Sometimes our heroes don’t start out as super tough people who can handle anything that comes their way. Sometimes they’re lost, without confidence, emotionally fragile and struggling. But by the end of the narrative they’ve discovered their true strength and are ready to save the world. Let’s look at some heroes who go through the most amazing transformations where the badass they become is a stark contrast to the person they started as. They remind us that anyone can be a hero and everyone starts from somewhere.
What are your favorite heroic transformations? Tell us in the comments!
Luke Skywalker from Star Wars
A lot of people remember the line at the beginning of Star Wars where Luke complains that he was going to Toshi Station to get some POWER CONVERTERS!!! It sounds a bit childish and whiney and that’s entirely intentional on Mark Hamill’s part. He states on Twitter that for the line, he “Consciously made it extra whiney to show immaturity & allow growth later in film.”
Indeed, the fact that Luke starts out so immature makes the fact he transforms into one of the biggest badasses in the galaxy who save the populace from destruction again and again all the more powerful. He was just a kid focused on simple things when he started out, but through a long hard road he became someone who could shoulder the fate of all without faltering.
Youko Nakajima from The Twelve Kingdoms
Youko may have one of the most impressive and inspirational heroic transformations of all time- her character development is carefully mapped out and nothing more than astounding. She starts out as a meek, submissive girl who lives only the please others and falls apart at the drop of a hat. She’s only a shell of a person as she just decides to be whatever people want her to be.
But when she’s thrown into a fantastical world and forced to survive on her own, being attacked by demons and betrayed over and over again sends her to the opposite extreme. She only becomes focused on fighting for survival and decides never to trust again, cutting herself off from people entirely. After she abandons a friend because of this, she becomes horrified at who she’s become and decides that she will trust people again, but she’ll also stand up for herself and stop defining herself by what pleases others. It’s through this long hard struggle that Youko becomes an amazingly strong and self-possessed warrior queen, even overcoming the pressures and dangers of her new role. Her journey is thorny, but she shows even the most wilting of shrinking violets has the stuff of heroes in them.
Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones
Here’s another impressive warrior queen- Dany started out being controlled by her brother. She was used as his pawn and terrorized by him. But once she became a “khaleesi”, she realized her brother could no longer control her and had him killed. Soon, she realized her destiny as the mother of dragons and walked unflinchingly in the flames. With her husband dead, she took command of his people and truly became a force to be reckoned with- a force that could tame dragons. That’s quite a transformation indeed
Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon
“I’m a bit of a crybaby…that’s really it”, Usagi admitted in her self-introduction. The girl who broke down sobbing and screaming she wanted to go home during her first battle and tried to run away from several early fights was a far cry from the girl who would face up to the scariest villians and even bravely give up her life to save the world. Usagi went from someone who hid behind her friends and pleaded for rescue to someone who kept fighting even when all her friends and allies had died and she herself was on the brink of death.
In fact, Usagi developed so much as a hero she eventually took on the responsibility of becoming Queen of the world, something the little girl who avoided responsibility at any cost couldn’t have fathomed. Usagi put it the best herself in one episode of the second season: “If this had happened a while ago, I would have had no problem saying “I’m sleepy! I’m scared or I don’t want to go by myself!”…Wait for me everyone. I’ll be there to rescue you soon.”
Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender
“Though his airbending skills are great, he has a long way to go before he’s ready to save anyone” was the refrain of the opening of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Aang was not at all lacking in power, but he started out as someone who straight up ran away from his responsibilities as the Avatar. However, with the death of his people and the realization of how much the world needed him, he faced his destiny. It took a long while for him to become a full-fledged Avatar, but Katara always said “I believe Aang can save the world”. She was right- he became a legendary hero, a far cry from the boy who turned his back on bringing balance to the world.
Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter
Throughout the early years of his school in the Harry Potter books, Neville was known as an incompetent crybaby and bullied mercilessly. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore all saw that he was brave deep down when he stood up to his friends even knowing he had no chance of beating them, but it wasn’t until The Order of the Phoenix that he really began to show his stuff. He accompanied Harry and the rest to the big battle in the Ministry of Magic and even managed to fight through until the end- even jamming his wand in a bad guy’s eye when he was unable to pronounce a spell. Come the seventh book, he helped run the anti-Voldemort resistance at his school, withstanding torture and beatings. He was actually the sole leader once Ginny and Luna disappeared from the school.
His biggest badass moment was when he stood up to Voldemort himself and managed to behead his beloved pet snake, killing a piece of Voldemort’s soul in the process. It’s not surprising that after such a huge transfromation Neville pretty much became a meme for the fandom a la Chuck Norris. “Neville would have done it in four books” was a common joke in fandom.
Yona from Yona of the Dawn
Yona started out as a naïve, sheltered princess who was ignorant of struggle and could do little to defend herself. But when she lost everything, she resolved to become stronger and make up for her past obliviousness to the suffering of the world. Yona didn’t snap her fingers and become strong like most heroes either, but trained long and hard to get stronger little by little. She’s still often terrified as she does enormously risky things and face down foes, but she doesn’t let her terror or relative lack of strength stop her from doing it. She’ll brave a thousand foot drop with tears in her eyes and quake in her shoes as she liberates slaves from terrifying mercenaries and that just makes the fact she does it anyway more impressive.
Yona also went from someone who lived in the lap of luxury and didn’t know the first thing about the real world to a penniless girl who lives off the land who shrugs off her hardship, while doing everything she can to help others. She also became an effective leader who can bring together and command to coolest of warriors and who routinely inspires other people to be better.
Sue Storm from The Fantastic Four
A lot of the Marvel superheroines created by Stan Lee are a lot more badass in the modern day than they were back in the sixties, but Invisible Woman may be one of the starkest examples, not to mention the comics actually showed how she transformed into a more powerful hero. At the beginning of the Fantastic Four’s history, Sue’s only power was to turn invisible and she didn’t really get to do much besides get kidnapped and be moral support for the boys- to the point where readers even wrote in complaining about it. She embodied a lot of stereotypes Stan Lee had about women, to the point where we got treated to her husband telling her “wives should be kissed and not heard”.
An admittedly pretty gross storyline by John Byrne that subjected Sue to trauma after trauma turned her into the badass she is in comics today. She changed her name from “Invisible Girl” to “Invisible Women” and her power to generate force-field became incredibly strong and versatile. She also gained an iron will. According to the team’s archenemies, Dr. Doom, she’s the most powerful of the Fantastic Four now. That’s a big change from the Sue who was often accused of “holding the team back.”
Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess
Though Gabrielle was always a smart cookie and pretty tough, she found herself in peril a lot and couldn’t fight back very well. She was also fairly immature. By the end of the show, she’s a warrior on par with Xena who shoulders tremendous responsibility. She even takes up Xena’s mantle as a hero.
Sarah Connor from Terminator
This might be one of the most famous transformations- in the first Terminator movie, Sarah wasn’t exactly weak, but she needed to be rescued from peril quite a bit. But when the second movie rolled around, years of training had turned her into one of sci-fi’s most iconic badass warror women. Now she was a force to be reckoned with.
Wesley Price and Cordelia Chase from Angel
Wesley started out as ineffective and incompetent to the point he was basically comic relief both in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, but after a while events caused him to be determined to make himself more effective. He became one of the most valuable members of the team, being skilled in both fighting and the smarts departments.
Cordelia was presented as a shallow mean girl at first in Buffy, but gained more depth as the series went on and occasionally did a cool thing in a fight- but it was in Angel she really came into her own. She became a great fighter and powerful psychic, not to mention became much more mature and a little wiser. She even gained the powers of a goddess for a while…unfortunately, she didn’t really get the ending she deserved, but it was nice while it lasted.