Team Switzerland

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

So The Hero and The Lancer are having another row again. Or The Empire and The Kingdom are at war again. Or perhaps your favorite fandom is eating itself with eggs and bacon. Whatever the case, past or present; mainstream society or small group; fantasy or fandom (yes...fandom), there is nowhere to run...nowhere to hide...

Or is there?

Team Switzerland is defined like the country it takes its name from: a completely neutral ground. Traits that can be found in Team Switzerland are neutrality and logic. The members are the voices of reason that are sometimes ignored. But even when pushed to the limit by the insanity surrounding them, they know how to keep their cool. They refuse to take sides, but unlike The Starscream or Wild Card, they're not in it for selfish motivations or the ultimate redemption.

They are not a pendulum swinging from one team to the other. Instead, they are an immovable object that maintains solid ground and an objective opinion. Bonus points if a member from Team Switzerland tries to work a treaty between both opposing sides. Extra points if both teams refuse to listen and go along with it anyways. Sometimes, this can result in an untold cataclysm because Team Switzerland may know the base WILL Be broken. Negative points if the team refuses to choose, even if the choice is clear and beneficial- no matter what, they will not take a side.

In a fandom, members of Team Switzerland might offer criticism, pointing out Mary-Sues, wall bangers, Fridge Logic, or even offer praise. But no matter what they comment on, there will always be facts to back up their claims. They do not whine with complaints nor squeal happily in delusion. And they will never get into a fight with these people.

Ever.

In fandom, these people are depressingly rare, or in hiding.

The natural habitat of Team Switzerland is the Truce Zone.

Examples of Team Switzerland include:


  • Shipping Fandom, if it's not obvious enough, (usually) there are TWO Team Switzerlands: Tenchi Solution or OT3 fans and Asexuality fans. They never fight anyone yet will prevail no matter what.
  • In the vast, blasted landscape of the Console Wars, Team Switzerland owns any and all, PC or Console, Handheld or not. They do not discriminate or judge.
  • In Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume for the DS, if Wylfred takes the "A" path, then he finds himself a member of Team Switzerland who actually DOES get their hands dirty to - what else? Stop the succession Crisis that's ruining Artolia. Sadly this doesn't work...
  • The Church of Lorelei in Tales of the Abyss would not at all benefit from a war started between Kimlasca and Malkuth. Even though there are factions within this Team Switzerland.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • The human kingdom Gilneas used to be this. After doing the minimum possible in the war against the orcs in Warcraft II, they claimed they didn't have to be bothered by "other people's wars", left the Alliance and cut all contacts with other kingdoms, walling themselves and doing nothing to help during the Zombie Apocalypse in Warcraft III. In World of Warcraft they still seem to be this trope at first, as they still don't support the Alliance nor the Horde, but it is revealed that the refusal to help the Alliance triggered a civil war, trying to defend themselves against the Zombie Apocalypse led to an invasion of werewolves, and their status as a neutral faction caused them to be attacked by the Horde as a way to egt to the Alliance indirectly (think Belgium in WWII). They end up rejoining the Alliance because some night elves happened to be there for a completely different reason, and only after much arguments.
    • Neutral faction like the Argent crusade, Cenarion Circle or Dalaran (another human kingdom gone neutral) were created by members of both Horde and Alliance who believed that they should put aside their differences and petty feuds to focus on the global Omnicidal Maniac threats. But when these threats are no more and the only conflict in the region is Alliance vs Horde, they can come up as this trope (especially the Argent Crusade and its refusal to act against the increasingly more dangerous Forsaken).
  • For the most part in the storyline of Guild Wars: Nightfall, this is the role of Vabbi. After the princes of Vabbi are rallied, this role is taken by Palawa Joko's undead army who acts as their own faction and only really teams up with the player and the sunspears because Varesh is in his way.
  • The player can join a Team Switzerland in Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together in Chapter 2 Chaotic.
  • Astoria's faction in the fifth game of Geneforge is a variant, trying to end the war (by any means necessary) rather than to impose their philosophy. Spiderweb itself can be considered this in due to its dedicated maintenance of Grey and Gray Morality in Geneforge—even Taygen is Necessarily Evil, and there's a small but dedicated group of fans who choose his faction in the fifth game because they support his philosophy.
  • In Twilight fans stated using this trope by name to refer to anyone who refused to declare that anyone should Die for Our Ship. Bella in Eclipse likens herself to Switzerland when she states her neutrality in the feud between vampires and werewolves.
  • Multi-Shippers of any fandom tend to fit this trope well. Since they'll ship practically anything, they don't tend to take sides in those wars and are easily flexible with people disagreeing with them. They might chip in their opinion concerning a shipping war, but only to come out and say they happen to like both and ships are just ships.
  • The Homestar Runner fandom is like this, minus a little wank or two. In fact, there are really no shipping wars in it at all.
    • Which makes sense because there's only one female character in the main Homestar Runner universe.
  • The rarest members of Team Switzerland' in existence are found in The Elder Scrollss Perpetually Unpleasable and warring Fan Dumb. A total of about six people who actually enjoy all Elder Scrolls games and acknowledge Bethseda's policy of drastically altering the gameplay and tone in between each setting (With about a dozen staff changes in between the time periods to boot) and don't expect every game to be a remake of the first one they played have been recorded in known history. Yes, it is possible to like Morrowind without scorning Oblivion or screaming whenever Oblivion is mentioned, just as it's possible to do with Daggerfall. (Replace "oblivion" with "Morrowind"). And while it's about as rare, it's possible to have even played Arena without crying how the series should have stopped once it became Ruined FOREVER when it became something more than 6 people played and enjoyed.
  • For all of the Broken Base screaming and whining about whether the Fullmetal Alchemist manga is better than the 2003 anime or vice versa, there actually is a Silent Majority of fans who like both.
  • There are fans who simply do not feel the need to rave about every single JRPG or FPS they play. There actually do exist gamers who simply think "...Nah, I don't think I'll like this game" and don't play them. Not all gamers are people who act like "The big bad *insert company here* will enter my house at night and replace ALL my games with stuff I DON'T LIKE!!! or feel the need to scream at the top of their lungs about games being made without them in mind.
  • Anytime a Sonic the Hedgehog game is announced. There are people who will immediately get excited and hype the game to oblivion, to the point where Hype Backlash in inevitable if/when the game fails to meet their expectations. There will also be people laughing and bring up the Sonic Cycle and come across as Fan Haters who gladly tell you they haven't played a Sonic game since Sonic Heroes/Sonic Adventure/ Sonic & Knuckles. Even with the announcement of Sonic the Hedgehog 4, the opinion was split into factions of people who think this will save the series, to people who think that the game will suck because of the protoype leak or that they still haven't changed Eggman's name back to Dr. Robotnik. Thankfully, there's a tiny portion of fans who enjoy both the classic and current series for what they are, and welcomes Sonic 4 as much as they welcomed Sonic Unleashed, and stuck through even with games like Sonic '06. Of course, this isn't delving into the comic, cartoons, fan fiction, shipping, etc...
  • Sinfest has in the background a millennium-long conflict between a devil who deliberately promotes suffering, and a god who refuses to prevent it. Then there's the Buddha, who just wants everyone to chill out, and the Dragon, whose typical response involves popcorn.
  • During the Tonight Show conflict, Jimmy Fallon was the only major late night host to refuse to take sides, calling O'Brien and Leno "two of my heroes and two of my friends."
    • Craig Ferguson is opposite of Fallon on his time slot, and they regularly do shout-outs to each other to show they could care less about rivalry.
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