Basic Trope: An evil character turns good, but faces mistrust from his new allies.
- Straight: Dracone makes a Heel–Face Turn, joining Hiro and his gang; the good guys are suspicious of him and generally give him a wide berth.
- Exaggerated:
- When Dracone switches from evil to good, the good guys pretty much treat him as their prisoner for a long time until he's absolutely proven himself.
- Dracone becomes good, but all the heroes ever do is to try many attempts to kill him just because he tried to help them.
- The worst things Dracone ever did was smoke pot and shoplift; he's just as mistrusted, if not more, than someone who killed millions of innocent people offscreen.
- Dracone tries to turn good, or at least leave evil, but gets a Heel–Face Door-Slam.
- Not only the heroes treat Dracone with contempt despite turning good, but also the rest of society.
- Downplayed:
- Rejected Apology
- Hiro and his gang mostly trust Dracone, but they're not prepared to become close friends with him just yet.
- While Hiro and his gang acknowledges Dracone's sincerity in changing sides, that's not enough for them to put aside their hostility.
- Hiro and his team are willing to give Dracone a chance, but the public at large still considers him irredeemable.
- Hiro and his team acknowledge that Dracone's redemption might be real, and are willing to hear him out, but they give it time before they forgive him for real.
- Although Hiro and his team are willing to forgive Dracone for his actions, they don't want to let him join their team.
- Justified:
- Reformed, but Not Tamed
- Feigning a switch to the side of good is a common strategy for the forces of evil, so the good guys have to keep their guard up in case Dracone's switch was fake.
- The good guys think that just because Dracone has changed doesn't outweigh all of the crimes he has committed.
- Dracone has never done anything particularly awful, but the good guys are beyond sick of dealing with him and have also seen him try and fail to clean up his act multiple times. He really is putting in a good-faith effort, but he has been such a massive pain in the ass over the course of his career that the heroes simply don't care and just want him out of their sight.
- Dracone has personally hurt one or more of the heroes in a serious manner (maimed them, killed their loved ones, killed them, etc.)
- Dracone has crossed the Moral Event Horizon and everyone considers him to be Beyond Redemption.
- Turns out, forgiving someone with whom you've been fighting for years is hard, even in a mundane context.
- Dracone has a history of betraying his allies once he gets what he wants, and even if he's on the heroes side for good, they are still wary of him betraying them.
- Inverted:
- They accept Dracone almost immediately, with absolutely no questions asked.
- Dracone was faking his conversion to the side of good, and the heroes, the general public, or both don't question it even though they should be more suspicious.
- Dracone makes a Face–Heel Turn by joining the villains, but they are not convinced of his corruption.
- Subverted: Dracone announces his intent to join Hiro's side; though Hiro starts by brutally questioning and cross-examining him, once Dracone has answered all questions honestly and thoroughly, Hiro welcomes him warmly with no suspicion.
- Double Subverted: ...because he knows that if Dracone is going to try anything, he's not going to try while he is ostensibly on guard.
- Parodied:
- Dracone feels miserable about how he Poked a Poodle, and immediately switches to the side of good, but everyone treats him as if his Poodle-Poking constituted a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon.
- While Dracone serves soup to orphans, Hiro and his gang go around knocking the plates out of childrens' hands.
- Zig Zagged: Dracone decides to join the good guys: Hiro welcomes him on board warmly, but Lance isn't so receptive; however, Hiro is eventually swayed into distrusting Dracone just as Dracone saves Lance's baby sister, redeeming him in his eyes...
- Averted:
- Dracone switching sides is treated with as much mistrust as one would expect, given what he's done to them in the past.
- The heroes acknowledge that Dracone has turn over a new leaf.
- Enforced:
- "The boys upstairs say we need a new good guy who's edgy and who doesn't play by the rules, but I don't want to change any of our characters!" "Just have a bad guy switch to the side of good. You can also do a 'is it real?' plotline too!"
- "Let's show the audience that forgiveness and redemption doesn't always come easy as anyone would expect."
- The writer wants to demonstrate how unforgiving the heroes can be.
- The writer knows full well that Dracone had crossed the Moral Event Horizon, but nonetheless wants him to embark on a Redemption Quest. This allows the character to personally atone himself without being Easily Forgiven.
- Lampshaded:
- "One'd think you'd be more receptive to a new teammate."
- "Scum like you never change."
- "You've reformed? That's cool, I don't care. If you're actually serious about this, you'll prove it by staying away from me and never bothering me again."
- Invoked:
- Emperor Evulz, sensing that his right-hand man Dracone is growing bored and is possibly thinking about usurping him, suggests that he joins the side of good as The Mole, which he knows will break him to the point that he'll be a mindless puppet.
