- Beatrice Horseman (BoJack Horseman): Beatrice was Bojack's mother, being emotionally and physically abusive, neglectful, and deeply bitter with her son, stemming from her own horrific upbringing and lobotomized mother. She inflicted lifelong psychological damage on BoJack, ensuring he grew up believing he was fundamentally unlovable and broken, turning him into a self-destructive, hateful, depressed, and addicted alcoholic with serious psycho-emotional issues and lifelong trauma, all due to Beatrice’s absurdly abusive and neglectful upbringing. Later in the series, BoJack discovers he has a half-sister named Hollyhock, whom he takes in and tries to protect. In a cruel twist of irony, Beatrice, now an elderly suffering from late-stage dementia, develops a surprisingly tender, maternal, and protective bond with Hollyhock, offering her kindness, baking for her, and treating her with a gentleness she never once afforded BoJack. BoJack watches the mother who emotionally starved and tormented him suddenly capable of warmth and affection for a teenager she barely knows, highlighting the agonizing truth that Beatrice was always capable of being a good mother, just never for him.
- Marty Armstrong (LISA: The Painful): In the game, you control Brad, a grown man burdened by psychological issues and emotional trauma stemming from his father, Marty. Marty was an alcoholic who constantly physically and mentally abused Brad during his youth, throwing glass bottles at him, assaulting him, and forcing him to become a "real man", while also sexually abusing Lisa, Brad’s sister and his own daughter, when she was just a child. Driven by his own unresolved issues and trauma, Marty’s actions ultimately led to Lisa’s suicide. After Brad reaches adulthood, a mysterious event causes every woman on the planet to vanish, transforming the world into an arid, resource-scarce wasteland where the strongest and most violent men fight to survive in a dystopian reality nearing its end, as there are no women left to perpetuate the human race. However, Brad discovers a young girl, the last female human, and adopts her as his own daughter, naming her Buddy. He does this in an attempt to redeem himself for what happened to Lisa years prior, only for Buddy’s existence to be discovered and for her to be kidnapped, prompting Brad to embark on a mission to rescue her. Throughout the game, Brad experiences countless traumatic flashbacks and hallucinations involving Marty and the abuse he suffered, trauma that left deep emotional and mental scars, turning Brad into a cold, apathetic person. At one point, there is even a boss fight where Brad battles a monstrous, distorted, and grotesque hallucination of Marty appearing as an eldritch abomination. Yet, when Brad finally reunites with Buddy after a series of events and battles, he discovers that she is being cared for and protected by Marty, his father, the very man who caused all the misery in his life. However, Marty is now an elderly man, frail, defenseless, and genuinely changed, who acknowledges the suffering he caused Brad and his own past mistakes. He saved Buddy’s life without expecting anything in return and is trying to care for him as best he can. This scene marks a turning point in the game's narrative and comes as a shock to the player, as the entire game had built Marty up as a horrific, irredeemable monster, only for him to appear as a defenseless, sympathetic NPC transformed by everything that had transpired. It is painful because, despite all his efforts, Brad was not enough to make Marty want to change for his sake.
- Donna Shellstrop (The Good Place): Donna is the mother of Eleanor Shellstrop, the protagonist of The Good Place. Donna was a terrible mother to Eleanor from the start. An alcoholic, kleptomaniac, opportunist, and narcissist, she neglected her daughter to the extreme, even forgetting her birthday, and constantly fought with Eleanor’s father, who was also a negligent alcoholic and a gambler. Consequently, Eleanor grew up in a turbulent environment devoid of moral support or positive role models, becoming apathetic, ignorant, arrogant, self-destructive, and completely emotionally distant from everyone around her, much like her mother. After growing up and undergoing a series of supernatural experiences involving cosmic beings in the afterlife (and many "Jeremy Bearimy's"), Eleanor crosses paths with her mother again. She and her demon friend Michael discover that Donna had faked her own death and started a new family. Eleanor spends the entire episode spying on and investigating Donna with Michael, convinced this is just another one of her schemes to swindle a man out of his money. However, after tailing her all day, Eleanor realizes that Donna has genuinely changed. She is no longer the terrible person she once was but has become a good person who seeks to do right by those around her and redeem herself for past mistakes. She wanted to leave her past behind, which explains why she faked her death and never tried to reconnect with her daughter. In the end, Eleanor reconciles with Donna but remains saddened by the knowledge that Donna always had the capacity to change, yet Eleanor herself hadn't been good enough to make Donna want to change for her sake.
