Black and Gray Morality: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

It is often found in fictional media that the [[Black and White Morality|protagonist/antagonist conflict]] takes the form of the [[Knight in Shining Armor|shining knight]] whose breath smells of flowers and has holy light shining from his every orifice versus the very fount of all evil who [[Eats Babies]] as a hobby, and [[Kick the Dog|Kicks Dogs]] as a profession.

These can be deeply unsatisfying. Movie-goers want a hero to celebrate and a villain to vilify. But if both sides have flaws and redeeming qualities, [[Viewers are Morons|how do they know which is which]]? How can a writer create such a satisfying world without making it all impossibly unrealistic?

 

 

 

A good litmus test for this trope is as follows:

# Are they still unquestionably painted as being "on the right side?" By virtue of the other side being worse? Whether the author is successful or not does not matter.

 

 

See also [[Shades of Conflict]], [[Grey and Gray Morality]], [[Black and White Morality]], [[Evil Versus Evil]], [[Crapsack World]], [[Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism]]. The inverse is [[But Not Too Evil]]. Contrast with [[White and Grey Morality]], where everyone has some nobility to them, and the thematically similar [[Designated Hero]], a much more parodied trope which features a protagonist that is selfish and cowardly as opposed to a bastard.

Also compare [[Nominal Hero]], where a character on the side of good doesn't have any good intentions.

 

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Akira]]''. You know something's screwed up when the members of a biker gang who take drugs, vandalise property and violently attack their enemies with no remorse are the main good guys. Still, this was a story about society, so Paladin types wouldn't really fit in very well.

* ''[[Samurai Champloo]]'' to a certain degree. Or maybe it's just [[Heroic Sociopath|Mugen]].

** Jin. He was a ronin<ref>A samurai without a master</ref> {{spoiler|because Jin killed him in self-defense}}.

*** After the initial Arrancar Invasion arc, the series seems to be slowly moving away from this, with Byakua Kuchiki being more willing to bend the rules, and captains like Soi Fon and Yamamoto showing softer sides during the Fake Karakura Town arc. {{spoiler|Most importantly, Yamamoto went against tradition to get Ichigo's powers restored, which is even commented on in-story as something he never would have done in the past.}}

**** The Vandenreich arc fits in here somewhere. The {{spoiler|Quincies are justified in wanting revenge on the shinigami, but their methods and intentional disruption with the balance cause them to be placed here. If it wasn't for the fact that they apparently didn't try to negotiate with the shinigami they would be still evil but [[But Not Too Evil|not too evil]]. However the shinigami did attempt genocide [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|albeit with noble intent]] and were thought to have pretty much succeeded until the Vandenreich appeared as that would have left only Uryu and Ryuken left.}} Again were it not for the threat they present/have presented to the world and their disregard of the damage their doing the conflict would fall more towards the [[Grey and Grey Morality]] side of things.

* ''[[Black Butler]]'' tends to fall into this, as while Ceil Phantomhive sometimes qualifies as evil and his predatory demon of a butler is ''always'' evil, they are able to look a lot better by taking down utter psychopaths in the name of the Queen.

** The ambiguous morality is somewhat subverted in the anime, wherein Ciel is much more cynical and less sympathetic as a character than he is in the manga.

** Though Slayers TRY is a case of [[Gray and Grey Morality]], especially because both sides are trying to save their own world.

** ''NEXT'' also has a certain amount of this, since the [[Disc One Final Boss]] actually only wants to kill Lina {{spoiler|to prevent his old boss from attempting to destroy the universe by forcing her to cast Giga Slave}}… Which {{spoiler|is exactly what Lina does}}. Even the first season qualifies to an extent, as while the [[Big Bad]] ''is'' an evil sadist, he's operating under the mistaken impression that his plan's success {{spoiler|would consist of him summoning and destroying a monster bent on the world's destruction, rather than being instantly possessed by it}}.

