Most shonen works (particularly the action fighter types) tend to fall into the idealistic side. Yes, there are shonen series that fall into the cynical side (like Death Note), but they are considered seinen due to the mood (see What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?).
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 (and had absolutely no chances of success, when they attempted it the second time), while The Messiah Sailor Moon's determination to stop the Big Bad without anyone dying saved them all. Notably, Sailor Moon and two of the Big Bads actually get into arguments centered around this trope during their confrontations, with the villains insisting that the world is hopelessly rotten and Sailor Moon stalwartly refusing to give up hope and belief in people's goodness. The fact, that both of these Big Bads were somewhere between Brainwashed and Crazy and suffering a full-scale Demonic Possession at the time, says everything you need to know about the actual stance of this series.
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. The show (and movie) intentionally don't bear that out because one of the prevailing points is that the above ideal is impossible to attain. "Hedgehog's Dilemma" and all that.
Your mileage will really vary on this one. Many people find the series cynical due to the brutality, the characterization, the Cosmic Horror Story implication, etc, but many others also find it rather uplifting. You can't say a series is 100% cynical with the lines "Anywhere can be paradise, so long as you have the will to make it happen" (or something to that effect). Even the last scene is debatable, as people debate whether or not Shinji and Asuka are the last humans alive, whether they'll get along, whether they'll become romantically involved, whether humanity would return, and whether they're both over their psychological trauma, especially when one considers Asuka and Shinji essentially had their entire world views uprooted and altered. In other words: Eva broke the scale.
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 End of the World as We Know It.
While EVA and Gurren Lagann are the poster children for cynicism and idealism in Humongous Mecha 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, start over from square one and generally act like Machiavelli's The Prince personified. 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 aren't naturally violent and can be taught to be kind to each other, 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, sheer violence wins out, and the series suggests that Lelouch's idealistic, if suicidal, plan has changed humanity for the better. Ironically, both plans centre around threats and violence, it's simply the one believes that state needs to be maintained, and the other believes that people will learn from that experience.
Despite this, Macross 7, a Real Robots series, is about as idealistic as it gets. During the first few episodes, the main character looks like a fish-out-of-water Actual Pacifist trying to end a space war by SINGING AT PEOPLE while they're killing each other and one side is eating the other's souls in order to fully awaken Eldritch Abominations that will bring about The End of the World as We Know It. And, at the end, it worksin the best way possible.
The Macross franchise in general is very much on the idealistic end of the scale with its themes of how understanding, love and music can overcome all odds and convert the most alien of foes into friends.
Cowboy Bebop has some idealistic aspects. For example, the young girl Ed is never around when things get really dangerous or serious, the hero Spike Spiegel lives through things that would have killed him in real life, and many episodes feature at least one bad guy who is irredeemably bad. On the other hand, Cowboy Bebop is also quite cynical. Unlike most fiction, people go to the bathroom and wash their clothes. Bad things happen to good people, and the "happy endings" to the episodes usually have a catch, ex: In episode 2, Ein the dog is saved, and the bad guy is stopped, but our bounty hunter heroes got no money for their efforts, just a dog they think is worthless. Almost all of the main characters, and many of the other "good" characters have very negative aspects, and some of the "bad" characters are not quite as "evil" as you think. Ex: Jet Black is an ex-cop who left because he hated the corruption in the force, yet he is not above blackmailing his ex co-workers for info. Another example: The Red Dragon gangster Vicious is the main villain in the series, but he has good reason to be angry — Spike Spiegel stole his girlfriend, and then turned against the Red Dragon Syndicate. Even worse, his boss Mao Yenrai still would like Spike to come back, and wants to bargain with other syndicates instead of fighting them. Not to mention that many of these people are members of or associated with criminal syndicates, placing them in anti-hero territory at best. Cowboy Bebop is ultimately a show where people can be counted on to do the right thing... eventually.
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.
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. The author explicitly makes a point against fatalism as there are places where things do not go as expected due to Guts and his party's intervention, such as Ishidro's saving Casca from burning at the stake in the Albion arc. Even the Skull Knight refers to Guts as the one who is outside of the fairytale and implies that Guts may be able to escape his own fate.
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 points 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.
Dragon Ball has a little of both, like with Goku's family; they are usually more idealistic, but sometimes they show a cynical side (like Gohan's sadistic tendencies while in Super Saiyan 2). On the opposite side, Vegeta's family is more commonly on the cynical side, but they also often show an idealistic side (like Majin Vegeta´s suicidal sacrifice against Majin Buu.
Fist of the North Star is unapologetically idealistic and morally righteous in spite of being set in a post-apocalyptic Crapsack 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." Not to mention several main villains reveal their tragic pasts and their good side when they are about to die... such as Shin, Juda, and even Souther and Raoh... Note that Toki leans on the idealistic end of the scale and Raoh on the cynical end, regarding the world laid in ruin by the nuclear war. We can see this story is literally the fight between the idealistic side and the cynical side.
The prequel, Fist Of The Blue Sky, however, is more cynical in nature, in that The Hero is helping a drug lord take over Shanghai City where guns are prominent, even though there are mentions of building a Shangri-La right here. Almost no bad guys get redemption from their crimes, either.
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.
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 scum and need to die in order for plants to survive and Vash who believes 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.
To sum it up, the Universal Century is the single darkest and the most cynical of all the Gundam universes, with little or no hope for humanity, partly due to Yoshiyuki Tomino's hateful rage against Sunrise and Japan's actions in World War II. The Cosmic Era and Anno Domini are slightly better, but not as idealistic as the other non UC Gundam universes. Although the compilation movies of Zeta Gundam seems to be more idealistic than the original TV show.
The Cosmic Era is pretty much the darkest of the non UC Gundam universes. With Kira, Lacus, Athrun and their friends being the only thing that kept humanity from killing themselves. The atrocities committed by both sides were much worse than Universal Century could do over the span of the entire timeline. When they weren't there, well as Rau Le Creuset summarizes life in CE-
"It's like we're walking through a maze of sorts. There are always so many paths to choose from. We pick a path, and we follow it. You people walk your path believing that something you desire is waiting for you. I walk it to confirm that there is nothing there."
The Movie however puts in the idealistic end of the spectrum, showing even the most war weary of soldiers who saw the full gamut of war can find true understanding after so many years of fighting, even if it takes a long time to do so.
Its first opening song, however, hints that it would ultimately lead to the idealistic end.
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 ShowGekiganger 3, which as an old-school Super Robot Genre 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 Evil Empire [of Earth] must be destroyed! This is the true meaning of Gekigangar!" Poor, Poor Tsukomo Shiratori...
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.
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 preferred Kaoru's way of thinking and would love nothing more than if it were reality.
The OVAs came after the TV series (in Japan at least).
Planetes often contrasts Tanneries' idealism with Hachimaki's cynicism (taking a downward spiral into outright pessimism after a while). Idealism wins in the end. Even with the terrorists.
Monster makes a major point about exploring the contrasts between the characters regarding morality. Idealistic Doctor Tenma never gives in and loses his belief in the good nature of all people. His direct counterpart is murderous and downright evilJohan, who uses people without second thoughts just to prove Tenma wrong. Caught between them is Nina, who is generally a kind hearted person, but over the course of the story becomes more and more willing to resort to methods of increasingly questionable quality. Last are implacableInspector Lunge and embittered Eva, who really can't decide on which side they want to stand.
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.
Still, 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?
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. The manga ends with the protagonist finally snaps, deciding to wipe out humanity by using her shadow dragon which is goddamn planet earth itself. Gigantic hands as big as skyscrapers sprouts out of earth and literally bitchslap everyone to death sparing only ruins of destroyed cities and leaving the fate of humanity to two pregnant teenagers.
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.
However, Force takes a shift to a much more cynical end. The main character Touma goes through something similar to what Nagi went through in Tenjou Tenge (being an Unwitting Pawn). The Huckbein are more or less Complete Monsters who needs to kill to keep The Corruption at bay and Mysterious Waif Lily is a source of said corruption? Also the first battle against the Huckbein does NOT go well for the heroes.
The first battle never goes well for the heroes. During the first encounter in As, both Nanoha and Fate get their weapons destroyed and Nanoha gets hospitalized. If the heroes always won, there'd be no chance for growth.
The question how much of a price will they have to pay, given the darker and edgier nature of Force. There is a very strong chance that few if any of the Huckbein can be redeemed and Lily will not be mercy killed.
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 asHumans 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.
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 likable 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 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.
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 Shōnen 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 Kira, use Light's methods against him, and are motivated more by stopping Light himself than by trying to help anyone.
The title of the last episode isn't really a lie - more a clever use of irony and misdirection. After all, it does end in the creation of a new world, as Kira's tyranny is overthrown.
As for Light being idealistic, it is ultimately revealed he is anything but. Because, you know, killing off anyone, bad or good, that stands in your way wile being scared senseless by the idea of dieing yourself is the absolute opposite of idealism. Light is a nihilist who only values himself, plain and simple.
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).
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.
Which of course could be taken to mean that Cancer Deathmask was right.
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.
At first it seemed One Piece is overwhelmingly positive, but soon it was revealed that it was actually more along the lines of a world existing firmly on the cynical end of the scale while the story itself rotates around a group placed about as solidly as possible on the idealistic end. So, it's actually on both ends of the scales at once, in a sorta in-universe meta way. Of course, after the recent chain of events it still remains to be seen if the things stay this way. And if they don't, they almost certainly will be sliding towards the cynical end. Actually, definitely, given that there's no more room left on the idealistic side to slide towards...
As a whole, Negima starts out with a very idealistic tone, but becomes more and more cynical as it goes on, mirroring Negi's growing maturity and his realization that the world isn't always a nice place, and that while you can be idealistic, you had better be willing to fight for it. And with the recently revealed stakes of that fight, boy is it on now!
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 has taken 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 lovable 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 of 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 Shōnen series, as though the whole premise looks Cynical, it is actually a very Idealistic manga.
Blame! is a difficult series to categorize, as despite its 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 them. 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, such as Danzo, who believes that people are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling and that the only way to protect Konoha is to make Konoha stronger. Problem is, his reasoning is pretty faulty, since a lot of the crap the idealists had to go through were the direct or indirect result of him also acting like a bastard...
The sliding scale is an important part of Nagato's backstory. When he was younger, Nagato was a member of an organization that tried to end the wars that devastated their homeland without resorting to violence. The leader of their village views this group as a threat, so he leads Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko, who is the leader of the group, into a trap under the guise of peace talks. He captures Konan and forces Nagato to kill Yahiko to save her. This incident causes Nagato to abandon his idealistic beliefs and turn to a more cynical solution for bringing world peace that involves creating a weapon that will cause immense destruction so that people will be too afraid to go to war. Nagato's cynical views come into conflict with Naruto's idealism when he invades Konoha. Ultimately, seeing Naruto's beliefs reminds Nagato of how he used to be, and he chooses to sacrifice himself to undo some of the destruction he caused.
You could say that Naruto's conflicts always come down to this- his idealism vs. his opponents' cynicism. Naruto vs Haku (though he didn't even have to try with him), Zabuza, Neji, Gaara, Sasuke, Nagato... All the major opponents end up with Naruto either succeeding or failing in changing their lives. This is probably the real reason why he wants to beat Sasuke: because he tried and failed to do this.
