Freudian Excuses in New Media.
- The Affably Evil Ask That Guy with the Glasses apparently had an awful childhood, with being sexually abused by a doctor and losing his virginity to a gym teacher. And while they're not evil (more like a Cute and Psycho and Psychopathic Manchild, respectively), The Nostalgia Chick and The Nostalgia Critic both have a lot of issues from bad things happening to them too. This is all Played for Laughs, naturally.
- The Cracked article "5 Famous Historical Bad Guys (And Their Side of the Story)"
, which based on the url may have been called "How History's Bad Guys Got to Be That Way" previously. You can't put real life examples in "bad guy" tropes, but here it's the article saying they were bad guys, so whether you agree with it or not, it's clear the article is doing this trope.- The Koch brothers were raised by a literal Nazi nurse and a Social Darwinist father who made them fight each other.
- Wayne Wheeler was a major force behind the Prohibition, inspired by being mildly injured by a drunk person when he was little.
- Kaiser Wilhelm's crippled arm and terrible mother made him a total jerk.
- George Wallace became a total racist after losing an election by not being racist.
- Joseph Stalin basically declared war against all mankind after his girlfriend died.
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- Daigo received physical, racist, and biphobic abuse from his father and step-mother. Then, when his step-mother passed away, his father blamed him for it. It's not hard to see why he would fall down a dark path as a result, though it doesn't excuse his murderous actions.
- The horrible trauma that Jessica's mother was put through (having her boyfriend and parents killed in a botched burglary), and the ensuing responsibility that was put onto Jessica's shoulders, along with suddenly gaining purple skin as part of her superpower, paints a clear picture of why Jessica is such a jerk without excusing her from it.
- Death Note: The Abridged Series (kpts4tv):Souichiro's ghost possessing Aizawa (to Light): Shut up! I knew I shouldn't have pushed your mother down the stairs while she was pregnant with you!
- Also Mikami:Narrator: Mikami grew up in an abusive household. His father was a professional badger wrestler too busy on the road to come home. His mother had a rare disease that left her with no eyes or upper face and she drank to excess... And now your mother's dead. She died while you were still in school and it scarred you FOR LIFE!
- Also Mikami:
- Parodied in the Dragon Ball Z Abridged: The Christmas Tree of Might: Turles hates Christmas because Santa never visited Planet Vegeta, and so their only holiday was Freeza Day. Also his henchmen all did horrible things, including dropping a whole truck of coal on a naughty child's house and raping Rudolph.
- DSBT InsaniT: Killer Monster spent 10,000 years in what is pretty much Hell, which made him insane and bloodthirsty.
- Echo Chamber's Tom and Zack:
- Tom tries to be better than his younger brother, who was superior to him in every way since they were kids. As you might expect, this doesn't justify why he picks on Zack.
- Zack's father dictates his life, so he's never had to make a decision before. That's why, when he begins working with Dana and Tom, he acts like a Manchild.
- Gaia Online's current Big Bad was neglected by his "father", Johnny K. Gambino, in favor of his natural son Gino. This led him to found his own Mad Scientist corporation, NeXus, to study the Animated and eventually use them to try and take over the world.
- Stalker with a Crush Zaboo from The Guild. Dead father, Mother From Hell, it's amazing he isn't more messed up than he is. Although he's pretty damn messed up.
- In Let's Drown Out WWF No Mercy, Ben Yahtzee Croshaw revealed that the very reason why he does not like pro wrestling was because when he was a kid, his friends had gotten into trading collectible WWF stickers and essentially alienated Yahtzee out of their social groups. His commentary partner Gabriel summed it up pretty nicely:Gabriel: WRESTLERS TOOK MY FRIENDS!
- The Most Popular Girls in School: If you had either Shay's or Mackenzie's family lives, would you be the most pleasant people in the world?
- The Nostalgia Critic mentions that part of the reason he dislikes Doug is that when he was younger (when the show was popular) a lot of people would tease him about it and constantly bring it up, saying "If you were named 'Doug', you were ALWAYS associated with this show."
- Unsurprisingly, this is implied to be the reason RedLetterMedia's Mr Plinkett is a mentally unstable kidnapper and murderer. He mentions attacking a doctor who asked about his "dear old mother", then we are shown a brief flashback of his mother telling him to "bury the bodies under the floorboards".
- Sam & Mickey: Barbie's childhood sucked, thanks to her Evil Matriarch Margaret and Disappeared Dad George.Ken: What's the most traumatic memory for you?
Barbie: My whole childhood!
Ken: Be specific. - Mariavel Varella, the primary villain of Survival of the Fittest v2, has something of a Freudian Excuse to justify her actions. She was raped by her father as a child (although this may have since been the subject of a Retcon). However, what does remain Canon is the other abuse she suffered at the hands of her father - as well as him killing her brother.
- Steff in Tales of MU: "Don't you think I've earned a chance to be the one at the top of the shitheap for a while? Three more years and then nobody's going to fuck with me, ever again."
- We have this with Toki, who, throughout numerous stories in which her backstory was mentioned, was noted to have been abused by her adopted mother, which lead to her seeing the world as she does (Toki was very naive at the time), giving her a fairly warped up sense of right and wrong, and causing her to develop mental illnesses. Amoridere did note here that it doesn't justify her actions, rather, it explains them.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
- Tristan asks Bakura why he is so evil, to which Bakura replies "Well, I guess my mummy didn't love me enough. Did you know she wanted to name me Florence? Who names a boy Florence?!"
- Marik was forced to undergo having markings burned into his backside as a child... as well as having to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua. He was a bit of a dick before then, though.
