- 5 months ago
Behind every villain and hero lies a heartbreaking tale... Join us as we count down our picks for the fictional characters with the most devastating origin stories! From Holocaust survivor Magneto to the traumatized Hannibal Lecter, these characters were shaped by unimaginable loss, betrayal, and suffering. Which character's painful past hits you hardest?
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the greatest characters
00:09with the saddest backstories.
00:11Some spoilers to come.
00:30Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.
00:34This murderous barber from a Victorian penny-dreadful was given a deeply sad backstory in the Christopher
00:39Bond play version in 1970, retained for the Stephen Sottenheim musical.
00:44In both, Sweeney Todd was a young barber called Benjamin Barker, who was falsely convicted
00:48and sent to a penal colony in Australia by the corrupt Judge Turpin.
01:03With Barker safely gone, Turpin sexually assaulted his wife.
01:07She tried taking her life as a result, and Turpin took in their child, Joanna.
01:12Barker adopts the alias of Sweeney Todd and vows revenge against the judge, and eventually
01:16all mankind.
01:17Understandable, in this case.
01:35The best friend of Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes was almost a casualty of World War II, nearly
01:40dying when he fell off a train.
01:41As if that weren't tragic enough, Barnes is instead captured, tortured and turned into
01:46a super-soldier by HYDRA, a terrorist organization and research division of the Nazi party.
01:58Brainwashed, Barnes becomes an assassin, forced to fight against his former friend and the
02:03rest of the Avengers.
02:04His conditioning is eventually overseen by T'Challa's sister, and Barnes finally helps the Avengers
02:09fight against Thanos.
02:11Still, what a horrific backstory.
02:16Clever and complex, this cerebral hit stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a thief-for-hire, Dom Cobb, who, along
02:32with his crack team of experts, plucks secrets directly from other people's heads.
02:36He's been hired to perform the pretty tough job of planting an idea in a target's subconscious,
02:41and assembling the best and the brightest for the assignment.
02:51During a mission to recover their target from limbo, Cobb reveals that his wife took her life,
02:56expecting him to follow.
02:58It was a romantic gesture gone horribly wrong.
03:01His wife lost sight of reality after she and Cobb spent too much time in the dream world.
03:06This is the reason why he's a criminal on the run, estranged from his kids and jacking
03:10people's dreams for a living.
03:23In this sleeper hit and dark, zombie-centered comedy, Woody Harrelson plays a tough guy from
03:27Florida who likes his solitude as much as he likes Twinkies.
03:30He also misses his puppy.
03:32A college student on a journey to locate his parents soon joins Tallahassee, and the pair
03:36is later joined by a couple of sisters who've also managed to survive.
03:45During a fireside chat, Tallahassee reveals that the puppy he'd been referring to earlier
03:49in the movie was actually his dearly beloved son.
03:52Losing a child is devastating enough on its own, but losing one to a horde of marauding
03:57zombies had to be the ultimate gut punch.
03:59Tallahassee's face during this all-revealing scene makes his pain all too apparent.
04:13In this grisly Tarantino film, Django and his wife Broomhilda were slaves, separated from
04:18each other.
04:19Fortunately, bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz kills his slavers and offers to free Django in
04:23exchange for his help finding the Brittle Brothers.
04:26Django agrees, and together they kill outlaws and slavers as Django tries to find his wife.
04:39Shultz and Django eventually discover she is a slave of the ruthless Calvin Candy.
04:44Their plan almost goes awry when Candy is tipped off by his slave, and he threatens to kill
04:48Broomhilda.
04:49Django is sold to a mining company, but eventually escapes to the plantation to rescue his wife,
04:54though not before blowing up the whole thing.
05:01Literally.
05:03The Joker's long-suffering criminal girlfriend has a tragic past to fit.
05:23Abandoned by her father at a convent, Harley got into a life of crime early.
05:27Eventually becoming a psychiatrist, she was the Joker's psychiatrist at the Arkham Asylum.
05:38The Joker seduces her and eventually persuades her to release him, manipulating Harley to
05:42fall into the same vat of chemicals that drove him mad.
05:45Now a criminal couple, the Joker abuses Harley physically and emotionally.
05:49In the end, despite everything she did for him, the Joker finally breaks up with Harley.
05:53She kicks her out into the street, where she finally rebuilds her life.
05:57Tragic indeed.
06:11The antagonists of horror films rarely have happy childhoods, for obvious reasons.
06:16Jigsaw was once John Kramer, an engineer and architect who founded the Urban Renewal Group
06:21for low-income people.
06:22He even had a wife, Jill, a doctor, and they were expecting their first child.
06:27Unfortunately, Jill was attacked by a patient, and soon lost her baby.
