It also saves Calvin's dad some money.
"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."
— St. Paul, Romans 5:3-4, The Bible (NIV)
"Misery Builds Character" is an exploitable Stock Aesop and Stock Phrase implying that unpleasant, distasteful activities and events are supposedly good. The suffering that the subject goes through is believed to help their personal and spiritual development, though often in a vague, unspecified manner (not always clear what "character" is supposed to be or represent). Synonymous with "A little suffering is good for the soul", or as Kelly Clarkson puts it, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" — which in turn was based on a tenet of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy.
When done right, this trope proves that someone can grow and mature once they've had their share of humble pie or have suffered enough to move themselves in a more positive direction. If done wrong, the trope can imply that one can only become a better person through suffering, rather than building character on good deeds.
On its best days, this message is delivered by a parent (or Parental Substitute) to a Bratty Half-Pint as part of some instructions or admonitions. If the addressee is a Mouthy Kid or Little Miss Snarker, a sarcastic response is all but inevitable. However, it may be justified if the parent is just saying it to be patronizing. It might be used to characterise the parent as old-fashioned, as they claim that they used to face the same or worse kinds of tribulations without the modern world making it easier or not an issue, and they came out of it "developed", as well as deny that it affected them negatively.
Of course, this trope is not limited to children, and the phrase can be used between adults as well.
When this trope is applied to creativity, compare True Art Is Angsty: the idea that art based on misery — that causes the artist suffering, is inspired by someone else's ordeal, or induces pain in the audience — is automatically better than happier art. When applied to a religion or ideology, compare Martyrdom Culture: the idea that suffering is the most righteous thing of all, or Social Darwinism, the idea that suffering filters out the weak and only leaves the strong behind.
A form of Necessary Fail. Related to A Lesson in Defeat, Training from Hell, The Spartan Way, Because You Can Cope, and Had to Be Sharp. Can also be invoked by the Drill Sergeant Nasty, If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You, Teach Him Anger, Mistakes Are Not the End of the World, Diligent Hero, Slothful Villain, and When I Was Your Age....
See also Enemies Equals Greatness if having enemies or detractors makes a character stronger; Beauty Breeds Laziness, for when a person's work ethic is inversely proportionate to their looks; and Test of Pain, where a character is directly subjected to physical or psychological torment as a way to measure their strength of will. Contrast with Freudian Excuse, where misery had made a person worse.
Please, do not mistake for Stephen King's book, that... goes a little too far from this.
Before we go into the examples, please understand that, much like the biblical passage abovenote this trope is very divisive. Yes, this trope can be Truth in Television, insofar as having the willpower to push through something hellish and come out on the other side does make you a stronger person. But it also comes with the major caveat that obtaining said willpower is easier said than done, and you may come out the other side with nothing but some newfound trauma to show for it. And while some people may still subscribe to this idea even with that risk in mind (particularly the people that love to invoke When I Was Your Age...), it generally holds that no one should have to go through any trauma or extreme hardship in the first place if it can be avoided; past a certain point, the negative effects will outweigh the positives. Furthermore, trying to deliberately invoke this trope on another person, or group of people, can (and sometimes does) go horribly wrong (or sometimes, horribly right).
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Advertising
- Being cold builds character according to the old man in this
Nest Thermostat commercial.
Audio Plays
- In The Elysium Project, Ben, Guardian Entity of protagonist Emma Grayson, more or less uses this as his reasoning for why he framed her for selling out her friends and getting them all captured by the villains.
Comedy
- In one of his stand-up routines, Joe Rogan talks about how bad winter weather builds character.
Comic Strips
- In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin's dad would often invoke this phrase whenever Calvin (or his mom) complained about their current activity. Bill Watterson stated in the tenth-anniversary book that he took this trait directly from his own father.
- In an arc where Moe successfully pressures Calvin to play baseball at recess, Calvin's dad has the idea to help him practice, because "it builds character." He hits a grounder to Calvin, and it bounces up into his face, leaving him with a nosebleed and a desire to never play baseball again, as shown in the 1990/04/24 strip.
Calvin: All by charagder id drippig out by node! (All my character is dripping out my nose!)
- The actual Trope Namer phrase came from a Self-Parody of this. In the 1990/12/07 strip, Calvin finds his father's glasses and uses the phrase in an impression of his father funny enough that his mom was falling out of her chair with laughter.
Calvin's Dad: Ok, the voice was a little funny, but that's still one darn sarcastic kid we're raising.
- The 1990/06/23 strip points out that the concept of building character itself is a turnoff for Calvin. After being forced outside by his father, he and Hobbes wind up busy catching fireflies by the time he calls him back inside. After being lectured about how this experience has benefited him (despite not being a miserable one), he later grumbles that nothing ruins the fun in something like being told that it builds character.
- Humorously subverted in the 1987/08/19 strip. The man who firmly believes that Misery Builds Character can only be pushed so far.
- The 1995/11/28 strip also subverts it when Calvin asks why they can't turn up the thermostat.
Calvin's Dad: Consuming less fuel is better for the environment and it saves money.
Calvin: Oh.
Calvin's Dad: ...and being cold builds character.
Calvin: I knew it! - In the 1990/01/21 Sunday strip, Calvin is being dragged along by his parents for a walk in the snow-covered outdoors for what feels like hours to him. When Calvin complains about the frigid weather making his toes numb, his dad tells him, "Numb toes build character." Calvin isn't reassured:
Calvin: Yeah? Well, what about frostbite?! What about hypothermia?! What about death?! I suppose those build character too! I can't believe I'm out here!
- In the 1992/02/21 strip, Calvin concludes in a talk with his dad that anything and everything bad he does is everyone else's fault, seeing himself to be nothing more than an innocent pawn living in a toxic society. His father's response is that clearly he needs to build more character and to go shovel the walk to start that.
Calvin: These discussions never go where they're supposed to.
- In the 1989/01/02 strip, Calvin begins to suspect an ulterior motive in the fact that his father forces him to shovel snow and "build character" instead of buying a snowblower.
Calvin: Funny how every time I build character, he saves a couple hundred dollars.
- In an arc where Moe successfully pressures Calvin to play baseball at recess, Calvin's dad has the idea to help him practice, because "it builds character." He hits a grounder to Calvin, and it bounces up into his face, leaving him with a nosebleed and a desire to never play baseball again, as shown in the 1990/04/24 strip.
- In Peanuts:
- Charlie Brown declares that he already has enough character, thank you very much.
- When Lucy assures Charlie Brown, "We learn from our mistakes", he bellows plaintively, "THAT MAKES ME THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!"
- At one point, after Snoopy's doghouse burned down rather tragically, Charlie Brown went to Lucy's booth for some counseling on why these tragedies occurred, to which she gave the rather philosophically pat answer that adversity helps prepare us for what lies ahead in life. For what are we being prepared, then? "More adversity. Five cents, please."
Fan Works
- In the Kirby fanfiction Avalanche Stories: Bronto Burt's Story, Bronto Burt moved on and wins the Avalanche competition pretty much to Kirby despite Burt losing to the pink puffball and "came back strong".
- Played with in The Boy Who Died A Lot, Snape's constant misery in having to prevent Harry's death and later heartbreak slowly has him develop a sense of empathy and sympathy for others. Subverted with Harry, as the Trauma Conga Line in Cedric's death, his alienation, and Umbridge's torture drive him to successfully commit suicide.
- Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Calvin's father gets exaggerated in this work: in one scene, he thinks that hanging on a cliff on the edge of the Grand Canyon builds character.
- Calvin gets him back in Calvin and Hobbes: The Abridged Series, quoting the line as his father is hauled off to jail. His mother laughed.
- Discussed in Cat-Ra. When explaining the reason for her incredibly harsh treatment of Catra to Glimmer, Shadow Weaver explains that her ward reminds her too much of herself, and since she has become to view the adoration that she received prior to her Face–Heel Turn as something that made her complacent and thus limited her own potential, she reasoned that making sure Catra worked herself to death trying to receive even the small scrap of affection would be the best way to nurture her abilities. Glimmer concedes that tough love can be beneficial, but calls her out for crossing the line into being an abusive parent that turned Catra into an emotional wreck. The witch shrugs off the notion she did anything wrong in raising the magicat, however.
