Basic Trope: A character willfully goes back to his villainous ways.
- Straight: Dracone sides with the heroes to save the world, only to return to his world conquest's schemes after the crisis is resolved.
- Exaggerated: It were to seem that Dracone has turned good for a change until he returns killing innocents.
- Downplayed:
- Dracone becomes nice to the heroes only to mistreat them all over again.
- Dracone started as a Card-Carrying Villain, then reformed himself as good-ish, before backsliding into merely evil-ish.
- Dracone is an Anti-Hero who tries to give up his brutal methods of fighting injustice, but always comes back to them in the end.
- Justified:
- Dracone was harshly rejected by the heroes, so he decided to become a monster they exactly asked for.
- Dracone had a talk with one of his old allies about going back to crime.
- Dracone believed that joining the good side had made him soft. He wanted to be the ruthless villain again.
- Dracone realizes that Being Good Sucks.
- Inverted:
- Hiro always returns doing good deeds.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome
- Subverted:
- Dracone turns back to being evil until he realizes the harm he's caused.
- It looks like he's turned back to evil out of habit, but then it turns out Dracone's Trapped in Villainy by a hidden manipulator.
- Double Subverted:
- ...He eventually forgets.
- Dracone decides to go back to evil after he's freed, partially to spite this cruel world, and partially because while Being Good Sucks and Being Evil Sucks, Evil Pays Better.
- Parodied:
- Dracone always goes back to smoking weed, looking at porn, and leaving the water running in his house.
- The whole scenario plays out like a heavy-handed drug metaphor, complete with This Is Your Brain on Evil, forcing Dracone to go "cold turkey," and Evil withdrawal.
- Zig Zagged:
- Rather than good or evil, Dracone goes from Chaotic to Lawful, which puts him vaguely on the heroes side. He then goes back to chaotic, but doesn't become any more or less evil throughout this.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door
- Averted:
- Dracone doesn't go back doing evil after turning good.
- Dracone stays evil with no intentions of switching an alignment.
- Enforced: "The audience loves Dracone as the bad guy, so let's let him stay the bad guy."
- Lampshaded: "I never thought you were to go back to your old ways after helping to save the world."
- Invoked: Dracone wants to show the heroes how evil he really is, so during his help with the heroes...
- Exploited: The heroes study his tendencies (or rig a bomb to him, if they're prepared enough) so they can better counter him when he inevitably returns to evil.
- Defied:
- Dracone refuses to go back to his evil ways believing that it would ruin his path to redemption.
- The heroes decide to take action in preventing Dracone from returning to the dark side, making him reform sincerely.
- Discussed: "Why did Dracone turn on us after helping to save the world?"
- Conversed: "No matter how you look at it, the writers will never turn Dracone into a good guy."
- Deconstructed: Dracone's habit of always going back to his evil ways has made it impossible for him to seek redemption.
- Reconstructed: Realizing he has the motive but not the will to redeem himself, the hero works to reform Dracone, in order to stop him from backsliding.
- Played For Laughs: Dracone is Stupid Evil, and the heroes mock him for his inability to give it up.
- Played For Drama: Dracone would be very happy to redeem himself, but his self-hatred means that he can never accept being good.
You'll try to go to The Hero, but in the end, you'll go back to Chronic Villainy.
