| 1 | %% Trope was declared Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=19qugn3r |
| 2 | %% |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''"Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?"'' |
| 5 | -->-- '''Glinda''', ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Sometimes your villain isn't the MadScientist who wants to poison the city, the CorruptCorporateExecutive who wants to control the world, or the greedy bank robber who's on a crime spree. Sometimes, your villain's just an average guy who's brought into villainy against their own will or control. This isn't MindControl or possession, it's because they've been warped by events around them, and forced into villainy by forces outside their control. A broken shell of a human being, the only thing left is villainy. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | To alter an old saying: "Some people are born into villainy, others have villainy thrust upon them." While their villainous actions have no excuse, their cause for becoming villains was entirely (or mostly) out of their hands. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | It's rare to find a villain who is ''truly'' blameless in their origin, though it does happen. Even origins that lament the cruelty of fate eventually reveal that the origin is still largely due to the character's ''choices''. Indeed, a villain who is fed up with [[ButtMonkey abuse by others]] or out for revenge is ''still'' making the active choice to be villainous, and if it is still clear that the villain made the choice to be evil themselves rather than have it made for them, then they're not exactly broken, just enraged to the point of vengeance. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | However, the trend seems to be that, the more arbitrary their fall into villainy seems to be, the more psychotic they become, as those screwed by the world become angry at the world, and seek to inflict their new madness on everyone. The end result of being Driven To Villainy '''is not''' a good person forced to do evil, but a legitimately evil villain, tragically warped by things they never had any control over. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | A SubTrope of AntiVillain. Compare FreudianExcuse when older psychological harm is the driving force, and ThenLetMeBeEvil when enough people assume someone is a villain that they run with it. Hero-to-villain [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal Mistreatment-Induced Betrayals]] can apply if the mistreatment is severe enough. Contrast TrappedInVillainy. Such a character may become a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. See also FromNobodyToNightmare. The more mundane version of this trope would be SocietyIsToBlame. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | ---- |
| 18 | !!Examples: |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 21 | |
| 22 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 23 | * ''Manga/BlackClover'': The leaders of the [[FantasticTerrorists Eye of the Midnight Sun]] (particularly [[HumansAreBastards Licht]] and the [[CoDragons Third Eye]]) speak rather enigmatically of getting their revenge on the Clover Kingdom, and it's not until the truth of their origins is revealed that any light is shed upon their motives: [[spoiler:Licht and the Third Eye are elves who reincarnated following the massacre of the elves at the hands of human nobles 400 years ago, and who created the Eye of the Midnight Sun as a front for their scheme to reincarnate the rest of their fellow elves and wipe out every last human in the Clover Kingdom in revenge]]. [[spoiler:Except even they do not know the full truth of what happened that day...]] |
| 24 | * Almost all of the ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' cast not in major leadership positions. Hansel and Gretel are a particularly sad example. |
| 25 | * In ''Literature/TheBoyWhoSworeRevengeOnTheWorld'', the main character, Hardt, was an innocent boy in a backwater village, sent to a church to learn his god-given [Ocupation], hoping to be of use to his mother. For no explained reason, he is arrested, tortured, taken back to his home village in a cage, and his friends and neighbors are forced, at sword-point, to stab him with a dagger, to prove their "innocence". Then his mother is summarily executed for the "Crime" of giving birth to him. Since the goddess herself is after him, he now has no choice but to deliver vengeance on the world. |
| 26 | * Aion in the manga version of ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' was badly psychologically damaged after discovering the AwfulTruth--so badly that it even had a [[LockedIntoStrangeness marked physical effect]] on him. That event warped him into the WellIntentionedExtremist we see him as in the series. |
| 27 | * Mao from ''Anime/CodeGeass''. A {{Yandere}} who shoots C.C. and proposes taking a chainsaw to her in order to make her 'compact' for a trip to Australia, as well as attempting to blow up Nunnally. Also adept at BreakingSpeech-slash-MindRape, which he uses twice. However, he is also completely barmy because he cannot shut off the thoughts of others, thus mitigating his moral culpability for his above acts, as C.C. hints at before blowing his brains out. |
| 28 | * Happens midway through ''Anime/CrossAnge'' with [[spoiler:Chris]], who had been [[spoiler:resurrected by Embryo after being shot in the head by a Misurugi soldier and left for dead.]] [[TheCorrupter Embryo]], on top of [[IOweYouMyLife saving her life]], had fed her issues of resentment and fear of abandonment regarding Hilda and Rosalie, making her hate and desire to kill them, and gave her the attention she desired for so long. All of this, combined with the Ragna-mail he grants her to help destroy the people she felt had abandoned her, earns him her allegiance. |
| 29 | * Ken Ichijouji from ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' wished his older brother would [[NeverSayDie disappear]], and eventually had to cope with [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor his death in a car wreck]]. A CompellingVoice brought him into AnotherDimension and he finally lost it, becoming The Digimon Emperor. |
| 30 | * In ''Literature/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, said 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. |
| 31 | * Hayate Yagami from ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' 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 she joins Team Nanoha immediately after TheReveal. Also, very much an example of WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. |
| 32 | * ''Manga/MariaNoDanzai'': Mari Nagare crosses the DespairEventHorizon after helplessly [[OutlivingOnesOffspring watching her son Kiritaka die]] in front of her eyes [[ABirthdayNotABreak the night of his birthday]] and later learning that apparently [[DrivenToSuicide he committed suicide]] due to AbusiveParents, which makes Mari [[ItsAllMyFault blame herself for his death]]. ''Then'' she finds [[DeadManWriting Kiri's diary]] and learns from reading it that in truth he was [[BullyBrutality horrifically bullied]] at school by [[BigBad Okaya]] and [[GangOfBullies his gang]]; Mari puts two and two together and realizes that Okaya's gang sent Kiri to his death before covering their tracks to [[NeverSuicide make it look like a suicide]]. This serves as the last straw in Mari's TraumaCongaLine, after which she decides to personally [[BullyHunter hunt down and murder Kiri's bullies]] in [[CruelAndUnusualDeath the most painful way possible]]. Two years later, once she's completed her [[BestServedCold preparations]] and finally gets around to doing it, [[ThatWomanIsDead Maria Akeboshi]] is all too aware of how it's negatively affected her, [[IHaveComeTooFar but is determined to see her revenge through to the bitter end]]. |
| 33 | * Johan Liebert from ''Anime/{{Monster}}''. No, really. Hard as it is to imagine, he was once a frightened little boy clinging to his mother's leg before he was systematically warped by secret psychological torture [[spoiler:that actually happened to his ''sister'', and that he managed to accidentally create as a false memory for himself]] and then even more brainwashing to become the perfect little East German super-soldier. While he was already a full-on EnfantTerrible by age 6 or 7, he wasn't born that way, and would not have become how he ended up without these traumas. |
| 34 | ** [[spoiler:It's implied that what actually broke him was, at the age of six, realizing that his mother favored one of the children more than the other when she willingly handed one over to Bonaparta. The knowledge that people were inherently different and that favouritism could drive people to do things like that]] |
| 35 | * Quite a few examples in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', whose author Kishimoto has turned traumatic childhoods into a fine art. |
| 36 | ** Gaara comes to mind - upon birth, a demon was sealed inside him, with his mother becoming a sacrifice, so that he could become his ninja village's ultimate weapon. But said demon also makes everyone in the village terrified of him, and he grows up reviled as a monster. Finally, his own father (who arranged the whole thing in the first place), finding him growing unstable, sends assassins to kill him. The first assassin is his beloved uncle, the only one who seems to care for him, who reveals that he's actually secretly hated him all these years for killing his sister (Gaara's mom, the one who was sacrificed to make him what he was) and that his mother had died cursing the village and hoped that Gaara killed them all - his name, given by her, means "The Demon who loves only himself". Naturally, he finally snaps and spends the next few years killing everyone he runs across as a way of proving that he exists. Oh, and the demon in question prevents him from sleeping, lest it starts eating away at his mind. |
| 37 | ** [[spoiler:[[BigBad Tobi]] aka [[FallenHero Obito Uchiha]] is an even more literal example. As in the previous example he endured a [[StreetUrchin bad childhood]], but he all the same remained a kind and responsive child. But after his entire right side was crushed by a boulder while saving Kakashi, he took to himself Kakashi's promise to protect Rin at any cost. Later he was rescued by Madara, which decides to put him through DespairEventHorizon in order to make him the perfect accomplice for his plan, so he took various shinobi under his control, 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 witnessed how the love of his life was killed by 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 Uchihas 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 Uchihas, and thus his sense of love was far deeper than the norm for his clan. And also, if we take into account that Madara placed a seal on Obito's heart which would have prevented him from killing himself, should he have 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.]] |
| 38 | * The protagonist Kyrie of ''Manga/RevengeOfTheTeapotHero'' was a simple village girl who was summoned to the royal capital of her nation, after an oracle declared her TheHero. When her power proved to be nothing more than the ability to boil water, she was ridiculed and sent home. She enjoyed one last day with her friends and family in blissful ignorance that the king had sent an elite unit to wipe her and her home village out, to make it look like an attack by nameless bandits, so the gods would choose a new "hero." She is forced into acts of vigilante vengeance in order to survive. |
| 39 | [[/folder]] |
| 40 | |
| 41 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 42 | * ''ComicBook/TheBoys'': The Homelander was never a saint, but he was driven to become a monster because he believed he was already hopelessly murderously insane when he saw images of himself committing horrible crimes (like baby-eating) that he didn't remember. [[spoiler:His clone Black Noir dressed up as him and framed him for his crimes to drive Homelander crazy so he could fulfill his purpose: to kill Homelander.]] |
| 43 | * ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'': Before it was retconned that he had actually been possessed the whole time, 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. |
| 44 | * ''ComicBook/MyLittlePonyFiendshipIsMagic'': King Sombra sways between being this and a TragicMonster. [[spoiler:Although actually an [[HumanoidAbomination Umbrum]] that is inherently evil, he was born an innocent with a good heart and mainly driven to evil due to the inaction of Princess Amore who secretly knew the truth about him but did nothing, and ultimately was driven right into the clutches of the red crystal that awakened the evil within him and sent him after the Crystal Empire. Even at his worst, though, he ''still'' couldn't bring himself to harm his one friend Radiant Hope.]] |
| 45 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': The series is loaded with these: The Lizard is another example, as long as you don't count that time where they implied that Conners was in control the whole time (neither the [[FanonDisContinuity fandom]] or [[CanonDisContinuity writers]] do, however). Norman Osborn has gone so far as to feign that [[BlatantLies this is the cause for all his crimes]]. |
| 46 | ** The Hobgoblin from the year 2211 is revealed to be this. She's the daughter of that year's traveling Spider-Man, who is forced to arrest her due to crimes that she would commit in the future, and placed in a virtual reality prison, which is programmed into her brain to keep her in a fantasy world. Her boyfriend tries to free her with a computer virus, which adversely affects the fantasy, warps her mind, and drives her completely insane. True to form, her imprisonment is [[SelfFulfillingProphecy what caused her insane criminal spree in the first place]]. She uses her knowledge as an inter-dimensional researcher to create time-traveling equipment and goes on a history-erasing rampage through time. |
| 47 | * ''ComicBook/XMen'': Perhaps the best example of this trope is Max Eisenhardt a.k.a. Magneto. His origin story is enough to drive anyone to villainy, and yet, throughout the comics (and the movies) he is shown as not fueled by revenge, blind hate against humanity, or the desire to do evil. His ultimate motivation is to fight for his own kind - the Mutants - which he sees as persecuted by the common humans for being different and perceived as dangerous. |
| 48 | [[/folder]] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 51 | * Fanfic/{{Heirverse}}: [[spoiler: Jac was actual a pretty decent king before the shinigami killed Maria and Carlos]] |
| 52 | * Fanfic/JimmysVisitWithDrFranklin: After Ebon killed his brother Jimmy Osgood became determined to bring his brother back to life and protect him, even if that meant committing a mass shooting, hoping to kill all of the Meta-Breed. |
| 53 | * Izuku in ''[[FanFic/MastermindStrategistForHire 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 [[FantasticAbleism no one wants to hire a Quirkless teen]], eventually causing him to hire himself out as a strategist for villains. |
| 54 | [[/folder]] |
| 55 | |
| 56 | [[folder:Film]] |
| 57 | * Magneto from the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''. See Comic Books entry above. |
| 58 | * ''Film/TheDarkKnight'''s Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Given that he got his new worldview from The Joker while lying medicated in a hospital bed recovering from both a disfiguring injury and a horrible tragedy, you feel sorry for the guy as he performs his horrible acts throughout the rest of the film. Though there was some {{foreshadowing}} that he was walking along the slippery slope before the Joker gave him the push. |
| 59 | * Francis Dolarhyde out of the Hannibal Lecter film ''Film/{{Manhunter}}'': |
| 60 | -->'''Will Graham''': As a child, my heart bleeds for him. Someone took a [[FreudianExcuse little boy and turned him into a monster.]] But as an adult... as an adult, he's irredeemable. He butchers whole families to fulfill some sick fantasy. As an adult, I think someone should blow the sick fuck out of his socks. |
| 61 | * In the ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'', both the Green Goblin and Doc Ock had elements of this. The former was driven insane by an untested SuperSerum, and the latter by [[AIIsACrapshoot an AI]] wired directly to his nervous system coupled with a FailSafeFailure. |
| 62 | * In ''Film/PainAndGain'', Paul objects to Daniel's kidnapping plan from the start and only goes along with it after he's promised that they won't physically hurt anyone. From there he gets progressively dragged further into the scheme and is eventually urged to kill the victim. His ensuing addiction to cocaine makes him spiral further out of control [[spoiler:until he atones for his crimes and professes his guilt to the authorities.]] |
