History Main / DeusAngstMachina

* ''Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk'': The series eventually got to the point where it more or less became a parody of itself for half a decade during UsefulNotes/{{the Dark Age|OfComicBooks}} because the writers were sick of the endless angst (probably).

** Then there's Kirk Van Houten's divorce from "A Milhouse Divided", where [[WomenAreWiser his wife is shown as inherently right]] despite the divorce obviously coming from mutual resentment and disrespect, [[GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity he's fired from his job for]] ''[[GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity being single]]'', and apparently got nothing out of the divorce settlement so he ends up straight in low-income housing, and it's one of the few times the show defies StatusQuoIsGod by keeping it this way. All of this just to deliver a BrokenAesop to Homer about respecting his wife that [[AesopAmnesia he'll forget by the next episode]].

* ''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]].

* 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.

* 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, 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]].

* ''Literature/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 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.

* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' is a [[BlackHumor (darkly) humorous]] take on this.

* The whole plot of ''Franchise/LesMiserables'' is an example. Everyone in the cast suffers, and almost the whole cast dies. This is specially true with the title character, Jean Valjean: He spends 19 years in jail because he stole a loaf of bread (come on!!). Then after no one will even let him stay at an inn, he accidentally commits highway robbery and ends up living always on the run, even after faking his death as [[InspectorJavert one man refuses to let it go]]. But then, one girl that worked for him is fired, raped, teeth-pulled, hair sold, and so on so she can send money to her daughter. She dies, and Valjean becomes the guardian of the girl. THEN they go to Paris some years later, where not only is Javert still playing cat and mouse with him, but the whole city is planning a revolution and the small girl is now in love with one of the revolutionaries... This can only go wrong from here...

-->-- '''[[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]]''', inner monologue. It's unclear if he means [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall his villains or his writers.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'': Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}} 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...

** If you think Wolverine has it bad, just wait until you read his daughter/OppositeSexClone, [[Characters/X23LauraKinney 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 in 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 [[Characters/MarvelComicsSteveRogers Captain America]], 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.''

* [[http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics101.html These]] British girls' comics. As the commentator puts it, "Sometimes your ballet career is cut short by a tragic car accident that kills your family and leaves you a cripple and your evil relatives are stealing your disability checks and they're sending your toddler brother out to work with the construction crew next door. I hate when that happens."

** 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 aging 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.

* [[PunnyName Subplott's]] backstory in ''WebOriginal/LifeInAGame'': He finds out he's a prince, but then an evil wizard brainwashes his father, the king, killed his uncle, kidnapped his sister, Zelda, and banished him, then, to top it off, erased Subplott's [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pokédex]].

* In the Canadian teen drama series ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'', every awful thing that can happen to a teenager has happened to one of the characters. There's been a school shooting, a stabbing, at least one rape, self-mutilation, eating disorders, and multiple drug addictions and pregnancies. All the while, nobody seems to notice that Degrassi might not be the best place to go to school...

* Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}} 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...

* The ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'' "ComicBook/BrandNewDay" storyline is nothing but Deus Angst Machina, mixed in with a healthy serving of non-stop {{Wangst}}. Every conceivable thing that can go wrong does. Twice. In a single issue. Just to remind us [[ExecutiveMeddling Spider-Man's deeper and more dramatic now!]]

* If you think Wolverine has it bad, just wait until you read his daughter/OppositeSexClone, [[Characters/X23LauraKinney 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 in 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 [[Characters/MarvelComicsSteveRogers Captain America]], 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.''

* ''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 fat girl, 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 [[InsecureLoveInterest kind of her own damn fault]].)

* 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 Martins' 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]].

* 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 ill. 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.

* 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]]]]

* 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.

* ''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 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.

-->-- '''Franchise/SpiderMan''', inner monologue. It's unclear if he means [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall his villains or his writers.]]

* The entire story of ''Literature/KoiZora'' can come off as this for the main character. Ranging from gang-rape to 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.

* ''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 character's 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.

