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alt title(s): Heel Turn; Turn To The Dark Side 
Mal Reynolds: How come you didn't turn on me? Jayne Cobb: Money wasn't good enough. Mal Reynolds: What happens when it is? Jayne Cobb: Well... that'll be an interesting day.
In Professional Wrestling, a "good" wrestler (a face) is occasionally tempted by The Dark Side, or just gets fed up, and becomes a heel. Magazines and other promotional material from the various wrestling "leagues" frequently comment on various wrestlers' changes in "alignment" (in wrestling's fictional plotline known as kayfabe) nearly as frequently as they actually cover events in the ring themselves. (They even actually use phrases like "Face Heel Turn.")
In other genres, it means "good guy turns bad," the opposite of the Heel Face Turn. Perhaps the former hero(ine) has become a Rival Turned Evil. Perhaps he or she has lost perspective, and became a Well Intentioned Extremist, or worse, Jumped Off The Slippery Slope into true villainy. Perhaps something horrible has happened that shattered his or her faith in good, and he or she has become a Fallen Hero. Maybe his or her love for someone turned into a dangerous obsession that went out of control. The hero may have bravely declared " You shall not pass!" or his companions may have found it impossible to ensure that No One Gets Left Behind, but he proved to be Not Quite Dead and, deranged by his suffering, blames his companions for abandoning him. Perhaps he or she has had too many of their good deeds come back to bite them and decided that being a hero is no longer worth it. Maybe he or she has had enough of being pushed around, laughed at and put through hell, or maybe he or she has snapped after one too many rounds of Break The Cutie. Perhaps his (alleged) allies have made his life too difficult or even out-and-out betrayed him, or maybe she's just gone Drunk With Power. Perhaps there is a Writer On Board committing Character Derailment.
The many reasons and the probability for a turn are listed in the Sorting Algorithm Of Face Heel Turning.
Contrast The Mole: The Mole was always working for the Big Bad from the beginning, whereas a character making a Face Heel Turn was a genuine good guy until their change of heart.
In a world full of Brainwashed victims, they may be the one who appears to be but really is Not Brainwashed.
See also Heel Face Turn, Heel Face Revolving Door, Neutral No Longer, Deal With The Devil and Start Of Darkness.
SPOILERS AHOY
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime
- Char Aznable in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, goes from a father figure to fucking insane.
- Yui in Fushigi Yuugi, and most other instances of Rival Turned Evil.
- Kaiser Ryo following a textbook Freak Out in Yu-Gi-Oh GX. The dub even has Judai/Jaden compare this to, "when a pro-wrestler suddenly starts dressing in black and throwing chairs in the ring." Judai, like his predecessor in Yu-Gi-Oh, also temporarily turns to The Dark Side (hey, Superpowered Evil Sides take some getting used to).
- Vegeta in Dragonball Z who was admittedly already a Heel Face Turn and technically, just returning to his original alignment only to go through yet another Heel Face Turn after the showdown of rivals although not before sucker punching The Hero, Goku. This whole arc also has the bonus of being a mid-life crisis as well as being a Not Brainwashed moment. Come to think of it, he is probably the one character in that entire series to do as many alignment changes as a pro wrestler.
- We know that Griffith from Berserk is a bad guy at the start of the anime, but most of us wouldn't know this from the idealistic mercenary leader that we meet in flashback during the second episode, who is about as close to The Messiah as one can get in a series like Berserk. The anime, which follows the Golden Age manga arc of the series, is about Guts's time with Griffith's Band of the Hawks, and the events that lead up to Griffith's betrayal, his ascension as the fifth member of the Godhand, and Guts's circumstances in the very first episode. And when Griffith finally does go bad in the final episodes, he goes very, very bad.
- Death Note, when Light Yagami became evil after getting the Death Note. Also happened with Mikami, not so much with Misa.
- Code Geass has enough Face Heel Turn and Heel Face Turn to drive one mad. By the end of the series everyone has switched to someplace at least once and some have done it two or three times do really screw your list over.
- What's really infuriating is that you can't even tell which side is good and which is bad. They're both morally ambiguous chessmasters with roughly the same plan for world peace.
- It's not really fair to say that everyone's changed sides. Lelouch switched to become the Emperor of Brittania, and that caused some people to create a third faction which teamed up with the Black Knights. Allegiances remain the same, it's just who controls them that changes.
- Walter C. Dornez, loyal aide to Integra Hellsing in Hellsing first seems to do a Face Heel Turn against his will after been brainwashed by the villains but is later to be revealed to have been a willing traitor since WWII.
