Et Tu, Brute?

""We flatter those we scarcely know, We please the fleeting guest, And deal full many a thoughtless blow To those who love us best""

- Edna Wheeler Wilcox



Some heroes and heroines can take a huge amount of trouble and danger in their stride. Big Bad out to get them? Yesterday's news. Death Traps to the left and right of them? Snore. The End of the World as We Know It? They already know, thanks, they're working on it. These characters know what a burden rests on their shoulders, and don't let it get them down.

There's one thing that can bring a seemingly invincible character to their knees, though: betrayal.

Having the entire evil empire out to get them isn't a big deal, as long as they have their posse of friends, or their True Companions watching their backs. If one of the chosen few should renege, though, the hero will completely go to pieces.

It doesn't even have to be anything as dramatic as switching sides, or selling out to the Big Bad. If The Lancer makes a few scathing comments about their leadership skills, or The Smart Guy holds the hero responsible for his Dead Little Sister, the results can be as devastating as though they'd painted a target on their pal's head and handed out sniper rifles.

Can be played for comedy, if the hero's reaction is clearly an overreaction—surviving a cave in, an ambush, and a death trap without breaking a sweat, only to burst out into tears when his girlfriend forgets his birthday, for example. Generally though, it's anything but funny; most people can relate to having someone important let them down. Even when it's an overreaction, which may just reveal exactly how much stress the character is under.

A second version of this trope is where the hero has already given their buddy a second chance, overlooking past (or even current) misdeeds in the interest of preserving the friendship, deciding to accept their pal just the way they are, warts and all... as long as their misdemeanors are confined to people who aren't the hero or their immediate family. Should that unspoken truce be broken, a massive Freak-Out is probably only seconds away.

A third version of this trope comes when the hero or the villain develops a bond with someone, only to discover that the person in question was never his friend, and in fact just pretended to be one. Often followed by the obvious next question, Was It All a Lie?

This is, of course, Truth in Television—the vast majority of us care far more about what our parents, friends, and family think than what Joe Bloggs down the street may say about us.

Particularly brutal if the victim is betrayed by the ones who supposedly rescued him from a Friendless Background, or if they desperately seek friendship above all else. A Sadistic Choice or Because You Can Cope excuse may be made if the victim's "betrayer" felt as though they had no choice but to abandon them.

