Discussion Main / CynicismCatalyst

Clean up of unclear and poorly explained examples, very often falling to Zero Context Example. Or they attempted to be Played With examples, taking literally the former name Dead Little Sister. If you think these are examples of said trope, please feel free to put them back, but provide proper context.

From Anime and Manga:

• Subverted in Gundam ZZ where Judau thinks his little sister Lina is killed in a mobile suit combat. They reunite in the very last episode.
• In a mild example of the phenomenon, Sai "Ice Machine" Jounouchi in Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer continues to play Angelic Layer in honour of her Dead Little Sister, Rin. Like many things in Angelic Layer, this wasn't in the manga at all.
  • Very ironically, Sai's best friend Kaede becomes a Dead Older Sister to Minoru in Chobits, who tries to "replace" her with his Persocon Yuzuki.
• Fruits Basket has several, to varying degrees. Hatsuharu and Hiro each feel that they failed to protect someone they loved (Rin and Kisa), though no one died. Averted with Tohru, whose mother died, because her warm personality is the point of the series.
  • Tohru's mother Kyoko goes on a self-destructive and nearly suicidal streak after her husband Katsuya dies of illness, and only recovers after remembering she still has a daughter who needs her.
• Meine Liebe Orphereus has a case of an older dead sister that fits the trope, as does Ed's missing little sister although we do not know whether she is indeed dead.
• Doubly inverted in Detective Conan: Shiho Miyano is younger than her sister Akemi, but since Shiho was a Teen Genius she is already the leader in The Syndicate's lab while Akemi is just a random member and local Anti-Villain. In the anime, The Syndicate asked Akemi to rob a bank in exchange for Shiho's freedom, and Conan actually begged her to not meet up with them. After incapacitating Conan, Akemi went anyway yo try free her little sister from said Syndicate. And they kill her. This causes a devastated Shiho to try betraying The Syndicate and failing, then in a case of Better to Die than Be Killed she took a poison she developed before they came to execute her — but instead of dying she suffered its other effect, which shrank her to the size of a six-year old child. Because of that, she was able to escape and eventually assume the identity of Ai Haibara. Her introductory case actually has her crying in Conan's arms and asking her why didn't he stop Akemi from going straight into her death.
  • Many other dead little/older siblings appear in too many cases to list here. The most spectacular case is Ill Girl Kaori Torakuro, the victim of a really cruel trap from her brother's Bad Boss.
  • A rather smart subversion happens later in the manga: Sara Masumi is the sister of Shuuichi Akai, who is presumed dead, and joins the cast in an attempt to find out what happened to her brother. Things is, Akai is atually Faking the Dead... under the identity of Subaru Okiya, the landlord of the Kudo mansion.
• Ef: A Tale Of Melodies has two dead little sisters, which gets milked for all the melodrama the makers can wring out of it.
• In Fairy Tail, Mirajane and Elfman's dead little sister Lisanna had the opposite effect from usual: though it was pretty much literally Elfman's fault that she died (she tried to stop him from going on a bloodthirsty rampage when he was Not Himself), her death changed him from kind-hearted, shy, and wimpy to kind-hearted but loud and confrontational with a Big Brother Instinct toward Mirajane, who herself was an aggressive Badass and became very loving and sweet. Lisanna's death also served to bring her siblings closer, rather than driving them apart. The anime moves this to further Tear Jerker territory as it expands on her background and death scene.
  • Turns out she just was teleported to another dimension and stayed there for the while. She's back into the group now.
• Trigun plays it oh-so-very-straight with Rem. Meryl Stryfe is the familiar Morality Pet because she looks a lot like her.
• Naruto:
  • Obito. Rin. Tobi. I think you can do the math.
• Gundam 00:
  • Averted by the second Lockon Stratos, the original (and dead) one's twin brother Lyle. He does mourn everyone in his lost family, but he actually has decided to not take revenge and keep on with his life as much as he can. It doesn't help that he viewed himself as The Unfavorite compared to his brother, who was The Ace.
• Cross Game has Wakaba as Aoba's dead older sister.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Ryou Bakura had a little sister who died in a car wreck. She's never mentioned in the anime. Though he doesn't act all angsty because of it, he is shown writing her a letter. This might also explain his fondness for the Occult, which has a lot to do with communicating with and raising the dead.
• The occurrence of this trope is what starts off Arago.

