The Woobie Cleanup

While waiting for some more votes, here's some rough drafts.

• Dropkick on My Devil:
  • Pekola was an angel from Heaven initially bent on eradicating demons and witches. Upon losing her halo thus becoming stranded on Earth, Pekola lost her powers and is reduced to residing in a cardboard box. When not searching for scraps of food to eat, Pekola would work excruciating jobs to provide for herself. Much like a walking lightning rod, Pekola is always met with misfortune some instances including having her food get stolen by Jashin; losing her earnings in a scam; and nearly getting killed by her former apprentice Poporon. With no end seemingly in sight, Pekola holds the moniker as the most sympathetic character in the series.
  • Medusa, a tender-hearted demon, is the closest "friend" to Jashin. As a gorgon, Medusa has the ability to turn others to stone, but what sets her aside from most examples is the guilt she expresses for it, resorting to wearing a paper bag over her head whenever she is in public. While she dotes on Jashin by providing her with money, Jashin's toxic attitude has reduced Medusa to tears on several occasions. The worst case of this is when she nearly traumatizes her by pretending to have died.
• Happy Sugar Life: Yuuna Kobe is the estranged mother of Asahi and Shio. When she was 16-years-old, Yuuna was raped by her future husband after she had innocently bumped into him. Being forced into a marriage she didn't want, Yuuna was the subject of continuous domestic abuse by her husband's hand, and it was also heavily implied that he repeatedly violated her, being dismissive of whether she consented or not. Fearful that she would become the same monster that her husband was, Yuuna left her daughter in the streets after convincing herself that she was unfit to raise her. Returning to her abusive husband's household, she laced his sake with poison and was presumably on the run from the authorities for the murder.
• When the Wind Blows: In this 1982 graphic novel — as well as its subsequent animated film adaptation — the Bloggs, James (or Jim) and Hilda respectively — are an elderly couple living in Sussex, England. Having survived two world wars, the couple takes the news of an impending strike lightly, with James wasting no time constructing a crude bomb shelter. When the bomb is dropped onto Sussex, wiping out nearly everything in its path, the Bloggs survive and attempt to rebuild, unknowingly contracting radiation sickness for their efforts. Even as their health began to decline and the rations were becoming scarce, the Bloggs still firmly believed that their government would save them only to then succumb to despair as the acknowledgement of their oncoming deaths became evident. From their unwavering faith in the "Powers that Be" to their tragic ends, the Bloggs stand as a cautionary tale of the consequences a nuclear war has on society.

Edited by AustinDR on Oct 19th 2018 at 11:48:55 AM

I think we can ALL agree that Crona from Soul Eater will always be an easy keep for this trope.

To all I've missed.

@Chase: I thought it was 7.

IPP Wick Check created.

MLP lists nearly every sentient character that hasn't rejected redemption as a woobie. Some of the entries could be reduced to one and with new information, I think I could fix this page on my own.

The Mane Six (excluding Rainbow Dash)

• "Lesson Zero" implies that Twilight Sparkle was regularly teased in school as a filly, invoking this interpretation for some fans.
  • Even outside fan interpretation, she has a high order case of Super OCD, and (at least once literally) drives herself crazy trying to make everything perfect and appease her self dictated high standards, terrified of losing the approval of her peers and friends, especially Princess Celestia.
  • From her reputation as a bookworm and model student, her asocial behavior early in the series, her casual comments to Spike in the first episode that show she doesn't see any value in making friends, and her intense fear of failure in "Lesson Zero", it isn't hard to infer that before she came to Ponyville, Twilight didn't have any friends outside of Celestia, and her dedication to being a good student could be either the cause or effect of that. Either way, in "Lesson Zero" she's clearly freaking out at losing the friends she's come to value and being forced to give up her new and improved lifestyle to go back to being that asocial bookworm, this time knowing exactly how lonely and isolated she'll be now that she's had friends and has lost them because of her "slip-ups". She also has a fear of failure if Lesson Zero and The Crystal Empire are any indication.
  • Her Inferiority Superiority Complex, combined with her No Social Skills, also makes her even more of this. She begs her friends not to hate her, puts herself through hell and back just to fit in and secretly fears that she isn't worth the attention of her loved ones, especially Princess Celestia. That her Super OCD isn't just funny finnickyness but portrayed as a legitimate mental illness does not help things, as it seems to be in part responsible for this line of thinking. Watching episodes like Winter Wrap Up with her low sense of self-worth makes them Harsher in Hindsight, and a lot of her Determinator status can be seen as a desperate desire to prove she's worth the affection she doesn't think she deserves that she gets from those she loves.
  • The season 2 finale also turns her into this. Although she was acting grouchy about Princess Cadance's unusually bad attitude, her friends, brother, and Princess Celestia all lose their respect for her and leave her alone in disappointment when she speaks up and calls Cadance evil. She feels horrible about what she'd done, knowing that she probably wouldn't be able to redeem herself in their eyes... and even worse, it turns out that she was right to be suspicious, since "Cadance" reveals herself to be an evil impostor and imprisons Twilight in the Canterlot Caves.
  • Season 4 plays with this a little, her worrying about her princess duties keeping her away from her friends, as well as worrying about Celestia dying (there's that scene in Princess Twilight Sparkle to consider), even though she didn't die, she still was injured before Twilight's eyes. Twilight is most certainly an All-Loving Hero after Character Development in Seasons 1 and 2, but still retains woobieish qualities in later seasons.
• When asked about Applejack's parents, Lauren Faust said that she did consider the idea of them being deceased. Of course, it was deemed too sad and other suggestions were made - ranging from them being salesponies to explorers. But since the subject has never been brought up in the show, it remains a mystery until the writers choose to define it. Until that day comes, fanon continues to run with the tragic stories in particular.
  • Applejack's hat is commonly believed to have been passed down from her late father, hence why she seems almost inseparable from it.
    • Jossed, she won the hat on a fair. Even so, that hasn't stopped people from coming up with theories that make both origin stories true, like so. Though, even that got Jossed by "Somepony to Watch Over Me," showing she has a closet full of identical hats.
  • Her stubbornness in Applebuck Season, where Applejack tried to harvest all of the apples alone without any help, is seen by some fans as her trying to live up to some standard she set herself between her parents passing away, and her taking on most of the responsibilities of the family business.
  • In Apple Family Reunion, it was confirmed by Senior Storyboard Artist Sibsy that the two shooting stars that appeared a couple of times in the episode were a nod to Applejack's parents. As it was said in-episode that the whole family was coming to the re-union, but we didn't see her parents at all, they could well be deceased, although it still isn't certain.
