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"In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed." — William Ernest Henley, ''Invictus''
You've always thrown everything you could at me! Well I can take it! And now I can give it back! — Zuko, Avatar: The Last Airbender
A Woobie is a character who you like to feel sorry for. They don't need to deserve your pity and can in fact be quite nasty people, even downright evil. Then there is the Iron Woobie. An Iron Woobie is a character who has something noble about his Woobie nature. Maybe they became a Woobie of their own free will from a Heroic Sacrifice for the sake of The Power of Friendship. Maybe just their passive powers of endurance show a Heroic Spirit. But in any case there is something about their Woobie nature that you admire.
Sometimes an Iron Woobie is also a Determinator. But that is not necessary. The chief difference is that a Determinator is such because of his objective whereas an Iron Woobie can be someone who just bears up gamely to things that happen to him for no particular reason that he can see, or because Being Good Sucks and they don't want to take the easy route of Evil Feels Good. Or his Woobie nature can be the result of an objective already obtained. Moreover a Determinator does not have to be a Woobie, iron or not. But the combination is neither unknown nor unnatural.
When his sufferings spring from his heroism, also the Hurting Hero.
Contrast Martyr Without A Cause and Angst What Angst, and compare the more snarky Knight In Sour Armor. See also Don't You Dare Pity Me and Stoic Woobie. Compare/contrast Badass Angster.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The titular character of Kimba the White Lion. Look at him. He's a cute little white lion cub. Guess what? His parents both manage to die in the first episode. Guess what else? He's the hero, he's the only character other than Roger Ranger to freaking DO ANYTHING USEFUL MORE THAN ONCE, and, in the 1989 dub, he has Light Yagami's voice actor.
- Kenshiro from Fist Of The North Star would be so much happier if he thought for himself more, but as the man himself says:
- And lest we forget Rei, Toki, and Shuu.
- Half the appeal of Dr. Kenzo Tenma isn't that his universe seems completely dedicated to eviscerating his spirit — it's that his universe seems completely dedicated to eviscerating his spirit, and yet he still won't break.
- Ed Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist has had terrible luck ever since his father abandoned him, his younger brother and mother, but refuses to give up or give in to despair.
- Every military character, especially the ones that involved in Ishball massacre and living to repay it. Except Briggs brigades, they're just plain, pure, undiluted Bad Ass.
- Alphonse is a literal Iron Woobie and the poster boy for this trope. When you have to choose between a proper but weak body (which he had chased for years) and an unstable, but strong body that enables you to fight properly, do you have the balls to choose the strong but unstable body? Al had those balls.
- In fact, almost all of the heroes and antiheroes qualify. Heck, you could probably rename the series (or the trope, for that matter) "Fullmetal Woobie" and have done with it.
- In Darker Than Black Havoc goes the long way from Person Of Mass Destruction to depowered amnesiac to The Woobie to Iron Woobie — for extra head-spin, it's covered in but two episodes mostly not dedicated to her:
Promise me one thing, though. If... If I revert back to my former self, kill me right away.
- Ako in Mahou Sensei Negima is a gigantic Woobie who considers herself to be a side character in someone else's life. See her article on the Woobie page for details. Even after all that, she pulls through and decides 'Well screw it, I may not be important but I can still help' and proceeds to semi-knowingly offer herself into a situation where she can be raped and murdered if anyone wants to. And not out of despair. Hell, it's practically lampshaded at the end of her second day in the limelight, chapter 245.
- Given all the crap that they've gone through, both Negi and Asuna also qualify.
- Pretty much every primary character in One Piece is a Woobie on one level or another. However, a large part of the manga's theme is overcoming these past tragedies. So every One Piece Woobie also doubles as an Iron Woobie.
- Princess Vivi is probably the most extreme case. She sacrifices years of her life and presumably has done horrible things to protect her country, and is reminded time and again that she is not strong enough to win and fails to stop her countrymen from killing each other in a pointless war several times, and still doesn't give up.
- The titular Naruto.
- Rock Lee also fits this.
