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"''I'm feeling cranky and pubescent today, and I don't know why! I think I'll take it out on people I like! Grrrr!
Do you have the time To listen to me whine About everything and nothing, all at once?
"You just don't get it, do you!? This self punishment thing! It's too deep for you!! See?! I'm deep now! And that means I do deep stuff! Like this!" ( bangs head against wall) "And THIS!" (bang) "AND THIS!!!" (bang)
— Penance, Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular
Angst can create compelling drama and Character Development when done well; virtually all good works use it to a degree and the appeal of The Woobie is based around it.
But like all other good things, angst can be overdone or clumsily handled. Wangst, a portmanteau of "whiny" (or "wanker," depending on who you ask) and "angst," is essentially angst gone wrong. The intended Woobie becomes a pathetically whiny character who insists on moping (often loudly and repeatedly) about a tragic past or event instead of, you know, trying to deal with it and stop being depressed all the time. Especially if said "trauma" doesn't come across as nearly tragic as the character thinks it is, making his lamentations seem way out of proportion.
However, though Wangst is most frequently associated with characters whining over petty "tragedies", it's not necessarily the scale of the tragedy that the character is reacting to that's the problem, but the way it's handled. Events that would be genuinely devastating in Real Life can become melodramatic Wangst if the sufferer's self-loathing drags on for too long or is used as a plot device so often that it becomes irritating. Likewise, events that the average person wouldn't worry over can be a great way to show a character's unique fears and weaknesses, and maybe even make it clear that he really is blowing it out of proportion and deserves to be mocked. It all boils down to quality and personal tolerance level; what is grating and unrealistic to one viewer can be genuinely heart-rending for another.
There are some points that can be agreed on, though: Giving more than one character sources of angst and then picking one of them to be dramatic about his suffering (bonus points if you choose a character who has less reason for self-pity than others) will not make the audience sympathize with him over the other characters who handle their own troubles with more restraint and dignity. It only makes him look like a self-obsessed jerk. Also, True Art Is Angsty only goes so far — miserable and conflicted characters who are poorly-written are not automatically more interesting than happy, well-adjusted, and well-written ones. Angst/Wangst is not a crutch for drama and Character Development; good characters are defined by factors other than their Dark And Troubled Pasts.
Wangst is a favorite of Emo Teens, Sympathetic Sues, and characters Cursed With Awesome. See also Emo, Narm, Angst Dissonance. Compare Deus Angst Machina, which is about having too many sources of angst for Willing Suspension Of Disbelief rather than too much response to sources of angst. Contrast Angst What Angst.
Important note: the mere fact that a character is sad does not itself indicate Wangst. There are some scenarios even in fiction where it is appropriate for the characters to feel sad and depressed and act accordingly; after all, if the same thing was happening to you in Real Life, chances are you'd be pretty upset as well. Wangst is a problem not because the characters are sad, but because their sadness is poorly-written or inappropriately drawn-out and exaggerated. When including an example, try and establish why the example belongs here. Note also that some Wangst is also played deliberately, usually for humour - plenty of creators see the comic potential in ridiculing the over-angsty.
Examples
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Anime
- Parodied in Samurai Pizza Cats with the character of Lucille, who is easily upset and has missiles in her hair that launch when she's unstable enough. Pretty much anything can make her upset. One episode had Speedy run away in fear when she started whining about the unfairness of it all...because she was upset about her favorite soap being canceled. In this instance, she actually got over it and said it was ridiculous. A brief trip to New York revealed that one of the other branches of the Pizza Cats also had an equivalent to Lucille that had a gun in her hair instead of missiles.
- Chris Thorndyke from Sonic X. Towards the end of the first series he endlessly whined about how Sonic couldn't leave him, because he'd be all alone. He seemed to have forgotten his school friends, his Grandpa, Ella, and Mr Tanaka would still be there. Most of the whining is about his parent not being around 24/7. For pity's sake...his Dad skipped work and his mom ditched the filming of a new Hollywood blockbuster just to visit him, when he was sick, dammit!
- Edward Elric in Full Metal Alchemist would constantly brood over his and his brother Alphonse's situation, (When not busy kicking ass) which made him look whiny in comparison to Al, who was in a worse situation but seemed to take it much better.
- A more obvious example is Roy Mustang in The Movie. He demotes himself, and basically exiles himself up north, because of all the people he killed. Keep in mind that he has come to terms with all the people he killed in the Ishbal massacre well before the series began, and he could have easily atoned in better ways like helping to reform the country instead of running away to the north.
- To be fair, he had fulfilled his ambitions at the end of the anime by killing the Fuhrer, only to have the opportunity to usurp him stripped away with the establishment of a democratic government. It seemed that Roy was taking some time to think about what his new goal in life should be, since his previous one is now impossible. Also, he Gets Better.
- Everyone in Neon Genesis Evangelion has been guilty of this. By End of Evangelion, it's hard to tell who's more fed up with Shinji's Wangst - Misato or the audience.
- For their credit, they all have had pretty damn horrible experiences at the most sensitive age, and most of Shinji's whining happens in internal, rather than external monologue. Unfortunately, the audience is forced to listen it all.
- It must also be pointed out that Shinji's wangsting was completely in character for him, and though it dragged on for the watching audience, the other characters reacted properly - they called him out for it and told him to get over himself. Most wangst becomes wangst because the other characters just let him go on and on and on about it.
- Even though a good portion of the characters truly have traumatic pasts, the anime Inu Yasha reuses and makes references to the characters' plights so many times that it causes it to become forced and unappealing. An example is when dramatic scenes are repeatedly used such as with Kikyo and Inuyasha's supposed betrayal of each other and the massacre of the demon slayers. Granted, this is more often used as Padding.
- Kagome was the epitome of this. Even though all the others have legitimate things to be upset about, she was always the one complaining about how horrible the world has been to her, and how her boyfriend doesn't seem to appreciate her, and won't stop chasing after Kikyou...and she does this crying into a pink stuffed animal at her mom's house while her friends are in mortal danger fighting demons. None of the others even have parents, they were all murdered. This was particularly infuriating because of how Inu Yasha was villainized for his feelings for Kikyou. Even when it came down to life or death, he was still somehow the bad guy because he "hurt Kagome's feelings." The Kikyou situation was clearly harder on him than for Kagome, since it had led to the 50 year death of him and Kikyou, and since Kikyou was simply another iteration of Kagome herself (complete with a piece of her soul). How he was made into the bad guy of that situation, somehow. Kagome was at times ridiculously wangsty.
