Hired by the Oppressor

A villain persecutes a certain group, but employs them for evil uses. These situations tend to be miserable for the minion in some way. Their boss and colleagues might still act abusive, they're likely completely cut off from their people's culture if not actively fighting it, and in general undergo conflicts that make them question their value or personhood.

These situations tend to have a caveat intended to reflect the oppressor's dislike of the group. Their boss and colleagues might still act abusive, likely completely cut off from their people's culture if not actively fighting it, and in general undergo conflicts that make them question their value or personhood. Expect internal strife to take place in the party, and the oppressors to delight on it. Contempt Crossfire may be present if the mission is a Mêlée à Trois. As for the reward, while the good guys may enjoy what they sow, they'll eventually find that they were given a bit else of reward that they may not like it.

Differs from Hunter of His Own Kind in that, while the oppressor faction may hire members of the oppressed faction, these members don't do the deed out of hatred for their kind, but rather because they're paid to do so. Differs from Leonine Contract in that said contract is An Offer You Can't Refuse, and the bargain between the oppressor and the rebels can be called off if the rebels wish to do so.

If the character is acting voluntarily and without any kind of pay in the middle, they may be a form of Boomerang Bigot, Les Collaborateurs and/or The Quisling. Can overlap with Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, where both parties agree on going with the mission while still keeping their mutual hatred. Compare Big Brother Is Employing You, where the party is not necessarily opposed to the oppressor faction and has been working as their minion on a long-term basis. Contrast with Equal-Opportunity Evil, where the oppressors don't bother hiring the party because they see them as inferiors, like everyone else on their point of view.

Because of its status as a morality trope, real life examples are off-limits.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Frieza from the Dragon Ball Z series sees the Saiyans as inferior as every other race, with a tendency for Sparing the Aces. However, Frieza isn't picky about who gets into the Frieza Force, and didn't mind the Saiyans being part of it, so long as they proved loyal and effective, despite how much he secretly feared their boundless potential and debased them as inferior "monkeys" in private. It's why he kept Nappa and Vegeta under his command for quite a long time.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • The Homunculi detest humans, seeing themselves as superior beings, but frequently employ them by promising things like immortality or allowing the monsters to control most of the highest ranking military leaders in Amestris. Envy even mocks Dr. Marcoh's humanity while blackmailing him into working for them.
  • Major Miles is an Ishvalan, whose people suffered a genocide by the state military that he himself is a part of (he didn't participate, and was protected from The Purge by his commanding officer). The reason it's iffy is that he has to hide his heritage when he's not around trusted comrades, and his commander General Armstrong secretly opposes the central command.
• In Radiant, there's a group of Sorcerers ("Infected" people) called Conversos who fight on the side of the Inquisition (who normally hunts them down) in exchange for a special treatment, with their powers partially restrained. One of them called Adriel thinks that by doing this he can improve the image of Infected people and help them get accepted by "normal" people rather than feared.

Audio Plays

• Big Finish Doctor Who: In "The Fearmonger", the far-right New Britannia party is opposed by the far-left terrorist group United Front, led by the immigrant Alexsandr Karadjic — a direct victim of Sherilyn Harper's bigoted rhetoric. In the climax, however, the Doctor triggers an Engineered Public Confession revealing that the United Front were funded by New Britannia as straw opposition to justify Harper's policies and make her look good in the media, with Karadjic having accepted the funding solely to lash out against New Britannia. Suffice it to say that this confession destroys New Britannia's election prospects and leaves Harper facing down the same angry mob she accidentally unleashed on London's immigrants.

Comic Books

• In Batman: Holy Terror, the world has fallen under a Christian theocratic government that persecutes all non-Protestants, plus "deviants" and anyone who uses magic, but this does not stop them from employing Dr. Saul Erdel, a Jewish scientist who was trying to open portals to other planets, or Zatanna Zatara, who openly identifies as magic user (and who is canonically of both Romani and Catholic descent.)
• Marvel 1602: The Grand Inquistor Enrique persecutes Witchbreed (mutants) across Europe, burning them at the stake as abominations... and also employs two, Sister Wanda and Petros, as his personal enforcers. It turns out he is actually only eliminating Witchbreed who can't pass as human, and has a vested interest in forcing the survivors to hide themselves from mankind... he's one of them himself. Specifically, the 1602 version of Magneto.
• The Punisher MAX: In the "Valley Forge" arc, the generals — already established as Desk Jockeys with zero combat experience or morals (introduced as having thought up a plan to unleash their own terrorists-in-airliners on other countries) — are also shown to be racist by barely hiding their contempt for the black Colonel Howe they're using to capture Frank (and then not hiding it at all when he mentions Frank got away). It's part of the reason Howe lets Frank go free and kill the generals.
• In X-Men: Days of Future Past, an alternate future was created in which the anti-mutant robot Sentinels took over the United States and killed or captured most of the superpowered mutants living there. One mutant, Rachel Summers, was turned into a "hound". The Sentinels use her psionic abilities to hunt down other mutants.