Kinos Journey has the tag line, "The world is not beautiful, therefore it is." Kino's world is full of wicked people living in harsh conditions and under bizarre and even insane and oppressive laws. Yet at the same time these dark and cruel parts of the world make the few good parts seem all the better. Kino meets idealists and cynics all throughout her journey, each one with their own thoughts and opinions on the state of the world or more often the country they live. The most prominent example of the series' contrast between cynicism and idealism is the episode "Her Journey -Love and Bullets-" in which a young woman and a man traveling together cross paths with Kino. The woman claims to be on a quest to bring peace to the world and proclaim the glory of pacifism. Kino asks how she could have survived this journey so long without encountering any danger that would have to be solved with violence. To which the woman responds that she doesn't know, she has always assumed that they've just been lucky. The truth is the man traveling with her has quietly killed off anyone in their path who might make themselves a problem. He kept this a secret because he loves her and doesn't want to shatter her vision of an ideal world.
Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni is surprisingly idealistic once you have finished the series. Rika is doomed to repeat the same few weeks over and over again, during which time her friends go mad and slaughter one another, always for different reasons though. It always ends with her being killed. This has been going on for hundreds of years so she is firmly on the Cynicism side and accepts the fact the world will continue to go to hell all around her. When Keiichi proves you can 'defeat fate' though by changing fundamental things during one of these periods, Rika resolves to fight for her life next time around and succeeds, with the Powerof Friendship no less. Even the Big Bad Miyo Takano is made redeemable in the end and Redemption didn't even equal death.
Maria-sama Ga Miteru is famous for being the most idealized all-girl high school setting ever. Almost everybody is well-meaning, conflicts are mostly settled by communicating and there are no bullies for miles around, when in reality it's rare to find 16-year-olds who are both that responsible and still that fun-loving. Heck, even acne seems to have been mostly abolished. It also lacks any actual Gayngst or homophobia.
It's also made clear, especially in later installments of the series, that their line of work is very bad for Weiss's mental health. The villains of the Dramatic PreciousRadio Drama, members of an earlier iteration of the team, are directly presented as what the current members of Weiss are likely to become if they don't find a way out... which only one of them does. The only thing that keeps the series from being all the way at the far cynical end of the scale is that the protagonists do believe that they're helping to make it possible for normal people to live in a brighter world. Youji's probably the best example of this contradiction in the series: calling him a jaded, hardened cynic is just as accurate as calling him a hopeless romantic.
Fullmetal Alchemist is an interesting example as the first anime and manga/second anime end on different sides of the scale. The first anime is fairly cynical, ending on a note that seems to say that even if you try your best, while you may make some progress, you'll never get exactly what you want. The manga is much more idealistic, with the message that if you work hard enough and overcome your pain, you can make anything possible except for bringing back the dead.
Fafner In The Azure: Dead Aggressor is a Real Robot Genre version of Evangelion and even more cynical than Evangelion (The Festum view the humans as bastards and are right in their judgment). The Super Robot Wars K that served as its debut where you can save the pilots who died in the series is done through a Sadistic Choice style unlock (you can only unlock one set of units).
Gankutsuou takes a nosedive off the cynical end very early on, doing its best to crush the Wide-Eyed Idealist main character into tiny bits. Then in the last few episodes, Franz pulls the whole series up into the Idealistic end by its bootlaces.
It also largely takes the more idealistic Living Forever Is Awesome view of immortality, with most of the immortals shown either celebrating or at least making the best of their eternal lives, though it certainly touches on the more cynical side as well.
Like Gantz and Berserk, the works of Yoshiki Takaya such as Zeorymer and Guyver falls into the cynical side. How despite wielding an indestructible weapon against the enemy is fighting what amounts to be a Hopeless War against an alien threat.
School Days's infamous anime adaption is completely cynical and it is a very subtle Utsuge to boot. The ending involves having the jerkass main character entrapped by his love interests and in the worst ending has his lovers (and maybe even him) murdered horribly by the jilted lover.
FLCL, confusing and over-the-top as it is, seems to favor a cynical standpoint. There's really no good or evil in the universe (only chaos?) because both sides are equally corrupt. The only real escape is Naota's childish innocence, the one he tries so desperately to get rid of but basically ends up sticking to through everything.
Kagerou Nostalgia is what happens when you take typical shonen archetypes, and drop them off in a Crapsack World. So far, the heroes have achieved absolutely nothing, beyond getting their leader killed, the villain's plans are moving closer to fruition, and the miserable status quo is firmly in place. To quote The Hero, Kazuma: "In the end we were powerless. Again. We fought like mad, but all that's ever left is the devastation."
The main cast only achieved victory in the first one by sacrificing themselves, only to be reincarnated along with their foes in the sequel, without the help of the princess this time around.
As it starts off as a parody of Death Note,Onani Master Kurosawa begins extremely cynically, with the first few chapters starting off as a showcase for all of the jackassery that goes on in middle school—protagonist Kurosawa is a misanthropic, misogynist creep who spends his time masturbating in an unused bathroom, local Alpha Bitch Sugawa is quite shockingly cruel, and even the most sympathetic-seeming character, Kitahara, quickly proves to be a Jerkass Woobie with a hugely vindictive streak. Then into the story walks Magister Takigawa, a sweet, intelligent girl without a hateful bone in her body. Her reveal of her backstory, of how she found the power within herself to become who she wanted to be, and the changes this inflicts on Kurosawa, is just the first sign that the manga is headed on a non-stop collision course to becoming one of the most unflinchingly and unapologetically idealistic manga out there. And it's idealist in the traditional sense, in that although the road to personal growth and happiness is often fraught with hardships, friends, and the satisfaction of being the person you always wanted to be, make it worth it.
Revolutionary Girl Utena plants itself in the middle of the spectrum, refuses to budge, and lets the characters and plot (and audience) fight over it to whatever extremes they please.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex may seem like a rather cynical show at first, placing its characters in the middle of a Crapsack World and forcing them to make difficult moral decisions almost daily. However, the show seems more idealistic when it's taken into consideration that these people are the only force protecting society from complete destruction and ultimately their intentions are good - even if their methods are sometimes questionable.
Comic Books
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 forgetting 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. He also did a landmark run on Supreme and wrote 1963 in a further attempt to reverse the trend.
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 favorable 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. 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.
The Superman/Batman series manages to successfully show both titular characters on their 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 cynicism, 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.
Oddly enough, whenever he's by himself (in the incredibly Crapsack World of Gotham), Batman tends to be less of a cynic, but becomes much more of one when he's around other characters and has to fill that niche.
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.
The formerly-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. As of current canon, Superman has never killed anyone.
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.
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 Copperhead 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 its 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 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 contrasted 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.
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 "shame" felt towards the Silver Agent (who was framed by the government and executed to show that they could control superheroes), 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.
Sin City is heavily cynical but so over-the-top that it's part of its charm.
Boondocks is a relentlessly cynical satire comic about Black people and the unstoppable nature of corporate greed and Blaxploitation.
An excellent illustration of the divide between DC and Marvel comes in JLA/Avengers, where the two teams end up in the others' universe. Captain America sees the way DC's civilians celebrate their heroes and assumes they've set themselves up as tin-pot dictators; meanwhile, Superman sees how bad off the Marvel universe is and decries their heroes for being selfish and not helping the common man enough. The pair actually comes to blows over this (to the confusion of their respective teammates), and it's later revealed that the stress of their two universes merging is having a negative effect on the two men since they're so strongly tied to their respective worlds. The two manage to have an honest talk about the concerns of going too far or not doing enough, and when they part ways they agree that above all else, the important thing is that they try their best.
Kick-Ass is about as cynical as it gets, even more so than Watchmen. Dave is pretty much a loser, Big Daddy is a complete fraud, Hit Girl is lied to by her father about her mother dying, and not allowed to have a normal childhood, and everyone else except for maybe Dave's father is a scumbag of one sort or the other (Katie is a shallow bitch, Red Mist is completely unsympathetic unlike in the film, his father is a Complete Monster, etc). Despite all this, it's incredibly funny. Many people preferred the movie adaptation since it toned down the utter bleakness of the comic book, but taken on its own terms, the comic is a great Black Comedy.
One of the draws of the Green Lantern and Green Arrow series was this, Lantern as idealistic, Arrow as cynical. This is brought up later in Green Lanter: Rebirth, when GA tries to use GL's power ring to defend himself, only for Sinestro to smack him down and mocking his will as being too cynical to even get the ring to work. So, idealism isn't so bad...
Fan Works
Shinji And Warhammer40k and Fairly English Story are both cynical, with heroes that do awful things and who have significant character flaws. However, both have a brighter aspect in that however monstrous the heroes may be, they are dedicated toward making the world a better place and have the strength and skill to do so. In Shinji And Warhammer40k, this makes it slightly more idealistic than the original. Where Fairly English Story lands in relation to its parent source is...debatable.
Ranma ˝ fanfics in particular are known for being more cynical than their source, often playing the more comedic elements straight.
Drunkards Walk is generally idealistic. Most of the characters are shown to be (or become) decent people at heart, and it's very difficult to find character who is both truly selfish and not batshit insane.
Necaberints Phalanx is an interesting case. It's military sci-fi with a child soldier set in the Gears of Waruniverse and things keep getting worse. The main character has had a terrible life, like everybody else, and he's a going rather insane. It sounds like a complete wad of Dark Fic and an attempt at being edge laden with High Octane Nightmare Fuel. It's actually rather cynical for a fic about a video game set in a post-apocalyptic hellhole where the good guys are Fascists. The themes of friendship, love, loyalty, camaraderie, and trust appear often and frequently, without the characters being Nakama, they would have all certainly died by now. It's a realistically idealistic work with cynicism jutting into it.
A good study on the differing ends of the scale occurs in Tiberium Wars. On the one hand, the story is cynical itself, with cruelty, necessary evils, senseless death, and disturbing brutality and violence. This is shown particularly well in a brutal moment where a Nod officer has to execute his own wounded because they'll slow his able-bodied troops down while retreating. On the other hand, the story also shows compassion, loyalty, and friendship are powerful forces that can let leaders command their men successfully and can let the dog soldiers on the ground survive the worst. The idealistic side is shown in a scene where Commander Karrde addressed a unit that had been maule dunder his command, asking for volunteers for a dangerous mission. He expects them to refuse or deride him for getting so many of the troops killed, only to have the entire unit volunteer, believing that his command was the only thing that got them out of the battle alive.
Although never idealistic, With Strings Attached has the four gradually move from wide-eyed wonder and genuine heroic tendencies to exhausted cynicism by the end, to the point where they refuse to rescue Lyndess, who saved their lives in the First Movement. Slightly justified in that A) they didn't know if the curse on her had ended when the Dalns gods left, and it would have taken them weeks to get her home if it hadn't; and B) she was a skahs, and they were sick, sick, sick to death of skahs.
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.
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 Beowulf paints the title character as a Bad AssAnti-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.
WALLE. 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.
Disney's Fantasia, as far as it has a position, is generally closer to the idealistic end. Even the Night on Bald Mountain segment ends with Chernobog repelled and returning to slumber. Bruno Bozzetto's response, Allegro Non Troppo, is far more cynical.
However, the Expanded Universe is much more cynical, Force Unleashed and Knights of the Old Republic 2 being the official Dark Fic of the series.
Note that despite its overall idealist tone, the film generally considered to be the best in the series is The Empire Strikes Back, possibly the darkest. The same applies to Revenge of the Sith, which was considered to be the best of the prequel trilogy.
The latest Rambo movie has its foot firmly planted in the cynical side. The pacifistic missionaries 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. It's showing its '80s action-movie pedigree. The common theme in most of those films was that diplomacy was useless against America's enemies, and that lawyers and judges existed solely to let drug dealers and sociopathic murderers back on the streets. In both cases, one or two Badasses unconstrained by rules were all you needed to defeat Third World dictators or clear the streets of crime.
Short Circuit had this kind of conflict between the idealistic Newton Crosby (PHD, 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!
This is justified due to censorship, since the Mexican government wanted to give the best image about the country after the Mexican Revolution, but this changed in the 60s with the Luis Buńuel's movie Los Olvidados, who was the Ur Example of the genre.
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.
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.
To elaborate, though Batman's idealism is shown to be heroic (refusing to let Ra's al Ghul destroy the decaying city of Gotham, refusing to kill Joker, etc.), there are some moments in which the effectiveness of the cynical approach are played up ("letting" Ra's die, Batman's killing Two-Face, etc.).
Even more surprisingly Batman also fits on the idealistic side, although not quite to the point of The Dark Knight, but for Batman's actions, he becomes publicly loved and gets the girl, and The Joker is dead. Although he had to take the cynical route of killing people to get there. It is mostly cynical, but it too is a case of Earn Your Happy Ending
Batman Returns on the other hand is even more cynical to the point of nihilism despite not being as dark as the original with more jokes and campy idiots instead of corruption. However Batman losses the girl, ends up being forced to do even more killing, the one person he loves ends up being morally ambiguous, and everyone hates him again thanks to The Penguin via the murder of The Ice Princess.
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.
Actually, the original ending involved Jim dying. The only reason cynicism didn't prevail is because test audiences found it too depressing.
Then came the sequel, in which there is utterly no hope.
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 definitely one of the most cynical moments in Peter Weir films, like...ever.
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 talks about how grey morality is his favorite brand of morality and delivers this beautifully heartbreaking line towards the end: They say evil prevails when good men fail to act. What they ought to 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.)
Juno has taken a lot of flak for just how far to the idealism end of the scale it goes re: its treatment of teen pregnancy and its consequences.
August Rush is idealistic in the extreme, to the point of being implausible - a 12-year-old learns to compose full symphonies and play multiple instruments without any musical training, AND he gets admitted to the Julliard School (not their preparatory program, like other pre-college musicians would, but the college itself), and his cutesy piece manages to impress a 21st-century composition faculty so much that they get him a reading with the New York Philharmonic? And it happens to be the same concert his mom is playing, and which his dad attends? No wonder so many critics panned it.
Critics accused Valentine's Day of being a bit too much on the cynical side for a romantic-comedy (one reviewer compared it to "expecting milk chocolate but getting baking (bitter) chocolate instead"; another compared it to "getting bad Valentine candy from a pretty/handsome person" in reference to the brilliant but wasted All Star Cast), especially compared to its spiritualpredecessorLove Actually.
The 1976 film Network. Talk about your cynical films! But the craziest thing of all about that film is that the film was actually considered a Slice of Life docudrama by TV news people, which makes sense considering Paddy Chayefsky (who wrote the film's screenplay) consulted with actual reporters and behind-the-scenes TV news people while writing his script.
Any Mafia stories - not just films, but also video games - that you can bring up always falls into the cynical end of the sliding scale. The protagonists are often put in a desperate situation and a gritty urban setting, forced into the life of villainy, and almost all of them meet a tragic end.
Moulin Rouge! flits from side to side during its running-time, but the ending jumps into the space between the two extremes. Nearly all of the main characters lose absolutely everything (and the Duke relatively gets away with it), but they keep their ideals intact and win the moral argument.
What Dreams May Come, a romantic drama film detailing a pair of lovers' journey in the afterworld, sets its soul on the idealistic end of the scale. It shows that against all odds, true love will always last, as a sincere lover is willing to sacrifice his or her everything to drag their loved ones out of even the darkest misery - and they get their deserved reward at the end.
Meet the Robinsons was not a bad movie, but it was almost ridiculously idealistic.
For a Black Comedy, Horrible Bosses is ultimately surprisingly idealistic. Only one character is capable of murder.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, as a whole, tends strongly to the idealistic side, which provides an interesting contrast to Mark Millar's very cynical Ultimates comic book run, which a lot of the movie continuity takes elements from. However, there are still some bittersweet moments, if the endings for both Thor and Captain America are any proof.
A major part of the conflict in the Avengers' team will stem from Steve Rogers' "outdated and irrelevant" idealism clashing head on with Tony Stark's hedonistic and materialistic cynicism. Ironically, Steve and Howard (Tony's father) were friends and allies during World War II.
The Alien series ultimately lands on the far end of the cynical side. Aside from Ripley and a few other heroic characters, the universe of the movies is very much a Crapsack World where uncaring governments and profit-driven MegaCorps place little value on human lives as long as they can experiment on them with alien SuperSoldiers.
Most comedies nowadays usually go into the cynical side, as most of the humor is either offensive, gross or satirical.
Soviet movies about WWII are usually extremely idealistic - despite the Downer Ending they often have. The idealism isreinforced by the fact that though people suffered hardships and many died, they ultimately contributed to winning the war and saved their country and other people while becoming heroes forever.
The 2010 movie The Expendables is a classic example of reinforced violent masculinity at the cynical end of the scale, showing that the only solution to every problem, including one's girlfriend getting beaten and the drug dealers in Vilena, is beat them into submission with no mercy; the mercenaries who work for the CIA also do this primarily for money instead of for greater good.
Narc is a very cynical movie, which focuse's on rough, poverty-striken area's and police corruption.
The Breakfast Club is extremely cynical in its view of high school life and humanity in general. Parents and authority figures are portrayed as apathetic at best or total scumbags at worst, and its hard to say by the end which of the characters has the least controversial amount of blood on their hands.
Tolkien's Christian beliefs inform the series very strongly; making it highly idealistic despite the turns that the story takes. In his view, cynicism and despair were inherently self-destructive, self-fulfilling prophesies; and therefore inherently sinful. Characters that fall into cynicism end up dying miserably, or at best, losing everything; while those who retain their idealism and persevere, regardless of how bad things get, are eventually rewarded, even in death.
The story even sets up a number of clear contrasts to illustrate this: Gandalf vs. Saruman, Frodo vs. Gollum, Theoden vs. Denethor, Faramir vs. Boromir. The most interesting contrast is between Theoden and Denethor. While both end up dying during the Battle of Pelennor Fields, Theoden's death is noble and heroic, and is accepted as the fulfillment of his life and purpose. By contrast, Denethor's despair-driven suicide is ultimately empty and meaningless; and, without Gandalf and Pippin's intervention, would have resulted in the death of Faramir and the complete destruction of Gondor.
On the other hand, H.P. Lovecraft's stories defined a whole new genre: Cosmic Horror Story, 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.
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.
The later books are even more cynical, with protagonists employing everything from mind control to adultery to accomplish their goals.
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 makeup, 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 freedom - two concepts which both also believe do not actually exist 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.
In a telling exchange from Guards! Guards! (the first book to prominently feature Vetinari and the Watch):
Lord Vetinari: There are not good and bad people... There are always and only the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides. Captain Vimes: Did you really mean all that, sir? About the darkness in the human soul and everything? Lord Vetinari: Indeed. It is the only logical conclusion. Captain Vimes: But you get out of bed every morning? Lord Vetinari: Hmm? Yes? What is your point? Captain Vimes: I'd just like to know why, sir. Lord Vetinari: Oh, do go away, Vimes. There's a good fellow.
Holt started out as comparatively idealistic — Flying Dutch ended with a full-on literalHappily Ever After and didn't have anyone more overtly villainous than a jackass boss. They've been sliding down the scale ever since.
The Dresden Files is definitely a mix, as is the protagonist. Good and Evil, is fairly pure forms, are at war in the Dresden Files world, in many forms, and also in Dresden's own soul. When Harry is good, he's very Good, but sometimes he's very dark, to the point of murdering an (admittedly nasty) person to gain power to save his daughter from being killed, and pondering worse. His heart is with the Light, though, to a degree he himself fails to recognize.
On the other hand, he's becoming uncomfortably aware, from painful experience, that some of the harder-boiled cynics around him that he disdained when he was younger are actually right in their views. He managed to restore some faith and hope in the deeply embittered Warden Donald Morgan, but he's also finding out the hard way that Morgan was tired and bitter for a reason.
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 C. J. 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!
There are few fanatics so ruthless as the idealist ready to subordinate real people and real things to abstractions.
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) humor, 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.
Basically the dismantling of the (well-intentioned but extremely cynical) Colonial Defense Forces' military junta means humanity can try other approaches in dealing with aliens other than a constantly-paranoid siege mentality.
Jack Campbell's The 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.
There is, of course, the now tossed around theory that "The Prince" was the most sarcastic piece Machiavelli ever wrote. The evidence for this is pretty strong, considering, as was previously stated, all of his other pieces say exactly the opposite of what he says in The Prince, and, when you look at it, the way the damn book was written makes it sound like it is dripping in sarcasm. Imagine the most famous passages read aloud, by an incredibly sarcastic, angry man who has been flat-out told that his visions of government will not ever happen in his life time, and you are, as close as is possible, to the tone that "The Prince" was actually written in and intended to be read in.
His Discourses, of course, are on the same side of the scale as The Prince. Even though it's on the republican side, it certainly isn't idealistic by any standard. The longest chapter is about organizing coups, and several chapters of the first book describe how to use religion for political purposes.
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.
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 Story 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.
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.
Though George Orwell's nonfiction Homage to Catalonia manages to subvert the whole scale by being very cynical and idealistic at the same time.
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.
Lord of the Flies took this concept to the absolute extreme end of cynicism—it was pretty much a rebuttal of a book on the extreme idealist side of the spectrum.
There are those who believe that the experience of The Great War shaped the mindset here.
In the world of realistic children's lit, Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume are on opposite sides of this spectrum. Cleary's books tend to be about the lighter side of childhood, even while they portray all the ups and downs that go with it. Almost like Yotsuba&! in book form, but not as wacky. Blume's books are a much harsher, unflinching look at the unhappy side of childhood, and have been banned in many places.
The Sundering is difficult to peg on a two-dimensional scale of idealism. It uses White and Grey Morality, with the "white" side winning and committing genocide against the grey side. That is depicted as a very bad thing that's nonetheless perfectly in character for the "pure" heroes. This sounds cynical, but the funny thing is that it might actually be idealistic, since the bad guys could have been redeemed if anyone had been willing to negotiate.
Mark Twain, in his later works, became an incredibly cynical author.
Most of Jane Austen's novels are idealistic and romantic in the fullest sense of the terms. Then there's Mansfield Park...
The world of P. G. Wodehouse is eternally sunny, but laced with enough cynicism to keep you laughing.
Andrew Vachss' Burke books are definitely cynical. Beneath the veneer of civilisation that "citizens" see is a festering underworld with all kinds of scum. The government is at best ineffectual, at worst either wilfully looking away or abetting evil. While Burke does do heroic things like saving people and bringing down criminals, he himself skims the edge of the law and is unafraid to be brutal or work with people who use violence.
