Broken Ace / Literature

• Haru's friend Taku from Accel World is a friendly, smart, athletic...pretty much everything Haru wishes he was. All of this masks Taku's extreme resentment and jealousy of Haru. Taku is horribly insecure about his relationship with his girlfriend Chiyu because he believes that Chiyu secretly loves Haru instead of him. In his eyes, Chiyu always looks happier hanging out with Haru than she does when she is with him. All of Taku's achievements — athletics, academics — were done for the sole purpose of making himself better boyfriend material than Haru. Taku even went so far as to use Acceleration to improve his performance — he didn't actually achieve anything through effort alone. He also installed a virus in Chiyu's neuro-link so he can spy on her at any time, making him borderline Stalker with a Crush material. While Taku does turn over a new leaf after Haru forces him into a tie, it's later revealed that he was hazed during kendo practice when he was younger,with other students practicing thrusting techniques on his neck so much that he became suicidal at times, and given that a thrust attack triggers him, he suspects he won't be able to do kendo in high school, since thrusting is legal in high school competitions. Subsequent arcs reveal that he's ultimately just as capable of self-loathing as Haru is, but doesn't deal with it in as constructive of a manner.
• Accidental Detectives: In Madness at Moonshiner's Bay, Sheriff Leroy was a rising FBI star (and a pretty athletic-looking guy) before he was forced to arrest his own brother Clem for murdering his uncle — although he was actually framed — and also compromised his principles by hiding evidence in the case in a failed attempt to keep Clem from going to prison. When Clem was convicted anyway, he felt that he'd betrayed his principles for nothing, causing him to resign from the FBI and become an apathetic, rural sheriff who doesn't watch his weight.
• Kazuo Kiriyama from Battle Royale can master almost any skill. Combined with his inability to feel emotion due to brain damage which makes him the perfect killer. It's only as he dies does he regain emotion and the first thing he feels is regret over everything he's done.
• Brave New World: Helmholtz Watson is intelligent and handsome, but he's also depressed because of his soul-crushing job that revolves around mindless propaganda. He needs to create something meaningful, but that's not an option in a society where everyone's a hedonist.
• Ciaphas Cain. Capable, intelligent, handsome — and a compulsive liar desperately trying to hide what he sees as his own fundamental lack of courage and decency in a culture obsessed with martyrdom. It's fairly obvious in his memoirs that Ciaphas is incapable of giving himself credit for any achievement because he has to justify any noble act with ignoble intentions.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Rhysand is incredibly skilled but also very, very broken. Beyond the trauma of being a Sex Slave, he's got a shockingly low sense of self-worth, feeling that he's never given enough for his people, and puts on so many masks because he's afraid no one will love what they see underneath.
• Deverry: Rhodry ap Maelwaedd. A brilliant fighter and battle leader, he is very intelligent, willing to work past cultural and societal constraints and bias, successfully ruled a rhyn for many years, and can be very quick to notice small things and take advantage. Also severely prone to terrible bouts of depression called hiraedd, often takes on far more responsibility then is remotely necessary, blames himself for things that are in no way his fault, is often subject to severe honor before reason and becomes a Death Seeker, with only his honor keeping him from suicide.
• In the Dreamblood Duology, Ehiru is introduced as Hananja's favourite and the best Gatherer currently alive. However, messing up only once eats almost all of his confidence away and his lauded incorruptibility and devotion to Hananja's Law make him susceptible to being manipulated, creating a downward spiral of insecurity about his abilities and worth.
• Durarara!!:
  • Seiji Yagiri. Handsome, smart...and huge Yandere for a girl's head.
  • Namie, as well. In the novels, she's always described as an incredibly stunning young woman and she has enough smarts to give Izaya a run for his money. She's also rich, as well as the previous head of Yagiri pharmaceuticals. Oh, and did we mention she's a virtually emotionless Jerkass who's madly in love with her brother?
  • Another example is Shizuo Heiwajima's younger brother, Kasuka. Rich, talented, brilliant, beautiful and...off. The fact that he hooked up with a serial killer should tell you just how off. Even said Serial Killer, Ruri, described him as being out of his mind.
