What's the worst thing you've ever done to a character?

^^ Hard to say which is worse.

I really suck at this, because one of the things I hugely believe, is that people can get past anything, if they are surrounded by those that love them, and get the right therapy.

So, I created a thread asking for subtle ways to show slight mental trauma from a 2 year old wound.

I was informed I was highly overestimating the human mind. Good times.

Uh, tortured antagonists? Only Grendel and Grendel's mother come to mind, and it's more about the characters themselves than what the protagonist did to them:

• Grendel's mother has something of a tragic history. She used to be a Scylding, but got ostracized because she gave birth to Grendel *
  ^{sired by a giant—I never developed the story behind Grendel's conception, but I think Grendel's mother may have been raped .__.}
  and the infant turned out to be a deformed, physically and mentally disabled wreck of a creature with violent and (semi?-)cannibalistic tendencies. She was protective of the creature for some reason, so they threw her out with him. In time she came to be like Grendel in mind, and a cannibal as well. Her death by a bewitched giant's sword was just retribution for her grievances against Heorot, and abuse of Beowulf. She died half-begging for mercy and forgiveness. Her begs were out of cowardice, not of any true remorse for her actions.

• Grendel was a half-human half-giant abomination, and an example of the Square-Cube Law gone incredibly wrong (or right?). He couldn't stand up on his own two legs for more than a moment because they were not built to support his weight, and he had a hard time breathing and cooling off unless he stayed hidden in his deep, damp habitat. (His great strength and his mother's enchantments made up for his disabilities) That's also why he only came out at night. Grendel's mind was too simple to know true psychological trauma, but he surely suffered at the hand of the young witch-man, and did not understand his own suffering. He limped back to his mother and died of blood loss, afraid and in pain.
  • (Sympathetic portrayal of Grendel seems to be pretty popular.)

More often than not, my antagonists know comparatively little suffering. They are rarely punished for their wrongdoings, usually because these antagonists have a socio-(political) advantage over the protagonists, who are underdogs and have their own problems to deal with first and foremost, and little to no way of actually standing up to and putting the antagonist out of power.

EDIT: Whoops, I blahed about some Beowulf to some extent even though I said I wouldn't in another thread. Oh well. :Þ

edited 28th Oct '11 8:19:23 PM by annebeeche

I gave him a shitty life, and when he finally found love and learned to love himself, he was forced by unprecedented circumstances to kill himself. Then his soul lived on and he was forced to watch as the girl he loved fell in love with his best friend, grew up, had children, died, and then he had to watch many more generations live and die before the apocalypse.

@annebeeche: So it doesn't count if the character is Mind Raped so they're perfectly fine with what happens to them, or can't remember that it happened to them?

edited 28th Oct '11 9:52:34 PM by PDown

P Down: Actually, yes it does. Even if they don't suffer now, they did at some point, and that's what matters. Besides, mind rape is a form of psychological trauma and one of the worst things, I think, that you can do to a person.

Does this procedure qualify as mind rape to you?

edited 28th Oct '11 10:11:35 PM by annebeeche

I had one character publicly whipped and sentenced to burning at the stake. (He managed to escape before the burning.)

I had another character watch her husband be murdered by Jack the Ripper. She fell in love again, only to lose him two years later when he dies to save her and her family.

I had another character stabbed in the chest by a shape shifter disguised as her husband. Just before he stabbed her, he made some groping romantic overtures and got him to tell her where her son was. She lived, but was very panicked about her son's well being for awhile.

I killed one character off, a Cool Old Guy, but it was a heroic death. I had to show that the villains meant business.

Yes, though the Mind Rape present in my works tends to be supernatural rather than mundane, and produces the same effect without the torture (necessarily). In a mundane work, that seems like the most normal way to do Mind Rape, though.

That's... BEAUTIFUL.

...I had to have a six year old get raped to start the First World War.

~shudder~

I didn't go into detail there, that was for sure.

Edit: I got rid of that plot point. That was a good day.

edited 30th Nov '11 9:09:43 PM by USAF713

P down: Yeah, I bill the thing as Sci-fi, but much of it is actually technology that we either have or just started pioneering. Because we have deep brain stimulation, what they did to Jack Clive can actually be done right now.

@Kyle Jacobs: Thank you. Oh, and the Shapeshifter in question ends in his/her original form, which he/she had been hiding for a long time. And another possibility that the two parties in question are former lovers, so it's an Interplay of Sex and Violence as they're scuffling around in the drenching rain.

The problem is that the story associated with this uses Lots And Lots Of Characters, so it'll probably be a long time before I use it...

...but I can always use it as a warmup.

EDIT: Not to mention it would look beautiful in visual form...But in word form, I'll probably have to use a chaotic and stark tone mixed together.

edited 29th Oct '11 10:11:28 PM by chihuahua0

I think Jack Clive's situation is the only one in the thread that made me feel "ew".

This one is more about the choice of characterization, but I gave an immortal character a massive compassion toward humanity so he will force himself to remember sufferings of everyone he ever came across. Would that count?

What would really clinch it is if you had him shift into the form of each victim, in order, while stabbing once each time, and then added one more for him.

I think I'm going to have to revise.

I'm breaking somebody's grand crusade and there's nothing they can do about. They're not able to compete in the new paradigm, and they're being squeezed out.

And pretty soon I intend to have the point emphasized by getting them into a fight where they're pinned down and overrun by a superior force, and only happen to be in the way of someone else who kills off the bad guys on their way through.

Watching a dream die is never pretty. Watching the only motivating factor for their whole life die is...ow.

On a Two And A Half Men oneshot, I had Alan kicked out of his brother's house by Berta, turned away by his mom, and abandoned by his son. Then I had him commit suicide.

edited 31st Oct '11 7:25:58 PM by Patworx

^ This is the first one that really made me ask "Why?" Granted, I don't watch the show, but from what I know of it, that doesn't really seem appropriate for it . . .

edited 31st Oct '11 7:40:22 PM by feotakahari

Well, Charlie had just been fired from the show and it looked like Two and a Half Men might end soon, so I tried to write a theoretical ending for it. Looking back, that particular oneshot just feels rushed. It doesn't feel like an Old Shame yet since it was so recent, but I think it will probably become one in a couple of years.

edited 31st Oct '11 7:46:39 PM by Patworx

I did Mental trauma to a character, made her a Scape-goat and Naughty Tentacles... Also, did I mention that she had a Mistaken Identify?

I tend to humiliate and embarrass the crap out of my characters rather than go for physical or mental torture. I think it works just as well for making them want to crawl in a hole and die, and it's much more amusing.

Now that would be too much and I frankly don't understand what does that suppose to mean.

A twist on And This Is for... (and one that actually sounds kind of interesting, if possibly over the top).

A heroic Shape Shifter Guilt Trip? I've never heard of such a thing, but I feel the urge to use it in something.

edited 1st Nov '11 1:14:49 AM by feotakahari