- Notice that, while overdone, Kagome had a valid reason to angst. Lots of people in the other era sees her less as the normal girl she is and more like the second coming of the Miko Kikyou (which she technically is), therefore Kagome either was seen as a poor Replacement Scrappy for her or a "living Shikon shard detector" (specially Naraku, who is specially good at taunting her with that). Combine this with Kagome having the revived and much more conflicted Kikyou as both her love rival and The Minnesota Fats, and with Inuyasha practically running off towards Kikyou whenever she was mentioned despite Kagome also needing his support (he even lampshades this to himself more than once... but does it anyway despite knowing he shouldn't), and it's just a thing of time before Kagome reaches her limits.
- The later episodes of Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl reach unbearable levels of wangst to the point of viewers wanting to throttle the characters through the TV while screaming "GET OVER IT ALREADY!"
- A sad case of Adaptation Decay. The manga averted this cleanly, mostly because the final chapters of the manga had the dramatic effect of Hazumu's inevitable death for them to grapple with. Which the characters actually handled with impressive courage, maturity, and understanding.
- Similarly, the latter half of the School Days anime becomes a true wangstfest, with the main characters acting irresponsibly and illogically to the extreme. Things would have been better if they would just stop and think from time to time.
- But then we wouldn't have Nice Boat.
- Yuka in Elfen Lied whines constantly about the fact that Kohta doesn't remember the promise he made to her 8 years ago. This is made even worse by the fact that the other characters include two escapees from a twisted research institution, a child sexually abused by her step father, a girl whose mother committed suicide when she was a child and was rendered incontinent by her fathers physical abuse, and the aforementioned Kohta, whose whole family was brutally slaughtered before his eyes. Not to mention that she constantly bitches at Kohta about the fact that he doesn't remember her even though she knows it's the result of posttraumatic amnesia from seeing his sister and father being cut into two in front of him. Basically, Yuka was the only more or less sane person in the whole deal and failed to have true empathy about that.
- Sasuke in Naruto somehow. Granted, anyone would be pretty messed up if you were eight years old and came home from school to find that the older brother you'd loved and idolized your entire life had, with next to no warning, murdered every single member of your extended family, right down to your mom and dad, and then Mind Raped you after telling you that you alone were so pathetic you weren't worth killing. Somehow, though, his angst being justified doesn't make it any less annoying to some people. The really weird thing is that everyone just thinks of him as wangsty, even though post-timeskip he's much more aloof and impassive like his brother. Actually most of this is Inner Monologue, and what he says is more often declaration that he will kill his brother. The low level of tolerance probably stems from his Heel Face Turn, and as backlash for all the people that take it in the opposite direction. The fact that Sasuke is such a polarizing character doesn't help.
- Still, that doesn't explain why Naruto himself doesn't make much of his life. The poor guy was completely alone for about 12-13 years, being looked down at by just about everyone in the village (except for
5 6 people. The 3rd Hokage, The Ramen Shop owner and his daughter, Iruka, Kakashi, and finally Hinata), for a reason no one bothered to explain to him. It's surprising he didn't turn into a Sasuke/Gaara combination. Recently in the manga, he finds out that Jiraiya died, he got kinda mopey for about half a chapter, but gets over it after talking to Iruka in the same chapter.
- This is actually mentioned during the Zabuza arc. Kakashi is talking to Inari and explains Naruto's depressing back story. He theorizes that Naruto eventually decided to stop crying and start doing something.
- Naruto also mentions how based on how similar their past is, Gaara is how Naruto could have turned out. To hammer the idea in, there is a moment where a large blade falls between them allowing them to see the other and the reflection of themselves split down the middle.
- Or just Gaara. Heck, his past is probably an integral part of his punch therapy. Instead of angsting, he's vented by killing people.
- And Shikamaru, who rather then wangsting over the death of his sensei, actually went out and did something (earning a Crowning Moment Of Awesome in the process).
- Now didn't the flashback Naruto have when trying to learn the Rasengan reveal Naruto wasn't as alone as all that? He had taken up being a educational delinquent along side Shikamaru, Choji, and Kiba. Granted this still doesn't come close to excuse Sauske as he was still the self victimizing it boy that the entire village falling over themselves to please.
- The whole village set Sasuke on a pedestal, or feared him, but did nothing for him and kept him at armslength at best. This means that the expectations were high but nobody ever tried to actually treat him like a fellow human being, let alone a friend (until Naruto).
- This turns out to be the entirety of Pein's backstory. A wangsty collection of Freudian Excuse cliches that makes you wanna bang your head against a wall and want Naruto to just kill him.
- The main characters in Nana lead epic and exciting lives that most people would give an arm and a leg for, but they keep dwelling on the (comparatively minor) stuff that does not go right, making for quite a bit of hokey drama - especially the part of one Nana's fear of losing the other.
- Several characters in X1999 are guilty of this, but most notably Kakyou. He spends half of his time wandering around peoples' dreams, saying in essence "We're all going to die eventually, so why do we even try to live?" The other half of his time, he wangsts profusely over the death of a girl he never even met outside of dreams and died eight years ago.
- The cast of Simoun does so much wangsting, it can make some viewers grimace with beams of acid hate.
- Neviril's 7-episode-long fit of locking herself away in her room over the death of her partner in combat while the group was trying to reorganize and needed a stable leader deserves a specific mention here, as does Kaimu blacking out (read: altering in her mind so that she was the victim) the ever-so-traumatic event of her seducing her sister and then hating Alti a result, too.
- Not to mention Paraietta spending almost the entire series angsting about Neviril's growing relationship with Aaeru, and her own unfitness for command in the absence of Neviril or Dominura. So much so that her inability to respond because she was spaced out wangsting on a mission gets Mamiina killed. (Though she never actually raises this to get someone competent put in charge)
- Then again, it may not be the best idea to have young girls control weapons of mass destruction. Which is pretty much the whole point of the show.
- Kenshin and Kaoru of the OVA Samurai X: Reflections spend the entire OVA wangsting about things that have happened in Kenshin's past as well as some of the events of the Rurouni Kenshin TV series. What makes it even worse is that the things these characters are wangsting over has already been resolved during the TV series, though none of the characters seem to remember that during the events of this OVA.
- Well, to be fair, Kenshin's desperate trek back home and their inevitable and imminent deaths might have had something to do with it.
- A lot of the melodrama in the second half of Oniisama E comes from Fukiko, who can't get over the fact that 6 years earlier the guy she loved didn't come to listen to her violin recital. She was 12 at that time.
- Those unfamiliar with Yami No Matsuei accuse Hisoka Kurosaki of indulging in this a lot, but consider what happens to the poor kid throughout the series (and his backstory): he was raped and cursed to a horrific, painful death; was often locked in the basement by his parents, partly because of his EXTREMELY powerful empathy (and partially because they didn't want him to be the prey of a powerful demon who cursed his family in a rather gruesome manner); was captured and tortured by the main villain who also happens to be his rapist/killer; later has to rescue his partner from the flames of Hell...
- Hisoka can still be considered wangsty, even to those familiar with Yami No Matsuei. Even excluding instances where the circumstances were out of his control, he still managed to create his own problems to wangst about. Example: His killing Tsubaki. If you're going to kill someone, then do it. But if you're going to regret it and wangst about it for several chapters / episodes, then don't. There was no real reason he had to dirty his hands like that other than for wangst sake.
- Tsuzuki certainly wangsts a lot. Considering that he's an ancient god of death, it would probably be more realistic for him not to constantly be crying and moping and going crazy over every single person's death.
- Wangst is a serious risk to ones own health in Paranoia Agent. It brings on Shonen Bat.
- Nozomu Itoshiki from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei can and will become suicidally depressive over even the slightest provocation. However, the way the series plays it makes it not intolerably annoying, but awesomely funny.
- A result of being Brainwashed And Crazy turns Gainer Sanga of Overman King Gainer into a giant blue guy complaining about how no one loves him.
- The entire cast of Peacemaker Kurogane is the living embodiment of Wangst. The entire show is pretty much about a bunch of pretty, adult samurai crying and moping about problems they probably should have gotten over years ago.
- Gundam. You can maybe pardon most of the main characters if you try, but there is no excuse for Shinn Asuka.
- Done intentionally for comedic purposes in Axis Powers Hetalia for Ludwig/Germany. A song on his character single titled "Einsamkeit (Loneliness)" is an over-the-top emo song about his loneliness that seems to be like this trope until it brings up potatoes. Still, it can truly be sad (even while you laugh).
- Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass when Nunally redeclares the SAZ. Yeah, way too much wangst for what happened.
- Well, there was genocide involved last time, that does tend to be a downer.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann openly averts this. If anyone is Wangsting, expect someone else to either punch them or deliver a speech. The only major episode of Wangst in the series was When Kamina died, Simon, and to a lesser extent, everyone, moped about Kamina's death. To be fair, the audience felt more or less the same, and Simon delivers such an awesome speech in EP 11 that it's all good. Nonetheless, looking at the backstories and such, there was great potential for massive wangst in the series. Thank God it didn't happen.
- In Maria-sama Ga Miteru this trope is largely averted, since most girls at the Lilian school turn out to be rather level-headed. The misunderstanding between Sachiko and Yumi in the second season comes close though—and Touko also at one point skirts the line by putting herself and Yumi through a lot of needless grief over her worries about being adopted.
- Wangst is used as a plot point in Mahou Sensei Negima regarding Setsuna, who is constantly worrying about her perceived weaknesses even though all evidence points to the fact that she's one of the most competent characters. It was most humorously shown in chapter 252, where she starts angsting that her contentment is "dulling her skill with the blade". While she is in mid-brood she proceeds to save Konoka from a giant steel ball that's flying towards her by splitting it in half without even noticing. Konoka then gives her a speech about how her happiness is not making her weaker... and plants an enthusiastic and record-setting kiss to establish a Pactio.
Comic Books
- This often happens with the X-Men, especially during the mid-90s; some writers are better at the soap-opera style that made the team popular in the Bronze Age than others.
- They actually parodied it once, in an issue of WHAT TH', in which the team interrupted a training session for an angst-break.
- In a more recent example, Icarus from New Mutants/New X-Men would constantly bring up his dead girlfriend in every appearance. Made even more Wangsty, since they only dated for a week before she ended up killed.
- Batman constantly teeters on the line between angst and wangst, as writers vary their emphasis on his parents' death. "MY PARENTS ARE DEAD!!!
 MY SIDEKICK IS DEAD!!!" etc., etc.
- Spider Man is usually pretty good about dealing with his problems, but mediocre writers send him into bouts of wangst from time to time.
- This tendency is very much pronounced in the movie adaptations, as Spidey's main wangst-fighting weapon, his constant joke-cracking, has been removed.
- Spider-Man angsts alot during Marvel Zombies. Even as a overpowered cosmic being he angsts and angsts. When he doesn't angst he jokes, and he jokes because he angsts.
- Speedball, after his transformation into Penance (a.k.a. "Bleedball"), drives headfirst into all-Wangst-all-the-time territory, without as much as a rest stop in between.
- A flashback issue of Spider Man Loves Mary Jane sees Mary-Jane, who has just broken up with her first boyfriend, indulge in a pretty epic bout of Emo Teen self-pity in which she starts wearing all-black and comes out with pearls such as "I just don't think I was ever meant to be happy." It's established, however, that this is pretty out-of-character for MJ, her friends repeatedly point out how silly she's being (including a fellow Emo Teen who is just as wangsty) and make numerous efforts to try and cheer her up, and to her credit it doesn't last very long; she quickly wises up and realizes how self-indulgent and ludicrous she's being, particularly after she encounters Peter Parker, who is dealing with the recent death of his beloved uncle and father-figure in a much more restrained and mature fashion (even if she's completely unaware that he's actually Spider-Man, whose recent emergence has also inspired her to get over herself).
- Given that it's essentially a Teen Drama set in the Spider-Man universe, the series itself does a pretty good job of avoiding Wangst; it partly manages this by making Mary-Jane (the main character) something of a Stepford Smiler Woobie who tends to bottle up her insecurities and unhappiness rather than indulge in moaning about them. It also helps that when it is angsty, it's at least well-written.
- Way back in the 60's, when Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four's girlfriend Crystal was separated from him by a practically unbreakable dome, he practically angsted about it in every issue between then and their reunion. The difference was that he actively tried to find solutions to get through. On the other hand, nearly half of them were suicidal.....
- They fell deeply in love, for the two minutes they were together.
