Summary
Some characters on certain TV shows just can’t catch a break;if the series is long-running, and they are always a regular, the feeling that they have suffered too much becomes widespread in the fandom. Some of thelongest-running TV show franchisesfeature characters where the series makes a running gag out of their bad luck. However, several characters from shorter shows also have the worst luck, possibly when considering the events of a larger franchise.
In more comedic series, the character with bad luck is probably played for laughs. On the other hand,major characters in dramatic shows with more dangerous settings experience real tragedies in their lives,some of them more so than others. A few of themost disturbing storylines fromGame of Thronesor themost disturbing episodes ofBreaking Badinvolve the same characters suffering the fallout, demonstrating how the story puts them through worse than most of their co-stars.
10 Predictable TV Show Deaths We All Saw Coming
Showrunners face the challenge of making key character deaths impactful when people can predict them far ahead of time, due to familiar narratives.
10Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor)
Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)
TheObi-Wan Kenobiseries is the first property to truly dive into the toll the events of the series have taken on Obi-Wan, highlighting how he has dealt with a lot throughoutStar Wars. In all the movies, Obi-Wan is generally stoic and friendly with little attention paid to what effect Anakin’s actions have on him. Obi-Wan deals with all of his apprentice’s crazy plans for years before Anakin turns to the Dark Side.Obi-Wan Kenobiemphasizes that this was one of the most traumatic events of Obi-Wan’s life,and he has been heartbroken ever since losing Anakin.
This series depicts Obi-Wan being pulled back into the action when he tried to retire from it and discovering that he didn’t kill Anakin, who is still alive as Darth Vader.TheClone Warsseries also shows a lot of bad things happening to Obi-Wan,including losing his love interest Satine. Obi-Wan is arguably the longest-suffering character inStar Wars— appearing in six movies and two TV shows — who is given little reward for his efforts before he is killed by Vader. Yet he rarely shows any concern for himself.
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Set during the reign of the Galactic Empire, the narrative follows former Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi as he undertakes a pivotal mission to reconcile with former allies turned adversaries while confronting the formidable forces of the Empire.
9Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt)
Downton Abbey (2010-2015)
Anna stands by Mary inDownton Abbeyno matter what, which gets her into trouble within the first few episodes.Anna helping Mary carry the corpse of her lover through the halls ofDownton Abbeyaffects Anna’s own lifewhen Mr. Bates' wife uses the event to keep him away from Anna. Anna and Bates spend around a season and a half trying to be together despite Vera’s blackmail, and then the rest of the time up until the end of season 3 trying to prove Bates' innocence of Vera’s murder.
Anna and Bates get a few episodes of pure bliss;all they want, and all the audience wants is for them to be peaceful and happy. Anna is then sexually assaulted by a guest’s valet, and her arc for the next two seasons is the result of this. After she is proven innocent of her attacker’s murder, Anna and Bates want to start a family. This doesn’t come easily either, but Mary helps Anna get the necessary medical treatment. Anna deserves the best, but the show puts her through so much before she settles down with her family.
Downton Abbey
Set in the early 20th century, Downton Abbey follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the fictional Yorkshire estate. The series explores themes of social change, romance, and intrigue against the backdrop of historical events, including the sinking of the Titanic, World War I, and the rise of the working class.
8Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki)
Supernatural (2005-2020)
In the first episode ofSupernatural, Dean reappears to drag Sam away from his regular and good college life; Sam’s girlfriend is murdered shortly thereafter.Both Sam and Dean are killed and tortured throughoutSupernatural,making it a close race for who has had it worse.Sam dies eight times inSupernatural, while Dean dies over 100 times. The number of times the main characters die and come back inSupernaturalis something of a joke in the cultural zeitgeist and says a lot about how much the characters go through resulting from the story they are in.
Theworst things that happen to Sam inSupernaturalinclude losing his loved ones and being imprisoned and tortured by various supernatural beings.The most noteworthy thing that happens to Sam is his soul being caged and tortured by Luciferfor over a year. Additionally, soulless Sam does things that he would later regret, while at another point, he essentially has to watch the same thing happen to his brother due to the Mark of Cain.
Supernatural
Supernatural is a television series that follows brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, who were raised by their father to hunt and combat supernatural entities after losing their mother to a demonic force. Traversing the American landscape in their ‘67 Chevy Impala, they face numerous paranormal threats.
7Charlie Brown (Various Actors)
All Peanuts Specials & TV Shows
Charlie Brown is the pariah of the Peanuts who is supposedly the epitome of uncool, always mocked by the others.The ongoingPeanutsfranchise is a series of all the ways Charlie Brown can have ridiculously bad luckor be tricked by his peers. He never kicks the football, ends up with a laughable Halloween costume, never wins a baseball game, is turned invisible, picks the wrong Christmas tree, and so on. YetPeanutsmostly functions with there still being a kind of comradery between Charlie Brown and the others.
He just has bad luck, tastes that the others disagree with, and is easily tricked by the likes of Lucy or Snoopy.
Suffice it to say,Charlie Brown is picked on by everyone for no particular reason.His being the resident"looser"is just a part of his character, although how he earned this reputation is muddled. He just has bad luck, tastes that the others disagree with, and is easily tricked by the likes of Lucy or Snoopy. Lucy also picks on Linus a lot, who is the friendliest towards Charlie Brown.
Peanuts
Created by Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts is a multimedia franchise that began as a comic strip in the 1950s and eventually expanded to include films and a television series. Peanuts follows the daily adventures of the Peanuts gang, with Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy at the center of them. Aside from the film released in 2015, the franchise also has several Holiday specials that air regularly on U.S. Television during their appropriate seasons.
6Regina Mills (Lana Parilla)
Once Upon A Time (2011-2018)
Regina became the martyr of the fandom, despite her actions inOnce Upon a Timeseason 1 not aging well. Nothing ever turns out right for Regina; she has multiple loves who die, she is harshly judged by the other characters despite providing them with vital aid, and the story contrives ways to make her miserable. After being the villain for most of season 1,Regina’s backstory episode reveals that her mother killed her fiancé Daniel.This is also the point where the series starts showing the loving side of her relationship with Henry.
Over the next couple of seasons, Regina gradually wins the other characters’ trust. Just when it seems like everything is working out for her — she has a nice new boyfriend with a kid she gets along with — Emma accidentally brings her boyfriend’s dead wife back from the past. Then Robin is killed a couple of seasons later after the villains try to blackmail her by threatening him.Regina also has to contend with her formerly villainous sister,fight her evil alter ego, almost loses her son, and is cursed again.
Once Upon A Time
Once Upon a Time is an adventure fantasy-drama series created for ABC that features fairy tale characters and their Disney incarnations in a modern setting. When Emma Swan and her son Henry accidentally drive into the town of Storybrooke, they soon discover the inhabitants are those from fairy tales, and they have no knowledge of the modern world inhabited by Emma and Henry. Robbed of their pasts and given new identities by the Evil Queen known as Regina, the hope of the town’s residents lie solely in the hands of Emma, who has stronger connections to the town than she knows.
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5Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) & Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
Chief Miles O’Brien dealing with the worst of the adventures became such a staple ofStar Trekthat“O’Brien Must Suffer”episodes ofDeep Space Nineare their own subgenre.The writers intentionally put O’Brien through the wringer once or twice a season,based on the logic that he was a regular guy, and the audience would sympathize with him more than the“larger than life”characters. O’Brien is put in impossible moral dilemmas, afflicted by various illnesses, and repeatedly captured and tortured.
O’Brien is also wrongfully accused of multiple crimesand, in one case, effectively experiences 20 years in prison as a result. His family is also affected by the“O’Brien Must Suffer”mentality when his daughter Molly falls through a time portal and returns as a young adult, leaving her parents to navigate the moral implications of what should be done for her. A character who is intentionally and regularly used to show the harsh realities of the setting will, of course, rarely have a good day.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation follows Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701D as they embark on interstellar explorations, seeking out new worlds and civilizations.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.
4Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner)
Game Of Thrones (2011-2019)
Sansa is one of the characters who is terrorized the most inGame of Thrones, spending the most time helpless and in captivity. Arya at least gets out of King’s Landing and has some control over her life after Ned Stark’s death; Sansa spends a long time effectively a captive tormented by Joffrey.Sansa finds some allies in King’s Landing, but she is constantly terrified and grievingas news of more of her family’s deaths comes in. It seems like Sansa escapes after the Purple Wedding, but she is only headed for a similarly bad situation.
