History Main / DeusAngstMachina

''Series/{{Trace}}'' has Stepan Danilov whose whole life is just a way from one disaster to another. First, his parents [[ParentalAbandonment die in car crash]], then, after culture classes he goes straight to the [[TheChechnyaWars Chechen war]]. After that, one of his girlfriends is [[WidowedAtWedding killed during their wedding]]. Then another decides to dump him because of his dangerous job (after Stepan saved her from kidnappers). And finally, his sister and niece [[spoiler: die in a shopping mall fire]]. All this makes to ask: WHY???

* A stellar example: the all but forgotten Creator/DisneyChannel original movie ''Film/OneMagicChristmas''. It is a... ''loose'' reimagining of ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'', sort of. It sits uncomfortably between this trope, {{Narm}}, TastesLikeDiabetes, CluelessAesop, {{Glurge}}, and just plain terrifying, the last especially due to the violent MoodWhiplash. Bonus points for having many of the same UnfortunateImplications as ''TheChristmasShoes'', as pointed out by Patton Oswalt: [[spoiler:"[[GodIsEvil What a horrible]] [[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[GodIsEvil God!!!]]"]]. The whole things seems like it was ''designed'' to scar children for life.

* Hitori Uzune from ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'', a character so dramatically depressing that his name literally means "alone". He grew up in an [[OrphansOrdeal orphanage]] during a war and started working as a young teen to keep up with the cost of food and medicine for his sickly brother, [[IllBoy Nageki]]. One day he came home from work to find out that terrorists had taken the orphanage hostage, and murdered every single child there, except for his brother. They both had to leave since the house was too expensive and depressing for just the two of them. His brother got sicker and sicker, and he worked as hard as he could to afford all of the hospital bills, but no doctors were able to help. Eventually they found someone who said that he could - but it turns out he was lying, and actually used Nageki in sadistic experiments attempting to [[TyphoidMary kill all of humanity]]. When Hitori figured out that things were so messed up, he ran to try to save his brother - but happened to show up on the exact day that Nageki decided to [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]]. He had to listen to his brother burn to death, [[ItsAllMyFault knowing that he was the one who insisted that he come here for help]]. No wonder the guy went [[BrokenAce insane]].

* Cloud Strife of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is the victim of a truly epic TraumaCongaLine. [[spoiler:He failed to become a SOLDIER, instead ending up as a grunt. His great hero Sephiroth flipped out, went on a killing spree in his hometown, causing a fire that roasted his mother alive while he watched. He received grievous wounds from Sephiroth and was then experimented on by Hojo for years, who infused him with [[EldritchAbomination JENOVA]] cells and gave him Mako poisoning. His best friend Zack then died defending Cloud, and the end result of all this human experimentation and PTSD caused his mind to shatter and subconsciously rewrite his memories.]] And that's all before the first game even begins.

* Jack in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''. She is abducted by a terrorist organisation at age four, with her parents believing her dead. Said organisation, Cerberus, tortures and drugs her for most of her childhood, ForScience, in a bid to create a super-biotic. In the Cerberus facility, she's forced to fight and kill other children in arena fights, being electroshocked when she refuses to, which is about the only interaction she has with other people, as she is else locked up and isolated in her room all the time. After escaping, she immediately ends up with people who abuse her for her powers and her body, only to then sell her as a slave. This starts Jack's long career of criminal activity and violence, where most people only see her as a tool to be used, while Cerberus' agents still hunt her. The only person in all the time who does care for her and loves her ends up sacrificing himself for her so she can get away after a weapons theft goes bad, giving her a massive dose of survivor's guilt as well. She eventually ends up on 'Purgatory', a prison ship from hell doubling as slave market, where she is gang-raped by a group of wardens and prisoners, and upon taking her revenge is put into constant cryostasis, as she is deemed too dangerous. She joins the game because she is bought free by Commander Shepard's financial backers -- which is Cerberus. So she ends up on a Cerberus ship, with the ship's XO flat-out rejecting that the organisation made any mistakes. Said ship is heading towards a suicide mission. Luckily for her, if she survives said mission, this also signals things getting better for her as [[MagneticHero Shepard]] shows her she need not subside on anger and bitterness alone. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' her life has gotten somewhat better. Except for omnicidal AI killing machines invading the galaxy, but that's a fate everybody suffers then.

** Spencer Reid has this problem. He grew up an only child with his single, schizophrenic mother after his father abandoned them because he couldn't take her illness anymore, only to move around ten minutes up the road and never talk to them; because of her, he is at risk of developing schizophrenia himself. He was also the victim of vicious bullying at school. In season 2 he is kidnapped by a schizophrenic unsub and subsequently becomes addicted to drugs. His mentor and father figure leaves him soon after, leaving only a letter for him to find for when he started to look for him. In season 6, one of his dear friends dies and he blames himself for it only to find out she faked it, which causes even more {{wangst}} for him. In season 8, after years of him being unable to really even talk to a woman and two flings that came to nothing, he finally gets a girlfriend whom he loves and whom loves him... only for her to die. [[note]]This becomes more pronounced due to Hotch developing a romantic relationship around the same, but nothing bad happening to her.[[/note]] All through the show we are reminded that he's socially inept, easily embarrassed, and rarely taken seriously.

* It's probably an AffectionateParody of the blues genre, but on the CD "WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Sing The Blues," Homer and Lisa would have you think their lives were like this in their respective songs "Born Under a Bad Sign" and "Moanin' Lisa Blues."

A common pitfall for those who think TrueArtIsAngsty, yet are wary of falling into {{Wangst}} (although, given the nature of the trope, they generally end up falling into it anyway). For the comedic version, see TheChewToy. Commonly experienced by those who have heard the writing advice "conflict is drama, so the more conflict, the more drama", but who don't quite get that conflict is about more than just angst. Remember... any writer who thinks happy people are boring ''isn't trying hard enough''.

* Pick a character in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''. Almost any character. Fans tend to think Tobias wins at this particular kind of angst, but a careful reading of the series reveals that he has some pretty serious competition. (Consider the backstories of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Animorphs Auxiliary Animorphs]], and how they wound up [[WeAreTeamCannonFodder being used in the end.]] Dang.) And, in a weird way, Loren.

* FanFic writers absolutely ''adore'' this trope. It's most commonly found in romance (especially slash) and MarySue fics; in the former, it's used as a means of getting the OTP together (at best in a HurtComfortFic sort of scenario), in the latter it's used in lieu of actual CharacterDevelopment - compare SympatheticSue.

** Asuka Langley Sohryu has it as bad as Shinji, and even their traumas are similar (Rei in chapter 25 and Shinji during End of Evangelion point out that they are NotSoDifferent). The universe ''loves'' making her life Hell, and she has at least ''two'' HeroicBSOD during the series. Mother gets crazy and does not recognize her? Angst. Father cheats on her mother with her mother's nurse and Asuka finds out? Angst. Mother commits suicide in a way that shows that she also wanted her daughter dead and Asuka finds the corpse? Angst. Father and step-mother make clear that she is a burden to them? Angst. Asuka gets new surrogate parents but they suck at the job and she has a crush on her father figure who is in love with her mother figure? Angst. Her [[TheRival rival]] is also her {{Love Interest|s}} but he is [[ObliviousToLove utterly oblivious to her feelings, never identifies her flirting attempts for what they are]] and almost never is there for her, ruining her fragile self-esteem? Angst. She underperforms at the task that she has been training her life for, the only thing that she feels that validates her existence and gets surpassed by a weak rookie with no training? Angst. She gets repeatedly beaten, trashed, humiliated, and even {{Mind Rape}}d? Angst. She tries to kill herself, falls in a coma -during which is used like a masturbation object-? Angst. She wakes up from her coma and find her happiness only to be defeated -again-, impaled and chopped into pieces? Er... You have the idea.

* ''Franchise/{{Wolverine}}'' is famous for these bordering on DiabolusExMachina. It eventually turns out, in the mainstream Marvel Universe, that the reason he can remember almost nothing about his past (which, due to his HealingFactor, is over a century, at least) is that his mutant HealingFactor deliberately blanks out the most painful memories of his life. And when you look at some of the things he does remember...

* Oh, lord, ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. With its numerous {{break the cutie}}s, AbusiveParents of all kinds, a KillEmAll fetish, characters that can jump from a {{Jerkass}} to a JerkWithAHeartOfGold, applies RuleThirtyFour and MoodWhiplash in spades, [[DeathSeeker numerous death wishes]], [[DealWithTheDevil deals with the devil]] that twist and break the other characters, episodes where incest would actually be ''more'' acceptable, a penchant for {{Downer Ending}}s and festering issues, you have to wonder how anyone on the show hasn't checked into therapy yet or put a bullet in their brain (although Dean was close in Season Two). This might seem like the rest of the shows on here but you have to remember; this was supposed to be a show with no chick-flick moments and the basic premise of two pretty-boys brothers hunting down demons with rock salt.

* ''Anime/OnePiece'' is a generally cheerful series, but a few of the main characters have quite a crappy past. In particular are Nami, Robin, and Brook's pasts. And the entire Sabaody/Impel Down/Marineford arc seemed to be concentrated on making [[spoiler: Luffy's]] life as horrible as possible.

Your character is angsting. It seems that his dog just died in a freak accident. That accident involved his kindly uncle, who didn't swerve in time to avoid the poor puppy. However, he did swerve in time to go off an embankment and hit a bus full of high school students, killing many, including the character's beloved girlfriend, to whom he'd just been engaged the previous day. Unfortunately, the shock of the news caused the protagonist's kindly old mother to have a heart attack, which left his father devastated. More unfortunately, economic recession hits, and the character and his father are left without a job and sunk neck deep in debt. The character's brother turns to robbery but is caught and thrown in prison. Poor Daddy turned to drinking and lost all will to live, and [[DrivenToSuicide finally shot himself]] (along with several others in a mad shootout), leaving the character all alone in the world to deal with the trauma. And that just happens to be the day when the mother of all earthquakes [[DoomedHometown lays waste to the whole city, including the character's house.]] Our character (who now has to live on the streets) is pulled out of the ruins, perhaps having suffered a crippling injury, and is taken to the hospital, where the doctor diagnoses him with cancer. Boy, what a day.

Deus Angst Machina is something of the polar opposite of {{Wangst}} in terms of cause, but can come across as no less frustrating. Simply put, the character in question has every reason in the world to retreat into himself and become a brooding, angsty person, because his life really ''does'' suck as much as he thinks it does. However, the circumstances seem entirely too [[ContrivedCoincidence contrived]]. This is a step beyond the coincidences that most stories tend towards to build up drama, as the character seems to have provoked [[CosmicPlaything some sadistic god]] who is now dedicated to making his life as [[ButtMonkey miserable]] (and angst-filled) as possible. Sure, ''anyone'' would be miserable in his situation, but when said situation is less likely than being struck by lightning, it can seem to be outright ludicrous. If used too much, it can cause TooBleakStoppedCaring.

