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Freudian Excuses in Fan Works.


Crossovers
  • Discussed with Handsome Jack in Boop the Snoot for Critical Damage!. After learning about Handsome Jack's former occupation (debugging CL4-TP robots), Blake comments that it's no surprise he became a megalomaniac when one learns that he had to spend all his days programming those annoying robots. Angel immediately states under her breath that he was always "an evil piece of scum long before that."
  • The Dragon and the Butterfly: Whiteout:
  • Fates Collide: Cinder Fall reveals that when she was a child, she and her parents were attacked by a Grimm. They were completely helpless, but just when they were about to be killed, a Huntress showed up and killed the Grimm with a single blow. This is the reason why Cinder is so obsessed with acquiring power, so she would never be helpless like that again.
  • In the Housemates universe it's discussed that Thor and his buddies would play "very rough" with Loki when they were kids as in it would be considered abuse among Midgardian children.
  • In My Huntsman Academia, Panchito "Pistoles" Rojo swore bloody vengeance against the Anacondas, a Human gang, for killing his brother in cold blood right in front of him. After single-handedly wiping them out, he extended his hatred towards "Human assholes" in general, joining the White Fang to terrorize Humans into submission.
  • The Night Unfurls: Chloe was born of rape, the product of a human father and a dark elf mother. She, along with other dark elves, were then taken as slaves to be entertainment by human slavers, while her mother was murdered by her own father. Fortunately, Chloe was saved by Olga, who, like herself, witnessed the enslavement of her kind. Growing up into Olga's loyal vassal, she would later develop jerkassery and Fantastic Racism towards humanity, as well as a fervour to her liege lady's cause.
  • In Origins, we have Jackie Jakobs, subjected to a Trauma Conga Line starting with Parental Abandonment, continuing through Rape as Backstory combined with a life as a Street Urchin. Of course, this isn't all shown right away as initially, all readers see is a Rich Bitch who's more than willing to torture the story's heroes.
  • In Project Horizons, a Fallout: Equestria fanfic (a fanfic of a fanfic), most of the villains have these. This is lampshades several times, but the funniest is when Blackjack rejoices upon finding a villain who doesn't have one, because she wouldn't feel sorry about the ensuing fight.
    • Gabriel, the story's first Big Bad, had been tossed into the Void for more than a trillion years. Of course he'd be out for vicious revenge, even though it was mostly his fault, and have lost more than a few marbles too.
  • Shadows over Meridian: Chapter 11 provides two reasons for Caleb's Irrational Hatred of anyone he believes to be connected to Phobos, and thus the increasingly aggressive attitude he's taken throughout the story up to this point. He falsely believes that his Missing Mom was killed by Phobos' regime (having drawn that conclusion from his father's refusal to talk about her) and can't forgive them for it, and on top of that, he's just so tired and frustrated from the constant fighting of the rebellion that having what was supposed to be their ultimate victory (and a chance at a normal life, settled down with Cornelia) snatched away by the Knights of Vengeance and Kage has been pushing him towards the breaking point.
  • Total Loud Island:
  • This trope is dealt with at least two times in A Triangle in the Stars.

Ben 10

Bolt

  • The Bolt Chronicles: In "The Survivor," Mittens's owners' bad behavior is largely explained because of early childhood disorders and abuse for Jack (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, foster home abuse) as well as Emily and Claire (Borderline Personality Disorder and parental abuse, as well as possible Attention Deficit Disorder for the latter).

A Certain Magical Index

  • A Certain Droll Hivemind: Misaka-11111 has a tendency to be highly paranoid and subtly mistreat her roommate Koizumi Kyoko, purely on the basis of her ability as a Vector Manipulator, albeit a low-level one, just like Accelerator. Koizumi Kyoko, for her part, is a meek, mild, timid girl who tends to be dominated by all the stronger personalities around her. It is such that even Misaka-11111 counts as a stronger personality next to her.

Code Geass

Danny Phantom

  • Danny Phantom: Stranded
    • Star Strong parents are divorced and her mother lives in France with another man, while her father is a high-paying lawyer who, because of his career, does not spend a lot of time with her. It's mildly implied that Star's original bitterness was partially due to her familial situation.
    • It is hinted that Stella Bevier's stuck-up attitude is due to her own upbringing which caused her to place top importance on her privilege. "Visited" definitively proves this to be the case, but it's revealed to be even worse than previously implied—Stella's mother Beatrice was very controlling and emotionally abusive, forcing her to be a Proper Lady from an early age. It's to the point that Stella still struggles to meet her mother's expectations as an adult.
    • It's implied that Colette Bevier nasty attitude stems from her mother leaving them, her father spoiling her, and his constant remarriages.
      • This was confirmed in Blackmailed, where it's revealed that she keeps in contact with her biological mother and stepmothers to manipulate them. It is revealed that she both resents her mother for spending so much time on her charity projects and misses her because she prioritizes those projects over spending time with her. Despite refusing to admit it, it is clear that she was affected by her departure.
      • It is also later revealed that she kept in contact with each of her former stepmothers to use them for her plans, and she plays the part of the loving daughter to them while rejecting their attempts to make her into a better person.
      • It's implied that she has no real attachment to any of her stepmothers because she knows that their marriage to her father will never last.
    • It's also implied that her father negatively influenced her growing up, teaching her that her wealth and status made her "better" than others.
      • It heavily implied that she is the way she is because of a mix of her father's negative influence, her mother's departure and neglect, and her father's remarriages and implied infidelity, which warped her greatly and left her with a twisted view of the world and relationships.
  • Resurrected Memories: Prior to her own Character Development, Ember had been a vengeful, short tempered Evil Diva who wanted to use her powers to have the entire world adore her and her music. See Fan Works to see why she is how she is.

Death Note

Disney Animated Canon

  • The Lion King fans just love using this trope on Scar and Zira. Usually comes in the form of an abusive childhood or the loss of a parent at a young age.

Final Fantasy

  • Vaticus, Ignatius and Riccio have their's revealed during the St. Galleria arc of The Tainted Grimoire.

For Better or for Worse

  • The New Retcons:
    • Elly's hatred of motorcycles stemmed from being rejected by her first boyfriend, an avid motorcycle rider who fathered her first child and abandoned her.
    • Similarly, her obsession with cleanliness was caused by her grandmother disowning her, calling her unclean after she had a child out of wedlock. This was later made worse when her first marriage dissolved.
    • All of the above also led to her brother Phil swearing that he'd never have kids.

Godzilla/King Kong/MonsterVerse

Green Lantern

  • DEATHmatch, by Shadow Crystal Mage, attempts to justify Nekron's attempt to wipe out all life in Blackest Night by saying the paperwork had been getting him down.

Harry Potter

  • In Daphne Greengrass and the Boy Who Lived, at one point Hagrid is talking with Harry and Daphne about James Potter's friends and observes that Peter Pettigrew rather than Sirius Black was the Marauder Hagrid always felt was most likely to turn traitor. He observes that Pettigrew must have found it hard to be the one who didn’t measure up to the rest of the group, suggesting that Harry imagine how it would feel if everyone but him in his current group of friends was as brilliant as Hermione.
  • In Diagnosis Harry expressed his annoyance at this particular trope when telling Hermione about his lessons with Dumbledore sixth year.
    ...He made a point to mention to her that it was hinted that Riddle had been abused, and that his mum had bewitched his father who was a Muggle, and even that he was more than likely unloved and abused, but that it was no excuse for what he became. The abused aren't predestined to become the abusers, and it always hacked Harry off when people, including the Headmaster made it seem like it was some sort of excuse.
  • Heart and Soul has one for Dumbledore that is treated as this in universe with a noticeable effect on the way that Hermione and Jasmine Potter in universe after they find it out. Dumbledore's immense aversion for lethal force, a trait that both greatly criticize in story, is as result of not only his experiences in the brutal wars against Grindelwald, but also the death of his sister Arianna, and how it might have been his own spell that killed her. While neither agree with Dumbledore about his views on lethal force after finding out, they are a lot more understanding of his viewpoints afterwards.
  • In Heir Draco Malfoy is regularly tortured by his father via the Cruciatus curse. Also there's Harry himself- in this fic his abusive childhood is played much more seriously and as a direct result he's now a dark lord in training. Then there's Voldemort— as a child Tom Riddle had a psychotic break when the other kids at the orphanage killed his baby snake in front of him.
  • The Jaded Eyes Series is another fic where Harry's childhood is played much more seriously as it becomes his Start of Darkness when he snaps and murders the Dursleys. Then he ends up in an Orphanage of Fear where he's regularly bullied by the other kids and has the scars to prove it. It gets worse when Harry discovers that his parents are still alive and have a perfect little family and a little brother who was living a perfect life while he was living in that Hell.
  • Deconstructed in The Very Secret Diary. Ginny is able to deduce Riddle's backstory, but doesn't feel sorry for him at all. She points out that Harry lost his parents and was stuck with the Dursleys, but didn't turn bad, concluding that being an orphan is a shitty excuse for all he's done.

