Evil Versus Evil: Difference between revisions

See also [[Even Evil Has Standards]] and [[Black and Gray Morality]]. Contrast [[Enemy Civil War]], [[Eviler Than Thou]], and [[The Good, the Bad, and The Evil]], which are about antagonists battling other antagonists. This trope is the opposite of a [[Villain Team-Up]]. Has a [[Sub-Trope]] in [[Evil Versus Oblivion]], where one side is world-destroying bad.

 

 

{{examples}}

* The Namek saga of ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'' has Vegeta almost in the role of [[Villain Protagonist]]. Keep in mind that he is the [[Big Bad]] of the previous arc (barely a month before), and that his methods for obtaining Dragon Balls (devastate the village it is kept) are exactly the same that Frieza and his men employ. But, with Goku in [[Deus Exit Machina|space/healing]] and Piccolo dead, he is the best chance of holding off or defeating Frieza for most of the saga.

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' is an example of this in some respects. Lucy is a [[Villain Protagonist]], but the organization that's trying to capture her is led by a [[Complete Monster]] and has field agents who are [[Anti-Hero|very questionably heroic]]. Most of the good characters can't really do much in this conflict; Nana is the only "good" diclonius, and she's a bit of a [[Jobber]].

* An episode of ''Bakugan Mechtanium Surge'' was actually called Evil VS Evil.

* ''[[Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force]]'': The [[Mage Killer|Huckebein]] Family finds itself fighting others who are infected with the same virus but are [[Eviler Than Thou]].

 

* The quintessential comic book example: ''[[Wanted (Comic Book)|Wanted]]'', the story of the son of one of the world's most skilled supervillains in a world where a much, much more grotesque, inhuman villain is waging war with—yes—other supervillains, for control of the world, which has fallen under the control of—hey, you guessed it! -- supervillainy.

* [[The DCU]] has the [[Suicide Squad]], a US government black ops unit made up primarily with [[Boxed Crook|jailed supervillains]] who agree to undertake dangerous missions against other supervillains with promised clemency if they survive.

* Boom Studio's [[Franco Belgian Comics|french import]] ''7 Psychopaths'' chronicled a group of army-sanctioned crazies who are trained and parachuted into Germany to kill [[Adolf Hitler]]. The group included a sociopathic mimic, a bloodthirsty maniac who shrugged off pain, a man who believed Hitler to be an actual demon, and a mother with impeccable sniper skills.

* Happens ''all the time'' in the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' comics, due to [[Big Bad Ensemble|the sheer number of villainous factions in the series]].

 

== Fan Works ==

* ''[[Ultimate Sleepwalker|Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams]]'' has the supervillain 8-Ball going up against hired killer Bullseye when they're hired by rival syndicates during a [[Mob War]]. {{spoiler|8-Ball wins.}}

* The Council Era, a fanfic created through the cooperation of several writers on the [[Mass Effect]] Fanon Wikia (not Fan Fiction wikia) has an Evil Versus Evil plotline within the [[Grey and Gray Morality]] of the [[Mass Effect]] universe. On one side is the [[Lawful Evil]], morally-corrupt equivalent of a galactic United Nations, The Council, and [[The Starscream|their advisor Tyrin Lieph]]. On the other is a ruthless [[Neutral Evil]] species [[The Starscream|led by another Starscream, Halak Marr]], whose primary goal is becoming a [[Master Race]].

* During the last third of the ''[[Digimon]]'' story ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1584078/1/ Zero 2: A Revision]'', [[Manipulative Bastard|UmbraDevimon]] and [[Evil Overlord|Demon]] both invade the Real World at the same time; apparently deciding that it's not big enough for both of them, they start throwing their armies at each other in order to wipe each other out. And ''[[It Got Worse|then]]'', the Gravemon invade as well, and they suddenly find something more dangerous to worry about.

