- The Grungies in The Jetsons Movie.
- How to Train Your Dragon has the dragons themselves, when it's revealed they're enslaved by the Red Death, forced to wage war against Vikings to get her food (resulting in thousands of deaths) and get hardly anything to survive on themselves. No wonder Hiccup was so drawn to them.
- While it's a bit of a stretch to call them a "species", the various creations of the Other Mother are all likely to garner a few tears from the audience since they are bound to her and forced to do her bidding whether they want to or not. Both Other!Wybee and Other!Father genuinely care for Coraline and both sacrifice themselves to help her, while the others like Other!Bobinsky seem to be Obliviously Evil at best.
- The Ewoks from Star Wars are a Subversion. Sure, they look like cute little teddy bears, they live on a Death World, and the Empire's set up shop there for their latest superweapon. However, those cute little teddy bears are a race full of Badass Adorable, Cute and Psycho KillerRabbits who are more than capable of handling themselves if given reason.
- The Na'vi from Avatar exist to make us feel sorry for the plight of indigenous peoples.
- The alien "prawns" from District 9 are another racism-related example combined with What Measure Is a Non-Cute?.
- Animorphs: ** Gedds seem to be inferior to many species in just about every way. And because they're the basic Yeerk host, almost none of them are free.
- In A.E. van Vogt's Slan, the titular species, hated and hunted by ordinary humanity, bore a striking resemblance to the smart kids who get picked on at school, the primary demographic of most science fiction of the time.
- Discworld: Orcs are considerably less pathetic than the goblins, but it's not as if they wanted to be bio-engineered cannon fodder in someone else's war. The only named orc character is a woobie in his own right.
- The Acharis in The Neverending Story, hideous worm-like creatures who hate themselves for being so ugly and who spend their lives crying as a result.
- The Newcomers from Alien Nation basically exist to teach us An Aesop about racism.
- Doctor Who: ** The Ood were enslaved, exploited, and had their natural telepathic field dampened, for 200 years. Fortunately the Doctor arrived to help, and they made strides to repair their culture and civilisation.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine explicitly said that the Bajoran represents historically oppressed peoples like the European Jews during Nazism and the modern day Palestinians. The similarities with the Native Americans can't be overlook either.
- Species native to Westeros in Game of Thrones like the Children of the Forest and the Giants have this; they were gradually expelled from their natural lands, forced to live in the most inhospitable areas and slowly extinguishing.
- Prometheans in the New World of Darkness. Depending on your definition of "species", Changelings may also qualify. Life really, really sucks for both of them.
- The Demi-humans in Chrono Cross are discriminated against and exploited by humans.
- Star Control:
- The Spathi are pantophobics and are born in such numbers that they receive no attention from their parents. They had a chance to have a protective bubble put around their planet, but due to a mix-up, they are now Reluctant Warriors for an alien dictatorship.
- The Utwig are horribly depressed because they accidentally broke their Ultron, which is the most important MacGuffin in the history of their society. Although, there is a quest where you can fix it.
- The Mudokons in the Oddworld saga. The utter woobieness of the main character as he tries, in his hapless way, to free his fellow woobies from a lifetime of slavery is the main appeal of these games.
- Gorons and Zoras from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Ganondorf starves the Gorons when their leader refuses to hand over the Goron's ruby, and later tries to feed them all to a dragon in the fire temple as a warning to those who would defy Ganondorf's rule. Also, the Zoras are frozen under ice after Ganondorf takes over; they get better, but in real life this is the kind of thing that would kill you.
- Pokémon: Each Yamask apparently Was Once a Man. That mask they carry around? It was their face when they were human. They cry when they look at it.
- The Ferin from Terinu are genetically engineered slaves with built-in dyslexia and incapable of refusing a direct order by their masters.
- SCP Foundation has SCP-955 ("Mr. Sillybug"), who just wants to be your friend, but with a face like that
and a startle reflex that involves spraying highly corrosive m* The title characters of Gargoyles had their species nearly driven to extinction in the first episode, and spend the series fighting against threats of exploitation or death from all sides. - The Beast-Men in ThunderCats.
- It's impossible not to feel bad about the poor Blub Blubs in Star Street: The Adventures of the Star Kids; ruled by a glutton man child psychopath like Momo, who is nor even of his own species.
- The House of Finwë suffers one tragedy after another. It starts when Finwë loses his first wife, and it all goes downhill from there.
- Fëanor and his sons bring most of their misfortunes upon themselves, but it's still hard not to sympathise with some of them. Celegom, Caranthir and Curufin all die in Doriath; Amrod and Amras die in Sirion (unless you go with the version where Amras is accidentally burnt to death by his own father); Maedhros is the only known Elf to have committed suicide; Maglor is left wandering the shores of Middle-earth in regret; and Curufin's son Celebrimbor makes the spectacularly stupid decision to trust "Annatar" (Sauron in disguise) and ends up impaled on Sauron's banner.
- Fingolfin dies fighting Morgoth; Fingon dies in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears; Turgon loses his wife Elenwë and dies when his nephew Maeglin betrays his city to Morgoth; Aredhel is forced into marriage note possibly; there are different versions of the story and murdered by her husband; Argon dies almost as soon as he sets foot on Middle-earth; and Aredhel's son, the aforementioned Maeglin, dies in the destruction of Gondolin (though his actions immediately preceding his death make it hard to have much sympathy for him). Of the lot of them only Turgon's daughter Idril note followed later by her son Eärendil survives to return to Valinor.
- Finarfin doesn't go to Middle-earth, but his children do. Finrod dies fighting werewolves; Angrod and Aegnor die in the Battle of Sudden Flame; Orodreth dies in the Battle of Tumhalad; Galadriel survives to return to Valinor but sees almost her entire immediate family wiped out; Orodreth's daughter Finduilas is killed by orcs; and Galadriel's daughter Celebrían is attacked by orcs and has to go to Valinor or die.
- And that's not counting all the misery Elrond (Idril's grandson) and his children endure, or what happens to Gil-Galad (who belongs to a branch of the family, but not even Tolkien knew which branch).
- The humans, not to be outdone, have the Húrin/Huor family.
- The family of Lucas, Claus, Flint, Hinawa, and Boney from Mother 3. By the end of the game, Claus and Hinawa are both dead, Flint is emotionally distant from his son, and Lucas has to go through the pain of losing his brother TWICE.
