History Main / WrongSideAllAlong

* In ''Film/Underworld'', Selene is a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]] soldier who has spent several centuries [[FurAgainstFang fighting]] the [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Lycans]] in order to [[YouKilledMyFather avenge her family]], and is unfailingly loyal to her maker and SurrogateFather, the [[VampireMonarch Vampire Elder Viktor]]. But at the end of the film, she finds out that it was really Viktor who slaughtered her family, and couldn't bring himself to kill her because she reminded him so much of Sonja, his own daughter whom he had put to death for [[FantasticRacism having a]] [[InterspeciesRomance Lycan]] [[MalignedMixedMarriage lover]] and [[HalfHumanHybrid becoming pregnant]] [[HalfBreedDiscrimination with his child]]; her death also instigated the war against the Lycans, who had been [[SlaveRace the vampires' slaves]]. He then [[TheScapegoat blamed the Lycans]] for Selene's family's death, and had her trained to become a Death Dealer so that she could kill the Lycans, who just wanted justice for their inhumane treatment.

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* In ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'', Isaac goes on a quest to stop Saturos, Menardi, and Alex from unleashing Alchemy after being told that it's a dangerous force if misused. He learns late in the sequel that his mission to keep Alchemy sealed will actually cause the world to slowly decay into nothing, and that Saturos and Menardi were trying to save their hometown, Prox. Only by unleashing Alchemy can the world be saved. After he learns this, he immediately switches sides and helps Felix light the last beacon.
* In ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'', [[TheEmpire Eternia]] and its Jobmasters have been trying to usher in an era where people are not dependent on the elemental Crystals. The party opposes them, told by ExpositionFairy Airy that by Awakening the Crystals, they would summon the Holy Pillar to cleanse evil from the world. It turns out, Airy is in fact TheDragon and by Awakening the Crystals, the party is further destabilizing all the different Luxendarcs. [[MultipleEndings Either]] they [[ExplosiveOverclocking Over-Awaken]] a Crystal to destroy it and set back the villain's plans by several centuries, or they resolve to persist, hoping that in the end they could face off against and destroy the true BigBad.

* This is the twist in Literature/TheSwordOfGood. The "good guys" are actually agents of a malignant status quo, while the "villain" is one of the only people in the setting who sees that it's broken and is trying to do something about it. Tellingly, the hero is only able to unleash the Sword's full power when he cuts down his former allies.

Compare UnwittingPawn.

Normally, the villain or rival is trying to stop the hero ForTheEvulz or perhaps just out of selfishness. However, sometimes things are not what they seem. The [[ZenSurvivor mentor]] the party has come to trust throughout the story [[TreacherousAdvisor has been using them, or perhaps corrupting them]], and the apparent BigBad was actually trying to save the world, and redeem them. Expect a HeroicBSOD or three.

