The Riddler, whose abusive father, unfair boss, and [[spoiler: treacherous girlfriend]] all drove him to a life of crime, and in the end, he was denied revenge on any of them. |
| 74 | ** Poison Ivy of the same series, though it's far more apparent in the comic spin-off ''ComicBook/TheBatmanStrikes'' (which explores her character in more depth). |
| 75 | * ''WesternAnimation/CapitolCritters'': Jammet is a smartass, extremely irritable and obnoxious jerk who is a notorious DeadpanSnarker but in the episode "If Loving You Is Wrong", he falls in love with a female hamster who happens to be a girl's pet. Eventually, they break up and Jammet cries in his mother's arms. It's hard not to feel for Jammet in that episode. |
| 76 | * ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'': Wheeler is a somewhat insensitive [[KnightInSourArmor reluctant hero]] with a short fuse and a tendency to flirt with every girl he sees. Of all the Planeteers, he's also probably the closest to the eco-villains in his perspective on environmentally-conscious matters. However, this is mostly out of ignorance rather than malice or lack of concern and growing up poor in New York City explains why he doesn't know much about the environment. As a child, his alcoholic father constantly called him a loser; as a teenager, he's frequently criticized by his teammates for his stance on every issue ([[StrawmanHasAPoint even when he has a point]]). [[ButtMonkey He's also the target for every unfortunate thing possible.]] Combine this with his [[BruiserWithASoftCenter soft center]] and his heroic protective instincts, and it's no surprise that some fans find him UnintentionallySympathetic. |
| 77 | %%* Dark Paw and his henchmen Slippery Paw and Bumble Paw from WesternAnimation/PawPawBears also qualify. |
| 78 | * ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'': |
| 79 | ** Lord Dracula himself is a TragicMonster much as he is in the games: a roaming, misanthropic monster who found a chance at happiness when he met the healer Lisa, only to witness Lisa cruelly taken and burned at the stake for supposed heresy. Left so broken and despondent he even turns against his own son Adrian--or Alucard--Dracula pledges to [[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery take humanity to the grave with him]], reduced to depressed lethargy as he waits for an end long denied to him. Dracula's tragedy shines forth most prominently in the final battle where he completely ''breaks'' when his battle with Alucard takes him into his son's childhood bedroom: "I'm killing our boy." |
| 80 | ** Aide to Lord Dracula he may be, Isaac is presented as a much more tragic, vulnerable character than his [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness caricatured video game iteration]]. Isaac was abused by his master when he was still a slave even despite his love for the man and ended up being driven to killing his own master in a hysterical fury when his master cruelly persisted in his abuse after Isaac confessed his feelings. Even as Dracula's unflinchingly loyal ward, Isaac is still thrown to the dirt again when Dracula forces Isaac to leave as the heroes converge to kill Dracula, with Isaac's final scene of season 2 heavily indicating he's [[BigBadSlippage finally done with being kicked around once and for all]]. |
| 81 | ** Hector, Dracula's other Forgemaster, has been mistreated by society and even his own parents for his powers, with only the dead animals he brings back to life as his only friends. Much more vulnerable and naive than Isaac with standards Isaac doesn't have, Hector's own naivety is taken advantage of by Carmilla who convinces him to betray his own longtime friend, Dracula, before doubling back and ending the second season reducing Hector to her beaten-up slave and pet Forgemaster. |
| 82 | * ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'' has a few; |
| 83 | ** Cat gets beaten up on a regular basis by the greasers, and always gets hurt because of Dog running around and bumping to what ever is in his path, and he suffers the repercussions of whatever Dog does. |
| 84 | ** Eddie The Squirrel also has his moments. He's by far one of the most obnoxious characters in the show but in a couple later episodes like Shriek On Ice where Cliff tells him to get lost and all he can do is stare back with tears in his eyes, it's enough to make you feel kinda sorry for the poor pest. |
| 85 | * ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': |
| 86 | ** The Delightful Children from Down the Lane are extremely {{Creepy Child}}ren who are bent on the destruction of the Kids Next Door Organization and the supremacy of adults over children. They seem completely unsympathetic until you consider who they actually are and what happened to them. [[spoiler: They used to be Sector Z but they were captured by Father himself, whose delightfulization device went haywire and delightfulized them permanently, to the point that it's ''impossible'' to turn them back (any attempts are just temporary). To think that such honorable members of the KND have been turned into such monsters is very unsettling.]] Which leads to major FridgeHorror when you think about their parents... |
| 87 | ** Father himself, after ''WesternAnimation/OperationZERO'' (and minor moments in "I.T." and "C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E."). |
| 88 | * ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'': |
| 89 | ** [[CatsAreMean Kitty]] is the best friend of the Bunny appearing in the two-parter "The Mask." Developing a deep hatred towards dogs because of Bunny's [[FetishizedAbuser boyfriend]], Kitty arrives at the Bagge residence, and viciously beats Courage for no other reason than because he's a dog. When Courage successfully saves Bunny, Kitty learns the error of her ways and genuinely expresses her gratitude towards Courage. |
| 90 | ** Eustace Bagge is the grouchy, selfish, and greedy, elderly farmer and husband of Muriel Bagge. Growing up he was compared endlessly to his older brother, got no love from his own mother, and being unsuccessful in nearly everything he did, Eustace became an embittered old man who makes a habit out of terrorizing or harassing Courage for no other reason than a mixture of ForTheEvulz and spite. And occasionally serving as an outright antagonist. Despite this, Eustace had shown on occasions to genuinely care for Muriel, and he would team up with Courage with the situation called for it. Not to mention, he often ends up [[TheyKilledKennyAgain dying or meeting some other horrible end]], either because of his own actions or not, with the otherwise normally [[NiceGuy very kind]] Courage and Muriel rarely making a fuss over it. |
| 91 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'': |
| 92 | ** Caprice Crumpet. She strives to be famous on the web usually through immoral actions, gets vicious to animals, shows impatience or anger at her family, and bullies her adoptive cousin. But there are multiple times where she demonstrates her [[MoodSwinger bipolar condition]] or crying, and she gets a disproportionate ButtMonkey treatment among the cast. |
| 93 | ** Li'l One Crumpet. The star of the show's first season desires to banish Pa from getting the love of Ma, and sometimes encompasses his siblings for ousting. But it's hard not to feel for him when his first birthday gets stolen by one of his brothers. |
| 94 | * In ''WebAnimation/DCSuperHeroGirls'': |
| 95 | ** Blackfire may be snarky, insensitive, and gets way too blinded by ambition, but also consider that she's been pushed by head master Sinestro to essentially be an uncaring person, and the fact she looks fondly on a childhood picture of her and Starfire, clearly wanting to patch things up with her. |
| 96 | ** There's also Lena Luthor. Sure, she may resort to underhanded means to acquire, but also consider how she went bald from trying to do so from experimentation, and how she's controlled by Brainiac. In the Lego projects for the series, she's much more ineffectual compared to Dark Opal, and while she still goes for underhanded means to get power, she won't resort to ''destroying the earth'' to get what she wants. |
| 97 | * ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'': Dexter is a very arrogant, condescending, and hot-headed InsufferableGenius. And he often demonstrates a rather loose sense of ethics. He's also a ''huge'' ButtMonkey, who has to deal with an annoying older sister that has '''no''' respect for his things or personal space and often damages his lab with her "fun". |
| 98 | * Who gets stuck with all the bad luck? No one... but WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck. He has anger problems and can be quite grouchy and cruel, but the world is so often against him, even when he does not do anything to deserve it. This is especially apparent in ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'', where he qualifies as TheWoobie. |
| 99 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinotrux}}'': Sure, Skrap-It maybe is a CardCarryingVillain / [[CardCarryingJerkass Jerkass]] but he endures too much abuse from D-Structs (and later Splitter, Blayde, Pounder and D-Stroy) that this gag stops being funny. |
| 100 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone'': The Urpney army consists of obnoxious, slovenly idiots who assist [[BigBad Zordrak]] in sending nightmares to the Land Of Dreams. However they aren't very good at it... [[HarmlessVillain at all]]. Their attempts in stealing the Dreamstones nearly always end in relentless torture. It doesn't help that all in all they act as {{Villain Protagonist}}s of the show and a lot of time is spent displaying them as [[MinionWithAnFInEvil rather normal acting beings that have all the malice of a fly]]. |
| 101 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' is an unapologetic asshole, however he struggles to cope with the death of his wife [[spoiler:who wasn't actually dead]], the one person who could keep him in line. The fact that he accidentally killed her only makes it worse for him. |
| 102 | * ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'': Scrooge is pretty woobie-ish, despite his flaws. True, he's short-tempered and greedy, but the series demonstrates he wasn't always that way -- he [[TookALevelInCynic became more cynical]] and AntiHero-ish to deal with the things that happened to him while trying to make his way in a strange country on his own. By the start of the series, he's learned the lesson he can't trust anyone so well he even wonders whether his own family and [[InterclassFriendship friends[=/=]employees]] (who clearly love him) sincerely care about him or are just making nice because he's rich. |
| 103 | * ''WesternAnimation/DragonHunters'': Gwizdo is an avaricious coward who fleeces people and abuses Hector, but when you learn about how he was treated at Mother Hubbard's Orphan Farm, you really feel sorry for him. He was bullied, abused horrifically and called names by the other kids, and even Mother Hubbard uses "[[PersonAsVerb pulling a Gwizdo]]" as a term for being scared. |
| 104 | * ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'': |
| 105 | ** On the show Eddy [[spoiler: even before the movie and TheReveal]] qualifies. While he is a [[SmallNameBigEgo vain]], [[DirtyCoward cowardly,]] money-obsessed asshole who constantly tries to scam kids out of their hard earned money and abuses his only two friends, there is also the fact that the scams [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption almost never work,]] the main targets [[GrayAndGrayMorality aren't very innocent themselves,]] not to mention always [[DisproportionateRetribution going too far on their payback]] for said scams [[MisplacedRetribution (sometimes when Eddy hasn't even done anything),]] but also his two friends are Ed, who is LethallyStupid, and Edd, who never ceases to tell Eddy that all his plans are flawed, [[OnlySaneMan (usually with good reason)]] as being [[DramaQueen very melodramatic]]. Not to mention that his parents are hinted to be neglectful and his school teachers will give him detentions [[MisplacedRetribution for things he didn't do.]] It's hard not to feel bad for him sometimes. |
| 106 | ** May Kanker has shades of this, mainly in the Valentine's Day special when she is found in the janitor's closet sobbing because Ed harshly rejected her valentine. All three of the Kankers could fall into this. Yes, they are temperamental, possessive, rude and unhygienic, but there have been moments that show they DO care for each other. They have barely any physical traits in common and it's heavily implied their mother ReallyGetsAround and they have three different Dads who aren't around anymore, so as such they latched on to the Eds because that's all they know how to do. Notably, after spending most of the series violently pursuing, the Movie shows them actually doing their best to protect the Eds from the wrath of the rest of the Cul-de-sac; it can be inferred that dubious ways of going about it, they do genuinely have feelings for the Eds. |
| 107 | * ''WesternAnimation/EekTheCat'': [[BewareOfViciousDog Sharky The Shark Dog]]. There are episodes where he maims and attacks Eek but he gets abused more than any other character in the show. He was horribly abused in "Shark Therapy", forced into being nice in "A Sharkwork Orange" and bullied by mailmen in "The Gradueek". Most of his translated dialogue consists of sarcastic jabs at Eek or "Why me?" before he receives inevitable harm. Also, his soft, puppylike whimpers when he gets hurt will make you pity him in spite of the fact that he's a bloodthirsty guard dog. The episode "Shark Doggy Dog" even lampshades this trope when he gets put on trial for being a serial mailman biter and pulls the FreudianExcuse card by talking about growing up as the abused runt of the litter. |
| 108 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'': |
