Divided We Fall / Literature

Divided We Fall in Literature.

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• Variants of this are all over Battle Royale, and in the novel this turns out to be the whole point of making the students kill each other. Every six months, everyone in Japan gets to see a broadcast giving the body count of a particular runthrough, categorized by means of death. They all have it ingrained in their minds that the people they grew up with are willing to kill them to survive. If they can't trust each other, they can't coordinate effectively to overthrow the government.
• In David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series: the Ping Tiao rebels, the Yu rebels, the businessmen in Europe and later the businessmen in North America, and of course Howard deVore's operations
• Pretty much why the maze remains unsolved in Dis Acedia, as its prisoners are too busy fighting each others to make coordinated efforts.
• A chronic problem in the Codex Alera, to the point where the Alerans are so busy fighting amongst themselves that threats like the army of 60,000 Canim that landed on the coast or the Vord colonies that have already covered a continent and a half wind up taking a back seat in many people's minds (especially the Senators) to personal feuds and scrabbling for power. This gets to the point where, in the last book, Senator Valerian is trying to accuse Bernard of treason for fortifying the Calderon Valley (even though it's the only place left where they have any hope of holding back the Vord) and saying Doroga is an untrustworthy savage. So Lord Placida picks him up and throws him bodily out of the meeting.
• The first half of A Day of Fallen Night has most of the characters embroiled in various political challenges and conflicts, with the Dreadmount's eruption (and subsequent volcanic winter) compounding those problems. It's not until halfway through the book that the wyrms of the Dreadmount become an active force, which is heralded when Fýredel shows up and torches Ascalun. So, during the second half of the book, the main characters continue to be embroiled in political challenges and conflict despite the wyrms attacking absolutely everyone.
• The Correction Army from The Dinosaur Lords is made up of forces of several different duchies. Two of them have a territorial dispute, three hate one because of class conflict, one is barely under its general's control and annoys the rest, and everyone but one of them hates their commander, who's from opposing religious faction. Suffice to say, even getting to the warzone proves to be a slog.
• In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Night Watch Ned Coates fits this trope, at least in the scene where he tries to convince the members of the Watch not to follow Vimes, warning them that they'll all be killed. The kicker is that, since Vimes is from the future, he knows that Ned is almost certainly correct (he can't be 100% sure, because of quantum).
• In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, a chronic problem for the White Council. Perhaps particularly acute in Turn Coat. Understandable, in some ways, though; it's extremely obvious that there's at least one traitor on the Council, and he was using mind-control magic on everyone.
  • Changes hints that at least some of the bickering is fabricated to cover for the real plans.
• In Aaron Allston's Galatea in 2-D, Donna and Roger quarrel bitterly, insulting each other, while in hiding in the hotel. Donna stalks off.
• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic seems to do nothing else. In this case, the difficulty can be traced to the rivalry that Fudge believes exists between him and Dumbledore. Having successfully defeated Grindelwald and opposed Voldemort before, were the Dark Lord to return again then Dumbledore would be the one people followed. With prompting from Lucius, Fudge happily buried his head in the sand and started slandering Dumbledore and Harry Potter.
• George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia discusses a couple of republican groups who teamed up together to fight nationalists groups in the Spanish Civil war. Tensions between the groups on the Republican side though reach so high that they begin fighting each other on the streets and members of organizations like the one Orwell was in, POUM (who are communist but anti-Stalin) end up getting imprisoned and being branded as traitors by other Republicans (particularly by other communist factions).
• The Honor Harrington series had one of these on the Haven side - in War of Honor, one character (the Havenite Secretary of State) is sabotaging diplomatic communications to engineer a crisis that he can ride to the Presidency. His predictions of how everyone will react to the altered communications, particularly the person he wants to replace, are proven drastically wrong.
