History Main / AboveGoodAndEvil

* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'': Shockwave falls under the science-minded aspect. He [[spoiler:was one of the few good higher class mechs and scientists, who strove to improve the lives of everyone and stop the energy crisis. He then had his emotions removed and his body mutilated by an enemy, he lost all of his empathy with it.]] Now Shockwave doesn't believe in good, nor evil, just logic. As such he feels no altruism nor malice. In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRobotsInDisguise'' he admits his goal is to create renewable energy and save the planet, all other mechs are raw materials or a means to an end. In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMaximumDinobots'', Grimlock's cost him a few million years of his time, Scorponok's blown off a piece of his chest and the Humans have tried to blow him up; when he outmaneuvers all of them, he doesn't go for revenge or even kill anyone, he just leaves because he just doesn't care. His actions in the present have him [[spoiler:creating an Ore which can resurrect cybertronians, and with it he turns life and death into mere data for him to manipulate]].
* Dr. Manhattan from ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' expresses this attitude. He just did not care about humanity anymore, [[spoiler: until Laurie showed him the complexity and drama of human existence.]]

* In ''Fanfic/OutOfTheCornerOfTheEye'', Francis White and Ephraim Waite respond to Uncle's declaration that the Mythos cultists are evil by saying that they're more amoral than anything else.

* [[BigBad Mok]], the antagonist of ''WesternAnimation/RockAndRule'', {{Invoke|dTrope}}s this as a reason why he sees no problem with summoning an EldritchAbomination to slaughter tons of people [[DisproportionateRetribution because his last concert didn't totally sell out]]. When Zip, his [[{{Manchild}} childish and obliviously innocent]] henchman, watches an Uncle Mikey cartoon about [[BlackAndWhiteMorality how you should be good instead of evil]], he asks Mok if what they're doing is evil. Mok's response is to say [[GrayAndGreyInsanity they've grown beyond such concerns]].

* [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate The Doctor]] from ''Film/{{Amen}}'' remarks after witnessing a gassing that it is "quite horrible", but believes it is necessary to subdue his conscience for the sake of the ideals of Nazism.
* Colonel Kurtz from ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', the textbook Type 4 SociopathicSoldier. Kurtz praises the dedication of the Vietnamese enemy and how they [[TheUnfettered will do anything to win]], and argues that America cannot afford to "play fair" or care what the rest of the world thinks. To win, America has to completely throw morality to the wind and completely destroy the Vietcong with every weapon and ruthless tactic they have at their disposal, [[KnowWhenToFoldEm or get the hell out of 'Nam.]] He expressly believes that if he had [[EliteArmy ten divisions of hardened soldiers]] who were willing to ''[[WouldHurtAChild butcher children]]'' to send a message, then he would win the war with them, and with alarming speed.

* Implied in ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', Voldemort says this: "There is no good or evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it."

* A rare heroic example is Touma, the main character from ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'' who considers good and evil to be mere shackles, and just does whatever he feels is right at the time, even if that means saving the very same villain he just punched out seconds before. In the WorldWarIII arc, Touma even gives Accelerator some huge CharacterDevelopment by telling him that his thoughts that he is a villain are just holding him back.

* WordOfGod notes that the three [[DemonicPossession Ravers]], CoDragons to [[GodOfEvil Lord Foul]] in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfThomasCovenant'', are like this, believing that by becoming immortal possessing spirits they transcended all moral restraints (their true, personal names- ''Moksha'', ''Turiya'', and ''Samadhi'' are a BilingualBonus reflecting their mistaken belief in their own enlightenment). Furthermore, Donaldson seems to consider this a trait of truly evil people in general, and notes that even Foul himself has shades of it.

* Q in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' has some kind of point to make generally but it doesn't make sense in any conventional morality, and he imposes his tests on Picard mainly because he can. He is another who trends towards [[ChaoticNeutral Neutrality]].
* This is argued over in ''Series/TrueBlood''. A lot of vampires would agree with Godric's claim "There is no right or wrong. These are human notions. There's only death or survival." He himself renounces this idea finally.

* A repeating theme in the Music/{{Manowar}} song "The Power".