  • The Perfect Pair all but writes "THEY ARE DEAD" on a stick and hits you over the head with it. To make matters worse, Applejack's dad is shown wearing the exact same hat as her, rekindling the Tragic Keepsake aspect of it: it might not be the same hat but she was still likely inspired to wear it by Bright Mac.
• Fluttershy oozes woobie to such a degree that even Pinkie Pie avoids playing harmless pranks on her. In fact, the other 4 ponies have tried to be Cool Big Sisters towards her, despite being around the same age (and at least older then Pinkie).
  • It is considered an unforgivable sin by bronies to make Fluttershy cry.
  • It doesn't really help that while most of the Mane 6 are known for their strengths (Be it athletic ability, amazing talents or winning personality), she's mostly known for her weaknesses. They usually play up the "shy" part of her personality a lot. In the Discord two-parter, she admits herself that she's weak and is glad that her friends point out her flaws. If she was being sincere, she seems to have a very low opinion of herself. Even The Hub labels her as "The Misfit" in their commercials.
  • "Hurricane Fluttershy" seems absolutely dedicated to turning Fluttershy into a woobie, what with the flashbacks to her time at flight camp and her inability to fly nearly as fast as the other pegasi helping with the tornado. It also gives her one heck of a happy ending.
    • Adding to the effect, this is the only episode where we see Fluttershy actually cry. Not goofy cartoony Ocular Gushers or quiet sniveling. Full-on tears streaming down her face crying.
  • "Putting Your Hoof Down" had the vast majority of the townsfolk take a few jerkass pills and be downright rotten to poor Fluttershy. Then again, this is also the only episode where we see her interact with the townsfolk at all. Is it any wonder why she prefers the company of her animals?
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom", while everyone else in the Mane 6 lashes out at Discord after he betrays them, Fluttershy is crying because she's the only one who believed in him and didn't see the betrayal coming. This actually makes Discord reconsider his Face–Heel Turn, and after Tirek turns the tables on him he feels bad about how he'd treated her in that episode.
  • Various scenes seen from Fluttershy's point of view show that her stress distorts innocent or even positive reactions towards her into a huge crowd cruelly mocking her. She even seems to feel this way about her friends. The musical number in "Bats!" portrays a disagreement between her and the remane-ing five+Spike. It's the only disagreement we see from Fluttershy's point of view and we perceive Spike and the remane-ing five act intimidating towards her, circling around her menacingly and angrily looking down their noses at her at the end as she recoils in fear. When it's not her point of view, they normally speak to her as though she was on the verge of jumping off a building with her wings tied to her torso (disregarding Rainbow Dash's impatience and Pinkie's Innocently Insensitive moments).
  • Unsurprisingly, it is also suggested that she feels lonely. Her lack of screentime in comparison to the rest of the mane 6 infers that she doesn't even hang out with them very often, so when she finally got to spend time with another pony at a picnic only to have her leave unannounced before the food was even served, she was visibly and audibly crushed. As much as she loves animals, not even they are a fulfilling substitute for friends of the same species.
• Ironically, if you think about it, Pinkie Pie may actually qualify as a Woobie just as much as Fluttershy; she just doesn't act it. Think about it: On the surface, Pinkie is a fun-loving Genki Girl who loves to throw parties. But as some episodes show us, she actually comes off as something of a Stepford Smiler and she throws parties as a way of validation- and she thinks that if nobody likes her parties, then nobody likes her. This alone caused her to famously and completely lose it for a short while during "Party of One". Not to mention, grew up on a Rock farm. In her own words, "There was no talking. There was no smiling. There were only rocks." And then there's how viciously Discord dealt with her. And her breaking down in Berserker Tears in 'Baby Cakes' because of the twins antics and how desperately she wanted to prove she could handle the responsibility of looking after them. (Look at her hurt and offended reaction when Twilight tells her to her face she didn't think Pinkie could handle it.) Her desperation to get Cranky to accept her friendship also called into question why Pinkie Pie wants so many friends. And then in "Too Many Pinkie Pies", she's so desperate to make her friends happy and spend time with them, she clones herself and it all blows up in her face. And in "Wonderbolt Academy", she's convinced Rainbow Dash will have forgotten about her and the others, to the point where she has to go see Dash in Cloudsdale, although she seems resigned to the possibility that it's too late. Poor Pinkie Pie...
• Rarity is kinda a woobie as well when you think about it. She puts so much effort on her work in the boutique and gets little appreciation most of the time. Suited For Success, and Sweet Elite definitely proved it. While she may seem prissy and a bit prim, she has the element of generosity for a reason. Not only that but despite her overdramatic breakdowns and difficult to understand at times, it's fairly easy to relate to many people whom work hard.
  • Rarity's woobie status is cranked up in the Nightmare arc of the comics. She has bad self-esteem issues, and is afraid that her friends will abandon and forget about her once they find somepony kinder or more talented than her. The Nightmare Forces end up taking advantage of these fears in order to take over Rarity's body and make her the new Nightmare Moon. Needless to say, the real Rarity doesn't enjoy being the arc's main villain.
    Rarity: Please, no! I don't want to go back! It was so cold and lonely - and I wasn't helping anypony! I was hurting them. Help!
  • Rarity gets woobiefied again in Rarity Takes Manehatten being insensitive of her friends feelings, and yet being extremely generous to everypony. Her generosity ends up almost being her downfall in Manehatten when resident Alpha Bitch, Suri Polomare copies her design and tells her she didn't win. After realizing what she put her friends through, causing them to miss the play they all wanted to see (yes even Rainbow Dash) it becomes too much for her to bear and she runs to the street in tears only to be confronted by her friends who say that it doesn't matter that she didn't win. Then it's revealed by Coco Pomell that she did win. Feeling better, Rarity takes her friends to a private showing of the play they wanted to see.
  • "For Whom the Sweetie Bell Toils" doesn't just Woobify Sweetie Belle but Rarity as well. If Sweetie hadn't have fixed her dress, Rarity would have gone into seclusion bawling her eyes out at the loss of her job. What's worse is that she worked hard to keep the kids at her sister's party receiving no thanks from anypony and unwittingly caused her sister to feel inadequate.
  • The Season 7 episode "Fame and Misfortune" where Twilight publish the old Friendship Journal that become a sell-out sensation across Equestria. While all of the Mane Six suffer from the harassment of the Journal's fans, Rarity got it the worst gaining an Hatedom because some snobbish pony didn't like her lessons. Not only does Rarity get chewed out by them, but her business suffers because of her haters' success in getting her boycotted. She spends nearly the entire episode in a crying mess.