* The entire story of ''Literature/KoiZora'' can come off as this for the main character. Ranging from gang-rape, to an attempted suicide, then she gets [[TeenPregnancy unwantedly pregnant]] and ends up miscarrying, her boyfriend turns into a {{Jerkass}} so she leaves him, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking her parents are getting divorced]]... and years later, the final kicker [[spoiler: with her first boyfriend turning out to have been mean to her so she'd dump him, since he's got cancer and didn't want to force her to waste her time with him... they get back together and then he dies]]. While this ''could'' be seen as possible, since it's supposedly a biographical story, but some say it's VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory if not flat out BasedOnAGreatBigLie.
* Yamcha of ''Franchise/DragonBall'' has a large one in the Cell Saga. His girlfriend of 15 years gets pregnant by the {{sociopath|icHero}} who oversaw his murder and his friends rub salt in the wound by asking if the baby is his. Shortly afterwards he gets impaled by a relatively weak android and realizes he'll never be able to [[CantCatchUp catch up]]. In ''Bojack Unbound'' it's revealed he's broke and in his last DBZ appearance he still has no one as a 50-year-old man (with his goal in life being to raising a family). His miserable lot in life is parodied in ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'''s 202nd episode. As of ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', things seem to have improved for the guy, with him having become a professional baseball player.

** Lelouch Lamperouge's mother was killed and sister crippled early on, he and said sister were sent to Japan as a pawn only for said nation to get invaded, razed and colonized by the nation he now declares corrupt, leading him to take his sister along with him into hiding. And that's just the prologue. In the series proper, fate just loves bopping him one frequently, [[YankTheDogsChain every time he gets a leg up]] or in some cases [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown just finished licking his wounds from his last misfortune]]. Just as he finds the means to start his rebellion, his old friend from Japan has just as suddenly become one of his biggest rivals. Right after he makes a deal with his half-sister he still fondly remembered that would ease things a little, [[spoiler:his geass activates at the wrong moment, forcing her into a massacre which he can only stop by killing her]]. Later his sister is kidnapped causing him to lose focus during the Black Rebellion, and as he tries to save her, he gets captured by his old friend and sold out to [[BigBad the Emperor]] for a promotion, with the latter rewriting his memories sidelining him for a whole year under surveillance among other consequences. His sister ends up back in the Britannian family under threat of being used against him at any moment. Just as things are on the up and up, his best fighter is captured for a few episodes, and [[spoiler:his fake brother [[MurderTheHypotenuse kills his would-be girlfriend]]]], leading him into insanity. His half-brother and worst enemy sabotages a potential truce with his best friend, indirectly leading to the destruction of Tokyo, with his sister among the dead [[spoiler:(apparently)]], and finally, Lelouch once again gets sold out to a Britannian royal, this time by his own resistance who have sided with said half-brother over some decidedly shady half truths [[spoiler:and later turns out to have hid his sister, who has [[CorruptTheCutie also been turned against him]]]]. It's a wonder the boy didn't completely snap.
** It's pretty safe to say that C. C.'s life isn't peachy, either. Began life as an orphan, only wanted to be loved, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor and is seemingly given the means to make it a reality]], only to realized she's been scammed into accepting immortality, and lives the next several centuries, suffering a thousand "deaths" from people who [[BurnTheWitch accuse her of being a witch]]. By the beginning of the show (or rather, well before it already), she's a weary, cynical shell of a person.
* ''Anime/GunBuster'': Well known for its proper depiction of time dilation, this series also seems to only display such well-researched science when it can make the main characters angst. Prime example? Jung making a careless comment to Noriko regarding the loss of her father because it's been months from her perspective but only hours from Noriko's.

** Asuka Langley Sohryu has it as bad as Shinji, and even their traumas are similar (Rei in chapter 25 and Shinji during End of Evangelion point out that they are NotSoDifferent). The universe ''loves'' making her life Hell, and she has at least ''two'' HeroicBSOD during the series. Mother gets crazy and does not recognize her? Angst. Father cheats on her mother with her mother's nurse and Asuka finds out? Angst. Mother commits suicide in a way that shows that she also wanted her daughter dead and Asuka finds the corpse? Angst. Father and step-mother make clear that she is a burden to them? Angst. Asuka gets new surrogate parents but they suck at the job and she has a crush on her father figure who is in love with her mother figure? Angst. Her [[TheRival rival]] is also her {{Love Interest|s}} but he is [[ObliviousToLove utterly oblivious to her feelings, never identifies her flirting attempts for what they are]] and almost never is there for her, ruining her fragile self-esteem? Angst. She underperforms at the task that she has been training her life for, the only thing that she feels that validates her existence, and gets surpassed by a weak rookie with no training? Angst. She gets repeatedly beaten, trashed, humiliated and even {{Mind Rape}}d? Angst. She tries to kill herself, falls in a coma -during which is used like a masturbation object-? Angst. She wakes up from her coma and find her happiness only to be defeated -again-, impaled and chopped into pieces? Er... You have the idea.

* Parodied in the fourth episode of ''[[LightNovel/{{Slayers}} Slayers Evolution-R]]'' where drama inducing events make no sense at all. For example, a character becomes a delinquent and another is revealed to have a terminal disease. It all happened for no reason in an instant. They were both happy ''walking fish'' kids before.
* Used in an interesting fashion in ''Manga/TriGun''. Not only does Vash actually ''have'' someone out there living and breathing solely to make him as miserable possible, he's also ''very'' good at it.
* Fay from ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' is cursed, and more than once: He had a twin, which in his world was considered a bad omen, so both little boys got imprisoned separately- only after their father has died and their mother has killed herself, supposedly because of the twins. Then the king who condemned the boys to an eternity in prison stabs himself through the neck in front of Fay (Yuui) while begrudging their birth. Still as a kid, the BigBad promises to have someone set him free ''if his brother dies'', and ''then'' he curses him. Twice. If he ever [[spoiler:meets someone more powerful than him,]] Fay will have to [[spoiler:kill them: this means stabbing Sakura, the heroine, whom he loves as a daughter]]. The other curse? He must [[spoiler:kill the king who rescued him from prison]], or else ''his world will implode''. [[spoiler:The king knows this and kills most of his people just so Fay would kill him in turn... but Fay still refuses, someone else kills the king, and the world implodes. Oh, and to get Fay out of the imploding world, Kurogane gives up one of his arms.]] It also turns out that Fay still wished to revive his brother, and found out the hard way that it was impossible. [[ButWaitTheresMore But wait, there's more!]] The kid that Fay grew to love like a daughter/younger sister is essentially dead and he will likely never see her again! What's more, the kid that Fay loved as a son/younger brother turns out to be a soulless clone who gouges out Fay's eye and eats it for its magic! And to survive, Fay gets turned into a vampire! ''And'' he can only feed from the man [[HoYay he loves!]] How fun!

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'''s Kirito's life is pretty dim. To start things off, his parents died in a car crash when he was ''2'', and he only found out about that by the time he was 10. Things take a nosedive for the worse once he gets into SAO, where he gets trapped alongside with several thousands of people, and if they die, they die for real. Not only that but he gets into the crosshairs of several particularly dangerous {{serial killer}}s, one of whom almost manages to kill him, sending him into a coma. And to top it off, he sees several of his closest friends die one by one, and they hit him so hard that he actually has [[DrivenToSuicide attempted suicide]], ''and twice''. The ending of volume 18 shows how hard his life has hit him.

** Gaara... Holy CRAP, GAARA!!! When he was born, his mother died and his father pampered him in false love before sending a bunch of assassin's after him for being "too dangerous" when in reality, he just couldn't control his sand powers. And then, he hurts a girl at the playground, tries to give her medicine only to be called a freak and have the door closed in his face, accidentally kills a drunk man, has an assassin try to kill him shortly afterwards, who is revealed to be his UNCLE who THEN tells him that he hated him and so did his mother! And all of these events happened in '''one day''' when he was only '''''six years old!''''' It's no wonder that he ends up becoming [[TheSociopath a sociopath]] and a SerialKiller for the next ''seven years!'' It's not until Naruto beats some sense into him that things FINALLY look up for him! And this was for the first 12 and a half years of his life! [[TheWoobie Wow...]]

* Kiritsugu of ''LightNovel/FateZero'' is a lot like the guy in the trope description, except his life is ''even worse''. It all starts with a TroubledBackstoryFlashback to when he was a kid living on an island with his dad and a {{Love Interest|s}}. [[spoiler:She suddenly turns into a zombie, and because Kiritsugu fails to MercyKill her, she turns everyone else he knows into zombies. When he learns that his dad caused this by screwing around with magic, he stabs his father to death. Then, a female zombie hunter drags him away from the miniature ZombieApocalypse. She becomes his mother-figure, so, naturally, he ends up being forced to kill her when she gets stuck on a plane infested with zombies. During the series proper, his only companions are his homunculus wife, her daughter, and his sort-of-mistress female partner. They all end up dead or permanently separated from him, some of them by his own unwilling hand. Kiritsugu himself ends up with some kind of IncurableCoughOfDeath so that he won't be around for the sequel series, and all he has left in the end is some random kid he found in the wreckage after he obliterated the Grail (the series' MacGuffin which could have invoked UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans) because it was "corrupted" and no longer usable. Thus, everything he did since the series proper, all his sacrifices and dirty business, was pointless. Did we mention the Grail was kinda-sorta his wife? [[note]] she was a catalyst for it [[/note]]]]

* ''Manga/ACruelGodReigns'': Jeremy gets this for the entire series. His mother, Sandra, falls in love and gets engaged, but it turns out the guy, Greg, [[spoiler: is a pedophile]]. Jeremy refuses Greg, Greg [[spoiler: cancels the engagement, Sandra tries to kill herself.]] Greg comes back at Jeremy's pleading but only if he [[spoiler:will sleep with him and promises it will be a one-time deal.]] It's not. Sandra and Greg get married, and Jeremy is forced to move to England where he attends boarding school with his older step-brother Ian. He's saved, right? Nope. [[spoiler: Greg comes to school, and then beats him, threatening him to come home on the weekends.]] Jeremy seeks advice from a psychologist in London and begins to recover. [[spoiler: The psychologist dies.]]and Ian steals the girl he was falling in love with. Soon, a servant mistakes Greg kissing Jeremy as being consenting and [[spoiler: black mails him into giving her money he doesn't have]]. Jeremy has a FreakOut when Ian's friend tries to kiss him while drunk and [[spoiler: nearly blinds him, resulting in his near expulsion and more of Greg's wrath.]] Jeremy eventually [[spoiler: tampers with Greg's car and kills him, but it also kills his mother.]] Ian practically {{Mind Rape}}s him to get him to confess, [[spoiler: but when he does in addition to confessing to the abuse with a DrivenToSuicide and BungledSuicide, Ian accuses him of lying]]. Jeremy flees back to Boston where he [[spoiler: becomes a drug addict and prostitute to deal with the guilt]]. Ian has a MyGodWhatHaveIDone and drags Jeremy back to England to help him, but [[spoiler: ends up paying him for sex]] and yelling at him when Jeremy can't recover like Ian would like him to. The poor kid can't catch a break.

