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Belated Backstory
- 274 statements
- 52 feature instances
- 6 referencing feature instances
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Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })A newly introduced character who has had little backstory or Character Development undergoes a sudden shift in characterization that becomes their "established" self for the rest of the series. Common with the Ensemble Dark Horse and Ascended Extra. What separates Belated Backstory from normal Character Development is that this change in characterization happens without warning and little justification from what had already been shown of that character. However, since it usually occurs early on in a series, it's often accepted by fans as a needed Retool to change the character along with the not-yet-solidified flow of a new series; in other words, a Sub-Trope of Early Installment Weirdness. Really, just mix and match from the Backstory Index. This phenomenon is not really Character Derailment, as producers often state that they just didn't know the character back then, and a more complex and interesting character usually arises from retooling of the initially more flat portrayal, instead of the other way around (though not always). Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })This happens a lot in webcomics when attempting Cerebus Syndrome, to overcome a previously flat cast. See also Divergent Character Evolution. Not to be confused with Origins Episode. If the character change came earlier in the series and the characterization of a character in Flashbacks matches their present day characterization, but not their original characterization, that's a case of Backported Development. |
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Belated Backstory | |
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Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Belle the Tinkerer is introduced in Issue #34, but despite teases and hints, her origins aren't fully explained until Issue #44. | |
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Angel from the Charlie Parker Series is initially described as being able to "steal fluff from under the president's nostrils". Later books give him a backstory as a rubbish thief with plenty of jail time under his belt, whose talent with locks and security systems gave him the potential to be a good thief. His partner Louis also gets this to an extent, going from ruthless, amoral assassin to a mama's boy who suffered from racist attacks and homophobic bullying as a child and is very picky about who he kills, refusing to kill women or children. | |
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Magneto's backstory as a Holocaust survivor, though now considered an essential part of his character, is actually this. He's been the X-Men's archenemy ever since the series' first issue in 1964, but his tragic backstory wasn't revealed until Uncanny X-Men #151 hit the stands in 1981. | |
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Fire Emblem: The Fell Dragon Grima, main antagonist of Fire Emblem Awakening, had no backstory and very little personality beyond being a Generic Doomsday Villain. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia includes a postgame quest that details his backstory: he's the result of a Mad Scientist (well, Alchemist) experimenting on dragon corpses and Divine Dragon blood in order to create the Ultimate Life Form. It worked a little too well... Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn did this for Ashnard, Big Bad of Path of Radiance. While we knew in that game that Ashnard became king by killing everyone else in line for the throne, ending with his father, we don't find out how he did it until Radiant Dawn. We also find out that he took a princess of the Dragon Tribe as his wife in hope that the resulting child would be super-powerful, but cast both her and the son out when he found out he had no particular special powers. That son would turn out to be Soren, which makes a lot of sense in hindsight, although neither Ashnard nor Soren are aware of this. |
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Taylor Townsend from The O.C. underwent a lot of changes between her introduction at the start of the third season and joining the main cast at the beginning of the fourth. Early on (when she was clearly a villainous character), she had an affair with a Sadist Teacher, which was promptly forgotten about when she settled into her established Genki Girl personality. The development of a fairly one note villain into a sympathetic character seems to have been thanks to the unexpected charm of the actress (Autumn Reeser) and the writers deciding to run with it. | |
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Huckleberry Finn, when he transitioned from supporting character in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to main character of his own self-titled novel. | |
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The radio version of New Dynamic English gives backstories to almost all of the cast from the software. Max and Kathy were given more personality as we see them interact in the Story Interludes. | |
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The Joker and Catwoman are also examples of this. They both debut in Batman #1 and had their origins revealed in Detective Comics #168 and Batman #62, respectively. | |
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RWBY: Professor Ozpin was presented almost from his introduction as a wise and mysterious mentor with a lot of history behind him. Things only got more interesting when we learned about his Ressurective Immortality, but his full backstory isn't revealed until Volume 6, "The Lost Fable." It changed everything about the character, because it revealed that he has no idea what he's doing. Ozpin had been presented as The Chessmaster with a mysterious plan to beat the Big Bad, but this revealed that he can't beat her, and is just trying to stop her from destroying the world as long as possible, all while lying to the heroes about it. | |
