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Evil Versus Evil
aka: Evil Vs Evil

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"In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil."

The wicked versus the loathsome. As in, sometimes, everyone just needs a break from heroes. It can get a bit repetitive to have every protagonist be a white-as-snow goody-two shoes hero. A refreshing dose of moral ambiguity can do just the trick. When you're tired of watching heroes be heroic, watching a Villain Protagonist be villainous can be a nice change of pace.

However, there's a problem with this. Heroes are very popular because people take a liking to their benevolent acts. This is probably because people are, to some small extent, basically good; they like watching other people be happy, succeed against all odds, and so forth. At least most of the time anyways. The reason villains lose much of the time is because they do things that make the audience unhappy. Watching a villain defeat the heroes and plunge the world into darkness and suffering might be refreshing at first, but it leaves a bad taste in their mouth.

The solution to this is to pit the Villain Protagonist against the Villain Antagonist. Someone so rotten that no matter how low you go on the Karma Meter, you'll still want to go after them and carry out justice. That way, the character(s) can be evil while doing good. It's the best of both worlds. You don't have to do really rotten things like kicking puppies, you can kick fire-breathing demon puppies instead. It's kind of hard to Take Over the World when another Evil Overlord is already ruling it, or wants to destroy it. It also wouldn't do to allow some other villain to kill your heroic archenemy before you can score that triumph for yourself. For a Gentleman Thief who wants the best loot, what better target than other thieves? The Starscream has to have someone to overthrow, right? Or if everyone's a Starscream, then there has to be a Deck of Wild Cards, right? And even the most vicious Knight Templar is right once in a while, or at least goes up against the Card-Carrying Villain. And if both bad guys are bad enough, having them killing each other is a victory for everyone!

Note that if a work's primary conflict is about Evil Versus Evil, then there is a serious risk of Too Bleak, Stopped Caring. If the viewers/players/readers cannot support any faction, they may simply not care. This may be averted by making one of the sides more sympathetic, a villain with standards, or at least some likable trait to endear them to the audience.

Of course, if they gain too many good traits, then the trope shifts into Black-and-Gray Morality which is a different trope.

See also Even Evil Has Standards and Black-and-Gray Morality. Contrast Good Versus Good. Also contrast Enemy Civil War, Eviler than Thou, and The Good, the Bad, and the Evil, which are about antagonists battling other antagonists. This trope is the opposite of a Villain Team-Up. Has a Sub-Trope in Evil Versus Oblivion, where one side is world-destroying bad. One of the villains may be more sympathetic than the other, in which case it is A Lighter Shade of Gray, or if one of the villains is far more sympathetic to the point of being capable of redemption, they become a Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain duo if the other stays completely and unambiguously evil.


Examples subpages:

Examples:

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    Comedy 
  • Comedian Juston Mc Kinney mused about a hypothetical ride between a Serial Killer picking up a rapist. Both keep trying to psych each other out over who should be the victim then Gilligan Cut to a police station where one of them files a report.
    Serial Killer: Yeah, I'd like to report a rape.
    Police Officer: Do you know who did it?
    Serial Killer: Yeah, he's right here. (puts a dufflebag full of remains on the desk)

    Comic Strips 
  • In Dilbert, Mordac the Preventer vs. Catbert.
  • MAD's Spy vs. Spy, in all its various incarnations. Except for their arbitrarily assigned color scheme, the two sides are identical, committing the same horrible (if hilarious) atrocities on each other. (Which was creator Antonio Prohias's whole point.)

