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Black and Gray Morality: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"'Let me give you some advice, Captain,' he said, 'It may help you to make sense of the world. I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.'"''
|'''Lord Vetinari'''
{{quote|''"When will you fools learn that there are no battles fought by heroes?"''
|'''Talpa'''
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.
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It's simple: leave the job half-done. Only the white gets removed, leaving behind a world where the choice is between mundane corruption and baby-eating supervillainy. This is the essence of '''Black and Gray Morality'''; the only choices are between kinda evil and soul-crushingly evil.
Obviously, the heroes of such settings tend to be [[Anti-Hero
A good litmus test for this trope is as follows:
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** 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.
* [[J. K. Rowling]] was very fond indeed of doing this with her characters in the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' series. [[Word of God]] says that there were concerted efforts made to remind the readers that Harry is a flawed person (see his ''[[
{{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.
* The various races in [[The Lord of the Rings]] could be this. Tolkien makes it pretty clear that any of the "good" races, even elves, are capable of evil. But you aren't likely to see a [[Exclusively Evil|goblin or ork turning good any time soon]].
* 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.
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* ''[[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!
* ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians
* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]],'' especially from book eight onwards.
* ''[[Hench]]'', by Natalie Zina Walschots, is set in a world of metahumans with Black and Gray Morality. On one side there are superhumans who are quite willing to permanently cripple or kill bystanders, use their powers to attack people who are simply defending themselves, or throw each other under a bus at the slightest hint of negative publicity. On the other side are the villains.
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** 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).
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'': The Cylons ''start out'' the conflict by killing fifty billion people in cold blood and nuclear fire after 40 years of refusing diplomatic overtures and do things like run reproductive experiments on female captives, but the Colonials are far from lily-white, particularly during the middle of the series. The vengeance-obsessed crew of one warship took civilian ships' parts for themselves and engaged in the rape of Cylons with the approval of their traumatised and maddened admiral, and resistance fighters engage in suicide bombing.
* ''[[Caprica]]'' is pretty much this. It plays with [[Gray and Grey Morality]] but the various players are a fundamentalist monotheistic terrorist group, a racist and corrupt gilded society, a ruthless crime syndicate "family," and a corporate CEO who's willing to enslave another race (albeit one he believes has no free will to begin with) in order to save his personal fortunes.
* Anything involving [[Complete Monster|Marlo Stanfield]] in ''[[The Wire]]'', which eventually results in two mostly good cops faking murders in order to bring him down.
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* ''[[Puppets Who Kill]]'': Everyone is a [[Jerkass]] to some degree and deserves the horrible things that will inevitably happen to them.
* ''[[Trailer Park Boys]]'': The [[Villain Protagonist|heroes]] are criminals, but the law is INSANE and the citizens are apathetic.
* ''[[Chuck]]'': The NSA
* ''[[Lawless Lawyer]]'': Bong Sang-pil is a lawyer brought up by his gangster uncle who uses extralegal methods in pursuit of those who murdered his mother and the powerful conspirators who ordered the hit.
* ''[[Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area]]'': On one side are hostage-taking criminals with various neuroses that nevertheless try not to kill anyone, not even the police shooting at them. On the other, while most of the police are good people doing their jobs, they are being ordered around by [[Sleazy Politician]]s who aren't afraid of collateral damage.
== Mythology ==
* [[Norse Mythology]] is fittingly this. The head god Odin
* Many world
* [[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.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
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* Today,{{when}} aftershocks of the Attitude Era can still be felt, albeit more in [[TNA]] than in WWE. Perhaps the best examples are "The Viper" [[Randy Orton]], an outright [[Heroic Sociopath]], and "Asshole" Mr. Anderson, basically a modern-day Stone Cold.
==
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' is nothing but this. Intentionally. It's saying something when the Tau Empire, who have a "join us or die" plan of galactic conquest, is considered a "good faction". Every time it looks like another race, usually the Tau or Eldar, is starting to look more sympathetic than the fascist (among other things) Imperium, they'll start pulling off new atrocities in the next edition. In most games, the scale starts at [[Knight in Shining Armour]] and ends up at [[Complete Monster]]. In 40K, about the ''best'' you can hope for is a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] or [[Knight Templar]] who won't kill you too painfully.
** 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.
* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]
▲* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy'' is almost as bad as [[Warhammer 40,000]]. The main "good" races are arrogant elves, isolationist elves, power-hungry humans, grim feudalistic humans, [[Mayincatec]] lizards who practice human sacrifice, and [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|dwarves that are all the same, only with fatalism and grudges against everyone under the sun]]. You get the occasional hero; you also get regular sociopaths. Fantasy does, however, have good people like [[Reasonable Authority Figure|Emperor Karl Franz]], [[The Wise Prince|Prince Tyrion]], [[The Atoner|Alith Anar]], and [[An Ice Person|Tsarina Katerin]], so it's not nearly as dark as 40k.
* 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.)
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** [[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.
** The [[Barbarian Tribe|Boomers]] are [[Proud Warrior Race
** 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.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:Morality Tropes]]
[[Category:Cynicism Tropes]]
[[Category:The Wild West]]
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