- Hinata, once Naruto helps to instill the "Iron" part in her.
- Gaara after his Heel Face Turn.
- Hayate tends to be strong and optimistic dispite the misfortunes he has.
- Jacuzzi Splot: Shy. Introverted. Meek. Wimpy. Crybaby. Wiped out seventeen Mafia fronts with a machine gun in retaliation for the deaths of his Nakama. Almost goes up empty-handed against a guy with a flamethrower, and offers himself as a hostage to a psychopath who catches bullets with a crescent wrench, in order to save friends.
- Blue and Silver have Woobie aspects of their own, but they make their own way in life well enough to qualify them for this. Both were abducted at a very young age by the Mask of Ice as part of his special program (Silver was 5 when Blue decided to make a break for it), and the two of them have literally been on their own in a world that doesn't understand them. Blue had to act as the big sister via Snake Oil Salesman so they could get by up until they met with Red and Gold, respectively - things would have ended worse for them otherwise. Blue was finally psyched to meet her parents after eleven years of being apart, only for them to get sucked into a spatial anomaly, mounting a rescue op from which they are forcibly parted to intercept Giovanni, and, to top it all off, turned to stone before the fateful encounter - Oak even told his assistant to not have them look her way for fear of trauma. Silver doesn't get off easy, either - in addition to being petrified alongside Blue, he is assailed by the Three Beasts of Team Rocket to make him a suitable heir to Giovanni, who turns out to be his real father, and he breaks down before said petrification upon realizing that the Rocket Don allowed himself to be burned to save Silver's life. While they may not need a hug at this stage in their lives, by all means they are entitled to one.
- Don't forget Blue ended up with a crippling fear of birds that stemmed from being kidnapped from Ho-oh, and knowing what a weakness it was, she tackled in headfirst by going on a quest to capture the three legendary birds and sic 'em on Karen and Will, who were having too much fun trying to Mind Rape her with this very phobia.
- Kosukegawa Hideo has become one in a big way. 98-pound weakling? Check. Unapologetic otaku? Check. Willing to put himself on the line against combat-trained opponents when his friends are in danger, including some who definitely qualify as Ax Crazy? You bet.
- Battler Ushiromiya, from Umineko No Naku Koro Ni. Coming to grips with the fact that someone in his family is a murderer and learning upsetting details about everyone's pasts in what is frequently an unpleasant fashion may lead him to break down mentally, but he always comes back in true Determinator fashion.
- Also his little sister, Ange, who even decides to go back in tiem to prevent a Bad Future despite knowing that her personal Hell won't change. In at least one arc, she also ends up dying.
- As of the seventh arc, Eva, of all people, is this. Killing her sister-in-law as punishment for the other's crimes and then outting on a Jerk Ass Facade in front of said woman's kid so the child won't know the truth is more than enough.
- Let's see, from Inuyasha we have the titular character himself, Sango, Kohaku... Heck, pretty much every character in the series falls into this at some point or another, and most for darn good reasons.
- Filicia Heidemann from Sora No Woto is a Shell Shocked Veteran who maintains a cheerful facade and keeps her Bad Dreams at bay by focusing on making sure no one else goes through what she had to experience.
- Seras of Hellsing.
- Guts of Berserk.
- Viral from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Angel from Angel Beats.
- Allen Walker of D Gray Man.
- Killy from Blame. Well, he's actually vice-versa; a Badass who has a woobie side.
- Ichise from Texhnolyze.
- Lain Iwakura from Serial Experiments Lain.
- Tetsunosuke of Peacemaker Kurogane.
- Joe "The Condor" Asakura from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.
- Touma of To Aru Majutsu No Index qualifies after losing all of his memories saving Index from Laser Guided Amnesia and then carrying on, keeping this a secret from everybody. He also continues to help anyone who needs it, even though most confrontations lead to him being hospitalized. evens his wins. Plus, his Imagine Breaker negates his own luck, so he is perpetually unlucky to boot.
- Takaya aka Tekkaman Blade of... Tekkaman Blade.
- Utena of Revolutionary Girl Utena.
