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Dragon with an Agenda: Difference between revisions
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[[File:liquidocelot_848.jpg|link=Metal Gear Solid|frame|[[Metal Gear Solid|Behold,]] [[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty|the unequaled]] [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|master]] [[Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater|of this]] [[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots|trope.]]]]
A [[Dragon with an Agenda]] is a character serving as [[The Dragon]] to the [[Big Bad]], but having different goals from him. For example, if this character [[Dragon Their Feet|encounters the heroes immediately after the death or defeat of his boss]], he won't try to complete his master's [[Evil Plan]], but will instead go on to pursue his own plans.
Most commonly, he and the [[Big Bad]] have a mutually profitable alliance, and the [[Big Bad]] just happens to be more powerful of the two. If he's also influencing the [[Big Bad]]'s plans, then he's at the same time the man in front of the man and [[The Man Behind the Man]]. [[Dragon-in-Chief]] is when [[The Dragon]] is actually the more dangerous of the pair, by a significant margin. It is not unknown for him to have taken on service for his own purposes and fooled the [[Big Bad]] into thinking he's subordinate.
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Archduke Gorgon from ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' and ''[[Great Mazinger]]''. Theoretically he allied himself with [[Big Bad]] Dr. Hell to help him to destroy Mazinger-Z. But his real goal was {{spoiler|watching over Hell and betraying him at the right time [[Xanatos Gambit|to get him killed (in the GosakuOta manga he literally backstabbed him) and Mazinger-Z destroyed]].}} [[Magnificent Bastard|He succeeded on all fronts]].
* [[Scary Black Man]] Colonel Black is this to Commander Red in [[Dragon Ball]].
* [[Dark Magical Girl]] Lutecia from ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] StrikerS'' who cooperates with [[Mad Scientist]] Scaglietti not for his goals of world domination but to find {{spoiler|and reanimate her mother, Megane, who is in a coma.}}.
* Pain in ''[[Naruto]]'', and almost all of Akasuki in general. Also {{spoiler|Sasuke}}.
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* [[Past Sins]] has an interesting twist on the concept; the [[Big Bad]] is an extremely [[Reluctant Monster]] forced into the role, where [[The Dragon]] expects an [[Omnicidal Maniac]].
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]''/''[[Jem]]'' crossover fancomic ''[[Rich's Comix Blog|Outrage]]'' reveals that Eric Raymond's toady Techrat was actually one of these.
* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', the Raleka have a completely different agenda than {{spoiler|Brox and Co.}}, but they have to work together to take the Vasyn pieces from the four.
* In ''[[Ponies Make War]]'', Nihilus serves King Titan with the intention of betraying him the moment she secures the Elements of Harmony. [[Big Good|Princess]] [[The Chessmaster|Celestia]] anticipated this from the start, and actually helped to ''encourage'' it.
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* In ''[[Con Air]]'', Cameron Poe asks black supremacist Diamond Dog why he's content to be second in command to white Big Bad Cyrus Grissom. Dog replies that while his long term agenda is vastly different from that of Cyrus, he needs to escape before he can get back to it - going along with Cyrus is "a means to an end".
* In ''[[Die Hard]]'', Hans' top henchman Karl's brother--another of Hans' henchmen--is killed by McClane. Karl wants revenge against McClane, losing interest in the main mission for the rest of the movie.
* The ''[[Twilight]]: Eclipse'' movie seems to do this to Jane, implying that she will allow the Cullens' deaths without Aro's knowledge. This makes more sense than in the book, where Aro wants Edward and Alice to join his side but nevertheless is willing to let Victoria's army kill them.
== Literature ==
* Galadan Wolflord in ''[[The Fionavar Tapestry]]''. Rakoth, the [[Big Bad]], is a pretty standard dark god/ [[Evil Overlord]] who is out for world domination, but Galadan wants to destroy the world because he was [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|driven mad by the death of his love]], and he views Rakoth as a convenient weapon to help accomplish this. Obviously these goals are mutually exclusive, but it's implied that Rakoth knows all about Galadan's plans and does nothing simply because he knows the Wolflord isn't powerful enough to be a threat to him.
* Per [[Word of God]], [[Magnificent Bastard|Sauron]] only worked with [[God of Evil|Morgoth]] in [[The Silmarillion]] to advance his own ends- namely, to create perfect order by turning the world into a giant totalitarian state. As Morgoth's goals were, essentially, to take over the world so he could say "mine" before [[Omnicidal Maniac|blowing it up]], it's very likely that an [[Enemy Civil War]] would have broken out had the bad guys ''won''. Fortunately for Sauron, Morgoth went down first, allowing him to graduate to [[Big Bad]] in [[The Lord of the Rings]].
