You can tell an enemy force is downright evil when its members don't even support each other. Sure they have a common goal, but it's every mook for himself. One mook will get injured and go down, the other will mock him and/or kill him. But why stop there? Use his body as a shield! Steal his stuff! Desecrate his body!
This trope is that an evil mook will not help a fallen comrade. It doesn't count if the one is trying to help the other but cannot.
May result in If You Die, I Call Your Stuff if the other mooks also loot the body or take his stuff before he dies; Dying Alone if they simply leave him. Compare Enemy Civil War and We ARE Struggling Together. Contrast with A Friend in Need, I Cannot Self-Terminate and I Will Only Slow You Down. Closely related to No Honor Among Thieves.
Examples:
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Films — Live-Action
- This tips Sherlock Holmes off to the fact that plastic surgery is being employed among Moriarty's men in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, when one "twin brother" pushes his "brother" down after the latter had gotten shot in order to get a clear shot at the heroes.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Davy Jones has no problem killing a guy who just happened to pick up his sword in a fight, or killing Mercer during a distraction. Sort of justified in that the guy in question was an East India Trading Company mook, and they and Davy Jones' crew are only allied together due to an ultimatum.
Literature
- Orcs in general. From the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien to Warhammer 40,000 science fiction, the weapons may change but your orc army is only kept together by force and fear. Given half a chance, they will turn on each other and the idea of actually helping one another is laughable.
- The Taxxons in Animorphs have such a hunger that even the brain stealing slugs can't stop them from stopping to eat fallen comrades in battle. A bifurcated Taxxon will even eat ITSELF.
- The Death Eaters in Harry Potter are either tied with personal bonds or ruthlessly antagonistic towards each other without any qualms to undermine the other's position in the pecking order. E.g. most Death Eaters were delighted when Voldemort humiliated the Malfoys and Lestrange. Also more specifically, Yaxley doesn't try to hide his envy of Snape's position and indirectly attempts to replace him, like asking him to report without really being in a hierarchical position to do so.
Live-Action TV
- In Blue Bloods, a group of robbers try to hijack a subway and find that one of the passengers was carrying a gun along. The cops find the body of the unfortunate perp a ways away where his mates had left him to bleed to death.
Music Videos
- CG5: The music video for "Let Me Through" at one point shows a giant Nightmare Foxy killing the original Foxy (possibly in a dream, but it's hard to tell), showing that the Foxys' bloodlust is so strong that they'll even hurt each other. There's also the issue of Funtime Foxy dismembering the other Funtime animatronics to get them out of his way.
Video Games
- The fifth boss of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is a pair of zombie dragons. If one is killed the other will chew away at the corpse to recover health.
- Late into Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario and Luigi fight Intern Shroobs as common enemies. Each Intern Shroob is paired with an elderly Shroobsworth, the former riding piggyback. If the Shroobsworth is defeated, the Intern Shroob will kick it aside without an ounce of pity.
- Chrono Trigger:
- Inside the Black Omen are two-headed snake monsters called Ruminators which attack in groups. Their attack can absorb HP, which they make a priority of keeping at maximum, and they are not above attacking and outright killing other Ruminators to top off their HP. This can have the humorous result of several Ruminators taking turns injuring or killing each other for you.
- This is actually very common in Chrono Trigger, including snakes that eat their frog allies when damaged. Knowing how your enemies treat each other is the key in surviving certain fights.
- Doom II: A notable subversion occurs with the Arch-Vile enemy whose main task is to resurrect fallen comrades. Although he can attack the player with a fairly devastating psychic explosion attack, he will normally spend most of his time searching for corpses to bring back to life. Though Arch-Viles will never revive slain Arch-Viles, Cyberdemons or Spider Masterminds.
- In Warcraft III, various units that use corpses care nothing whether it belonged to the enemy or not. Ghouls and Abominations eat them, Necromancers turn them into skeletons. The Death Knight and Lich have abilities that sacrifice a mook in exchange for life/mana.
- StarCraft II: Defilers can use Consume, and (in the campaign) Spectres can use Consumption, to gain energy at the cost of other units' HP. In the Spectre mission in the campaign, Tosh mentions how it does not hurt...much.
- Mass Effect 3 has Cannibals, Reaper-modified batarians who will eat the corpses of their fallen allies to regain health or give themselves scab-like armor plates.
- In Batman: Arkham City, every once in awhile when you take down a mook in a Predator section, another will say "Well, look who it is! That'll teach you to steal from me".
- In Borderlands 2, bandits will sometimes call out that they wanted to kill the bandit you just shot, or say "Remember when you killed him? That was funny!"
- An establishing moment for the Sith Empire in Knights of the Old Republic occurs on the Endar Spire, the tutorial level for the game. One of the Sith Troopers invading the ship is engaged in melee against two Republic soldiers, so another Sith Trooper lobs a grenade into their midst, killing all three of them. Presumably this was to show even mooks think nothing of slaughtering their own comrades if the resulting losses hurt the enemy even more.
- A boss example exists in Touhou Kaikidan ~ Mystic Square. In the Dual Boss battle with Yuki and Mai, if Mai is KO'd first, Yuki will go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. If Yuki drops first? Mai mocks her.
- Happens sometimes in Fallout: New Vegas. Should you kill a member of a group with a really good weapon, another mook might grab the weapon and shoot you with it. Considering the attitude of the Powder Gangers and other small gangs, this trope is likely the default attitude.
- Of course, Caesar's Legion get in on this. If you opt to assist the NCR in taking back Nelson from the Legion, you can later find Legionnaires who sneer at their fellows who die fighting to defend the town, smugly citing their inexperience. Also, Legionnaires regularly partake in ritual decimation, where they viciously beat other Legionnaires to death for perceived failures, and they're rather indifferent to Legionnaires who are crucified up at The Fort.
Western Animation
- Deconstructed on Samurai Jack: The Daughters of Aku have been raised to be emotionless killing machines and as such don't really care about one another — when they come across the body of their slain sister, they simply note that "death is failure" and move on. But this turns out to be their undoing since this Lack of Empathy also means that they make no attempt to support each other in battle, giving Jack an advantage that allows him to prevail.