| 63 | * 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 losing hope and (in one case) attempting suicide. |
| 64 | * PlayedWith in ''Film/Joker2019''. Arthur Fleck repeatedly frames [[ProtagonistJourneyToVillain his transformation into the Joker]] as this, but the reality is more like a ''potential'' monster slowly becoming more comfortable about actually being one. While there are multiple reasons 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. |
| 65 | * ''Film/ShangChiAndTheLegendOfTheTenRings'' reveals that Xu Wenwu (aka "The Mandarin") was a DoubleSubversion of this. He did begin [[AncientConspiracy his millennium of conquest through the Ten Rings]] of his own volition and desire for power, but [[VictoryIsBoring he eventually grew tired of it]], and once he found genuine love with Ying Li, [[LoveRedeems he chose to relinquish his villainy]] and [[RetiredBadass retire to a life of normality and peace]]. However, after [[TheLostLenore Ying Li's premature death]], Wenwu relapsed into villainy and reinstated the Ten Rings in the modern day [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge in the name of revenge]], [[spoiler:as well as an attempt to reclaim her from the underworld]]. |
| 66 | * Downplayed in ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed''. Mei is in no way "evil", and doesn't really want to rebel against her mother, until Ming refuses to let her go to the 4*Town concert in spite of how hard Mei has worked to meet Ming's expectations, and even managed to control her panda transformations. At that point, Mei's desire to see 4*Town, combined with her budding teen rebelliousness, drives her to decide (with her friends' strong agreement) that if all her effort isn't going to be rewarded no matter what she does, then there's no point in being obedient or trying to live up to Ming's expectations anyway. |
| 67 | -->'''Mei:''' We need to see this concert! Why doesn't my mom get that?! I never ask for anything! My whole life, I've been her perfect little Mei-Mei! [...] We've been so good! If they don't trust us anyway, then what's the point?! |
| 68 | [[/folder]] |
| 69 | |
| 70 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 71 | * ''Literature/Alice2014'': |
| 72 | ** Morgan is [[spoiler:forced to drug Matthew to keep him from killing himself]] and tries to rape Christopher, though it's implied that he didn't have control over his own actions. |
| 73 | ** This could apply to Prima and Terceira because, despite the fact that they were both serial killers, Christopher wasn't their typical target and [[spoiler: they were trying to kill him to stop the cycle from repeating, even though it would have been ineffective anyway]]. |
| 74 | * In ''[[Literature/AuntDimity Aunt Dimity Goes West]]'', it is revealed that an infamous local mine disaster was due to sabotage caused by a disgruntled employee who had owned the claim originally, sold it for a pittance ($5,000.00), and later learned it contained a rich vein of gold (worth $200 million!). It also turns out that [[spoiler: his wife committed suicide, his son was sent to an orphanage, and his great-grandson later reopened the mine and set a bomb in it to destroy the house built on the site by the owner's descendants]]. |
| 75 | * In the prequels to ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', it is revealed that Zedar's FaceHeelTurn was not a voluntary action of joining Torak, but rather a case of Torak incurably [[MindRape mind raping]] him. |
| 76 | * Kissin' Kate Barlow in ''Literature/{{Holes}}'' by Louis Sachar was a sweet schoolteacher until the town she taught in [[spoiler: lynched the man she loved because he'd kissed her, and they were different races.]] |
| 77 | * In ''Literature/HorusHeresy'', Magnus is actually trying to warn his father of Horus' treachery, but the Emperor disbelieves him and sends [[TheDreaded Leman Russ]] to capture his Legion. On the way, Horus tampers with orders to make them say "kill" and to save the Thousand Sons, Magnus is forced to [[FaceHeelTurn pledge loyalty to Tzeentch]]. |
| 78 | * [[PunchClockVillain Lewis]] seems to be very much this in ''{{Literature/Touch 2017}}'', 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. |
| 79 | * The prequel to ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'', ''[[Literature/TheWalkingDeadRiseOfTheGovernor The Rise of the Governor]]'' reveals the backstory of what was a monster in the comics and makes him out to be a TragicVillain. |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 83 | * ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' |
| 84 | ** A character in an early episode was mutated by a combination of Kryptonite and hypothermia. In order to prevent freezing to death, he had to drain people of their body heat (which, if he waited too long to do it, would result in their deaths) in order to survive, and a case could be made that he wasn't truly villainous, and was forced to kill people in order to survive. However, the guy was made such a self-centered, vindictive psychopathic JerkAss that [[HandWave the point became moot]]. |
| 85 | ** Another episode had a girl who had to regularly ''[[IAmAHumanitarian eat human flesh]]'' to keep from starving to death (regular food didn't work). She never actually killed anyone, just left them near death from the damage to their bodies. This was clearly a case of HorrorHunger, and in at least one instance, she urged a potential victim to run away. |
