Is it easier to turn a character from good to evil, or evil to good?

Tome

Tome

Berktwad
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Black Thorn
With examples such as Faith, Spike, Anya, Willow, Lindsey and Lilah in the Buffyverse, do you think turning a villain to a hero is easier than the opposite in fiction in general?
 
I think turning a hero into a villain is easier because all it takes is a slip in judgment or a single moment where they lose themselves and their morals.

On the flip side, once someone is viewed as the villain they have to prove they are no longer evil and work for redemption; and that takes time.
 
Wild At Heart
Wild At Heart
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I think both have pit falls if they are handled poorly. If we have a character who we believe is morally upstanding we have to have a scenario whereby we can believe they are a convincing villain while understanding how they got there. This works in the same way with a villain who is seeking redemption. Why are they seeking redemption? How did they reach their level of ill repute in the first place?

Well handled character analysis in both cases, is a must.
 
C
caritas08
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I think I've seen more successful stories with heroes turning bad than the other way around. The "I've been bad, but am now changed" seems to be hard to get right. That's what I like about the buffyverse, the writers really managed to make most characters a bit off both, or be able to turn good to evil and evil to good.

I really hate when a bad character suddenly goes "I care about people now. I see that they're nice and I've been bad. I want to do better." It often seems like BS. I can't recall now, but I don't think that ever happened to a Buffy/Angel character, other than Anya, but her change was well written and believable.
 
Turning a hero into a villain or a villain into a hero, if done properly, are of just about equal difficulty or ease, depending on your point of view. The key isn't the change itself, but the process by which the change is made. The change can be triggered by a single, simple event or as the result of a lengthy evolution. The trick is to make the change believable and entertaining. It all depends on the skill of the narrator and the acceptance of his audience.
 
I think it's easier to become evil. I took a whole lot of things to turn Spike from evil to good and it was painful.
What does it take to turn to the bad side? Not much, I would say. A quick taste and you see that the bad side is easier.

Luke: "Vader"¦ Is the dark side stronger?"
Yoda: "No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive."
Click to expand...


In Willow's case it was different though. I wouldn't say that it was her true self that turned evil.
Her dark powers were unleashed by one important event and she lost control, her drive for vengeance got boosted.
I don't think that she really knew what was happening. But again, it didn't take much.
 
I think it's equally difficult. An evil person can do a good action and a good person is capable of evil action. It all depends on the circumstance.

For either of these changes to occur a lot of thought needs to be put into the process. That's what I find so great about the writing on Buffy and Angel, the characters go through these radical changes and, for the most part, they are believable.
 
JCoatsworth said:
I think it's easier to become evil. I took a whole lot of things to turn Spike from evil to good and it was painful.
What does it take to turn to the bad side? Not much, I would say. A quick taste and you see that the bad side is easier.
Click to expand...

That, and if you experience loss and/or feel powerless. Or like it's you against the world.


In Willow's case it was different though. I wouldn't say that it was her true self that turned evil.
Her dark powers were unleashed by one important event and she lost control, her drive for vengeance got boosted.
I don't think that she really knew what was happening. But again, it didn't take much.
Click to expand...

I think Willow did some evil things before Tara died and she got uber-charged. The mind spells in specific. I don't think her intentions were evil though, it's just that she seemed too dumb to get that what she was doing was evil. She just liked taking the easy way out, without caring that Tara compared her to the evil bitch that sucked her brains and made her a mindless slave.
 
I would say it's hard to turn a hero into a villain without significant foreshadowing and lapses in integrity or quality of character. Once you believe someone is "good" it's going to be very difficult to believe and accept that that person is gone and give up on them.

A villain to a hero is more believable to me because most of the time we don't know what caused that character to be a villain in the first place. Therefore, it is somewhat easier for me to believe that a human being who was born innocent would seek to become good and innocent again than to believe that a noble, "good" person would want to become evil.
 
caritas08 said:
I would say it's hard to turn a hero into a villain without significant foreshadowing and lapses in integrity or quality of character. Once you believe someone is "good" it's going to be very difficult to believe and accept that that person is gone and give up on them.

A villain to a hero is more believable to me because most of the time we don't know what caused that character to be a villain in the first place. Therefore, it is somewhat easier for me to believe that a human being who was born innocent would seek to become good and innocent again than to believe that a noble, "good" person would want to become evil.
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I'm not sure it's always about wanting to be good or bad. Sometimes, shit happens, and good people break or get corrupted. And sometimes, bad people can't deny the good inside, even if they try, so they change.

And sometimes, people are born evil. There's something missing in their souls, or something wrong in their brain. And they can't be good, because there's not enough good in them to start with.
 
C
caritas08
True. I guess I was mostly thinking of fictional characters like Willow and Spike.
I think it's easier to turn a good character into bad. When you have a good character, it's kinda refreshing to see a different side of them, even if that side is evil. Most evil characters that are evil from the beginning are sarcastic and really good in what they do, so you kinda start loving those characters, no matter how evil they are.. but when they try to turn those evil characters in good characters.. it can ruin the whole character for the audience.
 
This is an easy question I think because if you let a good person turn into a bad one, the viewers just think OH NO... maybe they still hope that this person will turn into a good one again, but this is something who is in the hands of the writers.

In contrary, if you let a evil person into a good one, the writers can not force you to think that this person is a hero now. Often you have the thought in your head. The thought "hey he was evil once why he can't return to the dark side?" or " is he really good now? or stil evil?" . This conversion needs much more time then the first one because you have to trust the "evil one". Understood what I mean? Unfortunately I can't say what goes through my mind, because my English isn't good enought and because I don't really trust GoogleTranslation! ;D
 
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