r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Outrageous_Gene_7652 • 17h ago
Characters A genuinely good hero gets crushed by responsibility and slowly goes insane
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern): Civilian life in shambles, overworked superhero life, spiralling mental health for years and unable to cope with the fact that he was'nt able to save his city because he was on another mission, Hal loses his mind, literally trying to bring back the dead, killing the entire corp and later literally erasing space and time to rewrite the universe
Zero (To Be Hero X): Being the first hero of the world and being worshipped for being so since he was 10, Zero achieved Godhood as a 15 year old but ultimately the pressure got to him and he went mad at 17 and nearly caused the end of humanity.
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u/teracoulomb_2 17h ago
Ron Marz has bemoaned that he wishes editorial had given him more than literally 3 issues to drive Hal that insane, it really should’ve been a longer saga like Knightfall or The Death of Superman before it
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u/Outrageous_Gene_7652 17h ago
Yeah, I think it was originally going to be 6 issues long but DC wanted Raynor by 50
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u/Remote-Monk-8542 17h ago edited 17h ago
Hiromi Higuruma was a lawyer who dedicated himself towards taking nearly unwinnable cases to defend 'the weak,' ie people who nobody was willing to defend.
It tanked his public reputation because nobody is willing to believe his clients are innocent, so the public hates him and assumes foul play/corruption when he succeeds and gets an innocent verdict. The same clients also hated him and crashed out on him when they were found guilty, despite him doing everything he can to help and constantly fighting uphill battles. The court system was blatantly unjust, and gave a client he knew was innocent a guilty verdict based on bogus trials. The client in question immediately looked at him with resentment and betrayal.
This made him finally hit his breaking point. He slimed out the judge and prosecutor of that case then and there, and went on a killing spree right after, convinced that all people are 'ugly' no matter how badly he wanted to fight for the small chance that they might be good deep down.
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u/Alternative_Goat300 16h ago
Did he actually go on a killing spree? In the anime I swear he said he only killed the judge and the prosecutor? He did kill plenty of jujutsu sorcerers during the culling games I guess
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u/AverageHumanoid42 15h ago
You’re right, the only civilians he killed were the judge and prosecutor, the rest were sorcerers.
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u/Remote-Monk-8542 13h ago
Judge and prosecutor are the only kills he had before CG.
I was referring to CG when I said he went on a killing spree. In the CG you only needed to kill once every 19 days to avoid death. Higuruma had amassed a whole 100 points. Think it's fair to call it a killing spree personally. The Tokyo Colony was almost cleared out by the time Yuji and Megumi entered it.
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u/Ok-Rock-2566 11h ago edited 10h ago
If I remember correctly it was stated that the sorcerer's he killed all attacked him first. So you can argue that those kills were in self defence
It is still a killing spree by definition though and you can argue how much of this was in self defence
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u/moneyman259 9h ago
How did takaba survive then?
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u/Remote-Monk-8542 7h ago
Well Yuji fought Higuruma around day 12 or so iirc. After that fight the rule that you can transfer points was added. So basically after that point nobody needs to kill anyone and can just pass points around every 19 days. Probably what Takaba did. That rule was added before anyone would've died from not killing.
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u/pichael289 13h ago
You didn't say the series this is from so I read this like it happened in real life. And ehh, kinda can't blame him. That's a Japanese name and as bad as American courts they aren't nearly Japanese bad
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u/DoubleStrength 15h ago edited 11h ago
He slimed out
What even is language anymore...
Edit: Guys, I just hadn't heard the term before and thought it was weird-funny, I wasn't trying to be a language snob. Sorry!
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u/myfatass 14h ago
Just an expression like any other. They could have said “smoked” instead of slimed out and I bet you wouldn’t have batted an eye
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u/Remote-Monk-8542 12h ago
It's not a particularly complicated bit of slang...
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u/DoubleStrength 11h ago
Just never heard it before and thought it was funny, sorry that it seems to have offended everyone lol
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u/Jolly_Weight3699 17h ago
The Immortal in Invincible (TITLE CARD)
Even in the normal timeline, we see that he is losing it when his partner dies, but it's even more clear when he is left as the ruler of earth by Mark, and it ends up with him becoming a Dictator obsessed with control over a very long period of time.
