History Main / SlidingScaleofIdealismVersusCynicism

** Warhammer 40,000 isn't very cynical because the whole thing is BlackHumor. It's not meant to be taken seriously. The whole thing is so cynical it's an outright satire.
*** It ''was'' BlackHumor. These days it's very much SeriousBusiness.

** To sum it up, the Universal Century is the single darkest and the most cynical of all the Gundam universes, with [[TheBadGuyWins very little or no hope for humanity]], partly due to Yoshiyuki Tomino's hateful rage against Sunrise. The Cosmic Era and Anno Domini are slightly better, but not as idealistic as the other non_UC Gundam universes, either. P.S. If you mention ZetaGundam, don't forget Gundam0083, GundamF91, and even CharsCounterattack, all of which are as cynical as they can get!

** And yet there are some people who will find living in idealized suburbia more depressing than a high-crime urban area. One man's "safety" is another man's [[StepfordSuburbia "conformity."]]

* ''WeissKreuz'' - heavily cynical, for a shoujo series. The only way to deal with the {{Complete Monster}}s who are beyond the law's control is [[KillHimAlready to give them an equally brutal death as they have inflicted upon countless innocent lives]]. It's not ''completely'' at the cynical end of the scale in that innocence is depicted as being worth protecting, the main cast are portrayed sympathetically, and the first anime series has a cautiously upbeat ending... but the main characters hate what they do, hate themselves for doing it, and have no hope of being able to stop because there will always be more {{Complete Monster}}s trying to prey on the defenseless.

* DragonballZ Its idealistic for the most part but it usualy depends on the character Goku`s family is more idealistics :both Goku and Gohan are idealistic for the most part but have shown cynical (goku sacrfice with cell and gohan sadistic side while in ss2 and hisn ultimate form) sides while Vegeta and his family is mostly cynical but have shown to be idealistic.

** Which is in fact the case, most of the time. Nations cooperate far more often than they make war. Unfortunately, the incentives for war and human nature mean that war has never entirely and permanently gone away.

** Which is in fact the case, most of the time. Nations cooperate far more often than they make war. Unfortunately, the incentives for war and human nature mean that war never entirely and permanently goes away.

Take note: idealism and cynicism are not always applied to the concept of HumansAreGood vs HumansAreBastards. A series can be idealistic or cynical towards any ideal. In general, if the story values a particular ideology, then it is idealistic. If the story deconstructs or assaults an ideology, then it is cynical.

** KingdomHearts' position on the Idealistic end of the scale proves, without a doubt, that placing a strong enough focus on ThePowerOfFriendship supercedes ''everything else'' in the Sliding Scale's calculus. Friendship, apparently, cannot be cynical - even if the characters frequently do [[DirtyBusiness questionable]] or [[NiceJobBreakingItHero stupid]] things because of it.

* WeissKreuz - heavily cynical, for a shoujo series. The only way to deal with the {{complete monster}}s who are beyond the law's control is [[KillHimAlready to give them an equally brutal death as they have inflicted upon countless innocent lives]]. Even the fact that Tsukiyono Oni and Persia are a part of the Takatori family does not help, either... The tagline, "Hunters of night, deny these dark beasts their tomorrows!!"
** On the other hand, it could somewhat also be viewed as idealistic, since the bloody core assassins are not at all a GrandTheftAuto assassin organization like Takatori Reiji's, but a group who sincerely fight to protect the innocent lives from needless torture and death. [[strike: Tsukiyono Omi]] Takatori Mamoru urges in Gluehen, "Hunters of night, destroy the dark beasts and bring better tomorrows!!"

* ''YokohamaKaidashiKikou'' is firmly idealistic, which is only natural for a manga that takes place ...AfterTheEnd. SoYeah...

* [[http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games8/gameindex/lifeark3.htm The next installment]] has the ship you so painstakingly evacuated crash. into a moon. [[ItGotWorse Things get worse]] in the [[http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games8/gameindex/lifeark4.htm next part]] as your efforts to stop the black hole from swallowing your ship have turned it into a super black hole which will [[ApocalypseHow destroy the universe]]. Your only chance is to escape into another universe, which is done through cooperation with another alien race which requires a HeroicSacrifice on their part. Finally, in the [[http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games8/gameindex/lifeark5.htm fifth installment]] you land on Earth, accidentally destroying a few states. By the end of that game you repair the damage you caused and set up a colony on the moon, hoping not to screw up anything else.

