History Main / DrivenToVillainy

* Theodore Kaczynski was a mathematics prodigy who attended [[IvyLeagueForEveryone Harvard University]] in 1958, where he was subjected to hundreds of hours of a psychologically damaging social experiment led by Dr. Henry Murray. After finishing at Harvard and getting his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, he attempted to retire to the wilderness but ended up becoming an EcoTerrorist, starting an elaborate bombing campaign to fight industrialization that earned him the name of The Unabomber. After his arrest he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which was likely exacerbated by Murray.

* ''Film/Joker2019'': Arthur Fleck repeatedly frames [[ProtagonistJourneyToVillain his transformation into the Joker]] as this. But while there are multiple reasons as to why Arthur falls into villainy, it should never be forgotten that Arthur is [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse personally responsible]] for a number of choices that compel him to further give in to his darker traits. He pursues the last Wayne employee on the subway and brutally guns him down when he ''should'' have let him go. He indulges his ego when protestors use his clown schtick as a symbol of rebellion against the upper class. The atrocities he commits in the latter half of the film are under the influence of ''no one'' and he revels in the damage he causes because it just feels so ''good'' to get back at the society that hurt him.

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', TheDragon Redcloak's race (goblins) was, at least according to his god, created for the sole purpose of being slaughtered for easy XP by the [[FiveRaces PC races]]. In his StartOfDarkness prequel, KnightTemplar good guys destroyed his home, nonchalantly killing noncombatants such as children and old folks, including his entire family except for one of his brothers. So when a vision from his god showed him how he could potentially make the lives of his people better, he took it, despite it having the risk of undoing creation if it fails. As author Rich Burlew put it in the introduction:

* The main character, Kearu of ''LightNovel/KaifukuJutsushiNoYarinaoshi'' was left no choice but to become a SerialRapist VillainProtagonist because not only was he so broken and tortured, with his entire home-village the victim of RapePillageAndBurn, but his tormentors would hunt him down, without respite, if he didn't enact horrific vengeance upon them, especially Flare, who can somehow sense where a "Hero" is, and if he didn't subject her to HeelFaceBrainwashing, any hope of escape would have been tragically short-lived.

* [[PunchClockVillain Lewis]] seems to be very much this in ''{{Literature/Touch}}'', stating outright that he only acts as a tracker for the various criminal organizations of New York because it is what his mother did before him, and he was never allowed the opportunity to keep his powers to himself.

* [[PunchClockVillain Lewis]] seems to be very much this in ''{{Literature/Touch}}'', stating outright that he only acts as a tracker for the various criminal organizations of New York because it is what his mother did before him, and he was never allowed the opportunity to keep his powers to himself.

* VideoGame/MystIIIExile has Saveedro, whose entire homeworld was apparently destroyed and who now wants to force the man he blames to see what happened, so he steals a book from him. When he finds out the player isn't the person he's looking for, [[spoiler:he kills you if he gets the opportunity]].

** [[spoiler:[[BigBad Tobi]] aka [[FallenHero Obito Uchiha]] is an even more literal example. At him as well as in the previous example was [[StreetUrchin bad]] [[BlackSheep childhood]] but he all the same remained kind and responsive child. But after his entire right side was is crushed by a boulder while saving Kakashi, he took with Kakashi promise to protect Rin at any cost. Later he was rescued by Madara, which decides to put his through DespairEventHorizon in order to made him the perfect accomplice for his plan. So he took under control various shinobi, including [[MoralityChain Rin]], to create a situation where Obito would witness the death of the one person who made his life worth living. Ultimately Obito was witnessed how the love all of his life was killed his best friend who promised to protect her at any cost (though Madara himself admitted that it was only a happy coincidence). And despite easily being the most decent of all the Uchiha in the series, not even Obito was immune to the clan's most fatal flaw: their ability to love more deeply than anyone else. If anything, it was worse for him seeing as he was the most idealistic and emotional of all the Uchiha, and thus his sense of love was far deeper than usual. And also if take into account that Madara placed a seal on Obito's heart which would have prevented him from killing himself should he had abandoned the Moon's Eye Plan and opted for an easier way to end his suffering... you really can't blame the guy for going insane.]]

