Fallen Hero / Literature

• The Ables: Mr. Charles was once a well-respected hero, before he turned on his partner Thomas Sallinger in battle. However, the true Fallen Hero was not Mr. Charles but Thomas Sallinger, who was growing increasingly power-hungry and would survive to ruin his grandson's life in his quest to rule the world.
• By the end of Animorphs Jake has become one of these. It's stated in the epilogue that the only reason he's not being tried as a war criminal is that he fought for the side the won the war.
• Crudgeon in Artemis Fowl was LEPrecon's golden boy and best friend of the Da Chief. In book 1 Ambition Is Evil put him in a Trauma Conga Line and he became one half of the Big Bad of book 2.
• In the The Belgariad, Zedar, The Dragon, used to be Belzedar, one of Belgarath's sworn brothers and a servant of the god Aldur. When Torak, the Big Bad of the series, struck Aldur and stole the Orb, Zedar headed out to confront him...and found himself overwhelmed by Torak's power. Faced with The Dark Side, he gave in to his barely-suppressed lust for power and swore fealty to Torak.
• Gerald Tarrant/The Hunter in the Coldfire trilogy. Sorcerer, philosopher, and Prophet of the One God, until the religion he had created excommunicated him, at which point, he killed his wife and children as a part of a bargain with Dark Powers.
• The Cosmere
  • Mistborn: The Original Trilogy: The Lord Ruler was originally Alendi, The Hero of Ages meant to save the world...but also had large armies allowing him to take it over and rule as a despot. Massively Subverted thanks to the reveal that the Lord Ruler isn't Alendi, he's Rashek, a companion of Alendi who murdered him and assumed his identity...because he was trying to save the world from Ruin, a goal that Rashek has never deviated from, with his plans being invaluable in defeating Ruin. Rashek turns out to be somewhat of an Anti-Hero.
  • Warbreaker: Denth was one of the Five Scholars that made many discoveries in the past. Then one of the Five Scholars, Vasher, murdered another Scholar, Denth's sister, Shashara because she was trying to create weapons that could devastate the world. Denth has been on the path of revenge ever since. By the time of the story they are a Faux Affably Evil torturer who is willing to manipulate a princess into bringing war onto their own country, all so Denth can get revenge. Notably, Denth is self-aware about how far they've fallen, hating themself for it.
  • The Stormlight Archive: The Heralds were sworn to protect Roshar against Odium, and founded the Knights Radiant, but eventually their resolve broke, and they abandoned one of their own comrades to kick the can down the road. They don't return to their old heroism when Odium comes back. The two most striking examples are Ishar who is now an insane God King conducting horrific experiments, and sees everyone against him as being on Odium's side, though he seems to be Brainwashed and Crazy, and Nale who outright joined Odium and took his whole order of Knights Radiant with him.
• In the Dilvish, the Damned stories by Roger Zelazny, it's stated that the Big Bad Jelerak used to be good many hundreds of years ago. But he crossed the Moral Event Horizon long ago.
• The Dresden Files
  • Agent Denton, who is also He Who Fights Monsters. When Harry soulgazes him, he sees that he used to be a genuinely good man, but his methods (most notably, his use of the Hexenwulf belts) made him just as bad, if not worse, than the people he's trying to take down.
  • The Corpsetaker was once a member of the White Council.
• In the Harry Potter series, Bartemius Crouch Senior is generally seen as this by the wizarding world by the time Harry meets him, mainly due to Crouch sentencing his own son to Azkaban. While Crouch was considered a hero of the war against Voldemort, when Crouch's son was sent to trial Voldemort had been gone for a couple of years, and the Wizengamot had to endure the sight of a nineteen year-old boy being viciously disowned by his father, while his mother cried and fainted beside him, particularly when available public evidence suggests some ambiguity about whether Junior was actually a Death Eater or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The public attitude towards Crouch, Sr. soured, with some speculating that the reason Junior went astray and fell in with the Death Eaters was because of Senior's neglect, and his popularity was shattered, costing him his bid for Minister of Magic. Approximately a decade later, Crouch has been shunted into a rather useless posting as the Head of International Magical Cooperation, and no one particularly likes him, save his current assistant Percy Weasley. That said he never actually turned to Voldemort's side or the Death Eaters and fought them to the end.
• David Gemmell loves subverting this trope. Waylander is a war hero. Then his family is slaughtered, and he makes sure none of the assailants "takes less than an hour to die", and finances his vengeance by becoming a professional killer. Then he seeks redemption, gets it somehow, his family gets killed again, vengeance ensues, redemption again, and then he dies a stupid death by the hand of the son of the man whose death was the reason for his first face heel turn toward good. Gemmell does not like black and white.
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making: The Good Queen Mallow became the Marquess due to her anger at being returned to the mundane world. She still considers herself the hero.
• Marth in the Heirs of Ash books, complete with also being Tristam's What If? Evil Counterpart.
