History Main / BrokenPedestal

* Literature/HarryPotter's father James. When Harry gets a glimpse into the past, he sees his father as a young man and finds out that he was actually a JerkJock. It's hinted in the series that he grew out of it.

* {{Sinestro}} was once considered to be the greatest GreenLantern to have ever existed and was a mentor to Hal Jordan. But eventually, it came out that Sinestro was a tyrant on his homeworld and was exiled, becoming an enemy to the Corps (especially Hal). This trope is inducted a lot when they go head to head.

** Dumbledore, TheChessmaster, briefly gets his pedestal broken in ''HarryPotter/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows, both for Harry and the reader.

* In ''Manga/ZatchBell''. when under Zofis's control, it seems like Koko is this for Sherry.

* In ''DragonBall Z'', when Vegeta and Bulma's [[KidFromTheFuture future son]] [[FutureBadass Trunks]] goes back in time to warn Goku about the androids who [[BadFuture devastated his timeline]] and murdered all of the Z-Fighters, he's very eager to meet his father who died when he was baby. Later, when he finally gets a chance to meet Vegeta and fight by his side, he realizes that his father is actually a vicious BloodKnight who didn't really care that much about Bulma or his infant son and [[KickTheDog would have let them die in a plane crash]] had Trunks not rescued them. And that's before Vegeta makes it clear that he's perfectly willing to let Cell [[OneWingedAngel ascend to his perfect form]] to have a stronger opponent, regardless of the risk that Cell would destroy the world if he got too powerful. [[BewareTheNiceOnes This is what actually pushed Trunks into blasting his father and nearly killing him]]. Thankfully, in part due to [[MoralityPet Trunks's influence]], Vegeta [[TookALevelInKindness eventually becomes a nicer person and a better father]].

* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold''':

* Assassin's Creed [[spoiler: your mentor Al Mualim turns out to have been sending you on missions the entire time to distract you from his plot to use a mythical object to mind control all of the assassins, his allies]]

* In TheDCU, Henri Ducard, the man who taught {{Batman}} the art of manhunting, ultimately turns out to be a money-grubbing mercenary with no real interest in justice.

** [[spoiler:That was his entire motive, to figuratively cause the death of the Bat-family by breaking their trust in each other.]]

* [[spoiler: Reiner Braun]] from ''ShingekiNoKyojin'' is admired and highly respected by others, as well as being the TeamDad to his comrades. Eren in particular looks up to him, as the person who taught him the value of honor and duty. Then, it's revealed that [[spoiler: he's [[TheMole the Armored Titan]] that destroyed the inner gate of Wall Maria and doomed roughly 20% of the human population to a horrible death]].

* ''BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker'': Batgirl knows Harley is a PsychoSupporter for Poison Ivy and TheJoker but she thinks Harley WouldntHurtAChild and is very disappointed when she discovers Joker Junior:

** [[spoiler:Vice Admiral Vergo]] for the marines of G-5, who admired him for taking command of marines who couldn't fit in anywhere else, until it turned out that he [[spoiler:was working as TheMole for Caesar Clown and was responsible for the children being kidnapped]].

** A few people, most prominently Ashley/Kaiden (even more hardhitting if they were your love interest in ''MassEffect1''), consider Shepard to be one since s/he's working with Cerberus, a terrorist organization in ''MassEffect2''.

* In the Korean Series ''TheCityHunter'', Kim Jong Shik, Young Joo's father, turns out to have been part of a group who engineered the deaths of 20 special forces soldiers in order to further his political career, as well as hid a drunk driving vehicular homicide. Young Joo, an idealistic detective, doesn't take it well.

* The episode "Fallen Idol" of ''Series/{{Mash}}''. Hawkeye has to leave the O.R., due to a hangover. This breaks the pedestal Radar (and, according to Radar, many others as well) has put Hawkeye on. Hawkeye, on the other hand, does want to have the stress of being someones idol. (Just in this episode, normally, Hawkeye would not mind).

