Heel Face Revolving Door / Video Games

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• Theoretically, you can take a spin in the Heel–Face Revolving Door in just about any RPG with a morality system. Just alternate good choices and evil choices and voila.
• Tsubaki Yayoi from BlazBlue. She starts to being good, then she turns evil by Hazama's manipulations, turns slightly good, but becomes Brainwashed and Crazy by the Imperator. By the end of Chronophantasma, she finally turns back to the side of good, but early in Central Fiction most of the cast are afflicted with amnesia — so Tsubaki reverts to how she was at the start of the series. This leaves her open to being screwed with by Hazama again, until she recovers her memories and finally settles on the heroes' team and gets a hero ending. This is made extra complicated by her alter ego/merged identity Izayoi, who is even more driven on the cause of justice and truth. Even when fully good, Izayoi is never happy about working with the Anti-Hero protagonist Ragna.
• Pretty Bomber from the Bomberman games. While originally a member of the Five Bad Bombers, she just can't make up her mind.
• Mizrabel went from being a villain to a friend of Mickey at the end of Castle of Illusion, and apparently went back to being a villain again when she got mad about being forgotten in Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion.
• City of Heroes:
  • Going Rogue allowed you to live this trope. You can go from being a hero to a villain back into a Hero, wash rinse repeat. Ditto villains.
  • The Rogue's Gallery enemy group consists of former members of the Paragon Heroes and Rogue Isles Villains enemies from Bank Missions with fleshed out personalities, as well as several prominent NPCs like Frostfire and Malestrom. Many of these NPCs undergo alignment changes just like you do. Frostfire becomes a Hero, Polar Shift becomes a villain... But as the missions are random, it appears as if they're hopping all over the place, Just like you.
• Crash Bandicoot: Fake Crash constantly flip-flops between fighting Crash and fighting alongside him. He's just as frequently completely neutral, dancing in the background, not caring about the plot, so his true motives are a complete mystery.
• Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening: Vergil decides to fight alongside Dante to defeat Arkham, who had manipulated them both to gain the power of their father Sparda. Immediately after the villain is defeated however, Vergil goes right back to fighting to the death with Dante over that same power.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG: Kael is a Hunter working for Zetacorp and despite being a good colleague to Akira, he's still subservient to an evil corporation. Later, he fakes his death in Pon Pon and joins the Vulcanite Resistance to free Vulcanite from Zeta, but he's captured and forced to work for Zetacorp again, otherwise the bomb implanted in him will explode. While he is being forced to work for Zetacorp against his will, he also has a personal reason to attack Akira, since the latter killed his brother Barbados. If the player increased Barbados's link level at the start of the game, Kael will give up on revenge and have Akira heal him from the bomb's explosion, allowing him to permanently join the party. Otherwise, he dies fighting the party.
• EarthBound: Porky uses this one every time you meet him; he'll claim he's willing to repent of his misdeeds until he gets an opening to make a getaway, and then he's right back to plotting against Ness. In the original Japanese it's implied that (at least the first time) he really was willing to make amends, but he took Ness' silence to mean he wasn't willing to forgive.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Eydis Fire-Eye, Steward of the Balmora Fighters Guild hall, proves to be one if you intend to complete both the Thieves Guild and Fighters Guild quest lines. The Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild have a clandestine war going on, as the Fighters Guild faction leader and a few of his top lieutenants, including Eydis, are in the pocket of the Camonna Tong, Morrowind's native Mafia. One Thieves Guild quest has you bribing Eydis with a certain artifact to get her to switch sides. However, if you then complete the Fighters Guild quest line, she'll view you as a threat once you reach a high enough rank and attack, forcing you to kill her.
