Temporary Party Member to Villain

A Sixth Ranger Traitor variation exclusive to video games, this trope applies to any situation when a Guest-Star Party Member later becomes a villain or antagonist for a reasonable portion of the game, usually the climax where they're taken down. Sometimes, the temporary member has hidden motives of their own, or has a personality which is likely to Jump Off The Slippery Slope. Sometimes the ally you side with today will be the villain you fight tomorrow.

This is a great way to build up both drama and characterization. The main characters can be shown interacting with the eventual villain, allowing character growth for all sides. For the Temporary Party Member, the time spent in the party allows a more personal characterization to be given to them, better explaining their personality and motives. This is particularly effective with an Anti-Villain, as it allows one to grow attached to (and better understand) the villain's motives and why they act the way they do. For the rest of the main party, this allows development of a relationship with the villain, increasing the drama when the guest star's villainy is revealed, adding a sense of betrayal which makes the villain's actions more personal. Don't be surprised if the villain uses the equipment you gave them against you.

Thus, the key parts of the trope are:

• There must be a party.
• There must be a Guest-Star Party Member who joins after the adventure started.
• The GSPM leaves betraying the party or doesn't stick.
• There must be a conclusion: Either the next time the party/main character finds the GSPM, now turned into a villain, they fight (straight example), they fight but we don't see the fight itself (implied) or they don't (subversion).

This trope also plays with the player's expectations. Players are programmed to take for granted that their party is composed of the "good guys". Even in Grey-and-Gray Morality settings, the main party are usually still the closest there are to good guys. So having someone in your party turn out to be bad can be more of a shock to the player.

One other common use for the temporary villain party member is a sort of inverse Taste of Power. By showing the temporary villain party member as stronger, faster, and all-around better than any of the main party during battle, it's possible to show how hopelessly out-classed the main party is by their adversary. This can also give the main characters a chance to see the sort of power they one day wish to gain once they have grown stronger. When this happens, expect the villain of the party to have stagnated the whole time.

A party member that fights against the rest of the team in one battle or a brief section because they were temporarily Brainwashed and Crazy or due to a quickly resolved misunderstanding is not a villain. Likewise, this trope only applies if one has to combat the villain after allying with them, so situations where a character undergoes a Heel–Face Turn prior to joining the allies, and never reverts to his old ways, is not applicable to this trope. A "villain" may be the final boss, but any character who serves an antagonistic role can apply as well for this trope. And, of course, Enemy Mine (where the villain is forced to work with the hero in a specific situation, or does so out of Pragmatic Villainy) and Token Evil Teammate (where the villain always made their alignment clear, even when working with the heroes) situations don't count.

Subtrope of Sixth Ranger Traitor. Compare The Mole, where the villain not only was Evil All Along but was sent to infiltrate among the party's ranks. Contrast Defeat Means Friendship, where you fight the boss before they join your party.

As a Betrayal Trope trope, expect all spoilers to be unmarked. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned

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Examples

Action RPG

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: In the Thieves' Guild questline, guild master Mercer Frey joins the Dragonborn in tracking down the traitor Karliah at Snow Veil Sanctum. However, right at the end of the dungeon, the truth is revealed — Mercer is the real traitor and Karliah was investigating him, whereupon, after Mercer attempts to kill the Dragonborn, who only survives due to Karliah planning ahead, the player allies with her instead. Mercer returns at the end of the questline, serving as the Final Boss for the Thieves' Guild.
• Subverted in Kingdom Hearts: While in Monstro, as Sora, Donald, and Goofy face the Parasite Cage for the first time, Riku (who has already allied himself with Maleficent by this point) joins in the fight alongside them. Immediately afterward though, when the Parasite Cage spits Pinocchio out and he falls through a hole in the floor (where he lands on Geppetto's ship), Riku follows and kidnaps Pinocchio himself, feeling that by studying the puppet, he can find a way to restore their friend Kairi's lost heart.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance gives you the option of teaming up with Super Skrull or Power Skrull. No matter who you pick for your party, they will betray you later but are useful in combat and navigation until then.
• Tales of Symphonia: Magic Knight Kratos Aurion joins the party early on, promising to help escort Colette and the party to the Tower of Salvation so Colette can regenerate the world, and acts as a bit of a Crutch Character. Once there, he reveals himself to be a member of Cruxis, the Ancient Conspiracy behind the current nature of the world, which coupled with The Reveal that the ceremony will result in Colette suffering Death of Personality, leads to an Open-Ended Boss Battle between Kratos and the party. He's only playable one further time beyond this point.

