Basic Trope: Choosing neither side earns a character backlash from both parties.
- Straight: Alice and Bob start a war. Everyone picked a side except for Charlie. Because of this, Alice and Bob decided to ambush him.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob start a war. Everyone picked a side except for Charlie. Because of this, Charlie is beaten by not only Alice and Bob, but also the rest of those who picked a side, and his entire bloodline, friends and associates are hunted down for the crime of being connected to Charlie and supporting his cowardice.
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob start a war. Everyone picked a side except for Charlie. Because of this, Alice and Bob declare their hatred for Charlie.
- Alice and Bob start a war. Because of his pacifist ideals, Charlie refuses to get involved. While Alice and Bob don't directly come for him, the long, slogging war kills far more people than the swift one that would have happened if Charlie had picked a side, and he's painfully aware of this.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob believe that there is no middle ground, and Charlie was being insubordinate.
- Charlie thinks that Alice and Bob are fighting for unimportant things, but Alice and Bob see it as Serious Business and are indignant on what Charlie had said.
- Charlie outwitted both sides for his personal gain. Both Alice and Bob have a good reason to seek revenge.
- Charlie's refusal of taking sides had serious consequences for both Alice and Bob, and they hold him responsible for them.
- Charlie had previously implied that he would help both sides without the other's knowledge, meaning he's breaking a promise to each of them by staying neutral.
- Charlie's assistance would have been enough to tip the conflict in either side's favor. Without him, it drags on indefinitely. Alice and Bob are angry that he didn't join, even against them, because even a swift defeat would have been less devastating than the long, brutal stalemate they actually had.
- The war was as clear-cut a case of Black-and-White Morality as can be found, yet Charlie stands by and does nothing while Bob and his soldiers commit heinous atrocities against Alice's people. In Alice's eyes, Charlie is an Accomplice by Inaction. In Bob's eyes, Charlie is an easy target. Either way, the victorious party will be sure to attack Charlie next.
- Both sides think that Charlie's decision to remain neutral was him lording it over them.
- Charlie's reason for deciding to remain neutral is because he simply does not give two shits about who gets hurt if it doesn't affect him.
- Charlie claims to be neutral, but then keeps criticising Alice's side while excusing (or outright denying) all of the horrible things Bob's side does. Alice calls him out.
- Charlie was going to kill everyone, regardless of allegiance. Alice and Bob were forced to commit to an Enemy Mine because Charlie is going to kill them off both.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob start a war. Everyone picked a side except for Charlie. As a result, Charlie gets rewarded for being neutral!
- Charlie picks a side and this had severe consequences.
- Subverted:
- Charlie is confronted by a pissed off Alice and Bob, but they eventually forgive him.
- Alice and Bob both turn on Charlie- but it turns out that they've worn themselves down and depleted their resources fighting each other. Charlie, who is fresh and fully supplied, has a massive advantage...
- Charlie had intelligence that both would have betrayed him after he had outlived his usefulness. Their anger is thus meaningless.
- Double Subverted:
- ...except that they gave him a beatdown anyways.
- ...but it also turns out that all that time fighting each other has made Alice and Bob really good at fighting- practice makes perfect, after all- and Charlie is either totally inexperienced or very rusty thanks to staying out of fights.
- He is still definitely going to live a much shorter life as a neutral non-helper than a helper vying to maintain his usefulness while plotting escape or backstabbing his leader, so overall neutrality was a bad idea.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob fight over a water bottle. As Charlie refuses to choose who should take the water bottle, Alice and Bob give him a wedgie.
- Zig Zagged: Charlie's neutrality sometimes backfires on him, but over the course of the story, it also sometimes allows him to act as a peacemaker between Alice and Bob.
- Averted:
- Charlie doesn't suffer the consequences for choosing no sides.
- Or, Charlie picks a side with no problems.
- Enforced:
- The author wants to make a Space Whale Aesop that choosing no side is just as bad as siding with evil.
- It's political commentary on the author's country's refusal to enter a war.
- The series executives want Charlie to suffer a little bit as payback for being The Barnum, so they request a storyline where Charlie thinks he can set up A Fistful of Rehashes and fails hard.
- Lampshaded: "That's what you get for choosing no side, Charlie!"
- Invoked:
- Bob: "Say, Alice, since Charlie isn't picking a side, mind if we team up to throttle him?"
- Bob: "I've just killed Alice. Well Charlie, it looks like you are all alone and vulnerable now. Too bad you didn't help Alice, she could have helped you not die!"
- Alice: "I needed you and you left me to fight Bob alone! Well I'm alive and still armed, and it looks like there will be one less Dirty Coward in the world after I kill you!"
- Exploited: Charlie has a plan to defeat Alice and Bob, but it will only work if they attack him together at a time of his choosing. Under the appropriate circumstances he goads them both into fighting and refuses to help either.
- Defied:
- "Seriously, I'm not gonna let you two kick my ass for being neutral. I'm gonna kick both of yours!" *beats up both Alice and Bob*
- "Can't let me be neutral, eh?" *Shoots both Alice and Bob*
- Alice and Bob decide to respect Charlie's neutrality.
- Discussed: "I feel sorry for anyone else who refuses to pick a side."
- Conversed: "So the moral of today's episode is don't sit on the fence or both sides will try to kill you."
- Implied: Charlie mysteriously disappears, and Alice and Bob don't seem so sad about it.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice and Bob gave Charlie a terrible assault only because he wanted them to stop their trivial fighting. Because of this, Alice and Bob have buried the hatchet and forged a friendship based on abusing Charlie.
- The above results in Charlie deciding that Alice and Bob must die — and Alice and Bob learn that they've awakened a sleeping giant.
- Reconstructed: Alice and Bob join forces to defeat Charlie, becoming Fire-Forged Friends in the process, ironically ending the conflict for good.
- Played For Laughs: Alice and Bob are having an incredibly bizarre, largely superfluous debate, which they constantly try to involve Charlie in. After his final refusal to get involved, the conversation immediately shifts to how much of a killjoy Charlie is.
- Played For Drama: Charlie is screwed no matter what he does because he simply cannot afford to get involved in the conflict, which would be far too costly and destructive for him either way, but his refusal to get involved has enraged both parties, and the victor will certainly come for him next.
- Played For Horror: Alice and/or Bob, whoever ends up winning their struggle, decides to get back at Charlie's refusal to help either of them and make an example for any possible "neutrals" to come by cutting his skin off and leaving him to die screaming someplace very public.
Back to Neutrality Backlash. Now pick a side or I'll bash your head in!
