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Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds
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This is a character who wants to destroy everything and everybody in the story and is suddenly in a position to do so; but in contrast to the Ax Crazy Omnicidal Maniac, the audience is supposed to feel some sympathy for him and/or his motives while accepting that he's got to be stopped. In rare cases, the character is even likeable, just... not all there in the head. In truly unusual cases the audience might even agree with him.
Maybe he's the result of Break The Cutie; maybe we are laughing with him when he asks " Whos Laughing Now?" to his tormentors (who, let's be fair, are most likely assholes); or maybe the world really is a World Half Empty and when we see him lashing out against everything we can't help but find him pitiful. The Well Intentioned Extremist can become this when his motives are explored; in fact, a common twist is to present a terrifying villain and then pull a Reveal that swings the sympathy of the audience (or at least the other characters) around in his favor. This may even allow The Power Of Love to cause a Heel Face Turn or at the very least a crucial hesitation on the part of the villain... who then dies, of course, because, y'know, we like the world.
When it's all in the fans' heads, this is Draco In Leather Pants.
The Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds may appear when an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain turns out to be not so ineffectual as we'd taken for granted. (You see! They are sick of being taken for granted!) If this character is a Person Of Mass Destruction, they may cause The End Of The World As We Know It, Apocalypse How, and Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum. Failing that, they may destroy the heroes' plans to avert such a catastrophe or simply ruin your prom.
Contrast Jerkass Woobie, where The Woobie may be a villain, but more of a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold. Also contrast Put Them All Out Of My Misery, where a less sympatheic villain sees the rest of the world as a disease that must be cured. Compare with Whos Laughing Now. For actual world-destroying tropes, see Why You Should Destroy The Planet Earth.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Vincent from the Cowboy Bebop movie, gone self-destructively homicidal from psychosis and the inability to separate his hallucinations from reality after becoming an unwilling participant in a Super Soldier program that caused him to permanently hallucinate. His leitmotif "is it real?" just hammers it home.
- Lucy from Elfen Lied. Oh, so very, very much. We even get to see in full detail how Lucy's painful childhood turned her into such a deranged Person Of Mass Destruction.
- EVERY diclonius counts. The very definition of a diclonious fits this trope — innocent girls, usually very young, that can kill everyone within range with only a thought.
- Hayate Yagami at the end of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's second season, though it required a massive Break The Cutie moment created by other parties to push her past the "world that hurt me must die" breaking point, and when she regained her senses, she chastised her Artifact Of Doom for thinking that that's what she really wanted and put a stop to things.
- Trigun features Millions Knives, who wants to wipe out all of humanity. Funny, considering Humans Are Bastards.
- Does anyone else think Hao/Zeke Asakura is this in the manga? Not so much in the anime, since he turns the Ax Craxy Up To Eleven during the finale, which, incidentally, is sadly a Gecko Ending.
- Hiroko "Hiro-chan" Kaizuka from Narutaru is an intelligent, modest young girl who is broken by abuse from both unbelievably sadistic bullies and overly demanding, repressive parents. Eventually, she, along with her Shadow Dragon, Oni, attempts to make everything she doesn't like disappear... by way of going on a horrific, murderous rampage.
- A similar thing happens to the main character Shiina, but with someone else doing the destroying, right at the end of the manga.
- Elaine and Diana, the two unbelievably powerful psychic sisters, in the anime Genocyber, who both go through some truly nightmarish shit, before transforming into the eponymous Anthropomorphic Personification of destruction, Genocyber. Then they proceed to wipe out Hong Kong, then every single city in the world, then the only post-apocalyptic city that remains. Or, maybe not...
- Gaara from Naruto starts out as this, basically being the male equivalent of Lucy. He gets better though...
- It now appears as if the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's escape plan is to turn Naruto into one of these.
- And Pain/Nagato likes to paint himself as one of these. Frankly, most fans are not buying it; his past was definitely bad, but not bad enough to justify the crap he's pulled.
- Neither does Naruto, who can't forgive him but doesn't kill him for reasons entirely unrelated to Nagato's backstory.
- Lelouch from Code Geass is a major subversion to this trope, because after he realizes what has actually been going on, he decides that the only way to make everything right is to get the world to destroy him.
- Suzaku's probably a more apt example of this trope, seeing as he spends the entire series having his precious concern for human life swallowed up by his guilt over his father's death, his employment in the service of a brutal autocracy, the death of Euphemia—his last hope for redemption, all of which culminates in his (somewhat involuntary) release of Freya and murder of 10 million inhabitants in the Towkyow settlement. This from a guy who in the first episode of the first season took a bullet because he wouldn't shoot a civilian.
- Takano Miyo from Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. ...Ironically, though, she's aiming at the wrong target in order to become a god. Guess Tokyo's a little too big to take down single-handedly.
