Evil All Along

The hero is searching for a very special treasure. Too bad he doesn't know his way around. He meets a very nice person who offers to help the hero find the treasure. But wait, wasn't the temple supposed to be toward the south? Then why are you walking north? And why won't his guide answer his questions? And oh drat, there's the Big Bad. That "guide" was his minion, and thus evil all along.

Variation: If the guide turns out not to be just a minion, but the bad guy himself, he was the Big Bad all along. However, it may be that the Evil All Along was fake, and the person in question was Good All Along. It could also be that the person in question made a Heel Face Turn.

Compare and contrast Good All Along. Heel Face Turn might be an effect of this trope. See Hidden Evil for subtypes. Compare Big Bad Friend.

Anime and Manga
""The Aizen you knew...never even existed.""
 * of Pandora Hearts.
 * Pokémon
 * This trope is used all the times in the anime, with Team Rocket always disguising themselves.
 * Other examples exist, like in the movie Pokémon: Jirachi Wishmaker, where Butler seems like a good guy, but is actually evil and tries to abuse Jirachi. He does make a Heel Face Turn, however.
 * And Domino from Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns, who seems like a good-natured ditzy teenage girl but actually a mean, hyper-efficient Team Rocket operative who is working directly under Giovanni.
 * In Digimon Adventure 02, Ken was the evil Digimon emperor all along. This is made glaringly obvious from his first appearance onwards.
 * Kabuto from Naruto actually did manage to pull off the "helpful, harmless stranger" routine pretty well. From his personality, to his appearance there's very little to tip you off to his being a threat.
 * Blackbeard from One Piece encourages Luffy to continue to pursue his dreams after he is mocked by another pirate crew. This guy would go on to defeat Luffy's elder brother Ace, and hand him over to the World Government. Once his and Luffy's goals crossed over in Impel Down, he gloated about his in his face, provoking a small fight.
 * The anime version of Blue Dragon has one of these in the form of near the end of the series. Though it appears at first that it's just a simple Face Heel Turn, the characters try to fool themselves into thinking that. Evidence in the last episodes proves otherwise.
 * In chapter 50 of Mirai Nikki, Akise claims that.
 * In the last minutes of the final episode of Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt
 * from Hellsing (only in the manga).
 * Bleach
 * Aizen.


 * Rasati and Lillia's guardian in Elemental Gelade. He broadcasts it from a mile away, but Rasati doesn't seem to notice.
 * from Nabari no Ou.
 * Hathcliff from Sword Art Online acted like a benefactor to the heroes for a long time, before being revealed to be the in-game avatar of the Big Bad himself. Ironically, most fans of the series find this rather obvious in hindsight, given how he seemed to be a Boring Invincible Hero before The Reveal.
 * Frost, from  Dragon Ball Super. Maybe fans - and Goku - were suspicious of him at first, seeing as he was, you know, an alternate dimension equivalent of Freiza, but at first the guy seemed to be a decent sort, acting polite, honorable, and courteous to the heroes. Turned out the initial suspicions were correct, and he was just as much a narcissistic fiend as the original, he just hid it better. (Seems one constant in the multiverse is that Freiza will always be a murderous weasel.) Still, this deception didn't help him much, as he not only got his ass soundly kicked by Goku,  but by the real Freiza too.
 * Frost, from  Dragon Ball Super. Maybe fans - and Goku - were suspicious of him at first, seeing as he was, you know, an alternate dimension equivalent of Freiza, but at first the guy seemed to be a decent sort, acting polite, honorable, and courteous to the heroes. Turned out the initial suspicions were correct, and he was just as much a narcissistic fiend as the original, he just hid it better. (Seems one constant in the multiverse is that Freiza will always be a murderous weasel.) Still, this deception didn't help him much, as he not only got his ass soundly kicked by Goku,  but by the real Freiza too.

