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He was offered a medal, praised highly, and invited to the orgy. He let his pilots indulge because it would be inhuman to deny them pleasure just before they're sent to die. But he's not happy. "In all my travelling throughout the universe I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here. The oldest civilisation: decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core!"
"I have to know who I am...I am DONE WITH THIS."
"If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you should find another flag."
A character who joins either the protagonists or antagonists not so much because he agrees with all their ideas as he can no longer tolerate the opinions or actions of his old group. This is usually because their methods are too extreme, ineffectual or illogical.
Another major example is when the qualities he admired in his allies are lost by them. Proud Warrior Race Guys sometimes defect if they feel their race talks a good talk but have become hypocritical, cowardly jerks. So My Species Doth Protest Too Much, and even if they don't, character Doth Protest Too Much. (Expect him to invoke the Good Old Ways as defense for his own behavior. Sometimes attacked by other from his society on the grounds that Good Is Old Fashioned.)
Sometimes this character is the Rebellious Princess, if this trope is the reason the princess ran away. May also be the Black Sheep. Compare Rebellious Rebel. Beware that one is not Rewarded As A Traitor Deserves, though.
Examples
Anime
- Ralph in Soukou No Strain goes to the Deague before the series because, it turns out, the Union created Strains by stealing technology from a race of eternal lolis and then vivisecting them to study their Psychic Powers and use them to make Mimics. Later on, Ralph backstabs the Deague too, and Medlock, in desperation, runs to the Union because she's appalled by him.
- This is how Emma Sheen joined the AEUG in Zeta Gundam.
- In Chrono Crusade, Aion became jaded with the Demon's hierarchy and betrayed them, dedicating himself to destroy the world so he could reorder their society. He took with him a small group of demons that shared his ideals, including Chrono, who at first obeyed his orders (albeit a little unwillingly)...until Mary Magdalene came into the picture. When Aion ordered Chrono to kill her, Chrono rebelled against him, bringing the whole thing around full circle. This is even more ironic when you consider that Chrono is actually Aion's twin brother (although he doesn't know it) and it's implied Aion partially formed his plans as a way to make things safe for Chrono. Oops!
- Dominic in Eureka Seven
Comic Books
- The Daxamites of the DC Universe, in addition to gaining powers similar to Superman under a yellow sun but with a fatal weakness to lead instead of Kryptonite, also happen to be viciously xenophobic. Future Green Lantern Sodom Yat was unique in that he wanted to go out into space. One day an alien named Tessog crash landed on Daxam and the two quickly became friends. When Sodom's parents found out, they killed Tessog and brainwashed their own son into thinking Tessog was evil. Sodom only remembered what really happened after seeing his friend's stuffed and preserved corpse in a museum. He was so pissed off that he repaired Tessog's ship and vowed to leave Daxam forever. Then the Green Lantern ring found him. Sodom would only return to Daxam after learning from his mother (who had fled using Tessog's ship) that the Sinestro Corp invaded it. And even then he demanded that she give thanks to Tessog for providing her a means of escape. Because Sodom Yat is a Green Lantern and a hero through and through he still ended up making an apparent Heroic Sacrifice to save the planet.
- Oh and what do the Daxamites do after this? They just become ever more xenophobic
- This, and maybe a touch of Help Face Turn and Defeat Means Friendship, is why Baron Soontir Fel left the Empire and joined Rogue Squadron. The page image is of him standing aloof in a celebration for a victory that he does not believe merited the name.
Film
- In the Star Wars prequels, Count Dooku initially leaves the Jedi because he felt the organization had decayed, and were not taking seriously his warnings that the Sith were still around. Ironically, he ended up joining the Sith afterward. Which proves that they exist.
- As well, the novel Death Star reveals that the Imperial gunner (Tenn Graneet) who kept saying "standing by" was actually a Rebel sympathizer; the laser was charged the whole time, and he was just trying to distract Tarkin long enough for the Rebels to blow the station up, knowing full well doing so would result in his own death.
- Mostly because he destroyed two planets already, and had a massive breakdown after personally pushing the button that killed billions.
- In Condorman, although Natalia is primarily a Defector From Commie Land, it's implied that her actual reasons for doing so are based more on this trope, as her boss Krokov is a Jerk Ass.
- Dr. Noah and Shua in Sky Blue both left Ecoban - Noah in protest at its environmental impact, and Shua because he was framed for a murder. Jay becomes one over the course of the film, and Cade does at the very very end.
- Jetfire in the second live-action Transformers film.