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

* The pre-Christian Old Testament view of {{God}} is more like this than the typical GodIsGood, seeing Him as a source of both good and evil. [[Literature/BookOfIsaiah Isaiah 45:7]] even says "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." In tandem, it has long been a tenet of classical theology that God is not a moral being, because he's not bound to any morals, given that he's their source. Naturally, this view has its critics.
* The gods of Myth/ClassicalMythology are not big subscribers to any moral code. Zeus is okay with committing RapeByFraud, and his brother Hades seems to think AbductionIsLove. They're all big fans of DisproportionateRetribution, and for the most part their main concern seems to be securing their power over mortals. The closest to "morality" they come is intervening to stop humans from disrupting the natural order by bringing the dead back to life, in the case of Sisyphus and Asclepius.

* Emperor Charles Zi Britannia of ''Anime/CodeGeass'' fancies himself as this. He calls the war between the Black Knights and Britannia (to the rest of the characters the most important thing in the world) 'mundane matters'. [[spoiler: He sees his attempt at killing god (the collective human consciousness), to bring forth a world unified in stagnation, as beyond such worldly concerns.]]
* ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'': King Kai describes Beerus, the God of Destruction, in these terms. When he tells Goku that Beerus tends to blow up a lot of planets, Goku immediately assumes that Beerus is evil. King Kai responds that Goku's thinking about it the wrong way: Beerus's "job" and the whole reason for his existence is to destroy things, and his destruction of things is necessary for the upholding of cosmic balance across the universe. That said, Beerus's problem is the fact that [[BrilliantButLazy he spends most of the time he should be working sleeping]] and when he's awake his ''reasons'' for destroying planets are more often than not [[EvilIsPetty petty or spiteful]] (like because someone didn't give him good enough food).

* In the [[Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaAkiraHimekawa manga adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', Sahasrahla describes The Triforce as a pure power that will grant the wish of anyone who touches it, good or evil. In the end, however, Ganon’s awful personality and goals are too much for even it.

* Roque Ja from ''ComicBook/{{Bone}}'' holds the "There is no good and evil, there is only power" philosophy. Unlike most others, he is actually neutral; he works for the bad guys for pay, but will turn on them if they insult him and he lets the heroes go so that they can defeat the Locust at the end.
* ''ComicBook/{{DIE}}'': The Grandmaster of Die, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of [[GeniusLoci the place itself]], is repeatedly stated to be amoral and not immoral while being confronted. In a way, it's like the Idea of Evil from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}''; it's simply a reflection of the humans who create it trying to give them clarity of purpose in the wishes they make doing so.
* ComicBook/DoctorFate sometimes slips into this. DependingOnTheWriter, he's concerned solely with maintaining the balance between Order and Chaos (in some takes on the character, he's actually a Lord of Order, so sometimes this isn't so much a matter of "balance" for its own sake and more a case of "we can't let Chaos win"). It's perhaps best seen in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010''.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}''/''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'' crossover "ComicBook/FromEterniaWithDeath", Skeletor declares he will open the gates of Castle Greyskull, even if he lacks the required magical device, because he is "above the puny laws of man and god alike".

* Although in ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'' we already knew that the concepts of "good" and "evil" did not exist among Baravadans, their attitude is codified in ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone: The Soft World'' when the four enter Natives Quarter to interview the skahs about what happened over the last six years on C'hou:

* "The Mysterious Stranger" from ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'' has [[{{Satan}} the eponymous Stranger]] say, "I can do no wrong, for I do not know what it is."

* The protagonist in ''Film/{{Lucy}}'' has her brain enhanced to the point where normal human ethics are ignored in favor of more pragmatic solutions. To keep herself grounded she seeks advice from a professor and keeps another character close as a "reminder" of her humanity.

-->'''Thanos:''' I'm a ''survivor''\\

* In the world of Selenoth (as portrayed in ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight''), this is the core of the [[TheEmpire Witchkings']] philosophy. Good and Evil are, ultimately, meaningless concepts with no natural existence, invented by human imagination. A truly objective observer does not judge, but simply recognizes that which Is.
* Huey Laforet from ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'' is this trope via his several-hundred-years ForScience ambition. Everyone and everything in this world, including his own daughter, is nothing more than components of a grand experiment, ethics be damned. Even amongst his peers he is considered the creepiest of the lot.

* ''Beyond Good and Evil'' by Creator/FriedrichNietzsche. In fact, one of the points of the book is criticizing philosophers for trying to tie Christian dogma into their philosophical consideration of morals instead of looking at it with a critical eye.
* Judge Holden from ''Literature/BloodMeridian'' criticizes morality as being "an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak" and ultimately irrelevant next to "historical law." It's implied that this is why he survives the story (beyond the potential [[AmbiguouslyHuman supernatural reasons]]): His total lack of a moral compass allows him to devote himself to violence without compromising his sanity, while everyone around him snaps.

