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The Woobie
alt title(s): Woobie
All together now: Awwwwwwwwwwww.

A woobie (named for a child's security blanket) is that character you want to give a big hug, wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when he suffers so very beautifully. Woobification of a character is a curious, audience-driven phenomenon, divorced almost entirely from the character's canonical morality, as witnessed by the woobification of Lex Luthor on Smallville.

The Woobie's appeal lies in how it allows the audience to experience catharsis. The Greek philosopher Aristotle proposed that tragedy is popular because it allows people to experience and let out their negative emotions, "cleansing" themselves. The Woobie is popular for this same reason. A story with The Woobie allows the audience to vicariously experience relief from some pain by fantasizing about relieving The Woobie's pain. (No, not that way! Well, Okay, sometimes.)

Woobification can tie into a disturbing hurt/comfort dynamic, in which fans enjoy seeing the Woobie tortured, if only for the chance to wish the hurt away. This is often made manifest in the curious form of the Hurt Comfort Fic.

A properly executed Woobie inspires deep fannish devotion. A poorly executed Woobie earns scoffing and mockery, perhaps at the same time. The difference between the Woobie and such Sickeningly Sweet characters as the Littlest Cancer Patient is that the audience actually finds the Woobie compelling rather than pathetic. Where you draw the line is sometimes a matter of opinion.

Sometimes a Woobie goes Omnicidal Maniac and seeks to destroy the world in a bid to make the pain stop, in which case you're dealing with a Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds. Sometimes it's possible to bring such a woobie back from the edge, but other times, only his or her destruction in a Shoot The Dog moment will stop things, and is usually a Tear Jerker when done well.

See Jones The Cat and Troubled But Cute. In anime, The Woobie makes up a large part of Moe Moe characters. Part of their appeal can come from them constantly striving against their chains. Can be taken to the point of Break The Cutie.

Contrast the Chew Toy. If in your opinion the character desperately needs to die, that's likely The Kimberly. Should not ever be confused with Butt Monkey. A Butt Monkey is essentially a Pollyanna that is constantly abused. A woobie is a character who gets tortured badly and sometimes even cries and complains about their situation.

Not to be confused with a species of hairy bipedal humanoids that inhabit the planet Kashyyyk.

Examples

Anime
  • Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, who (among other things) suffers The Last Temptation despite not being the main character of the series. Many of the most popular Moe Moe characters of the series are Woobies.
    • Furthermore, the second season gives every single member of the antagonists a Woobie moment, especially when we find out the reason behind their supposedly evil actions.
  • Digimon Tamers: 10 year-old Jeri Katou, originally the Plucky Comic Relief/Love Interest, is one of the only humans to have her Digimon permanently destroyed, by watching him be impaled and eaten by Beelzemon. She is then kidnapped by a modern day Cosmic Horror, and psychically tortured for several weeks so her angst and unhappiness fuels up said Cosmic Horror.
    • Ruki Makino/Rika Nonaka, also from Digimon Tamers, is a lesser one once you explore her character. Abandonment issues from her Father walking out on her mother, her Mom's more interested in her career and oblivious to her needs in the beginning, thus leading her to pushing people away until it's almost too late. Plus, there was the villainous suitor Ice Devimon, who tried to kill Rika's partner Renamon to "earn" Rika (and wasn't above putting her friends in his frozen 'trophy case,' either.) In the post-series movie, she's possessed by a super-parasite and goes on to attack the main protagonist Takato on her birthday. Is there a trope for bad things occurring on ironic dates?
    • Ikuto, from Digimon Savers, also is given some of the woobie treatment. First, his foster mother is killed right in front of him. Then his friend, Gotsumon, deems him a traitor (because he's human) and tries to kill him. Next, he meets his real father, who wants no part of him at first as he might bring back some serious emotional issues his mother suffered from. Once he does meet his mother, she's arrested. Then an entire fleet of digimon, headed by Gotsumon, declares war on Earth unless he's turned over to be executed. After that, his foster father is killed right in front of him, and suffers quite a bit while it happens. Hell, that's not even taking in his whole identity complex either.
    • Another character that fits this trope perfectly is Ken from Digimon Adventure 02. His eventual rise and redemption are all the better for the hell that the second half of the series puts him through.
      • There's also Takeru. Dealing with all of the trauma of parents splitting at age 8, his Aloof Big Brother being all moody and unpleasant, and watching Patamon die (sure, Patamon gets better, but seriously an eight-year-old having to watch a close friend die for his sake and originally not knowing he'd come back?). Sure, he seems to handle it well and seems like a Cheerful Child afterwards. But his moments of scary anger in the second season do show how deeply those traumas have a hold on him. Not quite as bad as Ken, true, but still very much a fit for the trope.
    • Gatomon (aka Tailmon) has also had it rough: separated from the others while still and egg and spending most of her youth alone, she was eventually taken under the wing of Myotismon, whose name is synonymous with Bad Boss. She spent a lot of time being beaten and tortured simply for her 'defiant eyes.' She eventually leaves Myotismon, but there's a high price: her only close friend, Wizardmon, is killed by Myotismon for turning as well.
  • Everyone in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even Rei Ayanami, despite the author's intentions, has acquired a distinct woobie status among fans. So has the penguin, and believe it or not, even the last soul-possessing Humongous Mecha.
