History Main / WhatHaveIBecome

Not related to MyGodWhatHaveIDone, although the two tropes may overlap sometimes for the metaphorical value. Opposite to TranshumanTreachery. Usually precedes the TrialBalloonQuestion. Often followed by IAmAMonster. [[StagesOfMonsterGrief Well-adjusted victims]] may decide that IAmWhatIAm which, assuming that they're permanently transformed, is probably the best result. Occasionally happens after being a SheepInWolfsClothing. Their friends may disagree with them, telling them to drop the FreakinessShame. If their new form can still dream, they may have a GuiltInducedNightmare.

* ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'': Mei is horrified when she first sees her new red panda for, declaring herself as a "gross red monster". It takes until her friends comfort her for her to start losing this viewpoint.

* Subverted in a 1990s ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' comic after Spidey is knocked out in a fight with the Sinister Six and wakes up in a SHIELD hospital with what seems like a metallic arm in place of his normal one. He's horrified at the thought that he's become a cyborg, until the doctor who's treating his injuries comes in and explains that the metal "arm" is in fact just a highly advanced cybernetic cast that's healing the fractures of his flesh and blood arm while also protecting it from further injury. The cast is eventually destroyed in another battle with the Six, but when it falls to pieces Spider-Man's real arm is as good as new.

* In ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica: Who Won't Wield The Shield'' (a comic book which, in point of fact, [[NonIndicativeTitle has nothing to do with Captain America]]), Forbush Man has become a serial killer hell-bent on punishing Marvel's staff and editors (some of whom are [[BitingTheHandHumor blissfully unaware of what's going on at the Marvel offices at all times]]) for turning all their classic heroes into dark and gritty shells of their former selves. But when he's shown [[ComicBook/NotBrandEchh his own original comics]], he realizes that they've done the same thing to him, and undergoes a brief FreakOut before being shot to death. And coming back as a zombie. [[SelfDeprecation 'Cuz that's how Marvel rolls!]]
* ''In Tales of the Black Freighter'', the in-comic comic in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', a young mariner's vessel is wrecked by the Black Freighter (a literally hell-sent pirate ship) before he can return to his hometown and warn his wife and children. He ends up Marooned (also the name of that double-issue), and makes a raft out of his shipmates' gas-bloated corpses, which he had buried and then dug back up. The main character eventually gets to his hometown, only to find the Black Freighter had never come and terrorized his hometown, and that he had alienated himself from his family and friends in his (disturbing) efforts to save them from his own fabrication.
** It's worse than that. When he first arrives, [[spoiler:he's already convinced himself that the Freighter has already come and killed them all. When he sees a moneylender and the moneylender's wife, he assumes they collaborated with the pirates, so he kills them both. It's not until he's in his own house, trying to kill the "pirates" he finds there that he realizes what has happened. He faces this trope and swims out to ''join'' the Black Freighter as part of the damned crew. That's the reason the ship sailed to his hometown in the first place, to wait for ''him'' to join them.]]
* Every Franchise/{{Batman}} fan knows the story of how [[AnIcePerson Mr. Freeze]] is keeping his wife Nora cryogenically frozen until he can find a cure for her. When he finally succeeded and thawed Nora out by dipping her in a Lazarus Pit, she came back as a raving [[PyroManiac fire-spewing]] psychopath with the ability to raise the dead. Calling herself "Lazara", Nora Fries blamed her husband for what she'd become, and fled for parts unknown, Mr. Freeze in pursuit.

* ComicBook/{{Morbius}} says these exact words in a flashback in ''The Amazing ComicBook/SpiderMan'' 699.1 that shows how he was turned into a living vampire and [[spoiler:killed his best friend]] immediately after.
* ''ComicBook/TransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'': Amazingly, [[spoiler:MEGATRON]] of all beings says he felt this back during ComicBook/TheTransformersIDW, during a conversation he was having with Optimus about the war. Specifically, [[spoiler:his claims that he was willing to kill every Autobot alive just for the pleasure, and the realisation that he meant it. Given this version of Megatron started off as a freedom fighter, it shows him how far he'd strayed.]]

* Ben Grimm in the ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour'' actually attempted suicide after his transformation, but his rock hard skin made it impossible. To date, ''all'' versions of The Thing have this to some degree... at best, they learn to live with it. The point even has a back and forth, since ReedRichardsIsUseless will mean either Reed is deeply ashamed he can't find a cure, or that he hasn't devoted enough effort to do it. He is occasionally depicted as having mental blocks about being restored as well... that Reed does not see fit to reveal to him.

