Dark And Troubled Past / Western Animation

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• Adventure Time: Just about everybody, but special mention to Marceline, who has a thousand years that can all be summed up with this trope, and an honorable mention to the Ice King, whose troubles are of such a nature that he's incapable of understanding them or remembering their existence anymore.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender lives on this trope because it takes place in a cruel global war that the main characters are trying to end. Let's look it over;
  • Zuko: Father always favoured Azula over him, and then planned to murder him to get the throne. His loving mother sacrificed her life/freedom to prevent this. He, one day, speaks out against a horrible plan, and his own father burns his face for insolence. He then gets banished and put on a Snipe Hunt for the Avatar. Needless to say, he's the Mr. Fanservice of the series.
  • Aang: While he had a happy childhood with the Air Nomads, he made the fatal mistake of freaking out and running away from his responsibilities, ending up being frozen in ice for a century, and finally paying dearly for it when he discovers the corpse of his beloved mentor.
  • Katara and Sokka: Mother killed in a Fire Nation raid when they were little, and their father and all the men of the tribe left three years prior to the show's start. This left Katara with abandonment issues, and Sokka feeling that he wasn't good enough as a warrior. They may not show the effects as much as Zuko does, but it catches up to them later on (Sokka risks his ass breaking into a Fire Nation prison, Katara has her dark night of the soul tracking down her mother's killer).
  • Iroh was once a very powerful warrior and general in the Fire Nation army, leading a siege on Ba Sing Se. Then his son died, he went into a Heroic BSoD, and 'betrayed his nation'.
  • All this isn't even counting the pasts of more minor characters such as Jeong-Jeong, Pakku, Hama, Jet, and even Azula, who has Mommy Issues.
  • The episode "The Beach" was essentially a show-and-tell around the campfire of each of the villain's version of this trope, complete with showcases of Parental Neglect, Not So Stoic and The Unfavorite.
• The Sequel Series The Legend of Korra has its fair share:
  • The series begins with two of its main characters having Dark and Troubled Pasts: Mako and Bolin were street kids growing up, and Mako had to take care of his little brother.
  • The Big Bad Amon and his brother Tarrlok are revealed to have an exceedingly tragic backstory in the Season Finale.
  • Book 3 gives us yet another villainous example with towering pyrotechnic Brute P'Li's backstory drop concerning being a child soldier...which makes what happens to her ten minutes later all the more genuinely sad.
  • Asami's mother was killed by an unknown firebender when she was young. Asami grew up generally well-adjusted, however the incident caused her father to become anti-bender.
  • Kya (a waterbender) and Bumi (a nonbender) were ignored by Aang while their airbender brother Tenzin was favorited.
  • Kuvira was abandoned by her parents but taken in by Suyin. Not much is clarified on what happened during this period, but Kuvira grew up with a complex which led to her becoming a dictator as an adult.
• Kevin E. Levin from Ben 10 and Ben 10: Alien Force: probably abandoned as a young child because of his power, became a criminal to survive, then, for kicks, became a literal monster by the age of eleven, and got sent to a hellish prison dimension. Turns out, he wasn't really abandoned; it was just his powers playing with his mind.
• BoJack Horseman: Almost every main character has shades of this, but the majority of them weren't incredibly influenced by it. Princess Carolyn was already an independent, hard-worker, regardless of her mother who'd get so drunk, she'd have to send PC to do her work for her (not to mention she suffered several miscarriages when she had a deep desire for children). Diane Nguyen was implied to always having been a determined girl, her dysfunctional family simply amping her anxiety. Todd was already lackadaisical before getting kicked out of his house... for being lazy.
  • Mr. Peanutbutter: A very lowkey case, as his upbringing was very happy, but labradors are taught to ignore their problems. This could easily be why he puts on such a cheery demeanor, but has expressed deep fear of death and endings.
    Mr. Peanutbutter: The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead.