| 109 | ** Timmy Turner. Yes, he can be an insensitive jerk at times, but when you consider what his parents and babysitter are like, it's kind of understandable why he would act in such a way, and it makes you want to hug the poor guy. He has a villainous SadistTeacher (who, despite his ineptitude, would be a more nurturing parent than Timmy's own, barring Timmy having to stop Crocker's magic-related schemes), is constantly belittled for his appearance, is constantly beat up and bullied at school, and he was shown with explicit detail how the world would be far better off without him, which was reality essentially giving him a ReasonYouSuckSpeech. It's been explicitly stated he's gone to therapy several times, apparently since he was ''five'' (his parent's way of dealing with an imaginary friend). After all the only requisite to be granted a Fairy Godparent is to be '''the most miserable child in the world'''. |
| 110 | ** Remy Buxaplenty is a spoiled rotten {{Jerkass}}... who suffers even worse parental neglect than Timmy, almost to the point of ParentalAbandonment. Despite being very rich, the neglect is enough to be granted a fairy godparent and maintain it (compare to Timmy dealing with his parents, Vicky the evil babysitter, Francis the bully and Crocker) and it's clear he's pretty messed up. Made more poignant when Timmy points out that despite having a godparent and being wealthy, Remy is still miserable. In fact, his first appearance had Remy compete with Turner with the loser losing their godparents. After being tied and Timmy trying to convince him to let the whole thing go, he confesses that he doesn't understand why Timmy gets loving parents and godparents while he doesn't, meaning his misery has nowhere else to go but envy. Even ''Timmy's wish'' to attempt for Remy to spend more time with his parents backfires (they end up on an island; Remy's father discovers oil while his mother opens a hotel, making them richer and Remy lonelier). |
| 111 | ** Denzel Crocker. Yes, he's an insane lunatic who WouldHurtAChild to accomplish his means, but as we know from "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker", he was driven to it by circumstances that were in no way his fault, and he has gone through his whole life ridiculed by everyone including his own mother for trying to spread the truth. The fact that Timmy's attempt at trying to fix it fails and Crocker remains the same makes it worse. |
| 112 | ** Cosmo (for being lethally stupid, having a sort of AllOfTheOtherReindeer reputation among the other fairies, as well as having a mother who wants to ''kill'' Wanda.) and Wanda (for being the daughter of a mafia fairy who didn't want her to get married at all and actively disapproves of their marriage) who is always dragged into Timmy's zany schemes and has to deal with a husband with the IQ of a coconut. Similar to Marge Simpson). Jerkass because sometimes they ''encourage'' Timmy's jerkish behaviour. Though they (and probably Timmy too) on their [[DependingOnTheWriter good days]] are more traditional examples of TheWoobie. |
| 113 | ** Jorgen von Strangle, TheAhnold and a huge jerk who likes nothing more than to torment Timmy and his fairy cohorts, but the guy has a FriendlessBackground, due to said Jerkass tendencies, lost the love of his life the Tooth Fairy as of a recent season, and half the time is more of an IneffectualSympatheticVillain rather than a competent one. In his focus episodes, he is shown to be a ButtMonkey and a pathetic wreck who can't even propose to the Tooth Fairy who he breaks up with on no fault of his own. In "Pixies Inc", for example, he's so pathetic you just want to hug him. |
| 114 | * ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': |
| 115 | ** Glenn Quagmire. He's a CasanovaWannabe who became that way when the woman he truly loved (Cheryl Tiegs) broke up with him [[note]]Though he had no problem falling for Joan the maid on "I Take Thee Quagmire"[[/note]], has a sister who lets herself be abused by her boyfriend (whom Brian first mistook for one of Quagmire's dates who was TooKinkyToTorture), has a female cousin who is suffering from cancer and has to get chemo (which has her mistaken for a boy), and grew up without a father (until he came back years later and revealed that he was getting a sex change operation). And there have been times where Quagmire actually cares about things other than his own libido (i.e., helping out at a soup kitchen as implied on the epic TheReasonYouSuckSpeech on "Jerome Is The New Black," his illegitimate baby daughter [[note]]Before he adds that he'll most likely have sex with her when she turns 18[[/note]] whom he gives up for adoption after realizing that he's not father material on "Quagmire's Baby," the pet cat that Peter killed on "Episode 420," and his father -- especially when Brian had sex with him following his sex change operation -- on "Quagmire's Dad.") |
| 116 | ** Peter Griffin. Yes, he's a self-centered sociopath who gets away with virtually anything he does, but violence is probably all Peter knows when dealing with something he can't handle, and when he tries to do another method he usually screws up badly or find himself in a more difficult situation. Also unlike Lois, Quagmire, and Brian who live with the knowledge of how much their Parents love them, Peter's own parents are implied not to be so good to him. It's implied, but never stated outright, that Peter's abusive personality may have came from his own troubled background which includes him being abused by his sister and being humiliated with her making him pee his pants deliberately. This even earns Meg's sympathy. There are episodes which depict him being a frequent rape victim, once by pie steam, another by a bull, another by a worm and a bug, and another time by Lois. He reacts to this with horror making one feel sorry for him and its revealed that when Lois gets fed up with Peter's hair brained schemes she often calls him a stupid man while abusing him physically while he cries. |
| 117 | ** Almost ''everybody'' counts at one point. Brian's a narcissist and, according to the fans, the "Liberal Douche", but he has to deal with idiots on a constant basis (and on the VerySpecialEpisode, he reveals to Stewie that he's suicidal). |
| 118 | ** Lois can be almost as bad as Peter, but dealing with a Jerkass husband and a Jerkass father may have turned her into a jerk. A joke from "No Country Club for Old Men" even implies she's bulimic. |
| 119 | ** Stewie, especially in later seasons. He started out evil and can still be mean sometimes, but considering he's suffered abuse from his parents and the fact that Brian is the closest thing he has to an actual friend, it's hard not to feel sorry for him. At the end of "The Simpsons Guy" [[spoiler: Stewie tries to show Bart how cool he is by capturing all his enemies, but Bart is less than amused. When Stewie returns home, he says nothing's wrong but runs up to his room and starts copying Bart's chalkboard gag while crying. And then there's the episode where Brian dies (temporarily). Poor guy...]] |
| 120 | ** Pearl from the episode “Brian Wallows and Peter’s Swallows” is a good example. She’s initially a [[ScrewPolitenessImASenior very rude and crabby old woman]] that gets along with Brian (who is forced to take care of her as part of community service) very poorly, which eventually drives Brian to tell her that the world would be better if she were dead. It’s revealed in a documentary that she [[spoiler:was a very popular advertising jingle singer in her youth, but was incessantly harassed by her fans for trying to expand into opera, forcing her to become a shut-in. Brian comes back to convince her that nobody who sings Habanera as well as her is worthless as a human being; she was already [[DrivenToSuicide about to hang herself]] when Brian arrived. She becomes [[TheWoobie a regular woobie]] after this, where she becomes a CoolOldLady that gets hit by a truck after Brian helps her take her first steps outside in decades. She doesn’t make it.]] |
| 121 | * ''WesternAnimation/FetchWithRuffRuffman'': Scruff and his twin brother Ruff were only puppies when their parents disappeared. No information is given as to whether this played a role in the former becoming a criminal (and if that is the case, [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse it doesn't justify his crimes]]), but one can't help but feel a little bit sorry for him. |
| 122 | * ''WesternAnimation/ForestFriends'': Danny the fox has a huge ego and often plays mean practical jokes, but his classmates sometimes treat him like trash. In "Big Brother Blues", he has to babysit his little brother Didoo and they have a sand castle building contest. Didoo doesn't like Danny babysitting him and builds a sand castle with Jeff, causing Danny to break down in tears. It's hard not to feel sorry for him. |
| 123 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': Bender is a sociopath of the highest order, goes beyond megalomania, has a laundry list of felonies, and is constantly abusing his own friends. He also was born without a backup unit, only got saved because [[spoiler: Hermes took pity on him as a baby]], has a lot of insecurities, is constantly abused along with the rest of the crew by The Professor (being sent on deadly missions), and [[spoiler: has a son who cannot remember him, because Bender and his son decided to have the latter's memory card replaced in order for him to go to bending school]]. |
| 124 | * ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'': Jon and Garield get a new neighbor, Theodore Block, a crotchety old cat-hating man. He hates cats enough to go on a daytime talk show to tell the world how much he hates them. After a bit of investigation, Garfield quickly finds out he had a cat named Foo Foo as a child, who went missing one day, turning his heartbreak into anger at all cats. |
| 125 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow'': Hercules is a mean Chihuahua with a spiked collar who is one of the bully dogs in the neighborhood, but he's just lonely and wants a friend, which is why he stole Pookie in one episode. |
| 126 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'': Demona, both very evil and very sympathetic all at once. |
| 127 | * ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'': Breach gets this status in her titular episode. Sure, she's an evil, possessive kidnapper, but when her pocket dimension is being trashed by Rex and the Creepy Girl, they're essentially tearing her mind apart. Regardless of the situation, you had to feel sorry for Breach there. |
| 128 | * ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': |
| 129 | ** Pacifica Northwest may be a stuck-up AlphaBitch, but in "The Golf War", she is shown to be pressured by her parents to meet their expectations and not lose the golf game, plus she doesn't understand the concept of sharing. [[spoiler: Then it turns out her father controls her every action with a bell, Pavlov style, and she is very afraid to talk back to them]]. |
| 130 | ** Grunkle Stan is a cheap, self-centered con man who has no friends and desperately wants to be loved by his great-niece and nephew. [[spoiler: Turns out his obsession with money is the result of being disowned by his greedy father, and he's spent the last 30 years trying to re-activate a device to save his brother from an alternate dimension.]] |
| 131 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'': |
| 132 | ** Grim has his moments, especially in the earlier seasons, in which almost every single episode ends with you wanting to give the poor guy a hug. |
| 133 | ** Mandy may act in an evil manner, but if you think about it, she has her reasons. She has to deal with Billy every day, Mindy is on her neck all the time, she's not allowed to smile or else the world will either end or get seriously messed up. |
| 134 | * ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBeaks'': |
| 135 | ** Fee: She was more than happy to throw Kratz under the bus in "Someone's Been Stealing Our Stuff" and was viciously racist to a ghost in "Ghost Problem" but you can still feel sorry for her when she's being ostracized by the other kids. |
| 136 | ** Dade: On one hand, he's a very bossy, grumpy, bitter, rude and hot-tempered "tattlepants" who is extremely jealous of Fee and Foo. In one scene in "Old Fashion Dade", he considers poisoning them so he could have Harvey to himself (though he actually wound up manipulating them to get them kicked out of the festival by breaking a ride). On the other hand, Dade is deeply concerned over Harvey's safety and even used to be his closest friend until the imps came along and ruined it for him. Seeing him break down in tears in "Harvey's First Scar" is much HarsherInHindsight when you find out his past friendship with Harvey in "Old Fashioned Dade". He's also had an unwanted sugar rush forced upon him by Foo in "Nightclub Night". To contrast his irritable and neurotic personality, he looks like a fluffy, pudgy, cuddly bunny. That being said, Dade deserves a big hug despite being a bit of a jerk. |
| 137 | ** Princess: She's MUCH meaner and more obnoxious than Dade and Randl combined but you can't help but pity her in "Princess Is Better Than You" when it's revealed she only has crystals to play with and [[MyEyesAreLeaking actually teared up]] when Claire gave her an actual doll as a gift. |
| 138 | ** Randl: The grumpy, bitter bike shop owner. He has to deal with his senile mother and people who steal his bikes and vandalize his shop. Of course, those were part of Harvey's attempt to DareToBeBadass, but even then. |
| 139 | * ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'': Helga Pataki. She may be violent, rude, and {{Tsundere}}-ish, but every scene set in her house is a testament to how messed up her life is. Absent-minded mother? Check. CorruptCorporateExecutive father who treats her more or less like a piece of furniture? Check. Being TheUnfavorite to her StepfordSmiler sister? Check. It's fortunate that the one person she latches onto as her savior, Arnold, is (usually) kind and patient enough to see through her facade and gives her the hope that she can change one day. |
