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{{trope}}
{{quote|''It's kind of funny, but I was just thinking that the only time [[Team Rocket|Jessie and James]] were on the winning side is when they sided with us...''|'''Tracey''', ''[[Pokémon (
When a long running series has a [[Harmless Villain]], a villain who can't go two steps without screwing up their whole plans and being completely humiliated by the heroes, occasionally the character might have a change of heart, be zapped by some strange device, or simply be tired of losing. In any case, he might [[Heel Face Turn|turn good]], or otherwise [[Enemy Mine|join the heroes]]. Upon doing this, a revelation will be made: when fighting for the side of good, suddenly the idiot who couldn't even get a clear cut plan together is [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|taking care of business left and right!]]
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# If [[Status Quo Is God]], then some occurrence will cause the villain to [[Chronic Villainy|turn evil again]], but not before both the hero and the villain [[Not So Different|gain some new insight into each other]].
# Rarely, the villain will stay good, and throw off his [[Villain Ball]] shackles (or keep them, depending on how much comedy factors into things), possibly becoming a [[Sixth Ranger]].
# The villain will die, be [[Put
In any case, such storylines always add flair to the characters on the show, because now you know that, even though they continue to [[Card-Carrying Villain|say they're evil time and time again]], you know that there's a good guy in there somewhere (cue [[Pet the Dog|"awwwww..."]]), much to his/her chagrin, though they probably [[Good Feels Good|secretly enjoyed it]].
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== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Pokémon (
** If you look at their pre-anime timeline flashback episodes, Jessie and James are pretty serious. Even when they became goofier/more open toward each other and friendlier toward each other, they were good criminals. Though, soon after they met Ash...they became the "lovable losers" that they are today.
** Subverted [[Not So Harmless|as]] [[Darker and Edgier|HELL]] [[Took a Level In Badass|as of]] ''Best Wishes''. They are very competent, goal-minded, and NEVER ONCE "blasted off" since then.
* Grandis, Hanson, and Sanson from the ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'' started out as a [[Goldfish Poop Gang|highly]] [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|inept]] [[Terrible Trio]] who always lost to Nadia. Yet after making a permanent [[Heel Face Turn]], they're powers and skills proved to be extremely essential. Hanson was able to shine as a [[Gadgeteer Genius]], even smarter then the [[Kid Hero]] protagonist in that area, Sanson's [[Charles Atlas Superpower|super strength]] saved the gang dozens of times, and Grandis showed herself as a capable leader
* Viral in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' is a quintessential example. Prior to his [[Heel Face Turn]] he was a permanent victim of [[Villain Decay]], each vow of new determination to avenge his slain allies or regain his honor only making the next beatdown even more painfully abrupt. But once he {{spoiler|joins Simon to save the Earth}} he demonstrates his masterful skill as a brilliant copilot whose sole handicap is his relative lack of Spiral energy. (And even that may be [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
* Jeremiah in ''[[Code Geass]]'' became more competent after his [[Heel Face Turn]]. Of course, being [[We Can Rebuild Him|upgraded]] to a bulletproof [[Hollywood Cyborg|cyborg]] helped...
** Possibly because the words "Zero" and "Orange" stop being a [[Berserk Button]] for him, and the revelation that Lelouch and Nunnally are alive gave him a chance to shed his [[Failure Knight]] status.
*** Before his conversion he was a broken man. Afterwards he had everything to fight for ... and was unexpectedly popular.
** Same goes to his sort-of "succesor", {{spoiler|Patrick Colasaur}} from [[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]].
* Justified in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' with Evangeline. She starts out powerful enough to cause Negi and Asuna trouble. Turns out she wasn't fighting too hard. All her later appearances she's just generally more powerful than she was before, beating down every hero the series has and one arc pulling a [[Big Damn Heroes]] and destroying a [[Sealed Evil in
* Shuten Doji/Anubis from ''[[Ronin Warriors]]'', who becomes even more powerful after breaking free from Talpa's mind control {{spoiler|and even going on to take over the mantle of the Ancient One when the previous one died}}.
