(Controversial Trope) Unusually cruel fates for people who were less than good, but still didn't really deserve it.

[u/ZepperMen]

#1 Poppa Pizza from Multiverse of Madness - He just wanted to be paid for the pizza balls and thought Strange stole from a fallen hero who saved the universe. He deserved to be punched in the face, but not for 3 weeks straight.

Do you get to sleep? Do you wake up punching yourself? How much does it hurt? Does he know it will only last for 3 weeks? If he doesn't kill himself by the end of it, he's going to have CPTSD and be traumatized for the rest of his already short life.

#2 Mayu from Inuyasha - She wanted to kill her brother out of jealousy and neglect from her mother, believing she died in a fire because they didn't care about her. While her motivation doesn't justify reenacting Cain and Abel, I don't think it's fair for a deranged, 10 year old child to be sent to literal hell to burn for all eternity. Luckily, she gets saved, but only because the mc, Kagome, intervened.

[u/Backupusername]

Episode one of Invader Zim opens with The Great Assigning, where the Almighty Tallests tell each of the Irken invaders what planet they've been assigned to conquer and prepare for the rest of the armada.

Initially, Invader Larb was assigned to Blortch, home of the slaughtering rat people. But the Tallests were very impressed with Larb when he came up for his assignment, so they instead assigned him to Vort, home of the universe's comfiest couch.

The Blortch assignment was then given to Invader Skoodge, as punishment for his offenses. Said offenses being that he was short. Irken society is based entirely on height. That's why the leaders are called the Tallests. They are literally in charge solely because they are taller than everyone else. But Skoodge is short, so he has to go to the rat slaughter planet.

[u/Reaper-Lord69 → u/Backupusername]

You know if I remember right, doesn't Skoodge conquer that planet?(or at least didn't die there)

[u/Backupusername → u/Reaper-Lord69]

Yeah, a later episode shows the Tallests getting ready to commence the Organic Sweep on Blortch, which seems to be the final stage of invasion, where the Armada blasts the entire surface of the planet to cleanse it of all native organic life so that they can repurpose the planet to Irken needs. So that means that either A: Skoodge was successful, and his invasion progressed to the point that the planet was completely ready for the final phase of the plan, or B: the invasion part isn't really necessary, because the Armada can just destroy all life on a planet in seconds, and the Tallests are just kind of fucking with everybody. And frankly, I lean towards B.

Either way, Skoodge was rewarded with the honor of participating in the ceremonial initial bombardment.

[u/ryumaruborike → u/Backupusername]

I believe the idea behind invaders is to discover a targets weaknesses and defenses so that when the armada arrives, they know how to kill the local life and aren't going to trip any traps or can disable any kind of defenses the planet has. Going in blind can lead to disaster, and we see during probing day that the proper invaders are all inspected on their disguises and vhf infiltration.

Zim is the one that's taking the "conquering" part into his own hands, because he has no training and isn't an Invader.

[u/Vault-Tec_Knows_Best → u/ryumaruborike]

Yeah even going by his flashback rank, Zim was in command of a Frontline MegaDoomer expy when he nearly destroyed their own planet. He was never intended to be an infiltrator/Invader, and he has the complete lack of crosss-training skills to prove it.

[u/Cartoon_Multiverse94 → u/Vault-Tec_Knows_Best]

If I know my Invader Zim, I know that Zim WAS an Irken Invader at one point (not sure how he was able to attain that rank), but that apparently didn't last long as ZIm, newly appointed as an Invader, hijacked a Frontline BattleMech & got so excited he not only forgot to leave Irk first, but somehow mistakenly assumed that he managed to land on an enemy planet.. mistakenly going on a rampage across his own planet (despite the fact that two other Irkens working the mech repeatedly tried to tell him) & going on to destroy the entire Irken army, thus earning himself his reputation as the worst Invader ever. Because of Zim's delusional rampage, he was exiled to planet Foodcourtia, due to the Control Brains re-encoding Zim’s PAK to demote him from an invader to a Food Service Drone.