  • Meridia, a Daedric Prince whose sphere is obscured to mortals, but is associated with Life Energy, Light, and Beauty, is typically considered to be one of the few "good" Daedra throughout Tamriel. However, her actions in the series to date plant her squarely in this trope. In one instance, she'll be acting as the Big Good in defending mortal lives from hostile takeover by supernatural forces. Then in another, she'll be giving aid to a being who seeks to overthrow the Nine Divines and enslave the races of Men. Ultimately, whatever actions Meridia takes are going to be for her benefit, not anyone else's. It just so happens that, especially with her extreme hatred of anything undead, her actions come off as benevolent toward mortals more often than not.
• The Mad Doctor does this in Epic Mickey 2. After the events of the first game, he claims to have reformed and offers to help the heroes take down the incoming threat, even though the heroes don't really trust him. And then, surprisingly, the Big Bad is Gremlin Prescott. But THEN, it turns out he's not: Prescott was a pawn in the Mad Doctor's plan to escape from Wasteland. But then you can have the Mad Doctor do a real Heel–Face Turn in the end, if you pick the good ending.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Something that is occasionally forgotten is that Kain (see below) did not invent this trope for the series. That honor goes to Leon (the real one) of Final Fantasy II, who goes from Aloof Big Brother to MIA to The Dragon to Big Bad (for all of five seconds) to Heel–Face Turn to repentant loner over the course of the game.
  • Kain of Final Fantasy IV is pretty often used as an example, though all his turns were due to mind control by the real villain. ^note It's still discussed if his first Heel–Face Turn was an act or the real deal, and he gets controlled again later. And it happened only twice. So, mainly it's a case of Never Live It Down.
    • Lampshaded in the DS remake — if you use the "read the party leader's thoughts" feature (set Kain as the visible character on the map, then bring up the menu) as you're leaving the Sealed Cave, you'll see him fighting Golbez reasserting control (unsuccessfully). If you repeat this as you travel through the Lunar Subterrane, Kain will be fighting the attempts of Zemus to control him (this time more successfully).
    • Subverted in the sequel, where Kain joins forces with the villain the Mysterious Girl, steals several crystals, and fights Fabul before being defeated by the Hooded Man who is the real Kain. The evil Kain is actually his Dark Side, who escaped Mt. Ordeals. The real Kain had to track him down before being able to pass his test.
    • Captain SNES of course uses the trope again, as not only he is touched by the sovereign of sorrow, he is also in love with Rosa (pretty canonically) which the Drab Lord amplified sufficiently as to make him his minion. Kain is referred to here in Dungeons & Dragons terms as "the reason you don't make Charisma your Dump Stat", and it's implied that he will fall for any charm person spell. Any.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Elibe games: Erik, a minor boss, changes sides throughout both games. First in the backstory of Blazing Blade, Erik was a friend of Eliwood, and Hector, but his jealousy led to him joining with his father in turning against Lycia. Then after his father abandons him, Erik feels remorse over his actions, and cleans up his act as his father's successor. By Binding Blade, Erik, despite people's trust in him, joins up with the invading Kingdom of Bern out of the belief Lycia has no chance of opposing Bern.
  • In Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn:
    • If you do things a certain way, Jill can change sides five times across the two games. She starts off as a soldier of Daein, can be convinced to defect to Crimea by Ike, can be convinced to defect back to Daein by Shihiram, does defect back to Daein between games, and can be convinced to defect one last time to the Laguz Alliance by Haar or Mist.
    • This goes double for Naesala, who seems to have this as a basic character trait. Just in the first game he works for Daein, sells a childhood friend to a Begnion noble, if you manage to talk to him in one chapter (almost a must, as he's near impossible to kill) he decides to go neutral, then he somewhat grudgingly starts helping Crimea toward the end. The second game sees him helping the Laguz Alliance, selling them out to Begnion, and then acting as a bodyguard for the Apostle when she goes to support the Laguz Alliance! No one is quite sure what side, if any, he's really on by the time he's a playable character and more than one doesn't really care as long as they get to kill him. Lampshaded in Radiant Dawn by Tibarn, of all people. It's later justified by the reveal that Naesala is under a Blood Pact. If he doesn't betray everyone at the will of the Begnion Senate, all of the ravens will die.
