Woobies Wanted

[thefourthvine]

brown_betty and I have been discussing woobies. Further research - for the good of science! - is now required, and so I come to you for help. I need a list of woobies.

TVTropes has a great page on woobies [Warning: cherry_ice and I have determined that TVTropes is a black hole. If you click on this link, there is a chance you will never escape from the website. Leave a message for your loved ones before you click. Also it's a good idea to pack a lunch.], which features this definition:

"[The woobie] is that character you want to give a big hug, wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when he or she suffers so very beautifully."

And there is, of course, a huge long list of woobies attached, but a lot of those people are woobies in canon more than in fan fiction, and I want the fannish ones. I'm looking for the person in a given fandom who is always being hurt (and then comforted), the person who you just know is going to have a secret shame or a secret trauma or a secret disease, probably while he is being raped and beaten in prison by Nazis with spiky boots. In other words, I want to know who, in your fandom, is the character who you'd immediately think of if you read this header:

Title: Recovery and Revelations Part 7, 1/???
Series: Hold Me Tight Tonight (Confronting the Darkness)
Author: I <3 Woobies!
Summary: To protect the ones he or she loves, Character X sold his or her body to evil slaver alien wizards. Now Character X is finally back home. Can the [team/family/friends/loved ones/etc.] help him or her recover?
Warnings: Noncon, dubcon, torture, past child abuse and incest, betrayal, cutting, slavery, underage sex, involuntary drug use, porn, some swears.

In the future, there will be a poll. But first, I need the names to go in the poll. So tell me: in your fandom, who is the woobie? To make this extra-challenging, especially for you people in Harry Potter and Supernatural: you can only nominate one person per fandom. I want to hear about the Woobiest in All the Land.

Comments

[lilyleia78]

I'll start with an easy one

Daniel Jackson - SG-1

[zeborah]

Criminal Minds - Spencer Reid
Star Trek Voyager - Harry Kim
ST: DS9 - Bashir
ST: TNG - ... I think Picard?

[thefourthvine]

For sure. (First one mentioned on both sites!)

[naraht]

Fox Mulder - X-Files
Paul McCartney - Beatles RPF

[isagel]

Another absolute given: Lex Luthor, Smallville.

And I'm going to say Alex Krycek, The X-Files, although I'm not entirely sure he's woobier than Mulder.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

For the Newsies fandom: Jack. He actually sacrifices himself, several times, in the movie. Also in the slash fiction. (The het fiction is almost universally Mary Sue-ish, I don't go there.) Authors tend to have David get beat up too, but it's Jack who throws himself on his sword... usually followed by a h/c scene of David patching him up. Yum. (It does not hurt that Jack is played by Christian Bale. Seriously, that movie needs a sequel. Set in the Roaring Twenties. With lots of subtext.)

For the NCIS fandom: Tony DiNozzo. Not that he would admit to being a woobie, but again with the falling on his sword thing. Gibbs occasionally does this too, but Gibbs is kickass enough to plan ahead and never actually get beaten up in the process.

For the Torchwood fandom: Ianto. This doesn't actually require explanation, does it?

For Star Trek: Reboot: Spock. Obviously. Uhura does a wonderful job of keeping him not-dead-yet. Or, you know, Kirk does. Whoever's on call that week.

For Star Trek: TOS: I don't actually read a lot of fic for this, but I'd have to say McCoy. Kirk and Spock also frequently sacrifice themselves, but when McCoy does, he always gets a lot more injured than they do.

For Psych: Shawn. I'm not actually sure I've seen fic where anyone else gets seriously injured, it's always Shawn. And it's usually because of some harebrained scheme of his to save everyone, though occasionally it's just random. Also, he has serious issues with both his parents.

For LOTR: Frodo is pretty much a walking billboard for this, isn't he?

For Firefly: ... now that I think about it, Firefly may be that one rare fandom which is entirely without woobies. I mean, Simon almost would be, but he's far too snarky, and always has to patch up himself. And Wash plays one for fun, but isn't really.

For House: Oh, House himself, obviously. You've seen the fic where he allows himself to get the shit regularly beat out of him, and then be framed for murder, to save Wilson's life? I hear rumors that the show itself has started showing his woobieness, but I'm a couple seasons behind right now.

[brynwulf]

You are so cruel to deny us at least THREE votes for woobies in Supernatural. :)

I will have to say Sammich. But I want my protest recorded that it was under duress because I also want to say Dean and Castiel and maybe even John.

[naraht]

Oh, also...

Star Trek: James T Kirk

[copracat]

SGA: John Sheppard
The Professionals: Doyle
I would disagree with the commenter above and say Star Trek Voyager: Tom Paris (though, to be honest the mix of Tom's fanon abusive Dad and canonical jail time plus Harry's experience in The Chute likely make them neck and neck for fan whumpin'.)
Blake's 7: Avon
The Sentinel: Blair

[northern]

Xander.

[petra]

DCU: Dick Grayson

[ct]

White Collar: Neal.
Criminal Minds: Spencer Reid, like someone else said above.
HP: I'm gonna have to go with... Draco.