Despite some of the horrific aspects, the Green Sky Trilogy bleeds idealism. Raamo is the most powerful psychic in generations, and goes through an entire year of being feted as above and apart. However, he never believes it. His restraint attracts Neric, the closest thing the Kindar have to a cynic...but even Neric is on the side of angels. He just sees trouble, and wants to solve it. Together, they discover the society's dirty secret the first Ol-Zhaan exile dissenters beneath the Root and made up the story of the Pash-San to cover for the disappearances. The exiles could have easily succumbed to dispair and violence, as the Ol-Zhaan feared...turns out they're healthier, and only marginally less peaceful, than the Kindar. Every time one of the "old guard" steps in and tries to stop the Rejoyners from integrating the societies, they're shown up in some spectacular fashion. And in what is possibly the first canonical video game sequel to a book, Snyder undoes Raamo's Heroic Sacrifice by having one of his friends rescue him.
Where Jules Verne goes on this scale depends on whether the book was overseen by his far more idealistic editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Most of the works he's still known for were published under Hetzel, with the notable exception of Paris in the Twentieth Century (a proto-Cyberpunk book written in the early Hetzel years, but not published until 1994), so he's typically known as an idealist. When Hetzel died, later editors gave him more free rein, and his works got steadilymore cynical.
In Diane Duane's Stealing the Elf-King's Roses, one universe discovers another and quickly realizes that the new universe is much lower on the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism...and now that the bridge is open, the cynicism is getting out. Here's the interesting part: The new universe is ours.
Another interesting comparison is between Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, two of Australia's greatest poets. They lived around the same time, they were both city-born men who wrote about the country, but whereas Patterson was very idealistic, romanticising the bush and its inhabitants, Lawson frequently wrote about how the bush sends you crazy after a while. They would frequently write responses to each others poems and stories.
Ningen Shikkaku, or No Longer Human, chronicling the extreme woobie Osamu Dazai's life of disappointment and hatred toward the society right before his final suicide, lies firmly on the cynical end of the scale.
The amount of misanthropic and nihilist venom that drips from the pages of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's "Journey to the End of the Night" and "Death on the Installment Plan" puts them so far on the cynical end of the scale that they fall off of it. That doesn't stop those books from being among the most hilarious novels out there.
The self-help book The Secret goes far, far off the deep end of the "Idealism" side of the scale. To the point that it has been subject to mockery.
In Death: The series seems to be located roughly in the middle of idealistic and cynical. Eve is definitely cynical, but she will put everything on the line for murder victims anyway. The books make it clear that the world is both wonderful and terrible at the same time.
Dinotopia falls firmly on the idealist side, showing that humans on the island (except for Lee Crabb) have been taught to dump their warlike ways by peaceful and wise dinosaurs.
Peter Watts' Blindsight is highly cynical. Even the protagonists are bizarre and inhuman, to say nothing about the aliens
Orphan of Asia, a novel that details a lone protagonist's failing struggle against the colonial Japanese regime in Taiwan before and during World War II before going completely insane, lies firmly on the cynical end of the scale.
Live Action TV
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 impassioned 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.
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.
Not in volumes 3 and onward. After the Volume 4 , no more Mr. Nice Guy from the Cape. In fact, several times, Future Peter seemed very cynical, and let us not forget Claire who is some Frankensteinish cross between her people-loving uncle and her stubborn, pessimistic father. Future Claire in volume 3 scared me a little, I'll admit.
And then there's Nathan who frequently uses cynical means for idealistic purposes.
A.K.A. the entire volume 4 plot wrapped into a single sentence. Nice work, Cadet.
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. Jack basically has to tell Daniel to shut up, and let him do it his way.
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 expertise.
Notably, McKay and Sheppard periodically flip-flop these points of view, far more so than SG:1 did.
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.
Stargate Universe however is extremely cynical, when someone is doomed, the usual order is to leave them to die or at the mercy of the whatever is out to get them (Compared to how despite going up against improbable odds, the heroes believe there is a way and will fight to make that third option happen) and takes a bit from the new Battlestar Galactica as sex, violence and character drama rule the day aboard the Destiny.
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. The reason for the above reneging on the crime boss's job? The cargo that the crew were paid to steal turned out to be critical medicine for a poor mining community, where virtually the entire population is suffering from a degenerative disease that will eventually kill them without the medicine. Also, the mere fact that Mal is willing to keep Simon and River Tam on his ship, in spite of all the trouble they bring down on him and his. 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 center point on the scale. He will commit blatant crimes upto and including the above-mentioned murder but all in the name of protecting his "family" as represented by his crew.
Word Of God in the commentaries states that they wanted to explore a hero's journey. As shown in the opening of the pilot (which was aired last), Mal started as an incredibly idealistic volunteer for the plucky underdog army, kissing a cross before a sortie. Then his army got crushed and he spent weeks watching the men under his command wither and die of injury and disease and he walked away a broken, hideously cynical man who verbally lambasts a preacher at every possibility. The show would have explored his gradual rediscovery of the idealist within.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (at least in the first four seasons or so) tends towards idealism. People are mostly good. Evil can be defeated. Monsters can become heroes. Even Cordelia Chase gets nicer, and Spike becomes a Noble Demon. However, the Season Eight comic is firmly on the cynicism side. The universe is the Big Bad and only destroying all magic can stop it.
Angel on the other hand, tends toward cynicism: the Senior Partners can never be defeated, only temporarily inconvenienced, and the universe is shown to be as equally heartless to an Eldritch Abomination as anyone else.
Despite its view being incredibly cynical, Angel is hard to quantify, because its fundamental take on the idea is "Evil can never be defeated, and good will never prevail. We fight evil in spite of this fact."
The contrast between Buffy and Angel is both are inherently idealistic, but illustrate different traditions of idealism. Buffy, at least in the television program, is closer to the Christian idealism, which knows that Good will ultimately win, though it may require a lot of pain, and even the ultimate sacrifice, to make happen. Angel appears closer to the Germanic Pagan idealism, which knows that the gods will fall and the world is doomed to Ragnarok; but that it's better to fight for the gods and die a noble death, than to give in to the darkenss.
To be more precise, it is extremely cynical for the male cast. The world hates them with the force of a thousand suns and at best they deserve the abuse and at worst gets roughed, spat on, and then stomped on for having deviant opinions from the female cast lives in a semi-idealistic world where almost nothing goes wrong. Which is a summary of most Dan Schneider shows as well; girls rarely gets the raw end of the deal while the abuse for boys last during and after the episode's done.
Star Trek is generally an idealistic show, at least in its original run; characters often speculated on the nature of humanity, which was portrayed as fundamentally good, and learned An Aesop. 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. Here the Federation's principles are presented not only as sacrosanct, but infallible. Pretty much every Planet of Hats alien race is presented as being deeply flawed in some way, so that the crew of Voyager can storm in to point out how primitive and rubbish the ignorant yokels are and how much more they have to learn. Take a shot whenever Janeway says "We're peaceful explorers" in a smug, patronising voice.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine definitely slid towards the cynical end of the scale, and slammed straight into the far end with the Season 6 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.)
Deep Space Nine 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.
Star Trek: The Original Series is a very idealistic series... except when it's not. From "Charlie X", where a boy raised by aliens is taken back by those aliens, begging and screaming to be saved, because the skills the aliens gave him to survive make him too dangerous; to "The Apple", where Kirk destroys a peaceful, innocent, loving civilization in order to allow them to advance technologically and to save his crew. Spock often acts as the voice of cynicism, clashing with Doctor McCoy's belligerent idealism.
Star Trek:The Next Generation was fairly idealistic while Gene Roddenberry was still writing it. After his death, it took a more cynical turn.
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 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.
In the first three seasons of the relaunch, the Doctor tends to express great admiration of humanity and our curiosity, though he does make a comment in the fourth season about a future human empire built on slavery being not so different from industrialized human societies in the present because "who do you think made your clothes?".
Episodes with Daleks tend to be darker and more cynical.
But then you reach the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, which is more consistently cynical due to much of it being primarily aimed at an adult audience...
In-universe illustration: In the Virgin New Adventures, the Doctor thinks Bernice Summerfield is a cynic; she says she's an idealist who was wrong too many times. And then she turns out to be nowhere near as cynical as New Ace, much less Roz Forrester.
In the Eighth Doctor Adventures, by contrast, Sam Jones is a highly idealistic companion who is always wrong about everything.
The West Wing often provides an idealistic vision of the United States Presidency, and a Democratic President in particular.
And then, right at the other end of the scale, there's The Thick of It...
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.
The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed: the two protagonists represent opposing sides of the scale, with former infantry scout/Naďve Newcomer Sharapov representing idealism and his roommate/senior colleague Zheglov on the cynical side.
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.
Even so, the show is not completely without small, tear jerking moments of idealism; none more so when Bubbles gets sober and stays sober. Or when Namond becomes the only one of the boys in the fourth season to escape the streets.
Treme, David Simon's new series on HBO, depicts the bleak living conditions of post-Katrina New Orleans, but possesses much more idealism, because while the characters realize they live in a Crapsack World, they make it work. Usually.
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 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. It's constantly made clear that House, although he is the "hero", is totally unhappy, and he has to go to the loony bin for withdrawal at one point.
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.
The writers were retired civil servants, and many of the more "unrealistic" storylines - for instance, smuggling alcohol into a reception held in an Islamic country - are based on events that actually occurred in 1970s British politics.
Foyle's 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 get go.
One of the subthemes of Jericho is people trying to maintain their faith in the ideals of America while struggling for survival.
Pushing Daisies has what might at first glance seem to be a grim premise—main character can bring the dead back to life, but only for one minute or else someone else dies—but in fact it falls firmly on the idealistic end of the scale.
Where Glee falls on the scale is debatable; most viewers generally see it as happy and idealistic, but some critics have attested that this apparent idealism masks a much sadder reality. Particularly played with in episodes that focus on grown-up former glee clubbers (who tend not to have achieved their dreams of Broadway fame and fortune, with April Rhodes being the most extreme example), or on the students' popularity ("Mash-Up" and "Mattress", and now "Prom Queen," in particular). Part of the issue may be that Glee has three different writers, and it can jump all over the scale depending on who is writing any given episode.
Veronica Mars can get almost Anvilicious in its views of doing what's "right" versus doing what's legal. Some examples:
It's okay to steal evidence from law enforcement to conduct your own investigation if you know the cops are a bunch of failures.
If your illegitimate child is at risk of falling into the custody of abusive people, you're better off fleeing the country with her without even giving a custody hearing a try.
Lost has Jack, the "man of science" who represents cynicism, and Locke, the "man of faith" who represents idealism. Much of Jacks and Locke's interactions on the show are based on one of them trying to convince the other that their viewpoint is right. Eventually, they both convert to the other side. Jack takes a leap of faith by dropping the nuclear bomb down the hole at the future Swan Station, while Locke has a mental breakdown when he cannot convince everyone to return to the island.
Then comes the Grand Finale which ends on the most idealistic point on the scale possible.
Skins can come off as very cynical compared to other teen shows, but it actually jumps around on the scale:
As far as the couples go: in the first generation, Tony/Michelle couldn't make it work, Sid/Cassie had an ambiguous ending, and Chris/Jal were broken up by Chris's death. In the second generation, though, there was a Happy Ending for the Schoolgirl Lesbians with Naomi's Anguished Declaration of Love to Emily, and it's more than implied that Thomas and Pandora will get one, too, as they head off to Harvard. So only Freddie/Effy get screwed, but considering that Cook/Effy were the Fan Preferred Couple anyway...
And Skins tends to take a rather idealistic view of teen romance. Rather than acting like teen relationships are doomed to fail, Skins always portrays its Official Couples (the ones that make to the end of their generations, that is) as being in "true love" and likely to last if they put the necessary work into them.
Also: Bad people do tend to get their comeuppance. For example, Tony ruins his friends' lives and immediately he is hit by a bus which his recovery leading to a Heel Face Turn. Both Mad Twatter and his Expy in Generation 2 get the shit kicked out of them (literally in the former case) for messing with the protagonists. Only Chris and Freddie, and Sid's dad get the truly bleak end of the stick.
The show seems to have fallen into a pattern for each generation of making its first season more idealistic, with its second season taking a hard turn for the cynical. It overall puts the show on a Cerebus Roller Coaster. Word Of God has said they're not planning to continue the pattern with the current generation, however, although Grace ending up in a coma in the S6 premiere would suggest otherwise...
Skins takes a particularly cynical view of psychology/psychiatry. Even before they had Effy's Ax Crazy shrink murdering Freddie, it showed Emily and JJ going to Psycho(logical) Support and getting the same generic pills for wildly different problems (and with Emily's case, she really didn't need any pills, just some therapy - showing they'd much rather dash off a prescription than actually take time and help her), or Cassie easily tricking her therapists into thinking she'd gained weight (like she's really the first person who walked through there to try that trick). Jamie Brittain has confirmed that this is a case of Writer On Board; he had some bad experiences with psychiatrists in his adolescence and holds a grudge against the profession as a result.
Due South is waaaaaaay over on the idealistic side, so much so that Fraser lives in the worst neighbourhood in Chicago and never needs a lock on his apartment door (its a plot point that he refuses to believe he needs one).
In the vein of Asian Daytime Dramas, the scale is different for every country. Hong Kong's dramas are mostly idealist with the evil people getting their just desserts and the good people earn their happy ending while Korean Dramas falls mostly in the cynical side.
Kamen Rider swings all over the place in this one, especially in the Heisei era (2000 onwards). Early Heisei shows like Ryuki, Faiz and Blade go purely cynical with a couple of idealists who winds up sacrificing themselves for everyone else; it also marks the introduction of evil but Not Brainwashed Kamen Riders (compare to Gundam, above). More recent Heisei series like Den-O, OOO, and Fourze are much more idealistic worlds where only the Big Bads are truly evil, and the Monsters of the Week result from the desires of people who are good but misguided or manipulated into bad choices. This isn't cut-and-dried, however; the recent Double had its dark moments but is ultimately cautiously hopeful.
Crime Scene Investigation, being as angsty as it is, lies firmly on the cynical end of the scale, though most criminals are brought to trial.
Its Asian variant, Forensic Heroes however is on a more idealistic side with a couple of dramatic moments to offset not only the lighter setting (literally) but also the reactions to the situation (It helps since each case is not a single episode affair but a complete arc).
Almost by definition a Deconstruction tends towards cynicism; a Reconstruction tends toward idealism. This does not necessarily apply to the works themselves: deconstructive works can end being extremely idealistic.
In general, many entries on this site seek to discredit hoary or cliched tropes (cynicism) - unless, of course, the point is that Tropes Are Not Bad (idealism).
World Half Empty tends to hint the cynical end of the scale, while World Half Full tends to fall on the middle of the scale.
Music
Supertramp has songs, such as "School", "The Logical Song", and "Crime Of The Century", that head straight for the cynical end and never look back.
Christmas music in general tend to be very idealistic, often to the point of tasting like diabetes.
Though there are exceptions, such as "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."
Nikki Sixx's "Life is Beautiful" says it right at the beginning: "Nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home."
John Lennon went to both sides quite readily. Songs like "Imagine" are extremely idealistic, while songs like "Gimme Some Truth" are very cynical.
Opera has run all over the scale, depending a lot on the composer and the genre:
With Greek mythology as the typical source material, early operas were often very cynical - at least those that weren't Bowdlerized with a tacked-on Happy Ending.
Mozart's operas generally fall on the more idealistic end of the scale, with The Magic Flute as the standout among his oeuvre, but even the initially-cynical Don Giovanni ends up idealistic when the titular character's Karma Houdini antics finally end with him being dragged down to hell for his misdeeds. Cosi fan tutte is an exception to the rule, falling pretty far over on the cynical end despite being a comedy. The cynical Don Alfonso is proven right at the end when Fiordiligi and Dorabella are coerced into cheating on their fiancés, and pretty much no one except him ends up happy.
In Italian and French opera, whether the ending is more cynical or idealistic falls pretty strictly along dramatic/comedy lines. Even mostly light-hearted dramas usually had cynical endings. A common theme was showing two young, optimistic lovers progressing through their romance and getting closer and closer to achieving domestic bliss with each other - and then Shooting the Shaggy Dog by having one of them contract a disease and drop dead (see: La Traviata, Manon, La Bohčme). Another was having one person be Driven to Suicide or murder by their lover's infidelity/cruelty/general dickishness (for example, Madame Butterfly, Carmen).
Opera in general took a hard turn for the cynical with the 20th century. Many of the titans of modern opera - Strauss's Salome and Elektra, Berg's Wozzeck and Lulu, Britten's Peter Grimes - fall on the extreme cynical end.
While Lyrical Dissonance and relative obscurity give the Barenaked Ladies a reputation for whimsical cheerfulness and humour (and it's there), their actual songs and lyrics often, arguably more often than not, fall very much on the Cynical side. For example, their songs involving love are decidedly realistic, not to mention numerous songs about PTSD or depression and the like.
Devo tends toward the cynical side in their concept of "De-evolution." According to former member Bob Lewis, however, there is something of an philosophical divide between the group's two frontmen, Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale: "Gerry [sic] continues to strive for political statement and high-concept art, still maintaining some modernist, or perhaps more accurately, anti-postmodernist tendencies...Mark, on the other hand, has gained recognition for essentially commercial pursuits...his fine art prints continue to reflect his introspective highly personal aesthetic, which make their statements in a small genre manner; Mark IS postmodern." [1]
Newspaper Comics
Retail is planted firmly down on the cynicism end of the scale. The comic is about the trials and tribulations of minimum-wage retail workers, almost all of whom hate their jobs, their bosses, their customers, and everything else about their workplace.
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.
UK comedian and political activist Mark Thomas is often accused of being a cynic, because he always assumes the worst of the government and corporations. He insists that he's an idealist — he believes he can change the world for the better and is prepared to try. It's the people he goes after, who "invite evil in for a cup of tea", that are cynical.
Tabletop RPG
BattleTech sourcebooks are usually very cynical, whereas the novels and games are a bit more idealistic. Sourcebooks talk about the huge technological disparity between worlds, where a peasant may have to slave away for years in order to buy something like a microwave oven, while a poor man on the capitals could walk into a store and buy a 10 petabyte hard drive and video player. The series started out much more cynical, during the 300 year long "Succession Wars". After the Wars ended, it became a bit more idealistic. And then slammed right back into the cynical end during the Jihad, when WMD use and total war became commonplace again.
Then again this is only the impression we get from the outside looking in, where we know just how alarmingly terrible the vast majority of the galaxy is. From the inside various factions it is a different story. In no particular order:
For the average Imperial citizen, their experience of life can be truly anywhere on the scale. Some of them genuinely are peasants who toil away and expire completely unnoticed unless they don't pay their taxes or get drafted. On other worlds the experience of life is much more idealistic with freer access to technology and a genuine middle class. Of course they are likely to be idealistic about bringing the light of the Emperor to the whole galaxy, but they do genuinely believe that they and their government is doing the right thing by suppressing discord and killing enemies. The leaders of the Imperium are certainly very cynical, but they alone truely know the scope of the threats humanity faces and bear the weight of the terrible sacrifices needed to preserve it.
The Eldar are definitely cynics from a traditional point of view, who believe absolutely in putting millions of humans in between them and the bad guys. But then again this is a certain form of idealism. Many eldar characters have been self-sacrificing and are committed to their goals and philosophies.
The Tau by contrast are genuine idealists, and certainly in their original characterization they were doing the right thing, with hints that there was some greater purpose in their actions (forming a 'good' empire that could stand against Chaos and Tyranids), although that has been muddied a bit since then.
The Chaos forces again can be anywhere on the scale. Some of them are cynics who were attracted to Chaos because they wanted the power it offers, while others genuinely believe that the Chaos gods are the true gods of the universe. Anyone who begins to feel the Imperium is a bad thing invariably is said to have fallen to chaos even if they never worshiped the bad gods. All kinds of rebellions and heresies have had genuinely good motivations get portrayed as being Chaos inspired, or ends up calling on the only people in galaxy who will help a rebel in need.
Most of the other factions have motivations that are too weird to really put them anywhere on this scale. We Have Reserves is certainly invoked by all of them, but Orks and Tyranids just make more guys and both have a gestalt connection, while Necrons self-repair. The Necrons alone could arguably called cynical (The Deceiver anyway) but then again they also have their own motivations and they stick to them.
Dungeons & 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.
And that's not going into the actual published campaign settings, from the idealistic heroism of Points Of Light or the deeply cynical survivalism of Dark Sun.
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 reformedmindflayer.
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.
Speaking of sourcebooks and cynical end, Lords of Madness is worth mentioning. To sum it up: In the past the (previous) universe was ruled by Eldritch Abomination, and in the future it will inevitably be ruled by Eldritch Abomination. Slave-taker Eldritch Abomination travel the outer space, and there is a whole dimension full of leech-like mind-controlling parasitic Eldritch Abomination.
The sourcebook "A Magical Medieval Society" applies someone's medieval history degree to D&D by pointing out that magic would make life more pleasant in the areas of medicine, sanitation, and construction. So D&D's magic concepts applied to reality would count as a fairly idealistic setting as medieval worlds go.
It might be worthwhile to remember that, per the rules, in previous editions characters motivating their slaughter with 'I'm Good, they are Evil!' are committing Fantastic Racism (a non-good thing) unless it is warranted, IE, unless the races they are killing are Always Evil. It is at this point that the DM notes that the plurality of 'evil' races in the monster manual are, in fact, not Always Evil, and that killing innocents is an evil act...
Warhammer, at least in the RPG incarnation, is a gleeful deconstruction of Dungeons & Dragons tropes, tending towards the cynical end without at any point taking itself seriously.
World of Darkness, both old and new, sits heavily on the cynical side. Given that its premise is that it is the real world but Darker and Edgier that's not really surprising.
One of the uniting themes of all of the Wo D games is the grinding down of idealism into a nub of cynical apathy. Practically every idealist that the books talk about either ends up broken and empty or destroyed by their beliefs. While a lot of characters still claim a certain sense of commitment to a cause or ideological faction, the focus on violence as a means to solve problems as well as any number of forms of mind control and reality distortion means that they are going to become pragmatic if they want to keep showing up.
It is safe enough to say for the sake of the Endless Warfare, all Tabletops have to be naturally cynical in nature to perpertuate eternal conflict.
Rym leans hard to the cynical side, what with multiple apocalypses, genocidal alien necromancers, and an empire pretty much devoted to enslaving and exploiting everyone else. And in the middle of all this is a tropical island chain of Purity Sue otter-people. Author Appeal comes to mind.
World Tree RPG manages to avoid either end, with Fantastic Racism and a Schizo Tech level of civilization that's constantly in danger of monster attack and Eldritch Abomination invasion, yet is portrayed as fairly pleasant for the main races most of the time.
Pathfinder's default setting of Golarion leans towards cynicism in the current timeline — one of the gods died a century ago (after he was about to make his big second coming), prophecy no longer properly works, the remnants of one powerful empire is now openly ruled by devils while another is on the verge of collapse. Most of the explicitly 'good' nations are either isolationist or too focused on containing/combatting a specific threat to make the world better. However, from a meta perspective, this cynicism serves a purpose: once, when someone on the Paizo message boards commented on how many of the more powerful nations are evil, one of the developers said something to the extent of "Gee, one would almost think the world might need some heroes to come save it."
