TV Characters With Tragic Backstories

A decent backstory can turn a good character into a great one.

Whether it comes to light through flashback, or simply by way of the character explaining a little about their past, leaning what makes a character tick makes them more complex, usually a little more flawed, and more sympathetic. Kind of like a real person.

Of course, on television, these stories are often heart-breakingly tragic… Check out five of the saddest here:

Hodor (Game of Thrones)

Poor old Hodor. Last season, Game of Thrones’ most gentle giant was revealed - in a clever time-loop twist - to have got his name when Bran and Meera came under attack from an army of wights, which Hodor then had to “hold the door” against. Unfortunately, he did this (pretty confusingly) while Bran - on one of his time travel trips - was warged into him from the past.

Bran used young Hodor (Wylis) almost as a gateway, inadvertently frying his brain and leaving him capable of saying only one word - that which Bran was flooding his thoughts and consciousness with: “hold the door”. Hodor.

Crazy Eyes (Orange is the New Black)

The story of how Suzanne Warren wound up in prison is almost too sad to bear. Exuberant and immature, she didn’t have the wherewithal to realise that making friends with a child - the pre-teen Dylan, who she frequently saw with his mum at the supermarket - probably crossed the boundaries of propriety. Especially when she took him back to her house…

While things started fine - they happily played Playstation games together - Suzanne became agitated when her new friend made moves to leave. She became too eager, which scared Dylan, prompting him to call the police before making a run for the front door.

Determined that she wasn’t going to let this new friend leave her, Suzanne blocked his exit, getting more distressed by the minute. While she never intended to hurt Dylan, in his efforts to escape from her, he fell - presumably to his death - from her fire escape.

Things only looked up for Suzanne - or Crazy Eyes - when once in prison, she found the friendship and support of Taystee, Poussey, Watson and Black Cindy.

Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett (Orange is the New Black)

Admittedly, what landed Doggett in prison was pretty reprehensible, so it can be difficult to feel sorry for her. But, given her upbringing, she never really had a chance. Her mother, teaching her about the birds and the bees, told her to just let men “do their business”, and as a result, the teenage Tiffany frequently traded herself for money, or soda.

She was raped by an ex-boyfriend, and got into drugs, eventually going to prison for attempting (it’s not clear whether or not she succeeded) to shoot the nurse who ridiculed her for getting her fifth abortion.

While Doggett got off to a shaky start in prison, things started to look up for her once she began to cultivate a friendship with Big Boo.

Locke (Lost)

Most of the characters on Lost have dark and twisted pasts - Kate killed her abusive stepdad, as a child Sawyer watched his parents die in a murder/suicide and Sayid used to torture people for a living. We can’t help but think, however, that John Locke’s story is the saddest.

Passed around various foster homes, John was bullied as a child. Then (as an adult) he was conned by his biological father, who tricked Locke into giving him a kidney by pretending that he wanted them to have a relationship. John’s subsequent failure to get over this led to the breakdown of his relationship, and to add insult to injury, his dad later pushed him out of a window, and John broke his back.

Determined not to let his subsequent paralysis define him, Locke signed up to go on an Australian walkabout, only to discover upon arrival that it wasn’t exactly wheelchair friendly. Then, on his way back to the USA, his plane crashed… Ironically enough, for John, this was when things began to look up.

Michonne (The Walking Dead)

Nobody on The Walking Dead is having a great time, but Michonne has had it particularly hard. When the zombie apocalypse hit, she fled to a refugee camp along with her boyfriend Mike, small son Andre and a friend (Terry).

This wasn’t exactly ideal - they frequently argued about whether or not they should stay at the camp, where conditions were worsening; Mike and Terry wanted to leave, but Michonne thought that it was safer than the outside…

She couldn’t have been more wrong. Arriving back from a supply run one day, she found that the camp had been overrun with walkers, and that Mike and Terry had been too high to defend themselves, or Andre. Her baby son dead and her boyfriend and friend bitten (so as good as dead), Michonne left to wander the post-apocalyptic landscape alone, with only Mike and Terry’s walker bodies (with arms and jaws cut off) for company (/to ward off other walkers).

Things only looked up for her when, walking through the woods one day, she ran into a distressed, being pursued by walkers, Andrea…

If we’ve missed any tragic TV backstories, then tell us them in the comments!