    Fan Works 
  • Fan-made alternate timeline of Mystara setting, the "1005 Timeline" was kicked off by a "War on All Sides". And running on Mystara's Grey-and-Gray Morality, it had a number of those.
    • One of the main conflicts has Empire of Thyatis (Fantasy Counterpart Culture to The Roman Empire with all bad things that implies) and xenophobic, widely despised Principalities of Glantri join forces against Alphatian Empire, which manages to pull an Eviler than Thou on both of them.
    • The other conflict involved almost everyone else joining forces against Hosadus, Master of Hule (counterpart to 80's Iran). Most unambiguously evil factions joined the Master, except for Baron Von Hendricks who threw Master's offer in his face. Master responded by sending a chunk of his army to sack Von Hendricks barony, only to find it well-defended. Meanwhile Thar's Legion joined Hule and left its homelands defenseless, leading to them being taken over by Shadow Elves. Finally, The Cavalry that saves the day is lead by Genghis Khan expy.
    • Future conflicts detailed by the author also have a lot of this. Thyatis new conquests put them in direct competition with Heldanic Knights and the next best place for them to try to conquer has not one but two evil Mayincatec hordes eager for a fight. The former king of Shadow Elves (possibly one truly 100% evil among them) has set off to retake the ancient city of his people, now filled to the brim with Orcs. Meanwhile, emboldened by his victory, the abovementioned Genghis Khan expy will conquer Elven nation of Wendar and eye as his next conquest Wendar's mortal enemy, Denagoth, a realm full of monsters, ruled by the Shadowlord. Finally, two trade powers of the setting will jump each other throats in a secret war for profits.
  • In All For Luz, All For One and Emperor Belos once had a confrontation a decade before the story began, that nearly ruined the latter's Final Solution plans as the former raised hell in the Boiling Isles.
  • All Mixed Up!: Mariana Mag doesn't just go after the townspeople of Toronto — she goes after the villains in Precinct 13579's Rogues Gallery as well. What's more, they're well aware of her presence and treat her as a new villain, but the last thing they expected was for her to attack them instead of Odd Squad (although she does attack Precinct 13579's agents later on).
  • Alternate Tail Series: Moreau Garten, a member of a clan that has been putting numerous letter mages into a coma on their hunt for a powerful artifact, targets the warden/guild master of the Chained Ego guild and lets loose its prisoners, which include former enemies of Fairy Tail, to overwhelm the guards, Magic Council, and Fairy Tail wizards there. However, because everyone is still trapped in the perimeter of the prisoner by a rune wall set by Moreau's men, the former prisoners target him in hopes of escaping.
  • Antipodes: The 10,000-year-old dragon Tantalus (who ultimately wants to destroy the world) versus the similarly old unicorn Rubidum (who is a power-mad tyrant). Tantalus wins this one, thanks to Rubidium's stupidity.
  • This happens a lot in The Bridge (MLP), arguably even more often than traditional Hero/Heroine vs. Villain(ess) duels. Most times its between two villains who are on different levels of Black-and-Gray Morality, with the more Gray moral characters going up against those closer to Black moral ones; or it can occur between two villains that have conflicting interests, such as the fight between the Big Bad Bagan and Outside-Context Problem Shadow of Red. One story arc in the human realm relies on Monster X and the Sirens being the realm's best defense against Enjin. Kaizer Ghidorah makes it clear that although he hates Grand King Ghidorah and wants to kill him, he's not a good guy either as he hates everybody else and will kill them for being there. Queen Chrysalis theorizes this will be the case with her Evil Mentor Grogar and Bagan should she succeed in fully restoring him, supporting Grogar. Legion's reaction to Grogar's power implies Grogar is one of the few capable of taking on Bagan one on one and thus having any chance of doing so. Flurry Heart's Bad Future implies the end result of this would be devastating for everyone.
  • Supervillains duking it out with each other is a common occurrence in C Listers. Firefly in particular is prone to getting other villains gunning for him, though he's tough enough himself that he generally comes out of it unscathed.
  • The premise of The Cadanceverse is that both Celestia and Luna were corrupted (becoming Burning Sun and Nightmare Moon, respectfully) and eventually waged war on each other, forcing Cadance to seal them both away. They eventually get loose in the present (in the first fic of the series) and go right back to fighting each other for dominance. Though, once they realize that the Musical 6 are on the verge of retrieving the Elements of Harmony to use on them, they briefly team up to destroy them (they both lose).
  • Charles Manson Vs The Teletubbies: The main parties are a serial murderer (Charles Manson) and four Eldritch Abominations (The Teletubbies) with Red Baron titles as a testament to their powers.
  • The Conversion Bureau: Not Just Ponies is a Fix Fic to The Conversion Bureau as a whole, reimagining it as something far less polarizing and more viable for expansion. As a result of this is the HLF and PER, being more or less unchanged from their canonical selves, are both extremist lunatics who completely misunderstand the situation (ponification is a genuine last resort to save humanity from what amounts to a natural disaster as well as a joint effort between humanity and Equestria and doesn't cause a Death of Personality), and are naturally violently opposed to one another, with innocent people and ponies caught in the crossfire. Even their less extreme aspects, such as peaceful protesters, can't stand one another.
  • The Council Era, a fanfic created through the cooperation of several writers on the Mass Effect Fanon Wikia (not Fan Fiction wikia) has an Evil Versus Evil plotline within the Grey-and-Gray Morality of the Mass Effect universe. On one side is the Lawful Evil, morally-corrupt equivalent of a galactic United Nations, The Council, and their advisor Tyrin Lieph. On the other is a ruthless Neutral Evil species led by another Starscream, Halak Marr, whose primary goal is becoming a Master Race.
  • The dark never consumes all, for the light remains within its core offers two cases:
    • At the start, there's Lila Rossi versus Lloyd Garmadon, both of whom have their respective schools under their control.
    • Then there's Lord Garmadon against Hawkmoth, which was mild and practically non-existent until the latter akumatized Ross Red and accidentally framed Gerda for his crimes.
  • In Defenders of the Universe, the Galra Empire is at odds with the Diamond Authority. Both sides are genocidal conquerors who could care less about the lives of others and the civilizations they've ruined, and they frequently kill each other when they encounter, with Gem soldiers invading Galra occupied worlds and Galra wiping out Homeworld colonies.
  • A Devil Amongst Worms: While the Simurgh opposes Makima's plans to gain control and create a World of Silence, it does this purely so that it continues to sow conflict and suffering among humanity and ensure it has access to fresh streams of information.
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami: The world has Keepers working for the Dark Gods constantly trying to one-up each other and seize their riches and land. This only gets worse when Keeper Mercury becomes a powerful and influential player, since her goal is to exclusively destroy the Dark Gods and their minions.
  • The Equestrian Wind Mage: The true villains of the story, the Church of Majora, engineer Ganondorf's resurrection in Equestria rather than Hyrule so that a) his presence in Hyrule won't interfere with their plans, and b) hopefully Vaati and the Mane Six will eliminate him for them. Somewhat downplayed, in that neither the heroes nor Ganondorf himself are aware of the involvement of Majora's minions.