Littlefinger is clearly manipulative, but the audience might have believed he wouldn’t have hurt Sansa. Yet he delivers her into Ramsay’s hands, whose cruelty towards Sansa completely changes her. After this,Sansa trusts only herself with her fate.She ends up in more dangerous situations where she might meet her end but faces them with more awareness of the fact that things will never be easy for her.
Game Of Thrones
Based on George R. R. Martin’s ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, Game of Thrones is a fantasy drama set in the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos. It follows noble families like the Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryen vying for control of the Iron Throne while a rising threat from the undead looms in the North. The series received significant critical success and amassed a loyal fan base due to its high production values, sprawling sets, iconic characters, and shocking twists.
3All The Grey Sloan Memorial Doctors (Various Actors)
Grey’s Anatomy (2005-Present)
The sheer number of catastrophes that take place at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital is well outside any reality. Within a few years, the doctors who work there are victims of a bomb threat, a shooting, a plane crash, and several natural disasters.A shocking number ofGrey’s Anatomycharacters die youngwhen they are killed in these events. This is not even considering the things that happen to each of them individually, which piles onto the bad luck that runs throughout this entire show.
The doctors are left (or leave someone) at the altar, have multiple accidental pregnancies, are afflicted by extremely rare medical conditions, or have an old love interest show up to ruin a romance. There is no way any individual or workplace group would experience this many misfortunes and tragedies within the time frame that the show depicts. However,plenty of tear-jerking and overly dramatic episodes is one of the most well-known aspects ofGrey’s Anatomy,and the characters' bad luck is unlikely to ever go away.
Grey’s Anatomy
Grey’s Anatomy is a medical drama series revolving around surgical interns, residents, and attendings at the fictional Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. The show features the professional and personal lives of these medical professionals, led initially by Dr. Meredith Grey, played by Ellen Pompeo. Created by Shonda Rhimes, the series highlights the complexities of medical cases while delving into the interpersonal relationships among the hospital staff.
2Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham)
The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017)
Bonnie takes the brunt of the fallout of protecting Elena in the early seasons ofThe Vampire Diaries. She blames the Salvatore brothers for her grandmother’s death, while she constantly taxes herself to perform the magic needed to save the day. She gets another bad break when Jeremy kisses his ghost ex-girlfriend while dating Bonnie in season 3.Bonnie then trades her own life to bring back Jeremyat the end of season 4.
Bonnie spends the next several seasons dealing with the consequences of her death before she officially comes back to life in season 6. Only a season later, she is afflicted by another supernatural illness, right before her boyfriend and best friend are kidnapped by a Siren. Bonnie gets Enzo back, at which point it seems like things might be settling down for her. However,Enzo is killed a few episodes later, completing Bonnie’s series-long arc of getting the worst dealsof the entireVampire Diariescast.
The Vampire Diaries
Based on the novels by L.J. Smith, The Vampire Diaries is a story about the developing love triangle between Elena Gilbert and two vampiric brothers, Stefan and Damon Salvatore. Set in the town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, the show follows the trio from high school through college as they battle for one another’s affection.
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Dracula may be the most famous vampire in popular culture but there are other great vampire characters. Here are the best who aren’t Dracula.
1Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul)
Several of theworst things Walt did inBreaking Badhe did to his supposed partner-in-crime. At the beginning of the series, Jesse is a pretty average underachiever. He is hardly a perfect person, but he is just trying to get by and has a kind of moral code.Jesse’s worst luck in life was falling in with Walt,who turned out to be a maniacal genius on his way to becoming the villainous protagonist of the series. As a result, Jesse loses two girlfriends, is imprisoned by Jack Welker’s gang, and is constantly overwhelmed by guilt.
Jesse has one bad thing after another happen to him throughoutBreaking Bad.
Jesse has one bad thing after another happen to him throughoutBreaking Bad. Jane dies, he is beaten up by Hank, he is forced to kill Gale, and so on. He just doesn’t completely piece together that Walt is the cause of all this until it is too late.If Walt is the perfect villain ofBreaking Bad, Jesse is the character the audience is supposed to feel sorry for,which is why he ends up being another TV character who just can’t catch a break.
Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan, follows a chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin named Walter White (Bryan Cranston) as he attempts to provide for his family following a fatal diagnosis. With nothing left to fear, White ascends to power in the world of drugs and crime, transforming the simple family man into someone known only as Heisenberg.
