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In an effort to portray "realistic" conflicts, writers often [[Grey and Gray Morality|introduce flaws in their heroes and redeeming qualities in their villains]].
 
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 Areare 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|antiheroes]] In such a world, any characters who appear to be good in any way will eventually be revealed as a [[Knight Templar]] in disguise, a [[Dark Messiah]] inches from the edge, or a [[Moral Dissonance|deeply flawed]] [[Anti -Hero]]. And if there ''are'' any [[Wide Eyed Idealist|genuinely good]] characters on the show, they'll either 'come around' to the [[The Dark Side]], die horribly, remain a figure of [[Butt Monkey|perpetual mockery]] or, if ''very'' lucky, [[Knight in Sour Armor|grow a protective shell of cynicism]].
 
A good litmus test for this trope is as follows:
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If there are 'true' heroes around along with the 'kinda bad' and 'very bad' characters described above, it's [[The Good the Bad And The Evil]].
 
{{examples|Examples:}}
 
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
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** Also, by Ichigo's talk with Uryu Ishida {{spoiler|Post Aizen's defeat, months later, it doesn't seem like much has changed one way or the other, as Urahara is still exiled and Uryu remains under threat of being killed by Shinigami for fighting Hollows. Sure, the heroes won. But did they deserve it?!}} Actually, the only Shinigami Captains who are somewhat truly good in Soul Society are [[Mama Bear|Retsu]] [[Beware the Nice Ones|Unohana]], [[Martial Pacifist|Shunsui]] [[Chivalrous Pervert|Kyoraku]], and [[Nice Guy|Jushiro]] [[A Father to His Men|Ukitake]]. The rest, however, is up for debate. And let us not talk about [[Achilles in His Tent|Genryusai]] [[Knight Templar|Yama]][[Took a Level In Dumbass|moto]], please. And even the above "good guys" stand by and watch/allow Soul Societies injustices.
*** 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.
* The members of [[Ghost in The Shell|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 points on the scale of blackness.
* ''[[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.
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* ''[[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.
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* ''[[Exoria (Fanfic)|Exoria]]'' has the nation of Valent conducting a surprise invasion of both Hyrule and Gerudo. It is implied through the [[Fictional Document|Exoria Files]], however, that neither Hyrule nor Gerudo are exactly "white", though, and hints have been dropped insinauting that Valent may have a very good reason for launching a continent-wide invasion.
* The New Earth Government from ''[[Aeon Natum Engel (Fanfic)|Aeon Natum Engel]]'' and ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion (Fanfic)|Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'' is much, much more ruthless than its ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'' counterpart, and the Migou have a very good reason for invading Earth.
* [[Christian Humber Reloaded (Fanfic)|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 (Fanfic)|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: [[HanlonsHanlon'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 (Fanfic)|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}}.
 
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[The Good the Bad And The Ugly|The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly]]'' as a result of its [[Deconstruction]] of the typical morality in Westerns. The eponymous three characters are: a [[Sliding Scale of Anti -Heroes|Type IV]] [[Anti -Hero]] con artist, a merciless cold-blooded hit man, and an all-around cad, respectively. As a result its "good guy" is really only sympathetic compared to the bad guys he is going up against and because of the occasional [[Pet the Dog]] moments he has.
** 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]].
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* 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.
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' slowly turns white-as-snow Will and Elizabeth into lying, stealing, killing pirates, although all in the name of saving their skins from the undead and the corrupt. Jack Sparrow is a bullseye grey [[Anti -Hero]] who cares enough about freedom to free slaves ([[Backstory]]) and save his friends, but cares more about himself than anything. It seems to try to avert the trope by having the gray villains and harmless lackeys around. But then there's Beckett, the epitome of repressive order and the only person in the whole trilogy (except his Dragon, Mr. Mercer) you can properly hate, who [[Kick the Dog|kicks various dogs]] and doesn't stop for two movies.
* ''[[What Ever Happened to Baby Jane]]?'' looks like a straight case of black-and-white, with [[White Dwarf Starlet|bitter, angry former child star]] Jane Hudson intimidating her more popular, crippled sister and feeding her rats for dinner... until the end, where it is revealed that {{spoiler|the accident which crippled Blanche was caused by Blanche herself as she was trying to kill ''Jane'', and not by Jane in a drunken bender.}} Notably, [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|Jane, the "villain", is blonde, and Blanche, whose name means "white", has black hair.]]