    Tibarn: Naesala betrayed us?! AGAIN?!
• Starkiller in The Force Unleashed was Darth Vader's Sith apprentice who was sent on an undercover mission to pose as a Jedi, but ends up Becoming the Mask and making good decisions, constantly alternating between his loyalties to his master and his new friends. In the Dark Side ending, even after killing Vader in anger he still tries to be a Jedi and finish off Sidious only for it to backfire horribly and end with him being Trapped in Villainy like his master.
• Gargoyle's Quest: This seems to be the case with Firebrand as he is part of the Red Arremers who appeared as heel enemies in "Ghosts n Goblins" but in the games he starred in, he was portrayed as an Anti-Hero Face. Because of this, his morality is seen as ambiguous.
• Cole McGrath in inFAMOUS due to the fact he has to decide on acting good or evil in outcomes.
• Riku from Kingdom Hearts. Starting as Face, he turned Heel as the Rival Turned Evil, but turns Face again by the end. In Chain of Memories, he then becomes sort of an Anti-Hero Face working with DiZ, but becomes a solid Face for real by Kingdom Hearts II, which is marked for good at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance].
• Kirby:
  • The series loves this trope, although it's much lighter than most other interpretations. Characters like Chef Kawasaki and Knuckle Joe can appear as mini-bosses in one game, and be allies in a different one.
  • While King Dedede is the perhaps the most obvious culprit of this, Meta Knight does this a staggering number of times in the very first game he was featured in. Most of the time, he's sending his mooks after you to impede your progress, and eventually directly confronts you himself. However, he also gives you invincible candy periodically throughout the game, even after you defeat him.
• Knight Bewitched: Alduin, when learning that Ruth left Gwen alive, instantly turns against her and her party (granted, he never seemed to even care much for Stray and Uno), accusing her of being bewitched and arresting her. The rest of the party breaks Ruth out of jail and becomes fugitives alongside her, resulting in two boss fights with Alduin over the course of the story. Alduin chases them down to Malady and Meredith's hideout, but agrees to help them enchant Sylvanaras once he realizes Gwen is his sister.
• Knights of the Old Republic gives us Darth Revan, a Jedi Knight who turned to The Dark Side and became an Evil Overlord. Then it is revealed that they are actually the Player Character after a spot of Heel–Face Brainwashing. At least temporarily, because you may come back to the The Dark Side. And canonically, Revan saves the Republic, then later in Star Wars: The Old Republic goes evil again, and then dies and splits up into two personas — good one and evil one — just for them to merge into one, Light-Sided spirit. As one Fan Fic put it:
  What's the difference between the Jedi Revan and a tennis ball? A tennis ball doesn't change sides as often.
• Marathon:
  • Durandal the rampant AI in the first game. First he gives factual information to Leela, then sides with the Pfhor and kidnaps you, then gets bored and lets you return to Leela, then starts directly helping defeat the aliens invading the ship, then steals the Pfhor corvette for himself. In the second game, though, he's seemingly calmed down and stays your ally.
  • In Marathon Infinity, YOU learn the bad side of being a cybernetic soldier who takes orders and has no free will of his own: anyone considered an authority figure to you can command you to do their bidding, even if it means slaughtering your allies and if said leader is in full A God Am I mode.
• Cerberus, the pro-human agenda terrorist N.G.O. Superpower of the Mass Effect trilogy, start off as a minor foe in side quests in Mass Effect. You end up working for them in Mass Effect 2, and they return as enemies in Mass Effect 3. Their goals are actually consistent throughout the games, it's just that in Mass Effect 2 they were manipulating Shepard.
