Basic Trope: A character regularly betrays their allies.
- Straight: Bob betrays the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to go work for The Empire, which he later betrays to go work for The Federation.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob can't stay loyal to any faction more than one episode at a time, sometimes even less.
- Bob is a Person of Mass Destruction who turns on any faction that appears to be winning, so the war will never end.
- Bob turns on his allies, even if doing so puts him at a disadvantage.
- Bob betrays his allies every few seconds. How he accomplishes this is a mystery.
- Bob is actually Schrödinger's Cat: nobody knows which faction he's on until they observe him.
- Bob becomes a time traveler and even manages to backstab his future self. Then he goes back in time to backstab his past self. But then he remembers that his past self was a loyal person, so he had already backstabbed his past self... except his betraying of his past self was the reason he's a chronic backstabber in the first place.
- Downplayed: Bob takes advantage of whichever side he's working for to line his own pockets, but won't actively betray them beyond that.
- Justified:
- Bob is an opportunist who doesn't believe in pledging loyalty to any organization, ideal or higher power, but is only concerned with what benefits him.
- Bob's agenda doesn't align perfectly to any of the factions — if something looks better for his plans than his current allegiances, he jumps ship.
- Bob has trust issues due to people treating him like a disposable pawn and feels that he needs to backstab them first.
- Inverted:
- Every single time Bob attempts to collaborate with someone, he always ends up getting betrayed at some point by the other party.
- Undying Loyalty
- Subverted:
- Bob is a Double Agent loyal to The Empire, and was only faking his betrayal towards them...
- There is a person or group to whom Bob is secretly very loyal, and whose agenda he's been advancing behind everyone else's backs while pretending to be a Wild Card
- Double Subverted: ...until he goes rogue against them too.
- Parodied:
- Bob requires to have a clause in his contract that explicitly allows him to betray.
- Bob keeps a enormous checklist of the people he's betrayed.
- Bob's chronic backstabbing disorder is an actual disorder.
- Zig Zagged: Bob betrayed the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits for The Empire, betrayed The Empire for The Federation, then revealed that he never really betrayed the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits and only partially betrayed The Empire on the Misfits' behalf. In consequence, betraying The Federation. In the end, it turns-out he was a high-ranking member of The Cartel playing the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits for profit until his experiences "protecting" the misfits by pretending to betray them made him go-through a change of heart... and betray said cartel.
- Averted: Bob stays loyal to the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits the entire show.
- Enforced: Bob betrayed the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits for The Empire, but wasn't originally supposed to betray The Empire as well, but when the producers wanted more drama out of Bob, they demanded he betray The Empire and work for The Federation.
- Lampshaded:
- "Well, I can't say I'm surprised you stabbed us in the back, after what you did to those misfits".
- "Whose side are you on?" "You mean right now?"
- Invoked: Alice wants to betray the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits and expects Bob to do so as well, so she prepares to betray the Misfits with him.
- Exploited: Queen Alice of The Empire already knew Bob had Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, and ran a Batman Gambit hinging-upon the fact he would betray The Empire and defect to The Federation.
- Defied:
- The Empire tempts Bob to betray the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, but Bob stands strong and refuses.
- Bob's allegiance-hopping is cut short when he's Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves.
- Bob is outfitted with an Explosive Leash with too many safeguards for him or anybody else to ever be able to defuse, and set specifically to go off if he ever so much as thinks of betrayal.
- Discussed: "Bob betrayed you guys, too?"
- Conversed: "Bob already betrayed Ragtag Bunch of Misfits and The Empire, he'll probably betray The Federation, too".
- Implied: A character will mention Bob has been in several alliances before, but never invited back to any of them due to bad blood.
- Deconstructed:
- Word of Bob's tendency to betray his allies quickly spreads wide and far, to the point where no one trusts him and he is eventually Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves.
- Bob is quite distrustful of others. However, his cynical belief of hidden agendas is the reason why he doesn't have any meaningful relationships.
- Bob and his "friends" are so busy backstabbing each other, jockeying for power, and following their own agendas that nothing gets done, and the "slow, inefficient, lesser" members of the Quirky Miniboss Squad manage to all but walk past them and get what they want without too much trouble.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob reveals that he only left the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits after learning that their leader was a Well-Intentioned Extremist, and he left The Empire after learning that joining them was also a mistake. Bob's loyalty is to his ideals, not to any one group.
- Bob comes out on top of them all.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob is an incredible example of Stupid Evil and an Obvious Judas. His backstabbing is so obvious and chronic that people run a betting pool on who he's working for right now. That is if they are not so incompetent themselves that they don't see him setting up his backstabs.
- Bob is so well-known as a backstabber that people actually ask him for advice and do the complete opposite of what he told them to do, and have thrived because of it.
- Played For Drama: Bob is responsible for a Plethora of Mistakes that get many people on both sides killed because he absolutely refuses to stick to any one of them.
- Played For Horror: Bob's backstabbing is literal. Usually by the time he's bored with his constant treachery, there's a body count in the triple digits by his own hand and a five-digit count as collateral damage.
Go back to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder before Bob betrays you too.
