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Delicate And Sickly / Western Animation

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Female Examples

  • Parodied in the Animaniacs movie Wakko's Wish, where a sickly Dot needs money for an operation. At the end of the movie, it turns out that all the operation did was give Dot a beauty mark to make her even cuter.
  • Subverted on The Batman. A scientist working for Wayne Industries claims to be studying bats so he can cure his niece's deafness. Bruce Wayne goes to see the girl and give her a hearing aid... and she turns out not to be deaf. The scientist was actually studying bats because he was obsessed with Batman, and he eventually turned himself into "Manbat".
    • This is the reason why Victor Fries, better known as Mr. Freeze, constantly has to commit crimes in most of his appearances in Batman: The Animated Series and related media: His wife, Nora Fries, is suffering from a terminal disease, causing him to put her in cryogenic stasis until his research allows him to develop a cure for her ailment. Unfortunately, in order to do so, he ended up having to illegally appropriate research materials from Ferris Boyle, the Corrupt Corporate Executive of GothCorp, resulting in Victor being kicked into his own formula and deformed into Mr. Freeze. In his next appearance, he was taken by a deranged theme park founder and has to help this person in exchange for allowing him to get Nora's miraculously survived cryonic tank. He stopped only when Batman pointed out that this is not what Nora would have wanted.
  • Played straight in Jem: In the three-part "Starbright" storyline, the Holograms keep on going with a movie shoot into which the Misfits have bought themselves because they need money for an operation to save Starlight Girl Ba Nee's sight. Ultimately the production splits into rival films, and when the Holograms' film is a hit, the money is raised and Ba Nee is saved.
  • In the Christmas Special Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, Kriss Kringle gets the bright idea to enter locked houses through their chimneys largely because he has to deliver a toy Noah's Ark to "Susan, a tiny little girl who was very, very sick".
  • Peanuts:
    • Janice, the main character of the Peanuts special Why, Charlie Brown, Why?, is a friend of Linus who is diagnosed with leukemia.
    • Lila, Snoopy's previous owner, in Snoopy Come Home. Snoopy wants to return to her because he has learned that she's lonely and depressed in the hospital.
  • Michelle from Once Upon a Forest becomes comatose after inhaling toxic fumes from a gas leak, and her friends have to search the wilderness to Find the Cure!.
  • The Young Justice (2010) episode "Coldhearted" features Wally racing cross-country to deliver a donor heart to a 10-year-old girl named Perdita, who happens to be the Queen of Vlatava.
  • Little Marcy from Adventure Time in the episode "Simon and Marcy." The episode's plot has her friend Simon trying to get her chicken soup in the post-apocalyptic wreckage. The original plan for the episode was for her to be deathly ill and Simon to be searching for medicine, but they were forced to tone it down.
  • Claire from Stressed Eric is allergic to everything, even to things that are supposed to help her allergies. Then there's her nerdy Truman-esque friend Julie, who is allergic to more things! Even air will stop her!
  • Ruby Gloom has Malady, who is said to suffer from every physical ailment you can think of.
  • Lorna from Over the Garden Wall is deathly pale and constantly coughing due to her illness. Turns out said illness is the result of being possessed by an evil spirit that eats people. She gets better though.
  • Magic Gift of the Snowman: Emery Elizabeth has an unknown potentially lethal illness that leaves her unable to walk. She makes a full recovery by the end.
  • Left ambiguous in Star Trek: Lower Decks. In "Empathalogical Fallicies”, a mysterious Hate Plague hits the Cerritos, ultimately revealing that it's coming from T'Lyn. Her symptoms match Bendii Syndrome, basically Vulcan Alzheimer’s, but she isn’t sure as she’s too young. Once she later reveals that she’s also upset over how she was removed from her old ship for "not being Vulcan enough" and has a pep talk from Mariner, the symptoms disappear, making it difficult to tell if she had it or was stressed as all hell.

Male Examples

  • Arcane: Viktor has been sickly and weak since he was a boy, and has always needed to walk with a cane. By approximately his early thirties, he's dying. The cause is said to be toxic fumes he may have accidentally inhaled in his youth while living in Zaun. This drives both his and Jayce's more extreme actions in Act 2 and 3.
  • Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Possibly due to his advanced age, Mr. Burns is extremely emaciated, frail, and weak, and has a massive slew of health problems. These include brittle bones and poor lung function (one episode implied that he only has one lung,) chronic heart problems, and he's been shown to require semi-regular blood transfusions just to stay alive. Usually this is Played for Laughs, but in "Blood Feud," this is Played for Drama. In the episode The Mansion Family," a doctor at the Mayo Clinic referred to him as "the sickest man in the United States," and that "even a slight breeze" could kill him.
  • South Park:
    • Played with often with Kyle. In the 15 seasons he has needed a kidney transplant, said to suffer from type 1 diabetes, nearly died from an infected hemmroid, got infected with HIV by Cartman and just generally is shown getting sick with a far greater frequency than the other boys, Kenny included.
    • Strangely enough, it's usually averted with Kenny as he almost always died as a result of violent mishaps. The only times he succumbs to a disease is from an STD he picks up from his girlfriend, Tammy Warner, in The Ring and muscular dystrophy in Kenny Dies.
    • Scott Malkinson's most defining trait is that he always suffers from his diabetes. As a result, nearly all of his classmates (mostly Cartman) make fun of him for having diabetes.
      Cartman: [mockingly] "I'm Scott Malkinson, I have a lisp and diabetes.
      Scott: Hey, don't make fun of my diabetes.
      Cartman: [mockingly] "Don't make fun of my diabetes, I'm Scott Malkinson." [Kenny chuckles]
  • Rudy Steiblitz from Bob's Burgers has severe asthma but remains very active even when it's dangerous for him to do so. He's a bit of an Thrill Seeker.
  • Sealab 2021: Invoked and subverted in "Little Orphan Angry", where Sealab is visited by an ill boy named Griff in conjunction with the Final Request Foundation. Griff's actually a con artist bilking the foundation by pretending to be sick in order to get access to their bank accounts. He ends up eaten by a shark.
  • Ready Jet Go! features a borderline example, Sean. He has a sensitive stomach and easily gets space-sick/motion-sick/seasick. Supporting this is the fact that he has his very own Sick Episode, "Sean Has a Cold". This, coupled with him also being a Broken Bird, makes him the series' most prominent woobies.


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