| 140 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Hilda}}'': |
| 141 | ** Frida becomes this in the last five episodes of Season 1. Between lashing out at Hilda and David when she lost her perfection all thanks to her Nisse stealing her favorite book and befriending the Marra out of desperation for friends only to get betrayed by them just to save themselves from the Black Hound, you couldn't help but feel bad for her. |
| 142 | ** Hilda becomes this in Season 2. Constantly keeping Johanna in the dark of her adventures and lying to her about them, she ended up being grounded for the first time in her life when her recent adventure with the Kraken has been exposed. Between getting into arguments with her in the time travel episode and the Season 2 finale, she ended up getting better in the latter upon seeing Johanna breaking down in being trapped in the troll cave with no way out. |
| 143 | * ''WesternAnimation/HorridHenry'': [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist Henry]]. He may be mischievous, rude and careless, but he is clearly TheUnfavourite in his family, and it's quite clear that [[TheStoolPigeon Peter]] is a BitchInSheepsClothing who likes getting him in trouble. |
| 144 | * ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'': The show tended to blur the line between protagonist and antagonist - making both characters (Zim and Dib) hilarious, adorable Woobies with jerkass/sociopathic tendencies. |
| 145 | * I.R. Baboon from ''WesternAnimation/IAmWeasel''. He's an arrogant, resentful, and antagonistic KnowNothingKnowItAll (With emphasis on the know nothing part). But considering he's a ButtMonkey that stars alongside the ParodySue [[TheAce Weasel]], it's hard not to view him with a bit of pity. |
| 146 | * ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': Lucius Heinous VII, occasionally. He's a CardCarryingVillain who has [[KickTheDog kicked the dog]] countless times, but the few {{flashback}}s we get of [[AbusiveParents his childhood]] bring out sympathy for him. |
| 147 | * ''DerivativeWorks/TheJungleBook'': [[https://vimeo.com/18820867 Tabaqui]] from the 2012 DQ Entertainment CGI series. Yes, he tries to trick, trap, manipulate and lie to Mowgli several times but he suffers more physical and verbal abuse than any other character in the series, often leaving him a shivering and terrified wreck. His adorkable [[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4dimam antics]] when he actually isn't up to something bad only makes him all the more cute and pitiful. |
| 148 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': |
| 149 | ** Mr. Cat. He may be a {{jerkass}}, even to his friends, but he is constantly suffering from physical and/or emotional abuse, one way or another. It's clear he has psychological issues due to having an abusive family, having to deal with the death of one or more loved ones, and running away from home. In addition, he gets beaten up by Kaeloo, who he has a crush on, OnceAnEpisode, and unlike resident CosmicPlaything Stumpy, he never gets any ThrowTheDogABone moments. |
| 150 | ** [[AlphaBitch Pretty]], if you think about it. She is [[AllLoveIsUnrequited constantly rejected by her crush Mr. Cat]] (who has outright encouraged her to ''commit suicide''), she is strongly implied to suffer from some sort of eating disorder, she is absolutely obsessed with being beautiful to the point where she equates beauty with self-worth, and Episode 133 reveals that she may not be as mean as she seems to be, but is forced to be [[SlaveToPR because her reputation depends on her meanness]]. |
| 151 | * ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': Several major villains who repeatedly [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption try and fail]] to {{take over the world}}, but Dr. Drakken stands out for all the extra humiliation he suffers from his [[DeadpanSnarker sharp-tongued]] partner in crime, his [[SurroundedByIdiots inept henchmen]], and his utter inability to elicit [[DudeWheresMyRespect respect]], much less [[VillainCred fear]], from anyone. In one episode, it's revealed that his StartOfDarkness was triggered by merciless mockery ("we laughed for days") from his college friends (one of whom was Kim's father). |
| 152 | * WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill: Peggy Hill has an infamously unbearable [[SmallNameBigEgo ego]] at times, that can lead her to doing a lot of rash, selfish, insensitive, and underhanded things. Even to her own friends and family. And she almost never [[NeverMyFault admits to her own failings or when she's at fault.]] But there are a fair number of episodes where it's hard not to pity her. Like in one episode, where we learn that her own mother resents her for refusing an ArrangedMarriage for the benefit of the family and blames her for their ranch's current financial woes, despite her doing everything she can to earn her mother's approval. And even after Peggy ''saves'' the ranch, her mother spitefully and stubbornly refuses to give her any credit beyond "fixing what she broke in the first place." |
| 153 | * ''WesternAnimation/KryptoTheSuperdog'': |
| 154 | ** Snooky Wookums is a bratty, manipulative little backstabber of a kitten but its clear that Mechanikat barely treats him with any respect whatsoever. Even Supercat's fan club admitted they felt sorry for him in the episode "Join The Club". |
| 155 | ** Ignatius. He's greedy and a massive narcissist but as a villain, he's so utterly pathetic that its hard not to feel even a little bad for him. |
| 156 | ** Hot Dog. Sure, he's easily the rudest and most temperamental of the Dog Star Patrol but he just can't catch a break and he certainly didn't deserve to be drained of his power in "Bathound Meets The Dog Stars". |
| 157 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'': |
| 158 | ** Tahno from the SequelSeries. He's a smug {{Jerkass}}, but many fans have said they felt sorry for him after the scene in which he [[spoiler: lost his bending to Amon]]. |
| 159 | ** [[spoiler: Tarrlok]] is now one too. Beneath his exterior of a manipulative jerk, [[spoiler: he was broken as the result of an abusive childhood, forced to bloodbend even though he didn't like inflicting pain on the animals who were on the receiving end, and witnessed his brother's StartOfDarkness. He UsedToBeASweetKid]]. |
| 160 | ** [[spoiler: Amon/Noatak]] is this as of the finale too. [[spoiler: Him telling Tarrlok that he was to only thing he had left in the world and the single tear that Amon cries right before Tarrlok blows them both up is part of it, along with also suffering an abusive childhood like Tarrlok.]] |
| 161 | ** In the early half of book 2, Korra herself had entered this. As much as she means well, everyone she trusts betrays her somehow (Tenzin and Tonraq by locking her up in a compound for her entire childhood and lying about it, Unalaq by imprisoning her father, Mako by telling Raiko about her plans to take his military, Varrick by being a greedy warmonger, etc.) and everyone's trying to use her for something (even Tonraq, as much as he loves her, uses her to gather troops for his war on his brother), and her reaction is violent and often outright terrifying. So far, she's fired Tenzin as a teacher, kicked her father out of her adventuring party, threatened to kill people on three separate occasions (once by sticking a judge's head in Naga's mouth), plotted to get a nation's military sucked into a war that had nothing to do with them when the President wouldn't agree to send troops, and kicked over her boyfriend's desk in the middle of a police station... luckily, she received some character development and moved into IronWoobie territory. |
| 162 | ** Lin Bei Fong given what came out of her back story from season 1 and season 3 [[spoiler:having been dumped by her former lover Tenzin because she didn't want children, while years before that her own younger sister Suyin scarred her face when Lin, in the early days of her career as a Metal Bending Police Officer, broke up a robbery Suyin was taking part in - although to be fair the scarring was an accident - and their mother, Chief Toph, responds by covering up the incident and sending Suyin away to live with her grandparents.]] Where are things in the present? [[spoiler:Suyin is living happily ever after with a family of her own in a city she helped build after years of walking the Earth, while Tenzin is living it up with his much younger wife Pema and their four air bending kids, and Lin has only her job to keep her going at the end of the day.]] So while Lin definitely has some {{Jerkass}} tendencies it's hard not to feel sympathy for her since [[spoiler:it appears that she's worked hard most of her life and has gotten nothing in return for her efforts while being forced to watch while everyone else she ever cared about go off and enjoy their happy endings.]] |
| 163 | ** In the second-to-last-episode of Book 3, P'Li—the [[RenegadeSplinterFaction Red Lotus]]'s [[ColdSniper coldly aloof]], 6'8" [[HavingABlast artillery]]—[[DarkAndTroubledPast reminisces]], in a teary-eyed, SoHappyTogether moment with [[UnholyMatrimony her boyfriend]] the ArcVillain, about how [[spoiler:he'd {{rescue|Romance}}d her from being a {{Child Soldier|s}}. Ten minutes later, she [[YourHeadASplode dies violently]]]]. |
| 164 | ** The GrandFinale has both Baatar Jr. and Kuvira become one. Both controlled the Earth Empire with an iron fist, but Baatar Jr. [[spoiler: wound up having his would-be-wife Kuvira fire at him with a Spirit Cannon to unite her empire after he proclaimed his love to her and was willing to give up their ambition to be with her and is left feeling like his family will never want him back.]] And Kuvira, [[spoiler: was abandoned by her parents at a young age and admitted to wanting to unite the empire out of fear the Earth Kingdom would be left in the dust and unwanted like she felt. After turning herself in she's met with a cold "You will answer to everything" from Suyin, her mother figure, despite Baatar Jr. being EasilyForgiven]] |
| 165 | * ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': |
| 166 | ** Sure that Daffy is a self professed cowardly and greedy egomaniac, and has a plenty moments of assholery, but he's also a HUGE ButtMonkey, making him one of the most pathetic characters in the Looney Tunes Universe. |
| 167 | ** Sylvester is a conniving predator in most his shorts, however he is always completely out of his foes' league and earns more than a few solid beatings in nearly every appearance he has. Some shorts begin with him out in the cold desperately digging through trash cans in search of something to eat - sure, you can't blame characters like Tweety for, you know, not wanting to be eaten, but it's hard not to hope the short will end with Sylvester getting SOMETHING to fill that belly of his. Not to mention he was often at the receiving end of abuse from unprovoked adversaries as well (with many examples, particularly ''WesternAnimation/CannedFeud'', turning him into a regular woobie). His neuroses and small number of victories even compared to other Looney Tunes Butt Monkeys makes him arguably the most pitiful villain in the series after Wile E Coyote. |
| 168 | ** More minor character Charlie Dog also qualifies as one. Sure, he forces himself to be Porky Pig's pet and he's very manipulative but he's also clearly homeless and faces constant rejection from several of his "masters". There's also the fact that he can pull off [[HumanizingTears really adorable tears]]. |
| 169 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'': Daffy is a complete InsufferableImbecile who sponges off of Bugs and treats Porky badly, but he comes from a DysfunctionalFamily, had a terrible childhood, he was bullied at school, suffers from an [[DiagnosedByTheAudience unspecified disorder]], and has a [[InferioritySuperiorityComplex very low self-esteem]]. With the information about his past that can be pieced together, it's entirely understandable why he would have a few screws loose. |
| 170 | * ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'': Jamie, [[TheHero Coop]]'s [[{{Greed}} greedy]] CowardlySidekick, JerkAss and CasanovaWannabe who more often than not, adds nothing meaningful to the team or even his own friendship with Coop other then [[DeadpanSnarker snide remarks]] and occasionally trying find ways to profit off of their misadventures. He's also an insecure young man with no [[OnlyFriend friends outside of Coop (and later Kiva)]] and seemingly no life outside of the trio's adventures. Hence why he always tags along, despite regularly being put in perilous situations while on missions with Coop and Kiva. |
| 171 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': William Murderface is this. He's rude, swears, objectifies women, pees on things, doesn't bathe, and is an all-around asshole. His parents were killed by chainsaw in a murder-suicide in front of him while he was a baby, and he just wants someone to pay attention to him. It's made explicit that this hatred for everyone around him pales before his hatred of himself. |
| 172 | * ''WesternAnimation/MoonbeamCity'': |
| 173 | ** Pizzaz Miller. In episode five, Pizzaz helps instigate a massive drug epidemic in order to make Mayor Eo Jaxxon more famous, but only because he was threatening to have the entire police force disbanded and folded into the (far more competent and liked) fire department. It's also clear that Pizzaz was willing to do this for A: The sake of saving her police force, and B: That she'd do anything to get the mayor off her back and out of her life for good, as Jaxxon is aggressive, predatory, cruel, and makes it incredibly clear he wants to have sex with her, despite how visibly uncomfortable she is with the idea. Unfortunately for Pizzaz, the drug epidemic plan fails terribly, and she now has to have mostly-unwilling sex with Jaxxon three times a week, in order to keep the police department active. |
