Times where somebody is punished for not picking a side in Literature.
- One of Aesop's Fables, The Bat, the Birds, and the Beasts, tells of a Bat who refused to take sides in a coming war between the Birds and the Beasts. The war is avoided at the last moment, but when the Bat tries to join in the revelry, both sides threaten to tear him apart. Probably the Ur-Example of this trope."He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends."
- The Arn from Animorphs wanted no part in the war with the Yeerks, and went as far altering their own physiology so they couldn't be forced into it by the Yeerks, who can possess other species. They thought this would make the Yeerks leave them alone, but instead the Yeerks just used them for slave labor, and target practice.
- Ascendance of a Bookworm: Ehrenfest, the duchy in which the protagonists live, stayed neutral during a Civil War. As a result, it's better off in the duchy rankings than before the war thanks to duchies on the losing side being in worse positions than they used to be. However, its influence is non-existent and its only ally is one obtained with Frenbeltag via Double In-Law Marriage between archducal couples. Among the two, Frenbeltag came out worse from the war and has the oldest sibling from both families, making it quite hard for Ehrenfest's archducal couple to refuse their requests for help.
- Early on in Dante's The Divine Comedy, he meets the Uncommitted, who refused to choose good or evil in life. They are even rejected by Hell, and as a punishment, they are forced to eternally chase after a banner while being stung by wasps.
- In The Fire Never Dies, Governor Hiram Johnson of California tries to make California a neutral zone during the Second American Revolution. Unforunately that put him at odds with the IWW-aligned Army of San Francisco dominating the Bay Area and the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet in Los Angeles. The Mêlée à Trois between the Reds, Whites, and the California National Guard (AKA the Blues) reduced the Central Valley to famine and earned the state in general the nickname "The Golden Abbatoir", suffering the worst civilian casualties in proportion to its population out of any state.
- In Island in the Sea of Time, Pamela Lisketter and her followers make the incredibly short-sighted decision to aid Walker in betraying Nantucket, in part because they don't want the fledgling republic to enter the war between the Fiernan Bohulugi and the Iraiina. Not only do their decisions actually end up ensuring that Nantucket goes to war (because Walker immediately goes off and begins arming the Iraiina), but they themselves are mostly wiped out when their subsequent attempt to make an alliance with the People of the Jaguar God goes horribly, horribly wrong...
- The world during the Tribulation period in the Left Behind series isn't a place for anyone to claim neutrality. If you don't get killed by Nicolae Carpathia and the Global Community for not being loyal to him (and even if you are loyal, you're still screwed no matter what), God will send you to Hell for not taking His side in the cosmic conflict.
- Magic: The Gathering:
- In The Brothers' War, several groups try to sit out the titular war as neutral parties. They inevitably get destroyed by one side or the other, whether it's Mishra ransacking Terisia City or Urza subjugating the Sardian dwarves and driving them to the brink of extinction.
- The novel The Prodigal Sorcerer inverts the trope. A sorcerer from an order of true neutral sorcerers comes down from his mountain to bring a quick end to a long-running three-way war. While he succeeds in this, attempts to forge a permanent peace in the aftermath go very badly and the sorcerer is manipulated by outside forces into nearly letting a foreign army in to curbstomp everyone. Arguably all sides, and especially the mage, would have been much better off if he'd just stayed out of it.
- Briefly discussed in Mariners of Gor when there's a mutiny on board a ship. The narrator and some of his friends consider just staying out of the conflict altogether, but then they realize that whichever side wins will punish them for not taking their side, so they arm themselves and fight on the side of the established authority.
- Oddly Enough:
- Attempted in "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm". Three years after Brion's kingdom pulls out of the Forever War with the other fourteen kingdoms of Losfar and starts minding their own business, the other kingdoms decide to send armies to invade and claim what they consider their fair share. Brion in turn calls up an army of his fellow dead to visit the camps of the enemy soldiers and point out to them that the continuing war will only lead to more senseless deaths, causing the other armies to all return home and leave them in peace.
- In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", when Geoffroi hears the story of his great-grandmother Pressina, he learns that she — like others — refused to take sides in the war between Lucifer and the Creator when the former rebelled. Afterward, as punishment, she was banished to Earth.
- This is one possible reading of Eurymachus' role in The Odyssey. He presents himself as the most reasonable of the suitors and unlike the others does not overtly work against Odysseus, but at the same time he does not ally with him. Ultimately, while Odysseus returns to slaughter the suitors in the book's finale, the most vicious and overtly villainous of the suitors actually dies a relatively quick and undramatic death, while the final and most gruesome kill by Odysseus is reserved for Eurymachus, as a possible commentary against those who fail to choose a side. The other interpretation is that Eurymachus is The Walrus, a Manipulative Bastard who's getting exactly what he deserves.
