History Main / VilLainDeCay

* VillainDecay/WebComics

** [[Characters/RWBYAdamTaurus Adam Taurus]] starts off as a dangerous terrorist who dominates the fights he is in, easily wins against even talented student Huntsmen, and can rally hundreds to his call through his charismatic leadership. His threat is built up through Volume 4 as a result of trauma he has inflicted on several characters, but his return in Volume 5 reveals him to have deteriorating mental health, leading to [[GeneralFailure catastrophically poor decision making]]. [[spoiler:After the Battle of Haven, he is reduced to a lonely fugitive who is obsessed with stalking and killing the woman who dared to stand up to him. While still a highly dangerous foe in a fight, he went from being a terrorist leader who commanded a small army and was a threat to the entire world order to a PsychoExBoyfriend coming up with increasingly deluded excuses to lash out at his former girlfriend.]]
** [[Characters/RWBYCinderFall Cinder Fall]] spends the first three volumes as a cunning, manipulative, and effective threat, and that was before she gained additional, wide ranging magical powers near the end of Volume 3. Then she crossed paths with Ruby, who accidentally unlocked the superpower that is Cinder's key weakness and nearly killed Cinder. After she spends most of Volume 4 recovering, Cinder is consumed by sadism, pettiness, and a hunger for power and revenge that repeatedly blinds her and leads her into making critical, self-defeating mistakes. After Watts gives her a brutal TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about this behaviour in Volume 8, Cinder begins taking steps to rectify her decay. [[spoiler:The end of Volume 8 sees her back in top form and ''easily'' the most focused and dangerous she's been since Volume 3. She takes on nearly all the heroes and, with only some help from Neo (and the fact that the heroes have their focus split between fighting Cinder and trying to get thousands of people to safety), manages to defeat them all. She gains the Relic of Creation and maintains the Relic of Knowledge, and only fails in acquiring the power of the Winter Maiden as well because while Cinder is distracted a dying Penny manages to pass it to Winter Schnee instead. Then, even with Winter newly empowered and Cinder having already fought a prolonged battle, she manages to fight Winter to a standstill until Winter has to leave to protect the refugees of Atlas. Along the way Cinder manages to manipulate, then betray and eliminate both [[TheEvilGenius Arthur Watts]] and [[TheSixthRanger Neo]], seemingly cooperating with them and giving them everything they wanted until the opportunity came to backstab them, at which point Cinder not only took revenge on them for their slights against her (real or imagined), but also silenced the only two witnesses who could tell Salem that Cinder [[DragonWithAnAgenda had acted on her own agenda instead of Salem's]] and made the Relic of Knowledge useless to Salem by using it for herself. And to top it all off, she apparently manages to [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu get away with lying]] to [[HumanoidAbomination Salem]] about what Cinder was up to while Salem was incapacitated. (Although there's a chance that Salem knew that Cinder was lying to her but simply didn't care because it doesn't ''seem'' to interfere with Salem's overall objectives.)]]

* In the beginning of ''FanFic/SnowAngels'', Disaster is introduced as an [[PhysicalGod almighty being]] capable of [[EldritchAbomination driving people to madness just by seeing it]]. For a short while the heroes (who include a {{time travel}}er and SufficientlyAdvancedAlien) actually have trouble fighting Disaster, but by the end of the first arc, Disaster has decayed so much that it's beaten up by perfectly-mundane schoolgirls. Ironically, Disaster is the same entity as [[spoiler:Sasaki]], so she actually received an upgrade before the decay.

* The Mega Man Killers undergo this in ''FanFic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace''. In their highlight episode, they nearly killed Mega Man twice before he managed to defeat them. After that, they just became as effective as regular Robot Masters. Punk got it the worse after he took a crippling blow from Proto Man in Episode 11. His heart just wasn't in it anymore since then and he was more prone to griping and staying out of the way than actually fighting.

* Blood Boy, a big antagonist in the early stages of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' version 3 had this occur in the last topic he appeared in, becoming an almost [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Jokeresque]] figure (to the point of almost directly quoting from ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' at one point). This does, however, have a fairly good reason: a different handler took over the character for that scene, one who, needless to say, had a rather different take on the character.
* The Necromancer, in the Literature/WhateleyUniverse. Starts out as one of the top 60 supervillains on the Interpol rating scale. He's now oh-for-two against Team Kimba, who are ''high schoolers''. Even with his team of supervillains working for him. Now one-for-two, making out like a bandit in the process, excluding one goal failing due to a [[DidntSeeThatComing Unknown Unknown.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Peridot's villainy isn't the only thing that's gone down the can.]]