Hawaii Five-0

  • Hawaii Five 0 Obsession: Becca, Steve's ex and stalker, as she was abused by her father and was later forced to give up her and Steve's son and never got to see him again.

Jackie Chan Adventures

  • The Stronger Evil: Shendu eventually notes that Drago has carried to the present the bitterness he has experienced in his own time in the future, and now he's trying to claim the demon chis to prove something. Before coming to the present, Drago grew up more or less homeless and unable to interact with society because of his draconic visage, he lost his mother when he was just ten years old, and when he finally ended up with his abusive father Shendu, he found nothing he did could impress the old dragon.

Kid Icarus

Kill la Kill

  • In Kill la Kill AU, the reason as to why 8-year old Ryuuko is a delinquent seems to stem from maternal deprivation from being separated from her mother at two-years old and her anger and upset thereof of something she felt sad about, yet didn't know what it is, as well as the fact that no one would tell her.
  • From The Outside, from we have mentioned of photos and Shiro's reasonings, the reason Satsuki is agoraphobic and was so overprotective of Ryuuko (to the point of smothering) was because she's been sick a lot her whole life and knew nothing else, especially in light of their parents splitting and their father's death, leaving her to use Ryuuko as something of a Living Emotional Crutch to cope with her situation, as she probably couldn't cope otherwise.

Kung Fu Panda

  • Shen vs. Kai: Something Shen and Kai have in common. Kai's relationship with Oogway before and up to their falling out gets expanded on. It's also eventually revealed through flashback that Shen was treated distantly by his parents and was regarded as a freak due to his albinism-inducing birth condition when first introduced to peoplenote , which implicitly contributed heavily to both Shen's "Well Done, Son" Guy and his severe antisocial personality.

The Legendof Korra

  • Book 5: Legends give us this for the villain's backstory. Unloved by virtually all except their mother, losing them devastated the villain to the point that they are trying to resurrect them Mary Shelley style. And when that doesn't quite work out the way they hoped, they go full on burn it all down mode. To a lesser extent, the secondary antagonist has a similar excuse, having been shunned and abandoned by their real family and thus developing an unhealthy fixation on their Big Bro Temuji as a result.

The Loud House

  • It's popular Fanon that Luan's over-the-top antics on April Fool's Day stem from her classmates bullying and isolating her. Some authors take this to the point of her developing a Split Personality from the trauma. How sympathetically this is all treated varies depending upon the story in question.

Mega Man (Classic)

  • Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race subverts this. While Dr. Wily does have an abusive father who colored his outlook on life, the story takes pains to show that Wily himself is a horrible man who deserves punishment.

Metal Gear

  • Stray discusses this - it's set in the Metal Gear universe, land of villains with unhappy childhoods, and at least two characters (including one of the protagonists) are former Tykebombs. However, Adamska (one of the tykebombs in question) eventually rejects the idea that a person's essential nature can be changed by the actions of other people.

