Break the Haughty in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- A Is A:
- Good Works: Alice Malvin goes through this after she kills for the first time.
- Second Chance! A School Festival!: The 1st Platoon arrogantly assume that the Sailor Senshi are mere children dealing with monsters who aren't nearly as threatening as the Senshi think they are, and that their unit will easily be able to handle the creatures. By the end of the story, they've learned just how wrong they were... the hard way.
- Anything Goes Game Changer
: Akane gets it finally driven home that she's far from the best when she and Yashima fight a quartet of Sekirei. Since her opponents don't hold back nearly as much, Akane can't ignore that her defeat ever happened as her wrist is badly fractured from it. - Children of an Elder God: Asuka was somewhat arrogant and brash when she came along (albeit she was calmer than in canon thanks to being raised by a good foster mother). In her first battle, she was supposed to capture her adversary alive, but she got carried away when it got her mad and she killed it. As a consequence of it, she got lectured, berated and threatened by Gendo. During the War, she sees her friends and people getting insane or dying because the Eldritch Abominations they are fighting as she gets put through several defeats and humiliations, and when all is over she pretty much has no pride left.
- Game of Touhou: Futo is an arrogant and incompetent admiral on Prince Miko's orders. Then, she's captured by Gengetsu and abused to the point of turning into "Fugetsu".
- Hunters of Justice has this happen to Whitley Schnee. Two weeks after Brainiac invaded and bottled the city of Atlas, Brainiac sends his forces to Schnee Manor to demand that Jacques hand over both him and Willow for experimentation. Jacques agrees to this without any hesitation, and he and Willow are forced to endure five months of brutal experiments. Whitley, in particular, is forced to endure a brutal Training from Hell in an effort to awaken his Aura and Semblance through combat and physical trauma. By the time he and his mother are rescued by the Green Lantern Corps, there is nothing remaining of the Smug Snake Spoiled Brat, only a shaken, traumatized, quiet teenage boy.
- If Wishes Were Ponies: Dumbledore gets this treatment. In this fic, he's notably more arrogant than in the books or movies, and his manipulative tendencies are clear to the reader from the start. This trope comes into play when he meets the Equestrians and is humbled by them again and again. The crowning moment of this is when he learns that he left Harry in an abusive home for almost a decade, and that he specifically made it so that no one could take Harry away despite their being obvious signs of abuse. Even after he apologizes and tries to atone for his mistakes, it's clear to the reader that Harry doesn't trust Dumbledore (as he knows that Dumbles is the reason he was with the Dursleys at all), and is likely unwilling to go along with any plan the wizard makes. This trope is most present in the numerous (and poetic) dressing-downs he gets from Twilight.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: The once-proud leader of the Apex, Grace Monroe's world comes crashing down in the Fog Car. All of the lies she told to prop herself up and build her following have left them widely despised, with thousands of denizens eager to see her brought down. The girl she's grown attached to is actually a denizen herself, and she has no idea how to keep Hazel or herself safe from Simon. To make matters worse, the Cage of Flauros is targeting the Apex, and she discovers that all of the denizens she murdered used to be human themselves... and if she dies on the Train, she'll meet the same fate. Ultimately, she's responsible for the deaths of Tuba, Chloe and Simon, and the surviving Apex want nothing more to do with her after learning it was All for Nothing.
- Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger (RWBY & Star Wars): Cinder is broken in her final moments. She spends most of the fic being as arrogant and self-assured as ever, and when faced with Nihilus, she literally laughs in his face and makes it clear that she thinks he's just a humanoid Grimm that she can easily "remind of its place". Nihilus shatters her delusions of nigh-supremacy when he curb-stomps her and her underlings, forcing Neo to flee and killing Emerald and Mercury with his raw power and skill in the Force as a Sith Lord (which makes him unlike anything anyone on Remnant has encountered). Cinder can't even find the will to have a Villainous Breakdwn once she realizes just how royally bested she is — she just lets out a defeated sigh and bitterly asks Nihilus what the hell he is as he stands triumphant over her, then when she realizes he intends to enslave her mind, she resists him just long enough to kill herself as a last escape from that fate.
- Last Child of Krypton: Due to her rigorous training and inferiority complex, Asuka was -or pretended to be- cocky and self-assured, and thought she would easily destroy any enemy. However, she got nearly killed in her first deployed and was admonished for a mistake was not her fault. She got better afterward, but she was put through more humiliations and defeats until she stopped being an Eva pilot.
- The Night Unfurls features a couple of examples in the remastered version as a result of Adaptation Expansion.
- Olga Discordia is a sorceress equal to the Goddess Reborn in every measure, and the Queen of the Dark Elves, so she has a good reason to be as haughty as ever. This process is a rather slow one. First, she gets subjected into a Curb-Stomp Battle thanks to Kyril being faster, stronger, and more durable than she is. After said Curb-Stomp Battle, she is locked up in a cell like a miserable prisoner, already a far cry from what she started as. Had Kyril decided not personally bring her back to Ken, she would have suffered a far worse fate at the mercy of the Black Dogs. While she begrudgingly admits that she owes him her life, it is not until he uses A Call Beyond to instantly kill Vault and his men that she realizes not only Kyril is a better fighter, but also a magic user far beyond her level. All of the above, combined with her sensing the dead shadows hovering around him on an instinctive level, leaves her terrified of him, even grateful that he decided to bring her and Chloe back unspoiled instead of offing her. The cherries at the top? Olga Discordia, now a former queen and a prisoner on the run, has no choice but to help set up camp and peel some potatoes, not to mention how she ends up catching a fever on the way back.