| 174 | ** Episode six later reveals her backstory as one of the five daughters of the laser mogul who helped build Moonbeam City, but her four older sisters squandered the company and resources for their personal pleasure and as a result this is what turned the city into a Wretched Hive. Pizzaz became a police officer after disowning her sisters for the sake of trying to restore the city. When we meet her sisters they quickly reveal themselves as abusive bitches whom even their father admits are pure evil, with Pizzaz being the only one who seems to legitimately care about him. |
| 175 | * ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'': |
| 176 | ** This trope is arguably one of the main internal rules of character writing for this show. No one questions that many characters in this show are repulsive people who do and say repulsive things, which is more often than not used to portray the hypocrisy of religious fundamentalism. However, special attention is paid to make it clear to the audience that disgusting people have feelings too. |
| 177 | ** Given the events in "Help", Clay's breakdown in "Sacrifice" almost makes you pity him, even if you still hate him. |
| 178 | ** Joe. When we're introduced to him, he's a violent, sociopathic homophobe, but the episode "Dumb" makes it clear that he's terrified of growing old and weak like his elderly father, and it's implied that he feels insecure for not having a mother. Even Orel feels sorry for him. |
| 179 | ** Orel's little half-brother, Shapey. It's only when [[spoiler:he says his first real sentence, articulating how he equates feeling thirsty for his mother's breast milk with feeling lonely]], that it's made very clear that he's more than a spoiled, loud, pushy, sometimes violent brat, and there were already implications that parental neglect was a huge factor in why he was so mentally and socially stunted for a seven-year-old. |
| 180 | ** Ms. Sculptham, Orel's teacher who is unenthusiastic about her job and refuses to "teach" outside of school hours. She also takes advantage of Doughy's [[PrecociousCrush crush]] on her so he'll buy her expensive gifts. Then we find out [[spoiler: she was raped by Mr. Creepler, the ice cream man who was obsessed with Doughy, which led to her performing an abortion on herself. And she ''fantasizes'' about him]]. |
| 181 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': |
| 182 | ** In the episode "Keep Calm and Flutter On", [[MadGod Discord]] of all characters becomes one when he realizes how much Fluttershy's friendship actually means to him. He had never known friendship until his HeelRealization. Taken even further in the Season 4 finale, [[spoiler:where after he betrays Equestria, only for Lord Tirek to betray ''him'', he crawls helplessly to Fluttershy, begging for mercy.]] |
| 183 | ** Angel Bunny becomes one in "Just for Sidekicks" while he's being watched over by Spike. He misses his owner Fluttershy so badly that he drags Spike, the rest of the pets and the Cutie Mark Crusaders onto a train just so he can see her again. Once there, Spike foils his plan to catch up to her by creating a diversion with his last gem. Angel nearly blows their cover when they all have to hide from the Mane Six but when Spike finally apologizes for his improper care of the pets, Angel finally cuts him a break. |
| 184 | ** Starlight Glimmer. As a filly, her best friend Sunburst rescued her from being crushed by books, only to gain his Cutie Mark in the process, running off and leaving her behind. Traumatized by this action, Starlight vowed never to let something like differences and Cutie Marks ruin anymore of her friendships, becoming a powerful unicorn in her own right, creating the village of Our Town and stripping everyone of their Cutie Marks. When the Mane Six put a stop to this, she vowed revenge - a petty one at that as she obtained a time travel spell and modified it to allow her to alter the past, using it to stop the Sonic Rainboom. When Twilight learns of why she's doing this, the princess has to talk her down and convince her to put aside her mad vendetta, asking her to give friendship another try. |
| 185 | ** The clones of the Mane Six created by Queen Chrysalis are shallow warped evil versions of the originals, but it's hard to not feel a little bad for a group of entities created to basically be slaves by a villain, realize they don't want to take orders from said villain, and are ultimately and unceremoniously killed off for rising up against her. |
| 186 | * ''WesternAnimation/OscarsOasis'': Harchi the hyena bullies Oscar just like Popy and Buck, but the episode "Lost" reveals he suffers from separation anxiety. He's also really good at looking like a kicked puppy when he's sad. Plus, he seemed to be a little nicer to Oscar than his two friends, and it's clear that his heart is in the right place. You still have to feel a little sorry for him, regardless of his actions. |
| 187 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse''. |
| 188 | ** Amity is your standard AcademicAlphaBitch, but the show is quick to show that much of her holier-than-thou behavior is a front she developed in order to hide her InferioritySuperiorityComplex and deal with the endless mockery and teasing from [[BigBrotherBully her older siblings]]. She's ''far'' more amicable when her peers aren't present, and her diary entries reveal that she does feel guilty about being mean to her classmates, but feels that doing otherwise would be showing weakness. Her behavior towards the main character in particular was a result of her being unable to tell if Luz was [[NotWhatItLooksLike intentionally being a jerk or not]]. She was also particular harsh towards [[TheWoobie Willow]], [[spoiler: but [[WeUsedToBeFriends the two used to be extremely close friends]] and it was ultimately [[RichBitch her parents]] that forbade her from being Willow's friend]]. |
| 189 | ** The Golden Guard/Hunter is introduced as snarky, rude, taking great pleasure in putting other people in their place, [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder and having zero issue with stabbing his allies in the back]]. However, like Amity, his horrible attitude is a self-defense mechanism. Hunter's moral compass has been skewed by years of religious propaganda, isolation, and abuse (physical and emotional) at the hands of his uncle, Emperor Belos, and being aggressive was the only way to survive in the cutthroat environment of the Emperor's Coven. When he feels safe enough to express himself, he's revealed to be kind, protective, and desperate for social connection. He becomes significantly nicer after [[spoiler:defecting from the Emperor's Coven, and after spending several months living in the human realm away from Belos, his true personality takes the forefront, transforming him into a friendly, nerdy, and socially awkward kid who just wants the chance to be a normal sixteen year-old.]] |
| 190 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'': |
| 191 | ** The episode "Untouchable" features a poison dart frog with such potent venom that the slightest touch renders one temporarily paralytic and with a comical rash; he uses this power to keep all the other animals at his pettiest whim. Private eventually knocks up a protective suit that will allow him to give the slimy little chap a nice big hug. Barry contemplates if he's really a jerk, but decides that yes, he likes hugs more. |
| 192 | ** Officer X. His antagonism toward the penguins is because they thwarted him in the process of doing his job (In their defense, they WERE protecting someone they considered a friend). While you can't blame the penguins for trying to keep themselves safe, anytime he's not opposing the penguins, he's really just doing his job, and his "reward" for this is constant public humiliation and scorn. |
| 193 | * ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz wants to take over '''THE ENTIRE TRI-STATE AREA''', but his backstories makes one wonder whether it's because he's truly evil, or if he's just a confused individual. |
| 194 | ** For example, when he was younger, he used up the allowance he had saved up for a year to get his mother a teddy bear, which she immediately handed to his younger brother, Roger. As a matter of fact, when he makes a Least-likely-inator, he mentions in passing that one of the things he could do with it is 'make my father love me'. |
| 195 | ** The teddy bear story doesn't ''begin'' to cover it. His parents thought Roger would be born a girl and used all their fabric to make dresses, forcing Heinz to wear them as a child. His father used him as a lawn gnome when their first one was repossessed, meaning he forced Heinz to stand perfectly still, ''all day and all night, with no breaks to eat or sleep.'' Despite making Inators capable of blasting lasers into space, he always lost every contest to a paper-mache volcanos [[RuleOfFunny (even a poetry contest)]]. Even before Roger was born, his father named his dog "Only Son" and [[RuleOfFunny both of his parents didn't show up for his birth.]] Then he was just flat-out abandoned and adopted by ocelots (who treated him better, other than the occasional maiming) and tricked into moving to a brand-new country that a new life of hopes and dreams. [[TakeThatUs But couldn't go there and moved to America instead.]] His love life is comical at best (the one girl who actually loved him got [[YankTheDogsChain accidentally hit by his Anti-Love Inator)]]. His only two friends are Balloony and Perry the Platapus. The former flew away and later popped, while the latter is Heinz' [[WithFriendsLikeThese arch-nemesis.]] |
| 196 | * ''WesternAnimation/PigGoatBananaCricket'': Banana in the episode "Flowers For Burgerstein". In most other episodes, he is selfish and always cooking up a scheme to get rich quick or find some other benefits for himself. But in his story in this episode, it's revealed he was cast aside by his father for messing up at a concert years ago. When his dad isn't willing to forgive him, he realizes he isn't wanted and leaves while crying again. |
| 197 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'': |
| 198 | ** Buttercup. She can be mean and generally rude, but she's clearly TheUnFavorite, has the whole town turn against her simply because she refused to take a bath (something kids her age sometimes don't want to do), is not allowed to keep her security blanket ([[DoubleStandard while Bubbles is allowed to keep Octi]]) and she [[FlyingBrick does not have an individual superpower]]. When she gets a focus episode, it's usually about how [[MrViceGuy she is in the wrong]] even if she was [[CompressedVice never hinted to have that flaw before]]. Compare to Bubbles and Blossom who usually shine in their ADayInTheLimelight episodes. Buttercup's very misunderstood and lets her anger take over her, even if her sisters are trying to help. |
| 199 | ** On three occasions, Mojo Jojo. In "A Very Special Blossom", he almost gets blamed for something [[TemporarilyAVillain Blossom]] did when he was spending the whole episode not planning on committing crimes, but on wishing his deceased father a happy Father's Day, in "Candy is Dandy", when he steals the candies the Mayor rewards the girls for saving the day, they take their usual beatings on him up a notch he's literally left a broken wreck, and in "The Powerpuff Girls Rule!", after he gives up hope for a perfect world due to being forced to quit trying to rule the world. |
| 200 | ** Blossom in "A Very Special Blossom". Stealing the golf equipment was pretty low for her and [[NeverMyFault she was hinted to not feel like she was at fault for it]], but she only did it so the Professor would be happy. |
| 201 | ** Boomer is always causing trouble with the rest of the Rowdyruff Boys, but he is constantly picked on by Brick and Butch. To make him even more sympathetic, he is [[AffablyEvil possibly the nicest member of the trio]] (by comparison, of course) and is the cutest of them to boot. |
| 202 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheProudFamily'' have a lot of [[{{Jerkass}} unpleasant people]] or [[JerkassBall people with unpleasant moments]], but many of these same characters have moments where one can feel bad for them: |
| 203 | ** Oscar Proud may deserve some of the things that happen to him, but he is always emotionally abused by Suga Mama, humiliated by his rival Wizard Kelly for missing the shot at the basketball game, and is sometimes beaten up by his wife and mother. To add insult to injury, he suffers the most abuse out of all the characters, puts up with a lot and not a single person bats an eye or cares when something bad happens to him or he gets hurt, and his abuse is almost always PlayedForLaughs. |
| 204 | ** Even Sugar Mama is this, in occasions. There's the episode where she falls in love with a man who Oscar believes is a GoldDigger, but is actually [[spoiler: suffering from Alzheimer's and can’t marry her after all]]. There's also the fact that she treats Oscar as TheUnfavorite, but it is implied that she is one, too. It's a little hypocritical, but you still have to feel a little sympathy for her. |
| 205 | ** Dijonay in "Surf and Turf", when Sticky refuses to kiss her in front of a lot of people. There’s also the fact that she is stuck raising her nine annoying younger siblings and her parents pretty much ignore her while she does the parental work. |
| 206 | ** It's a little hard not to feel bad for [=LaCienega=] when she starts living with the Gross Sisters' parents in "Culture Shock". It would be one thing if she was living with a tougher family, but she's put into child labor the minute she's introduced to their mother. |
| 207 | ** The Gross Sisters hide their true feelings and regularly beat people up because they're frustrated at how bad their home life is and how everyone else hates them. [[SelfFulfillingProphecy Which is actually pretty]] [[TruthInTelevision typical of some bullies.]] However, Olei is mostly just TheWoobie. |
| 208 | ** Trudy has her moments, particularly in "There's Something About Renee" when she starts to feel useless or in "Romeo Must Wed" when her sister keeps upstaging her and Penny rejects the dress she made for her. |