Miraculous Ladybug

  • Played With in Chloé's Lament. Much like in the original reality, Miss Bustier sees Chloé as a deeply troubled girl who keeps lashing out and bullying others in response to her personal problems. But the root of her issues is nothing like what Bustier assumes. Oh, she's certainly unhappy about being a 'mere baker's daughter' while her classmate is the daughter of the Mayor... but Chloé herself is responsible for this state of affairs, since she made a Wish to swap lives with Marinette, expecting that she'd become the new reality's Ladybug and bask in all the respect and attention Marinette once had while her favorite victim wound up Hated by All. Chloé's inability to understand or accept that her own bratty behavior was responsible for her unhappiness turns the new reality into a Epiphanic Prison.
  • The Cosmos:
    • Marinette's mother Sabine is The Perfectionist due to her own mother constantly hammering into her head the importance of always being the best. She continued the cycle of abuse with Marinette, refusing to acknowledge any of her daughter's accomplishments as noteworthy — at best, they're just what's expected of her; otherwise they're not good enough. While Marinette recognizes why Sabine treats her this way, seeing her as somebody who's doing her best despite her own issues, her friends aren't nearly as forgiving.
    • Lila turns out to have a major one: in the past, she was misdiagnosed with a rare, terminal illness. Not only did all of her Fair-Weather Friends abandon her rather than taking advantage of what time they had left together, when she learned the doctor was mistaken, people accused her of faking her illness the whole time.
  • The Karma of Lies: In a case of Like Mother, Unlike Daughter, Mrs. Rossi is revealed to have a very strong code of ethics, spurring her to report a coworker's embezzlement scheme. Unfortunately, said diplomat had several connections which he used to sabotage her career, leading to Lila's father divorcing her in order to protect his own political aspirations. Seeing how much honesty cost her mother left Lila convinced that it's better to protect her own interests first and foremost, spurring her to become a Con Artist.
  • Scarlet Lady: Many of Chloé's issues stem from her desperately trying to prove that she's just as "exceptional" as her mother Audrey, who couldn't seem to care less about either of her daughters. Chloé mimics her mother's mannerisms and casual, callous cruelty towards others; since her father caters to her whims while her teacher outright refuses to punish her for any of her bullying, instead pressuring her victims to 'take the high road', she's become an entitled Spoiled Brat who keeps getting worse and worse. And when her actions start having consequences, she has absolutely no clue how to deal with them, thanks to how she was coddled by her father and Mme. Bustier, doubling down on her rotten behavior.
  • Tales of Karmic Lies Aftermath: As Adrien points out in an argument with his father, Gabriel subjected him to Financial Abuse by blocking him from having any access to the money he earned modeling for his company. In fact, he didn't teach his son anything about money management or any other useful skills, resulting in Adrien being Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense.
  • Weight Off Your Shoulder: Future!Alix Became Their Own Antithesis, going from the member of the girl squad who was the least interested or invested in helping Marinette hook up with Adrien to a Time-Traveling Jerkass hellbent on forcing the two together. When the heroes finally capture her, it's heavily implied that the reason why she became so obsessed with making that ship sail was because of how she was forced to hide in the Burrow from Hawk/Shadow Moth. Slowly going mad from the isolation, she latched onto making Adrienette happen as a way to feel some kind of connection with her old friends, refusing to accept how meddling with the timeline just kept making things worse and worse.
  • What Goes Around Comes Around:
    • All of Adrien's issues stem from the fact that both of his parents are abusive Control Freaks who have taught him some extremely skewed views of love. Such as believing that he's not only entitled to have Marinette regardless of how she feels about it, but that she must become a Love Martyr who puts all of HIS desires first and foremost... just like how his parents expect the same from him.
    • This also leads to him arguing about Plagg concerning his father's motivations for becoming Hawkmoth, as Plagg asserts that his Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse there:
      Adrien: Was I just stopping my dad from fixing my family all along when we've been fighting these last three years?
      Plagg: (sarcastically) Oh, yes, it totally justifies everything that he did! It doesn't matter that one of my Akuma flooded the city because I was just trying to help my wife!

My Hero Academia

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

  • In Bride of Discord, Discord reveals the reason he initially overthrew Celestia and turned Equestria into a World Gone Mad, was because his misguided attempts at "helping" pony-kind, lead to Celestia, the only pony to give him a chance in his entire life, getting angry with him. Being the Last of His Kind and being shunned and ridiculed by ponies prior probably didn't help his emotional state.
    • To a much lesser extent, Fluttershy reveals to him that part of the reason she has a hard time opening up to everypony and why she was very reluctant in trying to pursue a romantic relationship, is because as a filly, a colt told her she was beautiful and asked her out on a date, only to reveal it was cruel trick to mess with her.

