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Corrupt the Cutie

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"The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt it."
— Rule #43 of the Rules of the Internet note 

A series introduces a character as sweet and lovable, a fountain of Heartwarming Moments, more comic relief than anything, who likes nothing more than to pet little creatures. They make you adore them, root for them, love them and want to hug them, but then they start hanging out with the wrong type of people and make a slow walk to the dark side...

Then the writers proceed to change the character's personality bit by bit, not actually breaking them, but affecting their personality, so that they becomes either less likable or more sultry and devious than their naturally cute self, or is taught that being more aggressive will be better than being picked on. They become bolder with their new personality with every act of The Corrupter until they are not so innocent anymore. This is a common staple in various chick flicks, as what is more tempting than knowing just how awesome it could be to be popular, be powerful, and most importantly, have that Love Interest you want so bad wrapped around your neck?

Corruption comes in two forms:

  • The moral corruption of the cutie: They make dabbles and touches towards becoming a badass. Only problem is, they are doing it in a manner that is seen as intolerable or their method has negative consequences for people around them. They will go on about how the other person deserves this type of treatment, and eventually they buy into their moral corruption. Alternatively, they become a badass and defeat (or kill) the antagonist, but also end up becoming just as horrible as the enemy they've taken down.

  • The lifestyle change. It can go either way; either The Cutie is a really nice yet party-hard maniac or a lovable geek/nerd/unpopular person and wanted to see the other side of the grass. They get persuaded by their friends into the lifestyle switch or notice how cool it is. At first friends and family don't mind, until they start rubbing it on others, and the new personality is way worse than the original. Essentially they have all the aspects of the new life and nothing of their old life.

In the end of their transformation, there are two outcomes: either they realize the situation before they get enthralled with the lifestyle, and throw it down for good or, if the plot is cynical or tragic, they permanently change to that personality and that way of life for good.

May be a goal of Evil Desires Innocence.

See also Face–Heel Turn, where the character isn't just morally corrupted but outright joins the forces of evil. Related to Break the Cutie, for obvious reasons. Compare to Flanderization. Compare to We Want Our Jerk Back!, which is the reverse, comedy version of this trope.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • This is Sakuya Togane's plan in Psycho-Pass: he wants to corrupt the very pure Akane by putting her through horrible situations and trying to make her give up her Wide-Eyed Idealist views. He even kills her grandmother and brags about it in order to get her angry enough to try and kill him. The reason for all of this he wants to make her Crime Coefficient rise to a number that shows she's dangerous enough for him to be allowed to kill her, and he has done this with at least five other people.
  • In many other Shōjo and josei manga/anime (especially in josei), the virginal and sweet female lead will be paired up with a handsome yet much more cynical male lead (who can go from merely Jerk with a Heart of Gold to Fetishized Abuser levels). He will tease/mock/insult/etc. her a lot about her innocence, then try drawing her more sensual or adventurous side afloat (sometimes to the extreme). Even more, it's not exactly uncommon to see that the male lead used to be a cutie, but was severely broken and abused in his past and is no longer cute.
    • Mayu Shinjo's work thrives on the already mentioned stuff. It's openly lampshaded in Haou Airen, when Reilan sets up Kurumi to be gang-raped, and when she and her mooks are stopped by Hakuron, she openly claims that she wants Kurumi to be "tainted" as a part of her revenge against Hakuron for corrupting her innocent in the past.
  • Also, this is part of the premise of the Netorare and many Hentai doujinshis, and can sometimes be referred to as 'Moral Degeneration' by some avid readers of such material. In fact, it's a recurrent plot in Sanbun Kyoden's doujinshis.
  • Gilbert in Kaze to Ki no Uta is an especially tragic example of this.
  • Wrath in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) starts out as a kind and innocent kid who loves life, but after being corrupted by Envy and getting his memories back he becomes a sadistic and vengeful sociopath. He gets better eventually but sadly never regains his peppiness.
  • In the YuYu Hakusho manga, this adds a new dimension of creepy to the genocidal Sensui and his dimension-warping Dragon Itsuki, when Itsuki says he started hanging around Shinobu in the first place because he could see that the boy's perfect blind innocence was just waiting to be shattered, and he wanted to be there to enjoy it.
    "A little girl who believes babies come from storks growing up to be in pornos...I love that kind of thing."
    • Makes you wonder what that TV show he used as his redeeming human characteristic to stop Shinobu from killing him actually was. In the anime he just comes across as obsessively in love, though. The fangirls love him.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, one starts to get the feeling Evangeline wants to turn Negi into a monster as bad if not worse than she is (or thinks she is) by teaching him Black Magic.
  • A particularly odd case of this would be Yamcha of Dragon Ball fame as revisionist history seems to paint him as some kind of womanizer in recent video games and such. Despite being a rather badass desert bandit (who rapidly underwent Badass Decay), he was a Shrinking Violet any time he was near a woman. Early on he got together with Bulma, a Clingy Jealous Girl who always accused Yamcha of cheating any time another girl even looked at him (which was admittedly, often), despite him not looking back at them. (Eventually, Bulma ended up with Vegeta, with their son Trunks describing the version of events he was told as Yamcha cheating first before she ended up with his father.)
  • Played in Hellsing TV series with both Seras Victoria's and Integra Hellsing's different temptations during the series.
  • Implied to happen to Manami in Life (2002). She starts out as being a bubbly, cute girl who befriends the outcast protagonist, however after her boyfriend dumps her she spirals into a depression and becomes suicidal. She's taken in by a gang of boys who get her into sex, drugs, and alcohol. And next time we see her she's become the antagonist of the manga, being an extremely manipulative Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with a Girl Posse who enjoys abusing people for her own needs.
  • Vincent of PandoraHearts is hinted to want to do this to Ada.
  • Sailor Moon: Chibi Moon is captured by Death Phantom, and false memories of persecution are inserted into her psyche convincing her mother Usagi and friends the Sailor Senshi are really her enemies; as a result, she morphs into Black Lady. Either Pluto's death (manga and Sailor Moon Crystal) or her parents' "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight against her (first anime) de-corrupt her.
  • This happens early on in Death Note to Light Yagami when he goes from a mild-mannered, upstanding star student to a mass-murderer with a monster god complex. Of course, he stays in the territory of Anti-Hero for a while after that, then gradually loses the ideals that led him to go in that direction in the first place.
  • Code Geass: Schneizel el Britannia has used this on both Nina and Nunnally to frightening effect. Nina was already unstable to begin with, but after the first season finale was employed by Schneizel, who continuously enabled her worst behavior - to the point that under his instructions, she builds a Sphere of Destruction.
  • While the exact circumstances haven't been revealed, in the continuation/sequel of Tokyo Ghoul two former Cuties are shown to have become corrupted by Aogiri Tree since the last time they appeared. Sweet, innocent Hinami has become a Broken Bird and high-ranking member of the organization, seen commanding troops during a combat operation whereas she used to hate violence. But that's nothing compared to former Plucky Comic Relief Seidou Takizawa, who has undergone an extreme Evil Makeover after being experimented on, tortured into insanity and made into a Ghoul and makes quips while ripping off heads.
  • Naruto: Orochimaru. Who would ever believe that this creepy, unforgivable and power-hungry snake-man used to be quite the adorable young boy? The logic behind Orochimaru's mental transformation is rather reasonable considering he lost his parents. Though besides lusting for power, the core to exactly why he went insane is still quite a mystery.
  • Vampire Knight: Takuma Ichijou eventually, after being taken in under Sara's wing.
  • Metamorphosis: Saki Yoshida gradually turns from a naïve and relatively innocent schoolgirl into a drug-addicted prostitute thanks to being used, abused, and manipulated by several men who only see her as an outlet for their urges and have no qualms about taking advantage of her.