  • In Gurren Lagann Viral is for some strange reason this due to his infamous Villain Decay, though mostly to fangirls. After the timeskip and his Heel Face Turn he became just outright awesome. Then near the end his vision in the Lotus Eater Machine is him playing with a wife and daughter he'll never have. He mentions before being freed that he was just "dreaming a sweet dream." Cue tears from the entire fandom.
  • Almost every character in Elfen Lied, with utter emphasis placed on the diclonius. And they're Superpowered Woobies, to bout. Nana easily wins top prize, since she won't kill anyone, even in self-defense.
  • Sylphiel in The Slayers. When we first meet her, it's clear she's infatuated with Gourry, whose density can outmatch lead and thus doesn't notice it at all. She's also a delicate, shy young woman who seems incapable of raising her voice, in stark contrast to Lina. By the end of the series, her hometown has been wiped off the map unintentionally by the Big Bad, and her father killed. She reappears in Slayers NEXT when the group returns to her hometown of Sairagg, which has been rebuilt and repopulated by the imprisoned souls of its dead population via the new Big Bad's power. She gets a reunion with her father, before the entire town is, again, killed off (or returned to being dead, whichever). Furthermore, any hopes of a romance with Gourry are smashed by his last second realization of love for Lina. While some fans decried her being replaced in role by Filia in the third season, this editor thinks that it was probably merciful, as it prevents the writers from making her life any worse.
    • There's also a bit of this attached to Amelia, though in a far more disturbing, Stuffed Into The Fridge sort of way; due to the fact that she's energetic, optimistic, cute, chaste, and all around endearing, the production staff use her quite a bit in order to convince us that the villains are indeed villainous. A particularly chilling example is The Hellmaster ripping out her soul while she writhes in pain in her friend's arms. Rather than just be revolting, however, it makes you want to leap to her defense and give her a big protective hug, or that's the intention anyway. When this is done twice in three episodes, it feels a little forced.
    • Zelgadiss. Apart from his curse angst, social troubles, self confidence seesaw etc., he also suffers from the Worf effect — if Zelgadiss starts BLEEDING you know you're in deep trouble.
  • Several CLAMP characters have risen to Woobie status within their own series, most notably Subaru Sumeragi of Tokyo Babylon and later X1999, and more recently Fay from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, who shares The Multiverse with just about every other Woobie CLAMP has created.
  • Parodied in Excel Saga. One episode features a subplot about a 7-year old girl who, after being orphaned and have various unpleasant things happen to her, was picked up by a mysterious organization and trained to be an unthinking, unfeeling assassin. In the climax of the episode, all this prompts an emotional breakdown so severe that the Great Will of the Macrocosm (a character who is literally a multi-purpose Deus Ex Machina) re-writes reality to give her a normal, happy life.
  • Chiyo-chan in Azumanga Daioh most definitely qualifies. Fans don't want to admit it, but they enjoy cooing over her being tortured by Yukari's driving, getting abused relentlessly in gym class, and being teased for her youth by most of her friends. Osaka also has elements of this, though most of her distress comes from her own spaciness.
    • Sakaki also counts, thanks to her social awkwardness and constant bad luck with the cats she obsesses over. The only problem in her case is that most other characters think she's an aloof and cool badass, even though she's really just shy.
      • Kaorin may also count, due to her unrequited crush on Sakaki, who is totally oblivious. Then Kimura gets fixated on Kaorin, and the poor girl's life really becomes an emotional roller-coaster.
      • If you transilate Osaka's first image song into english, her woobie levels go waayyy up, since she's basically singing about how she realizes she's a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, but is unable to do anything to fix it.
  • It can be argued that the title character of Naruto is subject to a form of Woobiefication, mostly for the hard life he was able to overcome at the start of the series. At least, that's the only explanation this editor can think of for the sheer number of Fix Fics that give him a better start on life.
    • There's also Rock Lee, who is unable to perform anything other than martial abilities, trains night and day even when his arm and leg are crushed by Gaara and yet still manages to lose 99% of the fights he's in.
    • Gaara is even more the woobie. Let's see... his mother died giving birth to him, he's been shunned by everyone for the demon inside him (which causes him to have to stay awake lest it come to the surface while he sleeps), his own father sealed the demon in him and later tried to have him killed because he was too dangerous, the only person who seemed to love him turned out to have resented him and died trying to assassinate him, unlike Naruto he never had people give positive validation to his life... Woobie, woobie, woobie.
  • Sabato-chan from Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan is a parody of The Woobie in that every scene involving her usually ends with her being ridiculously destitute and suffering enormous injury (though, this is NOTHING compared to what the main character/Chew Toy Sakura has to go through on a regular basis).
  • Lieutenant Nemu Kurotsuchi from Bleach being the daughter/creation of ruthless and sadistic Mad Scientist Mayuri Kurotsuchi, who regularly abuses and humiliates her for little to no reason. To make matters worse, look what Arrancar, Syazel Aporro Grantz, does to her... (Kinda ironic that later, her seiyuu went on to voice a character that would execute a Rape The Dog act, the Yandere Nena from Gundam 00).