- In the ancient backstory (i.e. the Creation Myth) of The Old Kingdom, there were Nine Bright Shiners, and Seven of them decided to join their power to create a world and a Charter to sustain it. The Ninth Bright Shiner wanted to destroy this world. There was also an Eighth Bright Shiner who wanted no part of either side, and it's not clear why. The Seven won their battle with the Ninth Bright Shiner, and when they were finished with him, they found the Eighth and "made him pay." More specifically, by forcing him to serve as a familiar of sorts for the Abhorsen line, most often in the form of a talking cat. These days, he usually goes by Mogget.
- In Melisa Michaels' Skyrider series, although they admire her skill, a lot of belters don't trust Skyrider because she tried to remain neutral in the last war. On the other hand, a lot of Earthers don't trust her because she's a belter.
- Silverwing has the same premise as Aesop's fable. Many years ago there was a battle between the birds and the beasts. Because of the bats' actions in the war (the bats claim they didn't choose a side, the birds claim they switched sides) all bats are banished to the night.
- In The Sneetches, Sylvester McMonkey McBean offers his services to both the star-bellied Sneetches and those without indiscriminately. He ends up averting the trope completely, walking off with all of the Sneetches's money and laughing about how silly they are. This probably also qualifies him for Magnificent Bastard status.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- The Late Lord Frey gained his nickname for his (in)actions during Robert's Rebellion, in which he was a Tully vassal (and so supposedly on the side of Robert Baratheon), but while he called his banners and mustered an army, the Freys stayed at home until the decisive Battle of the Trident, at which point the Freys arrived just after the battle had been fought. While they claimed to have merely been delayed and always intended to join in on Robert's side note , no-one really believed or trusted them sincenote .
- Also of note is House Lannister, who remained completely neutral throughout Robert's Rebellion also until the Battle of the Trident. However, unlike the Freys, they had no liege to be sworn to outside of King Aerys, and once it was clear Robert was going to win, Lord Tywin sacked King's Landing to endear himself to the new king. Also unlike the Freys, no one called him on this behavior, and several characters privately expressed chagrin that they couldn't, given House Lannister's riches and Lord Tywin's reputation of bringing down Disproportionate Retribution on anyone that slighted him or his house. Tywin also took steps to avoid this. Walder Frey arrived after the battle was over and effectively did nothing, Tywin meanwhile realized that he had to do something to gain any prestige from the war. He also committed himself to doing what was necessary, but something a hero like Robert would never do: exterminate the royal family.
- Discussed in Space Opera, where Musmar the Night Manager notes that staying neutral is a careful balancing act between being militarily threatening enough that you won't be immediately annihilated, but not so threatening that you become an enticing target. Averted in the case of Musmar's people, the Elakhon, who successfully stay neutral in the Sentience Wars in part because their home planet is a lightless dumping ground for every other race in the galaxy's trash, including dirty secrets no one wants to get out.
- Star Wars Legends:
- In the Revenge of the Sith novelization, the planet Utapau is said to have remained neutral in the Clone Wars. This lasts right up until General Grievous conquers it:"Neutrality, in these times, was a joke; a planet was neutral only so long as neither the Republic nor the Confederacy wanted it. If Grievous could laugh, he would have."
- The Corellian Jedi were a schism from the mainstream Jedi Order that formed out of disagreement with the Order's stance on raising families. They chose to remain neutral during the Clone Wars, citing loyalty to Corellia over The Republic. Not only were they caught with their pants down during the Second Jedi Purge and wiped out by The Emperor, but in an ironic twist their successors who remained part of Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order were forced to fight against Corellia in the Second Galactic Civil War. Although even if they had helped against the CIS it wouldn't have made much of a difference considering Darth Sidious was Running Both Sides.
- In the Revenge of the Sith novelization, the planet Utapau is said to have remained neutral in the Clone Wars. This lasts right up until General Grievous conquers it:
- In the Sword of Truth series, the nation of Galea withdrew from a war against the Imperial Order after a new queen came to power, declaring itself neutral. It had previously been allied with the Order's enemies. To absolutely no one's surprise (except apparently the queen's), the Order quickly conquers Galea.
- In Tales of the Otori, Kaede's father chose to stay neutral in the conflict between the Otori and Tohan clans, then, after the Tohan won a decisive victory at the Battle of Yaegahara, then tried to suck up to the Tohan leadership. He was "rewarded" by having his daughter taken hostage and forced into servitude in the household of one of the Tohan's more strident allies.
- The druids in Villains by Necessity tried to keep both sides in the war between good and evil from winning, as they knew that either side achieving absolute victory would be a disaster. This got them declared an enemy by both sides. By the start of the story (a century after the Victory), Kaylana was the only druid still alive.
- The Vorkosigan Saga has Komarr. When Barrayar was rediscovered, Cetaganda saw it as an area ripe for expansion. The Komarrans, who occupy the only route to Barrayar, let the Cetagandans through in exchange for protection and trade rights. The Barrayarans fought off the Cetagandans, and proceeded to attack Komarr in revenge, making a colony of their empire. Although as a Komarran character points out to Miles, who is trying to prevent Komarr's own rebel group pulling off a terrorist plot at the time, the alternative to accepting Cetaganda's terms was being occupied by them instead.
