Ptsd Woobie Patrol

[BloomInWinter]

I read this tv trope site and was struck by the description of 'Woobies'. Though it does not state the origin of the woobie as being from the Michael Keaton Movie 'Mr. Mom' I think it is. ...and the description really describes so many sufferers.

The article drills down types of woobies and I've been like several at different times with different traumas.

A woobie (named for a child's security blanket) 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. Woobification of a character is a curious, audience-driven phenomenon, divorced almost entirely from the character's canonical morality.

The Woobie's appeal lies in how it allows the audience to experience catharsis. The Greek philosopher Aristotle proposed that tragedy is popular because it allows people to experience and let out their negative emotions, "cleansing" themselves.​

The Woobie is popular for this same reason. A story with The Woobie allows the audience to vicariously experience relief from some pain by fantasizing about relieving The Woobie's pain. (No, not that way! Well, okay, sometimes.) Woobification can also tie into a disturbing hurt/comfort dynamic, in which fans enjoy seeing the Woobie tortured, if only for the chance to wish the hurt away. This is often made manifest in the curious form of the Hurt/Comfort Fic.​

An important aspect of The Woobie is that their suffering must have its genesis in external sources: a character, however sympathetically portrayed, who suffers as the result of their own actions is a Tragic Hero and does not qualify.​

​

Source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie?from=Main.Woobie​

I've been the stoic woobie, the iron woobie...and far too many others. Anyone else a Woobie?

 

[Lucille]

This is very interesting! I think we are all each other's woobies to some extent. Maybe it's why I seem to relate to these sorts of characters so well. But to most people, I'm not sure they would think that we "suffer beautifully"... PTSD is too tough on social interaction and relationships to make us so easily lovable... PTSD can also just make people feel uncomfortable being around us. Especially when your loved ones have taken part in your trauma. Your suffering only brings pain and shame to them :notworthy:

 

[maddog]

Wow, I think this is actually a fascinating study of human behaviour if you think about it deeply enough, particularly as it relates to altruism and whether or not you truly believe in it.

Personally, I don't, or only to the extent that being generous and caring and helpful to others satisfies some sort of inner need or desire in the so-called altruist, without which they would feel frustrated and unfulfilled. In that sense I believe that altruism, or woobiism in some sense, is actually just another form of self serving behaviour, which kind of fits with the explanation and justification of Greek tragedy.

I guess that sounds harsher and more cynical of human kind than I meant it to (not that I don't admit to being depressingly cynical about human kind), but I believe it nonetheless.

I so agree with the comment that PTSD can stretch the woobie friendship just that bit far - I think there is a very fine line between the ability for others to create woobies out of us, and the feeling that it's all just too intense and overwhelming and confronting, the result of which is almost the opposite effect.

For the record, I have been just about every imaginable kind of woobie at some time - the stoic, the survivor, the damaged warrior, the helpless victim, the angry victim, the lost and abandoned victim, the silent suffererr... I'm just making them up of course.

Maddog

 

[sea]

I think mine is more wangsty.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Wangst

 

[angel2write]

"Especially if said "trauma" doesn't come across as nearly tragic as the character thinks it is, making his lamentations seem way out of proportion."

Not sure you qualify for wangstdom, sea. I don't think there's any way you could blow it out of proportion! And, as a matter of fact, you keep trying to convince everybody that nothing that bad happened to you.... which is like reverse whining? Or something? :D

"it's not necessarily the scale of the tragedy that the character is reacting to that's the problem, but the way it's handled. Events that would be genuinely devastating in Real Life can become melodramatic Wangst if the sufferer's self-loathing is too loud and drags on for too long or is used as a plot device so often that it becomes irritating... It all boils down to quality and personal tolerance level;"

OK, you've got me here. My only excuse is that I think you are generally "high quality" and I apparently have a "high personal tolerance level" for certain kinds of angst?

 

[angel2write]

Guess I'm a Chew Toy.

"Whatever the reason is, these characters just can't catch a break. Did they do something wrong in a previous life? This life? Or are they just Innocent Bystanders who look as if they'd blow up in a more amusing manner than anyone else in the crowd?"

I actually had a newspaper humor column for two years and doubled the subscription making people howl with laughter at all the ways life mistreats me. Do you doubt me? I have clippings! (Plus, you have to admit, I explode amusingly...) :p

 

[sea]

I did contemplate Deus Angst Machina, but then I thought I probably didn't qualify. :p

So, your character is angsting. After breaking his leg while playing football, he's told he's failed in four subjects at college. Then it seems that his dog just died in a freak accident. That accident involved his kindly uncle, who didn't swerve in time to avoid the poor puppy. However, he did swerve in time to go off an embankment and hit a bus full of high school students, killing many, including his beloved girlfriend, to whom he'd just been engaged to the previous day.

Unfortunately, the shock of the news caused the protagonist's kindly old mother to have a heart attack, which left his father devastated. More unfortunately, economic recession hits, and the character and his father are left without a job and sunk neck deep in debt. The character's brother turns to robbery, but is caught and thrown in prison.

Poor Daddy turned to drinking and lost all will to live, and finally shot himself (along with several others in a mad shootout), leaving the character all alone in the world to deal with the trauma. And that happens to be the day when the mother of all earthquakes lays waste to the whole city, including the character's house. Our character (who now has to live on the streets) is pulled out of the ruins, perhaps having suffered a crippling injury, and is taken to the hospital, where the doctor diagnoses him with cancer.

And that's just the beginning of his bad days... Wait, what? Isn't this a little too overboard?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusAngstMachina

 

[angel2write]

I did contemplate Deus Angst Machina, but then I thought I probably didn't qualify. :p

No, that's it! :roflmao::laugh::roflmao:

Poor thing... maybe you'll turn out to be the hero at the end of the story. Or maybe we could all get together and toothpick the screen-writer. :cautious: