Go-Karting with Bowser

Could you really expect the Joker to, well, play by the rules in this game?

"For me, the interesting relationship is the one between Mario and Bowser; I mean on some days they fight to the death in fiery climactic showdowns, while on other days they go go-karting together, play tennis, even team up in some of the RPGs. Sure, he kidnaps the Princess a whole bunch, but no-one seems to begrudge him for that anymore; it's just what he does."

— Zero Punctuation on Super Mario Galaxy

Gasp! The Hero and their arch rival are staring each other down! This is it! We're getting the final battle... wait, why are they sitting down and playing a game of checkers?

Not all heroes and villains are actively out for each others' blood; some heroes are reasonable and tolerant, and a few baddies can be perfectly civil. On more extreme ends, enemies who are opposites (ideologically or otherwise) can engage in a peaceful activity to have a bout of diplomacy. But just like a Sympathetic P.O.V. can show even the antagonists have a good side, likewise Friendly Enemies can sit down and have a nice chat every so often. In the end, they're not there to engage in fisticuffs, though they may engage in a bout or two of social combat. Rather, they're there just to meet as friendly rivals and maybe, just maybe, win the other person over to their point of view.

Essentially, the heroes join the Villains Out Shopping, as well as playing pool. Occasionally, it will be a dinner date, and it can happen frequently when the hero is Living with the Villain, especially if they are Punch-Clock Hero and Villain. If the bout is meant to emphasize their mutual intelligence, they'll probably play chess.

Now, this all sounds very nice and cheerful, right? Maybe people don't have to hate each other, even if they're opposed? However, this can take an entirely different feel if the villain is a Karma Houdini who has committed horrible crimes and is getting special consideration because he and the Hero share history.

This trope commonly comes up when the cast involves itself as a Universal-Adaptor Cast, where they might be bitter enemies in one canon but are neutral or even friendly in another. Spinoff video games often involve this, especially when such games are a Mascot Racer or Mascot Fighter.

Mid-Battle Tea Break and Opponent Instruction are related tropes which don't have to feature mortal enemies. Compare Non Violent Initial Confrontation, Dating Catwoman. Contrast Villain Over for Dinner and Friendship-Straining Competition. If the enemies happen to be deities as well, it's God-Karting with Beelzebub. If, rather than Go Karting With Bowser, you're instead playing Energy Ball tennis with Ganondorf, that's Tennis Boss. If it's friendly supers playing regular-folk sports, that's Muggle Sports, Super Athletes.

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Example Subpages:

• Video Games

Other Examples:

Advertising

• At least one back-of-the-box game for Trix cereal (from when the fruity shapes were brought back to the States) had the Trix Rabbit celebrating the return with the kids he usually tries to steal the cereal from.

Anime and Manga

• After God: With Orokapi deciding that other IPOs aren't his friends, he returns to being Obikawa, Tokinaga's annoying roommate. Tokinaga is forced to ensure Enemy Mine with his colleagues' killer.
• During the prison arc of Baki the Grappler, the upcoming fight between Oliva and Jun Guevera is so anticipated that all the guards and inmates are allowed to attend. The usual strictness of the prison is also relaxed, such as allowing all the prisoners to chat in the halls about it because the prison believes that no one would try to escape or plot during the fight. They are proven right.
• The Tomaso family is supposed to be big enemies of the Vongolas in Reborn! (2004). Longchamp Naito, however, seems perfectly fine with doing just about anything with Tsuna.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
  • Yuma and III Arclight during Episode 46; after breaking into Yuma's house (yes, breaking in) III is invited to stay for lunch. Justified in that the Arclight family aren't the main villains, also that III is the kindest of the family and feels the most guilt about what he and his family have done. Though, it's not only limited to this example/this specific duo, as there are many others from Yuma with other antagonists.
  • Later, Yuma and Gilag team up for a friendly tournament, although Gilag had no choice and his life was in danger, unbeknownst to Yuma.
• Ranma ½: The title hero has this relationship with all his enemies/rivals. One minute they'll be trying to kill Ranma, the next they'll be eating dinner with him. Mostly this is due to their respect for each other as martial artists, and Ranma's casual nature and confidence. Others are generally either plotting against him during dinner, or else just doing it because it gets them close to Akane.
• Gundam:
  • Happens in episode 19 of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, when Zeon lieutenant Ramba Ral and his subordinates buy Amuro a meal despite apparently knowing that he's a Federation soldier.
  • Later in the series, Amuro is visiting a neutral colony and his electric car bogs down in some mud. Who should happen to stop and help out? The Rival Char Aznable, of course. In this case, they're both in uniform at the time and of course Amuro recognizes Char (it's kind of hard to miss a man in a custom red uniform and large silver mask), but all Char knows is that Amuro is a young Federation soldier and not the pilot of the "White Devil" that's been a thorn in his side for months (though he does later make the connection).
  • Again in the original series, mixed with a Worthy Opponent moment: after their plan to blow up the Gundam narrowly fails, a group of Zeon soldiers dresses in civilian clothes and comes to say hi. Bright immediately understand they were the guys who planted bombs on the Gundam, but shuts up and lets them go.
  • A similar version happens in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED when an incognito Andrew Waltfeld has a friendly debate about kebab sauces with Kira and Cagalli, then invites them back to his place to give Cagalli a dress to replace the one that was messed up in a terrorist attack. Of course, at this point, Andy reveals that he's the Desert Tiger of ZAFT, and has known that the kids are with the Earth Alliance the whole time... Ironically he ends up helping them in the end with little ill will towards Kira for killing his girlfriend.
  • Happens again in After War Gundam X in episode 20. While on shore leave at an industrialized island, Hard-Drinking Party Girl Toniya ends up becoming friends with only recently recovered ex-Yandere Ennil El, who has spent most of the past three arcs trying to kill Garrod. They have a very good time together, neither one aware of the other's identity... and then Ennil finds out. Even after that point, she and Toniya still view each other as friends and Ennil does eventually undergo a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In a lesser example, Gundam Wing gives us Zechs. Viewing your rival as a Worthy Opponent is nothing new to Gundam, but Zechs goes beyond that by rebuilding Heero's self-destructed Gundam so they can have a fair fight^note Which includes lying to his superiors about destroying it and giving it back to Heero when all is said and done. When he finally meets Heero face-to-face, Zechs is about as nice to the boy as he gets with anyone while still maintaining his mask.
• In Macross Delta, Freyja is caught sneaking around on a stealth mission by Qasim, a knight of the aggressively expansionist Windermerean Empire. Being Windermerean herself, and traitor for joining the Empire's enemies, they proceed to...find out that they're practically next-door neighbors and gush over apples from the homeland together.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Happens, sorta (it smells more like a negotiation and it's actually a trap), when Fate and Negi go to a coffee shop. The two of them then get into a heated argument, with magic and power flying around, over which is better: coffee or tea.
  • Earlier in the series, Negi is taking care of Evangeline while she is sick, afterwhich she stops skipping classes. Later, the class is holding a farewell party for Chao in the middle of her diabolical plan to reveal the existence of mages. The girls who'd just fought her have trouble believing she is the enemy when seeing her be light-hearted and friendly. The series rarely has straightforward villains.
• The Team Rocket trio in Pokémon: The Series occasionally partake in this, perhaps most blatantly in one episode where everyone enters an orienteering contest. James wins. They also frequently partake in legitimate battles and contests. Especially apparent following the Sinnoh era, where they actually start to get good at it, even beating Ash's team on odd occasions just by playing fair, and with Jessie competing against Serena in Pokémon Showcases (beating Serena in the Couriway showcase, and getting into the final three of the Master Class showcase - she loses to Serena here, but goes out as a good sport). Played with since a lot of the time the trio wear costumes so the heroes don't recognise them.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple:
  • Kenichi ends up in this situation when he thinks the very imposing Ethan Stanley is going to challenge him to a fight, and instead they end up discussing non-violent compromises over tea. It ends up he's a combination Anti-Villain / Punch-Clock Villain who's only fighting to help his annoying sister. What makes this situation even funnier is the fact when, just as Ethan is about to tell Kenichi his offer, he suddenly gets summoned by cell-phone to go on a burglaring mission and, as Kenichi is unwilling to suddenly part from Ethan, he accompanies Ethan on this mission as a sideline observer! Immediately after the mission is over, the interrupted conversation continues.
  • While, unfortunately, the non-violent compromises are not used, they still sit down to tea several more times. You gotta give the guy credit for how hard he tries to kill Kenichi even though he's so much nicer to Kenichi than Kenichi's supposed "best friend" Nijima. Kenichi even brings the entire class to the airport to see Ethan off because he thought just disappearing would be too sad for such a nice guy.
• This happens quite a lot in Spiral. Although it often does end up ugly, most of the time the opposite factions tend to just discuss their strategies, taunt each other, and/or sympathize with each other. Examples: After Kanone called Eyes to confirm that he's going to try and kill all of the Blade Children, Eyes goes to fetch him at the airport - Kanone isn't surprised. That one ends up very ugly though. They call each other regularly, even in the middle of life-or-death battles, and have tea once it's over. Before the big fight, Kanone also holds non-violent discussions with his 'schoolmates' Kousuke and Ryouko (although his attempts to do the same with Ayumu and Hiyono always end up threatening or more). Hizumi and Ayumu live together and have lots of fun, despite the fact that destiny says the latter must one day kill the former. In Alive, Amanae lives for some time with Imari, then Kousuke and company.
• Buso Renkin has Kazuki, Tokiko and Captain Bravo eating at a burger joint with Papillion.
• In one episode of 009-1, the title Agent 009-1 Mylene Hoffman is being hunted by a highly skilled hitman who only works during the day, and refuses to fight her at night. So for several days they both try (and fail) to kill each other during the day, and act civil towards each other at night, even having drinks and going out on at least one dinner date. On the last night, after another long day of trying to kill each other, Mylene even invites him to her room and has sex with him. She is eventually able to kill him in their next fight.
• Death Note: May as well call this trope "Tennis with Kira". Though L does it to test Light and vice versa; the intensity of the match is nothing compared to the mental tennis required to follow the I Know You Know I Know.
• Inverted in the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe, where the villains usually try to accomplish their goals by competing against the heroes in serious and occasionally deadly Card Games, and even nonthreatening duels are anything but friendly, even if its between characters that normally are friends.
• Hao/Zeke and Yoh Asakura from the Shaman King manga go to a café and talk over a cup of coffee as to why they're doing what they're doing. The absurdity of this little talk is even lampshaded by Ren and a few others who question Yoh's judgment.
  • Becomes even sillier a little later on when Hao comes to the hot spring where everyone else is at. Lyserg wastes no time in fighting him (naked) before a Smash Cut occurs and everyone is just chilling at the hot spring with Hao. In the same episode, Hao (in a tracksuit) turns out to be crashing at Yoh's base simply because Hao's base was blown into bits and he knows he's too damn strong for anyone to even attempt taking him down in his sleep.
  • This is generally the trope Anna detests to deal with because there's a very high chance that Yoh is just going to invite any other rival team/evil enemy that was just trying to kill them the night prior to eat breakfast at their base.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie: Sonic's girlfriend Sara plays video games with Dr. Eggman, her kidnapper.
  • Sonic X:
    • Doctor Eggman actually gives Sonic shelter after finding him knocked out from a recent battle (while he was jogging down the beach no less) He does, however, use the opportunity to plant a listening device on Sonic.
    • In "Defective Detectives", there's a scene where Sonic finds Eggman sitting on a cliff overlooking Station Square, and the two have a remarkably civil conversation before going their separate ways.
• Code Geass:
  • Done with great effect, as the protagonist Lelouch and his eventual rival Suzaku were close childhood friends. Upon meeting up seven years later, they start going to school together, hanging out with Lelouch's sister... and then fighting each other in giant robots in an attempt to change Japan, for better or for worse.
  • Another one of their classmates is Kallen, Lelouch's ace pilot and in the second season, Brittanian knights Gino and Anya join the school. Gino represents this trope particularly well. The fact Kallen repeatedly tries to cook his Humongous Mecha from the inside out with him still inside is absolutely no reason for him not to try and have a friendly schoolbuddies relationship with her. Though there is hints that Gino would much rather be Dating Catwoman.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers has some comic strips based on the WWII Christmas Truces, as described in the Real Life section. And depending on the time period the strip is set in, nations that were enemies in other strips will be friends/co-operative/tolerant of the other's presence, as in real life.
• Medaka Box: Puppet master Anshin'in is genre-savvy to the point of approaching Medaka when she's alone, outright stating that she's trying to invoke this trope. They spend the rest of the arc playing sports together and going to the hot springs. It turned out to be part of a convoluted master plan to remove Medaka's plot armor by changing the genre of the manga and demoting her main character status. As a result of being essentially omnipotent and winning at everything she does, she's gone kinda crazy and thinks she lives in a comic book.
• In Bokurano, Misumi Tanaka, a military officer, says she has met military officers from other countries before, and she is aware of the possibility that her country and theirs might go to war.
• In Is This A Zombie?, Naegleria agrees to help the heroes fight Chris. Later, she and Chris have drinks together, noting that they are both "off the clock" but will be enemies tomorrow.
• At one point in Fate/Zero, Rider shows up at the Einzbern Castle not to duel with Saber, but to have a few drinks with her. And he brought Archer along for the ride, who provides wine from his private stores. They talk of what it means to be a king (As they are Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and Gilgamesh) before the party is broken up by Assassin.
• Today's Menu for the Emiya Family. Despite being a spin-off of Fate/stay night, which is a dark and fairly gritty battle drama, none of the characters are in any kind of meaningful conflict with each other, and all they really do is hang out and share delicious food. Archer tries to kill Shirou every now and again, but even that's mostly Played for Laughs.
• Tentai Senshi Sunred, being a Sitcom about a retired Sentai hero and his comically inept Evil Organization Arch-Enemies Florsheim who keep trying to fight him as step one in their plan to Take Over the World. Since Florsheim are about as dangerous to society as a basket of kittens, about half of the show is about how Sunred interacts with them in a non-combat setting, in accordance with this trope. The other half is about Villains Out Shopping without Sunred even being present.
• Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods features the God of Destruction Beerus, the movie's main antagonist, and his attendant (and master) Whis attending Bulma's birthday party and participating in activities with the gang like bingo and breakdancing - Beerus only gets mad and starts fighting when Majin Buu steals his pudding.
• Psychic Squad has The Children and members of PANDRA attend the same school.
• Izure Shinwa No Ragnarok has the gods and their human hosts in the current iteration of Ragnarok. They're not allowed to fight each other during the day and are required to attend class together.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Part 3 plays with this with the D'Arby brothers. In a series that practically lives and breathes Hot-Blooded, with most villains being dealt with in the most violent manner possible, these two decide to... gamble and play video games with the heroes instead. However, it's subverted since these are still most definitely not friendly matches, with the loser's soul on the line. And they both cheat, anyway. Still, it's probably the only time in the whole series that a villain is defeated without being physically fought, though Jotaro still pummels Telence after he wins their match. Daniel didn't need pummeling, since Jotaro bluffed so hard during his poker game that it actually made him pass out.
  • Ken Oyanagi from Part 4 has the same type of Stand as the D'Arby Brothers, in that he can steal his opponent's soul if he beats them in a wagered game. Oyanagi's game of choice, however... is rock-paper-scissors. And he's even more serious about it than the D'Arbies; when he loses to Rohan and demands a rematch, their Stand auras become visible and they float up into the air just like Jotaro and DIO did during their fistfight at the end of part three.
  • In Part 6, Jolyne, F.F., and Ermes end up making a bet with Miraschon that the former two can throw a ball between each other 1,000 times without dropping it. Of course, Miraschon has another bet-related Stand, though unlike the aforementioned three, the stand Marilyn Manson doesn't take souls. It has the power to instantly identify the monetary value of any items^note including but not limited to cash its target is carrying anywhere on their body and snatch the value necessary to repay any debts the target owes Miraschon. When Ermes loses the first bet but doesn't have enough cash or valuables to cover it, Marilyn Manson starts including in its calculations the black market value of her organs.
• Stitch Meets High School Musical has Stitch, Jumba, Pleakley, and some of the other experiments playing a friendly game of basketball and dancing with Gantu and Experiment 627. Granted, it could be assumed that one, this short takes place after Leroy & Stitch, and two, 627 got re-programmed to be nicer.
• In Cuticle Detective Inaba, there is an episode in which both the Inaba Detective Agency and the Valentino mafia family go to an onsen separately, but meet each other there, and end bathing together, holding a ping pong game, and going to sleep in the same room. Of course, it IS a comedy, and Hiroshi's brother is there too.
• Mirumo de Pon!: Mirumo, Rirumu, and Murumo are seen dancing and playing with Yashichi, their enemy, in the OP's. We might as well add "Dancing with Yashichi" to the list of alternate titles for this.
• Pretty Cure bring this up sometimes.
  • Fresh Pretty Cure! has Peach, Berry, Pine, Passion and a Nakewameke playing a baseball match, with Weslar observing and not interfering once.
  • Smile PreCure! has two.
    • Episode 29 has the Quirky Miniboss Squad playing games with the Pretty Cures. No one's playing fair though.
    • In Episode 38, after falling victim to Majorina's youth potion, the titular Pretty Cures wind up spending the day playing games with Quirky Miniboss Squad members Wolfrun and Akaoni, who are also under its effects. They even assist the girls in defeating the Monster of the Week (by tiring it out with a game of tag) because they thought it looked like fun.
  • Doki Doki! PreCure has a less straight example. Regina tends to say sorry (and of course not meaning it) and then hang out with the Cures. And they are fine with it. Or...well... Mana is fine with it. The others have doubts and rightfully so. And in fact, it returns to bite them in the back.
  • HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! has another baseball match, this time with only Lovely and the episode's Saiark, while the other Cures and Seiji watch on the bench. Namakelder is watching too, but doesn't interfere, actually he even gives the Cures a time out when they ask. When he's retreating, he admits that he got too absorbed.
  • Played with in Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure. During the school festival, Manatsu and Laura help at the crepes stands, while Chongiire helps with the grilled squids one (he was mistaken for a guy in costume). They don't know they were working together though.