KULT is another example of a very cynical setting.
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).
Then again, the greatest shows of the early Broadway era weren't as lightweight as people remember. Show Boat dealt fairly realistically with race relations, and not all of the good guys got happy endings. Rodgers And Hammerstein? Hooboy. Oklahoma! has a song wherein the hero tries to convince his rival to commit suicide, and he later kills his rival and is universally praised for doing so. The King and I has two self-righteous egos butting heads, and one dies at the end. The Sound of Music- yeah, real happy ending: they have to flee their home, leaving behind anything they can't easily carry, in order to escape the Nazis.
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.
Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet is utterly cynical toward romance as a whole, portraying the two Star-Crossed Lovers as blind to the reality of their family feud. Even though the two feuding families finally make peace with each other after the lovers are Driven to Suicide by their madness, it is still a highly cynical subversion of traditional love stories. You'd never know it, though, from listening to some of its very idealistic fans.
...Except that it's not, and you could make a strong case that the play is meant to illustrate the power of love (dumb and teenage though it may be) as a force for political unity. It's possible to walk away from the play with the message that even naive adolescent love can be an antidote to the impersonal hatred of political conflict. It's important to note that the opening sonnet says that Romeo & Juliet "doth with their death, buried their parents' strife"- implying that their deaths are directly, causally connected to peace, and that the resulting peace is as important to note as their deaths.
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.
The musical Chicago announces its cynicism even before the curtain goes up:
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to see a story of murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery—all those things we all hold near and dear to our hearts."
The play The Time of Your Life has an entire paragraph, which can be found at the beginning of the script, stating the ideals which the principal characters live by.
Little Shop of Horrors starts in cynicism, quickly lifts into idealism, and then slowly descends to a level more cynical than where it started.
The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is cynical enough, but Kurt Weill's next opera, after he split with Bertolt Brecht, Die Bürgschaft, might be even more cynical. Just as a commercial dispute between the protagonist and his friend is about to be resolved with an Arranged Marriage between their children, the country is taken over by the Great Powers, who impose their law, which is the Law of Money and the Law of Power. Subsequently the country is visited by war, inflation, hunger and disease. While the poor become poorer, the protagonist is too busy making himself richer to look after his dying wife or his missing daughter. Comes the revolution, and his old friend shamelessly betrays him to the bloodthirsty mob.
Video Games
Mass Effect normally is a game that decides whether the player wants to be idealistic or not. The Paragon and Renegade system itself is a Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. Paragons have a idealistic view of the universe, putting moral code above all else. Renegades however are capable of doing nasty things to achieve the greater good and are much more cynical.
Ashley and Kaiden also exemplify this trope. Kaiden is an idealist and Ashley is a cynic.
Arrival, the final DLC for Mass Effect 2, is pretty cynical as it leaves Shepard little choice in the matter of wiping out 304,914 (plus armedchange) relatively innocent batarians because the Reapers have arrived and cannot be allowed to enter a mass relay.
The Witcher novels and games lean havily on the cynical side.
However it has moments of idealism...the "Beauty and The Beast" quest in the first game if Vincent is spared is one example. Saskia is a major idealist in the Witcher 2 (although it allows others to use her easily). Ves is also another when she helps an elven woman held captive and raped by Loredo give birth.
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.)
Then again, most villains in Final Fantasy games tend to be nihilistic, psychopaths, or Ax Crazy to begin with. Kefka was just the first to be all three at once.
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. By the end though, it does settle into rather idealistic territory.
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 AssAnti-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 XII has shades of both. On the Idealism side, it shows that really the 'bad guys' aren't evil, just look at the world from a different standpoint, and peace can be achieved by working together. On the Cynicism side however, it reveals the flaws of the 'find the MacGuffin to save the world' plot, presenting the heroine searching for the crystals as just as power-hungry as the villains.
Final Fantasy XIII turns out to be surprisingly on the idealistic side. Is fate a bit callous and unjust? The Power of Friendship and hope (no not that Hope) will make things turn out okay. Main character's love interest/kid crystalized and shattered by the Big Bad? They'll get better. Most of the party turned into Cie'th by an even bigger Big Bad? Not to worry, they'll just will themselves out of it in time to save the day.Final Fantasy Versus XIII on the other hand is far to the cynical side from everything we've heard about it.
Along with Final Fantasy Type-0, in fact both of the spinoffs of the XIII series are firmly cynical so far.
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/Minwu) dies pathetically just to give you access to a Useless Useful Spell and some stat-ups, at the end of the game the party Nakama—doubling as the hero's own family—is still splintered due to one member's (The Hero's and The Chick's brother) ongoing guilt over his own evil actions prior to Heel Face Turn, and, unbeknownst to all of them, because they killed him, the Big Bad isstilltearing ass through Heaven, wreaking havoc.Fortunately, all those party members he killed over the course of the game can school him, but daaaaaamn.
Dissidia: Final Fantasy pits the two against each other. The Warriors of Cosmos lean idealistic with their emphasis on friendship and hope for a better world. In contrast, the Warriors of Chaos are mostly nihilistic or fatalistic, even the Token Good Teammates.
Final Fantasy Tactics is similar to VII in that it is one of the few entries in the series that are truly very cynical. The nobility fights a pointless war to gain the throne, the commoners are treated slightly better than dirt, and the church is very powerful in the world of politics and controlled by horrifying demons. Both nobles fighting for the crown do heinous acts to try and bring down the other and the Order of the Northern Sky who is supposed to be the "good" side that the hero originally fights for sends its junior brigade members to slaughter veterans of a war before who have turned to banditry because the nobles won't pay them for their service. Top it all off with the main hero being completely vilified by history and mostly forgotten while his friend who turns into a complete Machiavellian bastard to achieve his goals is awarded title of regent and considered the hero by everyone. Yeah, it's definitely one of the most cynical in the series.
And winds up suffering a karmic death and that it is somewhat ambiguous if the main survives or not. Regardless of the case it ends with a Hope Spot that the truth will be revealed
Xenogears is relentlessly cynical. Almost everything good in this game will, at some point, find itself broken. The happy-go-lucky protagonist harbors a hidden personality that is sadistic, immoral and almost godlike in power, and has died, along with his fated love, time after time in invariably tragic ways. Every major location in the game is, at some point, considered your task to save. Most are destroyed after you save them. It doesn't matter, because almost all of humanity is wiped out by the end, just one in a series of near-total apocalypses which have been visited on mankind deliberately throughout human history. Wicked, inhuman shadow masters control the world, ruling it from their invisible nation of scientifically-advanced fantasy Nazis. Everybody on earth has their lives controlled by these people so that they can one day be used as parts to revive the superweapon they all believe is their God. Almost all of the major antagonists are the antagonists because their idealism was shattered in some amazingly cruel fashion. Just ask Lacan and Krelian. The only thing you really accomplish by saving the world is that a few dozen people don't die.
Its Spiritual SuccessorXenosaga is little better. Humanity is locked in a Hopeless War against intangible, hostile aliens known as the Gnosis, which are actually the spirits of humans who are so terrified of living humans, they're willing to kill us. Numerous orgaizations are after the same mysterious, powerful object for their own purposes, some more sinister than others. Many of the antagonists achieve their immediate goals (Albedo coaxing Jr. into killing him, Yuriev grabbing ahold of the Zohar for a short time, just to name a few), and several other protagonists are emotionally scarred in one way or another (Shion being the most prominent example). It Got Worse is more or less the name of the game here, especially in Episode III. In the end, all they can achieve is delaying the inevitable for a while longer.
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."
However Drakengard 2 soften this where one could actually Take a Third Option, breaking the vicious cycle. However Cavia's games are normally very, very, cynical.
Nier is certainly so. After beating the game once, you can play again, and now you can understand Shade language, after finding out Shades are actually materialised human souls. Well, the player can. Which means that you find out that all of the bosses you fight are either learning to be better people, getting revenge for a terrible crime humans committed, trying to save their daughter or not evil at all. And you kill them, no matter what. Oh, and while the first ending is good out of ignorance, and the second reveals that a character thought dead actually isn't, the third and fourth are agonising because one party member goes crazy because she thinks the other is dead. Which means either you or her die. No third option. And if you die, your daughter forgets everything about you. And the other party member is alive! No one needed to die at all!
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).
Super Robot Wars Z however is in the cynical lot. Setsuko's route is often considered the most depressing Original Story compared to the lighter hearted Rand Route. She was forced to watch her comrades and mentor die at the hands of a dimension jumping Death Seeker who is Affably Evil in Rand's route and her situation gets worse by the chapter. Hakai-hen is also rather cynical due to how the stories all take place in the first season of a two season series where many members of the crossover are doomed to die without any way to save them, similar to Ouka and Daitetsu. Not that some of the series don't already end in a bad way in their second halves, surely to be at least somewhat averted, but it's very hard to read Heero wondering why Relena's friend Euphemia would go crazy and kill lots of people. Considering it's subtitle means "Destruction Chapter", it's not unexpected.
Fire Emblem is normally 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.
Micaiah from Radiant Dawn is all over the scale. She's optimistic, detests violence, and would do anything to protect the innocent, even putting herself at risk. The best way to do this? Kill It With Fire. She's so dedicated in doing so she got a Heroic RROD. She even lampshades this.
Micaiah: I'm killing with no malice, because I don't want anyone to be killed...
Ike also has two tactical advisers, one on each end of the Sliding Scale (Titania on the Idealism side, Soren on the Cynicism side).
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 struggling for survival. Their vision prevails, though, at the cost of Brenner's life.
The Command & 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 ambiguous plots, as well as references 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. Tiberian Dawn ends the Tiberium Saga on a high note as followers of NOD went on a Higher Plane Of Existence while the Tiberium is effectively controlled.
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 power-hungry sadist or voyeur, all of whom participate in a heinous 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 against him. The Allied campaign has subtle hints to the death and mutilation of Allied soldiers during a successful experiment, characters being tortured and ends with one character committing 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 surprising to see a White and Grey Morality in those games when Red Alert itself was Black and Grey Morality.
Quite the contrary concerning Red Alert 3, which clearly still harbors on the cynical end, especially revealed in the Yuriko campaign where the Allies are merely using propaganda to demonize the Soviets and Japan while making themselves look good; Yuriko's bloody effort to save her alleged sister also turns out to be pointless as Izumi turns against her immediately after she is freed only for the power struggle.
Also, at one point of the story in the Allied campaign, the U.S. president breaks the alliance between the Allies and Soviet while they are fighting Japan together, and the player is forced to take his life to prevent the madness from continuing. Sadly, it later turns out that the president's cynicism is right, that Soviet betrays the Allies, still having in mind their plans to defeat the Allies and take over the world all along!
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 inexcusable 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. 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 Crossingis the Idealism side of the scale.
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!
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 possible love interest 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."
One case in point: Kingdom Hearts II. When you find out about how you've become an Unwitting Pawn in the machinations of Organization XIII, this leads to a Heroic BSOD, which is only solved by realizing that if you didn't keep fighting and doing what your enemies wanted, more people would get hurt. As soon as you get to Storming The Castle, then you won't have to worry about that anymore.