Comic Books

 * In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Rita’s alchemist Finster seemed the least evil among the bad guys. He was polite, good natured, and friendly and seemed to hold no personal malice towards the heroes; fans often considered him a Punch Clock Villain who was Loyal to the Position. However… The comic book adaptation Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2017 Annual included a story called “Perfect” that gave a dark and tragic background to Rita’s alchemist. Thousands of years ago (over 10,000 at leasrt, seeing as that was how long he was imprisoned with Rita) he was a native of a peaceful and idyllic world called Claydoious, where he was a simple craftsman, who had a loving wife named Plepra. He took to sculpting monsters, and later using alchemy to bring them to life, out of boredom. He claimed he saw an odd majesty in such monstrosities, claiming there could be beauty even in the ugliest of things. One day, however, one of his creations turned feral and went on a rampage through his village. Finster did nothing to react to this other than watch the destruction out the window of his workshop, seemingly proud of what he had created. When Plepra discovered this, and his macabre hobby in the process, she tried to restrain him hoping to get him help (likely their world's version of a psychiatrist or exorcist, as she believed her husband was insane or cursed) but Finster didn't want help, a fight broke out, ending in poor Plepra falling and breaking her neck; he had killed her. While it was an accident, Finster panicked, horrified at what he had done (and also horrified at what his people would do to him) - but that was when Rita launched an attack on the village. Finster was the only one speared, Rita telling him she saw potential in his work and offering to let him use far more powerful magic to create his "art". Finster agreed, and would be Rita's servant from then on, but it got much worse. Over the centuries, Finster tried to use this craft in an attempt to restore his wife, creating new bodies for her out of clay and using her hair clippings to infuse her soul into the sculpture. But each time, she rejected him and his work, and each time he struck out and and killed her (clearly not by accident now), only to repeat the process again and again, each time telling himself that what he created was a crude copy, ultimately striving to create his wife in a way where she would accept him and his work. Ultimately, it seems Finster's cheery attitude is a result of hardening himself and refusing to accept that his "art" is an abomination, his wife is gone forever, and her death was nobody's fault but his.

Films -- Animation

 * In Disney's Aladdin, Jafar was the bad guy all along. This is fairly obvious to the audience; the characters themselves find out the hard way when Jafar tries to have Aladdin murdered, then steals the lamp and takes over.
 * In Disney's Tarzan, in turns out Clayton was planning all along to capture and sell Tarzan's gorilla family.
 * Obviously, Ursula was it in Disney's version of The Little Mermaid, but that one was very much expected.
 * Scar in The Lion King was evil all along, he even killed his brother when he had the chance.
 * In the movie Ice Age, Diego is Evil All Along. He makes a Heel Face Turn however, and becomes a member of the crew in the sequels.
 * In the Kim Possible movie So The Drama, the boy for whom Kim falls turns out to be evil.
 * And a robot.
 * In Atlantis the Lost Empire, Rourke and the other mercenaries (basically, everyone on the expedition but Milo) were Evil All Along. Fortunately a Downer Ending is averted when everyone but Rourke and Helga do a Heel Face Turn.
 * from Shark Tale.
 * from Rango.
 * Toy Story
 * from Toy Story 2.
 * And from Toy Story 3.
 * Igor's Know-Nothing Know-It-All mentor Dr. Glickenstein from Igor.

