Neutral in Name Only

"You say you're unaligned, but you spend all your time with your Light Fae friends. You never really give the Dark a chance."

— Ryan Lambert, Lost Girl

In any protracted conflict, outside parties are inevitably going to get swept up in the mix, willingly or otherwise. Some may join the fight or take sides explicitly; others may see no benefit to either side winning and attempt to distance themselves as much as possible from it. Then there are these characters — while professing neutrality, they see their interests or values aligned more closely, to whatever extent, with one side as opposed to the other, and thus maintain a closer relationship with that side. Their relationship with the other side (or sides) may range from cold but cordial to all but open hostility. In some cases, the officially "unaligned" character may be useful as a diplomatic liaison in situations where communications between the two sides are strictly controlled.

These characters or organizations are likely to Default to Good (or Evil, as the case may be) and become Neutral No Longer when the line is finally drawn in the sand. It can also lead to a type of Neutrality Backlash where despite professed neutrality, the opposing side may view the "neutral" faction as fair game anyway. Often justified or at least explained by one side being objectively evil, or at least more so than the other, to avoid the trap of Stupid Neutral.

The motivations, interests, and goals of real people and organizations can be difficult to discern, even with extensive historical knowledge and scholarship after the fact. Therefore No Real Life Examples, Please!

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Gundam:
  • In the Universal Century, the Jupiter Fleet is supposed to be a neutral organisation that focuses on refining and transporting the precious Helium-3 isotopes needed to power the Minovsky reactors that make Mobile Suits viable. Its transport fleets are protected by treaty acknowledged by all sides of any given conflict, since the Jupiter Fleet has a total monopoly on Helium-3. That said, for whatever reason they seem to favor factions looking to impose totalitarian rule on the Earth Sphere, such as Titans, the Crossbone Vanguard and the Zanscare Empire.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Gjallarhorn are meant to be a neutral peacekeeping organization shared between Earth's four power blocs, but that doesn't stop some of the Seven Stars from meddling in the politics of those four governments in order to give themselves more power or sabotage their rivals. The climax of Season 1 involves a Gjallarhorn leader trying to use armed force to make an election go in the way of his preferred candidate.
• Izetta: The Last Witch: The nation of Westria, analogous to the real-life Switzerland, is technically a neutral nation in the ongoing war being waged by the Germanian Empire across Europe. However, it has a small number of Germanian troops deployed within its borders for unknown reasons, which turns out to be a problem for the protagonists and their allies when Germania sets its sights on Eylstadt. Throughout the series, the Germanian troops deployed here constantly try to prevent Eylstadt from trying to negotiate or even meet up with Allied diplomats and military officers there.
• My Hero Academia: During the Joint Training arc, the students of Class A and B are supervised by their teachers Aizawa and Kan while facing off against each other in a training exercise. However, despite the teachers being presumably neutral, when Kan takes it upon himself to commentate on the matches, he blatantly favors his own class. This prompts the Class A students to start protesting for fair commentary and eventually get their wish when another teacher, Kayama, steps in.

