There are a lot of characters that go through various hardships and trauma, and sometimes you can't help but want to hug them regardless of who they are. and those mentioned below are just some of them.
Iron Woobie
- PM was originally just a mail carrier, and was tasked with delivering a package to John. After a whole lot of things go wrong, she winds up appointed queen of the Exiles, only to see all of her friends/subjects murdered when Jack Noir comes out of nowhere, destroying what little they had managed to rebuild. He only didn't kill her because he didn't think she posed a threat. But then she finds the White Queen's Ring that WV had been carrying, and follows Jack to kick his ass as Prospitian Monarch. The look on Jack's face when he realizes how badly he underestimated her is glorious.
- WV goes through a Trauma Conga Line a mile long but never once lets it break him, keeping up his cheerful demeanor no matter what.
Jerkass Woobie
- Karkat is a vulgar, loud, obnoxious, stupid cyberbully who made Jade's life hell for her first thirteen years. Turns out he did all that only a few hours after his Dream self was brutally murdered by an old friend who now seeks to wipe out existence. As this happens, all of Karkat's friends begin to turn to madness, and all Karkat can do is blame himself and try to apologize.
- Vriska. Murderous, manipulative megalomaniac without a shred of empathy? Or girl living under impossible - partially self-inflicted - pressures, unable to make a single one of her dreams come true, who wishes to live in a less cruel world? Answer: Both. Later, due to Character Development, the megalomaniac side of her begins to dissipate after seeing Aranea do the same glory-hogging actions and seeing how awful it makes Aranea look, and how awful it must have made her look.
- There's debate over whether or not Eridan is a decent guy at first who let his jealousy get the better of him or if he was a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. The former interpretation, while still making him a jerk, also offers an opportunity to empathize with Eridan's distress.
- In canon, his situation is not the best (After a hard breakup with Feferi, he does not take her relationship with Sollux and refusal of his protection well, driving him to kill the love of his life and blind his rival.), but his defenders try to excuse his actions and paint him as a sad, misunderstood child only longing for his true love. This tends to bother the rest of the fandom, considering that in canon, he's a genocidal maniac, more obsessed with murder of all landdwellers (including his friends) than getting a date.
- Sollux's Pre-Scratch ancestor Mituna's disability and being abused by other characters might remind some readers of Tavros but when he musters up the lucidity he can say some pretty hateful things. His speech bubbles are a visual reference to 4chan's interface, after all.
- Skipper Plumbthroat is a destitute, depressed Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
- Dirk is more classically a Stoic Woobie, but to many, his manipulation, psychological and physical abuse of his erstwhile boyfriend make him a pretty major Jerkass, albeit still sympathetic in his own, strange way.
- This one is so YMMV that alternatively, some people think of Jake in this way instead. Being a Jerkass to not only Dirk, but also Jane, while he remains sympathetic only from that he seems to do this unknowingly. Even mentioned by Caliborn, who assumed that Jake also hated all of his friends, which Jake obliviously denied.
- It is possible that many things attributed to Dirk can actually be attributed to his Auto-Responder, given it has pretended to be Dirk while talking to Jake until it is found out, was unlikely to have quit once the two started dating, implied it had its own machinations in play to ensure that happened shortly before the B2 kids entered the game, and is hinted to be more directly responsible for Brobot's behavior than Dirk.
- Erisolsprite. He may be a jerk, what with being a fusion of Sollux's bad side and Eridan, but he's also trapped in an existence he hates, is the Only Sane Man with Jake and later among several brainwashed and crazy tricksters, is revealed to really truly regret what his Eridan half did to Feferi and just when things seem to be looking up for him (namely meeting Fefetasprite and letting Eridan apologize to her and her forgiving him), it all literally blows up in his face.
- Jack Noir/Spade Slick, due to pretty much every version of him being The Chew Toy who gets constantly annoyed and tormented by his gang and the Black Queen/Snowman. Even Bec Noir, who horrifically slaughters almost half of the cast, gets some pitiable moments.
- Snowman is a Jerkass working for Doc Scratch who constantly torments Spades Slick. However her backstory reveals that she's only working for him because she was trapped on the post-apocalyptic Alternia and desperately wanted to escape. Act 5 Act 2 not only has her save Slick's life but also strongly implies that she became a Death Seeker after joining the Felt. The other versions of her weren't characterized enough to tell if they also applied for this, but the human session Black Queens certainly didn't deserve to be murdered by Jack Noir and the Condesce respectively.
- Surprisingly, Vriska argues that Lord English of all people counts as this. As she points out, he's led a miserable and lonely existence with his own ego preventing him from ever finding true happiness or meaning in life. Even his mooks and supposed friends like the Felt and Doc Scratch don't show him true respect or friendship, simply working for him because they don't have any other choice. She also argues that he may not have been such an asshole if he could've just found someone who would actually care about him. Adding onto that, while Caliborn is overall a complete sociopath who epitomizes Love to Hate, there are also several points when it's hard to not feel a bit of sympathy for him, like when he says that he has a learning disability. Almost makes you forget that he's a complete monster that killed his sister and is an Omnicidal Maniac who is mainly in it For the Evulz.
Stoic Woobie
- Pretty much all the Stri-londes save Roxy. They all have their Not So Stoic moments where the trauma really shines through, even in a work whose general take on angst is blithe at best.
- Before resurrection, Aradia was also this, she hears voices and is a ghost after Sollux was mind-controlled into killing her during a flashback.
Other woobies
- The trolls as a whole. While at first they seem like plain old antagonists; they are eventually established as closer to the neutral end (with the exceptions of Eridan and Vriska): Sburb is destroying their home planet as well, and the reason they harass the protagonists is that the heroes' session is so screwed up it breaks their game as well.
- Many of the post-scratch Ancestors count. Karkat's Ancestor the Signless tried to bring peace and equality to his people, and was tortured to death in front of his family for it. His adoptive mother the Dolorosa had to watch her son die, then was enslaved, raped, and killed. His lover the Disciple escaped execution, but had to live with the loss of everyone she'd ever loved. His best friend the Psiioniic was made into a Living Battery for the Condesce's ship, which was agonizingly painful, and was artificially kept alive in that state for thousands of years.
- Tavros, in this update
especially. Andrew just refuses to give the poor guy a break. Accidentally running over his Lusus, forced to jump off a cliff in mockery of his greatest desire, his one attempt to to be assertive and helpful on his own ending up killing the grandfather of the human he had hoped to befriend... He eventually discovers his primary tormentor has actively created the unstoppable monster endangering them all. He finally decides to challenge her, not for his own sake, but for everyone's. As soon as she realizes he means it for once, she promptly kills him for actually standing up to her. - Calliope, who a major chunk of the fanbase really, really wants to hug. Even death was no escape.
