History BlackAndWhiteMorality / VideoGames

** As its name suggests, ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' deconstructs it, with the main antagonist adhering to it then realizing in the end that no side can be truly right.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' also plays this straight for the most part, [[ZigZaggedTrope though with much more exceptions than its predecessor]]. The Kingdom of Hoshido is a prosperous nation that only wants to live in peace, and the Kingdom of Nohr by contrast is a Mordor-esque country with bad crops and is trying to invade Hoshido with little to no provocation. This even extends to the main rulers of those kingdoms; Queen Mikoto of Hoshido is an icon of peace, serenity, and saint like goodness in general, and King Garon of Nohr is an ObviouslyEvil warmongering tyrant who isn't afraid to destroy anything that gets in his way. It's rather easy to see which kingdom is supposed to be the one in the right. However, [[spoiler:Garon is an antagonist in all routes in some form or another, it is revealed in ''Conquest'' and ''Revelation'' that the real Garon is long dead at this point, and the Garon you deal with throughout the story is actually a familiar possessing his corpse trying to carry out the plan of the real BigBad]]. Garon's children on the other hand, your adopted siblings, are all portrayed sympathetically no matter which route you choose, and obviously still care for your character even when you fight against them. In addition many of their retainers, and other Nohrian units for that matter, are more or less all portrayed as decent people who are simply fighting for those they pledged their loyalty to, with their support conversations in the ''Conquest'' route giving more depth to their backstory and motivations.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'': seemingly present during the first game, but the second game {{deconstruct|edTrope}}s it by having you play the antagonists of the first game, and having the final boss be the mentor from the first game.

* The ''{{Videogame/Overlord}}'' (you) is evil, the heroes are (mostly) good. This is one of the few scenarios where you're supposed to prefer the [[VillainProtagonist black morality]].

* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are good; Robotnik is evil. [[AntiHero Shadow and Rouge]] border on the Grey morality, though.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' also plays this straight for the most part, though with more exceptions than its predecessor. The Kingdom of Hoshido is a prosperous nation that only wants to live in peace, and the Kingdom of Nohr by contrast is a Mordor-esque country with bad crops and is trying to invade Hoshido with little to no provocation. This even extends to the main rulers of those kingdoms; Queen Mikoto of Hoshido is an icon of peace, serenity, and saint like goodness in general, and King Garon of Nohr is an ObviouslyEvil warmongering tyrant who isn't afraid to destroy anything that gets in his way. It's rather easy to see which kingdom is supposed to be the one in the right. However, [[spoiler:Garon is an antagonist in all routes in some form or another, it is revealed in ''Conquest'' and ''Revelation'' that the real Garon is long dead at this point, and the Garon you deal with throughout the story is actually a familiar possessing his corpse trying to carry out the plan of the real BigBad]]. Garon's children on the other hand, your adopted siblings, are all portrayed sympathetically no matter which route you choose, and obviously still care for your character even when you fight against them. In addition many of their retainers, and other Nohrian units for that matter, are more or less all portrayed as decent people who are simply fighting for those they pledged their loyalty to, with their support conversations in the ''Conquest'' route giving more depth to their backstory and motivations.

** The later core games avert this though, with the evil teams having more reasonable and sympathetic motivations. The exception is Ghetsis of Team Plasma, whose villainy neighbors ''Cipher'' proportions. Cipher from VideoGame/PokemonColosseum is far more evil than anything before them and a sight more evil than anything since, up until ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' gave us [[OmnicidalManiac Lysandre.]]

** Usually averted from ''Sonic Adventure'' onward. [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Chaos]] is a legendary beast who caused the destruction of a whole ancient civilization, and almost that of the modern world as well, but [[spoiler: he's actually the protector of the Chao and guardian of the Chaos Emeralds and has no evil in his heart, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge he just got consumed by rage when an ancient tribe hurt the creatures he was defending in its lust for power]]]]. [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Gerald Robotnik]] [[spoiler:programmed the ARK to destroy the Earth and made a deal with Black Doom that would result in humanity being attacked and conquered by an alien race, but it's revealed that he wanted to help everyone by creating the Ultimate Life Form, and was also desperate to curing his beloved granddaughter's illness, which forced him to accept Black Doom's help; he actually created the Eclipse Cannon to warrant that humanity had a way of stopping the Black Arms when they arrived and attacked. It's just that said granddaughter was killed by the government's army.]] [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Solaris]] seeks to destroy time and space, but [[spoiler:he's actually a good deity who went insane after being experimented on]]. [[VideoGame/SonicBattle Emerl]] is a robot [[spoiler:designed as a weapon of mass destruction]], but gains a kind and heroic personality through the game as a result of hanging out with Sonic and his friends and copying their traits, and keeps this one until the end, even after his programming makes him go berserk. Merlina, who is Sonic's guide and ally in ''VideoGame/SonicAndTheBlackKnight'', [[spoiler:is revealed to be the BigBad at the end, but her intentions and motivations aren't evil.]]

** Usually averted from ''Sonic Adventure'' onward. [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Chaos]] is a legendary beast who caused the destruction of a whole ancient civilization, and almost that of the modern world as well, but [[spoiler: he's actually the protector of the Chao and guardian of the Chaos Emeralds and has no evil on his heart, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge he just got consumed by rage when an ancient tribe hurt the creatures he was defending in its lust for power]]]]. [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Gerald Robotnik]] [[spoiler:programmed the ARK to destroy the Earth and made a deal with Black Doom that would result in humanity being attacked and conquered by an alien race, but it's revealed that he wanted to help everyone by creating the Ultimate Life Form and just went insane when his beloved granddaughter got killed by the government's army, and that he actually created the Eclipse Cannon to warrant that humanity had a way of stopping the Black Arms when they arrived and attacked.]] [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Solaris]] seeks to destroy time and space, but [[spoiler:he's actually a good deity who went insane after being experimented on]]. [[VideoGame/SonicBattle Emerl]] is a robot [[spoiler:designed as a weapon of mass destruction]], but gains a kind and heroic personality through the game as a result of hanging around Sonic and his friends and copying their traits, and keeps this one until the end, even after his programming makes him go berserk. Merlina, who is Sonic's guide and ally in ''VideoGame/SonicAndTheBlackKnight'', [[spoiler:is revealed to be the BigBad at the end, but her intentions and motivations aren't evil.]]

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' tends to play with this a lot, even with its many morally pure Lords as its protagonists.
** In [[VideoGame/FireEmblem Tellius]] while Elincia is good, and Mad King Ashnard is evil, [[spoiler:his steed isn't evil, just {{Brainwashed}}.]] But then there's Naesala, who's more morally ambiguous, as well as several Daein commanders who fight for Ashnard [[LawfulNeutral more out of a sense of duty for their nation than being outright evil.]] The sequel muddies this even further: Begnion, who helped Crimea fight Daein in the first game, turn out to be just as corrupt, and the initial protagonists are heroic Daeins. And while half the Begnion Senate are evil assholes, Hetzel is just a terrified old man ([[PetTheDog who saved Rafiel's life in the past]]) and Oliver has BlueAndOrangeMorality. Meanwhile, Crimea isn't as pure as it seemed in the first game either, with many nobles ''not'' happy at Elincia becoming queen.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' play this straight more than any other game in the franchise; the Halidom of Ylisse worships Naga, a beautiful female dragon from an AlwaysLawfulGood race, and is presented as pure and good while the desert theocracy Plegia is led by the Grimleal, who worships Grima, an ugly male dragon from an AlwaysChaoticEvil Race and is portrayed as utterly evil. An attempt is made early on to add some grey by saying Emmeryn's predecessor had made war on the Grimleal, however this [[AbortedArc is dropped]], all Grimleal in the game never mention this, and are simply portrayed as [[CardCarryingVillain Badguys who like being bad]] with no [[ForTheEvulz real motive]].
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' also plays this straight for the most part, though with more exceptions than its predecessor. The Kingdom of Hoshido is a prosperous nation that only wants to live in peace, and the Kingdom of Nohr by contrast is a Mordor esque country with bad crops and is trying to invade Hoshido with little to no provocation. This even extends to the main rulers of those kingdoms; with Queen Mikoto of Hoshido being seen as an icon of peace, serenity, and saint like goodness in general, and King Garon of Nohr being an ObviouslyEvil warmongering tyrant who isn't afraid to destroy anything that gets in his way. It's rather easy to see which kingdom is supposed to be the one in the right [[spoiler: (indeed Garon is an antagonist in all routes in some form or another, however the real Garon is long dead at this point, and the Garon you deal with throughout the story is actually a familiar possessing his corpse trying to carry out the plan of the real BigBad)]]. Garon's children on the other hand, your adopted siblings, are all portrayed sympathetically no matter which route you choose, and obviously still care for your character even when you fight against them. In addition many of their retainers, and other Nohrian units for that matter, are more or less all portrayed as decent people who are simply fighting for those they pledged their loyalty to, with their support conversations in the ''Conquest'' route giving more depth to their backstory and motivations.

