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Dysfunction Junction
Behind that innocent face lies a sad, twisted life.

"It's strange that Evangelion has become such a hit - all the characters are so sick!"
—Hideaki Anno

"Statement: Oh, yes. My master had quite the collection of tortured individuals that seemed unable to confront their basic personality conflicts."
—HK-47, Knights of the Old Republic

"I'm not sure why the Light Warriors worry about obstacles or monsters standing in their way. They are nothing compared to the obstacles and monsters within the party."
—Brian Clevinger, creator of Eight Bit Theater

What's your malfunction?

Normality is boring and unartistic. An easy way to crank up drama is to supply everyone with a tragic past, screwed-up family history or other significant psychological issues. When Dysfunction Junction comes into play, good parents can be as common as penguins in the Sahara, instead turning out to be neglectful, smothering, unfeeling, abusive, misguided or dead. And let's not even get into the rest of the family.

The resulting prevalence of personal trauma often stretches suspension of disbelief and is a leading cause of Cerebus Syndrome. If done poorly, this is a one-way ticket to Wangst territory, and as so many attempt to smother the series with dysfunction, Deus Angst Machina is a frequent result.

An important thing to remember is that too much of these shows will cause the viewer to mutate into people who act like the cast. So occasionally watch Excel Saga or Mr Bean or Doctor Who or something. Or do it at the same time and gain superpowers involving the manipulation of angst into glowy balls of energy. TV Tropes is not responsible for property damage, casualties, or the men in the white suits coming to take you away.

This trope often goes hand in hand with There Are No Therapists.

Examples:

Anime and Manga
  • One word: Evangelion.
    • It should be noted, however, that the manga version (written by character designer Sadamoto) features a much less screwed up cast. However, Evangelion is technically AnimeFirst; the manga was only made as an advertisement initially.
      • There's also that being 'less screwed up' than the Evangelion anime cast still leaves one with an enormous amount of room in which to still be quite emotionally disturbed, and they are.
    • There's also the Lighter And Softer RahXephon. All of the characters are dysfunctional at some point or another, but they get better.
  • Key The Metal Idol, and everything that takes after it: Serial Experiments Lain, Boogiepop Phantom, Ghost Hound, Texhnolyze, Ergo Proxy, and Haibane Renmei to name a few.
  • Fruits Basket. In most cases if the parents of a Sohma member are mentioned, at least one rejected their child as a monster. All of the characters have at least one other tragic aspect: Yuki was abused as a child, Kyo was looked down upon as a monster even by the other Zodiac members and blamed by his father for his mother's suicide, Hatori lost part of his sight and erased the memories of the woman he loved, Shigure was involved in a twisted love triangle, etc, etc... This includes Tohru and her friends.
  • Ranma 1/2. All messed up neurotic cases waiting for the Prozac. Just consider that Ukyo Kuonji, considered by the fandom to be the most normal, non-f**ked-up member of the cast, had no mother, was forced to be a transvestite for most of her life by her father, and hunted down her dearest childhood friend for the sole purpose of murdering him. And the rest are worse, until we get to the Kunos and Happosai (and we don't even want to think about the traumas that might have created those freaks!).
  • Forget Oyashiro-sama and curses and government conspiracies and parasites. The abuse, betrayal and manipulation that the cast of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni has gone through in their backstory would make anyone go insane.
  • Anyone in Elfen Lied who wasn't already murderuous, emotionally traumatized, or unlucky in love sure as hell became one (or all) of those. The only character to come across as somewhat well-adjusted would have to be Nana, and sometimes, not even her!
    • When the most normal person in your cast is the one with no arms or legs, expect some serious issues.
  • Everyone in Welcome To The NHK has either a tragic past or a tragic present. In detail: Satou is psychotic and scared of strangers; Yamazaki found out just before the series started that his parents had planned his entire life out for him; Hitomi is also psychotic with a particular bent toward conspiracy theories and seems to also be depressed; and Misaki, leading the pack, well... her father is dead, her stepfather was abusive, her mother may or may not have committed suicide, and she herself tries to commit suicide due to delusions of inadequacy caused by said abusive stepfather. On top of that, she also has borderline personality disorder.
    • Misaki is even worse in the manga, where That entire history is made up to garner sympathy and attention. She even did the cigarette burns herself!
  • School Days. The high school in the game and anime appears to be attended by people with a fairly weak grasp of reality, which doesn't particularly help the already fragile mental health of the lead characters. Like Eva for Humongous Mecha, this is used to further its Deconstruction of Tenchi Solution H-Games.
  • Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: How about a harem made entirely of characters whose main trait is a specific dysfunction. It might be considered as a subversion, though, because it's played for laughs.
    • It's not subverted. It simply plays it straight and does it for laughs instead of drama.
  • Just about every Hentai ever, especially of the Dating Sim variety, where the female characters are all suffering from various traumas that can only be cured BY SEX!
  • The majority of the main characters from Sailor Moon fill this trope: two characters were orphaned at an early age, two have dead mothers, one is the child of divorce, and three never have their parents mentioned at all. Only three characters have whole nuclear families (incidentally, these are the happier, more-or-less well-adjusted characters).
  • Pretty much everyone shown in Deadman Wonderland, but considering DW is a maximum security prison / themepark / secret mutant containment center it's hardly surprising.
  • Weiss Kreuz all main characters have serious issues. Either there is a dead lover, a little sister in a coma, a backstabbing friend, or a whole family of psychothic people; rest assured that these bishonen are scarred for life.
  • Kyouran Kazoku Nikki has every character coming from a dark past. Yuka and Chika suffered abuse at the hands of their family, Teika is a survivor of the near-genocide of his people, Hyouka is a killing machine suffering from humanity issues, Ouka has no recollection of his past...
  • Most of the characters in Get Backers have some kind of personal or family tragedy that lets them lapse into angst at some point. Wangst is generally avoided because they're all huge dorks that can also lapse into shameless perversion, immature name calling, fistfights, etc. at a moment's notice.
  • The latest group of antagonists in History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, YOMI (the disciples of YAMI), are all pretty messed up teenagers. Among them are a guy who was bought from a child slavery ring and put through Training From Hell that rivals Kenichi's, a prince who was Lonely At The Top his whole life and developed into a royal Smug Snake Jerkass as a result, a military nut obsessed with following orders to the point of suicide (possibly a Child Soldier as well), and Odin, whose sole motivation for becoming a vicious fighter was losing a childhood squabble with Kenichi over a badge. This is all before YAMI molded them into killing machines. Half the reason Kenichi is able to eventually triumph against all of them is because unlike them, Kenichi is not batshit insane. Due to their issues, the YOMI members tend to have a Villainous Breakdown in the middle of the fight when confronted with Kenichi's conviction and/or his unexpected strength, allowing Kenichi to beat the crap out of his otherwise superior opponents.
  • Every character in Naruto that gets any screen time usually has suffered through the death of a loved one or abuse from family.
    • Not really. The villains for sure, and Sasuke, Gaara, Iruka, and Naruto from the hero's side. Most of the other characters live happy family lives, such as Sakura or Shikamaru. Not that more people become traumatized through the events of the story, but not prior to it.
  • Kodomo No Jikan Rin, Kuro, and Mimi all have really serious issues (especially for 9-year old girls) and could definitely use some counseling. Later in the series it becomes clear that they aren't alone. Rin's caretaker Reiji's a mess for a long time ago (he doesn't seem to understand why Aoki is so squicked by his Hikaru Genji Plan), Shirai-sensei has mother issues and is emotionally stunted, and even Kyoko has issues (there's a reason she always wears the same sweatshirt and sweatpants ensemble to school everyday). Aoki is pretty much the only major character without any serious angst in his past. What the main storyline puts him through makes up for it.
  • Chrono Crusade isn't quite as bad as some of the other examples, but that may be in part because the original manga is fairly idealistic. Chrono was found by Rosette and Joshua Christopher sleeping in a tomb—which is later revealed to have been the final resting place of Mary Magdalene, a woman he was in love with, that he accidentally killed during a fight with Aion. Rosette and Joshua's parents are dead, and when Joshua gets Chrono's horns from Aion and puts them on his head he goes insane. Most of the people Azmaria has ever cared about have been killed or have abandoned her because of her powers. Satella's family was killed in front of her by a demon without horns, and she has spent her entire life searching for him so she can enact her revenge. Fiore is an Emotionless Girl that is later revealed to be Satella's dead sister, turned into a "mindless doll" by Aion to further his goals. Remington in the anime is some sort of fallen angel and in the manga was turned into a half-demon half-human thing by the Elder at his own request. Oh, and he may have been in love with Mary Magdalene too. In the manga, the bad guys don't even get away without tragic backstories—the Sinners are basically a Breakfast Club.
  • Just about every character in Yu-Gi-Oh has a tragic, despressing backstory.
  • Subverted in One Piece. Every member of the Straw Hat Pirates has a depressing backstory, but very rarely does it ever seem to get them down.
  • Judging from how L and the three Wammy children we see in Death Note have turned out to be, Wammy's House must have been one of these.
  • The new Original Seven of Gun X Sword. This is kind of funny, in that Gadved, the Only Sane Man, boasted to Van about how powerful they are and how well they work together. With the likes of Carossa, Fasalina and especially Wo...
    • The protagonists are also something like this, especially when you count Ray.
  • Shadow Star Narutaru. In the entire 2500+ pages, there are two (one of whom appears for about 15 pages before being killed off) characters who are not broken or insane.
  • Good Lord, Cowboy Bebop. Not just all of the main characters have issues, but practically everyone they meet in the entire series. It doesn't help that the theme is practically a deconstruction of Growing Up Sucks, as is fully explored in some literary papers. (Yes, you heard me; literary papers have been written about Cowboy Bebop.)
  • Black Lagoon. Seriously, you know you're dealing with one fucked up group of people when the least emotionally unstable characters are a Vietnam Veteran turned pirate-mercenary (Dutch), a jaded former police detective turned underworld kingpin (Mr. Chang), and a man who was forced to flee his home country after a run in with The Mafia (Benny).
  • Most of the main characters in Nabari No Ou have either a horrible traumatic past, or a horrible traumatic present. Or both.