| 209 | ** Sunny Stevens in "Hooray for Iesha." The reason why she was acting like a snobby diva was because of how unhappy she was with her celebrity lifestyle. She even reveals that she has issues making friends due to it. She just wanted a regular life. |
| 210 | * ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': Mitchell Peterson is this big time. He's a nerdy little kid who is an aspiring detective but no one ever takes his cases seriously. Mitchell is highly awkward when interacting when others, and has a hard time making friends. Because of this, he developed a snobbish, mean facade, driving away all his potential friends in the process. He has an inflated ego so he can feel better about himself, but it just makes him feel worse. He isn't really a jerk, he just wants to have friends but doesn't know how, as demonstrated in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace". It just makes you want to jump into the TV and give him a huge hug. |
| 211 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'': Peter Venkman behaves as a womanizing, cocky jerk most of the time who's only in it for the money, but he genuinely cares about his friends and the people he helps and has been shown to be willing to sacrifice himself for them. On top of that, his father is a con man who likes to embroil Peter into his schemes and use his son's fame for his own gain, he grew up in a bad neighborhood and it's hinted that his mother passed away when he was a child. |
| 212 | * ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'': |
| 213 | ** Benson, despite his HairTriggerTemper and harsh nature towards Mordecai and Rigby (although the latter is the one that causes problems), can't live without the park he works at. The reason for his yelling is because his dad taught him that you can't get anything out of life unless you yell for it. |
| 214 | ** Rigby (particularly pre-CharacterDevelopment) is often presented as a callous, dishonest, petty, impulsive, and selfish trouble maker, slacker, and general screw-up. Who often causes the problem of the episode. But he's also the biggest ButtMonkey in the cast. Gets ''no'' respect from anyone, including his best friend, even when he is doing good. And has spent his life as the {{Unfavorite}} to his [[LittleBigBrother younger, but significantly taller]], more charming and successful brother Don. At times, he even comes off as more pitiful than anything. [[spoiler: Though he does get better.]] This is most pronounced in TheMovie, where we learn that Rigby [[spoiler: tricked Mordecai into thinking the rejection letter from the college he applied for was his own and screwed up his best friend's chance at a better life... So he wouldn't leave him. And when Rigby is forced to read the letter out loud, not only does it almost destroy his friendship with Mordecai for good and push him towards the DespairEventHorizon, but just to rub salt in the wounds, the letter says in no uncertain terms, that despite the college he applied for being ''famously'' easy to get into and having plenty of open spots for him, they simply didn't want him.]] |
| 215 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'': Ren Hoek often acts like an abusive asshole towards his friend Stimpy, but he does have his rare moments where he treats Stimpy with kindness, and if he's feeling upset, he usually goes to Stimpy for comfort. He's also just as much of a ChewToy as Stimpy. It's just that Ren is so psychologically screwed up that he doesn't know how to act any other way and you can't help but feel sorry for him. It's also implied that while he does appreciate Stimpy for always sticking by his side and being his friend, he's still pretty lonely. His [[{{Jerkass}} abrasive]] personality has the unfortunate effect of driving away potential friends. Let alone the fact that the first thing he felt in life was "'''UNSPEAKABLE PAIN!'''" (a slap on the butt by a midwife). |
| 216 | * ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': Rick Sánchez is one. While he is a selfish guy who takes advantage of living with his daughter and her family while exploiting his own grandson for help on very dangerous adventures, he is shown several times to actually be a sad old man whose life has had many unfortunate twists and turns. In one episode, an entity named Unity who he truly loved, dumps him and he responds by trying to kill himself only to pass out at the last second. He is also heavily implied to have gone through a strained marriage with Beth's mother and is one of the people who fights against the Galactic Federation, which was an oppressive and exploitative dictatorship. In "The Wedding Squanchers" Rick falls deeper into depression after he and his friends and family get betrayed by Tammy. He has been shown several times throughout the show to truly care about Morty. |
| 217 | * ''WesternAnimation/RoaryTheRacingCar'': Poor Maxi. His actions clearly show that he has insecurity issues. Being Italian like Mr. Carburettor made him the favored one, which is an awful lot of pressure. He constantly bullies the others so they can get a taste of how he feels. |
| 218 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': Angelica Pickles spends most of her time mistreating her baby cousin and his friends, but there are episodes that showed a softer side to her: |
| 219 | ** She may mistreat the rest of her friends, but there are episodes that show that she does care about them. Also, her mother concentrates more on her job than her own family, and her father spends most of his time doting on her, which causes her to grow up spoiled. Also, she has very few friends outside of Suzie, whom she treats as a rival, but does ultimately see her as one of her only friends. |
| 220 | ** In some episodes, like "Babies in Toyland", Angelica's ImagineSpot involves a figure that she's pretending is there giving her a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech; essentially, she's telling herself that she's a selfish brat. This, coupled with her confession in Rugrats in Paris seems to suggest that on some level she knows how awful she can be and absolutely hates herself for it. Poor girl. |
| 221 | * ''WesternAnimation/SanjayAndCraig'': Mr. Noodman. At first his father tormenting him with snakes as a kid appears to simply come off as a FreudianExcuse for his treatment of the titular characters but then came the episode "Family Re-Noodman" where we see that his father still torments him with snakes and has made him the laughing stock of his entire family. |
| 222 | * ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'': |
| 223 | ** Velma. You can't help but feel sorry for her when [[spoiler:Shaggy picks Scooby over her. Granted, Shaggy probably wasn't a good match for her anyway...]] [[spoiler:Feel more sorry for her; she's all alone now that the gang's split up. Oh and remember...''she's being blamed for it by Daphne''.]] |
| 224 | ** Sheriff Stone can fall into this territory too, especially in "Dead Justice" and "All Fear the Freak". |
| 225 | ** Danny Darrow [[spoiler: when he was a child; he and his family go crazy with greed after finding a piece of the planespheric disc, and their house sinks underground where he's forced to live out his life (about 75 years), obsessed over the piece, while he and his family grow old, and they all die. A run in with the original Mystery Inc. leads him to set traps all over the house, and he almost kills the current ones with them, and later with a fire poker. In one scene, the gang sets a trap, and Scooby lures him in while pretending to be his mother, he responds with a genuine hopeful smile and says "Mommy, you came back to me?" Despite knowing that she died years ago.]] |
| 226 | ** [[spoiler:The members of the original Mystery Inc., with the possible exception of Professor Pericles, due to how the curse of Crystal Cove completely ruined their lives and warped them all into awful people, with both Ricky Owens and Cassidy Williams undergoing a doomed romance and ending in RedemptionEqualsDeath, while Brad Chiles and Judy Reeves start as decent people who love each other and their son but gradually turn into hateful psychopaths who only care about themselves.]] |
| 227 | * ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': |
| 228 | ** Catra is not a NiceGirl: she has [[DrivenByEnvy an envious streak a mile wide]], shows {{sadist}}ic tendencies whenever she has an enemy at her mercy, [[NeverMyFault denies any responsibility for her actions]], [[AllTakeAndNoGive treats the people around her like dirt, yet expects them to remain her friends forever]], repeatedly goes out of her way to torment Adora and so on. However, she earns a lot of sympathy from the audience for her DarkAndTroubledPast - she and Adora grew up as wards to an AbusiveParent, but while Adora received praise mixed with manipulation and attacks on her sense of self, Catra received constant belittlement and sadistic tortures. Her envy comes from spending her entire life in Adora's shadow, with Shadow Weaver belittling her accomplishments in favour of Adora's; her cruelty is her showing the world what it showed her; and her limited sense of responsibility comes because she was always told that only Adora's decisions actually mattered, so she never really mastered the link between actions and consequences. [[spoiler:Even her two {{Villainous Breakdown}}s have this contrast between awfulness and sympathy. Her third-season one is more "Jerkass", as her envy of Adora goes to such pathological extremes that she tries to end the world because Adora is trying to save it and she refuses to give Adora any more wins. Her fourth-season one is more "Woobie": she can barely sleep because she's haunted by repressed guilt from what she did in season three; even the eternally loyal Scorpia gets fed up with enduring her abuse and leaves, causing her to be so lonely she starts switching randomly between lashing out at everyone and weeping uncontrollably; all her ambitions explode in her face; and Double Trouble gives her a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that leaves her borderline suicidal.]] |
| 229 | ** With Hordak turning out to be less a merciless BigBad and more a victim of an abusive system desperately trying to earn the approval of a cruel parent-figure who will never give it, and one who [[spoiler:lost the only person he ever cared about to betrayal]] to boot, some people think he fits here. Others point out that unlike Catra he doesn't actually seem to ''regret'' anything he's done and don't extend him as much sympathy. |
| 230 | ** Glimmer moves here from TheWoobie in season 4. With [[spoiler:the loss of her mother]] and her taking on massive new responsibilities [[spoiler:as Queen]], especially with the manipulations of Shadow Weaver and Double Trouble, and ''especially''-especially after [[spoiler:the fall of Salineas]], she starts to become prickly, jealous and hostile, becoming obsessively protective of her authority, acting more ruthless, reckless and manipulative, and going for some ''very'' low blows in her arguments with Adora; indeed, she takes on a lot of ''Catra's'' traits. At the same time, it's obvious that she's carrying a lot of grief and a lot of responsibility at quite a young age, she regrets her worst attack on Adora in an argument immediately after she makes it, and it's hard not to see that her ''motives'' are still largely heroic, focused as they are on ending a war that has already lasted her entire life, [[UnscrupulousHero even though her actions in pursuit of that goal are pretty amoral]] and she takes some jaw-dropping risks with other people's lives in the process. [[spoiler:It's most obvious when she's giving Scorpia a pep talk to get her to bond with the Black Garnet, as part of her extremely risky attempt to tap a [[{{Precursors}} Precursor]] superweapon for enough of a power-up to beat the Horde; Scorpia, CuddleBug that she is, goes in for an impromptu hug, and when she lets go, Glimmer is still clinging to her like a drowning woman to a life preserver because this is possibly the only positive physical contact she's had since the middle of the season.]] |
| 231 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 232 | ** Homer Simpson. He is self-absorbed, hedonistic, dangerously irresponsible, [[AbusiveParent abusive to Bart]], treats his elderly father like dirt, has a very short temper, often doesn't give his loving and hard working wife much, if any consideration, and regularly "borrows" from Flanders and is often extremely rude to him and mean to him out of envy, annoyance, and ForTheLulz. However, he has attempted suicide numerous times, was molested by a ''panda'', he's '''very''' [[IronButtMonkey accident prone]], his marriage is often on shaky ground (sometimes when he isn't even at fault), his kids don't respect him, his [[ObnoxiousInLaws in-laws hate him]], his only regular friends are his drinking buddies and Moe who are often {{Fair Weather Friend}}s at best and Flanders, who Homer can barely stand, he's stuck with a job he hates under a ''very'' BadBoss for the sake of providing for his family that he had to ''twice'' give up a [[HappinessInMinimumWage job that payed less, but he was happier at for]] (second time, he was literally forced to come crawling back to Mr. Burns), often ends up sacrificing his happiness for his family in general, his family left him in The Simpsons Movie because of his jerkass tendencies and Marge banned him from the house because he didn't show up on Christmas, and all of his innocent buffoonery (and alcoholism) is actually an expression of his deep-seated self-destructive tendencies. Also he grew up with an [[AbusiveParent abusive father]] who told him his mother died - and said abuse was almost certainly a contributing factor to how little respect he has for Abe in the present. When Homer learns Mona is actually alive he assumes that she abandoned him for 27 years because he was a terrible person and she had no reason to love him. While [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou Mona and Homer do reconcile]] she later dies in such a way that leaves [[PartingWordsRegret Homer is wracked with guilt.]] |
