History FromNobodyToNightmare / Film

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[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

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->"''Do you know who I was? Nobody. Except on the day after. I was still alive. This nobody had a chance to be somebody.''"
-->-- '''[[Music/TinaTurner Auntie Entity]]''', ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome''

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* Happens to the nebbish protagonist of ''Film/NineSevenSixEvil'', a film whose main claim to fame is that it was the first film directed by Creator/RobertEnglund.
* ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan'': The Lizard is the SuperpoweredEvilSide of Dr. Curt Connors, a good-natured scientist dedicated to trying to solve major health problems by introducing animal DNA into human systems, including the regeneration of his own missing arm, while [[TheAtoner paying his dues for -- it's implied -- causing the death of an old friend through inaction]] by running a mentorship program in his lab. The film plays with the trope, however, by comparing his dependence on the lizard serum as something of a drug addiction, and by the end it's very clear that when he's in control of himself he'd much rather be a nobody than a nightmare.
* ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'': Maxwell Dillon was a nerdy electrician whom everybody picked on or ignored, who then deluded himself into thinking he was Spider-Man's sidekick after the hero saved him and showed him compassion. After gaining electrical powers, he decides he doesn't want to be ignored anymore, becoming a ''very'' powerful supervillain.
* ''Film/TheAssassinationOfRichardNixon'' is based on the real life person Samuel Byck, whose sanity is being worn out from being a loser and feeling that he is ignored by society. Eventually he [[spoiler:tries to hijack a plane with the intention of crashing it into the White House. His mission ultimately fails, but he ends up killing a number of innocent civilians in the process.]]
* ''Film/BatmanReturns''
** The Penguin is a deformed former freak show dumpster baby who becomes a charismatic gang leader bent on dominating Gotham City.
** Catwoman was a nebbish secretary with no backbone and no personal life who gets murdered and resurrected as a sexy catburglar vigilante.
* In ''Film/{{Blindness}}'', the King of Ward 3 is seen, early on in the movie, as just a normal bartender who works at the luxury hotel and chats to the girl with dark glasses. Next we see him he has become a monstrous antagonist.
* Played straight in the UK crime thriller ''Film/{{Blitz}}''. Berry starts off as a common street punk who got into it with some guys at a night club. When the police showed up, he insults the wrong one, resulting in him taking a severe beat down. [[spoiler: Obsessed with revenge, Berry starts killing all the cops that arrested him in the past, while at the same time undermining the whole department by trying to become infamous in the media.]]
* The BigBad of ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' not only starts out with no powers, he [[VillainousUnderdog never gains any]], but becomes the most effective [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] villain to date [[spoiler:and the first one listed under TheBadGuyWins]]. He's "just" a former special forces soldier with no personal connection to the protagonists until [[spoiler:his father, wife, and son were killed in Sokovia in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'']], but uses experience, patience, and ThePowerOfHate to [[spoiler:cause repeated fights between the heroes, paralyze Rhodey, get everyone on the Anti-Accords side jailed, and ultimately break up the Avengers in a way they might never heal from]].
* In ''Film/{{Chronicle}}'', [[VillainProtagonist Andrew Detmer]] gets exposed to some weird [[GreenRocks artifact/mineral/thing]] and develops telekinetic powers. Over the course of the movie, he goes from nobody ([[spoiler:abused, bullied teenage outcast]]) pulling pranks and experimenting with his new found abilities, to nightmare ([[spoiler:[[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity psychotic]] [[AGodAmI with delusions of godhood]]]]).
* ''Film/{{Concussion}}'' has a heroic example in Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born Pittsburgh pathologist who became a major threat to the NFL through his discovery and relentless research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy caused by repetitive head trauma in athletes.
* ''Film/TheCrow'' is a heroic example, where a murdered goth-rocker is resurrected as a superpowerful avenging angel.
* ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'':
** Bane. Just another inmate of the worst prison in the world, who goes on to become an intimidating, charismatic terrorist who leads Gotham's disaffected and disgruntled in nearly destroying both Batman and Gotham City. As he puts it:
--> '''Bane''': Nobody cared who I was until I put on the mask.
** One of the inmates of the prison tells Bruce the story of [[spoiler:Henri Ducard/Ra's al Ghul, Bruce's EvilMentor and leader of the League of Shadows, the terrorist group that trained Batman and Bane. Ducard had once been a mercenary working for a warlord and fell in love with the warlord's daughter; before long they were separated, with the woman being condemned to the prison in her lover's place. Some years later, their daughter escaped the prison after her mother's murder and found her father, who returned to the prison and exacted his revenge on the men who murdered his wife before reinventing himself as the head of the League of Shadows.]]
* ''Film/FallingDown'': William "Bill" Foster started his day driving to his [[spoiler:no longer existing]] job. By the end of the day, he's become the most violent menace in Los Angeles, attacking gangs, Nazis, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking unhelpful clerks]], and gotten known under the moniker of "D-Fens".
* ''Film/FightClub'' has the Narrator who starts off as a bored insomniac working a boring job with people he hates and turns into [[spoiler:a terrorist leader who blows up buildings and leads a group of anarchic followers who will listen to his every command (although this is more so the work of Tyler, his split personality) .]]
* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'': Jason Voorhees began life as a bullied kid with hydrocephaly... until he supposedly drowned at Camp Crystal Lake at age 11. Upon reaching adulthood, he becomes a dangerous SerialKiller, and eventually a NighInvulnerable zombie, to the extent that in ''Film/JasonGoesToHellTheFinalFriday'', the [=FBI=] sets up an elaborate sting operation to take him down.
* ''Film/FromDuskTillDawn'': While the first movie doesn't elaborate on Santanico Pandemonium's origins, the third installment, ''[[Film/FromDuskTillDawn3TheHangmansDaughter The Hangman's Daughter]]'', is a prequel revealing her story: she is the half-breed daughter of a vampire priestess and a hangman, who took her away and raised her personally, albeit he turned {{abusive|parents}} later on. She grew up to be a relatively normal GirlNextDoor that would have led a likely uneventful life had one day an outlaw hadn't kidnapped her and inadvertently returned her to her mother, who awakened her true nature. Centuries after, she became the [[TheBaroness cruel and sadistic vampire queen]] we see in the first movie.
* ''Film/TheGodfatherPartII'': Don Vito Corleone started out as an orphaned kid stuck in an unknown country. Over the course of the movie, he rises to become the most powerful criminal in New York.
* Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'s origins vary based on the film, but they all agree that he was some sort of reptile on a small island near Japan that was hit by nuclear fallout and turned into a colossal, radioactive killing machine.
** Godzilla's nemesis King Ghidorah also has this trope applied to its origin story in ''Film/GodzillaVsKingGhidorah'' where WesternTerrorists from the future who seek to make the West dominate the world and crush Japanese influence created King Ghidorah by leaving 3 harmless critters called Dorats on an island that was doomed to a nuclear explosion.
* ''Film/TheHungerGames'': Katniss Everdeen was a nobody from District 12 who volunteered as tribute and was not initially expected to survive. From there on, she blasts through the Hunger Games, kills numerous people, becomes one of the most well-known people in the world (with the sole exclusion of President Snow) and [[spoiler:becomes the face of a revolution intent on toppling the government.]] Not bad for a young girl who only wanted to save her sister.
* ''Film/IronMan3'': [[spoiler: Aldrich Killian started out as a sort of sad and nerdy scientist with a physical disability, but 13 years after being stood up by Tony Stark, he had become the ruthless and homicidal true alter-ego of The Mandarin, and the creator of the Extremis virus.]]
* In the ''Film/JamesBond'' franchise, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, 007's biggest ArchEnemy and the notorious leader of [[NebulousEvilOrganization SPECTRE]], started out as a man of humble origins from eastern Europe, but eventually rose to the top of the criminal food chain by becoming the head of a terrifying criminal empire that's capable of plotting geopolitical events for its gain and ''holding the entire world at gunpoint'' if its leader doesn't get what he wants.