  • Izaya Orihara. Smart, rich, connected, Bishōnen, good at fighting, and an incredibly awful sociopath underneath, who will go as far as tricking girls into making Suicide Pacts with him For the Lulz and manipulate other people for the same reason. If not for Shinra, he'd be a downright monster.
• Ender Wiggin from Ender's Game may be only 10, but he is one of these. Everyone in Battle School (with some exceptions) loves him. He is the best in the standings, his free-time practice sessions are attended by many people throughout the school, he has the best army in the school and is one of the best tacticians ever. But he feels isolated from his friends and unloved. This becomes very apparent in Ender's Shadow, as Bean is really Ender's only confidant. He is a poor, lonely boy with the weight of the world on him.
• In Fate/Zero, practically every Ace among the Masters. Kiritsugu and his status as the number one competitor, along with everything else, including Saber? Horrible life prior to meeting Maya and Iri, emotional issues, has no choice but to sacrifice his family for his dream, has the worst compatibility with his Servant out of the seven Masters. Kayneth and his prestigious magical talent and status as a Lord? Horrible luck, his fiancée is in love with his Servant, overwhelmingly arrogant. Kotomine and his superhuman abilities and immense talent for anything and everything he does? None of it means anything to him because of his soul-afflicted emptiness. Tokiomi and his incredible magical skill and having the strongest Servant in the entire Nasuverse? His Servant fully plans to betray him, and he tore apart his own family due to his misguided attempts to make his daughters "equals" while holding true to Magus philosophy.
  • Among the Servants, Lancer, Berserker, and Saber all qualify. Lancer is easily the most skillful combatant out of the lot, but he has terrible luck, bad compatibility with his Master, and a curse that makes women fall in love with him, including said master's fiancée. Berserker is one of the strongest Servants in the Nasuverse, capable of giving even Archer a hard time even while handicapped by a sickly Master, but he's insane, and so fixated on Saber that he tends to have tunnel vision and thus get blindsided whenever she's around because of his intense guilt over betraying her and sleeping with Guinevere. Also, again, he's handicapped by his Master's frail condition. Saber is the best all-around combatant, and has the strongest overall abilities statwise, but she has the worst Master/Servant compatibility in the war bar none, and is consistently a victim of circumstances, or her Master's underhanded tactics. In addition, she's badly hampered by her guilt complex over her kingdom's fall, and her worry over Irisveil, who is literally dying in front of her with no way to stop it. And that's just how bad things are for them at the start of the conflict; by the end, everything is at least an entire order of magnitude worse for all three of them.
• The Saber of the related Fate/strange Fake (aka Richard the Lionheart) initially appears to be a handsome Knight in Shining Armor who is as clever, multiskilled, and charming as he is chivalrous and noble. However, many of the characteristics that made him likable as a person also made him an unstable and destructive ruler who bled his country dry and dragged it into war for thoughtless and ultimately pointless reasons, and Saber himself readily admits that his eventual assassination was entirely deserved.
• Charles Dawson from The Ferryman Institute is revered as the best Ferryman the Institute has had in centuries, having an unbroken success-streak exceeding a century. The only problem is that that the constant work with death — the various departed souls having to say goodbye to their friends and loved ones, as well as the trauma of their deaths — combined with the constant workload that being the best entails, has left him with a sense of ennui and depression. Combined with him being too stubborn to ask for emotional support, this has caused Charles to retreat for days at a time without telling anyone, avoiding work whenever he could and only coming in at the barest minimum.
• "Boy" Staunton from Fifth Business, with a side of Manchild as his chosen name indicates.
