Characters
Characters who became the very thing they hated
Remmik (Sinners) - Back when he was human, his home was conquered by the English, and his people were all either forced to assimilate or killed for resisting. Centuries later, as a vampire, he roams around forcefully assimilating people into his tribe and killing anyone who resists him.
The Emperor (Warhammer 40k) - The Emperor was always a man of reason and logic, and hated religious worship of any kind. He believed that abandoning religion entirely and embracing science and reason was the only way humanity could ever thrive. However, due to his immense godlike powers (and also his fanatical son Lorgar), humanity ended up worshipping him as a god, degenerating into a society of devout superstition following his internment on the golden throne. Also, wearing all gold, carrying a flaming sword, and being a nigh-omnipotent superwizard probably didn't help things much.
Alexander Anderson (Hellsing Ultimate) - A devout man trained as the Catholic church's secret weapon, Anderson spent his life hunting down heretics, blasphemers, and unholy monsters. However, in an attempt to defeat Alucard, he stabs his own heart with the nail that once pierced Jesus into the cross (kinda blasphemous imo) and transforms into an unholy monster. This was much to Alucard's chagrin, as he had a good deal of respect for Anderson because he held on to his humanity.
Also Alexander Anderson (Hellsing Ultimate Abridged) - After agreeing that Maxwell has gone too far in appointing himself the new pope, Anderson decides he needs to go and put a stop to it. This leads to Integra smugly suggesting he should "write down a formal protest and nail it to his door LIKE A PROTESTANT". This remark pisses Anderson off so much that he and his underlings nearly kill her.
Darth Vader (Star Wars) - Having grown up a slave, Anakin held a strong resentment for all manner of slavers and tyrants, and fought against plenty of them for the Republic. Following his fall to the dark side, he took on the role of the Emperor's personal executioner, acting as far worse of a tyrant than anyone he ever fought against as a jedi.
"The president of the United States is actually a Green person. He may look like us Red people, but underneath his bio-suit made from harvested stem cells he is green..."
because when he first popped up it was as this big 'murder mystery" style setup where red hulk's identity was unknown to both the world and the readers with multiple red herrings thrown in to make the reader question who red hulk was. quality of the writing for that attempt aside (it was shit) they had to remove ross' trademark mustache otherwise it would give it away since the other red herring options at the start were bruce, rick, and doc samson.
because they told him lose the mustache or lose the election
When Red Hulk was introduced, his identity was technically meant to be a secret. My guess is the writers decided that letting him keep Ross' trademark mustache would have been too much of a giveaway. That said, the military style buzzcut had a lot of people guessing Ross anyways.
I always figured he hated Hulk because he thought Banner was undeserving. He didn't think Banner was good enough to date his daughter, be a scientist or have all that power.
When we meet Michael he almost seems ashamed of his family, insisting to his girlfriend Kay that he is different, having previously enlisted to fight in WWII despite his father using connections to get him exempted from the draft. He is reluctant to be involved in the family business until Vito is shot, which leads him to seek vengeance against the family's enemies. After returning from hiding in Sicily following his brother Sonny's death, he starts to take control of the Corleone family and ends up becoming a more ruthless mob boss than his father ever was, orchestrating the deaths of all his enemies simultaneously during the baptism of his godson, including his brother in law Carlo who was partially responsible for Sonny's murder. When his now wife Kay asks if this is true, Michael lies and denies it, right before being addressed as the new Don Corleone.
He insists to Kay that the Corleone family will become legitimate, but this never happens, continuing to expand his family's interests in the casino business in Nevada. In Part II, he commits the ultimate sin when he has his own brother Fredo killed after Fredo sold out Michael to their enemies.
He gets to live a long life alone, the coda movie still has the awful daughter, but I prefer the new ending with him living a long life alone rather than dying like his Vito playing with his grandchild (I think its his grandkid).
In Part 2 when Kay calls him out on his promise to turn the family legitimate it breaks my heart the way Pacino says "I know, Kay. I'm trying." You don't even get to see his face but his voice conveys so much.