• Kind of downplayed in Neon Genesis Evangelion: Touji Suzuhara's little sister was critically wounded in the first battle. Leads to tension with Shinji.
  • More shocking: in the anime, after being recruited, he asks as a favor having his sister transferred to Nerv's hospital. In the manga, the Nerv use this to force him to pilot.
• In Mawaru-Penguindrum, Momoka Oginome is the dead older sister to Ringo.
• Aside from being Chihaya's dead little Brother this trope is played straight as it gets in the anime version of THE iDOLM@STER.
• Angel Beats!:
  • Also, there's Otonashi's sister Hatsune, who died of illness a short while before he did.

• Subverted and played straight in Ten Yori Mo Hoshi Yori Mo. First, Mio confronts Rei at school due to how similar she looks to the man who saved her last night and Rei tells her that she was aided by the ghost of her dead older brother Shou... but Rei is Shou, who is Disguised in Drag for very complicated reasons. Later, the local Ojou Miyabi Fujiwara loses her older brother when the Fujiwaras get caught in the mix of Love Triangle and power struggles between Mio, Shou, and Tadaomi.
• In Sword Art Online, Kirito gets one very early on. It's shown that after Sacchi's death, he refuses to party with almost any players until Asuna, and even refuses to let party members die outside of SAO, where death isn't permanent.

• Hotaru no Haka (aka Grave of the Fireflies) (1988). Except for the "hero" part; the character was just an ordinary boy named Seita, trying to take care of his kid sister Setsuko. When she dies, as pictured above, it's the beginning of the end of his own life. (There's also much more recent TV series based on the same novel.)
  • It should be noted Nosaka, the original novelist, based much of it on his own wartime experiences, including the very real death of his own younger sister.

Removed from Comic Books:

• Subverted in a pretty awesome manner in Fray, set in a The Future of the Buffyverse.
• Green Lantern John Stewart was retconned (or Judd Winicked) into having a dead little sister fueling his anger. Not sure if this is already Canon Discontinuity, though.
  • Not to mention his role in the destruction of Xanshi, which almost makes him commit suicide.

Examples Are Not Recent [I tried to modify this example]

• The most recent version of Black Adam's origin story features the deaths of his wife and children sending him over the edge.
  • In 52 History repeats itself.

From Films - animated:

• In Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme, Strange has a sister named April, who died of a mysterious ailment despite Strange himself performing surgery on her.

From Films - live action

• Oldboy, although the bad guy was in an incestuous relationship with his sister, which she ended by committing suicide when details of their relationship threatened to be exposed by the 'good' guy.
• Colonel Mortimer in For a Few Dollars More spends the whole movie hunting down the man who caused his sister's death, but we never find out how old she was.
• Underworld:
  • Michael reveals in the Director's Cut that he became a doctor because his wife died in front of him after a car accident.
• Stargate
  • Subverted in Stargate Continuum. Daniel Jackson assumes that the O'Neill of the altered timeline also lost his son to a gun accident many years ago but it turns out that he's alive and well. This only serves to disgust alternate O'Neill that Daniel would suggest something so horrible, and enhances his refusal to believe their story.
• In Million Dollar Baby, Frankie Dunn is estranged from his daughter which leads to him first going to church on a regular basis (though he often irritates the minister by asking questions like "was Jesus a demi-god?") and later seeing Maggie Fitzgerald as a surrogate daughter. [Does this make him a cynic?]
• Conrad's Dead Older Brother in Ordinary People, whose death drove him to attempt suicide and committed him to four months in a mental hospital.
• Happens twice in Sucker Punch. In the beginning of the film, Baby Doll accidentally shoots her younger sister in an attempt to defend her from their evil stepfather, which leads to her being sent to an insane asylum. Later on, Rocket dies after sacrificing herself to protect her older sister, Sweet Pea, who, ironically, had only decided to help out the group to keep Rocket from getting killed.
• In both versions of Footloose, Reverend Shaw's son getting killed in a car accident led to him leading a town-wide campaign against dancing and secular music.
• Marni fills this role for Nathan in Repo The Genetic Opera

Commented out from films - live action':

• [commented out] Danny Archer in Blood Diamond: His mother was raped and shot and his father was decapitated and hung from a hook in the barn.
• [commented out] In Identity, Edward Dakota was revealed to have left the LAPD after failing to stop the suicide of the Mexican girl who was pregnant and infected with AIDS.
• Danny Archer, in Blood Diamond: His mother was was raped and shot and his father was decapitated and hung from a hook in the barn. [commented out] Did is turn him into a cynic? Zero context.

