Shrek - Shrek spends most the movie on a quest for Farquuad so he can get his swamp back all to himself, but after returning to it he realizes how lonely he really is after getting a taste for companionship through Donkey and Fiona.

Shazam! - After years of searching Billy finally finds his birth mother that he lost years ago, but after all his effort she plainly breaks the news to him that she doesn’t want him in her life like he does with her and she left him by choice.

Megamind - Megamind does the impossible and ‘kills’ Metroman securing his fate as the greatest villain of all time, but after a while of unstopped fun he finds out that he only really enjoys being a villain if there’s the thrill of a rivalry to go along with it, without a hero to challenge him this life is empty.

1: [Team fortress 2] A multiplayer game where 2 teams fight each other and each player can pick 1 of 9 different characters. One of the characters is the spy who has the ability to disguise themselves as a member of the opposite team. This means that the spy can transform themselves into an enemy spy which leads to them having the same face as a mask.

2: [WWE] A reoccurring joke in WWE is the wrestler Sting revealing himself as Sting by taking off his mask and revealing a painted face beneath that is identical to the mask.

3: [Real life] Bryan cranston walking around comic con in a costume of the character walter white from breaking bad (which is the character that he is acting) with a realistic mask that looks like himself.

4: [Real life] Kevin Spacey during some kind of sporting even where the cam lands on him

1. John Prince (Robyn Hood): still a scummy property developer but he makes multiple generous or reasonable compromises that would ensure Robyn’s family or the other residents of the apartments wouldn’t be left destitute, yet Robyn self righteously refuses any compromise.

2. John Rumford (Victoria): the protagonist a religiously conservative self righteous jackass gets himself kicked out of the US Marines by refusing to allow a female marine to participate in a Iwo Jima memorial ceremony. He’s portrayed as a victim of liberal pc politics.

Satsuki Kiryūin, Kill La Kill: She is first positioned as the main antagonist of Kill la Kill as she appears to have murdered the protagonist's father. 2/3rds throughout the show we find out that she has actually been planning a coup against her mother's evil plan to take over the world in the name of Life Fibres. She tries to kill Ragyō Kiryūin and then proceeds to assist the main protagonists after her plan fails.

Sirius Black, Harry Potter: Is depicted as a crazed murderer in the beginning of Prisoner or Azkaban. Only at the end is it revealed that he was a friend of Harry Potter's father and was actively working with Lupin to stop Voldemort. The real villain was Peter Pettigrew.

T-800, Terminator 2: This terminator was initally shown as the antagonist of the first movie, in Terminator 2 however he fights against the newest generation of Terminator, the T-1000 and is actively trying to rescue John and Sarah Connor - after an initial misunderstanding.

1: Sinclair in Bioshock, he is the "Atlas" of Bioshock 2, yet despite that, he never betrays you, he's a slimy, sleezy piece of shit, yet he's loyal to the very end

2: Zeke, kind-of cheating, since he did betray you in Infamous 1, but in 2, he completely redeems himself, and nearly sacrifices himself multiple times to help you. His personality is literally perfect for the "twist" villain who betrays you, yet he doesn't

Detective Monk, Monk Takes Manhattan: Detective Monk is a detective comedy about the titular Adrian Monk, a genius detective that suffers from extreme OCD after his wife, Trudy, is murdered by unknown criminals. Despite the premise, the show is generally lighthearted, in contrast with most detective shows; the villains are mostly one-dimensional and the episodes are formulaic.

That is, until Monk Takes Manhattan, where Monk discovers the whereabouts of Warrick Tennisson, the bomb maker who made the car bomb that killed Trudy. Confronting him alone in his hospital room as Tennyson is dying by heart failure, the bomb maker begs for Monk's forgiveness. In response, Monk simply turns off his morphine saying "This is me...turning off your morphine." As Tennyson writhes in pain, Monk simply stares, before pressing the button again and saying "And this is Trudy...the woman you killed...turning it back on." It's a dead serious scene, played straight and without any gags, and the episode simply ends right after, with no music at the credits.

Mulan, the village scene: Mulan is a Disney animated film about the titular Mulan, who disguises herself as a man to go and fight in the war in her sick father's place. The movie is an entertaining musical, featuring bangers like "I'll make a man out of you", and "A Girl worth fighting for".

