No Honor Among Thieves: Difference between revisions
→[[Literature]]: replaced: [[Lord of the Rings → [[The Lord of the Rings
prefix>Import Bot (Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.NoHonorAmongThieves 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.NoHonorAmongThieves, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
(→[[Literature]]: replaced: [[Lord of the Rings → [[The Lord of the Rings) |
||
| (10 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
Evil has a lot of things going for it. [[Evil Feels Good|It feels great]], [[Evil Tastes Good|it tastes great]], [[Evil Is Stylish|it has style]], and [[Evil Is Cool|it's just plain cool.]] For most of a given story, evil can probably be expected to give the heroes a very rough time, and often the [[Evil Overlord]] and his [[Mooks]] will come [[
But for all it has going for it, Evil is just not very conducive to teamwork.
Line 6:
You see, [[True Companions|for a team to really come together]], there has to be some level of mutual trust. People on the same side need to know their friends will be there to bail them out in a tight spot, and won't sell them out to the enemy or abandon them for some selfish gain at a bad moment. They need to know that, when the going gets tough, or when some temptation arises, their allies will still be right by their side, through thick and thin. For the most part, such willingness to put the group before oneself is inherently at odds with the whole idea of being a Bad Guy.
And so we have this trope. While the heroes cling to the [[Power of Friendship]] and trust in their [[True Companions]] to see them through, the villains simply cannot trust one another. Always, even when their victory seems closest, it seems to come undone because the bad guys are inherently treacherous and suspicious of one another. If the [[Evil Overlord]] is near to victory, you can expect [[The Dragon]] to make some [[The Starscream|bid for personal power]] at the last minute that gives the heroes enough breathing room to gain the victory. And if you have a team of more or less equal [[Card
In short, this is [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]], or even just chronic lack of trust, applied as a persistent Achilles heel of the bad guys. Subtrope of [[Evil Will Fail]]. Often results in an [[Enemy Civil War]] or [[Evil Versus Evil]]. Compare with [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong]] and [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good]]. The opposite is [[Evil Is One Big Happy Family]] and of course, [[Honor Among Thieves]]. Could be considered a form of [[PVP
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'': The third season didn't need the Senshi or a [[Bad Boss]] to off the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] - they ended up saving everyone the trouble quite nicely.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
Line 21:
* ''[[Star Wars]]''. Somewhat in the films, but above all in the EU, the Sith, and later the Empire, have a nasty tendency to gain the ascendancy and then lose badly when they start turning on each other.
** Darth Bane's Rule of Two was an explicit attempt to mitigate the damage that this could do to the Sith by "legitimizing"
* ''[[
* In ''[[Tangled]]'', Flynn betrays fellow fellow thieves, the Stabbington brothers, early in the movie.
* The hero in ''[[Dungeons
** This is after the hero specifically tells his reluctant partner, a young female mage whose mentor was betrayed and killed by a fellow mage, that a thief would never betray another thief.
* The opening scene of ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' illustrates the way Joker's henchmen kill each other for a bigger share of the loot.
Line 35:
* ''[[Redwall]]''
* ''[[Dragonlance]]''
* ''The [[Wheel of Time]]'' allows just as much ... [[Poor Communication Kills|individualism]] among the antagonists as the protagonists. Indeed, one member of the Black Ajah speculates that the [[Sealed Evil in
* The wizard-run British Government in ''[[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]]'' is vastly corrupt and falling apart, because a wizard's standard childhood and upbringing teaches them to value their own ambitions over anything else.
* In [[Matthew Reilly]]'s books ''The Six Sacred Stones'' and ''The Five Greatest Warriors'', several factions of bad guys are forced to work together to complete the tasks necessary to save the world and gain Ultimate Power. They are even forced to work with the heroes from time to time. Needless to say, they don't trust each other and try to backstab each other at every opportunity.
* In the [[Forgotten Realms]] ''Siege of Darkness'' Drizzt Do'Urden notes that while dwarves will fight tooth, nail, and beard for their brethren, dark elves have no such luxury. Their defeat is partly because they can't count on each other for cohesiveness.
* According to ''[[The Zombie Survival Guide]]'', bandit groups [[After the End]] will inevitably wipe themselves out from in-fighting.
* "And he wondered, even as the sword came butchering between his ribs, how he had ever thought that the East, whose essence was treachery, could ever stand."
