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Published: 2015-03-20 00:16:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 1269; Favourites: 14; Downloads: 0
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I might be in the minority, but I personally think good to evil turns are uncreative. It usually reflects on how little the writer knows about the character (or better yet, how much they can't write at all). I do recognize the good "good to evil" turns, such as Demona in Gargoyles. She had a good reason to become evil, and that was because of her own hatred of the humans, which formed overtime due to her and her former comrade's fights with them. As for Xantos, I don't have much gripes with him since he became good towards the final season.I'm just going to provide examples of how turning from good to evil has outright destroyed certain characters.
Terra (Teen Titans)
I'm kinda mixed on this. While yes, she did have some solid character development, the execution regarding her turn left a bitter taste in my mouth. Now I could barely look at her without cringing.
Fiona (Archie Comics)
I've explained it plenty of times before, but here's my feelings on her turn in a nutshell. It was forced with nothing to back it up. It's so bad that even Ian Flynn regrets making her turn evil nowadays.
Penelope (Sly Cooper)
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time stands as my least favorite modern game from any game series. Penelope originally debuted in Sly 3 as a boss (a boss that wasn't meant to be evil BTW), but in Thieves in Time, she was made completely evil. It all boils down to the writers at Snazaru clearly showing their inability to write a character properly.
Use this stamp if you agree and feel free to share any examples you may have.
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Comments: 79
Did you watch the Disney Revival and the pre-2019 Pixar movies? Those movies had a knack for plot twist surprise villains.
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Unless its done correctly
Handsome jack from borderlands 2 for example
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I actually agree with you there. Trying to turn heroes into villains is no easy task. They have to be executed perfectly and have real good reasons to turn evil in the first place.
Come to think of it, you should probably put another candidate for your stamp: Barriss Offee (Star Wars: The Clone Wars). When she was introduced in earlier seasons, she was and admirable Jedi and Ashoka Tano's best friend. Yet in Season 5, she developed a complex terrorist plot by bombing the Jedi temple, and framing Ashoka for the crime. Had she not been found out by Anakin Skywalker, her best friend would've been sentenced to death! Even worse, her reason for her turning to the dark side was because she saw the Jedi as an army "fighting for the Dark Side" and that they must all be put on trial.
Now for me, that was really poorly executed. Barriss's face-heel turn just came out of nowhere, and we never even see her building up to her having doubts about the Clone Wars! It was really OOC for her! What's even worse was not only did she framed her friend and almost got her killed, but she also was responsible for Ashoka for leaving the Jedi Order after no longer trusting them. And she shows no remorse for this! Thanks a lot Barriss!
So yeah, what you said is true. face-heel turns can be executed greatly if done with the right stuff.
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Good Fiona fox was decent, bad fiona is an embarrassment to all sonic girls who have better development.
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Fiona's story was a flat-out embarrassment of writing.Β
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Exactly, yet rabid Sonic fans eat it up.
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I ran into the same thing with my comic buddies and that unbelievably awful "Civil War" storyline. Written like the script was outsourced to an intern at the ACLU, utterly disregarded 4/5ths ofΒ manyΒ supers' established backgrounds and beliefs for DECADES, and the individual stories read like anΒ open-source project from the worst of the tinfoil-hat lunaticΒ protestersΒ during the Bush administration.Β But I have people to this day arguing how edgy and amazing it was and what a serious warning it is about the dangers of a REAL civil war (like you wouldn't run screaming you simpering pu$$ies...)
Canon with more a$$-pulls than a magician with a poop fetish is not canon.
Canon that makes hash of the characters and makes them go 180 against everything they could possibly stand for is not canon.Β
Canon with a plot written in crayon by retarded toddlers is not canon.
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Developing characters is harder than it looks, huh?
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That's why I'm wishing for constructive feedback on mine...
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Well said, out of nowhere good to evil turns as plot device is not good development. That fricken Sly 4 twist got me so mad. May I post this to tumblr, with credit to you?Β
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By all means. Thanks for agreeing.
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I agree. That's why characters need good and actually reasons for turning evil, even if it is something as simple as jealousy or wanting power for themselves.
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I hate these, especially in fan fiction.