• In The Initiate Brother, Emperor Akantsu won't send forces to help against the barbarians, believing that Lord Shonto is disloyal and is exaggerating the threat as an excuse to build up an army. Inverted and subverted, though, since Shonto ends up pursuing Divided We Stand: he encourages these fears of rebellion, figuring that if he can't convince the Emperor to raise an army against the barbarians, he can still convince the Emperor to raise an army against him, and it's better the army is prepared for the wrong reason than not prepared at all. Shonto then agrees to surrender his "rebel" army so that the Emperor can meet the barbarians with a joint force - although in fact, the Emperor screws it up.
• In "Iron Shadows in the Moon", this happens to the pirates after they capture Conan the Barbarian.
• In The King Must Die, a bull-jumper is killed because his team does not help him, which would create some risk for them. Theseus points out to his team-mates how defeated the survivors look, and how certain they are to die, before having them take again The Promise that they will consider each other's lives as valuable as their own. Keeping it lets them outlive the rest, and indeed, other teams take the same oath and start to live longer, in imitation.
• In Robert E. Howard's Kull/Bran Mak Morn story Kings of the Night, Bran is about to lose a tribe because they want a leader of their own blood.
• In Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet, a pervasive problem.
• A massive problem for the good guys in the New Jedi Order series. Initially, the agents of the invading Yuuzhan Vong drove wedges into the New Republic themselves, dividing senators against each other, military leaders against politicians, and everybody against the Jedi. It only got worse when the galactic capital fell, as individual senators, planetary governments, and fleet commanders were left on their own initiative as the Republic tried to get back on its feet. Reorganizing the government into the Galactic Alliance and beefing up the federal government in general and the chief executive in particular helped smooth over the ideological differences, but damaged infrastructure would continue playing havoc with their efforts until the end of the war. (At one point, Chief of State Cal Omas claimed he had eight separate spy networks, none of which were in communication with each other... and he couldn't be certain there weren't others out there that didn't talk to him.)
  • Even before this, during the Thrawn Trilogy, Senator Borsk Fey'lya undermined every effort to counter Thrawn. Partly because he wanted to grab power for himself, and partly because he thought everyone else had the same motivations.
  • There was a lot of this going around during the Black Fleet Crisis.
• In Shanna Swendson's Once Upon Stilettos, they discover someone was at Owen's desk and hunt for The Mole. It may even be an operation to get them all Hanging Separately, they realize.
• In Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, the two kings know that bringing back the princesses Rhyme and Reason is what is really needed, but they'd rather disagree with each other. Until Milo points out that they are in agreement: they agree to disagree.
• In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Daughter trilogy, Prospero's children were not getting along well even before the story starts. And their enemies go to foment dissension.
• In The Queen's Thief series, the driving force in all the books is the looming invasion by the Mede Empire, which is going to make an attempt to conquer the Peninsula no matter what. Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis all recognize this and that they must be united if they're to survive. What they can't seem to do is actually do it because of the question of who gets to be in charge. Attolia can't make peace with the other kingdoms and her barons at the same time, Sounis wants to be in charge of everything, and Eddis can't ally with the other two because they'll instantly sell her out to hurt the other. The stalemate doesn't change until the Thief of Eddis, Eugenides, manages to marry Attolia.
• Used as an object lesson several times in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Examples include:
  • The battle at Hulao, where Yuan Shu's reluctance to send supplies to Sun Jian nearly leads to the latter's forces being routed from the field in spite of being a capable general.
  • The aftermath of Guandu, where Yuan Shao's sons can't get their act together and cooperate, and so are picked off piecemeal by Cao Cao's forces, even though his troops were less than their combined forces.
  • The battle of Chibi, where Wu's navy and the nascent Shu army have to work together to defeat the enormous Wei navy—this lesson sticks and they succeed in driving off Cao Cao's forces.
  • The battle for southern Jing had several Wei-allied local commanders who just couldn't manage to work together, and each lost their garrisons in turn to Shu forces.
  • Hefei is notable for Li Dian, Yue Jin, and Zhang Liao not getting along at first and at risk of being wiped out in their garrison. However, Zhang Liao convinced Li Dian and Yue Jin to put aside any personal inemnity for the duration of the battle, and they were wise enough to listen to him, resulting in a surprise Wei victory.
  • Meng Da's rebellion fell apart because its conspirators were too interested in saving themselves when cornered rather than supporting each other, leading to Wei forces taking the rebellion apart with ease.
• A persistent problem for Rosemary Sutcliff's ancient Britons – the Celtic tribes can't get over their feuds to defend themselves against the Romans (Song for a Dark Queen, Eagle's Egg), the Celts and Roman Britons can't cooperate long enough to hold off the Anglo-Saxons (The Lantern Bearers, Sword at Sunset, The Shining Company). Not until the 12th century do the Saxons and the Normans manage to unite and make it stick – against the French, naturally.
• In Safehold, Dohlarans and Desnairans, while they form the Army of Justice together, are at each others' throats almost as often as they are on Charis'. It only gets worse when they start losing.
• In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt, a continually problem among the countries the Wasps are conquering one by one.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, a civil war engulfs the seven kingdoms while a supernatural army is about to invade.
  • Even within the civil war there are elements of this. Robb Stark, Stannis and Renly all hate the Lannisters, but instead of teaming up against them Renly and Stannis fight each other and Robb refuses to set aside his crown for an alliance with one of the Baratheon brothers.
  • The Lannisters all hate each other more than their enemies. Tywin particularly hates Tyrion and Cersei, and the two hate Tywin and each other all the same. When it seems they have won the war, they proceed to focus their anger toward each other, in the end Tyrion kills Tywin and leaves Westeros, leaving Cersei as the one running things in Kings Landing, things start going down hill fast for her and the rest of the house. The only Lannister who loves and is loved by all the others is Jaime, and once he starts drifting from them, either from Tyrion with a confession or Cersei due to his reemerging conscience (and her rejection of him), the noose around the Lannisters' neck only tightens more.
• This trope is brought up in Star Trek: Destiny, though it's ultimately averted in one instance. As the Klingon Empire faces a massive Borg invasion, Martok's nemesis Councillor Kopek agrees this is no time for politics. When Martok, leading the Klingon fleet, calls Kopek back on Qo'noS to warn him of impending Borg attack, Kopek assures Martok his throne will be waiting for him upon his return. Martok replies "with you sitting in it, I imagine?" However, Kopek for once isn't planning anything, and says so. It's the first time the character has been presented as anything other than selfish; he understands the severity of the situation. He also dies defending Qo'noS, so possibly Redemption Equals Death.
• In David Brin's Startide Rising, the fleets of aliens hunting them does not prevent fierce infighting among the dolphin crew. (Fortunately, the aliens don't get along with each other, either.)
• This is a running theme throughout J. R. R. Tolkien's tales of Middle-earth:
  • In The Silmarillion: Fëanor and his sons repeatedly turn against their own allies in the war they are trying to wage against Morgoth.
  • In The Hobbit, the Wood-elves, Lake-men, and dwarves must unite against the army of Orcs that attack Erebor, else they'll all be destroyed.
  • In the backstory to The Lord of the Rings, it's implied that the White Council could have stopped Sauron's return when he was still the Necromancer of Dol Guldur, but Saruman counseled delay for reasons of his own, until it was too late.
  • In The Lord of the Rings, all the Free Peoples (Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, Ents) indulge in We ARE Struggling Together instead of focusing in defeating Sauron.
    Haldir the Elf: Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.
• In Ben Counter's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel Galaxy in Flames, Lucius, envious about authority that he doesn't have, complains that Tarvitz is giving him orders while they are under attack by superior Imperial forces. This attitude leads to his betraying them to Horus's forces.
  • In James Swallow's The Flight of the Eisenstein, Decius quarrels with Garro while forces loyal to Horus are actually attacking. Later, Voyen complains that his actions were foolish. When he suggests a Mercy Kill for a wounded Marine, Garro accuses him of wanting to suppress the evidence of what the lodge he belonged to did.
  • In Mike Lee's Fallen Angels, when they have found Chaos, the anger as they quarrel over how to deal with it and who is to blame is so palpable that Zahariel interposes himself between two Dark Angels to stop it. Later, Zahariel finds that the rebel forces are also quarreling among themselves.
• In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 Blood Angels novel Deus Sanguinius, at the climax, a Blood Angel explicitly declares that another Blood Angel ship is more of a danger than a Chaos ship.
  • In Red Fury, Ajir is bitterly resentful of two "penitent" Blood Angels allowed to join their squad. And the Flesh Tearers snipe at the Blood Angels, going so far as to fire on a location where they know they are — although they know they will survive, they also know they will be caught in the rubble. And one refuses to let Rafen speak to the Chapter Master until Rafen insists on being respected. While he does agree to come, he openly admits to the other Flesh Tearers that he is looking for something in the Blood Angels' weaknesses that he can exploit. (Along with making his resentment manifest.) And he orders a Flesh Tearer to pick a fight with a Blood Angel, to test them. Fortunately, they have to fight a common enemy at the climax.
  • In Black Tide, Noxx quarrels with Rafen about who should be in command.
• From Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40,000 novels:
  • The Gaunt's Ghosts novel First & Only is driven by two rivalries: between the Ghosts and the Jantine Patricians, and between Dravere and Macroth. Indeed, the first rivalry, and its Revenge, is used to cover up other intrigues — and this in the face of the forces of Chaos!
    • In Ghostmaker, they have another rivalry between the Ghosts and the Volpone Bluebloods. While the Bluebloods themselves are not all evil (at worst, Blueblood guardsmen are just haughty and elitist) their commanders once wittingly ordered an artillery bombardment where they knew the Ghosts were currently encamped, and at the climax, two officers are in a brawl until a Chaos beast actually erupts on them, killing several of their troopers.
    • In Traitor General, Sturm blamed his fall on Gaunt's unwillingness to let the past go and jockeying for power. He realizes the truth, in time.
    • And of course there's Rawne, Gaunt's own third-in command, who has tried to kill Gaunt himself on several occasions. Admittedly this was because he blamed Gaunt for saving only his regiment and not allowing them to fight the forces of Chaos at their Founding, forcing the regiment to abandon its home and people - even though doing so would have done no practical good at all, and would have rendered the Tanith people totally extinct.
  • In his Inquisitor series — both Eisenhorn and Ravenor — the inquisitors in question spend as much time resisting the Inquisition as they do the forces of Chaos.
  • In Brothers of the Snake, a Space Marine Khiron shot and killed another after a fight with Chaos forces. When another Marine, Priad, finds it hard to believe that he just murdered him and investigates, the squad of the dead Marine corner Priad in an attempt to intimidate him out of dishonoring them. Khiron had shot him because a daemon had possessed him, and Priad deduced that the captain of the squad was now possessed and killed him — fortunately, with evidence of the daemon at hand.
  • In Titanicus, a member of Adeptus Mechanicus reveals a purported proof that the Omnissiah and the Emperor are not one and the same, contrary to the accepted Imperial dogma. This results in almost total rupture within the Mechanicus order and with the Imperial forces, with religious disputes quickly causing factions to fight both each other and the blasphemous machine men / uneducated fleshbags arrayed against them — while their planet is being invaded. Fortunately, Varco's Heroic Sacrifice revealed more invaders, so they went to fight them instead. One conspirator, lamenting that Fire Forged Friendship would prevent support, reveals that the evidence had been tampered with before it was distributed, as part of a power ploy. Afterward, they do notice that "this was a power ploy" does not exactly exclude "this was true." They decide to black it out anyway, because even if true, the ensuing schism would be fatal to both sides.
  • In the Horus Heresy' novel Legion'', Namatjira learns that the Alpha Legion is operating on a planet he is trying to bring into compliance. When his subordinates speak of a lack of respect, Namatjira complains that it makes strategy impossible, because he does not know what his forces will be doing.
• In Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novel The Traitor's Hand, when Cain is trying to stop a daemon-summoning, Rival Commissar Tomas Beije tries to arrest him out of sheer spite. Only by deploying Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand does Cain succeeding in getting to the summoning.