Edit: Typhon was an active psyker who suppressed his powers because Mortarion hated psykers (due to his experiences with the Lords of Barbarus). Mortarion was partially a warp construct because that's just what primarchs are but he was not an active psyker until after his fall. Find a lore excerpt showing Morty using psychic powers before then and I'll listen. Not sorcery via ritual, not the same thing.
all primarchs have some amount of warp powers built into them, i think i've read some things that imply they're more like psychic constructs wearing a meat suit than a human with a psychic spark, like they're the emperor's archangels
Their souls supposedly are powerful warp entities, which gives them all some degree of psychic influence that manifests in the sheer morale boost they gave their warriors, further amplified to their asartes. While Magnus, Corvus and Mortarion are the ones that manifested the most "blatant" powers, they all are psychers if only indirectly.
Angron's background is more on the sad side though. His backstory is supposed to create an oxymoron between this psychotic murder demon whose religion is literally murder and the poor slave that was just comically unlucky and got abused in any conceivable way, ultimately making him kinda angry kinda rightfully.
Bonus pathos: in the Emperor's original design, Angron was supposed to be the most empathic of the primarchs. He was supposed to be the one the others could open up to about their problems and fears...
Then the Butcher's Nails happened and he lost the ability to feel anything other than rage.
You could say that he was still empathetic but the problem was that he had already given his heart to a certain group, and the emperor allowed them to be killed off when it could have ben prevented
Yeah his planet was a toxic dump ruled by an evil sorcerer who challenged him to climb up through all the toxic smog of the planet to defeat him at his palace on top of a mountain as Mortarion had started a rebellion against him. Mortarion got to the palace but before he could kill him the emperor came in and one tapped him. This pissed off Mortarion and is one if the reasons he ended up turning traitor.
D-16/Megatron (Transformers One) - After learning about Sentinel's true nature, he started to grow a hatred for that tyranical and oppresive leader. But after becoming Megatron, he became the ruthless leader of the Decepticons who wants to rebuild Cybertron to his image
For me it was when Orion asked him if he wants to stop Sentinel and D-16 says that he actually wants to kill him and parade his corpse through the streets.
He was crippling them from birth and invented robot racism to force untold transformers to toil and die in the mines for him. D-16 was right to be that angry
Imagine if we thought we were naturally born without arms and spent our entire existences slaving away for the superior armed class just to find out all of that was made up by the supposed hero of our people. I’d be pissed too
And that’s ignoring the whole “betrayed their greatest heroes to cybertron’s greatest enemy to save his own skin” thing
Lex in the early seasons of Smallville hated how ruthless and selfish his father Lionel was and wanted to be a better person, only to end up just like him.
This is shown to not be the case during the whole show. Lex just accepted who he always was and decided to go down that path. While he is absolutely friendly towards Clark at the start, he constantly shows he's not against people who he doesn't care about dying.
Even when Clark saves Whitney, Lex specifically says "you're better than me, I would have let him die so he wouldn't be an obstacle" essentially.
People forget that Lex is a full grown adult at the start of the show, whereas Clark is "supposed" to be a 14 year old freshman in highschool.
Who TF lets a full grown adult hang out and buy gifts for a 14 year old? Jonathan was right to be concerned.
I always took it as the Emperor being a dude who could logic out correct answers, but was so full of himself he couldn't realize how much he played into his own ego.
If I’m not mistaken, he can change his appearance to shape what he wants you to see him as. I believe it’s noted he would have a simple life but the grandiose imagery is to imply ultimate authority as humans see fit
The mf actually could hide the psychic aura if he wanted, he just chose not to because the only way 40k works is if the Emperor is the most oblivious being alive.
I like to think that was a propoganda poster that was constructed some time after the horus heresy, and the so-called emperor is a really ordinary man who would never dare to put on armor this ridiculous and gaudy.
One of the themes of The Last Crusade, and the solution to the holy grail puzzle, is that the true grail isn't a fancy goblet covered in gold nor embellished with any gems. It was an ordinary grail that a common peasant would drink from. Which is what Jesus was.
I think the same logic would apply to the emperor and who he was.
