: Re: How do I make the downfall of a character moving without being cliche? So, the character is an anti hero, he loses all his morals, and becomes the very thing he fights against. How can

@Berumen699

Vote Up Vote Down

One of the best falls of this is the Character arch of Demona, who we first meet as the Hero Goliath's love interest, and after a 1,000 year time skip (following Goliath's belief she was killed) we meet her again and find she's very much changed from the person Goliath remembered. The four part episode titled "City of Stone" reveals that Demona had an unwitting hand in the clan's massacre and initially hid from Goliath, leading to the 1,000 year slumber of him and the remaining survivors occurring before Demona had been given a chance to properly reunite (i.e. Not reveal herself in an incriminating fashion)... when she finally sees the sleeping hero, she utters the line "What have I... What have they [The Humans] done to you?!"

The line would be critical to Demona's entire character and would resurface in similar motivated characters. Demona admits in this one line that she knows exactly who is to blame for the slaughter of the Gargoyles and the curse brought on the Survivors... but she cannot admit her own culpability to herself... she had made the deals to save her people from human brutality... but it only resulted in their extinction. The weight bears down on her and she comes to show hatred to humans... without knowing why the betrayal happened at all... and even those humans who were never there in the first place are shown hostility by her. In her old age, nearly dying and on the run, she wishes for restoration of her lost youth to protect her people... at the same time a young king wishes for the means to defeat his enemies... this locks the two a human and a Gargoyle together, unable to die but for dealing a killing blow to the other. And for 1,000 years, she believed humans betrayed her and her hatred for them festerd so that by the time she and her beloved are reunited, she had 1,000 years of being the last of her kind in the world of her enemies... while he had a good night's sleep.

As the episode concludes, the events of the modern part of the City of Stone episodes are revealed to be directly because of her past as a woman who Goliath once knew as the "Angel of the Night" becoming the someone named "Demona", the one who fights like a demon. Each reasoning given for her successively worse actions is reduced to the next, until she is forced to admit that which she never could for the past 1,000 years. Who is to blame for all of this? "I am."

Demona had opportunities to stop what was to happen. From the earliest moment, she was given a chance to admit to what was about to happen to Goliath, who could bring attention to the problem and resolve the conflict... she seriously considers it... but decides to not let him know. But for this one action, Demona would never have happened... she would remain the Angel of the Night. But she felt that she could not hurt Goliath by burdening him with her collusion... and by the time it was all said and done... The pain she caused was cemented in the stone of time, marking her forever the villain and forever alone.

(0)

Login to post a comment!