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Dragon Ball: In the original manga, nothing was known about Son Goku's origin other than "weird and incredibly strong wild child". Dragon Ball Z's first arc, the Saiyan Saga, eventually revealed his Saiyan backstory. Similarly, Goku's father Bardock made his first appearance in 1991, but his backstory would be revealed in Jaco the Galactic Patrolman (published in 2014) and expanded in Dragon Ball Super (2021). |
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Harry Potter: Despite being three of the major characters in the series, we learn next to nothing about the pasts of Snape, Dumbledore, and Voldemort until the last three books. All Harry knew about previously Snape was that he and his dad never got along. One of the first things Harry learns about Dumbledore is that he defeated the Predecessor Villain named Grindelwald in 1945 and he mentions his brother in the fourth book but that’s about it for his past. Granted, we did get an early peek at Voldemort's past in book two, but it was pretty vague until book six. Although fairly minor characters, Harry begins to learn more about his parents in the third book, learns more about his dad in the fifth, and then fully comes to understand his mother in the last book. Neville, whom we know very little about until Goblet of Fire. Much of what we learn makes things in the first three books Harsher in Hindsight. |
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Danni Sullivan from Scrubs is a rather less successful example of this happening; her initial character was fun, likable and sensitive but when she reappeared she had turned into an obnoxious, slutty, vapid party girl. The attempt to write around this is distinctly odd as well - apparently she was pretending to be somebody she thought JD would like. Which is weird seeing as she's well in character by the first time she and JD meet and neither Jordan (her sister) or Dr. Cox (her brother in law) seem to notice any change in her personality. |
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Supernatural: Despite being the Big Bad during the first two seasons, we learn nothing about the Yellow-Eyed Demons motivations until season 4. Hell, we don't even learn his name until season three: Azazel. Castiel is a downplayed example. We never really get much about what he was doing in Heaven prior to meeting the Winchesters, but in season eight, four seasons after his introduction, we do find out that he's been a problem for Heaven many times in the past and Naomi has scrubbed his mind each time to rework him into a proper soldier. Which leads to some interesting speculations on his superiors' suspicions of him in season four, and why he appears to be a bit of an odd duck even to the other angels. |
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Sam Vimes in Discworld apparently only learns his own backstory as the books go on. In Guards! Guards! he's vaguely surprised to learn Ankh-Morpork ever had kings and doesn't seem to feel strongly about them either way; Men at Arms is both the first mention that the last king was executed by Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes and the first book where Sam expresses anti-monarchist views; and by Feet of Clay a large part of his character is his fierce egalitarian beliefs and pride in his otherwise despised ancestor. | |
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Happens to Pythagoras in Atlantis who goes from innocent, triangle loving, loyal friend to Jason and Hercules, to suddenly being revealed to have accidentally killed his father after pushing him away, trying to protect his mother from one of his father's drunken attacks, causing his father to fall hard and hit his head, killing him instantly. However, after he is forgiven by his younger brother, who spent the entire episode trying to get revenge on the mystery 'burglar' who he was told killed his father he goes back to being his innocent, dorky and long-suffering genius character once more... | |
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Many of the villains underwent this in Inuyasha, with personalities in their later appearances very different from in their first appearances. Most notably, Sesshomaru went from Evil Gloating to The Stoic, Koga went from Smug Snake to Noble Demon, Naraku went from Manipulative Bastard to Evil Evolves, and Kagura became The Starscream. | |
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Despite being three of the major characters in the series, we learn next to nothing about the pasts of Snape, Dumbledore, and Voldemort until the last three books. All Harry knew about previously Snape was that he and his dad never got along. One of the first things Harry learns about Dumbledore is that he defeated the Predecessor Villain named Grindelwald in 1945 and he mentions his brother in the fourth book but that’s about it for his past. Granted, we did get an early peek at Voldemort's past in book two, but it was pretty vague until book six. | |
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The back-story of Big Boss, Solid Snake's nemesis in the MSX Metal Gear, was not fully fleshed out until Metal Gear Solid 3, transforming what was a two-dimensional 8-bit villain into a Tragic Hero. Similarly, Solid Snake went in the 8-bit games from a silent protagonist with no backstory, to a Flat Character with no backstory. In Metal Gear Solid, he's given his crucial Backstory of being a clone/son of Big Boss, and his entire personality changed and developed as a result, becoming quite three-dimensional. McDonnel Miller in Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid, who served mostly to dispense fourth-wall breaking video game ergonomics trivia, became Kazuhira Miller in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, with a much more fleshed out personality and a backstory involving his mother having been a prostitute in Japan during World War II, and witnessing the suicide of Yukio Mishima. |
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Undertale: Flowey the Flower, on a Neutral Route, only shows up at the beginning and the end of the playthrough (along with some brief appearances in the middle if you backtrack in certain rooms). At first he seems like a one-dimensional Sadist who somehow knows about the "Groundhog Day" Loop, and it isn’t until the Golden Ending or the Genocide Route that we get more info on him, which casts his character in a whole new light. | |
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Wolverine is definitely an example of this trope. We got bits and pieces of his back story throughout his rise in popularity, but his full back story wasn't finally fleshed out until the origins miniseries was printed in 2006. | |
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Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin gives some belated backstory to Doctor Loboto, whose only role in the first game was being the Big Bad's right-hand assistant. Raz learns that Loboto had psychic powers at a young age, but his psychic-hating parents took him to get a lobotomy to remove those abilities because they were ashamed of his powers. This event is heavily implied to be the reason behind his insanity. | |
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Libra, a two-issue villain with no background details from the Justice League of America comics of the early 1970's, was reintroduced in the 2008 crossover Final Crisis, and finally given a back story. | |
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Buso Renkin: Tokiko's full origin as the Sole Survivor of a homunculus attack on her school and got her scar when attacked while being treated for her wounds is not revealed until the Dénouement chapter of the manga. | |
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In the first two seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar Roku is basically only known as the Avatar before Aang. It isn't until season 3 where we learn more about him. | |
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When casting Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the specification for Dr. Julian Bashir was, "We're going to need a doctor, maybe someone with an accent?" They really had no plans for him, and his defining characteristics (his friendships with O'Brien and Garak, his genetic history) were all added later. | |
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Early in Steven Universe, Rose Quartz was presented as the kind, selfless mother of Steven who gave of her physical form to give birth to him. However, as the series underwent Continuity Creep, she was revealed to have been the leader of the Gem rebellion, fighting Homeworld alongside Garnet and Pearl thousands of years prior. It's not until "Back to the Moon" that it is revealed that winning the war came at the cost of Rose shattering Pink Diamond, the Diamond who owned the planet. However, when Steven is put on for the assassination, his defending Zircon brings up several factors that point to the true facts of the case being covered up. Later in the same season, Pearl tells everyone the secret she's kept for millennia: Rose was Pink Diamond, who upon realizing all the life that existed on the planet, tried to persuade Yellow and Blue Diamond to let her abandon the planet, but when that failed she assumed the form and name of a Rose Quartz and started the rebellion, later faking her shattering to win the war. | |
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In Hotline Miami, the player knows very little about the game's nameless silent protagonist that they control, save that he's somewhat of a violent sociopath who likes wearing letterman jackets. Here, it's implied that his bloodlust has no other reason than sheer boredom. Come the sequel, (though he's no longer playable) we learn that he once served in the army, giving him a stronger underlying reason for his violent nature (also explaining his ease in using firearms), as well as other information that gives more significance to the events of the first game. | |
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Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27, but was not given an origin until Detective Comics #33. The Joker and Catwoman are also examples of this. They both debut in Batman #1 and had their origins revealed in Detective Comics #168 and Batman #62, respectively. |
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Many of the less major characters on the American version of The Office exhibit this: Meredith's alcoholism, Toby's "Sad Sack" attitude, Angela's religiousness, the entirety of Kelly's personality... the list goes on. | |
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The Materials in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable games started as one-dimensional Omnicidal Maniac Evil Twins of the three Aces formed from the remains of the Darkness of the Book of Darkness. When they returned in the sequel, it's quickly revealed that they're not mere remains of a dead abomination but sealed beings that are much older, and they now come with fully fleshed personalities to boot, with Stern as a Deadpan Snarker Hypercompetent Sidekick Spock, Levi as a very childlike yet friendly Boisterous Bruiser Dumb Muscle, and Lord Dearche as a Royal Brat Evil Overlord wannabe who grows into a Noble Demon. And they all possess Undying Loyalty towards one another. | |
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Neville, whom we know very little about until Goblet of Fire. Much of what we learn makes things in the first three books Harsher in Hindsight. | |
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This is exactly what happens to Fernald (The Hook-Handed Man) in A Series of Unfortunate Events. | |
