THEON GREYJOY (Game of Thrones) :
Like at first, he deserved it. We all know Theon led himself down a road to getting what was coming to him. But then...he just kept going. Somewhere down the line, we all just collectively accepted that Theon had been punished enough.
Prince Theon starts off as kind of a whiny brat who wants to be important. He’s got this whole inner battle waging over whether he’s a Stark or a Greyjoy. Umm, both, Theon, both is good. This leads him down a dark path of betrayal and poor decisions in his quest for power and recognition. None of that even gets him respect from his father or the position of heir to the Iron Islands like he’s coveted and lauded over others for years. Upon his return home, no one knows or cares who he is, he accidentally tries to seduce his own sister, Yara, who doesn’t bother to tell him and embarrases him instead, and his father, Balon, doesn’t recognize Theon as his heir at all.
So by the time the cocky and conniving Theon was captured by House Bolton, did any of us really care what happened to him? I mean, he earned some retribution, right? Absolutely! Briefly. Because soon enough the torture, abuse and dehumanizing inflicted by Ramsay was so severe, it was nearly impossible to look on Theon, AKA Reek, with anything other than pity. And I definitely looked forward to the death of Ramsay. What kind of asshat castrates you and sends your severed manhood back to your family, getting you removed from the line of succession? A real dickmove, Ramsay.
Also, his father was murdered by his evil uncle, Euron, and he and his sister were chased away from their home after Euron took over the Iron Islands. Things were looking up for Theon, mostly, when he and Yara hooked up with the Dragon Queen, Daenerys. At least until Yara gets captured and Theon, reverting to his Reek-persona, cowardly abandons her to the enemy.
BUFFY SUMMERS (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) :
Buffy’s entire existence is tragic. Starting with the basic purpose of her character, that from the time she was 15, she’s been expected to slay vampires and demons on a regular basis. That already sucks. Throughout the TV series, it’s made clear that Slayers have short life spans. Between the movie and the tv show, Buffy was committed to an asylum for claiming to be a slayer and her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Sunnydale while her father remains mostly aloof throughout the series. A flashback reveals that Buffy’s childhood best friend and cousin was murdered by a demon in front of her. And all this takes place before the events of Season One of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
During the show’s run, we see Buffy go through some serious shit. She died, twice. The first time was by the end of the first season. After everything that went down, it’s no wonder she’s suffering PTSD come the second season. Then there’s the first of her two major love interests, both of which naturally ended up being vampires, Angel. The eventual crash and burn of that relationship didn’t bother me, since I never shipped it, but the events leading up to her first love’s departure are no less recognizably tragic, even for a fan who didn’t ship her with Angel. Once the pair finally get official and poor Buffy has gotten past finding out her hunky admirer is undead, she gives up her virginity to Angel. Who knew doing so would break his curse and turn him ridiculously evil??? At that point, Angelus turns into an absolute dick and basically out-evils everyone for a while. Buffy is all prepared to off her ex for the sake of the world by the time that plot line comes to fruition, but of course seconds before having to do so, his soul is returned to him so that Buffy can be that much more devastated as she stakes him. As if that wasn’t all bad enough, Angel was back soon enough and we had to sit and watch as Buffy secretly and guiltily nurses him back to health while lying to her friends. For all the work that had to be done to eventually get Angel back in everyone’s good graces, he decides he can’t be with Buffy and dumps her right before Prom. He later leaves the show because she’s better off without him. The relationship continues to plague the storyline for some time after though, including a time rewind. I try to forget that whole thing but unlike Buffy, I didn’t have the incident wiped from my memory by Angel.
She did have a serious relationship with a human once, in between her two major vampire ones...Riley. His origins included being part of a super secret government organization studying the supernatural and wow, did that all go to Hell. His relationship with Buffy gets strained like, he-starts-visiting-a-vampire-brothel-to-experience-a-biting-fetish strained. They broke up soon after. Let’s not forget that her sister, Dawn, wasn’t really her sister, but a magic ball of energy. But she had only that ball of energy following her mother Joyce’s death from cancer and sending Spike away for being in love with her and trying to prove it in all the wrong and decidedly homicidal ways you’d expect from Spike.
