History BlackAndGrayMorality / Literature

* ''Cataclysmic Horizons'' contains the Sodality of Gerosha, a band of superheroes many of whom are only possible because their parents were subjected to [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke crimes against nature]]. They consist of a horny and insecure girl with centipede powers, an [[BloodKnight impulsive and aggressive]] woman with a stolen PoweredArmor, a sleazy womanizer who can jump incredible heights, an angry and vindictive plant-man who is himself a victim of crimes against nature, a sociopathic RealityWarper, a Robin Hood archetype, and more. Together, they fight against [[ThoseWackyNazis Those Wacky Hebbleskins]], who are essentially ANaziByAnyOtherName. Who have their own army of evil freaks, who are [[NotSoDifferent also]] only possible because their parents were victims of crimes against nature.

* The original ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' is very black-and-gray. The vast majority of the protagonists, including Paul, are not nice people and in many cases not good people either. And then there's [[AGodAmI Leto II]] in the sequels...

* ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight'' takes DeliberateValuesDissonance seriously, so none of the factions in its MedievalEuropeanFantasy looks completely "white" by modern standards. [[TheRepublic Amorr]], probably the closest thing this world has to a "Good Guy" faction, has social values largely appropriate to ancient or medieval times, so that (for example) slavery is commonly accepted there. However, their enemies are far worse, with [[TheEmpire Savondir]] a totalitarian monarchy that ''combines'' the worst features of medieval despotic feudalism and early modern French Revolution-style tyranny. And even they are better than the [[EvilVersusOblivion pure destructiveness]] of the Hordes in the North.

* ''Literature/Worm'' runs on this trope. The heroes working for the government are supposed to be the good guys, while their opponents include two different race gangs, a drug-dealing sex trafficking mob, a man who almost succeeds in taking over the city, a band of mass-murdering psychopaths, and three godzilla-tier monsters that are slowly destroying the planet. On the other hand, the heroes suffer from arrogance, in-fighting, and bureaucracy, and it's revealed that many of them [[spoiler: got their powers illegitimately, from a corporation that used insanely unethical human experimentation to create them.]]

* A running theme in the ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle''. Of the two main factions, the Patryns are conquest-crazy [[BloodKnight Blood Knights]] and the Sartan are paternalistic and hubristic NeglectfulPrecursors. Both of them treat humans, elves, and dwarves like disposable toys -- not that the [[HumansAreBastards humans]], [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil elves]], or [[TotalitarianUtilitarian dwarves]] are much better.

* In Literature/{{Kane}} most people care only about their self-interest, are brutal and cruel, which is only fitting for a race created by a MadGod, while the [[ThePrecursors elder races]] are degenerate and demented. Those who claim to act for the greater good are [[KnightTemplar just as blood-thirsty]] and the few really good characters usually end badly, rather quickly. Kane himself, a VillainProtagonist or AntiHero at best, in comparison looks quite reasonable. Probably helped by the fact that his [[RapePillageAndBurn most atrocious acts]] are only discussed in his BackStory, not shown, and many of his [[EvilVersusEvil antagonists are much worse]].

* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents,'' especially from book eight onwards.

** And it's even more complicated than that. The book talks about how people who are going to be drug addicted are better before taking any drug: for instance, everyone says that the drug dealer was a nice man before taking heroin. It's more something like "white and gray morality".

** [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Petyr Baelish]] is an interesting case. [[UnfinisHed Byronic as anything]], highly sympathetic with a backstory tragic enough to break hearts and not without a point or too, sure. So, a Grey vs Gray case study in complexity, right? Nope: black as pitch once you get to know the scope of what he's been busy doing for years, let alone how and why. A very densely layered pit of pitch with a touch of bonkers.