Comic Books

• Asterix: In Asterix in Switzerland, the neutral Helvetians' (modern-day Switzerland) idea of neutrality is beating up the Romans and then bandaging them (a Shout-Out to the Red Cross organization).
• Lazarus: When having to negotiate with the Bittner-Hock faction about where to have peace talks take place, Malcolm Carlyle instructs his "daughter" Forever to go through a long list of possible factions to host the talks. Each of these suggestions will be disqualified for one reason or another. Furthermore, Forever is instructed at the very end to reluctantly suggest the Armitage Family, who are supposedly neutral to both sides but is in fact in a secret alliance with the Carlyles. When peace talks fail and open war breaks out afterward, Armitage openly joins the Carlyles and spearheads their operations in Europe.
• Marvel Comics: Uatu the Watcher is a classic comic example of the trope, as despite his and his own race's mandate of only observing events and never interfering, he has done so time and again in direct support of the superheroes of Earth against cosmic threats. According the comics, Uatu has broken his pact of non-interference almost 400 times.
• The Transformers Megaseries:
  • In the backstory of The Transformers (IDW), it's revealed that Tyrest was a highly revered believer of law and order who unsuccessfully tried to broker a peace agreement between the Autobots and Decepticons. Despite this failure, he managed to at least convince both sides to sign the Tyrest Accord, which forbade sharing of Cybertronian technology with alien races. He was made Chief Justice for this, but despite his title implying he ought to be neutral he continued to identify himself as an Autobot until near the end of Autobot-Decepticon war, when he became truly neutral. Despite this, he was so scrupulous in his dealings that the Decepticons as well as alien races who otherwise despised the Transformers offered him tremendous respect. ^note  Sadly, his Incorruptible Pure Pureness was also his undoing: becoming aware that the Autobots had several war criminals in their midst but were keeping it quiet until the war was over in order to avoid crippling morale so went against his desire for truth and honesty it drove him insane.
  • Ultra Magnus, the Tyrest Accord's duly appointed enforcer, is an Autobot who regularly led operations against Decepticons. At least Tyrest isn't known to have taken part in any of the fighting, and his greatest known role in the war was (as mentioned) overseeing the court-martials of Autobot war criminals.
  • Similarly, Omega Supreme is described during the post-war period as being viewed as an ancient protector of Cybertron, long before the Autobots and Decepticons even existed as factions. In his first appearance he's shown to be hiding out on a personal asteroid and not an active participant in the Autobot-Decepticon war (though in a flashback he's shown to be one of the Transformers who attempted to stop Thunderwing). Despite this, he apparently acts as an advisor to Optimus Prime due to just how old he is and how much he knows. In Transformers: All Hail Megatron it's mentioned that the Decepticons sent an entire army to kill him during the Surge, but all this did was convince him to outright join the Autobots.
  • When the war ends and Megatron is put on trial, Optimus Prime assumes the role of Chief Justice for the duration. Megatron protests at the idea of his nemesis being the judge at his trial (since, after all, Optimus is the leader of the Autobots), but Optimus wins over most of the planet by being scrupulously neutral. When a group of Decepticons attack the trial in an attempt to rescue Megatron, Optimus even refuses to join in the defense because of his position as judge, until Ultra Magnus makes a formal request for the Chief Justice to assist in returning order to the court.

Fan Works

• Shadows over Meridian: When Phobos reigned, the town of Castwell's Peak publicly professed loyalty to him while secretly aiding any rebel who needed a hiding place in the north. After Phobos was overthrown, the town has been more openly supportive of Elyon's royal army and even sent volunteers to aid in the siege of Snowpoint.

Film — Animated

• Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians is a blatant example of the trope as despite refusing membership of the Guardians and acting on his own, he still strongly associates with them and actively chooses to fight against Pitch Black who offers him allegiance. Pitch himself lampshades the behavior.
  Pitch Black: You know, for a neutral party you spend an awful amount of time with those weirdos.

Film — Live-Action

• Star Wars:
  • A New Hope: Alderaan, in fact, counts as this in the Disney canon, as it's revealed the planetary governor is one of the founders of the Rebellion. This still doesn't excuse blowing up an entire planet for one man. Disney canon also takes out Alderaan being a planet of pacifists.
  • The Force Awakens: The New Republic is this during the early skirmishes between the Resistance and the First Order, nominally refusing to take action against the First Order but clandestinely providing funds to the Resistance, which is led by prominent former Republic members like Leia. However, the First Order has figured this out by the events of the movie and responds by deploying Starkiller Base against their capital system, destroying the Republic and leaving the Resistance on their own.