- Alicia Arcturus is the celebrated Princess Knight of Feoh, prideful about her swordsmanship. This image gradually fractures as she is forced to confront the reality that some foreigner in a weird-looking, tattered hat (aka. Kyril) turns out to be way stronger than she is. She finds this very, very difficult to accept, nor could she accept the stranger's brutality in battle and apathy towards her higher social status, not to mention how her cousin Prim somehow finds the man trustworthy while she clearly believes the opposite. Then comes Kyril's Trial by Combat, where Alicia sees this as the perfect chance to settle accounts, to restore her honour... and she ends up being left untouched during the fight, yet soundly defeated anyway. And then Kyril deems her Not Worth Killing, deems her a "weakling". A single word so filled with contempt that her pride comes tumbling down, which leads to her recklessly assaulting Soren as Revenge by Proxy, an action that would most likely increase hostilities between Alicia and Kyril.
- Origins:
- Cortana has very specific notions of how to fight off a certain Alien Invasion. This is repeatedly harped on, to the point where the plot often supports the argument as the heroes fall back again and again. A downplayed version of this trope kicks in when several different technologies are combined into a new starship that succeeds in its very first real field test.
- Aria T'Loak initially insists on doing things her own way when the Flood invades and the Citadel Council gets Shepard to talk her into lending a hand in containing the Alien Invasion. She then proceeds to taunt and blackmail the Trans-Galactic Republic, specifically their shady Republic Intelligence Service who is fond of cloaking devices which have a relatively easy-to-exploit weakness that Aria gleefully seizes...until she is threatened with spacing. She then loses her station to the Alien Invasion, goes on a mission to take out the infestation aboard the Citadel long after everyone else leaves, and still fails to accomplish anything. It's not for lack of trying, and her lover points out that valuable lessons have been learned.
- Rise of the Galeforces: Happens to Ludlow, with lethal results. His Establishing Character Moment reveals him to be a greedy, glory-hounding, insensitive asshole who is willing to hurt others to get what he wants. Unfortunately, he's also incompetent, to the point where he thinks that both abusing a Tyrannosaurus rex family and turning Violet into a ''T. rex'' are good ideas. A thoroughly infuriated Vi proceeds to put him through a Humiliation Conga of epic proportions, unraveling plans that presumably took him decades to put together in a very short space of time. He finally breaks down, attempts to murder Vi... and is eaten by the aforementioned family of baby tyrannosaurs upon Violet's behalf.
- Rise of the Unicorn: Cecilia is (unintentionally) broken to the core after Banagher delivers an unexpected one-sided fight against her. After a little pep talk, she's shifted from the snobby, all-mighty girl into an unwanted, submissive lover to the Gundam pilot.
- The Snap, a RWBY/Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover, shows this happening to a few characters. The most notable one is none other than the God of Darkness. Not only does Salem disappear (and die permanently) from Thanos' snap, he loses his brother as well. As a result, he’s aimlessly wandering the cosmos, feeling loss and guilt over his failures, to the point he returns to Remnant to recuperate.
- Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Asuka behaved as a prideful, self-assured girl at the beginning (a mask to cover her weak self-esteem). When her powers surfaced and she started out her superheroine career, though, she changed gradually, becoming less self-centered and more altruistic. At the same time her performance with her giant robot suffered, and she started questioning herself. Then she went through Arael's Mind Rape. The Robeast played with all her fears, doubts and insecurities, and broke her down. For a while she was utterly distraught and depressed, thinking she was never a heroine but an immature child playing a game, she was never a good pilot, and she was worthless.
- Thousand Shinji: Both Jerkass Woobie main characters suffered this:
- Shinji did this to Asuka so she didn't break in an undesirable fashion. He won a duel against her and exposed all her flaws and insecurities to force her to face them and mature.
- Shinji also was broken when his plotting and scheming completely backfired, and his love, family, and friends suffered the consequences.
- The Vigilante Boss and His Failed Retirement Plan: Transferring out of Onodera turns Bakugou's life upside down:
- A more decent middle school can't tolerate his vicious temperament. He's even discouraged from pursuing pro hero course due to the dangerous combination of his behavior and Quirk.
- In UA, Izuku and other recommended students outshine him. Their first combat exercise ends with Bakugou knocked out in less than a minute because Izuku wants to avoid collateral damage.
- Izuku's group of friends go behind his back and sabotage Bakugo's chance to make connections with students outside of the hero course. But they don't need to work even further than that because Bakugou basically did it to himself.
- The teachers who have been warned of his temperament watch him more closely and, much to their horror, Bakugou has developed an ongoing issue that made him a hazard not just to himself but also to other students.
- The Wedding Crashers: Almost all of the Twilight characters go through this at the end. The vampires realize that they are not at the top of the food chain like they thought after two of their own are killed by Dean and Castiel, and are only saved by a human girl's mercy, the Cullens are disgraced by the rest of their kind, Renessme gets punched by Leah, Jacob accidentally releases Leah from his hold and gets beaten as a result, and Quil is told by Claire that she will never marry him.
- The Last Firebender (sinistercinnamon): Azula, who was always The Ace and a Smug Super, finds herself largely useless with non-firebending combat. She actually knocks herself out with one weapon, and the best she ever manages is "decent for a beginner" with swords. And then when she masterfully manipulates both the Northern Water Tribe and Zuko to bring Zuko back, Ozai immediately ignores her in favor of Zuko.
