History Main / DarkAndTroubledPast

* Siegfried in Music/RichardWagner's ''RingOfTheNibelung'': An orphan, with the additional guilt-inducing bonus of knowing that his mother died giving birth to him, raised by Mime to be used to kill Fafner for his hoard and the ring. Although he doesn't know it yet, his parents Siegmund and Sieglind were siblings, and his scheming grandfather Wälse alias Wotan also wanted to use Siegfried as a pawn in a longterm project and Wotan's enemy Alberich also would like to get rid of him. Sieglind saw her mother killed and was kidnapped and forced into a loveless marriage, then had to witness her brother and lover killed (which was also due to Wotan's intervention). Small wonder that one of the leitmotifs is called the Wälsungen suffering motive (''Wälsungenleidmotiv'').

* Music/Eminem referenced his past countless times in his songs, namely his DisappearedDad, his mother who didn't care enough for him, people who bullied him for being white in a black neighborhood.

* Music/{{Eminem}} had a troubled childhood, raised on welfare in abject poverty by his mother who [[AbusiveParents emotionally and physically abused him]]. [[DisappearedDad His father walked out on the family when he was a baby.]] The family switched homes every two months before they settled down. [[KidsAreCruel He was bullied to ridiculous extents for being]] [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer white in an all-black ghetto]]; once he was even put in a coma and had to re-learn all his basic functions when he woke up. He was often kicked out of his own house for nights, he had failed ninth grade three times, he could never get a decent paying job, the homes he stayed in were often robbed and he apparently tried to commit suicide a few times.

* Being {{betray|alTropes}}ed by a {{True Companion|s}} or {{Heterosexual Life Partner|s}}/{{Platonic Life Partners|s}}.

* Being {{betray|alTropes}}ed by a {{True Companion|s}} or {{Heterosexual Life Partner|s}}.

Female characters with a Dark and Troubled Past include the DarkMagicalGirl and the BrokenBird. Male characters with a Dark and Troubled Past are instant [[MrFanservice bait]] for the EstrogenBrigade who have [[DracoInLeatherPants bought him leather pants]]. Expect all nearby female characters to become afflicted with attraction to his TroubledButCute appeal, and try to help him heal his heart. [[DontYouDarePityMe Not happening]]. [[EpiphanyTherapy Or maybe it will?]]

* Pink from Pink Floyd's ''Music/TheWall''. His father died in the war, his mother is over-protective, he was tortured by sadistic teachers...no wonder that, when his marriage collapsed, he isolated himself from the rest of the world and became a fascist dictator in his own imaginary world. What's more, Pink was strongly based on Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters and ''his'' similarly-troubled life.

* Almost the entire cast of the [[Music/{{Mothy}} Evillous Chronicles]]. Venomania was [[spoiler: locked in a basement]] and horribly bullied because of a small deformity, and then the only person who accepted him turned on him; Conchita's mother [[AbusiveParents was abusive]]; Riliane's parents died and she was forced to ascend the throne while still a little kid; Margarita's true love completely ignored her, which sent her over the DespairEventHorizon; Lukana's family died in a fire; and Gallerian's family was killed by a Giant Octopus[[spoiler: possibly by MA or Nemesis]] while Nemesis never knew her father, [[spoiler: Gallerian]], was abandoned for sometime by her mother, and later was forced to kill the man she loved by her boss. No wonder they're all so [[AxCrazy fucked]] [[MoralityKitchenSink up]]. And that's only [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters a few of them]].
* The conjoined twins from Music/EvelynEvelyn had their mother die in childbirth, their father killed, and their doctor killed all within minutes of birth. They were kidnapped by a chicken farmer who raised them in a cage amongst chickens. When he died a few years later, they ran of but ended up picked up by a brothel masquerading as an orphanage. At age thirteen they were given to a circus due to being "too old" for the men. At the circus they were abused and harrassed, until they ran away a few years later.

* It's mostly played for laughs in ''Podcast/{{Sequinox}}'', but Sid claims to have come from a town where the only thing they celebrated was surviving the winter, and it's very possible she's killed someone.

* In ''TabletopGame/PsionicsTheNextStageInHumanEvolution'' the book states that there is a correlation between manifestation of psionic talent and childhood trauma, although no causal link has been established. It also specifies that most espers have pronounced emotional problems.

* Siegfried in Music/RichardWagner's ''RingOfTheNibelung'': An orphan, with additional guilt-inducing bonus of knowing that his mother died giving birth to him, raised by Mime to be used to kill Fafner for his hoard and the ring. Although he doesn't know it yet, his parents Siegmund and Sieglind were siblings, and his scheming grandfather Wälse alias Wotan also wanted to use Siegfried as a pawn in a longterm project and Wotan's enemy Alberich also would like to get rid of him. Sieglind saw her mother killed and was kidnapped and forced into a loveless marriage, then had to witness her brother and lover killed (which was also due to Wotan's intervention). Small wonder that one of the leitmotifs is called the Wälsungen suffering motive (''Wälsungenleidmotiv'').

* The Phantom in ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' was used as a circus sideshow freak until he escaped.

[[folder:Theater]]

* Being raised as a ChildSoldier or a {{Tykebomb}}.

* Self-hate via MyGreatestFailure and/or PersonalHorror.

[[caption-width-right:350:''Everything about you tells the tale: [[TerrorHero your attitude]], [[TheCowl your costume]], [[AwesomenessByAnalysis your tactics]]... they all scream of outrage... despair... vengeance. What terrible wrong was done to [[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueCrisisOnTwoEarths set you on this path?]]'']]

Something terrible happened to a character; some tragic event in their past that shaped a fundamental level of their personality. Long after the event is over, it still has a powerful influence in the character's life.

* Self hate via MyGreatestFailure and/or PersonalHorror.

* Killing any of the above, whether in self defense, recklessly, or through a SadisticChoice.

* DarkAndTroubledPast/ComicBooks

* {{DarkAndTroubledPast/Film}}

* DarkAndTroubledPast/WebAnimation

* DarkAndTroubledPast/WebOriginal

* DarkAndTroubledPast/RealLife

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The ''ComicBook/XMen'''s ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}, who ''also'' had a MysteriousPast and, thanks to his amnesia, had it remain that way for a looong time. Further complicated by [[FakeMemories implanted memories]]; as if forgotten trauma wasn't bad enough, how about a helping of trauma that ''didn't actually happen?'' Not to mention the pain of wondering if his few happy memories [[OrWasItADream were real or not]].
* ComicBook/{{Magneto}}, in spades. His entire birth family was killed in the Holocaust, his daughter Anya died in a fire because he didn't know how to use his nascent powers to save her, and his wife (who was also his childhood sweetheart) called him a monster and fled after he -- literally -- exploded in rage and killed the villagers who'd prevented him from either concentrating on said powers or going after Anya by normal means. Later, he joined an American government agency to pursue Nazis, and agents killed his girlfriend because he had pursued one of the "wrong" Nazis. No wonder the guy has a deeply cynical attitude toward humanity.
* ComicBook/{{Gambit}} was not merely an orphan whose parents may or may not be dead--or may simply have deliberately abandoned him--but was taken in by a creepy old man/possible pedophile, then turned out onto the streets of New Orleans to fend for himself until the age of ten, then was adopted, fell in love, witnessed his younger cousin's drowning (at age 13), further witnessed the retrieval of said cousin's body(!), accidentally killed his fiancee's brother in a duel, and accordingly was exiled from the only home he ever knew. To make matters worse, his powers raged out of control and in exchange for help fixing them he was tasked with--unbeknownst to him-leading a murder-squad against a group of fearful, helpless mutants, only managing to save the life of a single child. Oh, and the girl he loves he can't even kiss because she'd suck the life out of him.
* ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} was thrown out of a crashing plane with the only parachute and his baby brother when he was a young boy, which, when the parachute caught on fire, ended with him in a coma for a year with brain damage that permanently removed his ability to control his powers. During that time his brother was adopted to make him more vulnerable. He spends the next few years in an orphanage where he is bullied, belittled and experimented on while any attempt for him to be adopted is quelled by the MadScientist running the place. He finally gets away when his power activates and he almost kills several people, and when running he is taken in by a man. The man is an abusive criminal who beats him and treats him as more of a gun than a teenage boy and Scott is eventually forced to atomize him by Professor Xavier.
* Franchise/{{Batman}}'s parents got murdered by an unknown mugger before his very eyes.
** The two-issue miniseries ''The Ultimate Evil'' actually tried to defy the use of this trope, with social worker Debra Kane having a discussion with Batman on the concept of a person being born bad, or becoming a criminal because of childhood abuse. Debra asserts that it is not an excuse at all, on the grounds that all people have a choice, and that excusing or sympathizing with criminals who were victims of abuse is an insult to all of the other victims who suffered similar or even worse abuse and did not imitate their abusers.
* Post-crisis ComicBook/MartianManhunter has probably the most extreme example in comic books, and that's saying a lot. His evil twin brother created a plague which destroyed the entire green martian race, including his wife and child, leaving him to wander aimlessly among the ruins of his dead race until he was teleported to earth.
* Franchise/SpiderMan has his (which already includes losing both parents) tying in with [[MyGreatestFailure his greatest failure]], with Peter Parker refusing to stop a bad guy who would then go on to kill his beloved Uncle Ben. [[ILetGwenStacyDie Not that things would get much better afterwards]]...
* Comicbook/{{Deadpool}}-- [[NoFourthWall Hey! Why don't you go watch the]] [[WebAnimation/DeathBattle fight between me and]] {{ComicBook/Deathstroke}} right [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn8ZqX82neg here!]]
* Franchise/IncredibleHulk: Bruce Banner and his mother were regularly abused by his father, Brian. Brian eventually killed his wife, in front of Bruce.
* V from ''ComicBook/VForVendetta'' was [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] and experimented on in a concentration camp, transforming him into an embodiment of anarchism.
* Ah, Thug-Boy from ''Comicbook/{{Empowered}}''. The general criminality is how he met the love of his life, and she knows the basic outline of the whole 'Witless Minion' scam (although the detail about their last employer/victim still searching for the only survivor has apparently been glossed over). But then there is San Antonio. [[spoiler: Cape-killing terrorist anyone?]]
* ''ComicBook/SinCity'' protagonists usually have one, even if we never get their full backstory. This comes in vague references to past events; Dwight apparently had a criminal past and Wallace likely had an abusive childhood, for instance. Marv was tied to a tree in the middle of the woods and left overnight once, was in prison, and once made a reference to being in a war.
* ''Grimjack'' has probably one of the worst cases of this trope. Abused and abandoned by his family, he spent his childhood fighting for his life in a gladiatorial arena. He eventually escapes and finds peace in another dimension, only for everyone in the dimension, including his true love, to be slaughtered by demons. Then there was all the crap he went through during the comic.
* {{ComicBook/Starfire}} from ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' (and elsewhere) had spent most of her life as a slave to the Citadel, after being sold into it by her own sister. [[spoiler: She mentions some experiments done on her too, which were all likely horrific.]]
* ComicBook/{{X 23}}, hoo boy. A clone created by mixing Wolverine's genetic material with that of her human "mother" to be a living weapon, Laura was raised in a padded cell, beaten, abused, had her HealingFactor ''forcibly activated'' by exposing her to lethal doses of radiation as a child, had her claws surgically removed to be coated in adamantium one at a time ''with no attempt at anesthesia whatsoever'', was trained and conditioned almost from birth to be an assassin and racked up an impressive body count ''before she was a teenager'', and was made to kill the only people during this time who ever showed her any kindness by means of an olfactory trigger that she was conditioned to enter an UnstoppableRage whenever she was exposed to it. One of them was her mother, [[TearJerker right as she planned to help Laura escape]]. After getting away, she was forced to cut off contact with the only other family she had to protect them from her AxCrazy abusive handler, and spent time on the streets as a child prostitute specializing in cutting her clients. The worst part about all this? While Logan lost most of his memories about the really shitty stuff that's happened to him, Laura remembers ''everything''.
* Villains can suffer these as well; as a child, Doctor Doom had to watch both his parents die and grow up an orphan among persecuted Romani in Latveria.
* ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' loves this trope:
** Chase Stein was regularly physically abused by his father, to the point where he makes up lies about things that he did to try and justify this abuse.
** Molly Hayes' parents constantly used their psychic abilities on her to make sure she never acted up.
** Xavin was trained as a Super-Skrull from a young age so that he/she could be deployed to serve as a ChildSoldier in the pointless war that his/her parents started with Majesdane.
** Klara Prast was married off at age 11 to an alcoholic pedophile who physically and sexually abused her and forced her to work in dangerous factories to earn money that he spent on booze.
* Franchise/{{Superman}} and Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}'s entire home planet was destroyed when they were just a baby and a little child respectively, and they're the last of their kind.
* Dark Annisia of ''ComicBook/RedSonja'' was a fighting slave alongside Sonja herself, but where Sonja endured Annisia slid toward madness due to hallucinations of the people she'd killed.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'', Doc Hudson used to be a race car until 1954 when he crashed violently during a race. After getting repaired, he was replaced with the next rookie in line and never raced again.
** Also Cruz Ramirez from ''WesternAnimation/Cars3''. She wanted desperately to be a racer just like Lightning [=McQueen=] and took up classes with much bigger cars, but by the time of her first race when the other cars were starting, she simply left the race behind and lost her only chance.
* Kovu from ''Disney/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'' was raised by his vengeful mother to become Scar's successor and trained to be a hateful war machine so he can kill Simba.
* Manny in ''WesternAnimation/{{Ice Age}}'': his wife and son were slaughtered by human hunters, which is why he's so grumpy and cynical. Even after he falls in love with Ellie in ''WesternAnimation/IceAge2TheMeltdown'', he becomes overprotective of her in ''WesternAnimation/IceAge3DawnOfTheDinosaurs'' for the exact same reason. And after Peaches' birth in said threequel, he becomes EXCEEDINGLY overprotective of her in ''WesternAnimation/IceAge4ContinentalDrift'' for the same reason as well.
* Marlin in ''WesternAnimation/{{Finding Nemo}}'': his wife Coral and all of his eggs, except for Nemo, were eaten by a barracuda, which is why he's so overprotective of him.
* Megara in ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'': she sold her soul to Hades in order to save her boyfriend, and he dumped her shortly after that. Also, it's hinted that she probably had more problems to face in life besides that.
* Spoofed in ''Disney/WreckItRalph'': Sergeant Calhoun "Was programmed with the most tragic back-story ever."
* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'', it turns out that ''[[AllLovingHero Po]]'' of all people has one, though he doesn't learn about it in full until just before the climax. It involves [[spoiler: the attempted massacre of his entire species by [[BigBad Lord Shen]] and his birth mother [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing herself]] to save him]].-Tigress can also be an example. She was left by her parents in an orphanage, called a monster by adult and child alike and was not shown any signs of parental love by her foster father, Shifu.
* In ''Animation/TheSnowQueen2012'', The Snow Queen's backstory shows her as a girl whose natural sorcerous powers were so strong that she was rejected and mocked by her people.
* In ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'', Queen Elsa goes through [[MyGreatestFailure her greatest failure]] [[HarmfulToMinors as a child]]. [[spoiler: She strikes her sister Anna in the head with her icy powers, causing her to fall unconscious. The trolls remove Anna's memory of all the events and her sister's magic, but she still comes out with a [[SkunkStripe white stripe]] in her hair, thanks to the ice magic. In case you thought that seeing your sister's white stripe of hair and being reminded of your largest mistake wasn't bad enough, her parents decide to separate the two sisters to allow Elsa to gain control of her powers. Then, when they grow older, their parents die, which finishes off their TraumaCongaLine.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Trolls}}'', the reason why Branch lost his colors, refuses to sing, is a bit of a GrumpyBear, and is massively (but rightfully) paranoid of the Bergens attacking is because [[spoiler:when he was a kid, his singing attracted a Bergen, and Branch's grandmother got eaten when she tried to save him]].
* ''Disney/TheLittleMermaidIII'' reveals how King Triton's beloved wife Queen Athena was accidentally struck to her death by the ship's hull, which led to him banning music from Atlantica and the merpeople from going up to the surface in grief. After the incident, King Triton became a GrumpyBear (until the end of the prequel) and displays his racism towards humans for his wife's death.
* In ''WesternAnimation/QuestForCamelot'', Garrett reveals to Kayley in the past, he accidentally blinded by one of the horses that he was rescuing from the stable fire. Thankfully, Sir Lionel still believed in him and taught him to adapt. Unfortunately, his situation worsened when he heard of Sir Lionel's death, prompting Garrett to go into self-exile into the Forbidden Forest.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Michael in ''Film/TheBlindSide'': [[AbusiveParents crack mom]], [[ParentalAbandonment disappeared dad]], virtually no schooling, homelessness, etc.
* The eponymous ''Film/MaxPayne'' had one, his family was killed in a mysterious robbery. Made extra saccharine thanks to the {{Flash Back}}s being in a warm ember tone compared to the rest of the film's drab winter blues and grays.
** To be even more specific, in [[VideoGame/MaxPayne the game]] the movie is based upon, his family got killed by V-head junkies [[spoiler:as part of an attempt to silence Max's wife for [[HeKnowsTooMuch knowing too much]] about Project Valhalla]]. Tragically, [[spoiler:Max's wife didn't have a clue what the memo meant and wanted to talk to Max about it, but he didn't listen to her because he had to go to work for the day]].
* The emotional turmoil brought on by the childhood abuse of Tim Robbins' character is the main crux of ''Film/MysticRiver''.
* Gabriel in ''Film/VanHelsing'' also has Wolverine Amnesia, it's implied by {{Dracula}} they both share "a history" together, and even hints at Gabriel being an immortal "tripped" angel or the like, but nothing concrete ever comes of it. SequelHook?
* ''Film/StarTrek2009'': Captain James T. Kirk lost his father [[BirthDeathJuxtaposition just minutes after his birth]]. He was [[AbusiveParents frequently abused]] by his stepfather while his mother was working off-planet, his brother ran away when he was still young, and he was already a repeat offender long before enlisting in Starfleet. It is also possible that he survived [[FinalSolution Tarsus IV]] (if future movies keep with [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]]).
* ''Film/JohnnyGuitar'''s main characters Vienna and Johnny "Guitar" Logan have dark pasts dealing with their former lives as a prostitue and a ruthless gunslinger.
* O-Ren Ishii from ''Film/KillBill'' lost both of her parents to vicious {{Yakuza}} gangsters at the age of seven and then getting her revenge just four years later.
* The main character of ''Film/{{Hoosiers}}'', Norman Dale, moves to the small town of Hickory, Indiana to take one last shot at redemption as a basketball coach after [[spoiler:ruining his coaching career many years earlier when he lost his temper and punched one of his own players]].
* ''Film/TheStrangeLoveOfMarthaIvers'': Martha killed her EvilAunt (her parents being dead, leaving her aunt as her guardian), and Walter witnesses it when they were kids.
* Subverted in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', where the Joker likes telling stories about his Dark and Troubled Past to explain his scars...but every story is different.
** This is a tribute to Creator/AlanMoore's ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'', wherein The Joker has the following line; "Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another...if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be [[MultipleChoicePast multiple choice!]]"
* The first five minutes of ''Film/TheDescent'' kill off the main character's husband and young daughter, leaving her traumatized and sometimes hallucinating. A big part of what fuels her trip into [[spoiler:AxCrazy]], particularly if the [[AllJustADream monsters don't really exist.]]
* ''Film/TheTerminal'': Gupta explains to Victor why he is so obsessed with keeping his janitor job: he was a poor tobacco dealer in India who was shaken down by a [[DirtyCop corrupt police officer]]. Eventually, Gupta stabbed the bastard in the chest after several days of extortion, and fled India and his family to not be charged with assault. By working as a janitor, [[BeneathSuspicion he can remain off of anybody's radar]]. [[spoiler: Dixon threatens to have Gupta deported if Viktor doesn't leave]].
* The first five minutes of the ''Film/PromNight2008'' remake feature the protagonist coming home to find her father and brother dead, and watch her mother get killed, all because the killer was looking for her. For her character, this doesn't really come into play much for the rest of the movie, even when the killer comes back.
* Princess Leia from ''Franchise/StarWars''. She remembers her (presumably adoptive) mother always being unhappy when she was young, saw her homeworld destroyed as a YouSaidYouWouldLetThemGo, has seen [[spoiler:one son KIA]] and [[spoiler:the other do a FaceHeelTurn -- his twin sister was forced to kill him]].
* Given that the main characters in ''Film/TheWayBack'' are seven [[TheGulag gulag]] escapees and an orphan, this is something of a given. None of the men will tell each other their stories, but they all tell the girl, who, in turn, passes them on to the others. When she asks why they don't talk to one another, she's told that, in the gulag, the less you say, the better off you are.
* Will in ''Film/SnowWhiteATaleofTerror'' still has nightmares about the events that led to his banishment and scars.
* In the 2011 film ''Film/{{Warrior}}'': Why Tommy left Iraq. %% This entry was added automatically by FELH2. In case the wording doesn't make sense, rewrite it as you like, remove this comment and tell this troper.
* Jack/Kyra during the TimeSkip between ''Film/PitchBlack'' and ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick''. She ran away to search for Riddick and signed up with a bunch of mercs, only to be enslaved, with a heavy implication as to [[SexSlave what kind]]. Made worse in that she was only ''twelve'' at the time! Riddick is understandably ''[[BerserkButton pissed]]'' to learn this, as well as furious at her for ignoring his single instruction when they parted ways;
--> '''Riddick''': I told you to ''stay'' on New Mecca. '''Did you not listen!'''
* Something that happened "in Chicago" to Lucien Carr in ''Film/KillYourDarlings'' is repeatedly alluded to, much to his displeasure.
* Both Eddie and Sarah in ''Film/TheHustler'' have this; she even lampshades it when they first meet.
-->'''Sarah''': Eddie, look, I've got troubles... and I think maybe you've got troubles. Maybe it'd be better if we just leave each other alone.
* In Sidney Lumet's ''The Pawnbroker (1964)'', the main character is traumatized by what happened to him and his family in a WWII Nazi concentration camp. He hasn't been able to work through his issues, which causes those unpleasant memories to regularly flood his mind.
* In ''Film/TheHungerGames'' Katniss' father died when she was 11 in an accident that she suspects the [[PresidentEvil government]] to have orchestrated. Without the father's income, the family starved and Katniss nearly died.
* ''Film/TheWolfman2010'': You've had quite a nice little messed up childhood, haven't you, Lawrence? What with witnessing your mother's death and all, and being sent to a mad-house where you underwent all sorts of nasty treatments and then shipped off to live with a distant relative in America.
* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''
** Magneto. "Holocaust survivor" is about as dark and troubled as it gets. [[Film/XMenApocalypse He eventually settles down]] with a wife and daughter, only for ''them'' to die as well. It's no surprise Erik isn't exactly a ray of sunshine these days.
** Wolverine's past history of fighting in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and his past work with Team X. How much of it still happened after the CosmicRetcon is unclear, but we do get to see him escape from the Weapon X project in a flurry of adamantium and rage, so it's clear that the BroadStrokes of most versions of his origin still stand, and it ain't pretty.
** In ''Film/TheWolverine'', Yukio’s first premonition was her parent's death, and after she was forced to watch it come true, she became a street urchin scavenging for food until Ichiro Yashida found her and adopted her under his wing.
* Jack, of ''Film/JackBrooksMonsterSlayer'', had his family killed in front of him by a monster when he was a child. He ran, the only thing he could do, but it's eaten at him ever since, fueling his UnstoppableRage and inspiring him to step up to become a hero.
* In ''Film/TheLazarusEffect'' Zoe survived a fire that killed many people in her apartment complex. She's had recurring nightmares of it for years. [[spoiler:Turns out she set it.]]
* In ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'', Eggsy's father died in action, and his mother remarried a {{jerkass}} {{domestic abuser}} who liked to beat the crap out of Eggsy and his mom. At some point, Eggsy resorted to drugs and petty crimes. By extension his half-sister Daisy has this too, despite not even being old enough to speak yet: her own father is the domestic abuser and [[spoiler: her own mother nearly killed her during the Valentine's Day Massacre.]]
* ''Film/AssassinsCreed2016'': Callum Lynch's father killed his mother [[spoiler: according to the Creed to preserve the secret of the Eden Apple of Granada as modern-day Templars led by Alan Rikkin were coming for them]]. Little Cal didn't know any of that so he grew up an orphan hating his father and drifted in and out of correctional facilities.
* In ''Film/TheMagnificentSeven2016'', several of the Seven have dark things in their past.
** Chisolm was a USCT in the Civil War and became a bounty hunter after [[spoiler: witnessing his mother and sisters being raped and killed by Borge's hired men.]]
** Jack Horne had a wife and children but lost them in an unspecified event. It's hinted that their deaths were related to him hunting and killing Indians for a government bounty.
** Vasquez is wanted for a Texan ranger but no details are given except Vasquez suggesting he had it coming.
** Goodnight is a former Confederate sharpshooter suffering from PTSD and survivor's guilt.
** Billy is a Korean immigrant who was an indentured servant who killed his masters and ran away.
* In ''Film/ManchesterByTheSea'', the protagonist Lee was once a cheerful and outgoing, if somewhat irresponsible, father and husband. Then, [[spoiler: while he was high and drunk one night, he accidentally started a fire that burned down his house and killed all of his children. After being questioned at the police station, he attempted suicide, forcing him to leave town and become a recluse.]] As a result, he's been reduced to a shell of a man and a {{jerkass woobie}} by the start of the film, unable to forgive himself.
* In ''Film/DeathGrip'', Kenny and Mark lost their mother in a house fire. They both have unresolved guilt over it. The fire was started when Kenny was playing flammable material outside and the mother died because Mark locked the door behind him due to his AmbiguousDisorder, trapping his mother in the burning house.

[[folder:Music]]
* The Patient from ''Music/TheBlackParade'' is implied to have had a violent past, in which he committed many misdeeds.
* Pink from Pink Floyd's ''Music/TheWall''. His father died in the war, his mother is over-protective, he was tortured by sadistic teachers...no wonder that, when his marriage collapsed, he isolated himself from the rest of the world and became a fascist dictator in his own imaginary world. What's more, Pink was strongly based on Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters and ''his'' similarly-troubled life.
* Luca Turilli uses this trope whenever he can.
--> ''Lord Of The Winter Snow'': Back again to my tragic past
--> ''Demonheart'': Shocked again she opened the gates / of her tragic past and bloody images / came back to her mind
--> ''Dargor; Shadowlord of the Black Mountain'': For his tragic past he disowned the sunlight
--> ''Legend of Steel'': Break the chains of the past forever
--> ''Black Dragon'': Had to fight the reputation of his bloody past
--> ''Dawn of Victory'': Shades of a past not so far to forget... / the rise of the demons from their bloody Hell!
** ''[[{{Narm}} Bloody Hell!]]'' He couldn't break the chains of this reputation.
* The protagonist from Music/TheRollingStones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", which has him born and raised in an abusive household and abandoned at some point in his childhood. It's hinted in the chorus that he's gotten over it, albeit not in one piece, given the nature of the song.
* A lot of great musicians have had dark and troubled pasts. Music/JohnLennon had serious issues with the way his parents treated him, which he only started dealing with after he met Yoko Ono. Music/NeilYoung similarly had a chip on his shoulder about his parents breaking up (leading him to support Ronald Reagan under the guise of his 'strengthening the family' rhetoric, although he soon became disillusioned). Music/JohnCale was unable to have a conversation with his father until he was seven years old (at his mother's insistence, he was raised speaking only Welsh; his father only spoke English). [[FromBadToWorse Then]] he was molested by at least two older men in his youth, giving him issues that fed into his later substance abuse.
* [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Dr. Light]], as told by Music/TheProtomen. His father died in a mining accident, leading him to build robots to do the work instead and "take the death away". Unfortunately, [[FromBadToWorse things do not improve from here]].
* Almost the entire cast of the [[Music/{{Mothy}} Evillous Chronicles]]. Venomania was [[spoiler: locked in a basement]] and horribly bullied because of a small deformity, and then the only person who accepted him turned on him; Conchita's mother [[AbusiveParents was abusive]]; Riliane's parents died and she was forced to ascend the throne while still a little kid; Margarita's true love completely ignored her, which sent her over the DespairEventHorizon; Lukana's family died in a fire; and Gallerian's family was killed by a Giant Octopus[[spoiler: possibly by MA or Nemesis]] while Nemesis never knew her father, [[spoiler: Gallerian]], was abandoned for sometime by her mother, and later was forced to kill the man she loved by her boss. No wonder they're all so [[AxCrazy fucked]] [[MoralityKitchenSink up]]. And that's only [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters a few of them]].
* The conjoined twins from Music/EvelynEvelyn had their mother die in childbirth, their father killed, and their doctor killed all within minutes of birth. They were kidnapped by a chicken farmer who raised them in a cage amongst chickens. When he died a few years later, they ran of but ended up picked up by a brothel masquerading as an orphanage. At age thirteen they were given to a circus due to being "too old" for the men. At the circus they were abused and harrassed, until they ran away a few years later.

