Les Collaborateurs

"You may be my king, but he is my master."

"I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords."

— Ken Jennings on Jeopardy!, after the Watson A.I. won (paraphrasing Kent Brockman)

Living under the heel of a despotic Evil Overlord and his Empire is no picnic even for those blind to their tyranny. No surprise then that La Résistance does everything it can to make his reign difficult. Luckily, what La Résistance lacks in numbers it makes up for with loyal grassroots support from the oppressed people because The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified. No matter how good the tyrant's publicity, only the foolish believe him and all the people that matter help La Résistance.

Except, of course, for Les Collaborateurs. Why fight against an occupying power which empowers your people, promotes your worldview, is at least marginally more efficient at running your country than you are, was clearly strong enough to conquer your home in the first place, can't be ejected from your country now that said regime won that campaign, or can only be ejected at a price you're unwilling to pay? The French State cited all of these reasons, and more, when defending their decisions to give Nazi Germany a quarter of their GDP (including their entire armaments output) and most of their Jewish population^note First priority for Collaborateurs was to give Jewish refugees from other countries. Many French Jews survived, not because Collaborateurs spared them but because while some Résistants blew up trains, other organised escape roads for Jews. French anti-Jewish hatred was actually rooted in cultural, not racial, posturing. European Catholic immigrants to France tended to assimilate into "superior" French culture fairly well (France had significant ethnic minorities of Celts, Basques, Italians, and Germans). But Jews tended to retain their religion and at least a few cultural trappings, something profoundly upsetting to the notion that French Culture and French Values had a universal and irresistible appeal (a major reason for their distrust of US culture in turn, which made similar claims). The "Dreyfus Affair" and the railing against PM Léon Blum (head of the Socialist-Communist Parliamentary Coalition of 1936) were pretty clear illustrations of the open anti-Jewish feeling that predominated in early C20th France — though Blum's case is a little less clear-cut since he was a socialist in league with communists, which gave French people three reasons to hate his guts. during World War II.

Then there are the perks,^note such as the lucrative contracts offered to French automobile and aeroplane manufactures that resulted in them giving 92% and 100% of their 1941-44 output (respectively) to the Wehrmacht, which are of course your only reasons for collaborating in a work of fiction. Helping out can give you money, power, sex, and most important of all: revenge against all those pretty popular kids that just joined La Résistance! Les Collaborateurs can act as The Mole within the resistance, gathering intelligence, sabotaging efforts and spreading discord within The Alliance. They might be spies and saboteurs within unconquered areas to speed the attackers' advance. They might join the evil army or provide it with goods and services. (The line can get blurred in the latter case between "collaborator" and "doing your job so you don't starve just like before the war".) Or they can be "leaders" in occupied areas whose job is to "govern" their fellow people and keep them from rebelling too much. Les Collaborateurs are only too happy to sell out their countrymen like animals to the slaughter, even if signs point to the villain having a penchant for killing collaborators.

Usually they're unctuous Smug Snakes, low grade Magnificent Bastards, Evil Reactionaries, or even Trolls. And no, these guys will not end up Becoming the Mask or doing a Heel–Face Turn — they've tasted power and found it sweet. You can, however, expect them to think that their utter betrayal will somehow make a hero insanely attracted to them (Love Makes You Evil meets Go-Go Enslavement). Thankfully, the cosmic sense of justice ensures that all collaborators become Asshole Victims with particularly grisly Karmic Deaths, because Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil.

It is also important to distinguish this trope from Black Shirt. The Black Shirt will support the occupier for purely ideological reasons, and is likely to openly scoff at Les Collaborateurs, viewing them as nothing more than opportunistic poseurs. Meanwhile, Les Collaborateurs are motivated either by greed or a perceived lack of other options, and can be willing to turn against the occupiers if they sense the tide turning (and might even claim that they never actually supported them in the first place, even if this claim is Blatant Lies). The Black Shirt is willing to fight to the bitter end for his twisted creed.

If a member of Les Collaborateurs is given a position of power or influence over the conquered people, then he becomes The Quisling.

Compare The Remnant and Voluntary Vassal. This trope is the villainous opposite of La Résistance, and the government they collaborate with is The Empire. When they are on the battlefield (willingly or not), they are Battle Thralls. If collaborators work for a superhuman/inhuman power with the hope of being uplifted to the same status themselves, see Transhuman Treachery and Vampire Vannabe.

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Examples:

• Real Life

Anime & Manga

• Code Geass: A more sympathetic example than most, in that Suzaku Kururugi genuinely wants to improve the lot of his people who were enslaved by the government he joined.
• The Irregulars in Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally fit, mostly war orphans chosen against their will. They are Super Soldiers who are effectively enslaved by implanting DNA of C.C into their bodies.
• Jinto's father in Crest of the Stars was viewed as this after he surrendered to the Abh in exchange for making Jinto a first-generation Abh noble.
• In Endride, the Truculent is a group of five members of a race disadvantaged by King Delzaine's rule, but nonetheless on his payroll, whose job involves eliminating threats and undermining La Résistance. One of the team members is playing The Mole to La Résistance, but genuinely defects over time since La Résistance is actually fighting for their rights.
• Fullmetal Alchemist has Solf J. Kimblee, the Gold-toothed Doctor, and the entirety of Central Command. The Doctor in particular stands out, as he's perfectly aware Father's scheme will result in The End of the World as We Know It and simply doesn't care.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers: Just about any occupied nation shows signs of this, though they're not necessarily happy about it. But a few really stand out:
  • Germany's WWII occupation of Austria. After he finishes his rant, Austria just shrugs and says that he really doesn't mind.
  • Hungary seems to have no problems with basically being Austria's maid during the Chibitalia episodes. Though that said, it's mentioned that she's been defiant in that time as well as longing.
  • Ukraine's relationship with Russia. Combined with Yandere for Belarus/Russia.
  • Italy's attitude toward being captured/invaded in general is very nonchalant and he always says things like "I'll do anything!" and "I'll tell you everything!"
• Honoo no Alpen Rose: While France as a whole opposed Germany during World War II, Count Gourmant is amongst it's sub-set of Nazi collaborators. He wishes to involve Switzerland in the war [[spoiler: by assassinating General Henri Guisan, but luckily, is unusccessful.
• In My-Otome, Tomoe joins forces with Nagi when he conquers Windbloom and holds the students of Garderobe hostage, hoping to use her newfound powers and freedom to achieve her own personal goal of getting Shizuru to fall in love with her.
• One Piece:
  • in the Skypiea Arc, the White Berets agree to work for the usurper "God" Enel in the hopes that they could protect the people of Skypiea by doing so. This proves futile when Enel revealed that he had planned to destroy Skypiea and kill everyone before he set off to Fairy Vearth (Which is the Moon).
  • In her Tragic Backstory and leading up to the Arlong Park Arc, Nami agreed to join Arlong's crew so that she could buy the island back and prevent more deaths.

