History Main / GreyAndGrayMorality

* ''Naruto'', anyone? There are five major Ninja Villages (and a slew of smaller ones), each calling their sides to be the righteous, superior one, only allying when there's a bigger threat. Don't mind the fact that each and everyone of them [[{{Tykebomb}} train children]] [[ChildSoldiers into ninjas]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction with techniques capable of leveling cities]]. Don't mind the fact that the Leaf Village mistreats Naruto out of mindless fear, the villains are Orochimaru (If you Wild Guess, you may think of him as a victim. If the village mistreats Naruto for protecting them, why not the snake-looking kid too?), [[spoiler:Pain/Nagato, whose parents, best friend and [[AndYourLittleDogToo DOG]] were killed by Leaf ninjas]], [[spoiler:Sasuke, who, if you think clearly, is not totally wrong of wanting to, at first, kill the village elders, who ordered]] his family to be massacred by [[WhatTheHellHero HIS OLDER BROTHER]]. And there's [[WellIntentionedExtremist Danzo]], who is an Leaf-Hitler who is willing to destroy all other villages if needed, just because he sees the Leaf Village as the superior one, even killing any leaf ninjas whom he sees as defiant. Since everyone is fighting for their own point of view, Good and Evil are pretty much useless.

->''"It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace ... all in a flash of thought which was quickly driven from his mind."''
--->-- [[JRRTolkien J.R.R. Tolkien]], ''[[TheLordOfTheRings The Two Towers]]''

* ''TomAndJerry''. Though Tom is usually the DesignatedVillain, you can't overlook the fact that Jerry is extremely sadistic, and sometimes isn't even provoked. But that still doesn't excuse Tom, who often brings his punishment upon himself. At times its hard to tell who the victim is; sometimes its neither of them.

** The first book contain the best example of grey and gray morality. Lord Asriel, who is supposed to be an antithesis to the clearly evil Mrs. Coulter who works for the Church, [[spoiler: kills Lyra's friend in order to power his machine]]. This is seemingly ignored in the next two books and Asriel, with his crusade against God, becomes a strictly heroic character

** You mean he public doesn't appreciate the suspicious fascists using police state tactics? Wow. Go figure. Wonder WHY the public doesn't appreciate them

** This is further illustrated by looking at the {{Fandom}}. Fans (and, okay, the creators themselves) consider Treize and Zechs (along with a couple others) to be 'good guys' right along with the Gundam pilots, even though they mostly fought on opposite sides. It's the manipulative bastards like Quinze and Dekim who are considered the 'villains'.

** Not sure if it counts. To elaborate, most of the "villains" are being manipulated by the current BigBad and actually think that are doing good, there are many enemies who are actually evil though.

* The battles between the Marines and Pirates in ''OnePiece'' depends on the person. Both sides have their good, and bad members. The Marines believe in two types of justice, moral justice, and Absolute Justice, while pirates can either be in it strictly for the adventure, or are in it for the raping and pillaging.

* ''VinlandSaga'' is about vikings. The main character could generously be called a HeroicSociopath and doesn't actually care what side he's on. The sides in question change, merge, and are destroyed through various slaughters and assassinations. It isn't so much GreyAndGrayMorality as Gray Stew.

** The exceptions on both sides are Kurama and Nana who would rather avoid any more pain and death, but they are about the two most messed up characters in a story where every single person has serious problems with their mental health.