- Also Wheelie, due to a combination being more scared of Mikaela than he was of Megatron, and being physically aroused by her. Who isn't?
Literature
- In the Battletech novel Exodus Road, Proud Warrior Race Guy Trent defects from the his Clan when he feels it's been tainted by political intrigue. This helps set off a chain of events that leads to the utter destruction of the Smoke Jaguar Clan.
- Dark General Cobalt in Sailor Nothing, although he needed magical aid to get there.
- Prince Elric of Melniboné, titular Anti Hero and one of the incarnation of the Eternal Champion in Michael Moorcock's fantasy universe. In his case, his whole race was infamous for being callous, sadistic and decadent slaveholders (although we get to meet a few Melnibonéans who are not malicious and underhanded, most notably Elric's fiancé and the pragmatic dragonriders). Elric, himself a powerful sorcerer, had grown so weary with his people's banal wickedness, that he left Imrryr The Dreaming City, but later returned with a fleet of humans warships to destroy it, razing the last remnant of a once proud and ancient civilization.
- Dorian Hawkmoon, the Duke of Köln, another incarnation of the Eternal Champion, finds an unlikely ally in his fight for freedom in the Granbretanic aristocrat d'Averc. d'Averc is fond of affecting the appearance of a decadent effete courtier and hypochondriac to the point of cliché. However, there is every indication that it's just for show, and that d'Averc is quite tough, strong and shrewd. Not to mention being a superb swordsman and duelist, and a Deadpan Snarker (and a secret romantic). Although cheerfully untroubled by moral considerations, d'Averc is not as utterly amoral (nor borderline insane) as most of his fellow Granbretans. In fact, he seems disgusted at the decadence and violence of the tyrannic Granbretan Dark Empire, and defects to help Hawkmoon and Count Brass.
- In the world of Middle Earth, the realms of Arnor and Gondor were both founded by Elendil and the Numenoreans who fled with him after their kingdom was corrupted by the influence of Sauron.
- Strawberry in Watership Down joins the protagonists, abandoning his own warren, when the death of his mate makes him realize that his outwardly pleasant but mysterious warren is NOT worth the price that is paid for it. In an unusually three-dimensional version of the trope, Strawberry retains some of his old habits throughout the story, even when they get him into trouble.
- Captain Alberich of Karse presents an arguable subversion. Although he was deeply troubled by the corruption of his homeland's runing theocracy, the practice of letting bandits run free in the borderlands to provide cover for raids against the demon-riders to the north, and the not-so-occasional burning of those with 'witch-powers; he did not defect to Valdemar so much as get shanghaied by one of the "White Demons" the place was known for.
- OTOH he was only snatched after he was beaten and locked in a shed, which was then set on fire, by his own forces on the order of a prelate after his own less-than-controlled "witch-powers" warned him in time to rescue a Karsite hamlet from a nasty bandit raid.
- In Edgar Rice Burroughs's Chessmen of Mars, the ancient I-Gos is perpetually praising his days. So thorough is his admiration that he changes his loyalties on realizing who is The Hero.
Then I did not fully realize the cowardice of my jeddak, or the bravery of you and the girl. I am an old man from another age and I love courage. At first I resented the girl's attack upon me, but later I came to see the bravery of it and it won my admiration, as have all her acts. She feared not O-tar, she feared not me, she feared not all the warriors of Manator. And you! Blood of a million sires! how you fight! I am sorry that I exposed you at The Fields of Jetan. I am sorry that I dragged the girl Tara back to O-Tar. I would make amends. I would be your friend. Here is my sword at your feet.
- In Diane Duane's Star Trek novels about the Romulans/Rihansu, a Romulan commander named Ael doesn't quite defect, but she does make an alliance with James T. Kirk (and by extension the Federation) to prevent some truly evil actions on the part of the formerly-honorable, now-corrupt government of the Romulan Empire. She never does fully defeect, but she becomes a close confidant and ally of Kirk, and it's implied that there's something more nascent between them, more than just friendship or Kirk's signature skirt-chasing.
- Fidelis from the Codex Alera series initially turns traitor against Gaius Sextus when he believes that the First Lord is too weak and it's better that the strong Lord Aquitaine be in position to seize the throne rather than allow The Empire to fall apart in civil war and foreign invasion. When he learns that Tavi is the rightful heir and a hell of a lot better person than either Lord or Lady Aquitaine, he dumps them.