- In Lifeforce Restless, Zentero has had a screwed up life because of the Sentori. In his life, he has gone from Face, to Heel, to Face, to Heel, to Face, to X, to Face, to Heel, and to Face again, where X is when he was Face, Face, Face, Heel, Heel, and Heel AT THE SAME TIME. Also he died like 12 times in there. So Yeah.
- Because of this, Torence and Natragen pulled one, and Verin's alignment went from mid-torso to Heel.
- Grif might be toying with this.
- Another one caused by the Sentori. The mostly likely victim of course being Kirono, the Sentori's original vessel.
- The Uchiha Bros. (tm) from Naruto might be taken into account, though their Heel turns were not really a alignment change. Maybe except for Sasuke's latest.
- Julia and Collins from Blood Plus, though the former does return to the side of good after a while. The other gets a bullet to the brain.
- Bleach has the infamous revelation of the main villains Aizen, Gin, & Tousen which I won't go into, but the 2nd filler arc also has 3rd seat Kifune of Third Squad. He even get a literal Face Heel Turn animation in the intro starting in episode 179.
- Also, when Orihime was forced to go with the Arrancars in exchange of her friends and hometown's safety, the Shinigamis thought she had gone through a Face Heel Turn. Ichigo refused to believe it and decided to go rescue her, triggering the beginning of the Arrancar arc.
- Lord Genome from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, as shown in Parallel Works Eight. When he snaps, he snaps hard.
- Post-Time Skip Rossiu, previously a good guy, sets up Simon as a scapegoat for the problems caused by the anti-Spirals and takes over the government - and his plan to survive the anti-Spiral attacks involves leaving a large portion of the world's population to die.
- Simon wasn't really set up, they just charged him for destroying a Mugan, which caused a lot of collateral damage, and Rossiu only did what he thought was best for the people, placing him in Well Intentioned Extremist territory. Rossiu did show regret over his actions, going as far as to attempt suicide.
- Folken from the Vision of Escaflowne does this to begin with, followed by another Heel Face Turn near the end of the story, leading to his extremely bizarre "fated" death.
- Chikane pulls this in Kannazuki No Miko's Wham Episode. Well, she's got her reasons... but it's still rather horrifying.
- Sasame in Pretear later joins the Big Bad to become her servant because he was in love with her and couldn't bear to fight her. The Big Bad herself also face heel turned due to love. Later they both undo this with a Heel Face Turn to once again join the heroes.
- In Soul Eater, Kim and Jackie do an unwilling Face Heel Turn under the influence of Arachnaphobia's insanity manipulation machine. The actions of Justin Law, however, appear for the time being to be genuine: killing BJ and framing Stein for the murder (though Medusa almost certainly had a hand in it), trying to kill Maka Albarn as her soul perception might uncover Asura for Shinigami. He also seems to enjoy taunting the imprisoned Death the Kid, and listens in when Gopher is beating the boy up.
- Wonrei joins the Faudo revival cult in Konjiki no Gash Bell!! when his bookkeeper is placed under a curse that will kill her if Faudo is not revived. However, this Face Heel Turn is fairly temporary, as expected given the nature of the series.
Comic Books
- Hal Jordan, Green Lantern poster child, underwent a psychotic turn into a being that wanted to reshape all of existence. Later explained and retconned, but still heavily controversial.
- Cassandra Cain, the latest Batgirl, to unanimous disapproval. After spending 76 issues delving into her extraordinary psychology and fleshing her out into a complex character with high moral standards, DC savagely tore her down and made her into a cheap, drugstore-variety Dragon Lady who started killing people like roaches. Now, they've very cleverly revealed it she was actually brainwashed. Her? Really DC? Drug control?
- Mary Marvel provided an interesting contrast as a Golden Age teen amidst modern comics characters. Unfortunately DC decided to make her turn evil in notably Wall Banger ways. Her clothes even turned black.
- And her skirt was just as short as Supertorso's "Belt with a trim" microskirt after the switch! Bad move all around... then the next outfit made it look good.
- In a particularly bad example of Executive Meddling, DC planned to turn Captain Atom into supervillain "Monarch." At the last minute they changed their minds and made the character "Hawk" murder his partner "Dove" and don Monarch's armor. Then they changed their minds again, giving Hawk the new handle of "Extant", putting Captain Atom into Monarch's armor and creating a new Hawk and Dove team.
