Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,601
edits
Black and Gray Morality: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (Mass update links) |
No edit summary |
||
| (33 intermediate revisions by 13 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{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'''|''[[Guards! Guards!]]''}}
{{quote|''"When will you fools learn that there are no battles fought by heroes?"''
|'''Talpa'''|''[[Ronin Warriors]]''}}
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.
Line 10 ⟶ 12:
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?
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:
Line 19 ⟶ 21:
# 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.
If so, you've got a classic case of
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.
Line 25 ⟶ 27:
Also compare [[Nominal Hero]], where a character on the side of good doesn't have any good intentions.
If there are
{{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.
* ''[[Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)|Ghost in the Shell]]'', following much the same vein as ''Akira''. The members of Section 9 rarely show any reservations about using theft, murder, blackmail, and invading peoples' cybernetic brains, all outside of legal regulations. But they are mostly good people at heart and often save lots of innocent people from harm, while the antagonists can be found at any point on the scale of blackness. It's more evident in the [[Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex|''Stand Alone Complex'']] verse, although ''Innocence'' also features Batou mercilessly shooting down what looks to be an entire group of Yakuza simply for getting in his way.
* ''[[Samurai Champloo]]'' to a certain degree. Or maybe it's just [[Heroic Sociopath|Mugen]].
** Jin. He was a ronin<ref>
*** Actually, who isn't either a righteous bastard or a tragic figure in that anime?
* Most UC ''[[Gundam]]'' series use this, wherein the heroes work for the lesser of two evils. For example, in the original ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', the heroes fight for [[The Federation]], which is run by greedy, elitist old men, while fighting [[The Empire|Zeon]], which is...well...[[A Nazi by Any Other Name|Nazi Germany]] [[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE]].
Line 39 ⟶ 40:
* The authors of ''[[Death Note]]'' have declared that L (who sacrifices the life of a (death row) convict to get some clues, and only takes on cases if they interest him) is a little evil and [[Villain Protagonist|Light]] (who kills thousands of criminals and a bunch of innocents [[Utopia Justifies the Means|in order to create a perfect world]]) is ''very'' evil. The cover of the first live action movie adaptation even has Light against a black backdrop and L against a gray one.
** Soichiro, his wife, and his daughter are described by the creators as being the only totally good characters. The other task force members seem decent as well, even if Matsuda runs into some [[Not So Different]] issues.
* ''[[Hellsing]]'', where the protagonists include a viciously [[Heroic Sociopath|sociopathic]] super-vampire and the master who has to sanction his actions. On the other side you have [[Knight Templar]] [[Church Militant
* ''[[Baccano!]]'', just about every character is criminal of some sort, ranging from petty thief/delinquent to Mafia assassin. The protagonists just happen to be nicer about it, usually with ''some'' sort of moral code.
** Even Isaac and Miria, who are the most innocent and purehearted ones of the lot, are robbers wanted by the FBI.
* Many of the Shinigami from ''[[Bleach]]'' are [[Good Is Not Nice|not terribly nice people]], and they have done some not terribly nice things, including the employment of psychotic killers and have looked the other way on at least one instance of genocide. So how are these people ([[Conspiracy Redemption|eventually]]) on the same side as the heroes? Because they do it in order to keep the world from ending, and because the other team wants to ''eat your soul''.
** {{spoiler|Tosen, on the other hand, got fed up and left, believing Aizen to be an anti-villain who would implement a place better than the "worst heaven ever" that currently exists.}}
Line 47 ⟶ 48:
*** 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.
▲* ''[[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.
* ''[[Slayers]]''. [[Chaotic Neutral|Lina]] thinks mostly in terms of how things can benefit her, and if that means the loss a few lives or a couple of villages wiped off the map, so be it. The others are mostly better about this – Amelia seems to make a conscious effort to think of Lina as being on the side of “justice,” Zelgadis forces himself to live with it, Gourry for the most part couldn't care less, Xellos is evil anyway, and the various other part-time members of the party tend to be against it or ignore it. The villains, on the other hand, are generally out to destroy the world.
** 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}}.
* ''[[D.Gray-man
* 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.
* Pretty much everyone is [[Ax Crazy]] in ''[[Deadman Wonderland]]''. Whether you're in the 'black' or the 'grey' bit is basically determined by whether you torture anyone. Or take away anesthetic. That's pretty much it. If you give someone painkillers, you're a good guy.
* ''Equation Of The Immortal'' has a [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|kunoichi]] fighting against a [[Drugs Are Bad|drug-using]] cult with a literal [[Deal with the Devil]]. The fact that she's a ninja is ''not'' the bad thing (she only uses said lethal ninja skills on [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|demons,]]) its her actual [[Out with a Bang|power]] and willingness/need to use it on any random guy that comes her way that puts her in the gray area.
* The main conflict of ''[[Code Geass]]'', a battle between a [[Social Darwinist]] regime and a tortured young revolutionary fighting for a more peaceful world yet is willing to resort to any necessary means, is very much this initially.
* ''[[Black Lagoon]]''. This show is basically a see-saw battle between [[Noble Demon|evil and selfish]] mercenaries and insanely evil people like [[Creepy Twins|Hansel and Gretel]] who LOVE to kill. While the Lagoon Company kills mostly really bad guys like Nazis, the worst people in this anime are so bloodthirsty they make Revy and Roberta look like Mother Theresa.
** Though Hansel and Gretel are ''so'' broken from early childhood that they likely lack enough moral agency [[Character Alignment|to even be considered "evil"]].
* In ''[[Highschool of the Dead]]'', a couple of the protagonists have already crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]] in their own respective personal opinions, and it's stated by the protagonists at several points that they're all already prepared to cross a moral point of no return in the event that it's the only way to kill the zombies.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Lucifer (
** Dream himself could probably count. At the start of the series, he's self-important, petty and vindictive; 10,000 years before, he sentenced a woman to Hell because she didn't love him any more. Yet we side with him because a) he does undergo [[Character Development]] as the series progresses, and b) he's not [[Complete Monster|John Dee/Doctor Destiny]].
* [[Dark Age]] comics in general.
* Generally a [[Signature Style]] of [[Frank Miller]], especially in ''[[Sin City]]''. All his heroes are fascists, sociopaths or both, but the villains they face are [[Complete Monster|even worse]].
** A special shout-out goes to his interpretation of [[Batman]], which [http://www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbox7/ draws some much-deserved mockery] for making the Dark Knight an absolute psychopath, and celebrating those tendencies.
* Likewise, Garth Ennis' bad guys are usually the epitome of pure psychotic evil, but morally speaking his good guys often aren't anything to write home about either, as they generally tend to be a bunch of murderous sociopaths themselves. His intense dislike of and tendency to savagely parody or mock [[The Cape (trope)|any]] [[The Cape (trope)|generally 'noble' or 'heroic' superhero or otherwise heroic character]] (although he does make some exceptions) doesn't help matters much.
** Unless he's writing [[Superman]].
** In fact, most modern comic writers fall into this category. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, and Alan Moore just to name a few, often have morally ambigious protagonists.
* ''[[The Authority]]''
* In ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', the only real options are suffer under horrible fascists that are the only surviving piece of civilization, or rebel with a vicious killer for freedom before the collapse causes the apocalypse. The film made the rebel option better as there was never a nuclear holocaust (though a terrible pandemic substituted nicely and reduced the United States to a "leper colony"), so though V is still pretty crazy, he does have an ultimately admirable goal, and thus "less gray".