Asian Animation

• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Weslie and Wolffy are usually enemies, but they play a fun Rock–Paper–Scissors game together in the beginning of episode 60. The actual episode subverts this because while they look like they just want to happily play golf, it turns out Wolffy actually uses this as an opportunity to catch the goats.

Comic Books

• Astro City: In "The Eagle and the Mountain", Samaritan and his Arch-Enemy Infidel eventually realized the futility in continuing their feud when it became clear that there was no way either of them would ever be able to win, and thus set up a yearly meeting along these lines just to compare notes and talk instead. It's interesting to note that at this point they don't even seem to regard one another as enemies, as there's a lot of mutual respect in that arrangement. Though it should be noted they're still indulging in stratagems to wear the other down psychologically and emotionally... And Infidel himself admits he isn't sure who will be the victor of that battle.
• In the Black Adam mini-series, he and foe-turned-friend-turned-foe Atom Smasher meet in a restaurant, both in their secret identities. They don't fight, though they almost come to blows. Amazingly, this is actually character development, showing that both (or at least Atom Smasher) have moved past the whole Khandaq affair.
• In Teen Titans, Deathstroke and Beast Boy meet in a coffeeshop to discuss the death of Terra. This happens AFTER Beast Boy tried to kill him (and was unable to go through with it).
• Marvel Comics' estranged Titan brothers Eros (good) and Thanos (evil) meet on good terms once every year, as a favor to their father Mentor.
• The Flash:
  • The Flash occasionally has such moments with his closest foes, collectively known as "The Rogues Gallery". One afternoon the Trickster and Captain Cold are attempting to freeze the city. Then later, they and Flash go out for drinks.
  • Averted with Gorilla Grodd, the Zoom line, or Kadabra because for them, many of whom are because It's Personal. In fact, the Rogues Gallery themselves are not fond of these guys either. Grodd led to the creation of the second Zoom, Zoom caused a Convenient Miscarriage for his wife, although it was handwaved later, and Kadabra had already tried to erase his wife from existence. The other villains of the city tend to just be trying to make a (dis)honest living or tried to reform and failed.
  • The miniseries Rogue's Revenge tried to Retcon the death of Bart Allen (who was The Flash at the time) by saying that The Rogues didn't know what they were getting into, and had been tricked into it by Inertia; one of their regular rules is, "Never kill a speedster." And now they're going to even the score... Before that, after Wally West's identity became public, Captain Cold (the "leader" of The Rogues) decreed that no-one was to ever harm a member of his family.
  • In Justice League Unlimited, this much friendlier relationship is shown when he simply sits down and convinces the Trickster to take his medicine again (after Orion was about ready to administer his form of interrogation), promising to play darts with his foe after he turns himself in.
  • It also comes up in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, when the Rogues flat-out admit they miss the vanished Barry, compare Bats and the other Flashes unfavourably to him, and come close to tears when he returns.
• X-Men:
  • Professor Xavier, leader of the X-Men, and Magneto, their arch-nemesis, were once best of friends. Occasionally, they still find time for a game of chess or a philosophical discussion in between Magneto trying to kill Xavier's students.
  • In the Ultimate Universe, Xavier visits museums with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch when they lead the Brotherhood of Mutants during Magneto's death. Such places are neutral ground. Magneto and Xavier are not as friendly in this universe, unless the former is brainwashed.
• Batman:
  • At least one story has Bats visiting Arkham Asylum to play chess with Two-Face. This is at least somewhat justified, as canonically Harvey Dent was a friend or at least acquaintance of Bruce before the attack that disfigured him and drove him mad.
  • Oddly enough, in a lot of continuities, wanting this sort of relationship with Batman is The Riddler's character motivation. He even once gave an interview with reporters where he said he doesn't want to hurt anyone, he just wants to play puzzles with Batman. Batman is always reluctant to give him any attention, though.
• In a Fantastic Four one-shot, Reed Richards and Doctor Doom resumed an unfinished chess game from their college days from memory, even as they were fighting each other. And earlier in that one-shot, before they began fighting again, they were quite civil with each other.
• In the Flashback Universe, Saturn Knight and Lady Nemo are arch-enemies and ex-lovers still secretly pining for one another; They meet peacefully once every year for reasons unclear even to themselves.
• Wonder Woman:
  • While her rogues are inconsistent at best, she and longtime foe Circe occasionally engage in this, likely a result of that time in v2 that Circe brainwashed herself into becoming Diana's best friend. In the only part of the v3 reboot that made any sense at all, she seems to consider her stealing of Diana's powers and job to be doing her a favor, and they confide their respective emo to each other before Circe disappears after the fight.
  • Another issue has her talking about men with Giganta.
  • The supervillain Angle Man attended Donna Troy's funeral, though at this point he was effectively retired.
• In an early issue of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Snively and some Swatbots interrupt a hockey game the Mobians are playing simply because they wanted to play themselves. Robotnik finds out and ups the stakes on the game, but Snively really wanted to play for fun.
• Zot! has a rather extreme example. 9-Jack-9 is Zot's archnemesis responsible for the death of Zot's parents. He also visits on Zot's birthday on friendly terms and plays in his Uncle Max's band. Even though he killed Zot's parents. It should be noted that neither Zot or Uncle Max were aware of his identity as a bandmate, and Zot quite openly hates him and is fuming when he shows up at his party. The canonical explanation for why Zot or Uncle Max never do anything is because they're just that nice.
• In DC Super Stars #10 "Strange Sports Stories" (1976), the heroes of The DCU once faced off against the villains in a "friendly" baseball game. All to settle a bet between the villainous married couple, Sportsmaster and Huntress, over "whether villains can win." Uncle Sam and Amazo handle umpiring duties.
• Superman: In Superman (1939) issue #416 "The Einstein Connection", Superman has Lex Luthor always escaping on a certain date each year; eventually Superman figures out he's trying to celebrate the birthday of Albert Einstein, one of his heroes. Superman arranges for himself and Luthor to have a private tour of the Einstein section of the Smithsonian. Luthor actually tears up as he sees the statue. As Luthor is taken back to jail he tells Superman, "Thanks for everything!"
• Happens often in the Disney Mouse and Duck Comics, especially in Italian stories:
  • In one story, Pete will have tried (and failed) to kill Mickey. The next, he'll be at Mickey's, asking if he could come in to watch TV. And Mickey will invite him in, because, well... it's Pete.
  • Pete has sometimes this relationship with inspectors Casey and Brick Boulder, mainly because Pete is arrested so often they couldn't help but become friends.
  • Mostly in Italian stories, this tends to be the relationship that Scrooge has with the Beagle Boys, going so far that Scrooge once left himself wide open to a (small) thief to celebrate Blackheart Beagle's birthday (Blackheart, being an old enemy who originally had a much more hostile relationship and still remembering what had happened the previous year, wasted the chance out of mistrust).
  • Paperinik (Donald's superhero/antihero alter ego) is incredibly friendly with the smaller criminals of Duckburg, often stopping by just to chat and, occasionally, defending them from crime fighters that go overboard. There's a very good reason for this: they have very good reasons to fear Paperinik, but by being friendly and surrendering when they're caught they dodge the beating, and with time it evolved this way. This however doesn't apply to the various supervillains (that never learn this, partly because they're the ones who have a decent shot at defeating him) and, usually, the Beagle Boys (who have pulled a few too many pranks on our hero for him to trust them). One story had the Palio of Duckburg, in which criminals (including the Beagle Boys) would compete with Paperinik by committing thefts and trying to deliver the booty to a jury before Paperinik and the police could catch them, with the stolen goods to be given back to the owners at the end. Then two thieves from out of town tried to steal the booty, and had to deal with Paperinik, the police, the thieves and many of Duckburg's citizens...
• An early issue of Justice League Europe had the League taking French lessons... and the Injustice League happens to enroll in the same class. Inevitably, all their covers are blown and a melee ensues, until the teacher puts her foot down and disciplines all of them, including the police who wanted to apprehend both heroes (since they had a bad rep with the French police earlier) and villains.