Another case in point: Birth by Sleep, which is the closest the series has gotten to the cynical end of the scale (though that's still not saying much). The Power of Friendship was barely enough to keep the villain from achieving total victory (and that's not counting all the crap the current heroes still had to go through afterward), and in some cases namely, Terra's, friendship and loyalty are just as likely to make you do something stupid as they are to give you superpowers.
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 egotisticalComplete 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 have an alternate ending where they get to survive and live Happily Ever After.
Though, to be fair, the other two powers are the freedom-loving descendants of the French (seriously) and a group previously enslaved by aforementioned theocracy and intent on righting that wrong.
The freedom lovers are also representations of logical extreme of decadence and the enslaved group also make up of the Wretched Hive group as criminals and other unpleasant parts of life.
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 Eldritch Abomination 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 TheZealots 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.
The fact that Elizabeth is absent in Persona 4 because she's looking for a means to free the main character without breaking the seal—and given the sort of power she can crunch out when you break her rules of engagement in your duel—may edge Persona 3 even further towards the idealistic end, because the way it's spoken of, it sounds like Igor and his assistant give Elizabeth rather good odds for success.
Persona 4 slams right into the idealistic side because it heavily implies that things are getting better.
Or for worse since now with the truth at all it's glory, it means the ugly side of the truth is also revealed and there is nothing anyone can do to escape it when said truth of the hopeless variety. When you are dealing with an Eldritch Abomination, ignorant bliss is a useful thing to have.
Continuing on the Shin Megami Tensei, there is moments where the heroes truly earn their Happy Ending, namely Digital Devil Saga, other are cautious about the neutral endings with various flavors of idealism.
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, Fallout 3 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.
Ultimately though, Fallout 3 is actually much more idealistic than its predecessors. If you do things right, you can destroy the Enclave once and for all, and meet the Lamplighters who have discovered a new breed of moss that negates radiation, find a mutant who is able to grow plantlife in the irradiated Wasteland and complete a means for creating clean, radiation-free water on a large scale, all signs that the people of Fallout can Earn Their Happy Ending. Also, in earlier games idealistic actions or ideas got you nothing but scorn, while in the new game Three Dog will cheer you on over your radio as 'The Last, Best Hope of Humanity'.
Rather ironic as the DC wasteland is the crappiest of all the wastelands.
And the home of the constitution which has seen its final years as a legitimate being stepped on by the Red Scare and Corporate Corruption during the great war; and the surviving Vaults (which were not destroyed) are dystopian to several degrees (Vault City and New Vegas). Here you got good to honest men and women who truly believe in freedom and equality for all and likewise people who want to crush that last hope.
Fallout: New Vegas doesn't have an unequivocal "Happily Ever After"; someone is going to get undeserved screwage. Most endings leave the game world better than it began, though a few firmly plant a crapsack in every lot (YMMV on whether anyone in the Legion actually wins).
Should note however that canon in Fallout is always the good end meaning Idealism wins as long as not nice or Dumb
Cannon Fodder and its 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.
Made more interesting by the fact that the Paladins who object to Arthas's actions had no problem committing far worse atrocities against the Orcs (and Alterac) in the second war, and have no plan to deal with the Undead besides the one Arthas advocates. For that matter, his fall has less to do with cynicism, and more to do with turning into a raging revenge centric sociopath. The moral for Warcraft 3 is more "Don't forget why you're doing what you're doing in the first place" and "Poor Communication Kills" than pro-idealistic, and stayed that way up until World of Warcraft when everyone from TFT was smacked with the character-undevelopment stick repeatedly.
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.
The recently implemented morality system allows heroes and villains to run the gamut with four stops: Hero (fully idealistic)-> Vigilante (A cynical Anti-Herofalling to the Dark Side)-> Villain (fully cynical)-> Rogue (A still cynical, but becoming idealistic Anti-Villain)-> Hero.
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.
The next installment has the ship you so painstakingly evacuated crash. into a moon. Things get worse in the next part as your efforts to stop the black hole from swallowing your ship have turned it into a super black hole which will destroy the universe. Your only chance is to escape into another universe, which is done through cooperation with another alien race which requires a Heroic Sacrifice on their part. Finally, in the fifth installment you land on Earth, accidentally destroying a few states. By the end of that game you repair the damage you caused and set up a colony on the moon, hoping not to screw up anything else.
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.
Even then San Andreas was more optimistic than the other Grand Theft Auto games in the franchise. Carl and Sweet managed to defeat the corrupt cops and their traitors without losing anyone close to them, especially after Cesar pulled a Retirony moment out. Compared to what happens to the later Grand Theft Auto Protagonists, San Andreas is by far the most optimistic of the franchise as the sequels will not be so kind to the other protagonists who loses everything close to them.
The Truth: You know, I mean, you beat the system! I tried for thirty years to cross over, but you've maaaanaged it, man! I mean, man, you're an icon, man!"
The fourth installment couldn't be more cynical if it tried; upon nearing the end of the game, the player is given the choice between siding with either Niko's girlfriend, Kate Mcreary, or his cousin, Roman (on whether or not to get Revenge or make a Deal respectively). The decision appears to have minimal repercussions, but later ends in whomever you sided with getting shot and killed at Roman and Mallorie's wedding. This then eventually leads on to Niko murdering his way to the Big Bad, killing the villain under the Statue of Liberty and discussing that he feels no different despite getting vengeance. And then it rubs salt in the wound by treating you to a phone call where Mallorie poignantly discusses how she will struggle raising a child she just discovered she is carrying or Packie sobs about how he can't cope with two dead siblings and an incarcerated brother in a month, and how his elderly mother is heartbroken at only having two children left.
Follwed up by Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, in The Lost and Damned, Johnny's gang war lead to the slow but eventual fall of his gang and all of the tragedy that goes along with it and in the end just wants the club be put out of it's own misery, In Chinatown Wars Huang gets caught in a power struggles that leaves everyone in his Triads gang, from his traitorous uncle, to the men he recruited for the Triads to protect them from trouble and to the girl who he met and later see die in his eyes. All of them are killed in some way...
SimCity, despite being just a simple city-building game, resides heavily in the cynical scale, especially with SimCity 2000 and later titles, in which your 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.
Simcity Societies however can be either idealistic or cynical. You could make a fun loving society where barely anything goes wrong or a crime ridden crapsack world which is run by oppressive dictators.
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.
They are there because of some crime they committed in the past. Not because of... pen.
and they have serious issues. Most of the enemies you fight are basically fighting for their freedom. You can't avoid shootingA LOT of dogs including fellow Gallians and ultimately, your former war buddy Gusurg while the enemy wants to become the living nightmare incarnate for the sake of independance over being a race of victims and cowards. Your good deeds, most of which are controversial in nature, shall never be recorded. But at least Kurt gets to settle down with the woman he loves.
Go ahead and try to figure out where Midnight Serenade fits on this scale.
Pathologic plants itself firmly on the cynical side. The plague you fight is killing hundreds each day, the townsfolk at best distrust your character and at worst want them dead, it is doubtful that a cure for the plague is even possible, and you find yourself wondering if the hell hole is actually worth saving.
In the wii flight game Innocent Aces your wingman Kaida falls on the idealistic side while Ukumori (another wingman) falls on the cynical side, leading to arguments, which in turn escalate into a "friendly fight".
Dragon Age attempts to be a Darker and Edgier take on classic fantasy settings like Dungeons & Dragons, but the Idealism sometimes shines through by allowing you to Earn Your Happy Ending in the way of being able to Take a Third Option. The player should be careful though if s/he attempts to do a "Messiah Run" since not all choices that appear to be good at first also end up good in the epilogue, especially anything concerning the dwarves.
Dragon Age II takes a dive into the cynical, such that every achievement in the game could be seen as an extended Hope Spot. At the very best, you can be left in charge of a broken and battered city, waiting for two hammers to fall from internal and external war, and in order to get this ending you have to slaughter a lot of innocents yourself. Subverted: you end up having to abandon your post anyway, making any gains effectively nil. On the other hand, if you decide to protect said innocents, most of them will die in the conflict, but your name becomes a rallying cry for freedom fighters across Thedas and for moderates on the other side. Let's just say things get worse before they have any chance of getting better.
Red Dead Redemption is definitely on the cynical end. Despite the romantic image the West may present, free of law, order and restraint, it is a dangerous, dark place of Black and Gray Morality, happy endings are rare and both the incoming world of technology and federalism and the outgoing world of cowboys and anarchy are utter-shite.
BioShock gives an interesting variation of this sliding scale that the player himself decides if the story is idealistic or cynical. It has 3 endings in the first game and 4 in the second, all but one in each game are cynical, obtained by players who choose to commit the sin of harvesting even just one little sister; the only good ending in each of the two games is an idealistic one, earned by players who manage to remain pure-hearted protectors of the little sisters throughout the entire game.
It is recently discovered that Bioshock 2 actually has a total of 7 combinations of endings, with 2 of them both idealistic even though in a contrasting way, and the rest of the 5 entirely cynical.
Valkyrie Profile is pretty much on the Cynical side of the coin, you are a Valkyrie who collects the souls of the dead to give to Odin who views them as pawns and the allies you recruit goes through rather dark storylines before their mortal misery is ended. Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is no better as you are a jaded mortal servant driven by revenge.
Armored Core is generally on the cynical side of things (As well as the plots), a common theme is the Last Raven standing and how when you become the last raven. This sums it up:
But this revelation is not one of " I am the strongest" but its implications , falling in line with the rest of the Armored Core series canon endings, are in themselves asking a question of the player. What does it mean to be the strongest? I'm standing at the top, alone. Was it worth it? Is this all life is worth? What have I really done?
BlazBlue is much more cynical than Guilty Gear, especially if you are human girl. Expect plenty of Break the Cutie moments and also the general nature of the storyline as the main plot shows how badly broken some of them are by the end of that game.
That's not how it's more cynical though. What makes it cynical is that whenever you want to be treated seriously, you had better drop whatever idealism you had. As of current, the one who had their optimism and idealism high are just Bang and Taokaka... and they're the story's Joke Characters*
Ironically, both of their seiyuu had previous roles in extremely cynical anime/games
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Guilty Gear also tends to be rather cynical side as well, considering that the politics are just as screwed up at the BlazBlue verse. And the cast are also mostly broken by things. The only thing that makes BlazBlue seems more cynical is that the villains are more open in their evilness, and DAMN EFFECTIVE in what they do.
The newest Castlevania game, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, is unrelentingly cynical and morally ambiguous. In spite of every single effort Gabriel has made to Screw Destiny, it is later revealed that You Can't Fight Fate, as not only did he fail to revive his childhood sweetheart, but he also turned into Dracula and suffered a lonely life of immortality. The prophecy that a pure-hearted warrior will return the world to the light turns out to be a lie, too, and the entire tragedy has been the result of Satan's work of manipulation. Every single action a misguided Gabriel has done to achieve his selfish goal has been questionable as well, making him no different from the villains at the end.
Brotherhood Knight Scroll: Where is this brother who is the supposed savior? Where is this warrior of light? More lies dreamt up by the Church to keep us subservient to their will, no doubt. How is it possible that God exists when he allows the murder and killing of so many of our brethren?
Two of Konami's popular game franchise, Castlevania and Metal Gear, contrast strongly with each other in their positions on the scale. While Castlevania lands on the idealistic side, Metal Gear lies heavily on the cynical end of the scale. Mix the two together, and we get Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - no, Metal Gear Solid Lords Of Shadow. While Lords of Shadow does have a cynical tongue in its narration of a hero's fate, it still contains an optimistic view toward human nature.