Comic Books

• 2000 AD:
  • Judge Dredd:
    • When the East Meggers invaded Mega City One during the Apocalypse War, some citizens rallied to their side. Dredd at one point executes a batch to make an example out of them.
    • During Necropolis, almost the entire Justice Department helped the Dark Judges and the Sisters of Death with the genocide they carried out in Mega City One. A fair number of the Judges were brainwashed by the Sisters, but most just went along out of fear. This became a very sore spot after the city was liberated and "brainwashing" became the accepted excuse to avoid having to execute more than half the Judges for treason and mass murder.
  • The Ten-Seconders: Many humans have become Followers of the "Gods" in the hopes of gaining more power or possibly become semi-superhuman themselves. When the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who created the Gods turn Malloy, a priest whose church was burned down by some of these Followers, into a God, his first act is to incinerate every Follower in the world.
• In Aquaman (1989), the jellyfish are aided in their conquest by Atlanteans who willingly work for them, acting as the 'face' of the occupation.
• Asterix: Various albums have Gauls or other conquered peoples allying themselves with the Romans:
  • Asterix and the Banquet, twice Asterix and Obelix are betrayed by a Gaul working for the Romans; Unpatriotix and Uptotrix.
  • Asterix and the Big Fight introduces the Gallo-Romans, who accepted the Pax Romana and tried to adapt to the ways of their invaders. The main threat is a strong Gallo-Roman chieftain named Cassius Ceramix, whom the Romans enlist to beat Vitalstatistix in a duel and thus claim control over the village of the indominable Gauls.
  • Played with in Asterix in Corsica: Salamix, the only Corsican in the Roman legion, ends up heavily involved in the Big Bad's schemes due to his status. The problem is, Salamix didn't willingly betray the Corsicans so much as he got a Tap on the Head that left him... not quite all there, and his ditzy behavior ends up torpedoing the plan instead. (He later gets "fixed" by a punch to the face and immediately defects from the Romans.)
  • Asterix and the Picts, the Maccabees tribe, led by Maccabaeus, ally themselves with the Romans.
• Fables has a story involving Icabod Crane and Cinderella, who're both secretly collaborators for the Adversary. Except Cinderella is actually a mole for Bigby Wolf, sent to ferret out Crane's treachery. When caught, Crane tries ineffectively to claim that he was also pretending to collaborate in order to ferret out traitors. It doesn't work. Trusty John from the same series is another example, although he was forced to do so by his oath to his master, now a vassal for the Adversary. After death he becomes a faithful servant to Flycatcher, however, in contrast to Shere Khan and Bluebeard, who try to sell out Haven to the Adversary.
• Guardians of the Galaxy:
  • Warlord Drang spared Vance Astro during the Badoon takeover because he wanted Vance to join them willingly. Vance made it clear what Drang could do with his offer.
  • Michael Korvac, meanwhile, did join the Badoon willingly, because he hated mankind that much. Until they sliced off his legs and stuck him to a computer bank after passing out from exhaustion, at which point he turned on the Badoon as well.
• Discussed in Maus: Vladek reveals that a small number of Jewish friends and relatives, including one who saved him and Anja but not Anja's parents for money, worked with the Nazis in Poland. He asserts, however, that the one who helped him had some standards and killed a Jewish man that ratted out Vlad in the first place. Vlad himself was made to transport the dead though it sickened him.
• Spirou & Fantasio: "Le Groom vert-de-gris" explored the trope more than your usual story. Sure they are criminals like Real Life Violette Morris who was more than happy to sell info to Nazis and lives in former Jewish house but even Spirou is considered a sympathizer simply for being a groom at the hotel that the Nazis took as headquarters. The comic shows the Traumatic Haircut done by the "good guys" to anyone who slept with the "boches" and some members of the resistance even debate if they should kill Hergé because his comic was published by a journal that also published Nazi propaganda^note the publisher fell under control of the Germans and though they left the Tintin's strips intact, it was kind of awkward for resistance's troops who liked the stories but on the next page it was about how the Wehrmacht is winning. Collaborators became an easy label for anyone who doesn't suffer more than you and paranoia tore up relationship (in the comic Fantasio distrusts Spirou after he saw him using his status as colonel's favorite groom to make Gestapo's officers back off) because anyone can end up talking.

Comic Strips

• Terry and the Pirates featured several Chinese who were only too happy to collaborate with the Japanese invaders; most notably Warlord Klang.

Fan Works

• In Aeon Entelechy Evangelion there are Migou "cultists", sleeper agents who truly believe that Migou are the good guys in the Aeon War (which is true, from a certain point of view).
• All He Ever Wanted has Hungary and Liechtenstein as a mix of this and Sex Slaves to Nazi Prussia, which is especially questionable because this happens after Prussia brutally rapes both of them (and in addition, tortures Hungary while forcing Austria to witness how he does so). It's supposed to be a Batman Gambit from them, to manipulate Prussia to their own benefit and then bring his downfall. The Unfortunate Implications remain, as the whole deal is regarded as very Out of Character for the three of them: in canon Hungary is shameless about watching nude men and teases her close friend Ukraine about putting on a Stripperiffic dress once but is kinda prudish about HER own body in recent times, Liechtenstein suffered a lot in and after World War I but there are no hints of her ever being through sexual violence, and not only Prussia isn't some crazy Nazi in canon but character-wise he's a Chivalrous Pervert who would never rape anyone to start with..
• A Young Girl's Guerrilla War:
  • Many Japanese seek favor with the new Britannian administration as Honorary Britannians, hoping to either gain more comfortable livelihoods, protect their families, or to gain better social standing in the world they live in. Those like Suzaku who join for service in the Britannian army are admitted into the Honorary Legions.
  • The Six Houses of Kyoto are a group of major Japanese industrialists who willingly aligned themselves (and the entire Kyoto prefecture) with the Britannian colonial authority after their country’s defeat and are considered among the greatest traitors in Japanese history. Whether their loyalty to the new regime is earnest however is another story.
• The Conversion Bureau: the ponification serum was developed with the help of human scientists. In addition, depending on which story you're reading, the world's leaders have zero interest in stopping them. And then there's the PER (Ponification for Earth's Rebirth), who, while not official collaborators, have forsaken their humanity and will ponify any humans that haven't converted yet. Sometimes by force.
• Equestrylvania:
  • Dirt Nap sells his soul to Dracula's minions, out of petty anger at Ponyville's residents and a crush on Actrise.
  • Rose Blade's company of Royal Guards defect to Dracula's forces, believing that they've already won and this is the only to survive.
• The Immortal Game: All the pony nobles and soldiers who swear loyalty to Titan, Terra, and Empyrean after they take the throne from Celestia. However, it's worth noting that outside of General Esteem and his inner circle (who sought power), it appears that many only did so out of fear and the belief that the Loyalists had no chance to win.
• In Past Continuous, the inhabitants of a Bajoran Militia station are called collaborators by ultra-nationalist Bajoran protesters for working with (or in Captain Kanril Eleya's case, being in) Starfleet.
• Queen of Shadows:
  • The Shadowkhan Empire uses a network of human collaborators to help enforce its rule in its territories. At best, they're treated with derision by the Shadowkhan, as a distasteful but necessary tool.
  • Shendu likewise has an entire court of willing human servants.
• Sun & Moon: Ascending Star presents the so-called sham court: ponies that recognized Discord as the rightful King of Equestria in exchange for marginally better living conditions. Seeking his favor, they send spies throughout the population in an attempt to find the leaders of La Résistance.
• In Winter War, when Seireitei is surrendered to Aizen's forces and he puts Gin in charge of the city to get rid of him, some of the Gotei 13 and the nobility go along with it. This doesn't include any of the captains or lieutenants, but there are enough shinigami left for Gin to set himself up as "soutaichou".
• Worldwar: War of Equals: When the governments of the world announce the approach of the Race's Conquest Fleet, many UFO and doomsday cults spring up and attack military facilities in order to pave the way for their "alien masters". They all end up in jail.
  • When the Race occupy Ciudad Juarez, the civilians of the city welcome them as liberators from the drug cartels.
  • Not too long after the invasion starts, the government of Lesotho surrenders to the Race... despite being thousands of kilometers from any of the fighting. This results in South Africa invading and occupying the country in order to deny the Race a landing site, and arresting all of its leaders for treason.