- Two-Face, in the Batman comics (and later, The Dark Knight) is a good-guy district attorney who turns into an evil criminal.
- Colossus, after his sister, Ilyana, dies.
Film
- Anakin Skywalker of the Star Wars saga, who turned his back on the Jedi to become the ruthless Darth Vader.
- A lesser known occurrence is when Count Dooku left the Jedi Order and became a Sith. Also many Jedi in the Expanded Universe.
- Rooster in Righteous Kill.
- In Undercover Brother the title character turns his back on the Brotherhood after he falls in
love lust with Penelope Snow. Luckily Sista Girl brings him back to his senses.
- More like turns his black.
- Alec Trevelyan of the James Bond film GoldenEye seems to be like this during the reveal of him being Janus. But as it turns out, he's been plotting revenge against the British government for the betrayal of his family, who were Lienz Cossacks.
Literature
- An even more "they shoulda seen it coming" example: Raistlin Majere in the original Dragonlance books.
- Subverted in Red Seas Under Red Skies, where the first chapter has Jean betraying Locke to a pair of assassins, then it flashes back to the start of the story. When it arrives back at the betrayal scene, we find that Jean was tricking the assassins and Locke just missed the hand signal for "lying."
- A certain Imperial general in one of the later Warhammer 40000: Gaunt's Ghosts is eventually corrupted by Chaos. Surprisingly, he's shown to actually be a decent man when hit by amnesia — even his jailer notes that the general becomes ever more an unlikable bastard as he regains his memory.
- Dybbuk from Children of the Lamp, though it was sort-of foreshadowed in that his father just happened to be Iblis, the most evil djinn of the most evil djinn tribe, meaning he was half Always Chaotic Evil. It wouldn't be surprising if he eventually had a change of heart, though.
- Judas Iscariot, which makes this trope Older Than Dirt.
- Brutus in the Emperor series. And indeed any other series ever written about Ancient Rome. Because, well, he's one of the best examples of it in real life.
- Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.
- Aramis, in the "Musketeers" saga by Dumas. In "The Three Musketeers" he's unequivocally One Of The Good Guys, alongside Athos, Porthos and D'Artagnan - although even then, when short of money, we see him accepting expensive gifts from his mistress(es). In "Twenty Years After", all motives are less certain, Athos and Aramis find themselves (for different reasons) on the opposite side to Porthos and D'Artagnan, it is far less clear which side is In The Right, and it takes much more intricate politics to have them all on the same side again with their disparate interests in agreement: and, in the end, Aramis becomes the true, shadowy villain of "The Man in the Iron Mask}}," as the person who wants King Louis replaced by his secret twin brother Philippe, not in pursuit of justice but in pursuit of his personal ambition to be Pope (and those of the Jesuits, to establish further control over Europe's rulers): and, knowing that he could not suborn Athos or D'Artagnan to this scheme, he tricks Porthos into assisting it instead. And yes, here, Aramis is a true villain even when presented in a good light, and the Musketeers' accord is blown apart: because for all King Louis's inadequacies, he is the rightful king, and in the book D'Artagnan recognises this and sides with Louis, conducting the ill-fated Philippe back to jail (though he later refuses to actually open fire on the fort containing his friends, D'Artagnan holds to their compact to stand together even though Aramis has broken it: as a result of which Aramis escapes at the cost of Porthos's life.) It is Louis who remains on the throne and leads France to greatness. It's also amazing how many films of "The Man in the Iron Mask" reverse the ENTIRE point, and have Louis be unequivocally bad, and the Musketeers all on the same side and succeeding in pulling off the replacement...
Live Action TV
- Londo Mollari begins the Babylon 5 Myth Arc as the human commander's closest ally, but becomes The Dragon (or at least The Patsy for the Big Bad) as the series progresses. In fact, he vacillates between good and evil repeatedly as the series goes on.
- Also on Babylon 5, Talia Winters, once her "sleeper" personality was unlocked.
- ...and Lennier, too.
- ...and Garibaldi in season 4, due to a bad case of More Than Mind Control.
- ...and Lyta Alexander
- ...and Anna Sheridan, who could be assumed to be a good person prior to getting Shadowed.
- ...and the Vorlons.
- Nah, apart from Kosh they were always huge dicks. They just showed their true colors later.
- The third season of Degrassi The Next Generation revolves entirely around Manny and Sean turning heel, then slowly turning back to face.
- Half the cast of Alias.
- On Lost, Michael was of the Well Intentioned Extremist variety, as he just wanted to save Walt, his son. He felt really bad about it, but there's varying opinion over whether or not we should feel sorry for him.