  • BoJack Horseman: His parents were profoundly abusive, to the point of him expressing he was terrified of them in "Free Churro." He was pressured into being 'the best' by his mother, the idea of being 'the best' continuing to haunt him, even after his hit sitcom. In addition, she forced him to smoke an entire cigarette as a punishment for taking one puff after seeing his hero, Secretariat, take a drag on television when he was ~9yrs/o. His father tore down everything he worked hard on and had politically incorrect ideas even by the time period's standards, to the point of Insane Troll Logic. He tore down a treehouse BoJack built himself while he was at summer camp because he used screws, which he called "fancy Jew nails" and was constantly having affairs. BoJack's not leaving Horsin' Around when Herb was fired continues to haunt him. He winds up a depressed, nihilistic, narcissistic alcoholic.
    Beatrice Horseman: You ruined my life, you know that?
  • Sarah Lynn: She had a manipulative mother who tore down her dreams of going to college and becoming an architect as early as age six. Mind you, this dream continued into her adult years. She received horrible and fairly frightening advice from BoJack, her father on Horsin' Around and father by proxy due to her unexplained Disappeared Dad. Her bear stepfather was heavily implied to be sexually abusive, some hints being her ability to distinguish the taste of bear fur, his homeschooling her and being a photographer, straight-up being designed in a similar fashion to Terry Richardson, and her Electra complex shades. She lived her teenage years in misery, giving all she could to others and not getting anything back, eventually including from BoJack, the only genuine friend she figured she had left. She winds up a depressed, nihilistic, narcissistic, addict.
    Sarah Lynn: I know I'm smiling right now, but the light inside me is dying.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • Though it's not evident from Ma-Ti's demeanor, he's got one of the nastiest backstories of the Planeteers. His parents sent him away to stay with his grandfather because an upcoming confrontation with some clear-cutters was too dangerous for him to stay. He lost both parents and his village that night.
  • Wheeler spent his childhood in a home so abusive he eventually decided to run away. That night, he was attacked by a gang of thugs (though luckily two street teens came to the rescue). The fact that he's out and about on the dark streets when Gaia sends him the Fire Ring implies that he remained homeless until becoming a Planeteer gave him a new place to stay.
• Castlevania (2017): Every main character classifies at some point.
  • While it's presumed Trevor had a good relationship with his family, the Church excommunicated the Belmonts and burned down their ancestral home because they feared the Belmonts' powers, causing Trevor to become a Knight in Sour Armor who spends his days looking for the next tavern where he can drink himself into a coma.
  • Implied with Sypha. She was apparently raised by her grandfather; they have a loving bond and she was surrounded by her Speaker family, but her parents are never mentioned. And prior to meeting Trevor, she and her people were often scapegoated for Dracula's rampage despite that not being true.
  • Downplayed with Alucard. There are many implications throughout Season 2 that he had a decent but rapid childhood and had a healthy, loving relationship with both his parents. However, a year prior to the series, his mother Lisa was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. His father Dracula went insane with grief and rage and decided to Kill All Humans. When Alucard tried to reason with Dracula to not do it, Alucard received a horrible injury for his trouble and was forced to go into a year-long sleep to heal from it.
  • Even the villains aren’t save from this: Dracula spent many years as a recluse and has killed presumably thousands of humans. Then, he met and fell in love with Lisa, whom he had a son with. Tragically, his beloved wife was burned at the stake per orders of the Bishop because of her "witchcraft". And then began Dracula's Kill All Humans plan.
  • Isaac is a former slave who has been beaten and mistreated by his master. Later he meets Dracula when the vampire saved him from some mages that wanted to kill Isaac for his body parts to use them in magic rituals.
  • Hector grew up with Abusive Parents and killed them at one point by burning there house down.
  • At some point in her time as a vampire, Carmilla's master became "cruel and old and mad" in a similar vein to Dracula's behavior when he lost Lisa. Due to this, she became abused until she finally killed him.
• Centaurworld: "What You Need" reveals that Wammawink's childhood village was razed to the ground, and it's heavily implied that her original herd was killed in the process.
• Dex Hamilton: Alien Entomologist: Zap Monogan is a human/insect hybrid that was created by an evil scientist as a weapon for the military. He never talks about his past life, and struggles to remember anything about it.
