Top 20 Fictional Characters with Tragic Backstories

#20: Sweeney Todd

“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (2007)

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd. This murderous barber from a Victorian penny dreadful was given a deeply sad backstory in the Christopher Bond play version in 1970, retained for the Stephen Sondheim musical. In both, Sweeney Todd was a young barber called Benjamin Barker, who was falsely convicted and sent to a penal colony in Australia by the corrupt Judge Turpin. With Barker safely gone, Turpin sexually assaulted his wife. She tried taking her life as a result, and Turpin took in their child, Johanna, whom he also had designs on. Barker adopts the alias of Sweeney Todd and vows revenge against the judge… and eventually, all mankind. Understandable, in this case.

#19: Bucky Barnes

Marvel Cinematic Universe (2008-)

The best friend of Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes was almost a casualty of World War II, nearly dying when he fell off a train. As if that weren’t tragic enough, Barnes is instead captured, tortured, and turned into a super soldier by Hydra, a terrorist organization and research division of the Nazi Party. Brainwashed, Barnes becomes an assassin, forced to fight against his former friend and the rest of the Avengers. His conditioning is eventually overseen by T’Challa’s sister, and Barnes finally helps the Avengers’ fight against Thanos. Still, what a horrific backstory.

#18: Dom Cobb

“Inception” (2010)

Clever and complex, this cerebral hit stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a thief-for-hire, Dom Cobb, who, along with his crack team of experts, plucks secrets directly from other people’s heads. He’s been hired to perform the pretty tough job of planting an idea in a target’s subconscious and assembling the best and the brightest for the assignment. During a mission to recover their target from limbo, Cobb reveals that his wife took her life, expecting him to follow. It was a romantic gesture gone horribly wrong. His wife lost sight of reality after she and Cobb spent too much time in the dream world. This is the reason why he’s a criminal on the run, estranged from his kids, and jacking people’s dreams for a living.

#17: Tallahassee

“Zombieland” (2009)

In this sleeper hit and dark, zombie-centered comedy, Woody Harrelson plays a tough guy from Florida who likes his solitude as much as he likes his Twinkies. He also misses his puppy. A college student on a journey to locate his parents soon joins Tallahassee, and the pair is later joined by a couple of sisters who’ve also managed to survive. During a fireside chat, Tallahassee reveals that the “puppy” he’d been referring to earlier in the movie was actually his dearly beloved son. Losing a child is devastating enough on its own, but losing a one to a horde of marauding zombies has to be the ultimate gut punch. Tallahassee’s face during this all-revealing scene makes his pain all too apparent.

#16: Django

“Django Unchained” (2012)

In this grisly Tarantino film, Django and his wife Broomhilda were slaves, separated from each other. Fortunately, bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz kills his slavers and offers to free Django in exchange for his help finding the Brittle Brothers. Django agrees, and together they kill outlaws and slavers as Django tries to find his wife. Schultz and Django eventually discover she is a slave of the ruthless Calvin Candie. Their plan almost goes awry when Candie is tipped off by his slave, and he threatens to kill Broomhilda. Django is sold to a mining company but eventually escapes to the plantation to rescue his wife… though not before blowing up the whole thing, literally.

#15: Harley Quinn

“Birds of Prey” (2020)

The Joker’s long-suffering criminal girlfriend has a tragic past to fit. Abandoned by her father at a convent, Harley got into a life of crime early. Eventually becoming a psychiatrist, she was the Joker’s psychiatrist at the Arkham Asylum. The Joker seduces her and eventually persuades her to release him, manipulating Harley to fall into the same vat of chemicals that drove him mad. Now a criminal couple, the Joker abuses Harley physically and emotionally. In the end, despite everything she did for him, the Joker finally breaks up with Harley. He kicks her out into the streets, where she finally rebuilds her life. Tragic, indeed.

#14: John Kramer

“Saw” franchise (2004-)

The antagonists of horror films rarely have happy childhoods, for obvious reasons. Jigsaw was once John Kramer, an engineer and architect who founded the Urban Renewal Group for low-income people. He even had a wife, Jill, a doctor, and they were expecting their first child. Unfortunately, Jill was attacked by a patient and soon lost her baby. Falling into a deep depression, he and Jill divorced. Later on, Kramer discovers he was dying from cancer. When his attempt to take his life went awry, Kramer decides to come up with murderous traps, devices, and contraptions that test the victims’ will to survive, becoming the infamous Jigsaw. Now this is a tragic past.

