History Main / TroubledFetalPosition

* ''Music/PinkFloyd: Music/TheWall'' is fond of this.
* Raymond from ''Film/RainMan'' has periods of this.

* Up until ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' 1998, if the player had Yuri Sakazaki in their team and she was defeated, she'd be seen in this position in the background.

* ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'': Flippy in "Double Whammy" after coming out of his AxCrazy state and discovering himself to be covered in the intestines of one of his friends.

* ''Literature/{{Siren}}'': [[spoiler:When Simon and Vanessa find Caleb, he's hiding from Zara in a truck, curled in a ball.]]

* The members of the Beauty and Beast corps that Snake fights in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' are female soldiers [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed into perfect soldiers]] [[ChildSoldier from an early age]] so that war is all they know. If Snake manages to defeat them nonlethally with his tranquilizer gun, they curl up into a fetal position on the ground, having been forced to face the horrors of their past.

** In ''Mountain with a Steel Heart'' Violet is mostly seen sitting like this.

** In ''[[ComicBook/Supergirl1972 a classic issue]]'', Linda does this after learning that one of her professors is dying.

* Franchise/{{Superman}}:

* ''WebAnimation/TheAmazingDigitalCircus'': At the end of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-AT42lYGBg main theme song video]], Pomni goes insane, curls up on the floor, and starts rocking back and forth.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In the ''VideoGame/SilverSurfer'' NES game, a picture of Silver Surfer in this position is shown when you lose a life. As WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd said, "this image will be burnt into your retina".

[[caption-width-right:233:Alice is not having a good day. Someone (likely Marisa) stole her precious thing.]]

* Bella spends nearly the ''entire book'' of ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} New Moon]]'' in this state after [[spoiler:Edward breaks up with her]]. According to WordOfGod, [[spoiler:Edward]] also spent most of this time curled up in a fetal position hating the world, before his [[spoiler:suicide attempt]].

* One of the scenarios in ''Play with Me'' shows the doll grabbing the stuffed monkey and going into the Troubled Fetal Position.

* We first meet the transformed Stuart in this position in ''The Jade Box''.
* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': What essentially happens to [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-096 SCP-096]] after a '''27 hour''' fight with [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-682 SCP-682]].
* Putting someone in "Position Latérale de Sécurité" (or "PLS" for short), which means "Recovery Position" is a popular euphemism on the French parts of the Web, meaning someone was just spectacularly owned and now feels really uncomfortable.

-->'''Julian:''' *while crying* I'm ''not'' crying!

* Sakura's GameOver animation in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'', although she squats instead of sitting. [[TheWoobie Also, awww.]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': What essentially happens to [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-096 SCP-096]] after a '''27 hour''' fight with [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-682 SCP-682]].

[[caption-width-right:233:Alice is not having a good day. Someone stole her precious thing.]]

* In ''Film/ALittlePrincess1995'', Sara goes into the troubled fetal position whenever she's in her new room in the dirty attic. [[spoiler:Her dad supposedly died so she's forced to work as a servant]].
** The first time, she curls up in the middle of a "magic circle" she drew on the floor to try to feel safe.

* Drew Barrymore's character in ''Film/EverAfter'' does this occasionally, most notably towards the end where she is sitting in the rain, still in her ball gown [[spoiler: after being publicly humiliated by Prince Henry]].
* Film/FridayThe13th2009'': As she listens to an injured Lawrence begging for help, a sobbing Bree curls up into a ball and puts her hands against her ears to try and block out the sound.

* Unsurprisingly occurs in ''Film/RequiemForADream'' as things go downhill for the main characters; Marion's most notable variation - huddled in a bathtub, head underwater, screaming - was a frame-for-frame recreation of the scene in ''Perfect Blue''. The film itself actually concludes with a montage of all four main characters assuming this position: [[spoiler: Harry in a prison hospital, having just lost an arm to infection; Marion alone and clutching her stash of heroin, having been forced to participate in a humiliating sex show for drugs; Tyrone in a prison cell, going through a very painful withdrawal; and last but not least, Sarah Goldfarb in a mental hospital, slowly retreating into her fantasies following a disastrous ECT procedure.]]
* Used a good deal and doubly justified in ''Film/TheElephantMan''. The title character even sleeps like this. [[spoiler:If he doesn't, he'll die.]]

* Evey in ''Film/VForVendetta'' does this a lot when she is [[spoiler:captured, imprisoned and tortured by the fake government which turns out to be V himself.]]
* Vesper does this in a ShowerOfAngst in ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006''. Originally she was supposed to be in her underwear in the scene, but she argued that, traumatized from seeing Bond killing several people, she wouldn't have stopped to get undressed.
* In [[Creator/DavidCronenberg Cronenberg's]] ''Film/DeadRingers'', Beverly does the "rocking back and forth" variation at one point.
* Another Cronenberg film, ''Film/TheFly1986'', has Veronica curl up in her bed into this position after she has a terrifying nightmare where she gives birth to [[FetusTerrible a gargantuan maggot]] in the hospital.
* Bruce Banner in ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk2008'' enters this after a particularly nasty FlashbackEcho hits him when he's in the shower.
* In the spirit of one-upmanship and outdoing the rest of this list, ''Film/ASerbianFilm'' has Milos have one after learning that [[spoiler:he was drugged and made to rape and kill people, including his own son, he was raped himself, and all of it was filmed for a snuff director's entertainment]] after which we get a ShowerOfAngst shot with him in the fetal position in the shower. Eventually this leads to him killing himself.

* In ''Film/ReAnimator'' Dan drops to the floor and curls up after their first (and second) attempt at bringing a human back to life goes horribly, horribly wrong.

* ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'': At the underground fight arena, Pikachu decides to kick the butt of the Charizard he's fighting...[[OhCrap only to find out that he has to fight a Charizard hyped up on R Gas]]. After failing to get Tim to "get me the [[PrecisionFStrike hell]] out of here!" and realizing that he's forgotten how to use his moves, he curls up into a fetal position, squeaking, "Pika Pika..."