Category:Villains turned to the Good Side

Many villains walk a thin line between good and evil; indeed, many villains have redeemed into remorse, sympathy or even empathy, and once arrogant villains ascend further into the path of good, often protecting or fighting alongside people they once fought against, they begin to turn away from their old ways.

Originally antagonists or forces of evil, these characters turn good due to events in their lives, such as an idealism or encouragement from another hero, their positive change of heart, a good relationship with others (perhaps a successful love story), recognizing their own inner goodness and capacity for good, betrayal or any other unresolved traumatic experience in which they question whether or not the dark side is worth fighting for. However, some villains may turn for more satisfying reasons.

A Redeemed Villain, otherwise known as villain turned to the good side or Former Villain, is usually the end result of an antagonist exposed to an Outright or Purely Good hero, a Messiah, a Passively Empathetic character, a Hope Bringer, and occasionally a Charismatic Hero. In the best of cases, some villains turned to the good side can even become Pure Good to add drama as they are willing to be good without any despair, corruption, or negative qualities after all.

There are various scenarios why these individuals turned to the good side, though the said individual often redeems into multiple scenarios altogether: Righteousness: Being exposed to the Messiah or incorruptible type of hero that helps them to see their errors. Usually done with delusional, honorable, or insecure characters (the villain can also have all those traits) who believe they are doing right, or just want to be loved. The hero reveals to them that their actions are actually causing harm, or tries to comfort them. The individual chooses their desire for righteousness over what they have done, and/or decides the hero had helped them see what they were doing was wrong, and becomes a full-time hero.
 * From Possessed/Brainwashed to Freedom: Snapping out of a possessed or brainwashed state and deciding to aid the hero who freed them. The villain is a hypnotized, brainwashed or possessed pawn who does not know they are being controlled until they are free. Grateful to whatever hero freed them, they ally with them.

Remorseful Heroes: In this sub scenario, usually in more light-hearted media, and if the villains are affable, in love, and/or just plain jerks, the HEROES are the ones who apologize to the villain for provoking them into their evil ways, the villains forgive them and stop being evil.

From Abandoning Evil to Good Honor: Choosing honor before evil. A honorable villain decides that their own honor, or the honor of something or someone else is more important than what they are doing and decide to abandon their evil actions. Often done with supporting antagonists who value the lives of innocent people over working with their evil/cruel masters.

Hostility turned Friendship: Becoming friends with someone and decide to help them over being evil.

Deciding the Good Family for Care: Choosing their family over evil. Done with villains who have families and to care for them. They realize that their actions are actually hurting their spouses, children, siblings, or any other members in their family.

Snapping out the memory-wiped/brainwashed: Being memory-wiped or brainwashed into becoming a hero and deciding that they like their new personality and life better then their old ones when they inevitably learn the truth. This is the rarest and most controversial form of a villain redeeming themselves since they did not turn good by their own free will and essentially had to be programmed into being good. Reserved only for villains who would normally be a Pure Evil under their circumstances, the audience or reader meets them as a hero first, not knowing they are brainwashed or have fake memories. The "hero" does not know this either and is just as horrified as the viewer when they learn the truth about the horrible things they have done or regain their real memories. But they have spent so much time as a hero and living with an artificial good personality that they choose their new life over their former one and become true heroes.

Betrayal of the Dark Side: betrayed by their fellow villainous allies/bosses, which made them choose to transfer to the good side. After they were tasked to antagonize the hero and they were successful, their allies/bosses throw them under the bus or try to kill them straight away (in either way). Having see their errors (and in the worst case, hunted down by the Big Bad or their former ally), they choose to work for the good side by joining forces with heroes.

Retirement of Being Evil: Retiring from being a villain and realizing that living as a good guy is better than their previous lives as evil-doers.

Decide to Move On Forward: Some of them move on forwards, without going back.

Remorseful Correction: Learning the lesson of being evil from another villain (Usually a Necessary Evil, a Monger or in the worst of the cases a villain who is pure evil), in other words having a case of "taste of your own medicine", which leads them to understand that they are doing the very bad thing the other villain is doing and feel very horrified, disgusted and terribly bad for the actions of the latter villain and try to redeem herself/himself and fight against her/him (Similar but somewhat different to a case Evil Vs. Evil), in the end of the battle (Usually in the end of the very battle/episode/movie or in sequels) he/she tries to join the heroes and search for pardon from everyone they had become enemies to.

Simply Stopping Being Evil: There are rare cases where, though they have no real reason, a villain can just decide to stop being evil. Perhaps they tire of it or have successfully completed their goals and have no reason to antagonize anyone anymore. Some of these villains may not be remorseful like other redeemed villains, and instead are proud of what they have done but simply have "retired" from villainy.