* ''[[The Shape of the Nightmare to Come]]'' has [[Galactic Conqueror|Abaddon]]'s Chaos Imperium fighting against the Perturabo-Angron alliance (Abaddon wins with the aid of Typhus), and later on [[Space Pirates|Huron Blackheart's Eastern Chaos Imperium]] and the [[Eldritch Abomination|Void Dragon]]'s Necron forces. On another (even worse) note, a key element of the fic's setting is the removal of two factions engaged in a massive Evil Versus Evil war - The Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan and the Ork Empire of Octarius inadvertently gave birth to the New Devourer, [[It Got Worse|Ork/Tyranid hybrid lifeforms]], who then proceeded to eat 1/3 of the galaxy.

* ''Narrowly'' subverted in the ''[[Pony POV Series]]''. {{spoiler|Discord's mind games drive Princess Luna nearly to the point of turning back into [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Nightmare Moon]] to stop him. She just ''barely'' restrains herself enough to regain her grasp on sanity, but still assumes her Nightmare Moon form in order to trick him. Also subverted later, as many assumed the second [[Big Bad]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper]] would overlap and fight with Discord upon his release, but that wasn't the case.}}

* In [[The Tainted Grimoire]], {{spoiler|Duelhorn}} declares war on Khamja.

 

== Films -- Animation ==

* ''[[Despicable Me]]''. But given that both Gru and Vector are kid-friendly [[Harmless Villain]]s, it's played strictly for laughs.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* ''[[Quentin Tarantino|Jackie Brown]]'': A crooked Air Hostess who has no qualms about holding people at gunpoint, working for gun smugglers and betraying people left, right and centre is the good guy, next to the gun smuggler himself.

* Pretty much the premise behind the movie ''[[Payback]]''.

* ''The Evil That Men Do'' (1984). [[Charles Bronson]] is a hitman hired to murder Dr Clement [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Molloch]], a [[Mad Doctor|doctor]] who advises South American dictatorships on [[Torture Technician|how to torture people]]. We see Bronson carry out several cold-blooded murders, to the shock of the woman accompanying him as his pretend wife.

* ''[[District 9]]'' briefly has the variant where both sides in the struggle over the fate of the Prawns -both MNU and the Nigerian gangs- are [[Complete Monster|utterly unsympathetic]] and you really hope they wipe each other out.

* ''[[Hard Candy]]''. A sadistic psychopath vs. a child molester. You decide who's the good guy.

* The Sith Order in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' films operated under the Rule of Two: There were to be only two Sith in the Galaxy, a master and an apprentice. If the apprentice wanted to become the master, [[Klingon Promotion|all he had to do was kill his master and take the title for himself.]] The Rule of Two was specifically designed to prevent this trope on a massive scale, as in-fighting was as big a threat to the Sith as the Jedi were.

* The ''[[Alien vs. Predator]]'' crossover franchise is an example of this without question. Whoever wins, we lose.

** [[Alien vs. Predator (film)|The first film]] shows the last predator teaming up with the {{spoiler|humans}}—only because it was the only way he could win. {{spoiler|He died in the end, as well as the other predators who knew of the alliance.}}

* ''[[Bully (film)|Bully]]'' is about a group of vapid, selfish, amoral wastes of space who conspire to commit murder. The victim is a [[Complete Monster]], but the film argues that he's only the same key played louder.

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' revolves around this (though they [[Black and Gray Morality|gray]] [[Protagonist-Centered Morality|up]] some sides). At least one of the factions consists of amoral pirates. The others include an amoral/somewhat sadistic [[Psychopomp]] and the [[Complete Monster]] leader of the East India Trading Company. (plus the British Navy, which doesn't do much.)

 

== Literature ==

* [[Harry Turtledove]] has an interesting example in his ''[[Worldwar]]'' series: we have a lot of scenes of powers often thought of as "evil" such as the Nazis, the Imperial Japanese, and the Soviets fighting the invading Race. The twist is that the Race are much more "civilised" even than the Western Allies (they're possibly an allegory for the Western world in the Nineties) yet they see us as inferior and want to conquer and <s>enslave</s> assimilate us and erase our culture. It can often be an uncomfortable crux for the reader to decide who is the more evil.