Comics
  • With few exceptions, almost all of the X-Men have tragic pasts, poor childhoods, dead parents or all three. This is compounded by the series' use of Expansion Pack Past, which tends to add on progressively more tragedies in the character's personal history the longer the series goes on, continually "revealed" to the audience whenever a character is focused on. To be fair, some of this is Retooling to more clearly explain the animosity of mutants rejected by society.
  • Watchmen comes close, the only of the superheroes in it that are remotely well-adjusted being the two Nite Owls. (And sometimes not even then!)
    • This is part of the what Moore wanted to portray, in that a person who chooses to become a masked hero and beat people up at night wouldn't exactly be right in the head.
  • On Runaways, the unifying aspect of the group is that everyone had super villain parents.
    • Joss Whedon's run added Klara, a twelve-year-old abused child bride from 1907.
    • Aside from Klara, Whedon's run is actually a bit of a subversion; surprising, considering it's Joss Whedon. Quite a few of the Runaways actually come out better or no worse off from their adventure. Chase gets new weapons and manages to move on from Gert's death, resisting the temptation to go back in time to save her. Xavin manages to overcome his/her gender issues. Nico gets a new staff and powers (kind of like Willow). Molly remains unchanged. About the only one messed up further is Victor; he falls for a new girl, Nico dumps him, and new girl doesn't go with him back to the present. One gets the feeling Whedon didn't like Victor.
      • Or, paradoxily, he actually likes Victor...
  • The Doom Patrol. Just... the Doom Patrol. To descend into just how screwed up everyone in that group's roster is would take up the whole page.
  • It's not exactly dwelt on in the new comics, so it's easy to forget the current Avengers include an alcoholic ex-prisoner of war with recurrent relationship issues, a man who once woke up to the news that his best friend was dead and it was several decades in the future, a man who struggled with race and class issues all his life and was jailed for a crime he didn't commit, a brainwashed and surgically altered killing machine who works constantly to suppress his savagery, a former brainwashed terrorist who was experimented on by her father while in a coma, and a man with a Evil Counterpart/Superpowered Evil Side that threatens to drive him crazy any minute, to name just a few.
    • And that's not even getting started on Spider-Man...
    • The Young Avengers, if anything, are worse. We've got everything from accidentally almost killing bullies to juvenile delinquincy, steroid abuse, and rape.
      • These angst-filled tragic backstories are so common in Marvel, it may explain the popularity of Squirrel Girl, who is well-adjusted and is a hero because she wants to help people.
    • Antman (or Giantman, or whatever he calls himself, it changes a lot because he) is constantly reminded, and remembered, by everybody in the Marvel Universe as "the guy who beat his wife". Which, while not defending the position, is sad because really he slapped the Wasp once (back in day too, so slapping wasn't uncommon), and never touched her again. But damn if not everybody, even newcomers, won't mention "Hey, aren't you that guy...", and he has been paying for that for decades. The Ultimate Universe upped the ante, giving him a full-wife-beatdown with added ant attack (she was shrunk at that time, it makes sense when you read it).
      • The animated Ulimate Avengers really didn't care for him, and flat out took him out, because, say it with me now...
  • Three words: The Bat Family. It consists of a guy whose parents were shot dead in front of him when he was eight, a guy whose parents were killed in front of him when someone sabotaged their trapeze act, a girl who used to be a gymnastic crime fighter until she was shot and paralyzed by someone after her dad, another guy whose parents are dead (including step parents and fake ones), a girl who was raised in The Spartan Way to be the world's greatest assassin and wasn't even taught how to read or talk, and a girl whose parents were shot dead in front of her when she was eight. Hell, we might as well just say Gotham is Dysfunction Junction. Living there practically counts as an angsty past.
    • And the Spoiler!
    • Then there's also Jason, whose parental issues include feeling like The Unfavourite because Batman didn't avenge his death at the hands of the Joker, worded thusly: "I'm talking about killing him. Just him. And doing it... because he took me away from you."
    • And that's without counting the myriad of traumas and psychoses behind almost all the Batman villains.
  • Jesse Custer. That is all.