- Locke also tagged along with the Others for a while, but he didn't really switch sides (though he certainly came close to being an out and out villain during a portion of Season 4, where his leadership was borderline tyrannical.)
- Jack in season 5 to some.
- Gul Dukat of Star Trek Deep Space Nine starts off as a recurring annoyance, but gradually warms up to the crew and looks like he's on the road to Badass Decay... then he realizes Good Is Dumb and stabs everyone in the back.
- Eddington is a more straightforward example from Deep Space 9.
- Angel, Willow and Faith of Buffy (all three get subsequent Heel Face Turns).
- Jake Straka, for some reason, near the end of The Guardian.
- Tyr on Andromeda — though we all knew it would happen sooner or later, as Tyr was always playing his own game.
- Every character on Charmed, at some point or other.
- Agent Lee on NCIS appears to be The Mole, faking a relationship to gain access to a private area (of the complex, you pervs) and even killing another agent to protect herself. She's actually being forced to do it by her niece's kidnappers. Naturally, Redemption Equals Death for Agent Lee.
- Undersheriff McKeen on CSI.
- Dr. Zack Addy, who turned out to be the serial killer's apprentice on Bones. He didn't actually kill anyone and it's more of a case of a weak will being overpowered by a strong one, but only Sweets knows that Zack prefers to be thought of as insane since he wouldn't survive prison. Regardless, his friends still love him (to the confusion of his replacements)
- Sweet-natured Kes returns to Voyager to crumple bulkheads and anonymous ensigns in "Fury". It turns out she's angry at her former friends because...well it's never really explained. But don't worry as everything's back to normal by the end.
- St Elsewhere's Dr. Peter White winds up being a serial rapist.
- In the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, Felix Gaeta leads a failed mutiny against Admiral Adama, resulting in his and Zarek's deaths.
- Earlier on in the series, Boomer appears to have joined Cavil's side in the Cylon civil war, later helps the final Cylon escape from exploratory brain surgery and gives her lover a literal Imagine/Hope Spot then steals her "twin's" daughter only to bond with her "niece" and give her back and is finally killed by her "sister".
- Shane Vandrell in The Shield, more than once.
- 24 embodies this trope. Most seasons have at least one of The Mole at some point. Sometimes this turns out to be misleading, with a few Fake Defectors, but there are several infamous true face heel turns. Going back to the first season was Nina Myers, who turns into a recurring villain for two more seasons. Most recently was the even more drastic Tony Almeida, whose Heel Face Revolving Door led the audience to be surprised by the (second) revelation that he was a villain, despite the fact that this was technically common knowledge months before the season even began.
- Allan in season 2 of the new Robin Hood, at least until his Heel Face Turn later on in the season.
- Professional Idiot Ball handler Stuckey in the 2009 season finale of Law And Order SVU subverting Narrowed It Down To The Guy I Recognize. After That Yellow Bastard and Simka Graves, I for one didn't suspect the guy who'd been there since the beginning of the season.
- Doctor Who's own 10th Doctor went a little overboard (shall we say) in the episode 'The Waters of Mars' when he finally realized he was the only Time Lord left in the Universe and didn't have to follow their rules anymore. He became megalomaniacal, the "Time Lord Victorious!" until the episode's heroine corrects his mistake. By killing herself.
Professional Wrestling
- And, of course, countless "competitors" in Professional Wrestling. Often, a heel turn will stem from a face feeling as though he doesn't have the respect of the fans or his fellow faces; this is sometimes set up by having the face lose for several weeks in a row, finally lose his temper and blame the fans or other faces. Usually, the new heel will prove his heelishness with a sneak attack on a former face ally, often aided by his new heel allies. Heel turns by wrestlers who constantly switch between heel and face (Lex Luger and Paul Wight are two examples who spring to mind) don't have all that much impact on the fans, but when a long-term face goes heel it's a big deal. The biggest example of this would be babyface Hulk Hogan's heel turn at WCW event Bash at the Beach in 1996 after over a decade of superheroics, which shocked fans and generated mainstream attention. A wrestler who turns often enough eventually settles into "tweener" mode, where they're basically a face or a heel as the storyline demands.
