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aka: Black And Grey Morality
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When your bad guy is this bad, almost anyone

Nobody seems to mind, because there is literally not a single rule regulating any of these events. This might explain
why the nerds were allowed to sell pornography acquired via illegal surveillance in the next part of the competition, the
charity fundraising booth. There are no good guys in this film.
— Cracked, on Revenge of the Nerds

It is often found in fictional media that the protagonist/antagonist conflict takes the form of the shining
knight who smells of flowers and has holy light shining from his every orifice versus the very fount of
all evil who Eats Babies as a hobby and Kicks Dogs as a profession.

In an effort to portray "realistic" conflicts, writers often introduce flaws in their heroes and redeeming
qualities in their villains.

These can be deeply unsatisfying. Movie-goers want a hero to celebrate and a villain to vilify. But if
both sides have flaws and redeeming qualities, how do they know which is which? How can a writer
create such a satisfying world without making it all impossibly unrealistic?

It's simple: leave the job half-done. Only the white gets removed, leaving behind a Crapsack World
populated by people who each have their own forms of imperfection. Without the option of becoming
the saint the world needs, newcomers of this world are stuck between the choice of supervillainy and
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faulty heroism. This is the essence of Black and Gray Morality, where the morals of characters can
range from pure evil to somewhat good.

Obviously, the heroes of such settings tend to be antiheroes. In such a world, any characters who
appear to be good in any way will eventually be revealed as a Knight Templar in disguise, a Dark
Messiah inches from the edge, or a deeply flawed Anti-Hero. And if there are any genuinely good
characters on the show, they'll either 'come around' to The Dark Side, die horribly, remain a figure of
perpetual mockery or, if very lucky, grow a protective shell of cynicism.

A good litmus test for this trope is as follows:

1. Do the protagonists regularly get away with ruthless or amoral actions?

If so, it's a classic case of Black and Gray Morality.

As always, it is important to remember that Tropes Are Tools. It can be taken to an extreme, where
the choices are between Pure Evil and Good Because the Writers Say So. This can make the
protagonist difficult to sympathize with and lead to Too Bleak, Stopped Caring.

An alternative method would be to have one side be of A Lighter Shade of Grey against the black, so
while the heroes are flawed and may have to do some questionable things for the greater good, they
wouldn't try to indulge into unnecessary morally questionable actions. Beware though, as this could
lead to a downplayed form of Black-and-White Morality.

For serious cases where both sides are so black there are no more shades of grey among them
anymore, see Evil Versus Evil.

See also Shades of Conflict, Grey-and-Gray Morality, Black-and-White Morality, Crapsack World,
Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. The inverse is But Not Too Evil. Contrast with White-and-
Grey Morality, where everyone has some nobility to them, and Designated Hero, which is what
happens when the story portrays a side as White when the audience sees them as Gray (or Black).
Compare World of Jerkass if both sides are assholes.

If there are 'true' heroes around along with the 'kinda bad' and 'very bad' characters described above,
it's The Good, the Bad, and the Evil. Coming from the opposite side is A Lighter Shade of Black,
where an Evil Versus Evil conflict is left with one mildly sympathetic side by not making them as
unrelentingly evil as their opponents, while both are still plain evil.

Example subpages:

Anime & Manga

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Literature
Live-Action TV
Tabletop Games
Video Games

Other examples

    open/close all folders 

    Comic Books 

2000 AD in general tends towards dark heroes facing even worse villains.
Nemesis the Warlock verges on Evil Versus Evil. Big Bad Torquemada, leader of the human
race (in the Nemesis universe, something like a cross between the heretic-burning medieval
Catholic church made even worse and the Nazis - basically the Imperium of Man), is a psychotic
genocidal religious fascist god-dictator pledged to exterminate all non-human life — but
Nemesis himself, who's essentially Satan, has done things like openly lust for genocide right
back at humanity and, at his worst, intentionally kill a school bus full of children. Afterwards, he
doesn't even seem to understand why it was a bad thing to do. Meanwhile, Nemesis' uncle Baal
has a hobby of vivisecting humans and performing Mengele-ish experiments on them and his
son Thoth hates and wants to destroy everything, including his father. Nemesis' allies, the ABC
Warriors, are also extremely morally shady, given they've conducted massacres and frequently
display genocidal urges towards humanity as well.
Depending on the Writer, Judge Dredd. He can be written in many different ways depending on
the tone of the story (dramatic, comedic, horrific, etc.), but some of Dredd's actions can be very
questionable. At his root, he's a Knight Templar Judge, Jury, and Executioner, so he can go from
heroically taking down violent criminals to ruthlessly crushing democratic protestors without
shifting gear. And his enemies have included a genius Serial Killer, an apocalyptic President
Evil, a warmongering Soviet military junta, a deranged head judge who wanted to execute the
whole city, and an undead Omnicidal Maniac.
Shakara: Shakara is a remorseless killing machine who has taken billions of lives in his never-
ending quest for vengeance, but his enemies are an alliance of Always Chaotic Evil species led
by an Omnicidal Maniac.

300 has the Unreliable Narrator describing the Spartans as "the ultimate good guys"... who are just
as insane and bloodthirsty as their Persian enemies, who are only worse for being a gigantic horde
bent on destroying and enslaving everyone on their path.
The comic starts out mostly like this: The Spartans are ruthless and have moments of cruelty,
but treat each other with respect and are steadfast in the defense of their beloved homeland.
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Their biggest sin is killing envoys (which actually happened). Xerxes is unquestionably a sinister
ruler, and although the Persian side isn't really shown to be evil, they are absolutely merciless in
their conquest. By the end, the Spartan side is shown in a considerably better light, while the
Persians have been reduced to faceless cannon fodder. The movie is much closer to Black-and-
White Morality.

Generally a Signature Style of Frank Miller. All his heroes are sociopaths to some degree (or if
you're lucky, just fascists), but the villains they face are even worse. His All-Star Batman & Robin,
the Boy Wonder series took this to such an extreme that whether or not it is parody is seriously
debated.

The Authority are the world's only hope against some of the worst villains imaginable, the kind of
bastards who love to create mass genocide just for kicks. The Authority members themselves are
borderline sadistic towards evildoers, and sometimes "authoritarian" conquerors if they don't
approve of a nation's government.

Garth Ennis' bad guys are usually the epitome of pure psychotic evil, but morally speaking his good
guys often aren't anything to write home about either, as they generally tend to be a bunch of
murderous sociopaths themselves. His intense dislike of and tendency to savagely parody or mock
any generally 'noble' or 'heroic' superhero or otherwise heroic character (although he does make
some exceptions) doesn't help matters much.
For example, in Back to Brooklyn, Bob's a mobster, the cops use racial slurs, but the villains are
really bad.
Unless he's writing Superman.
In fact, most modern comic writers fall into this category. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, and Alan
Moore (just to name a few) often have morally ambigious protagonists.

This trope is flipped on its head in Birthright: in one hand you have the decisively Obviously Evil
God-King Lore, who rules the world of Terrenos with iron fist and has designs to merge it with
Earth. Against him are five mages that have set themselves up as barriers to prevent him from
conquering Earth, but seldom are heroic or selfless: at best, they are reclusive or selfish (one of
them was more interested in preserving her wealth and privilege) and at worse, exceedingly brutal
Knights Templars who will kill innocents without hesitation if it serves their ends. What makes this
trope unusual is that the main protagonist is a Anti-Villain serving Lore (the biggest evil in the
conflict who wants to cause chaos and destruction) as his enforcer instead of fighting against him,
making the mages (who want at least want to preserve the world) very, very loose hero
antagonists.

Black Moon Chronicles: Wismerhill is and friends are primarily self-interested warlords (starting out
as basically an all-Chaotic-something D&D party), but the Big Bad Haazheel Thorn (who they
worked for during most of the series) is an Evil Sorcerer and Omnicidal Maniac.

Countdown Presents: Lord Havok and the Extremists was a clear example of this. The Villain
Protagonist Lord Havok and his teammates are all portrayed as hellbent on taking over their planet,
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but they're each given sympathetic backgrounds and it's implied that life under their rule may be
less dangerous in stark contrast to the way their world is when the story begins. In contrast, the so-
called heroes of Angor (what America is referred to as) are all extremely unsympathetic and
amoral, save for Blue Jay, who is the Token Good Teammate of the Meta Militia. Americommando
is by far the worst, a boozing, womanizing drug addict who makes a deal with Monarch to get at the
Extremists by allowing Monarch to destroy the home bases of the individual members of the
Extremists, effectively murdering hundreds of innocent people.

Fallen Angel in some ways. On the "black" side is the Hierarchy, the people and demons who run
the city of Bete Noire, where the book takes place. The "gray" comes from Liandra, a cynical,
consistently tipsy fallen angel who serves as a court of last resort, and is willing to do anything,
including torture, in order to fulfill her missions. Among her sometime-allies are the city's major drug
dealer, the snake from the Garden of Eden, and a man who may or may not be Hitler.

In Harbinger, Flamingo and Torque are happy to mooch off of Peter's mind-control abilities in order
to steal money and cars and stay in hotels for free. And Peter's pretty brutal to his enemies, either
mind-wiping them or sentencing them to lives of torment and insanity if he's angry enough. The
only really "white" member of the team is Zephyr.

Lucifer is like this, but oddly, not The Sandman (1989), which is more Grey-and-Gray Morality. The
main character is, ya know, Satan, who is caught between The Legions of Hell and the angels of
heaven, who soon turn out not to be very nice either.

Batman: Some stories have Batman in this position compared to the rest of the heroes. While most
of the heroes tend to be more straight up heroic and try not to commit morally questionable acts
unless they have to, Batman has no problems doing that and while he is better than most of his
rogues gallery, tends to have problems such as trusting issues, being too harsh and using brutal
methods to get what he needs to stop them while keeping to his no-killing rule most of the time.

The conflict in Mastermen #1 ends up being this, concerning the New Reichsmen and the Freedom
Fighters.
With the exception of Overman, none of the New Reichsmen had anything to do with Hitler's
original plans and thus aren't concerned with what happened during World War II. But it's
blatantly clear that they will still uphold the way of life Hitler established, feel absolutely no
shame or guilt about how their paradise was built on the deaths of billions, and hold "under
people" in contempt. Overman, for his part, feels incredible guilt and shame for what happened,
but feels that he has no way to make it right after going so far.

The Freedom Fighters do commit terrorist acts and

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atrocities and genocide that made it possible. There's also the fact that each of the Freedom
Fighters represents minorities that the Nazi Party is still persecuting and trying to destroy.
To make this conflict even more murky, representatives from both groups are called upon in the
final issue of The Multiversity to help battle the forces of the Gentry.

The Punisher (especially The Punisher MAX, which was mostly written by the aforementioned
Garth Ennis): Frank Castle is a sociopathic, cruel, Knight Templar, Blood Knight, mass-murdering
Vigilante Man, but is constantly pitted against the worst sorts of people — Serial Killers, Serial
Rapists, Western Terrorists, The Mafia, Human Traffickers and many, many other types among
them. Most Punisher villains neglect fancy costumes or entertaining gimmicks and don't seem to
even have any character traits besides malice, greed, sadism, and selfishness, justifying his Pay
Evil unto Evil approach to the Negative Zone and beyond. Garth Ennis writes the character as
100% aware of this, often repeatedly stating that his only reason to continue living is to punish
those worse than himself.

The Secret Six are a group of Anti-Villains that have a tendency to fight other, more evil
supervillains. Interestingly, their stories tend to more lighthearted than most superhero stories set in
the DC Universe.

The Shadow is Good Is Not Nice at best and more often a merciless Unscrupulous Hero, but his
foes deserve every bit of wrath they receive.

Star Wars: Legacy has the Fel Empire and Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire. The Fel Empire was a
reorganization of The Republic spearheaded by Jagged Fel, a veteran of the Vong War and the
Second Galactic Civil War, and his wife, Jedi Master Jaina Solo. Their Hegemonic Empire shared
many characteristics with Darth Sidious' Galactic Empire including some xenophobia (albeit to a
much milder extent than its predecessor) and valuing power above all else, but the Fels were
ultimately Reasonable Authority Figures who set constitutional limits on their power and were loyal
to the Light side of the Force to the point that their Gray Jedi bodyguards had orders to kill them
should they ever irrevocably fall to the Dark Side. After they were overthrown by Krayt after a
century of peace, the galactic citizenry immediately went back to suffering under the same harsh
dictatorial conditions and genocide they had under Sidious.

Suicide Squad is the poster comic for this. It's about supervillains who have been captured and
recruited into the U.S. government to go on most probably deadly missions for the good of
America.

Marvel Universe: The villains tend to be straight up bad guys most of the time while the heroes
genuinely heroic and noble tend to have infighting, personal problems and personal issues that
gets in their way half of the time. Some of them tend to have bad publicity such as Spider-Man and
the X-Men.

Ultimate Marvel runs on this trope.

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In V for Vendetta, the titular V is an anarchist Unscrupulous Hero fighting to bring down a fascist
British government. While some individuals within that government are given depth and pathos, the
ruling party's explicit devotion to Nazism and their running of death camps puts them firmly in the
Black.

In The Department of Truth, the Department's job is the make sure that Conspiracy Theories
remain as dangerous ideas rather than dangerous reality, but they achieve this through gaslighting,
assassination (even with bystanders perfectly willing to cooperate) and carefully selecting what
should and should not be "normal", an agent of Black Hat trying to indoctrinate Cole by pointing out
how they are trying to control the world by controlling the "truth". However, the alternative is to let
the public's imagination run wild, the potential changes to reality resulting in monsters, Nebulous
Evil Organisations of every ideology and temperament running the world, astrological anomalies
and other potential world-ending scenarios.

    Eastern Animation 

The protagonists in Aachi and Ssipak are black market drug runners who don't care about the
carnage around them and simply want to exploit a hooker for money. At least Ssipak is in love with
her. Aachi just tends to be annoyed with having to save her life all the time. The villains are worse
in that they are willing to kill and force the hooker into labor.

    Fan Works 


     Films — Animated 

Zootopia: Zootopia isn't as unified as it appears on the surface; almost everybody is shown to hold
some kind of prejudice and/or stereotype. Everybody is a victim of bias, and everybody is a carrier
of it, even if they don't realize it until they get called out. However, there are light and dark ends of
the spectrum. Those on the lighter side, like Judy and Nick, who try to move past their biases,
acknowledge and apologize for their mistakes are the ones who help Zootopia truly become better.
Those, who don't care who
gets hurt/killed in their campaign, are too far gone into darkness.

    Myth and Religion 

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The Bible can be depicted this way in fanon, see God and Satan Are Both Jerks, with either side
depicted as the "gray".

Classical Mythology rules this trope. Unlike Norse Mythology, the gods aren't even contrasted with
anything particularly terrible, they're just generally dicks who happen to be in charge (Zeus, fittingly,
epitomized this, being a violent rapist and Manipulative Bastard but also powerful enough to defeat
all the other gods combined). Well, some were alright—but you never hear about them, because
the Greeks generally considered any story that doesn't involve both sides of the conflict being
colossal jerks to be one not worth telling.

The Kori No Tatakai in Japanese Mythology is a battle between two groups of Youkai: the evil-type
Kitsune and the neutral-type Tanuki.

Norse Mythology is, fittingly, this. The head god, Odin, demands human sacrifice, practices
questionable magic, instigates wars, and is known to turn on his favorites in mid-battle, ensuring
their deaths. However, all this is necessary to make sure he gets great warriors so that his army is
strong enough to keep the forces of evil from winning at Ragnarök so that a golden age can
emerge afterwards. Oh, and he and his entire army don't get to see that golden age. All of his other
gray features tend to be to either delay or prepare for that day. On the other hand, Odin is known
for not wanting to harm a woman on any race.
Thor has sworn to protect all of mankind, but is actually a Knight Templar since he is willing to
go at any length to protect us.
Loki helped the gods solve many problems (which he sometimes caused) and was glad to save
children from trolls. He is also destined to start Ragnarök.

Any version of Robin Hood. Yes, he and his Merry Men were thieves and robbers, but the people of
Nottingham were being overtaxed and Robin Hood was simply giving back the money to the poor
so that they could live. In the Disney version, Little John even questions the morality of what they
do.
Little John: Hey Rob, I was just wondering are we good guys or bad guys? I mean our robbing the rich to feed the
poor.
Robin Hood: "Rob"? That's a naughty word. We never rob. We just... sort of borrow a bit from those who can
afford it.
Little John: "Borrow"? Boy, are we in debt!

    Podcasts 

About the only positive thing you can say about Andrew Johnson in 1865 is that he opposed
succession in his native Tennessee, and remained loyal to the Union. Edwin Stanton and his cause
of opposing Johnson are clearly on the right-side of history, but his isn’t above using questionable
methods and underhanded tactics to achieve his goals.

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    Professional Wrestling 


    Theatre 


    Webcomics 

8-Bit Theater: The only good characters of the four or five heroes are an impossibly stupid dullard
and a kind woman who is crippled by the fear of doing anything wrong. The other three are an Ax-
Crazy Omnicidal Maniac, a mentally-disturbed Munchkin, and a ruthlessly selfish Magnificent
Bastard. The king of the most powerful nation in the world is even more stupid than the
aforementioned dullard, and may very well be mentally retarded. On the villains' side, we have a
LARP-ing emo vampire, an ex-pirate captain (who is also very stupid), a comically-incompetent
warlord (who's been very slowly getting better), a dark elf who is quite possibly the most stable and
levelheaded of the entire cast, and a nigh-omnipotent jerkass wizard
. And it's all Played for Laughs.
Best demonstrated here by what the Light Warriors planned to do once their mission was
accomplished.

Everyone in Ansem Retort is either completely evil or somewhat good but has something keeping
them from being completely white. Case in point: Namine, who tries to be the moral voice of
authority, but is part of Zexion's administration (which has had no less than five sex scandals—at
least one of which Namine arranged—and three murder scandals) and occasionally does drugs.
She is also still dicking around with Sora's memory, further removing her from the moral high
ground—and ensuring that his moral high ground stays happily in Cloudcuckooland, where it can't
affect anyone else and is effectively neutralized. Anyone that could be considered "white" usually
ends up killed or, like Sora, incapacitated.

The Bedfellows: Fatigue is an air-headed Butt-Monkey and Sheen is an Unsympathetic Comedy

The main gist of Brawl in the Family's Ode to Minions. No matter how evil the villains or noble the
intentions of the heroes, that doesn't change the fact that the heroes universally win by massacring
the enemy army en masse—and those soldiers, while they may be working for evil, still had homes,
families, and friends that they're taken away from.

In Consolers, the characters are all personified video game companies, and while some of them,
like EA and Konami, are clearly shown as more "evil" than others, most of them don't always act in
completely "moral" ways when it comes to making profit as a company.

The various groups in Cry 'Havoc' are black and grey. The mercenaries kill for money with even the
most moral of them shooting fallen enemies, the demons they battle are trying to escape their
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morality by slaying the mercenaries, and the werewolves are just trying to survive, even if they
destroy the human race in the process.

In Cthulhu Slippers, the main characters are either well-intentioned idiots, mutants, or self-serving
sociopaths. Compared to Nyarlarthotep, however, they're shining examples of kindness and light.

In Cwynhild's Loom, both Cwynhild and Ezekiel Nightingale establish early on that they are willing
to do whatever is necessary to advance their causes. While Cwynhild is the protagonist, she makes
no qualms about killing people who are a threat to her.

EVIL: Being a university for villains, pretty much the entire main cast are explicitly evil, with the
exception of Trevor, who isn't particularly good, either.

Girl Genius is an example, albeit not a perfect one, as the core conflict that's driven the story so far
(Agatha vs. Klaus) is Grey-and-Gray Morality. However, aside from Team Agatha, Team Klaus, and
Othar, most of the factions that have gotten into the game are evil to a lesser or greater extent. And
then there's the Other.

Lackadaisy's main characters are gangsters who run an illegal alcohol joint. Murder, ambiguous
innocence and deception follow.
Yet most of the cast are still lovable and goofy anthropomorphic cats.
It's incredibly easy to forget that what the characters are doing is crime, or that they're even
doing anything wrong. Many "Would it be a Heel–Face Turn or a Face–Heel Turn?" ponderings
ensue.

Lighter Than Heir: Neither Steinbech nor Zamora are really upstanding countries, but the former is
shown to be less brutal than the latter. Steinbech holds racist attitudes towards Zamorans, used
firebombs on them in the last war, and during the current war

Looking for Group has elements of this. While Legaria is definitely portrayed as villainous, the
heroes aren't very nice people themselves. Especially Richard.

The Baker Street Irregulars of Mayonaka Densha, while not bad people per se, aren't above killing
their enemies or breaking into homes in the name of justice. And the villain,
. This is even lampshaded by Hatsune at
one point.
"You know, for the quote unquote good guys, we sure do...break into a lot of places"

Outsider: Humanity is very close to being swept into an interstellar war between the Loroi and
Umiak, and is faced with a tough choice of which side is best to join, as neither is appealing. The
Umiak are imperialistic and enslave everybody they come across to feed their demand for ships
and munitions. The Loroi, on the other hand, have many willing allies and treat them fairly and
diplomatically, but this is undercut by their military having a "join us or die" mentality, having twice
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committed xenocide against neutral or Umiak-aligned species. The main character, in a flashback,
is interviewed by his future commanding officer shortly before graduation, with the "who should we
join" question posed to him. He chooses the Loroi, using the Umiak's imperialism as his
justification. He also notes in a monologue in the comic's prologue that humanity is not looking for
the side which shares or acts most accordingly with human values, but the side which is most likely
to win since aligning with the loser will almost certainly result in extinction.

Schlock Mercenary, certainly. There aren't a lot of well-paying jobs the "heroes" won't take, and
those are generally due to personal grudges (see their reaction to any request from Xinchub) rather
than morals. That said, they never come off as Villain Protagonists; in nearly every storyline,
following the money either puts them on the most sympathetic side surrounded by state-sponsored
ideologues or they managed to find a way to fulfill their contract without doing anything too bad. Or,
sometimes, finding some way to get hired by someone else to take out their Bad Boss at the same
time. They consider those some of the best days. Even better if they can still collect payment from
their original boss.

Suicide for Hire: Nobody in this world is nice, and those that are die horribly. So, for that matter, do
the ones that aren't.

    Web Original 


    Western Animation 


Alternative Title(s):
Black And Grey Morality, Gray And Black Morality, Grey And Black Morality

Previous Index Next

A Lighter Shade of Grey Shades of Conflict Evil Versus Evil

Beware the Superman Quirky Good Ethical Slut

Anti-Hero Dark Fantasy High Fantasy

Blessed with Suck Capepunk Broken Ace

A Lighter Shade of Grey Morality Tropes Black-and-White Morality

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing NoRealLife/Morality Tropes Black-and-White Insanity

Biopic QuoteSource/Cracked Block Puzzle

Bittersweet Ending Cynicism Tropes Black-and-White Insanity

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The Big Damn Kiss Overdosed Tropes Our Demons Are Different

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