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u/Moist-Singer9219 16h ago
The Immortal is proof that living forever doesn’t mean you can handle losing everything, and watching grief slowly turn him into the very thing he fights is tragic as hell.
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u/EstablishmentCool443 11h ago
Gotta be honest mark making the immortal ruler of earth despite knowing he go insane in the future is seriously brain dead.it make mark look very incompetent.I kinda hope they change it on the show.
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u/ImJustSomeGuyYaKnow 17h ago
shinobu Sensui from yu yu hakusho. He was the spirit detective before Yusuke but he could not handle the fact that humanity has some truly evil people among its numbers
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u/Ghostbange 17h ago
It's not "some truly" or a small minority of evil people. Millions joined the SS, the Japanese army, the Khmer Rouge, for example.
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u/snakecain 17h ago
What drove Sensui insane was seeing the Black Chapter, a tape containing every atrocity and evil act humanity has ever committed. But as Koenma explained, there’s also the White Chapter, which contains every good thing humanity has ever done. To get a true picture of humanity you’d have to watch both
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u/ImJustSomeGuyYaKnow 17h ago
Maybe I am confusing things since it has been a long while, but did he not go off the deep end because he saw what the black black club was doing to demons? Only after that did he steal chapter black.
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u/snakecain 16h ago
You’re right. Seeing how the club tortured demons broke his mind, and then watching the Black Chapter convinced him that humanity needed to be wiped out
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u/ImJustSomeGuyYaKnow 17h ago
This is an entirely different discussion about the morality of inaction, which I am not going to have on reddit.
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u/TheStubbornAlchemist 17h ago
I would hardly call it inaction to join an organization and actively hurt others through it
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u/Day_Star_6 17h ago
Toross Mordal from "Wakfu". He used to be a hero in his dimension but he tried to use power he didn't understand and accidentally destroyed the dimension, transforming everyone, himself included, in monsters who feed on others' lifeforce. He believes it's his responsability to help his people so he leads them in a quest to conquer the multiverse and feed on the lifeforce of beings from other worlds. Though it's unknown how "good" he used to be.
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u/Fellfromreddit 12h ago
Are you sure it's another dimension ? I thought it was simply another planet, far far away
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u/Day_Star_6 12h ago
It's another dimension iirc. They needed portals to travel to this world and there exist different dimensions in "Wakfu"(for example the shushu realm)
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u/Fellfromreddit 12h ago
According to the fandom french wiki, it's another world, but in a distant galaxy. Which in my opinion, make sense. The portals were used simply because they have no other mean of transportation for distances that big.
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u/Day_Star_6 11h ago
Then that could be true. That actually sounds worse than them coming from a different dimension though.
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u/almighty_smiley 12h ago
While it's specific to the novelization (and the Legends continuity as a whole), this is implied to be a big reason that Anakin Skywalker falls to the Dark Side in Revenge of the Sith.\
https://giphy.com/gifs/l4FGASU6s5Na7Fngs
As the Hero With No Fear, Anakin is the face of the Republic war effort, and while he largely lives up to his reputation it makes his failures hit all the harder. As the commanding officer of the 501st, he feels personally responsible for each soldier lost. Though he's only ever admitted it to two people, he still carries the weight of what he did to the Tusken Raiders following the death of his mother. He has - against the statutes of the Jedi Order - taken a wife in the form of Padme Amidala; a union that will end both of their careers were it ever discovered. The Republic that he's fought tirelessly for years is warping into something he doesn't like despite his Herculean efforts to save it. Last but not least, Anakin is widely believed to be the Chosen One of Jedi legend (a status that even his main Jedi opp Mace Windu doesn't deny), foretold to destroy the Sith once and for all; a destiny that may well be coming given that the Clone Wars were begun at the behest of a Sith Lord. And this is all before the Battle of Coruscant, mind you.
Following the battle, he's hit with two major blows; Padme is pregnant, and the dreams that accurately foretold his mother's suffering and death at the hands of the Tuskens have returned, now featuring her. As a result, Anakin not only has to deal with everything he already was, but now he isn't sleeping for fear of what his dreams will bring. While it's never made especially clear exactly how much time passes between the Battle of Coruscant and Anakin's kneeling before Darth Sidious, Anakin is not sleeping at all.