* ''Naruto'', anyone? There are Five Ninja Villages, each calling their sides to be the righteous, superior one, only allying when there's a bigger threat. Don't mind the fact that each and everyone of them train children into ninjas with techniques capable of leveling cities. Don't mind the fact that the Leaf Village mistreats Naruto out of mindless fear, the villains are Orochimaru(If you Wild Guess, you may think of him as a victim. If the village mistreats Naruto for protecting them, why not the snake-looking kid too?), [[spoiler: Pein/Nagato, whose parents, best friend and [[AndYourLittleDogToo DOG]] were killed by Leaf ninjas]], [[spoiler: Sasuke, who, if you think clearly, is not totally wrong of wanting to, at first, kill the village elders, who ordered]] his family to be massacred by [[WhatTheHellHero HIS OLDER BROTHER]]. And there's [[WellIntentionedExtremist Danzo]], who is an Leaf-Hitler who is willing to destroy all other villages if needed, just because he sees the Leaf Village as the superior one, even killing any leaf ninjas whom he sees as defiant. Since everyone is fighting for their own point of view, Good and Evil are pretty much useless.
* ''HeroicAge'' at first glance appears to have BlackAndWhiteMorality between the human protagonists and alien antagonists warring against them, but eventually goes on to some of the humans KickTheDog a few times while some of the aliens are portrayed sympathetically and others afraid that humans will kill THEM if they don't DestroyAllHumans first, while both races appear to suffer from BlueAndOrangeMorality. Eventually, this trope is lampshaded and taken to its logical conclusion [[spoiler: when both sides call a truce and eventually end the war.]]

* IDW's [[{{Transformers}} Megatron: Origin]] miniseries shows the series's iconic EvilOverlord's rise to power from a laid-off energon miner through underground [[BloodSport gladiator]] to the leader of a rebellion against a corrupt Cybertronian senate, with the Autobot Security Services presented as a incompetent and in some cases fascistic police force under the control of the aforementioned senate.
** Before this the Dreamwave comic series revealed that the Autobot ruling council were servants of the Quintessons, the Transformers entire history was a lie told to keep the Autobots in line and Megatron, having found all this out, fored thDecepticons to try and free his people and to bring order to the universe, albeit through very KnightTemplar behaviour.
* WorldWarHulk: Warbound vs illuminati.

* In the fanfic comic ''[[http://www.cheshirecrossing.net/ Cheshire Crossing]]'', Dorothy had believed that Glinda was a Good Witch. Then she figures out that Glinda could have sent her home immediately, but instead had actually manipulated her into killing the Wicked Witch. So the "Good Witch" was using a ZanatosGambit and endangering a child to commit murder. Gray morality indeed.

* While the [[StarWars Clone Wars]] saw the Separatists being led by a bunch of {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s and Sith Lords and a homicidal cyborg, a lot of the worlds joining them were only doing so to oppose what they with some justification saw as a corrupt Republic. To grey out the other side further, as Anakin Skywalker observed, even the Jedi Council was feeling compelled to move into more pragmatic and less moral direction. Ultimately, though, Anakin's protestations about GreyAndGrayMorality when he has fallen to the DarkSide are ironically empty, as he has chosen to join with the altogether black BigBad who was behind it all from the start and who makes him eat kittens.

** I would guess it's the side not looking to [[ColonyDrop drop a huge thing on Earth for rather dodgy reasons.]]

*** Although a lot of this was primarily due to them wanting to understand the organization from the inside out. Soma and Kati joined for reasons not because they were supporting A-Laws. The shift happened when most of the big players actually QUIT the A-Laws and turned against them.

** Since when did having erectile dysfunction or being overweight [[BeautyEqualsGoodness make you an antihero?]]
*** It always has. See the SlidingScaleofAntiHeroes: Type I. That's where Night Owl would fall. Silk Spectre would be a Type II, as the resident DeadpanSnarker. Anti-Hero just means the hero is not portrayed the way a hero typically would be. It doesn't have to mean he or she is an asshole, though that's a sub-type as well.
** Maybe the Comedian is a HeroicSociopath, but Rorschach has [[KnightTemplar a very black and white moral code]].
*** He is a psychotic, anti-social, homophobic serial killer who thinks that rape is okay if the guy who does it works for the government. That's not a black and white view of the world. That's called being batshit insane.
**** He thinks anything Comedian does is excusable because Comedian is one of the "good guys." That's the definition of BlackAndWhiteMorality right there. You can have a black and white world view and still be a terrible human being. As for being insane, his simplistic world view is a ''part'' of Rorschach's insanity. His outlook on life has never advanced beyond the "good guys" vs. "bad guys" terms a five-year-old thinks in; the only difference is that Rorschach thinks there are more "bad guys" out there than "good."
** Actual supervillains are very scarcely featured, but even they fall under this. Hollis Mason mentions one former foe of his who turned to faith and became a perfectly legitimate citizen. Moloch spent a decade in jail and after getting out had a hard time even supporting himself, much less trying to take over the world. "Captain Carnage" was just a masochist who pretended to be a supercriminal to get beaten up by masks.
*** The Big Figure is probably the only supervillain character played straight in the book or film

*** Whether Lord Asriel was portrayed as solely heroic seems a little dubious at best. Things like his search for the Subtle Knife just so he could kill the Authority hardly came across as sympathetic. In fact, him sacrificing himself to kill the Metatron seemed rather out of character.

