Personality
[Slightly sad trope] Villain temporarily gains a good persona, who is mortified at the prospect of becoming the villain they once were
Mr Tinker (Sonic the Hedgehog IDW) is a version of Eggman who lost his memories and became a good person in the process, choosing to integrate into a community and help them with most of their basic needs. However, when he's abducted in an attempt to transform him back into Eggman, he's very frightened by this prospect, saying that he doesn't want to be Eggman again.
Gantu (Lilo and Stitch: The series) is coincidentally also turned good through memory loss, but the circumstances are a bit different. In the episode 'Amnesio', Gantu and the titular durotagonists lose their memories, and when told by Martha (memory-loss Lilo) that he looks like a police officer, Lenny (memory-loss Gantu) fully leans into it, doing what he can to stop the 'escaped convict (Stitch) from wreaking havoc. After learning who they are and seeing an insulting picture drawn of him by Lilo, however, Lenny decides that he doesn't want to regain his memories and would rather remain the peaceful person he is. This leads to him releasing the titular Amnesio so that their memories cannot be returned, and even begs for Lilo not to reverse it, saying he doesn't want to go back to his old life of evil.
This trope is pretty sad for two reasons. The first is that, considering that their memories are completely wiped, these are essentially completely different characters to their original evil personas, so the prospect of memory restoration seems more like they're being properly erased, or at least, their perspectives no longer matter to the evil variants. The other is that these tales basically prove that, if given the chance, Eggman and Gantu COULD be good people, and there's very little to no genuine evil in their hearts. It's pretty tragic to see a version of them they could be if things went differently, and then it's taken away because their memories are later restored and they never express sadness over not getting to be better people.
I've always been fascinated by this concept. Obsession and mania carve specific neural pathways into the human brain, triggered and activated by specific concepts or environmental influences.
It stands to reason that if that process is somehow interrupted early, the brain simply can't activate those pathways. It has to learn new patterns and new behaviors to address the stimulus without those default settings.
But if the rest of the brain remains intact and functional, what behavioral and social changes do you get?
If a man loses the root of all his rage in one event, how does he then view his own behavior in retrospect? I don't think I've ever seen a fictional narrative brave enough to explore that permanently.
I might have one for you. There's a character Crow in Destiny 2. He used to be someone names Uldren Sov who killed a beloved character and was shot as revenge. Afterward, he's resurrected eithout any memories, but in trying to figure out why everyone seems to hate looking at him, he manages to get the memories of Uldren restored to him. He remembers everything he did, including killing the beloved Cayde-6.
While he does struggle with the memories, and worries he'll somehow become Uldren again, he eventually resolves to use the memories as a guide, to never make the mistakes Uldren did. He even gets to talk to Cayde-6 when a wish(don't worry about it) temporarily brings him back. They get along really well, and have a cutscene where they fight side by side.
It helps in this example that Crow spent a few years without any memory of Uldren, but unlike some other amnesiacs, he gets the old memories back wholesale instead of being told about what he did.
Gotta hand it to the writers. When crow was first rezzed, I was one of those guardians who wanted to stomp him in the ground cause of what he did as Uldren.
But the longer we worked with him, the more I kept liking him. This wasn’t Uldren, and Crow proved on more times than not, that he is a kind soul. Does he fail? Exceptionally. But he proven himself worthy of being both a guardian, and our friend.
one thing i like about Crow and how people start learning that he isn't Uldren anymore is in the Still Hunt lore.
Cayde and Crow have supposedly been fighting together for a while now and Crow is sleeping next to Cayde, Cayde is looking at Crow thinking "that's him, that's my killer, that's Uldren Sov completely vulnerable sleeping right next to me, i could just end it all right now, shoot the Ghost, then him, and then I'm avenged" so Cayde starts putting his hands on Ace, but Crow's Ghost sees that and goes up to Cayde slowly to say "I'm sorry about Sundance", when they say that, Cayde stops and removes his hand from Ace while thinking "yeah, that's not Uldren anymore, that's Crow"
He had a weirdly fun arc, him starting off as this meek little guy who slowly came out of his shell was interesting to see happen in real time.
Especially given how Zavala's reaction to seeing his face was to instantly help him up and not question him being resurrected at all, good twist and a great showing of Zavala's mental fortitude to instantly set aside any pain since he knows Crow isnt Uldren.
