Cycle of Revenge

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

- Mahatma Gandhi

At last, the moment for which you have trained for the better part of your life is at hand. You have finally tracked down and critically wounded the person who slew your mentor before your eyes when you were but a helpless child. Just as you prepare to administer the final blow, you can not help but indulge your curiosity to find out why this monster killed your beloved mentor. As it turns out, master was not always so squeaky clean. In his youth, he did some unspeakable evil unto this individual's community, if not upon this person's very family. Before you can even make a choice, Fate makes one for you and he dies of his injuries all on his own...okay, with some help from you beforehand. Whoops!

Now, you've got his entire extended family howling for your blood, and his friends are after a piece of you as well. No doubt your own kin and friends are willing to get back at whoever kills you. Congratulations (you hardly deserve one, in this case), you've just perpetuated a Blood Feud!

This is one of those things that less idealistic revenge stories (as idealistic as revenge stories get, anyhow) dabble in, that being the idea that revenge is rarely ever sweet. Because of the complex web of genetic and social bonds that one forms over a lifetime, as well as the interactions between everyone entangled in that web, revenge might well begin with you but it most likely will not end with you. No side is completely wrong, no one is really right, both are very understandable, and such stories are usually painful to watch. It's very common in gangster stories, with the average gangster character avenging the death of a friend upon a rival gangster who may very well have had a similar motivation for his killing, as well as Romeo and Juliet style Feuding Families stories. A lesser form of this tends to occur when two characters get into a prank war.

Moral Myopia often deepens it, when both sides think that one of theirs is worth a dozen of the others, and so attempt to inflict that many deaths in retribution. The escalating body count creates a vicious circle.

Very unfortunate Truth in Television, and Older Than Feudalism; the cycle of vengeance upon vengeance makes up much of the history of the human race, with examples like the infamous Hatfield/McCoy feud and current blood feuds in Albania and elsewhere that are still going on to this very day, with no one remembering just what started it, but motivated by all the violence that followed, with each successive revenge motivating the victims or others connected to them to strike back at the one who took the initial revenge. It is a very vicious cycle.

A note on the "eye for an eye" maxim: many ethnologists believe that this wasn't a demand to go out and seek revenge, but rather a limit on how much revenge that one could exact (so if someone blinds you in one eye, you can't kill them, but at most half-blind them back). According to this theory, those who laid down this rule hoped that this limitation would put a brake on the development of such vicious cycles. According to another theory, espoused by Jewish rabbis, the Hebrew actually implies that monetary compensation is to be given in place of the eye, with the amount of the compensation to be the same regardless of whose eye was harmed (hence, "eye for an eye"). Unfortunately, given human nature in general, people didn't much listen, and as a result - as Mahatma Gandhi, a well-known nonviolence activist, is supposed to have put it - "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Kind of makes you wish someone learned to Turn the Other Cheek or ask for (and give) Forgiveness or at least just deliver a Restrained Revenge. Or you could just exterminate the opposing party until there's not anyone left to want revenge on you. But it rarely works, because there's always a survivor.

See Best Served Cold, Feuding Families, He Who Fights Monsters, Remember the Alamo!, Revenge Myopia, Roaring Rampage of Revenge, Then Let Me Be Evil, and You Killed My Father. Reciprocal altruism (and, indeed, friendship in general) is quite possibly the flip side of this coin.

Anime and Manga
"Bloodshed begets bloodshed. Hatred begets hatred. The rage and emotion sinks into the land and stains it with the crest of blood. No matter how many times they repeat themselves, they never learn. These sad fools..."
 * One of the assassination jobs in Noir was because of reasons like this.
 * To elaborate: the girls were hired to kill a man who had run a concentration camp responsible for the slaughter of an entire ethnic group in Eastern Europe. The survivors and their descendants hired Noir to kill him in revenge. As the episode unfolded, they find out that the man had not only become the kind and benevolent benefactor of a poor community, his own people had been slaughtered by the aforementioned ethnic group as part of an ongoing blood feud when he was a child.
 * In Elfen Lied, you can understand both sides. But they are also both wrong. At the point of the manga, it has become "kill or be killed" for both sides.
 * In the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, Lust sums up the trope rather poetically:

"Cagalli Yula Athha: "One guy's killed for killing another and then he's killed for killing him. How is that kind of twisted thinking ever gonna bring us peace? Well?""
 * It is also averted with.
 * In Naruto, revenge is one of the main themes. The one who is biggest on revenge is Uchiha Sasuke, who is trying to avenge his family, who were killed by his brother Itachi, going to all possible extents to reach this goal. Just as Kakashi told him once: revenge just leads to new revenge. Although considering who told him all this,.
 * The entire Uchiha versus Senju issue actually appears to have a consistent pattern to it with the big names. It began when . It repeated again when.
 * You might also mention the Ninja Guardians filler arc, where a character is trying to kill Asuma for killing his father...
 * This is Pain's entire theme -- trying to create a weapon so strong it'll stagnate the cycle due to fear. He uses it for many a Not So Different speech as well.
 * Sasuke himself came close to potentially starting one between by, with the fact that  making revenge extra-pointless. Naruto, seeing where this would end up, decides he needs to do whatever he can to stop this.
 * In an interesting twist, Shikamaru cites this as his reason for.
 * Revenge is often used in the Gundam franchise. Especially various Chars (tm) are often motivated by it. Char himself and Zechs Marquise try to avenge the murder of their families, therefore infiltrating the responsible military organization. Lockon Stratos goes to all possible extremes to avenge the murder of his family. Flit Asuno even goes to the point of becoming a Dark Messiah because of his desire to avenge his parents
 * This is given the most emphasis in Gundam Seed, after the Atlantic Federation (secretly ruled by Blue Cosmos) destroyed a colony of PLANT, ZAFT quickly invaded wanting revenge,
 * Gundam Seed Destiny continues the Blood Feuds, with
 * Cagalli sums it up quite nicely.