• A Frozen Heart, a half-Perspective Flip literary adaptation of Frozen (2013), Hans is handsome, charming, and a prince. However, desperate hunger for recognition, severe Daddy Issues, and seeking glory corrupt him. He's ignored and overshadowed by his 12 older brothers. In the book, which gives him a more expansive backstory, most of his brothers constantly bully him, ranging from verbal abuse to throwing items at him for simply daydreaming. His mother loves him but is too weak to spend time with him, and his father coldly regards him as a nuisance and sends him to do horrific tasks. Despite this, Hans often daydreams about having a loving and caring father, even as an adult. It's even heavily implied that he is a self-harmer. He ends up becoming more and more power-hungry until he becomes cruel and willing to kill to fulfill his ambition. By the time the book ends, Hans is starting to regret his actions, but has done enough damage to be sent back to the Southern Isles to be humiliated and punished by his family.]]
• Seth Carl from Isobelle Carmody's The Gathering. He's described by protagonist Nathaniel as "looking like one of those perfect guys from coke ads". He's popular, attractive, the son of a local police Sargent and almost everyone likes him. He's also a struggling abused teenage alcoholic who almost sells the group out to the titular Gathering.
• Lance from the Gone series. He is smart, athletic, handsome, and was popular before the poof. He also suffers from Fantastic Racism.
• Crowley from Good Omens. He's a Noble Demon, with a confident, attractive facade (implied to even have an aggressively cool haircut that only looks good on someone like him) and a quick wit. He has a relentlessly stylish apartment full of fancy gadgets, he always seems to have the best of everything and drives the coolest of Cool Cars. However, in spite of the book's ensemble cast, he stands out as pretty much the main viewpoint character, whose thoughts we hear the most, and behind the painfully cool exterior, he's frightened, weary, and eventually very angry, which causes him to rebel against both Heaven and Hell. He's definitely not the slick bastard he appears to be on the outside, but unlike a lot of these characters it ends up making him stronger and extremely sympathetic.
• Carl Hamilton series is a famous, highly decorated SEAL-trained intelligence operative, independently wealthy, a gourmet chef and wine connoisseur and fluent in four languages. He is also crippled by a complete inability to handle romantic relationships, not being able to confide in anyone concerning his work, and increasingly guilty conscience about killing people for what later may turn out to be no good reason.
• Hannibal Lecter takes on shades of this in the Hannibal Rising prequel novel, when his Freudian Excuse of horrific childhood ordeals is revealed. In his adulthood, he is quite happy where he is.
  • Within the same series, the titular villain of Red Dragon sees himself as hideous due to a childhood of abuse from fellow children and parental figures for his then-severe cleft palate and inability to speak clearly. It's gradually revealed that—as an adult—he's grown into a handsome bodybuilder with a good career, a large estate, enough intelligence and technical know-how to elude top FBI agents for months, and only a small facial scar and slight lisp left of his initial deformation. Tragically, he's so emotionally damaged he remains mostly unable to benefit from all this, if not outright oblivious to it.
• Harry Potter:
  • The titular character excels in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Quidditch, and, to a lesser extent, other fields in magic. However, Harry develops major insecurities as a result of his abusive childhood and the pressures the wizarding world dumps on him.
  • Albus Dumbledore is talented, powerful, and famous bordering on revered for defeating Grindelwald and leading the fight against Voldemort, both of whom are said to have only feared him out of all wizards. As the books go on, it becomes clear that he's also a deeply lonely man whose intelligence does not prevent him from making emotional mistakes. The "broken" part really kicks when his Dark and Troubled Past is revealed in book seven.
  • Tom Riddle was an example during his schooldays — a prodigy, incredibly popular, disguising his true nature. In this case, he's an out-and-out murderous lunatic instead of just "messed up" or "morally ambiguous", driven by his fear of death.
  • Severus Snape. Brilliant student who improved his potion textbook. But he was also a non-socialized Creepy Child, allegedly created many curses alongside his potions,^note In actuality, it was several helpful spells and only a single Curse, destroyed his one chance of a happy life upon using a massive slur against his Only Friend, and is so bitter over his bullying at the hands of the hero's father and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents and everyone around him... that he takes up to use his position as a Hogwarts teacher to torment not only The Hero, but his friends, and especially an innocent boy named Neville Longbottom.
• The titular Haruhi Suzumiya. Talented in pretty much everything she does (especially music and studies), bright, cheerful, charismatic — and dangerously out of reality, as well as so spoiled and pushy that she treats other people like toys. (Poor Mikuru). And then we have her massive Reality Warper powers. The series is about Kyon and the SOS Brigade attempting to keep her worst traits at bay.