    • Let's also look at Momo Hinamori, the lieutenant whose obsession with her captain (Aizen) eventually led to her near-death and coma. Her lack of briefing on the matter has led her to believe that the one responsible (Aizen again) is thoroughly innocent. This is subjective, however; where some fans see a victim of circumstance and mass hypnosis, others see a gullible Scrappy. Who seems to be NOT so gullible anymore, having joined the other Shinigamis as they go against Aizen
    • According to the Official Bootleg, Lieutenant Kira Izuru is like this, being described to be extremely down after being left by his captain. In one 'recruitment fair', in regards to his squad's recruitment, Renji states that it's recommended for those who 'just want to help Kira' to join the 3rd Division. Woobie-ness to the max, indeed! (and even Hinamori seems to be recovering better than Kira, according to that bootleg...)
    • And don't forget Hanatarou Yamada, the small, clumsy, kind-hearted 4th Division healer (and everyone's janitor) who's picked on by just about everyone, even (to some extent) his own squad. All of which led to him getting a bit of a crush on Rukia while she was on death row, just because she was nice to him.
  • Kotonoha Katsura is more-or-less deemed as the only School Days character that actually deserves a bit of pity, despite the Idiot Plot and all. She was cheated on by her "boyfriend" and their "Cyrano", bullied by a semi-Libby and her Girl Posse, raped by a Stalker With A Crush, coldly dumped by the "boyfriend" the day after that... and that causes her to go on a killing spree. What else do you want?
  • Mitarai Kiyoshi/Seaman from Yu Yu Hakusho was bullied to the point of physical and mental torture by his classmates, watched the infamous Chapter Black tape (featuring the most horrendous acts performed by humans) thanks a guy who said he was the Messiah, was given special powers that involved cutting himself and using his own blood to create monsters...
  • Arguably, considering her past, Rider from Fate Stay Night would count. In her past, she is the constant target of her sisters' bullying, just because she is mortal and they're immortal. And then, the Jerkass Greek Gods screwed her over, creating the image of a monster out of her. Then in a rage, she killed her sisters, only to later consider them dearest memories, and was ultimately killed by Perseus (well she is after all Medusa). After she got summoned, things didn't get better. Her rightful mistress, who was a powerful magi on her own accord, surrendered her to her incompetent brother, who is like her killer, but much more pathetic. This resulted in her power being decreased dramatically, she was constantly raped by the brother in question, and she always became the first Servant to be eliminated... Unless it's the Heaven's Feel scenario, where she finally gets her good dose of justice. But then again, it's the least publicized route (Fate route got animated, Unlimited Blade Works had a manga version, and they're both translated). Therefore, fans with less knowledge would always consider her a weak, mediocre Servant, and an evil one, while in truth, she's just constantly tortured. Isn't it sad, Rider?
    • There are those who find Shirou a Woobie too — not just in-story but externally, considering the really excessive fan hate he's attracted.
  • Dororo from Keroro Gunsou is very much The Woobie. Ask any fangirl.
  • Akito Tenkawa, ship's cook. Orphaned? Check. Doomed Hometown razed right in front of him as he was trying to rescue a little girl? Check. Press-ganged into military service and later almost-assuredly lethal test piloting? Check. BFF with The Obi Wan? Check. On the plus side, his sheer Woobieness apparently makes him irresistible to women.
    • After the series and before The Movie, of course, things get much, much, much worse. Somehow, this makes the guy a lot less sympathetic.
    • As a demonstration of rather arbitrary contrast in portrayal within the same show, Jun Aoi is more of a Butt Monkey or Chew Toy.
  • Allen Walker from D.Gray Man has his parents abandon him because of his freakish left arm, his adoptive father dies twice, his teacher racks up debts of astronomical proportions and forces him to work to pay off said depts (keep in mind he's about elementary school age around that time); yet he still manages to stay one of the nicest characters in the entire series.
  • Misuzu from AIR obtains a certain level of woobie-ness in the last few episodes of the series, when she finally gets overcome by her curse and, after a lot of pain, dies beautifully in the arms of her adoptive mother.
  • Toboe in Wolf's Rain gets bullied a lot by the other wolves, particularly Tsume. This is partly because Tsume's just that way, but also because as the smallest and youngest Toboe is the pack omega (which means he also acts realistically as peacemaker between Tsume and Kiba). Before joining Kiba's pack he befriended a young human but accidentally killed her pet bird, then dropped his human disguise, causing her to regard him as an evil monster. It is later revealed that before that he was owned by an old woman, until he accidentally killed her. In spite of all this Toboe never becomes bitter or cynical, and has his own Crowning Moment Of Awesome when he manages to fight and kill a huge walrus that had defeated the other wolves (or three crowning moments, if you also count both of his attempts to save the life of Quent, the wolf hunter, the second of which failed and cost both of them their lives).
  • Maria in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, quite deliberately.
  • Mikuru in Suzumiya Haruhi slides between this and the Chew Toy, depending on the viewer's humor. In fact, the reason Haruhi constantly molests her is probably because she knows it will make people pity her, and up her Moe Moe-appeal.
    • A genuine woobie is Yuki Nagato, actually. Starting at and especially in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.
  • Kenzo Tenma and Nina Fortner in Monster. By the time you're halfway through the series, you're not hoping that Johan gets a bullet through his head so much as you're just praying to God that both of those two come out of it all alive, safe, and sane.
  • Nunnally Lamperouge from Code Geass. At the age of six or seven or so, she's crippled when her home is attacked by supposed terrorists. She is struck by forty-odd pieces of shrapnel, costing her the use of her legs, and witnesses the death of her mother, who then collapses on top of her. This psychological trauma renders her blind. She and her brother Lelouch (who is about nine at this point) are then sent to Japan to be political hostages, where they are both frequently bullied for being Britannian. They are then abandoned and left to die when Britannia declares war on Japan. It gets worse once we move on from the backstory to the actual series. Despite all this, Nunnally maintains to cheerfully smile for those around her, seemingly willfully ignoring her brother's slow descent into darkness.