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u/Fearsthelittledeath 11h ago edited 9h ago
Its been established the majority of events in RotS happens over the course of more or less 5 days
Day 1: Battle of Courscant and Anakin learns Padme is pregnant and has his bad dream that night
Day 2: Anakin is appointed on the council, Yoda leaves to Kashyyyk and Anakin learns about Darth Plagueis
Day 3: Anakin and Obi-Wan say their final goodbyes as friends as Obi-Wan leaves for Utapau. Anakin learns that Palpatine is a Sith and Mace comes to arrest him where Anakin falls to the dark side. Order 66 happens
Day 4: Bail rescues Obi-Wan and Yoda. They assault the Jedi Temple and learn about Vader and split up. Palpatine and Yoda has their duel. Vader and Obi-Wan has theirs.
Day 5: Twins are born, Padme dies, and Vader is put in the suit
Unknown days for the funeral and montage at the end of seeing the Death Star construction.
So Anakin had his bad dream and fall to the dark side with slaughtering younglings in less then 2 days.
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u/almighty_smiley 11h ago
What a galactic war's worth of stress, no sleep, and no pussy does to a motherfucker.
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u/XelanEvax 10h ago edited 10h ago
This sent me into a tailspin, and multiple sources are telling me it’s true but there’s no way that timeline is correct
Edit: at least it FEELS like it can’t be true. Iv always had the impression it took place over a few months minimum to account for the pregnancy but reading padme just hid it with different clothes feels like im being gas lit haha
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u/New-Advertising3600 10h ago edited 10h ago
Right? MF you telling me she hid 9 months of pregnancy from the man she lives with? Even if they were preemies which they didn’t appear to be that’s what 6? 7? 8? Months? As a man whose wife is about to pop no fucking way that’s accurate. Maybe she hid the first trimester, but she was carrying twins…silly as fuck
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u/Fearsthelittledeath 8h ago
Anakin was away for about 6 months due to the Outer Rim Siege and Padme did not tell him. She wore dresses and gowns to hide the pregnancy, if you rewatch the movie.
Natalie Portman wore the same pregnancy prosthetic for the entire course of RotS. Filming with real babies is heavily regulated for their safety and you won't really get a real premature baby that would look like that in most cases to film. None of the principal actors even interacted with the real babies you saw in the movie as they only used rubber dolls in those scenes and the baby for the Polis Massa scene was composited in. For the twins hand off which was a different baby, only the close up where you see the baby's face was actually filmed with a real baby and those had the babies real mother be the body double for Queen Breha and Aunt Beru. Otherwise Ewan was cradling a rubber doll.
Fun fact, A New Hope takes place over the course of 4 days and Luke only knew the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi for less than 24 hours and got a few hours of Jedi training before Obi-Wan died. He was acquainted with Ben Kenobi, but not as a good friend, just someone who lived nearby and was friendly with.
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u/Fearsthelittledeath 8h ago edited 8h ago
Anakin was away for months since he last saw Padme due to the clone wars and the outer rim siege. They reference that in the film. Padme has been pregnant that whole time and did not tell Anakin about the pregnancy and hid it underneath robes and dresses from the public. The Clone Wars season 7 shows a visibly pregnant Padme.
Pablo Hidalgo, who is part of the Lucasfilm story group was also on set during the production and worked with George Lucas on the lore. He said Natalie Portman wore the same pregnancy prosthetic during the entire course of her scenes. If you rewatch the movie carefully, you can notice the bump the very first night they were reunited, but the nightgown and angle she was filmed at makes it hard to see.
The twins were more or less born premature, but due to filming regulations, you can't use premature babies for filming for good reason so them not looking premature isn't something you can really hold against them. The babies for the Polis Massa scene were composited in after as they filmed it with just a rubber doll with the actual actors. The babies at the hand off scene were played by a different baby and also filmed separately from the actual actors as Ewan only had a rubber doll to carry in those scenes. They later edited in a close up of the hand off which was a stand in for Ewan and the baby's actual mother was the only one besides the stand in who ever held a real baby on the set.