Let’s be real, Buffy has a lot of dead people. Friends, allies, fellow slayers, and lovers all in addition to her enemies, who oftentimes were one of the former before they were revealed to be the latter. This includes but is not limited to: Kendra, Buffy’s friend and fellow slayer, whose murder Buffy is wrongly accused of. Her mother, friends and innocents throughout the series, Spike and her Potentials, AKA, the Mini Buffy’s she trains later in the series as potential future slayers, during the final battle in the show.
The second time Buffy died was when she sacrificed herself to save her energy-ball sister who was basically a key to a serious evil, through no fault of her own. Buffy accepts her destiny as the slayer to die for the common good; she gives her life to a blood sucking portal. She actually goes to Heaven and finds peace...but her friends resurrect her soon after. What a bummer, right? She crawls out of her own grave and stumbles home like, wtf guys? Also, sometime during her godawful transition from heaven to earth-bound hell, Giles leaves! Her surrogate father goes back to England. Then, finally, she hooks up with Spike. That tumultuous and long-awaited (at least by me) relationship went through some events that turned away even former fans like myself and then there was a soul thing, shockingly given how her previous vampire romance was also heavy on the soul thing, but it eventually ended along with the show with the destruction of the town and Spike’s death.
Also, her best friend Willow spent some time turning into a seriously magic-addicted witch and eventual villain in the show before turning back to the good side and the road to recovery. During her initial rise to power and madness, she caused Dawn to be seriously injured in a demon attack, which showed her how far down the rabbit hole she’d gone. But following the death of her girlfriend, Tara, Willow relapses and spirals even further.
There’s too much to say about Faith. Just, friggen Faith. Their storyline goes through some shit. They make up during the big battle later in the series when Buffy activates all the slayers in the world to take on a lot of big bad vampires. The TV series literally ends with the entire town a flaming crater, her confessing her love to Spike as he’s sacrificing himself to save the world and everything has literally gone to Hell.
RICK GRIMES (The Walking Dead)
Oh, Rick. Rick has been through some shit, culminating in several good mental breakdowns throughout the series. The world in the Walking Dead is already pretty crappy. Zombies are everywhere, they’re trying to eat you all the time, most everyone you meet is either going to be a bad guy or end up dead, probably both, and if you’re Rick Grimes, you got to stick around long enough to watch this happen over and over again.
We start the show off with Rick getting shot and slipping into a coma. Not a great start for him, but sadly, that’s the safest he is the rest of the series. We immediately cut over to his wife and son, who thankfully have survived the zombie apocalypse, but we find his wife, Lori AKA the show’s most hated character, is sleeping with Rick’s best friend and general douchebag, Shane. We’re kind of starting to feel bad for Rick at this point. If only we’d known these were the good times.
Did I mention that we soon find out Lori is pregnant with what most fans have come to accept is Shane’s baby? (Rick seems to agree later on). But that’s fine. Just another life for Rick to become incredibly attached to. I’m sure that will never go wrong in any way.
Rick Grimes basically watches almost every person he has ever loved die through the course of this series, including his wife and son, Carl. Friends, family, fellow survivors, no one is safe in the Walking Dead. No, seriously, no one. Not even babies or horses! Or Dale, Hershel, Andrea, Abraham, Amy, T-Dog, Beth, Glenn, or anyone else that Rick and we were emotionally invested in.
The Walking Dead also has the unique characteristic that because of the rampant zombie virus, there’s the very real possibility of having to kill someone you love. Rick has to deal with the fact that his son was forced to kill his wife, who died giving birth to Judith. Rick also kills his own best friend and former partner, Shane, who then turns into a walker and has to be killed again.
As for Carl’s death, Rick had to go through multiple near-deaths with his son before getting to the real one. This includes Carl being shot in the face! He lost an eye but survived that one. Later in the series, however, he succumbs to a walker bite. Carl shoots himself in the head prior to reanimating.
MORGANA PENDRAGON (Merlin)
Morgana began the show as a hero but ended it as a villain. This is particularly tragic when you take into account how moral a character she was to begin with. Even as she descends into madness and evil deeds, there are still flickers of that morality in her, hardened and twisted by circumstances and outside forces, until she had become a powerful, vindictive witch out to see Arthur and Merlin destroyed and herself elevated to the throne of Camelot and magic.