- Another Fantastic Four example: She-Thing. Sharon Ventura was angsty enough in her early days (having been a rape victim (though they couldn't use the word), but she became wangsty when she was exposed to the same cosmic radiation that gave the FF their powers. She becomes much like The Thing, super-strong, orange and lumpy. She immediately tries to kill herself. Repeatedly. And when she finds out she can't because her skin is just too tough for the rather uncreative ways she's trying to kill herself, she weeps and moans for issue after issue. Sure, being orange and ugly sucks, but come on! Still, it was almost worth it when several issues into the mope-a-thon, she whines to the wrong person. Beast from the X-Men was suffering from a condition that was slowly destroying his brain, slapping her down (metaphorically) and reminding her some people have real problems. Her problem put in perspective, she calms down and becomes less gag-inducing. She eventually decides she rather likes being She-thing, which, unfortunately, triggers another wangst fest when she's re-humaned... and then she unceremoniously vanishes from the plot.
Film
- Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars prequel trilogy spends a lot of time crying and flipping out. Though most of us figured Darth Vader was a troubled youth, it was more of the Damien what are you doing with that tricycle? kind. Don't, just don't, make us spell it all out for you.
- In Van Helsing, Big Bad Dracula is introduced with a wangst about how he can feel no emotion. It's actually quite cool, for certain reasons.
- Although it does bring up the question of how he can be sad if he has no emotions. Though yeah, it is deeply fun to watch him strolling across the ceiling shouting about how he can't feel anything.
- The third Spider-Man movie does this, probably deliberately.
- So does the second one, with the exception of the first 10 minutes, and the last 15.
Literature
- Harry Potter in The Order of the Phoenix — but then, that's just how teenagers are, as Phineas Nigellus explains. Harry largely gets over himself at the end after his wangsting causes a major screwup that results in his godfather's death.
- Getting Mode Locked definitely wouldn't be fun, but Tobias earned the Fan Nickname "Emohawk" from some fans because he kept whining abut it for the first years' worth of books! Consider this: the form he's stuck in is pretty badass (indeed, quite a few people think hawks are cute). Plus, he can fly, his life as a human was pretty terrible, neither of his estranged guardians notice he's gone (!?), and he could have always been trapped as a louse or something. Even more significantly, consider that he and his friends have been reeled in as fighters in an interplanetary war and yet everyone seems to be dealing with that pretty well!
- For awhile he also complained about having to kill mice to eat... as opposed to, you know, killing cows and pigs and other animals to eat as a human. (Generally, humans don't kill said cows or pigs themselves and eat them raw, but...)
- Then when he regains his ability to morph, he often complains about his human morph's inferior eyesight and hearing compared to his hawk form. You can't win.
- Your Mileage May Vary. In the early books, Tobias actually states that he feels his life improved as a result of his becoming an animorph and a hawk. His initial angst at being trapped in the body of a hawk was the result of feelings of uselessness on missions because being Mode Locked prevented him joining his friends on dangerous, life-risking missions. Moreover, since becoming an animorph gave him a sense of family and purpose that he had never had before, it's only natural that he would feel intensely guilty and hypersensitive whenever a mission rendered him safe and comfortable while the others cheated death, especially when the trauma that often resulted from life-risking missions could and sometimes did alienate his relationships with the others. Lastly, in the first book told from his perspective after he regains his morphing power, he discover out that the father he never knew was actually none other than Elfangor, the badass Andalite Warrior who gave the kids their morphing powers in the first book. Far from angsting over the fact that he had lost, gained, and re-lost a new father in a short space of time, or having a bout of fresh grief over having watched his father die, or anything else to that effect, Tobias celebrates this discovery of his badass roots by chowing down on birthday cake with Rachel, his sort-of-but-not-really-girlfriend because hawks and humans can't mate. Not much sign of an "Emohawk".
- Not to mention the others don't adjust all that well in the long term. Jake puts on a heroic face because he's the leader, but doesn't much care for it and eventually loses it after the war because of What He Had To Do. Marco gets by with the same dark humor he used after his mother "died", while not-quite-concealing how much he'd like reducing every Yeerk in existence to a fine powder. Rachel starts out as a major loose cannon, and gets worse. Cassie, meanwhile, hates how they have to kill and eventually leaves the group over it (temporarily).
- Max from Maximum Ride. She does have actual reasons to be upset, and her life until book four sucked a TON of ass. However, she never fails to remind readers how much every single second of everything sucks! And what's really funny is when Fang, the designated "goth," gets a few chapters in book three, he rarely complains about anything.
- The Epic Of Gilgamesh: While Gilgamesh is wallowing in his loneliness after Enkidu's death and putting himself through all kinds of stress to find the secret of eternal life, one character after another tells him to just get over it already!
- Played for laughs in The Belgariad, where Garion occasionally sinks into this... and is promptly told by the entire universe (sometimes literally) to grow up and get over it. Eventually his chief lament ("Why me?") becomes a Running Gag.
- Prequel novel Polgara the Sorceress proves that this is a hereditary trait. Polgara eventually got very sick of hearing generations of sandy-haired little boys ask that question.
- Played for knowing laughs in The Malloreon. By this time, Belgarion has started catching himself as he drifts into wangst, and cutting himself off as he starts to say "Why me?".
- It's particularly amusing when 'Zathak starts asking "Why me?" and Belgarion is the one who has to explain things to him.
- Terry Brooks, at least in the earlier Shannara books, has such a habit of repeating his characters' thoughts on their character development. Since a lot of them seem to think they can fight fate, this comes off as Wangsty real fast.
- Victor Frankenstein of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein never stops complaining to the reader about his miserable fate and how depressed he is, despite the fact that his creation is far worse off and doesn't whine half as much.
- This is done intentionally as a form of dramatic irony.
- Stephen R. Donaldson's characters, especially Thomas Covenant, are frequently accused of this; Donaldson loves to put his characters through hell so he can watch them suffer, but sometimes they just Wangst because they can.
- I'd argue that Thomas Covenant is deliberate Wangst by the author- the whole point is that the readers want to slap him round the face and shout, "GET OVER YOURSELF!" Getting towards the end of the third book, I was gratified to discover that, in fact, he does. (Haven't got any further than that yet, so he might backslide a little.)
- A vast quantity of Shakespearean characters:
- Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet is first introduced wangsting over Rosaline dumping him and being told by the other characters to snap out of it, with mentionings of him shutting himself up entirely in his room and closing the windows. And the Star Crossed Romance that leads to suicide is not even an issue yet!
