Basic Trope: Pure good versus pure evil, without any shade of gray between them.
- Straight: The Federation of Light and Goodness is a Utopia and Federation Princess Alice, The Hero, is a Nice Girl; while The Empire of Darkness and Evil is a Mordor-like Crapsack World and Emperor Evulz, the Big Bad, is a massive Jerkass.
- Exaggerated:
- The Federation is an extravagant utopia and Princess Alice is absolutely heroic with no evil ulterior motives, to the point of being a Purity Sue; while The Empire is built on the suffering of its slaves and Emperor Evulz is unironically heinous with nothing but completely wicked intentions.
- All the heroes are Incorruptible Pure Pureness All Loving
Purity Sues and all of the villains are Eviler than Thou Smug Snake Card Carrying Villains and Complete Monsters, and nothing in-between.
- Downplayed:
- Black-and-Gray Morality - Alice is good, albeit in a morally ambiguous way, while Evulz is unambiguously evil.
- White-and-Grey Morality - Alice is unambiguously good while Evulz is morally ambiguous instead of straight evil.
- Alice is a Mrs Vice Girl, while Evulz has one or more Evil Virtues.
- While Alice isn't the nicest person and Evulz means well, it's pretty clear who's good and who's evil.
- The resident nice guy is in an argument with the school bully.
- A Lighter Shade of Grey
- Order Versus Chaos
- Justified:
- The world itself has moral absolutism built into its very core.
- The God of Good and God of Evil respectively have gained power over the universe. They adjust values accordingly.
- The enemies the hero faces are made to be the embodiment of evil such as demons from hell, and the hero is meant to be an embodiment of good such as an angel from heaven.
- The aura and temperament these characters give to the audience reveal their innate quality as good or evil.
- Inverted:
- Alice is the Hero Antagonist and Evulz is the Villain Protagonist.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality, where characters are all close to the middle of good and evil.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality where characters have highly unusual standards for what makes "good" and "bad/evil."
- Subverted:
- Alice turns out to be just as bad as Evulz.
- Alice is extremely reliant on pragmatic options, while the presence of a Morality Pet makes Evulz become a better person. It becomes hard to determine who is good and who is bad.
- The story is told entirely from Alice's perspective. It quickly becomes clear that she's an Unreliable Narrator.
- The Federation is a People's Republic of Tyranny, and Princess Alice is a Villain with Good Publicity, fooling the public and/or the audience into viewing her villainy as heroic. The public and/or audience likewise is fooled into thinking that The Empire and Emperor Evulz are evil, even though Evulz is nothing more than an innocent bystander dragged into the middle of things, victimized time and time again for desperately trying to protect his empire.
- Played Straight at first...but then Clair joins Alice's group of adventurers. Clair is Only in It for the Money and a Blood Knight, despite being on the side of good.
- Marla is introduced, and despite being on Evulz's side, she is a Punch-Clock Villain whose is motivated by her beloved little sister, Mimi.
- As the series progresses, we find out that The Federation slaughters its citizens in the name of ideological purity, and The Empire is deeply committed to feeding all of its people.
- Both The Federation and The Empire purchase their weapons from Jake, a Chaotic Neutral shopkeeper who wants to see the war go on as long as possible because it's good for his weapon business.
- While Alice is a pure heroine, her team certainly isn't': Bob is a Shell-Shocked Veteran with no qualms over taking human lives, Daniel is a former Phantom Thief who joins Alice just to get the police off his tail, Edith is a Squishy Wizard who couldn't care less about things like "collateral damage", and Faye is a Femme Fatale and a ruthless assassin.
- Double Subverted:
- Except that was just propaganda from Evulz and his minions. Alice is still a pure heroine.
- Alice realizes that she's doing bad things and vows to never Shoot the Dog again. The Morality Pet gets killed causing Evulz to go back to his old self. Ultimately Status Quo Is God.
- Alice's perspective is actually the right one.
- Clair eventually becomes pure good or switches to the bad guys.
- Parodied:
- Alice is dressed up as an angel and Evulz is dressed up as The Devil.