Live Action TV
- Gaheris Rhade in Andromeda's "The Unconquerable Man" begins the episode by betraying the All Systems Commonwealth to help his people attempt a conquest, but then spends the next several years trying to restore the Commonwealth once he sees that his people are too self-centered and obsessed with in-fighting to really make a go of a galactic empire.
- Rhade is a double example; the reason he originally betrayed the Commonwealth to the Nietzscheans is because he believed the Commonwealth's treaty with the Magog showed that the Commonwealth was too weak and decadent to defend its people.
- Worf in Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine might be an aversion — while he makes himself an exemplar of how he views Klingon honor, he never turns on the Klingon race for not living up to his romantic views. (He's not above some kingmaking, though, for the good of the Empire.)
- Then again, the Next Generation episode "Face of the Enemy" features a character who plays this trope straight-up twice (the second time, he realized the grass wasn't so green on the other side after all and defected back).
- In the Next Generation episode "The Defector", a Romulan admiral defects to the Federation because he has become disgusted with his fellow Romulans' warlike ways.
- This episode was actually a subversion as it turns out the special information he was offering Starfleet was false. The Romulan Empire wanted to trick Starfleet into taking an aggressive stance against them, and they wanted to test the Admiral's loyalty, all part of an elaborate Xanatos Gambit. The Enterprise narrowly escapes, but the Admiral, despondent to learn his "defection" was all in vain, kills himself.
- Garak is an inversion. He loves Cardassia (His home planet) despite (And possibly because of) their sometimes disturbing social and political philosophies, even despite having been banished for life, and helps the Federation solely because he doesn't believe The Dominion has the best interests of Cardassia at heart. And they certainly don't as in the finale they attempt to exterminate every Cardassia on planet. At the end Garak laments that even when they rebuild, it won't be his Cardassia, which he spent seven years of dreaming to return to. That his Cardassia was deliberately portrayed as Space Nazis is a large part of his character.
- Odo, despite not knowing his people until the third season manages to pull this off well. His attitudes about law and order are shared by his people, but they built an empire based off this and keep trying to get him to defect in earlier stories.
- The Mirror Universe Spock in Star Trek The Original Series is persuaded to turn against The Empire when Kirk argues that it is illogical to serve an institution that (by Mirror-Spock's own statement) is doomed to fall.
- Considering that aliens (including Vulcans) are slaves to the Terran Empire, Bearded Spock would not be an ally.
- Eh, he's a half-human hybrid. He might have citizenship.
- Teal'c, resident Proud Warrior Race Guy on Stargate SG-1, went to far as to kill his own squad of elite troops while performing his Heel Face Turn in the first episode of the series.
- Teal'c has gone as far as killing himself from alternate worlds without batting an eye.
- The Doctor might have left his home planet, Gallifrey, for this reason. ("The Deadly Assassin", which Retconed Gallifrey into a decadent Crapsack World rather the sterile Crystal Spires And Togas society shown earlier, heavily implies that even if he hadn't, he should have. Portrayals of the Time Lords have differed quite a lot Depending On The Writer.) "The Invasion of Time" showed that a band of defectors lived in a BBC Quarry just outside the Time Lord's Citadel. We also know from "The War Games", that the Doctor expressed dissatisfaction with the Time Lords' (frequently bent or broken) Prime Directive of never interfering in the affairs of other species.
- Delenn broke the Grey Council in Babylon 5 after it became apparent they they would not join the upcoming Shadow War.
Tabletop Games
- The Craftworld Eldar and Exodites of Warhammer 40000 are an example of this on a massive scale: millions of Eldar, disgusted by the unrestrained decadence, hedonism and perversion of the majority of their race, left their society, some to live aboard gigantic spacecraft called Craftworlds, some to live on unsettled wilderness planets. They now live painfully repressed lives, focusing their lives on one Path at a time while in constant denial of their baser urges. However, they turned out to have the right idea when the remaining Eldar's hedonism Squicked a Chaos god into existence, complete with star-eating Negative Space Wedgie and species-wide Mind Rape that pushed the Eldar to the brink of extinction.
- There's buckets of this in the World Of Darkness, both old and new - largely due to the tendency for supernatural creatures/people to squabble amongst themselves like crazy. Prime examples include:
- The Sons Of Ether/Technocracy split in Mage: The Ascension. Sons Of Ether are basically people who think that science should stay mad.
- Both the Sabbat and the Anarchs in Vampire: The Masquerade started this way.
