What is the worst thing you've done to your characters?

I feel very bad for my character Huxley because what self-esteem he had has been destroyed so completely and utterly that he's basically a wreck.

I have a bunch of characters like that (andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer), Samuel, Maxwell, there's probably more) I WONDER WHY THAT IS AMERICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM??

I'm going to join in as well. I know I kinda already talked about it on the first page, but I like how some of you guys are listing off stuff you did to individual characters. So anyways:

Crispin: Was almost killed by his own father, after his father found out about his powers. Also can't use his powers for the entire first book due to an injury which sucks for him because he already low key hates his powers.

Kit: Gets blackmailed by his uncle, and ends up having to run away because of it. Then he ends up getting kidnapped and is being held hostage without even really realizing it at first.

Caleb: I already mentioned having to torture my youngest character, but what I left out is that after the aforementioned torture he's told that his sister (his only living family member) was killed. She's actually still alive, but he kind of lost his will to live for a bit upon hearing the (fake) news.

Eva: Both of her and Caleb's parents died and they have to live in extreme poverty. Eva gets the added bonus of knowing that their father was murdered by the main villain of the series. Her mother asked her to keep this information from Caleb so it's kind of an internal struggle for her. She also gets poisoned later on.

Gerard: This character is such a mess I don't even know where to begin? Basically, he was raised by this extremist group that just wants to kill everyone with powers so of course Gerard develops powers. The only person in his family who doesn't hate him is his mother who dies when he was like 7, leaving him at the mercy of his abusive father and 5 older brothers. He ends up with a lot of mental issues due to the stuff that happened to him before he ran away from home (and to wrap it all up, he almost died while trying to run away).
And that's just his backstory! During the story, he gets poisoned, gets imprisoned after being falsely accused of trying to kill the King (he was actually trying to do the opposite). He's able to plead his innocence, but the spoiler-free version of what happens next is basically he says too much without realizing it and the King's guards are able to piece together some facts that lead to a big secret getting out.

Matthew: I can't really say much about this character without spoiling the entire story, but in a nutshell his father was kind of ashamed of him and didn't really treat him that great. They have a really complicated relationship and he can't even really talk about it with anyone else. During the story, he gets poisoned and almost dies but thanks to Gerard makes a full recovery. But also thanks to Gerard his biggest secret gets out so he has to deal with that after almost dying.
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Keyla: Loses both her parents in an easily preventable murder

Milo: Runs away from an abusive household. Later gets exiled from his home kingdom after being tried for treason (It's kind of justified, but he believes he was the right thing).

Garzlan: Watches his mother get brutally murdered, then loses his father almost a year later.

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Dallas: Watches one of his classmates get murdered, and gets shot shortly after. Later there's rumours that he was the one who murdered his classmate, but they get disproven pretty quickly. Oh, and his parents are recently divorced so he has that to deal with.

Andor: Grew up with really strict parents who he never saw eye to eye with. To give you an idea, he moved from Norway to western Canada just so he wouldn't have to deal with them anymore and so he could be as far away from them as possible. He rarely speaks to them. Even when he was on the verge of getting evicted, he didn't reach out to them (even though they both could have and would have helped him).

Well I forgot about what I do to Dima in the story. He basically is a moral compass for Lyra but he falls and badly injures his leg and Lyra thinks he's dead so she goes on a minor killing spree.
He's not dead, but during an escape he's shot in the leg and he falls off of a roof. He breaks his leg in two spots. He's like 17.

Oh dear lord…. Well, the worst thing that I've had some characters go through is being tortured to death. Their torturer thinks of it as a game (the sick f***er). He has a bowl filled with papers labeled with body parts, another with papers labeled 'bleed' and 'cauterize', and a table with his tools. He'll even at times have the character draw the papers themselves, and even flips a freaking coin at times to make some decisions.

Something else I've done is have a main character accidently boil his pet fish to death, burn a pet cat to death, and burn his brother alive before his very eyes. He is then kicked out of his house, becomes homeless, gets takien in by a church, only to be kicked out after melting a crucifix, and then being framed for starting a fire at his school.