* Fate Testarossa of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' got stronger after her [[Heel Face Turn]] (getting proper training from Chrono [[All There in the Manual|in-between seasons]] helped). Same with Signum and Vita in the third season. Also played straight in StrikerS; when {{spoiler|Ginga Nakajima}} is brainwashed, she cannot use anything but her Inherent Skills.
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** The key difference is that the victory-or-death scenarios he faces with Yusuke force him to do desperate things to reinvent himself. He gains massive power by mastering the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, which most demons would never even attempt, because it's just as likely to kill them as their opponents.
** Several of Team Urameshi's old opponents from the Dark Tournament (Chu, Rinku, Jin, Toya, Suzuki, Shishiwakamaru) ally with Kurama and undergo [[Training From Hell]], becoming almost as powerful as Kurama himself.
* Beelzebumon from ''[[Digimon Tamers]]''. A pseudo-[[Deal
*** [[Power of Love|"I've never felt this kind of power before...!"]]
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== Fan Fic ==
* This is pretty much the basis for the [[Fan Fic Recommendations|recommended fanfic]] ''The Shocker: Legit''.
* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
== Film ==
* Green Goblin in ''[[Spider
== Live Action TV ==
* Played straight in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' with {{spoiler|Noah}} Bennet, aka HRG. After his [[Heel Face Turn]] he STILL keeps a serious amount of competency and shrewdness. {{spoiler|Taking down an angry lunatic in midair, taking out and torturing an electric hurling assassin, killing his mentor in cold blood, and utterly owning the annoying manager of the copy store where he worked.}} The only noted exception being with the activities of his teenage daughter but to his defense is there ANY TV dad who is competent in that regard?
* Sheriff Roscoe from ''[[Dukes of Hazzard]]'' would occasionally show more cleverness than usual when he was striving for a noble goal, such as tricking Enos into a prison cell in order to stop him from doing something that would get him fired. It's even mentioned several times in the series that he used to be the best sheriff in the county, before he started working for Boss Hogg and became the bumbler that he is.
* [[Star Trek|Klingons]] on the side of the Federation (during the ''[[Star Trek:
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* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', Johnny Sasaki was a [[Punch Clock Villain]], ineffective and nearly too dumb to live. By MGS4, he has switched side because of the [[Power of Love]], but is still ineffective... until mid game, where he begins to take several level of Badass. By the end of the saga, the [[Butt Monkey]] [[Punch Clock Villain]] has become a super sexy [[Big Damn Hero]] [[Badass Normal]] who get the girl and the happy ending.
** To be fair, part of the reason Johnny often appears so disastrously inept is because he's an everyman amidst supermen. It's explained in the latter part of MGS4 that he {{spoiler|has a serious phobia of needles, which keeps him from getting the nanomachine injections that endows the rest of the military with elite capabilities. As a result, not only does he lack some of the basic technical structures (such as the internal radar), he also gets hurt/sick easier and more often than his teammates, and his PTSD isn't psychologically suppressed.}} Johnny isn't the brightest crayon in the box, but he's not ''completely'' incompetent.
* This happens with [[Super Mario Bros.|Bowser]] in a few games. Usually, this is because the player can control him so he doesn't [[What an Idiot!|get tricked into stuff like jumping to let enemies pass]], [[What an Idiot!|smashing through the floor into a]] [[Bottomless Pit
** And nowhere is this more true than in ''[[Mario and Luigi Bowsers Inside Story
* In ''[[Super Robot Wars|Super Robot Wars Original Generations 2]]'' bad guy Arado had stats worse than your average mook when he fights you, but instantly becomes much more capable after he joins you. This is especially notable because he goes through a lot of training, and figuring out what skills his best at.
* In ''[[
** She doesn't play it completely straight, though. When she turns, she has to relearn her Fiery Jinx spell by leveling up - though when she does relearn it, it's still several times stronger.
** Possibly justified in that she was unhappy working with her sisters, and thus never fought at full strength along with her sisters because she didn't have any emotion behind it. When she joins Mario, she feels relived and is able to work better now that she has a reason.
