Timmy. Most of his suffering was self-inflicted, so I’m not sure it counts. My oldest niece, watching Lassie when she was no more than five, once commented that he was an idiot.
This. The thing that made Lorne such a brilliant bit of writing was that, despite the green skin and wacky hell-dimension birthplace, Lorne was a viewpoint character for the audience - he was very much meant as a stand-in, a way for us to see how it would be for a normal guy to find his life intersecting that of Angel’s merry band. And the answer is:
It would be awful. Utterly, unrelentingly awful. Lorne is drafted into violence and horror, and it very nearly breaks him. (Remember the episode where he had his sleep removed and nearly had a nervous breakdown?) Lorne might not be a bad television depiction of high-functioning PTSD, actually. If I didn’t know better from reading of the comics, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d killed himself shortly after leaving LA.
Which was the catalyst for one of the more touching moments in the series, when Lorne (mild-mannered, friendly, nonviolent Lorne) assured what’s-his-face that he would kill him if he was responsible for Fred’s death. And Lorne was scary.
QUOTE=enalzi;13777494]Maybe not the most tragic, but Galen Tyrol from BSG seemed to just have a constant rain of crap on him.
Off the top of my head:
-His girlfriend is a Cylon sleeper agent.
-His best friend shoots and “kills” his girlfriend.
-A Cylon that looks and act just like his old girlfriend comes back, except she’s in love with someone else.
Fast forward a few years:
-He discovers he too is Cylon and his homeworld was destroyed 2000 years ago.
-His first love from when he was back at the Cylon world kills his wife.
-He finds out his wife cheated on him and his son is not biologically his.
-His Cylon girlfriend comes back ,shows him an amazing vision of how she wanted to live together, but it’s all a ploy to betray him.
-He kills his first love.
-He ends up going off to live by himself in prehistoric Scotland
[/QUOTE]
Meh. Almost every person in the BSG-verse has lost his entire family, everyone has narrowly survived the destruction of the human race, etc etc. On another show, maybe I’d feel sorry for Tyrol - but this is just how BSG rolls, man. No sense in getting bent out of shape about it.
I submit Star Trek: Deep Space 9’s Chief Miles O’Brien:
returns to the station to find everyone he knows turned against him.
dies and is replaced by himself from the near future.
tortured by the Cardassians for a crime he didn’t commit.
finds out his best buddy is genetically enhanced and has been letting him win at darts and tennis for years.
memories of 30 years of prison implanted into his mind
wife possessed by a Pagh Wraith
daughter lost in time for 10 years and comes back feral
Yeah, after you fall down the well a couple of times you get pretty used to the place.
He probably jumped in there anyway to keep from hearing that dumb dog’s incessant whining.
Al Bundy. Nuthin’ he ever tries is successfull. 
BTW, I got the impression that this actress had a lot of fun with that episode. Keiko was normally such a flat, uninteresting character - much more interesting to be a villain. And she was legitimately creepy!
What about Sam Winchester from Supernatural?
[ul]
[li]Mother killed when he was a baby[/li][li]He later finds out she would have lived if he had never been born[/li][li]Difficult childhood constantly fighting with mostly absent father[/li][li]Estrangement from father and brother[/li][li]College girlfriend gets killed in front on him[/li][li]Later girlfriend turns out to be a werewolf and he has to kill her[/li][li]Finds out he is psychic due to demon blood fed to him as a baby, and his brother might have to kill him[/li][li]Dies, then brother sells his soul to bring him back to life[/li][li]Gets new girlfriend - she’s a demon[/li][li]Brother goes to hell[/li][li]Brother comes back from hell[/li][li]Finds out he is Lucifer’s vessel and Angels hate him for this[/li][li]Demon girlfriend tricks him into starting Apocalypse[/li][li]Kills demon girlfriend[/li][li]Goes to Hell[/li][li]Is brought back from Hell sans soul[/li][li]Regains soul; is now basically a walking time bomb[/li][/ul]
I am sure I missed a few things… And all he ever wanted was a normal life as a tax lawyer!
In that case, his soul was gone long before the events in the series.
I think she wins for a character in a TV show set in the real world. Well, Miami anyway.
All those horrible things have happened to Dexter second- or first-hand, plus
[spoiler]
His mother being brutally murdered in front of him
His brother being taken away from him
His brother turning into a serial killer, doing the abovementioned to Debra, forcing Dexter to kill him
Knowing that he’s the reason his wife was chosen for death
Being suspected by his coworkers of being a killer for a murder he, unusually, did not commit
Having terrible hair
Having a GF who tried to kill Rita’s kids
Having to kill his best friend
Losing his stepkids - which is good and bad, but he misses them
Losing Lumen
Oh it just goes on and on…[/spoiler]
But at least he’s partly culpable in at least some of these events, and he does actually have quite a nice life. Whereas Debra’s basically a good person working hard to help other people.
Actually, Rita’s life was pretty shit too, wasn’t it?
Captain Jack definitely wins for a fantasy or scifi character, though the Doctor, ‘last one of his entire species’ would be a strong contender if it weren’t for the fact that… No, actually, maybe he does win.
My submission for Walter White on Breaking Bad:
[spoiler]- Gifted chemist who got the shaft from his partner, who went on to make millions, while Walter had to work 2 jobs: High School chemistry teacher, Car wash.
- Has a son with MS.
- Found out he had terminal lung cancer on his 50th birthday.
- decided to break into criminal activity by cooking crystal meth with his former student (Jesse) to make enough money for his family. His brother-in-law works for the DEA.
- After their first successful batch, they got into a shootout with 2 dealers, forcing Walter to murder them in gruesome ways.
- Almost died, stranded in the desert.
- Kidnapped by a deranged drug king pin, who tried to murder them.
- He decided to let Jesse’s drugged out girlfriend die choking on her own vomit.
- her death caused her father, an air traffic controller, to cause a 747 to go down, killing hundreds.
- he missed the birth of his daughter while making a multi-million dollar drug deal
- Coming clean to his wife, caused them to separate, and she screwed her boss out of spite.
- Brought some major heat down on his DEA B-I-L, and got him shot up, real good, almost killing him.
- A hit was put on him, and was almost executed, but not before he had to convince Jesse to kill an “innocent” competing chemist.
- I’m sure I’m missing more.[/spoiler]