My Lady Morgana was corrupted both by her half-sister Morgause but also by the lies and misguided politics of her true father, Uther Pendragon, as well as following her betrayal by her former friend, Merlin. Her love for Arthur is questioned when she not only finds out that she is his half sister, but when Arthur supports their father and does little to combat the king’s vendetta against magic. Her response to all this was to go serious dark side, betray her family and friends and take part in the death of Uther. She then goes about being very, very evil.
At this point, she is parentless, down a sibling and running out of anyone she cares about aside from Mordred, the dark boy-wizard and Aithusa, the dragon. Mordred was killed by Arthur, by the way.
Despite her brother and former friends attempting to bring her back to the good side, Morgana was too far gone. Sadly, she could not be saved anymore than Arthur could. She was killed by Merlin as Arthur lay dying.
DEAN WINCHESTER (Supernatural) :
Poor, unfortunate soul that is Dean Winchester, he’s been to Hell and back. He’s also been to Purgatory and Heaven! In fact, Dean has died over a 100 times. Which, frankly, is the least stressing shit that happens to Dean.
There’s literally no sizeable chunk of happiness in his life. We get ample flashbacks to his childhood and are made aware of it’s overall suckiness. Things weren’t too bad before his mother’s death, which sent his father spiraling onto a vengeful demon-hunting path that left his two young sons with a questionable and dangerous upbringing. Unlike Sam, Dean is also old enough to remember his mother and throughout the series has suffered from the loss in ways his brother was spared. Dean was also in many ways, his little brother’s primary caregiver, often taking care of him while there father was away on hunts. The responsibility has long weighed on him.
Dean has a sacred duty to protect the world from evil things and he has done so for his entire adult life; he spends most of his time drenched in blood, his and others’. Dean has accepted who he was born to be and has been driven and willing to suffer what he must for the good of humanity. He has always been resolved to be the one to sacrifice, anything but Sam anyway. He even gave up his happiness, a normal life with Lisa and her son, Ben. (Who we are all pretty convinced is actually Dean’s son too). Later Lisa and Ben are made to forget Dean, which is almost as bad as if they’d been killed.
The many, many, many deaths that Supernatural has racked up over the years continue to haunt Dean and he has lost a seriously saddening number of loved ones and innocents since season one. Starting with his father, John Winchester. Also, Castiel, more than once. Sam, like seven times. His half-brother, Adam. His surrogate father, Bobby Singer. Kevin and Crowley. His honorary little sister and my heart, Charlie Bradbury. Ellen and Jo. Purgatory-Bestie, Benny. Even his biological offspring, an Amazon named Emma (who was killed by Sam, btw). Both sets of grandparents are dead; his grandfathers died a couple of times each. He also has some dead Campbell cousins. His reaper friend, Tessa. He’s even lost Baby (his beloved impala) a few times!
Dean has been dead, he’s been undead, he’s been a demon and other supernatural creatures. I couldn’t possibly detail all physical injuries and instances of torture, or even the amount of emotional blows. There’s over a dozen seasons of that shit.
Despite being physically 38 years of age currently, Dean spiritually has an extra forty years from his time in Hell. His time in Hell resulted in being forced by Alistair to torture human souls. The fact that he did so continues to torment Dean. Then later in the series, he became a Knight of Hell and heaped some more personal distress at his actions onto those broad shoulders. Did I mention he’s also been possessed by a holy douchebag by the name of Michael for whom he is the true vessel?
THOR ODINSON (Avengers and Thor series)
It’s been pretty progressively downhill for the golden god of Asgard since his first appearance in the MCU. 1500 years of relative happiness gave way in his first movie to a series of unfortunate events. He thought he had it bad before, getting exiled, temporarily being denied his hammer, and going through a personal transformation. Little did he know that things would all go to shit in the coming years.
At first, Thor was just a cocky prince with his eyes on the Asgardian throne who casually started a war between his people and Jotunheim. Getting his powers stripped away and booted down to Earth was more like being grounded for the weekend compared to later events. This was the start of an ongoing rivalry with his brother Loki.