| 233 | ** Bart, despite being a BrattyHalfPint, also qualifies in plenty of episodes. For example, he abused by his father (on a regular basis) and sister ("On a Clear Day, I Can't See My Sister"), was resented by his mother more than once ("Marge Be Not Proud", "Bart the Mother", "Love is a Many Splintered Thing"), had a mean kindergarten teacher ("Lisa's Sax") was nearly being held back ("Bart Gets An F"), trapped in a well ("Radio Bart"), nearly killed by Mr. Burns ("The Curse Of The Flying Hellfish"), Groundskeeper Willie ("Girly Edition") and Sideshow Bob (on a semi-regular basis) and harassed by the whole town several times ("Bart's Girlfriend", "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace", "The Boys of Bummer"). He also had to watch his dog in a wheelchair, and lost his dog multiple times. One of which he was nearly killed by his dog. With all this crap, it's a wonder he didn't commit suicide (he almost did in "The Boys of Bummer"). |
| 234 | ** Milhouse Van Houten. On one hand, he can be a CasanovaWannabe who acts spiteful when Bart abandons him for a new girl, and is relentless in his attempts for Lisa to love him. However, his parents divorced in the 8th season, he is relentlessly mocked, and he is often thrown under the bus by Lisa. That kid just can't catch a break. |
| 235 | ** Even [[EvilOldFolks old Charles Montgomery Burns]] (Mr. Burns for short), has his pitiful moments here and there. The episode, "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" has him trying to do good things for people to gain everyone's respect. In the episode "C.E.Doh", it's revealed that Burns' entire family and friends died out while he worked at the nuclear plant. You've got to feel some sympathy for the man after that, regardless of how evil he is. |
| 236 | ** The current incarnation of Nelson Muntz. True, he can be (and often is) a violent brute who finds amusement in others' misfortune. However, he does have a soft side. Take the episode "Lisa's Date with Density": although he doesn't appear to return Lisa's feelings for him until the end, he was willing to go along with her attempts to bring out the nice guy in him throughout the whole episode (he even wore clothes he felt uncomfortable in just to make her happy), and he reveals at the end this was because she was the first person to think he had a softer, more sensitive side. He continues to show signs of harboring some romantic feelings for her afterwards, such as begging God to not let "his" Lisa get hurt in "The Great Simpsina". It's not just Lisa, either- he befriends a blind kid in "Stealing First Base" and acts surprisingly polite and grateful to Marge for taking him into her house in "Sleeping with the Enemy". And yet his life is pretty terrible, even by Springfield standards: his father left him for a pack of cigarettes, his mother's constantly dating someone undesirable (and has been implied to have a job as a stripper), and he's dirt-poor. He doesn't even get the girl in the end, as revealed in "Holidays of Future Passed": Milhouse is the one who ends up married to Lisa. |
| 237 | ** Lisa is an insufferable SoapboxSadie who takes on pet causes for no good reason (though often, but not always, her reasons are good: in the movie she single-handedly delays the eco-catastrophy that the lake becomes) and isn't ashamed to admit she thinks she's better than everyone else in Springfield, often acts like her family is all bad even though ''all of them'', even Bart, have been willing to make sacrifices for her multiple times, and is often very hypocritical, especially when it comes to her relationship to Bart. She's also completely alone, with a family that usually doesn't even try to help her or share her interests, her friends (on the occasion that she has any) aren't much better either, and she's one of the few people that actually ''tries'' to make their CrapSackWorld better while everyone else usually just falls into blissful complacency and ignorance. |
| 238 | ** Frank Grimes is a very divisive character. On one hand, he had a miserable childhood, worked hard for little rewards or pay, and had to work with Homer, a lazy, stupid employee who had no understanding of sacrifice. [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic But on the other hand]], Grimes' response to this was to lash out at Homer and try to ruin him, and this was ''after'' Homer tried to make it up to Grimes. When his attempt to make Homer look stupid fail, he snaps and [[spoiler: kills himself. Even his funeral was overshadowed by Homer's stupidity.]] |
| 239 | ** Gina Vendetti from "The Wandering Juvie". She is a juvenile delinquent who knocked a woman dressed as Snow White over a parapet. She torments Bart in juvenile hall, uses him for a prison break, plans to make him take the blame, and regularly pushes him around. [[spoiler: Then she breaks down crying, revealing she is an orphan, and seeing Bart's family made her tell the truth to the police. Thankfully, she is able to enjoy a taco dinner with the Simpsons]]. |
| 240 | ** Moe Szyslak is Springfield's sleazy bartender with [[HairTriggerTemper a very violent temper]], who shamelessly profits off of his clients self destructive habit, heartlessly kicks them to the curb when they are out of cash, is involved with all manner shady activities on the side, and lusts after Homer's, the closest thing he has to a best friend's, wife Marge. But he is also a very lonely and troubled man, who had a HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood, is suicidal to the point his attempts at it killing himself are a RunningGag, he is scene as monstrously ugly on both the inside ''and'' outside by the world despite having a HiddenHeartOfGold (and honestly not looking ''[[InformedDeformity that bad]]''), the closest thing he has to friends are his aforementioned cliental (who as stated above, are often {{Fair Weather Friend}}s and never suger coat how unpleasant they see him as) and Marge. Mostly out of pity in her case. |
| 241 | ** Abraham "Grandpa" Simpson. He's the ''page image'' for GrumpyOldMan, when he was younger, he was very cold and distant husband to his wife and often verbally and emotionally abusive to Homer, and he could even be a bit of a conman. He's also very bluntly ignored and disregarded by society despite being a war hero and having a very full and interesting life, and left to wallow away in a miserable nursing home. His wife abandoned him, his family often treats him like a burden and his son treats him like dirt and gives little to no regard to his happiness and safety (Which admittedly, could be scene as a bit of LaserGuidedKarma for how he treated Homer as a child, but even still, Homer goes above and beyond in that regard.). [[LikeFatherLikeSon And like Homer himself]], it's been shown that despite being far from an ideal father, Abe still repeatedly sacrificed his own happiness for the sake of his son. |
| 242 | * ''Franchise/TheSmurfs'': |
| 243 | ** Gargamel is all too happy to call himself "evil," but he's got plenty of reason to be unhappy. First, it is strongly implied that he had a seriously abusive childhood from every time we meet one of his relatives on-screen, said relative is either trying to mooch off Gargamel, browbeat and berate him, or both, even the wealthy ones like Balthazar. Second, to near CosmicPlaything levels, every time he tries to do ''anything'' it cosmically backfires on him due to some bit of information or event he had no way of knowing, even if his labors are good, honest work. In addition to the entry in HardWorkHardlyWorks, there's been other episodes where Gargamel did try his hand at honest work only to be thwarted either directly or indirectly by the Smurfs. The most prominent of these is when Gargamel actually won at an audition to become the royal court mage, honestly (his spell ingredients were a bit jumbled by transport to the castle, and his spell malfunctioned, but the fact that he summoned a tornado indoors, rode the tornado without injury, and nobody else in attendance was hurt convinced the judges that his power and control were more than sufficient for the job). Unfortunately, his first task, finding out why the chickens were not laying eggs was solved by Papa Smurf outside his knowledge. Perhaps Gargamel could have kept the job even then, but the Smurfs that were delivering the message to the king just had to stop and intrude on Gargamel's lab, without permission which ANY mage or alchemist would have good reason to be angry about. When Johan caught Gargamel threatening the Smurfs, only then did Gargamel learn that the Smurfs were good friends of the king and was real lucky not to wind up in the dungeon. Makes his obsession with making the Smurfs suffer seem a bit more reasonable, doesn't it? Gargamel was also compelled by force of arms to take Scruple in, as an apprentice, something which everyone can agree he is ill suited to do, and Gargamel doesn't even receive compensation of any kind, not even for the kid's living expenses. Thank evilness, or whatever that The Smurfs is a SugarBowl or somebody at Gargamel's castle would be seriously under-nourished if not starving to death. As a bonus, one episode had Gargamel plan and nearly succeed at carrying out his genocidal vengeance against the Smurfs with a powerful artifact or spell of evil, and he's stopped by Sassette when she says "I love you, pappi Gargamel!". Gargamel just... stops and breaks down crying because '''nobody ever said that to him before,''' not even his own mother. There are times that the audience may ''really'' want to give Gargamel a hug. |
| 244 | ** Azrael gets a bit of this too. Remember, Gargamel's the best owner he's ever had. Azrael has had other owners. That hole in his ear was an injury one of his previous owners did when he was a ''kitten,'' deliberately. |
| 245 | ** Chlorhydris stole an attractive male sorcerer away from a competing sorceress, but having to live the rest of her life thinking the man she loved and wanted to marry [[RunawayGroom just didn't show up on their wedding day]] was understandable enough to make anyone with her powers want to make the world suffer with her for the unhappiness that she had to live through. Unfortunately, she had to choose the Smurfs as the target for her making the world as miserable as she was, but when they found out that her witch rival had [[TakenForGranite turned her husband-to-be into stone]] and kept him in that state for twenty years, they did everything they can to help bring that happiness back into her life and at least give her the hope of a happy ending...until her husband-to-be accidentally sat on Chlorhydris' black heart arrows which she carelessly left on a seat that he sat on and caused his heart to be filled with nothing but hate. That just broke her heart all over again, and she's back to being her old bitter self again, desiring to ruin everybody's happiness. |
| 246 | ** Brainy Smurf at times. While he's insufferable and considered TheScrappy both in-universe and out, the other Smurfs ''never'' give him a chance or at least try to tolerate him. He gets literally ''beaten up'' pretty much every time he talks, even though the Smurfs are supposed to be kindhearted and forgiving, especially with each other. Sometimes, the reader may have the impression that he's the village's punching bag even when he doesn't do anything wrong. For instance, in ''Le Schtroumpf Reporter'', Hefty Smurf and another Smurf get annoyed because the aforementioned reporter has started writing very intellectual and hard-to-understand articles in his newspaper. They come across Brainy, who tell them that the new articles are very interesting and ask them if they agree. They beat him up for that. In ''La Gourmandise chez les Schtroumpfs'', when Greedy Smurf gets indigestion (because he didn't listen to Brainy), and Brainy (''after helping him to return to his home'') starts to annoyingly list the medicine that he will give to him, he gets a kick in the ass. |
| 247 | * ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': |
| 248 | ** [[FatBastard Eric Cartman]] at times. Saying he can be a pretty big {{Jerkass}} would be a gross {{understatement}} on one of his ''better'' days. And he does deserve punishment for a lot of things. However, there's a few scenes where one feels bad for him like in 1% one by one, all his favorite toys are destroyed. The kicker is that his Polly Prissy Pants doll turns out to be the one who killed off his other toys and asks Cartman to kill her. He, with tears in his eyes, complies. And this is all a result of his insane, schizophrenic mind, which just makes you feel ''worse'' for him. This is even more evident in earlier seasons, where he's more of a typical obnoxious, SpoiledBrat and bully, and implied to be the result of teasing from the entire class (Clyde at one point just barely avoided the same fate after Kyle and Stan berated him mercilessly in Cartman's place). Not to mention that he never knew his father, which unlike most of the early seasons, is portrayed as a half-way serious issues for him. |
| 249 | ** The rest of the boys, while generally having the morale high ground over Cartman, can still be just as nasty, callous, and selfish as him on their worst days. And even putting that aside, they often fall squarely in GoodIsNotNice territory. But considering the cynical and chaotic CrapsackWorld they live in, how [[AdultsAreUseless their parents and most other adults in their lives usually fluctuate between being irresponsible idiots and callous jerks]], the fact that they have to deal with [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Cartman]] on a regular basis, and they lost Chef, one of the few generally good adult influences in their lives to a cult before witnessing his [[CruelAndUnusualDeath brutal and prolonged death]], the fact that they're still halfway decent people is probably a testament to something. And whenever they do take a morale stand and try to do some good, this being [[BlackComedy South Park]], it's a crapshoot if they actually accomplish anything, if not wind up worse off for caring to begin with. And that's not even getting into their individual issues: |