    Comic Books 
  • Countdown to Final Crisis: One of the storylines revolves around sweet, perky Mary Marvel slowly losing her moral compass after being given Black Adam's powers.
  • Scott Pilgrim:
    • It happens to Envy Adams, starting off as a cute dork who then went through a personality shift (Scott saw her as a nice girl who changed) for the worse, becoming aggressive and callous, having affairs behind Scott's back, and eventually taking over his band and breaking up with him (although that was a blunder on Scott's part on provoking the harsh breakup).
    • Although the final volume eventually reveals that thanks to Gideon Graves fiddling with Scott's brain, Scott is not the most reliable of narrators, and everything we've seen of his memories was from his potentially distorted perspective.
  • In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), Darkseid kidnaps Supergirl -who by that point is a naive, kind-hearted fifteen-year-old girl- and starts breaking her mind until she is his loyal slave.
  • X-Men: Part of Belasco's goal in bringing Illyana Rasputin to Limbo was to destroy her soul and turn her into a monster. He only partially succeeded; thanks to her time in Limbo, Magik went from a sweet, innocent child to an often insane demon sorceress, but she keeps trying to repress her darkest urges and use her powers for the good of people.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW):
    • Played straight with Rarity in the second story-arc.
    • Averted with Spike, as the baby dragon manages to remain loyal to his friends even after being tempted with an ideal Lotus-Eater Machine world.
  • MAD: Many of their comics poke fun at celebrities and popular culture characters by portraying them in a degrading manner.
  • Urbanus: This comic strip also loves using comic book and cartoon characters and depicting them in the nude, smoking or drinking.

    Fan Works 
  • All For Luz: When Luz gained the Quirk "All For One it came with the spirit of its previous holder living in her head, wanting her to let loose from her moral ties. By the end of Summer Camp arc, Luz has 2-digit body count after her Roaring Rampage of Revenge and has become a colder, darker, and more brutal Anti-Hero that trusts very few people outside her mother, Pastor Domenico and All For One himself.
  • Anonymoose's Monster Girl Saga has Annie. She was just another sweet little girl living with her mom and dad. Unfortunately, her mother chose to become a succubus and converted her father into an incubus. The monster couple tried turning their own CHILD into a lewd mockery of herself, which is bad enough. Thankfully, she quickly leaves the scene and tries to find the Grand Council. Sadly, things go straight downhill from here. The Council forces Annie to learn spells that can slay even the mightiest of monsters, but beat up her body so much that her blood veins pop and blood gushes out of her eyes. Despite this abuse, she doesn't try to run away because the whole fiasco with her parents has traumatized her to the point where she's just a mindless tool. Laven's naturally disgusted when he meets such a girl.
  • Her Inner Demons: When the Shadowbolts ask Sci-Twilight why she transformed into Midnight Sparkle she explains that the ridicule and abuse she endured over the course of the Friendship Games turned her angry and vengeful, to the point where she sought power to get back at everyone. As Cinch and the Shadowbolts pressured her into releasing the magic, the vengeful part of her mind was easily able to convince her to give into her rage and her desire for revenge, and become Midnight Sparkle.
  • Happens with Blossom and Buttercup in The Powerpuff Girls fanfic Immortality Syndrome. They go from their usual fun-loving selves to Straw Nihilists who believe that life is only suffering and therefore it must end.
  • Marinette, the everyday Ladybug of the class, is already starting to trek into this territory in the beginning of Jerk in Sheep's Clothing thanks to Lila’s lies. Then along comes her male counterpart, Henri LeRoi, with his sights set directly on her. After charming her into a romantic relationship with his good looks and false promises of loyalty, he wears her down even more, poisoning her mind against her friends, convincing her that they do not truly care for her, all while faking that he’s being bullied by them. Sadly, it’s very effective, as Marinette begins icing out her friends and turning on them for “bullying” her boyfriend, believing that they are bad people and Henri is the only true friend she has.
  • The Lion King Adventures does this to just about all of the cubs.
    • Duni was just a poor cub, down on his luck. He got struck by lightning and turned into Shocker.
  • This happens to Twilight Sparkle in Loved and Lost, an extended retelling of "A Canterlot Wedding". After she herself stops the Changeling invasion, Prince Jewelius takes over Equestria by destroying the reputations of the princesses as well as Twilight's brother and friends, banishing them away from Equestria. During the following week, he takes advantage of Twilight's fresh heartache from being rejected by her brother, friends and mentor at the wedding rehearsal, tricking her into thinking they never really cared about her. When Twilight's dishonored loved ones return to Canterlot with the intention of making amends with her, she coldly disowns themnote  and afterwards refuses to listen to their warnings regarding her new mentor and fiancé Jewelius. She also doesn't much object to Jewelius' questionable ruling style and even (reluctantly) accepts the Public Execution of Celestia. Fortunately, for all her anger, she hasn't completely stopped caring about her former loved onesnote , and she comes fully around once she realizes how evil Jewelius truly is.
  • A Moth to a Flame has Marcy going through a brutal corruption arc and descending into madness due to The Core's influence. By the time of "True Colors", she has become a willing accomplice to Andrias and intends to sell out her own planet in order to stay with her friends and rule it with them. She's even willing to fight and hurt them to achieve it, putting her firmly on the side of evil. Marcy gets even worse as she and The Core have one-to-one "therapy sessions" while she's recovering to make her more corrupted and brutal to become a more ideal vessel, something she agrees to voluntarily once The Core switches its plans for her from Demonic Possession to acting as The Symbiote.
  • Apollo's entire plan for gaining Gender Flip Percy Jackson as his Eternal Love in the they'll name a city after us. He plans of slowly corrupting Percy and making her more like an Olympian. Given that Percy is half god herself and is quite traumatised from having been a Child Soldier in a Divine Conflict , it is actually working.
  • Thousand Shinji: Shinji, Asuka and Rei were good kids, although they were troubled because of the lack of good parental figures. A servant of Tzeentch, Chaos God of Manipulation and Trickery ran into Shinji when he was four and mentored him and converted to Chaos worship. Shinji turned into a manipulative jerkass and several years later he converted Asuka and Rei to Chaos. Although they are more reasonable and not as bad as other minions of the Chaos Gods, they are assholes at best.