• The Fairly Oddparents: At first, Denzel Crocker had a life similar to Timmy's: he had a neglectful mother who left him with an abusive babysitter. He also had fairy godparents (Cosmo and Wanda, in fact), which he used to do good things for people. The end came when he lost his godparents: he forgot all his happy memories, the town shunned him because they forgot all the good things he did, he became obsessed with proving fairies exist thanks to a note he left himself, causing him to lose his sanity, he was laughed out of his college for promoting fairies, and he lost Waxelplax because of his obsession.
• Free Willy: In the pilot episode, Marlene reveals to Jesse that the reason why she became a marine biologist is because she had a pet otter called Whiskers when she was nine, and it died due to being unable to swim properly after an oil spill (which occured near the waters where it was swimming) soaked its whole body.
• Gravity Falls has a lot of this.
  • We have Soos, whose father never came back with his birthday, but wrote a lame excuse in the form of a postcard every time ('Couldn't make it'; 'I'll be there next year', etc). When he realized his father would never come back, he started working at the Mystery Shack and views Stan as a father ever since. That's why he once said he wants 7 children, one to love every day of the week. He wants to be a better father than his father was!
  • We cannot forget about Pacifica. She is part of a lying, cheating and backstabbing family, whose ancestor unlawfully claimed the foundership of Gravity Falls. Her parents abused her using pavlovian conditioning, like a trained dog. She, however, learned the fact you don't have to live up to your parents and make your own choices, finally breaking the spiral of misfortune and determined to fix the Northwest name.
  • Fiddleford "Old Man" McGucket, especially when you take Gravity Falls: Journal 3 into account. First, he seems like a village idiot type, besides the fact that he’s trying to spend time with his estranged son. But after Season Two and the release of Journal 3, we learn: he grew up in poverty in Tennessee before going to Backupsmore University and meeting Stanford Pines. Years later, Fiddleford reunites with Ford in Gravity Falls to work on the Portal, leaving a family behind in Palo Alto. But he also has an anxiety disorder, which worsens during his work with Ford and after attacks by the Greimoblin and the Shapeshifter. And when he gets concerned about the portal’s safety, Ford refuses to listen. Despite Ford’s attempts to help him, it gets worse after the portal test goes wrong, with Fiddleford getting sucked in. He starts wiping his memories with a memory erasing gun he invented and soon creates a cult that wipes people’s memories of the supernatural in the town. Unfortunately, he uses the gun too much and goes completely insane. Luckily, he gets better with the help of Dipper and Mabel, regains his sanity and reconciles with Ford and his son.
  • The one who takes the cake when it comes to dark and troubled backstories, is however Stan! He had a twin brother, Ford, who was his best friend, who left him to attain a prestigious university, and after Stan accidentically ruined his project, he was thrown out of his home at seventeen years old. He was told he wasn't welcome until he made a fortune, which explains his greediness. And that's just one part of the story: It's revealed the Shack was once Ford's, but after he accidentically disappeared though a interdimensional portal, Stan tried for thirty years to get him back. That's a dark backstory and then some more.
• Hilda: The Grand Finale reveals Johanna has one: when she was just a baby, she had an unknown illness, with no doctor being able to help. Her parents, Phinium and Lydia, asked the Fairy Entity for help, but it agreed to heal Johanna in exchange for getting the girl’s custody in ten years. Wanting to give their daughter a normal life in the human world, Phinium and Lydia decided to give themselves instead and forever left the human world. Under the same token, Phinium’s sister Astrid suppressed most of Johanna’s childhood memories to prevent her from going into the Fairy Country and ease the pain of abandonment. Despite the lost memories, it’s clear this is what caused her to be overprotective towards her own daughter.
• Mr. Cat from Kaeloo had one of these. Most of it is one big Noodle Incident, but what the show has revealed is that his backstory involves an alcoholic father, a mother who was so abusive that the mere sound of her voice over the phone is enough to make him run away screaming in terror, two abusive older brothers who were so cruel he had to run away from home, the death of one or more loved ones, and being forced to face life-or-death situations. These issues continue to affect Mr. Cat to this day, since his current worldview and personality were entirely shaped by the horrific experiences he faced as a young child.