* Strangely inverted in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack''. In the first Gundam series Char has lost one of the most important people in his life but barely reacted. Now a decade later Char realizes he wants to avenge her and save others from the same fate by creating a terrorist to give people an angst-killer DeusExMachina. However, he makes one big mistake in his plan: assisting his target so that he can have a fair revenge.
* Poor Tomoya in ''VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}''. His mother died when he was small, driving his father to drinking, gambling and drugs; after his father injured him to an extent that he had to give up his dream of becoming a basketball player, the two were distanced from each other completely. Tomoya eventually finds happiness with his high-school sweetheart, Nagisa, who just happens to be an IllGirl. She [[spoiler: dies giving birth to his daughter. He has a massive HeroicBSOD and doesn't see said daughter for about five years before finally reconciling with her...only to have her die in his arms from the same illness that claimed his wife]]. It's thankfully subverted due to a miracle in the ending, but it's still a horrendous life to have led, even in one universe.

* ''Franchise/{{Wolverine}}'' is famous for these bordering on DiabolusExMachina. It eventually turns out, in the mainstream Marvel Universe, that the reason he can remember almost nothing about his past (which, due to his HealingFactor, is over a century, at least) is because is his mutant HealingFactor deliberately blanks out the most painful memories of his life. And when you look at some of the things he does remember...

** What about [[ComicBook/RedHood Jason Todd]]? His mother dies of an overdose, his dad's killed by his criminal boss and unlike Dick Grayson he isn't immediately adopted by Bruce Wayne, he lives on the street, forced into the world of crimes to survive, then, after becoming Robin he finds out his mother wasn't his biological mother, tracks down his real mother who sells him out to ComicBook/TheJoker [[ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily who promptly beats him half to death with a crowbar and then blows him up to finish the job.]] Even then it's not over, he wakes up inside his own coffin and has to dig his way out, instead of reuniting with his family he get's taken by the League of Assassins, thrown in a Lazarus Pit and then find's out that not only was his killer still alive killing people, but Batman had a new Robin, leaving him feeling replaced. It's not surprising he goes a bit nuts, all things considering.

* If you think Wolverine has it bad, just wait until you read his daughter/OppositeSexClone, ComicBook/{{X 23}}'s life history: Enduring 13 years of torture, abuse, and TrainingFromHell to turn her into the perfect assassin. Had her HealingFactor forcibly activated at age ''seven'' by being stuffed into a radiation chamber and exposed to lethal doses of radiation. Several days after ''that'' she had her claws ripped out, coated with adamantium, and reimplanted one-by-one ''and was refused anesthesia''--It's not that anesthesia wouldn't have worked on her, ''they flat-out refused to administer it''. She endured constant physical and emotional abuse by both her AxCrazy handler and the surgical head (who [[RevengeByProxy blamed her for Wolverine killing his father]]) and was tortured into entering a [[UnstoppableRage berserker rage]] every time she smelled a particular trigger scent, which was tested on one of the ''only'' people who saw her as an actual human being. By the time she was thirteen she was forced to live with a body-count into the ''hundreds''. And then when her creator/mother ''finally'' got fed up with the project and broke her out, X-23 was forced to kill ''her'' with the trigger scent and [[TearJerker watched her mother die in her arms, knowing she was the one who killed her]]. Then, when she's tracked down and started establishing a good relationship with her only other family, her psychopathic handler turns up and she's forced to leave them and never see them again to keep her safe. And then she ends up as a StreetWalker suffering under an abusive and murderous pimp. Laura eventually escapes again and tracks down Wolverine intending to [[DrivenToSuicide put them both out of her misery]], and when he talks her down, she's captured by ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, who insists on turning her over to ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}. After spending some time, after Steve lets her go, with the X-Men, she's recruited to kill again on ComicBook/XForce, which sends her into an existential crisis including a demon trying to recruit her to his service by claiming that as a clone she doesn't have a soul. And ''just'' as it seems she's starting to put her life together, [[ComicBook/AvengersArena she gets shanghaied by Arcade to fight other teenage heroes to the death for his amusement]]. After she escapes ''that'', she ends up [[ComicBook/AllNewXMen captured and tortured by purifiers and is found wandering the streets of Miami in an amnesiac state. And then Stryker, Jr. reveals to her that the ''whole world'' knows what she did in Murderworld]]. And the worst part? Unlike Logan, ''Laura remembers every single moment.''

* Creator/MelGibson's character, Benjamin Martin, in ''Film/ThePatriot'' only decides to fight in the Revolution after his eldest son was captured and sentenced to hang and his younger son was shot in cold blood by the over-the-top evil Tavington, who had just walked in to the Martin's home and murdered several wounded Colonials in their beds and set their home on fire as punishment, even though the Martins were also caring for British wounded. That's when Benjamin gets out the [[AxCrazy hatchets]].

-->'''Blinkin''': Oh, it's good to be home, ain't it, Master Robin?

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the Joker unleashes an escalating series of catastrophic events on Gotham City, including murdering cops and public officials, blowing up hospitals, and finally [[spoiler: turning the much admired "White Knight" district attorney Harvey Dent into the crazed killer Two-Face. By inducing a state of desperate panic and fear on the city, he hopes to prove that [[HobbesWasRight deep down, people are savage, selfish and ignoble]]]]. A good example, as it all goes to making it more satisfying to see him proven wrong.
* The revised ending of Creator/StephenKing's ''Film/TheMist'', in which the main character [[spoiler: kills all the other survivors, including his ten-year-old son, only to run out of bullets when he tries to finish it by killing himself, and tries to get a monster to kill him...just in time for the cavalry to arrive]] -- this in Portland, having come all the way from Bangor [[spoiler:with no sign of fellow survivors]].

* ''Literature/RealmOfTheElderling'': Fitz, from ''Farseer'', never seems to get an even break. Every time he appears to achieve or be about to achieve anything events conspire to dash his hopes and often make things much, much worse. Possibly justified because all the bad things that happen are the natural result of the setting and events transpiring around him, but included because he always seems to get the short end of the stick. ''This is Fitz's role in fate''. [[note]] Technically he doesn't have a normal fate like everyone else does because he wasn't supposed to exist, which means that [[spoiler:the Fool]] can use him as a wedge to drive the turning wheel of fate out of its current path. Meanwhile the wedge gets run over and ground down by the wheel in the process. [[/note]]

* In Creator/TomClancy's ''Literature/JackRyan'' Universe, after a long, long list of calamities inflicted by the fictional foes of the US including multiple attacks with various [[WeaponOfMassDestruction weapons of mass destruction]] (once almost leading to all-out nuclear war), terrorism on a scale to make any budding Osama bin Laden ecstatic, and plots aplenty to destroy or severely cripple the country, Clancy decides to ''still'' include the events of September 11, 2001 in this world. What already happened was bad enough; the last one was truly unnecessary piling on.

* Creator/KurtVonnegut's success is based on laying misery down on his characters, but special mention goes to the book Deadeye Dick. The main character, Rudy Waltz accidentally shoots and kills a pregnant woman at twelve years old. His naive, pampered father takes the blame for the killing and both he and his son are imprisoned, where they are tortured and humiliated by the police. Rudy is stricken by grief and dedicates his life to making up for his actions [[spoiler: he never does, at least to his satisfaction.]] Consumed by grief he shuts himself off from all worldly pleasure and lives life as what he calls as an asexual "neuter." His hometown knows him as almost an urban legend and derisively refer to him as "Deadeye Dick." He spends the remainder of his parents' lives as their effective slave because they have no idea how to care for themselves after losing their enormous wealth. When they die, he becomes an expatriate in Haiti until he hears his hometown has been obliterated by a NeutronBomb to open the city up for real-estate sales. And that's the end of the book.

* Goren from ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' qualifies, if any one does. Let's see.... his schizophrenic mother hates him, even though he's the only one who takes care of her, his drug-addicted brother gets all the love from their mother, his father -- who treated him like shit anyway -- turned out not to be his real father, and his biological father turned out to be a serial killer who's executed in another state. He gets persecuted by the FBI, ends up in a mental hospital, gets fired, and his health and good looks go to shit, too. This is only a partial list of all the shit that goes down. If anyone can be accused of provoking the wrath of the writer-deities, this character would be definitely be it. The unrelenting, unceasing suffering that occurs was enough to make many fans stop watching the show, out of sheer disgust. If anyone earned a happy ending they never got, it's Goren. ShootTheShaggyDog, already.
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' often falls into this. Granted, a CopShow about victims of rape and other sex crimes isn't exactly going to be all smiles, sunshine and cartoon bluebirds, and there's going to be fair bit of angst at times, but they really do tend to lay it on a bit thick. Often occurs whenever one of the characters gets into an ItsPersonal moment, which is roughly every episode.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy during season six. The last couple of episodes stick out though: After having her mentor/father figure leave town, seeing the marriage of two of her best friends fall apart at the altar (causing one of them to revert to being an evil vengeance demon), having her ex-boyfriend come back to town happily married and disappointed in seeing her working a dead-end job at a fast food place and dating a vampire, then barely avoiding a rape by said vampire, then having her best friend's girlfriend shot by a random bullet meant for her, then having said best friend go PsychoLesbian and on a killing spree with her magical powers, then having her little sister attacked by demons enroute to the PsychoLesbian causing the end of the world... who could blame Buffy for wishing she had stayed dead at the end of season 5?