* [[The Thrawn Trilogy|Grand Admiral Thrawn and Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth]]. C'baoth took Thrawn's orders with more and more reluctance as time went on, and he wanted very different things. Towards the end they weren't really on the same side anymore. {{spoiler|Thrawn was fully aware of this, and at the time of his death was planning to solve the problem by [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|eliminating C'baoth]] and [[Send in the Clones|making a replacement C'baoth]]. His own death, nearly simultaneous to C'baoth's, derailed his plan.}}
* In the [[Codex Alera]], [[Lady Macbeth|Lady Invidia Aquitaine]] serves as her husband Lord Aquitaine's Dragon so that she can get her hans on the Realm's reins of power (and married him primarily for this purpose), while he {{spoiler|wants to topple a First Lord he sees as corrupt, but has no real desire to hold power himself}}. After breaking with him, Lady Aquitaine winds up in a similar relationship with {{spoiler|the Vord Queen}}, serving {{spoiler|her}} only because {{spoiler|she is able to keep Invidia alive despite her crippling injuries}}.
* In [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Otherland]]'', John Dread is this to [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] Felix Jongleur. Jongleur's [[Evil Plan]] is focused on [[Immortality Seeker|living forever]], and he's trained the [[Ax Crazy]] [[Serial Killer]] Dread as a [[Psycho for Hire]] to go after his physical opponents. Dread is far, far more ambitions than Jongleur realizes, however, and is simply biding his time, waiting for a moment of weakness to take over. And he does indeed, deposing Jongleur as master of Otherland and embarking on a [[A God Am I|godlike orgy]] of [[Sugar Apocalypse|virtual destruction]].
* On the good guy side we get Vimes playing this role to Vetinari, maybe. Most of the time Vimes appears to be just a good little dragon, but he does sometimes have a different agenda, or at least a different motivation. Depending on how you look at it; technically, they both want what's best for Ankh-Morpork, but they ''do'' often differ on what exactly that means.
* In [[David Eddings]]' [[The Malloreon]], the [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|Demon Lords Mordja and Nahaz]] work for [[The Big Bad|Zandramas]] and [[A God Am I|Urvon]] solely so that they can seize the [[Artifact of Doom|Sardion]] from them in their moment of triumph and then drag them into hell. Urvon's other Dragon, [[Evil Sorceror|Harakan]]/[[Dark Messiah|Mengha]] is also a [[Dragon with an Agenda]]; he conspires with Nahaz to drive Urvon mad and take his place, so that the two of them can rule with the world. Since Nahaz is out to betray ''both'' of them, and both of them believe that their magic is enough to keep him under control, he succeeds in being [[Dragon with an Agenda]] ''and'' [[Dragon-in-Chief]] to two separate characters.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[The Phoenix on the Sword]]", Ascalante. He was summoned to help the conspirators, and in his first appearance, comments on how his tools think he is their tool.
* Drake from ''[[Gone (novel)]]''. A psychopathic [[Complete Monster]], he serves as [[Big Bad]] [[The Sociopath|Caine's]] top enforcer, but it's apparent from his interior monologues that he's just helping Caine in hopes that Caine and Sam will kill each other. Although he probably would've turned on Caine as soon as they no longer had mutual goals, {{spoiler|Caine tried to kill him after Drake gave [[Dark Chick|Diana]] near-fatal injuries, which caused Drake to switch over to [[Bigger Bad|The Gaiaphage.]]}}
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* The Ebon Dragon of ''[[Exalted]]'' serves as this to Malfeas. While he may advise Malfeas or defer to his authority, he constantly seeks to manipulate the Demon King to his own purposes, and endemically betrays him. One of the biggest exmples would have been back when they were the Dragon's Shadow and the Holy Tyrant respectively, and he manipulated him into creating the Unconquered Sun (a deity who could serve as something for the Shadow to oppose, even while he would also subvert the authority of the Tyrant).
* In Warhammer, if you are a Dark Elf or a Skaven chances are you're this or have one or more of these under your comand. Wariors of Chaos and Orcs also might fit under this.
** Similarly in Warhammer 40k, all Dark Eldar assumes this of their subordinates, as backstabbing is the only way to gain a promotion. Part of the reason why Incubi are valued as bodyguards over the Archon's own cabalites, Incubi loyalty is tied to their coffers, not your competency.
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* [[Dragon Age]] has [[Black Magician Girl|Morrigan]], who serves as [[The Dragon]] to Flemeth (though how evil [[Ambiguously Evil|Flemeth]] really is may be debatable), yet turns on her mother at the first sign of betrayal.
* In ''Hordes of the Underdark'', Mephistopheles spends the first two chapters manipulating events so that he can be freed of the Valsharess' control; culminating in the final battle of the second chapter in which he removes all obstacles between you and the Drow queen so that you can take his revenge for him.
