Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism - Television Tropes & Idioms

Fist Of The North Star is unapologetically idealistic and morally righteous in spite of being set in a post-apocalyptic world. The heart and soul of the series seems to be "It is easy to do good in times of prosperity, but it takes a true hero to be a good person when the entire world is screaming for you to be otherwise."
In the Battle Royale manga, Shuya Nanahara is a very idealistic Rock n' Roll fan, even though the series itself is far at the cynical end of the spectrum. This causes Mood Whiplash between issues, or even between scenes, making you wonder if Shuya has the magical ability to make the plot more forgiving.
Berserk is what happens when the cynical end of the scale forces the idealistic end down and breaks its arm. And then chops it into little pieces with a BFS. And then, for good measure, blasts whatever's left with an Arm Cannon.
- Underneath all the gritty medieval violence and Deconstructed Tropes, however, the series is actually rather optimistic. Camaraderie is a central theme in the series, as Guts learns to appreciate friendship after being a loner for several years (twice!). And while its been repeatedly stated that Guts cannot really effect any major change in the flow of Causality, he has been a positive influence on many people he's encountered, such as Farnese and the little girl Jill, and has changed the misanthropic viewpoint of Cute Witch Schierke to a more hopeful one. In fact, most of the cynicism is in the early chapters, and the endings of both the Lost Children and Albion arcs ended on positive notes, with the supporting characters from both going on to live better lives.
  - And a good thing too, or else the story would be even more depressing than Grave Of The Fireflies (see below).
  - Berserk may be a subversion in a weird fatalistic way. If causality is absolute and nothing the characters do can make a lasting impact on the Crapsack World around them, that definitely tends toward the cynical. But on the other hand, a certain amount of idealism is consistently portrayed as being much better for one's own personal mental sanity if nothing else. The moral seems to be that if you ultimately have no control over your life anyway, you might as well spend as much time as you can being with your loved ones before either you or they or both inevitably get raped, killed, and eaten by demons (not necessarily in that order). But a lot will depend on the ending.
Kei Kurono and most of the other characters of Gantz are selfish and cynical, while Kato is more idealistic and tries to save everyone. Gantz generally retains its cynical edge throughout the course of the manga, though a few idealistic moments have cropped up briefly throughout the series, such as Kurono's development into more of a leader-figure, becoming less selfish and more heroic, as well as when most of the Gantz crew who had survived and attained 100 parts at the time used their 100 points to resurrect one of Kurono's dead friends from the Gantz database.
- Like Berserk above, Gantz almost sidesteps the entire issue by being utterly fatalistic. Neither the cynical or the idealistic characters seem to have any particular advantage in the practical business of survival, but the idealistic ones at least tend to be happier until they inevitably get killed in the most gruesome way possible.
Sailor Moon is an excellent example of an idealistic series; the more cynical and ruthless Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune's plans to sacrifice themselves (and a few other, unwilling, folk) for the greater good failed, while The Messiah Sailor Moon's determination to stop the Big Bad without anyone dying saved them all.
Contrast to Neon Genesis Evangelion, an example of a very cynical series; many of the characters love or hate others (or themselves) for shallow and petty but realistic reasons. And in later episodes, many of the characters' backstories are revealed to be nightmarish and hellish. And don't even get started on End...
- Of course, the message of the show can be considered ultimately idealistic; that, if these characters could reach the togetherness and love that they yearn for, everything would be all right. Whether the events of the show bear that out is hotly debated.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, on the other hand, is as far towards Idealism as Eva is towards Cynicism. Kamina steadfastly believes in freedom, heroism, the power of friendship, and in never, ever giving up even beyond the very end. Although the otherwise continuous stream of pure Idealism is balanced every now and then by an occasional peak of Cynicism (usually by Shooting The Dog, as well as a huge Nice Job Breaking It Hero), alongside a very down-to-earth conclusion to the overall narrative.
- Still, the series is such the opposite of Evangelion (from the idealism to the choices made by the protagonist) that it has been dubbed as the Anti-Eva.
- It helps that the show takes place in a universe where Idealism is an actual physical power source, although one that if left unchecked, will cause the The Endof The World As We Know It.
  - For that matter, Eva universe has Cynicism as a power source too, with the AT field, revealed to be a manifestation of ones desire for isolation, and the goal of the Anciant Conspiracy is to Collapse the AT field of every human alive, taking with it any sense of individuality so no one ever has to feel the pain of loneliness ever again
Grave Of The Fireflies is commonly referenced when discussing things even more cynical than Eva; indeed, it is so disturbing, many who have seen it insist that they would never be able to watch it again. Ironically, it was made by Studio Ghibli, well-known for their idealistic productions.
In Humongous Mecha series, Real Robot series tend to fall more towards cynical, while Super Robot series fall more toward idealistic.
One of the running themes throughout Trigun is the clash between Vash the Stampede's idealism and the cynical viewpoint of Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Vash doesn't want to kill anyone, but when forced to choose between the lives of his friends and that of a major villain, he does ultimately shoot to kill. This gets him deeply depressed. Nicholas, though a priest, admits that killing is necessary. In the end, Nicholas finally agrees with Vash, which is what gets him killed.
- Even better example is the clash between Knives who believes humans are scums and need to die in order for plants to survive and Vash who belives humans and plants can co-exist. In the end, Vash turns out to be right as humans decide to help plants even though those plants were previously fused with Knives for Knives's scheme to kill all humans. Soon after the final battle, Knives, like Nicholas, dies but acknowledges that Vash is correct to put faith in humans.
  - The ideal vs. cynic is echoed between Millie and Meryl, and between Vash's indomitable idealism and the Crapsack World at large.
The Gundam franchise is all over the scale with Zeta Gundam, Gundam 0080 and Victory Gundam as the most cynical, G Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam X and Turn A Gundam as the most idealistic and rest like the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Gundam Seed and Gundam 00 somewhere in the middle.
The sliding scale plays an important role in Fate/stay night. The protagonist, Emiya Shirou, is a dedicated idealist; he talks about his desire to be a hero who can save everyone. A contrast is drawn with Shirou's father, who compromised his ideals in the previous Grail War to win the larger battle quickly - and, more important, with Archer, who is Shirou's future self, grown bitter and disillusioned. Archer has come back to kill Shirou and spare him the realization that his ideals can't be lived up to. The progression is shown more in depth in the Visual Novel, based on how much of his ideals Shirou abandons; the Fate route is idealistic, Unlimited Blade Works more in the middle, and Heaven's Feel, cynical.
Explored by Martian Successor Nadesico via the Show Within A Show Gekiganger 3, which as an old-school Super Robot series is pretty much set all the way towards idealism, while Nadesico itself is a great deal more cynical. Certain characters in the show try to emulate the worldview of Gekiganger, and it never goes well.
The emperor's first major edict on Rurouni Kenshin was to move from realism (the "realistic" OVA) to idealism (the more lighthearted series) This is why so many of the more violent characters are upset: all the idealism keeps the body count low.
- It's worth mentioning that the OVA is a prequel, although it came out several years after the series finished. This Troper was going to alter this entry, but he sees whut u did thar.
  - It's worth a further mention that both the series and the OVA are based on the same manga, which manages to juggle both extremes (yes, even in the flashback the OVA is based on, making it less angsty and more humane than the anime version), though as a shounen fight manga it leans toward optimism.
- Kenshin himself plays with this trope right in the first episode, when stating that Kaoru's idealistic views on the art of the sword are childish and naive, and that weapons are for killing and nothing more. He ends his commentary by stating that he actually prefered Kaoru's way of thinking and would love nothing more than if it were reality.
Planetes often contrasts Tanabe's idealism with Hachimaki's cynicism (taking a downward spiral into outright pessimism after a while). Idealism wins in the end. Even with the terrorists.
- The OVAs came after the TV series (in Japan at least).
A major point on Monster is the contrast between the idealistic Doctor Temma, and his cynically realist antagonists, from implacable Detective Lunge and embittered Eva, to murderous and downright evil Johan. The anime spends a lot of time and episodes mulling over the nature and inherent goodness, if any, of mankind, and what makes the world work the way it does; the sliding scale moving back and forth as the story goes on. The idealism wins at the end, but by a very narrow margin.
- Actually Johan appears to have an idealism of his own, one that's alien and dangerous to Dr Tenma as the representative Everyman. Unfortunately, there's nothing but Straw men on both sides and dated caricatures between, so the anime doesn't so much 'mull' as belabor with melodrama any line that it thinks is evilly suave or saccharine sweet.
In Princess Tutu, Ahiru/Duck stops most of her "enemies" by dancing with them and making them understand the feeling that is disturbing their life. And she eventually manages to befriend the unprepared villain Kraehe/Rue. Mind you, it does take a kickass swordfight in an atmosphere of apocalyptic gloom to triumph over the Big Bad. Then again, it's not so nice an ending for Ahiru herself, who has to return to being a duck and thus lose her humanity and her true love for good. Apparently the Power Of Love has limits after all.
- Though she seems perfectly happy with how things work out. Being a duck isn't all that bad — it's what she really is, and she gets to be with Fakir anyway. Plus her friends get to live happily ever after — really, what more could she possibly ask for?
  - And she can still dance!
In Zipang, the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force vessel Mirai is sent back in time 60 years. They try to stop World War II in the Pacific without having to kill anyone. But besides 60 years back, they have also slid well towards the cynical end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism, so that plan does not go well.