- Can You Imagine That?: The rewrite chronicles the turning point of Calvin's characterization, showing his development from the original strip's portrayal as a jerkass to the more heroic interpretation the rest of the Calvinverse shows him as.
- System Restore: Kuzuryuu goes through a major breakdown in the wake of Pekoyama's death, particularly after learning why she was murdered: because her killer believed she was tempting him to kill.
- Story of the Century: Not only do Light and Higuchi get broken, but L gets his, too. He technically "wins" the battle against Kira, but in the process, he loses Watari, Light, Misa's friendship, the trust and respect of the task force, and of course his own life. He takes sort-of Love Interest Erin's "The Reason You Suck" Speech at the end of it all exceptionally well (though he still forces her to leave) and spends his last few days alone.
- Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns: Trian Aeducan is put through this, with surprising results.
- Dragon Ball Reboot: When Grandpa Gohan notices how Gine tends to waste excessive amounts of energy in her ki attacks and offers to teach her how to better control it, she brashly asserts that there's nothing she could possibly learn from a weakling like him and claims that she doesn't need to train anyway since she's already the most powerful being on Earth. Gohan quickly puts her in her place by knocking her to the ground with a sweep kick before calling her out on her arrogance, pointing out how he was still able to knock her off her feet and warns her that her son will end up having to suffer for her hubris. His speech, combined with the fact that an old man was able to knock her down, gets through to Gine, who apologizes to Gohan for her behavior and confides to him her insecurities about being weak.
- Sleeper in the Cave shows Jurgen Windcaller — then a very arrogant and self-righteous Nord warlord — receiving an apocalyptic asskicking from the Chimer war-leader Indoril Nerevar who takes the opportunity to brutally call him out on his hypocrisy and racism. Being a Religious Bruiser, Jurgen interpretated his defeat as proof of the gods' displeasure, stopped the war and became an Actual Pacifist.
- Poisoning Apple:
- Rotbart's initial relationship with Apple consists of this: while Apple is very sweet, she is very used to getting what she wants and having her word obeyed. Since she is used to the friendly and benign Raven as her villain, she is unprepared for Raven's replacement, Rotbart, son of the Swan Lake Evil Sorceror. Rotbart is genuinely antagonistic towards her and is a villain who likes being a villain. Who already doesn't like her because she's trying to force his little sister Raven into something she doesn't want.
- Rotbart gets this when he is forced to rely on Apple for help when he is injured while swimming despite being a big jerk to her.
- Daring Charming is humiliated in front of the entire school, caught cheating on Apple.
- Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce: Original Character Arjuna is played up as the best chef among the students at Hogwarts, always winning or coming in second place in every challenge of the Magic Chef Junior Competition, and unlike the other competitors, she refuses to practice together, claiming she already knows everything she needs to in order to win. However, when faced with a challenge that forbids the use of magic, she struggles to keep up and cheats to get around a challenge that requires she cook beefnote . She's eliminated from the competition, receives zero sympathy from almost the entire student body, and her own house goes from calling her "Arjuna the Ace" to "Arjuna the Disgrace".
- Wind Shear: Bellatrix Black is nearly killed by Harry, then nearly killed by abominations created by Voldemort, then Imperiused by Voldemort and nearly tortured and killed by him, his Knights of Walpurgis and her own aunt. All of which, combined with time spent in the Muggle world, brings her to the realization that Muggles are people too.
- A Son's Revenge: Ten years after Carter Blake brutally murdered Ethan Mars in an act of Police Brutality, Ethan's son Shaun is out for revenge. Realizing this swiftly reduces Blake to a quivering, cowering wreck.
- Cheating Death: Those That Lived:
- Chaff starts out as a aloof perfectionist and Teacher's Pet (although he has some Pet the Dog moments early on, like freeing the bugs at the edible insects station). He drives everyone crazy by doing things like being a Grammar Nazi to President Snow, lecturing his District partner for not using silverware, lecturing the training center staff for leaving a single piece of trash on the ground, and complaining about his training score. One Hunger Games later, and Chaff is a jaded alcoholic and new rebel recruit.
- Neon Erg is a budding sexual predator who is willing to kill in the games and is confident that he'll win. Then, all of the girls in the arena team up against him, he only survives by a fluke, and he's reduced to a frazzled alcoholic who's completely terrified by any woman he lays eyes on.
- Olga spends most of the story as a ruthless fanatic who turns up her nose at the outlier districts, defends the Capitol's evil acts, and can't stand it when anyone defies her. The final chapters reveal that she's been left a broken, weeping shell who's fully aware of how she wasted her life in the service of evil, a realization that is driven in when she learns that the Games staff have often rigged the Games against the tributes Olga devoted her life into making loyal volunteers because they find that rigid loyalty boring.
- Some Semblance of Meaning: This happens to Obsidian. After entering the Games with total confidence, he is broken by the fact that the Games are not what he dreamed they would be and beaten down by concerns that the Careers' way isn't right. This causes him to leave the pack, leaving him a pariah and — after an embarrassing run-in with another tribute who steals from and mocks him — without any supplies other than his sword. He ends up feeling great remorse for his kills, and this is why he doesn't ally with Vale the first time he gets a chance (along with the fact that Phlox had just allied with her, Fen, and Lark): he fears that he would probably end up killing her, as well. By the time he finally does become Vale's ally, he is hardly recognizable as the same confident, poised tribute he once was.