* [[Creator/SorenKierkegaard Johannes de Silentio]]'s "teleological suspension of the ethical" in ''Fear and Trembling'' explores this, or at least, Above Society's Good and Evil. It teaches that there is a higher duty that ought to be obeyed even if it clashes with a society's ideas of good and evil. To use the sacrifice of Isaac as an example, Abraham knows that it is wrong to kill an innocent, let alone his own son. However, he also recognises a duty to something higher than these social norms, viz. his duty to obey God's commands. As Abraham could not intelligibly give an ethical justification in terms of social norms, but must simply obey the divine command.

* [[OmnicidalManiac Ruin]] of ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'' is like this, claiming that good and evil have nothing to do with him, his counterpart Preservation, or his reason for destroying the world (it's not out of malice -- it's because destroying and kill are what he does, and he literally can't do anything else if he tries.) He's not totally wrong, since if Preservation had ''it's'' way, nothing would ever change, grow, or end, essentially being locked as they are forever. Of course whether or not what Ruin is doing is technically Evil is pretty unimportant to the people currently living on the planet he intends to destroy.

* Although in ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'' we already knew that the concepts of “good” and “evil” did not exist among Baravadans, their attitude is codified in ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone: The Soft World'' when the four enter Natives Quarter to interview the skahs about what happened over the last six years on C'hou:
-->Q: How do you feel knowing there are good and evil in the world now?
-->A: Those are meaningless outworlder words. Sometimes the outworlders tell us we're being good or evil when we do certain things. Who cares? We don't listen when they say those stupid things.
* ''FanFic/ShatteredReflection'': Having the spirit of Grima, Fire Emblem Awakening's de facto devil, inhabiting her body can occasionally have this affect whenever Rose overindulges in the [[SuperpoweredEvilSide major power boost such an entity can provide.]]

* [[BigBad Mok]], the antagonist of ''WesternAnimation/RockAndRule'', [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this as a reason why he sees no problem with summoning an EldritchAbomination to slaughter tons of people [[DisproportionateRetribution because his last concert didn't totally sell out]]. When Zip, his [[{{Manchild}} childish and obliviously innocent]] henchman, watches an Uncle Mikey cartoon about [[BlackAndWhiteMorality how you should be good instead of evil]], he asks Mok if what they're doing is evil. Mok's response is to say [[GrayAndGreyInsanity they've grown beyond such concerns]].

* In "Literature/TimePatrol", the instructor, describing how the Danellians (our far future descendants) insisted on the founding of the Patrol, said they were neither benevolent nor malevolent, they were so far beyond us.

-->"You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right."

* The Grey Wardens of ''Franchise/DragonAge'' are the ''Grey'' Wardens for exactly this reason. They don't care if you're a prince or a commoner, a paragon of virtue or a mass murderer. If you've got the strength to withstand the incredibly painful and often fatal ritual of the Joining, thus gaining elevated skills and abilities with which you can fight the darkspawn, they'll accept you into the fold with no questions asked. Subverted if [[spoiler:Loghain]] is made a Grey Warden and survives the first game. For all of their rhetoric, the Wardens never really accepted him as one of their own despite his ability because [[spoiler: his betrayal at Ostagar doomed nearly all of Ferelden's Grey Wardens and put Thedas into ruin by failing to contain the Fifth Blight.]]
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

--> ''Evil is nothing but a mere perspective that no longer concerns me.''

--> '''Torque''': You think you're some kind of blameless force of nature, don't you!? That the rules don't apply to you!

--> ''I do not wish to be bound by notions of justice and evil.''

---> She [[==][[spoiler:Elle]][==]]'s just like you, Alex. She thinks there are such things as good and evil. But there aren't. There is only [[OrderVersusChaos chaos...and order]].

--> '''Kim:''' Why do you not use such overwhelming power for the sake of justice?
--> '''Akuma:''' There is no good or evil to strength! I seek only pure power!

* [[BrokenAce Sosuke Aizen]] from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' uses this to justify his depraved actions, claiming that distinctions of good and evil would merely limit his potential.

** [[FallenHero Hades]] sees Magic in general as this, making no distinction between "light" and "dark" magic in his pursuit of the One Magic, the root of all. His life's work involves researching the works of [[BigBad the Black Wizard, Zeref]] and his main goal is to create the "grand Magic world" where all can use magic and anyone who can't doesn't need to live, to which he sees Zeref himself as the key to achieving. Of course, [[TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget it also highlights how far his own morality has decayed from the hero he used to be, especially since he believes the One Magic is truly steeped in the darkest of magics]], which Makarov himself points out at the end of the Sirius Island Arc.

