History Main / ALighterShadeOfGrey

* Both ''{{Fallout}} 3'' and ''NewVegas'' revolve around this conflict. It's less obvious in 3 as the Brotherhood act mostly as white knights, but are capable of doing very unplesant things, such as murdering Ghouls on sight and killing civilans outside of Megaton. The NCR are often greedy and corrupt, but in contrast to Casear's Legion, an evil empire that endorses slavery, child soldiers, rape, paedophelia and torture, they seem like saints.

* In WorldOfWarcraft, the Alliance is basically this. The GreyAndGrayMorality theme is strong in WorldOfWarcraft, but the Horde has a [[{{Understatement}} morally questionable past]] and is allied with the quasi-evil Forsaken. The Alliance has its own share of douchebaggery, no doubt, but the general consensus is that the Horde is the darker of the two factions and the Alliance is the lighter. This is all relatively speaking, however.
** There isn't really a consensus, and the faction split makes the conception quite different. Every race and faction has a dark side or group. Humans ran orcish internment camps and waged a war of genocide with the elves against Trolls. They did this because the Orcs invaded and of long wars with the Trolls. The Orcs did this in turn because their world was dying due to Chaos magic and demon powers bleaching it. Those powers sought out the orcs to corrupt because of the Draenei.
*** Though at the time the internment camps were created, the humans had every reason to believe that orcs were AlwaysChaoticEvil. Also, from their perspective imprisonment was the more merciful option compared to mass execution, but I doubt the orcs would agree.
** If the Alliance isn't this now, they certainly will be in Cataclysm come [[TheScrappy Garrosh Hellscream]]'s taking the reins.
** Although Garrosh himself seems to be improving some in the same way that they pulled back the Alliance's Varian Wrynn from being as much as a jerk. Sadly, in one of the scenes that displays this, [[spoiler: Sylvanas is coasting past the MoralEventHorizon...]]

-> --- ''{{Bokurano}}'', chapter 39 page 19.

* Both Fallout 3 and NewVegas revolve around this conflict. It's less obvious in 3 as the Brotherhood act mostly as white knights, but are capable of doing very unplesant things, such as murdering Ghouls on sight and killing civilans outside of Megaton. The NCR are often greedy and corrupt, but in contrast to Casear's Legion, an evil empire that endorses slavery, child soldiers, rape, paedophelia and torture, they seem like saints.

* Both Fallout3 and NewVegas revolve around this conflict. It's less obvious in 3 as the Brotherhood act mostly as white knights, but are capable of doing very unplesant things, such as murdering Ghouls on sight and killing civilans outside of Megaton. The NCR are often greedy and corrupt, but in contrast to Casear's Legion, an evil empire that endorses slavery, child soldiers, rape, paedophelia and torture, they seem like saints.

** There isn't really a consensus, and the faction split makes the conception quite different. Every race and faction has a dark side or group. Humans ran orcish internment camps and waged a war of genocide with the elves against Trolls. They did this because the Orcs invaded and of long wars with the Trolls. The Orcs did this in turn because their world was dying due to Chaos magic and demon powers bleaching it. Those powers sought out the orcs to corrupt because of the Dranerai.

--> "Most humans are grey. And our job is to chastise the darker grey, correct?"
---> --- ''{{Bokurano}}'', chapter 39 page 19.

** If the Alliance isn't this now, they certainly will be in Cataclysm come [[TheScrappy Garrosh Hellscream]]'s taking the reigns.

* ''VForVendetta'' is something like this. One one hand, it's a struggle between a repressive fascist government which may nevertheless be humanity's last hope in a nuclear-holocaust blighted world, and a fanatical anarchist terrorist who has absolutely no qualms about blowing up buildings and killing people to get his way, and who's efforts may ultimately doom humanity. On the other, however, the government is genocidal (having wiped out racial minorities and the LGBT population, amongst others) and composed pretty much entirely of hateful, dysfunctional and irredeemable bastards, while V is an incredibly charismatic guy who only lost his sanity after said regime used him for experimentation fodder, and who we first see rescuing a young girl from government hired rapists, and who comes to happily admit that he's got no place in the better world he's trying to create. It's certainly not a black and white situation, but it's pretty clear we're supposed to side more with V than the Norsefire government.

* ''CodeGeass'' clearly does favor Lelouch. However, his most frequently recurring antagonist, Suzaku, has the same goal and generally goes about it with ''less'' dog kicking than he does. If the series had primarily focused on Suzaku instead, Lelouch probably would have been an outright villain rather than a sympathetic antihero. [[spoiler: They end up on the same side by the end of the series.]]