- Karma Circle: Judgement: All the beatings that Gaz receives in her nightmare from people she hurt merely make her furious. What well and truly breaks her is when Daan Yel brings up a floating video-screen of her father, who proceeds to state that he considers her a disappointment and would like to disown her for doing nothing with her life except playing video games, eating junk food, and beating up people who annoy her. This leaves Gaz tearing up and screaming in primal emotion so hard that it forces her awake.
- It's not the Raptor DNA: Being raised on a diet of juvenile, inexperienced T. rex has given Iudex Carnifex the Spinosaurus an inflated view of himself. He sees himself as the ultimate killing machine, and refers to Tyrannosaurus as "easy kills". Then he encounters Limper, a bull T. rex who survived close to twenty years in the wild, and, after a quick thrashing, Carnifex has changed his mind about who is more powerful.
- A Minor Miscalculation: Due to having to shoulder the responsibility of housing two orphans, along with dealing with a significantly more powerful Ryuko, Satsuki gradually loses control of her plans and her school, getting increasingly stressed as the story progresses.
- The Nightmare House: Lola's nightmare has her boasting about how she's sure to win the pageant, only for her facial features to drop off.
- An Alternate Keitaro Urashima: Various cast members are put through this, with varying results:
- Haruka's begins when she's slapped by a lawsuit led by disgruntled employees and customers she casually abused because she didn't like them. Pride keeps her from settling as her lawyer advises; as a result, she loses the teahouse, and Granny Hina exploits her vulnerable position to name her manager of the Hinata Inn so she can continue her world tour. Though naturally embittered by this, over time, she starts to realize how her own actions contributed to her plight.
- Su gets put in a position where her royal status can't save her, and actually works against her: If it becomes common knowledge that their princess is a thief, there'll be considerable political fallout. Despite this, Su repeatedly complains, wondering why "those meanies" won't just let her friends fix everything.
- Naru attacks Keitaro on the grounds of their cram school and nearly gets kicked out for the assault. Though the Headmaster shows her some pity and lets her off with a stern warning, the other students avoid her, not wanting anything to do with somebody so volatile. Naru blames Keitaro for this.
- Mokoto's gotten the worst Humiliation Conga so far. After getting arrested, she's steadily been losing everything that mattered to her: her FanGirl Posse, her position on the Kendo Club, her honor, her reputation, her status as heir of the God Cry School, and her place at the Hinata Inn, as she's being forcibly transferred to a co-ed school back in Kyoto.
- For His Own Sake also sees the haughtier members of the cast going through this. In particular, Su's antics with her robots have gotten her arrested and labeled a terrorist; Mokoto has gotten stripped of her heir status and Naru's impulsive decision to attack an innocent man and blame him for it bit her hard when it turned out he was a career advisor, and the attack brought her behavior to the attention of her school and has implicitly torpedoed her academic future.
- Mega Man Reawakened has this happen with Bass. In Arc 4, chapter 1, Roll easily defeats him, and an even more severe instance happens to him in the Arc 4 finale when Break Man curbstomps him.
- The Karma of Lies: Adrien firmly believes that he's protected by Protagonist-Centered Morality, and that his 'happy ending' is guaranteed without him actually having to do anything to earn it beyond existing. Then his Karma Houdini Warranty runs out, and he finds himself being hit with Lila's Laser-Guided Karma on top of his own, due to his insistence on protecting her from the consequences of her actions. His stubborn insistence that the world must conform to how he WANTS it to work leads to him completely destroying his own reputation. When it's all said and done, he's Hated by All, suspected of aiding his terrorist father, lost his friends after they discovered his Betrayal by Inaction, lost access to his family's fortune, and is eking out a miserable existence hiding in his dinky new apartment, waiting to come of age so he's no longer under Amelie's stewardship, facing an uncertain future.
- The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral):
- In Gabriel's Lament, Gabriel got his hands on the Earrings and Ring and Wished for a world where Emilie never fell ill. This plunged him into a Self-Inflicted Hell where he's forced to watch as Emilie fights to protect Paris from this new reality's version of Hawkmoth... and against their son, who was akumatized out of resentment over Gabriel micromanaging his life. He finds himself without the control he so craved, fully aware that his new circumstances are his own fault.
- Chloé's Lament: Chloé Wished to trade places with Marinette, having convinced herself that everybody hated her out of jealousy of her being the Mayor's daughter and expecting to become the Ladybug heroine in this new world. Instead, she learns the hard way that it was her personality that everyone despised — and with her father now a "mere baker", she no longer has the protection that his position once provided.
- What Goes Around Comes Around:
- Adrien's starts when he misses a critical battle with Shadow Moth, who's revealed as his father and arrested. Rather than dealing with that, he focuses on Marinette, who was also revealed as Ladybug, arrogantly assuming this means that she'll become his girlfriend and that he can expect her to fix everything for him, much like how he let her shoulder the brunt of responsibility while he goofed around as Chat Noir. But Marinette is happily dating Luka, and isn't pleased to learn she was Loving a Shadow. Adrien then digs his own grave when he claims that he 'stood by her' against Lila, when he actually stood aside and let Lila do as she pleased... thoughtlessly making this claim in front of their whole class, who turn on him. Making matters even worse for him, he learns that his mother was Evil All Along after foolishly trusting her with the Ring, and she gives him a Breaking Speech about how she considers his cousin Felix to be a better son, to the point of plotting to forcibly merge them together with a Wish. These revelations leave Adrien completely shattered.
- Lila and Chloé both learn that they were Unwitting Pawns of Hawk Moth. This results in their Karma Houdini Warranties running out, as the police find video evidence of their willing collboration with him and arrest them both. They then wind up continuing their villainous careers, only for their new boss to make clear that they know exactly what they're dealing with and will not tolerate any attempts at manipulation or backstabbing, forcing the pair into subordinate roles right alongside each other.
- Another Form Of Power:
- One of the pieces of legislation Izuku gets passed requires Hero students to take mandatory psychological assessments in order to prove that want to become Heroes for the right reasons. Katsuki fails.
- Fortunately, these assessments can be retaken, enabling prospective heroes who work on themselves to prove that they're trying to be better. However, they can only try again for a limited amount of times... and Katsuki winds up burning through all of his while stubbornly refusing to change, permanently failing.
- When Katsuki confronts Izuku in his politician persona, demanding that the laws be revoked, Izuku overpowers him with his public quirk, whispering in his former bully's ear that if he wants to be a hero so badly, he should take a swan dive off the roof and hope that he's reborn with a better attitude.
- Apotheosis puts Bakugou through a series of humbling events, starting with witnessing the boy he bullied and dismissed as worthless holding his own against All Might, getting a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of his own from 'Deku', followed by Aizawa dismantling his entire worldview as unbefitting of a hero and informed that he's nothing special. His classmates turn on him after learning about the role he played in Deku becoming a villain, with his Only Friend Kirishima breaking off their bond while declaring how disappointed he is. Bakugou's then forced to attend counseling, anger management, and community service, including having to help Quirkless children.
- Cheat Code: Support Strategist: Todoroki's refusal to use his flames ends up costing him the Calvary Battle, as he's unable to fend off Dark Shadow stealing his points at the last second.
- Daymare: After seriously injuring Izuku, leaving him badly scarred, Katsuki is forced to face consequences for his actions and begins to recognize just how cruel he's been.
- Failure to Explode: Katsuki was so supremely confident that he was going to get into U.A. that he didn't bother making any backup plans. When he doesn't make it in while Izuku does, he's left gobsmacked — and his lack of preparation means that he's stuck attending Aldera High School, where the staff is no longer willing to cater to him now that he's not on track to become a hot-shot Pro Hero anymore.
- Juxtapose: Katsuki gets curb-stomped by Yaomomo, leaving him borderline catatonic and lamenting his inability to keep his promise to fight Izuku during the Sports Festival.
- Quirkless 1-B: This happens to Bakugou. He comes in as a hotshot to be the next number one hero, only to throw it away when trying to attack Izuku, seriously injuring Reiko in the process. Then he makes it worse when he screamed out that he was actually trying to murder Izuku, in full view of the whole school, intentionally causing a two class brawl. He is then arrested on charges of assault, kicked to gen-ed and barred from this year's sports festival. The only reason he isn't expelled is because Izuku knows he'll either turn to vigilantism and take it too far one day, or become a villain. In chapter 14, he is completely broken as he realizes that all he did wasn't heroic, but rather bullying.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- A Diplomatic Visit:
- The wolf Far-Tracker had this happen to him — after some bragging about his tracking skills, he went out after a wild boar, only to wind up tracking his way straight into a porcupine's den. The experience left him somewhat humbler, and now he gets a laugh out of telling the story.
- The sequel (Diplomat at Large)'s chapter 4 has this happen to Chrysalis. Dragged out in chains to be Sealed, attempting to use her status as a Power to win her freedom, only to find she really is in the wrong by their ancient Laws, and then stripped of her status as a Power by her superior before being Sealed once and for all.
- Earth and Sky: Diamond Tiara has gone from merely being a brat to being a self-centered Corrupt Corporate Executive who tries to make trouble for Harmony Aeronautics solely out of a misplaced grudge on Apple Bloom, and she ends up suffering for it: she's kidnapped by changelings, who find her so unpleasant they ditch her in the desert and leave her for dead. Diamond only survives to make it to civilization because of The Power of Hate, which to her horror means she owes her life to her sworn rival. Fortunately, all this abuse gradually leads to a Heel Realization and a Heel–Face Turn.
- Marionettes:
- Lightning Dust's experiences while brainwashed, coupled with learning that she is a robot, completely destroys her arrogance.
- Gear Shift and Cover Story lose their sense of superiority when they're defeated and captured, along with Cover Story discovering that he's a robot as well.
- Black Flames Dance in the Wind: Rise of Naruto:
- After he and Yugito fight Hidan and Kakuzu (respectively), Naruto meets Shizaru, a demon that Kyuubi flat out tells him he has no chance against. When Naruto disregards Kyuubi's warning to avoid antagonizing Shizaru at all costs, Shizaru beats him so badly that Naruto is left bifurcated and with almost all of his bones broken. While in a coma, Naruto gets called out by Kyuubi on not only disregarding her warning but dragging out his fight with Hidan after assuring Yugito that he'd kill Hidan as quickly as possible then help her with Kakuzu.
- Sasuke loses his trademark arrogance while training under Genma who, among other reasons, headbutts Sasuke every time he gets uppity.
- Ino had always viewed herself as superior to Sakura in every relevant way, only to find in the aftermath of an attack on Konoha that countless shinobi are not only praising Sakura's heroics during the attack but also her diligence in the rescue efforts. As a result, whenever Ino fails to do something, a nearby shinobi will comment on how more genin should "be like that Haruno girl". When Ino later spars with Sakura, the fight lasts until Sakura goes on the offensive and breaks Ino's jaw with a single jab.