* ''Manga/MedakaBox'': [[spoiler:Ajimu]] is this, and states that life, death, love, hate, etc. is meaningless garbage. [[spoiler:This is because she is under the delusion[[note]]or, depending on one’s perspective, [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall perfectly accurate assessment]][[/note]]that she is a character in a comic book.]]

* Yato of ''Anime/{{Noragami}}'' is a god, and therefore does not care at all and [[spoiler:has killed many people and shinki before]].
* The Straw Hat Pirates from ''Manga/OnePiece''. For most of them, labels of "good" and "evil" generally don't matter. It's evident right from the beginning of the series, although various crew members took some time to get used to the label of "{{pirate}}".

* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'': Jack Atlas doesn't give a rat's ass about the Tops vs. Commons conflict or the Academia war (though he doesn't know about the latter); nor does he care about Roget's schemes. All he cares about are good and true duelists.

[[folder:Blogs]]
* ''Blog/{{ReadySetThink}}'' mentions how the Universe doesn't care about petty human conflicts, and about morality as a whole:
-->''"The universe doesn't care how many people you have killed (except if you believe in supernaturally enforced Karma I guess), so you getting arrested or killed shouldn't be objectively better than anyone else."''
[[/folder]]

* [[EldritchAbomination The Shadow From Beyond Time]] from ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'' might be this; in their third encounter, Robo notes that the moral dilemma it creates (possessing an entire town, but leaving them [[AndIMustScream just enough self-awareness]] that Robo can't fight them) might be mocking the notion of morals altogether. Or it could just be because he hates Robo. Like most things about the Shadow, it's not fully explained.

** The reason Galactus has Heralds is to find suitable planets for him to consume, but they also serve to warn the residents that Galactus is coming. In theory, this allows those who are able to leave to stage an evacuation. Except that some of his Heralds turn out to be more than a little crazy, such as the extreme nihilist Stardust (whose policy is to kill anyone who tries to flee).
*** Another interpretation is that the Heralds are supposed to find him life-bearing but unoccupied planets to eat. This poses a problem (at least in the regions near Earth) in that there are at least three civilizations that span entire galaxies in the neighborhood, and interstellar travel is so easy that even Earth has multiple interstellar vehicles of local manufacture.
* ''ComicBook/NewGods'': [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] likes to ''claim'' to be this, but it's quite clear that if he's not simply evil, he's a pretty good facsimile thereof. One of the ''nicest'' things about Darkseid is that he's got a sense of honor (dark and twisted though it may be), which is more than one can say of most of his minions.
** In the ''Comicbook/{{Anarky}}'' miniseries, when Anarky is trying to discover the nature of evil, Darkseid gives him the usual speech about how "good" and "evil" are questions for lesser minds and Darkseid simply is what he is. Anarky concludes that evil is a choice, but Darkseid isn't ''capable'' of moral descisions, and his answers lie with someone less limited.

-->'''Barry:''' Do not think me included in your laws, Supergirl -- for I shall henceforth decide upon right and wrong! I am a law unto myself... and you shall all follow my commands... or suffer for your disobedience!
* Shockwave in the IDW continuity falls under the ForScience aspect. In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'', [[spoiler:he was one of the few good higher class mechs and scientists, who strove to improve the lives of everyone and stop the energy crisis. He then had his emotions removed and his body mutilated by an enemy, he lost all of his empathy with it.]] Now Shockwave doesn't believe in good, nor evil, just logic. As such he feels no altruism nor malice. In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRobotsInDisguise'' he admits his goal is to create renewable energy and save the planet, all other mechs are raw materials or a means to an end. In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMaximumDinobots'', Grimlock's cost him a few million years of his time, Scorponok's blown off a piece of his chest and the Humans have tried to blow him up; when he outmaneuvers all of them, he doesn't go for revenge or even kill anyone, he just leaves because he just doesn't care. His actions in the present have him [[spoiler:creating an Ore which can resurrect cybertronians, and with it he turns life and death into mere data for him to manipulate]].

Not to be confused with the book ''Beyond Good and Evil'' by Creator/FriedrichNietzsche or the unrelated [[VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil game of the same name]].

