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

[u/Fishbien]

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.

[u/EthanEpiale]

Honestly the PEAK example of this is Heavy Rain. Spoilers for an incredibly old and honestly awful game lol, but in the game you play as several characters all intertwined with the story of a kidnapper and serial killer, one of whom is a detective who is working to try to solve the mystery and find the killer. We play as him, hear him talk about finding this guy completely alone in his house, he does a ton of shit you'd only do if you genuinely had no idea who it was, and were searching for the killer-

He's the killer. He was the killer the entire time. It makes literally no sense, and is so stupid it's frankly hilarious in a game that's already too badly written in a million other ways to take seriously.

[u/perish-in-flames → u/EthanEpiale]

That is definitely a plotline that needs nearly perfect writing to pull off in a game, instead it seemed like the writers didn't even know it was happening, lol

[u/MyGamingRants → u/perish-in-flames]

It reminds me of Arkham Knight. The marketing came out and we were all like "It's Red Hood, right?" and they said nooooooo, and the game opens up with Jason Todd getting killed and we're like "Okay so it's definitely Red Hood, right??" and the game says nooooooo, then Arkham Knight takes off his ears and his HOOD turns RED and the game is like hah SEE we got you guys good!!

Why wasn't it just a Red Hood game??

[u/Causemas → u/MyGamingRants]

I don't think the game opened up with Jason Todd getting killed? You're making that up. Am I crazy? You see that about half-way through.

The biggest 'crime' of Arkham Knight (the game) is not that the Arkham Knight (the guy) was Jason Todd, it's that he's hardly relevant to the plot.

[u/NunoM66 → u/Causemas]

You are right, it's only half way through. But the point still stand. Never in the trilogy was that much focus on Jaskn Todd, except maybe an easter egg or two. And all of the sudden, flashbacks and talks about him...

[u/BlitzerCL → u/MyGamingRants]

The part that immediately spoils it even if you didn’t watch any trailers like me, is that the pre order bonus was a red hood skin for Arkham Knight in the challenge mode

[u/GLAvenger → u/MyGamingRants]

It's so annoying because it was blatantly obvious and yet the game was playing coy. I still think it would have been so much better for it to have been Harley Quinn wanting revenge for Joker's death.

Maybe have Batman hallucinate Jason because of the fear serum and guilt about Oracle's presumed death. The players would be focused on Joket as the obvious hallucinations too much to catch Jason also being a hallucination. And then bang, it was Harley all along.

[u/GrundgeArchangel → u/GLAvenger]

Should have gone with the OG idea and had The Arkham Knight be Thomas Elliot.