While EVA and Gurren Lagann are the poster children for cynicism and idealism in Humongous Robot shows respectively, Code Geass uses the conflict between the two as one of the many clashes between its male leads. The protagonist, Lelouch, feels that The Empire is horribly corrupt and beyond redemption, meaning that in order to achieve peace he has to destroy it and start over from square one. His friend/rival Suzaku believes that destruction is never the answer and holds out hope that idealism and obstinacy can reform Britannia. Late in the series, the point becomes moot as Lelouch kills the Emperor and seizes power, with Suzaku as his knight/bodyguard.
- The conflict then slides from the one between Lelouch and Suzaku to the one between Lelouch and his older brother Schniezel, with Lelouch representing the idealistic side of the scale, namely that people are constantly striving towards the future with the hope of peace, and Schniezel representing the cynical end of the scale, that people are inherently prone to conflict and true peace can only be achieved through the threat of overwhelming force in the present. In the end, idealism wins out, but with the realization that sacrifice is needed to bring about true peace.
- So basically, Lulu and Spinzaku meet in the middle at "People are bastards but we can manipulate them into wanting to be good."
- I think what they agree on is closer to "Humans are good, but society makes them into bastards". Cue bringing down the old social order so a better one can be built.
Bokurano and Narutaru are series so cynical that you could use their sliding scale as a trebuchet by putting what you wanted to throw in the 'idealism' end of the scale and tying a rope to it - and even then the cynicism side is so weighted down with dead children you'd have to add all the 'happy happy' content of several idealistic shows to pull down the throwing arm before cutting the rope. Bokurano is the slightly more hopeful of the two; even though it's a very screwed-up story with a Dysfunction Junction cast, most of its main characters are good, well-intentioned people, and many of them have their wishes granted in some small part, like Maki getting to see the light that represents her newborn baby brother before she dies. Narutaru, on the other hand, with its Humans Are Bastards mentality and Diabolus Ex Machina levels of angst and tragedy, could use the sliding scale to fling small planets with its sheer pessimism. Nothing ever goes right in that manga.
Windaria (the unbutchered version) starts out appearing to be a relatively happy and idealistic fairytale full of magic and adventure, with characters that on the surface appear to live a simple life full of love and a sense of community. The further Windaria gets, the darker and more cynical it becomes until there is no denying that Humans Are Bastards who will without hesitation screw one another over for their own personal agendas and only come to realize the horror of their deeds when it is too late to back out of it.
The Magical Girl genre is idealistic. Super Robot Wars, as mentioned under Video Games, is idealistic. Put them together and you get Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, where villains who can be redeemed will be redeemed after they get beaten around a bit, anyone who acts human will be treated as a person regardless of how they were born, all orphaned and artificial children will eventually find a loving family they can go home to, and all Smug Snakes will receive a well-deserved (and painful) end.
Chrono Crusade is a really interesting example of this: the original manga is fairly idealistic (although quite dark at times), while the anime starts off following the manga closely, then plunges into a Gecko Ending that is notoriously dark. The messages of the two series seems to work out something like this: In the manga, "Never give up hope, we're not fated to fail. We can keep fighting." In the anime, it's "As long as Humans Are Bastards, evil can't be killed for good."
- The scale also plays a part in the story itself, particularly in the manga—Rosette's practically a mouthpiece for the idealistic side of the scale, while Aion is an unabashed cynic. When Chrono was on Aion's side, he fell in with Aion's cynical beliefs, despite his own misgivings...but after going against Aion and meeting Rosette, he starts to go in line with her way of thinking. At the very end of the manga, Chrono's been so affected by Rosette that his last conversation with Aion almost sounds like the two sides of the scale in a debate.
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is firmly idealistic, which is only natural for a manga that takes place...After The End. So Yeah....
ARIA practically floats by on a massive ocean of idealism.
Texhnolyze, on the other hand, practically sinks to the very bottom of a big ocean of cynicism.
For a shounen series, Death Note is extremely cynical. People are either corrupt in some way or incompetent and the few likeable characters either end up dead or broken. Despite his perverse sense of justice (though some might disagree), Light is a Villain Protagonist who not only is willing to kill criminals that may or may not deserve to die, but anyone else who gets in his way regardless of their guilt and innocence, and is even willing to kill members of his own family to further his own ends, even if initially at least he'd prefer it not come to that. L, the guy who is assigned to the Kira case, isn't much better either.
- Near, who ends up defeating Light with Mello's help, is somewhere around the middle; better than Light, yet a bit worse than L. Mello, his rival, by contrast, is even more evil than Light in This Troper's eyes.
- The anime also plays with the imagery of idealism and cynicism. Light, the villain, is perhaps the greatest idealist of all, and he's shown in a far more traditionally heroic light than L, Near, or Mello. The intermezzo episode after L's death is almost a traditional Shonen epilogue for Light; he gets the girl, achieves his life's dream of joining the police force, and is well on his way to creating his new world, while the last episode is even named New World. It's a lie, by the way. Meanwhile, L, Near and Mello are all obvious Anti Heroes who unashamedly and unapologetically do what they have to do to catch Light, use Light's methods against him, and are motivated more by stopping Light himself than by trying to help anyone.
Kyo Kara Maoh is thoroughly idealistic. The idealistic Yuuri is always right; the bad guys can always be redeemed, and everything turns out for the best. The more cynical Wolfram is always proven wrong.
Black Lagoon fiercely stays at the end of the cynical side of the Heroic Bloodshed genre to such an extent that it actually comes back around the other side and behaves somewhat idealistically. This is perfectly demonstrated at the end of the series, when the protagonist admits that there is neither justice nor morality in the world, but that he still intends to help people entirely for the lulz. He then proceeds to talk the Big Bad out of killing him and his friends (something which the protagonists of even the most idealistic series generally have trouble doing).
- Though if it's the arc that this troper is thinking of, that just means that Yukio dies by her own hand instead of at the hands of Balalaika and her men, since she just had to kidnap Rock and force Revy into a duel with Ginji.
Saint Seiya is interesting in that its characters are all over the scale. Among the main five, with Dragon Shiryuu representing the pinnacle of idealism and Phoenix Ikki the pinnacle of cynicism, and the rest falling in between (Adromeda Shun, for instance, hates violence and is quite idealistic, but suffers often doubts himself and wonders if this idealism makes him weaker). The series itself does end up landing on the side of idealism; for instance, Cancer Deathmask's belief that "history is written by the victors" is challenged by Roshi ("Evil will always be evil") and proven to be false when Dragon Shiryuu defeats Deathmask.
Diamond Daydreams is very idealistic without becoming too unrealistic. The girls in the stories still have to face their fears and have to deal with hardship, but it only helps them to become stronger.
One Piece often occupies both ends of the scale at the same time.
- Not really though. With maybe one exception, the story arcs overwhelmingly end on a positive note, and Luffy's idealism is always an inspiration to those around him, and most of the good people he encounters (and some bad ones) change for the better after meeting him. What makes him better than the average pirate and marine is that he cares for people more than justice or treasure. (pretty damn idealistic, IMO.)
- Not to mention the more cynical characters are either bad guys, or start to sing a different tune after a while.
- On the other hand, many Marines don't know anything about the bastards in the upper ranks. Also Crocodile turned friends into enemies. Generally, there aren't many badasses who are idealistic.
One of the recurring themes in the Mahou Sensei Negima manga is the contrast between Negi's idealism and Eva's cynicism. They eventually start rubbing off on each other.
The main premise of Black Cat involves two scheming organizations, one evil, one morally grey, a living weapon resulted from an unspeakably unethical human experiment and a couple of guys who try to do good but is constantly strained by the evils of the world. The morally grey organization had took over a good portion of the world's governments, sometimes with the use of force, violence and deceit. The evil organization tries to take over the whole world by killing a lot of people and making its insane leader immortal. The living weapon is a little girl without feelings, raised by a Corrupt Corporate Executive; her first scene in the manga was her killing a bodyguard. One of the good guys had a shady and troubled past. So you think this series is lodged way into the side of Cynicsm? Wrong, actually it's the complete opposite. Many of the morally grey organization's members are actually nice and benevolent characters. Some of the evil organization's members are actually very humanized. The little girl who is a living weapon is one of the cutest and most loveable protagonists in the story. And the good guys are downright goofy. The audiences were made to believe that Anyone Can Die, it turns out that many of them survive, sometimes making a Heel Face Turn. Even the insane Big Bad ends up being taken care by The Dragon in a peaceful rural cottage so he could return to a normal life so he can do good. Black Cat is kind of a Double Subversion of an idealistic fighting Shonen series, as though the whole premise looks Cynical, it is actually a very Idealistic manga.
Blame! is a difficult series to categorise, as despite it's largely bleak and cynical appearance, is actually relativity idealistic. The protagonist's ultimate goal is to save humanity, even if he has to be very violent about it. He succeeds in his mission, but whether humanity was ultimately "saved" or not is purposely left ambiguous. We could just say that Blame! deliberately plays see-saw with the scale, and leave it at that.
Despite being set in a heavily militarized world full of deception and some of the fandom's wishes to the contrary, Naruto is quite clearly on the idealistic side, as emphasized by the "Will of Fire" held by the protagonists and most associated with him. The spirit that is able to turn about any creature in the world from cynical towards idealistic, by just talking to them! Though, of the few who have so far proven to be immune to it, Sasuke is probably the most cynical offender. But... We can certainly assume he will have to surrender one day.
Ayashi No Ceres slides a lot on this scale, which also makes it a candidate for Mood Whiplash. OH, THE BLOOD! SO MUCH BLOOOOD!... Aww, look. Aya and Tooya are being cuddly... OH MY GOD, WHAT'S WITH ALL THE BLOOD AND GUTS? WHAT IS IT WITH THIS—ooh, Tooya gave Aya a hickey! Isn't that just swee—DID TOOYA JUST PLUCK WEI'S EYE OUT? THAT'S DISGUS—Aya and Tooya are alone together again... that's just sugary!