• Zero, if you get the bad endings of Mega Man X2 and Mega Man X5, as well as a Heel–Face Turn in his backstory.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Oh, Naomi, do you even have a side? From the beginning to the end of the story, she helps Snake, betrays Snake, helps Otacon, sleeps with Otacon, betrays Otacon, then helps Snake and Otacon. And then leaves one last message for Otacon and Snake after she dies for good measure.
  • Frank Jaeger, her brother, also shares this trait. He attempts to kill Big Boss but is rescued by him, then attempts to kill him again, then becomes so obsessed with him that he turns on his captors and kills a bunch of them before eventually joining Big Boss as a member of his unit. He helps out Snake but then defects to an enemy nation, offers Snake helpful advice, murders his girlfriend before attempting to kill Snake multiple times (while still also offering him helpful advice in between these attempts to kill him), reconciles with Snake on his deathbed, is forcibly converted into a crazy Cyber Ninja, kills a bunch of soldiers for no apparent reason, helps Snake by cutting off Ocelot's arm, offers Snake helpful anonymous advice, threatens to kill a civilian Snake needs to complete the mission, declares his only purpose to be to battle to the death with Snake, comes to his senses after Snake beats him, then sacrifices his life to destroy Metal Gear. Even in his backstory he fights for both RENAMO and FRELIMO in Mozambique, in two different conflicts.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Goro, oh so much; he starts off as the Outworld tournament champion, signs a peace treaty with the Shokan's mortal enemies the Centaurs (and making peace with Kung Lao) in Mortal Kombat 4 and sided with Edenia against Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, before getting mortally wounded and saved by Kahn, siding with him afterward. If that wasn't bad enough, most of his endings have him gaining enough power to overthrow Shao Kahn, kill off the Centaurs, and ensure the Shokan become their own neutral group.
  • Kabal started off as a member of the evil Black Dragon clan prior to the series, becomes good (and fights for the Forces of Light in Mortal Kombat 3), then reverts to evil by Mortal Kombat: Deception. Havik is suggested to had something to do with that last Heel turn after Kabal's Near-Death Experience at the hands of Mavado, since the narration describes the Cleric of Chaos as being able to reignite Kabal's anarchist ideals.
  • Raiden starts off as the Big Good of the Forces of Light, but after he Came Back Wrong in Mortal Kombat: Deception, he became Dark Raiden, only to turn good at the end of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, when he sends a message to his past self in a last-ditch attempt to stop Shao Kahn from destroying all of reality, creating an alternate timeline. By the end of Mortal Kombat X, he's back again in his Dark Raiden persona after absorbing Shinnok's powers and purifying the Jinsei (Earthrealm's life-force), with the intent to go on the warpath to attack and destroy other realms (and possibly conquer them) if they dare to invade Earthrealm. However, the resulting Time Crash in Mortal Kombat 11 at the hands of Kronika erases this Raiden and replaces him with a younger, still good version from the Mortal Kombat II era, who is understandably concerned about his alternate self's behavior. He did go on a temporary Heel-turn after succumbing to the effects of the amulet when time-displaced Scorpion comes back with bad news, but shortly reverts back after having a vision. When time got rewinded again in Aftermath on that similar time spot, Raiden succumbs to the amulet when he sees Shang Tsung, but reverts back after convincing.
• In Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave, the indecisiveness of one of the culprits (Mike) adds to the mystery. First, he and his daughter orchestrated the theft of a substance they could use to frame someone. Then an earthquake prevented him from returning to the contraband he'd stashed in Kapu Cave, which he interpreted as a warning from Pele, and consequently changed his ways... for a few minutes. Then the protagonists stumbled across evidence of his crime, in a place where it would be easy for him to dispose of them, and, well... He couldn't just let that opportunity go, could he? So he tried to murder them (and succeeds in one Game Over sequence), but they foiled him and escaped, at which point he immediately turned himself over to the police. His accomplice has no such doubts, remaining firmly villainous throughout the plot.
