The Woobie Cleanup

Done.

Jane, Lucy, and Shizue.

Edited by IukaSylvie on May 30th 2019 at 10:30:24 PM

What exactly is missing from my description? I can't add as much characterization as for an individual character as they don't have that much characterization to start with.

Lucy and Shizue.

So here's the seventh Outnumbered candidate: Alexa.

Who is Alexa?

Alexa is Jane's daughter, and a friend of Karen's.

What is her predicament?

We have our first meeting with Alexa in the same episode as her mother, who had asked the Brockmans to pick her up from school, and promised to collect her from their house — but she's already over an hour late at the start of the episode. Alexa isn't surprised at all by this — in fact, when asked if she's on her way, she calmly replies "I doubt it." She goes on to mention, casually, that her father, Nick, described Jane as having a brain made out of runny cheese and that he'd be "a crazy man" if he still lived with them — although apparently Jane says he is a crazy man. She then runs off to play with Karen; apparently none of this is new for her. When we see them playing, though, Alexa is casually re-enacting a vicious argument between her parents with two of Karen's dolls. It's notable at this point that Karen — who usually barely registers other people's problems — is visibly disturbed at this.
Alexa reappears in the second season, where she engages in a game of "Stupid Mummies" with Karen. It's clear neither her situation nor her opinion of her parents have improved: "Oh, what am I like? I'm like a silly mummy that's always late and says, 'Oh, I know it's a bit cheeky, but can Alexa stay for ever?'" She also mentions that her parents were shouting at each other over the phone, and that Jane used "the F word and the B word and the K word" (this last one is presumed to be "a spelling thing").
Later in the same season, we are told that when Karen had a sleepover at Alexa's, they watched The Hills Have Eyes. It's not explained who let this happen.
In the 2009 Christmas episode, Jane explains to the Brockmans that Alexa is spending Christmas with her dad, as he has threatened her with legal action.

Can she defend herself?

She certainly can't do anything about her family situation. As noted, she seems to have developed a casual attitude to the whole thing — she simply assumes her mother will fail to keep her promises, and takes their vicious feuding with a pinch of salt. This might be considered a psychological defence mechanism, but it's still pretty sad.

Is she a Jerkass?

Overall, no. Her attitude to her mother varies between sarcastic and quietly resigned, but considering her mother is Jane, that's understandable. She gets on well with Karen, and is generally polite to Sue and Pete, who are the only other characters she has any significant interaction with.

Sympathy Standard?

Admittedly it's a weak one due to the character's limited screentime, but I think Alexa just about passes. Her mother is a neurotic mess who constantly lets her down, and her father seems to care more about scoring points in his feud with Jane than he does about her — in the Christmas episode where she's staying with him, he sends Jane a series of cruel text messages gloating about it. The two of them seem to have become so involved in their ongoing battle that they don't even seem to notice that she has been caught in the middle. The fact that things have progressed to the point where she takes it all in her stride, if anything, makes it worse — not to mention the fact that she's having to deal with all this when she's only about six years old.

Verdict?

I'd say , but only just; others may disagree.

Time to catch up on the posts I missed...

Jane, Lucy, Shizue, and Alexa. Did I miss anyone?

I noticed the Weight of the World Woobie page had been updated while I was gone. (Thanks to whoever got that put through). However, the spoiler warning at the top is incorrect and I (obviously) cannot fix it. It should say "Warning: Spoilers from the entire series are unmarked. Read at your own risk." or something like that. What do?

I'm still working on Ozpin's effort post. He's being difficult. I can't decide whether to call him Ozpin or Ozma, or Ozma for the past events and Ozpin for the present ones since that is what he is called at those times.

Speaking of RWBY Woobies, Qrow Branwen's entry is over 400 words long and has nothing from Volume 6, where some pretty sad stuff happened to him. Should I try to shorten and update his entry?

Also-also, when the RWBY Woobie page is updated, maybe put an unmarked spoiler warning at the top of that too? The covered spoilers are pretty inconsistent. There are some covered from as early as Volume 1 and we're almost to Volume 7 (which will come out later this year), while there are also uncovered spoilers from Volume 6.