Close Anime and Manga

Watchmen was written as a deliberate Deconstruction of more idealistic comic book superheroes, the idealism of superheroes, and the superhero genre in general. It shows what would really inspire people to go out in ridiculous, often-times skimpy uniforms and beat the crud out of other people, and one of the characters quite intentionally crosses the line separating idealistic superheroism from deluded vigilante action.
- Alan Moore later felt that, partly as a result of the popularity of Watchmen, later superhero comics completely missed the point and focused too much on the wrong things, going too far to the other side of the scale and forgotting to retain some level of idealism and fun in the process. In an effort to remedy this, he created Tom Strong, a more idealistic superhero series, in order to even the scales a bit.
The Punisher is a cynical character in a shared universe; his "rightness" fluctuates wildly depending on where the series he appears in falls on the scale. In his MAX series, a more adult comic, there is little question to the effectiveness of his actions, and his antagonists are usually consistently Complete Monsters (The Slavers), but in the mainstream comics, he is often shown in a less favourable light.
- Throughout the events of Archie Meets The Punisher, Frank monologues on Riverdale's inability to deal with the scum he handles on a daily basis, while at the same time wishing he could have grown up with the quiet, friendly lifestyle that they enjoy.
JLA Classified #3. Superman tells the International Ultramarine Corps (a pastiche of cynical superhero teams) that "These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and Time Travel," and gives them the chance to go to a baby universe troubled by "cynical" problems.
- Heck, Grant Morrison in general seems to lean towards the idealistic side of the scale, at least as far as this troper has seen. Final Crisis especially slams hard against the idealism side by the very end what with the representation of the dark, cynical kick comics had been on being defeated by (essentially) the manifestation of the upbeat, optimistic and fantastical comics of the Silver Age.
Often, who's writing for a character in a comic book determines where on the scale that character falls. In some books, Batman is one step up from the Joker. In others, he's almost as much of a boy scout as Superman. Since the writing duties of a comic series can change from issue to issue, this can be slightly disorienting, as the reader doesn't know from one Story Arc to the next if the book's star is going to be a jerk or a hero. In this scenario, it's also a form of Writer On Board. This also applies to any long-running TV series with frequent writer changes and a dramatic bent.
- This is best represented by one topic on the Wizards Of The Coast forum where someone posted detailed arguments for Batman's alignment. As it turns out, a good argument can be made for all 9 possibilities. And don't forget this◊.
- The Superman/Batman series manages to successfully show both titular characters on theiir comparative scales and makes a point of showing neither as more correct than the others. At one point, Batman states that Superman's selfless idealism is the reason why he should be considered a hero. If Superman ever let himself sink to Batman's cynacism, it wouldn't be pretty. However, it has also been stressed that, of the two of them, Batman is the more alien of the pair, mostly because of his cynicism.
The scale is examined very effectively in the Superman comic "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice And The American Way?" Of course, being about the original Cape himself, the conclusions it raises fall squarely on the idealistic side of the scale, but it's a well-written story nonetheless.
For a good long while, a major selling point of the Marvel Universe in general was that their characters were more realistic (read: cynical) than in The DCU; of course, they were often just as implausible in nature, but Marvel's characters often possessed more character flaws and personal issues than the idealistically "perfect" heroes in DC. These days, given forty odd years of Character Development and competition since Marvel first hit it big, this distinction isn't quite as significant as once it was; unfortunately, both companies have a tendency to instead plunge into whichever side of the scale that will make their characters more angsty.
- Still, in general the DC universe hits so far on the idealistic side of at least one issue that the sliding scale might as well be on a rubber band; Killing Is Always Wrong. Any character willing to kill, no matter how noble their intentions, no matter how justified they seemed, not even if they didn't know or control what they were doing, is going to get smacked down for it eventually... or, at the very least, have it brought up constantly and/or be vilified by it for everyone else. More often, any non-villain willing to kill is simply portrayed as an out-and-out homicidal maniac willing to burn someone alive for jaywalking.
  - The currently-canon version of Superman has killed precisely once, during the Dark Age, in order to Shoot The Dog on three Kryptonians from an Alternate Universe. Since then, writers have either ignored this, or have him regard it as a mistake that made his self-imposed prohibition against killing even stronger in response.
  - Wonder Woman has also been forced to kill, just once. Former ally Max Lord gains mind control powers and uses them to make Superman try to kill everyone; when Wondy asks him what will make him stop, Max tells her to kill him, and she does. The event is broadcast worldwide to the public by Max's spy cameras and severely hurts Wondy's reputation. As if that wasn't enough, Batman goes off the deep end and builds a satellite called Brother Eye and a series of OMAC robots to try to stop any future superheroes from following this route. Naturally, Brother Eye malfunctions, goes evil, and becomes the latest Maxiseries Big Bad. DC heroes really can't catch a break on the killing thing.
  - There are a few authors who will completely ignore this principle when writing in the DCU; Frank Miller is probably the best-known example.
  - There is one current superheroine with which this completely does not apply: Manhunter. In her first appearance, she killed copperhead and has never regretted it. In fact, even people who know her secret identity aren't bothered by it - probably because of the fact that Capperhead was a mass murderer and had just slaughtered a bunch of cops. She's even teamed up with Oracle, been the lawyer of Wonder Woman, and has consulted Batman and Superman for help before.
- Similarly, the Marvel Universe seems to take All Of The Other Reindeer as a guiding principle for their sustained "realism", and has since The Seventies. DC is leaning toward this of late as well. I understand there is prejudice in the world, but one may wonder how much distrust of the abnormal can lead people to abandon all ethics, principles, and even senses of self-preservation.
- This "realistic" approach was even reflected in the settings of their stories; whereas DC's comics were (and mostly still are) set in fantastic (and fictional) locales such as Metropolis and Gotham City, Marvel set it's comics in the very-real streets of New York City.
- If anything, since the 80s DC has become more cynical than Marvel. And Marvel's New York is no more real than Gotham or Metropolis just because it shares its name with a real world city.
- Dan Slott's Pre-Civil War work in Marvel falls awesomely on the idealistic side. He even has Nighthawk say that he keeps being a superhero because it's fun.
Judge Dredd falls squarely into the cynical side of the scale. Several storylines examine the scale, with the cynicism of Dredd and the Judges constrasted with the idealism of pro-democracy activists seeking an end to the authority of the Judges and the return to democratic government and the separation of powers to the world of Mega-City-One. After a democratic referendum, democracy ultimately fails, validating Dredd and the Judges' viewpoint. Even the most committed activists either resign themselves to defeat and give up in complete disillusionment, or become fanatical and ruthless terrorists, just as bad, if not worse than the Judges they despise.
Scott McCloud's Zot! is a study in contrast between Zot's Earth of "far-flung future of 1965," an idealistic world with Crystal Spires And Togas, where everything's pretty much perfect except for some supervillainy that Zot always stops, and Jenny's Earth, our Earth, which falls into the normal realm of cynicism. In the first story arc, where Zot visits Jenny and he decides to go to a bad part of town and stop a purse-snatcher, not only does he get badly beaten, but there is a crowd of onlookers who do absolutely nothing. Even though this doesn't discourage Zot at first, after he fails to rescue some from a fire (it having been previously explained that Zot "never loses" because he believes he can never lose), he starts thinking that Jenny's Earth really isn't that good and leaves. Zot does eventually return, however, and his essential optimism and faith in human decency never seriously weakens, and even on Jenny's Earth is paid off, from time to time; similarly, Jenny's cynicism about the world, whilst justifiable and not invalid, can be misguided.
In the Idealism extreme, we have Piffany from Nodwick, who believes that everything is goodness and light, despite the evidence displayed by her fellow party members. Nodwick himself is justifiably much more cynical.
At the other extreme is Harvey Two-Face in Batman, who, in some incarnations, has completely given up on the justice system and lets a coin flip decide who lives or dies. This despite the fact that before his Fall From Grace, he himself exemplified idealism, at least in some versions (notably that of the movie The Dark Knight, though this portrayal was not unheard-of in the comics either).
As a whole, Kurt Busiek's Astro City tends towards the Idealistic side of the scale, with heroes who tend to be noble and selfless models that the citizens admire. But just before you peg the series as hopelessly idealistic, some cynicism sinks in, such as the unspecified "shame" of the Silver Agent, the betrayal of El Hombre, and the entire Dark Ages story arc. Ultimately, though, idealism wins, and even former super-criminals can redeem themselves if they try.

Close Comic Books

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within has this as the central conflict between the protagonists (idealistic "scientists of the spirit" who want to cure alien infestation) and the main villain (a general who wants to use a laser cannon to destroy the invading aliens).
The 2007 film version of Beowulf paints the title character as a Bad Ass Anti Hero, which ironically puts the movie at the opposite end of the scale from the original Old English poem (which portrays him as an honorable hero who does not, for instance, take advantage of the noblewomen he encounters). Being a self-aggrandizing braggart was part of the ideal heroic package in those days. The film plays this up and depicts this as it would be received today.
The latest Rambo movie has its foot firmly planted in the cynical side. The pacifistic missonaries attempting to peacefully change civil-war torn Burma are naive and misguided, whilst the gritty, war-hardened mercenaries are the only ones who can defeat the evil forces leading that regime.
Short Circuit had this kind of conflict between the idealistic Newton Crosby (Ph.D., who wanted to capture the wayward Number 5 intact and unharmed to study why it was acting the way it was) and the cynical Captain Skroeder (who had a bit of a technophobic streak and was understandably wanting to take the robot out before it could do any harm with its fully armed and combat-ready laser weapon; Word Of God has even admitted that despite being the villain for the movie, he is still doing the right and logical thing by trying to destroy Number 5). Also, the crew purposely used this trope in combination with What Measure Is A Non Human, wanting to get away from the "idealistic" approach of having the characters treat their start as always being "alive" and instead explore the question of how people would react to artificial intelligence in real life (their answer being that no one would believe it for a second).
Mexican films can be divided in two. Back in The Fifties, during the Golden Age, Mexican movies were the most idealistic films you could ever imagine, with lovable characters who were the absolute incarnation of Christian poverty and all the implied heavenly bliss and richness of spirit, often becoming The Woobie of the rich guys who were the incarnation of the Seven Deadly Sins. On the other hand, pretty much every single Mexican film made in The Nineties and later lies far, far away towards the Cynical side of the scale, with plots often involving massive trainloads of suffering and misery, often portraying Mexico as a grim, gritty place, sometimes (e.g. Amores perros or Perfume de violetas) even more Cynical than Evangelion!
The 2007 Disney film Enchanted falls squarely in the idealistic side of the column, being just a bit Anvilicious in its commentary on the world's need for optimism, especially in matters of romance. Then again, this doesn't necessarily make it bad.
- Another interpretation is that it's a story about Gizelle, an extreme idealist, and Robert, an extreme cynic, meeting each other and both having their extreme views tempered by exposure to each other, reaching a more moderate compromise in the end.
WALL-E. Just because it's After The End doesn't mean it's not the very definition of idealism. The Power Of Love and humanity remembering what made it great are all that's needed to reverse an ecological armageddon. We're oversimplifying here, obviously — the movie is fantastic — but seriously, it pegs the needle so hard onto the Idealism side that it's a surprise the meter doesn't break.
Surprisingly, The Dark Knight, for all its darkness, slides towards the Idealistic side of the spectrum at least once. In a key scene, two ferries full of passengers choose near-certain death over murdering each other. Where the remainder of the movie falls is largely a matter of opinion.
- Thought it can be debated that the trilogy is the poster child for swinging from one side to the other, AKA Earn Your Happy Ending.
28 Days Later represents this scale through hardened survivor Selena, whose experiences have made her bitter and cynical and convinced that the only way to survive is to kill before you get killed and abandon anyone who might hold you back, and Frank, the optimistic cab-driver who is convinced that an outpost of survivors exists to the North who will protect and defend them, roping the others into helping him find them. Jim, the main character, is somewhere in the middle. Selena survives the movie, whilst Frank is eventually infected and killed by the very soldiers he came to find (who turn out to have been luring people there so that they could rape the women anyway). However, things are not quite as cynical and bleak as this makes out; Selena's cynicism is worn down by the fact that she is falling in love with Jim, who ultimately convinces her that there is hope after all and that abandoning others is not the way to go, and the final scenes reveal that she is working harder than any of them to contact the survivors they have come to believe are outside of Britain.
- Then came the sequel, in which there is utterly no hope.
The major reason why La vita è bella was so critically acclaimed was thanks to its ability to keep a fluffy idealist tone in the middle of a freaking concentration camp.
Dead Poets Society liked to play with this trope. A LOT. It tends to be more on the idealistic side on the whole, but the entire subplot about the conflict between Neil and his father is definatley one of the most cynical moments in Peter Weir film, like...ever.
- Don't forget that DPS has a gigantic Bitter Sweet Ending, as well.
- Oh come on, people! DPS exists to subvert and deconstruct the slidng scale, there's an actual debate about Romatiscm vs realism for gods sake!
Lord of War was on the deep end of the cynical side. It features an arms dealer selling guns to African warlords and avoiding the law as he works himself to the heart of the gunrunning trade. The only idealistic characters are the Interpol Agent Valentine and Yuri's brother Vitaly. In the end of the movie Vitaly is killed and the massacre he was trying to prevent is carried out anyway. Valentine manages to arrest Yuri but becomes disillusioned after Yuri uses his government contacts to get himself free and keep doing his work. Yuri himself says how grey morality is his favourite brand of morality and delivers this beautifully heartbreaking line towards the end: They say evil prevails if good men do nothing. What they should really say is: Evil prevails.
All of Stephen Chow's films are heavily on the idealistic side (Shaolin Soccer.) Even the ones that appear grittier and more cynical are idealistic in disguise, as all of the protagonists pass through a redemption before beating the Big Bad (God of Cooking, Kung Fu Hustle.)