- Child of the Storm makes it appear as if master manipulator Doctor Strange believes this, but the truth is a bit closer to 'adversity builds character, not misery, and so do positive experiences and social bonds'. In other words, he's more than willing to only give the heroes minimal advice to guide them through what's coming, and to let them endure some pretty serious things, but he also makes sure to balance it out with arranging close-knit groups of family and friends, therapy for those who need it, and plenty of positive experiences, too.
- In Danny Phantom: Stranded, Star's experiences on the Island and forcing her to depend on Danny made her realize the faults in herself, causing her to strive to be a better person.
- In The Desert Storm, Mandalore has a philosophy that can be summed up as this trope. During the Clone Wars, Ben eventually came to understand this:
As flowers are grown by rain, so is the soul grown by war. From suffering comes compassion; from cruelty, mercy; from violence, peace. We are not born when we come into this world. We are born when we learn who we are, and we can only learn by being tested. Adversity is the crucible, honor is the way, and enlightenment the reward.
- In the Girls und Panzer fanfic Off The Path, Shiho discusses this trope in her POV chapter, titled "Sacrifice", defending her approach to teaching tankery and raising Miho.
It may be overly simplistic to say something like "misery builds character", but the decisions most necessary for success — in goals you choose yourself, as well as those chosen for you — are seldom the easiest or the most pleasant. It often takes an adult to realize this, and the related idea that there are things greater than your own desires and feelings when a child cannot.
- A Knight's Tale as Inquisitor takes place after Fate/Zero for Arturia, where she experienced a series of horrendous events on all fronts. Now, Arturia has become a more openly friendly person to the people around her, making a conscious effort to avoid her previous behavior towards those on her side.
- Izuku discusses this with Blake in My Huntsman Academia. He knows that his childhood was absolutely miserable for being Broken and his dream of becoming a Huntsman who saves others would have been an impossibility if he had never met Toshinori. At the same time, he knows that his experiences, for better or worse, have shaped him and wonders if he would be as driven, empathetic, or understanding as he would have been without them.
Izuku: It was... hard. A normal person's perception on having Aura is that it is a part of them like, for example, an organ. You may not ever use that organ, just like how most normal people never use Aura, but it is a part of your being. So to not have that means that you're not like other people, that you're not normal. [lowers his head slightly] Growing up knowing that was tough, but the tougher part of it was that everyone else also knew it too. There was no hiding it; even if I wasn't actually Broken... well, I still looked it. Even now I'm pretty short for someone my age who should've had Aura, and I've always been a little on the weaker side. My teachers would always pity me, seeing me try so hard to keep up with my peers when it must've looked so pointless. My peers would ridicule me for being born "wrong" and "Broken". Lastly, there was... Kacchan, who bullied me throughout the years as he hated to be near such a "weakling".
Blake: Izuku...
Izuku: But... all of that made me the person I am today. If I didn't go through these hardships who knows how I would turn out. Sure, I loved Toshinori Yagi before and after finding out my "Brokenness", but would I have really cared for the hardships of other people? Or perhaps I would have just wanted to be cool like him, who knows? [clenches his fist] It's strange how people can perceive others differently over slight differences, maybe even not-so-noticeable ones, and then go on to lord it over them. Like they're above such "weird" people. While my dream is to protect people, it's also my dream to change and inspire people to new paths of thinking about their surroundings. Sort of similar to your dream of changing people's minds for the better, isn't it?
Blake: ... I think so Izuku. I think so. - Discussed and deconstructed in Naruto: Rend. Kakashi and Minato are having a quiet conversation about Naruto, 7 years after his death, with Minato saying that he can't help but feel he kept making the wrong decisions when it came to Naruto and wonders if burdening him with so much responsibility resulted in his death. Kakashi somberly replies that their attempts to spin Naruto's childhood and subsequent struggles, as this trope is just them trying to ease their own guilt.
Kakashi: "...saying that being alone to struggle made him the exceptional ninja, the exceptional man, he became would only be a way to ease our own conscience. The only thing we know is that he became the best despite us..."
