Adaptational Villainy / Live-Action TV

Adaptational Villainy in Live-Action TV.

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Shows with their own pages

• Arrowverse
• Marvel Cinematic Universe (covers the shows and movies)
• A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon)

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Other shows

• 4400: In this version, Homeland Security is portrayed in a much darker light, actively looking for any pretense to crack down on the largely non-white returnees.
• In 12 Monkeys, the titular army of the 12 Monkeys was only a Red Herring and didn't really commit the act of bioterrorism attributed to them in the Bad Future. In the series, they're indeed guilty.
• The Affair: Noah loosely bases his new novel on his affair with Alison in Montauk. He paints a pretty unflattering picture of the Lockharts, making them out to be a hardcore organized crime family. Alison herself is also turned into The Vamp.
• ITV adaptations of Agatha Christie's works:
  • Cards on the Table played this straight for Rhoda and inverted it for Anne.
  • The Body in the Library played it straight for Adelaide and inverted it for Mark.
  • Taken at the Flood made the murderer into an even viler character.
  • The Sittaford Mystery did this to Charles Enderby.
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd did this to the killer, Dr. Sheppard, by taking away many of his sympathetic qualities, making his journal entries entirely callous, downplaying his loving relationship with his sister, and adding a second murder and a shoot-out at the end. These changes generally did not go down well.
  • Evil Under the Sun did this to Horace Blatt, turning him into a mastermind of illegal drug trafficking.
  • Five Little Pigs: sympathy for Caroline Crale takes a downward turn when she mocks Philip Blake's homosexuality. This sudden nastiness can appear very OOC for people who read the book first.
• The 2015 BBC miniseries adaptation of And Then There Were None changed many characters' backstories to show them straight-up murdering their victims instead of their more indirect killings in the book:
  • Mr. Rogers, instead of withholding the medicine that kept his sick employer's heart condition in check, smothered her with a pillow. He's also a much bigger Jerkass who abuses his wife.
  • William Blore, instead of committing perjury that sent an innocent man to prison, brutally beat a young gay man to death.
  • Philip Lombard, instead of simply deserting a tribe of African natives to their death, straight-up killed them for diamonds. However, he's an odd case of both this trope and Adaptational Heroism applying to the same character as he's still more sympathetic overall than his book counterpart with his more genuinely caring treatment of Vera and the omission of some of his more bigoted statements from the book.
  • Vera Claythorne comes across as more of a sociopath than the guilt-ridden Haunted Heroine her book self was, being shown to have knowingly bid her time while waiting for Cyril to drown and offering to pin the murders on her lover in exchange for the actual murderer sparing her life.
• Bates Motel: Sam Loomis was a clean-cut, noble man who wanted to work hard to earn a happy life with his fiancé Marion Crane and eventually became the man who'd take down Norman Bates. However, the show's version of Sam is a lying, womanizing scumbag who cheats on his faithful wife with Marion, lying to both women in the process for a cheap thrill. When he eventually gets exposed in his love affair, he plays innocent to try to fool his wife, but she naturally fails to believe him, so Sam goes crawling back to Marion. It turns out that this was intentional because the writers didn't want us feeling sorry for him when he becomes the shower scene victim instead of Marion.
• The Boys (2019):
  • Homelander is presented as being more evil than he was in the comics. In the comics, even though he was almost as much a murderous psycho as he was in the show, he was a Fallen Hero who only acted that way due to being gaslit by Black Noir into thinking he was a bad person and was outright horrified by some of the things he did (or believed he did, such as Becca's rape). In the series, however, he's an outright sociopath and rapist with a cheap Freudian Excuse that regularly threatens to set the world on fire if he doesn't get his way.
  • In the comic, Joseph Vogelbaum was the inventor of the Super Serum Compound V and worked for the Nazis as a result of being Forced into Evil before defecting to the United States. In the show, he became a Decomposite Character split into two, both not being nice men. The show's Joseph Vogelbaum was a Retired Monster who was responsible for making Homelander the way he was and regretted it ever since. Frederick Vought was the inventor of Compound V in the show timeline, and was loyal to the Nazi cause to the point of intending to use his creation to spark a race war.
  • The Deep in the comics was actually the most mature and least despicable male in The Seven with his only real disgusting trait being a perverse sexual lust towards Starlight though, unlike most other males in The Seven, he does not assault her. In the show, however, he’s the one who sickening pulls the Casting Couch on her and is generally a Jerkass Manchild.
  • Captain America expy Soldier Boy was an inept Fake Ultimate Hero in the comic, while in the show he's an Adaptational Badass and the primary antagonist of the third season.
• Dominion: While in the original film, Gabriel was no saint, he was only acting on orders from a vengeful God. On the show, God is missing, and Gabriel merely thinks that wiping out humanity is what He wants, yet seems to really enjoy it.