*** A cult made up of AxCrazy Dunmer and horrifically mutated monsters led by a OmnicidalManiac is grey?
**** Yes, when you take into account the possible back story of the Tribunal having murdered and betrayed their way into Godhood. In Dagoth Ur's mine he's righting that wrong and is helping to reestablish the Dunmer by driving out the Empire.
***** Ah, no. This * might* be Grey and Black Morality, but Dagoth Ur is pretty much a vile Complete Monster. The fact that he claims to have some age-old rationale for his misdeeds doesn't change the fact that he's the major problem: a nightmarish mind-raping mass murderer. The Tribunal isn't perfect, but he's nuttier than a fruitcake. His "restablishing the dunmer" would remaking them as his monstrous slaves. Elder Scrolls villains like to claim they have a good reason for their deeds; they are also generally lying through their teeth and it wouldn't matter if they weren't. (Though for some reason, some players often assume the villains are telling the truth AND that said villains know the truth enough to tell it right anyway.
*** It does depend mostly on whether or not you believe his spiel, but there is SOME truth to the things he says. If you take him at face value, then he is just trying to spread the power of the Heart (that the Tribunal wanted to keep entirely for themselves) to the rest of the dunmer, and the 'disease' does, at the very least, make you super strong and ageless and, at high levels, makes you basically a demi-god. He is quite likely still insane, but his ultimate intentions would be benevolent, not malevolent.

*** Poorly. The most chaotic race on Azeroth are the scatterbrained gnomes, but they are firmly in the Alliance camp alongside the ultra-traditionalist Night Elves and devout Draenei. One of the default Forsaken selection quotes, on the other hand, is "Patience. Discipline.". It seems to be a creed, but is certainly a contrast to the passionate orc battle cries, or the laid-back drawl of the trolls.
**** I'd say the goblins are more chaotic then the gnomes, and some will be joining the Horde soon. Although, the worgen are pretty chaotic, and the Alliance get them.
** Note that this is due in part to varying amounts of RetCon.

*** Though to be fair, it wasn't man's fault why they suddenly forgot [[DeathFromAbove every warning they learned during Symphonia]].
*** In the sequel, the protagonist turns out to be [[spoiler: an amnesiac genocidal summon spirit wearing the body of a dead child]], and the "villain" turns out to be [[spoiler: a scientist whose best friend was aforementioned dead child, and is out for revenge, having made a DealWithTheDevil for the means to do so]]
** In ''{{Tales of the Abyss}}'', the hero is guilty of the death of thousands, although he [[TheAtoner atones]]. The villain AND the heroes want to save humanity from an oppressively followed prophesy, the only difference is in terms of methods, and not until the ending do you learn that the heroes' method wasn't doomed to leave the prophesy in place, after all.
*** And near the end of the game, he [[spoiler: convinces a group of around ten thousand of what are essentially infants to commit suicide with him in order to prevent the world from being covered in poisonous mist that would melt all the continents, and simultaneously assure a place for the rest of the sacrifices' "siblings" to live in peace. He survives, though its only a temporary thing. The leader of the other sacrifices only lives long enough to ask them to honor their promise.]]

*** This is more of a case of letting the player pick, seeing as how the last mission also gives you the option of doing it the hard way, and establishing GDI as either the diplomatic preservers of humanity or amoral and cruel self-servers. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that the developers themselves are divided over whether or not GDI or Nod are truly the good guys, and instead letting the player choose for themselves.
** Let's not forget the Scrin, who seeded Earth with Tiberium, which caused the whole war(s) in the first place. [[spoiler: Then, in C&C3, they invade Earth.]]