First-Person Shooter

• Borderlands 3: The DLC Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot has Freddie, whom the heroes meet halfway through the story when trying to find a way out of the eponymous abandoned casino. On your first meeting, he tells you that humans aren't to be trusted, unlike robots, due to them helping him when Jack died and the casino underwent lockdown. He joins the party roughly until it's revealed he's under Pretty Boy's payroll, selling out Timothy to the latter. The Vault Hunters fight him when they're going straight for Pretty Boy's head, as the last pre-Final Boss boss battle, being flanked by two Loader Bots called Petunia and Dandelion.
• Subverted in Half-Life 2. Halfway through the game, you meet Dr. Judith Mossman, assistant to La Résistance leader Eli Vance, at Black Mesa East. She and Eli seemingly get captured by the Combine during a raid and taken to Nova Prospekt, but during Gordon's assault on Nova Prospekt, it's revealed that she's been in league with the Combine all along and had sold out Eli and the location of his base months in advance. When Gordon and Alyx corner her, she initially cooperates with them to bring Eli to safety via a teleporter inside the prison but pulls a fast one and teleports herself and Eli to the Citadel instead. However, when Gordon finally meets Dr. Breen in the Citadel during the climax, Mossman is horrified of Breen's intention to essentially execute Eli and Alyx, so she pulls a Heel–Face Turn and saves the two of them and Gordon all at once.
• Halo 3: ODST: During the level "Data Hive", the Rookie encounters a police officer who will accompany him as they battle through the Covenant-occupied underground. If the player has not found 29 audio logs, the officer will have a scripted death midway through the level. Collecting all the available logs will unlock the path to the final log, in which the officer reveals himself to be a Dirty Cop who tries to kill the Rookie when the trooper catches him covering up a murder.
• Subverted in Wolfenstein (2009): Roughly a third into the game, B.J. Blazkowicz, after retrieving the Thule Medallion for the Kreisau Circle, meets the Golden Sun trio, whose leader, Leonid Alexandrov, distrusts you from the beginning. After the seeming death of Caroline Becker, the trio disappears. Aboard the Zeppelin in the climax, we learn that Alexandrov was in league with the Nazis all along, talking with Big Bad Deathshead about how easy he did things for the regime, starting with intercepting B.J. at the beginning of the game. Then he's promptly executed by Deathshead's second-in-command.

Hack and Slash

• Diablo III: If the Nephalem visits the Shrouded Moors, they are accosted by an NPC called Daivin the Adventurer, who insists on following them around and helping them fight the monsters that live on the moors. He's later captured by a band of cultists who appear to use him as a sacrifice in a ritual. On completing the Temple of the Firstborn, Daivin reappears and reveals that he used the cultists to fake his own death, and he's actually Vidian, a lieutenant of the Demon Lord Azmodan, intent on stealing the Nephalem's power for himself.