#13: Khan

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982)

It’s not every day that you find yourself exiled to a distant planet. Nor is it every day that your wife gets killed as a result of an explosion that you blame on the same dude who exiled you. In this ‘80s sci-fi adventure, Ricardo Montalban reprises his role as Captain Kirk’s long-standing arch-nemesis, but this time he’s out for blood. Following his wife’s death, Khan wants revenge on Captain Kirk for the series of events that led to her demise. He devises a grand plan that involves mind control, a bunch of explosions, and a device that can create planets. Khan was definitely a man who his stuck to his goals.

#12: Inigo Montoya

“The Princess Bride” (1987)

This Spanish fencing master has a backstory we won’t easily forget. Inigo’s father Domingo was a swordsmith, commissioned by Count Rugen to make a unique sword capable of accommodating his six-fingered grip. When Rugen offered to pay Domingo only one-tenth of the price of the sword, Domingo refused. Instead, he gave the sword to his son, Inigo. Rugen kills Domingo in front of young Inigo. Enraged, Inigo tried to avenge his father then, but Rugen spares his life in recognition of the boy’s talent, giving him two cheek scars for good measure. Inigo devotes himself to becoming a great swordsman and avenging his father. When he finds him, Inigo finally has the chance to say these now iconic words. Amazing.

#11: Lee Chandler

“Manchester by the Sea” (2016)

Another dark backstory comes from this film, directed by Kenneth Lonergan. Chandler was once a family man in Manchester, with a wife and three children. After forgetting to put a screen on the fireplace, the house burned down with the children inside. Plagued with guilt, Chandler attempted to take his life before police officers intervened. He and his wife later divorced. Chandler becomes a janitor, overcome with depression, and finds out his brother has died of a heart attack. Named the legal guardian of his nephew, Chandler struggles to remain in Manchester. But unfortunately, he just can’t beat it.

#10: Erik “Killmonger” Stevens:

“Black Panther” (2018)

Villain backstories are always the most tragic. Killmonger was born N’Jadaka, the son of Prince N’Jobu, who was killed by T’Chaka for wanting to give Wakandan technology to the oppressed people of other nations. N’Jadaka eventually joined the United States Navy SEALs and took on the name Erik Stevens, earning the dark nickname Killmonger. Wanting revenge, Killmonger returns to Wakanda and challenges his cousin T’Challa to a duel for the throne. Seemingly successful, Killmonger takes over and becomes the king of Wakanda. But what goes around comes around. T’Challa eventually returns and defeats Killmonger, who chooses death over life in prison.

#9: Hannibal Lecter“Hannibal” franchise (1986-)

This forensic psychiatrist/cannibalistic serial killer has a story for the books. Inspired by a real-life criminal, Hannibal Lecter comes from Lithuanian nobility with Italian heritage. During World War II, his castle was invaded by the Nazis, and the family was forced to flee into the woods. Lecter’s parents and retainers were killed by a Nazi bomb, while he and his sister Mischa were captured by a group of former Lithuanian Hilfswillige. This group murders Mischa and cannibalizes her. Lecter escapes, but is understandably severely traumatized, even becoming mute for a time. Soviet tankers eventually took him back to his castle, now an orphanage. Lecter was eventually adopted by his uncle, going on to become the serial killer we all know.

#8: Gollum

“Lord of the Rings” franchise (2001-)

The power of the One Ring is mighty indeed. Gollum was originally called Sméagol, a Stoor Hobbit. His cousin Déagol finds the One Ring while the two were going fishing, and Sméagol demands it of him as a birthday present. When Déagol refuses, Sméagol kills him and claims the Ring. Exiled by his family, he finds a cave in the Misty Mountains, living there for hundreds of years. The Ring corrupts him into a pitiful, emaciated figure, known now as Gollum, both loving and hating the Ring. The Ring eventually abandons Gollum for Hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Gollum’s obsessive pursuit of the Ring leads him to his doom in the fires of Mount Doom.

