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More Interesting as a Villain

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Many people tend to be drawn to dark and evil characters. Evil Is Cool after all. So it shouldn't be a surprise that sometimes fans like to reimagine heroic characters as villains. Oftentimes this will happen to a clean-cut character, especially if the fans find their personality boring. Turning this character evil makes them interesting, in the eyes of these fans. This can also happen to good characters who have an evil side that isn't explored as much as fans wish, or to heroic characters who are less than perfect, especially if these flaws aren't acknowledged. Making them a villain makes these flaws more acceptable, as fans are more forgiving of a villain's flaws than a hero's flaws. Another factor that can play a part in this is shipping. If fans ship a good character with an evil one, turning the good character evil will put these characters on the same side and thus make it easier for them to hook up. Can happen to villains who've undergone a Heel–Face Turn if fans think that the character worked better as a villain. This can be especially true if the character is hit with Redemption Demotion, where said character becomes less powerful after the Heel–Face Turn.

It will often be a roundabout way of bringing about Draco in Leather Pants, as the villainized hero will still be romanticized by the fans. Contrast Ron the Death Eater, where the character is villainized to bash and demonize them, as opposed to make them cool or interesting. Compare Corrupted Character Copy, where an Expy of a character is portrayed as a villain, while the original was not.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Dragon Ball: The idea of Goku never getting dropped on his head as a baby and continuing his original mission of preparing Earth to be conquered by Frieza is a very popular What If? idea. Similarly, Vegeta never having his Heel–Face Turn is also fairly popular.
  • My Hero Academia: While you'll be hard-pressed to say that the protagonist Izuku Midoriya is universally disliked, he is a very common target of Villain AUs in the fanfiction community. Him giving up on the greater good due to his natural Quirkless physiology and the lack of positive influences growing up are pretty similar to the backstories of some of the actual villains in the main story; and people like playing with his ability to analyze heroes or how his relationship with All Might (his idol) and Bakugou (his childhood bully) would change in this setting.
  • Naruto: Several Fandom Specific Plots boil down to Naruto snapping from years of being ostracized and getting stronger so he can get revenge on everyone who bullied him.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • Frozen: It's very popular to explore the idea of Elsa being a villain, due to it almost happening in earlier versions of Frozen before she was made more sympathetic. Because of this, fans went wild imagining what an evil version of Elsa would be like.
  • The Unshaved Mouse has admitted to watching Disney's Hercules pretending that Hera is secretly the mastermind behind Hades's plan to better bring the story in line with mythology, where Hercules (or Heracles in his Greek name) is the target of Hera's wrath for being one of Zeus's bastards.
  • The Incredibles: Fans like the idea of Violet becoming evil. When the second movie was announced, some fans (such as Andre the Black Nerd) hoped that the film would explore Violet being tempted by evil. While this didn't happen, Violet's cynical comment about how Evelyn Deavor wouldn't face justice and how she lost her Love Interest caused some fans to believe that future films might explore her Start of Darkness.
  • Steven Universe: The Movie: Spinel is considered to be a highlight of the movie from her Villain Song "Other Friends", her status as a villain who has it out for Steven personally which is topped off with a violent, unstable personality in contrast to her heartbreak at being abandoned by Pink Diamond, while being a solid threat that gives the movie its high stakes. It also helps that she's one of the strongest villains in the series, being physically strong enough to actually make Steven bleed during their final fight. Suffice to say, some fans weren't too happy about her becoming a Replacement Goldfish for Pink Diamond at the end of the movie and her role in Steven Universe: Future being someone who tries and fails to help Steven before he ends up going into a meltdown.
  • Wish (2023): The consensus is that Queen Amaya lacked proper development for her choice to join Asha's rebellion and she ended up feeling like a wasted presence in the final version of the movie. Most fans preferred the original concept where she was a villain along with her husband, out of finding the Unholy Matrimony approach a more interesting concept that what was done to her in the movie.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • One point of contention with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is that a good number of fans felt it portrayed Barbossa way too heroically in comparison to previous movies, with him being capable of putting the safety of his crew over his own when in the previous movies he was pretty much a Bad Boss uncaring of members of his crew dying, becomes a Papa Wolf after re-encountering with his lost daughter, pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and is fondly mourned by the rest of the characters. The problem is that while Barbossa had a good amount of redeemable qualities in previous movies and was Affably Evil, most of his popularity came from being a Love to Hate Magnificent Bastard, as such most fans weren't fond of him being portrayed more positively without enough Character Development to make up for it, feeling he had become a major Karma Houdini that's treated as a hero by the narrative for one of his few good deeds after two lifetimes of proudly being a vile man.