* In ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' comics, Victor Stone hated his father for saving his life by turning him into ComicBook/{{Cyborg}} -- for many reasons, particularly because it destroyed his prospective athletic career. He'd really rather have died. He never truly got over that resentment and was suicidal for a long time, even after he joined the Titans, where his temperament made him a loose cannon and a poor team player. In the ''ComicBook/New52'', all this initial angst at his condition and anger at his father is {{retcon}}ned away to make him a cheerful {{transhuman}}ist, which can feel deeply jarring to readers who have followed his character for years.

* In ComicBook/CaptainAmerica: Who Won't Wield The Shield (A comic book which, in point of fact, [[NonIndicativeTitle has nothing to do with Captain America]]), Forbush Man has become a serial killer hell-bent on punishing Marvel's staff and editors (some of whom are [[BitingTheHandHumor blissfully unaware of what's going on at the Marvel offices at all times]]) for turning all their classic heroes into dark and gritty shells of their former selves. But when he's shown [[ComicBook/NotBrandEchh his own original comics]], he realizes that they've done the same thing to him, and undergoes a brief FreakOut before being shot to death. And coming back as a zombie. [[SelfDeprecatingHumor 'Cuz that's how Marvel rolls!]]

* At one point in the ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' stoy arc "The Dark Age," Royal Williams catches a glimpse of his reflection during his years-long pursuit of Lord Sovereign, which causes him to eventually realize that he and his brother were turning into the same type of cold-blooded [[AntiHero Anti-Heroes]] who had ignored them during their own tragic past.

And of course, we have Music/{{Skillet}}'s most famous smash hit, "Monster", specifically this lyric:

* Momonga of ''LightNovel/{{Overlord}}'' has a fairly low-key version of this as he adapts to his new existence as a lich. Discovering he is missing emotions, a visceral reaction to human deaths, and a belief in humanity's inferiority all take him by surprise and make him wonder how much his mind has been altered.

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': After Tiol gets transformed by a MadScientist into a TragicMonster human hybrid, he reacts like this when, in order for him to serve as a living MookMaker to complete a certain task, he must eat both metals and human corpses to get the resources for his {{Nanomachines}} to make said monsters, as well as to transform himself to make an AttackOfThe50FootWhatever.

** He is answered in Ghost Of Sparta by [[spoiler:the Grave Digger/Zeus]] with "Death. The Destroyer of Worlds". After killing [[spoiler: Thanatos, God of Death, and losing his brother again, this time forever]].

* It's played down in the anime version of ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'', but Ange[[spoiler:-Beatrice]] did have a version of this after Lambda let her know that [[spoiler:she wasn't real]]. It's complicated. [[RealityWarper Bern]] met Ange and made her a deal that if she would come with Bern, she could try to save her brother from [[KillEmAll Rokkenjima]]. What Bern did then was, according to Lambda, [[spoiler:split Ange in two - a real Ange in the year 1998 and a false one that was exactly like Ange in every way, except that she is Bern's piece, and her existence was tied to the gameboard]]. And then, thanks to TimeTravel confusion, there's also the one in 1986 who is still six at the time. The point is that [[spoiler:the Ange who is helping Battler exists only as long as Battler is playing the game - she will never get her brother back even though she is the one taking the most direct actions to save him]]. So [[BlessedWithSuck yeah]].

* When Alfred Alfer looks in the mirror in part 3 of ''WebAnimation/AlfredsPlayhouse'' and realizes that [[spoiler:he and Pickles are the same person]].

* ''WebAnimation/MysterySkullsAnimated'': Nonverbal, but Lewis' reaction to waking up in a coffin after his death and discovering that he's now a pretty terrifying ghost is pretty clearly shown as a mixture of horror and sadness.
* ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'': In [[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheChorusTrilogy season 12]], [[LazyBum Grif]] is horrified to realize that the pressures of leadership are causing him to act like [[DrillSergeantNasty Sarge.]]
* In Creator/SamAndMickey's "The Attic", Franchise/{{Barbie}} criticizes Ken's flamboyant and kitschy outfits, and threatens to dump him again over his poor fashion sense. However, she has a HeelRealization after [[spoiler:her "little sisters" find a Betamax tape of a five-year-old, tackily-dressed Barbie attempting to audition for a cereal commercial, but receiving verbal abuse from her mother, Margaret.]]
-->'''Barbie:''' Oh, my God. [[spoiler:I've turned into my mother, haven't I?]]