Rainbow Dash

• Despite her egotism and It's All About Me moments, Rainbow Dash has woobieish elements when you consider her talent: Winning. Winning is everything to Rainbow Dash and she almost has a breakdown in "The Sonic Rainboom" when she's scared of failing in front of her friends and The Wonderbolts. The amount of fear/desperation she demonstrates during times where she does badly at something (Has a temporary Heroic BSoD in "The Mysterious Mare Do-Well", is scared of her friends mocking her over something she loves in "Read It And Weep", wants to beat the record in "Hurricane Fluttershy" to impress Spitfire and can't) makes you wonder just how low is Rainbow's self-worth that she thinks she absolutely must be the best or she's an unlovable loser? Not to mention, neither Dash or Fluttershy are shown to have any family so far... She has a father if Games Ponies Play's flashback is to be believed, but no known mother. She's also terrified to be left alone in Ghastly Gorge during May the best pet win despite her earlier bravado.
  • In Wonderbolt Academy she desperately tries to please Spitfire, being crushed when Spitfire chose Lightning Dust over her as a leader. It turns out Lightning Dust doesn't give a crap about the other recruits and would do whatever it takes to become a Wonderbolt. This causes Rainbow Dash to give into peer pressure and help Lightning Dust make a tornado nearly killing Rainbow Dash's friends. When Spitfire finds out about this, she is enraged and gives Rainbow Dash the team leader insignia she had stripped off Lightning Dust.
  • Her crushed expression when Cloudsdale, her home town doesn't host the Equestrian games is heart wrenching. This becomes a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming when Ms. Harshwhinny gave her the rights to coach the young fillies to help with the Equestria Games. She's actually able to do something for the Equestria Games this time around!
  • Let's not forget, she's been excluded more than any other pony of the Mane 6 (like May the Best Pet Win!) and sometimes other ponies unintentionally make it sound like they're trying to exclude her. To elaborate, she wasn't invited to the Pony Pet Playdate, which all her other friends were there simply because she didn't have a pet. Then again in Daring Don't when she's not invited to a party because she's reading Daring Do. Imagine being close friends with someone and not being invited to a party because your friends thought you were busy. If you've ever been excluded from anything, you can really sympathize with Dash.
  • In a few episodes we can figure out that her bravado is simply a facade (meaning she's been putting on a brave face this entire time) and she's really a very insecure pony. In Castle Mane-ia she's just as easily spooked as the other ponies. Most of her brashness and arrogance is really just a Jerkass Façade and she's really a sweet and caring individual underneath it all. If you can figure that out, she's far more huggable than she was before. A few of her focus episodes (most infamously The Mysterious Mare Do Well) focus on her flaws and shortcomings. And she's also the only pony who stood up for Fluttershy back in Flight Camp. You have to wonder if she's been holding back the tears this whole time. Imagine being a friend of an unpopular girl. And to drive the point home, you're the only friend of this unpopular girl. Imagine having to deal with your peers making fun of this unpopular girl but not having enough authority to stop it. That's how Rainbow Dash probably felt when she stood up for Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash is a total Woobie, she just doesn't ''act'' like one.
  • When Daring Do rejects her help, she seems broken. Especially when her trying to help supposedly got her captured. Daring Do herself is very similar to Rainbow Dash before character development and without The Power of Friendship. To meet the pony you've been idolizing ever since you got into books and having her reject your friendship is heart-wrenching. She does, however, form a sort of friendship with Daring Do/A.K Yearling in the end and even becomes her sidekick in the new book which she gets a week before everyone else, including fellow fan Twilight Sparkle. And according to synopsises from The Hub she's become something of a Reasonable Authority Figure in that she herself is given the opportunity to coach the young ponies to hold Ponyville's flag in the Equestria Games. Sure enough, she's matured enough to be a Reasonable Authority Figure and helps get Scootaloo out of a rut. Which she does just that in the episode itself.
  • Here's another thing to consider: The reason Rainbow Dash sympathizes with ponies being teased is probably because she herself was teased as a filly, as proven by bullies (and a Discorded Fluttershy) calling her "Rainbow Crash" in Sonic Rainboom, possibly giving her PTSD. It's quite possible her passive-aggressive tendencies could very well be the result of a mental disorder, especially since in the beginning she couldn't tolerate Fluttershy possibly because she didn't understand. This could lead one to assume Rainbow Dash's social skills aren't very good and she doesn't pick up on social cues the way a normal pony would. It's quite possible she may have some sort of social disorder which would explain her difficulty understanding certain emotions in certain episodes. Her friends usually have to tell her when something's wrong for her to say anything. (Except in a few instances, like Filli Vanilli, Hurricane Fluttershy, and Flight to the Finish.)
  • Testing 1, 2, 3, reveals Rainbow Dash has great difficulty paying attention, which makes it impossible for her to study. Sure, she was acting really smug and stubborn in this episode, but its easy to feel bad for her when she realizes that this could affect her dreams. She gives up and thinks she'll never be a Wonderbolt. This may lead some to believe Rainbow was kicked out of flight school because she just couldn't study. Another possibility is that she was teased for being a class clown by other students back then. You have to wonder if maybe she was kicked out of Flight School because they didn't understand her class clown behaviour and also because she couldn't focus. This, coupled with Rainbow Dash's anxiety when it comes to preforming in front of others, makes her an easy target for woobiedom.
  • Although her plans to sabotage winter were very selfish and irresponsible and could have permanently damaged the weather factory, Dashie becomes a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in "Tanks for the Memories" when she realizes Tank, who has quickly become one of her best friends in addition to being her pet is hibernating. She enters a Sanity Slippage state, and finally breaks down crying near the end causing Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rarity to start blubbering as well. This is only time we've ever see Rainbow Dash outright cry, and while it's somewhat played for laughs, she has the same tears streaming down her face as Fluttershy in "Hurricane Fluttershy".
  • "Rarity Investigates!" has a pretty curious case. Rainbow Dash regards Wind Rider as her inspiration to join the Wonderbolts in the first place. But rather than be honored or touched she felt this way, he moved heaven and earth to have her kicked out of the Bolts simply because, as Spitfire stated (in his presence, no less), she was on track to shatter his still-standing flight record. Ironically, the shoe wound up on the other hoof; he was stripped of his status as a Bolt and Dashie was given his spot in the performance. She broke his record, anyway. Woobie no more.
  • Speaking of the Wonderbolts, Dashie gets her time in the Woobie spotlight once more in the episode Newbie Dash by being hazed and given an Embarrassing Nickname by the Wonderbolts who unknowingly call her Rainbow Crash the exact same name her flight school bullies called her and is probably the reason why she dropped out. We even get to see everypony but Fluttershy (even the supposedly responsible adult, although that could be Dash remembering things wrong) laughing at Rainbow crashing into a cloud then landing in a trash can, in the exact same pose in the present day. This was apparently meant to humble Rainbow and make her realize being a Wonderbolt isn't always sugar and rainbows, though some think the Wonderbolts went too far and utterly broke her. We even get to see Dashie tear up several times and make cringe-worthy impressions of her friends to try and change her nickname. Although this could all be due to Rainbow's own pride not allowing her to tell the Wonderbolts just how much that nickname hurt her. Also as predicted by many fans, Rainbow Dash does indeed have PTSD from her days at Flight School/Flight Camp.

Spike

• Spike is this to a lot of fans. Especially when he and Twilight Sparkle are like family to other each other. The reason fof his woobie status is that one of his worst fears is no longer being Twilight's assistant and he often tries to help out whenever he can. Episodes like Owls Well That Ends Well and The Crystal Empire Part 2 proves that Spike cares about Twilight Sparkle very much.
  • Even if he isn't considered a woobie at the moment, he definitely has woobie in his future as due to his elongated lifespan, he will in all likelyhood outlive Twilight and all of her friends (including one he has a crush on) by a long way, excluding the apparently immortal alicorns.
  • However, since Twilight is an alicorn now, one potential source of angst may now have been eliminated.
    • Jossed.
    • Although that's kinda a vague description to go on. Some believe that they were playing with the words, considering that Celestia Luna and Spike are her friends too, Twilight won't outlive them. Think about it, why would an alicorn die? She holds an element that is too important to Equestria. Or the others (including Spike) will become immortal too.
  • Spike generally de-evolving from Butt-Monkey to Chew Toy to No-Respect Guy and possibly even Cosmic Plaything definitely puts him on this list. Considering that he actually had to put a picture of himself on top of another photograph of the Mane Six to make himself feel included in the picture, and the fact that he wasn't able to come to Twilight's birthday in "Sweet And Elite", became a monster that almost destroyed Ponyville on his own birthday in "Secret Of My Excess", and also was the only one who wasn't invited back to the Crystal Empire after he basically saved it from King Sombra (although it's soon made evident that there were understandable reasons as to why he wasn't invited) and he essentially rivals Fluttershy for top woobie in the show.
  • Here's a thing to consider: Spike is pretty much an outsider in a lot of respects. Not only is he the only male character in a group of females (not that unusual), but he's the only dragon in a society of mostly ponies. A society that barely knows just what is considered normal for a dragon. At best he's probably treated as a page boy or servant and at worst he's an exotic pet. It also doesn't help that it is in his nature as a dragon to become a greedy destructive monster. This is made worse when he actually meets other dragons and has a bad experience with them due to his upbringing, making him an outsider to his own kind as well. This gives the implication that while ponies appear to be inherently good by just being themselves, in order to "fit in" with what he knows, he has to fight against his natural instincts to get to the same level of "good". So it's very easy to feel bad for him when he's left out of things.
  • Power Ponies starts as pretty much a big "The Reason You Suck" Speech to poor Spike. When the ponies tell him they don't need his help, Spike feels left out and starts reading his comic book. When the ponies enter the comic and become the Power Ponies, Spike becomes Humdrum, the sidekick of the Power Ponies who can't do anything right and only gets in the way. Everyone gets captured and he blames himself for it. However, Spike is able to help Fluttershy save the day and the mane six tell him that he ''is'' needed, even if it's not all the time.
  • In Simple Ways, the mare he's liked since the beginning has a major crush on somepony else. And yet he still helps her, because he wants her to be happy.
  • In Equestria Games his cringe-worthy rendition of the Cloudsdale anthem brings him down even further. At least everyone else was embarrassed for him and not laughing at or booing him.

Most of these should go to Iron Woobie except Spike (who is a child or young teen) and Fluttershy who despite getting more assertive tends to let out her feelings more. [[/folder]]

Revised MLP woobie section. Rough draft, not complete.

So that's more or less what I want on pages with existing examples.

Edited by Klavice on Oct 19th 2018 at 11:54:46 AM

Fair warning: I can get pretty emotional and take things too seriously.

