When does a positive personality trait become a tragic flaw?

This Big Question interests me because it allows for so much self exploration and opens up the ability to further analyze the extremes and breaking points of one’s personality. It also sheds light on a phenomenon that occurs everyday that many people don’t notice because they desire to see something else. This question interests me personally because I've been through the struggles that come with someone close to you changing for the worse. You wake up one day and suddenly the person you could count on has become the person that you can't be around anymore. Their personality has hit a breaking point and now their best quality is what's driving them into the ground. I like this big question because I would like to explore what's happening behind this shift in personality.

Wuthering Heights (2009)

There are countless books that relate to this big question. Some of the most prominent books that stand out in my mind in correspondence with this question are: Gone With The Wind, Wuthering Heights, and The Great Gatsby. Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind portrays this question with the character Scarlett O’Hara. Scarlett’s outgoing personality and excessive need to be the one and only life of the party initially gives her the ability to catch the eye of many beaux, however, these same qualities are what ultimately lead her to social ostracization. Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights embraces this big question with the character Heathcliff. Heathcliff has an independent nature about him which is a positive aspect for him as a child, but when he grows up, this aspect of him causes himself and the people around him turmoil in more ways than one. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby shows this question through almost every character in the novel. With Nick, it’s his curiosity that drives him to Gatsby’s home and his lifestyle in the first place. That same curious nature is what gets him involved in a scandal of money, family, morals, and love.

Books aren’t the only examples of this phenomenon. Movies also shed light on this big question of life. The amazing 2008 movie The Dark Knight is an excellent example of this question. At the start of the movie the seemingly heroic character, Harvey Dent, says, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” This is incredible because is so accurately restates this big question. You either die a hero, leaving your legacy of a positive personality, or you live long enough to see that positivity become a tragic flaw. And ironically, Harvey Dent ends up living his own warning and living long enough (in his political career) to see his driving personality become a tragic flaw of his and push him towards the fate of a Batman villain.

Tyler Farr's latest hit country song "Redneck Crazy" also displays this big question. The song tells the story of a man who was cheated on by his girlfriend and is now out for revenge as said in his lyrics, "I'm gonna aim my headlights into your bedroom windows. Throw empty beer cans at both of your shadows. I didn't come here to start a fight, but I'm up for anything tonight. You know you broke the wrong heart baby, and drove me redneck crazy." Clearly he lives his whole life with this same intense attitude and this became his tragic flaw when he went through the trauma of being cheated on and broken up with.

Every character in a novel or movie (and everyone in real life) that has a positive personality trait that ultimately becomes a tragic flaw has their own reasoning, whether conscious or subconscious, for doing so. Often this shift comes from a traumatic experience or a sudden change of heart when a prominent aspect of their life changes. Whatever the reason for the change of personality, it can happen to anyone, even the people you thought would never change and never become that villain.