• Elementary: Irene Adler doesn't exist and is a false identity of Jamie Moriarty.
• In the adaptation of Stephen King's Finders Keepers (season 3 of Mr. Mercedes), Andrew Halliday is a convicted child molester and not just an unscrupulous rare book dealer. The reverse happens to Morris Bellamy: in the book, he spent decades in prison for raping a woman and assaulting the arresting officer, whereas in the show he's still a young man who didn't do either of those things, nor did he kill his accomplices in his murder of John Rothstein.
• In the comics, both Captain Cold and the Trickster were bank robbers. In The Flash (1990), Captain Cold is an assassin and the Trickster was made into a psychotic and pretty much a dry run for Mark Hamill voicing the Joker.
• From Dusk Till Dawn: This happens to Carlos. In the original movie he was merely the brothers’ contact in Mexico and unaware of the Titty Twister’s true nature. In the series he’s a full-blown vampire.
• Goosebumps (1995) did this in a number of its book adaptations, either turning good characters into villains to create new plot twists or stripping already existing villains of any potential redeeming qualities.
  • "Return of the Mummy": In the book, Khor Ru backed off after attacking Nila, as he just wanted to rest. In the episode, he goes after Gabe even when Nila is taken care of.
  • "A Night in Terror Tower": Because the episode only adapts the original A Night in Terror Tower, the Lord High Executioner is a willing participant in King Robert's plot, not the brainwashed servant he is revealed to be in Return to Terror Tower.
  • "The Headless Ghost": While in the book Otto was a good guy, in the episode he turns out to be the sea captain. Not only is he the one in charge of the ghosts in Hill House, he is also a vindictive Child Hater who tries to subject Stephanie to a Fate Worse than Death.
  • "Welcome to Dead House": The townspeople of Dark Falls become more sinister than they were in the book. In the original story, while the kids liked to mess with Amanda and Josh's heads, there was still an undercurrent of sadness and tragedy in their actions, and they don't seem to particularly enjoy what they have to do to survive. In the TV show, once the truth is revealed, the kids and adults become rather maliciously gleeful as they corner the Bensons.
  • "My Best Friend Is Invisible": While Sammy and his parents in the book are revealed to be aliens, with Brent being one of the few humans alive, they're still implied to be nice enough people. In the episode it's revealed that the aliens actually took over Earth and Brent turned invisible to escape them, and the episode ends with Sammy and his parents ganging up on Brent.
  • "The Haunted House Game": In the original story, Noah and Anna were Jonathan's younger siblings. In the episode, they're introduced as two unrelated kids who also got lost in the Haunted House, but are later revealed to be malevolent ghosts.
  • "Teacher's Pet": Mr. Blankenship is far more malicious in the TV show than the book. Whereas in the book he didn't try to harm Becca and Benjy outright, here he attempts to murder them in cold blood so no one will discover his research.
• Halo (2022):
  • Zig-zagged with the UNSC - while the games portray them as straight heroes, the expanded universe has always emphasized that the UNSC is willing to do questionable things to protect and control humanity. The first novel made this clear with how the SPARTAN-IIs were created from kidnapped children, many of whom died from their augmentations. Canon, however, generally painted the UNSC as being mostly well intentioned, only descending into Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist territory after the Human-Covenant War ends, with the Office of Naval Intelligence in particular becoming increasingly darker due to letting the power they received in the war go to their heads. In the series, much more attention is given to the questionable actions taken during the war, turning the UNSC fromAnti Heroes into Anti Villains.
  • Played Straight with Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, who is portrayed as far more amoral and duplictous than she was in canon. In particular, she's shown to be manipulative of the SPARTAN-IIs, her surrogate children, when canon established that she refused to lie to them. She seems to have inhereted several traits from the Head of ONI, Margaret Orlenda Parangosky, who has undergone Adaptational Heroism in the show.
• Hercules does this to the main protagonist's own mother Alcmene, who is turned into an evil high priestess of a Religion of Evil for Hera that sacrifices men on a regular basis. She also despises her son for being the product of rape from Zeus — a deity she despises — and tries to kill him by setting snakes on his crib. Hercules' wife Megara is also hit with this trope too due to being made Alcmene's disciple who comes to hate Hercules as well after having a drunken night together with her accusing him of violating her. Hercules' brother Iphicles also hates him (in the myths, Iphicles joined him on his adventures before being killed in battle). Along with Alcmene, they conspire to ruin his life together.