Literature

• Dune. Liet Kynes, the Imperial Planetologist of Arrakis, is supposed to be the impartial Judge of the Change controlling the changeover of rulership from the Harkonnen to the Atreides. He's actually been ordered by the Emperor to take the Harkonnens' side to facilitate the upcoming joint Harkonnen/Sardaukar attack. Later as he gets to know the Atreides and realizes that Paul Atreides may be the Fremen's predicted savior, he changes and begins supporting the Atreides.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: The judges at the Triwizard Tournament are the participating schools' headmasters, who are supposed to adjudicate the scores neutrally. Hogwarts' Albus Dumbledore and Beauxbatons' Olympe Maxime do so, but Durmstrang's Igor Karkaroff blatantly favors his own school's entrant Viktor Krum, to the annoyance of pretty much everyone else present.
• The CIGA (Congress for Intra-Galactic Accord) from The Helmsman Saga are officially an organization intended to prevent another war between the Galactic Empire and the League. In reality, they are largely League agents tasked with effectively dismantling the Empire's military.
• Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings is a Wild Card to the point that nobody wants to trust him with the ring. However, he clearly has nothing positive to say about Sauron and gets very chummy with the Hobbits, even aiding them.
• The Malloreon: Cyradis the Seer is supposed to be the neutral party who makes the final Choice between the Light and Dark Prophecies. However, she travels with the heroes, gives them valuable advice, and her fellow Seers of Kell provide direct aid. It's Justified to balance out how the agents of the Dark Prophecy cheat and try to sabotage the Choice at every opportunity.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, Houses Arryn and Martell are both neutral in the continent spanning War of Five Kings. However, both families have a stake in the conflict. The Arryns have blood and cultural ties to the Starks and Tullys, and many of House Arryn's vassals want to join the war on the side of the Starks; however, Lysa Tully, mother and regent of the underage Lord Robin Arryn, refuses to intervene despite even her sister Catelyn Stark's pleading. Meanwhile, House Martell has a grudge against the Lannisters, and thus the royal family, for the murder of Elia Martell and her children during the sack of King's Landing in the Backstory.
• In Star Wars Legends, Gray Jedi are Force-wielders that distance themselves from the Jedi and Sith Orders, with some relying on both sides of the Force. While this sounds all right on paper, it doesn't work so well in practice as The Dark Side is a corrupting force that grows throughout a person, subverting every emotion and thought they have. The precursors known as the Je'daii tried and failed miserably, forming the modern Jedi and Sith. As a consequence, every "Gray Jedi" is either a Light-sider that just thinks The Order needs to remove the stick up its ass (Jolee Bindo, Qui-Gon Jinn, Kyle Katarn, the Jensaarai, the Imperial Knights), or a future Dark Jedi (Darth Revan, Darth Traya, Darth Caedus).
• In the early parts of The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Albion is neutral in the wars of various countries against Germania, which basically translates to aiding Germania's enemies in deniable ways whenever possible. They drop the pretense and declare war openly after Operation Revolving Door.

Live-Action TV

• In How I Met Your Mother, the Slapbet Commissioner is supposed to be neutral in all rulings. However, Lily almost unanimously makes declarations for her husband, Marshall, and against The Friend Nobody Likes Barney.
• Bo of Lost Girl makes a big show of being "unaligned" in the Space Cold War between the Light and Dark Fae, but in practice she almost exclusively works with the Light, especially in earlier seasons. The page quote has one of the few sympathetic Dark Fae characters call her out on it. She's even arguably more useful to the Light this way, as she can be relied upon to pursue the Light's interests while being free to interact with the Dark should the need arise.
• Pennyworth: The US claims to be neutral in the governmental affair of Britain, but the CIA is shown to be very actively manipulating events including embedding undercover agents inside the factions that are vying for control of the government, headhunting promising scientists, and ordering the assassinations which eventually trigger a Civil War. Once the war is raging, the CIA refuses to intervene other than to make moves to discreetly establish friendly relations with the Raven Union which seems poised to win, going so far as to create a scandal that drives the very influential Prime Minister of the opposing English League to suicide.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • Exploited in "Dax". The Bajoran government acts as a neutral arbiter in the Klaestrons' attempt to extradite Jadzia Dax for a crime her previous host Curzon is accused of, and the judge who presides over the hearing does so impartially. Unofficially however, the Bajoran military at least is pretty blatantly on Jadzia's side: not only is she Kira Nerys's best friend, the Klaestrons are Cardassian allies and attempted to kidnap Jadzia from Deep Space 9, which is legally Bajoran "soil". Kira, a major in the Bajoran Militia, uses the potential diplomatic incident to force the Klaestrons to agree to the hearing despite the terms of the Klaestrons' treaty with the Federation. This in turn buys Odo, also a Bajoran Militia officer, the time he needs to find evidence exonerating Curzon.
    Kira: You Klaestrons are allies of the Cardassians. Your knowledge of this station confirms that. They must have given you the layout, which not only compromises Bajoran security, but also annoys us.
  • A major plot point in "In the Pale Moonlight". Officially, the Romulan Star Empire is staying out of the Dominion War. In practice, however, it's quite happy to let the Dominion cut through their space to ambush the Federation and the Klingons, the Romulans' traditional Arch Enemies. Ultimately, Sisko has to forge evidence that the Dominion is planning to backstab the Romulans to get them to join the war against the Dominion.
• A Running Gag around Connor in Succession. Although his power is limited (if even remotely existent), Connor will say that he doesn't take sides... but he's on someone's side (Shiv's in particular).