 * A continuing theme in Gunslinger Girl. Both Agency handlers and terrorists are obsessed with avenging family members killed by the other side. Those who aren't are invariably either corrupt leaders or disillusioned veterans.
 * Used in the otherwise nonsensical filler-filled third season of Zero no Tsukaima. The audience expected that The Atoner  had died due to injuries in season two, but some Ass Pull revived him. This gives  a good reason to kill him. But then she gave a reason not to: if she killed him in revenge and cold blood, his students would avenge him, perpetuating the cycle of hatred and revenge. It is hinted that she will still kill him, but presumably in a fair, no-hard-feelings kind of duel to the death.
 * Afro Samurai has this as pretty much the main theme of the series. Sure, you can get the title of being the number one fighter, but you have to take lives to do so. Which, of course, won't sit well with the surviving kin/friends of the deceased, as Afro roughly finds out.
 * At the end of Resurrection,
 * The major plot line in the 2nd season of Hell Girl.
 * One of the key themes of the Vinland Saga.
 * This happens with Yoh and Ludsev in Shaman King.
 * As well as Ren, Iron Maiden Jeanne, Lyserg and the rest of the X-Laws, and a number of others. The Arc Words in the Kyoto Island arc are "When you hurt people, they hurt you back."
 * A central premise in Studio Gonzo's Romeo X Juliet, where it's strongly implied that the love between the eponymous protagonists is the only thing that can prevent the cycle of violence from continuing (and that the fact that one started in the first place may very well cause The End of the World As We Know It).
 * When They Cry, in both its incarnations, lives off this trope. In Higurashi, it's helped along considerably by, while in Umineko, the Ushiromiyas are basically a one-family family feud.
 * A horribly convoluted one in Master of Martial Hearts. Basically . Casting aside the sheer idiocy of the whole plan, there's no warranty whatsoever that the cycle can't be restarted at any time, now,
 * This was fortunately averted in One Piece. It began when Usopp was beaten up by the Franky Family as they stole the crew's money. Cue the Straw Hats retaliating by destroying the Franky Family's home with everyone in it. When Franky finds out his nakama were beaten up and their home in pieces, he says This Is Unforgivable! and hunts Luffy down to get even. However, a series of circumstances would have the Straw Hats and the Franky Family work together and in the end, Franky pulled a Heel Face Turn and ended up joining the Straw Hats.
 * The Fishmen Island arc is all about this, bringing together several subplots that have been running since the beginning of the series. Queen Otohime is the most open-minded of the fishmen/mermaids and advocating for peaceful reconciliation rather than continued retaliation against humans, which
 * Arlong, while initially not as willing to totally kill and subjugate humans as seen in his flashbacks, let his continued hatred and prejudice  convince him that all humans are nothing but trash. His actions encouraged Hody Jones, who had grown up in a culture dominated by hate and racism towards humans and sees anyone associating with humans as his enemy, attacking and killing fishmen/mermaids.
 * Averted in Code Breaker:

Comic Books

 * In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books, the turtles kill Oroku Saki/The Shredder on Splinter's behalf, as revenge for the death of Splinter's former owner, Hamato Yoshi, who had died at Saki's hand. Yoshi, for his part, had been killed (along with his lover Tang Shen because Saki was a dick) as revenge for slaying Oroku Nagi, Saki's older brother. Why was Nagi killed? Because when Tang Shen, the object of both Yoshi and Nagi's affections, chose Yoshi over Nagi, Nagi flew into a rage and savagely beat her; one berserker rage later, Yoshi had killed Nagi. Saki's death wasn't the end of things, however; after he was slain, the Foot Clan that he led became honor-bound to kill the turtles in order to avenge him, and the cycle continues until Karai, who had been sent from Japan in order to unify the then-warring Foot Clan, offers to end the vendetta if the turtles help her eliminate one of the rogue factions, a deal which they take.
 * In a sort of one-sided variation, old DC Comics villain/antihero The Shade keeps being pursued by the descendants of a criminal he killed over a century ago.
 * Scion was built on this trope. The Heron and Raven kingdoms fought each other for centuries without even remembering why before settling their differences by Combat By Champion. Ethan accidentally cutting Bron's face in a combat tournament leads to, and so on and so on until.
 * This is the entire concept of Jango Fett's backstory comic series. It progresses thusly: Vizsla murders ten-year-old Jango's entire family. Jango helps the Mandalorians kill all of Vizsla's men and horribly scars his face. Vizsla leads the Mandalorians into a death trap and personally kills Fett's Mandalorian mentor. Vizsla frames the Mandalorians for mass murder and the Jedi kill all of them. Fett destroys Vizsla's ship, killing most of his men and savagely beats him down (though he gets a nasty beating in return). The cycle is ended when Fett slashes open Vizsla's belly, causing him to be set upon by a pack of predatory cats while Fett plays dead.