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' [[Machinima/RedVsBlueTheChorusTrilogy season 12]], [[LazyBum Grif]] is horrified to realize that the pressures of leadership are causing him to act like [[DrillSergeantNasty Sarge.]]

[[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife I'm spending my time]] on Wiki/TVTropes! What have I become?

[[caption-width-right:350:”What big teeth you have!”]]

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* Music/{{Sabaton}}'s song Great War essentially namedrops this in the second verse. The song itself is about Passchendaele and by that point the absolute futility of the FirstWorldWar with over a year left before it even concludes

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': Mabel says this verbatim when she realizes she has begun behaving like Stan in "Boss Mabel." PlayedWith because she actually realizes that she ''needs'' to act like him to some extent in order to get things done.

** Ling, whose body was changed into the homunculus Greed for Greed 2 is still conscious and contributes to this process by shouting at him inside his head about right and wrong. He has a weird mind and does not feel any guilt for anything Greed does with his body, or apparently even a twinge of BodyHorror.

This is the desperate cry of those who have [[TomatoInTheMirror looked in the mirror]] and see [[BrokenMasquerade a broken mask]]. A case of [[HeroicBSOD post human panic]] at discovering they always were, or [[ViralTransformation have been transformed]] into a creature that is [[WasOnceAMan less]]... and ''more'', than human.

* In ComicBook/CaptainAmerica: Who Won't Wield The Shield (A comic book which, in point of fact, [[AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent has nothing to do with Captain America]]), Forbush Man has become a serial killer hell-bent on punishing Marvel's staff and editors (some of whom are [[BitingTheHandHumor blissfully unaware of what's going on at the Marvel offices at all times]]) for turning all their classic heroes into dark and gritty shells of their former selves. But when he's shown [[ComicBook/NotBrandEchh his own original comics]], he realizes that they've done the same thing to him, and undergoes a brief FreakOut before being shot to death. And coming back as a zombie. [[SelfDeprecatingHumor 'Cuz that's how Marvel rolls!]]

* Music/{{Sabaton}}'s song Great War Name essentially drops this in the second verse. The song itself is about Passachendale and by that point the absolute futility of the FirstWorldWar with over a year left before it even concludes

** He didn't take it much better in the original comics, either. In fact, for the first few years, his transformation hadn't quite "set in", and he would randomly turn back into normal Ben Grimm for a few minutes at a time before changing back. This only added to his despair. Oh, and all his old friends abandoned him after he became the Thing.

* In ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' comics, Victor Stone hated his father for saving his life by turning him into ComicBook/{{Cyborg}} -- for many reasons, particularly because it destroyed his prospective athletic career. He'd really rather have died. He never truly got over that resentment and was suicidal for a long time, even after he joined the Titans, where his temperament made him a loose cannon and a poor team player. In the Comicbook/New52, all this initial angst at his condition and anger at his father is [[RetCon retconned]] away to make him a cheerful [[{{Transhuman}} transhumanist]], which can feel deeply jarring to readers who have followed his character for years.
** The ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' cartoon glosses over this by not discussing it at all, but Cyborg's bitterness at his... condition is occasionally hinted at, particularly in an episode where he infiltrates the HIVE Academy by posing as a human student, and begins to form friendships and a budding romance.
--->'''Jinx''': You could have been one of us.
--->'''Cyborg''': I could have been a lot of things.

* Parodied in ''Film/FantasticFour2005''. Johnny attempts to incite this in Ben before he turns into a giant rock man. Afterwards, Ben does get rather close to suicide over being rejected by his fiancée. This leads to a [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Crowning Moment of Funny]] - as he mulls over his fate while sitting on a bridge, a would-be jumper comes up... and Ben talks him out of it with one sentence: "You think ''you'' got problems?"

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS24E7TheDayTheEarthStoodCool The Day The Earth Stood Cool]]'', Chief Wiggum recognizes he is abusing his power while threatening a donut-maker to make more donuts, and wonders this aloud, following up with the observation, "It's not a good feeling when you're saying 'what have I become?' more than once a day."

* In ''TheSimpsons'' Season 24 episode 7, ''The Day The Earth Stood Cool'', Chief Wiggum recognizes he is abusing his power while threatening a donut-maker to make more donuts, and wonders this aloud, following up with the observation, "It's not a good feeling when you're saying 'what have I become?' more than once a day."