Evil Versus Evil: Difference between revisions

See also [[Even Evil Has Standards]] and [[Black and Gray Morality]]. Contrast [[Enemy Civil War]], [[Eviler Than Thou]], and [[The Good, the Bad, and The Evil]], which are about antagonists battling other antagonists. This trope is the opposite of a [[Villain Team-Up]]. Has a [[Sub-Trope]] in [[Evil Versus Oblivion]], where one side is world-destroying bad.

 

 

{{examples}}

* The Namek saga of ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'' has Vegeta almost in the role of [[Villain Protagonist]]. Keep in mind that he is the [[Big Bad]] of the previous arc (barely a month before), and that his methods for obtaining Dragon Balls (devastate the village it is kept) are exactly the same that Frieza and his men employ. But, with Goku in [[Deus Exit Machina|space/healing]] and Piccolo dead, he is the best chance of holding off or defeating Frieza for most of the saga.

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' is an example of this in some respects. Lucy is a [[Villain Protagonist]], but the organization that's trying to capture her is led by a [[Complete Monster]] and has field agents who are [[Anti-Hero|very questionably heroic]]. Most of the good characters can't really do much in this conflict; Nana is the only "good" diclonius, and she's a bit of a [[Jobber]].

* An episode of ''Bakugan Mechtanium Surge'' was actually called Evil VS Evil.

* ''[[Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force]]'': The [[Mage Killer|Huckebein]] Family finds itself fighting others who are infected with the same virus but are [[Eviler Than Thou]].

 

* The quintessential comic book example: ''[[Wanted (Comic Book)|Wanted]]'', the story of the son of one of the world's most skilled supervillains in a world where a much, much more grotesque, inhuman villain is waging war with—yes—other supervillains, for control of the world, which has fallen under the control of—hey, you guessed it! -- supervillainy.

* [[The DCU]] has the [[Suicide Squad]], a US government black ops unit made up primarily with [[Boxed Crook|jailed supervillains]] who agree to undertake dangerous missions against other supervillains with promised clemency if they survive.

* Boom Studio's [[Franco Belgian Comics|french import]] ''7 Psychopaths'' chronicled a group of army-sanctioned crazies who are trained and parachuted into Germany to kill [[Adolf Hitler]]. The group included a sociopathic mimic, a bloodthirsty maniac who shrugged off pain, a man who believed Hitler to be an actual demon, and a mother with impeccable sniper skills.

* Happens ''all the time'' in the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' comics, due to [[Big Bad Ensemble|the sheer number of villainous factions in the series]].

 

== Fan Works ==

* ''Narrowly'' subverted in the ''[[Pony POV Series]]''. {{spoiler|Discord's mind games drive Princess Luna nearly to the point of turning back into [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Nightmare Moon]] to stop him. She just ''barely'' restrains herself enough to regain her grasp on sanity, but still assumes her Nightmare Moon form in order to trick him. Also subverted later, as many assumed the second [[Big Bad]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper]] would overlap and fight with Discord upon his release, but that wasn't the case.}}

* In [[The Tainted Grimoire]], {{spoiler|Duelhorn}} declares war on Khamja.

 

== Films -- Animation ==

* ''[[Despicable Me]]''. But given that both Gru and Vector are kid-friendly [[Harmless Villain]]s, it's played strictly for laughs.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* ''[[Quentin Tarantino|Jackie Brown]]'': A crooked Air Hostess who has no qualms about holding people at gunpoint, working for gun smugglers and betraying people left, right and centre is the good guy, next to the gun smuggler himself.

* Pretty much the premise behind the movie ''[[Payback]]''.

* ''The Evil That Men Do'' (1984). [[Charles Bronson]] is a hitman hired to murder Dr Clement [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Molloch]], a [[Mad Doctor|doctor]] who advises South American dictatorships on [[Torture Technician|how to torture people]]. We see Bronson carry out several cold-blooded murders, to the shock of the woman accompanying him as his pretend wife.

* ''[[District 9]]'' briefly has the variant where both sides in the struggle over the fate of the Prawns -both MNU and the Nigerian gangs- are [[Complete Monster|utterly unsympathetic]] and you really hope they wipe each other out.

* ''[[Bully (film)|Bully]]'' is about a group of vapid, selfish, amoral wastes of space who conspire to commit murder. The victim is a [[Complete Monster]], but the film argues that he's only the same key played louder.