** [[spoiler:The version of Blofeld]] in ''Film/{{Spectre}}'' [[spoiler:started out as the son of an Austrian climber and an estranged foster brother of James Bond, but eventually became the head of the titular worldwide crime syndicate.]]
* In ''Film/Joker2019'', Arthur Fleck started as a shy mentally ill man, who gets ignored, or downright abused, by people who don't understand [[LaughingMad his nervous fits of laughter.]] However, after getting fired from his job as a party clown, being told that he won't receive psychiatric help due to budget cuts, getting mocked for his disastrous stand-up act, and finding out that [[spoiler:his adopted mother lied about him being the son of Thomas Wayne]], he [[SanitySlippage descended deeper into madness]] until he became Gotham City's most infamous criminal and one of Batman's greatest [[ArchEnemy Arch-Enemies]].
* In ''Film/{{Limitless}}'', a simple street loan shark is turned into a criminal mastermind when he gets hooked on the new drug that increases your mental output.
* In ''Film/Little2019'', Jordan Saunders went from being a nerdy, bullied teenager to a tyrannical, bullying boss as an adult.
* In ''Film/{{Looper}}'', Joseph Simmons travels back in time to prevent the rise of the Rainmaker, a mysterious individual who singlehandedly took over international crime syndicates. Eventually, he finds [[spoiler: Cid, a boy living with his mother on a farm. Initially sweet, he will kill anyone who [[BerserkButton threatens his mother]], with telekinetic powers equal in power to a small nuke. While it is implied that he became the Rainmaker in the original timeline, it is left unclear for the present one.]]
* In ''Film/{{Milk}}'' Dan White goes from being an average citizen to a mentally unhinged assassin.
* At the beginning of ''Film/MrRight'', Martha is an endearing CloudCuckoolander who likes dragons and dinosaurs, is somewhat irresponsible, and who has terrible taste in men. After meeting the titular character (a goofy former hitman who now uses his ability to see in BulletTime and his ridiculous reflexes to kill anyone who tries to hire him or force him to become a hitman again, while wearing a red clown nose), she discovers that she has similar abilities to him, and ends the movie being essentially just as deadly as he is, complete with her own goofy accessory (cat ears in her case).
* The ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'' sequel ''Film/FreddysDeadTheFinalNightmare'' attempts to humanize Freddy by showing him in flashbacks as a somewhat creepy young boy driven into bludgeoning a school hamster to death by taunting classmates, and then as a quiet, unassuming family man with an unhealthy obsession with serial killers, who actually becomes a serial killer himself for a vaguely sympathetic reason. Not only that, but he was also taken in by an [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] [[AbusiveParents asshole]]. That's all offered in contrast to the present day, where, after a DealWithTheDevil made while he was dying, he's turned into a prophesied [[AGodAmI nightmare king]] who's left his hometown in ruins, its surviving inhabitants insane, and now has designs on the whole world. The disturbed but comparatively sympathetic man he used to be reappears briefly near the end of the film in what seems to be a FightingFromTheInside moment, but it was a trick to briefly lull the heroes into letting their guard down.
** Well, it's hard to imagine that Freddy was ''ever'' truly normal. Supposedly, he was born after his mother was raped by hundreds of inmates in an insane asylum, causing him to be called the "Son of a Thousand Maniacs" frequently. If there was ''any'' way that a child's conception could make him turn out bad, ''this'' would be the way.
* In ''Film/NoneShallEscape'' (a 1944 film about a trial against a Nazi officer following the end of the then-ongoing [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII second world war]], told via flashbacks from the points of view of the witnesses at the trial), Wilhelm Grimm goes from being a schoolteacher at the end of WWI to a ruthless Nazi officer during WWII.
* Dreyfus in the earlier Pink Panther films was merely Clouseau boss who was driven crazy by his antics and tried to kill him. ''Film/ThePinkPantherStrikesAgain'' sees him become a full James Bond Supervillian leading an army of criminals [committing crimes such as kidnapping and bank robbery]threatening the world with destruction unless his demands are meet. His goal [killing Clouseau] remains the same.
* The BigBad from ''Film/ThePostman'' movie, who before the war which turned the States into a CrapsackWorld, was... a copy-machine salesman.