** In the ''Comicbook/{{Anarky}}'' miniseries, when Anarky is trying to discover the nature of evil, Darkseid gives him the usual speech about how "good" and "evil" are questions for lesser minds and Darkseid simply is what he is. Anarky concludes that Darkseid isn't ''capable'' of moral descisions, and his answers lie with someone less limited.

-->'''Tarquin:''' Labels like "good" and "evil" are just words. Words with many possible capitalizations.[[invoked]][[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0760.html here.]]

[[noreallife]]

* The newest incarnation of [[Characters/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPowerEntrapta Entrapta]] from ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' is this. She sees no difference in reverse engineering First Ones tech to improve her kingdom and noodling with a piece of bad tech that turns her friend into a mindless berserker. While perfectly capable of working for the Alliance, the Horde simply has more advanced technology to study, and [[spoiler:when Hordak reveals that he's trying to make an intergalactic scale portal]], this inevitably causes her to pull something of a FaceHeelTurn.

** Wan Shi Tong, the knowledge spirit lands on the TrueNeutral side. He didn't care that the Gaang was looking for knowledge to stop the Fire Nation from destroying the world. To him, one war was the same as the other and the sides and reasons didn't matter. All that mattered to him was collecting knowledge and keeping that knowledge from falling into the "wrong" hands (read: anyone who actually wanted to use said knowledge for war of any kind and for any reason). He went so far as trying to trap them in the hidden library once he discovered Sokka trying to smuggle out info on when the Day of the Black Sun would occur.

** When Aang seeks guidance from his prior incarnations, they speak along these lines. Roku doesn't tell advise for or against killing Fire Lord Ozai but to "be decisive", while Kyoshi advises him to straight up kill Ozai because he is the Avatar and it's his job to stop violent egomaniacs like Ozai. Yangchen is especially frustrating for Aang, because she says Aang has to set aside his Air Nomad pacifism in order to protect the world.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', due to his insane intellect (confirmed by the Galactic Federation to be the smartest mammal in the galaxy) and his portal gun revealing to him infinite realities that allow him to avoid punishment for his misdeeds and infinite versions of his family members (which he views as replaceable), Rick views morality as something utterly meaningless. Considering [[CrapsackWorld how the universe is]] his beliefs are more often than not justified: whenever Morty or Summer attempt to do "good" things like saving an imprisoned gaseous alien, freeing a planet from a HiveMind, or trying to give a snake planet hope, it tends to cause ''severe'' repercussions with Rick pointing out every step of the way that they should have just not gotten involved. In fact, when talking to Space Beth he talks about going through his own "hero phase" when he was her age, implying his cold but accurate outlook on most things is learned from ''[[TaughtByExperience experience]]'' rather than his intellect.
* The newest incarnation of [[ForScience Entrapta]] from ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' is this. She sees no difference in reverse engineering First Ones tech to improve her kingdom and noodling with a piece of bad tech that turns her friend into a mindless berserker. While perfectly capable of working for the Alliance, the Horde simply has more advanced technology to study, and [[spoiler:when Hordak reveals that he's trying to make an intergalactic scale portal]], this inevitably causes her to pull something of a FaceHeelTurn.

* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' has the Anomaly, a mysterious entity who has control over the world of the game [[spoiler:by using the playable character as their puppet and via SaveScumming]]. Their detachment can be justified for the simple reason that the world they play with [[spoiler:is just a game among many others for them, and [[EverybodyDiesEnding a playthrough where everybody dies]] is just one of the many ways to play]]. That being said, if you choose a No Mercy run, the game ''will'' attempt to say that no, the Anomaly isn't above consequences.

* In ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFightersMaximumImpact 2'', BigBad Jivatma invokes this trope in the Pre-Final Battle one-liner if you fight him with Kim Kaphwan:

* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' has the Anomaly, a mysterious entity who has control over the world of the game [[spoiler:by using the playable character as their puppet and via SaveScumming, AKA the player]]. Their detachment is justified, as the world they play with [[spoiler:is just a game like many others for them, and [[EverybodyDiesEnding an ending where everybody dies]] is just one of the many ways to play it]]. That being said, if you choose a No Mercy run, the game ''will'' attempt to say that no, the Anomaly isn't above consequences.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'': Sonic himself, surprisingly. It's laid out quite clearly in one of his theme songs, "It Doesn't Matter", that he cares little for the definitions of good or evil, or who is right and who is wrong in any given situation or belief; Sonic just follows his heart, doing whatever he feels is appropriate at the moment. Fortunately, his heart generally steers him in the direction of heroism, but there have been occasions where he's taken actions that clash with the "hero" perception, and he's generally completely unrepentant about them.

* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' has the Anomaly [[spoiler:AKA the player]]. After all, the world of Undertale is fictional [[spoiler:and you aren't]]. That being said, if you choose a No Mercy run, the game ''will'' attempt to say that no, the Anomaly isn't.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', due to his insane intellect (confirmed by the Galactic Federation to be the smartest mammal in the galaxy) and his portal gun revealing to him infinite realities that allow him to avoid punishment for his misdeeds and infinite versions of his family members (which he views as replaceable), Rick views morality as something utterly meaningless. Considering [[CrapsackWorld how the universe is]] his beliefs are more often than not justified: whenever Morty or Summer attempt to do "good" things like saving an imprisoned gaseous alien, freeing a planet from a HiveMind, or trying to give a snake planet hope, it tends to cause ''severe'' repercussions with Rick pointing out every step of the way that they should have just not gotten involved. In fact, when talking to Space Beth he talks about going through his own "hero phase" when he was her age, implying his cold but accurate outlook on most things is learned from ''experience'' rather than his intellect.

* [[TheSwordThatSpeaks Nightblood]] from ''Literature/{{Warbreaker}}'' is either above good and evil or ''below'' it, depending on how you look at it. Completely amoral either way, which is a ''bit'' of a problem as it was created specifically to ''destroy'' evil. Being a sword and not a person, Nightblood has no idea what "evil" actually ''is'' (even its DetectEvil ability is flawed, as it mostly targets superficial destructive impulses and sufficiently clever bad guys don't seem to ping at all) and mostly just tries to goad its wielder to kill everyone in sight, just to be on the safe side. They might be evil -- you never know! All in all, an object lesson in why trying to count on an inanimate object sharing human morality is unlikely to end well.

* Huey Laforet from ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'' is this trope via his several hundred year ForScience ambition. Everyone and everything in this world, including his own daughter, is nothing more than components of a grand experiment -- ethics be damned. Even amongst his peers he is considered the creepiest of the lot.
* ''Beyond Good And Evil'' by Creator/FriedrichNietzsche. In fact, one of the points of the book is criticizing philosophers for trying to tie Christian dogma into their philosophical consideration of morals instead of looking at it with a critical eye.

* The Creator/MarquisDeSade's characters often talk like this, dismissing common notions of morality as mere illusions, with them being free to do what they want (which is murder, rape, torture etc.).
* In Creator/JamesSwallow's ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Literature/BloodAngels'' novel ''Deus Sanguinius'', the triumph of the Chaos forces in [[spoiler:Arkio]] is shown when he declares
-->''There is no right and wrong, no black and white. Only the strong... and the weak.''

* A member of the Franchise/{{Cthulhu|Mythos}} Cult in [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraft's]] "Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu" explains that the time of the return of the [[EldritchAbomination Great Old Ones]] will be when mankind has become as them, "free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy." It's no wonder only two of the dozens of members arrested for ritual murders were found sane enough to be hanged.

* WordOfGod notes that the three [[DemonicPossession Ravers]], CoDragons to [[GodOfEvil Lord Foul]] from the ''Literature/ChroniclesOfThomasCovenant'' are like this, believing that by becoming immortal possessing spirits they transcended all moral restraints (their true, personal names- ''Moksha'', ''Turiya'', and ''Samadhi'' are a BilingualBonus reflecting their mistaken belief in their own enlightenment). Furthermore, Donaldson seems to consider this a trait of truly evil people in general, and notes that even Foul himself has shades of it.
* In Creator/DorothyGilman's ''Literature/TheClairvoyantCountess'', the BigBad downplays it; when asked whether he used his powers for good or for evil, he chuckles and calls it a conventional question.
* Rhynn and Kwll are two elder gods in Creator/MichaelMoorcock's ''Literature/{{Corum}}'' series. They claim to be above the divine squabbling, and are actually unbound by the Cosmic Balance. [[spoiler:''By the end of the series, Corum gets Kwll to slaughter the entire pantheon of Chaos. Then, for good measure, Kwll decides to off all the Law gods too.'']]
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/CountToATrillion'', Menelaus asks whether they are going to teach post-humans morals, and gets the answer that they would be above it -- it would make no more sense than preaching monogamy to bees or veganitarism to lions.