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Sailor Nothing is Sailor Moon taken wayyyy over to the Cynical end of the scale.
George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is fantasy taken to the extreme cynical end.
It is interesting to compare the works of Terry Pratchett and Tom Holt, two British comic-fantasy authors who are often compared with each other. On the surface both are similarly full of wry, rather cynical deconstructions of Fantasy, but a closer look reveals the differences. Pratchett's novels are quite heavily idealistic under the make up, full of Karmic Deaths for the villains and Happy Endings for the heroes. Holt on the other hand seems to delight in running his heroes through the wringer, especially when it comes to love.
- It is interesting to note that quite often in Pratchett's books, there will be a cynic and an idealist paired together. Who is actually right about the situation also varies: in the first two books, cynic Rincewind is almost always right and idealist Twoflower is almost always wrong. In the City Watch books, Carrot is an idealist while Vimes is a cynic, but Carrot's charisma tends to make the world around him (a deeply cynical one) essentially become more idealistic, because people don't want to disappoint him. It also bears noting that Carrot has been getting considerably less idealistic while still not being cynical, whereas Vimes has been growing slightly more hopeful in human nature (although he still thinks everyone's a selfish greedy bastard). In both books he's featured in, Moist von Lipwig is a cynic who is amazed and disturbed at how idealistic those around him can get. Death and Vetinari are both functionally cynics (they do what they do because they have to do it) with highly idealistic beliefs (specifically justice and fairness - two concepts which both also believe do not actually exists except to the degree that they are invented and believed in by people). In general, the Discworld appears to be an idealistic world populated by cynics.
The Age Of Misrule plays around at both ends of the scale. On the one hand, the re-emergence of magic renders tech useless, leading to widespread famine when food deliveries stop to the cities, and the government are conniving bastards, and the Higher Beings have their fair share of Kick The Dog moments - but on the other hand, the heroes, who fall squarely on the idealist end of the scale, manage to overcome the baddies at every turn(and the heroes who don't count as "idealist" get their faith restored by the end of the arc). It's probably magic, or something.
Author CJ Cherryh presents an interesting extreme. Her work is a study in the extremes of the Scale; every character either a heartless "burn the village to save it" cynic or a omni-endangering foolish idealist. Or both!
Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov seems to be a study of the Sliding Scale, as it is at heart a book about faith versus faithlessness in the face of the rampant cruelties of the modern age. Moreover, in personal outlook, the cast varies on the scale: Alyosha is the youngest brother and the idealistic messiah, Ivan is the middle brother and the Spock, falling on the cynical side, and Dmitri the oldest brother is caught inside the spectrum at an unstable equilibrium.
Andrzej Sapkowski's novels (The Witcher Saga and the Hussite Trilogy) are both set in a quasi-fantasy setting and are both taken far to the Cynical side. It's mostly compensated by (dark) humour, although there are some genuinely bright moments in there as well.
Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series is set in a "fantasy RPG" world on the far cynical end of the scale. The protagonists - all college-student gamers - share this tendency.
Mortal Engines leans very heavily towards the cynical end, which is something in a setting involving undead cyborgs and mobile cities. The very, very few optimistic characters (Tom, Wren, possibly Oenone Zero) are shown again and again to be completely out of their depth, while the pessimists, nihilists, slave-dealers, compulsive liars, juvenile delinquents, mechanical horrors and violently depraved psychopaths are in their element.
Military sci-fi is not the place to be an idealist, as a diplomat found out in John Scalzi's Old Man's War. The one attempt at diplomacy ended with the diplomat reduced to a fine paste about 30 seconds into his "negotiations". The series stays near the cynical end most of the time, but by the end of the last book, The Lost Colony, things finally seem to be looking up.
Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet seems to be dedicated to the proposition that the total war mindset makes you stupid. His hero, who is Always Right, runs rings around more ruthless military commanders with no concern for collateral damage, proper prisoner treatment and casualties on their own side.
The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant vary in tone from "Grumpy Bear in a land of sunshine and fluffy bunnies (threatened by Ultimate Evil)" to "Crapsack World". In the first trilogy, the "real world" is heavily on the cynical side while the Land is idealistic. However, Thomas Covenant, the Designated Hero from the "real world", has a habit of making everything he touches slide towards the cynical end of the scale... In these books both the Grumpy Bear and the Wide Eyed Idealist will have to learn to adjust their attitude.
- Most of Stephen R. Donaldson's books peg the scale firmly at the "cynical" end of the scale, mostly because Donaldson loves seeing his characters suffer.
Victor Hugo originally wrote The Hunchback Of Notre Dame as a very cynical story. Most adaptations are considerably less so.
Machiavelli's The Prince is über-cynical and stops at nothing to gain or retain power. Then again, from Machiavelli's point of view, the end justifies the means: a strong ruler means order and peace for the common people.
- Yes, but taken in the context of the politics of Rennaissance Europe, it can be seen as an attempt to impose rationality and order on a chaotic borderline Ax Crazy situation.
  - More precisely, taken in the context of Reconnaissance Italy, it actually qualifies as idealistic: it believes you can succeed in imposing rationality and order in the context of a bunch of small city-states which are only kept from being in a state of civil war by the minor technicality of not, in point of fact, being a single country.
War And Peace is right smack-dab in the middle. Idealistic characters end up cynical, cynical characters end up idealistic, then some now-cynical characters decide they want to be idealistic again and so on ad infinitum. Depressing situations and settings always have a silver lining, happy occasions always have darkening moments of worry. To say the novel is overly idealistic or cynical is to ignore roughly half of it, which would be a lot.
The two extremes are pretty much perfectly contrasted in William Blake's poem cycle Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience, Innocence falling on the idealistic end and Experience on the cynical one.
Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is quite far to the cynical side, even though Karma Houdinis are usually avoided. One might argue, though, that the characters' endless self-pity makes things seem worse than they really are.
HP Lovecraft's stories defined a whole new genre: Cosmic Horror, the nethermost reach of Sucks-To-Be-You literature. It's a lot like real life, except all human accomplishment is meaningless and deluded, with Eldritch Abominations as the only beings that really matter in the universe at large, and there's many a Fate Worse Than Death for humans who stumble on these truths.
Lady Suzette Whitehall of The General series is at the cynic end of the scale motivated by wealth and power and the need to protect her beloved husband. She will do 'Anything, anything at all.' for him - including murder, torture, bribery and even adultery. Raj Whitehall on the other hand is intensely idealistic, selflessly dedicated to the cause of Man and civilization on Bellevue - and hates the brutal means he must employ to further it. The other characters are closer to Suzette's end of the scale then Raj's but his influence definitely nudges them closer to idealism.
The Nasuverse is in the middle of the scale, pointing towards the idealistic side. While the world is filled to the brim with dangerous things and a bunch Cosmic Horror elements, The Power Of Love is an important part and the good guys, in the end, come out on top.
- It should be noted that the Unlimited Blade Works route of Fate Stay/Night is quite literally this trope made flesh. Shirou is painfully idealistic, and Archer is a hero so cynical that the mere sight of Shirou pisses him off. They decide to settle their differences with swords. Lots of swords.
  - This also makes Unlimited Blade Works definitive proof of the setting's slant towards idealism as Archer is Shirou's future self who has already seen the result of all his youthful idealism turn to ash and hopes to kill Shirou to prevent any of it from happening. And, despite Archer being older, more experienced and just MORE GODDAMN POWERFUL than Shirou, Shirou not only defeats him but persuades him that his idealism is right after all! One of the greatest triumphs of idealism in the history of fiction.
Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith, despite following a highly cynical protagonist who is treated horribly by everyone he meets and openly states that he thinks the world would be better off if half of mankind was killed in a plague, ends on an idealistic note. This is starkly contrasted with Lewis's previous novel Babbitt, which follows an optimistic lead character, but is ultimately cynical in tone.
Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels are an example of literature that falls in the middle of the scale. The good guys do win in the end, and evil is punished, but 'in the end' can operate on a scale of centuries. "King Javan's Year" appears to be as cynical as anything in "A Song of Ice and Fire" what with the protagonist and all his friends being killed messily at the end of the novel, but it sets up the good guys to win in the next book. This makes it cynical by the standards of high fantasy series, which tend, as a genre, to be idealistic. In this troper's opinion, this is fairly close to how the real world works.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road: A dark, dreary novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity has degenerated into cannibalistic monsters. Those who haven't are starving to death or freezing to death under a gray sky, the sun having been long since blotted out by ash. It's idealistic.
1984. Quite cynical.
Many people consider the works of Chuck Palahniuk to be overly cynical and nihilistic, but Palahniuk strongly disagrees with that statement and considers himself a Romantic.
Open any book or short story collection by Ambrose Bierce. The cynicism will burn off your eyebrows.