• The second series of Horatio Hornblower emphasizes Acting-Captain Buckland's envy of Hornblower significantly. Here, Buckland is more tormented over his own sense of mediocrity compared to his younger comrade, gives into the temptation to pull The Uriah Gambit on him (which fails, as the other two lieutenants sneak off to help Hornblower), and then tries to bring him down in the court-martial by announcing that Hornblower pushed Captain Sawyer down the hatch (which also fails thanks to the dying Lieutenant Kennedy confessing to save Hornblower).^note It is actually never confirmed who, if anyone, pushed Sawyer, but nobody who likes Hornblower wants him to be asked directly—because the possibility that it was him is very strong. Buckland is just as much The Ditherer in the book, but his antagonism towards Hornblower is confined to some testy remarks and saying "damn you to hell!" when Hornblower is promoted over him.
• How I Met Your Mother: In-Universe, The Wedding Bride basically takes all of the heartwarming, adorable aspects of Ted and Stella's romance in Season 3 and then twists them around to make Ted look like a Jerkass.
• Joe Pickett:
  • In Open Season, after Ote Keely threatens Joe at gunpoint over a poaching citation, he hands over the gun, content at having made his threat, but in the show, he seems to be considering actually killing Joe before Joe snatches the gun back. He, Kyle, and Calvin also take a job to kill the endangered Miller’s Weasels in order to keep the valuable land they live on from being made a nature preserve, and Ote cruelly sings "Pop Goes the Weasel" while dropping a bomb down one of their holes. In the book, Ote, Kyle, and Calvin weren't involved in the slaughter and merely stumbled across some surviving weasels afterward.
  • Hank Scarlet can be shady and coarse throughout In Plain Sight, but he ultimately shows himself to be an honorable man who is furious about a False Friend’s violent actions against both the Pickett Family and a herd of elk. In the show, he is complicit in the cover-up of Wacey killing endangered animals, kills the beloved stock of two emu farmers to try and force them off their land, leads a group of Serial Rapists, and is more than willing to kill the Picketts to cover up his crimes.
  • Julie Scarlett is a Lovable Alpha Bitch in the book In Plain Sight but a straight-up Alpha Bitch in the show, especially in season 1. To be fair, a combination of an Age Lift, an Adaptational Early Appearance, and the Adaptational Villainy of her older relatives gives her an excuse for being less mature than her literary counterpart.
  • Downplayed with the murder victims from season 2, which adapts the events of Blood Trail and makes some already bad people even worse. While they are guilty of gang-raping Shenandoah in both versions, in the book they acted while drunk and tried to forget about what happened afterward, with Shenandoah feeling that some of them are less guilty than others. In the show, the whole group always planned to drug and rape her and continue raping girls for the next decade.
  • Downplayed with Sheriff Barnum. In the books, he engaged in sexual relationships of an extremely Questionable Consent variety (albeit as Off Stage Villainy), helped cover up the rape of Shenandoah Yellowcalf, and is engaged in lots of other dishonest behavior that doesn't get adapted. However, he never went as far as to shoot a teenager who was threatening to expose his crimes, unlike in the show.
• Justified: Raylan's father, Arlo Givens, is a ruthless Manipulative Bastard and lifelong criminal with few redeeming qualities. In the original books, he was a coal miner who died of the black lung when Raylan was still a teenager.
• Kamen Rider Fourze does this in a couple of its Movies, which adapt characters from other Shotaro Ishinomori shows. In Everyone, Space Is Here!, the villains are based on the Space Ironmen Kyodain, while in Movie War Ultimatum, they're based on the Akumaizer 3. For a bonus, the former also inverts this trope by featuring heroic characters based off of Kyodain villains Black Knight and Goblin Queen (though with her it's sneaky; the name Inga Blink is a Significant Anagram in Japanese; the katakana easily rearranges from Inga Burinku to Gaburin Kuin by moving one character from the end to the beginning; we're basically talking Pig Latin.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Tolkien's Galadriel never advocates for a Final Solution to the orcish problem. In the series, she tells Adar she'll kill them to the last and save him for the end, so he can see the slaughter. She is aware of the darkness that the quest has created in her and seems extremely troubled by it, counselling Theo in the next episode not to take vengeance to heart and not to say that killing orcs is a good thing.
• Lost Tapes: In all sightings of the Dover Demon, it runs away as soon as it is spotted by witnesses. In the episode of the same name, it behaves like a Serial Killer, trying to trap its victims where it can murder them in sadistic ways.
• Mockingbird Lane: Lily Munster's father Grandpa is made Faux Affably Evil and even attempts to kill one of their neighbors, when the Grandpa of the original show was a kindly old man who often used his inventions to benefit his family and their friends.