- The Forsaken/Pure split in Werewolf: The Forsaken and all the other tribes' views of the Get Of Fenris in Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
- In Gurps Traveller Intersteller Wars the populations of conquered Vilani worlds did this en masse. They felt little connection to the Vilani Imperium and some(like the Khimishargu Vilani) were even rebels. The Terran Confederation by contrast treated them well. Thus they borrowed Terran ideas, intermarried with Terrans and even fought for the Terran Confederation against the Imperium.
Video Games
- In Metal Gear Solid 3 Eva claims this trope as her reason for abandoning the United States and going over to the Soviets; when she became a code breaker for the NSA, she realized she'd been carefully manipulated by propaganda her entire life. This is a complete and utter lie, as we find out much later.
- In the backstory of Devil May Cry, Sparda, one of the highest-placed leaders of the demons and himself the most powerful devil, turned against his own kind and saved humanity from extinction. Many years later he would father the games' protagonist Dante and the Evil Twin Vergil.
- Exemplified by Folka Albark of the Super Robot Wars series. Because he starts disagreeing with his race's way of life, he defects to the protagonist side and try to find out a new meaning of life for his race, which culminates into kicking the asses of his entire brethren.
- Ralgha "Hobbes" nar Hhallas in Wing Commander. Hobbes was the Kilrathi pilot who joined the Terran Confederation (Human) side. Later it is revealed that he actually was a Manchurian Agent for the Kilrathi Empire.
- Orlok the Eternal from Universe at War: Earth Assault is headed for this during the campaign mode, But he's killed off in an anticlimactic and meaningless fashion that invalidates everything he did before he can really follow through.
- However, his actions give the player a reason to want revenge with a burning passion.
- In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, the cleric Natasha has to run away from Grado because she's got info about the rapid downfall of the Empire and joins Eirika's group for both protection and to do something about it. AND she even gets Joshua in the group. Sweet deal.
- In Ephraim's route we have the shaman Knoll joining Ephraim and his troupe for rather similar reasons, only he was slated for execution and the heroes found him before he was killed and after defeating the zombie!Emperor Vigarde.
- Heath, from Fire Emblem, defects to your side after disobeying orders to slaughter innocent civilians.
- Let's just say that Fire Emblem loves this trope and leave it at that. This troper can't think of a game in the series that doesn't feature it.
- In Radiant Dawn, the player alternately plays with Micaiah's and Ike's army. Several members of Micaiah's army can join Ike's, depleting Micaiah's army of some of her much-needed decent units.
- Prince Enrique of Valua, from Skies Of Arcadia, is a literal Defector From Decadence. As his title states, he's next in line for the throne of the kingdom of Valua. He spends the early game an apparently minor NPC, telling his mother that crushing the poor, the weak, and the foreign under her heel just because she's in charge of an empire is just asking for trouble. The empress blows him off as young and idealistic, and remains cartoonishly convinced that unmitigated conquest is the only way to run an empire, even as it proves to be her downfall.
- NiGHTS from his/her/its eponymous games was created to serve Wizeman, but went renegade due to not liking orders or bullies.
- The Elites from Halo.
- In Fallout 3 there is a group that broke away from the Brotherhood of Steel because they believe that the leader has gone native, they call themselves the Brotherhood Outcasts. This came from the fact that the Brotherhood of Steel inside Fallout 3 is actually a part of the entire Brotherhood of Steel - their original mission was concerning advanced technology and preserving it, though the leader of the group became more heroic in his intentions and went out helping others, against the rather haughty technological-obsessions of the rest of the group. The Brotherhood Outcasts stayed loyal to their original mission.
- A player pulled this massively in Eve Online. Having gotten tired of Band of Brother's Stop Having Fun Guys mentality, one of BoB's directors defected to Goonswarm, stealing over 20 billion in assets from BoB and dissolving the BoB alliance.
- Sorcha does this in the last level of the Pyro campaign in Sacrifice. It doesn't do her any good.
- Celes in Final Fantasy VI. She defected from The Empire because she knew that Kefka was going to poison Doma and joins The Returners.
- The Night Elves of Warcraft are an odd example, in that the decadent ones (high/blood elves) are the defectors when they lost the civil war. Several blood elf npc's themselves then demonstrate this trope as defecting from their decadent and power-mad society, most notably one researcher permanently exiled from the blood elves who now lives with the tauren in Thousand Needles.
- Eitrigg left the Always Chaotic Evil Horde after it getting convinced that they were not living up to the Proud Warrior Race Guy traditions. Having his sons die via an Uriah Gambit was the last straw. He returns after Thrall convinces him that the New Horde is better.
- The Argent Dawn separated from the Scarlet Crusade after their Knight Templar tendencies worsened.
