Woobie - Fanlore

A woobie is a beloved fannish character (often a BSO) who evokes in fans the desire to wrap him (usually him) up in a blanket and cuddle him and comfort him. ^[1] If a character is hard-working, and/or endures difficult circumstances bravely, and/or is often at the "h" end of the H/C spectrum, odds are good that fans consider him a woobie.

Woobies, especially if they're the smaller member of a slash pairing, have a high risk of becoming feminized and/or infantilized -- in fact, some people think the process of Woobification = infantilization and/or feminization.

Popular Woobies in Fandom

• Smallville's Lex Luthor may be the original character to be called a woobie.^[2][3]
• Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter
• Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings
• Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis
• Blair Sandburg from Sentinel
• Daniel Jackson from Stargate: SG-1^[4]
• a recent discussion re who is the woobiest^[5] also names both Mulder and Krycek from The X-Files, Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds, Ianto Jones from Torchwood, Dick Grayson from DC Comics and a host of other stoic white men with manpain.

References

1. ↑ "A woobie (named for a child's security blanket) is that character you want to give a big hug, wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when he or she suffers so very beautifully." TheWoobie entry at TVTropes (accessed 28 Feb 2010)
2. ↑ "For certain fans for various television shows, movies or books, woobie means something else entirely. It was popularized by several vocal Smallville viewers who thought all Lex Luthor needed was a good hug. Or something." Dee Stiffler, Gapers Block, "Let Go of the Woobie", posted 1 Aug 2005 (Accessed 28 Feb 2010)
3. ↑ On the fandomwank wiki entry on Woobie Lex is referred to as the "ur-woobie".(Accessed 28 Feb 2010)
4. ↑ [1] "I am going to assume that I don't need to say Daniel Jackson or Ianto Jones, right? Those are sort of a baseline." dragojustine 28 February 2010.
5. ↑ mirror on LJ. Accessed 1 March 2010, at which point: 9 pages of comments.