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* It's mostly played for laughs in ''Podcast/{{Sequinox}}'', but Sid claims to have come from a town where the only thing they celebrated was surviving the winter, and it's very possible she's killed someone.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/PsionicsTheNextStageInHumanEvolution'' the book states that there is a correlation between manifestation of psionic talent and childhood trauma, although no causal link has been established. It also specifies that most espers have pronounced emotional problems.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* In ''Theatre/{{Chess}}'', Florence's father disappeared during the 1956 Budapest uprising.
* The Phantom in ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' was used as a circus sideshow freak until he escaped.
* Mary in ''Vanities'' has an [[LadyDrunk alcoholic mother]] and [[DisappearedDad runaway father]]; she sings about [[IWantSong her desire to get away from it all]] in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlWsHuukhdE "Fly Into the Future"]].
* In ''Theatre/PokemonLive'', Ash's mother Delia Ketchum used to go out with the head of Team Rocket, Giovanni.
* Siegfried in Music/RichardWagner's ''RingOfTheNibelung'': An orphan, with additional guilt-inducing bonus of knowing that his mother died giving birth to him, raised by Mime to be used to kill Fafner for his hoard and the ring. Although he doesn't know it yet, his parents Siegmund and Sieglind were siblings, and his scheming grandfather Wälse alias Wotan also wanted to use Siegfried as a pawn in a longterm project and Wotan's enemy Alberich also would like to get rid of him. Sieglind saw her mother killed and was kidnapped and forced into a loveless marriage, then had to witness her brother and lover killed (which was also due to Wotan's intervention). Small wonder that one of the leitmotifs is called the Wälsungen suffering motive (''Wälsungenleidmotiv'').
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* Arguably, every character in ''Card Players''. Nuff said.
* One of the De Noirs from ''WebAnimation/DusksDawn'' gives us an InfoDump about how his father is missing and how "illusions can't help."
* All four main characters in ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'', despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, all have less than pleasant life stories:
** Shandala was [[HeartwarmingOrphan orphaned at infancy]], and although her life among the Fijian Islanders is peaceful, [[spoiler: when she was a young girl, her adopted mother was horrifically mutilated and murdered by white men under the direction of--and possibly including--her biological father.]]
** Oran's father [[spoiler:was killed during a bombing assault on Baghdad during the first Gulf War]].
** Kamimura was taken from his home at a very young age to become a monk, [[spoiler:leaving his family behind to be killed in the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII]].
** Raimi has arguably the most mundane, but no less heartbreaking. After his father left, [[spoiler:his mother died from what is implied to be cancer.]]
* Arguably, Church from ''Machinima/RedVsBlue.'' [[spoiler:While he doesn't remember it for the most part, the original Church is what you get when you brutally torture an AI into splitting into pieces, even to the point of using parts of its own mind against it (Gamma and Omega). The result is a constantly angry person who doesn't even understand why he's so angry all the time. Epsilon!Church probably remembers more about the torture, but chooses to suppress it to keep from going crazy.]]
* Considering that one of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'s'' themes is WarIsHell, the majority of the cast have their burdens from the past to shoulder.
** Blake was [[spoiler:born a Faunus, and abused by humans who routinely discriminated against Faunus. She joined the White Fang at a very young age, where her mentor became an abusive, anti-human, murderous psychopath. She ran away from the White Fang when she could no longer take their violence]].
** Weiss grew up under the thumb of an emotionally abusive father, who regularly took his anger out on her and tried to force her to abandon her own dreams and ambitions. She'd watched family members and friends die at the hands of The White Fang.
** Ruby lost her mother, presumably while fighting, when she was a very young child, and was raised by her father, and half-sister.
** Yang's birth mother abandoned her for reasons unknown, her stepmother presumably died, and her father suffered a prolonged HeroicBSOD following these events, leaving Yang to raise herself and Ruby. She'd nearly gotten herself and baby Ruby killed trying to find her birth mother.
** Nora was a street rat in Ren's hometown, the two orphaned when the Nuckalavee Grimm destroyed it, killing everyone save the two.
** Emerald was a street rat, resorting to thievery in order to survive, and had nobody to care for her or love her.
** Mercury grew up in an abusive household, with no mention of a mother, and a father who beat him. He'd ended up killing his own father prior to aiding the main villain.
** Ozpin admits to Ruby that he's made more mistakes than anybody in Remnant, though it isn't specified what he's actually done (until Volume 6, that is).
* ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': Martha was abused as a child by a man with a whip, as explained in the Special Info Episode.
** Killer Monster wasn't always evil, but after being banished to a fiery realm for 10,000 years, he became the killer monster he is now.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Literature/{{Tasakeru}}'''s primary characters, the Outcasts, are shining examples of this trope, it's pretty much a prerequisite for being one. [[spoiler: One is a runaway {{Samurai}} suffering from SurvivorGuilt, one was thrown out on the streets with her mother as an infant and grew up in poverty, and one was disowned by her family for [[MagicIsEvil being a mage]].]] And that's just the ones we know about...
* Due to DarkerAndEdgier attitude of ''Roleplay/NeoPokeforum'', it's unsurprising that it has a lot of characters like this, such as [[TheRunaway the Crow and Ardus]], [[{{Reincarnation}} Tom Allen]], [[TheConspiracy Leonard]] and [[TheWoobie Mahariel]].
* Most characters from ''Roleplay/MSFHighForum'' own this. It's also their motivation to become heroes. Also, there are monsters created out of this.
* When you put them all together, even though they're played for [[BlackComedy dark laughs]], a lot of bad things have happened ([[JerkassWoobie that weren't actually his fault]]) to WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic. AbusiveParents, hiding in the cupboard when he got scared, breaking up with someone three times and getting stalked for it, pitied by his classmates for acting like a brat, date-raped on his prom night, and that's just what we know so far. No wonder he's a weepy PsychopathicManchild with issues.
* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick had a judging mother and an emotionally distant father who both were alcoholics and yelled at each other constantly, had an uncle that molested her, got bullied at school for being the awkward dork, became an alcoholic herself and somehow got fixated on guys she could fix and control to do whatever she asked of them.
%% A common problem among the characters in ''{{Theatrica}}''
* [[WebOriginal/ProtectorsOfThePlotContinuum Ithalond]]. An Elf from Imladris, he was pulled into the infamous fic ''Celebrian''. Need I say more?
* ''Roleplay/TouhouAGlimmerOfAnOutsideWorld'' has many, many indications that Yuuka wasn't quite as mentally stable as she is in the roleplay in the past. Like a basement with a room full of torture equipment.
* ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil'' has this as a staple trait for characters. As the saying goes, "[[SarcasmMode Slavery is a totally original backstory!]]"
* In ''[[Literature/GutsandSass Guts and Sass: An Anti-Epic]]'', Efeddre was captured and tortured for nine years, and ended up a JerkassWoobie.
* any of the Organization's Agents in ''Blog/{{LIS DEAD}}'' count, considering what we've learned of the Organization so far.
* The OpeningNarration of ''WebVideo/DoomHouse'' explains how the wife of the main character, Reginald P. Linux, had died long ago and that this had left a severe depression weighed heavy on his soul.
* Jeanette of ''Literature/FunnyBusiness'' is revealed to have this in the flashback. It turns out that having omnipotent power from a young age can do a number on one's psyche.
* A lot of [=AkaiChounokoe=]'s characters have these, so here's a few
** Toki's past and if they are to be believed started is this, particularly so when she tried to runaway from them and, as Brownie put it [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=rose#/d4n5qoy She was once sweet]] and only wanted to be loved. Lets see? Here they are:
*** She was abused and then neglected causing her to almost die of leukemia, during the events of [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=flashbacks#/d5j8gg1 Flashbacks I]], something that caused something in her to drive her insane in the next incident (see below)
*** She returned to the place where she was once abused so she can get hold of the inheritance money but went insane during the events of [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=Insanity#/d4z8cib Insanity and Resentment]] and has had issues eve since.
** Frailine (the one Toki abused) is also an example as per these statements:
*** She was imprisoned for being criminally insane after the events of [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=little+girl Little Girl's Revenge]] when she almost killed Toki and damaged the border between this world and the next. Kind of a Disproportionate Retribution, compared to what Toki did to her (abused her and then, sometime afterward, she sent to Alaska attached to a bus by a magnet with no means of getting home)
*** Sometime after being imprisoned, she almost kills herself twice and is never seen again, as per stated, in [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=Frailine#/d5ha37q Diary of a Borderline Schizophrenic]], driving Toki into more self-hate because of it.
** [[http://tokiandcowiki.wikidot.com/wiki:bunny-rabbitwright Bunny]] and [[http://tokiandcowiki.wikidot.com/wiki:madgie Madgie]]'s parents died in an accident when Bunny was twenty and Madgie was nine.
** [[http://tokiandcowiki.wikidot.com/wiki:doki Doki]] was seperated from her twin sister Toki at when both were going on thirteen and was sedated and frozen.
* Before leaving his home planet on the Dionysian, Fiearius Soliveré of "Literature/CaelumLex" [[spoiler: worked as an assassin for the dubious government organization the Society, potentially murdering many innocents. This culminated in an event that caused both his wife and four year old son to be killed]]
* Par for the course in ''Podcast/FalloutIsDragons''. Granted, it's set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but thus far two player characters are [[TheAtoner former raiders]], one was abandoned by his mentor after nearly damning a filly, one was physically and psychologically tortured by his own "teacher", one was forced to kill his own brother for no other reason then to amuse the BigBad, and one lost his memory, leg, and EYES in an explosion.
** And that's not even factoring in the [=NPC=] backstories....
* Madiha Nakar from ''Literature/TheSolsticeWar'' is an amnesiac orphan and is hinted at having done a lot of horrible things as a child during her country's revolutionary war, where she fought on the socialist side.
* The crew of captain Icomb's ship in ''Literature/SkiesUnbroken'' has: two former {{Sky Pirate}}s (including the good captain himself), one not-so-former SkyPirate who joins later, a soldier whose side lost TheWarJustBefore, and a WaifProphet. It's their passenger's Dark and Troubled Past that is, however, most frequently (if vaguely) alluded to.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man", never told Treves a single detail about his family, even that his mother was dead, because the whole family situation was a Dark And Troubled Mess. Dead mother, a classic case of SurvivorGuilt over his dead four-year-old brother, crippled sister, abusive father, WickedStepmother, and step-siblings who were, as he put it, "more handsome". This may actually have been the source of the misnomer "John" -- his father was also named Joseph, and he may have wanted to separate himself as far from that as he could, possibly out of paranoia of having to go back home.
* Creator/KelseyGrammer: His entire life has been one tragedy after another. His father was murdered. His sister was murdered. Two half-brothers were killed in a diving accident. His longtime friend and ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' producer David Angell was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Another longtime friend was murdered in an inheritance scheme. He was abused by two ex-wives, one of whom attempted suicide while pregnant and killed their unborn child. Seriously, someone give this man a hug.
* Creator/RussellBrand. Childhood Bulimia? Check. Traumatic incidents involving a tutor, and then a babysitter? Check. Self-harm? Check. Mother with cancer that reappeared four times? Check. Evil stepfather? Check. Bipolar disorder? Check. Misguided attempt by his father at bonding, involving a trip to Thailand and prostitutes? CHECK.
* [[Music/GunsNRoses Axl Rose]]: read the biography "Guns And Roses: The Band That Time Forgot" for the full details. Needless to say, it's no wonder he's such a JerkAss sometimes.
* Creator/RichardOBrien. Born abnormally small, bullied at school, and then growing up genderqueer in what amounted to a conservative country town in the 1950s/60s...ouch. And then [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow his baby flopped in cinemas]].
* Janice Dickinson, one of the world's first supermodels. She was thoroughly traumatized and damaged not just by her father's emotional and physical abuse of her, but also his sexual abuse of one of her sisters. And then in 2015 she claimed that in 1982, she was one of the victims of [[Creator/BillCosby Bill Cosby's]] date rapes.
* Creator/CharlesBukowski, a German-American novelist and poet. His childhood was a long episode of school fights, child abuse and social rejection. This depression later bolstered his rage as he grew, and gave him much of his voice and material for his writings.
* Creator/JamesEllroy
* Wrestling/ScottHall suffers from PTSD as a result of killing a man in self-defense, developed a serious drug and alcohol addiction to treat it, had most of his friends abandon him because of it, and is in a serious amount of pain constantly
* Edgar Allan Poe. His biological father left, his biological mother died of tuberculosis along with his brother and both loves of his life, and his foster dad was an abusive jerk. No wonder he wrote what he did.
* UsefulNotes/MichaelJordan had to watch his friend drown trying to save him when he was a teenager, and then had his father murdered later during his career.
* Creator/ManuBennett was a bullying victim, then lost his mother and brother in a car accident. He stated in an interview that he found peace through acting.
* Creator/CharismaCarpenter had a near-rape experience, as she and two of her friends were [[http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20108468,00.html the final victims of a serial rapist back in 1991]].
* Creator/TylerPerry was constantly beaten by his father, Emmitt Brown Sr., to the point that he once attempted suicide to get away from him, and was molested by a friend's mother and three other men as a child. He changed his name from Emmitt Brown Jr. to Tyler Perry, and eventually discovered that Emmitt Brown Sr. actually wasn't his biological father.
* Creator/EvanRachelWood revealed that she's been raped twice in her past, and suffers from these experiences. In 2018 she gave testimony before a US Senate subcommittee about this in support of a proposed law.
[[/folder]]

* Self hate via MyGreatestFailure.