- The award for Self Obsessed, Mopey Git has to be shared between Duke Orsino of Twelfth Night and Antonio, the Merchant of Venice.
- Antonio's angst gets not only more bearable but more understandable if you pretend he's the same Antonio as in Twelfth Night. Try it sometime.
- The black-clad Hamlet at the start of the play: you can barely turn a page without someone telling him he's not the first person to lose a father and to just get over it already.... all this before any mention of murder.
- Hamlet is upset not because his father is dead, but because the people who should miss him most (his widow and his brother) are instead married within a month of the funeral. However, there's plenty of wangst in Hamlet's relationship to Ophelia - "I never gave you love letters. Wait, yes I did. You're dumping me? Not if I dump you first! WOMEN ARE WHORES!" Then, at her funeral, "I miss her more than anyone else possibly could! Including you, Laertes! How dare you get offended that I'm directly responsible for the death of your father and sister!" Granted, he's been through a lot of stress up to that point, but one would hope a thirty year old prince would be a bit more composed when dealing with relationships than a hormonal teenager.
- Considering the dim view of the Danish shared by the English at the time the play was written, it's suspected that Hamlet really *is* supposed to come off as whiny as he does now and that the entire chain of events was a Take That on the Danes.
- Hamlet's mention of 'antic disposition' in Act 1 Scene 5 also makes this more understanding when you realise he was at least partially acting crazy so that his Uncle/King wouldn't suspect him of plotting murder. It didn't work.
- Rand Al'Thor in the Wheel Of Time books acts like this a lot. What he angsts about? Women dying because of him. Never mind that the women in question are soldiers and that they themselves don't mind risking their lives...
- It would be far less annoying if he would angst over the many things that he would be justified in dwelling over in such a fashion. Maybe he focuses on the lesser reasons to angst to avoid thinking too much on the mountainous problems and depressing path in front of him.
- The titular character of the Dexter books sometimes toes the angst/wangst line with his internal monologues about his inability to feel emotions, the idiocy of the human race, and the trials he is forced through by those around him. For the most part, however, his dry sense of humor and lack of actual grief (see also his inability to feel emotions) keep him from straying.
- Parodied in Don Quixote, when the ingenious Hidalgo decides to express his lovelorn grief by going crazy in the wilderness for several days.
- Explored in Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility; romantic, emotional Marianne Dashwood's response to her woes in love (which are at least genuine, if partially her own fault and resulting from her own headstrong nature and lack of restraint or moderation) is to loudly and frequently bemoan how pained and unhappy she is, which makes her come across as wangsty and self-indulgent, especially in contrast with her sister Elinor's restrained and rational response to her own equally genuine romantic misfortunes (which eventually prompts a rather barbed condemnation on this point from Elinor when Marianne makes the mistake of criticising Elinor's 'lack of feeling' once too often). However, whilst Marianne comes to realize that her wangsting is merely self-indulgent and unhelpful - particularly when it eventually ends up with her contracting pneumonia and almost dying after a self-pity induced walk in a rainstorm, an over-dramatic response she realizes with shame would have done nothing but brought pain to those who love her - Elinor is also prompted to learn that her over-rational response to the situation isn't the most helpful either, in that it merely blinds people to her pain, and that in such circumstances a little angsting is perhaps appropriate.
- Though it's more her mother who only realises how very upset Elinor is when she turns white on hearing that her true love has married another. And given that Elinor's problem was (almost) insoluble, and that she actively wanted to spare her family grief on her account, it can't really be said that she did learn this lesson.
- Mostly the entire plot of New Moon. If you need a specific example, though, the blank pages. After Edward pulls his "we must break up because you are in danger" bull, there are approximately ten pages that show how utterly bleak and hopeless and miserable and empty Bella's life is without him. By having absolutely no text except the names of the passing months.
- The other books in the series have more than their fair share as well.
- Stephanie Meyer says she listened to Linkin Park all the time to help her write those scenes. Which would explain an awful lot.
- Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series has a nasty habit of this. To be fair, things really are pretty bad for the characters and the world they are in. It wasn't too bad until the very latest installments, where not only did several characters (*cough* Seren Pedac *cough* Nimander Golit *cough*) complain all the time (sometimes just to themselves in their heads, but still) but they repeated each and every problem every time the characters reappeared in the story. We get it already! SHUT UP for gods' sake!
- Somewhat lampshaded with the Tiste Andii, who are explicitly said to have Wangst as their Hat. But the lampshading is (perhaps unwittingly) subverted, since the Tiste Andii turn out to be no more Wangsty than everybody else.
- Lestat in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. And Rice herself when a number of Amazon.com reviewers dared criticize Blood Canticle.
- Garth Ennis brilliantly parodied the Wangsty Lestat in Preacher.
- Catcher in the Rye. You're all a bunch of phonies!
- Ashfur in Warrior Cats. Of course, in the real world, his grievences are relatively legitimate (but completely overblown by his fans), but in series just filled with angsty kitties, he comes out as average...-ish, and the fact that he uses his past to justify trying to kill the main characters doesn't help either. It makes liking him in general possible only if you can try to sympathize with his wangst.
- Leafpool has a habit of blaming herself for other cats deaths (Cinderpelt, Heavystep, Ashfur, etc.), but in A Dangerous Path, Firestar turns it into an art form. He blames himself for Swiftpaw's death because he tried his hardest to get Swiftpaw to be made into a warrior, but he failed, causing Swiftpaw to go out into the forest to prove himself, where he got ripped to pieces by the dog pack.
- Flinx, the main recurring protagonist of Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series, has developed a number of character flaws that may be irritating to long time readers of the novels. Foremost among these is his habit of indulging in bouts of near suicidal depression over the fact that he's not a normal human. That and his gradual conclusion that Humans Are Bastards, a Love Interest he was forced to leave behind, half of the known universe seeking to arrest or kill him, the other half trying to make him into a Chosen One to combat an Ultimate Evil, and most recently, the revelation that he doesn't have a real genetic mother or father. These things might make anyone a bit depressed, but he luxuriates in it to the point where one sometimes wishes the author would wrap up the series just to stop the whining. Even his ship's computer tells him to lighten up.
- A Songof Ice And Fire has Dolorous Edd, whose habit of lamenting about how awful things are is played for laughs. It's funny cause it's true.
Live Action TV
Music
- Simple Plan. Dear LORD, Simple Plan.
- Almost every song by the band Linkin Park can be summed up in six words: "Why didn't you love me, Daddy?"
