Let's talk Tragic Backstories!

[lightningbearer]

Welcome to the Tragic Backstories™ meme!

Step 1. Post your character(s)!
Step 2. Explain your character's horrific, tragic backstory in as much lush and lurid detail as you can manage!*
Step 3. Read everyone else's posts and be appropriately horrified!


*Please be sensible and note if there's likely to be particularly disturbing imagery, and likewise keep in mind when reading that these are tragic backstories for a reason

OPTIONAL: Use this handy-dandy code to white out spoilers and/or any particularly gnarly bits:

<span style=" color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #FFFFFF;">SPOILER TEXT GOES HERE</span>

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Radley | Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds

[crystalmaster]

Definite Canon:

Radley is one of two gangs trying to claim control of a small mining town. Each night, both put up a fighter and the two play the Duel Monsters card game. The loser goes to work for the boss of the winner. Unlike his rival Malcolm, Radley and his gang are never shown to torture the miners. In the Japanese, Radley's name is Ramon, which means Protector. Indeed, he and his gang are the only ones standing in the way of a totalitarian takeover, which we see happen when Malcolm gains control. The town becomes far, far worse then.

In both versions of the anime (and in the Over the Nexus game), Radley can be philosophical. He seems well-educated and definitely not a standard biker punk.

Radley tries to be friendly to his top Duelist, Kalin Kessler, but is rebuffed. Despite annoyance and hurt at Kalin, Radley stays calm, cool, and collected until they and Yusei Fudo are all dragged off to Malcolm's part of the mine after Yusei is humiliated and betrayed and Radley is humiliated and defeated in what amounts to a mock duel in which he could not even get off one move. Radley shakes in fear and finally snaps, screaming at Kalin that it's his fault they're all stranded for the rest of their lives. In Malcolm's mine, prisoners are repeatedly shocked by electrically-charged collars and whipped. Radley is dragged off by a sadistic guard and we have no way of knowing his fate in the anime. Yusei and Kalin, when they escape, don't appear to think anything of him at all. Presumably they intend to rescue him when they rescue all the prisoners, as they decide to do later, but we don't know if they succeeded in saving him. (The Over the Nexus game tells a different story with a different outcome for him, and is not really relevant here.)

Fleshed-out based on canon:

Radley is actually from a wealthy family and grew up rich. It wasn't all fun and games, however; the family was strict and Radley was emotionally abused any time he did something his grandmother thought would ruin the family name. He spent many panicked hours locked in his room and swiftly developed a phobia of being alone. When he grew up and left home for college, he discovered new ways of life and embraced long hair, jewelry, and motorcycles. His grandmother pushed him down the stairs and disowned him. The rest of his family, afraid of her as always, just let her have her way.

Due to Radley's original name Ramon meaning Protector, it is headcanoned here that he was deliberately trying to protect the town from Malcolm. He fought for many years against Malcolm and wore down to become very cynical and bitter, but tried to be outwardly cheerful and happy for the Bunch.

It seems very likely that Radley is tortured in the mines. Due to Malcolm's frustration and anger with him, it is equally likely that he either wants to humiliate Radley by keeping him alive and slowly torturing him over months or that he wants to kill Radley right away to silence his problem once and for all. Radley's backstory follows the second option, with the guards working overtime to kill him via the shock collar and also with whipping. He also sees other prisoners being hurt or even killed by the guards. Some just collapse and lay there as the guards beat them. Some of Radley's gang has been put to work as guards in Malcolm's part of the mine and they encounter Radley, but out of fear for their lives they don't help him and just leave him in spite of his anguished pleas.

Radley struggles to escape the guards and wanders the mine, having lost all hope due to his friends and Kalin all abandoning him and the town falling to Malcolm and Lawton. He blames himself for everything and sinks into complete despair, believing everyone would be happier without him. When he finds a former Duelist of his, Jordan, alive after a fall that should have killed him, Radley summons up the strength to push him in the mine cart he fell in. The guards catch up and Radley has to send Jordan down the track in one last desperate attempt to save him and then gives himself up to the guards again as a distraction. They torture him the rest of the way until his body gives out and he dies believing all of his efforts have been for nothing and that no one will care about or miss him.

His gang, the Bunch, finds him dead later and falls into complete despair as well. But seeing their agonized grief and mourning while in spirit form, Radley realizes he is still loved and gets the strength to fight to live. He recovers physically, but has no chance to really recover emotionally and mentally before he's taken to the Pokemon world.

With so much pain not dealt with, he often wakes up screaming with the memories of the torture he went through and what he saw happening to others. He also has almost an obsession with being able to do something worthwhile to help in times of trouble due to feeling like a complete failure with his town. Having been abandoned sooner or later by everyone he cares about, Radley can't take much more of that and becomes withdrawn if he feels like it's happening again. He longs for companionship and friendship and is extremely devoted to his Eevees, as they are to him. He believes they, at least, won't leave him.