Edited by EmeraldSky on Jun 4th 2019 at 10:26:37 AM

As for the Weight of the World and RWBY Woobie pages, please make an edit request on the Locked Pages: Lock, UnLock and Edit requests thread, where I requested the update of the former page you noticed.

Edited by IukaSylvie on Jun 4th 2019 at 10:41:21 PM

^ Will do. Thanks. I'll wait for the RWBY one until I know exactly what I want changed.

Edited by EmeraldSky on Jun 4th 2019 at 9:48:53 AM

Is Sanji from One Piece a Jerkass Woobie? He’s a jerk to pretty much anyone who’s male but has VERY dark past.

Please do a formal effort post okay.

@Emerald Sky: do you still want help chopping RWBY entries (namely Salem and Qrow) down to a manageable word count? I don't mind helping you do that if you're still struggling.

My suggestion would be to remove spoiler tags entirely from the RWBY page. We're supposed to minimise them as much as we can on side pages anyway, and some (such as Moments pages) are Spoilers Off. Given that the RWBY fandom has a policy of scrubbing all spoiler tags on the side pages from before the current volume, it just seems like the easiest solution is to get rid of them entirely. After all, why go and read a page about how characters played the role of the Woobie tropes in the work if you don't want to read spoilerific information? That's just asking to be spoilered.

Anyway, on a side note, someone added Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds to Mercury's character sheet, I changed it to the entry that was on the RWBY Woobie page, but since I'm not sure where the drafts page is, I can't remember if Mercury is an approved Woobie or not — and the WDOW entry on the live page reads like a Woobie entry, not a WDOW entry. Should I delete it from Mercury's character page?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 5th 2019 at 11:41:02 AM

Mercury was deemed a non-keeper.

Cool. I've removed the trope from the page.

To Wyldchyld: Thanks for the offer of help. Salem's draft writeup is on the drafts page if you want to check it out and see if it needs any tweaks. As for Qrow, help would be appreciated. I'd like to add in the stuff from Volume 6 but the entry is already overly long. I'm trying to figure out how to shorten and update the entry while keeping it in the word limit but I'm drawing a blank.

Here is the Qrow entry as-is on the page:

• Qrow Branwen, for many of the same reasons like Taiyang: He's had his sister abandon him to go lead their tribe of bandits, whom he's distanced himself from, lost Summer Rose, the leader of his team, watched as his brother in law and close friend Taiyang go through a Heroic BSoD, nearly lost his nieces twice, with the second time leaving them worse for wear. While his situations here aren't as bad as Taiyang's, seeing as Qrow has some form of contact with Raven and he chooses to leave Taiyang behind, he still has to deal with Cinder's rise to power being partially his fault and the loss of his dear friend Ozpin. And with Volume 4's reveal that his name and Semblance are rumored to bring bad luck, he's most likely blaming himself for what's happened above. Oh, and he also gets poisoned, leaving him unable to walk, unconscious and deliriously calling out for his teammate, with the possibility that his presence would become more and more of a danger to RJNR with each passing episode due to his aforementioned misfortune Semblance. Yikes. Thankfully, he gets better by the end of the volume, but by the next volume he's disappointed that his and RNJR's meeting with Professor Lionheart, who unbeknownst to them is secretly deep under Salem's thrall, turns out to be fruitless, to the point that he bitterly heads to the nearest bar to drown his sorrows. It's clear by that point that Qrow finds himself unable to function without some guidance from Ozpin, which makes his drunken giddiness and relief that he managed to find the latter all the more disheartening. When tasked with forming a crew of huntsman to oppose Salem, he's thoroughly unsuccessful; this later turns out to be not due to his Semblance, but because Lionheart used his position in the Mistral Council to access the info on Mistral's huntsmen and huntresses, some of them who Qrow knew well, and give it to Salem so that she could dispose of them. Qrow's realization of this after Lionheart's treachery is revealed is full of sorrow and anger. He also has to deal with the fact that Raven, his own sister, set him and his allies up to be ambushed by her and Salem's crew so that she could sneak away with the Relic of Knowledge in the confusion. Qrow is so full of anger at this that he declares that he declares that he and Raven are not family anymore. Yet, after the fighting is over, he still shows concern over Raven's status after Yang's confrontation with her in the vault.