- Oni Ga Shiku Series: Kurosawa's plot is the cause of one massive Trauma Conga Line for Izuku, as in a span of a little over a week his uncle is murdered and Izuku finds out he was Yakuza, his confidence is shattered by Akatani, his mom gets kidnapped and then murdered because the Heroes and police refused to help, and even when he finds out that his uncle and mom are alive after all, that uncle is forced to kill his own brother or else all the family dies. Throughout this entire mess Izuku has been through the wringer both physically and emotionally, and keeps beating himself up over letting Akatani toy around with him and be basically a tool to his plan. At the end of it all, Izuku thanks Kurosawa for putting him through it all, as it forced him to grow in ways that would have otherwise taken years. The events also mark a massive change in Izuku's personality, as he no longer believes in Black-and-White Morality and he starts emulating his uncle's own Obfuscating Insanity attitude to deal with the trauma of the whole ordeal.
- Paradoxus:
- When comparing themselves to run-of-the-mill Alfea students, the protagonist trio reaches this conclusion. On the one hand, the three are mourning their mothers, soldiering grueling training in Azeroth, and engaging in their first battles as teenagers. On the other hand, the students of Alfea, Red Fountain, and Cloud Tower get it easy with lackluster magical instruction and only worrying about their grades and the Miss Magix beauty contest. Wanna guess who are elite soldiers and who were slaughtered by the Burning Legion?
- Invoked by Sabrina in her side-story of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines. Disgusted by her hometown's lazy attitude, she decides that if the promise of achieving something great won't spur them to work harder, she will make them act on fear of losing what they have, and thus she begins to use her powers to terrorize them until someone stands up to her.
- Discussed in The Power of Seven as Voldemort muses that the pampered nature of most pure-bloods means that they don't actually have the same raw potential he feels true wizards should possess, with only Snape, Bellatrix and Harry (from Voldemort's perspective) having mastered the power that comes from pain.
- The Untold Tale has Shen Yuan explaining some misery is needed in order to create a protagonist able to question society's unfairness and bring justice instead of growing complacent. Deconstructed since Luo Binghe — said protagonist — is rightfully furious about being made to suffer merely because someone wanted to mold him into a great ruler.
Films — Animation
- Played for Laughs in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. During the scene where they're playing the piano together, Kamek tries to assure Bowser that Mario's not handsome enough to threaten the Koopa King's plans to marry Peach. Bowser quietly and calmly insists he doesn't feel threatened by Mario, before he vents his jealousy towards Mario by slamming the piano lid on Kamek's hands. This exchange then ensues:
Kamek: [weakly] May I lift the cover?
Bowser: [off-handedly, more focused on dealing with Mario] Not yet. Pain is the best teacher. - This is a focal point of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in regards to how Spideys are always destined to have people around them die for the sake of emotionally traumatizing them and thus strengthening their resolve. In-universe, such moments are considered "Canon Events" that must happen or else said universe will begin to unravel and thus enforced by the Spider-Society despite the fact that this should also go against the typical moral code of Spideys. When Miles learns that his father's own death is deemed a Canon Event he chooses to defy fate, thus bringing him into conflict with the Spider-Society.
Music
- Céline Dion offers a fairly benign version in "How Does a Moment Last Forever":
- Maybe some moments weren't so perfect,
maybe some memories not so sweet,
but we have to know some bad times,
or our lives are incomplete.
- David Byrne touches on this a few times:
- In "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now)".
Green grass grows around the backyard shithouse,
and that is where the sweetest flowers bloom.
We're all flowers growing in God's garden,
and that is why he spreads the shit around. - "Seven Years" (from Here Lies Love, Byrne's collaboration with Fatboy Slim), describes Benigno Aquino's imprisonment on trumped-up charges. He realizes:
This moment was a gift from above.
Maybe it's some kind of test.
- In "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now)".
- Kelly Clarkson's "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)" uses the Nietzche quote in its chorus:
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over cause you're gone - In "the 1" by Taylor Swift, the narrator says, "And if you never bleed, you're never gonna grow", trying to justify the pain of losing her love.
- Invoked in the Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue". The titular character's Disappeared Dad gave him that name before he left, leading to Sue getting lots of mockery from the boys and girls growing up, and getting into a lot of fights and swearing to kill the man who gave him that name. Later as a man, Sue runs into his father in a bar, calls him out, and punches him, leading to a brutal fight that he narrowly comes out on top of when he draws his gun before his old man could. Which leads to his father smiling and explaining why he named him Sue. The narrator understands his father's actions and comes to love him but does at least have the sense to acknowledge he'd never do the same to his own son.