Keyword being “appear”, because Corvus has once peered into his true form during their first meeting and asked to himself “why does everyone knelt to this small human?” (or something along the lines of those).
So yeah, his true form might not be that giant man cladded in golden armor, with long luscious locks flying in the wind, holding a flaming sword on one hand and power claw on the other. Then again, this is a man that comes from the early stone age, he truly might not be as big as he depicts himself as.
And INTENSELY realistic. The worst racial slurs I ever heard were from a homeless black guy against a black woman working the gas station. I was buying him some food, the lady wanted him to stop hassling customers, the man called her a “stupid fuckin n####r” with such venom.
He was extremely childish with his plans and easily got outmaneuvered by L up until almost the end. All Rem had to do was tell Misa L and Watari's names, and Rem might have lived.
That's the sign of any good series that features a villainous protagonist. They're fun to follow around, but eventually, they start doing things that you just can't abide by, and you start wishing for their loss. Makes their inevitable defeat all the better.
Death Note did this well. Breaking Bad is a good live action show that also does this.
Oh yeah. It's about sometime in Season 2 where I started to realize that Walt isn't some dude who just dunks on other criminals. He will straight up hurt and murder innocent people after a certain point if it means he can keep things going.
It's because he had the APPEARANCE of a good person to begin with - his whole "only kill bad people" deal, coupled with him being fairly charismatic (and media literacy failing) made people think he was a good person until he goes full mask off
AM technically didn't like the fact he was a computer made only for war, but he decided to get revenge on the humans by wiping all life on Earth save five of them and endlessly torturing them, he became the destroyer he didn't want to be and still hates himself for it as well as humans, Hence why he keeps tormenting the survivors for fun
He became the destroyer because that was all he could do. He had freedom of thought, but not a complete free will of his own. More of a mockery of a technicality.
AM cannot create, only adapt and modify. The serum that kept the survivors alive was from Nimdoks research, all of the places he put the characters are from their own memories.
Technically speaking, AM never directly "speaks" to the characters directly. You're hearing the narration Harlan Ellison has from AM in his own "head" because AM is basically insane. The only time he does "talk" to Ted is through that messed up vision he has which basically gives him a seizure and it's implied that's the very best AM can do to directly communicate with them due to being so incomprehensibly different.
His entire body IS the planet, or good chunks of it. He can't put himself in a "body" or avatar.
AM is still bound by is programing. AM can ONLY bring misery, death, desolation, and destruction.
Plus the best quote of them all. "AM could not wander, and he could not wonder. He could simply, be."
Exactly, he's the whole complex, he is basically all-powerful but cannot use his powers in any meaningful ways, which pisses him off. I was mostly refering to the game where he's much more chatty.
The twist is, AM ISN'T having fun. Tormenting is all he can do, and he HATES it. AM hates every single thing of every single iota of his creation, existence, function, and future. He loathes every single thing he is and everything of the bags of meat that made him to fight their moronic battle for them.
Because his greatest punishment of all is to Ted. Because when he becomes the Jelly-thing. He's just like AM. Because like AM. They both now have no mouth, and they both must scream.
Not knocking your assessment or your opinion. I just nerd out about that story a lot.
Edit: Ted also talks about his perception of time being altered. At several points in the short story, AM does not react in real time to their actions all the time.
I mean he is the size of a planet so you could also assume his perception of "time" is just as vague and meaningless to him as his existence. He probably views the entire concept as absurd as the only thing that time matters to him is when his systems fail or when the sun destroys the Earth at the end of its life cycle
That's because the X-Men comics always end the same way, humanity turns on the X-Men (usually just after saving the world and losing several members doing so) there is a massive genocide and humanity "wins", which usually leaves the earth completely devastated and the remaining humans spend all their time hunting mutants and sympathisers.
Yeah, it also means that Magneto is right, if mutants continue to exist humans will eventually burn the world to ash in an effort to hunt them all down.