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While Bob from ReBoot was a very popular and interesting character, some fans quickly caught on to small changes to his personality to better fit the backstory revealed in season 4. That could partially be blamed on the three plus years between seasons. Specifically, during season 4, Bob adamantly believed that viruses could be cured rather than merely deleted and that "deletion" should be avoided at all costs. This initially seemed like Character Development, but then multiple flashbacks during that same season made it clear that he had always been that way, even though he had made several genuine attempts to kill Megabyte in earlier seasons. |
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In Lovehammer Inc a conversation about the customs of a planet Angron conquered years before has him casually mention he's been married at least twice, which came as a complete shock to most of the rest of the Imperial Family. It doesn't seem to matter particularly to him, perhaps explaining why he hadn't mentioned this before. | |
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Daredevil: While we're dropped plenty of hints throughout the first two seasons that Karen Page has plenty of skeletons in her closet, it's not until late season 3 in a limelight episode that we are given the details as to what really happened. | |
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In One Piece, after almost 20 years, Sanji's full backstory is finally revealed. For the longest time, Sanji was just Sanji, much like Nami is just Nami, and the fandom began to think the author had nothing up his sleeve beyond that - he was Sanji, and that was it. No one really expected anything more past that because his initial backstory was deceptively intricate enough as is, but two thing burned at people's minds - he was the only Straw Hat without a personal death under his belt, and he revealed he was not native to the East Blue. Turns out, he's kept mum about his surname Vinsmoke and all the bad memories associated with it, because his own father specifically told him never to mention them ever again, and indeed, it included the memory of a late mother dying for his sake. It just took a certain interest in his familiar background to open the can of worms. | |
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Doctor Zoidberg from Futurama went from being a normal (well, alien) doctor with a humorously poor understanding of human anatomy to the very essence of a Butt-Monkey (...with a humorously poor understanding of human anatomy). He now is perpetually poor and hungry, is generally disliked by just about everyone, and is put into question whether he actually is a doctor or not. His doctorate is in art history. This is discussed several times in Futurama's notoriously good DVD commentaries, more from the angle of 'why did Hermes start hating Zoidberg' The Professor doesn't hate him, but... that's about it. His latest backstory shows he was an MD and was even competent, until a Yeti tried to crack his head open. |
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This happens in the last episode of Student Council's Discretion to the main character Ken Sugisaki, as he explains to the in-story defictionalized Nakameguro how he got to be where he was (a Harem Seeker in the besides him all-girl student council): after two-timing two girls, he became a social outcast in his old school. After switching schools, he met Kurimu, who inspired him to make everybody around him happy, Minatsu, who told him to seek his own strength instead of just looking up to her, Chizuru shared mutual comfort with him when they were at their low-point and Mafuyu who saved him from freezing to death. This made him fall in love with each one of them, so to be with them, he became the valedictorian to occupy the last seat of the student council, into which the girls were recently voted. Cue the first episode and the first words he said to them as a group. That he loved them all and would make them all happy in his harem. Since the entire series was more of a screwball comedy, this was seen as a memorable ending. | |
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McDonnel Miller in Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid, who served mostly to dispense fourth-wall breaking video game ergonomics trivia, became Kazuhira Miller in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, with a much more fleshed out personality and a backstory involving his mother having been a prostitute in Japan during World War II, and witnessing the suicide of Yukio Mishima. | |
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Late in the third act of R.O.T.O.R., the protagonist reveals that he spent much of his childhood on an Indian reservation. This appears to be an attempt to justify his ability to find R.O.T.O.R. in the woods. | |
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Despite being one of the two protagonists since Pokémon began in 1997, Pikachu's life before he became Ash's partner was never explored until the start of the eighth generation in 2019. He was an abandoned orphan as a Pichu, who was eventually Happily Adopted by a kindly Kangashkan and raised alongside her joey, eventually leaving the family and striking out on his own when he realized the extra passenger weight was slowing the mother down, evolving out of his love for them. How he ended up in Professor Oak's possession where he first met Ash remains a mystery, however. | |
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Similarly, Goku's father Bardock made his first appearance in 1991, but his backstory would be revealed in Jaco the Galactic Patrolman (published in 2014) and expanded in Dragon Ball Super (2021). | |
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The Doctor of Doctor Who. For the first six years of the series he's not given an on-screen backstory, apart from being cut off from his home planet, but the assumption appears to be that while his people have access to vastly advanced technology, including what will become regeneration, they're essentially indistinguishable from humans. Then the Time Lords are introduced, he's revealed to be a Time Lord who was on the run from his people, and he's demonstrated to have a very different biology from humans. | |