** [[Characters/RWBYCinderFall Cinder Fall]] spends the first three volumes as a cunning, manipulative, and effective threat, and that was before she gained additional, wide ranging magical powers near the end of Volume 3. Then she crossed paths with Ruby, who accidentally unlocked the superpower that is Cinder's key weakness and nearly killed Cinder. After she spends most of Volume 4 recovering, Cinder is consumed by sadism, pettiness, and a hunger for power and revenge that repeatedly blinds her and leads her into making critical, self-defeating mistakes. After Watts gives her a brutal TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about this behaviour in Volume 8, Cinder begins taking steps to rectify her decay. [[spoiler:The end of Volume 8 sees her back in top form and easily the most dangerous she's been since Volume 3. She takes on nearly all the heroes and, with only some help from Neo (and the fact that the heroes have their focus split between fighting Cinder and trying to get thousands of people to safety), manages to defeat them all. She gains the Relic of Creation, and only fails in acquiring the power of the Winter Maiden as well because while Cinder is distracted a dying Penny manages to pass it to Winter Schnee instead. Then, even with Winter newly empowered and Cinder having already fought a prolonged battle, she manages to fight Winter to a standstill until Winter has to leave to protect the refugees of Atlas. Along the way Cinder manages to manipulate, then betray and eliminate both [[TheEvilGenius Arthur Watts]] and [[TheSixthRanger Neo]], seemingly cooperating with them and giving them everything they wanted until the opportunity came to backstab them, at which point she ruthlessly silenced the only two witnesses who could inform Salem about Cinder [[DragonWithAnAgenda acting on her own agenda instead of Salem's]]. And to top it all off, she apparently manages to fool [[HumanoidAbomination Salem herself]] with some lies about what Cinder was up to while Salem was incapacitated, although there's a chance that Salem knew that Cinder was lying but simply didn't care because it doesn't interfere with Salem's overall objectives.]]

** [[Characters/RWBYAdamTaurus Adam Taurus]] starts off as a dangerous terrorist who dominates the fights he is in, easily wins against even talented student Huntsmen, and can rally hundreds to his call through his charismatic leadership. His threat is built up through Volume 4 as a result of trauma he has inflicted on several characters, but his return in Volume 5 reveals him to have deteriorating mental health, leading to poor decision making. [[spoiler:After the Battle of Haven, he is reduced to a lonely fugitive who is obsessed with stalking and killing the woman who dared to stand up to him.]]

** [[Characters/RWBYCinderFall Cinder Fall]] spends the first three volumes as a cunning, manipulative, and effective threat... until she crosses paths with Ruby. From Volume 4 onwards, she is consumed by sadism, pettiness, and a hunger for power and revenge that repeatedly ruins her own goals and those of Salem, too. After Watts gives her a brutal TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about this behaviour in Volume 8, Cinder begins taking steps to rectify her decay.

See also DegradedBoss. Not to be confused with RedemptionDemotion, where the villain's strength decays because of their HeelFaceTurn.

** Adam starts off as a dangerous terrorist who dominates the fights he is in, easily wins against even talented student Huntsmen, and can rally hundreds to his call through his charismatic leadership. His threat is built up through Volume 4 as a result of trauma he has inflicted on several characters, but his return in Volume 5 reveals him to have deteriorating mental health, leading to poor decision making. [[spoiler:After the Battle of Haven, he is reduced to a lonely fugitive who is obsessed with stalking and killing the woman who dared to stand up to him.]]
** Cinder spends the first three volumes as a cunning, manipulative, and effective threat... until she crosses paths with Ruby. From Volume 4 onwards, she is consumed by sadism, pettiness, and a hunger for power and revenge that repeatedly ruins her own goals and those of Salem, too. After Watts gives her a brutal TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about this behaviour in Volume 8, Cinder begins taking steps to rectify her decay.

[[quoteright:300:[[Franchise/FridayThe13th https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/villain_decay_1229.png]]]]
[-[[caption-width-right:300:Used with permission: [[http://www.suedeheadcomic.com suedeheadcomic.com]]]]-]
%% Used with permission (see Image Pickin' thread): suedeheadcomic.com
%% Image Pickin' conversation: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=lhxpsx1kvbvspoh7pe09okg3

!!Examples:

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

# They can begin the transition to AntiHero or VillainProtagonist, as did Warcraft's Orcs, and Star Trek's Borg ultimately did in isolated examples.

