History Main / CollateralAngst

Compare and contrast with AesopCollateralDamage, where a peripheral character's suffering is also used to teach the protagonist a lesson.

Compare and contrast with AesopCollateralDamage.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''' ''I Am the Night'' is all about Batman's distress about Commissionner Gordon being wounded on the field. So much that Gordon himself and his daughter are the ones who reconfort him and Bullock is clearly expected to be viewed as incredibly mean for chastising him.

* In ''Creator/CoriFall'''s fic ''The Thorns of the Rose'', Jessie is triggered by memories of her previous abusive relationship during a vacation, and throws herself into work to distract herself. The story is told from James's point of view and focuses on his increasing angst and the fear that Jessie's stopped loving him.

* Most people feel soooo bad for [[ClassicalMythology Hercules]] when he accidentally kills his wife [[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/megara.html Megara]][[note]]whose actual death depends on the version, some she escaped and/or married Hercules' nephew Iolaus afterward[[/note]] and their children.

Someone's in trouble. The type of trouble can vary enormously -- they could have been brutally attacked, recently bereaved, or blaming themselves for a catastrophe they couldn't stop. So now they're laid up in hospital with half their body in plaster, or mid-HeroicBSOD. Even the most cynical of viewers can't blame the poor soul for going a bit {{Emo}}.

The real point of the story isn't "the victim was attacked" but "look how protective/self-loathing/angsty/loving the victim's friend is." The scenario is set up for the friend to get CharacterFocus. The person who was hurt is [[TitleDrop Collateral Angst]].

The only glimmer of hope for a "damage victim" is that they are important characters in their own right. Once they have recovered, things will be business as usual. It could be worse. If the wronged party isn't just injured, but dies in a particularly pointless way for the main character to angst over, they were probably StuffedIntoTheFridge. Someone who is living, breathing CollateralAngst - to the point the reader/viewer wonders if they're ever out of the hospital - and has little plot importance or characterisation beyond that is a DisposableWoman. Of course, [[AlwaysFemale two X-chromosomes are required]] to qualify. [[GenderFlip Usually]].

!!Examples:

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* Both Kisa and Rin are viciously attacked by Akito in ''Manga/FruitsBasket''. Rin in particular is badly injured after being pushed out of an upper floor window. However, both girls seem to discount these events in their catalogue of tragedies. Kisa is more worried about the bullying she suffers at school, while Rin desperately searches for a cure to the Sohma curse in between hospital visits. Their love interests, Hiro and Hatsuharu respectively, on the other hand, angst constantly about their failure to protect their girlfriends. Hiro especially sees his inability to stand up to Akito and prevent the attack as an insult to his masculine pride and proof that he is unworthy of Kisa.

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* Deconstructed twice in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'':
** When his best friend, Ben, is diagnosed with leukaemia, Dr. Cox doesn't cope well. Ben, in a rare subversion, actually calls him on this behaviour, pointing out that he's the one with the disease, and could use his friend's help rather than having to cope with Cox's issues.

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* Most people feel soooo bad for [[ClassicalMythology Hercules]] when he accidentally kills his wife [[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/megara.html Megara]][[note]]whose actual death depends on the version, some she escaped and/or married Hercules' nephew Iolaus afterward[[/note]] and their children.

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* Hermione's rape in ''Fanfic/InThisWorldAndTheNext'' is very similar, in that it happens solely to motivate Harry to kill the perpetrator (a literal RonTheDeathEater) and is never mentioned after the first chapter, and Hermione's own reaction to it is never explored.

* A big part of JodiPicoult's ''Literature/HandleWithCare'' is the fact that while Willow is physically injured for most of the book (she has brittle bone disease), it's her mother, Charlotte, that does all the angsting -- and it's her mother's lawsuit that threatens the family, not Willow's disease. Even Charlotte is forced to realise that the court case she's set in motion is more about herself that Willow.

* A big part of JodiPicoult's ''HandleWithCare'' is the fact that while Willow is physically injured for most of the book (she has brittle bone disease), it's her mother, Charlotte, that does all the angsting -- and it's her mother's lawsuit that threatens the family, not Willow's disease. Even Charlotte is forced to realise that the court case she's set in motion is more about herself that Willow.

* Most people feel soooo bad for [[ClassicalMythology Hercules]] when he accidentally kills his wife and children. The actual wife and children who've just been brutally beaten to death, of course, are generally unnamed.
** Actually, this wife's name was [[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/megara.html Megara]].
** And there's some doubt about whether Megara was killed. Some versions of that myth say that she escaped and/or married Hercules' nephew Iolaus afterward. But the trope still applies, for her grief for her dead children? It's never mentioned at all.

The real point of the story isn't "the victim was attacked" but "look how protective/self-loathing/angsty/loving the victim's friend is." The scenario is set up for the friend to get CharacterFocus. The person who was hurt is CollateralAngst.

* The ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' plot arc where Kyle Rayner's assistant Terry Berg gets gay bashed focused more on Kyle dealing with the angst of such a thing happening to his best friend, tracking down the assailants and scaring the bejeesus out of them, and eventually deciding that he was running out of faith in humanity and taking off for the stars. All while Terry, the one who actually got attacked, lay in traction.
* One of [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]]'s problems with DC's ''IdentityCrisis'': Sue Dibny is raped, but the story completely ignores the issue of how the attack affects her in favour of focusing on how it affects ''everyone else''. He goes on to point out the the comic's multiple narrators are all men, so while rape as a plot device (Linkara argues) is used by bad writers as "a thing that happens to women", an actual woman's take on the attack isn't provided, let alone the victim's own experience. [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/34012-15-things-that-are-wrong-with-identity-crisis Here's the episode]] for more details.

* * Manga/SailorMoon's ''Stars'' arc (manga version) demotes the Senshi so that instead of being a formidable team, they exist only to get into dire straits and we can see how heroic Usagi is as she copes with such tragedy. Other arcs do this to a lesser extent, but ''Stars'' eliminates them all in double-quick time.

* Manga/SailorMoon's friends [[SatelliteCharacter exist only]] so that they can get into dire straits and we can see how heroic Usagi is as she copes with such tragedy. ''Especially'' in the manga version of ''Stars''.

** Actually, his wife's name was Megara.

* On BuffyTheVampireSlayer, Cordelia expects others to give her this treatment. ItsAllAboutMe, and so she tells a story where she hit someone with a car and felt that her emotional pain from the incident was a bigger deal than the problems faced by the actual victim of the accident.

* ''Literature/LittleWomen'': It's painful for Beth to die young; it's more painful for Jo to live without her DeadLittleSister. [[CreatorBreakdown As Louisa knew firsthand]].

* The news of [[spoiler:Katie's]] death hits hard ''{{Manga/Alyosha}}'', for the first time feeling anger and pain for the death of anyone, and her friends Miru and Ryuunosuke don't react much better. [[spoiler: Fortunately, it was just a DisneyDeath.]]