- Gareki from Karneval.
- The Five Man Band of Saint Seiya, alongside their Plucky Girl leaderess Athena, waver between this and Martyr Without A Cause.
- Pegasus Seiya is The Scrappy most of the time, but when he does show kindness and compassion instead of just going Idiot Hero, even his detractors want to hug him. And when he cries (like when he learns Shaina's true feelings for him in the worst way ever, or during Cassios's Alas Poor Villain death, it's hard to not cry with him.
Comic Books
- Empowered. Seriously, just Empowered. After the events in volume one alone, most people would have given up on superheroing for good. Emp's five volumes in and counting. Pain, humiliation, mortal terror, repeated failure, and the constant verbal abuse of her teammates do not stop her. It's either noble dedication or the worst case of Chronic Hero Syndrome I've ever seen. She could walk away at any time. No one would blame her. She doesn't. She never will. She's the poster girl for this trope, and anyone who says otherwise hasn't read the comic.
- Dara Brighton from The Sword
- Cassie Hack.
- Spider-Man takes more crap, deals with more tragedy, blames himself for his his shortcomings, and gets less credit than almost any other A-list superhero, all while constantly taking immense beatings by going up against threats way beyond his power level, but he never lets it break his spirit.
Film
- George Bailey of Its A Wonderful Life is, perhaps, the ultimate example.
- Harold Abrahams in Chariots Of Fire.
- Also Eric Liddel considering how he died in a Japanese prison camp in real life. In the movie though he was generally cheerful.
- He was cheerful (not to mention remarkably kind and helpful) in real life, too. And his fellow prisoners loved him for it.
- Dr. Daniel Schreber of Dark City
- The hero of The Karate Kid. Few have such a knack for suffering.
- A common form of Action Hero.
- Noted for contrast is the aversion, Ebenezzer Scrooge. He was a Woobie who deserved to be a Woobie . The example is given to point out what an Iron Woobie would not be like.
- Barney Coopersmith from My Blue Heaven. Despite the fact that his wife left him for another man, Barney is an FBI agent, and although he seems geeky (he was portrayed by Rick Moranis), Barney seems quite badass with a gun.
- Tony Stark. And boy, does he fulfill the "iron" requirement!
- In To Hell and Back Audie Murphy plays himself as one. And given how little credit he was willing to take for his real life heroic actions it would appear that he might be a Real Life example as well.
- Tom Bardo from Stuck. The man loses his job, his home, gets hit by a car and spends most of the film in complete agony. But he still manages to be astonishingly resourceful and determined for a man in his situation. Iron indeed.
Literature
- Danny Saunders from The Chosen. He was a Hassidic Rebbe's son and an incredibly gifted young scholar. His father actually shunned him as a form of Training From Hell (his father did not like doing it, which gives him as well some qualifications as a Well Intentioned Extremist Iron Woobie once one gets past Values Dissonance).
- Frodo and Sam from The Lord Of The Rings, of the "Determinator with a mission"-kind.
- Acheron from Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series.
- Actually, any of the Dark Hunters in the series, since some horrible situation in life ultimately causes them to become protectors of the human race.
- Jean Paget in A Town Like Alice. Even when being marched by the Japanese with a party of women through the jungles of Malaya she always kept her spirits up.
- Jesus Christ.
- Harry Dresden. The entire universe hates him, but he still keeps saving it, usually making bad jokes at the same time.
- Mister Nutt, from Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals. Extremely shy, highly intelligent but socially awkward, living wanting nothing else from life than to have worth, and can break bones and throw men twice his size around with minimal effort.
- King Verence of Lancre is the perpetual Butt Monkey of the Disc, but he always does his job to the best of his ability, no matter if that job is being a fool and advisor to his king, an enlightened king to his people; or a good husband to Magrat.
- Bob Crachit in A Christmas Carol who despite his seemingly endless hardship and sorrow still manages to maintain a positive attitude and fierce loyalty to his employer (who treats him like crap). Even after the death of Tiny Tim he's thankful for the time they had together, and even more thankful for the rest of his family.