- CRAWWWLING INNN MYY SKINNN!!! 'nuf said.
- Ditto Evanescence.
- And Papa Roach.
- And several Smashing Pumpkins songs, although thankfully they tend to keep it as an undercurrent.
- And 3 Days Grace
- In fact, virtually every band featuring at least one member who is the progeny of divorced parents or the member of a dysfunctional family is guaranteed to feature some degree of Wangst in their lyrics. This contributor isn't sure whether that says more about the convenience of wangst as a songwriter's crutch, or about the horrifically rising rate of failed marriages (with concomitant effects on the children of those relationships). Then again, at least they aren't singing about love.
- Thank goodness for They Might Be Giants, who usually play this sort of thing for laughs. Listen to the Lyrical Dissonance of They'll Need a Crane or Narrow Your Eyes and you'll what I mean.
- TMBG still manage to have some very dark, disturbing, and/or depressing lyrics in ther happy, boppy songs. Museum of Idiots probably takes the grand prize: "Chop me up into pieces, if it pleases, if it pleases. And when the chopping is through, every piece will say 'I love you'." Squickworthy.
- As does Weird Al, most notable with "Angry White Boy Polka".
- And British comedian / musician Bill Bailey, who often skewers the 'self-pitying whine' inherent in much rock music today, as such:
You picked me up from school
You attended all my sporting functions
You bought me a car
Gave me use of a credit card
But how can I feel pain,
How can I feel pain,
How can I feel pain
When you're being so supportive?
- And Ben Folds' "Rockin' the Suburbs". "Don't ya'll know what it's like being male, middle class, and white?"
- Dashboard Confessional. Consider the following passage from the song "Hands Down".
"My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me, so won't you kill me, so I'll die happy...my heart is yours to fill or burst, to break or bury, to wear as jewelry...whichever you prefer."-Chris Carrabba, wondering why he never has any luck with women
- And this is one of his happier, less wangsty songs!
- Lucy Simon's musical version of The Secret Garden gets very wangsty, especially anytime Archibald is on stage.
- Every or almost every Enka song ever written, in particular onna uta (women's songs) and songs about sake. "Sake Yo" by Ikuzo Yoshi, tells of a guy whose lover deserted him, and so he's become an alcoholic who talks to his sake as if it were his girlfriend.
- Shakin' Stevens did a lot of wangsting over women in his songs.
- Tons of metal lyrics, when they are not about hating the world, are chock full of wangst.
- An example is power metal band Blind Guardian. Almost every song includes one or more of the words "sorrow", "misery", "pain", "despair", "tears" and so on. Especially notable because the wangsty lyrics contrast with the (by metal standards) relatively happy sound of the music itself.
- Hansi Kürsch does seem to enjoy angsting and hating the world on the behalf of the screwed-up characters of fantasy and mythology, both with Blind Guardian and Demons & Wizards; however, the prize for power metal wangst goes to Sonata Arctica. While most of their songs are depressing love songs, one of them appears to be about how Celebrity Is Overrated. They're a reasonably popular heavy metal band.
- Tom Lehrer addresses this after one of his songs.
"One problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love: husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on, and in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up." - Tom Lehrer
- Roger Waters in The Wall and especially The Final Cut. As if he were the only one ever to lose his father in a war or to feel alienated from other people. He got better, though.
- Alice in Chains. Songs like "Down in a Hole", "Would?", "Angry Chair" put bands like Linkin Park and Dashboard Confessional to shame. Though unlike those two bands, Alice in Chains has justified angst. Layne Staley's life was a giant Deus Angst Machina and he had major drug issues and depression on top of it.
- So Chester Bennington's own drug addictions and sexual abuse don't count for anything?
- The Offspring's song "She's Got Issues" plays wangst for laughs in an attempt to make fun of people who blame all their problems on external influences and don't try to get over them.
- One feels it's about time Maynard got over his mother's long illness and early death and stopped making Tool do constant songs about her... (The last album was *named* after her, so maybe he'll be able to let it go, finally.)
- "Institutionalized", as recently re-popularized by a brief scene in Iron Man, smacks of this. Particularly the singer concluding by deciding it all doesn't really matter, on account of the fact that he'll probably be hit by a car. Yeah, that's... real conducive to dealing with your problems.
- Several songs from Counting Crows's latest album, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, particularly the "Sunday Mornings" part. In fairness there were some real-life reasons behind this - and as many songs in "Saturday Nights" amount to "life sucks - let's party!".
Professional Wrestling
- WCW/ECW wrestler Raven dedicated his life to destroying the career of Tommy Dreamer, simply because, when they were kids, Tommy was a Jerk Jock and stole his girlfriend at summer camp. "What about me? What about Raven?!" "Diamond" Dallas page had the best response ever to this brand of Wangst: "What about you?!" To be fair, though, Raven was rather consistently shown as a psychotic, misanthropic bastard who probably would hold a grudge that long.
- Bret "The Hitman" Hart, in Kayfabe and later for real when the WWE Dropped A Bridge On Him, wangsted about getting screwed over by everyone. Someone should really tell him that wrestling isn't real.
Close Professional Wrestling
Videogames
- Final Fantasy and, to a lesser extent, its sister series Kingdom Hearts are some of the best examples of just how subjective this trope can be. Both series' tendency to focus on their main casts coming to terms with their (usually severe) problems can lead to vastly different reactions from the fans as it is, due to differing levels of sympathy for the characters, and the altered characterization that tends to circulate as Fanon certainly doesn't help. Nevertheless, there are several examples which legitimately could fall into the realm of wangst:
- Vincent Valentine from Final Fantasy VII doesn't actually angst much during the game itself - however, he's found in a coffin, which he had locked himself in for several decades out of guilt. While he actually did have legitimate problems, the action itself could easily be seen as over-the-top. He also spends a good deal of time brooding in Dirge of Cerberus and he's still anti-social in Advent Children, though both show him getting over it. Advent Children cracks a joke about it.
- Cloud's characterization in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children could also be taken this way, since he spent most of the movie feeling guilty over things that had happened years ago. Tifa even takes him to task for this in the movie itself, though, and it's suggested that this is a side effect of the Cloud's Geostigma. The movie also focused more on one specific event in the game as opposed to the events he had explicitly been shown to get past. He gets over it. The real irony comes when people forget that he was also like this in Final Fantasy VII itself. As he does not collpase into a quivering ball of tears and insanity at any point in Advent Children, he's actually better than he was in the game.