* Though the main characters of ''[[Hyakujitsu no Bara|Maiden Rose]]'' never do anything that crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]], being able to see their motives and redeeming qualities excuses them for quite a bit. We have yet to see more of the antagonists than that they're remorseless and wicked (and [[Evil Is Cool|cool]] and [[Evil Is Sexy|sexy]]).

* ''[[Gungrave]]'' is an excellent example of this, everyone (especially the heroes) are murderers, gangsters and criminals. Despite this, there are very few characters that aren't either innately likeable or worthy of great respect. [[Mafia Princess|Maria Asagi]] and her [[Morality Pet|young daughter Mika]] are probably the only characters who qualify for "white" status.

* ''[[300]]'', both the comic and film, have the [[Unreliable Narrator]] describing the Spartans as "the ultimate good guys"... who are just as [[Axe Crazy|insane]] and [[Blood Knight|bloodthirsty]] as their Persian enemies, who are only worse for being a gigantic army bent on destroying and enslaving everyone on their path.

 

* ''[[Thousand Shinji]]'' sees Shinji doing nasty things in defence of or as revenge for Wrongs done to his friends, but compared to what Gendo or the SEELE men have done he is much preferable. ''[[The Open Door]]'' mixes things up slightly more, as while New!Chaos are pretty damn dark grey by any objective standards, yet compared to canon!Chaos - or for that matter even the lightest grey of the canon!40k factions - they are practically saints. Of course, there are less grey factions around, and with the ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' <s>[[Fundamentally Female Cast|girls]]</s> people around there are also "white" factions.

* ''[[Exoria]]'' has the nation of Valent conducting a surprise invasion of both Hyrule and Gerudo. It is implied through the [[Fictional Document|Exoria Files]], however, that neither Hyrule nor Gerudo are exactly "white", though, and hints have been dropped insinauting that Valent may have a very good reason for launching a continent-wide invasion.

* The New Earth Government from ''[[Aeon Natum Engel]]'' and ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'' is much, much more ruthless than its ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'' counterpart, and the Migou have a very good reason for invading Earth.

 

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

** It is perhaps worth noting that there are a few very minor characters who seem to fill in the position of being truly good, although for one reason or another they often come off as [[Good Is Impotent]]. This is most notable with the Union prison commandant, who attempts to stop The Bad's torture of and stealing from the Confederate prisoners for no other reason than because those are truly horrific things to do. Unfortunately that commandant is effectively powerless within the prison camp, can barely walk due to a massive gangrene infection, and is slowly dying.

* ''Anything'' made by [[Quentin Tarantino]].

 

 

* ''[[Animorphs]]'' pitted six children against the Yeerk Empire, a expansionist and militaristic alien confederacy that occupies and enslaves Earth in secret. The main characters, all kids under the age of sixteen, are hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, and are pushed to using ever-more desperate and morally reprehensible tactics against an enemy that grows stronger no matter what they do. By the end of the series, the kids are just as ruthless as the people they fight.

* R. Scott Bakker's [[Second Apocalypse|Prince of Nothing]] trilogy exemplifies this trope. The most important character in the series, Anasurimbor Kellhus (there are several protagonists, but Kellhus is really the central character of the trilogy), is a ruthless, brilliant manipulator, part of an order of ascetics who have spent nearly two thousand years in isolation breeding and training for intellect, rationality, and the ability to "read" other people by their actions, mannerisms, and faces, thus "possessing" them and turning them to their will. Over the course of the trilogy, {{spoiler|he comes to be seen as a Prophet, and eventually dominates the entire Three Seas area that composes the main setting for the books (he also comes to believe that he really ''is'' a Prophet).}} That sounds pretty horrible, until you remember that the primary antagonists, the Consult, {{spoiler|are a cabal of human and non-human sorcerers and generals (including the Inchoroi, an alien race that fell into Earwa thousands of years before the books' story and who are defined by cruelty and an utter obsession with slaking their lust) seeking to resurrect a being that causes ''all'' children of races with souls - namely, humans - to be stillborn, so that they can drive the number of ensoulled beings in the world down below a certain number in order to prevent the certainty of their facing damnation and hell-fire upon their deaths.}} So Yeah.