** There's some hope in the comic too, but in a rather absolutist
** Indeed, it is quite common for films to increase the contrast setting on morality. One reason may be that the goal of literature is more often to provoke reflection, while a film is intended to inspire. A full success on that score: V's comic book identity would have fit more among the cast of ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'', but if the film showed him that way, he would never have become a cultural icon of popular movements.
** Also note in the film, the populace's will hasn't been thoroughly crushed under the fascist regime. They are still able to rise up against their leadership with proper inspiration.
Line 83 ⟶ 82:
* The usual state of being in ''[[Fallen Angel (comics)|Fallen Angel]]'s''. On the "black" side is The Hierarchy, the people and demons who run the city of Bete Noire, where the book takes place. The "gray" comes from Liandra, a cynical, consistently tipsy fallen angel who serves as a court of last resort, and is willing to do anything, including torture, in order to fulfill her missions. Among her sometimes-allies are the city's major drug dealer, the snake from the Garden of Eden, and a man who may or may not be Hitler.
* A very large portion of ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' stories fall into this. Dredd is a straight-up fascist protagonist, after all.
* ''[[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>[[
▲== [[Fanfic]] ==
▲* ''[[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>[[Improbably-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 ''[[
* ''[[Christian Humber Reloaded]]'' has this, although which side is black and which is gray depends on whether you're willing to accept the author's perspective that [[Heroic Sociopath|Vash]] is supposed to be a hero. One way of seeing it is that Vash is a highly ruthless yet effective [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type V]] [[Anti-Hero]] who fights against villains who are arguably more consistently malicious, despite killing many innocent people himself. [[Alternative Character Interpretation|Alternatively]], Vash is the [[Villain Protagonist]], and his [[Designated Villain|enemies]] are less of a threat than he is, if only because the story [[Offstage Villainy|doesn' touch on their evil deeds]].
* ''[[Embers]]'' has [[Lawful Neutral|Zuko]], who admits he's 'no good at being good,' even in the original series {{spoiler|and is willing to hang Aang out to dry, not to mention that he isn't going to even try to prevent a genocide of his own people because even he admits that they basically deserve it}}. Then there's [[The Hero|Aang]], who is well-intentioned but does a lot of stuff that should have killed him and his friends in the series: [[Hanlon's Razor]] is true because ignorance can do just as much damage, or more, as malice. The closest thing to an unambiguously good guy may be Kuei, who still {{spoiler|ordered the Dai Li to set fires in civilian homes, traps in streets and so on as part of the Ba Sing Se resistance}} because this is war and he's the Earth King. In contrast to them, there's [[Mind Rape|Azula]], who deserves her own content warning, but still has nothing on the [[Big Bad]] and his allies, whose plans constitute a {{spoiler|[[Zombie Apocalypse]]}} and horribly painful deaths in the works for anyone unlucky enough to survive the various genocidal wars they've stirred up over the millennia.
* The Council vs. Ronan in ''[[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]]''. The latter is a [[Jerk Sue]] who hurts anyone who even looks at him wrong and outlaws everything he doesn't like. The former kills crowds of people in frustration over losing a [[Cooking Duel]], {{spoiler|after taking over Konoha, outlaws everything that Ronan favored, and is willing to destroy the entire world}}.
Line 100 ⟶ 98:
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[The Good, the Bad
** 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]].
** Greatest example being ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]''. One of the "good" guys is Bridget Von Hammersmark, a double agent working for the [[World War Two|Allies]] who kills an unarmed and highly sympathetic German soldier in cold blood to stop her cover being blown ( {{spoiler|unfortunately it is anyway because she forgot [[Too Dumb to Live|she left an autographed napkin at the scene of the crime]]}}). Note that of the major characters in the film she has the ''least'' controversial blood on her hands. You know your film has a morally gray cast when a Jew-murdering Nazi and a Jew who beats Nazis to death with a baseball bat while quoting baseball celebrities are the [[Ensemble Darkhorse
* ''[[Killing Zoe]]'' takes place in a world best described as [[Quentin Tarantino|Tarantino]] meets [[Bret Easton Ellis]]. From the co-writer of [[Pulp Fiction]] and director of [[The Rules of Attraction]].
* Any film based on [[The Mafia]], by necessity (this is the Mafia we're talking about, after all). This includes ''[[The Godfather]]'' series, ''[[Goodfellas]]'', ''[[The Departed]]'', etc.
** Under the same lines is the film ''[[City of God]]''.
* ''Anything'' made by [[Martin Scorsese]] when it involves the Mafia, the [[The Departed|Irish Mafia]], or any criminal element whatsoever.
* ''[[The Proposition]]''
* ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]''
* The ''heisei'' era of ''[[Godzilla]]'' films occasionally border on this. Godzilla is, once more, a bad dude, but he's all that defends us from creatures like King Ghidorah, Space Godzilla, and [[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah|Destoroyah]], who are downright diabolical. Meanwhile, the minds in control of Mechagodzilla are extremely iffy, and Battra, Biollante, and Rodan are very very insane. Mothra is nice enough, but promptly [[Heroic Sacrifice|dies to save us all]].
** Mothra didn't die in the Heisei series. It was in the Rebirth of Mothra series that she did the heroic sacrifice, which was part of a different continuity.
Line 118 ⟶ 116:
* The [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] movies ''[[Casino Royale]]'' and ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' explore this, with Mathis even giving a short speech about heroes and villains being indistinguishable in far too many cases, and many bits of the latter shed light on the extents to which governments and agencies have to go to in order to ensure their continued survival. Still, [[Big Bad|Le Chiffre]], [[Diabolical Mastermind|Greene]] and [[Nebulous Evil Organisation|Quantum]] are all evil, no doubt about it.
* [[Anti-Hero|John Constantine]], of the [[Constantine|eponymous film]] (and the [[Hellblazer|comic]] that inspired it), is a foul-mouthed, [[Driven to Suicide|suicidal]] [[Bad Dreams|sonuvabitch]]. And he's one of the good guys. {{spoiler|Not that [[Fallen Angel|Gabriel]] was [[Holier Than Thou|much better]].}}
* ''[[District 9]]''. You know it's bad when the "hero" of the film is a barely competent, racist, and selfish [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]]. The one white spot in the film is the alien Christopher, if [http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/ his blog] is anything to go by. You have to hand it to a guy who's been horribly oppressed by us for twenty years, yet ''still'' has some [https://web.archive.org/web/20110320101439/http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=383 faith] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110320101446/http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=390 in] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110320102051/http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=401 humanity]
** No, ''District 9'' is an example of [[Heel Face Turn]] (aka, redemption of the sinner), not of grey morality. It was quite clear that the character was unsympathetic at the beginning; he changed.
** But everyone Wikus is up against once he's forced to take refuge with the Prawns ([[Mega Corp|MNU]] - from which he left - and the Nigerian drugdealers) is worse.
Line 126 ⟶ 124:
* ''[[The Mechanic]]'' is a good example with its [[Knight in Sour Armor]] existentialist assassins as protagonists, and the ones who they kill.
* ''[[In the Loop]]'' is ostensibly about the backroom sausage-making behind a war in <s>Iraq</s> an unnamed Middle Eastern country, though the real focus is on [[Cluster F-Bomb|epic]] [[Country Matters|language]]. Proponents of the war are depicted as clueless, cavalier bureaucrats with zero appreciation of the consequences of what they are doing. Meanwhile the opponents are shameless weasels mostly interested in milking it for political favors.