---> ''Vimes had heard that good and evil were just two ways of looking at the same thing - or, at least, so said people traditionally considered under the category of "evil".''

* In Creator/JimButcher's ''[[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Ghost Story]]'', Lea says that evil is mainly an aesthetic choice.
* Gilgamesh from ''LightNovel/FateZero'' describes himself as such. He is absolute. As a true king, justice is unnecessary to him. It is an interesting case as it is not necessarily considered an evil point of view, though Saber is disgusted. [[spoiler:It might even be taken literally, as even all the world's evil is unable to corrupt such an "absolute existence".]]

* A variation in Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/{{Genome}}''. Peter "[[SendInTheClones C the 44th]]" Valk is a detective-[[GattacaBabies spesh]] and is, thus, incapable of feeling any emotion but love for the law. As far as he's concerned, the law is the absolute truth. He may understand on an intellectual level the need to occasionally bend the rules, but his specialization prevents him from acting in any way that is unlawful or letting people slide for moral reasons. While investigating the brutal murder of an alien princess, Valk reveals that her people have already declared war on humanity and will be in attack range in 48 hours. Alex, one of the suspects, claims to be ready to admit to the murder in order to prevent further bloodshed. Valk refuses to accept his insincere confession, as, in his mind, he would rather have the Empire fall than to act contrary to law. He also admits that the "confession" would probably not fool the aliens, who have ways of making people speak the truth.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''[[Literature/TheGoldenOecumene The Phoenix Exultant]]'', the Nothing agent declares it is above good and evil.
* [[spoiler:Professor Quirrell]] says ''Voldemort'' is such to Literature/HarryPotter in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'':
-->''Lord Voldemort showed me the truth. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.''
* In Creator/GrahamMcNeill's ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Literature/HorusHeresy'' novel ''False Gods'', Magnus the Red is determined to study the warp and gain power, because:
-->''Notions of good and evil fell by the wayside next to such power as dwelled in the warp, for they were [[GoodIsOldFashioned the antiquated concepts]] of a religious society, long cast aside.''
* In Creator/RobertAntonWilson's and Robert Shea's ''Literature/TheIlluminatusTrilogy'', the Dealy Lama remarks that, "The reason I have lived so outrageously long is that I don't give a fuck for Good and Evil." In his case he's actually a pretty nice guy. He's just seen what happens when people get too taken with those concepts. [[spoiler:And he invented them to begin with, 30,000 years ago, and got really disappointed when people misused them.]]
* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': Neuro declares that his patron deity, Lord Death, is this. Explicitly, "Death treats all the same. From his position above good and evil, above chaos and order, only Death is truly fair; only Death is truly just". When Lord Death appears in person, he is apathetic to the concerns of mortals. The {{psychopomp}}s and clerics that work for him are expected to emulate his example because they are not this by nature.
* In Creator/CSLewis's ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'':

--->''Men like me who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a [[LonelyAtTheTop high and lonely]] destiny.''
** Jadis talks in the same language about using the [[ApocalypseHow Deplorable Word]].
--->''You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny.''

* Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/TheManWhoWasThursday'':

* [[OmnicidalManiac Ruin]] of ''[[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy Mistborn]]'' is like this, claiming that good and evil have nothing to do with him, his counterpart Preservation, or his reason for destroying the world (it's not out of malice -- it's because destroying and kill are what he does, and he literally can't do anything else if he tries.) He's not totally wrong, since if Preservation had ''it's'' way, nothing would ever change, grow, or end, essentially being locked as they are forever. Of course whether or not what Ruin is doing is technically Evil is pretty unimportant to the people currently living on the planet he intends to destroy.

* In Creator/NeilGaiman's ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'', [[spoiler:Islington]] is so far beyond good and evil that it couldn't find it with a telescope on a clear night.

* Momonga from ''LightNovel/{{Overlord|2012}}'' develops this mindset as a consequence of being so much more powerful than most of the New World and the EmotionSuppression that comes with his new lich body. He essentially loses empathy for anyone outside of Nazarick and generally regards the New World's people as lesser beings. All he cares about is expanding the glory of Nazarick.
* In Susan Kay's ''Phantom'', Erik loses all sense of good and evil after realizing how easy it was to kill his Gypsy captor, and regards murder as just another art to master.
* In Creator/AdrianTchaikovsky's ''[[Literature/ShadowsOfTheApt Dragonfly Falling]]'', a Wasp slave justifies herself on the grounds there is no good or evil, just people doing things.