    • Her brother Lelouch, the show's protagonist, could also qualify, seeing as the universe (or at least the writers) seem to love kicking him when he's down. Or up. Or anywhere in the middle. Whether he's The Woobie or this is merely karmic justice for an arrogant, selfish Jerkass depends mostly on whether you like him or not.
    • We also have Shirley Fenette. She finally works up the courage to ask her classmate and crush Lelouch on a date, and later that day she learns her dad was an innocent civilian killed by collateral damage from the Well Intentioned Extremist Zero's guerrilla war. Then she learns that Lelouch may have a connection to the Black Knights, Zero's terrorist organization. She secretly follows him and finds out her beloved "Lulu" is none other than Zero himself. Before she confronts him about it, she gets mind-raped by Geass-user Mao into almost killing Lelouch, and to undo the psychological trauma she's suffered, her crush erases all of her memories about him, hoping to protect her from himself. Despite believing him to be a complete stranger the next time she meets him, she gradually falls in love with him again over the next year, and just when they officially become more than friends, someone from Zero's past shows up and restores all of her lost memories. She spends the next episode struggling to figure out what's really going on, eventually comes to terms with her feelings, realizes how lonely Lelouch is under his mask, decides she wants to be with him no matter what sins he's committed... and is promptly murdered by someone loyal to Lelouch.
    • A bit more on Nunnally: over the course of the series she is kidnapped, rigged to a bomb, goes through the tragic death of her beloved half-sister Euphemia, kidnapped again, kept in the dark about her brother for well over a year, forcibly taken away from him once they meet, forced into a position of power in a war zone, nearly killed in a nuclear explosion, and subjected to More Than Mind Control by another half-sibling. She eventually decides to make herself the focus of the world's hatred and die with Lelouch to bring about world peace, and ends up screaming over Lelouch's corpse just after he dies in the course of the exact same plan only using him as a scapegoat. It's also revealed that her blindness is the result of deliberate Mind Rape by her father after her uncle decided to kill her mother out of jealousy. Put quite simply, not a single good thing ever happens to her. Everything about this character indicates a tortured, lonely existence struggling to put on a smile for the sake of those around her.
    • There's also C.C., especially after her mind is reverted to when she was a 10-year-old slave before she got the power of Geass. Every scene she was in, This Troper felt like hugging her, especially when Lelouch hits her and she says that she usually gets much worse.
    • And then there's Kallen. Where to begin? Born the illegitimate child of a Brittanian aristocrat and his Japanese servant, she was unable to publicly acknowledge hew mother's existence and was powerless to prevent her step-mother from abusing her real mother. Moreover, she was even forced to pretend that her mother's abuser was her real mother. Then, her brother is killed fighting for the resistance, and she is forced to take up arms to avenge his death. However, despite being an extremely talented Humongous Mecha Knightmare pilot, she is never quite able to live up to her brothers reputation in the minds of her comrades. Her devotion to her cause ultimatly lands her in a Brittanian military prison, where she is nearly drugged by Suzaku and threatened with rape by Bradley. Additionally, her Bodyguard Crush of Lelouch may or may not have been requited, but the whole Zero: Requiem thing basically made it impossible for them to be together.
    • Hell, let's just say the half the main cast can fall under this trope, and assume that Word Of God has a fetish for torturing his characters.
  • Takeshi in Gantz, of all series. Let's review: He's a toddler who lives with a neglectful mother and her abusive boyfriend in a rundown apartment. Said abusive boyfriend beats him to death just for eating his pudding while his mother does nothing to stop him. If that wasn't enough, he gets teleported into the Gantz room upon his death and forced to play a game of kill or be killed where people constantly die in the worst way possible by things that previously only existed in his nightmares, thus ensuring that he'll never grow up to be a normal, productive member of society.
    • That last is a bit debatable. Being taken to the Gantz room is arguably the best thing that could have happened to him, since, despite all the terror and fighting, it's there he meets MUSCLE RIDER! As long as he and Kaze both make it through the series intact, there's actually quite a good chance of him growing up happy.
    • Despite the general tone, Gantz actually has quite a few woobies in it, especially Kei Kishimoto and Reika (both suffering a sever case of unrequited love- Kishimoto died to protect Katou and Reika gave up her chance to be free of the Gantz game in order to allow Kurono to go free). But it's Kurono's girlfriend Tae Kojima who romps home with the prize, especially at the parts where she dies in Kurono's arms while trying to protect him -when he was fighting to protect her- and when she's crying over the love for Kurono that she lost when her memory was reset without even knowing why. Such is the power of Tae's woobie-ness that it even rubs off on Jerkass Kurono himself!
  • Quatre Raberba Winner from Gundam Wing qualifies, and thanks to fanon (and his Broken Hero backstory as a Street Urchin) so does Duo Maxwell.
  • Fushigi Yuugi has a lot of these. Miaka, Yui, Chiriko, Suboshi for the villain fans... it's hard to know where to start.