Films -- Live-Action

 * Indiana Jones
 * Used in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which the guide at the beginning runs away with the treasure.
 * Neither Professor Jones Sr. or Jr. smelled the Honey Trap in The Last Crusade. Was anyone else surprised?
 * Also in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy's friend
 * In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Senator Palpatine turns out to be Darth Sidious, the head of the Sith. And he's been playing both the Republic and the Separatists, along with the Jedi, for complete schmucks. Of course this was not a surprise to anyone seeing as people knew he'll be the emperor.
 * In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Jen Yu / Yu Jiaolong had pretty much everyone fooled and feeling sympathetic. After all, in this day and age, who doesn't feel sorry for an aristocrat's daughter who dreams of a warrior's life, being forced into an Arranged Marriage? Then the movie gets deeper, and reveals the lengths she is going to in order to pursue her dream, learning martial arts from the notorious thief Jade Fox using a  cursed sword and becoming a cold-blooded killer. Still  somewhat sympathetic, but not as much.
 * This is done as a Wham! Line in Evil Dead. (The 2013 remake, not the original.) In the first scene of the movie, a man is shown grabbing a teenage girl, then ties her up and douses her with gasoline, as she pleads for mercy through tears. Since this is a horror movie, it seems obvious who the villain is here... Until the girl's eyes gain Hellish Pupils, her voice turns inhuman, and the pleas turn to profanity-laced threats. Who's the monster here? Not the guy with the gasoline...
 * In The Ring, Samara is set up as a Tragic Villain, and when Rachel recovers her body, it seems she might have a chance at redemption. No such luck; there is nothing redeemable about Samara, and she has no regrets whatsoever for her crimes. Rachel is only spared because she copied the tape, enabling Samara to widen the scope of her evil, and the only way her son can stay safe is for him to do so too. Of course, in retrospect, there were quite a few signs of this that Samara was darker than she appeared, but few could predict just how much of a monster she was.
 * A Nightmare On Elm Street 2010; this movie starts with a bold insinuation that maybe, just maybe, Freddy Kruger himself had been unjustly accused, the true monster being society as a whole. Indeed, the scene where he's burned alive by an angry lynch mob does a good job of portraying him as more victim than villain, and that it was a miscarriage of justice brought about by mass-hysteria in the era of "Satanic panic". It was a chilling possibility that seemed somewhat convincing - until halfway through the film where it is clarified in grossly exploitative terms that no, he's the same sadistic pedophile and child-killer he always was. And given overall reaction to the film, it's obvious They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot.

Literature

 * Harry Potter
 * Subverted: it appears that was evil all along after . But then it turns out that.
 * A more straight example: Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Ron's pet rat Scabbers, who turns out to be the one who betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort and concealed himself as a rat for 12 years, leaving his friend Sirus Black to receive the blame.
 * There's also the matter of Mad-Eye Moody in Harry Potter. Even though it's not really Mad-Eye, but Ax Crazy Barty Crouch Jr. impersonating him, it's still an Evil All Along situation.
 * Nicolae Carpathia in the Left Behind books, though nobody but the Tribulation Force and those who have once been in Nicolae's close circle of friends really know just how evil Nicolae is under the public persona he projected up to the midpoint of the Tribulation. After he is indwelt by Satan, Nicolae's façade slowly cracks and the public gets to see the true person underneath. Strangely, though, Jesus berated Nicolae in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech, saying to him that You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good, which became a point of contention for some readers.
 * In Jack Vance's The Gray Prince, the titular Prince was a childhood friend to heroine Schaine; and for most of the book she firmly keeps in mind that, whatever his present political views, he once saved her brother's life. And then it turns out he in fact hated their family to the point of deliberately allowing her brother to be horribly injured and only claimed credit for the deed later.
 * Played with, though not exactly subverted, in Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker, as She is surprised, but  Best line:
 * The Dresden Files: in Changes turns out to be a Red Court infiltrator.
 * In Treasure Island, Long John Silver at first seems like a friendly and helpful fellow, hired to be the cook for the expedition. It isn't found out until later that he is one of Captain Flint's original pirate crew, and possibly the only man Flint himself ever feared. The same goes for his men, and some are even more evil than he is, such as Israel Hands; Jim tries to help the injured Hands (who was hurt after he and the other pirates foolishly fought amongst each other), only for the pirate to turn on Jim and try to kill him.