** [[It Got Worse]] in the sequels (''Colonization''). When the Colonization fleet arrives and starts unloading civilians, someone uses a nuke against them, killing millions. {{spoiler|It was the United States that did it, and to prevent another war from breaking out the President allows the Race to nuke Indianapolis.}}

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' is often presented as a simplistic Good vs Evil, but in fact the conflict between Saruman and Sauron forms an important part of the plot of ''The Two Towers'', although nothing much in the way of real Evil-Versus-Evil warfare ever comes of it. Likewise Ungoliant and Morgoth in [[The Silmarillion]].

* The videogame / comic / novel ''[[Shadows of the Empire]]'' had the Emperor keep Darth Vader and Prince Xizor, head of the criminal enterprise Black Sun, at his right and left hands. Naturally they hated each other; for Xizor it was [[It's Personal|personal]]. But they had to remain outwardly civil with each other until the end. It's implied that the Emperor set things up like this because he found it entertaining.

* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' we have {{spoiler|Tigerstar Vs. Scourge}} during ''The Darkest Hour''. And, depending on your view of them, {{spoiler|1=Stick Vs. Dodge in SkyClan's Destiny}} may count.

* Much of Glen Cook's ''Annals of the Black Company'' is devoted to the internal conflicts between powerful evil sorcerers. Much of the original trilogy involves the Lady's struggle to keep her [[Eviler Than Thou]] husband, the Dominator, from freeing himself, so she can keep ruling her own empire as she pleases.

* The final battle of the ''[[Books of Swords]]'' trilogy is fought between Yambu, the Silver Queen, [[Big Bad]] of the first two novels, and [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Vilkata, the Dark King]], the even [[Bigger Bad]] of the third book. Interestingly, Yambu only does her [[Heel Face Turn]] ''after'' she wins the battle but loses her throne. Of course, the third book does give Yambu a [[Broken Bird|sympathetic backstory]], including something of a [[Freudian Excuse]]. But it's not an accident that she wins the battle using Soulcutter, also known as the Tyrant's Blade, a name she acknowledges.

* [[Private Detective]] and [[Vigilante Man]] Mike Hammer, as quoted in ''One Lonely Night'' just before he blew away a bunch of [[Dirty Communists]] who were torturing Velda.

{{quote|''I was the evil that opposed other evil, leaving the good and the meek in the middle to live and inherit the Earth!''}}

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** [[Homeland]] fans that are also yoai fans that liked the Carrie/Nick Brodie romance would be quick to see that as pretty hot. "They'll turn on each other in a heartbeat" and so forth. [[Double Entendre|To the mattresses]]!

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' has this thing going on. We have the Goa'uld fighting each other over territory and other things, we have the Replicators (not evil per se, but a threat to all life) fighting everyone, including the Goa'uld. In Atlantis we have the Asurans, who battled the Wraith, erasing human life to deplete the Wraith's "food sources". {{spoiler|In the end the Asurans proved to by far the greater threat, leading to an [[Enemy Mine|alliance]] between the humans and a Wraith faction to eliminate them.}}

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' gives us the conflict between insane serial killer Sylar and ruthless [[Knight Templar]] organisation the Company.

* When they're not fighting the Federation, the [[Star Trek|Klingons and the Romulans]] spend most of their time fighting each other. (Or other Klingons. Actually, Klingons don't get along with anyone, really.)

** And now, it appears {{spoiler|that the war between the Time-Lords and Daleks became this.}}

* ''[[Lost]]'' has the conflict between {{spoiler|Ben Linus and Charles Widmore}} in seasons 4 and 5, as they vie for control of the island. In season 6, it seems to be setting the stage for another one in addition: {{spoiler|Charles Widmore versus the show's real [[Big Bad]], The Man In Black.}}

* The ''[[Smallville]]'' episode "Injustice". A group of [[Boxed Crook|supervillains]] are sent to take down [[The Juggernaut|Doomsday]].

* ''[[Power Rangers Zeo]]'' saw Rita and Zedd attempting to undermine the Machine Empire. In the end, it was ''Rita and Zedd'' that destroyed The Empire, rather than the heroes.

