How to Take a Side Character From Good to Bad to Good Again

March 17, 2022 Post a Comment

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"Yo, the superheroes have turned evil! Most uncool."

— Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate, Futurama

A skillful guy turns bad, the opposite of the Heel–Face Turn. The means in which this happens are many:

They take become a Rival Turned Evil.
They accept lost perspective, condign a Well-Intentioned Extremist or Knight Templar.
Something horrible has happened that shattered their faith in skillful, and they have become a Fallen Hero.
Lust for power and fortune at any cost has brought out their worst.
Love has turned into a dangerously out-of-command obsession.
No Proficient Human action Goes Unpunished: Too many of their expert deeds having come dorsum to bite them convinces them that being a hero is no longer worth it.
Their allies have fabricated life too difficult or out-and-out betrayed them.
They've snapped after 1 also many rounds of beingness put through hell.
Getting no thanks for their piece of work or even a bad reputation instead pushes them into a Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal.
Revenge has twisted them into something equally bad as, if not worse than, their original enemy.
They have gone Boozer with Power.
They fabricated a Deal with the Devil and did something truly heinous to cement their fidelity to their new primary, turning on their one-time friends.
They fell prey to The Corrupter/The Abuse, which brought out the worst in them.
They spent also long in the villain's headspace or amongst villains, leading to Becoming the Mask.
One or more villains made a convincing argument (and may actually be right).
They committed a small-scale human activity of evil, leading to more and bigger acts as the hero started Slowly Slipping Into Evil.
The other heroes collectively went through any combination of the above (while remaining protagonists), and they did not.

This is the Evil Counterpart to the more common Heel–Face up Plow and is generally found in a story with Black-and-White Morality. The many reasons and the probability for a turn are listed in the Sorting Algorithm of Face-Heel Turning.

In a world full of Brainwashed victims, they may be the one who appears to be but really is Not Brainwashed.

The term "Face up Heel Turn" comes from Professional person Wrestling, in which a "adept" wrestler (a face up) is occasionally tempted by The Nighttime Side, or just gets fed up, and becomes a "bad" wrestler (a heel). Magazines and other promotional material from the diverse wrestling "leagues" frequently comment on various wrestlers' changes in "alignment" (in wrestling'due south fictional plotline known equally kayfabe) almost equally often as they actually cover events in the ring themselves. (They fifty-fifty use phrases similar "Face up Heel Plough", though the shorter "Heel Turn" is more mutual.)

A wrestler'southward heel turn is oftentimes a sign that he or she is about to come across his or her popularity skyrocket. Indeed, information technology is very common, in one case they have turned, to remain heels for their entire careers. Heels that become really popular may terminate upward "naturally" becoming faces again, but it is only as likely for heels to be beloved because they are heels. In fact, as paradoxical every bit it might seem, a heel turn can aid an otherwise despised wrestler go likable: fans may well resent a face grapheme, and may be meliorate able to chronicle to a character who is greatly flawed in one way or another. (After all, that's what satire is all about.)

Notation that a Face–Heel Turn is harder to pull off than a Heel–Face Turn - at to the lowest degree convincingly. If a character is introduced every bit likable and heroic, information technology takes some good writing to properly take them through the Graphic symbol Development required to become a villain. Simply Foreshadowing that a character could turn evil is not enough. The work has to be put in to go the grapheme to that destination; in that location are enough of wrestling examples where this hasn't been washed, or the reasons for the turn are so desperately thought out that the fans turn down it, and the wrestler turns back face soon after.

Dissimilarity:

The Mole: The Mole was ever working for the Big Bad from the beginning, whereas a character making a Face Heel Plough was a genuine good guy until their alter of centre.
Forced into Evil, whereas the character was withal a genuinely skilful guy, just had his own reasons to exist on the bad guys' side while nonetheless maintaining a good heart, whereas a grapheme who did a Face Heel Turn is a graphic symbol who not only goes to the bad guys' side, only too become a genuine bad guy at heart. A grapheme Forced Into Evil can be said to be nearly halfway froom doing a full Heel Plow, only not a total turn all the same like the ones in this page (given time, however, they may make a full turn in the future).
Face–Monster Turn, which has many subtropes. The character actually has no choice about becoming evil, because they are Brainwashed, literally turned into monsters, are possessed, or another reason.
Fake Defector, where someone on the side of adept infiltrates the villains' side past pretending to practice such a plough.
Evil All Along, in which the character was, well, evil all along, but not necessarily working for the villain, like The Mole.

Compare Protagonist Journey to Villain, a plot which utilizes this trope as the unabridged grapheme and story arc. Big Bad Slippage, where the Big Bad does this over the course of the story, is a Sub-Trope.

Encounter also Heel–Face up Revolving Door, Neutral No Longer, Bargain with the Devil, We Used to Be Friends, Commencement of Darkness and Et Tu, Animate being?. If the plough takes place extremely abruptly, it may include Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. If after the turn, there are nevertheless past rivalries with their new potential allies they can't overcome, encounter Personal Detest Earlier Common Goals.