Amidst the horribly depressing atmosphere of the Metal Gear franchise, we have the idealistic Johnny "Akiba" Sasaki, who is the only character not infested by the nanomachines and serves as a new hope for the purely cynical war-torn world.
On the topic of Konami franchises, the Tokimeki Memorial series is at the far end of the idealistic side. This is a series with no villains (the only antagonists of sorts are the local Delinquents, and they are portrayed as nice and Graceful LosersWorthy Opponents), and where the Power of Love is so strong, it makes Long Distance Relationships work without fail and help the rare depressive characters out of their Heroic BSOD. It's also a series where comedy and fun are kings alongside romance, where drama is scarcely used (and only to make hope and romance shine brighter and triumph in the end), and where any pairing that's strongly implied (notably the ones with the main heroine childhood friend), is considered as good as canon.
On the other hand, Tokimemo 's Spiritual SuccessorMitsumete Knight is firmly set on the cynical side. This is a Crapsaccharine World where war and politics are dominant, with evil aristocrats effectively ruling the country you're fighting for as a foreign mercenary, using the King as a puppet: they are masters of the Screw the Rules, I Have Money! and We Have Reserves tropes, and deeply racists to boot. Grey and Grey Morality is the story's mood thanks to this and the fact the enemy country has valid motives to fight and is composed of mostly decent guys. Even most the girls you can woo during the game (i.e. the softiest part of the game) have heartwrenching storylines full of Break the Cutie moments, and even Anyone Can Die moments depending on your choices. And as far endings go, they are bittersweet at best, since, even if you get the confession of love of one of the girls, you'll be thrown off the country like an old rag after you win the war for the country due to the aforementioned aristocrats' racist stance, and have to leave the girls behind in some cases (others will leave the country with you).
Conker's Bad Fur Day shifts firmly to the cynical end of the scale after Rare's previous idealistic games.
Cave Shumps DoDonPachi series is extremely dark and cynical, the only one that isn't cynical was Death Smiles.
Don't let the cute chibi characters in Dept Heaven series fool you. The series is pretty much outright cynical from the get go.
StarCraft is firmly on the cynical side of the scale, particularly in the first game. Every known government in the game, from the United Earth Directorate to the Protoss Conclave is either totalitarian or ineffectual, sometimes both. While the ending of the first game is bittersweet, the expansion throws this out the window, going for an outright Downer Ending, with the zerg victorious, and nearly every good hearted character in the series dead or otherwise out of the fight. The first act of the second game is much more idealistic, but not nearly enough to make up for all that grimdark.
The Metroid games all tend cynically, given that the basic scenario is "things are bad. Stop them from getting worse," and then Samus inevitably has to destroy things to stop things from getting worse. There are a few idealistically redeeming bright spots, but they always have a bittersweet tinge.
Far more obvious in the newest pair, Pokemon Black And White. The "King" of the obligatory villainous team this time around is an outright AntiVillain who has spent his life under the belief that Trainers make Pokemon suffer by using them for their own purposes and forcing them to battle. He is set up as the direct counterpart to the main protagonist, and the game even states that one side fights for "truth" while the other fights for "ideals". In fact, the whole game is basically built around the moral that, in most situations, there IS no right/wrong and people should learn to accept each other despite their differences in ideas/beliefs, because that's what makes the world so diverse and creative. Not only that — just in case it wasn't idealistic ENOUGH — it attaches another moral that, whatever your dream or vision for the world, you should strive to make it come true... and just by doing that you become the Hero.
Keep in mind that above statement said the main games are mostly idealistic. The Ranger games stick close to idealism and the Mystery Dungeon games strike a reasonable balance, but the Orre games lean heavily towards cynicism, though still not without it's idealistic spots.
Rez is somewhat on the cyncical side, having you fight a network AI with an existential crisis. Then comes its sequel Child of Eden, which just might be the happiest Rail Shooter ever developed. Those bosses you fight? They're not even enemies so much as infected by The Virus, and you purify them into lovely One-Winged Angel forms instead of destroying them.
Most indieflashgames these days are completely cynical, often a grim dead baby tragicomedy where the story is as brutal as the game sometimes with absolutely no hope for the hero.
Compare Tomb Raider With Uncharted, Tomb Raider being the cynical one and Uncharted being the idealistic one.
In Starcraft II, Matt Horner is an idealist fighting Mengsk's government because it's right. Almost everyone else is doing it for revenge. This is also essentially the mood for the cinematic A Better Tomorrow. After breaking open New Folsom prison, Matt Horner believes that their real victory was releasing everyone who ever spoke out against Mengsk. That the point of their revolution is to build a better tomorrow. Tosh scoffs at this and calls it naive; claiming that tyranny can only be succeeded by tyranny, and that one can only fight the present enemy. Raynor is in the middle, believing that Matt's better future will arrive; but those fighting out of hatred and revenge, like him and Tosh, will have no place in it.
Web Comics
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.
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. Later, however, they face inhabitants of the other worlds in the universe, which tend far towards the opposite end of the scale, showing them just what they're fighting for. And against, as their main opponents for Chapter Five turn out to be some of their own people, turned Well-Intentioned Extremist as they attempt to protect Reality's way of life at any cost.
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).
In the first campaign of Darths & Droids, pretty much everyone (including the Game Master) are cynical and dangerously Genre Savvy. Annie (playing Anakin) changes that and wins points for the effort, but by the time the second campaign started rolling they've all been lured to the "dark side" of cynicism.
In a similar manner, The Game Master in DM of the Rings is the only one trying to uphold some sort of idealism. This crumbles slowly as he becomes fed up with his extraordinarily-cynical players.
In Harkovast, a lot of the tension between the characters come from those that are more cynical (Shogun and Ki) and how their attitudes conflict with those that are more idealistic (Chen-Chen and Sit Muir).
8-Bit Theater appears to be one of the most unabashedly cynical things ever drawn. For example, Black Mage's super nuke attack, the Hadouken, is powered by love. As in: every time he uses it, the divorce rate goes up measurably. However, it's too silly to be considered either cynical or idealistic. The Light Warriors, BM especially, are the universe's butt monkeys and anyone they come into contact with gets hurt, but there are genuinely good guys in the comic (Fighter, WM, the four White Mages at the end), and it's all Played for Laughs.
Jack sits oh so very far on the cynical side, possibly up there with Warhammer 40,000. Half the premise is: "If life's not fair, why should the afterlife be?"
Homestuck comes off as a mixture of both sides. On the one hand, the game of SBURB seems to award victory to those who grow up and face their fears and so on, resulting in a fairly typical coming of age set up. On the other, for the trolls, 'coming of age' consists of succumbing to their innate bloodlust (and by NOT murdering each other they end up losing) , whilst the kids are stuck in a universe doomed from the start.
Basic Instructions is reasonably far over onto the cynical side, as it's full of snark and many characters are distinguishable by their flaws. In many ways, it's similar to Dilbert in terms of cynicism.
A Miracle of Science is on the far idealistic side. The whole point of the story is that mad science can be cured without using any violence. Then there is Mars, which shines in idealism with its utopistic society, and even the crime-ridden Venus is relatively tame.
Web Original
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.
Encyclopedia Dramatica is what happens when the cynical side of the internet's troll population creates a wiki.
Sailor Nothing occupies an odd place — it's far grimmer than its inspiration Sailor Moon, but ultimately has a core of idealism. The Power of Friendship plays an important role in keeping the heroine together, and the key to defeating the Big Bad ultimately turns out to be forgiveness.
Chaos Fighters is extremely idealistic that everyone fighting at the good side is boring invincible heroes, having love interests and their mission is guaranteed a success regardless how hard it is. They can even destroy armies of demons or rebels by themselves.
Red VS Blue has a hilarious example in reconstruction
Caboose: Yes, this will be the greatest road trip ever!
Church: If you say anything positive, I will fucking kill all three of us right now.
Caboose: Okay. I will be very depressed about how AWESOME THIS WILL BE.
Western Animation
Justice League Unlimited has some fun exploring this during the Cadmus arc - memorably, Superman turns out to be the Unwitting Pawn 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.
There's a line that parodies this flip-floping (and the idealistic side) in 'The Pheonix King'.
In fact, a large aspect of the last four episodes centers around deciding whether to end in an idealistic or cynical way. All of Aang's allies and past lives tell him that he needs to kill Ozai (Cynical Ending), but he's convinced he can find another way to end the war without murder (Idealistic Ending).
ReBoot. 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.
Two of Cartoon Network's shows from 2008 to 2010, Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, show an interesting contrast. They both have the same core idea: "Main character is a naive kid who drags the older main characters into situations based off his naďveté/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 Accidental Nightmare Fuel abound.
Interestingly Spongebob Squarepants is a similar concept that slowly drifted from one to the other. The show was originally cheerful and vaguely sentimental with SpongeBob being somewhat relatable and most of his bumbling being treated sympathetically or as Laser-Guided Karma to meaner spirited characters. As time passed however the humor became darker and SpongeBob also became more insane and the consequences of his constant stupidity often shown to be harrowing and life destroying for innocent people. Other characters like Mr Krabs also became far more malicious (and unlike before didn't always fall victim to karma).
Daria is very much on the cynical side but occasionally shows some optimism. 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.
Family Guy is like Seinfeld compared to The Simpsons being Married... with Children. Some of the characters only serve to be chew toys for the others and like Seinfeld, no learning or hugging allowed and there are barely any heartwarming moments, and Peter is outright abusive towards Meg and at times Chris. The Simpsons however is generally more idealistic as far as satire goes since there are some meaningful episodes which shows the bonds of the dysfunctional family and how despite how bad Homer's life is, he will never truly betray Marge and their marriage.
To be fair Family Guy's cynical phase is largely a result of Flanderization. Prior to that, despite it's obvious dark shades there was a fair amount of whimsy and innocence with the characters at least having visible lovable and sympathetic aspects. Peter was more a brasher Kindhearted Simpleton who genuinely cared for his family and nearly always felt bad for his actions in the end of each episode. There were also some vaguely realistic spotlighting in the relations of the family eg. Lois confronting Peter about his lack of passion and appreciation, which he merely thought she already knew.
Total Drama started out as a fairly idealistic parody of reality shows in its first season, with a few cynical moments and individual Downer Endings. In its second season, though, things took a turn for the cynical end. Tropes like the Shallow Love Interest were Deconstructed brutally, and the cast turned into a pretty good example of Black and Gray Morality. Season 3 can be considered somewhat a Reconstruction, returning to the formula of the first season with some things from the second lurking in, and the series now lies at the center of the scale.
Phineas And Ferb is possibly the most idealistic cartoon of the century. The writers adhere to the rule of "no evil characters", meaning that the show's biggest recurring villain is The Woobie whose biggest wishes are to rule the tri-state area and be a good father, and the worst one, a Drill Sergeant Nasty who pretty much brainwashed the main characters was just a dream. However, this comes off as clear proof of Idealism is not Bland, because this is where it gets all its charm.
By contrast, South Park is quite far down on the cynical side of the scale, taking place in a small town hell where Accidental Nightmare Fuel abounds and has enough squick and offensive humor that no one is innocent or spared.
And it gets more cynical once social satire replaces the funny side of everyday life.
alternative title(s): Sliding Scale Of Idealism Vs Cynicism; Sliding Scale Of Idealism Vs Realism; Idealism Vs Cynicism; Sliding Scale Of Cynicism Versus Idealism; Sliding Scale Of Cynicism Vs Idealism