Films — Live-Action

• Theron, the Ephors and Ephialtes are Greeks who help the Persians in Frank Miller's 300. Ephialtes is the only real life example.
• Allied: Max Vatan's wife, Marianne Beauséjou, is accused of working for the Germans, having assumed the real (dead) Marianne's identity to infiltrate Free France and SOE operations and the German ambassador she and Max assassinated in Casablanca was a dissident Hitler wanted executed anyway. Turns out it's all true. At another point, Max and several French resistance fighters deal with a Vichy police officer in Dieppe who alerts the German garrison when he gets the chance.
• The Ascent (1977) is about two soldiers from a Soviet partisan unit fighting the Germans during World War II. They are eventually captured and interrogated by a ruthless Russian collaborator at German HQ. The more idealistic soldier dies nobly while his more cowardly comrade joins the Germans and becomes a collaborator himself.
• Paul Verhoeven's Black Book centers around a woman who is asked by the resistance to sleep with various high-ranking Germans in order to spy on them and plant bugs in their offices. After the war, she is set upon, humiliated and nearly killed by a mob.
• In the Blade Trilogy, humans who know about vampires but choose to serve them against their own kind are called "familiars". They are easily identified by their glyph tattoos.
• Captive State: It's stated a vast majority of politicians around the world - from local levels to global government - have capitulated. The majority of Resistance targets are implied to be these as well.
• Captain Renault in Casablanca is a rare example of a redeemed Collaborateur. While neutral towards the Nazis, Rick, and the occupation in general, he takes up his forgotten patriotism and helps Victor Lazlo escape Casablanca and Rick escape arrest, going so far as to throw away a bottle of Vichy water towards the movie's end. As part of the setup near the beginning of the movie, the police shoot a fleeing suspect (with expired ID who just happened to be a Free France supporter) dead beneath a poster bearing the visage of Pétain and the words "Je tiens mes promesses, même celles des autres." ("I keep my promises, even other people's.") Anvilicious? Take That!? Yes and yes.
• In Closely Watched Trains, a Czech film set in World War II during the Nazi occupation, the administrator in charge of the railway is a Nazi collaborator who lectures the workers at the station about doing their part for Germany.
• C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America:
  • It's a slave, Ol' Popsy, that suggests to Jefferson Davis that he suggest to the annexed Northerners that they could own their own slaves in order to assimilate to Confederate life.
  • When the slave trade is revived during the Great Depression, it's done with the collaboration of African heads of state. African-Canadian historian Patricia Johnson expresses some very Tranquil Fury when they're brought up.
• In Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., Susan and Wyler meet two women living near the mine who do work for the Daleks. The women take them into their home, but betray them to the Daleks in exchange for extra food.
• Defiance: Some Belarusians collaborate with the Germans and are eventually murdered by the partisans. Also, the Real Life Bielskis served in the Soviet administration of occupied Poland, which has made their positive portrayal controversial to many Poles.
• The Forgotten Battle has a rather tragic example in Marinus, who starts out fighting alongside the Germans on the Eastern Front in World War II, presumably having volunteered out of misplaced anti-communist idealism. He becomes increasingly disaffected with them as the film goes on, but by then he has extreme difficulty in getting away; for him, eventually, Redemption Equals Death. Another Dutch character is seen as a collaborator by other Dutch people because he is prepared to work with the Germans, but is actually an idealistic doctor who is struggling with a moral determination to provide treatment to anyone who needs it.
• Escape from Sobibór: Deconstructed with the Kapos; Kapo Berliner provides the most straight example. Others though are good men who help their fellow prisoners, with the privileges which they use for aiding the escape. At least the rest don't stand in its way.
• In Hangmen Also Die!, Czaka says the following when questioned by his handler Inspector Gruber why he collaborates with the Nazi occupiers of Czechoslovakia:
  Czaka: Because as a real Czech patriot I realize our entire future depends on unconditional collaboration with Greater Germany.
  Inspector Gruber: And I thought you did it for business reasons, for certain favours, for certain very profitable military contracts.
• Head in the Clouds: Gilda is wrongly accused of collaborting with the Germans as she dates them. She's actually gaining intelligence for the British and French through doing so.
• In Hotel Rwanda, one of Paul's hotel employees is a virulent Hutu partisan who tells the militia about the location of the Tutsi refugees.
• Chairman Liu Yen-Mao from Hong Kong 1941, a wealthy local tycoon who turncoats to the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese war, who serves as recruiter sending a hundred civilains to South-East Asia's notorious Death Railway without any shred of remorse. Liu also doubles as a Torture Technician in charge of interrogating suspected resistance agents or captured escapees, with his favourite method being shoving lit-firecrackers butt-first into prisoners' ears.
• Subverted in Ip Man, where policeman-turned-Japanese interpreter Li Zhao is shown as a sympathetic character just trying to survive and attempts to help the titular character by taking advantage of the Japanese inability to understand Chinese. Ultimately he shoots the Smug Snake Colonel Sato, delivering that character's Karmic Death, but is still subject to the Inferred Holocaust. There's also "Fatty" in the sequel to the British, but it turns out he was The Mole trying to get information against them.
• Subverted in It Happened Here (1966), set in an alternative 1944 Britain conquered by the Nazis. Its entire theme is how ordinary people are drawn into collaborating with fascism. Highly controversial at the time for upsetting popular World War II mythology.
• The one Briton helping the Saxons invade post-Roman Britain in King Arthur (2004). He hides in a tree to avoid dying in the final battle, and gets sniped with an arrow from a mile away.
• Lacombe, Lucien is about a teenaged boy who joins the French Gestapo in 1944, purely out of boredom.
• Mr. Yee in Lust, Caution: He's a high-ranking member of the pro-Japanese Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China.
• The French World War II comedy Gramps Is in the Resistance:
  • The poster guy for it in the film is Adolfo Ramirez (Gérard Jugnot), the concierge-turned-collaborator policeman of the French Gestapo. He's everybody's Butt-Monkey, Germans, French, collaborators or resistants alike.
  • The movie features another collaborator, a smarmy bureaucrat played by Jean Yanne, who pontificates to the protagonists about how the Nazis aren't that bad and everybody's better off collaborating. He's then taken hostage by an escaped British pilot and promptly pleads that he was Just Following Orders before being offed.
• In Red Dawn, a couple of out-of-town and would-be members of the Wolverines decide to become North Korean collaborators purely out of spite against the Wolverines because they didn't like the war-experienced Iraqi veteran telling them how to handle a gun. They get killed without a second thought in the Wolverine's first major operation.
• Ryan's Daughter: The climax of which involves the titular character wrongly, as it turns out having her head shaved for tipping off the British about the weapons drop.
• Soldier of Orange: Alex joins the Waffen-SS when his other friends join the Dutch resistance. He later dies in combat on the Russian front.
• The Sorrow and the Pity is a documentary about life in Vichy France during the years of occupation. It dwells on all sorts: the apathetic middle (most everyone), La Résistance, and the collaborators. An anti-Semitic French aristocrat who fought with the Waffen SS is interviewed at length.
• Gu-gang from The Thunderbolt Fist, a Shaw Brothers kung-fu film set during the Sino-Japanese war, willingly sells out his fellow townspeople, helps the Japanese have resistance members captured and executed, is responsible for the film's hero being tortured to near death, and is even rewarded greatly by the Japanese invaders.
• In They Live!, the wealthy elite of society are secretly cooperating with a race of aliens that are slowly taking over everything, effecting a widening financial gap between the poor and wealthy, and are implied to be terraforming the entire planet to fit their native climate. Among them is a former friend of Nada and Frank from the camp. It's all part of the film's political commentary.
• In Tsogt Taij, Mongolian prince Khush Khan is only too willing to ally himself with the invading Chinese and Tibetans. When his daughter Khulan finds out about this, she not only denounces him, but puts on armor and fights in the army of her father's enemy, loyal Mongolian lord Tsogt Taij.
• Uranus (1990) is set right after World War II in a French town that was just fred from German occupation. A Witch Hunt for collabos is happening. A character named Maxime Loin is obviously one of them. Some characters would have him face justice; Archambaud hides him, possibly while waiting for justice to be less zealed. An other character named Monglat is a wealthy man who probably did some shady business with the Germans.
• War for the Planet of the Apes has the "Donkeys," apes who were captured by the humans and are kept alive to be used beasts of burden and as enforcers in the prison camp where Caesar and the rest of their troupe is held.
• The World's End: The Collaborators (or "the shifty twins", as they're referred to outside the credits) are two of the four later three residents of Newton Haven to not have been replaced by Blanks. They're rather annoyed when The Network leaves Earth for good.