- Alice is so Sickeningly Sweet and pure that she gives everyone diabetes, whereas Evulz is considered irredeemably evil because he bullies everyone, wears heavy armor, a greaser jacket, a shirt with a skull logo, and dark pants, smokes weed, and listens to Heavy Metal.
- Zig Zagged: Alice varies between pure, kind-hearted heroine or a mean, ruthless anti-heroine while Evulz varies between a vile, depraved villain or a sympathetic one.
- Averted:
- Morality Kitchen Sink
- Alice and Evulz have no conflict at all.
- Both are evil or both are good.
- Enforced: The Moral Guardians want to preach to the audience that there is true knowledge of right and wrong.
- Lampshaded: "THERE ARE NO SHADES OF GREY! You must choose a side! note
- Invoked: The gods themselves build moral absolutism into the world and force everyone to choose a side.
- Exploited: Alice uses this setting as a way to make herself morally superior over everybody.
- Defied:Alice: But that's evil!
Evulz: It is but it's also the best option available. It doesn't make me proud, but if I can save innocent lives with it, so be it.- Alice and Evulz agree that choosing between good and evil is a waste of time and decide to have a normal life without being involved in moral affairs.
- Alice eventually decides that being an “overly stereotypical goody-two shoes hero” isn’t worth it if someone just as bad as Evulz will just get the dignity of being arrested rather than killed. So she takes drastic measures to ensure that all criminals will get their just deserts even if it meant killing them including the ones who are truly trying to change for the better.
- Discussed:Evulz: So what happens if I choose good?
Alice: Then I will be your friend.
Evulz: So what if I choose evil?
Alice: Then you're my enemy. - Conversed:Moral Guardian: "Now I like the new series because it has a clear understanding of what's right and wrong and that the audience should always do what's right."
- Deconstructed:
- See "Invoked". Everyone is sick of having to follow an absolutist moral code and having to identify as good or evil which always forces the "Good" people to do stupid things while "Bad" people are never able to have good intentions. They all band together to Rage Against the Heavens.
- See "Exploited". This time, Alice's moral superiority has driven others away, refusing to choose any side but their own.
- Good and evil are defined because The Powers That Be are brainwashing people to be good or evil.
- It is made clear that for the absolute morality to work, free will cannot exist and destiny controls everything.
- Everyone is either pure good or pure evil. Therefore if they aren't 100% heroic and do mundane every-day things instead of saving lives, they must be evil. And your Average Joe does mundane things instead of saving people and thus must be evil and is not worth saving.
- Heel Face Turns are required that there is to be some good in the person beforehand to inspire them to make the change and Face Heel Turns requires the person to be selfish or cruel enough to be capable of turning evil. Because everyone is either 100% good or evil, their moral alignments are set in stone and thus they are unable to change and grow as people.
- Alice is a Knight Templar in her pursuit of justice, and in so doing, is not terribly different from Evulz.
- Black-and-White Insanity. Alice is clearly very deranged in order to believe in being all good or all evil.
- The Empire has its flaws, but is a good place to live, and Evulz is a flawed, but kind, Reasonable Authority Figure. Alice and The Federation decide they must be evil, since they’re not as “pure” as they are.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice and Evulz form a temporary alliance to destroy those who reject choosing a side, proving yet again that there's no room for middle ground.
- But to Alice, they are evil because they serve their own side, which is the same as evil.
- See Deconstructed #5. ...but if you don't save them, you'll be just like them.
- See Deconstructed #6. Bad guys can still do good or join the heroes as long as there's something in it for them.
- Alice believes that in order for society to be fair and just, moral standards of right and wrong have to be in place, a belief she holds strongly to, which many find perfectly reasonable. Whether Evulz is truly evil or morally gray ends up being irrelevant to the fact that he has done evil deeds and needs to be brought to justice.
- Both sides invoke Neutral No Longer on those who are morally gray, with Evulz ruthlessly doing so to create a Villain World, while Alice and her allies convince others to become wholeheartedly good to prevent such a frightening outcome. Over time, the conflict makes it necessary for everyone to decide whether good or evil is better for them.
If you are evil, stay on this page. If you are good, go back to Black-and-White Morality.
