Heel Face Turn: Difference between revisions

* Used twice in ''[[Naruto]]'''s "Land of Waves" arc. Traitorous ninja Zabuza and his androgynous young henchman Haku, whom he habitually mistreats, have been hired by gangster Gato to stop the Land of Waves villagers from building a bridge that will be economically vital to their island. Naruto and his friends are sent to make sure the bridge gets built. When Haku seems to kill Sasuke, Naruto swears [[Revenge]] until he learns of Haku's tragic past, which calms him down (besides, Haku made sure that Sasuke is [[Not Quite Dead]]). Then, Haku does a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save Zabuza, and the rogue ninja's guilt over his abuse of his dead partner causes him to [[Freak-Out]]; Zabuza switches sides, killing Gato before getting killed himself.

** It's better than that! Haku dies nobly and Zabuza is unfeeling about it, and Naruto ''in the middle of a freaking ninja battle'', freaks out at him about how much Haku cared and how wrong this is, until the Demon of the Mist turns around slowly...and there are tears running down his cheeks.

** Twice in the "Land of Waves" arc, but far more frequently later. Hyuga Naji, who is half-inspired by Naruto's (an obvious [[The Messiah]]) victory into rethinking his fatalistic [[Jerkass]]-itude and goes on to claim that Naruto saved him. Or Gaara, who is so stunned by Naruto's empathy and suckerpunch, that he stops living to kill people and begins living to help people, enough to become the Kazekage!

*** Gai and Lee were important to this process, too.

** The very night after the angle ended, Austin was looking to wreak vengeance upon [[Kurt Angle]] for interfering in his fight with The Rock and costing the Alliance the victory. Despite the fact that Angle was saving the WWE, when Austin beat the crap out of Angle, the crowd erupted as if the last few months since Wrestlemania X-Seven never happened. The fans were just happy to have a Stone Cold they could cheer again. It was the most jarring, abrupt heel face turn in the history of prowrestling... and nobody had a problem with it.

* Oddly enough, WWE heel [[Chris Jericho]] has been doing a nightly version of this -- while still a heel on PPV and the other shows, on the rookie-oriented show NXT he pretty much becomes a Face in the eyes of [[Smark|Smarks]] whenever he joins Josh Matthews and [[Michael Cole]] on commentary, as he is sheer ''gold''. He's also the "Pro" who's been most helpful to his rookie, Wade Barrett, and has gone out of his way on commentary to talk Barrett up, at one point demanding that Matthews and Cole do so too:

'''Jericho:''' MORE! }}

** And during Season 2, Team [[Lay Cool]] (Layla and Michelle McCool) turned face to cheer on Kaval (some may know him better as [[Low Ki]]). They still retained some heel values because they're making him carry their Women’s Titles (at the time of season 2, [[Lay Cool]] called themselves co-champions even though Layla was the official champion).