## The pirates and privateers that control the North and South Rook Islands are run by a psychopath and a sociopath. You kill them to free Rook and allow your faction to take over. Then your faction's leader tries to force you into killing your friends. If you do as she says, she'll end up backstabbing you so that she can have unquestioned worship from both islands.
## This game is the one that focuses on Wrong Side All Along: Pagan Min, the "King of Kyrat", is a psychopathic dictator whose primary source of income is the drug trade - and secondary source being slave labor. He has set up a cult of personality and orders the slaughter of entire towns for not perpetrating constant worship (or at least lip service). And he occasionally goes out into the wilderness and shoots up citizens and endangered species for kicks (Some people pay Pagan Min $200,000 to hunt a rhino). Unfortunately, each of the three possible leaders that can destroy his regime and take over will end up exaggerating one of these three properties to a logical extreme. If Amita takes over, she will turn Kyrat into a Drug-Communist state: she will end up forcing children to fight trained armies, increase the size of the local opium fields and their slave workers, and possibly kill an eight-year old kid, Bahdra, whose only crime was being declared the girl-pope. If Sabal takes over, he will turn Kyrat into a militant Theocracy: he will repress Kyrat's progress, declare Bahdra a goddess, and kill anyone who refused to worship his religion (or even paid lip service to another religion) for the past twenty years - which, considering Pagan Min's cult of personality ran for over twenty-five, is a fucking lot. If Ajay (the player character) takes over, he will prove himself a decent ruler, but a horrible sociopath: killing random bystanders and slaughtering entire species for fun and profit. Note that Ajay can choose if Amita or Sabal takes over, and then kill them and take over himself if he's horrified at what they do to Kyrat. And then he can choose whether or not he wants to stay and keep pointlessly fighting or leave the country to its fate. And as some kind of insult, we find out that Mohan "Hero of Kyrat" Ghale is partly responsible for Kyrat's suffering - his wife fell in love with Pagan Min, and she almost reformed him, but after years of betrayal and failure as a king on Pagan's part Mohan snapped, stormed the palace like a badass, and killed their love-child daughter. The end result was that a true warrior was responsible for Pagan Min's insanity and the country's downfall. The whole game is a jab at politics, where just because you fight hard and fight fair doesn't mean you're in the right, or fighting for the right people, or even should fight when you could do better by playing the diplomatic route (if you refuse to fight or even move at the beginning of the game, Pagan Min declares Ajay his heir). Emphasis on 'could', though.

## Your sexy partner is liable to betray you. In the last episode, Jack considers ChronicBackstabbingDisorder a "human" trait that he has evolved from.

* In ''Film/SkyHigh2005'', the [[{{Technopath}} cute older girl]] is playing him for a fool she's actually a supervillain who got [[OlderThanTheyLook age reduced]], and the imposing bully guy is actually just hot-headed.

* FarCry: Each of the games features a deconstruction of being the "Good Guy" in a CrapsackWorld; there is no BigGood, there is only you.
** 1: Your sexy partner is liable to betray you. In the last episode, Jack considers ChronicBackstabbingDisorder a "human" trait that he has evolved from.
** 2: Jackal decides that after twenty years of selling low-grade firearms to unstable countries, he's had enough. You, an assassin hired to kill him, end up turning on your former contacts to help him isolate the warring factions (which have now banded together in order to take over Bowa-Sekao as warlords) from 2,000,000 human targets.
** 3: The pirates and privateers that control the North and South Rook Islands are run by a psychopath and a sociopath. You kill them to free Rook and allow your faction to take over. Then your faction's leader tries to force you into killing your friends. If you do as she says, she'll end up backstabbing you so that she can have unquestioned worship from both islands.
** 4: This game is the one that focuses on Wrong Side All Along: Pagan Min, the "King of Kyrat", is a psychopathic dictator whose primary source of income is the drug trade - and secondary source being slave labor. He has set up a cult of personality and orders the slaughter of entire towns for not perpetrating constant worship (or at least lip service). And he occasionally goes out into the wilderness and shoots up citizens and endangered species for kicks (Some people pay Pagan Min $200,000 to hunt a rhino). Unfortunately, each of the three possible leaders that can destroy his regime and take over will end up exaggerating one of these three properties to a logical extreme. If Amita takes over, she will turn Kyrat into a Drug-Communist state: she will end up forcing children to fight trained armies, increase the size of the local opium fields and their slave workers, and possibly kill an eight-year old kid, Bahdra, whose only crime was being declared the girl-pope. If Sabal takes over, he will turn Kyrat into a militant Theocracy: he will repress Kyrat's progress, declare Bahdra a goddess, and kill anyone who refused to worship his religion (or even paid lip service to another religion) for the past twenty years - which, considering Pagan Min's cult of personality ran for over twenty-five, is a fucking lot. If Ajay (the player character) takes over, he will prove himself a decent ruler, but a horrible sociopath: killing random bystanders and slaughtering entire species for fun and profit. Note that Ajay can choose if Amita or Sabal takes over, and then kill them and take over himself if he's horrified at what they do to Kyrat. And then he can choose whether or not he wants to stay and keep pointlessly fighting or leave the country to its fate. And as some kind of insult, we find out that Mohan "Hero of Kyrat" Ghale is partly responsible for Kyrat's suffering - his wife fell in love with Pagan Min, and she almost reformed him, but after years of betrayal and failure as a king on Pagan's part Mohan snapped, stormed the palace like a badass, and killed their love-child daughter. The end result was that a true warrior was responsible for Pagan Min's insanity and the country's downfall. The whole game is a jab at politics, where just because you fight hard and fight fair doesn't mean you're in the right, or fighting for the right people, or even should fight when you could do better by playing the diplomatic route (if you refuse to fight or even move at the beginning of the game, Pagan Min declares Ajay his heir). Emphasis on 'could', though.