  • Star Wars: When he was first introduced, Jar-Jar was almost universally hated by the fanbase due to him being seen as annoying comic relief. However, as time went on, fans began to reevaluate the Prequels and attempted to redeem Jar-Jar. Many of these fans latched onto the theory that Jar-Jar was secretly a Sith Lord who was manipulating things while pretending to be a clumsy fool. This allowed many fans to see him as a brilliant Chessmaster as opposed to the comic relief he was presented as in the film.
  • Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie has a sequence where Jason and Kimberly are brainwashed and turned evil because Austin St. John thought it would be interesting to play the clean cut Red Ranger as a villain.

    Literature 
  • Harry Potter: Given Dumbledore's infamy in the fandom for keeping Hogwarts open despite the numerous risks to children's lives, and the reveal at the end of the series that he has basically been raising Harry to one day die facing Voldemort so they can both be killed, 'Dumbledore as evil mastermind' is quite popular in fan fictions, even portraying him vs Voldemort as a variant of Evil Versus Evil.
  • Warrior Cats: The series' fandom has created "Evil AUs" for many characters, though "Evil Spottedleaf" is the most popular one. Spottedleaf is a character who dies in the first book and joins the Clans' afterlife of StarClan and spends the rest of the series as a Spirit Advisor and idealized The Lost Lenore for the protagonist Firestar. Due to a combination of frustration with her being seen as a Purity Sue and Satellite Love Interest and criticism of StarClan being a Designated Hero group in general, many people preferred if Spottedleaf were a villain, both making her more interesting from their perspective and making StarClan's cruel moments intentional rather than brushed off by the narrative.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Charmed (1998): Although Prue Halliwell is a fan favourite character, several episodes touch on the idea that she could be quite terrifying if she went evil, with the character herself admitting in "Bride & Gloom" (where all the sisters are briefly turned evil) that she found the dark side attractive, and "Just Harried" giving her a Good Bad Girl alter ego as a reflection of her trying to suppress her inner desires. As a result, Prue having a Face–Heel Turn is quite the intriguing plot point for a lot of fans, especially since her last episode showed her snapping and using her powers on innocents when Piper's life was in danger. The Season 10 comics ran with this and had an arc where Prue became an antagonist.
  • House of Anubis: For the bulk of the show, Fabian was seen as the resident Nice Guy who was unfailingly on the side of good. Among the fandom, however, the idea of a "Dark Fabian" became popular, as fans grew curious about what it would be like for such an unambiguously kind and heroic character to reveal some sort of dark or evil side. Fanfics portraying him as some sort of antihero were rather common, as were speculations on what such a character would be like. In season 3, Fabian did indeed turn evil for a short time after losing his soul, something that only added more fuel to the idea of "Dark Fabian" as this version of the character was absolutely beloved for being both threatening and charismatic in a way that couldn't be said about normal Fabian.
  • Kamen Rider Geats: Keiwa Sakurai starts out as the Audience Surrogate with the most idealism and naivete on how he wants to improve the world. He initially wished for world peace before switching to the goal of reviving all the victims of the Desire Grand Prix. As time went on and things got more nuanced, Keiwa started blaming Mitsume who was being used as magic resource by the actually evil people instead of the evil people. Keiwa eventually breaks from Michinaga Azuma accidentally killing Keiwa's sister in episode 40. When he later gets a chance for his wish to be granted, he immediately regrets it as he revived every bad person taken out by the Desire Grand Prix and some of them kill his family in episode 43. Furthering his Face–Heel Turn. Needless to say there are plenty of people who would have preferred Keiwa getting some of this Despair Event Horizon sooner instead of close to when the show was ending.
  • Mashin Sentai Kiramager: One of the few common criticisms that fans have of the show is that Galza being revealed to have been brainwashed into evil by Emperor Yodon came almost out of nowhere and fans would have rather that Galza stayed as the main villain for the rest of the series due to being a much more personal and overall interesting antagonist for the team to deal since Galza's dynamic with them and history with them has had more much time to be fleshed out and explored since the very beginning of the show.
  • Odd Squad:
    • Due to the popularity of fanfics like Viva La Vida, which portrays Olive as gradually slipping into villainy and allying with Odd Todd, many fans have hopped onboard the idea of her being a villain and have created AUs and other fanworks depicting her as an antagonist.
    • While Ohlm is the Big Bad of Season 2, many fans have wondered what would have happened if Otis had either remained a villain or had gone back to villainy, due to his Dark and Troubled Past. Supporting this, rumors of Otis originally being the Big Bad (since Ohlm's actor had been bullied for playing a stupid character and thus the writers found it fit to give him a more serious role) floated around the fandom before Tim McKeon confirmed that the main villain had always been Ohlm from the start.