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The 2004 Battlestar Galactica series is much more cynical than the original, with the robotic Cylons as implacable enemies despite the presence of forces within the fleet who think they can be negotiated with. But the show also functions as a raging battlefield of cynicism vs. idealism, as a rapidly declining population, hunted continuously by intelligent killing machines and running short on supplies, must determine if they should rely upon a visionary leader (whose prophecies may be nothing more than fevered rantings as a side effect of cancer medication) to lead them to a mythical promised land. Political debate and passioned entreaties on faith abound.
The characters in Heroes run the whole gamut of the scale, from Hiro and Peter who are almost implacably on the side of idealism - sometimes to the point of behaving like idiots. On the other hand, Linderman (and most of his organization, from Nathan to Bennet) is on the side of cynicism. Much of the first season was about these characters gradually moving closer to the middle of the scale.
- This troper thought Linderman wasn't so much a cynic as a megalomaniac. Noah Bennet is a much better example of a traditional "cynical" character.
- Claude is the most cynical character on the show ("People suck, friend! Never forget that!!"), but once you find out how he got that way, it makes sense for him. And he's a very nice foil for Peter's insane amounts of idealism.
- And then there's Nathan who frequently uses cynical means for idealistic purposes.
Stargate SG 1 contrasts Daniel Jackson, who cares about making friends and allies, to the NID, who care about getting technology to defend Earth at any cost, and Jack O'Neill, who is somewhere in the middle, mostly on the side of pragmatism. An example of the show running on different points of the scale is "Scorched Earth", where Daniel finds a way to save both civilizations vying for control of the planet's ecosystem despite Jack's plan to blow one of them up with a naqadah bomb, and "Entity", where Daniel and Sam's idealism leads to the latter being possessed by a vengeful (our probes accidentally caused damage to them) computer entity, and only released when Jack threatens to send more probes.
- On Stargate Atlantis, however, McKay is shown to be the Cynical Scientist while Sheppard is the Idealistic soldier, giving a nice subversion to the trope standard. Although both are usually shown to be right in equal terms, there's a tip of favoritism considering the other two members of the Atlantis Team 1, Teyla and Ronon. Teyla is shown to be idealistic and in more than one occasion has jeopardized everyone for very little gain because of her faith in her Wraith gene, while Ronon is shown to be a cynical hardened soldier who often gets the job done. While Sheppard and Teyla gets along well for their shared view, Ronon is usually at odd terms with McKay, but mostly because of both wildly different areas of expertize.
- Teyla and many other members of the Atlantis team believed that Wraiths converted into humans would be eventually grateful for their new status: unfortunately, this resulted in the death of thousands when the test subject (AKA Michael) proved more than a little pissed off at the unfortunate results of his condition- memory loss, nightmares, and unending mistrust from both humans and wraith. Actually, despite the screams of What The Hell Hero, this is a pretty good example of the cynical end of the scale: if they'd tried for idealism and had Michael reduced to the hybrid equivalent of a Stepford Smiler, the results would have been ridiculous beyond the realms of human sensibility.
  - An extremely well done example of the side of Cynicism is Dr. Peter Kavanagh. In the Atlantis Expedition, he was functionally a human Lampshade on the various bad plans throughout the series. Of course, he is always wrong, but only because of sheer luck or Deus Ex Machina working in favor of the expedition. It is Lampshaded (by himself at that) that if these events hadn't happened, his approach would be the best strategic and sensible one.
Firefly is a prime example of a show whose protagonists are willing to get their hands bloody if they think it's necessary. Perhaps the ultimate example of this is when Mal Reynolds and his crew renege on doing a job for a crime boss. After a tussle with The Dragon and some Mooks, Mal tries to return the boss' money, but The Dragon refuses to take it and threatens to instead kill Mal and his entire crew. Rather than go through a We Will Meet Again thing, Mal promptly kicks him into a giant jet intake. The subordinate he drags before him next agrees with his terms and to return the money before Mal even finishes his first sentence.
- At the same time, though, the show also virtually runs on Honor Before Reason. Point in case, the mere fact that Mal is willing to keep Simon and River Tam on his ship, in spite of the trouble they bring down on him. In fact, in the movie, Mal actually asks himself why he's protecting them, even after he's given a whole bunch of reasons why he shouldn't. The reason, of course, is that at heart, Mal is still an idealist.
  - It can be argued that Mal represents a centrepoint on the scale. He will commit blatant crimes upto and including the abovementioned murder but all in the name of protecting his "family" as represented by his crew.
As noted in the Writer On Board entry, the Berman/Braga writing team has been accused of moving the normally idealistic Star Trek too far toward the cynical end of the scale.
- And then overcompensating with the shift back towards idealism (often to ridiculous levels) with Voyager.
- Star Trek Deep Space Nine definitely slid towards the cynical end of the scale, and slammed straight into the far end with the Season 7 episode "In The Pale Moonlight." Note that Deep Space Nine had a different writing staff than the other Trek series, which Braga and Berman pretty much left alone to concentrate on Voyager; this writing staff would later go on to create The 4400 and Battlestar Galactica 2003 (which, like Deep Space Nine, was a dark and cynical space tale with heavy suggestions that there is something in the spirit realm.)
  - Furthermore, In The Pale Moonlight is generally heralded as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for Star Trek, precisely because of its ruthless and painful Deconstruction of the franchise's inherent idealism. (Not to mention that we get balanced out by episodes like Far Beyond The Stars and The Visitor, crowning moments of Idealism and Tear-Jerking, respectively.)
  - DS 9 actually flopped back and forth: "Once more into the breach" is idealistic: Heroic Sacrifice to save the day actually works and it's implied that's what the Tragic Hero wanted all along and many enemy installations are destroyed. And generally this is war at its glory. And then we get "Siege of AR-558" which is cynical to the end (basically it's like "Platoon" movie, but with 'less' survivors) and the system they fought for is later lost anyway.
- Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country is further on the cynicism end than most of Star Trek had been at that point. The crew fights for peace, but commits some moral breaches to do it, up to and including Mind Rape.
- The new film after the Continuity Reboot, as a Reconstruction of the franchise, lands closer to the middle of the scale than the original series, but ultimately still decides on idealism.
Doctor Who has a cynical moment in "Evolution of the Daleks". The Hooverville leader Solomon gives the Daleks a Sedgwick Speech. You can guess what happens next. "EXTERMINATE!"
- An interesting example from the same series is The Silurians, in which humans destroy a race of sapient creatures that have awoken from hibernation, where, if both races hadn't automatically assumed that the other was dangerous, and had listened to the Doctor's idealistic point of view, the tragedy would have been avoided.
  - A slightly Family Unfriendly Aesop version of this appears in a later appearance by the Silurians; the Doctor constantly insists that the humans should attempt a peaceful resolution with them, but the fact that the Silurians are genuinely only interested in wiping humanity off the face of the planet mean that, in this case, violence is the only way that the humans can defend themselves.
- The Whoniverse has a good illustration of this trope with the main show and two spinoffs, one Darker And Edgier and the other Lighter And Softer.
- The show itself tends to bounce from one side of the scale to the other wildly, particularly in the new series; one week Humans Are Bastards, the other Rousseau Was Right. The Doctor himself is usually portrayed as an idealist, but at times he's engaged in quite cynical acts, especially if he's been pushed too far.
The West Wing often provides an idealistic vision of the United States Presidency, and a Democratic President in particular.
For a show with such a silly premise, Supernatural is firmly on the cynical side. They never get paid or thanked, it's implied that humans can be just as bad as the monsters they hunt, bad actions and secret-keeping always comes back to bite them on the arse, their extreme co-dependency is portrayed as unhealthy and slightly disturbing (and Dean's "We can't be martyrs anymore" speech has so many things wrong with it that you start to think they did that on purpose) , and at the end of "What Is and What Should Never Be", Sam can't even convince Dean that what they do is worth all the pain in their life.
Farscape heavily leans towards the cynical side, even though most of the main protagonists seem to be idealistic in spirit. In the very telling example of a season 1 episode, Zhaan does all her best as a high priestess to convince a captive alien mercenary that the performance-enhancing drug his species uses is his true enemy. While she gains his gratitude and respect, she ultimately fails in getting him "clean". The best example for the moral philosophies of the show, however, might be the finale of the series-concluding mini-series "The Peacekeeper Wars". Despite being strongly cautioned against using wormhole weapons by Pilot and the wormhole alien, John enforces peace between the warring Peacekeepers and Scarrans by actually building one, using it to destroy both their armadas, and threatening to destroy the universe if they don't agree on a peace treaty. He's not bluffing, either.
The Wire is a very cynical show. Out of four young middle school boys, one ends up a drug addict, one ends up in a group home, one ends up as a stick-up man, and only one is saved. The drug dealers constantly escape the law again and again. The most corrupt politician in the show escapes the law entirely. Almost every "hero" in the police department is either fired or demoted at least once by the end of the show.
- Look at data measuring the outcomes for African-American youths in the city of Baltimore Public Schools, and you'll actually find it's more of a case of the realism dial tured Up To Eleven.
Scrubs is a show that has both idealistic ("My Own Personal Jesus") and cynical ("My Butterfly", "My No Good Reason") sides, although it leans more towards cynicism. Idealism vs. Cynicism is also dealt within the story. The message could be summed up with "Life is scary, but stop wangsting over it and do something, bitch."
The Sarah Connor Chronicles sits on the edge of the middle, leaning toward the cynical side of things. Sarah Connor herself is represented as something of an idealist who values all human life and will not kill anyone, but nearly everyone else in the series save her son is comparatively ruthless. Nearly every attempt made thus far to show mercy to someone who is a potential danger turns out to bite the Connors in the ass in one form or another, and the only way to protect the family is often to eliminate witnesses, enemies, and other threats.
House MD is a strong example of hard cynicism. The eponymous doctor vacillates between extremely cynical and just really cynical. The most idealistic characters are often mocked, criticized, undermined, or otherwise subjected to mild versions of Break The Cutie. And House is always right, or else beats everyone else down with his near-superhuman cynicism until they give up on trying to convince him otherwise. He gets so bad that at once point Wilson checks him into a mental hospital.
Yes Minister and its sequel series Yes Prime Minister tends towards the cynical side of the trope; the British Civil Service is, for the most part, depicted as a smug, hypocritically self-serving, elitist and amoral monolith perpetuating a clogged bureaucracy arrogantly convinced that it alone knows what is best for Britain (despite being aloof and out-of-touch for the most part) and automatically opposed to any and all hints of change, even if that change would be beneficial or even urgently necessary. Politicians, on the other hand, are cowardly opportunists who, whilst they might have vague ideas of change and reform, will fold at the slightest hurdle or if it looks like the public will turn against them. And whilst occasional victories might be won and small reforms implemented, there's an ever-present sense that nothing will ever change in any meaningful way.
- One of the major factors contributing to the series' success was arguably that viewers felt this was an uncomfortably accurate representation of actual government, or at least a highly plausible explanation for why things are the way they are. That it was wildly popular with politicians and the civil service alike lends at least some credence to these beliefs — nothing is so good to laugh at as the Elephant In The Living Room.
- That it is sometimes described as the UK equivalent to The West Wing also gives some indication of where on the scale the respective nations views lie when it comes to politics.
- It was also sometimes described by ex-politicians as being more documentary than sit-com.
Touched By An Angel is firmly entrenched in the Idealistic side.
Foyles War tends to hover somewhere around the middle; since the whole point of the series is to explode the myth that during World War II everyone in Britain pitched in together to fight the Nazis, it's generally quite cynical; a frequent theme is that war changes people, usually for the worse. As such, people are venal, cowardly, classist, elitist and, especially in the early seasons, quite defeatist. The government is depicted as being quite morally flexible, willing to do whatever it takes to win the war, to the extent that they freely issue Get Out Of Jail Free Cards to people who they think can help, resulting in a high number of Karma Houdinis in Foyle's investigations. However, the series frequently reiterates that the war had to be won and the Nazis were even worse, and that there were good, decent and even heroic people around; most especially, Foyle himself is consistently presented as a genuinely noble and honourable man.
Seinfeld's founding mission statement is "No learning, no hugging." putting it firmly on the cynical side of things from the getgo.
One of the subthemes of Jericho is people trying to maintain their faith in the ideals of America while struggling for survival.

