History BreakTheCutie / Literature

** Haruhi and Yuki gets the treatment too. Let's start with Yuki.

* ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'':
** In ''Literature/TheHeritageOfShannara'', BigBad Rimmer Dall does his best to break Par Ohmsford's mind so that he can bypass his mental and magical defences, and seize control of his body. It's not a pretty thing to watch, and it nearly works, with Par spiralling into near schizophrenic madness before the end.
** ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheJerleShannara'' cranks this up another notch. Over the course of the trilogy HeroicWannabe Quentin Leah evolves into a broken FailureKnight with a BigBrotherInstinct towards his cousin Bek, while Bek himself transforms from NiceGuy to LoveMartyr. And then there's Ahren Elessedil. He starts out as TheUnfavourite and a would-be WarriorPrince, and by the end...? By the end his treatment at the hands of Cree Bega has left him a mentally shattered {{woobie}} with no self-esteem, no sense of worth, no real friends, and an inability to [[YouCantGoHomeAgain ever go home]]. No wonder he becomes a [[spoiler:DeathSeeker in the sequel]].

* Darren Shan from ''Literature/{{The Saga of Darren Shan}}'' goes from being unwilling to even drink blood to [[spoiler:very nearly killing Darius, only stopping when he discovers he's his nephew.]]

* Done to a number of characters in Creator/MercedesLackey's Literature/{{Valdemar}} series:
** Talia in ''Arrow's Fall.''
** Vanyel in the ''Literature/LastHeraldMageTrilogy''.
** Creator/MercedesLackey [[http://www.firebirdarts.com/mercedeslackey/chapters/myste.html brags about it]]:
-->"The Lackey patented formula for success—make your audience identify with and care deeply for a character then drop a mountain on him!"

* In ''Literature/{{War and Peace}}'', [[TheCasanova Anatole Kuragin]] does this to Natasha Rostov by seducing her into abandoning her marriage with Prince Andrei and running away with him. People manage to foil Anatole's plan, but she's never the same afterwards.

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': ''Tobias''. He started off as a sweet kid without too many friends that liked to play with his cat, but over the next few years, he was trapped as a bird, tortured, and nearly killed countless times. Then in the last book, he had to watch his girlfriend die, then became a recluse, only emerging to save the life of one of his old friends.

** After gaining immortality, Czeslaw was brutally tortured for several hundred years. When he finally snapped and killed his torturer, he gained his memories - [[MindRape meaning that he now has hundreds years of memories of being tortured and torturing himself]].
* The God Mara from Creator/DavidEddings' ''Literature/TheBelgariad'' series. He is the god of the Marags..maybe not a cutie, but a fairly benign god. He wakes up to find out that his entire race of followers have been raped and murdered by a neighboring nation. He proceeds to go into a GodMode version of BSOD. He snaps so hard that all he can do is stand there projecting the most gruesome aspects of what happened to his people... over his entire country...for thousands of years. Any normal human that ventures into his land are driven insane from his grief and horror. He only snaps out of it when it is learned some of his followers were sold into slavery and one of their descendants survives.

* ''{{Literature/Chrysanthemum}}'': Chrysanthemum's first day of school doesn't go so well when everyone laughs at her name.

* [[{{Keet}} Masomi Kida]] from ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'' goes through hell and back through the third arc of the series. Seemingly happy and go lucky, [[spoiler: he was broken before the series started. Let's start that he had [[AbusiveParents uncaring parents]] (or at least hinted), so he started a gang known as Yellow Scarves because of his insecurities of wanting to be [[IJustWantToBeSpecial someone in life]]. Then his life went to hell when he met both his girlfriend [[HoneyTrap Saki Mikajima]] and the informant [[ManipulativeBastard Izaya Orihara]]. While he got to know them both, fights were breaking out more with the rival gang Blue Squares. It got to the point where Masomi needed to ask Izaya for help in order to defeat the rival gang. And then hell strikes and Saki is kidnapped by their leader and have her legs broken. The person that he started to trust ends up not responding to the phone calls and in a panic, Masomi tries to save Saki...only to freeze up. While Saki is saved by Kadota and his gang after they quit Blue Squares, Izaya then accuses Masomi for letting Saki get hurt. He then tells him that he'll have to live with the guilt forever.]] Cue the series starts and he invites his friend [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Mikado]] over to Ikebukuro [[spoiler: so he could save him]] but by the time that his other friend Anri is injured by the Slashers who is hinted to be part of the Dollars, he's forced to [[spoiler: rejoin his gang and then is thrown back into the hell by relying on Izaya again and having him reveal that the leader of Dollars is his best friend and then later getting bitchslapped by Anri after he accuses her of "sucking up" to Mikado. [[DeathSeeker What finally sends him over the edge]] is {{jerkass}} Horoda telling him he's out of the group because he was hiding information from them about Dollars and declared that they would kill his best friend. Finally, he tries to kill Horoda to make up for what happened to Saki but almost dies in the process. Luckily, [[BigDamnHeroes Mikado and Anri appear to save his ass.]]]] By the end of the anime series, he seems recovered...[[spoiler: but in recent novel chapters, he's going back to hell after finding out that ''Mikado'' is [[BreaktheCutie going through]] [[JumpingOfftheSlipperySlope the same thing]] [[{{Yandere}} but is taking it a different way.]]]] This kid needs a hug and therapy.
** What no mention of Anri? [[spoiler:The fact that she was abused by her own father, and seeing her own mother Sayaka kill him and committing suicide at the same time using Saika, resulting in her without a heart and being Saika's new owner, must've been hard for her.]] It's hard not to feel sympathy for her.

* The entire premise of Creator/OrsonScottCard's novel ''Literature/EndersGame''. The [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors Battle School]] teachers have a conversation early on, saying that although Ender is a peaceful child, he becomes extremely aggressive when up against his enemies. Since it is his aggression that they need, they decide that they will keep him constantly surrounded by enemies, until he will be forced to become the ruthless military mind that they need - [[InvokedTrope invoking]] BewareTheNiceOnes.

--> '''Dekka:''' ''Have a good laugh. See what you did to me. Make me brave and then break me. Make me strong and leave me weeping in the dirt.''
* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series is an extended, attempted BreakTheCutie for Harry, beginning with the deaths of his parents, his upbringing by his abusive aunt and uncle, and his repeated run-ins with Lord Voldemort. It's made worse by the rest of the Wizarding world not being able to decide if he's a hero they should support or if he's just a bratty, coddled attention whore (an attitude which even his best friend shared at one point).
** Really, he saw his mother murdered when he was only a baby, then was shipped to abusive/neglectful relatives where he had been told that he should have died with his parents, constantly. Then he goes to Hogwarts where his ideal life of Magic is destroyed and he gets so much mental trauma that it's hilarious, getting attacked by a professor physically one of the ''least'' worst things to happen to him at that school. Then at 14 and 15 he watched [[spoiler: a classmate and his godfather die]] by [[GuiltComplex what he believes is his own fault]]. Then finds out that [[spoiler:he and Voldie have a kill or be killed thing going on.]]. And it keeps going on and on until the bright little boy who was awed by magic and wanted acceptance becomes an even more mentally scarred teenager who was destroyed and knew that [[spoiler:he actually had to die]] to save the 'world!'
*** Other broken cuties in the series: [[TookALevelInBadass Neville Longbottom]], [[BrokenBird Ginny Weasley]], [[MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold Sirius Black]], [[spoiler: [[TookALevelInJerkass Severus]] [[KnightInSourArmor Snape]], though you'd have to employ a ''very'' broad definition of "cutie" in his case]], [[EccentricMentor Dumbledore]]... Put it this way: Rowling enjoys breaking cuties almost as much as she likes [[JerkAss jerkasses]] and [[TheWoobie woobies]].
** Luna Lovegood as well. She's introduced as this innocent, open-minded fourth year who believes in nargles and wrackspurts, but at the end of that year, she ends up in the battle in the Department of Mysteries. In ''The Deathly Hallows'', she was captured by Death Eaters and kept in a cellar for months. This deleted scene from ''The Deathly Hallows Part Two'':

** The heroine / narrator, Katniss. There's not enough bandwidth in the universe to list what the poor girl goes through, starting with [[spoiler: losing her father in a mine accident]] and finishing [[spoiler: physically broken, covered in scars and lacking a spleen, her sister dead, racked with guilt, hating the whole human race including herself, in a near catatonic state and rejecting her one childhood friend, perhaps with good reason]], with everything bad happening in between these two points. Katniss' own mental breakdown, and the reasons it comes about, is elaborated on repeatedly throughout the third book, until eventually you have to wonder when the tale of a recent victor of a brutal tournament acting as the heroic symbol of a rebellion ends and the clinical psychological study on how to utterly break a seventeen-year-old girl's mind begins.