-->'''General Bethlehem:''' What do you think that I did before the war?
* In the French film ''Film/AProphet'', Malik starts the film as a 19-year-old illiterate loser who gets his shoes stolen from him on his first day in prison. By the end of the film, he's the boss of the prison.
* ''Film/Rampage2018'': George, Ralph and Lizzie were all just ordinary wild or tame animals but after being mutated by CRISPR, they become instant gigantic rage-driven titans who devour and kill humans, being powerful enough to overwhelm the United States Army.
* In ''Film/Revenge2017'', Jen goes from some wealthy asshole's arm candy to avenging angel who leaves nothing but oceans of blood in her wake.
* ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'':
** John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, was once just a mild-mannered civil engineer. Then his pregnant wife had a miscarriage, and shortly after that he found out he had incurable cancer. He then attempted to commit suicide, and when that failed, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to [[ColdBloodedTorture "teaching"]] people to appreciate their lives. The rest, as they say, is history.
** Amanda Young was once a hopeless and desperate young woman who was put through a grueling test by Jigsaw. Ever since then she found herself drawn to his insane methodology, to the point where she proved just as good at building death traps as him, and came close to ''surpassing'' him as the resident Jigsaw killer.
* In ''[[Film/Shazam2019 SHAZAM!]]'' Thaddeus Sivana starts as a meek little boy who is constantly [[AbusiveParents belittled by his father,]] and [[BigBrotherBully pushed around by his older brother.]] After being rejected by the wizard Shazam to be his successor since he was tempted by the SevenDeadlySins, he gets into an argument with his brother and father, which causes the latter to crash the car they're in and it's heavily implied that the abuse got worse. Decades later, using his father's company's assets to conduct a secret search for the wizard Shazam, he goes to confront him and allows the SevenDeadlySins to enter his body. Sivana then uses the demons' powers to murder his older brother and father in cold blood, as well as the board of directors, and hunts down the new Shazam in order to steal the power for himself, and is willing to kill anyone standing in his way.
* ''Film/AShockToTheSystem'': Graham starts out as a mild-mannered, henpecked ad executive. Then after accidentally killing a homeless man begging him for change and no one notices, he has a revelation about how easy killing is. He resolves to murder everyone who's causing him problems (his wife, his boss etc.) and make their deaths appear like accidents. It works, transforming him into a cold-blooded, cunning murderer.
* ''Film/ShotCaller'': During his time in prison, Jacob transforms from a frightened fresh inmate into one of the leading members of a powerful prison gang. This is especially obvious in his interactions with Shotgun; when they first met, Shotgun spoke down to him, but after they meet again on the outside ten years later, Shotgun is flat-out ''terrified'' of him.
* ''Film/SilentHill'' has Alessa Gillespie, a small girl (9 in the original, 11 in the sequel) who is [[spoiler:burned alive by a cult, either because they believe that she's a witch or because they want to impregnate her with the cult's god]]. Prior to that, she may have had some psychic powers, but nothing too dramatic (an early deleted scene had her demonstrating her powers by making butterflies move in an unusual pattern, and in the film, she may have snapped a chain). Afterward, [[spoiler: the cultists literally only survive for as long as they do because she wants them to be absolutely broken before she kills them]].
* In ''Film/StarTrek2009'', Nero was just an ordinary captain of a mining ship when his home planet was destroyed and he got sucked into an alternate timeline. In the past, his mining ship can outfight any other vessel, and he has the capability to destroy planets and alter the timeline.
** This applies to the Narada as well, at least according to ''The Countdown'' comic series. In its original time setting, it was a simple Romulan mining ship as Nero said. Later however, it's [[spoiler:upgraded with reverse engineered Borg technology from the [[SecretPolice Tal Shiar]]]], turning it into an EldritchStarship, [[spoiler:(even by the standards of the original timeline)]].
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** Anakin Skywalker started out as a slave on the impoverished, marginal desert planet Tatooine. That's about as low as you can get in a galaxy far, far away. Through the will of the Force he was found and raised by the Jedi to be the Chosen One destined to destroy the Sith. Through the will of Palpatine he destroyed the Jedi first. And then he ruled the galaxy with an iron fist, as The Emperor's [[TheDragon right hand man]] and destroyed an entire planet, culminating in him killing The Emperor with his own hands. ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' strongly hints that [[spoiler:Anakin was the product of Darth Plagueis's twisted attempts at "creating life" through the power of the dark side, though the person claiming this is a ManipulativeBastard.]]