- Yuuhi from The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, with one heck of a Freudian Excuse to match: His father, a detective, was killed by his colleague. After the funeral his mom simply left, and his grandfather literally beat into him the idea "Make no enemies - they'll stab you in the front; make no friends - they'll stab you in the back.". Sami's reasoning is that she wants to own the world by destroying it so that it doesn't go on without her when she dies.
- Valgaav from The Slayers TRY. A tormented half-demon dragon who believes that all the cosmic forces in his world are caught in an endless, senseless war that only causes suffering, and wants to erase everything from existence to end this. He doesn't actually seem to be wrong, as The Lord Of Nightmares who created Both sides of the conflict, seems to have done so mainly to watch them fight for its own amusement, a fact the Lord of Good and Lord of Evil equivalents from another dimension that combined with him are all too familar with...
- Darcia from Wolfs Rain, who after the loss of his lover Hamona turns insane, and decides to ruin the paradise the protagonists are trying to create. In a sense, he doesn't want to destroy the current world, as the Earth is dying anyway, but prevent the next.
- Rau le Creuset from Gundam SEED. He's a dying man at the age of twenty-eight, as he was born with the telomeres of the thirty-something Al de Flaga, his genetic "father", and is in constant pain that can only be subdued by daily drug cocktails (the dose is shown to double twice over the course of the series). His dealings with people, hatred of his flawed body and the people who ensured he was born that way, and his emotional pain at being a clone and thus seeing himself as having no "identity" of his own eventually became a bitterness towards humanity in general. And in a very literal bid to make the pain stop, he tried (and nearly succeeded) to wipe Earth of human life.
- Once again, depending on your point of view, after he crosses the Moral Event Horizon by killing Flay in cold blood, he might lose the Woobie and retain the Destroyer Of Worlds.
- And an example from Gundam SEED Destiny, Stella - she stomps through city and wilderness alike in a giant robot slaughtering innocent bystanders by the thousands, because she's driven by a child's irrational terror and has been told that if she doesn't fight, scary things will kill her and everyone she cares about.
- At the end of Fushigi Yuugi, Yuu Watase attempts to turn Nakago into one of these with a Motive Rant explaining how when he was a young boy his entire tribe was wiped out, he witnessed his mother being gang-raped, his power awakened in an effort to defend his mother from said gang-rape and accidentally blew her up in the process, resulting in his being sent to the Kutou emperor, who raped him repeatedly. As a result he wants revenge on existence itself for giving him such a horrible life. But since Nakago had been portrayed as a Complete Monster until this point, many fans simply regarded it as a Karma Houdini moment instead.
- Rokudo Mukuro from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! wants to cleanse the world of mafia (and then everything else) in blood due to his ''tragic backstory'. Also because he hates humanity. Either way.
- Black WarGreymon from Digimon Adventure 02 wanted to destroy the Digital World because he thought that was the only way for him to understand his purpose in his artificial life and soothe his pain.
- From Kurohime: Possibly Rei who, along with his brother Zero was forced to work for the man who killed their mother *
Kurohime witnesses her beloved Zero turn into a heartless shinigami, and risks her life (and the entire future) to go back in time to save him. When she gets to the past she discovers that Zero has a younger brother, Rei, whose quiet and bitter personality matches shinigami!Zero. Now she has to stop Rei, who has a shinigami curse, and Zero from becoming WDOWs while keeping her identity hidden. One unanswered mystery is that Rei has never been mentioned before... if the real Zero died, did Rei pull a Psycho and take on his brother's personality? and very nearly a young fortune teller who can show you the future with her magic bullets, but only if your will is strong enough to connect with the right bullet. Kurohime uses her own magic bullets to show the fortune teller's mother what will happen if she continues to abuse her daughter ("All I see is death... This world should die... starting with you!"), which appears to reform her. For his part, Rei (a potential shinigami) shows his affection to the fortune teller by offering to kill her mother.
- Russia of Axis Powers Hetalia is more of a Woobie Conquerer of Worlds, insisting that "all will become one with Russia". This trope is also played totally straight with him during the Bloody Sunday strip, in which he snaps and starts to mow down his own people on the grounds that, basically, "they're not really Russians if they don't love me".
- Lucia from Rave Master. He's portrayed as virtually every Jerk Ass like trope on this site for most of his appearances, even condradicing any mildly humane moment shortly afterward. Until the ending when he starts crying while fighting Haru because, as it turns out, the universe litterally exists to screw him over. He even lists all the massive wrongs done to him that no one ever did anything about, or even commended rather than tried to stop.
- By the way, he's figured the best way to handle the situation is to blow the world up.
- Diva from Blood+ somewhat counts, although the destroyer of worlds part only comes about simply because she exists. Chevaliers may love their 'queens' but it seems Amshel loves power more. Diva just goes along because she's become embittered to the world due to her imprisonment as a child. Things would likely have turned out very differently if Nathan had simply abducted her and made her a star singer without the whole taking over the world and making everyone into Chiropterans aspect of Amshel's and James'. YMMV after what she does to Saya's little brother, however
- Shinji Ikari is actually a subversion of this: Although he is the guy who ends up bringing on The End Of The World As We Know It, eventually he realizes his mistake and brings it back - although whether others will follow suit is not addressed.