| 250 | *** Stan [[BigBrotherBully is regularly bullied by his older sister, Shelly]], on top of having a dysfunctional family in general, possibly one of the most irresponsible fathers on TV, which all helped push him into [[TookALevelInCynic taking a]] ''[[TookALevelInCynic huge]]'' [[TookALevelInCynic level in cynicism]], to the point where he could not enjoy ''anything'' anymore and almost lost his friends when they couldn't handle his downer attitude, only for the ResetButton to be hit ''right'' after [[YankTheDogsChain he was starting to come to terms with his changing life and starts looking towards the possible future with some optimism]], leading to him having to turn to alcohol to get back to enjoying things with his friends. |
| 251 | *** Kyle, as Carman's SitcomArchNemesis, gets the brunt of his jerkassary. Much of it directed at his Jewish heritage. And later in the series, [[spoiler: his father, Gerald becomes a BrokenPedestal for him, when Kyle learns he was the sadistic internet troll causing so much problems]] and he almost manages to save Heidi from her toxic relationship with Cartman, only for him to turn her against him, before Kyle has to watch her devolve into a female counterpart of Cartman. |
| 252 | *** Kenny...''Kenny''. He's the one most likely to go along with Cartman's schemes out of the rest of the gang (though still not quite as morally bankrupt as him) and can be a very DirtyKid on top of it. But considering he's cursed [[TheyKilledKennyAgain to die over in over again, often in very painful and brutal ways, only to come back again with everyone around him acting like nothing happened]], it's hard to hold it against him. On top of that, he comes from the poorest family in town (which Cartman gives him plenty of crap for) and his parents are drunks and junkies, who often fight in front of their kids. |
| 253 | ** Heidi Turner starts to become this in the latter half of season twenty-one. Where dating Cartman has turned her into a SpearCounterpart of her boyfriend. Every bit as bad as him. But on the other hand, it's made clear that it was Cartman's emotional abuse and manipulation of her, and the other girls making fun of her [[WhatDoesSheSeeInHim dating him in the first place]] when she tried to leave him, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero inadvertently driving Heidi back to him in the process]], that molded her into this. And she eventually [[HeelRealization realizes what she has become.]] After taking a jab at Kyle, who had a crush on her himself, had tried to help her get out of her toxic relationship, and has been taking her crap without biting back like he would with Cartman, for "having the hots for her" only to be rejected, he bluntly tells her he "would ''never'' have the hots for who you are now." |
| 254 | ** Scott Tenorman is a manipulative bully who cons Cartman out of $16.12 by selling him used pubic hair, continuously mocks his obesity and stupidity, tricks him into doing a humiliating piggy dance and then shows it to all of South Park, and tries to trick him into eating chili laced with pubes. Then Cartman [[spoiler:[[MoralEventHorizon tricks him into eating his parents]]]], gets his favorite band Music/{{Radiohead}} to mock him over his very understandable breakdown, and ''drinks his tears'' to rub salt further into the wound. |
| 255 | ** Shelly Marsh is a vicious bully towards Stan. However, she has low self-esteem due to her headgear, she was groomed by a twenty-two year old man, another boyfriend was inadvertently killed by her father, the singer that she idolized was actually Randy, who humiliated her during a bawdy performance, and her parents (especially Randy) blatantly favor Stan over her. |
| 256 | ** Nathan is a conniving, self-serving, hotheaded ManipulativeBastard wannabe, who regularly mistreats his partner-in-crime Mimsy, [[ObfuscatingStupidity plays up his Down Sydrome to manipulate adults]], and plots against his rival [[NiceGuy Jimmy]], despite Jimmy being nothing but kind to Nathan. But on the other hand, almost all of his schemes backfire ''horribly'' (including resulting in him being the victim of '''BlackComedyRape''' '''twice''') and it's implied his parents are negligent {{Jerkass}}es towards him. |
| 257 | * ''WesternAnimation/SpaceChickensInSpace'': Multiple characters, they can be outright awful to each other and others but they all have their inner demons. |
| 258 | ** Glargg is a major jerk who yells at others for causing problems, but he often cries and frets over his mother never loving him. It's implied he was bullied a lot as a kid in "Cadet Clarkk" and in "Being Glargg" he was so traumatized by Chuck and Starley's mind control he fainted and refused to get up. |
| 259 | ** Chuck, the jerky protagonist himself can be this when others torment him even during those times when he doesn't deserve it. He broke down in tears in "Chicken Feed" when he realized nobody loved him and he ran away in "Chicken Out" thinking he didn't belong anywhere, especially not with his siblings. |
| 260 | ** Even Niven, the biggest bully at the Academy has her moments of feeling like an outcast. In "Personal Space Time" she reveals she's jealous of Chuck for having two siblings who love him no matter how badly he messes up. It's also implied she is emotionally abused by her parents, especially her mother, who want her to succeed and make it clear they will be disappointed in her. It's even implied she would be friends with Starley and the other chickens if her parents didn't disapprove of it. |
| 261 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'': Harry Osborn is the one who always cries NeverMyFault, snubs his old friends when he is InWithTheInCrowd, and, in the series, [[spoiler:manipulates Gwen into staying with him when he knows that she wants to break up]], yet from the very first episode, we see that his father is [[AbusiveParent abusive]], [[CompassionateCritic criticizes everything he does]], and he's TheUnfavorite to his ''best friend'', Peter Parker. To compound it, his mother is the TheVoiceless and Harry is a WellDoneSonGuy. It becomes even worse when [[spoiler: he realizes that his girlfriend [[OperationJealousy has been after his best friend]] and he overhears them talking about how they want to break up]]. |
| 262 | * ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': |
| 263 | ** Squidward Tentacles may be arrogant, rude, self-centered, egotistical and just downright mean, but he's also the OnlySaneMan amongst various idiots (especially [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick), his MeanBoss, Mr. Krabs, and [[TheAce Sandy Cheeks]]. |
| 264 | ** Plankton, at first, seems like an evil mastermind who wants to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula and run Mr. Krabs out of business. But then, you remember that he's broke, runs a business that makes zero profit, lives in his own restaurant, and has no friends except for a computer wife he made, and even she doesn't seem to respect him that much. Doing evil acts for {{Greed}} like Mr. Krabs does is very different from Plankton's need to actually survive. |
| 265 | ** Mrs. Puff. Woobie because she constantly has to put up with [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick's (mostly [=Spongebob=]'s though) incredible idiocy, and [=SpongeBob=]'s inability to pass his driving test, to the point where she seems to be undergoing SanitySlippage because of it. Jerkass because she deals with it by ''attempting to murder them''. |
| 266 | * ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' |
| 267 | ** Peridot. She was [[TheHeavy effectively the main villain for the latter half of season one]], with her boss Yellow Diamond as a presence who only got name-dropped now and then with one appearance later in the series. She knows if she succeeds, Earth is doomed, and she really doesn't care. However, she's a PunchClockVillain who gets no respect, and ever since being stuck on Earth, has only wanted to get what she was assigned to do over and done with so she can get off this mudball and go home. As time wears on, she's driven to SanitySlippage by her repeated defeats and Yellow Diamond being in no hurry to help. On top of that, destroying Earth isn't her master plan or anything; it's a by-product of a larger scheme put in place by others a very long time ago, and she is as screwed as we are if she can't leave, hence her desperation. If that isn't bad enough, we find in "Catch and Release" that [[spoiler: she's not a cyborg or a new kind of gem as we believed; all her tools and weaponry come from her suit, and once deprived of it, we find her true self is child-sized and has no powers. By the end, she's reduced to hiding in the bathroom while being terrified that things like toothbrushes or towels are actually weapons the main characters plan to use against her, and clutching the single boot that remains of her former arsenal like a child's security blanket.]] You just want to hug her. |
| 268 | ** Amethyst. She's mischievous and frequently shows disregard for the feelings of others, but it's hard not to feel sorry for her [[spoiler: once it's revealed that she ''hates'' herself due to being a product of the Kindergarten, a Gem site that sucked the life out of the Earth (what exactly is meant by that isn't very clear, but we are shown the results and they are ''not'' good) to produce new Gems; this results in her feeling stranded from even her family of 5,000 years, as she assumes they look down her as much as she does. In addition, like the rest of the Crystal Gems, she is still having a hard time coping with the loss of their leader, Rose, who was like a mother to her.]] Many of her {{Jerkass}} moments can actually be chalked up to her trying to shut away or deal with those issues (poorly). |
| 269 | ** Lars is selfish, lazy, cowardly and petty, despite having great friends in Steven, Sadie and the cool kids, and seemingly a stable, supportive home and family. He's often condescending or even cruel to Steven, and insensitive to Sadie's feelings and needs. But he's shown to be desperately insecure, intensely self-loathing and heart-wrenchingly lonesome. The show strikes a good balance between sympathy and accountability, and Lars has a long arc of self-improvement over the seasons. |
| 270 | ** [[PosthumousCharacter Pink Diamond]] [[spoiler: A.K.A. [[AntiHero Rose Quartz]] ]] was the youngest and least powerful of the fascistic Homeworld Diamonds. Immature and impulsive, she often behaved much like an angsty teenager. She in truth had very little freedom whatsoever, kept under strict control by the authority of the other Diamonds, not even being allowed to dance at balls, or perform much of anything outside of their command. Diamond's older sisters and mother often would put her into solitary confinement for decades whenever they tired of, instead of dealing with her actual emotional problems. After consistent begging, she was given a colony of her own [[spoiler: (Although this control was ultimately false.)]] on the planet Earth, sucking it dry for resources. [[spoiler: As Diamond looked closer upon the planet, she gradually decided to save it instead of destroy it, faking her own death and taking up arms against her sisters as Rose Quartz. While she fought to protect the mortals of the planet as well as give freedom to the Gems that had long been forced into strict roles by the totalitarian government, Rose lied to and manipulated everyone who was supposed to trust her, forced her Pearl into silence about telling what had really happened to her, abandoned her former closest friend Spinel in her garden for millenia, and left her own son, HalfHumanHybrid Steven Universe, (Which she had to [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence give up her physical form to give birth to]]) with a massive inferiority complex and worries he was invented only for her to escape punishment. While Rose didn't intend to hurt anyone, her emotional immaturity and selfishness lead to immense suffering, and it's implied in the credit sequence that her consciousness is deeply regretful for it, and that her familial issues lead to her being deeply emotionally conflicted and confused, which led to her causing the suffering of so many people.]] |
| 271 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Superjail}}'': The show operates on a cast full of {{Jerkass}} characters, although some seem to also exhibit this (or at least in some minds): |
| 272 | ** The Warden is an egotistical (generally) empathy-lacking PsychopathicManchild , but his horrific childhood past and [[WellDoneSonGuy issues with his father]] seem to earn him pitiable points from fans. |
| 273 | ** Alice is not exactly meant to be the most sympathetic character, with the creators even calling her a sadistic bully and messed up. Even so, she shows a soft spot for children and has her own issues due to having been rejected by her old warden after she started her sex-change (in an attempt for them to be together, only to find out that he was a gay man). Her official profile also stated that she wants men to desire her and find her beautiful, although it's counterproductive as most are horribly put off by her brutality and she does ''not'' take that rejection very well. |
| 274 | ** The Mistress would seem to have even '''less'' sympathetic traits than the Warden, but suddenly being treated as lesser than Stingray and being screamed at by him was shown to reduce her to tears. That, and [[EpilepticTrees one must wonder what lead her to her own superiority complex if she's a counterpart to the Warden...]]. |
