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

Yahtzee's review on review on 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand "Why does 50 Cent rough up and insult all of his allies and act surprised when every single one of them betrays him?"

The Big Bad has a loyal minion who has been feeling... somewhat less than loyal recently. Maybe they met the heroes and liked them. Maybe they discovered more than a few reasons to believe that their master wasn't as nice as they seemed. Maybe they're not sure they approve of the current plot. Maybe they just learned what the plan really was. And seeing how The Leader on the other side treats their allies might be the cherry on top. Whatever the reason, they are pondering a difficult dilemma. Remain loyal or betray the boss?

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Fortunately, the Big Bad is willing to help them come to a decision. They immediately start doing everything in their power to make the minion feel hurt and miserable, possibly going as far as putting the minion through a Humiliation Conga, thus perfectly solidifying and justifying the inevitable Almost-Any-Face Turn.

Villains who think It's All About Me are particularly prone to this — and particularly prone to being shocked when the minion leaves. Double that if the minion hooks up with the other side (and triple if it is a High-HeelFace Turn).

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good is often, though not always, an element in their motivations. A particularly Magnetic Hero can usually tip the balance in their favor with a few kind words, or just by showing how they treat their friends. Indeed, when the villain goes for Flaw Exploitation, endangering their minions to force the hero to save them, or just leaving them in danger because they know the hero will save them, the contrast is generally as vivid as it gets.

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A more rare variant is when a good, but not nice character mistreats their sidekick, who has enough of being the underdog and becomes a villain (see Who's Laughing Now? for more).

Not to be confused with Even Mooks Have Loved Ones, where the minion considers betraying the boss for being cruel to their friends or relatives. Contrast Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand. Watch out for HeelFace Door-Slam. Cross your fingers for Redemption Earns Life. Compare Rebellious Rebel, where the original discovery of the villain's treachery motivates their defection. See also Defecting for Love. When the villain's words and acts draw the character, see Bring Them Around. If the minion in question ends up betraying and finishing off their former boss without actually defecting to the other side, it is The Dog Bites Back. Contrast with its polar opposite, Because You Were Nice to Me.

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SPOILERS for many Heel Face Turns follow.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Comic Books

Comic Strips

Fan Works

Films — Animation

Films — Live-Action

The Addams Family: Gordon decides he's had enough after being belittled one too many times by his mother, Abigail, and sides with Gomez and Morticia against her. He prevents Gomez from using the book that leads to the family's vault and instead grabs a book that unleashes a violent storm, taking out Abigail and Alford, and also results in Gordon recovering his real memories as Fester Addams .

. Guardians of the Galaxy: Carina, after being threatened with being rendered part of his collection by The Collector, takes the opportunity to seize the Infinity Stone rather than live as his slave, knowing that it will destroy her, and in the process destroys a huge chunk of his collection and denies him the second stone. Both Gamora and Nebula seem to hate Thanos for (in Gamora's case that we know of, possibly Nebula's too) killing her family, and being reshaped into weapons to serve him. Gamora betrays him to keep the orb away from him, and Nebula sides with the genocidal Ronan because he's going to use his new power against Thanos next.

General Hux, who had spent most of the Star Wars sequel trilogy as Kylo Ren's personal Butt-Monkey, finally gets fed up and leaks information to the Resistance in The Rise of Skywalker. This isn't a HeelFace Turn, he just really wants payback. Hux: I don't care if you win. I just want Kylo Ren to lose.

Literature

Live-Action TV

Pro Wrestling

Puppet Shows

The Muppet Movie: Doc Hopper's henchman Max, when he realizes Hopper plans to kill Kermit.

Tabletop Games

Mage: The Ascension: The Technocracy triggered this in an entire faction. Twice. They drove the Sons of Ether into the arms of their enemies by removing their pet theory from the consensus, and they did the same with the Virtual Adepts by killing Alan Turing.

Warhammer 40,000: The Horus Heresy was helped along in its beginning due to the fact that a lot of the Primarchs were bitter towards the Emperor for one reason or another. While some were at first manipulated by the Chaos Gods (Horus and Fulgrim) or joined out of their own reasons (Mortarion was loyal to Horus due to feeling more comfortable around him than the other primarchs, Alpharius and Omegon were doing it in an effort to save the galaxy from Chaos) others joined Horus because of ways that the Emperor had angered them, such as Lorgar being desperate for an object of worship after the Emperor humiliated he and his Legion, or Perturabo (the Iron Warriors had constantly been used as a besieging force, causing year after year of hellish attrition warfare) or Kelbor Hal, the Fabricator General of Mars that was annoyed that he had to share the fruits of Mars' labor with the Imperium. Commander Farsight split from the Tau Empire and formed the Farsight Enclave when he found out that the Ethereals have been using some form of mind control to subjugate all fo the other Tau castes.

Warhammer Fantasy: The vampire lord Conrad von Carstein's downfall was the result of this. Because of his ineptitude at magic he was forced to employ necromancers to animate his troops, but resented their talent, murdered those who commented on it, and executed a number of them in a fit of paranoia. During his final battle the necromancers deserted him en masse, causing most of his army to literally fall apart and costing him what little sanity he had as he tried and failed to hold it together by himself.

In BattleTech, the Clan Smoke Jaguar warrior, Trent, suffered grievous wounds in the Battle of Tukayyid, which his Clan lost to ComStar and was subsequently forced into a ceasefire. His lancemates claimed they saved his life - a sign of weakness - his battlemech was sabotaged in a trial to earn his Bloodname, he was repeatedly Reassigned to Antarctica, and betrayed and lied to by his superior officers, caused him to snap and betray the Clan. He was contacted by a ComStar deep agent and gave them the coordinates of the Clan's homeworld in exchange for the right to lead a battlemech lance in combat against his former allies. The Draconis Combine has a long history of mistreating and blackmailing mercenaries under their employ, the Eridani Light Horses and the Wolf's Dragoons suffered this when their depends were held hostages and killed by their employers, prompting the units to turn on them and leave. The Combine were so appalled on what happened to the former, that the reinforcements sent to deal with the Light Horses simply left when they heard what happened. The 21st Centauri Lancers were formerly part of the Cappellan Confederations armies, but when their commander hasn't paid them in 9 months, the unit mutinied and when on to work as mercenaries for the other Successor States except for the Confederation. This is really something of a recurring theme in BattleTech fiction. Sure, mercenaries expect to be treated as expendable to some extent since it's mutually understood that their loyalty is for pay, but pushing things into "actively abusing or trying to cheat them" territory is by the same token pretty much never a good idea.



Theatre

The Duke of Buckingham in Richard III is a classic example: he helps Richard to the throne with the understanding that he'll get land and another title in return. When he goes to Richard to remind him of this promise, Richard first ignores him, then yells at him, at which point Buckingham promptly defects to the side of the rebels. Or tries to. He's found out pretty darn quickly and killed. Lord Darby, on the other hand, gains nothing at all, is treated as a Butt-Monkey servant, and defects successfully.

Video Games

Web Animation

In Red vs. Blue season 15, the vast majority of the surviving Sim Troopers pull this on the UNSC for selling them out to Project Freelancer so they could be target practice for their Freelancers, and Doc does this to the Blood Gulch Crew for their crap treatment of him. Only the Blood Gulch Crew doesn't do this, though Sarge still defects for other reasons

Web Comics

Western Animation

Real Life