History Main / WhatHaveIBecome

* ''Series/AnotherWorld'''s Paulina did this, upset at her failure to lose her pregnancy weight.

* As does ''Series/MelrosePlace'''s Amanda after cheating on her husband. Despite this being a reaction to his own adultery, she fully realized that two wrongs did not make a right.

* In the ''Invasion'' block novels of ''MagicTheGathering'', the leader of the Shivan dragons, Darigaaz, becomes slowly corrupted by the other Primeval dragons, until he completely joins them in their destructive rampage. Another character eventually snaps him out of it, leading to this moment.

!!Examples

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* Cybermen in ''Series/DoctorWho''. Realising who they are and what they have become causes them to die of shock. Or explode.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Thine Own Self", Data (afflicted with [[AmnesiaDanger amnesia]] and believing himself to be one of the locals) reacts with shock when [[RoboticReveal an injury reveals circuitry under his skin]].

* Poor, poor [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Owen Harper]]. [[spoiler:Suicide doesn't work if you're dead]].
* Four of the Final Five Cylons were revealed at the end of Season 3 of ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''. All were ardent resistance members dead set on killing every damn toaster there is. You can imagine how discovering they are what they hate has made them react, knowing that if they reveal themselves to their human friends they'll be lucky to be put in a cell and par for the course to be shoved out an airlock. [[spoiler:Even so, they still want to help humanity even though they are no longer human, prompting Tigh to say the page quote.]] [[spoiler:Well, maybe not [[TranshumanTreachery Tory]].]]
** One of the first and most heartbreaking instances in the series is Boomer, a Cylon saboteur with a SplitPersonality that [[spoiler: [[EnemyWithin actively tried to damage the Galactica]]. Leading up to this was a season long series of hints that lead her and chief Tyrol (ironically, he was [[SchrodingersGun also a Cylon]]) to suspect she was a Cylon. She was near suicide by the end of Season 1, and attempted it [[DrivenToSuicide by Baltar's "helpful" pep talk]]. She botched it, and after meeting a Basestar full of her [[FanService nude duplicates]], she [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone shot Adama]]. In season 2, she resurrects among her fellow Cylons and has a great deal of trouble adjusting, but manages to start a movement to reconcile both her people and humans. [[EnemyCivilWar It did not end well.]]]]
* On ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', both Dr. Mohinder Suresh and Peter Petrelli go through this in Season 3. Mohinder [[spoiler:has [[ProfessorGuineaPig injected himself with an experimental and flawed superpowers formula]], which seems to be turning him into The Fly, while Peter has acquired not only Sylar's ability to understand [[strike:the plot]] how things work, but also Sylar's uncontrollable compulsion to cut open peoples heads and steal their brains.]]
** As of season 3 episode 24, Sylar's new power of [[spoiler:shapeshifting]] in combination with his [[spoiler:ability to pick up past information from objects he touches and emotions from people he touched]] has worsened his identity crisis by starting to [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity drive him insane]]. [[spoiler:He finds himself involuntarily and uncontrollably shapeshifting, first only in his sleep, later even while awake, triggered he touched the blood on the clothes of his dead mother and absorbed her DNA and memories. Now when alone he alternates between his own form and that of his mother, complete with [[GollumMadeMeDoIt Gollum-like]] external [[TalkingToThemself monologues/dialogues]] between the two personalities.]] To say Sylar's not happy about it is to put it mildly.
* ''[[Series/StargateSG1 SG-1]]''

** Daniel also has a moment like this after realizing what he's done at the end of ''Absolute Power''. This being [[spoiler: the Daniel in the reality where that never happened and was AllJustADream. The other one knew exactly what he'd become, he just didn't care.]]
* At the beginning of the second season of ''Series/BabylonFive'', Delenn has just finished transforming inside her chrysalis...and after she emerges, she has this reaction because she thinks the transformation has gone wrong. Thankfully, it turns out there's one final step to the process.
* In the aftermath of [[spoiler:the flooding of the underground city]] in ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD''. Skye deals with this as [[spoiler:her telekinetic earthquake powers [[PowerIncontinence begin to manifest]]]]. This is not helped by the forced reveal to the others when Lady Sif and a Kree soldier show up. The reactions of the team are mixed, with Coulson, May, and Fitz being the most supportive.

