This Index Has Had a Hard Life

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An index about who have had a hard life, the things that happened to them, and how such things have affected and continue to affect them.

See also Madness Tropes — a tragic past can lead to mental disorder, but not all characters who experience tragedy go mad, and not all madness is the result of a tragic past. The former goes here, but the latter does not.

May be overlapped with the Sympathetic Index.

Tropes:

• Abusive Offspring: Being the terrible child can cause a lifetime of angst.
• Abusive Parents: Being raised by a terrible father and/or mother can cause a lifetime of angst.
• Affair? Blame the Bastard: Taking out your anger from your spouse's infidelity on the bastard child born of said infidelity.
• The Aloner
• And I Must Scream: A character gets trapped in a condition where they're in constant agony, they can't move, they have no way to communicate to those around them and being freed from their torment by the release of death isn't an option.
• Angst? What Angst?: A character isn't shown to be bothered by a misfortune they've endured when realistically it should upset them at least a little.
• Artistic License – Child Labor Laws: Kids are shown working despite being too young to work in real life.
• Bad Bedroom, Bad Life: The poor state of a character's bedroom reflects their difficult life.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: A babysitter who suffers a lot at the hands of the child(ren) they were hired to look after.
• Bastard Angst: A child of unmarried parents faces a tough upbringing.
• Being Evil Sucks: A villainous character is miserable because of the downsides of being a bad guy.
• Being Good Sucks: The hero suffers because of their commitment to doing the right thing even when it doesn't provide much in benefits or long-term change for the better.
• Born into Slavery: A person became a slave the instant they were born.
• Break the Badass: The Badass breaks down when put up against odds that are too dangerous even for them.
• Break the Believer: A devout believer is shocked when they realize that their beliefs are wrong.
• Break the Cutie: A sweet-natured, innocent character undeservedly suffers a misfortune.
• Break the Haughty: Someone gets their comeuppance from carrying their head too high.
• Break the Scientist: A scientific expert loses all hope when their research is proven wrong.
• Broken Ace
• Broken Angel
• Broken Bird
• Broken Hero
• Bullied into Depression
• Bully Magnet: A character who gets bullied a lot.
• Butt-Monkey: A character whose primary purpose is to suffer a constant string of bad luck.
• Byronic Hero
• Caregiver Angst
• Cartwright Curse
• The Chains of Commanding
• Child Soldiers: When very young people are forced to fight in wars, well needless to say it will ruin their childhoods.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: This character has seen so many horrible things in their everyday life, they no longer see them as abnormal.
• Corrupt the Cutie
• Cosmic Plaything
• Crippling Castration: A character suffers an injury to their genitals that makes them unable to sexually reproduce.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: A character dies in a way that is gratuitously graphic and painful.
• Cynicism Catalyst: A misfortune or tragedy that caused a person to become more jaded and grouchy.
• Dark and Troubled Past
• Despair Event Horizon
• Deus Angst Machina
• Did Not Get the Girl
• Disability Distress
• Domestic Abuse: A person is constantly abused and beaten by their spouse/parent/partner/etc.
• Doom Magnet
• Dramatic Sit-Down
• Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job: People who work as entertainers at kids' parties suffer a lot.
• Dream-Crushing Handicap
• Driven to Suicide: A character's life is so hard, they'd rather end it altogether than keep living it.
• Driven to Villainy
• Dysfunction Junction
• Elder Abandonment: An old person is abandoned.
• Elder Abuse: Senior citizens are treated like crap.
• Empty Shell: A person is technically alive, but has become an emotionless and unresponsive zombie to the point that they may as well be dead.
• Face Death with Despair
• Fallen Hero: A villain who once used to be a noble and genuine hero, but fallen to villainy after a shortcoming.
• Fatal Attractor
• Fate Worse than Death: A character suffers a fate so horrible that dying would be a mercy in comparison.
• Fictional Disability
• Friendless Background: A character has no friends.
• Freudian Excuse: A villain, jerkass, or other dysfunctional character became the way they are because of something bad that happened to them in the past.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Whatever happened to them sucked, but it's no excuse for them to not take responsibility for their own misbehavior, let alone a license to mistreat other people.
• Gayngst: Angst due to discrimination against an LGBTQ+ character.
• Genocide Survivor: Someone who somehow managed to survive during a murderous campaign to exterminate their people. May suffer from severe PTSD or Survivor Guilt.
  • Serial-Numbered Holocaust Survivor: A tattooed serial number indicates that a character is a concentration camp survivor.
• Goths Have It Hard: If someone's a goth, emo, or similar, that means that they've had bad experiences or have a serious psychological problem such as depression.
• Had to Be Sharp
• Heal the Cutie
• Hellhole Prison: A horrible place to be for the people who were imprisoned.
• Her Heart Will Go On: The hero's love interest dies, but they stay strong.
• Heroic BSoD: The hero goes into an emotional breakdown.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: A character is shown to have a rough childhood that is played for morbid laughs by showing the abuse and misfortunes that plagued their youth in an over-the-top manner.
• Hope Is Scary