*** Though this is more because of the AI limitations than what the factions actually represent. If you read the GURPS supplement, it gives the canonical nature of the various factions; suffice it to say, Deirdre and Lal are both quite good, Yang and Miriam are clearly evil.

*** However, it could be that there is more than one Announcer, just as there is more than one Soldier or more than one Scout. This would make them less [[LetsYouAndHimFight the same]] and more [[NotSoDifferent identical]].
** Confirmed by the new [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/administrator/ Demoman/Soldier update]], which clearly shows that the Announcer is the same person for BOTH teams.

*** It would kill more than just the raiders and mutants. [[spoiler: Everyone living in the Wasteland would die; the only people not effected by the modified FEV virus are vault dwellers and the Enclave itself. Even the player character, who was only exposed to the surface radiation for a year before going into Vault 101, will die in the Broken Steel expansion if they drink more than a glass or two of the tainted water.]]

*** The Flood were extra-galactic though, therefore not the Forerunner's fault. Failing in your self-imposed duty and being forced into HeroicSacrifice doesn't seem to fit here.
** Hell, even [[{{Hivemind}} The Gravemind]], the leader of the Flood, in the midst of the BodyHorror, ZombieApocalypse, AndIMustScream scenarios, seems to genuinely believe that the only way the galaxy would know true peace is if everyone became one single mind in his AssimilationPlot, so no one would be alone. Kind of like NeonGenesisEvangelion 's Instrumentality project, but instead of naked Reis hugging you and turning you into Tang, you have a BodyHorror Zombie coming to slaughter you, revive you, ad infinitum.

*** Yes, and that actually raises an interesting point vis-a-vis Liu Bei. If he truly wishes to preserve the dynasty of his ancestors, and if it's a mark of great virtue to do so, shouldn't he be fighting ''for'' Dong Zhuo? That he never really figured out just what was it was that he was fighting for played a large role in his eventual downfall.

** The serial killer is very, very far from grey.
** Peach and Red are also unambiguously good.
** Samus as a stripper? Sounds pretty "good" to me!

* The war between the [[OrderVersusChaos Messians and Gaians]] in ''ShinMegamiTenseiI'' and ''ShinMegamiTenseiII'' works a little like this: the former are basically a well-meaning, LawfulGood people ruled by a group of genocidal KnightsTemplar, and the latter are mostly a bunch of ChaoticEvil anarchists ruled over by a few wiser demons that either want to stop the Messians from carrying out their UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans plan or wish to achieve true freedom from the oppressive reign of {{God}}. The closest thing to a compromise that you can achieve is deciding to [[KillEmAll destroy]] both groups.
** The same can be said for Devil Survivor. The Lawful side means that everyone is happy and there are no crimes. No tolerance. The Chaos side means that you destroy any kind of great power that might have created the world (Even though you're given some info that the being that labels himself as such might not have done so in the first place), so that people are free and able to do anything they want. Good luck choosing a side! (No wonder there is no Good or Evil in the game...)

** Maybe the comedian is a HeroicSociopath, but Rorschach has [[KnightTemplar a very black and white moral code]].
*** He is a Psychotic, anti social homophobic serial killer. Who thinks that rape is okay if the guy who does it worked for the government. That's not a black and white view of the world. That's called being batshit insane.

* ''[[ArTonelico Ar tonelico]] II: Melody of Metafalica'' is a great example. Despite the fact that almost every character holds the same moral stance from beginning to end, pretty much every antagonist in the game will be considered a valuable ally at some point and nearly every ally gets a respectable stint as an antagonist. Even TheHero is arguably a WellIntentionedExtremist.

* KOEI loves doing this:

** In ''SamuraiWarriors'', especially the second title, the focus is about the battle of Sekigahara. Those who side with Ishida Mitsunari will probably see him as a {{Jerkass}} who snarks a lot and is being redeemed with the values of friendship and honor; and see Tokugawa Ieyasu as a FatBastard who is stealing the throne of Japan while it rightfully belongs to Toyotomi Hideyori. However, those who sides with the Tokugawa know that Ieyasu is instead a 'Fat Gentleman', and he puts a lot of care to his fellow officers and people, condemning the West (especially Mitsunari's ally Kanetsugu) of using pretty words like 'honor and justice' to do underhanded things and robbing the freedom of the people. In fact, SamuraiWarriors is much grayer than DynastyWarriors, the closest we can get of ObviouslyEvil is Fuuma Kotarou, and even he's ''still'' grayer than Dong Zhuo.