• Nikita does this with an entire organization. While all versions of the Nikita story feature a government organization that kidnaps people and coerces them to become assassins, and is willing to manipulate, torture, and murder others whenever they consider it useful, the organization tended to be treated either neutrally, or, at worst, as a necessary evil which the audience is expected to root for. The CW version, however, unequivocally treats its version, Division, as the enemy, something to be destroyed. Consequently, the people running the organization, which in previous versions were portrayed as anti-heroes, are now outright villains.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • The Genie from Aladdin. Here, he falls in love with Regina (who is married to King Leopold) and eventually murders him to free Regina from what he believes to be a loveless marriage with King Leopold, the Genie being unaware that Regina has manipulated him the whole time. Even after learning the truth, the Genie remains madly in love with Regina and uses one of his own wishes to always look upon Regina's face, resulting in him becoming trapped in her mirrors (making him a composite of the Genie and the Magic Mirror from Snow White).
    • Word of God establishes that while he is a genie from Agrabah, he isn't Aladdin's genie.
  • Jack the Giant Killer is re-imagined as a selfish treasure hunter who took advantage of a naive and good-hearted giant. However, this is actually an example of an Unbuilt Trope concerning a different folk tale. Jack and the beanstalk is a separate myth from Jack the Giant Killer. Jack from the latter is the hero portrayed in most modern adaptations (though he never ascended a beanstalk) while Jack from the former is considered by some to be a Villain Protagonist who is a petty thief and liar - much like the "hero" proposed in this series. In an interesting twist from the show's formula, audience expectations are slammed by having a character portrayed as s/he was in the original myth, rather than complete deviation.
  • Regina's abusive and ruthless mother Cora is a Composite Character of the Miller's daughter and the Queen of Hearts. The former was a sympathetic heroine and the latter was Played for Laughs.
  • They did a really big twist by turning Peter Pan and most of the Lost Boys into the villains. Word of God says they decided to do this because they thought about how messed up a person would have to be if they wanted to remain a kid forever. Interestingly enough, Captain Hook, one of the show's villains, redeemed himself at the end of the second season where Pan is revealed to be the Greater-Scope Villain of one of the Season 2 villains and eventually the first Big Bad of Season 3.
  • Season 4 turns Little Bo Peep into a villain of the week, making her a witch warlord who turns people into her "sheep" by enslaving them with magic if they can't pay their debts to her.
  • All twelve of Hans' brothers are minor antagonists, while they were neutral characters in Frozen. While the behavior of at least some of them towards Hans contributed to his villainy (according to Word of God), they were never directly antagonistic towards Anna and Elsa, and his scheme took place without their knowledge or approval. In the series, they attack Arendelle under his leadership.
  • In Frozen, Prince Hans may have been revealed to be a villain, but his Freudian Excuse of being abused by his brothers made him understandable. Also, he at least showed some humanity, such as asking Elsa to stop the Winter before deciding to kill her. The producers referred to him as a Tragic Villain and his voice actor suggested the possibility of him seeking redemption. The depiction seen in Once throws all of this out of the window. Not only does he outright call Elsa a "monster", he lacks any of his redeeming qualities and the previously mentioned Freudian Excuse, as he's working with his brothers to conquer Arendelle.
  • Also from Frozen, the Duke of Wesselton receives this treatment. Granted he wasn't exactly a good man (he was a sneaky businessman and a bit of a Fantastic Racist), but he was more of a Red Herring for the true Big Bad and he certainly wasn't an attempted rapist.
  • Season 5 gives one spot of the Big Bad Ensemble to King Arthur. In true Once fashion, he's not the nicest or purest knight. The obsession to complete Excalibur led him to commit evil acts such as using Mind Manipulation on his wife or using his knights as pawns.
  • Season 5 also has the sons of the clan chieftains in Brave, now chieftains themselves. In the film, they start out as annoyances to Merida (mostly at the badgering of their fathers) and end up as friends when they accept she has no intention of being betrothed to them. In the series, they're prepared to kill her brothers to force the issue and have exiled Queen Elinor. They later accept Merida as fit to be Queen after she saves the triplets and aid her into finding her late father's Enchanted Helm.
  • The Witch is another example from Season 5 Brave arc. In the film, she aided Merida into mending her bond with her mum in their quest. In "The Bear King," she is willing to curse all of Dunbroch and Merida's subjects into bears or bankrupt her kingdom if she does not find the helm as a Secret Test of Character. In addition, she has also cursed Ruby, entrapped as a guard wolf at her Crafty Carver Cottage. Unless she somehow knew that was going to work out for the best and it falls under Omniscient Morality License, too.
  • From Season 6 is Dr. Jekyll. In Once, he kills the woman he loves, frames Mr. Hyde for it, and blames Rumple for manipulating the events that led to the death. Later on, he tries to murder Belle as revenge on Rumple.
  • A more minor example, from Season 6 flashbacks, is Beowulf, who gets jealous of Rumple for defeating the ogres and tries to ruin his reputation by framing him for murdering villagers.