| 275 | ** The Twins somewhat qualify after "The Trouble with Triples" showed that they're TheUnfavourite and have abuse heaped on them by their elder siblings, are neglected and looked down on by their father in comparison, as well as being expected to conquer and rule worlds when they hate "real work" and just want to live their own lives (even if said lives consist of them just organizing death and destruction for fun and not some goal of conquering). Then when they do (inadvertantly) manage to impress their father, thanks to the Warden jumping into the fray, he decides to take them home and torture them. |
| 276 | * ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': |
| 277 | ** Raven. She does become nicer to her teammates in the later seasons, though, particularly Season 5, which takes place after the season in which the problem that caused her to be so messed up is dealt with. |
| 278 | ** The traitor, Terra. [[BreakTheCutie Poor, poor Terra...]][[spoiler:She does a HeelFaceTurn though]]. It's a stark contrast to the {{Anvilicious}}ly unsympathetic bitch from [[Comicbook/TeenTitans the original comics.]] |
| 279 | * ''Animation/TingaTingaTales'': Jackal kicks other animals out of their homes and steals food from cubs, but then the animals make him a honey addict, and he only gets to taste one drop, and he starts whimpering for it for the rest of his life. Poor guy will never get his moon-honey and he's become so obsessed with it, he's become a total CloudCuckoolander. |
| 280 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'': |
| 281 | ** The large majority of time in most episodes, the engines either gets themselves into a misfortune or an accident, due to their stubborn refusal to accept help from others. |
| 282 | ** Henry was this in the end of the episode "The Sad Story of Henry". Earlier on, he stubbornly refused to come out of a tunnel because he was afraid that the rain will ruin his paint. As a result for his disobedience, he is bricked up inside the tunnel "for always and always and always". Henry is left alone, very saddened that no one will ever see his paint again. |
| 283 | * ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': Tom is a mean cat that gets put through a lot of pain which is sometimes deserved and his own fault and sometimes happens because he's a huge ButtMonkey. He's also [[SpurnedIntoSuicide attempted suicide]] at [[WesternAnimation/BlueCatBlues least once]] and, in the Creator/GeneDeitch shorts, is given [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals an owner who routinely and brutally beats the shit out of him]]. |
| 284 | * ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'': Many of the more villainous contestants qualify. |
| 285 | ** Heather was the show's original villainous contestant and one of the biggest bitches in Western Animation, and is despised by virtually everyone else for her vanity, selfishness, ruthlessness, and bullying nature. However, several episodes of the later seasons have hinted that she actually dislikes being viewed as a villain by her fellow contestants and genuinely wants to win their forgiveness (which she has yet to succeed in). Furthermore, AllThereInTheManual materials suggest her mean personality is derived from a variety of problems at home, including being bullied a lot when she was younger, having an AnnoyingYoungerSibling who makes her life hell, and the fact that even her own parents don't seem to love her. |
| 286 | ** Duncan is a colossal {{jerkass}} who takes great pride in being a bully and a delinquent, but he's also one of the longest-suffering contestants on the show and one of Chris' favourite targets to torment, which also makes those moments where his hidden soft side shines through all the more sympathetic (even some of his haters felt it was a step too far when Chris had him sent to adult prison in ''All-Stars'' for blowing up his mansion). It's also implied he has a strained relationship with his family due to them all being police officers. |
| 287 | ** Courtney's CompetitionFreak and ControlFreak tendencies can make her an incredibly nasty and ruthless bitch who is even willing to sacrifice her friendships and relationships for the sake of winning. However, she's also on the receiving end of endless torment from Chris and others, from being voted off unfairly by Harold to being forced to eat a sundae covered in bird vomit. The biggest instance was probably in ''World Tour'' when Duncan cheated on her with Gwen; while her actions afterwards were definitely quite mean (mainly towards Gwen), it's pretty easy to feel for how heartbroken she was by her boyfriend's affair. |
| 288 | ** Alejandro is a complete and utter bastard whose incredible greed and selfishness, shamelessly manipulative womanizing, and remorseless sense of cruelty knows no bounds. However, it's heavily implied that his ruthless behaviour is the product of constantly being bullied by his far more successful older brother Jose, which has driven him to prove he is superior in any way he can. And even some of his haters were sad for him when he was brutally injured by a volcanic eruption and forcefully placed in a mechanical suit to save his life in the finale of ''World Tour'' (Scott of ''Revenge of the Island'' received similar sympathy when he was viciously mauled by a mutant shark and everyone laughed at his catatonic state). |
| 289 | * ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'':Throughout the seires, a large part of Starscream's appeal is that he's both a horribly abused character and a narcissistic asshole. The ratio of him being beaten and losing his T-cog for almost the rest of Season 2 should be equal to the times he [[TheStarscream backstabs someone else]]. |
| 290 | * ''WesternAnimation/TrustMeImAGenie'': [[RascallyRaccoon Ziggy]] is an AntiHero genie, somewhere on the borderline of BenevolentGenie and a JackassGenie due to his ItsAllAboutMe attitude. He's selfish, short-tempered, sarcastic, a loudmouth, sneaky, verbally abusive at times and often lies, cheats and steals to help his master Diego fulfill his final wish so he can finally be set free. The woobie part of him comes in when you realize how messed up his magic got from sand being trapped in his can. He tries so hard for the final wish to succeed that it always comes close only for Ziggy to experience a YankTheDogsChain because his magic is defective. There are times when [[BrokenTears he's actually broken down in tears]] over the failed final wish and in the final episode, he gets treated like garbage from the other genies because of all his failed wishes and when he says his goodbye to Diego in the final episode because his master's wish succeeds, he looks to be on the verge of tears. Possibly, because he's saying goodbye to his best (and possibly one of his only) friends in the whole world. On top of all this, Ziggy looks like an adorable and cuddly purple raccoon to contrast his mean personality. |
| 291 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'': Dr. Venture is an amoral {{Jerkass}} and arguably a VillainProtagonist, but his [[BreakTheCutie backstory]] and [[FutureLoser general patheticness]] make it hard not to feel bad for him. |
| 292 | * ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'': Lord Hater and Commander Peepers both qualify. Special mention must go to Peepers for frequently being stressed to headache pitch, as well as for his IgnoredEnamoredUnderling status. |
| 293 | * ''WesternAnimation/WatershipDown'': Hawkbit from the animated series spends most of his time complaining and making sarcastic remarks. In one episode, Bigwig works him til he's exhausted and he lets his anger out on [[TheCutie Fiver]], calling Fiver a curse to the warren. In a later episode, Hawkbit nearly loses faith in Hazel's leadership skills, almost shoves Fiver off a cliff in panic and has a near sobbing panic attack when he, Hazel and Fiver get lost in the mines. Although he's a jerk and a complainer, it's hard not to feel sorry for the poor bunny at times. |
| 294 | ** Vervain qualifies as of the third season. He's a mean, nasty DirtyCoward of a scumbag but he pretty much knows that he's universally hated and half of the time, the poor bastard is scared out of his wits. |
| 295 | * ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears'': |
| 296 | ** Panda, if you really think about it. He has more selfish moments and is more quick-tempered than his brothers, (such as destroying his brothers' phones, lying, kicking at a pigeon, etc.) but is very insecure and sensitive, so he definitely has his woobie-ish moments. Panda isn't even a bad bear at all, just one that tends to cause mischief. |
| 297 | ** Nom Nom could be interpreted as one, such as in "Nom Nom's Entourage", where he says he doesn't know how to make friends. |
| 298 | *** "Kyle" only furthers this by revealing how extremely lonely he is due to having been separated from his family at a young age. |
| 299 | ** Dave from "The Island". He was a self-absorbed {{Yandere}} who had [[WouldHurtAChild no qualms with killing baby bears]], but he was stranded on the island long before Karla did. Plus Karla and the bears take the supplies for leaving the island away from him, hinting that he'll stay there forever. |
| 300 | ** Yuri from "Yuri And The Bear" was ill-tempered at not very friendly to Ice Bear at first, but he becomes this once it's revealed that [[BrokenBird he's acting this way because he's distraught over the death of his family.]] He becomes a straight-up [[TheWoobie woobie]] after [[TookALevelInKindness becoming friendlier.]] |
| 301 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Whatamess}}'': Trash from the Creator/DiCEntertainment adaptation of the series is a "mean pitbull" stereotype with a reputation as a sarcastic bully but he's been tricked into eating fertilizer to cure a cold, nearly run over by a train, had his birthday forgotten and his owner apparently lives in squalor. Also, in one episode, he and Whatamess are captured by a dog catcher and sent to a pound. When Trash finds out that all his usual escape exits are sealed, he breaks down into a fit of tears, thinking he'll be left to die in the pound. Also, his UglyCute [[http://joenipote.com/images/whatamess_snap3.jpg?crc=319969384 character design]] only serves to amplify his "woobie" factor. |
| 302 | * ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'': Diaspro is a RichBitch and cooperates with supervillains on a regular basis. The thing is that she doesn't see herself as having a choice in the matter. For one, she can no more see a scenario where she doesn't end up marrying Prince Sky than she can see one in which she spontaneously grows an extra set of limbs....despite the fact that a red-haired usurper who won't listen to reason and refuses to understand the volatile power politics that get in her way seems Hell-bent on disrupting everything for silly and self-serving reasons. Since saidirritant is both insanely popular and a possessor of godlike abilities, Diaspro sees herself as being backed into a corner. |
| 303 | * ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen2009'': Toad, perhaps based on the fact that his incarnation in ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' was [[TheWoobie one of the show's woobie-characters]]. On the one hand, his mutations mean he has a deformed, frog-like appearance (webbed hands, gangly limbs, green skin), an OverlyLongTongue, and the ability to hork up gouts of sticky slime. On the other hand, he's an evil little toad of a person who willingly signed up with a mutant supremacist group so he'd be able to commit havoc without fear of punishment; it's implied in his first appearance that Toad is recurrently caught vandalizing or mugging people and never gets punished because the Brotherhood always busts him out again. When Quicksilver declares the Brotherhood have decided Toad isn't worth saving anymore and so they're kicking him out and leaving him in the [=MRD=] Facility, one simultaneously understands where Quicksilver's coming from and feels pity for Toad -- it's the look on his face and the quiet way he asks if they're really dumping him. |
| 304 | * ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'': |
| 305 | ** [[TheHero Omi]] can be pretty egotistical, arrogant, and to patronizing towards his teammates (particularly Raimundo), [[NiceJobBreakingItHero which often leads to some pretty nasty screw ups on his part]]. But he's still an unambiguously heroic character, despite being a young child [[BreakTheHaughty who goes through quite a lot of hell]], [[spoiler: particularly in the last season where he witnesses the death of his friends in a BadFuture timeline.]] |
| 306 | ** Raimundo is rather selfish and lazy, not to mention a jerk [[WithFriendsLikeThese who openly he makes fun of his friends and teammates, Clay and Omi]] in many episodes, then spends another one antagonizing Kimiko. But underneath his asshole tendencies is someone who fears to be not good enough and letting people down. And he still genuinely wants to protect people at the end of the day, but his brash behavior [[NiceJobBreakingItHero often causes things to blow up in his face]]. Not to mention [[spoiler: his [[HeelFaceTurned brief stint on the Heylin side]], caused by his aforementioned brash attempts at trying to be the hero leading to him being held back while his teammates were awarded the next level in their training, is something he genuinely regrets doing.]] |
| 307 | ** Jack Spicer. A spoiled, rich teenager bent on world domination, whose first encounter with the monks is ordering his robotic minions to 'mince' them. He has no problems taking advantage of people’s trust, manipulating others, and throwing allies underneath the bus [[DirtyCoward to save his own skin]]. That said, he is also a pretty big ButtMonkey, that is seen as a joke by both the other villains (who often treat him as a tool to be used, then [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder tossed aside]] at will) and the heroes (who, while usually justified in their treatment of Spicer, can still be just a tad more harsh than needed at times), despite being a genuine technological genius who has shown multiple times that he's a NotSoHarmlessVillain. |
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