History Main / TroubledBackstoryFlashback

* ''TigerAndBunny'' frequently has these for [[spoiler:Barnaby Brooks Jr.]], usually in the form of [[spoiler:Barnaby]]'s own nightmares or post-traumatic flashbacks.

*** A lot of Sergio Leone's Westerns had these. ForAFewDollarsMore had a flashback involving a young woman being raped by the villain. [[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]]. 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]].

* ''SweeneyTodd'' gives us one of these in the flashback/musical number "A Barber And His Wife," which shows Sweeney and his beautiful wife as they used to be before Judge Turpin came along.

* Interlude 4 in ''TheReconstruction''. It centers around [[spoiler:Dehl]], and starts off innocuously enough, with peaceful humans arriving on [[spoiler:Dehl's island]], and [[spoiler:Dehl]] then going off to find his father. [[spoiler:In the process, he discovers his father's secret 'laboratory', which is ''swathed in blood and has bloody Sikohlon corpses chained to the walls''. Dehl's father rambles about how he killed everyone to try and isolate a cure for the Blue Plague, and Dehl is just barely able to come out alive through the manifestation of his pseudo-magic powers -- which causes his father to be graphically impaled by a sword and die.]] [[WhamEpisode Yeah.]]

* Zuko from ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' 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 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.

The flashback will take the form of a snapshot of a happier time with the people who have since been killed. The flashback will be bright, ''much'' brighter than the [[DarkerAndEdgier drowning]]-in-[[CrapsackWorld dark]] main cinematography, and use a [[DeliberatelyMonochrome non-desaturated]] (or even ''super'' saturated) lively color palette. It will sometimes [[FlashbackEffects use softened edges and warm gold tones]], when not in sepia, and have a sweet but [[SoundtrackDissonance slightly jarring]] melody ([[OminousMusicBoxTune preferably a music box]]) or [[OneWomanWail obviously]] [[LonelyPianoPiece sad fare]]. Then the [[TooHappyToLive disastrously happy loved ones will be killed]] as the happy flashback suffers a SugarApocalypse into a gory bloodfest. For extra pathos, the hero will be helpless to save them or ForcedToWatch.

* Crona's past in {{Soul Eater}}. Made worse by the simple, child-like style in which it is drawn/animated. Crona's is the stand-out example for known backstories in the series; the main cast has far more mundane, and (generally) less violent pasts.

* Crona's past in {{Soul Eater}}. Made worse by the simple, child-like style in which it is drawn/animated. Crona's is the stand-out example for known backstories in the series; the main cast has far more mundane, and (generally) less violent pasts.

* There's one of these early in the ''{{Bleach}}'' anime (and I presume the manga as well) when we see how happy Ichigo was with his mother, and then her death at the hands of Grand Fisher.
** Later, the Turn Back The Pendulum arc went into [[spoiler: Urahara's tragic backstory, as well as those of the Vizard.]]

* In the first ''FullMetalAlchemist'' anime, there are flashbacks of happy, young Ed and Alphonse with their mother. There's then a flashback of her ''dying right before their eyes''.

* The entire episode/s of {{Trigun}} that flashback to REM and show what happened with Vash and Knives aboard the SEED ship on their way to Gunsmoke. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned before because Vash's past is usually referenced in the show quite a bit, possibly even OnceAnEpisode .
* It's probably best not to make a drinking game out how many times these sorts of flashbacks appear in {{Naruto}}. It'll probably kill you.

* The Mad Hatter in TimBurton's ''Film/AliceInWonderland'' has one of these flashbacks... maybe it's a Tim Burton thing.

* ''{{NCIS}}:'' We occasionally see flashbacks of Gibb's desceased wife and daughter. Usually they are of the happy orange-and-yellow-washed picnic variety, but just once we see glimpses of blood and broken glass and an implied bloodbath.

* Lance from Gold Coin Comics has a flashback showcasing [[http://www.goldcoincomics.com/?id=11 what happened to his hometown]].

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[[caption-width-right:330:Picnics, [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative the fourth deadliest]] family outing in fiction.]]

In ''{{Unsounded}}'', glimpses of Sette's life at home are occasionally shown in dark, damaged, and obscured panels, suggesting that her dear ol' Da [[AbusiveParents is not a great guy]], contrary to what [[UnreliableNarrator she claims him to be]].

[[ThePunisher http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/CastleFamily_3844.jpg]]
[-[[caption-width:330:Picnics, [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative the fourth deadliest]] family outing in fiction.]] -]

We aren't being over-dramatic here, these flashbacks run the risk of portraying the hero's pre-tragedy life as more [[TastesLikeDiabetes nauseatingly happy]] than a Norman Rockwell painting [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on distilled]] {{Glurge}}. This may be intentional, since the net effect is the hero's life effectively goes from living in a SugarBowl to a CrapsackWorld.

* ''{{Priest}}'' ({{manhwa}} 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.