Some of the examples that follow also fall under one or more Death Tropes. Most spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.
Cynicism Catalysts in Literature.
- Blindfold: The unsolved murder of Tharion's predecessor was this for Eli Strone, driving him to root out corruption and sin, but leading him to see it in places that wasn't really there.
- From the books of Dale Brown, Patrick McLanahan's little brother almost getting killed is what gets him started on a vigilante quest using the titular Powered Armor of The Tin Man. Eventually, both his wife and brother get killed.
- The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield is angry, depressed, and prone to failing out of school largely because of his little brother Allie, who died of leukemia.
- The Children of Húrin and The Silmarillion: After his beloved younger sister Urwen dies from a plague, the boy Túrin Turambar starts to develop a grim and bitter personality which contributes to much disaster in his later life. Ultimately he is Driven to Suicide, just after the death of his other little sister.
- A Christmas Carol: Fan Scrooge, who is said to have died in childbirth in some film adaptations. This event triggered/hastened Ebenezer's downward spiral into misery, and he especially hates his nephew/her son Fred for it.
- In Robin Jarvis' Deptford Mice trilogy, the young city mouse Piccadilly meets and quickly befriends Albert Brown while both are lost in the sewers of Deptford. Not long after, Albert is caught eavesdropping on Jupiter and is murdered by him. The traumatized Piccadilly escapes and swears vengeance against Jupiter's henchrat Morgan, who was the one to hand Albert over to Jupiter.
- Earth's Children: In The Valley of Horses, Thonolan starts out as very positive and carefree, especially compared to his more angsty brother Jondalar, but the death of his mate and child causes him to become very bitter and cynical. Notably, Thonolan's general attitude towards life before this tragedy is that he doesn't know what the meaning of any of it is; you just have live the life you get to the fullest and don't fret over it too much. Afterwards, his attitude is warped more into 'nothing matters at all and why care about anything' because of the immense pain and suffering he and his family went through.
- In Alethea Kontis's Enchanted, Tuesday's death hit Monday very hard. It was her endless visits to the graveyard that led to her meeting up with a prince and turning into the bride from "The Princess and the Pea".
- Hannibal Lecter: Lecter's little sister, Mischa, is pretty key to his later activities: as aristocratic children in WWII Lithuania, Hannibal and Mischa were held captive by the Nazi deserters who killed their parents. Starving, the deserters killed and ate Mischa and tricked Hannibal into... *ahem* partaking. Aside from the obvious, it had a profound influence on Hannibal's other career, and the goal of much of his psychological manipulation is to "put the teacup back together" and somehow bring Mischa back.
- Inverted in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which we learn that Albus Dumbledore was well on his way to becoming a villain, only to have the death of his little sister Ariana (for which he either he, his brother, or his evil best friend Gellert Grindewald was guilty) give him a giant wake-up call and turn him around into a hero. However, played mostly straight with what three muggle boys originally did to Ariana (It was never revealed what they did to her), resulting in her mental health deteriorating, her father getting sent to prison, the mother dying, a rift being torn apart between her two brothers, and as an end result, Albus Dumbledore's bitterness growing.
- Played straight in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Sirius Black wanted Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew, to pay for betraying James and Lily Potter which led them to their deaths and for falsely accusing him of said betrayal. It doesn't help that staying in a prison full of soul-sucking and emotion-draining monsters made him more bitter and angry.
- The poet Seamus Heaney lost a younger brother to an automobile accident, and later wrote a gut-wrenching poem
about it - From Honor Harrington, the death of her little sister Estelle is what spurred Eloise Pritchart, already dissatisfied with the Legislaturalists, to join the April Tribunal. A couple of revolutions, a Secret Relationship, and a lot of lying later, she rises to the top as the truly elected President of the restored Republic of Haven, the head of a government based on a Constitution that had lain buried for two centuries. She got her revenge, all right — and did a lot of good while she was at it.
- Katniss' father dies five years before The Hunger Games, forcing her to toughen up and learn to hunt to support herself and her family. Later, Rue dies in the games, awakening her killer instinct. Then in Mockingjay, Primrose, the sister that Katniss went through all the hell of the Hunger Games for, dies, driving Katniss towards deep depression and increasingly close to insanity.
- In the I, Richard Plantagenet Series the death of his brother Edward IV and subsequent attempted coup by the Woodville family is this for Richard III. He was happy ruling the north, and then suddenly he's is surrounded by enemies who want to kill him and his family. He learns Edward had their other brother executed to hide the secret of his bigamous marriage and the Woodvilles have stolen the royal treasury. He starts dealing far more harshly with people after this.
- Stephen King's IT: Little brother Georgie's murder by Pennywise the Clown launches Bill into the leadership role of the Losers Club.
- Kaze no Stigma's Kazuma had his lover killed before the start of the series, which led him to undergo Training from Hell and becoming a pretty brutal Anti-Hero.
- Arthurian Legend: The accidental slaughter of three of Gawain's younger brothers turns his long rivalry with Lancelot into a vendetta. This fight between the two chief knights leaves the Round Table open to attack, letting Mordred worm his way in and destroy everything. (The theme of revenge is slightly subverted in that Gawain is the one who ends up dead.) Arthur doesn't attack Lancelot until he rescues Guinevere from being burned alive for adultery, and takes her to Joyous Gard, his realm. Sources debate on whether Arthur was counting on Lancelot rescuing the Queen or not.
- Zachary State in The Mental State is a genuinely kind and understanding person who goes to great lengths to make friends and be a good friend in turn. However, this all changes when he is forced to watch his girlfriend getting raped. The event triggers his latent sociopathy and he changes into 'Zack', a considerably more ruthless, manipulative, and conniving man with delusions of grandeur.