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/{{Juxtapose}}'': A few.
** Katsura Kensei was [[spoiler: raised by the villain Tsuchigumo]] and taught to be a criminal; it was only later that he was rescued and re-adopted by Detective Tsukauchi.
** On account of being bullied as a kid, Monoma Neito was obsessed with getting the Quirks of powerful heroes (via their hair) so that he'd always have some form of power on hand, which only got worse after [[spoiler: he accidentally copied a villain's [[TheBerserker Anger Point Quirk]] and went berserk]], culminating in a full-on NeverBeHurtAgain mentality. It comes to a head when he obsessively searches for Izuku after seeing his Quirk [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower take down a Zero Pointer robot]] - only to enter a HeroicBSOD when he finds out [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway what it is]].
* [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] in ''Fanfic/TheParselmouthOfGryffindor'', wherein, in Chapter 44, Snape and Dumbledore [[ItMakesSenseInContext argue about whose backstory is ]]''[[ItMakesSenseInContext more ]]''[[ItMakesSenseInContext tragic]].
* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11886910/1/Gankona-Unnachgiebig-Unità Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità]]'': Let's see...Rome dying, being abused for hundreds of years—physically ''and'' verbally—by [[AbusiveParents Austria]], Holy Rome dying during the Thirty Years' War...those events ''definitely'' contributed to some [[HiddenDepths issues]] [[StepfordSmiler Italy]] [[InsecureLoveInterest has]].
* ''[[FanFic/{{Bird}} Bird]]'' takes place in an insane asylum for troubled parahumans and elaborates on many canon backstories that were only hinted at in ''[[Literature/{{Worm}} Worm]]'' proper. Special mention to Burnscar and Labyrinth.
* ''[[FanFic/{{BrokenBird}} Broken Bird]]'' Initiates with a somewhat graphic depiction of Kakashi's reactions to his repeated childhood trauma growing up.
* In ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'' almost all of the characters were stated to have gone through "horrible problems", although it is not clear exactly what these are.
* In the parody ''Fanfic/XtremlyScray'', even the freaking Sorting Hat has a tragic backstory.
* In ''[[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-fan-fiction/828948-transformers-meta.html Transformers Meta]]'' Grimlock has this, which theoretically warrants his aggressive personality. Jazz also seems to have it, [[SugarAndIcePersonality but does a better job at hiding it]].
* ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'' has [[spoiler:Michikyuu Kanae]], who, as a slider, has gone through hundreds of worlds, only to have them invaded by aliens and everyone she loved killed. Again. ''[[DoomMagnet Hundreds of times]]''.
* In the {{Fanfic/Uplifted}} series, Joachim Hoch has this. He was conceived as a last ditch attempt to bring happiness to a couple who had lost their children to the First World War, and was beaten by his father until he was killed during the occupation of the Ruhr. He then ran away from home and was taken in by an SS officer (a surprisingly decent man), and ultimately followed in his footsteps. He's a surprisingly balanced person in spite of all this.
* All of the main characters in the fanfic ''FanFic/{{Freefall}}'' have tragic childhoods, to a varying degree of "tragic"; not surprising, since the fic features Creator/{{CLAMP}} characters.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', there's Trixie's portrayal in some of the better [[PortmanteauCoupleName Twixie]][[note]]Twilight/Trixie[[/note]] shipping fics. At least two fanfics - ''[[http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/03/story-out-in-cold.html Out in the Cold]]'' and ''[[http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/06/story-of-mares-and-magic.html Of Mares and Magic]]'' - gave her a parent who inspired her to take up magic, then went and died on her and left her traumatised. This not only provides a FreudianExcuse for why she acts like such a jerk in-series, but also provides grounds for the eventual {{Shipping}}.
* In ''A New Face In Ponyville'', Joshua Rocket is revealed to have shadows of one of them in chapter 9[[note]]Counteraction[[/note]]. This could also be a case of Mysterious Past since not a lot of concrete details were given and even what WAS said could be put up for speculation considering [[spoiler:it was under heavy sedation after an attack from the Equestrian Pony Alliance]]
* Firefly in ''Fanfic/AceCombatTheEquestrianWar'' lost her home, her parents and her dreams of becoming a Wonderbolt, thanks to [[spoiler: Black Star]]. It's the reason she is sometimes cold and angsty toward others.
* In [[http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-3655-3/Anoron+The+Key+To+Marauding.htm#storybody The Key to Marauding]], Dawn has all the emotional baggage of Series 5 of Buffy (dead mother, knowing that the first 14 years of her life aren't real encounters with Glory etc...). In the fic she is [[spoiler: chained up in the dungeon and nearly raped by Lucius Malfoy, kidnapped and tortured by Death Eaters and is torn between her own world and the Potterverse when a way of getting back appears.]]
** By the sequel she has lost [[spoiler: her adopted parents (Mr. and Mrs Potter). Then, pretty much in one night, her adopted brother (James), a woman who was like her sister (Lily), the man she loved had gone insane before her eyes (Sirius) and was imprisoned in Azkaban, where she watched him fall apart, knowing he was innocent and knew the traitor to be former [[TrueCompanions True Companion]] Peter Pettigrew, and was also aware that she was the bait for his betrayal. Then, she lost custody of her Godson (Harry) because of Blood Wards, and had to endure a year of trying to care for him, but as she said herself to Harry, 'every one thing I gave you, they took two away' before leaving, recognising that she was making it worse for him. She then had to endure Harry's anger at her until the Blood Ward thing is explained to him. Oh, and to top it all off, she miscarried her baby by Sirius]]. TraumaCongaLine doesn't even begin to describe it.
* Ciara's backstory in [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7831829/1/Looming_Darkness Looming Darkness]]. [[spoiler: After Zelda's mother revealed there was a prophecy concerning her, she spirited Ciara away to Earth and left her with AbusiveParents while her real parents were murdered by Ganondorf. She'd been abused for her first 13 years of life until Link brought her back to Hyrule to take down Ganondorf.]]
* Although never stated in the fanfiction itself, Darkheart of FanFic/TheReturnOfChaos is revealed to have a Dark and Troubled Past by the author in other works.
* Rainbow Dash, in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfic ''Fanfic/LunasPowerAndRainbowsLove'', says that she and Fluttershy do not like to talk about their time in flight school, because it "wasn't a happy part of our lives." it's implied that bullying is the reason for this.
* There are quite a few characters from ''FanFic/WhatLiesBeyondTheWalls'' (particularly the [[AntiVillain vermin]]) who have had either a really horrible childhood or experienced something traumatic early on as an adult. Benrath Brugo, however, gets the prize for having the worst DATP of them all: [[spoiler:his parents were murdered by Log-a-Log when he was a child, he's abducted by him soon afterwards, and then his surrogate father proceeded to rape and abuse him for several years]].
* Eric Cartman in ''Fanfic/TheBalladOfStootAndArgyle'' (a ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' fanfic). He flat-out admits to Terrance that he killed Scott Tenorman's parents, and saw so many parallels between his life and ''Theatre/OedipusTheKing'' in junior high that, heavily disturbed, he pledged to [[TheAtoner overcome his past ways]]. Whether or not he's succeeded is still up in the air.
* At least one character of ''FanFic/RacerAndTheGeek'' has this. The degrees to which they cope vary.
* Parodied in Chapter 7 of ''FanFic/TheHumanWhoseNameIsWrittenInThisFanfiction'' "In which everyone is very tragic":
-->''Don't you just love to read pointless and poorly written garbage about fictional people's problems?''
-->''Well if you do you're a complete sadist but that's okay, you've come to the right place. This is the land where we step over the borderline from "tragic past" to "Loaded up with so many problems it's kind of sick". Sounds like fun huh?''
-->''Take a glance around the room and you will see our first victim. His name is L [[spoiler: Lawliet]]. Although he possesses legions of adoring fans they all seem to be obsessed with torturing him. Let's take a closer look.''
-->''L sat sadly in task force headquarters. He felt his imminent doom hanging over his head as well as the pain of his unrequited love for unnamed love interest/dead love interest. This reminded him of all the tragic things that had happened to him, the things that kept him awake every night for fear of terrible nightmares (because this explanation of L's insomnia isn't complete rubbish at all).''
-->''He thought back to his childhood as a poor orphan boy. He thought about that flashback he was going to have later in the series when [[spoiler: he died]] and how it showed how tragic a character he was.''
-->''It had all started when the young boy had to watch his family be brutally murdered. They were shot/burned/eaten/poisoned/exploded/forced to watch the ''[[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pokémon]]'' movies. It was a horrifying memory that would haunt the detective all his life.''
-->''After many heart-breaking scenes of carnage Watari brought the young L to Wammy's house. He was very emotionally scarred and had no friends. Then one day Watari brought two new children to the house, A and B.''
-->''L immediately fell in love with A/B/random other chick. Unfortunately they died. All of them. Violently. While still carrying his child. Right in front of him. Other wretched stuff.''
* Alluded to but nothing more in [[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/124263/1/songs-uncle-sings/sineva Songs Uncle Sings.]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fan fiction ''Fanfic/OurTrueColors'', Pinkie Pie's "hugginess" and tendency to inhale food both derive from her time as [[spoiler: a homeless orphan.]]
* Naruto in ''Fanfic/KitsuneNoKenFistOfTheFox'' has, as his dark and troubled past, the fact that he was part of the Kyuushingai, a group of nine people who were instrumental in 365 days' worth of death and destruction across the continent. [[IHatePastMe It still haunts him]] [[TheAtoner to this day]].
* In ''FanFic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace'', Captain Tallarcio had a shady past with Governor Deacon.
* FanFic/StallionsOfHarmonyVerse has Prince Blueblood, who lost his parents as a colt, was blamed for it by his entire family and later was betrayed by his so called best friend, who used him to steal treasures from the castle. It took Nightmare Moon and other Elements of Harmony for him to start trusting others again.
* ''FanFic/CoolerRising''. This seems to be true for both Cooler and Zither, or at least as far as they're concerned.
* In ''FanFic/TheEndOfEnds'', Beast Boy explains his past to Terra to justify just why he felt depressed after she dumped him.
* From Webcomic/KillLaKillAU, we have Ragyou's childhood, in which she struck by a car when she six (on her birthday) and the best bid to save her life was to perform a forbidden and experimental surgery on her, [[spoiler: which said surgery is implied to employ life fibers]].
* Nui Harime in the ''Anime/KillLaKill'' fanfiction ''FanFic/MaimDeMaim'' has a very grim childhood in which she was a CreepyChild that went too far [[spoiler: and created a flesh bound kamui made with the flesh of a ten year old girl she met in public]]. She eventually got out of the lifestyle and improved, but unfortunately in Chapter 15, the past came back to haunt her [[spoiler: in such a hard way, it undid all of her improvements made since in a very depressing fashion]].
* Alluded to in regards to Mai-Lin from ''FanFic/KyoshiRising''; she seems to have some bad memories of her family, and a distaste for nobility, but other than a few glimpses her full past has yet to be revealed.
* In ''FanFic/TheSagaOfAvatarKorra'', the Red Lotus are successful in kidnapping Korra and put her through a TrainingFromHell regiment for fourteen years. During that time, Korra believes her parents are dead, and while the Red Lotus promised to be her ParentalSubstitute, they generally abuse her. Only Ghazan and P'li treat Korra even remotely well. She is even more of a FishOutOfWater than she is in canon, and she does not even know when her birthday is or her age.
* In ''Fanfic/SecondWind'', Luffy and Zoro were the sole survivors of a battle in the past that claimed the lives of all of their friends. Understandably, even though they've come back to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, they've yet to fully get over that trauma.
* In ''FanFic/FourDeadlySecrets'', RWBY and more than a few of the supporting cast. It's the premise of the story, after all.
* In ''FanFic/WhyAmICrying'', Diamond Tiara is revealed to have had a ''really'' shitty life. She moved away from Ponyville to Manehattan when she was four, separating her from her best friend Apple Bloom. Three years later, her mother was killed in a train accident -- ''while she was pregnant'' -- and her father wouldn't even want to ''look at her'' she looked so much like her and couldn't stand it. Eventually, she was sent to a summer camp near Fillydelphia, where she was relentlessly and sadistically tortured by a group of colts who hated rich ponies (including with Silver Spoon, whom she met there), causing her to develop a persecution complex against lower classes. After her father found out what was happening to her and had the camp shut down, she moved back to Ponyville, and found that [[StrangerInAFamiliarLand none of her old friends remembered her]]. The last straw came when she defended Silver Spoon from some foals who were making fun of her glasses; they just so happened to be friends of Apple Bloom, who had also forgotten about her, and twisted around the events so she could accuse her of bullying them. [[EtTuBrute Feeling betrayed by her best friend]], Diamond was driven to [[ThenLetMeBeEvil become the rich brat she was often perceived as]] and became devoted to making Apple Bloom's life a living hell.
* ''Fanfic/AwkwardSilence'': Riko Shibata [[spoiler:was raped by her uncle when she was younger, her mother who was having an affair with said uncle just slapped her for telling her, and her father left out of anger and never came back. This leads to some very realistic emotional effects on Riko.]]
* ''Fanfic/TheRacketRotterChronicles'': In Arc 5, [[spoiler: Sinbad reveals that he was used in dogfighting matches for a good portion of his life.]]
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11772125/1/Metroid-Kamen-Rider-Generations-Full-Series Metroid: Kamen Rider Generations]]'': Revisiting all of [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Samus Aran's]] past experiences ranging from her parents' deaths, and to losing her closest friends, and all is quintessential to her characterization. But, what really stand out are the backstories of the two Kamen Riders who fought alongside with her -- [[Series/KamenRiderGaim Mitsuzane Kureshima]] (Kamen Rider Ryugen) and [[Series/KamenRiderDrive Gou Shijima]] (Kamen Rider Mach).
** Mitsuzane, during his time with Team Gaim up to betraying them and [[FaceHeelTurn subsequent]] [[TheQuisling alliance]] with his respective series' villains, out of his [[{{Yandere}} obsession]] with Mai, ends up being the UnwittingPawn to them (Sid, Redyue, Ryoma... You name it.). Kouta and Mai dying right before his eyes left him but an apathetic shadow of his former self and slow [[DrowningMySorrows descent into alcoholism]]. Ever since at the start of his [[TheAtoner road to redemption]], his past would continue to haunt him. No wonder why he began making barbed [[DeadpanSnarker sardonic jokes]] that land badly at anyone around him, and as [[StepfordSnarker an excuse to cope with]] [[SadClown his insecurities]]. [[spoiler:When he reaches out to Samus, [[LivingEmotionalCrutch he started to]] [[FlorenceNightingaleEffect get better]].]]
--->'''Mitsuzane''': The 'Micchy' who used to be shy and friendly member of Team Gaim has been long gone when the whole Helheim situation began to get real. The Mitsuzane Kureshima who was groomed to be an heir of a powerful company and a [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative mastermind]] [[ThatManIsDead is dead as well]]. But, the Mitsuzane Kureshima you see right now is [[BrokenBird a very insecure and isolated man]], who can barely make fun of other people just to see the world becoming so relentlessly unkind.
** Gou, when he learns that his father, Professor Banno, an AxCrazy MadScientist who was ''never'' a father to him, of course. And when Chase was killed at the hands of said mad scientist also counts. He got better when Chase once again [[BackFromTheDead returns back to life]].
* In [[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/255512/we-are-what-we-are We Are What We Are]] each Dazzling has one. It's so bad it's no wonder Sunset tried to send them home after Adagio told her them.
** Adagio Dazzle had the happiest life. ...Until she got married. Her husband cared little for her, yet still tried to kill her and her lover when she had an affair. She was forced to flee, leaving her happy rich lifestyle for a homeless life constantly on the run.
** Sonata Dusk was abused by her parents and was only ever shown kindness once in her entire pre-Siren life. She didn't even want to go with Adagio and Aria, but was forced to when soldiers destroyed her home.
** Aria Blaze arguably had it the ''worst.'' She never even knew her parents and was raised in a horrible OrphanageOfFear where she was abused constantly for her beauty and singing voice. It's made worse when it's revealed that she would never get to leave because she was adopted by the worst of her abusers. She tried to escape several times only to be stopped every time (she was even nearly killed once)except her final time. Is it any wonder why they're so hateful?
* ''Fanfic/TimeOutOfMind'' at one point features an in-universe (non-alcoholic) drinking game of the characters' varieties of dark and trouble pasts. (Among other things, leads to one character being distressed at ''not'' having one).
* ''Fanfic/AGemInTheRough'': Petrea (Miss Valentine) and Damian (Mr. 5) both have tragic backstories. To subvert this trope, Genevieve (Miss Goldenweek) does not appear have one. In fact, she is the only one who has not lost a parent of the bunch...possibly even the entire crew.
* ''Fanfic/ForestofDespair'' has a lot of characters with one due to living in a CrapsackWorld AftertheEnd. One of the most notable examples is Akita Yamazaki, the protagonist, who has been tortured to the point of having a scar and experienced friends dying before the Killing Game actually starts.
* ''FanFic/ToHellAndBackArrowverse'':
** Barry and Kara, on top of their canon backstories, land on Lian Yu alongside Oliver and suffer some of his canon backstories, including torture and the deaths of Shado and Yao-Fei, [[spoiler:and the assumed death of their adoptive father, Slade]]. And if that weren't enough, they are press-ganged into the League of Assassins after the later saved them from drowning after the sinking of the Amazo, suffering TrainingFromHell to become Ra's' three top enforcers.
** [[spoiler:Slade's past is arguably ''even worse''. On top of losing Shado, he's separated from his adoptive children, captured by Amanda Waller and experimented on in an attempt to replicate and perfect the Mirakuru, and suffers through all of Oliver's post-island pre-series adventures (only one of which ended better than they did in canon). Then, just when it seems he can have a BittersweetEnding by reuniting with his biological children, Waller returns, takes out his eye, and blackmails him into Task Force X by threatening Joe's life]].
** Iris' past wasn't a walk in the park either, though it wasn't as tragic as the above examples; she lost her best friend Barry for ten years thanks to her father's PartingWordsRegret, tried to emulate said best friend in order to cope with his presumed death, suffering ridicule from all her peers along the way, and then learned that her biological mother was alive and that she had a little brother, all of which her father hid from her. One can't really blame her for being cold and slightly bitter as an adult.
* ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'' has its fair share of these:
** Red is shown to have BadDreams, of suffering a lot of bullying as a kid, and it's heavily implied that [[MissingMom he lost his mother]] when their house burned down, [[spoiler: with all hints pointing that ''he'' was the one who accidentally set it on fire.]]
** The resident KnightOfCerebus, Belladonna Tyrian, and her three girlfriends also have this, all of them suffering of ParentalAbandonment or otherwise losing their families to varying degrees, and they only have each other. Belladonna especially is so desperate for a real family that [[spoiler: she quickly accepts the possibility of Ash being her half-brother]] without much question.
* In ''Fanfic/AWandForSteven'', despite his cheery disposition, Steven harbors much emotional turmoil over the events that happened in his world. He shows homesickness more than once, mentioning his dad and Connie on more than one occasion. He was even apart of the huge epic battle that eventually led to the Gems poisoning the planet. This is best displayed during Lupin's session with the boggart, his fears so intense that the boggart outright attacks him in the form of Jasper and Yellow Diamond instead of just harmlessly scaring him, Dumbledore reasoning that his fears are far more real and deep-rooted than the average student.
* Pikachu from ''Webcomic/RocketMember'' watched her pregnant mother get mortally wounded by Team Rocket, resulting in her dying before her twin brothers were even born. Her father ran off afterwards, leaving her and her older brother to raise twins [[PromotionToParent by themselves]].
* ''Fanfic/PrincipalCelestiaHuntsTheUndead'': Celestia and Luna both. [[spoiler:Their introduction to the supernatural came when Luna fell for a vampire who tricked her, then killed their parents and bit Luna, nearly resulting in her death because Celestia thought she'd been turned and shot her.]]
* In ''WebAnimation/ToBelong'', the siblings were orphaned when Anya accidentally set their house on fire playing with the chandelier. Anya still blames herself for her mother's death and can't [[{{Animorphism}} turn into her lioness form]] without being [[TraumaButton triggered]].
* ''Webcomic/TeamRocketRoots'' turns Jessie's HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood into this. After her mother left on a mission when she was five, she was ''supposed'' to be taken care of by someone. Alas, Jessie almost starved to death because the person failed to do this. Afterwards Jessie ended up in foster care and her canon backstory occured. It all resulted in Jessie having serious abandonment issues.
* The oneshot ''Fanfic/ToTryForTheSun'' gives princesses Celestia and Luna tragic backstories. They grew up in times of war and were orphaned as foals. They were always at risk of starvation and [[PromotionToParent the elder sister]] Celestia worked as a gravedigger at only twelve. One day, Celestia somehow rose the sun herself and this feat is what lead to her ascension.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': There are two kinds of characters in the series: those who have this trope, and those who are ''living'' this trope.
** Sandor Clegane had half his face burned off by his own brother for borrowing a toy.
** Littlefinger UsedToBeASweetKid until his unrequited love for Catelyn Stark got him curb-stomped by Brandon Stark. Also, when Lysa reminds him of their "wedding night" many years ago, he looks like he's having a minor post-traumatic episode, subtly implying he didn't find it quite so pleasant as she did.
** Varys was a slave who was drugged, castrated, and left to die by a sorcerer as a boy.
** Melisandre was once a slave who was "scourged and branded" and always hungry until she was lifted up by the Lord of Light.
** Osha fled her homeland, north of the Wall, after her husband disappeared one night and then came back as a wight and tried to strangle her, forcing her to burn down their tent with him inside.
** Xaro Xhoan Daxos arrived in Qarth less valued than a piece of cargo.
* Ned from ''Series/PushingDaisies'' was abandoned by his father, accidentally killed both his mother and the father of his childhood sweetheart, and spent most of his childhood in a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors. This, along with being given the sometimes unfortunate gift of bringing people BackFromTheDead with a touch, led him to grow into a nervous and shy adult with some trust issues.
** And, upon trying to solve his first murder case (which was an accident) to make his father love him more, he was found with the man's body and ''thrown in jail. When he was 10 years old.'' Is there such a thing as a cosmic MoralEventHorizon?
* ''Franchise/StarTrek:''
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Tasha Yar grew up on a world that descended into anarchy and spent her childhood scrambling to survive and dodging violent rape gangs.
** The initial sequence of the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' pilot episode shows Sisko being bodily dragged out of his quarters because he refuses to voluntarily leave his wife's corpse behind, despite the fact that the ship was critically damaged by the Borg and he doesn't have enough time to dig her out of the rubble before it explodes. Then we flash forward three years to his arrival at the space station.
** Sisko's second-in-command, Kira Nerys, grew up on Bajor under the ''brutal'' Cardassian Occupation and was [[ChildSoldier participating in the Bajoran resistance movement by the time she was twelve or thirteen]]. Her mother [[spoiler:slept with the Cardassian BigBad]] to obtain more comforts/ensure the survival of her family. Her lover died in her arms. The list goes on.
* Elle Bishop of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' - originally introduced as a demented vixen (everyone's favourite trope), but then revealed to be ridden with several issues, including being experimented upon as a child, locked up, and pumped full of drugs, eventually leading to her being diagnosed as a sociopath and the subsequent use as an "Executioner" by her own father.
* Giles in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' is one of the most well mannered and uptight middle-aged English Gentlemen you will ever come across. However, one old friend from College still calls him by his old nickname, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Ripper]], and their conversations drop tonnes of hints that he used to be one [[EvilSorcerer evil, badass warlock]] in his youth, whose feared reputation was very rightfully earned. It's never explicitly mentioned what he and Ethan did in the past and what [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow happened to the other people in their group]], nor what made him change into the champion of good he is today.
** The rest of them were killed by Eyghon.
** Spike used to be ridiculed by his social peers while still alive, and this is shown to deeply affect his personality, most evidently by lowering his already not-so-good social skills, along with leaving other significant marks. After siring his mother, she abused him verbally and [[ParentalIncest sexually assaulted]] him, to the point that he was forced to kill her for good to stop her. He admits many years later that this episode has been weighting on him. After regaining his soul, he has to [[TheAtoner come to terms]] with the great sense of guilt he feels towards his criminal past. Us viewers usually get to [[TroubledBackstoryFlashback see bits of his past via flashback]], and the extent to which it is dark and troubled is occasionally emphasized by Spike telling Buffy that she [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow really doesn't want to know]] how far he's gone in torturing and killing people. [[DynamicCharacter It gets better]].
** Angel also counts. Initially introduced as a mysterious protector of Buffy, his [[TroubledBackstoryFlashback past is slowly revealed]] throughout Buffy and ''Series/{{Angel}}'', his own series. He is known as one of the worst vampires in history, and feels [[TheAtoner deep remorse]] for the thousands of people he has killed, tortured, and traumatized and for all of the lives he's destroyed. He has told Buffy that she [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow truly does not want to know]] the extent of his evil, though he has been forced to confess some of the specifics. Now ensouled, he fully accepts the fact that he will never stop seeking redemption for all of the things he's done.
** Faith Lehane. Grew up in an abusive home and poverty, no father mentioned, and her mother died at some point, likely while Faith was in her teens. It's heavily implied that being Chosen to fight the forces of darkness, something that very few Slayers lived more than a few years doing, was the highlight of her life so far. Oh yeah, and right after she was Chosen her Watcher, the only authority figure/person she trusted, was murdered right in front of her. And she blames herself for the incident, since y'know, the murderer was a vampire and Faith is a Vampire Slayer.
* Daryl from "Series/TheWalkingDead has hinted at his occasionally. He and his brother were definitely products of AbusiveParents who shot guns in the house, drank, and beat them, leaving them CoveredInScars. He mentions in a drunken rant in Season 5 that he never got an Christmas presents and tells a story in Season 2 about being lost in the woods 12 days when he was a kid and no one noticing.
* Then there's the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' side. There's Gunn, who ended up a street teen because vampires killed his family, and Fred, who got sent to a hell dimension, enslaved, and lived in a cave for five years. Plus Wesley, who was emotionally abused by his father and locked in a dark closet for hours. Plus Angel himself, of course. And Connor, good lord, Connor. Raised in a hell dimension to hate his real father and once tied to a tree and left behind at five years old so he could work to escape and find his foster father.
* Almost everyone on Grey's Anatomy?
** Meredith - Abandoned by Dad, raised by a mother who didn't really care about her or want her.
** Cristina - Witnessed her dad die when she was 9 (she actually felt his heart stop!)
** Alex - Abusive dad, Crazy mother. Practically raised his siblings, went to Juvie.
** Izzie - Grew up in a trailer park, gave up a baby for adoption in high school.
** And that's just to name a few....
* Several character in ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** Marcus Cole , in the episode in which he was introduced, says he "doesn't believe in miracles". We later learn that he witnessed everyone he cared about, including his Ranger brother, being killed in a Shadow attack on his home colony. He can't shake the survivor's guilt.
** It comes completely unexpected with Delenn, who, throughout the show, is well known for her compassion and kindness, as well as being a firm believer in the just cause and a wise advisor to others, cautioning against anger and hatred. However, it's not until much later that some details from her earlier life get revealed. [[spoiler:She was aboard the ship that encountered the first human vessel and whose salute to the strangers scared the humans so much that they opened fire. When the initial salvo killed the most important religious leader of the minbari, she became the highest ranking person on the ship, and still holding the dead body of her teacher, immediately ordered a holy crusade by the whole minbari people [[KillAllHumans to completely annihilate the entire human race]]. When the destruction of earth was stopped at the very last moment, it was partially because she regretted her order.]]
* The character of Creator/StephenColbert is prone to SuspiciouslySpecificDenial of certain bad things that definitely didn't happen to him as a child. From his book ''I Am America (And So Can You!)'':
-->''"It doesn't matter how my parents raised me, because I loved my parents. Sure, they could be a little 'strict', but I often think back fondly on the memories I haven't repressed. The truth is, I wouldn't be the man I am today if it wasn't for the way my parents raised me."''\\
''[[FootnoteFever Margin note]]'': '''''I had a happy childhood.'''''
** Also a case of TruthInTelevision, since the real Colbert's father and two of his older brothers were killed in a plane crash when he was 10.
* Almost everyone on ''Series/{{House}}'' qualifies.
** Dr. House himself [[TeenGenius figured out at age 13]] that his "father" wasn't actually his biological father, and he was therefore the result of his mother's infidelity. The father who raised him was a strict military man who moved them all over the world and was fond of punishing his rebellious son with ice baths and other forms of corporal punishment. Also, there's the whole "losing part of my leg against my will thanks to a decision by [[LoveInterest Stacy]], leaving me with chronic pain and a limp" thing. He didn't want his leg amputated. Later on in the series, when he has to go under for surgery again, he tells Cuddy not to let the doctors amputate it unless there's no other choice.
** Dr. Chase's father [[ParentalAbandonment abandoned the family]], leaving Chase to care for his alcoholic mother, who eventually drank herself to death.
** Dr. Cameron married a man she knew was dying of cancer when she was 21. Since she knew he was terminal when she married him, it's implied that her damage goes back even farther than this situation.
** Dr. Taub is revealed to have cheated on his wife, and has had a [[DrivenToSuicide suicide attempt]] in his past.
** Even Dr. Kutner, who initially [[BewareTheNiceOnes seems like the most happy and easygoing character on the show]], later reveals that, when he was six years old, he witnessed the [[ParentalAbandonment murder of his parents]] by an armed robber. [[spoiler:He is sufficiently dark and troubled that he eventually [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself]].]]
** Dr. Foreman [[FormerTeenRebel was arrested during his teenage years]], and has a brother currently in jail.
** Dr. Hadley (Thirteen) saw her mother die a painful death from Huntington's disease, which she herself has.
*** She also [[spoiler:killed her brother (upon his request) when his Huntington's got too advanced.]]
** Dr. Wilson has a homeless and a schizophrenic brother, whose fate he blames himself for. He also had three divorces and a thing about "damaged people," i.e. he cannot help but try to help them.
* Quite a few characters on ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', though namely Gibbs, Ziva, and Tony.
** Gibbs lost his [[MyGreatestFailure wife and daughter]] twelve years before the series began.
** Tony lost his mother at the age of eight and was subsequently neglected by his father, who remarried again and again and sent him to live in various boarding schools for the majority of his childhood.
** Ziva's mother died when she was young, and her father was basically a sociopath who raised her to kill people. Her younger sister was killed in a Hamas suicide bombing, and she was forced to [[KillTheOnesYouLove kill her brother]] after he became a terrorist. She has also lost several friends while working with Mossad, one of whom was captured while undercover and beheaded.
** Even Ducky gets into the act in some episodes. The [[spoiler: late]] Director Shepard also had a screwed-up childhood. Basically, the only ones with possible good pasts are cheerful PerkyGoth Abby and HollywoodNerd [=McGee=].
** Whoops! Abby is still haunted by her first case, where she failed to reunite a damaged family. And [=McGee=]'s father was emotionally abusive and distant. To be clear, that's all four members of the field team now with daddy issues.
* ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' has this with everyone, but especially Callen, to the point where he doesn't know his FIRST NAME. Special mention to Marty Deeks, who had an abusive father who he eventually shot (at age eleven) to protect himself.
* ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}'': The brothers Eppes are mostly spared this, but many of the other cast members were less fortunate.
** Megan Reeves literally disappointed her father by being born female (she was his last chance to have a son), and she spent years of her life [[WellDoneSonGuy trying to get his attention]], first by positive means and then by acting out, until she finally ran away at 16.
** David Sinclair grew up in a gang-ridden neighborhood, losing one of his best friends to gun violence when he was in high school. He also says at one point that his father died when he was about 14.
** Colby Granger lost his father in a single-car wreck when he was 15; the cause of the wreck was never determined, but Colby always suspected it might have been a suicide, as his father had recently lost his job and was devastated. And that's not even getting into his time in the military, where he saw way more than his share of trauma.
** Liz Warner's early life is never discussed, but she does say at one point that she had been pregnant in college and miscarried, and that her friends were so insensitive to her about it that she never spoke to them again.
** Nikki's past is also not really explored, but we do know that early in her career, she was dumped into undercover work unprepared and one of the targets [[NearRapeExperience tried to rape her]]. The way she plays it off as no big deal also suggests she might have more (ultimately unexplored) trauma in her past.
%%* Every character ever on ''Series/{{Lost}}''.
* [[MadScientist Walter Bishop]] from ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' crossed several ethical boundaries (including experimenting on children, see below) in the name of Science, before he was admitted to St. Claire's Psychiatric Institution.
** Walter's also directly responsible for another Dark and Troubled Past: to save the other dimension's Peter after losing his own to a fatal illness, Walter kidnapped that Peter to this dimension. The ensuing years were implicitly turbulent and unhappy: by the time Peter was 13, Walter had been committed to a mental institution, and after Peter split for Europe at 18, Elizabeth Bishop committed suicide. We *still* don't know everything that Peter did or saw before joining Fringe Division, but it was apparently not all sunshine and puppies.
** AND let's not forget Olivia in all this. Military brat who moved around a lot, abused by her stepfather, lost her mother at a young age, and, oh yeah, experimented on in Jacksonville by none other than Walter Bishop.
* On ''Series/{{Bones}}'':
** The titular character was [[ParentalAbandonment abandoned by her parents]] at the age of 15, taken away from her older brother, and placed in foster care. She finds out later that her parents were bank robbers and "Temperance Brennan" isn't her actual birth name, and that her father is still alive (and an accused murderer).
** FBI Agent Seeley Booth would be a parody if he wasn't so expertly written; He was the child of an abusive, alcoholic father who came within inches of killing him and his brother. He almost committed suicide as a teen. He was a top-rated US Army sniper, and feels deeply guilty about it because he came to believe his kills never really accomplished anything. And on top of that, he's a ''direct descendant of John Wilkes Booth.''
** Dr. Lance Sweets, the young psychologist, was adopted at the age of six by a loving elderly couple after he had been abused as a young child (he has scars from whips on his shoulders). His adoptive parents died shortly before he came to work with Booth and Brennan.
** Booth lampshades all this at one point: "What are we, the island of misfit toys?"
* In the eighth season of ''Series/TwentyFour'', it is revealed that Renee has one of these.
* Michael Westen of ''Series/BurnNotice'' observes that this is very common in his line of work:
--> ''People with happy families don't become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops: You don't trust anyone, you're used to getting smacked around, and you never get homesick.''
* Series/ThePretender: Jarod, Miss Parker and Sydney all have dark and troubled pasts. Jarod's leads him to help people, Miss Parker's makes her icy and defensive and Sydney's leads him to stay at the Centre and try and prevent them doing as much damage as he can.
* On ''Series/StargateSG1'', Dr. Daniel Jackson's cringe-worthy backstory explains how he can keep going in the face of the constant perils he faces on the show. He lost his parents to an accident (which he witnessed) as a kid, and his own grandpa was too busy to take him in, so he went to foster care. He was ridiculed for his (true!) archaeological theories and lost his apartment and research grants before he joined the Stargate program. There, he falls in love with a woman on another planet and stays with her, but she's kidnapped one year later and he leaves to go tramping around the galaxy trying to find her (which remains his motivation for continuing with [=SG1=] until she dies, possesses, and almost succeeds in killing him). Add that to what happens to him during the actual run of the show, and he's still the first one to give anybody the benefit of doubt.
** Teal'c's father was murdered horribly for losing an allegedly unwinnable battle, and he was the [[TheDragon leader]] of [[BigBad Apophis']] army for decades before he did a HeelFaceTurn. During that time, he did numerous unpleasant, if not outright evil, things. [[TheAtoner It's been made clear that he feels guilty about them.]]
** While usually ([[HiddenDepths but not always]]) portrayed as more of a [[KnightInSourArmor jaded]] [[DeadpanSnarker goofball]] than a dark character, Colonel Jack O'Neill doesn't have the most pleasant background. He is ex-[[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous Special Ops]], and his professional backstory appears to fall under 'you don't want to know' territory. It was stated that he's done some 'distasteful things', and a few allusions have been made to his 'file' and his having a 'strong stomach'. He was also left for dead by his friend and teammate, Frank Cromwell, resulting in four months [[FateWorseThanDeath in an Iraqi prison]]. The Iraqis were not known for being nice to their prisoners, and he carried a grudge for at least seven years, to the extent that he refused to forgive Cromwell even when the planet was about to be sucked up by a black hole. [[TheyreCalledPersonalIssuesForAReason This was never mentioned again]]. The specifics of his early life are unknown, but when Sam Carter was trying to get him to empathise with some new Air Force Academy graduates, he retorted that '[He] was never their age.' That one has about even odds of being a joke or a hint-within-a-joke, but it's a weird thing to say if it doesn't have any basis in fact. Finally, his son Charlie accidentally killed himself with O'Neill's sidearm, and O'Neill blames himself. He was suicidal and, [[spoiler: were it not for the intervention of Daniel Jackson, he would have killed himself with a nuclear bomb and [[MoralEventHorizon knowingly taken five-thousand people]] with him]]. All this before the show happened. At a later date, there was a little episode called [[ColdBloodedTorture Abyss.]]
** It's actually pretty difficult to find a many character in any of the Stargate shows who hasn't had some horrible tragedy of varying levels heaped on them at some point or another. Mitchell, for example, is, so far, the only main character who has been confirmed to have both parents alive and well, but even ''he'' had that troubled experience where he blew up a truck of refugees, due to miscommunication.
* Don Draper of ''Series/MadMen'' lives this trope. He was born to a prostitute and frequently abused as a child because of this. Oh, and she died in childbirth. His father had his head kicked in by a horse in front of him. Don then joined the Army, went to Korea, saw his CO die violently in front of him, switched identities with his CO to get discharged, got discovered by his CO's widow, divorced his CO's widow and married his current wife, only to have lots of extramarital affairs.
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'': Jack Harkness gets a lot of this. The audience knows a bit of it due to remembering his origins in ''Series/DoctorWho'', but his actions over the last 100 years without the Doctor include [[spoiler: giving up twelve children to aliens who wanted to use them for substance abuse in exchange for a cure to a deadly virus, being a member of a less than morally outstanding Time Agency earlier, having his blood drained as part of an immortality plot]], and there are probably a few other things we haven't been made aware of.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'', the Doctor himself has elements of this trope. At first, it wasn't that bad - sure, he stole the TARDIS from his own people and broke their laws on non-intervention. Then we started to wonder why he left... and when the Doctor mentioned 'pressing reasons' we knew it couldn't be good. Then, just to make sure we know that he falls into this trope, the Time War happened off screen, and now his back-story includes a horrible war, at least two (near) genocides, and the destruction of his fellow Time Lords.
* A lot of the characters in ''Series/{{Carnivale}}'' have this trope:
** Ben Hawkins being the primary example, having been raised by his partially insane mother [[spoiler: (who was driven insane by virtue of having given birth to him)]], who drowned his pets and treated him like the devil's spawn because of his gift. When he met the Carnivale troupe, he had recently escaped from a chain gang.
** Sofie had to deal with her mother being catatonic from birth, as well as slightly tapped in the head, and she tends to be a little cynical in her manner (although, given her circumstances, there's nothing unjustified about this).
** Jonesy had his higher hopes of [[spoiler:becoming a well-paid professional baseball player]] dashed by [[spoiler:the Mob mutilating one of his legs after not throwing a game for them]], forcing him into a life of crime and, later, employment as a roustabout by Samson.
** Henry Scudder's entire characterization is built around this trope - he didn't want to be an [[spoiler:avatar of darkness]], and to try and avoid his fate, he traveled from one place to another, causing havoc wherever he went, eventually disappearing altogether.
** Management had [[spoiler:an accident]] involving [[spoiler:a bear]] in the trenches during the Great War, leaving him [[spoiler:horribly scarred and mutilated]].
** Justin and Iris both had messy childhoods before being adopted by Norman Balthus, [[spoiler:both having to deal with Justin's inner demons, as well as their insane mother, who dragged them halfway across the world because she was convinced their father was evil and trying to kill them]].
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' has a large number of these in the main cast.
* Hinted at, and later proved, with several characters on ''Series/{{ER}}'' -- Luka, Sam, etc.
* On ''Series/{{Castle}}'', it's stated several times that Kate Beckett joined the police force because her mother was murdered. At one point in her life, she became totally obsessed with solving her mother's murder, to the point that it almost destroyed her. Despite finding the killer in the Season 2 episode "Sucker Punch", the crime remains unsolved.
* Guy of Gisborne of the BBC's ''Series/RobinHood'' - turned out that, when he was a teenager, [[spoiler:his dad was a leper]] and [[spoiler:his mother was having it off with Robin Hood's father]], and after his parents died, [[spoiler: he sold his sister to an older man]].
* The origin of Series/{{Dexter}} Morgan's "Dark Passenger" is [[spoiler: from his early childhood, watching his mother being brutally murdered]].
* Admiral Al Calavicci of ''Series/QuantumLeap''. His family was penniless, his father was [[AbsentFather gone]] most of the time, and his mother ran out on him and his sister, Trudy, who happened to have Down's Syndrome. His father eventually found another job out of country, and left Al in an orphanage and Trudy in an institution, but came back in time to free his kids and then die of some unspecified cause. Al, ten years old by this time, went back to the orphanage and his sister back to the institution. Al spent his time running away and stirring up trouble, and, in his late teens, engaged in both boxing and theatre, but apparently, his grades were good enough to earn him entrance to Annapolis. Then, when he went to spring his sister from the loony bin, he was told that she had died of pneumonia some time before. Time goes on, though, and he graduated Annapolis to become a Naval pilot. He met the woman he referred to as the love of his life, a Navy nurse named Beth, and married her. Now, just when you think things are getting better, Vietnam came along. During his second tour of duty, he was shot down over enemy territory, and, depending on the timeline, spent either six or eight years as a prisoner of war. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was listed as MIA, and when he was finally repatriated, he found out that his wife had him declared dead and was already remarried. He went on to remarry four times and gradually declined into alcoholism. Though he did get better, sort of.
* ''{{Series/Firefly}}'': Shepherd Book was always implied to have one of these, having unusual knowledge of crime, combat, and other esoteric skills suited for a spy or soldier that ran counter to his nature as a [[GoodShepherd Shepherd]]. In ''The Shepherd's Tale'' comic, this past is enumerated on; [[spoiler: his original name was Henry Evans, and he ran away from home to escape an abusive father, becoming a street criminal. He joined the Browncoat resistance to escape arrest and imprisonment, and became a spy that infiltrated the Alliance military and joined the Alliance command staff, first as an interrogator and then as a high-level officer. He was eventually disgraced when he planned an operation during the Unification War that got hundreds of Alliance soldiers killed, and was thrown out of the military to become a drunk drifter until, finally, he found and joined a monastery]] and became the Shepherd in the series.
* Derek from ''Series/TeenWolf'', via Dead Family, and eventually, ripped-in-half older sister.