Anime and Manga

 * In End of Evangelion, this is done twice (at least). In the past, when the first Dr. Akagi becomes the lover of Gendo Ikari, he instead callously betrays her by making a clone of his dead wife and makes it clear that she is not needed anymore. Heartbroken and enraged, she strangles the clone and then commits suicide by throwing herself from the control balcony. Years later, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi becomes another lover of Gendo, but she has rigged the MAGI computers to blow in hopes of killing Gendo in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for both Akagis, only for her mother (in the programming of the MAGI system) to disable the bomb. Ritsuko is understandably devastated by this betrayal. Then, she is shot by Gendo. Yeesh, as if this show wasn't dark enough...
 * Dragonball Z: Nappa was willing to fight the much stronger Goku, until, of course Vegeta betrayed him, and he was unable to do anything to defend himself.
 * This happens to Trunks and Goten; they were more than willing to fight Buu alongside Vegeta until he (apparentely) offed Trunks (who was briefly shocked by his dad doing this to him), after which Goten entered a very brief Heroic BSOD after this before Vegeta took him out as well. Obviously, this was due to Vegeta needing to be alone to sacrifice himself against the monster he brought into this world.
 * Magical Project S: Sammy the magical girl had no problem beating the monster of the week until she discovered her worst enemy was her best friend Pixy misa, she couldnt believe it, the same happened to Misao (aka Pixy Misa), shen ran away from her home and her school when she believed that she had betrayed her best friend.
 * Kaleido Star's Sora puts up with a hell of a lot of grief in the second season—not that the first season was a picnic, bu t still. At various points in the storyline, she is demoted, fired, paired up with a partner who verges on sociopathic and spends the whole series struggling to earn the title of Kaleido Star—a title which she had won fair and square by the end of the first season, only to be usurped by a newcomer who wields far more power than any newcomer to the troupe has a right to. Through most of it, she remains perky and cheerful, convinced that everything will work out all right in the end...but when Layla, Sora's idol, suddenly turns on her and sides with Sora's rival, the poor girl finally cracks.
 * Hot Shot manages to hold off the bulk of Megatron's Decepticons in Transformers Armada (albeit while wielding the Star Saber). However, when  betrays him and defects to the Decepticons, he falls to his knees and passively lets the Decepticons beat him into a metallic pulp.
 * In the anime/manga Berserk, Griffith faces all sorts of challenges to his dream without flinching, but when his best friend, the protagonist Guts, leaves him, A year later, after  he clings to his humanity and even his hope...until he finds out  Then he snaps, resulting in an epic Face Heel Turn as.
 * Subverted in the anime/manga One Piece, where Luffy is twice betrayed by his own crew members, in favour of working for the bad guys. Instead of breaking out, however, he goes after them, beats their baddie bosses, and wins them back.
 * However, both Nami and Robin "betrayed" the crew to protect them. Nami despite stealing the ship returned it to them and told them to get off the island before Arlong could stop them. And Robin made a deal with Spadam to take her if he let the rest of the crew go free.
 * It's actually a double subversion, since Luffy didn't know about their benevolent hidden agendas...
 * Pet Shop of Horrors demonstrates the second type of Et Tu, Brute?. Leon is convinced that Count D is a serial killer by proxy. Yet the two form a fairly intense friendship regardless, with Leon spending most, if not all, of his spare time with D. Despite the constant banter and Leon's empty threats of arrest, the detective is clearly fond of D, and while he can't disregard the Pet Shop's body count, he doesn't let it disrupt their personal relationship. What does cause the breakdown in their association seems relatively minor by comparison to murder, but the intensely personal nature of the betrayal makes the difference:
 * Arguably, it's D's reaction (or lack thereof), to the above event that constitutes a "betrayal" to Leon: What really gets to Leon is D being (acting?) completely indifferent over witnessing  death and
 * A variation occurs in Code Geass. About 2/3 of the way through the first season, Lelouch learns that his best friend Suzaku is the person who's been constantly wrecking his plans. Rather than feeling betrayed, he simply redoubles his attempts to recruit Suzaku for La Résistance. At almost the exact same point in the second season, after lots of misunderstanding and misdirected rage, the two are close to patching up their friendship...when soldiers rush in and arrest Lelouch for being a terrorist. Lelouch thinks Suzaku betrayed him (he didn't, he was followed), but it pretty well marks the absolute death of their friendship and the moment Lelouch stops showing Suzaku any form of respect or mercy.
 * Then after being exposed to Lelouch's Broken Pedestal, Suzaku quickly becomes a Knight and The Dragon to the Emperor . So...
 * And that apparent betrayal is followed by one on part of the Black Knights, who were falsely convinced by Schneizel. Murphy's Law really has it in for Lelouch here.
 * If Kazuki has any plot relevance in a particular arc of GetBackers, this will happen.
 * Dio from Last Exile despises and fears his sister, but he can handle facing her as long as he has Luciola on his side. When he believes (possibly correctly) that Luciola has betrayed him to her, he snaps and hits him across the face.
 * Yomi from Ga-Rei Zero. Short story: she killed a fellow exorcist who is also a fellow clan member, in defense and in a partially-justified rage. She expected her fiancee and her little sister to come to her defense, since she lost her capability of speaking after that battle. However, her fiancee never come for her due to family honor. The final straw was her coming to a conclusion that even her little sister believe that she's guilty, and then she gone the Griffith's way.
 * Utena is stabbed by Anthy in the second to last episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena.
 * The Kira Task Force in Death Note reacted to this when they finally find out Light is Kira in the end.
 * In StrikerS Sound Stage X, Teana is rather badly shaken by the discovery that is the mastermind behind their current case.

Comic Books

 * In the comic series Preacher (Comic Book), Jesse quickly forms a best buddies relationship with Irish vampire Cassidy, indeed travelling across half the world to save him at one point. It's not long however before Cassidy is trying it on with his girlfriend and later after Jesse's apparent death manages to seduce her, getting her hooked on drugs in the process. Safe to say, when Jesse comes back (after learning a long line of similar screw ups in Cassidy's past) he's not best pleased.
 * There's a scene when Jesse comes back and sees his girlfriend kissing Cassidy and faints.
 * Basically Tim's (the third Robin) reaction to realizing the Bad Future (caused by the fall of his hero friends) he'd been obsessively trying to find ways to avoid was Batman's idea of a test.
 * Basic premise of Avengers: Disassembled. Avengers were facing many threats, villains, and betrayals. But one of core members, somebody they could trust like their own mothers, suddenly snapping out and trying to kill them, with clarification she's Not Brainwashed, was enough to disband the team.
 * In one Batman comic, Two-Face was geniunely reformed and about to leave Arkham. Then the Joker came along and started messing with him that his best friend Bruce Wayne and his girlfriend were together. As a final push, the Joker slipped an already suspicious Two-Face a fake newspaper that Bruce and his girlfriend were marrying. He broke out of Arkham to kill Bruce.