    Films — Animation 
  • The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: Near the end of the movie, it turns out that the reason why Rex was trying to make Emmet more tough and hardened was because he was trying to turn Emmet into him. When it turns out that simply mentoring Emmet doesn't work, he puts him under the dryer in a desperate attempt to emotionally break him. In fact, Rex himself is an example — he used to be Emmet, but after being forgotten under the dryer for a really long time, he eventually decided to completely change his image from the nice and cheerful Emmet to the tough and cynical Rex.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Jailbait (2013). Aspiring cellist and bright student Anna Nix is subject to this when she is sent to prison for the accidental murder of her abusive stepfather. Receiving no sympathy from the authorities or inmates, Anna is forced to participate in gang violence and prostitution to survive in the harsh environment. As she slowly gives into despair she begins to have hallucinations of her stepfather and is eventually Driven to Suicide, but the film ends on the hopeful note of her performing beautifully for a live audience.
  • The Thing That Couldn't Die. Attempted with Jessica. The crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 remark she's become more like a racy nun than actually evil.
  • Noah: Tubal-Cain towards Ham, although it helps that Jerkass Has a Point.
  • The Confirmation: Corrupt is a strong word, but the filmmakers describe the movie as an experience in having a perfectly nice and innocent kid spending a weekend breaking laws and commandments while still not fundamentally changing.
  • This is the premise of many, many Teen Drama-type movies.
    • The Tina Fey movie Mean Girls, starring Lindsay Lohan. Cady arrives in school unsure of how normal teenagers act. She gets sucked into the drama and back-stabbing of 'girl world', and by the time the Title Drop comes - it's referring to her.
    • Jennifer Garner's character in 13 Going on 30 corrupts herself.
    • And especially, especially, Thirteen (2003). The protagonist starts out sweet and ends as a drug-addicted, sex-crazed pickpocket. Even darker is that this is based on Nikki Reed's own experiences.
    • The whole premise of Cruel Intentions is a bet to Corrupt the Cutie. Results are debatable, but at least one other character gets corrupted on the way.
  • John Tucker Must Die has the main protagonist helping a group of girls get back at John Tucker and turning into the Alpha Bitch in the process.
  • In a slightly rarer male version, Will Stronghold has a Corrupt the Cutie sequence in Sky High (2005). This being a feel-good family-oriented movie, he gets better.
  • Jenny from Forrest Gump. It's debatable if she got better as she ends up dying from a disease (probably AIDS) she gets in her former lifestyle, but is redeemed as a person.
  • In Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker starts off as a Wide-Eyed Idealist little boy whose first thought is how he can endanger his own life just to help a group of strangers get off a planet. As he grows older, however, he becomes more and more ambitious in his desires for power and for love, partially egged on by Palpatine. As Palpatine plays him against his own Jedi brethren, who in turn play him against Palpatine, he secretly marries Padmé and she ends up pregnant. He then starts having visions of her death. The stress of the situation builds and builds until finally...
  • The Godfather: Michael Corleone starts out as the one member of his family who is definitely not going to have anything to do with the family business; he ends up succeeding his father as don. This doubles as a Break the Cutie because he also gradually loses everyone he loves, becomes totally disillusioned with his own actions and dies alone.
  • Janet Weiss, "A Heroine," and Brad Majors, "A Hero" of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They start as "two young ordinary healthy [and] normal kids on a night out." By the end... well, they're still young.
  • Andy in The Devil Wears Prada. Much is made of Andy's shifting standards and priorities, particularly in the way she treats her friends and her boyfriend, as the attitudes of the Runway staff start to influence her. Andy ultimately leaves the magazine — and a lucrative career — behind, in part because she realizes she's becoming someone she doesn't like.
  • Subverted in Pitch Black. Riddick pulls a magnificent attempt with Carolyn at the end by encouraging her to leave Imam and Jack behind to come with him instead. He's practically nice about it, being helpful by telling her he will leave her, and recognizing how difficult it must be but that nobody would blame her. She breaks down in front of him and he gets even nicer, encouraging her like a small child. One would think he's nothing but a Magnificent Bastard but it's likely he very much likes Carolyn. Doesn't ultimately take anyway as she violently rebuffs him and convinces him to go back for them anyway after remembering what she'd attempted to do at the beginning of the movie.
  • Deconstructed in Sirens. Tony, an Edwardian minister, believes in preserving a woman's virtue and purity. However this is shown to have a negative effect on his marriage, his wife Estella struggling to live up to such expectations. When she and another girl called Giddy are 'corrupted' by the free-spirited models, it's shown as a sign of positive character growth.
  • In The Wings of the Dove, Kate Croy begins the movie as a generally decent character. However, fear of impoverishment leads to her becoming more deceptive and manipulative as the film goes on.
  • In the St. Trinian's series the titular school has an uncanny ability to turn girls who should know better into proper St. Trinian's girls who terrify the population of the surrounding area by existing.
    • When she arrives in the original movie, Princess Fatima is just a nice high class girl. Halfway in the movie she's helping the other Fourth Formers betting on horse racing by virtue of knowing the horses better than them.
    • Angela Hall from the 1980 movie is the most notable, as she had been kidnapped from her actual school, and by the time she's rescued a few days later she has already taken in the attitude and demands to be returned to St. Trinian's.
    • In the 2007 reboot, Annabelle, formerly of the very posh Cheltenham Ladies' College, gradually comes to identify with the various young offenders attending the school, culminating in a makeover scene where she comes out looking sexy. It helps that during the hockey game with her previous school the Head Girl personally mauled her old bully.
      • Something similar happens with Miss Dickinson, the idealistic new English teacher. When she discovers the extent of cheating at the quiz show, her immediate conclusion is that... Chelsea and the other posh totties are smarter than they think.