** This also applies to Vlad's friends Aliera and Morrolan. Both are ruthless and quite selfish, but are nicer to humans/arguably less of a danger to Dragaera than their fellow nobles. Thus, in ''Dragon'', Vlad sarcastically notes the irony of calling Morrolan's army in which he is a member the "good guys", since all they are doing is trying to take some artifacts of doom/empathetic weapons so that a somewhat worse noble can't have them. Similarly, the plot of the upcoming novel, ''Iorich'' involves Vlad trying to defend Aliera after she is arrested on a charge of using illegal magic (the same type her father used and accidentally destroyed the old capitol and killed everyone there). This isn't because Aliera is innocent. Rather, it's because so many nobles break this law, that there must be a conspiracy at play for Aliera to be arrested for something she does in essentially plain sight.

* ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'', especially Robert E. Howard's original stories. The hero is a mercenary/pirate/bandit/professional thief albeit one with a code of honor. Most everyone else is worse.

{{quote|'''Sirius Black:''' The world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters.}}

* Martha Wells' ''Death of the Necromancer'' has [[Anti-Villain|Nicholas]] [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Valiarde,]] a coldblooded thief, murderer and all around [[Magnificent Bastard]]. Nic has spent years sabotaging his enemy on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]; at the start of the narrative, Nic's nearing the completion of his [[Xanatos Gambit|ultimate scheme]] when he and his subordinates run afoul of an unknown person using [[Black Magic]]. Somehow, this leads to the group spending the rest of the book fighting an insane mass murderer. And the reason they do it is at least partly because it's ''bad for business.''

* In Frederick Forsyth's ''[[The Day of the Jackal]]'', the OAS are far right terrorists. The eponymous [[Villain Protagonist]] is a consummate [[Professional Killer]]. However, the French Action Service are secret police-like, going to use [[Electric Torture]] on an OAS captive.

* In [[Andrew Vachss]]'s Burke books, Burke and his [[True Companions]] are mostly ex-cons who skirt or break the law frequently. They cross paths with pedophiles and other [[Complete Monster]]s from time to time.

* Near the end of ''[[Good Omens]]'', the forces of Heaven and Hell line up across the sky, and the narrator mentions that if you looked ''very'' closely, and had been specifically trained, you could tell the difference.

* ''[[Gone (novel)]]'' started out having [[Gray and Grey Morality]], but, by ''Plague'', has solidly veered into this. The heroes are still quite far from white, and the bad guys, after a year of enduring even worse [[Nightmare Fuel]] than the protagonists, are now growing increasingly [[The Sociopath|sociopathic]] and [[Kick the Morality Pet|kicking morality pets right and left.]]

* ''Sisterhood'' series by [[Fern Michaels]]: As the series goes on, the morality of the stories turns into this. The good guys are called the Vigilantes because they break the law in capturing a bad guy and inflicting a cruel and unusual punishment on hir. The good guys don't kill anybody, but since their punishments tend to be of the [[Fate Worse Than Death]] variety, that fact may not be very comforting. Also, the good guys have acted like big-time [[Jerkass]]es a number of times. That's okay, because the bad guys have virtually no redeeming qualities to speak of!

* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]],'' especially from book eight onwards.

 

* The Kaleds and Thals, as portrayed in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' serial ''Genesis of the Daleks''. They're even verging on black and black, given the Kaleds are [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]] and progenitors of the Daleks, and the barely less evil Thals are planning to wipe out the entire Kaled race with a "distronic" missile (strongly implied to be something like a nuclear weapon).