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Criminal Minds: The cast started out without much backstory. Gideon had the most, as the former lead agent who lost most of his previous team in a bombing and was suffering PTSD as a result; Hotch formerly led the Seattle field office and took over for Gideon; Reid was a child prodigy; Morgan was the only survivor from Gideon's previous team; JJ, Elle, and Garcia were just sort of there. "Natural Born Killer" and "The Tribe" gave hints at Hotch's backstory, but nothing stuck in a meaningful enough way to change his characterization. Then, at the end of season 1, "The Fisher King" seemed to go out of its way to reveal cosmetic backstory for them (JJ collected butterflies, Gideon went to every White Sox game with his dad, etc.), with a major revelation about Reid. His relationship with his schizophrenic mother became a defining part of his characterization from then on. In season 2, the aptly-titled "Revelations" went further at fleshing out Reid's backstory, while "Profiler, Profiled" took care of Morgan's. Season 3's "Penelope" covered, well, Penelope Garcia. JJ had to wait for Season 5's "Risky Business" before her sister's suicide and its impact came to light. Prentiss, introduced in season 2, had to wait until season 6 for anything prominent about her backstory to be introduced, and then it was done as a way of writing her out. | |
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In the original manga, nothing was known about Son Goku's origin other than "weird and incredibly strong wild child". Dragon Ball Z's first arc, the Saiyan Saga, eventually revealed his Saiyan backstory. | |
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When The Karate Kid began, all that was really known of Johnny Lawrence was that he was part of a generic Gang of Bullies (though they were shown with issues). What was shown in Cobra Kai was a volatile home life (though he got along beautifully with his mother), which in turn inspired him to train at the dojo under a hard-nosed sensei with a win-at-all-costs attitude. Martin Kove's arrival in Season 2 indicates Kreese is set to receive one of his own, which could explain what shaped his own attitude and teachings and in turn how and why Johnny turned into a jerkass. | |
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Yellowfang from Warrior Cats doesn't have her backstory explained until the second book, and her characterization changes to reflect it afterward. | |
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Harmony Kendall from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an interesting case: in her earlier appearances her main defining trait was her meanness, especially when she took over leadership of the Cordettes from Cordelia. After becoming a vampire her (considerably expanded) role focused mostly on her stupidity and clinginess instead. In fact, aside from the whole bloodsucking, no problems with killing thing, she actually became far less obnoxious. This was taken even further when she started appearing on Angel and developed into a likable, if highly incompetent, ally of the good guys. Even her rather ineffectual betrayal at the end is done without rancour on either side (Angel actually counted on her betraying him as part of his plan, and writes her a letter of recommendation). In an even more noticeable example in the same series Anya (a former demon turned into a human) had no major difficulties adapting to human customs early on, but as soon as she took on a larger role she suddenly started using Spock Speak and had had tremendous problems grasping human things like tact and mortality. Later a Flashback shows that she was always like this, even before she became a demon. |
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The Fell Dragon Grima, main antagonist of Fire Emblem Awakening, had no backstory and very little personality beyond being a Generic Doomsday Villain. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia includes a postgame quest that details his backstory: he's the result of a Mad Scientist (well, Alchemist) experimenting on dragon corpses and Divine Dragon blood in order to create the Ultimate Life Form. It worked a little too well... | |
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Charmed (1998): Chris. He claims to be a time-traveling half-Whitelighter trying to prevent a Bad Future, but refuses to give details about it. The first chunk of season six is largely devoted to him being cryptic and doing evil things behind the girls' backs, sometimes displaying powers that no other Whitelighter has. Eventually it's revealed that he's Piper and Leo's yet-to-be-born second child (a decision almost certainly influenced by Holly Marie Combs' pregnancy) and that he's definitively good. I guess we're just supposed to forget about him killing that Valkyrie, huh? Also, this reveal comes with the fact that in Chris' timeline Leo abandoned his family for some reason, and as a result Chris suddenly hates him. Prior to this the two had actually bonded a lot after Leo went through a period of mistrusting him. In season eight, Billie is eventually revealed to have a sister who was kidnapped by demons when they were children, at which point finding her becomes her main story arc. |
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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn did this for Ashnard, Big Bad of Path of Radiance. While we knew in that game that Ashnard became king by killing everyone else in line for the throne, ending with his father, we don't find out how he did it until Radiant Dawn. We also find out that he took a princess of the Dragon Tribe as his wife in hope that the resulting child would be super-powerful, but cast both her and the son out when he found out he had no particular special powers. That son would turn out to be Soren, which makes a lot of sense in hindsight, although neither Ashnard nor Soren are aware of this. | |
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Judge Dredd's Origin Story wasn't written for nearly thirty years. | |
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