I agree with the Spoilers Off suggestion on RWBY's Woobie page. I'm surprised Woobie isn't Spoilers Off as a default. Like you said, it seems like a post-viewing type of page.

I don’t know how to explain properly ok?

EDIT: Also, I’m just asking a question. What’s wrong with that?

Edited by VulgarBee on Jun 5th 2019 at 1:21:16 PM

Okay, apologies for the delay, I'll have a look at Salem and Qrow today and PM you a suggestion. It's quite tough to cut those down, so it might take a few tries!

Just to double-check, what's the word limit? Is it 300 words?

I've had a quick scan of Ozpin's other trope entries. There's no formal rule, but the fandom does appear to have fallen into a natural pattern:

• Current character references: Oscar. (For entries that go best in Oscar's character sheet.)
• Current Ozpin-era and Ozpin-character references: Ozpin. (For entries that go best in Ozpin's character sheet.)
• Differentiation between Ozpin and Oscar: those two names as relevant, and the main thrust of the entry will determine if it goes into Ozpin or Oscar's character sheet.
• Past incarnations: Ozma. (Sometimes with clarification comments, such as 'Ozma, Ozpin's original form', sometimes with a pothole to Resurrective Immortality. These entries almost always go into Ozpin's character sheet.)
• Original form: Ozma. (If clarification comments needed, see above.)
• Entries that mix current information (use Ozpin) with flashbacks (use Ozma): (If clarification comments needed, see above. These entries always go into Ozpin's character sheet.)
• Very little of the Ozma-relevant information is going into Oscar's character sheet, probably because — for now — he's been siding with the other characters against Ozpin, and the Ozpin/Ozma situation is treated as 'another being' separate to himself... given Oscar's transformation at the end of Volume 6, that might start to change in Volume 7.
• Entries that cover the entire scope of Ozpin/Ozma's existence tend to default to Oz, where it's not easy to figure out the best name to use or where it gets too complicated to flip back and forth names. After all, no matter who he's been, he's always been an 'Oz'. These tend to go in Ozpin's character sheet, too.

Really, it's whatever makes the entry flow best. Sometimes, it's just easier to use 'Oz'.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 8th 2019 at 3:11:08 PM

^ To Wyldchyld: Don't worry about the delay. It's okay. I probably should have tried to PM you the forum message but I couldn't figure out how. I think there's a way...

I'm 95% sure the limit is 300 words. So yeah, it might take a few tries to fix Qrow's entry.

Gosh, this is confusing! I keep going in circles of "Ozpin who was once Ozma but is still Ozma but under a different name or is he because how much of Ozpin is Ozma but now he's Oscar but he isn't(?)" I wish the merging or not-merging thing was explained in more detail (and without contradictions) because if the Oscar-Ozpin thing has them remain "separate" like the flashback implied (Jinn: "Ozma began to learn the importance of living with the souls with which he had been paired.") , have we ever met the "real" Ozpin (the original Ozpin's soul)? Or is it what Oscar implies a couple episodes later where he will eventually be overtaken by Ozma? (Oscar: "I don't know how much longer I'm going to be... me.") If the latter is the case that adds another layer of sad onto Ozma's potential Woobiehood. I shouldn't be so hung up on this but it's making me struggle to compile what I should for "Oz's" woobie post because how much is Ozma?

You know what? I think I'll take your advice and call him Oz for the most part (and treat Ozma and Ozpin as one person). I'm going to keep going in confused circles otherwise. Good idea.

Edited by EmeraldSky on Jun 8th 2019 at 11:06:28 AM

It could be worse than that. Remember what Ozpin told Pyrrha? It's completely uncertain how much of her personality would survive — there was simply no way to know in advance. If so, the odds are that how much of the host survives the Body Surf will vary from incarnation to incarnation.

I think for the purpose of an EP, 'Oz' is the best solution. And, once you've posted it, have a big drink and a box of chocolates to recover.

Two weeks have passed, so here's Brightburn.

Who is he?

Brandon Breyer is the Villain Protagonist of the film. When he was an infant, his spaceship crashes into the farmlands belonging to Kyle and Tori Breyer. From that point onward, Brandon was raised by them and seemed relatively normal. At least until he turned 12...

