Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Difference between revisions

** There was a tiny baby, abandoned by his parents and adopted by another martial arts master. Though trials were difficult, and the regiment strict, never once did the little boy feel that it was a burden, being driven by nothing more than his love for his adoptive father. Then came the time, when he became 15, to inherit his master's style after a final trial and become and adult. The little boy's name was {{spoiler|Souther}}, and [[Complete Monster|neither does this story have a happy ending.]] [[Alas, Poor Villain|Well,]] [[Freudian Excuse|almost]] [[Death Equals Redemption|had]].

** There also was a young boy, left orphaned with his younger brother, who knew that crying will not make things better, and instead aspired to become stronger along with his brother. As the two get adopted by a martial arts master, the two finally learn to become stronger and this young child aspires to greater glory in his quest for strength. This boy grew up to be {{spoiler|[[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Raoh]]}}, but [[Love Redeems|his story does have a happier ending.]]

** There's also his sister, resident [[Yandere]] Belarus. We see her in her, Russia's and Ukraine's backstory as a cute little girl who clings to her brother and pouts to her older sister. And then, we see her now, as a [[Yandere|scary]] [[Strange Girl]] in a frilly [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]] dress...

** America from England's perspective, who used to be a sweet [[Cute Shotaro Boy]] and just adored England. Then, we all know [[The American Revolution|what]] [[She's All Grown Up|happened]] [[Tear Jerker|next.]]

* Chouji Suitengu, back then known as {{spoiler|Ueno Takeshi}} from ''[[Speed Grapher]]'' was a pretty sweet kid, who loved playing games with his little sister. Then his parents were murdered for not being able to pay their debt to the Roppongi Club. Suitengu was sold off as a child soldier, almost killed during his final mission, and then turned into a Frankenstein stitch job. Nowadays, he's a textbook example of [[Four Eyes, Zero Soul]].

* Yuno Gasai from ''[[Mirai Nikki]]'' wasn't always such an [[Ax Crazy|psycho]] [[Yandere|girl]]. When {{spoiler|Yukiteru and Minene go three years to the past}} It turns out that despite her abuse, she still was hopeful and idealistic.

* Balalaika from ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' [http://www.animepaper.net/art/47003/ultimate-balalaika used to be] a pretty, young and seemingly friendly girl, whose dream was to do her family proud in the Olympics as a sharpshooter. That is...until the [[War Is Hell|Afghanistan War]].

* Surprisingly, ''Guts from [[Berserk]]'' was actually a sweet and innocent kid. The downfall started when he was three and his foster mother Sys died of the plague, leaving him to be raised by his sadistic and hateful foster father Gambino. Even after being trained for war and serving on the front lines, he was still a pretty innocent kid, until the night after his first battle when Gambino {{spoiler|sold him to another soldier for three silver coins, a soldier who [[Shotacon|liked little boys in the wrong way]], resulting in a traumatic rape despite Guts' best efforts to fight the man off. The following day when Guts coldly murdered the man was the point of no return. When he was finally forced to kill Gambino in self-defense and was driven out of the camp by a mob intent on killing him, he became bitter, hateful and cut off from other people.}}

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Millions Knives]], the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Trigun]]''. Anime him...kinda, but the psycho tendencies were there even before he flipped out and became a full-blown [[Creepy Child]]. Manga Knives...had [[Go Mad From the Revelation|something much better]] to flip out over, and before that, just ''listen'' to the kid.

** This attitude did not survive contact with [[For Science!]]! Look at your big sister's preserved vivisected corpse, and the records of how [[Humans Are Bastards|the only people you've ever known]] [[Strapped to An Operating Table|experimented her to death]] before she was a year old! See the [[Body Horror|lovely metastasized cancers]] from all the scans!

** It's obvious Vash was a cute kid, but flashbacks reveal Wolfwood was as well...[[Younger Than They Look|more recently than you might think]]. And Livio, despite already being [[Split Personality|psychotic]] at the time, too.

== Literature ==

* In Jonathan Carroll's novel ''Bones of the Moon'', the main character's husband comments that the boy who lived in the apartment above them, dubbed "The Axe Boy", was always such a good boy before he was arrested for chopping up his mother and sister.

"Danny, our young friend 'Axe Boy' Alvin Willians chopped his mother and sister into pieces exactly one floor above our apartment. A good boy he is not." }}

* The protagonist of Vernon Scannel's poem [http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/incendiary/ "Incendiary"]

* Kevin from ''[[We Need to Talk About Kevin]]'' was a full-on aversion of this trope from birth - or so his [[Unreliable Narrator]] mother claims.

* [[Harry Potter|Voldemort]] is a subversion of sorts; he's a heartless bastard who used to seem like a really nice guy who used to be a really nasty kid. Played semi-straight with Sirius Black, when Harry overhears his teacher's talking about what Sirius was like as a kid.

** Subverted when it's revealed that he's {{spoiler|been a pretty nice guy all along.}}

*** And then subverted ''again'' when it's revealed that {{spoiler|while he was always a good person, he was also an immature, arrogant, bullying rebel as a teenager, averting the cliche that all good people are flawless angels as children.}}

** And Peter Pettigrew must have been at least a good and moral person, for the Marauders to both be friends with him and to trust him with their lives as adults.

* Francis Dolarhyde, aka the Tooth Fairy, from [[Silence of the Lambs|''Red Dragon'']]. Played for one of the more selective instances of [[Cry for the Devil]] in the first film version, ''[[Manhunter (film)|Manhunter]]'':

'''Will Graham''': As a child, my heart bleeds for him. Someone took a little boy and turned him into a monster. But as an adult... as an adult, he's irredeemable. He butchers whole families to fulfill some sick fantasy. As an adult, I think someone should blow the sick fuck out of his socks. }}

* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Chronicles of Chaos|Titans of Chaos]]'', Amelia thinks that the maenad she is working out how to shoot was once a sweet little baby. She braces herself by defying [[A Million Is a Statistic]].

== Live-Action TV ==

* [[Magnificent Bastard|Ben Linus]] from ''[[Lost]]'' gets a story arc showing him as an innocent kid who was abused by his father. Also includes the [[Moral Event Horizon]].

''Sawyer: Sweet kid, huh?'' }}

** Although Ben was sorta [[Creepy Child|creepy]] even as a kid.

* Averted in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvQxe_C3__A "Only a Lad"] by [[Danny Elfman|Oingo Boingo]].

* [[The Decemberists]] song The Shankill Butchers:

Now killing is their only source of joy }}

* Morrissey, "Used to be a Sweet Boy" and "The World is Full of Crashing Bores."

* The song "Junge" by German band ''[[Die Arzte]]'':

 

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* "Player Two is red. He's a quiet sort of lunatic. The type everyone always says "was such a nice kid" after they find like, twenty human faces in his freezer."

* ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]''

** Very deliberately averted in the case of Xykon - the whole point of the ''[[Start of Darkness]]'' prequel book was to show that he had no redeeming features whatsoever, and never did- in the creator's words, not only is he thoroughly evil, he's also sort of a dick. While he may not have been evil when he first discovered his gift for Necromancy at the age of four, by the age of twelve he's undeniably a [[Complete Monster]], killing a [[Captain Ersatz]] of Professor Xavier (granted, one who was being an incredible dick about [[Insufferable Genius|how wizards are inherently better than sorcerers]]), zombifying him and siccing him and his zombified grandma on his parents.