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' revolves around this (though they [[Black and Gray Morality|gray]] [[Protagonist-Centered Morality|up]] some sides). At least one of the factions consists of amoral pirates. The others include an amoral/somewhat sadistic [[Psychopomp]] and the [[Complete Monster]] leader of the East India Trading Company. (plus the British Navy, which doesn't do much.)

 

== Literature ==

* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' we have {{spoiler|Tigerstar Vs. Scourge}} during ''The Darkest Hour''. And, depending on your view of them, {{spoiler|1=Stick Vs. Dodge in SkyClan's Destiny}} may count.

* Much of Glen Cook's ''Annals of the Black Company'' is devoted to the internal conflicts between powerful evil sorcerers. Much of the original trilogy involves the Lady's struggle to keep her [[Eviler Than Thou]] husband, the Dominator, from freeing himself, so she can keep ruling her own empire as she pleases.

* The final battle of the ''[[Books of Swords]]'' trilogy is fought between Yambu, the Silver Queen, [[Big Bad]] of the first two novels, and [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Vilkata, the Dark King]], the even [[Bigger Bad]] of the third book. Interestingly, Yambu only does her [[Heel Face Turn]] ''after'' she wins the battle but loses her throne. Of course, the third book does give Yambu a [[Broken Bird|sympathetic backstory]], including something of a [[Freudian Excuse]]. But it's not an accident that she wins the battle using Soulcutter, also known as the Tyrant's Blade, a name she acknowledges.

* [[Private Detective]] and [[Vigilante Man]] Mike Hammer, as quoted in ''One Lonely Night'' just before he blew away a bunch of [[Dirty Communists]] who were torturing Velda.

{{quote|''I was the evil that opposed other evil, leaving the good and the meek in the middle to live and inherit the Earth!''}}

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** [[Homeland]] fans that are also yoai fans that liked the Carrie/Nick Brodie romance would be quick to see that as pretty hot. "They'll turn on each other in a heartbeat" and so forth. [[Double Entendre|To the mattresses]]!

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' has this thing going on. We have the Goa'uld fighting each other over territory and other things, we have the Replicators (not evil per se, but a threat to all life) fighting everyone, including the Goa'uld. In Atlantis we have the Asurans, who battled the Wraith, erasing human life to deplete the Wraith's "food sources". {{spoiler|In the end the Asurans proved to by far the greater threat, leading to an [[Enemy Mine|alliance]] between the humans and a Wraith faction to eliminate them.}}

** In fact, during ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', [[Blood Knight|Klingons]] went to war against the [[Dirty Communists|Cardassians]] midway through the series' run, before [[Big Bad|Gul Dukat]] enlisted the aid of the [[Lawful Evil|Dominion]] to drive the Klingons almost to the brink of defeat, before the [[Black and Grey Morality|Federation]] (and later, the [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|Romulans]]) stepped in to help.

** Playing the trope more straight, Species 8472 versus the Borg in ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''.

* Season 8 of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' had this [[Once Per Episode]] with [[The Master (trope)|The Master]] and whatever monster he had [[The Starscream|allied]] himself with. Some larger-scale examples include: the Sontaran-Rutan war, the Dalek-Movellan war, the Dalek civil war, and the Dalek-Cyberman battle ([[Curb Stomp Battle|such as it was]]).

** And now, it appears {{spoiler|that the war between the Time-Lords and Daleks became this.}}

* ''[[Lost]]'' has the conflict between {{spoiler|Ben Linus and Charles Widmore}} in seasons 4 and 5, as they vie for control of the island. In season 6, it seems to be setting the stage for another one in addition: {{spoiler|Charles Widmore versus the show's real [[Big Bad]], The Man In Black.}}

* The ''[[Smallville]]'' episode "Injustice". A group of [[Boxed Crook|supervillains]] are sent to take down [[The Juggernaut|Doomsday]].

* ''[[Power Rangers Zeo]]'' saw Rita and Zedd attempting to undermine the Machine Empire. In the end, it was ''Rita and Zedd'' that destroyed The Empire, rather than the heroes.

 

== Print Media ==

 

* Though less common than Face vs. Face, and FAR less common than Face vs. Heel, sometimes happens in pro wrestling, pa rticularly when [[Vince Russo]] is at the helm. Making one a success can be difficult though, since one of the cardinal rules of any match is that the audience should be rooting for ''someone''. One major example would be [[The Corporation]] Vs. The [[Ministry of Darkness]] feud, where both sides were portrayed as bad guys.

** Though in the end those two groups would merge together to form the Corporate Ministry, and it was revealed [[Vince McMahon]] was the mastermind behind both stables all along. It still works as not every member was in on the plan, though those members left prior to the merger and [[Heel Face Turn|turned face]]. Though even in the Corporate Ministry there was fighting within the group, especially between [[The Undertaker]] and [[Triple H]].

