The Twist Villain

The twist, it hurts so much!

The real villain of the story the audience might not expect to be such. When they're introduced to the story, the Twist Villain is shown to be on the Good Guys' side, doing everything they can to earn their trust, but then around the end, The Truth Comes Out and it's shown to them and the audience that they're really an antagonist. Usually, this is found to be annoying by the audience and could have them giving the franchise negative reception for using this overplayed role. The Twist Villain will need some high intelligence to be able to play the Two Face Game for so long, even tricking the audience into believing that they're really good. Sometimes, however, their rouse doesn't fool everyone and can be found out by the Smart One. As the Smart One tries to warn everybody else that who they think is good isn't actually good, they'll be taken for the Lunatic who's too suspicious of somebody they hardly know and should just accept the "fact" that this newcomer means the group no harm. The Smart One can reach the point of pestering their friends with their correct presumptions of the Twist Villain not being good and can trigger a Pointless Friend Break-Up (which triggers a Sad Montage in turn) to soon be played. In the end, of course, the Smart One is always proven right as The Truth Comes Out and the Twist Villain is revealed to everyone.

The Twist Villain isn't to be confused with the Shock Villain. While the Shock Villain plays the Two Face Game to be cool with the Good Guys, the Twist Villain isn't too heavily associated with them as they're a little more likely to be an important figure of some sort like a mayor or president.