  • Once Upon a Time in Wonderland turns the Caterpillar into a villain; he was a side character who gave cryptic advice in Alice in Wonderland, but turns out to be more like a mob boss in the series. Then there's Jafar, who was evil, to begin with, and got worse.
  • Another example of a villain getting worse is Cruella de Vil. She was already the Trope Namer for Cruella to Animals due to her desire to have a coat made out of puppies, but in Once Upon a Time she gladly kills and manipulates people as well. She's a Self-Made Orphan, having killed her father, then her mother's next two husbands (and takes advantage of the fact that people think her mother killed them), then finally once she gets magic powers from the Author, kills her mother by having the dogs maul her. She then goes to the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke to wreak havoc with other witches, despite the Author making her incapable of actually killing.
• One Piece (2023):
  • In the manga, Buggy conquered Orange Town and forced its citizens to evacuate to shelter outside the town. In this show, he completely destroyed the town and is holding the citizens hostage in his Circus of Fear, forcing them to participate under the threat of death. This version of Buggy also tortures Luffy, and seems to get a lot of joy out of it.
  • Kuro in the manga is already a fairly despicable character, but this show's version of him is even worse. In the manga, Kuro's plan is to get Kaya to sign over her family's fortune to him (whether by force or not) before killing her, have his crew raid Syrup village, then kill all of his crew and leave to start a new life with his newfound fortune. This show has him use what is relatively the same plan, but here, he's been actively poisoning Kaya for years, and is also stated to have already killed most of his crew.
• Orange Is the New Black: Larry writing about Piper's experience/profiting off of it was considered a Jerkass move in the show and drove a wedge between him and Piper. In real life, their relationship was understandably put to the test but never seriously suffered as it did in the show; his memoir brought them closer together and she considered it a wonderful Christmas present.
• Our Miss Brooks: Mr. Conklin was nothing more than a nuisance and a blowhard during the first three seasons of the TV show. However, when the show was retooled for the fourth season he was turned into a full-on villain who vowed to make Miss Brooks' life miserable and would even try to get her fired. The two went from being frenemies to just plain enemies.
• The miniseries based on Die Pilgerin has several cases:
  • In the book, Otfried Willinger definitely goes down the slippery slope with lightning speed, but in the beginning, he is mostly manipulated by Veit Gürtler, and it's the latter who decides to murder Otfried's father and only barely persuades Otfried to help him. In the miniseries, Otfried is evil right from the start and kills his father by himself.
  • In the book, Sepp is a selfish bully but not actively antagonistic toward the group. He does commit murder (of an Asshole Victim, but still), but it actually leads to a Heel Realization, and he reforms by the end. In the miniseries, he is a mustache-twirling villain with no redemption shown.
  • In the book, Aymer is Affably Evil and a capable and brave battle commander. The adaptation removes all the good traits he has, his Questionable Consent scene with Tilla gets turned into an unambiguous assault on his part, and he spends the entire film doing nothing except making trouble for the pilgrim group.
• Powerpuff: On top of being portrayed as a bastard, it's also revealed that Utonium deliberately let a monster loose in Townsville just so the girls could save the day, all in the name of good television.
• Power Rangers:
  • In Zyuranger, (Dora) Djinn was a neutral entity corrupted by Bandora into becoming her Monster of the Week. His Mighty Morphin counterpart, Genie, was on Rita's side from the start.
  • Black Marketeer Biznella in Gingaman, and his Lost Galaxy counterpart, Deviot, both appeared with Zords created from fallen Galactabeasts. But whereas Biznella supported the Barban's schemes, Deviot was only out for himself.
  • One Ayakashi of Shinkenger, Marigomori, was shy and timid. His counterpart in Power Rangers Samurai, Armadeevil, was an aggressive Jerkass.
  • Prince Wars Gill in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger was an Affably Evil spoiled prince that often felt disappointed and woeful whenever his schemes against the Gokaigers failed. In Power Rangers Super Megaforce; Prince Vekar has his petulant qualities largely downplayed and focused more on conquest against the earth and the Power Rangers.
  • Rita Repulsa lacks all the sympathetic qualities Bandora had, treating her henchmen like crap and doing evil for the sake of evil (though that is also true for the rest of her family). Likewise, Goldar isn't near as loyal to Rita as Grifforzer was to Bandora, switching his loyalty to Lord Zedd at the first chance.
• Eugene Root from Preacher. In the comics, Arseface didn't shoot a girl (and then himself) because she rejected him. He and a friend made a suicide pact to emulate their idol Kurt Cobain. Subverted, as this is just what everybody believed, in reality he tried to talk her down from suicide (which failed after he revealed his feeling for her) and then shot himself because he both blamed himself for her death and was afraid of being punished for it.
• Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon:
  • While more of an Anti-Hero than a villain, in the live-action version, Minako Aino is a jaded Broken Bird who treats everyone with derision and deliberately antagonizes Sailor Mars to try to get her to take on a more active leadership role. She defrosts as the series progresses, but dies before she can fully melt.
  • In the manga, Princess Serenity was a sweet girl who fell off the Despair Event Horizon after Endymion was killed and the Moon Kingdom was destroyed. In this series, Princess Serenity as Princess Sailor Moon is a Yandere for Endymion and the big Plot Twist is that it was her, not Metaria, who destroyed the Moon and Earth Kingdoms with the Silver Crystal. Even worse, she does it again.
• In the original comic book Resident Alien, Harry was a benign alien who crashed on Earth, using his powers to make people see him as human. He then settled into the life of a small-town doctor who genuinely comes to love humanity. In the series, the alien murdered the real Harry to take his place and is out to complete his mission to wipe out humanity.
  • In the comics, when a little girl is able to see through Harry's disguise, he just brushes it off as no one will believe a little kid. In the show, when Max finds out, Harry spends several episodes openly planning to murder a ten-year-old.
  • The government agents hunting this alien were shown as just Punch-Clock Villains doing their jobs. In the series, one agent has no problem killing a witness to Harry in cold blood with the indication it's not the first time they've "silenced" anyone who stumbled onto this.
• Riverdale:
  • In the comics, Chuck Clayton is depicted largely as a good-natured young man with a steady girlfriend and a passion for drawing cartoons. In the series, Chuck is as Jerk Jock and a player, who brags about having gone all the way with Veronica on their first date (which didn't happen) and conspiring with several other jocks in a playbook of their supposed "conquests". After being exposed and losing his scholarship, he gets revenge by crashing Jughead's birthday party and revealing unsavory secrets about most of the main characters. This is a rather jarring departure from the comics given that Chuck was created to add a positive African American male character to the comics. Although unlike some others on this list, he does resurface as The Atoner.
  • Jason Blossom is revealed to have been killed in cold blood by his own father Clifford Blossom. This is quite a departure from the comics, where the Blossom parents, although wealthy, are responsible and down-to-earth, even punishing their daughter Cheryl for her snobby, mean-spirited behavior in an early appearance.
  • Veronica's father Hiram Lodge is described as a ruthless and corrupt businessman, even capable of harming those in his way. This is also quite different from the comics, where Hiram is level-headed and responsible (albeit exasperated by Archie's clumsiness).
  • In the comics, Nicholas "Nick" St. Clair is a stereotypical "bad boy" and kind of a jerk. In the show, he's a date rapist.
  • In the comics, the Black Hood is a vigilante who fights criminals and protects people. In the series, he's a Serial Killer.
  • In the comics, Betty's father Hal Cooper is a kind, mild-mannered man. In the series, he acts kind in public, but at home is abusive and controlling. He's also the Black Hood.
• This happened to Salem in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. When Sabrina first appeared in Archie Comics, Salem was little more than a pet cat who occasionally had human thoughts. The series changed him into a more active character, and made him a once-human warlock who had been transformed into a cat as punishment for attempted world conquest. While not a true villain on the show (most of the time) he's usually the resident Jerkass.
• The School Nurse Files: Han Areum, the biology teacher, is not a villain in the original book, but in the series, she is part of the evil cult HSP.
• Sharpe:
  • Obadiah Hakeswill is a minor example, considering that he's already a violent and depraved Sociopathic Soldier in the books. In the book Sharpe's Enemy, Hakeswill holds off on raping Lady Farthingdale because she claims she's there to pray for her mother; Hakeswill has a...respect for mothers and decides to leave her alone for now. In the same sequence in the adaptation for Sharpe's Enemy, Hakeswill tries to rape her outright and Pot-au-Feu stops him because raping the women will damage the ransom value.
  • The television adaptation of the novel Sharpe's Battle was written before the novel had been finished, resulting in a vastly different second half. So while Lord Kiely gets a much more sympathetic treatment in the adaptation and dies a heroic death (rather than blowing his brains out on realising he's a bit rubbish), Spear Carrier Guardsman O'Rourke, whose main contribution in the novel is to say his name when Sharpe asks him, gets turned into a Turn Coat who kills a couple of likable characters mostly because they're there.
• Sherlock:
  • In the original story, Irene Adler has an incriminating picture of herself with the King of Bohemia which she has no intention of using, but keeps as protection against him. In the show, she has multiple pictures of various important people she keeps as insurance, but also hands top secret counter-terrorism information to Moriarty, and blackmails the British government with the photos for millions of pounds to satisfy her own power fantasy.