  • There are quite a few characters in Mahou Sensei Negima who fall into this, but the most extreme example is Ako. First off, she was apparently rejected by the boy she liked before the beginning of the story, has enormous self-consciousness issues about the scar on her back, has a nervous breakdown during her Day In The Limelight chapter, and after she and her friends accidentally get dragged into the magic world with Negi, she contracts a nasty disease, forcing her and her two friends to sell themselves into slavery to buy a cure. But what really cemented her woobie status is the fact that her motivation for overcoming all of her previous troubles is her love for a certain boy. Who, unbeknownst to her is actually her ten-year-old teacher after being magically aged up. Everyone around her knows about it and they are currently scrambling for a way to resolve the issue, and have gone as far as to considering faking grown-Negi's tragic and soap-oriented death and having their love live on in Ako's heart. Yeah.
  • Erstin Ho from Mai-Otome just can't catch a break. First, she's assaulted by a tentacle monster during swim class. Later, she's trapped in the woods as her survival equipment gives out, and then bitten by a snake with little hope of recovery...and then ends up Taking The Bullet for Arika when someone tries to kill her. It finally culminates with Erstin being revealed as a Mole for Schwarz (though she really doesn't want to hurt anyone), since it runs in the Ho family, and ultimately dying when Nina accidentally slices through her Slave.
  • Hellsing's Seras Victoria, at least up through the seventh volume of the manga, just goes through one bad day after another. You know a girl's going to have it rough when she dies before the first chapter is even finished. By the end of the seventh volume, she's been repeatedly berated by Alucard for her weaknesses, repeatedly impaled with holy bayonets, been dismembered and blinded, was mindraped (in which she relived the murder of her parents and getting shot by the killers) and was forced to drink the blood of one of the only decent people she knew. Fortunately, that last bit had some....side effects.
  • The main cast of Princess Tutu has elements of this. Fakir might be the most tragic example, considering his powers lead to the accidental death of his parents, and the girl he loves is really a duck—and unable to return to her girl form at the end of the series. Rue has a dark, sad backstory as well but she's often not as popular with fans—sometimes because they thing she needs to get over it, and sometimes because she got Mytho instead of Ahiru.
  • Chrono in Chrono Crusade goes through hardship after hardship, both emotional and physical, including the death of one love interest and the impending death of his partner—thanks to a debilitating injury which leads him to have to drain away her soul to use his powers. Azmaria and/or Joshua may count as well, depending on who you ask.
  • Some fans of DN Angel feel this way towards Satoshi, and the series does seem to set him up this way sometimes—particularly his assertion that he can't let anyone close to him for fear that his Superpowered Evil Side will harm them.
  • A large, large amount of the cast of Fruits Basket (particularly in the manga). Even Akito, and virtually every trope that applies to him/her tends to lean towards the negative side. Almost everyone has Back Story, and almost all of it is tragic.
  • Kagura Tennouzou from Speed Grapher. In her introductory episode we learn that Kagura's mother Shinsen, the wealthiest woman in the city, starves her own daughter out of jealousy. It gets worse.
  • Both Ukyo and Shampoo from Ranma 1/2 fit this trope. Especially Ukyo. This only counts in the anime, since their manga versions come across as FAR less sympathetic.
    • Ranma himself fits this trope far better than they do. Taken from his mother before he can walk, he spends his entire life in sadistic training - including having to literally fight for every bite of food or starve - and being taken away from every friend he manages to get, making it all but impossible for him to pick up any social skills. At age ten due to the "Cat-Fist" training technique he is tortured into insanity by his father, picking up a debilitating psychosis. Then he gets a gender-changing curse (not only bad on the self-image and gender identity fronts, imagine what it means to a martial artist, who is trained to intimately know his own body, to suddenly have that body change) and right after that a bloodthirsty assassin chases him across Asia. When he gets to the storyline proper, he gets a "fiancee" who (in the manga) beats him into the hospital at least three times, gets more people trying to kill him, and get reunited with his long-lost mother - who promptly threatens to behead him if he is "unmanly" (and since he changes gender uncontrollably ... eep). Ranma may not be a nice person, but he tries to be most of the time, which is more than most of his supporting cast can say. And no one can say his life has not sucked the big one.
      • Your Mileage May Vary. This Troper found herself increasingly irritated with Ranma since she thought he often was a hypocrite in regards to his curse, never seemed to learn his lesson about not being a cocky Jerk Ass when it came to martial arts, and also treated the aforementioned tsundere fiancée like crap 90% of times (and the Double Standard coming from the Fan Dumb didn't help either).
    • Mousse managed this as far as some of the other characters were concerned, when his despair at a particularly brutal rejection by Shampoo brought a large crowd of total strangers to tears. Even Ranma and Akane, who were viciously attacked by Mousse minutes before, admitted that they couldn't help feeling bad for him.
    • Let's be honest: 90% of the cast of Ranma 1/2 have really crappy lives and childhoods. However, most of them are also complete assholes. This leads to a weird situation where any given fan will make one character The Woobie and be completely forgiving or dismissive of their negative traits while utterly despising another character that has the same mix of sympathy and sociopathy.
  • Tails gets a few of these moments during Sonic X, not least when he spends roughly twenty minutes or so angsting about letting Sonic and Knuckles get hurt during a pretty awful attack.
    • While the Sonic X ball is in play, Cosmo has to be the most woobified Sonic character to ever exist in any medium, having gone through so much (death of her entire family and destruction of her home leaving her the last remaining member of her species, spending months trying to deal with the ever complex bonds of Defeat Means Friendship in the Sonic crew, plus the fact that she later discovers she's been used as a spy for the Metarex all along and the only solution is to either kick Metarex butt -a nigh impossible task- or destroy her vision and hearing) it's no wonder she has so many tearing up scenes.