* ''Series/{{House}}'': Gregory House was physically abused as a child by a man who turned out to be his non-biological father. As an adult, he partially lost use of his left leg as a result of a blood clot and his girlfriend Stacy going behind his back to get him the procedure he didn't want. This causes a years-long addiction to Vicodin. House and Stacy broke up but when he finally reunites with her, he realizes that he can't make her leave her husband. He's shot by a random assailant in the season 2 finale, where we see House's subconscious chewing him out about refusing happiness for the sake of his job. In season 3 he finds a way to fix his leg, but it's only temporary and he's also hounded by an obsessed cop with a grudge. In season 4 and 5 he has to cope with the guilt over his involvement in the events that led to the death of his best friend Wilson's girlfriend and Wilson refusing to speak to him anymore. He nearly got brain damage while trying to save her too. In season 5 one of his colleagues commits suicide and House struggles to figure out the reason, before he starts having hallucinations, his Vicodin addiction goes out of control, and he has to be hospitalized. His attempt at a relationship with Cuddy in season 7 goes downhill because they secretly make each other miserable, Cuddy later dumps him, he's back on Vicodin, and to top it all off he's a wanted criminal when he flees the country for months after ramming a car into her home out of revenge. In season 8 he's jailed for several months before he's allowed probation if he'll practice medicine regularly. He marries a Russian emigrant to get her a green card, but when he falls in love with her for real it quickly falls apart once she figures out that he kept the confirmation of her naturalization from her out of fear that he'd lose her. Later on, Wilson tells House that he (Wilson) has stage 2 thymoma, forcing House to [[spoiler:ruin his career and fake his own death so he travel the country with Wilson before his best friend dies]].

* Hawkeye -- Hawkeye, Hawkeye, Hawkeye from ''Series/{{MASH}}''. The writers seemed absolutely determined to do anything they could to break his spirit (going so far, in one episode, as to instill an army point system -- which in real life, hadn't actually been in effect since WWII -- so that Colonel Potter could tell Hawkeye the army had raised the number of points needed to get out of the military), until he's finally nearly beaten in the show's finale [[spoiler: when he unintentionally causes a mother to suffocate her own child]].

* Mulder on ''Series/TheXFiles''. His sister disappears when he's a kid, which ends his parents' marriage and he later finds out he was the one that was supposed to be taken. And he finds out that [[spoiler:she was dead most of the time and he was never going to find her]]. He works in a division that everyone thinks is a joke and no one ever believes most of the stuff he says (even though he's usually right) and he has very few friends. He gets shot three different times, once by his own partner, plus the countless times he gets beaten up and loses his gun. [[spoiler:His father is murdered right in front of him, his mom has a stroke and later commits suicide.]] His partner and the only person he really trusts gets abducted by aliens and almost dies. The she gets cancer and almost dies again. He's been drugged, had his memories erased, arrested, imprisoned, tortured by Russian scientists, almost had his arm removed against his will, starts getting debilitating headaches and other problems and then has brain surgery against his will, and then gets abducted by aliens himself and is tortured in various gruesome ways. [[spoiler:He's died and come back to life several times]], and was once buried semi-alive. He's forced to leave Scully and their son, and by the time he comes back [[spoiler:the baby has been given up for adoption]]. He gets caught on a secret government installation where he's arrested and tortured (again) in an attempt to brainwash him. He's put on trial and condemned to death but he escapes. Oh, and the guy he hated most who was at the head of most of the conspiracies he was trying to expose? [[spoiler:Was his biological father.]]

* Andy Sipowicz from ''Series/NYPDBlue'': his mother was killed in a robbery when he was little. He grew-up to be an alcoholic (like his father), causing his estrangement from his wife and son. He was shot six times and almost died. He sobered up and rebuilt his relationship with Andy Jr. but his son was gunned soon afterwards, causing him to fall off the wagon. And then he got cancer. And then his partner/best friend Bobby died a lingering death from heart failure. And then his new wife was gunned down, too, right in front of him. Oh, and then his new son Theo got sick and was thought to have leukemia. Oh, and then the partner who replaced Bobby was murdered. Oh, and then...

** Spencer Reid has this problem. He grew up an only child with his single, schizophrenic mother after his father abandoned them because he couldn't take her illness anymore, only to move around ten minutes up the road and never talk to them; because of her, he is at a risk of developing schizophrenia himself. He was also the victim of vicious bullying at school. In season 2 he is kidnapped by a schizophrenic unsub and subsequently becomes addicted to drugs. His mentor and father-figure leaves him soon after, leaving only a letter for him to find for when he started to look for him. In season 6, one of his dear friends dies and he blames himself for it only to find out she faked it, which causes even more {{wangst}} for him. In season 8, after years of him being unable to really even talk to a woman and two flings that came to nothing, he finally gets a girlfriend whom he loves and whom loves him... only for her to die. [[note]]This becomes more pronounced due to Hotch developing a romantic relationship around the same, but nothing bad happening to her.[[/note]] All through the show we are reminded that he's socially inept, easily embarrassed and rarely taken seriously.

* A bizarre mix of real life and storyline trauma afflicted Wrestling/JeffHardy between 2007 and 2009 in the Wrestling/{{WWE}}. First, his beloved older brother Wrestling/{{Matt|Hardy}}'s appendix bursts and he nearly dies from an infection. Then for several months he can't quite manage to get over the hump and win the WWE title, though he's coming closer than he ever has. Then he fails a Wellness test and gets suspended for two months, including Wrestling/WrestleMania, at which he had been rumored to win a high-profile match. While he's suspended, his house and everything he owns burns to the ground, and his cherished dog is killed in the fire as well. Then once he returns, he's set upon by a malevolent GM and still can't quite make it to winning the title. Finally, finally he wins it, but his brief run is marred by a mysterious person making repeated attempts on his life. His title run ends when his own brother turns on him in favor of Wrestling/{{Edge}}, who at the time was the mortal enemy of both. Matt then reveals that not only did he do that, he was the one repeatedly trying to kill Jeff, he was the one who burned his house to the ground, and he was the one who killed Jeff's dog, and he then goes on to soundly trounce Jeff in all but the very last match of their feud. After all this, he wins the title again but loses it within a few minutes to Wrestling/CMPunk, who then goes on to rail at Jeff about his drug issues and keeps the title from him through many underhanded tactics. And when things are finally looking up for Jeff...he's made peace with his brother, he'd won the championship again, all was just starting to look up, bam, he loses it and his job thanks to Punk. The sad thing is, there's probably some more things that got missed in all of this. Can't blame the guy for wanting to go home and lick his wounds for a while now, can you?

* In ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' this happens to the Eighth Doctor a lot. He gets possessed by an Anti-Time creature, has to be exiled to a timeless Universe, then [[spoiler:his companion C'rizz]] dies and due to amnesia he thinks Charley leaves on bad terms with him. He starts travelling with Lucie Miller, meets his granddaughter Susan again and finds she has a son, Alex Campbell. Then [[spoiler:Alex and Lucie die defeating a Dalek invasion of Earth]].

* Katurian of ''[[Creator/MartinMcDonagh The Pillowman]]'' has a ''reeaally'' sucky day. He's arrested by the police force of a [[TheGovernment totalitarian government]] and doesn't even know why. The cops won't tell him outright what the problem is, just that it seems to be related to the stories he writes. Offering to take out anything political doesn't make anything better and Katurian eventually finds out that the police have arrested his mentally-disabled little brother Michal as well, whom he has a [[BigBrotherInstinct strong instinct to protect]]. ''Finally'' Katurian finds out that the police are investigating a series of murders based on the stories he's written, which would tend to be upsetting, but after Katurian is ''tortured'' he finds out that [[spoiler: ''his brother Michal'']] is responsible for the killings which absolutely ''horrifies'' him. ''Then'' the police threaten to destroy his stories, which panics him, because even though everything he writes is gruesome and creepy, he considers his stories to be his whole life and his mark on the world to the point where he is willing to die to keep them safe. He ends up [[spoiler: killing Michal ''himself'' partly out of the horror of what Michal has done and partly to shield him from any further suffering before or during his execution]] and confessing to the murders (even though he didn't commit them) as part of a deal with the police to keep his stories safe (they promise not to destroy them if he tells them the truth, and since he know they'll believe he committed the murders, [[spoiler: and doesn't want them to find out that Michal did]], he decides this is his best option). Plus his {{backstory}} where his parents [[spoiler: tortured Michal and made him listen]] with the intent of making him into a great, dark author, and whom [[spoiler: he eventually killed at the age of 14 in order to save his brother]], which then saddled him, a 14-year-old, with the task of taking care of a [[spoiler: torture-induced]] mentally disabled child. He gets a [[HopeSpot small break]] when one of the most gruesomely murdered children [[spoiler: turns out to be alive and completely fine]], and things seem to be getting even better once the police [[spoiler: realize Katurian didn't murder the children after all]]. However, this means he ''did'' lie to them, breaking his part of the deal about the stories, and the police tell him they intend to now destroy them all. Then [[spoiler: they execute him]], and although we have a ''slightly'' uplifting ending in the fact that [[spoiler: the police choose ''not'' to destroy the stories]], it's not as if Katurian got to know that before [[spoiler: he died]].

