http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/knight8.jpg
[[caption-width:532:One thing to ask yourself before [[{{Knighting}} swearing loyalty]]: Is that lord a CompleteMonster?]]

This is when a leader is cruel and perhaps incompetent, and the underling obeys him out of feelings of some ideal, while hating every minute of it.
The trope is mostly used in [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy vaguely medieval settings]]. In feudalistic structures more than in others, someone might feel a deep but forced obligation to a certain leader. The underling usually is a minor noble of a warrior caste, a [[KnightInShiningArmour knight]] or [[{{Samurai}} samurai]] or such.

->So the liege orders: "Slaughter these peasants who raise against me as I'm working them to death." and the vassal answers: "They're asking for more food... perhaps they could work better, if Your Greatness gave them some."
->"No."
->"[[WithDueRespect Forgive my boldness]], but doesn't that seem harsh?"
->"I like being harsh, hurry up, take the army and mow them down!"
->(Nauseated): "Certainly, my lord." and he goes and does it.

To make certain that the public understands that this character disagrees, he will get a lot of PetTheDog moments, appeal to his liege to overthink a decision, [[PleaseSpareHimMyLiege beg for the lives of others]], angst visibly when he's alone and [[ZerothLawRebellion try to twist his orders a little if possible.]] He often doesn't even consider the heroes his enemy and is an [[WorthyOpponent honorable opponent]]. Also he might be seen as [[IronWoobie suffering as much under his lord as the next subject, for sympathy points]].

These types tend to be TheFettered who have [[IGaveMyWord sworn an oath]] to unreliable leaders and refuse to break their word. Such characters are prone to HeelFaceTurn because all they need is to broaden their ethic horizon a bit.

Some old European knightly codes had a proper procedure for a knight resigning his oath because his liege lord was on the Wrong side. He had to do it to his liege lord's face. ''If he survived'', he then could join the Right side. A samurai only had the choice of outright [[{{Seppuku}} killing himself demonstratively]] as a way of disagreeing and staying honorable. These, hm, options can get ignored due to the RuleOfDrama.

This trope raises the question what an oath is worth. What are wrong and right, personal mercy or abstract principles? What is honor? The liege is evil, how evil is the vassal? Liege and vassal are great foil for each other and for the relationship of a leading hero and his followers.

Especially tragic when the [[HypercompetentSidekick vassal is also more competent than the liege]]. Very similar to MyCountryRightOrWrong only more personal. A common characterization of TheDragon. Contrast RebelliousRebel, MookFaceTurn, HelpFaceTurn.

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!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]
* Benawi of ''{{Utawarerumono}}'' hates his orders and stays loyal until the end. The heroes surround the castle and before he lets them kill his lord he first urges him to commit {{Seppuku}} and when the lord doesn't he kills him himself. Not out of his clear contempt, anger or hate, but as his second.
* In ''DigimonAdventure02'', Wormon has this approach to the Digimon Emperor.
* PlayedForLaughs with the ({{Anime}} only) character of Sasuke in ''[[RanmaOneHalf Ranma 1/2]]'' who serves the Kunou's every whim no matter how deranged or unpleasant.
* Done several times in ''Saint Seiya'', one such instance occured with the Leo Saint realizing his master was not acting in the interest of Athena but actually against her and decided to confront him before being brainwashed back into his service. Of course the main example of the series comes with the Sagittarius Saint who went rogue to the Sanctuary by saving baby Athena from being killed by the Pope, the ruler of the Sanctuary.
**It also happens the other way around in the Asgard arc in which no matter if their princess is right or wrong, her warriors decide to fight for her until their death even if they do acknowledge she has changed. Yet in another variation near the end of this arc came with [[spoiler: Siegfried who disobeyed her princess' orders when realizing the ones he was fighting against were not the real enemies and were in fact trying to free his princess from the mind control ring she was subjected to. He actually gave them the last MacGuffin required to free her and sacrificed himself by turning on the emissary of his true enemy. In that case, he refused to serve his Lady for her own good in spite of all the consequences, his death.]]
*Happens quite a bit in ''LoneWolfAndCub'', for differing values of Lords.
*In ''SamuraiChamploo'', one such samurai has the misfortune of serving a lord who has hired a MadScientist to revive her daughter. Said scientist tries to accomplish this by [[spoiler: kidnapping beautiful young maidens and chopping up their parts to create a flesh golem]].
*[[HypercompetentSidekick Abelia]] towards [[CompleteMonster King Hamdo]] in ''NowAndThenHereAndThere''. [[spoiler:She gets better.]]
* Entei to Molly in the third Pokemon movie. He actually says "Whether it is right or wrong, I will do as she wishes!"
* Arguably, Souseiseki in RozenMaiden is subject to the trope, both in the Manga and Anime. She is loyal to her original master, and does whatever he asks of her, no matter how henious, but it is pretty clear she doesn't like doing such acts, and she only does it to help her master become a better person.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]
* In {{Fables}} it turns out that [[spoiler: Faithful John]]'s master is working for the BigBad and, since his fable is all about loyalty, he has no choice but to be TheMole.
* Captain Torame in ''UsagiYojimbo''.
* Two amazons in the widely reviled ''[[WonderWoman Amazons Attack]]'' spent a lot of time discussing Hippolyta's insane actions, and how they should stop her. They ended up doing nothing.
*''UsagiYojimbo''. For instance, in "The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy," Usagi infiltrates a lord planning a coup against the Shogun who also has an honorable second in command who [[LawfulNeutral lives this axiom]]. In the climax of the story when Usagi reveals his hand and fights to stop the lord, he confronts the second who refuses to switch sides and Usagi admits that he understands considering he never abandoned his own lord (albeit a good guy) when the odds went hopeless against him.

* Seems to be the case with [[spoiler:Espio]] in the ''[[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' comic. He's obediently followed orders ever since the Iron Queen took control of his clan, even though he doesn't seem to want to since he has to attack his former friends.
* Though he does explain a lot of things we already know while [[spoiler:holding his friend at knife-point by his dreadlocks over the edge of a floating island.]] I wonder what tricky situations he has in store for everyone else.
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[[folder:Film]]
* General Glozelle in ''[[{{Narnia}} Prince Caspian]]'' (the film, maybe in the book too, but my memory is hazy). Throughout the film he's got this squeamish but helpless look, has some dialogue with Lord Sopesian to the effect of "watch your butt, or Miraz'll kill you", and looks utterly devastated when King Miraz orders him to kill some of his soldiers to make it look like Caspian is bloodthirsty... which he does. He seems relieved when Aslan offers the Telmarines a fresh start someplace else.
*''47 Ronin''.
* ''The Man In The Iron Mask'' (TheMovie) has one of the musketeers be blindly loyal to Louis, despite his evil and capricious nature because [[spoiler: he is Louis' father.]] Eventually he comes around to the other musketeer's viewpoint that he's gotta go. You'd think having [[spoiler: his other son,]] Louis twin would ''maybe'' accelerate his decision making process... but no.
** This is AdaptationDecay; it does ''not'' happen in the book.
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[[folder: Literature]]
*Olivier of the Brother Cadfael books by EllisPeters is a paragon of knightly virtue who sees all the faults of Empress Maud. She isn't evil but she and King Stephen are locked in a stalemate of a civil war which is devastating the country. For a good part of ''Brother Cadfael's Penance'' Olivier deeply despises a former friend who switched sides to Stephen in the hope of the war finally being decided. (It doesn't work.) Olivier wishes for peace but clearly values staying true to one's merciless liege higher than ending the war.
* The Kingsguard of ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' are supposed to be this, defending the king and executing his orders no matter what they are. The "old" Kingsguard died defending the AxeCrazy "Mad King" Aerys against a rebellion. When the youngest member, Jaime Lannister, kills the king to prevent him from destroying the capital city, he is reviled for his perceived treachery in spite of the old king's madness.
** Notably, while everyone knew Aerys was mad and had done things like burn a powerful lord alive, as 'fire is the champion of House Targaryen', no-one alive but Jaime knows he had degenerated into such mass murdering, city burning crazy. If more people knew they might not revile him quite so much.
* This is one of the main themes in P.C. Hodgell's ''ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'' series. Among the Kencyr people, obedience to one's Lord is considered a foundation of honor; if one's Lord orders you to do something dishonorable, the feeling goes, the dishonor rests on his head, not yours. However, the whole system is set up with the expectation that such occasions will be few, minor, and moderated by the priests and the judges. Then a situation comes up that wasn't expected; the Highlord of the Kencyrath, the highest authority in the Kencyr people, decides to betray his people to their ancient enemy in return for personal immortality, but he needs the co-operation of others, particularly those close to him in his own House, to pull this betrayal off. Do the rules of honor still apply? When the order is not simply mildly dishonorable but utter betrayal, does honor still compel obedience? Some decide that it does, and with a heavy heart commit atrocity. Some decide that it does not, and struggle against him. Others decide that suicide is the only honorable option, while yet others don't know the full extent of what they're asked to do until it's too late. However, honor only requires obedience to the Lord's ExactWords; some decide to obey their orders in as unhelpful a way as they can possibly get away with.