* Hayate Yagami from ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs''? She is ''de jure'' the BigBad, since all the fighting takes place for her sake but ''de facto'' she doesn't even know that her servants (whom she considers her family) are committing crimes for her and joins Team Nanoha immediately after TheReveal. Also, very much an example of WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.

* In ''LightNovel/FixedDamage'', the protagonist Chrome, and later a female knight named Sena, are forced into villainy in order to survive. Chrome is betrayed by his "hero" companions and cursed with [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Chains of Despair"]] which not only steal away his strength, stamina, and magic talent, but ''force him'' to live on ThePowerOfHate, his only hope of getting the curse broken is delivering graphic vengeance on the ones who inflicted it on him, especially the "hero" Yuno who stole his fiance, in addition to his very life. Sena, the knight, had her elder sister raped and murdered by Yuno's party member, The warrior, Riot, and his male knight subordinates, for the "crime" of refusing to let herself be sexually exploited, and when introduced, sale male knight subordinates had her cornered, planning to do the same to her. Sena had no choice but to deliver graphic vengeance if she didn't want to wind up sexually tortured to death too.

* The main character, Kearu of ''LightNovel/KaifukuJutsushiNoYarinaoshi'' was left no choice but to become a SerialRapist VillainProtagonist because not only was he so broken and tortured, with his entire home-village the victim of RapePillageAndBurn, but his tormentors would hunt him down, without respite, if he didn't enact horrific vengeance upon them, especially Flare, who can somehow sense where a "Hero" is, and if he didn't HeelFaceBrainwash her, any hope of escape would have been tragically short-lived.

* This seems to be the case with Major West from ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''. Though it doesn't even come close to justifying the horrible things he wanted to do, he seems as if he was a decent person once and a FatherToHisMen who had crumbled under the pressure of the apparent post-apocalyptic hell they now lived in and been driven to horrific extremes to keep his men from loosing hope and (in one case) attempting suicide.

* Izuku in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/22055713/chapters/52636600 Mastermind: Strategist for Hire]]'' accidentally gives a villain the perfect plan to kill Mt. Lady after All-Might crushes his dream. Afterwards, Izuku tries to get a regular job only to learn [[FantasticRacism no one wants to hire a Quirkless teen]], eventually causing him to hire himself out as a strategist for villains.

* Before it was retconned that he had actually been possessed the whole time, [[GreenLantern Hal Jordan's]] FaceHeelTurn into the KnightTemplar supervillain Parallax was portrayed as this, having gone insane with grief over the annihilation of his hometown of Coast City.

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/Heirverse Heirverse]]: [[spoiler: Jac was actual a pretty decent king before the shinigami killed Maria and Carlos]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* Deconstructed with [[BigBad Demona]] from ''{{WesternAnimation/Gargoyles}}''. If you ask her about it, she'd certainly tell you at length about how humans have always [[FantasticRacism hated, feared, and mistreated]] gargoyles and all of her evil actions are justified to protect her race from the human threat, and she has a thousand years of tragic backstory to back it up. A closer examination of said backstory, though, shows that Demona's own track record of phenomenally poor decisions is responsible for at least as much of her suffering as outside agency (indeed, many of the incidents resulting in humans massacring gargoyles were in retaliation to things ''she'' did in the first place) and that her real motivation is somewhere between revenge and misdirected self-loathing which manifests as FantasticRacism against humans. Ultimately, it is her inability to recognize her own culpability in the suffering of herself and those around her- and as a result, her inability to move on- which is the true tragedy of Demona.

* Deconstructed with [[BigBad Demona]] from ''{{WesternAnimation/Gargoyles}}''. If you ask her about it, she'd certainly tell you at length about how humans have always [[FantasticRacism hated, feared, and mistreated]] gargoyles and all of her evil actions are justified to protect her race from the human threat, and she has a thousand years of tragic backstory to back it up. A closer examination of said backstory, though, shows that Demona's own track record of phenomenally poor decisions is responsible for at least as much of her suffering as outside agency and that her real motivation is somewhere between revenge and misdirected self-loathing which manifests as FantasticRacism against humans. Ultimately, it is her inability to recognize her own culpability in the suffering of herself and those around her- and as a result, her inability to move on- which is the true tragedy of Demona.