Mob War: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
The friction between two (or more) rival crime factions has broken out and exploded into all out warfare. This can happen between two groups of the same type/nationality (for example two [[The Mafia|Mafia]] families going at it) or between multiple nationalities. (I.e. [[The Mafiya]] taking on a [[Yakuza]] group). Two groups of [[Gang-Bangers]] getting into a
This may be portrayed as a organized crime version of [[Feuding Families]], and as with many portrayals of [[Feuding Families]] [[Evil Versus Evil|both sides are evil]].
Sometimes, the war comes from conflict between two factions within a single group, which tends to be a particularly bitter and usually short conflict. In this case it often [[Pyrrhic Villainy|doesn't matter who wins or loses]], as the victor usually finds that their criminal empire has been smashed beyond repair by the conflict.
Expect to see at least half of the [[Guns and Gunplay Tropes]] put into effect, as well as lots of [[Stuff Blowing Up]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In the ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' episode "Ballad of Fallen Angels," Spike's former [[Mentor]], Mao Yenrai was killed in Vicious's introduction scene for trying to make peace between the Red Dragon Syndicate and another Mob. Later, the Red Dragons would have a mini civil war when Vicious launched his coup.
* ''[[Black Lagoon]]'': A constant threat in
** Specifically, an all-out war against the Yakuza during the Fujiyama Gangster Paridise arc. However, it is noted that potential mob conflicts solve themselves once a third party gets involved: Roberta in the ''El Baille de la Muerte'' arc and Hansel and Grettel in the Vampire Twins arc.
* In the ''[[Gungrave]]'' anime, the out-of-town Lightning organisation's attempt to take power from [[The Syndicate|Millennion]].
* ''[[Baccano
* Essentially the plot of the second season of ''[[Durarara!!]]'', and also a part of the back story for several characters.
* Several arcs of ''[[Tokyo Crazy Paradise]]'' center on potential or actual mob wars, sometimes with [[Psycho Serum]]-fueled monsters.
* Happens in ''[[Heat Guy J]]''. The head of the Wei family is ''not'' happy that Clair has been made head of the Leonelli family (One, it interferes with the Wei family's power, and two Clair is [[Ax Crazy|nucking futz]].) He tries to absorb the Leonelli family into his own, and when that fails, slights Clair (and attempts to poison him) at a luncheon/dinner. An all-out fight ensues, with great losses on both sides. Clair responds by sending a tanker truck full of napalm to the Wei family's district. {{spoiler|Daisuke stops him, though.}} (In the manga, he dispenses with the napalm and has his girlfriend build a sexy gyndroid to seduce and strangle Wei. There is also no explicit mention of an all-out
== [[
* ''[[Sin City]]'' occasionally features this, most notably with the Old Town Girls once resisting attempts from the mob to invade their turf and later striking back at [[The Mafia]] for the death of one of their own when she had been just an [[Innocent Bystander]].
* If a hero operates in a city and the series lasts more that 60 issues, this WILL be a storyline. [[Batman]] and [[Spider-Man]] have both had ''multiple''
** Batman's most notable was [[
* An early ''[[Savage Dragon]]'' storyline featured a mob war among superpowered criminals.
* ''[[The Punisher]]'s'' origin came when his family was killed in a botched mob hit during one of these.
* The inspiration of the 2003 ''[[
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* Part of "Bushiko Ranma"'s [[Backstory]] in the ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfic ''[[Ranma and Akane: A Love Story]]'' is his involvement in a war between different factions of the Hong Kong underworld when he was twelve, which due to the way the sides fell out, forced him to face a man he thought of as an older brother in deadly combat.
== [[Film]] ==
* This happens in ''[[
* Disney's The Rescuers,{{context}}
* ''[[Gangs of New York]]'' - In the movie it's immigrant Irish gangs vs. native-born Americans. In the book, it's basically every immigrant group vs. every other one. One memorable passage is about a street in the Lower East Side where all the Irish immigrants lived across the street from all the English immigrants. They'd go to work, go to their various pubs, get hammered, and then spill into the street and brawl ''almost every day.''
* ''[[
* Chicago was being torn apart by the violence between different mobs in ''[[The Untouchables]]''. (And in real life).
