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There are a lot of fictional tropes I'll always enjoy. Found families ("Firefly"). The princess and the pirate ("Anastasia"). Dudes who look at ladies like they hung the moon ("The Mummy," "Pacific Rim").
One of my very favorites is what I call The Vegeta Effect.
It's when a grumpy, jerky or violent character is introduced as a threat only to become an unexpected ally/friend/part of the team over the course of the story.
The trope's namesake is the perfect example of this: Vegeta is an alien prince in the anime series "Dragonball Z" who came to Earth to fight the series' hero, Goku, and destroy the planet.
Not an auspicious entrance, to say the least.
But over the course of the many (MANY) seasons of "DBZ," Vegeta became an ally, then friend, to the heroes and even married and settled on Earth to start a family. While he's no longer a planet-killing monster, he's still a hilariously arrogant jerk, making him that weird guy who has your back when lives are on the line — but will still punch you at the slightest provocation.
I just think fictional jerks who find a rocky sort of redemption are vastly entertaining. Here are a few more:
6. JOHN DRUITT ("Sanctuary"). Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl) is a complicated guy. He's 160 years old. He can teleport. And, oh yeah, he's Jack the Ripper. "Sanctuary" may have been short-lived, but gosh it was fun — it also featured a vampire Nikola Tesla (Jonathon Young) who had electromagnetic powers. Druitt's unpredictability — sometimes he switched sides twice in the same episode — and history with lead Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) made for compelling storytelling.
5. SANG-MIN ("Hawaii Five-0"). The mullet-wearing Sang-Min (Will Yun Lee) was one of the first villains in the rebooted "Hawaii Five-0," a human trafficker who initially tries to kill Kono (Grace Park). But over the years he's become a goofy recurring headache/foil/friend, leading the task force on merry chases when he breaks out of prison, helping them track down seriously bad hombres and turning to them for help (and new glasses) when he's framed for murder. It says a lot about how talented Lee is that he can make a former human trafficker so likeable and frequently sympathetic, even when he lecherously calls Kono "Spicy" for the 80th time.
4. NEBULA ("Guardians of the Galaxy"). She's a cyborg fueled by rage, so jealous of her adoptive sister Gamora (Zoe Saldana) that she's willing to tear herself (and everyone else) apart to best her. But as the sisters clash in the second "GOTG" film, we see how much Nebula (Karen Gillan)'s suffered and end up wanting her to have some happiness for a change. Her progression from victim to villain to hero is a powerful one — and oh how I want her to utterly destroy Universe's Worst Dad Thanos in the next "Avengers" film. No one else deserves to best him more than Nebula.
3. DECKARD SHAW ("The Fate of the Furious"). Half of the antagonists of the "Fast" franchise end up redeemed and accepted into the crew by the following film. Shaw (Jason Statham) is one of the more drastic examples of this: in "Furious 7," he kills Han (Sung Kang) as retaliation for the crew's takedown of his brother in the previous film. But after the obligatory fight sequences, Shaw gives up his vendetta with Dom (Vin Diesel) in "The Fate of the Furious," taking out a plane full of baddies to rescue a kidnapped baby. Yes, it's as insane(ly entertaining) as it sounds. When you need someone to be threatening, kick wholesale butt and be uber charming, Statham's your man.
2. MAY DAY ("A View to a Kill"). I could write sonnets on the greatness of Grace Jones, a supermodel, actress and performance artist. In this James Bond romp, she plays henchwoman to Christopher Walken's Max, serving up killer looks while killing Frenchmen with fishhook butterflies and lifting dudes over her head (like you do). By the film's end she foils her sociopathic boyfriend by helping Bond save the day, playing the self-sacrifice card and literally going out with a bang. What a lady.
1. SPIKE ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"). The Billy Idol look-alike (James Marsters) is a vampire of many hats: villain, antihero, babysitter and love interest. His road to redemption is extra rough — at one point he descends to hell to reclaim his soul, and a chip in his head causes pain whenever he's feeling murderous — and he frequently struggles to do the right thing. Most of all, I love how such a bloodthirsty guy becomes a surrogate brother to the innocent teenaged Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg).
• ANGIE BARRY is a page designer and columnist for The Times. To suggest future topics for The B-List, which covers pop culture, history and literature, contact her at abarry@shawmedia.com.