History Main / NeutralityBacklash

* Early on in Dante's ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'', he meets the Uncommitted, who refused to choose good or evil in life. As a punishment, they are forced to eternally chase after a banner while being stung by wasps.

* The ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' has Komarr. When Barrayar was rediscovered, [[TheEmpire 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 [[LaResistance fought off]] the Cetagandans, and proceeded to attack Komarr in revenge, making a colony of their empire.

** Inverted in the latest ''[[ComicBook/LukeCageHeroForHire Power Man and Iron Fist]]'' series. Luke Cage and Danny Rand both intend to remain neutral for ''ComicBook/CivilWarII'', since they still remember how badly things went last time when they did take sides. Of course they then run into unrelated trouble because comic books.

* Another ''very'' bitter part of ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games. The OrderVersusChaos war that forms the core conflict of every game and the {{Vicious Cycle}}s of {{Full Circle Revolution}}s mean both sides are going to be baying for your blood should you refuse to [[WithUsOrAgainstUs outright ally with them]]. This especially hits the Neutral heroes of the series. The Heroine of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTensei'' ends up suffering a TraumaCongaLine and only really gets closure in the Neutral ending. And the less said of Isabeau from IV if you pick the Chaos or Law sides, the better. [[SubvertedTrope On the other hand]], [[OmnicidalNeutral surviving the backlash]] usually nets you [[GoldenEnding the closest thing to a happy ending]] you can get.

** In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', the Demi-fiend has the option to reject all the Reasons and not gather the menorahs for The Old Gentleman. However, if he doesn't play his cards right, then he'll "create" a stillborn world ruled by demons. The FinalBoss won't even look his way if he doesn't back a Reason.

** 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 DisproportionateRetribution on anyone that slighted him or his house.

* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' has this happen to the Kingdom of Orb. Being only one of two areas on Earth that isn't backing either the Earth Alliance or ZAFT (the other being the Kingdom of Scandinavia) and one of the few areas that has the resources and manpower to theoretically protect said resources, it becomes the target of invasion once Blue Cosmos takes over the Earth Alliance. In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'', the Orb leaders are so terrified of a repeat performance that they strongarm Cagalli into siding with the Earth Alliance and yet they're ''still'' invaded late into the series, this time with ZAFT.

* This is perceived as one of the reasons that newspapers are dying. Lots of people would rather get their news from an explicitly ideological source on cable TV or the Internet rather than read some bland centrist account in a newspaper, presuming they ''are'' centrist and don't have their own biases. [[NotSoDifferent The latter in fact is more likely]]; historically newspapers were more than happy to take sides on just about any issue, and were usually published with a specific agenda in mind. Said initial agenda could be alluded to in the names of some of the smaller papers. The ideas that news should be 'neutral' and that 'commentary' should be separate from the news are relatively recent concepts.

* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' has this happen to the Kingdom of Orb. Espousing neutrality ([[BiggerStick and having enough firepower to theoretically prevent invasion]]), it nevertheless gets invaded ''twice'' because later in both Valentine Wars it is the only faction still holding resources that the battling sides need (such as the last orbital catapults that are needed to send troops and supplies to space, not to mention they want said BiggerStick technology in order to get a one up over the other side), the FantasticRacism has boiled over to the point that the leaders are willing to invade and TakeNoPrisoners ''just because'' the population is half-Coordinator/half-Natural, and the sides and their leaders are rather sick of Orb just standing there acting pompously (or so they say).

** From [[ComicBook/TheTransformers the Marvel Comics series]], for example:

*** In the backstory, the rival city-states of Vos and Tarn went to war with each other, and the city-state of Iacon (the seat of power of the Autobots) opted to remain neutral. Emirate Xaaron urged his fellow councillors to take action and send peacekeepers to put an end to the war, but the High Councillor Traachon declined and even believed it would be to Iacon's benefit if Vos and Tarn destroyed each other. They actually did destroy each other with photon missile strikes, but the survivors of both cities rallied under a charismatic gladiator of Tarn who pointed out the Autobots could've done something, ''anything'', to stop the war... but chose not to. The gladiator in question? [[BigBad Megatron]].
** From [[ComicBook/TheTransformersDreamwave]]:

*** Dai Atlas was a strong opponent of both the Autobot and Decepticon factions, and led many evacuees to an off-planet refuge where they remained in hiding for most of the war. And it worked, excepting one battle fought in self-defense. Unfortunately shortly after the war ended another non-affiliated Cybertronian force invaded the refuge and slaughtered 90% of the population, including Dai Atlas. Statistically speaking, they might have been better off fighting.