* Elena Gilbert from ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''. To date, she has lost every single one of her parental figures: her adoptive parents (who happened to be her biological Uncle and Aunt) were killed in a car accident shortly before the series began, leaving Elena with an enormous sense of survivor's guilt, having been in that same accident. She didn't find out she was adopted until halfway through the first season, and discovered that the man she thought was her uncle was actually her father, and her mother was a woman named Isobel who had been (willingly) turned into a vampire. They both died, John in order to allow Elena to wake up human at the end of the second season, and Isobel burning herself to a crisp in front of Elena in the cemetery. Jenna, Elena's aunt who assumed custody of the Gilbert siblings (technically cousins) after the tragic pre-series accident, died shortly before John, also in front of Elena, during the ritual in which Klaus ripped out her heart. And then, throughout the third season, Alaric, who had basically acted as Jeremy and Elena's guardian after Jenna's death (who had, incidentally, been in love with Jenna), became increasingly mentally unstable due to all the times he had died and come back to life with the Gilbert Life Ring, eventually turned into a vampire by the season's big bad and completely possessed by the need to eradicate the entire vampire race. And then ''he'' died, leaving Elena with Jeremy as her last living relative. And then [[spoiler: ''he'' died, triggering a HeroicBSOD during which Elena switched off her humanity. When Jeremy [[BackFromTheDead came back]], it was at the cost of the life of one of her best friends, [[ResidentWitch Bonnie Bennett]]. (She [[DeathIsCheap got better too]], but only by becoming the Anchor to the Other Side, through which every supernatural being has to pass ([[DraggedOffToHell unless you're]] [[TheScrappy Katherine]], lmao) which causes her unspeakable pain every time. AND THEN SHE GOT POSSESSED BY HER EVIL DOPPELGANGER.]] This show never gives Elena a rest.
* The ''Series/{{CSI}}'' franchise is rife with this:
** Series/{{CSI}}
** Sara Sidle was abused by her father and watched her mother abused, then her mother killed her father and she was in foster care for a few years.
** Warrick Brown somehow lost his parents at a young age and was raised by his grandmother. He struggled for years with gambling problems before Grissom turned him around.
** Nick Stokes was molested as a child by his babysitter
** Ray indicates he was abused by his father, and he's wrestled with his own violent tendancies his entire life.
** ''Series/{{CSI NY}}''
** Lindsay was the only survivor of the killing of her friends, and only because she was in the bathroom at the time. Her dark past was alluded to a lot before it got revealed.
** Adam was physically abused-he says his dad was a 'bully'.
** Stella grew up in an orphanage and foster homes
** ''Series/CSIMiami''
** Horatio and his brother Ray were both abused by their father
* ''Series/{{Roswell}}'' Michael had enough of his foster father's abuse and went to court to emancipate himself.
* Who in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' does ''not'' have this?
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': How has nobody yet mentioned Oliver Queen? He is the literal embodiment of this trope.
* ''Series/{{Community}}'' has this quite a bit. With everyone.
** Jeff's father was an abusive alcoholic who eventually left the family, leaving Jeff with a lot of emotional scars. Additionally, he has seriously deep self-esteem, vanity and body image problems amongst other things.
** Britta was taken advantage of at a young age, with no one, not even her controlling father standing up for her. Adding to the many insults and put-downs thrown out by the study group, other students, and even a priest.
** Abed's father is cold, controlling, and distant towards him since his parents' divorce, blaming it on his son. He has a hard time to try and connect with other people, feeling alone and stuck in a metaphorical locker. He is so withdrawn he cannot allow himself to exist in his own ideal universe, and he constantly feels the need to scheme and change himself so that his friends won't abandon him.
** Shirley used to be a happy, married mother, never thought about going to college and starting a business, until her husband left her, causing her to try and turn her life around while being a single mother and college student for the most of the series. She also used to have what seems to be a drinking problem.
** Annie was driven by the pressure and stress to succeed that she ended up taking Adderall. Went to rehab against her parent's wishes (but ultimately for the better of her own health), and is currently estranged from her family.
** Troy's parents overprotected him from the ideas and concepts of the adult world, despite him being out of high school. They left him unprepared, overly innocent, and naive. Furthermore, his parents are divorced and his father has pushed him out of the house because it is uncomfortable to have Troy there with his new girlfriend - who is Troy's age.
** Pierce has spent his whole life trying to get any hint of appreciation, approval or affection from his prejudiced father, who has constantly emotionally abused him. Even to his dad's grave, he has never once gained any of that.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'' has both Sarah MacKenzie (parental abandonment) and Jennifer Coates (criminal past).
* Every single damn transgenic in Series/DarkAngel, but particularly Alec, who spent twenty-two years as a Manticore soldier. In addition to the normal horrible Manticore torture and indoctrination, Alec spent at least two long-term stays in the [[MindRape Psy-Ops re-indoctrination unit]]. The longer of the two stays bought Alex six months of ColdBloodedTorture just because his twin brother [[spoiler: turned out to be psychotic, and his handlers were curious whether he would snap, too]]. Alec's flashbacks in the show are...unpleasant.
* Exaggerated in ''Series/RetroGameMaster'' episodes such as the ''VideoGame/ParappaTheRapper'' episode, when Arino's comments on his past are referred by the narrator as this trope.
* An interesting variation with [[TheAtoner Eliot Spencer]] from ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': a lot of viewers assumed that his [[PapaWolf violent reaction to an]] [[FriendToAllChildren abusive father]] stemmed from a childhood history of abuse. WordOfGod denied this, and Season 4 strongly implied a [[DirtyBusiness much less sympathetic reason]] for it.
* Pretty much the entire premise of ''Series/{{Titus}}''. Possibly one of the only uses of this for humor.
* Strongly implied by Major Frank "Ferret Face" Burns in ''Series/{{Mash}}'', who regularly drops comments hinting at a very abusive family life as part of his FreudianExcuse.
* Most of the main characters of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' fit this trope.
** Aaron Hotchner: It is implied that his father abused him when he was a child.
** David Rossi: He failed to stop a killer from murdering a couple right in front of their three children.
*** When he was a teenager, a group of bullies forced him to shove a kid into a locker and then urinate on him.
** Spencer Reid: His mother is a paranoid Schizophrenic, his father abandoned them, and he once had a group of bullies strip him naked and tie him to a goal post and left him there for the rest of the night.
** Penelope Garcia: Her parents were both killed in a car accident when she was eighteen.
** Derek Morgan: He watched his father get shot when he was a kid. He then hung out with a bad crowd until the owner of the youth center took him under his wing. We then find out that the so called "mentor" actually molested Morgan.
** Elle Greenway: Her father, a police officer, was killed on duty when she was eight years old. Elle feels guilty because of this because the last thing she said to her dad was "I hate you."
* Multiple characters in ''Series/{{OrangeisTheNewBlack}}'' have a dark past that is explored to show how they came to be in prison.
* ''Series/TwelveMonkeys'': Cole. He grew up in a post-apocalyptic world following the release of the plague in 2017, and became a 'Scavenger'. It's strongly suggested that he committed several violent and horrifying acts in order to survive, and became emotionally and mentally scarred as a result.
** Probably applies to pretty much every character in 2043, most notably Jones.
** Jennifer Goines. [[spoiler: She witnessed the massacre of her entire laboratory team by the Pallid Man, and was framed for the killings and committed to a mental institution. Between these traumatic experiences, as well as the medications she is given, she has truly become mentally unhinged]].
* On ''Series/{{The 100}}'', Octavia spent almost her entire life in a single, small room, often having to hide in a compartment underneath the floor, and never interacting with anyone besides her brother and her mother, because the Ark's PopulationControl laws made her very existence a crime. The one time she ventured outside her room, she was almost immediately caught, leading to her imprisonment, her brother's disgrace, and her mother's execution. This makes her react rather negatively towards any attempt to confine her.
** Murphy reveals that his father was executed for trying to save him, and his mother became an alcoholic who died hating him. He blames this for his turn to crime.
* Several ''Series/BlakesSeven'' characters have this but Soolin takes the prize. You have to piece it together from casual lines in different episodes, as the whole thing would have been just too dark for taste and decency standards at the time, but she [[HarmfulToMinors saw her whole family murdered]] in a Federation attack on her DoomedHometown, was only spared because one of the killers was a pedophile who kept her as a child SexSlave, and got away from him by feigning StockholmSyndrome enough that he taught her to be a [[QuickDraw quick]] and [[ImprobableAimingSkills deadly]] [[TheGunslinger gunslinger]], at which point she killed him and became a professional mercenary. Her first meeting with the Seven was also quite traumatic, as it involved discovering that her boyfriend at the time was planning to kill her to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his own lifespan]], although it didn't seem an especially meaningful relationship to her.
* The ''Series/DeathInParadise'' episode "A Personal Murder" reveals that TheMentor to Dwayne Myers, Cedrik Verga, [[spoiler:was involved in a deadly incident 45 years before he died and was fully prepared to come clean about it when he was murdered. Specifically, a local youth, Vincent Garcia, died as a direct result of the actions of four older boys, Cedrik included. All of them went on to live respectable lives for 45 years afterwards, but the incident would continue to haunt them for many years, and with the boy's mother close to death's door herself, Cedrik realized that now was as good a time as any to confess, so that she may at least die in peace knowing what really happened]].
* ''Franchise/KamenRider'':
** Eiji Hino from ''Series/KamenRiderOOO''. He is the son of a rich Japanese politician. During a visit to an African country, he befriended a local young girl named Alfreed. Unfortunately, he got caught up in a civil war and saw Alfreed die before his eyes. Eiji himself was captured and held for ransom. While his family did pay the ransom, his father used the tragedy Eiji went through as a way to gain more votes. This event left Eiji devoid of any selfish desire with him only wanting to live to help others.
** Haruto Souma from ''Series/KamenRiderWizard''. Both of his parents died in a car crash. Just before the series starts, he was used as a sacrifice in a magic ritual known as the Sabbath. He barely managed to survive as he found the will to do so in a promise he made to his parents, where he said he would never give in to despair.
** Kaito Kumon, TheRival in ''Series/KamenRiderGaim''. [[MegaCorp Yggdrassil]] shuts down his fathers factory, causing his family to become very poor. As a result, Kaito's father becomes an alcoholic who frequently abuses his family. To make matters worse, both of his parents commit suicide, resulting in Kaito being put into an orphanage.
* ''Series/Daredevil2015''
** Karen Page is heavily implied to have one.
*** She regularly implies that she had a dysfunctional childhood. She tells an anecdote to Frank Castle in the hospital about pretending her broom closet was a spaceship in which she could escape, that suggests that her home life may have been unhappy– probably even abusive.
*** She doesn't talk about her family, not even with her closest friends (Matt is genuinely surprised when he learns she has a brother). Part of the reason she pushes Ben Urich so hard to expose Wilson Fisk is because she believes that she can't go public with any kind of story herself. Ben implies that whatever he dug up about her past activities makes her a noncredible source, which Karen doesn't even try to refute; when Mitchell Ellison hires on Karen at the ''Bulletin'' towards the end of season 2, and reveals that he's come into possession of Ben's research into Karen, he has to reassure her that he doesn't care about what she did in the past.
*** It's heavily implied that Karen’s emotional connection to Frank Castle during season 2 may involve more than their shared experiences with homicide. There’s something about the death of Frank’s family– or his violent reaction to it– that seems to trigger something in her.
*** When Fisk has Karen framed for murder, she doesn't get any support from her family. In "Semper Fidelis," when she's at Matt's apartment reminiscing about that night, she tells Matt that she knew, while sitting in the precinct interrogation room, that no one would come to help her. This suggests that if she does have family still living, at least one or both parties have gone to great lengths to shut the other out.
*** She knows how to use a gun, and right before she kills James Wesley, she says, "Do you really think this is the first time I've ever shot someone?" implying that Wesley is not the first person Karen killed.
** Wilson Fisk grew up under the control of an abusive father, and eventually killed him while defending his mother.
* ''Series/DearWhitePeople'': Coco in Episode 6 reveals [[spoiler: she's watched friends and family die at the hands of PoliceBrutality]] and [[SurvivorsGuilt harbors the feeling that she could've done something to save them.]]
* ''Series/Lucifer2016'': Ella Lopez used to steal cars, says she has "lots of darkness" inside her, and has mentioned "voices" that she could only silence by counting cards while playing Black Jack.
* Jung on ''Series/KimsConvenience'' was kicked out of (or ran away from) his house at 16 for stealing money from the FamilyBusiness, which led to him not finishing high school and spending time in juvenile detention. He still has a poor relationship with his father because of this, so much so that they avoid speaking to each other as much as possible.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' series, one or two fighters crop up with these kinds of pasts, but extra points go to Rock Howard, who has this through virtually no fault of his own. He's the son of the notoriously death-retardant Geese Howard, who barely took any interest in the boy's well being. Rock was rendered an orphan by one of Geese's nemeses, Terry Bogart (who tried to keep him from falling to his death, only for Geese to yank his hand out of Terry's grip and GoOutWithASmile as he fell), who took it upon himself to raise and train Rock himself...possibly out of penance. Rock is surprisingly well-adjusted, but it constantly [[InTheBlood at war with himself internally, given he has "evil blood"]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Shadowverse}}'', Erika [[spoiler:served as an assassin for her kingdom in the past. She feels guilt over the atrocities she committed then, and serves the Princess in an attempt to atone.]]
* In ''Franchise/SilentHill'', a dark and troubled past guarantees you a season ticket to the titular town.
* The ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series ''loves'' this trope. Seriously, we could be here all day.
* The ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'' should probably get its own folder. The heroes, villains, supporting cast and even random {{NPC}}s in pretty much any installment can be counted on to have ''serious'' issues. Even better, their pasts are usually plot-relevant, and since the franchise ''loves'' plots full of [[WhamEpisode Wham Episodes]], most characters' pasts are also spoilertastic.
* Playing a Creator/BioWare (or Obsidian) game? Yeah. This trope will apply to your party.
** ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic.'' Carth Onasi? NiceGuy, but has a truckload of paranoia issues. Not surprising when you find out that his EvilMentor decided to defect to the Sith, and laid waste to Carth's homeworld. Carth was widowed in the attack, and he finds out later that while his son survived, the Sith are training him in the ways of the Force. Bastila? Well, it's a mild case, but the Jedi policy of child conscription and forcing them to cut all ties with their family and loved ones isn't pleasant. Mission may not [[SatisfiedStreetRat consider her past all that troubled]], but she is a teenager pretty much living on the streets of a WretchedHive. Zaalbar? Exiled from his homeworld for flying into a rage and attacking his brother. Said brother was colluding with slavers to sell his fellow Wookiees into slavery. In his anger, Zaalbar broke the taboo about not using claws in a fight, which makes you less than an animal in Wookiee society. Juhani? [[BrokenBird Oh, where to begin?]] Her people were subject to genocide by the Mandalorians. Her parents fled, but ended up on a WretchedHive that hated "aliens" and openly discriminated against them. Her father became a drug addict and died in a BarBrawl. Her mother starved to death because she was trying to feed her cub at the expense of herself, but was in debt to a loan shark, meaning Juhani was MadeASlave to pay it off. The Jedi freed her from slavery, and Juhani latched onto their Code and ideals hard. She dedicated herself to training and the Jedi way...until her master decides a good idea of a final test is to goad her into rage and trick the poor girl into thinking she killed her own master! Canderous and HK-47 certainly have dark and troubled pasts, but they're actually proud of the carnage trail they've left. And then, there's what TheReveal has to say about your PlayerCharacter.
** The second game (by Obsidian) gets an even nastier bunch of people. Kreia? Well, she's been a Jedi Master and a Sith Lord. She was probably TheManBehindTheMan for Revan. As much as she protests that she's neutral, it's obvious she hasn't given up the "Sith" part, aside from trying to setter it more towards ManipulativeBastard than StupidEvil. You don't get much more dark and troubled than [[TheAtoner Atton Rand]], either. Former Republic deserter, Jedi hunter, Sith torturer, Sith deserter, turned to smuggling, and was likely the guy trying to sell your PlayerCharacter to the Exchange. Visas is of a rare species who can see through the Force, and Darth Nihilus ''ate'' her homeworld and all life on it, sparing only her. She became his "apprentice," but in practice is more his slave and punching bag. Handmaiden is the shunned, HeroicBastard daughter of a Echani general and a Jedi. Because her daddy cheated on his wife to produce her, her sisters treat her with contempt at best. Disciple? Well, under that naive persona, he's actually a spy for the Republic, enlisting in the Republic Navy because the Jedi shrugged and threw him away after the Mandalorian Wars didn't leave enough Jedi to train apprentices. Bao-Dur? Whew. [[ShellShockedVeteran Massive]] PTSD issues from [[ShootTheDog creating and using the Mass Shadow Generator]] at Malachor. He literally threw a switch and killed thousands of ally and enemy alike. Hanharr? Well, we're dealing with Wookiees and slavery, but Hanharr was insane to begin with and slaughtered his whole village to keep them out of slaver hands. Mira? Well, her family was killed by Mandalorians, and the Mandos took her as a slave. She doesn't speak of her captors with too much rancor as they taught her how to fight and handle explosives (in ExpandedUniverse material, it explains that Mandalorians tend to "adopt" children of fallen foes that have potential to join their ranks). And your PlayerCharacter? Well, s/he left the Order to fight the Mandalorians, was the teacher that abandoned Disciple, fought in two of the nastiest battles in the War, ordered the use of the Mass Shadow Generator that made Bao-Dur's issues, was the only one of Revan's followers to walk away and try to go back to the Order, only to get slapped in the face and a sentence of Exile, left with absolutely nothing to show for all the sacrifice.
** VideoGame/NeverwinterNights: By the time you meet Aribeth in ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights Hordes of the Underdark'', she has a very troubled past (including being executed for something that wasn't technically her fault). The character you play in that one technically doesn't know about it, even though ''you'' almost certainly played the first campaign beforehand. Casavir in the sequel has a stormy history with Neverwinter.
** The module creating community has brought up several examples as well. Anera in the ''Shadowlords'' arc took a lot of crap from her family (the celestial side) for being too mortal, and eventually entered into a relationship with a necromancer. It did not end well. Alex in ''VideoGame/TheBastardOfKosigan'' series has a very troubled one, dealing with the complications involved with being in love with the severely disfavored bastard, and her [[spoiler: abortive relationship with Vlad]]. Pia in ''VideoGame/ADanceWithRogues'' has many regrets about her time as one of Vico's playthings.
** Every recruitable NPC in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''. In the order you usually meet them, they are: a royal bastard left at the local church to become a mage-hunting KnightTemplar; mother is a legendary witch that intends to [[GrandTheftMe steal her body some time in the future]]; used to be [[ProfessionalKiller an assassin-bard]] whose favoured method was the HoneyTrap; killed all the inhabitants of a farmhouse [[ValuesDissonance after experiencing]] [[YouCantGoHomeAgain a big cultural no-no]]; turned into a golem some time ago and lost memories due to a very extensive AndIMustScream experience; old lady who's really dead but kept alive by an inhabiting spirit; another assassin whose past may suck just as bad, if not worse, than the first one's; drunk whose wife left him to become a monster. Even the ''dog'' has a troubled past; the dog's original master ended up dying, and it reached you only by managing to escape the mass slaughter at Ostagar. Sometimes, you think your party should form a Country & Western band.
*** Dog's troubled past is averted if you play as the Human Noble, as s/he is Dog's original owner and survived. The Human Noble is also one of the only two possible player characters without a significantly dark and troubled past as well. The events of their origin story are horrible, to be sure (their family is betrayed and massacred by their closest friend), but it's indicated that the character's life up until that point has been largely peaceful and content.
** Considering the entire story takes place in the past, let's add ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' companions to the list: a healer who's possessed by a demon due to his own anger; an ex-slave who's hunted by his previous master; an Elven mage whose own clan views her as a walking liability; a prince whose family was murdered; and the story teller who witnesses it all. All of this is not including the main character, Hawke, who [[spoiler: witnesses their siblings and mother die, and is forced into war.]] The only one without a troubled past is Isabela, who seems to make light of even the worst situations.
*** Actually, Isabela was sold into marriage at an implied young age by her mother for a few silvers and a goat. Then Zevran was hired to kill him, and she inherited his ship and decided to become a pirate. Her stories about her past are the most fragmented of the party, and generally consists of {{noodle incident}}s. Also, that relic she's looking for? [[spoiler:She stole it from the ''Qunari''.]] This actually [[NiceJobBreakingItHero comes back to bite the party]] in a serious way in Act 2.
** Varric, the aforementioned storyteller and resident MetaGuy, lampshades this in a conversation with Blackwall in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', actually namechecking this trope: "Surely you have a dark and troubled past." He guesses someone he couldn't save, "bad judgment leading to too many deaths - I have a couple of people like that in my past," or betrayal. Blackwall denies all of these.
** Just about every single major character in ''Franchise/MassEffect'' has some sort of tragic backstory. Even [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]] can be customized to have one -- the Colonist background involves everyone in Shepard's [[DoomedHometown home colony]] being massacred or taken by slavers, while the Earthborn background gives him or her a criminal history, and the Sole Survivor psychological profile involves Shepard losing everyone in his or her unit to a thresher maw attack.
** By ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', the only characters who ''don't'' have such a background are Ashley and (maybe) Jacob.
* Kla in ''VideoGame/{{Warbears}}'' is implied to have one.
* Ayane of ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' fame is a ChildByRape between the Mugen Tenshin matriarch and the outlaw ninja Raidou (the Mugen Tenshin patriarch's brother). Because she was considered a cursed child, she was shunned by everyone in the clan, except for Kasumi and Hayate, who later turn out to be her half-sibling. This upbringing has shaped her into a cold, ruthless assassin with a burning hatred for her older sister Kasumi.
* Jennifer from ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose''. There's a reason why the narrator never fails to refer to her as the "poor, unlucky girl".
* Many of the characters in the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series have them. [[AudienceSurrogate Raiden]], [[TheParagon The Boss]] (kind of), [[AxCrazy Psycho]] [[TragicVillain Mantis]], and [[HeartbrokenBadass Fortune]] (spoofed by Webcomic/{{Hiimdaisy}} above), to name a few. In fact, it's easier to mention the ones who didn't have it: [[MissionControl Mei]] [[TheCavalry Ling]], and.... Okay, maybe just Mei Ling.
* The Heavy from ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' subverts this to hell and back.
-->'''Director''': Your father was a counter-revolutionary. When he was killed, you, your mother, and your sisters were transported to a North Siberian gulag. Paint me the picture.
-->'''Heavy''': No. This is my gun. I like to shoot this gun. Is all you need to know.
-->'''Director''': Your family only lived in that gulag for three months. In December 1941 it burned to the ground. All of the prisoners had escaped. All of the guards had been killed. Tortured to death.
-->'''Heavy''': I. Like. To shoot. This gun. Is all you need to know.
** Later played straight in the comic ''A Cold Day In Hell'', when some of the other mercs visit Heavy's home. It turns out that the events The Director described actually happened, but Heavy's BigBrotherInstinct caused him not to want to discuss his family with a total stranger.
* Devlin [=McCormack=] in ''The Orion Conspiracy'' definitely has this. Let us see. He fought as a soldier in the Corporation War, which apparently left him with issues. He admits that he was not a good father to his son, Danny, and that he, in fact, drove him away. Interestingly enough, Danny's death and the investigation of it is what drives Devlin for a portion of the game. Also, the local {{Jerkass}} claims that Devlin drove his wife to suicide, which would indicate that Devlin may not have been a good husband. Of course, it is hard to say that really is the case, or if there is more to that story than that.
* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': Shadow the Hedgehog probably has the darkest past of all the Sonic characters. He was created as the UltimateLifeform in an attempt to cure a [[LittlestCancerPatient terminally ill twelve-year-old girl]], had his home ambushed and said ill child die in front of him from a gunshot wound, was thrown into stasis and had his memories [[LaserGuidedAmnesia tampered by his creator]] to turn him into [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge a ruthless killing machine]]. And all it took to turn his character around was a RousingSpeech by a ''different'' twelve year old girl, a HeroicSacrifice which resulted in him ''getting amnesia'', spending [[VideoGame/SonicHeroes not one]], [[VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog not two]], but ''[[VideoGame/SonicBattle three]]'' games trying to remember things properly again, and [[ToServeMan the near planetary takeover of an alien race]] to snap him out of his amnesia for good and to put his past behind him. ''Yikes.''
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'': very few of your companions' past are exactly rosy, but Cait's life has been a living hell from the word "Go". She was raised by AbusiveParents before being sold off to slavers at the age of eighteen, enduring horrors under her owners for five years until she managed to scrounge up the money to buy her freedom, after which she got her revenge and murdered her parents. Her memories of her twenty-three years of abuse and torture drives her to drink and abuse [[FantasticDrug Psycho]] to help her forget, as well as fighting in raider-infested arenas, [[DeathSeeker in the hopes that if she isn't killed in combat, the drugs would do it for her]].
* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' has this for the SuckECheeses you work at, revealed both through voice-mails from the phone guy and newspaper clippings visible through the security cameras. [[spoiler:A serial murderer had put on a Freddy Fazbear costume and lured children into the back of the establishment. He was eventually brought to justice, but the children were never found. Soon, patrons started to complain about the animatronics smelling foul and appearing to leak blood and mucus around the eyes and mouth. This, combined with the "Bite of '87" where a kid lost his frontal lobe, has caused the establishment to fall on hard times financially, forcing it to close down at year's end. To make matters worse, it's hinted in the [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3 third game]] that the murderer actually ''didn't'' get brought to justice, forcing the ghosts of the crying children to take matters into their own hands.]]
** Then there's the protagonist of ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys4''. He has to deal with a brother who constantly antagonizes and bullies him, parents that at best fall under the ParentalNeglect trope, and he's constantly dragged to a place full of animatronics that terrify him. Then the nightmares about said animatronics begin. [[spoiler: To cap it all off, he's not the Bite of '87 victim but the Bite of '83]]
** ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSisterLocation'' has Eggs Benedict. It turns out he's actually [[spoiler:Michael Afton, the son of William Afton/Springtrap (the actual murderer)]]. Likewise, his sister [[spoiler:was killed by Baby]], and it's heavily implied that he's either [[spoiler:The Child from FNAF 4 (who somehow survived) or The Brother]].
*** The "Golden Freddy" cutscene takes this even further. [[spoiler:Michael]] have to deal with his father, murderous Animatronics, and [[spoiler:being cursed with immortality after barfing out Ennard]]. To say he's been through a lot would be a huge understatement.
* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' has this for both the Ur-Quan and the Kohr-Ah [[spoiler: The Ur-Quan were originally a single species before one of their explorers found the Dynarri, and after the latter used the former to conquer the Sentient Milieu -the group of alien races in which the Ur-Quan were- the Ur-Quan were splitted in both races by the Dynarri.]]
* All of the Warriors of Hope from VideoGame/AbsoluteDespairGirls have one, [[spoiler:sans Monaca]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Oxenfree}}'' has a couple of characters with this backstory:
** Jonas grew up in a crime-ridden town and he may or may not have been involved in criminal activity himself. His mother also died shortly before the main story and possible dialogue suggests he doesn't have a good educational or pop culture background.
** Alex watched her brother drown and was helpless to stop it because she didn't know how to swim. Her parents got a divorce because they couldn't handle the grief and it's even said that a lot of the townsfolk hate her and blame her for her brother's death.
* Most of your party in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'' have some pretty crappy backstories:
** Ryuji had an abusive father who beats both on him and his mother. Kamoshida also broke his legs, causing his CareerEndingInjury, spreading rumors of his home life that provocated Ryuji into punching him, which in turn ended the Track Team and made the members hating and blaming Ryuji.
** Ann was bullied and harassed with gossip and rumors due to [[ButNotTooForeign her heritage and appearance]] and became the unfortunate LustObject of one of ''her own teachers''.
** Futaba witnesses her own mother die in a car accident in front of her eyes.
** Yusuke was orphaned and abused by his adoptive parent. [[spoiler:Worse, his adoptive parent is the reason his mother died.]]
* Quite a few of the hunters in ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' have this.
** [[DeathSeeker Markov]] saw the population of his colony killed by corporate mercenaries mere days after they made a discovery that would have ensured their prosperity.
** [[SoleSurvivor Maggie's]] entire home world was razed and the inhabitants slaughtered by monsters, leaving her trapped on a burned out husk of a world for years before she managed to escape.
** [[BountyHunter Abe]] was a petty thief before stealing a ship and killing an innocent man in cold blood, an act that still haunts him.
** [[{{Cyborg}} Torvald]] lost his ship, his crew, and most of his body when a monster broke free from containment, leaving him a ruined man in a ghost ship floating through space.
** [[HalfHumanHybrid Slim]] served in the Third Basilisk Rebellion, which resulted in him being mutated into a human-insect hybrid, the deaths of all his friends, and enough traumatic experiences that he's repressed every memory from before the end of the war, up to and including his own name.
* As part of its shtick of setting you up with fanservice and then smacking you in the face with drama, ''VideoGame/SenranKagura'' is not afraid to point out that high school students who are training to lead lives of demon-hunting or black-ops wetwork that would probably see them dead by 25 probably don't have the most stable backgrounds. Evil Shinobi schools accept any psychopath off the street, which compounds the problem, but even Good Shinobi (keep in mind these labels are [[GreyAndGrayMorality nominal at best]]) having training practices that [[TykeBomb preceded junior school]]. Just the most straightforward Good Shinobi team has:
** Asuka, who's the most at ease with the life of a Shinobi, but has never known a normal life and has an optimistic streak her foes ruthlessly exploit.
** Katsuragi, [[spoiler:whose parents have execute-on-sight orders active against them for abandoning a mission. Katsuragi's training to fulfill a bargain and clear their name.]]
** Ikaruga, who was adopted from an impoverished family into a noble house. There's no love in this arrangement, purely the family wanting a worth heir to inherit the family sword and name, and her adoptive older brother has ''not'' [[AxCrazy taken this turn of events well]].
** Yagyuu, who lost her sister in a car crash, only to discover Hibari is a dead ringer for the deceased, leaving her with a mess of issues as she tries to spend every waking second with the ReplacementGoldfish.
** Hibari herself, who never wanted to be a Shinobi, but was pressured into it by her family after being the only child to inherit a special ability. Happy to have a scion, they never pressured her when she fell short, leaving her horribly unequipped to deal with the high-stakes lifestyle, completely aware of this fact, and ''terrified'' she's going to screw up.
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'':
** The green [[{{Animorphism}} tiger laguz]] [[TheQuietOne Muarim]] of the ''Videogame/FireEmblemTellius'' subseries was a slave in the [[HumansByAnyOtherName beorc (human)]] nation of Begnion for some time, and had an apparently cruel master. In his supports with fellow laguz Lethe, Muarim recounts that his master would beat him if he did not have the materials with which to clean his master's weapons. It seems to have affected him psychologically, as he tells Lethe that he still has trouble thinking of himself as an equal to beorc, and feels anxious whenever he does not have the materials his master once demanded of him close at hand. He tells Lethe that he cannot imagine what it is like to live with the pride that she feels as a laguz from the race's native Gallia.
** [[TheTease Niles]] the archer of ''Videogame/FireEmblemFates'' was [[ParentalAbandonment abandoned by both of his parents at a very young age]], and grew up on the harsh and unforgiving streets of Nohr, falling in with a gang of thieves and other seedy types just to stay alive. At one point in his childhood, he had one of his ''eyes'' gouged out by another orphan, and when his gang of thieves threw him under the bus to escape when one of their heists went bad, he was close enough to the DespairEventHorizon that he begged his captor Prince Leo of Nohr to kill him and get it over with. He ended up becoming one of Leo's [[UndyingLoyalty loyal retainers]] instead. In the present, Niles' [[{{Sadist}} sadistic]] and cruel tendencies are explained by him as a result of jealousy; when he sees someone who "doesn't know what suffering is," he feels the need to mess with them.
** Jakob, the Avatar Corrin's loyal butler in ''Fates,'' was raised by AbusiveParents who cared so little for him that they abandoned him at Nohr's Windmire Castle, where he was taken in as a castle servant, and never looked back. He was mistreated and disliked by the rest of the castle staff, with the exception of young Corrin him or herself, and in the present as a result of it, he's cold, distant and rude to most anyone who isn't the Avatar, while being [[UndyingLoyalty slavishly loyal and dedicated]] to the Avatar him or herself. He tells Mozu and Azura in their supports that the Avatar is ''literally'' the only person in the castle that treated him kindly.
** The Hoshidan spearwoman Oboro of ''Fates'' witnessed her merchant parents being murdered by a Nohrian assassin when she was young, and only managed to escape the same fate herself by hiding in their cart. She developed a ''deep'' hatred for all things and people Nohrian as a result and reacts...''rather badly'' to them, to the point that her [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration in-battle skill makes her deal more damage to Nohrian units]].
** The swordsman Lon'qu of ''Videogame/FireEmblemAwakening'' grew up in the slums of the Chon'sin, and at one point when Lon'qu was young, his good friend, the little girl Ke'ri, was killed by bandits, with Lon'qu only able to watch helplessly. He developed gynophobia as a result of the incident, believing that any women close to him would meet the same fate.
** Henry the Dark Mage of ''Awakening'' started off with AbusiveParents who ignored him to the point that he spent most of his time wandering the woods outside of his village. When he became [[OnlyFriend close friends with a wolf that lived in the forest]], it was killed by villagers when it tried to visit him. His parents then sent him off to a [[OrphanageOfFear cruel, abusive orphanage]] (in the Japanese version) or a [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors cold and strict mage school]] (in the English version) where he was harshly punished and experimented on, and all of it seems to have...broken him mentally. In the present, he seems to be operating on BlueAndOrangeMorality, is fascinated by BodyHorror and zombies, and is at the point that he just doesn't ''understand'' human empathy and that threatening to kill and curse people is morally objectionable.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Miles Edgeworth in ''Franchise/AceAttorney''. His father was murdered when he was ten [[spoiler:and Edgeworth spent 15 years believing he was responsible for his death.]] He was adopted by the [[AmoralAttorney honorable and kindly]] Manfred von Karma, [[spoiler:the one who really murdered his father]], and brought up to be a cold and ruthless prosecutor with no regard for whether the people he prosecuted had actually done anything wrong. [[spoiler:Just like von Karma planned.]] It's surprising he came out as well-balanced as he did.
** Godot. In his first appearance, he claims he's come back from Hell to challenge Phoenix, and he's not exaggerating hugely. [[spoiler: He was poisoned by Dahlia and fell into a five-year-coma, during which his beloved Mia Fey was murdered. The poison also took his sight, and is implied to have done other damage as well.]]
* Archer's dark and troubled past in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' inspires him to [[spoiler:prevent it from occurring by murdering Shirou, his pre-JadeColoredGlasses self, and thus possibly prevent himself from [[TimeParadox existing as well]]]].
* Every character in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' starts out seeming normal, but ends up having one of these - even Keiichi:
** Keiichi was a friendless boy who was overly stressed due to school. He took out his aggression and frustration by [[spoiler:shooting at people with a BB gun]]. After he [[spoiler:accidentally shot a young girl in the eye]], he was transferred to Hinamizawa.
** Rena's mother cheated on her husband with another man and later divorced him. Rena moved away from Hinamizawa, which [[spoiler:worsened her [[HatePlague Hinamizawa Syndrome]]. She began hallucinating things afterwards]]. Rena ended up beating up three classmates with a bat [[spoiler:after they tried to rape her (or at least, she perceived it as such)]] and smashed a bunch of school windows in her rage. She [[spoiler:later [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill herself]].]]
** Shion and Mion were born into a yakuza clan where if twin heirs were born, the youngest was killed. Shion was let live but was ostracized and later shipped off to boarding school. [[spoiler:As children, Shion and Mion would often switch places. One day, they did it at the wrong time and couldn't switch back because Mion was given a tattoo. The current Mion was born Shion and vice versa.]] Shion fell in love with Satoshi but was later made to [[{{Fingore}} have her finger nails torn off]] as a punishment (which is also something her mother and grandmother also went through when they were younger, and which Mion volunteered for after Shion went through it).
** Satoko and Satoshi's parents died a few years before the series. [[spoiler:Satoko was suffering from high levels of Hinamizawa Syndrome, [[MistakenForMurderer thought they were trying to kill her]], and [[SelfMadeOrphan killed them]].]] They were taken in by their aunt and uncle, who beat them and abused them. [[spoiler:Satoshi later killed his aunt and ran off, which in reality is due to him being put in a coma and hid away due to his high level of Hinamizawa Syndrome]]. This is all on top of the siblings being ostracized by most villagers because they're parents supported a dam project that would have destroyed the village.
** Rika's parents died prior to the series. [[spoiler:Rika has been stuck in a GroundhogDayLoop for centuries. She must live the same month over and over again. By the end, she ends up brutally murdered by either the BigBad (who she doesn't learn the identity of until the end of the series]] or one of her friends. Rika must also watch at least one of her friends grow apart and end up killing the others in each universe.]]
** Hanyuu [[spoiler:made her daughter sacrifice her in order to try and atone for the other villagers sins.]] It didn't work for long, [[spoiler:making her death in vain]]. She spent [[spoiler:centuries as a lonely ghost until Rika was born. Rika could see her]]. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Hanyuu has to constantly see Rika and her friends die repeatedly while all she can do is watch and apologize, which makes their paranoia worse.]]
* And in "Bad Boy's Love", the ''Higurashi'' pastiche plotline in ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'', the exact same thing happens in reference to this. The cast of mostly normal OtomeGame archetypes (with one [[ObviouslyEvil cartoon villain]]) ''all'' turn out to have dark and troubled pasts, with at least one seemingly nice character [[{{Yandere}} actually being outright psychotic]].
* ''VisualNovel/{{Nameless}}'' has Tei revealed to have one. [[spoiler: His previous owner was obsessed with cleanliness and only let him out of his box for one hour a day. Despite this, Tei was happy. One day, someone else took him out of the box and dropped him, causing his legs to get scarred and his owner to freak out. Since then, his owner hasn't touched him, repeatedly talks about how dirty and disgusting Tei is and eventually sold him.]] This left Tei convinced he was 'dirty' and horrible, twisting his feelings into thinking he's incapable of loving someone without destroying them, turning him into a StepfordSmiler.
* A significant plot point in ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' is figuring out what exactly happened to Akane after she was separated from Junpei. [[spoiler: Turns out she was kidnapped, locked in an incinerator, and ''burned to death.'']]
* ''VisualNovel/{{Sunrider}}'' has a few examples:
** Icari Isidolde was orphaned at a young age when her family’s ship was boarded and destroyed by a PACT patrol, and she spent the next five days helplessly drifting through space in an escape pod before anyone found her. This tragedy drew her into a life of crime, and she became a highly-skilled assassin and bounty hunter with a burning desire for revenge.
** Sola di Ryuvia was born the bastard child of a Ryuvian prince, who abandoned her peasant mother before Sola was born. Her mother died while Sola was still young, leaving her to fend for herself. Three years later, Sola was spirited away by agents of her father and she was acknowledged as the Sharr, a warrior-princess expected to fight and die for the Ryuvian Empire… not because her father cared about her, but because he was fighting a civil war and his legitimate daughter refused to risk her life in combat.
** Kryska Stares grew up in poverty on a Neutral Rim planet whose corrupt government terrorized its own citizens while doing nothing to protect them from pirate raids.
** [[SpacePirate Cosette Cosmos]] grew up in an overcrowded slum on the planet Ongess, where constant exposure to toxic chemicals mined from the planet’s surface stunted her growth so that she looks like an eleven-year-old. By the time she was ten she had already killed two men. Her abusive mother would also [[spoiler:whore her out to pedophiles]] for a quick buck, which went on well into her teenage years [[spoiler:until Cosette finally killed her]]. Small wonder that she turned out so vicious and unhinged.
* ''VisualNovel/{{Demonheart}}'': All of the player's [[LoveInterest love interests]].
** Raze [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil did not have a pleasant childhood.]]
** Brash is a [[spoiler: demonheart experiment]].
** Ari's been trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship for years.
* ''VisualNovel/{{Grisaia No Kajitsu}}'': Everyone has this at Mihama Academy.
** Yuuyi: [[spoiler:He was not loved by his parents, in fact his father actively despised him. The only person who valued him, her sister, died in accident that caused his family to collapse ending with both of his parents dead. He was taken by a friend of his father who was "a bit of a bad guy" (terrorist, murderer and pedophile). After being rescued from there he was traind as a child soldier, to become a piece of disposable defense equipment, for a secret government organization.]]
** Amane: [[spoiler:Her entire basketball team were stranded in a ravine for weeks after their bus crashed there, where the situation gradually went to hell. Her classmates died one after another, until starvation drove the rest to resort to cannibalism, and when trying to escape from her crazed classmates she was forced to leave behind her best friend, making her the sole survivor of the accident. Even after being rescued, thanks to malicious media coverage, everyone suspected her only surviving by resorting to cannibalism and leaving everyone else to die, earning her the nickname: The cockroach.]]
** Makina: [[spoiler: Her family, an extremely influential and wealthy one, was completely corrupted, so when the only half-decent person, her father, the only person who ever loved her, decided to come clean and expose their corruption, they had Makina kidnapped, to bait out and assassinate her father. After witnessing the kidnappers execute him, she was left there tied up for a week, where she was forced to watch as her father's body slowly rots away. Getting her hospitalised for 6 years.]]
** Michiru: [[spoiler: She was never a bright student, so when she underpreformed with her private tutors, her father always blamed and humiliated them. Out of petty revenge her tutros took out their fustration on her, abusing her both mentally and phisically, forcing her to admit being comletelly useless, which left her with severe depression and criplingly low self-esteem. Which then lead her parents growing distant with her. When she went to a normal school and finally managed to make a friend, her friend commited suicide. She had a bad hearth, which had to be replaced, however when the hearth donor girl's conscience awakened inside her even being capable of taking controll of her body, she tried to commit suicide, which caused her to be locked in a psychiatry. From where she only got out by faking a different personality.]]
** Sachi: [[spoiler: She had a loving family, however once they started to get buried by work they grew distant with each other. Her best firend abruptly left her. On her birthday when her parents tried to throw a party, in a fit of anger at their previos neglecting behavior, she ran away. Just as her parents found her they were run over by a truck right in front of Sachi's eyes, something she convinced herself to be ultimately her fault. Leading to constant PTSD attacks, which she could only cope with by faking a new personality and developing a severe case of OCD. After getting back to a normal school, her OCD made her obey any and all kinds of requests, after getting an order the get rid off a school test, something she could not reasonably fulfill, she set fire to the school.]]
** Yumiko: [[spoiler: Her father never loved her or her mother, which led her both mentally and physically weak mother to be hospitalised, and her to be shipped to her mother's parents. Her grandparents only saw her as an asset, as only her extermely wealthy father kept their business afloat. It was always bemoand for her not to be born as a boy, because then she would have been able to become a proper heir to her father. When her mother started to get better and they started to get their relationship normalised, first since her birth, her father had concived a bastard, and planned to divorce her mother, of which the mere news of it completely broke her. Then her father took back Yumiko, acting resentful of his actions, only to turn out, that his bastard died and he needed an heir again. Even in school she had to find out that her classmate only pretended to be her friend to screw with her, which led her to attack said classmate with a box cutter.]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* Arguably, every character in ''Card Players''. Nuff said.
* One of the De Noirs from ''WebAnimation/DusksDawn'' gives us an InfoDump about how his father is missing and how "illusions can't help."