Real-Time Strategy

• Age of Empires III: In the second level of the Steel campaign, we meet Pierre Beaumont, a French skin trader who makes an offer to Amelia Black about some mines with gold after a Hold the Line mission where he assists as an ally; he needed her men so he can extract the gold from said mine. However it turns out the mine was a lie, and Beaumont was actually the newest member of the reformed Circle of Ossus, and she would have fallen into a trap were it not for her uncle Kanyenke/Ká:nien. Amelia, with the help of her uncle and other allies such as Major Cooper and Simón Bolívar, tracked down Beaumont until they reached the Circle's base at the Florida. There, Amelia's forces fought against the Circle, with Beaumont dying via Boom, Headshot! in the final cutscene.
• StarCraft:
  • StarCraft has Sarah Kerrigan. She joins halfway into the Terran campaign as a Ghost under Arcturus Mengsk's orders for a mission where she needs to infiltrate an enemy base. This lasts until the previous-to-last mission where she's left behind by Mengsk, prompting campaign hero Jim Raynor to quit in protest. Kerrigan returns reborn as a villain in the fourth mission of the original Zerg campaign, a role she keeps until her de-infestation via Keystone in the climax of Starcraft II Wings Of Liberty.
  • Also from I, there's Arcturus Mengsk himself. Initially the Big Good during the entirety of the original Terran campaign after freeing Jim Raynor from the Mar Sara prison, after the original Terran campaign's fourth mission, he leads Raynor and Kerrigan until the Tarsonis mission, where he leaves Kerrigan to die. Afterwards, with the Confederacy gone, he proclaims himself Emperor of the Terran Dominion, making himself a terror for the Terran race until his eventual death at the hands of the aforementioned Kerrigan at the end of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

Role-Playing Games

• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: Chapter 7 sends the party back in time to the First Internet, where they meet ???, who becomes a party member. At the end of the chapter, it turns out that ??? is a pre-Face–Heel Turn Boxxyfan, the overall Big Bad of the series, and we see the moment he is driven to seek revenge against Catie for accidentally destroying his home.
• Bravely Default II: Prince Castor joins the party shortly after their arrival in the city of Savalon, professing an interest in helping Princess Gloria locate the Water Crystal. However, he secretly plans to use the crystal for selfish ends and betrays the party in order to claim it for himself once they find it. He's the end-of-chapter boss, and his fight takes place shortly after he steals the crystal.
• Dragon Age:
  • Dragon Age: Origins: Two of the Guest Star Party Members available in the origin stories can be later encountered as antagonists:
    • Jowan, from the Mage Origin, is revealed to be a blood mage at the end of said origin, and is encountered later as inadvertently helping cause a Zombie Apocalypse at Redcliffe; his fate is left up to the player.
    • Tamlen, from the Dalish Elf Origin, disappears after he and the player discover a tainted eluvian, and later appears as a ghoul who attacks the party camp with a bunch of darkspawn.
  • Dragon Age II: First Enchanter Orsino and Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard briefly fight alongside Hawke and company during the Qunari coup attempt at the end of Act 2. Both of them are fought at the end of Act 3 after the tensions within Kirkwall end up boiling over into all-out war.
• EarthBound (1994): Pokey joins the party as a rather ineffective team member during the opening act. He joins up with several villains over the game, culminating in becoming the semi-final boss and later the Big Bad of Mother 3.
• This occurs many times in the Final Fantasy series:
  • Final Fantasy VII: Cloud has a flashback of himself fighting alongside the game's Big Bad Sephiroth before he went Ax-Crazy. This serves to illustrate how badass Sephiroth is since he can Curb Stomp all of the enemies that he comes across.
  • Final Fantasy VIII: Seifer accompanies Squall and Zell for the final part of the exam to decide if they become fully-fledged members of SeeD; when Seifer fails the exam, he goes rogue and winds up as The Dragon to the game's Big Bad.

• During certain segments of Final Fantasy XV, Ardyn welcomes himself into the party without any consent from Noctis or the rest of the party. None of the team trusts him one bit, and he merely joins to lead you to where he wants you to go. During one particular segment, he uses an illusion to disguise himself as regular party member Prompto and fights alongside Noctis. He is ultimately fought as the Final Boss.

