History Main / ConflictBall

** Sylvannas carries leading into ''Battle for Azeorth'' when she launches the War of Thorns. The conflict already had genocidal overtones with the Forsaken slaughtering civilians and the Horde driving furbolg out of their homes, but it got worse when she ''ordered the burning of Teldrassil''. Thousands of civilians died when the World Tree burned, uniting the Alliance against the Horde for all-out war.

** Another case is Luffy’s fight with Zoro in Whiskey Peak. The people there were actually assassins who intended to take the Straw Hats’ heads after they drunk themselves into a stupor partying, but Zoro had enough restraint to keep himself sober and defeat them. Luffy, who would otherwise trust his TrueCompanions through thick and thin, refused to listen to his earliest crewmate Zoro’s explanation for what was going on, and relentlessly attacked him with explicit intent for murder. They were finally stopped by outside intervention from Nami.

* ''ComicBook/UltimateMarvelTeamUp'': In the first issue, Wolverine is waiting at the train station and Sabretooth shows up and attacks him, just because.

* ''Literature/FengshenYanyi'': while the dukedome of Xiqi is already involved in a war with the cruel and decadent King Zhou of Zhaoge, many opponents are Immortals unrelated to Zhaoge but tricked by [[TheRival the petty Shen Gongbao]] and riled up to fight the taoist heroes fighting alongside Xiqi. This extends to the point that Tongtian Jiaozhu,head founder of the Jie Taoism, is tricked by his jelous disciples into opening a full-blown war with the Chan Taoists supporting Xiqi and this fact is quoted by his master as a proof that he still needs to improve himself.

** Another case is Luffy’s fight with Zoro in Whiskey Peak. The people there were actually assassins who intended to take the Straw Hats’ heads after they drunk themselves into a stupor partying, but Zoro had enough restraint to keep himself sober and defeat them. Luffy, who would otherwise trust his TrueCompanions through thick and thin, refused to listen to his earliest crewmate Zoro’s explanation for what was going on, and relentlessly attacked him with explicit intent for murder. They were finally stopped by [[ArmorPiercingSlap outside intervention from Nami]].

[[folder:Film]]

** In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Poe Dameron and Amilyn Holdo spend most of their storyline tossing the Conflict Ball back and forth, each needlessly antagonizing the situation until it escalates to [[spoiler:a full-blown mutiny that indirectly gets the majority of the Resistance killed]]. This is despite the fact that both are trusted allies of Leia, both are [[DudeWheresMyRespect responsible for significant victories for the Resistance]], and Holdo even admits [[spoiler:laughingly that she likes Poe after all, immediately after said mutiny no less (!!)]].

->'''[[Characters/SonicTheHedgehogSonicTheHedgehog Sonic]]''': [''to Shadow''] Hey, buddy! I'm so happy you're still okay, that's great! Say, we were just on our way to Eggman.\\
'''[[Characters/SonicTheHedgehogShadowTheHedgehog Shadow]]''': So are we.\\
'''Sonic''': Huh... Let's kill each other.\\
'''Shadow''': DIE!

* The Conflict Ball ''is'' the plot to ''Vivisector: Beast Inside''. It starts out with a GeneralRipper hiring an EvilutionaryBiologist to create an army of {{Half Human Hybrid}}s, only to split into a civil war over disagreements over how the army should be utilized. Okay, that's reasonable. Then the General decides to [[NukeEm nuke the biologist's soldiers]] for no good reason, and when he tricks the player character into coming to their island hideaway, he conveniently forgets to inform ''his own soldiers'' that he required your help, turning them against you for no reason other than to add more enemies for you to fight. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse, though]]; later on, the General kills your only ally in the game for absolutely no reason but to get you to abandon him for the doctor's side, and then you learn that the beast soldiers are pre-programmed to hate humans on sight, forcing you to ''fight your new allies'', even though there really should be no reason for that to happen. In essence, the ''only'' reason why you have to fight ''any'' enemies in the game is because ButThouMust.

* ''Literature/TheRisingOfTeSheildHero'': The brief conflict between Naofumi and Raphtalia after the former lost the latter as his slave. When Raphtalia was taken hostage by the other heroes and the royalty, under the assumption she is controlled by the Sheild Hero, Motoyasu challenges him to duel if he wants her back. Initially, Naofumi gained the upper hand, but Malty cheated behind his back, which lead to his defeat in hands of Motoyasu. Afterwards, in a fit of grief, he hallucinates her betraying him the same way Malty did and walking out on him. This caused him to activate the Rage Shield, which clouds his mind and cause him to lose the ability to be reasoned with. When Raphtalia ditches him and calls out on his crap, she walks up to Naofumi who, despite treating her well earlier, refuses to listen to her explanation she believes in him innocence and angrily ignores her, whining that nobody believes in him at all, and blaming his shield for all his misfortunes. This stops when Raphtalia persists and [[YouAreNotAlone brings him back]] [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre to his senses.]]

