How can I develop a righteous character to an evil character?

MikXL_23

I'm writing a story called Insect King and currently I'm stuck on a writerblock that has stopped me from writing any new chapters for months. The problem is, I honestly dunno how to make an ordinary person become the evil protagonist of this novel so I'm open to suggestions and help from anyone as long as it's useful.

PrinceOfNilfheim

MikXL_23 Thing is, you have to realize that personality change HAS to be gradual, of course there is always that HUGE event that kinda breaks the camels back, but there should be a build up to it, as your MC is non human you could make him succumb to his instincts little by little, but there should be always minor events that show him how ugly the world is, follow by a final, Major event.

tigre900

MikXL_23 Generally people become evil when one of two things happen. Either they discover they enjoy evil things or they are beaten down to the point where they lose their integrity and resort to evil themselves.

If you look at the 7 deadly sins: gluttony, sloth, wrath, jealousy, lust, greed, and pride, any of those is a good starting place for the corruption of your character, or even a combination or all of them.

TheCaffinated

MikXL_23 Arrogance and corruption. Make them a Mary Sue/Gary Stu that gets everything it wants and is constantly praised. Let that go to its head and give it a "since I'm so great and always right, that means everyone who says no to me or questions me is evil" mindset, essentially a god complex with ends justifying the means.

Once that's established, you can make them do horrible things without the MC itself seeming like a card-carrying villian.

AzureCloudSky

Since your character goes from human to non-human, you could try to make a gradual shift in behavior from righteous to more and more indifferent up to the point where he becomes cold-blooded / evil.
This could be explained by how his new body or the genetics of the DoomInsect race affect his mind as his physical body grows in order to make them more compatible.
Hoping this is of help! :)
Otherwise, Pleasedeteme provided some ideas which could work such as killing and shock. However, for betrayal since his race is almost universally hated I don't see how he could be betrayed. For losing everything, he doesn't have anything really to lose except his life as far as I saw.

EroJaki

Three suggestions .

some villain he left alive, go back and kill someone close to him, threat his family or anything else.
Ot how about, the righteous character, lose his faith on everything he used to believe at, and seeing that being righteous is nothing more than a bull-shit..

The righteous character find something he wants so badly, it can be woman, peace, or even something so righteous. but to achieve that thing, the character would have to go against its own moral.

Breno_Ranyere

Motivation

AzureCloudSky

Pleasedeteme Yeah I didn’t think about the relationships with the other races (from what I read in the book, it seems those relations will be very hostile), as for his race becoming extinct, I understood that he was it’s last member

MikXL_23

AzureCloudSky Holy, I didn't know some of my readers would be here! It makes me really happy hehe

MikXL_23

Thanks everyone for the help1

SP1RIT

-Show him/her the ugly truth of the book's world
-Like other said, the mc's belief and principles slowly change
-Mc is done with bs
-Lost someone (Example: Mortal combat, Scorpion's Revenge)
-Mental Problem
-Mind Controlled?
-Used by much higher Enemy?
-?
-Im Spirit

Veronica8

Know your characters goals and motivations. How they'll likely react to blocks and stakes that present certain failures.

Doing a story premise might help. I'll try to link a template.

Evernote premise template

ReincarnatedSaint

Just say he is cold-blooded and so it is affecting his temperament after reincarnstion ( If it is in ur novel) causing a slow change and u can use some even to trigger it faster

Daoist_Zheng

Getting chuuni dark power and character shifted? Gradually succomb to luring of darkness, classic.

Mikkie_oh

Make him do something that is against his values yet he experienced self fullfilment doing it. Then, he will be conflicted of whether to refrain or continue which will lead him to insanity because he cannot get away with the fullfiling moment every time he does it. 🤔🤔

Hope this helps.

Lazy_leon

Don't Force it!
If you can't find a good way to change your protagonist from righteous to villainous‚ just let it remain as it is.
And if you believe that this will be boring than choose your own unique character development path.
3000 daos all different from one another.

Righteous to noble‚ A royal being in his race that can become a human being and have adventure in the human world.

Father from his race mother from human race?

He suddenly acquire a Unique treasure due to said plot and become aloof from mortal feeling ....i.e he doesn't judge others based on the sentiment and thoughts of society and mortals as he would Orr already stand above them all due to said treasure .xd

ShikadaAki

I'll read few chapters and give you a tip

bunnyreadsabook

To shift from good to evil, don't drastically switch their personality. Whatever morals they have, just make them take it further. For example, if I wanted to turn Superman into a proper villain, instead of just protecting the weak, he can take it a step further and protect the weak by eliminating all the bad guys ruthlessly. In this way, the reader still recognizes the character and understands why they transformed into their evil self.