- Yuca from Immortal Rain doesn't know how old he is. All he knows is that whenever he dies, he's reborn long after everyone he knew before died, while still retaining the memories of each of his previous lives. Over and over again, throughout what seems to be the course of human history. By the point we meet him, he wants to wipe out all humanity just so he can finally die and be able to stay dead.
- Shinobu Sensui of Yu Yu Hakusho began as a heroic spirit detective, but had a mental breakdown after discovering humans torturing demons, throwing his life's work of protecting humans into question. His mind now fractured into seven split personalities, embarked on a plan to destroy humanity as a way of ending the confusion and guilt, along with a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum over his terminal illness.
- Tsubaki of Mirai Nikki was imprisoned as a sex slave by a cult her whole life before receiving her Diary, and now participates in the Diary game with the stated goal of destroying the world.
- Tima of Osamu Tezukas Metropolis exemplifies this trope perfectly. After getting shot and realizing she's a robot, she takes control of immeasurably powerful technology and orders the extinction of humanity.
Comic Books
- The Scarlet Witch undergoes a fluctuating life where the good (a family with the Avengers, marriage to her One True Wuv, having her longed-for kids) is outweighed by the bad (her father is a supervillain, her husband gets mindwiped and divorces her, her kids aren't real), along with a number of possessions, kidnappings, and multiple forced amnesia inflicted by her most trusted friends. Then she rewrites the universe. Then she does it AGAIN.
- Caliginous in Hero Squared has decided that life is nothing but pain, misery, cruelty and death, and should be ended in preferably the most all-encompassing fashion possible. Her arch-nemesis Captain Valor just sees her as an evil megalomaniac, but his alternative self Milo manages to recognize that beneath it all she's a broken, lonely, psychologically tormented and suffering woman.
- Green Lantern villain Atrocitus. His entire space sector was wiped out by the Manhunters, and the massacre is enough to drive his anger to the point where it gives birth to the Red Lanterns. Not even the other characters realize just how painful seeing the massacre was until they visit his dead home world.
- "He loved something once...life."
- He even shares a brief moment of empathy with Saint Walker. Saint Walker admits that he too was once filled with rage after losing his entire family to random accidents during a pilgrimage. Only a brief moment, since Atrocitus points out one crucial difference: Saint Walker had no one to blame for their deaths, while Atrocitus can and does blame the Manhunters' creators the Guardians.
Film
- J.D. (Christian Slater) in Heathers.
- Azrael in Dogma: "Human, have you ever been to hell? I'd rather not exist than endure that experience a second longer, and if I have to drag down everyone else with me... so be it".
- Bartleby: He eventually snaps realizing that God always favored man above angels like himself, and gives up hope that He will never forgive him and Loki for their menial transgressions, and so decides to kill everything.
- Nero the Romulan, from the new Star Trek, REALLY wants Spock to understand his pain... by destroying his homeworld, as Romulus was destroyed in Nero's original timeline. And after Spock, the rest of the Federation is to get the same treatment, starting with Earth.
- Davy Jones from Pirates Of The Caribbean doesn't seem to want to destroy everything- just everything that crosses his path. He's like this because his one true love the goddess Calypso betrayed him (presumably for another man, though it's never elaborated on) centuries ago. Jones's agony was unbearable, so he cut out his own heart to end it. When that failed, he adopted a different tactic- find relief by sharing his pain with everyone else he meets.
- Carrie is certainly a Woobie, even if she doesn't quite destroy worlds... Just most of her high school.
- Oswald Cobblepot in Batman Returns: Disfigured since birth, his aristocratic parents attempted to drown him in the sewers. He was found by a traveling circus, and was raised in the freak show as "The Penguin." While the public views him with sympathy, he has become a warped sociopath, plotting to murder all the first born sons of Gotham City. When the goddamn Batman foils him, he straps rockets to his hundreds (thousands?) of pet penguins, intending to use them in a suicide bombing to kill all of Gotham. And yet, you still can't help but pity him at death.
- Jean Grey in X-men: The Last Stand.
- Kim Jong Il from Team America World Police
Literature
Mythology
- Your Mileage May Vary to a really great extent, but...Loki. Think about it. He started off as a slightly more happy-go-lucky (for whatever that's worth in Norse myths) trickster god. He ensured that Asgard's wall would be built for free, and aided Thor in one of his journeys. Hell, in some versions, Thor even says that Loki is "an evil man, but a good companion." Sure, he caused a great deal of trouble, but at the same time, he's typically regarded as a permanent outsider (in small part, one might argue, due to his half-giant heritage, never mind that a lot of other gods are half giant), gets threatened, and at one point, gets his lips sewn shut by some bastard dwarves while all the other gods look on and laugh. Arguably, this would piss a lot of people off. And then, long story short, he causes Ragnarok, never repenting for his deeds.