#7: Koba

“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (2014)

This sequel to 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” reveals a world where humans are on the verge of extinction. After a deadly virus wipes out the majority of mankind, highly intelligent apes have started developing their own civilization. Many of the apes gained their heightened intelligence through the same virus that wiped out the humans, including the film’s main antagonist, Koba. Cold, heartless, and with a brutal hatred of humans, this scarred bonobo’s anger is directly tied to the years of cruel experimentation he suffered at the hands of his captors. It would be easy to say that he has a chip on his shoulder, but those years of torture are more like a boulder.

#6: Rocket Raccoon

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” (2023)

Granted, Peter Quill’s story is quite dark as well, including his mother dying of cancer and being abducted by aliens. Rocket Raccoon’s backstory is arguably even worse. Rocket was abducted from Earth and taken on a spaceship, where the villainous High Evolutionary subjects him and others to experiments. Known only as Subject 89P13, Rocket names himself when he sees a ship. When the High Evolutionary decides to harvest Rocket’s brain and kill the rest, Rocket escapes and attacks him, though not before his friends Lylla, Teefs, and Floor are all killed.

#5: Darth Vader

“Star Wars” franchise (1977-)

By most accounts, the Sith Lord formerly known as Anakin Skywalker didn’t live a charmed life. Born and raised in bondage, he didn’t get the carefree childhood you’d expect from most precocious kids. Instead, he worked as a slave before earning his freedom helping out Queen Amidala and witnessed his mother’s death. As it turns out, the Queen becomes the love of his life, but she ends up dying while giving birth to their children. All of this is enough to send any average person over the edge. Throw in his disfigurement in a pool of lava and it’s all he can do to not blow up planets left and right.

#4: The Bride

“Kill Bill” franchise (2003-04)

In this Quentin Tarantino gore-fest, Uma Thurman plays “The Bride”, a badass assassin with an axe to grind. She’s tracking down all of her former killer colleagues to enact deadly vengeance. The fight scenes are entertaining, and her murderous rampage is as official as they can get. In the midst of the bloodbath, it’s eventually revealed that her assassin pals attacked her and left her for dead during her wedding rehearsal. To make matters worse, she was pregnant with the head assassin’s child and the unborn baby was apparently later plucked from her belly. Needless to say, there are a whole host of reasons not to piss off an assassin, but not ensuring that they’re completely dead when you try to murder them isn’t the wisest of choices.

#3: Bruce Wayne aka Batman

“Batman” franchise (1943-)

Does this character need any introduction? Much of Batman’s backstory and his vigilante career have changed throughout the years. Still, his origins remain the same: Young Bruce Wayne witnesses the sudden murder of his parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha, as a result of a violent mugging. Bruce then swears he will avenge his parents and declares war on all criminals. With only his butler Alfred in the know, at least in the beginning, Bruce trains and dons the persona of Batman to strike fear into the hearts of all criminals, including his nemesis, the Joker. Still iconic and unforgettable.

#2: Severus Snape

“Harry Potter” franchise (2001-11)

This series is rife with dark backstories, including Sirius Black’s particularly heart-wrenching one. This Potions master, however, bests them all. Born to an abusive Muggle father and a witch mother, Snape fell in love with childhood friend Lily Evans. Relentlessly picked on by James Potter and others, Snape was also drawn to the Dark Arts, which led Lily to break ties with him for good. When Lily’s child with James Potter is prophesied to defeat Voldemort, Snape asks Voldemort to spare her. After Lily dies anyway, a grieving Snape changes sides and dedicates his life to protecting Harry, despite his grudge against his father. His bravery, however, is never known until his death at the hands of Voldemort. RIP, king.

#1: Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto

“X-Men” franchise (2000-)

As an antagonist, Magneto is a man of action. He’s constantly devising a plan to get back at the humans who remain distrustful of mutants, good or bad. And considering that the humans seem to constantly also have plans to eradicate the mutants, you can’t really blame him. In fact, his hatred of humans isn’t just a matter of survival - it extends back to his childhood. As a Holocaust survivor, he saw his mother killed before his eyes by a cruel Nazi scientist. In “X-Men: First Class”, he’s able to avenge his mother’s death - but the damage has already been done. He may not be a bad guy through and through, even in spite of his painful childhood. But he does have some really cool superpowers.

Which backstory haunts you to this day? Let us know in the comments down below!