- Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street

- Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems

- Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

- Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

- Miranda Cosgrove in iCarly

- Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad

Alcina Dimitrescu (Resident Evil Village)

Senshi (Dungeon Meshi)

Overlord of the Hauntwoods (MTG)

Susu (Hunter: The Parenting)

Bojack Horseman:

We never see or hear Hollyhock's letter but after Pete Repeat told her about what Bojack did in New Mexico it's clear that the letter is her severing all ties with Bojack and ending their relationship as brother and sister.

Se7en:

It's never directly shown what's in the box but it's pretty obvious that what's in the box is the head of Millis' wife, who John Doe killed and mailed the head in a package to a remote location.

EDIT: Shown not stated

When a character is made evil not just because of the bad things they do, but because of the good things they could have very easily done.

1. Bear from Obsession - Despite being creepy his wish was initially harmless. He didn’t know that the one wish willow would actually work, he was just frustrated. After this, however, he allows Nikki to completely destroy her own mental and physical health while doing almost nothing to help because he finally got what he wanted. Very early on he should have gotten in touch with medical professionals, but after a certain point it becomes completely inexcusable.

Edit: Bears wish was harmless in the sense that he didn’t think anything would come of it, and so no harm was intended. It most certainly brought about harm.

1. Walter White from Breaking Bad - Even though he directly causes a lot of terrible things in the show, one of his most famously detestable moments is when he watches Jane overdose so that he can have control of Jesse again.

2. Hummingbirds Mom from Deadman Wonderland - I haven’t watched the whole show but I’ve somehow been shown this episode alone on two completely separate occasions. The girl’s mother loves her flowers, and when a massive calamity comes the mother has to choose between saving her daughter and saving her favorite pot of flowers. The flowers win.

This trope is absolutely gut wrenching to me but I don’t have many examples in mind, so seeing more would be great.

Bayonetta - Bayonetta has an enormous LGBTQ fanbase, particularly among lesbian and bisexual fans, but the creator of the series has repeatedly pushed back against romantic interpretations of Bayonetta and Jeanne, which is a popular fan ship. Additionally there is an ending that has Bayonetta ending up married to a man and having a child together.

Prince - Prince became hugely influential in LGBT culture through his flamboyant style and gender-defying image. That being said, he was straight himself and had a lot of controversial and outright homophobic beliefs, especially later in his life.

Megamind vs The Doom Syndicate - Minion is renamed to Chum, because the word minion nowadays is associated with the Despicable Me Minions. Fans still call him Minion

Overwatch - Jesse McCree was renamed to Cole Cassidy following sexual assault allegations regarding the Blizzard employee who the character was named after. Lots of fans still call him McCree

Where something that seems like a mistake made by the production turns out to be relevent to the plot.

Moon Knight: Oscar Isaac plays a British character, but his British accent is not great. This seems like it’s just another case of an actor messing up an accent. However it is later revealed that his character has multiple personality disorder, and that the British man we meet is not the original personality. The original is an American, and so he really is an American attempting a British accent. It makes sense that it doesn’t sound quite right.

Doctor Who: In the episode Flesh and Stone, The Doctor loses his jacket. Then later on there is a scene where he is wearing his jacket again. It’s shot super close up, so easy to miss, but you can see it is there. At face value, this looks like a basic continuity error. But later we learn that this is not The Doctor from this episode. It’s The Doctor from the future who has come back, so the jacket makes complete sense, and gives a hint of what is to come.

Batman: Arkham City: If you use x-ray vision on The Joker, his skeleton does not show like it does for everyone else. This could be a simple bug in the game. But actually it turns out it’s not really The Joker. It’s Clayface pretending to be The Joker, and he doesn’t have a skeleton.

SPOILERS FOR JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE, CHAINSAW MAN, AND DANGANRONPA V3

Jonathan Joestar (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood) - The first arc of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure ends with the main character sacrificing his life to save his wife and an orphaned child from an attack on their honeymoon cruise. From here on, youre now worried anyone, even the main Jojo himself, won't survive to the end of the part.