* Mori, the main protagonist of ''Manga/KokouNoHito'', has even worse luck than Kenshirou. Everyone who spends time with him gets shafted by fate: ([[spoiler: Yumi, who loses her scholarship and ends up becoming a prostitute; his co-workers, who all get shafted by their company because they're temps; his teacher, who gets killed by a giant boulder while trying to find Mori on a local mountain; and the ENTIRE TEAM he climbs Kazeru no Ken with, who die off one by one]]). On top of that, because of his shyness and awkwardness, he's treated like shit by his co-workers and fellow climbers. Even the company's resident creepy quiet girl is able to impose herself on him, [[spoiler: as Mori can only will himself to put his foot down after she falls down the stairs at his place]]. It's as if the author enjoys concocting new ways to keep him socially isolated and mentally frail.

* ''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 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.
* In volume two of ''Manga/OokuTheInnerChambers'' we are introduced to an ill-tempered and somewhat unstable maiden referred to as [[SheIsTheKing Shogun Iemitsu]]. Then we find out where she is coming from. [[spoiler: Her mother was a commoner raped by Shogun Iemitsu on a whim to prove to his retainer that he could to lie with women (said retainer could do nothing to intercede but leave his short sword as proof of his identity, and it is to the credit of Iemitsu's de facto chancellor Lady Kagura that despite Iemitsu's refusal to admit he had ever seen her when she showed up a year later with a daughter the commoner was bought off with a manor and pension anyway). Then when said daughter (then named Chie) was around ten she was effectively kidnapped (her mother and nurse were murdered out of hand) and dragged to Edo Castle where her hair was forcibly cut off, she was dressed as a boy, and she was told that her name would henceforth be Lord Iemitsu. At fourteen she was wandering the grounds when a groundskeeper took her for a catamite, tore off her clothes to discover otherwise, then raped ''her''. She was found only after she had stabbed the man to death, and she insisted that she had sported with him willingly then killed him for his clumsiness. Then she found out she was pregnant. Then her daughter was stillborn.]] Who would ''not'' have [[JerkassWoobie an attitude problem]] after all that?
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':
** Sasuke Uchiha discovered at a young age that his own brother, Itachi, had allegedly killed their family and their entire clan on a whim, and was forced to live with the hatred he felt for a once-loved sibling over this act. Upon finally tracking down his brother, Itachi beats Sasuke to a pulp before using a MindRape technique on him to make Sasuke re-experience the entire ordeal. Not long after this, Sasuke realizes he CantCatchUp up to the main character or the increasing number of increasingly powerful antagonists, so he accepts a previous offer for TrainingFromHell from the then-BigBad [[BodySnatcher Orochimaru]] so that he can gain enough power to eliminate Itachi. Cue a TimeSkip, and Sasuke's CycleOfRevenge starts pedaling as he betrays Orochimaru and gathers a QuirkyMinibossSquad, and finally hunts down his brother. [[spoiler: However, this only serves to give Sasuke a case of RevengeMyopia as it turns out Itachi wasn't entirely to blame; which slowly but surely puts Sasuke on the path to a RoaringRampageOfRevenge.]]
** There was also Nagato, who went down the Bruce Wayne route after witnessing his parents being killed when he was still a child. Though he did get revenge by activating the [[StoryBreakerPower Rinnegan]] and killing the two shinobi who were mistaken as assassins. Nagato became an orphan, finding companionship from [[TrueCompanions Yahiko and Konan]], and was taken in by one of the Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya, who took him and his friends in and taught them the ninja arts so that they could protect themselves and each other. This all went downhill as the group was locked into a SadisticChoice that resulted in Yahiko's death, following which Nagato slaughtered a good number of the opposing force at the cost of his health. Nagato then obsessed with finding a method to establish absolute peace: whatever brought him into the BigBad's clutches, it led to him demolishing a village full of people and leading a one-man (well, six or seven) assault against Konoha.
** Gaara... Holy CRAP, GAARA!!! When he was born, his mother died and his father pampered him in false love before sending a bunch of assassins 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...]]
* D-Boy/Takaya Aiba of ''Anime/TekkamanBlade''. Gosh, his life is ''[[FromBadToWorse really]]'' sucks. [[spoiler:Fortunately, the sequel show him completely recovered from his loss so it all ends well, but the sheer crap he gone through is so nasty, it's a wonder why he doesn't snap from all of it.]]
** [[spoiler: D-boy lost all his memories of the first series' events. If he kept them, he would have definitely snapped. He's catatonic and needs the female lead to take care of him for a while.]]
* ''Manga/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.
** Trafalgar Law went through some heavy TraumaCongaLine that no kid should ever have to go through such as [[spoiler: [[ParentalAbandonment dead parents]], deceased younger sister, [[EverybodysDeadDave dead pretty much everybody else he knew]], hiding under corpses, [[YourDaysAreNumbered terminal disease]], being called a monster and, finally, [[MentorOccupationalHazard dead mentor]]]].
* 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]]]]
* Poor Oz in ''Manga/PandoraHearts''. Life just seems to keep on getting worse for him as he discovers [[spoiler:not only has one of his closest friends died, the time he actually reached out to one ended up with that one getting IMPALED by Jack, the person he looks up to and regards as a hero. Guess what, Oz? He's not a hero. He's manipulating you for his own purposes and he also {{Mind Rape}}s Oz by telling him that nothing can belong to someone like him. It turns out that Oz is actually the Bloodstained Black Rabbit himself and that Jack just used him as a pawn to start the Tragedy of Sablier and made him kill against his own will. Oh, and also, he's also just stealing Jack's body. Jack's body goes through a regressing cycle because the Abyss rejected his soul for the atrocities he committed, so Oz is just a younger version of Jack. Also, he's a freaking stuffed rabbit. That's his sin. He was really just a stuffed rabbit who wanted to be loved by Alice so much that he came to life, but then he disintegrated and was turned into a monster. After learning all of these things, he goes into a HeroicBSOD. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]]. Alice gave her life up for him, so that means he's in a sense responsible for her death. He wishes her away to the Abyss and Gil shoots him now that he remembers everything. Then he's imprisoned down in Pandora's dungeon and is going to be executed by who other than LEO! He tells Echo he's nothing but a doll.....WHILE SMILING]]. Someone please give [[spoiler:B-rabbit]] Oz a hug.
* ''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: blackmails 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.
* The last sequence of ''Anime/AiNoKusabi'' cements just how much [[BornUnlucky Riki's]] life has sucked. Just when it seemed it was going to get a bit easier, things went FromBadToWorse. It amounts at best to a BittersweetEnding where [[spoiler: Riki and Iason die happy as StarCrossedLovers]].
* 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 ill. 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.