• Inheritance Cycle: The series' Big Bad King Galbatorix was once a Dragon Rider (proper noun), an order of Elves and humans who rode dragons, serving as peacekeepers throughout the land of Alagaësia. Galbatorix was driven mad by the death of his dragon and demanded another one from the Council. When denied his request, Galbatorix convinced himself that the Riders were responsible for the loss of his dragon. Some years later, Galbatorix recruited and corrupted 13 other Dragon Riders later known as the Forsworn, subjugated the Elves, Dwarves, and Humans, wiped out all but a few Dragon Riders who opposed him, and declared himself ruler of Alagaësia.
• The Kingkiller Chronicle has Lanre, who was once a great hero but went mad with grief when he was unable to use his power to resurrect his beloved.
• Ineluki, the Storm King of Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, started out as a hero of the Sitha, but he took his people's racist tendencies to the extreme and when Asu'a was sacked, he turned from defending his people to killing everyone else. Also an example of Motive Decay.
• One of Us is Lying: "Hero" might be a strong word, but Simon started his gossip blog (a few years before the book) to impress his aloof former best friend Jake and expose a sleazy jock who was anonymously sending girls unsolicited sexting messages. Before long, though, he was exposing harmless personal secrets and gleefully ruining people's lives just so he could feel important.
• Satan in Paradise Lost was once a glorious angel, but he falls from grace and becomes evil. In the story, he's ironically given the trappings of an epic hero, which he clearly believes he is.
• Luke Castellan from Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Really, a good amount of Kronos' troops are made up of demigods who resented their godly parents for various reasons (the big one is feeling like they were unwanted).
• In Shadow of the Conqueror, Daylen Namaran started out as a hero of the Fourth Night and the overthrower of the aristocracy, but after said aristocracy murdered his entire family, he over time became a far, FAR, worse leader than they ever were.
• Yun from The Shadow of Kyoshi. He was incorrectly identified as the Avatar and was trained as such for several years, until his true status eventually came into question. When Kyoshi was revealed to be the true Avatar, Yun was Left for Dead by his former mentor in the hands of a malevolent spirit who whisked him into the Spirit World. Against all odds, however, Yun survived his encounter with Father Glowworm and was able to return to the physical world. However, the knowledge that he was not the true Avatar, along with the world's lack of gratitude towards him for all he has done for them during his tenure as the Avatar, caused Yun to snap and, for the next year and a half, go on a murderous crusade to take revenge upon those who lied to him about his Avatarhood, starting with his former mentor, Jianzhu, who had been the one to falsely identify him as the Avatar and abandon him once the truth was out.
• Implied to be the fate of Captain Housework in the Superheroes anthology when he realizes that lacking any more supervillains to fight, his life is going to be an endless parade of socialites calling him to clean their houses before parties and not even being grateful enough to keep said houses clean. His Start of Darkness is reducing one such socialite's party to a house full of perfectly polished skeletons.
• Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • The Silmarillion: Fëanor. He was the mightiest, most skilled, most puissant of all the Elven race... and the source of their greatest woes. Also a major case of You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!. Notably, he also managed to bring his entire tribe-the Noldor-down with him. His sons, particularly Celegorm, Curufin and Maedhros as well as Celebrimbor (Curufin's son) all end up squarely in neutral territory as well. Not that Fëanor was solely responsible for this state of affairs: the rift between him and his younger half-brothers was being manipulated by Morgoth, and Celebrimbor was manipulated by Sauron in disguise. Also, it should be noted that none of the Fëanorians goes outright evil. They are just no longer good enough to hold the Silmarils, the holy gems that were Fëanor's greatest creation.
  • Morgoth is a fallen Vala and this universe's equivalent of Satan, which as noted above is one of the oldest examples there is, so he counts. Sauron too, he used to be a Maia which were like angels.
  • Then there is Saruman the White, greatest of the Istari (Wizards), in The Lord of the Rings.
• Trapped on Draconica: Pre-series Kazebar was Draconica's number 1 humanitarian. To reward his good work Dronor granted his son the power to travel between worlds, believing that if any human deserved this honor it would be Kazebar's family line. Whether he was tempted by this power or if he was Evil All Along is not made clear.
• Hollyleaf from Warrior Cats eventually becomes this, when her love of the warrior code makes her turn murderous. But then she has a Heel Realization.
• Many of the Forsaken from The Wheel of Time were this. Demandred, Sammael, and Be'lal were all great generals on the side of Light (and all three of them turned to the Shadow out of rivalry with the Light's other great general, Lews Therin Telamon); Graendal was a famed ascetic who went bad after deciding that no one could possibly measure up to her extreme moral standards; Ishamael was considered the greatest philosopher and theologian of his age, but learned one too many Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and went mad from the revelation, becoming in essence The Antichrist. Subverted with Semirhage, who though a renowned healer was always a sociopath and sadist deep down and turned to the Shadow early on upon realizing that the Dark One would let her use her talents in ways that society would never accept.
• Kalthused of Within Ruin. He starts out as a heroic leader fighting for the independence of his country but when his wife Ankaa dies he falls into a spiral of despair. He forsakes all his old morals and plunges the country into futile wars for centuries in order to bring Ankaa back to life.