* [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] vs. The Hart Foundation could be viewed as this, had it not been for the overwhelming crowd reaction in Austin's favor.

* Undertaker vs Big Bossman in a Hell In A Cell match was this. This one wasn't so successful, mostly because they had no real chemistry or feud, so the crowd had nobody to root for.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

*** And in the 2nd Edition of the game, the various forces of good took time to fan the flames, hoping to break their enemies against each other. ''[[Planescape]]'' has many references to various celestials who help the Blood War along and support either the side they dislike less or both at once - whether because it's the easiest way to get rid of as many fiends as possible, or out of fear the fiends will reach a truce, or reasoning that when the fiends are busy killing each other, they have less free time to roam around and mess with innocent people. In the boxed set ''Hellbound: the Blood War'', there's even an adventure where player characters discover high-ranking angelic beings funneling weapons and armor to their favored side in the war so more and more of the fiends would be killed.

*** Some demon sub-races are also enemies of other demon sub-races (retrievers eat all other demons, for example). Some members of the higher ranking devil sub-races get promoted to the next higher-ranking sub-race by getting their direct superior killed or demoted, while some pit fiends (the highest-ranking sub-race) do the same to replace the devil dukes and duchesses who themselves are [[The Starscream]] to the archdevils. There's also much enmity between [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|the archdevils (Dispater and Mephistipholes vs. Baalzebul, Prince Levistus vs. Princess Glasya, all the other archdevils trying to take Asmodeous' throne) and the demon lords]] (Juiblex vs. Zugtmoy, Baphomet vs. Yenoghu, the three-way battle between Graz'zt, Orcus and Demogorgan).

*** In the ''Complete Scoundrel'' supplement, a prestage class called the Malconvoker is introduced which follows the teachings of a book called Vital Pact to impersonate evil for the sole purpose of summoning fiends to fight other evils and other with perpetuate all of the fighting between evil above, since the Celestial beings are too few to win their war against evil otherwise.

** 4th Edition has several instances, the most notable being the [[Evil Overlord|god of war Bane]] and his eternal war versus [[Complete Monster|god of destruction Gruumsh]]. While Bane revels in conquest and power, one of his prime commandments is to [[Even Evil Has Standards|ALWAYS obey the rules of war]]. He also likes his followers to be rigidly disciplined and wants to preserve the world so that it will be worth conquering. Gruumsh on the other hand revels in utter destruction and encourages savagery in his followers. Both want to be the uncontested god of war, and thus they've been fighting for eons over their differences.

*** Frost giants (Often [[Chaotic Evil]] according to the Third Edition ''Monster Manual'') often kill white dragons for food and armour or capture them to use as guards. There are both many evil and many non-evil githzerai, but both attack the githyanki and mind flayers on sight. Meanwhile, githyanki and mind flayers are both evil and attack each other on sight as well.

*** Salamanders hate efreet. Most beholders want to wipe out all other beholders.

* The post-war ''[[Dragonlance]]'' setting is like this. With [[Big Bad|Takhisis]] banished to the Abyss, her five Dragonarmies turn on each other. Now, the five factions are just as apt to fight each other as they are to attack the good guys.

* This is the very principle behind the [[Tabletop RPG]] ''Necessary Evil''. An alien invasion has wiped out all the superheroes, so the only ones left to defend the world is the supervillains. After all, you can hardly conquer the world if it's already been destroyed by aliens, right?

* [[Savage Worlds]]: Necessary Evil envisions a world where supervillains are the only powerful humans left after a massive alien invasion. They form a resistance to fight back the occupiers, but aren't necessarily reformed. If they drive back the aliens, they'll be in a position to take over the planet.

* An option for ''[[In Nomine]]'' casts the setting as Dark Low Contrast, where angels and demons are both wicked, violent fanatics and nobody at all is looking out for humanity's interests. The PCs in such a campaign will normally try to be better than the rest, though.