• Horatio Hornblower is a brilliant sea warrior whose men are devoted to him, who managed to make several women fall in love with him, and who managed to manipulate the French into two of their greatest military disasters in history (Trafalgar and Russia). He also absolutely hates himself.
• The Victors of The Hunger Games. Everyone celebrates their triumph except... most of them.
• Tiberius from Robert Graves' I, Claudius is portrayed this way — he's immensely strong and healthy, one of Rome's greatest generals, an excellent administrator, and a student of philosophy. Unfortunately, he's cursed with moral weakness and a domineering mother, and he ends up becoming a reclusive, paranoid, murderous pervert.
• The protagonist of Imaro is the greatest fighter in the world, bigger and stronger than just about everyone, and seems to quickly become great at everything he puts his hand to. He wins every battle, however impossible. But all the pain and horror he has to go through wears him down more and more, as does the fact that he keeps getting rejected by everyone he seeks acceptance from — and the mental scars just make him even more incapable of really reaching out to someone, leading to more rejection. At one point, his love interest knows that when he starts thrashing in his sleep she has to clamp her hand over his mouth because the ruthless mercenaries he leads must not know that their supposedly fearless leader suffers from nightmares that cause him to wake up screaming in terror.
• The Kept Man of the Princess Knight: Arwin Mactarode, the "Crimson Princess Knight", is the leader of Aegis, the top adventuring party in the city, and continues to hold the heroic public image of the Warrior Princess Fighting for a Homeland for her scattered subjects, but in truth had gone over the Despair Event Horizon from "dungeon sickness" long before title character Matthew met her, and had resorted to the Fantastic Drug Release to ease her trauma. Matthew's companionship is all that's keeping her sane and healthy anymore.
• Kvothe from The Kingkiller Chronicle is pretty, magically-gifted, superlative at everything he does, but poor, arrogant and a wreck in the present day.
• Vivian Hardwick in Knights of the Borrowed Dark is the revered and respected Malleus of the Dublin cadre, and one of the Order's greatest warriors. She's also an emotionally closed-off Crusading Widow who lives for revenge, and has serious trouble forming a bond with her estranged son.
  • Her friend Grey, a likeable, caring young Master Swordsman, starts out already a Stepford Smiler with serious PTSD, but is ruthlessly broken over the course of the first book, emerging a bitter, guilt-ridden shell of his former Ace self.
• Raymond Shaw from The Manchurian Candidate is a war hero and a rising star in politics, but his issues with his mother allow him to become a brainwashed assassin.
• Attorney Mickey Haller from the Bosch series. Despite being a crack defense attorney with a well-known reputation for his veracity in defending his clients (especially in later books), he is full of self-loathing for defending the guilty and the strain his work puts on his relationship between his first ex-wife and their daughter. Doesn't help that his personal life is somewhat of a trainwreck — something always seems to knock him down when things start to go well.
• Les Misérables:
  • Mayor Madeleine is the most beloved man in town, but he's actually Jean Valjean, an ex-convict with a compulsion for self-sacrifice bordering on madness.
  • His nemesis Inspector Javert is also an example of this. Javert is the most feared policeman in France. He is described as a "monstrous Saint Michael". But his zealotry is motivated by the fact he is the bastard son of a convict and a fortune teller, which he is deeply ashamed of. He seems to have some sort of mental illness and suffers from Black-and-White Insanity so bad that when his worldview is destroyed he kills himself rather than compromise any further.
• Prince Geordo in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is skilled at absolutely everything, such as being more efficient in Catarina's farm than the girl herself, but his lack of struggles left him with an inability to understand those of others (especially Alan's), as well as being bored at everything since all things come off as too easy for him.
• Maxim from the first Night Watch (Series) novel is good-looking, fairly intelligent, and a very successful businessman and he looks down at the less successful. While some of his murdering of Dark Others isn't his fault (he had Detect Evil ability and wasn't in on The Masquerade), it's noted that he has no real comprehension of love — pretty much, when given a choice between punishing evil and doing good, he chose the former.