Comic Strips

• The lions in Pearls Before Swine try to be friends with Zebra, even though they admittedly would eat him should their wives catch and kill him (female lions are the real hunters). To their credit, they warn him about his personality traits that make him look like easy prey — like driving a Prius and subscribing to Oprah's Book Club.^note There is a National Geographic story showing night-vision shots of male lions killing zebras. Lions are ambush predators and their manes make it hard to surprise their prey in full light.

Fan Works

• The Kim Possible fanfic Best Enemies has Kim and Shego meeting every Friday night to chat over coffee.
• The Choices That Make Us: Junior Death Eater Regulus is on better terms with several of the Order of the Phoenix-affiliated kids than Harry ever was with Draco and his cronies. They occasionally chat together at mealtimes or while working on spells and are guarded but affable and trying to understand each other better. However, the tension is still there, such as when Regulus tells Gladys that she'd better not put off any conversations she wants to have with her grandmother Dorcas Meadows, due to Dorcas being on the Death Eaters' radar for her Order of the Phoenix work.
• Death Note and Lupin III crossover, idiot, has Misa and Fujiko playing tennis. Who wins? The latter.
• The Super Mario Bros. fanfic Mario Ultimate Adventure explains this as no one else being strong enough to withstand the extremely dangerous conditions of the karting and sports events.
• The Official List of Unofficial Rules has a minor example of this trope. Apparently, Khan got a Christmas card from someone aboard the Enterprise.
• In Ponies and Dragons, Queen Chrysalis regularly games with the heroes, having apparently come to enjoy it after being forced into it a few times. Lord Tirek has also been a player on occasion, though in his case it's attempts at rehabilitating him.
• In Fate Genesis In an attempt to form an alliance or at least a ceasefire, Shirou treats Illya to a movie, even though she was still an enemy by that point. This leads to her becoming The Thing That Would Not Leave for the night, and a big surprise when the rest of the heroes discover the little girl who tried to kill them playing Genesis games with Saber.
• In Emma Mosier's Haunted Mansion comics, for all that the Phantom is a superpowered evil mastermind who wishes to enslave all the ghosts in the world, he's often just hangin' out in Gracey Manor.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Ash fights against James during the Battle Dome Tournament. The latter behaves extremely polite towards the former and fights fair and square. Clearly both of them enjoy their match, and James doesn't even get upset at losing.
• In an Empath: The Luckiest Smurf mini-story, Gargamel the wizard joins the Smurfs in celebrating Lazy's birthday as everybody gets stoned on smurfnip — only for Lazy to find out that the whole thing was a dream.
• Final Fantasy VII: Another Side: When Sephiroth, Cissnei and Vincent, who are all fugitives from Shinra, run into the Turks in Wutai, they wind up joining them for a game of cards.
• Zim the Warlord: Irken Reversion: Despite the fact that they still hate each other, Zim and Dib sit down together (along with the neutral Gaz) for a causal seafood meal while waiting for Professor Membrane's Childergy event to occur (mostly because both are more concerned with whether it will destroy the Earth or not, than with each other). Gaz notes that the peaceful moment is a nice change of pace from usual.
• Zero Context: Taking Out the Trash: Missy Coco and Viridi, the respective heads of the Brotherhood and the Forces of Nature, are perpetually at war with each other. They agree to a truce upon deciding to team up to crash a wedding... and then, deprived of the chance to kill each other, proceed to settle their frustrations in a night-long Super Smash Bros. Ultimate competition, dragging their respective lieutenants along for the ride. This continues on during the wedding attack, in which they take a break from the goings-on to play tennis.
• In Oogway's Little Owl the Furious Five approach Taotie, avowed enemy of the Jade Palace, to see if he can craft a modern flute for Taylor's anniversary at the Jade Palace. While initially reluctant, seeing his son eagerly drawing up plans convinces Taotie to take the job. He's even convinced to attend the party himself.
• Ponies Reactionverse: This happens whenever the characters watch something with any of the villains as guest-stars. The most common of these are Chrysalis, Tirek, and The Dazzlings.
• The Trope Namer gets lampshaded in Kammy Kalamity as part of Kammy's coup against Bowser.
  • Bowser later explains the actual nature of his relationship with Peach: he had originally kidnapped her to end the long and devastating war with the Mushroom Kingdom, and seeing the effect on the Koopa Troop morale while he was holding her hostage he started kidnapping her as a substitute for war... And they've actually become friends in the meantime, with Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings hoping their father and Princess Peach will end up marrying. But with Kammy actually kidnapping Princess Peach and neutralizing the Mario Bros with a trick, the war resumes... And Kammy isn't ready for the many failsafes Princess Peach had set up precisely for such a case.
• Anyone: Izuku, who is a Villain in this fic, finds himself as the Bowser of the situation by accident. His friend and conspirator Nagisa organized a party at her place, and one of the guests is Tenko, who is the ward of the Number 1 Hero. And then another hero, Gran Torino, shows up with cookies. He and Izuku were fighting each other just a few days earlier. Fortunately for Izuku, nobody recognizes him as he was always in disguise when doing illegal activities, but after the party he chews up Nagisa for not doing background checks on her friend group.
• The Chaotic Masters: After escaping from the chaos that Roulette's auction of magical artifacts ultimately turned into, Jade and Viper end up having dinner at a fancy restaurant with Miss Dorado, Alastor, Xanatos and Owen, all of whom were among the more kind and reasonable attendees at the auction.

Films — Animation

• Toy Story:
  • In Toy Story 2, Utility Belt Buzz is actually last seen playing catch with Emperor Zurg after the latter is revealed to have survived a fall into an elevator shaft. Well, apparently, Zurg is Buzz's father.
  • To a lesser extent, there is Woody and Buzz who often fight against Hamm and Mr. Potato Head in Andy's playtimes, but (usually) get along with each other outside of playtime.
• In Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph and Felix are reasonably polite with each other when they aren't playing their game; by the end of the film, they're legitimately friends, with Felix even referring to Ralph as "brother" a few times. Averted in the case of the Nicelanders who are rude, wary, or insensitive towards Ralph, but by the end of the film, they become nice to him (though they still have to throw him off the building whenever a player succeeds in the game).
• In Peter Pan, the Lost Boys and the Indians typically attempt to catch each other, but it's all in good fun. They even let each other go after all's said and done. The one time the Indians don't let them go is when they're accused of kidnapping the chief's daughter, a crime that Captain Hook committed earlier.
• In The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, Brer Turtle explains to Janey that this is simply part of the animals’ culture. When they aren’t trying to eat the prey animals, Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and Brer Gator will join in on parties and other activities such as fishing like regular neighbors, though Brer Fox will still act as a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis to Brer Rabbit. Janey is naturally confused by this.

Films — Live-Action

• Farewell To The King: In the scene following their confrontation, Learoyd and Colonel Mitamura are seen paddling a canoe together as though the were best friends on a trip together.
• James Bond: Bond often goes on recreational activities with the villain while undercover, though often the villain knows who Bond really is.
  • The golf game in Goldfinger.
  • Bond and Largo squaring off over a video game in Never Say Never Again.
  • The horse race in A View to a Kill.
  • Hugo Drax goes quail hunting with Bond in Moonraker, though notably tries to have him killed midway. Bond casually shoots the sniper out of the tree.
  • The friendly fencing match that becomes a not so friendly knock-down-drag-out swordfight in Die Another Day.
  • Inverted in Casino Royale (2006), where the card game is actually central to the conflict.
  • Of course Bond is doing this undercover in all these cases.
• In X-Men, Professor X playing chess with Magneto.
• Superthief (DeNiro) and supercop (Pacino) sit down for coffee in Heat in one of the most iconic examples ever.
• In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest The asylum interns (especially McMurphy) and their abusive orderlies don't get along to say the least. But when the aforementioned hero start a play of basketball, everyone joins in and forget their hatred for a moment.
• In the classic film Pépé le Moko and its American remake Algiers, Inspector Slimane makes a friendly visit to the title jewel thief daily, all the while developing a Batman Gambit to put him in jail.
• God and Satan (both played by George Burns) play Poker in Oh, God!, You Devil. Of course, it's not exactly a friendly game, given that the stakes are a person's soul. God wins by bluffing.
• In What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, an Italian village is having a festival. Rather than fight them (it was set in World War II after all), the Allied forces party with them.
• In Renoir's World War One POW film The Grand Illusion, the French and German officers are friendly, with mutual acquaintances. This is quite a common trope in prisoner-of-war movies, but it also has a political subtext.
• At some point in classic French gangster comedy Les Tontons flingueurs, a couple of gangsters show up at a rival's house, intending to fight. Since the rival's niece is having a party, the middle-aged gangsters all end up in the kitchen, buttering toasts and getting drunk on "the weird stuff".
• In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Scott and Nega Scott seem to be setting up for a fight, but that doesn't end up happening and instead they talk about maybe getting breakfast sometime. This is a bit of a subversion, though, since Nega Scott, despite his ominous appearance, never actually does anything evil, and Scott even describes him as a "pretty nice guy.".
• In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, being Victorian Gentlemen, Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty share a friendly game of blitz chess and trade snark while discussing their plans to thwart the other.
• In The President's Analyst, American agent Masters and Soviet agent Kropotkin are old buddies. They even place a wager on who will catch the fugitive analyst first, the loser having to buy dinner at a restaurant in Albania - the Russian promises to leak information so the American will be sent there.
• In The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), the American and Russian handlers for Solo and Illya are on a first name basis and are close enough friends for Saunders to send his regards to Oleg's wife.
• They Shall Not Grow Old: One British WWI veteran recalls how he was participating in a rugby game between a British team and a German team when they all found out that war had started between their countries. Both teams decided that the war would actually start tomorrow and carried on with their game.