Naruto

  • Parodied in Oh, Did You Have a Sob Story Too, Sasuke?. Since every vilain (almost) has a Freudian Excuse in the manga, Naruto has trouble remembering them, or rather which is whose, leading him to list all of them to Sasuke until he get it right.
  • Meimu Uchiha from Reincarnation Roulette by Silver Queen has some great reasons for being the cold hearted villain she is. Namely, she's a self-insert born into the Uchiha clan, and realized she'd have a miserable life if she became a ninja. Unfortunately, her new parents won't take no for an answer, and proceed to literally beat ninja training into her. Her Jounin sensei ends up being Orochimaru, forcing her to be on the lookout for having a Sharingan, lest she end up as one of his host bodies. She succeeds in hiding it by killing anyone who ever found out, but is forced to make herself useful to him in other ways. She gains a younger brother in the form of Obito, and wonders if she'll have it in her to murder him and avert the future. She does, complete with Itachi's "foolish little brother" line. What makes her most disturbingly chilling is the fact that, as Silver Queen's self-insert, she used to be the same person as the protagonist of her most famous fic. The contrast between Meimu Uchiha and Shikako Nara effectively makes the former the latter's Mirror Universe Evil Counterpart.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

  • Advice and Trust: Chapter 8 examines how Gendo does everything he does because he is a broken man, utterly afraid of other people, that was completely obsessed with getting his deceased wife back.
  • A Crown of Stars: Gendo abandoned his son because he was just as afraid of Shinji as Shinji was of him. He did not know how dealing with other people or relating to them, and his wife’s loss broke him completely. After hearing about it, Shinji did not think it was good enough of an excuse... until he realized he was just like his father.
  • Once More With Feeling (Crazy-88): Chihiro Tanaka's aggressiveness, vindictiveness and rude behaviour is later explained as the result of growing up without a mother.
  • The One I Love Is...: Most of the story is narrated from Shinji's point of view, so Gendo is treated very unsympathetically most of time. The "Let the World Burn/One Dream at a Time" side-story explores his personality and motivations. Gendo is depicted as a pathetic, broken shell of a man always felt lonely and frightened of other people, thought nobody would ever love him because he was not worth it and fell utterly apart after his wife's death, sending his only son away because he was scared of Shinji and of hurting him.

PandoraHearts

  • Beyond the Winding Road: Edith beats the crap out of kids in her class, blatantly disrespects teachers and other authority figures, and throws other people's emotional baggage into arguments when she's losing control of them. But she's also suffering from some extreme Parental Neglect and it's heavily implied she was both ostracized from the community due to her mother's previous scandalous actions and sexually harassed by the boys in her school (in her introductory chapter, some boys fill her locker with condoms, though the author never outright states what they are). Worse, those same teachers and authority figures were predisposed to find fault in her whenever she came to them due to her mother's reputation.

Pokémon: The Series

  • An interesting case where the hero has the excuse, Pokemon: Shadow of Time establishes that the reason Ash never pursued a romantic relationship with any of his female travelling companions was because he was afraid of turning out like his father, who left his mother and him when he was younger and never came back, Ash choosing to avoid relationships so he'd never hurt his partner like that.

Punch-Out!!

The Rising of the Shield Hero

  • Ambition of the Red Princess: When Malty was a child, she overheard her mother declaring she was useless as an heir, insisting on having another child, suggesting Malty be married off to King Faubley. Given Malty's and Melty's respective ages, the princess was less than ten years old when her mother wrote her off. As a result, Malty becomes solely devoted to proving she's a better heir than her younger sister, with all of her actions geared towards becoming queen rather than engaging in petty sadism.
    • The people of Melromarc are suspicious of the Shield Hero on principle partially because a previous Shield Hero became king of Siltvelt and was such a monstrous tyrant that the world knew him as the "King of Rape".

RWBY

  • In Adel Aka's video on rewriting Adam's character, he changes Adam's character to be a foil to Yang. His extremist nature comes down to being born on a farm with a family who is unable to survive elsewhere due to their faunus heritage. After his mother dies of overwork, Adam turns against the farm and joins the White Fang.
  • Burning Coals: Neo originally began killing simply to survive. As a child, she was orphaned in a fire that also injured her throat. Neo spent several years on the streets before Roman took her in.
  • Children of Remnant: Cinder reveals to Emerald that, as a child, her village burned down and she watched her parents die, which made her believe that, in a world like Remnant where life and death mean nothing, the only thing that truly matters is power.
  • Cinderella And Prince Charming: Discussed; most people don't particularly care why Cinder did what she did. Jaune is the only one who is truly on her side, because due to their soulmate bond he understands—even better than Cinder herself—that she's been pushed into horrible situation after horrible situation her entire life.
    He wants to give her a second chance. Because no one else will.
    And because no one had ever given her a first to begin with.
  • A Rabbit Among Wolves: Perry once aspired to be a veterinarian, and applied to medical school for his chance. He was denied a scholarship (which he legitimately qualified for) just for being a Faunus. After his dreams were crushed, Perry found no other choice but to join the White Fang. The narration afterward notes that his situation is nothing new.
    Most anyone who joined the White Fang did so because something had affected them in the past. People called them insane Faunus – often using terms like rabid to drive home the 'animal' angle – but the simple fact was a person wouldn't risk their life for no good reason. You needed something big enough to drive a person to action.
  • In ReBound, Neo's parents were killed by Raven's people. Raven took her in and raised Neo as an assassin.