- The heroes, who want to make sure that Dracone is truly reformed, give him cold stares and mutual distrust.
- Dracone doesn't believe he is worthy of forgiveness in the first place.
- Exploited: As above, but with the added knowledge that the infighting created by the addition of a formerly-evil teammate will weaken the good guys enough to make them susceptible to attack.
- Defied:
- "I know you've done wrong in the past, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt."
- Hiro swallows his pride and "forgives" Dracone, but only to keep the latter from returning back to evil.
- Discussed:Hiro: "I'm sorry Dracone, I know you're trying to do good, but we can't just forget everything you did."
Dracone: "I'm under no illusions; you all still don't trust me." - Conversed: "These guys are awfully suspicious of Dracone; it's been months since he switched sides, you'd think he'd have proven himself by now!"
- Deconstructed:
- Whenever he acts the slightest bit shady, or when something goes wrong that even slightly points to Dracone or his former villain organization, they immediately suspect him of misconduct and put him under forced detainment. After the first few times it happens, even Dracone himself admits it's getting real old, real fast and gives them a collective What the Hell, Hero? speech.
- Dracone flat-out quits fighting alongside Hiro and the others after much mistreatment, but instead of rejoining the bad guys side like they expected, he simply bails for parts unknown in the hopes of a quiet life. Hiro and the others could care less since they still got him out of their sight... only to have an Oh, Crap! moment when they realize that they just drove away their one source of vital intel and connections into the organization that he used to work for.
- After being flat-out rejected, Dracone, still wanting to do good to atone for his past misdeeds, ends up joining a more "pragmatic" team of government-run superheroes that could care less about his background as long as he pulls his weight. Using his powers and valuable supervillain knowledge, they end up simultaneously stopping crime and clashing with Hiro and his team in the process. Dracone outright spells out to an infuriated Hiro once the latter confronts him that he wouldn't have wound up where he was if they had just given him a chance, now he's doing good like he wanted to from the start and causing them problems at the same time.
- Dracone ends up not having any trust for his teammates when they still don't trust him after a disproportionate amount of time. Thus, when a situation crops up where he's required to trust them in order to succeed, he's too worried they'll screw him over to go through with it.
- The icy reception from the forces of good causes Dracone to return to a life of evil, this time with a new motivation to destroy Hiro's gang for their refusal to accept his new-found goodness.
- The addition of Dracone causes a lot of tension within Hiro's group, as they can't agree whether Dracone has truly reformed or if he's just playing them for fools; the group may even be divided over this disagreement.
- Dracone decides to get the heroes to accept him into their team by helping them defeat the new threat, only for the heroes to deliberately leave Dracone badly defeated by the new villain as a way to repay him: when he cries for help, they ignored him and went to chase off the new villain themselves.
- Tensions come to a head when, over a perceived crime, Hiro and the other team members try to violently apprehend Dracone despite having zero proof of any wrongdoing, solely on principle on that the former villain "obviously had something to do with it". They are promptly reminded the hard way that, for all his attempts to turn over a new leaf and do good, it doesn't change the fact that he used to be their Archnemesis for a very good reason when he turns out to be almost evenly matched with them. The resulting fight totals the surrounding area, leaves most of the team either too injured to stand or keep fighting, and an otherwise winded Dracone escaping to clear his name. The heroes are then chastised for wasting time aimlessly blaming an atoning villain instead of doing actual research, while Dracone himself is soon publicly praised for solving the crime himself.
- Dracone tries so hard to make the heroes to trust him that they still reject him at every opportunity. Hiro gives him a very harsh speech that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be forgiven for his actions; because this was the last straw, Dracone kills himself. When the heroes learned that he committed suicide, they believe this as proof that he has never changed at all and are happy that the "criminal" is gone out of their lives. Nice Job Breaking It Heroes!
- The heroes' stubborn refusal to forgive Dracone further establishes the switch of both alignments - Dracone turns good while Hiro and his crew become Fallen Heroes.
- Dracone, fed up with rejection, accuses the heroes of wanting him to still be bad so they can vent their frustrations on him, and goes off to fight evil by himself and on his own terms.
- Dracone calls out the heroes for their continual failure to give him any sort of credit for his efforts to reform and do good, and Hiro and co. finally admit that while they do believe that he is making a genuine good-faith effort and is sincere in his intentions, he was such a constant problem over the course of his career as a villain that, well-intentioned or not, they are sick of seeing his face and just want him to go away and stop bothering them.
- Reconstructed:
- When the rest of the team is falsely incriminated as a part of a dangerous conspiracy, Dracone makes sure to hold it over their heads as they're all being interrogated by outside forces.
- Before leaving to parts unknown, Dracone leaves all his knowledge on his former organization on one extensive data chip, along with a heartfelt goodbye and an apology note that things didn't work out between them. Hiro and the other heroes have a collective My God, What Have I Done? moment and wished they had the chance to thank him before he left.
