Littlest Cancer Patient: Difference between revisions

'''HEARTSTRING #79:''' *does not tug*

'''SCREENWRITERS:''' What?

 

A particularly risky form of [[The Woobie]], which is much more likely ([[Tropes Are Not Bad|though not inevitably]]) to fail than be successful with the audience. The Littlest Cancer Patient, as you may have guessed from the title, is a small child, rarely over the age of twelve, with some form of terminal disease. This character's sole [[Rule of Empathy|reason]] for existence is to [[Glurge|tug your heartstrings so hard]] they're [[Tastes Like Diabetes|torn from your chest]].

Compare [[Morality Pet]] and [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]. Often the target of [[Kids Are Cruel]]. If someone works to earn money (legally or not) to pay for the poor child's treatment, this is a [[Healthcare Motivation]].

 

{{examples}}

 

* Of course, every single ad from a foundation for [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|kids with cancer]]. ''Every. Single. Ad.'' Though, to be fair, it's hard to see how they could make an ad for such a foundation and ''not'' have a Littlest Cancer Patient.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* "The Kid Who Collected [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]", a classic Spidey story, features one of these.

** The story itself was re-written and adapted for an episode of ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]''.

* The entire plot of a [[Jack Chick]] tract called ''The Little Princess''. Heidi is dying of an unknown disease, but manages to go out for Halloween one last time, connected to an oxygen tank. After meeting the new neighbors, who give her a tract, she is converted to Christianity along with her family.

* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' has like twenty of these, including a kid who's being used as a growth bed for cancer preventing genetic plug-ins (guess how that works), a kid who has to pawn off her doll for appetite reducing medication, a kid with mutated necrotizing fasciitis, a kid being sexually abused by her older brother and several child prostitutes. There's even "victimbots" in the shape of sad children released into crowds to make disasters more tragic and TV friendly.

** By the way, most of these kids are used to illustrate just what a [[Crapsack World]] The City is, and don't really get much better. The child prostitute one is particularly jarring because the issue makes very clear that these kids are already broken, on a fundamental level, and nobody will be able to give them the help they need because it's already too late.

 

* Part of a plot device in JLA Watchtower. A fund-raiser for a San Francisco children's hospital had some rare Titans action figures and memorabilia up for sale, with her heroes themselves guarding the memorabilia and interacting with fans. One of the action figures goes missing {{spoiler|turns out it was the older brother of Littlest Cancer Patient, trying to get the ultimate Christmas gift for what was likely to be her last Christmas}}.

 

* ''[[Gojira (film)|Gojira]]'': After Godzilla devastates Tokyo, there's a closeup of a little boy with a Geiger counter waved around his face.

* Everywhere in ''[[Patch Adams]]''.

 

== Literature ==

* Dinah the little blind girl in ''[[The Langoliers]]'' isn't terminal per se, although she is on the flight to get an operation to fix her eyes. And then she gets [[Subverted Trope|stabbed in the heart]].

 

* ''[[Seinfeld]]'' plays this one for laughs. In "The Wink", Kramer accidentally sells George Steinbrenner's birthday card to a sports memorabilia shop, who then gives it to a terminally ill kid. Paul O'Neill then has to hit two home runs in order to get it back.

{{quote|'''Kramer:''' ''Two? Sure kid, yeah. But then you gotta promise you'll do something for me.''

* Parodied on ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'', where Maeby assumes the identity of a teenage girl with a terminal disease called "B.S." in order to make some quick cash. Nobody realizes that "Surely Fünke" (Surely, as in [[Meaningful Name|the opposite of Maybe...]]) isn't a real person.

* A Littlest Cancer Patient died in "Angels and Blimps", an episode of ''[[Ally McBeal]]'', but he was played by Haley Joel Osmont, so it wasn't really that sad.

** "Believers" [[Dueling Shows|sounds similar]] to a story arc in [[Peter David]]'s ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'' novel, ''The Siege''. One of the beings stranded on Deep Space Nine is a pre-teen alien boy with a terminal disease, but the parents won't let Dr. Bashir (easily) cure him because it's against their religious beliefs. {{spoiler|Bashir traumatizes the mother into giving consent, whereupon the father (who's a supreme religious leader) condemns them for heresy and banishes them from ever returning home.}}

** And in the second season episode "Confessions and Lamentations", where a whole race has a terminal disease and Delenn encourages a small child to believe everything will be all right. Dr. Franklin [[Hope Spot|finds the cure]] and dramatically bursts in on the quarantine zone... to find it full of cute little corpses. The epilogue includes a newscast mentioning that the plague wiped out ''the entire race'', and, indeed, that type of alien is [[Continuity Nod|never seen again in the series.]] There were [http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/040.html comments on set] about holding a mass burial for the race's prosthetics.

*** They even later blow up the Jump Gate to that race's star system, since nobody (except pirates and raiders) is using it anyway...

* One ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode had a bald little kid genetically engineered by the [[Starfish Aliens|Reetou]] to [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|communicate with Stargate Command without panicking them]]. They were pretty rushed and he ended up in a hospital bed suffering the effects of imminent organ failure in multiple systems, and ended up being taken off by the Tok'ra to become a host; he was a much more understated and reasonably done example than most on this page.

* Mildly subverted in ''[[House (TV series)|House]]:'' the title character shows little sympathy towards his Littlest Cancer Patient and is cynical about everyone else's reactions. Of course, that's the point of the character. It should also be noted that this episode provided some good mockery of Chase when {{spoiler|the Littlest Cancer Patient talked him into kissing her.}}

** And, of course, there's [[The Woobie|Wilson]]'s patients. "Bald-headed cancer kids" is probably the kindest thing House has said about them...