Film

Literature
  • Lampshaded in Peter Watts's Rifters Trilogy, particularely the first book, Starfish: several of the main characters got their jobs as "rifters" - deep-ocean explorers and colonists - by being too dysfunctional to fit in anywhere else; the theory is that those conditioned by their upbringing to accept undue stress as a normal living condition are actually more able to cope in extraordinary environments. This backfires more or less exactly the way you'd expect it to. Well, except that it's a Peter Watts book, so it backfires more or less exactly the way you'd expect it to except more so.
    • Ironically, the protagonist turns out to be so messed up not so much because her father abused her as because her employers surgically tampered with her brain to make her think her father abused her before sending her down there. Her parents turn out to have been fine and upstanding people. Which, in a Peter Watts book, makes them pretty much unique.
  • As Stewie Griffin put it, Fyodor Dostoevsky is "the Mad Russian." This is evident in The Brothers Karamazov, in which the father drives his two wives to premature death via sheer force of personality (he enjoyed the meekness of his second wife so much that he couldn't help having orgies with prostitutes in front of her) and then completely abandons his children, leaving his butler to raise them in his shack. This leads to one brother becoming subject to his passions, another becoming highly cold and calculating (and eventually stark-raving mad), and the third left to pick up the pieces, which is depressing by itself. Consequently, anyone they come into contact with also happens to have a tragic backstory, whether it's the misunderstood Hooker With A Heart Of Gold or the shipping captain whose family's condition just screams "Pathetic!"
  • Those characters who are perfectly fine in House Of Leaves are those who haven't encountered, spent time in, or explored the titular house, or, by proxy, read Zampanò's manuscript about the film about the house.
  • Steven Erikson's Malazan Book Of The Fallen has a lot of this. It's evidently intended as character development, but much of the time it comes off as pointless Wangst (with Seren Pedac being, in this editor's opinion, the most repulsive example).
  • A Song Of Ice And Fire is interesting in that half the cast are in the process of gaining their tragic backstories.
  • Justified in The War Against The Chtorr. 60% of the world population has died in a series of plagues, so all the survivors are walking wounded. This materialises in everything from sexual obsessives to zombie-like herds of people; and suicide is the leading cause of death even in the middle of the war. It's even suggested these psychological conditions are another type of plague created by the alien invaders.
  • There are a lot of messed up or incredibly depressed characters in Warrior Cats, but mostly in the third series. Examples:
    • Mostly caused by the fact that the author does not like happy endings. Quoting one of the other authors:
      Cherith Baldry: I've heard it said that if you met your characters in real life they would attack you for treating them so badly!
    • Ashfur and Hollyleaf.
    • Most of the villains in the series: Brokenstar was raised by an unloving mother, Tigerstar's father abandonned him to live with Twolegs, possibly causing his irrational hatred for kittypets, Scourge was abused by his brother and sister and ran away from home as a kit, Hawkfrost is mostly open for interpretation, but his relationship with his father is anything but healthy, and he seems to have quite the superiority complex.
    • Sunrise managed to mess up the lives of pretty much every main charcter from the second series.
    • Instead of simply killing off main characters' love interests like she used to, the author has decided to create circumstances where they simply cannot be together, or their relationship pretty much gets killed, and they all end up with some kind of problem. This has happened, to some extent, to pretty much every major pairing from the second series onward (one of the most extreme cases being Lionblaze and Heathertail, who pretty much want to kill each other now).
    • Leafpool has been hit by Deus Angst Machina twice all because of a single decision she made a long time ago. In Sunrise it was practically stated that she was suicidal.
    • Crowfeather, who has lost his two loves and now is paired with a cat who could be considered his friend at best, and is stuck with a bratty son who he neglects and abuses. He also refuses to acknowledge that he is still in love with Leafpool or that he has three other kits.
      • Breezepelt also has some issues because of Crowfeather's abuse.
    • Cinderpelt's leg was run over by a car when she was an apprentice, crippling her for life and destroying her dreams of being a warrior. Then, when she dies, she is reincarnated as her neice, who then breaks the exact same leg and is almost subjected to the same fate as Cinderpelt.
    • Stormfur has been an outsider for pretty much his entire life. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father abandonned him when he was an apprentice, leaving him and his sister as outcasts in RiverClan. Then later on, his sister, who he was much closer to than anyone else, dies, he falls in love with Brook and leaves the Clans to join the Tribe of Rushing Water, which he is soon exiled from. He eventually goes back to live with the Tribe, but the last few chapters of Outcast makes it seem like the Tribe isn't going to be able to survive much longer.
    • Jayfeather and his various attitude problems originating from his dislike of being blind. As a little kitten, he actually says "I wish I had never been born!"
    • Sorreltail comes from one of the biggest families in the series, and now only has two blood relatives left. Within her lifetime six of her close relatives have died, and they are normally killed of within months of each other. One of her brothers' deaths could even be considered Death By Irony.
    • Am I the only one who thinks that Cinderpelt and Spottedleaf being so close to Leafpool is very creepy because they are both in love with her father?
      • And what about Leafpool naming Jayfeather, her own son, after his father? Considering how similar Jayfeather is to Crowfeather, and the fact that no one was supposed to know they were related, it becomes pretty creepy if you think too much about it.
      • Firestar did the same thing: Leafpool was named after Spottedleaf.
  • Dysfunction is the rule rather than the exception in Harry Potter. It's most noticeable with the Blacks, the Gaunts, and the Dumbledores, but pretty much every significant character has some family trauma in their backstory — and if they don't have it by the beginning of Book Seven, they sure will by the end of it.
    • Hell, even the characters with normal families where no one dies will have trauma. For example, if she did it without their consent, what is Hermione going to tell her folks when she restores their memories?
  • The Wraiths are an X-Wing squadron composed initially of nothing but the Commander, his old wingmate, and people on their Last Second Chance, in the belief that they will work hard to prove their worth. The author is a big believer in using a Cast Of Snowflakes. Everyone has something wrong with them. Otherwise they wouldn't be a Wraith. The commander does notice that they're actually good for each other, able to help one another get past their pasts and presents rather than making things worse. Still, the reputation sticks. When a new pilot is transferred in who was assigned because of their track record and not because of big screwups, a pilot jokingly says that he's too normal for the Wraiths. The new pilot then proves to be a Large Ham.
    "Excuse me! Elassar Targon, MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE, reporting for duty!"