Now son, this world is rough and if a man's going to make it, he's gotta be tough. And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along. So I gave you that name and I said goodbye, and I knew you'd have to get tough or die. It's that name that helped to make you strong. Now you just fought one hell of a fight. Know you hate me. Got the right to kill me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do. But thank me before I die, for the grabble in your gut and the spit in your eye, because I'm the son of a bitch who named you Sue.
Mythology & Religion
- Buddhism: Partially subverted in the story of Siddhartha Gautama, the 6th century B.C.E. Indian prince who became The Buddha. After abandoning his royal life of excess to seek enlightenment, Siddhartha meditated fiercely and fasted so rigorously that he nearly died of starvation before realizing that neither extreme luxury nor extreme deprivation was a viable path to follow. Thus he promoted the idea of the "Middle Way" between the two and laid out the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path as guidelines so that other seekers would not have to endure the same level of hardship he encountered on his journey.
- The Bible: The Apostle Paul discusses this in the Book of Romans 3-5, where he notes that suffering builds endurance, endurance builds character, and character builds hope. Considering the time period, he and many of the other Christians who were physically tortured and martyred for their faith knew what they were talking about from many experiences they could count by the lashes on their backs. In fact, the next five books (Hebrews, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) were all written by Paul while he was imprisoned in Rome prior to being beheaded under Emperor Nero (who used Christians as The Scapegoat to blame for the Great Fire which burned down much of Rome).
- Happy Science: One of the cult's tenets on humans' purpose in life is that they're born and reborn on Earth to fulfill a mission, claiming that most spirits chose lives full of hardships to learn from them, better serve their assigned purposes, and resist any attachments to the material world. While this adage has some credence apart from the supernatural stuff, the problem is that HS includes incurable physical/mental illnesses, Domestic Abuse, and poverty as difficulties to overcome while claiming the sufferers bring them upon themselves with their negative thinking.
Pro Wrestling
- The entire New Japan system is based on this, and while similarities exist some of their regional rivals(All Japan, FMW, etc) it's NJPW that's most famous because the characteristic they're trying to build is envy, which their strong style is supposed to be a physical representation of. From the beginning "Young Boys" are forced to live in claustrophobic quarters when they aren't waiting on established wrestlers hand and foot, having to do drills in thousands of repetitions if they mess anything up-if they're lucky and don't get stuck with one of the many sadist teachers who'll really make sure they suffer. Then they're allowed to wrestle as "Young Lions" but restricted to using only the most boring and or most obvious moves to ensure they'll lose as often as possible to anyone who knows what they're doing. Then when the IWGP deems them masters of these "fundamentals" they're sent on "excursion", often to a foreign country, usually to some place where the wrestling style is different from what they're used to, to ensure whatever they've been thinking of but now allowed to do won't work and they'll lose even more until they learn to adapt. If nothing else, it's believed those who graduate from the "young lion" designation will appreciate any success they manage to achieve in New Japan, though it tends to produce a lot of arrogant kung fu guys who go on to become the aforementioned sadist teachers.
Radio
- Averted completely with Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978). He justifies his misery and has no reason to gain any character from it.
Tabletop Games
- Many Role Playing Games with a Point Build System reward you with extra points for choosing flaws. Those points can then be used to buy advantages. The problem with this is that it's rather hard to judge exactly how detrimental a flaw will be — how problematic is your crippling fear of the open sea really when the campaign takes place in the desert? Thus, several RPGs have developed the solution of granting boons — extra XP, fate points, and the like — to characters at the time their flaws actually come up in gameplay rather than rewarding them in advance.
- Champions adventure Deathstroke. The title villain group decided to make their agents monitor the base's surveillance cameras instead of letting a computer do it because they felt that the boring duty would "build character".
- In Nomine: The Archangel Michael is a staunch believer in this trope. He believes that only through constant challenge and struggle can people grow. He considers himself to have the job to challenge his fellow Archangels, to force them to demonstrate the truth of their words in the crucible of battle. This, naturally, doesn't make him very popular.