* [[Bioshock]] gives an interesting variation of this sliding scale, depending on how the player plays the game. It has 3 endings in the first game and 4 in the second, all but one in each game are cynical, obtained by players who choose to commit the sin of harvesting even just one little sister; the only good ending in each of the two games is an idealistic one, earned by players who manage to remain pure-hearted protectors of the little sisters throughout the entire game.

** To sum it up, the Universal Century is the single darkest and the most cynical of all the Gundam universes, with [[TheBadGuyWins very little or no hope for humanity]], partly due to Yoshiyuki Tomino's hateful rage against Sunrise. The Cosmic Era and Anno Domini are slightly better, but not as idealistic as the other non_UC Gundam universes, either. P.S. If you mention ZetaGundam, don't forget Gundam0083, The08thMSTeam, and even CharsCounterattack, all of which are as cynical as they can get!

* HPLovecraft's stories defined a whole new genre: CosmicHorror, the nethermost reach of Sucks-To-Be-You literature. It's a lot like real life, except all human accomplishment is meaningless and deluded, with {{Eldritch Abomination}}s as the only beings that really matter in the universe at large, and there's many a FateWorseThanDeath for humans who stumble on these truths.

* Katherine Kurtz's {{Deryni}} novels are an example of literature that falls in the middle of the scale. The good guys do win in the end, and evil is punished, but 'in the end' can operate on a scale of centuries. "King Javan's Year" appears to be as cynical as anything in "A Song of Ice and Fire" [[spoiler: what with the protagonist and all his friends being killed messily at the end of the novel]], [[BittersweetEnding but it sets up the good guys to win in the next book]]. This makes it cynical by the standards of high fantasy series, which tend, as a genre, to be idealistic.

* Open any book or short story collection by AmbroseBierce. The cynicism will burn off your eyebrows.

* ''TheSundering'' is difficult to peg on a two-dimensional scale of idealism. It uses WhiteAndGreyMorality, with the "white" side [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready winning and committing genocide against the grey side]] [[{{Detournement}} just as they do in all the Tolkien ripoffs it's mocking]]. That genocide is depicted as a very bad thing that's nonetheless perfectly in character for the [[PureIsNotGood "pure" heroes]]. This sounds cynical, but the funny thing is that it might actually be idealistic, since the bad guys could have been redeemed if anyone had been willing to negotiate.

* ''TheDresdenFiles'' is definitely a mix, as is the protagonist. Good and Evil, is fairly pure forms, are at war in the Dresden Files world, in many forms, and also in Dresden's own soul. When Harry is good, he's ''very'' Good, but sometimes he's very dark, to the point of [[spoiler: murdering an (admittedly nasty) person to gain power to save his daughter from being killed, and pondering worse]]. His heart is with the Light, though, to a degree he himself fails to recognize.

Lived experience tells us that sometimes the cynics are right, sometimes the optimists are. Overhanging the whole debate is the fact that even a cursory study of history shows that the same problems, ''recognizably'' the same problems, recur over and over throughout thousands of years and across all human cultures. This is widely recognized on both ends of the sliding scale (although cynics tend to give it a bit more focus, of course).

And yet ... one of the SF author Larry Niven's observations appears inarguable, in paraphrase: "Destruction is inherently easier than creation. If ''most'' human beings, ''most'' of the time, didn't strongly prefer creation, nothing could ever be built or endure at all." Further, it remains a fact that all civilization functions, day-in and day-out, on what ultimately amounts to a foundation of trust. Finally, cognitive therapy works against depression by training the depressed to assess their situations in a reasonable, logical manner.