Live Action TV
  • Much of Joss Whedon's work. — Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Angel, mainly. Those few characters without tragic pasts quickly get them within the course of the story, as you know any happy character will either be killed or have a loved one killed.
    • Even those who are relatively happy will always be revealed to have at least one parent (usually the father) who is either abusive or absent. Then they have a tragic event happen to them as well, anyway, to compound the matter.
    • Firefly is better about having a cast with varied backgrounds. River and Simon, however, have a background as traumatic as they come, while Mal and Zoe were comrades on the losing side of a war. Still, the second pair doesn't treat their defeat as entirely traumatic, and focuses on finding little ways to get back at the Alliance (robbery, bar fights, etc.)
    • Spoofed in a Home on the Strange strip concerning a hypothetical Firefly MMORPG: "It's right in the Terms and Conditions: 'No relationship in the Whedonverse is allowed to end happily...'"
    • Subverted in the "Fredless" episode of Angel. Fred's parents stop by looking for their daughter, and we are led to believe they may have bad intentions for her. Eventually it's revealed that they are loving people who want the best for their daughter. Ironically, this ends up reminding the rest of the cast what a sucky relationship they have/had with their own parents.
  • Eastenders.
  • Coronation Street.
  • Degrassi The Next Generation often has tragic, melodramatic, hard to believe tragedies happen to most of the cast. In a relatively upper-middle class school- in Canada, no less, two students are dead via violence in unrelated incidents, one is crippled, another raped, beaten in a hate crime, had their father die, sent to prison for killing someone in a drag race, contracted HIV, become addicted to cocaine, etc. - all within the same five years.
  • The Sallinger family on Party Of Five. It really is a wonder that none of them picked up on being Cosmic Playthings to a Finagles Law obsessed writer.
  • Lost. The majority of characters have issues with their fathers, stepfathers, fathers-in-law, or other father figures (the exceptions being Shannon and Ana Lucia, who hate their stepmother and mother, respectively). Not to mention various other dysfunctionalities. It's saying something when the former Iraqi torturer is the most level-headed person on the island. One of the earliest episodes is even titled "All the Best Cowboys have Daddy Issues."
  • In the HBO series Six Feet Under, every character is subjected to some horrific event at least once within the run of the series. While the show centers around death, most of the characters have lived or will live through situations seemingly worse than death - sometimes to teach them an Aesop and sometimes just to just have them go through horrible events for the sheer pleasure of it - and often leaves them with countless dysfunctions and irrational fears.
  • Two words: Battlestar Galactica. Anyone who wasn't depressed, delusional, suicidal, emotionally repressed, alcoholic, unlucky in love, and/or really really pissed off at both their parents and the world before the Cylons attacked... sure as hell is now.
    • Sharon 'Athena' Agathon seems to be doing alright (misplaced Mama Bear moments aside). Even moreso, Helo. For all that he went through on Caprica and back again, he seems to be levelheaded and reasonable.
      • Of course, they have the Screwed Up Past: Athena was a spy ordered to con a human into getting her pregnant, only to fall for the guy and become a traitor to her own people, while Helo was the aforementioned con victim who discovered his love interest/flight partner was not only a spy, but not even the same individual he'd originally known, who was also a spy.
      • Said original individual forced them to work at staying happy during the last few episodes of the series.
  • In the TV show Malcolm In The Middle the entire family is dysfunctional. In one episode he discovers a "normal" family and starts spending all his time there as the kids' babysitter, enjoying the "normalcy". Until he discovers that they were using a video camera to spy on him (something that is actually considered ok by many when it comes to child care) and he decides that although his family is dysfunctional, they are honest with him.
    • Justifying Edit: they weren't just spying on him, but keeping creepily detailed information on him.
  • Supernatural... just Supernatural. While they might have started out darker than your average cutie, Sam and Dean have been broken into martyred, self-loathing, co-dependent, slightly suicidal basketcases, after Mary's death John was a suicidal, emotionally abusive jerkass who you can't help but pity, Mary might have started this whole mess anyway, Bela turned out to be a broken, sexually abused fourteen year old who made a deal with the devil, Jimmy (Castiel's vessel) has had to say goodbye to his wife and daughter forever in order to save their life, and Bobby had to kill his own wife. And that's not even mentioning the show's kill em all fetish. Need to go to your happy place yet?
  • ''Cold Case: Lilly Rush's father left her and her younger sister Christina in the 'care' of their alcoholic mother Ellen, who ended up drinking herself to death the same day her daughter got shot almost to death on the job. Christina grew up to be a seductress (even sleeping with Lilly's fiance) and a scam artist, who dayed Lilly's partner Scotty Valens and then ran out the moment a police officer from NYC came to Philadelphia to arrest her. Not to mention what happened to her as a child...
  • This is Wonderland, starting with the name. Unglamourous lawyers representing hideously dysfunctional people, many of whom are drug addicts, and just waiting for their nervous breakdown. Luckily, it's only a borderline example, as there were a few people who were moderately well adjusted.
  • In Far Scape, everyone starts off with at least a little damage - except John Crichton, the human. Then as the series progresses eveyrone else manages to shore up each other's sanity...except John, who descends into madness.
  • In Plain Sight: The lead character, Mary, is a US Marshal in the witness protection program. During the pilot, she narrates how good she is at solving other people's problems but not her own. Her father abandoned his family to evade the police when she was a child, and she's been taking care of her alcoholic mother and chronically irresponsible sister ever since. During the course of the series, the mother becomes a prostitute, and the sister ends up involved in a drug deal gone bad. Even the sister's ex-boyfriend and Mary's sorta-boyfriend is a minor-league baseball player who can't make it to the big leagues, and he's pretty much the most normal character in the immediate family. With the exception of Mary's coworkers, everyone else in the show is messed-up, even the witnesses under protection.
  • Scrubs. For a comedy, most of the show's characters are pretty messed up whether it be in their backstory, personality, or both. Turk is probably the most normal and well-adjusted of the lot.
    • And even he has a couple of episodes where it's implied that his family is somewhat dysfunctional, although nothing compared to the other characters'.
    • As Carla puts it:
      Carla: Me — dead mom. J.D. — dead dad. Elliot — emotionally abusive parents. Dr. Cox — emotionally and physically abusive dead parents which he may have killed; no one's sure.
  • Oh come on people, Heroes is practically made of this. Anyone who doesn't have a tragic past gets a tragic present.
  • The Sarah Connor Chronicles runs rampant with this. John Connor suffers from post-traumatic stress and the sheer weight of Because Destiny Says So, Sarah Connor has to deal with raising her son through the hardest time of his life, relationship issues, and fighting to save the world without killing anyone, Derek Reese is just plain sociopathic and suffers from enough PTSD for a battalion of Vietnam vets, and don't even get started on the mountain of psychological issues with Cameron....
  • Prison Break has a metric buttload of this. But then, it's kinda necessary to justify why all these people would be dumb/crazy enough to get caught up in the series' main story arc. Some of the kickers are child rapist and murderer T-Bag, who was sexually abused by his father and forced to memorise the thesaurus, or Mahone, who literally went insane while chasing a fugitive, got hooked on the meds he used to stay sane, caught and then murdered the fugitive in cold blood and was blackmailed by the villains into becoming their assassin.