Things looked pretty good for Thor when he was doing the Avenger thing with his fellow superheroes but it wasn’t long before everything went awry. Basically, following the second installment of the Thor movies, Thor has gone off to hang out on Earth, thinking Loki is dead and mourning him. He does some more Avengering while he’s down there. But following the Ultron mess and some worrisome visions, and breaking up with Jane, Thor returns to Asgard to research. At which point, he discovers that his brother lives and has usurped his father’s throne.
Then, the real fun starts. Odin dies. Their evil sister Hela shows up and kills a ton of people, including the entire Asgardian army, and she takes the throne. She also takes Thor’s eye and destroys his hammer, which is super uncool, because he loved that hammer. Although in the end, Thor triumphs, reunites amicably with Loki and despite the absolute destruction of Asgard, he at least manages to save some of his people.
And then almost immediately runs into Thanos and everyone, including Heimdall and Loki, end up dead. He was then flung into space. Later, just when it looks like he’s about to get his revenge on the big purple asshole, Thanos escapes with the Infinity Gauntlet and half the sentient beings in the galaxy vanish. It’s a pretty substantial fuckup.
SANSA STARK (Game of Thrones) :
While it’s true that Lady Sansa Stark, formerly a naive little girl with dreams of princesshood, has since adopted the mantle of a total badass and things have looked up for her, her journey to get there and the remaining potential for further tragedy, not to mention being in the path of an oncoming assault by an army of dead snow zombies qualifies her for placement on this list.
While I may have found Sansa irritating in the beginning, blinded by superficial desires as she was, the older, wiser Sansa became a personal favorite. Season after season of Hell tempered her into the true Stark she-wolf she is now. Sansa’s descent into torture and despair began with the visit from the King and Lannisters, as did all other Stark demises. Soon thereafter, we are subjected to the first direwolf death, that of Sansa’s beloved pet, Lady. It isn’t long before we’ve moved onto Sansa in the capitol, watching her father, Ned, being executed, losing her younger sister, Arya, who she thinks dead for quite some time, being tortured by Joffrey and her elder brother, Robb declared an enemy of the realm.
Sadly, that is the first act of Sansa’s personal tragedy. Following the execution of her father, Joffrey takes Sansa to see where he has had Ned Stark’s and her companion, Septa Mordane’s heads mounted on spikes along the castle wall. Joffrey tells his betrothed that Robb will be next. She is beaten after this and continues to be mistreated and tortured by Joffrey until his death in a later season, including having her stripped and beaten in front of the court after Robb had a military victory against the Lannisters. She would also soon discover that their family friend, Theon, betrayed her House and supposedly murdered her two younger brothers.
Sansa is later forced to marry Tyrion, rather than Joffrey who becomes engaged to Margaery Tyrell instead, which although preferable, didn’t save her being further tormented. Tyrion could only protect her so much and they were both mistreated by the whiny inbred King. Their wedding itself was used by Joffrey, Cersei and Tywin as a mockery to them both. While Tyrion and Sansa actually got along well, despite being trapped in King’s Landing with the worst people in the Seven Kingdoms; their friendship and marriage became strained when news arrived that Tywin Lannister, Walder Frey, and Roose Bolton had orchestrated the deaths of Sansa’s brother, Robb, mother, Catelyn and Robb’s wife, Talisa and their unborn babe, along with some 15,000 soldiers from House Stark and their bannermen. Robb’s body was desecrated, using the severed head of his direwolf, and Catelyn Stark’s was thrown in the river. Things get worse after Olenna Tyrell poisoned Joffrey and Tyrion stood accused of the crime.
By the time Sansa is finally smuggled out of King’s Landing, it isn’t to safety. First taken to her hateful Aunt Lysa who mistreats her; Petyr Baelish marries and murders Lysa and becomes her son’s guardian. Sansa was then traded by him to Ramsay Snow who not only is occupying and defiling her childhood home but actually treats her even worse than Joffrey did, including forcing her into marriage and then raping her repeatedly.
Sansa eventually, after seasons of torment and pain, escapes from the Boltons and finds her way back to Jon Snow and then they retake Winterfell together.
DEB MORGAN (Dexter) :
You can’t help noticing that Deb seems to be cursed and kind of fucked up. Her entire life revolves around serial killers. Detective Deborah Morgan at the start of the series is just a dedicated young cop who has no idea her adopted brother is a serial killer. But did the writers leave it there? Oh no, Deb was destined for dark, terrible things.