* "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3955187/1/Fading Fading]]" actually explains Goldar's decay in ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers''; he was dying of a rare disease that slowly crippled his combat skills, and he never told anyone because his culture considered it shameful to share details of their health.

** Then on a smaller scale you have some of the lords of Chaos. Abbadon the Despoiler is probably the number one offender. He is supposedly the heir to Horus and carries the title of Warmaster of Chaos, as well as the favor of all four Chaos Gods. However his Black Crusades seem to end in defeat more often than not, or at best as a stalemate. One can argue on whether or not it's his fault but the community at large now looks at him as a bit of a joke, earning him the nickname [[FanNickname Failbaddon]].

** Adam Taurus started off as a charismatic leader of the Vale chapter of the White Fang and a dangerous fighter who was able to beat Blake and Yang easily, [[spoiler:maiming the latter]]. Later, he even manages to [[spoiler:become the undisputed leader of the entire organization by killing his mentor, Sienna Khan]]. However, after [[spoiler:the Battle Of Haven]] he was left humiliated, outcast, and reduced to little more than [[spoiler:stalking Blake over the course of Volume 6 for petty revenge, before finally being KilledOffForReal by Blake and Yang]].
** Cinder Fall originally started as the mysterious mastermind behind the actions of Roman Torchwicks's gang and the main villain of Volumes 1-3.[[spoiler: Cinder even [[KnightOfCerebus kickstarts the Fall of Beacon]], kills Team JNPR's ace and huntress prodigy [[HeroKiller Pyrrha Nikos]] and claims some of the powers of the Fall Maiden, becoming the new Fall Maiden in the process]]. However, as the GreaterScopeVillain Salem was introduced, Cinder has only gone from blunder to blunder to the point where she's pretty much just a hanger-on to Salem and nobody in Salem's inner circle respects her, not even her once-right-hand man Mercury Black.

** Adam Taurus started off as a charismatic leader of the Vale chapter of the White Fang and a dangerous fighter who was able to beat Blake and Yang easily, [[spoiler: maiming the latter]]. Later, he even manages to [[spoiler: become the undisputed leader of the entire organization by killing his mentor, Sienna Khan]]. However, after [[spoiler: the Battle Of Haven]] he was left humiliated, outcast, and reduced to little more than [[spoiler: stalking Blake over the course of Volume 6 for petty revenge, before finally being KilledOffForReal by Blake and Yang]].
** Cinder Fall originally started as the mysterious mastermind behind the actions of Roman Torchwicks's gang and the main villain of Volumes 1-3.[[spoiler: Cinder even [[KnightOfCerebus kickstarts the Fall of Beacon]], kills Team JNPR's ace and huntress prodigy [[HeroKiller Pyrrha Nikos]] and claim some of the powers of the Fall Maiden, becoming the new Fall Maiden in the process]]. However, as the GreaterScopeVillain Salem was introduced, Cinder has only gone from blunder to blunder to the point where she's pretty much just a hanger-on to Salem and nobody in Salem's inner circle respects her, not even her once right hand man Mercury Black.

** Adam Taurus started off as a charismatic leader of the Vale chapter of the White Fang and a dangerous fighter who was able to beat Blake Belladonna physically and psychologically, and who was able to stop Yang Xiao Long in her tracks when she came to Blake's defense by cutting her arm off at the elbow, putting her out of commission for nearly an entire season. Come Volume 5, however, as his ambitions grow [[spoiler:to the point of killing the leader of the entire White Fang, Sienna Khan, then taking her place]], he begins to make increasingly illogical decisions, such as ordering the assassination of Ghira and Kali Belladonna purely to spite Blake, despite the fact that this did not align with the organization's goals and the fact that it would only turn Ghira into a martyr and turn the people of Menagerie against Adam. Sure enough, [[spoiler:the plan fails and Blake is able to rally support to put a stop to Adam's plan to do to Haven Academy what he did to Beacon with the assistance of a shadowy organization.]] When Blake and her allies arrive at Haven, they quickly derail Adam's plan to blow up the school by alerting the Mistral Police. When Adam attempts to blow up the school anyway so that "it's over for everyone ([[BadBoss his men included]])", it's revealed that the explosives were disabled by former White Fang member Ilia Amitola, and he ends up losing the support of his men in the ensuing battle. When Adam attempts to break Blake, saying that she's still too afraid to face him without the support of her teammates, Blake shows how much she's gotten over her fear of Adam by claiming that she's "got more important things to deal with". This drives Adam over the edge, and though he puts up a bit of a fight against Blake and her friend, Sun Wukong, he ends up running away to avoid arrest and to lure Blake and Sun into a trap so that he can pick them off one by one, which Blake easily sees through. Ultimately, his actions end up turning those who once followed him against him, making his plans AllForNothing.