  • A match up that nearly every Danny Phantom fanfic writer dreams of is Vlad Plasmius vs Dark Danny, seen in stories such as the Facing the Future Series, where Dark Danny usually comes out the winner due to being Eviler than Thou.
  • Fallen King has Maximillion Pegasus versus Yami Bakura; it works out much better for Pegasus than in Yu-Gi-Oh! canon, as he forces Bakura to retreat.
  • A Far Cry from Home is a series of one-shot drabbles featuring interactions between characters from different Far Cry games. In the first chapter, Pagan Min, the tyrant ruler of Kyrat, goes to Hope County, Montana to confront the Project at Eden's Gate, who have taken Ajay Ghale captive. note  Faith Seed is sent to seduce Pagan into joining the Project instead, by drugging him with Bliss to make him see her as Ishwari. Faith initially appears to be succeeding, but then she mistakenly addresses Pagan as "my darling", instead of "my love", as Ishwari always called him. Needless to say, Pagan promptly goes into Tranquil Fury and gives Ms. Seed a Neck Snap. note 
  • In the third installment of Gintama Chromatic Chronicles, we have Takasugi Shinsuke vs. Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. The former wins, simply by being more evil than the latter. Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.
  • The God of Destruction comes to Remnant: The White Fang are a group of Faunus who want Faunus superiority so they attack humans and Faunus who sympathize with them, often trying to kill them. They are contrasted by the Red Suns, a group of humans who want human superiority so they attack Faunus and humans who sympathize with them, often trying to enslave them. Though so far, the groups haven't met, they mention hating each other for obvious reasons.
  • In God of the New World Light, Mikami, and Matsuda struggle to survive in "Harold Saxon's" world.
  • The third film in the Godzilla MMD, Planet Eating Wings, features Godzilla Earth vs King Ghidorah. King Ghidorah wins before Mothra empowers Godzilla enough to defeat him.
  • Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters:
  • In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Draco believes (along most Slytherins, apparently) that Dumbledore was the Greater Evil and that Voldemort and his Death Eaters, though bad, were the only people with a chance to stand up to him.
  • Harry Potter and the Power of the Dark Side has Sith versus Death Eaters.
  • The Hasbroverse: Word of God and Worldbuilding backstory establishes that at some point, COBRA somehow got the bright idea to attack the Decepticons. The end result was COBRA being decimated, with most of its leaders killed.
  • During the course of The Heart Trilogy, a series of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings fanfics, Smaug ends up fighting with other villains at different points; Sauron attempts to goad Smaug into serving as the Dark Lord's beast of war even though Smaug wants to serve no one, Andraya schemes to get Smaug to impregnate her daughter for a powerful offspring, and Fankil wants to use Smaug's beloved Kathryn in releasing his father Morgoth from the void. By the time of the trilogy's third part, Smaug allies with the Free Peoples in the War of the Ring against Sauron, though only because of what he can gain from Sauron's demise and to get revenge against the Dark Lord and Fankil for the grievances they've caused him and Kathryn.
  • In the Star Wars/Harry Potter crossover The Hidden Empire Series, the True Sith Order despises Darth Bane's Sith Order to the point of considering them heretics.
  • The Immortal Game: Titan and Discord have been enemies for thousands of years, and prior to the former being sealed away by the Princesses, constantly fought over control of Equestria. The desperate heroes exploit this to recruit Discord into an Enemy Mine.
  • Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends has a Big Bad Ensemble between Zim's team, the Villain Team-Up between Tak and Lex, and Aldrich Coathanger. All three of these factions despise each other and spend as much time fighting each other as they do the heroic Membrane siblings.
  • The J-WITCH Series:
    • The Auction of Evil in the chapter "J-WITCH Meets The J-Team!" eventually breaks down into all of the attendees fighting each other as well as the J-Team and Guardians for the Heart of Kandrakar.
    • In "Divide and Conquer - Chaos and Hilarity", the heroes have to face off against three separate evil factions that are also opposed against each other. One consists of Cedric, Daolon Wong and the Dark Chi Enforcers, the other consists of Valmont and Hak Foo, and the last one is the Monkey King.
  • Jewel of Darkness: There's elements of this in the Cycle of Revenge between the human and Metahuman supremacist groups like the Human Defense League and the Metahuman Protective Association.
  • Zan-Shocker vs. the Voidspace Army in Kamen Rider x Super Sentai x Super Milestone Wars: Crossover Taisen.
  • Loved and Lost: In the extended retelling of "A Canterlot Wedding", Prince Jewelius usurps Equestria's throne by helping Twilight Sparkle in thwarting the Changeling invasion of Queen Chrysalis and then destroying the other heroes' reputations by holding them responsible for how the invasion could have taken place. He afterwards plans to use the imprisoned Changelings as a Slave Race. They escape though, and Chrysalis sets out to find a way to get back at Jewelius. He's revealed to have convinced Chrysalis to commit the invasion as his partner and betrayed her when he saw a way to claim all the power for himself. When he's cornered by the heroes in the climax, Chrysalis appears and takes her revenge by ordering her Changelings to eat Jewelius whose heart has no love for them to feed on.
  • The Many Dates of Danny Fenton (Danny Phantom Western Animation, TV Series, and Comic Books.): Ember Mclain from Danny Phantom and The Trix from Winx Club fight over who will attack Danny and Musa during their date.
  • In Masks Within Masks Team Rocket is just as bad as Team Plasma, has similar goals, but often fight, something Giovanni lampshades when talking to Mewtwo.
  • Mastermind: Strategist for Hire: After Izuku (aka Mastermind) kills All Might in the USJ attack, Stain puts him on his hit-list for murdering the man he believed to be the only true Hero in Japan. Izuku returns the favour by killing him.
  • Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race has the Conduit's plan to take out Wily; their forces get into a fight in episode 12.
  • Mega Man Recut has Wily's forces vs. the Steel Crescent Syndicate.
  • One of the main plot points of The New Adventures of Invader Zim is that Zim and Tak are constantly competing with each other for control of Earth, with Dib and his friends stuck fighting both.
  • In the There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton series, many space faring empires and groups fall into this category. For instance, the Diamond Authority end up fighting against the Galra Empire in Close Encounters of the Gem Kind, and they're also at war with the Kree Empire, who are also conquerors.
  • Paradoxus: The 'Trisha versus Eudora' conflict turns into this after the former crosses the Despair Event Horizon and starts a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Said rampage is outright villainous regardless of how justified it is and how much the people on the receiving end had it coming (those bastards betrayed their dimension for power and facilitated Eudora's invasion). Both Trisha and Eudora have a high body count, lay waste while caring little for whoever gets caught in the crossfire, and have killed and tortured people to further their own twisted (respectively) goals/ideals. What morally lightens the former's actions and renders them a very dark gray is the fact that those atrocities succeeded in turning the tides of the war in the good guys' favor where everything else failed. Besides, it's not like Trisha enjoys the suffering she has brought; she's merely too overcome with mourning and rage to think straight. And, to nail the coffin, it turns out she was subtly maneuvered to do so by someone else.