* [[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]. The antagonists of the show tend to be [[Designated Villain|DesignatedVillains]] in that their goals are not very evil at all, i.e. killing [[Villain Protagonist|Uther]]. Uther executes anyone related to magic at all, even if they just let a magic user sleep in their house for the night, having committed a "Great Purge" of magic users before the series even started. He even [[Moral Event Horizon|killed children born of magical parents in fear that they inherited magical blood]]. However, the main villains, {{spoiler|Morgana and Morgause}} do tend to be a bit extreme in their methods, but they are nothing compared to Uther. In fact, some times, they can be downright heroic, like when they {{spoiler|put the castle to sleep to assinate Uther without sacrificing any innocent lives}}.

** ''[[Firefly]]'' and ''[[Serenity]]'', the protagonists are thieves but usually non-violent except in self-defense; the main antagonist is a corrupt government that tortured an innocent little girl.

** ''[[Dollhouse]]''. The show is all about a business that brainwashes people to act like other people and service the needs and wants of the business' clients (sometimes sex, sometimes other things). Most (but not all) of the brainwashed people "volunteered" for it, so YMMV on wheather or not this is wrong. The business sometimes uses the technology and brainwashed people for clearly good things (rescuing kidnapped people, trying to help an abused child grow up into a healthy adult etc.) and sometimes for clearly bad things (theft, ruining an innocent man's reputation etc.) In any case, they are never as bad as their enemies, which include The Ghost (a child molester) and [[Create Your Own Villain|Alpha]] (a sadist who [[Knife Nut|carves up people's faces with a large knife]] [[For the Evulz]]).

** Listen to Castiel's speech to Dean about how every human is a work of art and thus all precious to God, and reconsider. When Uriel's disdain for humanity is answered by an icy cold "You're close to ''blasphemy''", you can't say that Good doesn't exist or that it doesn't care. It's just very ''outnumbered'' right now.

* ''[[Farscape]]'', by the end. The villains start a galaxy-wide war, so to fix it John Crichton decides to {{spoiler|''destroy the whole damn <s>galaxy</s> universe''.}} ''And he's not bluffing''. By the end of the series, the cumulative body count of the good guys is such that it probably counts as a natural disaster.

** Don't you think that Dutch counts as good as well? The only morally dubious thing he did was {{spoiler|strangle that cat}} and {{spoiler|plant evidence, but he even took that back}}.

* ''[[Dexter]]''. The eponymous character is a serial killer. But, he only kills other killers, most of whom are even worse than him. (Likewise in the novels, as well as the serial killer in Bradley Denton's book "Blackburn", which is similar to Dexter (but earlier: 1993).

* ''[[Oz]]'' has a few Complete Monsters among its prisoners, but even the most 'innocent' characters- Beecher, Cyril, Rebadow and Hill- are killers.

** Tom Fontana did not want any of the prisoners to be innocent of the crime they were put into prison for.

** The show has a few truly moral characters, like Father Mukada and Sister Peter Marie, and even some prisoners like Hamid Khan (put in jail for preventing a rape) and Father Meehan (in jail for hitting a cop in self defense during a protest), but they are very few and far between in a show with [[Loads and Loads of Characters]].

* ''[[Intelligence]]''. The nicest character on the whole show runs a multi-million-dollar drug smuggling racket.

 

== Mythology ==

* [[Classical Mythology]] rules this tropes. In contrast to the above, the gods aren't even contrasted with anything particularly terrible, they're just generally dicks who happen to be in charge (Zeus, fittingly, epitomised this, being a violent rapist and [[Magnificent Bastard]] but also powerful enough to defeat all the other gods combined). Well, some were alright - but you never hear about them, because the Greeks generally considered any story that doesn't involve both sides of the conflict being colossal jerks to be one not worth telling.

 

 

** On a general scale, you can't find any faction that is good by our standards, but some sub-factions and characters, like several [[Space Marine]] chapters, a few Imperial Guard regiments, the occasional Craftworld Eldar protagonist, [[Ravenor]] and [[Ciaphas Cain]] '''(HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!)''' or the Tau count as good. Unfortunately, they are far outnumbered by less moral groups, [[Bad Boss]]es, [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|people who go]] [[Knight Templar|too far]] for their cause, and the Dark Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids and the forces of Chaos.