** In ''DynastyWarriors'', Wei might look like the DesignatedVillain. However, Cao Cao himself is just merely a pragmatist MagnificentBastard. In the meantime, while Shu Kingdom is the DesignatedHero, Liu Bei has personally done some things worth being called out, such as taking over his kingdom from his relative Liu Zhang for 'destiny', and his reckless assault on Yi Ling. The Wu Kingdom themselves can be also seen as an 'opportunist' who takes advantage of the chaos to do as they like. Aside of all those, each kingdoms have their own sympathetic characters. Even Zhang Jiao comes off pretty sympathetic and his ending had him true to his words and made a peaceful nation with his Way Of Peace. Hell, the only ObviouslyEvil character is just Dong Zhuo.
*** In the fourth game Dong Zhou has his own campaign which shows things from his perspective; he is the legal Emperor and the protagonist factions are merely opportunists looking to snatch up pieces of the crumbling Han Empire.
*** This could almost be a Trope Namer. While there have been numerous changes in the overall tone of the story over the course of the series, one thing has remained constant: NONE of the factions is a whole lot better than ANY of the others. (The only one who's a whole lot ''worse'' is Dong Zhuo, and even that doesn't become too blatant until 5.) The Empires games take it a step further; you start out dead-center neutral with whoever you play as, and it's entirely up to you how good or evil your reign is. Of course, part of the reason is that, historically, none of the great powers succeeded in unifying China (that would be some 11th-hour Jin Dynasty opportunist named Sima Yan), so it's impossible to say who the "hero" or "villain" really was. Interestingly enough, this is a complete subversion of how Wei and Shu were portrayed in Romance of the Three Kingdoms despite the game being based largely on that novel.

** Later events [[spoiler:show pretty unambiguously that Chao could have improved on the actual outcome, if allowed to win. The best argument against her is "But she might get corrupted by power".]]
** Negima ''loves'' this tropes, as the BigBad's ultimate goal is to ''save the world''. The only reason Negi opposes him is because said BigBad is causing ''massive'' amounts of collateral damage in the process.

* ''VinlandSaga'' is about vikings. The main character could generously be called a HeroicSociopath and doesn't actually care what side he's on. The sides in question change, merge, and are destroyed through various slaughters and assassinations. It isn't so much GreyAndGrayMorality as Gray Stew. SoYeah...

* ''FinalFantasyXII''. To elaborate, on the villain's side we have the machivellian, AffablyEvil [[EvilPrince Prince]] who wants to become the emperor and restore order to the empire, the WellIntentionedExtremist MadScientist who's working with his demigod SpiritAdvisor to overthrow the JerkassGods, the Judges who bar one are well-intentioned tools devoted to protecting to law, and the Emperor himself who is trying to keep the Senate from turning his youngest son into a puppet heir while preventing the empire from collapsing into civil war. On the good guys side we have a vengeful, stubborn princess who will stop at nothing (including ''genocide'') to regain her kingdom and pay back the empire for her dead husband, and who nearly becomes the willing puppet of the aforementioned JerkassGods to achieve this, a pair of sky pirates who are just in it for the treasure (and one of them ''knows'' exactly what the princess is trying to do and where it would lead), an old soldier who's willing to do ''anything'' to protect the princess, and finally two slightly naive teenagers, one of whom is a petty thief. In between this lot we have a Marquis-cum-Resistance leader who plays permamanent double agent and who's loyalties depend on who is winning, a Rebel general who's willing to sell out his own princess if it means his country will be restored even if it's in name only, an ex-Judge who destroyed an entire city and now resorts to piracy to make up for his sins, and an imperial prince who is caught between caution and preemptive assault in the protection of his nation. The only good character is really the youngest prince, and he suffers from a bad case of naivety and idealism. SoYeah.