• Kid Cosmic's parents died in a car crash when he was five years old. Even worse is that Kid was in the car with them, and he was hurt badly enough to have a scar on his stomach.
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Wolf won't talk about her past to anyone. She was raised by wolf mutes and she thought she was part of the pack, but it turns out she was just raised to be a good final hunting test for the other pups. The fact she considered one of the pups as a sister made the betrayal all the more painful.
• Middlemost Post: Parker's backstory is that he's a "reformed raincloud" who used to "rain on people's parades, but now wants to brighten everybody's days". He doesn't seem to let that get him down, though.
• Molly of Denali: Grandpa Nat has one as revealed in "Grandpa's Drum". As a child, he was removed from his family and forced to attend boarding school, where he was openly shamed for being an Alaskan Native. He was also only allowed to sing English songs, causing him to not sing anymore and to give away his drum to his childhood friend.
• Mike Chilton of the Burners on Motorcity. He used to work for Abraham Kane and was proud of it, until he realized Kane was willing to harm innocent civilians, which made Mike realize that KaneCo was doing more bad than good. He did manage to save several tenants from going down with their homes though. It's revealed in "Mayhem Night" that Mike's greatest fear is his own past.
• Lloyd's childhood stands out as being the worst of the ninjas in Ninjago. Abandoned by his parents (not that they had any other choice in the matter) and thrown into a boarding school for kid villains, heavily bullied at said boarding school for not having the drive to commit actual evil, and trying to prove his worth as an evil mastermind despite his naivety and young age only to fall into Humiliation Conga over and over again. Luckily he met his uncle and the ninjas and he got better, but as shown after he is forced to grow up, he still has some issues...
• In Over the Garden Wall, most denizens of the Unknown have one of these.
  • In the comics, it's shown that the Woodsman's wife was killed by the Beast after going out hunting in the forest alone, leaving him to raise his only daughter as a single parent. When his daughter sneaks out of the house one night, he is tricked by the Beast into believing his daughter physically died, her soul was stuck in the Beast's lantern, and the only way to keep it alive was to do the Beast's bidding as his Lantern-Bearer, forcing the Woodsman to be complicit in the deaths of who knows how many to preserve the soul of his daughter, who is alive and well but has to raise herself after he gets lost in the forest. His guilt over his inability to protect his wife and daughter from the Beast is implied to be the reason he shows so much concern over Wirt and Greg's wellbeing.
  • It is revealed that Beatrice threw a rock at a bluebird, and as retribution the bluebird cursed her and her entire family to also be bluebirds. Beatrice feels so guilty about this that she volunteers to do the bidding of a witch in return for the witch turning her and her family human again. She also refuses to see her family again until she knows she can undo the curse.
  • Lorna at some point got possessed by an evil spirit, and she has to constantly do chores and avoid interactions with other people just to keep herself from killing people under the influence of the spirit. The spirit also leaves her pale and frail, with a constant cough.
  • Miss Langtree was abandoned by her lover Jimmy Brown. Subverted when it is found out that Jimmy never meant to leave her for good, he tried getting a job at a circus to save up for a wedding ring to give her, but got stuck in his circus gorilla suit, and everyone was too scared to help him out of it. It Makes Sense in Context. Kinda.
• Used for comedic effect with Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz in Phineas and Ferb. In just about any plan he concocts, there is some backstory he explains to Agent P — most of his history is cringingly dark and troubled: His parents didn't even show up for his birth, he had to stand in for the repossessed garden gnome, got disowned by his parents, grew up with ocelots... In addition his brother, who is mayor of Danville right now, always was preferred by his mother — to ridiculous extents.