Film
""There's a little something called the law of reciprocity. You kill one of theirs, and they kill one of ours. Here's a piece of general advice: if you're going to kill one, make sure you bloody well kill them all.""
 * In Old Boy, Oh Dae-su wants to find the mysterious 'Evergreen' and make him pay for imprisoning him for fifteen years..
 * In Kill Bill, The Bride gets revenge on Vernita Green for having a hand in the massacre of her wedding party. But after killing her, The Bride realizes that Vernita's daughter, Nikki, had seen witnessed the whole thing and so The Bride says to Nikki, "When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting." Tarantino has said that he's interested in making a Kill Bill Vol. 3 in the future, where a grown-up Nikki Green hunts down The Bride, and a fourth film that elevates into this with.
 * Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. After Ryu is cheated by organ donors, he is forced into a disastrous kidnapping plot, triggering one long Cycle of Revenge.
 * In The Proposition, Mr. Fletcher explains how to avoid one of these:


 * The object lesson of the Bruce Lee film Fist Of Fury.
 * In City of God, the gang war is touched off by revenge against Lil Ze for . However, in a year, no one knows how it started, as everyone joins sides for revenge on the other side.
 * With the notable exception of.
 * In American History X, this trope is.
 * In Death Sentence, Nick (Kevin Bacon's character), which leads to , which leads to , which leads to , which leads to , which leads to.
 * This is the entire basis of the film Changing Lanes: When each man refuses to budge and try to see things from the other person's shoes, they get stuck in a cycle of increasingly un-diplomatic responses and revenge. Throughout the film, it is shown where each gets opportunities to end it by doing the right thing... opportunities that are, for the most part, promptly ignored.
 * Discussed in Troy. Hector kills Patroclus in battle, so Achilles kills Hector, so Paris plans to kill Achilles. Briseis asks Achilles where it all ends, and he replies "It never ends".
 * The Joshuu Sasori films develop a series of these across the first four entries. The protagonist's desire for revenge against the detective by whom she was seduced and betrayed fuels her repeated escape attempts. Thus, the guards hate her. This results in harsh punishments for all the prison inmates, which means they all hate her too, and they hate the guards almost as much. The warden hates her personally for causing all the trouble, and for the pain and embarrassment she's caused to happen to him personally. In the second film, savage new inmate Oba sees her as a threat to her dominance among the prisoners, causing more betrayal down the line, and a new vendetta for Matsu. The third film replaces the guards with detective Kondo, who takes her escape understandably personally. There's also the jealous woman downstairs from her, and old enemy Katsu to deal with. By the fourth film, pretty much every policeman and member of prison staff hate her passionately.

Literature
"''And his white hair sank to his heels, and his white beard fell to his feet,
 * Such a cycle between the settlers and the Eora is portrayed in The Secret River.
 * Discussed in Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits regarding the acts of vengeance between the legitimate and illegitimate descendants of Esteban Trueba.
 * Beowulf. Just... Beowulf.
 * More true of the 2007 film adaptation; in the original epic, the revenge is a little more justified and contained between Grendel's mother and Beowulf. And Beowulf's mission against the hag is viewed as totally appropriate, since the monsters attacked the hall without provocation or real reason other than generally evil dispositions.
 * Edgar Allen Poe's short story Metzengerstein, in which two noble families have a perpetual feud based on this (and on an ambiguous prophecy). Ends with the last scion of Metzengerstein killed by a horse inhabited by the spirit of the lord of the other house, who apparently died in a fire the Metzengerstein heir started. Naturally, these events also fulfill the prophecy.
 * Practically any fantasy novel by David Gemmell.
 * A Series of Unfortunate Events.
 * In Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts novel First & Only, when the Jantine Patricians raid the Ghosts, Gaunt sends Corbec off to raid them back. When discussing what to do, Corbec declares that they should kill as many Jantines as Ghosts who died -- at least. (On the other hand, both raids had been part of a cover for deeper games, and part of the raid was to feed that cover, making it look like Revenge.)
 * In The Bible, the story of Samson consists mainly of this trope. At one point, within a few verses, a Philistine commander claims "We just want to do to him what he did to us" and Samson claims "I just want to do to them what they did to me."
 * Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons are engaged in a 30-year feud, the origins of which are long since forgotten.
 * A footnote in a Discworld novel (cannot remember which one) explains that war cries such as "Remember Koom Valley!" all tend to translate to "Let us remember the atrocity committed against us in the past that will excuse the atrocity we are about to commit today!"
 * Almost certainly Thud!
 * Among others. Basically appears in every Discworld novel with dwarf-troll conflicts.
 * Thud! actually centers on
 * The Corsican Brothers (The original, not the Cheech and Chong lampoon!).
 * In Nick Kyme's Warhammer 40000 novel Salamander, in the Backstory, the 3rd Company had killed some renegades' captains; in the opening, they kill the 3rd Company's captain; shortly thereafter, the new captain goes in pursuit of them.
 * In Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Voyage of Maeldune", the hero is told to forbear his revenge because

And he spake to me, 'O Maeldune, let be this purpose of thine!

Remember the words of the Lord when he told us, "Vengeance is mine!"

His fathers have slain thy fathers in war or in single strife.

Thy fathers have slain his fathers, each taken a life for a life,

Thy father had slain his father, how long shall the murder last?

Go back to the Isle of Finn and suffer the Past to be Past.'''"


 * In Saberhagen's The Fourth Book of Lost Swords: Farslayer's Story The magical sword Farslayer, which can kill anyone from any distance, is hurled back and forth between two feuding families until only a few children are left alive.
 * In Romeo and Juliet, the Capulets and the Montagues avenge every death that the opposing family caused... who, in turn, avenge their deaths.
 * In Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191, the Confederacy wins the Civil War and then, with help from Britain and France, defeats the USA in another war twenty years later. This leads to a culture of "Rememberance" and Revanchism in the USA, who plan for victory in another war and make an alliance with Germany for that purpose. This comes during the Great War, when the USA soundly defeats the Confederates, who then embark on an even more brutal program of revanchism and preparing for the next war under Jake Featherston's Freedom Party. If this all sounds familiar, it's because the series is largely based off of European history (see the Real Life section below) moved to North America.
 * Basically the hat of the Arends in the Belgariad. Polgara nearly falls into it herself in the prequel novel, but is strongly encouraged not to by her mother.
 * Taras Bulba. Cossacks vs. Poland and more personal Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
 * Pretty much in all of The Icelandic Sagas. Brennu-Njálssaga, for example, follows Njáll and his sons as everyone pisses everyone else off and a lot of people get killed for some pretty petty reasons.
 * In Death: The book Vengeance In Death is all about this trope. Roarke murdered six men to avenge the death of Summerset's daughter. Then the wife of one of the six men raises her son to murder six people who helped Roarke hunt down the six men, as well as Summerset, Eve, and Roarke to make a novena. Just goes to show Revenge has a lot of nasty consequences!
 * Age of Fire: A recurring theme throughout the series, but especially highlighted in Dragon Avenger. Wistala eventually tries to end this in regards to the Dragonblade line by making peace with the current one and his family, rather than take revenge on him for killing her father.