Literature

• 'Constance Verity Saves the World: While Lady Peril is a recurring villain in Connie's ever-expanding Rogues Gallery, her son Larry Peril is on good terms with Connie and finds his family's evil organization just as tedious as her.
• In the Renaissance epics of Charlemagne and his Paladins, Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso, the Christians and Saracens are engaged in a long world war that can only end with the extinction of either Islam or Christianity. Rulers on both sides invite enemies into their homes, during which everyone is quite civil.
• Older Than Print: In a 12th-century Arthurian romance by Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot is in an epic contest of arms with another knight. After swinging at one another for quite some time, they take a break, have a chat, get their breath back, and start back up again. They're quite civil.
• Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship in Good Omens started out like this and only got closer. By the time the story gets underway they've been actively defying both Heaven and Hell for years, and only participating in the angel/demon feud to keep up appearances. The reason given for their "Arrangement" is that they realised "they have more in common with their immediate opponents than their remote allies" and a certain acceptance of the inevitable, rather than ideological slippage. Aziraphale honestly believes in his cause and Crowley enjoys his work, but neither sees what they do as particularly important in determining the contest between Good and Evil. Both are also scared of the punishment leveled at dissenters by Heaven and Hell. Word of God states that they're now living together in a cottage somewhere.
• In The Dresden Files Mother Summer and Mother Winter, the two most powerful queens of their respective fairy court live in the same cabin and get along fine, despite their respective courts being at war. Though Cold Days implies that they may actually be separate parts of the same being, or else that they were once part of the same team, given that two of Mother Winter's given names are Skuld and Atropos.
• In Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber the bitter antagonists like nothing better than a good old natter. In effect the opposing, godlike immortal they are facing at swords length is still family, and killing them immediately would foreclose the news on plots, treachery, births, deaths and marriages. More generally the series features an unusual amount of civil interaction between characters in such deadly opposition that normally you would expect just threats and violence.
  
  This is mostly explained by the curse power that all Amberites have enabling them to karmically nuke their adversary if they get pissed enough. Therefore, they need to play everything as "strictly business" to avoid karmic nuclear war that would destroy Amber. Plus, they are all family.
• In The Hollows novels, despite the fact that Trent Kalamack has tried to kill Rachel Morgan on more than one occasion, killed an acquaintance, tried to get her to kill a personal rival and frame her for the deed and works to corrupt her to work for him they often go out socially together to have drinks and dinner and he has her over to the house on occasion. For her part Rachel will do legitimate work for him, is good friends with his chief bodyguard and was once a bridesmaid for his wedding.
• In Going Postal, Reacher Gilt is more than willing to have a little chat and pay the bill for Moist von Lipwig's dinner in Ankh-Morpork's most expensive restaurant, despite being the main villain for the book. Even though he is a tad surprised to see him there because he's just sent a hired killer to maul Moist and torch the Post Office. Oh dear.
• The Harry Potter parody series Barry Trotter did this once in Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel, when Lord Valumart showed up for Barry's thirty-eighth birthday party as an invited guest.
• In Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil, Lestat overhears God and the Devil chatting in a coffee house.
• Magician Roogna and Magician Murphy in Castle Roogna — part of Piers Anthony's Xanth series — are quite civil to each other, and consider their battle for rulership of the humans in Xanth akin to a strategy game or contest. Others might see it differently, especially when Murphy's magic talent lures two opposing forces into having the final apocalyptic battle of their war at Castle Roogna.
• In The Hobbit, Bilbo and Gollum tell each other riddles. (Though it's clear there, and made even more so in The Lord of the Rings, that Gollum would've happily killed Bilbo, and the latter was just trying to buy time so he could get out of there.) Riddles are also Serious Business in Middle Earth.
• One of the best moments in J. P. Martin's Uncle series is when Uncle's sworn enemies show up and they all celebrate Christmas together. It's casually mentioned that this is an annual tradition. Of course, the enemies get food, presents, and a chance to observe the house / castle / kingdom that they want to take over. But considering how they usually upset Uncle's refined sensibilities, have attempted many times to rob him, have stabbed him with skewers, and enjoy spreading inaccurate malevolent propaganda about him, you do have to wonder what's in it for him. Perhaps just Rule of Funny?
• In Warrior Cats, there are Gatherings that are a temporary truce between the four Clans that happens once a month. However, there are cases where these Gatherings can get broken. Also, Clans can refuse to join a Gathering in several cases.
• Mentioned in Letters to His Son by British statesman Lord Chesterfield: "When I was last at The Hague, we were at war with both France and Spain; so that I could neither visit, nor be visited by, the Ministers of those two Crowns; but we met every day, or dined at third places, where we embraced as personal friends, and trifled, at the same time, upon our being political enemies; and by this sort of badinage I discovered some things which I wanted to know." (letter 215)
• In The Pushcart War, Maxie Hammerman brings the Police Commissioner to crash a secret poker meeting by the Big Three where they're plotting Maxie's assassination, telling the commissioner that despite their differences, they often sit down for a friendly game of poker. The bad guys quickly figure out what's up, but they can't do anything with the commissioner right there. Maxie ends up winning a great deal of money, as well as the bulletproof Italian car that would have been used in the assassination.
• In the James Bond novel Devil May Care, James plays a game of tennis with the villain, though notable for the fact he cheats.
• Mary Poppins Opens the Door has a chapter in which Mary Poppins and the Banks children attend a New Year's Eve celebration during "the crack" in between the first and twelfth strokes of midnight. Some of the guests include literary characters, who party peacefully with their worst enemies.
• The Hunger Games: Katniss regularly sells her rabbits and squirrels to the Peacekeepers at the Hob.
• The Traitor Son Cycle: At one point, the King tells his wife the story of how during the war between Man and Wild, on one Christmas Eve, the Faery Knight and his entourage came to the lake by the Harndon castle and had a tourney with the King's father and the human knights.
• The King's Avatar:
  • Many pro players are in an online group chat where they can amiably chat and mingle together, despite the fierce rivalry between teams.
  • Ye Xiu is close enough to Huang Shaotian that he is able to call the latter up to ask him to help with breaking a dungeon record and the latter would actually come. He is also pretty friendly with Yu Wenzhou, able to ask the latter about his opinion on the unspecialized class he is using.
• In an example that overlaps with real life, the book Playing With The Enemy details a Dodgers baseball prodigy named Gene Moore who was drafted during World War II and assigned to work as a guard in a top-secret prisoner of war camp, guarding the crew of a submarine that the Allies wanted the Axis powers to believe had been sunk (it had actually been captured on the high seas, along with intelligence information that the Allies did not want the Axis powers to realize they'd captured). Both he and his prisoners were basically waiting for the war to end so they could get back to their lives, so to pass the time, he taught them to play baseball.
• Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 book American Front duplicates the World War 1 Christmas Truce described in Real Life below.

