Woobie / Mass Effect

Mass Effect has a lot of them.

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• Shepard, depending on their background, could have watched their parents die in a slaver raid, been an orphan raised on the streets, and/or the sole survivor of their previous squad. And the side-quests related to them are suitably traumatic. This doesn't list all the less than desirable outcomes of quests. Sheperd can also lose their love interest to an atomic bomb, although it's technically their fault. Shepard's also treated as if they are nuts or lying by their superiors and in the second game, no matter how noble their intentions are, they AND some of their closet friends want nothing to do with Shepard after they were forced to reluctantly work for a terrorist organization for the greater good.
  • In the Arrival DLC Shepard is forced to make a decision that destroys an entire solar system and kills over 300,000 batarians. Even though they really had no choice, Admiral Hackett (who still shows support) tells them that they will have to face murder charges back on Earth to attempt to appease the batarians.
  • The third game ups the woobie factor a thousand fold. When others are not dying\killing themselves in front of Shepard, or condemning their actions, they're trying to tell Shepard everything will be alright. Joker notes at one point that their vitals indicate that they are feeling more stress in their resting state, than ever before. At the end, when the Alliance still calls on Shepard, they're just so tired, beaten, bruised, and probably bleeding to death and this is before having to make the ultimate choice and sacrifice to determine the fate of the galaxy. It's also very much implied that they've become a Death Seeker and feel that death would come as a great relief.
• Ashley Williams is constantly screwed by the higher ups because her grandfather surrendered Shanxi to the turians during the First Contact War. She also sees her entire unit slaughtered by the Geth. She can also die in an atomic explosion as a result of a decision by her potential love interest, or be saved only to be dumped for an asari.
• Kaidan, as one of humanity's first biotics, was put through brutal training that killed or mentally destroyed several of his friends and classmates, ended up killing his turian instructor (who had pulled a knife on him) and destroyed his friendship with his then-love interest, which ultimately left him terrified of losing control and hurting or driving away someone he cares about, while his outdated implant will force him to endure migraines and painful electric shocks for the rest of his life. He slips into being a Jerkass Woobie in 2 when he is led to believe that he spent two years grieving for Shepard for nothing, and the best case scenario after that he will find himself trying to stay as a pillar of support for Shepard while grieving for his father's presumed death and generally being terrified for his mother's life.
• The sequel really ups Tali's woobie factor. She finds her father dead at the same time she finds out he was doing illegal experiments on Geth, making him a war criminal against the quarians. And unless you do some fast talking during her trial, she potentially could be exiled forever from the one home she's ever known. Not to mention that, if you pursue her romance path, several conversation options imply that she's had feelings for Shepard since the events of Mass Effect two years ago. With all this, is it any surprise that one of the Paragon interrupts is to give her a comforting hug and let her cry in your arms? (Very nice of BioWare to put this in, considering that is exactly what a person would want to do when confronted with a Woobie. Now you finally have the option to do it in-game.)
• Jack in the sequel proves to be this in her personal mission, where you two return to the facility where she was raised, and learn all about how she was kidnapped as a child, experimented on, and forced to commit murder while being pumped full of drugs to force her to enjoy it The mission ends with her reminiscing about the items in her cell, each a reminder of the hell she went through.
• Thane. He's a badass, but he's dying of an incurable disease, had his wife killed by thugs trying to get back at him, and his son hates him as a result. You can fix the last part, but still.
• Liara. Let's see - she was born as a result of two asari mating, a major social no-no to her species and therefore ostracised and exposed to racism. She is very shy and asocial and became an archaeologist, spending half of her life alone on dig sites. She was always distant from her mother, even before Benezia joined up with Saren, and it's possible for Liara to witness her mother die as herself, after the revelation that she had been brainwashed through indoctrination, with her mother comforting Liara during her period of lucidity. In the second game, when reuniting with her, she seems to have gone through a major Break the Cutie event and has an almost obsessive vendetta against the Shadow Broker. However, if she is a love interest from the first game and through the comic series "Redemption", it is revealed that she was the one who recovered Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker, who was going to sell the corpse to the Collectors, and gave it to Cerberus so they could rebuild them. Liara discards her new ruthless personality, revealing it to be nothing more than a facade, to explain that she was scared Shepard would hate her for this, knowing that Cerebus would use Shepard for their own uses, but she couldn't bear to let Shepard go. The lengths she went to in order to help the man/woman she loves, cares about and misses are quite touching.
• Garrus. In the sequel, his entire freelance squad on Omega is betrayed by one of their own members and slaughtered by mercs, he spends a long time besieged by the mercenaries and criminals with the rotting corpses of his friends in the same building, he's brutally wounded by a missile that Shepard takes down, and apparently has nightmares about his squad. Bring Garrus with you during the Cerberus attack on the Citadel, and Garrus shouts out names of C-Sec officers, even though he's giving away the team's position; he's upset that all of his friends at C-Sec have been unceremoniously murdered, some even were killed execution-style. Plus, the Shadow Broker's files on him reveal that his mother is dying, and his sister thinks he's a bum because she has no idea what he's really been up to all this time. The silver lining is that he's at least taken some steps toward helping them on his own, albeit with some help from Mordin... Even the yeoman Kelly says she'd just like to hold him and say everything's alright.
  • It's arguably worse in his romance path: with a subtle hint that his departure from C-Sec may not have been his choice, he just wants his moments with Shepard to go well, and not be in fear of screwing them up.
    I- I just- I've seen so many things go wrong, Shepard. My work at C-Sec, what happened with Sidonis... I want something to go right. Just once. Just...