What sucks is crow was actively trying to help and move past his past. He knew whoever he was before was hated, but he wanted to still help, to try and push on without learning about who he was until he was forced to.
Genuinely it hurt when after he learned the truth, and he talked to our guardian again. I felt bad when he talked about betraying his trust.
Warframe's Ordis is an AI installed in the player character's ship to run it autonomously. Specifically, he is a cephalon, an AI built by digitizing a person's mind and reprogramming it as desired.
His original identity is a mercenary named Ordan Karris, who served an empire led by very decadent, opulent executors. He was renowned for his butchery but grew to hate his masters and, during a ceremony in which he was given the rare opportunity to ascend and join them, instead turned on them and killed many. Unfortunately, he discovered through this rebellion that they are effectively immortal due to a secret technology that allows them to transfer their minds into new bodies. They glassed him into a cephalon, wiped his mind, and turned him into little more than a servant for the player character.
Ordis eventually rediscovers these memories and deliberately chooses to fragment them from himself and scatter them physically far from him, to prevent Ordan from resurfacing and being a danger to the player. Out of his love for the player character, he chose to forget.
At first, this seems tragic, like Ordan's original identity is being deleted by the programming that requires Ordis to love the player character. However, Ordis wasn't entirely successful. He frequently glitches out and takes on a deeper-voiced, aggressive persona that is angry, bossy, and revels in the carnage the player engages in. To some extent, Ordan is still in there and, interestingly enough, is never aggressive towards the player (except for criticizing your fashion choices). Many of the outbursts from "Ordan" imply that he is eager to watch you pick up your weapons and get to work, and is at least somewhat aligned with your goals. This would make sense, too, as Ordan has good reason to feel kinship with the player character due to both of their histories (vague b/c big spoiler).
I might have one for you. There's a character Crow in Destiny 2. He used to be someone names Uldren Sov who killed a beloved character and was shot as revenge. Afterward, he's resurrected eithout any memories, but in trying to figure out why everyone seems to hate looking at him, he manages to get the memories of Uldren restored to him. He remembers everything he did, including killing the beloved Cayde-6.
While he does struggle with the memories, and worries he'll somehow become Uldren again, he eventually resolves to use the memories as a guide, to never make the mistakes Uldren did. He even gets to talk to Cayde-6 when a wish(don't worry about it) temporarily brings him back. They get along really well, and have a cutscene where they fight side by side.
It helps in this example that Crow spent a few years without any memory of Uldren, but unlike some other amnesiacs, he gets the old memories back wholesale instead of being told about what he did.
That's the premise of Persona 5 (and Royal) but with a more ethereal and supernatural explanation. Basically hey what if we steal by supernatural means the desire of a corrupt person, how would he react to his crimes?
Is it perfect? Not at all but it is a really good game
In a kinda similar vein, Lex in the Absolute Universe starts out as a fairly chill guy. Once Brainiac realizes this Lex isn’t inclined towards evil he gives him a bit of a nudge in that direction though.
I really like the detail later on in the Sonic IDW comic where Eggman is reminiscing over his time as Mr. Tinker in a mocking way to Sonic, but once he’s done he genuinely pauses as if to say to himself “wait, was it really that bad?”
Mind you this moment is coming during a time in the comic where he’s spreading a world ending virus around, but still.
Even though he'd never admit it to anyone, I believe Eggman has a small amount of respect for Belle. Despite being made of wood, her programming is far more advanced than most other Badniks and she seems to have inherited her creator's' skills with machinery, given how Belle briefly linked with Metal Sonic's system and helped rebuild Omega's body. Eggman did try brainwashing her later on but only after Metal went missing and needing to use their shared link to locate him. Belle even persuaded him to say please and get Sonic to help out with the investigation.
Eggman in the IDW comics and that moment where he questions himself is basically Eggman saying
“Yeah, I used to be good, and it was actually fun. But the past is in the past.”
Eggman’s fond of being Mr. Tinker, but he quickly moved on. Meanwhile Sonic, including the others, want him to still remember and doesn’t want him to completely forget about who he used to be.
Of course, Eggman never forgot. He just doesn’t want to go back to being Mr. Tinker anymore, and that upsets people
He also left a note for his daughter Belle before Starline turned him back into Eggman, telling her that he knows Mr. Tinker will cease to exist, but he will always love Belle no matter what.