Himeno (Chainsaw Man) - Following two arcs that would seemingly establish CSM as an average Shonen Manga, the entire Public Safety division is ambushed and near fatally injured in a firefight. Realizing the only way to save everyone is to revive Denji by pulling his cord, Himeno gives her entire body to the Ghost Devil, literally erasing herself from existence. Up to this point she was really being set up as Denji's mentor, and now shes just dead.

Kaede Akamatsu (Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony) - Danganronpa loves this trope, always having a seemingly super important character killed in Chapter 1, but V3 takes it to the next level by killing off the PLAYER CHARACTER. You start the game playing as Kaede, setting up a trap that should kill the mastermind and get everyone free. Unfortunately, someone else gets caught in the crossfire, and when you realize what happened you switch player characters to Shuichi and have to implicate the character you just spent the last couple hours playing as.

I saw this post on r/all about Link and it got me thinking of how some characters look really different in other timelines, universes, or just points in their own life spans.

Examples:

-the Hero's Shade in Twilight Princess is a version of Link in Ocarina of Time who got lost in the woods looking for Navi's mask and became a Stalfos.

-Immortal Captain Jack Harkness in the Doctor Who Universe will eventually age to the point he is the Face of Boe.

-Laszlo Cravensworth admits during what he thinks are his final moments in What We Do in the Shadows that he was, in fact, Jack the Ripper.

The redesigned Dragons (Spyro Reignited Trilogy)

The Serpentines (Ninjago)

Disventure camp - trevor and derek: they are the producers of the reality (fictional) show disventure camp (and also a gay couple) , they hired a wanted criminal to illegally hunt down animals in the forest where the show takes place.

When the police arrives derek even pulls up a gun to save himself.

Moral orel - coach stopframe: bisexual menace to society, became the secret hookup of orel mother and then he became the secret hookup of orel father.

First he managed to get bloberta pregnant just to be closer to clay. Almost breaking up his whole marriage when he find out what he did.

Also he is satanic.

These tropes are appreciated when some movies and shows make their inclusive character too goody goody and they seem to be incapable of doing bad things. Making them boring in the process.

Kenjaku ( Jujutsu Kaisen ) took over Kaori’s body so he could create a perfect vessel for Sukuna, this lead to him being impregnated by Jin Itadori and giving birth to Yuji Itadori, the MC.

Ra’s Al Ghul ( Batman Beyond ) Although at first it seems Talia Al Ghul has returned and resumed a relationship with Bruce Wayne, it is revealed that Ra’s took over her body in order to deceive Bruce and take over his body. They had sex.

Zoe Macon ( Lanterns ) is a Manhunter, which in the DCU are known for infiltrating societies utilizing sexual and emotional manipulation to climb their way up the ranks and eventually destroying said societies.

Characters dropping the most badass banger lines/quotes known to man out of nowhere, so much so you begin wondering what the writers were being fed.

1. Shanoa dropping this banger line before entering Dracula's castle to end his fucking life. Before this point, she NEVER says stuff like this. To be fair though, she DID lose everything she ever had before saying this so yeah. (Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia)

2. Batman dropping this absolute banger (rhetorical?) quote, since the TRUE villain there is the girl and NOT Riddler. (The Batman show)

3. Majin Vegeta dropping the absolute banger line, while resisting mind control! (Dragon Ball Z)

Chaz - He got a whole short and a music video dedicated to him despite the majority of the fanbase just finding him annoying. (Helluva Boss)

Randy Marsh - While he IS a popular character he's been heavily criticized for getting to much focus and taking attention away from the kids. They seem to have doubled down by turning Randy into a kid to be in more episodes with them. (South Park)

Vern and Johnny - They were a generally unpopular recurring bit and were killed off by Stewie who than directly addressed the audience and said they wouldn't be back. They later appeared again as ghosts. (Family Guy)

I think It's an interesting idea to explore from the different angle than a more classic male abuser, female victim and show that It's no less horrifying with the genders reversed.

I accept different forms of what can be considered abuse: from mental, physical, sexual etc.

1-3 - Shion (abuser) and Mizuki (victim) - Overwatch - Honest to god theese two single-handedly made me interested again in Overwatch lore.