  • Ranka Lee from Macross Frontier. Even devoted fans of Sheryl in the series' Love Triangle find Ranka's many, many difficulties sad and heartbreaking.
  • Many characters from Zatch Bell fit this trope. The title character has no memories of his previous experience in the mamodo world (Makai) and is the son of the world's previous king and has a twin brother who hates him. His partner is a genius who starts the series out disliked by everyone, although he eventually becomes a popular student. There's Sherry Belmont, who has to battle against her best friend who was brainwashed by a mamodo. And of course the lovable losers that everyone likes to root for, Parco Folgore and Kanchome. Even Folgore gets a tragic past in the manga where it's revealed that his parents disowned him and he used to be a ruffian before becoming a pop star.
  • Akira Sakura from Narutaru. Extremely shy and depressed as a result of being sexually abused by her father, she has nightmares while wide awake, gets bullied at school, witnesses gruesome deaths, is kidnapped and held hostage by a dangerous highschooler, gets her head messed with by creepy sociopaths... and the list goes on and on, so someone give this girl a hug already. Hiro-chan qualifies, too. Poor thing.
    • For that matter, Shiina by the end of the manga probably counts, too...
  • Grave Of The Fireflies. Sweet Merciful Christ, Grave of the Fireflies. What happens to Seita and Setsuko would even make Joss Whedon go, "Damn, that's just harsh."
  • Yoite from Nabari No Ou.
  • Yuka/Yuuka in Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. Abused as a child? Check. Bullied by her schoolmates? Check. Emotional and physical scars? Check. Needlessly adorable, withdrawn, tries to stay strong for her family, and even rides a protective older brother-lion? Check, check, check. When driven to the brink, writes a "Farewell, cruel world" letter? Oh, check.
  • The Berserk universe is rough on pretty much everyone, but Guts and Casca, the Star Crossed Lovers of the series, have it especially bad. Guts may act like a Jerkass on occasion, and his Superpowered Evil Side has resulted in at least one What The Hell Hero moment, but with his horrible past as a child mercenary and the way the Godhand and the demons just won't leave him alone after the Eclipse due to the Brand of Sacrifice on his neck, you gotta feel sorry for him. And Casca, if anything, has it even worse after the Eclipse, what with being driven insane after her violation during the Eclipse by her former commander turned demonic god, having the child that she and Guts made together corrupted by the experience, and having to deal with Guts's Superpowered Evil Side on top of it. The universe has it out for them for sure, and is bound and determined to ensure that the two of them never find happiness.
    • And Rosine, the Big Bad of the Lost Children arc, also qualifies in a big way, what with the horrible home situation that drove her to become an Apostle, and her yearning for elves to be real. Though she and her "children" commit a number of acts that should make her cross the Moral Event Horizon into Complete Monster territory like many of Berserk's other villains, she comes across instead as a misguided, emotionally damaged little girl who just wanted a little happiness that she couldn't find at home. It's made even sadder by the fact that Guts has to kill her to keep her from hurting anyone else, and the fact that all Apostles go to hell when they die. Irrevocably.
  • Any symphathetic character in the anime, Texhnolyze, but the main character Ichise may be the worst though. A young orphan raised in the nightmarish city of Lux, who personally witnessed both of his parents' deaths, he starts out in the story as a participant in a brutal underground fight club, with the only renmant of his family being a vial that contains his mother's DNA. Eventually, after refusing to subject of the sadistic demands of his patron's woman, he gets an arm and a leg brutally amputated and spends nearly an entire episode pathetically struggling to survive (unsuccessfully). He is saved from death by a doctor who forces him to undergo a texhnolyzation procedure, giving him new cybernetic limbs at the expense of his sanity. As things start to look up for Ichise, he meets and forms possibly his only emotional relationship in the story with a Oracular Urchin (and fellow woobie) Ran, who eventually prophesizes that he will cause the end of the world, has an emotional breakdown, and leaves him. Eventually, as nearly every character either becomes assimilated by a texhnolyzed army and just goes batshit insane, Ichise is forced to kill and/or witness the deaths of every person he knew (including Ran) and proves her prophesy right by killing the main villain, which in turn, causes the end of civilization. The anime ends with Ichise sending Ran's corpse off to the afterlife, and slowly dying, alone and broken. Pretty buoyant, huh!
  • This Troper has found himself wanting to just hug Lucky Star's Kagami on several occasions, particularly at the end of the class trip episode.
  • Sho Marufuji of Yu-Gi-Oh GX; being nearly killed by your Aloof Big Brother and dumped by your Big Brother Mentor will do that to a guy.
    • Fubuki Tenjoin should also qualify for Woobie status, having been possessed by a Cosmic Horror that was originally summoned by his best friend who he can't remember, returned to find that he's been gone for two years and...this is only what happens before the series actually starts. It Got Worse. Somehow, after all of that, he's still one of the more well-adjusted characters in the entire series.
  • Anyone who is even remotely sympathetic in Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, but especially Satoko Houjou, who slides between a Bratty Half Pint and a Woobie who is abused by her uncle. This troper dies a little inside every time she watches her break down in the classroom.
  • Enma Ai from Jigoku Shoujo. This troper would die trying to protect her if he got a chance.