Live Action TV
"Francis: You can break the cycle with Jaime: You can be a good brother to him.
 * In one episode of Hustle, the gang were hired by a guy's ex-wife to ruin his life because she painted a very unsympathetic picture of him, but as the episode progresses, it is really blurred as to which of them is more at fault.
 * An episode of Kung Fu, appropriately titled "An Eye for an Eye", focuses on this situation.
 * The classic Doctor Who serial The Caves of Androzani. The psychotic Sharaz Jek plunges the Androzani system into a costly war for the sole purpose of getting revenge on the business partner who betrayed and permanently disfigured him. General Chellak, on the other hand, is willing to sacrifice virtually his entire force in a suicidal frontal assault against Jek's killer androids in order to kill Jek.
 * The cycle of revenge has emerged as the driving force in the overarching mythology of the new Battlestar Galactica. "All this has happened before and all this will happen again."
 * The closing episodes of the Filipino soap opera Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (English: "If We Were To Be Apart") deal with this, which involves Robbie Castillo, as he is engaged in a Mexican Standoff with Ringo Quijano, who's also Robbie's brother-in-law through his marriage with Gwen.
 * One of the themes of Power Rangers Time Force. Ransik, the Big Bad, is a mutant driven to madness and violence by human hatred (supposedly, it's never shown and other characters claim that he was offered help), and he himself is responsible for causing both Time Force leader Jen and his own Dragon Frax to hate him with a passion. The cycle ends when Ransik's daughter realizes that it's happening, and puts herself in mortal danger by going into the crossfire to convince him to let go of the vendetta. Ransik turns himself in, Jen accepts it, and Frax... well, Ransik already did him in by then, but he at least had time to reflect that his thirst for vengeance ruined him.
 * Power Rangers Wild Force has it at one point when
 * One of these becomes a plot point late in the seventh season of NCIS.
 * Malcolm in The Middle: When Francis reveals to Dewey that, despite the Big Brother Worship Malcolm and Reese have for him, Francis was a Big Brother Bully when they were kids. Then they converse about this trope:

Dewey: That would be unfair!

Francis: Beat. Yeah... It’s true."


 * One case on New Tricks had the murder victim go to great lengths to break the cycle. A long running blood feud caused him to kill the patriarch of the other family so he fled to Britain, changed his name and even went so far as to have his sister (his only remaining relative) be adopted by a British couple so she knows nothing of her heritage. He is killed but this finally ends the cycle.

Music

 * Played straight in "Murder Go Round" by Insane Clown Posse, which, contrary to popular belief, clearly isn't about a ride. It tells the story of a young hoodlum (played by Violent J) who is assaulted by a gang member, and decides to get him back, starting a gang of his own and killing his enemy and anybody who tries to avenge him. Eventually, he just starts killing people for the hell of it,.

Mythology

 * Older Than Feudalism: The House of Pelops in Greek Mythology.
 * The Oresteia by Aeschylus was written in response to this legend. It concludes with Orestes and Athena breaking the cycle once and for all by inventing the trial by jury.
 * It's kinda funny how some synopses of the tale forget the earliest step(s) in this drama. Some indicate that the Queen killed the King for no particular reason. But here's the actual setup, in reverse:
 * Orestes nearly gets killed because he murdered his mother.
 * ...whom he only killed because she had murdered his father, King Agamemnon.
 * ...whom she had only killed because Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter (and Orestes's sister), Iphigenia.
 * ...whom he only sacrificed because the goddess Artemis demanded it of him.
 * ...and she only demanded it of him after he killed a deer in a sacred grove and boasted he was the better hunter.
 * As usual with Greek myths, there are actually several explanations why Artemis demanded Iphigenia's sacrifice, including one that was because Agamemnon's father had failed to sacrifice the first lamb of his flock to her, while according to Aischylos it was because two eagles (who symbolized Agamemnon and his brother Menelaos) had torn a pregnant hare to pieces, which enraged the goddess. And in the Iliad, Iphigenia wasn't sacrificed at all (Agamemnon offers the hands of all his three daughters in marriage to Achilles), while according to Euripides she was saved at the last moment and transported to Tauris (on the Crimea) to become a priestess at the local temple to Artemis...
 * The story is further complicated by Klytaimnestra (Agamemnon's queen) hooking up with Aigisthos, murderer of Agamemnon's father Atreus, who wanted to get revenge on Agamemnon for driving his father Thyestes (Atreus' brother) into exile from Mycene. (Because of an oracle, Thyestes had fathered Aigisthos by raping his own daughter Pelopia, in order to avenge his other children whom Atreus had killed). Aigisthos and Klytaemnestra together killed Agamemnon and Klytaemnestra for good measure also killed Agamemnon's prisoner/concubine Cassandra of Troy.
 * And all that came about from a curse on the House of Atreus from a man named Myrtilus, who Pelops killed after Myrtilus helped him murder King Oenomaus and marry his daughter Hippodameia to seize his kingdom. Granted, Myrtilus tried to rape Hippodameia, but Pelops still reneged on his promise to give Myrtilus half the kingdom.
 * Going back even further, it's been suggested that part of the curse on Pelops and his descendants comes from the hubris of his father Tantalos, who originally murdered Pelops and tried to serve him in a stew to the gods. And then there was the fact that Tantalos had stolen the food of the gods and given it to his friends, along with telling them the gods' secrets. Disproportionate Retribution much?