%%* Deconstructed in ''VideoGame/GrandiaII'';

* [[VideoGame/Hitman2016 Hitman]] has one between [[TheConspiracy Providence]] led by the mysterious "[[TheManBehindTheMan Partners]]", [[RetiredMonster Janus]] & [[TheDragon the Constant]] aided by their [[MouthOfSauron heralds]] and [[spoiler:[[TheMole Erich Soders]]]] versus a [[BadassArmy private militia]] led by the [[ForgottenFallenFriend Shadow Client/Lucas Grey]], [[TerroristsWithoutaCause Sean Rose]], [[ShroudedinMyth Wazir Kale]] & their lieutenants[[note]][[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Maya Parvati]], [[TheSociopath Alma Reynard]] and [[JewishandNerdy Ezra Berg]] amongst others[[/note]] along with various allies such as [[EvilOldFolks Pertti Jarnefelt]], [[MasterofDisguise Richard Foreman]], [[VillainwithGoodPublicity Robert]] [[DefectorFromDecadence Knox]], [[TheDreaded Rico Delgado]], [[BlackandNerdy Olivia Hall]] and later, [[TheAce Agent 47]] himself.

* [[VideoGame/Hitman2016 Hitman]] has one between [[TheConspiracy Providence]] led by the "[[TheManBehindTheMan Partners]]", [[RetiredMonster Janus]] & [[TheDragon the Constant]] against a [[BadassArmy private militia]] led by the [[ForgottenFallenFriend Shadow Client/Lucas Grey]], [[TerroristsWithoutaCause Sean Rose]], [[ShroudedinMyth Wazir Kale]] & their lieutenants[[note]][[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Maya Parvati]], [[JewishandNerdy Ezra Berg]] & [[TheSociopath Alma Reynard]], [[BlackandNerdy Olivia Hall]], [[TheCaligula Vanya Shah]] and [[Narcissist Dawood Rangan]] amongst others[[/note]]
** Each side has allies that they have in their [[ProxyWar war]] against each other, with Providence having their [[MouthOfSauron Heralds]] as well as their [[spoiler:[[TheMole ally/spy]] within the ICA, [[DrillSergeantNasty Erich Soders]]]], while Grey's allies include [[EvilOldFolks Pertti Jarnefelt]], [[MasterofDisguise Richard Foreman]], [[VillainwithGoodPublicity Robert]] [[DefectorFromDecadence Knox]], [[TheDreaded Rico Delgado]] and later, [[TheAce Agent 47]] himself.

* [[VideoGame/Hitman2016 Hitman]] has one between [[TheConspiracy Providence]] led by the "[[TheManBehindTheMan Partners]]", [[RetiredMonster Janus]] & [[TheDragon the Constant]] along with their [[MouthOfSauron Heralds]] against the [[ForgottenFallenFriend Shadow Client]]'s [[BadassArmy private militia]] (led by [[TerroristsWithoutaCause Sean Rose]], [[ShroudedinMyth Wazir Kale]] and their top lieutenants, such as [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Maya Parvati]], [[JewishandNerdy Ezra Berg]] & [[TheSociopath Alma Reynard]]) and his allies, which include [[EvilOldFolks Pertti Jarnefelt]], [[MasterofDisguise Richard Foreman]], [[VillainwithGoodPublicity Robert]] & [[TheUglyGuysHotDaughter Sierra Knox]], [[TheDreaded Rico Delgado]], [[BlackandNerdy Olivia Hall]] and [[TheAce Agent 47]] himself.

* Hitman2016 has one between [[TheConspiracy Providence]] led by the "[[TheManBehindTheMan Partners]]", [[RetiredMonster Janus]], [[TheDragon the Constant]] and their [[MouthOfSauron Heralds]] versus the [[ForgottenFallenFriend Shadow Client]]'s [[BadassArmy private militia][[note]][[TerroristsWithoutaCause Sean Rose]] & [[ShroudedinMyth Wazir Kale]] alongside their lieutenants; [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Maya Parvati]], [[JewishandNerdy Ezra Berg]] and [[TheSociopath Alma Reynard]][[/note]] and allies[[note]]which include [[EvilOldFolks Pertti Jarnefelt]], [[MasterofDisguise Richard Foreman]], [[VillainwithGoodPublicity Robert]] & [[TheUglyGuysHotDaughter Sierra Knox]], [[TheDreaded Rico Delgado]], [[BlackandNerdy Olivia Hall]] and [[TheAce Agent 47]][[/note]]

* In the ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', Link, Zelda, and their allies are good; Ganon and his followers are evil.

** Also played straight by the one-off villains in the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' and ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series. Okay, not quite Count Bleck, but Fawful, Dimentio, the Shadow Queen, Cackletta, and the Shroobs are portrayed very much to the extreme end of the evil scale.

*** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]'', Ganondorf reveals his true intentions. He is still a bit extreme about them, especially how he tries to achieve them, but [[WellIntentionedExtremist he did it all for the sake of providing a better life for his people]]. He merely got [[MotiveDecay swept up in the whole Triforce thing]]. Also, ''Skyward Sword'' seems to mildly deconstruct Ganondorf's CardCarryingVillain status with the revelation that [[spoiler: he's the reincarnation of the hatred of Demon King Demise, a curse on the original Link and Zelda who defeated him.]] This begs the question of whether Ganondorf could be considered a victim of YouCantFightFate, which is up to the interpretation of the player.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' is the sole main quest Aversion to date in the main series. ''Daggerfall'' has MultipleEndings which allow you to side with numerous factions, ranging from lighter gray ([[TheKingdom the Empire]], the [[ICannotSelfTerminate Underking]]) to outright black ([[AGodAmI Mannimarco]]).

%%* Deconstructed in ''GrandiaII'';

* Present in ''VideoGame/RivieraThePromisedLand''. Which is very surprising, considering the [[DeptHeaven rest of the series]].

* ''YggdraUnion'' starts off with a princess fleeing from TheEmpire and raising an army to fight back against them. [[spoiler:This later gets subverted, as the Empire isn't actually evil and is fighting for what they believe is true justice as well.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', Jimmy Hopkins isn't exactly [[GoodIsNotNice the nicest person]] and he knows that, but most of the characters, save for Pete, the art teacher, [[DumbIsGood Russel]] ([[DefeatMeansFriendship after defeat]])) and Zoe are either deeply flawed, mean, or violently mean. Especially the [[ObviouslyEvil very clearly evil from the get-go]] main antagonist Gary.

* In ''VideoGame/Bully'', Jimmy Hopkins isn't exactly [[GoodIsNotNice the nicest person]] and he knows that, but most of the characters, save for Pete, the art teacher, [[DumbIsGood Russel]] ([[DefeatMeansFriendship after defeat]])) and Zoe are either deeply flawed, mean, or violently mean. Especially the [[ObviouslyEvil very clearly evil from the get-go]] main antagonist Gary.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' tends to play with this alot, even with its many morally pure Lords as its protagonists.
** In [[VideoGame/FireEmblem Tellius]] while Elincia is good, and Mad King Ashnard is evil. [[spoiler: His steed isn't evil, just {{Brainwashed}}.]] But then there's Naesala, who's more morally ambiguous, as well as several Daein commanders who fight for Ashnard [[LawfulNeutral more out of a sense of duty for their nation then being outright evil.]] The sequel muddies this even further: Begnion, who helped Crimea fight Daein in the first game, turn out to be just as corrupt, and the initial protagonists are heroic Daeins. And while half the Begnion Senate are evil assholes, Hetzel is just a terrified old man ([[PetTheDog who saved Rafiel's life in the past]]) and Oliver has BlueAndOrangeMorality. Meanwhile, Crimea isn't as pure as it seemed in the first game either, with many nobles ''not'' happy at Elincia becoming queen.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' play this straight more then any other game in the franchise; the Halidom of Ylisse worships Naga, a beautiful female dragon from an AlwaysLawfulGood race, and is presented as pure and good while the desert theocracy Plegia is led by the Grimleal, who worships Grima, an ugly male dragon from an AlwaysChaoticEvil Race and is portrayed as utterly evil. An attempt is made early on to add some grey by saying Emmeryn's predecessor had made war on the Grimleal, however this [[AbortedArc is dropped]], all Grimleal in the game never mention this, and are simply portrayed as [[CardCarryingVillain Badguys who like being bad]] with no [[ForTheEvulz real motive]].
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' also plays this straight for the most part, though with more exceptions then its predecessor. The Kingdom of Hoshido is a prosperous nation that only wants to live in peace, and the Kingdom of Nohr by contrast is a Mordor esque country with bad crops and is trying to invade Hoshido with little to no provocation. This even extends to the main rulers of those kingdoms; with Queen Mikoto of Hoshido being seen as an icon of peace, serenity, and saint like goodness in general, and King Garon of Nohr being an ObviouslyEvil warmongering tyrant who isn't afraid to destroy anything that gets in his way. It's rather easy to see which kingdom is supposed to be the one in the right [[spoiler: (indeed Garon is an antagonist in all routes in some form or another, however the real Garon is long dead at this point, and the Garon you deal with throughout the story is actually a familiar possessing his corpse trying to carry out the plan of the real BigBad)]]. Garon's children on the other hand, your adopted siblings, are all portrayed sympathetically no matter which route you choose, and obviously still care for your character even when you fight against them. In addition many of their retainers, and other Nohrian units for that matter, are more or less all portrayed as decent people who are simply fighting for those they pledged their loyalty to, with their support conversations in the ''Conquest'' route giving more depth to their backstory and motivations.