* Marvel's ''[[MarvelCivilWar Civil War]]'' was intended to feature [[GreyandGrayMorality ambiguous morals]] and sides that were not really more right than the other. In practice, the authors seemed to have missed the memo and increasingly portrayed the Pro-Registration side as the bad guys, made especially bad by the fact that Stark (the figurehead and commander of the Pro-Registration forces) [[MoralEventHorizon commissioned the manufacture of an extradimensional KZ]] in addition to the fact that the Anti-Registration side got almost no ShootTheDog moments.
** That, and CaptainAmerica was Ant-Reg, giving them the instant moral high ground.
** [[WallBanger And then they lost.]]

* Despite the houses of Montague and Capulet being stressed as "alike in dignity" in the prologue of ''RomeoAndJuliet'', the Montagues come off looking a lot better in many adaptations, probably because they feature a lot less. Then again, in the original text itself the Capulets come off as a BigScrewedUpFamily consisting of a warlike father, a weak-willed mother, a painfully naive daughter, and a dangerously HotTempered nephew; meanwhile, Lord Montague ''does'' try to join the opening brawl but is relieved his son Romeo avoided it, and the main characters in ''his'' house are WideEyedIdealist Romeo and OnlySaneMan Benvolio. It's not hard to conjecture that the Montagues may be just as involved in the feud, but there's a strong chance of a much more functional private family life.

*** Though at the time the internment camps were created, the humans had every reason to believe that orcs were AlwaysChaoticEvil.

* ''VForVendetta'' is something like this. One one hand, it's a BlackAndGreyMorality struggle between a repressive fascist government which may be humanity's last hope in a nuclear-holocaust blighted world, and a fanatical anarchist terrorist who has absolutely no qualms about blowing up buildings and killing people to get his way. On the other, however, the government is genocidal (having wiped out racial minorities and the LGBT population, amongst others) and composed pretty much entirely of hateful, dysfunctional and irredeemable bastards, while V is an incredibly charismatic guy who only lost his sanity after said regime used him for experimentation fodder, and who we first see rescuing a young girl from government hired rapists, and who comes to happily admit that he's got no place in the better world he's trying to create. It's certainly not a black and white situation, but it's pretty clear we're supposed to side more with V than the Norsefire government.

** The other shades of grey are Emperor and Schniezel. Emperor clearly believed that his [[spoiler: {{Instrumentality}} plot]] was for the good of mankind. Schniezel had the same world peace goal as the Lelouch and Suzaku [[spoiler: but he was going [[MoralEventHorizon way too far with his plan of nuking major cities from orbit]] and thus came out darker]].

** It flips once you get into R2, where Suzaku does his own share of dog-kicking, Lelouch gets turned into even more of a [[TheWoobie Woobie]]/[[TheChewToy Chew Toy]], and everybody betrays someone (especially [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Suzaku]]). Lelouch did bad things, but had a pretty decent FreudianExcuse. Suzaku kept [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope jumping of the slope]] with each new bad thing that happened to him.

* ''LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' has a slight tendency towards this on a governmental level, insofar that for every corrupt and inefficient noble and inter-house spats shown in TheEmpire TheFederation has three corrupt and inefficient politicians/military commanders breathing down Yang's neck and a civil war/complete breakdown of law and order every ten episodes. The first Free Planets Alliance politician who has both actual power and is presented at least partially sympathetic is [[spoiler:the man who is forced to take over after the Empire besieges Heinessen and forces the former cabinet to surrender.]]

* In ''FinalFantasyTactics'', one side of the Lion War rallies behind Prince Goltana, the other behind Prince Larg, the church has got its fingers in the conflict, [[spoiler: not to mention the Lucavi,]] and then there's your player group. Out of the two main sides involved in the war, those siding with Prince Larg come out looking more like good guys, in general, by virtue of not having [[MagnificentBastard Delita Hyrule]] on their side. Out of all groups, though, the player's party comes out looking like the best good guys of all, but whether that's due to the main character's [[XanatosSucker being played]] or being honestly virtuous is a matter of debate.

*** Though at the time the interment camps were created the humans had every reason to believe that orcs were AlwaysChaoticEvil.

** L also isn't a total sociopath and feels some common bond with his fellow man. Light believes that no one is his equal and that the rest of humanity are either his pets (his family) his sheep, his tools or his enemy.