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Bravestarr}}'' did this in the simply-titled episode "Fallen Idol". A bit unusually, while Bravestarr is shocked to hear that his mentor Jingles Morgan is wanted for murder, he doesn't seem to doubt the truth of it at any point. Upon his arrest, and Bravestarr's attempts to understand why, Morgan pauses to KickTheDog by saying "I never wanted to be your 'hero'".

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

[[folder:Film]]
* [[ItWasHisSled As everyone knows]] in ''Franchise/StarWars'', Luke grows up wondering what happened to his father Anakin but his foster parents only tell him vaguely that he had been a pilot and fought and died during the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi meets Luke and tells him that Anakin was once his apprentice and one of the most noble and powerful Jedi he had ever known and that he was also skilled as a fighter pilot. Anakin was a war hero who was the very best at what he did, he could fight on sea, air, or land, even in space, and was known as the hero with no fear, his father was someone to be admired. Luke wonders aloud how such a great hero could have died and Obi-Wan tells him that his father was betrayed and killed by the Empire's dark enforcer Darth Vader during the Clone Wars and this causes Luke to hate Vader, even moreso when Vader eventually kills Obi-Wan too. However, Vader eventually reveals the truth to Luke, he '''is''' Anakin Skywalker and thus Luke's father, the Empire's ruthless enforcer of terror and fear Galaxy-wide Darth Vader is Luke's father. Luke [[BigNo doesn't take this very well]].

* Nicholas Angel relates such a story about his uncle in ''HotFuzz''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'', on arriving in Venezuela, Carl Frederickson meets his childhood hero, the explorer Charles Muntz, who has spent his life trying to capture a rare bird that lives on the plateau near Paradise Falls...and has become dangerously obsessed with his quest, to the point of [[spoiler: killing people he even ''thinks'' are trying to get the bird back to civilization before him, and threatening Carl and Russell.]]
* The animated film ''{{Hoodwinked}}'': Red Puckett is hurt when Granny's secret extreme sports life is revealed.
* In ''Disney/TreasurePlanet'', Jim's trust in Silver is broken when he finds out that [[spoiler:he is a pirate and the mastermind behind the ship's mutiny]]. Silver makes up for it in the end, though.
** Much the same thing happens in ''MuppetTreasureIsland''.

* Mr. Incredible, Bob Parr, is this for [[BigBad Syndrome]] in ''TheIncredibles''. As a child, Buddy Pine starts out as Mr. Incredible's self-proclaimed biggest fan, and spends the entire opening sequence of the film trying to persuade the superhero into letting him become his sidekick, "[=IncrediBoy=]". However, he repeatedly gets on Bob's nerves until he coldly tells him, "IWorkAlone." Soon after, Buddy's attempts to prove himself cost Bob his chance of apprehending one of his archenemies, and he turns the boy over to the police to bring him home. This act disillusions Buddy from not just Bob, but all superheroes in general, leading him to take his frustrations out on all supers as the villainous Syndrome.
** To be fair, Bob has a few reasons: one, he knew that fighting crime is no place for a boy. Also, he was late for his own wedding with Helen.

*** A later episode has Sub-Officer Dacon, a legendary Peacekeeper officer who sacrificed his life to safely end an assault on a monastery filled with nothing but women and children. [[spoiler: When the crew gets accidentally sent back in time to this event, turns out Dacon is just a cook]].

* In Red Witch's ''Tangled Web'' seriwes for ''GalaxyRangers'', the entire team has one of these about [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Commander Walsh]] and Dr. Negata when they find out the full extent of what went on at Wolf Den, including vivisection of the {{ArtificialHuman}}s and forced deathmatches (with visiting Senators encouraged to gamble on the results).

* BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker: Batgirl knows Harley is a PsychoSupporter for Poison Ivy and TheJoker but she thinks Harley WouldntHurtAChild and is very disappointed when she discovers Joker Junior:

* * BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker: Batgirl knows Harley is a PsychoSupporter for Poison Ivy and TheJoker but she thinks Harley WouldntHurtAChild and is very disappointed when she discovers Joker Junior: