Sandbox / Heart Trauma Wick Check

Methodology note: I maintain the right to look into wicks to see if a ZCE or a pothole can be salvaged in this context. If it can, I will put it in the appropriate folder with my notes.

Correct use: Mystical, mind-altering heart modifications

1. Anime.Howls Moving Castle: Howl is literally The Heartless because of a Deal with the Devil. He gets better eventually thanks to Sophie.
2. Anime.Kill La Kill: Ryuko watches in pure horror as Ragyo holds up her heart in front of her face after she removed it from her body, infused with Life Fibers and revealing that she's her long-lost daughter.
3. Characters.Sinfest: His heart takes a great deal of abuse, starting since his heart got emptied of its empathy, and now it's worse thanks to his Superpowered Evil Side. It got better thanks to the intervention of Buddha and Jesus, but has since been split twice and frozen. It has gotten better again, but time will tell for how long.
4. Characters.Adventure Quest Worlds Throne Of Darkness: For the final test, Ptahmun must offer himself, which involves stabbing himself with a spirit dagger and extracting his heart.
5. Characters.DCEU Task Force X Targets: Waller is in possession of the Enchantress's physical heart, which considerably weakens the latter if Waller physically abuses it. Flag ultimately kills her by crushing the heart.
6. Literature.The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz: The Tin Woodman's entire motivation in the original book that he erroneously believed he was experiencing this. Since he had literally lost his heart, he thought he had lost his capacity for kindness and love. In fact, he was almost saintlike in his love and kindness toward nearly everything he met; he just wasn't sentimental or strongly emotional.
7. VideoGame.Dark Parables: Took a Level in Jerkass: Prince Fiachra. To be fair, he's literally missing his heart.
8. OnceUponATime.Tropes E To F: Enslaved Tongue: One of the possible side-effects of owning someone's heart — not only can you essentially use the victim as an unintentional mole, you can also make them say things you want them to say in order to manipulate others.

Misuse: Mystical heart modifications of other nature

1. Characters.Dangan Roleplay Canon Rounds Part One, Kirei Kotomine: And how. It's been replaced by Angra Mainyu. Note: This mostly refers to the base character being killed by Attack on the Heart, but in this setting, there's an "'unholy mass of shadows' taking up residence in, and emerging from, the hole where his heart should be".
2. Characters.Dimension W: When he activates the dual coil and burns out every coil nearby, he also affects the coil powering his heart. It causes his shirt to catch fire, which quickly spread to consume his entire body. Note: He accidentally kills himself.
3. Characters.The Dragon Prince Xadia, Magma Titan: Its heart is removed and used to power a dark magic spell to warm the lands of Katolis and Duren. Note: Mystical setting, but heart extraction is not intended to modify the mind of its owner.