• Lancelot in The Once and Future King, who falls in love with Arthur and becomes so obsessed with becoming the greatest knight in the world (so that Arthur will love him back) that he gives his entire childhood in the pursuit of this dream. Throughout the book, he is shown to be extremely uncomfortable in his own mind and is quite self-loathing. Guinevere mellows him out a bit, eventually.
  Guinevere: Three years is a long time for a boy to spend in one room [the armory] if he only goes out of it to eat and sleep and to practice tilting in the field. It is even difficult to imagine a boy who would do it unless you realize from the start that Lancelot was not romantic and debonair. Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites would have found it difficult to recognize this rather sullen and unsatisfactory child with the ugly face, who did not disclose to anybody that he was living on dreams and prayers. They might have wondered what store of ferocity he had against himself, that could set him to break his own body so young. They might have wondered why he was so strange.
• Besides The Once and Future King, Lancelot also qualifies in Le Morte D Arthur, where he does all his fantastic deeds just to win Guinevere's attention. It does not end well.
• Juan Cabrillo from The Oregon Files is a talented ex-CIA agent, A Father to His Men who are themselves a Badass Crew of former military and government men and women, and captain of the MV Oregon, a high-tech spy ship disguised as a rusting tramp steamer. However, he is deeply troubled by his wife's death, which, while caused by her own alcoholism and driving under the influence, he believes himself responsible for due to being away on "business" with the CIA for extended periods of time, thus causing her to take up the bottle out of loneliness. On top of (and possibly due to) this is his severe case of Chronic Hero Syndrome to the point that he must help someone need, even if doing so would result in worse consequences down the road. He also grapples with ethical issues stemming from his heroic tendencies clashing with the morally ambiguous nature of being a mercenary, at one point musing that if he killed someone in cold blood, even if the person deserved it, it could take away a part of his soul and take him down a path that would make him no better.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
  • Luke Castellan is this trope all over. He's handsome, popular, talented, and a trusted authority figure. He's also a manipulative turncoat who's trying to overthrow the gods, and he seems increasingly scared and unhinged with each book. This is later revealed to be because his mother was cursed and went completely insane when he was a baby and his father, Hermes, left him with her. Associating with an evil primordial entity who hurt him from the start probably didn't help.
  • Percy himself becomes this by the sequel series, and even he admits his unhappiness let him understand Luke better. Sure, he's powerful, handsome (albeit obliviously), and respected by pretty much everyone around him — but it's because he's saved the world twice over, and that doesn't come cheap. It's made clear by the end of The Blood of Olympus that the events of the series have left him even more depressed, angry, and insecure than ever.
• Erik, aka The Phantom of the Opera, is a genius in nearly every field of science and art, and posseses the most beautiful voice of anyone on the face of the earth. But due to his deformities, he is shunned by society, and holes up in the shadows and catacombs of Paris, becoming a psychopathic murderer.
• The entire point of the poem "Richard Cory". Richard Cory is a kind, rich gentleman who gets along with everyone he meets, regardless of their social station, has women dreaming of him, and men wanting to be him. And then he inexplicably commits suicide, and no one knows why.
  ...we thought that he was everything
  To make us wish that we were in his place.
  So on we worked, and waited for the light,
  And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
  And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
  Went home and put a bullet through his head.
• Daylen in Shadow of the Conqueror, due to having both the experience of age and the vigor of youth, excels at a number of things: swordsmanship, engineering, mathematics, sunforging, Lightbinding, flying, and military tactics. He's also a former Evil Overlord whose empire collapsed when the entire world declared war against it, and who is currently ravaged by the soul-crushing guilt at the epicenter of the story's Dysfunction Junction.
• J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion:
  • Melkor. The name means "He Who Arises in Might", and he is explicitly called the greatest of the Ainur. This goes to his head, and he eventually winds up getting a new name...Morgoth, the Dark Enemy.