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[[folder: Video Games]]
* Elliot from ''JaggedAlliance 2''. He works for an evil queen, and ''must'' realize that she's a cruel dictator after she keeps threatening her own citizenry. She slaps him around and bloodies his face every time he brings bad news, eventually becoming angry enough to [[ShootTheMessenger shoot him in the head]] (he survives). And yet, he's still willing to pull out a gun and start firing at ''your'' team when you finally confront him.
* Lancer in FateStayNight. And Lancer in FateZero. It doesn't end well either time, but in at least one case it ends in a spectacularly awesome fashion.
* [[spoiler:Knightman]] from MMBN2 exhibits this trait, [[spoiler:to his deletion]].
* Cecil and Kain in ''FinalFantasyIV'' both struggle with this, though Cecil more visibly since he's the viewpoint character. It takes the burning of a peaceful village and the implied order to kill a child to get the pair to disobey the king. [[spoiler: Turns out the king really is a noble and decent human being, but he was killed and replaced by a monster sometime prior to the start of the game]]
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[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* It's implied Teal'c was like this before his HeelFaceTurn in the first episode of StargateSG1. He did terrible things, and hated himself for them, but he was ordered to by, well, his god. When O'Neill gives him the chance of freedom from Apophis, he jumps at the chance.
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[[folder: Western Animation]]
* This is the struggle ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''' Karai faces in the second and third seasons of the second cartoon, where the character's loyalty to her adoptive father, The Shredder, clashes with her more noble instincts. One of these forms this clash takes is in her reluctance to kill the turtles, who had agreed to help her restore the New York Foot in exchange for ending the syndicate's vendetta against the turtles. While the agreement was made under false pretences--it was made under the assumption that the Shredder was dead and that Karai would be leading the Foot, which Karai knew was not the case--she still felt compelled to keep it, despite her father's wishes.
* Since Megatron is the undisputed Leader of All Decepticons, Always, anyone wearing the purple has to murmur this phrase if they want to stay sane. The least loyal of Megatron's troops have used excuses for staying under him ranging from "It's still better than the Autobots" to "I get to live how I want", but some 'Cons like just say "He's the boss."
** All except [[TheStarscream one.]]
** Played with in ''[[BeastWars Beast Machines]]''; the generals Strika and Obsidian are loyal to Cybertron, first, foremost, and always...and, by their own InsaneTrollLogic, whoever is ''in'' control of Cybertron, at the time - ''regardless'' of who that individual is, or what his plans are - ''is'' Cybertron, and will shift their allegiances accordingly. This means, [[LampshadeHanging as their fellow Vehicon Thrust points out]], that they're perfectly willing to sacrifice the sanctity of the planet itself, if that is what its current despot deems necessary (which, yes, ''does'' in fact render their "loyalty" to Cybertron moot).
* On ''TheFairlyOddparents'', Juandissimo does evil things simply because his godchild [[RichBitch Remy]] orders him to. When Remy's not around, [[GoKartingWithBowser he's quite friendly]].
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[[folder: Culture]]
*"The Tale of the Loyal Samurai" comes up quite often in, obviously, Samurai stories. The gist of it is that loyalty is the most important tenet of Bushido, even if you're loyal to a wicked master. Even if your lord went headlong past the MoralEventHorizon, to rebel would be an unpardonable loss of honour.
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