What is his predicament?

Brandon is aware of his alien nature and is conflicted with it (even though the film doesn't do that much of a good job with conveying that). His powers start to manifest, and he ends up getting into several instances of trouble. Most notably? After stalking his crush Caitlyn, he ends up breaking her hand and getting two days suspension. Shortly afterward, he ends up killing her mother so that they could be together.

Due to not expressing any remorse, his aunt and counselor informs him that she would notify the town police on any progress. That night, he goes to her home to threaten her into silence. His uncle Noah arrives home, sees him hiding in the closet, and he tells him to get into his car. Brandon however uses his powers and gruesomely kills him.

Where his conflicted self comes in again is when Kyle — already having realized that something was wrong with his adoptive son — suggests that they go out into the woods for a trip. The hunting trip turns out to be a front as Kyle was really going to shoot Brandon and pass it off as an "accident." Unsurprisingly, this fails, and Brandon kills him by shooting his lasers into his face until the backside of his head exploded.

Brandon returns home and kills two officers called to the Breyer residence and approaches his mother. After embracing her, Brandon catches onto his mother taking a scrap of metal from his spaceship as a means to kill him, and he flies her up into the air. Allowing her to caress his face one last time, he then lets her fall, and takes an airplane down to cover up his actions.

Is he a jerkass?

Oh yes. He starts the film with sociopathic tendencies before becoming an outright mass murderer. But one thing to keep in mind regarding Brandon is the implication that his actions are largely commonplace to his race. He seems to genuinely not understand that his actions would be horrific. Unlike with Superman who was an alien but ultimately chose his human side, Brandon doesn't have that luxury where he struggles with himself, but ultimately his extraterrestrial nature overdrives him.

Though because of the film not really giving much to explain how he became evil, I could see some arguments that he is too vile there.

Sympathy standard?

Again a more tough one. A WDOW is understood to be more a broken character than a pitiable character, Brandon here started off as a seemingly normal young preteen, but then later became a mass-murdering, psychotic terrorist without much of a say.

Why WDOW?

Because he becomes a monster due to his alien nature? Or how he did love his parents at first and them betraying him was actually a shocking, hurtful development for him?

Verdict

Unsure. Leaning towards Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.

With some (a lot of) help and contributions from Wyldchyld, here is the last current Woobie candidate for RWBY: Ozpin/Ozma/Oz. The second paragraph of "Endured", the "Is he a jerk?", and the "Sympathy Standard" are mostly Wyld's contributions, along with some other details. (Once again, thank you for the help. I wouldn't have gotten this done without you.)

Who is he?

Ozpin, who in his first life was known as Ozma, lived hundreds of years ago when the Gods of Light and Darkness lived with humanity and all humans had magic. He was a noble and pure-hearted hero who rescued Salem from her tower. Unlike others who attempted the same out of the hope of gaining her hand in marriage, Oz was motivated only by the desire to save her because it was the right thing to do. The two fall in love, but their happily ever after is cut short when Oz is killed by a sickness. Salem tries to resurrect him but fails, and her efforts to get revenge on the Gods leaves humanity briefly extinct.

Years later, Oz awakens in a white space, where the God of Light offers him a chance to return to Remnant. Oz's purpose is to unite humanity. If he fails, Remnant will be destroyed by the Gods. Every time Oz dies, he reincarnates by going into the body of a likeminded soul, so he "will never be alone". His most recent incarnation (Ozpin) was the Headmaster of Beacon until it fell and he now shares the body of the fourteen year-old Oscar.

What has he endured?

Ozma dies young from a sickness. Salem goes to the God of Darkness and he is briefly resurrected, only to be killed by the God of Light (who turns him to ash). This happens a few more times, with Dark bringing him back while Light kills him. He if fully conscious during the experience. Eventually the Gods agree he should stay dead and turn him to ash one final time. Later, Light resurrects Oz anyway.

He reunites with Salem and they raise four daughters until Oz becomes aware of just how dangerous Salem has become in his absence. When she suggests he should forget about his mission and instead help her destroy humanity and replace it with their descendants, he decides to get his children out of there. When he tries to escape with them in the night, Salem confronts him. Although he plants himself between her and the children, she attacks anyway. The girls are killed in the crossfire and Salem and Oz kill each other.

