Non-Wrestling Face / Heel turns

[OutsiderDX]

Heel Turn. Face Turn. Phrases originated in the wrestling business. Owned and used by wrestling fans. Acts that can force feelings of betrayal, or raise the warm glow of pride as a wrestler finds redemption.

Face turns and heel turns are common in wrestling. But what are some heel and face turns that you have seen outside of wrestling. What are some face / heel turns in movies? In books? Real life?

A few examples :

Movies: Face turn- Darth Vader throwing the Emperor over the railing.
Real Life : Heel turn- Tiger Woods after getting caught with the skanks.
Books: Face turn – Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of a Christmas Carol

Hopefully people will have a little fun with this and list some Heel or Face turns that we not have recognized before.

 

[FitFinlay4Life]

Best face turn in movies:

Yeah, Darth's return from the Dark Side in 'Return of the Jedi' is right up there but my personal favorite is Arnie as the terminator in 'Terminator 2'. The set up at the beginning of 'T2' is purely to convince us that he is the same unstopping monster from the original (Robert Patrick looks every bit the under gunned character Michael Biehn was).


Best heel turn in movies:

James Cromwell as Captain Dudley Smith in 'LA Confidential'. The whole way through LA Confidential Cpt Smith is the embodiment of the supporting senior officer but when Kevin Spacey's Jack Vincennes discovers something too close to the truth, the guy most famous as being the dictionary definition of a god man Farmer Hoggett in 'Babe' casually shoots him and them calmly asks him if there is anything he'd like to confess (unwittingly setting the dominoes in motion that'll ultimately be his down fall). Honorable mention to Samuel Jackson's revelation in 'Unbreakable'.


Best face turn in real life:

Shawn Michaels; from bullying, womanizing, politicking drug addict who only thought of number one to family orientated, clean, (non-retired) model company man who devotes his life now to bringing people to Christ. I'm agnostic myself but that doesn't hide how much HBK turned his life around. Honorable mention to the late Macho Man who also turned his real life around before his tragic death.


Best heel turn in real life:

Ryan Giggs was the symbol of everything that was the perfect professional footballer. When word came out that a famous British soccer player had a super injunction out to protect himself over an affair, he was still the last man on everyone's mind. So when the injunction was overturned, you can imagine the shock it created. Even people who hated Manchester United (pretty much the whole world except their actual supporters - ABU) liked Ryan. Now, not only had he cheated on his wife, he'd used the law to try and hide it from both her and the public. Booo!!! and (indeed) Hiss!!! Honorable mention: OJ Simpson (don't believe I need to expound here).


Best face turn in literature:

Easy one given we haven't reached the twelfth day just yet - it just has to be Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens 'A Christmas Carol'. After all, the whole book is about turning the man 'face'.


Best heel turn in literature:

Sir Leigh Teabling in Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code'. From mentor, conspirator and great friend of Robert Langdon, it transpires that the likable and eccentric Brit is a cold blooded murderer and criminal mastermind.

 

[SomeAreSet]

Wouldn't Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader have one of the best heel AND face turns in film? The shittiness of the Star Wars prequels notwithstanding,having the chosen one turn to the dark side before turning good again to save his son is why he has to be right up there with one of the best heel and face turns of all time.

If you read the Harry Potter books,then Snape would also have to be one of the best face turns in literature. He started the first 6 books being a heel,even killing one of the protagonists,before turning face in the end when it was revealed that he had been protecting Harry Potter since Potter was born.

Then I guess in real life,there are way too many examples of face and heel turns. Off the top of my head,I think Roman Polanski had one of the biggest heel turns in modern times. A gifted director who tragically lost his wife and unborn child to a maniacal 'family' of killers,and then turned heel when he drugged and sodomized a 13 year old girl.