* Lucas, the main protagonist of ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'' pretty much embodies this trope, as it feels like his world was made specifically to torture him at certain points. If you list out all of the terrible things to happen to him in his short life, you pretty much have a summary of the main plot. To start with, his mother [[spoiler: gets violently killed right in front of his eyes by what's essentially a dinosaur]]. As a result, his father almost goes mad from the resulting grief, attacking people from the village and getting chucked into prison before he can even [[spoiler: attend her funeral]], also all in front of Lucas and his twin, Claus. Shortly afterwards, Claus goes out to try and avenge his mother's death, and goes missing in the process. All in the span of two days. Please note that this is the first time anybody in the society he lives in has experienced grief, so nobody knows how to console or comfort him. [[FromBadToWorse Not done yet, though.]] That very same day, a suspicious guy comes into Tazmily Village, telling everybody a load of waffle about "happiness" and starts peddling objects called "Happy Boxes" to everyone. These boxes essentially hypnotize the entire village, except for Lucas, who refuses to buy one. As a result, everybody in this previously close-knit and loving community slowly begin turning into selfish, hedonistic jerks. Years later, Lucas is now considered an outcast, even a disgrace, to the village. His father, still grieving over his wife, barely talks with him anymore and spends nearly all of his time searching for Claus, who is still missing. Around this time, his adventure starts. And while he does finally make [[TrueCompanions two very good friends]] and has his [[LoyalAnimalCompanion trusty dog Boney]] by his side as a result, his situation hardly improves. On top of having to constantly battle against horrifying, bloodthirsty creatures known as Chimeras, he now has an entire army set against him, the same army who was indirectly responsible for his [[spoiler: mother's death]] in the first place. After disabling the army's thunder tower, he finds himself in a field of sunflowers where, out of nowhere, he sees [[spoiler: his mother's ghost.]] He can't touch or communicate her, and ends up chasing her off a cliff in desperation. [[MindScrew It's not very clear if this is a dream or actually happening]]. But wait, ''[[UpToEleven there's more]]''. Around this time, he and his friends find out about these weird objects known as the seven needles, [[ResetButton which will restore the entire world either full of evil or full of good depending on who pulls them]]. The journey to getting the seven needles leads him through countless traumatic situations, from being nearly eaten alive by a horrifying monster called the Ultimate Chimera, to accidentally sending himself on a very, ''very'' bad hallucinogenic drug trip that makes him face his worst fears and deep scarring, but he ultimately only manages to pull half of them. The other half are getting pulled by the commander of the army, known as the Masked Man. Once he and the Masked Man have both pulled three, Tazmily is now completely abandoned, so he has no choice but to finally go to the hub of all the corruption in his world, New Pork City. Once there, he has to live with the long-hidden truth about Tazmily: [[spoiler: It was all a lie. The game actually takes place AfterTheEnd, and Tazmily was set up so the last few dozen people left on Earth could live in ignorance to the world's destruction]]. After this, the final needle is located, and he and his friends go to pull it, as it is now the world's only hope for redemption. After defeating the BigBad, he and the Masked Man meet in front of the final needle, ready to battle for it. As it turns out, the Masked Man is actually [[spoiler: Claus, [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed and with no memory of being Lucas's brother.]]]] What follows is an absolutely heartbreaking IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight, during which [[spoiler: Claus]] easily has the upper hand, and with him still showing no sign of remembering, [[spoiler: his mother's ghost shows up for a second time.]] With her help, [[spoiler: Claus]] very slowly realizes who he is and takes his mask off. [[DrivenToSuicide He then kills himself]], allowing Lucas to take the needle, and [[DiedInYourArmsTonight dies in Lucas's arms]]. And this all happens to him in the age range of 9 to 12. There's a very good reason many people consider the ending of the game to be Lucas [[spoiler: destroying the entire world out of the wangst he probably accrued throughout the game]], and those that don't consider him one of the strongest [[IronWoobie Iron Woobies]] in any form of fiction.
* Technically, he brought it all on himself, but to the player of ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' it sure seems like the entire world is against him. First of all, you're [[CursedWithAwesome cursed with immortality]] as well as amnesia. Your only guide is a floating skull who is a compulsive liar. Meanwhile, strewn about you are the people whom you've hurt and pissed off in past lives, and they just love to get their revenge by screwing with you and manipulating you for their own gain. Half your companions only join you because [[spoiler:a past version of you enslaved them]]. You are haunted by the ghost of a woman who claims to love you, but is too confused and heartbroken to give you any useful information [[spoiler:(also, it turns out you murdered her, and she still loves you anyway)]]. Worst of all, you come to realize over the course of the game that you are a real asshole, and you absolutely deserve everything you've got, which would make this more legitimate angst than Deus Angst Machina, except for the fact that you ''can't remember doing any of it''.

** Fortune's father was sunk in the game's prologue, causing her mother to kill herself, her husband died in prison, and the grief caused her to miscarry. As Snake explains, in the six months following her father's death, she lost her family and everything that mattered in her life . When she tries to commit suicide, she discovers that she's gained a flukish ability to escape death or injury, allowing her to wield experimental weapons and fight battles which would otherwise be impossible.
** Otacon turned out to have had deep layers of sexual trauma all this time that were never mentioned at all before the point he revealed them. Also the only person in the ''whole wide world'' that he loves platonically ([[HoYay or not]]) who hasn't died horribly yet is Solid Snake, and ''he's'' a self-destructive killer who happens to be [[PlotRelevantAgeUp ageing prematurely]] into the bargain. Then in ''[=MGS4=]'', it's revealed that Solid Snake is carrying a mutated FoxDie that carries a high chance of turning him into a living bioweapon within six months, which means that Snake needs to commit suicide, be executed, or be permanently quarantined before that happens.

* To put it lightly, Tsugumi of ''VisualNovel/{{Ever 17}}'' has lived a really crappy life. She lives the first 12 years of her life quite normally until her friend dies of leukemia, then on the same day, she's hit by a truck. She wakes up in a test facility of a pharmaceutical corporation, where she learns she has caught a virus that will render her immortal after 5 years. She is then experimented on for eight years straight, lied to by the staff, and her only friend in the facility dies five years in. Then she escapes from said facility and lives as a fugitive for four years. Then she gets trapped in an underwater theme park, and just when it seems like her life is turning around after she's met a guy that she loves, he sacrifices himself so that she survives to escape the park. Then she goes on the run as a fugitive again from the corporation, and discovers she's pregnant with the guy's kids. After giving birth to them and living a hard but happy eighteen months with them, she's found again by the company and is forced to give up her children to an orphanage to hide them from the group so they may live normal lives. She goes on the run for 16 more years, and in this time, her son and daughter are found by the corporation anyway and are experimented on for ten years. At least it all works out well for her in the end.
* Every single one of the Beauty And The Beast unit in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots''. Laughing Octopus watched her entire village's population killed by octopus-eater-hating cult members while she was a child. That is, they killed all but her own family and friends, whom she had to torture and kill herself. Raging Raven grew up in a war-torn country, and was captured as a child by soldiers, who beat her and the other kids regularly. Eventually, she and the other children were left by the soldiers, and the rest of the children were eaten by birds. Crying Wolf also had her village slaughtered, but escaped along with her baby brother. Whom she smothered to death in order to escape notice from soldiers. And then carried the rotting corpse around to a refugee camp, where she went mad from the crying of children, and killed all the children there. Screaming Mantis also watched her village burned to the ground. When escaping, she wound up hiding in a corpse-pit beneath a torture chamber, and was locked in there, while villagers were tortured above. She stayed there for weeks, surviving by drinking bloody water and eating off of the corpses. All four were taken in by Liquid Ocelot, who turned them into war machine pilots / sex models. He also implanted ''Psycho Mantis'' into Screaming Mantis' psyche to act as the unit's leader, which screwed with their minds even further.
* Kratos from the ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' series finds his own, murdering his wife and daughter in blind rage, then having their ashes permanently fixed to his body. [[spoiler: When asking the gods to make him forget his crimes, he is forced to live through it again at the hands of Ares. When he has killed Ares, and the gods tell him they lied to him to get him to do their dirty work for them, he tries to kill himself - and is instead given immortality, an eternity with his memories. No wonder he made a beast of himself to get rid of the pains of being a man (lot deeper than you thought, eh?)]]

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' - Arguably an example the main character (and again, arguably his/her entire party to an extent) suffers this in that over a ten year span you lose your father, your home, [[SchrodingersGun 'one' of your siblings]] is killed brutally on screen, you're forced into a year of servitude, your other sibling can [[SchrodingersGun die or otherwise be forced, or by their own choice, into ditching you]], your mother dies after finally getting back her childhood home and in a particularly heartwrenching fashion too and finally at the end of it all a partymember and possible love interest sets off a series of events where you are forced to make a gristly decision involving either massacring a series of mostly innocent mages and supporting the KnightTemplar or becoming an outlaw and possibly losing friends because they just weren't quite loyal enough. Damnit, Hawke just cannot catch a bloody break...or maybe that's the issue, [[{{Pun}} he can.]]

* Cloud Strife of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is the victim of a truly epic TraumaCongaLine. [[spoiler:He failed to become a SOLDIER, instead ending up as a grunt. His great hero Sephiroth flipped out, went on a killing spree in his hometown, causing a fire that roasted his mother alive while he watched. He received grievous wounds from Sephiroth, and was then experimented on by Hojo for years, who infused him with [[EldritchAbomination JENOVA]] cells and gave him Mako poisoning. His best friend Zack then died defending Cloud, and the end result of all this human experimentation and PTSD caused his mind to shatter and subconsciously rewrite his memories.]] And that's all before the first game even begins.

* Jack in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''. She is abducted by a terrorist organisation at age four, with her parents believing her dead. Said organisation, Cerberus, tortures and drugs her for most of her childhood, ForScience, in a bid to create a super-biotic. In the Cerberus facility she's forced to fight and kill other children in arena fights, being electroshocked when she refuses to, which is about the only interaction she has with other people, as she is else locked up and isolated in her room all the time. After escaping, she immediately ends up with people who abuse her for her powers and her body, only to then sell her as a slave. This starts Jack's long career of criminal activity and violence, where most people only see her as a tool to be used, while Cerberus' agents still hunt her. The only person in all the time who does care for her and loves her ends up sacrificing himself for her so she can get away after a weapons theft goes bad, giving her a massive dose of survivor's guilt as well. She eventually ends up on 'Purgatory', a prison ship from hell doubling as slave market, where she is gang-raped by a group of wardens and prisoners, and upon taking her revenge is put into constant cryostasis, as she is deemed too dangerous. She joins the game because she is bought free by Commander Shepard's financial backers -- which is Cerberus. So she ends up on a Cerberus ship, with the ship's XO flat-out rejecting that the organisation made any mistakes. Said ship is heading towards a suicide mission. Luckily for her, if she survives said mission, this also signals things getting better for her as [[MagneticHero Shepard]] shows her she need not subside on anger and bitterness alone. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' her life has gotten somewhat better. Except for omnicidal AI killing machines invading the galaxy, but that's a fate everybody suffers then.

* [[TheHero Rean Schwarzer]] from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' has so many problems piled up on him that some wonder if he drew the short end. In short order, as a kid he was abandoned at a snowy field as a kid and not remembering anything before that, he inadvertently made his adopted noble family outcasts from the other nobles, and he somehow has powers that he has no control whatsoever and starts being afraid of it as it could potentially harm his loved ones. Then at the end of the first game, he finds out that his friend and classmate is the BigBadFriend who starts the CivilWar by assassinating the chancellor, is soundly defeated by him thanks to the latter's 3-year experience piloting a HumongousMecha compared to Rean's one day experience, and is forced to abandon his classmates to uncertain doom. Then in the second game, after waking up a month after the first game and dealing with a magic knight, he finds out that jaegers started wrecking his hometown, his dad is in a coma from defending his territory, he watches as Altina kidnaps both his sister and the crown princess right before his eyes. While he gets a HopeSpot by reuniting with his classmates, he is forced to separate from them again thanks to the BigBadWannabe invading his hometown. While hostage, he finds out why the BigBadFriend of the first game killed the chancellor near the climax of the first game. Later on after he's free, he fails to save one of the terrorists from the first game to become TheAtoner, he fails to bring back the BigBadFriend to make him atone for his crimes because the latter had to perform a HeroicSacrifice for Rean to save the crown prince, and finds out that said chancellor is actually alive and well and that the chancellor wins the CivilWar. Then said chancellor "points a gun" at a neighboring city state and makes Rean participate in ''his war'' to make sure that the city state belongs to the Erebonian empire while making sure the enemy nation, Calvard, can't get it. Along the way, said chancellor reveals that he is Rean's biological dad. By the end of the second game, it's clear he's become so tired that he's just going through the motions. And then there's ''Cold Steel III'' where he decides to become a teacher, only to have two of his students not exactly his big fans; one of them comes from said city state that Rean helped take over and the other is from a noble family whose dream job was to protect the royal family, only for the chancellor to remove his family from protecting the royal family. While he finally reconciles with the two above, his life goes FromBadToWorse in the final chapter of the third game where he finds out that [[spoiler: he finally finds out his DarkAndTroubledPast in full detail on the night of his sister and the royal princess' debut in society, one of his students shoots the emperor and is in critical condition thanks to a curse and is used as TheScapegoat, witnesses the [[CoolShip Courageous]] exploding in the sky with his allies still on-board, nearly sees his student die in front of him to protect him from a divine beast who was chewing him up, ''seeing'' his friend die in front of him to protect him and her soul is then used to forge a sword capable of defeating the beast. He then loses control of his powers and starts hacking at the FinalBoss in rage and kills it, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero only to unintentionally plunge his country in complete darkness]] and make the citizens lose control of their emotions and replace it with anger, who then directs it towards a neighboring country because the EvilChancellor tells the public that Calvard is to blame for the attempted assassination of the emperor]]. Yeah, Rean just can't catch a break in his game.
* Hitori Uzune from ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'', a character so dramatically depressing that his name literally means "alone". He grew up in an [[OrphansOrdeal orphanage]] during a war, and started working as a young teen to keep up with the cost of food and medicine for his sickly brother, [[IllBoy Nageki]]. One day he came home from work to find out that terrorists had taken the orphanage hostage, and murdered every single child there, except for his brother. They both had to leave, since the house was too expensive and depressing for just the two of them. His brother got sicker and sicker, and he worked as hard as he could to afford all of the hospital bills, but no doctors were able to help. Eventually they found someone who said that he could - but it turns out he was lying, and actually used Nageki in sadistic experiments attempting to [[TyphoidMary kill all of humanity]]. When Hitori figured out that things were so messed up, he ran to try to save his brother - but happened to show up on the exact the day that Nageki decided to [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]]. He had to listen to his brother burn to death, [[ItsAllMyFault knowing that he was the one who insisted that he come here for help]]. No wonder the guy went [[BrokenAce insane]].