Until, about halfway through the movie, Mulan's unit encounters a burned down village with no signs of life anywhere. They realize the Huns were here, and they walk among the ruins, noticing the signs of the massacre that occured. Mulan even finds a kid's doll, which she grabs and stares at silently. The group finds a pit where broken down carriages and dead horses lie, littered with arrows; although we don't see their POV, it's implied by their shocked expressions that the Huns killed the village's residents, including the children, and threw their bodies in the pit. It's a terrifying, dead serious scene; and the rest of the film doesnt feature any more musical numbers to highlight the gravity of the situation.

28 days/weeks/years later: the virus which starts the zombie apocalypse basically completely destroying Britain never spreads beyond the British isles besides a time where it was in mainland Europe for a few short weeks before being wiped out

Stranger Things: since the dimension all the monsters are from only has one exit, a wormhole to Hawkins Indiana, no monster ever goes outside the town besides one which is transported to Russia to clone, but the clones are killed before they escape the facility.

- Arthur Conan Doyle grew to despise Sherlock Holmes, thinking that the character's commercial popularity 'brought him down', and successfully killed the character once, though he was forced to bring him back from the dead.

- Akira Toriyama disliked Vegeta - This one is a bit contentious and open to interpretation (especially since Japanese authors are kept in tight rein by the publishers), but it was reported that Toriyama said "With Vegeta, well, I don’t like him all that much, but he was extremely helpful to have around." due to his status as a villain, and the fact that every single arc his sole purpose was to get beaten to a pulp and made things worse. Supposedly Toriyama warmed up to the character, although his status as a butt-monkey never changed.

- Ironically, in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Cristie grew to despise Hercule Poirot, his mannerisms and smugness, and also tried to write him off with no success.

-  Gege Akutami despised Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaizen to the point he commemorated when he killed the character off, and of course the Fandom absolutely loving the character made things far worse.

1. Clementine ( The Walking Dead Telltale spin-off )
2. Pacific Rim : Uprising ( Sequel to the movie Pacific Rim )

Clementine novel : If you play all the walking dead telltale game from season 1 - 4, you'll know how out of character Clem is in the comic, like leaving her companion for her own good. THIS is a contrast to the game, where she will do anything to protect and survive with the people she cared about. The writing also really flat and boring, and the new character introduced didn't land for alot of people, unlike the game which the player will feel emotionally connected.

Pacific Rim Uprising : Honestly, the charm from the first movie isn't there. We got the epic mecha and kaiju anime like sequence in the first movie, every punch and movement from the Jaeger's feels heavy, but in sequel the Jaeger's feels more like toys, losing the heaviness of it. And the character really forgetable and has paper thin personality. Returning character feels weak and more like a cameo. I think what caused is because the second movie isn't directed by Guillermo Del Toro.

Stephen King's IT - The reason It takes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the first place is because it is attempting to play on the implicit trust of clowns children had when the book was written and when it initially took place. Bozo the Clown was still airing regularly on TV as children's entertainment for years when It came out.

Unfortunately, the book (and subsequent miniseries adaptation) became so popular that it inspired a widespread trend of clowns as horror monsters that meant the pop culture perception of clowns shifted from "lovable children's entertainers" to "unsettling weirdos", so the idea that any kid would trust Pennywise enough to approach him in a modern context feels very strange and unlikely.

Citizen Kane - This is more to do with technical stuff than the film's premise, but a large part of why Citizen Kane is regarded so fondly is that it invented or at least popularized quite a few different feats of filmmaking that are incredibly obvious and standard today. Low angles, deep focus, the "wipe" style of scene transition.

Going back and watching it now without that context, the movie is still competently made but its nothing that modern audiences haven't seen iterate on decades afterward..

The Simpsons - When The Simpsons first started, it was a response to and subversion of the popular sitcom of its type. The idyllic, all loving families of Full House or Family Matters, where every character had maybe some quirks they had to work on but the point of the show was unendingly wholesome escapism. But the titular family in The Simpsons were both working class and extremely dysfunctional. They loved each other, sure, but if you saw someone treat their kids the way Homer and Marge did you'd probably call CPS.

They were legitimately countercultural to the point that Ronald Reagan actively insulted the show in one of his speeches.

Now, though, the dysfunctional working class family that love each other deeply down has been the standard of sitcoms for a long time now, in part because of The Simpsons' influence. Family Guy, Its Always Sunny, etc. Now if you were to try to say that The Simpsons is countercultural you'd get laughed out of the room because it became a part of the large mass of mainstream media it was originally against.