Fan Works

• Socrates from The Conversion Bureau: A Beacon Of Hope does allow Pony immigrants into his nation so they can work for him, the twist is that it was mainly his advisors and the immigrants idea, not his, he's afraid that the immigrants will contaminate his nations culture to make it more like Equestria, which he doesn't want, to the point of building his nation around Deliberate Values Dissonance, but his advisors see it as pragmatism. Both he and Celestia are also bewildered by the fact that he's popular despite his Fantastic Racism toward Ponies; apparently anyone willing to immigrate realizes that he's only doing it to spite Celestia so no one takes it personally.
• In From Hell's Heart by gtamaster316, humanity, after decades of war with the Turians, depends on the Batarians for much of their civilian goods, despite hating their slaver society.

Film — Animated

• The Rescuers Down Under: Evil Poacher McLeach captures and kills wild animals, but uses a pet lizard to assist him in his actions.

Film — Live-Action

• Defied in Schindler's List: Industrialist Oskar Schindler needs workers in his factory, since the able-bodied men he had were conscripted to fight in the war. Schindler is allowed to shunt a few hundred Jews slated for the concentration camps as a replacement workforce. At first, Schindler is as much a card carrying Nazi as any other Nazi official. By the time Schindler's factories have been converted into munitions plants, he had a Heel–Face Turn, and actively shields his workers from being sent further east and into certain doom.
  • Goldberg also works for the Nazis as an enforcer, both for the money and for survival.

• The Colonel's rogue military trying to wipe out Caesar and his Ape brethren are shown as this in War for the Planet of the Apes, enlisting cognizant Apes who choose to serve humans for their own survival as "Donkeys", branding them with a Mark of Shame, and using them as weapon jockeys, labor slaves, and guards against other Apes while constantly abusing and mistreating them.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Colonel William Stryker's murderous hatred of Mutants hasn't stopped him from employing their services by promising them something they want.

Literature

• Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident: Briar Cudgeon despises goblins, but is prepared to sell weapons to the B'wa Kell goblin triad and use them as muscle in his scheme to regain his lost prestige with plans pull You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on them afterwards. Indeed when Briar's treachery is revealed he casually reactivates the plasma cannons to knock out the Goblins.
• In The Broken Earth Trilogy, orogenes (people with Dishing Out Dirt powers) are heavily discriminated against, but the ruling Sanzed government keeps some under their employ in the Fulcrum to achieve various tasks like preventing dangerous earthquakes and removing coral clogging up harbors. The protagonist, a Fulcrum orogene, gradually realizes that, despite being told that they will be accepted if they control their powers and follow all the rules, it's still a rigged, oppressive system even for the "good ones", containing such abuses as killing children training their powers who are too disobedient or uncontrolled, forcibly breeding orogenes to produce more powerful offspring, and even using some as "node maintainers" where they get brain surgery to make them helpless, barely alive and able to only use their power reflexively, which causes them constant agony.
• Sword of Truth:
  • The Imperial Order makes extensive use of magic users despite their dedication to exterminate all magic.
  • The third book is centered around Blood of the Fold, a similar organization where the leader has a sorceress for a sister and is not ashamed of using her power for his purposes.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: Despite being Scary Dogmatic Aliens with a burning hatred of quite literally every species in the universe other than their own, the Daleks are repeatedly shown throughout the Classic Series using members of other species, such as humans and Ogrons, as servants in their various schemes, taking after the Nazis' use of prison labor. Doesn't apply to the Revival Series, which would eventually do away with this to reinforce the Daleks' uncompromising bigotry, but would later take a darker spin on the concept by showing them converting other species into Dalek puppets.
• Hell on Wheels: Having to work with people they hate is a very common theme as Union Pacific and Central Pacific ruthlessly exploit cheap labor in extremely dangerous work conditions as they angle to fleece the US government for every penny possible.
  • The freedmen workers, recently-freed slaves who are paid half the rate of a white worker, live in a segregated part of the camp, and are not allowed to patronize the saloon, the picture show tent, or the brothel. The first episode centers around Cullen Bohannon, former slaveholder who fought for the Confederate Army and has never worked on the railroad, being assigned as their "walking boss", a position very similar to a plantation overseer.
  • The comfort women: While it is accepted that men have needs, the brothel whores are treated with clear and obvious disdain for stooping so low as to meet those needs, particularly for money. It is not a crime to beat a brothel whore or to interact with her so roughly that she needs medical attention afterwards, and when a whore is killed, the leaders of the town aren't particularly interested in investigating. When the town receives word that an attack from the native tribes is imminent, the brothel whores aren't even allowed on the train that evacuates the women and children. But when it's time to move to the next town, the brothel women are expected to come along.
  • The Central Pacific railroad employs immigrants straight from China. The Chinese are treated much like the Union Pacific's Freedmen, but perhaps even worse, as there is a language barrier between them and their white bosses. The Chinese workers are paid less, consistently sent to do jobs that are seen as "too dangerous" to risk sending a white worker, and white men are not punished for assaulting or intentionally killing a Chinese worker.
  • Cullen Bohannon, the series' protagonist, experiences this to a lesser extent. He is a former slave owner and Confederate soldier who works for two rail companies over the course of the series, each owned and largely staffed by Northerners who are not shy about rubbing in the fact that the South lost or that they think less of him for having fought for the Confederacy. Several times he has to fight to prove that, despite being a "Gray back Johnny Reb", he is still the best man for the job.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000: Psykers are widely hated and feared in the Imperium, and routinely rounded up to either be drained by the God-Emperor or undergo Training from Hell and become Sanctioned Psykers, who can control their powers and be used by the Imperium. Thing is, this is the correct procedure: untrained psykers inevitably fall to Chaos and end up joining cults or helping the Dark Gods take over their planet, that is if their head hasn't exploded before then. And if the Emperor wasn't kept "alive" by their sacrifice, the Astronomican (the psychic beacon that allows humanity to travel faster than light with any accuracy) would fall, and humanity would become a disunited and quickly-annihilated species.