* In ''[[Half Life]]'', where the Vortigaunts are enemies, they're low-to-mid-range opponents who aren't too much to worry about. By ''[[
** By ''Half-Life 2: Episode 1'', Vortigaunts are shown to be powerful enough to {{spoiler|oppose the god-like power of the G-Man himself}} and by ''Episode 2'' they're {{spoiler|resurrecting the dead and (it's implied) battling the insanely powerful Combine Advisors}}, so their [[Heel Face Turn]] has potentially upgraded them from cannon fodder to something that, collectively, potentially approaches [[King of All Cosmos]].
*** [[Justified Trope|By way of explanation]], the Vorts' more godlike powers are fueled by an extract which they procure from antlions. Presumably, their former masters took no interest in their animal husbandry.
* Not exactly "evil" so much as doing his job, in ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]: Justice For All'' when Detective Gumshoe {{spoiler|is fired}} and helps Phoenix briefly, he shows shades of significant competence.
* In the remake of the original ''[[Wild Arms 1
* Subverted in ''[[Mega Man (
* In ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]]'', whatever faction you are using, the player is a ''lot'' smarter than the AI. So you could be fighting against utterly ineffective clone troopers one battle, then the next be using a hyper-competent one.
** Though inverted at the same time, since the AI is a little smarter for your enemies than your allies...
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* Subverted in ''[[Abe Kroenen]]'', in which Rasputin turns out to be just as horribly inept at being a good guy as he is at being a bad one.
* Happens in ''[[Kid Radd]]''. The vilians go from being humerously incompetent to downright deadly once they switch sides.
* ''[[Shadowgirls]]'' got a borderline case--{{spoiler|Chrissy}} behaving like a [[Rich Bitch|spoiled brat]] didn't won verbal confrontations and in physical ones faced only the opponents either weak enough or strong enough to make it one-sided. Once she did decide [[Kick the Son of
== Western Animation ==
* Jack Spicer of ''[[
* ''[[Kim Possible]]'', in the episode when Dr. Draken becomes good, and Ron becomes evil. The goofy sidekick is actually quite intimidating as an evil villain, while the [[Harmless Villain]] seems a pretty decent good guy.
** Drakken was also pretty damn competent at running a company when he acquired the cupcake business. Shame about the low-carb craze.
** Also in the series finale (of the [[Post Script Season]]- that is, the real finale), Drakken, famous for his terrible plans to rule the world, comes up with a successful one to stop someone else from doing the same.
** That wasn't the first time Drakken got a sudden competence boost when opposing other villains.
* ''[[
** ''Jackie Chan Adventures'' also had [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Finn]], [[Harmless Villain|Ratso]] [[Terrible Trio|and Chow]] turn good in one episode, and do extremely well at being good guys... until their greed gets the better of them. In the end, they accidentally make a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] which, in a parody of [[Redemption Equals Death]], leaves them stranded on a cliff halfway down a mountain.
* In ''[[
** Although we don't actually see what he used to be like, think about this. {{spoiler|General Iroh, the Dragon of the West, led a 600 day siege of Ba Sing Se and pulled out after just barely penetrating the outer wall. Uncle Iroh, a Grand Master of the Order of the White Lotus, led the siege of a Fire Nation occupied Ba Sing Se that succeeds ''in hours'' and began the battle by ''blowing'' down the wall. [[One-Man Army|By himself]]. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|In one shot]].}} OK, well {{spoiler|when he was good he had the comet powering him up}}, but still.
*** Breaking out of a Fire Nation Prison...by himself...during an eclipse when he didn't have his Fire Bending! And he's ''still'' described as a [[One-Man Army]] by the shell shocked warden!
* Subverted in ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' when Mojo Jojo shows power he never had before when he teams with the Girls to beat down an alien bent on the destruction of Townsville, but this isn't because he found good inside himself, but because the girls said they found something more evil than him.
* Zim, from ''[[Invader Zim]]''. His job is to conquer humanity, but he's actually more successful in defending it.
* When Carl the Cockroach wizard was allied with [[Yin Yang Yo
* Occurs at various points in ''[[X
* Proves to be the case for {{spoiler|the title character}} in [[Megamind]].
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