    Literature 
  • Done in The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), when Mary Anne Bell is brought into the area to visit her boyfriend, Mark. She starts off as the epitome of sweetness, but soon starts to sneak out late at night and join the Green Berets on missions. At the end of her corruption, she is caught by Mark one night in a very disturbing scene, surrounded by death and destruction, with a necklace made of human tongues. It's rumored that she does not get better, and eventually just walks off into the mountains, never to be heard of again.
  • This is pretty much the entire point of The Picture of Dorian Gray. It doesn't end well.
  • Also the entire point of Stephen King's Apt Pupil (from the novella collection Different Seasons), with a side of Evil Is Not a Toy. Upstanding high school student Todd Bowden becomes fascinated by the Holocaust and blackmails the local Nazi fugitive, Kurt Dussander, into giving him firsthand details. Dussander's influence eventually drives Todd into becoming a Serial Killer.
  • Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack concerns a middle-class girl whose family becomes poor and moves into Harlem. As she interacts more with the petty criminals of the region, she begins to act and speak like them. She passes beyond their sense of honor, is rejected by them, and winds up losing everything and everyone she cares about. At the story's close, she's about to join the worst gang in the city and forget she ever lived an honest life.
  • The Empirium Trilogy: Corien, the leader of the angels, offers himself as a devout worshiper of Rielle, the long awaited Blood Queen. He positions himself as the one being who won't look at her in horror, unlike her fellow humans. Rielle ultimately finds the temptation of using her incredible powers as she wishes too appealing to deny his offer. This, in addition to being called a monster by her new husband, is what pushes Rielle into joining Corien and his cause.
  • The Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom is a textbook example of this in action. Over the course of the novel, fifteen-year-old Eugénie is "educated" in the ways of the libertine by Madame de Saint-Ange, her brother Le Chevalier de Mirval, and their friend Dolmancé, who introduce her to all kinds of sexual practices, and she proves to be a fast learner. In the final act, when Eugénie's mother, Madame de Mistival comes to rescue her from the libertines that have corrupted her, Eugénie and the libertines deal with her in truly sadistic fashion, with Eugénie herself taking an active part in the brutality visited upon her mother, and even declaring that she wants to kill her, before then proceeding to sew her genitals shut after Dolmancé has her raped by a guy with syphillis.
  • Arya from A Song of Ice and Fire. She started out as a tomboyish and adorable little girl. As of A Dance with Dragons she's a face-stealing assassin. Yeah.
  • Lolita is a Double Subversion. While Dolores actually initiates her first sexual encounter with Humbert (at least, according to Humbert), and actually was involved in sexual activities with her (young) friends before, he quickly forces her into a sex-focused relationship with him, and by the end, her childhood is ruined.
  • An important part of the plot of Dangerous Liaisons is the corruption of Cecile de Volange by Merteuil and Valmont. Note that when Valmont is initially offered the challenge, he rejects it as too easy.
    What do you propose to me? To seduce a young girl, who has seen nothing, knows nothing, and would in a manner give herself up without making the least defence, intoxicated with the first homage paid to her charms, and perhaps incited rather by curiosity than love; there twenty others may be as successful as I.
  • The Phantom of the Opera: In the original book by Gaston Leroux, long before even meeting Christine, Erik, the titular phantom, did work for the Shah-in-Shah: the little sultana, the favorite of the Shah-in-Shah, was boring herself to death. Erik built a Hall of Mirrors for her. When she tired of that, Erik transformed it into a Robotic Torture Device aptly named "the chamber of horrors", used to execute people sentenced to death. He also taught her how to strangle people efficiently. The little sultana soon applied that knowledge to simple peasants and her own friends.
    "Wretched man!" I cried. "Have you forgotten the rosy hours of Mazenderan?"
    "Yes," he replied, in a sadder tone, "I prefer to forget them. I used to make the little sultana laugh, though!"
  • In the Indian novel The White Tiger: When Balram first comes to Delhi as a driver, he's described as a 'sweet, innocent village fool'. He does not stay that way.
  • The French theater piece Lorenzaccio introduces a main character whose job is to find naive girls and turn them into prostitutes. It turns out that he used to be a naive boy who wanted to infiltrate the corrupt aristocracy to kill them, but ended up becoming like them, thus making him a corrupted cutie that corrupts cuties. Even after he tries to redeem himself by killing his city's tyrant, he realizes he is still as corrupted as he was, and commits suicide.
  • In the Nightrunner series, Seregil has this as his backstory. A young man "seduced" him when he had barely hit puberty, then proceeded to encourage Seregil's boyish wilfulness and mischievous tendencies, until finally setting him up to be caught while stealing something from a rival clan, thus damaging Seregil's clan's honor and destroying some political ambitions Seregil's father had had. It worked better than planned, because Seregil ended up killing the man who caught him in self-defense, which resulted in Seregil's exile from his home country, and eventually a career as a professional thief, with some survival prostitution implied on the way. Compared to the friends he left behind, his life has been much more violent, and he's been forced to kill many more times. However, unusually for the trope, this trauma made Seregil only more honorable in his later life (at least where it counts), and it made him terribly aware of the fine line he has to tread while teaching Alec thieving and spy-craft. It also keeps him from making any move on Alec when he finds himself attracted to the still-teenage boy.
  • In Dosteovski's The Idiot Nastasya is a sweet innocent girl who is raised in isolation in the country until she is 16, when she is seduced/raped by Totsky.
  • Oliver Twisted: Orphans in the workhouse, including Oliver although he's more resistant, are subjected to corruption so that they can be sacrificed to the wolf god Fenris. Under the Brotherhood of Fenris' orders, Fagin does manage to turn poor Oliver to the dark side for a bit by trapping him with visions of his worst fears under the lie that he was seeing his true self - a warlock only meant to do harm.