- The Hogan turn was both one of the greatest moments in the WCW, and the beginning of the end, as the nWo became a Spotlight Stealing Squad, as pretty much the only people who really stood up to them consistently were Sting (who spent most of his time standing around in the rafters looking angry), Rey Mysterio Jr. (who got squashed repeatedly, sucks to be the best cruiserweight when your opponent is Kevin Nash), and DDP (who's gimmick was basically to get beaten up repeatedly). Bill Goldberg showed up and shook things up, but after the nWo storyline was "reinvigorated" with the Finger Poke Of Doom, WCW started to hemorhage ratings.
- The heel turn is also a popular way to split up a face tag team, especially when one member of the team is thought to have more potential as a singles wrestler. One of the most famous of these was when the Rockers, a pair of high-flying pretty-boy faces, appeared on Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake's talk show "The Barbershop" to air out their tensions of preceding weeks. After seeming to reconcile with a hug, Shawn Michaels proceeded to kick Marty Jannetty in the face and toss him through the (fake) glass window of the set, setting up his new persona of The Heartbreak Kid and a lifetime of superstardom.
- Another famous tag team split occurred in the late 80's in the Jim Crockett NWA, when Lex Luger and Barry Windham were the top faces, feuding with Ric Flair's devious Four Horsemen stable. In the weeks prior to a huge tag team title match, the Horsemen constantly told Windham that Luger (who had recently left the Horsemen in a Heel Face Turn) was only out for himself and would abandon Windham when he needed him most, teasing that Luger would turn on him and join the Horsemen. In the match itself, a badly beaten Windham tried to tag his partner, but Luger had just been knocked off the ring apron by Horsemen associates, thereby "proving" that he wasn't there when he needed him, and prompting Windham to turn on Luger and join the Horsemen himself.
- There seems to be a distressing tendency for a wrestler's Face Heel Turn to coincide with his winning a championship title. Supposedly, this is to maintain the "underdog" status of the face wrestler, and let the fans root for him against the Jerk Ass with the title. Sometimes the turn happens in the title match itself, if the 'underdog' wins the title through a particularly cheap method (use of foreign object, another wrestler interfering with the match, and so on).
- Chris Jericho is a shining example of this. Jericho has never...EVER, won a World Championship as a face. However, when he was a face he played the perfect underdog - being screwed over by anyone with a shiny waist.
- One prominent example of this would be Steve Austin's turn on The Rock at WrestleMania X-Seven, where he teamed up with his hated nemsesis Vince McMahon due to desperation to become WWE Champ. Somewhat narmed by the Texas crowd acting as if it was a Heel Face Turn for Vince, as Stone Cold is a local hero there.
- Batista finally turned heel in the fall of 2009 after nearly five years of being a face. Funny thing is, WWE had attempted to turn him heel twice before, but without success. They had him betray Undertaker in 2007, but the fans still cheered for him. Then they had him mete out some Disproportionate Retribution to Shawn Michaels in 2008, but that didn't go over, either. Finally, they had him beat the shit out of Rey Mysterio. Since Mysterio is so squeaky-clean good, the best way to turn another wrestler face is to have him pick on the Ultimate Underdog (as was done with both Eddie and Chavo Guerrero).
Tabletop Games
- Crovax and Ertai of the Weatherlight crew in Magic: the Gathering. Tevesh Szat comes close, but he was Chaotic Neutral from the beginning.
- Betrayal at House on the Hill has this as its main mechanic: the players start out exploring the haunted mansion together, but once the Haunt is triggered, one of them turns Traitor and tries to complete their evil mission before the others can stop them or escape.
Theater
- Arguably Elphaba from Wicked fits this trope, after having everything she tries spectacularly backfire on her, and having everyone she loves die all around her, she snaps during the song 'No Good Deed' dedicating herself to a lifetime of evil. Almost immediately subverted when she is shown to be just very, very pissed off, but not actually evil a mere song later.
Videogames
- EVERYONE in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne.
- The supposed Face Heel Turn of Ralgha "Hobbes" nar Hhallas in Wing Commander III was considered a definite Wall Banger for many fans of that series who have only played the PC version (the console versions used bigger CDs than computers of the time, and could thus fit the explanation cutscene into the game; the novelization also covers the explanation). In this case, he was an (unwitting) mole.
- Sorbet in Magical Starsign fakes one as part of an elaborate plan to trick the Big Bad, and it's so convincing that even your party falls for it...unfortunately, you waltz in just as her plan is about to come to fruition.
- Fortunately, it wasn't the best thought out plan anyway...
- Ghaleon in Lunar: The Silver Star.
- Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII goes through a particularly malignant Face Heel Turn in the main character Cloud's flashback...the awesomeness of which also made him the ultimate Draco In Leather Pants character.