Literature

• The Alice Network: Played straight with René Bordelon, whose restaurant caters almost entirely to Germans and who is nothing but evil and money-motivated. Eve points out, however, that:
  There are collaborators in this city one can p-pity — women who sleep with officers so they can feed their families; men who work for the Germans so they can keep their children warm. But René Bordelon is nothing but a profiteer. He’s almost as bad as the Huns.
• In Robert Silverberg's The Alien Years, a computer geek works for invading aliens because it gets him laid.
• Marena in Bambi plays with this trope, frequently expressing longing to live in harmony with humanity, though never at the expense of the other animals. Naturally, she pairs up with the no-longer-afraid-of-humans Gobo when he comes back, and is soon broken by watching his killing first-hand.
• In Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series, being what the omnicidal machines call "goodlife" is universally treated as a capital crime. For good reason.
• The Beginning After the End: Several of the noble houses of Dicathen are revealed to have thrown in their lot with the Vritra and the Alacryans around the time of the War Arc. Thanks to their spy network, the Alacryans have sown the seeds of dissent among the populace of Dicathen in preparation for their conquest, with the Dwarven Kingdom of Darv being the most affected as a majority of its noble houses - including its royal family - having become willing pawns. Several corrupt human houses are also willing to collaborate with the enemy, such as the Wykes, Clarells, Dreyls, Ravenpors, and Flamesworths, as Arthur finds out when he returns to retake Xyrus.
  Arthur Leywin: "This war won't be over when the last Alacryan leaves these shores. We have too many enemies who were born here and call themselves Dicathians."
• Judas in The Bible betrays Jesus to the Romans.
• In Timothy Zahn's Blackcollar, The planetary governments of the defeated Terran Democratic Empire willingly cooperate with their alien occupants, the Ryqril. In fact, they actively celebrate the Victory Day, that is the day the TDE officially surrendered to the Ryqril.
• The King-Men in The Book of Mormon ended up staging a coup and outing the chief-judge out of the land. However, they weren't counting on the lead general coming back and forcing them to fight the Lamanites.
• Codex Alera:
  • After the Narashan Canim invade the Amaranth Vale and have been fighting against the First Aleran Legion (led by Tavi) for two years, they've taken enough losses that it's started to become a serious issue. To compensate for this, the Canim leader Nasaug has started a Slave Liberation in the Vale, freeing Aleran slaves and helping them form into their own "Free Aleran Legion" to fight for their own freedom alongside the Canim as opposed to their enslavement/execution under their fellow Alerans. Considering how abominable the Aleran practice of slavery is shown to be throughout the whole series, the Free Alerans are portrayed in a very sympathetic light, and are even pardoned by the very end of Captain's Fury and recognized as their own official Legion.
  • Both Lady Aquitaine Invidia and Kalarus Brencis Minoris ally with the Awakened Vord Queen and aid the Vord in their conquest of Alera. Invidia is doing so because the Vord Queen has given her a form of biological life support and that she's been promised the chance to rule over the Childless Dystopia of surrendering Alerans the Vord will set up if they succeed. Brencis Minoris, meanwhile, has crossed the Despair Event Horizon (the Vord have given him the best opportunity he has left to live the high life before the world ends) and also been fitted with a discipline collar by Invidia (though, to be clear, Brencis is enough of a cowardly Jerkass that he probably would've sided with the Vord anyway). Unlike the Free Alerans above, both are portrayed in a definitely unsympathetic light and eventually end the story as Asshole Victims.
• The Crimson Shadow: The merchants of Montfort seem to collaborate with the Avonite occupation, as does Duke Morkney, who is apparently from there too.
• In Doom, the governments of the world surrender to the aliens and assist them with the conquest of Earth. Fly and Arlene call their commander to report in and the resistance base in Salt Lake City is attacked. They learn the hard way that the US is helping the aliens because most of the enemy forces are human.
• Jeff VanderMeer's Finch features a rare case of a Le Collaborateur as a protagonist, working as a detective for the Graycaps that have taken over the city-state. He really hates his job, though, and tries to aid his fellow humans whenever he can with his authority.
• Free Flight by Douglas Termen is set in an Invaded States of America, but the main antagonist is Peace Division officer McKennon, with the occupying Warsaw Pact soldiers just as Bit Characters. The protagonist is also partnered with a man who used to work for the Peace Division, now on the run himself.
• Every day over the course of a year in Götz and Meyer, concentration camp inmates are loaded into a truck that will supposedly be taken to a better camp. A few select inmates bury the resultant corpses, and are told that for their collaboration they will really be released to a better camp. Guess how that goes.
• Harry Potter
  • The Inquisitorial Squad that collaborates with Umbridge's authoritarian autocracy over Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
  • There are also many examples of witches and wizards under Voldemort's ministry that supported the regime, without actually agreeing with its ideology in Deathly Hallows. Umbridge is an example, though delights in her role persecuting Muggle-borns.
• In Ken Follett's World War II novel Jackdaws, Nazi officer Dieter Frank's French mistress Stephanie works with him to bring down a French resistance circuit, and is loyal to him since he saved her from a death camp. In the end she gets a bullet in her head from a member of the Resistance.
• The Lord of the Rings
  • Lotho Sackville-Baggins. By the time Frodo and company leave the Shire, Lotho's been in Saruman's pocket for years, and when the wizard shows up in the Shire, Lotho jumps at the chance to become his enforcer and figurehead. However, Frodo mourns his Karmic Death and insists the other heroes do the same, since he was still a hobbit.
  • Other hobbits count as well, among them a number of shirriffs (the local "police force"). Added to this, one other nominal example is given, Ted Sandyman, the miller of Hobbiton. They seem to have been acquitted in silence after the scouring.
  • Gríma Wormtounge also collaborates with Saruman in Rohan.
• In A Man For All Seasons, the Duke of Norfolk swears an oath affirming the Act of Succession but openly admits that he neither knows nor cares whether anything he swore was true or not. He is merely swearing it to go along with everybody else, and avoid getting into trouble.
• In Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night the American protagonist is asked to become a collaborator for the Nazis by an American agent to pass information to America. The book is about what being a collaborator does to his soul (and life), even though he knows he is doing it for a good cause.
• New Jedi Order:
  • The Peace Brigade was a paramilitary group that collaborated with the Yuuzhan Vong invaders by disrupting planetary governments, capturing ranking officials, and turning over Jedi prisoners to the invasion force in the hopes of convincing them to stop their conquest at the planets they already had. Ironically, in the Vong language the phrase for peace was indistinguishable in meaning from the phrase for submission and despite the Brigade trying to be seen as equals many of them ended up enslaved but the majority kept fighting for them anyway. By the end of the war The Republic prosecuted as many as they could find for treason and war crimes, which was still a far kinder fate than anything the Vong would have had in store.
  • The Hutts (because of course they frigging would) collaborated with the Vong as well in an attempt to save their own skins, offering one of their own planets as a staging ground for an attack against the New Republic in exchange for early notice of which worlds they'd invade so they could avoid them. The Vong decimated them anyway after the Republic obtained the list and the Vong assumed they had betrayed them.
• Citizens/Adepts Tan and Purple (among others) support the Hectare invasion in Phaze Doubt.
• The Reynard Cycle: Mosca is a Southerner who seems to willingly be serving the Calvarian general Drauglir in The Baron of Maleperduys. He's treated fairly well by his boss, even though he still calls him a "southern dog." A large number of these also turn up when Drauglir offers a hundred thousand gold coins for Reynard's head. One of them is Tybalt.
• The Three-Body Problem: The Earth-Trisolaris Organization is a terrorist group that believes humanity cannot manage its own affairs and deserves to be conquered by Trisolaris. There are two major factions in the ETO: the Redemptionists, who want to set up a Vichy Earth scenario where the Trisolarans rule over a human utopia, and the Adventists, who believe that humanity is wretched beyond repair and should be exterminated.
• In The Tomorrow Series, Major Harvey.
• Under Alien Stars: With the conquest of Earth by the Tsorians, plenty of humans become collaborators. Of special note is Jason Sykes's own mother, who is the assistant to the Tsorian's military commander. This particularly rankles Jason as he wants to join the Resistors like his father before him. Ultimately this is subverted when it turns out Mrs. Sykes is actually The Mole for a resistance cell, though Jason has to have that all but spelled out to him by her annoyed teammates.
• The renegades in The War Against the Chtorr, cult followers that worship and help the Chtorran invaders. Their numbers increase as the infestation grows in strength — it's not known whether this is the result of an unknown form of brainwashing or simply a psychological/practical response to the overwhelming Alien Invasion.
• Happens all over Earth in the Alternate History World War series by Harry Turtledove, especially when the Alien Invaders actually turn out to be less brutal overlords than the Axis powers or the Soviets. Notably the Polish Jews balance helping the Lizards keep the Nazis out of Poland and aiding the German military in some ways (since this helps keep some of Earth free from alien occupation). In contrast, the aliens try to convince black American soldiers to fight for them against the US Army, but most of the soldiers surrender instead.
• In World War Z, many humans snapped from the stress of the Zombie Apocalypse and began to act like zombies. The survivors called them "Quislings" after the head of the Nazi collaborationist government of Norway. It didn't fool the real zombies, however.

