We ARE Struggling Together!/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Tropes: Tension and differences between revolutionary movements affects their ability to effectively engage with the Evil Overlord.

  • Straight: There are several different revolutionary movements dedicated to overthrowing the Evil Overlord, but their suspicion of and tensions with each other lead to friction and on many occasions a lack of cooperation.
  • Exaggerated: The revolutionary movements spend more time fighting against each other than they do against the Evil Overlord.
  • Justified: There are valid and genuine differences in philosophy, approach and beliefs between revolutionary movements.
  • Inverted: A tightly-knit group of revolutionaries are pitted against several dominant yet fractious groups of oppressors.
  • Subverted: The revolutionaries appear to be divided, but it's a plot to lull the Evil Overlord into a false sense of security.
  • Doubly Subverted: Genuine differences do exist, and the cracks between the groups begin to widen.
  • Parodied: The differences between the numerous revolutionary groups and their philosophies, aims and objectives are all but imperceptible, except for certain trivial differences which provoke bitter and over-the-top rivalry.
  • Deconstructed: The squabbling between the resistance groups represents a significant failure to effectively challenge the Evil Overlord, and suggests that they are Not So Different, since they are ultimately more occupied with relatively trivial differences between each other rather than pulling together to do the right thing.
  • Reconstructed: Whilst some of the resistance groups actually are Not So Different from the Evil Overlord, there are genuinely decent people who oppose both the Evil Overlord and those opponents who would be just like him.
  • Zig Zagged: The allegiances, tensions and issues between the revolutionary movements and the Evil Overlord keep shifting; at one point they're locked in bitter rivalry with each other, at another they're happily working alongside each other, at another they're uneasy allies.
  • Averted: We only see or hear of one relative unified movement against the Evil Overlord.
  • Enforced: "Having one unified opposition to our Evil Overlord makes it a bit easy for the resistance to overthrow him. It'd be a lot more difficult if the resistance was fractured."
  • Lampshaded: "I swear, we spend more time fighting against each other than we do against the person we're supposed to be fighting!"
  • Invoked: The Evil Overlord has arranged for The Moles to infiltrate the resistance and spread the seeds of discontent and disharmony between them, causing the movements to fracture.
  • Defied: The leaders of the various factions of the resistance from the outset pledge to put aside their differences until the Evil Overlord is overthrown, forming a single movement with that in mind.
  • Discussed: "I see the People's Revolutionary Party, the Revolutionary Party of the People and the Party of Revolutionary Peoples are up in arms against each other again."
  • Conversed: "You'd think the rebels in this story would realize they'd be able to overthrow the Evil Overlord if they just worked together, but apparently not..."

Back to We ARE Struggling Together!

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/We_ARE_Struggling_Together!/Playing_With?oldid=873483"