  • Squid Game: Despite already being an Ensemble Dark Horse by herself, Ji-yeong is one of the most popular candidates to replace the canonical mastermind in Mastermind AUs — with supporters noting that it could've given her a lot more depth outside of being a Satellite Character to Sae-byeok and explored her Broken Bird mentality in more detail.

    Theatre 
  • Dear Evan Hansen: While portrayed as flawed and doing the wrong thing in the story, the musical still frames Evan as a good person at heart despite pretending to be a dead person's friend to take advantage of a grieving family and hook up with said dead person's sister. Several viewers walked away thinking the story would have been far more interesting if Evan had been portrayed as the Big Bad while making the Murphys the protagonists, or at the very least if he had been a Villain Protagonist.

    Video Games 
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: In the remake, New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow, the reveal that orphan trafficker and slaver, Eremiya, was a good person simply under brainwashing from an evil man wasn't well received by the fandom. Many considered the reveal with Eremiya to be unbelievable, inconsistent and her actions far too heinous to be tragic and sympathetic. Eremiya was also viewed as unique as a villain for being attractive, youthful and female, hence the reveal that her villainy was all the fault of the old, all the fault of the old, hideously deformed male Gharnef was badly received.
    • Fire Emblem: Awakening: Aversa's popularity fell massively once it was revealed that her backstory of being Recruited from the Gutter by the Religion of Evil, the Grimleal, and their head, Validar was a fabrication magically put in her mind and Aversa was really just a mind controlled victim that was forced to work for them. Aversa's original backstory was also thought to add a bit of moral nuance to into an otherwise Black and White story in addition to making Aversa a good foil to both Robin and Chrom.
    • Fire Emblem Fates: In this case, a nation gets this treatment, though it is more of an example of "More Interesting as Morally Gray". A frequent criticism of Fates is that Hoshido comes across as the blatantly good faction (and thus the "obviously correct choice" of the route split) in the war between it and Nohr despite advertisements for the game promising a Grey-and-Gray Morality conflict. While there are brief implications Hoshido is xenophobic and isolationist to a toxic degree, they aren't touched on enough to make an impact. Fans wish the game expanded on these flaws and brought them to the forefront of the story so as to make the conflict between Hoshido and Nohr more nuanced with no clear good side. As a result, it is common for fan works (especially Fix Fics) to play more into Hoshido's implied darker side.
    • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Due to Edelgard and Dimitri's more obvious dark sides and trailers playing him up as The Sneaky Guy, many fans were expecting Claude to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. He turns out to be the most conventionally heroic of the three post-timeskip, with his route being a near carbon-copy of the "default" (and first written) Silver Snow route. Some fans would've preferred it if he was just as dark as the other two, and this became a common subject of fanfiction. In a case of Be Careful What You Wish For, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes did indeed portray a more morally-ambiguous Claude, but its handling was extremely contentious.
    • Fire Emblem Engage:
  • Kingdom Hearts: Between the releases of Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] and Kingdom Hearts III, it became popular to theorize a scenario where Sora was successfully turned into one of Master Xehanort's vessels.
    • Similarly, fans who played Kingdom Hearts III would've preferred if they spent more time with Anti-Aqua rather than her being shoved into the climax of the game and then turned back to normal almost immediately after she's revealed.
  • While Mari from OMORI is quite popular, several fans do take issue with her being a rather by the numbers Cool Big Sis treated as Too Good for This Sinful Earth. As a result, several fanfics, such as Hands, have depicted Mari in a more morally gray or even black manner to explore more complex relationships and more interesting fallouts regarding the circumstances surrounding her.
  • Trails Series:

    Web Video 
  • It is a common occurrence for Dream SMP fans to root for their favorite character to have a "villain arc", even if canon doesn't imply or support this.
    • Niki gets this treatment often as fans want to see a female villain. In canon, although she does have beef with Tommy at one point, she mostly stays away from conflict in favor of being a Sweet Baker. In fanon, fans will often portray her as a girlboss villain pushed to the edge by the way others treat her.
    • Tommy is mostly morally ambiguous to good in canon, and is treated by many fans as the story's protagonist. However, he is also often written as a villain in various AUs, primarily superhero AUs. There are over a thousand fanfictions tagged "Villain TommyInnit" on Archive of Our Own.
    • Ranboo also gets this to a lesser extent, as in canon he is a bit of a pushover who avoids choosing sides. Fans frequently want to see him grow a backbone and finally snap, and villainy is one of the paths this is sometimes explored in fanworks through. He is also sometimes portrayed as a bad guy by proxy, as people will write his Enderwalking as a possession-like state with malicious intent.

    Western Animation 
  • Gravity Falls: The popular Reverse Falls AU has Dipper and Mabel Pines swapping places with their respective rivals Lil Gideon and Pacifica Northwest, becoming the main antagonists as a result.
  • High Guardian Spice: Even though the story portrays Sage as one of the good guys, she comes across to many as a clingy, controlling, manipulative, and all-around toxic friend, and many viewers think having her harmful behavior gradually escalate into outright villainy would have made for a much more interesting story.
  • In Jackie Chan Adventures, Jade becomes possessed by the dark power of the Shadowkhan in the episode "Queen of the Shadowkhan". Her Superpowered Evil Side became one of the most used plots in the Jackie Chan fanfiction community, many of which can be found in Project Dark Jade.
  • Kim Possible: In the episode "Bad Boy", Ron Stoppable is temporarily transformed into a supervillain named Zorpox the Conqueror. During this time, he proves himself to be a major threat to Kim, even outdoing Dr. Drakken. By the end of the episode, his original personality is restored and his supervillain personality only reappears once more in the series, in the episode "Stop Team Go". Many fans like the idea of turning Ron into Zorpox again, believing he makes a compelling and threatening villain for Kim.
  • Miraculous Ladybug: Fans were utterly disappointed over Félix's sudden Heel–Face Turn despite his committing many bad deeds out of spite toward the protagonist, such as betraying Ladybug and taking all Miraculouses to exchange for the Peacock miraculous from Gabriel, attempting to erase humanity to create his utopia, and stalking and kidnapping Kagami. In spite of his tragic past, he has done nothing to atone for his wrongdoing. What fans, especially his fans, would like to see is him staying as an Anti-Villain on his own, without allying with either the protagonist or antagonist side.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Starlight Glimmer was an seen as an intriguingly unique and realistic villain for the series. She managed to represent an ideological challenge to the heroes, while also posing a serious threat despite lacking the sheer power/scale of prior foes. Her redemption was seen as too rushed and as invalidating the traits that made her popular in the first place. Her Deuteragonist status in Season 6 resulted in a Broken Base with many wishing she had stayed a villain, at least long enough to get a more plausible redemption, instead of taking some of the hero spotlight from the Mane 6.
    • Discord was a beloved, chaotic villain (helped by the fact that he was played by John de Lancie) when he appeared in the Season 2 premiere. But his Season 3 Heel–Face Turn split the fanbase between those who welcomed the change and those who preferred his chaos not to be tamed by friendship. While Season 4 mitigated this by showing he kept what made him popular as a villain and gave him a better-received redemption, he became increasingly divisive afterward for continued antagonism (messing with the heroes under the guise of being helpful, his poorly thought out actions causing harm). This caused many viewers to prefer for him to be either an outright villain or an outright hero, instead of trying to play both roles.
    • The changelings were bug-like shapeshifters who fed on love. Their creepy appearance, that they could impersonate characters without anyone knowing, and their need to feed on love to survive made them great villains. The episode "To Where and Back Again" redeemed nearly all of them, as they discovered that they could satiate their hunger by sharing love instead of taking it. They received a Lighter and Softer appearance to match their new status. Many fans hated either their Heel–Face Turn, their new appearance, or both. Tellingly, a majority of fanworks and fanart, bar canon redeemed changelings, use their pre-redemption appearance and nature even if they are not evil-aligned.
    • Princess Celestia is the Big Good of the series. She is seen by many fans as a boring and weak character compared to her Ex-Big Bad sister Luna. This invoked the three common meme trends in the MLP fandom of Trollestia, Molestia, and Tyrantlestia. Fans prefer to see her as more villainous than she is in canon. The few episodes where she looses her temper, or toys with other characters' perceptions are seen as more interesting than her typical portrayal as a saint. This is further helped by the appearance of her badass evil alter ego Daybreaker in "A Royal Problem".
  • The Owl House: The episode "Thanks To Them" has Luz Noceda suffering from a major My God, What Have I Done? moment in which she previously and unwittingly helped Belos and The Collector meet. During this crisis, The Good Witch Azura shows that Azura's friend, Lucy, and an Expy of Luz herself, has made a Face–Heel Turn. While Luz does eventually come to her senses, this moment has, unsurprisingly, made fans wonder what might have happened if she really did end up like Lucy.
  • Rick and Morty: In the early years of the show's run, one of the most popular theories was that Evil Morty was formerly Rick's original Morty who got tired of Rick's abuse and struck out on his own, becoming a lot like Rick in the process. This theory would be slowly forgotten about over time until Evil Morty's backstory was finally revealed in "Unmortricken", where it's confirmed that while he wasn't Rick's original Morty, Evil Morty was indeed a Morty who snapped and plotted to break out of the Central Finite Curve, where he can be free of the Ricks' abuse.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: Quite a few fans think that Mr. Krabs should have a more antagonistic role. Despite consistently being portrayed as a greedy scumbag, he is still seen as the show's Big Good, with Plankton still being the main villain. While Plankton is usually an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, Mr. Krabs has caused legitimate damage throughout the show. This is why some would like to try to see Krabs act even worse, perhaps akin to Mr. Burns, while Plankton takes on a more heroic role.
  • Steven Universe:
    • While Peridot's redemption arc was well received, there were some fans who actually liked Peridot as a villain because she was a cold robotic villain who was also Not So Above It All in terms of her getting frustrated and flustered whenever her plans blew up in her face. Unsurprisingly, those fans weren't too happy about Peridot getting sidelined with Lapis once her redemption arc was over and felt like she had more going for her during her stint as an antagonist.
    • While some fans still hold a candle to a potential Jasper redemption arc, there are some who like her because she's a villain who made such a strong first impression as a violent Blood Knight, and whose presence finalized the change of the show's overall tone. In addition, her villainous nature allowed her to serve as an Arc Villain in Season 2 (as part of Malachite) and Season 3, being important in getting several concepts across about the show's concepts. Even in Steven Universe: Future, she plays a key role in Steven's downward spiral, and some fans even believe she should've stayed shattered in order to show that shattering has real consequences and to kickstart a potential villain arc for Steven himself instead of being revived as someone who is now loyal to Steven because she views him as her Diamond.
    • The Great Diamond Authority get this the most due to the sheer backlash that "Change Your Mind" received from some fans who felt that Blue and Yellow Diamond's redemptions were too hasty and that all 3 Diamonds were Easily Forgiven despite being an Evil Colonialist triumvirate of god-like dictators.
      • Before the final arc, Yellow Diamond was portrayed as a ruthless dictator whose only concern was keeping the empire running and maintaining progress on The Cluster, and who had no qualms about using violence on anyone who defied her authority.
      • Blue Diamond, though seemingly more sympathetic, is a bigot who despises fusion and still views humans as nothing more than pets, and created a human zoo for Pink Diamond's due to misunderstanding her desire to protect life on Earth from their colonization plans as yet another childish whim. Despite Blue and Yellow's dictatorial roles, they still cared about Pink Diamond, having spent centuries mourning her shattering, as much as Yellow tried to deny it.
      • White Diamond gets this the worst due to her short screen time, though she makes the most of it with her sheer creepiness, her strong belief in her own perfection, her willingness to possess the Crystal Gems and her fellow Diamonds, and forcing Steven to question his own identity before tearing out his gem to force Pink Diamond to return to her.
    • Rose Quartz gets this from several viewers. Though initially presented as more or less morally good, the series would go on to reveal her flaws, most notably that she was actually Pink Diamond, that Pearl was originally her slave, and that the corruption of most of the gems on Earth happened after she faked her shattering. The show itself largely played her as morally gray after this, but many fans felt the crew should gone the full mile and made her a straight up villain, arguing that she was indirectly responsible for the events of the series, and that her good intentions and noble qualities were outweighed by the harm she did.
    • Steven Universe: Future: Steven Quartz Universe himself ended up subjected to this due to him going on a downward spiral that has him shatter Jasper and consider doing the same to White Diamond before eventually having a meltdown and corrupting into a monster. Some fans were disappointed that Monster Steven was able to be reverted to normal with a group hug, and believe that Steven Slowly Slipping Into Evil after shattering Jasper would've been an interesting idea to work with as shown in fanfictions such as Pink doesn't really exist and other existential truths, or Steven Universe: Alternate Future or even a Fan Music Villain Song such as "Only One Way".
  • Total Drama: Given his bitterness about being the first one eliminated in the previous season, many were anticipating that Caleb would be the Big Bad of Season 2 of the reboot. However, more than a few fans were left disappointed when the season ended up characterizing Caleb as a Nice Guy who genuinely falls for Priya. Given how contentious his romance with Priya ended up being (especially when compared to Priya x Damien), as well as a number viewers considering him to be a Flat Character who had little going on beyond that romance, many fans have expressed that they would have preferred Caleb be Season 2's villain, as opposed to giving the role to Julia again.

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