The Woobie Cleanup

So. This is just for regular woobies or I can specify the type of woobie? (Iron Woobie, Jerkass Woobie, Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds,etc)

Legit question because there some characters that I would like to add to those tropes.

All types. If it was just one type it wouldn't be as efficient.

As for Sociopaths being Jerkass Woobie, I can think of a few that might count. One from Warrior Cats (Tigerstar's token evil son Hawkfrost). But I'm talking mostly Complete Monsters or characters like Light Yagami where you're not meant to feel pity for.

If Emperor Palpatine had a BS backstory that said he was bullied or something by Jedis then no, that's not good enough.

But for someone like Pokey/Porky Minch where you're intended to feel sorry for them, despite their atrocities, I could see a case being made for them.

I'd love to EP Pokey myself, but I've only beaten Mother 2/Earthbound and am at Chapter 7 in Mother 3.

One last thing to note is spoilers should be removed and ZCE should immediately be commented out or cut. This IS a spoilery trope after all.

Edited by Klavice on Oct 19th 2018 at 5:05:51 AM

What about a type with different versions?

If someone has different characterizations, like say The Joker in an Arkham game was given a tragic backstory, he could be both a CM and a Jerkass Woobie. I'm talking if there is no other iterations of that character. If you mean if a person can be several different types of woobie within a universe, the answer is depending on the writer. If a character is written to be sympathetic but a jerk in one work, but a nice guy who is harmless in another then yes they can be a Jerkass Woobie and Woobie woobie.

I'd take the one with different characterizations tyvm.

Also, to Jovian:

If a character is too much of The Scrappy I can see a argument, but honestly? Even with all the issues with them, I feel bad for them. They fit pretty much the criteria.

So. Let's try a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

The Caligula Effect

The Matrix but controlled for a Vocaloid. Really.

Basically, AI Mu/μ has enabled people to escape from the despair of reality by listening to her song; those who are "saved" by listening to her are granted their every wish through Mobius. In the virtual world of Mobius, everyone is an ideal high school student at Kishimai High School in the idyllic Miyabi City, repeatedly reliving high school days, blissfully unaware that they are not in reality. A small group of men and women figure out that Mobius is not the real world, and form the "Going-Home Club" in order to find a way back to reality.

However, in their way, they find out enemies in the Ostinato Musicians. J-pop composers that write Mu' songs and who wants to keep Mobius existing. And well, they have their reasons...

Note: I'm working with both some of the game material (still haven't finished to watch a walkthrough) and the anime (who i watched).

Who is Thorn? What is her predicament?

The Big Bad alongiside with Mu and Leader of the Ostinato Musicians.

Named Asuka Natsume's IRL, he was close friends with a girl named Ichika Saotome and the man who would become The Lancer in the game and The Mentor in the anime (glorious adaptation differences) Shogo Satake, thirteen years before the game.

Until, for unknown reasons, Ichika and Shogo attempted to commit double-suicide but Shogo gave up at the last second. However, Asuka sweared revenge against Shogo.

Years later, Asuka discovered Mobius and became Thorn, using the appareance of the dead Ichika (that Cute-but-evil goth girl? Is dead).

Discovering that Shogo had also entered Mobius, she began to orchestrate the game while also attempting to have μ grant her own wish. Having μ founded the Ostinato Musicians, she used the as the unknowing sources of negative energy, intending to corrupt Mu and eventually convince her to agree with her own wish. Destroying all reality.

Asuka is responsible for a lot of the game's story. He gave μ the idea to gather the Ostinato Musicians, used their concerts as a way of pumping μ full of as much negative energy as possible, thereby giving her a warped view of the world and allowing her to comply with his ultimate wish of destroying reality.

At the end, no matter what route you choose. Thorn kill herself regardless of her sucess, being broken inside and unable to grew up her trauma unlike her Arch-Enemy Shogo.

Sympathy?

Played for a lot of sympathy actually. She is a crazy depressed Omnicidal Maniac, but at the end she is just too pitable to be hated. She also does befriend U (even if she is also The Corrupter to her) and some of her Ostinato musicians. And of course, she is motivated for a warped desire to avenge her dead friend.

Can They Defend Themselves?

Yeah.

Verdict?.

A big Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds whose warped mentality just fuel her sympathy.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Oct 19th 2018 at 9:10:34 AM

Yes to the above.

Breezepelt's write-up.

• Warrior Cats: Breezepelt is the prickly WindClan warrior son of Crowfeather and Nightcloud in a loveless marriage, born out of despair for Leafpool rejecting Crowfeather. He is constantly asking for his father's approval but rarely (if ever) gets it. As described in The Power of Three, his jealousy of Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf's easy life (for a while) led him to become the Rival Turned Evil. Even to the point where when he does get redeemed in the end, very few characters accept him, and even the protagonists think he got off too lightly for essentially abandoning WindClan for power. In spite of this, he Used to Be a Sweet Kid and eventually comes around. He's a difficult cat to get along with, but on the inside, he's a great father to his kittens born after Series 4 and genuinely wants to keep WindClan strong.