* ''Literature/TheRisingOfTeSheildHero'': The brief conflict between Naofumi and Raphtalia after the former lost the latter as his slave. When Raphtalia was taken hostage by the other heroes and the royalty, under the assumption she is controlled by the Sheild Hero, Motoyasu challenges him to duel if he wants her back. Initially, Naofumi gained the upper hand, but Malty cheated behind his back, which lead to his defeat in hands of Motoyasu. Afterwards, in a fit of grief, he hallucinates her betraying her the same way Malty did and walking out on him. This caused him to activate the Rage Shield, which clouds his mind and cause him to lose the ability to be reasoned with. When Raphtalia ditches him and calls out on his crap, she walks up to Naofumi who, despite treating her well earlier, refuses to listen to her explanation she believes in her innocence and angrily ignores her, whining that nobody believes in him and blaming his shield for all his misfortunes. This stops when Raphtalia persists and [[YouAreNotAlone brings him back]] [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre to his senses.]]

* The character Steven Caldwell of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' was, according to the actor, supposed to be more of a jerk in the original script. However, the actor subtly nicened him up a bit. Unfortunately the trade off was that whenever the script called for him to truly be a jerk, it often looked a little forced. One notable example is the episode ''Sateda'', in which Shepard claims that Caldwell doesn't value alien team members such as Ronin as much as earth members, a point that had never been hinted at before. Later subverted in a very clever way when the audience learned that [[spoiler: Caldwell was a goa'uld spy, normal Caldwell's personality was much more balanced]].
* Subverted with on ''Series/StargateSG1'', where Jack O'Neill suddenly starts acting like an uncaring, greedy jerk, and leaves the Stargate Program when reprimanded to join a group who steal alien technology. However, it later turns out that the whole thing is [[FakeDefector a trick to unearth said group]].

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' had an almost identical subversion with Tom Paris, showing him having more and more problems fitting in over a long arc culminating in his leaving Voyager to infiltrate an enemy group.

* In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', [[spoiler:Loki's spear containing the Mind Stone]] seems to act as a literal, physical conflict ball, escalating trivial disagreements and dislikes into full-fledged hostility. While it fails to permanently turn the team against each other, it does occupy them for a good while, distracts them from the incoming reinforcements, and [[spoiler:makes Banner more vulnerable to Hulking out during the attack]].

* In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', [[spoiler:Loki's spear]] seems to act as a literal, physical conflict ball, escalating trivial disagreements and dislikes into full-fledged hostility. While it fails to permanently turn the team against each other, it does occupy them for a good while, distracts them from the incoming reinforcements, and [[spoiler:makes Banner more vulnerable to Hulking out during the attack]].

* ''Film/BrideWars'' has the two protagonists have their weddings for the same date and the same place. The two have been best friends for years, but they now suddenly don't want their identical dream weddings to be combined in what would be an awesome double wedding. WebVideo/BadMovieBeatdown had a field day pointing out how arbitrary it was, to the point of a gaping PlotHole.

* Some of the series in the New Generation of ''Franchise/KamenRider'' are particularly bad at this when it comes to provoking battles between Riders. They more or less have a rule that ''any'' given pair of Riders must fight at least once during the series (preferably more), no matter the cost in terms of character and story consistency. This is especially the case in works written by Creator/ToshikiInoue.
** In Series/KamenRiderKiva, it's perfectly justified. It makes a lot of sense for Keisuke Nago to attack Wataru [[spoiler:due to the physical resemblance between Kamen Rider Kiva and the Dark Kiva that had appeared in the past. Given who Dark Kiva's user was, it's natural that Nago would be afraid of their return]].
** This trend was however finally averted in ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'' and seemingly every show afterwards, with the Second Rider only having minor disagreements at worst with the main Rider.
** In ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'', Yuki Jojima is normally an outer space {{Otaku}} who, despite being quite {{genki|Girl}}, is knowledgeable enough about space to impress even the school principal, himself a former astronaut. This all goes out the window in the Aquarius arc, where she suddenly becomes a screeching, annoying lunatic who has to pray to "rocket gods" in order to pass a basic intelligence test, seemingly just to make her exactly the kind of person [[MonsterOfTheWeek Erin Suda]] despises. It's made even more blatant since Erin would probably get along with "normal Yuki" just fine -- as illustrated at the end of the arc, where they actually ''do'' become friends after the villains [[LaserGuidedAmnesia mind-wipe]] Erin following her defeat at the hands of Fourze.

** ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'' also has a particularly infamous example in its final arc. It starts with [[spoiler:Horobi killing Izu, even though she's one of the [[RidiculousHumanRobot Humagears]] he claims to be liberating, simply because [[EvilIsPetty she tried to talk him down]]. This leads [[TheHero Aruto]] to try and get revenge against him, which wouldn't be too bad if he didn't ([[IdiotBall for no reason at all]]) also try to use the ObviouslyEvil [[TransformationTrinket Ark Driver]] to try and kill Horobi, which leads to the other Humagears rising up out of fear Aruto will become another [[BigBad Ark]] and brings the setting closer to a RobotWar. If Aruto had used his Zero-Two Driver, which was already much stronger than Horobi, to get his revenge most of the problems in the final arc could have been averted.]]