* All four main characters in ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'', despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, all have less than pleasant life stories:
** Shandala was [[HeartwarmingOrphan orphaned at infancy]], and although her life among the Fijian Islanders is peaceful, [[spoiler: when she was a young girl, her adopted mother was horrifically mutilated and murdered by white men under the direction of--and possibly including--her biological father.]]
** Oran's father [[spoiler:was killed during a bombing assault on Baghdad during the first Gulf War]].
** Kamimura was taken from his home at a very young age to become a monk, [[spoiler:leaving his family behind to be killed in the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII]].
** Raimi has arguably the most mundane, but no less heartbreaking. After his father left, [[spoiler:his mother died from what is implied to be cancer.]]
* Arguably, Church from ''Machinima/RedVsBlue.'' [[spoiler:While he doesn't remember it for the most part, the original Church is what you get when you brutally torture an AI into splitting into pieces, even to the point of using parts of its own mind against it (Gamma and Omega). The result is a constantly angry person who doesn't even understand why he's so angry all the time. Epsilon!Church probably remembers more about the torture, but chooses to suppress it to keep from going crazy.]]
* Considering that one of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'s'' themes is WarIsHell, the majority of the cast have their burdens from the past to shoulder.
** Blake was [[spoiler:born a Faunus, and abused by humans who routinely discriminated against Faunus. She joined the White Fang at a very young age, where her mentor became an abusive, anti-human, murderous psychopath. She ran away from the White Fang when she could no longer take their violence]].
** Weiss grew up under the thumb of an emotionally abusive father, who regularly took his anger out on her and tried to force her to abandon her own dreams and ambitions. She'd watched family members and friends die at the hands of The White Fang.
** Ruby lost her mother, presumably while fighting, when she was a very young child, and was raised by her father, and half-sister.
** Yang's birth mother abandoned her for reasons unknown, her stepmother presumably died, and her father suffered a prolonged HeroicBSOD following these events, leaving Yang to raise herself and Ruby. She'd nearly gotten herself and baby Ruby killed trying to find her birth mother.
** Nora was a street rat in Ren's hometown, the two orphaned when the Nuckalavee Grimm destroyed it, killing everyone save the two.
** Emerald was a street rat, resorting to thievery in order to survive, and had nobody to care for her or love her.
** Mercury grew up in an abusive household, with no mention of a mother, and a father who beat him. He'd ended up killing his own father prior to aiding the main villain.
** Ozpin admits to Ruby that he's made more mistakes than anybody in Remnant, though it isn't specified what he's actually done (until Volume 6, that is).
* ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': Martha was abused as a child by a man with a whip, as explained in the Special Info Episode.
** Killer Monster wasn't always evil, but after being banished to a fiery realm for 10,000 years, he became the killer monster he is now.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/TheGreenEyedSniper'', one of the main characters, Sekhmet, is a wanted war criminal who hides her past from everyone, until [[spoiler: she confesses it to another character, named Blitz and, later on, the other main characters, Shanti, finds out about it.]]
* A fair portion of the characters in ''Webcomic/CharbyTheVampirate'':
** Charby was kept as a slave by a sadistic pirate captain [[BornIntoSlavery from infancy]] and when he took a chance to escape was attacked by a vicious vampire who played mind games with him before tearing into his throat and leaving him to die.
** As a child Blaine had an argument with his parents and when he started to feel guilty and came downstairs to apologize he found his mangled parents being fed on by a vampire.
** Menu didn't even have a name before meeting Charby having been left in the trash as an infant and eventually mauled by a werewolf while still a child.
** Mye and Hex were drowned as children in a witch hunt proving them to be innocent. They were then raised from the dead as zombie slaves by a cruel master.
** When Tony finally learned he was an Alp instead of a sickly human his painful looking initial transformation was seen by his mother who hired a hunter to hunt him down.
** Zeno was shamed and [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer ostracized by the other Scotodino]] before being [[ParentalAbandonment abandoned by his parents]]. He was then [[TheyWouldCutYouUp picked]] [[PlayingWithSyringes up]] [[HumansAreBastards by]] [[MadScientist mad scientists]] who vivisected him alive and [[spoiler: eventually killed him]]. After being rescued from [[MadScientistLaboratory their lab]] [[HappilyAdopted he was taken in healed and adopted by]] [[UnreliableNarrator elves]] [[HopeSpot only for his new family to be]] [[YankTheDogsChain killed by monsters]] [[WeirdnessMagnet as his crying now attracts them]] [[DeusAngstMachina before the story]] [[http://www.charbythevampirate.com/comic/71 even began.]]
** [[KingIncognito Sadick]] seems to have lost his eye in a traumatic event that left his best friend banished and Sadick thinking him to have been executed.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Chirault}}'' both protagonists seem to have this. [[CatGirl Teeko]]'s past is [[FantasticRacism fairly straightforward]], but we have yet to learn anything but cryptic puzzles about Kiran.
* It eventually turns out that Zig Zag, the perky, [[AnythingThatMoves perpetually randy]] and playful Serbian tiger/skunk crossbreed from ''Webcomic/SabrinaOnline'' has one of these. She gets [[BerserkButton livid]] if anyone tries to suggest it's her FreudianExcuse for being a notorious pornography star and director, though.
* In ''Webcomic/NoRestForTheWicked'', Claire. [[http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/03-15.html Introduced, she muses about how easily a woman could become a witch without realizing it and implies something about her own child.]] Later she [[http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/04-44.html refuses to explain]] why she no longer has her baby with her. And she comments that she had hated her parents -- and now she knows she's no better.
* Lexx's past in ''Webcomic/AlienDice'' takes this up to eleven. Lexx's [[ParentalAbandonment father died young of an illness and his mother, a fighter for the space station they lived on, was killed defending their home]]. He was then raised in an [[OrphanageOfFear orphanage from hell]] where he was forcibly turned into a {{mon}}-like thing (the titular Dice). He [[ICannotSelfTerminate attempted suicide several times, but failed]], and has faced numerous other tragedies, including rape, slavery (or, the threat of it, actually), and [[spoiler: being forced to kill his fellow Dice, Riane, who then decides [[OurSoulsAreDifferent to haunt his mind]].]] That's only hitting the highlights. Lexx is better at remembering happy moments than he is at remembering truly tragic ones, though [[BadDreams nightmares say otherwise]].
* In ''Webcomic/{{TheBeastLegion}}'' Fyre constantly goes through this syndrome until she meets Xeus and unveils her [[http://www.thebeastlegion.com/issue-10-page-18-her-story-begins/ tragic past]].
* Grace, Susan, and Tedd in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', though Grace appears to have been the only one who suffered physical abuse. "Lord Tedd" from the alternate universe seems to have a dark and troubled past of truly epic proportions.
* Many of the characters from ''[[http://www.goldcoincomics.com Gold Coin Comics]]'', such as Lance, whose entire village was burned to the ground.
* Galatea in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' who spent her one-month childhood being treated literally as a lab animal in a pen. She didn't [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds take it well.]]
* Parodied in ''Webcomic/TheNoob'' [[http://thenoobcomic.com/comic/248/ here]].
* Played straight in ''Webcomic/BittersweetCandyBowl''. Abbey has such a distressing past that the author actually felt unable to finish a [[http://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/art/graveyard/unfinishedabbeychapter.png planned chapter about it]].
** From the hints we've been given, we can assume: [[spoiler:Abbey's mother, Charlotte, was [[DomesticAbuse beaten on a regular basis by their father,]] [[AffablyEvil Abraham;]] [[AbusiveParents Abraham once tried to beat Abbey,]] [[HeroicSacrifice though Charlotte, already in an awful condition,]] intervened by begging Abraham not to touch him, and when Charlotte [[YourCheatingHeart found out Abraham was cheating,]] he beat her near-to-death, and left with his mistress.]] Is it any wonder Abbey's turned into the WellIntentionedExtremist he is?
* Secret in ''Webcomic/KeychainOfCreation.'' Ye Gods, that girl has been through some deeply troubling shit. Backstory starts [[http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0298.html here]].
* Alexander Hamilton in ''Webcomic/TheDreamer'', man, oh man. Let's break it down: when he was a teenager, in the span of a few years, 1) his mother died, 2) his father vanished, 3) his aunt, uncle, and grandfather also died, 4) his cousin committed suicide, and 5) Alexander and his brother were disinherited and left penniless orphans. Let us not forget that his father, James Hamilton, may not even have been his father at all (the honor may go to a gentleman by the name of Thomas Stevens).
* Warrick of ''Webcomic/{{Namesake}}'' is a prime example of this. He was [[DisappearedDad abandoned by his father]], watched his mother be killed in front of him, had his grandmother die, his grandfather commit suicide, ended up [[IncurableCoughOfDeath contracting the same illness that killed his grandmother]], and then uses magic to heal himself that makes him both unable to touch water and completely mentally unstable. And this is all before the comic even starts.
** The same goes for his twin sister Selva, who went through the same things minus the mystery illness, and ended up [[spoiler:just as unstable as her brother, as a side effect of his spell.]]
** Slightly subverted, as [[spoiler:although he does begin as a villain his backstory isn't used as much of a FreudianExcuse. His villainy is actually a side effect of the spell he used to keep himself alive.]]
* Vriska Serket of ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}.'' Being raised by a giant spider who forced her to kill hundreds or even thousands of other children to feed left her pretty damaged.
** Also, WV. A simple farmer willing for peace has his home and crops destroyed by war. [[spoiler:He unites the Prospitian and Dersite pawns and leads a rebellion against the Black King. Then [[OmnicidalManiac Jackspers Noirlecrow]] shows up. Noir slaughters the King and all the rebellion, save for WV, dooming him to lead a life of SurvivorsGuilt.]]
* Tekno in ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic''. While we never see her past, it's implied that she's done some pretty bad things since she worked with [[EvilOverlord Dr.]] [[PsychoForHire Robotnik]]. Her [[spoiler:murdering someone in the fan continuation seems to better support this, though that's related to her going through a mental breakdown]]
* In ''Webcomic/ImpureBlood'', Roan has been subjected to FantasticRacism, was MadeASlave as a child, and has had to fight for years in GladiatorGames (as "The Abomination", to put the icing on the cake).
* ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'':
** Faye moved to the same town as the other characters to escape her small Southern town after [[spoiler:her father shot himself in front of her]] and she got into a car accident. She's also an alcoholic.
** Hannelore's parents' response to her crippling OCD seemed to be mostly "throw money at it and hope it goes away".
* ''Webcomic/ElfBlood'': For such a cheery, optimistic, and caring person, the fact that TKO was designed, born, and raised to be a long-range assassin is quite surprising, if not downright shocking.
** It's implied that, as children, when assassination became too emotional for TKO, SKO ''voluntarily'' did the killing for her.
* ''Webcomic/{{Dissonance}}'': both of the main characters have one.
** When James' mother died, his father kept telling him that god had a plan for those he allowed to pass. But then his father developed Alzheimer's Disease. He was mostly normal at first, and when he eventually needed to go to a nursing home, James would visit him and take him to the church there every Sunday. But in the end, he was just a shadow of the man James once admired.
-->'''James''': When my mother died, my father always told me that god had a plan for those he allowed to pass. But god took my father years before he finally allowed him to pass.
** Sarah has wanted to be a mother for years, and one day got herself inseminated. But in a 1/20,000 chance, she developed ovarian cancer. It's implied she nearly didn't recover, and now she isn't sure fate wants her to be a mother.
-->'''Sarah''': I think if I were meant to mother, there would be at least one positive sign.
* In ''Webcomic/BlueYonder'' this is brought up against a cape: [[http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1404300/blue-yonder-chapter-1-page-47/ he used to be a cop, and was thrown off the force for stealing evidence.]]
* In ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'', [[http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0255.html Angelika warns Norbert not to go there when he asks if something bad happened in her past.]]
* In ''Webcomic/MonsieurCharlatan'', [[http://monsieur-charlatan.com/archive/page-2/ Charlatan's first appearance has him musing over a photograph, ready to commit suicide.]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Glorianna}}'', the title character sometimes alludes to unspecified traumas from her childhood, and also carries heavy guilt for [[spoiler:abandoning her daughter]].
* In ''Webcomic/{{Harbourmaster}}'', Nephos freaks out during a conversation about names when [[http://www.waywardmartian.com/harbourmaster3/018-005.html asked what "Caliga", his last name, means]] -- because it's not actually a last name, it's the name of his tribe, and [[spoiler:[[http://www.waywardmartian.com/harbourmaster3/018-006.html the planet his tribe lived on was wiped out during the war]] by OrbitalBombardment]]. (Javin goes to talk to him, in part because [[spoiler:[[http://www.waywardmartian.com/harbourmaster3/018-013.html he's had to deal with similar trauma in his own life]]]].)
* Commander Badass's superiors tried to invoke (yes, ''invoke'') this in ''Webcomic/ManlyGuysDoingManlyThings'', telling the Commander that his entire family was dead for ''two years''. The Commander being the OnlySaneMan though, his response (instead of becoming dark and broody like they wanted) was to ask for a therapist, then a lawyer.
* In ''Webcomic/KnightRun'', Anne and Pray are orphans who have been together forever, with Pray making no attempt to hide that Anne is the only person she cares about. Their extremely unhealthy devotion to each other is one of the many hints that there is something extremely dark in their past, especially as Pray is slowly revealed to be TheAgeless and at least one generation older than Anne (though note this isn't particularly rare in this universe). Fans had several theories about who they are and where they came from. The idea that one or both of them [[SelfMadeOrphan killed their parents]] was suggested, as well as the possibility that Pray might be a [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot doll]], or Anne might be someone she kidnapped, so on and so forth. In chapter 74, [[TheReveal we finally get a flashback to the truth]], and it's far worse than anyone imagined. [[spoiler:Pray is one of the monsters who has been fighting humanity for centuries--and Anne is her '''daughter''']].
* Asia Ellis from ''[[{{Webcomic/Morphe}} morphE]]''. The details are not apparent yet, but it seems she was raised in some form of cult where she was forced to wear a mask at all times. [[http://asia-ellis-understoods.tumblr.com/post/46632393343/full-view-here After she was rescued her guardian tried to bring her into public schooling with failed results.]] The situation she is in now feels familiar, though as of Chapter 3 she is convinced it is not the same group that kidnapped her this time.
* Both Cain and Kylie from ''Webcomic/SerpamiaFlare'' have exhibited signs of having gone through traumatic events in their pasts.
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'':
** TheDragon Redcloak, a WellIntentionedExtremist [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblin]] [[BadassPreacher cleric]], has his tale of loss and regret shown in his TropeNamer prequel: ''StartOfDarkness''. WordOfGod is that he might be one of those who are "driven to [evil] by what life has forced them to endure", unlike his unmitigated {{Jerkass}} boss.
** {{Parodied|Trope}} when the HeroicComedicSociopath Belkar makes one up to score bonus ExperiencePoints from the RPGMechanicsVerse.
---> '''Vaarsuvius:''' Hmmm. Do you think I could pay for my scroll scribing [[CastFromExperiencePoints XP costs]] with a well-told tale of a [[AddledAddict drug-addled past]] of some sort?
* In ''Webcomic/TheLessThanEpicAdventuresOfTJAndAmal'', hints of this slip past TJ's jovial facade. Even the day after he and Amal meet, he makes light of having given sexual favours in exchange for food at a young age. Some of the stuff he ''really'' didn't want to share later gets dragged into the light, like why [[spoiler:he's carrying a backpack full of cocaine]].
* Detective Bolivia Enzon from ''Webcomic/{{Lovesyck}}'' is the daughter of her mother's rapist, and consequently was never truly loved as a child while also being overshadowed by her genius sister who later turned serial killer. She then joined Hubble Police Force where her warnings of threats were ignored due to her reputation for paranoia, resulting in innocent deaths. At some point she also lost her unborn child while it was still in the womb.
* ''Webcomic/ProjectBlackfire'': The main character Dark Flame had an abusive father and suffers from post-traumatic episodes which he utilizes a tranquilizing serum to keep at bay.
* ''Webcomic/PixieAndBrutus'': Downplayed, but Brutus was a military service dog before coming to live with Pixie and her family, and he has clearly seen some ''shit''. (Whatever happened to him, it [[EyeScream cost him an eye]].) In one strip, Pixie innocently asks what war is, and Brutus can't bring himself to tell her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Literature/{{Tasakeru}}'''s primary characters, the Outcasts, are shining examples of this trope, it's pretty much a prerequisite for being one. [[spoiler: One is a runaway {{Samurai}} suffering from SurvivorGuilt, one was thrown out on the streets with her mother as an infant and grew up in poverty, and one was disowned by her family for [[MagicIsEvil being a mage]].]] And that's just the ones we know about...
* Due to DarkerAndEdgier attitude of ''Roleplay/NeoPokeforum'', it's unsurprising that it has a lot of characters like this, such as [[TheRunaway the Crow and Ardus]], [[{{Reincarnation}} Tom Allen]], [[TheConspiracy Leonard]] and [[TheWoobie Mahariel]].
* Most characters from ''Roleplay/MSFHighForum'' own this. It's also their motivation to become heroes. Also, there are monsters created out of this.
* When you put them all together, even though they're played for [[BlackComedy dark laughs]], a lot of bad things have happened ([[JerkassWoobie that weren't actually his fault]]) to WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic. AbusiveParents, hiding in the cupboard when he got scared, breaking up with someone three times and getting stalked for it, pitied by his classmates for acting like a brat, date-raped on his prom night, and that's just what we know so far. No wonder he's a weepy PsychopathicManchild with issues.
* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick had a judging mother and an emotionally distant father who both were alcoholics and yelled at each other constantly, had an uncle that molested her, got bullied at school for being the awkward dork, became an alcoholic herself and somehow got fixated on guys she could fix and control to do whatever she asked of them.
%% A common problem among the characters in ''{{Theatrica}}''
* [[WebOriginal/ProtectorsOfThePlotContinuum Ithalond]]. An Elf from Imladris, he was pulled into the infamous fic ''Celebrian''. Need I say more?
* ''Roleplay/TouhouAGlimmerOfAnOutsideWorld'' has many, many indications that Yuuka wasn't quite as mentally stable as she is in the roleplay in the past. Like a basement with a room full of torture equipment.
* ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil'' has this as a staple trait for characters. As the saying goes, "[[SarcasmMode Slavery is a totally original backstory!]]"
* In ''[[Literature/GutsandSass Guts and Sass: An Anti-Epic]]'', Efeddre was captured and tortured for nine years, and ended up a JerkassWoobie.
* any of the Organization's Agents in ''Blog/{{LIS DEAD}}'' count, considering what we've learned of the Organization so far.
* The OpeningNarration of ''WebVideo/DoomHouse'' explains how the wife of the main character, Reginald P. Linux, had died long ago and that this had left a severe depression weighed heavy on his soul.
* Jeanette of ''Literature/FunnyBusiness'' is revealed to have this in the flashback. It turns out that having omnipotent power from a young age can do a number on one's psyche.
* A lot of [=AkaiChounokoe=]'s characters have these, so here's a few
** Toki's past and if they are to be believed started is this, particularly so when she tried to runaway from them and, as Brownie put it [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=rose#/d4n5qoy She was once sweet]] and only wanted to be loved. Lets see? Here they are:
*** She was abused and then neglected causing her to almost die of leukemia, during the events of [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=flashbacks#/d5j8gg1 Flashbacks I]], something that caused something in her to drive her insane in the next incident (see below)
*** She returned to the place where she was once abused so she can get hold of the inheritance money but went insane during the events of [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=Insanity#/d4z8cib Insanity and Resentment]] and has had issues eve since.
** Frailine (the one Toki abused) is also an example as per these statements:
*** She was imprisoned for being criminally insane after the events of [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=little+girl Little Girl's Revenge]] when she almost killed Toki and damaged the border between this world and the next. Kind of a Disproportionate Retribution, compared to what Toki did to her (abused her and then, sometime afterward, she sent to Alaska attached to a bus by a magnet with no means of getting home)
*** Sometime after being imprisoned, she almost kills herself twice and is never seen again, as per stated, in [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=Frailine#/d5ha37q Diary of a Borderline Schizophrenic]], driving Toki into more self-hate because of it.
** [[http://tokiandcowiki.wikidot.com/wiki:bunny-rabbitwright Bunny]] and [[http://tokiandcowiki.wikidot.com/wiki:madgie Madgie]]'s parents died in an accident when Bunny was twenty and Madgie was nine.
** [[http://tokiandcowiki.wikidot.com/wiki:doki Doki]] was seperated from her twin sister Toki at when both were going on thirteen and was sedated and frozen.
* Before leaving his home planet on the Dionysian, Fiearius Soliveré of "Literature/CaelumLex" [[spoiler: worked as an assassin for the dubious government organization the Society, potentially murdering many innocents. This culminated in an event that caused both his wife and four year old son to be killed]]
* Par for the course in ''Podcast/FalloutIsDragons''. Granted, it's set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but thus far two player characters are [[TheAtoner former raiders]], one was abandoned by his mentor after nearly damning a filly, one was physically and psychologically tortured by his own "teacher", one was forced to kill his own brother for no other reason then to amuse the BigBad, and one lost his memory, leg, and EYES in an explosion.
** And that's not even factoring in the [=NPC=] backstories....
* Madiha Nakar from ''Literature/TheSolsticeWar'' is an amnesiac orphan and is hinted at having done a lot of horrible things as a child during her country's revolutionary war, where she fought on the socialist side.
* The crew of captain Icomb's ship in ''Literature/SkiesUnbroken'' has: two former {{Sky Pirate}}s (including the good captain himself), one not-so-former SkyPirate who joins later, a soldier whose side lost TheWarJustBefore, and a WaifProphet. It's their passenger's Dark and Troubled Past that is, however, most frequently (if vaguely) alluded to.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' ''lives'' on this trope [[JustifiedTrope because it takes place in a cruel global war that the main characters are trying to end]]. Let's look it over;
** [[AntiHero Zuko]]: [[AbusiveParents father]] always favoured Azula over [[TheUnFavorite him]], and then planned to murder him to get the throne. His loving {{m|issingMom}}other sacrificed her life/freedom to prevent this. He, one day, speaks out against a horrible plan, and his own father burns his face for insolence. He then gets banished and put on a SnipeHunt for the Avatar. Needless to say, he's the MrFanservice of the series.
** [[TheHero Aang]]: While he had a happy childhood with the Air Nomads, he made the fatal mistake of freaking out and running away from his responsibilities, ending up being frozen in ice for a century, and finally paying dearly for it when he discovers the corpse of his beloved mentor.
** Katara and Sokka: mother killed in a Fire Nation raid when they were little, and their father and all the men of the tribe left three years prior to the show's start. This left Katara with abandonment issues, and Sokka feeling that he wasn't good enough as a warrior. They may not show the effects as much as Zuko does, but it catches up to them later on (Sokka risks his ass breaking into a Fire Nation prison, Katara has her dark night of the soul tracking down her mother's killer).
** Iroh was once a very powerful warrior and general in the Fire Nation army, leading a siege on Ba Sing Se. Then his son died, he went into a HeroicBSOD, and 'betrayed his nation'.
** All this isn't even counting the pasts of more minor characters such as Jeong-Jeong, Pakku, Hama, Jet, and even [[TheDragon Azula]], who has MommyIssues.
** The episode "The Beach" was essentially a show-and-tell around the campfire of each of the villain's version of this trope, complete with showcases of ParentalNeglect, NotSoStoic and TheUnfavorite.
* The SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' has its fair share:
** The series begins with two of its main characters having Dark and Troubled Pasts: Mako and Bolin were street kids growing up, and Mako had to take care of his little brother.
** [[spoiler:The BigBad Amon and his [[SleazyPolitician brother Tarrlok]] are revealed to have an exceedingly tragic backstory in the SeasonFinale.]]
** Book 3 gives us yet another villainous example with [[spoiler:[[StatuesqueStunner towering]] [[HavingABlast pyrotechnic]] [[TheBrute Brute]] P'Li's backstory drop concerning being a {{child soldier|s}}...which makes [[YourHeadASplode what happens to her ten minutes later]] all the ''more'' [[AlasPoorVillain genuinely]] [[TragicVillain sad]].]]
** Asami's mother was killed by an unknown firebender when she was young. Asami grew up generally well-adjusted, however the incident [[spoiler:caused her father to become anti-bender]].
** Kya (a waterbender) and Bumi (a nonbender) were [[TheUnfavorite ignored]] by Aang while [[ParentalFavoritism their airbender brother Tenzin]] was favorited.
** Kuvira was abandoned by her parents but taken in by Suyin. Not much is clarified on what happened during this period, but Kuvira grew up with a complex which led to her becoming a dictator as an adult.
* Mr. Cat from ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'' is heavily implied to have had one of these. Most of it is a NoodleIncident, but what the show has revealed is [[AlcoholicParent an alcoholic father]], [[BigBrotherBully two abusive older brothers]] who were so cruel he had to run away from home, and the death of one or more loved ones.
-->'''Mr. Cat''': As a kitten, I was tied up in a sack and thrown into a rushing river...
* Kevin E. Levin from ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}: Alien Force'': probably abandoned as a young child because of his power, became a criminal to survive, then, for kicks, became a literal monster by the age of eleven, and got sent to a hellish prison dimension. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope Turns out, he wasn't really abandoned; it was just his powers playing with his mind.]]]]
* Denzel Crocker on ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents''. At first, he had a life [[NotSoDifferent similar to Timmy's]]: he had a neglectful mother who left him with an abusive babysitter. He also had fairy godparents [[spoiler:(Cosmo and Wanda, in fact)]], which he used to do good things for people. The end came when he lost his godparents: he forgot all his happy memories, the town shunned him because they forgot all the good things he did, he became obsessed with proving fairies exist thanks to a note he left himself, causing him to lose his sanity, he was laughed out of his college for promoting fairies, and he lost [[UnluckyChildhoodFriend Waxelplax because of his obsession]]. Yeah, not very fun.
* Casey Jones was given one of these for his ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'' incarnation, in order to explain his vigilantism: when he was a kid, the Purple Dragon gang, led by a teenage Hun, burned his father's store before his very eyes. Afterwards, when Arnold Casey Jones Sr. tried to extract retribution, he was killed. Eventually, writers for the [[ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesMirage Mirage comic book]] integrated a modified and considerably less sanitized version of the story into the original canon.
* Artemis from ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', though it took a long time to figure out the nature of it. Turns out [[spoiler: she was raised by criminals, who trained Arty and her sister to be expert assassins. Then her mom broke her spine and was sent to jail. Her sister, not wanting to be left with their abusive father, ran-away, leaving Artemis alone for ''years'', until her now reformed mom came back, kicked her father out, and Artemis decided to become a hero.]]
* Just about everybody in ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', but special mention to Marceline, who has a thousand years that can all be summed up with this trope, and an honorable mention to [[spoiler:the Ice King]], whose troubles are of such a nature that he's incapable of understanding them or remembering their existence anymore.
* Zap Monogan from Dex Hamilton: Alien Entomologist, He's a human/insect hybrid that was created by an evil scientist as a weapon for the military. He never talks about his past life, and struggles to remember anything about it.
* Mike Chilton of the Burners on ''WesternAnimation/{{Motorcity}}''. He used to work for Abraham Kane and was proud of it, until he realized [[spoiler:Kane was willing to harm innocent civilians, which made Mike realize that [=KaneCo=] was doing more bad than good. He did manage to save several tenants from going down with their homes though]]. It's revealed in "Mayhem Night" that [[spoiler:Mike's greatest fear is his own past]].
* Lance in ''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'' was seemingly orphaned by his father's disappearance, presumed dead. He was sent to a military school [[KidsAreCruel where he was constantly picked on]]. It's possible his past goes further than what we've seen in flashbacks.
* Some time before the events of ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'', Mike has been to juvie, thanks to Mal, thereby showing just how a problem Mal has been for him. Duncan also appears to be in this league.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' reveals that Mrs. Puff has got one. It's not expanded on much, other than her husband was killed and converted into a lamp, and after giving [[DrivesLikeCrazy Spongebob]] a license and learning he now has a ''boat'' she considers changing her name and starting a new school in another city. But then decides not to do it [[spoiler: again.]]
* A ''very'' persistent trope in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''. Though the Crystal Gems had to deal with this the most. From them (except Amethyst and Steven) fighting in a war that left them traumatized for eternity, to losing the one that kept them together.
* Used for comedic effect with Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''. In just about any plan he concocts, there is some backstory he explains to Agent P - most of his history is cringingly dark and troubled: His parents didn't even show up for his birth, he had to stand in for the broken garden gnome, got disowned by his parents, grew up with ocelots... In addition his brother, who is mayor of the Trio-Starte Area right now, always was preferred by his mother - to [[UpToEleven ridiculous extents]].
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' has a ''lot'' of this.
** We have [[spoiler:Soos]],[[spoiler: whose father never came back with his birthday, but wrote a lame excuse in the form of a postcard every time ('Couldn't make it'; 'I'll be there next year', etc). When he realized his father would ''never'' come back,]] he started working at the Mystery Shack and [[spoiler:views Stan as a father ever since]]. That's why he once said he wants [[spoiler:7 children, one to love every day of the week. He wants to be a better father than his father was!]]
** We cannot forget about [[spoiler:Pacifica]]. She is part of a [[spoiler:lying, cheating and backstabbing family, whose ancestor unlawfully claimed the foundership of Gravity Falls. Her parents abused her using ''pavlovian conditioning'', like a trained dog. She, however, learned the fact you don't have to live up to your parents and make your own choices, finally breaking the spiral of misfortune and determined to fix the Northwest name]].
** The one who takes the cake when it comes to dark and troubled backstories, is however [[spoiler: ''Stan'']]! He [[spoiler:had a twin brother, Ford, who was his best friend, who left him to attain a prestigious university, and after Stan accidentically ruined his project, he was thrown out home. He was told he wasn't welcome until he made a fortune,]] which explains his greedyness.[[spoiler:And that's just one part of the story: It's revealed the Shack was once Ford's, but after he accidentically disappeared though a interdimensional portal, Stan tried for ''thirty years'' to get him back.]] That's a dark backstory and then some more.
* AAARRRGGHH!!! from ''WesternAnimation/{{Trollhunters}}'' was once a Gumm-Gumm before defecting. He became TheAtoner to make up for his past.
* [[KidHero Lloyd]]'s childhood stands out as being the worst of the ninjas in ''WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}}''. Abandoned by his parents ([[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou not that they had any other choice in the matter]]) and thrown into a boarding school for kid villains, [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer heavily bullied at said boarding school]] for [[EvilIsPetty not having the drive to commit actual evil]], and trying to prove his worth as an evil mastermind despite his naivety and young age only to fall into HumiliationConga over and over again. Luckily he met his uncle and the ninjas and he got better, but as shown after [[GrowingUpSucks he is forced to grow up]], he [[StepfordSmiler still has some issues...]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'':
** Robin's backstory isn't explicitly given, however it is implied to follow his normal one from the comics. His parents were killed when he was younger and he was taken in by Batman. Prior to the series he left Gotham and came to Jump City to be on his own.
** Starfire doesn't have the RapeAsBackstory of her comic counterpart, but she was still betrayed by her sister and sold into slavery. She escaped before becoming a slave, though the experience was still harrowing.
** Beast Boy seemingly lost his parents at a young age and was taken in by the Doom Patrol. They ended up going missing, which left him on his own.
** Raven's a ChildByRape whose father is a demon. She was raised to be emotionally attached and distant due to her powers being emotion based. Raven also grew up knowing she would cause the destruction of Earth when she was older.
** Cyborg's backstory according to the ''ComicBook/TeenTitansGo'' comic book is that he was in a car accident. In order to save him, he was given robotic parts. He had to drop out of school as a result and faces FantasticRacism.
* This part of superhero backstories is parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo''. Robin has a tragic backstory that he likes to bring up for sympathy. The other Titans seem more [[AngstWhatAngst nonchalant]] about their tragic backstories.
* ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman:'' Almost every main character has shades of this, but the majority of them weren't incredibly influenced by it. Princess Carolyn was already an independent, hard-worker, regardless of her mother who'd get so drunk, she'd have to send PC to do her work for her (not to mention she suffered several miscarriages when she had a deep desire for children). Diane Nguyen was implied to always having been a determined girl, her dysfunctional family simply amping her anxiety. Todd was already lackadaisical before getting kicked out of his house... for being lazy.
** Mr. Peanutbutter: A very lowkey case, as his upbringing was very happy, but labradors are taught to ignore their problems. This could easily be why he puts on such a cheery demeanor, but has expressed ''deep'' fear of death and endings.
--->'''Mr. Peanutbutter:''' The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. [[AntiNihilist The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning.]] It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead.
** [=BoJack=] Horseman: His parents were profoundly abusive, to the point of him expressing he was terrified of them in "Free Churro." He was pressured into being 'the best' by his mother, the idea of being 'the best' continuing to haunt him, even after his hit sitcom. In addition, she forced him to smoke an entire cigarette as a punishment for taking one puff after seeing his hero, Secretariat, take a drag on television when he was ~9yrs/o. His father tore down everything he worked hard one and had very backwards ideals. He tore down a treehouse [=BoJack=] built himself while he was at summer camp because he used "wimpy Jewish nails instead of hardy Christian screws" and was constantly having affairs. [=BoJack's=] not leaving Horsin' Around when Herb was fired continues to haunt him. He winds up a depressed, nihilistic, narcissistic, alcoholic.
--->'''Beatrice Horseman:''' You ruined my life, you know that?
** Sarah Lynn: She had a [[StageMom manipulative mother]] who tore down her dreams of going to college and [[ICouldaBeenAContender becoming an architect]] as early as age six. Mind you, this dream continued into her adult years. She received horrible and fairly frightening advice from [=BoJack=], her father on Horsin' Around and [[ParentalSubstitute father by proxy]] due to her unexplained DisappearedDad. Her bear stepfather was heavily implied to be [[PaedoHunt sexually abusive,]] some hints being her ability to distinguish the taste of bear fur, his homeschooling her and [[ThatSoundsFamiliar being a photographer]], straight-up being designed in a similar fashion to Terry Richardson, and her ElectraComplex shades. She lived her teenage years in misery, giving all she could to others and not getting anything back, eventually including from [=BoJack=], the only genuine friend she figured she had left. She winds up a depressed, nihilistic, narcissistic, [[AddledAddict addict.]]
--->'''Sarah Lynn:''' [[StepfordSmiler I know I'm smiling right now, but the light inside me is dying.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'':
** In the first scene in the series, Shiro, along with Sam and Matt Holt, is abducted off of Kerberos, one of Pluto's moons. In the TimeSkip between this and the scene a year later, he has been enslaved, separated from his companions, experimented on, and forced to become a gladiator for the amusement of TheEmpire. The entire ordeal cost him his right arm and severely traumatized him.
** After waking up from a 10,000 year cryogenic sleep, one of the first thing Allura finds out is that her entire planet was destroyed along with her entire species, [[NeverGotToSayGoodbye including her parents]]. Not to mention she is never given time to mourn them properly. So...yeah...
** And then there's Keith, who grew up [[GiveHimANormalLife (falsely) believing his mother had willingly abandoned]] him, lost [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest his father]] at a young age, and spent much of his childhood [[FriendlessBackground alone and unloved]]. When he finally made one friend, he later received word that he had died on a space mission (see first example for what really happened). And then he got expelled from SpaceCadetAcademy and lived alone in the desert for a year. As a result he is depressed at the start of the series. DeusAngstMachina, indeed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man", never told Treves a single detail about his family, even that his mother was dead, because the whole family situation was a Dark And Troubled Mess. Dead mother, a classic case of SurvivorGuilt over his dead four-year-old brother, crippled sister, abusive father, WickedStepmother, and step-siblings who were, as he put it, "more handsome". This may actually have been the source of the misnomer "John" -- his father was also named Joseph, and he may have wanted to separate himself as far from that as he could, possibly out of paranoia of having to go back home.
* Creator/KelseyGrammer: His entire life has been one tragedy after another. His father was murdered. His sister was murdered. Two half-brothers were killed in a diving accident. His longtime friend and ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' producer David Angell was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Another longtime friend was murdered in an inheritance scheme. He was abused by two ex-wives, one of whom attempted suicide while pregnant and killed their unborn child. Seriously, someone give this man a hug.
* Creator/RussellBrand. Childhood Bulimia? Check. Traumatic incidents involving a tutor, and then a babysitter? Check. Self-harm? Check. Mother with cancer that reappeared four times? Check. Evil stepfather? Check. Bipolar disorder? Check. Misguided attempt by his father at bonding, involving a trip to Thailand and prostitutes? CHECK.
* [[Music/GunsNRoses Axl Rose]]: read the biography "Guns And Roses: The Band That Time Forgot" for the full details. Needless to say, it's no wonder he's such a JerkAss sometimes.
* Creator/RichardOBrien. Born abnormally small, bullied at school, and then growing up genderqueer in what amounted to a conservative country town in the 1950s/60s...ouch. And then [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow his baby flopped in cinemas]].
* Janice Dickinson, one of the world's first supermodels. She was thoroughly traumatized and damaged not just by her father's emotional and physical abuse of her, but also his sexual abuse of one of her sisters. And then in 2015 she claimed that in 1982, she was one of the victims of [[Creator/BillCosby Bill Cosby's]] date rapes.
* Creator/CharlesBukowski, a German-American novelist and poet. His childhood was a long episode of school fights, child abuse and social rejection. This depression later bolstered his rage as he grew, and gave him much of his voice and material for his writings.
* Creator/JamesEllroy
* Wrestling/ScottHall suffers from PTSD as a result of killing a man in self-defense, developed a serious drug and alcohol addiction to treat it, had most of his friends abandon him because of it, and is in a serious amount of pain constantly
* Edgar Allan Poe. His biological father left, his biological mother died of tuberculosis along with his brother and both loves of his life, and his foster dad was an abusive jerk. No wonder he wrote what he did.
* UsefulNotes/MichaelJordan had to watch his friend drown trying to save him when he was a teenager, and then had his father murdered later during his career.
* Creator/ManuBennett was a bullying victim, then lost his mother and brother in a car accident. He stated in an interview that he found peace through acting.
* Creator/CharismaCarpenter had a near-rape experience, as she and two of her friends were [[http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20108468,00.html the final victims of a serial rapist back in 1991]].
* Creator/TylerPerry was constantly beaten by his father, Emmitt Brown Sr., to the point that he once attempted suicide to get away from him, and was molested by a friend's mother and three other men as a child. He changed his name from Emmitt Brown Jr. to Tyler Perry, and eventually discovered that Emmitt Brown Sr. actually wasn't his biological father.
* Creator/EvanRachelWood revealed that she's been raped twice in her past, and suffers from these experiences. In 2018 she gave testimony before a US Senate subcommittee about this in support of a proposed law.
[[/folder]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', with Vegeta having his home planet destroyed at around age 5, and being a forced underling of the creature who massacred his people for most of his life.
* In ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'', hinted at about [[spoiler: Kabru in Chapters 32 and 38. Later confirmed in Chapter 45: he was a survivor of a village that was destroyed by a dungeon. Which explains why he has such severe opinions of anyone who wants to use the dungeon to make a living rather than destroy it outright.]]
%%* Hakuron and Huo Long from ''Manga/HaouAiren''.
* Kenshin Himura from ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_X:_Trust_%26_Betrayal Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal]].'' After the death of his parents, Kenshin (a child at the time) is taken by slavers, who are later violently killed in front of him by bandits. After burying the mutilated victims alone, Kenshin is resolute to “create a peaceful world where people could live without fear”. To accomplish his ideal, Kenshin trains with the master of the “Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū” (a fighting style so deadly that, to truly master, it means death to the teacher) and, at 14, became the legendary assassin "Hitokiri Battōsai”. [[spoiler: Kenshin goes into hiding years later and marries a mysterious woman named Tomoe for appearance only, but they later fall in love. After a series of events, Kenshin kills Tomoe unintentionally in battle. As Tomoe died, she gave Kenshin half of the X shaped scar on his cheek. Kenshin later finds out, after reading Tomoe’s diaries that he had killed Tomoe’s fiancé (a man who years earlier, gave Kenshin the other half of the X shaped scar) before he met her and she only married Kenshin out of revenge, but, after living together, fell in love with him.]] Broken and filled with remorse for killing countless people, Kenshin wanders off wielding a sakabatō or reverse blade sword. He is determined to never kill again and to aid those in need, as atonement for the murders he committed.
* Hiei from ''Manga/YuYuHakusho''. [[spoiler:Being tossed away by your clan, brought up by bloodthirsty thieves who later abanndon you, and going through torture just to find your homeland only to learn that your mother committed suicide and your twin sister has been kidnapped by a sadistic psycho will make you be just a little bit dark.]]
* ''Alice In Sexland''
** Protagonist Alice was poor, but worked alongside her mother as housekeepers. As soon as she was considered even remotely sexually mature, she was forced into the life of a SexSlave.
** The Queen of Hearts is revealed to have had one, too. She was poor and homeless, then decided to sell her body as a prostitute as soon as she 'became a woman'. However, she seemed rather happy with that life, seeing it as a good way to give herself a decent life, compared to the nothing she used to have.
* Vash the Stampede from ''{{Manga/Trigun}}.'' He was born as an ArtificialHuman on a space cruiser transporting most of humanity to a distant world, where the crew was paranoid of him. Thanks to his brother, he got to watch the cruiser destroyed, killing millions, including his mother figure. Years later, after the discovery of his destructive powers, he unwittingly caused the annihilation of an entire city.
** Wolfwood in the manga as well. Raised in an orphanage, "adopted" by a church to go around doing general labor, [[spoiler: physically modified, artificially aged, and trained to become a killer.]] He spends a lot of time conflicted about life.
* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' has quite a few characters with these kinds of pasts:
** Revy is a Chinese-American who was abused by her alcoholic father (whom she later murdered) and brutalized by the police for laughs. She sometimes loses control of her bloodlust, slips into a scary-calm state of AxCrazy TranquilFury nicknamed "Whitman Fever" by Dutch, and starts shooting everyone she comes across whenever something gets too close to her past. She either has to run out of steam or be physically restrained whenever that happens.
** Balalaika is for the most part far more calm and controlled as befitting a mob boss, but her feelings of being rejected by her country (the former Soviet Union) despite her years of service, as well as the collapse of said country, have left her with nothing else but the enjoyment of planning and winning wars. Balalaika enjoys playing at war so much that she even gives Revy pause, and good luck trying to stop her once she decides to unleash her army.
** Roberta, meanwhile, is a former soldier and assassin renowned for her animalistic ruthlessness, earning her the nickname of "The Bloodhound of Florencia", who tried to find solace working as a housemaid for the Lovelace family. She nearly went permanently insane because of the guilt she felt as a former assassin and because of the loss of her patriarch.
** [[CreepyTwins Hansel and Gretel]] were war orphans in Ceauscescu's Romania who fell into the hands of the mob after the orphanages closed down. They were put through absolute hell, culminating in them being forced to murder other kids in snuff films and getting a real taste for blood.
* The entire main crew of ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' has this to some degree. Spike Spiegel used to be an enforcer for the Red Dragon crime syndicate, essentially Space [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Triads]], only to fall out with them and his former best friend and fellow assassin Vicious over a girl named Julia, resulting in him [[FakingTheDead faking his death]]. Jet Black used to be a cop until his own corrupt partner and best friend set him up and tried to kill him, though he got off with merely losing his left arm and needing a cybernetic replacement -- this, after the love of his life dumped him for, basically, being too controlling. Faye Valentine lost her family, her memories, and her past after she was placed in cryogenic suspension after a space shuttle accident, and after she was revived, the one man who seemed to care for her "died"...and left her stuck with a debt reaching into the millions. Radical Edward's father was so absent minded that he was barely aware of her existence, so she spent her entire childhood wandering aimlessly in and out of orphanages and possibly over most of the planet. Even Ein, the "Data dog," was subjected to experimentation to make him a Data dog by people with questionable ethics.
* The first segment of ''Anime/{{Memories}}'' "Magnetic Rose" had Heinz, a space salvage specialist who had some ''really'' weird reactions to such harmless things as a falling china doll. The [[HauntedCastle haunted space ship]], of course, uses his trauma over [[spoiler: his daughter having died after falling off the roof while wearing a toy spacesuit ''he'' gave her]] to try and convince him to stay...''forever.''
* In ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'', there's Czeslaw Meyer, a young boy who, when his grandfather and caretaker died, was taken in by his grandfather's alchemy student, Fermet. A few years later, they become passengers on the ship the Advene Avis. [[spoiler:Cue both of them becoming immortal]]. Fermet's true nature begins to shine through, and he starts experimenting on Czes, claiming it's for science. [[spoiler:This torture continued for the next two hundred years.]] The torture and abuse is only ended when Czes finally manages to [[spoiler: kill Fermet, in a way that causes Czes to gain all of Fermet's memories. This means that Czes now has both his own memories of being tortured and memories of sadistically enjoying torturing himself.]] Because of all this, the kid now has intense trust issues.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': Notable since this trope applies to virtually every character with any significance in the story, not simply the protagonist.
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'':
** Guts' childhood is singularly horrific. His mother was hanged from a tree outside a town while she was pregnant with him, causing him to be born prematurely and likely only surviving due to the soft mud from the rain. He was found by Gambino's wife Sys when his mercenary company was passing by the town and she took him in only to die of plague a year or two afterward. Gambino continued to keep him around but brutally trained him as a [[ChildSoldiers child soldier]] to earn his keep. Gambino's believed that Guts was a bad omen due to the way he was born and that he was the reason Sys died, which led to young Guts being raped when Gambino sold him for a night to a pederast soldier in his band (whom Guts later killed in the chaos of a battlefield at age 9) in addition to the horrific violence of war and constant risks to his life. It all came to a head when Gambino, his leg having been blown off by a cannonball and thus making him unfit for combat, got drunk one night and tried to kill Guts despite Guts trying his best to use his mercenary earnings to take care of Gambino. Guts was forced to kill his adoptive father in confused self-defense, but only after Gambino told him how he sold Guts to the soldier that raped him and had always resented him. Guts was almost immediately spotted by the rest of the company who proceeded to attack Guts and he only barely escaped alive. And that's just peaches compared to the stuff that comes afterwards.
** Casca's past isn't much better -- she lost her village at an early age and was sold to a noble who wanted a new serving girl, only for it to transpire that he wanted her for sex. Just as he's about to rape her, though, Griffith shows up. Instead of killing her would-be rapist, however, he makes her do it instead ("If you have something you wish to protect, take up that sword."). She has a relatively easy life afterward, until the Eclipse goes down and she suffers a ''horrific'' ordeal -- [[RapeAsDrama the worst of it]] at the hands of her original savior, no less -- that ends with her being driven insane.
** Griffith's past wasn't much of a walk in the park either, as revealed in the second to last episode of the anime, just before he crosses the MoralEventHorizon. It involved selling his body to a creepy nobleman in exchange for the funds he needed for his army among other things.
* ''Anime/SwordArtOnline'': Shino Asada was a happy child, until a trip to the post office with her mother took a turn for the murderous when a robber held up the office. When the robber turned his gun to Shino's mother, the eleven-year-old girl wrested the gun away and killed him in self defense. Sadly, this lead to Shino being ostracized by her classmates ''and her own mother'', plus PTSD so severe that she can't hold a toy gun or even have someone point at her without suffering a severe panic attack. She tries using the VRMMO shooter ''Gun Gale Online'' as a form of self-help, but with minimal success.
* Many of the main characters in ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' have some pretty dark childhoods: Seras Victoria witnessed her parents being murdered by burglars while hiding in a closet,[[spoiler:Her mother's corpse was then violated as she watched.]] and Integra's uncle tried to kill her to take control of the Hellsing family. [[spoiler:Even Alucard counts: back when he was just an Ottoman kid named Vlad III Dracula, he had been sold over to the Turks, whose ruler raped him.]]
* This seems to be the case with a number of characters in ''Manga/ElfenLied'', most particularly, [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Lucy]], who had to deal with abuse from asshole kids at her orphanage who beat her dog to death in front of her, and her horrible experimentation at the research facility that she escapes from at the very beginning of the series.
* While a majority of ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'' is silly and cute, the characters are still [[MoeAnthropomorphism countries]], thus, all of them have some negative points in their history. Nevertheless, [[PsychopathicManchild Russia]] takes the cake for troubled pasts; the best example would be the "Bloody Sunday" strip, in which he finally snaps and starts ''gunning down'' his own people as they're rioting in the streets ("If they hate me, they're not Russian.") before turning to [[TheWoobie Lithuania]] and stating "We don't want children who can't play nice, do we?".
** This trope is probably why certain countries, such as Israel, will never show up in this series, as it would quickly destroy the very comedic nature of the series itself.
* None of the other characters in ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' had a fun childhood, but Fai's was, by far, the worst. Though unlike most characters here, his childhood trauma didn't turn him into a crabby, jaded JerkWithAHeartOfGold (that's [[PerpetualFrowner Kurogane]]), he kept all of his bitterness and heart break under a [[StepfordSmiler facade of perpetual happiness]]. Or, [[CerebusSyndrome he did at first...]]
* Every character in ''Manga/FruitsBasket'', excluding a minor few.
** Later subverted hilariously with [[ThirdPersonPerson Kimi]].
* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima''. Several. Upon learning Negi's, several of the girls were actually driven to tears.
** Evangeline's is worth special mention simply because of it's ''[[WhoWantsToLiveForever sheer length]]''. [[spoiler:It is also hinted that she [[SelfMadeOrphan killed her own parents]] before regaining consciousness upon [[WhatHaveIBecome first becoming a vampire]].]]
** Then there's Asuna. We don't really know the details, but [[spoiler: she underwent LaserGuidedAmnesia so that she could forget all that she had been through. What we ''do'' know is that it includes being imprisoned in a tower and used as a human weapon, and the destruction of a FloatingContinent.]]
** Setsuna. During her fight with Evangeline, is revealed that [[spoiler:she has no parents, and because of her white white wings, she was chased out of the Crow village and picked up by Eishun.]]
* Kaoru in ''Manga/AiYoriAoshi'' (physical abuse, betrayal, abandonment), to the point of not even remembering his childhood friend when he meets her again.
* Most people in ''Manga/DeadmanWonderland''. Nagi, Minatsuki, Yoh, Shiro, Hibana, Genkaku...
* ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'': Ken Ichijoji. Just...Ken Ichijoji. What started out as TheUnfavourite Syndrome developed into a death in the family. Then he ended up being infected with the [[ArtifactOfDoom Dark Spore]], which started playing on his huge inferiority complex and [[IWishedYouWereDead guilt over his brother's death]], which was one reason he became the Digimon Kaiser, at which point he was convinced that the Digital World was makebelieve and he was just expressing his anger in a fictional world. He was [[HeelRealization bluntly shown otherwise]] by watching his Digimon [[DeadSidekick die right in front of him]], and never mind the better part of the hell the rest of the season puts him through while he's trying to make up for his misdeeds.
* Chichiri in ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'' has a TraumaCongaLine in his past. His childhood best friend, Hikou, betrays him by stealing a kiss from his fiancee, who immediately calls off the engagement in [[HonorBeforeReason shame]]. Chichiri [[BerserkButton goes berserk]] and attacks Hikou, but as they are fighting, a massive flood sweeps through the [[DoomedHometown village]]. Chichiri's fiancee ''and'' family are killed in the flood, and although Chichiri attempts to save his former best friend's life, Hikou is lost in the flood before they can make amends. Chichiri also [[EyeScream lost his eye]] in this incident, and, in fact, it was getting hit by the driftwood that caused him to let go of Hikou's hand. [[spoiler:This all comes back to haunt him near the end of the manga and the OVA, when Hikou reappears as one of Tenkou's demon underlings...]]
** While Chichiri is the most notable example among the protagonists, lots of other characters follow this trope, particularly from the Seiryuu and [[Manga/FushigiYuugiGenbuKaiden Genbu]] sides. [[BigBad Nakago]] has a particularly nasty one as his FreudianExcuse, though the fact that he's a horribly ManipulativeBastard who infamously winds up being a KarmaHoudini means that few fans want to pity him for it.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'': To say the Author Creator/EiichiroOda is “fond of” tragic backstory and “quite good” at writing them would be an understatement. The man is an absolute master, every canonical story arcs has several DarkAndTroubledPast to tell. Not only are they informative and emotional but also filled to the brim with ChekhovsGun. He also has a knack for taking otherwise “mundane” backstory mold and drawing them into originality.
** Romance Dawn arc:
*** Luffy's backstory part 1, the climax of which provided the current TearJerker’s picture of the manga.
*** Coby's. Though short and mostly played for laughs, it provided the starting point for his CharacterDevelopment much later.
*** Zoro's past, following the otherwise generic "my best friend/rival died" past but adding in the mix that his friend didn't die honorably; she died falling down the stairs. No epic sword fight, no sacrifice, she was just tired and slipped down some stairs. First "recruitment backstory".
** Orange Town arc:
*** Buggy’s "tragic" past was mostly played for laughs. But the crew that he and Shanks started their careers with would be important hundreds of chapters later.
*** Chouchou's past played homage to UsefulNotes/Hachiko. It’s a simple but both tearjerking and heartwarming story about the UndyingLoyalty of a CanineCompanion.
** Syrup Village arc:
*** Usopp's past.
*** Also Captain Morgan (a minor antagonist of previous arc)'s backstory was revealed, retroactively adding depth to his character.
** Baratie arc:
*** Sanji's backstory took the standard "stranded on an island with an enemy" story and turn them into something unique. Everyone knows being stranded on an island sucks, but this is hardly an island: it's a mushroom rock that's too far above sea water to fish and incapable of sustaining any life...because it's a ROCK. Not to mention, he realizes that the only other person on this island has a big ol' bag of, what he thinks is, food, much bigger than the one he gave to Sanji. However, it turns out that other guy just had a bunch of money and absolutely NO food, and that instead of keeping any for himself, gave ''all'' the food he recovered to Sanji and ''broke off and ate his own leg'' to survive. And on top of all ''that'', the food that Sanji got was barely enought to last 20 days (though it lasted 25 days). It took ''eight-five days'' for a ship to find them. One can only imagine how hellish the last 60 days (''two months'') must have been. No wonder Sanji considers wasting food to be a horrible offense.
** Arlong Park arc:
*** Nami's past was told here. Her backstory arguably set the formula for "recruitment backstory" which almost all of the Straw Hat’s later followed: Tragic backstory was caused by the current arc villain, after which Luffy was so pumped up and delivered a well-deserved beatdown to the ArcVillain.
** Loguetown arc:
*** Roger’s execution, which is the backstory of the whole series was revealed in depth here. Notable in that though this is an execution, it’s hardly portrayed as "tragic". In fact the one detail we’re meant to take away as Roger’s smile before his death and how Luffy mirrors him in that regard.
** Reverse Mountain arc:
*** Laboon the Whale's story was told. It will be important much later.
** Little Garden arc:
*** Dorry and Brogy’s past was told. Though not particularly tragic, it did break his crew and led to two of his men tricked into servitude later.
** Drum Kingdom arc:
*** Chopper's [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer tragic backstory]] was told.
** Alabasta arc:
*** There's one for Vivi, Kohza and the entire Alabasta Kingdom. In short: Crocodile needed a beatdown.
*** Also Robin provided a very brief, very neutral version of her backstory to the Straw Hat when they snuck abroad their ship. Some tantalizing hints to her full backstory were dropped during the conversation with Cobra as well.
** Jaya arc:
*** Montblanc Cricket's backstory revealed that he was the descendant of "Noland the Liar" and he was locked into a battle with his own ancestor’s legacy ever since. A "fictional" version of Noland's Tragic Past was also told.
** Skypiea arc:
*** Noland’s "real" tragic past was told. Also the backstory of the Shandoran and Skypean’s ForeverWar, and Sky Knight Gan Fall’s personal history were told.
** Long Ring Long Island arc:
*** Aokiji dropped some vague hints about Robin's past. Namely, every organization associated with her was eventually destroyed.
** Water 7 arc:
*** Franky, Iceburg, Kokoro and Tom's mutual history was told. It is simultaneously awesome, tearjerking and heartwarming.
** Enies Lobby arc:
*** Robin's long MysteriousPast was revealed in detail. It's arguably the most tragic backstory revealed thus far and is the most important to the entire series MythArc bar none.
** Thriller Bark arc:
*** Moria and Dr. Hogback had one. It only make them more disgusting and despicable.
*** On the other hand, Brook's story was so good that it brought Franky and Brook himself to tears. It also fired off the ChekovsGun set hundreds of chapter earlier.
** Sabaody Archipelago Arc:
*** The Roger Pirates' story was told by none other than the Pirate King's first mate himself. Like a good story teller, he encouraged the Straw Hats to seek out their own answers and adventures.
*** In what could only be described as the dark and troubled Past of an entire species, the history of racism against Fishman and Merfolk was revealed. It retroactively provided a backstory for Arlong and every villainous Fishmen the Straw Hats encountered.
** Amazon Lily Arc:
*** One without a twist, but still absolutely ''horrible''. [[DefrostingIceQueen Hancock]] and her sisters. Slavery is never a pretty story.
** Impel Down Arc: There's no new backstory here but there's one humorous example that deserved special mention. And that is:
*** Buggy the Clown's history with the Pirate King's Crew comes back to bite him as the Marine labels him the mastermind. To Buggy this is tragic but to every prisoner he rescues, this is the ultimate badass confirmation of their savior and they pledge their life to him immediately. Buggy decided to go with the flow and led them all to Marineford.
** Marineford arc:
*** Ace's past isn't very heartwarming either, putting aside all the time he spent with Luffy and Sabo. [[spoiler:Ace's father was none other than Gold Roger, the Pirate King. Now normally, being related to such a powerful and important figure would be a cause for joy, right? Not. In the eyes of many who actually met Roger (and didn't antagonize him), he was a great man. But the truth of the matter is that hiding his identity as Ace's father was imperative, seeing as his enemies basically amounted to the entire world. For ''years'', Ace was tortured with the fact that in the eyes of the world, he wasn't supposed to exist, that the world would be better off without him, making him far more jaded than a child should and causing him to despise his father for the rest of his life. Most of all, the only reason he bothered to continue living was to find out whether or not he ''deserved'' to be born, just because the blood of a Pirate King ran through his veins.]] Living only stopped being so painful when Luffy and Sabo, and eventually the Whitebeard Pirates, came into his life.
** Post-War Arc:
*** This arc devotes entirely to the story of a young Ace, Luffy and Sabo, especially. This will be important later.
** Fishman Island arc:
*** The History of racism against Fishman and Merfolk was told again, this time from a more personal perspective of Jinbei, a Fishman who at one time and another support both Otohime and Fisher Tiger, the two major equal right leaders. Also, Koala's story was told.
** Dressrosa arc:
*** The Riku Royal Family’s story was told fairly early in the arc.
*** Law. His past is up there with Robin's for how bad it is. [[spoiler:Law was born in the country of Flevance, also known as "The White City". It was said to be a land straight out fairytales -- everything, from the grass to the trees to even the buildings was pure white. Eventually, this phenomenon was discovered to be the result of a mineral beneath the country, callled Amber Lead. The people of Flevance began mining this mineral, bringing them untold amounts of prosperity. However, a hundred years before the beginning of the Amber Lead industry, the World Government conducted a geological survey and determined that the mineral was poisonous. Both they and the royal family of the country knew of its true nature, but kept it a secret due to the economic growth it brought Flevance. Though eventually, the buildup of Amber Lead poisoning became too great and a horrible breakout of disease struck Flevance, causing neighboring kingdoms to believe it to be an epidemic and quarantine the island (though the royalty of the country managed to escape thanks to the World Government). With the doctors unable to cure the disease, despair over being abandoned and desperate to escape, the population used the remaining Amber Lead as weaponry and went to war. The resulting conflict would kill almost all of the people of the White City, including Law's former friends and family; Law himself only managed to survive by hiding himself amongst corpses being carted out of the quarantine zone.]]
*** The Donquixote's backstory was very dark and tragic but with an unique twist. [[spoiler: Doflamingo and his brother Rocinante both experienced the same tragic past but only one turn into a monster.]] Perhaps the only time in the series that Oda took Nature side in the NatureVsNurture debate. [[note]]This is before Doflamingo met Trebol, Diamante, Pica and Vergo who would then nurture his evil side even more.[[/note]]
** Whole Cake Island arc:
*** The abovementioned "stranded on an island" example turns out to actually mark the rough ''end'' to Sanji's horrible past. [[spoiler:He was born part of the Vinsmoke family, a family of assassins whose head, Sanji's father Vinsmoke Judge, leads a massive army with ambitions of reconquering North Blue. To that end, Judge had his children genetically modified and subjected to TrainingFromHell, to draw out their hidden potential and turn them into {{Super Soldier}}s. However, unlike his siblings, Sanji failed to make any progress, instead remaining a regular human being, causing his father and brothers to brutally abuse him mentally and physically while his sister just laughed (Though to be fair, she had no choice but to do so to avoid being bullied herself). Eventually, Judge got too fed up with Sanji's lack of progress to bother continuing to raise him, and instead faked his son's death before locking him in a dark room and forcing him to wear an iron mask. Keep in mind that this happened ''before'' that aforementioned traumatic example with Zeff! No wonder Sanji hates his family's guts.]]
*** Lola's, but more importantly her twin sister Chiffon's DarkAndTroubledPast was revealed during the Straw Hats meeting with [[spoiler: Bege]]. Basically, Lola ran away from the wedding with the Giant Prince, Chiffon was forced to take her place but couldn’t fool them. This lead to Elbaf and the Giant army virtually out of Big Mom's reach and Chiffon was severely mistreated by her as a result. Lola seemed fairly oblivious to her mother nature and the trouble she caused her sister; to the point she asked Nami to tell Big Mom that she’s still OK.
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
** Ichigo is the badass hero because his mother died in front of him just before his ninth birthday. He vowed to protect others from ever experiencing the pain he went through that day, and spends years blaming himself for her death.
** Rukia was an outsider who longed to fit in. The first person who treated her as an ordinary person was her mentor, Kaien. Unfortunately, he is possessed by a Hollow and Rukia is forced to kill to protect both herself and her captain. It takes her many years to forgive herself for his death; part of the reason why she gave Ichigo her powers in Chapter 1 was because she secretly was hoping to die.
** Orihime was rescued from abusive parents when her much older brother kidnapped her to save her life. She was raised by him until he was killed in a car accident when she was twelve. She was bullied in school for her unusual hair, and it's not until she meets Tatsuki that she's able to grow her hair again. Even after meeting Tatsuki, she's been raising herself alone ever since her brother died. Her brother eventually comes back as a Hollow that tries to kill her and almost succeeds until Ichigo manages to save her just in time.
** Sado lost his parents at the age of eight and was sent to live with his grandfather in Mexico where he became a big, strong bully. Only his grandfather's wisdom saved him from a violent life. After his grandfather dies, he returns to Japan, but refuses to fight to protect himself, so gets bullied for his non-Japanese appearance and height. It's only after he meets Ichigo, who tells him that they should fight to protect the other, that he begins to have friends.
** Uryuu's mother died when he was eight years old, and he has a nasty estrangement from his father because, his grandfather once implied, he completely misunderstands his father's heart (only pretending to be a jerk). He witnessed his grandfather being killed by Hollows right in front of his eyes and blames the Shinigami who didn't arrive in time to save his grandfather's life. He later learns that Mayuri delayed the Shinigami from saving his grandfather because he wanted Souken to die so that he would have a Quincy soul to experiment on. When he shows Uryuu the Souken's post-experiment remains, he gets one-shotted by an icily infuriated Uryuu. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that his mother and Ichigo's mother were killed at the same time for the same reason, and that their killer had tried - but mysteriously failed - to kill Uryuu at that moment, too. Uryuu's been a target for Yhwach's mysterious end-game ever since.]]
* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'':
** Since most of the cast aren't [[ArtificialHuman technically human]], most of them have [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman these kinds of pasts before someone finally took them in and raised them as people]]. To give some examples, [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots the Wolkenritter]] spent most of their existence being treated as little more than tools, [[CloningBlues Erio]] and [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Agito]] spent years in illegal labs, caged and experimented on like animals, and [[AntiAntiChrist Ixpellia]] [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld spent her long life]] being forced to fight in pointless wars that seemed to never end.
** Fate Testarossa herself, who grew up under the "care" of an {{abusive|Parents}} and thoroughly monstrous EvilMatriarch who [[spoiler:wanted her as a ReplacementGoldfish for her daughter, Alicia, but grew to hate her for having her own personality]] before Nanoha entered her life. Her reason for taking in Erio and Caro was so that they wouldn't have to grow up like her.
* The backstory of Kagura from ''Manga/GaRei'' involves her being forced to kill her own older sister. In the beginning, it doesn't bother her too much, but, later on, it comes back to hit her hard.
* Blue (Green in the English version) and Silver from ''Manga/PokemonAdventures''. [[spoiler:Although the Mask of Ice DID kidnap them in order to use them for his plans, you see that he's got a heart for the kids]]. This is seen in the FRLG chapter, in the flashback of [[spoiler: Silver and Blue/Green escaping Mask of Ice. Before, you see a large ice statue of all the kidnapped children and Mask of Ice, all wearing their masks and everything. After the kids run away, you see Pryce change the sculpture into one of all the kids standing around Pryce, who is in a wheelchair, all of them smiling.]] So you gotta assume that [[spoiler: Pryce loved the kids like they were his own, even if he did kidnap them.]] Then again, [[spoiler:whether or not he loved the kids, there is no doubt that Pryce had absolutely no clue how to raise them. One panel actually hints that he physically hit Blue just because she wanted to nickname her Jigglypuff. Judging by that panel, it's pretty obvious that Blue and Silver had an awful childhood]].
* Mitsumi in ''Manga/PokemonDiamondAndPearlAdventure'' was raised by Cyrus to be devoid of all feelings toward Pokemon and human, her only purpose to defeat her opponents. Rowan eventually softened her up though, and made her realize that there's more to Pokemon than fighting.
* ''Manga/BlackButler'':
** Ciel was a happy, loving, carefree child before his tenth birthday. Then, his parents were murdered, the mansion set on fire, and he's kidnapped. He's locked in a cage with other children his age and eventually made a child sacrifice until he accidentally called upon a demon in his desperation to live. His past is still being pieced together so more details will probably surface. No wonder he's a bitter, driven [[TroubledButCute 13-year-old.]]
** The children in [[CircusOfFear Noah's Circus]] had a pretty bad past, too. Too bad the man who helped them [[spoiler: turned into a crazy StalkerWithACrush and, with some [[MadScientist psycho doctor]], killed children so their bones could be used in the making of prosthetics.]]
* Mist and Euphemia from ''Manga/{{Knights}}''. The former is a [[HeroWithBadPublicity knight of African heritage (in Medieval Europe)]] whose mother was burned at the stake by his father, who is also trying to kill him. The latter was accused of witchery and was [[PrisonRape raped in prison]].
* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', Crona was used as an experiment for [[AmbiguousGender his/her]] mother, and ended up becoming the host to a Living Weapon, driven insane through physical and psychological abuse, and forced to kill unknown (but probably large) numbers of people in order to harvest their souls. Crona gets a brief respite when Maka [[DefeatMeansFriendship defeats]] them, only to be forced back into working for Medusa.
** From what little we know, Liz and Patti's history is probably a troubled one, but this is hardly referred to.
** The anime, thanks to its GeckoEnding, makes things a bit better for Chrona by [[spoiler: having him/her finally [[CallingTheOldManOut decide to stop Medusa]], end up [[TakingTheBullet dying to save Maka]] and finally [[NotQuiteDead being saved]] in time to help deliver [[AnAesop the series' aesop]] in the finale]].
* The characters in ''Manga/DGrayMan''. Specifically, a whole bunch of the main Exorcists. Kanda and Lenalee, in particular, had their traumatic pasts inflicted on them by the "good guys" so they could fight the "bad guys". Allen was abandoned, beaten, and such until he met Mana, who died shortly after. Miranda was always teased for being wimpy and useless and broke down when she was fired for the 100th time. Krory was bullied by the people in the village near his castle because of his grandfather's reputation and therefore chose to never leave even when his grandfather died. Lavi used to be cold and emotionless due to all the cruelties of humanity that he had been exposed to such as numerous wars, since recording such events is part of his life as a Bookman.[[spoiler: Kanda used to be an exorcist in a previous life, before he was killed by an Akuma. His brain was extracted and transplanted into his current body, to undergo multiple, painful and fatal synch attempts with his Innocence. He also killed his best friend. '''Twice''' ]]
* ''Manga/PandoraHearts'':
** ''Pandora Hearts'' is full of characters with this trope, though it's not very obvious at first. Gilbert, Vincent, Alice, Leo, Echo, and Break are probably the best examples.
** And then it finally revealed that Oz, whose dark past was thought to only being neglected by his own father, actually have the most tragic past of all: [[spoiler: born as a plushie, forced to murder so many people and caused the legendary Tragedy of Sablier, and his owner Alice, who was the only one who cared for him and gave him his name, killed herself to save him]].
* Both the lead heroines from ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' are examples of this.
** [[TheOjou Sheryl]] grew up as a homeless orphan in the Galaxy fleet before being "discovered" by her manager, Grace. Also, even when she does get past that and works her way to the top as an IdolSinger, she finds out that everything she's ever achieved was actually part of [[spoiler: [[MagnificentBastard Grace]]'s ]] plan, leading to her [[HeroicBSOD breakdown]] later in the series.
*** It doesn't help that [[spoiler: Grace is the source of her [[BodyHorror v-type infection]] and is likely the reason why she's an orphan in the first place]].
** [[CuteLittleFangs Ranka]] is also an orphan who [[spoiler: lost her family during a Vajra attack on their research fleet]], an event so traumatic that she [[LaserGuidedAmnesia lost her memories]] and, for a time, the [[TheVoiceless ability to speak]] before her adoptive brother got to her. It's made worse for her that [[spoiler: the cause of the attack was her singing, which, thanks to the Vajra germs she got from her mother, allowed her to unknowingly comunicate with the Vajra.]]
* ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' has this trope in ''spades''.
** [[FailureKnight Chrono]] is the most obvious example, having once been part of the Sinners and [[spoiler:accidentally killed the woman he loved]].
** In the manga, all of the Sinners are refugees from their home and only betrayed the other demons because it was that or be killed. Aion's reasons for leaving are particularly troubled (but crazy).
** Rosette and Joshua are orphans. This would be ConvenientlyAnOrphan if it wasn't for the fact that both of them have some flaws explained by their parents' deaths (particularly in the manga).
** Satella watched as her home burned to the ground and her family was killed by a demon around the age of 9 or so. [[spoiler:Fiore is the sister she lost in the massacre, who CameBackWrong.]]
** Azmaria's parents either abandoned her or were killed (possibly during the first world war). She was then taken in by a group of traveling musicians, who were killed by a man so he could adopt her and use her powers to [[{{Necromantic}} bring back his dead wife]]. Yep, he was killed too.
* Hei, BadassLongcoat AntiHero of ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'', falls into this ''bad''. Start with dead little sister and betrayal by his girlfriend and work up from there: [[spoiler:his little sister became a Contractor and was recruited by TheSyndicate, and he joined as a BadassNormal to [[BigBrotherInstinct try to protect her]]. [[ChildSoldiers They were both in their early teens]]. After a few years of very mixed feelings, guilt, and trauma later, his then-girlfriend Amber (apparently) betrayed him, and his sister disappeared when Heaven's Gate exploded. He basically woke up with her powers, no sign of her, and ''no clue what the hell happened''.]] Add a few years more spent working for TheSyndicate as an assassin because a) they'd kill him otherwise and b) he's never done anything else, it's no wonder he's a {{stoic}} ShellShockedVeteran.
* ''Franchise/FullmetalAlchemist'':
** [[DysfunctionJunction Practically everybody]]. Ed and Al lost their mother when they were young, tried to resurrect her, and failed; and, as a result, [[FirstEpisodeSpoiler Ed lost two of his limbs and Al his entire body]]. Roy and Hawkeye, among others, participated in the Ishvalan genocide and feel extremely guilty about it. Scar lost his brother in said genocide, Winry's parents were killed on the battlefield, Hohenheim [[spoiler:unknowingly helped kill off the population of an entire country]], and Bradley [[spoiler:grew up as a test subject, was injected with the Philosopher's Stone, and does not know whether his present personality is the one he had prior to the injection]].
** Roy especially qualifies in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime version]], because he [[spoiler:was the one who shot and killed Winry's parents under military orders]]. He was almost DrivenToSuicide because of it.
* ''Everyone'' in ''Manga/MyLovelyGhostKana''. It's how they [[AngstWhatAngst get past it]] that makes the story so heartwarming.
* This is how the ''Manga/PlusAnima'' children are usually depicted gaining their animas, animal spirits of sorts which grant them the animal's abilities. It comes from the need for help to escape from a dangerous situation, such as being close to death.
* Soubi from ''{{Manga/Loveless}}'' was orphaned at the age of six, raised by a teacher who wanted to control him completely and [[spoiler: sexually abused him]], and then handed off to Seimei, who [[spoiler: viewed him as a possession and physically and emotionally abused him before abandoning him without explanation.]] Ritsuka is a little young for this trope, but is well on his way to acquiring one.
* For all that it's a gag series, ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'' features characters with these.
** Gintoki was an orphan living among the corpses on the battlefield when he was found and taken in by Shoyou sensei who raised him with the samurai values he still holds today. A few years later [[spoiler: Shoyou sensei was arrested and his school was burned down.]] When Gintoki and his friends fought in the Joui war, they lost, and lost badly. He was then [[spoiler: forced to choose between his teacher and his friends. He chose to kill Shoyou.]] After the war, Gintoki ended up in jail and was nearly executed. Upon his release, he wandered around and nearly starved before Otose found him at her husband's grave.
** Kagura comes from a lethally DysfunctionalFamily. Her mother died when Kagura was young, and her father left her and her brother, because he was afraid he might kill one or both of them someday. Her brother, unable to beat their father in a fight turned into the cheerful sociopathic BloodKnight he is today.
** Kyuubei (raised with gender confusion), Katsura (family deaths, lonely childhood), Takasugi (Shoyou's death), Hijikata (family issues, spree killer), Tsukuyo (sold into prostitution, maniac mentor), Hinowa (sold into prostitution, crippled by Housen), and others also have difficult pasts.
* A ''lot'' of characters in ''Anime/SpeedGrapher'', but none more so than Chōji Suitengu, the BigBad of the series. Near the end of the series, after showing how much of a [[MagnificentBastard bastard]] he is, one episode finally delves into his history and gives him a hell of a FreudianExcuse.
* Despite being a fairly lighthearted series, Keiko from ''Manga/{{Stretch}}'' appears to fit this trope. [[spoiler:Something to do with her mother, apparently.]]
* It's not revealed until about a third of the way into the series, but ''Anime/KiddyGrade'' protagonist Eclair ended up so [[OutDamnedSpot tortured by the things she did as an ES Agent]] that she had her memories sealed. The seal also served as a PowerLimiter. The reveals start coming when events start to unravel the mental block.
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': most characters just have a Dark And Troubled Present, but Kyouko [[spoiler:had her attempt to help her father spectacularly backfire when he finds out, causing him to go nuts and kill the family]], Mami [[spoiler:lost her family in an accident and contracted with Kyubey to save her life]], and Homura [[spoiler:has been resetting time in a futile attempt to save Madoka for years now]].
* In ''Manga/WildFangs'', it turns out Syon was [[BioAugmentation artificially engineered]] and grew up in a [[MadScientistLaboratory lab]] where he was constantly experimented on but had no one who remotely cared for him. Subverted in that he doesn't remember it all that well so it's not as big a deal as others think it is.
* If anyone in ''Anime/{{Monster}}'' appears ''not'' to have a Dark and Troubled Past, just keep reading/watching and one will be revealed. Ironically, the king of this trope in the series is none other than that irredeemable Johan Liebert. Or is he? The debate goes on and on...
* From ''Manga/{{Arago}}'', there are the four horse men. Each one of them has deeply rooted reasons why he or she despises humanity.
* Joe Asakura of ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman''. His parents were murdered almost right in front of him, and then the assassin tried to kill him.
* [[DesignatedVillain Clair Leonelli]] in ''Anime/HeatGuyJ''. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father was abusive and also neglectful, hoping to train him as a suitable successor. Eventually, he [[DrivenToMadness went insane]] and [[spoiler: [[TheDogBitesBack killed his dad]]]].
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':
** Shinobi in general have blood on their hands before they reach chunin rank. Also, considering they are essentially soldiers, whose relatives and friends are also soldiers, living in a warzone, nearly every character has lost someone important to them at some point.
** Itachi saw the end of the 3rd Ninja War and the Kyuubi attack before he was even a ninja and decided to do ANYTHING to pevent war.
** Kakashi saw his father take his own life at 7, [[spoiler:then his friend Obito seemingly dies before giving him his Sharingan; he is forced to kill his remaining teammate Rin in order to prevent the tailed beast inside her from falling into the hands of the enemy; and finally his teacher, the 4th Hokage, dies when he sacrifices himself to protect the village from the Kyuubi.]] And to think, when he was first introduced he seemed like such a laidback person who was simply wise and pragmatic about the nature of being a ninja...
** Sasuke, at 8, stumbled upon the aftermath of his clan's massacre by his older brother [[spoiler: under order of Danzo]] and killed said brother at 16, [[spoiler: only to learn the truth after the act]], and set himself on the [[CycleOfRevenge Asura path]]
** Gaara, of course, was feared by his village and his family for the one-tailed demon inside of him. His attempts at connecting with others proved fruitless and at times were rebuffed harshly by other kids. Not only that but out of self-defense he was forced to kill the only person who stood by him and protected him. This tragedy and the realization that he was truly alone led him to look to his literal inner demon for solace, giving us the emotionless death machine which is initially introduced to us.
** Kimimaro was of the now-extinct Kaguya clan had been born with his clan's special kekkei genkai and the leader, fearing its power, locked him up in a dark cage except on the occasions where he was needed for battle (which was often, since they were a war-like tribe). The Mist Village, deciding they had enough with this clan's bellicose nature, decided to commit an act of genocide and wipe them all out in one fell swoop. Kimimaro managed to escape this culling and wandered aimlessly and without purpose, until he met Orochimaru...
** Haku was born with a special kekkei genkai-Ice Release-which was all well and good except that within the Land of Water where his small village resided, the people still held extreme anger and pains from the death and destruction that a previous war had caused them due to both sides using people with kekkei genkai. He had inherited this ability from his mother, who hid it from her husband in order to maintain the illusion that they were normal and perhaps that one day they could reveal the truth to the man in hopes that love could trump the prejudice that still remained. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Haku had discovered his ability and while his mother quickly stifled it, Haku's father witnessed it and rounded a mob of villagers to attack them. Haku watched his mother be killed in front of him and was about to be murdered as well but he used his abilities to kill all of his assailants, thus rendering himself an orphan.
** Naruto lost his parents and any chance of a relatively normal life the very night he was ''born''. He was also taken hostage by TheHeavy at the age of one minute. That's gotta be some kind of record.
** Most characters in ''Manga/{{Boruto}}'' intentionally subvert this. In contrast to their parents, the newest generation live in times of peace. Their problems are more down-to-earth, such as Boruto and Sarada's father's being distant due to [[WhenYouComingHomeDad job reasons]].
* No mentions of Ai Enma from ''Anime/HellGirl'' yet? That girl was made an outcast by her village, and was selected to be sacrificed to a mountain god at the age of 7. She escaped that fate, only to be faced with a worse one 6 years later, where she was betrayed by her only friend and she and her family were buried alive. Then she tried to deliver vengeance on her village and was condemned to carry souls to Hell for eternity.
* It's mentioned in ''Manga/FairyTail'' that everyone in the guild has ''some'' sort of hidden pain in their pasts. A lot of them are explored in each arc of the manga as it goes on.
* Inspector Himuro of Manga/{{Remote}} has one that is regularly hinted at but not revealed until the last few volumes
* The ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' franchise has quite a bit of this. From characters growing up as orphaned {{Child Soldier}}s in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing]]'' and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' to ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Gundam Unicorn]]'', where one character manages to have a past that includes [[CloningBlues knowing she's a clone]] and [[RapeAsDrama being used as an underage sex slave in a brothel]]. Apparently, to put across the WarIsHell message, one must use soldiers who have messed-up pasts.
* Accelerator in ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex''. Due to his [[SuperpowerLottery seemingly invincible powers]], he's been attacked ever since he was a child by people who either wanted to "prove their strength" or by people who thought [[PersonOfMassDestruction he was too dangerous to let live]]. He survived all of this without a scratch, but having that much violence directed at him all his life has left him rather messed up. And if people aren't trying to kill him, they're trying to [[TheyWouldCutYouUp use him in inhumane experiments]]. When he's introduced, he's willing to do just about anything to make sure people ''never attack him ever again''.
* Most of the main characters in ''Manga/ACruelGodReigns''. If they don't have one, they are well on their way to getting one.
** Jeremy is [[spoiler: physically and sexually abused for months before he snaps and kills Greg, and then has to deal with living as a murderer.]]
** Ian grew up knowing his mother [[spoiler: committed suicide]] and wondering why his family was dysfunctional. Later on in the series he has to deal with his {{Broken Pedestal}} view of his father.
** Sandra has a dead first husband and two [[spoiler: {{Bungled Suicide}}]].
** It is heavily implied that Valentine [[spoiler: was sexually abused]] resulting in her {{Dumb Struck}} status.
** Liliya [[spoiler: committed suicide at Greg's urging because she was {{Mistaken for Cheating}}.]]
** Lindon become estranged from his first wife and daughter because he was so rigid and neurotically morose.
** Nadia's mother [[spoiler: blames her for her sister's preoccupation with suicide]]. Her parents also fought bitterly and cheated on each other during her childhood.
** Natasha suffered [[spoiler: Greg's beatings and eventually had to leave Lynn Forest for her own wellbeing, as well has knowing her little sister Liliya killed herself.]]
** Cass' parents are abusive alcoholics, which is why he works so many jobs (legal and illegal), in an attempt to earn money for school and to escape his house, eventually ending in his drug addiction and HookerWithAHeartOfGold.
** Even BrattyHalfPint Matt, who grew up unwanted because [[spoiler:Greg believes that he is not his actual son.]]
* ''Manga/KotouraSan''
** Haruka's life story, to put it bluntly, is the destruction of the lives of a born {{telepath|y}}ic girl.
** Yuriko has one too. When she was a child, her mother was a famed psychic, but DrivenToSuicide after being accused as a fake. This is why she is so eager to prove psychics exist.
* In ''Manga/AnatoliaStory'', Nakia was forced by her father to become a concubine to the Hittite king, who was basically the enemy of her country of Babylon at the time. Also, the king was old enough to be her father. When she got to his palace, she quickly became scared and lonely, since he already had a lawful wife, a huge harem full of other concubines, an elected crown prince and four more sons. It's later revealed that she also [[spoiler:went through a period of time when people gossiped openly about the legitimacy of her child, Juda, since he shared few features with the king]].
** Ursula was orphaned when her family died of the plague and grew up in poverty, becoming desperate for ''any'' chance, however brief, of knowing wealth and comfort.
** The end of the series also reveals that [[spoiler:Urhi]] was the child of a noble family in another country. When his home was invaded, the conquering army killed all of his family, took him as a SexSlave, and castrated him so that he couldn't run the risk of having children and furthering the now-extinct bloodline of his country's royal family. [[spoiler:''Then', he was shipped off to Anatolia to be a junior priest, which is where he meets Nakia.]]
* Pretty much every experiment in ''Manga/ProjectARMS''. To name a few:
** Hayato watched his home village and his father ([[spoiler:or at least, the man he ''thought'' was his father]]) get destroyed when he was a child. Immediately after, a stranger (the same one who ''killed his dad in front of him'') cuts off his arm and replaces it with the ARM replica.
** Kei was raised as a soldier instead of a child, harshly treated by the Blue Men. In the manga, she and some other children were playing in a church when a madman comes in. The children try to run, instead of listening to her and staying hidden, leading to her watching them die and her getting her [[EyeScream eyes stabbed out]]. In the anime, she tries to save some children from a burning building, only for them to die and her eyes to get burned out. In both cases, this leads to her own ARMS being implemented.
** The Bowen twins were ostracized by their peers and their parents, all of whom were unable to cope with the fact that the elementary school-aged boys were super-geniuses. [[spoiler:A flashback reveals that Jeff murdered their parents, which even freaked out [[CreepyChild Al]].]]
** Carol was sent to the Egrigori as a test subject because her parents were terrified of their creepy daughter who had the power to bend things into knots with her mind. She grew up believing that the horrified reactions her powers got from people were the same things as love and respect.
** Cliff and Yugo Gilbert spent their childhood having their mental powers tested, meaning they were both horribly abused by the scientists.
** Kyklops spent his entire life kept by the Egrigori, taught to kill with a knife as soon as he was old enough.
** ''All'' of Keith White's "children", who were just clones of himself that he made to implant ARMS into. They weren't even given names (they simply were known as "Keith [Color]") and the surviving ones (Black, Green, Blue, Red, and Violet) all had to watch as their brothers and sisters died horrifically painful deaths from the experiments.
** Quite possibly the ultimate example of them all is poor Alice. She's yet another Egrigori experiment who is confined to the labs, where she sees how lonely and sad the other children are. She wants nothing more than for them all to see the outside world, even for just one day, [[spoiler:but her attempt to make this happen end with ''all'' of the children being shot to death by Keith White. She then gets absorbed by an alien life form and splits into "White Alice" and "Black Alice", both of whom keep their desire for love, but one of whom (guess which?) expresses this in the form of wanting to destroy all life on Earth.]]
* Tenjou from ''Manga/MurasakiiroNoQualia''. [[spoiler:As a child, Tenjou fell off a jungle-gym, getting her body fatally wounded. And that's when the traumatizing part begins. Completely conscious, she then watches her best friend replacing her "damaged body parts" with jungle gym parts.]] This obviously still doesn't sit well with her for long years after. Justifies her acting like a {{jerk|assWoobie}} toward Yukari.