** Effectively, ''every'' previous victor, since they all survived a televised fight to the death as teenagers. Special mention goes to Finnick Odair, who became the youngest person to ever win the Games at 14, and since then has [[spoiler: been used as a SexSlave by the Capitol, on the condition that Snow will kill his family if he refuses.]] He also had to watch his girlfriend (Annie, see above) lose her mind in her own games and later [[spoiler: be captured by the Capitol, he then gets to marry her but dies shortly after, never getting to meet his son.]]
** Averted, however, in the case of Prim who, despite the horrors she experiences, seems to adjust pretty well. Not that it does her much good at the end.
* In Was..., Geoff Ryman's tragic retelling of ''Film/{{The Wizard of Oz}}'', DorothyGail starts out as the familiar energetic, curious little girl understimulated by gray Kansas. After being subjected to various kinds of abuse and misfortune, she is barely recognizable at the end of the novel, both physically and emotionally.

** Cheerful, friendly Grey comes pre-broken, already a StepfordSmiler with [[ShellShockedVeteran serious PTSD]], but after his TraumaCongaLine in the first book culminates in [[spoiler:[[BrainwashedAndCrazy enthrallment]], ColdBloodedTorture [[MadeASlave and]] MindRape at the hands of the ClockworkThree]], he's left a hollow shell.

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' series
** Peeta Mellark, the sweet, friendly baker's son. Who is promptly forced into a deadly TV competition, loses a leg, finds out his love interest was playing for the cameras, is forced into ANOTHER deadly competition, and then [[spoiler: is captured by the government, who torture him and alter his memories]] so he'll never be the same person he used to be. Yeeeeeah.
** The heroine / narrator, Katniss. There's not enough bandwidth in the universe to list what the poor girl goes through, starting with [[spoiler: losing her father in a mine accident]] and finishing [[spoiler: physically broken, covered in scars and lacking a spleen, her sister dead, racked with guilt, hating the whole human race including herself, in a near catatonic state and rejecting her one childhood friend, perhaps with good reason]], with everything bad happening in between these two points.
** Poor Annie Cresta. In a previous Games, she mentally snapped when she saw her fellow District 4 tribute get beheaded, then won the whole thing when the arena was flooded and she was the only one who could swim. A few years later, her [[spoiler: boyfriend has to participate in another Games, she ends up getting captured by the capitol, then married to the boyfriend, who soon dies]]. At least at the end she [[spoiler: got a son]] out of the whole ordeal.

* Kouko in ''LightNovel/GoldenTime'' [[spoiler: when she gets dumped by Mitsuo.]] On the one hand, she deserved a verbal beatdown from Mitsuo for her borderline stalking and harassing Chinami just because Mitsuo was so nice to her; on the other hand she got hosed down so badly she is reduced to a tearful mess.

%%* ''LightNovel/TheLegendOfTheLegendaryHeroes'': Practically the entire main cast.

* ''LightNovel/MirageOfBlaze'': Kagetora[[spoiler:'s adoptive father sent him off as a hostage of the Hojo, he was raped and then forced to commit seppuku to escape dishonor when the castle fell]].

* ''{{Literature/Touch 2017}}'' seems to live and die off of heavily subverting this trope. In the story thus far, we have seen instances of rape, familial violence, and battlefield trauma, and that's just the characters young enough to automatically qualify as cute. And yet the story has yet to make a single [[TheWoobie woobie]] from any of them. While horrible things happen to a number of cute people throughout a large portion of the story, they remain definitively unbroken.

%%* All of the main characters of ''LightNovel/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou'' get this treatment at one point or another.

* Enju Aihara, numerous times in ''LightNovel/BlackBullet'' [[spoiler:from being rejected in the school she attends to after her status as a cursed child was found out to seeing Rentaro "dying" and having her new Cursed Children friends being killed off.]]

