History Main / StartOfDarkness

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* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'' gives us a {{flashback}} of [[spoiler:Lotso-Huggin' Bear]] being accidentally abandoned in a field on a picnic, then [[ReplacementGoldfish replaced with an identical model]]. The flashback's narrator tells us "Something changed that day inside Lotso. Something snapped." That's when [[spoiler:Lotso lost all trust in humans and started his path on the dark side, eventually becoming the evil ruler of the Sunnyside Daycare Center]].

--->'''Scaramanga''': When I was a boy, I was brought up in a circus. My only real friend was a huge, magnificent, African bull elephant. One day, his handler mistreated him and he went berserk. Bleeding, dying, he came and found me, stood on one leg, his best trick, picked me up and put me on his back. The drunken handler came along and emptied his gun into his eye. I emptied my stage pistol into his! You see, Mr. Bond, I always thought I loved animals. Then I discovered that I enjoyed killing people even more.

--->'''Janus''': We're both orphans, James. But where your parents had the luxury of dying in a climbing accident, mine survived the British betrayal and Stalin's execution squads... but my father couldn't let himself or my mother live with the shame of it. [=MI6=] figured I was too young to remember... and in one of life's little ironies, the son went to work for the government whose betrayal caused the father to kill himself and his wife.
* ''Film/{{Joker|2019}}'' details, as the title suggests, the origins of it version of ComicBook/TheJoker, a man named Arthur Fleck who suffers from mental illness who's picked on by society and snaps after [[spoiler:getting his stand-up mocked on National TV and learning his mother lied about him being Thomas Wayne's son, learned he was really adopted, and that his adopted mother let him be abused]].

** The Character Trailer for Volume 6 shows the trajectory of Adam Taurus, from his earliest days as a violent pro-Faunus activist to his actions during the show, being a villainous anti-human that partakes in genocides.
** The Volume 6 episode "The Lost Fable" reveals how [[BigBad Salem]] transformed from being an ordinary woman into Remnant's AncientEvil. [[spoiler:Imprisoned her entire life by her [[AbusiveParent abusive father]] she was unable to cope with the death of [[BigGood Ozma]], her saviour and lover. [[BarredFromTheAfterlife Punished]] with CompleteImmortality for trying to trick the gods into resurrecting him, her [[RageAgainstTheHeavens vengeance]] destroys humanity, and she ends up corrupted after trying to kill herself in the divine Pools of Annihilation. After the gods [[ResurrectiveImmortality resurrect Ozma]] to try and redeem the reborn humanity, the lovers clash over Salem's destructive urges, accidentally [[OffingTheOffspring killing their four daughters]] and locking them into a bitter ForeverWar for the fate of humanity.]]
** The Volume 8 episode "Midnight" reveals how Cinder Fall became a sadistic villain. [[spoiler:Adopted and raised by a cruel Atlesian hotelier and her daughters, Cinder is worked, starved and tortured as a child-slave. A local Huntsman sympathises with her, secretly training her to become a Huntress so she can escape when she comes of age. Unfortunately, the years of endless abuse eventually catch up to Cinder when she snaps and kills her adoptive family; once her mentor tries arresting her, she also kills him. Now she's obsessed with becoming strong, powerful and feared and treats others as her abusive step-mother once treated her.]]

* The ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'' games all have a mechanic that encourages this trope for players: as the players sin or make immoral or counterproductive choices, they "degenerate", making future choices of slightly greater depravity and further degeneration easier and more likely. Each degeneration can also give a character a minor derangement such as a phobia or narcissistic tendencies, which can force further sins even if the player doesn't want to do so.
** Fits this trope because at the bottom of the scale the player becomes so irrationally self-centered and evil that they cannot be played and become an NPC. What kind of monster depends on the game: for mortals, you become a SerialKiller, werewolves become a movie-style wolf-man that hunts humans for fun, changelings become completely unable to tell imagination from reality ([[spoiler: And become [[TheFairFolk True Fae]] if they're powerful enough]]), vampires become ravening blood-crazed beasts, and mages turn everything in their area of effect into a Franchise/CthulhuMythos story.
*** In the fan game ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'', Genii have an alternate way of getting down to the bottom- failing Unmada checks. The first failure turns you into an Unmada, a Genius who has lost touch with ''real'' science and believes that his wonders are the true way the world works. Unmada aren't necessarily evil, but they ''are'' dangerous (One could, for example, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality see nothing wrong]] with [[Film/TheTerminator Skynet]]'s modus operandi), and if they fail a further Unmada check, they completely lose themselves to Inspiration and become Illuminated (completely alien and amoral intelligences), just the same as if they had fully bottomed out their Obligation. It's both easier and more common for a Genius to become Illuminated in this way.

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'', we get brief glimpses of Tai Lung's when Oogway refuses to give him the Dragon Scroll. Master Shifu was partly to blame for this as well, since he never properly disciplined Tai Lung, and instead continuously praised and encouraged him, which helped lead to his FaceHeelTurn.

* ''Film/{{Saw}}'' has Jigsaw's origin story in ''Film/SawII'' before it's expanded on in ''Film/SawIV''. ''Saw II'' is less of a sympathy play as while it gives a perfectly logical reason for Jigsaw's actions, it's still not rational enough to be sympathetic. ''Saw IV'' is a more conventional bid for sympathy, but it could also be viewed as simply setting up his state of mind for ''Saw II''.

* The ''Franchise/StarWars'' Prequel Trilogy is essentially a Start of Darkness for the whole franchise, showing how the Empire came to be and how Anakin transformed from an idealistic young Jedi and the prophecied Chosen One into the Emperor's brutal, mutilated enforcer Darth Vader. The films (and later ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'') show that his FatalFlaw is ultimately that he cares too much about those close to him and is willing to get very violent very fast to protect them, even if it means destroying the Republic and the Jedi Order if it can earn him a chance to save his wife from potentially dying in childbirth, which makes him all the more vulnerable to [[BigBad Palpatine's]] [[TheCorruptor corruption]]. His journey to the Dark Side truly begins in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' when he starts having visions of his mother Shmi in pain and goes to Tatooine to find her. He did... mere moments before she dies in his arms after who knows what kind of abuse at the hands of the Tusken Raiders who had captured her. Anakin then murdered every last living thing in that village--men, women, children, and animals--and burned it to the ground. He doesn't get his iconic black life support suit until the end of the next movie, but it's safe to say that ''this'' is when Darth Vader was born.

* The TropeNamer -- admittedly more recent than most of the other examples here, but it's still a pretty cool title -- is ''Recap/StartOfDarkness'', prequel to ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' detailing EvilOverlord Xykon and his [[TheDragon Dragon]] Redcloak's past. Xykon, unlike most, is astonishingly evil from the get-go. We get to see him become ''more'' evil... but more importantly, a lot more ''competent''. [[AntiVillain Redcloak is a whole other story]].\\\