- In Wen Spencer's Endless Blue, Mikhail suffers, and long has, from depression. He nevertheless plays The Stoic until those rare conditions that manage to break him. When his foster brother Turk apparently dies, he conscientiously locks away his gun and gives away his vodkha, to prevent Drowning My Sorrows and Driven To Suicide — at least until he gets his crew to safety.
- Tycho Celchu is a Woobie in universe. He was an Alderaanian flying for the Empire who had been placing a call to his family there on his birthday when Alderaan was destroyed. He fought for the Rebel Alliance and was kidnapped and tortured by Isard, but never broke. When he was released the Alliance was suspicious of him, thinking that he'd turned into one of Isard's Manchurian Agents, and he was put under all kinds of restrictions. His old CO Wedge Antilles still trusted him absolutely and relied on him, even giving him roles in secret plans. Then someone who was suspicious of him died in suspicious circumstances, and he was put on trial with a mountain of evidence set against him. Everyone but Wedge, or nearly everyone, thought he was a traitor, wittingly or not, and even Wedge had a moment of doubt. So how did Tycho bear up with this? Stoically, and with an endless reserve of patience. Before Isard got him he was a hothead and impulsive - after that, he was subdued, haunted, and his nobility was laid bare.
"I put up with it because I must. Enduring it is the only way I can be allowed to fight back against the Empire. If I were to walk away from the Rebellion, if I were to sit the war out, I would have surrendered to the fear of what Ysanne Isard might, might, have done to me. Without firing a shot she would have made me as dead as Alderaan, and I won't allow that. There's nothing in what I have to live with on a daily basis that isn't a thousand times easier than what I survived at the hands of the Empire. Until the Empire is dead, I can never truly be free because I'll always be under suspicion. Living with minor restrictions now means someday no one has to fear me."
- The titular character of the Antryg Windrose Chronicles, by Barbara Hambly, winds up going through fifteen kinds of hell at the hands of the good guys as well as the bad guys. He's been traumatized enough to go completely insane - and his insanity gives him the ability to sustain hope even when such is unrealistic - leading to such Crowning Moments of Awesome as gaining secret control of the prison where he is being tortured, not that that makes the torture hurt any less, and dealing with everyone throughout courteously and cheerfully...
- Niall from Wicked Lovely, oh so much so. He gave himself to the Dark Court, and we all know what that meant, to save a few mortals (who died anyway.) He managed to escape from them, becoming one of the Summer Court's most trusted advisors. Oh, but then, well, Shit happened. He would have every reason in the world to be all angsty and depressed, but he very rarely does, or at least not visibly. He's a "survivor", as Leslie put it.
- Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.
- With all the crap that the Baudelaire siblings endure one would think they'd be broken about ten times over by now. While they may come close they always manage to continue on and survive in some epic way by sticking together through the hard times.
- The titular Harry Potter.
- And let us not forget Neville Longbottom, whose tragic past is revealed in books four and five, and who then goes on to become the fandom's resident Memetic Badass in book seven.
- Not to mention Severus Snape, who willingly chooses his "sentence" as Harry's protector and Dumbledore's spy in order to honor his only friend. He's a Woobie, but he's a Hardass Woobie any soldier would want in his foxhole.
- Jaime "Kingslayer" Lannister from A Song Of Ice And Fire has been branded with a terrible reputation after murdering King Aerys, and given his actions towards Bran early in the series most people marked him down as a standard villain and did away with it. In the second and third books, however, he gets a Sympathetic POV, backstory revealing his motivations (as it turned out, Aerys had plans to burn the entire city down, killing the entire population so that Robert's victory would be a hollow one, and Jaime's great shame saved hundreds of thousands of lives,) and a growing relationship with Brienne, who is an Iron Woobie in and of herself. Then the Bloody Mummers cut off his hand... oh yeah, this boy's a Woobie, all right.
- Speaking of Brienne: she's a freakishly large and ugly woman who, since she could never be a proper lady, became a female knight. In a time and place where she is the only female warrior. She's constantly belittled and humiliated by other characters, most of whom are disgusted by her at best. Even Catelyn Stark takes a while to stop being repulsed and start pitying her.
