History Main / TroubledBackstoryFlashback

* ''Manga/MoriartyThePatriot'' Moran gets one in his DayInTheLimeLight arc ''The Man with the Golden Army''. While his life hadn't been perfect, he had been quite happy with his squad in the army until they were betrayed, ambushed, and murdered--and even ''he'' was declared legally dead--which motivated him to work for William promoting equality in Britain as well as getting his own revenge before devoting himself to William's cause fully.

* The various flashbacks from Eric and Shelly's life together before it was all ripped apart in ''Film/TheCrow.'' May well be the codifier for the trope's use in horror movies.

* Kainen's backstory in ''Film/{{Outlander}}'' is spread over several flashbacks. His family's death (or rather, Kainan's discovery of their death) is shown ''before'' the scenes of Kainan and his family, happy together.

* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' did this for the first season or two for most characters. Parker's flashbacks were the most traumatic, disturbing and nonsensical.
* In the pilot episode of ''Series/{{JAG}}'' we get to see the accident where Harm five years earlier crashed an F-14 on an aircraft carrier, which killed his RIO, grounded him as an aviator and put him on a different career track as a lawyer.
* The pilot of ''Series/TheMentalist'' contains a series of brief flashbacks showing Jane in his previous career as a TV psychic, first doing a "reading" for a studio audience member and then offering a psychic profile on a serial killer named Red John. The final flashback shows why and how things changed for Jane; Red John took offense to the way Jane spoke about him and killed Jane's wife and daughter to teach him a lesson.
* ''Series/{{House}}'' does this in the episode "Three Stories", where House is holding a class and presents three cases of patients with various maladies to their legs. One of those cases is actually Dr. House's, showing the chain of events that ultimately resulted in in his chronic leg pain and compromised mobility.

* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' includes one of these in the Season 2 opener. Andromeda shows Beka the classified mission she was attempting to reenact. Under orders to find the source of the Magog invasion, they found the World-ship and her entire crew was killed.
* In the ''Series/FantasyIsland'' episode "Photographs," a woman remembers watching her eleven-year-old son riding around a field on horseback before being thrown off and killed.

* ''Series/FantasyIsland2021'': Christine Collins' childhood as Crystal Jo is revealed this way in the pilot - her abusive stepfather played a big part in her behavior as an adult.

* ''Series/StrangerThings'': In "The Upside Down", as Hopper goes into The Upside Down with Joyce to save Will, he's struck with flashbacks to his past: [[spoiler: he was married and a loving father to a little girl named Sara, but then she had cancer and later died.]]
** Much later, in Season 4, Eleven revisits forgotten memories of her time in Hawkins Lab, in which she is mercilessly bullied by the other subjects, with her only ally being a character known as the Friendly Orderly, who stands up for her and offers to help her escape. [[spoiler: He is actually Dr Brenner's first test subject, the murderous telekinetic Henry Creel, aka One, and after tricking Eleven into removing [[RestrainingBolt an implant that was suppressing his powers]] he massacres everyone he can find in the lab. When a horrified Eleven confronts him and declines his offer that WeCanRuleTogether, she battles him in a psychic duel that ends with him being hurled into the Upside Down (where he is transformed by the Mind Flayer into the season's BigBad, Vecna) and Eleven overloading her powers, falling into a coma, and losing her memories of the incident. Regaining these memories is key to her re-powering, allowing her to aid her friends in their showdown against Henry/One/Vecna.]]
* Several times in ''Series/TheMandalorian'', the Armorer's forge seems to trigger flashbacks in both Din Djarin and Grogu. For Djarin, it's when his family was killed by Separatist battle droids during the Clone Wars; for Grogu, it's when he witnessed Order 66 and saw his fellow Jedi massacred by Clone Soldiers.

* The {{manhwa}} ''Manhwa/{{Priest|1998}}'' has Ivan's flashback, starting in Volume 4 and continuing in Volume 6. It starts out rather sugary (complete with a {{tsundere}} LoveInterest), which is jarring, but it quickly goes to hell in Volume 6.

* Crops up quite a lot in ''Manhwa/TheTarotCafe'', since Pamela needs to know about her clients' pasts before she can tell their futures. Thus, everyone who stops by her shop must explain the traumatic circumstances that lead to them seeking out her help. Pamela herself gets several, which show [[spoiler:how she met a disguised Bellial as a child, how she was accused of being a witch because she could foresee the future, how her mother made a DealWithTheDevil and was burned at the stake in her place, how she was abandoned in the woods, how a creepy priest tried to rape her when she grew up, and went on to kill the dragon she was in love with when she escaped, and how she ended up becoming immortal when she wanted nothing more than to join her lover in death.]]

* In ''Anime/WeissKreuz'', Aya Fujimiya's flashback to his younger sister's sixteenth birthday is all bright, cheerful images of the smiling girl having fun at a shrine festival - but then it starts raining on the way home. You can probably guess what happens to his happy, loving family next.

* In the ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' fanfic ''FanFic/BackToTheFuturePrequel'', Doc spaces out several times, each time remembering either the [[MyGreatestFailure accident]] or a subsequent encounter with [[StalkerWithoutACrush Hank.]]

