Basic Trope: A story of how the villain became evil in the first place.
- Straight: Alex sees his girlfriend, Betty, get killed and becomes a murderer to avenge her death.
- Exaggerated:
- Alex is forced to kill Betty, the only person who cares about his existence, and as a result, goes on a rampage around the world.
- By just killing Betty, Alex has already crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
- Downplayed: Alex's girlfriend Betty dies of an incurable disease. This made Alex not a murderer, but an unpleasant and callous Jerkass.
- Justified:
- No one is born evil, after all. Something had to change Alex into a villain.
- Alternately, Alex, who originally had good or neutral intentions, has been working for the Big Bad for so long that he lost all of his original morals and descended into a state of apathy toward his work, allowing him to do things which he once would never have considered without a twinge of guilt or remorse.
- Alex is portrayed as experiencing Sanity Slippage as a result of losing Betty, leading him to commit ever more depraved acts.
- Inverted:
- The story is about Alex, a Card-Carrying Villain who spends his days poking poodles and kicking dogs, and discovers that he is Good All Along.
- Alice saves Alex, a Card-Carrying Villain, who from then on steadily acts more morally thanks to Alice's kindness. Eventually becoming one of the good guys.
- We see a Flash Back or the Back Story of Alex that's meant to show why he became The Hero in the first place and his ascent into goodness.
- Subverted:
- Alex is telling the story himself, and he isn't exactly being honest.
- Alex sees his girlfriend get killed and kills the murderer, witnessing how horrible it is to be evil and swears to never kill again.
- Alex seems like he's going to be come the villain everyone knows — but he's actually a Decoy Protagonist. The real villain is someone else altogether, he's just a guy with an uncanny resemblance.
- Double Subverted:
- However, he is in fact telling the truth... as he sees it, of course.
- Because he despises evil so much, Alex decides that killing may be a viable way to prevent more killing, backtracks on his personal oath and gets used to committing atrocities.
- Parodied:
- Alex, upon capturing The Hero, reveals a ridiculously nonsensical backstory that doesn't really explain anything about Alex or how he became evil.
- It is revealed that Alex decided to become evil after learning someone ate the last Tasty Snack in the fridge.
- Zig Zagged: Alex tells The Hero that the reason that he became a psychopath is to avenge the death of Betty, who he loved. However, The Hero later learns that Alex lied about his Freudian Excuse. He recaptures Alex and is told a completely different story altogether.
- Averted:
- The reason why Alex is evil or amoral is never revealed.
- Alex had a normal background. He became evil for simple reasons, like wanting money.
- Alex becomes evil just for the sake of evil itself.
- Enforced: "We really ought to explain why Alex does what he does. Otherwise he'll just look like just another Card-Carrying Villain."
- Lampshaded: "You don't know why I'm this way, do you? This looks like a good time for me to tell you my tragic and unhappy backstory."
- Invoked: "All right, Alex, tell us what made you the slime you are!"
- Exploited: Amoral Attorney Dewey uses Alex's backstory to create sympathy in the jury at the murder trial.
- Defied: Alex outright refuses to explain his Start of Darkness, with the rationalization that it doesn't change the fact that he's a villain now.
- Discussed: "Why is Alex evil, anyway? Childhood trauma? The tragic death of a loved one? Parental Abandonment? His upbringing? Just because he could?"
- Conversed: "What made Alex so utterly heartless?" "Bad parenting."
- Deconstructed: Alex's reasons for becoming evil, although true, are not the reason he became evil - he was a Jerkass long before Betty was killed.
- Reconstructed: However, Betty was Alex's Morality Chain and, with her dead, Alex has crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
Return to Start of Darkness... And be sure to watch the path...