  • In Perfection Is Overrated, The SUEs are not only in conflict with the Himes, but have mutually exclusive agendas with the canon antagonists and each other. In A Common Enemy Without A Common Cause, the forced alliance between the SUEs quickly breaks down and results in them killing each other.
  • Narrowly subverted in the Pony POV Series. Discord's mind games drive Princess Luna nearly to the point of turning back into Nightmare Moon to stop him. She just barely restrains herself enough to regain her grasp on sanity, but still assumes her Nightmare Moon form in order to trick him. Also subverted later, as many assumed the second Big Bad Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper would overlap and fight with Discord upon his release, but that wasn't the case.
  • This has popped up a couple of times so far in Queen of All Oni:
    • First, Valmont used the first Oni mask to steal control of the Ninja Shadowkhan away from Jade and turned on her, forcing her into a brief Enemy Mine with Jackie. Then Ikazuki showed up and, after a brief fight, forced Jade to serve him, at least until the J-Team defeated him. And seeing as Jade's ultimate plan is to overthrow Tarakudo as ruler of the Oni, this will probably show up some more.
    • In a situation not involving the Oni, Jade gets captures by the Evil Sorcerer Lung, who wishes to break her to his will, thus granting him control over her and her tribe. Jade's minions, Left and Right, track him down and launch an assault on his fortress, completely curb stomping his forces before fighting and killing him and freeing Jade.
    • And then there's Drago, who comes back in time to eliminate all rivals to his power in the future, including Jade. Because of this, the Matriarch (Jade's future self) sends her servant Karasu back in time after him to stop him. Meanwhile, Drago also ends up fighting present-day Jade's foreman Blankman.
    • There's also the Shadow Hand fighting the various creatures sealed in the Vault of Endless Night.
  • Remnant and Runeterra: A Tale of Two Worlds: During the fall of Beacon, Aatrox slaughters the Grimm, including the Grimm Dragon.
  • Rise of the Last Villain: The League of Villains versus the Shie Hassaikai. Ends in a Curb-Stomp Battle, in the former's favor, despite only Izuku and Himiko actively attacking Shie Hassaikai members.
  • Shadows Awakening happens to have two Big Bad Duumvirates (Daolon Wong and The Phantom, The Queen and Tarakudo) that are as opposed to each other as they are to the heroes.
  • The Shape of the Nightmare to Come has Abaddon's Chaos Imperium fighting against the Perturabo-Angron alliance (Abaddon wins with the aid of Typhus), and later on Huron Blackheart's Eastern Chaos Imperium and the Void Dragon's Necron forces. Even worse, a key element of the fic's setting is the removal of two factions engaged in a massive Evil Versus Evil war - The Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan and the Ork Empire of Octarius inadvertently gave birth to the New Devourer, Ork/Tyranid hybrid lifeforms, who then proceeded to eat 1/3 of the galaxy.
  • Sonic X: Dark Chaos has the Metarex versus Tsali, Maledict versus the Metarex, and Dark Tails against everyone. The overarching conflict between Maledict and Allysion can be seen as this too, Maledict is the biblical Satan and all-around Manipulative Bastard, while Allysion is a crazed psychopath who wants to watch the universe burn and torture everything For the Evulz.
  • In the Jackie Chan Adventures fic The Stronger Evil, it's revealed that when Tarakudo and his Shadowkhan armies conquered Japan from Po Kong, she and the rest of the Demon Sorcerers banded together against him. Following the imprisonment of the Oni Generals and Tarakudo's disembodiment, he fought against the Demon Sorcerers who imprisoned him to the Shadow Realm. Once Tarakudo's accidentally released by Drago, he makes Shendu's son his enemy by stealing the Ice Crew from him, leading to Drago temporarily allying himself with the J-Team against the Oni. In addition to that, as soon as Tarakudo learns that Shendu is trapped as a statue in Section 13 and his power is diminished, he attempts to have his revenge.
  • In The Tainted Grimoire, Duelhorn declares war on Khamja.
  • Engineered by the Emperor in Tales of the Emperasque: he causes Tyranid Hive to attack Dark Eldar, weakening them both. By extension, so many Dark Eldar souls going to Slaanesh, a villain himself, causes him to attack another villain, Khorne, effectively taking them out of the picture for centuries.
  • TS!Underswap:
    • Temmie wants to work with Genocide Chara just like Flowey did in the original game, only here they find out a lot quicker that Chara isn't interested in being friends.
    • Also hinted to be the case with the Temmie faction and Flowey, with the Temmies viewing Flowey as a rival and Flowey implied to have done not-so-nice things in the past.
  • Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams has the supervillain 8-Ball going up against hired killer Bullseye when they're hired by rival syndicates during a Mob War. 8-Ball wins.
  • The Unabridged Memoirs of Darth Plagueis the Wise gives Plagueis vs a Yuuzhan Vong scout team, which captures and experiments on him, until he manages to get free and slaughter them all. Later, he manages to track down another such Vong scout team and takes great pleasure in massacring them.
  • Happens in Venus Flash, as the goals of the Dark Kingdom and Panther Claw happens to be mutually exclusive. That, and Jadeite is disgusted by what some Panther Claw members are willing to do For the Evulz. That said, they don't fight that often, as Panther Claw doesn't even register on the Dark Kingdom's radar due the presence of the Sailor Soldiers (in fact the encounter between Jadeite and Panther Claw happened because the Dark Kingdom general had originally chosen Jewel Princess' shop for his jewel shop scheme, and took offense when he discovered what the Panther Claw minion had in her basement).
  • What You Already Know sees this briefly discussed as a concept when Teyla asks Daniel why he wouldn't move to Pegasus to help with Wraith, as he explains about the nature of the Goa'uld and Teyla acknowledges that the Goa'uld are a greater evil and more insidious threat than the Wraith, as the Wraith just kill their victims where the victims of the Goa'uld could suffer for centuries while acting as a host.
  • A World of Wild Wild Evolution:
    • Caesar's goal is to acquire the power of the Winter Maiden and Relic of Creation and use them to conquer Earth. Taking them from Remnant would render Salem's plans permanently impossible to achieve. Both Caesar and Salem know this, so the Legion does everything they can to ruin Salem's plans.
    • While the Legion and the White Fang are allies early in the story, their alliance is hardly built to last, with only Adam Taurus and Legion POV character Servius not realizing it. Sure enough, when tensions between the two come to a head, the Legion quite literally decimates the White Fang.
  • In XSGCOM, the Tau'ri end up siccing Apophis and Anubis (plus their allies, including Loki on Anubis's side) against one another, culminating in a truly epic battle over Delmak, where their respective motherships face off. The battle is said to involve two-thirds of Ha'taks in the entire galaxy. Anubis uses the ancient weapon, powered by the Eyes, to obliterate Apophis's mothership, but then Ba'al and his allies turn against him, and he's forced to retreat, leaving his ship behind. He does make sure that it crashes into Delmak and leaves the planet uninhabitable.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, we have Marik and Florence versus Melvin and Team FourKids.
  • During the last third of the Digimon story Zero 2: A Revision, UmbraDevimon and Demon both invade the Real World at the same time; apparently deciding that it's not big enough for both of them, they start throwing their armies at each other in order to wipe each other out. And then, the Gravemon invade as well, and they suddenly find something more dangerous to worry about.
  • Zero vs Kira begins with Kira versus the Brittanian Empire.