I've got this load from the Gundam Franchise, there may be more I've missed and this amount might be enough for a page:

• Normal-Types-
  • Gundam Unicorn: Marida Cruz needs so many hugs. So many hugs. Assuming, of course, that she's OK with that. But she still keep going on and do her duty as Ace Pilot and Super-Soldier which can make her fell into Iron Woobie tropes too.
  • Gundam OO:
    • Marina. Her country is nearly destroyed by a civil in war the first season, and in season 2 she's arrested for having met Setsuna, and then later goes and finds that her country was burned to the ground.
    • Poor Anew Returner.Unlike most member of Innovator, she begin to learn to understanding the human and her love interest was a human.However, Since She was an Innovade created by Ribbons, Her original purpose is for the mission to infiltrate.In a worst-case scenario, Ribbons can shut down and control her mind to finish her task. When Ribbons take over her mind and controlled her, he actived Gaddess self-destruct system to kill both her and Lyle. Making Setsuna has no choice to kill her, in order to save Lyle and freed her from Ribbons control.
    • It's not hard to feel sorry for Allelujah after learning his backstory. Raised solely to fight, Allelujah has to abandon Marie in order to escape the colony to avoid termination. During his escape with fellow children designated to be killed, Al's Ax-Crazy Split Personality takes over and kills and eats his friends when food starts to run out. And then poor Al is forced by Hallelujah to pull the trigger and kill every child inside the facility when he returns with his Gundam, before finding out in the first season's finale that his archrival was Marie all along.
    • Soma Peires/ Marie Parfacy can be seen as one as well. Born through artificial scientific methods, Marie spent most, if not all, her childhood trapped in a glass container being constantly experimented on. In the process of making her telepathic, the HRL scientists stripped her senses of touch and sight, making her very lonely. Although the scientists let her bond closely with Allelujah, Marie eventually loses contact with her only friend as he has to escape to avoid termination. This makes her optimism and strong faith in God rather inspiring and ironic at the same time, as anyone else would surely be anything but optimistic or spiritual.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: Michel.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans:
    • Ein loses his mentor and is injured in almost every fight he is involved and is obviously too inexperienced to make a difference. Now he must sacrifice his humanity to have a chance of avenging his comrades. His tragic transplant into a mobile suit might as well make Robo Cop count his blessings. Later it's revealed that Mc Gillis has used his unfortunate circumstances as an example of what to fear and Ein ends up dying, unable to avenge Crank's death.
    • Carta Issue, while eccentric, is a genuinely honest, competent and kind soldier that believes in justice and wants to honor her family and sick father by fighting fairly. She has to watch all her personally picked elite guard be killed off one by one and is ultimately manipulated by her long time childhood crush into a battle he knows due to her personality she had little to no chance to win.
    • Gaelio Bauduin, while having a Glory Hound tendency, used to be a nice person with a sense of justice, he is gradually shattered into a vengeful and sad person by the maiming and death of some of his friends at the hands of Tekkadan and his treacherous childhood friend, Mc Gillis. He also "dies" with the knowledge that said best friend was behind most of this and will be getting away with all his crimes along with ending up marrying his little sister to get more power.
    • Almiria Bauduin is just a little girl who is forced into an Arranged Marriage and had no idea on what is going on in the world. Though her fiancee treated her with respect, she felt very insecure about the engagement because of her young age. Likewise, she had no idea that he killed her brother and when she learned that her brother came back from the dead which also exposed her fiancee's crimes to public, she's completely devastated and tries to kill him. When that didn't work, she tries to commit suicide but her fiancee stopped her. You felt really sorry for this girl who had to grow up such as Crapsack World.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Given the cutesey art style, it's inevitable that some characters are going to inspire this reaction. For example...
    • Yurin, an orphan girl who is conscripted into Vagan's ranks, forced to be an enemy unit against the boy she likes, and dies on the battlefield at age fourteen.
    • Flit, who sees his mother crushed to death by rubble at age four and becomes a borderline Child Soldier ten years later, and then has his idealism towards humanity shattered by Yurin's death to become a Jerkass Woobie.
    • Kio, who is all of thirteen when he becomes a Gundam pilot and has no idea of the realities of war, having spent his childhood playing battle simulators where he's never had to consider that the enemy pilots are humans or that traitors might have sympathetic motivations, which is resulting in many painful lessons.
  • Two words: Kio Asuno. At the tender age of thirteen, he becomes a Gundam pilot. Because he spent much of his childhood playing battle simulators under the watchful eye of his grandfather, however, he has no idea of the realities of the war he's entering into. His Wide-Eyed Idealist nature and Chronic Hero Syndrome causes him to undergo one of the most painful Trauma Conga Lines in entire Gundam franchise. To start, he takes lessons with his mentor Shanalua, who, as a war orphan who hates killing, is horrified by the poisonous beliefs Kio learned from his grandfather about the enemy. Later, he finds out that she is The Mole for Vagan, but believes that explaining about how she's a nice person to the crew would bring her back. Shanalua flatly refuses because she would be executed for treason and sacrifices herself when Vagan mobile suits attack. Not long after painfully losing his mentor, he finds out that his father is alive as the Captain of the Bisidian pirates. Even so, Flit tells his grandson to forget it ever happened and believe his father is still dead, sowing his gradual detachment from his grandfather. But the poor kid can't even rest then. In Episode 35, having barely avoided death from his sheer lack of experience, Kio gets caught into a Vagan trap while the Diva was en route to retrieve the EXA-DB. While he did escape an episode later, he saw his grandfather try to shake off the Vagans in his outdated AGE-1 and, due to his tendency to follow his heart than his orders, dives right back in to save his grandfather. What ensues is him being captured by Zanald and being brought to Second Moon. But what truly seals the deal are Episodes 37 and 38. Upon his arrival, he gets transferred to Lord Ezelcant's palace, if only because he resembles Ezelcant's dead son Romy. Even with his fairly luxurious imprisonment, Kio realizes that Vagans are forced to deal with rampant poverty and/or the traumatic and deadly diseases from Mars Ray exposure. This is brutally driven home when he is brought to Deen's house after being pickpocketed. Kio finds that Deen's sister Lu (who is a woobie in her own right) takes an immediate liking to him. Not long after a simple dinner, however, he also learns that she is terminally afflicted by the Mars Ray disease and that she wants nothing more than to have something remotely close to a normal life, such as going outside, in the little time she has left. Growing close to her, this realization triggers a Heroic B.S.O.D.. This causes him to bring the condition that he could receive medicine for Lu (even though it only relieves the symptoms and doesn't actually cure the disease) when Ezelcant asks him to unlock the AGE system's security protocols. Having grown attached to Lu and having won her brother's trust, Kio found happiness during his imprisonment in Vagan, so it seems like the kid's finally going to get a break, right? Nope. In the middle of his father's rescue attempt, Kio returns to Lu's house one more time to deliver more medicine. What he finds instead is her brother mourning her peaceful death and a diary of all the memories she could have had with Kio. And as he escapes Vagan in his damaged AGE-3, he breaks down and finally realizes that there are others in Vagan that are just like Lu. Man, looking at all this text above, I'm not sure his Woobie status is YMMV.
    • Lu, a girl Kio's age living in the Second Moon colony of Mars and afflicted by the Mars Ray disease. With three more months to live, she wants nothing more than to try and have some semblance of normality in her life, like having a friend or just going outside.
    • Dorene Ezelcant, the wife of the Big Bad. She's lost a child, pretty much the worst thing a parent can endure, and finds that the Federation's new Gundam pilot reminds her greatly of him in both appearance and personality. And her husband, whom she genuinely loves, will be dead in six months of the same disease that killed their son. The look on her face in all her scenes is just heartbreaking.
  • Speaking the Vagans, Lord Ezelcant's wife Dorene. Having already endured losing her child Romy, which is easily the worst thing a parent can endure, she finds that Kio reminds her greatly of him in both appearance and personality. Then, her husband Fezearl, whom she genuinely loves, tells her he's only got six months no thanks to the same disease that killed their son. All in all, practically any scene she's in will bring you to the verge of tears because of all the hell she has to go through.
    • Surprisingly in Memory of Eden, Zeheart Galette. He only followed Ezelcant's plan because he did not want his allies' deaths to be in vain.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt: Poor, poor Dr. Karla.
  • Gundam Build Divers: Sarah. She's an AI in the form of an adorable young teenage girl that knows what she is, but feared of being seen as weird. Now she's being told that her existence is threatening the game and trying to fix this may kill her, especially now that she's being hunted by Game Master and the administration for existing.
  • After War Gundam X: Tifa
  • Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ: Elpeo Ple. Sure, she is a selfish girl, has Greyand Gray Morality and shows her enviousness toward Leina. However, Ple actually wants a person who truly cares for and loves her as family. Also, she is extremely loving and very protective toward Judau, like her own big brother. All of these are things that she never got in her life,since she only raised to be a cyber-newtype AND SHE'S FREAKING 10 YEARS OLD.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket: Al after the events of the series. His brother figure Bernie dies at the hands of Chris, his sister figure of all people. And he has to keep an iron face so no one will find out that he was working with Zeon.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Miharu Ratokie. Lalah Sune, too.
  • In terms of actual suffering, the pilots from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing are pretty hard to rank, but they all go through some tough stuff:
    • Quatre Winner's psychotic destructiveness after his home is blown up and the fact that it climaxed in his 'killing' his Practically Canon Love Interest put them pretty high on the woobie scale.