* The ''[[Blade (Film)|Blade]]'' and ''[[Underworld (Film)|Underworld]]'' franchises do this to get around the fact that vampires are [[Card -Carrying Villain|Card Carrying Villains]] in Western fiction.
* ''[[Payback]]'' is all about an [[Anti -Villain]] getting revenge on even worse people for setting him up. This is done somewhat literally too, as the cinematography emphasizes dark colors, cloudy skies, etc.
* The [[James Bond (Film)|James Bond]] movies ''[[Casino Royale (Film)|Casino Royale]]'' and ''[[Quantum of Solace (Film)|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 (Film)|eponymous film]] (and the [[Hellblazer (Comic Book)|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 (Film)|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 [http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=383 faith] [http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=390 in] [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.
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* The ''[[Infernal Affairs]]'' films, spectacularly. {{spoiler|Wong appears to be mostly White in the first film, but then you get hit by the prequel...}}
* ''[[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|Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains]], lets look at some characters from several of Ritchie's works:
** ''[[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.
** ''[[Rock N Rolla]]''. The most sympathetic characters are Archy, Johnny Quid and the Wild Bunch. Archy is [[The Dragon]] for an underworld boss who kills or beats people without hesitation. Johnny is a drug addled rock star who routinely steals from people, (and threatens them with a knife if they protest) hands out [[No Holds Barred Beatdown|No Holds Barred Beatdowns]] to bouncers who try to stop from getting into clubs, (and keeps going long after they have stopped being able to resist) and constantly physically and verbally abuses the people around him. The Wild Bunch are a trio of career criminals. The least sympathetic character is Lenny, (Archy's boss and Johnny's step-father) an arrogant man, abusive father, [[Politically -Incorrect Villain]], a crime boss who lowers victims into water to drown/be eaten alive by voracious crayfish, rips off the people who make deals with him so that he can get them in his debt, and has secretly {{spoiler|given testimony that has put most of his men and partners into jail at one time or another in order to save himself from prosecution}}.
** ''[[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 From Hell|training]] and [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique|the police work]], against drug dealers that even [[Kill It With Fire|burn people alive]]. The villains of the sequel also count: corrupt cops, aiding and aided by corrupt politicians.
* ''[[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|Villain Protagonists]] in ''[[The Final]]'' are a group of [[Teens Are Monsters|teen]] [[Loners Are Freaks|outcasts]] who [[Cold -Blooded Torture|torture]] and [[Beauty to Beast|mutilate]] their school's [[Alpha Bitch|popular]] [[Jerk Jock|kids]] as revenge for a lifetime of humiliation. As one can figure from the last sentence, neither side in the situation is all that nice. The only real "good" guy is Kurtis -- and even that's pushing it, seeing as how he {{spoiler|kills Andy in cold blood}}.
* ''[[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]].
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* Many writings of [[Robert Sheckley]].
* No trope describes ''[[A Clockwork Orange (Literature)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' better than this one.
* ''[[Trainspotting]]'' -- Almost all of the main characters are amoral drug addicts. The ones that aren't are either dead, going to be drug addicts in the near future, or [[Hair -Trigger Temper|berserker psychopaths]]. Or dead. Or are going to suffer because of the main characters.
** 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.
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** 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|Complete Monsters]], and worse, {{spoiler|the Others, creatures from beyond the Wall which are impervious to most weapons and breed zombies, are in the process of returning after centuries.}} In fact, the character Sansa Stark exists pretty much just to [[Lampshade Hanging|hang lampshade]] how different this story is from other [[High Fantasy]], often getting those around her killed as a result.
* ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.
** The front-cover blurb for the first book reads, "Darkness wars with Darkness ... until the new Light breaks."
* [[Tom Holt]]'s ''Paint Your Dragon'' does this to the story of Saint George and the Dragon. ''Both'' are absolute ''[[Jerkass|assholes]]'', but the dragon seems a little more sympathetic...although considering he at one point annihilates an entire (occupied) theatre in an attempt to deal with George, this is more a statement on how unlikeable St. George is than anything else. {{spoiler|The dragon's status as the Least Evil? character is cemented at the end, when the two end up switching forms and George's first action as a dragon is to kill the entire audience for their deathmatch in order to ensure that nobody with a rocket launcher is lurking in the stands).}}
* Both the novel and film ''[[Double Indemnity]]''
* ''[[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|Magnificent Bastards]] or at least dispassionate [[Chessmaster]] types, not a bunch of gratuitously sadistic [[Obviously Evil]] loons (in fairness, it's justified by one of the human Titans having programmed Omnius with his own personality).
