Grey and Gray Morality: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Simoun (Manga)|Simoun]]'', from the beginning. It starts with the POV of someone from one of the peripheral, heavily polluted nations talking about why they are invading Simulacrum, and it has examples throughout of both sides doing good and bad.

* The battles between the Marines and Pirates in ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'' depends on the person. Both sides have their good, and '''[[Complete Monster|(VERY)]]''' bad members. The Marines believe in two types of justice, moral justice, and Absolute Justice, while pirates can either be in it strictly for the adventure, or are in it for the raping and pillaging. While it still holds true to being good vs. evil, the end of the [[The Alcatraz|Impel Down Arc]] in ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'' shows lights of this with Hannybal. {{spoiler|He desperately tries to keep the prisoners from escaping Impel Down because he well understands that most of these people are the scum of the earth and deserve to be here, and letting them out will cause widespread fear to innocent people.}} In the end, Luffy's intentions are still to undo the evil of the World Government, but this particular arc reminds us that a majority of the pirates in the world are dangerous criminals themselves and that the Straw Hats are a rare group of freedom fighters.

* ''[[Steamboy (Anime)|Steamboy]]'' explores the relationship between mankind and science, and aside from the O'Hara Foundation proper, none of the sides (Eddie Steam, Lloyd Steam, Scarlett O'Hara and Robert Stephenson) are shown to be entirely right or wrong.

* ''[[Vinland Saga (Manga)|Vinland Saga]]'' is about [[Horny Vikings|vikings]]. The main character could generously be called a [[Heroic Sociopath]] and doesn't actually care what side he's on. The sides in question change, merge, and are destroyed through various slaughters and assassinations. It isn't so much [[Grey and Gray Morality]] as Gray Stew.

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' has numerous examples of good guys (Jack in particular) being less than good, and 'bad' guys just acting within their nature. Witness the ''Children of Earth'' miniseries; the faceless, completely evil aliens are the plot's driving force, but the meat of the story is what the government and what Torchwood are willing to do to deal with it. It's hard to say if anyone wins in the end...

** It was common in the show's early historical episodes. ''The Crusade'' shows both Richard the Lionheart and Saladdin to be honourable men.

** ''Doctor Who and the Silurians'' is a textbook example as both the humans and the Silurians are shown to be equally aggressive and honourable, with even the Brigadier commiting attrocities to win.

*** [[Fridge Brilliance|The joke makes a lot of sense in hindsight]] given that Londo and the Centauri are initially portrayed almost wholly sympathetically, while G'kar and the Narn are portrayed very much as villainous. By the end of the second season, however, both the characters' and audience's sympathies have completely reversed (in part thanks to Londo making a [[Deal With the Devil]]). By the end of the fourth season, it's no longer clear who's the hero or the villain in the perpetual conflict - which was almost certainly the intention of Stracyzinski from the very beginning.

* The [[The Cavalier Years|English Civil War]] drama ''By the Sword Divided''. There are some obviously 'good' characters, but none of them are perfect, while no one is shown as an out-and-out villain either.

* In various seasons of ''[[Survivor (TV)|Survivor]]'', the final two (three in more recent seasons) was often seen as this, both (or all three) people pretty much annoyed the Jury and they wound up voting for who they viewed as the lesser evil.

** ''Marquesas'' is perhaps one of the ''best'' examples of this trope; Neleh admittedly didn't start playing the game until Day 24 and glided through on other peoples' shoulders, while Vecepia flip-flopped enough times to make everyone question where she stood, and won because everyone was mad at Neleh.

** ''Daggerfall'' is full of this. About the only morally unambigious choice in the end-game is to aid the Underking, and then only because his goal is to finally ''[[Undeath Always Ends|die]]'' rather than to actually use Numidium. There are several candidates for [[Complete Monster]], and you ''will'' aid at least one of them out of your own free will, without being fooled, over the course of the main storyline.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' doesn't have a lot of easy choices. Except for many pirates and mercenaries who murder indiscriminately for money, most opponents are [[Well Intentioned Extremists]] or [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] sorts but not really evil. Starting with ''Mass Effect 2'', this is cranked up considerably and a large number of the team members are both nice to be around and have done lots of questionable things in their past for which they feel no regret at all.

* ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'' has this in the campaign Descent into Darkness. You control a young mage apprentice who takes up dark magic (read: animating corpses) to defend his town, and is exiled. His sister, the town guard, holy knights who show up for no reason but to piss you off in the hardest mission of the campaign all wish to have him killed. He takes revenge on them. In the end, it's mostly black versus black or black versus grey (with you playing the part of a very borderline black) but until they drop an anvil on you and have you fight endlessly repeating (and rather easy) battles against random commanders, you never genuinely know who to root for.

* This is the theme of the ''[[Tales Series]]'' series. Ever since ''[[Tales of Phantasia (Video Game)|Phantasia]]'', the seemingly vilest of antagonists has at minimum a lofty goal in mind, and the most noble of protagonists is either hiding something, misguided, or aiding and abetting someone who is either hiding something or misguided.

* The companies Reliable Excavation and Demolition and Builder's League United in ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' are an interesting case - the motives and morality of both sides are [[Not So Different|identical]]. It isn't grey-on-grey, though because the motives and morality of both sides seem to be "World Domination", and "In The Gutter", respectively, making it [[Crapsack World|black-on-black]].

** Considering the Evil Overlady announcer voice is identical for both sides, there is the potential possibility that both teams are working for the same boss. Which really starts messing with your head if you think about it too much.

* In the ''[[Fallout 3]]'' DLC, ''The Pitt'', the two factions the Lone Wanderer encounters fit this trope. Wernher, the leader of the slave rebellion, wants to steal the cure to the mutations that ravage The Pitt to use it as a bargaining chip for the freedom of the slaves. Ashur, the ruler of the Pitt, considers his Raider army and slave-based workforce necessary evils that have given The Pitt safety and industrial power beyond compare; he hopes to use the cure to heal the inhabitants of the Pitt and allow them to have healthy children again, meaning they would no longer need slave labor because they would have a homegrown workforce. The player can side with either faction.

** The reason for Ashur's taking his sweet time working on the cure? {{spoiler|It's his daughter, who was born with a immunity to the radiation.}}

* [[Word of God]] claims that this is the case in ''[[Drow Tales]]'', where the story is shown through several viewpoint characters, neither being portrayed as good/evil and with fairly realistic motivations for their actions.

* In the very [[Not Safe for Work]] webcomic ''[[Felarya]]'', man - eating monsters are depicted as no worse than the humans they eat.

* The main conflict in [[Juathuur]] is between control and freedom. Both sides have their reasons, and their differences are mainly due to age gaps (as the 'control' side grew up in a world torn by war, and the 'freedom' side did not). See the comic page for details.

* The main characters of ''[[Narbonic]]'' are a mad scientist, her henchwoman who loves to destroy things, her henchman with a deep dark secret not even he knows, and a superintelligent gerbil whose efforts to do good often cause more havoc and chaos than some of the evil plans afoot.

** The war between the Spanish and Aztec; both sides had strengths but also had abominable elements. One recurring theme with native american history is that the natives are always portrayed as peace-loving pacifists who were just fighting back...however, with the war between the Spanish and the Aztec, over ''twice'' the army conquering the Aztecs were in fact natives (Especially the Tlxcalans) who sided with the Spanish. The Aztecs weren't exactly popular. Likewise, a moral strength of Spain that tends to get glossed over is the fact that Cortes had wanted to maintain the social structure of the empire, and had he gotten his way, the Aztecs basically would have been Spanish Citizens.

** The [[Arab Israeli Conflict]]. Both sides are sympathetic, but at the same time, both have committed atrocities. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|That's all we'll say about this]].

* Piracy. Most people on both sides of the issue believe that it's really [[Black and White Morality]] (with themselves always being the white) but it's really more shades of grey. Yes DRM has been intrusive, often turning away people and even having ''virus-like behaviour''...but it really doesn't look very good for pirates when [[The Witcher|games]] [[World of Goo (Video Game)|with]] [[Demigod|no]] [[DRM]] have high piracy rates. Or when musicians and developers release stuff with prices as low as a dollar or less wind up pirated.

** It looks even worse when something like the Humble Indie Bundle comes around that gives you 5 or so DRM free games that you can pay any amount you want, and people still pirate it, despite the fact that they can pay as little as a penny for it.

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:Grey And Gray Morality]]