* Most of the gamelines in [[Old World of Darkness|both]] [[New World of Darkness|incarnations]] of the World of Darkness present a system where the playable factions are some shade of Grey and are opposed by a faction who is Black. The majority of [[Vampire: The Requiem|vampires]] vs [[Exclusively Evil|Belial's Brood]], the Pentacle Orders vs the [[Ancient Conspiracy|Seers of the Throne]], the [[Changeling: The Lost|regular Changelings]] vs [[The Quisling|Loyalists]] to the [[The Fair Folk|True Fae]], and [[Artificial Human|Prometheans]] vs [[Body Horror|Pandorans and (most) Centimani]]. The exception would be the werewolves, with the main factions being the Tribes of the Moon vs the [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Pure]], who are both Gray. The Black faction in that gameline (the Bale Hounds, worshipers of [[Cosmic Horror|the Maeljin Incarna]]) mostly sit on the sidelines. They are also one of the only things the other two can agree on [[Enemy Mine|fighting against]].

** In ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'', the Peerage deliberately chose to be Grey because if you have a Genius go off on his own he'll often become [[Complete Monster|Illum]][[The Unfettered|inated]], and if the choice is between accepting jerks or have them wander off and turn into Mengele, you'd better get used to putting up with jerks. The Storyteller is advised to keep the players wondering whether the [[Ancient Conspiracy]] Lemuria is really that bad compared to the barely human nutbars in high-up positions in the Peerage. (The "black" role here is played not so much by modern Lemuria, which is just going through the motions, but by [[Empty Shell|Clockstoppers]], the Illuminated, and the occasional Hollow Earth Nazi or Phantom Slaver Yeti.)

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' is the KING of this trope. Your hero is either a [[Heroic Sociopath]] or an [[Unwitting Pawn]] with a habit of [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|screwing everything up]]. Your villain tends to be a corrupt [[Eldritch Abomination]] that would fit in well with H.P. Lovecraft's horrors and all of his minions. Even the Sarafan Brotherhood, a bunch of priests, were noted by Kain as being ignoble in the opening of Soul Reaver 2. The closest thing you get to something RELATIVELY good is [[Last of His Kind|Janos Audron]].

** To put that in context: Janos Auldron is the last of his kind because they began an unprovoked genocidal war at the command of their god, the aforementioned [[Eldritch Abomination]]. Since he was selected as the Reaver Guardian, made Vorador and the Hylden leader in [[Blood Omen 2]] knew him (or at least of him) back then, he was no lowly conscript; he was probably one of the religious officials giving the orders to commit atrocities. The Ancient version of Moebius: Janos still believes in that same god. Then there's the fact he clearly doesn't give a damn about Vorador's victims & those of other vampires (the Sarafan's motivation), and the fact that even though he believes that vampirism is an unholy damnation, he had no problem doing it to a human. And he ''still'' comes across as relatively saintly and his death makes Raziel go on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] because fanaticism and sociopathy are the norm in this universe and he's [[The Woobie]].

*** And let's not forget the Hylden. When you hear their story, you surely pity and root for them. Problem is, after so many eons trapped in the Demon Realm, they've become as genocidal and monstrous as the Ancient Vampires and Sarafans. They engineered Ariel's murder and the Corruption of the Pillars, and it's hinted they would have done it again and succeeded if Kain had sacrificed himself in the first game. In Blood Omen 2, they are revealed to have created a [[Doomsday Device|massive bio-organic superweapon]] [[The Final Solution|to kill every non-Hylden thing on Nosgoth]]. Plus, as {{spoiler|they are secretly controlling the Sarafans}}, their rule is quite the inquisitorial, fascist one.