    Live-Action TV 
  • June from Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23. Her roommate Chloe's loose morals start to rub off on her. She starts out as a naive trusting young woman from Indiana with a deeply religious background. By the first season finale she is consuming copious amounts of booze while saying "I'm a slut" at her roommate Chloe's urging. She ends up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning by the end of the opening of the episode.
  • Game of Thrones: Some victims of Break the Cutie turn down this path as a means to overcome the abuse.
    • House of the Dragon: Alicent Hightower starts the series as the kind, dutiful, sweet Best Friend and lady-in-waiting of Princess Rhaenyra. After she is forced to marry King Viserys, she endures an unhappy marriage, Rhaenyra lies to her about sleeping with Ser Criston Cole, and she comes to believe Rhaenyra is planning on massacring her children in order to secure her claim. This results in her becoming a twisted, bitter, paranoid Anti-Villain.
  • Kes from Star Trek: Voyager appeared headed this way, which somewhat contradicts the statements by the Powers That Be that they got rid of the character because "she was turning into Nurse Chapel" and they couldn't figure out what to do with her. Therefore her return several seasons later with a complete Face–Heel Turn seemed completely bizarre to fans.
  • Occurs in Lizzie McGuire to the titular character in one episode. After spending time in detention with a bad girl called Angel, she decides to go bad herself. Her friends convince her to go back to her old ways with a terribly made documentary.
  • The Beauty of the Game has the main character being corrupted by Treacherous Advisor Fung, she first helps alleviate her anxiety working in the industry then she starts introducing her to modern-day comforts and turns her to a Hollywood scandal material celebrity. As she corrupts the main character, she also works on cementing her trust with Tong, whose financial problems are hidden by her Rich Bitch facade.
  • The Vampire Diaries - Damon tries to do this to most of the other characters in the show. Most notably his brother, Stefan, the Vegetarian Vampire who wants to become a 'normal vampire' and drink human blood but also with Elena, Caroline and Bonnie. Katherine, another vampire, does this to him and his brother. But frankly, what do you expect if vampires are involved?
    • Klaus did this to Stefan as well.
  • Degrassi: The Next Generation has Jay trying to do this towards Emma in season 4 "Secret." He later tries to talk Darcy into doing something she would find morally questionable. Alli accuses Eli of similar intentions toward Clare.
  • Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, definitely. Though it can't be definitively said that lesbianism or even magic is corruption exactly, she has a distinct addiction arc with the magic. Besides, she starts the series as the most adorable poster child for cuteness and then... well, she grows up. Because... evil and suffering is everywhere, and Status Quo Is Not God.
  • French Jerk Henri wants to do this to Woody's girlfriend Kelly on Cheers.
    Sam: Listen, Kelly is Woody's girlfriend. I'm sure you could have any woman you want.
    Henrí: I know, but Kelly is so innocent and naive. I love to change that.
    Sam Malone: Boy, I'm kind of torn here. I mean, Woody is my closest friend, but that's a real solid argument.
  • The Serpent Queen: The series is framed as a middle-aged Catherine de' Medici telling her story to a pious Shrinking Violet servant named Rahima. Over time, Rahima begins to learn the lessons Catherine is teaching her, and becomes more ruthless and conniving as a result.
  • Supernatural. There are no right choices in the setting except Heroic Sacrifice, and under some circumstances Agree With [main character]. And if your Heroic Sacrifice involves selling your soul, you probably shouldn't do that, either. John Winchester managed to make it work out by saving someone substantially more important to the story than himself...but even that led to the breaking of the first seal. Everything you do will sooner or later make things worse in the big picture, even if it's good in the small one. Therefore the process of living tends to Break the Cutie one way or another. This trope is the demonic Evil Plan for the first six seasons.
    • Sam Winchester's entire life consists of a plot to do this to him. Prior to the series, a Deal with the Devil before he's even born ensures he'll be infected with demon blood as a baby, and his mother is killed because the demon Azazel wants him. Friends, teachers, and others are demonically possessed throughout his life, and his girlfriend is murdered, just to keep him on the path to Azazel's plan for him. The first three seasons and the season break before four read like a saga of breaking Sam down—he was always categorized as 'selfish' vis-a-vis his family in that he wanted to go live a normal life for his own sake, but he was also The Heart and highly empathic and concerned with the right thing.
    • Many of Azazel's other chosen children, notably Ava, who started kind and very normal and very intentionally resembled Sam, and who went violently insane during the months she was trapped at Cold Oak.
    • The demons also planned this for Dean. They first trapped him in Hell, so they could torture him until he completely broke and become Alastair's student in torturing the human arrivals. Alastair later tells him what that moment meant, telling Dean a prophecy; "The First Seal shall shatter when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. As he breaks so shall it break." Dean kickstarted the run-up to the Apocalypse, so Dean and Sam both got this between seasons three and four.
    • Castiel gets this in season six. You could say Dean started the corruption in season four, but that's a different kind. The Free Will Castiel came to value through helping Dean by choosing humanity over his brothers' goal to have Michael and Lucifer fight doesn't offer the same moral certitude as he was used to as a warrior angel, and in season six, Castiel's soldier-like willingness to do anything for the cause gets completely out of hand so that he winds up offing his dearest lieutenants when they find out that he's working with a demon and trying to save the world by risking opening a door better left unopened that might destroy the world. And then he drives Sam insane as a distraction. He risked the fate of the world for this guy a couple of years ago. Then Castiel went completely overboard and declared himself God. He was wrong. Castiel in season seven gets Drunk on the Dark Side, goes on a murderous rampage with the help of The Corruption, has an Ignored Epiphany from Dean, becomes a Knight Templar, and inadverently releases a horde of Eldritch Abominations on the world, pretty much justifying all Dean's efforts to talk him down or kill him if he couldn't.
  • Ricky actively tries to corrupt his boyfriend Junito in Noah's Arc. While Junito is monogamous and believes in love and affection before all else, Ricky sets him up on sex dates in order to turn him into a promiscuous sex maniac just like himself.
  • Morgana from Merlin is first established as a kind and sometimes heroic character. A combination of fear of her new developing powers (in a society where magic is outlawed) and a series of clashes with the King push her towards the dark side. By season 3 she has spent a year in the company of her evil half-sister Morgause who has corrupted her completely.
  • Vivian in Chuck. Also happens to Sarah in the show's final story arc, but she eventually recovers. Both Bryce and Sarah are concerned with this happening to Chuck. Bryce seems more concerned for Chuck's chances for survival; Sarah is horrified at the idea of "her" Chuck becoming a ruthless cold-blooded killer before her eyes.
  • Claire in Lost, after being infected with The Sickness. She goes from a sweet, good-natured girl to a paranoid, psychotic shadow of her former self who even tries to violently murder her former best friend. She breaks out of it by the end, though.
  • Once Upon a Time:
    • Flashbacks show young Regina first gets thoroughly broken, but hasn't yet turned evil. It's then revealed that Rumplestiltskin, the Mad Hatter, and Dr. Frankenstein collaborated to push her over the Despair Event Horizon, and allow Rumplestiltskin to fully corrupt her. All because he needed someone evil to cast a curse to serve his ends. The poor girl never stood a chance.
    • Rumplestiltskin, of all people. All things said and done, life in the Enchanted Forest didn't exactly conspire to make his a particularly nice path. He's drafted into a war fighting awful creatures with perhaps even more awful fellow soldiers. His wife leaves him for another man. The war lasts long enough that his son becomes at risk of being drafted. Ends up in his current situation thanks to the previous Dark One pulling a gambit on him. Loses his son as a result. Loses his true love for over three decades thanks to his archrival. It's like the Enchanted Forest needed a villain and picked him. Becoming the Dark One was the root of most of what followed, though.
    • Cora wanted to get full revenge on Snow's mother, so she figured one of the ways to do that was to poison her and then trying to corrupt young Snow to use a candle that would heal her mother in exchange of killing someone. Snow did use it in the end... but it was many years later, and Snow used the killing end on Cora's heart.
  • The Wire features a tragic example in Randy Wagstaff. He starts out a sweet kid who wants to play with his friends and make some extra money by selling candy to other kids. After Herc lets slip that Randy is a snitch and the other kids burn his house down, injuring his foster mother, he has to go to a group home. At the group home he is abused and tortured, and when we see him again in season 5, he has become hard and violent.
  • Tyler making Avery break rules in Dog with a Blog.
  • Played for humor in Jeeves and Wooster: Bertie, in New York City at the time, is essentially blackmailed into looking after Lord Wilmot Pershore, a young fellow chafing under his overbearing mother's thumb. Bertie is supposed to keep Wilmot away from all the temptations of the city, things like jazz shows and speakeasies, much to Bertie's annoyance as those are the sorts of things he enjoys going to in New York. So Bertie goes out and leaves Wilmot in his apartment, but of course Wilmot doesn't stay there: he goes and spends all his money at a club and has to be rescued by Jeeves. At the end of it, Mottie is so wasted Jeeves has to carry him over his shoulder out of the cab and up to the apartment. When Wilmot finally comes to hours later, Bertie checks on him, asking what happened. Mottie, who has always been straitjacketed by his mother and never had the opportunity to act out in any way, has this to say:
    Wilmot: I drank too much. Much too much. Lots and lots too much. And what's more, I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it every night.
  • On Revolution Charlie Matheson starts out as a bit of an innocent, if somewhat headstrong. By the end of season two, she's an accomplished killer, drinker, and haver of the occasional one-night-stand.
  • Banshee: Proctor begins to tailor Rebecca for a role in his criminal empire. As of "Bullets and Tears," the process seems to be complete.