• The nameless tank-bred krogan on Korlus. He's been alive for seven days. All he knows is how to fight, and his entire life consists of one thing: stand where you meet him, kill anyone who attacks him, and wait. That's it. He talks like a child and expresses his thoughts with complete innocence, but he's devoted entirely to the "purpose" he's been given - which was given to him by an insane krogan warlord who has discarded him as a failure. He refuses to move, instead just standing there until he either starves or the Blue Suns kill him. And the worst part is that you never get to see the poor guy's face, probably because if you did it would make the scene even more heartrending.
• Minor character Talitha is composed of pure elemental Woobie. She was kidnapped at the age of six in the same raid that killed Shepard's parents (after witnessing her parents being incinerated), and then spent the last 13 years as a slave. To top it all off, she's one of the few Woobies in video games you actually get to comfort - do the "I Remember Me" assignment right, and you end up holding her, telling her that everything will be all right as a sedative takes effect. And you aren't lying. If you helped her in the first game, Talitha sends you a message in the sequel, thanking you for helping her and telling you that she's undergoing proper treatment.
• The volus you meet on Noveria that suffers from Survivor Guilt - the second game doesn't make it any better, as his letter mentions that "maybe I was the one who died instead, while saving her."
• Vigil, the Prothean VI. After hearing its story, it feels good to know that by meeting you and passing on information about the Reapers, the sacrifice it had to make (turning off the remaining Protheans' cryogenic pods, in order to conserve power so the head scientists pods could stay active as long as possible, as per contingency plans set up by the Protheans themselves) was not in vain.
• David Archer in the Overlord DLC for Mass Effect 2. He was born with autism and forcefully turned into a machine by his own brother and driven insane from it.
• Kelly Chambers. If you don't act fast enough in Mass Effect 2, she dies a horrible death, and if you meet up with her in Mass Effect 3 but yell at her for sending covert reports to the Illusive Man about you, she breaks down crying and then commits suicide with cyanide capsules. She does specifically mention she's having serious nightmares following her near-liquefaction at Collector hands. File this one under PTSD.
• Wrex watched the genophage ravage his people to near extinction, is nearly killed by his father pre-series driving him off-world. Finds a potential cure for his people only it has to be destroyed because it's being used by the Big Bad. And can end up dead depending on Shepard's choices.
• Mordin Solus: At first glance a happy-go-lucky hyper-intelligent salarian who is deeply guilt-ridden and conflicted over his part in prolonging the genophage. Just watch him as he discovers the corpses of krogan females who were experimental tests subjects to find a cure. He doesn't take it well.
• Javik is very much a Stoic Woobie. He was born well into the Reaper extermination of the Protheans, and has only ever known war all his life. He was forced into cryostasis in the desperate hope that some of their people could rise up again and take revenge, but he isn't woken up until 50,000 years later, by which point damage dealt to the cryostasis pods has ensured he is the Sole Survivor. When he does wake up, he learns that his people's warnings to the next cycle went largely unheeded and the galaxy is on the brink of destruction once again, and he is repeatedly shown to be extremely culturally isolated due to his species' warlike tendencies and the current cycle's more peaceful outlook. While he puts up a generally harsh exterior, during a discussion after Tuchanka he notes that he is a product of his time and subtly implies he regrets not being the noble scholar Liara wanted to meet. It ultimately only takes one look at his memory shard to push him into taking his own life after the Reapers are defeated.
• Woobie Species:
  • The Protheans just couldn't catch a break. They get hunted to extinction. They get mind raped into being thoughtless slaves. And, as a final insult, they get 'modified' into Collectors to serve the genocidal bastards that wiped out their civilization. The Collector General's expression at the end of ME2 as he reaches out for to Harbinger screams 'Daddy, where are you going?'...just before he gets blown up. After recruiting Javik it turns out they were more of an Iron Woobie species-with a side of jerk.
  • While not quite on the Prothean's level, the quarians count as well. They've been hunted to near extinction by their own creations, have no planet to live on, and are in extreme poverty. Not only that, but the galactic community at large hates them for things their ancestors did hundreds of years ago, meaning racism against them is incredibly common. The third game crosses the Quarians into Jerkass Woobies after the reveal that their near extinction, exile, and all the subsequent issues were entirely their fault for trying to exterminate the geth entirely out of unwarranted genocidal paranoia. In 3 they can very nearly bring things full circle and complete their extinction with another unnecessary war with the geth. As put so eloquently by Tali herself...
    Shepard: Maybe it's time for your people to give up on reclaiming your world from the geth.
    Tali: You have no idea what it's like! You have a planet to go back to! My home is one hull-breach away from extinction!
    Shepard: You've got a place here, Tali. Don't throw it away in a war you don't need.
    Tali: "Don't need"? Shepard, if I don't wear a helmet in my own home, I die. A single kiss could put me in the hospital! Every time you touch a flower with bare fingers, inhale its fragrance without air filters, you're doing something I can't!
  • The rachni count as well, being a peaceful race that was mind raped into slavery by the Reapers and almost completely wiped out in the Rachni Wars. And before that? They were far more peaceful until the Protheans bred them to be combat-worthy because of their survivability traits. The Reapers might not have even gotten interested in them otherwise.
  • And to some degree, the geth. Created as slaves, they nearly trigger their own genocide by asking the utmost basic of questions ("What am I? Do I have a soul? Why am I here?"). They throw their own creators off of their own home planet and, if Legion is to be believed, want nothing more than to co-exist with organics peacefully. Bit of a shame then that a good third of their population generated a 1 where a 0 was supposed to go, cried "Screw self-development!" and figured worshiping an Eldritch Abomination as a machine god was a good idea, which would have forsaken them once it got what it wanted. Now most of the Council races want them gone too and like the quarians see them as little more than berserk robots.