"Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of."
A series introduces a
character as sweet and lovable, more comic relief than anything, who likes nothing more than to
pet little creatures.
They make you adore them, root for them and love them.
Then the writers proceed to slowly torment them in front of your very eyes.
They destroy everything important to them, kill everyone they love and make them suffer from horrible accidents, diseases and acts of violence, including but not limited to
torture,
rape or any other
Fate Worse Than Death. They beat the character with one cruel stroke of fate after another until they are just an
Empty Shell of their former cheerful, carefree self.
This technique is often used to build
The Woobie in an attempt to enhance "adorability" points. Writers have to be careful though, else it seems
The Cutie becomes the universe's
Chew Toy.
Be careful about tormenting sweet little things, though — sometimes instead of breaking, or when there's nothing left to break, they
Freak Out. If they snap, you'd better hope your
life insurance policy is up to date,
especially if the cutie was quite the
badass to begin with. If they do break but refuse to show it, they could be a type-a
Stepford Smiler.
Sometimes it can be
Corrupt the Cutie, where via
Pygmalion Plot or
Wife Husbandry, the girl in question breaks it by herself. Frequently a part of a character crossing the
Despair Event Horizon. Also, this is frequently part of the backstory of the
Broken Bird, and instrumental in the
Freudian Excuse of a villain who
Used to Be a Sweet Kid. Compare
Fragile Flower and
Wide-Eyed Idealist.
On a more constructive note, sometimes
breaking the cutie can result in a cute but weak character
Taking a Level in Badass as they
confront their tormentors and
become more assertive. When the cutie refuses to break, they might become an
iron or
stoic Woobie, a
Determinator, or a
Plucky Girl. If they are simply unbreakable to begin with, they are probably a
Pollyanna.
Contrast
Break the Haughty, where bad things happen to an arrogant person (who had it coming), or the even worse variation
Kill the Cutie.
Examples