• Aribeth jumps around quite a lot in BioWare's first Neverwinter Nights, both in the main campaign and Hordes of the Underdark. To date it is possible to have her switch sides five times: betraying Neverwinter to Morag, being redeemed in the endgame, going mad in hell, being brought back by the player, and falling to Mephistopheles' "Reason You Suck" Speech. Then again, all of the others technically stem from the first one, so if you don't take either player-prompted switches she changes sides once and stays there.
• In later chapters of Onmyōji (2016), it becomes confusing to tell what side Ōtengu is on, to say the least. He used to be Hiromasa's best bud and fight evil with him, but then betrays him and turns to evil himself. Later, he seems to reconcile with Hiromasa — cue Duet Bonding — but then is still seen on the bad guys' team. Also, he might be super nice to Shoyō depending on whether you believe the winged monster leading him out of the mountains really is Ōtengu.
• Persona 3: Chidori starts off as a member of Strega, the crazy-end-of-the-world guys. She then quite inadvertently befriends Junpei, a member for the heroic SEES, who talks too much about what he does. She captures him and holds him for ransom essentially, but is then captured by SEES. Junpei works up a friendship with her to the point that she won't talk to anyone else, resulting in a Heel–Face Turn. Then SEES supposedly kills the other members for Strega, and she rejects Junpei. About a month later, she attacks SEES and does a Face–Heel Turn. Five minutes later, she sacrifices herself to save Junpei, for a Heel–Face Turn, because of course Redemption Equals Death. The Updated Re-release, FES, does add in extra story content that allows Chidori to ultimately survive, with an official statement around the time of Persona 4: Arena Ultimax confirming she's still alive in the present and still with Junpei.
• In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, Dusknoir is a perfect example of this. After being sent back to the future with Grovyle, he finds out that Primal Dialga is now trying to get rid of him, and has a new henchman at its side. Due to this, he has to team up with Grovyle as they make their way to Primal Dialga. Towards the end of the episode when Grovyle attempts to rescue Celebi, he is captured in a trap set by Dusknoir that is designed to destroy Grovyle's soul so that Dusknoir can take over his body and go back to the past to foil the hero's plan to save the future. However, after remembering what Grovyle had told him about himself earlier, Dusknoir has a brief personality crisis before swiftly becoming a good guy and saving Grovyle at the last second.
• Captain Qwark of Ratchet & Clank. Initially, he was a hero, albeit a loud and boisterous one. Then, he became a villainous has-been. Then, he got his shot at being the Big Bad. Then, he changed his mind ans went back to being a boisterous hero. While he's treated as the Butt-Monkey and The Friend Nobody Likes among the good guys, he's been a hero consistently since the series made the jump to the PlayStation 3 and beyond.
• Ada Wong spends a lot of her time in the Resident Evil series alternating between helping Leon and Wesker. That said, while her actions and motivations in gameplay this straight, it's revealed at the end of her side story in the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions of Resident Evil 4 that she's working for a completely different organization that's above both the U.S. Government and Wesker.
• In Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow can go from wiping out a platoon of GUN soldiers in one stage, blasting through the Black Arms in the next, then destroying Eggman's robots afterwards. Speaking of Eggman, the good doctor can be of either the "Hero" or "Dark" alignments in any given stage in which he participates. Which way he leans depends on who he's fighting against in that particular stage: he'll be of the "Dark" alignment if he's facing off against GUN, and the "Hero" alignment if he's fighting the Black Arms. Also, Rouge the Bat.
• Vincent from Silent Hill 3 goes from sided with Claudia and Heather all over again until it's revealed he is neither sided with them as he, being an arrogant jerk, plans on having Heather and Claudia kill each other to save his skin.