* Molly in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' has a life threatening anti-supers virus at the end of Season 1. She is cured by Mohinder.

* Subverted in the ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' episode "Corpsicle": The littlest cancer patient (well, littlest heart condition patient) is a complete [[Jerkass]] who takes out his bitterness about his condition on everyone else. When the Wish-A-Wish Foundation lady comes by, his wish is "for those insurance company jerks who rejected my transplant application to keel over and die."

* In the ''[[Torchwood]]'' episode "Dead Man Walking," Owen has a [[Pet the Dog]] moment with the Littlest Leukemia Patient, who explicitly states that he's gonna die anyway and doesn't want the second shot of chemo the mean old doctors are giving him. Owen then goes on to save the kid, denying him the chance to die with his eyebrows intact by wrestling with Death himself. Way to go, Owen.

* Cruelly twisted in the ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' episode "Sick", their [[Ripped from the Headlines]] take on the second round of child molestation allegations against [[Michael Jackson]]. After the detectives begin investigating the Jacko-surrogate (who has bribed a family of a victim, a now-dangerously disturbed boy, to shut up), one of these comes forward saying she was also molested at a charity gathering. It turns out that first, {{spoiler|she was not molested, but forced to say this by her grandmother/guardian so they could get a similar settlement so the girl could live.}} Second is even worse: {{spoiler|she doesn't have cancer; her grandmother is secretly ''poisoning her'' to profit off her ill state}}. What's really sad is that this is [[Truth in Television]], and {{spoiler|known as Munchausen by Proxy -- making someone in one's care intentionally sick to garner respect, sympathy, and money; while this is intended as the grandmother's defense, she is told that no one will be "that stupid" as to believe it -- she's just greedy}}.

** A related story from ''Criminal Intent'', "Faith", has similar motivations: The Littlest Cancer Patient whose blogs, phone interviews and autobiography brought the nation to tears {{spoiler|turned out to be a complete hoax: her [[Genre Savvy]] "guardian" wrote the book and blog herself, faked the phone calls, and even accepted donations of home medical equipment to stockpile for future sale on eBay. The truth only came out when a would-be benefactor insisted on meeting the girl in person}}.

* ''[[The Young Riders]]'' had a particularly heinous example of this in the otherwise decent episode "The Littlest Cowboy" (yes, that's the real title). To make it worse, the child actor used was ''extremely'' untalented.

* ''The Commish'' arranged for a young boy dying of cancer, who had wanted to be a police officer, to ride along in a squad car, and he even helps make an arrest (though we see the 'criminal' is actually a police officer in disguise).

'''Billy''' (just before flatlining): ''[[Half Baked]]'' sucked anyway. }}

* Abused frequently on ''[[Grey's Anatomy]]'', especially since the addition of Arizona's pediatric surgeon character, most egregiously in the episode "Sweet Surrender": the little girl actually has Tay-Sachs, and has made it to six years old (which is rare), and her desperate father spends most of the day running around searching for miracle cures in Mexico, which results in Bailey basically cuddling the girl all day. Finally, {{spoiler|she takes a turn for the worse and Bailey and Arizona gently tell the father to stop and just hold her as she dies, which he does, tearfully promising her that they'll go to Mexico soon and describing its beautiful beaches to her.}} Oh, and she has giant eyes and an adorable beanie.

* Hilariously averted on ''[[The Inbetweeners]]'' as a student now popular for having beaten his illness is an erratic, violent attention-seeker who is hated by the protagonists.

* The Episode "Comeback" in [[Glee]] has Will and Sue sing to an entire ward of these in order to give Sue a [[Pet the Dog]] moment before going back to her usual [[Jerkass]] self.

== Theatre ==

* In ''[[Thirteen]]'', this is subverted with Archie, the kid with Muscular Dystrophy who uses it to [[Manipulative Bastard|manipulate everyone around him into getting him what he wants]]

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Panzer Dragoon]] Orta'' viciously deconstructs this with the story of Iva Demilcol, who, despite his illness (and not even being ten years old!), is fully expected to perform as a soldier of the Empire. {{spoiler|He doesn't get better, either.}}

* ''[[Dead Rising 2]]'' has the protagonist's daughter Katie, whose need for a zombie infection suppressant is Chuck's main motivation. She's an example of this done right, sympathetic enough to inspire [[Video Game Caring Potential]], but avoids being over-the-top or a pain to look after.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''Faans'', one of them stands up to Keith. Keith lights him on fire with an offhand backhand while yawning. This pretty much says all you need to know about Keith. One of the few cases where the limited [[Contractual Immortality]] does not apply.

* {{spoiler|Cub}} in ''[[Fite!]]'' (the disease isn't specified, but the idea is the same).

 

== Western Animation ==

** Though she does return in brief scenes in Season Two {{spoiler|as a ghost}}, often seen with the inmate that took care of her.

* An episode of ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]'' was based on the comic book story mentioned above.

* In the ''E.T.'' episode of ''[[Code Monkeys]]'', one of the first buyers of the notorious video game is a child cancer patient who, upon experiencing its [[The Trouble With Licensed Games|awfulness]], proclaims "This game is giving me even ''more'' cancer!" and dies.

* [[Archer]] hilariously subverts this with Ruth, who is an old woman with terminal breast cancer who befriends [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist|Sterling Archer.]] Archer's heart strings are pulled when the chemo drugs the two were given were fake, and she dies. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Archer shoots the bad guy who switched the drugs quoting one of her lines.]] Ruth is a bit of an odd subversion, as she's sweet to Archer, but mouthy to nurses and encourages his crude behavior.

 

{{reflist}}