->'''Wesley:''' "There is a line, Lilah, black and white, good and evil."
->'''Lilah:''' "Funny thing about black and white. You mix it together and you get gray. And it doesn't matter how much white you try and put back in, you're never gonna get anything but gray."

In some cases, the story will end with both sides [[EnemyMine teaming up]] against an [[AlwaysChaoticEvil unambiguously evil]] third faction, who may even have been [[LetsYouAndHimFight behind the war]] in the first place. When this villain is defeated, the grey sides almost invariably [[FireForgedFriends decide to live in peace]]. (In the harsher version, the casualties from fighting that villain may find that there is actually now enough of whatever they fought over for all the survivors. Ultra-harsh version of this has the realization that the resources have been spent on the war.)

Compare BlackAndWhiteMorality, BlackAndGrayMorality, OrderVersusChaos and ALighterShadeOfGrey. FeudingFamilies and CycleOfRevenge stories tend to fall under this, as do many depictions of historical wars. A MobWar may be this, or may fall under BlackAndGrayMorality. Also, compare and contrast with WhiteAndGreyMorality.

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* The battles between the Marines and Pirates in ''OnePiece'' depends on the person. Both sides have their good, and bad members. The Marines believe in two types of justice, moral justice, and Absolute Justice, while pirates can either be in it strictly for the adventure, or are in it for the raping and pillaging.

* ''Naruto'', anyone? There are Five Ninja Villages, each calling their sides to be the righteous, superior one, only allying when there's a bigger threat. Don't mind the fact that each and everyone of them train children into ninjas with techniques capable of leveling cities. Don't mind the fact that the Leaf Village mistreats Naruto out of mindless fear, the villains are Orochimaru(If you Wild Guess, you may think of him as a victim. If the village mistreats Naruto for protecting them, why not the snake-looking kid too?), [[spoiler: Pein/Nagato, whose parents, best friend and [[AndYourLittleDogToo DOG]] were killed by Leaf ninjas]], [[spoiler: Sasuke, who, if you think clearly, is not totally wrong of wanting to, at first, kill the village elders, who ordered]] his family to be massacred by [[WhatTheHellHero HIS OLDER BROTHER]]. And there's [[WellIntentionedExtremist Danzo]], who is an Leaf-Hitler who is willing to destroy all other villages if needed, just because he sees the Leaf Village as the superior one, even killing any leaf ninjas whom he sees as defiant. Since everyone is fighting for their own point of view, Good and Evil are pretty much useless.

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*** It always has. See the SlidingScaleofAntiHeroes: Type I. That's where Night Owl would fall. Silk Spectre would be a Type II, as the resident DeadpanSnarker. Anti-Hero just means the hero is not portrayed the way a hero typically would be. It doesn't have to mean he or she is an asshole, though that's a sub-type as well.

**** He thinks anything Comedian does is excusable because Comedian is one of the "good guys." That's the definition of BlackAndWhiteMorality right there. You can have a black and white world view and still be a terrible human being. As for being insane, his simplistic world view is a ''part'' of Rorschach's insanity. His outlook on life has never advanced beyond the "good guys" vs. "bad guys" terms a five-year-old thinks in; the only difference is that Rorschach thinks there are more "bad guys" out there than "good."

** Before this the Dreamwave comic series revealed that the Autobot ruling council were servants of the Quintessons, the Transformers entire history was a lie told to keep the Autobots in line and Megatron, having found all this out, fored thDecepticons to try and free his people and to bring order to the universe, albeit through very KnightTemplar behaviour.

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* Featured very prominently from the second series onward in ''WarriorCats''. The authors have even gone back to write sympathetic backstories for most of the villains, the most notable being Scourge. Tigerstar and Hawkfrost are also noteworthy because, although they wanted power and did horrible things to get it, they only wanted power because they believed they could do a better job of running the Clans and help keep the forest peaceful (Although Tigerstar's vision for running the Clans was [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain very racist]]). The villains of the fourth series also consist almost entirely of cats that have been wronged or forgotten and are rising up for revenge. Then for the heroes, we have Brambleclaw, who had the exact same goals as Hawkfrost, and leaned dangerously close to TheDarkSide, making Hawkfrost's status as a ManipulativeBastard pretty much the only difference between them. We also have Leafpool and Squirrelflight with their {spoilerific) lies and betrayal. And then there is [[LawfulStupid Hollyleaf]], [[AxCrazy Lionblaze]] and [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Jayfeather]], who all seem to be [[DysfunctionJunction much more dysfunctional]] than all the other characters.
** And then there's ''Sunrise''. [[BrokenBase You could argue all you want over]] who was most responsible for the angst-filled mess that is the ending, but the most reasonable explanation (and the one that causes [[MindScrew the least headaches]]) is that ''everyone'' was in the wrong to a certain degree.

