Spoilers up to the end of Volume 8 are unmarked. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.
Many characters qualify at some point in the story, they are, after all, mostly teenagers thrown in amidst of a war between forces they neither comprehend nor were ever warned about, in a world where creatures that hunt by mortal despair, grief and destruction are always looking for new victims. The show really may as well have been called "WBY" instead.
Note: This page is only for The Woobie examples; examples of other types of Woobie will be found on other Woobie pages.
- Weiss Schnee appears to have been born into privilege, but she was born to an abusive Gold Digger who only married her mother for the family inheritance, and who only uses his children to further his use of PR to cover up his corrupt business practices; these have left her a target of White Fang violence from an early age, where she's witnessed board members be executed for her father's crimes against Faunus. His mother was so devastated when she realised why he'd married her that she became a reclusive alcoholic, leaving Weiss to be raised by an older sister while protecting herself from an apparently malevolent younger brother. Just as she's learning from her team-mates how to properly socialise, empathise and cooperate with others in a positive way, the fall of Beacon allows her father to drag her back home and under his thumb, where he ends up imprisoning her and disheriting her in favour of her brother. She is forced to escape from her own home and bribe a pilot to smuggle her out of Atlas only to be captured by bandits in the hope of ransoming her back to her father. When she finally reunites with her team, she's impaled and almost killed by Cinder, before learning that she'll have to return to Atlas as part of an attempt to save the Relic of Knowledge from falling into Salem's hands.
- Blake Belladonna. A Faunus who initially hides her true nature to avoid Fantastic Racism, she starts off isolated from her own team until she starts learning to trust and let down her barriers. Just as she's getting comfortable with this, her Psycho Ex-Boyfriend Adam leads a White Fang attack on her school, maims her team-mate Yang, and vows to destroy everything Blake loves as revenge for leaving him. Believing herself to a coward who only ever runs from trouble, she abandons her team to protect them and goes back home, accompanied only by Sun, whom she aggressively tries to push away due to not feeling worthy of love and friendship. Although Sun helps restore her faith in herself, helping her find her way back to her team, she continues to be pursued across an entire continent by Adam, who decides that if he can't have her, no one can. Thus cornered, the only way she and Yang can escape his never-ending obsession and violence is to fight to the death, an outcome that leaves Blake devastated by the lengths he's forced her to go to, just for the right to be free of him.
- Yang Xiao Long is tricked by the villains during the Vytal Festival tournament into making herself look like a monster on live television to frame both her and Ozpin. Disqualified from the tournament, she's left in tears when Blake initially struggles to trust her version of events and then loses her arm when trying to save Blake from Adam in the Battle for Beacon that follows. This paralyses her for Volume 4, where she struggles with depression, PTSD and feelings of abandonment by Blake running away from Vale. She only gets back on her feet when she realises her father feels torn between having to look after one injured daughter while the other is risking her life somewhere in the wilds of Anima. When Weiss decides to address Yang's anger over Blake in Volume 5, Yang reveals what it was like growing up with a father who was barely functional, having to look after Ruby while still a child herself, while knowing her mother had abandoned her at birth. This sense of abandonment has been with her for her entire life, with Blake's reducing her to tears. Even after Blake rejoins the team, Yang never fully recovers from her PTSD, something Adam notices when his obsessive refusal to leave Blake alone forces Yang and Blake to kill him to avoid being killed by him.
- Jaune Arc came to Beacon Academy hoping to following in the footsteps of his heroic lineage, only to discover just how painful a Huntsman's life really is. Pyrrha is his mentor, guide, best friend, team-mate and potential love interest, but he's unable to protect her from being killed by Cinder; when he helps Ruby pursue Cinder to a confrontation at Haven Academy, he witnesses Cinder try to kill his first love, Weiss, the same way, just because she knows it'll hurt him. He incorporates elements of Pyrrha's weapons and style in his own clothing and weapons, secretly trains in tears to the very last training video she ever made of him before she died, and believes the only value he has left for his team is to die for them, leaving Ren, Nora and his friends in Team RWBY terrified of losing him, too.