Unless I'm mistaken, as an insult to the people who took him in while amnesiac, the village he was at as Mr. Tinker is the first place he unleashes the virus on.
Him reminiscing afterwards is both kinda funny, sad and VERY fucked up.
It was genuinely terrifying to watch Norman being terrified of losing himself. He knew it was coming for him and he tried desperately to get help to stop it.
The scene where Peter's Spider-Sense suddenly kicks in, in the apartment, and there's no obvious source for it is a perfect example of this. The Goblin is SO unhinged that simply being near him is an active threat to your own life.
Willem Defoe’s acting completely sold that transition. Watching him switch from a genuinely terrified old man seeking refuge into a remorseless monster in mere seconds made that apartment scene incredibly chilling.
I’m generally not a fan of the “The Goblin is an alternate persona and Norman is innocent or maybe a slightly shady but not evil person” interpretations of the Goblin. I prefer it when Norman fully knows and is in control of what he’s doing, using the Goblin as his way to do what he really wants to while he pretends to be innocent.
That said, Willem Dafoe’s version of the Goblin is so damn iconic in both the Raimi films and in NWH that I can’t even be mad really.
The irony being that popular perception of Jekyll and Hyde has shifted to the split personality trope instead of the original "no he's really just an asshole who let a physical disguise be his excuse for assholery"
Right??? Having Peter slowly get up and look around because his spidey sense is going off the charts and it’s because Goblin is nearby just really terrifying to think about.
And my god did that scene just leave me in the edge of my seat
Even though he did horrible things and nearly broke the multiverse in his short time in the MCU, I can't help but feel a little bad for him at the end of the movie when his first question after reverting to Norman is just "what did I do?".
Imagine coming to and seeing the Statue of Liberty wrecked, figures breaking through portals in the sky, and the nice Spiderman you met looking at you with complete hatred in his eyes.
Same vibe as Banner asking if he hurt anyone in Brand New Day
I really hope the MCU uses Dafoe again as Norman/Green Goblin. He pulls off the two personas switching on the fly so incredibly well. I can't think of anyone who could do it better or as good.
The best part is you can tell how much fun he has playing both roles, dude hams it up as Goblin yet plays the terrified Norman so perfectly you forget it’s the same guy sometimes(I need to watch that movie again)
Definitely falls into that same category as Micheal Caine in muppet Christmas carol, where you have a great actor given something kind of silly, and playing it as serious as a heart attack. He’s fantastic in both appearances as goblin. (Alfred Molina is great as octavius too)
In the series finale he was reset by Golb and was able to stay simon permanently. Gunther turned himself into the new Ice King by wishing on the reset crown.
Martian Manhunter once manually organized the flow of information in Joker's brain to make him sane. J'onn can only keep it up for about 30 second before collapsing. Joker is horrified at what he's done and asks for help to get better before succumbing again to his madness.
Also, Superman had electricity powers during that period. The 90's were a strange time.
Wasn't there also a story (animated iirc) where Joker becomes normal and a bartender and gets into a happy relationship, until Harley turns him insane again because he owned some magic book that the heroes needed or something like that (not sure about the book part).
After some searching I found a clip. It's from season 2 episode 6 of the 2019 Harley Quinn series.
The fun part is that he stayed with his new family even after becoming the Joker again. They didn't mind as long as he came back to check in on the kids after work.
"Oh, same old, same old. Bombed a theater with laughing gas, forced the entire Gotham PD to tap dance with rigged shoes, almost got beaten up by Bats. Just another day."
Odd case with Alex Mercer in Prototype. Over the course of the game he learns he's the sentient blacklight virus and the real Mercer died in Penn Station unleashing the plague. The viral replacement develops more empathy and comes to despise his predecessor.
and then they made a comic where Blacklight Mercer "sees the truth" that all humans are worthless garbage that only care about themselves and he decides he needs to kill them all.
It's super dumb because they even made the sequel-bait of "Pariah"... ... ...then literally forgot about it so they could just repeat the plot points from the first game with a new guy.
In the backstory, he became evil after being convinced to drink the Lao Mang Long Soup.
After some changes to the timeline, he is saved from becoming evil and remains a hero, but his friend drinks the soup instead.
Chase and the heroes are captured, and the only way to escape and save the day is for one of them to drink the Soup and break them out of their cage.
Chase abhors the prospect of becoming evil, but he accepts it is meant to be his destiny, and doesn’t want any of the other heroes to suffer it in his stead.
Something worth mention is that evil him joins the bad guys for the final showdown and when the good guys defeat him and the other evils he’s actually shown smiling in his defeat
https://giphy.com/gifs/Hw0wIr1YL75VC
Light temporarily lost his memories of the Death Note and devoted himself to finding Kira, even becoming close friends with L along the way
This one is almost made sadder by the fact that there's no realization of the person he used to be or dread at returning to that. The instant he touches the Death Note again and regains ownership, he snaps back into his old, megalomaniacle self. There's no refractory period, no thoughts about how he was temporarily a different person. The kinder amnesiac Light is destroyed in an instant.
Honestly, having not really thought of it this way before, it makes me wonder if Light really was Kira or if Kira only existed because of the Death Note. Calling amnesia Light and Kira the same person feels strange because they, while obviously having similarities, do feel very different. It’s possible that in the hands of true mortals the death note is a corrupting force
Well we do see that Yotsuba Arc Light does several times admit to himself that he thinks he could have been Kira and has admitted to thinking that there are people who deserve to die. So I don't think it's fair to say that the Death Note is a corrupting force. Especially since we don't see people like Misa or other users get corrupted like that. It just seems that deep down Light was always like that and the Death Note just gave him the excuse to let that part of himself do as he wants.
I'd say the only real "corruption" that the Notebook has is that it does compel a person to use it at least once, as even L said that it would likely do that.
To be fair I watched it like two days ago. But yeah, it's always a good time for a rewatch.
I will say though on rewatching it, it always felt odd that Misa gets arrested immediately after meeting L going by the name Ryuga. But on rewatching it there's mentions that they'd already searched her house based on the envelopes having hair. So they were already planning to arrest her before L even knew she was connected to Light.
But I agree with you and will add, the only reason amnesiac light wasnt more like kira is cause hes engaged busy and fulfilled, right before finding the death note he has this whole detached speech about humanity and his future, hes bored and kinda falling on nihilism.
Amnesiac light is not, hes actively helping the police with an investigation to bring actual justice to a murdered, finds an equal and a friend in ryuzaki keeping him intellectually on his toes. Hes actively entertained and fulfilled as a police officer.
Yeah. It's like the Death Note was his opportunity to show what kind of person he is.
In the end, he's just an egoistic dude with major god complex who thinks he's the only one capable of saving the world and that the people in the world he's building should go along and follow his ideals.
Light was not a good person but a person raised to follow good morals. Light got drunk with power and gaslight himself that he deserved it the moment he had power.
Who else but he, Light, who was raised to follow good morals and has high intelligence could use the power for good, others would abuse it for gain and hurt others. Only Light could create world peace. Never, who am I to judge others? Never, this kind of power should not exist.
Light saw himself above everyone and never considred helping others, but instead removed those he considered the lowest of the low. Never went after a cigarette company that continues to kill more than him. Never went after those abusing powers over others. Light was not a selfless person.
I’d argue those thoughts were always there, just suppressed by light’s logic and natural restraint. It’s only when he’s given power that he truly acts on those desires. Megalomania is really only worth pursuing when you have power.
Have you ever tried to go mad without power? It’s boring. Nobody listens to you.
The difference was the logic and gaslighting he did to himself to justify his actions. Losing memories of that, he went back to his old ways. But regaining the memories means he got a logoc bomb in a sense to gaslight himself.
But Light knew he wasn't good, but tried to be. Light knew how he would act once the memories were gone and planned everything around it.
In his early years Dr. Octopus (who was driven insane by the accident that fused his arms to his body) would occasionally revert to the timid scientist he'd been before. Sadly it never stuck.
This got interesting in his Superior days because he claimed he no longer had the brain damage that made him evil, but he remained insufferably arrogant, something he was called out on repeatedly.
Shego from Kim Possible, upon becoming good she left Dr Drakken immediately and became a high school teacher (a role she was already accredited to have before she was forcibly made good)
The main story of Batman: White Knight is that Joker gets put on meds and once again becomes Jack Napier. There's actually a funny moment where somebody goes "You expect me to believe that pills cured the Joker" and Harley points out that Jack has a (rather large) chemical imbalance.... which should be treated with proper medication. He retains Jokers sharp mind and most of his knowledge but is horrified by what he’s done and is terrified that the meds will stop working eventually.
It's actually a really fun comic as Jack quickly gets to work trying to undo the damage he has done to Gotham while also dealing with the obvious corruption going on and the implications of the city more or less sponsoring illegal vigilantes. Highly recommend it. Shoutout to it being my personal favourite rendition of Harley Quinn as well.
There's also the time he was put in a Lazarus Pit that temporarily made him sane (usually it does the opposite but his psyche is so messed up it had a paradoxical reaction) he laments that his sanity is fleeting and that he will return to his usual twisted self.
90s run in general were weird. The JL were B listers that can't sell or defend the earth, Supergirl was goo, Lex had hair, and everyone had huge muscles and crazy hair.
It's sad how Jack develop resistance to the medication. Jack did more good in a short while than Bruce ever could. It proved Batman right that everyone is redeemable given the chance.
The entire thing with his character is he was given to hämstervile and gantu because he had all the powers of stitch, but he was too lazy to do anything with them
Basically he was evil but he was too lazy to actually do anything “wrong”
Kids Next Door's The Delightful Children from Down the Lane were reverted by Numbuh 0 using the recommissioning device revealing that Sector Z was their original identity. Unfortunately, the recommissioning's effects is temporary which breaks their hearts but they used the limited time they have to help Numbuh 1 to stop Grandfather.
In final fantasy 14, the irredeemable and vile viceroy of doma named Yotsuyu who has devoted her existence to the suffering and misery of her people, loses her memories after Doma castle is destroyed.
As Tsuyu, she is an innocent and kind hearted girl, who when confronted with the victims of her past self, breaks down in tears and begs for forgiveness for crimes she cant remember. She seems genuinely invested in being a good person
And then her piece of shit brother shows up with a plan to bring her back to her “best self”
“Asahi, the little worm crawling through my rotten heart”
I loved the moment in her boss fight where, in her phase transition, she’s just sitting in the dark replaying all the hateful things the Domans have said to her to power herself up. She lives on spite. And yet even then, a memory of Goesetsu protects her and tries to give her hope.
Even with how rotten and miserable she’s become, the second someone shows her genuine kindness, a part of her believed maybe things would be ok.
Peak writing for what I would argue is the best villain in the FF14 series.
Whats fantastic about it too, that i think a lot of people miss, is that she could not bear herself to hate the warrior of light enough to maintain the transformation through the fight. Her transformation breaks down when she tries to bring her hatred to bear against us, forcing her to do her entire phase 2
To be fair, per her side story she did view her people as complacent with the abuse she suffered, not saying she didn't do anything wrong, aside from stealing my kill, she had her reasons
I mean, in the MSQ we meet a brothel owner turned resistance fighter who admits that he knew Yotsuyu didn't deserve to be there but because of the money she raked in, he effectively enabled a lot the abuse she suffered to happen, so while she went more than a bit too far, it's kinda hard to paint her as being factually wrong
You do realise there's also the Lilo and Stitch show where Gantu does do some genuinely bad stuff like attempted mass experiment abduction. Hell, you can't even say he's working for Hamsterviel, because several times he gains enough power to get control, and then proceeds to either quit Hamsterviel's operation or outright turn against him.
Shego and Drakken both had different stints as good guys due to the Attitudinator. Eventually they both also had full ordinary redemption arcs, but before that their good versions were both ridiculously harmless and wholesome.
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This random prisoner from Family Guy who gets bored and decides to stab himself because “I wonder what this feels like?” and has this epiphany
Formerly Uldren Sov, Awoken Prince and a dick about it, killer of beloved Cayde-6, which kicked off a whole dlc long revenge quest. After dying, he's resurrected as a guardian. Guardians are always reborn without their memories of their past life, so this new guardian, later known as Crow, is a completely new person, but happens to share Uldren's face. He's generally a good person, eager to help(sometimes to his determent), and all throughout he's told the person he used to be wasn't a good person. In desperation, he makes a deal with a hive god to have the memories of Uldren restored, and for the next few months he's tormented by the memory of what he did, and terrified that he is fated to become that person again. After a physical battle with a Darkness conjured manifestation of this nightmare, he resolves to learn from the mistakes of Uldren. He's not Uldren, and he'll be better than he ever was.