** [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Petyr Baelish]] is an interesting case. [[AmbigiouslyEvil Ambiguous as anything]], highly sympathetic with a backstory tragic enough to break hearts and not without a point or too, sure. So, a Grey or Gray, right? Nope: black as pitch once you get to know the scope of what he's been busy doing for years. A very densely layered pit of pitch with a touch of bonkers.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Being a deconstruction of typical HighFantasy, there are no snow white heroes. Nearly every side has a story. Even those with the best intentions who strive to do the right thing, such as Robb Stark, Davos Seaworth, Brienne of Tarth, Samwell Tarly, Ned Stark, Jon Snow, Aemon Targaryen, Daenerys Targaryen, etc. find that the right thing is difficult, [[ConflictingLoyalty hard]], not always clear... and it can turn out to be NotQuiteTheRightThing. Would be GreyAndGrayMorality, except the existence of some truly evil people like [[BlackKnight Gregor Clegane]] and [[BastardBastard Ramsay Bolton]], and worse, the Others -- creatures from beyond the Wall that are impervious to most weapons, breed zombies and are in the process of returning after centuries... and WordOfGod has said in interviews that even the Others have [[BlueAndOrangeMorality motivations more complicated than]] ForTheEvulz.

* In Literature/{{Kane}} most people care only about their self-interest, are brutal and cruel, which is only fitting for a race created by a MadGod, while the [[ThePrecursors elder races]] are degenerate and demented. Those who claim to act for the greater good are [[KnightTemplar just as blood-thirsty]] and the few really good characters usually end badly, rather quickly. Kane himself, a VillainProtagonist or AntiHero at best, in comparison looks quite reasonable. Probably helped by the fact that his most atrocious acts are only discussed in his BackStory, not shown, and many of his [[EvilVersusEvil antagonists are much worse]].

* In the ''Literature/{{Parker}}'' novels, Parker can and will kill with dispassion, but generally prefers a minimum of violence in his heists and won't kill somebody unless they're trying to kill him directly or indirectly. He also won't take more than his share from a heist unless he's been double-crossed or otherwise screwed over.

** Dumbledore, of whom so many people "thought the sun shone from every orifice", made plans in his youth with another to take [[spoiler: siege of the general Muggle population, during which time he neglected his remaining family.]] In the last book, Dumbledore reveals [[spoiler:he knew since the beginning Harry would need to be sacrificed in order to defeat Voldemort in the end. Horrified, Snape realizes Dumbledore "kept [Harry] alive so that he can die at the right moment" as Snape had done everything he could to keep the son of his one love, Lily Potter, safe. Dumbledore explains that Harry's sacrifice is necessary for Voldemort's downfall.]]

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Being a deconstruction of typical HighFantasy, there are no snow white heroes. Nearly every side has a story -- including outright villains such as [[BastardBastard Ramsay Bolton]]. Even those with the best intentions who strive to do the right thing, such as Robb Stark, Davos Seaworth, Brienne of Tarth, Samwell Tarly, Ned Stark, Jon Snow, Aemon Targaryen, Daenerys Targaryen, etc. find that the right thing is difficult, [[ConflictingLoyalty hard]], not always clear... and it can turn out to be NotQuiteTheRightThing. Would be GreyAndGrayMorality, except the existence of some truly evil people like [[BlackKnight Gregor Clegane]] and Ramsay Bolton, and worse, the Others -- creatures from beyond the Wall that are impervious to most weapons, breed zombies and are in the process of returning after centuries... and WordOfGod has said in interviews that even the Others have [[BlueAndOrangeMorality motivations more complicated than]] ForTheEvulz.

* Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheSilmarillion''. On one side are Elves and Men, the assumed good guys, who are flawed, cocky, haughty, corrupt, petty, jealous and well capable of killing their own kin, sabotaging their own cause; on the other side is [[BigBad Morgoth]], who is a being of pure evil. (And [[EldritchAbomination Ungoliant]], though she doesn't really care for any side and just wants to eat everything.)

* ''Literature/{{Trainspotting}}'' -- Almost all of the main characters are amoral drug addicts. The ones that aren't are either dead, going to be drug addicts in the near future, or [[HairTriggerTemper berserker psychopaths]]. Or dead. Or are going to suffer because of the main characters.

** It's worth noting that after giving the page quote, Vetinari talks for about a page and a half about just how ''much'' [[HumansAreFlawed people suck]], at which point Vimes asks him how he manages to get up in the morning, which he answers with his usual calm, kind-of-cheerful manner.
*** Also worth noting is that Vetinari, who is not known for casually misspeaking, says "there's a good man" about Vimes as Vimes exits after this speech.
** Also Vetinari rules his own city, which is the most efficient city on the Discworld and has people flocking to live there. Whether he's right or not, it ''works''.