** The neutral town of Yuss in the Stanix region of Cybertron was a frequent target for relieving the boredom of Decepticons stationed in the area.
** During the evacuation of Altihex, twenty to thirty Neutrals took control of a building, arguing for both Autobots and Decepticons to end the war, renounce their allegiances, and unite. Skywarp took a moment to consider whether or not to take advantage of their idealism... then decided to slag them.
** In the current IDW comics, [= NAILs =] (Non-Aligned Indigenous Life-forms) are Cybertronians who left the planet during the war, wishing to have nothing to do with it. They've recently returned to Cybertron now that the war is "over" and the planet is inhabitable again. While they haven't been slaughtered outright ''yet'', they've already managed to annoy both the Autobots and the Decepticons who both have the ability to crush them all if they could. The latter are more than willing to kill them when they get the opportunity.
*** IDW has recently introduced multiple "lost colonies" of Cybertronians that left long before the war began. Since no one was aware of them during the conflict, and they weren't aware that a war was going on, nobody holds their non-participation against them.
** Dai Atlas was a strong opponent of both the Autobot and Decepticon factions, and led many evacuees to an off-planet refuge where they remained in hiding for most of the war. And it worked, excepting one battle fought in self-defense. Unfortunately shortly after the war ended another non-affiliated Cybertronian force invaded the refuge and slaughtered 90% of the population, including Dai Atlas. Statistically speaking, they might have been better off fighting.
** Cyclonus has become a subversion. He's expressed Decepticon sympathies, but in IDW continuity he's never been on either side of the war and maintains a stern refusal to align with either faction now that it's over. He ''still'' catches crap from the Autobots, who either assume he's a Decepticon or blame him for deaths he committed while BrainwashedAndCrazy.

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* In the era of social media, certain celebrities get hit hard with this trope if they don't speak up about whatever hot button sociopolitical issue that exist at the time. ([[MortonsFork Of course]], if and when they ''do'', they'll ''still'' get baclash because they didn't talk ''enough'' about it, or they were "late to the party," or didn't say what they wanted to hear, or because the audience thinks they really should "stay in their lane" and ''not'' get on their soapbox.)

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has Stan being exiled from his hometown simply because he refused to vote for one of two potential new school mascot, based on the fact that they both suck. (It's a giant douche and a turd sandwich, for the record.) After learning AnAesop that you have to learn between bad choices, because in politics all choices are bad, he comes back, casts a vote, only for the school to keep its old mascot. So yeah, [[ShaggyDogStory his vote didn't even matter]], which is PlayedForLaughs.

** Speaking of the Iroquois, the Iroquois Confederation's neutrality during the American Revolution is largely what doomed them. To be fair, they were pretty spent after being very much involved in many of the preceding wars, and were understandably a bit confused about the people they had previously known only as the British suddenly fighting each other. Still their neutrality caused the colonists to view them as fair targets to raid for supplies while the British made a point of leaving their fate in the hands of the newly formed United States during the Treaty of Paris.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has Stan being exiled from his hometown simply because he refused to vote for one of two potential new school mascot, based on the fact that they both suck. (It's a giant douche and a turd sandwich, for the record.) After learning AnAesop that you have to learn between bad choices, [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop because in politics all choices are bad]], he comes back, casts a vote, only for the school to keep its old mascot. So yeah, [[ShaggyDogStory his vote didn't even matter]], which is PlayedForLaughs.

* This seems to be happening to the U.S. health insurance industry as of 2018. While they had initially opposed ''some'' aspects of the Affordable Care Act during its trip through Congress a decade earlier that would cost them money in the short term, such as the ban on refusing coverage due to pre-existing conditions, they never explicitly opposed the bill as a whole, realizing that in the long term its insurance subsidies would provide them with a windfall from new customers.[[note]] which was, in fact, the idea,[[/note]]\\ but they didn't bank on opposition to Obamacare so vigorous that it would lead to the election of a Republican Congress (and, later, [[Creator/DonaldTrump president]]) that, having realized that it would become popular in the meantime, instead tried to do everything they could to sabotage it ... introducing more and more instability into the health-insurance market, ''exactly'' the last thing they wanted.