| 86 | ** For real tragedy, see Davis Bloome in Season 8. A NiceGuy paramedic, Davis suffers from constant blackouts and discovers that he has alien SerialKiller and PersonOfMassDestruction Doomsday trapped inside him, and that the only way to keep the monster from taking over and slaughtering dozens of people is to kill individual victims. He thus becomes a PayEvilUntoEvil-type AntiHero, murdering those he considers to be deserving of it in order to keep his inner monster trapped. This eventually drives him completely insane, and results in his descent into true villainy. |
| 87 | * In the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "True Night", we see a comic book artist become a serial killer after he survived an attack that killed his (pregnant) fiancee, with his inability to protect her being the root of his villainy. |
| 88 | * Regina from ''Series/OnceUponATime'' was a normal young woman who rescued the child of a king from a spooked horse. The king offers to marry Regina, which Regina's mother Cora gladly accepts. Regina confides to the young girl that she is in love with the stable boy, and the girl, believing she can make everything right, tells Cora about the situation. Cora responds by ripping the poor boy's heart out in front of Regina, and Regina never forgives the young girl who ruined her life and who is now her stepdaughter, Snow White. |
| 89 | ** Rumplestiltskin was one of the main villains of the series. He committed many terrible crimes and screwed people over, but the reason he became the Dark One in the first place was to save his son Baelfire. His son would have been forcefully recruited to fight a losing war against ogres on his fourteenth birthday (the reason kids were fighting is that so many people were killed that they were running low on troops). He was manipulated into becoming the Dark One by the previous one, who was tired of doing the job himself. The power eventually corrupted Rumplestiltskin so badly that Baelfire abandoned him. |
| 90 | * Many criminals from ''Series/TheWire'' are born into unrelenting and abject poverty, have no positive figures such as caring parents or role models around them, and the societal systems that are supposed to help them (schools, police, social services) are crumbling or being outright dismantled by {{Sleazy Politician}}s and the like. Is it any wonder many of them turn to theft and drug dealing? |
| 91 | * ''Series/TheDevilJudge'': As a child, the now-devilish Sun-ah got into fights and got bullied and stole due to poverty and hunger. She claims she didn't have a choice. |
| 92 | * River Song in ''Series/DoctorWho'' was engineered all her life to be a psychopath to kill the Doctor. In the end, it was the suit she was in that actually murdered the Doctor, not herself. Or something. Then she and the Doctor got married. |
| 93 | * [[SoapOpera Soaps]] like to pair this with DerailingLoveInterests, when it becomes obvious that reason that the love interest in question went off the deep end is that they finally snapped after months or even years of being jerked around by their lover--''Series/AsTheWorldTurns'' Julia became a {{Yandere}} as her boyfriend and later husband Jack constantly flip-flopped between her and Carly. |
| 94 | [[/folder]] |
| 95 | |
| 96 | [[folder:Theme Parks]] |
| 97 | * Cindy Caine from Ride/UniversalStudios' ''Theatre/HalloweenHorrorNights'' was already mentally unstable, but it was abuse from the other children at the orphanage where she lived that drove her into full-on murderous insanity; she proceeded to burn the place down, killing everyone but herself. |
| 98 | [[/folder]] |
| 99 | |
| 100 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 101 | * Fou-lu in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV''. [[spoiler: He is a PhysicalGod who is also the KingInTheMountain for the country he founded as a GodEmperor (after being summoned there by a VestigialEmpire--who buggered up the summoning leading to aforementioned PhysicalGod developing a LiteralSplitPersonality that ends up displaced 600 years in the future). Unfortunately, said empire has become TheEmpire over six hundred years of hibernation, TheEmperor doesn't want to give up his seat, one of TheEmperor's main assistants is MadScientist [[KarmaHoudini Yuna]] who convinces him he can kill a ''god'', and this ends up in increasingly more extreme methods by TheEmpire to kill Fou-lu (eventually culminating in the use of a FantasticNuke which runs on nightmares and created the ColdBloodedTorture and HumanSacrifice of people with very close connections to the target...with Fou-lu's ''girlfriend'' used as the [[HumanResources Thermonuclear Country Girl]] because aforementioned FantasticNuke ''also'' works on the principle of LoveHurts). This cascading Pain Train [[BreakTheCutie Breaks The Cutie]] to the point Fou-lu ends up a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.]] |
| 102 | * ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' has Alex Mercer, who [[WakingUpAtTheMorgue wakes up in a morgue]] to find out that he has EasyAmnesia and has been turned into a [[BodyHorror horrifying]] VoluntaryShapeshifter. Cue RoaringRampageOfRevenge. This is played straight, subverted, and then ''inverted'': [[spoiler:Upon waking, Alex does horrible things like [[strike:eat]] [[ImAHumanitarian consume people]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext in order to]] [[EasyAmnesia figure out what is going on]]. It's hard to blame him ''too'' much for being [[AxCrazy batshit crazy]], though, considering he's been turned into a ''living virus'' and has no memory of who he is or what happened to bring him to this point and people have been trying to brutally murder him since he woke up.]] That's the played straight. It's then subverted when [[TheReveal it's revealed]] that [[spoiler:''Alex