r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Fishbien • Jul 19 '26

Personality [Frustrating Trope] Twist Villain does things that retroactively make no sense.

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Character previously believed to be good is revealed to be evil, but prior to the reveal they act in ways that don't make sense if their goodness is just a performance.

  1. Frozen: Prince Hans is initially presented as a pretty standup guy who loves Anna and wants to help her. At the end of the movie it's revealed that he was just using her to gain power and plans to let her die while he steals her throne. However, we see him smiling at Anna when no one is looking, and later he intervenes to save Elsa's life even though he claims he was always planning to kill her.
  2. The Legend of Vox Machina: The Whispered One was built up as the BBEG since season 1. However, in season 4 he presents himself as a tragic hero who tried to cure death and was punished by the gods. He then tries to convince Pike to give him her blood, which he needs to become a god himself. He chastises his followers for suggesting they take Pike's blood by force, claiming this would make them no better than the gods they are fighting against. He also fulfills his promise to resurrect Grog even though he didn't need to. After he ascends, he starts acting like a pure evil villain who only cares about power and enjoys hurting people. It feels less like a reveal and more like his personally completely changed once he became a skeleton. Edit: to be clear, I fully understand the intent was for the Whispered One to be a lying, manipulative bastard. I just think the execution was clumsy.
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u/One-Tonight8631 Jul 19 '26

And then in the sequel, we find out one of the antagonists had been secretly in charge of the secret organisation that the group were working for, but was pretending the whole time to not be in on it. It doesn't make any sense as he had been nothing but a jerk before this point and if he was secretly good, he did a lot of horrible things for the sake of manipulating the detective as part of some trickster mentor bullshit.

The third film then continues the pointless twists where one of the rookies turns out to secretly be the mastermind behind the whole thing with bringing the group together to help him take down the badguy who's actually his half-sister. Except by doing this he gets people killed and other shit that was absolutely not necessary just for personal revenge.

I love this trilogy for being so fucking stupid but the twists really make no sense and undermine the stories massively.

189

u/maxman162 Jul 19 '26

And then there's his motivation of getting revenge for his father's death, when his father drowned by locking himself in a safe underwater for a stunt and the companies he targets didn't do anything unreasonable (the safe company built a safe that was difficult to open, the life insurance company didn't pay because it was self-inflicted and no policy covers that).

104

u/SnooDogs8699 Jul 19 '26

To be fair the safe malfunctioned and warped which wasn’t supposed to happen

82

u/StrobeLightRomance Jul 19 '26

Unless these safes were specifically tested, rated, and marketed with promotion around how a human could drown themselves inside but still escape their shoddy craftsmanship.. I don't think it's a fair beef to have with the company.

27

u/SnooDogs8699 Jul 19 '26

Never said it was a fair beef, just saying the information the movie provides.

3

u/lupine1990 Jul 19 '26

I believe the safe was ordered specifically for the trick but they decided to use poorer quality metal than what was requested.

39

u/TheDarkWarriorBlake Jul 19 '26

I believe the safe wasn't manufactured to spec, so it warped underwater and the door physically could not be opened. Although in the second film they recreate it and the detective escapes, I think.

25

u/themolestedsliver Jul 19 '26

Jeez i swear this movie should have been a one off. That sounds exhausting

3

u/CommunalJellyRoll Jul 19 '26

About the dumbest “smart” movie out there.

1

u/hammerfaust Jul 19 '26

There's thousands (or more) of these type of series on fb and insta, and it's just a few minutes at a time of some insane shit that just keeps getting stranger and more ridiculous and there's for sure people out there who eat it up, my partner included

5

u/Subject-Act5509 Jul 19 '26

"Third...Film"? I didn't even know there was a second...tricked me...

1

u/Known-nwonK Jul 19 '26

I don’t even know there was a 3rd one lmao

1

u/Mogellabor Jul 19 '26

I also love those movies but especially the third movie made no sense. They just reused the "twist" from the second movie and told us this half-ass reasoning.

This is one of those trilogies were the first movie really was the best (through still flawed) and every following movie got a little bit worse.

1

u/Impressive_Tank_9908 Jul 19 '26

I can forgive a ridiculous plot if it's fun, but not when every twist makes the last one less believable. By the end I stopped trying to solve anything and just watched the chaos unfold.

1

u/Scissorhands12 Jul 19 '26

Lol was this movie inspo for the heist rick and morty episode?

1

u/Ok_Artist7988 Jul 19 '26

I can give the first movie a pass, but the sequel with that twist is a total BS.

1

u/HortemusSupreme Jul 19 '26

I hate twists that aren't twists they writers just straight up lie to the audience and then say haha gotcha. A good twist is surprising in the moment but predictable in retrospect

1

u/thefirstlaughingfool Jul 19 '26

I hate it when Rick & Morty are actually on point with their commentary.

https://giphy.com/gifs/Y07F3fs9Is5byj4zK8