So yeah, Star Wars timeline has always been crazy. Anakin has a bad dream and 2 days later betrays everything he stood for, kills some younglings, and causes the death of his wife by the 4th day of seeing her again.
If you look at A New Hope, Luke barely knew Obi-Wan outside the fact he is Ben Kenobi and lived in the outskirt as they were more like acquaintances. So by the time Luke and R2-D2 meets Obi-Wan and learns the truth about what a Jedi is and to Obi-Wan dying on the Death Star is less than 24 hours. A New Hope takes place in only about 4 days.
Day 1: Tantive IV and Leia is captured by the Empire and the droids are sent to Tatooine and captured by the Jawas.
Day 2: Uncle Owen purchases R2-D2 and C-3PO and R2-D2 runs away that night with Luke saying they have to look in the morning.
Day 3: Meet Obi-Wan with R2-D2, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are BBQ, meet Han and Chewbacca and fly off that afternoon. Luke gets a few hours of Jedi training here.
Day 4: Arrive at the asteroid field formally known as Alderaan at 2:00 AM and are captured by the Death Star. Escape to Yavin 4 and Death Star is blown up.
Unknown time frame for the celebration ceremony, but pretty fast as they have to relocate their base asap.
It's funny how people complain about hyperspace travel times in the sequels as it has also gone as fast as what the plot needs.
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u/Level_Counter_1672 17h ago
Archer future emiya shirou took the responsibility of becoming a hero and it broke him - source is fate
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u/Balibaleau 16h ago
To be more specific, this is the Emiya Shirou from a route not included in Fate/stay night. Also, his Alter version is ironically even more broken than he already is.
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u/Agitated-Big-7090 13h ago
Emiya Alter deadass had to kill Taiga, that's tragic af man (curse you, Kiara the horny nun!)
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u/sielnt_assassin 10h ago
Calling his Alter broken kinda feels like an understatement honestly. He feels more like a weapon masquerading as a person
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u/BlankHeroineFluff 14h ago
The Plutonian/Dan Hartigan/Tony (Irredeemable) plays this straight while also being a subversion of it. He was once hailed as humanity's greatest hero until he fell from grace after cracking from the responsibility plus several other reasons and became a murderous monster responsible for wiping out tens of thousands of people for petty reasons. You later learn that this guy didn't do all those heroic deeds for altruistic reasons but out of a selfish and pathological need to be loved, which would be sympathetic in most cases, but in his case, it only serves to reinforce just how monstrous and egotistic he is considering the lengths he went to terrorize people because he couldn't handle criticism, big or small.
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u/Malrottian 12h ago
The Plutonian is a good argument for why "fake it until you make it" is an idiotic philosophy. If he'd actually been able to accept his flawed nature instead of constantly trying to put up the perfect facade until he cracked he would have been extremely beloved by the populace. His own self deception is what ultimately lays the seeds for his downfall.
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u/chaotic4059 11h ago
It’s why the moral of the story is thank fuck the Kent’s were good parents. Clark was taught early on that he didn’t owe earth anything and that no-one can be flawless so just do what you can and hope that it’s enough. Like Ma Kent normally says “help if you want to but you don’t owe the planet anything” Clark does it because he wants to.
Tony was taught that you have powers ergo you HAVE to use them to help 24/7. You can never not be helping and if you don’t wanna it means you’re a bad person no matter how tired you are. And anyone who doesn’t see the good you do needs to be corrected
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u/Thamnophis660 12h ago
So essentially he's TV show Homelander
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u/BlankHeroineFluff 12h ago
Basically, yeah. TV Homelander got most of his characterization from The Plutonian, not the other way around. Though in terms of sheer scale in atrocities, Plutonian still comes off as the worse one between them (there's nothing topping Plutonian pettily killing billions of people in Singapore by sinking their country just because their ambassador lied to him out of fear and desperation) despite having a more sympathetic backstory than Homelander since after Plutonian's massive crashout, not much can have the power to rein him in unlike TV Homelander.