Tabletop Games

 * In Warhammer, the Dwarfs are in one of these as their natural state. In fact, they're pretty much capable of maintaining one without the other party trying to continue it. It works like this: someone does something to wrong them, so they write it down in the Book of Grudges and resolve to take bloody vengeance when they can. While doing so, the people they're attacking defend themselves, killing at least one dwarf. Well, that dwarf also has to be avenged. The dwarfish language has no word for forgiveness.

Theatre

 * This is the premise of Romeo and Juliet. It's been going on for so long that the two warring families have forgotten exactly who started it and over what.
 * And by extension, the Jets and Sharks in West Side Story.
 * Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus is one long and extremely bloody Cycle of Revenge between the title character and Tamora, the Queen of the Goths.
 * There's some of this also in Hamlet. In the course of avenging his father, Hamlet ends up with Laertes after him for killing his father.

Video Games

 * Sometimes, the already twisted path of revenge is even more non-linear than normal, thanks to time-space anomalies and reincarnation, as is the case in Soul Nomad and The World Eaters.
 * The Star Wars extended universe, including Knights of the Old Republic, are chock full of these kinds of vendettas.
 * Most of which get subverted to some degree or another, at least in the first Knights of the Old Republic game. Jagi wanted to take revenge on Canderous for allegedly abandoning his men during a battle to seize a tactical advantage. When facing down Jagi, one of the options is to point out that Jagi  when he realizes that Canderous's actions were perfectly acceptable under the code of the Mandalorians.
 * Bastila and her estranged mother, Helena, have a chilly reunion on Tatooine. Helena then requests that you go out to the desert to retrieve her father's holocron. When you do retrieve it, Bastila is tempted to keep it just to spite her mother. Turns out that Bastila's father was treasure-hunting.
 * If you're inclined towards Darkness, you can encourage Mission to abandon her deadbeat brother to the Exchange (organized crime) in revenge for him abandoning her on Taris.
 * Juhani Lampshades this trope when talking about her past, how "Those who had been wronged saw their chance at revenge. The oppressed became the new generation of oppressors" after, bitterly lamenting that "the non-humans were never treated well in either case." There's also some cut dialogue for Juhani where she admits that she still hates and fears Mandalorians for committing genocide against her people, and voices her disapproval of Canderous among the crew. In one of the options, you can propose she go and kill him. She is still enough of a Jedi to balk at the idea of cold-blooded murder. However, when you meet up with , those with darker tendencies can cheerfully encourage her to skewer the jerk on her lightsaber.
 * And when it comes to subverting this trope, Carth's the master. His primary motive for 3/4 of the game is to get revenge on his former mentor (and to a lesser extent, all Sith) for destroying his homeworld, killing his wife, and . When he finally by announcing his friend (if you play male) or lover (if you play female) is none other than ! After the last Star Map is found, Carth admits that revenge didn't give him any peace, and that he can no longer hate . With a female Player Character, he elaborates further, saying that his promise to protect you has given him a new reason to live.
 * To some degree, the motivations of most of the principal players of the Metal Gear Solid series are wrapped up in revenge upon revenge.
 * Happens in Shenmue with Ryo's father...
 * Throughout the early parts of Tales of Symphonia, Lloyd gets pissed off at the way Desians treat humans. Kratos implies (in typical Tales fashion) that there's an underlying reason. There is: once they get to Tethe'alla, they learn that the half-elves there are victims of particularly cruel discrimination.
 * In the John Woo game Stranglehold, Tequila gets pissed at Wong for, leading to the Cowboy Cop seeking vengeance upon him. Wong in turn hates Tequila's guts, which is why he didn't want him and Billie together to begin with, and he wants revenge himself on Tequila for.
 * In the Touhou game, Imperishable Night, Kaguya Houraisan and Fujiwara no Mokou respectively want to kill each other as revenge for the numerous previous successful attempts on each other's lives -- they're immortal, and can regenerate even if their bodies are entirely destroyed. And it all started when Kaguya rejected Mokou's father's marriage proposal, 1300 years ago. This is just one of Touhou's many moments.
 * Pretty much the reason behind the Alliance and the Horde being more or less openly at war in World of Warcraft after being allies at the end of War Craft III. Some people just couldn't get over the fact that the enemy they had fought for so long wasn't an enemy anymore.
 * On PvP servers, you can easily experience a Cycle of Revenge first-hand.
 * A similar issue exists between two Outland factions, the Aldor and the Scryer. While they both are part of the same alliance, players are forced to choose between the two.
 * Camp Taurajo in the Southern Barrens becomes the start of one. The Alliance sacks Taurajo, the Horde responds by killing the General who carried out the attack, and the other Alliance leaders swear vengeance on the Horde for the assassination. Ironically, General Hawthorne was trying to avoid civilian casualties because he didn't want a Cycle of Revenge, but didn't factor in the quillboar who were mortal enemies of the Tauren.
 * It's also hinted he didn't count on the rabidly anti-Horde ambassador. The Ambassador's interest in the Horde's desire for revenge, the easily located spy with an itinerary for the General's journey, and the speed with which a replacement is found are too convenient. This Cycle was planned.
 * Subverted in Kung Lao's ending of Mortal Kombat Gold; he attacks the Shokan Goro during a peace treaty signing as a ceremonial strike of revenge for Goro's brutal murder of his ancestor in an earlier MK tournament. Goro naturally believes that Lao is wanting to continue the fight for vengeance, but Lao tells him no, the attack was just to let the big lug know he hasn't forgotten what he did all those centuries ago, but is willing to put aside their differences for the sake of peace. Goro agrees, hinting that were his and Lao's ancestor's fates were reversed, Goro's own son would've likely been the one asking Lao (or his ancestor, since being Champion of MK gives you natural immortality) for peace.
