History Main / ProtagonistJourneyToVillain

* In ''The Hollow Crown: The Wars of The Roses'', Richard of Gloucester (later Richard III) starts as honorable young man fighting for his family's claim to the throne, but the murders of his father and younger brother, the brutality of war, his incompetent older brothers, and the fact that he can never lead a normal life because of his deformities lead him to become a ruthless, backstabbing, cold hearted swordsman who kills his way to the crown, cares for no one and dies alone in the battle of Bosworth.

* The German UsefulNotes/WorldWarII drama ''Series/UnsereMuetterUnsereVaeter'' has [[spoiler:Friedhelm]], who starts out as a compassionate if somewhat cynical [[NewMeat new Wehrmacht recruit]], and is gradually transformed by the [[WarIsHell horrors of war]] into a SociopathicSoldier who willingly carries out brutal reprisals against suspected partisans and civilians.

* Happens to [[spoiler: William]] in ''Series/{{Westworld}}'' during TheReveal [[spoiler: of the show's three concurrent timeframes in "The Well-Tempered Clavier", of which William is involved in two. The 30 years in the past time frame follows him as a milquetoast and heroic young man roped into a company trip with his business partner and brother-in-law Logan. After spending several days being berated by Logan for his heroism when Logan only came there for the debauchery, as well as being forced to do progressively more morally dubious things and culminating in a BreakingSpeech from Logan that shatters his worldview, William ruthlessly slaughters an entire camp of [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Hosts]] and threatens to kill Logan if he doesn't follow his orders. Cut to the present day, and we see William has become a long time patron of the park known only as the Man in Black who ruined his marriage and devolved into a violent, raping sociopath in his quest to find the true meaning of the park.]]
* ''Series/CobraKai'': The series is in many ways defined by this trope.
** Inverted by Johnny Lawrence. After being the bully in ''Film/TheKarateKid1984'', he is the protagonist this time around and is actively trying to better himself by battling alcoholism and teaching bullied kids to stand up for themselves. He is still a drunken, sexist, foul-mouthed JerkAss with his head stuck in the past, but he is definitely working on being a better person.
** Daniel [=LaRusso=], meanwhile, is also stuck in the past, and uses increasingly immoral methods to fight the resurgence of Cobra Kai, since he firmly believes that the modern Cobra Kai is exactly as bad as the one that Terry Silver indoctrinated him into in ''Film/TheKarateKidPartIII'', and refuses to believe that Johnny has changed and that John Kreese was the reason Cobra Kai was the haven for bullies it was.
** The series ultimately proves that while [[spoiler: Daniel may or may not have been justified, ''he was right.'' Johnny's students take to the least savory parts of the Cobra Kai ethos with the zeal of converts, and by the end of the second season, Johnny drinks himself into a stupor when he finds out first-hand just how brutal and ruthless his students are. Though he fails to realize that unlike Kreese, Johnny is mortified at what he's turned his students into and wants to put a stop to it. His failure to recognize that creates a new set of problems.]]
** In season 1, Johnny's son Robby Keene goes to work for Daniel to spite his father, and despite his original ulterior motive, Robby grows to appreciate Daniel's faith in him and turns against his miscreant friends. Robby becomes Daniel's Miyagi-Do karate student and flourishes under this tutelage, coming in second place to Miguel Diaz in the All-Valley Tournament. In the second season, Robby continues to train under Daniel and begins dating Daniel's daughter Sam. But he's insecure about Miguel's constant efforts to reconnect with Sam, and things come to a head in the season finale when Sam cheats on him with Miguel and Miguel throws this in Robby's face during the school brawl. An enraged Robby kicks Miguel over a railing, leaving him paralyzed while Robby spends season 3 in juvie. Kreese then takes advantage of Robby having fallings out with both Daniel ''and'' Johnny to get under his skin, getting Robby to buy into the Cobra Kai mentality. The final straw is when he catches Sam having an intimate moment with Miguel and she steps in to stop Robby from attacking him, prompting Robby to go to Cobra Kai and throw his lot in with Kreese.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' includes this as the final PlotTwist. Where [[spoiler: Daenerys Stormborn]] completes her ascension into the BigBad right before the finale.
* This trope is the whole point of ''Series/{{Hannibal}}''. Hyper-empathetic, anti-social FBI profiler Will Graham is manipulated by Hannibal Lecter into becoming a killer.