    • This is not counting all the extra crap that gets piled on the characters over the course of the series, like the murder of Mahone's young son, which drives him even further off the deep end.
    • Not to mention revelations made during the series that actually make previous dysfunctions seem even worse, like Michael and Lincoln discovering not one, but both their parents worked for the villains, including their long-dead mother who isn't really dead.
  • Not one character on House MD escapes this trope, including pretty most patients of the week. In between learning about the patients' tragic past, we get a look into the lives of the doctors who treat them.
    • The misanthropic, crippled, drug-addicted House and his fellow Chase have major parental issues. House goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid contact with his parents. The most extreme example of this is when his father dies and he refuses to go to the funeral despite his mother's wishes. He does end up attending but only because Cuddy drugged him so Wilson could get him in his car and escort him there. In the same episode it is revealed that his father is not actually his biological father. House worked this out as kid and didn't talk to his father for a whole summer after he found out.
    • Chase was left to care for his alcoholic mother after his father abandoned them. His father turns up during the thirteenth episode and bridges start to mend, but little does Chase know that his father is dying of cancer. Chase finds out two months later in the eighth episode of the second season when he gets a phonecall saying his father died of terminal lung cancer. It gets even worse the seasons twenty-second episode in which House deduces that Chase was cut out of his father's will, a fact that is confirmed in Season 3.
    • House's other two fellows don't have an easy time of it either. Foreman, a former juvenile delinquent, has a sick mom who he can't stand seeing and it is revealed Cameron married a dying man when she was in her twenties and then fell for his best friend.
    • When we first meet Wilson he has been divorced two times and his third marriage is on the verge of complete collapse. In Season 1, he proclaims that, "I've only got two things that work for me: this job and this stupid, screwed-up friendship [with House]." Before season 2 is over, Wilson finds himself divorced again and homeless. In season 3 his assests get frozen while attempting to keep House out of jail and it's revealed (surprise, surprise) he's suffering from depression. In season 4, his his girlfriend, Amber, dies, and in season 5 it's revealed that his long-lost, homeless brother that is mentioned in Season 1 is also schizophrenic and that he blames himself for him running away.
    • Cuddy has apparently failed every relationship she's ever tried to make work and angsts about not being able to start a family. In season 5, she adopts a baby, but has emotional issues bonding with her.
    • House's new fellows have problems too. Thirteen is dying from Huntington's. (Her mom died from it too.) Kutner's parents were killed in a robbery when he was six and in Season 5 he commits suicide, and nobody knows why, not even House can figure it out. Taub cheated on his wife, and has financial problems in Season 5.
  • The whole point of Titus (and the stand-up it was based on) was Christopher's supremely dysfunctional family, especially his manic-depressive schizophrenic mother and his hard-drinking/chronic-marrying/wussy-hating father. "Hey, once you've driven your drunk father to mom's parole hearing, what else is there?"
  • All the Pushing Daisies regulars have to deal with some scarring stuff, but they tend to take it with a great deal of dignity. Ned, Lily and Vivian are the most messed up, but even they soldier on quite well.
    • To expand:
      • Ned: Watched his mother die. Twice. Accidentally killed his childhood sweetheart's father. Got sent by his neglectful father to a boarding school. Upon solving his first "case", was mistaken for a murderer and sent to jail. When he was ten. Can't touch his girlfriend.
      • Chuck: Her father died when she was eight. She went to live with her aunts, one of which actually was her biological mother. Upon seeking liberty from her reclusion, got killed in a cruise.
      • Olive: Grew up s a Lonely Rich Kid. Was once accidentally kidnapped by two thieves who were very kind to her... and got sent to jail by the Snooks unjustly. Kept for years an oath about the murder of her jockey friend.
      • Emerson: Born Detective trained from infancy in the art of crook-catching by his own mother. Fell in love with - and was promptly swindled by - grifter Lila Robinson, who prevented him from seeing his own daughter for about nine years.
      • Lily and Vivian: Two quite different siblings who were prevented from pursuing a career in synchronized swimming by their social phobias. Lily fell in love with Vivian's fianceé, Charles, and had a child with him. Upon finding out, Vivian was not exactly pleased.
  • The two main characters of Bones are a woman whose parents disappeared when she was a teen, and a man with an abusive and alcoholic father. Upon learning that Dr. Sweets had been whipped as a child:
    Booth: What are we, the island of Misfit Toys?
  • Alias: There's dysfunctional and then there's the Bristow family. The dysfunctionality certainly extends past the Bristows though. Most of the characters lives are marred by the death and/or betrayal of loved ones. It certainly doesn't help when our heroes are forced to work with the bad guys and double-crossers or the people they thought were dead but actually weren't.
  • ESPN's short-lived Playmakers series featured a football team where seemingly every player had at least one major dysfunction, including drug addiction, marital abusive, steroid abuse, closet homosexuality and inevitable rabid homobphobia, adultery all over the place, a player suffering near-debilitating guilt for having paralyzed an opponent and just about anything else you could think of to some extent. It's amazing they had time to play any football.
  • The Torchwood team. An immortal man obsessed with finding the only person who he thinks can remove his immortality. A hedonistic doctor who lost his lover to an alien and eventually half-dies. A woman whose love interests always seem to either not return her affection or are evil. A man hiding his crazed cyberchick girlfriend in the basement of their secret hideout. A woman who cheats on her boyfriend with a coworker, while in love with her boss. And that's just to name a few of their issues.
  • The West Wing is an unusual case for a liberal-leaning show; everyone on the cast has father issues, but very few mommy problems.
    • Jed Bartlet's father beat him for being smarter and Catholic.
    • Leo McGarry's father passed on his alcohalism gene before committing suicide.
    • Sam Seabourne's father is unfaithful to his wife.
    • Toby Ziegler's father was a convicted felon and member of the Jewish Mafia.
    • CJ Cregg's father is suffering from Alzheimer's and at times forgets who she is.
    • Charlie Young's father is conspicuously absent.
      • And on that note, Charlie's mother was killed in the line of duty.
    • And finally, Josh's father was actually very supportive of his son and by all accounts a good guy - until he died.
  • Stargate SG-1 Shall we make a list?
    • Jack O'Neill: Originally joined the SGC on a suicide mission because he was depressed after his son accidentally shot himself. Has an implied dark past working for Special Ops, but they never go into too much detail. However, whenever he meets someone from his past, he always has issues with them.
    • Daniel Jackson: Saw his parents die when he was eight. Lived in foster care, failed at every romantic relationship, before joining the SGC basically because he had nowhere else to go. Stayed behind with his wife on an alien planet for a year before she was kidnapped and taken over by creepy evil aliens. And that's just his backstory.
    • Sam Carter: Her mother died when she was pretty young, and she and her brother both blamed her father for that. When Sam eventually got over it, her brother never forgave her, and her father was already distant and detached. Add to that the crazy and possibly abusive fiance, and you've got yourself a walking tragedy.
    • Teal'c: Hell-bent on getting revenge for his father's murder. Also grew up in slavery to an evil guy. (Same evil guy who kidnapped Daniel's wife. He was a really evil guy). Abandoned the love of his life when she joined a temple, and had to leave his wife and son behind when he went off to start a revolution.