Live-Action TV

 * True Blood tends to do this a lot, especially with their Big Bad of the season. As it turned out, was just hiding behind his nice exterior while being a bloodthirsty sexist murderer, and in a more extreme example,  who turned out to be a freaking homicidal Maenad. Season three followed suit with the Faux Affably Evil  who quickly turns into a genocidal maniac, and season four arguably averts it by giving it's Big Bad  a bit of a Face Heel Turn. Or rather, it shows her Start of Darkness.
 * Played somewhat straight with Rev. Newlin (Jr.); although it was clear from the beginning on he was more than just another bigot, few viewers were expecting him to turn into a full-fledged villain who imprisons the protagonists and wants to burn another character to death. Given, no-one was expecting him to become
 * What about the fairies?
 * in Dollhouse. Turns out he was secretly the Big Bad all along and running a ridiculously complex Evil Plan with Echo and co. at the center. And he seemed like such a nice guy. Although he wasn't completely evil. He was more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist in the end.
 * Cassidy in Veronica Mars: He starts by raping Veronica lying about it but he becomes truly evil in Season 2. He kills a bus full of his classmates, a witness could turn him in, and 3 people on a plane. This wasn't revealed until the finale but yes he was evil.
 * On Game of Thrones, it's difficult to find anyone truly wearing a white hat, but many characters believed to be A Lighter Shade of Grey turned out to be blacker than most:
 * Petyr Baelish, aka "Littlefinger". For a while, most assumed he was on the side of Good, being an owner of brothels a forgivable crime among the sadistic murderers and rapists among the main cast. Eventually, however, he proved a Chessmaster and Manipulative Bastard on nobody's side but his own, using whatever means necessary - no matter how immoral or cruel - to gain the information needed to influence anyone, be them friends, rivals, allies, or enemies. The concept of loyalty was unknown to him, which makes his final defeat (which was possible due to loyalty between siblings) ironic and karmic.
 * The High Sparrow seemed at first to be somewhat benevolent; after all, Cersi was clearly the greater evil, and could a clergyman who opposes - and punishes her with public humiliation - be that bad? Well, yes, as his extremism clearly ended up going too far. An unforgiving perfectionist to a fault, he quickly became the embodiment of "taking it to far", his form of justice only begetting more injustice.
 * Walder Frey. Sure, guy was a pervert and a Dirty Old Man, but he seemed harmless, most famous for not joining Robert's rebellion until he was certain of its success. He was at least loyal to his allies and liege. Then came the Red Wedding... In hindsight, the revelation that he was a double-crossing fiend was actually easy to predict.
 * This Trope is very, very common in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. To illustrate, in the first scene of the first episode a jock-type student is bringing his shy, reluctant girlfriend into the school at night, his words suggesting he's trying to reach first base, so to speak. Seeing as this series is about vampires, the first thought might be that this guy is, in fact, a vampire and is going to attack her. Nope. Other way around.
 * And it doesn't get easier. The Scoobies think Morgan’s Demonic Dummy is the killer? Nope, the dummy is the good guy, Morgan is the killer. ("Puppet Show") The Scoobies think Amy’s mother is a witch and poor Amy is under her thrall? Technically true, except the person they think is Amy is her mother, who has stolen her daughter’s body. (“The Witch”) They think the students who kill poor Principal Flutie are possessed by demonic hyenas? They are, but the true threat is the zookeeper trying to gain their power for himself. (“The Pack”) And all that is just the first half of season one. The trend continues throughout the whole series, with Buffy and the Scoobies assuming a classmate or a more Genre Savvy adult is the victim of an obvious-looking threat, or only to discover the classmate or savvy adult is the mastermind behind the threat.
 * Power Rangers SPD,

Radio

 * Several times in Dickensian parody Bleak Expectations, the person helping Pip Bin with his latest scheme, such as the engineer who Pip employed to build a sewage system under London, is blatantly his evil nemesis Mr Gently Benevolent (in that case planning to dig out the capital, float it across the Channel with hot air balloons and sell it to the French).