From literature:

• The book and movie Hannibal Rising give Hannibal Lecter one of these, elaborating on allusions in the prior book and movie, Hannibal. (Zero Context Example)
• Stephen King:
  • In The Dark Tower series, Henry Dean has a dead little sister who was run over by a drunk driver, which has implications for Eddie, his younger brother: his mother drills into Eddie's head the idea that Henry has to sacrifice everything to Watch Out For Eddie (capitals are Stephen King's), because he and Mom don't want Eddie to end up dead like poor Selina, who didn't have anyone to Watch Out for her, so Eddie had better be grateful...
    • (if it fits Cynicism Catalyst, it does not explain how)
  • Older sibling variant: in Pet Sematary, Rachel witnessed her ten-year-old sister's terminal illness and death when she was eight, leaving her phobic about even mention of death.

• In Haunted (1988) David keeps seeing visions of his dead sister, Juliet. While she was his twin (younger) she looks and acts young. He feels constantly guilty and upset over this, to the point of becoming an alcoholic.

• In Tales Of MU, it's implied that Coach Callahan has a Dead Little Sister in Theona. Callahan honors Theona by Sink Or Swim Mentoring the Theona-ness out of college students.

• The Warcraft novel Lord Of The Clans gives Thrall a Dead Big Sister of sorts: Taretha Foxton, the daughter of the woman who nursed Thrall as an infant, and later helps him escape his captivity, eventually at the cost of her life. Her influence is one of the main reasons that Thrall is willing to work with Humans in Warcraft III and afterwards.
• The English Patient has at least two:
  • Hana's father and Kip's mentor, Lord Suffolk.
  • Possibly Katharine Clifton as well, in the Patient's backstory; it's hard to tell, since those sequences are recounted by the Patient, and heavily tinted by his own worldview.
  • In the film version, Hana sees her Genki Girl best friend die when the jeep she and others are travelling in drives over a mine and is blown up.
    • [style, zero context, examples are not arguable]

• In The Hunger Games, at first, averted, in that Katniss, whose sister was just picked to be a Tribute, volunteers to go instead. Played straight in Mockingjay.

• This is common in Time Scout, what with the global devastation following The Accident. Margo lost a twin, Malcolm lost a younger brother.

• The infestation of Jake's parents and his failed attempt to rescue them at the end of Animorphs probably fits this trope.

• Jeff Winston's lost daughter in Replay.

• The death of her sister Estelle was the defining moment of the life of Honor Harrington character Eloise Pritchart.

• A biographical example would be Laura Ingalls Wilder's younger brother Charles Frederick Ingalls—Freddy. He died of an unknown ailment at 9 months old in August of 1876. This was apparently so painful to write about that she omits him and the entire time period of his life from the Little House book series. Many are unaware that Laura even had a baby brother.

• Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels:
  • Barbara Rutledge is this for Myra Rutledge and Nikki Quinn, who both witnessed her death at the hands of a drunk hit-and-run driver who used Diplomatic Impunity. However, Barbara returns as a ghost from the afterlife from time to time.
  • Alan, Kathryn Lucas's dead husband, is this for Kathryn.
• Asher has a dead older sister in Someone Else's War, who was shot to death when the two of them tried to escape the LRA. The memory of her violent death prevents Asher from making a second escape attempt until Matteo comes along.

Live Action TV

• ER: Dr. John Carter's whole career was triggered by the death of his younger brother due to leukemia.
  • cynic? affected his personality? anti-villainy?
• Kayla from Strong Medicine became a doctor because of her dead little brother, who was shot and bled to death in her arms. And apparently, also for her mentally unbalanced younger twin sister.
  • is she cynic?

From Webcomic

• Homestuck:
  • Rose Lalonde, Dave's sister, is killed by Bec Noir. Dave later fights Bec Noir... and is killed by him. Both are revived by John Egbert and Jade Harley respectively.
  • Debatable how much this counts, given that Dave had only known that Rose was his sister for a short time, it is unclear whether he knew that she had died at the time of his fight with Jack, notably lax rules about death in the Homestuck universe and the fact that Dave was casually hunting frogs with Jade, not hunting down Jack.
  • Equally Karkat's reaction to Eridan's murder of Kanaya. She may not have been his sister, but she was still his "really good friend" and upon her "death" he breaks down almost completely.