- Invisible Sun has characters earn Joy or Despair based on the outcomes of various major events and how it affects them. 1 each of Joy and Despair merge to form a Crux which is used to purchase major character upgrades. Too much of either will not contribute.
Theater
- "Money Isn't Everything" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Allegro sarcastically lists the deficiencies of money, concluding that "it cannot build your character or teach you how to starve".
- In J.B., this is the message Nickles wants to impress upon Job.
Every human creature born
Is born into the bright delusion
Beauty and loving-kindness care for him.
Suffering teaches! Suffering's good for us!
Imagine men and women dying
Still believing that the cuddling arms
Enclosed them! They would find the worms
Peculiar nurses, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they?
Visual Novels
- Deconstructed in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair by Nagito Komaeda, who firmly believes that despair in the present will lead to more hope in the future. However, his life has been an utter rollercoaster of bad-into-good luck, so he takes this to full Blue-and-Orange Morality levels and will actively cause chaos and misery in the belief that something will happen to make hope stronger, even if he has no idea what it is, because that's how his life has always worked; some horrible tragedy happens to him, which leads to some implausible and unpredicted victory (i.e. gets kidnapped, but finds a winning lottery ticket in the bag the kidnappers stow him in). Naturally, his classmates are more focused on the whole 'deliberately being The Millstone and telling them to get over their personal tragedies for the sake of hope' thing, and this does not win him any friends.
- More generally, this seems to be a central tenet of the Ultimate Despair, as its members (such as Nagito) are taught to love despair and spread it any way they can to create a despair-filled future. The more a member loves despair, the stronger and more useful they are to Junko.
- In the True End of The Letter, the surviving characters make works of art spurred on the events of the game, including the death of their friend Ashton. Zachary makes a movie about his experiences, Rebecca writes a book about Charlotte's life, and Isabella becomes a painter famous for her dark themes.
- In Steins;Gate before starting the True End to save Kurisu Okabe has to suffer through accidentally killing her himself once because without that failure he would never have the will required to obsessively devote himself to developing his own time travel to save her out of horrible guilt.
- Tavern Talk: Having faced their very first quest at 10, Zephir believes that children should be exposed to the dangers of Phesoa at a young age and namedrops this trope, which is why they plan to give Melli her first quest.
- In They Are My Noble Masters the colonel tells Ren he needs to be aware that a hard life has made him strong, but Yume's spoiled life has made her weak and that this is going to be a fundamental disconnect between them. Yume is terrible at standing up against any form of adversity with her Cool Big Sis servant Natose desperately trying to keep her from ever being hurt.
- Zero Time Dilemma somewhat deconstructs this. Series Big Bad Delta instigated the events of the Zero Escape trilogy to make the characters strong and determined enough to create a better future by catching the mysterious Religious Fanatic. But since this involved dying several times in traumatic ways, among other things, the characters are not satisfied with Delta’s reasoning and call him a madman all the same.
Web Animation
- Deconstructed and parodied in the season premiere for Battle for BFDI.
Blocky: [upon seeing the trebuchet be used] Wha—?! Y-You had this the whole ti— I didn't actually have to climb the tree!
Golf Ball: Physical exertion builds character.
Blocky: Oh! Y'know what else builds character?! [grabs Golf Ball]
[next shot of A Better Name Than That shows Golf Ball ripped in half]
Webcomics
- Lil' Char and the Gang: Charizard insists that his son stop playing video games and go outside to get some fresh air. Char points out that it's raining. Charizard accepts no excuses.
Char: But... Won't I die?
Charizard: [tosses him a raincoat] Dying builds character. - MAG-ISA — This is the whole point of this comic. Eman, the main hero goes through a lot of misery that the average person would probably end up just killing himself/herself.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Durkon applying this philosophy:
Durkon: ...[B]ein' a dwarf is about doin' yer duty, even if it makes ye miserable. ESPECIALLY if it makes ye miserable!
- A subdued subversion: when the new High Priest of Thor offers Miko a seat while she writes a response to Durkon's request, Miko says that standing builds character. Then adds that she had been riding a horse for four days.