* ''ComicBook/{{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...

* ''Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk'': The series evetually got to the point where it more or less became a parody of itself for half a decade during UsefulNotes/{{the Dark Age|OfComicBooks}} because the writers were sick of the endless angst (probably).
* ''Comicbook/{{Robin|1993}}'': Since Tim Drake became Comicbook/{{Robin}}: His mother was murdered, his friend Darla was killed and came back as an undead villain, his dad was killed by a Captain Boomerang, his girlfriend [[Comicbook/Batgirl2009 Stephanie]] was tortured and 'murdered', his stepmother is missing and presumed dead, his best friends [[ComicBook/{{Superboy1994}} Kon-El]] and [[ComicBook/{{Impulse}} Bart]] were killed (later they came back to life), his adopted sister [[Comicbook/{{Batgirl2000}} Cass Cain]] turned evil (this change did not last), his civilian best friend, Ives, has cancer [[spoiler: now in remission]], and Batman supposedly died. Steph came back years later only to start helping one of Tim's enemies in order to push him to become more efficient on Batman's orders. The writers joke about giving him a puppy so they can kill it too. Tim's response to all this? To emotionally deaden himself and go the {{Jerkass}} route. Hilariously he was originally envisioned as the Robin without angst and given two living parents to enable this.
** 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 gets taken by the League of Assassins, thrown in a Lazarus Pit, and then finds 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 considered.

* 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 in 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.''

* 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 in 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.''

* The last sequence of ''LightNovel/AiNoKusabi'' cements just how much [[BornUnlucky Riki's]] life has sucked. Just when it seemed it was going to get a bit easier, things went FromBadToWorse. It amounts at best to a BittersweetEnding where [[spoiler: Riki and Iason die happy as StarCrossedLovers]].

* Possibly subverted (eventually) in Literature/TheBible. The story of Job centers on a man who loses his farmhands, shepherds, servants, several kinds of cattle, children, and health. All of this ends up demonstrating several points about God's sovereignty, though, among other things, and at any rate, [[EarnYourHappyEnding Job got]] [[ThrowTheDogABone better]].

* The entire story of ''Literature/KoiZora'' can come off as this for the main character. Ranging from gang-rape to 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.

** 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 [[NotSoDifferentRemark point out that they aren't so different.]]). 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.

** Essentially: Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And if it's going right, that's just so the very next thing will be more devastating.

** 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 gets taken by the League of Assassins, thrown in a Lazarus Pit, and then finds 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.''

* Even ''Literature/TheBlackStallion'' series goes for this one. Jockey Alec Ramsey, having undergone a pretty eventful life already, falls in love with a bewitching [[TheDrifter free spirit]] named Pam in ''The Black Stallion and the Girl''. She [[PutOnABus leaves him]] to [[ButNowIMustGo continue her wandering ways]], but at the beginning of the next book, ''The Black Stallion Legend'', her bus [[BusCrash plunges off a cliff]], killing her and everyone else on board. Alec finds out about this through a newspaper account and goes quite mad. He recovers eventually. But not before he drives out into the desert with only his beloved horse, [[spoiler: gets lost, gets found by an Indian tribe who thinks the Black is some sort of spirit horse sent to lead them to safety, which seems more reasonable when a GIANT METEOR hits the Earth, causing disaster and destruction, including massive damage to Hopeful Farm which he finds out when he decides to call home and tell them he's not dead,]] but it does all get better in the end. Yeah, at this point, author Walter Farley was getting a bit odd. To be fair, Pam was modelled on Farley's daughter, who died in a car crash in Europe. ''The Black Stallion Legend'' was his way of handling it.

** And that was just in the ''first'' volume! [[spoiler: In the second volume he's mostly just lonely, a bit sad, slightly [[ShellShockedVeteran shell-shocked]], and suffering from a mild deathwish; but in the third volume he watches his king (who is one of his few actual friends) die by inches (and it is quite explicit that the king's beloved, one of Vanyel's ''other'' few friends, will die with him), his aunt is painfully killed because he dismisses her worries about a rash of fatal accidents, ''and'' he gets gang-raped... all because apparently he didn't have enough angst in his life already...]]

* Leafpool in ''Literature/WarriorCats''. In ''Twilight'', [[spoiler:her mentor dies (and she blames herself for her death), she has to give up the love of her life, and she essentially becomes isolated from the rest of the Clan]]. She seems to have been able suck it up, but then in ''Sunrise'' [[spoiler:it is revealed that she was actually pregnant and had to give up her kits to be raised by her sister, she can no longer be a medicine cat (the only joy in life she had left), she gets insulted by the aforementioned love of her life, her own daughter tries to kill her, and she apparently blames herself for Ashfur's death]]. The ending makes it difficult to tell exactly what is going to happen to her now. All this isn't really a ContrivedCoincidence though, since it all just originates from one bad decision... and another bad decision to cover up the first one...

* Very common in Creator/DanielleSteel's novels. An example is Gabbie in ''The Long Road Home'', who has a very abusive mother, a father who doesn't help and leaves when she is 9. Her mother then moves to California and leaves her in a convent, where she decides to become a nun and falls in love with a priest. However, they are not allowed to be together, and her lover feels guilty and hangs himself. She is kicked out of the convent and ends up moving into a boarding house. Just as things seem to be moving up, her closest friend is essentially killed by the con-man Gabbie fell in love with and said con man then beats Gabbie almost to death for the money the friend left her in his will.