 * The Killzone series sets this up. The feud between Helghan and the ISA goes back for generations, with the actions of the series being the Second Intersolar War.
 * Subverted in Tales of Legendia. Near the end of Chloe's character quest in her confrontation with Stingle, the man who killed her parents to get money for his sick daughter, she is all but willing to kill him... until his daughter, whom she had grown close to at that point, picks up her father's sword, swearing to protect her father and take revenge upon Chloe if she kills, helping to snap Chloe out of her growing Knight Templar attitude.
 * Modern Warfare, in spades, occasionally lampshaded.
 * The Nature of the Beast Quest in Dragon Age Origins revolves around a vicious Cycle of Revenge. Long ago, a group of humans attacked the Dalish Elves in the Brecilian Forest, killing the son and raping the daughter (who was later Driven to Suicide) of the elven Keeper Zathrien. In his rage and grief, Zathrien summoned a forest spirit and bound it in the body of a wolf using his own blood, creating Witherfang. Witherfang then cursed the humans, and turned them into the first werewolves. Centuries later, those humans' descendants are still cursed. Under the guidance of Witherfang (who has recently gained sentience and intelligence as the Lady of the Forest), this new generation of werewolves are attacking the Dalish and spreading the curse to them, partly for revenge against Zathrien (who is still alive because he is bound to Witherfang) and partly because they are trying to force Zathrien to undo his curse. The werewolves believe they are being unfairly punished for their ancestors' crimes. Zauthrien believes that their current actions prove that they are just as savage as their ancestors and deserve the curse no less. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide how this cycle is resolved.
 * Even if you cure the werewolves and end the curse, the cycle threatens to perpetuate itself with Dalish elves who now want revenge on the former werewolves for killing members of their clan. Hawke can encounter the daughter of a Dalish hunter-turned werewolf in Dragon Age II who is threatening to murder one of these former werewolves. Hawke can choose to peacefully resolve the situation, leave the former werewolf to his fate or kill the elf and her companions.
 * This Trope also comes to play if you're a Human Noble. The Warden avenges his/her parents' murders by killing Arl Howe during the last 1/4 of the game. Later, in the Awakening expansion pack, one of your first party member candidates is his son Nathaniel, who was about to assasinate the Warden as a revenge for his father's death, but got captured for trespassing before he had the chance to slip a dagger between his target's ribs. Part of Nathaniel's Character Development later on is cutting the cycle once he learns and understands what a bastard his father was and that he had it coming.
 * Holy Shit, No More Heroes is basically this trope incarnate; the final boss in the first game pretty much says as much without going into all the symbolism, but the second game bleeds this trope through beginning to end.
 * And the second game does this even more. The first boss is Helter Skelter's younger brother who wants revenge. Matt Helms killed his parents as a ghost for leaving him in a burning house to die. Two assassins come back to fight you despite dying in the previous game.
 * Invoked in the Burnout series, namely Revenge onward. It keeps track of everybody you've started a rivalry with, and rewards you for getting revenge or keeping your rival from doing so.
 * Saints Row 2, as mentioned in other Revenge tropes, particularly the Brotherhood arc. An interesting aversion by Johnny Gat, the most psychotic killer in both games; even though his Love Interest was slain, killing all the Ronin was no more or less the same business it was before, just a little more personal. The other revenges through the remaining arc hardly seem connected to each other.
 * The single-player campaign of Tribes Vengeance, true to its subtitle, is driven almost entirely by someone's desire for revenge and the protagonists are rotated all the time.
 * The entire point of Cactus's short "art game" Space Fuck!. Two neighboring planets in space; every thirty years, on one of the planets, a warrior comes out of the tunnels where he lived his entire life, and finds ruins of a thriving city on the surface. A survivor tells him that a man from the other planet massacred everyone. The warrior decides to get revenge, hops into a ship that happens to be nearby and flies to the other planet to massacre the inhabitants there. Then he descends into that planet's tunnels, meets a woman and has a son with her. Thirty years later, the son comes out of the tunnels and finds ruins of a thriving city on the surface, and learns that a warrior from the other planet is responsible. He decides to get revenge on the other planet, flies over there and kills everyone, then descends into the tunnels where he meets a woman... After a couple iterations, the game outright announces: "Vicious Cycle".
 * In a warped way, this is what the Bogeyman embodies in Silent Hill Downpour.
 * Lara Croft and Werner Von Croy use the trope on each other throughout Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and the final chapter in Tomb Raider Chronicles. Teenage Lara goes on an expedition with Von Croy and is forced to leave him behind when his tampering with the Iris artifact causes the area to collapse and traps him. Von Croy is rescued some time later and keeps the artifact while being bitter towards Lara who he thinks was abandoned by her. Lara then infiltrates Von Croy's research building and steals the Iris artifact from him. This in turn causes Von Croy several years later to seek revenge by hiring mercenaries to stop or kill Lara in Egypt so that he can claim the Amulet of Set (succeeding) and then he goes on to capture Lara's friend, holding him hostage in exchange for the Armor of Horus. After Lara's apparent demise when the pyarmid she is in collapses as Von Croy watches in horror, Lara escapes some time later in The Angel of Darkness and is angry at Von Croy for leaving her back in Eygpt. The entire cycle of revenge is finally broken when a third unrelated to the two characters kills Von Croy.
 * A variation is the key story trope of Infinity Blade. The game starts off with the tyrannical God King killing one who opposes him. Then, some 20 years later, that man's son comes to avenge him -- and after fighting through the God King's castle, also gets killed. And so on, and so on, until you either manage to kill the God King, or fight him to a standstill and agree to join him. In the former case  In the latter case   If that isn't pointless enough, the sequel reveals that