Video Games

 * In Dead or Alive: Dimensions Genra is revealed to be a manipulative and power-hungry man, willing to do anything to get revenge for playing second-fiddle to the main branch of the clan. and that his loyalty and honer is just a facade to hide it
 * In the part in Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time where Princess Peach gets a purple mushroom on her face—it's not Peach. It was Princess Shroob the whole time, trying to take over the future castle.
 * Fire Emblem
 * In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, this happens to Lyon. Of course, everyone knows he's being devoured by the demon king, but that doesn't stop the main characters from believing he's still good.
 * Lyon is an interesting case where he actually invokes this trope to get Ephraim motivated to kill him so that he could die before the Demon King brings about the end of the world. He claims that all of their time they spent together as children he was pumping the siblings for information for the invasion of their kingdom just to make Ephraim angry enough to actually kill him.
 * Also, Orson appears to be evil all along too, but unlike Lyon, you can actually play him as a character. Later he appears as a boss.
 * In Another Code for the DS, Ashley's father's old coworker was evil all along, having killed Ashley's mother and stuff.
 * Eternal Darkness: At the start of Lindsey's chapter, a friendly patron by the name of Paul Augustine leads him to the Cambodian temple where Mantorok is entombed. Then it turns out that Augustine was actually Pious using an illusion spell.
 * In the Nintendo DS version of Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter, you get a new Raposa to join the gang, named Sock. You find him in a town where he doesn't live, and he goes with you to find his real home. Well, you're supposed to believe that. Near the end of the game Sock asks for a valuable item, gets it from Jowee, and throws it away. He then appears to be Wilfre all along. It also goes for Mari a bit, although she just thought she would help everyone by it (she worked with Wilfre).
 * In Pokémon Colosseum, the mayor of Phenac city is actually the head of Cipher. In Pokémon XD, the same goes for Mr. Verich.
 * In Pokémon Ranger an old man you help, named Gordon, is actually the head if the Go-Rock squad. In Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, a teacher in the ranger school, Mr. Kincaid, actually works for an evil organisation Team Dim Sun. Also The organisation Altru and their leader Blake Hall are evil, while you don't know that till the end of the game.
 * In the first two Professor Layton games, the antagonist Don Paolo disguises himself as other people. He's disguised as Inspector Chelmey in The Curious Village and as Flora in Pandora's box.
 * The mysterious wizard who occasionally helps you out in Final Fantasy Adventure is eventually revealed as Julius, who's been using you the entire time to get his hands on the girl and her Mana Pendant. Retconned out in the Sword of Mana remake.
 * In her BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger story mode, Noel is accompanied by a mild-mannered pacifist intelligence officer named "Hazama." If you've seen trailers for Continuum Shift, you'll recognize him as Terumi, the Complete Monster behind the events of Calamity Trigger. What did he want from Noel? To Mind Rape her to take Nu-13's place as a living weapon of mass destruction.
 * Played with in Knights of the Old Republic, when it turns out that.
 * Maria in Silent Hill 2. To add insult to injury, you spend a lot of her "good guy" time trying to keep her alive.
 * In Paladin's Quest, the student who goes with you to the forbidden tower on the academy grounds and goads you into accidentally freeing Dal Gren at the very beginning of the game is revealed at the end of it to be the Big Bad Evil Overlord Zaygos in disguise.
 * Kingdom Hearts: Ansem, the researcher who was studying The Heartless whose reports the player has been running all across the worlds to find. Turns out, he's the Big Bad and The Man Behind the Man.
 * In Bomberman 64,  presents himself as Bomberman's ally and even aids him in reaching Altair's fortress and battling its guardians only so that he could steal the Omni Cube from Altair and use its power to conquer the universe. When his plan succeeds, he thanks Bomberman by putting "Destroy Planet Bomber" first on his list of things to do.
 * We also have from Kirby Super Star & Ultra.
 * The Soda Poppers from Sam and Max Freelance Police want revenge in season 2 of the game series.
 * In OFF, intended to destroy the world all along.
 * in Tales of Monkey Island.
 * In the alternate timeline of Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, it's revealed that was the Big Bad all along. As soon as the reveal occurs.
 * Baten Kaitos
 * Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean does a very unusual form of this.
 * Origins does a more standard version:
 * The Assassin's Creed II "Lost Archives" DLC reveals that
 * In BioShock (series), this is part of the main plot twist that occurs about 2/3rds of the way through the game. (
 * Happens practically Once Per Episode in the Dead Space series.
 * Ys SEVEN plays around with a lot of JRPG tropes. One of the major plot twists is that the Big Bad of the game is actually, of all people,
 * In Dead Island,  This is complicated even further in the single-player DLC where you actually play as Ryder White, and
 * River City Girls, from the Kunio-Kun series;
 * The sequel
 * Braid combines this with
 * James from Silent Hill 2, kinda sorta, although also The Atoner. He claims at first he is searching through this hellish place after receiving a letter from his wife, whom he believed was dead, having succumbed to some disease. In truth, James killed his wife (a Mercy Kill, at least, the part about the disease being true) and all the dark monsters he must face are embodiments of his guilt, created to force him to come to terms with what he's done. Success earns him redemption as a reward; failure results in horrific death and damnation as a punishment.
 * In Mortal Kombat 9 and onward, Sindel was a hard character to like, given her part in the slaughter of the Earthrealm Warriors; not helped by her attitude in X where she tries to convince Cassie she is loving mother to Kitana (who is now a reverent due to what happened) and "offers" the same "upbringing" to Cassie. Despite this, fans still considered her more victim than villain, given her seemingly tragic backstory: forced to marry Shao Kahn after he invaded Edienia, murdered Sindel’s husband Jerrod, and eventually committing suicide from grief, then later resurrected as a Brainwashed and Crazy slave, forced to become a living weapon. How can you condemn a woman who has been through that? Well, in the DLC story mode Aftermath, all that is proven to be a lie. Shang Tsung convinces the good guys to resurrect her precisely because her heroic, non-brainwashed personality will help ensure their success against Kronika. What she does instead is join with Shao Kahn and, between them, help Shang Tsung basically wreck everything the good guys have been trying to accomplish for their own ambitions while proclaiming genuine love for one another. As this happens it's revealed that her death was not a suicide, but murder by sorcerer Quan Chi; she was not forced to marry Shao Kahn but did so of her own will, much preferring how he would flaunt his power and privilege in true Evil Overlord fashion to Jerrod's being a ruler for and of the people. Worst of all, Jerrod was killed not by Shao Kahn, but by Sindel herself. Having revealed her true self as a beast even darker than she was as a reverent, Sindel lost almost all the support she had.
 * Wesker, from Resident Evil. Even if you're going into the first game "blind" and know nothing about the franchise's overall lore, the leader of the STARS team (which the heroes are members of) is pretty suspicious. He looks evil, sounds evil, tends to disappear just when he'd be useful and never gives straight answers as to why; frankly, it comes as no surprise to most players when they find out he is evil, although he gets far more evil in subsequent games.

