http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperPoweredEvilSide

"Jason Blood, born of man

A hidden evil lies within

Spoken verse awakens sin

And frees the demon Etrigan"

Toa Takanuva, BIONICLE "But I'm not my "kind", not anymore — your shadow leeches saw to that. I'm half Toa of Light, half Toa of Shadow. This was what you wanted, wasn't it? Toa consumed by darkness, Toa not hampered by things like mercy or morality. Well, now you can choke on it."

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The fight's not going so well for our hero. He's wounded and at the end of his strength, and his barely scratched opponent looks down at him and sneers. And then the hero somehow suddenly taps into a massive hidden power source within him and unleashes a can of whoopass on his opponent.

It's not exactly the hero any more, though. He's got glowing eyes, some new Facial Markings, a different way of talking, some new threads, and a lot less compunction about ripping someone in half. It's his Super-Powered Evil Side. Think of it as the Enemy Within when it's not the enemy, or as Jekyll and super-Hyde.

Interestingly, notwithstanding the name, this character isn't necessarily evil — he just seems like it because a superpowerful version of a normal person who has no compunctions about randomly destroying things registers objectively as "evil" on most people's scale. To be technically accurate, this is more of a Super-Powered Alter Id — this personality is the physical manifestation of the character's basic drives without having to deal with the inconvenience of higher thought processes and morality — but sometimes this character will have traits of actually being evil or even worse.

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Keep in mind, of course, that once the Id is out of the subconscious it's not likely to want to go back in. Thus, the hero faces the very real threat of not returning to normal, each bout of Alternate Identity Amnesia causing him to get more worried about the next. Generally speaking, though, he's usually safe unless he starts thinking Evil Feels Good.

The narrative purpose of having a super-powered evil side is that it provides a way of saving a hero who is otherwise beaten but without making the hero look disproportionately powerful. It answers the question "why doesn't he just do that all the time?" with "because then the evil would take over." Additionally, if it leads to a FaceHeel Turn, it can serve the same purpose as Good Is Dumb in reverse — it justifies taking one member of the Five-Man Band or whatever and making him a match for his entire team while he has given in to evil.

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This is the converse of With Great Power Comes Great Insanity, seeing as in this case, with great insanity comes great power.

One possible variation on this trope makes the Evil Side the original personality. This creates the odd situation of an "Evil" super-powerful monster whose "Good" not-as-powerful personality is dominant for whatever reason.

This is sometimes the reason to Beware the Nice Ones. Compare with Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, Demonic Possession, Jekyll & Hyde and One-Winged Angel. Frequently overlaps with Sealed Evil in a Can and Sealed Badass in a Can. Contrast Heroic Resolve, My Name Is Inigo Montoya, and Helpless Good Side, although that last one sometimes goes hand in hand with this. May be caused by The Corruption. One possible way of Taking A Level In Badass, and in many ways, this is what The Berserker does.

Sub-Trope of Enemy Within and Super-Powered Alter Ego. If the Super-Powered Evil Side is triggered by the character's anger or rage, then it is a type of Hulking Out.

Examples:

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Pro Wrestling

Delirious will swap out his green attire for red attire when one of his enemies has made the mistake of making him really angry, using more heelish tactics and weaponry, and even spitting poison mist in people's faces.

There are hints that this is what is happening when Finn Bálor puts on the Demon war paint for big matches.

This was Mick Foley's schtick for a while in the WWE: when he needed a "boost" for a match, he'd come out as either his Mankind or Cactus Jack persona.

This trope is a tradition in Japanese pro wrestling, where many wrestlers unveil an evil persona to face a special threat or to play mindgames with a rival, and sometimes get in storyline overcome by these personas and turn fully heel, because Evil Is Not a Toy. Among them there are Keiji Muto's "Great Muta" and his many emulators, The Great Sasuke's "SASUKE", Hard Gay's "Super HG", BxB Hulk's "Killer Hulk", Gamma's "Gamma Daio", Kikutaro's red mask, and many others. In 1996, Japanese wrestler Jushin Thunder Liger, who traditionally played the role of a face, unveiled his "Kishin Liger" heel persona, when he wrestled heel wrestler the Great Muta, who mid-match ripped Liger's mask off, revealing his "oni face". Liger's wrestling style would become notably more aggressive and heel-like in this persona.



Roleplay

Tabletop Games

Toys

Takanuva gets one of these in BIONICLE, after having some of his Light drained by a Shadow Leech.

Video Games

Visual Novels

Web Animation

Shandala in Broken Saints has some serious issues.

Dreamscape: Keela's released form, which gives her Black Eyes of Crazy, her scythe grows HUGE, and she turns totally evil.

Flippy of Happy Tree Friends subverts this. Whenever he's reminded of the war he served in (strongly implied to be the Vietnam War), his Split Personality appears and starts gleefully and efficently killing everyone around him. However, the episode "Double Whammy Part II" reveals that the good side is just as badass, to the point where he manages to (temporarily) kill the evil side . He just doesn't have a reason to utilise these skills most of the time, lacking the evil side's bloodthirst.

. He just doesn't have a reason to utilise these skills most of the time, lacking the evil side's bloodthirst. Red vs. Blue: A fairly goofy example occurs in episode 40: in order to fight off a horde of "noobs" in Battle Creek, Caboose gets in touch with his "angry side", which results in him gunning down the noobs while shouting bizarre threats like "I will eat your unhappiness!" and "Your toast has been burned, and no amount of scraping will remove the black parts!" Caboose: Now I'm thinking of a kitten... covered in spikes... that makes... me... angry... YYAAARRRRGGHHH!



Web Comics

Web Original

In Tales of MU, the side of Mackenzie that some fans have taken to calling Kenzie is two details off from being a textbook example of a Super-Powered Evil Side: First, Kenzie is triggered by hunger instead of desperation in battle. Second and more distancing, the closest thing to a superpower Kenzie has over normal Mack is being willing to hurt people that are trying to kill her.

Web Videos

Spoony treats Dr. Insano as this in Kickassia.

Dark Nella from The Nostalgia Chick. Technically she's supposed to be a Cosmic Horror possessing a clone of Nella, but one episode randomly has Nella start to turn evil again before the Chick forces her glasses back on.

Nella, but one episode randomly has Nella start to turn evil again before the Chick forces her glasses back on. In the "Angry Video Game Fag" by Ebeeto, Ebeeto "transforms" into The Angry Video Game Fag whenever he is angered enough. The transformation comes complete with a video-game-inspired cutscene.

Western Animation