Webcomics

 * In Order of the Stick, the conflict between the Sapphire Guard (an order of Lawful Good Paladins) and the allegedly Always Chaotic Evil goblin races is a perfect example of this. The story makes it abundantly clear that both sides are at fault, but that the destruction of Azure City at the hands of Redcloak's hobgoblin horde is a direct consequence of the Azurites' arrogance in engaging in a preemptive genocidal crusade. For his part, Redcloak is only too happy to continue the cycle of atrocities.
 * Vaarsuvius also gets some quality time with this trope in the arc with the vengeful black dragon and goes to some rather extreme steps to end it. Unfortunately, this comes at the price of owing his soul to some fiends who don't plan to wait for his death to collect, and she still gets hunted by agents of Tiamat for her actions.
 * The plot of Juathuur is for the most part about this. Thomil is the only one concerned with actually breaking the cycle.
 * Played with by the Girl Genius cast and their Parental Substitutes: the cycle tries to roll on, and is promptly... not exactly broken, more like derailed.
 * This is a central theme of the "Hivebent" arc in Homestuck, especially when it comes to Vriska and her dealings with Terezi and Aradia.
 * In chronological order: Vriska cripples Tavros, Aradia sends ghosts to torment her, Vriska mind-controls Aradia's boyfriend into killing her, Terezi informs Doc Scratch about one of his items currently owned by Vriska - which he then explodes, blowing off Vriska's special eye and an arm; Vriska then pulls out a three-step mind-control reacharound to make Terezi stare into the sun and go blind. It all happens in an immediate succession. Some time later, after Tavros, with whom everything started, has apparently forgiven her, Aradia (now as a ghost inhabiting a robot) delivers a near-fatal beatdown to Vriska. After Vriska awakes as her dream-self, Terezi merely slaps her, ending the cycle.
 * The cycle is finally broken
 * The cycle is finally broken

Western Animation

 * Gargoyles grabs hold of this theme firmly from multiple angles. Goliath wants revenge against the Vikings for his clan's genocide, Macbeth wanted revenge against Demona for her treachery, Demona wanted revenge against all humans... the list continues on, right down to a nameless guy who is always being shafted by the Gargoyle exploits,
 * By the end of second season, Macbeth and Goliath manage to drop their respective beefs, but Demona never lets go of her vendetta against humanity (Word of God has stated she eventually will, thanks to her daughter), and she in turn is pursued by a family of Hunters sworn to kill her.
 * Two of the three most recent Hunters drop the axe thanks to Elisa's influence and the realization of how much their blood feud has cost them (up to and including one of them ending up paraplegic), but the nicest of the three snaps, and the cycle is perpetuated. Interestingly, the leader of the three most recent hunters admits it has been long forgotten why they hunt Gargoyles. All they know is that it is their family legacy.
 * Gargoyles does contain one aversion to this trope. Xanatos refuses to pursue revenge on any of his enemies, calling it "a sucker's game". Judging by what happened to the other revenge seekers on this show, Xanatos may be right.
 * Thundercats 2011 has this as an undercurrent of the generations-long war between the Cats and the Lizards. Implicitly, this is Lizard General Slithe's motive over a long career of fighting the Cats.

Web Original

 * The fake feud between The Nostalgia Critic and The Angry Video Game Nerd was like this at first as both countered perceived slights, before turning into a general hatred that culminated in a decisive final battle. Twice, actually. Of course, it's all a joke, so that much is deliberate.
 * In Greek Ninja, it turns out to be the reason of everything that happened.
 * In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, Ultra-Man and Baron Malthus have been battling each other since World War II. It stopped being about "preventing injustice" (for Ultra-Man) or "committing a crime" (for Baron Malthus) a long, long time ago... no, these days its strictly personal.
 * In the second Jobe story of the Whateley Universe, Jobe and Counterpoint get into a cycle of revenge at Super-Hero School Whateley Academy. Jobe wins a sparring match in aikido class, but he does it with poisons (Jobe starts the story with human strength and speed, just talent as a bio-devisor, while Counterpoint has strength, speed, a telekinetic shield, and any other powers he wants to copy). Counterpoint can't let it go, since he's some sort of incarnation of Ares. He gets some muscle to help him pound Jobe. Jobe can't let it go, since he's the crown prince of Karedonia (his father is a supervillain) and has obligations to make sure people know he can't be pushed around. At the end of the story, they are both in the hospital, and at least one of them might be hospitalized for a long time. And they haven't given up their grudges.