Super Mario Bros.

  • In Strengths of the Heart and Mind, the Dark Bonneters (dark versions of the hat spirits from Super Mario Odyssey), had been hunted to near extinction, were forced into a treaty that prevented them from cap-turing humans, and often got killed just for going outside the Cap Kingdom. This is because they led a brutal empire way back in the past. This treatment likely contributed to the Dark Bonneter Conicus cap-turing Mario and trying to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom.
  • Meanwhile, in Sarasaland sees Daisy decide to rely on one as a precaution in case she gets caught trying to sneak into the Mushroom Palace. She'd tried to blend in with the crowd once when she was younger, which didn't work. The Mushroom Palace has the Launch Star she needs to reach Rosalina's location. If she did get caught in anything else she'd never hear the end of it. Through never hearing the end of it if she were caught wearing anything else and her previous failed attempt at blending in with a crowd, she decides her best chance would be to make her footsteps slower and louder by wearing her royal garb (which consists of a floor-length yellow-and-orange gown and orange stiletto pumps), as it gives her the excuse of being there on royal business.

Superman

  • Subverted in Kara of Rokyn. Albeit Lex Luthor sees himself as the victim of an alien who betrayed him and ruined his life when they were teenagers, leading to being branded as a criminal and being kicked out of home by his father, an analysis of his life's story shows he just blamed Superboy for all of his own self-caused problems.

Tales of Arcadia

  • The Wizard and the Huntress: Douxie has a genuine fear of the trolls in Heartstone Trollmarket because Morgana's actions have branded wizards as inherently untrustworthy to Troll-kind, this being why he tried to keep Jim from involving himself in Trollhunter-business. It is not until he is convinced into going are his fears proven irrational, Vendal recognizing him as Merlin's apprentice.