*** A lot of Creator/SergioLeone's Westerns had these. Film/ForAFewDollarsMore had a flashback involving a young woman being raped by the villain. [[spoiler: It turns out she was Colonel Mortimer's sister, who had killed herself to keep El Indio from getting the satisfaction of raping her, and Mortimer is after revenge]]. ''Film/DuckYouSucker'' also had a similar series of flashbacks to John Mallory's life in Ireland with a friend and a woman they both loved. [[spoiler: It turns out Mallory killed his friend after he was forced to turn him into the authorities, which ends up influencing him in the present when he faces a similar situation but spares the man responsible]].

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' has a set of this showing Michonne's backstory- but her husband and friend gradually transform into walkers over time while supposedly sitting around the kitchen table.

* {{VideoGame/Xenogears}} has Fei's backstory including [[spoiler: his happy early life, his mother turning into Miang and abusing him, and him eventually snapping and killing her, causing him to develop multiple personalities]].

* At several points in ''Videogame/VagrantStory'', Ashley Riot is made to watch a flashback of him and his family going for a picnic in a meadow, only for a group of thugs to interrupt the picnic and stab his wife and son to death. [[spoiler:Things get more complicated when [[ManipulativeBastard Sydney]] shows him an alternate version of the flashback in which he is the killer of an innocent woman and her child, and suggests that Ashley reimagined the incident to paint himself in a better light and deal with his grief, and started [[BelievingTheirOwnLies Believing His Own Lies]].]]

** Olaf explaining how he wound up in [[CrapsaccharineWorld Smileyland]] to Kaeloo and Mr. Cat in [[spoiler: Episode 104]].

* The {{manhwa}} ''Manhwa/{{Priest}}'' has Ivan's flashback, starting in Volume 4 and continuing in Volume 6. It starts out rather sugary (complete with a {{tsundere}} LoveInterest), which is jarring, but it quickly goes to hell in Volume 6.

** [[AntiVillain Prince Zuko]] gets two of these that show his life before he became angry, bitter and obsessed with catching Aang. The first consists of Iroh telling the ship's crew how [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished Zuko got his scar and was banished]], and the second comes in the form of Zuko reminiscing about his family when he was a kid... and then his mom mysteriously disappears and his dad becomes Fire Lord. And it kind of went downhill from there.
** Aang's flashbacks about being revealed as the Avatar early, being pretty much shunned by his friends because of it, and his eventual running away from the Air Temple.

** Katara's flashback to her mother's death.

* When MadScientist Heinz Doofenshmirtz from ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' captures his secret agent nemesis and starts [[EvilGloating monologuing]] about his latest evil scheme, he often explains his motives with a troubled backstory flashback. (For example, "Back in Gimmelschtump in the days of my youth, the Doofenshmirtzes were a proud family. But those were lean times for my father, and our beloved lawn gnome was repossessed. Who would protect our ancient garden from witches, spells, and wood trolls? From a tender age, my father decided that it will be me. While the other kids played kick the schumptel and ate doonkelberries, I would stand for hours. All through the cold night, as the spitzenhounds howled... My only companion was the moon. And my neighbor Kenny. So, since my lawn gnome was taken from me, I will destroy every lawn gnome in the entire Tri-State Area!")

* ''Manga/ShimejiSimulation'': A flashback of [[spoiler:Big Sis' elementary years]] in Chapter 30 showed a glimpse of her tragic past as a victim of bullying from her peers due to her conflicting interests. Then a panel of what looked like her mother within her blotted memories is seen talking to her father, before he coldly told her to be (presumably) more social towards others. The final part shows her and Shijima at a playground, with Big Sis claiming that they have [[ParentalAbandonment no parents]] and how their town is "not for them". In reality they were implied to have been both abandoned by them.

* ''Manga/ShimejiSimulation'': A flashback of [[spoiler:Big Sis' elementary years]] ub Chapter 30 showed a glimpse of her tragic past as a victim of bullying from her peers due to her conflicting interests. Then a panel of what looked like her mother within her blotted memories is seen talking to her father, before he coldly told her to be (presumably) more social towards others. After the flashback she and Shijima are seen at a playground, with Big Sis claiming that they have [[ParentalAbandonment no parents]] and how their town is "not for them". In reality they were implied to have been both abandoned by them.

* ''Manga/ShimejiSimulation'': A flashback of [[spoiler:Big Sis' elementary years]] showed a glimpse of her tragic past as a victim of bullying from her peers due to her conflicting interests. Then a panel of what looked like her mother within her blotted memories is seen talking to her father, before he coldly told her to be (presumably) more social towards others. After the flashback she and Shijima are seen at a playground, with Big Sis claiming that they have [[ParentalAbandonment no parents]] and how their town is "not for them". In reality they were implied to have been both abandoned by them.

* '''Manga/ShimejiSimulation''': A flashback of [[spoiler:Big Sis' elementary years]] showed a glimpse of her tragic past as a victim of bullying from her peers due to her conflicting interests. Then a panel of what looked like her mother within her blotted memories is seen talking to her father, before he coldly told her to be (presumably) more social towards others. After the flashback she and Shijima are seen at a playground, with Big Sis claiming that they have [[ParentalAbandonment no parents]] and how their town is "not for them". In reality they were implied to have been both abandoned by them.

* Manny has one in the first ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' movie, in the form of [[ArtShift an animated cave painting]] showing a tribe of humans killing his family.

* In the [=VilAnon=] arc of ''Webcomic/EverydayHeroes'', Jane describes her past as a villainous henchwoman and her decision to leave that life after [[spoiler:her boss murdered her best friend and tried to murder her, and the superhero who rescued/captured her befriended (and eventually married) her]].