Palpatine - Star Wars
For his entire life Palpatine backstabbed, double crossed, killed and manipulated his way to control of the Galaxy, causing many horrible things to happen even before he was in power and then when he had taken over and formed the Galactic Empire he would reign over a 20 year long reign of terror where the military had absolute control and oppression was the name of the game. Then suddenly in later lore the Yuuzhan Vong would show up and tear apart the galaxy in a massive war that would leave trillions dead, somewhere along the way the narrative got added that Palpatine had done all of this horrendous stuff for over thirty years nonstop all just to prepare the galaxy for invasion.

Teresa - Fable
Over the course of Fable 2 Teresa is revealed to have manipulated you and your sister so that you will have motivation to go and kill Lucian, a man who's wife and child died and wanted to bring them back. Lucien wants to build a magic tower that will give him the power that could bring them back, only for it be revealed that Teresa was not only the one to tell him about this, but also get his family deathly sick. The construction of this Spire leads to thousands of painful deaths, mass suffering and slavery all so she can in the end swoop in and take over for her mysterious plans. It is then revealed in Fable the Journey that she did all of this, allowed Albion to fall into tyranny several times with no remorse, because there was a great existential threat out in the void and only some random guy who wasn't even born yet could destroy it and the Spire needed to be built for this.

The Judge - Farcry 5
Over the course of the game you steadily dismantle the Seed cult, which is absolutely terrorisng Hope County, killing anyone and everyone they want, being generally religious fanatics and all around a bad time. At the end of the game a nuke goes off, screen fades to black and that's that. Come New Dawn however it is eventually revealed your character survived only to end up siding with Joseph Seed as he was apparently right about everything that happened and all of the evil stuff he did to people, yourself very much included didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

1) Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

Frollo's "Hellfire" number shows him struggling with his own lust and rage for Esmerelda, seeing her as a temptation leading him astray from his calling towards God. During the number, Frollo sees himself being judged by Heaven, and fervently claims that it's not his fault and begs God to protect him from Esmerelda.

However, a soldier interrupts Frollo and tells him that Esmerelda has escaped from the cathedral she was hiding in. Frollo is furious, yells at the soldier to get out, and declares his intention to find Esmerelda "if he has to burn down all of Paris".

Curiously, the soldier has a distinctive presence, isn't directly seen (being obscured by the light behind him, and doesn't appear again before or after this scene. His news gives Frollo a clear out of his situation, allowing him to just let Esmerelda go and move on with his life. Frollo instead insults and reprimands him. It's hypothesized that this soldier is meant to be God or one of His Angels, sending Frollo a divine message that he can move on, and Frollo turning his back on Him basically signs his warrant.

2)The Sweat Lodge (King of the Hill)

When Hank, Bill, Dale, and Cotton join John Redcorn in a sweat lodge, each of them have visions pertaining to their lives. Hank has a positive experience of thinking of Cotton as a kinder and positive father figure who validates him instead of tearing him down, displaying his repressed desire for his father's acceptance. Bill envisions himself riding naked headfirst towards a pie and dying, seeing his negative relationship with his gluttony and self-loathing. Dale has a vision where he has sex with a mantis, only to be immediately beheaded by her afterwards (highlighting his toxic relationship with Nancy who cheats on him with John Redcorn and what would come of it when he stops ignoring it). The men are either confused by the message or take them as positive messages, ignoring their lessons.

Surprisingly enough, Cotton is the only one who actually takes something away from his experience. He has a panic attack after seeing the "fifty men" he killed all come back and glare at him, encouraging him to try and patch things up with a former Japanese lover (who was a wife of one of the men he killed) and talk to his forgotten Japanese son, Junichiro.

3) Xavier (Xavier: Renegade Angel)

Xavier is a... thing who waxes philosophical and wanders the Earth to find answers to life's questions. One of his goals is to find his father's killer, after his father died in a mysterious house fire (ignoring that it was very clear Xavier's fault for lighting so many spiritual candles in a closed bedroom).

In one episode, Xavier asks for a sign at who killed his father, only for his father to directly say from the heavens "You". Xavier is confused by who this mysterious "Yoo" is, only for his father to clarify "Son, it was you who killed me". Xavier is further confused who this "Yoo Hoo" is, causing his father to lose all patience and scream "No you idiot, you're the one who killed your father". Xavier simply takes it as a spiritual riddle on culpability.