- Of course, this depends on whether or not you'd call him a Woobie. Perhaps a Jerkass Woobie would be more appropriate.
Live Action TV
- Adam Monroe on Heroes is arguably an example, as his path of destruction is fueled by his heartbreak over Yaeko.
- That and living through over three hundred years of man's inhumanity to man and seeing mankind never learn from their mistakes, repeating the same stupid actions over and over again. Think about it, the guy's lived through more horrible shit than anyone on earth. That would make anyone crazy.
- Dr. K in Power Rangers RPM. She unleashed a possibly alien computer virus that is suspected to have nuked the planet, and is confirmed to have wiped out all of humanity outside of one city. Her motive? Escape from a top-secret government think-tank where she was being more or less imprisoned.
- In her defense, the guards caught her before she could set up a firewall. So she unintentionally killed most of humanity in an attempt to escape unjust imprisonment.
- Several episodes of the new Doctor Who series have shown how easily the Doctor could become one of these due to all he's endured throughout the centuries, in particular his treatment of the eponymous villains in "The Family of Blood". It's also heavily implied that the end of the Time War, in which he personally killed billions and almost annihilated two ancient civilisations, was the result of his despair over all the destruction the war had caused.
- The human race may become one of these if they ever get FTL- after centuries of invasions and attacks, they don't have a terribly positive view of the rest of the cosmos anymore.
- Willow on Buffy The Vampire Slayer attempted to do this in the sixth season finale after her Roaring Rampage Of Revenge over the death of Tara ended with a magical overload that briefly attuned her to the thoughts and feelings of everyone else on the planet. Overwhelmed by the world's collective pain, she decided that "your suffering has to end" and turned her newfound power towards bringing about The End Of The World As We Know It. She was finally stopped by the The Power Of Love.
Music
- The subject of Everything Burns
by Anastacia & Ben Moody. The song could probably describe ninety percent of the people on this page.
Theatre
- Medea. Older Than Feudalism, and if you count the myth that came before it, Older Than Dirt.
- The titular character of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, after being sent to a penal colony for fifteen years on a trumped-up charge, returning home to find that his wife poisoned herself (though contrary to what Mrs. Lovett would have him believe, she's still alive) and his daughter adopted by the man responsible for his suffering, and failing in his big attempt at revenge, finally goes Ax Crazy and becomes this at the end of Act One.
Video Games
- Belkt, the Big Bad of Another Centurys Episode 3 is this due to an immense quadruple-whammy. Not only was he born into a Crapsack World where everyone is trying to kill each other (as well as Aliens And Monsters) with Humongous Mecha after barely surviving The End Of The World As We Know It as well as being considered nothing more than an expendable tool to his superiors in The Federation, but he's also got a bad case of Cloning Blues coupled with the fact that he thought his "father" didn't care about him either. So not only does he decide to wipe out his own Earth, but also the Earth of an Alternate Universe where his "father" was originally from and his "base" (i.e., the boy he was cloned from) is living a somewhat less screwed-up life as an Ordinary High School Student via smashing them into each other.
- Fou-Lu from Breath Of Fire IV. He's an immortal emperor who also happens to be a dragon. He's been hibernating for the past thousand years, during which time some not-nice people usurped his throne and plotted to have him killed when he woke. He manages to escape the assassination attempts, mostly through turning into a large fire-breathing monster and schooling them all in the arts of pain and suffering, and then goes about trying to regain his throne. Along the way, he runs into (and is hidden by) a nice, friendly farm girl who wears a bell as jewelry, who promptly falls in love with him. He, of course, falls for her, too, though he's too much the stoic and quiet type to admit it. The Big Bads find out that she's been harboring dragon-boy, take her captive, and drag her off to one of the more horrible fates imaginable. See, they have a superweapon, called the Carronade, that uses people with very close bonds to their target as ammunition, converting their pure soul (after a good amount of Cold Blooded Torture, of course) into a foul and unspeakable city-destroying curse. So, the Emperor's walking thorugh a forest on his way to his rightful palace to retake it, when he senses the powerful world-rending curse headed his way, and defends against it as best he can. The last thing he sees before the force of the curse renders him unconscious is the farm girl's bell charm falling from the heavens to land in front of him. Cue insane cackling, and his plans going from 'regain throne' to 'everybody dies'.
- Duminuss from Super Robot Wars Reversal, an artificial being (unsure of what she actually is, as she is only seen as a trippy eye glyph with a feminine/shota voice... and several Humongous Mecha) whose only wish is to know her purpose. Her creator shunned her, and then she killed it. Actually, her creator, Dark Brain, didn't die. He just implanted that memory into her just for the lulz and left her. She shifts dimensions and invades the EXCELLENCE team labs searching for a time machine, to ask her creator her purpose. She constructs 3 children, who are loyal and fight for her. Then Duminuss is destroyed, and her children kill themselves to bring her back. Then the heroes kill her again. She explodes, crying over how she'll die without ever knowing what was her true purpose. Unfortunately, Original Generation Gaiden threw this out of the window and made her an unrepentant Jerk Ass...