* The Ancient Minister and Ganondorf, as well as possibly Bowser, ''all'' take this role in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl: Subspace Emissary''
* Hawke in the ''[[Advance Wars]]'' series. especially noticeable in ''Dual Strike'' as he actively chafes against Von Bolt taking control of Black Hole {{spoiler|and eventually ends up leaving him for the heroes.}}
* Samir Duran could be considered a Dragon With An Agenda compared to the [[Big Bad]] Infested Kerrigan in [[Starcraft]] when we {{spoiler|discover some of his agenda in Dark Origin}}. He could also be viewed as an [[Enigmatic Minion]] {{spoiler|and [[The Mole]] (against two different factions!)}}
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* It is revealed midway through ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood|Assassin's Creed Brotherhood]]'' that Cesare, Rodrigo Borgia's [[The Dragon|Dragon]] (and son) is one of these, with plans to conquer all of Europe.
** Which Rodrigo tries to fight, as while the Templars want world domination, they don't want to be ''seen'' doing it. They'd much rather work behind the scenes.
* In [[Might and Magic]] VII, Kastore initially serves as an advisor to King Archibald of Deyja (along with the three other Terrans that followed his lead, but Kastore is the dominant one). Once you've made your choice between Light and Dark, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Kastore is building a power-base of his own (apparently going for a more traditional military-focused necromantic regime, but it turns out it is [[Lost Technology|a bit more complex than that]]), culminating in Archibald evacuating his closest followers to a laboratory off the coast of AvLee and Kastore assuming the throne of Deyja.
* Commander Shepard arguably falls into this role in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', being [[Enemy Mine|forced to work]] with the Illusive Man stop the Collectors from abducting colonists. Ironically, the Illusive Man seems surprised when Shepard (possibly) opts to destroy the Collector Base, [[Faustian Rebellion|tells him where to shove it]], before taking the ''Normandy'' and loyal crew for themselves.
* The [[Black Knight]] in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]'' aided [[The Chessmaster]] in {{spoiler|unleashing Ashera and her judgement}} and fought on their side in the game's climax, but didn't seem to have much interest in which side won in the end. His only personal goal was to {{spoiler|surpass his teacher, Greil, as a swordsman. After Greil was killed he figured his son Ike would make a suitable substitute, and siding with Ashera gave him the chance to face Ike in combat.}} This goal also existed when he was serving Ashnard in ''Path of Radiance'', but the player didn't know about it then.
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** Also from OotS, Sabine is Nale's Dragon. However, she's also covertly working for {{spoiler|The Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission}}. Luckily for Nale, her agenda involves helping him advance his agenda.
** And getting [[Unholy Matrimony|lots of hot hot sex from him.]]
*** Well, considering [[Horny Devils|what she is]], that last part goes without saying.
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]:'' Ysengrin wants to [[Kill All Humans]], and his boss Coyote apparently doesn't. It's [[Wild Mass Guessing|possible]] that Ysengrin is trying to pull strings behind Coyote's back, and that Y killed Red and Blue because [[He Knows Too Much|they saw too much]].
* Wanda from ''[[Erfworld]]'' seemingly serves Stanley the Tool willingly, but it turns out she convinced him to attack her kingdom of Faq because she expected him to get slaughtered, and when he emerged victorious, she only joined him in his quest for the legendary Arkentools because she was hoping she'd get to wield one herself. {{spoiler|She does}}.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Destro in some iterations of ''[[G.I. Joe]]''. He's pretty much in it for the money and [[The Baroness]].
* In ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'', Slade (formerly a [[Big Bad]] himself) only serves as [[Satan|Trigon's]] Dragon so {{spoiler|he can get his mortal body back}}. Interestingly, he starts out this plotline very subservient to Trigon, and gradually starts acting less as a servant and more like a partner when he gets closer to getting what he wants. {{spoiler|When it becomes apparent that Trigon has no intention of honoring their agreement, Slade [[Enemy Mine|teams up with the Titans]] to take him down}}.
* Raythar from ''[[WITCH (animation)|WITCH]]'' serves this role during the first part of the second season- [[Big Bad]] Nerissa has [[Hidden Agenda Villain|her own agenda]], but Raythar just wants to avenge the previous [[Big Bad]], [[Evil Overlord|Phobos]]. When a chance arises to put Phobos back on the throne, he ditches Nerissa and transfers his loyalty back to his original boss. Nerissa, meanwhile, replaces him with Shagon, who is her creation and therefore completely loyal.
* The Fright Knight in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' subtly expresses his absolutely distaste working for Pariah Dark and it hints he wants to go a different route. It ultimately proves true when he works against Pariah during the final battle. It's hinted he went to serve Vlad, but the original writer left the show before [[What Could Have Been|possible stories]] of this could have been told in Season Three.
* On ''[[Gargoyles]],'' [[The Fair Folk|the Weird Sisters]] serve this role for the Archmage--he wants revenge on Goliath, while they want revenge on the Magus and the rest of the Avalon Clan. They couldn't really get on the island themselves, however, since Oberon had forbidden it; the reason they willingly put themselves under the Archmage's service was because they knew ''he'' would order them to go there, exploiting a loophole in Avalon's laws.
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