Now it's time to propose one of WC's more prominent woobies.

Who is she?

Leafpool is the ThunderClan medicine cat of the second, third, and sixth series of Warrior Cats, before being succeeded by her son Jayfeather. She has a strong sibling bond with her sister, Squirrelflight, to the point that when she had kittens and it is taboo to have them if you're a medicine cat (healer/doctor), she ended up giving them to her infertile sister to raise. Wise and kind, she was named after her father, Firestar's Precocious Crush Spottedleaf, in memory of her. She was given her second name by finding the Moonpool, a place in the lake area that allows the cats to communicate with their warrior ancestors of ThunderClan. Basically, she's a prophet and a doctor at the same time.

What is her predicament

Hoo boy. Do you kids like drama and traumatic events? Because this cat is the center of it all. First, her sister leaves with a cat she doesn't trust on an adventure to the ocean (sun-drown place) without telling her, but due to their connection she finds out. Then her best friend gets into a fight with the second son of the series Big Bad and gets very injured. Then she tries to help her atheist medicine cat friend believe in their very much real ancestors. Then she gets locked up in a cage when trying to help her missing members of her Clan escape from the clutches of Twolegs (construction worker humans, but Twolegs is basically cat for human). She then tries to comfort her friend who was left to be the sole medicine cat of RiverClan when HER mentor dies, prior to the exodus to the lake from the forest when it gets destroyed. Things seem to be looking up when the Clan evacuates to the lake, their new home, but it only goes downhill from there. Then she tries to run away from her Clan with Crowfeather, who promised her a happy life, and when she finds out her Clan is in danger, she immediately heads back only to find her mentor died protecting the nursery. Then she tries to get her sister away from her future mate, because he's the son of the first four series' Big Bad. But they get back together anyway, within a book. Then she has to watch her father nearly die before her eyes after being caught in a fox trap, while the cat she didn't trust before (who was dating her sister), has to make a decision between saving him, and killing his brother, or killing Firestar his leader, to become the leader of ThunderClan himself. Being that he was a protagonist, he betrays his brother and kills him, giving him a rather painful death. Then she has kittens born from the one-night stand with Crowfeather which she can't keep because of her vow as a medicine cat, so she gives them to her sister and her mate Brambleclaw. Then she tells her kits the difficult truth that she is their mother, and later that Crowfeather is their father, causing her own daughter to go insane and attempt to kill her with poisoned berries, even stepping down from her position when the truth comes out. But before that, she finds out her daughter murdered Ashfur (probably the most divisive character ever) with a powerful bite to the neck after he threatened to reveal that Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze weren't Squirrelflight's and tries to confront her about it, which is when Leafpool spills the beans about them being mother and daughter. Then when her daughter seemingly dies in an avalanche, she covers up the fact she murdered Ashfur. Then her remaining sons start hating her due to the fact she kept the truth from them for so long. Then her father dies, and her mother shortly after. And that's only a small list of what she goes through.

Sympathy Standard?

Leafpool doesn't just shatter the sympathy standard, she IS the sympathy standard in that literally no other cat has gone through as much as her, besides her mentor, Cinderpelt. Easy pass if you read all that above.

Can she defend herself?

Besides the fact medicine cats are taught basic fighting skills... No. No she can't. She's terrible at fighting, and hunting when relocated to being a warrior after her secret is revealed. Literally described by her own son saying "All she's caught is fleas." Poor thing.

Final Thoughts

I think I've made my case. Easy keep for regular woobie.

Edited by Klavice on Oct 19th 2018 at 11:14:11 AM

Every candidate I've missed.

Yes to everyone I missed.

Leafpool. Poor Cat :(

These examples were on MM!:

• Jerkass Woobie: Mio; she gives off such a sad image on several occasions throughout the series.
• The Woobie: Poor Arashiko. Back in middle school, she went out with a Jerkass upperclassman, who tried have his way with her, but when she rejected him, and accidentally scratched his face, he violently beat her, and spread false rumors about how she Really Gets Around. This is what caused her to develop her androphobia. It gets worse when that same ex-boyfriend, Yoshioka, starts following her, threatening her to keep quiet about the incident. After this traumatic reunion, Arashiko becomes too scared to even leave her house, and doesn't even recognize Taro when he comes to check up on her. The tears of despair on her face say it all.

Which should stay and which should go?

ofc, Arashi's entry is more detailed.

MM herself would go under Jerkass Woobie.

There seems to be some sort of mistake.