- Escape From The Hokage's Hat:
- Sasuke is recaptured by Naruto and brought back to Konoha to face the consequences of his defection. While he expects special treatment due to his status as "the last Uchiha in Konoha", Tsunade promptly punishes him by sticking him in one of ANBU's darkest cells, barely keeping him alive, all to firmly impress upon him just how badly he screwed up.
- Kakashi also goes through this. As the extent to which he neglected Naruto and Sakura's training becomes clear, he finds himself being shunned by his fellow shinobi. Even his Eternal Rival Gai is so shocked and disgusted that he refuses to talk to Kakashi. Kakashi initially assumes that this is all due to his failure to prevent Sasuke's defection until he's repeatedly confronted and called out about it.
- Five Petals: Sasuke's pride takes a harsh beating in the Forest of Death, as he finds himself struggling to defend his unconscious teammates while dealing with his injured leg. Then he attempts to fight in the preliminaries despite said injury, only to wind up on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle at the hands of a "nobody". And to make matters worse, this effectively ensures that his leg won't heal correctly.
- A Growing Affection does this to Hanabi twice. The first is a more minor breaking when Hinata deconstructs Hanabi's importance relative to Naruto. The second time is when Madara breaks her spirit as a part of his Grand Theft Me plot.
- Little Uzumaki: Danzo thoughtlessly attempts to pawn off diaper duty on another shinobi without even looking to see who he's handing the toddler Naruto to. Turns out that it was Kisame, which leads to an utterly furious Iruka beating the crap out of him and arresting him for neglect, followed by uncovering the existence of ROOT and destroying all of his ambitions.
- One Eye Full Of Wisdom: Kakashi makes a habit of breaking arrogant ninja so they can see their own flaws. Of particular note is his treatment of Neji, who arrogantly dismisses him during a joing training session. Kakashi proceeds to inform Neji that until he manages to impress him, he will receive no training; over the next several days, Neji goes from well-trained and disciplined katas to basically running at Kakashi screaming and hoping for the best, and then to getting on his knees and begging for forgiveness (this last bit impresses Kakashi).
- The Sealed Kunai: Naruto comes across as functionally invincible for a time, particularly after he beat ten of the other eleven rookies with ease (Lee was still recovering from surgery and couldn't fight). Then he picks a fight with Jiraiya while the Sannin is training him. Jiraiya wins easily; not only is he stronger, faster, and more skilled than Naruto, he's been a ninja since before Naruto's parents were born.
- A Teacher's Glory: The invasion is such a Curb-Stomp Battle that it becomes known in-universe as The Breaking of Suna. Then they counter-attack against Orochimaru, and by the end of it, the rogue sannin is only "the master of as much land as his feet cover each moment" while he flees.
- Advice and Trust: Although the premise of the story is "Shinji and Asuka's ruined First Kiss was Asuka's turning point which led to her break-down. What if they would have gotten it right?" Asuka still is put through a breaking. She gets swallowed by an Angel, her best friend gets absorbed by her giant robot and she gets fired up by Gendo. The last was a potentially devastating blow since her self-worth is completely tied to being a pilot. She was hanging by a thread afterward, and Shinji was the only thing helped her to cope with the situation in lieu of falling apart and crumbling down.
- The Child of Love: Asuka was prideful and boastful because her very fragile self-image was founded on being the best at everything and depending on nobody. She never wanted to have children and piloting Eva was everything she thought she had. Then she fell in love with her greatest rival, he got her pregnant and she stopped being a pilot due to her pregnancy. Her self-image got shattered, but she managed to pull herself together, and when Shinji reached out to her she opened up, acknowledged her feelings and trusted him. And then he lost his nerve.
- A Crown of Stars: Asuka had trained hard her whole life to become the best. She was a soldier and was proud of it. Then the war came and she got beaten, humiliated, mind-raped, abandoned by her comrades and murdered. After the end of the world, she was angry, jaded and semi-comatose. She got forced to be two warlords' war toy and plaything for years during which she thought she had been abandoned and betrayed again for the only person she might have loved. When the story starts out she is soul-weary and mind-broken she does not believe her life will ever get better.
- Doing It Right This Time: Brash, bold, prideful Asuka got her heart broken, her pride shattered, her mind raped and her body chopped into pieces and devoured before the beginning of the history. She became suicidal before AND after dying and being reborn, but now the universe has got a makeover she has decided turning over a new leaf, too.
- Evangelion 303: By the start of the history, Asuka is the top pilot in the base, she knows it and ensures (loudly) that everyone else also knows it. However, her performance had been slipping and she lost a coveted assignment to another pilot. Then she challenged the newcomer pilot to a duel and she lost. Her conflicting feelings towards Shinji got her distracted and she botched a mission. Her self-image was collapsing but she got better after she sorted her feelings out and Shinji and she consummated their relationship. But shortly before the warplane that she was piloting crashed and she spent several months in a coma. When she woke up she blamed herself for it and her best friend's death. Later she had to fly another prototype and it also crashed. With her self-confidence and self-esteem shattered she saw herself like a pathetic failure. She was so affected that she tried to tried to kill herself and when Shinji stopped her, she ran away.
- Ghosts of Evangelion: Asuka was apparently prideful and boastful, and she thought she was the best pilot ever. During the War, she got humiliation after humiliation, beatings, a mind-rape and realized NERV never cared about her. After Third Impact she was very bitter and furious, but she tried to get better... and then she got raped.