  • The Elf Prince Fëanor is possibly the greatest Elf to have ever lived, "For Fëanor was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind: in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and subtlety alike: of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and a bright flame was in him." He's a great craftsman, charismatic enough to make most of the Noldor (one of the Elf tribes) follow him from Valinor to Middle-Earth and he has seven sons. He's also incredibly arrogant and a bit of a creep (he was really touchy and possessive about his niece Galadriel), threatens his half-brother Fingolfin out of fear they will take the throne, and obsessed with the Silmarils he made, the three greatest jewels ever made. When Morgoth steals the Silmarils Fëanor and his sons swear the Oath of Fëanor, to get the jewels back no matter what. This leads to Elves killing each other and many of the troubles over the next 600 years, even though Fëanor died soon after reaching Middle-Earth. His actions mean he will not reincarnate from the Halls of Mandos until the end of the world.
  • All of his seven sons, but especially Maedhros and Maglor. They are valiant, noble warriors and Maglor perhaps the greatest musician of all Elves, but they are exhausted by the evil oath they have sworn and the atrocities they have committed. By the end of the First Age, Maglor is the only brother still alive, and wanders the shores of Middle Earth in self-imposed isolation and constant pain.
  • Also Boromir from The Lord of the Rings. He's a proud and gallant warrior, greatly admired for this by his people (and his younger brother) but the pressure put on him by his position as heir to Gondor's ruler and his belief that Sauron could never be beaten fed his obsession with the Ring and made it easy for him to fall for the temptation.
  • Túrin Turambar. He's one of the most badass heroes to have ever lived, killing Glaurung Father of Dragons. However, his actions lead to a lot of suffering (though its unclear how much is Túrin's fault and how much is Morgoth cursing his family) and he ends up killing himself.
• Skulduggery Pleasant is the best detective the Irish Sanctuary (or possibly any sanctuary) has, is skilled with both magic and hand-to-hand combat, and was one of the best soldiers during the war, being part of a seven-man cell called the Dead Men who went on suicide missions but always survived. He's also a living skeleton. His friends and allies all warn his new protégé that he is horribly damaged by his family's murder and is renowned for his Unstoppable Rage when people he cares about are in danger. This doesn't worry Valkyrie at all until she learns that Skulduggery is so broken his darker thoughts and desire for revenge turned him into Lord Vile, the most infamous general of Mevolent's armies, who was hell-bent on the annihilation of all life. Made worse because the Faceless Ones spent a year torturing Skulduggery, making him a little bit more unhinged than normal (including threatening someone sent to keep an eye on him with a gun) and separating the Lord Vile part of Skulduggery's psyche into a separate Ax-Crazy entity.
• Song at Dawn: Dragonetz appears to be the perfect knight: strong, gallant, and handsome, but he's also bitter, disillusioned, and afraid of marriage because he thinks he'll screw it up.
• A Song of Ice and Fire
  • Robert Baratheon is remembered as a handsome, virile warrior but he degenerated physically and morally after becoming king. He understands how out of depth he is with running a kingdom and would have preferred a life of wandering.
  • Eddard Stark is seen as the model of a liege lord, but he is plagued by feelings of inferiority and fears his family will pay for the things he allowed to happen during the rebellion against the Targaryens.
  • Tywin Lannister is the most powerful and rich lord in Westeros but in reality, he's a man who still resents his father's past failings and remains broken by the death of his wife (and resents the son who whose birth caused her death).
  • Jon Snow is easily the most talented swordsman around, one of the smartest recruits, honorable and dutiful but he's also conflicted, with insecurity issues and carries burdens he's probably too young for.
  • Jaime Lannister, who's renowned as the greatest swordsman in the kingdom and a member of The Beautiful Elite, but had his reputation permanently soiled in his youth by one dishonourable act that he nonetheless regards as the finest thing he ever did, increasingly falling under Then Let Me Be Evil as a result. And that's before his Break the Haughty ordeal that culminates in him losing his sword hand, and hence the one ability he's always defined his self-worth by.