** Then excessively, ''Changes''. [[spoiler: Finding out he has a daughter right after she was kidnapped by the Red Court. Having his office building blown up, his apartment burnt, becoming paralysed and forced to make a deal with the devil in order to stand a chance. Then, in the finale, he is forced to watch the love of his life turned to a full vampire, kill her to save his daughter. And when you finally think that something good is going to happen in Harry's life for a change, he is shot]].

* 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 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.

* 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}}, 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 fucking God!!!]]"]]. The whole things seems like it was ''designed'' to scar children for life.

* ''Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'' is fairly notorious for this. If anything good is happening to anyone in the Ingalls family and / or great plans are being made, [[YankTheDogsChain expect something to go]] '''[[YankTheDogsChain horribly]]''' [[YankTheDogsChain wrong soon]]. The absolute ''worst'' case was with Albert, who found out he was terminally ill just as he received a full scholarship for medical school. To make matters worse, this was not long after he overcame a morphine addiction.

** 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]] Eventually, his mother also develops Alzheimers, putting him at risk for that too (and he's too young to be screened), and he takes her in to try to give her the best possible care, only to get in over his head. This eventually gets him arrested for murder in Mexico after getting framed for murder while sneaking some non-FDA-approved herbal treatments, causing him to spend half a season in prison. As soon as he's cleared, the mastermind's girlfriend (who was a victim he couldn't protect from a cycle of violence, making him feel responsible for her) kidnaps his mother. All through the show we are reminded that he's socially inept, easily embarrassed, and rarely taken seriously.

* ''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 [[UsefulNotes/TheChechnyaWars Chechen war]]. After that, one of his girlfriends is [[WidowedAtTheWedding 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???

* 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]].
* In Creator/{{Sophocles}}' ''Theatre/{{Antigone}}'', after a bloody battle for Thebes and the mutual slaying of the two heirs to the throne, Creon, the self-proclaimed new king condemns his niece to being buried alive for having buried one of the two aforementioned heirs who had fought against Thebes. When the oracle Tiresias comes to warn him that this blasphemous travesty will bring Creon much anguish, Creon relents and goes to free her, only to find the tomb already open and his son Haemon, who was betrothed to Antigone, mourning over her dead body, with her having hung herself. Haemon kills himself, and then Eurydice, Creon's wife, kills herself in response.

* 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 begins 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, ''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.

* 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.

* [[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 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.

* Jay Naylor's ''Webcomic/BetterDays'' seems to have been written to be one long string of these, functioning under the two classic errors that "bad things happening" is the same thing as "CharacterDevelopment," and that "bad things happening" is [[TrueArtIsAngsty always good writing]]. For actually good writing (or rather, terrible writing, but done intentionally in a hilariously ingenious way), try "Nay Jaylor's" edits of Better Days strips. "Hey guys look how far I can suck in my face." * FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF*

-->'''Calculon''': Give it to me straight, doctor. Don't sugar coat it.

* 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).]]
** His mother, the one person other than Iroh who loved him unconditionally, was banished/presumed dead when he was 11 years old because she (probably) murdered his grandfather to protect him, who in turn had ordered Ozai to murder his son as a "lesson". Ozai, [[AbusiveParents being parent of the year,]] said "Sure, no problem." Presuming [[SocialServicesDoesNotExist Social Services operated in the Fire Nation]], it seems the [[RoyallyScrewedUp Fire Lord's Palace]] was beyond their reach.
* 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.

* 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 Seasons Two and Four). 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.

* 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?

* 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.

* ''Comicbook/RobinSeries'': Since Tim Drake became Comicbook/{{Robin}}: His mother was murdered, his friend Darla was killed and came back as an undead villain, his dad was killed by a Captain Boomerang, his girlfriend [[Comicbook/Batgirl2009 Stephanie]] was tortured and 'murdered', his stepmother is missing and presumed dead, his best friends [[ComicBook/{{Superboy1994}} Kon-El]] and [[ComicBook/{{Impulse}} Bart]] were killed (later they came back to life), his adopted sister [[Comicbook/{{Batgirl2000}} Cass Cain]] turned evil (this change did not last), his civilian best friend, Ives, has cancer [[spoiler: now in remission]], and Batman supposedly died. Steph came back years later only to start helping one of Tim's enemies in order to push him to become more efficient on Batman's orders. The writers joke about giving him a puppy so they can kill it too. Tim's response to all this? To emotionally deaden himself and go the {{Jerkass}} route. Hilariously he was originally envisioned as the Robin without angst and given two living parents to enable this.

