Evil Versus Evil: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'''s main villain [[Monster Clown|Hisoka]] is a pretty good example of this as he often pits himself against other villains either [[For the Evulz|for his own twisted amusement]] or so that he can be [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|the only one to kill]] series protagonist Gon and his friends.

* In ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', Ryoko is extremely forward about her plans. She wants to kill Kyon in order to provoke a massive data explosion from Haruhi. Admittedly, this could cause the end of the world, depending on how much Haruhi loves Kyon. Yuki stops her and deletes her. Fast forward to nine novels later. Yuki is sick. ( {{spoiler|She's become ambassador to the Sky Canopy Dominion, because they aren't allowed to kill her after Kyon's threat. Next best thing is to send her to Cthulhu, and hope that'll break her completely.}}). Just when Suyoh comes out, and attacks Kyon, Ryoko arrives, in a [[Big Damn Heroes]] arrival, and protects Kyon. She still wants to kill him, but for now, only she can kill him.

* ''[[Bleach]]'': [[Mad Scientist|Mayuri]] (who is technically a good guy) achieves his [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment when he ''saves'' Ishida and Renji from Szayel Aporro Granz, who was gleefully torturing them by snapping every bone and tendon in their bodies one by one.

** Kenpachi (who is also technically a good guy) versus Nnoitra Gilga.

** The whole principle of Ciel's role as the Queen's watchdog is like this. Ciel achieves the Queen's desires and keeps stability through many times evil means. It is not too surprising that a police officer calls the Earl a demon.

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' pits Greed against the other homunculi and Dante/Father. He betrayed his creator and "siblings", and remains against them right up to his death.

'''Greed:''' I wouldn't say 'friend'; more like 'sworn enemies' if you wanna get down to the grit. }}

* ''[[Liar Game]]'' is more of a down to earth type of story but it goes on and on for chapters on Round 4 where {{spoiler|Yokoya and Harimoto are competing with each other, and in times making alliances even, to a point that our main heroes, Akiyama and Nao, kinda disappear. Even Yokoya and Harimoto kinda disregard Akiyama as a threat for a while. Big Mistake.}}

* The DC crossover event ''Reign in Hell'' pitted the half-demon children of Shazam, Blaze and Satanus, against Neron (who was [[Retcon|retconned]] into being ''the'' ruler of Hell instead of being just another demon lord) in a bid to control all of Hell. A few of the magic-using DC heroes got involved in the conflict because the fallout of the infernal struggle was screwing up magic in general. It ultimately ended with {{spoiler|Satanus defeating Neron by transforming ''all'' the demons of Hell into humans (which had the side effect of stripping Neron of most of his power that was absorbed from other demons over the millenia), Neron's head on a pike, and Blaze betraying Satanus in a moment of weakness making her the new Queen of Hell}}.

* [[Geoff Johns]]' ''Rogue War'', which pitted two teams of [[The Flash]]'s rogues (one led by Captain Cold, the other by the original Trickster) going up against each other, (over the body of Captain Boomerang, among other things) soon joined by a third group (brought together by the Top). This leads up to a [[The DCU/Awesome|CMOA]] where Captain Cold, almost the epitome of [[Even Evil Has Standards]], freezes then kills the Top, the whole time berating him why this shouldn't have happened.

* In the [[Marvel]] UK ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' story "Target: 2006", Galvatron travels back in time and kicks everybody's arses, trapping Megatron and Soundwave under a pile of rocks. With the Autobots badly beaten, Ironhide decides to free Megatron in a desperate bid to defeat Galvatron. Oh, and while that's going on, [[The Starscream|Starscream]] is acting against them ''both''.

** Happens a lot in the comics, actually. Shockwave frequently faced off against Megatron; Starscream manipulates Scorponok and Ratbat into sending their respective armies into combat in the Underbase Saga; Jhaixus kicks Megatron's arse in [[Transformers Generation 2]] to solidify his position as the real [[Big Bad]] of the storyline; etc.

* ''[[Freddy vs. Jason]]'' - Freddy Krueger from [[Nightmare On Elm Street]] is pitted against Jason Voorhees from ''[[Friday the 13th]]''. The winner is fuzzy, but on the whole most people find themselves siding with the guy who isn't a child molestor (even if he does have many, many more kills).