  • Robb Stark becomes this as the books progress, becoming a Young Conqueror at the age of 15 and gaining a fearsome reputation as 'The Young Wolf' who's never lost a battle, but he frequently comes across as being overwhelmed by the pressure he's under. This worsens when despite all his success in the field, his own political errors cause the war to slip away from him. Perhaps the clearest illustration of this comes in A Game of Thrones when Robb, in a Moment of Awesome, successfully earns the Greatjon's respect by having his direwolf chew off two of the man's fingers for bearing steel against him... and later confides in his brother Bran that he was terrified throughout, that he's scared of a lot of his bannermen, and he wishes their father was still there.
  • Oberyn Martell. A dashing Lothario, prince, peerless warrior, poet, scholar, and a whole bunch of other impressive talents. He is also utterly consumed with avenging his sister's death even 15 years later. Said obsession with revenge costs him his life, even if his poisoned spear finished off Gregor Clegane later on.
• In Space Marine Battles, Cato Sicarius becomes this after Fall of Damnos. He considers Damnos to be his greatest failure (it is, in fact, the first time he's ever lost as a Captain) and is tormented by the fact, has Past Experience Nightmares about the Undying and believes that he'll be punished severely for what happened there. He's not, and manages to dig out of his Heroic BSoD when the Ultramarines retake Damnos.
• The Stormlight Archive:
  • Kaladin is an interesting version of this trope. He starts out as an Ace, charismatic leader, excellent spearman, trained in medicine, pays bribes to protect his men and get new untrained boys into his squad where he can watch over them. But after he's betrayed he's definitely broken. The skills are all still there, but he has trouble finding the will to use them anymore.
  • As it turns out, all of the Knights Radiant are this. Being broken is a prerequisite to being a surgebinder, as the "broken" bits are what allow Spren in to form the bond that gives them abilities.
    Kaladin: You want too much of me. I'm not some glorious knight of ancient days. I'm a broken man. Do you hear me, Syl? I'm broken.
    Syl: That's what they all were, silly.
• Of The Three Musketeers: Athos is outstanding for his looks, thorough education, martial prowess, and social graces. Unfortunately, he is also a somewhat misogynistic alcoholic with truly terrible luck. He is less misogynistic then horribly distrustful of women because he married the patron saint of Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, Milady de Winter. Athos really achieves Broken Ace in the later books, when his faith in Royalty is shattered when the king takes his son's fiancee as his mistress.
• Wander, in Wander. She's skilled enough to have survived since she was eleven, but it comes at the extent of nearly all her interpersonal skills. Dagger is horrified by how far she’s willing to go at times, and it’s outright stated that a part of the reason she decided to save him was that she hoped he could teach her to be around people again.
• Denth from Warbreaker is friendly, charming and good with words, despite being a mercenary. He also happens to be obsessed with revenge, and will do anything to get it, including torturing and killing innocent people. He can't move past the issue that broke him in the first place, even when given the opportunity to heal.
• When Rabbit Howls: Not so much a broken ace as a fractured one. Truddi Chase is a successful real estate entrepreneur and talented artist, but the psychological aftermath of her horrifically abusive childhood has left her with paranoia, emotional distancing, and difficulty with relationships. Then there're the ninety-and-change multiple personalities.
• The Nero Wolfe book Where There's a Will has Eugene Davis. A "brilliant" attorney who was considered the best in the city, and with the potential to make history before he fell in love with a Gold Digger who dumped him for a wealthier man, leaving Davis as a self-loathing alcoholic who can't find joy in anything anymore.
• Wizarding School Mysteries: In "Tournament of Death", one of the front-runner participants in the Ultimate Wizard Battle tournament regularly hosted by the AAAM is Richard Rainsford, has been the champion of said tournament for four years running. However, the constant victory and the inability to impress his father has made it all hollow behind his cheery exterior, which is what has led him to become part of the Big Bad Duumvirate, with the intent of picking off every other wizard participating until he can find a Worthy Opponent. He gets what he wanted in the form of Margot trouncing him with Serena's help, but at the cost of the Meddlesome Youths outing him as the culprit behind the murders, leaving himself and his co-conspirator at the angry AAAM headmaster's mercy.