- Marshal-General Atkins, from John C Wright's Golden Oecumene is the only warrior in a society that has forgotten the meaning of war or violence. He is regarded as an anachronism at best, a needless expense at worst. The only inkling the reader gets of his woobie nature is a brief Not So Stoic outburst after a dose of Amnesiac Dissonance.
- Despite having endured events that would have broken lesser peoples the princesses of The Princess Series refuse to give in to despair or anger(mostly). They have even managed to find some happiness and sense of family with each other.
Live Action TV
- Jack Bauer. If he weren't such a Badass he would've killed himself by now.
- Not so sure he qualifies as a Woobie at all.
- Mr. Spock from Star Trek. He is perfectly willing to sacrifice himself for others. He will also stand by his principles even when he expects that Kirk, Mc Coy, or his parents will hate him for it.
- Simon Tam of Firefly. As most here know, he willingly sacrificed his happiness and privileged position to save his sister. How "iron" can a Woobie get?
- John Locke from Lost. I am Woobie, don't tell me what I can't do!
- Sayid, too, especially in the Flashforwards in Season 4, after his wife was killed.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Life screws her over royally approximately every 4th episode, but she just keeps going. In fact, most Buffyverse characters are this trope.
- The Brothers Winchester, Dean in particular. While prone to bouts of mega-Wangst, his determination to help others and to keep fighting the good fight is noble and admirable. And the loyalty he and Sam have to each other is touching at the same time that it's disturbingly dysfunctional.
- Castiel too. He's losing his powers and everything he ever had because he rebelled from Heaven, but he did it to save humanity, because it was the right thing to do.
- Heroes: Edgar, a new Season 4 character, is an interesting case—he kills people with his super-speed/weapon accuracy abilities, but he has said that he does not actually want to do it—and then Samuel started to Force-choke him. He has emotions, remorse, and feelings for people, but still does bad things rather coldly.
- Baldric, Edmund Blackadder's hapless manservant in the British comedy series Blackadder. Not very bright, but always cheerful, no matter how much his sarcastic master abused him.
- Cameron, who is almost a literal Iron Woobie. Well, she's a Coltan Woobie, at least.
- Veronica Mars. No person should go through as much crap as she does, and the majority of people would have some kind of breakdown - but no. She'll move on with a plan and a quip, and try and help people.
- Chloe Sullivan qualifies, particularly following season eight... You know what? It's easier just to watch it than explain it. But she still manages to be perky and upbeat despite what she's gone through. Must be something about those perky blonde girls...
- Daniel Jackson, particularly in the later seasons. To avoid Walls Of Text, I won't list all the horrible things that happen to him. He's still usually the most idealistic character. Somehow.
- Jack O'Neill, Sam Carter, and Teal'c could also have Walls Of Text about the bad things that happen to them, but they keep on with their awesomeness.
- There is a very big Iron Woobie in the Doctor Who episode The Beast Below.
- The Doctor himself can be one of these. He just wants to travel and see everything, but every time he does, people die, and horrible things happen, and all he can do is save the few survivors. And even then, he doesn't always get to do that. And he's been doing this for a very, very long time.
- This is lampshaded at the end of the episode, when the Doctor is told that the reason he couldn't understand what the beast was doing was that he'd never seen an Iron Woobie from the outside.
- Rory. Rory, Rory, Rory. For two thousand years.
- Kira Nerys of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
Music
Tabletop Games
- The Wizened Seeming in Changeling The Lost all share one trait in common: in Arcadia, they were tortured. For no reason that any of them can remember. It was something that The Fair Folk did to pass the time. When they got tired of it, they tossed the changeling aside, handed them one tool or another and said, "Get to work." The ones that got back home after that are this trope. It's said that one of them can give an Autumn Court changeling (someone who focuses on the emotion of fear) a lifetime's worth of material to work with just by describing what he went through.
- That's also ALL changelings.
- The god Ilmater from the Dungeons And Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms (the god of suffering) and his followers.
