#the guy who abused and groomed him to the dark side and the SS-esque general who blew up 5 planets

[lord-squiggletits]

There's very much a vibe sometimes of like, if a character does a heel-face turn and becomes redeemed, it shows that despite their initial flaws/evil there was always a good person inside of them waiting to come out.

But if a character starts good and does a face-heel turn to become evil, clearly it means their goodness was a fake/not that important to who they were and they were an evil bad apple all along

Even though like.... the majority of villains who get redeemed are usually shown to have been normal, good/neutral people to start, and it was only great tragedies that turned them evil in the first place in many cases. So the true summary of their lives is usually Good -> Evil -> Good Again

But if a character starts good, their narrative trajectory is often just Good -> Evil and then stops there.

So it seems to be a case of narrative trajectory I guess. If someone starts good and turns evil then it's expected that "evil" is meant to be the sum of their journey/character development, and if someone starts evil and turns good then "good" is the summary of their being.

Honestly I think one of the funniest narrative...tropes? Tendencies? Unexamined biases? in stories is the fact that in many cases, characters who do face-heel turns (go from good to evil) are often more reviled both by the narrative and the fanbase than the characters who started as evil and even stay as evil?

Like idk it does make sense bc I suppose there's a feeling of betrayal (in universe and IRL) when someone you thought was a good person ends up being horrible and went against all the principles you thought you shared.

But on the other hand it genuinely feels like (narratively speaking) when a character is a designated Evil Guy and is just evil and an asshole, they get less shit (narratively and by fans) for being evil bc it's as if people go, "yeah the evil character is evil, what else did you expect?" And so the evil guy being evil doesn't stop writers/fans from exploring their potential and fleshing them out. Y'know, that whole thing about how villains are often more interesting than heroes bc heroes are expected to follow one set of morality ("being good") while there are many, many ways to be Evil.

So characters who do face-heel turns seem to be hated more even when their crimes are less severe than people who were evil from the start