** Similarly, the prequel ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' chronicles the journey of an ex-con and aspiring and hopeful lawyer Jimmy [=McGill=] to the ''criminal'' lawyer Saul Goodman, who willingly throws in with criminals like Walt and Mike just to earn some extra money, and is very evident in comparison with Jimmy and Saul in Seasons 1 and 6. In Season 1, Jimmy swore off all connections with the cartel after almost getting killed by Tuco and tried to fight for the elderly being defrauded by their residential company, whereas by Season 6, ''Saul'' has [[spoiler:used the elderly to just to bump off a potential competitor from the bar association, created a scheme to defraud Howard and [=HHM=] just for petty vengeance even when Howard himself was willing to forgive him and bring him to [=HHM=], and tricked the entire jury into releasing the very guilty Lalo Salamanca, enabling him to cause further murders.]] While WordOfGod clarified Walt as TheSociopath and thus his series was just his dark side being brought to light, Saul used to be a genuinely upstanding guy.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' has done this for Horus, Fulgrim and Lorgar and Alpharius Omegon.

* The ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' series discusses the events that ultimately lead to Horus betraying the Emperor, such as his brush with death where the Chaos Gods appealed to his repressed ambitions.

* The ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' has done this for Horus, Fulgrim and Lorgar and Alpharius Omegon.

* In ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}'', the titular castle, a massive rambling city-state, is also an oppressive social structure where people are locked into their social roles and even their occupations from the moment of birth. No social mobility is possible and nobodty has ever seriously tried to challenge the system. That is, until the advent of a kitchen scullion called Steerpike, who tires of being bullied and overworked in the dungeon kitchens. Escaping from the kitchens, Steerpike literally and metaphorically makes his way up in the heirarchy - initially by physically scaling the outside of the Castle. At first, he is a romantic hero who arouses the reader's sympathy. But little by little, his ambition to rise to the very top and supplant the ruling Groan family takes over, with deceptions, manipulation, and finally murder in suport of his goal. The boy hero becomes a murdering villain, slowly but surely, across the course of two books.

* ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'': In the aptly titled ''Descent Into Darkness'' campaign, the protagonist is an apprentice mage who starts to delve into black magic to protect his hometown from raiders. It doesn't end well.

* The alliance campaign of ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} 3'' does this with prince Arthas and the TraumaCongaLine that leads to him becoming The Lich King.
** To a lesser degree, we have Illidan, Sylvanas, Maiev Shadowsong, Kael, and Grom Hellscream, though admittedly several of these became {{Anti Villain}}s while Grom redeemed himself via HeroicSacrifice. Really, it would be easier to list the Warcraft characters that ''don't'' follow this route.
** In VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft, Grom's son Garrosh began as a seemingly good-natured Orc, tormented by the sins of his father. As his personal story continued he became increasingly brutal and veered further into GeneralRipper territory, culminating with his being the end boss of an entire expansion pack following a pogrom against all non-Orcs and his attempts to steal the power of the Sha.

* In episode 4 of ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'', it presents an AlternateUniverse where [[Characters/MCUDoctorStrange Doctor Strange]] lost his girlfriend instead of the use of his hands. In his grief, he has spent centuries absorbing mystic brings to gain enough power to reverse Christie's death. In the end, he kills his GoodCounterpart and destroys the universe he once vowed to protect.

* Harvey Dent/Two-Face in ''Film/TheDarkKnight''. The page quote {{foreshadow|ing}}s his own future and he ends up having this as his character theme.

** The subplot for ''Part II'' is a flashback detailing how Michael's father Vito started out as a poor immigrant orphan, turning to crime to feed his family after being fired to feed his family, and rose to become one of the most powerful Dons in the nation.