Theater
Video Games
- Max Payne talks a lot about how bad his life is, yet he manages to keep his emotions in check through and through. And kill lots of people.
- Maya Fey of the Ace Attorney games is incredibly chipper for someone has endured the brutal murders of both her mother and her sister, being kidnapped and nearly starved to death, and being framed for murder multiple times. This particularly surfaces in the last case of the third game, where nearly every biological member of the Fey clan shows off their credentials as part of a Badass Family.
- Every Ace Attorney assistant is one in their own right, but Maya's got more canon to her awesome resilience.
- Shadow The Hedgehog is either this or a Badass Angster. It all depends on who you ask.
- The Boss from Metal Gear Solid, despite being an antagonist in the game that features her. She spent her entire adult life fighting for her country, had her newborn son taken by the Philosophers, was ordered to kill her lover, and after pretending to defect to the Soviet Union for a mission, was set up to die at the hands of her protege/surrogate son and be forever remembered as a traitor to the country she died for.
- Not to mention Solid Snake! Undeniably badass? For sure. And what he goes through in MGS 4...
- Just seeing what he went through in that game made the entire thing a Tear Jerker.
- Shirou and Archer in Fate Stay Night. Archer may be a badass longcoat and memetic badass number one, but who would actually want to be him? Even Shirou pities him.
- Selvaria Bles from Valkyria Chronicles. It's hard not to feel sorry at the way she willingly put herself through hell (and later sacrifices herself) for a man who doesn't care about her - and she probably knows it. And even so, the way she faces her fate with pride and keeps leading her soldiers to the bitter end makes her very admirable. Even in her final defeat, all she asks of the Fat Bastard who came to take her as a prize and steal Squad 7's merits is that he spares her men...
- Gorath from Betrayal At Krondor - most of his suffering is the result of his own difficult decisions, which he keeps making afterwards without complaint.
- Take Marona from Phantom Brave. Now take all the hate, and loathing directed at her; and take Ash away. That's Carona. Willing to be considered a villain, willing to save the world anyway. Willing to train the people she's being forced to bring into a trap so that they're strong enough to break out of it. Willing to go back to her world even though Marona and Ash would have welcomed her in theirs and she refused to take Ash with her when Marona offered.
- Zero from Mega Man X puts up with a lot of crap in the series. He was created to be a Person Of Mass Destruction by being powered by The Virus, killed innocent reploids before being taken down and restored as a good guy (and has nightmares about it), died once, had to kill his girlfriend in self-defense, and had to fight his best friend before more-or-less discovering he was created to kill said best friend. And yet despite all the horrible things that happen in his life, he moves forward with such determination and honor you just want to give the guy a cuddle.
- This is perhaps why he seems to get on so well with the other Iron Woobie in the series, Ciel from Mega Man Zero. A human born in Neo Arcadia, she cloned the great Reploid hero as a kid with the intent to bring peace and unity only for said Reploid to become a despotic tyrant to her horror, was exiled from her home for being willing to speak up for the Reploids, forced to lead a Resistance and fight despite being an Actual Pacifist, endured betrayals from the Resistance's most trusted advisor, slaved herself day in and day out to create a new energy source that would make both sides prosperous enough to not need the conflict even as her friends went out and risked death (and sometimes found it) - and when she finally manages to create one, the Big Bad strikes and everything ''really'' goes to hell. And yet, with all that, this perfectly unpowered human in a world of superpowered robots only breaks once - after Zero's poignant Heroic Sacrifice at the end of 4.
- This is the defining trait of Frog in Chrono Trigger. He is cursed by appearing like a frog, but he still handles himself in a noble manner.
- Ramza from Final Fantasy Tactics. Sure, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. So get the whips and chains ready, because he's going to do good anyway.
- Ethan Mars from Heavy Rain. The man goes through hell, all to save his son from a serial killer.
- Timothy Pike from Dark Fall: The Journal is level-headed, affable, and helpful despite his unpleasant past and horrifying present.
- Iji woke up after losing nearly everything. Whether she "breaks" or not is up to the player.