* The ''[[Masters of Horror]]'' episode "Pick Me Up" has Wheeler, a serial killer truck driver, V.S. Walker, a serial killer hitchhiker. The eventual winner? {{spoiler|The serial killing ambulance driver duo who pick them up at episode end.}}

* Invoked at least once a season on ''[[Deadliest Warrior]]'': [[The Mafia]] vs. the [[Yakuza]] {{spoiler|the Mafia won}}; the [[The Troubles|Irish Republican Army]] vs. the [[The War on Terror|Taliban]] {{spoiler|the IRA won}}; the [[The Vietnam War|Viet Cong]] vs. the [[World War II|Waffen SS]] {{spoiler|the SS won}}; the [[The Cartel|Medellin Cartel]] vs. [[Ruthless Modern Pirates|Somali pirates]] {{spoiler|Somalis won}}; [[Saddam Hussein]] vs. [[Pol Pot]] {{spoiler|Hussein won}}; and [[Sociopathic Soldier|Hernan Cortez]] vs. [[Ax Crazy|Ivan the Terrible]] {{spoiler|Cortez won}}.

 

== Print Media ==

 

** Though in the end those two groups would merge together to form the Corporate Ministry, and it was revealed [[Vince McMahon]] was the mastermind behind both stables all along. It still works as not every member was in on the plan, though those members left prior to the merger and [[Heel Face Turn|turned face]]. Though even in the Corporate Ministry there was fighting within the group, especially between [[The Undertaker]] and [[Triple H]].

* On [[WWE Raw|Raw]] 1/24/11 [[The Nexus]] was confronted by The Corre and later the leaders, [[Wade Barrett]] and [[CM Punk]] faced each other with the loser and his group out of the [[Royal Rumble]].

* [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] vs. The Hart Foundation could be viewed as this, had it not been for the overwhelming crowd reaction in Austin's favor.

* Undertaker vs Big Bossman in a Hell In A Cell match was this. This one wasn't so successful, mostly because they had no real chemistry or feud, so the crowd had nobody to root for.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** The Biggest 2 examples being the Eldar and the Tau. The Eldar are psychic space elves that [[Manipulative Bastard|can see the future.]] They fight against [[Eldritch Abomination|Chaos]], which is what [[Eldritch Abomination]]s fear when they're up late at night. The fanbase tended towards them being the good guys, so the latest editions of the game has played up the "[[Manipulative Bastard]]" part to 11 and making it clear that they're all about the long game. In one example, they caused an Ork warlord to attack the Human world of Armageddon, killing ''billions'' in order to save a few thousand Eldar lives; in another, they happily attacked both Orkish and Imperium worlds in order to deny the Tyranids biomass. Further, an Eldar captured by the Imperial Guard makes it perfectly clear that once they are back on top they will systematically kill every single human, or Mon-Keigh, in existence.

*** The Tau are anime-influenced space-communists that fight for The Greater Good, and are the closest thing the setting has to a neutral or even good faction. That is, if you ignore the fact that their entire race is being mind controlled by their leaders. Not wanting such an obvious good race in the series, Games-Workshop pointed out that the Tau's plans for humanity include forced sterility, slave camps, and genocide. The kicker? [[Crapsack World|They're still the only thing close to a good race the game has.]]

**** And the Inquisition itself has a lot of [[Right Hand Versus Left Hand]] struggles between the factions too, though it rarely breaks into open war, and more individual backstabbing/assassination/purging. Puritans are more eager to purge everything with fire, while Radicals are [[The End Justifies the Means|less constrained in methods]] and often more competent - or at least experienced.

* Likewise, the fundamental premise in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]]''. Its nice guys - High Elves, Wood Elves, Bretonnians, Empire, Dwarfs - are not.

** The Third Edition ''Dungeon Master's Guide'' says "...evil rarely gets along with evil, for the desires of one selfish and destructive being, by definition, conflict with the desires of other selfish and destructive beings.

** The two Fiendish Codexes explain that there is an infinite number of demons, and there's more of them spawning at all times. Angels, Archons, Devils & company are in a finite number. The Devils exist in fact so they can use their superior tactics and team work (due to their Lawfulness) along with similar weapons as those used by the demons, to keep the demons in check. The books make it explicit that if the Devils weren't around, the demons would swarm and destroy all of creation. The books also hint that if the demons vanished, the Devils could probably conquer the Multiverse, being a race composed entirely of [[Magnificent Bastard]]s and [[The Chessmaster|Chessmasters]].

