Basic Trope: A character suffers a ridiculously improbable amount of traumas.
- Straight: Bob's entire family is murdered by a madman. Shortly after this, an earthquake destroys the city and kills his girlfriend. Bob is taken to the hospital with several injuries, where the doctor diagnoses him with cancer.
- Exaggerated: In addition to that, the only doctor who can cure him was killed in the earthquake. Meanwhile, the Yellowstone Caldera erupts and covers the entire U.S. with an ash cloud. At the same time, a series of diplomatic missteps results in America and China starting World War III. And to top it off, his wife Alice stubs her toe.
- Downplayed: Bob's mother is murdered by a psychopath. He then falls off a cliff and has to be taken to a hospital, where he's diagnosed with appendicitis.
- Justified:
- God has it out for Bob.
- The story is about somebody who had a long list of cruel things happen to him.
- The traumas are not just unrelated but part of a logical chain of events - the earthquake was a result of the tectonic activity in the Yellowstone caldera, and the political destabilization from the caldera disaster led to World War III.
- Inverted: Deus ex Machina
- Subverted: Bob wakes up at the last second. Turns out he was just having a huge nightmare.
- Double Subverted: Only for him to be informed his entire family is dead, the world is crumbling in war, and he's dying of AIDS.
- Parodied: Bob's traumas are ridiculously minor in nature, but he still acts as if his life is over.
- Zig Zagged: Bob's traumas switch between rewarding, such as his car breaking down making him an awesome sprinter over the course of a year, and horrible, one day while sprinting he breaks his leg meaning he cannot get to his job anymore, constantly.
- Averted: Bob's traumas, while still pretty bad, don't reach absurd levels.
- Enforced: "We want to make this character The Woobie. Let's force him through an absurd Trauma Conga Line."
- Lampshaded: "In real life, I'm pretty sure this guy would have killed himself by now."
- Invoked: Dan wants Bob dead, but doesn't want to get his hands dirty. So he forces a series of traumas on Bob to drive him to suicide.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: "Poor Bob. With all that's happened to him, I'm amazed he hasn't killed himself by now."
- Conversed: "Is there no one on TV who has a reasonable amount of traumas? Everyone gets whacked on the head with the worst stuff over and over!"
- Played For Laughs: Bob's bad luck becomes so legendary he actually lands a pretty cushy life between all his suffering due to earning a lot of money appearing on talk shows and other media covering his horrible, horrible luck.
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