Bad Guys Gone Good: Our Favorite TV Villains Who Turned Over a New Leaf

Photo: The CW

Damon Salvatore – The Vampire Diaries

Damon always had a rebel’s heart, even until the bitter end. But the Mystic Falls gang wasn’t always so likely to cut him a break. At first, Damon was the sinister loose cannon brother of the brooding, vampire with a heart of gold, Stephan. Like day and night, the Salvatore brothers represented the opposite ends of the spectrum of morality. For every decision Stephan had to agonize over, weigh the pros and cons, and debate its principles, Damon just did the most convenient thing.

Sometimes the convenient thing involved snapping someone’s neck, enacting mayhem, and causing chaos. It was for these reasons that everybody thought Damon was a rotten guy. But anybody who’s ever had a crush on a bad boy – or watched an episode of TV – could tell that Damon was really just misunderstood.

When everyone thought he was just a bad nut, he continued to act that way. It wasn’t really until Elena gave him a shot and saw him for who he really was. This whole transformation was a little more barf-inducing than I liked, but it was nice for Damon to get a fair shot at love.