• Penelope starts off as a Heel in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves while in contract by the Black Baron, who is really her in a costume. She becomes a Face upon joining the Cooper Gang following the Baron's defeat, but eventually betrays them to Le Paradox, and returns to being a Heel, in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Bowser in the , especially in the RPGs. He's been an Enemy Mine so often — to say nothing of when he Goes Karting With Mario — that it's hard to say just whose side he's on anymore. Although, in the RPGs at least, he only stays with Mario until the Big Bad is gone. Bowser himself often cites Evil Versus Oblivion when teaming up with Mario; he wants to rule the Mushroom Kingdom, whereas the Big Bads want to destroy it. Depending on the game, it's hard to tell how much of that is an act and how much is sincere.
  • Birdo, too, which has made her infamous along with her possibly being transgender. In games where she's non-playable, she's almost always a boss, but in games like Mario Party, she's doing things like helping Mario defeat Bowser. And to add to the Mind Screw, she's implied to be dating Yoshi.
• Super Robot Wars:
  • Several characters are prone to this, whether due to being frequent victims of Mind Control (Lamia, Excellen), having a hidden agenda (Sanger), or just generally being a Magnificent Bastard (Shu Shirakawa).
  • Taken on full throttle in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 if you pick Selena Recital as the protagonist, where she's initially acting on her own (and fighting Viletta Vadim over a case of mistaken identity), shortly thereafter joins the Alpha Numbers, sides with ZAFT after a time-skip where everyone goes their own way, and falls back in line with the Alpha Numbers near the tail end of her introductory stages.
  • Subverted in Super Robot Wars Z where the ZEUTH team splits up and each group is manipulated by the Earth Alliance into thinking the other has gone rogue, leading to an inter-series Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, as well as an excuse to re-enact the destruction of the Freedom Gundam without making either side out to be villainous.
    • Char/Quatro still has the unfortunate habit of switching sides in the Z series and coming back if the conditions are right. He sides with the other half of ZEUTH (Z1), the A-LAWS (Z2: Saisei-Hen), and then Neo Zeon (Z3: Jigoku-Hen).
    • Strangely enough it's a bit of a subversion in Z3, as it was more of a case of Superdickery on Char's part to get the heroes against Neo Zeon and to prevent them from dropping Axis. After that he joins the heroes again, presumably for good this time.
  • Heero Yuy works for Char Aznable in Shin Super Robot Wars at first because he rescued Heero from a harsh life at the hands of the Zanscare Empire. Later on, General Oka gives Heero new orders from Doctor J to stop Char himself. However, he couldn't follow these new orders until he discovers Char siding with the aliens. Heero tersely teams up with the Londo Bell and can join them as a Secret Character.
  • In Iori's route in Super Robot Wars X, Hopes makes a heel turn for one fight, then rejoins you afterwards.In the IF route, he turns against the heroes to utilize X-Cross' positive emotions to fuel Al-Warth without the world needing to create wars and become the world's pillar.
• Sword of Paladin:
  • Alex starts as an ally, but gets turned into a berserk dragon after Berienstahl forces him to wield a Royal Gem. Later, Alex finishes off Augustus, but Ragnarek forces all the Royal Gems into Alex, driving the latter berserk again. Once Nade defeats Alex and turns him back to normal, the latter helps him defeat Ragnarek.
  • In Demon King Sandraham's backstory, he was once a researcher who wanted to find a way to solve the Miasma problem, but got infected by Miasma and become a global threat. After his defeat, he's able to control his powers and become an ally of the Paladins again.
• Tekken:
  • Lee Cholan, who is introduced as a boss character working for the Mishima Zaibatsu. He's probably neutral to evil at this point in time; while not as evil as Kazuya or Heihachi, he's not shown to be good either, never truly defecting from the Zaibatsu despite Kazuya leading it into even greater corruption when he seizes control from Heihachi after the first tournament. Following the events of Tekken 2, he is expelled from the Zaibatsu by Heihachi (who considered Lee to have betrayed him by siding with Kazuya, though Lee comments in Tekken 7 that he was probably cast out for knowing too much about the family's dark history, including the Devil inside Kazuya) and becomes estranged from his adoptive family. Despite his initial desire for revenge, Lee ultimately travels the world, becomes a ladies man, and focuses on the development of cutting edge robotics, eventually becoming a main character in his own right by T4, before becoming someone of better moral standing from T5 onward. In fact, Lee ends up being one of the few unambiguously good Mishima-affiliated characters in the sixth and seventh games, which sees him financing and aiding a rebel army that seeks to end the increasingly violent Mishima blood feud.