- But in time, he relents and realizes that they had to act like that to stay safe, and rejoins them - this time for good. This eventually serves as a reminder of why he wanted to change his ways in the first place, and surrenders to the heroes, expressing his feelings about it, which finally convinces them to give him another chance.
- Dracone works to reunite the group after the split, and this act helps the dissenters accept his change; after all, whether anyone likes it or not, Dracone is here to stay and serve the greater good: all of the doubters, especially the heroes, as he puts it, can all kiss his ass.
- One of the heroes who was a Morality Pet to Dracone chew them out for holding a grudge towards him. The heroes felt remorseful, and they all went to apologize Dracone; surprisingly to them, he forgives them quickly. This is to prove that Dracone is a better hero than the heroes were, and thus, the heroes accepted him as the new member of the forces of good.
- A forgiving hero calls the others out for Dracone's suicide and permanently leaves the group. Driving an atoning villain to suicide and feeling "vindicated" in doing so made the heroes pariahs to all of the citizens, even the criminals; now, they know what it's like to never be forgiven for their mistakes.
- Their apathetic reaction to Dracone's assistance, letting him get heavily injured in their fight, and bailing on him when he was lying helpless on the ground and crying for help was witnessed by a number of civilians and recorded on camera. Not only does this convince the horrified public that the former villain has (or is at least making a genuine effort to be) reformed and lands him sympathy points, but that the heroes aren't as nice as they seemed to be if they outright left him for dead. After Dracone is carried to the emergency room by the people he managed to save, he sees on TV that their reputation has plummeted.
- But as much as the heroes are unwilling to cope with the truth that Dracone is reformed, they all give him a well-deserved approval.
- The heroes eventually come to terms to forgive Dracone, but Dracone refuses to forgive them after their earlier rejection, thus making Dracone and the others Headbutting Heroes.
- Both sides eventually agree that the other was right: Dracone acknowledges that their own indifference and desire to just be rid of him is reasonable because he caused a massive amount of problems for them over a fairly lengthy career of villainy, while Hiro and the others acknowledge that while they still want Dracone to go away and never bother them again, they should have at least given him the credit he was owed for his very real, legitimate, and mostly successful attempts to reform.
- While they're adamant on wanting him gone from the team, Dracone has to remind them that, due to their corporate sponsors requiring them to have an atoning villain like him on their team, either as a form of community service, because they need a Darker and Edgier member to round out their team, or both, they really have no choice but to suck it up and tolerate his "unbearable" presence while he works to improve his reputation.
- Hiro and the others refuse to give Dracone any sort of credit and repeatedly make it clear that they could care less about whether his reformation attempts are genuine or not, they just want him to go away and never bother them again. The general public on the other hand, feels the opposite due to just how diligent and sincere his acts of heroism are. Both Dracone and the public never miss a chance to point this out to them or the fact that just kicking him out without just cause would reflect badly on them, much to their frustration.
- Dracone proves his capacity for heroism in the eyes of society by saving Hiro and his team from the current Big Bad. When they ''still'' refuse to trust him, and some even accuse him of staging it to fake his reformation without any proof, he gives up on earning their trust and settles on the next best thing; never missing a chance to remind them that he's the only reason they're still breathing.
- Played For Laughs:
- Dracone is turned down because the maximum number of heroes has been reached at the moment, and has to stick to his current job as a Punch-Clock Villain.
- Dracone reaches
Marty Stu levels of competence as a hero, proving to be better at it than Hiro and his team combined, and everyone outside it never stops reminding them. The Lancer even even snarkly remarks that "I liked him better when he was trying to kill us."
- Played For Drama:
- Dracone has had a change of heart and decides to begin his Redemption Quest by helping the heroes, who were disgusted when they heard about this: the more Dracone always tries to help them, the more vehement they become and decided to mercilessly kill him. Unfortunately for them, this doesn't go unnoticed, and now the entire superhero community is giving them similar treatment for violating the golden rule and having the blood of an atoning villain on their hands; Thou Shall Not Kill.
- Dracone, a villain with Friendless Background, spent a decade to undo his crimes in a desperate hope that the heroes would accept him, only to be mocked and beaten down by Hiro. Everyone laughed at Dracone and stomped him when he's crawling away hopelessly. This becomes the driving force of his vendetta towards Hiro and his party because being good is not an option for him. What the Hell, Hero?
- Plotted A Good Waste: Hiro's group refusing to accept Dracone into their group is an early hint of the group's Fantastic Racism, which is used to gray things up a bit.
How can you be so sure that the main trope has cleaned up its act? It used to be full of natter and inflammatory posts, after all!