Misuse: Mundane, mostly medical heart conditions

1. Bowdlerise.Anime And Manga J To R: In the original, Bubbles' childhood friend Taka has been isolated in a hospital for 7 years over a chronic, potentially lethal, heart condition. In the dub (where he's renamed as Cody), he only goes there over a minor injury.
2. Characters.Honoo No Alpen Rose Nazis And Associates: Batman Gambit: He uses his youngest daughter Mathilda as Jeudi's Body Double, having her trick Hélène into believing she is the real Alicia (who is actually Jeudi) - which was very easy back then, considering that Hélène's non-existant eyesight doesn't let her see that Mathilda looks nothing like the grown-up Jeudi, who has been missing for a long time so nobody really knows how she would look like. Then, once Mathilda has wormed her place in Hélène's affections, he blackmails the Dunants into doing whatever he asks them too, threatening with taking "Alicia" away from Hélène - which will be fatal for her due to her Break the Cutie past and her very weak heart.
3. Characters.Katawa Shoujo, Hisao: Your Days Are Numbered: Said Heart Trauma means that Hisao's special condition is the only one of the main cast's that is outright stated to be a mortal concern, and he says at various points that he expects to die young. Again, this is one of the major issues he has (though he does get medicine and advice which will hopefully help stave off said mortality) During the opening hospital scene, the doctor tries to assure him that people with his condition can live fairly long lives, but Hisao seems to ignore this and it's never brought up again.
4. Characters.The Thing 1982: He suffers a heart attack, and is hauled off for first aid. This turns out to be a mistake, because he was a Thing all along.
5. Pantheon.Environmental Settings, under "The Antarctic Research Crew": Norris: The most adored of the entire group, was infected early on and "died" by a heart attack only to reveal itself. Note: See The Thing example above—refers to the same thing.
6. Creator.Gallagher: Due to a heart condition, he had retired from performing for a while. He went on a national comedy tour ("The Joke's on You" tour) in 2017.
7. DelicateAndSickly.Live Action TV: The female lead from the Chilean telenovela Corazón de María is an upper class Ill Girl with a severe Heart Trauma. She gets a heart transplant coming from a middle-to-low class bride killed in a tragic car accident right after her wedding. The drama starts when she starts searching for the donor María's family to thank them for the heart donation, and then she meets and falls for her handsome and hard-working husband Miguel...
8. DelicateAndSickly.Visual Novels: Katawa Shoujo gives us two: Male lead Hisao. While the girls are physically disabled but otherwise fine, he's got severe heart arrhythmia that almost kills him in the introduction. It doesn't do him any favors when Emi runs into him in the hallway, either, and keeps being a problem over the course of the game. Especially in Lilly's route, in which he has two major incidents... and a third on the way to the Good Ending that hospitalizes him again and almost kills him. Kenji Setou, who not only is legally blind but is speculated to be mentally ill as well. Only that he's a Large Ham Conspiracy Theorist instead.
9. Literature.Light And Lavender: Morgan mentions going to the cardiologist every few years to check up on an unnamed past heart problem.
10. Manga.Georgie: My God, What Have I Done?: Mary has a big one when after kicking Georgie out, this alienates her sons since Georgie nearly drowns so they want to be by her side when she wakes up. Eventually, they do go back home, but there is a coldness that was never there before. The stress causes Mary to become very sick and begs Arthur on her deathbed to bring Georgie back home before she dies.
11. Characters.Towards The Sun: Zuko develops electricity-induced arrhythmia due to having to tank Azula's lightning attacks. His weakening firebending barely allows him to redirect lightning, not being able to protect himself. His arrhythmia combined with his poor condition due to his imprisionment, poor sleep habits, poor eating habits and terrible lifestyle altogether lead to it Zuko endangering his life in critical moments. Note: This, and the example below, are essentially referring to the same thing. In both cases, a mythical power causes a mundane, physical ailment (arrhythmia).
12. Fanfic.Towards The Sun: Zuko develops electricity-induced arrhythmia due to having to tank Azula's lightning attacks. His weakening firebending barely allows him to redirect lightning, preventing him from properly protecting himself. His arrhythmia, combined with his poor condition due to his imprisonment, poor sleep habits, poor eating habits and terrible lifestyle altogether, leads to Zuko endangering his life in critical moments. Note: See above.
13. Characters.Emerald City: Had his heart removed with a mechanical one after his fall. '''The setting is somewhat fantastical, but it's no different from a human on our world having an artificial heart (with no personality change of course).

Misuse: Actually Attack on the Heart, or extracting the heart of the killed

1. Characters.Case Closed People From Notable Cases: Dark and Troubled Past: Only in the manga. After the death of his mother and his financial ruin, Hades Sabara murdered both the people hounding him for money and the friend who suggested he invest in the stock market. And the friend's whole family. And he apparently ripped their hearts out.
2. Characters.Dragon Fable Party Members: She collects the hearts of the monsters she slays. Note: It's a fantasy setting, but we're talking about taking the heart out physically after they're dead.
3. JoJosBizarreAdventure.Tropes G To K: Gorn: Not as bad as say... Vagabond or even Fist of the North Star since it's mainly blood, not guts or limbs flying. But it is still one of the most violent shonen series out there. Specifically Araki likes to draw injuries in specific organs the readers will probably cringe at the idea of being hurt in there. Note: Seems to refer to mundane injuries covered by Attack on the Heart.
4. NightmareFuel.Live Action TV: Alguien Te Mira: Each of the Villain Protagonist's very gruesome murders. Specially goes to him beheading a guy with an electric saw and cutting the local Action Girl's heart off her body. His Karmic Death isn't much better, since he has flashbacks to the time when his mother raped him and then gets set on fire...
5. Fanfic.The Blue Blur Of Termina: The Skull Kid does this to Lady Venus by ripping her Heart Container out of her body. YMMV.The Blue Blur Of Termina indicates the act is intended to kill Lady Venus. The item below refers to the same incident.
6. Characters.The Blue Blur Of Termina: She suffered this from the Skull Kid's attack on her. 'See above.

