Which Videogame Characters Have the Most Tragic Stories?

[southparkdudez]

Have to say Big Boss from Metal Gear Solid, he was trciked by his own country to kill his inocent Leader/master.

 

[xplosive59]

Delita from Final Fantasy Tactics, sure he gains power but at the begining of the game he is treated like shit for being a commoner and has his sister murdered in front of him. At the end of the game...

Spoiler

His wife tries to kill him but ends up being killed by him

 

[Me55enger]

Helplessly watching Dr. Eli Vance reassure his daughter seconds before he is killed.

 

[Blunderboy]

I'm pretty sure I just won this thread with Clementine from the Walking Dead...

Such a sad, tragic child.

Hey there sweet pea.

Yeah you won. Right in the feels.
There is nothing I wouldn't do for that little girl.

 

[voltair27]

Max Payne is kinda up there. His wife and daughter were both murdered which sent him down the entire path you see in the games.

 

[WorriedSandwich]

Francis York Morgan.

 

[voltair27]

Master Chief. Now, before everyone starts flaming me for that, hear me out. True, his backstory isn't explored a massive amount in the games, but the books and comics do give a big insight, and in Halo 4 a large part of the backstory comes into play. There are also plenty of references in Halo 4 to the backstory of all the Spartan-IIs as well. SPOILERS BE HERE FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T PLAYED IT, ANYONE WHO DOES CARE WILL ALREADY KNOW THEM THOUGH, BY THIS POINT...

Kidnapped aged six, forced against his will into an intense training program to turn him into what effectively amounts to a child soldier. Fighting against other humans, by the way (this was long before the Covenant turned up), he witnesses half his adopted 'family' (i.e. fellow kidnapped child soldiers) killed in horrific surgeries that would make even Dr Steinman think twice (well, maybe not) for the purpose of making the surviving kids even more powerful as soldiers. Also, bear in mind the entire project is run by the government's military arm, and overseen by a young (at this point only in her mid twenties) woman who has a reputation for being distant and mildly sociopathic, as well as being an obsessive control freak. Of the survivors, about half disappear, spirited away by the intelligence services on black ops, over the next 30 years while almost all of the others die in various missions - about 90% of those survivors die on the guys last op before the games begin, meaning as far as Master Chief knows he's the only survivor of all those kids he was raised with and trained to fight with. Oh, and his very first mission where he killed fellow human beings? One death on his team, where he was team leader. And he was only 15 years old.

Also, he has a childhood friend who he meets while fighting in New Mombasa - he can't tell her it's him because the government/military won't let him. Not to mention that although he finds he isn't the last one of his kind left after all, those who are still around are seperated from him again on further ops, and another half of them die just after he finds they're still alive. The next time he meets the woman who raised and trained him and his fellows, she's in custody for war crimes and kidnapping one of his comrades. And finally, the one constant for the past 5 years of all this, starts to slowly go more and more insane and finally 'dies' in a self-sacrifice which still fails to stop an entire city being massacred.

Yeah, given the sheer amount of pent-up PTSD here, I think John-117 is pretty damn tragic.

It does sound pretty damn sad but I'm kinda blocking out all the media that wasn't made when Bungie still owned the series.

An interesting counter point to that is he did have a family of sorts in the other Spartans and Doctor Halsey and Chief Mendez. They were his emotional support and the main reason why he stayed sane for so long.

And the fact that he spent nearly 30 years either fighting or going to the next fight brings up another point: he didn't really spend much time thinking about it. He's either in cryo or to damn busy. He doesn't have PTSD because he really didn't think about it too much and the times he does, he knows his actions are saving humanity so he doesn't feel too bad.

 

[AntiChri5]

Jack, Mass Effect 2.

Like I said, a wee bit overboard. Although half the reason I like her character was that instead of becoming a "broken bird", her response to all that was to shave her head, get tattooed from head to toe and tell the galaxy to bring it the fuck on.

Her entire M-O just screams broken bird though; "I have a very obvious tragic past which I hide behind a tough ***** exterior, but nothing your masculine but sensitive disposition can't cure." Everything about her felt so blatently designed for ManShep to crack open and reveal the fragile girl inside who just wants to be loved.

Except that she gets her life together regardless of how Shepard treats her.

Even if Shep attempts to reinforce Cerberus' conditioning, giving her the truly awe inspiringly terrible advice that "a bullet in the brain fixes everything" she moves on and puts her past behind her, becoming a schoolteacher/drill sergeant.

She may be happier if Shepard romances her, but even then she builds her own life separate from him, and refuses to rejoin him because her students need her.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Has anyone said Jon Irenicus and Bodhi yet? If not, them. Maybe not the most tragic, I'll grant, but to lose all that they did, all that they were because of what? Hubris? Greed? Love? I don't know, but they are tragic; you feel for them even knowing that they have to be stopped.

 

[Klumpfot]

Unexpected choice: Pilika from Suikoden II! A tiny orphaned mute girl who is being taken care of by heads of an army fighting against another army lead by her adoptive brother. And the scene where her mother is killed is genuinely sickening.

 

[Bedla]

The Nameless One from Planescape Torment. A guy whose good ending is an eternity in hell, and his life (well, lives) to that point hasn't been exactly better quite often?

Though all the party characters in that game could probably qualify.

 

[Gecko clown]

Does Calhoun from Wreck-it-Ralph count?

She was programmed with the most tragic back-story ever.

 

[lord.jeff]

Vivi

Spoiler

Finds out that he's a factory produced war machine who's sentience is a mistake, furthermore he's hated by most people for being one of the things that have been destroying the world and is forced to kill members of his own kind in order to keep everyone safe. not to mention that he could stop working any minute with no warning because he like the others was expected to die within a few battles.

 

[The_Scrivener]

James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2?

Cloud from Final Fantasy 7?

Whether it be their past, or the events that take place in the game itself, which were the most shocking, disturbing, or dishearting in your opinion?

Interesting you picked my two favorite games there.

I echo James as the most as well as everyone in that entire game save for maybe Laura.

I also think a lot of John Marston from Red Dead. I apparently love tragic figure games.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

I'm thinking John Marston from Red Dead series. That's the first one I can think of anyway.

 

[Selef]

Depending on how you play it, Dragon Age: Origins can be fairly tragic, most of the origin stories start off with you losing everything you once knew to some crisis or another and being forced to leave into a group of people you know little about (Grey Wardens). to top it off its possible you might have to kill your own party members if you make decisions they don't agree with. and (spoilers) at the end of the game you can end up dying in order to stop the arch demon thus becoming a martyr. (spoilers end) so yea, even thought it doesn't have to be tragic, it can be.

 

[Krantos]

John Marston, surely.

The redemption concept was fantastic though.

Yep, this.

He could never bury the mistakes he made in his past. No matter what he did to get away from it, his past followed him.

"People don't forget. Nothing gets forgiven." - Marston

In the end, the best he could do was let himself fall so his mistakes didn't hurt his family anymore.

Fanfuckingtastic story. Still probably my favorite story in video games.

 

[Mikejames]

I think most Silent Hill characters can qualify. We see more of James' struggle, but Angela was right about being similar...

Francis York Morgan.

*Ninja'd* York from Deadly Premonition's up there too surprisingly.
His talking to himself starts to become less funny once you start to picture how lonely his life's been.

Guy needed a hug.

To be honest, I think most of the boss characters in Dark Souls have more tragic stories than your own character.

The Daughters of Chaos and Priscilla were who had my sympathy. The Chosen Undead probably had the most optimistic experience of anyone there.

I'm pretty sure I just won this thread with Clementine from the Walking Dead...

You make me sad every thread mate. You make me sad...