Follow TV Tropes

Following

Playing With / Corrupt the Cutie

Go To

Basic Trope: An admirable character takes a much darker turn in personality from bad influence.

  • Straight: Alice was once a sweet girl until she started hanging out with Bob. From there, she started becoming increasingly more unpleasant.
  • Exaggerated: Sweet little Alice's personality turned complete 180 and she turned into a devious bully in only a few weeks.
  • Downplayed:
  • Justified: Before Bob came along, Alice herself used to be a nice person until she met a few gang members. She used that to teach Alice everything bad thing she knows.
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted:
    • Alice hangs out with Bob, but her innocent personality is unchanged.
    • Alice is The Fake Cutie; she was always corrupt to begin with, she just never showed it.
  • Double Subverted: Outside she's unchanged, but she is unpleasant on the inside.
  • Parodied: Alice is a sweet and innocent invokedPurity Sue who can do no wrong at first, but as soon as she meets Bob she tosses it out the window and becomes a dark and evil Goth in under two seconds.
  • Zigzagged: Bob's influence gives Alice a Split Personality. One side is her old self, while the other is under Bob's influence.
  • Averted: Alice surprisingly does not become a bad person from hanging out with Bob.
  • Enforced:
    • "The audience dislikes Alice's pureness, we must make her more evil!"
    • The producers want to make a Take That! at a rival company's squeaky-clean mascot, and so Alice is created as a Corrupted Character Copy of that mascot.
  • Lampshaded: "Whatever happened to that sweet girl we once knew? I never thought she would go down this bad."
  • Invoked:
    • Alice was curious about how Antwan acts the way he does.
    • Bob takes special pleasure in dating sweet, innocent women and corrupting them to be like him.
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied:
    • Alice does not like doing bad or naughty stuff for the sake of being cool or popular.
    • Bob realizes the negative influences he could bring on Alice and feels guilt over the prospect of causing her sudden shift in personality. Bob does either one of these things:
      • Bob doesn't change his own ways but tries to quell his influence on Alice, making sure she stays the same sweet girl everyone knows.
      • Bob decides to try to change himself for the better so that he can be around Alice.
      • Bob tries to find a way to meet in the middle and change himself and influence Alice so that they can be the best of both worlds in terms of personality shift.
      • Bob decides to cut ties with Alice to avoid doing any damage altogether.
  • Implied: While currently Alice behaves unpleasantly, the audience gets to know that she wasn't always like that.
  • Discussed: "Remember, Alice, watch out not to approach wrong guys. In no time you'll find yourself becoming just like them: cursing, smoking, drinking, and engaging in anti-social acts."
  • Conversed: "Oh my, they think it's so easy to have someone's personality overhauled? Like, after a few dates with some delinquent, a goody-two-shoes girl will turn into an edgy hoodlum?"

Back to Corrupt the Cutie

Top