* ''MassEffect'' has an interesting spin on the concept, as it can go either way on the Scale, depending on the player's choices in individual assignments and missions throughout the game. There are no good and evil choices here, unlike with most games that have a morality system; Sheperd is simply presented with renegade and paragon options, with Renegade being the more violent and cynical choice, whereas Paragon is the more idealistic and diplomatic approach. One approach ends up working about as well as the other in completing each mission, and regardless of how you approach the assignments and missions (or even how you treat everyone else, crew included), your crew will back you up, respect you, and support your decision... ''most'' of the time.

* ''{{Berserk}}'' is what happens when the cynical end of the scale forces the idealistic end down and breaks its arm. And then chops it into little pieces with a {{BFS}}. And then, for good measure, blasts whatever's left with an ArmCannon.
** Underneath all the gritty medieval violence and {{Deconstructed Trope}}s, however, the series is actually rather optimistic. Camaraderie is a central theme in the series, as Guts learns to appreciate friendship after being a loner for several years (twice!). And while its been repeatedly stated that Guts cannot really effect any major change in the flow of Causality, he has been a positive influence on many people he's encountered, such as Farnese and the little girl Jill, and has changed the misanthropic viewpoint of CuteWitch Schierke to a more hopeful one. In fact, most of the cynicism is in the early chapters, and the endings of both the Lost Children and Albion arcs ended on positive notes, with the supporting characters from both going on to live better lives.
** And a good thing too, or else the story would be even more depressing than ''{{Grave of the Fireflies}}'' (see below).
** ''{{Berserk}}'' may be a subversion in a weird fatalistic way. If causality is absolute and nothing the characters do can make a lasting impact on the CrapsackWorld around them, that definitely tends toward the cynical. But on the other hand, a certain amount of idealism is consistently portrayed as being much better for one's own personal mental sanity if nothing else. The moral seems to be that if you ultimately have no control over your life anyway, you might as well spend as much time as you can being with your loved ones before either you or they or both inevitably get raped, killed, and eaten by demons (not necessarily in that order). But a lot will depend on the ending.
** The author explicitly makes a point against fatalism as there are places where things do not go as expected due to Guts and his party's intervention, such as [[spoiler:Ishidro's saving Casca from burning at the stake in the Albion arc.]] Even [[CynicalMentor the Skull Knight]] refers to Guts as the one who is outside of the fairytale and implies that Guts may be able to escape his own fate.
** If Miura [[AuthorExistenceFailure doesn't kick the bucket first]], at the rate new chapters come out nowadays...
* Kei Kurono and most of the other characters of ''{{Gantz}}'' are selfish and cynical, while Kato is more idealistic and tries to save everyone. ''{{Gantz}}'' generally retains its cynical edge throughout the course of the manga, though a few idealistic moments have cropped up briefly throughout the series, such as Kurono's development into more of a leader-figure, becoming less selfish and more heroic, as well as when most of the Gantz crew who had survived and attained 100 points at the time used their 100 points to resurrect one of Kurono's dead friends from the Gantz database.
** Like ''{{Berserk}}'' above, Gantz almost sidesteps the entire issue by being utterly fatalistic. Neither the cynical or the idealistic characters seem to have any particular advantage in the practical business of survival, but the idealistic ones at least tend to be happier until they inevitably get killed in the most gruesome way possible.

* Despite some of the horrific aspects, the Green Sky Trilogy bleeds idealism. [[TheMessiah Raamo]] is the most powerful psychic in generations, and goes through an entire year of being feted as above and apart. However, he ''never'' believes it. His restraint attracts Neric, the closest thing the Kindar have to a cynic...but even Neric is on the side of angels. He just sees trouble, and wants to solve it. Together, they discover the society's dirty secret[[spoiler: the first Ol-Zhaan exile dissenters beneath the Root and made up the story of the Pash-San to cover for the disappearances. The exiles could have easily succumbed to dispair and violence, as the Ol-Zhaan feared...turns out they're healthier, and only marginally less peaceful, than the Kindar.]] Every time one of the "old guard" steps in and tries to stop the Rejoyners from integrating the societies, they're shown up in some spectacular fashion. And in what is possibly the ''first'' canonical video game sequel to a book, [[spoiler: Snyder undoes Raamo's HeroicSacrifice by having one of his friends rescue him]].