Heel Face Turn/Playing With
Basic Trope: A bad guy turns into a good guy.
- Straight: Dr. Evilstein turns against Emperor Evulz and starts helping the heroes when he's betrayed by his master one too many times.
- Exaggerated: A guy who has crossed the Moral Event Horizon on a daily basis and is pretty much a Complete Monster suddenly sees the light and turns into a force of good so big that he rivals The Hero himself in goodness.
- Justified:
- His goals are much more readily fulfilled if he works for the heroes than the villains.
- He was disgusted with how evil the main villain was.
- He was a Knight Templar who had a Heel Realization.
- Inverted: See Face Heel Turn.
- Subverted: He's only pretending to turn on the bad guys.
- Double Subverted: He's only pretending to turn on the bad guys... at first, but then he starts Becoming the Mask
- Parodied: The hero gives a speech about The Power of Friendship so Sickeningly Sweet most viewers are in a diabetic coma... and the villain gets heart shaped eyes, stops his Evil Plan and opens an Orphanage of Love.
- Deconstructed: The bad guy switches sides and helps save the day... but rather than find redemption, friendship, love or even gratitude, he promptly goes to jail for all the crimes he's done. By the time he's released he's not hailed as a hero, but forgotten. Those who do know who he is treat him as a reject. Why did he switch sides again?
- Reconstructed: The bad guy weighs the possibilities, realizes that changing sides is profoundly stupid... but still feels Even Evil Has Standards. So he'll help stop this bad guy, and go to jail.
- Zig Zagged: See Face Heel Revolving Door.
- Averted: It's clear right from the beginning that he's still evil... but his goals align with the heroes for now.
- Enforced: "This bad guy is really popular; we need to make him into a hero so we don't get into trouble with the Moral Guardians."
- Lampshaded: "I was upstaged by an Eldritch Abomination that wants to eat our planet, changing sides may be cliche, but it's also sane."
- Invoked: "You never know, he might stop his plot if we can convince him using the Artifact of Death will kill all life on Earth."
- Defied: "You think I'll stop just because it would save the life of my beloved? Hahahaha! That's funny!"
- Discussed: "You know, it always seems these Noble Demon types find Redemption in The Rain".
- Conversed: "Well, whaddya know, the most sympathetic of the bad guys was redeemed. Never saw that coming."
Back to Heel Face Turn.