* After a surprise victory in the 1979 election, new Canadian PM Joe Clark and the Progressive Conservative party were left just short of a majority in parliament. The Social Credit party offered to lend Clark their votes in exchange for certain concessions towards Quebec, but Clark immediately rejected their offer, declared that he didn't need their support to form a viable government, and just to stick the knife in he persuaded one of their [=MPs=] to join his party. Nine months later, Clark proposed a crippling rise in fuel taxes, which prompted the opposition parties to call a vote of no confidence in his government. Despite his earlier actions, the Socreds again offered their support in exchange for Quebec getting a slight reduction in the proposed tax. Once again, Clark refused. Since they hadn't gotten what they wanted, they weren't going to support Clark. But they liked the opposition leader, Liberal Pierre Trudeau, even less. So ... the Socreds sat out the vote of no confidence, which made it hard for ''anyone'' inside or outside government to take them seriously, and they quickly lost support even among their own followers. That would probably have happened anyway, given the trends in Canadian politics during the 1980s, but their decision to abstain from what is the most important vote a parliamentary body can take led to them being delisted as a party in federal elections by the middle of the decade as they could no longer field enough candidates.

* This seems to be happening to the U.S. health insurance industry as of 2018. While they had initially opposed ''some'' aspects of the Affordable Care Act during its trip through Congress a decade earlier that would cost them money in the short term, such as the ban on refusing coverage due to pre-existing conditions, they never explicitly opposed the bill as a whole, realizing that in the long term its insurance subsidies would provide them with a windfall from new customers.[[note]] which was, in fact, the idea[[/note]]\\
\\
But they didn't bank on opposition to Obamacare so vigorous that it would lead to the election of a Republican Congress (and, later, [[Creator/DonaldTrump president]]) that, having realized that it would become popular in the meantime, instead tried to do everything they could to sabotage it ... introducing more and more instability into the health-insurance market, ''exactly'' the last thing they wanted.

** Speaking of the Iroquois, the Iroquois Confederation's neutrality during the American Revolution is largely what doomed them. To be fair, they were pretty spent after being very much involved in many of the preceding wars, and were understandably a bit confused about the people they had previously known only as the British suddenly fighting each other. Still their neutrality caused the colonists to view them as fair targets to raid for supplies while the British made a point of leaving their fate in the hands of the newly formed Unite States during the Treaty of Paris.

** Speaking of the Iroquois, the Iroquois Confederation's neutrality during the American Revolution is largely what doomed them. To be fair, they were pretty spent after being very much involved in many of the proceeding wars, and were understandably a bit confused about the people they had previously known only as the British suddenly fighting each other. Still their neutrality caused the colonists to view them as fair targets to raid for supplies while the British made a point of leaving their fate in the hands of the newly formed Unite States during the Treaty of Paris.

** Subverted in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates''. The ''Revelation'' path, where the protagonist refuses to side with either kingdom, ultimately results in the happiest ending of all three routes and is the only one where all the royal siblings live, and the only one where the real BigBad is fought. However, it does start out with ''both'' families angry and confused about [[CanonName Corrin]]'s choice.
** In VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses, Claude attempts to stay neutral after the timeskip, orchestrating internal struggles in the Leicester Alliance in order to maintain the facade of being too busy to join in the war between The Adrestian Empire and the Kingdom of Faerghus/Church of Seiros. This works for a little while but backfires on him when the Empire decides to attempt to steamroll the Alliance to get to the Kingdom, resulting in Claude joining the war, leaving Fódland, or Dying depending on the choices you make.

* ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' features the planet Manaan, which is declaring neutrality in the war between the Sith Empire and the Republic because their world is the only one in the galaxy that can manufacture kolto, the primary healing solution that both sides use to treat their wounded. Neither side is happy about this, but the Selkath defend their neutrality ''aggressively'' (a fight between groups of soldiers is once defused because if anyone takes a swing they'll all be arrested, and at one point a court case is decided that both sides will pay reparations after a fight breaks out). This turns out badly for them after the war when bacta is discovered to be better than kolto, so the Selkath's economy collapses since they aren't needed anymore.

* However this [[GoneHorriblyWrong backfired spectacularly]] on the axis when it came to South America. Rather frustrated in the continent's neutrality during the conflict and the previous world war while they de-facto aided the allies, Hitler declared South American ships (sans Argentina) to be fair game for U-boats. The sinking of several Brazilian ships caused that country and several of it's neighbors [[NeutralNoLonger to formally join the war on the Allied side]] where they began to actively hunt down U-boats and even send expeditionary forces.