The flip side to Adaptational Villainy. While some adaptations make a character more evil, this is the opposite. A character is villainous or just not very nice in their original medium, but when the time comes for the adaptation, things change. Perhaps some of the scenes in which they Kick the Dog are cut, or they are a Composite Character with someone who was nice in the original. Perhaps the original suffers from Values Dissonance and is portrayed more sympathetically to match the values of a modern audience. Maybe a Generic Doomsday Villain gains a motive and comes across as an Anti-Villain or a Jerkass Woobie. Another common route is to expand the character's backstory and role, giving them Hidden Depths and Character Development.
A subtrope of Adaptation Personality Change. Compare Adaptational Nice Guy and Adaptational Sympathy (with which this trope can overlap), Historical Hero Upgrade (when this is done to a historical person in a work), Draco in Leather Pants (when fandom does this to a canon villain), Rousseau Was Right (for when the story is Lighter and Softer compared to its original incarnation), and Everybody Loves Zeus (when this is done with gods associated with light and the heavens). Contrast Adaptational Villainy.
Note that despite the title, the character need not become an actual hero, just more heroic than they were in the source material.
Adaptational Heroism has been suggested to play 5 roles. Click below to see other actors suggested for each role, and vote for who you think would play the role best.