* Most Guy Ritchie crime films, especially as even the main characters/protagonists tend to also be crooks, usually matched up against other, worse ones. Not counting the mandatory [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
** ''[[Snatch]]''. The most sympathetic characters are Turkish, Tommy, and the [[Irish Traveller]] clan. Turkish and Tommy are shady characters in the London underworld who run unlicensed boxing matches, gambling houses, etc. Turkish in particular is a rather cutting [[Deadpan Snarker]]. The Travellers participate in the sale of fake gold and jewels, rip off their business partners in transactions, then intimidate them with force, and at one point consider killing Tommy over a misunderstanding. The least sympathetic character is [[London Gangster|Brick Top]], who [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|routinely kills off his mooks]], brutalizes dogs and puts them into lethal dogfights, kills people and feeds them to pigs to dispose of the bodies, sets fire to the caravan of one of the gypsies, (burning her alive) and threatens to wipe out the rest of the clan if they don't cooperate with him.
** ''[[
** ''[[Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels]]''. The main characters are a group of street hustlers, con men, and gamblers. There are two groups of least sympathetic characters: the underworld bosses that cheat them in a card game, and whose entire purpose for this is to get the father of the character that they cheated to sell his pub so they can buy it cheap, and a group of brutal crooks who steal from, torment, and shoot the pot head marijuana growers who trust them.
* ''[[The Elite Squad]]'' has BOPE, a special forces team which employs cruelty in both [[Training
* ''[[The Element of Crime]]''. A more than questionable [[Anti-Hero]] pursuing a [[Serial Killer|child killer]], (un)assisted by [[Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop|the worst police force ever]] in the [[Crapsack World|crumbling ruins of dirt poor]] [[Wretched Hive|and morally corrupt]] [[After the End|post World War II Germany]]? If this isn't it, then…
* The [[Villain Protagonist
* ''[[Léon: The Professional]]''. It's a hitman who relucts about giving shelter to a girl (who is not ''that'' pure either'') versus a drugged and corrupt policeman willing to kill anyone.
* A staple of [[Film Noir]].
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' is a clear example of [[Black and White Morality]], but ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' alludes to Black and Gray
Line 143 ⟶ 141:
==
* ''[[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.
Line 150 ⟶ 148:
* Many writings of [[Robert Sheckley]].
* No trope describes ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' better than this one.
* ''[[Trainspotting]]''
** And it's even more complicated than that. The book talks about how people who are going to be drug addicted are better before taking any drug: for instance, everyone says that the drug dealer was a nice man before taking heroin. It's more something like "white and gray morality".
* Joe Abercrombie's ''[[The First Law]]'' series is based on this principle, pushed to the point where you wonder at the end whether the protagonists were really the least evil, or if, perhaps, they weren't actually even worse than their antagonist.
* ''[[Discworld]]'''s Vetinari sees the world in these terms, although the books themselves have genuinely good people.
** It's worth noting that after giving the page quote, Vetinari talks for about a page and a half about just how ''much'' [[Humans Are
** Also worth noting that Vetinari rules his own city, which is the most efficient city on the Discworld and has people flocking to live there. Whether he's right or not, it ''works''.
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. Being a deconstruction of typical [[High Fantasy]], there are no snow white heroes (with life expectancies longer than mayflies), only bad people fighting flawed people. Would be [[Grey and Gray Morality]], except the Lannisters and loads and loads of people are real assholes or [[Complete Monster
* ''[[wikipedia:When Heaven Fell|When Heaven Fell]]'', by William Barton. The protagonist—a mercenary working for the [[Starfish Aliens|conquering extraterrestrial overlords]]—is [[Anti-Hero|not a nice guy]] by any means; nor are most of the people around him. However, they're ''sweethearts'' compared to what the alien overlords are fighting against...
* Played with and subverted in [[Glen Cook]]'s ''[[The Chronicles of the Black Company]]''. The soldiers work for an obvious [[Big Bad]], and the rebels on the side of good turn out to be nasty little bastards. But every time it looks like the story's going down a familiar route, it ends up going somewhere ''even more interesting''. In the end, the first book (''The Black Company'') ends up looking like a neutrally-portrayed reality while standard fantasy epics look like the propaganda put out after light's victory, and it gets more interesting from there.
Line 164 ⟶ 162:
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' often works in this area. On more than one occasion there was no "good" solution so Harry often has to make do with what he can. An example in ''White Night'' occurs when Harry offers criminal [[Anti-Villain]] Marcone even more power to both get his aid and offer Chicago more protection against the supernatural.
** It's also [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''Turn Coat'', when Harry dubs the clandestine group designed to combat the equally clandestine Black Council the "Gray Council." Oddly enough, they're probably ''less'' morally ambiguous than the stagnant, zealous, overly traditionalist leadership of the White Council.
* Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's much-maligned ''[[Dune]]'' prequels actually do a fairly decent job portraying the free humans in terms of Grey morality. The Machines and their cyborg servants on the other hand are pretty much [[Card-Carrying Villain|Card Carrying Villains]]. Although some are treated with some sympathy (especially in the last two books where the authors get better at making some of them like Erasmus actual three-dimensional characters), they're basically a bunch of bloodthirsty enslaving bastards who perform Mengele-style medical experiments on humans, get thrills from torturing them, force them to slave away like the Jews in ''[[The Ten Commandments]]'' apparently [[For the Evulz|just because it strokes off their egos]] (little else makes sense, given that they can build sapient robots and contented humans would be less likely to rebel), and respond to any defiance with horrific atrocities. It's especially grating because superhuman machine intellects that run on cold logic should logically be [[Magnificent Bastard
** The original ''[[Dune]]'' itself is very black-and-gray too. The vast majority of the protagonists, including Paul, are not nice people and in many cases not good people either. And then there's [[A God Am I|Leto]] in the sequels...
* [[Dragaera|Vladimir Taltos]] is pretty much a low-level mafia boss, with all the unpleasantness that implies. However, he tries to be benevolent to his underlings and the inhabitants of the area he runs, and his antagonists are usually those causing or planning something that will cause widespread suffering. After leaving the Jhereg, while he tries to help the downtrodden, he does so through [[Anti-Hero|rather brutal methods]].
** 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|
* 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 [[
* 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
* 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.
* Common in the works of [[China Mieville]]. [[Kraken (novel)|Kraken]], for instance, has a Lovecraftian doomsday cult as one of the ''nicer'' factions.
* By the final book, ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' devolves into this. On one hand you have the Capitol, who among oppressing the majority of their citizens in day-to-day life, force children to kill each other on television each year. On the other hand, the {{spoiler|District 13}} rebels are shown to be inclined to using drastic measures to attain "freedom", and by the end of the novel their leader is shown to be completely corrupt.
* Tadeusz Borowski's Holocaust stories feature the occasional good character, but they don't tend to live long in the atmosphere of the camps. The characters who do survive (at least for a while) are those who're willing to steal from others, to betray each other to the guards, to help in the execution of the Jewish inmates, and even to eat the corpses of their fellow prisoners so as to avoid starvation.