Film
"Anakin: The Jedi turned against me, don't you turn against me!"
 * In the film of Prince of Persia, when the King of Persia was
 * In the film Red Dawn, the Wolverines seem to have no problem performing guerilla warfare against the occupying Soviet forces, gunning down countless Soviet soldiers. However, it's only when one of their members betrays them to the Soviets (he was captured, and they forced him to betray his buddies, otherwise they'd kill his father), and they are forced to kill him, that they realize how deep in the war they are in. After that, things progressively go downhill for the Wolverines.
 * Fridge Logic sets in when you realize that no more soldiers came after them following the discovery, and they could've saved their morale and their teammate by just giving a little time to "expel" the tracking bug.
 * They didn't shoot him because of the bug. They shot him because he'd betrayed them.
 * Tron: Legacy : Flynn Sr. is pretty much broken already, but then he gets a good, solid look at the distinctive Tron Lines on Rinzler and realizes...
 * Happens in The Lion King when Scar throws his brother to his death.
 * In Cars 2, Lightning McQueen gets this after
 * In Revenge of the Sith, the horribly Wrong Genre Savvy Anakin assumes this is what's happening to him.

"Michael I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart, you broke my heart"
 * The Live Action Adaptation of MW has Father Garai attempting to betray Michio Yuki over to the police, something he wouldn't do in the manga.
 * Fredo betrays his brother Michael in The Godfather

Literature
"''"," he said, almost choking on the words. "You. . . you think that I. .. How could you think that I would. . . .?" He turned his face aawy. It couldn't have been a tear. Not from . He wouldn't shed tears if he had to execute his own mother. But for a fraction of a second, something shone on one of his cheeks.''"
 * In The Bible, Judas betrays Jesus. The Jews that once supported Jesus now fervently denounce and mock him, calling for his crucifixion. But it's subverted in that Jesus knew about the Judas's betrayal ahead of time.
 * In Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novel Turn Coat, survives just fine being on the run for his life after being framed for murder. But let him learn

"I quivered like an aspen. I stared at the man. Aghast. Shocked to the core. "You, Jeeves?" I said, and I should rather think Caesar spoke in the same sort of voice on finding Brutus puncturing him with the sharp instrument."
 * This was the tragedy of the Marauders In Harry Potter, as explained in Prisoner of Azkaban. Peter Pettigrew, one of the four iconic best friends, betrays James Potter to Voldemort and sent him to his death, after James' best friend Sirius Black entrusted Peter with the secret of the Potters' hiding place. Sirius went to pieces upon discovering Peter's betrayal. And after Peter, rather than owning up to his betrayal when Sirius chased him down in a grief-stricken fury, framed Sirius for the Potters' murder and Peter's own killing spree, Sirius was so heartbroken that he broke down into hysterical laugher and was dragged off to Azkaban without struggling.
 * This trope is also heavily toyed with when
 * Animorphs got into this when Cassie let Tom get away with the morphing cube.
 * Bertie Wooster's reaction whenever he feels he's been betrayed or let down by Jeeves. It even merits a Julius Caesar Shout-Out in "Jeeves and the Old-School Chum". (For the record, Jeeves had .)

Live Action TV

 * The new Battlestar Galactica has some examples. These include: Starbuck's infidelity between Lee and Samuel Anders(Lee also does the same to his wife during this), Gaeta's Start of Darkness and participation in a coup, Ellen Tigh's infidelity, Saul Tigh's murder of his wife, Baltar's desertion of his cult, and Cavil's actions towards anyone who disagrees with him.
 * One Star Trek: The Next Generation had an abandoned Romulan prison camp full of Klingons, in which the two cultures merged and interbred. When Worf arrives and tries to teach the half-breed children about Klingon honor, the former Romulan prison commander sets up to execute him, and is standing there with his disruptor trained on Worf and all of the children go over and interpose themselves. He looks like he is about to pull the trigger anyway, but then his half-Klingon daughter (who has a crush on Worf) walks over to join them and utterly crushes his resolve.
 * A better Star Trek example comes from Deep Space Nine when a recurring character reveals himself to have been a mole for the terrorist/freedom-fighters the Maquis. Although the Maquis in general are depicted as a moral grey zone for the show (their cause is sympathetic but their methods illegal), Cpt. Sisko takes it VERY personally. The former Mole even lampshades this trope in a later episode after the Maquis have been all but eliminated, pointing out to Sisko that it wasn't their agenda or even their methods that pissed off Sisko so much, it was the BETRAYAL by those Masquis who had once been Star Fleet officers, turning their backs on the Federation.
 * Comedically referenced in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Riding With Death, when a rift occurs between the protagonist and his obnoxious redneck buddy. Crow mournfully supplies: "Et tu, Billy Bob?"
 * In Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Amy, Angel(us), Spike (occasionally), Faith, Billy Fordham, Willow, Gwendolyn Post and the list goes on. Even Xander may belong here, depending on how you interpret Xander's Lie.
 * Let's not forget Giles during the 'crucisomethingorothermentum'. Although, he does condemn it even before he does it, he was Just Following Orders.
 * Wesley, on the Angel side, betraying Angel and taking Connor.
 * In Merlin, Morgana leads Uther on to believe she's close to him, although they argue at times, and then she
 * In the White Collar episode 'The Dentist of Detroit' Mozzie is in danger from the Detroit Mob, and when Peter and Neal try to help him, Neal is forced to 'betray' him by giving him up to Peter as the Dentist of Detroit, to which Mozzie responds 'Et tu, Neal?' in a facsimile of this trope.
 * Brutus betrayal and assasination of Caesar is recreated in Rome without the actual sentence being pronnounced. Ciaran Hinds' facial expression, especially his eyes, carries the question "Et tu, Brute?" silently. Very effective.