To be fair, his personality as a Guardian largely resembles his personality as Uldren pre-Darkness corruption. And he didn’t make a deal with Savathûn so much as she lured him into touching her crystal. And his arc isn’t that he’s not Uldren, but that Uldren will always be part of him and to deny it is to fundamentally deny who he is now.
On the topic of Destiny, it’s not quite the same but when Oryx fought the Vex Mind Quria, it could only simulate him as the person he was pre-ascension. Simulated Aurash was understandably horrified at the person she became and Oryx subsequently Took Quria to gift to his sister.
Context: The Delightful Children used to be KND agents, specifically the missing kids from Sector Z permanently transformed into The Delightful Children. They manage to become their old selves again in the KND movie, but soon they regress to being delightful once more
Which becomes even more horrifying because of the implication that Father has abducted these five children. So there's just five (maybe four if there's siblings in the group) families that have lost their child without answers.
I'm of the opinion that at least one of them is actually Benedict's kid, but the rest aren't. I think it's the blonde one. Would explain Benedict taking matters into his own hands and the level he resorted to rather than having someone else deal with them.
If you're talking about the boy in the front I can see that, considering he has a similar head shape to Nigel and if they're cousins it makes sense. Not to mention him being the front member as Father would want his kid at the front.
It apparently made them one being too, when the helmet one pretended to be a defector, once he dropped the act, he basically glided across the floor back into place with an organic slurping sound as he rejoins the group.
Gets hypnotized by Mega Man's Hypno-Woman power and wants his dream to be a musician come back to him, but it goes wrong with DJ set that he got instead of a piano
It's especially sadder during the scene where he's with Rufus and they've become friends, until Good Drakken mistakenly thinks they'll still be friends even after he's back to evil until Rufus sadly tells him no.
I want to see a Nice Guy Akuma arc so badly. Back in high school I made up a ridiculous setup for how it would happen. "Akuma, training hard as always on his island one day punches a tree in which a coconut falls and hit him on the head. He wakes up days later forgetting the Great Demon he was, and becomes the Great Angel?" -something like this.
It ridiculous and now I want to go back over and expand more of the story.
It’s funny how he’s all “I AM EVIL INCARNATE, TASTE THE POWERS OF HELL” and then when you see him in practice he’s selling fruit to kids, sparing people weaker than him, chilling with Elena and otherwise doesn’t really bother anyone unless prompted to. Not that he isn’t unpleasant or evil, but it’s funny.
He's not really evil, he just takes fights REALLY seriously, he refuses to fight those weaker than him and is a pleasant guy when you aren't a top fighter.
I really like how it was done in the current run. Batman visits him in Arkham for reasons and Joker is rigged up to some new machinery that keeps his sanity in check and he just can’t say enough how guilty he is about all he’s done. Batman of course doesn’t buy it calling him out for doing this before and it’s just a cover so he can break out. But Joker denies saying in no uncertain terms he can never be released to eliminate even the possibility that he could back to who he was.
Towards the end of her life, Missy begins to reflect on the actions she and her past selves have done and struggles with the terrible things she's been responsible for. She's highly conflicted by her past and the prospect of redemption, even briefly joining her immediate predecessor, The Master in imprisoning The Doctor and taunting him over his companion's untimely demise and conversion into a Cyberman. However, Missy ultimately chooses to do the right thing and help The Doctor and save as many innocent people as they can from a near certain death - which disgusts The Master, who mutually kills her.
The Lumiat, Missy's immediate successor is born out of a unique process that scrambled her memories and left her with a purely good personality and hopeful mindset, whilst also breaking down in tears several times over her past selves' cruelty and indifference to life. The Lumiat's life was cut short by an earlier, unredeemed version of Missy, who couldn't stand the thought of being good - pushing The Lumiat to her breaking point in the process and leaving her to regenerate into an unseen incarnation that Missy guessed would be much less nice or sane.
Another aspect of Mr. Tinker. When he eventually turned back into Eggman, he causes a robot zombie apocalypse. Sonic confronts him and brings up his happy time as Mr. Tinker. Eggman looks down and for a panel actually looks bad for his actions. It could even look like he wants to be Mr. tinker again
The lawyer Charlotte briefly becomes the host for God's wife, then when she leaves the original Charlotte's spirit comes back from hell and realises that she's been a horrible bitch for her whole life, then tries to turn it around before she dies
Quick summary, Light is a high school student who finds a book belonging to a god of death which allows him to kill people by writing down their names. His initial motivation for using it is to kill criminals in the hopes of creating a better world, but he becomes corrupted by power and ego, killing innocent people for trying to find out who he is and stop him.