- Parodied when the Order and Miko, a overzealous Paladin, stop to rest. Miko prepares to make camp in a muddy, rocky ditch, only for the Order to ignore her in favour of a comfortable inn.
Miko: You should not give in to your so-called "needs"! Luxury is the herald of weakness!
- This is deconstructed as the 'misery' without any social interaction for entire months at a time turned Miko into a bitter, murderous killing machine that was barely kept on a leash by Blind Obedience. The moment she realizes her second-highest authority is an honorless manipulator (of the Chaotic Good variety), she goes rabid and outright murders him.
- Durkon applying this philosophy:
- In this User Friendly strip, Sid claims that obsessive addiction to Nethack is a good thing because it helps build character.
Web Originals
- Critical Role: A recurring theme in the second campaign and the backstories of the Mighty Nein: the negative figures in their pasts try to justify the miseries they inflicted with this defense, and take credit for their success.
- Beau's father, fed up with her rebellious indiscretions, sent her to the Cobalt Soul to have them "beaten out of her". Through the campaign, Beau rose to become an Expositor, but after seeing her father again after many months, she was conflicted over the idea that his cruel treatment helped lead to her success (which is much more attributable to the influence of her mentors and her found family with the Nein).
- Caleb, with his peers Astrid and Eodwulf, were selected out of magic school by Trent Ikithon and subjected to Training from Hell to become magical assassins, a process which broke Caleb and landed him in a sanitorium for years. Trent believes this is part of the price of maintaining the Dwendalian Empire. Well into Caleb's recovery and growth as a wizard in the company of the Nein, Trent invites them to dinner, and in the course of the discussion, takes credit for Caleb's new growth, hinting that he ordered him healed in the sanitarium and let him escape. As the dinner ends, Caduceus, the Nein's firbolg cleric and Warrior Therapist, speaks up and delivers an epic takedown of Trent's worldview.
Caduceus: I think perhaps you are one of the most powerful mages that I've ever had the pleasure to be in the presence of. And for this, I would offer a gift. I think it has been a long time since anyone has pointed out to you that you're a fool. Pain doesn't make people, it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential. It's the love that saves them. And you would know that, but you have none around you.
- Yasha's patron, the Storm Lord, takes on a slightly more positive version of the trope. As a god of battle, through dreams and trials, he encourages Yasha to face the pain of her past (the death of her wife, being controlled by a fiend to murder those responsible) and find the strength to break free of the chains holding her back.
- Minecraft SOS: Discussed. In his 12th episode, having adopted an ocelot from the wild to fulfill the requirements of the Pet Challenge, Scott finds a baby ocelot wandering the jungle and jokes about the baby "living alone without its father" would teach it life lessons and help it build character, and "it could be the start of its villain origin story".
- Mercury's father, Marcus, in RWBY raised him to be an assassin by brutalizing him regularly as 'training' and stole Mercury's Semblance, calling it a crutch and saying he would get it back when he got strong. This definitely did a number on Mercury despite his attempts to deny it, and Tyrian suggests he only joined Salem out of fear of leaving the cycle of abuse.
- SF Debris takes major issue with this viewpoint in his review of the Voyager episode "Real Life". That episode plays the trope by having a holographic doctor suffer one of the worst real-life nightmares: hopelessly watching his ill child die. Not surprisingly, the issue never resurfaced for the character in question, which is what earned the episode Chuck's ire. It probably didn't help that, as Chuck Sonnenberg relates in the video in question, he had twin sons born prematurely and had to watch them on the knife edge between life and death, struggling to survive.
"So, please. Do not diminish the seriousness; the severity of the wound this creates, by telling me that it builds fucking character."
- Woolie Versus: Woolie reaches a breaking point in the epilogue of Death Stranding after one pointless bit of wordplay too many and is unable to contain his rage for the game's writing. Reggie, playing devil's advocate, insists that the experience will allow Woolie to uncover many connections he never noticed before. Woolie replies with "No, it just makes everything taste like nothing".
- Worm: Sophia Hess, school bully and alleged superhero, justifies her behaviour with a mix of this and Social Darwinism.
- Whatifalthist: Rudyard believes that struggle and conflict strengthen people, and in several videos explores how society trying to protect people from any kind of harm holds them back because it doesn't prepare them for the real world.