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u/mystireon 17h ago edited 16h ago
Wally West (Flash 2023), this is an ongoing storyline so beware of spoilers
By tapping into the mental side of his speed force Wally has been able to gain a new future sight ability that he called his "flashes of insight", which alongside his super speed allowed him to prevent virtually all crimes, accidents and more from ever even happening. Something that was so successful he began doing it all around the city, then other cities like Metropolis since Superman is still out of the picture, all until he reached Star City, home of Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow where he immediately got chewed out by the Emerald Archer for turning himself into a one-man mass surveillance state, ensuring the safety of the world at the cost of the privacy of the individual. Something Wally took such offense to that he told Oliver plainly that he was going to do what he felt was best for the world regardless of how he felt about it, which led to Oliver traveling to one of the far corners of the world away from Flash's eyes in order to contact the Justice League to take him down.
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[deleted]
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u/USSChuckleTrucker 15h ago
No, it's that he's predicting crimes.
Regardless of how accurate the prediction is, there's no crime being committed for him to act on.
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u/Loki-R76 15h ago
Sounds like Minority Report
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u/USSChuckleTrucker 15h ago
Yeah I wonder if the guy above me ever watched the movie and thought about why such stuff is bad
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u/ZantaraLost 15h ago
So which villian is predicted to be the one who figures out how to mess with his foresight? Or set it up in the first place?
Thawne back again?
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u/USSChuckleTrucker 12h ago
Fuck if I know, but if I were to bet, yeah. It'd be on Thawne
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u/ZantaraLost 11h ago
Dang it. Not as if they didn't just (relatively) reset his timeline. Yeah.... gonna be Thawne
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u/EnerPrime 9h ago
Except Wally has expanded to arresting people before they even think of committing the crime. In the most recent issue he locked up three people who were going to accidentally meet a day later, and come up with the idea and plan to simultaneously bomb 3 bridges. So Flash arrests them right now before any of them even think it.
And more importantly his flashes of insight are proven unreliable as the bridges blow up a week early with all three of his perpetrators locked up.
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u/FoxBluereaver 16h ago
In the Mega Man X series it's shown that the constant fighting takes a toll on X. In fact, the original plan for Mega Man Zero was to have him as the final boss, until they changed it at the last second to have a copy who replaced him. And even then, when he appears to Zero in cyber elf form, he confesses that he was going down that path and may have ended up the same way given enough time.
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u/realclowntime 17h ago
Hank McCoy aka Beast from the X-Men comics
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u/ajver19 16h ago
I still think it's hilarious he's ended up just as bad if not worse then an evil version of himself from a different timeline literally named, "Dark Beast".
Dark Beast is also still running around doing shit by the way.
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u/realclowntime 16h ago
You know it’s bad when Sinister hits Dark Beast with “bro the mainline version is outdoing you, you ain’t shit anymore”.
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u/Dragoonian64 17h ago
Something tells me that he needs to be put down.
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u/realclowntime 17h ago
Or made out with by Wonder Man
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u/No-Context5327 17h ago
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u/hoodie92 14h ago
Paul was never insane. He was crippled by his ability to see the future, but he worked incredibly hard to find the right path and free himself from that burden. He succeeded. Wouldn't call it insanity.
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u/Narvallius 17h ago
We don't really know how Zero used to be, and how he became this way. But iirc a pretty significant twist is that he didn't just go mad overnight after accidentally killing a hero, as the official sources say. He was onto some BULLSHIT.
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u/SigmundFreud101 16h ago
Phainon - HSR
Corporate needs you to find the differences between this person...
Processing img cm3f7mewcfvh1...
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u/THE_BRANDED_SLAYER 12h ago
I’ll give Lorgar and his bastard sons (except the Anchorite, Argel Tal, and Barthusa Narek the GOATs) is that they genuinely had good intentions when it came to spreading the faith of the Emperor and caring for the civilians of the Imperium, and the way the Emperor responded to their faith was entirely the wrong approach.
However turning to Chaos, orchestrating the Horus Heresy, and bringing ruin to the galaxy was anything but justified.