While Salem instantly regenerates from any and all injuries, Ozma is forced to reincarnate via Body Surf and has no choice about who he reincarnates into. He no say in what male gets chosen to share his burden of saving Remnant, which is why Ozpin ends up reincarnating into a fourteen-year-old child, Oscar. He is clearly reluctant and unhappy about having to have Oscar join his fight, but he can't let Oscar remain a farmhand. Oz has to unite humanity or they and Remnant will be destroyed by the Gods when they are summoned with the Relics. It's pretty much an impossible goal. He tries different tactics but all of them have failed, often because of Salem. He reincarnates, tries to unite humanity, fails, is killed, and reincarnates again. Rinse and repeat for hundreds of years.

Oz's latest attempt to bring peace was with the Huntsman Academies, which he created to promote peace and unity among the Kingdoms of Remnant. Salem sent Cinder and ruined that: Beacon has fallen, the White Fang terrorist group is a problem, the Relic of Knowledge is out in the open instead of safe in Haven's Vault, and Atlas is ready for war. Ozpin himself is killed during the Fall of Beacon, sending him to reincarnate into Oscar.

Thanks to Ruby's question to Jinn, Oz is forced to see his past with Salem, including the deaths of his daughters. When the truth comes out that Salem "can't" be destroyed, everyone turns against Oz, including Qrow. Yang yells at him and calls him a bastard, Ruby questions him, and Qrow punches him in the face. Qrow also tells him (Oz) that meeting him was the worst luck of his life.

His response?

Ozma is terrified and panicked when he awakens after his first God of Darkness resurrection. It's clearly not a pleasant experience since he screams "Where am I? What is this? WHERE AM I?" Later when he is told of his mission and that if he fails, humanity will be eradicated, he falls to his knees with a despairing look. He had brief happiness with Salem but has to suppress doubts on whether what they are doing is the right thing. His love for her wins out for a while, but once he finds out Salem wants to destroy humanity, he immediately takes action against her. The woman he loved is gone. She now hates him enough that hearing his name infuriates her enough to shatter windows with her power.

Oz's grief for his lost family lasts for several reincarnations, and he spends at least one life drinking heavily. However, no matter how distraught he gets, he eventually recovers and tries to complete his mission. Oz shatters when Jinn tells him that he can't defeat Salem but he has no choice but to keep fighting. He "can't defeat Salem" and he can't unite humanity, so he works on trying to delay her and stop her from getting the Relics needed to summon the Gods.

Oz is usually a very calm man and very in control, even when he's in stressful situations. He cries for the first time ever after Jinn shows everyone his past. After Qrow says meeting Oz was the worst luck of his life, Oz faintly says "Maybe you're right" and retreats into Oscar's head. He is gone for nearly an entire volume and does not come out until he saves the heroes from crashing their airship.

Is he a jerk? Any jerk moves?

Technically, no he's not a jerk, though characters treated him as if he is one. While he cares about humanity and people's lives, he's prone to keeping secrets and only giving people the bare minimum of information to get the next task done. This makes him come across as shady and untrustworthy at times even to his closest allies.

However, he has tried to explain to the heroes that his secrecy and hiding of the truth is a behavior he has been forced to learn over time. He's actually got a history where allies have turned on him because he hasn't told the truth, and allies have turned on him because he has told the truth. He's therefore stuck in a catch-22, where experience has made him increasingly reluctant to share the truth because experience has taught him that people can't handle the truth.

The full conversation happens after a very old friend of Oz's, Leo, has been revealed to be The Mole for Salem, having switched sides because he learned the truth and became too terrified of Salem to oppose her. Oz is still reeling from that betrayal when the heroes confront him about his secret-keeping. When they claim they will stand by him even after learning the truth, he tells them that's exactly what Leo once said.

Sympathy Standard?