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': One arc can arguably be summed up as [[spoiler:Vaarsuvius' Bad Day. Nearly every single twist in the plot, the timing and the contrived coincidences seem as if they were engineered with the explicit, deliberate purpose of breaking Vaarsuvius in mind and spirit. Or, to put it a bit more optimistically, with the purpose of bursting V's bubble and inducing crucial character growth]]. Although considering [[spoiler:this was mostly caused by him/her making a bargain with the manipulative forces of hell]] it's entirely possible it ''was'' engineered to break [[spoiler:him/her]].

* John of ''Webcomic/TheWordWeary'' often uses his angst as an excuse not to move forward with his life or pursue women- unless he's drunk. Poor Trotmann on the other hand is straighter version of the trope.

** Frank Grimes from "Homer's Enemy" hated his life and his whole set of circumstances. Everything he tried to accomplish backfired on him, he lost out on the position at the nuclear plant he was originally selected for to ''a dog'', he lived in an apartment sandwiched between two bowling alleys, and his arch-nemesis, Homer Simpson, seemed to have a better life than him (at one point, Grimes gets demoted after throwing away acid ''that Homer was about to drink'' and Homer gets off scot-free). Frank's hell is thought of as Heaven by Homer, but the final attempt to shame Homer for life (by having him enter a children's model building contest) imploded spectacularly when Homer ''won'', and thus, he went crazy. And ''electrocuted'' himself. And as a final little insult, Homer fell asleep during his funeral and loudly ruined it by yelling "Change the channel, Marge!" in his sleep, to the amusement of everyone else attending. The producers later attempted to rebut criticism that they went a bit over the top torturing Grimes by claiming that it demonstrated that a 'real' person couldn't survive in the Simpsons universe, but even this explanation is a little unsatisfying considering the sheer amount of misfortunes piled on top of Grimey is ''way'' over the top.

* Zuko from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' spends his childhood being mentally tortured by his sadistic sister, gets a fireball thrown into his face by his own father and banished for speaking up in a war meeting and suggesting a tactic that could save the lives of more of his country's soldiers, and is constantly humiliated in his attempts to capture Aang to regain his family's respect. Eventually he's even declared a fugitive for his continued failure and has to live off the land for the first time in his life. His [[ADayInTheLimelight Day in the Limelight]] episode features him befriending a family of farmers and taking care of the corrupt soldiers harassing them, only for them to reject him afterwards because he revealed his identity in the process. Is it any wonder he takes to screaming at the sky, demanding to be hit by lightning? And it fails to happen? Fortunately, things got better for him [[spoiler:when he joined Team Avatar (it still took a few life-changing field trips, though).]]

* In an alternate time stream, the titular character of ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' grows up to be evil, and we mean [[OmnicidalManiac EVIL]]. Why did he turn evil? When under pressure for the CAT test, Danny ends up deciding to cheat with the accidentally acquired answers. Harmless enough, but via a StableTimeLoop and his parent's and teacher's concern (and his evil future self's intervention) he witnesses the explosive death of his family, friends, and teacher. Broken, he goes to live with his ArchEnemy, Vlad Masters. Then, unable to bear his tortured emotions, he has his humanity torn away from his ghost half, which [[NiceJobBreakingItHero goes mad with pain]], merges with Vlad's ghost half and murders his human half. Through the combination of Danny's evolving powers and Vlad's total [[MagnificentBastard evilness]] he ends up destroying the world. Even disregarding what it must have felt like for Danny to be torn into his two alter egos, then turn evil/helplessly watch as his heroic side [[PainfulTransformation turns evil]], when the time-traveling Danny sees all this... it kinda falls right in this trope.

** After waking up from a 10,000 year cryogenic sleep, one of the first thing Allura finds out is that her entire planet was destroyed along with her entire species, [[NeverGotToSayGoodbye including her parents]]. Not to mention she is never given time to mourn them properly. So...yeah...
** And then there's Keith, who grew up [[GiveHimANormalLife (falsely) believing his mother had willingly abandoned]] him as an infant, lost [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest his father]] at a young age, and spent much of his childhood [[FriendlessBackground alone and unloved]]. When he finally made one friend, he later received word that he had died on a space mission (see first example for what really happened). And then he got expelled from SpaceCadetAcademy and lived alone in the desert for a year. As a result he is depressed at the start of the series.

* FanFic writers absolutely ''adore'' this trope. It's most commonly found in romance (especially slash) and MarySue fics; in the former it's used as a means of getting the OTP together (at best in a HurtComfortFic sort of scenario), in the latter it's used in lieu of actual CharacterDevelopment - compare SympatheticSue.

Deus Angst Machina is something of the polar opposite of {{Wangst}} in terms of cause, but can come across as no less frustrating. Simply put, the character in question has every reason in the world to retreat into himself and become a brooding, angsty person, because his life really ''does'' suck as much as he thinks it does. However, the circumstances seem entirely too [[ContrivedCoincidence contrived]]. This is a step beyond the coincidences that most stories tend towards to build up drama, as the character seems to have provoked [[CosmicPlaything some sadistic god]] who is now dedicated to making his life as [[ButtMonkey miserable]] (and angst-filled) as possible. Sure, ''anyone'' would be miserable in his situation, but when said situation is less likely than being struck by lightning, it can seem to be outright ludicrous. If used too much, it can cause DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.

* Zuko from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' spends his childhood being mentally tortured by his sadistic sister, gets a fireball thrown into his face by his own father and banished for speaking up in a war meeting and suggesting a tactic that could save the lives of more of his country's soldiers, and is constantly humiliated in his attempts to capture Aang to regain his family's respect. Eventually he's even declared a fugitive for his continued failure and has to live off the land for the first time in his life. His [[ADayInTheLimelight Day in the Limelight]] episode features him befriending a family of farmers and taking care of the corrupt soldiers harassing them, only for them to reject him afterwards because he revealed his identity in the process. Is it any wonder he takes to screaming at the sky, demanding to be hit by lightning? And it fails to happen?

* ''Life in the Fat Lane'', by Cherie Bennett is almost nothing ''but'' Deus Angst Machina Lara Ardeche, homecoming queen and teen beauty contestant, develops a chemical imbalance that causes her weight to double within months. Her GirlPosse [[BackstabbingTheAlphaBitch brush her off]] as a result; the school FatGirl, whom she'd inadvertently insulted, makes a point of gloating; and her relationship with her parents deteriorates. Later, [[spoiler:her father cheats on her mother, her mother attempts suicide, and]] the whole family moves to another town...where Lara is treated like a ButtMonkey at school for [[AcceptableTargets being fat]]. (And there's also her break-up with Jett...but that was [[ItsNotYouItsMe kind of]] [[{{Wangst}} her own]] [[InsecureLoveInterest damn fault]].)

* ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'' seems to hate its characters. If you're not simultaneously [[YourCheatingHeart worrying about your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse sleeping with someone else]], [[{{Hypocrite}} sleeping with someone else yourself]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone and then feeling guilty]], keeping secrets of who slept with whom for your friends, keeping secrets of who slept with whom for your ''enemies'' because of the collateral damage to your friends, wondering [[WhosYourDaddy who the father of the new pregnancy of the week is]] thanks to [[EverybodyHasLotsOfSex all that sleeping around]], angsting over the LawOfInverseFertility and worrying about [[ButWeUsedACondom being pregnant despite birth control]] [[ButICantBePregnant or lack of fertility]] (bonus points for doing both at once!), getting harassed by a psychopath, or having any number of other [[RuleOfDrama sources of drama]] heaped on you...just wait. [[FromBadToWorse Just you wait.]]

** Frank Grimes from "Homer's Enemy" hated his life and his whole set of circumstances. Everything he tried to accomplish backfired on him, he lived in an apartment sandwiched between two bowling alleys, and his arch-nemesis, Homer Simpson, seemed to have a better life than him. Frank's hell is thought of as Heaven by Homer, but the final attempt to shame Homer for life (by having him enter a children's model building contest) imploded spectacularly when Homer ''won'', and thus, he went crazy. And ''electrocuted'' himself. And as a final little insult, Homer fell asleep during his funeral and loudly ruined it by yelling "Change the channel, Marge!" in his sleep, to the amusement of everyone else attending. The producers later attempted to rebut criticism that they went a bit over the top torturing Grimes by claiming that it demonstrated that a 'real' person couldn't survive in the Simpsons universe, but even this explanation is a little unsatisfying considering the sheer amount of misfortunes piled on top of Grimey is ''way'' over the top.

* Hawkeye -- Hawkeye, Hawkeye, Hawkeye from ''Series/{{MASH}}''. The writers seemed absolutely determined to do anything they could to break his spirit (going so far, in one episode, as to instill an army point system -- which in real life, hadn't actually been in effect since WWII -- so that Colonel Potter could tell Hawkeye the army had raised the number of points needed to get out of the military), until he's finally nearly beaten in the show's finale [[spoiler: when he unintentionally causes a mother to suffocate her own child]]. I mean, c'mon...