- Pyrrha Nikos is a prodigy who became famous for her great skill from an early age. This alienated her from the people who loved her and left unable to have friends or boyfriends due to people assuming she was too good for them, until she met Jaune. Just as she's developing these relationships, she's asked to sacrifice them to become the Fall Maiden to prevent Cinder stealing the power. Intimidated by the responsibility being asked of her, she displays nervousness and fear of teachers she once trusted and loses control of her Semblance when she most needs it. Tricked by the villains into over-using her Semblance in the Vytal Festival tournament, she dismembers a fellow student on international television, devasating her. When she fights to save Beacon Academy, her attempt to protect both the Fall Maiden's power and Beacon Tower leads her into a confrontation with Cinder; knowing she cannot win, she kisses Jaune for the first and last time, before heading off to her death.
- Qrow Branwen is an alcoholic loner, raised by murderous bandits who named him after crows because his permanently-active Semblance brings misfortune to all; although it benefits him in battle, he's forced to distance himself from loved ones to protect them. For example, his attempt to protect Team RNJR from Salem almost gets him killed by Tyrian's poison when he saves Ruby from being killed by his own Semblance; and he inadvertantly reveals to Salem's forces the secret location of the Spring Maiden when updating Professor Lionheart—this forces his sister to side with Salem against Ozpin to protect her tribe, leading a betrayed Qrow to disown her completely. His Undying Loyalty to Ozpin is caused by Ozpin being the first person to ever overlook his Semblance and have faith in him. Believing himself to finally doing some good in the world, he overlooks his allies and sister's suspicions of Ozpin until the truth about his war with Salem is revealed. Shattered by the feeling his life has been a lie, he turns on Ozpin in a confrontation that devastates both men for two volumes, forcing the students to take over as Ozpin disappears and Qrow descends into an ever-worsening spiral of drunken despair. He pulls himself together in Volume 7 with the help of Clover, who is a natural counter to Qrow's Semblance. However, their very different experiences with Undying Loyalty to flawed men leads to a fatal confrontation that allows Tyrian to frame Qrow for Clover's murder, devastating Qrow once more. Robyn's support prevents him from going after Ironwood to murder him and prioritise stopping the bombing of Mantle, only for the volume to end with him silently screaming for his nieces as he watches the kingdom's destruction because he doesn't know their fate.
- Taiyang Xiao Long has lost two wives: Yang's mother, Raven, and Ruby's mother, Summer. After Summer's death, he shut down for a while, leaving a very young Yang to look after the even younger Ruby alone. He then had to support Yang while she was struggling with depression and PTSD after the loss of her arm, while unable to go after Ruby, who had secretly left home to go hurtling into danger by pusuing leads on the Big Bad. When Yang finally recovers enough to go after Ruby, he's left behind at home, gazing at a picture of his daughters in happier times. When he finally does get to hear from Ruby over a year later, she's sending a message warning the world about Salem and the impending attack on Atlas, only for the broadcast to be cut short.
- Amber, the previous Fall Maiden, first appeared in "Fall" in a critical state, barely kept alive on life support. "Beginning of the End" shows how she came to be in her current predicament; one late evening, she happened to come across a crying child on the road, and offered said-child aid and comfort. Turns out the "child" was an illusion planted by three assailants intent on stealing her powers, an atrocious act never committed before. After a lengthy fight, one of the assailants critically wounds Amber with an arrow to the back, before the other two hold Amber down, allowing the remaining assailant to subject her to a torturous process to steal Amber's powers, which is only interrupted with the timely arrival of Qrow, but not without leaving Amber with a horrendous facial scar while rendering her into a coma. Since then, she's been in a state where she's unable to wake up, with her caregivers acknowledging that she will likely die soon. In "Heroes & Monsters", she is killed only after having woken up by the same assailant who put her into her predicament in the first place (with an arrow to the heart).