Live-Action TV

• On The 100 Lincoln is viewed as one of these by other Grounders, having betrayed them to help the Sky People who had invaded their territory. It takes a while to convince other Grounders that the Sky People aren't actually trying to conquer them, even if some of their actions are thoughtlessly destructive.
• Secret Army's far more well known parody 'Allo 'Allo! featured a small Story Arc where General Von Klinkenhoffen decided to give René a "collaboration medal" after he unwittingly helped the General. People started vandalizing his cafe; his allies, La Résistance, threatened to shoot him if he accepted and of course, the Nazis threatened to do the same if he refused. Luckily for Rene, the General changed his mind about giving him the medal.
• Alta Mar: A major part of the season 1 plot involves Carolina and Eva trying to figure out which of their family members were collaborators with the Nazis.
• One episode of The Americans sees Phillip and Elizabeth travel to Massachusetts to track down and eliminate a Russian immigrant who aided the Nazis during World War II, but are conflicted about the assignment after learning that the woman was far from a willing participant. They carry out the hit anyway, but afterwards, Elizabeth suggests that maybe it's time for them to get out of the business.
• Andor: While most of the residents on Ferrix begrudgingly put up with Imperial occupation the locals do not like the Empire with several casually working for the resistance and the entire community banding together for mild anti-Imperial activities. Nurchi works with the Imperials out of greed, helping turn in subversives and hunt down Cassian despite the rest of the community banding together in support of the Andors.
• Babylon 5.
  • The Nightwatch serves to inform the Clarke government about potential threats to its rule, at least some of them knowing what they were serving.
  • Also that political officer lady assigned to Captain Sheridan in one episode. She knew the Clarke administration was evil, but she still served it. She even showed just how much her skewed value system affects her judgment when she clumsily tries to seduce Sheridan ''and is honestly surprised when he's not even remotely interested in a totally naked woman offering herself completely to him.
  • A more ambiguous version is Na'Far, the new Narn ambassador under the second Centauri occupation. Their situation is desperate and the terms of their surrender are unbelievably harsh, so he may have a point about preserving as many Narn lives as possible instead of provoking their occupiers with an armed resistance, like the one G'Kar has been organising. In the end, it's still not clear if he's a genuine quisling, or if he's just as desperate as G'Kar to save their people and just happens to disagree with him about the best way to do it.
• Band of Brothers: When entering a newly liberated Dutch town, Easy Company get to witness a group of women collaborators be punished with a Traumatic Haircut and explusion. The resistance fighter tell them the women got off easy, male collaborators were shot.
• This was a major plot point in the third season of Battlestar Galactica, where a number of humans volunteer as security officers to enforce Cylon rule over the human survivors. Gaius Baltar becomes the Cylons' Quisling, though he literally has a gun to his head.
• In Colony, Los Angeles has been invaded and occupied by a mysterious party. Naturally, there are collaborators - some, like Proxy Alan Snyder, are sincere in their devotion to the invaders, while others, like protagonist William Bowman, are only going along with it in order to survive.
• The Chosen: Matthew was viewed as one of these by the rest of the Jewish population because he worked for the Romans as a tax collector. Even his own parents disowned him, and he was still viewed as a Category Traitor even by some of his fellow disciples after joining Jesus.
• Doctor Who:
  • A surprisingly sympathetic portrayal is shown in "Day of the Daleks" where a future Earth has been taken over by Daleks but essentially run by collaborating humans who make things harsh and difficult to please the Daleks (and themselves) but nowhere near as dangerous as if the Daleks where running things directly.
  • In "The Invasion of Time, Gallifrey is invaded by the Vardans and the Sontarans. There's a slimy Time Lord who co-operates with both invaders and with the Doctor, who is pretending to be a collaborator himself.
  • The revived series introduced a race called the Tivolians who are so used to being conquered they've completely given up on resisting and now willingly comply with anyone who tries to invade their planet. Apparently their planetary anthem is titled "Glory To <Insert Name Here>" just to save time when someone new takes over. The Doctor has little sympathy for them because they're such Dirty Cowards who let others die to save their own hides.
• Dominion has the Black Acolytes, the Cult that still worships Gabriel and the other angels, apparently having deluded themselves into believing that they'll be spared when the rest of humanity is wiped out.
• A French Village: The French government officials collaborate, mostly not out of any sympathy for the Germans, but to protect their people. Businessmen like Raymond also work with the Germans, though again not from sympathy and he tries to help Jewish businessman Crémieux whose company is being seized. Others however like those from the Vichy regime are enthusiastic collaborators in many cases. Sarah though tells Daniel that honest, good people such as him who collaborate aid others who aren't, since the evil ones couldn't do it without their help. He's visibly shaken by her statement.
• In the Law & Order episode "Night and Fog," the wife in an elderly Jewish couple apparently kills herself through overdose. Further digging on the husband reveals that he was part of the Nazis' brutal ghetto police unit back in the old country. The dishonor is great enough for him to kill to keep it hidden.
• De Nieuwe Orde is a documentary series that has this as its main subject.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "The Deprogrammers", Evan and Jill Cooper are horrified to discover that Professor Trent Davis and the other apparent Vindicators are in fact in the service of a Torkor named Megwan.
  • Played with in "The Camp". The prisoners believe that the overseers are humans who are collaborating with the New Masters. In fact, they are androids who have run the camp for its entire twelve generation existence. When Prisoner 98843 begins working with the Commandant, the other inmates shun her as they regard her as a collaborator. However, she proves her loyalty when she tells them of the overseers' android status and that they are severely weakened due to having gone decades without repairs. She then urges them to fight back, which leads to a successful slave revolt.
  • In "Starcrossed", Alexandra Nevsky collaborates with the Hing, assisting High Centurion Sulat Ray in his search for Cass Trenton and Winston Meyerburg, but eventually has a change of heart and decides to join the NATO resistance.
• People of Earth has Officer Glimmer, a cop in Beacon who helps cover up the aliens' activity in exchange for cash to pay off his gambling debts.