* B-movie ''Hollow Point'' featured a Syndicate with [[The Mafia|Italian]], [[The Mafiya|Russian]] and [[The Triads and
* There are many yakuza movies dealing with
* ''[[A Fistful of Dollars]]'', the first film of the [[Man With No Name Trilogy]], features this with the Baxters and the Rojos, two families vying for control in a small town.
** And the remake ''[[Last Man Standing (
*** And the film which both of them are remakes of, [[Akira Kurosawa
**** Which in turn may also have been based on the [[Dashiell Hammett]] novel ''[[Red Harvest]]'': See the Literature example below.
* In ''[[Scarface]]'', mob war is part of what allows Tony Montana to rise to the top of the Miami drug trade. Later when [[Even Evil Has Standards|Tony's standards]] get in the way of him doing business with [[The Cartel]], his group gets wiped out in what is not so much a
* A
* The title character of ''[[Lucky Number Slevin]]'' becomes the pawn of two mob bosses hostile to each other.
** The key plot element is that it is still a Mob [[Cold War]] and neither is willing to start a shooting war yet. The protagonist is useful since it can be made to look like he acted on his own and not on the orders of one of the mob bosses.
* Although the original is very much centered around a medieval Mob War, [[Baz Luhrmann]]'s ''[[Romeo + Juliet]]'' explicitly recasts the conflict into a bloody feud between rival criminal families in a Florida city.
* The [[Ur Example]] for film is probably the 1928 production ''[[Gang War (1928 film)|Gang War]]'', a part-talkie gangster film which is primarily notable for being the feature to which ''[[Steamboat Willie]]'' was attached.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Steven Brust's [[Dragaera
* In ''[[The Dresden Files|Small Favor]]'', the
** Marcone's rise to power was caused by a power vacuum from the aftermath of a
* [[Dashiell Hammett|Dashiell Hammett's]] novel ''[[Red Harvest]]'', written in 1929, is possibly the ur-example of this trope, and is thought to have inspired [[Akira Kurosawa|Kurosawa's]] film ''[[Yojimbo]]'', which in turn has been remade in different settings many times.
== [[Live
* The threat of Tony Soprano's New Jersey mob family breaking out into open civil war or becoming embroiled with one of the New York families hangs overhead in several seasons of ''[[The Sopranos]]''.
* A major subplot in the second season of ''[[Rome]]'' deals with the various groups of the Roman underworld vying for control after a [[Evil Power Vacuum|Power Vacuum]] opens up. This includes an all out showdown between the gang Vorenus created, (but being led by Pullo at that time) and another group.
* Virtually the entire plot of Seasons 6 and 7 of ''[[The Shield]]'' is the Strike Team trying to ''start'' a Mob War in order to use them to kill off the other side. Throughout the series though, Vic and the Strike Team try to prevent mob wars as they obviously produce murders and cost everyone money.
* In an episode of [[Spike TV]]'s ''[[Deadliest Warrior]]'', the 1920s Mafia went up against the late 1940s Yakuza in a five-on-five battle royale. {{spoiler|Mafia won}}.
* A gang war between the Barksdale crew and the emerging Stanfield crew was one of the (many, many) subplots in ''[[The Wire]]'''s third season.
* ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]'' has an ever-shifting balance of power between the eponymous motorcycle club, their Mexican equivalents, the local neo-Nazis, the nearby black and Chinese gangs, and a splinter faction of the IRA.
** Keeping the Sons out of a
** The Sons were involved in a bloody
* The ''[[Star Trek:
== [[Music]] ==
* Gang wars are a [[Damn, It Feels Good to Be
* [[Michael Jackson]]'s "Beat It" music video.
** Hilariously
* The 1974 Paper Lace song "The Night Chicago Died" is a [[Real Person Fic|fictional account]] of Al Capone's gang going to war with the Chicago police.
* The Genesis song "Battle of Epping Forest", describing a London East End gang war.
== [[Tabletop
* The ''[[Shadowrun]]'' adventure ''Mob War'' details a civil war between Mafia factions, mixed up with a conflict between the Mafia and other crime groups such as the Yakuza. It takes place in Seattle in the year 2058.
** In Fourth Edition, Seattle's still in the grip of one - Yakuza vs. Mafia vs. the Vory, with the survivors of a purge of Koreans from the Yakuza ranks trying to stay out of the way.