- Garrus Vakarian from Mass Effect, particularly in the sequel.
- Hell, Shepard can be this if s/he has been characterized properly. First off, s/he loses his/her parents to Batarian slavers at a young age. Next, s/he sees his/her entire squad get wiped out on Akuze, leaving him/her as the sole survivor. Following this, s/he possibly lets his/her love interest die on Virmire so as to continue the mission. It only gets worse in Mass Effect 2. Shepard starts the game off by dying. Next, after being rebuilt by Cerberus, and forced to work with them, despite the fact that they killed his/her squad on Akuze s/he learns that most of his/her squad has deserted from one another to follow their own paths, once again leaving Shepard alone. Later in the game, s/he is mercilessly chewed out by one of his former squadmates for working for Cerberus, despite the fact that they essentially saved him/her. Finally, s/he can see most of his/her squad die in the final mission, including his/her next love interest. And yet, s/he soldiers on.
- Knight Templar Samara, whose goal in life is to kill Complete Monster Morinth, her murder-addicted daughter. When she finally accomplishes the goal, she stoically mourns the fact that she just had to kill "the bravest and smartest of her daughters".
- Farseer Nobundo, and here's why.
- Link from The Legend Of Zelda franchise.
- Dear god, Gulcasa. Abandoned by his mother and brutally abused by his father as a child. All that did was give him a drive to be stronger and a powerful sense of justice. After seventeen years of life in the slums, he and his friends rise up to fix everything that's wrong with their country. In the canon ending to this venture, his best friend is dead, he's had to kill his mother and the patron that betrayed him, a number of his friends have abandoned him and he'll never see them again, and the main source of his power is so dangerous and unstable that it occasionally makes him deathly ill and risks killing him. This is not enough to break him. Instead, he just declares that he's going to end the entire world's suffering now that he's saved Bronquia. Three years later, in Yggdra Union, he sets out to do it. Things go very badly. His current best friend dies, as do all the people close to him, one by one. And as much as he'd like to protect them personally, he can't, because that unstable power that can make him deathly ill just has. Because the Royal Army picks right then to invade his country, all his remaining friends and family, along with a number of civilians, stand up to defend him, and they're all cut down in swift succession. You can see how badly it hurts him, but this is not enough to break him. Even once everyone he ever loved is either dead or estranged to him, he decides that he's going to save his country even if it means literally killing himself to do it. When Yggdra stops him from unknowingly causing The End Of The World As We Know It by trying, he accepts his defeat gracefully and entrusts her with the fate of the continent, dying without an ounce of bitterness. Damn.
- The main character of Dragon Quest V. No other character in the entire series compares to him. Where to even begin. His father is murdered right in front of him as a child. He lives as a slave for the next ten years constructing an icon of blasphemy. He and his wife are turned to stone for another seven years, mere days after his twin children are born. They get seperated during this, and she does not get unpetrified until well after he is. And as probably the biggest Player Punch in the entire series, his mother, who he and his father had been searching for the entire game, is murdered right in front of him just minutes after he'd finally found her. If that's not an Iron Woobie, I don't know what is.
- Ayane from Dead Or Alive qualifies. She was born from her biological father, Raidou, raping her mother to get back at one of his enemies, and was hated and mistreated by her village of origin as a result, with the only two that ever treated her well being her friends Hayate and Kasumi, and her adoptive father Genra. And even though she and Kasumi are friends and she's crushing on Hayate, the rest of the village tries to keep her away from them due to associating her with Raidou. Then she finds out from her mother that Kasumi and Hayate are her half siblings, and that while they're treated like ninja royalty, she's outcast because her mother didn't claim her due to the trauma of her birth circumstances. Then Raidou comes back to the village seeking a technique they guarded, and while she's beaten aside easily, Hayate is crippled when she fails to protect him. Kasumi then leaves the village to seek revenge, and Ayane is assigned to kill her for breaking the code of secrecy surrounding the village. And this is all before leaving the backstory! She proceeds to have to face off with both her best friend and her amnesiac love interest when Hayate is brought back by DOATEC as Ein as part of Project Epsilon. Then in the third tournament, she finds out that her adoptive father has been kidnapped by DOATEC and turned into the monstrous bioweapon known as Omega, forcing her to enter the tournament, whereupon she defeats and kills him to set him free of DOATEC's slavery. And past that, with Hayate back as of the fourth game, Kasumi is still marked for death due to Honor Before Reason, and Ayane is still loyally serving her clan to take her down. And through all of this, the only hint of the pain we ever see going through her is a single tear when she's cremating Genra's body after he dies. One really wonders how Tecmo could hurt her worse if the series had gone on.