* The protagonists of ''[[Grand Theft Auto III]]'' and ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City|Grand Theft Auto: Vice City]]'' can only be said to be heroes in the sense that they fight against people who are even worse than they are. CJ, from ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'', on the other hand, has a few genuinely heroic motivations (getting the drug dealers out of his neighborhood, avenging his mother's death, keeping his family and friends safe from harm), but he's still a murdering, thieving gangbanger {{spoiler|who blows up the Hoover Dam.}}

* Lampshaded in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' by Solid Snake saying ''"I'm no hero. Never was, never will be. I'm just an old killer hired to do some wetwork."'' The truth is, he's one of the [[Reluctant Warrior|least gung-ho heroes]]. Compared to him most action heroes are [[Blood Knight|reckless bastards]], but he actually feels guilty for all the mooks he killed and does not want other people to admire him for that.

* The Renegade playthrough of ''[[Mass Effect]]'' seems to take this light. While that's not to say there isn't a decent amount of [[Grey and Grey Morality|grey]] in the Paragon playthrough, Shepard and his/her crew are, for the most part, pretty clear-cut good guys. In the Renegade playthrough on the other hand, Shepard is portrayed as a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] [[The Unfettered|who will go to any lengths]] to stop Saren and, later, {{spoiler|Sovereign.}} Though this can be justified by Saren being a [[Complete Monster]], and {{spoiler|Sovereign being an [[Omnicidal Maniac]]}}.

* ''[[Gears of War]]'' starts off like this and falls prey to [[It Got Worse]]. The humans are not portrayed as the nicest guys to start off with, and while Myrrah, the Locust queen, claims at the end of the first game that that the humans have actually done something incredibly horrible in the past—something that, to the Locust, completely justifies their own war of extermination—the Locust kidnapping of humans expressly for torturing them, as revealed in the second game, gives them absolutely no moral high ground to condemn humanity with. Moreover the COG forces have been intentionally and explicitly designed as [[Putting on the Reich|Space Nazis]]. They even have their own medical concentration camps and they're perfectly willing to stunt the Locust advance by killing the vast majority of their own people with WMDs and preserve the human race by impregnating women against their will.

* During ''[[Modern Warfare]]'', members of your party regularly engage in torture, one murders an unarmed man tied to a chair, and another holds an ally over a ledge with the full intent to drop him. By the next game, your party gets even more ruthless, at one point (implicitly) interrogating someone with electricity. When playing as an American going undercover, {{spoiler|you're forced to gun down an entire airport full of civilians.}} {{spoiler|However, you were playing directly into the [[Big Bad]]'s hands with that one.}} By the end of the second act, {{spoiler|Capt. Price, your team leader, launches a nuclear warhead at the United States, nullifying all technology on the East Coast.}} And by the end of the game, {{spoiler|Soap, your character, and Price have become fugitives with only one intent in mind: kill the bastard who set them up, and fucked over world history in a big way.}} There is no question, however, that these men are infinitely more heroic than [[Chaotic Evil|the people]] [[Complete Monster|they fight]].

** [[The Empire|Caesar's Legion]] is a brutal but incredibly effective autocracy that brings true stability and security to its territories, but enforces slavery, views women as little more than breeding stock, traps its populace in [[Medieval Stasis]] and submits its enemies to horrific executions.

** The Brotherhood of Steel are [[Lawful Stupid]] [[Jerkass]] technology gatherers who are known to rob and kill people to get their technology.

** And then there's [[Player Character|you]], yes [[Courier|you]], who can chose to turn the Mojave Wasteland into a new Wild West; completely independent and free, but everyone has to look out for themselves with no one but the person standing beside them to rely on. You do this by essentially burning every other group to the ground and letting the flames sort it all out.

* ''[[Scarface the World Is Yours]]'' follows the original film in this. Sure, Tony is wiping out the gangs and the enemy gangsters all the way up to Sosa, who watchers of the film would have known was not a nice person, but he is still putting drugs on the streets of Miami.