** 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.
* [[JK Rowling]] was very fond indeed of doing this with her characters in the ''[[Harry Potter (Literature)|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 ''[[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix|Order of the Phoenix]]'' "[[Wangst|wangsting]]", and is certainly no saint (his ready use of {{spoiler|the Cruciatus curse on Amycus}}, and before then, Bellatrix). James (and specifically Sirius) are shown to have very good hearts overall, but could definitely be [[Jerkass|Jerkasses]] at times (Sirius and his treatment of Snape/Kreacher, his recklessness). Ron (who never went through what Harry did but accomplished more than most Hogwarts students could ever admit to) {{spoiler|left Harry and Hermione in the woods.}} Dumbledore, of whom so many people "thought the sun shone from every orifice", made plans in his youth with another to take {{spoiler|siege of the general Muggle population, during which time he neglected his remaining family.}} Paradoxically, Regulus {{spoiler|turns out to have been not as Black as first painted- same for Snape, of course.}} Draco is a tricky one, who at first {{spoiler|doesn't turn Harry in, but then later tries to capture him, accompanied by his old henchmen who, by now, are not just brainless brawns and are unafraid to kill.}}
{{quote| '''Sirius Black:''' The world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters.}}
* Martha Wells' ''Death of the Necromancer'' has [[Anti -Villain|Nicholas]] [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Valiarde,]] a coldblooded thief, murderer and all around [[Magnificent Bastard]]. Nic has spent years sabotaging his enemy on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]; at the start of the narrative, Nic's nearing the completion of his [[Xanatos Gambit|ultimate scheme]] when he and his subordinates run afoul of an unknown person using [[Black Magic]]. Somehow, this leads to the group spending the rest of the book fighting an insane mass murderer. And the reason they do it is at least partly because it's ''bad for business.''
* In Frederick Forsyth's ''[[The Day of the Jackal]]'', the OAS are far right terrorists. The eponymous [[Villain Protagonist]] is a consummate [[Professional Killer]]. However, the French Action Service are secret police-like, going to use [[Electric Torture]] on an OAS captive.
* The various races in [[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 [[Always Chaotic Evil|goblin or ork turning good any time soon]].
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* 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 (Literature)|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 (Literature)|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]]'' 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.]]
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* ''[[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 (TV)|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 (TV)|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 (TV)|Angel]]'', Wesley, who has done some questionable things, is taunted by Lilah during his search for redemption.
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* ''[[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 ''[[BlakesBlake's Seven (TV)|Blakes Seven]]'' is a classic example of this. The "Good Guys" start out on their way to prison, with only the main character being actually unjustly convicted (Or was he?), and proceed to fight against the even worse Federation by stealing things and blowing stuff up. They also tend to leave a swath of dead bodies in their wake.
* 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)|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|Heroic Sociopaths]] (except for Tig ([[Psycho for Hire]]), Jax ([[Anti -Hero]] or [[Anti -Villain]] depending on ones viewpoint) and Opie ([[The Woobie]]). The cops are all hopelessly corrupt or psycho except for Hale, the [[Knight in Sour Armor]] and Stahl, the [[Knight Templar]]. And then there are the ''really'' nasty gangs.
* ''[[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}}.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[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.
** It is saying something about the setting when the "good" faction, the Tau Empire have a "join us or die" plan of galactic conquest.
* ''[[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 (Tabletop Game)|both]] [[New World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|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 (Tabletop Game)|vampires]] vs [[Always Chaotic Evil|Belial's Brood]], the Pentacle Orders vs the [[Ancient Conspiracy|Seers of the Throne]], the [[Changeling: The Lost (Tabletop Game)|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]],'' the heroes are insane and the villains are even more insane.
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** [[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 (Tabletop Game)|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|Manipulative Bastards]], the Abyssals poison the world merely by existing, the Infernals have made deals with [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]] to screw up the world as part of a frankly insane plan, and the Alchemicals are the propaganda face of a totalitarian state modelled on ''[[Nineteen Eighty -Four]]''. These guys, even the Infernals, are the ''Grey''. You don't want to know what the Black are like.
** 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 (Tabletop Game)|KULT]]'', except when it's worse.
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== [[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|Unwitting Pawns]] till Raziel purified Kain and allowed him to see the Elder God. [[spoiler: Moebius himself is forced to see it, [[My God, What Have I Done?|and is quite horrified]]. Janos even admits that to pass on the curse was horrible, but it was necessary to keep the Hylden at bay. Also, while Raziel's main motivation is vengeance, he comes as more sympathetic and troubled guy as the story goes by. He REALIZES he's an [[Unwitting Pawn]] to everyone, especially the guy who created and burned him, Kain, and in the end is {{spoiler|willing to make a sacrifice of the same vein Kain wasn't willing to(sacrifice yourself to save the world), though in Kain's case, killing himself wouldn't have solved anything}}. The plot is complicated, so it's safe to say everyone's got their Freudian Excuse or has been fooled into being what they are.
*** 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 (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto III]]'' and ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto: Vice City]]'' can only be said to be heroes in the sense that they fight against people who are even worse than they are. CJ, from ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'', on the other hand, has a few genuinely heroic motivations (getting the drug dealers out of his neighborhood, avenging his mother's death, keeping his family and friends safe from harm), but he's still a murdering, thieving gangbanger {{spoiler|who blows up the Hoover Dam.}}
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** 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.
* 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]]}}.
** ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is basically this trope regardless of paragon or renegade status. Not only does Shepard have to make an alliance with a terrorist group to fight the [[Eldritch Abomination|Reaper]] threat but Shepard's team is made up of [[Vigilante Man|Vigilantes]], [[Knight Templar|Knight Templars]], [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|Well-Intentioned Extremists]], and other [[Psycho for Hire|ruthless murderers]]. Almost everyone on the team this time around is an [[Anti -Hero|anti-hero]] in some way.
* ''[[Gears of War]]'' starts off like this and falls prey to [[It Got Worse]]. The humans are not portrayed as the nicest guys to start off with, and while Myrrah, the Locust queen, claims at the end of the first game that that the humans have actually done something incredibly horrible in the past -- something that, to the Locust, completely justifies their own war of extermination -- the Locust kidnapping of humans expressly for torturing them, as revealed in the second game, gives them absolutely no moral high ground to condemn humanity with. Moreover the COG forces have been intentionally and explicitly designed as [[Putting On the Reich|Space Nazis]]. They even have their own medical concentration camps and they're perfectly willing to stunt the Locust advance by killing the vast majority of their own people with WMDs and preserve the human race by impregnating women against their will.
* During ''[[Modern Warfare]]'', members of your party regularly engage in torture, one murders an unarmed man tied to a chair, and another holds an ally over a ledge with the full intent to drop him. By the next game, your party gets even more ruthless, at one point (implicitly) interrogating someone with electricity. When playing as an American going undercover, {{spoiler|you're forced to gun down an entire airport full of civilians.}} {{spoiler|However, you were playing directly into the [[Big Bad]]'s hands with that one.}} By the end of the second act, {{spoiler|Capt. Price, your team leader, launches a nuclear warhead at the United States, nullifying all technology on the East Coast.}} And by the end of the game, {{spoiler|Soap, your character, and Price have become fugitives with only one intent in mind: kill the bastard who set them up, and fucked over world history in a big way.}} There is no question, however, that these men are infinitely more heroic than [[Chaotic Evil|the people]] [[Complete Monster|they fight]].
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* In both ''[[Fable (Video Game)|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 ''[[Killer 7]]'', the protagonists are a group of amoral assassins who do work for people manipulating the fates of entire countries. Killing one of their targets, Toru Fukushima apparently results in the entire population of Japan being massacred, and if you refuse, Japan becoming [[Big Brother]] to everyone else. The villains include a [[Card -Carrying Villain|card-carrying terrorist]]. Dan's old mentor is a black-market organ dealer - and that's the face he ''doesn't'' conceal from the world. And then there's the fact that the protagonists are embodiment of good fighting against evil.
* ''[[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.
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* ''[[Darkstalkers (Video Game)|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.
* ''[[Blaz Blue]]'' features ''very'' few unambiguously good characters.