Live-Action TV

• The relationship between Mike/Joel and Dr. Clayton Forrester, TV's Frank, and/or Pearl Forrester in Mystery Science Theater 3000. In between attempts to perfect a psychological weapon that will bring humanity to its knees (and using Joel or Mike as their guinea pig), they exchange news, joke around and - on occasion - have a beer. There's also one episode where they have a very pleasant conversation (which she ends with a half-hearted "I'll destroy you and conquer the world" speech that trails off before she chuckles and says "He's a good kid") and in another the two traded jobs, and Mike, Observer and Professor Bobo end up playing cards and smoking cigars. The tradition continues into the Netflix seasons, where, for example, Kinga and Max participate in the "Dark One's Renaissance Inn & Grille" skit Jonah puts on during Wizards Of The Lost Kingdom II.
• In Being Human, Mitchell and Herrick have a relatively friendly and jovial relationship when they're not arguing dramatically or fighting. After Mitchell and Herrick both are dead, we get Tom and Hal. Tom is a werewolf raised by his werewolf daddy to stake all vampires on sight and treat them as threats. Hal struggles to keep from killing people, but has a very bloody past and is one of the Old Ones, essentially vampire royalty. They eventually get to be pretty good friends.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation shows that rival houses of Klingons and their allies have a standing truce while they're in the capital city, and will often get together at the local tavern and drink a few brewskies with each other, all the while jovially teasing each other about how they'll kill each other next time they're on the battlefield. Klingon warriors want to die in honourable battle; it's the most honourable way to die. If you kill a Klingon warrior in honourable combat you are doing him a favour — no wonder they are on friendly terms when they are not actually fighting. They also point out that, in the crowded bar, no-one can really tell who is on which side. They're all just warriors out for a drink.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: Captain Kirk was forced to fight a Gorn captain to the death in "Arena", but refused to kill him at the end, defying their captors. Apparently, he and the Gorn forged a friendship from this experience.
    Gorn: Graaarr!
    William Shatner: Alright, now you're over-acting.
• Colonel Klink and the prisoners often engage in (seemingly) friendly camaraderie in Hogan's Heroes. As senior POW officer Hogan sometimes gets invited to dinner or parties with visiting guests, and occasionally Klink agrees to participate in prisoner recreational activities. One scene has Hogan peacefully playing chess with Klink — he throws the game, but takes advantage of the kommandant's distraction to steal his dinner and later convinces him that he was so focused on the game that he forgot he was eating.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a number of examples of this:
  • In "A New Man", Ethan Rayne taking Giles out for a pint when he finds out Giles was fired from the Watchers Council. And spikes his drink with a potion that turns him into a demon, leading everyone to think that the "demon" killed Giles.
  • Spike is practically a Go Karting magnet. Nearly every main character, up to and including Buffy's mom, gets a scene where they're chatting amiably with him like he's not evil. And that's before Buffy starts shagging him....
  • In Season 7's "Conversations With Dead People", Buffy when patrolling comes upon the newly-risen, newly-sired Affably Evil vampire Holden Webster. They had known each other (slightly) in high school when he was human, and before he was killed and sired he had been studying psychology. They start chatting and Buffy tells him she must fight him to the death, as if she lets him leave the graveyard he'll start killing humans for their blood. He accepts they'll have the fight, but gives her a psychotherapy session first. After a long affable discussion, they eventually fight and Buffy dusts him. The actor, Jonathan Woodward, was so good at playing an Affably Evil character he was cast to play a different, human one (who we aren't shown for most of the season is, in fact, evil) in Angel the following season.
• In the 1960s Batman (1966) TV series, one of the episodes involves Batman and The Joker facing off in a surfing contest. The Joker doesn't even cheat, sorta. He used some kind of device early in the episode to take all the surfing knowledge from a champion surfer and upload it into his own brain. It didn't help him, though.
• In an episode of The Practice, Bobby Donnell is defending an alleged murderer and consults another lawyer who is suing him in relation to another murder trial, asking him if he thinks the prosecution has made its case. He replies that he doesn't think so, and it's presumably his honest opinion; he's watching the trial in order to study Donnell's tactics, but the outcome of the trial doesn't matter to him.
• The Wire:
  • Avon Barksdale coaches an annual charity basketball game against a team lead by his bitter rival in the Baltimore drug trade, Proposition Joe. Even though they are willing to play together, Avon makes clear what their relationship is truly about: "You come back to the West side without a ball, I'm'a light yo' ass up."
  • When Preston "Bodie" Broadus gets caught by Herc and Carver and they have to kill a few hours, so Bodie the drug dealer plays pool with the police.
• By the time the characters in American Horror Story: Coven compete in the Seven Wonders, they've all grown to hate Madison. One of the Wonders is teleportation, which the girls all master. They then decide to take a break from the competition and play a happy game of teleportation tag.
• In the Justified episode "Over the Mountain", Boyd Crowder and Tim Gutterson play Scrabble in Boyd's bar while waiting for Raylan to come back.
• In an Ultraman Taro focused tourism campaign for Hawaii, Alien Baltan seems to have called off his grudge to enjoy his Hawaiian vacation with the Ultraman family and Pigmon.
• Subverted in an anecdote Zoe tells in Firefly: During a battle, the regiment to which Zoe and Mal belonged reached to a stalemate with the Alliance forces. The Alliance forces were besieging the Rebels' entrenched position, and the two forces were so close to each other they were able to call over to each other. The two sides began to develop a rapport of friendly insults and jokes. At once point the rebel soldiers mentioned they had no food. A little while later the Alliance soldiers threw over a load of fresh apples. Each piece of fruit had a tiny detonation charge in it triggered when a person bit in. Half the rebel regiment had their heads blown off.
• In Person of Interest, after mob boss Elias is jailed, Finch regularly visits him for friendly games of chess. These games are actually what Elias demanded in exchange for his help, since he can't find any decent opponents in prison.
• In Supernatural, Dean and Crowley's relationship takes on an interesting dynamic in the beginning of season 10. When Dean is in demon mode, he and Crowley become close friends, something that seems to remain after Dean gets his humanity back. At one point, Crowley goes drinking with Dean for the purpose of getting his advice on what to do about his manipulative mother, Rowena, advice Dean is more than happy to provide. Bonus points for Crowley ordering the fruity, girly drink that Dean once ordered for him as a joke.
• In Doctor Who, especially in the 1970s, the relationship between the Doctor and the Master was a combination of Friendly Enemy and this trope. Once a story, the Master and the Doctor end up working together against some common enemy, such as Daleks, Cybermen, the Nestene Consciousness, Sea Devils, Axons, a fellow Time Lord who's Eviler than Thou, etc. The Doctor once referred to the Master as "my best enemy," while the Master stated that "a cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about."
• In The Thick of It, Glenn Cullen doesn't seem to let political differences or machinations dictate his social life. He and Julius Nicholson quite companionably share dinner and listen to a cricket match. Meanwhile, his department is having all sorts of dirty laundry aired, thanks to Julius leaking the nastiness to the press. Later on in the series, he and Phil have a nice friendly chat about the identity of The Stig; on the radio their respective ministers are having a debate.
• Legends of Tomorrow:
  • When Ray's soul is sent to Hell, the demons decide to have Vandal Savage, the Big Bad of Season 1, be the guy to torture him. However, when Ray and Savage have a chance to talk without Savage's Take Over the World plans getting in the way, they find they actually like each other, so instead of torture, they spend their time in Hell playing Jenga.
  • In "Meet the Legends", Constantine tries to have a pint with a demon he's supposed to be exorcising. Unfortunately the demon is using an underage boy as a vessel, and they get kicked out the bar.
• On Mayor of Kingstown, Mike and Bunny can go from pulling guns on one another to talking about their lives over a few beers over the course of a single day.
• In one of the "missing pieces" mobisodes for Lost, Jack and Ben play a game of chess. Ben says that Jack is the first person in a long time with enough skill at the game to be giving him a challenge.
• LazyTown: In some episodes, the cast invites Robbie to play and have fun, and on very rare occasions, he accepts, though usually with a scheme in mind.
• Manhunt (2024): Right before going to assassinate Lincoln, Booth is amused to learn that the man he's having a drink and talking about his career with is one of Lincoln's off-duty bodyguards.

Music

• Skyhooks' "Jukebox in Siberia" describes Marx, Lenin and Trotsky hanging out with Rasputin and the Tsar in a Siberian nightclub. Later, they are joined by the crew of an American submarine. The song also mentions that "if you're CIA or KGB, they might let you in for free", although such actions do seem more reasonable for those involved in espionage work.
• Ray Stevens music video for "Along Came Jones" has Stevens singing in a crowd about the time he was watching a TV show featuring a stereotypical cowboy type, a greedy villain, and a Damsel in Distress whom the former has to rescue from the latter several times. At the end, as Stevens is singing the last few lines of the song, all three characters pop up behind him and are shown happily singing along.
• Nautilus Pompilius: In the song "Scoundrel and Angel", the angel and the scoundrel are playing cards.
• The Christmas version of The Royal Guardsmen's novelty song "Snoopy vs. The Red Baron", called "Snoopy's Christmas", involves a routine dogfight between Snoopy and the Red Baron being interrupted by the sound of "those Christmas bells" ringing down below, prompting Snoopy and the Red Baron to call a truce long enough to celebrate Christmas before heading off on their way.

Professional Wrestling

• Justified in WSU, where top face Mercedes Martinez made psychotic "army" head Radiant Rain swear to behave herself via an "I Quit" match. How true Rain was to her word varied, especially outside of WSU, but she did refrain from physically attacking Martinez in public for over eight years, despite repeatedly reminding people that she hated Martinez's guts regardless of where either one of them fell on the Heel–Face Revolving Door. The two even went to a funhouse to celebrate mother's day with non violent competitions such as racing up climbing walls. Martinez was in fact under the mistaken impression she and Rain had become the best of friends and was caught off guard when Rain was trying to dislocate her shoulders again.

Sports

• Occasionally used as a tactic by athletes as a way to psychologically manipulate opponents via The Power of Friendship. One possible example is Michael Jordan, when he invited Charles Barkley out for golf during the NBA Finals and "befriended" him, giving him an expensive $20,000 earring. Jordan and the Chicago Bulls would eventually defeat Barkley's Suns team to win their third championship.
• The Olympic Games, both in their traditional, Greek form and their more modern incarnation. Most notably the 1936 Olympics, which were hosted by the Nazis. Possibly Deconstructed in that the Games are often seen as a proxy for conflicts and tensions between different countries rather than a friendly competition. Politics has interfered with the games on multiple occasions, such as the games being cancelled during both World Wars, some countries being subject to Insistent Terminology in order to participate like Taiwan going by "Chinese Taipei" to avoid pissing off mainland China, the United States' boycott of the 1980 games in response to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviets' boycott of the 1984 games in response.

• The World Cup has had some calmative effects at times — see the Côte d'Ivoire truce in 2006.
• Former cricketers Ian Botham and Vivian Richards (of England and West Indies respectively) have been best friends since the 1980s, when they were professional rivals.
• Taking the above further: In September 2018, two women's ice hockey players, the now-retired Gillian Apps and still-active Meghan Duggan, got married. The pair were on opposite sides of one of the most intense rivalries in world sports—Apps retired as captain of the Canada national team, and at the time of the wedding Duggan was the current USA national team captain. (Put it this way: any time the final of the Olympics or World Championships isn't Canada–USA, it's HUGE news. At the time of the wedding, it had happened only once since the two teams first squared off in 1990; it's happened once more since then.)

Tabletop Games

• In some depictions, a few of the Archangels and Demon Princes in In Nomine will get together and talk about the old days while at the same time their servants are elsewhere fighting to the death.
• In the D&D Planescape setting, you might find a celestial deva and a pit fiend calmly discussing philosophy in a tavern in Sigil, and not think much of it. It's a continual cosmic war outside Sigil and a tiny handful of other neutral zones, though.
• Blood Bowl is a game set in a world parallel to pre-Age of Sigmar Warhammer. After discovering a chest of magazines and rulebooks for American Football, the endless warfare of the normal setting has stopped. Now the different groups limit their conflict to an insanely violent fantasy version of American Football called Blood Bowl. It's a very violent sport, sure, but it's still a sport, as opposed to a battle.
• One of the many supplements released for Champions, "Neutral Ground", details a private "gentleman's club" called "The Sanctuary" that allows both heroes and villains to join, as long as they agree to not try and pound the snot out of each other while the heroes and villains are both there. One of the most frequent occurrences encountered by players is Doctor Destroyer (The Champions Universe expy of both Doctor Doom and Darkseid) playing chess with an old nemesis.
• In Nobilis, three factors align to produce this. One, Nobles are not generally authorised to pre-emptively attack Excrucians; this diplomatic immunity is revoked once an attack or Rite takes place, but not before. Two, social events are Serious Business to Nobles, to the point where Nobilis groups can spend three or more weeks planning a party. Three, player characters have an impressive tendency to wish to befriend, romance, redeem and otherwise interact with Excrucians, especially the more socially acceptable ones like Deceivers (with a little help from traditional player character recklessness). The net result is that you get an awful lot of Humanoid Abominations who wish to gradually unmake the world showing up at Noble parties and hobnobbing with their archenemies over ichthyosaurus and cucumber twists and little cheesy things impaled on fragments of the True Cross.

Theater

• At curtain calls, villains will hang out with heroes with no problem, even if they're dead.
• In Pokémon Live!, in the finale, Giovanni dances with the rest of the cast.
• Hamilton:
  • Used when King George III shows up in The Reynolds Pamphlet, making it rain the titular pamphlets alongside Thomas Jefferson. Considering that George doesn't even know Hamilton, let alone despise him to the lengths that Jefferson does, this is a little strange. The most plausible out-of-universe explanation is that the show was low on villains who could join Jefferson in his glee (Madison and Burr are just a little too serious), but no explanation is ever given for George's appearance.
  • The Room Where It Happens centers around a dinner that Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson have to discuss politics. While Hamilton and Madison and Jefferson weren't yet enemies (as shown in Washington on Your Side), What'd I Miss and Cabinet Battle #1 show that they weren't fond of each other. Jefferson and Madison hate Hamilton on a professional, not personal level: they immediately back off when they discover that Hamilton wasn't breaking the law in We Know, they return to the stage misty eyed at the beginning of The Election of 1800 following Philip's death, and they have kind words for him in Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • Phoenix has a soft spot for Godot, right after the end of their last trial together in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations. Also, Apollo and Trucy went together to Klavier Gavin's concert in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. That said, Trucy is (or had rather become) a huge fan of Gavin's band, and Apollo was never really that hostile towards Klavier anyway — he just doesn't like the loud music. On the other hand, Ema Skye would rather have coated her left arm in Snackoos and eaten it than wind up running security for the gig out of her personal loathing for Gavin, and makes this sentiment loud and clear when she meets up with Apollo backstage.
  • Phoenix and Edgeworth. They were childhood friends, and Phoenix had sort of centered his law career around an idolized image of Edgeworth as a Protector of the Innocent. They snark at each other a lot, but it's quite clear that they're best friends and that they're there for each other when it counts. They count as fairly close friends at the very least, and even though they don't exactly seem to hang out much, this can probably be attributed more to the rather standoffish type of person Edgeworth is than to them not getting along. By the time of Dual Destinies this trope has come fully into play, as it's revealed that Phoenix often visited Edgeworth in Europe, and Edgeworth went to see Phoenix's daughter's magic show.
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: In the bonus Love Hotel and Love Across the Universe modes, one of the students you can hang out with is Tsumugi Shirogane, who is actually the Mastermind.
• Tsukihime:
  • One of the side stories, "The Tohno Family Con Game", is about most of the cast playing a game of tag, villains included. Amusingly, the villains are generally more affable toward everybody than much of Shiki's Unwanted Harem. Technically fanfiction, but it was included by Type Moon on the fandisc.
  • In a more canonical example, in the very first scene after branching onto Kohaku's route in the original visual novel, Shiki, the main hero, meets the Big Bad who's his former childhood friend who became a Soul Jar for the Greater-Scope Villain and is a serial killer/vampire/cannibal, and has coffee with him on a park bench while discussing life and how they both fit into the world, and joking with each other like friends. Granted, the villain had just caught Shiki going berserk and killing some people in a back alley. In the end, the villain does try to start a fight, but Shiki calmly tells him that he's superior in a fight to the death, and the villain puts his weapon away and agrees with him, and decides to give up and leave town for good.
  • This theme is somewhat continued in another side story, "Drinking, Dreaming Moon", where they drink alcohol together and talk about how nice it might have been had the villain never turned into a Soul Jar to begin with, and reminiscing on their younger years. But then Shiki wakes up and finds that it was All Just a Dream}... Or Was It a Dream?
• Fate/stay night is filled with these.
  • In Heaven's Feel, Shirou shares a table at a Chinese restaurant with Kirei Kotomine, by all rights his arch-nemesis, who killed his parents and all of his friends and neighbors and then his foster parent, in basically every scenario, who calmly reveals that he was a villain for the first time in this particular scenario (after Shirou already guessed it). And he offers Shirou some of his Mapo Tofu. Twice.
  • Lancer loves this trope. In Unlimited Blade Works, he is trying to have a friendly chat with the heroes, and Rin complains that they're supposed to be enemies. He remarks how back in his day it was normal for enemies to dine and party together when they weren't in battle. Rin claims that those days have long went out of style. To which Lancer replies, "Really? This age sure is boring."
  • In the Fate/Zero prequel, Saber, Gilgamesh, and Rider all have a drinking contest against each other, to "prove who's the greatest king." Meanwhile, Saber and Rider's mortal partners are hiding off to the side and amazed at the proceedings. When the Assassins show up to fight, Rider offers them something to drink, too.
  • In all three scenarios, Shirou and Rin spend most of the story living together and competing in meal preparation, all the while Rin is constantly reminding Shirou (and you) that they are enemies who will have to kill each other before it's all over. By the way, it never actually happens.
  • Just about the entirety of Fate/hollow ataraxia is built around this trope. It's all done for fan enjoyment, of course.
  • When you get a bad ending in Fate/stay night, the Tiger Dojo segments feature Ilya offering Shirou advice on how to proceed. Even when she's trying to kill him in-story.
• Umineko: When They Cry
  • Despite the fact that Lambdadelta is working specifically to trap her for all eternity and torture her slowly, that doesn't stop Bernkastel from having sleepovers with her. Subverted. They were actually allies all along, and even implied to be lovers.
  • Also, Battler and Beatrice have a really playful relationship from the start, which is a little weird. Also subverted, since Beatrice was only pretending to be Battler's enemy as a way of guiding him towards the truth.
• In the main routes of Ikemen Sengoku, the main characters are ruthless warlords on opposing sides, and a few are specifically motivated by a desire to take revenge against another main character and kill them. In the bonus full-cast mini stories you get during events, they all just kind of hang out together, putting together goofy teams like the Cooking Corps versus the Cleaning Corps or brainstorming ways to win over the player avatar.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner:
  • In one cartoon, Strong Sad mentions that he and The Cheat play Jenga on Tuesdays. Despite claiming to hate Homestar, it seems that Strong Bad tends to tolerate him more and more as time passes. They even starred in Dangeresque 1: Dangeresque, Too? together. Then again, Strong Bad seems to drag everybody into his Dangeresque movies, whether they want to or not.
  • On the Cheat Commandos, Blue Laser invites the Commandos for a Thanksgiving Dinner. The invitation was for everyone, but the team decided not to tell their leader Gunhaver, since he has a hard time relaxing.
• In Red vs. Blue:
  • Many of the non-story-related comedy shorts feature the Red and Blue teams hanging out together and discussing various subjects from E3 to zombie apocalypses. They're still somewhat antagonistic towards each other, though.
  • In Season 14 episode "Mr. Red and Mr. Blue", we learn that during in between the Blood Gulch Chronicles and The Reconstruction, Tucker would have a movie night and allow the Reds to take part. Of course, as VIC says in his opening narration, by that point while the Reds and Blues were still enemies, they weren't really giving a damn anymore.
• RWBY Chibi zig-zags this: It's played straight in Episode 3 of Season 2, with the heroes and villains competing in a soccer game (or at least trying to, until Mercury blew up the ball by accident); downplayed when it comes to Ruby and Cinder since the former doesn't know the latter is evil but Cinder behaves nicely towards her and wants to hang out with her (though probably for evil purposes) and subverted in Episode 22 of Season 2, where the villains formed a music band for a "Battle of the bands" competition and were there to play music with no evil intent... until it turned out it was a literal battle and the heroes and villains had to engage in a fight.
• The Autobots vs Decepticons conflict is a lot more light-hearted in Transformers Kre-O than the war seen in other iterations of the franchise. Here, they engage in dance competitions and car races.
• Warhammer Idol Month is an idol singing competition set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe so this is a given. Various Imperium factions, xenos, and forces of Chaos have gathered together to win the hearts of the viewer in song.

Webcomics

• Garnet and Gure: "Baby Wesker Numbah One!"
• Homestuck: Imps are first introduced as bothersome Mooks sent to attack the players as part of Sburb, and chiefly appear as hordes of weak enemies that both the kids and trolls mow through by the dozens during their sessions. There are two exceptions to this:
  • During the trolls' section, the lackadaisical Gamzee simply chilled with the imps of his land instead of fighting them.
  • After escaping their session alongside their shrunken planets before the Scratch could retcon them all from existence, John and Jade simply cease hostilities with their own imps during their three-year trip, and the former henchmen are afterwards commonly seen hanging out alongside their former enemies and the Lands' Consorts (sapient amphibians who are essentially the games' NPCs, which the imps previously terrorized) and engaging in mundane activities such as watching movies together.
• Narbonic: Helen and Madblood's date, though in this case it's an Affably Evil Villain Protagonist and a rival Mad Scientist. Their relationship throughout the comic oscillates between awkward flirtation and trying to wipe each other off the map.
• Happened in Antihero for Hire, though it was a game of chess between two antagonists, rather than between a hero and a villain. However, considering that they're very much antagonistic towards each other as well, it still seems to count. One basically goes "I'll kill you last", while the other responds with "Not if I find a way to mind-control you first, you won't."
• El Goonish Shive: In one scene, the three members of a Quirky Miniboss Squad confront three main characters. The noble one attacks in order to subdue the protagonists before the Big Bad can arrive to kill them instead. The twisted one attacks in bloodlust. The slow one has no incentive to do either, and is left standing awkwardly with the third main character. After a moment they have a thumb war.
• Brawl in the Family:
  • Initially disguised it in this strip.
  • This one has another take on it, and on how the go-karting is related to the conflict.
  • And again in this one.
• Made fun of in this DeviantArt comic.
• Lampshaded in one page of The Order of the Stick.
  Elan: I know that sometimes, the hero has to play baccarat with the enemy, even though logically it would make more sense for them to just be trying to kill each other.
  What I don't know is how to play baccarat.
• Evil, Inc. has the two main characters, Captain Heroic and Miss Match, being husband and wife in their off hours, but battling each other while "on the job". This is a case of Slap-Slap-Kiss developing to its logical conclusion, and both of them have to hide their relationship from their associates. They're depicted as actually devoted to their respective ideologies (i.e. while Miss Match as an employee of Evil Inc. is literally a Punch-Clock Villain, she doesn't fit the usual "Evening Sam/Evening Ralph" characteristics of the trope), but they love each other enough to do what it takes to make it work anyhow (and they do occasionally have arguments about it).
• Nerf NOW!! is onto the Trope Namer characters' games! Sometimes it can be a little hard to keep track of the schedule, though.
• Awkward Zombie:
  • Defied and discussed in this comic as why Ridley isn't playable in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/WiiU game (or any game until Ultimate for that matter). As said in the blurb underneath:
  Katie: Ridley is kind of the only Nintendo villain who's ever done anything really awful — Bowser's a jerk and Ganondorf tends to make everyone anxious for a while, but both are still probably easily forgiven.
• When the two opposing Blood Knights of Girl Genius (Action Girl Zeetha and Ax-Crazy Bang) first meet face-to-face, they wind up sitting down for some cake and tea while enjoying a friendly conversation. Zeetha even lampshades the whole situation by commenting on how much fun it's going to be when they wind up fighting each other.
  • Bang later finds out that she actually has a semi^note It was in self defense, mostly. While Bang was away, her pirate crew kidnapped Zeetha, which resulted in Zeetha slaughtering her way through them before burning the fortress down behind her. Not even the Baron could figure out who did it or why legitimate grudge against Zeetha. Upon realizing who her informant is referring to, she's ecstatic. And according to Gil, she even thinks there's a good chance she'll ''lose'' the grudge match.
• In Skin Deep Gabe, an angel, plays poker with the Grim Brothers that he or she keeps banishing back to the underworld.
• In Li'l Gotham, a generally lighter and softer version of the Batman franchise, one scene has Batman playing a puzzle game with the Riddler via webcam.
• Tower of God: Ja, Goseng and Miseng are very nervous when they are sitting face to face with the rebellion fighters of FUG, eating fruit together.

Web Original

• The Spoony Experiment: Dr. Insano and Spoony still apparently live together despite the former having killed the latter (he got better). Insano even fixed Spoony's Atari Jaguar so he could play the Highlander game, although that might not have been a completely kind act.
• In The Key of Awesome's parody of The Dark Knight, Alfred arranges a session of this so Batman and the Joker can figure out the plot.
  The Joker: Call me insane but I consider us friends.
  I've brought the DVD so we can watch it again!
• Nitro Game Injection: There is an episode of the show named after this trope.
• Assist Me: The whole premise is Max teaching Marvel vs. Capcom 3 characters how to be better at the game ranging from his roommate Doctor Doom to Phoenix.
• Mario's numerous roles are evidence of a multiverse in #15 of Cracked's Science Lessons as Taught by Famous Video Games.
• In Noob Tenshirock is a hacker who wants to get people to stop playing MMORPG by making their gaming lives hell. While he's seen using members of the Noob guild as lab rats from time to time, these events have a 1:1 ratio with him casually sharing tavern tables with them, playing rock-paper-scissors with Gaea and sometimes being quite helpful.
• Clickhole has an essay which traces Bowser's appearance in the SNES Super Mario Kart to the rise of evil in society.
• The premise of A Game of Gods: Nemesis is that of a Reality Show where two teams, consisting of heroes and villains, compete against each other on missions but are forced to share the same living premises between the challenges. Naturally, it leads to a lot of tension, but sometimes opposing competitors are able to forget their differences and participate in something fun together. For example, at the end of Day 1, Superman and Spider-Man join Jan Valentine in watching a movie.
• This trope basically laid the foundation for the Bowsette meme: after all their time spent hanging out together in a non-hostile fashion, Bowser deciding to don the "Princess-ifying" Super Crown Mushroom powerup from the Deluxe edition of New Super Mario Bros. U and try to hook up with Mario honestly makes sense. Especially after he gets rejected after proposing to Peach in Super Mario Odyssey.
• Stellar Ranger Dark Star Series Three: The Anras agree to go trick-or-treating with Senine and Octy- playing their father and mother respectively- on Halloween night in exchange for ceasing their attacks on Solar City and leaving people alone. They spend the event being excitable little girls having fun. Subverted when it turns out they had secretly been sapping star heart energy from people underneath their noses, and they go right back to being enemies.
• StacheBros: In "Nintendo Card Game", Mario and Luigi play a friendly game of Go Fish with Bowser.
• Solid jj's "Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom" features a random scene of Hawkman and the Joker of all people chilling at a combination KFC and Taco Bell.

Western Animation

• Pete (a.k.a. Pegleg Pete, Black Pete, Big Bad Pete, Perilous Pete, and Putrid Pete) has this relationship with the rest of the core Mickey Mouse Funny Animal crew. At times, he's a genial but gruff neighbor. At other times, he's a gigantic hulking gangster. This was even true in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit days where he alternated between the role of a Bank Robber (The Banker's Daughter), or Oswald's homeless buddy (Hungry Hoboes.) In a Christmas Episode of House of Mouse, Minnie is threatened with mistletoe by Mortimer Mouse. Pete shows up, seemingly about to make the situation worse (in the old days his motives mainly revolved around kidnapping her for himself), when suddenly he swoops in and gives Mortimer a big smooch to scare him off. In what is both an entirely bizarre or an entirely awesome moment, Minnie and Pete high-five each other. Also, in the opening title sequence of The Mickey Mouse Club, Pete and the Big Bad Wolf are among the many Disney characters celebrating Mickey. Moreover, the villains from the various movies in the Disney Animated Canon tend to hang out and enjoy the show alongside their movies' respective heroes.
• Finn and the Ice King in Adventure Time don't start this way - but once Finn and Jake find out that the Ice King is mentally ill, not evil, they begin spending social time with him. (Not much, because the Ice King is still very irritating company, and still sufficiently unstable that he needs to be stopped from doing something harmful to others on a regular basis.)
• All Hail King Julien. The fossa are generally the dominant predators constantly threatening to eat the lemurs, but even they can put their differences aside to compete together in the kingdom wide Jungle Games.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: During Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee's visit to Ember Island for a vacation, Azula did not try to actually ruin his day for once, but instead get along pretty well with him and in some way feeling a bit sorry for Zuko when he is not having a good time in Ember Island. They all discussed their feelings towards each other and started to connect. In the end, they celebrate by destroying Chan's party, leaving all of them happy in the end.
• Batman: The Animated Series: Batman plays poker with Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Penguin, and the Joker. Subverted in that he's disguised as Killer Croc and is trying to find out where the Joker has Catwoman held captive.
• This happens in Bump in the Night in the episode "Long, Long Day". After a long duration of being pulled on by his enemies Destructo and the Closet Monster, the main protagonist Mr. Bumpy asks that they take a break. Destructo and the Closet Monster comply and the three sing a song at the Karaoke Cafe about how good it is to relax after a long, long day. In general, it is common for the show's Karaoke Cafe segments and for episodes with scenes taking place at the Karaoke Cafe to feature cameos by such established antagonists as the alien duo Sleemoth and Gloog, the living bread from "Night of the Living Bread", and the Germs from "Adventures in Microbia".
• Katz, the Big Bad (more or less) of Courage the Cowardly Dog has often challenged Courage to small games like handball and staring contests, but only when he's more-or-less certain that Courage is truly at his mercy. (He's usually more-or-less wrong.) He's not above playing dirty in these games; in the staring contest, for instance, he tries to egg his opponent into losing by saying "Blink," repeatedly when Courage's eyes start to water. (And Katz does seem to have far more skill than Courage in some athletic contests, in one episode being able to play racket ball and drink tea at the same time.)
• In Dora the Explorer, Swiper the Fox has a friendly relationship with Dora and Boots when he isn't stealing something important from them, and they even organized a surprise birthday party for him in one episode. He's really only a villain insofar as he hinders them on whatever journey they take by making off with and hiding a few key items, which might go a long way towards explaining how they're on otherwise friendly terms.
• Spildit often does this in The Dreamstone. While the Noops and the Urpneys mostly remain antagonistic towards each other throughout the show, Spildit, being a small child, often engages in friendly chat with Sgt Blob's team or even obliviously helps them in some of their schemes, which they usually seem rather nonchalant about.
• In Earthworm Jim, the Intergalactic League of Superheroes typically meet to play poker. In "The Exile of Lucy", we see Bob the Killer Goldfish (One of Jim's Rogues Gallery) has been allowed a seat at the table;
  Bob: Earthworm Jim! I shall destroy you!
  Jim: (Completely deadpan) Now Bob, you promised if we let you play Poker with us you wouldn’t destroy anyone.
  Bob: Alright… But if you don’t stop winning soon, I ain’t responsible!
• On The Fairly OddParents!, an entire episode is based around the fairies, the anti-fairies, and the pixies competing in the Fairy World Games. Also, Juandissimo gets along great with Timmy when Remy's not around. Also, when not issuing Fs or obsessively trying to steal Timmy's fairies, Mr. Crocker can be a valuable ally. (cf. "Lame Ducks", "Desperate Without Housewives").
• In the Felix the Cat (Joe Oriolo) cartoons from 1959, the Professor and Rock Bottom were the series' regularly running adversaries, either committing crimes or coveting Felix's Magic Bag of Tricks. There were times, though that Felix and the Professor would temporarily patch things up either with Felix babysitting the Professor's nephew Poindexter or having Felix save the Professor from a predicament at cartoon's conclusion. The finale, "Public Enemy No. 1 and 2" features a birthday party for Felix which is attended by the Professor, Rock Bottom and even the true Big Bad of the series the Master Cylinder.
• Freakazoid!:
  • In the episode "In Arms Way", Freakazoid has a flashback to the time that he and several of the show's villains participated in a "Superhero-Villain All-Star Benefit Softball Game".
  • That same episode had Freakazoid and his archenemy The Lobe run into each other while Christmas shopping, and promptly try to guess what the other got him for Christmas.
• Futurama's Robot Devil cheerfully socializes with Bender when not trying to consign him to eternal torment or kill his best friend. He also once called the Planet Express gang into the bowels of Hell itself to put out a tiny fire in his office.
• Johnny Test: Johnny literally has a go-kart race with Brain Freezer and Mister Mittens. They're both members of The Johnny-Hating Evil Force Five.
• Most of the Looney Tunes antagonistic relationships are like this, Depending on the Writer.
  • Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck particularly.
  • Especially exemplary of this trope is the relationship between Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. On the job, they take every opportunity to try to beat the other to a pulp, but when the day is done, they talk to each other like old chums.
• My Knight and Me:
  • In the episode "Ceasefire", almost all of the shows heroes and villains are shown coming together to watch a music concert.
  • There are also numerous episodes where the heroes team up with Bad Jack such as "The Good Jack" and "My Knight, My Dragon, and Me." Not surprisingly, Bad Jack is the most popular antagonist on the show.
  • There is also the end of "The Good Jack," in which Jeff - a dragon who just went ballistic and breathed fire at people - has a little music jam session with our hero Henri of Orange. Turns out the fire-breathing dragon plays a mean bongo.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, sort of. There are several cast posters floating around that depict the entire cast posing for a picture. Including villains like Discord. (Though Discord is more or less a friend of the Mane 6 now, despite being Reformed, but Not Tamed.)
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • The crimefighting platypus Agent P and his archnemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz are often seen as very amiable foes, with their roles as good guy and bad guy often being alluded to as mere jobs they have to do. Dr. Doofenshmirtz even goes so far in certain episodes to have Perry sit in a waiting room so the Drusselsteinian doctor can finish a plot, or to exclaim to Perry that he doesn't want to fight, it's his weekend off. In an episode, he even says that he considers Perry his best friend... right before Perry uppercuts him out of the spaceship they were on. The two get even more buddy-buddy as the series marches on. Should Perry happen to show up on a day when Dr. D doesn't have an evil scheme planned, Perry winds up helping him in tasks such as decorating for his daughter's birthday party or renewing his driver's license. Perry once even used the failed -inator of the day to turn Doof into an anti-establishment rapping DJ, helping him look cool in the eyes of Vanessa and her goth friends.
  • The same can be said for episodes where Candace willingly participates in Phineas and Ferb's activities without even trying to bust them for it.
• Bluto and Popeye get along great — when Olive Oyl isn't around. But when she gets involved... Unless they get their orange juice. No, really. In "Fightin' Pals", Bluto goes on an expedition into the African jungles. When Popeye hears a report that Dr. Bluto is lost, he blazes a trail through the jungle... and finds Bluto in a jungle paradise attended by native women. As soon as Bluto sees Popeye's weary condition, he comes up with a can of spinach which he feeds to strengthen Popeye, and the two of them enjoy a few rounds of friendly horseplay.
• Native American mythology in The Real Ghostbusters states that an ancient burial ground is the site of a war between the forces of good and evil. In "Night Game," the burial ground is now a minor-league baseball field, which means that Good and Evil are playing baseball. Things get... complicated... when Winston enters the fray.
• Megabyte of ReBoot takes a break from his plotting to rock out in a guitar duel with Bob at Enzo's birthday party. He even lets the birthday boy keep the guitar.
  Megabyte: I've always wanted to do that.
• Robot Chicken had a sketch where the Trope Namer and Mario are golfing when Bowser mentions how weird it was that he used to kidnap Mario's girlfriend.
• The Simpsons:
  • Bart Simpson and Principal Skinner on several occasions. In a rather poignant early episode when Skinner was sacked, he and Bart actually become good friends. When Skinner rejoins the military Bart even admits to Lisa that he misses him as a friend but misses him even more as an enemy. After Bart helps Skinner become principal again they both realize their friendship can only continue if Bart becomes a good student — something they both know isn't going to happen.
  • Surprisingly, there are multiple instances in which Homer and Mr. Burns are genuinely friendly with each other. Examples include "Dancin' Homer," in which he and Homer get drunk and heckle baseball players together, "Monty Can't Buy Me Love," in which Homer willingly assists Mr. Burns' various flights of whimsy, and "A Hunka Hunka Burns In Love," in which Homer acts as Mr. Burns' wingman. Unsurprisingly, most incidences of Homer and Mr. Burns getting along happen when at least one of them is off the clock.
  • Even Bart's would-be killer Sideshow Bob has had his share of this with the Simpson family. In "The Great Louse Detective," for instance, he's conditionally freed from prison to help them catch an unknown assailant trying to kill Homer. He starts by trying to shadow Homer through a typical day, which ends up with the two of them hang-gliding together.
    Sideshow Bob: This is a normal day?
    Homer: I...just wanted to impress you.
• Sonic Boom:
  • In "Fuzzy Puppy Buddies", Amy and Eggman discover a shared love of a cutesy board game called Fuzzy Puppies, and secretly meet up to play the game when Sonic and his friends aren't thwarting Eggman's evil schemes.
  • Perhaps a literal example in "If You Build It, They Will Race"; Sonic and his friends enter a race through Bygone Island, and among their opponents are Dr. Eggman himself, Dave the Intern, and T.W. Barker.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Bitter business rivals Mr. Krabs and Plankton play cards together. Which, of course, is part of Plankton's scheme to throw the card games to fool Krabs into putting something valuable, like SpongeBob's contract, on the line.
  • In the episode "Band Geeks", Krabs and Plankton both perform in Squidward's band.
  • SpongeBob frequently includes Plankton among his guests at parties.
• The episode of Steven Universe "Hit The Diamond" ends up as a baseball game instead of a regular conflict; the Homeworld Rubies in general play by the rules and, aside from a few snarls, are downright friendly with the heroes. They even thank Steven for telling them where Jasper supposedly is before leaving, without causing any further trouble in spite of the earlier deception.
  • An online game on the Cartoon Network website features the characters playing a friendly beach volleyball tournament, including the antagonist Jasper.
• In Street Sharks, the Seaviates aren't above pulling harmless pranks on the Sharks when they're not trying to kick each others' fins.
• The Teen Titans Go! version of Batman has a sleepover in the Batcave with his buddy Jim Gordon... and the Joker and the Penguin. They watch TV together, laugh with each other, and even share sleeping bags. There are plenty of episodes when the Titans themselves hang out with their sworn enemies. There have been several times when Starfire and Raven have had "girls night out" with the female villains of the show.
• Tom and Jerry. Especially in the cartoons made in the Seventies.
  • A good example is "The Truce Hurts", even though it is short-lived, in which Tom and Jerry, as well as Spike, put their differences aside and got along with each other. They even went out for a walk together only to once again be mortal enemies by the end of the cartoon over a beef that each tried to divide with the lion's share for himself.
  • There was another episode spanning as a Clip Show, where just Tom and Jerry make a truce. They watch a picture show together, starring themselves, and are then reminded why they're enemies when watching their movie selves humiliate each other. At the end of the episode, the film is playing a scene of "The Truce Hurts" where Tom, Jerry, and Spike are hitting each other, only to stop and watch the real Tom and Jerry fighting in the theater, clearly amused.
  • In "Blue Cat Blues", Jerry describes himself and Tom as "the best of friends" and showed them drinking lemonade together... until the latter started ignoring the former over a cat girl who eventually ditched him for a rich cat. The episode ends with them attempting suicide together because the same thing ended up happening to Jerry.
• Transformers:
  • Optimus Prime and Megatron: playing golf.
  • Optimus, Bumblebee and Blitzwing getting ice cream for Sari.
• This is supposed to be the relationship between the Guild of Calamitous Intent and the good guys they're arching on The Venture Brothers:
  • The Monarch's genuine (if totally irrational) hatred for Dr. Venture is what sets him apart from normal villains. Sergeant Hatred, on the other hand, has no trouble inviting his arch-nemesis to a barbecue. This led to Hatred's Heel–Face Turn. Although Hatred himself admits he was being particularly civil to Dr. Venture just to piss the Monarch off because the Monarch's henchmen had been stealing parts from his hovertank, a fact of which the Monarch believed him to be blissfully unaware.
  • The Monarch himself isn't immune to this. After becoming engaged, his drunk henchmen kidnapped the Venture clan and more or less ends up having Dr. Venture as his best man at the wedding. Furthermore, the Monarch may hate Dr. Venture, but doesn't actually want to kill him (just humiliate him/break his spirit). No reasons are explained for this, but there's some implications that because of how similar the two are, the Monarch may want to break Venture in order to prove he's not a loser.
• Woody Woodpecker (2018): In "No Time Like a Present", Woody and Wally Walrus are both trying to get the last MegaStation 360 video game console for their niece and nephew. By the time Woody finally gets it, Big Bulk Mart closes and he and Wally are trapped inside the store until it opens the next morning. To pass the time, they decide to play against each other in a game on the console, sharing some free cheese samples and ignoring their love interests when they message them.
• Brought up in Xiaolin Showdown after the monks team up with Jack Spicer in order to defeat Wuya. After they succeed Jack calls off the truce but Omi manages to guilt trip him (by using his Puppy-Dog Eyes) into offering to take everyone out for ice cream whenever they aren't fighting. The monks gladly accept the offer, but since they never actually stopped fighting, it never comes to fruition.
• Young Justice (2010): In "Death and Rebirth", the villain Icicle Jr. is invited to Conner and M'gann's wedding. He behaves himself, though since he was in prison at the time, he was wearing cuffs and a Power Nullifier collar. He even catches the bouquet.

Real Life

• The Christmas truces from the First World War.
• Also from the First World War, the early airplane pilots were often pre-war flight pioneers, and knew each other from various contests and meetings and the like. Only after some time they began to greet the other guy with bullets instead of salute.
• By the late 1980s it wasn't all that uncommon for former WWII soldiers from all sides to attend each others' reunions, perhaps because they had something in common with their former enemies (the shared experience of combat) that they couldn't share with the people back home. Part of it is a genuine fascination with what "the other side" is like, and a desire to understand them. Sometimes it can also be a desire to achieve closure and heal on a spiritual/psychological level, or find some atonement. There is also the issue of military ethics, where barring atrocities and other unpleasantness enemy combatants are effectively Punch-Clock Villains who are no different from you beyond the fact they fight for their own country. As such if it were not for the war it would have been perfectly possible for these former enemies to be friends.
• Ace Japanese fighter pilot Saburo Sakai died of a heart attack as he was reaching over a table to shake the hand of a USAF colonel who had invited Sakai to give a speech. After the war Sakai had become a committed pacifist and devoted the remaining nearly 60 years of his life to reconciling himself with the United States in general, and with the families of those pilots he had shot down in combat in particular.
• The American Civil War:
  • Federal and Confederate soldiers both showed up to commemorate the anniversaries of Civil War battles at least as far as fifty years after war ended. This is something of a negative example, though, since black soldiers, who made up about 10% of the Union forces, were not welcome at those gatherings; basically, the white troops on both sides decided to forget what the war was about and dismiss the whole thing as a big misunderstanding.
  • General Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate officer who led the troops opposed to Sherman's march, helped to carry Sherman's coffin at his funeral. The funeral was on a cold day and one of Johnston's friends told him to wear a hat, but he refused to out of respect for Sherman saying, "If I were in his place and he standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat." He got a cold that developed into pneumonia and died shortly thereafter.
  • In 1862 the Union troops and the Confederates ended up on different sides of the Rappahannock River in Virginia while the Northerners were waiting for supplies. It drew out, so the soldiers got gradually more bored. With little to do but to stare at each other, they began carving little toy boats and filled them with tobacco or coffee and sent them across to the enemy. Then they started greeting each other and waving. Then they crossed the river to have a friendly chat and exchange newspapers. Then the Battle of Fredericksburg ruined everything.
  • During the siege of Vicksburg, both sides agreed to a temporary truce (to recover the bodies of the fallen in the no-man's-land between the lines ... it was in Mississippi approaching summertime, which added a practical emphasis to the usual "respect for the dead" reasons). During the truce, soldiers on both sides intermingled and traded supplies with each other. Sure it's supposed to be a siege, but not letting them have whiskey or tobacco would just be uncivilized.
• During the Italian campaign of World War II, several British Members of Parliament complained when it became known that General Montgomery had invited a captured German general to dinner as a courtesy. Referencing Montgomery's well-known spartan lifestyle and tastes, Churchill quipped that he had dined with Montgomery, and his sympathies were entirely with the German.
• On the other hand, after the German surrender in Tunisia in 1943, some American officers suggested to General Eisenhower that he ought to invite his German counterpart to dinner as a courtesy. Eisenhower refused because he found the idea of nicely chatting with an enemy commander unappealing.
• Following the sinking of the American Cruiser USS Indianapolis by the Imperial Japanese Submarine I-58, the Captain of the Indianapolis, Captain Charles B. McVay, was court-martialled. The Captain of the submarine that sank his ship, Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, testified at his court-martial that Captain McVay's actions were not responsible for the sinking, and actually spearheaded post-war efforts to clear Captain McVay's name stating in a letter to Senator John W. Warner, then head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I have met many of your brave men who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. I would like to join them in urging that your national legislature clear their captain's name." Even though a joint resolution was passed by Congress and signed by then President Clinton in October 2000, and the US Navy admitted it screwed up, his record still retained the conviction for the loss of the Indianapolis until the following year, when the Secretary of the Navy ordered his conviction wiped from his record. Even more sadly, McVay committed suicide in 1968, after losing his wife to cancer and also periodically receiving angry letters and phone calls from relatives of lost Indianapolis crewmen.
• The Cold War in general featured a whole bunch of this, since the two sides did not fight each other directly, and the United States and Soviet Union technically recognized and were at peace with each other. American and Soviet diplomats were frequently good — if careful — friends with one another, and most famously, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev struck up a friendship in the mid-1980s. The fact that this was true and not particularly well-hidden led some to speculate as early as the 1970s that a complete rapprochement between the US and USSR was in the offing. They were right—in 1989, Gorbachev officially stated that the United States was no longer a strategic enemy of the Soviet Union, and the USSR backed the US up politically in The Gulf War—but unfortunately for these prognosticators, the Soviet Republics decided to declare independence from the USSR one by one, until the Russian SFSR, the largest SSR, did so, leaving the Soviet Union a mere scrap of paper.
• Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen, during the Sengoku Jidai in Japan, though it only happened once (if at all), and the rest of the time they only sent letters and exchanged valuable gifts while trying to outmaneuver one another in combat. At one time, Kenshin sent Shingen some much-needed salt (a valuable commodity in those days), expressing his chivalric opinion that "Wars are to be won with swords and spears, not with rice and salt." After Shingen's passing (which was mourned by Kenshin, who also refused to take the opportunity to attack, as his retainers urged him to) the two clans became allies against rising power Oda Nobunaga.
• Due to the rules of chivalry, this happened fairly often as a knight was obligated to treat captured opponents with respect and even provide food, entertainment and lodgings like a guest. It helped that the captured enemy was often ransomed and the "hospitality" was added to the bill.
• Though Saladin and Richard the Lionheart never met, it is told that they played correspondence chess via pigeons. While this story may or may not be true, it's telling about both of these men. War in general was not always particularly hostile and resembled a sport for the ones who didn't have to brave molten lead at the gates of an enemy city, and lords and generals on both sides of any conflict might as soon go hunting together as try to outsmart each other on the battlefield. Until the 19th century it was usually thought that war was just a part of diplomacy and politics.
• Attorneys. Knowing it isn't personal, knowing the enemy of today might be the teammate or even coworker of tomorrow means that many attorneys will argue against each other all day, and then go get a drink after work. Actively encouraged by codes of conduct requiring civility.
• The annual Congressional Baseball Game.
• Alain de Benoist, French Right Wing Philosopher and outspoken enemy of capitalism and neoliberalism, is at the same time a member of the Mont Pellerin Society, a club founded by Friedrich August von Hayek (among others) to spread neoliberalism and capitalism.
• After the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistain in August 2021, many members of the terrorist organization were seen playing on an amusement park alongside civilians and tourists, as well as going to work out at a gym.
• In 1926, musician Fats Waller was kidnapped in Chicago and taken to the Hawthorne Inn. AKA the headquarters of Al Capone. Waller was forced at gunpoint to play piano, but quickly realized that that he wasn't in any danger; It was Capone's birthday and he loved jazz music, so his men simply wanted to surprise him. The story goes that Waller and Capone partied together for three days, with Waller happily playing whatever he was asked, paid $100 dollars per song, and taken back to his hotel none the worse for wear.

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