* [[{{Keet}} Masomi Kida]] from ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'' goes through hell and back through the third arc of the series. Seemingly happy and go lucky, [[spoiler: he was broken before the series started. Let's start that he had [[AbusiveParents uncaring parents]] (or at least hinted), so he started a gang known as Yellow Scarves because of his insecurities of wanting to be [[IJustWantToBeSpecial someone in life]]. Then his life went to hell when he met both his girlfriend [[HoneyTrap Saki Mikajima]] and the informant [[ManipulativeBastard Izaya Orihara]]. While he got to know them both, fights were breaking out more with the rival gang Blue Squares. It got to the point where Masomi needed to ask Izaya for help in order to defeat the rival gang. And then hell strikes and Saki is kidnapped by their leader and have her legs broken. The person that he started to trust ends up not responding to the phone calls and in a panic, Masomi tries to save Saki...only to freeze up. While Saki is saved by Kadota and his gang after they quit Blue Squares, Izaya then accuses Masomi for letting Saki get hurt. He then tells him that he'll have to live with the guilt forever.]] Cue the series starts and he invites his friend [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Mikado]] over to Ikebukuro [[spoiler: so he could save him]] but by the time that his other friend Anri is injured by the Slashers who is hinted to be part of the Dollars, he's forced to [[spoiler: rejoin his gang and then is thrown back into the hell by relying on Izaya again and having him reveal that the leader of Dollars is his best friend and then later getting bitchslapped by Anri after he accuses her of "sucking up" to Mikado. [[DeathSeeker What finally sends him over the edge]] is {{jerkass}} Horoda telling him he's out of the group because he was hiding information from them about Dollars and declared that they would kill his best friend. Finally, he tries to kill Horoda to make up for what happened to Saki but almost dies in the process. Luckily, [[BigDamnHeroes Mikado and Anri appear to save his ass.]]]] By the end of the anime series, he seems recovered...[[spoiler: but in recent novel chapters, he's going back to hell after finding out that ''Mikado'' is [[BreaktheCutie going through]] [[JumpingOfftheSlipperySlope the same thing]] [[{{Yandere}} but is taking it a different way.]]]] This kid needs a hug and therapy.

* ''{{Chrysanthemum}}'': Chrysanthemum's first day of school doesn't go so well when everyone laughs at her name.

* Sakihisa Konoe tries to do this to Nobuna in the latter half of ''LightNovel/TheAmbitionOfOdaNobuna''. It almost works until she remembers events in the past in which Yoshiharu told her not to turn into such a monster.

* Holy hell, [[spoiler:Riko]] from ''LightNovel/AriaTheScarletAmmo''. [[spoiler:She lost both her parents at age 8, only to be taken in by Vlad, who proceeded to shut her inside a prison cell, taking away her precious rosary (a gift from her mother) and depriving her of even the most basic needs. One botched escape attempt resulted in severe punishment for her, until she was forced to join I-U and slay a Holmes in order to break free of Literature/ArseneLupin's legacy and take back her rosary, her identity and her freedom.]]
* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' does this to Czeslaw Meyer, a [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld seemingly]] AdorablyPrecociousChild who ends up getting his limbs torn off, shot in the face, and having all sorts of other unpleasant things happen to him. [[GoodThingYouCanHeal Good thing he can heal]]... [[AFateWorseThanDeath or not]].

* Literature/{{Animorphs}}: ''Tobias''. He started off as a sweet kid without too many friends that liked to play with his cat, but over the next few years, he was trapped as a bird, tortured, and nearly killed countless times. Then in the last book, he had to watch his girlfriend die, then became a recluse, only emerging to save the life of one of his old friends.

* Literature/TheHungerGames series

* Pouncequick in ''Literature/TailchasersSong''.

** Wylan. [[spoiler: His father hates him and tried to have him killed because he had a learning disability. He spent most of his life incredibly ashamed of said disability. He ends up on the streets, is taken under Kaz's wing because of his rich father, and is taunted by his father through letters he cannot read. He finds out that his mother didn't die after all, but was locked up in an asylum so his father could keep her money and marry someone else.]] Poor kid.

*** Taken UpToEleven in House of Hades when it's revealed [[spoiler: that he's queer and has been crushing on [[IncompatibleOrientation Percy]] ''since the two met.'']]

* A double-whammy for Catherine in ''Literature/WashingtonSquare''. The first one comes from her father during their stay in Europe; when she tells him she still plans to marry Morris, he gives a speech lathed with sarcasm, comparing her to a mindless animal whose "value is twice as great" after her experiences abroad, ending it with "We have fattened the sheep before he kills it!" Then [[spoiler: Morris--after finding out that Catherine will not be as rich as expected-- turns his inner JerkAss UpToEleven hoping it will turn her off him, and when that fails, he cruelly dumps her and runs off to California.]]

* This was [[Literature/TheHouseOfTudor Charles Dickens]]' ''modus operandi'' in his books. Read ''Bleak House, Oliver Twist,'' or ''Great Expectations''. Even though his protagonists are living in a CrapsackWorld, Dickens heaps progressively more manure on them and then creates a happy ending by having something ''mildly'' good happen to them, which in isolation looks like a massive copout.