• In Quantico, Dayana Mampasi, a dedicated human-rights lawyer, might seem like an odd choice for a CIA recruit, until you learn that her parents were collaborators with Robert Mugabe's regime, and it's implied that she herself was trained in how to torture people.
• Secret Army centers around a Belgian café frequented by German officers, which acts as a front for smuggling allied airmen out of the country - until it is trashed by a mob incensed at their "collaboration".
• Sliders: In "Asylum", Margaret Thatcher collaborated with the Kromaggs when they invaded her Earth. She agreed to give them access to the oil reserves in the North Sea in exchange for leaving the United Kingdom alone. After the end of the Kromagg War, collaborators (such as Grace Venable, whose real name is Helen Donovan) came to be known as "Thatchers."
• A Small Light: The Dutch NSB are a major source of danger for the main characters in the series, as they were in real life.
• SS-GB: The main character, plus the rest of the Metropolitan Police Service and the British puppet government, work with the German occupiers.
• Stargate Atlantis: The Wraith regularly wipe out inhabited worlds to feed on the humans. Nevertheless, they also have a few thousand human followers who worship them and are mostly used for infiltration purposes. They're converted by getting fed on repeatedly only to have their lives restored to them. The experience is so traumatic and addictive that they become mindlessly loyal to their Wraith masters. Every other Pegasus human understandably despises them for their treachery.
• Many of the plots of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine deal with real or perceived collaborators with the Cardassian, and later Dominion occupation, including Kira's mother and (arguably) Odo.
  • Just don't imply that Odo was a collaborator in front of Kira. It won't go over well. In fact, Odo is a very ambiguous example of this trope. On the one hand, he did enforce Cardassian law, which was designed to be oppressive and unjust. On the other hand, he did his job without the brutality expected from Cardassian security, and he was such an honest law enforcer, the Cardassians considered him to be a security risk.
  • After the Dominion takes control of the Deep Space Nine, Kira remains on the station as the representative of Bajor. At first her intention is to maintain the neutrality of her home planet, but after a while she discovers the tragic irony of her slowly slipping into becoming herself what she always despised - a collaborator. Fortunately, as soon as Kira figures that out, she snaps back to her badass self and leads the resistance as quietly as she can to get the Dominion gone from Bajor.
  • Although, the Federation isn't occupying Bajor or in any way its enemy — it's only that loyalty to her friends and to what's right sometimes conflict with her loyalty to her people. Some of her fellow Bajorans are just a little quick on the Category Traitor trigger.
  • Once it becomes clear that the Dominion's "alliance" with Cardassia is conquest in all but name, Puppet King Damar renounces his allegiance to them and leads Cardassian patriots in open rebellion; the Dominion quickly finds replacements for Damar to command the remaining loyal Cardassian forces. However, when the entire Cardassian military turns on them, the Female Changeling has had enough and orders the extermination of every Cardassian, including the Quislings.
• The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Allegiance" portrays Mizarians as a Planet of Hats, with the hat being "collaborator". Picard mentions they have a long history of being conquered because they don't resist aggressors, and it's one of the clues that helps him reason out why he, a Mizarian, and two others have been imprisoned. They're being studied because of their very different relationships to the concept of authority.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles recently introduced the concept of the "Grays", humans working with Skynet deliberately. What does Skynet want with humans? To understand things like emotion...
• V (1983):
  • Donovan's mother Eleanor is a collaborator of the foulest variety; a self serving opportunist (who intentionally resembles Nancy Reagan) who has neatly deluded herself that she won't be on the next Visitor menu the moment she exhausts her usefulness. She sells out the Visitors the instant it seems the Resistance is winning. She still wasn't willing to shoot her own son when she caught him during one of his missions, as Donovan himself pointed out ("Even you're not that cold, Mother"). She just fired in the air, and then tore her dress to make it look like she'd fended him off.
  • Daniel Bernstein, an unpopular teenager who finds power by joining the Visitor youth corps; he becomes a despicable bully, betrays members of the Resistance to the Visitors, and personally kills one of them, an old woman who used to be his neighbor. The Resistance retaliates by framing him for their abduction of a Visitor officer; he's dragged off to become food for the Visitors. Karma's a bitch.
• Van Helsing:
  • In exchange for being left alone, Micah and his followers at Eden signed a treaty with the vampire Magdalene, promising her a regular supply of blood. Unbeknownst to the others, Magdalene was Micah's wife, and he was also slipping her the occasional newborn, who she gave to Julius as a delicacy.
  • Numerous humans also serve the vampires in return for being left alive. They can generally be identified by red bands around their arms. Dr. Sholomenko is one prominent example, working with the vampires to find a way for them to procreate naturally.
• War and Peace (2007): Unlike in the book, Prince Vassily and his daughter Helene outright aid the occupying French forces.

Professional Wrestling

• Comandante Pierroth had previous led the tecnico luchadors of CMLL against El Legión de Puerto Rico but then he suddenly disappeared from lucha libre for about a year, then returned to CMLL leading El Comando Caribeño and claiming to be Puerto Rican.
• Black Boy in WWC changed his name to Dominican Boy and joined with La Revolución Domincana, Los Compadres and The Broncos. He did this because he hated Puerto Ricans, including himself since he was also Puerto Rican.
• On Monday Night Raw, Rob Conway was confusingly referred to as a "French Sympathizer" when he joined La Résistance and even more confusingly, a "Quebec Sympathizer" when La Résistance suddenly became French Canadian.
• Candice LeRae is Canadian but joined Christina Von Eerie's "Team USA" in Smash against LuFisto's Team Canada because Courtney Rush was in the latter group. However, when Rush did not show up, LeRae wanted out but was not allowed. At the 2014 event, Cherry Bomb joined USA against Courtney Rush.

Radio

• Journey into Space:
  • In The Red Planet, the flying doctor is one of the few humans on Mars who does not believe that he is still living a perfectly normal life on Earth. He willingly participates in the Martian plan to invade Earth in 1986.
  • In The World in Peril, the Lunar Controller has been collaborating with the Martians since his abduction several years earlier.

Roleplay

• In The Gamer's Alliance, Martin Struan chooses to betray his Maar Sulais countrymen and work for the invading Yamatians in order to get the throne of Maar Sul for himself.