  • Heihachi himself sort of goes through this, though more of a Heel–Villain Protagonist Revolving Door than anything else. This ends in Tekken 7 when Kazuya finally succeeds in killing him.
• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Symphonia has Kratos, whose true allegiance is in debate until the end. Yuan is just as bad. Even the Renegades flip-flop on whose side they're on often enough for Lloyd to lampshade it.
    Lloyd: Dammit! What’s so special about me?! Those Renegades need to hurry up and make up their freaking minds about whether they’re our enemies or not!
  • Tales of Graces has Richard, who throughout much of the game is being possessed by the Big Bad.
  • Tales of Xillia has Alvin, whose loyalty jumps sides several times throughout the game, although being a sellsword (at face value, anyway) this is partially forgivable.
• In Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure, Plucky Duck is fought twice; the first time as his normal Brainwashed and Crazy self, then later as his superhero alter-ego, the Toxic Revenger, denying his true identity. Buster snaps him out of it by threatening not to help him with future homeworks.
• View from Below: Bell is a petty thief who steals Ash's lighter in Arbor Forest. In Glacies Cliffs, he hides Ash from Rose and the two seem to be on better terms. Unfortunately, Bell kidnaps Melody in Mount Ignis and tries to prevent Ash from saving her. In the final chapter, he attacks the Crimson God in order to free Ash from the latter's clutches, but the Crimson God kills Bell.
• Warcraft:
  • Illidan Stormrage. This is partly because he's mentally unbalanced, and partly because even when he does try to do good, he's got a bad habit of using morally grey and dangerous methods and not properly communicating his intentions with his allies.
  • Depending on your point of view, this can happen to a lot of characters in World of Warcraft, especially if they're a member of the opposing faction. For example, King Varian Wrynn is almost universally loathed by the Horde, but the extraordinary amount of Enemy Mine in the game means that much of what he does is good for the Horde as well (like killing Onyxia), and he has his Pet the Dog moment in Icecrown Citadel. Similar arguments could be made about Horde leaders from the Alliance perspective.
  • The Orc race is collectively like this. They started as warlike-yet-honorable savages living in relative balance with the other races of Draenor. Then they drank demon blood and became complete monsters, with countless stories of slaughtered children and mass rape. After they were defeated by the Alliance the blood rage wore off, and after some time in concentration camps Thrall took them to Kalimdor and attempted to build a new nation that cooperated with its neighbors. The last chieftain who had drunk demon blood died killing said demon, bringing it all full circle. Then tensions with the Alliance led to a world war in all but name and a large faction of Orcs gained power in the Horde in favor of re-militarizing led by a young idiot who argued in favor of child-killing to a veteran who actually did it and was explaining that he was still haunted by their screams. Said faction went full evil and was overthrown by the rest of the Horde who sought to redeem themselves, only for Sylvanas to come to power and send the Orcs on a rampage through Ashenvale that they enjoyed.
  • If you think about the Forsaken Death Knights, they own this trope. Initially they started out as humans in the Alliance, got killed and raised to serve the Scourge, broke free of the Scourge and joined the Horde, then died again and rejoined the Scourge only to break free once more and rejoin the Horde. It's incredible they can keep their sides straight.
  • The Horde in general is constantly faced with this. Originally straight villains in the first two games, starting with Warcraft 3 they were given a more nuanced backstory and became largely good. Over the course of World of Warcraft they have swung back and forth on this issue based on whether the writers want peace or war between the factions for the current expansion.

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