• Rick and Morty: Rick Sanchez has been through a lot in his life, to the point where he is numb to pretty much everything. It's also hinted that he had a troubled relationship with his parents who were unsupportive of him. He also had a marriage that failed, resulting in his disappearance. The season five finale, "Rickmurai Jack", reveals that the part about his marriage was a lie — Rick actually had a happy marriage until an Alternate Universe version of himself killed his wife and daughter because our Rick was willing to give up science to focus on being a father. Rick spent years trying to find that one Rick to kill, only to end up fighting a literal army of his alternate selves until he completely burned out. He eventually set up the Citadel to get them to stop attacking him, and moved to a universe where the native Rick had abandoned his wife and daughter so he could try to have a family, but is so jaded from his past that he can't really be a good parent/grandparent.
• Rocko's Modern Life: In "Who's For Dinner?", what can be pieced together from Heffer's past, specifically before he was adopted, does not paint a pretty picture. The Wolfe family found a young Heffer emaciated under a tree. They brought him home and fattened him up with full intent to eat him (his "birthmark" being a map of where to cut him), and was only spared when they grew to love him. Heffer's biological father is a complete Jerkass who angrily dismisses him when he comes back to find him (heavily implying that Heffer is not the first child he's abandoned), and his biological mother is dead, having been used to make a car seat.
• SpongeBob SquarePants reveals that Mrs. Puff has got one. It's not expanded on much, other than her husband was killed and converted into a lamp, and after giving Spongebob a license and learning he now has a boat she considers changing her name and starting a new school in another city. But then decides not to do it again.
• A very persistent trope in Steven Universe. Though the Crystal Gems had to deal with this the most. From them (except Amethyst and Steven) fighting in a war that left them traumatized for eternity, to losing the one that kept them together. Some notable examples:
  • Pearl was born into a slave caste in Gem society to serve Pink Diamond and was eventually convinced by Rose Quartz (the Crystal Gem alias of Pink Diamond) to stage the "shattering" of Pink Diamond, causing the other Diamonds to wipe out the rest of the Crystal Gems except Garnet, leaving Pearl with a giant case of Survivor's Guilt and a total severing of her connection to her homeland. Then, thousands of years later, she has to witness the love of her life willingly give up her own life to create Steven with a human man, leaving Pearl the only living Gem to know what truly happened to Pink Diamond, which she was forced to hide from the other Gems and Steven due to Pink Diamond commanding her to never speak of it again.
  • Amethyst came out late, undercooked, and completely alone in the Kindergarten until she was eventually found and taken in by the Crystal Gems. Because of her isolated early life, Amethyst has no idea about her past and what an Amethyst should actually be like. She also feels like a mistake to the other Crystal Gems because she was made in the very same breeding ground the Crystal Gems were dedicated to stopping. The only person she felt ever truly understood her, Rose Quartz, essentially died to create Steven. All of this adds up to a damaging cocktail of abandonment, shame, and identity issues in Amethyst.
  • Lapis Lazuli got caught up in a war zone on Earth, where she was poofed and trapped in a mirror. Mistaken for a Crystal Gem, she was interrogated as an enemy by Homeworld soldiers. When the Homeworld eventually retreated from Earth, her gem was cracked in the process, severely debilitating her physically. Then, Lapis was eventually found by the Crystal Gems but not freed from her mirror prison, forced to wait trapped and alone inside it for thousands of years until Steven freed her. Can you blame the poor girl for having trust issues?
  • Jasper was born in a direct war zone and had to fight other Gems from the moment she emerged. Being a perfect specimen of Quartz from the shoddy Beta Kindergarten, Jasper had a lot of pressure to be the perfect warrior. Jasper also had a lot of leftover trauma from the Diamond she was made for (Pink) being shattered.
  • Bismuth witnessed the shattering of many of her fellow Crystal Gems fighting in the war, leading to her going through a Broken Pedestal moment with her leader and inspiration Rose Quartz, then was poofed and bubbled by Rose secretly for disagreeing with her on how to fight Homeworld, leading to Bismuth being mistaken for dead for thousands of years until Steven accidentally un-bubbled her. Bismuth gets a further unpleasant surprise upon finding out about the Corruption bomb once out of stasis.