**The first book contain the best example of grey and gray morality. Lord Asriel, who is supposed to be an antithesis to the clearly evil Mrs. Coulter who works for the Church, [[spoiler: kills Lyra's friend in order to power his machine]]. This is seemingly ignored in the next two books and Asriel, with his crusade against God, becomes a strictly heroic character

* The ''StarWars'' [[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] flies up and down the morality scale DependingOnTheWriter; most of them have pretty clear bad guys, and with TimothyZahn most of those bad guys [[WhiteAndGrayMorality aren't so bad]], but his book OutboundFlight fits here. There are a lot of major characters, but they end up falling into one of three categories: Jedi and civilians on Outbound Flight, Chiss and captives, and Darth Sidious's agent. None of those are entirely good or evil. Outbound Flight is led by Jorus C'baoth, an arrogant and domineering Master who believes himself to be the ultimate authority, and whom the others are reluctant to contradict. The main Chiss character is Thrawn, who... well, he's at his most heroic here, but [[OfficerAndAGentleman he's]] [[ShootTheDog Thrawn]]. Sidious's agent is planning to destroy Outbound Flight, but he doesn't exactly [[CardCarryingVillain cackle]] and he respects Thrawn. The few unambiguously Good characters have subplots, but in the end all they're able to do is [[HeroicSacrifice die to save]] fifty-seven out of the fifty thousand who were on Outbound Flight.
* On the one hand DORLA in Kit Whitfield's ''Benighted'' uses police state tactics and functionally, if not officially, operates on a "guilty until proven innocent" mentality. On the other hand they do a dirty, dangerous and very necessary job and get less than zero appreciation for it from the public.

* Kevin J. Anderson's ''Terra Incognita'' series. Examples ranging the spectrum from the very good to the very evil can be found among both the Aidenists and the Urecari while the Saedrans stay strictly neutral.
* The ''OldMansWar'' series: The Colonial Union really wants to protect and preserve the human race in a universe full of hostile aliens who want to eat them. But they're basically a military junta using some questionable, authoritarian methods: recruiting the majority of their soldiers from a planet (Earth) kept completely in the dark about the rest of the universe, and vat-growing a group of emotionally-stunted, effectively ChildSoldiers [[spoiler:from the bodies of the dead]] as Special Forces, restricting civilians from certain technological advances, and engaging in aggressively expansionist wars of colonization, steadily turning the rest of the galaxy against them. On the other side, there actually are many hostile alien races who want to eat humanity, but most end up joining the Conclave out of a desire to use diplomacy to try and minimize aggressive war and further bloodshed.
* The three empires in the ''Quintara Marathon'' series demonstrate this, at least in terms of the humans who are represented in all three. The Exchange is a free-market free-for-all with the most personal freedom, but minimal social safety nets and an underbelly of corruption and unofficial slavery (in the form of genetically engineered intelligent beings considered as property). The Mizlaplan control a rigid theocracy where they are unquestionably the rulers (and effective gods), inquisitors and priest can use whatever methods they feel are necessary, sexual discrimination against women is part of the system, and where brainwashing into absolute obedience is commonly used, but where most people live peaceful, safe lives without concern about going hungry, crime, or actually being personally oppressed. The Mychol Empire is a dog-eat-dog vicious society with oppression, slavery, and a great deal of violence, but where everyone has the opportunity to rise if they are smart enough.

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** [=DeWitt's=] house, at least, seems to recruit people in desperate straits and helps them establish new lives after their term is finished. Whether this is rescuing them or preying on those with no options is an exercise for the viewer.

