This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Space Paranoid 42: Why do we bother putting the example with Snape from Harry Potter in spoiler-mode when Snape is the picture at the top of the page?
Looney Toons: Kinda silly to add a line saying it's mostly a movie trope when the only example is from a TV series, isn't it?
Silent Hunter: I wrote the line in question and was thinking of The Incredibles at the time. There are probably other examples.
Seth: Does anyone who has seen/cares about sister princess think that entry needs a spoiler mark up?
Seven Seals: There's something wrong with this trope. This seems to be conflating two things:
- A character who appears to be a villain is actually on the side of good (a true mole)
- A Heel–Face Turn.
Fast Eddie: Seconded. A mole in the enemy camp is still just a mole. The examples highlighting varying levels of conscience within the enemy camp need to be in an entry that gets away from the mole concept.
Kilyle: Agree there. I could see these examples ported to the Mole page. But I got the impression that this page was trying to be, well, "heroic spies in enemy territory," as opposed to the regular usage, which generally means "evil traitor to the side of Justice." I mean, that's how we generally read the term, right?
fleb: Really late to this conversation, but the consensus is 'Reverse Mole is to The Mole as Heel–Face Turn is to Face–Heel Turn,' right? Just a morality-flip. And the problem muddying this is all these smatterings of Anti-Villain and Enemy Mine mixed in with the trope.
So I cut these. Hack/Slash are Mook–Face Turn, Mami is a Heel–Face Turn who's also The Mole, Avalanche and Ecliptor sounds like some kind of Anti-Villain, and Pauly's a Heel–Face Turn followed by Face–Heel Turn [unless both were in the same episode. Then it's probably something under Status Quo Is God].
- Mami in Sister Princess starts out as a spy charged with breaking up the reunion of Wataru and his sisters, but comes to love him as a brother herself, and switches sides at the end of the series.
- Hack and Slash from Reboot were a Quirky Miniboss Squad for the series Big Bad, Megabyte, who slowly acquired enough of a conscience — and enough intelligence — to realize what they were doing was wrong.
- In X-Men Evolution, Avalanche works for the Big Bad — but his concern for Kitty Pryde causes him to sometimes warn off the X-Men before they walk into a trap.
- In Power Rangers in Space, Ecliptor was similar, in that he wasn't quite a good guy, but would put the well-being of his "daughter," Astronema, over the desires of the Big Bad, to the point of helping the Rangers at least once.
- In the 1980s NBC TV Series Crime Story, when the Big Bad, Luca, betrays his chief lieutenant, Pauly (who isn't very bright and has been helping the cops at times), Pauly turns completely and becomes a full informant for the feds. Later the two of them realize they can't hate each other and Pauly goes back to being a henchman again.
Cidolfas: I removed the line about Gabranth from Final Fantasy XII. Gabranth is a homage to Darth Vader; he wasn't "good", but just decided at the very last minute to rebel against his master. He's one of the most conflicted people in the game, and FF 12 contains a lot of very complex factions, where very few people are really "evil" or "good" - even Ashe, the (real) main protagonist!
Haven: I don't think King Dedede in Super Smash Bros Brawl's adventure mode counts, because he was never on the bad guys' side, and he certainly didn't infiltrate their camp to gain info on them or anything. While he did "turn out to be a good guy all along", he wasn't working with any of the other villains, instead acting as his own independent agent so I don't think that qualifies.
Discar: Deleted the pic of Snape. Yes, he is the master of this trope, but seven books lead up to The Reveal. Screw You Should Know This Already, let's try and keep spoilers unspoiled.