* In the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':

** [[Literature/NewJediOrder Vergere]] took it even further, believing that not only is there no dark side, but that there's no light side either. As she sees it, the Force simply ''is'', and morality doesn't enter into it at all.

* In Creator/PoulAnderson's "Literature/TimePatrol", the instructor, describing how the Danellians (our far future descendants) insisted on the founding of the Patrol, said they were neither benevolent nor malevolent, they were so far beyond us.

* In Creator/DorothyLSayers' ''Whose Body?'', Literature/LordPeterWimsey finds this attitude a clue to the murderer.
-->''He likes crime. In that criminology book of his he gloats over a hardened murderer. I've read it, and I've seen the admiration simply glaring out between the lines whenever he writes about a callous and successful criminal. He reserves his contempt for the victims or the penitents or the men who lose their heads and get found out. His heroes are Edmond de la Pommerais, who persuaded his mistress into becoming an accessory to her own murder, and George Joseph Smith of Brides-in-a-bath fame, who could make passionate love to his wife in the night and carry out his plot to murder her in the morning. After all, he thinks conscience is a sort of vermiform appendix. Chop it out and you'll feel all the better.''
* The Dark Court in ''Literature/WickedLovely'', as stated by Irial. Unusual in that they actually ARE above good and evil, due to BlueAndOrangeMorality.
-->'''Irial''': "We are what we are, Niall. Neither as good nor as evil as others paint us, and what we are doesn't change what we truly feel, only how free we are to follow those feelings."
* ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'': The Valheru claim to be this, though if they belong here or in AlwaysChaoticEvil is up for some debate. Draken-Korin describes Valheru morality thus:
--> We are. We do. What else is there?

* In Seneca's ''Thyestes'', Atreus claims that as a king, he can do what he likes, and in fact goes out of his way to make his revenge on his brother [[KickTheSonOfABitch as cruel as possible]]. He pretends to extend Thyestes the olive branch, serves him a banquet, and then afterwards reveals that his [Thyestes'] sons were the main course. This sets the stage for the cycle of murder covered in Theatre/TheOresteia.

* A rare heroic example is Touma, the main character from ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' who considers good and evil to be mere shackles, and just does whatever he feels is right at the time, even if that means saving the very same villain he just punched out seconds before. In the WorldWarIII arc, Touma even gives Accelerator some huge CharacterDevelopment by telling him that his thoughts that he is a villain are just holding him back.

* In ''Film/InTheNameOfTheKing: A VideoGame/DungeonSiege Tale'': the EvilSorcerer Gallian tries to destroy the Kingdom of Ehb in order to usher in a [[ConspiracyTheories/HToN New World Order]]. When someone points out that he could show his merciful side by releasing the prisoners, he explains in a LargeHam way that he's beyond such petty concepts as mercy, good, or evil. After he takes over, good will be redefined in terms of power (i.e. the more the better). He is also insane, which he doesn't try to hide.

* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' had the Angel of Death calls out Prue on her initial belief that he's inherently evil because of what he does, pointing out that some magical beings aren't good or evil, they just ''are''.

* The Grey Wardens of ''Franchise/DragonAge'' are the ''Grey'' Wardens for exactly this reason. They don't care if you're a prince or a commoner, a paragon of virtue or a mass murderer. If you've got the strength to withstand the incredibly painful and often fatal ritual of the Joining, thus gaining elevated skills and abilities with which you can fight the darkspawn, they'll accept you into the fold with no questions asked. Subverted if [[spoiler:Loghain]] is made a Grey Warden and survives the first game. For all of their rhetoric, the Wardens never really accepted him as one of their own despite his ability because [[spoiler: his betrayal at Ostagar doomed nearly all of Ferelden's Grey Wardens and thus indirectly responsible if the Fifth Blight will put said country into ruin and eventually Thedas.]]

* The Grey Wardens of ''Franchise/DragonAge'' are the ''Grey'' Wardens for exactly this reason. They don't care if you're a prince or a commoner, a paragon of virtue or a mass murderer. If you've got the strength to withstand the incredibly painful and often fatal ritual of the Joining, thus gaining elevated skills and abilities with which you can fight the darkspawn, they'll accept you into the fold with no questions asked. Subverted if [[spoiler:Loghain]] is made a Grey Warden and survives the first game. For all of their rhetoric, the Wardens never really accepted him as one of their own despite his ability because [[spoiler:his betrayal at Ostagar doomed nearly all of Ferelden's Grey Wardens.]]