* During its first three series, ''{{The4400}}'' featured several distinct factions (NTAC, the 4400 Centre, the people from the future, the Nova Group, Jordan Collier and his followers, [[spoiler:Dennis Ryland]]'s company), all of which are shown as in some way sympathetic, with good intentions. It's not until series four that we finally see some unambiguously bad guys ([[spoiler:The Marked, who want to stop the 4400 and bring about the apocalypse just to make sure they stay on top of the pile]]).

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*** And near the end of the game, he [[spoiler: convinces a group of around ten thousand of what are essentially infants to commit suicide with him in order to prevent the world from being covered in poisonous mist that would melt all the continents, and simultaneously assure a place for the rest of the sacrifices' "siblings" to live in peace. He survives, though its only a temporary thing. The leader of the other sacrifices only lives long enough to ask them to honor their promise.]]

** The same can be said for Devil Survivor. The Lawful side means that everyone is happy and there are no crimes. No tolerance. The Chaos side means that you destroy any kind of great power that might have created the world (Even though you're given some info that the being that labels himself as such might not have done so in the first place), so that people are free and able to do anything they want. Good luck choosing a side! (No wonder there is no Good or Evil in the game...)

*** It would kill more than just the raiders and mutants. [[spoiler: Everyone living in the Wasteland would die; the only people not effected by the modified FEV virus are vault dwellers and the Enclave itself. Even the player character, who was only exposed to the surface radiation for a year before going into Vault 101, will die in the Broken Steel expansion if they drink more than a glass or two of the tainted water.]]

*** The Flood were extra-galactic though, therefore not the Forerunner's fault. Failing in your self-imposed duty and being forced into HeroicSacrifice doesn't seem to fit here.

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* The main conflict in {{Juathuur}} is between control and freedom. Both sides have their reasons, and their differences are mainly due to age gaps (as the 'control' side grew up in a world torn by war, and the 'freedom' side did not). See the comic page for details.

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** Heck, while Yang is usually considered pretty evil for being completely state-over-individual, his ideas are effectively transhumanist before the technology for truly transcending the individual body exists. And then you get the win-the-game tech that lets you upload your faction into a planetary hivemind. His philosophy is the GOOD END one.

* ''FinalFantasyXII''. Just... ''FinalFantasyXII''.
** To elaborate, on the villain's side we have the machivellian, AffablyEvil [[EvilPrince Prince]] who wants to become the emperor and restore order to the empire, the WellIntentionedExtremist MadScientist who's working with his demigod SpiritAdvisor to overthrow the JerkassGods, the Judges who bar one are well-intentioned tools devoted to protecting to law, and the Emperor himself who is trying to keep the Senate from turning his youngest son into a puppet heir while preventing the empire from collapsing into civil war. On the good guys side we have a vengeful, stubborn princess who will stop at nothing (including ''genocide'') to regain her kingdom and pay back the empire for her dead husband, and who nearly becomes the willing puppet of the aforementioned JerkassGods to achieve this, a pair of sky pirates who are just in it for the treasure (and one of them ''knows'' exactly what the princess is trying to do and where it would lead), an old soldier who's willing to do ''anything'' to protect the princess, and finally two slightly naive teenagers, one of whom is a petty thief. In between this lot we have a Marquis-cum-Resistance leader who plays permamanent double agent and who's loyalties depend on who is winning, a Rebel general who's willing to sell out his own princess if it means his country will be restored even if it's in name only, an ex-Judge who destroyed an entire city and now resorts to piracy to make up for his sins, and an imperial prince who is caught between caution and preemptive assault in the protection of his nation. The only good character is really the youngest prince, and he suffers from a bad case of naivety and idealism. SoYeah.

* ''{{Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind}}'', full stop. Of all the various factions, the closest any come to being completely "good" or "evil" are the Forest People, who are [[NobleSavage deeply spiritual nature lovers]], but they can also be [[CantArguewithElves deeply pragmatic in their attitudes toward other peoples]] and the [[HumansAreBastards greedy, selfish]] [[AndManGrewProud pre-apocalyptic]] peoples who led the world to destruction and even they did [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans what they thought was the right thing]] in the end.