- Sirus, aka Dark Emperor Griffon, from Dark Cloud 2. Originally a member of the Moon Tribe (aka anthropomorphic bunny) who loved nothing more than the flowers in the palace gardens, he was accused of trespassing. Alexandra interceded for him and made him Garden Keeper. But then invading armies searching for the Atlamillia utterly annihilated the kingdom, leaving it a blasted wasteland, and killed Alexandra. His grief was so great he swore vengeance on all of mankind, and started systematically erasing it from existence via Time Travel, acquiring the Mac Guffin for himself so he could reduce the world to nothingness. Regardless, the player and the protagonists are made to feel sorry for him by means of flashback scenes scattered throughout Moonflower Palace.
- In Fable II, Lord Lucien became obsessed with the power of Old Kingdom technology after the death of his wife and daughter, which eventually drives him to reconstruct an Old Kingdom device known as The Spire, with slave labor, and use it to reshape the world to his liking. Oh, and along the way he murders your sister, along with countless others, including your wife and kids, if you have a family, and even your canine companion.
- F.E.A.R.'s Alma is a dead straight example of this trope. Having been driven insane by her own psychic powers as a child, experimented on and locked up since she was eight years old, medicated into a coma and locked away in a shield vault for most of her life, forcibly impregnanted and then having both of her children taken away, then killed once the project was terminated, all by her own father, and then repeatedly shot at by one of her own children while trying to embrace him, it's no surprise that the second she gets loose, people die. F.E.A.R. 2 continues her rampage as she tries to get revenge on everyone who ruined her life, and kills anyone who happens to get in her way.
- Except for Becket, who she, um, "covets."
- In The Point Man's defense, being embraced by Alma tends to be a death sentence.
- Practically every villain of the Final Fantasy series from VII onward and arguably the villains from many of the previous games and spin-off lines.
- Sephiroth, thanks to the revelation that he is the product of a Mad Scientist's experiment and compounded by the effect of falling into the Lifestream and being exposed to the voices of all souls not currently alive, warping his mind even more. His crossing of the Moral Event Horizon keeps him from truly being a Woobie, but then again, he is the premiere Draco In Leather Pants of the Final Fantasy series.
- In FFVII, a much more straight example of this trope is Dyne.
- Kuja in Final Fantasy IX, after learning that his lifespan is limited and will soon run out, throws a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum and decides to travels back to the BEGINNING OF TIME to destroy the Original Crystal and thus the entire universe.
- Seymour in Final Fantasy X. He was subject to Fantastic Racism due to being born a Half Human Hybrid, had to watch his mother perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save those people while his father nodded approvingly, all before the age of twelve. Is it any wonder that he Went Mad From The Revelation that the church that encouraged all of this was in fact The Necrocracy dedicated to keeping things this way forever? His idea of destroying Spira to save it from further pain actually sounds half-sane. He was waaaay too far gone to Take A Third Option.
- Ditto Shuyin in the sequel. Of course, given that he was literally subjected to a thousand years of non-stop Mind Rape until the start of the game, it's kinda understandable.
- It's implied that this affects Kefka Palazzo in Dissidia: Final Fantasy during his, surprisingly touching, final scene in which Terra speculates that the reason why Kefka became an Ax Crazy Nietzsche Wannabe was because of his "broken heart".
- Sephiran/Lehran tries to call the judgment of a goddess down upon Tellius in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, all because he thought it would be the only way for him to finally be put out of his misery and that humanity was completely irredeemable after witnessing 850 years of slavery, tragedy, and war.
- Crimsoness
casts one of these as the Player Character.
- Durandal, an AI from the Marathon trilogy, was deliberately threatened by his creator in order to drive him to rampancy (as part of an attempt to safely study rampancy), made to open and close doors for hundreds of years in order to stifle his creative development and slow his rampancy, and was probably about to be experimented on more when he entered the "anger" stage of rampancy, secretly contacted hostile aliens and drew them to Tau Ceti to enslave or kill every single human on the colony or in the ship. Though he becomes less of a woobie later, when he turns into a Bad Ass Chessmaster.
- Lets be fair to the bastard. He brought the Pfhor as a distraction so he could get loose. Once that was done, he started working on stopping them, freeing their slaves (admittedly to work for him), and helping the Security Officer do that which he does so well. The extermination of those on Tau Ceti IV was not intentional.
- The King of Planet FM from Mega Man Star Force. Everybody, including his family wanted to kill him to overtake his throne. As a result, he stopped trusting people. He destroyed Planet AM and almost Earth, because he thought that the people there would want to kill him as well.
- Jack and Queentia from Star Force 3 also fit this trope like a glove. They were once the prince and princess of a small, but prosperous country, which was attacked by neighbor nations for their advanced EM technology. And it just went downhill from there...
- You could probably also say this for Burai/Rogue also in the 3rd game. After the first time you fight him on your way to fight Jack Corvus, he may have shared his backstory saying something along the lines of "Go ahead and save him. Later on he will betray you.".