*** And in the 2nd Edition of the game, the various forces of good took time to fan the flames, hoping to break their enemies against each other. ''[[Planescape]]'' has many references to various celestials who help the Blood War along and support either the side they dislike less or both at once - whether because it's the easiest way to get rid of as many fiends as possible, or out of fear the fiends will reach a truce, or reasoning that when the fiends are busy killing each other, they have less free time to roam around and mess with innocent people. In the boxed set ''Hellbound: the Blood War'', there's even an adventure where player characters discover high-ranking angelic beings funneling weapons and armor to their favored side in the war so more and more of the fiends would be killed.

*** Some demon sub-races are also enemies of other demon sub-races (retrievers eat all other demons, for example). Some members of the higher ranking devil sub-races get promoted to the next higher-ranking sub-race by getting their direct superior killed or demoted, while some pit fiends (the highest-ranking sub-race) do the same to replace the devil dukes and duchesses who themselves are [[The Starscream]] to the archdevils. There's also much enmity between [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|the archdevils (Dispater and Mephistipholes vs. Baalzebul, Prince Levistus vs. Princess Glasya, all the other archdevils trying to take Asmodeous' throne) and the demon lords]] (Juiblex vs. Zugtmoy, Baphomet vs. Yenoghu, the three-way battle between Graz'zt, Orcus and Demogorgan).

*** In the ''Complete Scoundrel'' supplement, a prestage class called the Malconvoker is introduced which follows the teachings of a book called Vital Pact to impersonate evil for the sole purpose of summoning fiends to fight other evils and other with perpetuate all of the fighting between evil above, since the Celestial beings are too few to win their war against evil otherwise.

** 4th Edition has several instances, the most notable being the [[Evil Overlord|god of war Bane]] and his eternal war versus [[Complete Monster|god of destruction Gruumsh]]. While Bane revels in conquest and power, one of his prime commandments is to [[Even Evil Has Standards|ALWAYS obey the rules of war]]. He also likes his followers to be rigidly disciplined and wants to preserve the world so that it will be worth conquering. Gruumsh on the other hand revels in utter destruction and encourages savagery in his followers. Both want to be the uncontested god of war, and thus they've been fighting for eons over their differences.

*** Frost giants (Often [[Chaotic Evil]] according to the Third Edition ''Monster Manual'') often kill white dragons for food and armour or capture them to use as guards. There are both many evil and many non-evil githzerai, but both attack the githyanki and mind flayers on sight. Meanwhile, githyanki and mind flayers are both evil and attack each other on sight as well.

*** Salamanders hate efreet. Most beholders want to wipe out all other beholders.

* The post-war ''[[Dragonlance]]'' setting is like this. With [[Big Bad|Takhisis]] banished to the Abyss, her five Dragonarmies turn on each other. Now, the five factions are just as apt to fight each other as they are to attack the good guys.

* This is the very principle behind the [[Tabletop RPG]] ''Necessary Evil''. An alien invasion has wiped out all the superheroes, so the only ones left to defend the world is the supervillains. After all, you can hardly conquer the world if it's already been destroyed by aliens, right?

* [[Savage Worlds]]: Necessary Evil envisions a world where supervillains are the only powerful humans left after a massive alien invasion. They form a resistance to fight back the occupiers, but aren't necessarily reformed. If they drive back the aliens, they'll be in a position to take over the planet.

* An option for ''[[In Nomine]]'' casts the setting as Dark Low Contrast, where angels and demons are both wicked, violent fanatics and nobody at all is looking out for humanity's interests. The PCs in such a campaign will normally try to be better than the rest, though.

 

== Video Games ==

** Also ditto for the films and the Expanded Universe, which has been a very [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|colorful]] place since [[Big Bad|Palpatine]] was overthrown in favor of the [[Good Is Dumb|New Republic]]. The New Republic has completely collapsed in favor of some kind of uneasy coalition of monarchical Imperial factions, independent core planets, and alien invaders by this point, and most of the Skywalker family is back on the Dark Side—and this ''without'' being a deliberate [[Crapsack World]].)