    Music 
  • The Offspring's song "Want You Bad" is pretty much the basis of this.
  • Nirvana:
    • "Floyd The Barber" from Bleach (Album) in which Floyd the barber, Barney Fife, Opie and Aunt Bee from the feel-good sitcom The Andy Griffith Show all turn out to be vicious and sadistic rapists and torturers who murder the protagonist in the song while he's sitting in the barber's chair.
    • "Negative Creep", also from Bleach, in which Kurt wails on about presumably a very young girl on drugs: Daddy's little girl ain't a girl no more.
    • "Drain You" from Nevermind in which a baby feels it's his duty to completely drain another baby.
  • Many people have been accusing Miley Cyrus of this ever since she released her Can't Be Tamed song. The music video doesn't really help either.
    • You might say that Hollywood/the entertainment industry have done this to more than a few childhood stars and starlets, though the females seem to get more coverage and finger-wagging from the press. Something of a double-standard about virtue and innocence, probably.
  • Michael Hutchence's relationship with Kylie Minogue was pretty much this: he stated that his favorite hobby was corrupting her as she was still seen as very innocent and cute at the time. In a positive twist, this didn't hurt their images at all and they remained very close friends after their breakup and up to his tragic death.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The pro wrestling valet character Woman (played by the late Nancy Benoit) started this way. She was initially Robin Greene, a geeky fan with a crush on Rick Steiner. She eventually went to Femme Fatale Missy Hyatt for advice on how to win him over, got a sultry new makeover... and shortly afterwards, realizing the power her looks gave her, ditched him for Doom.

    Tabletop Games 

    Theater 
  • Jacob Marley's modus operandi in Ebenezer is to corrupt the young Scrooge, wreck his life, and teach him to only love money.
  • In plays (and other works) by Oscar Wilde, the cynically witty lead characters are rarely above a little casual corruption or attempted corruption of any passing cuties. Certainly, Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance seems incapable of seeing a cutie of either gender without contemplating some kind of corruption, even if he fails at it...
    Lord Illingworth: Do you know, I don't believe in the existence of Puritan women? I don't think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her. It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable.
    Mrs. Allonby: You think there is no woman in the world who would object to being kissed?
    Lord Illingworth: Very few.
    Mrs. Allonby: Miss Worsley would not let you kiss her.
    Lord Illingworth: Are you sure?