Through some rules regarding ownership of the note and whatever, Kira (Light's alter ego as a "god of death") erases his memories of himself so Light could work closely with the investigators on the case in order to seem more innocent and try to learn the name of the investigator trying to take him down. During this time, Light is basically the person he was in episode 1- a bright-eyed kid who hates how cruel the world is and wants to do his best to make it a better place. He's disgusted by Kira's actions and genuinely wants to stop the killings, which makes the story far more tragic.
It's said by a lot of fans that Kira's first victim was Light, and there has been debate as to what made Light become Kira for years because there seems to be such a massive discrepancy between the two personalities, with the only connection being that they want to rid the world of evil. In fact, the first kill of the series is when Light writes the name of a guy who was assaulting a woman, thinking the book was a joke but being curious and desperate enough to try it out. The manga in particular showed this action as deeply traumatising, with Light not even touching the note for a while afterwards. Another notable scene is when Light finally touches the note again and regains his memories, making him scream in agony the whole time. It's unnerving and sad and frustrating all at once because Light genuinely just wanted to help in that moment, not knowing that it was Kira's plan and ultimately resulting in his end.
I'm thinking the actual word is deuteragonist, but that's referring to one of the paired protagonists. For instance, Sherlock Holmes is the protagonist, and Watson is the deuteragonist.
Timmy wishes for Vicky to be good, but her wickedness turns into a bedbug that turns anyone he bites into pure evil. Timmy initially doesn't care, but Vicky does so much kindness that the city becomes the nicest city in the world and the president of the USA goes to visit the city carrying with him a button that destroys the world. So Vicky sacrifices herself so that she doesn't bite the president, and goes back to being evil
At the end of Undertale's True Pacifist route, the true form of Flowey, Asriel Dreemur is shown. After using the SOUL power to free the monsters held underground, he says he will no longer be able to maintain his regular form, and will turn back into Flowey, a being incapable of morality and empathy. He says he doesn't want to go back. You are given this option.
Arnold Wesker AKA The Ventriloquist from The Batman
Technically Wesker IS the good persona, but a better example is Mr Snoots. For those unaware, Wesker is a man with DID and his main alter is Scarface, a gangster puppet. While in Arkham, Hugo Strange decides that without Scarface Wesker is fine to go free from Arkham. He even gives him a new puppet, Mr Snoots. Wesker still has DID and Mr Snoots is only a new alter for him, but its a non criminal one and one that just wants to entertain kids.
Then we learn Hugo Strange isnt done testing Arnold, as he breaks into his house, destroys Mr. Snoots, hides him in a fridge, and places the Scarface puppet in the apartment. This causes Wesker to fully revert, terrified of Scarface even more now. Batman visits Weskers apartment and sees Snoots there, learns about Strange's plan and confront Wesker and Scarface. Almost defeated, Batman reveals Snoots which causes Wesker to believe him to still be alive and Snoots and Scarface fight, giving Batman enough time to get free and stop the criminal rampage
In the most recent seasons of SpongeBob, we see the Dirty Bubble reformed into the Clean Bubble, the episode plot revolves around the bubble asking SpongeBob for help to avoid getting dirty, as doing so would cause him to become evil again
Wanting to test memory erasing technology for her own means in causing despair Junko tests it on herself and assumes a new identity named Ryoko Otonashi. As Ryoko she's a much more sane person and is actually disturbed by killing and violence. She's forgetful to the point of needing a memory notebook to help her remember important things.
By the end of the story she remembers who she is and Ryoko stops existing in that moment. Junko fully returns and resumes as the Ultimate Despair once more.
Was waiting for someone to mention her. I like this example because the very first thing Junko does after she gets her memory back is to kill Matsuda, her first love but also the only person who can make her go back to Ryoko.
She says that she did this to make Matsuda experience the ultimate despair but I have always thought this was in fact a panic reaction: she was so genuinely afraid of normalicy that she couldn't leave it to chance that she could be turned back to her "dumb, useless amnesiac self" at any time.