- The PSP game Crisis Core (where you play as Zack, the guy Cloud absorbed the personality of) portrays this moment at the end. You even get to see Sephiroth before he went batshit. Not to mention there's quite a few of the villains that do a Heel Face Turn.
- Seifer in Final Fantasy VIII goes through a much more low-key version of this as well.
- Kain from Final Fantasy IV, partly because of brainwashing, but also partly because of his envy for his best friends Cecil, who was the boyfriend of the girl he had a crush on.
- Hardain and his cronies from Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem.
- Alvis from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of Holy War though he never was part of your party.
- Captain Lee in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2 pulls one of these, after spending his entire time kicking dogs. Even a Dead Little Sister, or in this case family, doesn't protect him.
- Jerry Ying from the John Woo game Stranglehold, who starts out as Tequila's partner and ally inside Wong's Dragon Claw syndicate, only to go native during the Chicago History Museum stage and carry out Wong's orders to kill Tequila and Billie, Wong's own daughter. Tequila survives, but Billie isn't so lucky, setting up a furious showdown between partners as Tequila seeks vengeance for Billie.
- Arthas in Warcraft III.
- Beat in The World Ends With You does a Face Heel Turn and the opposite.
- Technically, Joshua also had a Face Heel Turn, but he was that way from the beginning; he was just acting.
- Baten Kaitos has a fantastic example in the first game, where the main character, Kalas is the one who betrays the party. He does rejoin later.
- Sialeeds in Suikoden V.
- The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, who switches from United States allegiances to the Soviet Union. It turns out that The Boss was really doing this to help the United States regain The Philosopher's Legacy. Naked Snake kills her, taking her position as Big Boss, only afterwards learning the truth.
- Riku from Kingdom Hearts was, unknown to his best friend Sora, gradually making the Face Heel Turn, desperate to save Kairi through whatever means possible. He ends up going a similar way as Kain from Final Fantasy IV, complete with a return to the good side and a My God What Have I Done.
- Mario plays the antagonist in Donkey Kong Junior.
- The player character and his Five Man Band in Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance becomes the Five Bad Band in the Black Knight expansion.
- At the end of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the Big Bad asks you to do this. You can actually say yes - it gives you a Nonstandard Game Over.
- Sigma from Mega Man X was originally the leader of the Maverick Hunters before he caught (and soon after became) The Virus from Zero and decided to go evil and declare war against mankind. Zero, in turn, does a Heel Face Turn, caused by said virus transfer via a punch to the forehead.
- Colonel from Mega Man Battle Network was previously the Navi of the leader of a team that aimed to purge Nebula from the Net before doing a Face Heel Turn.
- In Hero Senki Gilliam Yeager, the Ally with the most powerful unit at the start of the game is the final boss. He becomes The Atoner after he jumps universes though
- It's stated that Gol and Maia from the original Jak and Daxter were good once, but exposure to Dark Eco caused a faceheel before the beginning of the game.
- Bastila in Knights of the Old Republic. Can also happen to anyone you have a high influence with in the sequel, if you're going dark.
- Are we not forgetting Revan and Malak?
- Arguably, both Kreia and Atris in Knights of the Old Republic II. Yes, both were already Grade-A Bitchy, but neither was definitively evil until the end of the game.
- The Jedi Masters could easily be interpreted as this.
- In Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Faize pulls a big one. He doesn't just become a villain, he becomes the final boss.
- Gradius ReBirth retcons Venom into an example of this—he starts off as James's CO, but becomes a heel after you complete the game's third loop. He goes on to become the Big Bad of Nemesis 2 and 3, two lesser-known installments released on the MSX over 20 years before.
- Kazuya from Tekken. He was originally a Ryu-esque cookie-cutter hero but eventually let the devil consume him and became (arguable) one of the bad guys. By the beginning of the sixth game, he had plans for world domination.
- And there's also Jin, The Hero for about three games, then at the beginning of the sixth game, takes over the mega corporation and uses it to start World War III and try to Take Over The World, which prompts Kazuya to speed up his plan for world domination.
- To be fair though, it's heavilly implied that Jin is doing this just so that he can kill off his own bloodline by any means necessary, bringing both Kazuya and Heihachi out for him to fight up front. Though no one is aware of Lars, Heihachi's illegitimate son. Though quite villainous and menacing still, this does make Jin more of an Anti Hero.
- In Neverwinter Nights 2, Neeshka, Sand and Qara will betray you at the end of the game if their influence is too low.
- And Bishop does so even earlier. Mind you, he never was much of a Face to begin with.
