Times where the villain creates their own hero in Literature.
- The Beginning After the End: It is safe to say that Arthur only ends up being the way he is because of the actions of the resident God and Satan analogues in the setting, Kezess and Agrona (neither of whom are very nice people, to put it lightly).
- He is only reincarnated in the first place because Agrona was seeking to summon an entity known as the Legacy, who as it turns out is Cecilia, the childhood friend of Arthur's past life King Grey. In order to summon her, he had to summon two anchor points to manifest her potential in this world - which in this case are Grey and his other childhood friend-turned-nemesis Nico. However, due to some unknown factor at the end volume 10 revealed to be Sylvie's soul, Grey ended up reincarnating outside of Agrona's domain and thus outside of his control. Coupled with Agrona launching an invasion of Arthur's homeland of Dicathen, one that not only killed many of his friends and family but also led to his Love Interest Tessia being kidnapped and turned into the vessel for the Legacy, and it is safe to say that the man who would have been one of Agrona's greatest pawns has instead become his greatest mortal nemesis.
- As for Kezess's involvement in Arthur's genesis, a long time ago he orchestrated the genocide of the ancient Djinn race out of jealousy for their ability to control aether. Not only was this atrocity the reason why the aforementioned Agrona became evil in the first place (as his fascination with the ruins the Djinn left behind led to him uncovering the truth and being exiled for it), but the Djinn had descendants who originate from those who survived the genocide and Arthur's family are among those descendants. Arthur only finds out about all of this courtesy of Kezess's own daughter Sylvia. Coupled with Kezess orchestrating the destruction of Elenoir in a futile attempt to prevent the Legacy from being summoned and attempting to purge of what was left of Arthur's friends and family after the war for going against his plans and stinging his pride, an attempt that Arthur foils himself, and Kezess has no one to blame but himself for inadvertently creating a man who has devoted his entire being to making him and the rest of the Asuras pay for their crimes.
- The Black Arrow: Richard "Dick" Shelton served his guardian Sir Daniel loyally until he begins suspecting that his mentor murdered his father to steal his inheritance. When Sir Daniel reckons that Dick is asking too many questions, he attempts to get him killed. Dick manages to flee, and swears revenge against the evil feudal overlord.
- The Weavers in The Braided Path trilogy serve the fallen god Aricat, who wants to terraform the world into a horrible wasteland, filled with mutated creatures. A side effect of this is the birth of Aberrant girls, who have strange powers due to the effect of the Witch Stones scattered across Saramyr. Some of these Aberrant girls have fire powers and join the Red Order to learn to control them and effectively become both a Distaff Counterpart and a Good Counterpart to the Weavers themselves. Oh, and the main protagonist Kaiku not only becomes a member of the Red Order, she becomes one of the most powerful and determined members- and only ended up activating her powers and joining the Red Order because the Weavers sent Shin-shin demons to devour her family.
- Chrysalis (Beaver Fur): Completely on a whim, the Terran chooses to show Daokat mercy when they find him cowering in some wreckage with a palace servant, helping the two out of the wreckage and even building them a rudimentary ship so they can leave the planet. This act proves to the Xunvir and other members of the Galactic community that the Terran is in fact sapient, and potentially able to be reasoned with.
- Marius Klyssen from The Ember Blade is an Overwatchman from the Iron Guard. He has the main protagonist Aren arrested to lure the last Dawnwarden, Garric, to Suller's Bluff in the hopes of capturing him. All this does is lead to Aren becoming the new leader of La Résistance when prior to this he had been in awe of Krodan culture, had prayed to the Primus and was even preparing for military service. What makes matters worse for Klyssen, Aren is very good at strategy and planning, and forms a successful plan to break into Hammerholt to both steal the Ember Blade and rescue Garric.
- Harry Potter has a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy variant of this: when learning a child with the potential to kill him would come, Voldemort tracked down the baby and tried to kill him. This ironically resulted in him marking the kid as his equal just as the prophecy foretold.
- In The Last Apprentice, Grimalkin, while already not a fan of the Fiend, didn't seem to really care about him that much, and was still pretty much a villain in the setting. Only after he brutally killed their child did she go on a vendetta against him, eventually leading her to an Enemy Mine with the protagonists.
- Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon: When Penny sows chaos in the Jupiter colonies and ignores Remmy's growing resentment, she causes Remmy to take up the moniker, "The Kludge" and become a hero with the express purpose of defeating Penny.
- Patternist: The Big Bad Coransee cannot believe that his half-brother Teray doesn't want to compete to become Heir to the Patternmaster. His efforts to kill or mind-control Teray force Teray to set aside his own (relatively) Humble Goal and become a serious contender, and, ultimately, to kill Coransee.
- The Seventh Tower begins with Tal trying to replace his family's Sunstone, a Power Crystal that's a necessity for life in the Castle. After the Evil Aristocrat Sushin and Sharrakor, a rogue Spiritshadow possessing Sushin repeatedly stymie his efforts out of simple malice, Tal resorts to a desperate heist that sets him on the path to learning about Sushin's plots, his own Disappeared Dad, and the Awful Truth behind the history of the Castle.
- Bernard Cornwell's novel Sharpe's Fury: A Truth in Television example is General Sir Thomas Graham. He used to be a civilian, and a sincere believer in the ideals of the French Revolution - liberty, equality and fraternity. But his wife died when they were traveling abroad and while he was escorting her body home through Bordeaux, some French soldiers ignored his pleas, broke open the coffin and disrespected her corpse, ostensibly searching for contraband. Graham returned home, raised a regiment of soldiers at his own expense and immediately joined the army. He confides to Richard Sharpe that he still believes in liberty, equality and fraternity, but he hates the French as sincerely and passionately as it is possible to do so. In the novel's climax, he commands the small, outnumbered British force that thrashes Marshall Victor at Barossa in 1811. The victory was not only a humiliating defeat for the French (historically the first time the British captured an eagle standard from the French), it instantly silenced the voices in the Spanish parliament that were advocating breaking the British alliance and making peace with Napoleon.
- A Song of Ice and Fire has this trope occuring alongside Create Your Own Villain (given which sides of Grey-and-Gray Morality each falls on). In the backstory, most of King Aerys Targaryen's opponents in Robert's Rebellion (or the War of the Usurper for Targaryen supporters) declared war for a rather long list of reasons. For the Starks, Baratheons, and Arryns, it was the kidnapping of Lyanna Stark (Robert Baratheon's betrothed) by Aerys' son Rhaegar, the horrible execution of Lord Rickard Stark (Lyanna's father), Lyanna's brother Brandon, and Lord Arryn's nephew Elbert (among others), and the calling for the heads of Rickard's son Eddard and Robert himself on scant grounds to decide This Means War!. For Tywin Lannister, it was decades of disrespect by Aerys despite Tywin faithfully serving as a Hypercompetent Sidekick, Aerys creeping on Tywin's wife, Tywin's daughter being passed over as a bride for Rhaegar because Aerys refused to pair his son with the daughter of a "servant", and Aerys robbing Tywin of his heir Jaime by naming him as a Kingsguard. Only when it appeared that Aerys would be losing did Tywin break his neutrality and enact a Kingmaker Scenario in Robert's favor.
- In Soon I Will Be Invincible, the future Dr. Impossible ends up accidentally creating his arch-nemesis CoreFire (an ersatz of Superman) with a Freak Lab Accident during their time in college. The funny thing is, CoreFire doesn't even remember Impossible as a student, despite having interacted with him on several occasions. It's pointed out that Dr. Impossible has tried everything he could think of to try to destroy CoreFire, but nothing works. CoreFire appears to be utterly invulnerable to anything, except perhaps iridium, but the heroes made sure to get rid of any of that stuff long ago. While CoreFire is a member of the Champions (and, later, the New Champions), he's easily the strongest member of the team (despite Blackwolf claiming to be able to beat him). Without CoreFire, Impossible manages to single-handedly beat and capture the rest of the New Champions, having learned about their weaknesses long ago.
- An indirect case in Worm. The ABB attacked and traumatized Emma Barnes, which led to her trying to become "strong" as a coping mechanism by bullying her best friend as a coping mechanism, which ultimately led to said best friend having a trigger event and deciding to become a superhero, and taking down the leader of the ABB without even knowing the part they'd played in her life falling apart. Of course, this could also be seen as Create Your Own Villain due to the PRT's coverups helping cause the rise of this particular parahuman, but the PRT is so corrupt and morally grey that Skitter seems like the good guy in contrast even after becoming a villain.