    Video Games 
  • In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Yuuki Terumi convinces Noel Vermillion to revert to Mu-12 with a Motive Rant, accompanied by Cold-Blooded Torture.
  • In Star Wars: The Old Republic, a Sith Warrior Player Character has the option to do this to an empathic Jedi Padawan, turning her from a disillusioned Padawan who still adheres to the Light Side to a completely Ax-Crazy psychopathic Combat Sadomasochist, completely giddy for any opportunity to maim, torture, and disfigure, and even more so if you romance her.
  • Dragon Age:
    • Dragon Age: Origins gives players the option to "harden" (not like that!) Alistair or Leliana, two of your most idealistic, pure, good-hearted companions, after their personal quests: Alistair is told that "people are selfish and you need to look out for yourself" and Leliana is told that "despite the whole religious thing deep down you're really a killer at heart". The two of them tend to lose less approval over morally dubious acts after that, and Alistair is an interesting case: he becomes more confident at leading and a better king if he's crowned at the Landsmeet and he'll keep the Warden on in a relationship instead of dumping her if she's not a female Human Noble, but it's at the expense of Anora or a future wife and kids. It's also the only way to have him stay married to Anora if the Warden recruits the Big Bad Wannabe.
    • Dragon Age II:
      • Played for Laughs with Isabela's ongoing quest to corrupt Bethany and Merrill. Although not entirely straightforward - when Merrill laments how boring her life was compared to Isabella, who told her that "You deserve better than what I have" (or something along those lines). On the other hand, Merrill proves all too eager to be corrupted a little.
      • Same goes for Bethany, as Isabela mentions that "While men are good for one thing, women are good for six." Bethany hesitantly asks "Which six?".
      • Played for Drama and a brutal Player Punch with Anders. When he was introduced in Awakening, he was a snarky but kindhearted Lovable Rogue of a runaway mage. As of Part I of Dragon Age II, he's a devoted healer of refugees and defender of mages and Kirkwall's poor, fighting his Superpowered Evil Side. He gradually becomes more and more fanatical, paranoid, and foul-tempered as he and the former spirit of Justice, now a demon of Vengeance, corrupt each other, until finally he manipulates the Player Character into helping him blow up the Chantry and start a war in the name of mage freedom.
      • As alluded to above, the spirit of Justice also receives this treatment through the same process as Anders, going from a very idealistic defender of the weak with an adorable fascination with the physical world to a dangerously violent demon, all through the injustice he sees through Anders' eyes.
    • Whether the player hardened Leliana or not in Origins, they have the opportunity to do it again in Dragon Age: Inquisition. The Inquisitior can either convince her to be more merciful when dealing with their enemies and that their people aren't tools to be thrown away, or steel her even further by ordering her to be ruthless and insisting that We Have Reserves. Whichever option the player chooses dictates how Leliana acts if she's made Divine. The former will have her attempt Talking the Monster to Death with her enemies, while the latter has her believing that Murder Is the Best Solution.
  • Diablo III has this. Okay, we have this cute girl named Leah, who is arguably our main heroine whom the heroes helped all the way in the 3rd Act and thus finally sealing the last of the Seven Evils in that level. All is fine right? WROOOOOOONG! After sealing that evil being Azmodan, Tyrael wishes to destroy it but then Adria the Witch says that a proper ritual must be done. All of them (including Tyrael and our heroes) returned back to the town which turns out to be the most heart-wrenching scene of them all. Adria betrays them all. She butchers the guards, binds Tyrael down so that he could not move, and then slams the Black Soulstone into the chest of Leah and thus The Lord of Terror returns. He is not alone, either; the other six came along with him and thus God of Evil Tethamet got revived. The worst part for Leah is that it's implied that she has been corrupted to the point where she believes she is Diablo, near-absolutely unable to retain her identity and resist the influences of seven demon overlords simultaneously working together, and that her constant boasting about her forces and basically explaining to the Nephalem where to hit them is the small bit of her sanity left begging the heroes to completely obliterate her.
  • In the Capcom vs. series, Morrigan from Darkstalkers has a number of win quotes where she makes comments showing an interest in this trope, paired with Double Entendre. However, it's quite expected from her, being a succubus and all.
  • Iji starts out as an Apologetic Attacker, shakily apologizing to her enemies after she kills them. Kill enough enemies, though, and this stops, and go on the warpath and start killing everything and she eventually becomes The Berserker, yelling out battle cries and variations on "YOU DIE!" instead.
  • Would you believe that Jak, a young rebel with "anger issues", a gun, and a willingness to take out anyone who gets in his or his allies' way, was originally an adorable young boy? That's right; two years of being imprisoned and tortured with Dark Eco is enough to drastically warp an innocent teenager into someone who spends the first few days of his freedom seeking revenge.
  • When you're first introduced to Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite, she is a wide-eyed, idealistic, very naive girl who is full of hope and joy. A major part of her Character Development is having that innocence chipped away, just a little at a time, until she goes from a girl who is utterly horrified by the violence that main character Booker leaves in his wake, to one willing to cut off her dead mother's hand just to get past a gate. The turning point is when she stabs Daisy Fitzroy from behind with a pair of scissors, staining her outfit with blood. When Booker later rescues her from Comstock House, her attitude on killing has gone from "heat of the moment" to being completely comfortable with premeditated murder.
    • It gets worse when Booker gets to the Comstock Re-Education Center. Inattentive players often think that this timeline's Elizabeth was only tortured for six months there, and that Booker comes to her rescue in the nick of time (which would imply, for example, that Comstock's personal mansion was already fully turned into an asylum AND utterly dilapidated in 1912). Sadly, what Booker sees on arrival is the result of Elizabeth ultimately agreeing to serve as a Dark Messiah's right hand and later a false saint herself. Then, Elizabeth goes on to do the everyday chores that her position entails - like crafting propaganda, authorizing mass shootings and purges, opening a personal asylum that drives dissidents and undesirables insane, and waging total war of conquest. All the while realizing the horror of her actions. For SEVENTY-TWO YEARS. The Cavalry Arrives Late, indeed.
    • By the time of the Burial at Sea DLC, she's grown even more desensitized to utterly horrific levels of violence, glaring implacably while Comstock, whom you've been playing as this whole time, is impaled from behind by a Big Daddy. She later finds out that The Luteces arranged the situation with Daisy to turn her into a killer, which Daisy herself carried out willingly. This was so that she would possess the fortitude to do what needed to be done. What separates a girl from a woman? Blood.
  • In Undertale, on the Genocide Route, this is what happens between the Player Character Frisk and the spirit of the first Fallen Child. Due to the ambiguous nature of the relationship between the player and these two individuals, it's unclear whether the player is corrupting the Fallen Child through Frisk, the player and the Fallen Child are corrupting Frisk together, or the player is corrupting both of them. Either way, once the corrupting has been completed, they stay corrupted. FOREVER.
  • In Dragonia, poor naive Feeney gradually sacrifices all of her innocence in order to purify the dragons attacking her homeland, all at the advice of the Dragon Witch, who very clearly does not have her best interests at heart.
  • An unavoidable aspect of The Walking Dead (Telltale), explored through Clementine, a young girl, becoming the protagonist of the series following the death of her caretaker, Lee Everett, and the world has become just that harsh in the resulting years. Maintaining any sort of innocence during a Zombie Apocalypse is a pipe dream. However, the player has some agency over how much they want her to be corrupted, by choosing more lighthearted dialogue options and the like. One late moment in Season Two has Clem given the option of whether to watch Kenny brutally kill William Carver, the Arc Villain. Taking this choice and then trying to act innocent later will make the characters call her out on her hypocrisy.