* ''[[City of Heroes|City of Villains]]'' is a good example of why this trope exists. The few truly evil contacts ([[Complete Monster|Westin Phipps]] in particular) produce a good deal of controversy about whether they're "too evil." Thus, more than half the game's missions could very easily be rewritten for heroes. Many contacts have forced unethical traits and selfish motives written in for why you're stopping a villainous organization from realizing their plans. Hell, you spend more time fighting your "patron" organization of Arachnos than you spend fighting Wyvern or Legacy Chain (Longbow are like cockroaches, though...).

* Probably the only way Kratos in ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]'' could seem [[Villain Protagonist|even remotely sympathetic]] is making the Greek pantheon out to be ''gigantic'' bastards, especially Zeus. To be perfectly fair, one glance at mythology will tell you this isn't far off...

** Most of the Greek Pantheon has few, if any, redeeming qualities aside from the fact that they replaced something that could be considered ''worse'' from the Ancient Greek point of view.

{{quote|'''Cortana:''' You might want to try sitting this one out.}}

** In ''[[Halo 3]]'', at one point the Prophet of Truth is about to activate the Halo Array and unleash destruction upon the galaxy. ''Nobody'' wants that, not even [[The Virus|the parasitic Flood]], so for one brief moment you must fight alongside Flood combatants and decimate Truth's bodyguards. Like in the example above, you can even hang back and let the unstoppable hulks do the heavy lifting for you.

{{quote|'''Duran:''' Do you think they suspect anything, my queen?

'''Kerrigan:''' Of course, Duran. They're simply siding with the evil they know over the evil they don't. They just don't realize exactly what it will cost them. }}

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'': Protagonist Kain is a [[Magnificent Bastard]] [[Villain Protagonist]] [[Evil Overlord]]. He's the hero of the games mainly because his enemies are [[Knight Templar]] [[Omnicidal Maniac]]s who are even worse than he is.

* The ''[[Mega Man Legends]]'' Spinoff ''The Misadventures Of Tron Bonne'' have you controlling one member of the main series' [[Goldfish Poop Gang]] and her [[Adorable Evil Minions]] trying to pay her brother's ransom. Sure, the main antagonist is an evil bastard trying to rule the world and your motive is quite noble...but you still accomplish it by robbing livestock from a farm, stealing containers from the docks, and blowing up a bank while fighting the police.

* ''[[Command & Conquer]]'' games has quite a bit of this. As Nod, expect to fight Nod separatists at least once. They also fight CABAL and the Scrin at different points. As Soviets, expect to find at least one mission fighting Soviets. Then there's Yuri's Revenge, with Soviets versus Yuri, and Red Alert 3 with Soviets versus the Empire of the Rising Sun. Then in Uprising the Soviets vs Future Tech.

* A good many of the members in the Organization of ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories|Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories]]'' are working against each other in order to further their own individual evil agendas. Then in ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', Maleficent and the Heartless take on the Organization and the Nobodies. When the Organization takes control of the Heartless, Maleficent then has to pull an [[Enemy Mine]] with the main heroes.

* In [[Odin Sphere]], most of the villains are fighting against each other and the heroes are either third parties or unwitting pawns. Odin {{spoiler|wants to bring the end of the world and lead the survivors into a new age}}, the trio of wizards want the same thing and also {{spoiler|get revenge on Odin for betraying them before he became a king}}, King Valentine is simply so broken that he wants to end everything while also wanting {{spoiler|revenge on Odin for seducing his daughter}}, the Fairy Queen (the least evil of the factions) wants a world ending weapon that she uses to keep her people alive, Odin's general makes it no secret he's trying for a coup, Melvin {{spoiler|plans to become the new leader of the faries and used Oswald as a test subject for a weapon he wanted to mass produce}}, the Queen of Death is only interested in running her place as she sees fit {{spoiler|and making Oswald her slave, per contract}}, {{spoiler|the last king of Titania}} wants out of the afterlife to cause some chaos, the Fire King desperately wants Gwendolyn as his wife and is willing to kill anyone in his way and {{spoiler|Ingway}} wants to {{spoiler|kill Odin more than anyone for making his life a living hell}}. Oh, and {{spoiler|Griselda, Gwendolyn's sister, manipulated her and Oswald into helping kickstart the end of the world in ghost form}}. If you couldn't guess, most of these people end up clawing at one another's necks before the game is over.