** 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 [[Blaz Blue]] verse, all of it strictly [[For the Evulz]]. Then there's Relius Clover, another [[Complete Monster]] who transformed his innocent wife and daughter into weapons using alchemy. And finally, there's Jin Kisaragi, who's [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|a total]] [[Jerkass|dick]] to everyone he meets and has [[Ax Crazy]] [[Yandere]] tendencies towards his brother, Ragna. {{spoiler|(He does get better later on and ends up [[Heel Face Turn|siding with the good guys.]], but he's still a [[Good Is Not Nice|dick, but at least he's not a total one anymore]])}}.
** 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|Complete Monsters]] and [[Punch Clock Villain|Punch Clock Villains]] alike, by any means necessary. And not because of any greater, idealistic purposes, like peace or freedom, either, but simply because Hazama royally fucked up his life. Believe it or not, he's one of the ''less'' ambiguously [[Good Is Not Nice|heroic people in this game]]. Also on the supposed good side, we have Sector Seven, who are also opposed to the NOL, but only as far as '[[Somebody ElsesElse's Problem|We're not listening to you]]', and have [[Kick the Dog|kicked many dogs]] in whatever they do. Of particular note are the actions of Kokonoe, who is so crazed in her pursuit of revenge against Terumi, she is fully prepared to {{spoiler|[[Nuke 'Em|nuke Kagutsuchi]]}} should her plan to use [[The Woobie|Lambda]] as a vehicle for her revenge go awry. Also helping Ragna is the vampire Rachel Alucard and her butler Valkenhayn R. Hellsing. She had the best intention, but not only she is a bit lazy to take actions (she's not allowed to, but lately, she got better), she's just very haughty and full of disdains, and seemingly no better than Terumi in making nearly everyone pawns for her speed chess with Terumi. Valkenhayn used to be one of the world-saving Heroes, but his utter loyalty to Rachel made him look like a [[Yes Man]] to her. To note: They're not exactly united greatly.
** So, um, in that case how about [[Taking a Third Option]]? Maybe there's some unaligned people who CAN be accounted to be good. Well, first off there's the bounty hunter Carl Clover, who, deep down is a sweet boy, but thanks to Relius' (his father) atrocity, he has no qualms of murdering you while still acting polite if he wants any information from you. Hakumen is an unflappable [[Badass]] who is damn effective at leaving a trail of pain in his wake, and one of the few who can force ''Relius'' to bail from his mere presence... except he believes the only way to save the world from destruction is to mow down both Ragna and Terumi, and then go burn this world for he thinks it's been too corrupted and the only way is to restart the world anew, [[Knight Templar|and he is not open to alternatives whatsoever]]. Moving on from that, there's Litchi Faye-Ling. She's motherly, caring and compassionate and at least cares for the normal townspeople. But then, this is a case where her [[Love Martyr]]-ism is cruelly manipulated by Hazama to the point that she's right now siding the NOL to save her 'beloved' and herself. Said 'beloved'? Arakune, your resident [[Eldritch Abomination]] who'll eat you if he finds you tasty. And what of his human self that Litchi loved? Lotte Carmine, a glory-seeker, fame-hunting scientist who's just in Sector Seven for his own glory, not helped with his inferiority complex against Kokonoe. There's also Makoto, who is roughly Litchi's equal in terms of [[Blaz Blue]] goodness. She's kind, friendly, caring and compassionate to pretty much everyone, but if you [[Berserk Button|make the mistake of threatening her friends]], she'll [[Beware the Nice Ones|hunt you down and]] [[Good Is Not Soft|pound you into hamburger]]. Also, [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]] is game for her, if it'll lead to that. So yeah, I think your only hope for straight morally-white characters in this game are [[Catgirl|Taokaka]] and [[Highly -Visible Ninja|Bang Shishigami]]. They both have good hearts and goals, and they're not quite broken yet... wait, they're the designated [[Joke Character|Joke Characters]] of the series? Well, [[Precision F -Strike|fuck]].
* 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.
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* 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|Knight Templars]], and the other is a clan of brutal, unscrupulous bandits.
* 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 (Video Game)|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>[[WM Ds]]</s> weapons, an overly eccentric mechanic who cares more about his combat cars than ''anything else'', an [[Jerkass|utter bitch]] who also happens to be the [[Only Sane Man|only sane woman]], a medic with a [[Morally -Ambiguous Doctorate]] who may or may not have an [[Evil Twin]] [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|who is most definitely not just him in a disguise]], and an elitist, egotistical [[Insufferable Genius]] with [[Cloudcuckoolander|a questionable mental state]]. And yet, despite all this, they're ''still'' about 100 times better than the Bandits, Crimson Lance and {{spoiler|Eridians}}.