  • While in the Holmes canon Moriarty is very much a dangerous villain, he is also a Benevolent Boss and his polite manner is more genuine. In the show, he's far more sociopathic and depraved than his literary counterpart, with his final endgame goal being to frame Sherlock for all of the crimes he really committed by pretending to be an actor that Sherlock "employed" as a mask, then drive him to suicide with the added threat of killing his closest companions, which culminates in his own suicide to force him to jump (contrasting the Taking You with Me Sherlock originally used).
• Sherlock Holmes:
  • In the adaptation of "The Norwood Builder", the titular character turns out to have murdered a tramp in order to obtain a corpse with which to fake his death. This was because the method used in the Conan Doyle story, involving "dog or rabbit" bones, would simply not be credible to a modern audience, even one aware of the limitations of Victorian forensics.
  • "The Eligible Bachelor" (Adapted from "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor"):
    • In the original story the titular character, Lord Robert St. Simon, is just a haughty aristocrat. Here he is a Bluebeard who courts and marries wealthy women and then disposes of them once he has their fortune.
    • In the story Flora Miller is an ex-lover of St. Simons who serves as a Red Herring when his bride goes missing. Here she actively assists St. Simon in carrying out his evil deeds.
• Sleepy Hollow: In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Abraham is the local hero who played a prank on the obnoxious Ichabod Crane by pretending to be the Headless Horseman. The show's version of Abraham is the Headless Horseman, with downright murderous intentions for Crane.
• Supernatural pulls this on The Brothers Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel". In the episode "About a Boy" Hansel is revealed as the Witch's willing accomplice, who gleefully ate his own sister.
• Super Gran: In Forrest Wilson's books, the character Tub, while initially a somewhat reluctant henchman to Campbell, becomes a good guy in later books following a Heel–Face Turn. In the TV show, he is a Card-Carrying Villain who goes along with Campbell's plans unquestioningly.
• Stargate SG-1 does this to nearly every polytheistic pantheon, as the Goa'uld are Always Chaotic Evil and named after (or inspired; it's never made clear) most early human religions. The most obvious example is Anubis, the evilest Goa'uld by a huge margin who shares a name with a good god in Egyptian Mythology.
• Treasure Island (2012):
  • The real villain isn't the Affably Evil Silver; it's Squire Trelawney, who plots to cheat Jim and Dr. Livesey out of their share of the treasure, arranges for Mrs. Hawkins to be thrown out of the inn while they're away, has Mr. Arrow executed, and eventually suffers a Karmic Death by diving after the treasure when Jim throws it overboard. Not much like the excitable but well-meaning "most liberal of men" in the book.
  • Tom Redruth, Trelawney's gamekeeper, gets this, too - in the book, he is an elderly man who accompanies Trelawney to the island and is killed by the mutineers. In the series, he is Trelawney's vicious enforcer back in England.
• Troy: Fall of a City:
  • Unlike the original story, the series goes out of its way to portray the Greeks as villains, ignoring the fact that they are the wronged party, through emphasizing misdeeds they committed and portraying those mostly omitted in adaptations (like Odysseus murdering Hector's infant son, albeit reluctantly at Agamemnon's command). Meanwhile, it omits the misdeeds committed by the Trojans, such as Hector's pointless sacrifice of his army and his constant looting of the corpses of his enemies.
  • Helen elopes with Paris at least partially out of personal ambition rather than being tricked by Aphrodite. Women in Troy have far more power than in Greece and she wants this for herself. A case of Truth in Television since Hittite women could rise to positions of power.
• Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi becomes much more villainous in the transition from The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries to True Blood. He gets married to the King of Kentucky in the books, which only provides a useful situation for an attack on the vamps. In the show, he serves as a far more terrifying figure, being the main antagonist of the third season, then returns in the fifth season to wreak havoc on the vampire Authority.
• The usually tecnica luchadora Dark Angel was an antagonist to La Pao on Curva Directa. What was stranger was that it was a Monterrey area talk show, where her best-known tecnica work was done.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In the remake of "The After Hours", the mannequins are depicted as much more malevolent. In the original the protagonist is lightly chided by the others for overstaying her time in the outside world and then calmly accepts becoming a mannequin again. In the remake she attempts to flee and the others chase her down, subjecting her to Body Horror by forcibly changing her back.
• The Twilight Zone (2019): "Not All Men" was loosely based on "The Screwfly Solution", yet here the story reveals there is no outside influence-it just gives men an excuse to be violent (save one who resists the urge).
• The Vampire Diaries:
  • In general, all the main characters eventually become a lot more morally grey than their book counterparts. Details like vampires being The Unfettered by default, temporary Heel Face Turns and Mind Control mean that even the more morally upright characters get their hands dirty once in a while. By the end of the series they have racked up a very impressive body count between them.
