The Quisling/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Someone who openly cooperates with and emulates the enemy forces that have conquered or occupied his homeland, and seeks to curry their favour.

  • Straight: After The Empire conquers his hometown, Quincy becomes the leading pro-imperial person in town. He openly adopts Imperial customs and decides to run for mayor to help The Empire consolidate their control of said hometown, rather than joining La Résistance.
  • Exaggerated: The moment that Emperor Evulz' forces even hint at wanting to invade his hometown, Quincy goes out of his way to help them take over and works to ensure they stay in power.
  • Justified: Quincy feels he simply isn't strong enough to oppose the empire, and would rather adjust to the new status quo than risk everything he has left with useless defiance.
    • Quincy stands to gain more serving in the Empire's new regime than he does under the current one... or at least, that's what he believes.
    • Quincy ideologically believes that The Empire is superior to the old regime.
    • Quincy is a Reverse Mole who is willing to employ a Zero-Approval Gambit in order to get close to Emperor Evulz and disrupt the Empire from higher up.
  • Inverted: Ycniuq, one of the empire's soldiers, decides to cooperate with La Résistance/the heroes
  • Subverted: Quincy appears to be placidly accepting the Empire's rule, but is actually secretly supporting La Résistance and just puts on a show of supporting the Empire.
  • Double Subverted: But then it's revealed Quincy was just getting in close with La Résistance so he could give information about their activities to the Empire, thus undermining resistance activities.
  • Parodied: Quincy meets the invading forces with signs and banners proclaiming "I ♥ The Emperor" and "For the Evulz" and turns their marching down the streets into an impromptu ticker-tape parade.
  • Deconstructed: The reason why Quincy betrayed his homeland and espoused Imperial values is because the The Empire is a genuinely better alternative than what they had before; in his home country they practiced human sacrifice, had vast amounts of Fantastic Racism, orphans starving in the streets, and The Caligula King is running things into the ground. While not perfect, at least other conquered countries weren't as messed up as his own.
  • Reconstructed: However, The Empire turns out to be even worse: Their 'superiority' was lies and propaganda. Quincy keeps on helping them and espousing their values anyway.
  • Zig Zagged: Quincy is living in The Federation when The Emperor invades it. At first, Quincy joins La Résistance, but is disillusioned with them after they turn out to be Fantastic Racists who are just in it for the violence and excitement. Quincy then becomes The Quisling. After La Résistance is crushed, it seems he has outlived his usefullness, but in the last minute he assassinates The Emperor and declares himself Emperor.
  • Averted: Quincy isn't pro-imperial: He's either a part of La Résistance, neutral, or gives token support to The Empire to avoid having his house burned down.
  • Enforced: After La Resistance wins, they demand that all movies about the war give Quincy a Historical Villain Upgrade.
  • Lampshaded: "There's always one guy who really goes that extra mile in showing cooperation with the invaders, isn't it?"
  • Invoked: The Empire picks locals sympathetic to them to become regional governors of conquered territories, since locals would (theoretically) hold stronger sway over the native population.
  • Defied: Quincy, while tempted, refuses to cooperate with the invaders in ANY way.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: Quincy has premade signs with "I ♥ _____" ready and waiting to be filled out and hung at a moment's notice.
  • Played For Drama: After the Empire takes over, Rachel starts organizing a secret resistance movement... unaware that her trusted friend Quincy has chosen to side with the occupying forces, and will likely betray her if he learns about her plans.

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