Even when Oz tells RWBY and the others his secrecy is a learned behavior from past experiences of betrayal, they insist they will stand by him even after learning the truth. When the truth comes out, everyone in the group turns against Oz, exactly like he feared. No one defends him or cares that he had just seen his family die and fall apart again. Even Ruby is unsympathetic towards him. No one in the group looks at the story as a whole and how emotionally wrecked Oz is by it. They do not wonder if Exact Words are at play and instead blame him for keeping Salem's "invincibility" a secret. RWBY and the others act as if they would never have joined Oz's fight if they knew Salem was "unbeatable" and some tell him as much. Instead of seeing that Oz is the victim for the most part, they blame him for everything. I don't blame him for giving up and retreating into Oscar’s head (and even when he's at his lowest he still came back and saved their lives when their airship was about to crash).

Verdict?

The Woobie or Iron Woobie

I'll let others weigh in on the Nali.

To everyone else I've missed.

BTW, anyone excited for any of the future games announced at this year's e3?

Edited by MasterJoseph on Jun 15th 2019 at 3:12:00 AM

Alright, I've been doing EPs for despicable characters for a while, so I figure I should try something different.

What's the work?

Silent Hill 2, aka the greatest video game of all time. If you disagree, fight me IRL. As for the plot, it's about a man named James Sunderland who has been spending the last three years in a deep depression since his wife, Mary, died. One day, he inexplicably receives a letter from her calling him to find her in the town of Silent Hill.

Who is Angela Orosco?

Angela Orosco is an eccentric and disturbed young woman that James meets on his way to Silent Hill.

What is her predicament?

Prior to the events of the game, she was repeatedly molested by her alcoholic father throughout her life, and according to the novelization, her brother joined in as well. Meanwhile, her mother did nothing to stand up for her, outright Slut-Shaming her and telling her she deserved the abuse. One day, she had enough and stabbed her father to death before running away to Silent Hill, her traumatic memories seemingly repressed (she tells James, "I'm looking for my mama — I mean, my mother" and "I thought my father and brother were here, but I can't find them, either"). She doesn't seem like much of a woobie the first time he meets her, just a little weird. The second time, though, she's lying down in an empty apartment, holding a knife, contemplating suicide. After a conversation with James, she offers to let him take her knife out of fear of what she might do to herself ... before screaming and pointing it at him, then promptly apologizing and dropping it for him to take.

Some time passes, and James finds her again in a room in the labyrinth, where she's being tormented by a monster that she calls "daddy", implying that she's not seeing a monster at all, but rather, her father himself. James kills "daddy", and Angela grabs a TV, smashing it down on him before kicking at his corpse. James tries to reach out to her, and she lashes out at him, calling him a "disgusting pig", accusing him of wanting to rape her. Eventually, she composes herself just enough to call bullshit on James' claim that Mary died of illness, and that he "didn't want [Mary] around anymore" and that he "probably found someone else". She's not entirely wrong ...

In their final encounter — and one of the most heartbreaking yet breathtakingly beautiful cutscenes in gaming history — she's standing on a stairway in a burning room, at the end of her rope. She initially mistakes James for her mother, and apologizes when she sees who he really is. Then she thanks him for saving her, but says she wishes he hadn't, then revealing more of her sad history, being led to believe she deserved to be raped, mocks him for thinking he might be able to save her, then asks for her knife back. When he refuses, she walks back up the burning staircase. James remarks, "It's hot as hell in here." Angela responds, "You see it too? For me, it's always like this." Then she ascends the staircase, presumably to her death.

Can they defend themselves/are they a Jerkass?

The only time she's confirmed to have defended herself is when she killed her father. A newspaper clipping implies there was a struggle, so it might have been when he tried to rape her. Other than that, it's unclear if she can actually defend herself, and she just barely manages to survive her thoughts of suicide long enough to remember the truth about what she did. As for being a jerkass, yes, she is quite rude to James the third and fourth times they meet. However, I find it difficult to blame her. That sort of trauma is definitely more than enough to put one off from trusting men.

Sympathy Standard?

First of all, there's James, whose sympathetic qualities are contestable and open to interpretation. I personally find him sympathetic, but a lot of people are far more divided on his sympathy level than I am. He was a Henpecked Husband who killed his ailing wife and repressed the memory out of guilt. Depending on who you ask, he either did it because he wanted to end her suffering, or because he was tired of her constant bile-spewing, though there's also a bit of a middle ground. And the authenticity of his remorse depends on what ending you get. There's one where he learns absolutely nothing and is probably doomed to repeat his mistake again.