    Visual Novels 
  • Subverted in Daughter for Dessert. The setting and early events make it looks like the protagonist will eventually corrupt Amanda, maybe even with Kathy’s help. In truth, Amanda is anything but innocent, and she throws herself at him.
  • "Maou" and Kyousuke both attempt it on Tsubaki in The Devil on G-String. They don't exactly succeed, but Tsubaki is hardly innocent by the time the game ends. Kyousuke succeeds in the bad ending to her route.

    Webcomics 
  • Seen twice in Bittersweet Candy Bowl, both with Daisy being corrupted by Augustus and Tess corrupting Jessica by ruining her reputation.
  • The whole point of Demon Candy: Parallel. In a twist, it's the females doing the corrupting.
  • Ariel in Drowtales has a horrible stepmother (and possibly ruthless stepfather), and it goes downhill from there. As a result, when given the forced choice of killing a kid who tried to kill her first or face permanent disgrace from her biggest role model (third option is to duel-to-the-death a family member instead) she picks the former. Having been mentally injured from the consequence of losing her best friend who then caused the death of two innocents (in a different scenario but one she could have definitely altered), she gets angry at one of her friends for being cowardly and murders an innocent slave who was trying to protect him, just to make a point. She's still generally good, but the corruption has a noticeable effect on her actions from then on.
  • Most of the cast of Ménage à 3 are enthusiastic about sex and a bit amoral, while some of the others are cute but less experienced or more confused, so it's not surprising if this is a fairly frequent source of character motivation — although it's usually all fairly good-natured and comedic. Some examples:
    • Zii's offer to get Gary laid could be a case in point. It's not that Gary needs corrupting, exactly, but he needs help in getting to act on his impulses — and Zii occasionally fantasises about him becoming rather more bisexual than he himself seems to want. Then he stuns her by developing a colorful (heterosexual) sex life.
    • Zii also has hopes about DiDi, although her actions there are perhaps even less systematic. In fact, it soon comes to seem that DiDi has been hanging out with Zii for too long, as her capacity for good-natured mischief increases, followed by her less good-natured active pursuit of an orgasm. Admittedly, given things like her pre-existing love of cross-dressing guys and horror movies, it may not have taken much.
    • Zii could barely think of her seduction of Sonya as "corruption"; she just encourages Sonya to express her bisexual side. However, the effects are much more dramatic (and less fun for Zii) than she expected. Sonya not only takes to bisexuality and wild sex, she becomes obsessed with Zii, and uses increasingly amoral tactics to catch her.
    • Matt may have hoped to "corrupt" Sandra, though he soon discovers that she becomes every bit as kinky as he wants when she's had a few drinks.
    • The transsexual Senna makes it plain from the first that her aim with regard to Gary involves making him question his sexuality — by getting him into bed. Her problem for a long time is getting to be in the same city as him, and by the time she manages that, he is a little less inexperienced than at their first meeting. But he is still cutely confused by her, and not long after she catches up with him, she’s semi-accidentally getting him drunk and then getting hot and heavy with him.
  • A lot of the continuing story of Sticky Dilly Buns involves the non-malicious and not particularly deliberate "corruption" of The Ingenue and short-tempered Ruby by the rest of the cast. However, Ruby shows that even experienced seductress Zii (guesting from Ménage à 3 — see above) can only accomplish so much with her, and in the end, having become interested in sex mostly on her own terms, Ruby might be said to accidentally “corrupt” the somewhat dimmer cutie Andy (though it’s all consensual and good-natured).

    Web Original 
  • Geoffrey in This Is War, who starts out as possibly the most innocent vampire ever. He begins hanging out with the wrong sort of girl, and if it carries on much longer, this seems inevitable
  • Invoked in Epithet Erased by innocent 12-year-old Molly, who has to pretend that she's a victim of her Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain friend Giovanni to avoid being arrested by association, so she shamelessly swears in front of the cops and chalks it up to her "innocent youth being corrupted by bad guy proximity". The cops are absolutely horrified by this.
  • Cobalt from Wolf Song: The Movie is later revealed to have been a victim of this before the events of the film (except the prologue), where we soon learn that back when he was an innocent pup, The Death Alpha and his nephew Zar (pre Heel–Face Turn) had him pinned down, mocked and manipulated into killing his friend, bringing about his Start of Darkness. Post redemption Zar apologises to him following the discussion but Cobalt by this time has been corrupted to such an extent that instead of taking Zar’s offer he takes the guy’s life

    Western Animation 

    Real Life 
  • The Shattered assumptions theory can be interpreted as this, as it posits that all people inherently see the world as benevolent and meaningful, and that they themselves have worth, until a traumatic event (usually death or physical and psychological abuse such as bullying) causes these assumptions to become broken, thus corrupting the person's view of the world at large. Similarly, the Just-world hypothesis employs some portions of this trope, as it argues that most people believe the world to be a place where people get what they deserve; that kindness is repayed with kindness, and Justice Will Prevail. Unfortunately, the reality of the world is considerably less positive, and exposure to its ugly side will inevitably wear down and warp one's view of society as a whole.
  • Christiane F.'s autobiography We Children of Bahnhof Zoo (filmed as Christiane F.) is the true story of a young teenage girl who became a prostitute in order to make money to buy heroin. The book made her famous, but she never managed to kick off the habit completely, even contracting hepatitis B from an infected needle. She's still alive as of January 2020.
  • Very (and often tragically) common among child actors/celebrities, particularly as they enter their late teens/early twenties. Oftentimes this is the result of a number of factors tied to their chosen line of work - extremely high pay, a legion of fans/handlers/hangers-on that insist they can do no wrong, a lifestyle that affords little in the way of privacy, the presence of overbearing stage parents, the desire to rebrand themselves as Darker and Edgier and, of course, good old fashioned puberty can all combine to create a potently toxic mix. It's easier to list the former child celebrities that DIDN'T wind up struggling with drugs/alcohol/a sex scandal of some kind.

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The Mane 5 Get Corrupted

Opaline’s necklace does this to the Mane 5.

How well does it match the trope?

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Main / CorruptTheCutie

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