I never found adultery morally objectionable because human monogamy simply means being married to one person with no specification of sexual partners at all,so I never found Tiger Woods (or Ryan Giggs as FitFinlay4Life has mentioned) a villain in anything. If anything,the number of mistresses coming out of the woodwork to get their 15 minutes of fame is downright heel behaviour,because while they were more than happy to get on their knees or bend over for athletes,once the grape turned sour they quickly turned on the athlete and started to portray themselves as victims.

 

[FitFinlay4Life]

I never found adultery morally objectionable because human monogamy simply means being married to one person with no specification of sexual partners at all,so I never found Tiger Woods (or Ryan Giggs as FitFinlay4Life has mentioned) a villain in anything. If anything,the number of mistresses coming out of the woodwork to get their 15 minutes of fame is downright heel behaviour,because while they were more than happy to get on their knees or bend over for athletes,once the grape turned sour they quickly turned on the athlete and started to portray themselves as victims.

The adultery was one thing, using the law to hide it from both his wife and his adoring fans was more cowardly than anything the Honky Tonk Man ever did.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

Heel Turn in literature/fiction has to go to Judas. Although if it was Jesus' destiny to be crucified then Judas did what he was meant to all along. Same with the Jews, I was talking to a friend about this a few days ago; Jews were hated for killing Christ, yet without them doing so, Jesus wouldn't have done the heroic self-sacrifice thing. Oh dear I'm rambling.

Lancelot at the end of Excalibur (1985) does a great face turn. After pumping King Arthur's wife, her of an awkward spelling name beginning with G and ending with ere (I think) and isolating himself from the King and court, he returns as a bearded wildman to make up with Arthur and stop the evil golden bastard.

Heel turn in movies, I'm going with an under-rated one. Edward Norton at the end of

Spoiler

Primal Fear. If you haven't seen this film, shame on you.

In some ways expected, in some ways a bit of a shock, this was one twist I really liked as it had repercussions for the other lead character.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I will add another source to this. Video Games. The classic heel/face turns have been seen by one of the most popular RPG characters of all time. I'm talking about Kain from Final Fantasy 4. (The guy with the green armor in my sig, third row first image, for those who have not played) Kain gets separated from Cecil's group following an earthquake and you find out the hard way that he has sided with Golbez when he shows up at the battle in Fabul to attack YOU. He then redeems himself by helping you save Rosa in the Tower of Zot. Kain worked to earn back the trust of the heroes, only to end up turning heel AGAIN by betraying them (spoiler withheld) towards the end of the game. He redeems himself one final time by volunteering to come along on the final quest and asking you to kill him if he ever turns on you again. It's a classic tale of jealousy, honor, and redemption.

In terms of movies/books, I have to agree with those who have mentioned Darth Vader. When he joined the Dark Side it was a full heel turn for The Chosen One. He then sees redemption and a face turn when he kills the Emperor at the very end of the final film, after a long run as one of the more memorable antihero movie villains. Darth Vader is an excellent example because he spent significant amounts of time at both sides of the spectrum, his heel turn and his face turn are among the most important moments in the entire Star Wars saga.

Then we have real life face/heel turns. I've experienced both. Both instances were events I never saw coming. I had what could be seen as a real life equivalent of a tag team with a friend when I was a teen, he betrayed me by starting to cause drama at school behind my back by turning many people against me. I actually remember at the time viewing this as a heel turn and a tag team split (goodness, I have watched too much wrestling lol) but I tried to forgive him and let him earn back my trust or else he could have remained a "heel" forever.

The real life equivalent of a huge face turn came for me in college. I had roomies who I did not get along with at the first half of that semester, and one night when I had split up with my ex and was upset with the world for several reasons, they shockingly "turned face" by not only being there to help me pick up the pieces of what happened but also invited me to their worship group which helped me get back into a healthier spiritual life. I still keep in contact with them and we all view that evening as a turning point for all of us. I hated them at first and they were the absolute last people I'd ever expect to help me due to us not getting along whatsoever for the first couple of months we lived together, making that be the most shocking real "face turn".