    Films — Animation 
  • All Dogs Go to Heaven: Charlie vs Carface. Until orphan Anne-Marie softens Charlie up leading to his Heel–Face Turn.
  • In Asterix and the Vikings, the villain schemes to outwit the other dumber vikings. He's clearly more civilized and competent than his intended victims, who, true to viking tradition, attack a town in the opening scene and keep the skulls of their victims all over the place. His plan however requires at least one murder.
  • Despicable Me:
    • Despicable Me: Gru contends with Vector, but given that both of them are kid-friendly Harmless Villains, it's played strictly for laughs.
    • Minions: Scarlet's last attempt to steal the crown fails because Gru takes it from her.
  • The Jungle Book: Shere Khan and Kaa obviously hated each other as they are in pursuit of the man-cub Mowgli (as Kaa wants to eat Mowgli because Mowgli is delicious while Khan wants to kill Mowgli due to his hatred for mankind). However, Kaa is too scared to voice his hatred towards Shere Khan because of the latter's strength and ruthlessness.
  • DC Animated Movie Universe:
  • Megamind, when he battles Titan. Of course, the one is an Anti-Villain who cares more about the showmanship of being an evil overlord than the actual conquering-and-ruling stuff, while the other is a Jerkass given all of Superman's powers, so there's definitely A Lighter Shade of Black in the situation.
  • Moana: The fight between Maui and Te Ka for the heart of Te Fiti is described as this by Tala. Subverted once their true motives are revealed.
  • In Trolls World Tour, two sub-genre groups, Reggaeton and K-Pop, have a dance-off over Branch. Neither group has any intention of helping him, though, because they're fighting to see who gets to keep the full prize for the bounty placed by Queen Barb. This would be quickly subverted, as like shown before in the movie, they were just doing their job out of desperation to keep their music. They end up teaming out of respect for one another, and agree to split the capture.

    Myths & Religion 
  • In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, Pazuzu (yes, of The Exorcist fame) was a malicious demon believed to bring about storms and locusts. But he was also believed to be the bitter rival of the demon or evil goddess Lamashtu who caused miscarriages and captured and devoured infants, so his image was actually worn or carried around by those who sought to ward off Lamashtu.
  • The Egyptian god Set is often portrayed as Ra's ally in his battle against Apep, the serpent of chaos. While Set is also a god of chaos, the difference between them is that if Apep destroys the sun god, there would be no world left for Set to conquer.

    Podcasts 

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Though less common than Face vs. Face, and FAR less common than Face vs. Heel, sometimes happens in pro wrestling, particularly when Vince Russo is at the helm. Making one a success can be difficult though, since one of the cardinal rules of any match is that the audience should be rooting for someone. That said, it can work if the match is a prelude for one of the Heels to turn Face.
    • It is a fairly common result of "parejas suicidas" match ups, where the losing pair must then fight each other for the right to keep their mask/hair.
    • The two most famous stables in American pro wrestling ended up warring in WCW when Ric Flair returned. The nWo vs The Four Horsemen.
    • The nWo Hollywood vs. nWo Wolfpac feud in 1998 was originally supposed to be this, but the Wolfpac became immensely popular with the WCW fans and their face status was cemented when Lex Luger and Sting joined them.
    • One major example would be The Corporation vs. The Ministry feud, where both sides were portrayed as bad guys. Though in the end those two groups would merge together to form the Corporate Ministry, and it was revealed Vince McMahon was the mastermind behind both stables all along. It still works as not every member was in on the plan, though those members left prior to the merger and turned face. Though even in the Corporate Ministry there was fighting within the group, especially between The Undertaker and Triple H.
  • Very common with Shawn Michaels whenever he was a heel. In addition to feuding with both mostly-heel Hart Foundation and theoretical heel "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Shawn also feuded with heel Rick Martel over the affections of Sensational Sherri. Beyond that, he was involved in a three-way feud with Chris Jericho and Batista in 2008, where of the three only Batista was really a face (Shawn eventually turned face after Batista left the feud and Jericho beat up his wife).
    • Happened a weird way a couple of times when Shawn, mostly a face, would be allied with another face (John Cena, Chris Benoit, Goldberg, Austin) against a common (heel) foe, but with everyone involved painfully aware of Shawn's eventual inevitable betrayal… which, sure enough, always came. Almost always via Superkick.
    • Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart at Survivor Series 97 is the most infamous example. Shawn was a shamelessly selfish Card-Carrying Jerkass, a Troll and The Prima Donna, but Bret was a cold and bitter Entitled Bastard, The Fighting Narcissist and The Proud Elite. Shawn would routinely mock Bret's homeland of Canada, while Bret made racist remarks about Shawn using Mexican-style wrestling. While Bret had the crowd behind him during the actual match because it was Canada, he was still in storyline a mean and humourless Heel. It's interesting considering it was Face vs. Face last time.note 
    • He also spoofed the trope when forced to defend his European Title against then-ally Triple H, overdramatizing the buildup, throwing the match, and then cutting a tearful promo about the loss.
  • New Japan Pro-Wrestling is known particularly for the rivalries between Great Bash Heel, CHAOS, Suzuki gun, Bullet Club and Los Ingobernables De Japon. In Ring of Honor Bullet Club has also gone after The Kingdom and The House Of Truth, though they ironically had a Heel–Face Turn before The Kingdom splintered and it's centerpiece, Adam Cole, joined the Club in exchange for a shot at heel world champion Jay Lethal.
  • On Raw 1/24/11 The Nexus was confronted by The Corre and later the leaders, Wade Barrett and CM Punk faced each other with the loser and his group out of the Royal Rumble. Which led to a Crowning Moment of Funny when John Cena was appointed special guest referee, and disqualified both Barrett and Punk for 'excessive use of profanity on a PG show', eliminating both factions from the Rumble. He was overruled.
  • Any Triple H vs. Kurt Angle match from 2000-2002 was this essentially. Triple H was against the pompous Smug Snake Kurt Angle who wanted to take the guy's wife. Though they were both heels, they were tenuous allies at best and vicious enemies at worst. They would feud on and off from year to year, with neither really turning face at all (the closest being their No Way Out match where Triple H was running off of Determinator face heat). During this period Triple H even paused during his catchphrase to allow the audience to finish it — a way of hinting to the smart marks that he was going to turn face. He didn't.
  • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin vs. The Hart Foundation could be viewed as this, had it not been for the overwhelming crowd reaction in Austin's favor. When Austin had to forfeit the Intercontinental Title due to Owen Hart injuring his neck, the finals in a tournament for the vacant title featured Owen against Faarooq. Austin helped Owen win the match, so he could beat him for the title.
  • Undertaker vs Big Bossman in a Hell In A Cell match was this. This one wasn't so successful, mostly because they had no real chemistry or feud, so the crowd had nobody to root for, though also because the match was painfully tame compared to other Cell encounters.
  • During the "Kayfabe" era, the only time villains typically fought were in battle royals. However, there were at least two "heel vs. heel" matches in the WWF, both in 1986, and one in NWA two years later:
    • The Hart Foundation vs. The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. Bret Hart and Jim "the Anvil" Neidhart – with Jimmy Hart absent – were enthusiastically cheered.
    • In late-1985, Sheik and Volkoff were in another heel-vs.-heel match, where they challenged then-tag team champions, the Dream Team (Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine) for the titles. The fans sided with Beefcake and Valentine, and the match ended in a double-disqualification.
    • Randy Savage vs. Jake Roberts on an episode of Saturday Night's Main Event (a match that bore no resemblance to their matches five years later, where Savage was the face and Roberts the worse-than-evil heel). Both were heavily booed and neither showed much respect for the other. In fact, somewhat foreshadowing Roberts' behavior toward Miss Elizabeth during the 1991 feud, he once tried to counter Savage's then tactic of pulling Elizabeth in front of him to shield off an attack by pulling Damien from his bag and nearly throwing it on Elizabeth!
    • The WWF was indirectly responsible for the 1988 heel vs heel match as well. When Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard signed with Vince, they were World Tag Champions. NWA was not going to let the belts go with them. Due to their status in The Four Horsemen the only team with as much heat as Tully & Arn was Jim Cornette's Midnight Express. The fans cheered for Beautiful Bobby and Sweet Stan, who became the first team to simultaneously hold the US and World belts.
  • At the 2013 edition of Money in the Bank, WWE had an interesting experiment with the match composition. While the WWE championship match was 6 main event and upper mid card facesnote , the World Heavyweight Championship match earlier in the card was 7 midcard heelsnote  though Cody Rhodes had a breakout performance that effectively turned him face by the end of the match.
  • During the early 1990s in EMLL / CMLL, there was the Los Infernales vs Los Intocables feud, revolving around Masakre, who had been booted from the former and formed the latter, as well as the both desiring to hold the prestigious world trios title belts. Los Infernales would later split into two groups calling themselves Los Nuevos Infernales.
  • Any match that has more than two wrestlers (or two wrestling teams) will commonly have a mixture of Faces and Heels, which can add to the drama while getting around the problems of the crowd not having anyone to root for.
  • In tournaments the face will usually win one match and a heel the next to set up a confrontation between the two in the next bracket. There are some exceptions: King of the Ring matches that qualify include Marc Mero vs. Jeff Jarrett in the quarter-finals in 1998 and Test vs. Brock Lesnar in 2002.
  • Kurt Angle vs. Steve Blackman at Armageddon 1999. Kurt Angle was an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who thought very high of himself, but nonetheless he played the match cleanly and beat Blackman without using any cheap trick. Steve Blackman on the other hand, behaved like a Sore Loser and his decision to attack Kurt Angle after the match was uncalled for.
  • Molly Holly:
    • In early-2003, she had several matches against other female heels, like Jazz and Victoria. She even teamed with Jacqueline, who was a face at the time, against Jazz and Victoria. Some have speculated WWE were planning a Heel–Face Turn for Molly, but the poor crowd reaction she got killed it.
    • Another took place on Smackdown in the summer of 2002, when Molly (still in her Sour Prudes persona) defended the WWE Women's title against Nidia, in her White Trash gimmick with Jamie Noble. Nidia had vowed to flash the audience if she won the title and, oddly enough, Molly was "the face" for that match.
  • Face and Heel aside, the various feuds and matches between The Undertaker and Kane count. Both wrestlers, even when portraying Faces, maintain a gimmick of being pure evil. At best, they can be in the Noble Demon category. This means that any match between them is literal evil vs evil.
  • Nikki Strychnine's The Ministry Of Hate vs Diabolic Khaos, a group of demonic vagabonds, in Gateway Championship Wrestling. The two did try to work together first but split when Strychnine got too friendly for MsChif's liking.
  • Ring of Honor saw a four way race for the tag team titles between Hangmen 3, The No Remorse Corps, The Age Of The Fall and The Vulture Squad. Of the four, only the latter group were faces.
  • After the Main Event Mafia had dumped Sting, defeated the TNA Front Line and pacified Samoa Joe with Jenna Morasca's money, there seemed to be no one left to save the promotion from them, except for World Elite, who turned out to be even worse.
  • The feud between Madison Eagles and Nicole Matthews in SHIMMER, which mostly involved Eagles confronting and intimidating Matthews while Mathews did mean things to Eagles behind her back and talked her way out of matches afterwards. This came to an end when Mathews became SHIMMER Champion, as she quickly proved to be the most vulnerable and cowardly woman to hold the belt to that point, and won it by hitting Eagles with a fireball. However, it continued in SHIMMER's spinoff RISE, where Eagles did not become A Lighter Shade of Black, mostly due to the regular Hate Sink Tag Team partner of Matthews, Portia Perez, being injured.
  • The two biggest trios in earlier 2014 The Shield and The Wyatt Family are both heels, and after several teases, have wrestled at Elimination Chamber. Throughout the feud, both teams were heavily cheered by the fans, due to them all being interesting and well-developed characters.
  • After winning the WWE Universal Championship in 2017, Brock Lesnar's first title defense as champion came against fellow heel Samoa Joe. He would have another Heel vs Heel title defense two months later against Braun Strowman. Interestingly, Strowman ended up having a Heel–Face Turn not long after despite wrestling as a heel in this match.
  • Starting in 2020, Bray Wyatt and Alexa Bliss' feud with Randy Orton is portrayed this way. Wyatt and Bliss are essentially horror movie villains, attacking Orton with supernatural powers like fireballs, causing Orton to start coughing up blood, and appearing and disappearing when the lights go out. Meanwhile, Orton is extremely cocky and sadistic, willing to play dirty and set his opponents on fire.