* As does ''Series/MelrosePlace'''s Amanda after cheating on her husband. Despite this being a reaction to his own adultery, she fully realized that two wrongs did not make a right.
* ''Series/AnotherWorld'''s Paulina did this, upset at her failure to lose her pregnancy weight.

* In the original ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' Kratos says 'By the gods, what have I become?'

* In ''[[FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins Origins]]'', a ''MassEffect''[=/=]''StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]''[=/=]''[=Halo=]'']] MassiveMultiplayerCrossover, an ex-Cerberus Phantom discusses this trope with an Alliance soldier who happens upon herself and her friend. Partway through the process of being turned into a Phantom, she had second thoughts, but given that this is [[BadBoss Cerberus]] we're talking about it became an UnwillingRoboticization after that since once you're in, you don't leave. She gained DeathSeeker tendencies as a result.

* Heartbreakingly in ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'', the creators decided they wanted to show an incredibly human side of a character who, yes, we already know had HiddenDepths and was, to many people (including this troper), [[UnintentionallySympathetic]], but wasn't ''amazingly'' three-dimensional up until only minutes before their death. [[spoiler: That character is Sarah Lynn, known best for being a FormerChildStar who looked up to [=BoJack=] as a [[ParentalSubstitute pseudo-dad]] due to her unexplained DisappearedDad and implied [[PaedoHunt sexually abusive step-dad]]. She experiences this trope during a six-week bender with [=BoJack=] after learning she'd won an Oscar for Best Original Song. She realized in that moment that fame didn't make her happy, that nothing she had or did made her happy – she may have been rich, she may have been a recognizable face, but she hadn't been ''happy'' since she was a child. The viewers receive a HopeSpot during this moment, as she'd been dropping hints throughout the episode that she may pursue her childhood dream of being an architect, only to be crushed. [=BoJack=] takes her to the planetarium, the place she'd been suggesting they go to since the beginning of their bender, and she revealed the real reason she liked the planetarium was because she admired domed buildings. Her final words also acted as a HopeSpot, reiterating that she wants to be an architect, just to turn into a HeelFaceDoorSlam as she died on [=BoJack=]'s shoulder due to a heroin overdose.]] Cruel.

* ''Film/{{Batman}}'': In Burton's 1989 film, the Trope is played with, when Jack first sees himself in the mirror -- he moans and groans briefly, and then transforms into maniacal laughter.

-->-- '''Music/JohnnyCash''', ''"Hurt"''

-->-- '''Music/NineInchNails''', ''"Hurt"''

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* In ''[[VideoGame/KingsQuestVIHeirTodayGoneTomorrow Kings Quest VI']]', the Lord of the Dead is reminded by Alexander of how he came from a human life to an eternally damned existence.And this fazes him just enough to make him shed a single tear. Which is still good, considering he grants Alexander his wish to resurrect Cassima's parents.

* In Creator/WoodyAllen's ''Film/AMidsummersNightSexComedy'', pacifist intellectual Leopold has a dream about becoming a Neanderthal, full of sex and violence. When he wakes up, he finds out his fiance has been cheating on him. He grabs a bow and arrow and goes after him. When he shoots someone -- the wrong man, no less! -- and has no regrets about it, only pondering, "What have I become?" Of course, he naturally goes back to [[HospitalHottie hot nurse]] Dulcy, telling her "Blood! I've drawn blood, and I ''relished'' it!", before ripping off her clothes to have wild sex with her (she later says he was fantastic).

If the above seems a bit glib it's because the revelation will cause a viewer's reaction to oscillate between [[BlessedWithSuck "That's harsh"]] and [[CursedWithAwesome "So what?"]], since some settings [[SlidingScaleOfVampireFriendliness are very helpful]] in providing avenues for the moral FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires to thrive, while [[WorldHalfEmpty others are genuinely cruel]] to those so changed. That said, change is what you make of it, and most protagonists find life as a non-human... ''whatever'' doesn't have to be that bad or morally debased... unless you're already evil.

** Dae, a top researcher in demons and Claymores, claims that this trope is the source of all Claymores' powers: [[spoiler:Somehow, the psychological contradiction that the women hate demonkind to the point of having a subconscious determination to murder possessed humans, yet are in fact humans possessed with an even more powerful form of demon genetics themselves, causes their fractured psyches and augmented bodies to synchronize in a way that even the original "demons" (Dragons and Dragonborns) cannot comprehend]]. Unfortunately, Dae is then bisected by the Overlord Priscilla mid-sentence. Even worse, Dae has no sense of preservation for anything but curiousity, so after he helped destroy the research facility, he then helps Priscilla by theorizing to her that [[spoiler:she realized what she was and put a mental block on herself out of a subconscious desire to commit suicide before she killed too many people - little girls, who are the greatest threat to her by becoming Claymores hell-bent on killing her, are now psychosocially invisible to her.]]

