One theme I like quite a lot is having someone who was or is a hero of sorts end up becoming the villain or antagonist, for varying reasons. The single greatest villian in comic history, in my opinion, is Ozymandias, from Watchmen. A vigilante hero turned multimillionaire businessman bent on solving the larger issues in the world, he kills millions to unite the world and prevent nuclear war. The other heroes arrive, too late to stop him, but they realize they can't expose his plan either, as then millions would have died for nothing.
On the other side of the coin, I really like a good villain turned hero or anti-hero. The heel-face turn of Darth Vader to save Luke in Return of the Jedi probably one of the greatest scenes ever. Bonus points if the anti-hero is still a bit of a dick.
Connected to that, I also really like when the hero and villain team up to fight an even greater threat, like in the Shadow of Revan expansion to Star Wars: The Old Republic. There's just something badass about two opposing forces setting aside their differences to work on a mutual goal, even if they go back to fighting eachother just as soon as it's done.
The last, and probably my favorite theme in fiction and roleplaying, would be the corruption of innocence. I don't mean a good guy going bad, but rather the loss of innocence in characters who go from living a sheltered life to being thrown into the real world and being told to deal with it. This sort of "forged in fire" development is, I think, really interesting. A good example would be Fallout 3, where the protagonist is sent out into the nuclear wasteland in search of their father after living their whole life in the mostly safe nuclear bunker. Depending on how you play, the protagonist can end up radically different from how they began, which I think is a really cool dynamic for developing characters.
We drink to him as comrade must
But it's still the same old story
A coward goes from dust to dust
A hero from dust to glory.Modesty wrote:Where originality comes in is finding new ways to explore the things that already exist to us. Suddenly red becomes crimson, ruby, scarlet, cherry, carnelian, vermilion, cardinal, sienna, maroon, sorrel, rojo, sanguine. Suddenly red can become a metaphor, a picture, a symbol.
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