* The majority of the cast in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', due to the nature of the series:
** Levi is a former criminal, with his past shrouded in mystery and fodder for many rumors.
** Eren, Mikasa and Armin are all refugees from Wall Maria, having lost everything when Titans destroyed their villages.
** Mikasa's parents were murdered in front of her, by human traffickers that intended to sell her into sexual slavery at the age of ''nine''. Eren killed two of them to rescue her, but she was forced to kill the third man on her own.
** [[spoiler:Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie are TykeBomb [[TheMole spies]] sent to carry out genocide against mankind, and committed an act of mass murder at the age of 12 and 11 respectively on the orders of their superiors. All three are deeply traumatized as a result of their actions, with special mention to Reiner who was extremely [[BreakTheCutie broken]]] even ''before'' their mission started, due to ParentalAbandonment by his father (his parents had a forbidden relationship between an Eldian and a Marleyan. Reiner's father wants nothing to do with Reiner or Reiner's mother, as he'd be punished severely for it]].
** Ymir and her vague comments about having been hated, tormented, and expected to "die for the happiness of others". [[spoiler:She was an orphan with no name who was taken in by a strange man who made her take on the name Ymir and pretend to be a reincarnation of Ymir Fritz, the creator/founder of the Titans ([[UnreliableNarrator maybe]]). She gained a massive following, but when the cult was found out by officials, they betrayed her. She ended up being sent to Paradis Island and spent 60 years as a mindless Titan before unknowingly stealing the Jaw Titan's powers from Reiner, Bertolt and Annie's friend Marcel (which becomes Reiner's [[MyGreatestFailure greatest failure]], as he feels responsible for not protecting Marcel).]]
** [[spoiler:Krista is the daughter of a significant nobleman, born out of wedlock to his mistress. A conflict between her relatives concerning her potential as a successor caused her to be driven out and forced to take up a false identity. She joined the military to escape, with the hopes of getting herself killed in a suitably tragic and heroic fashion]].
** Grisha Yeager, Eren's father, may take the cake. Everything started going downhill for him when [[spoiler:he and his little sister Faye snuck out of their ghetto to watch a blimp land. They were caught by military officials, and as Eldians aren't allowed outside of the ghetto, were punished. Grisha was kicked several times and Faye was taken away by a sergeant and fed to his dogs. The sergeant claims [[BlatantLies that he found the girl's body there and has nothing to do with it]]. Several years later, Grice, who's part of [[LaResistance the Eldia Restoration Movement]], tells Grisha what really happened to Faye, and Grisha decides do join the cause. Through this, he marries Dina Fritz, who is the [[LastOfHisKind last remaining member]] of the royal family on the continent. They have a son, Zeke, who they raise with the intention of being the last hope for Eldia and its people. Unfortunately, Zeke betrays his parents and their friends, and they're sent to Paradis Island as punishment. Everyone is turned into titans (including Dina), [[SoleSurvivor except for Grisha]], who is saved by Kruger, a military offical who Grisha met the day he went out with his sister. Kruger is revealed to be [[TheMole responsible]] for the Eldia Restoration Movement getting leaked information. Grisha is then [[ImDyingPleaseTakeMyMacGuffin entrusted]] with the Attack Titan's powers and the mission to retrieve the Founding Titan from within the walls...]]
** Pretty much ''everyone'' established as a character has this, no matter what side they're on.
* Mei from ''Manga/{{Yurara}}'' [[spoiler: was madly in love with his teacher. Then a malevolent spirit pulled her off the roof of the school to her death. He never quite got over it.]]
* [[TheCasanova Rambler]] [[MeaningfulName the Rambling]] [[http://cytolo.skr.jp/graphic/tbus.jpg Rabbit]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Happy_Clover from the Happy Happy Clover Anime/Manga]] by Creator/TatsuyamaSayuri. Is an adult rabbit who usually visits Crescent Forest at random. He would usually go on dangerous adventures and travels around the world. Clover the main protagonist of the series, really admires him and wants to go traveling with him. But each time she would ask him that same question, he would refuse to answer her question. He says that she will have to wait until she gets older. In the characters mini-bio in the 3rd,4th and 5th volume for the main characters. It reveals that Rambler's homeland has been destroyed by humans. In the 4th volume of the manga, one story involved Rambler coming to stay with Clover for the night. Clover and her parents wants him to stay at her home for the night. Rambler refuses and prefers to sleep outside. However Clover, starts getting very worried about him and [[TheDeterminator continues to ask him to stay for the night.]] Later, Clover starts looking for him in the rain just to let him stay. But when she finally, finds him out in the rain. She tries to let him come to her home, and starts pulling his arm hard. Rambler responds by snatching his hand away from her, causing Clover to cry and believes she really was a busybody and starts running back home. The next morning, Clover finds Rambler crying and starts asking him whats wrong. He then explains to Clover why he didn't want to stay at her house. He tells her that, sleeping in a bed and staying at her house reminded him of his old home and forest before it got destroyed. After he finished, he tells Clover to keep it a secret between him and her.
* In ''Anime/UmiMonogatari'', everyone was afraid of Kanon as a child due to her evil aura, which made her grow up aloof and unwilling to trust herself and others.
* The ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' [[Anime/SailorMoon anime]] may not have many notable instances of these, but the [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]] has one for at least half of the characters, including the majority of the Senshi barring [[NaiveEverygirl Usagi]], and possibly Haruka and Michiru. And that's only if you don't count [[spoiler: their past reincarnations as Serenity's guardians]]. Examples:
** Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon, of all people, may count as a dark and troubled [[spoiler: past life]], as [[spoiler: being Princess Serenity]], she'd [[spoiler: committed suicide]] upon seeing her Prince Endymion [[spoiler: killed by the Dark Kingdom]].
** Rei Hino/Sailor Mars was raised by a neglectful father and an ailing mother, and when her mother died, her father seemingly didn't care, leading Rei to grow a strong distrust of men. Also, in Casablanca Memories, she was shown to have had her heart broken by a man who seemingly fell in love with another woman, furthering her conviction against males.
** Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter lost her parents in a plane crash, compelling her to have to learn to take care of herself. All of her peers feared her and refused to have anything to do with her because of her strength and her height. She was even dumped by her boyfriend, who deemed her not feminine enough for him.
** Minako Aino/Sailor V/Sailor Venus was the first Senshi to have been awoken, and had to fight all the youma by herself for a year. Within that year, she'd not only [[spoiler: had to kill her first crush, who turned out to be a youma]], she is implied to have lost many friends because she was too busy being Sailor V to have a social life. At the end of ''Manga/CodenameSailorV'', she [[spoiler: learned that Kaitou Ace, her one true love was Danburite, a member of the Dark Kingdom, leaving her no choice to kill him]] and her only chance at happiness. Also, she remains cognizant of the Moon Kingdom's past life, [[spoiler: Serenity's suicide, and the subsequent destruction of the Moon Kingdom]], and shoulders the blame, thinking that it was her duty to [[spoiler: protect Princess Serenity at all costs]].
** Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask, like Makoto, lost his parents in a crash, and wound up with LaserGuidedAmnesia with regards to his ''identity''. [[spoiler: This is his stated reason for looking for the Silver Crystal]], the same thing the Senshi were looking for.
* A number of characters in ''Anime/QueensBlade'' have this.
** Menace of Amara has a particularly nasty one. Yes, she was a BadBoss, being more concerned with [[TheHedonist ceaseless sexual pleasures and perversions with her vast harem of]] [[PsychoLesbian lesbian love slaves]] than actually ruling. But her favorite slave Anarista, possibly the one woman she actually loved, grew so sick of her petty hedonism that she betrayed Amara to a foreign power. Menace's people were destroyed, her kingdom toppled into ruin, and the former queen was flung to the hands of her former slaves, who beat and gangraped her until she died.
* Sasami of ''Anime/TenchiMuyo''. [[spoiler:When she was a toddler, she took a terrible fall that nearly killed her, only to be rescued and bonded with Tsunami. Her young mind couldn't process the tragic events and she reasoned herself into thinking that [[ThatManIsDead Sasami died when she fell]] and that she's nothing more than a vessel for Tsunami. She spent 700 years afraid that if she told Ayeka, she'd hate her. Thankfully, that last bit proved untrue as she revealed her 'past' and both Ayeka and Tenchi (who had been hunting her down after an incident involving everyone spotting Sasami's reflection) revealed that they'd still love her no matter what.]]
* Bleed Kaga from ''Anime/FutureGPXCyberFormula''. He has a best friend named Eiji Aizawa, who was also TheRival. But in one of the races, Kaga made contact with the [[SuperMode Zero Zone]] and crashed with Eiji horribly. Kaga then tried to rescue him while gas was pouring from his wrecked car when suddenly, [[spoiler:the car explodes and the debris from the pipe cuts his forehead and he and Eiji's wife watched helplessly as he burned to his death inside the flaming car.]] This is the reason why he warned Hayato of the Zero Zone in ''ZERO''.
* Birdy Cephon Altera, the title character of ''Manga/BirdyTheMighty'' underwent this as [[spoiler: she's a [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke bioengineered]] SuperSoldier who experienced FantasticRacism as the result of being a member of the HumanAlien species Altan and lost the closest thing she had as a mother when RobotMaid Violin was destroyed in a terrorist attack that Birdy found herself in the middle of when she was 10.]]
* In ''Animation/GuardianFairyMichel'', Kim set out for revenge against Salome after she stole her father's inventions and killed him during the escape.
* Yuto and Kurosaki from ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' are genocide survivors and ChildSoldiers in an [[spoiler: inter-dimensional]] war, during which they lost many friends and allies, including Kurosaki's younger sister. Their entire home city was utterly destroyed [[WarForFunAndProfit for no apparent reason other than the sick entertainment of their assailants]]. To make matters worse, [[spoiler: the war was waged using weaponized Duel Monsters, which in this universe are supposed to be the ultimate source of happiness and entertainment]]. As a result neither of them can see dueling as anything more than a bloody tool of war, and by extension have a hard time feeling ''any'' joy.
** And then there's [[spoiler: Reira]]...
* ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'': Ten years prior to the beginning of the series, Yusaku Fujiki was kidnapped and held hostage for an unknown period time and forced to duel AI duelists if he wanted to eat. Every time he lost, [[ElectricTorture he was electrocuted severely]] and denied food until he won again. Several times he nearly gave up only for a mysterious voice—confirmed to be an eight-year-old Revolver in episode #43—to teach him his "three things" habit as a method of survival. By time he was rescued, the kidnappers had already lost their use for him, and left him with a severe case of PTSD that exists to this day. [[BrokenBird No matter how much he wanted to interact with others, no matter how much therapy he received, Yusaku was plagued with nightmares and mental illnesses-induced stress attacks]]. Now he vows to get {{Revenge}} on those who ruined his life, and knows the path he walks is one of darkness, one he doesn't want to drag others on.
* ''Manga/{{Aruosumente}}'': Almost every member of the main cast has a dark and troubled past, and the further the story progresses, the more is revealed in bits and pieces, all weaving together to form the events of ten years ago:
** Lante and Dante were [[spoiler:refugees taking in by Oracle Kian and the former Emperor just to prevent an enemy kingdom from getting their hands on Dante's fighting abilities, then sent out to certain deaths when Kian decided Dante was uncontrallable]].
** Moeran [[spoiler:saw his beloved teacher killed in connection to Oracle Kian, then got threatened with lifelong imprisonment unless he never tells anyone a word of what happened]].
** Legna, the protagonist, [[spoiler:was supposed to be raised in seclusion but then given to his father to be raised by him, only to lose his father and have to take over his position, without ever being told what actually happened]].
* In ''Manga/Brave10'', Anastasia and her family were shipwrecked in Japan, where her family died and she was sold into sex slavery, then later trained to be a ninja. While looking for the last heirloom of her family, [[spoiler:Hanzo appeared to have it. He then coerced her to join the Iga Grotesque Five and infiltrate the Braves as TheMole. This is also why the concept of 'family' is a BerserkButton for her and what made her hate the easy bonds between the rest of the Braves.]]
* In ''Manhwa/WestwoodVibrato'', many of Cornelia's customers have these. [[spoiler:As well as Cornel herself.]]
* ''Manga/CityHunter'': Ryo, big time. Orphaned at such a young age he doesn't even know his actual birthday? Check. Becoming a Child Soldier to survive being orphaned? Check. Being the initial test subject of the experimental drug Angel Dust, and the only man who has ever recovered from its withdrawal symptoms? Ouch!
* Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins:
** Diane: [[spoiler: A group of Liones knights intended to kill her and Matrona for glory. Although she survived the incident, Diane was made into a scapegoat for the massacre that had happened.]]
** Ban: [[spoiler: Ban's childhood wasn't all that great, and his life before joining the Sins was so bad that he wanted to become immortal to see if anything good would happen in his life.]]
** King: [[spoiler: He failed to save his captured best friend, lost his memory, fell in love with Diane, killed said best friend after having remembered everything, wiped Diane's memories of their common past and came back to the Fairy King's Forest to see it was destroyed and his sister was dead.]]
** Gowther: [[spoiler: He was given a magic heart by his creator. he was found 3000 years later by Baltra's sister and fell in love. Unfortunately her heart gave out on Their First Time. Since he didn't understand human anatomy, he tried to replace her heart with his magic heart. When guards entered, they thought Gowther raped and killed the princess.]]
** Escanor: [[spoiler: He was born a prince, but forsaken and nearly murdered when his powers first manifested. He barely escaped alive and was found by Merlin, at which point Meliodas apparently invited him to join the Sins.]]
** Meliodas: His girlfriend died in front of him. [[spoiler:she was the reincarnation of his girlfriend from 3000 years ago. She was cursed to resurrect, fall in love with him and die within 3 days if she remembered her previous lives. Meliodas on the other hand has been cursed with immortality and loses a bit of himself each time he dies forcing him to relive the loss repeatedly.]]
** Outside of the Sins, Gilthunder saw the murdered body of his father and was forced into not revealing the truth[[spoiler: to keep Margaret safe]].
* Yuliy from ''Anime/TenrouSiriusTheJaeger''. His tribe is decimated by the Vampires and it is made worse when Yuliy watches his mother died in front of him. [[spoiler: When his brother, Mikhail, protects him from the vampires, Yuliy watches him getting slaughtered by the Vampires and thinks that he is dead. It's not until the present day when Yuliy meets with him that he ends up getting turned into a vampire as a result.]]
* Yami's backstory parodies this in ''Manga/BlackClover''. He sums up his backstory as roughly, "I'm from another place. I fell off a boat. I washed up in a foreign land. I beat the crap out of anyone who have me a hard time and adjusted." At least part of this was mocking the {{Big Bad}}'s backstory, which plays this straight. [[spoiler:He was an innocent elf boy who watched everyone he knows and loves get (supposedly) slaughtered by humans at a wedding designed to promote coexistence between them, sparking his centuries-long grudge against humanity.]]
* ''Manga/VampireKnight'': Zero and Kaname both. Zero witnessed his parents murdered at the hands of a pureblood as an 11-year old, next to being bit and transformed by the same pureblood and seeing his twin brother smiling at the scene. Kaname [[spoiler:is an ancestor of vampires who had been alive thousands of years ago along with an unnamed pureblood woman who ended up sacrificing herself for the creation of the vampire hunters and furnace, leaving Kaname to lead the battle between purebloods and the misery of being alone, after which he decided to enter his slumber that was later interrupted by Rido]].
* ''Anime/YokaiWatch'': Several yokai had traumatic death, though most don't tend to think of them much. For example, the CuteKitten mascot Jibanyan was hit by a car [[spoiler:committing a HeroicSacrifice for his owner]] while [[YukiOnna Blizzaria]] was a little girl who got lost in the mountains and froze to death.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In the ''Literature/NightfallSeries'', Prince Vladimir's entire human family was killed as a result of a rebellion gone wrong. However, he never uses it as an excuse for his evilness and is unapologetic about what he has done to humanity.
* Trini in ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'' is an IceQueen, and eventually revealed to [[spoiler: have been tortured and raped by her late husband. Who convinced her elder sister that it was entirely Trini's fault. Her sister in turn convinced Trini of this before their mother came home.]] Fortunately, the husband, Keifer, died in an explosion not long afterwards ... along with several of Trini's sisters. Which gives all the remaining sisters a dark and troubled past. The only ones who are not really affected by it are the young ones who were babies or toddlers at the time.
* Phyllis Hatherley's past is not only mysterious but also shady in ''Literature/TheGhostWriter''. One of story's major plot points is her son's attempts to discover her past right from her childhood.
* The Marquess from ''The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making'' has a very troubled past. [[spoiler: She stumbled into Fairyland when she was 12, lived there for many years, fell in love, became a heroine and queen, and became pregnant. Then she was snatched back into the human world, stuck in a 12 year old's body and with her alcoholic and abusive father, no husband, no child, and no Fairyland.]]
* Oreg from the ''Literature/{{Hurog}}'' duology could be the poster child for this trope. He is something like a ghost, but does have a body, which can feel pain. He has also been a slave to generations of men from a family whose members are known to be frequently violent or insane, or both. Think about the implications. His current owner [[GentleGiant Ward]] also comments that Oreg is "a pretty boy", and he knows what this would have meant to some of his more unsavory ancestors. He also notices that Oreg experiences flashbacks, fueled by magic to be more realistic than the mundane version. Of course, Ward had no happy childhood either, he eventually had to pretend to suffer from [[ObfuscatingStupidity braindamage]] after a beating, as his father would have killed him if he had presented a threat to his father's keeping the power. Ward's younger sister didn't have a happy childhood either, and he helped his brother escape after said brother tried to commit suicide because he couldn't bear it. Their mother is TheOphelia. Many other people in the story don't have happier pasts, but if there were a competition, Oreg would win, as his dark past is longer than any of the others'. And more mysterious.
* Most of the main characters from ''Literature/LoyalEnemies'' haven't lived a life of roses so far:
** Veres was a skilled, talented mage on the verge of handing in his thesis and becoming an archmage. Then the love of his life was suspected of being a crazy necromancer and he refused to be interrogated, believing her to be innocent. [[spoiler:He was tortured for information for days, left the prison as a functional cripple, was banished from the capital, had all of his possessions confiscated and his career thus ruined.]] To top it off, [[TheLostLenore his lover Tairinn was killed by a werewolf]] a week later. If not for his friend [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Gloom]], he'd probably have died right there and then. [[spoiler:The worst part? Tairinn wasn't innocent at all and never loved him, faking her own death.]]
** Werewolf Shelena has her share of bad memories. Among others, [[spoiler:her first child was lynched, she had to leave a man she loved behind because he despised the wolf side of her and wanted her to kill it with an elixir, and she was once captured by an AxCrazy monster hunter and tortured for days before being left to die.]] That's not mentioning all the times she had to leave everything behind because people found out she's a werewolf.
** Rest, Veres' apprentice, was thrown out of his home and by several masters he was apprenticed with, often for no good reason other than that they didn't want to feed another mouth anymore. Veres found him on the verge of dying from falling into the lake in the middle of winter beneath a flight of stairs, while his drunk father was about to beat him for falling in.
** Virra is a seven-year-old half-elf girl who, due to her clan who all have the killing touch, is being shunned by both elves and humans. She lost her family to vicious bird-reptile monsters and has been told so often that she's a monster and worth nothing that she's started to believe it.
* Most of the main characters in T.S.Hana's ''Dawn of Craven: The Alchemist'' fall under this trope.
** Except Joshil.
** The Witch Megiram's servant, Ororo, is implied to have a troubled past, as she lives with the evil woman "by choice". [[spoiler: She chose to live with Megiram as a servant for life over staying with the possibly rich Axel who loved her quite a bit (to the point where he still blushes at seeing her). There had to have been something up.]]
* Wang Sau-leyan in ''Literature/ChungKuo''. He was ugly, fat, clumsy, and treated as a poor sequel to his brothers while he grew up. This is not presented as an excuse for his behavior, but it helps explain it.
* Sajag from ''Literature/DragonQueen'' killed a guy and then had to go into exile away from his family.
* Harry Potter from the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' franchise: both parents murdered before his eyes at age one, nine years living with abusive guardians, being bullied at school by his cousin and his cousin's friends, a dead godfather, a dead mentor, the most evil person in his world has a connection to him, a life and death battle every year, and sometimes his friends turn their backs on him.
** [[spoiler: Dumbledore, who went through the following events in his lifetime: 1) his sister was rendered [[PowerIncontinence magically unstable]] due to being attacked by [[BullyingADragon three]] {{Muggles}}, 2) [[ParentalAbandonment his father was sent to prison for attacking said Muggles,]] 3) his mother was accidentally killed by his unstable sister, 4) he then neglected said sister and spent all his time planning a takeover of the Muggle world [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans ‘for the greater good’]] with his crush Gellert Grindelwald, and 5) he might have accidentally killed his sister in a three-way duel with his brother and Gellert Grindelwald. ([[WordOfGod Rowling says]] [[TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest that what he did while infatuated with Grindelwald turned him asexual]]).]]
** Severus Snape: the neglected and emotionally abused child who fell to TheDarkSide at school and [[TheAtoner then devoted]] [[LoveRedeems the rest of his life]] to [[EccentricMentor Dumbledore's]] cause.
** Neville Longbottom also deserves a mention. Lives with his grandma because his parents were tortured into insanity by Death Eaters and feels that he can never live up to them and has no self confidence at all. He also thought for a long time that he was a squib and only discovered his magical ability by being dropped out of a window.
** Sirius Black, who had (let's count!): 1) a dead best friend, 2) a dead brother, 3) abandoned (disowned) by parents, 4) spent 12 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit (for bonus points, this jail employs [[EmotionEater Dem]][[HopeCrusher entors]] as wardens) , 5) been betrayed by former [[TrueCompanions True Companion]].
* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' has this with Count Olaf, and the entire series could be said to be the dark and troubled past of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny.
* A lot of characters from Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire because Westeros truly is a CrapsackWorld.
** Sandor Clegane killed an innocent peasant boy and laughed about it, however the fandom forgave him as soon as he confided that his older brother Gregor had burnt his face as a child.
* Most of the vampires from ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' seem have dark and troubled last minutes of their '''''human''''' lives; the terrific pain of the transformative venom doesn't help matters.
* Vin from ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}.'' Born the daughter of a skaa (peasant) woman and an Imperial nobleman (a death sentence from the get-go), her earliest memory is of her insane mother killing her little sister [[spoiler: and performing Hemalurgy to transfer some of her soul to Vin]], before being rescued by her older half-brother. Said half-brother genuinely cares about Vin, but he's a cynical, abusive {{Jerkass}} who hammers into her head the idea that she can't trust anyone because everybody is selfish and manipulative. They spend the next several years working as petty thieves on the lowest rung of society, until the half-brother runs out on her, [[spoiler: though it turns out that he was actually captured and executed]], leaving Vin without a protector in a den of scum. Of course, from there, she gets recruited by LaResistance, finds out that she's an ExtraordinarilyEmpoweredGirl, and [[TookALevelInBadass takes a level in badass]], but still. Is it any wonder the poor girl spends most of the trilogy wrestling with crippling paranoia?
* Francis Crawford of Lymond in Dorothy Dunnett's ''Lymond Chronicles''. He's got almost everything: rejection by his father, didn't fit in as a child, betrayed by his early--perhaps first--lover, framed as a traitor, physical and perhaps sexual abuse as a galley prisoner, self-hatred because he blames himself for his sister's death, and pretty much everyone he cares about dies as a result of knowing him.
* Séraphine Francq (Fiancée du Vent): lost her mother at a young age, her father died from the experiment that gave her her powers, was gang-raped by schoolmates, and consequently beat them up so hard that one of them is stuck in a wheelchair for life, giving her remorse...
* Barbie, from Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/UnderTheDome'', has a [[MyGreatestFailure greatest failure]] in the time he [[spoiler: allowed his military unit in Iraq to torture and kill a prisoner for no reason]]. He regrets this for the rest of his life, and his remorse thinking back on it is bad enough [[spoiler: to get an EnergyBeing who sees him as an ant to show pity on him]].
* K.J Parker's ''Literature/TheScavengerTrilogy''. The story revolves around Poldarn's unknown past and worse pasts are few.
* Niall from ''Literature/WickedLovely'': 1. ColdBloodedTorture, 2. RapeAsBackstory, 3. both were orchestrated by the one he loved above all others, 4. inadvertently responsible for the deaths of several mortals. That's not even counting what happens to him ''during'' the series. He is TheWoobie, indeed.
* Harry in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. [[DeathByChildbirth Never knew his mother]], his dad died when he was a kid, bullied at an orphanage, adopted by an abusive EvilMentor who tried to turn him to TheDarkSide, had to kill him in self-defense, arrested by the White Council, barely escaped the death penalty for violating the Laws of Magic, and is still under the Doom of Damocles and being stalked by an InspectorJavert at the beginning of the series. None of this is what makes him a {{woobie}}; he is one because, taking into account the things that happen to him during the actual ''series'', his backstory isn't depressing so much as it's "a ''very small'' taste of what's to come.''
* Jez from the ''Literature/{{Spaceforce}}'' series, a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent space vampire]] whose entire race was almost totally wiped out in a genocidal uprising by their own 'bloodservants' when she was a teenager. The remnants were exiled from their homeworld, and now face fear-based prejudice in a supposedly liberal galactic Union.
* Burke from Creator/AndrewVachss' books. Born to a mother (strongly implied to be a teen prostitute) who promptly abandoned him, brought up through a variety of foster and juvenile homes, and experiencing the worst that humanity has to offer is a very succinct description of his past.
* Since all of the princesses of ''Literature/ThePrincessSeries'' are based mostly on the Grimm Bros. version, they all have this, though some more than others.
* Kieran Trevarde of ''Literature/TheGodEaters'' has a dead mother, some degree of rape and child prostitution, as well as drug addiction in his past, and a dead lover on top of all that at the outset of the novel.
* ''Literature/JaneEyre'':
** YMMV, but Mr. Rochester was betrayed by his greedy father and brother to marry a woman they knew was insane just to get her money, and all the man ever wanted was to find someone to love.
** Jane had one, too. She was orphaned, put into an unloving and abusive home, and sent to an unsanitary boarding school that could barely feed its students. The first friend that she made there died shortly after she arrived, as did most of the other students in a typhoid epidemic.
* Another Charlotte Brontë example: Lucy Snowe in Literature/{{Villette}}.
* Everyone in ''Literature/ThePaleKing'', but Toni Ware especially. She spent her childhood [[spoiler: in perpetual poverty as she and her sometimes-crazy mother drifted around the country. She also saw her mother murdered right in front of her.]]
* In the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' series, there are several:
** Bluestar's mother died when Bluestar was only an apprentice, and [[WellDoneSonGuy her father never really paid much attention to her and her sister]]. Her sister died as a young mother, and Bluestar felt guilty for her death because she'd convinced Snowfur to leave the camp for a little while. She had kits with a [=RiverClan=] cat (a forbidden relationship), but had to give them up in order to become deputy instead of Thistleclaw, and one died.
** Crookedstar sustained a disfiguring injury as a kit. Because his shallow mother couldn't stand having such an ugly kit, she [[TheUnfavorite neglected him, favored his brother]], and renamed him Crookedkit for his injury. As he grew up, many of the cats he was close to died.
** Yellowfang, a medicine cat, had kits with the Clan leader (another forbidden relationship). Two of them died, and the one that lived became cruel and bloodthirsty, killing his own father and taking leadership, breaking the warrior code by [[InvasionOfTheBabySnatchers stealing kits from other Clans]], and even murdering kits from his own Clan and framing Yellowfang.
* The Literature/InDeath series: Eve was abandoned by her mother, raped by her father (who impregnated her mother with the sole intention of selling her to child molesters), killed him in self-defense, and then had to handle at least one abusive foster parent as she grew up in the system. Roarke was regularly beaten up by his father and non-biological mother, had to steal for his father, and even though Summerset took him in, they lost Marlena, Summerset's daughter, to a group of rapists. Dr. Mira watched her parents divorce, her mother remarry, and was sexually abused by her stepfather to the point of being DrivenToSuicide (fortunately, she survived). Boy, these three had it rough, didn't they?
* Kvothe from ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'' had his entire troupe die, lived homeless for three years, got kicked out of the only place he felt he belonged after the death of his troupe...and that's just what we know so far.
* In ''Literature/HeartsBlood'', Anluan’s entire family history, all the way back to his great-grandfather, Nechtan, [[spoiler:who had an evil summoning spell go VERY wrong]].
** Caitrin’s isn’t exactly bright and cheery either. Her father’s dead, her sister married and left her, and a distant relative took over the house and allowed her son to beat Caitrin when he felt like it.
** The members of the host are all souls from Purgatory. Some of them seem to have particularly violent pasts.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'':
** Tobias. His natural father had to leave, and he was given a fake father, who then left himself. His mother was in an accident and didn't even remember him, besides being blind. He was bounced among aunts and uncles who didn't really care about him and became a bully magnet.
** Marco. The disappearance of his mother and the subsequent split of his family caused him to become more cynical and, in effect, more ruthless and pragmatic and less attached to romantic, idealistic principles. [[spoiler: To make matters worse, one of the {{Big Bad}}s has possessed his mother.]]
* Fisk from the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries''. He took up crime to support help support his sisters after they lost both parents to disease. When his oldest sister marries someone who could take care of them, he decided Fisk alone couldn't stay, becuase he didn't want to be associated with a criminal. And that's ignoring everything involving Jack Bannister.
* In Creator/DevonMonk's ''Literature/DeadIron'', Cedar's brother Wil dragged him west after the loss of his wife and children. Then they went on the wrong land and were {{curse}}d into [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] form. Cedar came to find himself at the end of a bloody trail, and backtracked to find his brother's wolf corpse, its throat torn out by himself.
* In Creator/GeneStrattonPorter's ''Literature/{{Freckles}}'', Freckles does not remember his dark and troubled past, but knows it happened:
-->''Does it seem to you that anyone would take a newborn baby and row over it, until it was bruised black, cut off its hand, and [[DoorStopBaby leave it out in a bitter night on the steps of a charity home]], to the care of strangers? That's what somebody did to me.''
* While the ''Literature/AuntDimity'' series is generally upbeat, many characters have had brushes with insanity, tragic accidents, serious diseases, major injuries, even war and murder. In some cases, coping with the fallout occurs over an extended period (often carrying over from one book to the next). The fates of other, more minor characters are addressed in the epilogue that closes each novel; they typically go about rebuilding their lives, and are usually better off after all is revealed.
* Both main characters of ''Literature/GivesLight''. Skylar had his mother murdered in front of him when he was five. Her murderer realized he was in the room and slashed his throat. Skylar didn't die, but now he's irreversibly mute. To top this all off, his one dream in life is to be a singer. And then you have Rafael, son of said serial killer. Everyone equates him with his father and he has no friends. Until he meets Skylar.
* Vulpie in ''Literature/AFoxTail'' has a particularly dark one, almost to the point of parody, beaten and shot by his birth father at 5, raped by a priest at 12, beaten by another foster parent for being gay... A psychologist strongly believes that it's his reason for hacking the known universe, but Polar helps him grow out of it.
* In Creator/SarahAHoyt's ''Literature/DarkshipThieves'', Kit's wife died, and it looks like he murdered her, and he refuses to clear his name [[spoiler:out of, it turns out, fear that other dark elements of his past will turn up]].
* ''Literature/LegacyOfTheDragokin'': All of Kthonian Knights have one; the three girls were kidnapped and raped by truly evil men and the guy had his hands cut off and left for dead for deserting the Leondian army. All of them function as a FreudianExcuse except for the last one. The only thing ''his'' past does is make him angst about how he can no longer truly embrace his precious little sister.
* Literally every character in ''Literature/TheSisterVerseAndTheTalonsOfRuin'', but it's by design. The villain creates their reality for the express purpose of making them miserable.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/StormOverWarlock'', Shann Lantee was a StreetUrchin. The only affection he got during that time was from a pet bird, that died in pain. He was at least once tortured with an AgonyBeam by a bully. And he saw people under mind-control -- a fact which he blurts out to Thorvald; that deeply embarrasses him, because it underscores how unlike the standard Survey team member's life his has been.
* Jace Wayland from ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'', saw his father, Michael Wayland, murdered in a pool of his own blood. [[spoiler:That was staged, of course. And Michael Wayland was never his father]].
* ''Literature/ThePowerOfFive'': Played straight with Matt, Pedro, Jamie, and Scott. Subverted with Scarlett, whose had the nicest life out of all five Gatekeepers.
* ''Literature/HostileTakeoverSwann'': Klaus and Jonah Dacham were raised by an abusive mother, who often threatened them with their [[ParentalAbandonment absent]] and nameless father. They joined the secret police to escape her, and were groomed to commit atrocies, peaking in Jonah's massacre of 35,000 rebels and innocent bystanders on Perdition.
* In Creator/WenSpencer's Literature/UkiahOregon series, Ukiah was abandoned in the woods to run with the wolves [[spoiler:before that, Magic Boy was brutally murdered, eventually creating Ukiah and Atticus]]. Atticus Steele was another foundling. The foster parents who would have adopted him died in a car wreck and he was passed from foster home to foster home throughout his childhood. Max Bennett's wife disappeared mysteriously while he was on a speaking tour, only to turn up at the bottom of a lake from a car wreck.
* Both Greg and Emma from the novel ''Literature/FortHope'' have troubled pasts. They come to find out their dark and troubled pasts are linked. Of course, in that book, almost {{everyone is related}} somehow.
* Samantha Cataranes from ''Literature/TheNexusSeries'' has a particularly unpleasant past. It is strongly implied during the first book that her experiences drove her to revile "Transhuman" technology and join the ERD as soon as she was old enough.
* There are eight main characters in ''Literature/OfFearAndFaith'' and each one has experienced either a crappy, abuse-filled childhood or a life-altering, emotionally scarring tragedy. To put it in perspective, the character who lost his father when his [[DoomedHometown hometown was destroyed]] probably has the least depressing backstory.
* A large part of ''Literature/DamnatioMemoriae'' is the reader waiting to find out what happened in Enim's past that had caused him to become so withdrawn and troubled. It's then revealed that [[spoiler: his mother jumped off a bridge, survived but is now in a vegetative state being kept alive by his uncle, and Enim could have stopped her. Oh, and she had schizophrenia and Enim most likely has it, too.]]
* ''Literature/TheInfernalDevices'':
** Will Herondale. Or at least, he alludes to one quite often.
** Jem Carstairs. [[spoiler:A demon who had a grudge against his mother tortured him in front of his parents, injecting him over and over with a drug that made him hallucinate vividly.]]
* The stepmother of the Snow White retelling ''Literature/SixGunSnowWhite'', Mrs. H, had quite the terrible childhood if the mirror is to be believed.
* In ''Literature/HeartOfSteel'', both Alistair and Julia have their own traumatic pasts, over which they ultimately bond:
** Alistair--back before he ''was'' Alistair--was in a car accident that left him badly mutilated and his girlfriend in a coma. Because he was a robotic genius even then, he rebuilt himself out of metal parts over the course of five years, only to discover when he went to visit his girlfriend that her parents had had to take her off life support the week before. Cue psychotic break.
** Julia was attacked at the hospital where she worked and nearly killed by a deranged junkie looking for drugs. The incident left her with PTSD, unable to go back to work due to panic attacks.
* In Jeramey Kraatz's ''Literature/TheCloakSociety'',
** Mallory. she has no memories of before she was six and came to Cloak, despite telepathy efforts to get past her trauma; she has been told that she killed her parents with her powers. [[spoiler:Actually, Cloak murdered them and erased her memories.]]
** Kirbie and Kyle are less troubled, because of the {{Parental Substitute}}s they had in the Rangers. Nevertheless, when Kirbie recounts how their parents had brought them to the city on a vacation, left them in a park on the pretense of getting ice cream, and never returned, it was still clearly painful for her.
* Most of the characters in the novels by Creator/MichaelSlade.
* Noir, from the web serial ''Literature/{{Barkwire}}'', a dog who "has buried more secrets than bones."
* Colin Whisterfield, in Creator/AlanGarner's novel ''Literature/{{Boneland}}''. It is progressively revealed throughout the book that before he was thirteen, he:
** was possibly abducted and sexually abused by a man and a woman;
** lost his parents to a plane crash;
** lost his twin sister in mysterious circumstances - she went horse-riding by night, and only the horse was found; it is assumed she was thrown in the waters of a lake and drowned;
** was struck by lightning while alone in the hills, suffering brain damage that went undetected until an MRI scan in later adulthood.
* In Robin Jarvis' ''Literature/DeptfordMice'' trilogy, Thomas Triton is haunted by feelings of guilt for being responsible for the death of his friend Woodget Pipple. In the prequel book ''Thomas'', which describes the incident in detail, it is revealed that [[spoiler:the villainous Ma Skillet put him into a trance, causing him to throw Woodget (who could not swim) into the ocean. When he awoke from the trance, he realised what he had done and was filled with remorse. However, unbeknownst to him, Woodget was rescued by a siren whose song gave him amnesia. He was brought to the City of Hara in India and became their new sadhu.]]
* In ''Literature/TheDinosaurLords'':
** As a child, Karyl saw his immediate family being eaten alive by a wild dinosaur. As if that wasn't traumatic enough, soon afterwards his aunt kicked him out of the country to take over his family lands, leaving hism with nothing but a pair of trousers and his pet allosaurus Shiraa. He managed to climb out of it, though - he spent years serving as a mercenary on Shiraa's back until he amassed an army of his own and took his country back.
** Falk's father is said to have been extremely abusive, to the point that Falk still has nightmares about him and has o tell himself that the man can't hurt him anymore. He ended up pushing his father off the stairs, killing him, on orders of his mother, who's equally abusive, although in a [[WellDoneSonGuy different way]].
* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'':
** Eric's initially low self-confidence and self-esteem is due to his past but it is mild compared to some of the people he meets.
** Kallen Selios is a survivor of the Siduban Chaos Explosion and her parents were not. She was adopted by her mom's business partner because her remaining blood family was afraid of her mutation. Since then she has faced discrimination for being a demon and a "labrat".
** Zettai's parents were abusive, and after they died, she was homeless and vagrant. She traveled constantly to evade Ceiha's secret police because she was a courier in the magical black market. Then they eventually caught her and bad things happened to her behind bars. When Nolien shines an Illumination Orb over her at night, her automatic response is to shout "I'm innocent! Please don't arrest me!"
* In ''Literature/AllForTheGame'', the Foxes tend to have these. The team is set up as something of a halfway house to give promising athletes second chances.
* ''Literature/JamesBond'': 007's parents were killed during a climbing accident in the French Alps when he was eleven.
* Nikita from ''Literature/TheGirlFromTheMiraclesDistrict'' has spent her entire life running with her mother away from her insane father, all while dear old mom had her assist with assassinations and training her to be a killer - on pain of not getting any food if she failed a task. And when Nikita's father got to her, he kidnapped her, tortured and cut off two of her fingers, just because.
* ''Lierature/TheWitchlands'':
** Iseult has ran away from home shortly after Corlant started taking unhealthy interest in her mother, and nearly died when she was discovered by a Carawen monk. She had to leave the monastery as well, and then almost died again before Safi saved her and they became Threadsisters. All the time, she had to manage the copious amounts of FantasticRacism that all Nomatsi face - in the Dalmotti Empire, they're considered animals.
** Aeduen apparently used to live in a Nomatsi settlement before something happened that made him terrified of fire, killed his mother and caused him to flee. He was found by a Carawen monk and joined the monastery, but was ostracized there for being a Bloodwitch. At some point later, his father roped him into his schemes and convinced him that Aeduan should accept being a demon other people see him as.
** Cam [[spoiler:grew up in a gang, and his brother wanted him to become another gangster. Adding to that, he's biologically a woman, and everyone in the Nines think that he's just pretending to be a boy for laughs. He joined the Navy to escape the life of crime, but it caught up with him anyway.]]
* ''Literature/TheSpiritThief'': While all three main characters have some degree of this going on, Nico takes the cake. As a young child, she was kidnapped by slavers and sold to the Dead Mountain cult, where she grew to be Master's worshipper by the way of Stockholm Syndrome. She was eventually implanted with a demonseed and sent out to murder everything - until the League of Storms beat her within an inch of her life and the Master abandoned her, took his powers away and told her she's a failure and should die. If it wasn't for Josef appearing at a fortunate moment, she absolutely would have.
* ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'': Jedao has some messed-up events in his past, such as [[spoiler:his superior raping him, him and his fellow agents being bombed by their own allies (with the other agent dying)]] and the Hellspin Massacre, when he had a psychotic break and ended up killing one million people on both sides of the conflict.
* In ''Literature/RiverOfTeeth'', Houndstooth used to be a hippo rancher, the most talented at breeding hippos in all of the United States. He'd worked for fifteen years to save up the money to buy his own ranch. [[spoiler:It was burned down by Cal Hotchkiss who was working for Travers by that point and was eager to impress Adelia Reyes. Houndstooth had to watch dozens of his beloved hippos burn alive, which set him on a downwards spiral until he met Archie and decided to live his life for his sole remaining hippo Ruby.]]
* ''Literature/SurvivorDogs'':
** Lucky was abused by his previous owner, which caused him to become a stray dog.
** Alpha was ostracized by his wolf pack due to being the offspring of a dog and a wolf. This led to a lot of bullying growing up.
** Sweet was a neglected racing Greyhound who was abandoned after she became "too old".
* Gillian Flynn's ''Literature/DarkPlaces'' has Libby Day, who saw her mom and two sisters murdered when she was seven years old. She then testified against her older brother, Ben, who got life in prison. Then she grew up being bounced around distant relatives and foster homes, eventually alienated her aunt Diane (the only close family she had left), never got a job or got over the murders, and "grew into a deeply unloveable adult."
--> "Draw a picture of my soul and it would be a scribble with fangs."
* Both Tailchaser and Roofshadow have similar pasts in ''Literature/TailchasersSong''. They're both the {{Sole Survivor}}s of their families. Tailchaser's mother and siblings mysteriously vanished several months ago when he was a kitten. Roofshadow's trauma is even worse. She came home to find everyone in her ''entire clan'' either vanished or savagely torn apart (including her favorite brother and OnlyFriend Snufflenose).
* In Morgan Ray Hess's ''Literature/{{Rainbow}}'', both of the main leads had ''[[UpToEleven very]]'' tragic and traumatic childhoods.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{TheBeastLegion}}'' Fyre constantly goes through this syndrome until she meets Xeus & unveils here [[http://www.thebeastlegion.com/issue-10-page-18-her-story-begins/ tragic past]].