* Notably subverted in the origin story of Cassidy from ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'': at first, he has no idea what he's become (a vampire), but once he's figured out the basic limitations and powers, decides it's actually ''really cool''. When a friend later lends him a copy of ''{{Literature/Dracula}}'', he realizes what he actually is... and figures it's ''even cooler''. Also notable in that [[NotUsingTheZWord no one ever actually says "vampire"]] - neither in his origin story nor the main storyline - although it's extremely obvious that's what he is.

* ''In Tales of the Black Freighter'', the in-comic comic in ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'', a young mariner's vessel is wrecked by the Black Freighter (a literally hell-sent pirate ship) before it can return to his hometown and warn his wife and children. He ends up Marooned (also the name of that double-issue), and makes a raft out of his shipmate's gas-bloated corpses, which he had buried and then dug back up. The main character eventually gets to his hometown, only to find the Black Freighter had never come and terrorized his hometown, and that he had alienated himself from his family and friends in his (disturbing) efforts to save them from his own fabrication.
** It's worse than that. When he first arrives, [[spoiler:he's already convinced himself that the Freighter has already come and killed them all. When he sees a moneylender and the moneylender's wife, he assumes they collaborated with the pirates, so he kills them both. Its not until he's in his own house, trying to kill the "pirates" he finds there that he realizes what has happened. He faces this trope and swims out to ''join'' the Black Freighter as part of the damned crew. That's the reason the ship sailed to his hometown in the first place, to wait for ''him'' to join them]]

* ''Film/{{Batman}}'': In Burton's 1989 film, the Trope is played with, when Jack first sees himself in the mirror - he moans and groans briefly, and then transforms into maniacal laughter.

* In Creator/WoodyAllen's ''Film/AMidsummersNightSexComedy'', pacifist intellectual Leopold has a dream about becoming a Neanderthal, full of sex and violence. When he wakes up, he finds out his fiance has been cheating on him. He grabs a bow and arrow and goes after him. When he shoots someone - the wrong man, no less! - and has no regrets about it, only pondering, "What have I become?" Of course, he naturally goes back to [[HospitalHottie hot nurse]] Dulcy, telling her "Blood! I've drawn blood, and I ''relished'' it!", before ripping off her clothes to have wild sex with her (she later says he was fantastic).

* Michael doesn't take it well in the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries'' when he [[spoiler:develops magic]], something no inteligent human is suposed to have. His initial reaction to the discovery is quickly cast aside horror-he's in a burning building after all-but once the discovery has time to sink in he spends a few moments contemplating death over living the rest of his life as some [[CursedWithAwesome horrid freak.]]

* Poor, poor [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Owen Harper]]. [[spoiler: Suicide doesn't work if you're dead]].

* On ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', both Dr. Mohinder Suresh and Peter Petrelli are going through this in Season 3. Mohinder [[spoiler:has [[ProfessorGuineaPig injected himself with an experimental and flawed superpowers formula]], which seems to be turning him into The Fly, while Peter has acquired not only Sylar's ability to understand [[strike: the plot]] how things work, but also Sylar's uncontrollable compulsion to cut open peoples heads and steal their brains.]]

** In one episode, the heroes realizing halfway through that they are robots.

* Seeing as how a central theme of their games is 'Personal Horror', Creator/WhiteWolf has made this moment standard with nearly every ''TabletopGame/TheWorldOfDarkness'' gameline except Hunter and Mage games (where you remain human), and ''TabletopGame/PrometheanTheCreated'' (where you don't start out human). Granted, even in those games, its still quite possible if the Storyteller spins it right.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': Heidi Turner has this reaction in season 21's finale after hearing Kyle's ArmorPiercingResponse. She becomes disgusted with herself for becoming Cartman's DistaffCounterpart, and was going kill him for "turning her into this." However, she soon realized that it wasn't Cartman himself but rather her "I'm a victim" attitude that resulted in her deteriorated state, and proceeds to break up with Cartman, because she could no longer be the victim.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': Heidi Turner has this reaction in season 21's finale after hearing Kyle's ArmorPiercingResponse. She becomes disgusted with herself for become Cartman's DistaffCounterpart, and was going kill him for "turning her into this." However, she soon realized that it wasn't Cartman himself but rather her "I'm a victim" attitude that resulted in her deteriorated state, and proceeds to break up with Cartman, because she could no longer be the victim.