As far as Deb knows in season one, Dexter is just a strange, unintentionally emotionally-challenged blood splatter tech, who got to be much closer with their father than she did. Their parents are dead and both the Morgan kids spent a lot of time sans their workaholic cop-father, who was Deb's hero and inspiration and she continues to learn secrets about throughout the series, including that he may have repeatedly cheated on their mother.
In a twisted turn of events, Debra ends up dating and falling in love with a DIFFERENT serial killer (one she and the police had been hunting), who is actually Dexter’s biological brother, who ends up kidnapping her before Dexter kills him. And let's be honest, her feelings for and towards adopted brother get progressively more complicated and weird by the end of the series.
By the time she does find out her brother is a serial killer, it takes a while for Deb to accept him and deal with the murders. She later ends up killing someone herself to protect Dexter and leaves her job. She’s later shot and a blood clot forms in her brain, prompting her brother to turn off the life support. Deb was then dumped into the ocean by Dexter. Like wtf did Deb do to deserve that, writers?
JOHN LOCKE (Lost) :
John Locke had a terrible life. Flashbacks to his childhood show foster homes and the death of several siblings as well as a life of being bullied and mistreated. He had a crappy job and even crappier parents. His mother even helped his despicable father con him out of a kidney. John was left by his girlfriend after she resented his obsession with his father’s betrayal. His father later threw him out of a window! He survived the accident but ended up permanently in a wheelchair. And all of this was BEFORE he crash landed on the hell island along with the rest of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.
Sure, John was kind of an overzealous lunatic who had a mystical connection with the island, at least that’s the belief repeatedly exploited by Ben Linus in order to manipulate him, but he could be a useful member of the team when he wasn’t sacrificing someone to the island or doing something fanatical in her name. This very strong belief in the island and that he was special began with betraying and pushing away his friends and finally ended with John losing his life. He was eventually strangled by Ben.
HARRY “OPIE” WINSTON (Sons of Anarchy) :
Opie was not only a fan favorite but a beloved member of the crew in the show itself. He was best friends with Jax, the son of another member of the Sons and a very loyal individual. Too loyal, as we would see later in the series.
From the beginning of Sons of Anarchy, Opie seems to routinely get shafted. His first wife was killed in a botched hit on him. We meet him after he’s just done a five year stint in prison for SAMCRO. He later marries a porn star, Lyla, but when Opie is caught lying to her on behalf of the club and she is caught secretly taking birth control so she won’t become pregnant with his child, their marriage becomes strained. Clay later kills Opie’s father, Piney. This results in Opie shooting Clay, but he doesn’t die. Jax takes over the club and it seems like Ope is out for good. But no, of course he’s not.
Upon his return, he immediately gets himself arrested alongside Jax and his friends and goes to prison with them. While there, Opie sacrifices himself for Jax and is beaten to death by Randall Hightower.
MICHONNE (The Walking Dead) :
When we first meet Michonne, she comes with two declawed and defanged walkers who we later discover are her former boyfriend and his best friend. It is also later revealed that she lost her young child during the early days of the apocalypse. As discussed before, zombies constantly trying to eat you is bad enough. Following the deaths of her family, she went into seclusion, becoming extremely adept with her sword. Basically she was a grumpy loner with baggage during her first appearance.
We discover later in the series that the death of her son, Andre, was due to Mike (the boyfriend) and Terry being too high on drugs to fight when walkers overran their settlement. This resulted in both the death of her son and the two of them being bitten. Rather than kill them, she allowed them to turn and ended up removing their arms and mandibles, using them as protection from other zombies.
Michonne becomes part of the main survivors group after befriending, losing and eventually witnessing the death of Andrea. Having to put down the reanimated head of Hershel, who she’d become friends with, was just as upsetting for Michonne. She becomes particularly attached to Rick, Carl and Judith, who she and the Grimes family thought had died after the Governor’s assault on the prison. She and her surrogate family get a taste of normalcy during their time in Alexandria before encountering Negan, who kidnapped her and killed Glenn and Abraham.