    Theater 
  • William Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus graphically portrays a Cycle of Revenge. It starts with an act of Human Sacrifice and escalates from there, until by the end only three named characters have managed not to commit any outright moral atrocities: Lavinia (who gets raped, mutilated, and murdered), Young Lucius (who's just a child), and Aaron's son (who's literally an infant).

    Theme Parks 

    Visual Novels 
  • In the Ace Attorney series, more than a few murders involve an Asshole Victim and an unsympathetic killer, and in a few cases, the victim tried to kill the murderer.
    • In the first game, it turns out that the victim, Jack Hammer, drugged Will Powers and tried to kill the actual killer, Dee Vasquez, for blackmailing him over accidentally killing a co-star. After killing Hammer, Vasquez then tries to frame Powers for the crime.
    • In the second case of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the victim, Pal Meraktis, tries to kill Alita Tiala, a nurse, when the killer tried to stop him from going public with the fact that he'd botched Alita's fiance Wocky's operation and that Wocky didn't have long to live, since Alita planned on marrying Wocky for his inheritance. Unfortunately, he didn't finish the job, and ended up being murdered by his intended victim.
    • The final case of Ace Attorney Investigations has Ambassador Quercus Alba, the leader of the smuggling ring and the Big Bad, kill two people- his right-hand man Manny Coachen and the fake Mask☆DeMasque Coachen hired. The former is one of the most loathsome murder victims in the series, due to not only being a high-ranking smuggler, but also being responsible for Cece Yew's murder. It's lampshaded when the cast remark that the first victim and the killer were both horrible people.
    • The second Investigations game has the murder in the third case. Both the victim and the murderer were in cahoots to win a dessert-making contest, but the former betrayed the latter once he was no longer useful, kidnapping the latter's son (who doubled as his taste tester) in order to ensure he couldn't win on his own. After the killer murdered the victim then fled the country and abandoned his son (whom he no longer needed after regaining his ability to taste), and willingly let an innocent man be imprisoned for 18 years as an accomplice to the murder.
    • In the final case, the Big Bad, Simon Keyes, who'd manipulated the cast and caused several murders as a revenge plot, murders the president of Zheng Fa's body double, who was part of a conspiracy to Kill and Replace the actual president and was one of the other main antagonists of the game.
  • Fate Series:

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • Ansem Retort. There's only a couple people that are actually good: everyone else is a murderer, psychopath, Jerkass or all of the above, no matter which side you look at.
  • Dragon Ball Multiverse: Some potential matches, particularly Cell vs Dabura Winner is Cell and U13 Nappa vs Frieza Winner is Frieza, but not without being one-upped by Nappa so far. There's also upcoming matches - U13 Vegeta vs Dr. Raichi, and Cell vs Bojack Cell kills Bojack and wins.
  • The "Midnight Crew" Intermission in Homestuck pits the eponymous Midnight Crew against The Felt. The Midnight Crew is a small yet dangerous gang that effectively rules their city and turn out to be Alternia's versions of the Big Bad and his cohorts though they aren't nearly as evil. The Felt is a rival gang whose members possess time related powers and take orders from an Eldritch Abomination called "Lord English".
  • Girl Genius: Post-Time Skip, and the Geisterdamen (servants of the Other who brough about a Zombie Apocalypse and is a big fan of mind control) are against the Queen of Dawn (who stole and is using the Other's tech to try and build her own Empire of slaves), also known as Zola. Although it's hinted that it's all a set-up on the Queen's part to make herself look innocent.
  • I'm the Grim Reaper certainly qualifies, with its main characters being a mass murderer who'll do anything to not get sent back to the deepest circle of Hell, and the Trigger-Happy ex-detective who's happy to help her kill someone every day. But even if they aren't really better than the people they're killing, at least they're better than the antagonists, one of whom is Satan himself.
  • In The Order of the Stick, there's frequent conflicts of interest between villains. They include:
    • Belkar Bitterleaf, the Token Evil Teammate of the titular D&D adventuring party, is in this almost all the time. Party leader Roy notes that he uses Belkar in this fashion because a) Belkar has proven able to escape from jail before and b) without a minder he would probably be inflicting his skill at murder on innocents and Good-aligned people; at least while he's in a benign adventuring party, he'll be pitted against people who actually need to/deserve to get killed.
    • Nale and his father Tarquin have been in scuffles before, though they temporarily agree to bury the hatchet when it becomes apparent Nale needs help with his plans.
      • Tarquin's right-hand man Malack has it out for Nale because the latter killed his three children. Aware that Malack will never forgive him or let it slide, Nale kills him first.
      • Vampire!Durkon works with the Order again (for his own reasons). When Nale offers him a membership, the vampire necksnaps his friend Zz'dtri, an Evil Sorcerer who admittedly had it coming.
      • When he finds out about Nale killing Malack, Tarquin offers him one last chance to fix things between them; Nale foolishly declines it, Tarquin stabs him in the gut, pointing out that after killing his father's best friend he should have seen that coming.
      • Tarquin prefers to avoid this trope when possible. While he obviously doesn't want Xykon to succeed in his plans, villain vs villain conflicts tend to be "a toss-up", in his words.
    • The three Archfiends are a mixed example. They don't like the blood war that exists between the Devils, Daemons and Demons of the setting and are working to end it; meanwhile, they happily manipulate conflicts between people from all over the moral spectrum. They aren't big fans of the heroes, but they don't believe in the idea of "Evil Is One Big, Happy Family" — all villains in the comic are pawns to be manipulated, just the same as the heroes, and that includes Xykon and his followers.
    • The Western Continent technically has this by default, since its ever-changing political landscape consists of hot-shot young conquerors rolling over each other's kingdoms in successive waves. It's become so normal that people have basically stopped caring about it. Subverted as The Man Behind the Man always consists of a member of Tarquin's old adventuring party, who maintain control by pitting their "rulers" against each other.
    • Played for Laughs here, when two Mooks from different villains fight over who gets to kill Hinjo.
    • There is the rivalry between Redcloak and Tsukiko about who would become the real dragon for Xykon. Until Redcloak kills Tsukiko, at least.
  • This is how the Insurrection views the war between the Covenant and the UNSC in Halo: A Fistful of Arrows.
  • In The Search for Henry Jekyll, Hyde gains a villainous rival when he injects Dr. Lanyon with HJ7, giving him an evil split personality and a personal interest in Hyde and Jekyll.
  • Sluggy Freelance: Bun-Bun, being a Sociopathic Hero, tends to get this whenever an arc focuses on him. Particularly the "Oceans Unmoving" arc where he's pitted against a naval empire out to enslave everyone in their dimension. It's not that Bun-Bun's got any ethical objections to slavery (he takes a few himself), he just doesn't want to be the one enslaved. He still comes out as the sorta good guy, because, unlike the Navy, he's evil in a cool way. He's a frickin' Space Pirate, after all.
    • Oceans Unmoving plays it even straighter with Bun-Bun against his treacherous former first mate Blacksoul, aka the Bun-Bun we'd been following throughout the comic as it turns out that Captain Bun-Bun was from before the comic started.
    • Likewise the R&D Wars, a conflict between amoral corporations employing mad science which is fixing to turn the world into either a bare rock with a single nightmarish city on it or a literal living hell.
    • There is also the war between the Vorpyr, Vrykolakas, and Strakoi vampires, pitting 3 different factions of parasitic monsters at one another's throats.
  • Vexxarr instigates a war which is essentially this.
    Vexxarr: Which side do you pity the most? The side that attempts to enslave anyone it meets or the side that attempts to eat anyone it meets?
  • Mac and Shmeerm live up this gloriously in one of the longer more epic Voodoo Walrus storyarcs titled Meatnecks and Boomsticks