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech's Clan society classically works like this. If you're Clan and get conquered or claimed as spoils of war, it's considered the honorable thing to do to transfer your loyalty to your new Clan now. This is one of the things that gave the Clans some trouble during their invasion of the Inner Sphere, whose inhabitants felt rather different about the issue at times and might end up "disgracing" themselves by staging uprisings after their conquerors had declared their worlds pacified and moved on to their next targets leaving only a garrison force behind.
• Changeling: The Lost features both Loyalists and Privateers. Loyalists are changeling who are still in service to the Gentry, either because they were released from Arcadia with conditions or because they're so bent that they see nothing wrong with working with primordial eldritch entities. The Privateers try to abduct mortals or escaped changelings and sell them to the Gentry for fun and profit.
• Mage: The Awakening has the Seers of the Throne, the Ancient Conspiracy that follows the Exarchs, the ascended mages who broke reality in the first place and want to break it more so that magic will be their domain and theirs alone. Some of the Seers view the denial of Supernal magic as a righteous thing, akin to keeping a toddler from playing with C4... but many of them admit they're in it for the benefits that come with being part of an overreaching mystical conspiracy.
• Siren: The Drowning: has the Current of Lethe, those Sirens who ally themselves with humanity. They see their less philanthropic kin as little more than animals, to the point of being willing to eat them for the life-extending properties of their flesh.
• Warhammer 40,000: The T'au are pretty much the only faction who'll give the others a chance to work with them under their "Greater Good" policy, which clashes with the Imperium's "The galaxy must be ruled by Mankind" policy. However, there are a few humans who do join the T'au for a variety of reasons, known as gue'vasa, and are equipped with T'au equipment and weapons. The Imperium generally considers them as vile as Chaos, and as a result every loyalist human army gets bonuses when fighting them.

Video Games

• Brigid Tenenbaum of BioShock got her start in science from the Nazi camps that she was a prisoner of.
• Commando 2 have Chinese traitors in the first two levels, set in Japan-occupied China in the 1940s (respectively in the Northern outskirts and Shanghai). They're the guys in black coats armed with pistols, often seen leading lower-level Japanese troops around; according to the backstory they used to be members of the resistance but have since defected to the other side.
• In the Nod campaign of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, GDI soldier Jake McNeil (brother of commander Michael McNeil, the GDI player character) doesn't need much prompting to defect to Nod after his capture; all they had to do was parade a pretty woman in front of him, make a baseless claim that the Brotherhood is only interested in peace, and point out that his older brother has a higher position in the military than him.
• In Cyberpunk 2077, after the DataKrash disaster nearly destroyed the Internet in the early 2020s, multiple A.I.s being developed by the United States military were freed and mutated into autonomous and hostile entities. In response, the British policing organization known as Netwatch developed another AI known as the Blackwall to quarantine them as they constantly probe it for weaknesses. On the rare occasions the "rogue" A.I.s do break out they wreak havoc on the real world for reasons only discernable to themselves. The Voodoo Boys gang of netrunners believe a Robot War is inevitable, and actively try to make contact with the A.I.s on the other side of the Blackwall and help them break through in an attempt to join the "winning side".
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the dragons ruled the world thousands of years ago. Some humans resisted and fought the dragons, while others served the dragons. Some even worshipped the dragons, hence the Dragon Priests.
  • The Cyrodillic Imperial authorities are considered collaborators with the Aldmeri Dominion that had invaded Cyrodil prior to the events of Skyrim by the Stormcloak Rebels, having signed a harsh treaty after barely averting total defeat in a catastrophic war with the Aldmeri Dominion. Many Imperials view the treaty as a pragmatic if unpleasant alternative to a continued war that the Empire had no hope of winning, while many in Skyrim whose deeply-established worship of Talos was banned by the treaty, as well as having a long history of mutual hate between Nords and Elves, viewed it as a cowardly sign of submission and collaboration towards the elven invaders.
• In Final Fantasy XII Vossler subverts this. He seems to be on the party's side before helping Ghis capture them. It's revealed he is still loyal to Ashe, but believes that the only way to protect Dalmasca is to surrender to Archades.
  • FFXII generally takes a complex and thoughtful view of this trope. Ordinary citizens of Dalmasca want to be free of the Archadian Empire, but understandably most don't want another war two years after a devastating conquest. Vaan and Penelo's employer/father-figure Migelo takes pride in his shop being chosen to supply an Imperial feast, at the same time that he has no love for the Empire. Bhujerba is technically free, but is only allowed to remain so by supplying the Empire with magicite from their mines, and Marquis Ondore plays a dangerous double game by funding La Résistance in private while publicly bowing to the Empire. It helps that Imperial citizens aren't depicted as Always Chaotic Evil.
• Dr. Breen from Half-Life 2 was the first human to attempt to negotiate for peace during the Combine invasion of Earth, also known as The Seven Hour War, and was awarded the title of grand overseer of Earth on behalf of the Combine for his efforts.
  • The Civil Protection Officers from the same game are humans that have decided to become the Combine's occupational/peace-keeping force in return for more rations and better treatment. The Overwatch and other Combine soldiers are similar; although it's implied that they are given their 'augmentations' unwillingly, and forced/reeducated to fight the Resistance, they are promised sexual simulations in return for success in these endeavours.
  • Judith Mossman is either a redeemed Collaborateur or a double-agent of La Résistance.
• The Legend of Tian-ding is set in Japan-occupied Taiwan in the 1900s, with more than one of the villains being Taiwanese collaborators working for Japan. The first boss, "Piggy" Wang, is a Fat Bastard who runs a counterfeiting business for the Japanese while stomping on the peasants, and there's another local tycoon collaborating with the villains you need to steal an artifact from in a mission halfway through. As well as an All Your Base Are Belong to Us stage where La Résistance's hideout gets raided by Japanese soldiers, thanks to the resistance leader turning out to be a mole.
• Mass Effect:
  • The series has the rogue Spectre, Saren, who willingly chose to ally himself with, The Reapers, a race of ancient machines who aim to kill all advanced life in the galaxy, as he believed that those who served them would be spared. It's confirmed later in the game that Saren had been Brainwashed by the Reapers, and was even forcibly turned into a Cyborg to quash any rebellious thoughts. If you have enough persuasion points as either Paragon or Renegade, you can convince him to redeem himself by committing suicide before the Reapers can use him to bring about the apocalypse. Although his body still ends up being possessed by them to act as a Final Boss.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda
    • A portion of the salarian Ark's leadership sells their ship and crew out to the kett, figuring that it was better to give up and study the kett methodology from the inside rather than try and fight them. Problem is, doing so would've left them in no fit state to actually pass on that information.
    • Ryder encounters one angara who sells out his species' most beloved figure to the kett. A later off-hand comment by angaran teammate Jaal suggests collaborators are not unheard of, but don't last long if found out by the angaran resistance.
• Medal of Honor: The second game, Underground, has the Milice as an enemy - French military police who chose to support the Germans. They appear as early as the first three levels, before being replaced quickly by German soldiers and then returning late near the end of the game.
• Mother 3: Initially, Fassad is portrayed as a Les Collaborateurs human working with the seemingly alien Pigmask Army. Much later down the story it's revealed that the Pigmasks are just humans working for Porky and Fassad is actually a renegade Magypsy.
• My Child Lebensborn addresses this trope when in comes to local women who were in relationships with soldiers from Nazi Germany when they were occupying Norway. One of the journal entries says that some of the women probably actually were acting as spies and/or in the relationship for material gain, but that many of the relationships were simply Love Across Battlelines.
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: Nimdok, who worked side by side with Mengele during WWII, is later revealed to have been Jewish himself. The only reason he was allowed to stay with the regime is because he he sold his parents out.
• Despot and the other "Planet" Admins collaborated with GameSpy in The Nameless Mod.
• Subverted by Sylvia Christel in No More Heroes III. At first, it looks like she's been assisting Damon Riccitello and FU when the latter's army starts to subjugate the Earth with relative ease, but she deliberately had the UAA organize the Galactic Superhero Rankings because she knows that Travis Touchdown is experienced with killing assassins and therefore would be the Earth's last hope by participating in them.
• Shantae: Risky's Revenge: After getting the second Magic Seal, the grey-ish clothed person at the top of Scuttle Town's middle layer talks about immediately capitulating to the next conquerer's side:
  When Risky Boots returns to rule over us, I'm planning to switch sides. Hey. It's survival.
• Shin Megami Tensei: YHVH transformed all of The Old Gods into demons (complete with retroactive smear campaign), demanding that humans worship only him. Some were spared this and - funny thing! - these tend to play for the Law side.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic has the Corellian Government, whose members decided to willingly hand over their entire planet to the Sith Empire.
• The Goombas in Super Mario Bros. are former citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom who chose to side with Bowser when he first invaded. There are still good Goombas living in the Mushroom Kingdom, though.
• Izebel in Tears to Tiara 2 is an interesting sympathetic case. She was ordered to become one by her ruler, the man she loves just before he kills himself, in order to shield the realm from the worst excesses of The Empire.
• Terra Invicta: In two flavours. The Servants are a weird New Age alien-worshipping Cult who want to facilitate the ongoing invasion of Earth and help it succeed because they believe the aliens are going to be the saviours of humanity. The Protectorate are a global conspiracy of bureaucrats and politicians who want to avoid a potentially unwinnable war with an interstellar species, and enforce mankind's dignified surrender to prevent its likely extinction. In a spectacular case of Irony, the same crippling terms that the aliens offer and the Protectorate submit to without hesitation or question, the Servants deem too insulting to humanity and they successfully negotiate for better ones.
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus makes it quite clear how some Americans will shamelessly cosy up to the Nazi occupiers if they can see something in it for themselves. In Roswell, you have a memorable scene where a woman flirts with a Nazi officer who praises her zeal until she makes a misguided comment about the "impure Austrians" at which point the officer points out how both Adolf Hitler and the officer's own grandmother are Austrians and informs her that she'll be reported to his superiors and will be punished if she steps out of line again. Later on, you find out how B.J's father Rip Blazkowicz sold out his business associates and his own wife to the "new government" because they offered him new farmland. Like the Roswell woman, he gets his just desserts.
• XCOM:
  • X-COM: Apocalypse has the Cult of Sirius, who worship the extradimensional alien invaders and do whatever they can to sabotage X-COM.
  • XCOM Enemy Within: Subverted by the Nebulous Evil Organisation EXALT. While the Council initially theorized that they were this trope, they were worse than traitors trying to preemptively cozy up to the new regime; they were traitorous vultures trying to become the new regime themselves. EXALT was a transhumanist cult seeking to use alien technology and DNA to Take Over the World, but did nothing to stop the better-equipped aliens' efforts to do so themselves and actively hindered XCOM's efforts to preserve humanity.
  • In the Alternate Timeline of XCOM 2, XCOM was defeated a few months into XCOM: Enemy Unknown with the aliens creating a Vichy Earth in the aftermath. In the interquel novel Resurrection, Bradford explains that they didn't fail but after Earth surrendered The Omniscient Council of Vagueness sold them out because they feared that their resistance would lead to the aliens deciding to Kill All Humans if they pulled an I Surrender, Suckers. They were rewarded with high-ranking positions in ADVENT's regime, which XCOM's Mysterious Informant takes advantage of to act as The Mole for La Résistance.
• Xenonauts 2: The Cleaners are introduced as Expies of XCOM: Enemy Unknown's EXALT, and their networks must similarly be picked apart.