Video Games
  • Final Fantasy VII - Cloud is a hopelessly deluded, mind-controlled Tomato In The Mirror with a borderline split personality recovering from a Heroic BSOD; Tifa is too uncertain aboutwhether or not she or Cloud was wrong about him being there when their entire hometown was slaughtered to confront Cloud about the subject; Barret is locked into hate and anger toward Shinra for destroying his hometown and family, which he disguises as a higher political moral when really he just wants revenge; Aerith is an orphaned Last Of Her Kind chasing after the memories of her long-lost first love in the man who is unconsciously emulating him, as well as struggling with her heritage and duty and her own personal desires; Cid is so obsessed with his crushed dream that he berates the woman he thinks is responsible on a daily basis; Vincent is sick with guilt over being unable to stop the woman he loved from marrying the wrong man, leading to Sephiroth being born; Yuffie is highly rebellious against her father for believing him to be an impotent weakling who sold out their hometown's proud culture, and Red XIII believes his father to have been a coward who abandoned his mother during an battle long ago that resulted in her death. Cait Sith is a robotic cat with an Alien Scrappy programming, but his controller, non-corrupt executive Reeve, is actually a decent, well-adjusted guy (except for the fact he apparently believes Cait Sith is somehow useful). As far as the bad guys are concerned, Sephiroth discovers he's a genetic experiment and becomes convinced he's God; Rufus is a ruthless, Machiavellian bastard who sides with the winners and then screws them over; and Hojo is an Evil Scientist who commits atrocities with little or no reason. If you believe the Compilation, some of the heroes get better later through The Power Of Friendship. Awww.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Solid Snake's a bitter, emotionally crippled veteran with a frighteningly well-developed survival instinct; Raiden is an ex-Tykebomb, the victim of a vast brainwashing Xanatos Gambit, and hits his girlfriend, who is a spy planted by the Patriots who fell in love with him against her will; Otacon was sexually abused by his stepmother, completely ruining his self-confidence and his ability with women; Big Boss wants to start an eternal, neverending World War so that soldiers are no longer marginalised as a fairly direct result of killing his own mentor; Meryl has an Electra Complex the size of Manhattan; every boss ever, etc.
  • Persona 3 - Every major character in the game you can interact and build social links with has some kind of mental or physical disorder, tragic past, neglectful or dead parent or similar that they angst over. And the one to reach to them with The Power Of Friendship or The Power Of Love and make them get over it? It sure isn't the town psychologist.
  • Name a main or supporting character in the Nasuverse (besides Taiga, but in a couple more games, I wouldn't be surprised) that does not have a major personality disorder. Some examples from Tsukihime:
    • Filling the "normal" niche in the main cast is Hisui, who completely represses her emotions and has a pathological fear of being touched by men (although she did it in her sister's place).
    • Arihiko, support character and comic relief, got a very tragic and traumatic Backstory in Kagetsu Tohya.
    • Satsuki has no tragic backstory that we know of. The in-game story makes up for it.
      • They even CUT OUT HER ARC, making it where her best ending is that she simply disappears from the story...
      • Don't worry, based on Melty Blood it seems that she still dies in that one. It's just that Shiki cared more about it that time. Oh, and as for character introduced in Melty Blood... uh... um... they're all messed up too.
    • Isn't it nice when one of the most well balanced characters in the series is an 800+ year old vampire with less life experience than a teenager, no friends or family and who lives only to kill vampires? Of course, Arcueid does have the worst backstory she just doesn't let it get her down.
  • Most, if not all, of the major characters of the computer RPG Planescape Torment possess some manner of dysfunction, tragic past, or similar torment. The player character, The Nameless One, is an amnesiac immortal with a large number of dark pasts, and his party members range from an orphaned part-demon to an insane fire wizard who was turned into a living conduit to the elemental plane of fire. Most of the major NPCs are similarly tormented - many of them, it turns out, as a result of interactions with The Nameless One at some point. This turns out to be a major plot point - one of the 'powers' possessed by The Nameless One as a result of his immortality is an unconscious dominion over torment, symbolized by a tattoo on his shoulder. Whether he likes it or no, his power draws troubled and dysfunctional souls to him like moths to a flame and binds their destinies to his.
  • In the Baldur's Gate series, not every character has a tragic past... but a good portion of them do, and all four possible Love Interests most certainly do. One is a recent widow, another was raised in an Always Chaotic Evil society and then is subject to prejudice when she leaves it, a third was subject to horrific abuse and abandonment, and the fourth has daddy issues up the wazoo.
    • Not a romance option, but Valygar has some severe problems.
    • He was originally supposed to be one, apparently.
  • Every non-Valkyrie character in Valkyrie Profile has some sort of personal tragedy that ends in a convenient Karmic Death. Even the Valkyrie was once a mortal girl who was raised by an abusive mother that was going to sell her into slavery. Her self-esteem was so low that she allowed herself to die in a field of poisonous flowers.
  • Final Fantasy VI also has universal tragic past syndrome. All of the characters a)are being hunted by the Empire (even before the story begins), b)are imprisoned or harassed by the Empire, c)are misused by the Empire, d)have lost a loved one to the Empire, or e)some combination of the above.
  • If someone doesn't have a problem in Drakengard, they're probably going to be dead soon. The protagonist Caim is filled with Unstoppable Rage, determined to kill all of his enemies because his parents were murdered when he was younger. Leonard wanted to commit suicide because he failed to protect his family from The Empire, and really doesn't have the will to live anymore. Arioch is Ax Crazy because The Empire killed her children, so now she eats babies. Seere is the closest thing to normal, but he's got issues concerning his twin sister, who happens to be the Big Bad. And those are just the protagonists - the supporting characters and villains are even more messed up!
  • Practically everybody in Psychonauts. This is to be expected, as the game is about going into people's minds, but even characters whose minds you don't explore are usually pretty messed up, too. Even the ones who seem outright normal like Milla have hidden traumas, usually found by exploring their memory vaults.
    • My favorites are the preteen Stepford Smilers who are trying to kill themselves so they can pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi and come back more powerful than you could ever imagine. And no, there is nothing in the game that implies this would actually work.
  • Every main character in Persona 4 (except the Protagonist) has some sort of secret fear, worry, or issue secretly eating them from the inside that eventually whisks them away to the shadow-possessed Mayonaka TV, where the problem is able to freely manifest and eventually cause their death.
    • In the manga, the Protagonist's parents' line of work causes him to move constantly. As a result he is afraid to get close to others, lest he becomes too attached to them and is hurt when he has to leave. This causes him to be a, secretly cynical, Stepford Smiler . From the final scenes of the game it can be deduced that he gets over it because all the people he formed social links with, while living with his uncle, were actually reaching out to him without either side realizing it(in contrast to P3's protagonist). He left the town with a smile and no regrets. D'aww
  • The five final party members inPersona 2 all have major issues, especially with their fathers. This caused the final boss to take the shape of their fathers in bondage gear and attached as tentacles to each other. Squick is an easy way to say it. Funnily enough, there actually are therapists in the game, but they'll just heal your hp and sp.
  • In Mass Effect, Shepard has a tendency to collect crewmembers with....issues. Fortunately, not many of them actually get in the way of the mission with the exception of Wrex.
    • Tali's father's position on her people's Admiralty Board puts her under enormous pressure to prove herself to other members of her culture, as well as causing her relationship with him to be somewhat distant and formal.
    • Liara is subject to prejudice from her own species due to being a "pureblood" child of two asari. Her relationship with her mother is strained even before her mother joins the Big Bad, and she knows nothing about her "father."
    • Garrus is a would-be Cowboy Cop who chafes at the red tape restrictions placed on him by the police force - which he joined in large part because of the expectations of his career cop father, turning down the opportunity to be considered for the Council's elite operatives in the process.
    • Ashley's military career is, up until the events of the game, a dead end because her grandfather surrendered a garrison to aliens during the pre-game First Contact War rather than allow civilians to keep dying. As a result, Ashley has a deep-seated suspicion of and prejudice toward aliens, making her the best example of Fantastic Racism in the game.
    • Kaidan suffers periodic migraines as a side effect of the implants which enable him to use his biotic abilities, and got put through Training From Hell as a teenager by an alien Drill Sergeant Nasty in order to learn to use those abilities. His excessive degree of self-control is something he cultivated after he killed the aforementioned Drill Sergeant Nasty in self-defense trying to protect his girlfriend from his abuse - and the girl was terrified of him thereafter. Despite all of this, he manages to be one of the most open minded character you can meet.
    • And then there's Wrex, whose entire species was hit by a Depopulation Bomb which makes it next to impossible for them to reproduce, and who at one point was an idealistic leader among his people trying to organize them into saving themselves, until his own father betrayed and attacked him, provoking him into committing patricide and then abandoning his species out of cynicism.
    • Shepard isn't necessarily free of past traumas either; of the possible options for his or her history, one involves growing up on the streets of Earth, one involves being orphaned in a brutal batarian slave raid, and one involves being the only person out of a platoon of fifty marines to survive an attack by monstrous, poison-spitting giant worms.
      • Of course, it's up to the player to either solve some of those problems (Paragon Shepard) through specific side-quests (Tali, Wrex, and Garrus) or advancement in the main plot (Liara) or to finish completely screwing up those poor souls (Renegade Shepard), essentially by being a pure Jerk. Video Game Cruelty Potential to its best.
  • This is so prevalent in Knights Of The Old Republic that HK-47 lampshades it in one of the funniest pieces of dialogue in the sequel, where everyone's favourite rusty psychopath mocks the group of companions the first game's protagonist picks up. To continue from the page quote...
    HK-47: Let me cite some specific examples.
    HK-47: Mockery: [mimicking Carth's voice] "Oh, master, I do not trust you! I cannot trust you or anyone ever again!"
    HK-47: Mockery: [mimicking Bastila's voice] "Oh, master, I love you but I hate all you stand for, but I think we should go press our slimy, mucus-covered lips together in the cargo hold!"
    HK-47: Conclusion: Such pheromone-driven responses never cease to decrease the charge in my capacitors and make me wish I could put a blaster pistol to my behavior core and pull the trigger.
    • Of course, the team in the sequel is even more screwed up than the one from the first game, with the added bonus that, unlike the first game's party, they mostly seem to hate one another and all the causes of their issues can be traced back to the PC's doorstep.
  • This is the point of Silent Hill. If you don't have a tragic past, you're either a hallucination or in the wrong town.
    • Interestingly, despite having the most incomprehensible plot of the series, the first game only had one character fitting this trope and a relatively bland by comparison protagonist. It was the second game that transformed the town into an attraction for the mentally warped, and the following games decided to Follow The Leader.
      • The protagonist of Silent Hill 4 appears even more dysfunctional by not having a tragic past to explain his deadpan acceptance of the surreal and sinister. His dysfunction could be inferred from terse description of his recent past, in that he's been confined for weeks without food or water, little sleep or contact with the outside world. His thick-wittedness supports this possibility.
  • Many, many of the players of The World in .hack// are very, very disturbed people. It doesn't help that the game uses this against them.
    • To be fair, most players are just fine. It's the screwed up ones that get the malevolent forces attention.
  • Tales Of Vesperia. Yuri is a Vigilante Man who despises most authority and spends most of the second half of the game wracked with guilt over murdering two human beings, Estelle is naive and caring to a fault, and is causing the world to die simply by existing, Karol is extremely timid and cowardly to the point he's been discharged from multiple guilds, Judith is conflicted between her longheld desire to keep her life's mission a secret and her newfound loyalty to her new friends, Rita puts the "tsun" back in Tsundere, and Raven was brought Back From The Dead against his will by one of the major villains and forced to serve him, becoming a Death Seeker as a result. Whew.
  • Basically the premise of Family Project. All the main characters are there precisely because they have messed up lives, families and are all generally on the edge of homelessness. The various issues vary drastically in seriousness and some also make things worse for everyone else. Such as Chunhua's escape inciting a war between mafia groups and the house being burned down as a result in every route.

