History Main / GrayingMorality

Many series with BlackAndWhiteMorality end up gradually getting more and more shades of gray as they continue on. What looks like a simple conflict between good and evil in the early installments gradually becomes more complex, and in the later installments there are many more gradations of morality. More often than not, the process is an unintentional side effect of exhausting the story possibilities of simple moral conflicts and adding less absolutely good or evil characters for variety's sake. In other cases, it's a deliberate statement by the creators about morality and conflict in general.

This can happen to entire genres: spy stories, war movies, westerns, superhero comics and so forth all incorporate significantly more BlackAndGrayMorality or GrayAndGreyMorality the longer the genres themselves are around. Also sometimes done intentionally as a means of averting or addressing ValuesDissonance in especially long-lived genres or works; the Western, for example, has changed as our historical perceptions of the American frontier have grown more morally ambivalent.

** The films begin with ''Film/DrNo'' and ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'' and both those movies are pretty gray, the latter revolving around Bond manipulating a woman into stealing a MacGuffin (albeit unaware she's a double agent). It gets somewhat less so with ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'' and the others, but really how gray a Bond film is really depends on the film itself, and is pretty cyclical. ''Film/CasinoRoyale'' wasn't Gray because the series was light, but because the Brosnan films were (''LicenceToKill'' before them being [[DarkerAndEdgier the darkest and most gritty]] Bond ever film.) Plus, Bond is Bond- a smoking, drinking, womanising state spy and assassin, and all that entails, in every appearance. He's a JerkWithAHeartOfGold at best.

* MassEffect was a very clear-cut black-and-white sort of game, but MassEffect2 has descended into the realm of BlackAndGreyMorality.

* The longer the ''JamesBond'' film series has gone on, the more and more gray has crept in regarding Bond's role. (This was a feature in the original novels to some extent, but the films tended to ignore it.) The recent ContinuityReboot with ''CasinoRoyale'' seems to have started from the gray area.
** The films begin with ''DrNo'' and ''FromRussiaWithLove'' and both those movies are pretty gray, the latter revolving around Bond manipulating a woman into stealing a MacGuffin (albeit unaware she's a double agent). It gets somewhat less so with ''{{Goldfinger}}'' and the others, but really how gray a Bond film is really depends on the film itself, and is pretty cyclical. ''CasinoRoyale'' wasn't Gray because the series was light, but because the Brosnan films were (''LicenceToKill'' before them being [[DarkerAndEdgier the darkest and most gritty]] Bond ever film.) Plus, Bond is Bond- a smoking, drinking, womanising state spy and assassin, and all that entails, in every appearance. He's a JerkWithAHeartOfGold at best.
* ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' already starts off as GrayAndBlackMorality, but includes distinctly white characters such as Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann. These characters gain shades of gray throughout the second and third movies.

* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' started it with purely evil vampires but just one exception; over the seasons, the need for more interestingly human villains and the larger point about power toward which JossWhedon was building gave us grayer elements, like more humanly motivated vampires, and even relatively harmless but ostensibly "evil" demons. The SpinOff show, ''{{Angel}}'', went still further into gray with the premises and universe Buffy originated.
* ''{{Lost}}'' developed this in later seasons with the Others, whose motivations were pretty mysterious to begin with, but especially with Ben (the leader of the Others), who is pretty firmly established as a bad guy even though he constantly claims that he and his people are the "good guys" (and he's also a notorious liar). In later seasons, however, Ben becomes more sympathetic, due to both his FreudianExcuse and the fact that he's an interesting character. By the end of season five he's actually been ousted as the MagnificentBastard because of the fact that he's been manipulated by someone who appears to be more evil than he is (Jacob's enemy). Maybe. Unless Jacob is the bad guy, because Jacob is leading the Others, and they're bad...unless they're not.

* The original ''Game/MegaMan'' series is fairly [[BlackAndWhiteMorality Black And White]]. The [[MegaManX sequel]] [[MegaManZero series]] get less and less so.