Video Games

• Borderlands 2: Hyperion boss and Jerkass extraordinaire Handsome Jack despises the Vault Hunters as much as he despises bandits, and they despise him too. That said, he knows how to use their monetary needs to fulfill his own ends. Three side missions are based on them doing the dirty work for him, and all of them have at least one caveat meant to make the Vault Hunters' live more miserable:
  • The side mission "Hyperion Contract #873" requires you to kill 100 bandits. It has four side missions that require you to kill 25 with each elementary weapon type sans Slagged (Corrosive, Incendiary, Shock and Explosive), forcing you to keep track of the amount of bandits you kill with a weapon, lest you fail one of them. And the reward is the Morningstar, a Sniper Rifle with an annoying voice module chastising you at every action.
  • The side mission "To Grandmother's House We Go" has the Vault Hunters checking out Jack's grandmother, as he hasn't heard of her in quite some time. When you reach the house, you find that five bandits killed her. When you reach Jack's grandmother, she's dead. Turns out the bandits were hired assassins sent to take her down, as she had quite the abusive history with Jack, and then sent the Vault Hunters to kill these bandits as he didn't want to pay them.
  • The third side mission is "Kill Yourself", where the trope is Played for Laughs, and it's quite self-explanatory: you need to go to a certain area and fall to your doom. Doing the deed rewards you with Eridium while Jack laughs at the extent you were going to do solely to get money, not doing so (by pressing the "Hyperion Suicide Prevention Hotline" button) only grants you XP and Jack making fun of you for being a sissy.
• Dawn of War: Winter Assault: Lord Crull hates needing to use stealth units like cultists (as a follower of the Blood God Khorne, anything more subtle than Attack! Attack! Attack! gets his disapproval) but even he recognizes the need for battlefield intelligence and scouts. He also despises sorcerers but knows he needs one for his summoning ritual.
• In Dragon Age II, the Qunari hate mages so much that the Qunari word for "mage", "saarebas", translates to "dangerous thing" and anyone in their territory who shows an ability to use magic has their mouth sewn closed and their head encased in a heavy helmet, but this does not stop the Qunari from using mages in their combat units.
• The Elder Scrolls: The Aldmeri Dominion, an Anti-Human Alliance and frequent Arch-Enemy to the Cyrodiilic Empire, is typically dominated by the Altmer (High Elves). In most cases, they've absorbed Valenwood (homeland of the Bosmer) and treat their merrish cousins as a Servant Race, with the most oppressive versions of the Dominion treating them nearly as Enslaved Elves. Some Bosmer accept this arrangement to gain a small amount of autonomy, and in the most open version of the Dominion in the Second Era, they were more-or-less treated as equals.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, the Garlean Empire is run by "pure" Garleans who see other races and civilizations as "savages" to either be enslaved or eradicated. Despite this prejudice, the Garlean military will let anyone they have conquered work in their ranks and gain citizenship eventually, but the citizenship privileges are Second-Class citizenship and abuse at best, and constant mistreatments and risks of death by those deemed as "pure" Garleans at worst.
• Inverted in Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The Flame Emperor forms an alliance with Thales to destroy the Church of Seiros. Said Flame Emperor is actually Edelgard von Hresvelg, who was experimented on and tortured by Thales and those who slither in the dark. Naturally, due to this and their other atrocities, she makes sure the partnership doesn't last, using them as a means to an end and eventually destroying them outright in the Crimson Flower route.
• Genshin Impact: The Sumeru Akademiya has a long history of racism and oppression towards the desert dwellers of the Great Red Sand, especially the Eremites, because of the latter's traditional devotion to their long-deceased god King Deshret instead of the Dendro Archon; Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, and will actively try to keep them out of the rest of Sumeru via border security enforcement of the Wall of Samiel. That said, the Akademiya is still willing to hire the desert people into their ranks if they proved their worth enough, such as employing the Eremite faction called the Corps of Thirty for peacekeeping purposes and allowing scholars like Setaria in because of their valuable genius potential, but it essentially comes at the cost of desert dwellers giving up their culture and loyalty to King Deshret in the process.
• Half-Life 2 has the Combine as the oppressive party, who took over Earth in an event known as the "Seven Hour War", and still hired humans such as Wallace Breen as their admin and the members of the so-called Civil Protection guard who keep getting in the way of Gordon Freeman. One of the members of Civil Protection is Gordon's Black Mesa security co-worker Barney Calhoun who, unbeknownst to them, is actually a mole of La Résistance and eventually quits playing for the Combine after the destruction of Nova Prospekt. It's implied that this is the highest level a non-transhuman creature can attain within the Combine; afterwards they must undergo transhuman surgery in order to get into higher levels.
• Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: The CEO of Amaterasu Corporation, the company of which the Master Detectives are investigating in the first place due to their severe oppression of Kanai Ward's citizens, requires the help of the titular detectives as part of his plan to "fix" Kanai Ward by removing the corrupt Peacekeepers, something of which he, Makoto, tells Yuma at the beginning of Chapter 3. Later on, in the final chapter, the meaning of this turns out to be much more twisted, as the real truth behind this is that they were actually pawns for his plan to outright usurp Yomi so he can permanently keep Kanai Ward a secret from the world, using his power as a clone of Number One of the World Detective Organization, but they never realize this.

Web Animation

• Helluva Boss: Striker despises the Goetia, and sees them as elitist bastards who oppress imps like him. While he isn't necessarily wrong, his point is undermined by the fact that he's offered his services to Stella, a Goetia, and dutifully followed her every order, with Stella treating him well in return. When this is pointed out to him by Stolas, he has no retort.
• RWBY: A faction of the White Fang, a group of Faunus activists-turned-terrorists, work with Cinder's faction because they agreed to aid the Fang with their goals, and because they were constantly discriminated by the humans of Remnant. This required rank and file members to take orders from the overtly racist Roman Torchwick up to his death at the end of Season 3, who calls them animals to their faces. Afterwards, they take orders directly from Cinder up to the climax of Season 5, after Blake manages to snatch the whole of them from Adam Taurus's leadership, with Adam himself dying at the hands of Blake and Yang roughly three quarters into Season 6.

Web Video

• Pop Cross Studios: In "Multiverse Tales: Battle for the Beast World P1", the Big Bad, Ulitus, is an Overseer — an entity with power comparable to that of a god — who hates humans and wants to kill all the ones in his dimension, but in spite of that, he hires three human characters — Alexis Jones, Sterling Engeal, and Heath "Hurricane" Reynolds — to help capture his enemies, rival Overseer Astra and Mikayla "Kayla" Masiel, a human girl bonded with a Biomech. This is because Alexis, Sterling and Heath are not from Ulitus' dimension, and don't know about the atrocities he's carried out on his world's humans, whereas he is manipulating them into working for him by showing them the bad things Astra has done through her irresponsible nature. That said, by the next episode, once Kayla reveals to them the true extent of Ulitus' evil, the heroes, who were already feeling uneasy serving him, promptly betray him.

Western Animation

• Exo Squad: Once the Neosapiens take over Earth, they began employing cooperative humans as figureheads to keep the rest of their human masses in line, with Phaeton revealing he planned on killing off ALL humanity once the humans' usefulness had ended.
• The Owl House: As much as Emperor Belos hates witches, he has used them to form his armies, manipulating them through "the Titan's will" or promising them privileges in return for their loyalty. He has no qualms about abandoning all of them to die through the draining spell, forcing King to make a deal with the Collector to save everyone.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Although the Horde fight the Etherian princesses, it has two — Scorpia and Entrapta — among them. Hordak himself shows no prejudice against the princesses at their service (differently from his right arm Shadow Weaver, who treats them with open contempt), going as far as accepting Entrapta's help in his portal experiments.

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