See the full list of examples at Mirroring Factions.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four: Despite the ongoing war between them, Oceanian, Eurasian and Eastasian societies and ideologies are all functionally identical and all have the same goal: the ruling class creating a world built on entirely on suffering which they can rule over forever.
- The whole point of Animal Farm. In the story, the farm animals kick the humans out and take over their farm. They establish a set of rules to keep them from associating with humans (among the rules were no sleeping in beds, no wearing clothes, no drinking, no walking on hind legs, etc.). Napoleon, a pig, is more concerned about the welfare of himself and his fellow pigs than the other animals. Over time, the pigs start indulging in more and more human luxuries, and mannerisms, all while continuing to exploit the other animals, until the famous end scene where Benjamin the donkey sees the pigs drinking and hanging out with men, and he's unable to tell the difference between the pigs and the men. The whole story was symbolism for how author George Orwell interpreted Communist Russia: the leaders just exploited the workers for their own gain, effectively making them the same as the aristocratic upper class communism sought to overthrow.
- In the Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel The Silent Stars Go By, the Doctor sharply contrasts the human colonists (Morphans) on Hereafter, who are working hard to terraform the planet in the knowledge that eventually their descendants will benefit, with the Ice Warriors, who plan to alter the terraforming machinery to suit their own needs, then hibernate until it's ready for them. It turns out the Morphans aren't preparing the planet for their descendants but their ancestors, who are in cryo-sleep beneath the terramorphing engines. It also turns out some of them have woken up, and the horrible red-eyed monsters preying on the colonies aren't the Ice Warriors.
- Good Omens spells this out explicitly in the relationship between Hell and Heaven, down to ostracizing Crowley and Aziraphale in the same ways for the same reason, wanting Armageddon to occur simply because it's "supposed" to, and even to their human followers down on Earth. Fundamentalists are implied to have gotten so monomaniacal that they've lost all sense of an ethical code.
- In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur wakes up to his house being destroyed to build a bypass, and by the end of the same day, he finds himself on an alien ship who just destroyed the entire planet earth to...build a bypass.
- Inferno Squad: It is repeatedly made clear that most of the Dreamers and the Imperials who aren't Hate Sinks are eerily similar in that they both have high ideals that allow them to justify increasingly awful crimes in their own minds. This is best exemplified when Staven argues that killing the children at an Imperial school is a Necessary Evil because the culture that they're so deeply immersed in will raise them to be a future generation of unquestionably obedient murderers. Iden is unnerved to realize that this is almost exactly the same thing her father/commanding officer argued to advocate murdering the children of rebels.
- The Lord of the Rings:
- Sam wonders of the dead Southron soldier "whether he was really evil at heart, and what lies or threats had driven him on this march so long from his home, and whether he would have rather stayed there in peace."
- Even when the Free Peoples (elves, dwarves, hobbits, ents, and good men) endure We ARE Struggling Together and the orcs, Nazgûl, trolls, and evil men have an Enemy Civil War, both sides knew that any of their enemies will destroy them ruthlessly, Gorbag tells this to Shagrat in the second book and Frodo tells this to Sam in the third.
- In Mere Christianity, a theological work by C. S. Lewis, the writer subverts the tradition by pointing out that if British were really so different from Nazis there would be no point in being horrified; because there would in fact be nothing to judge them on. That is they could not say their enemies were evil or that British were less bad then Nazis unless there actually was enough in common to judge them.
- Mockingjay: District 13 is at first depicted in the story as La Résistance, since it is the only large scale organization opposing President Snow and The Capitol. As Katniss begins to work with them, she encounters propaganda from Snow and Brainwashed and Crazy Peeta that paints District 13 as a terrorist organization, which forces District 13 to invoke Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters. However, the idealistic black-and-white image of the struggle is eroded over time as District 13 begins to care less about the safety of innocents around them and willing to sacrifice them for the sake of their victory, leading to a more Black-and-Grey Morality. By the book's end, when Katniss is given the task of publicly executing President Snow after District 13 takes control of The Capitol, she instead kills the leader of District 13 President Coin, as she had just announced using the children from the Capitol in a new Hunger Games as a form of punishment, indicating that District 13 had become The Capitol 2.0. In the epilogue, Katniss has decided to live in the empty remains of her home district with husband Peeta and their 2 kids, rather than be further involved with the new government.
- Oathbringer (third book of The Stormlight Archive): When the Slave Race parshmen regain their minds for the first time in centuries, they immediately begin acting exactly like the people of the countries they were enslaved. The Alethi retreat to gather into an army and prepare for war. The Thaylens steal ships from the harbor and flee. And the Azish... file a class-action lawsuit against their government for back pay and damages.
- Pyramids: The Ephebian and Tsortian armies are dressed the same, fight the same, and even have the same rations they complain about. The opposing scout commanders have a pleasant conversation where they apologize to each other for the massacres they are about to enact on each other before returning to their men... and then they sheepishly turn around because they both went back to the wrong army.
- RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant: In The Judgement of Faunus, Humans and animals are at war because of what they fear and envy in the other. This blinds them to their similarities, which the god spots as soon as he starts talking to them. To teach them how they can be so much more together than divided, he transforms them all into something that's part-Human, part-animal.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Comes up with the various feudal states, unsurprisingly for a book about medieval Realpolitik. Slavery is common in Essos while Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil just over the ocean in Westeros and in the Iron islands. However, the nobility of Westeros impose crippling class oppression on the "smallfolk" (peasants), who effectively belong to whatever lord claims the land they live on (which can change due to circumstances such as conquest, marriage, or royal decree) and can face losing limb or life for trivial slights against their lords, while the Ironborn look down on chattel slavery but taking "thralls" (indentured labourers whose children will be freemen) and "salt wives" (female captives) from raids is fair game. As noted by Tyrion Lannister in his travels through Essos, many slaves are treated better than the Westerosi peasantry, and being a peasant in Westeros is often being a slave in all but name. In other words, the peoples of this world cling to notions of civilization through trivial linguistic gymnastics.
- Sword of Truth: There's the fact that the Confessors, a faction of "good" women, have the same infanticidal tendencies as the House of Rahl, the leaders of the evil empire. Or how Emperor Jagang does all his horrible actions in the name of God while Richard does all of his horrible actions in the name of "Moral Clarity". Then, despite Richard claiming that he's fighting for freedom against tyranny he demands total submission in the war, dismissing any reasonable suspicion as he demands this under threat of later punishment. All his talk of individual liberty is hollow since anyone who ever disagrees with him is labeled an idiot or enemy, much like the Imperial Order views everyone else.
- Warrior Cats: While traditionally in conflict with each other, it is noted in a later series that Thunderclan and Shadowclan are a lot more alike than they may think. While they have very different outlooks and general personalities, they are both the forest hunting clans versus the fish hunting Riverclan and open territory Windclan and generally have similar body builds as a result. They also have more influxes of kittypet and rogues into their ranks than the other clans.