  • Pink Diamond was often neglected and emotionally abused by the other Diamonds, even once she got her own colony. When she became Rose Quartz, she had to witness her fellow Crystal and Homeworld Gems alike be shattered during the war. Also as Rose Quartz, she made the other Diamonds believe she was dead in a last-ditch attempt to get them off of Earth for good, which meant she could never go to Homeworld again. The Diamonds left with an attack that drove all of her Crystal Gem compatriots insane except for Pearl and Garnet, and it's implied she struggled with the guilt of this and it was a major factor for why she eventually decided to completely start over as Steven.
• In the Sequel Series Steven Universe: Future, Greg reveals that he is estranged from his parents, and that they were very controlling and dismissive to him during his childhood.
• Lance in Sym-Bionic Titan was seemingly orphaned by his father's disappearance, presumed dead. He was sent to a military school where he was constantly picked on. It's possible his past goes further than what we've seen in flashbacks.
• Casey Jones was given one of these for his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) incarnation, in order to explain his vigilantism: when he was a kid, the Purple Dragon gang, led by a teenage Hun, burned his father's store before his very eyes. Afterwards, when Arnold Casey Jones Sr. tried to extract retribution, he was killed. Eventually, writers for the Mirage comic book integrated a modified and considerably less sanitized version of the story into the original canon.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • Robin's backstory isn't explicitly given, however it is implied to follow his normal one from the comics. His parents were killed when he was younger and he was taken in by Batman. Prior to the series he left Gotham and came to Jump City to be on his own.
  • Starfire doesn't have the Rape as Backstory of her comic counterpart, but she was still betrayed by her sister and sold into slavery. She escaped before becoming a slave, though the experience was still harrowing.
  • Beast Boy seemingly lost his parents at a young age and was taken in by the Doom Patrol. They ended up going missing, which left him on his own.
  • Raven's a Child by Rape whose father is a demon. She was raised to be emotionally attached and distant due to her powers being emotion based. Raven also grew up knowing she would cause the destruction of Earth when she was older.
  • Cyborg's backstory according to the Teen Titans Go! comic book is that he was in a car accident. In order to save him, he was given robotic parts. He had to drop out of school as a result and faces Fantastic Racism.
• This part of superhero backstories is parodied in Teen Titans Go!. Robin has a tragic backstory that he likes to bring up for sympathy. The other Titans seem more nonchalant about their tragic backstories.
• Some time before the events of Total Drama, Mike has been to juvie, thanks to Mal, thereby showing just how a problem Mal has been for him. Duncan also appears to be in this league.
• AAARRRGGHH!!! from Trollhunters was once a Gumm-Gumm before defecting. He became The Atoner to make up for his past.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender:
  • In the first scene in the series, Shiro, along with Sam and Matt Holt, is abducted off of Kerberos, one of Pluto's moons. In the Time Skip between this and the scene a year later, he has been enslaved, separated from his companions, experimented on, and forced to become a gladiator for the amusement of The Empire. The entire ordeal cost him his right arm and severely traumatized him.
  • After waking up from a 10,000 year cryogenic sleep, one of the first thing Allura finds out is that her entire planet was destroyed along with her entire species, including her parents. Not to mention she is never given time to mourn them properly. So...yeah...
  • And then there's Keith, who grew up (falsely) believing his mother had willingly abandoned him, lost his father at a young age, and spent much of his childhood alone and unloved. When he finally made one friend, he later received word that he had died on a space mission (see first example for what really happened). And then he got expelled from Space Cadet Academy and lived alone in the desert for a year. As a result, he is depressed at the start of the series. Deus Angst Machina, indeed.
• Artemis from Young Justice (2010), though it took a long time to figure out the nature of it. Turns out she was raised by criminals, who trained Arty and her sister to be expert assassins. Then her mom broke her spine and was sent to jail. Her sister, not wanting to be left with their abusive father, ran-away, leaving Artemis alone for years, until her now reformed mom came back, kicked her father out, and Artemis decided to become a hero.

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