Often, it is characters who start out as good people but become bad who seem the worst. Perhaps, this is because the viewers have seen the potential of the people that they used to be, thus making their fall that much more worse when revealed on the movie screen. Whatever the case, characters who go from being good to bad make some of the most memorable villains in the whole of fiction.
Here are five of the top characters who went from being good to bad in movies:
Michael Corleone
Most people would consider Michael Corleone of Godfather fame to be a villain, but there are those who see him as a tragic hero as well. After all, he started out as someone who wanted a legitimate profession instead of following in his father’s footsteps in the world of organized crime. In fact, he served with heroism in the Second World War before enrolling in college for said purpose. However, his personal passions as well as his family ties meant that he could not escape the family business, with the result that he became just as ruthless as his father, as shown by the scene of his capos paying homage to him at the end of the first movie.
Erik Lehnsherr
Erik Lehnsherr AKA Magneto is an interesting supervillain because he was fundamentally shaped by the Holocaust. As a result, his motivations are understandable, even though he takes them to unjustifiable extremes. In X-Men: First Class, we saw the potential of the initial friendship between Erik and his friend Charles Xavier. However, we also saw the split that led the two men down such different roads, which culminated in an incredible show of strength on the part of Erik that cemented his status as one of the most iconic supervillains in superhero fiction.
Macbeth
There have been numerous Macbeth movies, but there are few that can match the 1948 version, which boasted Orson Welles in the titular role. For those who are unfamiliar with their Shakespearean plays, Macbeth saw the titular character being encouraged by his spouse to claim the crown of Scotland via regicide, which results in his eventual downfall at the hand of one of his former allies. Although Welles’s version was not well-received in his own time, it is considered to be one of his most notable movies by more modern critics.
Saruman
Saruman was the head of the wizards who were sent to Middle-Earth for the purpose of combating Sauron through subtle means. However, his pride and his hunger for knowledge led to his corruption, thus resulting in his choice to side with Sauron rather than the people that he had been sent to help when the time came. However, while Saruman showed little of his previous status as a champion of good in the Lord of the Rings, his performance in The Hobbit was a reminder that he was once someone who had stood against Sauron and his minions.
Anakin Skywalker
There have been a lot of Jedi in the Star Wars setting who have fallen to the Dark Side of the Force for one reason or another. However, the most famous remains Anakin Skywalker, who was the central character of the prequel movies. While a lot of people found his fall to be less than satisfying, it cannot be denied that his becoming Darth Vader is still a huge moment in pop culture as a whole.
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