Then there's Maria, a Hotter and Sexier tulpa of Mary who I'm definitely planning to propose. She was manufactured by the town, but unlike Pyramid Head, seems to be an independent entity rather than an aspect of the forces controlling Silent Hill. She shares all of Mary's memories and her love for James as well as Laura, and when she finds out that she only exists to torment James, she nearly shoots herself. Quite literally, she lives for James and James alone, and once he guns her down, all she can do is repeat his name over and over again before he finishes her off.

Eddie ... doesn't qualify, if you ask me. He might have qualified as a Jerkass Woobie, but then he boasted about killing a bully's dog and how it "tried to chew its own guts out", and that makes it difficult to sympathize with him on any level, Pvt. Pyle expy or not. Of course, I love dogs, so I'm biased.

Not sure about Laura. She isn't aware that Mary is dead for most of the game until James tells her as such, and is totally impervious to the dangers of the town, due to being untouched by sin.

And Mary isn't even in the game except in three of the endings (one of which she's the final boss and not Maria) and in the hallway dialogue before the final boss.

Verdict?

I think she can go in either The Woobie or Jerkass Woobie. Her hostility towards James might qualify her for the latter, but her backstory is just so horrible that she almost seems justified.

to Brandon, Ozma and Angela.

Brandon and Angela

Well this thread is just as much of a woobie as the candidates proposed here! Here's Maria's EP:

Who is Maria?

Maria is a tulpa of James Sunderland's late wife, Mary Shepherd-Sunderland.

What is her predicament?

The sub-scenario title, "Born from a Wish" is exactly what it sounds like: Maria was manufactured by the town, by way of James' lonely and sexually frustrated mind. She starts out her existence in the dressing room of the local strip club, Heaven's Night, contemplating whether she should continue to fight the monsters infesting Silent Hill or kill herself. She chooses the former, eventually coming to a mansion where she meets a depressed man named Ernest (Baldwin, not Hemingway), who makes a few requests of her before revealing her purpose. When she realizes what she is, she tries to shoot herself ... only to toss the gun away and (seemingly) fulfill said purpose: to torment James.

She meets James at Rosewater Park and joins him in his quest to search for Mary, which ends up doubling as a search for Mary's surrogate daughter, Laura, who Maria is shown to be incredibly protective of despite not actually knowing her. Later, while they're in the hospital, Maria starts to cough, and when James looks concerned, she assures him it's "just a hangover", but lies down on a bed while returning to exploring the hospital. After the Otherworld transition, she finds James in the basement. He mistakes her for Mary, which makes her quite livid, calling him out for leaving her to fend for herself against the monsters. Then she bursts into tears, pleading with James not to leave her alone and hugging him. Eventually, the two of them reach a sub-basement of the hospital, where they're chased by Pyramid Head. James outruns him, but Maria ... isn't so lucky. He tries to hold the elevator doors open for her, but she ends up impaled on his spear.^note Despite all the game's Freudian imagery, that innuendo was not intended.

While in the labyrinth, James finds her again, alive and well and in a jail cell. She flirts with James a little, telling him to "come and get her". By the time he makes it to the door to her cell, though, she's dead again, apparently strangled.

After James views the tape where he discovers the truth, Maria starts calling out to him on his radio, begging him to come save her. He reaches the Otherworld hotel lobby, at which the upper level are two Pyramid Heads and Maria hanging upside down in a metal contraption, screaming for James before one of them skewers her. James battles the two monsters until they kill themselves, then heads into one of the rooms ahead. Depending on which ending you got, the final dialogue between James and Maria varies slightly, but it's essentially all the same: she tries to talk James into staying with her, only for him to decline because he wants Mary and not her, only for her to go One-Winged Angel and try to kill James. Once she's at his mercy, all she can do is repeat his name over and over again. And in the Maria ending, the final boss isn't her, but rather Mary herself. After that fight's finished, Maria returns to James, and the two leave Silent Hill together, with Maria coughing the Incurable Cough of Death, and James simply tells her she "should do something about that cough". The implications being that James has gone full circle and is bound to repeat his actions, only this time on Maria.

Can she defend herself/is she a Jerkass?