himself'' is the one who released the [[TheVirus deadly virus]], dubbed "Blacklight", that turned him into a monster and is currently ''decimating'' New York state. Flashbacks show you that Alex is a sociopath who deliberately engineered an already deadly virus to become ''ten times more dangerous'', and then stole a sample and unleashed it upon the general populace when he was shot dead with the mindset of "If I'm going down, I'm TakingYouWithMe."]] That's the subversion. Now the ''inversion'' shows up in this way: [[spoiler:It turns out that Alex isn't the one who released the Blacklight Virus. Well, he ''is'', but the twist is this: The Alex you've been controlling isn't the ''real'' Alex Mercer. When he was shot dead, he was actually [[KilledOffForReal killed off for real]]. Turns out that the Alex you know isn't even human; he's ''the Blacklight Virus itself'' in a human avatar. The reason this is an inversion is that it/he goes from originally being the MadScientist that the real Alex was, to a SociopathicHero, to a person who becomes empathetic enough over the course of the game to actually express disgust over who the real Alex was and risk its life to save Manhattan from being [[NukeEm nuked]]]]. |
| 103 | * ''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]]. |
| 104 | * Keiichi, Shmion, Rena, and, to an extent, [[spoiler: Satoko]] in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry''. They don't choose to become villains when they do start killing people, as it's caused by a combination of [[spoiler:the HatePlague, Hinamizawa Syndrome]] and some overall bad shit that happens to them. |
| 105 | * [[spoiler:Bernkastel]] in ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry.'' She's essentially an [[spoiler:incarnation of [[FallenHero all of the Rikas who died]] [[VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry in Hinamizawa]] as [[HatePlague her friends went insane and killed each other]] and [[DoomedHometown the entire village was destroyed]]]]. Well, it's no wonder that the combination of all of that had some mental damage. It's the "having the [[RealityWarper power]] to screw around with [[spoiler:[[AlternateUniverse other worlds]]]]" part that causes the problems. |
| 106 | * Isair and Madae, the {{Big Bad}}s of ''VideoGame/IcewindDale II''. While their origins -- half-demon half-elves shunned and misunderstood or manipulated by everyone, whose mother committed suicide when she first saw them -- are undeniably tragic, it's very clear they've crossed the line into choosing villainy at the point the Legion of the Chimera started burning and looting the Ten Towns. |
| 107 | * Kael'Thas Sunstrider in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. His homeland was wrecked, his people's allies in the Alliance turned on them, and long-term exposure to the Sunwell followed by its' removal had given his people addictions to magic. The only way to escape the Alliance general hunting him was to flee to Outland, and the only place to get large amounts of magic in Outland was to absorb it from demons. Tragically, Fel energy is even more addictive than normal magic and makes one DrunkOnTheDarkSide, to the point where Kael is willing to align with the same Demon Lord who ordered his homeland destroyed in the first place to get more power. |
| 108 | ** Kael's boss Illidan a debatable example. His entire life consists of WellIntentionedExtremist actions and being punished for them until he finally flees Azeroth altogether and builds an empire in Outland in an attempt to escape the Burning Legion's ire. Like Kael, the [[DrunkOnTheDarkSide influence of Fel magic]] made him more and more willing to enslave and slaughter anyone who didn't fall in line. |
| 109 | ** The Zandalari trolls maintained strict neutrality for millennia until the Cataclysm caused their homeland to begin slowly sinking into the ocean. Realizing that the other troll civilizations were on the verge of extinction as well, they rallied the tribes in an attempt to build a new troll empire. They even allied with the Mogu and [[LawfulEvil the Thunder King]] in hopes of finding a new homeland in Pandaria. |
| 110 | * The two evil gods in the ''VideoGame/{{Disciples}}'' series didn't get this way on their own. Bethrezen was once an angel of Highfather, and Mortis was once known as Solonielle, the goddess of the elves and the merfolk. However, Bethrezen was misblamed for creating the world of Nevendaar as a CrapsackWorld (the other angels screwed it up out of jealousy and blamed him), and Highfather imprisoned him forever in the molten core of Nevendaar. Naturally, Bethrezen grew to hate Highfather and his own creation, eventually creating a race of demons to free him and destroy the world. Solonielle's lover Gallean was brutally killed by Wotan for daring to suggest that Wotan's dwarves pay for slaughtering innocent elves. Wotan threw Gallean's heart into the sun, and Solonielle managed to catch it, but her flesh was burned off as a result. Thus she became the fleshless goddess Mortis, who massacres a magical people and turns them into her undead minions. After finally reviving Gallean, he takes one look at her and leaves. Basically, [[JerkassGods all gods are jerks]]. |
| 111 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto2'': The manual jokes that the Krishnas went crazy on account of being [[CallBack run over all the time]]. |
| 112 | * Many of the demon hordes from ''VideoGame/NexusClash'' were mortals who were hunted by KnightTemplar angels for not being sufficiently Good, who in turn said ThenLetMeBeEvil and made [[DealWithTheDevil bargains]] with the Dark Powers to gain the power to fight back. |