 

== Video Games ==

* In [[Odin Sphere]], most of the villains are fighting against each other and the heroes are either third parties or unwitting pawns. Odin {{spoiler|wants to bring the end of the world and lead the survivors into a new age}}, the trio of wizards want the same thing and also {{spoiler|get revenge on Odin for betraying them before he became a king}}, King Valentine is simply so broken that he wants to end everything while also wanting {{spoiler|revenge on Odin for seducing his daughter}}, the Fairy Queen (the least evil of the factions) wants a world ending weapon that she uses to keep her people alive, Odin's general makes it no secret he's trying for a coup, Melvin {{spoiler|plans to become the new leader of the faries and used Oswald as a test subject for a weapon he wanted to mass produce}}, the Queen of Death is only interested in running her place as she sees fit {{spoiler|and making Oswald her slave, per contract}}, {{spoiler|the last king of Titania}} wants out of the afterlife to cause some chaos, the Fire King desperately wants Gwendolyn as his wife and is willing to kill anyone in his way and {{spoiler|Ingway}} wants to {{spoiler|kill Odin more than anyone for making his life a living hell}}. Oh, and {{spoiler|Griselda, Gwendolyn's sister, manipulated her and Oswald into helping kickstart the end of the world in ghost form}}. If you couldn't guess, most of these people end up clawing at one another's necks before the game is over.

* ''[[The Witcher]]'', while doesn't always steer close to the novels, maintains the [[Grimdark]] part. To quote [[Nerf Now|Jo Pereira‏]] - "Witcher is full of hard decisions. Help the cannibal witches or side with the murderous tree?"

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Vexxarr]]'' instigates a war which is essentially this.

{{quote|'''Vexxarr''': Which side do you pity the most? The side that attempts to [[Evil Overlord|enslave anyone it meets]] or the side that attempts to [[I'm a Humanitarian|eat anyone it meets]]? }}

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick]],'' [[Evil Twin|Nale]] and his Linear Guild have a bad history with his father, [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|Tarquin]] and his allies.

** For that matter, the story seems to be setting up the Linear Guild as competition for the Gates with both the good guys and [[Big Bad|Xykon]]'s gang.

** Jacqui is nice, if too airheaded most of the time, and occasionally tries to help people outside her little circle. So is Tiffany, though she is thoroughly skulljumbled even without all the mind control.

* This is how [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized|the Insurrection]] views the war between [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|the Covenant]] and [[United Nations Is a Super Power|the UNSC]] in ''[[Halo: A Fistful of Arrows]]''.

 

== Web Original ==

* In ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog]]'', it could be argued that both Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer are evil, only the latter has enough [[Villain with Good Publicity|good PR]] that he has everyone convinced he's [[The Cape (trope)]].

* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]'', we have [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Marik]] and Florence versus [[Complete Monster|Melvin]] and Team [[4Kids! Entertainment]].

 

== Western Animation ==

** Though Mr. E is more morally ambiguous than the other two, making this more an example of [[Black and Gray Morality]].

* [[Conversational Troping|Conversed]] in an episode of ''[[Hey Arnold!]]''. Sid suggested that he and his friends just watch two bullies, Wolfgang and Ludwig, duke it out over Gerald Field and when they're both dead they can reclaim it. This makes the example more [[Jerkass]] vs. [[Jerkass]] though, and when they try out the plan, the bullies just force the younger kids to play football to decide a winner rather than get their hands dirty. In the end, the bullies find they like each other, leaving the gang worse off than before.

* ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'': during the Kirwood Derby arc, [[The Starscream|Boris Badenov]] fought Fearless Leader for the Derby. When the narrator asked who would win the fight, they both [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|turned to the camera]] and shouted, "Who cares? We're both bad guys!"

* Two episodes of ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters|Filmations Ghostbusters]]'' featured a villain named Big Evil, who tried to usurp Prime Evil's status as the [[Big Bad]] of that series. Both episodes invoked the [[Enemy Mine]] trope by having Prime Evil asking for help from the heroes.

* The second to last episode of ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League Unlimited]]'' "Alive!" had this. The Secret Society Grodd had created had been taken over by Luthor. However with Luthor taking much more of the cut than Grodd did and Luthor himself seemingly descending into insanity as well as not giving Tala much attention, she decided to bring back Grodd from Luthor's imprisonment along with a good number of the rest of the society who also had an ax to grind with Luthor. Of course {{spoiler|Luthor won in the end. And then [[Darkseid]] came along.....}}

* Stewie VS Penelope in ''[[Family Guy]]''. Stewie used to be very evil in the first few seasons, but has mellowed out a lot and is more of a jerk than an evil bastard. He meets Penelope, a baby girl his age who has done her acts of killing people and having a mass amount of weapons of her own. Stewie likes Penelope at first and wants to be with her, but even he starts to have his doubts, getting tired of killing people everyday and he fights her to the death when she goes to kill Brian because Stewie wouldn't do it.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Arch Enemy]]

[[Category:Villains]]