Maria handles herself pretty nicely in the Born from a Wish scenario, but then she tosses her gun and cleaver, leaving James to defend her from any monsters they come across. And there are times where she seems to willingly play along with the town's (supposed) goal of tormenting James by acting as a sort of temptress, and also takes a dig at the possibility that he actually wanted Mary gone so he could move on with his life ("I look like Mary, don't I? You loved her, right? Or maybe you hated her."). Also, she has a Berserk Button where she absolutely despises being mistaken for Mary. However, for the most part, she's one of the most kind-hearted characters in the game, and it seems her creation worked a little too well by the town's standards. Not only does she look nearly identical to Mary, but she also shares a lot of her memories, attachments, personality, even the same terminal illness, and she's quite horrified at the revelation that the sole purpose of her existence is to torment a lonely man. In the end, it seems like she genuinely and desperately wants James to love her.

Sympathy Standard?

See my EP for Angela. Also, there's Ernest, whose young daughter fell down the stairs and died on her birthday, which sent him into a deep depression. We never get to see his face, but he does seem pretty sad. He was probably a real person, too, if all the items in his mansion are any indication. Though he's also implied to be a creation of the town.

Verdict?

I'd probably say The Woobie.

Edited by Stellarvore on Jun 18th 2019 at 12:55:51 PM

I've run these past EmeraldSky. I don't know if I should add them straight to the Drafts, so I'm erring on the side of caution and posting them here.

Suggested rewrites for Salem and Qrow's entries to try and cut their entries down a little bit.

The Woobie entry:

• RWBY: Qrow Branwen is an alcoholic loner, raised with his twin sister Raven by a Bandit Clan who named him after the crows they believe bring bad luck. His permanently-active Semblance brings misfortune to all, benefitting him in battle but forcing him to distance himself from loved ones to protect them. Sent by the tribe to Beacon Academy to learn how to murder Huntsmen, Professor Ozpin changes his life by being the first person to ever see past his curse and give him a place in life; abandoning his tribe to become Ozpin's most loyal follower in the Secret War against Salem damages his relationship with his sister, whose mistrust of Ozpin leads her to eventually make the opposite decision. After the Battle of Beacon, Qrow struggles to cope with Ozpin's responsibilities and starts drinking more heavily. He tries to look after Team RNJR from a distance to protect them from his Semblance until they're attacked by Tyrian Callows, where his intervention gets him poisoned when he has to save Ruby from being killed by his own Semblance. When Qrow seeks Professor Lionheart's help, he inadvertently reveals to Salem's forces the secret location of the Spring Maiden: his sister's tribe. Previously neutral, Raven is forced to side with Salem against Ozpin, leading to a betrayed Qrow disowning her completely. Shortly afterwards, his entire world collapses when the heroes learn the truth about Ozpin's past; his confrontation with Ozpin devastates both men for the rest of Volume 6, forcing the students to take over as Ozpin disappears and Qrow descends into an ever-worsening spiral of drunken despair.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds entry:

• RWBY: Salem yearned for freedom, locked in isolation by her father until rescued by the legendary hero, Ozma, with whom she fell in love. Devastated when he dies from sickness, she begs the God of Light to resurrect him and then, when he refuses, the God of Darkness. Restoring Ozma provokes a confrontation with the God of Light, where Ozma is repeatedly killed and resurrected in front of Salem's eyes until she turns on the two gods in rage. They punish her with immortality to prevent her reuniting with Ozma in the afterlife until she learns the value of life and death. Driven to Suicide, but unable to die, Salem raises an army against the gods; in retaliation, the God of Darkness destroys humanity before both gods depart the world, leaving Salem to exist alone for years until she tries to end her curse by throwing herself into the God of Darkness's Pools of Annihilation. She's instead transformed into a being of pure destruction. When humanity returns to the world, the God of Light reincarnates Ozma to guide them to redemption. Salem finds freedom by raising a kingdom and family with Ozma until he becomes so worried by her destructive urges that he absconds with their children. Confronting him, their ensuing battle destroys her freedom, home, kingdom and children. Now Salem is determined to ruin Ozma's mission by destroying humanity, trapping them forever in a war of hate that has no end.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 19th 2019 at 9:24:30 AM