    • Duo Maxwell has it easiest during the actual series run, but his backstory makes him a woobie as well. He lived on the street from a very young age, but the gang he ran with died due to a plague, including his idol Solo. After he gets taken in by the Maxwell church, the church gets occupied by terrorists who demand a mobile suit or they'll kill everybody in the church, so Duo goes and steals a suit, only to find that the church was razed to the ground while he was gone. He took his nickname, "Shinigami" because everybody who got close to him died, and he gave himself his name from Solo and Father Maxwell from the Maxwell church, so he could never forget that he failed to save them.
• Iron-Types-
  • Gundam Seed:
    • Go ahead life. Torture Kira. He'll get over it, eventually.
  • Kira Yamato from the same two series might be sensitive but he gets over it in two minutes. Go ahead. Torture him. Insult his will to fight? Check. Kill people he is trying to protect? Check. Kill a friend? Check. Nearly kill him? Check. Reveal to him he is an experiment to manipulate mankind? Check. Kill first love? Check. Attempt against him? Check. Call him out several times? Check.
    • Athrun Zala can also be considered this. Lost his mother in a nuclear strike, has to fight his long lost best friend, watches two of his closest friends and allies die due to his hesitation to fight Kira, has a General Ripper for a father, and is too socially arkward to emote or channel any of this grief until it boils over the top and he breaks down. Yet, he still manages to be possibly the best pilot in the series.
  • Athrun Zala from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED can be considered this. Lost his mother in a nuclear strike, has to fight his long lost best friend, watches two of his closest friends and allies die due to his hesitation to fight Kira, has a horrible father, and is too socially awkward to emote or channel any of this grief until it boils over the top and he breaks down. Yet, he still manages to be possibly the best pilot in the series.
  • To add to it, in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny he finds himself useless, finds his father's sadistic ways are still cursing the universe, loses his fiance twice, first due to an arranged marriage and second through differing ideals, sees a girl almost damn herself to help him, and can only watch as another dies to protect Lacus.
    • If you're charitable to Lacus, she fits in like a hand to a glove. She's sheltered and ultra naive. — but when the chips come down, she does her best to gather her resolve and do what she can to help. Only once she breaks down, and that's when she cries in Kira's arms while telling him about her dad's death.
  • SD Gundam Gaiden Kikoushin Densetsu:
    • Neo Gundam. He starts off by being hunted down by the Delaz Empire for reasons unknown to him, is forced to fight after Delaz attacks Dabat, is continuously hunted on his search for the Armor Gods, is forced to fight the person revealed to be his older twin brother (who he is nearly killed by), has the traumatic reveal that he is actually one of the princes of the fallen moon kingdom of Selenis, is forced to kill his own older brother, and fights Sieg Mabuze to prevent a repeat of Selenis's destruction in Saddrac. Despite all of this, all of Neo's experiences made him stronger and he kept pushing through to the end.
    • Luna Gundam can qualify for this trope as well. In the far past, he and Neo were forced to escape the moon kingdom due to a war, were separated as a result of an ambush, and woke up several centuries later to be put under brainwashing (which failed). He managed to help his twin escape from it and help him from afar, but after this was discovered by Atomic Gundam he was brainwashed successfully by Sieg Zeon. Upon his death, his soul merged with Neo, serving as a source of guidance to him. The manga takes it a step further by having his soul perform a Heroic Sacrifice to defeat Sieg Mabuze by restraining him (which caused him to disappear). Why did he endure all of this? To protect Neo.
  • Mobile Fighter G Gundam:
    • Domon Kasshu eveolves from Jerkass Woobie to this. Has his master betray him, his own government screws him over, he's forced to fight his brother and was convinced for a long time his own father was a viciously evil bastard, even has his eventual girlfriend eaten by a monster. Somehow, he manages to deal with all of it by beating the crap out of the causes of all the above and a lot of Hot-Blooded screaming.
    • Rain, as well. She's always calm and kind, offering support to everyone as the good Team Mom that she is and serving as Domon's support. She only fully breaks down when she think she's failed in her mission and to Domon and when she finds out the role that her dad had in a certain conspiration... But once this is over, she helps Domon to use the Power of Love and destroy the Devil Gundam for good.
• Stoic-Types:
• Jerk-Types:
  • Gundam Seed: Flay Allster, especially once she has her Heel Realization and tries to redeem herself. On one hand she's a self-absorbed, prejudiced and flawed Fille Fatale who's hellbent on revenge and manipulates the hell out of Kira. On the other, she's also a desperate girl who pretty much lost everything and barely knows how to handle herself in the world until her Character Development kicks in.
  • Gundam OO:
    • Tieria Erde begins as such, before evolving into an Iron Woobie. Sure, he's a smug bastard but the Break the Haughty process he goes through which finishes with the death of the person most important to him (Neil!Lockon) is incredibly harsh and lets everyone see that deep down, he's incredibly insecure.
    • The Trinity Siblings, as well. The three are terrible assholes to everyone they come across, but they genuinely love each other and it's later revealed that they're Artificial Humans bred and born to be Gundam pilots. Harsh.
  • Char's Counter Atteck: Quess is a very self-centered and obnoxious child, but at the end of the day she is still a child, one who has spent her whole life coping with the Parental Neglect of her Smug Snake father, and on top of that has Psychic Powers dropped into her lap which may or may not be literally driving her crazy.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Mc Gillis is a Manipulative Bastard more than willing to betray his friends and allies for the sake of his personal goals, but it's hard not to feel some empathy for him after learning what his childhood under Iznario was during Episode 43.
  • Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: Chronicle Asher and Katejina Loos have some rare moments of sympathy, as opposed to Tassilo and Kagatie, who do not.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny:
    • Shinn's an unpleasant little jerk a lot of the time, but that doesn't make what he went through any less horrific. Many viewers want to hug him and slap him at the same time, screaming at him "YOU IDIOT! STOP RUINING YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS'!".
    • Auel and Sting seem to count for some fans, as they're massve jerks but are also mere pawns in this "game" of war and, as members of the Extended group, are deeply fucked up in all senses.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ: Ple Two. You can't blame her for all the bad things she did.Thanks to Glemy, who never treating her as human.
  • Gundam 00 Awakening Of The Trailblazer: Descartes Shaman, the Earth military's first recognized Innovator, is an arrogant jerk who is painfully aware that his superiors see him as nothing more than a living weapon. Kati's reaction when she first meets him is about as mixed as the audience's.
  • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam:
    • Kamille Bidan. Four Murasame is one as well; no matter how sorry you feel for her, she's still the one who burns down Hong Kong while laughing about it in her first appearance.
    • Also, Jerid. He may have the personality of a 1980's Jerk Jock and killed Kamille's mom and Four but he also lost all the people he genuinely cared for throughout the series because of Kamille.
    • Four Murasame from Zeta Gundam. Sure she destroyed a city while laughing like a noblewoman and has yandere tendecies, but her parents died during the One Year War, experimented on by the Federation who wanted to turn her into a psychic Super Soldier. Said experiments robbed her of her memories of her past and gave her a series of headsplitting headhaches, and the Titans kept treating her nothing more than a living weapon and test subject. No wonder she quickly fell in love with the first boy who treated her like a normal human being.
• Destroyers-Types:
  • Rau Le Creuset from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. He's a dying man at 28 years old, born with telomeres of the thirty-something Al Da Flaga, his genetic "father". He's in constant pain that can only be subdued by drug dosages that double twice over the course of the series. His dealings with people, hatred of his flawed body and the people who ensured that he was born that way, his emotional pain over his Parental Abandonment, and being a clone and thus seeing himself with no "identity" of his own eventually became a bitterness towards humanity in general. He descends into full Nietzsche Wannabe territory, convinced that humans only inflict pain and suffering on others, not least of all himself. Aware that his own existence cannot be considered human and is more or less the personification of mankind's sins, he took it upon himself to be the Judge, Jury, and Executioner of humanity, and in a very literal bid to make the pain stop, he tried to Kill All Humans, and nearly succeeded. By the time he sentenced all of humanity to annihilation, he was more or less reveling in the fact that his view was "vindicated" by the actions of Muruta Azrael, who had just tried to wipe out all Coordinators with a nuclear missile array, and Patrick Zala, who was preparing to annihilate all life on earth with GENESIS. A life or two was meaningless at this point.
  • And an example from its sequel is Stella — she stomps through city and wilderness alike in a giant robot, slaughtering innocent bystanders by the thousands because she's driven by a childlike, irrational terror of death, and has been told that if she doesn't fight, scary things will kill her and everyone she cares about. The fact that she's just being used by Neo and Djibril, who are deliberately playing on her fear and pain, makes this all the sadder.
  • Shinn Asuka, the initial protagonist, is even worse. Like his Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam counterpart Kamille Bidan, Shinn is a bundle of emotions that can only really get loose through Mobile Suit combat. However, unlike Kamille, who had people like Amuro, Quattro and Bright to keep his head on straight, Shinn is instead manipulated by Chairman Gilbert Durandal and his own teammate Rey Za Burrel, turning him into The Berserker armed with a senses-enhancing Super Mode and a hyper-advanced Gundam, all in the name of protecting those he cares for and preventing past tragedies, not realizing he's making the same ones.
  • Lord Fezarl Ezelcant, the Big Bad of Mobile Suit Gundam Age, is a married man and was a father. However, the death of his son convinced him that it was high time to root out the weak by waging a war that would eliminate them and create a paradise populated only by the most righteous of humans. Thus began the UE's attacks on Earth Federation Colonies. In the third generation, note , fate really twists the knife by having him encounter a young boy who greatly resembles his son... Who just so happens to be a Federation pilot and the grandson of Flit Asuno, main hero of the first generation and the biggest Vagan-hater alive. Ezelcant's son, in his last moments, said that he'd like to be reborn on earth along with them. Ezelcant is convinced that his son got half his wish.
• Mixed-Typing:
  • Mobile Suit Victory Gundam:
    • Uso-