Real Life

 * As already mentioned, a widely common phenomenon in cultures all over the world before the emergence of public prosecution, public executive (in other words, police), prison sentences (and, well, public prisons), and the state's monopoly of violence in general. Before these things became institutions, people all over the world were used to take justice and the enforcement of laws and sentences into their own hands.
 * This is possibly the natural state of affairs when there is no organized society. All conflicts are resolved with physical violence and revenge is the sacred duty for the wronged lest the wronged lose his honor. This happens also everywhere where central government is weak, remote or effete.Once such culture of honor and vendetta has been born, it is almost impossible to weed out anymore.
 * To prevent cycles of revenge from going on forever, or turning into spirals of revenge, the Anglo-Saxons, as well as many other medieval societies had the institution of "wer-gild", or blood money. Someone outside the feud would come in and decide who had suffered the most (i.e., which side had suffered the most murders.) The side that had suffered less would then have to pay a fine to the others' side proportional to the overzealousness of their revenge killings.
 * There are several tribes particularly in South America and Africa that are plagued by this, having been stuck in perpetual warfare for generations because each death must be avenged with death.
 * The culture of Vendetta on the islands of Sicily and Corsica caused this kind of thing to happen until very recently (and maybe it's not quite all over yet).
 * On Corsica, this combined with the separatist movement has led to the stereotypical association of the island in French media (including comics) with the onomatopoeia boum.
 * This cycle of vendetta has led in many regions to severe depopulation as all males have either been killed or forced to flee due to centuries of vendette. In Albania it is commonplace in such situation for a woman to take the gender role of a male (to have "social sex change").
 * Israel/Palestine may or may not be this.
 * A lot of gang violence boils down to this. Most being retaliations for other gang hits.
 * The Hatfield-McCoy feud, which, according to popular lore, began with a dispute over a hog and eventually led to the murder of dozens of people. (The real reason for the feud probably had more to do with jealousy and a dispute over property rights in the valley where both families lived.)
 * Most wars between Maori tribes were "revenge wars", where they would try and get "utu" for their fallen chief, by killing the other tribes chief.
 * In Northern Ireland during The Troubles, cycles of revenge killings known as "tit for tat killings" were very common. Where random protestants or catholics were killed within hours of another killing-which would lead to another random killing.....
 * Germany & France between 1870 and 1945. Germany's resounding victory in the Franco-Prussian war and subsequent annexation of territory led to 40+ years of "Revanchism" (meaning basically "Revenge-ism") being a dominant political movement in France and to France seeking alliances and preparing for another war with Germany. After the French & Allied victory in World War I, there was a brief cooling of tensions after which the Nazis came to power and pursued their own agenda of revenge against the allies. Luckily after World War II, in which both nations were devastated and left reliant on US support, they decided to work together...
 * It went back further than that. From a German point of view, 1870/71 was payback for the humiliating defeats of the Napoleonic Wars (yes, they had beaten Napoleon in the end, but not without help from other great powers, most notably Russia and Great Britain). While in France, the victory of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 was seen as revenge for the humiliating defeat at Rossbach against the Prussian army in 1757 during the Seven Years War, which in turn was seen by Germans as revenge for Louis XIV's wars of aggression, and so on until the middle ages. People in all seriousness talked of the "hereditary enmity" (Erbfeindschaft) between Germany and France, but that term actually first was coined to describe the long-running enmity between the houses of Habsburg (German emperors and kings of Spain) and Valois/Bourbon (kings of France) that went back to the 15th century.
 * The Norsemen during the Viking age were infamous for this. If a man felt wronged by another, meaning an insult or an act of violence, there were four ways to resolve the conflict.
 * They could reach a settlement, tallying damages for both parties and having one pay a restitution to the other. Any man was honour-bound against breaking such a settlement.
 * Next there was the option of taking revenge. If a family member had been killed, his relatives as far related as cousins (including in-laws) were obligated to avenge the victim. With communities being small, it wasn't that uncommon for men to have to choose families as they had relatives in both, and usually, it ended up with entire communities fighting for generations. A man was honour-bound to avenge an unsettled vendetta, and the only alternative if he was unable or unwilling was fleeing the country.
 * If a Viking wanted revenge without starting a blood feud, they would sometimes make their case at a thing (a court of chiefs and nobles). And while revenge killings were considered good and just, legal action was seen as underhanded and hostile, and as such was reserved for only the most serious of circumstances. Sentences were fines, banishment, or being declared Outlaw (effectively a dishonourable, unavengable death sentence for you or anyone who helps you).
 * Lastly there was the option of demanding a trial by combat. This meant either death, or a verdict of banishment or outlaw, for the loser, with a risk of death from wounds for the victor too.
 * Blood revenge continued in the Norse-lands even as they became monarchies, with the chieftains as nobles and jarls, until the 1200s, when the practice was banned in Norway and Sweden and replaced with courts and laws.
 * The Montenegrins in particular are especially infamous for this. It even has its own name: Krvna Osveta, literally Blood Feud. Though it isn't as common nowadays, it still does happen in more remote areas.
 * Pretty much the Balkans in general. The breakdown in Yugoslavia involved (at least per the excuses given): Serbians taking revenge on Croats for siding with the Germans in World War 2 in revenge for the Serbians doing something to the Croats even earlier, and everyone against the Muslims due to the Turkish invasions of the 1500s, and so on and so forth. And then there are the Greeks and the Turks...for everyone else in the area, the joke goes that they're starting to get over grudges dating back to the Roman Empire. The Greeks and the Turks involve a revenge cycle going back to Classical Greece and the Persian Empire.
 * Actually it's a severe case of Memetic Mutation. Local nationalists love to frame their xenophobia and bloodlust as patriotism by combining ancient history with Insane Troll Logic, just like anywhere else, only when the Balkans are involved everyone just goes "yeah, that's how those guys are" instead of calling bullshit. Also for writers, directors and politicians it's much more romantic and convenient to portray a peninsula full of morally ambiguous savages than to go into detail so that whole Ruritania image gets further simplified and perpetuated.
 * Many Islamic Extremists use revenge for the Crusades to justify their hatred of Christians. Their terrorist attacks in turn lead to hate crimes by Extremist Christians and other groups against followers of Islam in general, leading to more violence from the Islamic Extremists in a never ending cycle.
 * Of course, the Crusades were themselves provoked by Muslim attacks on Christian communities in and pilgrims to the Near East. Also, it is a little known fact that the main enemy of the Crusaders were the Turks; Muslim Arabs, who had been conquered by the Turks, sometimes sided with the Crusaders against the Muslim Turks, which is relevant because the Islamic extremists who use the Crusades as an excuse are frequently Arabs, while in Turkey itself Islamism has taken a very moderate line and there are very few Turkish Islamic extremists of note.