* ''[[Best Served Cold (novel)|Best Served Cold]]''. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Way to go, Monza.]] {{spoiler|[[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|You too, Orzo.]]}}
* ''[[The Acts of Caine]]'' qualifies for this trope, if only due to what the protagonist [[Heroic Sociopath|must]] [[The Unfettered|become]] to stop the antagonists, and how badly the "pure" heroes like Deliann and Pallas Ril manage to [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|fuck things up]].
* The Tribulation Force versus the Global Community (and also God versus Satan) in the ''[[Left Behind]]'' books. Thing is, it's hard to determine which side is black and which side is grey.
* ''[[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
* ''[[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.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* 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}}.
* ''[[Mad Men]]''. Due to the nature of the times, the men more so than the women. Most men tend to be lying cheating assholes, and the women either act this way too or they are ''screwed''.
* The work of [[Joss Whedon]]
** Both ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy]]'' and ''Angel'' are somewhere between this trope and [[Black and White Morality]] in the sense that while the protagonists usually do the right thing when it's clear what the right thing is and their enemies clearly don't care about doing what's right, the protagonists also have some [[What the Hell, Hero?]] moments and are sometimes thrown into morally gray situations where even they don't agree with each other as to what's the right thing to do.
*** In particular, ''[[Angel]]'' wallows in Black and Grey Morality for its final two seasons. In the fourth season, the characters initially oppose what they perceive to be a [[Cosmic Horror]] intent on bringing about [[The End of the World as We Know It]]; later, it turns out to be a goddess (Jasmine) who would have ended all war, hunger and disease. Admittedly, she did eat people, and paradise would have come [[Knight Templar|at the price of free will]], but the heroes are somewhat in doubt they did the right thing after the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart ends up thanking them. In the fifth season they are actually running Wolfram and Hart; this comes with a lot of questioning whether or not they are doing more harm than good.
*** Also in ''[[Angel]]'', Wesley, who has done some questionable things, is taunted by Lilah during his search for redemption.
{{quote|
'''Lilah:''' Funny thing about black and white: you mix it together and you get grey. And it doesn't matter how much white you try and put back in, you're never gonna get anything but grey. }}
** In the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episodes "This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You?"
** ''[[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]]).
* As ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' is becoming more and more of a [[Crapsack World]] lately,{{when}} it's only right that they should start to wallow in this too. Dean and John's [[Deal with the Devil|deals with the devil]] are seen more as selfish suicides than [[Heroic Sacrifice
** 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.
Line 207 ⟶ 205:
* ''[[The Thick of It]]'' and its film ''[[In the Loop]]'' both have this view on the morality of humanity and the political workplace. Here, ''no'' character is without his or her flaws, and are all varying degrees of moronic, cowardly, backstabbing, manipulative, or just generally unpleasant bastards in general, all more concerned with keeping their jobs than with doing the right thing.
* ''[[Profit]]'': However, the [[Villain Protagonist|protagonist]], Jim Profit, might be the character with the blackest take on morality.
* The old British Sci-fi show ''[[Blake's
* The British miniseries ''[[Ultraviolet]]''. On one side is a cabal of vampires who plot to enslave humanity in order to save us from ourselves (thus eradicating their food supply). On the other is a shadowy government organization that answers to no one and follows a very end-justifies-the-means kind of program.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' has most of the many characters with some sort of fatal flaw, but none of them fit this trope more than Bob Bishop. He is introduced at the start of season 2 as a reasonable man, directing a previously villainous company, and trying to steer the way forward to a brighter future for everyone. Although there are subtle hints as to his true motives, he appears to listen to Mohinders advice over the [[Depopulation Bomb|shanti virus]]. However in episode 9 it's revealed that Mohinder and viewers alike [[Horrible Judge of Character|were a little wrong]]. It's made clear he [[Professor Guinea Pig|experimented on his daughter]] leaving her as a [[Psycho Electro|psychopath]]. From then on, none of the characters [[Manipulative Bastard|trust him]].
** In the graphic novels we also find out he's a torturer and murderer. He was also directly involved in the plot to blow up New York city and apparently worked alongside Linderman during this time. He also was the one who had Candice save Sylar from Kirby Plaza
* ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]''. The title biker gang is mostly composed of [[Heroic Sociopath
* ''[[The Shield]]'', big time. Apart from, at the most, one character (Claudette), everyone in the show is either outright villainous or at least very shady. This includes the apparent "good guys". In fact, the most corrupt and immoral of the supposed "good guys" (as in the police) are the four man Strike Team, whom the protagonist leads and the show revolves around.
** 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
* Anything involving [[Complete Monster|Marlo Stanfield]] in ''[[The Wire]]'', which eventually results
▲* ''[[Caprica]]'' is pretty much this. It plays with [[Gray and Grey Morality]] but so far 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 (albiet 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 into two mostly good cops faking murders in order to bring him down.
* ''[[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.
* ''[[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]] ==
* Historically rare in the annals of sports-entertainment (except for some [[Values Dissonance]], such as "all-American" wrestlers [[In the Back|attacking communist Russian wrestlers from behind]] and [[Draco in Leather Pants|getting cheered for it]]) until the "Attitude Era," which occurred roughly between 1995 and 2000. The trend was arguably kicked off by [[Shawn Michaels]], who despite being a weaselly, self-centered, preening [[Jerkass]], was so funny and charming as the leader of the D-Generation X faction that fans cheered for him anyway; it certainly helped that his greatest nemesis, the Canadian [[Bret Hart]], was playing an [[Evil Foreigner]] at this time. But the [[Trope Codifier]] for the ages was undoubtedly [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]], the very epitome of the [[Cool People Rebel Against Authority|rebel-as-people's-hero]]. Though Austin never truly reformed his bullying, obnoxious ways from when he was a heel, his courage and charisma won the respect of [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] fans far and wide.▼
* 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
▲* Historically rare in the annals of sports-entertainment (except for some [[Values Dissonance]], such as "all-American" wrestlers [[In the Back|attacking communist Russian wrestlers from behind]] and [[Draco in Leather Pants|getting cheered for it]]) until the "Attitude Era," which occurred roughly between 1995 and 2000. The trend was arguably kicked off by [[Shawn Michaels]], who despite being a weaselly, self-centered, preening [[Jerkass]], was so funny and charming as the leader of the D-Generation X faction that fans cheered for him anyway; it certainly helped that his greatest nemesis, the Canadian [[Bret Hart]], was playing an [[Evil Foreigner]] at this time. But the [[Trope Codifier]] for the ages was undoubtedly [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]], the very epitome of the [[Cool People Rebel Against Authority|rebel-as-people's-hero]]. Though Austin never truly reformed his bullying, obnoxious ways from when he was a heel, his courage and charisma won the respect of [[WWE]] fans far and wide.
** 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
▲* Today, 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
* 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 [[
▲* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' is nothing but this. Intentionally. 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|Bad Bosses]], [[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'' is almost as bad as [[Warhammer 40000]]. 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 [[Always Chaotic 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.)
* In ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]],'' the heroes are insane and the villains are even more insane.
* Morality is a very minor point in [[Shadowrun]]. Generally characters don't question whether it is right to take a job, they question [[Kleptomaniac Hero|how much they get paid]]. Though some groups [[Even Evil Has Standards|draw the line at assassination]].
* Though there ''are'' heroes in ''[[Eberron]]'', they are few and far between. In the core Eberron setting book, there's only 1 high-level Good NPC, and she is a young girl who only has such power while in the same city as the Silver Flame (a metaphysical source of elemental good) itself. And that person is responsible for trying to make sure her church full of Knight Templars doesn't cause too much death and destruction.
* ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'': A crossover between [[Cosmic Horror Story|H.P. Lovecraft]] and ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' was bound to be pretty hard on
** Basically, the main factions are a police state, a number of secret societies (the Eldritch Society, the Children of Chaos, the Esoteric Order of Dagon), and the Rapine Storm (who are [[Complete Monster|significantly more evil than they sound]]).
* The ''Necessary Evil'' setting for the [[Savage Worlds]] game-line starts out with all the superheroes of the world getting killed by a precision strike by invading aliens. The only ones left to oppose them (the PCs and their allies) are the supervillains.
* ''[[Winterweir]]'' is an Anti-Traditional Fantasy RPG in many respects. As such, the Trow and humans killing each other are more likely to be decent people suffering [[Fantastic Racism]] than not.
* ''[[BattleTech]]'' does this a lot as well. The state usually tagged as the good guy, House Davion, was led for years by the [[Magnificent Bastard]] to end all [[Magnificent Bastard
** Granted, the 'one man' he wanted revenge on was the leader of ''another'' Successor State, who very nearly managed to actually replace Hanse with a brainwashed doppelganger who'd have acted as his willing puppet. All events laid out in the (very early and thus possibly now somewhat obscure) ''[[BattleTech]]'' novel ''The Sword and the Dagger''. Wars ''have'' historically been fought for less...
** Or ComStar, who are shown to be a manipulative and secretive organization, that can easily bring a state to its knees just by shutting off all communications between planets, and which is not above intriguing to keep its own interests
* The ''[[Dungeons
** So does ''[[Dark Sun]]''. A [[Death World]] reduced to a scorched, mostly lifeless desert of rocks and dust (the ocean has been renamed the Sea of Silt... [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|take a wild guess why they call it that]]), where there isn't one creature (or plant) that isn't dangerous in some way (a sandcrawler looks like an adorable, fluffy, foot-long black furry caterpillar... it uses its cutesy appearance to get close to people, waits until the poor fool falls asleep, then implants its parasitic larvae in their flesh), one of the facts emphasized is that people will do terrible things merely to survive. That this is a [[Justified Trope]] for the setting goes some way towards explaining why it's a [[Crapsack World]].
** [[Forgotten Realms|The city of Neverwinter]], which has its own campaign book as of 4th Edition. Sure, you have the standard [[Obviously Evil]] factions such as the [[Eldritch Abomination|Abolethic Sovereignty]], [[The Necrocracy|Thay]], the [[Religion of Evil|Ashmadai]], and a [[Our Werebeasts Are Different|criminal empire of wererats]], but even the "good" factions don't come off particularly well. [[The Usurper|Lord Dagult Neverember]] is unquestionably helping the city recover after being ravaged by an erupting volcano, but he's a bit of a sleazeball and his reasons for devoting resources and money to the city aren't entirely altruistic. And [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters|the Sons of Alagondar]], while certainly well-intentioned in their desire to see Neverwinter back in the hands of its people, are willing to murder, riot and hop into bed with the Dead Rats and Thay in order to see their goals achieved.
** ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' as a whole runs on this beneath the surface, [[Word of God|at least according to Ed Greenwood]]. [http://www.candlekeep.com/fr_faq.htm#_Toc16090539 See here.]
* ''[[Exalted]]'', because they wanted any kind of Exalt to be an acceptable player character. Let's see: the Solars used to be the mind-raping fascist overlords of the First Age and were fond of creating and later destroying entire races, the Lunars tend towards the [[Social Darwinist]] end of the scale, the Dragon-Bloods are ruthlessly militaristic tyrants, the Sidereals are [[Manipulative Bastard
** There is a slight distinction in between the Exalted splats that are the Grey when they play ''to'' type, and the ones that are the Grey when they play ''against'' type. For example, while its entirely possible to have an antiheroic Abyssal or Infernal, the default Abyssal is a loyal servant of the Neverborn seeking to bring Oblivion to all that is, and the factory standard Infernal ([[Depending on the Writer]]) is a loyal servant of the Yozis seeking to free their hellish masters plunge Creation into an eternity of ultimate pain. It's the ''rebels'' of those two splats that are the grey.
* Typical for ''[[Kult]]'', except when it's worse.
Line 271 ⟶ 267:
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[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]].
*** It should be noted that neither Janos nor Moebius realized that the Elder God was just a hungry Eldritch Abomination. He even manages to fool Kain once. The Elder God is [[The Omniscient]] [[Magnificent Bastard]], and pretty much made everyone his [[Unwitting Pawn
*** 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 ''[[
** CJ {{spoiler|murders the entire staff of a construction site and buries the foreman alive}} because someone whistled at his sister. And in an earlier mission, he breaks into a mansion and injures a rap star and all of his bodyguards, kidnapped the star's manager and trapped him in a car and ran it into the sea, all so his friend (who he doesn't even like) can steal his music or something. He's pretty vile.
* The ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]'' series, although really it's more of a Black and Even More Black Morality. The Greeks had a [[Badass|somewhat different definition]] of "hero" than we do.
* If you ever play ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'' past the first chapter, then you'll see this trope in spades: everyone (including yourself, possibly) commits truly horrific atrocities, yet your home team still somehow ends up gray...
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate 2]]'', only two options are open to the player concerning allies who can help locate your kidnapped childhood friend: One option is to side with a guild of thieves. The other is to side with a guild of vampires. Vampire thieves. And just in case you were wondering: No, these are ''not'' thieves with a heart of gold. Inside their guild-hall you'll witness [[Training
* The ''Tiberium'' series of ''[[Command
** ''[[Command
* In ''Stars!'', ''[[Master of Orion]]'', and many other 4X-style empire building games (whether space, sea, or land), it's generally assumed your race will kill millions of colonists belonging to other races. These are generally portrayed as innocent planetdwellers whose only crime is to be of a different race/faction as you, which makes most of the race leaders mass murderers. Subverted somewhat in the old space trading/combat game ''Warpath'' and ''Warpath 97'' where you could (very slowly) convert even the most unfriendly planets through trade and diplomacy. It was still easier to nuke them from orbit, even if it wasn't the only way to be sure.
** In spite of its happy [[Space Western]] trappings (although you always have a white hat and your opponents more dastardly headgear, even in multiplayer,) ''Spaceward Ho!'' presents an especially chilling example when you think about it. In order to colonize an enemy planet, you destroy all enemy defences, melt them for scrap, kill the entire biosphere, and [[Terraform]] the planet to match your native ecosystem.
Line 291 ⟶ 287:
* The [[Homeworld]] series plays into this somewhat. By the time the player is controlling them, the Kushan seem to be the [[The Woobie|punching bag]] of the galaxy. As the backstory is revealed, however, it's shown the Hiigarans {{spoiler|broke several treaties, attempted to conquer everything, attacked plenty unprovoked, and misused the Hyperspace Drive to attack large swaths of the galaxy}}. They could well have been a Big Bad in a prequel game. It's no real wonder they were smacked down like they were.
** There's also one portion in the game where a captured enemy captain died under interrogation. This is no Starfleet Command we're working with.
*** In their defense, the enemy captain had just destroyed their home planet and killed 99.9999+% of their entire race. That is a set of circumstances that has demonstrably driven ''Vulcans'' to attempt cold-blooded murder.