1. Iron Woobie- The most incredible thing about Uso as a character is that he didn't snap despite the numerous, brutal deaths that happen around him and their consequences.
2. Normal Woobie- While the protagonists of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise seldom get off easy, usually as an illustration why it's a bad idea to put a teenager in the middle of a war zone, Victory Gundam stands out by going out of its way to make the lead character Uso's life a living hell. Forced to pilot the eponymous Gundam against his will by leaders who honestly only value him for his skill, Uso and the Gundam develop a repuation by the enemy as an unholy terror that needs to be destroyed as quickly as possible. Uso does not take it well. "Stay away! You won't be killed if you stay away!" quickly becomes his... er... battle cry".
   • Gundam OO:
     • Louise and Saji-
3. Normal Woobie: Saji and Louise may have settled down, but they're still having a rough time of it due to the latter suffering the effects of being turned into a pseudo-Innovator.
4. Jerk Woobie: Louise Halevy in season 2. All of the bad things she did thanks to Nena's attack 4 years ago and Ribbons manipulation, which left her permanently scarred and traumatized.
5. Normal Woobie Saji Crossroad His older sister is murdered (and may have been raped by her killer), his girlfriend is badly injured and later stops contacting him (and becomes a Dark Action Girl), and he inadvertantly leaks information that causes the deaths of many Cathara members. And to regain what he has lost and repair the damage he's done, he must go through Heaven and Hell and then back; namely by taking part in combat and fighting for the same organization he blames for what happened to him.

========================================================================================== Chopping Block:

• Cut this for being three members too many: All of the Shrike Team because of how none are left alive at the end of the series. Hell, the first member to die, Helen, was killed off one episode after they debuted! Even worse is how the last member, Connie, proclaimed she's protect Uso as the last surviving member of the team only to be unceremoniously killed by Katejina moments later.

================================================================================= Judgements that may need to be made:

• Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Episode 37 reveals that most Vagans become these as they get older, as an inevitable consequence of losing the people they love to the Mars Ray illness.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Many of the younger Tekkadan kids veer into serious Woobie territory. Start with almost all of them being orphans so poor they would normally be starving or doing something worst on the streets in most cases. Then you add in the horrifying Alaya-Vijnana surgery that a number of the unlucky ones don't survive or recover from while those that do the CGS used to readily send them to their deaths as fodder... and that's not counting the Human Debris who have no choice and their inevitable early deaths. These kids don't even understand what a funeral is. How warped this has made them becomes apparent when they want to watch Mika wipe the floor with Carta and her crew as vengeance for Biscuit's death.
• Gundam OO: After learning their full backstory, one has to feel sorry for the ELS. Their homeworld was annihilated in a supernova, and the flashback showing this shows swarms of them flying about in confused, panicky patterns, obviously not knowing what to do in the face of this gigantic wall of fire bearing down from the sky. They then head out into unknown space to find new homes, and when they meet humanity, they started getting shot at and destroyed in large numbers simply for trying to talk to humans (they were unaware that the assimilation process was both extremely painful and usually lethal to humans).

IPP Wick Check created.

Also found these on Gundam Seed Bloodlines:

• Jerkass Woobie: Flay; Asta as well.
• The Woobie: Melanie/Elle

Putting Gundam SEED The Long War to the chopping block for not providing context.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Oct 16th 2018 at 10:27:40 AM

IPP Wick Check created.

Question: I can add examples here or not? Because there some works that have just so many woobies to list all of them. How we deal with those?

Watch me destroying my country

I'd say we start here.

You mean here.

Also you need to EP them.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Oct 17th 2018 at 2:19:57 AM

IPP Wick Check created.

Well, I thought that with that, it'd be easier to list all of the mentioned articles using the trope with the related pages. From Happy Sugar Life:

• The Woobie: Asahi Kobe. A victim of parental abuse by his alcoholic dad, his mom and sister left to get away from the same dad, and even after the bastard died, he finds out that his mom doesn't have his sister with him. Now he lives on the streets, looking for his sister. The poor kid looks like and needs a hug badly.
  • Yuuna, the mother of Asahi and Shio. She was just a normal 16 year old girl until she ran into the absolute worst person at the wrong time. In a blink of an eye, she was raped, pregnant, and forced to marry her rapist so her family can avoid heavy legal action. Her parents abandon her, she can't find employment, and her "husband" does nothing to help her with raising Asahi. And it just gets worse from there.

---

Alright. With Asahi. I don't think he's a straight example for the trope. Yeah, he had suffered a lot, but what makes it more poignant is that he never gives up on trying to find his sister, even through all of the pain and misery he goes through to achieve that goal. So, he would go under Iron Woobie instead.

Onto Yuuna, she's a more hard case. I guess I'll explain here:

Who is she?

Yuuna Kobe is the mother of Asahi and Shio. She was around sixteen-years-old when her life changed.

What is her predicament?

While walking home from school, Yuuna makes the mishap of accidentally bumping into her future husband. He doesn't take the mistake well. At all. After trying to push Yuuna to apologize, he takes her somewhere and rapes her. Afterwards, Yuuna becomes pregnant and is forced to marry the prick. Her husband's father did say that he would try to make everything work out for the two of them, but that wasn't really helpful whatsoever. Sometime later, Yuuna gives birth to Asahi, and her husband leaves for business. While everything appeared fine, she learns that there was an accident that resulted in the deaths of her parents. Coincidentally, her husband's father ends up kicking the dust as well, leaving his bastard son with some serious money. If you didn't think that he would get any more worse, he does. He leaves Yuuna and their son penniless only returning when he spent it all. The marriage only became worse when the domestic abuse reached its breaking point. There is also some indications that Yuuna's husband continued to rape her climaxing in her giving birth to Shio in a bathtub. This would lead to Asahi staying behind while she and Shio escaped.

During those years, Yuuna tried and failed to take care of herself and Shio due to having little to no formal education. She initially kept Shio locked in a subpar house mainly for her own protection, but she does eventually decide to allow Shio to go outside. Unfortunately, Shio is nearly ran over by a bus leading her mother to drop the hammer on her leaving the house again. This causes a small argument between the two, ending with Yuuna slapping Shio. Realizing that she was becoming her hated husband, Yuuna abandons Shio on the streets, which sets up to Shio meeting Satou.