Web Comics

 * In Sluggy Freelance, has always been working for HeretiCorp - not a literal guide, but subtly guiding the heroes to do what HeretiCorp wanted nonetheless. Do an archive binge and see the subtle clues that were there all along.

Web Original

 * In The Gamers Alliance, several seemingly heroic characters such as Cain, Desdemona, Mordecai and Vaetris end up having been evil all along during the Godslayer era.

Western Animation

 * In Totally Spies!, Terrance and Dean first seem like Dean was evil all along. Then Dean turned out to be good all along. The same goes for the episode in which Tim Scam was introduced. It also applies for a lot of "villains of the day".
 * In one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, Plankton pretends he's going to help SpongeBob to become more assertive. He actually wanted everyone away from the beach, which all the viewers already knew.
 * In season two of Winx Club, the new teacher appears to be an evil impostor in the end.
 * Alpha Teens On Machines has an interesting example of this trope.
 * Joe Tabootie from ChalkZone in season 2,3 & 4
 * The Angry Cop from The Goode Family episode "Gerold's Way or The Highway".
 * Gobsmack in Pearlie.
 * Vlad, the Russian teacher from Shuriken School was the main antagonist in the episode "Class Photo".
 * Peppermint Larry from ''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack'.
 * and  from Tak and the Power of Juju.
 * In his first appearance on Kim Possible, Kim doesn't realize that Monkey Fist is a villain.
 * In season 2 of Wakfu, Qilby appears to be a friendly mentor to Yugo. He's actually an insane Omnicidal Maniac scheming to claim the Eliacube so he can go back to draining entire worlds of their wakfu.
 * In Shantae and the Seven Sirens, the heroine meets Armor Baron, a brother of her old foe Ammo Baron. Armor Baron insists he's more benevolent than his greedy industrialist brother, even offering to make "genie armor" for Shantae and Sky, so long as Shantae brings him the materials. However, it turns out Armor Baron is, if anything, even worse than his brother, as the "genie armor" turns out to be restraints that he uses to sell the pair to Squid Baron as "life-size" collectible action figures. He's also a Dirty Coward, and if Shantae confronts him later, he pays her off to avoid getting his clock cleaned.