| 113 | * ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'' reveals that Geldoblame was this prior to becoming the [[BigBad sadistic megalomaniac]] he was by the time ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' rolls around, albeit for somewhat shallow reasons. Initially he was a genuinely good man, if a little too unhealthily obsessed with Quaestor Verus (to the point of HoYay), and [[spoiler:learning that Verus was the true BigBad, a genuine monster who was only using him, was too much for him. [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope Que a beautiful cackling swan-dive off the slippery slope]].]] |
| 114 | * The antagonistic humans in ''VideoGame/AlienIsolation'' are all driven to kill and attack purely out of the building desperation, paranoia, and SanitySlippage caused by just trying to survive the Xenomorph and the aggressive Working Joes. You even hear them reassuring and trying to comfort one another and sometimes overhear them rambling about how they just want to see their families again, and some groups of survivors will only attack if you bother them or try to steal their stuff. |
| 115 | * Billy Yoder pulls a FaceHeelTurn and betrays the other survivors in ''VideoGame/JurassicParkTheGame'' after snapping when he finds his buddy D-Caf in a catatonic ChestBurster scenario and learns that and all the gruesome deaths of the other [=InGen=] mercenaries were more or less the direct result of Dr. Laura Sorkin's [[AnimalWrongsGroup increasingly stupid decisions]] to save and study the dinosaurs, such as secretly keeping [[DemonicSpiders the trodoons]] alive for study rather than euthanizing them as ordered. Dr. Sorkin refusing to even accept blame without being threatened at knife-point and the other survivors effectively siding with her ''certainly'' doesn't help either. |
| 116 | --> '''Billy:''' You knew about those damn creatures all along while we were out there, exposed, humping around like idiots looking for our pilot! We were nearly killed by one of our own men. Probably bitten by one of those things just like D-Caf. Who knows where his catatonic body is now? Both our teams are dead! Oscar is DEAD! All because of your dinosaurs. ALL because of ''you''! |
| 117 | * Just like in [[ComicBook/TheWalkingDead the comics]] and [[Series/TheWalkingDead2010 TV series]], this pops up as a recurring theme in ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadTelltale'' as well. William Carver is remarked on as "probably being a decent guy once" by a character warning Clementine of someone ''else's'' slip into villainy, and David García is defended as being a good guy by his brother until Clementine coldly says "people change". |
| 118 | * The country of Thracia in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar''. After a civil war split it and Manster, it was left with unfarmable mountains. This drove most of the men to hire out as mercenaries in foreign lands so that they could keep the country fed, but this led their foreign employers to sneer at Thracia as bloodthirsty sellswords. The Thracians worship Travant for his dedication to improving their lot in life, regardless of his ruthless tactics. Seliph laments having to continue battle with them, but he has to do it so that Travant, allied with Grannvale, won't rip the rebel army apart. |
| 119 | [[/folder]] |
| 120 | |
| 121 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 122 | * ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Ilia Amitola joined the White Fang after her parents were killed in a Dust mine and her human friends ''laughed'' about it, leading to her beating them up and breaking their teeth. She argues that the White Fang terrorism against humans is acceptable because there's no such thing as innocent humans -- they either actively hate Faunus or stand back and let the hate happen. She's therefore willing to follow Adam's more extreme path to a world where the humans are broken and enslaved to the Faunus. She only comes to her senses when Blake [[MoralityChainBeyondTheGrave uses her parents against her]], asking what Ilia thinks her parents would say if they could see what their daughter's turning into. |
| 123 | [[/folder]] |
| 124 | |
| 125 | [[folder:Web Comics]] |
| 126 | * 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 [[StandardFantasyRaces 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: |
| 127 | -->''There are people in this world who are driven to evil because of what their life has forced them to endure; [[BigBad Xykon]] is not one of those.''\ |
| 128 | ''[[WellIntentionedExtremist Redcloak]] might be, though.'' |
| 129 | [[/folder]] |
| 130 | |
| 131 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 132 | * In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', this is the case for many of the villains. [[TheBeastmaster Bitch]] never had an opportunity to be anything more than a villain after she [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening killed her abusive foster mother]], [[PeoplePuppets Regent]] was born to a family of villains and forced to commit crimes with them from the moment he got his powers, and [[VillainProtagonist Skitter]] started out as TheMole before being [[spoiler:screwed by Armsmaster and realizing that the system was broken.]] |
| 133 | [[/folder]] |
| 134 | |