** The [[Literature/{{Dune}} first book]] doesn't possess this to too high a degree, but Paul and Jessica do patently manipulate the Fremen and their religion and lead the Fremen into ever increasing acts of violence. The Corrinos are also a lot more gray compared to the pitch black Harkonnens.

** Some members of the Ministry of Magic like Rufus Scrimgeour -- firmly on the gray side -- are darker than Harry and his friends, but are still firmly better than the black of Voldemort.

* Creator/MarthaWells's ''Death of the Necromancer'' has [[AntiVillain Nicholas]] [[AristocratsAreEvil Valiarde,]] a coldblooded thief, murderer and all around MagnificentBastard. Nic has spent years sabotaging his enemy on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge; at the start of the narrative, Nic's nearing the completion of his [[EvilPlan ultimate scheme]] when he and his subordinates run afoul of an unknown person using BlackMagic. Somehow, this leads to the group spending the rest of the book fighting an insane mass murderer. And the reason they do it is at least partly because it's ''bad for business.''

* In ''Literature/ZooCity'' Zizi December is a cynical ex drug addict who blames herself for her brothers death. Everyone else is as bad or worse, sometimes much worse.

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' pitted six children against the Yeerk Empire, a expansionist and militaristic alien confederacy that occupies and enslaves Earth in secret. The main characters, all kids under the age of sixteen, are hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, and are pushed to using ever-more desperate and morally reprehensible tactics against an enemy that grows stronger no matter what they do. By the end of the series, the kids are just as ruthless as the people they fight. Can also cover the Andalite military, who are just as bad as the Yeerks, just in a different way.
* R. Scott Bakker's [[Literature/SecondApocalypse Prince of Nothing]] trilogy exemplifies this trope. The most important character in the series, Anasurimbor Kellhus (there are several protagonists, but Kellhus is really the central character of the trilogy), is a ruthless, brilliant manipulator, part of an order of ascetics who have spent nearly two thousand years in isolation breeding and training for intellect, rationality, and the ability to "read" other people by their actions, mannerisms, and faces, thus "possessing" them and turning them to their will. Over the course of the trilogy, [[spoiler: he comes to be seen as a Prophet, and eventually dominates the entire Three Seas area that composes the main setting for the books (he also comes to believe that he really ''is'' a Prophet).]] That sounds pretty horrible, until you remember that the primary antagonists, the Consult, [[spoiler: are a cabal of human and non-human sorcerers and generals (including the Inchoroi, an alien race that fell into Earwa thousands of years before the books' story and who are defined by cruelty and an utter obsession with slaking their lust) seeking to resurrect a being that causes ''all'' children of races with souls - namely, humans - to be stillborn, so that they can drive the number of ensoulled beings in the world down below a certain number in order to prevent the certainty of their facing damnation and hell-fire upon their deaths.]] So Yeah.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Being a deconstruction of typical HighFantasy, there are no snow white heroes, only bad people fighting flawed people. Even those with the best intentions, such as Robb Stark, Davos Seaworth, Brienne of Tarth, and Samwell Tarly, struggle to figure out the right thing to do, and arguably the lightest-gray character, [[spoiler: Ned Stark]], succumbs to [[TooDumbToLive Death by]] HonorBeforeReason very early on. Would be GreyAndGrayMorality, except the existence of some truly evil people like [[BlackKnight Gregor Clegane]] and [[BastardBastard Ramsay Bolton]], and worse, the Others, creatures from beyond the Wall that are impervious to most weapons, breed zombies and are in the process of returning after centuries... and WordOfGod has said in interviews that even the Others have [[BlueAndOrangeMorality motivations more complicated than]] ForTheEvulz.

* Creator/TomHolt's ''Paint Your Dragon'' does this to the story of Saint George and the Dragon. ''Both'' are absolute ''[[JerkAss assholes]]'', but the dragon seems a little more sympathetic...although considering he at one point annihilates a (occupied) theatre in an attempt to deal with George, this is more a statement on how unlikeable St. George is than anything else. [[spoiler: The dragon's status as the Least Evil? character is cemented at the end, when the two end up switching forms and George's first action as a dragon is to kill the entire audience for their deathmatch in order to ensure that nobody with a rocket launcher is lurking in the stands).]]

** It's also [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Turn Coat'', when Harry dubs the clandestine group designed to combat the equally clandestine Black Council the "Gray Council." Oddly enough, they're probably ''less'' morally ambiguous than the stagnant, zealous, overly traditionalist leadership of the White Council.

** Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's much-maligned ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' prequels actually do a fairly decent job portraying the free humans in terms of Grey morality. The Machines and their cyborg servants on the other hand are {{Card Carrying Villain}}s. Although some are treated with some sympathy (especially in the last two books where the authors get better at making some of them like Erasmus actual three-dimensional characters), they're a bunch of bloodthirsty enslaving bastards who perform Mengele-style medical experiments on humans, get thrills from torturing them, force them to slave away like the Jews in ''Film/TheTenCommandments'' apparently [[ForTheEvulz just because it strokes off their egos]] (little else makes sense, given that they can build sapient robots and contented humans would be less likely to rebel), and respond to any defiance with horrific atrocities. It's especially grating because superhuman machine intellects that run on cold logic should logically be {{Magnificent Bastard}}s or at least dispassionate {{Chessmaster}} types, not a bunch of gratuitously sadistic ObviouslyEvil loons (in fairness, it's justified by one of the human Titans having programmed Omnius with his own personality).

* Creator/JKRowling was very fond indeed of doing this with her characters in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series. WordOfGod says that there were concerted efforts made to remind the readers that Harry is a flawed person (see his ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Order of the Phoenix]]'' "{{Angst}}ing"), and is certainly no saint (his ready use of [[spoiler: the Cruciatus curse on Amycus]], and before then, Bellatrix). James (and specifically Sirius) are shown to have very good hearts overall, but could definitely be {{Jerkass}}es at times (Sirius and his treatment of Snape/Kreacher, his recklessness). Ron (who never went through what Harry did but accomplished more than most Hogwarts students could ever admit to) [[spoiler: left Harry and Hermione in the woods.]] Dumbledore, of whom so many people "thought the sun shone from every orifice", made plans in his youth with another to take [[spoiler: siege of the general Muggle population, during which time he neglected his remaining family.]] Paradoxically, Regulus [[spoiler: turns out to have been not as Black as first painted - same for Snape.]] Draco is a tricky one, who at first [[spoiler: doesn't turn Harry in, but later tries to capture him, accompanied by his old henchmen who, by now, are not just brainless brawns and are unafraid to kill--though given his family's precarious situation, desperation could have been a factor.]] Hermione enchanted the D.A. list to give scarring acne to any member who betrayed them, even if the person had limited options. She also tricked [[LoveToHate Umbridge]] into going into the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night and getting [[TakeThatScrappy attacked by centaurs]].
** And that's ignoring some members of the Ministry of Magic like Rufus Scrimgeour -- firmly on the gray side -- who are generally darker than Harry and his friends, but still firmly better than the black of Voldemort.

** Han and his CaperCrew are smugglers, thieves, and con artists--low-level criminals just out to make a living. The goal for most of them if they make the big score is to pay off their debts and retire. Their target is a high-ranking member of the galaxy's most notorious [[TheSyndicate Syndicate]], Black Sun, who regularly engages in high-level blackmail, arms dealing, and murder, and the money they want to steal from him [[CaperRationalization was stolen from one of them in the first place]].

* No trope describes ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' better than this one.

** And that's ignoring the Ministry of Magic -- firmly on the gray side -- which is generally darker than Harry and his friends, but still firmly better than the black of Voldemort.

* In ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'', set in a ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''-like post-apocalyptic America, nearly all of the various successor states are some flavor of politically AxCrazy, ranging from human-sacrificing neo-Pagans and genocidally misandristic high-tech Amazons to cannibalistic Mexican warlords and unapologetic Nazi imitators. Victoria itself is at least halfway fascist, and could easily be the ''villains'' in a lighter story, but they're still ''a lot'' better than any and all of the opposition, so here they are the closest thing the setting has to good guys.

* In ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'', set in a ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}''-like post-apocalyptic America, nearly all of the various successor states are some flavor of politically AxCrazy, ranging from human-sacrificing neo-Pagans and genocidally misandristic high-tech Amazons to cannibalistic Mexican warlords and unapologetic Nazi imitators. Victoria itself is at least halfway fascist, and could easily be the ''villains'' in a lighter story, but they're still ''a lot'' better than any and all of the opposition, so here they are the closest thing the setting has to good guys.