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Dilbert is very far on the cynicism end. In fact, it's been suggested in the strip (mainly by Dogbert) that "cynicism" and "wisdom" are synonyms.

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Warhammer40000 sits way, way, way, way, way, way on the cynical side. Ironically, as much as it is cynical it can't really be called realistic, considering it is a setting that features chainsaw swords, 300-meter tall walking battle cathedrals, vehicles that go faster because they are painted red, battle nuns with flamethrowers in powered armor, and aliens with guns that shoot ninja stars and cannons that rip holes straight to hell.
- Warhammer 40,000 isn't very cynical because the whole thing is Black Humor. It's not meant to be taken seriously. The whole thing is so cynical it's an outright satire.
- Some people don't take it seriously and some people do. Personally I find the Black Library books and the Dawn of War game series serious and take it as such, unless dealing with the Orks and their viewpoints.
- Two words: Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!), which could easily be considered more faithful to the tone of the game - rather than the tone of the plot - than most 40K literature.
- Which again, some people, this troper included. Don't take the Cain series seriously at all. I see it as a gag book of humor, rather than anything serious to the setting.
Dungeons And Dragons can vary, depending on how much Gameplay And Story Segregation you use and just which parts you segregate. For instance, some people prefer to view the world of D&D in as much of a vein as the dark ages as possible, with hard lives as likely to end in disease and starvation as at the claws of a rampaging dragon. Others prefer to think that the peasants could probably just pool together to buy some potions of Remove Disease and so on. Likewise, you can play your character as righteously slaughtering anything that says it's Evil in the Monster Manual because your character is Good (it says so right on your character sheet), or you can play it as more of a moral choice based on actions taken in the game world (after all, that nest of kobolds lurking in the mountains never did anything to YOU). Even character death can be treated as something serious and possibly deeply traumatizing and affecting for the party... or just something that lasts until you can rustle up 5000 gold worth of diamonds.
- That said, having read the Start Of Darkness's take on the standard D&D world, this troper never wants to play in that basic setting ever again. Now that is the mark of a good Deconstruction...
- The Book of Exalted Deeds, by the way, goes straight to the Idealistic end using that special Monk ability that lets you jump as far as you want. It has a reformed mind flayer.
  - Bear in mind, hanging out at the extreme idealistic end is the entire point of that book. At the other end, there are books like the Book Of Vile Darkness and Elder Evils.
Warhammer, at least in the RPG incarnation, is a gleeful deconstruction of Dungeons And Dragons tropes, tending towards the cynical end without at any point taking itself seriously.

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In the old days, musicals tended to be highly idealistic comedies. This tendency has been largely lost in contemporary musical theatre: though idealistic shows (e.g. La Cage aux Folles, The Producers) still are produced, about as common are cynical shows including snide Take Thats against idealism (e.g. Chess, Urinetown).
Whether Shakespeare's plays are idealistic or cynical, and how much, is highly debated. The same plays can seem very different depending which critics you read.
Urinetown, mentioned above, is a bit more complicated. It starts out as a pretty straightforward clash between the idealist and cynic, but when the cynic kills the idealist, the forces of idealism find a new leader who is both more idealist and more detached from reality, who blindly propels the story into a Nice Job Breaking It Hero.
Cirque Du Soleil shows are Earn Your Happy Ending at worst (see trope entry for examples), and shimmeringly idealistic at best. Saltimbanco was intentionally created to counter cynicism and despair, particularly regarding urbanization, in society. And Corteo takes the concept of the death-dream of a clown and turns it into a loving celebration of life.
Sweeney Todd, as befitting a musical with a Villain Protagonist and having a revenge theme, is very much on the cynical end of the scale.
- Also, the characters themselves fall on different parts of the scale. Which happens to be heavily tilted towards cynicism. At the start, they range from midway through the cynical (Sweeney) to evil-but-not-either (Turpin) to falling off the idealist end (Anthony). By the end of Act 1, Anthony is about at the midway point, Sweeney's fallen off the cynical end, and Mrs. Lovett has actually risen into idealism. Once you hit the endgame, Antony is still at the midpoint, Johanna is obviously at the cynical end, Toby's, well, crazy, and Sweeney is a dot at the end of the cynical range. Mrs. Lovett seems to be the only one that actually becomes more idealistic.
And then there's the cheerful works of Bertolt Brecht...
The musical Man of La Mancha is practically a plea for idealism... which is quite the contrast with its original inspiration, Don Quixote, who is in the cynic side but moves the slide back and forth for the sake of the funny.