Webcomics
  • Summarized by the character Branwen, in this strip of Something Positive, as "Traumatic childhoods are the in thing these days. All the cool kids are doing it."
  • The Light Warriors in 8-Bit Theater: the astoundingly stupid sword-obsessed Fighter, the Ax Crazy Chaotic Stupid Black Mage (that, just to start, sacrificed orphans to get his most powerful spell), the overly greedy and manipulative Thief (which is also a fugitive prince), the Munchkin with some traumas that make him cross-dress a lot Red Mage... Not only they're insane, but also spent most of their time arguing with each other (sometimes going into physical aggression, or stabbing). And they are supposed to save the world. The author even stated: "[the obstacles or monsters standing in the LW's way] are nothing compared to the obstacles and monsters within the party".
    "You and what ragtag band of aventurers with humorously conflicting personalities who learn the true meaning of friendship?"
  • Girl Genius: The main character was an Orphan with a plot trinket, but her foster parents were very loving and functional. Even Gil Wulfenbach and his father have started getting Aw Look They Really Do Love Each Other moments. (Uh, not in that way, obviously. Ew.) But the Sturmvoraus family... hoo boy. The father (who often said that if Providence hands you a powerless scapegoat, it is a sin not to use him) did dangerous Mad Science experiments on the daughter. Even if they'd been successful she'd have been possessed by the Big Bad her father was apparently in love with; since the experiment was a failure, she died horribly. Her brother built a robotic Replacement Goldfish and didn't tell anyone she wasn't really the original transferred into the clank body- not even the Goldfish herself. Then the Goldfish killed "their" father, plotted with the brother to take over the world, or at least part of it... and then he became the Bastard Understudy and shut her down to give her body to the Big Bad after all. Lovely people.
    • And as if that weren't enough, There may have been genetic engineering involved in the current generation, if Zola's "Let's just say they made sure there was a proper heir." conversation with Gil is to be taken at face value. Jesus, this family.
  • College Roomies From Hell!!! Welcome to college, Dave, neurotic loser with a crush on the girl you knew in high school that led you to witness her parents' murders! Meet your wacky new roommates:
    • Mike, spoiled-rotten Manipulative Bastard with an insanely overprotective mother who disciplines him and his siblings with a torture chamber and is getting engaged to a Bond villain.
    • Roger, zany Cloudcuckoolander who really just wants to hold on to a vestige of sanity with the knowledge that he's barely keeping himself from turning half-coyote as part of the family curse that caused his mother to go feral when he was a child.
    • Margaret, that cute girl from high school, who has a heart of gold despite her absurdly large gun collection and comically violent personality due to her parents being murdered in front of her with a bomb she only escaped to scare you away, and recurring nightmares of her post-apocalyptic role as bearer of the Antichrist.
    • Marsha, the hottest girl in your year, even if she can be adorably obsessive about certain things, like her cooking or her high school boyfriends, all of whom she's violently assaulted.
    • April, Only Sane Man, despite the fact that she has an imaginary friend and she's trying to leave her life in the circus behind, especially since she's a few letters away from a clown....
    • And that's the start of freshman year. It Got Worse. Much worse.
  • Lampshaded in this guest comic by John Campbell for Questionable Content.
    Female character: Hey guys, which female character am I? Am I the one with the crippling psychological problems
    Caption: That's all of them do you get it
  • Avalon starts off as a bit of a nonsensical slice-of-life story following normal teenagers with normal problems. As the series went on, their issues became even deeper. Much, much deeper.
  • Does eveyone besides Sarah have serious issues in El Goonish Shive or is it all of them?
    • Sarah is normal. Elliot is mostly, except for the gender bending. Otherwise, his folks are normal and loving. Everyone else, though, is screwed.
  • Las Lindas is arguably an example. Mora is a selfish, ungrateful and oftentimes bratty Jerk Ass who had everything in her life literally given to her and has a tendency to not appreciate what she has until she fears she'll lose it, Miles is a shallow, unrepentent lech who recently played Taffy's emotions like a fiddle and cruelly dumped her for a trivial reason and was recently made seemingly mentally retarded by a spell, Idward is so hopelessly obsessed with Mora that he borders on Stalker With A Crush, Racheal lives in constant fear of losing Sarah or something otherwise happening to her and despises Mora for how she never had to work for her good life, Taffy is still dealing with the emotional trauma of the aforementioned dumping,Sarah is so childishly innocent and naive that she often doesn't realize the consequences of her actions until its too late, Minos is currently struggling to balance his feelings for Mora and Racheal without hurting either one's feelings and is heavily implied to have once served the Emperor , and its heavily implied Alej's one-sided rivalry with Mora is in part due to a case of self doubt. The only characters who seem to have little to no problems are Randall and Digit. Of course, one of the main themes of Las Lindas is Character Development, so take that as you will.
    • As of the end of the latest arc, Mora seems to be determined to tone down her ungrateful and Jerk Ass tendencies.