** Asuka Langley Sohryu has it as bad as Shinji, and even their traumas are similar (Rei in chapter 25 and Shinji during End of Evangelion point out that they are NotSoDifferent). The universe ''loves'' making her life Hell, and she has at least ''two'' HeroicBSOD during the series. Mother gets crazy and does not recognize her? Angst. Father cheats on her mother with her mother's nurse and Asuka finds out? Angst. Mother commits suicide in a way that shows that she also wanted her daughter dead and Asuka finds the corpse? Angst. Father and step-mother make clear that she is a burden to them? Angst. Asuka gets new surrogate parents but they suck at the job and she has a crush on her father figure who is in love with her mother figure? Angst. Her [[TheRival rival]] is also her {{Love Interest|s}} but he is [[ObliviousToLove utterly olivious to her feelings, never identifies her flirting attempts for what they are]] and almost never is there for her, ruining her fragile self-esteem? Angst. She underperforms at the task that she has been training her life for, the only thing that she feels that validates her existence, and gets surpassed by a weak rookie with no training? Angst. She gets repeatedly beaten, trashed, humilliated and even {{Mind Rape}}d? Angst. She tries to kill herself, falls in a coma -during which is used like a masturbation object-? Angst. She wakes up from her coma and find her happiness only to be defeated -again-, impaled and chopped into pieces? Er... You have the idea.

** What about Jason Todd? His mother dies of an overdose, his dad's killed by his criminal boss and unlike Dick Grayson he isn't immediately adopted by Bruce Wayne, he lives on the street, forced into the world of crimes to survive, then, after becoming Robin he finds out his mother wasn't his biological mother, tracks down his real mother who sells him out to the Joker who promptly beats him half to death with a crowbar and then blows him up to finish the job. Even then it's not over, he wakes up inside his own coffin and has to dig his way out, instead of reuniting with his family he get's taken by the League of Assassins, thrown in a Lazarus Pit and then find's out that not only was his killer still alive killing people, but Batman had a new Robin, leaving him feeling replaced. It's not surprising he goes a bit nuts, all things considering.

* [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]'s ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', arguably. Two young teens being desperately in love with each other but separated by the feuding of their families is a realistic situation, but that ridiculous farce of a dual duel misunderstanding? Tybalt tries to challenge Romeo, Romeo refuses so Mercutio fights in his place, and is killed by Tybalt, causing Romeo to kill the offender in a fit of pique. And on top of this, the Friar's messenger just conveniently fails to reach Romeo to warn him of Juliet's fake death, causing Romeo to drink poison ''mere moments'' before Juliet awakens, who then proceeds to stab herself with a dagger, promptly dying. So the actual tragedy of the story, the lovers' demise, could've been avoided if Romeo had waited a bloody five minutes before committing suicide, or even if the messenger had succeeded in delivering the message in the first place.
** The "mere moments" leads to a lovely scene in Baz Luhrmann's ''Film/WilliamShakespearesRomeoAndJuliet'' when Juliet wakes up ''right as Romeo drinks the poison,'' and he ''sees'' her waking up just before the poison takes effect. The "OhCrap" look on Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio's face is priceless.
* ''Soul Of The Fire'', the fifth book of the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series is made of this. For starters, it takes place in a country where more than half the population is convinced they're inherently evil (think about if Hitler somehow managed to convince the Jews they ''deserved'' to be exterminated, and you'll get the idea). The one person in this group who wants to change it has his head unceremoniously broken in half. His would-be girlfriend sees her entire regiment (made up of fresh-faced girls) either slaughtered, raped, or ''both at the same time'' before running for her life and likely suffering the same fate. A good friend that a major character had known years ago is burned at the stake. And the hero's wife is beaten to death (but saved with [[CPRCleanPrettyReliable the kiss of life]]) and loses their baby. Singularly the most depressing book in the whole series.

* In Creator/TomClancy's ''Literature/JackRyan'' Universe, after a long, long list of calamities inflicted by the fictional foes of the US including multiple attacks with various WeaponsOfMassDestruction (once almost leading to all-out nuclear war), terrorism on a scale to make any budding Osama bin Laden ecstatic, and plots aplenty to destroy or severely cripple the country, Clancy decides to ''still'' include the events of September 11, 2001 in this world. What already happened was bad enough; the last one was truly unnecessary piling on.

* A little bit in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. Harry's mother dies in childbirth, his father dies when he's 6, he gets adopted (and tutored in magic) by the wizard Justin [=DuMorne=], who--SURPRISE--turns out to be evil, and uses Harry's girlfriend to attempt to mind control him, Harry escapes, accidentally sells his life to a semi-evil faery, kills his adopted father, and presumably his girlfriend at the time, with a massive [[KillItWithFire fire spell]](his specialty), then he gets dragged before the White Council (the UN of Wizards), for breaking the First Law of Magic (Thou Shall Not Kill By Use of Magic), gets sent to live with a 200+ year old wizard (which isn't bad-for a while), then starts a PI business, where he is promptly beaten, brused, burned, clawed, bitten, and generally attacked by various magical beasts, including a few genuine Christian Demons, loses the trust of his best friend, then the woman he loves is half turned into a vampire(the soul-less abomination kind), AND, he happened to start a war between the Vampire Court and the White Council, not to mention that the Council hated him LONG before he started said war.

* A ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' sketch featured Mike Myers as a British WWII soldier recovering in a hospital, who goes through one of the worst cases of this ever but refuses to lose his cool. Turns out the nurse he is engaged to is already married and only pretended to be in love with him to keep his hopes up. And the mission he just flew ''didn't'' result in the death of Hitler as he had been told. In fact, he blew up an orphanage. And he can't go back and play football for his favorite team because the doctors had to amputate his leg. And his team lost anyway. Because their opponents' team had the nurse's husband kick the winning goals. And when he comments that such a great player must have three legs, it turns out that he does. Because that's what they did with the leg they took from ''him''. And then the husband shows up and ''it's Hitler''! [[TemptingFate Myers comments that at least nobody has hit him over the head with a pipe today.]] Guess what Hitler does.

* ''Series/{{House}}'': Gregory House was physically abused as a child by a man who turned out to be his non-biological father. As an adult, he partially lost use of his left leg as a result of a blood clot and his girlfriend Stacy going behind his back to get him the procedure he didn't want. This causes a years-long addiction to Vicodin. House and Stacy broke up but when he finally reunites with her, he realizes that he can't make her leave her husband. He's shot by a random assailant in the season 2 finale, where we see House's subconscious chewing him out about refusing happiness for the sake of his job. In season 3 he finds a way to fix his leg, but it's only temporary and he's also hounded by an obsessed cop with a grudge. In season 4 and 5 he has to cope with the guilt over his involvement in the events that led to the death of his best friend Wilson's girlfriend and Wilson refusing to speak to him anymore. He nearly got brain damage while trying to save her too. In season 5 one of his colleagues commits suicide and House struggles to figure out the reason, before he starts having hallucinations, his Vicodin addiction goes out of control, and he has to be hospitalized. His attempt at a relationship with Cuddy in season 7 goes downhill because they secretly make each other miserable, Cuddy later dumps him, he's back on Vicodin, and to top it all off he's a wanted criminal when he flees the country for months after ramming a car into her home out of revenge. In season 8 he's jailed for several months before he's allowed probation if he'll practice medicine regularly. He marries a Russian emigrant to get her a green card, but when he falls in love with her for real it quickly falls apart once she figures out that he kept the confirmation of her naturalization from her out of fear that he'd lose her. Later on, Wilson tells House that he (Wilson) has stage 2 thymoma, forcing House to [[spoiler:ruin his career and fake his own death so he travel the country with Wilson before his best friend dies.]]
* A stellar example: the all but forgotten Creator/DisneyChannel original movie ''Film/OneMagicChristmas''. It is a... ''loose'' reimagining of ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'', sort of. It sits uncomfortably between this trope, {{Narm}}, TastesLikeDiabetes, CluelessAesop, {{Glurge}}, and just plain terrifying, the last especially due to the violent MoodWhiplash. Bonus points for having many of the same UnfortunateImplications as ''TheChristmasShoes'', as pointed out by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ysMpr8mNRM Patton Oswalt]]: [[spoiler:"[[GodIsEvil What a horrible]] [[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[GodIsEvil God!!!]]"]]. The whole things seems like it was ''designed'' to scar children for life.

* Lucas, the main protagonist of ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'' pretty much embodies this trope, as it feels like his world was made specifically to torture him at certain points. If you list out all of the terrible things to happen to him in his short life, you pretty much have a summary of the main plot. To start with, his mother [[spoiler: gets violently killed right in front of his eyes by what's essentially a dinosaur]]. As a result, his father almost goes mad from the resulting grief, attacking people from the village and getting chucked into prison before he can even [[spoiler: attend her funeral]], also all in front of Lucas and his twin, Claus. Shortly afterwards, Claus goes out to try and avenge his mother's death, and goes missing in the process. [[DeusAngstMachina All in the span of two days]]. Please note that this is the first time anybody in the society he lives in has experienced grief, so nobody knows how to console or comfort him. [[FromBadToWorse Not done yet, though.]] That very same day, a suspicious guy comes into Tazmily Village, telling everybody a load of waffle about "happiness" and starts peddling objects called "Happy Boxes" to everyone. These boxes essentially hypnotize the entire village, except for Lucas, who refuses to buy one. As a result, everybody in this previously close-knit and loving community slowly begin turning into selfish, hedonistic jerks. Years later, Lucas is now considered an outcast, even a disgrace, to the village. His father, still grieving over his wife, barely talks with him anymore and spends nearly all of his time searching for Claus, who is still missing. Around this time, his adventure starts. And while he does finally make [[TrueCompanions two very good friends]] and has his [[LoyalAnimalCompanion trusty dog Boney]] by his side as a result, his situation hardly improves. On top of having to constantly battle against horrifying, bloodthirsty creatures known as Chimeras, he now has an entire army set against him, the same army who was indirectly responsible for his [[spoiler: mother's death]] in the first place. After disabling the army's thunder tower, he finds himself in a field of sunflowers where, out of nowhere, he sees [[spoiler: his mother's ghost.]] He can't touch or communicate her, and ends up chasing her off a cliff in desperation. [[MindScrew It's not very clear if this is a dream or actually happening]]. But wait, ''[[UpToEleven there's more]]''. Around this time, he and his friends find out about these weird objects known as the seven needles, [[ResetButton which will restore the entire world either full of evil or full of good depending on who pulls them]]. The journey to getting the seven needles leads him through countless traumatic situations, from being nearly eaten alive by a horrifying monster called the Ultimate Chimera, to accidentally sending himself on a very, ''very'' bad hallucinogenic drug trip that makes him face his worst fears and deep scarring, but he ultimately only manages to pull half of them. The other half are getting pulled by the commander of the army, known as the Masked Man. Once he and the Masked Man have both pulled three, Tazmily is now completely abandoned, so he has no choice but to finally go to the hub of all the corruption in his world, New Pork City. Once there, he has to live with the long-hidden truth about Tazmily: [[spoiler: It was all a lie. The game actually takes place AfterTheEnd, and Tazmily was set up so the last few dozen people left on Earth could live in ignorance to the world's destruction.]] After this, the final needle is located, and he and his friends go to pull it, as it is now the world's only hope for redemption. After defeating the BigBad, he and the Masked Man meet in front of the final needle, ready to battle for it. As it turns out, the Masked Man is actually [[spoiler: Claus, [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed and with no memory of being Lucas's brother.]]]] What follows is an absolutely heartbreaking IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight, during which [[spoiler: Claus]] easily has the upper hand, and with him still showing no sign of remembering, [[spoiler: his mother's ghost shows up for a second time.]] With her help, [[spoiler: Claus]] very slowly realizes who he is and takes his mask off. [[DrivenToSuicide He then kills himself]], allowing Lucas to take the needle, and [[DiedInYourArmsTonight dies in Lucas's arms]]. And this all happens to him in the age range of 9 to 12. There's a very good reason many people consider the ending of the game to be Lucas [[spoiler: destroying the entire world out of the wangst he probably acrued throughout the game]], and those that don't consider him one of the strongest [[IronWoobie Iron Woobies]] in any form of fiction.