- Strega of Persona 3 is a trio of this, all of them being artificially implanted with the powers of Persona by the Kirijo Group and being forced to take drugs that shorten their lifespan in order to control their powers. The leader Takaya later embraces Nyx coming to destroy life, proclaiming that his fight against SEES is him fighting for his way of life.
- The Shadow Hearts series has a few, but Masaji Kato from Covenant wins the cake. Having the woman you love being executed for treason? Bad, really bad. Managing to clone her, doing your best for making her clone remember everything so that you'd be finally happy together, only to have killed her again, and this time permanently, just as she starts to love you too? OUCH. No wonder he snapped after this and tried to create a new world by destroying the current one... Even the protagonists feel sympathy for him as the final battle starts.
- Alessa Gillespie from Silent Hill is another textbook example. She was burned to the point of near death but kept alive in excruciating pain, force-fed experimental hallucinogenics, and forcibly impregnated with God. This was all done by her mother. Claudia from the third game and Walter from the fourth certainly count as well, wanting to summon a Cosmic Horror they view as divine ("God" and "Mother" respectively) to cleanse the world of pain and loneliness.
- The Ur-Quan of Star Control. After spending thousands of years psychically enslaved by evil toads who forced them to exterminate whole species of their friends, only finally clearing their minds long enough to revolt by putting themselves through unspeakable agony, anyone would be in a bad mood. The nice ones want to forcibly subjugate all sentient life in the galaxy. The rest want to eliminate it altogether.
- The main antagonist in Super Paper Mario, Count Bleck, who wanted to use the Chaos Heart to undo and redo all reality because he was heartbroken by his one true love. Except it actually turns out it's without the "redo" part. He's that messed up by the loss of his love.
- Kohaku of Tsukihime has become so emotionally broken that she thinks of herself as a doll and has no idea how she really feels about anything. Oh, and she's plotting the deaths of Akiha and SHIKI, is implied or perhaps stated to be involved in Makihasa's death and may view Shiki as a target as well, though she doesn't succeed there in any path. It's okay if everyone dies except Hisui, pretty much. Oh, and she's indirectly behind all the serial killing going on in the Far Side routes.
- Depending on how charitable you feel, the darker Forsaken from World Of Warcraft fall into this trope: their penchant for obscenely lethal plagues, doomsday weapons, and tendency to respond to any threat violently are a direct result of having once been decent, devout humans and elves before having been infected by the Plague of Undeath, killed, resurrected into undeath, corrupted by the Lich King and forced to massacre friends and family, and finally breaking free of his control only to be rejected by their faith and persecuted and hunted down by any remaining friends, family, and acquaintances. No wonder so many of them snap with apocalyptic fury.
- Sargeras, the creator of the Burning Legion was so traumatized by the evil of some of the demons he fought against as the pantheon's chosen warrior that he decided that an universe where such things were allowed to happen was flawed, its attempts at Order pointless, and should be remade.
- Despite the fact that he wants to destroy the world because he doesn't like how mortals are using magic, Malygos can count because, let's face it, his life sucked before he ultimatly snapped.
- Nessiah of Yggdra Union has spent the past thousand-odd years living in misery, unable to age or die, as a punishment for being a pacifist in Asgard's time of war. He has spent his life since then trying to get revenge or just to free himself, and makes a nice mess of the mortal world he lives in doing so.
- King Valentine in Odin Sphere throws a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum in the final book by using the Cauldron to turn Leventhan into a really pissed-off Sheng Long, which ends up destroying him along with pretty much the rest of existence. Granted, he got broken pretty hard before and during the story, beginning with being forced to kill his own daughter because she had an affair with the king of an enemy country, then dying horribly, along with most of his kingdom, after being betrayed by his own son, enduring endless torturer in the netherworld, and escaping it only to be spitefully denied the complete destruction he was so desperately seeking by the dude who started the whole thing by shagging his daughter, no less.
- Vayne in Mana Khemia after he discovered the truth and failed to take it well. Faced with the problem of honestly thinking the best thing for the world would be if he were to disappear while at the same time desperately not wanting to face the loneliness he lived with before coming to Al Revis, he decides to take the school and everybody in it with him.
- Xion in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, since her whole existence is pretty much a Trauma Conga Line.
- Sakura in Fate Stay Night eventually decides (with the help of the devil that is possessing her) that since her life sucks so much, she's just going to absorb Shirou and Tohsaka, kill everyone she doesn't like and then give birth to the devil. Well, the last part probably wasn't too high on the agenda but she didn't really care if it happened or not.
- She never actually decided to absorb Shirou and Rin until the very end of the final battle, when Rin decides to tell her how little she actually cares (which in itself is a total lie). Prior to that, she actually passes up several opportunities to kill them, and even comes to warn them and asks Rin to run away with Shirou. She still fits this trope, though, because she certainly did seem to be intending to release Angra Mainyu (with prompting from Zouken).