The step-up of this trope is the DysfunctionJunction, where ''the whole cast'' will have one of these and suffer from it, too (and don't expect them to get better). If the afflicted character is in a law enforcement profession, see StandardCopBackstory. When paired with a NiceGuy or gal with a [[UpbringingMakesTheHero happy upbringing]], you can expect...''[[VitriolicBestBuds interesting]]'' [[ActionDuo results]].

* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman:'' Almost every main character has shades of this, but the majority of them weren't incredibly influenced by it. Princess Carolyn was already an independent, hard-worker, regardless of her mother who'd get so drunk, she'd have to send PC to do her work for her; Diane Nguyen was implied to always having been a determined girl, her dysfunctional family simply amping her anxiety; Todd was already lackadaisical before getting kicked out of his house... for being lazy.

-->'''Mr. Peanutbutter:''' The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. [[AntiNihilist The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning.]] It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead.

-->'''Beatrice Horseman:''' You ruined my life, you know that?

-->'''Sarah Lynn:''' [[StepfordSmiler I know I'm smiling right now, but the light inside me is dying.]]

** After waking up from a 10,000 year cryogenic sleep, one of the first thing Allura finds out is that her entire planet was destroyed along with her entire species, including her parents. So...yeah...
** And then there's Keith, who grew up [[GiveHimANormalLife believing his mother had willingly abandoned]] him, lost [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest his father]] at a young age, and spent much of his childhood [[FriendlessBackground alone and unloved]]. When he finally made one friend, he later received word that he had died on a space mission (see first example for what really happened). And then he got expelled from SpaceCadetAcademy and lived alone in the desert for a year. DeusAngstMachina, indeed.