Who has made the transition from baddie to goodie with some success?
when bad guys turn good?
- Thread starter Guy Gardener
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Santeria
Lieutenant Commander
Aeryn Sun from Farscape comes immediately to mind. Though to be fair she was never really a villain. Scorpius might count as well, but I don't know if I'd ever really call him a hero.
Ebeneezer Scrooge is a really famous example, and he's kind of a fantasy character, no? Ditto for Lili von Schtupp from Blazing Saddles?
Beyond that, there's Xena, Emma Frost, and the Silver Surfer just off the top of my head.
Ebeneezer Scrooge is a really famous example, and he's kind of a fantasy character, no? Ditto for Lili von Schtupp from Blazing Saddles?
Beyond that, there's Xena, Emma Frost, and the Silver Surfer just off the top of my head.
The Black Cat in the Spider-Man comics (going back a bit).
Lots of characters in Marvel's Thunderbolts series, if I recall.
Arguably most of Firefly's regular characters in Serenity.
Many vampires seem to start off as kind of already reformed - Angel, Nick Knight, Bill Compton etc.
Depending perhaps on whether you define "baddie" and "goodie" by writer intent or by deductive reasoning, you could through the prism of philanthropy view either Battlestar Galactica's Athena or the same show's Boomer as having made the transition.
Lots of characters in Marvel's Thunderbolts series, if I recall.
Arguably most of Firefly's regular characters in Serenity.
Many vampires seem to start off as kind of already reformed - Angel, Nick Knight, Bill Compton etc.
Depending perhaps on whether you define "baddie" and "goodie" by writer intent or by deductive reasoning, you could through the prism of philanthropy view either Battlestar Galactica's Athena or the same show's Boomer as having made the transition.
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You probably shouldn't count characters created to change from bad to good (such as Silver Surfer, can't really remember about Xena).
Damar on DS9 - and arguably Garak, sort of, though he started off more as ambiguous antihero (?) with a villainous past.
Andrew also started as a villain (however silly and pathetic) and ended up as a good guy.
The Operative in Serenity switched allegiances at the end of the movie.
Alpha turns from the villain into one of the heroes on Dollhouse, but it happened off-screen so I wouldn't exactly call it 'successful' in storytelling terms? Even if they're trying to tell that story now in the comics.
A better example of on-screen redemption in Dollhouse would be Adelle DeWitt and Topher Brink.
In addition, several characters in Buffyverse went from goodie to baddie to goodie again - e.g. Faith (and Willow, but her time as the Big Bad was very short). With Angel it's like a revolving door, though it usually involves soul loss/soul return (but not always, see the comics).
Andrew also started as a villain (however silly and pathetic) and ended up as a good guy.
The Operative in Serenity switched allegiances at the end of the movie.
Alpha turns from the villain into one of the heroes on Dollhouse, but it happened off-screen so I wouldn't exactly call it 'successful' in storytelling terms? Even if they're trying to tell that story now in the comics.
A better example of on-screen redemption in Dollhouse would be Adelle DeWitt and Topher Brink.
Santeria
Lieutenant Commander
Why not? It's only appropriate if they just happen to change due to bad writing and/or poor planning instead?
Doctor Who's eponymous altruist isn't so at first; nor is he a protagonist at that point. He kidnaps some of his first travelling companions in what later turns out to be a stolen ship, possibly prepares to smash a wounded caveman's head and has no problem with endangering his companions to satisfy his own curiosity.
So you're saying that the Empire were the bad guys? Damn, I was rooting for the wrong side!Wow, no one said Darth vader yet? Unless "with some success" means they have to live for a long time afterwards?
Not to mention Caprica Six, and rebel Cylons as a group.
Boomer wasn't exactly a baddie in the beginning, and she went good then bad again then whatever the hell the writers wanted to do with her at the time.
Juliet on Lost started as a baddie and turn into a goodie (though it seems she was never that bad to begin with).
I disagree about the rebel cylons; they were following their own agenda, which imo just happened to not be mutually exclusive with the short-term interests of the colonials. Cap Six's defection, if it was that, seems to have had more to do with her relationship with Baltar than any supposed repudiation of the cylon military campaign. As for Boomer, it's open to debate as to whether she lifts a finger against the colonials after season one. I'm in the "No" camp on that issue.
hmmm... your definition of "good" for some of the characters is a bit too broad. I'm not sure the operative changed to "good," so much as he just became disillusioned with who he was supporting.
And Garak? He seemed to do the stuff he did for Cardassia, and not out of any moral conviction.
Godzilla has been bouncing back and forth for close to 60 years, from living incarnation of a nuclear holocaust to a dinosaur superhero who fights aliens alongside creepily grinning robots. You could argue that as a non-sentient character he shouldn't really count. Then again, he did basically get talked into being good at least once. By Mothra.
Alpha immediately came to mind for me too. I would have liked the show to have enough time to fully flesh out his transition but oh well, and yeah Adelle and Topher could be argued that way, though for them I'd say moral ambivalence was more the starting point. Another really interesting one in Dollhouse was Dominic, because, well, he was the bad guy from Echo's point of view, and from the show's point of view, but because he was working against Rossum, who were then the true villains, he was the good guy, though he had some pretty questionable tactics. By the end, though, he was unquestionably the good guy, from all points of view. I would have liked to see what actually wound up happening to him (though I'm sure it wasn't a happy ending).
Wasn't he a hero in one of the flash forwards?
And his hero status was a bit mirky in the comics.
Full of compromise.
And his hero status was a bit mirky in the comics.
Full of compromise.
On Alias Arvin Sloan went from the bad guy to good guy. Of course that lasted one season and then he went bad again for the final season.
It was so hard to trust him on Brothers and Sisters after all those Shennigans.
A Trek board and nobody's mentioned Q yet? Or Kor, Kang or Koloth...?
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