Total Drama

  • Cast Swap: Staci wants to impress people, so she lies about her family in order to do so. Dawn figures this out, and tells her that she doesn't need to lie.
  • Change of Plans: The Flashbacks establish that Ezekiel was desperate to prove himself as more than "some hick kid from the prairie," which helps explain his desire to stay in the game and resulting Sanity Slippage.
  • Love Ain't Easy, It's Ezzy: Duncan's underlying reason for his harshness toward Bridgette and her relationship with Geoff is so deep-seated that he isn't consciously aware of it until Izzy deduces it: Duncan once had a girlfriend in his hometown who resembled Bridgette in both appearance and attitudes, but she betrayed him by calling the police on him and making a crime he committed sound much worse than it actually was. Right after he was thrown in jail, she started dating his best friend.
  • My Ridonculous Race: Leo mentions the reason he doesn't try to pursue romance is because he saw his parents relationship crumble before his eyes as a young child. June also reveals that the reason she is so pushy comes from lingering habits passed down by her mother.
  • Total Alternate Island: Gwen from her cold behavior towards Duncan whenever he tried to hit on Leshawna due to an ex-middle school teacher whom Gwen was taken in by, but he turned out to be a crazy Stalker with a Crush who tried to kidnap her to run away together with, until he got thwarted by Gwen's older brother. Leshawna towards Heather due to a death of a friend in the past where a queen bee-type caused her friend to be driven to suicide. Finally Duncan to Harold with the nerd looking like a friend who betrayed him and caused him to be locked up in juvie.
  • Total Drama Chris:
    • Harold dislikes Lindsay because he once dated a girl like her named Autumn. The date ended poorly, and afterward he was subjected to even more torment and teasing, convincing him that Autumn was in on the whole thing and that all dumb blondes are evil.
    • Leshawna's used to be friends with a nice girl named Madison. Unfortunately, Madison's parents were racist bastards who promptly falsely accused her from stealing from them and filed a restraining order against her. Leshawna was ten at the time. Years later, they happened to attend the same high school; by that point, however, Madison had become the Alpha Bitch, and immediately began picking on Leshawna, aided by racist teachers. Girl's got one hell of a chip on her shoulder for a reason.
  • Total Drama: Cody's Redemption: It's eventually revealed that Gwen hates Cody because a lot of geeks hit on her, and none had good intentions.
  • Total Drama Comeback Series:
    • Turns out Courtney gets her obsession with being perfect from her parents constantly pressuring her to be so. They had No Sympathy for the circumstances behind her losing the first season. Also, the fact that her school life became miserable after she got the boot (being insulted with names like Crazy In Training) and being beaten for the Student Council President by a guy who's rebuttal was essentially a giant poster of her being dragged down the dock of shame screaming.
    • Heather reason for being so mean is that, in her tween years she had pimples all over her face, wore braces and was extremely fat, and thus she was bullied and teased by her classmates. After losing weight and getting rid of the braces and pimples, she decided that it was better to be the agressor than the victim.
  • Total Drama Letterz:
    • Apparently, Chris Maclain had a tumor in his brain that caused him to act sadistic. This is revealed to be a lie in the Prologue of Letter Starz.
    • Fifi Cleopatra became a man hater due to being mistreated by a lot of people due to being female.
    • Tabitha Barrington parents taught her bad morals and beat her and hospitalized her every time she failed at something. All these years of abuse made Tabitha become lonely and VERY insecure. Tabitha even admits she was jealous of Uzuri.
    • Apparently everything Kim Rosefelt does throughout the season is due to severe depression, and it's implied that something happened in her past intense enough to cause it. She also had no pills for the duration of Letterama as a result of her contract, and based on her reactions in the bonus chapter, her pills clearly help her a lot.
    • Lankston Gallows parents neglected him as a child and nearly caused him to die.
    • Nina Dumpster stays dirty because she fears taking a bath due to a near death experience when she was a kid.
  • Total Drama Nations:
    • Makoto's actions are due to his poor mental state and home life.
    • Although in a rare inversion, it's actually used to explain why Hans Von Böse's not even more ruthless than he already is. After he and his brother nearly kill their abusive father, he vowed never to be as cruel again. Pushing Emma into the campfire triggered memories of this and made him realize he was awfully close to doing so.
  • Total Drama Revenge of the Forever Mine: All of the characters' backstories are this. Especially for Jo and Mike.
  • Total Drama Stranded: Calvin explains his high school had a social hierarchy where showing weakness leads to getting crushed. He uses this as his excuse or wanting to have power over others.
  • Total Highschool Drama: It is revealed that the reason why Amy is mean to Sammy is because she believes she's responsible for their father's death.
  • Unbreakable Red Silken Thread:
    • Heather's actions, especially during TDI, cemented her as a manipulative, scheming and conniving bitch that has little regard for the well-being of others. Chapter 4 makes it quite clear this is due to her parents treating everyone, including each other, exactly the same if not worse.
    • Chapter 31 revealed that the reason Gwen believes All Men Are Perverts is because when she was going through puberty during high school, she got unwanted attention from guys. Suffering from frequent harassment, she tried to keep herself covered with sweaters and eventually attempting to fight back when neither of those things worked. It only encouraged the guys to harass her harder. She eventually just gave up and stopped caring altogether and became an antisocial goth. Her mother had three failed relationships with Gwen's father, abandoning her mother when she revealed she was pregnant with Gwen. Her brother, Patrick's father, was the same as Gwen's father. He, too, ran off when Gwen's mother got pregnant the second time. The third guy, Derek, seemed to be perfect, an old friend of her mother's from back when she had been in school, and they'd reconnected while she'd been hunting for a new job. He was smart, handsome, ran his own business, spent time with Gwen and her brother Patrick and, of course, showered their mother with gifts and affection. Then, a few months after the marriage and moving in without a hint of trouble by accident, Patrick tripped and dumped his entire milk-filled bowl of cereal on Gwen's report she had to do for school that morning. Gwen wouldn't have needed to reprint it. So she quickly borrowed Derek's laptop and, to her horror, discovered pictures of her naked, making sure her brother caught the bus before calling her mother. The two of them then called the police. Derek was the final incident that convinced Gwen all men were perverts.
      • It was implied and later confirmed that the real reason Gwen never gave Cody a chance and the reason their friendship failed was that Gwen was projecting her negative feelings she had towards her stepfather onto Cody because of a few similarities they shared. In chapter 17, Gwen believed that Heather was manipulating Cody, sleeping with him to control both him and his money. As Gwen wondered if maybe their lives would not have gotten so bad if she gave Cody a chance, she suddenly got angry at the idea, picturing Cody into her head; he slowly morphed into an older man that was somewhat similar although slightly different. Her angry thoughts that Cody can go to Hell! He looks and acts too much like…him…and I'll be damned if I'm going to make the same mistake my mother did!' With the revelation in chapter 31 that Gwen's mother, after two failed relationships, married Derek, who at first seemed to be nice and then turned out to be a pedophile, similar to Cody originally being someone Gwen thought to be nice, only to be revealed in World Tour that he took a picture of Gwen while she was sleeping. It is also shown that Derek has the same type of smile as Cody. Obviously, the "him" Gwen mentioned in chapter 17 was Derek and his similarity to Cody cause Gwen to distrust the geek.

