History Main / FantasticAngst

This is often used to avoid UnfortunateImplications or make the show DarkerAndEdgier; it can also be used to make a work more acceptable to MoralGuardians. Typically, the focus is on the suffering rather than the cause; for audience members, this makes the character sympathetic by showing that their life isn't perfect, and while the cause of their {{angst}} may be very different from the audience members' own situations, the emotion generated is similar to all -- too -- common RealLife situations.

* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', ComicBook/{{Superboy}} has parental issues and lack of parental bonding due to the fact that he is [[CloningBlues a clone]] of Franchise/{{Superman}}, who is also [[ThatThingIsNotMyChild having a hard time coping with this fact]].

* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Asuka's mother's [[spoiler:soul was "sucked" into a giant robot]]. As a result, she [[spoiler: confused her daughter with a doll and committed suicide.]] \\

** Also, Rei. Not all withdrawn teenage girls with little social skills are that way because they were [[spoiler:[[ArtificialHuman created]] as a [[ApocalypseMaiden tool]] to end the world, infused with a soul that once belonged to the [[EldritchAbomination progenitor of humanity]] and raised in a cold, sterile lab with the knowledge that there are clones to replace her even if she dies]], but many of them can still empathize with Rei's feelings of loneliness and insignificance, her feeling of being "different from everyone else" and her problems to communicate her feelings - Some scenes from her life look remarkably like those of authentic outcast teenaged girls who were shunned for "mundane" reasons like being a geek, being shy or IntelligenceEqualsIsolation might encounter, like the way her classmates talk about her, the way she reads science books in a corner and how she is mistreated by more popular girls like Asuka.

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', the title character is an orphan because his parents were killed by an evil vampire (probably) with a magical curse.
* Ida from ''Literature/ShamanOfTheUndead'' angsts because her parents want to send her to magical academy and marry her off to some important wizard so that she can bear him magical children. Problem 1, she wants to study {{Muggle}} psychology. Problem 2, she has no magical gift whatsoever.

* ''WebComic/MSPaintAdventures''
** ''WebComic/{{Homestuck}}'''s Rose Lalonde develops an alcohol problem at two points in the comic, once because she's stuck in a BadFuture and the other time because she's anxious about seeing an AlternateDimension version of her mother.
** ''WebComic/ProblemSleuth'' sees Ace Dick lose his wife to crime, pursue vengeance until his son leaves him for his own crusade, end up lost and alone in a horrid swamp and having lost everything he values in his life, takes his own life. This all happened in an intense game of [[TabletopGame/{{GameOfLife}} Life]] with the [[ChessWithDeath Grim Reaper]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', ComicBook/{{Superboy}} has parental issues and lack of parental bonding due to the fact that he is [[CloningBlues a clone]] of Franchise/{{Superman}}, who is also [[ThatThingIsNotMyChild having a hard time coping with this fact]].

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''
** Steven, a human-alien hybrid, grapples with mixed feelings about [[MissingMom his (alien) mother]], who gave up her physical form so that he could be born.
** Steven's parental figures feel like they're failing him because they feel desperately unprepared and have no idea if they're raising him right/the way his mother would have wanted; no other HalfHumanHybrids exist and they don't know how to help him balance his Gem traits with his human traits.

SubTropes include:

This is often used to avoid UnfortunateImplications or make the show DarkerAndEdgier; it can also be used to make a work more acceptable to MoralGuardians. Typically, the focus is on the suffering rather than the cause; for audience members, this makes the character sympathetic by showing that their life isn't perfect, and while the cause of their {{angst}} may be very different from the audience members' own situations, the emotion generated is similar to all - too - common RealLife situations.

Subtropes include:

* In ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'', Fate Testarossa was abused by her mother because she [[spoiler: was a clone of Precia Testarosa's daughter. Her "mother" is only using her to resurrect her dead sister.]]

** Also, Rei. Not all withdrawn teenaged girls with little social skills are that way because they were [[spoiler:[[ArtificialHuman created]] as a [[ApocalypseMaiden tool]] to end the world, infused with a soul that once belonged to the [[EldritchAbomination progenitor of humanity]] and raised in a cold, sterile lab with the knowledge that there are clones to replace her even if she dies]], but many of them can still empathize with Rei's feelings of loneliness and insignificance, her feeling of being "different from everyone else" and her problems to communicate her feelings - Some scenes from her life look remarkably like those of authentic outcast teenaged girls who were shunned for "mundane" reasons like being a geek, being shy or IntelligenceEqualsIsolation might encounter, like the way her classmates talk about her, the way she reads science books in a corner and how she is mistreated by more popular girls like Asuka.

* ''Literature/{{Pact}}'' has Evan Matthieu, the ghost of a child who died of exposure while fleeing a goblin, who later gains the ability to shapeshift into a sparrow with [[OpenAndShut magic lockpicking powers]] after becoming a wizard's {{Familiar}}. He expresses that he's kind of ''glad'' that he died (being hunted by goblins is hellish), misses his parents and friends (who he can't talk to, being a ghost) and regrets that he never got to finish several video games (he gets help in this from a friend who agrees to push the buttons while he struggles with the joystick).

** ''WebComic/{{Homestuck}}'''s Rose Lalonde develops an alcohol problems at two points in the comic, once because she's stuck in a BadFuture and the other time because she's anxious about seeing an AlternateDimension version of her mother.

** Toph was born blind, and as a result her parents still see her as helpless and needing to be locked away for her protection, even though her DisabilitySuperpower didn't stop her from becoming the strongest earthbender in history.

** Katara and Sokka both long for parental affection because a firebender killed their mother and their father had to go deep into the Serpent's Pass to defend the Earth Kingdom.

** Aang lost everyone he'd ever known due to being cryogenically frozen, including the only mentor he ever had. As if that weren't enough, because he is the reincarnation of the Avatar, it's his responsibility to keep the balance between the nations. He doesn't actually angst as much as you might expect, though.

This is often used for GettingCrapPastTheRadar, but in addition to avoiding MoralGuardians, it can also be used to avoid UnfortunateImplications or make the show DarkerAndEdgier. Typically, the focus is on the suffering rather than the cause; for audience members, this makes the character sympathetic by showing that their life isn't perfect, and while the cause of their {{angst}} may be very different from the audience members' own situations, the emotion generated is similar to all - too - common RealLife situations.

** Both Dumbledore and Snape had flirtations with extremism as teenagers which, in turn, got someone they loved (sister and best friend/unrequited crush) killed. The extremism they got involved with just happened to be magical in nature, not the kind you'd see in real life, such as being a Nazi or terrorist (although the groups they were in had [[ANaziByAnyOtherName very similar beliefs and methods]] to real far-rightists.

** Both Dumbledore and Snape had flirtations with extremism as teenagers which, in turn, got someone they loved (sister and best friend/unrequited crush) killed. The extremism they got involved with just happened to be magical in nature, not the kind you'd see in real life, such as being a Nazi or terrorist.
** Ginny's plot in the second book is that of an impressionable young girl who's recently been through a huge life change and having a hard time adjusting (moving from a home where she has six older brothers to keep her company to a boarding school where they all have other things to do) falling prey to an older, manipulative boy. Said older boy just happens to have gone to school fifty years previously and is doing the preying from a magical diary that contains a piece of his soul.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', the title character is an orphan because his parents were killed by an evil wizard with a magical curse. To make matters worse, he gets sent to live with unloving relatives because they're his closest living family and it's the only way to maintain the protective spell created by his mother's HeroicSacrifice.