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The Final Fantasy games vary surprisingly wildly.
- Final Fantasy VII is very dark for an FF game, with a sort of fantasy-punk setting, a beloved party member dying, every member of the cast having Evangelion-esque psycho-trauma of some kind or another, and the Big Bad Sephiroth only being salvageable with a sword to the face. There's less of an Aesop about the power of friendship, as Cloud specifies he needs everyone to come with him to stop him doing something terrible. And it's ambiguous at the end whether humanity is wiped out as a plague or not. The sequel reveals it's not, at least not right then.
- Final Fantasy VIII is more idealistic, probably as a backlash, but is still pretty dark and cynical if you know where to look. Though most of the cast is issue-free, Squall is seriously screwed-up in the head. The city of Timber never gets liberated because of the futility of the resistance's struggle against the superior Galbadian army. The whole ideal of pacifism is brutally shot down with the pacifist populace of Fisherman's Horizon, whose idealistic beliefs nearly get the entire town slaughtered. You're outright told by Laguna that you can save the world with The Power Of Friendship, but when you travel to the future, you're dropped right into the middle of a Hopeless War with SeeD troops still uselessly dying generations down the line. The game leaves off with another Hopeless War between Esthar and the endless moon monsters called down by the Lunatic Pandora. The main character has made a transformation from cynicism to a more moderate mindset, due to the power of love, yet still retains some of his sarcasm and cynical beliefs. Sure, the setting looks more idealistic than that of Final Fantasy VII, but it sits firmly in the middle ground between true idealism and dark cynicism.
- Final Fantasy IX, however, is firmly on the Idealism side. The main character starts as a cheery fellow, and one Heroic BSOD notwithstanding he stays that way (and he even gets out of the Heroic BSOD through The Power Of Friendship played completely straight).
- It could be said that the entire point of the party's quest in Final Fantasy X is to move the world from the grimly cynical end to a the more idealistic side. Although both the main character and the Bad Ass Anti Hero have to die (or die again) to do this, and they're only able to succeed because of very special circumstances on their side.
- Final Fantasy VI has Kefka as the side of cynicism/nihilism and the party as the side of idealism. This becomes really obvious at the end, when Kefka ask the party why they are fighting for and the answers are such as family, friends and so.
  - Although it could be argued that Kefka is not a cynic so much as just deliriously Ax Crazy and sadistic. If achieving one's hopes and dreams somehow caused people to suffer and die, Kefka'd be all over it.
- For Final Fantasy II, although Firon, Maria, and Guy tend to be pretty positive people, wishing for a world without the threat of conflict, the rest of the world leans towards what the writers did with Final Fantasy VI. Pretty much everyone on the planet is dead, those who aren't have had their confidence massively shaken or are forced to give up the fight, the most idealistic member of the playable cast (Ming-Wu) dies pathetically just to give you access to a Useless Useful Spell and some stat ups, at the end of the game your Nakama is still splintered due to one member's ongoing self-doubt, and the Big Bad is still tearing ass through Heaven, wreaking havoc.
Planescape Torment actually allows the player to set the slider in the exact position desired, despite the gritty game setting. It's possible to treat the characters' life/lives as nasty, brutish, and short, or you can treat it as all part of the process of making things better - to the point where you can play through the entire game without killing a single person. You can even choose the ending that best fits your viewpoint. They're all bittersweet, but there's a small but non-zero difference between "bittersweet & depressing" and "bittersweet & rewarding."
Drakengard, as a game with Multiple Endings in which the best one is "sort of happy", falls into the cynical side. It is hard to be idealistic when the world is literally always doomed.
Mass Effect has an interesting spin on the concept, as it can go either way on the Scale, depending on the player's choices in individual assignments and missions throughout the game. There are no good and evil choices here, unlike with most games that have a morality system; Sheperd is simply presented with renegade and paragon options, with Renegade being the more badass, violent, and cynical choice, whereas Paragon is the more idealistic and diplomatic approach. One approach ends up working about as well as the other in completing each mission, and regardless of how you approach the assignments and missions (or even how you treat everyone else, crew included), your crew will back you up, respect you, and support your decision... most of the time.
Super Robot Wars is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover of pretty much every Humongous Mecha anime at one point or another. Despite these varying all over the scale, the games almost invariably fall on the idealistic side of things. Courage, Friendship and Hotbloodedness (and in at least one game, Time Travel) overcome everything, even the tragedies of darkly cynical series like certain Mobile Suit Gundam iterations or even Neon Genesis Evangelion. Also, no one ever seems to stay dead.
- On the contrary, the games *do* have a few deaths. Some of them, like Sleggar's in SRW3 and Musashi in Alpha 2 and Advanced/Advanced Portable are avoidable. Others, such as Lieutenant Colonel Daitetsu and Ouka, are completely unavoidable and will happen no matter what.
- Super Robot Wars Destiny is also known mainly for two things: making every Super Robot a Glass Cannon, and being downright depressing. It starts with The End Of The World As We Know It a-la Getter Robo Armageddon, and it goes downhill from there, mainly because of the presence of Victory Gundam. It regains much of the franchise's idealism by the end, by it's a hard climb between the nature of the story, and Scrappy Level after Scrappy Level.
- Also, Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden averts the idealism somewhat. Sure, by the end of the game, you've saved the world, but are left with a heavy Humans Are Bastards (at least potentially) message, and thanks be to the time warp aspects of the plot (which resemble an Alternate Universe), the Reset Button is NOT pressed on the alternate Earth you saved, outside of eliminating the SOB's making it worse, in exchange for giving it a chance to heal and make the remains a potentially better place as a result. It should also be noted that Char's Face Heel Turn was born out of this game, adding some heavy drops of cynicism to the end of the game, which get realized in full with Alpha 2 (starring the events of Chars Counterattack).
Fire Emblem is normaly in the middle, with some games leaning farther to the side of cynicism than others. This allows for the use of both Grumpy Bear and Wide Eyed Idealist characters.
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin has Wide Eyed Idealist Brenner (and Will) clash with a lot of pragmatic characters on this topic, most of which call them out on their idealism in a world where everyone's stuggling for survival. Their vision prevails, though, at the cost of Brenner's life.
The Command And Conquer series has problems deciding if it should be cynical or idealistic. Tiberium Dawn points out that there isn't a clear-cut difference between good and bad, but there are clear moral differences between the GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod. Tiberian Sun goes even further down the cynical lane and has corruptible GDI officers and General Solomon runs some morally ambigous plots, as well as refferences to Death Camps and genocide by virtue of Nod. However, the game ends on a high note no matter which side you play, allowing each side's objectives to be accomplished. Tiberium Wars goes even further with it's inconclusive ending, downright incompetent GDI commanders and horrible state of the Earth.
- Red Alert however, is quite possibly the most cynical and depressing of the games. It's starts with a time-travel plot Gone Horribly Wrong, and goes downwards from there. The first Soviet mission consists of burning a village to the ground, and pretty much every single Soviet character is a powerhungry sadist or vouyerist who all participate in a henious political Battle Royale. Of particular note is when a drunk Stalin impulsively tells his favourite General to order the executions of all the other Generals because Stalin (very obviously delusionally) knows they are plotting agaist him. The Allied campaign has sublte hints to the death and mutilation of Allied soldiers during a successful experiment, characters being tortured and ends with one character commiting murder.
  - Conversely, Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3 are some of the most idealistic games around, no matter which side you're playing. Quite suprising to see a White And Grey Morality in those games when Red Alert itself was Black And Grey Morality.
In the Heroes of Might and Magic series, Sandro is a delightful example of the Cynical side of the trope. He is (mostly) evil, power-hungry, selfish and cold (also, he's a necromancer), still, his cynicism is so well played he is the most adored Hero of the entire series. His cynicism not only have saved him more than once, but played a role part in the Expansion Pack dedicated to himself where he manipulated two powerful and famous Heroes in doing his biding. The expansion campaign is an ode to Cynicism. Sandro manipulates easily the idealistic wise Hero Gem by pretty much promising Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice (like trying to lure bees with honey), while the Cynic Hero Crag Hack is manipulated easily only so because he is a Psycho For Hire not too bright on the head. Also, the other two Heroes in the campaign play at this. Gelu, the cynic elf, is the only one whose original campaign was actually directly involved in the role of thwarting Sandro's plan in the long term, while Yog, the idealistic Half-Genie, is tasked with disassembling the Angelic Alliance and scattering it around the continent (and he does so happily), which only thwarts the counter-offensive against Sandro later on.
- The campaigns of Heroes of Might and Magic IV, although considered the worse in gameplay and balancing, it is also considered the one with the best story (barred expansions), and also falls here. The campaigns, as usual, are played through each of the factions. When you play with the good factions, you go with an idealistic Hero who is easily manipulated but in the end makes for a good ending of everyone lives happily ever after. When you go with the evil ones, you play with a cynical Hero who makes the best of a bad situation. The best part is that the cynical ones end up doing quite some good in the end. Gauldoth Half-Dead is particularly interesting as he does loads of unexcusable acts throughout his campaign, but in the end he makes quite an powerful state for both the living and the dead and is the only one capable of fighting off an immensely powerful Big Bad who wants to vanquish all life in the new world (quite literally, as the last one exploded).
Say hello to Petit Eva: Evangelion @ School, Neon Genesis Evangelion as taken, kicking and screaming, over to the "Idealism" side of the scale. I. Am. Not. Making. This. Up.
- Way, WAY Better Than It Sounds, actually. While seeing NGE characters in a lighthearted Gag Series is a bit jarring, it's certainly not a bad lighthearted Gag Series.
Animal Crossing is not an "example" of the Idealism side of the scale. Animal Crossing is the Idealism side of the scale.
- This Troper is reasonably sure that, if one plays Animal Crossing and then watches Grave Of The Fireflies, their brain will explode from pure Mood Whiplash.
  - Grave of the Fireflies was a double feature with My Neighbor Totoro. So Yeah.
- Tom Nook's crime empire holds the rest of the town in the iron grip of mortal fear. Everyone knows this.
Phantom Brave is, despite several few depressing elements, an extremely idealistic game. Marona is a Pollyanna who gets the most ridiculous All Of The Other Reindeer treatment you've ever seen, but she's still confident that the people who hate and fear her will one day come to accept her - and, by the end of the game, they do. Castille is an Ill Girl whose family can barely afford her medical bills. No problem; that Corrupt Corporate Executive running the pharmaceutical company isn't such a bad guy after all, really, and he'll help out once you save him from some monsters. Oh, and that guy who says money is everything and keeps trying to steal your rewards? He's got a good reason, honest!
- While Nippon Ichi is very much in the business of making silly and humorously-themed games, the cynicism to idealism content varies. Above mentioned Phantom Brave is mainly idealistic, followed by the slightly more downcast Disgaea 2 and La Pucelle. Disgaea, Disgaea 3 and Makai Kingdom, being focused around demons and the netherworld, are slightly more cynical as their protagonists tend to be cynics more than idealists. Soul Nomad And The World Eaters is by far the most cynical of all the games — it's a World Half Empty hit by a Depopulation Bomb, The Lancer is the Omnicidal Maniac responsible for it, and things such as slavery and child abuse take place in the story. Notably, though, all of these games have Multiple Endings and alternate storylines however, and some of the canon endings as seen in later installments wreak havoc on the list (La Pucelle's canon ending is by far the most cynical, as Prier becomes an Overlord and destroys Paprica, and Makai Kingdom has never canonially ended.)
The Mother series is firmly on the Idealistic side. Mother 3 gets darker than its predecessors, but The Power Of Love still comes through in the end. There's a reason the unofficial series theme song is called "Pollyanna".
Kingdom Hearts: The Power Of Friendship (and love) can restore your humanity after a Heroic Sacrifice (even if your old body just joined an evil organisation), the embodiment of evil can be destroyed by calling out the word "LIGHT!" in front of a giant door, and thinking about your friends can save you from a deserted beach in the middle of nowhere. Guess what you upgrade your weapon with? Keychains, that you get from friends. The stronger the friendship, the stronger the upgrade. And let's not forget Sora's mantra: "As long as our hearts are connected, the darkness can't defeat us."
- Kingdom Hearts has another side to it that starts to appear in the sequels, though. Sora's idealistic trust in his friends still gives him strength, but it also makes him easily manipulable. He'd never have gotten through without the more cynical characters like Riku and Axel and their tendency to show that there's two sides to the willingness to do anything for a friend (though neither of them could survive without an idealistic friend, either). It has a growing tendency to play to both sides of the scale at the same time, and not just because it's a poster-boy for Earn Your Happy Ending.
Despite quite a few of their works being Low Fantasy, a genre often at the cynical end, anything made by Gust Incorporated (most known for making the Atelier Series) will be very, very idealistic. Half the villains (even the Big Bads) will eventually undergo Heel Face Turns, and those who don't will probably be egotistical Complete Monsters that deserve everything they get. None of the good guys will ever die or have anything truly bad happen to them, and if they do die they'll usually be an alternate ending where they get to survive and live Happily Ever After.
Eve Online falls on the cynical side. One of the four major powers is a slaveholding theocratic empire, while another is a corporate-run dictatorship. And every player is a Heroic Sociopath.
Chrono Trigger firmly believes in the strength of the human spirit to overcome anything, and shows its heroes eventually surviving numerous trials to triumph over a Cosmic Horror that was destined to doom their world, all by the aid of a mysterious Entity that allowed them to travel through time. The game ends with the three main characters happily looking forward to their futures. Chrono Cross, the sequel, is on the exact opposite end of the scale. Humans Are Bastards that are destroying the planet because they are tainted by Lavos and are irredeemable. Time travel is very bad and condemns everyone on any timeline that no longer exists to an eternity trapped with the Darkness Beyond Time, including the people that the heroes of the last game were trying to save. Oh, and the previous game's heroes were all murdered before the game started and their peaceful homeland overrun by a military state.
Skies Of Arcadia was notable in its time (and still is notable) for being an idealistic RPG with an optimistic hero during an era in which True Art Is Angsty reigned supreme.
Spore itself is neutral, but the archetypes for space stage are definitely NOT. Warriors and Knights are Cynical, and Diplomats, Shamans and Ecologists are definitely Idealistic, to name a few. And then, of course, there are The Zeal ots who prove that a mixture of both is very, very bad, and The Grox who pretty much hate every empire's guts.
Shin Megami Tensei games generally fall on the cynical side. Usually your actions lead to rather grim resolutions in this series. Persona 3 is one of the idealistic ones just because the main character's Heroic Sacrifice really does save everyone he cares about. Unfortunately, it also leaves him Deader Than Dead - his soul has to keep providing a barrier around the planet to protect humanity from itself until such a time that humanity stops wishing for its own demise. FES and Persona 4 both imply that it may not be entirely hopeless - the two people trying to help are ageless after all.
- Persona 4 slams right into the idealistic side because it heavily implies that things are getting better.
Fallout plays with this trope, usually landing squarely on the cynical side but still providing a small amount of hope for the future regardless of how bad things are in the post-apocalyptic world.
- Interestingly, the newest entry into the series has a story arc in which you get a bad end no matter what you do. (If you decide to work for Tenpenny at his tower, you'll kill a group of homeless ghouls who're just looking for a place to live. Tenpenny hates the ghouls, and won't let them live in his luxurious tower. However, if you negotiate with Tenpenny and get him to allow the ghouls to live there, they'll move in and work alongside the humans. Then slaughter them all when you're not there, taking over the tower for themselves. If you try to kill them for their lying actions, you lose Karma.)
  - You can, however, kill the ghoul ringleader, in which case only the very evil Tenpenny will be killed by the ghouls, and both sides will settle into an uneasy truce. It's still far from Idealistic.
Cannon Fodder and it's sequel are about the most cynical - and, sadly, accurate - interpretations of war you will ever see.
The first part of Warcraft III is an interesting case. In order to fight the undead threat and save his people, Prince Arthas gives up the idealistic tenets of paladins and does whatever he feels is necessary to achieve his goal. While this cynical behaviour makes him successful, it eventually results in him being corrupted by the Big Bad, killing his own father and dooming his kingdom.
City Of Heroes / City Of Villains is an interesting case. While the games take on the expected roles on both sides of the fence (Heroes being very Idealistic and Villains being very Cynical) in the meta, it is reverse. You are more likely to find a Stop Having Fun Guy who will drop from the team once they reach the mission's boss (sometimes, they do this en mass, leaving the person who set the mission up to deal with finding replacements so that they can advance while they leave with the spoils of war, or most of them anyway) on Heroes rather than Villains, which is a tightly knit community of people out to enjoy a game. This is in all likely-hood due to the idea that the "devs hate red" and the people who end up playing Villains are generally doing it to have fun, while the people who want to win go to Heroes.
There's a web game called ''The Life Ark'' where you create a new world out of place in space where there is nothing but dust and emptiness. Nice huh? However, there's a sequel which takes place years later where you have to evacuate the people after they've ruined the world that you created in the first game.
Grand Theft Auto games generally lie heavily on the cynical side. As an example, in San Andreas, the only two police officers that seem non-corrupt are both killed by the corrupt ones that drive the plot. Even generic cutscene cops often care more about taking bribes or eating snacks than actual justice.
Sim City, despite being just a simple city-building game, resides heavily in the cynical scale, especially with Sim City 2000 and later titles, in which you advisers seem to only focus on their department, without caring much about the other city services (a good portion of the time, you financial adviser is total Jerkass and finds that even a few dollars that could be saved going into funding for education and health to be a bad thing). Likewise, considering all the horrible natural disasters and general poor mayoring that can be done to your citizens, it's surprising that they would want to even stick around and still keep you in office.
- And if that isn't bad enough, just watching cute little houses, gas stations, mom & pop stores, farms, and little banks get kicked out of your cities to be replaced with apartments, Mega Corp travel stops, superstores, factories, and massive skyscrapers in nearly the blink of an eye, you'd bet that the most idealistic people who feel that big business really doesn't care would freak but yet your Sims still just go about their lives as if nothing bad happened.
- Do Sims feel pain??
The Metal Gear Solid series is whenever it starts getting a little idealistic turning right back into cyniyal, crushing a character after another... Though, the very last moments of every game (or so) have at least a glimpse of idealism. Third excluded.
The Jak And Daxter games go Pure Idealism -> Harsh, Darker And Edgier Idealism. In the first game, everything is bright and shiny, the only casualties are rats and villains, and everything is solved without trouble. While in the later games Jak does summon up his Hero mojo and save the day, he usually starts out trying to evade it or wants to do it for all the wrong reasons, the main cities include a police state and a Wretched Hive...but it seems that only Erol and Mizo are full-on evil, and the other villains - Veger and Praxis - seem to mean well on some level.
Valkyria Chronicles somehow manages to be an Idealist war story, where the power of love is the only thing that can truly stop a walking hydrogen bomb, togetherness and unity is the true source of military strength (even if you're a walking hydrogen bomb), it's totally obvious who's outright evil and who's just got a tragic past based on their appearance, and people who disagree with this mindset are obligated to kill themselves to drive the point home.

