20 People Who Could Have Died Heroes But Became Villains

When Harvey Dent said, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain,” he meant that even the most beloved figures will eventually have to make tough choices. That’s true enough, but there are lots of public figures we consider cartoonishly evil today who literally would have died heroes if they’d died before they started doing all that evil. For instance, Harvey Dent’s villainous turn was, in fact, not the result of a tough choice. He could have simply not committed mass murder.

For “a bit of an Aussie example,” user sweet_chick283 told r/AskReddit, “Mark Latham used to be the leader of the Labour Party, the more socially progressive Australian political party. He’s somehow morphed into the Donald Trump of Australian politics and joined One Nation, the party renowned for being racist.” 

They then asked, “What’s the most extreme example you’ve seen of ‘die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain’?”