* 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
* 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]].
* ''[[Supreme Commander]]'' falls squarely into this
* A similar setup was used in the sadly defunct MMORPG ''[[Auto Assault]]'' with the Humans, Mutants, and Biomeks. Each faction had reasons for wanting the other two dead, although the Humans may have been the biggest bastards of the bunch depending on how justified you think their desperate measures to protect their own existence were.
* In both ''[[Fable (video game series)|Fable]]'' games, you can be as evil as they come, and still be expected to defeat the [[Big Bad]]. Thus, making you the Black, and Jack/Lucien the Gray.
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', you're going to kill Malak no matter what your moral persuasion. Carth even explicitly uses this to rationalize staying with you after {{spoiler|[[The Reveal|finding out who you really are]].}} Of course, the Jedi might also qualify for this, given that {{spoiler|they might or might not have erased your memory and turned you into a drone so that they could use you to uncover [[Artifact of Doom|the source of Malak's power.]]}} You can try to turn him, and if you do he'll repent as he lays dying. Even a character you had ''just'' previously turned back to the Light side will act surprised you even made the effort, though.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Fallout]]'' revels in this. Aside from the entirety of the game world's premise, every single organization or group of people in the game are either gray or black. For example, the [[Knights Templar|Brotherhood of Steel]] works towards a better future for humanity by trying to save every single piece of technology and creating a utopia for its members, but is generally disdainful of, and ignores, other people not in the Brotherhood of Steel. In the third game, the East Coast branch becomes more humanist, but suffers a schism early on in their history that leaves them horribly ineffective at actually helping people aside from keeping a radio station on air, they also shot Ghouls on signt, something not even [[The Empire|The Legion]] does.
** In fact, some quests are there to hammer this point home, most notably the infamous ''Tenpenny Towers'' quest.
Line 308 ⟶ 305:
** [[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.
Line 316 ⟶ 313:
* Believe it or not, [[Mario]]'s world was like this in his debut game. In the arcade ''[[Donkey Kong]]'', Mario had captured the eponymous ape and wasn't very nice to him, leading to DK escaping and abducting Mario's girlfriend as revenge by proxy. Nintendo of America workers even named Mario after their landlord as a result of being mad at him, [[Springtime for Hitler|which backfired in a truly epic fashion.]]
* ''[[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.
* ''[[
** On the side of the villains, we have the [[Organization Index|Novis Orbus Librarium, (NOL, the "Library" for short)]], [[The Empire|an oppressive, all-powerful organization]] ruled by the menacing, unseen Imperator. Although the institution itself is gray when it comes to morality (in fact, it's a neccessary case of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]), and there are good people in it, its enforcers include; [[Big Bad|Hazama/Yuuki Terumi]], a [[Complete Monster]] [[Troll]] who has [[Magnificent Bastard|meticiously planned]], [[The Chessmaster|manitulated others into]], [[Moral Event Horizon|outright caused]], or is in some other way related to almost every single bad thing that has happened in the [[
** 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
** 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 [[
* In ''[[Warcraft III]]'' the factions ranged from genocidal (Undead) all the way to willing to let everyone die out of sheer prickishness (Night Elves). [[World of Warcraft]] turns around and averts this with Tirion Fordring. Despite the questlines in Northrend which appear to be arguing that good people must sometimes do bad things, the only man who keeps his hands clean [[Curb Stomp Battle|melts the face off the Lich King]] every time they meet.
* ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' doesn't really have any heroes. Correction, it ''really'' doesn't have any heroes. Take your pick: zombie mutants controlled by a psychotic girl, soldiers who are more concerned with destroying evidence than protecting anybody, or a main character who is out for revenge, is a self-proclaimed terrorist, and has absolutely no qualms with tearing innocent people to shreds and eating their insides to heal? (He gets a conscience later on, but still.) Sure, there's the Marines [[Punch Clock Villain|who only want to save people and destroy the main character and zombie mutant side because they're eating people]], Dr. Ragland and Dana Mercer, but it doesn't change the fact that the fate of the city lies in the hands of a man-eating mutant monstrosity.
* The ''[[Earth 2150|Earth]]'' RTS series. The Eurasian Dynasty is [[The Empire]], combining the worst aspects of Soviet Russia and the Mongolian Khanate. Against them in ''Earth 2140'' are the
* ''[[Geneforge]]'' approaches into this after the well-intentioned, hopelessly naive Awakened are [[Multiple Endings|canonically]] exterminated in the second game, and falls headlong into it by game five. The funny thing, though, is that every faction except game two's [[Take Over the World|Barzites]] has some people arguing (occasionally [[Flame War|vehemently]]) that it's the grey to everyone else's black. In general, [[Team Switzerland|Astoria]] and [[The Magocracy|Alwan]] have the most supporters, but even [[A Nazi by Any Other Name|Taygen]] has been argued to be the lesser evil.
* The hero of ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'' is a member of the Grey Wardens, an order of warriors, rogues and mages dedicated to battling the darkspawn. The latter is a race of [[
** Many of the quests in the game force you to make a [[Sadistic Choice]], such as {{spoiler|the ending of the Redcliffe castle quest. You have a choice between killing the Arl's son because he's possessed by a Demon or sacrificing the Arl's wife with [[Blood Magic]] (which is illegal) so you or another mage in your party can go into the Fade and destroy the Demon, leaving the child unharmed. And it's really not clear which of these options is ''worse''. You can't win, as the morally correct characters disapprove either way.}}
*** Or, you could [[Take a Third Option]] and get help from the Circle of Mages, allowing you to destroy the demon without needing to sacrifice someone. And while the third option indeed seems to be the "best" way to solve the problem, technically it does involve {{spoiler|leaving the Redcliffe villagers to fend for themselves at the mercy of the abomination that's been terrorizing them while you go off and solve the Circle's problems - a detail that seems to have been glossed over, especially since it's something that should have been available to justify your choice to Alistair, for example.}} {{spoiler|This is, of course, assuming you didn't [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment|slaughter the Circle.]] Then you're stuck.}}
* Like its predecessor, ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' also has very little "purely good" characters and choices. Which of the many sides of Kirkwall are Black and which are merely Gray is a bit up in the air, depending on one's
* In ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'', certain missions allow you only to align yourself with the Black Arms (Black) as your villain option or Doctor Eggman (Grey) as your hero option. Then of course, you can go neutral, killing everyone.
* ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' is a galaxy spanning war-game about two factions that have ultimately desecrated and destroyed all of the principals they once fought for over an obsessive determination to totally annihilate their enemy.
Line 336 ⟶ 333:
* ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Conviction'' seems to be headed this way.
* The ''[[Elder Scrolls]]'' series, particularly ''Daggerfall''. Daggerfall's king {{spoiler|[[Wild Mass Guessing|may have]] helped sell-out his own father to a power-hungry lord from Wayrest}}, Sentinel's king and queen {{spoiler|[[Complete Monster|killed their firstborn son (by burying him alive)]] because he A) was constantly ill, and B) preferred scholarly pursuits over swordcraft}}, and Wayrest...just Wayrest. Oh, yeah, there's a quest where {{spoiler|you kill a kid}} to cure yourself of Lycanthropy.