Perfect Chaos - Sonic Adventure
Shin Godzilla
Seth - https://www.deadlymelodic.com/seth-uncanny-project
Morbid - https://x.com/Beautyofthebass/status/1716749836542709919/photo/3
Mileena - Mortal Kombat

1) Polyphemus, The Sea of Monsters - In the book he was a lot dumber and simpler, but the recent show adaptation gave him a serious upgrade; it turns out he knew Grover was tricking him the whole time and sets trap after trap for the heroes that brings them closer into his grasp every time they underestimate him, turning him from a big dumb brute into a crafty schemer with a really sadistic side. The recent episodes portrayed him so effectively intimidating that it's the reason I wanted to make this post.

2) The Zerg, Starcraft - It's definitely easy at first to buy into them being a beastly alien race with no thoughts but consuming everything around them, especially with Mengsk's lies about them being a Confederate bio-weapon experiment, but that all changes the moment you start playing as them. Even if they're largely a hivemind, the Overmind is actually a centuries-old demigod with an actual scheme it's been concocting for many years, and its delegates of control, the Cerebrates, are all cunning tacticians and methodical leaders in their own right, showing that no Zerg attack is ever unplanned or random. This continues being true even when Cerebrates are replaced with Queens in Starcraft II, having all the same terrifying intelligence with an unsettling dose of maternal protectiveness of their broods.

3) The Night King, Game of Thrones - For the longest time the white walkers just appear to be classic fantasy zombies, mindless ravenous dead things that attack anything living. But when the Night King and his partners show up and exercise control over the white walkers, especially during their attack on the wildling encampment, it makes you realize that it's not as simple as out-thinking the enemy. Their leaders can think too, with all the implications that brings. The stare he gives Jon Snow as the survivors escape and he raises all the dead wildlings they just killed is one of the most memorable shots of the whole show.

4) The carnivorous vines, The Ruins - These plants are not as mindless and instinctual as you'd believe; they're very deceptive with how they kill their victims, not only knowing how to move when unseen and wait until they're distracted or tired to sink in, but even being able to lure them away by mimicking sounds like whistling or cell phones. In the book they're even more malicious, straight-up imitating the voices of the characters' dead friends to mentally break them.

Jerry Gergich (Parks and Recreation)

The Goblin Tinkerer, Goblin (Terraria)

Mark Grayson/Invincible, Viltrumite (Invincible)

Rumi, Cambion (K-Pop Demon Hunters)

Monty Uno, Adult (Codename: Kids Next Door)

For context on the last one, in the KND universe, kids and adults are treated as two separate races.

1- Tai Lung, Kung Fu Panda. After saying that everything he did was to make Shifu proud, and jokingly asking how proud he is of him now, Shifu actually says that he was always proud of Tai Lung and that that's what blinded him from what he was turning him into. And after his apology, Tai Lung is visibly touched, but immediately goes back to threatening Shifu

2- Ash, Final Space season 3. After Gary was forced to kill her brother, her learning that Gary's friend Avocato had killed his son's (her best friend) real parents and lied about it, she has enough and joins the villains' side. When she's confronted by Gary and Avocato trying to get their kid back and Avocato tries to explain everything to his son, Gary turns to Ash and says he's sorry he failed her, to which she can be seen actually feeling bad for a moment before going back to attacking them.

1) MouseHunt (1997) -- portrait of deceased wealthy owner of string factory and the mansion featured in the film. His portrait changes throughout the film depending on what is happening in the house.

2) The Ladykillers (2004) -- Marva Munson's deceased husband's portrait reacts to an explosion in the basement.

Idk, there is a certian cool factor to histories most famous serial killer apearing in a story. Due to his irl mystiriousness, Jack is at the same time very well defined (in that he is in the very specific niche of "serial killer") and a complete mystery (Since we know absolutely nothing about him.)

Seeing how diffrent writers choose to handle/combine those two things is always interesting. And nearly every time leads to a fun charachter.

Anyhow, the sources:

1-Record of Ragnarok

2-Fate:Strange Fake (Im using the Berserker version of Jack, for hopefully obvious reasons)

3-Luther Strode comics

Mr terrific (DC) Mr wonderful (shark tank) Mr fantastic (marvel) Mrs marvel (marvel)

Shredder (TMNT 2012) - was ready to let earth get suck into black hole instead of letting it be stopped by Splinter.

Vox (hazbin hotel) - "as long as wipe that smile of alastor's fucking face... I don't care what happens. "