* {{Fighting game}}s take this trope UpToEleven. Most of the time, characters are only fighting each other, because the players simply wanted to select those particular characters. If loving family members and TrueCompanions are in the roster of a fighting game, they can be "forced" to fight each other. This also leads to certain characters that [[WouldntHitAGirl wouldn't hit females]] or [[WouldntHurtAChild children]] breaking their ethical codes. Admittedly, matches like that aren't {{invoked|Trope}} through the stories, but fighting game Story Mode/Arcade Mode "conflicts" are very underwhelming, because the characters often fight over trivial things.

*** Phil vs. Lil - As the twins got older, their sibling rivalry would be driven UpToEleven, where Lil would become gender-conscious and see Phil as an immature {{Gasshole}}. Because of this, Lil would move into her own room, get into a gender dispute with Phil on their birthday, and deprive him of a romance with one of her soccer friends.

* Used as a joke in some of the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' games, especially fighting games. Often the fights are for improbable, ridiculous reasons. However, it's also clear that, ultimately, [[BloodKnight these people just like beating the crap out of each other]]! Even funnier in that it usually works. The logic is more or less "There is a problem. The problem was probably caused by someone. Keep beating people up until you happen to beat up the one causing the problem and they can no longer cause the problem"
** The plot and background of ''Touhou 3: Phantasmagoria of Dim.'' (Dimensional) ''Dream'' primarily circles this trope and this trope alone. The antagonists, [[spoiler: Yumemi and her assistant Chiyuri,]] set up a sort of battle royale. The winner would [[spoiler:get to make any wish that they wanted, and the pair of scientists would do their best to make it true]]. This, however, was just a guise for them to attempt to [[spoiler: capture somebody as a research subject to prove that magic existed, as part of their proposed "Grand Unified Theory"]]. The 8 protagonists decide to go along with it, not knowing the intentions of Yumemi and Chiyuri.

* ''Franchise/MegaMan'':
** In ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' many reploids you fight want to have a piece of your character for various reasons. While there are varying degrees of justification, the fact that several not in the throes of Maverick fever insist on doing this when the [[ColonyDrop giant space colony is coming crashing down]] is a bit incredulous.
** ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'''s entire plot starts simply because Colonel would rather throw the entire Repliforce into a pointless war with the Maverick Hunters than simply ''turn off his LaserBlade when asked to come to the latter's headquarters''.

* Emily [=McArthur=] of ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}'' does this a ''lot''. A straighter example would be the constant, immature sparring between Emily and Missi. While Emily has generally gotten better at this and only retorts back when provoked, Missi seems to take a perverse delight in annoying her. The only reason for this, it seems, would be so that the two can clash over their feelings for Ash. Even more irritating, though, is Missi's refusal to accept that Ash isn't her girlfriend anymore. It's makes one wonder whether Chris only created her to exacerbate personal drama in the lives of the two protagonists. When you consider that Ash and Emily are steadily becoming ''less'' hostile towards Rumisiel over time - they aren't friendly with him, but they seem to trust him more than they did at the start - this theory isn't without justification.

** A massive example of this happens in the movie ''Film/HeiseiRiderVsShowaRiderKamenRiderWarsFeaturingSuperSentai'', where the old-school Kamen Riders abruptly show up and start attacking their modern successors while declaring that they're failures who have no right to call themselves Kamen Riders, not even bothering to explain anything beyond that. We eventually find out that the Heisei Riders' attachments to their dead friends are empowering [[Series/KamenRiderZX Badan]] (here recast as an ArmyOfTheDead), but the Showa Riders don't explain this until ''after'' Badan is defeated, and they '''still''' insist on fighting the Heisei Riders even afterwards. Notably, the film's treatment of the Showa Riders bothered Creator/HiroshiFujioka (star of the original ''Series/KamenRider'') so much that he co-wrote [[Film/KamenRider1 another movie]] in which his character is back to being a noble hero who has plenty of respect for those who followed in his footsteps.

* [[WhatAnIdiot Certain viewers]] have noticed in ''Anime/ProjectAKo'' on how B-Ko's desire for C-Ko probably would have gone better if she didn't antagonize A-Ko so much. One might think that while conflict is an absolute necessity in an action story but then [[FridgeLogic you realize]] that B-Ko wasn't exactly the main antagonist in the 1st movie.

* In Series/KamenRiderKiva, it makes a lot of sense for Keisuke Nago to attack Wataru [[spoiler:due to the physical resemblance between Kamen Rider Kiva and the Dark Kiva that had appeared in the past. Given who Dark Kiva's user was, it's natural that Nago would be afraid of them having come back]].

* ''Series/Friends'' has consecutive episodes where Ross has a hair-trigger temper that all the other figures are wary of. This was never mentioned before and after these two episodes is dropped and never mentioned again.