    Web Original 
  • Channel Awesome:
    • In Kickassia, It is decided that "The only way to deal with a madman is to send in another madman", despite the fact that being ruled by Dr. Insano would be even worse than being ruled by The Nostalgia Critic.
    • Suburban Knights: On one side, there's the Big Bad, Malachite, who intends to use the Gauntlet to rid the world of all technology. On the other side, there's Jaffers and the various folks he recruited to keep the Gauntlet safe and hidden. While Malachite is obviously dangerous (he rips a guy's heart out for watching too much television!!!), Jaffers and his crew attack the reviewers and even try to shoot them several times.
  • In Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, both Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer are evil, only the latter has enough good PR that he has everyone convinced he's The Cape.
  • Lampshaded in Dragonball Z Abridged during the Cell Games, when Yamcha asks if they are honestly rooting for Vegeta. Tien corrects him by pointing out that they are against Cell.
  • In the Dream SMP, this is subverted. Dream states in Season 4 that he sees the server as this as he thinks that just about everyone on the server has done terrible things and openly sees himself as a bad person (not that he thinks there's anything wrong with that), but considering the facts that 1) not all crimes are equal (case in point, Dream himself is said to have crossed the MEH through copious amounts of child abuse to the point his victim almost killed himself, but most characters have not committed crimes to this severity), 2) some people have perfectly or at least relatively sympathetic reasons for doing bad things, and 3) several characters have recognized that their previous actions were bad and are actively working towards a redemption arc, the Dream SMP actually leans closer towards either Grey-and-Gray Morality, Black-and-Grey Morality, or Morality Kitchen Sink than this trope. Also, considering the one voicing this opinion is Dream, the resident child-abuser and serial killer who did so to satisfy his own Control Freak nature and/or for his own amusement (and, for the record, is utterly shameless about this), we should probably take this viewpoint with all the salt in the shaker.
  • Epic Rap Battles of History occasionally pitches two villains against one another:
    • The Darth Vader vs. Hitler battles of the first three seasons, with both parties bragging about how much more evil they are compared to the other.
    • The Joker vs. Pennywise sees a face-off between two Monster Clowns.
  • Given the fact Kakos Industries takes place in a world where almost everyone is a Card-Carrying Villain, these types of clashes happen fairly often. The main Corrupt Corporate Executive regularly butts heads with his maniacally Evil rival, and love interest, as well as a hostile A.I. program and Dirty Communists all within the first few episodes.
  • Nightmare Time: The episode “Honey Queen” pits wealthy debutante Linda against primadonna barista Zoey as they compete to win their town’s local beauty pageant. On one side is Linda, who is willing to bribe a boat captain to strand an opponent at sea, and blackmail her competition. One the other side is Zoey, who is willing to kill her own grandmother and kidnap Linda’s kid in order to win.
  • The Salvation War: Both Yahweh, the being worshiped as God in the Judeo-Christian community and Satan, fought over the world. They regarded human beings as weaklings they could torment or demand unyielding obedience from. The former turned damned humans into his playthings and meals. The latter turned loyal humans into his abused servants. In 2008, both decided that humanity's time was up. Humanity responded rather violently.
  • The SCP Foundation has the Competitive Eschatology Canon, where every single myth detailing The End of the World as We Know It kicks into full gear, all at the same time. Each world-ender wants to end the world in their own specific way, which puts it in conflict with every other world-ender and their plans to end the world.
  • Screen Rant Pitch Meetings: In the episode about Spider-Man's MCU scare, the producer from Marvel Studios and the producer from Sony quarrel over who gets to have the rights to make money off of Spider-Man. Downplayed in that while they aren't monstrously evil, they're equally greedy, and aren't sympathetic enough for it to be a case of Grey-and-Gray Morality.


Alternative Title(s): Black And Black Morality, Evil Vs Evil

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