    • You'd have a fight on your hands. Many others would die trying to protect people from her...
  • Makoto Konno from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Go on - watch her cry and not want to give her a big ol' hug, I dare ya!
  • Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. The hugging part wouldn't even do much good seeing as he's a giant metal suit of armor for 99.9% of the series.
  • The unfortunate Joe Asakura in Gatchaman is a tough, jaded and heavily scarred version of this. Though to be fair, everyone on the team has their moments of being this, especially Ken and Jinpei. Even Katse could be seen as one given hir unfortunate fate.
  • Oscar, Andre and Rosalie in Rose Of Versailles, though several others in the main cast and a few secondaries/bit characters fit this as well.
  • Hinako Aikawa suffered excessive sexual abuse from her stepfather that had gotten her pregnant twice before the age of 15. This troper was hooked on Bitter Virgin primarily because he wanted to see her be happy at the end.
    • And even then, the main characters' hyper negativity makes them skeptical that they'll be able to stay together forever, so it's hard to determine if the ending was really that happy...
  • Zero Kiryu from Vampire Knight gets the razor sharp end of a burning stick so many times, that the author must seriously get huge amounts of glee from torturing him. He's one of those rare characters that has justified angst. Nearly his whole family was brutally murdered before his eyes, creating a deep resentment towards vampires within him. Then that attacker bit him, dooming him to eventually become that which he hated most. He then spends the next years of his life slowly warming up to Yuki, the main female protagonist, who he has an unrequited love for (since she's in love with her brother (but not really), Kaname), which is pretty bad for an already angsty character. Of course, that's not bad enough, so there'll naturally be The Reveal where his twin brother survived that attack, but then willingly joined the murderer of their family out of jealousy of his brother. Oh, and Zero's also descending into madness because of his bite, so in spite of his wishes, he has to drink the blood of his murderer and Kaname, whom he also hates, to save himself. He then finds out Kaname is planning to manipulate him to free himself, and is only keeping him alive because of this and his friendship towards Yuki, basically making the guy feel even more crappy about himself. Wait, this is long, but we're not finished yet. He's then imprisoned by the Hunter organization for simply being a Vampire, despite his service to them. His aforementioned brother then goes to him and essentially kills himself in front of him (that's all his family dying in front of him now), and shoots him so that Zero will have to eat his flesh and blood. Then he finds out the only person he's ever come to care for is a vampire too. Sheesh, are we done torturing the guy yet? (The answer is no, by the way)
  • Kanou Taisuke of Alive The Final Evolution is a prime example. A happy-go-lucky individual, it turns out the reason he has superpowers is because He feels guilt over his parents' death. They died in a car accident, apparently caused by a drink can under the brakes. Before he left the car, he was drinking orange juice, left it on the divider between seats, and only saw it later in a plastic bag being taken away by police. Being a grade schooler, he attributed this to be entirely his fault. This troper wanted to cry.
  • Vash the Stampede from Trigun. Aside from being officially classified as a natural disaster, his name is generally feared and he's treated like crap throughout much of the series. A good day for him is one on which he doesn't get shot at. And that's before we start to learn his backstory.
  • Pokemon: Chimchar. Just...Chimchar. Watch the Tag Battle episodes and "Tears for Fears". This troper dares you not to cry.

Comic Books
  • Charlie Brown, of Peanuts fame. His failures are innumerable, his struggles immeasurable, and his determination unflappable. Young fans would send Valentines Cards and Halloween candy to CBS when they saw that he never received either, in an attempt to demonstrate their love for him.
    • This troper could not watch Peanuts because of the sheer pain it caused him when the poor bastard got screwed yet again at the end of every episode. Hate you,Status Quo Is God,hate.
    • Woodstock also is often bullied by Snoopy. Come to think of it, Snoopy has his moments as well.
  • Barbara Gordon's teddy bear is gonna have to give up the title. Babs herself was humiliated and crippled by the Joker just to torture her dad. Later she was sort-of reborn as Oracle, the best hacker in the world, but lots of her fans still aren't pleased.
    • Her successor, Cassandra Cain, if anything, surpasses her. Training From Hell (to the point of shooting her until she learned to get out of the way) in isolation from human language, made all the more horrifying by starting from birth and only ending when she ran away at about eight, would be more than enough. The kicker is that has yet to fully grasp on an emotional level that her upbringing was that bad aside from the killing thing (which was what prompted her to bolt).
    • Jim Gordon's a pretty solid contender, too. Not one, but two murdered wives, and, as above, his daughter being crippled to torture him, all from being the commissioner in a city with exactly one clean cop who's since left the force, one Lovable Traitor on the police force, and a few trustworthy vigilantes against...well. His daughter's shared in most of this, and wins by being the one shot, but this is not a fortunate man.
  • Spider-Man is the Unlucky Everydude king. He alternates between Woobie and The Chew Toy as Peter Parker, especially during his high school days. More recently, there's the problems his dual identity causes with his wife, and then there was the time he got turned into a grotesque spider-critter by a villain and then impregnated. Then, the greater angst like losing Gwen Stacy, or Aunt May's "death", or her being shot more recently, or the aftermath of the Clone Saga (infant daughter kidnapped, never to be seen again. Writers don't always agree on whether she's alive or not, but do agree that aging the character by adding a kid won't do. So worse in a way than a certain death is that Peter will never, ever know what happened to his daughter, who may be out there somewhere and just as likely may not. He gets to live the parent's worst nightmare for the rest of the foreseeable future.)