== [[
* The conflict between the Sharks and the Jets over "turf" in ''[[West Side Story]]'' is on the smaller end of the scale, but it is no less a Mob War for all that, and no less deadly.
* Although it is a manifestation of a multigenerational family feud between the Montagues and the Capulets, the violence in the streets wracking Verona in [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' is basically a medieval Mob War, with each side composed of young toughs from the respective families and their allies.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Mafia:
* The plot of ''[[Def Jam Series|Def Jam: Fight For New York]]'' is about the battle between two gangs competing for control of New York's [[Fight Clubbing|illegal underground fighting circuit]].
* ''[[Max Payne (
* And the [[John Woo]] game ''Stranglehold'' has the Golden Kane and a Russian syndicate joining forces against Dragon Claw, an established triad, with Tequila, the main character, caught in the middle of it.
* A common plot device of most of the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games, as well as being the whole point of ''[[Saints Row]]''. Even gangs that are at war with yours won't open fire unless you attack first in most of these games, with GTA3 being the notable exception. Some of the gangs become so hostile eventually that it's nearly impossible just to drive a car through their neighborhood without having it blown up by shotgun fire.
* In ''[[
* Basically the point of X-rated PC game ''Daiakuji'', where the player character is a gangster who fights other gangs and the authorities for control of a weird alternate reality version of 1930s Osaka.
* In ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: From The New World'', you end up in Chicago... and the game is set in the 1920s. One of your party members is a capo in Capone's mob, while another is in love with Capone's sister. Add some dark magic and the mob war gets ''weird''.
** Oh, and said capo is also a [[Mega Neko]]. [[Widget Series|Yeah]].
* Recurrent in the ''[[Way of the Samurai]]'' series.
* ''[[
* Noctis' family vs. Stella's family in ''[[Final Fantasy Versus XIII]]'', in which they compete for the Crystal that Noctis holds. There's a confirmation that there will be a major plotline battle between them, but the trailers [[Shout
* One occurs on Nar Shaddaa in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic II]]'' near the end of its quest line, when the planet sized bounty for a Jedi is (seemingly) collected causing an end to the truce between the various families trying to collect on it. This is mostly off-screen in the original release, but you get to see some sides in open warfare on the streets with the officially endorsed (by the lead writer and the studio responsible for porting to Mac/Linux/Android/iOS and updating the PC port) restored content mod. The Hutts vs. Exchange that goes on in the background and the Serroco vs. Exchange fight you can provoke also count.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* ''[[There Will Be Brawl]]'' occurs to the backdrop of public unrest due to a
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Parodied in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' with a conflict between [[The Mafia]] (who are backing Marge's pretzel making business) and the [[Yakuza]] (who are hired by the other ladies in town).
* One of the "Goodfeathers" bits on ''[[
* Occurs in ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003
* Occurs in the ''[[Gargoyles]]'' episode "Turf", between crime groups led by Tony Dracon and Tomas Brod, as both groups fight for control of the New York City underworld.
* Occurs in ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'''s "Criminology 101" arc, with characters such as Silvermane and his daughter [[Silver Sable]], Doctor Octopus, and Roderick Kingsley (the latter only in the first episode of the arc) fighting The Big Man for control of... well, you can probably guess.
** A much smaller scale version appeared in the second season of ''[[Spider
== [[Real Life]] ==
* This Troper heard a weird story from a missionary at his Church that collects blankets for homeless people in Portland, Oregon. While the missionary was busy working a local hitman came up and gave him a hat to wear to signal neutrality in gang feuds [[Hitman with a Heart|because]] [[Even Evil Has Standards|no one wanted]] to fire on charity workers, and [[Pragmatic Villainy|perhaps because]] no one wanted the extra heat and everyone knew gangsters would likely end up among the homeless when they were too old to be skilful criminals. The funny thing was that this was Portland, which is hardly 1930s Shanghai. But well, things happen.
* The chariot racing fans in the [[Byzantine Empire]] formed themselves into something resembling a [[The Mafia|Mafia]]. They had regular riots against each other, terrorized the populace, and at times got into politics.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Drama Tropes]]
[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]
[[Category:Organized Crime Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
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