* Varies among the Death Eaters in the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' series. Their degree of loyalty ranges from Bellatrix Lestrange, who is [[Psycho Supporter|literally]] insanely loyal to Voldemort, to Igor Karkaroff, who ratted out other Death Eaters to avoid Azkaban. Most of the Death Eaters would seem to fall in the middle and will turn their back on Voldemort if it's to their advantage. Mainly because [[Machiavelli Was Wrong|he would do the same to them]].
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', Sauron doesn't dare let his orcs know he's looking for the Ring of Power (some orc would likely steal it). So he can't tell his armies, "If you find a hobbit, kill it and send any rings it has back to me." Instead, he orders them to take hobbits alive, and transport them (with all their possessions, even weapons) back to him. Naturally, this lets several hobbits escape from orcs at key
** And of course, Saruman may have gone over to Sauron, but they both know that given the slightest chance, he'll grab the Ring for
== Live Action TV ==
* In one episode of ''[[
** Earl reported the theft because it was his car and the thieves did not want to give it back. In the old days the thieves would have returned it to him as a courtesy to a fellow thief. However, since Earl has gone straight, they felt that he was no longer covered by that Honour Among Thieves tradition.
*** Of course, by that same token, they have no right to complain on his "snitching". It's a two-way street.
* In ''[[
* Michael Westen [[Discussed Trope|discusses]] this trope in the ''[[
{{quote|
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]''. Chaos, Orcs and Skaven especially.
* Titan Avatars in ''[[Scion]]'' are frequently at loggerheads. Muspelheim's avatars (Prometheus in particular) all plan to waylay Surtr once Ragnarok is over. The Drowned Road's two strongest avatars, Mami Wata and Ran, ''act'' aligned but will someday go for each other's throats, while Nu sits in the background and makes its own plots. Terra is led by Gaia, but the other avatars are open to offers. Sobe-no-Kumi is led by Mikaboshi... only because he arranged for Erebus to be pinned down in a deep part of the Titan. The list goes on; the only Titan without avatar issues is Akhenaten, and that's because Aten is its ''only'' avatar.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' pretty much says flat-out that even if the [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|Yozis]]' grand attempt at [[Hell
== [[Theatre]] ==
Line 67:
* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]''. The Sith are ''rife'' with this problem throughout both the game itself and the backstory. Of particular note: the encouraged [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]] of the Sith leads to [[Big Bad|Malak]] attempting to kill his own master Revan, which deprives the Sith of their previous [[Magnificent Bastard]] leader and starts the chain of events that finally leads to Sith defeat.
** In the sequel, the Sith Triumvirate nearly succeeds in wiping out the Jedi. Then Darth Traya's apprentices, Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus, turn on her and then on each other. This allows Darth Traya to {{spoiler|help the player in hunting them down}}.
* ''[[
** To be fair, Gul'dan never planned to stay loyal. He was always the true power behind the previous Warchief Blackhand. Orgrim betrayed Blackhand and then threatened to kill Gul'dan. Gul'dan swore loyalty, planning on breaking his oath the moment he saw fit.
** In fact, it was Orgrim's own sense of honor that doomed the Horde more than Gul'dan's betrayal. Not wanting Gul'dan to escape unpunished, he sent a huge chunk of his own forces to hunt him down. Not only did it force him to lift his siege of Lordaeron, but the forces sent after Gul'dan suffered heavy losses killing the traitor clans and were then further obliterated on the way back by a surprise attack at sea by Admiral Proudmoore, leaving only a few thousand warriors. Had Orgrim chosen to continue the siege instead of seeking revenge, he would have razed Lordaeron, likely winning the war.
Line 82:
* [[Those Wacky Nazis|The Nazis]] often ran into a lot of trouble because everyone in the government was trying to carve out their only little fiefdom at the expense of everyone else, even when the war was clearly being lost.
** The Nazis and basically [[Older Than Feudalism|every regime]] [[Humans Are
** It did happen particularly often with the Nazis since Hitler actively encouraged this sort of behavior. His motivation was a mixture of "divide and rule" and an odd form of social Darwinism.
* Happens with a LOT of criminal groups in the real world. If they think they can make more money by killing a "friend", or simply need to throw someone to the wolves to save themselves, they'll do so without a second thought. Many criminal organisations are often brought down by snitches who will turn informant the moment they face time behind bars for their crimes.
Line 89:
[[Category:Evil Tropes]]
[[Category:Betrayal Tropes]]
[[Category:
| |||