- In the backstory for Star Fox 64, Pigma Dengar betrayed James McCloud to Andross. Later in the series, Andross's grandson Dash Bowman undergoes one of these in two alternate endings for Star Fox: Command.
- In a rare example of the player doing this, the original Streets of Rage has, near the end of Round 8, Mr. X asking you if you want to join him. In a 2-player game, if one player answers "yes" while the other answers "no," they will fight to the death, with the winner being asked again if they want to join. If the winner says no, and defeats Mr. X, the winner gets an alternate ending in which he or she becomes the new syndicate leader.
- Baten Kaitos had a brilliant and shocking one of these with none other than Kalas, the MAIN CHARACTER. Too bad it lacked the guts to actually have him STAY bad...
- Common in the Grand Theft Auto series.
- Soul Calibur: someone is doing one of these every five minutes. We have Siegfried, who did a Face to Heel (before the series even started) to Face to Heel to Face to Well Intentioned Extremist Heel. Then there's Yun-Seong, who isn't all the way there yet, but he's getting there. Raphael, who did a Face Heel turn from 2 to 3, and did a Heel/Worse Heel turn from 3 to 4. Sophitia has done this in 4: arguably she has a good reason, but as she has been infused with the power of Soul Edge, there's nothing saying that she might not like this state of affairs later on.
- At the end of the Fallout 3 dlc Operation: Anchorage, an Outcast defender named Sibley gets disgusted that his superior is sharing the spoils with a "local" (you) and attempts to kill him unless you stop him.
- Possible in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows if you choose to let the Symbiote have its way. In the end of an all villian story, Spider-Man becomes the emperor of the Symbiotes and rules over New York City.
- In Guild Wars, Vizier Khilbron, who appears about halfway through the Prophecies campaign, provides indispensable assistance to the players on several occasions in fighting the White Mantle and their Mursaat allies, and turns out to be the Big Bad who has been manipulating the player all along to set up the proper conditions for his Titans to assault Tyria so he can take it over.
- Brigid Tenenbaum in BioShock. She assisted Nazi scientists in the concentration camps as a teenager during WWII, despite being a prisoner herself. Upon coming to Rapture, her morally blind science continues, as she promotes ADAM and such despite being fully aware of its side effects. Being one of the main people behind the manufacture of Little Sisters, she came dangerously close to the Moral Event Horizon before her Face Heel Turn. The Little Sister fiasco triggered a more caring, tender aspect of her person, and she went to work on a way to extract the Sea Slug and return the Sister to normality, being the only helpful person Jack meets while in Rapture. Andrew Ryan also undergoes a drastic Face Heel Turn. He goes from being a complete believer in the free market, not interfering to stop the threats of ADAM and such, but then goes into a despotic Draconian, exactly the government figure he hated. He installs curfews, executes smugglers, bans free press and travel and even puts mind control pheromones in the Plasmids.
Web Comics
Web Original
- Corey from Three in the Afternoon does this not once, but twice, taking full advantage of his more idealistic friends the second time around.
- Julia van Helden does this in KateModern in response all the traumatic experiences she suffers while helping the K-Team, and out of misplaced love for a villain.
- In Associated Space, Nazar actually defeats Fatebane, captures him, and brings him to the villain. However, when he doesn't get paid, he decides to break the hero out, inadvertently joining Fatebane's side.
- Reynold, of Homestar Runner's Show Within A Show The Cheat Commandos, recently went over to work for the evil forces of Blue Laser. All things considered, it was surprisingly plausible.
- Any time a previous non-player starts to actively participate in the 'game' in Survival of the Fittest. As you might imagine, this tends to happen a lot.
- Agent Washington of Red vs Blue.
Western Animation
- Kids Next Door had an agent, Numbuh 274, who had appeared in a couple Season 1 and Season 2 episodes become a villain from Season 3 onwards after turning 13. However, it turned out that he'd been working for the good side all along in the penultimate episode of the show.
- The 4th grade class president also began as a heroic character but, after the KND works to ensure his safe election, it's revealed that he's actually their enemy. The exact nature of his Face Heel Turn is something of a mystery: while his blank eyes, Creepy Monotone and Father's evil laughter during his Face Heel Turn implies that he'd been brainwashed, later episodes establish him as not only a perfectly willing heel, but one whose agenda has little connection to Father.
- Raimundo in the season one finale of Xiaolin Showdown. Shortly into season two, he does a Heel Face Turn and returns to his friends, but not without suffering some consequences and trust issues.