Non to be confused with Evil All Forth, in which a character that was thought to be practiced was evil all forth. This trope describes a legitimate hero going to the dark side, non a Double Amanuensis.

Due to the nature of this trope, MAJOR UNMARKED SPOILERS ahead!

In Real Life, the nature of Heel–Face up Turn and Face-Heel Plow is subjective (one person'due south "heartless expose" is another person's "seeing the calorie-free", depending on what group the individual is going to or leaving). Therefore, No Existent Life Examples, Please!

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Western Animation

Other examples:

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Asian Animation

In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Mighty Lilliputian Defenders, General Wolf/Chapper used to be a friendly wolf who supported peace between goats and wolves with the help of his goat friend Gogoa. After he got shot with a laser gun, he idea Gogoa was the i who shot him (Gogoa was actually framed for information technology). A month subsequently, Chapper woke upward to observe out that the wolf tribe had lost and the leader had died. Chapper institute out that Gogoa had left Goats' Hamlet and Chapper was not welcome in the village. These events turned General Wolf against Gogoa and the other goats and he became adamant to become revenge.

Machinima

Reddish vs. Bluish: After ane besides many betrayals and existence imprisoned after all his efforts to bring down the Manager, Agent Washington snaps and decides to capture Epsilon for the Chairman so he'll finally be allowed to exit Project Freelancer and the UNSC behind, even if it means he'll take to impale the Reds and Dejection to practice it. Getting double-crossed by the Meta and having the Reds and Blues save him again causes Wash to change his mind and realign with the heroes against the Director.
Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: Enzo. He used to be a friendly guy and was existence nice to other people until in "Altogether Freakout", later Mario ruins his birthday political party. From then on he becomes a villain and is determined to kill Mario and the balance of the main bandage. He is as well actually revealed to be the shady black figure in "The Visitor" (2014).

Theatre

In the dorsum story of Euripides' Hecuba, Achilles, hero of The Iliad, defected to Troy later on falling in love with Trojan princess Polyxena. And and so his would-be brother-in-law Paris shot him in his Achilles' Heel at the nuptials, and everything went pear-shaped for the Trojans.
Invoked by Pulitzer in Newsies, by threatening to take the Newsies arrested if Jack doesn't agree to end the strike. In substitution, Jack tries to fence confronting his own cause at the rally he organized, despite protests from Spot and Davey. Luckily, Katherine talks him downwards, and he relents.
This is essentially the entire plot of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street equally the protagonist begins a sympathetic Anti-Hero, progresses into Anti-Villain territory over the length of the start act, and finally crosses the Moral Event Horizon with gusto past pause, largely due to Sanity Slippage.
Westeros: An American Musical: What is seen of Theon Greyjoy's story in the play tin can be summed upwardly as this. When start seen, Theon is fighting aslope Robb and trying to petition his father Balon, an old enemy of Robb'due south family, to fight aslope Robb. Balon unfortunately decides he'd rather have a second round confronting Robb's family instead. Final Theon is heard of, he's reported to have captured Robb's hometown for Balon.
Elphaba from Wicked fits this trope, after having everything she tries spectacularly backfire on her, and having everyone she loves die all around her, she snaps during the song 'No Skillful Deed' dedicating herself to a lifetime of evil. Almost immediately subverted when she is shown to be only very, very pissed off, just non actually evil a mere song later.
- Nessarose, her sister, goes from a bratty but well-meaning child to the Wicked Witch of the E who, unlike is closer to the the motion picture's portrayal of her than Elphaba. She is named governor of Munchkinland and uses the position to strip away their power in order to keep her husband Boq from leaving her, and when he tries, she removes his eye, turns him into the Tin Man, and blames information technology on Elphaba. Besides, Boq goes from a shy boy with a beat out on Galinda to a far more than murderous version of the Tin Homo, who declares "for once I'g glad I'grand heartless — I'll be heartless killing her!".

Visual Novels

Discussed in Double Homework. Co-ordinate to Marco, this is what happened to Dennis after he'd been fixing his classmates' computers for no apparent advantage.

Web Animation

The Most Ballsy Story Always Told in All of Human History: Epic Robot Guy is a good guy in episode 3, "The Most Epic Superhero Origin Story Always", who becomes a villain past the time of episode five, "The Most Epic Crime-Stopping Mission E'er". This is Lampshaded In-Universe with the text "he became a bad guy! Dun dun dunnn!" written next to him when he appears.
Pull a fast one on Moon: Prior to the events of the short, Mage trapped Prince in the Moonstone and left the grouping to join Dr. Bleak.

Vakama Hordika

Vakama is unable to cope with his own guilt and the blame of his squad for getting them captured and injected with the mutagenic Visorak Venom. As the venom slowly turns him both physically and mentally into a unmerciful Hordika, he is easily convinced by Roodaka to bring together her and the Visorak horde.