Web Comics

• DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything: Che-Hyun has a similar gaming mindset to X and becomes his assistant near the end, who spares him from the final culling, though still proven to be a Bad Boss. Che-Hyun gives up on the Final Die since he's pretty comfortable as-is and doesn't like fighting.
• The Andromedan baryonic allies of the Pa'anuri in Schlock Mercenary, who aid the latter in their attempt to eradicate all life from the known universe despite presumably being on their shortlist eventually. Lacking a species name, they get dubbed "quislings" by the protagonists.
• Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid: Yunhwa and Uihyeon are children of Korean families who are collaborating with the occupying Japanese military, which is why they were able to retain their money and status.

Western Animation

• In Avatar: The Last Airbender: the Dai Li, a group of Secret Police Earthbenders, willingly betray the Earth Kingdom to serve Princess Azula and the Fire Nation.
  • The comic Katara and the Pirates Silver later shows that some ordinary Earth Kingdom soldiers defected and willingly collaborated with the Fire Nation. Katara and Jiang wear Earth Army uniforms and pretend to be collaborators in order to get their ship past a Fire Nation blockade.
• Henna from Barbie: Mariposa betrays Flutterfield by getting the Skeezites on her side and letting them kill everyone they want if it means taking the Queen's place.
• In Elena of Avalor, Chancellor Esteban has been in service of Shuriki for forty-one years ever since she staged a coup against the royal family with his help, despite Esteban being the maternal cousin of the royal princesses. Esteban has since regretted that decision and attempts to make up for it by being the Affably Evil Token Good Teammate in Shuriki's reign, although he still has no choice but to uphold her draconian laws to avoid worse outcomes. What the public thinks of him isn't shown (and no one besides Shuriki, Victor, and Carla knows that Esteban helped the coup), although an offhand comment by Señora de Alva might suggest that there's still stigma around him being a Karma Houdini collaborator even after he committed a Heel–Face Turn to bring about Elena's reign.
  • Shuriki's head of staff, Armando, who is her other second-in-command, is genuinely a Nice Guy and also a Token Good Teammate and just seems to be there for the job only to immediately Heel–Face Turn upon Elena's return. When his family debuts later on in the show, no comment is made on him having worked for Shuriki.
  • Duke Cristobal, Elena's cousin, is revealed to be a collaborator with Shuriki, having been bribed with gold for his loyalty. When Elena returns, he kisses foot to avoid suspicion and gladly reveals his Face–Heel Turn once Shuriki shows up to kill her.
• Amanda Connor, the ex-wife of La Résistance leader Sean Napier in Exo Squad, collaborated with the Neosapien propaganda machine, believing that would bring peace between Neosapiens and Terrans. Frankly, she was wrong.
  • Also the Mayor of Phaeton City, formerly known as Chicago.
• In Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time, Bonnie Rockwaller becomes an instructor in one of Shego's re-education centers.
• In Rick and Morty, after the Galactic Federation turned the planet into a Vichy Earth, Jerry Smith blindly defends their occupation and Government Drug Enforcement solely because they gave him a job when nobody else would. It's unclear what his position exactly was, but he's given frequent promotions possibly as a reward for Rick giving him the credit for his capture. Ironically the promotions didn't even matter since under the Federation humans were paid in basic resources rather than actual currency, so all they really amounted to was stroking his ego. Some fans theorize that his open support of their oppressive government contributed to his perpetual unemployment following its collapse, as he's being Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves by potential employers.
• A Robot Chicken sketch revealed that most Hollywood celebrities are actually disguised lizard people infiltrating and manipulating human civilization. Except for Mel Gibson, who is not a lizard, but really, really wants to be one.
• The Simpsons:
  • Kent Brockman most famously welcomed the prospect of giant ants taking over Earth.
  • Mr. Burns in one episode compared himself to Oscar Schindler, saying that they were both factory owners and they both made shells for the Nazis, the only difference being that his shells worked. Other episodes imply further ties to the Nazis, including having SS membership and once "accidentally" preventing Abe from assassinating Hitler.
• ThunderCats:
  • Thunderian General Grune readily turns his coat at Sorcerous Overlord Mumm-Ra's offer of power, and promise to destroy Thundera, but does so because circumstances denied Grune the resources he needed to orchestrate a miltary coup, and become The Usurper of Thundera himself. Grune becomes The Dragon of Mumm-Ra's forces, and exploits his status as a prodigal treasure hunter to re-enter Thundera with a Trojan Horse full of Mumm-Ra's troops, bolstering The Siege on the city.
  • As seen in the page image, Pumyra is revealed to be The Mole to Mumm-Ra, having thrown in her lot with him after having been left for dead by her allies.

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