* In ''[[Risen]]'', after the prologue, you must align with one of two factions to progress further. One is a group of fanatical, fascist [[Knight Templar
* In the ''Overlord'' series of games, you play a [[Card-Carrying Villain|stereotypical]] [[Evil Overlord]] in a world where you face foes who are arguably worse due to their extreme cruelty and corruption while maintaining that they're the good ones. In ''[[Overlord II]]'', you embark on a campaign to conquer a corrupt Romanesque empire which advertises itself as a beacon of civilization, yet is run by fat morally bankrupt beaurocrats who practice slavery , execute all dissenters, and enjoy ethnic cleansing against any magical creature or suspected magic user. It's even worse when you discover that {{spoiler|the emperor founded the empire with the support of the common folk by promising to destroy all magic (and following through on that promise) after he himself secretly caused a magical cataclysm which caused all the suffering of the common folk in the first place.}} Compared to that, everything you do in the game is positively heroic, even the destruction/enslavement of the all the "innocent" people, all of whom are nasty, selfish, racist and morally repugnant anyway. In fact as the Overlord, you are the only one who displays any virtue of goodness; at least you're honest about your intentions compared to everyone you end up facing.
* In the abandonware game ''Hidden Agenda'', if you side with the right-wing professional army, they will run death squads and engage in massive brutality. If you side with the left-wing ex-gurellias, all they do is "merely" beat people up and harrass opponents.
* The Soviet Campaign of ''[[Call of Duty]]: World At War'' consists of hoards of pissed off Russians smashing their way through Nazi Germany, brutally killing anyone that stands in their way. Granted, the Germans did the same to them, but the Soviet's payback gets so bad that one of your squadmates will frequently protest the slaughter.
** The loading scene before the last level consists of Reznov reading a diary passage from said squadmate, after {{spoiler|his death by a German flamethrower.}} If you have your character fully participate in the slaughter of the Germans, he will denounce the character. If you restrain yourself, he will praise you. If you do a mixture of both, he will simply paint you as a moral question mark.
* ''[[Borderlands]]''. The four protagonists are all [[Only in It For the Money]] and more than a bit sociopathic (especially Mordecai and Brick). Their main allies are a greedy arms dealer who only helps them because they keep buying his <s>
* Very present in the German RPG-Maker Game [[Vampires Dawn]]. The fact that you're playing a vampire should already give you a hint. While it is perfectly possible to play a noble kind of vampire who doesn't feed on humans or does worse to them, the technical leader of our [[Power Trio]] is not [[The Hero]], but the [[Token Evil Teammate]], who revels in being a vampire. Therefore, you will still be doing some morally questionable things, like killing the nation's King or sucking up souls for extra strength. In the second game, our heroes are engaged in a three-way battle with the [[Complete Monster]] Elras Mages and the heroic, but flawed Warrior Clan, and slaughter both indiscriminately.
* The protagonists in the ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' series are members of an ancient [[Murder, Inc.|Assassin Order]] that routinely works with [[Private Military Contractors|mercenaries]], [[Thieves' Guild|thieves]] and [[The Oldest Profession|courtesans]] to kill their targets. Said targets are usually members or associates of the [[Knight Templar|Templars]], a shadowy group that counts nearly every prominent historical figure (from [[The Bible|Cain]] to [[The Borgias|Pope Alexander VI]] to [[Adolf Hitler]] to ''[[Mahatma Gandhi]]'') as members that have been secretly guiding humanity since the dawn of civilisation, with the ultimate goal of controlling the entire human race via the removal of [[The Evils of Free Will|free will.]] With only a handful of [[John F. Kennedy|notable aversions]], they're all [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters.]]
*** Then again, some of Abstergo files in Assassin's Creed Revelations seem to suggest the Templars took a bad turn [[Even Evil Has Standards|even for their regular standards]] during Renaissance, as the Borgias and their allies were more interested in personal ambition and profit than creating a better world, and most of them were part of [[Corrupt Church|corrupt cleric]] and [[Aristocrats Are Evil|greedy aristocrats]]. The Templars from the Crusades were all, except for [[Complete Monster|Majd Addin]], interested in actually stopping the crusades and bringing peace to the Holy Land. Most of their amoral actions are based on the idea that there is no God or Afterlife, {{spoiler|as the Pieces of Eden were instruments from an ancient civilization to create and manipulate mankind as a slave race}}, which they use as justification to [[Utopia Justifies the Means|create a better world, no matter how cruel they must be]]. Abstergo seems to follow this same line of thought, along with a hinted goal of {{spoiler|evolving humanity to a stage similar to Those Who Came Before.}} It's safer to say they think they're [[Necessarily Evil]] and have good intentions, with just some of their members actually being [[Complete Monster
* ''[[Alpha Protocol]]''. You work for a shady, accountability-free government agency that 'recruit' you by kidnapping you {{spoiler|and are secretly collaborating with the [[Big Bad]] to escalate global politics for money}}. Your enemies include a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]], a [[Captain Ersatz]] of Osama Bin Laden, a psychopathic torturing gangster, and an ex-rogue agent who takes hostages and blows up museums because it's his job to do so. It speaks volumes that the only person who doesn't openly mislead, lie to or manipulate you is the game's [[Heroic Sociopath]], who's only in it to hurt people you point him at.
* ''[[X (video game)|X3 Albion Prelude]]'' takes a dive towards this. One side is the technologically superior Terrans (Earth system) who are isolationist, paranoid, and deathly afraid of artificially intelligent ships, and the other side is the Argon Federation, the [[Lost Colony]] of Earth, who have no trouble with AI ships. Because the Terrans were moving their fleet around to investigate rumors of AI development, the Argon blow up the ''massive'' defense station / shipyard / factory / civilian station that is wrapped around Earth, killing tens of millions in an instant (and [[Colony Drop|then the wreckage falls to Earth]]), then launching millions of AI ships in a quest to wipe out the entire Terran military.
* ''[[Evil Islands]]'', Zak falls into the [[Anti-Hero]] trope, and while the Khadaganian empire is undoubtedly evil, the Canian empire is not much better.
* ''[[Skyrim]]'' is filled with [[Black and Grey Morality]], along with [[Gray and Grey Morality]] and sometimes outright [[Evil Versus Evil]]. The [[Big Bad]] of the game is a [[Your Soul Is Mine|soul-eating]] [[Omnicidal Maniac]], and the [[Player Character|Dragonborn]] can be a ''real'' bastard too; you can {{spoiler|steal other people's things, rebuild the [[Psycho for Hire|Dark Brotherhood]] to it's former glory, murder the Emperor, trap people's souls to power your weapons, and torture people}}, and your mentor Paarthurnax {{spoiler|[[Alternate Character Interpretation|may or may not]] be a patient [[The Starscream|Starscream]] with a [[Meaningful Name]]}}. There's also the Civil War sidequest. One side is an iron-fisted but [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|well-intentioned]] [[Vestigial Empire]] that goes around executing innocent people because there may be a ''slight possibility'' that they are members of a rebel group that fights them (read: your first encounter with this faction ends up with you almost getting a [[Off with His Head|discount haircut]], even though you're
* ''[[No More Heroes]]''. The name says it all. The game series is severely lacking in any truly moral characters, with the main character Travis being a [[A Loser Is You|loser]] and [[Anti-Hero]] who mostly kills simply under the the promise of getting sex with the beautiful young lady who arranges the fights and to get enough money to pay of his rent. And while he does have some morals keeping him at a rather light shade of grey, the other assassins he has to face range from [[Tragic Villain
* Despite the series having a huge amount of humor [[Kid Icarus: Uprising]] ends up falling in this category. You have the Underworld army that is clearly evil and then you have the forces of nature that want to destroy humanity for destroying nature, the auron army that take planets and make a civilization from them, and space pirates that are just looting treasure. They're all in the grey zone as they all have good reasons for causing harm. Angel Land and humans are also not immune as [[Troll|Palutena]] is shown to not be the [[Good Is Not Nice|nicest Goddess]] alive as Pit makes her out to be and [[Humans Are
* The main plot of ''[[Book of Mages the Dark Times]]'' consists of a struggle between the White Robes and Black Robes. The [[Praetorian Guard|Black Robes]] are exactly what you would expect; the best of them are either [[Punch Clock Villain
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Looking for Group]]'' has elements of this. While [[The Empire|Legaria]] is definitely portrayed as villainous, the heroes aren't very nice people themselves. Especially [[Token Evil Teammate|Richard]].