Shion adopted Mizuki after the death of his parents, making him repay the dept of his family by joining her clan. She would force him to endure brutal punishments, but at the same time would praise him and give some warmth, creating a lot of Stockholm Syndrome. Disturbingly enough a lot of those punishments were Shion projecting her own past on Mizuki

4-5 - Hermann (abuser) and Gregor (victim) - Limbus Company - I'll be only talking about Canto I here, since that's what little context I have, but even with that I would say it definitely counts. Please don't give spoilers but do correct me if I'm wrong.

Hermann was the head scientist of former G Corp responsible for forcefully augmenting It's soldiers with insectoid parts, and most notably her prized experiment, Gregor, whom she calls her "son". Being forced to have an insect arm that would constantly regenerate and sometimes attack nearby people on It's own doesn't make it easy to live a normal life. Gregor himself said that "be it the nightmare or the road... I never once strayed from that woman's control" (edit: also forgot to mention he was experimented on when he was still a child)

Sinners (2025): Remmick appears to be a american southerner only to occasionally slip into an Irish accent that he fully embraces when it is revealed that he is a vampire. When the main character in desperation recites The Lords Prayer at him, he actually joins in and say that he always enjoyed that one "even if the words were forced upon him by the invaders who took his fathers land.", revealing him to be born a Celtic Pagan and about 1600 years old.

Doctor Sleep: the True Knot has members of all ages from a teenage girl turned in the 1980's to mentions of graduating class of 36, the Old West and medieval Europe. Their oldest looking member Grandpa Flick is mentioned to remember when Europeans worshipped trees, making him about 10.000 years old.

Bayonetta: Bayonetta was designed by the Japanese artist Mari Shimazaki

Shantae: Erin Bozon is the co-creator responsible for the creation of the character Shantae

Purple Heart : Tsunako is the artist responsible for the designs in Hyperdimension Neptunia

When a specific genre has an unwritten or implied rule, and one or more characters simply ignore it and break it without hesitation.

• Willy's Wonderland

The Rule: In games, movies, or series involving killer mascot horror, the night guard or person who encounters them will, at most, flee, run, hide, and maybe use some furniture to conveniently kill, damage, or ward off the animatronic or killer doll.

The Rule-Breaker: Nicolas Cage / The Janitor ignored all of these rules. Not only did he not fear the animatronics in the movie, but he personally turned them into walking metal punching bags. They expected a defenseless victim, but instead got a janitor who is not only completely fearless, but every bit as terrifying as they are.

As one character put it: "He's not trapped in here with them, THEY'RE trapped in here with HIM.

• Terrifier

The Rule: Serial killer characters should never use firearms. They aren't aesthetically flashy, they ruin the typical slasher's "art" of grotesque violence, and they usually can't be used to inflict slow, painful deaths.

The Rule-Breaker: Art generally avoids guns, but if things get serious, spiral out of control, or he simply gets too annoyed, he couldn't care less about whether a firearm "ruins his aesthetic charm." He will straight up pull out a gun and blast whoever is in front of him right in the face, LOL.

• ATTACK ON TITAN

The Rule: In shonen or battle anime, there is an unwritten rule that when a character is about to transform, everyone else just stands around doing absolutely nothing. They politely wait out the flashing lights and dramatic metamorphosis, and only then does the fight resume.

The Rule-Breaker: Eren completely ruined the Warhammer Titan's flashy transformation sequence by smashing its face in right in the middle of it. Honestly, he saved the MAPPA animators a ton of work XD

I bet a lot of animators wish more characters would do them a favor and break this rule more often XD

• The Oldest View

The Rule: Usually in horror, inanimate objects or entities only move when you look away, blink, or lose line of sight, much like SCP-173 or the Weeping Angels.

The Rule-Breaker: The Rolling Giant initially plays along with this rule, completely tricking the protagonist into thinking they are safe as long as they keep their eyes on it. But just when he thinks he has it figured out, the giant straight-up starts rolling toward him in plain sight, shattering the illusion and attacking without waiting for him to look away.