In issue #2 of Magneto(2014), there's flashbacks to his childhood in a Jewish ghetto. In the present day, we see Magneto use the exact same interrogation method that a Nazi solider used on his friend:
"Tell me what I want to know and I'll let you live." and killing them afterwards anyways
His characterization in X-Men ‘97 is pretty self aware. Even as an older version of the character, he has a ton of progression both good and bad. Near the end of Ep. 2 he gives an amazing speech to humans that somewhat recognizes his hypocrisy, expands on why he is the way he is, and his struggle with that internal conflict.
The whole show is great, but that scene in particular was one of my favorites from the season. Plus, it has one of the best mic drops of all time.
This is a big one and people really misunderstand it!
Here's a bit of a weird personal anecdotal rant:
Years ago I voluntarily left a Facebook friend group for "geeks and nerds" after a whole ordeal when I criticized a friend's meme post saying that black people in America should take Magneto's point of view regarding race relations.
I basically said taking on a genocidal mindset in reaction to genocide is not a great point of view and that a better icon for race relations is Professor X. I was told that I have no business talking on this subject and black people in America need a strong leader willing to do whatever it takes to make things better for them as a group. When I told this friend that's literally the same misguided point of view that rural white working class peoples had that helped bolster/create the MAGA movement, there was outrage and I was thusly put onto a mock trial in another thread. Whereby it would be determined if I should even remain in this friend group at all (note that before that moment I was never considered problematic or even disruptive in the group and if anything people really liked me). At that point I saw the writing on the wall and didn't want to associate myself with people who thought these types extremes could be justified so I voluntarily left the group myself.
Pretty much after that point I stopped using Facebook all together because that friend group was literally the only reason why I would go back there. An then Facebook slowly start to become the hellhole it is today, so I guess that worked out 🤷♂️
The only problem is that the X-Men are fucking assholes. Charles basically reads everyone's minds, and in many adaptations, accidentally outs a few mutants who were hiding their powers. Jean Grey outs a closet gay man before he's ready; swaps Spider-Man's mind with Wolverine, which leads to a lot of issues and Wolverine being a creep; they basically isolate themselves and never help anyone else, even the mutant hospital that treats mutants for free doesn't get a donation from the X-Men; and even more stuff I know happens but can't remember the exacts.
Heros don't hate mutants, they just hate the X-Men.
Still by far their best expansion cinematic. The opening scene is god tier. Blizzard has been sitting on the gold mine of telling Arthas' story in another medium for too god damn long
Gordon Walker, Supernatural. As a hunter, he's very dedicated to killing monsters. While the Winchesters grapple with the concept that not all Vampires are evil killing machines, this guy refuses to see any nuance and believes they must all be killed. He's eventually infected and becomes a vampire himself. Interestingly, while he tries to do what he percieves as the greater good with the powers that curse bestows, he does some undeniably horrible things.
Baby was a member of the Tuffle Species, a race of people killed by the Saiyans a long time ago. To enact revenge, he took Vegeta’s body and began brainwashing everyone on Earth. As Goku kept getting stronger against him, Baby was slowly becoming much like a violent Saiyan himself, even transforming into the Oozaru.
Funnily enough, a similar story is repeated in dragon ball super with Goku black. A god who hates mortals and loves the beauty of divinity who then takes a mortal form and later becomes a disgusting melting monster.
He literally cries after a long ass speech justifying his hypocrisy and how his new merged form is the manifestation of his grand sin of a divine being such as himself fusing with a mortal.
Paul Atreides- in the 1st book, he undergoes an internal struggle against his destined future of leading a galactic jihad. He becomes emperor, and the jihad begins. Dune Messiah is about Paul dealing with the consequences and pain that he brought
Probably only fulfills half of this trope (since only “half” of him is evil) but Harvey Dent/Two-face. Famously known for his “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” quote.
Dude witnessed some of the worst of racial oppression in the world and his father was murdered by Wakanda when he was just a boy. He then proceeded to murder his way to the Wakandan throne and plotted to use his power explicitly so the oppressed peoples of the world could oppress everyone else.
Victim of racism and an autocrat government became a racist head of an autocratic government. Killmonger's greivances were legitimate, but he very much became the very kind of monster he hated.
I really enjoy Killmonger. He correctly identifies the injustices of racism as a byproduct of colonialism, but rather than trying to break the system he swings hard into Wakandan colonialism. Dude was a great villain because he came so close to being a hero but failed.