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u/PortalJumper39 8h ago
The Word Bearers in general but Lorgar specifically are a perfect example of fanaticism induced Second Opinion Bias; they served the Emperor as though he were God made flesh, and in that service they did their best to spread his light and truth to the darkened corners of the galaxy. But after Monarchia they did that thing that a lot of disillusioned fanatics tend to; instead of simply moderating their beliefs and making exceptions to its precepts while sticking to the overall meaning and goal of their faith, they swung the pendulum full force in the other direction and took up the polar opposite ideology and basically started screaming about how the Emperor and the Imperium are all founded on lies and deceit because they were personally disillusioned by it.
There is a tragedy to what became of the Word Bearers that none of the other traitor legions really had because they WERE true believers in the Imperial cause even after finding Lorgar and changing the Legion’s culture. Every other legion that wound up going traitor bar the Sons of Horus basically paid lip service to the overall goal of their Crusade (Death Guard, World Eaters, Night Lords, Iron Warriors) or were just more concerned with their own pride or goals (Emperor’s Children, Thousand Sons, Alpha Legion), and even the Sons of Horus were more a personality cult built around Horus than true believers in the Imperial ideology (which is why they cratered into Chaos basically the second that Horus did).
The Word Bearers, however, fell as hard as they did because they had defined themself by the Emperor’s Will and Ideals, and being told by the Emperor that of all the Legions, only they had truly failed him broke their culture and sense of self. In light of that, is it really any wonder why they took the path they did through nothing more than Erebus (fucked be his name) convincing Lorgar to do so? They had nothing left after Monarchia, and the sibilant whispers of Chaos filled that void expertly. Doesn’t excuse everything they did after the fact, but by the Throne did they have no other path ahead than damnation in the wake of what was done to them.
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u/seahawk1977 17h ago
Arthas is Warcraft 3. He is tasked with finding out who is causing an undead plague. By the end he has been manipulated into becoming the Lich King.
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u/SnooWalruses3948 15h ago
Hmm.. do you think he was crushed by responsibility?
I'm playing WC3 for the first time right now, and he seems to revel in it, regardless of the path it's putting him on.
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u/seahawk1977 14h ago
Just because he may revel in it at the time, doesn't mean he isn't getting crushed.
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u/SnooWalruses3948 13h ago
Different definitions for the word, maybe?
I'd consider "crushed by responsibility" to be someone who is slowly burnt down by the actual weight of it itself.
But I feel like your definition might be more "someone who is destroyed by their responsibilities".
I'd say that the latter is true for Arthas but not so much the former. He doesn't hesitate once to perform his duties, that's kind of the problem.
Sure, he has moments of doubt, but I'd say that's different to someone incapable of handling the responsibilities.
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u/shadyved 16h ago
Genis Vell, The son of Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell possessed overwhelming cosmic awareness, allowing him to perceive everything happening across the universe simultaneously.
Obsessed with fixing everything he witnessed, the sheer weight of this knowledge slowly began to overwhelm his mind. Bit by bit, he lost himself, descending into madness until the hero who wanted to save the universe became one of its greatest threats... he crossed the line between hero and god, destroying and recreating the entire universe.
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u/Charming_Celery5490 17h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/KfSVcdCxMbh4ztBJ6G
Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom/Dark Danny(Future Timeline version of him)
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u/Masamundane 16h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/1JolFWpzHM5MY
Long story short:
Steven Universe is a coming of age story, where child Steven Universe saves the day through love and song.
Steven Universe Future continues the story, but then delves deeply into the trauma that Steven suffered quietly as a child that saves the day through love and song, ending with Steven cracking under the weight of responsibility, PTSD, and unchecked mental and physical injuries.
(Steven Universe, Cartoon, 2013)
(Steven Universe Future, Cartoon, 2019)
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u/GodTaoistofPatience 16h ago
I know it was just an excuse to share To Be Hero X but I can't prove it
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u/DelsinMcgrath835 10h ago
Most of the Shards in Brandon Sandersons Cosmere. An almighty god called Adonalsium was somehow broken into 16 fragments, each representing an inherent aspect of the god. Each fragment was adopted by a member of the group that defeated Adonalsium, and they became the Shards and gained power that essentially made each of them into a god.
This happened way before the books start, so not much is know about why or how Adonalsium was defeated, but you get the sense that these were good people doing what they believed was best.