• My Hero Academia

The Rule: In stories that follow the classic Hero's Journey, there is an unspoken "requirement" that the mentor must die. This death serves to give the protagonist a reality check, spark their ultimate evolution, and raise the stakes of the entire story.

The Rule-Breaker: The anime constantly hints at and plays with the idea that All Might is destined to die. However, not only is that future rewritten, but All Might actually survives to see his apprentice become Japan's greatest hero and graduate high school. Even though he can no longer fight by Deku's side, the mere fact that he lives to witness his successor's success completely shatters this traditional Hero's Journey trope.

Puss in Boots has "never been touched by a blade" until he meets Death.

Gaara from Naruto sees his own blood for the first time in his fight with Lee.

Kratos finally lands a punch on the all-seeing Heimdell with more to come in God of War: Ragnarok.

- Hailee Steinfeld. Her maternal grandfather was half African American and half Filipino. In 'Sinners', she played Mary, who is half black.

- Paris Jackson. In the show 'Swarm' which she made brief appearance, her character, who is white af, told the main character that she felt related to her cuz she got rejected from last relationship because she's black.

Paris is Michael Jackson's daughter....

- Keanu Reeves is part Chinese. He played few Asian characters but strangely enough, never Chinese guy. In Man of Tai Chi (which he directed), he played Donoka, who (I think) is Japanese. He also played as Buddha in Little Buddha (even though Buddha was Indian).

In Coco. Hector and Miguel find Chicharron about to experience the final death since he’s nearly fully forgotten in the world of the living. Knowing it’s too late and there’s nothing they can do, Hector plays him a song he wants to hear before he dies (though changing the lyrics a bit since children are present)

In Savageland. During the zombie outbreak of the Arizona town. Francisco manages to make his way to the preschool to try and save Grace. He eventually finds her behind bars he can’t get through with zombies quickly approaching. He tries stopping them with the flash from his camera but it only stuns them for a moment. Realising there’s nothing he can do, he just holds Grace’s hand and sings to her as the zombies get closer

Whether it's play on words, an anagram, or a double meaning, some characters, groups or locations are named in such a way that they reveal the twist if you know what to look for. Sometimes it is very clever, other times it's so obvious that it falls flat, or it ends up just being funny, or it ends uo being so complex that there's no way someone could work it out at a first glance.

(Good example) Pyrite [Wings of Fire]: My personal favourite example of the twist being hidden in their name. The main characters encounter Pyrite in book seven, who act rather strangely around the main protagonists, and they end up suspecting something is off with her. The stone pyrite is also known as Fool's Gold, being named as such because of its gold appearance. If you know what this means, you'll be more suspicious of her than most readers because it literally means that her appearance is a trick. And it is, with the characters finding out that she was wearing a cursed object that literally turned a dragon into someone else (Pyrite). The story already makes it out for you to not trust her, but if you know about pyrite being fool's gold, the reveal becomes more satisfying.

(Bad example) Evelyn Deavour [Incredibles 2]: As if this character wasn't suspicious enough from the start, her name is literally play on words for evil endeavour. If you manage to work that out (and it's likely you will), then you know that she's the bad guy from the start. For a twist villain, she really wasn't hidden all that well, but realising she was bad all along doesn't end up being satisfying at all.

(Funny example) Live Corp [Cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2]: We already know from the start of the movie that Flynt's idol Chester is definitely hiding something. Before the third act of the movie, where they realise that the food critters only seem to be hostile towards Live Corp, Manny works out that Live backwards is Evil. This is extremely simple and funny, considering it's literally a four letter word. It's not a satisfying twist to work out either since we already know they're the bad guys, but I think it works regardless. It doesn't need to be very complex.

(Annoying Example) Tom Riddle [Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets]. Tom reveals himself to be Voldemort by drawing out his name, "Tom Marvolo Riddle", and shuffling the letters to write "I am Lord Voldemort". To me, this is just a poor example. I guess it is a twist, if that diary didn't make you second guess him at all. But it's a difficult anagram to solve, and I don't even think they tell you his middle name until that reveal, but I may be wrong, it's been 6-10 years since I've read it. Either way, I may have found it surprising as a kid (since I loved the series then), but now as I'm not as fond of the series anymore (mostly because of you know who and I don't mean Voldemort), it doesn't end up being satisfying at all.