** Speaking of said ManipulativeBastard, exploiting this trope was a big part of Palpatine's plan to come to power. While certainly not a ''nobody'', being the senator of the Naboo system and the current Dark Lord of the Sith, he nonetheless played the role of the humble and compassionate statesman, all while subtly guiding and manipulating events (along with the occasional IndyPloy to use his own setbacks to further his aims). ''Revenge of the Sith'' ends with Palpatine as one of the most powerful — and ''evil'' — men in the franchise. And if that's not bad enough, [[spoiler:''Rise of Skywalker'' reveals he's not only found a way to ''cheat death'', but essentially ''is'' the Dark Side, possessing the spirit and power of every previous Sith before him]].
** [[spoiler:ZigZagged with Rey. At first it's seemingly played straight in ''The Last Jedi'': Rey is a nobody from a backwater planet, but Luke is terrified at not only her raw power, but how readily she nearly delved into the Dark Side of the Force. Snoke and Kylo Ren both want to ''invoke'' this, with Kylo Ren especially playing on her pain over being abandoned on Jakku and the lies she tells herself about her family in an effort to turn her. Then ''Rise of Skywalker'' reveals the situation is ''inverted'': Rey is not a nobody at all, but the ''granddaughter of Palpatine himself''; his son and daughter-in-law fled from him to protect her, and were essentially nightmares who chose to become nobodies. And then played straight once again, as Palpatine wants her to kill him so he can BodySurf and merge his spirit with hers to make her the new Sith Empress in a galaxy in which there are no Jedi left to oppose her.]]
** In ''Film/{{Solo}}'', Han's childhood sweetheart, Qi'ra, goes from an orphaned street kid to the right-hand woman of a feared crime lord [[spoiler: and eventually takes over the syndicate herself]].
* Benjamin Barker was a happy, ordinary London man, with just an exceptional talent at barbery. Then he was jailed on trumped up charges and sent away for ten years to Australia. He came back to find his wife had poisoned herself, and the man who did this to him had taken his daughter. Thus was born ''Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''.
* ''Film/ThereWillBeBlood''. Though it occurs in a microcosm of a small mining community, the overarching theme of the whole film is this trope, happening in slow motion.
* ''Film/TheToxicAvenger'' was originally a mere frail, socially-awkward nerd who worked as a janitor, until some delinquents decided to pull a humiliating prank on him. Said prank ended in him falling into radioactive waste, [[GoneHorriblyRight causing him to turn into]] [[HorrifyingHero a hideous, but powerful mutant superhero]] who cleans Tromaville of vile criminals.
* In ''Film/{{Transcendence}}'', RIFT is mentioned as having grown from a relatively harmless group that protested the effect of cell phones on socialization. Now they're full-blown terrorists.
* ''Film/{{TRON}}'': The MCP went from a simple chess program to a program designed to oversee the company's computer network and eventually plotted to take over the computer systems of both the Pentagon and the Kremlin.
* ''Film/TronLegacy'': Clu has gone from an ineffectual program that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQwKV7lCzEI&feature=player_embedded# falls off a cliff]] a few minutes into the original film to the BigBad of the sequel.
* ''Film/{{Valentine}}'': Jeremy Melton was once the biggest loser in middle school. Then he was framed for AttemptedRape, beaten by a GangOfBullies, and locked up in a mental institution. 13 years later, Jeremy [[spoiler:has become a cold and calculating SerialKiller hell-bent on revenging himself on the women who framed him.]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nton_syndrome.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:From wanting to be a KidSidekick to being responsible for a [[MugglePower Super genocide]]]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'': Gaston is [[VillainWithGoodPublicity by no means considered a nobody in his village]] but he hardly appears to be a threat in the grand scheme of things. He's just a smug {{Jerkass}} and a sexist, controlling egomaniac... but his obsession with Belle and his refusal to accept she doesn't love him eventually drives him first to blackmail and then to form an [[TorchesAndPitchforks angry mob]] to attempt to kill the Beast. One of the animators sums it up best:
--> "He goes from a buffoon and a jerk to a murderer."
* Tyler from ''WesternAnimation/HeavyMetal2000'' was a simple miner before he had the misfortune of discovering the Loc-Nar. All he did was touch it, and it immediately drove him insane, turning him into a bloodthirsty psychopath who seeks the sealed off [[FountainOfYouth source of immortality-granting water]] and rule over the universe.
* Buddy Pine from ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' was just an annoying little {{Fanboy}} who refused to leave Mr. Incredible alone, then he had one little misunderstanding with the hero. When Mr. Incredible sees him again in years, he's become the supervillain Syndrome and has already murdered a large number of Supers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'':
** Megamind himself is an alien who is sent to live on Earth by his parents. But he was raised in prison, unlike Metro Man, who lived in a mansion with a happy family. This jealously eventually leads to him becoming a supervillain after all attempts to be good goes wrong for him.
** Hal Stewart started off as a clingy, socially-awkward cameraman with a crush on Roxanne Ritchi, but [[spoiler: obtained superpowers via Megamind and became the supervillain Titan, a brutish PsychopathicManchild who is willing to obliterate an entire city just because Roxanne won't give into his [[EntitledToHaveYou even more disturbing advances]].]]
* Constance from ''WesternAnimation/MonsterHouse'' was a large obese woman who was part of a circus group and was always ridicule for her appearance. Once she met Mr. Nebbercracker, the two got married and were prepared to live happily together, until she accidentally fell to her death to the basement of her own home when trying to scare some teenagers away. Her spirit takes over the entirety of her house, becoming a monster who attacks anyone that comes near her.
* Randall Boggs started out as a nerdy college student before he fell in with a bad crowd. His StartOfDarkness is only hinted at in the prequel ''WesternAnimation/MonstersUniversity'', but by the time ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' rolls around, he's become bitter and violent.
* Agatha, from ''WesternAnimation/ParaNorman'', had some powers during her lifetime [[spoiler: but these didn't appear to extend beyond speaking to the dead before she was executed as a witch]].
* Douche from ''WesternAnimation/SausageParty'' was originally an ordinary feminine hygiene product who fell out of a shopping cart and got his nozzle broken. Furious at losing his chance to get bought and used (and aware that, unlike the food characters, he wouldn't be eaten when he was bought) he took out his anger on the foods, eventually [[AGodAmI declaring himself a "god"]] as he began eating them.
* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland'': [[spoiler: Simone and Lena were simple Louisiana colonists until their village was destroyed and their friends murdered by Morgan Moonscar. This drove them to become cat demons to get their revenge, only to be permanently cursed and required to drain the life force of visitors every harvest moon to preserve their immortality]].
* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'': Lotso was once a [[UsedToBeASweetKid soft-spoken, gentle, lovable teddy bear]] who first started out as a Christmas present for Daisy, a young kind-hearted girl who immediately became overjoyed the moment she unwrapped him. Along with her other two toys, Big Baby and Chuckles the Clown, she had so much fun playing with them, as she loved all three of them equally. But, according to Chuckles, Lotso was unique to her most of all. Things suddenly take a dramatic turn when on a family trip, as Daisy happily played with her toys including her very special Lotso, she fell asleep after lunch, accidentally leaving her toys behind. Lotso and his friends decided to go back home afterwards, but by the time they got there, it turned out Daisy bought another Lotso to [[ReplacementGoldfish compensate for the original one]] she lost during the trip. Right when Lotso saw this, ''something snapped inside him that day...'' which cumulated in him turning the daycare into his own prison. [[spoiler: It should be noted, that Daisy only bought another Lotso because he symbolized how much she truly loved her original. As pointed out by Woody, it was ''Lotso'' who abandoned Daisy to begin with.]]
[[/folder]]

* ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'': John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, was once just a mild-mannered civil engineer. Then his pregnant wife had a miscarriage, and shortly after that he found out he had incurable cancer. He then attempted to commit suicide, and when that failed, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to [[ColdBloodedTorture "teaching"]] people to appreciate their lives. The rest, as they say, is history.

** Anakin Skywalker started out as a slave on Tatooine. That's about as low as you can get in a galaxy far, far away. Through the will of the Force he was found and raised by the Jedi to be the Chosen One destined to destroy the Sith. Through the will of Palpatine he destroyed the Jedi first. And then he ruled the galaxy with an iron fist, as The Emperor's [[TheDragon right hand man]] and destroyed an entire planet, culminating in him killing The Emperor with his own hands. ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' strongly hints that [[spoiler:Anakin was the product of Darth Plagueis's twisted attempts at "creating life" through the power of the dark side, though the person claiming this is a ManipulativeBastard.]]

!!Films -- Animated:

!!Films -- Live-Action:

* In ''Film/Joker2019'', Arthur Fleck starts as a shy mentally ill man, who gets ignored, or downright abused, by people who don't understand [[LaughingMad his nervous fits of laughter.]] However, after getting fired from his job as a party clown, told that he won't receive psychiatric help due to budget cuts, gets mocked for his disastrous stand up act, and finding out that [[spoiler: his adopted mother lied about being the son of Thomas Wayne,]] he [[SanitySlippage descends deeper into madness]] until he becomes Gotham City's most infamous criminal and one of Batman's greatest ArchEnemy.

* ''Film/FromDuskTillDawn'': While the movie doesn't elaborate on Santanico Pandemonium's origins, the third movie ''The Hangman's Daughter'' is a prequel revealing her story: she is the half-breed daughter of a vampire priestess and a hangman, who took her away and raised her personally, albeit he turned {{abusive|parents}} later on. She grew up to be a relatively normal GirlNextDoor that would have led a likely uneventful life had one day an outlaw hadn't kidnapped her and inadvertently returned her to her mother, who awakened her true nature. Centuries after, she became the [[TheBaroness cruel and sadistic vampire queen]] we see in the first movie.

* Randall Boggs started out as a nerdy college student before he fell in with a bad crowd. His StartOfDarkness is only hinted at in the prequel ''WesternAnimation/MonstersUniversity'' but by the time ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' rolls around he's become bitter and violent.

* ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'': [[VillainProtagonist John Kramer]] the Jigsaw Killer was once just a mild-mannered engineer. Then his pregnant wife had a miscarriage, and shortly after that he found out he had incurable cancer. He then attempted to commit suicide, and when that failed, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to [[ColdBloodedTorture "teaching"]] people to appreciate their lives. The rest, as they say, is history.

!!Films -- Animated

!!Films -- Live-Action

* ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'': Gaston is [[VillainWithGoodPublicity by no means considered a nobody in his village]] but he hardly appears to be a threat in grand scheme of things. He's just a smug {{Jerkass}} and a sexist, controlling egomaniac... but his obsession with Belle and his refusal to accept she doesn't love him eventually drives him first to blackmail and then to form an [[TorchesAndPitchforks angry mob]] to attempt to kill the Beast. One of the animators sums it up best:

* Tyler from ''WesternAnimation/HeavyMetal2000'' was a simple miner before he had the misfortune of discovering the Loc-Nar. All he did was touch it, and it immediately drove him insane, turning him into a bloodthirsty psychopath who seeks the sealed of [[FountainOfYouth source of immortality-granting water]] and rule over the universe.

** Megamind himself is an alien who is sent to live on Earth by his parents. But he was raised in prison, unlike Metro Man, who live in a mansion with a happy family. This jealously eventually leads to him becoming a supervillain after all attempts to be good goes wrong for him.

** Well, it's hard to imagine that Freddy was ''ever'' truly normal. Supposedly, he was born after his mother was raped by hundreds of inmates in an insane asylum (causing him to be called the "Son of a Thousand Maniacs" frequently. If there was ''any'' way that a child's conception could make him turn out bad, ''this'' would be the way.