10 Movie Villains Who Turned Heroes Evil

Pixar have always had a bit of a knack for creating animations that go far deeper than you'd expect from a kid's film. Wreck It Ralph (2012) is no exception - our hero Ralph is actually a video game bad guy, trying to be more well-meaning than his programming should allow.

This exploration of heroes and villains is embedded throughout: Fix It Felix's innocent neighbours are actually active in the persecution of Ralph, Felix is an ineffectual "hero," and Ralph is just doing his best.

Even the film's overarching nemesis is obscured from the audience until the last minute (save for some exquisite foreshadowing it might take a couple of watches to pick up on) as the benevolent King Candy cunningly hides his real motives. When old racing game Turbo gets unplugged from the arcade, its main character takes up in Sugar Rush and replaces Princess Vanellope with himself as monarch. With her relegation to "glitch," Turbo/King Candy must ensure that she isn't allowed to race, or else her character will be restored.

The lengths to which Turbo is willing to go to keep his secret make him a nastier villain than expected, as he must manipulate big softie Ralph into doing his dirty work. Believing that Vanellope racing would lead to the game's failure and ultimately to his friend's death, King Candy persuades Ralph to wreck her car. Even though he believed it was for the greater good, Ralph still aids Turbo in his domination of Sugar Rush. It's handy that he had a colleague with a magic hammer that can fix everything.

There's something more complex in there about unlearning toxic traits to become more rounded human beings, but I'll leave that up to you to dig out.