- In Advent Children Complete it's brought up that Cloud's guilt is also due to him being unable to find a cure for Denzel's Geostigma, and his fear that if he can't even look after himself then he's not worthy to look after Denzel, Tifa and Marlene. So it's not just the events of FF 7 that's screwing with him.
- Squall has Freudian Excuse coupled with amnesia to give him an extremely anti-social personality. However, he never burdened anyone with his problems and rather than invite everyone to a pity party, he just kept them at arms length. For some players, this came off as making him so anti-social as to be unlikable and his justifications unworthy of much sympathy for his malaise. Ironically, the entire point of the game was convincing him that it really was okay to express his emotions and problems to others - though this trope would suggest that most players would find that even worse. The game also makes a running habit of other characters ribbing him for his habit of internal monologues, something the players see all the time.
- Dagger in Final Fantasy IX could be a rather meta example - while going mute might be a legitimate reaction to failing to prevent the destruction of one's entire kingdom (let alone the other traumatic events she suffers through), the possibility of failing to carry out commands in an RPG is probably the fastest way to cause a "just get over it already!" reaction from the player.
- Aerie of Baldurs Gate II seemed to alternate between this and a more tolerable scarred-but-workable mood, really more annoying for the arbitrary bipolarity than for the actual whining.
- Some lesser examples in this game include Jaheira, who'll have some light wangst about having to fight her former allies, the Harpers, and Anomen, who'll throw a proper hissy fit if he's not allowed to join his beloved Order (which may or may not happen depending on the actions of the player thus far).
- Saruin from Romancing Sa Ga, you would think the God of Destruction would be more fear inducing, but after hearing his dialogue, some of the Heroes start considering: Why do people even fear him? Sif, Hawke, Gray, and Claudia.
- Oersted from Live A Live, though in his defense he was tricked into committing regicide, was forced to battle his best friend to the death, and saw his bride-to-be commit suicide before his very eyes.
- Kratos from the God Of War series, fell into this trope after learning that Zeus destroyed Sparta.. He gets over it by killing things. Lots and lots and lots of things.
- In the third chapter of Tales Of The Abyss, Luke fon Fabre begins to whine incessantly about being a replica of Asch. He develops an inferiority complex that becomes increasingly more crippling every time he runs into Asch (it doesn't help that Asch doesn't even call Luke by his name; he just calls him Replica) and has lost any and all self-confidence he once had after his atonement for being such a Jerkass in the first chapter.
- In his defense, his confidence was from that he and his group were doing something, and they were succeeding. He was changing, and they were able to help people. But the confrontation with the Big Bad at the end of the second chapter has him questioning things because he's the guy Luke looked up to for his entire life and looks down on him as dirt; indeed, his final words are along the lines of "I never thought I would be defeated by such a failure..." and ominous hysterical laughing. Then Luke's cooped up in a manor being able to do nothing for a month other than letting things stew over while everyone else is out doing something for people, and all of a sudden the things he'd thought they'd fixed aren't so fixed and are falling apart now. That makes a guy feel great.
- Although it comes from a lineage which has usually handled drama well, Raiden and Rose in Metal Gear Solid 2 were pushing it. It's nicely deconstructed in the third act though (along with everything else), giving us disarmingly realistic look into a relationship struggling with a dark secret. In the finale, they're not rolling in clover, but ready to start putting their lives back together.
- Zone of the Enders tipped right over the edge, putting a prepubescent boy through the anime wangst machine. It's just mean.
- Mathias Cronqvist (who later became Count Dracula) shows a considerable amount of Wangst in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence regarding his dead wife, Elizabeth, whom he obsesses over to the point of being bedridden. What's worse, his friend noble Bad Ass Leon Belmont is forced to take his beloved's life, yet he still continues his resolve for revenge. To make it even worse, it turns out that Mathias, proving himself a Diabolical Mastermind, orchestrated Leon's wife's death in an impossibly elaborate Xanatos Roulette that ends up sacrificing his humanity and the lives of countless people, all just to make himself feel better by "SPITING GOD".
- Mega Man X7's X. Sure, he was a bitching pacifist before, but X7 takes it to epic levels with almost every cutscene showing him wangsting over the amount of bloodshed in the world. This is all the more jarring when you consider that the first Megaman X game had X coming to terms with the fact that he has to fight for peace.
- X had a somewhat necessary personality snap after about two hundred years of seemingly constant warfare. There's only so long that you can reconcile a desire for peace with the ability to kick ass.
- Further compounding the problem, in the ending for Mega Man Zero, X lamented that the most dreadful moment for him was when he "stopped caring about fighting enemies".
- In Mega Man Star Force, Geo Stelar became very wangsty after finding out that Pat sent out Anti-Brother waves and stopping him in the junk yard. As a result, he stopped trusting all his friends and broke off their Brother Bonds fearing that they would be like Pat despite Pat having a Hyde that made him do those things and being flat out told the fact before the wangst fest happened. If that wasn't bad enough, Tom Dubius was going through trust problems much earlier in the game and it made much more sense, because a man became "Brothers" with him just to steal his ideas.
- Shion Uzuki. So much as imply her dead fiancé ...
- Your wingmen in Ace Combat 5 can get really teeth-gritting. Every 5 minutes, in violation of any NORMAL Air Force's policy regarding radio discipline, someone in your flight decides to broadcast their views about how war sucks, and how wonderful it would be to fly with the enemy in peace. You'd think such rabid pacifists would find a different line of work.
- Well, they were pacifists. There hadn't been a war in almost fifteen years in Osea, so signing up for the Air Force was a way to fly, not to fight. Once war actually broke out, they sucked it up and killed people, but that didn't change their beliefs.
- You forgot Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War and your first wingman Pixy will fit the above description a bit and then tosses in a Heel Face Turn at the end of the first war and joins a terrorist group. For a damn cynic on the war he does hold up to a twisted idealist cause. The Belkan war series felt like a political statement there.
- This is one of the reasons that Shadow The Hedgehog is hated by at least half the fandom. Lately he seems to have mostly gotten over it.
- In Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden, when you learn his purpose, as Kyosuke Nanbu said, Professor Wilhelm von Juergen was just a man who fell into a massive Wangst after the death of his family by the aliens. The result was his wangst was radically changing the ODE System, which was formerly a dandy network system for auto piloting... into a sentient system that kidnaps living humans and use them as live cores, which eventually comes to bite him on the ass by absorbing him as well.