* ''[[Darkstalkers]]'' can tend towards this. Even most of the "good guys" are morally questionable... but the villains are incredibly nasty embodiments of pure malevolence. Oh, and the sweet, innocent-looking little blonde girl resembling Little Red Riding Hood? She's one of the latter.

* ''[[BlazBlue]]'' features ''very'' few unambiguously good characters.

** On the side of the heroes, we have the aforementioned [[Anti-Hero|Ragna]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|the Bloodedge]], a ruthless [[One-Man Army]] who's on a quest to take down the NOL and all its personell, [[Complete Monster]]s and [[Punch Clock Villain]]s alike, by any means necessary. And not because of any greater, idealistic purposes, like peace or freedom, either, but simply because Hazama royally fucked up his life. Believe it or not, he's one of the ''less'' ambiguously [[Good Is Not Nice|heroic people in this game]]. Also on the supposed good side, we have Sector Seven, who are also opposed to the NOL, but only as far as '[[Somebody Else's Problem|We're not listening to you]]', and have [[Kick the Dog|kicked many dogs]] in whatever they do. Of particular note are the actions of Kokonoe, who is so crazed in her pursuit of revenge against Terumi, she is fully prepared to {{spoiler|[[Nuke'Em|nuke Kagutsuchi]]}} should her plan to use [[The Woobie|Lambda]] as a vehicle for her revenge go awry. Also helping Ragna is the vampire Rachel Alucard and her butler Valkenhayn R. Hellsing. She had the best intention, but not only she is a bit lazy to take actions (she's not allowed to, but lately, she got better), she's just very haughty and full of disdains, and seemingly no better than Terumi in making nearly everyone pawns for her speed chess with Terumi. Valkenhayn used to be one of the world-saving Heroes, but his utter loyalty to Rachel made him look like a [[Yes-Man]] to her. To note: They're not exactly united greatly.

** So, um, in that case how about [[Taking a Third Option]]? Maybe there's some unaligned people who CAN be accounted to be good. Well, first off there's the bounty hunter Carl Clover, who, deep down is a sweet boy, but thanks to Relius' (his father) atrocity, he has no qualms of murdering you while still acting polite if he wants any information from you. Hakumen is an unflappable [[Badass]] who is damn effective at leaving a trail of pain in his wake, and one of the few who can force ''Relius'' to bail from his mere presence... except he believes the only way to save the world from destruction is to mow down both Ragna and Terumi, and then go burn this world for he thinks it's been too corrupted and the only way is to restart the world anew, [[Knight Templar|and he is not open to alternatives whatsoever]]. Moving on from that, there's Litchi Faye-Ling. She's motherly, caring and compassionate and at least cares for the normal townspeople. But then, this is a case where her [[Love Martyr]]-ism is cruelly manipulated by Hazama to the point that she's right now siding the NOL to save her 'beloved' and herself. Said 'beloved'? Arakune, your resident [[Eldritch Abomination]] who'll eat you if he finds you tasty. And what of his human self that Litchi loved? Lotte Carmine, a glory-seeker, fame-hunting scientist who's just in Sector Seven for his own glory, not helped with his inferiority complex against Kokonoe. There's also Makoto, who is roughly Litchi's equal in terms of [[BlazBlue]] goodness. She's kind, friendly, caring and compassionate to pretty much everyone, but if you [[Berserk Button|make the mistake of threatening her friends]], she'll [[Beware the Nice Ones|hunt you down and]] [[Good Is Not Soft|pound you into hamburger]]. Also, [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]] is game for her, if it'll lead to that. So yeah, I think your only hope for straight morally-white characters in this game are [[Catgirl|Taokaka]] and [[Highly-Visible Ninja|Bang Shishigami]]. They both have good hearts and goals, and they're not quite broken yet... wait, they're the designated [[Joke Character]]s of the series? Well, [[Precision F-Strike|fuck]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Settings]]

[[Category:Morality Tropes]]

[[Category:Cynicism Tropes]]

[[Category:The Wild West]]