  • Cain also exploits this trope in the same novel by following a rival band of Chaos Space Marines into the facility and allowing them to do most of the work of clearing the defenses between him and the summoning, all the while trying not to provoke them himself.
  • In Cain's Last Stand, Cain acts to forestall this between Adeptus Mechanicus and the Inquisition. When they are disputing who is responsible for the Chaos forces possessing knowledge of a relic, Cain puts the blame on a rogue Inquisitor that caused them some problems years earlier — not knowing whether it's true or not, but wanting them focused on the forces currently at hand.
• In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines novel Nightbringer, the cartels are neck-deep in pointless fighting with each other, despite constant Dark Eldar Pirate raids and bomb-setting Cults attacking the cartels simultaneously.
  • In The Killing Ground, Uriel is enraged at the prospect of dying at the hands of a man whom they should fight beside and roars at that man to kill him and be done. Whereupon Leodegarius explains that their successful passing of the third ordeal was that they lose to him. If they had defeated him, they would have irrevocably proven that they were tainted, but now they have been acquitted.
• In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 novel Storm of Iron, the Warsmith deliberately cultivates rivalries in his underlings (using such things as Honsou's mixed ancestry), in order to spur them to greater heights and keep them too busy to betray him.
  • Conversely, on the Imperial side, the Space Marine captain sees great bitterness and division in a briefing meeting (partly fueled by a grievous failure on the part of some forces), and demonstrates with the proverbial "sticks in a bundle that can't be broken" the danger of this. He cites their slogans and how they obviously pertain to the situation at hand, and the quarreling factions reconcile.
• In Nick Kyme's novel for Warhammer 40,000 Salamander, although the Marines Malevolent have played The Cavalry, and they and the Salamanders are still on enemy territory, tension and sniping arise almost immediately on their meeting.
  • The Marines Malevolent are colossal Jerkass loose cannons even by Warhammer 40,000 standards, and almost everything they do results in this. Nobody likes them, especially not the Salamanders, who are as close to "nice" as Space Marines get.
  • Tsu'gan, dissatified with the new captain, foments discord in the company.
• In William King's Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf novel Grey Hunters, Trainor recounts the infighting between the separate factions on Gram. Among the Space Wolves themselves, political conflict is enough to make Ragnar think of this, though it does not actually affect their ability to fight (to be just to Ragnar, yes; to fight, no). And when Ragnar has retrieved Trainor and his men, the Inquisition tries to keep them as prisoners; the Space Wolves refuse.
  • Wolfblade opens with Ragnar being sent to Terra to protect him from those who blame him for the loss of the Spear of Russ, who are partly motivated by existing rivalries within the Chapter. And on Terra, he finds himself in the thick of the rivalry of Navigator Houses, on possibly the most treacherous planet in the entire Imperium.
  • In Lee Lightner's Sons of Fenris, Ragnar recognizes Dark Angels and reflects on their Chapters' long hostility. The Dark Angels and Space Wolves fight. When Ragnar and some others capture some Dark Angels, they both see the Commander attack and kill Dark Angels and Space Wolves. Jeremiah, the Dark Angel leader, gives his word that they will not try to escape, and Ragnar gives back their weapons — but the fighting still goes on about them while they take out the real foe. Later, Changed My Mind, Kid occurs but was actually a feint; the Dark Angels could not tell the Space Wolves that, though, because they had only open comm channels.
• Bramblestar from Warrior Cats: Dovewing's Silence says this phrase after the distrust towards the Dark Forest trainees goes too far. That involved getting them to attack an injured fox, which prompts Bramblestar to tell everyone that the time of mistrust must end.
• The Wheel of Time is filled with those : Elaida, the Whitecloaks ( up to the point where Galad takes over, at least), the Seanchan, Andoran Houses contesting Elayne's claim to the throne, the Shaido, Carhienin and Tairen rebels...
• In Andy Hoare's White Scars novel Hunt for Voldorius, La Résistance splits over an assassination attempt.
  • Later, after they manage to avoid a friendly fire incident — barely — the Raven Guard and White Scars snipe at each other with accusations of Glory Hound and sneaking about.

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