* [[TheHero Rean Schwarzer]] from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' has so many problems piled up on him that some wonder if he drew the short end. In short order, as a kid he was abandoned at a snowy field as a kid and not remembering anything before that, he inadvertently made his adopted noble family outcasts from the other nobles, and he somehow has powers that he has no control whatsoever and starts being afraid of it as it could potentially harm his loved ones. Then at the end of the first game, he finds out that his friend and classmate is the BigBadFriend who starts the CivilWar by assassinating the chancellor, is soundly defeated by him thanks to the latter's 3-year experience piloting a HumongousMecha compared to Rean's one day experience, and is forced to abandon his classmates to uncertain doom. Then in the second game, after waking up a month after the first game and dealing with a magic knight, he finds out that jaegers started wrecking his hometown, his dad is in a coma from defending his territory, he watches as Altina kidnaps both his sister and the crown princess right before his eyes. While he gets a HopeSpot by reuniting with his classmates, he is forced to separate from them again thanks to the BigBadWannabe invading his hometown. While hostage, he finds out why the BigBadFriend of the first game killed the chancellor near the climax of the first game. Later on after he's free, he fails to save one of the terrorists from the first game to become TheAtoner, he fails to bring back the BigBadFriend to make him atone for his crimes because the latter had to perform a HeroicSacrifice for Rean to save the crown prince, and finds out that said chancellor is actually alive and well and that the chancellor wins the CivilWar. Then said chancellor "points a gun" at a neighboring city state and makes Rean participate in ''his war'' to make sure that the city state belongs to the Erebonian empire while making sure the enemy nation, Calvard, can't get it. Along the way, said chancellor reveals that he is Rean's biological dad. By the end of the second game, it's clear he's become so tired that he's just going through the motions. And then there's ''Cold Steel III'' where he decides to become a teacher, only to have two of his students not exactly his big fans; one of them comes from said city state that Rean helped take over and the other is from a noble family whose dream job was to protect the royal family, only for the chancellor to remove his family from protecting the royal family. While he finally reconciles with the two above, his life goes FromBadToWorse in the final chapter of the third game where he finds out that [[spoiler: he finally finds out his DarkAndTroubledPast in full detail on the night of his sister and the royal princess' debut in society, one of his students shoots the emperor and is in critical condition thanks to a curse and is used as TheScapegoat, witnesses the [[CoolShip Courageous]] exploding in the sky with his allies still on-board, nearly sees his student die in front of him to protect him from a divine beast who was chewing him up, ''seeing'' his friend die in front of him to protect him and her soul is then used to forge a sword capable of defeating the beast. He then loses control of his powers and starts hacking at the FinalBoss in rage and kills it, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero only to unintentionally plunge his country in complete darkness]] and make the citizens lose control of their emotions and replace it with anger, who then directs it towards a neighboring country because the EvilChancellor tells the public that Calvard is to blame for the attempted assassination of the emperor.]] Yeah, Rean just can't catch a break in his game.

* This trope (along with AllTheOtherReindeer) is both parodied and {{discussed|Trope}} in the following tweet from the Website/{{Twitter}} blog ''Blog/WorstMuse'':

** While he offered Homer some good advice on how to handle his situation in the aforementioned "Homer's Enemy" episode (Except for "[[BreadEggsMilkSquick the ol' fork-in-the-eye]]" bit), Moe Syzlak is himself a victim of Deus Angst Machina. Every success Moe has had in life has been taken away from him somehow (getting a girlfriend, landing an acting career, etc.). It's easy to see why [[DrivenToSuicide later seasons portray him as suicidal]]. And yes, [[UpToEleven he fails at suicide too]].

* Poor Joe Asakura in ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman''. To explain everything here would take forever, starting with the him witnessing his parents' murder as a child, to an apparent [[spoiler:CartwrightCurse and finally [[WeCanRebuildHim being turned into a cyborg to save his life]]]].
* Parodied in the fourth episode of ''[[LightNovel/{{Slayers}} Slayers Evolution-R]]'' where drama inducing events make no sense at all. For example a character becomes a delinquent and another is revealed to have a terminal disease. It all happened for no reason in an instant. They were both happy ''walking fish'' kids before.

* Yamcha of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' has a large one in the Cell Saga. His girlfriend of 15 years gets pregnant by the {{sociopath|icHero}} who oversaw his murder and his friends rub salt in the wound by asking if the baby is his. Shortly afterwards he gets impaled by a relatively weak android and realizes he'll never be able to [[CantCatchUp catch up]]. In ''Bojack Unbound'' it's revealed he's broke and in his last DBZ appearance he still has no one as a 50-year-old man (with his goal in life being to raising a family). His miserable lot in life is parodied in Manga/{{Gintama}}'s 202nd episode. As of Super, things seem to have improved for the guy, with him having become a professional baseball player.

* [[Comicbook/XWingSeries Tycho Celchu]] can be seen as one of these. He was born and grew up on [[DoomedHometown Alderaan]] and was a very good pilot for TheEmpire. When the Empire blew up his homeworld, it was his birthday, and he was in a full-holo conference celebrating it with his entire family and his fiancée. When the holo failed, for several hours he thought it was just "technical difficulties" and planned to rib them about it, since his family owned the station and had been suffering similar failures. Later, having switched sides and serving the Rebellion, he got kidnapped by Isard, the Empire's mistress of intelligence and brainwashing. She [[spoiler: failed]] and transferred him out of her secret prison into one from which he was able to escape. Since he told his superiors that Isard had kidnapped him, they believed he had been brainwashed -- all previous brainwashed people hadn't been able to tell anyone -- and restricted what he could and could not do. Since the head of Rouge Squadron trusted him, he was allowed to fly an unarmed shuttle into combat to rescue downed pilots, but he had a guard at all times. Later he got framed for Corran Horn's [[spoiler: apparent death]], and his friends and allies were forced to [[ClearMyName clear his name]]. Throughout this Tycho was unfailingly portrayed as incredibly calm and noble. His situation certainly got better later, but damn.

* Mulder on ''Series/TheXFiles''. His sister disappears when he's a kid, which ends his parents' marriage and he later finds out he was the one that was supposed to be taken. And he finds out that [[spoiler:she was dead most of the time and was never going to find her]]. He works in a division that everyone thinks is a joke and no one ever believes most of the stuff he says (even though he's usually right) and he has very few friends. He gets shot three different times, once by his own partner, plus the countless times he gets beaten up and loses his gun. [[spoiler:His father is murdered right in front of him, his mom has a stroke and later commits suicide.]] His partner and the only person he really trusts gets abducted by aliens and almost dies. The she gets cancer and almost dies again. He's been drugged, had his memories erased, arrested, imprisoned, tortured by Russian scientists, almost had his arm removed against his will, starts getting debilitating headaches and other problems and then has brain surgery against his will, and then gets abducted by aliens himself and is tortured in various gruesome ways. [[spoiler:He's died and come back to life several times]], and was once buried semi-alive. He's forced to leave Scully and their son, and by the time he comes back [[spoiler:the baby has been given up for adoption]]. He gets caught on a secret government installation where he's arrested and tortured (again) in an attempt to brainwash him. He's put on trial and condemned to death but he escapes. Oh, and the guy he hated most who was at the head of most of the conspiracies he was trying to expose? [[spoiler:Was his biological father.]]

* Ron Currie, Jr.'s ''Literature/EverythingMatters''. So your druggie brother finally starts to get clean? [[spoiler: Oops, the drugs addled his brain. He'll live, but with the mentality of a child.]] You almost killed yourself to find a cure for your father's cancer? [[spoiler: He'll fall asleep at the wheel and die before you get to see him again anyway.]] You finally convinced your girlfriend to escape your doomed planet with you? [[spoiler: She's going to be shot by terrorists a page later.]] And then there's the small matter of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt hanging over the whole story... [[TropesAreNotBad Still a good book.]]

However, [[TropesAreTools Tropes Are Not Bad]], and if done with careful consideration and [[LampshadeHanging appropriate acknowledgment of just how unlikely it all is]], it can be justified.

* Cloud Strife of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is the victim of a truly epic TraumaCongaLine. [[spoiler:He failed to become a SOLDIER, instead ending up as a grunt. His great hero Sephiroth flipped out, went on a killing spree in his hometown, causing a fire that roasted his mother alive while he watched. He received grievous wounds from Sephiroth, and was then experimented on by Hojo, who infused him with [[EldritchAbomination JENOVA]] cells and gave him Mako poisoning. His best friend Zack then died defending Cloud, and Cloud's JENOVA cells and Mako poisoning caused him to seriously alter his memories.]] And that's all before the first game even begins.
** [[spoiler:And somehow he managed to temporarily ''kill'' Sephiroth. Ironically, that was the one real reason the already-insane genocidal maniac cheated death; nobody could believe a loser like Cloud could kill an AxCrazy egomaniac SuperSolider. So Sephiroth (and his mother) clawed their way out of hell ''multiple times'' and drove a massive convoluted plan to cause as much suffering and mayhem as possible [[RevengeBeforeReason before they destroyed the world ''specifically to mess with Cloud by making it look like his fault'']].]]