The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Difference between revisions

''I think I miss you less and less

''As every day goes by,

 

Bob is an explicit good guy. Either in order to achieve a goal or by being forced into doing so by someone else, Bob has to use [[The Dark Side]]. Using the power itself is a technically neutral action, and in theory, it should be possible to use it to achieve the goal in question. But [[The Dark Side]] being [[The Dark Side]], it doesn't work like that. By its very nature, the power will somehow effect an alignment change in Bob, and he will be a completely different person than he was before he tried to use the power. Bob may or may not [[Heel Realization|realize it]], and [[Ignored Epiphany|may keep going even if he does]]. It can be a gradual process, as [[It Gets Easier]] (In video games, this is usually regarded as [[The Corruption]]).

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Magical Project S]]'', Misao Amano was an evil magical girl aiming to ruin the balance between good and evil. When she transformed into a form concerned with expressing the negative, repressed parts of her personality, however, she simply did things [[For the Evulz]] and lost sight of her original goal completely.

* ''[[Death Note]]'''s Light Yagami originally had good intentions, but as he got more and more [[A God Am I|drunk on power]] he lost sight of them in favor of taking over the world.

** Well his plan would put him in the Nexus where he would be with his family for all eternity, in general reminding the villain of what they stand to gain/regain from their plot is not a good idea.

* In the miniseries ''[[Merlin (TV miniseries)|Merlin]]'', Frick acts Queen Mab if her trick letting Lancelot's wife Elaine know about Lancelot and Guinevere's affair wasn't unworthy of them. Mordred acts what "unworthy means", and his mother Morgan has forgotten.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Also many of the Denarians.

** In ''Changes'', after {{spoiler|Harry takes on the mantle of the Winter Knight}}, Sanya tells him there is ''always'' a way back to the light so long as he ''doesn't'' forget what he was fighting for.

** This is even implied to happen to [[Big Bad]] Morgoth and [[The Dragon|his lieutenant]] Sauron: The former started out just wanting to create something of his own, and the latter felt the world would be a better place with the imposition of his order.

* This recently happened to Jacen Solo in ''[[Legacy of the Force]]'', part of the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]—as a result of the philosophical growth he went through that was necessary [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|to save the galaxy without committing genocide]].

* In [[Guy Gavriel Kay]]'s ''[[Tigana]]'', a woman infiltrated a court in order to kill the king. But she worked so hard at the infiltration that when she actually got a chance to kill him, she saved his life, and after that she actively helped him.

* In John Marco's ''Tyrants and Kings'' trilogy, this applies to Emperor Arkus and all his top lieutenants. In the beginning of his Black Renaissance they signed on to [[Utopia Justifies the Means|establish order and civilization on a continent wracked with war and devastation]]. But decades of conquest and immortality has corrupted them all, to the point every one realizes they are an irredeemable [[Complete Monster]].

 

* Bandora from ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger]]'' turned evil after her son was killed by a Tyrannosaurus. Eventually she went mad with power and forgot all about this until her son came [[Back from the Dead]].

** Changed in the english version to her wanting to conquer the universe.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Los Magnificos, the heroic defenders of Mexico City in the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', made a deal with the Garodillos crime family to turn a blind eye to certain crimes in exchange for the crime family's assistance in policing the barrios they controlled of its more extreme elements, because the problems faced by those areas were too much for the heroes to handle on their own. And it worked, for a while. Sure, there was still drug-trafficking, but murders and rapes went down. Eventually, however, the members of Los Magnificos were little more than a superhuman enforcement arm for the Mexican mafia.

* Trace from ''[[Twokinds]]'' tried to resurrect his dead wife before black magic poisoning turned him into a power-hungry dictator. Or at least, that's what a character told him...

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** Also, a combination of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] and [[Aesop Amnesia]] add up to this trope in the episode where Brain turns away from megalomania and vows to spend his life helping the victims of his obsession (first and foremost, Pinky). Despite Brain's best efforts to help prepare him, Pinky (as a tiny, dumb mouse) gets trampled and abused in the real world, prompting Brain to swear that he WILL take over the world, in order to make it a better place that would be fair and kind to people like Pinky. This motivation never comes up again, and Brain is back to abusing Pinky at will in the next episode.

* In ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'', Asajj Ventress spent many of her early years training under a Jedi who treated her with respect and seemed like her happiest days of her life. Then her master gets killed, she goes on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], Dooku recruits her, and she is now one of the most effective Jedi-killers in the Galaxy.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Motivation Index]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dark Side Will Make You Forget, The}}