- Elyon Brown in WITCH.
- Dinobot, in the Transformers: Beast Wars episode "Maximal No More." He does a Heel Face Turn back at the end, though, upon realizing that just because everything's going according to Megatron's plans doesn't mean that Megatron isn't a dangerous madman.
- Blackarachnia, in Transformers Animated pulls her Face Heel Turn during the (mainly) flashback episode "Along Came A Spider." We discover that when they were in the Autobot Academy, Elita-1, Sentinel, and Optimus went to an organic planet, even though it was forbidden, and they encountered giant spiders. Escaping from the spiders, Elita used her download power to borrow Optimus's grapplers, but ran out of time, falling into a pit full of the spiders when Optimus failed to catch her with his other grappler. She attempted to use her download power on the spiders, but, the spiders being organic, it turned her into a mutated part-organic, part-mechanical Transformer with one of the spiders as her alt-mode. The new signal type made her impossible for Optimus to pick up on his radar, and led him and Sentinel to believe Elita was dead, and Blackarachnia to believe they abandoned her, and she joined the Decepticons.
- Tai Lung of Kung Fu Panda.
- In Kim Possible The Dragon Shego used to be a Superhero before becoming a villain. Various other characters have short, often for a single episode Heel Turns, including Ron at least twice.
- In Superman The Animated Series, Professor Hamilton, a longtime Superman supporter, turns against him Justice League Unlimited
Real Life
- F1 racing driver Kimi Raikkonen seems to have pulled one of these, at least in the eyes of UK fans. Until 2006 he was a charismatic underdog in a badly malfunctioning car, and one of the few serious rivals to Michael Schumacher. In 2007 he moved to Ferrari, won the title, and thus immediately lost the sympathy vote. Needless to say, it didn't help that his move coincided with Lewis Hamilton's arrival at McLaren.
- Fernando Alonso turned from the magnificent World Champion to a jealous angry kid envying Hamilton's driving skills expressing a "You might be the better driver, but I'm the World Champion, damn you!" attitude.
- The closest NASCAR equivalent is Kyle Busch. That he won the first ever Cup race with the "Car of Tomorrow"
 bodystyle and proceeded to rip it a new one was bad. Winning races in the Great American Motorsport in a Toyota is borderline unforgivable. But wrecking Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Richmond was what crossed the line into Smug Snake territory. You just want to punch the jerk in the face.
- In the The American Revolution, Benedict Arnold's name became synonymous with the word "traitor" after switching sides from the American Continental Army to the British Empire, apparently out of anger that he (Arnold) had won a major victory for which Washington took the credit. And they say Shonen is unrealistic...
- He was Rewarded As A Traitor Deserves, to a degree (he wasn't outright betrayed). He left another British defector behind to get lynched and was somewhat unpopular when he got to Britain.
- It was Horatio Gates, who sat in his tent, who took credit for winning the Battle of Saratoga, while Arnold rallied the troops and won the battle. Gates' incompetence was shown several years later, when, his troops were soundly defeated by the British — and Gates not only fled the field almost immediately, but fled 170 miles (on horseback) in three days. I'm drifting.
- Country star Toby Keith pulled the musical equivalent a few years back. His music used to be clean and family-friendly, but for the last several years he's taken on a "bad boy" image and run with it, starting with low-level Getting Crap Past The Radar and gradually progressing to the point where today, just about any new song from him will either sound like pure Straw Conservative propaganda, be a blatant exercise in Refuge In Audacity, or both. Somewhere around his departue from Dream Works Records, he began to soften again, with occasional exceptions such as "American Ride," which at least had the decency to lampoon both ends of the political spectrum.
- There is, of course, Marcus Brutus, whose turn has a Trope all its own.
- Brett Favre, famed Green Bay Packers quarterback, went to their rival team, the Minnesota Vikings, after saying that he was retired. He lost a lot of respect among the Packer-backers.
- Likewise, Johnny Damon's signing with the Yankees after helping the Red Sox win a World Series.
- Roger Clemens as well. He's actually a pretty interesting case, having two Face Heel Turns without having a Heel Face Turn in between. Lemme explain. After he left the Red Sox in '96, he was pretty much persona non grata in New England, but still loved and well respected throughout the rest of the baseball world. This lasted until December 13, 2007, when the Mitchell Report was released, containing the names of MLB players who had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Roger Clemens was the biggest name on the list, and literally overnight he went from baseball's "golden boy" to one of the biggest scumbags to ever play the game.
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