- Of Mice and Men: George Milton is forced to shoot his friend Gentle Giant Lennie at the end of the book. He loses his American Dream.
- Bianca di Angelo's death is this for Nico in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. He goes from a cheerful ten-year-old to an angry, disillusioned loner very quickly. And it doesn't get any better.
- From the same series, Luke Castellan was a pretty normal kid even accounting for his mom who went crazy trying to become the Oracle and rambled off about his inevitable terrible fate, but then he had to watch a good friend's sacrifice. This solidified his belief that the gods don't care and caused him to side with Kronos.
- In The Purple Widow, Glen O'Brian, a servant at the palace of Tommikia, reveals that his two younger sisters (along with his mother) were burned at the stake for trying to escape imprisonment for false charges. Why, why is it always Glen?
- In Qualia the Purple, Yukari's death is this to Hatou, who changes completely after the event.
- Rebuild World: Akira’s Dark and Troubled Past is a Trauma Conga Line of growing up in the slums after Parental Abandonment and being betrayed by pretty much everyone he ever met, be it a Con Man, Honey Trap, or what have you, leaving him The Paranoiac. This eventually gets explained as being due to Akira unconsciously broadcasting his feelings and self-image into other people as a side effect of being a Differently Powered Individual known as an Old World Connector, making this inevitable in a place like the slums where the weak get sacrificed for the good of the group.
- The death of Oscar Wilde's little sister Isola was reportedly a major catalyst for much of his darker literature, including his poem for her, "Requiescat".
- The Rising of the Shield Hero:
- Naofumi was a Naïve Newcomer who was genuinely friendly and eager until he was robbed, framed for rape, had his name smeared throughout the country, and was thrown out on the street in his underwear. And all of this occurred in the span of one day. After this, he became a jaded cynic who was incapable of trusting anyone other than slaves.
- The King Aultcray was originally a decent man and greatly skilled tactician until his sister's presumed death. This led him to loathe the Beast races and Demi-humans and by association the Shield Hero, whom they viewed as a god. The hatred led to his decision to sabotage Naofumi despite his wife's orders to treat him well.
- Wendy Torrance in The Shining by Stephen King lost her sister Eileen when she was run over by a car: Eileen was six, Wendy ten at the time. Wendy thinks that's probably the reason her mother became such an insufferable bitch.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Sandor Clegane's little sister's death at the hands of their own older brother, Gregor, is part of the scarring childhood that created the cynical persona the reader meets.
- Eddard "Ned" Stark has a good dose of this; while he never became a cynic after Lyanna's death, the man does know how to angst.
- Oberyn and Doran Martell, who want revenge on the Lannisters for the brutal rape and murder of their sister Elia and her young children, Aegon and Rhaenys. It's clear that Elia's death had a big effect on both of them, but particularly Oberyn since he matured quite a bit afterward.
- Implied to have happened to Littlefinger after being rejected by Catelyn Tully in the backstory. It drove him to jumping way off into the deep end though, and as an adult the only, remotely human feelings he seems to possess is a twisted affection for Catelyn's lookalike daughter, Sansa.
- Jaime Lannister became one of the most despised men in Westeros for breaking his oath and killing Aerys II Targaryen, a.k.a. "The Mad King", which he did to save hundreds of thousands of people. The fact that he did become so hated for what he considers to be his most heroic and selfless act made him an extremely bitter man. Even before that, Jaime became extremely jaded when he realised his appointment to Aerys's Kingsguard was not a result of him being a Child Prodigy Master Swordsman but so the King could use him as a hostage against Jaime's father and was forced to stand by and watch in silence as Aerys wantonly indulged his penchant for cruelty.
- Miryem in Spinning Silver knew from childhood how hostile the other villagers were to her and her family for being Jewish, particularly in their continual excuses for never paying back the money they borrowed from her kindhearted moneylender father. But it's when her mother falls deathly ill and the townsfolk still plead poverty while obviously having the money to pay for their upcoming midwinter feasts that pushes her over the edge. Miryem crushes what little goodwill she had towards them and takes the debt collection on herself, refusing to let any of them get away with cheating her family any longer. Although she doesn't do anything unethical (only forcing them to pay what they legally owe), she notes later that none of her subsequent Lithvas-saving activities were motivated by the thought of her neighbors being hurt by the Endless Winter, since they were so obviously willing to let her family starve in their sight out of pure antisemitism.
- In The Stormlight Archive, Kaladin's long woobifying disillusionment peaks with his younger brother being killed after being used as Cannon Fodder in a war.
- In Summers at Castle Auburn, Corie takes one of her own potions that opens someone's eyes to reality. She blames this for her horrible realizations the summer she is seventeen, but it is more likely she just grew up enough to understand things.
- In Those That Wake, Big Black was the tipping point that sent New York into a state of unending hopelessness.
- In Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol", the death of his fiancée caused Whitcomb's melancholy and willingness to join the Patrol.
- The Villainous Daughter's Butler, I'll Crush the Destruction Flags: Libert has the backstory of a noble allied to him betraying him, leading to the death of his little sister making him so cynical.
- American beat author Jack Kerouac had an older brother named Gerard who died aged nine when Jack was four. Jack's feelings about this loss show through in many of his books, and one of them, Visions of Gerard, is all about them.
- Warrior Cats has Talltail, who fantasizes about (and almost goes through with) killing Sparrow as he believes Sparrow was the cause of his father's death.
- In What the Raven Saw, the titular character was turned into the bitter cynic he is when his mother abandoned him to die, and no-one else in the world tries to help him.
- Ankaa is this for Virgil in Within Ruin. Her death is the driving force behind the entire plot. Sadly, she is disgusted by everything he has done to resurrect her.