Later in the following season, Carl reveals to Rick and Michonne that he has been bitten. They are both devastated. Above them, Alexandria is being destroyed. During the group’s escape, Daryl takes baby Judith, so Michonne and Rick can remain with Carl. Seeing Carl dying was particularly difficult for her; they had bonded early on and he had reminded Michonne of her son and in the end they agreed that they had been each other’s very best friend. Together they carry him to the church to die. After he tells Rick and Michonne that he loves them, Carl shoots himself in the head.
MAGNETO (X-Men) :
Any backstory that involves surviving the Holocaust and watching your mother be murdered in order to unlock your powers is automatically a horribly tragic tale. Magneto is one of those villains you can’t really disagree too much with. Sure, he may have been a little extreme at times, but he wasn’t wrong about the treatment of mutants. Erik Lehnsherr had every reason to strike back after what he and what mutants went through.
In 1944, Erik and his family were sent to Auschwitz. The extreme stress of this caused his abilities to begin manifesting. This unfortunately led to Sebastian Shaw, a Nazi collaborator, murdering his mother right in front of him. In this way, Erik learned to control his powers initially with rage.
On his later quest in the 60s for vengeance, he meets up with Charles Xavier, who would become his best friend and his opposite when it came to mutant affairs. It’s hard to make yourself say nemesis when even being on opposite sides, one would never hurt the other. In one of the later films, when Charles is killed, Erik’s devastation is evident. His affection is seen for Charles whenever he became irritated at his friend being disparaged and his clear belief that Charles Xavier is only misguided and too kind to lead the mutant people but a true hero and inspiration to their people as well.
At one point, Erik is accused of killing JFK (who he had apparently been trying to save) and is imprisoned. Not his only time being imprisoned throughout the series, mind you. He basically destroyed cell after cell until 1971, when he was moved to a more Magneto-proof room. He is out sometime in the early 80s. He is locked up again in a plastic prison by the government later following the events of the first X-Men movie. Naturally, he escapes in a very cool way. For a few movies, he continues to do villainous things in the name of mutant rights and eventually, the government comes up with a cure. It is given to Magneto, taking away his abilities, at least for a time. He is seen at the end of the Last Stand, in a park where he and Charles used to play chess, clearly mourning the loss of his dearest friend in the world.
VANESSA HELSING (Van Helsing)
Aside from being the one and only thing standing between humanity and annihilation, Vanessa’s got some serious shit going on. Like even before the vampire apocalypse, which is already a drag, she was struggling to support her child, her ex was a deadbeat and her blood was weird and special, specifically she was adopted but originally born to like super vampire hunters. Oh and she gets brutally murdered. Yes, murdered, in front of her daughter, no less. She then semi-resurrects, basically going into a coma for a few years before waking to the fall of civilization, a sketchy memory, the news that everyone she knew is most likely dead and her kid is missing. And she doesn’t casually awaken either, she comes to because she’s just been attacked by and fed on by vampires, who she instinctively kills. And that’s all in episode one.
So from here on out, she’s literally in the number one spot on the post-apocalyptic Most Wanted List. She’s the only legitimate threat to vampire rule, so they’re hunting her with a vengeance. One of them even wants to use her to breed baby vampires. And humans are scared of her because she’s weird and a little too similar to the vampires for their taste. Vanessa goes through a lot just in the first season, including losing her closest friend and companion, Axel due to the utter cowardice and selfishness of Doc Sarah and by lose, I mean he gets turned into a strong, heartless vampire with military skills, woot! Oh and turns out her former best friend also isn’t dead...she was turned too! Vanessa discovers this when sacrificing herself for some civilians who later betray her friends and she is captured by a big bad vampire named Julius. She turns Susan back to human only for Susan to later end up murdered by another friend, who was actually a creepy serial killer the entire time! But wait, there’s more. Her daughter Dylan? Not dead either. Yep...vampire. In fact, vampire being kept by one of the major fanged villains of the series! Like, naturally, right? Apparently deadbeat dad, Gary, didn’t pick her up as he was supposed to, she was taken by vampires instead. Oh, and she ends up dead too, btw. And really, those are just the major shitty highlights of the series with a healthy portion of other tragedy and misc hell sprinkled in between.
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