Tabletop Games

 * Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition mentions in the Codex Of Betrayal articles, which chronicle the origin of devils and their war against the god known only as He Who Was. It's said that when Asmodeus, leader of the rebellion, convinced Greyon, HWW's favorite angel, to side against him, the god cried such tears as to drown mountains, and after such a betrayal, his heart was no longer in the war.

Theatre

 * Older Than Steam: The trope name comes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. As the assassins attack, Caesar defends himself... but when he sees Brutus, his best friend, among the assassins, he gives up and lets himself be murdered - he didn't care about a bunch of strangers armed with pointy things, but having his buddy stab him is another story entirely. The full quote is: "Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar." Marc Antony during Caesar's funeral would say of Brutus's betrayal that his was "the most unkindest cut of all."

Video Games

 * Final Fantasy XIII Sazh had no problem fighting with Vanille against PSICOM until
 * Halo The Arbiter fought against the flood and humanity with no problem at all but when he realized that he couldn't accept the truth until  showed him the truth.
 * Video game example: The Suikoden series. A running theme through the games is the main hero having to deal with the betrayal of a close friend or ally—which he usually has the option of forgiving. (Doing so helps determine what ending the game gets.)
 * The first major blow in the Break the Haughty act played on Luke in Tales of the Abyss is.
 * Neverwinter Nights: Everyone's reaction (possibly including the player) to Face Heel Turn.
 * The Mass Effect series has plenty of examples, beginning with the second death in the series: Sacrificial Lamb Nihlus is shot in the back of the head by his old colleague Saren.
 * Garrus's whole loyalty mission is entirely focused on him finding and dealing with someone who did this to him. After Shepard recruits him, he tells him about a traitor named Sidonis who sold out his squad to the various merc groups on Omega and told them where the squad were hiding, causing the mercs to track them down and kill everyone but Garrus.
 * This also happened to Zaeed Massani, courtesy of
 * Shepard has a Heroic BSOD when  For a Paragon Shepard, this comes as a real blow.
 * Shepard him/herself can do this in Mass Effect 3 for various reasons. A particularly bloodthirsty player can personally kill four close friends -  - in a single playthrough.
 * In ''StarCraft there tend to be a lot of instances of people betraying others. In SCII,
 * In Mega Man X 7's prologue, when Axl and Red Alert were infiltrating the base of a maverick. His second in command seemingly finds him, and then while leading him away, he shot the guy in the back. However, in this case, it was a subversion, as the actual second in command had actually been killed earlier by Axl, and the "second in command" who shot his boss was actually Axl.
 * Cole Phelps in L.A. Noire has no problem working with Roy Earle, despite the fact they don't like each other until
 * Dante in Devil May Cry is hired by Trish to look for Mundus in an island. This is because she's working for him. When Dante found that out, he is not happy about this. He and Trish finally make up in the end, anyway.
 * in In Famous.
 * While we never see Cipher's reaction to 's betrayal in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, many players were emotionally shaken by it.

Visual Novels

 * in Fate/stay night's Unlimited Blade Works route. After keeping calm throughout the story, she's devastated and doesn't hide it terribly well when he betrays her twice. On the plus side, the event is a catalyst for
 * Hell, this trope is the only reason Saber exists. As well as Archer,
 * In the science fiction visual novel Bionic Heart, the protagonist ends up hiding a fugitive android in his apartment because she needs his help in her ontological quest. If the main character chooses to confide in his best friend and coworker Tom, Tom ends up giving up both the protagonist and the android to the police, which leaves them in the hands of the corrupt corporate executives that were pursuing the android in the first place.