  • Wolverine's had a rough day, too. Memory lost, what he does know isn't good, has had nearly all his love interests Stuffed Into The Fridge (oh, wait, there was the one who turned herself into a killer cyborg to go after him because she blames him for her father's death) and as his Healing Factor results in plenty of Good Thing You Can Heal, he's suffered more physical punishment than any ten heroes put together (though Claire Bennet is catching up.) And then there's his berserker rage, which is perhaps the only thing that he's truly afraid of - early on, he had to be physically restrained to avoid hurting his teammates on multiple occasions, and it's by no means gone, just under better control... for now.
    • The backstory of his Opposite Sex Clone X-23 seems tailor made to outdo his. Created from samples stolen from the Weapon-X project and reared as an Assassin-for-rent? Bad. 'Disiplined' by an invulnerable sadist? Worse. One of the highest ranking people at said project (the head of surgery to be exact) is the son of the guy who died swiping the original tissue samples and tends to take it out on her? Downright ugly. Chemically induced/scent-based Unstoppable Rage used to compel her to kill the only two people in that place who treated her like a human being (one of whom, the head of genetics at the project, gave birth to her and contributed her own D.N.A. to get a viable embryo... in short, HER MOTHER)? Just Plain Fucked Up. Did I mention that this all happened by the time she hit thirteen (as opposed to Wolvie spreading his problems over a solid century plus)? No wonder Wolverine had to talk her out of a Murder/Suicide, despite his willingness to die at her hands for his own sins.
  • Although he may be considered unsympathetic at times, this troper always considered Monroe from Mad's recurring feature of the same name kind of a woobie.
  • Empowered is the titular woobie of her series. In the first book, her boyfriend as much remarks that it's his desire to comfort her (as well as "Tap that @$$") that attracts him to her. And oh, boy, does she ever need to be comforted; pretty much every day of her life is a blur of pain, failure, humiliation, and body-image issues, and that's just what's going on now.
  • When Rorschach isn't being a complete Badass or incredibly disturbing, he's one of these, due to his traumatic past and incredible amount of mental problems.
  • Even Deadpool can be subjected to this. His mother died of cancer when he was five, his father was possibly killed by a drunk in a bar fight, his wife was killed by a crazy mercenary, he joined Weapon X because they promised to make him a superpowered hero and cure his cancer (most likely the same cancer that killed his mother), but instead was thrown in the reject pile and experimented on by a mad scientist, begain to wish for death so strongly that he ended up having a love affair with the anthropomorphic personification of Death, and when he stood up to the bully bodyguard Ajax the guy got back at him by torturing one of his friends to death and then killing him. Then his healing factor activated which allowed him to defeat Ajax and save everyone, but also caused him to be seperated from his lover Death and suffer sever brain damage that screws up his memories and he's also horribly scarred from the cancer. During the series, he gets attacked by the guy who killed his wife, who now claims that he is Wade Wilson and Deadpool was the mercenary who killed his wife, and Deadpool can't refute his claims because his memories are so messed up, when he tries to stop killing people and become a hero he's forced to kill Ajax to save the spirits of his old friends from Weapon X, then he's recruted to save the world by killing a being who stands in the way of the prophesied savior, but the savior "saves" the human race by sapping them of free will so he ends up killing the thing to save the world the whole time wondering if he's doing the right thing. And that's not even getting into Cable and Deadpool, which admittedly does make things a bit better for him, but seriously, the guy can't catch a break. Of course, this is subverted a bit because he's sensible enough not to angst about it all the time, but still.

Film
  • Harry Osborn from the Spider-Man films, son of Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin. Harry's in the comics, too, but woobification seems to have eluded him there: not only is he portrayed, prior to his death, as an abusive husband and father, occasional drug addict, and all-around nasty piece of work (albeit not entirely unsympathetically), he's also drawn to look significantly less attractive than James Franco.
  • Private Jones, of ''28DaysLater''. Endeared to the viewer by wide-eyed hopefulness, youth and- most importantly of all- the ability to play scullery maid to a base full of soldiers, on less than quality rations whilst wearing a frilly pink apron. Talked out of suicide by officer-and-a-gentleman Major West, he goes on to cook, clean and generally be utterly endearing. He narrowly escapes a mauling by the zombie in the yard, by hiding in a cabinet — also looking like he's about to cry — and when he ventures out of his hiding place, he's impaled with a bayonet by the very human Jim. Soft-hearted women and slashers in the audience go into spasms of grief. The final straw that sends Major West straight through 'irritated' into 'Roaring Rampage Of Revenge'. Rare instance of a survival horror woobie.
    • Of course, the woobie factor of Private Jones is pretty much evaporated just before he dies, as he didn't seem to have a problem with the soldiers executing Jim, and he also wasn't trying to stop the other soldiers from trying to rape the women.
    • Jim, if anything, is an even bigger woobie. He wakes up all alone and naked in an Abandoned Hospital and things continue to go downhill for him from there. He finds his home city is completely wiped out, gets chased by the raging infected loons, is mistreated by Selena, finds that his parents commited suicide, gets attacked and chased by the infected some more, is forced to kill an infected child and almost forced to do the same to Frank, and then almost killed by West's depraved soldiers who are about to rape Hannah and Selena. After all of this abuse, it's not suprisin