* 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 (Video Game)|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 (Literature)|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|Complete Monsters]], since they don't hold many hiring moral standards.
* ''[[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 (Video Game)|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 ''proven to be nothing more than an innocent bystander who was in the wrong place at the wrong time'', the commander in charge '''''[[Kick the Dog|orders you to be killed anyway]]'''''), and may or may not be happy to [[Stupid Surrender|cozy up]] to a faction made up entirely of [[Complete Monster|genocidal fascists]]. The other is a group of bull-headed [[Fantastic Racism|racist]] rebels who are led by a guy who's either a revolutionary war hero, a [[Stupid Good]] freedom-fighter who [[Unwitting Pawn|doesn't fully grasp the consequences of his actions]], or a power-hungry tyrant who seized power due to a [[Klingon Promotion]]. Their mutual opposition? A faction of [[Guilt Free Extermination War|genocidal]] [[A Nazi By Any Other Name|Nazi]] [[Can't Argue With Elves|High Elf supremacists]] who are plotting to [[Kill All Humans]] and destroy the world. [[Crapsack World|Things have]] '''really''' [[Darker and Edgier|gone to shit since]] [[Oblivion]].
* ''[[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|Tragic Villains]] forced into the line of work due to circumstances, to [[Axe Crazy|complete psychopaths]]. {{spoiler|Subverted at the end of the second game, though, when Travis vows to destroy the UAA after seeing how many lives it has destroyed}}.
* 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 Bastards]] in this game. Pit is the only character in the entire game that is shown to be the morally good person (white) of the series with his [[Evil Twin]] {{spoiler|(and even that is subverted near the end when he becomes almost as good as Pit)}} Dark Pit being the second given Pit's status as the [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]] made him neutral at worse.
* The main plot of ''[[Book of Mages the Dark Times (Video Game)|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|Punch Clock Villains]] or fitted with an [[Explosive Leash]], while the willing members are tyrannical villains. {{spoiler|The Great Mage is actually an [[Anti -Villain]] who wants to become a [[Retired Monster]], but he's also guaranteed to die before the end game.}} The [[La Résistance|White Robes]], however, are willing to commit some questionable deeds to accomplish their goals, including attempting to rig a mage tournament to prevent a Black Robe from taking the top spot, and while most of their members are fairly light grey, {{spoiler|Flamier}} is only in it for personal power, and the White Robe PC can {{spoiler|cause a [[Full Circle Revolution]] and oppress the other mages every bit as thoroughly as the Black Robes' Great Mage did.}} Meanwhile, neutral mages generally don't care about morality one way or the other; they only care that the Great Mage is elected [[Asskicking Equals Authority|according to the rules]], and whether the Great Mage is good or evil is irrelevant to them.
 
 
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* 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| "You know, for the quote unqoute good guys we sure do...break into a lot of places"}}
* ''[[Eight 8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]''. The only ''good'' characters of the four or five heroes are [[The Ditz|an impossibly stupid dullard]] and a kind woman who is crippled by the fear of doing ''anything'' wrong. The other three are an [[Ax Crazy]] [[Omnicidal Maniac]], a mentally disturbed [[Munchkin]], and a ruthlessly selfish [[Magnificent Bastard]]. The king of the most powerful nation in the world is even more stupid than the aforementioned dullard, and may very well be mentally retarded. On the villains' side, we have a LARP-ing, emo vampire, an ex pirate captain who is also [[The Ditz|very stupid]], a comically incompetent warlord (who's been ''very'' slowly getting better), a dark elf who is quite possibly the most [[Only Sane Man|stable and levelheaded]] of the ''entire cast'', and a nigh-omnipotent [[Jerkass]] wizard {{spoiler|who is actually the [[Future Badass]] self of the local [[Chew Toy]]}}. And it's all [[Played for Laughs]].
** 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.
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== Web Original ==
* The ''[[SCP Foundation (Wiki)|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. Horribles 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>. This is, of course, [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|hugely entertaining]].
* In [[Strange Little Band]] the protagonists are thoroughly unpleasant people and almost seem like [[Villain Protagonist|Villain Protagonists]]. Then you meet the Antagonists, and you realize who the "heroes" are.
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* [[The Nostalgia Chick (Web Video)|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 (Web Video)|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]].
 
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