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Last Res0rt, being a Cyberpunk comic, accepts plenty of Cynicism... but the Mood Dissonance with the otherwise bright settings and characters brings in the Idealism.
- Well, some characters are more / less idealistic than others. Of the lot, Adharia's probably the most Idealistic (even if she is willing to accept a "heroic" death in battle) while Jason is the most Cynical.
  - Actually... most of the humans (and part-human Celeste) in Last Res0rt are more Cynical than their furry counterparts.
El Goonish Shive has eight main characters which allows them to run the gamut of the scale. However, Susan is firmly cynical and Tedd is probably the most idealistic. Which makes their Odd Friendship what it is.
In City Of Reality the titular city is so firmly embedded into "idealistic" end of the scale, it's actually kind of creepy, to the point that you might think of it as a deconstruction of the concept itself. In fact, it's even noticed by some of the characters, and made into part of the plot.
Chess Piece is somewhere in the middle, veering either way, though characters themselves range from idealistic (Vlad, Kwan, Diligence) to in the middle (Sam, Doug, Skulker) to cynical (Doug again, Danny, Abe).

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It can be hard, a lot of the time, to figure out just where Survival Of The Fittest is on the overall scale, but it appears to be more towards the cynical side due to the downer nature of the endings for the most part and the fact that fate itself seems to crack down on optimistic characters. Hero types usually get themselves killed, and even if they don't die right away they usually see all their friends die first. All escape attempts are brutally crushed, and even hacking the system and putting in a powerful computer virus that basically destroys all SOTF systems from the inside doesn't work until it's too late for anything to be done. By v2, all damage has been fixed, and the systems have been changed so they're literally impenetrable.
- In a strange bout of irony, the same virus comes back to bite the terrorists in the arse in V3 purely by accident, even worse than before.
As quoted above, Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog shows us why, exactly, it's called the Sliding Scale of Idealism Vs. Cynicism by going back and forth between the two with reckless abandon. The most pronounced example may be the song "My Eyes" (also known as "On The Rise"), which is practically a duet between idealism and cynicism.
The SCP Foundation sits so far on the cynical side that it probably shares a spot with Warhammer 40000.
Urban Fantasy series Broken Saints eventually ends up on the Idealistic side, but it covers a lot of ground getting there.

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Justice League Unlimited has some fun exploring this during the Cadmus arc - memorably, Superman turns out to be the Xanatos Sucker by taking the "realistic" option, but Batman manages to save everyone's bacon by doing same. In the end Superman can't bring himself to kill Luthor, but whether this is a triumph of Idealism or a failure of internal fortitude is left a touch ambiguous.
Avatar The Last Airbender flip-flops on the scale madly...the mostly upbeat Season 1 gives way to the Darker And Edgier Season 2, with everything up in the air for the majority of Season 3 and the scale sliding like mad between idealism and cynicism. Finally, though it lands HARD on the Idealistic Side for the Grand Finale.
A probable explanation for why Invader Zim was Too Good To Last is because of how far it fell on the cynicism side of the scale. Practically every single character, major, minor or otherwise, is a total and absolute moron with the self-preservation skills of a brick. Those that aren't morons are too egotistical to consider anything outside of their own vindication. And those that aren’t self-centered exist solely to cause suffering and despair for all those with whom they come into contact. And all of them live in their very own Crapsack World.
Re Boot. Bob was always the idealist, strongly against deletion, believing viruses could be turned. Enzo originally idolised him, but after being forced to grow up in the games, he became the cynic of the show. The contrast between them was most noticeable when brain washed guardians were attacking Mainframe. Bob wanted to contain them, Enzo wanted to kill them.
A somewhat interesting study in contrast has turned in in Cartoon Network's two newest shows. Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack. They both have the same core idea. "Main character is a naive kid who drags the older main characters into situations based off his naivete/stupidity." The contrast comes from the fact that the two shows are on the opposite sides of the scale. Chowder is an idealistic series. A bright and colorful world where people generally get along happily and the biggest problem is the next food order. Flapjack, on the other hand, is very cynical. It takes place in a Crapsack World where pretty much everyone is bitter, abusive, and ugly, with Nightmare Fuel abound.
Daria is very much on the cynical side but occasionally shows some optimism. All three or four people around the protagonist has some kind of mental disorder or is borderline retarded. The bulk of the cast are concerned wholly with their appearance and popularity. The Show Within A Show on Daria is called Sick Sad World.

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The Star Wars saga, and the Star Wars Expanded Universe, started out pretty idealistic, the main characters usually lived, good triumphed in the end, and even some of the most despicable monsters imaginable could have a Heel Face Turn. However, around 1999 the franchise started tipping more toward the cynical side... and have just kept on going. Now there are main characters dying left and right, under even more tragic (or stupid) circumstances, prominent heroic characters turn evil under even more tragic (or stupid) circumstances, all the heroes' victories accomplish is completely negated in a few decades when the Sith Empire takes over the galaxy yet again, and yesterday's heroes are often at least partially responsible for today's catastrophes. This was justified in the case of the prequel trilogy, where the unhappiness was a Foregone Conclusion of its role as Backstory anyway, but some fans feel this incessant cynicism is out of place in the eras following the more idealistic original trilogy.
- To put it simply, if one were to look upon the entirety of the Star Wars universe as it stands now, one could easily come to the conclusion that the two sides of the sliding scale met up at the local country club every other Tuesday to play a game of tennis.
- Star Wars Legacy, which takes place 150 years after A New Hope is, depending on who you ask, right in the middle or a Crapsack World. The Empire is good(ish), the Skywalker protagonist is a total Jerkass, the Sith are casually genocidal Well Intentioned Extremists who seem to be fighting the Dark Side's habit of Motive Decay and backstabing ever way they can. Until Krayt got killed by Wyyrlok.
  - and even that's to further Krayt's plan since he was suffering form Motive Decay, thus had to be killed so his dream can live
On this very site, compare the Sugar Wiki and the Darth Wiki for extremes of both viewpoints.

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Depending on where you are people can be cynical or idealistic. For example, compare someone who lives in the projects to someone who lives in sub-urbs.
- We run the whole gamut.

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