MM might actually refer to masochist/masochism.

You seem to have confused the title with Mio.

Thing is, how much context does Mio's entry have?

My mistake; I meant Mio.

You didn't answer how much context it has.

At most, I would suggest P Ming the person who placed the trope onto the YMMV page. Remove it for now. Remove both.

I cut them both.

Unfortunately, it seems I can't find out who put the entries there, as they were apparently put there by the creator of the YMMV and thus I have no clue who the troper was.

In fact, these entries were from 2011.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Oct 20th 2018 at 10:18:27 AM

Should we propose existing examples? Just to make sure they're approved? Because if so, I'm going to propose the MLP examples.

I mean it's my cleanup and I personally think as long as an example meets the basic requirements, there's no need to propose it again. But I'm an open book, I'd like to see what everyone else thinks.

Edit: Right then, guess I'll re-propose the MLP examples. Starting with three of the mane six. Two for Iron Woobie and one for regular woobie.

What's the work?

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 8 or so years, you've probably heard of the phenomenon known as My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. This show starts 6 young adult female ponies (teens in equestria girls universe) and the token male, a young dragon named Spike. It's about their adventures across the magical land of Equestria and eventually go outside of Equestria in the 2017 film, and reach other kingdoms. But since most of the story takes place in Equestria, I generally call the entire world Equestria.

It was originally aimed at young pre-pubescent girls, but got a massive adult following due to 4chan spreading the show like wildfire throughout the internet, and the protagonists being in their twenties according to Word of God. And it's mainly also due to the fact series creator Lauren Faust wanted the show to be less stereotypically girly than previous generations, including more tomboys, and generally making the show not that one show your young siblings annoy you with. Granted, there are fans who go a little too far, but we don't talk about those fans. Some of the episodes got really dark for a kids show, such as "Party of One" where Pinkie Pie goes batshit insane when Rainbow Dash starts avoiding her. Or the episode Twilight's Kingdom where Tirek (who you might remember from G1 as the Vile Villain, Saccharine Show of that show) becomes the season's Big Bad.

But I digress. Let's start with the sole normal woobie, Fluttershy.

Who is Fluttershy?

Fluttershy is the animal lover of the gang, and represents the element of kindness. Despite some assertive moments here and there, Fluttershy is the character that is consistently written to be a Nice Girl, even forgiving gods of chaos for their vile actions. The Beastmistress in general, Fluttershy lives in a cottage in Ponyville on the ground instead of in the sky like fellow pegasus Rainbow Dash, so she can look after her animals. Generally preferring the company of animals to other equines, Fluttershy is soft-spoken and very quiet.

What is her predicament

Fluttershy has PTSD. Like not your average PTSD that goes away after therapy, severe PTSD from bullies in Flight Camp. Despite Rainbow Dash swooping in to save the day when they were fillies, Fluttershy was sent falling down to the ground from her hometown of Cloudsdale, she was then rescued by butterflies and started comforting all the scared animals who were afraid of Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom trick.

This is when she realized her special talent in life was animal welfare.

The fact that she's a Shrinking Violet proves very few (if any) ponies try and prank her. At first, some of the ponies find her incredible shyness and being literally afraid of her own shadow grating, everyone quickly warms up to Fluttershy.

Due to her history of being bullied, the other main characters try to be Cool Big Sisters to her, despite her apparently being one of the oldest (as she looked at least 12 when the others looked around 10 or 11, maybe she matured faster or something I don't really know). She is also known mostly for her weaknesses, while the others are often known for their personality, charm, athletic or magical ability and so on. Her self esteem is practically non-existent and The Hub now Discovery Family labeled her as "The Misfit".

Her time at flight camp is frequently brought up like in Hurricane Fluttershy where she sees basically everyone as ponies pointing and laughing at her, especially when they WERE. Her coach kicked her off a cloud, and most of the other students made fun of her lack of flying ability as she couldn't spread her wings in time. Aside from Rainbow Dash who defended her. Not only did this carry on to her adult years, but her flying barely improved. Even after a self-imposed Training Montage, she is still barely better than before, despite her friends' praise. The fact she accepted doing something she hated (training for a tornado) just to help her friend, is also pretty heartwarming. Also Hurricane Fluttershy provides the current page image for the MLP page.

When she was walking around herding ducks, Rainbow Dash's griffon friend at the time, Gilda, bumped into her and as Fluttershy struggled to apologize, Gilda made her cry by literally roaring in her face. Of course she has since forgiven Gilda due to Gilda also being something of a Jerkass Woobie, which was the last straw for Pinkie Pie and Rainbow who concocted a plan to humiliate Gilda in front of all the ponies.

