History Main / AdaptationalVillainy

** AdaptationalVillainy/WolverineAndTheXMen2009

* ''Literature/TheSleeperAndTheSpindle'' by Creator/NeilGaiman takes the wicked fairy from "Literature/SleepingBeauty" and makes her much worse. The story explicitly rules out justifications such as her responding to an insult from the royal family, and establishes that the curse she put on the princess was part of a premeditated scheme to boost her own power. The curse itself is made much crueler: [[spoiler:the girl sleeping in the high tower is the wicked fairy, regaining her youth and beauty by leaching the life force out of the sleeping inhabitants of the castle and its surroundings, while the princess was cursed to stay always awake and keep guard]].

* [[AdaptationalVillainy/AnimatedFilms Films -- Animated]]

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* [[PlayedForLaughs Hilariously]], the LighterAndSofter version of the game ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', ''WebOriginal/Brighthammer40000'', does this to the Tau Empire. To explain, ''Warhammer 40000'' is an [[RefugeInAudacity extremely]] [[CrapsackWorld grimdark]] setting, with a number of genocidal, xenocidal and one or two [[OmnicidalManiac omnicidal]] factions locked in a ForeverWar. The sole exception is the Tau, who are [[BlackAndGrayMorality still bad in a sense but one of the more sane, if unsympathetic, factions]]. For '''''Bright'''''''hammer 40000'', every faction ''except'' the Tau have been made more sympathetic, while the sinister aspects of the Tau have been played up, along with some new ones added. This has the effect of turning the Tau into the setting's BigBad. Water Caste Tau are all conniving schemers and cheating merchants, Air Caste Tau are all cowards who launch unprovoked bombing runs and orbital strikes on defenceless worlds, Fire Caste Tau are all violent brutes who bully other Tau and use prisoners of war for target practice (when they bother to take prisoners at all), and the Ethereals run the empire as this horrible 1984-esque society and often use mind-control to order Tau to kill themselves, sometimes for fun. Only the Earth Caste escape this treatment, being poor schmucks who are abused, exploited and left to die when they're no longer useful.
* VideoGame/BookOfMarioThousandsOfDoors has a lot of personality shifts, [[WorldOfJerkass very few for the better]]. The biggest example has to be [[spoiler: the [[BigGood god-substitute pantheon]] now called the Stellarvinden. Lets list off some of their cruel acts: [[DemonicPossession Possessed]] Mario and made him do their dirty work to regain the Star of Rodin, assaulted a man recovering from a financial crisis caused by his charity failing, bullied a guy with mental health problems and sacrificed him to Satan, restarted a drug trade in Casau Blodaua, and escalated [[GreatOffscreenWar The War]] by eating all the peaches.]] Another notable example is Carbon, who goes from a well-meaning but nervous kid to a manic psychopath who wishes to kill all fathers.

* The various "[[YouAreGrounded Grounded]]" videos made through Website/GoAnimate tend to make "baby show" characters, such as ''WesternAnimation/{{Caillou}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/DoraTheExplorer'' from well-adjusted and lovable characters to spoiled brats who enjoy causing all sorts of destruction and mayhem. It doesn't help that, at times, their parents are just as bad.

* Creator/FrancisEDec insisted in his letters that his brother was a "deadly felon-murderer and secret assassin-spy agent against me for this Gangster Government". Seeing how Dec saw the entire universe ThroughTheEyesOfMadness, we can safely guess that this wasn't the case.

* ''Webcomic/AkumasComics'': The main villainous organization is [[LegionOfDoom the Ministry]], which along with both villains from canon work and original characters have [[Franchise/{{Dragonball}} Android 17]] and [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics Julie-Su]] as members. In canon Julie-Su was a straight up hero and 17 started as an AntiVillain before becoming an aloof AntiHero. Here not only are both villains, but 17 is loyal to Dr Gero instead of being rebellious.

** In the series, Creator/JoanRivers goes crazy from [[ImAHumanitarian eating]] Creator/BillCosby due to the immense powers she got rivalling the combined power of [[Franchise/DragonBall Goku]], Franchise/{{Superman}}, and Steve Urkel. Even before that, she declared that Bill Cosby must be eaten because he was a criminal, even though Bill rightfully pointed out how getting eaten was worse than being put in jail. The real Joan River, although would have felt betrayed by the [[BrokenPedestal realization on what Bill actually did]], would never have gone on to attack him for it, let alone eat him.

* In the original book version of ''Animation/AdventuresOfCaptainVrungel'', Archibald Dandy, the Speaker of the Yacht Club, started off on the wrong foot with the protagonists over him mistaking them for thieves and getting into a fistfight with Captain Vrungel, but after the misunderstanding gets cleared up, he befriends the sailors and helps them win the regatta. [[spoiler: In the animated series, he is revealed in the last episode to be the mysterious mafia boss Chief who organized the theft of the Venus statue, while the book's actual main antagonist, Admiral Kusaki, was AdaptedOut]].

* In the original book version of ''Animation/AdventuresOfCaptainVrungel'', Archibald Dandy, the Speaker of the Yacht Club, started off on the wrong foot with the protagonists over him mistaking them for thieves and getting into a fistfight with Captain Vrungel, but after the misunderstanding gets cleared up, he befriends the sailors and helps them win the regatta. [[spoiler: In the animated series, he is revealed in the last episode to be the mysterious mafia boss Chief who organized the theft of the Venus de Milo, while the book's actual main antagonist, Admiral Kusaki, was AdaptedOut.]]

* Aside from a fight when she premiered in one issue of the comic book, the ComicBook/BlackWidow has never been a Franchise/SpiderMan villain. Yet Creator/{{Gottlieb}}'s ''Pinball/TheAmazingSpiderMan'' pinball has her on the backglass along with Spidey's other rogues, such as the Vulture and the Green Goblin.

* In Creator/ZenStudios' ''[[VideoGame/SpiderManZenStudios Spider-Man]]'' pinball, J. Jonah Jameson is elevated from an annoying nuisance (and often portrayed with [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold some redeeming qualities]]) to one of four villains for Spider-Man to fight.

* "Literature/OneEyeTwoEyesThreeEyes": In the original German tale, Two-Eyes is her mother and sisters' abused victim. In a Russian version, Two-Eyes is just as evil and abusive as her sisters, and the heroine is an orphan living with the family.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'', Knuckles was misled by [[BigBad Dr. Robotnik]] into fighting Sonic in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog3'', but quickly made a HeelFaceTurn after realizing his mistake and has generally been a firm ally ever since. In ''Literature/TheSonicTheHedgehogJokeBook'', he seems to be one of Robotnik's full-time minions.

** In the ''Frankenstein'' series by Creator/DeanKoontz, Victor is a monstrous and [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthropic]] MadScientist who is violently abusive towards his created "wives" and wishes to replace humanity with his creations, which is a scenario Victor in the original book wanted to prevent. He explicitly states that he never actually cared about Elizabeth or his mother, among his few positive qualities in Shelley's novel. His cloned counterpart later in the series, with the original's memories and personality, wants to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy all life on the planet]] (himself included) for no particular reason other than [[ForScience because he can]].

* SD Perry’s ''Literature/ResidentEvil''’s books do this to Wesker, Chief Irons and Nikolai who were already bad guys in the games but the books make them overtly [[CompleteMonster vile]] and [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil depraved]].