• Identity Breakdown: A character has a mental break because of issues and revelations regarding who or what they are
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: A character feels responsible for failing to save a loved one.
• Immortality Hurts: A character is unable to die, but has the downside that they can still feel pain when surviving what would kill a mortal person.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: An intelligent person is unable to connect to people who aren't as smart as they are.
• Iron Butt-Monkey: A character suffers tons of physical injuries, but manages to get through all of them unscathed.
• Iron Woobie: Despite how much their life sucks, this character refuses to give up and just keeps carrying on.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One
• Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: Committing a minor crime just once is enough to make the rest of your life miserable.
• Jerkass Woobie: Despite their bad behavior, we still end up feeling sorry for a jerk or villain because of all the bad things they've been through.
• Last of His Kind: A character who is the last surviving member of a dying species or race.
• The Lost Lenore: A person is deeply upset about the loss of their deceased love interest.
• Made a Slave
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: When a person whose mother died giving birth to them is blamed for causing their mother's death, it goes without saying that this will seriously screw them up psychologically.
• Mentor in Sour Armor
• Metaphorical Suicide: A despondent character willingly resigns themself to a fate similar to death without actually dying.
• Mistreated Miners: Miners are abused, overworked and treated as lower-class.
• Never Be Hurt Again: A character who has suffered abuse goes to great lengths to ensure that they never have to experience it again.
• Outliving One's Offspring: A parent suffers the tragedy of outliving their child(ren).
• Out of the Closet, Into the Fire: An LGBTQ+ person's life gets harder after their queerness is made public.
• Parental Abandonment
• Plagued by Nightmares: A character has consistent nightmares, hinting at deeper issues.
• Rape as Drama: A character gets raped and the narrative treats the ordeal as the serious crime and horrendous experience it is.
• Redemption Equals Affliction
• Reduced to Ratburgers
• Resurrection/Death Loop
• Revenge Is Not Justice: Whatever happened to them is wrong, but it's no excuse for them to take no responsibility for their own behavior during their revenge quest.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A soldier is deeply traumatized by all the horrors they experienced from the war they fought in.
• Soulless Bedroom: Someone who lacks emotions has an unnaturally clean bedroom with few or no personal possessions.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside
• Standard Cop Backstory
• Stoic Woobie: An miserable character who tries their hardest to hide how much they're really hurting on the inside.
• Stopped Caring
• Struggling Single Mother: A woman with no spouse (either due to the father leaving her or dying or the children being born out of wedlock) struggles to raise her children alone.
• Survivor Guilt: A person who survives a lethal disaster feels bad about the people who weren't as lucky.
• Sympathetic Murderer
• Sympathetic Sentient Weapon
• Too Broken to Break
• Took a Level in Cynic: An idealistic or optimistic person lost their positive outlook and became seriously disillusioned after experiencing the harsher aspects of life.
• Tortured Monster
• Tragic Abandoned Toy: A sentient toy grieves after being lost, abandoned, or forgotten.
• Tragic Bigot
• Tragic Dropout
• Tragic Hero
• Tragic Ice Character
• Tragic Monster: A character is transformed into a dangerous monster and is miserable because of it.
• Tragic Time Traveler: A time traveler whose travels through time have brought them no end of misery.
• Tragic Villain: Someone feels they have no choice but to be evil and is miserable because of it.
• Trauma Conga Line: Someone suffers and endures many traumatic events.
• Trans Tribulations: A transgender person gets discriminated against for being trans.
• Trapped in Villainy
• Treated Worse than the Pet: Someone's status in their family is so low that even animals are treated better or valued more than they are.
• Troubled Abuser
• Troubled, but Cute
• Troubled Sympathetic Bigot
• Tyke-Bomb
• The Un-Favorite: A person isn't loved or respected by their parents as much as their siblings.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: A villain or jerk was a lot nicer when they were younger, but something happened that caused them to grow up to be the bad person they are today.
• Used to Be More Social
• The Vietnam Vet: American veterans of The Vietnam War are especially stereotyped as being sufferers of PTSD.
• Villainous Breakdown: The villain reacts to defeat by having a psychotic meltdown.
• Villainous BSoD: The villain becomes paralyzed by sudden pangs of conscience.
• War Refugees: War Is Hell, especially for unarmed civilians who get in caught in it, being forced to flee far away from their ruined homes in order to try and survive the bloody chaos.
• Wheelchair Woobie: A character's mental or physical disability is played for sympathy points.
• The Woobie: A character whom the audience feels sorry for because of all the misery and misfortune that's happened to them.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: When someone's misery drives them towards a path of evil and destruction.
• Woobie Family: An entire family full of miserable people who've been through a lot of pain together.
• Woobie of the Week: A one-shot character who needs the hero's help to resolve their personal distress.
• Woobie Species: A whole species full of beings that have suffered a lot in a world out to get them.