In later episodes, she redeems a god of chaos (Discord, voiced by Star Trek's very own John De Lancie who played the villain Q.) has said Go C betray her, causing her to cry, but because of this, he regrets siding with Tirek and goes back to being an Anti Hero Type IV, has stage fright due to a concert she performs in as a stand in for a stallion due to the fact the poison joke made her voice manly in an earlier episode, has problems being assertive due to the townsfolk and even her pet bunny taking a few levels in Jerkass.

Sympathy Standard? Easy pass, as she is incredibly timid, and a recluse who doesn't interact with the others nearly as often as she would like to.

Can she defend herself?

Aside from taking assertiveness training too far and giving a rather vigorous massage to a bear, I would say no. She's pretty much a doormat, absorbing rude comments and turning the other cheek.

Final Verdict?

Easy keep for Regular Woobie.

Edited by Klavice on Oct 21st 2018 at 6:38:42 AM

After talking with Klavice, I've added Arashiko's entry back.

All that matters is the re-evaluation of Mio's JW entry.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Oct 21st 2018 at 5:55:12 AM

Alright time for MLP candidate #2 and #3. These two will be Iron Woobie.

Who is Rainbow Dash?

Rainbow Dash is a childhood friend of Fluttershy and the only pony that stood up for her. She too, is a pegasus, only significantly skilled at flying to the point she literally made the impossible possible by creating a Sonic Rainboom, a technique thought lost to the ages. As a filly, no less in defense of her eventual friend and classmate Fluttershy.

In the first five seasons, she's trying to join an elite group of pegasi that are pretty much The Blue Angels only they also act as the Equestrian Air Force known as the Wonderbolts. She even got her own adopted sister/Ascended Fan in the form of Scootaloo.

What is her predicament?

Rainbow Dash, like Fluttershy, suffers from PTSD from bullying at school based on an unflattering nickname Rainbow Crash. (Due to the fact she crashed face first into a trash can as a filly, which is even brought up in the episode where she joins the Wonderbolts where some argue they went too far in teasing her.) Only she's better at holding it all in. In the first season she has incredibly low self-esteem when Fluttershy accidentally says everyone will be watching her at The Best Young Fliers competition. Before, Rainbow had her as a cheerleader and didn't think of her as much more than that, but she quickly began to see Fluttershy's skills and talents, and respected her to the point when she's trying to get a pet to join in the one thing she's excluded from (Pony Pet Playdate). She also starts off a little bit arrogant to the point she straddles the line between Iron Woobie and Jerkass Woobie, however, since she gets better later on, and actually gets pretty humble, I'm recommending she be an IW. Also whenever she fails to do something, she has a huge insecurity issue to the point you just want to give her a hug. Such as when she has a temporary Heroic BSoD in "The Mysterious Mare Do-Well" when Mare Do well does everything she does better. She's also afraid of her friends mocking her over her love of books as she doesn't realize that anyone can read. She even tries to hustle the pegasi of Ponyville including Fluttershy to participate in getting the water to Cloudsdale through a hurricane. But when Spitfire congratulates her, she says it was Fluttershy who did all the work showing how she's been humbled. She is also terrified of being alone if "May the Best Pet Win" is any indication (she wants a pet and ends up choosing the slow tortoise because he helped her when the others left her in the dangerous Ghastly Gorge, despite her early bravado). In the episode Wonderbolts Academy she tries to impress the Wonderbolt Captain Spitfire, and when she is chosen as wingmate to the headstrong arrogant, and eventually sociopathic Lightning Dust, she is willing to give up her dreams as this is not what she signed up for. She does get her way and Lightning Dust is kicked off the cadets, and Rainbow becomes a shoe-in for the reserves.

In later episodes like Castle Mane-ia, she is shown to be easily spooked despite being the token Tomboy of the group, along with Applejack. Then the episode Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3 shows that she is not a traditional learner and has a form of ADD and is in fact a passive learner rather than oral, visual, or literate learner.

Then we have Tanks for the Memories where her pet tortoise is hibernating and she wants to stop winter to save her making her also an example of Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in that she blows up the weather factory causing an early winter. This is also the episode where we see her flat out cry. And while it's somewhat played for laughs, it is pretty sad.

Sympathy Standard?

Easy pass, given that she's got issues, but not issues that hamper her at being an Iron Woobie. She ends up being one of the most blunt, but sensible characters often, despite some moments of avoiding Karma when she's rude.

Can she defend herself?

Absolutely.

Final Verdict?

I'd say keep for Iron Woobie.

Sure on Rainbow Dash as Iron Woobie. Speaking of which... Anyone from Flame of Recca qualifies as The Woobie @Klavice? Probably Kurei is the closest one

Rain and Flutter

Kurei is a Jerkass Woobie, Yanagi is a regular woobie, and Neon is an Iron Woobie.

Yes to MLP candidates.