The finale reveals that Yuuna had returned to her hated husband's household shortly after abandoning Shio and she secretly poisons his sake, leading to his demise. She is last seen looking at the hospital Shio was sent to following Satou's death.

Sympathy standard

While the anime adaptation leaves most of her backstory out, the manga version has Yuuna in one of the worst positions of any of the characters from the series (maybe aside from Taiyo who is probably more of a Jerkass Woobie). Yuuna had an entire life ahead for her, and because of one mistake, it collapsed like a house of cards. The manga deeply goes into how utterly broken she is because of her being married and how it was hard for her to even provide for herself due to her lack of an education and minimal job experience. Despite everything, it is apparent that she loves her children, but she ultimately abandons one because she feared that she was becoming her husband the further she tried to take care of Shio.

Is she a Jerkass Woobie?

Again, this is where it is more hard on my part. She does have moments of being mean or "cruel" from preventing Shio from going outside the house; to yelling at her; to slapping her and then leaving her to fend for herself. But in all fairness? These are only a few moments. While she would have these moments of being cruel to her daughter, it is made clear at the end of the day that she does care for her, but that she had been deeply broken by her marriage. While she could've left Shio at maybe an orphanage or whatnot, she ultimately was mentally unwell in that moment. At the end, it is made apparent that she felt remorse for her decision, not going into the hospital to see her because she felt that she didn't deserve it.

Can she defend herself?

No, not at all. She easily gets overpowered by her husband who mentally and physically abuses her. With her returning to her husband, she wasn't trying to defend herself then. Heck, she only manages to kill her husband when his back was turned.

Conclusion

A tough one, but to me, she comes off as a pure Woobie. As for the other characters...Satou. I don't really think she can be purely a Jerkass Woobie because she goes way too far to be truly sympathetic. Shio might be an Iron Woobie due to her insistence on staying with Satou. Taiyo...as I had said, maybe a Jerkass Woobie mainly because he doesn't commit any illegal actions. Shouko, may qualify, because she actually does have some pitiable traits such as being scared to speak for herself - and her death is as sad as it is painful to watch. Other than that, thoughts?

Edited by AustinDR on Oct 17th 2018 at 7:14:30 AM

Yes to all the examples so far.

Remember, a villain that crosses the MEH can still be a Woobie Destroyer of Worlds. So long as they aren't mass raping anyone, or someone like Light Yagami who had their death coming. It's more HOW they crossed the MEH and why. For example, someone like Palpatine wouldn't qualify. Basically think of any existing CM, they don't qualify.

I have to wonder, given the fact that Obito has subtle redeeming qualities including a sad backstory, could he be a WDOW? What about Madara Uchiha? My experience with Naruto goes to most of Shippuden and the original series.

Edited by Klavice on Oct 17th 2018 at 11:44:45 AM

Fair warning: I can get pretty emotional and take things too seriously.

@Klavice Is this also available to most category to all woobies. Also, will the cleanup be like ACW or 43110 when posting the writeup per batch?

"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."

I'm no master at grammar, hell, I hate commas. So it'll be as professional as I can, might need some help for the grammar and removing unneeded information.

Fair warning: I can get pretty emotional and take things too seriously.

Cool. Might be contacting Arivne for writeup and I think we have drafts for the Woobie that Joseph had create so I think its better to use that.

"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."

I slightly glanced at the first post and honestly I think a The Sociopath should be able to qualify as a Jerkass Woobie, let's say there's a villain who believes everything and everyone to be meaningless and thus sees everyone as little more than objects to manipulate, but the nihilism is portrayed sympathetically, as in they are haunted by their nihilism.

Yeah, I could agree somewhat on that notion. A few rare exceptions should be made, however.

So I'll do a brief rundown of the various Gundam characters that have been mentioned, since I'm familiar with most of them.

• Gundam Unicorn — Marida Cruz is probably an Iron Woobie. She has a pretty horrific backstory and is definitely intended to invoke audience sympathy, but she doesn't let her past get the best of her, and she's among the biggest badasses in the show.
• Gundam 00
  • Marina and Anew are both intended as Woobies (a bunch of bad things mostly outside of their control happen to them, they're supposed to be sympathetic) but the fandom largely finds Marina annoying and Anew hamfisted, so YMMV.
  • Allelujah and Soma are definitely not vanilla Woobies, as they're both super-soldier ace pilots. They might be Iron Woobies, but they're mostly played as being badass rather than objects of sympathy, so I probably wouldn't count them.
• 08th MS Team — Michel is played as pathetic more than sympathetic; most of his problems are self-inflicted because he's such a milquetoast wuss. Not a Woobie.
• Iron Blooded Orphans
  • Ein's problems are all self-inflicted and more about him embracing his dark side in the endless pursuit of meaningless revenge; he's a tragic figure, but not sympathetic, so not a Woobie.
  • Carta doesn't really have much tragedy in her life — she has a crush on a guy who doesn't return her feelings, and she dies pointlessly because she repeatedly goes full Honor Before Reason against opponents that have demonstrated themselves as Combat Pragmatists, so I wouldn't call her a Woobie even though she's generally sympathetic.
  • Gaelio is betrayed by his best friend, but in return goes Revenge Before Reason and most of the tragic things that happen are self-inflicted as a result. Not a Woobie.
  • Almiria is a little girl who a lot of bad stuff happens to through no fault of her own, and is portrayed as sympathetic because of it. Definitely a woobie.
• Gundam AGE
  • Yurin probably counts as a Woobie, but she gets so little focus that it's sort of hard to say. She's basically a psychic MacGuffin that's Stuffed into the Fridge so that the protagonist can be sad about it. She doesn't deserve anything that happens to her, though, and we're supposed to feel bad about it, so I guess she counts.
  • Flit is the protagonist for the first arc of the series and has a bunch of bad stuff happen to him (the bad guys kill his family, then attack his new home some years later, forcing him to jump in a Gundam and fight for survival, then they kill Yurin, his would-be love interest — all before he's old enough to shave), but he responds by becoming a xenophobic hardass, which isn't really played for sympathy.
  • The rest of the examples are from the latter half of the series, which I never saw because I dropped it about halfway through, so I couldn't much comment there.
• Thunderbolt — Karla might qualify as a Jerkass Woobie. Hell, half the cast might qualify as a Jerkass Woobie. The tldr of Thunderbolt is "terrible people doing terrible things for very understandable, sympathetic reasons". Karla is a doctor for the bad guys who basically can't handle being in the middle of a war zone and has a mental breakdown as a result. It's played as both sympathetic and kind of pathetic.
• Build Divers — Sarah is definitely intended as a woobie, though YMMV if the writing manages it or not. She's a generic moeblob that everyone loves and adores, but turns out to be an AI whose existence is causing the MMO that the series takes place in to break down, so the rest of the cast has to fight to save her without sacrificing the game and vice versa.
• Gundam X — Tiffa is a MacGuffin Girl who just wants to live a quiet peaceful life, but is sought after by everyone and their dog because of her Psychic Powers. She has no combat skills to speak of, and the whole thing is played for sympathy, so definitely a Woobie.
• Gundam ZZ — Puru (as Elpeo Ple is usually called) is an Enfant Terrible created by the antagonists, but ends up befriending the protagonists and joining their side before dying tragically. She is a pilot, and a powerful Newtype (read: badass), but she's also like ten years old and acts more like an Annoying Younger Sibling than the Super-Soldier she actually is, so I'd say she goes under regular Woobie rather than Iron Woobie.
• Gundam 0080 — Al is definitely a Woobie. The entire OVA is basically about Al (a grade-school kid who, at the beginning of the series, is only concerned about war in terms of how cool mobile suits are) getting his innocence shredded to a fine powder when the war actually arrives on his doorstep.
• Mobile Suit Gundam
  • Miharu is one-shot character from a single episode; she's a war orphan struggling to care for her younger siblings, and working as an informant for the bad guys to make ends meet. She ends up meeting and falling for one of the protagonists, risks her life to warn them of an enemy attack (which she precipitated by passing along information about them to the enemy), and dies helping repel it. Definitely a Woobie.
  • Lalah Sune... this is going to be controversial, but I would argue that Lalah is not a Woobie. She's a Newtype (read: psychic badass) rescued from bad circumstances by Char (The Rival for the series) and she follows him into combat out of loyalty for that. However, she encounters Amuro (the protagonist) and falls in love with him. Since Amuro and Char hate each other, and are on opposite sides of the war, Lalah tries to intervene and get them to stop fighting, because she loves both of them. Neither of them want any part of this, and eventually Lalah sacrifices herself to save Char's life when Amuro is about to kill him. While this definitely played as tragic and Lalah is meant to be a sympathetic figure, her ultimate fate is also her own damn fault, so I don't think she qualifies as a Woobie.
• Gundam Wing — to be honest, Gundam Wing backstories tend to be misery porn, but all the characters end up as stone-cold badasses as a result, so they'd be Iron Woobies if anything.
• Gundam Seed
  • Kira definitely counts as an Iron Woobie — he's forced into the war against his will (his family specifically moved to a neutral country to stay out of it, but the space colony where he lives comes under attack anyway, and he ends up piloting a nearby mobile suit just to survive). He really doesn't want to hurt anybody, but is forced into combat to defend himself and his friends, and in the end decides to fight not to win, not just for survival, but to end the war and stop the fighting as quickly as possible.
  • Athrun probably counts as an Iron Woobie too, as while he volunteered for the war, his world sort of collapses around him in slow motion for unrelated reasons, including his friends dying (one of them at Athrun's own hands, or so he thought), his father going insane, his fiance turning against him, and his entire worldview being turned on its head. Through it all, he soldiers on, doing what he thinks is best without a word of complaint.
  • Lacus is another example of an Iron Woobie. She (and her father) are staunch opponents of the war, but are unable to stop it from escalating, and when the political tide of their home country turns against them, her father is assassinated and she has to flee for her life after being declared a traitor. However, instead of merely running and hiding, she meets up with men loyal to her father, as well as like-minded individuals from other factions in the war, and continues working to ending the war as quickly as possible.

