History Main / MoralDisambiguation

* ''Fanfic/StarWarsVsWarhammer40K'': Invoked in Episode 23: The Cost of Honor. Viewpoint character Kombirr justifies his desire to join the rebellion against the Imperial rule of Axum by pointing out that whereas the war between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems was morally murky, which was why he refused to take sides in it, the Imperials are [[VilerNewVillain a bunch of brutal colonizers who are systemically genociding Axum's non-human population]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' initially leaves it vague how good or bad the three main factions (Grineer Empire, the Corpus, and the {{Player Character}}s, the Tenno) are relative to one another. The Grineer and Corpus are both acknowledged to treat neutral third parties horribly, but these third parties are only mentioned in lore, and could easily be chalked up as propoganda. The Tenno, meanwhile, follow the enigmatic Lotus, who is later revealed to be [[spoiler:a defector from the Sentients, the Tenno's ArchEnemy]], leaving it up in the air how good they really are. Any debate was fully laid to rest, however, with the release of the Relays, Cetus, and Fortuna, which finally introduced the normal peoples of the Origin System to the game, and emphasized not only how badly they are treated by the major powers (the Grineer outright destroy several relays inthe Eyes of Blight event, while the inhabitants of Fortuna are debt-slaves to the Corpus), but also [[HopeBringer what the Tenno are to these wayward souls]].

* ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' underwent a notable case of this. Much of season one had been spent building up the conflict between [[WellIntentionedExtremist Celestial Being]] who wanted to end all conflict and the various political factions of Earth, with all of them having sympathetic characters even the very morally dubious Human Reform League. Ali al-Saachez was the only real outlier as a CompleteMonster. Then the Trinity Siblings were introduced who took Celestial Being's ideals to extremes, killing civilians and causing the public to turn against Celestial Being and causing the factions to pool their resources. Alejandro Cormer, an affiliate of Celestial Being, was revealed to have orchestrated the scheme to hijack Aeolia Schenberg's plan for his own selfish ends and equips the United Nations with new mobile suits to take down the Gundams. Even after his death in the season one finale,his BastardUnderstudy Ribbons Almark takes power and proceeds to secretly puppet the new Earth Sphere Federation from the shadows, creating the ruthless [[StateSec A-LAWS]]. When Season Two begins, Celestial Being are now firmly the heroes fighting against the A-LAWS who go on to commit multiple atrocities at Ribbons' command.

* Act 1 of ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' built up to a conflict between [[Agatha]] and the InspectorJavert AntiVillain Baron Wulfenbach, who feared Agatha was really [[BigBad the Other]], a plainly malevolent force through-and-through. But by the time of Act 2, said battle was over, and the conflict shifted towards Agatha fighting the Other more head-on. Plus, even during Act 1's FinalBattle, Wulfenbach was [[spoiler:under the Other's mind-control]], adding a moral layer to it.

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': The film starts out with FantasticRacism between animal species being widespread among all the characters, but as the story progresses, the heroes learn to overcome their prejudices, while the villains aim to escalate racial tensions for their own purposes.

* ''VideoGame/Destiny2'': Throughout the run of ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}}'' and its sequel, the Consensus Faction - New Monarchy, Dead Orbit, and the Future War Cult - have been a source of GreyAndGrayMorality due to their differing views, which they aren't able to reconcile even after the city gets invaded by Cabal. Come ''Season of the Splicer'', though, and they finally find enough common ground to unify on. [[spoiler:The problem is that this common ground is FantasticRacism toward the House of Light, who the Vanguard allowed into the Last City in exchange for their splicers' aid in breach the Vex network. All three factions actively work to kick the Eliksni out of the city, culminating in Overide: Last City, where Laksmi-3 ends up opening a Vex portal ''inside the city'', which almost leads to the City's destruction. Predictably, all three factions collapse once the mess is sorted out, [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore leading to the removal of all three factions and their gear, as well as an end to the Faction Rallys]]]].