| 135 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 136 | * [[PsychoElectro Electro]] is done this way in ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan''. While working in Curt Connors' lab, he falls victim to an accident that leaves him charged with electric energy, unable to live safely without a suit covering him at all times. Over the course of the episode, his mentality degrades more and more as he fails to deal with the loss of his humanity and is repeatedly attacked by Spiderman (who doesn't realize the situation), and the cops (who do, but deal with it too harshly). His first criminal act is merely to try to hold Connors hostage until he can come up with a cure, but he eventually goes completely insane and detaches himself completely from [[ThatManIsDead himself]] and his sanity. |
| 137 | ** An even better example is John Jameson from the same. After piloting his spaceship safely back to Earth, he is exposed to alien spores, which infect his body and increase his size and strength. His father convinces him to become a superhero, but the spores eventually affect his mind, making him more aggressive and filled with rage, eventually causing an extreme personality change. After Venom, acting as Spiderman, attacks him, he flies into a rage and goes on a rampage to kill Spidey. Though he is ultimately cured, the experience took its toll; the spores had him enough that, with them gone, he is obsessively addicted to them. He's last seen in an insane asylum, with a cell next to Electro, who echoes his position. If he appears again as a villain, the cycle will be complete. This is somewhat more evident as this than Electro, as, in this case, Jameson was one of the more heroic supporting characters in the series. |
| 138 | * Deconstructed with [[BigBad Demona]] from ''{{WesternAnimation/Gargoyles}}''. If you ask her about it, she would certainly tell you at length about how humans have always [[FantasticRacism hated, feared, and mistreated]] gargoyles. She would also claim that all of her evil actions are justified to protect her race from the human threat and that 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. Even her loneliness, which drives some of her decisions, is the result of Demona having alienated most of her former allies. |
| 139 | * Similarly deconstructed with the various RoguesGallery of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' in ''Trial'' when the new district attorney of Gotham Janet Van Dorn is a firm believer that Batman is directly responsible for the super criminals and that he has driven them to commit their crimes. Inspired by this said criminals take over Arkham Asylum and put Batman on trial for this, with Two-Face the prosecutor and Janet as Batman's attorney, telling her that if Batman is found guilty then both he and her will be put to death. [[spoiler:After going over the evidence, Janet comes to the conclusion that all of these criminals ''chose'' their life of crime because that's just the kind of people they are, and while Batman might be responsible for inspiring or escalating them to their specific gimmicks, they would have ended up criminals of some sort even without him. She finishes by pointing out that, if anything, the criminals created Batman, and the jury ''actually finds Batman innocent''. Naturally, Judge Joker decides that, because they're such rotten scum like Janet says, they're going to kill her and Batman anyways for the hell of it.]] |
| 140 | * Trixie in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' was originally a loudmouthed {{Stage Magic}}ian who told tall tales to boost her ego as part of her show, which lasted until she went to Ponyville, a pair of kids in the audience actually called her bluff and brought an Ursa (a gigantic spectral bear) to town for her to vanquish, resulting in her wagon and home being destroyed and her being inadvertently shown up by Twilight Sparkle who actually ''was'' able to (albeit peacefully) vanquish it. This of course resulted in her career being destroyed, her becoming a laughing stock, ponies from Ponyville actually following her around to taunt her and vandalize her wagon, and her ultimately being driven to do menial labor on a rock farm just to make ends meet. She might not have always been the nicest person but she nevertheless made a genuine attempt to just move on with her career and forget about what happened in Ponyville, but it's surprising she went as long as she did without getting her hooves on an ArtifactOfDoom and coming back for revenge. Unfortunately for everyone involved, herself included, said artifact corrupts its wearer and makes them worse and worse by the hour along with amplifying their power. |
| 141 | * Depending on who you ask, Varian from ''WesternAnimation/TangledTheSeries'' could be considered to have been driven to villainy. At the very least, he considers himself this. After accidentally encasing his father in amber, Varian blames Rapunzel for not helping him in his time of need (she was busy with another urgent matter). He later kidnaps the queen, Rapunzel's mother, as revenge and also to use as bait to lure Rapunzel to his lair so he can force her to help him. He even references this in his VillainSong with the lines "I'm the bad guy, that's fine! It's no fault of mine!" |
| 142 | * Dick Dastardly on ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' outright blames the other racers for him becoming a villain ("Super Silly Swamp Sprint"), although a reason for becoming a villain was never brought up for discussion. Maybe they just needed the token FailureIsTheOnlyOption element among those racing legitimately (give or take a rule bend). |
| 143 | * ''WesternAnimation/YamRoll'': Yam Roll, after being mistreated despite being a decent guy, decides niceness isn't worth it and tries to become a bad boy by wearing black and putting on shades. No one is fooled. |
| 144 | [[/folder]] |
| 145 |
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