- Why isn't Archer mentioned? He got betrayed by everything else, people he saved, and he still has no regret. And in the end, he got betrayed by the only thing he believed in. Now he's trying to create a paradox which can be a serious problem.
- In Xenogears, we don't know for sure how many times Fei and Elly reincarnated Themselves, but for 10,000 years the scenario has been mostly the same for they find each other, fall in love, and when they seem to be about to have a little marital bliss they die an ghorrible and painful death. If you had the painful experiment he was subject for in his childhood, Feis end up with a multiple personality disorder, with TWO of his personalities wanting to destroy the world: one is able to exist independantly and jump from body to body, and the other one is a Person Of Mass Destruction. And that's not all: Krelian, a friend of Fei in a prevous life is another woobie ready to destroy the world if it allows him to be "reunited with God". With that many Physical Gods and Magnificent Bastards in the same planet, you can guess that Xenogears world is not the most pleasant place to be.
- Professor Gerald from Sonic Adventure 2 initially seems to be a genocidal Mad Scientist, but once we learn that the cause of his insanity was losing his home, his research and his granddaughter, basically all that was important to him in rapid succesion, its hard not to feel a bit sorry for him.
- Elpizo from the Mega Man Zero series exhibits traits of this trope, first being sentenced to death for discovering records about a past catastrophe in the ruined library he was ordered to examine. He escapes this fate, only to get lots of people killed while leading a failed assault on his former rulers; this drives him to obsession and megalomania, and he decides he wants to re-enact the aforementioned catastrophe.
- Aribeth from Neverwinter Nights. She began as a woman driven to avenge her parents, until some mystical dreams convinced her to be a Paladin. She then watched the city she loved slowly rot from an incurable plague. When they finally found out the Helmite Desther was the cause, he was burned at the stake, and Aribeth's lover Fenthick was hanged for being his friend, and thus was suspected of being an accomplice. As a shining symbol of justice, Aribeth was tormented by what she saw as the people she loved engaging in brute vengeance and mob mentality, and the fact that her equally just lover was hanged for following the path he thought was right. Toss in some Mind Rape by the Big Bad in the form of nightmares (which were similar to the same ones that convinced her to be a Paladin), and its no wonder she snapped. Aribeth became The Dragon to the Big Bad, later a Dragon to the Man Behind The Man. Aribeth did this so she could watch the Big Bad destroy Neverwinter, her way of claiming vengeance for the wrongs she saw them committing. Aribeth knows full well the Big Bad is just using her and will kill her once she's outlived her usefulness - she's counting on it, since she realizes how evil she is now and wants to die.
- Oersted of Live A Live.
- Kerrigan from Star Craft Killed her mom (and a whole mess of other folks) by way of a psychic accident, watched a kitten die of cancer, was forced to choose between killing her mentally ill father or her sadistic headmaster (she just broke his gun), was forced to decapitate a rebel leader (and steal his head), was experimented on, and was betrayed by her father figure. Then she got infested by a Horde Of Alien Locusts. Is it any wonder she's a little crazy? Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't be.
- I'd say Kalas of Baten Kaitos just barely avoided becoming this. Just barely.
- The only reason Emerl doesn't end up as one of these is because Sonic shoots the dog before it can happen.
- Yggdrasil of Tales Of Symphonia. He spends 4,000 years trying to bring back his dead sister, while trying to fulfill her last wish of a world without discrimination. Unfortunately, he ends up deciding that the best way to accomplish that is by creating a world of lifeless beings.
- Ratchet, of the Ratchet and Clank series - he's a walking class 1 at the very least, though he manages to avoid wallowing in his existential angst and/or loneliness pretty well by keeping busy.
- Ballos from Cave Story, who destroyed the very kingdom whose people he loved and helped out after being subject to Cold Blooded Torture by the king, forcing Jenka to seal him within the floating island. In fact, when you reach him at the end of the Bonus Level Of Hell, he begs you to kill him...or he shall kill YOU!
- Shirley becomes a variant of this after Senel turns her down because he feels he needs to stay true to his now-dead original Love Interest, Stella, who happens to be Shirley's older sister.
- In Pokemon, Cyrus could qualify if you look at his history. He never got along with anyone which led him to emotional dispair and eventually the dismissal of emotion. In his mind He's just trying to make a better world
- If there were any worthier candidate for the epitome of this trope, it would have to be Blaz Blue's Ragna the Bloodedge. Not only did he lose his home at the hands of Terumi, but he was also betrayed by his brother Jin who cut off his arm simply because Ragna didn't pay attention to him enough. In addition, his younger sister had been kidnapped, and he was left to die. Then, Rachel saves him from death by turning him into a half-vampire, causing him immense trauma and making his hair turn white. Then later, we find out that his sister is the template for a series of robotic clones, two of which are playable characters in the game. One of them, Noel, is pretty much a grown-up Saya for the most part, while the other, Nu, is a crazy loli robot bitch who wants to fuse with Ragna to complete herself and form the Black Beast, which turned the world into a crapsack one already. He's already flat-out stated that he hates everything because of these events. You can't help but feel pity for him, unless you're a soulless bastard.