• In Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, Big Bad Ghaleon joins the party briefly for an Escort Mission... you're the ones being escorted. He has a host of spells that do max damage to all enemies, full MP and HP, and, despite being a magic-type character, can do three attacks each for far more damage than the main melee.
• Octopath Traveler II:
  • Hikari's first chapter opens with him fighting in a battle alongside his war buddies Ritsu and Rai Mei. Later in the chapter, Hikari's brother Mugen assassinates their father, King Jigo, and launches a coup to seize the kingdom for himself — Ritsu pledges his support to Mugen and is tasked with killing Hikari.
  • Subverted by Rai Mei — she reluctantly backs Mugen out of fear he'll slaughter her clan, and serves as a Boss Fight in Hikari's story, but ultimately decides to back Hikari's claim to the throne and fights alongside him once again in his final chapter.
• Persona 5: Goro Akechi joins the party for a single palace before it's revealed that he was infiltrating the Phantom Thieves for his own ends, was the one responsible for the mental shutdowns, and was the traitor mentioned at the beginning of the game all along. In the Updated Re-release Persona 5 Royal, he does eventually pull a Heel–Face Turn and rejoin the party for the third semester content.
• Phantasy Star IV has Seth, an archeologist who joins the party really late in the game, at Soldier's Island. After fighting alongside them in a single dungeon on the island, he turns out to be a disguised Dark Force and the party fights him (Though whether Seth was really Dark Force in disguise or a man that fell victim to Demonic Possession is ambiguous).

• Xenosaga goes the extra mile by making this trope span multiple games. Lt. Virgil joins the team briefly before getting killed by a party member. He is next run into in another game as The Blue Testament after one of the big bad plotters revived him and gave him a superpower boost.

Strategy RPG

• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: Arvis briefly appears in the prologue as an AI-controlled, One-Man Army allied unit who helps Sigurd deal with the Verdane invasion and hands him the Silver Sword. He's then later encountered during the game's Wham Episode, where he's revealed to have become The Emperor and The Heavy in the process, and he kills Sigurd and wipes out his army, becoming a key antagonist in the game's second half.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Orson is a member of Ephraim's company during an interlude sequence showing what Ephraim's been up to during Eirika's early adventures. However, by the time Eirika meets him, he has revealed himself to be The Mole and is later fought as the boss of Chapter 16.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, you temporarily assume control of Takumi during the Premonition and Sakura during Chapter 5 before permanently burning bridges with their home country, at which point they become antagonists (thus making this an interesting inversion where you betray the temporary party members, not the other way around). Sakura is fought in Chapters 6 and 22, while Takumi is fought in Chapters 6, 10, 13, and 23 plus the Endgame.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, on the Black Eagles route, you eventually discover that your co-protagonist Edelgard and The Heavy Flame Emperor are one and the same, and her loyal retainer Hubert has been in on it from the beginning.
    • If you remain loyal to the Church of Seiros following this betrayal, Edelgard and Hubert both play this straight; you fight Edelgard once before the route split and twice afterward, while Hubert is fought two or three times depending on whether you do a certain paralogue post-timeskip.
    • If you decide to defect to Edelgard's cause, Flayn deserts you out of personal loyalty to the Church's leaders and is fought twice afterwards, making her a heroic example. Before the betrayal, you can also temporarily control Church members Seteth and Catherine for one paralogue each, and they oppose you and are fought twice each after the route split (plus one more paralogue fight for Catherine).
• In Shining Force II, when the party arrives at Polca Village, they're joined for a while by Oddler, a blind amnesiac boy who becomes an NPC character. He leaves the party when they arrive at Creed's mansion, but after a while, he regains his memories as Oddeye, the greatest of Zeon's Four Greater Devils, and the party encounters him again before fighting King Galam and Zeon himself.
• TearRing Saga has Zieg, who's recruited early on under the pretense of being a former Barge soldier forcibly conscripted into Zoa's Dark Army. At the start of the 2nd route split, however, this turns out to be a lie and Zieg is actually a Zoan himself, having been sent to spy on Runan's group, after which he leaves. He's fought by both Runan and Holmes' groups in two maps during the final route split, and he keeps whatever stats he gained during the time he was playable.

Non-video-game examples

• In ProZD's fictional King Dragon video games, Obvious Judas Lysanderoth joins the party for a while before betraying them and killing Archibald. Other videos show various Boss Fights against him later.

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