- Going Another Way: Asuka goes through the routine, but as the fic is an AU story, the process goes very differently, starting with her being the one who gets absorbed into Leliel. The experience consists of Satan giving her "the "Christmas Carol" treatment, and it traumatizes her badly, but instead of retreating into herself and wallowing in self-hatred, she undergoes some much-needed Character Development, becoming a much nicer and more considerate person (though she still is rather boisterous).
- HERZ: Chapter 2 narrates how Asuka's pride got shattered until she regarded herself as a worthless, useless failure and an ugly, scarred freak.
- Higher Learning: Asuka was bold and arrogant at the beginning. All of it was a façade to hide her many insecurities and neuroses, though. She gained emotional stability when she hooked up with Shinji, but for the same reason she got severely upset when he was in danger or when he left for a while. Then she was Mind Raped by Arael and her self-confidence crumbled down. Asuka spent the rest of the history depressed and clinging to Shinji in order to not lose it completely. She was so soul-weary and her self-esteem was so shattered that she would rather die with Shinji to get into her Eva again and fight for her life.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide: Deconstructed. Asuka was an arrogant, annoying brat, but she was broken so thoroughly that her life became a nightmare and she tried to commit suicide because she couldn't stand the pain anymore.
- Once More With Feeling (Crazy-88): Defied. Shortly after meeting Asuka for first time (again), Shinji feels tempted to bring her down a notch... but he will do not it, no matter how overbearing she may be, because he has seen what would happen if her pride was shattered, and he has absolutely no desire of seeing it happening ever again.
- The One I Love Is...: In this story, Asuka was broken even worse than in canon. In addition to the long string of traumatic humiliations, beatings, defeats, and Mind Rape she suffered in the original series, she got to compete with Rei over Shinji. She forced herself to face her feelings, opened up to Shinji (making herself vulnerable despite all her misgivings and fears)... and then she got depressed and heart-broken because it did not seem to be enough to win him over and she felt wanting compared with Rei. That situation increased her insecurities and feelings of inadequacy and she slowly and gradually fell completely apart and tried to kill herself.
- The Second Try: Asuka was arrogant and loud because she tried to overcome her childhood traumas by becoming the best pilot ever. She got beaten and humiliated repeatedly; then she was abandoned and replaced, and shortly after she died in a gruesome way. She managed to live beyond the end of the world, mature, get married to her love and have a beautiful daughter, and then everything was taken from her.
- This Bites!: Being defeated by rookies from the East Blue for a second time thoroughly broke the pride of Shiki the Golden Lion. This is a very bad thing, because it meant Shiki decided he was never meant to succeed without his captain, and when he recognizes the will of Rocks D. Xebec in Blackbeard, he joins the Blackbeard Pirates without hesitation. Additionally, when Shiki fought Luffy and Bartolomeo, he held his true strength back out of arrogance. Now that he’s decided his pride was worthless, that’s never going to happen again.
- Common Sense: After dismissing Ash's growth as a trainer and pushing him past the Rage Breaking Point, Misty gets a rude awakening when she tries to challenge Ash to a Water Pokémon battle. Ash first gives her a good "The Reason You Suck" Speech and tells her she's not worth his time, and when she insists, he proceeds to trash her entire team with one Pokémon.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has a few examples in the main story and its side stories:
- Gary Oak has a rather high opinion of himself as a Pokémon trainer, but constantly loses to Red whenever they encounter each other. To top it off, when teamed up with Paul in the Fuchsia tournament, he's quick to see how far behind he is in skill compared to Paul.
- The Pokémon Tech's Golden Generation suffers a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of Ash and Misty during the Giselle Interlude.
- The Clair Interlude shows the title Gym Leader is fond of doing this to Small Name, Big Ego challengers. She will beat people with a Magikarp solo when applicable.
- Travels of the Trifecta: Paul suffers from this for most of the story up until the battle at Lake Acuity with Ash.
- Power Rangers GPX has three instances, two heroic and one villainous. Let's take a look:
- Sean O'Callahan, the Red Ranger. Prior to his, he'd been a more lightly arrogant Jerk with a Heart of Gold than other cases. However, by episode 12, it's implied being Red Ranger has gone to his head, especially because Green Ranger Daisuke Miyazawa had been a pain in the ass. After Daisuke mutinies and leaves the team, he spends the next chapter brooding over the result. It's cemented when he's beaten nearly half to death and he undergoes Character Development to become a more level-headed leader.
- Daisuke Miyazawa, the Green Ranger. Unlike Sean, he is just plain arrogant and unwilling to accept Sean as a leader because he sees Sean as unworthy. He constantly tries to undermine Sean's authority until he leaves the team, taking his sister with him. Two chapters later, he fights the main villain of the arc and is defeated and called out by his own sister for his actions. After being rescued by Sean and the other Rangers, he decides to leave the team.
- Poor Princess puts Princess Morbucks through the wringer, beginning with her getting disowned by her father.
- Amazon Aid has Cologne destroy all of Nabiki's blackmail material and inform those affected by it of what she's done. Upon finding out, Nabiki is rendered beyond terrified at the realization that she now has nothing to stop her former victims attacking her, and has to literally beg Ranma for his protection, which he only agrees to provide if she gives up blackmail and extortion for good, pays back all the money she got from it, and doesn't interfere with him and Akane. She also gets treated with open contempt by the rest of Furinkan's students, and is forced to get a job in a department store to pay back all the money she owes.
- Pride Comes Before The Fall:
- Nodoka gets hit hard by this: after disowning her son, she ends up disowned by her own parents, who adopt Ranma to effectively take her place in the family.
- Nabiki goes up against the Tsubaki Society when she attempts to Blackmail Tofuu into taking Kasumi back. This leads to her downfall, with the whole town of Nerima throwing a party upon her arrest.
- Cologne goes through this after Shampoo is killed.
- On Trial: Cassandra is arrested after Rapunzel frees Corona, and is kept in solitary confinement for a month. From there on, she ends up having a Trauma Conga Line that almost kills her and leaves her with severe PTSD.
- Mordecai is sometimes made the Haughty in fanfics and ends up breaking when Rigby gets killed/dies in some of those cliched yet untiring "Rigby dies and Mordecai suffers from it" fics.
- The Professional Wrestling series The JWL put Triple H through a Humiliation Conga:
- Episode 44: Norman Smiley not only did his "Big Wiggle" dance to HHH, he made him submit to his Finishing Move, the Norman Conquest.
- Episode 48: Al Snow made HHH tap out to a nose hold!note
- Episode 64:The Boogeyman pinned HHH and then tried shoving the worms down his throat.
- Episode 71: The Brooklyn Brawler (w/Barry Horowitz) pinned HHH. He was released shortly after this. By this time, everyone else in the Clique had either walked out (Stephanie), had been forced out (Chyna), had been forced into retirement (Shawn Michaels), or had been canned offscreen (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws {[Road Dogg and Billy Gunn]}.)
- Episode 44
- Spectrem goes through a little breaking in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World.
- Rox and, to a lesser extent, Grunnel in With Strings Attached.
- Jeft qualifies too. He's an arrogant gamer Jerkass who thinks he's planned everything to perfection, and he treats everyone like shit, even his favorite character. He eats considerable crow at the end of the Third Movement.
- Paul wades through endless hordes of skeletons, zombies, ghouls, and ghasts without a scratch, supremely confident in his invulnerability—but then he meets the wraiths...
- Null: Ruby, Weiss and Yang assume that they can take the notorious "serial killer" Jaune without problem, despite Blake clearly being terrified of him. When the three of them confront Jaune at the docks and accidentally kill his mother because of their lack of regard for collateral damage, Jaune activates his Null Semblance and then he curb-stomps and traumatizes them all faster than Blake can stop him: Weiss is hurled into the ocean by a Dust explosion and is left with second-degree burns and voice damage, Yang's elbow is impaled and the opposite hand is cut in half, and Ruby takes several bullets through her unprotected back which she only (barely) survives because Jaune didn't know how to land lethal gunshots on a person from that angle.
- Prison Island Break: Silver gets broken over the knee by prison life, initially believing that he will reform the entire prison population. Reality bites him like a crocodile and refuses to let go.
- Tsuuma is sometimes a jerk to Viral in Tengen Toppa Gurren Solvernia (however, she is hinted to care, and she's also proud of her intelligence but she still treats herself above the others. She loses it during Viral's death.
- Unbreakable Red Silken Thread:
- The reason Heather and Cody become friends in the first place is when a photo showing Heather flashing the camera from TDI gets spread around the school.
- Also BRUTALLY invoked when Heather tears down Sugar in chapter 13.
- A New World: A furious Maribel taps into Yukari's power over boundaries when she realizes her parents have died in the nuclear exchange the Lunarians triggered to stop the human expansion into the False Moon. As a result, the Lunarians lose their much-vaunted purity, locking them out of their best technology and forcing them to march to Earth and Gensokyo in a final ditch attempt at preserving their immortality. Despite being deeply irritated by the enormous amount of power Maribel used, Eiki reluctantly approves as well, since it finally gives her the chance to judge the Lunarians, who have been hiding from their judgment behind said purity for a very, very long time...
- Gensokyo 20XX: This occurs twice with Yume Ni, the resident bully and smartass. The first time was after Reimu stabs her with a pair of scissors in response to her kicking her in the face, the which shattering her bravado. She was not happy about that, leading for a grudge, and found herself broken again by Chen when the latter gives her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- Imperfect Metamorphosis: Yuuka is completely broken when she discovers she's fictional. Also, Yukari is constantly broken by her extremist solutions but yet she refuses to yield.
- Tough Love: Bella arrogantly assumed that her father would capitulate to her demands if she threatened to move out. Instead, Charlie calls her bluff — and when she tries backing down, kicks her out of his house. A threat Bella refuses to take seriously enough to bother with packing, meaning that she ends up with a single duffel bag holding a handful of things that Charlie threw together for her. On top of this, Edward overheard her father questioning just what she wanted from the Cullens, causing Edward to realize that she's an Immortality Seeker and break up with her, so crashing at the Cullens isn't an option.
- Radio Silence: Wendy tries to throw her weight around to get the Baltimore Nosferatu to work with her. Given that she's a ten-year-old fledgling showing off to vampires who are at least a hundred years old, she gets a well-meaning, but still thorough chewing out from Primogen Alicia, who points out that her sire hasn't trained her nearly well enough for her to take this kind of challenge on... especially not when she appears to be totally incapable of playing nice with other vampires.
- Hear my Song! does this to SeeU. She starts out as an arrogant, prejudiced Jerkass, and then Ia physically and sexually abuses her to the point that it completely breaks her mind.