** The films begin with ''DrNo'' and ''FromRussiaWithLove'' and both those films are pretty gray, the latter revolving around Bond manipulating a woman into stealing a MacGuffin (albeit unaware she's a double agent). It gets somewhat less so with ''{{Goldfinger}}'' and the others, but really how gray a Bond film is really depends on the film itself, and is pretty cyclical. ''CasinoRoyale'' wasn't Gray because the series was light, but because the last few Brosnan films were (''LicenceToKill'' before them being [[DarkerAndEdgier the darkest and most gritty]] Bond ever film.

* ''{{Animorphs}}'' starts off as a typical children's sci-fi with the Yeerks as evil and the Animorphs, and by extension the Andalites, as the good guys. This doesn't stick. Specifically, while some characters ([[BigBad Visser Three]] and [[EldritchAbomination Crayak]] stand out) are introduced at and say firmly in "evil" territory, the Yeerks as a whole are revealed to be a nuanced race with a sizable peace faction, the Andalites are elitist and in some ways only barely better than the Yeerks, and the Animorphs have to go ''seriously'' grey before all is said and done.

Many series with BlackAndWhiteMorality end up gradually getting more and more shades of gray as they continue on. What looks like a simple conflict between good and evil in the early installments gradually becomes more complex, and in the later installments there are many more gradations of morality. More often than not, the process is an unintentional side effect of exhausting the story possibilities of simple moral conflicts and adding less absolutely good or evil character for variety's sake. In other cases, it's a deliberate statement by the creators about morality and conflict in general.

* ''{{Lost}}'' developed this in later seasons with the Others, whose motivations were pretty mysterious to begin with, but especially with Ben (the leader of the Others), who is pretty firmly established as a bad guy even though he constantly claims that he and his people are the "good guys" (and he's also a notorious liar). In later seasons, However, Ben becomes more sympathetic, due to both his FreudianExcuse and the fact that he's an interesting character. By the end of season five he's actually been ousted as the MagnificentBastard because of the fact that he's been manipulated by someone who appears to be more evil than he is(Jacob's enemy). Maybe. Unless Jacob is the bad guy, because Jacob is leading the Others, and they're bad...unless they're not.

* ''{{Animorphs}}'' starts off as a typical children's sci-fi with the Yeerks as evil and the Animorphs, and by extension the Andalites, as the good guys. This doesn't stick.

* ''[[Animorphs]]'' starts off as a typical children's sci-fi with the Yeerks as evil and the Animorphs, and by extension the Andalites, as the good guys. This doesn't stick.

* ''Animorphs'' starts off as a typical children's sci-fi with the Yeerks as evil and the Animorphs, and by extension the Andalites, as the good guys. This doesn't stick.

* ''TheSagaOfDarrenShan'' series developed along these lines due to the CharacterDevelopment of the protagonist and narrator. While most of the adult vampires would admit that there was some good in themselves and the rivalling vampaneze, the story is told form Darren's point of view. the effect was that the act of taking blood went from a horrifying abuse of other people to everyday routine, vampire culture went from rgid and savage to tratitional but noble, and even the Vampaneze, a branch of vampires who serve as the main antagonists, killing every time they had to drink blood and killing several of Darren's frinds, went from being regarded as mosters to seen with a respect almost similar to that between diffrent countries or rivalling political parties.

* The original ''MegaMan'' series is fairly [[BlackAndWhiteMorality Black And White]]. The [[MegaManX sequel]] [[MegaManZero series]] get less and less so.

This can happen to entire genres: spy stories, war movies, westerns, superhero comics and so forth all incorporate significantly more BlackAndGrayMorality or GrayAndGreyMorality the longer the genres themselves are around. Moldering Morality also sometimes done intentionally as a means of averting or addressing ValuesDissonance in especially long-lived genres or works; the Western, for example, has changed as our historical perceptions of the American frontier have grown more morally ambivalent.