Whew. That's up through the Normal and Iron types, but this post is plenty long enough already, I'll have to go through the rest later.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

BTW, there were a couple Gundam works on the Woobie Discussion Dates page, you could snag them if you wish.

If the scrappy trope isn't relevant to being a CM then maybe it shouldn't be relevant to a character's woobie status.

In fact, I do not think cutting a character should rely on Americans Hate Tingle either.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Oct 18th 2018 at 3:40:40 AM

IPP Wick Check created.

This might sound odd, but would a sympathetic, wheelchair-bound antagonist be a Wheelchair Woobie, a Jerkass Woobie, or both?

It would depend on the context. Are there any examples you had in mind?

Alright, before going to be much more active in the cleanup. I'm going to look some examples that I write earlier before this cleanup thread existed and here are some of them. From the Visual Novel that I truly familiar with the most The Letter:

• Isabella used to be a sweet kid who tried to pursue her dreams in an Arts & Crafts school. However, as the time went by, her father ended up getting sick and thus Isabella was forced to abandon her dreams and decided to work overseas and thus ended up as a Real Estate worker in the Briar Reality Corporation so that she could make money to treat her father's illness. However, after selling the Ermengarde mansion, things went downhill for her. First, she ended up encountering the ghost that resides in the mansion and got stalked relentlessly by her and also most of her friends didn't even believe her and dismissed it as nonsensical. Second, her mentor, Rose Cooper, was brutally murdered which emotionally broke her and lastly, her father dies in the sixth chapter and she can't even save him. What makes it worse is the true ending where one of her friends, Ashton, dies and in a coma route when she ends up going insane after her friends are killed by the ghost. Even though this is kind of mitigated in some endings where she is alive, she really needs a hug.
• Zachary is this due to his own Dark and Troubled Past, where his parents were murdered in a hate crime and because of this incident, he and his sister moved to England to live with their grandparents. To makes matters worse, due to him being a black man, he was bullied at school. But despite all this, he decided to make a documentary video about his own past experiences. However, his dream was shattered after his film got a huge negative reception from the critics in spite of years of hard work and thus Zach doesn't even try to make another movie anymore. Made even worse in one of his bad endings, where he ends up getting caught and framed by Luke Wright due to him finding Hannah's corpse in the nursery. And if that wasn't bad enough, he gets murdered in his prison cell in the very same ending. Fortunately, he is one of the characters that survive in the true ending. However, it's not that hard to sympathize and feel sad with this guy especially with the hardships he has been through.
• Marianne is this since she was abandoned by her biological parents in the darkest alleys of Ireland. Fortunately, she ended up getting adopted by a peddler and then got sent to a Catholic school. However, she was lonely in this school until she met Lorraine. She may have ended up neglecting her due to Marianne needing to focus on her studies, however, after hearing her best friend committed suicide, she regretted abandoning her and her guilt is swallowing her to this day. Not only that, it gets worse when the ghost starts taunting her about her past and then she gets murdered as a requirement for gaining the true ending or in one of the bad endings.
• Perhaps the saddest of them all is Takako. The maid who served as Lady Charlotte Ermengarde's maid in 17th Century. Initially got rescued by Charlotte from the slavery ring, Takako's life was originally good but things went downhill for her after she caught her master cheating with her lover, Eduard Ermengarde's, cousin. And because of this incident, Charlotte orders her men to capture Takako and torture her by rape while Charlotte watch it with a sadistic smile on her face. Fortunately, Edward discovered Charlotte's secret and then breaks up with her. However, this didn't ended there since after this debacle, Takako's spirit continues to be broken as Charlotte murders her cat and Edward while forcing Takako to watch. To make matters worse, Takako ended up getting framed by Charlotte and then getting burned in the stakes as the final nail in the coffin. This ended up making Takako an undead spirit that desires for revenge. However, after she got her revenge, Charlotte's spirit ended up fused with her and torments her in eternity.

Isabella and Zach I think are easy keepers even if Isabella was an Iron Woobie at first. That and the Coma route doesn't help either. Zach got horribly discriminated which is a plot point for the film and Marianne? I think she qualifies just a little bit. Sure, she's an Iron Woobie at first but then you have the ghost who stalks her relentlessly and mentally tormenting her and having her as one of the characters to die in the true ending? That kind of pushes her over the edge for me. Also, Takako...I think she's an easy keeper. But my main issue is with her fusing the spirit with Charlotte. Although if you take the ghost out of context? She's definitely a woobie who got horribly mistreated by Charlotte so yeah...

Also, another example that I write from The Letter concerning Jerkass Woobie:

• Jerkass Woobie: Luke might be a horrible person in the game, especially with his racist remarks towards Zach and the possibility of him killing his own wife. However, he did have a pretty sad life, which included being abandoned by his father and his mother dying early even though she tried her best to give love to him, and he shows regret after killing Hannah.

Yeah, Luke has a sad life in the past but the main issue is that he's a rather unpleasant and racist person in the present and he has a potential to become a murderer. The main issue? He's ended up becoming a broken person in the true ending and regretted killing Hannah. Also, the true ending portrays him as a person who have so many regrets that he sacrifices himself to the ghost. So yeah, I'm torn on Luke.

If you want to ask me? Do you want an extreme rewrite on them or just EP them proper?

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Oct 19th 2018 at 11:16:31 PM

"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."

I think Effort posting them should suffice. It would give us a more firm explanation.

The example I have in mind is Nessarose, from the Broadway version of Wicked. She's wheelchair bound and arguably pretty sympathetic (sick of depending on other people, deeply in love with a guy who doesn't actually care about her and only asked her out because the girl he actually liked told him to, honestly believed he only asked her out due to pity and was floored when he said 'no, its because you're beautiful')...but she's also a corrupt politician and a Yandere.

Effort post her.

Cut this from Dragalia Lost and notified the troper: The Prince. He literally loses everything in the end of the first chapter: his kingdom fell to an ancient empire thought to be lost, immediately branded a traitor by his father, loses his family and his sister Zethia is forced to go along with their father who is now possessed by a being known as The Other. Then Chapter 5 hits and [[spoiler: the Other's true target was was Zethia and by the time the Prince gets to them, the Other-possessed Zethia attempts to murder him in which the freed King Aurelius blocks at the cost of his own life. Even with another Zethia around, THAT Zethia could no longer exist due to her mana having been drained far too much and loses her remaining power to send the Prince and his allies back to the Halidom. The Prince's life really went to hell in the early going.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Oct 19th 2018 at 3:20:52 AM

IPP Wick Check created.