- The Scryers defected from Kael'Thas' army after it became apparent that the prince had gone Drunk With Power.
- Lyude from Baten Kaitos. First exiled to an embassy for speaking out against a planned massacre of a village controlled by The Empire, he defects to the hero party when the empire attacks the island he was sent to under false pretenses of protecting the empire from the other kingdom's non-existent imminent assault.
- Lawful Neutral wizard Sand from Neverwinter Nights 2 explains that he left the Hosttower at Luskan for Neverwinter when they asked him to do things "even he wasn't willing to do".
- Rune Factory Frontier has Kross, a former soldier of the Sechs/Zzyxx Empire (the antagonists in the original Rune Factory) who discarded his original name of Weber and deserted, settling in Trampoli Village as a farmer and carpenter.
- In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, Roxas, finally fed up with the Organization, basically goes "SCREW THIS PLACE!" and leaves. It's not easy, because You Can Never Leave, but he still manages it, beating up anything and anyone in his way as he does so.
- Until He goes back to The World That Never Was to try and kill Xemnas and free Kingdom Hearts. Before that gets anywhere, Riku beats the crap out of Roxas and drags him into the Twilight Town simulation to keep the nobody from getting himself killed.
Western Animation
- Dinobot from Transformers: Beast Wars thought Megatron stranded him on an abandoned planet and defected in the first episode. Skyfire from the Original Series was revived after being frozen in the Arctic and joined the Decepticons, not because he knew who they were, but because his best friend was one... Then he realized his best friend had become evil since he was frozen. Oops.
- More to the point his best friend was Starscream, which raises questions in and of itself. Then again, this was several million years ago.
- Marsala in Exosquad, A Neosapien who fought for the Exofleet against the second Neosapien rebellion, which he must have really disagreed with, because he was one of the leaders of the first one.
- He even goes on a Motive Rant when they though he switch sides about his veiws about how humans treat Neosapiens, turns out all of it was true but still belives the two can get allong, plus the second rebellion is commiting genocide.
- Inverted by Shego, Dragon to the Mad Scientist main villain from Kim Possible, who actually used to be a super hero before she got sick of all the relentless smiling and cheezy good deeds. By all accounts, she is much happier as a Dark Action Girl.
- In WITCH tv series Raythor do Heel Face Turn after he realized that his lord, Phobos has no honor.
Real Life
- President John Tyler switched from the Democratic party to the Whig party because he didn't like Andrew Jackson's dictatorial methods.
- Missing records and contradictory stories make it hard to tell how much this applied to history, but legendary samurai Yagyu Jubei is often portrayed as a Proud Warrior who spent years Walking The Earth after being banished due to his disdain for court politics and blunt ways.
- Democratic senator Stephen Douglas
 was, for a time, considered as a possible candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1860 when he defied his party and fellow Democrat President James Buchanan over their attempts to pass a slave code that would have made Kansas a slave state regardless of whether the people wished it to be a slave or free state. For all intents and purposes Douglas' near defection split the Democratic party's northern and southern wings as Douglas would become one of two Democratic candidates for President in 1860, (the other being John Breckenridge) with Douglas getting nearly all of his support from the Northern Democrats. For their part, the Republicans wound up picking some obscure former Congressman named Abraham Lincoln instead, who, due to the split among Democrats, was able to win with just 40% of the popular vote. (Although, since it was a four way race, 40% was quite a bit more than Lincoln's nearest rival). After Lincoln's election, Douglas urged the South to accept Lincoln and attempted to work to avoid The American Civil War. When the South did secede, he condemned the action and rallied support for the North, but died not long after the war's onset.
- Lincoln was not exactly obscure - he was the Republican challenger for Douglas's Senate seat in 1858, and although he didn't win, his famous debates with Douglas made him well-known among Republicans, although not considered a contender for the Republican nomination until he was nominated.
- Siddhartha Gautama, founder of Buddhism. Quite famous for this.
- Though interestingly he defected from strict ascetism as well, and went on to find his own, famous path.
- Mark Twain was originally a supporter of American Imperialism. However, when he realized that the nation's actions did not follow its rhetoric, he switched sides.
- The industrialist Fritz Thyssen was originally an ardent supporter of Hitler and the Nazi Party, up until he was thoroughly disgusted by Krystallnacht. He literally defected from Gertmany, causing Hitler to personally declare him an Un Person, and holed up in France... until France was overrun in World War Two. He was thrown into a concentration camp, but still managed to survive the war.
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