- In Rainbow Six Vegas 2 it's revealed via Motive Rant that the terrorist mastermind teamed up with radical terrorists and drug-dealing human traffickers and started a plot to blow up multiple ares in Vegas, flooded a gymnasium full of civilians with poison gas, betrayed the Rainbow organization, and was going to sell US government secrets on the Black Market, because Bishop and Six passed him up for promotion in favor of Logan Keller. Fair enough, except for the fact that reason why they did this was because the mastermind disobeyed orders and got a hostage negotiator killed. How the hell could someone that unprofessional and inept even get into a secret antiterrorist unit?
- Overlord brings us the elves of Evernight, whose race was long ago completely wiped out, reducing them to telepathic ghosts. Much of their dialogue is spent lamenting their cruel fate and whining to their Mother Goddess. Their constant Wangst has rendered them completely useless, to the extent that when an important religious relic of theirs is stolen, their first reaction is to come crying to you and start mourning.
- and Of course being a Evil Overlord you can kick them and steal there stuff.
- Niko Bellic in GTA IV lays it on rather thick. Yes, alright, the universe has screwed you over. Nearly Everyone you meet betrays you, dies, or is several kinds of stupid. Your irritating cousin constantly pesters you with requests to go bowling, the bastard. But constantly complaining about your miserable lot in life sits very poorly with walking around richer than Croesus, armed to the teeth, and capable of surviving a high dive from a helicopter (if you land in water, completely unscathed; if you pancake on the tarmac, a small loss of money and respawning at the nearest hospital). This Troper fervently hopes the next game in the series returns to Vice City, both the location and the mood.
Web Comics
- Its Walky fell victim to this trope on several occasions; David Willis' habit of dropping the Drama Bomb meant that a lot of the time, when the characters weren't reeling from the latest over-whelming assault of carpet-bombed unpleasantness to hit their lives, they were angsting profusely about things that had happened long, long ago or blowing relatively small things out of proportion in order to angst about them. Sal in particular was guilty of this.
- Ash from Misfile has now reached this level. Her bemoaning how bad her life is since she got turned into a girl rings increasingly hollow, especially since it's been pointed out she is a lot happier whenever she forgets to remember this.
- She really needs to get laid.
- The "Ask Ash" segments where readers get to send Ash questions has lampshaded this several times, with questions along the lines of "Would you really want to forget everything that's happened and go back to being a boy? (list of awesome things that have happened)" and the answer is inevitably "yes". Said answer is getting increasingly difficult to take seriously.
- Somewhat justified in that Ash's bent gender is a metaphor for the plight of transgendered persons IRL, who often seem to feel similarly about what they'd trade to feel right in their own bodies.
- In Dominic Deegan, Luna Travoria sometimes berates herself for her Wangst moments.
- Spoofed by Young Haley in Order Of The Stick.
- Faye in Questionable Content. She's working on getting better, but she continues to look at everything that anyone does in terms of how it affects her.
- Parodied in Homestuck with John Egbert's angst towards his father's unfailing love and support towards him. This comic has Tentacle Therapist call him on it.
Web Original
- Comes up so much in Survival Of The Fittest that it's impossible to list all of the examples. One particularly noticeable character suffering from this is Damien Carter-Madison (my mother hates me! sob), who was pretty much angst-central for v2.
- Mackenzie, the half-demon main character in Tales Of MU, comes close to Wangst with her continuous self-loathing and belief that her tainted blood makes her innately evil, despite being a more decent person than most of the people around her.
- This is reversed when she fails to "feed" her demon half and it comes to the surface, causing a massive change in personality, to a truly demonic outlook, thus showing that she is at least partially justified in her belief.
- The Legion of Net.Heroes deconstructs this. In ANGST: An Amazing Medical Discovery, Doctor Stomper explains the difference between Low-Density Angst, which takes up a lot of space but never gets resolved and ends up as pointless brooding, and High-Density Angst, which is more concise and actually leads to Character Development.
Western Animation
- In the 1990s Fantastic Four cartoon, Johnny falls in love with Crystal over the course of an episode and a half, and when a barrier seals her and the rest of her fellow Inhumans in their city, Johnny spends literally every episode for the rest of the series' run angsting about it.
- Made even more amusing/ridiculous/something by the fact that he spent a considerably longer time drooling over Medusa, Crystal's older sister. It turns out she's married to Black Bolt, Johnny gets over her like that, spends a couple hours with Crystal... and spends the entire final season in a pit of Wangst.
- Quite a bit of stuff Prince Zuko says in Avatar The Last Airbender, particularly in Season 3. Aang also got a bit "aangsty" in Season 2 during the period when Appa was missing.
Azula: " My own mother thought I was a monster. [cheerfully] She was right, of course, but it still hurt."
- Fairly Odd Parents-the song "Not On The List". They didn't get want they wanted for Christmas and sang an entire song to complain about it whereas some (not all) characters on the show with bigger problems don't complain that much (or at all) about their problems. However, its probably justified considering most of them singing were kids and one was a teen. Also, the people that were singing the song were some generic kids, Timmy's friends, his parents and Vicky. But even if it is Wangsty, its still an OK song. The Aesop of course, was that the people were being Wangsty about it and should focus on what they can give, not what they didn't get.
- In Transformers: Beast Wars Optimus Primal mourned for every ally's death, but he remembered he was in a war he needed to win. Series ends, he gives a prayer for the fallen who helped his victory and heads off. Beast Machines comes around and he cannot stop complaining over the cost of war and how little morale he has(though the fact that Megatron had basically conquered the entire planet may have had something to do with it). Even Cheetor, who formerly looked up to him, basically told him to snap out of it.
- In Transformers Armada, Starscream's story-arc is generally considered to be fairly well-done. But even some of those who teared up at his death have to admit that his angst was more wangsty when you consider that he's a high-ranking soldier in a military known for wrecking havoc and that the fact that Megatron hasn't killed him yet is probably the biggest sign of favor anyone will ever get from the mech. His back-and-forthing thus comes off less as conflicting beliefs and more "He'll miss me when I'm gone! DX" There's a reason why some call him Emoscream.
- Curtis Calhoun, a character based on G. Brian Reynolds from the obscure Christmas special Up on the Housetop. Just... Curtis Calhoun.
Truth In Television
- Ever wonder about the things former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson says about himself? Now you know.
- Far too common on certain internet forums, where you will find obnoxious users whining about problems that are serious only to them.
Close Truth In Television
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