* ''[[The Witcher]]'', while doesn't always steer close to the novels, maintains the [[Grimdark]] part. To quote [[Nerf Now|Jo Pereira‏]] - "Witcher is full of hard decisions. Help the cannibal witches or side with the murderous tree?"

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Vexxarr]]'' instigates a war which is essentially this.

{{quote|'''Vexxarr''': Which side do you pity the most? The side that attempts to [[Evil Overlord|enslave anyone it meets]] or the side that attempts to [[I'm a Humanitarian|eat anyone it meets]]? }}

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick]],'' [[Evil Twin|Nale]] and his Linear Guild have a bad history with his father, [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|Tarquin]] and his allies.

** For that matter, the story seems to be setting up the Linear Guild as competition for the Gates with both the good guys and [[Big Bad|Xykon]]'s gang.

** Jacqui is nice, if too airheaded most of the time, and occasionally tries to help people outside her little circle. So is Tiffany, though she is thoroughly skulljumbled even without all the mind control.

* This is how [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized|the Insurrection]] views the war between [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|the Covenant]] and [[United Nations Is a Super Power|the UNSC]] in ''[[Halo: A Fistful of Arrows]]''.

 

== Web Original ==

* In ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog]]'', it could be argued that both Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer are evil, only the latter has enough [[Villain with Good Publicity|good PR]] that he has everyone convinced he's [[The Cape (trope)]].

* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]'', we have [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Marik]] and Florence versus [[Complete Monster|Melvin]] and Team [[4Kids! Entertainment]].

 

== Western Animation ==

** Though Mr. E is more morally ambiguous than the other two, making this more an example of [[Black and Gray Morality]].

* [[Conversational Troping|Conversed]] in an episode of ''[[Hey Arnold!]]''. Sid suggested that he and his friends just watch two bullies, Wolfgang and Ludwig, duke it out over Gerald Field and when they're both dead they can reclaim it. This makes the example more [[Jerkass]] vs. [[Jerkass]] though, and when they try out the plan, the bullies just force the younger kids to play football to decide a winner rather than get their hands dirty. In the end, the bullies find they like each other, leaving the gang worse off than before.

* ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'': during the Kirwood Derby arc, [[The Starscream|Boris Badenov]] fought Fearless Leader for the Derby. When the narrator asked who would win the fight, they both [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|turned to the camera]] and shouted, "Who cares? We're both bad guys!"

* Two episodes of ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters|Filmations Ghostbusters]]'' featured a villain named Big Evil, who tried to usurp Prime Evil's status as the [[Big Bad]] of that series. Both episodes invoked the [[Enemy Mine]] trope by having Prime Evil asking for help from the heroes.

* The second to last episode of ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League Unlimited]]'' "Alive!" had this. The Secret Society Grodd had created had been taken over by Luthor. However with Luthor taking much more of the cut than Grodd did and Luthor himself seemingly descending into insanity as well as not giving Tala much attention, she decided to bring back Grodd from Luthor's imprisonment along with a good number of the rest of the society who also had an ax to grind with Luthor. Of course {{spoiler|Luthor won in the end. And then [[Darkseid]] came along.....}}

* Stewie VS Penelope in ''[[Family Guy]]''. Stewie used to be very evil in the first few seasons, but has mellowed out a lot and is more of a jerk than an evil bastard. He meets Penelope, a baby girl his age who has done her acts of killing people and having a mass amount of weapons of her own. Stewie likes Penelope at first and wants to be with her, but even he starts to have his doubts, getting tired of killing people everyday and he fights her to the death when she goes to kill Brian because Stewie wouldn't do it.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Arch Enemy]]

[[Category:Villains]]