Other misuse

1. Characters.Phantom Thief Jeanne, Zen Takazuchiya: The demon is keeping Zen alive by possessing him, and if Jeanne checkmates, he'll succumb to his failing heart. The anime takes it up a notch and has the demon outright enter his heart itself. Note: This is a bit of both types of misuse: This character has a congenital heart defect (a common form of the "heart disease" type of misuse), but he made a Deal with the Devil of which the demon keeps his heart hostage, and can cause Attack on the Heart when there's an attempt in removing the demon. There's a mind-altering effect of the demon residing in his heart, but I think this is more properly dealt with Demonic Possession.
2. Characters.Dragon Fable Other Characters: Roirr rips out Izbor's heart in order to perform a spell that allows Roirr to change into his physical likeness. This and the next example involves Kill and Replace, where Roirr kills Izbor by extracting the latter's heart and disguise as the latter. The first one is Attack on the Heart; the latter part seems to better fall into Literal Change of Heart.
3. YMMV.Dragon Fable: Roirr probably crossed it long ago, but his first act of unspeakable horror is when he steals a man's heart in order to disguise himself as his appearance, or for those willing to overlook that he summons Vaal's SoulAlly just to devour her. But what really seals the deal on how awful Roirr is compared to previous antagonists, is when he liquifies an entire village of people using dark magic, all the while tricking the friend of the person who he's pretending to be in helping him. See the example above.
4. Series.Eerie Indiana: Soul Fragment: In "Heart on a Chain", when Devon forgot to Look Both Ways, he died and Melanie got his heart for the transplant she needed. She then proceeded to act like him, skateboarding recklessly and carving graffiti on the desks. This is Literal Change of Heart.

ZCE

Unchecked

1. Characters.Evillious Chronicles Clockwork Lullaby Series: Ripped out his own heart to save the Doll.

2. Characters.K Jungle: He lost his heart in the Kagutsu Crater with a rock supposedly smashing into his chest. The only reason he's still alive is because his powers are used to sustain his body.
3. Characters.Lightning Dust: After the accident, Klaus' heart problems stopped, and as a result, he feels invincible and cocky.
4. Characters.Once Upon A Time Enchanted Forest: Cora killed him the same way that Regina killed Sheriff Graham.
5. Characters.Pathfinder Unique Creatures: Its heart was torn out and cut apart to stop it from rising again.

6. Characters.The AM Archives: It is revealed that the majority of the reason Wadsworth feels how she does towards atypicals is that Helen, whom she trusted, once used her ability to stop her heart.

7. DarthWiki.Sword And Shadow Adventures: Syndal's heart was removed by Dr. Mordenheim for her own purposes. He wants it back.

8. DepravedBisexual.Literature: Oddly, every other character in Lloyd Rose's Doctor Who Expanded Universe novels. There are at least two villains who gently caress the Doctor while doing bad things to him, and the Doctor seems to have a bit of fun with this trope himself, flirting with Anti-Villain Sabbath and amplifying his usual No Sense of Personal Space. (The Doctor is also fairly clearly stated to be bisexual, but he's usually almost a Chaste Hero unless someone really catches his eye or he sees an opportunity to flirt annoyingly.) To be fair, Sabbath literally stole the Doctor's heart, and should have known a Pungeon Master like the Doctor wasn't going to let that one go lightly.

9. Fridge.Knights Of The Borrowed Dark: The Endless King doesn't want a war... but seems perfectly willing, even eager, to start one and burn the world if the Order doesn't find what was taken, even after he finds out they didn't steal it. Why? Because he's missing his mercy!

10. Literature.Bridge Of Birds: "A man with no heart likes things cold."
11. Literature.Knights Of The Borrowed Dark: The Endless King's heart was carved out.

12. Literature.Machine Man: Destination Defenestration: This is what happens to the Manager when he jokes about Lola's EMP Heart Trauma

13. TakeAThirdOption.Anime And Manga: At the climax to the "Chapter of Egg" in Princess Tutu, Kraehe has captured Prince Mytho and challenges Tutu to a competition to win the affection of Mytho's feelings of love. What Kraehe is counting on is the fact that if Tutu confesses her love for Mytho, she will disappear. This being Princess Tutu, the show where the main character routinely uses her magical ballet dancing to accomplish her goals, so no points for guessing what happens next.

14. WaxingLyrical.Literature: And in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Camera Obscura, the Doctor quotes All Along the Watchtower while trying to escape a creepy Eldritch Location with a man who literally stole his heart:
    There must be some way out of here,' said the joker to the thief.
15. Webcomic.Monster Pulse: Bina's heart is literally gone due to transforming into Ayo, which initially freaks her out quite a bit. She can still function normally though, and is even able to feel her pulse.

16. YouHaveFailedMe.Anime And Manga: In Princess Tutu, when Princess Kraehe continually fails to bring the Raven a heart as a sacrifice, he attempts to eat her heart instead. She escapes, but barely. (Ironically, he then later seems to be surprised when she betrays him and tries to save Mytho from the same fate.)