• In both versions of Footloose, Reverend Shaw's son getting killed in a car accident led to him leading a town-wide campaign against dancing and secular music.

I think that one is ok. He hates music and will not allow dances because dance is evil or whatever. IDK how to explain it, but I think it counts.

I asked in the clean-up thread in TRS. If it's agreed on that it fits, I'll add it back.

further clean-up:

Mythology

• Sayadio in the Iroquois myth of Sayadio was motivated to rescue his sister from the spirit world by this trope.
  • probably literal interpretation of the old trope title

Real life section:

• According to Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson founded the Central Asia Institute to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan after he attempted to climb K2 to fulfill a promise made to his younger sister, Christa, who died at a young age. He ended up ill and stranded in a poor Pakistani village after losing the trail, and after the residents nursed him back to health, he promised to return with the materials to build a school for the children there, which he eventually did.
  • This doesn't make him a cynic at all.
• Argentinian tennis player Juan Martín del Potro dedicates each of his victories to his older sister, who passed away in an accident when they were young.
  • ditto, no cynicism here
• Angelica Hamilton, daughter of Alexander Hamilton, suffered a mental breakdown from which she never recovered, after her older brother Philip was killed in a duel.
  • more context is needed

Music:

• The little sister of Evanescence's front singer Amy Lee died when she was three, and the songs "Hello" and "Like You" were written about her.
• Back Street Boys's song "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" is dedicated to Howard "Howie D" Dorough's deceased older sister, who perished a year before the song was released; she's represented by the Lady in Red who, in the video, runs towards him and fades away.

Both examples need more context.

Video Games

• Gorrister from the adventure game adaptation of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is suicidal because he feels responsible for driving his wife insane. Once he realizes that it's not entirely his fault, he is freed of his guilt and gets the strength to beat AM at his own game.
  • no mention of him being a cynic

• Parasite Eve: The protagonist Aya, after the death of her mother and sister in a car accident when Aya was young, inspired her to grow up and become an NYPD detective.
  • how is she cynical?

• Fire Emblem
  • Alvis in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, technically has this with Deirdre, though he obviously never saw her as such.
  • Dragon Rider Cormag from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones has a dead older brother, Glen.

• James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2, whose wife Mary passed away three years ago, supposedly receives a letter from her which beckons him to come to the town of Silent Hill. There he meets Maria, who looks just like Mary. He fails to save her from being killed by Pyramid Head in the hospital, but she is later brought Back from the Dead only to be killed again two more times. After her third death, James finally admits that he was weak and needed Pyramid Head to punish him for his sins. The Final Boss is a demon manifesting as either Mary or Maria, depending on how the game is played. It turns out that Mary has only been dead for a week or so.
  • no mention of cynicism

• In the back story of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the death of Carl Johnson's little brother Brian is what causes him to run away from home and live in Liberty City. Ironically enough, it's the death of his mother that brings him back to San Andreas to begin the plot.

• Prior to the events of Silent Hill Homecoming, the death of Alex Shepherd's little brother caused him to snap and be institutionalized, the real reason why he was in the hospital. One of the endings reveals that he is still institutionalized and the game events were All Just a Dream.

Webcomics

• Clark's sister in Gold Coin Comics.

Removing the Rurouni Kenshin example. Doesn't fit the trope, more like Start of Darkness.

• Rurouni Kenshin: Yukishiro Enishi became obsessed with getting revenge on Kenshin after he accidentally killed his big sister Tomoe.

In fact a lot of the examples seem to be confusing what exactly Cynicism Catalyst entails and are just putting down Start of Darkness examples. This is gonna require a lot of cleanup.

Those all fall under this trope, except maybe parents. It's about a protector losing the one he protects, e.g. an older brother who has lost his sister.

There was a picture of Shin Asuka's angsty and vengeance driven face from the moment after his sister died which was funny and appropriate. Someone please restore it, the article is boring without it.

I was noticing that too while I went over that. There's plenty of instances that mention a literal example of the trope. I would recommend either trope repair or splitting the trope. As in, one trope is for the literal instance of a dead sibling, and the other for a traumatic event or something. But I feel we already have that in Heroic BSOD.

Hm... well, if this does get split, I'd suggest Dead Little Sister be for the literal interpretation, and Cynicism Starter (or something similar) for "loss of protected thing disillusioned the character and made them cynical". If we do split it, then the Dead Little Sister version would probably need a list of 'common reactions'...