06:36Falling into a deep depression, he and Jill divorced.
06:39Later on, Kramer discovers he was dying from cancer.
06:43When his attempt to take his life went awry, Kramer decides to come up with murderous traps,
06:47devices and contraptions that test the victim's will to survive, becoming the infamous jigsaw.
06:54It's not every day that you find yourself exiled to a distant planet.
07:12Or is it every day that your wife gets killed as a result of an explosion that you blame
07:16on the same dude who exiled you?
07:18In this 80s sci-fi adventure, Ricardo Montalban reprises his role as Captain Kirk's long-standing
07:23arch-nemesis.
07:24But this time, he's out for blood.
07:37Following his wife's death, Kahn wants revenge on Captain Kirk for the series of events that
07:41led to her demise.
07:42He devises a grand plan that involves mind control, a bunch of explosions, and a device that can
07:47create planets.
07:48Kahn was definitely a man who stuck to his goals.
08:09This Spanish fencing master has a backstory we won't easily forget.
08:13Inigo's father, Domingo, was a swordsmith, commissioned by Count Rugen to make a unique
08:17sword capable of accommodating his six-fingered grip.
08:21When Rugen offered to pay Domingo only one-tenth of the price of the sword, Domingo refused.
08:26Instead, he gave the sword to his son, Inigo.
08:33Rugen kills Domingo in front of young Inigo.
08:37Enraged, Inigo tried to avenge his father then, but Rugen spares his life in recognition
08:42of the boy's talent, giving him two cheek scars for good measure.
08:45Inigo devotes himself to becoming a great swordsman and avenging his father.
08:50When he finds him, Inigo finally has the chance to say these now-iconic words.
09:11Another dark backstory comes from this film, directed by Kenneth Lonergan.
09:14Chandler was once a family man in Manchester, with a wife and three children.
09:18After forgetting to put a screen on the fireplace, the house burned down with the children inside.
09:23Plagued with guilt, Chandler attempted to take his life before police officers intervened.
09:28He and his wife later divorced.
09:36Chandler becomes a janitor, overcome with depression and finds out his brother has died of a heart
09:40attack.
09:41Named the legal guardian of his nephew, Chandler struggles to remain in Manchester.
09:45But unfortunately, he just can't beat it.
10:05Villain backstories are always the most tragic.
10:07Killmonger was born in Dijaka, the son of Prince Injobu, who was killed by T'Chaka for
10:12wanting to give Wakandan technology to the oppressed people of other nations.
10:16In Dijaka eventually joined the United States Navy SEALs, and took on the name Eric Stevens,
10:21earning the dark nickname Killmonger.
10:31Wanting revenge, Killmonger returns to Wakanda and challenges his cousin T'Challa to a duel
10:35for the throne.
10:36Seemingly successful, Killmonger takes over and becomes the king of Wakanda.
10:40But what goes around, comes around.
10:42T'Challa eventually returns and defeats Killmonger, who chooses death over life in prison.
10:49This forensic, psychiatrist, cannibalistic serial killer has a story for the books.
11:06Inspired by a real-life criminal, Hannibal Lecter comes from Lithuanian nobility with
11:11Italian heritage.
11:12During World War II, his castle was invaded by the Nazis, and the family was forced to
11:16flee into the woods.
11:17Lecter's parents and retainers were killed by a Nazi bomb, while he and his sister Misha
11:22were captured by a group of former Lithuanian Hills Villager.
11:26This group murders Misha, and cannibalises her.
11:35Lecter escapes, but is understandably severely traumatised, even becoming mute for a time.
11:39Soviet tankers eventually took him back to his castle, now an orphanage.
11:43Lecter was eventually adopted by his uncle, going on to become the serial killer.
11:46The power of the One Ring is mighty indeed.
12:03Gollum was originally called Schmeagel, a stewer hobbit.
12:06His cousin Deagle finds the One Ring while the two were fishing, and Schmeagel demands
12:10it of him as a birthday present.
12:12When Deagle refuses, Schmeagel kills him and claims the Ring.
12:23Exiled by his family, he finds a cave in the Misty Mountains, living there for hundreds
12:27of years.
12:28The Ring corrupts him into a pitiful, emaciated figure known now as Gollum, both loving and
12:34hating the Ring.
12:35The Ring eventually abandons Gollum for hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
12:38Gollum's obsessive pursuit of the Ring leads him to his doom in the fires of Mount Doom.
12:51This sequel to 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes reveals a world where humans are
13:04on the verge of extinction.
13:06After a deadly virus wiped out the majority of mankind, highly intelligent apes have started
13:10developing their own civilisation.