Web Original
  • The Binder of Shame by Al Bruno III details possibly embellished accounts of many play sessions with a bunch of socially inept, insane and/or horrible people. The cast, given Meaningful Names to protect the author, includes:
  • Played rather straight in the Whateley Universe, where the main characters have all just been turned into mutants and had their bodies do bizarre, unnatural things. Some of them have been rejected by family for it. (One was an abused child to start with. Another died, came back the opposite gender, and discovered his/her family tree was full of monsters, including at least one still-living one of the human sort.) That's without going into those secondary characters who were genuinely Blessed With Suck in the powers lottery, or the issues some members of the school staff are carrying around with them...

Western Animation
  • Avatar The Last Airbender: The entire point of the Beach Episode was to get the four dysfunctional teenaged villains together and spill their guts about their personal issues ala The Breakfast Club. Or maybe that was just an excuse to provide us with Fanservice. The teenaged heroes aren't much better off, but being main characters, they handle it with more grace.
    • Although Azula takes her issues perfectly in stride until the finale, at which point she has a psychotic breakdown, turning into The Caligula and hallucinating that her Missing Mom is talking to her- and violently attacking the hallucination upon being told "I love you".
      • Technically she first moved into Dysfunction Junction at the end of the Boiling Rock when for the very first time since she was introduced, she lost it in a serious way.
  • Teen Titans: Most of it in the manual (and by manual, we mean original comic book). Raven's is the only one which gets any detail, though. Cyborg's, Beast Boy's, and Robin's are only implied through dialogue and visual cues. Starfire seem to be the only one with a normal past until the episode "Go" which retcons it into her tragic comic book origin.
    • Robin's has a pretty obvious traumatic past as he was raised by Batman.
  • In Transformers Animated, nearly every character with a backstory is tragic. Optimus lost his friend Elita (now Blackarachnia) to giant monster spiders and was thrown out of the Elite Guard despite being qualified for the rank of Prime, Ratchet has PTSD from the Great War, and more specifically having to mindwipe Arcee to save her from Lockdown, Blackarachnia was turned into a half-organic freak because of said monster spiders, Bumblebee was taken out of the running for Elite Guard training because of something that wasn't his fault and also wound up getting the innocent Wasp arrested for treachery and Bulkhead was mercilessly teased for his size and clumsiness during boot camp, and Prowl saw his master die before his eyes, with his last words admonishing him for his attempts to save his life.
    • In fact, the fates of Elita and Arcee led the writers to promise that they would make at least one female character without a tragic past during the second season. Unless you count being cloned from Starscream as tragic.
  • This trope is a defining feature of The Venture Brothers, where every major character and most of the minor ones are profoundly damaged.
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