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I don't know too much about Terra and Penelope
Fiona's turn was such a waste of opportunity in my opinion. I'm just surprised he did what he did considering she is all over his Other-M fanfic comic and it looks like he really liked her. If he wanted to try her out as a bad girl why choose betrayal as the method to shift her so far over to evil? In a world of make believe why not go with something that's not so real life like as betrayal? I've been meaning to write my own journal on it but haven't gotten there yet.
I think there were several factors going around during that time period which led to him doing it. It does make you wonder if he had more time if he would have brought her back to at least a more neutral position. We will never know because of the legal issues and the reboot. To me it really sucks that will will never know the end of the story because it sort of looks like she could have gone either way after the jail breakout.
Sally and Fiona are so different I don't understand how the two get confused. One's a tomboy princess and the other started out kidnapped by Robotnik and ended on the wrong side of the law because of who she met and having lost her family (thus being poor and no parental guidance). You just needed to be a little bit more creative on how their personalities are different. He should have played around with her character a little more on the good side before throwing her under the bus like he did. There is a lot of potential in a criminal turned good that a normal "good" guy can't do.
Getting back to your original thought of "good to evil turns are not clever". It's all about personal motivation and with Fiona we were forced to assume all sorts of stuff behind the scenes and a lot of that stuff didn't make sense. The only standout personal motive he gave Fiona was that she liked "bad boys" and that's such a horrible, dumb, unimaginative, and cliche motive. If such a class exists on how to write comic stories, Mr. Flynn's example of Fiona's heel turn outta be the #1 example of how NOT to do it.
I will admit I do like some bad in a character, but Fiona's betrayal and over-the-top slap was so damaging to her character. Everyone hates a traitor, and one worse... a traitor that hits the equivalent cuteness of a puppy.
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Though the above examples have not been done wellΒ
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Well, I didn't say there aren't bad examples.
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But what if the good character is tricked to eat/drink something he doesn't know and without knowing about this before,he turns evil. Is it good or bad good to evil?
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It's kinda understandable. I could forgive good to evil turns (mainly with Cammy in the Street Fighter cartoon and Annie Leonheart in Attack on Titan) since they were forced to betray the heroes. As long as their turns aren't forced moves like the above examples, I could deal with it
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did you ever heard of Xiaolin Showdown?That's where i took the example and i think it's not a bad good to evil
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I've heard of it.
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Terra was made to be evil from the start, that was always planed.
Fiona was boring as all Hell as a good guy, she was just one more fact in the crowd who could have been replaced by anyone.
While I was not too keen on Penelope turning evil, we know next to nothing about her and she was not above cheating and killing off her men as the black baron.
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Though the reveal was wonky.
But to make her a villain instead of working on making her better as a hero and providing proper development? That's just plain stupid.
Again, just writing her off as a complete villain is kinda stupid. She could've just worked as a double agent for the good guys and betray the villains
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Just checking, we talking comics or cartoon?
They tried that, she came off as Sally-Light.
Well it's obvious there is more to her than that, we have to wait from Sly 5 to see where that takes us.
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The cartoon.
that's because none of the Archie Sonic writers have any talent whatsoever. Even Ian Flynn agrees her evil portrayal was a bad move.
Though a villainous trait is far fetched. Sly 5 will probably make up more bullshit
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She was evil in he comics, she was always evil. The cartoon made her more of a lost character, unsure of how she was.
No Ian Flynn said he could have written her transion to evil better but SEGA had him on a tight time seculdule to get Sonic out of that relationship, or something like that. I think she should have just been a one off robot, would have saved everyone trouble.
I don't know, gives her more to do than just be Bentlys girlfriend.
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K.
Just didn't think she deserved to be evil. Why defend incompetence?
Seems me like you wouldn't be the best writer.
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2. Because other than how quickly it was done I like Fiona much better as a villain.
3. Rude.Β
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2. It's only your opinion. But the fact is that it was a forced move. No need to turn a blind eye to flaws.
3. Wasn't intending to be, but just making someone evil because you feel they're useless is just a recepie for disaster.
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I am not, I feel the good far out weighs the bad.
Not that she was useless, just a new angle to tell the story.
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Again, it's your opinion.
But character turning evil is more or less an ace in the hole, and a sign of a lack of competence.
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It's subjective, I guess
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I think Liu Kang (from Mortal Kombat) might turn evil. Apparently, the reason this could happen is because, near the end of MK9's story mode, he gets really pissed off at Raiden due to the deaths of many of Earth's warriors, including Kitana (though she's back in the upcoming MKX).
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