I'd love to see more examples of this trope, especially very clever ones like Pyrite. Or just funny ones, like the guy in star wars rebels (I think?) who's name is play on words for "im gonna die" (if that counts as a twist at all). And any obvious ones I missed (like maybe the Decepticons or Dr Doom if they try to make themselves out to be good?).

Kazuya Mishima (Tekken) While he is a supernatural terrorist, he has a hobby of collecting sneakers

Lord Dominator (Wander of Yonder) Evil tyrant who destroys planets, but she also likes watching cartoons in her free time. She can be seen watching a Scooby-doo, Gravity Falls hybrid knockoff cartoon

Akuma (Street Fighter) He’s really only a villain to super strong people like Ryu, he doesn’t fight anyone he considers weak. But he runs a fruit stand in his free time and he even made friends with Elena

When a morally awful character actually does something kind of good or logical.

The Comedian - Watchmen

The Comedian (who is a terrorist and rapist) calls out Manhattan, essentially calling his omnipotence bullshit. Manhattan has the ability to literally do anything. He could fix the world's problems if he wanted to. Yet, he claims that fate is predetermined, which is likely just an excuse/idea he has convinced himself about so he doesn't have to do anything.

Shane - The Walking Dead

All throughout season 2, Shane is losing his shit and becoming a maniac. However, upon learning that the barn is full of walkers, he slaughters them. He understands that Hershels family is in there, but he also understands that the risks are far too great to be sentimental. His methods are... questionable, though.

1. The lovable sex pest (for example, Barney from How I Met Your Mother). The casanova who hooks up with dozens if not hundreds of women (or at least tries to) and is only really in it for the sex and not serious relationships, and can be quite misogynistic, but it's OK because they're so nice and lovable and funny. A character who behaves like this nowadays is more likely to be depicted as a creep.

2. The reasonable and sympathetic conspiracy theorist (for example, Mulder from X-Files). There used to many conspiracy theorists in media that the narrative expected you to take seriously since they're usually right or at least have a point. You don't see characters like that much anymore, in most modern media conspiracy theorists are treated as socially awkward paranoid losers that spend way too much time online at best, and dangerous lunatics at worst, and they're almost always wrong, and refuse to admit they're wrong even when presented with evidence. This is a far more realistic portrayal of what real world conspiracy theorists are actually like, as any interaction with them will tell you (it doesn't help that often they're fully in favor of the government as long as they agree with its politics)

3. The relative who is a bigot but that's OK (for example, Archie Bunker from All in the Family). They're meant to be "sympathetic" to audiences because they're the way they are due to their upbringing and ignorance, their kids and other younger people may disagree with them but they still love each other, and little by little the bigot would learn their lesson and be proven wrong, and if they don't it's no big deal. Now though, people no longer have the excuse of how they were raised because everyone was raised in a society that teaches that bigotry is wrong, bigots are still bigots because they want to be, and thus bigoted relatives in media are depicted differently and less tolerated by other characters.

4. The married couple that constantly argue and complain but don't get divorced (example, The Lockhorns). These sort of made sense in an era in which divorce was uncommon, difficult, and socially stigmatized. Nowadays, if a couple constantly complains about how they hate each other, there's usually no reason for them to stay together. This type of "I hate my wife humor" still endures among boomer circles, but younger people just don't find it funny because they can't relate.

5. The only woman in a large cast (example, Smurfette from the Smurfs). Since women make up half of the population, only having one female character is heavily frowned upon and shows the biases of the male creators, as such most modern media tries to actively avoid this.

6. "Badass" and cool smoker (Tony Montana from Scarface). Back in the day everyone smoked, and often filmmakers would have cool characters smoke in a cool way. But in modern times, less people smoke and everyone is more aware of how bad smoking is for your health. As such, smoking is less common in media, and if a character does smoke, it's rarely to make them look cool, but to make them look stressed out or an unhealthy slob.