* ''VideoGame/Destiny2'': As the storyline progresses, the game took the binary conflict between Light and Darkness from ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'' and applied GrayingMorality to it, culminating in ''Beyond Light'', where the Guardians are forced to wield the Darkness to fight the House of Salvation. Starting with ''The Witch Queen'', however, [[spoiler:this begins to reverse with the introduction of the true BigBad of the story, The Witness. The Witness is the one who caused the collapse and now seeks to finish what they started. Their presence ''alone'' obliterates the shades of grey in the conflict, as the threat it poses is enough that everyone is ''forced'' to take a side in the conflict between Light and Dark - Xivu Arath's Hive (the most directly loyal to the Witness) become the most prominent brood after Savathun's broods go rogue, the Fallen and Cabal align under groups siding with either the Last City or the Black Fleet (these are, respectively, the House of Light and the Cabal Ascendancy for the Last City and the House of Salvation and the Shadow Legion for the Black Fleet), the Sol Divisive, a Vex collective that worships the Darkness, becomes the most active collective in the system, and the Scorn and Taken finally return to serving the Witness. And to remove ''any'' ambiguity left in the conflict, not only is it implied that the Witness' victory will cause ''the end of the universe'', but ''Lightfall'' reveals that the Witness has been using its forces to wipe out other groups that ''also'' used the Darkness because it was offended by them using it in peaceful ways]].

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', with some rare (and mostly minor) exceptions, doesn't really have 'villains' or people who are downright evil. This is most exemplified in the supposed BigGood of the game, the Lord of Light Gwyn. He killed all the Everlasting Dragons and built civilization in the new world, but he's also an AbusiveParent amongst other rather morally dubious actions. [[spoiler:His sacrifice by throwing himself in the First Flame to revive it]] make him come off as at least somewhat heroic in the end... And then ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' (specifically the Ringed City DLC) reveals that he's a lot more villainous: [[spoiler:most importantly, he "gifted" the Pygmies, the ancestors of humanity who helped in the war against dragons, with a city/prison at the edges of the world, cancelled them from the annals of history, and branded all of them with a "ring of fire"; all because Gwyn was afraid of the inherent Darkness in human souls, and wanted to seal it away as much as possible. In doing so, humans lost control of their dark souls, the ring of fire turned into the Darksign, creating the Undead, and caused the Abyss to be spawned. And his sacrifice was pointless, as every linking of the fire causes the First Flame to weaken and the world to slowly collapse on itself through sheer entropy, meaning that the world is in a ''worse'' state than if he just let the fire fade in the first place. Through his fear and paranoia, Gwyn was responsible for almost all of humanity's woes in the franchise.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': The film starts out with Fantastic Racism between predator and prey being widespread among all the characters, but as the story progresses, the heroes learn to overcome their prejudices, while the villains aim to escalate racial tensions for their own purposes.

!!Examples

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

[[/folder]]

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Over the course of the series, antagonistic characters would have PetTheDog moments or otherwise be made three-dimensional, some would even have redemption arcs. Some allies would slowly become morally gray. By the series finale, Dukat and Winn had shed any redeeming qualities and had fully embraced evil, Gowron became a full-on villain, Damar had a complete Heel Face Turn, and all the major Alpha-quadrant powers had fully alligned against the evil Dominion.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', with some rare (and mostly minor) exceptions, doesn't really have 'villains' or people who are downright evil. This is most exemplified in the supposed BigGood of the game, the Lord of Light Gwyn. He killed all the Everlasting Dragons and built civilization in the new world, but he's also an AbusiveParent amongst other rather morally dubious actions. [[spoiler:His sacrifice by throwing himself in the First Flame to revive it]] make him come off as at least somewhat heroic in the end... And then ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' (specifically the Ringed City DLC) reveals that he's a lot more villainous: [[spoiler: most importantly, he 'gifted' the Pygmies, the ancestors of humanity who helped in the war against dragons, with a city/prison at the edges of the world, cancelled them from the annals of history, and branded all of them with a 'ring of fire'; all because Gwyn was afraid of the inherent Darkness in human souls, and wanted to seal it away as much as possible. In doing so, humans lost control of their dark souls, the ring of fire turned into the Darksign, creating the Undead, and caused the Abyss to be spawned. And his sacrifice was pointless, as every linking of the fire causes the First Flame to weaken and the world to slowly collapse on itself through sheer entropy, meaning that the world is in a ''worse'' state than if he just let the fire fade in the first place. Through his fear and paranoia, Gwyn was responsible for almost all of humanity's woes in the franchise.]]

and wrong and right again.''\\
-->-- "Where is the Justice?", ''Theatre/DeathNoteTheMusical''

''The world's not black and white\\
''The choice not either/or\\

'''Til we're back to seeing black and white\\
''and wrong and right again.\\

->-- "Where is the Justice?", ''Theatre/DeathNoteTheMusical''

->'''Teacher:''' ''Your simple arguments have all been made before''
''The world's not black and white''
''The choice not either/or''
'''Light:''' ''Perhaps it's time we drained the color from it, then''
'''Til we're back to seeing black and white''
''and wrong and right again.''
-->-- "Where is the Justice?", ''Theatre/DeathNoteTheMusical''