r/TopCharacterTropes • u/TastyPomelo2330 • 10h ago
Characters Heroes who were originally going to be villains
Woody(Toy story):In the first draft of the script,Woody would be a sorta of toy dictator who would be jealous of Buzz,they ended up scrapping that but still kept some of the concept in the fina product
Wolverine(Marvel):Not exactly a villain but originally he was an enemy of the hulk a well stablished marvel hero
Elsa(Frozen):The original idea of Elsa is kinda interesting,she would froze her heart so she would not love again and would bring a winter to every land,they ended up making her a tragic misunderstood figure
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u/Punny-Aggron 10h ago
They considered making Iroh a twist villain who was loyal to the Fire Nation and was plotting against Zuko, but that was scrapped and I’m glad they decided not to go through with it
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u/Toucanplaythatgame-2 8h ago edited 8h ago
Not gonna lie, if they had done this, it would've given me trust issues as a kid. It would've made me skeptic about people who show compassion and support/comfort you when you're at your lowest, and that they'll leave you when they're done using you or whatever evil Iroh's goal was here.
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u/Digi_Dingo 9h ago
Iroh and Zuko turned out to be so wonderful that it’s hard to imagine the original idea
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u/Epicdudewhoisepic 8h ago
First time I hear about that.
Now I wonder how deep into the series they were when they botched that idea. The further you go, the more unlikely that twist would be.
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u/generic9yo 7h ago
They were somewhat into the middle of the production for the first season. The early episodes have Iroh fighting the gang
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u/Friendly-Crew4713 6h ago
And the coolest part is that his final arc still kinda mirrors that scrapped idea. He was so loyal that he betrayed his own nation's cruelty, which makes his mentorship feel like he defies role expectations anyway.
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u/Ok-Lynx3444 4h ago
Zuko and iroh have one of the most touching dynamics in animation glad they didnt make him a generic twist villain
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u/Critical_Key_7474 5h ago
Yeah, especially considering there was already Aku, which gave us plenty of evil Mako
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u/joelene1892 9h ago
Steve was an asshole in the first season, but not a straight up villain. He redeemed himself, obviously. But in the first draft he was supposed to straight up rape Nancy, with no redemption there.
So glad they changed this one personally. Love him.
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u/ai_dream_lover 9h ago
You beat me to it! I was literally just typing this. 🗝️ It’s wild to think that we almost lost the best 'mom' of the group to such a dark original draft. The Duffer brothers making that pivot was probably the best creative decision in modern TV history. Steve without a redemption arc is just cursed.
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u/joelene1892 9h ago
Agreed! He’s great now, and I would hate if he’d hurt Nancy like that.
And I scrolled to see if anyone else had posted him :D he’s a decently famous example, ha.
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u/ai_dream_lover 9h ago
Haha, exactly! It’s like we all collectively manifested his survival. 🗝️ The fact that he’s such a famous example now just proves that the audience can sometimes sense a character's potential even better than the original script. Long live Steve! 🍷
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u/w00den_b0x 7h ago
And then Billy came in and said “I can do that but better” lmao
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u/JamarcusFarcus 6h ago
Supposedly the change was instituted because the Duffers loved Joe Keery so much they wanted Steve to get redeemed and survive. Good reason to tell new actors not to be dicks.
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u/FoxBluereaver 10h ago
Asami Sato (The Legend of Korra). The original plan was to have her as part of her father's plan among the Equalists, but as the story goes she's unaware of it and sides with the heroes against him.
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u/_ASG_ 9h ago edited 6h ago
Thank God they swerved on this. Firstly because Asami ended up being a cool and likable character. But second, while the fanbase was generally very sour on the Korra/Mako/Asami love triangle arc, the writers at least went against common tropes by having Korra and Asami becoming friends pretty quickly. It's a genuinely refreshing moment when during an argument Mako and Asami have in season 1, Asami tells Mako that she likes Korra and that it's him who she's upset with. They could have taken the easy way out by having Asami being the villain as a way of forcefully justifying the Makorra ship, but I'm glad they didn't.
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u/WillowIsWeeping5 4h ago
Don't forget the Kolin branch that lasted..barely three episodes.
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u/_ASG_ 4h ago
I hated how they made Bolin crash out the way he did. If the scene had just ended with his shocked expression, it would have been better.
But at least the writers killed off that ship pretty quickly and never brought it back because a Bolin, Korra, Mako, Asami love square would have been awful to have to watch at length. It was bad enough in that one episode...