Touhou Project

  • In Gensokyo 20XX, we have a odd example in Yukari, in that it be a fairly safe assumption some of her issues she's had, especially wanting to have a child to such an extent that it tears her up inside and some issues with attachment (either would be described as "something to love, something to hold, occasionally scold, and something that would take away an intense pain"), seem to stem from being abandoned by her parents, to whom she referred to as "two large shitbags", when she was two.

X-Men

  • X-Men: The Early Years: Scott can't stand Bruno, a high-school bully he meets in "Boy Scouts, Sex, and Other Mysterious Things". Scott's parole officer explains Bruno's father was abusive, and Bruno needs to be taught how to behave.
    Carol: Good, now that we're alone. I'm asking you to try to be a little nicer to Bruno, okay? I know it's not an easy task and he's not the most pleasant person you'll ever meet. Bruno's not a bad kid Scott. Yes, I know he's a bully, but he's only acting out what he knows. What his father taught him.
    Scott: So? That makes it okay for him to threaten to hurt Bobby? That makes it okay for him to threaten to hurt someone younger than he is?
    Carol: No, of course not. But Bruno has only threatened, and he actually hasn't made a move to hurt Bobby. That leaves a lot of room for you to let it slide off your back and compromise until he actually tries something. If Bruno tries to hurt Bobby, you won't be the first one to trounce him. Trust me.
    Scott: Compromise, in my experience, has always been another word for lose.
    Carol: You are so wrong, Scott. Compromise most times is the only way everyone wins. Bruno is acting out the lessons that his drunken, abusive father taught him. Don't act out the lessons that Jack taught you. Don't let Jack win like that.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! Forever, several villainous characters have a Freudian Excuse for why they turned to the dark side. 1) Jan Shimizu, the Black Sheep of his family, recounts late in the story that his father, Ryou Bakura, frequently treated him with subtle contempt because Jan's appearance reminded Ryou too much of the abusive spirit of the Millennium Ring. It led Jan to leave home and change his last name, to distance himself from the family, and led Ryou to declare I Have No Son! concerning him. 2) Michael Bronte, a member of the JUDAS organization's Quirky Miniboss Squad, explains that the reason he joined the group was initially to exact revenge on his parents—specifically, his stepfather used to physically abuse him as a child, while his mother turned a blind eye. Present-day Michael is an Ax-Crazy Slasher Smiler who enjoys perpetuating Cold-Blooded Torture on his victims. 3) Angel Snow, a member of the Zodiac terrorist group, grew up with a drunken and physically abusive adopted father. The Dragon then liberated her from that home situation, and she jumped at the chance to give him her loyalty. 4) James Truesdale, another Zodiac member, has a particularly painful one that he hides behind a mask of stoicism and thinly-disguised contempt for his sister and father: his mother died giving birth to his sister, and his father made him keep his grief hidden for the sake of the little girl. He blows up spectacularly when he finally reveals his past and his repressed anger.


Alternative Title(s): Fanfics

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