- Labtech X, woobie destroyer of Gaia Online.
- Played with in Sands Of Destruction. Morte wants Kyrie to turned into one by showing how crappy the world is with the ferals' supremacy, hoping that he'll want to destroy it with his Destruct powers. He doesn't.
- Lambda in Tales Of Graces, as well as Richard, thanks to More Than Mind Control.
Web Comics
- Before she mellowed out a bit, Galatea fit this trope in The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob. She explains her position thusly.
- Dan Shive admitted that Lord Tedd has a Freudian Excuse lurkingin the shadows.
Not that it matters.
- Back in 2000, the webcomic Fluble actually had a storyline
about a space monstrosity named Woobie, who wanted to destroy the world because he felt unloved.
- Darths And Droids seems to be casting Jengo Fett in this role.
- Sandra Eastlake from Zebra Girl. After trying for two years to come to terms with accidentally being transformed (through no fault of her own) into an obviously non-human demon who cannot eat or even taste food properly, cannot type properly (her fingers are razor-sharp foot-long claws), cannot sound normal (her voice sounds like the modulated noise of a cat being strangled
), cannot interact within normal society or even hold a normal job, surviving multiple attempts on her and her friends' lives, being rendered incapable of intimate contact due to her bodily fluids being acid, and becoming her town's very own urban monster legend, she is finally pushed over the edge by a wizard who goes out of his way to provoke her into becoming completely evil so that he can successfully poison her with an evil-killing toxin. When even that fails, he simply drags her to Hell while the whole town stands by and does nothing, because he happened to look more human than she does. She finally snaps when after they both arrive in hell, he transforms into a demon and threatens to spend the rest of eternity torturing her. By that point she literally has nothing left to lose.
- And as icing on the cake, consider that the only reason said wizard even knew about her in the first place is because she contacted him to ask for help.
- Tavor from Looking For Group. After losing his family and kingdom to invaders, he decides to take his pain out on the rest of the world by trying to erase the city representing its last hope from existence.
- What, noone's mentioned Oasis? All she wants is her one true love to return that love and untill he does, she'll slaughter everything in her path.
- And then there's Last Blood, where it is revealed, by the end of book 1, that (Warning: major spoiler) Francis, the schaemiac (a vampire turned zombie-like by decades of blood starvation) who launched the Zombie Apocalypse, did it all out of spite and jealousy for his best friend Sullivan's popularity, and the latter being chosen by his Love Interest. This earned him the qualification of whiny little bitch
, which the fans made his official nick, shorted up as WLB.
- Kimiko in the Hob arc of Dresden Codak. Take a look at this
and tell me that you don't want to give Kimiko a reassuring hug, you filthy liar. Even the Mini-Hob felt sorry for her. How can you live with yourself?
Web Original
- In Broken Saints, Big Bad Lear Dunham's entire Evil Plan can arguably be traced back to his despair after the passing of his wife. Whether the pain of his loss unhinged him somewhat or whether it drove him to become the humanitarian Determinator he was prior to losing hope, there is no denying that losing the love of his life had some part in Lear's motive to re-start human civilization.
Western Animation
- Butters from South Park tries really hard to do this in the form of Professor Chaos, but fails since he is just too adorable and inherently innocent to do anything really destructive or dangerous.
- Terra from Teen Titans, in stark contrast to the unsympathetic bitch from the original comics.
- A chunk of the Phineas And Ferb fandom views Mad Scientist Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz as ineffectually trying to fulfill this trope due to the way he's treated in the series.
- Heck, he once built a brainwashing machine just to force people to come to his birthday party.
- Your Mileage May Vary, depending on your views of him, but some fans view Tai Lung of Kung Fu Panda fame to be this. He was denied the Dragon Scroll and was turned on by his father-figure, so he went on a rampage in the Valley of Peace, destroying anything and anyone in his path, until he was eventually stopped by Master Oogway.
- World from Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends who literally destroyed his own world in rage when the gang tried to take Frankie back home and is still the Woobie considering his depressing back story and the fact that all he really wanted was for Frankie to stay with him.
- Demona of Gargoyles has suffered a great deal at the hands of humanity across her centuries-long life, and this ultimately leads her to an attitude of genocidal insanity towards that species. She's never entirely unsympathetic, though, due to her tragic (almost Shakespeareanly-so) backstory. True, a lot of it was indirectly her own fault, but that just winds up making her more pitiable. In any event, she thinks she can end her pain only by wiping out the human race, making her a definite example of this trope.
- Made all the worse by the fact that, since she's immortal, she's Cursed With Awesome, since she'll outlive everyone and thing she's ever cared about at all. Besides which, 5 words: "The access code is... Alone."
- An argument could definately be made for Invader Zim falling into this category. He's so deluded and unliked that you can't help but feel sorry for him.
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