Start Of Darkness / Literature

• In The Beginning After the End, Agrona Vritra is the Big Bad of the Story responsible for the death of Arthur Leywin's friends, loved ones and a war that ravaged Dicathen Arthur's homeland. In Volume 8, In Sylvia's second message to Arthur, She reveals that Agrona was a charming and coy knowledge seeker but what drove him mad that he tried to reveal the Indrath clan genocide of the Djinn they exiled him out of Epheotus causing his madness and villainy.
• In Dead Souls, Chichikov and Plyushkin started out as decent people, and there's a Cry for the Devil in revealing how both of them descended into what they are now.
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe: The Doctor Who Missing Adventures novel The Dark Path tells how the Second Doctor sees his old friend Koschei become the Master, due to Love Makes You Evil. This may or may not be compatible with the Start of Darkness shown in "The Sound of Drums".
• The Dresden Files:
  • Storm Front's villain, Victor Sells, was apparently once a normal family man... before he discovered his talent and began dabbling in Black Magic. Of course, his wife Monica is the one telling this and she's a victim of Domestic Abuse, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Cold Days hints that his descent into darkness was caused by his infection with Nemesis.
  • Small Favor reveals the events that led to Marcone becoming the crime lord of Chicago. He used to be a minor criminal, but an innocent girl was shot in an attack meant for him. This motivated him to take over the criminal organisations and enforce standards on them, so that something like this would never happen again.
  • Cold Days: Sarissa comments that Slate wasn't a bad person... until he accepted the Winter Mantle.
• In Hart's Hope, a chapter is devoted to explaining how eventual Big Bad Princess Asineth is shaped by events ranging from someone else being punished for her disobedience, accidentally causing the execution of her father's favorite mistress, and being raped in public by her father's killer to cement his claim to the throne.
• The origin of the Relativity villain Rune is spelled out in a story aptly named "Rune". He doesn't fight the heroes in this story, however, and they aren't even aware of him. Which means that the first time the heroes face Rune, it's in a story called "Rune Returns".
• In The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Luo Binghe in the in-universe webnovel Proud Immortal Demon Way used to be a sweet, idealistic boy until his Sadist Teacher Shen Qingqiu betrayed him and pushed him into the Abyss where he had to spend five years battling demons to escape. This is somewhat lessened in the altered story where Shen Qingqiu is instead a transmigrated Shen Yuan who treats Binghe much more kindly for three years before the betrayal, but it still marks the point where Binghe becomes more of an Anti-Hero.
• In Shadow of the Conqueror, Daylen Namaran was actually a very morally upright person before the aristocracy murdered his entire family, but after this he would become Dayless the Conqueror, one of the worst individuals that his world would ever see.
• Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • The Silmarillion: Fëanor has his over the course of several years due to a combination of manipulation, jealousy and anger issues, but the single defining moment is when he lets his anger and jealousy for his brother Fingolfin get the better of him and puts his sword to Fingolfin's chest and threatens to kill him.
  • The Fall of Gondolin: Maeglin starts out as someone overly ambitious and maybe disturbingly cold, but not evil, despite his unrequited crush on his cousin Idril. When Idril gets married to Tuor and has a son, though, Maeglin lets his lust, bitterness, jealousy and hatred get the better of him, and he willingly betrays the location of the hidden city to Morgoth (depending on the version, he went to Morgoth and volunteered the information, or he was captured and baited into speaking). When Morgoth finally attacks Gondolin, Maeglin attempts to kidnap Idril and kill her child, and is killed by Idril's husband Tuor.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Aerys II was always a crappy king. But his descent into unbridled Mad King territory began after an incident known as the Defiance Of Duskendale. When Aerys, ignoring all reason and council from his advisors, got himself captured for six months. By the time he was rescused, he'd gone full blown bonkers. It was also the start of his love of burning people alive, which became a favorite hobby of his.
• The antagonist of Uarda, Paaker's, moral descent begins when he decides to use black magic to get back the girl he lost.
• The fifth volume of The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign is this for the White Queen. It reveals that she wasn't initially evil, but childishly innocent, to the point of making a promise to never hurt anyone if it meant she could stay with Kyousuke. But because others tried to exploit her power by pretending to be Kyousuke, she was forced to break this promise.

---