- If you are not feeling rather sarcastic due to the recent events, then Blaz Blue's answer for Iron Woobie would be Dr. Litchi Faye-Ling. Basically, she is a kind doctor who knew she's slowly being corrupted by the Boundary in exchange of a great power that she uses for fighting and trying to discover a cure for her lover turned Eldritch Abomination. And for that, she even left her previous job as scientist and pretty much endangers herself with a court-martial. Interaction with the townspeople where she resided, townspeople that looked up to her, would make you think that they'll make good moral support for her quest, but she never tells them her situation, which means she's carrying her burden alone. Then, when she sought help from her superior and got refused, the corruption is catching up to her limit, her only option to continue was to join the rival organization, which stores one person that she knew to be a Devil In Plain Sight, and she did so anyway, knowing that her previous organization would do even worse than court-martial from that point on if they ever catch her. And while at first she thought the organization was just 'normal' or better than her previous one, she starts seeing that it is rather... shady and questionable, but she decided to bear all that. In her own words... "I can't go back. Even if I have to sacrifice some of my humanity."
- TIDUS. Say what you will about him, but lady luck was never kind to him throughout his life. Near the end of the game Tidus learns that he doesn't even exist, he's just a dream made real. The Big Bad he needed to kill? If he were to carry it out, he'd be erased from existence. Despite this revelation, Tidus takes at all in stride and commits to killing Sin regardless.
- [[Klonoa]] exists simply for multiple realities to screw him over. And he will bear on to do the right thing without hesitating. The first game is pretty much one giant Break The Cutie aimed squarely at Klonoa's head.
- Metroid's own Samus Aran. The toughest warrior in the galaxy, destroyer of worlds... and everyone she knows and/or cared about dies in front of her. She has been forced by circumstance to wipe out entire species of super-predator (the sole survivor of one died saving her life), and spends most of her time on-screen either wandering the crumbling ruins of the civilization she was raised in and its allies, or hunting down the ones responsible.
Web Comics
Web Original
- Phase, aka Ayla Goodkind, of the Whateley Universe. Fate rounded up everything Phase cared about and crapped all over it. Ayla's family, wealth, position, insularity, you name it. All gone. The butlers and maids and personal chefs. Gone. Body? Gone. Gender? Gone. Identity? Gone. Everything Phase hated? He is all of it, now. Does he give up? No. Goodkinds don't complain, they fix things.
Western Animation
- Another literal example is WALL-E. That little guy's spirit is amazing.
- Raven of Teen Titans.
- Aang of Avatar The Last Airbender.
- A clearer example from the same show is Prince Zuko.
Real Life
- The poor citizens of Cambodia. Decades of war, destruction, and dire poverty under Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime which left two million dead, and the rest of the population starving after roads and locomotives were destroyed during the civil war, and what do you get in response? The impoverished coming up with a new ingenious form of make-shift machines called norries used to transfer them on abandoned rail networks from place to place when vehicles were scarce and land mine victims picking up their lives by crafting homemade wooden limbs. That they managed to persevere in such a crapsack world that is their own homeland makes this both a tearjerker and crowning moment of heartwarming.
- Sylvester McCoy. Never even met his father, as he died in a submarine explosion during World War II, mother had a nervous breakdown and died in an asylum, and yet he manages to put a rather inventive "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" spin on it: saying that as orphan-status increases your need to charm respect and love from others, it makes you who you are as a performer.
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