* This trope applies to both ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'' and ''VideoGame/NierAutomata''. In the first, Nier only sees the [[TheHeartless shades]] as [[AxCrazy mindless killing machines]], and he's right [[spoiler:at first, about the ones near his village that were exiled for their violent degeneration. Then he invades a shade stronghold to find his daughter, and the peaceful shades, unable to communicate, are forced to defend themselves when he assumes they are a threat. This cycle of assumption and revenge escalates until he has committed genocide against the shades and killed a living CosmicKeystone, dooming both shades and [[TomatoInTheMirror "humans"]] to extinction.]] In ''Automata'' [[spoiler:9S passes the DespairEventHorizon after realizing that the Machine War is not only pointless but that Yorha was created to [[ForeverWar keep the war going]] [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness and then be disposed of]]. Grief-stricken after [[TheHeroDies the death of 2B]], he decides to get revenge on A2 and destroy humanity's remaining data to "solve everything".]]

* In ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', the penultimate chapter turns out to be a condensed version to fit with the "short story anthology" nature of the game's plot structure. As it turns out, it's actually detailing the BigBad's StartOfDarkness and tying all the previous, heretofore seemingly-unrelated short stories together. The chapter's focal character is Oersted, once a hero to his kingdom. Oersted is tricked into killing the king, which sees him branded a traitor and outcast, and he's even believed by many to be the demon king. To make matters worse, it's revealed that his best friend, Straybow, orchestrated the whole ordeal [[GreenEyedMonster to get revenge for Oersted always delegating him second-fiddle]]. To top things off, after having been [[EtTuBrute betrayed by his former friend and adventuring companion]], Princess Alicia, the woman he was in love with, was DrivenToSuicide by Straybow's death at Oersted's hand, having fallen in love ''him'' instead. After losing everyone and everything dear to him, [[HeroicMime Oersted]] [[SuddenlySpeaking says]] that, if people already believe him to be the Demon King, [[ThenLetMeBeEvil he might as well be one]], and so he becomes the [[BigBad Demon King Odio]].

* The SpaghettiWestern ''Faccia a Faccia'' has a mild-mannered Boston professor turn into a ruthless criminal over the course of the film.

* Remus in the Italian movie ''Il Primo Re''. At the start, he and Romulus are just two shepherds who love each other. Then [[spoiler:a flood of the Tiber kills their flock and leaves them to be captured by the Albani to be sacrificed, and during their escape with other perspective victims he becomes progressively crueler, before snapping and turning to murder and burning down the village he had tried to settle in when the Vestal kidnapped from Alba prophetizes that the one who will found an empire will kill his brother]], and at the end Romulus ''has'' to kill him to protect the villagers, [[spoiler:[[ProphecyTwist fulfilling the prophecy in a way neither brother nor the Vestal had expected]]]].

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' includes this as the final PlotTwist -- as well as one of the reasons why the final season was so reviled. TropesAreTools, but the execution was poor: If we're generous, the "Journey" part of the Protagonist's Journey Into Villain was crammed into one-and-a-half episodes. (If we're not, it lasted about 75 seconds.)

* Dave is the protagonist of ''WebOriginal/AngriestCommentThreadOnYoutube'', as he participated the most in the five hundred long comment chain. While he started off as a guy trying to let some kid have his own harmless opinion about a ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' song, he became more and more pretentious as time went on.

* The title character in Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Carrie}}'' (and its film adaptations) is a [[MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold kind-hearted, but socially outcast teenage girl]] who spends the first half of the book getting slowly beaten down and pushed to her RageBreakingPoint by [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer her classmates]], [[AdultsAreUseless the school faculty]], and even [[MyBelovedSmother her own mother]]. The second half is about [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge the massacre she commits as a result]].

* Basically, the whole point of ''VideoGame/FarCry3''. In the end, [[spoiler: it's up to you to decide whether Jason Brody is redeemable or not; - in almost comical defiance of the page quote above, if he chooses to stay on the island and embraces its warrior-culture, he dies a villain. However, if he chooses to leave with his friends, he lives as an incredibly traumatized yet redeemable, hero.]]

* Ditto for The Courier in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. You might start out as someone helping communities and stopping raiders. But when you get dragged into the main plot, you ''will'' have to do awful actions, like betrayal and mass murder to proceed, no matter which faction you'll choose.

* ''Manga/FutureDiary'', turning TheWoobie into... well, [[WellIntentionedExtremist something]] [[AxCrazy else]] [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds entirely.]]

* This happens to Michi in Creator/OsamuTezuka's original ''Anime/{{Metropolis}}'' manga.