[melannen]

Okay, in vaguely chronological order:

Harry Potter: Draco Malfoy
Pirates of the Caribbean: James Norrington
X-Files: Alex Krycek
Good Omens: Crowley
SG1: Daniel Jackson
SGA: Rodney McKay
Highlander: Methos
DC Comics: (very wide category, but probably) Bruce Wayne
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, et al: Spike
From Eroica With Love: Klaus Eberbach, oddly
Supernatural: Dean Winchester
House: James Wilson
Pundits (fiction-verse): Stephen Colbert
Pundits (reality-verse): Anderson Cooper
Doctor Who, et al: ....Vislor Turlough*
Torchwood: Ianto
Star Trek Reboot: James T. Kirk
Star Trek TOS: Leonard McCoy
BBC RPS: James May
Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Holmes

*I want to put the Master or the Doctor or Jack here, but it's *never that simple* with them, even in badfic, it would be more like "To protect the ones he or she loves ^without actually having to admit even to himself that he loves them^, Character X sold his or her body to evil slaver alien wizards ^and willingly agreed to help them take over the universe in deeply immoral ways^. Now Character X is finally back home ^having been dragged back by his loved ones against his will and with a great deal of unnecessary death and destruction^. Can the [team/family/friends/loved ones/etc.] help him recover ^or will he diligently refuse to be forgiven until he has a chance to run away/kill himself out of spite/change the timelines so they never met/all of the above repeatedly in random order]?. ....Actually, come to think of it, that's the plot of pretty much every Master arc in canon.

Whereas Turlough is just plain pretty when he suffers.

[jmtorres]

I think fanon makes Krycek lots woobier; you don't have to try to hard with Mulder.

[thefourthvine]

Man, apparently Spencer Reid is just all filled with woobieness, and I hadn't even heard of him before this post. I have learned something today!

[thefourthvine]

...Paul McCartney? Really? I don't read Beatles RPF (I have this tragic allergy to famous people that prevents me from reading any kind of RPF), but from my limited knowledge of the canon, I would have expected Lennon to be the Woobie of Record.

[thefourthvine]

THANK YOU for mentioning Lex. I was waiting for someone to get around to him! And also Krycek; Betty and I listed him, but tentatively, because neither of us is in XF. (And Krycek is the perfect example for my Secret Future Research. I neeeeeed him.)

[thefourthvine]

For the Torchwood fandom: Ianto. This doesn't actually require explanation, does it?

Not at all. Ianto Jones = Woobie. It's a first principle, really.

For Psych: Shawn. I'm not actually sure I've seen fic where anyone else gets seriously injured, it's always Shawn. And it's usually because of some harebrained scheme of his to save everyone, though occasionally it's just random. Also, he has serious issues with both his parents.

Seriously? I would so have predicted Gus. He's a woobie if I've ever seen one! (Admittedly, I've only watched about 15 minutes of Psych, total, all carefully selected and screened in advance by BB, because that is not the show for a person with an embarrassment squick. But even in vids, Gus just looks so very woobie.)

You've seen the fic where he allows himself to get the shit regularly beat out of him, and then be framed for murder, to save Wilson's life?

...No. No, I haven't seen that story.

[thefourthvine]

You are so cruel to deny us at least THREE votes for woobies in Supernatural. :)

I have been keeping a secret from the internets: I am a cold, cruel, evil woman. I also plan to make you CHOOSE between Dean and Sam, later on. *cackles*

[ilyena_sylph]

Gundam Wing: Duo Maxwell &/or Trowa Barton. (traumatic canon backstories from Hell, so at least there's reason...)

Seconding Dick Grayson for DCU, and Lex Luthor for Smallville.

Transformers G1: Bumblebee.

Fast & the Furious: Brian O'Conner, to my neverending rage.

Cyteen: Grant. Not that the canon doesn't do that enough...

Dark is Rising: Barney Drew.

...I may be back later, once my brain decides to function again on the rest of my fandoms.

[naraht]

Following normal Earth logic, yes, but when has fandom done so? If I were merely going on the basis of personal taste I'd vote for Brian Epstein, followed at some distance by John. But Paul has Big Eyes and is Cute, therefore ends up getting most of the gratuitous torture by teenage girl authors.

if there can be only one

[aethel]

I nominate Draco Malfoy for HP fandom, but I haven't exactly done a complete survey of the literature.

For SGA... John Sheppard?

[stepps]

I find it funny that there are several different answers of who is a woobie in STReboot fandom. I would have thought it was Chekov, personally, but then I'm not really in that fandom.

Bandom: Brendon Urie. Without a doubt Bden is The Character to hurt and then comfort with cuddles and snuggles and love. There are other hurt characters, but they tend to be to prickly to comfort in a woobie way.

Jonas Brothers: They are all the same boys, at different stages of life, it is so hard to split them up. Kevin maybe?

[dragojustine]

"To protect the ones he or she loves ^without actually having to admit even to himself that he loves them^, Character X sold his or her body to evil slaver alien wizards ^and willingly agreed to help them take over the universe in deeply immoral ways^. Now Character X is finally back home ^having been dragged back by his loved ones against his will and with a great deal of unnecessary death and destruction^. Can the [team/family/friends/loved ones/etc.] help him recover ^or will he diligently refuse to be forgiven until he has a chance to run away/kill himself out of spite/change the timelines so they never met/all of the above repeatedly in random order]?

I DESPERATELY, DESPERATELY, want you to write this now. With Jack as character X. PLEASE. *g*

[mllesays]

Bandom: Brendon Urie.

Yes, this!

I'm trying to think if there are other band-specific woobies, but Brendon just eclipses anyone else.