Examples:

This can happen to entire genres: spy stories, war movies, westerns, superhero comics, and so forth all incorporate significantly more BlackAndGrayMorality or GrayAndGreyMorality the longer the genres themselves are around. Moldering Morality also sometimes done intentionally as a means of averting or addressing ValuesDissonance in especially long-lived genres or works; the Western, for example, has changed as our historical perceptions of the American frontier have grown more morally ambivalent.

Compare CerebusSyndrome, DarkerAndEdgier, and {{Grimmification}}, which can all sometimes involve this. However, plenty of works go through those tropes without shifting their basic moral scale.

* * The first StarWars trilogy (IV-VI) had this. ''ANewHope'' was like a comic book, with mostly clear cut heroes and villains (except for LovableRogue Han Solo). In ''TheEmpireStrikesBack'' we learn that Obi-Wan [[JediTruth lied]] to Luke about his father. In ''ReturnOfTheJedi'' Luke is told that he must kill his own father or the Emperor will win.
->Obi-Wan: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
* The longer the JamesBond film series has gone on, the more and more gray has crept in regarding Bond's role. (This was a feature in the original novels to some extent, but the films tended to ignore it.) The recent ContinuityReboot with ''CasinoRoyale'' seems to have started from the gray area.

* TheSagaOfDarrenShan series developed along these lines due to the CharacterDevelopment of the protagonist and narrator. While most of the adult vampires would admit that there was some good in themselves and the rivalling vampaneze, the story is told form Darren's point of view. the effect was that the act of taking blood went from a horrifying abuse of other people to everyday routine, vampire culture went from rgid and savage to tratitional but noble, and even the Vampaneze, a branch of vampires who serve as the main antagonists, killing every time they had to drink blood and killing several of Darren's frinds, went from being regarded as mosters to seen with a respect almost similar to that between diffrent countries or rivalling political parties.

* BuffyTheVampireSlayer started it with purely evil vampires but just one exception; over the seasons, the need for more interestingly human villains and the larger point about power JossWhedon was building towards gave us grayer elements like more humanly-motivated vampires, and even relatively harmless but ostensibly "evil" demons. The SpinOff show, {{Angel}}, went still further into gray with the premises and universe Buffy originated.
* ''{{Lost}}'' developed this in later seasons with the Others, whose motivations were pretty mysterious to begin with, but especially with Ben (the leader of the Others), who is pretty firmly established as a bad guy even though he constantly claims that he and his people are the "good guys" (and he's also a notorious liar). In later seasons, However, Ben becomes more sympathetic, due to both his FreudianExcuse and the fact that he's an interesting character. By the end of season five he's actually been ousted as the MagnificentBastard because of the fact that he's been manipulated by someone who appears to be more evil than he is(Jacob's enemy). Maybe. Unless Jacob is the badguy, because Jacob is leading the Others, and they're bad...unless they're not.

[[AC:MultipleMedia]]
* Each iteration of the StarTrek franchise seemed to get a bit "grayer" than the one before it; TNG was grayer than the unabashedly utopian original series, DS9 was grayer than TNG, and by the 2009 film Kirk's originally heroic archetypal traits were seen as straddling the line between heroic strengths and serious personal faults.

* {{Hitman}}: Blood Money has the first time 47 kills an innocent man, and he kills other innocent men later on, signaling a shift from the earlier games' morality.
* The original MegaMan series is fairly [[BlackAndWhiteMorality Black And White]]. The [[MegaManX sequel]] [[MegaManZero series]] get less and less so.
* In the ''MetalGear'' series of video games, the first game is very straightforward: you are to stop the leader of Outer Heaven to prevent war. [[spoiler:Even though the leader turns out to be your commanding officer, it's very clear that you're supposed to stop him anyway.]] As the series goes on, it becomes less and less clear who, if anyone, is actually evil and not just a WellIntentionedExtremist.
* WordOfGod has it this was intended to occur over the course of the first ''{{Geneforge}}'' game. Arguably, it's more subtly developed over the course of the series, as the rebels got more opportunities to make their arguments (and even took the spotlight in the fourth game.)

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