* In the PlayableEpilogue of ''Videogame/RedDeadRedemption'', [[spoiler: Jack Marston would often say this if he shoots unarmed innocents and/or loots their bodies. Especially if they're women.]]

** Dae, a top researcher in demons and Claymores, claims that this trope is the source of all Claymores' powers: [[spoiler:Somehow, the psychological contradiction that the women hate demonkind to the point of having a subconscious determination to murder possessed humans, yet are in fact humans possessed with an even more powerful form of demon genetics themselves, causes their fractured psyches and augmented bodies to synchronize in a way that even the orginal "demons" (Dragons and Dragonborns) cannot comprehend]]. Unfortunately, Dae is then bisected by the Overlord Priscilla mid-sentence. Even worse, Dae has no sense of preservation for anything but curiousity, so after he helped destroy the research facility, he then helps Priscilla by theorizing to her that [[spoiler:she realized what she was and put a mental block on herself out of a subconscious desire to commit suicide before she killed too many people - little girls, who are the greatest threat to her by becoming Claymores hell-bent on killing her, are now psychosocially invisible to her.]]

* Notably subverted in the origin story of Cassidy from ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'': at first, he has no idea what he's become (a vampire), but once he's figured out the basic limitations and powers, decides it's actually ''really cool''. When a friend later lends him a copy of ''{{Literature/Dracula}}'', he realizes what he actually is... and figures it's ''even cooler''. Also notable in that [[NotUsingTheZWord no one ever actually says "vampire"]] - neither in his origin story nor main storyline - although it's extremely obvious that's what he is.

* In Creator/WoodyAllen's ''Film/AMidsummersNightSexComedy'', pacifist intellectual Leopold has a dream about becoming a Neaderthal, full of sex and violence. When he wakes up, he finds out his fiance has been cheating on him. He grabs a bow and arrow and goes after him. When he shoots someone - the wrong man, no less! - and has no regrets about it, only pondering, "What have I become?" Of course, he naturally goes back to [[HospitalHottie hot nurse]] Dulcy, telling her "Blood! I've drawn blood, and I ''relished'' it!", before ripping off her clothes to have wild sex with her (she later says he was fantastic.)

* In one ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' episode, GeniusCripple Halcyon Renard can't bear with his condition any longer and financially supports a ruthless criminal so that he can steal a magical {{Golem}} for him. After Renard uses a ritual to transfer his soul into the Golem he quickly goes mad with power and the ability to walk and feel again. Goliath then asks Renard if he was really willing to trade away everything good about him -- his honor and integrity -- for a lump of clay. Renard then utters the trope verbatim, returns to his human body, and gives the Golem back to its owner. He thanks Goliath at the end, telling him that he had saved his soul if not his life.
* Fluttershy in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Putting Your Hoof Down": essentially, she wants to become less of a doormat so she takes lessons on assertiveness. It works [[GoneHorriblyRight all too well]] to the point where Fluttershy sees herself as a menace to her friends, prompting her to lock herself in her own home. This leads to a moment when Fluttershy looks in the mirror and sees herself with devil horns.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'': Subverted. When Raphael and one of the Kraang switch bodies, the Krang escapes outside then sees it's reflection in a mirror and says the line. It even starts raining.

* ''FanFic/TheVow'': While Shen's [[VillainousBSOD wallowing in a heartbroken state]] for [[spoiler:[[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy sending away]] his newlywed wife]], he wonders what would his younger, less hateful self think about the man he'd become in thirty years.

* In {{Woody Allen}}'s ''Film/AMidsummersNightSexComedy'', pacifist intellectual Leopold has a dream about becoming a Neaderthal, full of sex and violence. When he wakes up, he finds out his fiance has been cheating on him. He grabs a bow and arrow and goes after him. When he shoots someone - the wrong man, no less! - and has no regrets about it, only pondering, "What have I become?" Of course, he naturally goes back to [[HospitalHottie hot nurse]] Dulcy, telling her "Blood! I've drawn blood, and I ''relished'' it!", before ripping off her clothes to have wild sex with her (she later says he was fantastic.)