** Necrons. When first formally introduced, they were supremely enigmatic horrors serving even more horrific beings, known for mysterious harvests of life, unknown plans, and ridiculously advanced technology. Fan perception of them quickly made them {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s to the public eye, and they began to be perceived as a race-wide CreatorsPet. The 5th Edition Codex has resulted in a serious hit to the Necrons' previously unknown and unstoppable nature in favor of shifting the focus towards the Tyranids and Chaos as the greatest threats facing humanity, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools revealing much of their past and giving plenty of]] CharacterDevelopment to the race which as a natural consequence destroyed much of the mystery surrounding them, going from NothingIsScarier {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s to [[Tabletop/WarhammerFantasy the Tomb Kings]] [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]. The [[BrokenBase debate on whether this ruined the faction forever or breathed new life into them still rages to this day]].

* ''Fanfic/TheMLPLoops'': Due to the GroundhogDayLoop that has been going on for a ''very'' long time, none of the villains pose the slightest threat to even the weakest of loopers. Special mention goes to Nightmare Moon; the baseline loop starts just a few days before her return, so a new looper's rite of passage is to defeat her by themselves. Twilight institutes "the Challenge," where everyone gets a turn defeating all the villains in a single loop in the most interesting ways they can. Of course, most of the villains are also looping, so they can counter-troll the loopers fighting them when they're Awake.
-->'''Chrysalis:''' Does it count if I defeat myself?\\

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'':

* Adam Taurus of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' started off as a charismatic leader of the Vale chapter of the White Fang and a dangerous fighter who was able to beat Blake Belladonna physically and psychologically, and who was able to stop Yang Xiao Long in her tracks when she came to Blake's defense by cutting her arm off at the elbow, putting her out of commission for nearly an entire season. Come Volume 5, however, as his ambitions grow [[spoiler:to the point of killing the leader of the entire White Fang, Sienna Khan, then taking her place]], he begins to make increasingly illogical decisions, such as ordering the assassination of Ghira and Kali Belladonna purely to spite Blake, despite the fact that this did not align with the organization's goals and the fact that it would only turn Ghira into a martyr and turn the people of Menagerie against Adam. Sure enough, [[spoiler:the plan fails and Blake is able to rally support to put a stop to Adam's plan to do to Haven Academy what he did to Beacon with the assistance of a shadowy organization.]] When Blake and her allies arrive at Haven, they quickly derail Adam's plan to blow up the school by alerting the Mistral Police. When Adam attempts to blow up the school anyway so that "it's over for everyone ([[BadBoss his men included]])", it's revealed that the explosives were disabled by former White Fang member Ilia Amitola, and he ends up losing the support of his men in the ensuing battle. When Adam attempts to break Blake, saying that she's still too afraid to face him without the support of her teammates, Blake shows how much she's gotten over her fear of Adam by claiming that she's "got more important things to deal with". This drives Adam over the edge, and though he puts up a bit of a fight against Blake and her friend, Sun Wukong, he ends up running away to avoid arrest and to lure Blake and Sun into a trap so that he can pick them off one by one, which Blake easily sees through. Ultimately, his actions end up turning those who once followed him against him, making his plans AllForNothing.

** Averted with ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'''s villain Mechakara, who is presented as a KnightOfCerebus that almost kills Linkara in his first appearance, and when he later reappears, despite being DemotedToDragon for the new BigBad Lord Vyce, he's become even more a threat due to being upgraded, shown most notably in that his re-match with Linkara he {{No Sell}}s [[ItOnlyWorksOnce the methods used to defeat him the first time]]. (And then in ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'', he not only takes out Linkara in five seconds, but comes within an ace of killing ''the entire TGWTG cast''.)