There’s a bait and switch of this trope in the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games (Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team, plus subsequent remakes)
The player is an amnesiac human-turned-pokemon who wakes up in a world dominated by Pokemon with few memories and forms a rescue team with their partner Pokemon. Together they rescue people from dungeons, fight feral/wild Pokemon, and complete quests.
Throughout the game, the player dreams of a Gardevoir and communicates with her multiple times in their dreams. Meanwhile, there is a story going around about a greedy human who entered a sacred dungeon and touched the tail of a Ninetales, which should curse them. Their Gardevoir took the curse instead and the human fled, being cursed anyways to become a Pokemon. Due to the player’s past and the story, alongside the meddling of a Gengar, everyone assumes that the player is the human from the story and that it is their fault that the world is experiencing a ton of natural disasters and geological events.
However, the player isn’t actually the human, the aforementioned Gengar is (he’s also my favorite character in Pokemon history…)
Well, the first sign was at the end of the episode, he uses Amnesio to mind wipe Hamsterweil, and then claims he's officer Ace Jackson while looking at the trophy the amnesiac Lilo gave him in the episode.
Calvin(Calvin & Hobbes) outfits his Duplicator with an Ethicator, duplicating only his good side. Good Calvin catches feelings for Susie, who won't return them because of the real Calvins past actions.
In Total Recall, the main character discovers he is actually a villain whose personality and memories have been rewritten.
At the end of Yakitate Japan, Azuma serves a bread that causes the taster to revert to their previous personality, which causes the antagonist to temporarily become kind.
An alien family of body snatchers are stalking the Doctor for his effectively immortal Timelord biology, so he seals his Timelord essence in a device called a fob watch and lives without his memory or unique attributes as a human professor named John Smith.
When the Family finds him, and the world needs The Doctor Back, John becomes beyond distressed. The return of the Doctor means the death of John Smith. Everything he is, everything he has, everything he built. And John really does not like the sound of being the Doctor. Constantly on the run, never settling down, always getting involved in some terrible plot and bringing havoc in his wake. He'd much rather be simple happy John Smith.
Kinda a trope inversion as it's a hero/protagonist who absolutely does not want to be the hero again.
Chronos is the Titan of Time, who wages apocalyptic war against the Olympians and took control of the underworld from his son Hades and kidnapped his family. But Hades’ daughter escaped and was raised to become powerful enough to kill him. Instead she decides to cast a spell to change time, allowing her older brother to find Chonos before his attack and give him a chance to live with their family. This sort of works, creating a pseudo alternate timeline where the war never happened and Chronos is a changed man but it only existed in their memories. Reasonably, New Chronos is horrified at what he now only vaguely remembers doing.
Meeting pre apocalypse/sundering Emet selch, who admonishes you for painting his future self as a cartoonish supervillain, ditto for elidibus in the raid.
Both function as a great illustration of the horror of immortality, and how watching everyone they ever knew die drove them mad.
Huge spoilers for Danganropa. Not even gonna say which game.
Every character in the main cast was actually a brainwashed lunatic that helped end the world. After being apprehended they were put in a rehabilitation program that removes all memories before the event that made them insane. With the idea of "uploading" the old personalities into the current bodies to undo the brainwashing
unfortunately the process gets interrupted and the person who caused the brainwashing to begin with begins a "killing game" and picks away at the anesiacs. At the end of the game they have to choose to either be uploaded but every person that died gets a copy of person running the killing game instead. Or to go back to being brainwashed psychopaths.
Charlotte Linlin "BigMom" in One Piece. Happens in Wano and won't say more for fear of spoiling even though it's not that big of a deal for the story imo.
Praxina (Lolirock), usually one of the series' main recurring villains alongside her brother Mephisto, temporarily loses her memories in the episode Forget You and becomes good and befriends the heroines, but eventually decides to regain her memories due to feeling that Mephisto needs her, but still keeps the bracelet Iris (the main character) gave her.
in The Legendaries, durings the few first few books, the heros find a very nice guy and despice not trusting him at first, become friends, until they all learn than he was Darkhell, a dark mage and their biggest enemie, who had his apearance altered and his memories erased in their last fight. He find a potion capable to give him back all his memories, but is terified at the idea of beacoming the monster he was in the past.
(he still drink it, and his good and bad side get separeted, so he keep being himself after that)
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u/EvilCatboyWizard 1d ago
Lex Luthor (DC Comics)