However, after thousands of years of carrying the shards their own egos (sense of self) have essentially been consumed by the absolute intent of the powers they carry. As a result they are usually either important antagonists, or extremely limited in the direct support they can give, even if they would otherwise like to.
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u/Superb-Ad-9169 14h ago
Doomguy. He was a good dude, but responsibility for whole humanity fucked him pretty well
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u/Phrophetsam 12h ago
I always thought Hal's civilian life is just too undercooked that the Comics should have just bypassed it entirely. Hal is a hero entirely unlike any other on the League considering his actual occupation is being a GL.
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u/Outrageous_Gene_7652 12h ago edited 11h ago
Whenever we were shown Hal's civilian life, it was always shown to be a complete disaster due to his work as GL. He used to have a six figure job, a nice gf, a bff, a good relationship with his brother.
Then it slowly all fell apart due to his work to the point he only had his superhero life, the dedication towards which made him very respected in-universe, Superman and Batman both admit they used to think he was the best of them, but left him with nothing to ever fall back on as he slowly mentally degrades over time.
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u/BoredDao 11h ago
If there’s any hero I see never coming back to normal life it’s Hal, not because he doesn’t care about it but because he’s so dedicated to the job that I totally see an alternative future comic of Hal just doing a 5-6 decades shift and collapsing after a single day of rest
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u/Outrageous_Gene_7652 11h ago
That is why I really don't get when people make fun of him for being unemployed/doing odd jobs or being homeless so often, the dude is away for months and months saving the universe from falling apart how tf is he supposed to maintain a stable life?
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u/NatashOverWorld 10h ago
You'd think the gnomes would set him up that a nice house and modest banking account, they'd probably have less Lanterns fall that way.
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u/Outrageous_Gene_7652 10h ago
The gnomes literally caused him to crash out and go completely insane.
Instead of comforting him or leaving him alone when he was having a schizophrenic breakdown triggerred by all the accumulated trauma and grief of his entire life combined with the loss of his city, they literally said by grieving, he was breaking his GL oath and will be punished. Reminder, that he was'nt able to save his city because of these gnomes in the first place.
I would lose it too.
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u/NatashOverWorld 10h ago
Oh the gnomes are flat out evil despite their lawful claims.
But you'd think they would put a smart Lantern to study stressors to willpower and mental health, and act on I'm. Like a million years ago.
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u/Begone-My-Thong 9h ago
Well the one that started the Blue Lantern Corp is pretty chill iirc
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u/NatashOverWorld 9h ago
Ganthets just there to fix all the fuckups the rest do. He's their token empathic person.
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u/Moist-Singer9219 16h ago
Hal’s downfall is heartbreaking because he started out wanting to save everyone, but the guilt of failing to save one city pushed him into becoming the very threat he once fought against.
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u/Computer-dude123 17h ago
Hellcat from jessica jones. Trish always tried to good and when she got her powers she started off by fighting grapeists (I hate the internet) and murderers. However, being hunted by the police and Hoggarth, plus seeing her own mother killed, drove her insane and her definition of justice became really dark
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u/Loki-L 17h ago
Yayoi Yukino went from being the hero who saved Earth to being the empress of the Machine Empire.
The passage of time between the events of Queen Millennia and Galaxy Espress 999 and the whole turning into a machine thing helped.
The Plutonian from Irredeemable may never have been quite as good as he pretended to be, but he acted the part until it all became too much.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Unit36 15h ago
Basically Talion. Become a nazgul after decades of doing mordor ork politics
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u/K_Bare 16h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/l4FGASU6s5Na7Fngs
Anakin was regarded as one of the greatest Jedi knights in the Clone Wars. After years of grooming by an evil space raisin he betrays his order and kills hundreds and many younglings.
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u/sinZeroplus 15h ago
And then gets retconed so “the devil made me do it” when the company wants to bring the hero back. See: Shadowland
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u/Crash_Smasher 5h ago
It's true that Hal's life was pretty messed up. But he going crazy wasn't really something that was build upon. It started and developed in the span of three issues.
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u/Silent_Biscotti_9832 17h ago
Me when I get hit by “responsibility”