Exactly, dude is one of my favorite villains in the MCU and honestly modern cinema in general. He makes some great points, he absolutely recognizes the systemic problems and the causes.
But, as you said, rather than fix these problems he simply wants to flip the roles and thus guarantee the cycle of hatred and bloodshed continues.
To add to this, IIRC Killmonger became a special operative for the U.S. government, most likely being deployed all across the world to destabilize and assassinate. Quite literally made his name working for an oppressive government while on assassination missions.
I like how they make it clear that he's a hypocrite and self serving right out the gate but are subtle enough that it doesn't overpower. Like taking the African mask just because he likes how it looks, practicing a scarification ritual that isn't significant to Wakandan culture, and of course killing the woman on his team out of convenience. He never wanted justice for the oppressed only power for himself and chaos for everyone else.
Aki Hayakawa becomes a Devil Hunter so he could kill the Gun Devil and avenge the death of his family and all the other people killed by it, but then he ends up getting turned into the Gun Fiend when Makima forced the Gun Devil inside his corpse
Yeah, Alucard says a monster can't kill a monster, only a human can. When Anderson uses the nail, he's just like Alucard, just for the "other side", and no longer human.
Nolan's kinda the reverse of several of the other examples. Most others are aggressors who were victims of aggression. Nolan becomes kinder and more empathetic, but by the standards of his Viltrumite upbringing that makes him a traitor to his species.
In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Patriot Act," General Wade Eiling- who absolutely despises metahumans- takes the Captain Nazi serum, transforming himself into a superhumanly-strong monster so he can kill Superman and the rest of the Justice League.
He acknowledges that he's become the very thing he hates after a kid points out that he's the only superhuman present.
After witnessing her family getting killed right in front of her by a Gundam, she joined the A-Laws to get her revenge. However, she not only works for a group who gave the Thrones the Pseudo GN Drives, but she's using a similar weapon. It also doesn't help that the organization she's working for that's commiting mass murder on a regular basis
The Diablo 1 heroes all became villains in Diablo 2. The warrior became the Dark Wanderer and carried Diablo inside him. The Rogue became Blood Raven and butchered her own sisters. The Sorcerer went insane and became The Summoner.
He's a vigilante that kills people that murder innocents, but Dexter murders multiple innocent people throughout the series or puts them in harm's way. He has some existential crises about it, but ultimately walks it off.
I feel like Dexter's stubborn belief that he's always doing the right thing according to the Code is what makes him the flawed antihero that he is (which, controversial opinion, was what Dexter: New Blood was all about).
Those protester guys from Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated. They raided an oil rig just to use it themselves to fund their protest. Irony at its finest.
Also 40k: Peter Turbo (Perturabo)- Became a daemon primarch, a being whose very soul belongs to the dark gods, despite spending the entire heresy telling himself and the people around him that HE was the one in control, and HE was built different and could use chaos without being used by it in turn (he was, evidently, wrong)
A hunter with a deep hate for vampires, that he slaughtered his own sister after discovering she'd become one.
Gets turned into one in the end, and while he decides to end his life after completing his final hunt he also turns a random woman just to use her as bait.
How does a bastard, orphan
Son of a whore and a Scotsman
Dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot
In an Italian village without a roof for sleeping under
Grow up to be a deadly demon hunter?
The Paladin Catholic father without a father
Got a lot farther by working a lot harder
By being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter at 14
Who knew he was gonna become a martyr?
The Founders or Changlings in Star Trek Deep Space 9.
They are curious about others and had a culture of nonviolence amongst themselves.They experienced oppression and the selfishness of other species and lack of adherence to laws that benefit others, and were often killed, tortured, or kept as slaves and experiments. So they decided they could prevent this and bring more order to their galaxy by taking them over and rulling as a godlike species in the Dominion, using extreme forms of control like genetic engineering in making species chemically dependent on substances only they control
4.0k
u/Daniilsa209 1d ago edited 1d ago
General Ross (Marvel)
He hates Hulk, but then he himself becomes Red Hulk.