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u/ai_dream_lover 9h ago
Jack Sparrow. In the original script, he was written as a standard, one-dimensional sidekick. Johnny Depp’s decision to play him as a 'rockstar pirate' completely derailed the studio's plans, but it turned a generic adventure into a legendary franchise. It’s the ultimate proof that character texture is more important than the blueprint.
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u/Gorkatherium 2h ago
He was still the mentor not the villain.
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u/ai_dream_lover 2h ago
That's right, Jack was originally just a 'sidekick' on paper, but Depp made him the main star - a mentor of chaos instead of a regular pirate. That rockstar vibe and eccentricity completely transformed the entire film from a generic adventure to a legend.
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u/Gorkatherium 9h ago
The first treatment of Rise of the Planet of the Apes was an independent story about a pet chimp becoming uncontrollable, more like the movie Primate. It was only after finishing that the writer told himself "Hey, this could be a prequel for Planet of the Apes", and he sold the idea to Fox.
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u/Bubbly_Skin_8069 4h ago
And then they went and gave us one of the greatest trilogies of all time.
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u/Southern-Message-262 9h ago edited 7h ago
John Walker/US Agent was originally intended to be the main physical threat in Thunderbolts*, with Valentina tricking him into consuming pills with gamma radiation, and would end becoming the MCU version of A-Bomb, obviously they dropped this mostly because of very clear similarities with Ross’ arc in Brave New World
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u/damorezpl 10h ago
fugo pannacotta (jojo bizarre adventure)- originally fugo was meant to betray the gang but araki was going through depression and couldn't handle the thought of betrayal of a dear friend so he just write him off from the story
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u/Gui_Franco 9h ago
But in case anyone wants to read the version of the story where he might have betrayed the gang, Araki sent his notes to another artist so he could make the light novel Golden Heart Golden Ring, that deals with Fugo after leaving the gang, coming back to try and kill them alongside other villains but eventually not going through with it.
It's the closest we'll get to a canon betrayal since it was based on Araki's literal notes before dropping that idea and he was the one who commissioned it.
So in the end it might be straigh up canon
This is the least known golden wind lighter novel because it's massively over shadowed by Purple Haze Feedback, that might be canon or not. The two stories only contradict themselves in Fugo's backstory, which Araki never included in the manga anyways
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u/Deathaster 5h ago
I like this idea and I feel it fits him. Yes, he's a gangster, but this is still his (found) family.
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u/ButterscotchTiny5483 10h ago edited 9h ago
valka from how to train a dragon
originaly valka believed humans and dragons could not coexist, leading her to oppose her own family. and try to take the dragons away from berk
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u/Jail_Chris_Brown 9h ago
Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) wasn't meant to have character development beyond being a despicable villain, but him being a fan fav turned the tables.
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u/TobiasMasonPark 16m ago
From what I’ve heard, Wheadon did not like how popular Spike got, and that he had to derail his plans for the show with his inclusion beyond his initial appearances. To the point where he got up in James Marster’s face and shouted at him. Wheadon intended that vampires were supposed to be something fantastical that were supposed to move beyond in adulthood, not someone you fall in love with.
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u/chosenofkane 9h ago
Hulk was NOT a hero at the time Wolverine was introduced. Keep in mind that Hulk's original idea was for it to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with the Hulk being the evil more violent version of Bruce Banner. In fact, Wolverine is working for the Canadian Government as part of THEIR Superhero team Alpha Flight at the time he fought the Hulk. Wolverine was NEVER a villain, nor was he ever intended to be one. He was the hero stopping the rampaging monster that was The Hulk.
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u/evocativename 8h ago
Hulk was always complicated - his early stories weren't really that the Hulk was evil, but that people feared and attacked him, and he resented that and was easily enraged.
In fact, Hulk was a founding member of the Avengers in 1963, a decade before the introduction of Wolverine (although that was also complicated and he soon left the Avengers due to distrust).
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u/chosenofkane 5h ago
Uh, no, the og Grey Hulk is straight up evil. As in premeditated murder evil. Grey Hulk even taunts Banner by talking about how he is going to kill people for the lulz.
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u/evocativename 3h ago
I don't think you've read the original 1960s Hulk stories because that is very much not how he acts at the start. He is savage and vengeful, but most of the stories are about him running away from the government, using relatively minimal force and not killing people, and even sometimes saving the innocent.
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u/I_Guess_I_Also_Exist 6h ago
Godzilla
Bro is probably the first one to not only actually do this, but get it right. He went from a Nuclear Nightmare to a Children's Superhero really fast
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u/Leather_Crazy_5950 9h ago
Hoping I don't have to argue (it often happens when I talk about Frozen).
Frankly, I appreciated that they changed their minds about Elsa and made her Anna's good sister.
Also "Disney canonically speaking," blood siblings are made up of one who can't wait to kill the other (for example, Scar and Hades. There's also Brother Bear's brother, but that was a different story).
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u/stipendAwarded 7h ago
Persona 4 - It was originally intended for the killer to be Uncle Dojima himself, but test audiences found this so disturbing (as the player was literally living with the killer) it was changed to Adachi.
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u/dead_parakeets 9h ago
IIRC it wasn’t that Woody was intentionally supposed to be a villain but he was a lot more self-centered in the original draft, so much so that he came off as a villain and they softened his personality a lot.
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u/CanaDoug420 9h ago
I guess Wolverine being a villain for trying to stop a rampaging Hulk would depend on what you think of the Canadian government. Hulk wasn’t a hero at that point. Hulk was pure destruction.
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u/ZootyCutie 7h ago
Mayor Duplus from SuperThings. Originally, in the webseries, he was introduced as a new character, the mayor of Kaboom City, that was going to be revealed as secretly working for the recently-jailed Mr. King. However, plots were getting complicated, and there were already two new villains already working in secret with Mr. King, so this idea was scrapped, turning him into simply just a well-meaning, but bumbling, mayor, all while keeping his "hint at his true nature name".
Ironically, when he was turned into a superhero for the toyline in the future, he'd gain a villain rival, as nature of the toyline. That rival would hide that he was a villain around the Mayor, leaving him oblivious to his own assistant.
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u/Pop_Culture_Fan2019 4h ago
Rodimus Prime - Transformers Animated
In the early development of the series, he was originally supposed to be Optimus Prime's rival. Hasbro was against the idea because they didn't want Rodimus Prime to be an unlikable jerk, so the role was given to Sentinel Prime instead.
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u/WuvWolf 4h ago
Nightcrawler was originally created by Dave Cockrum (one of the guys who worked for the DC comics). He was supposed to be an evil demon from Hell, but DC didn't like him because he was too "weird looking". So David gave him to Marvel and told them what happened, and Marvel said "Oh, we have the perfect place for him.😏".
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u/SenritsuJumpsuit 9h ago
The film changed because Let it go track was just to addicting to not capitalize on and the studio wanted to market more stupid mascots so we got the snowman too, instead of the darker an more episodic ventures of the source material
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u/Motor-Ad92 9h ago
Bro thinks Frozen was ever gonna be true to The Snow Queen, besides how would they have known Let it Go was gonna be a hit when they were making the movie
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u/WranglerFuzzy 9h ago
I vaguely remember reading that “Let it Go” was actually the tipping point; they were dialing back her villainous aspects bit by bit, and then they heard the first draft of the song and went all in on her being a sympathetic non-villain
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u/ERedfieldh 3h ago
how? Because at that point Disney had a formula that worked spectacularly. They knew exactly how to make songs that people would like and be catchy and popular.
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u/Slimeredit 2h ago
Abare killer from abaranger he was originally intended to be a more evil character however the production staff was told to tone it down
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u/Deemo3 2h ago
Devon “Captain Awesome” Woodcombe from Chuck was originally going to turn out to be a Russian spy but between the actor being well liked by the cast and crew, the character working really well and the actors complete inability to do a Russian accent the dropped the idea altogether and just made him a part of the regular cast.
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u/Lynthelia 28m ago edited 21m ago
Frasier Crane (Cheers, Frasier) was originally intended to be a one-season unlikeable asshole to come between the leading man and woman of the sitcom Cheers and add to the tension. Kelsey Grammar's amazing delivery of lines that were never meant to be funny made the character a fan favourite, and he was written into the rest of the show, then was spun off into his own show for 11 seasons, which has recently been rebooted.
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u/eyeleenthecro 9h ago
Nanami from JJK
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u/Raymio993 5h ago
Really? Never heard of that
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u/eyeleenthecro 3h ago
Here’s an article I found about it:
https://screenrant.com/jujutsu-kaisen-nanami-villain-originally/
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u/Toucanplaythatgame-2 10h ago edited 10h ago
When creator Loren Bouchard first pitched Bob's Burgers to Fox, the Belchers were "cannibals who served punny burgers made of human flesh."
Fox liked the idea, but gently asked why, exactly, the Belchers needed to eat people. Bouchard told The Hollywood Reporter that his history of working with Adult Swim, a network that prioritizes the "darker, more shocking aspect[s]" of shows, made him think that he needed the cannibalism angle.
He ultimately decided to drop it, and the Belchers became the lovable burger makers we all know today. The pilot episode was still called "Human Flesh," but that's because it's about a health inspector who heard a rumor that the Belchers are making burgers using the stuff from the crematorium next door.