Web Comics

 * In the webcomic Megatokyo, Largo himself points out, in an unusually serious tone, how painful a betrayal can be. In fact much of his dislike for Miho, previously played for laughs, stems from her once being their friend online in an MMORPG gameverse (and seducing Piro's character) before viciously betraying them. This is hinted as part of the reason he is so mistrustful of relationships, something Erika brands as fairly laughable at first before realising how seriously he took it.
 * In this Looking for Group strip.
 * It's interesting to note that it seems to have been played for laughs as well as (some) drama, instead of one or the other, but that's to be expected of LFG in general and Richard in particular.
 * The real Et Tu, Brute? moment is when Cale learns that . He knows that his allies aren't the most moral of people, but he thought that was more idealistic like him.

Web Original

 * In The Gamers Alliance, Belial ends up betrayed by his niece Desdemona who turns out to be working for his enemies.
 * The Nostalgia Critic has done this in both That Guy With The Glasses anniversary specials: in the brawl to 2D Lee because he sided with the gamers over the critics, and in Kickassia to

Western Animation
""Et tu Dodie?""
 * Demona's Start of Darkness in Gargoyles, resulting in the destruction of most of the Wyvern Clan.
 * As Told by Ginger: When Ginger finds out from Courtney that Dodie and Macie teamed up with Miranda in an attempt to break up her and Darren up.
 * Lampshaded when Ginger sees her friends defecting to the other side in "Battle Of The Bands"


 * When Terra betrays the team in Teen Titans, she is easily able to hunt down and defeat them one by one, because they're unable to fight a former friend using their full strength (save Raven, whom she actually provokes into doing so, which nearly backfires on her). When they do finally let loose, Terra goes down in minutes.
 * Villainous example in Avatar: The Last Airbender: Arguably, they were never
 * Though the relationship between Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin became deeply strained when Roku made it clear that he would kill Sozin if he launched his planned war, they were still friends, as shown when Sozin showed up to aid Roku when his island suffered a massive volcanic eruption. The two men stood their ground and controlled the volcanoes until the villagers had escaped, at which point.
 * A case where the betrayal actually does cause a Face Heel Turn: Kung Fu Panda, during Tai Lung's Start of Darkness. Shifu betrays his prize pupil and adopted son—not by denying him the Dragon Scroll, but by raising him to believe he was destined to one day earn it as a matter of course, filling him with pride and dreams...and then, when Oogway advised otherwise, refusing to defend, stand up for, or even support his son. No wonder the snow leopard got so pissed and went insane.
 * A rather depressing example comes from Batman: The Animated Series. In one episode, the Penguin is released from prison and declares that he's reformed and will become a model member of high society. A group of snobbish aristocrats decide to bring him into their social circle so that they can laugh at his social ineptitude and appearance. He generally doesn't care how life had gotten him down through the rest of the episode, but when he overhears the woman whom he had fallen in love with talking about this plot, he loses it. The real slap in the face is that he had genuinely reformed until this happened.
 * The Beetlejuice cartoon has an instance. After Beetlejuice gets elected Mayor of the Neitherworld, he lets the success go to him. Lydia goes incognito as a special interest rep and bribes Beetlejuice into some questionable legislation that gets exposed. After being impeached, B.J. has an Et Tu when he learns that Lydia was behind his impeachment.
 * Wonder Woman has no problem working together with Hawkgirl in Justice League. That is until she found out she's been spying on her for the Thangarians. When Hawkgirl is back in the titular team, WW has a problem of trusting her due to this. Luckily, in that same episode, they're able to work together and make up in the end.
 * A relatively mild example occurs in the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "Ponyville Confidential". When the Gabby Gums column begins to print false-but-still-damaging stories of the mane six, it's initially suggested to Rarity that since Sweetie Belle works for the school paper, she might know who GG is. Rarity is immediately offended by the implication that her sister would associate with a pony with such blatant disregard for everyponys feelings. Her tune changes immediately once she discovers Sweetie Belle stole Rarity's diary and published it. To drive this home, Rarity confronts Sweetie with "Et tu, Gabby Gums?"

Real Life

 * Civil wars are often bloodier than "regular" wars because of this trope.
 * According to Roman historian Suetonius, the real Julius Caesar said something similar, but it was actually in Greek: kai su, teknon? means "You too, my son?" Other accounts suggest that Caesar said nothing at all, but he pulled his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators. Therefore, when people assert that Caesar said "Et tu, Brute?", it's in the same vein as Beam Me Up, Scotty.