* Website/{{Starwalker}}: Starwalker and her crew find out that the person who hired the SpacePirates was the avatar of our sun who didn't like be used as a doorway 40 years ago (see StableTimeLoop) especially as using the star step drive shortens the life of stars. The crew realise that the star step technology is something that man is not supposed to know (especially as some people would probably look to optimize its destructive potential). They decide to rebel against the project, do what they can to heal the stars and destroy all the copies of information that exist about the project.

Normally, the villain or rival is trying to stop the hero ForTheEvulz or perhaps just out of selfishness. However, sometimes things are not what they seem. The [[ZenSurvivor mentor]] the party has come to trust throughout the story has been using them, or perhaps corrupting them, and the apparent BigBad was actually trying to save the world, and redeem them. Expect a HeroicBSOD or three.

* ''MemorySorrowAndThorn'': The heroes are striving desperately to save the mortal races from the undying wrath of the Storm King, and are using the fragments of a book of prophecy to help them. The book was part of a very long con by the Storm King, strong in ill-will but weak in physical presence. By following the book's instructions they're filling out the recipe to bring him back from the dead and undo hundreds of years of history.

* In ''Film/SkyHigh'', the [[{{Technopath}} cute older girl]] is playing him for a fool she's actually a supervillain who got [[OlderThanTheyLook age reduced]], and the imposing bully guy is actually just hot-headed.

''Because of the nature of this trope, there will be spoilers.''

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* Happened to Schlock's mother in ''WebComic/SchlockMercenary''. Schlock's human grandmother was a slave trader and she duped her [[InterspeciesRomance amorph daughter]] into fighting the hero (Schlock's father) who was trying to stop her. Due to the unique nature of amorph biology the fight ended up with the personalities of both Schlock's parents being destroyed and their bodies merging to produce Schlock.

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* ''KamikazeKaitouJeanne'', Finn has been using them, and the rival angel is trying to stop Finn as he knows that she has been possessed by evil.

* In the third ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'' movie, poor Shinji falls victim to two instances of this: Just after having left the RebelliousSplinterFaction of the organization he used to work for, he finds out that said organization, ''including his own father'', has been plotting doomsday for quite a while, and, in fact, sucessfully [[NiceJobBreakingItHero set him up to cause it]] ''for them'' in a futile attempt to save his love interest, and, in fact, brought the two of them together for that exact purpose. Then, he gets told that he can fix the now nigh-inhabitable planet by obtaining a certain ArtifactOfDoom, which he sets out to get, having to [[WeUsedToBeFriends fight his former roommate and friend Asuka]] in the process. When he actually gets his hands on the artifacts, they do, [[UnwittingPawn obviously]], cause yet another near-apocalypse as Shinji [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone stares in horror.]]

* ''BlueDragon'', the henchman of the BigBad (after the BigBad has supposedly been defeated) reveals that the party is being used to open up the DarkWorld by their leader. Of course, they don't realize this until ''after'' helping almost destroy the world.

* This is the twist in [[spoiler:''Literature/TheSwordOfGood'']]. The good guys are actually agents of a malignant status quo, while the "villain" is one of the only people in the setting who sees that it's broken and is trying to do something about it.