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Behind that innocent face lies a sad, twisted life.
"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
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.
This trope often goes hand and hand with There Are No Therapists.
Examples:
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- 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Comic Books
- 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!)
- 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.
- It's not exactly dwelt on in the new comics, so its 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 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.
- 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 from Preacher. His family is the very definition of dysfunctional.
- Pretty much everyone in Eagle Vs Shark, from the possibly-autistic Jared, cripplingly-shy Lily, Jared's family still scarred by his brother's suicide...
- Everyone in The Royal Tenenbaums.
- 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.
- 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...
- There are a lot of messed up or incredibly depressed characters in Warrior Cats, but mostly in the third series. Examples:
Live Action TV
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 who isn't really 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 borne; 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 Mila 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-17 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!"
- 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.
- 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".
- 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.
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.
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