* ''[[Riddick|The Chronicles of Riddick]]''. Played straight, except the title character is actually more of a [[Noble Demon]]. Still, the trope is referred to almost by name in the narration.

** An unaired trailer for ''Pitch Black'', the previous Riddick movie, actually had "Fight evil with evil" as its promotional slogan.

* [[The Musical]] and later film ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (film)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'' has a protagonist who murders his customers and gives his neighbor their bodies to bake into pies to sell. The antagonist is a corrupt [[Hanging Judge]] and [[Dirty Old Man]] who sentences children to death on trumped up charges and who [[Rape as Drama|raped the protagonist's wife]] after [[Murder the Hypotenuse|sending him away to Australia]] and essentially wishes to do the same thing to his daughter.

* The main plot point of ''[[Yojimbo]]'', and the works directly inspired by it, ''[[A Fistful of Dollars]]'' and ''Last Man Standing''.

* Augustus Gibbons discusses this in ''[[XXX]]'' by way of explanation of recruiting criminals.

* ''[[Outrage]]'' is about several groups of [[Yakuza]] killing each other.

* ''[[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.

* 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.

 

 

** This trope is a major part of the ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'' series. The {{spoiler|Corona Aurora}}, an object of god-like power, is so sought after that there are a total of four distinct villain factions fighting the Rangers and one another for it; they occasionally get along, but most of the time, they're fighting one another as often as they fight the Rangers. Even after being shown they're a much greater threat working together, they go right back to trying to kill each other afterwards.

** ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder]]'' had Mesogog, the current [[Big Bad]], [[Villain Team-Up|team up]] with [[Power Rangers Ninja Storm|the previous season's]] [[Big Bad]] Lothor. Once their plans fail, they instantly turn on one another and duke it out. Of course being the present [[Big Bad]], Mesogog ultimately wins.

* ''[[Dexter]]'' is made of this, what with the title character being a serial killer that targets criminals, mostly other serial killers.

* The demon Crowley in ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' is an amusing example of this. He manipulates and double-crosses just about everybody in sight, from the protagonists to his own demonic peers, in order to save his own neck, his comfortable job as a soul merchant and (incidental to those goals) the world. Though a useful ally and unusually honest for a demon, he never makes any attempt to pretend he isn't evil. This makes it all the more impressive that he convinces the good guys to keep working with him even after they've been tricked, thrown under the bus, beaten half-senseless and otherwise abused as a result of listening to him.

*** Sentinels are hardly "evil", though. They're just following their programming: defend the Ring from anyone they perceive as a threat. Now Guilty Spark, on the other hand, is a [[Heel Face Revolving Door|decidedly more complicated matter]].

** Lampshaded in one of the last levels of ''[[Halo 2]]''. You can either fight your way up the catwalk to the Tomb of the Arbiter, or rush in headlong. The enemies on said catwalk will follow you inside... and start fighting the other enemies already there.

** In ''[[Halo 3]]'', at one point the Prophet of Truth is about to activate the Halo Array and unleash destruction upon the galaxy. ''Nobody'' wants that, not even [[The Virus|the parasitic Flood]], so for one brief moment you must fight alongside Flood combatants and decimate Truth's bodyguards. Like in the example above, you can even hang back and let the unstoppable hulks do the heavy lifting for you.

* Excluding the Protoss campaign, you play as a commander in an evil force throughout ''[[Starcraft]] Brood War''. This is even lampshaded by the Queen Bitch of the Universe herself.

'''Kerrigan:''' Of course, Duran. They're simply siding with the evil they know over the evil they don't. They just don't realize exactly what it will cost them. }}

* Several scenes in the ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'' series feature the human enemies and alien enemies fighting each other. In ''Half-Life 2'' and its Episodes, Combine troops, Antlions, and Headcrabs/Zombies all willingly attack each other. After an epic battle between a mob of Zombies, a swarm of Antlions, and Freeman and his Vortigaunt ally, the Vortigaunt comments on how the Antlions and Zombies continue to fight even after the two had escaped.

* ''[[Ansem Retort]]''. Hell, there's only a couple people that are actually ''good'': everyone else is a murderer, psychopath, [[Jerkass]] or all of the above, no matter which side you look at.

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

* Mac and Shmeerm live up this gloriously in one of the longer more epic''[[Voodoo Walrus]]'' storyarcs titled [http://voodoowalrus.com/?p=777 Meatnecks and Boomsticks]

* 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.