13:12Many of the apes gain their heightened intelligence through the same virus that wiped out the
13:16humans, including the film's main antagonist, Koba.
13:20Cold, heartless and with a brutal hatred of humans, this scarred Bonaba's anger is directly
13:29tied to the years of cruel experimentation he suffered at the hands of his captors.
13:33It would be easy to say that he has had a chip on his shoulder, but those years of torture
13:37are more like a boulder.
13:40Granted, Peter Quill's story is quite dark as well, including his mother dying of cancer
13:56and being abducted by aliens.
13:58Rocket Raccoon's backstory is arguably even worse.
14:01Rocket was abducted from Earth and taken on a spaceship, where the villainous High Evolutionary
14:05subjects him and others to experiments.
14:14Known only as Subject 89P13, Rocket names himself when he sees a ship.
14:19When the High Evolutionary decides to harvest Rocket's brain and kill the rest, Rocket escapes
14:23and attacks him.
14:24Though not before his friends are killed.
14:28By most accounts, the Sith Lord, formerly known as Anakin Skywalker, didn't live a charmed
14:42life.
14:43Born and raised in bondage, he didn't get the carefree childhood you'd expect from most precocious
14:47kids.
14:48Instead, he worked as a slave, before earning his freedom helping out Queen Awadala, and
14:58witnessed his mother's death.
14:59As it turns out, the Queen becomes the love of his life, but she ends up dying while giving
15:03birth to their child.
15:04All of this is enough to send any average person over the edge.
15:08Throw in his disfigurement in a pool of lava, and it's all he can do to not blow up planets
15:13left and right.
15:27In this Quentin Tarantino gorefest, Uma Thurman plays the bride, a badass assassin with an axe
15:32to grind.
15:33She's tracking down all of her former killer colleagues to enact deadly vengeance.
15:37The fight scenes are entertaining, and her murderous rampage is as official as they get.
15:49In the midst of the bloodbath, it's eventually revealed that her assassin pals attacked her
15:53and left her for dead during her wedding rehearsal.
15:56To make matters worse, she was pregnant with the head assassin's child, and the unborn baby
16:00was apparently later plucked from her belly.
16:03Needless to say, there are a whole host of reasons not to get on the wrong side of an
16:07assassin, but not ensuring that they're completely dead when you try to murder them isn't the
16:11wisest of choices.
16:28Does this character need any introduction?
16:30Much of Batman's backstory and his vigilante career have changed throughout the years.
16:34Still, his origins remain the same.
16:36Young Bruce Wayne witnesses the sudden murder of his parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne, and his wife
16:41Martha, as a result of a violent mugging.
16:43Bruce then swears he will avenge his parents and declares war on all criminals.
16:52With only his butler Alfred in the know, at least in the beginning, Bruce trains and dons
16:57the persona of Batman to strike fear into the hearts of all criminals, including his nemesis,
17:02the Joker.
17:03Still iconic and unforgettable.
17:04This series is rife with dark backstories, including serious plaques, particularly heart-wrenching
17:27one.
17:28As a man's master, however, bests them all.
17:31Born to an abusive muggle father and a witch mother, Snape fell in love with childhood friend,
17:36Lily Evans.
17:37Relentlessly picked on by James Potter and others, Snape was also drawn to the dark arts,
17:51which led Lily to break ties with him for good.
17:54When Lily's child with James Potter is prophesied to defeat Voldemort, Snape asks Voldemort
17:59to spare her.
18:00After Lily dies anyway, a grieving Snape changes sides and dedicates his life to protecting Harry,
18:06despite his grudge against his father.
18:08His bravery, however, is never known until his death at the hands of Voldemort.
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18:33As an antagonist, Magneto is a man of action.
18:44He's constantly devising a plan to get back at the humans, who remain distrustful of mutants,
18:48good or bad.
18:50And considering that the humans seem to constantly also have plans to eradicate the mutants, you
18:54can't really blame him.
18:55In fact, his hatred of humans isn't just a matter of survival.
18:59It extends back to his childhood.
19:00As a Holocaust survivor, he saw his mother killed before his eyes by a cruel Nazi scientist.
19:11In X- First Class, he's able to avenge his mother's death, but the damage has already
19:15been done.
19:16He may not be a bad guy through and through, even in spite of his painful childhood, but
19:20he does have some really cool superpowers.
19:29So which backstory haunts you to this day?
19:31Let us know in the comments below.
19:38I'll see you next time when you first get back at the
19:42Me.
19:44Later.
19:46I'll see you next time.
19:48See you in the next week.
19:51I'll see you next time.
19:55See you next time.
19:58Bye.
19:58Bye.
20:00Bye.
20:02Bye.
20:05Bye.
20:07Bye.
20:07Bye.
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