  • Damon only kills Mr. Tanner in the novels, and the attack on Vicky is committed by Katherine. In the series, Damon commits several murders from the moment he arrives in town - including Vicky - and subscribes to the idea that Murder Is the Best Solution even after becoming more of an Anti-Hero.
  • Katherine of the novels was turned into a vampire against her will and then corrupted by Klaus into becoming his Dark Mistress. Katherine of the series is a Social Darwinist willing to do anything to survive, even as a human. She turned herself into a vampire when she found out Klaus' intentions with her and threw multiple people under the bus to escape him.
• The Walking Dead (2010):
  • Allen from Season 3 joins to the Governor's side and fights against Rick's group on the TV show, but in the comics, he doesn't.
  • In the comics, Dante is Maggie's right-hand man during and after the Whisperers War, but on the TV show he's a spy from the Whisperers sent by Alpha to infiltrate Alexandria, and he also kills Siddiq.
• The War of the Worlds (2019): The Martians in the novel were at least assumed to have motivations similar to mankind, with the aim of a Vichy Earth rather than to Kill All Humans. Here humanity is being eliminated altogether.
• The Wheel of Time (2021): Eamon Valda, and the Whitecloaks generally, become more villainous. Here they have regularly managed to capture, torture, and execute Aes Sedai. In the books, Valda was not a member of the Questioners (even being contemptuous toward them) so he isn't involved with such activities. Aes Sedai were not frequent victims of the Whitecloaks either, as their oaths allowed using the One Power for self-defense, which would usually result in killing any Whitecloaks who had tried this pretty easily.
• The Witcher (2019):
  • Cahir in general gets this a great deal. In Andrzej Sapkowski‘s novels, he’s more an Anti-Villain who does initially work for Nilfgaard and traumatised Ciri but it’s eventually revealed he does care for Ciri and after a Heel–Face Turn helps Geralt’s side out before pulling a Heroic Sacrifice in The Lady of the Lake. In the show Cahir is more despicable and psychotic, showing little of his nobler traits from the books. Even his temporary alliance with Yennefer in the second season is more of an Enemy Mine than anything else. Averted finally in Season 3 where he pulls a Heel–Face Turn and aids Ciri and Geralt like the books.
  • A particularly infamous case of this happens to Eskel. In the books, from his first appearance Blood of Elves Eskel is a Nice Guy and Big Brother Mentor to Ciri who helps her train to become a badass. In the show he’s an antagonistic jerk to her and Geralt when he shows up Kaer Morhen, even suggesting to Geralt if he found a princess in the wild he would ravish her instead of codling her. When Geralt offers to take a look at the wound he got fighting a Leshy, Eskel angrily brushes him off before eventually turning into a Botanical Abomination himself and Geralt being forced to kill him. We do see some of Eskel’s nice qualities from the book, but only in a post-death Flash Back. Word of God said they did this for the sake adding drama to Ciri’s stay at Kaer Morhen and more weight to Geralt focusing on Ciri’s safety over his Witcher brothers. It also doesn’t help, Eskel’s cool big brother bond with Ciri was given to Lambert (who’s an unapologetic Jerkass in the book) instead.
  • Yennefer herself gets this for a while in Season 2. In the books, she’s always a case of Dark Is Not Evil having a Femme Fatale sorceress appearance but is really a good person, Ciri’s surrogate mother and Geralt’s One True Love. In the show, she’s already something of an Anti-Hero, but after a Despair Event Horizon in Season 2 at being Depowered willingly teams up with Voleth Meir the Deathless Mother who is an ally of the Wild Hunt, and almost delivers Ciri to her, all for the sake of getting her magic back. Though she soon regrets her actions learning how much Geralt cares for Ciri and is The Atoner for the finale where she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice (which she survives) saving Ciri from Voleth Meir and the Wild Hunt.
  • Nivellen gets a massive case of this due to changing his backstory. In the original short story, he’s a fun and goofy character. He explains up front he was cursed to look like a beast due to an event in his past where his boyhood gang forcibly coerced him into assaulting a priestess of Coram Agh Tera in order to make him a man, at which she cursed him to look like a monster. Thanks to the help of Geralt and by killing his Bruxa lover he is turned back into a man and through some Values Dissonance completely forgiven for his misdeeds. In the show on the other hand, it’s only after Nivellen is turned back into a human, that he reveals he raped the priestess with no mention of his gang forcing him to do it. Since Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Geralt and Ciri leave him to his sorrows in horror and disgust.
  • The finale of Season 2 reveals Jaskier (an unambiguous Plucky Comic Relief hero in the books) is a mole working for Evil Chancellor Dijkstra. Doubly subverted in Season 3 though as it’s affirmed Jaskier didn’t really betray Geralt, whom figures out quickly Dijkstra is using the bard to get to Ciri and Jaskier severs ties with Redania.

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