** [[Grey and Gray Morality]] is used [https://web.archive.org/web/20171013090618/http://www.lfg.co/page/723/ to the point of a running gag], however (and this [http://www.lfg.co/page/727/ gets worse]).
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', certainly. There aren't a lot of well-paying jobs the "heroes" won't take, and those are generally due to personal grudges rather than morals. That said, they never come off as [[Villain Protagonist
* The Baker Street Irregulars of ''[[Mayonaka Densha]]'', while not consisting of bad people per se, aren't above killing their enemies or breaking into peoples homes in the name of justice. And the villain, {{spoiler|[[Jack the Ripper]] for some odd reason seems averse to actually killing them}}. This is even lampshaded by Hatsune at one point.
{{quote|
* ''[[8-Bit Theater
** Best demonstrated [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/06/11/episode-1139-if-then/ here], with what the Light Warriors planned to do once their mission was accomplished.
* The various groups in ''[[Cry Havoc]]'' are black and grey, the mercenaries kill for money with even the most moral of them shooting fallen enemies, while the deamons they battle are trying to escape their morality by slaying the mercenaries, the werewolves are also trying to survive, even if they destroy the human race in the process.
* Pretty much everyone in ''[[Ansem Retort]]'' is either completely evil, or somewhat good but has something keeping them from being completely white. Case in point: Namine, who tries to be the moral voice of authority, but is part of Zexion's administration (which has no less than five sex scandals, at least one Namine ''arranged'', and three murder scandals) and occasionally does drugs. She is also still dicking around with Sora's memory, further removing her from the moral high
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' is an example, albeit not a perfect one as the core conflict that's driven the story so far, Agatha vs. Klaus, is [[Grey and Gray Morality]]. However, ''aside'' from Team Agatha, Team Klaus, and Othar, most of the factions that have gotten into the game are evil to a lesser or greater extent. And then there's [[Big Bad|the Other]].
{{quote|'''Rudolf Selnikov''': The depressing thing? Twisted and ruthless as you people are, throwing in with you is a step up.}}
** Most old Heterodynes were erratic warlords, raiding or bullying for tribute the rest of Europa between various other feats of creative insanity done just out of pride or spite. All were dangerous lunatics. The "depressing thing" is that they are implied to be significantly above average not only in [[Mad Scientist]] competence, in that time and again they were said to consistently produce rulers who ''[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110316 earned]'' loyalty. Spending [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070601 the spoils of conquest] close to home is good, [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20171103 never forgetting] to reward the job done is better. Their various loyal servants vocally express deep contempt for mind control, too...
* ''[[Suicide for Hire]]''. ''Nobody'' in this world is nice, and those that are die horribly. So, for that matter, do the ones that aren't.
* The main gist of ''[[Brawl in the Family]]'''s [[Crowning Music of Awesome|Ode to Minions]]. No matter how evil the villains or noble the intentions of the heroes, that doesn't change the fact that the heroes universally win by massacring the enemy army en masse- and those soldiers, while they may be working for evil, still had homes, families, and friends that they're taken away from.
* In ''[[Cwynhild's Loom]]'' both Cwynhild and Ezekiel Nightingale establish early on that they are willing to do whatever is necessary to advance their causes. While Cwynhild is the protagonist, she makes no qualms about killing people who are a threat to her.
== Web Original ==
* The ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' is an organization that captures supernatural entities (terrible monsters and mere abnormal humans alike) and keeps them imprisoned, doing research on them. Also they use convicted felons (or innocents, in times of duress) to do the dangerous labours and conduct lethal experiments. The whole D-Class-Staff is killed and replaced every month or so. However, all this is just for security, to keep the unspeakable horrors they have captured inside their confinements.
* This is one of the primary themes of ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog]]'': The [[Villain Protagonist|protagonist is the villain]], who wants to [[Take Over the World]] so he can [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|put an end to all of its pain and misery]]; the [[Hero Antagonist|hero is the antagonist]], who uses his [[Smug Super|powers]] to [[Jerk Jock|bully]] everyone into conforming to his notion of what a True Hero should be like; and the only truly good character gets killed.
* The point-and-click RPG ''[http://fallenlondon.com Echo Bazaar.]'' Whatever path you take, you'll eventually end up housebreaking, spying for mysterious and unpleasant foreign powers, bullying families for protection money, or sending pickpockets to the gallows.<ref>And that's if you're ''nice''.</ref>
* In [[Strange Little Band]] the protagonists are thoroughly unpleasant people and almost seem like [[Villain Protagonist
* In ''[[The Insane Quest]]'', it quickly becomes apparent that the members of Smoosh are not so much heroes as they are bystanders caught in the middle of a petty fight between two selfish gods. While their enemy, Segami, destroys planets, harms innocents and causes mayhem to accomplish his goals, their leader, Nintendoki...[[Not So Different|destroys planets, harms innocents and causes mayhem to accomplish his goals.]] The only real thing that sets Smoosh apart from their enemies is the fact that they realize when Nintendoki is telling them to do something wrong.
* In the [[Alternate History]].Com timeline ''[[Reds!]]
* [[The Nostalgia Chick]]'s trailer plays this for laughs and describes the Dark Nella Saga as a battle between evil and "slightly less evil". (Dark Nella being evil and the Chick only being slightly less.)
* ''[[Kickassia]]'' has a president just minding his business being overthrown by a crazy idiot who becomes a dictator - and [[The Nostalgia Critic|the latter]], [[Villain Protagonist|who is the protagonist]], ends up fighting his comrades, who aren't much honorable themselves and try to take over when they think the Critic's died from their beating.
** Later in ''[[Suburban Knights]]'', [[That Guy With The Glasses|the heroes]], still deep in the gray morality, face gray villains (a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] and his friends [[Punch Clock Villain|who just wanted to help him]] on his mission) and the [[Complete Monster]] [[Evil Luddite]] the gray villains are trying to stop.
* The Curse Of Maraqua plot of ''[[Neopets]]'' has two groups of pirate armies crashing against each other. While [[Chaotic Neutral|Garin]] himself is not the nicest guy in Neopia, he helps defend the new city of Maraqua against the [[Complete Monster|even worse]] [[Chaotic Evil|Captain Scarblade]].
== Western Animation ==
Line 392 ⟶ 389:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:Morality Tropes]]
[[Category:Cynicism Tropes]]
[[Category:The Wild West]]
| |||