The superheroes have turned evil! Most uncool.
A good guy turns bad, the opposite of the Heel–Face Turn. The ways in which this happens are many:
— Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate, Futurama
- They have become a Rival Turned Evil.
- They have lost perspective, becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist or Knight Templar.
- Something horrible has happened that shattered their faith in good, and they have become a Fallen Hero.
- Lust for power and fortune at any cost has brought out their worst.
- Love has turned into a dangerously out-of-control obsession.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Too many of their good deeds having come back to bite them convinces them being a hero is no longer worth it.
- Their allies have made life too difficult or out-and-out betrayed them.
- They've snapped after one too many rounds of being put through hell.
- Fighting evil for too long has led to their becoming what they once opposed.
- They have gone Drunk with Power.
- They fell prey to The Corrupter/The Corruption, which brought out the worst in them.
- One or more villains made a convincing argument (and may actually be right).
- The other faces collectively went through any combination of the above (while remaining protagonists), and they did not.
- The Mole: The Mole was always working for the Big Bad from the beginning, whereas a character making a Face Heel Turn was a genuine good guy until their change of heart.
- Forced into Evil, whereas the character was still a genuinely good guy, but had his own reasons to be on the bad guys' side while still maintaining a good heart, whereas a character who did a Face Heel Turn is a character who not only goes to the bad guys' side, but also become a genuine bad guy at heart. A character Forced Into Evil can be said about halfway doing a full Heel Turn, but not a full turn yet like the ones in this page (given time, they may make a full turn in the future).
- Face–Monster Turn, which has many subtropes. The character really has no choice about becoming evil, because they are Brainwashed, literally turned into monsters, are possessed, or some other reason.
Example subpages
- Anime and Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Film
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Professional Wrestling
- Religion and Mythology
- Tabletop Games
- Video Games
- Web Comics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
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Machinima
- Supermarioglitchy4s Super Mario 64 Bloopers: Enzo. He used to be a friendly guy and was being nice to other people until in "Birthday Freakout", after Mario ruins his birthday party. From then on he becomes a villain and is determined to kill Mario and the rest of the main cast. He is also actually revealed to be the shady black figure in "The Visitor" (2014).
Theater
- Elphaba from Wicked fits this trope, after having everything she tries spectacularly backfire on her, and having everyone she loves die all around her, she snaps during the song 'No Good Deed' dedicating herself to a lifetime of evil. Almost immediately subverted when she is shown to be just very, very pissed off, but not actually evil a mere song later.
- In the back story of Euripides' Hecuba, Achilles, hero of The Iliad, defected to Troy after falling in love with Trojan princess Polyxena. And then his would-be brother-in-law Paris shot him in his Achilles' Heel at the wedding, and everything went pear-shaped for the Trojans.
- This is essentially the entire plot of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as the protagonist begins a sympathetic Anti-Hero, progresses into Anti-Villain territory over the length of the first act, and finally crosses the Moral Event Horizon with gusto by intermission, largely due to Sanity Slippage.