* ''Comicbook/IncredibleHulk'', to the point that the series more or less became a parody of itself for half a decade during UsefulNotes/{{the Dark Age|OfComicBooks}} because the writers were sick of the endless angst (probably).

* Oersted, one of the heroes from the SNES game ''VideoGame/LiveALive''. As his chapter starts, he wins the tournament which names him the greatest hero in the land, as well as the hand of the beautiful princess in marriage. As the two make wedding plans, a monstrous demon sent by the Demon King appears and kidnaps the princess. No matter, this happens in video games all the time. Oersted and his best friend Straybow the magician, as well as two older heroes who defeated the Demon King years earlier, set off on a quest to get her back. And then... [[spoiler: The group is barely able to reach the Demon King's palace before one of the heroes is killed. And then the palace collapses, and they are forced to leave Straybow behind. And then, when Oersted returns to the palace, he finds the Demon King there and slays him... oops, that was actually an illusion, and his would-be father-in-law is now dead. Oersted is arrested for murdering the King, and the other elder hero is tortured to death as an accessory, barely able to summon enough strength to help Oersted escape. Oersted flees the kingdom, every citizen in it who once cheered him now calling him a traitor and murderer, and makes a heroic solo effort to take the Demon King down. When he finally reaches the villain... it turns out it was his old friend Straybow all along. Oersted is forced to kill his best friend, and the princess appears. A bittersweet ending? Nope. The princess tells Oersted that she believed Oersted would save her, but it was ''Straybow'' who saved her[[note]]and after all that Oersted went through to try and save her, no less[[/note]], declares that she loves Straybow, not him, and commits suicide. Poor Oersted. Is it any surprise to find that the Demon King that the other heroes battled was Oersted himself, embracing the darkness?]]

* In volume two of ''Manga/{{Ooku}}: the Inner Chambers'' we are introduced to an ill-tempered and somewhat unstable maiden referred to as [[SheIsTheKing Shogun Iemitsu]]. Then we find out where she is coming from. [[spoiler: Her mother was a commoner raped by Shogun Iemitsu on a whim to prove to his retainer that he could to lie with women (said retainer could do nothing to intercede but leave his short sword as proof of his identity, and it is to the credit of Iemitsu's de facto chancellor Lady Kagura that despite Iemitsu's refusal to admit he had ever seen her when she showed up a year later with a daughter the commoner was bought off with a manor and pension anyway). Then when said daughter (then named Chie) was around ten she was effectively kidnapped (her mother and nurse were murdered out of hand) and dragged to Edo Castle where her hair was forcibly cut off, she was dressed as a boy, and she was told that her name would henceforth be Lord Iemitsu. At fourteen she was wandering the grounds when a groundskeeper took her for a catamite, tore off her clothes to discover otherwise, then raped ''her''. She was found only after she had stabbed the man to death, and she insisted that she had sported with him willingly then killed him for his clumsiness. Then she found out she was pregnant. Then her daughter was stillborn.]] Who would ''not'' have [[JerkassWoobie an attitude problem]] after all that?

* FanFic writers absolutely ''adore'' this trope. It's most commonly found in romance 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.
** This is also common in many JournalRoleplay games, especially horror-based games.

%%* A good chunk of Creator/LarsVonTrier movies, particularly the so-called ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Depression Trilogy]]''. Taken UpToEleven by ''Film/{{Nymphomaniac}}'', in which one depressing event follows on the heels of another.

* 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 begins 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.

** 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.). In "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" he said that fate likes to play a game called "Up yours, Moe". It's easy to see why [[DrivenToSuicide later seasons portray him as suicidal]]. And yes, [[UpToEleven he fails at suicide too]].

''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 [[UsefulNotes/TheChechnyaWars Chechen war]]. After that, one of his girlfriends is [[WidowedAtTheWedding 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???