Stand-Up Comedy

• In the 1996 one-off comedy panel game Scotland vs England, in which Scottish comedian Gordon Kennedy and English comedian Nick Hancock debated which country was best, Dermot Morgan, as host and arbitrator, said that as an Irishman he was entirely neutral, before adding "Go on, the Celts!" Throughout the show he seemed reluctant and apologetic whenever he gave England a point. All Played for Laughs, of course.

Theatre

• Mercutio of Romeo and Juliet is neither a Montague nor a Capulet, and as such is able to move freely between both houses. Nevertheless, he is Romeo's best friend and thus has a stronger tie to the Montagues. This ends up getting him killed when he decides to duel Tybalt in Romeo's place.

Video Games

• In Disco Elysium, the Moralintern identify as humanist political centrists, when in reality they're aggressive neoliberals that violently suppress any dissent from their desired status quo. Insistence on expanding to new markets, a highly structured globalized economy, distaste for any ideology beyond their own, a club of wealthy countries that are the de-facto hegemons of the world, the list goes on. The one official you meet is a Windbag Politician whose almost every word is useless preaching about the importance of slow, incremental change, until he slips in something distinctly ominous.
• Dragon Age II: Hawke can, with the right dialogue option, accuse Grand Cleric Elthina of this in the growing tensions between the Circle of Magi and the Templar Order. Chantry law gives Templars legal power over mages and identifies the local Grand Cleric as their direct superior, yet Elthina is neither seen nor mentioned as doing anything about the Templars' increasingly public crimes. Hawke thus argues that remaining "neutral" vs openly siding with the Templars is a Distinction Without a Difference. Even the Templars' Knight-Captain accuses Elthina of being cruel to the mages by letting them think they have a chance of getting her own their side.
• Discussed in the Dragon Age: Inquisition DLC Trespasser. Ferelden accuses the Inquisition of this trope, maintaining official neutrality while being aligned with Orlais (making all the Inquisition's holdings in Ferelden effectively Orlesian outposts). This isn't really true, but given the Inquisition's role in determining the who rules Orlais, the Chantry's traditional interwovenness with the Orlesian crown, and the Divine (the leader of the Chantry, whoever it happens to be) having been a high-ranking officer of the Inquisition just two years prior — not to mention Orlais' 80-year occupation of Ferelden 40 years prior — it's not hard to see why Ferelden feels this way. Orlais, meanwhile, has the goal of turning the Inquisition into what Ferelden accuses it of being. In the end, the Inquisitor puts the matter to rest by either greatly reducing the size and scope of the Inquisition or disbanding it entirely.
• Downplayed in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, where Jarl Balgruuf, who rules the strategically important city of Whiterun, declares himself neutral and "on the side of Whiterun," supporting neither the Imperial regime nor the Stormcloak rebellion. However, his city's reliance on trade with the Imperials means that he privately leans much more toward them, and he ultimately chooses to support them openly when the Stormcloaks demand he make a choice.
• Fate Series: The Holy Church is supposed to be a neutral party to help maintain the rules of the Holy Grail War, but we never see them actually do that.
  • In Fate/Zero, Kotomine Kirei, who is the son of the current church overseer and a member of the Church, is a Master in the war. While that in itself falls under a loophole (the Grail chooses the Masters), his father assigns him to secretly assist Tohsaka Tokiomi, another Master. That is DEFINITELY against the rules. Then Kirei goes rogue and betrays Tokiomi after his father's death by a third party because they wanted him to fully leave the war due to pressure from Emiya Kiritsugu's faction and the fact he had lost his Servant, but Kirei by that point has decided that he is in it to win the Grail and decides to contract Tokiomi's own dissatisfied Servant, Gilgamesh.
  • In Fate/stay night, Kirei is now the overseer, and he is also a Master working for his personal gain. Which is again, illegal. This time, he went so far as to betray another competitor and took her Servant for himself while still having Gilgamesh running around.
  • In Fate/Apocrypha, the role of the Ruler Class Servant is to enforce the rules of the Great Holy Grail War as a neutral party. Said Ruler, Jeanne d'Arc, does her best to uphold this neutrality and only comes down fully on one side (the remnants of the Black Faction plus Sieg and the Red defectors Shishigou and Mordred) when it becomes clear the other side is planning on doing something with the Greater Grail that could literally shake the foundations of reality and have catastrophic effects. Said other side, the Red Faction ostensibly representing the Magus Association, has been completely co-opted by the assigned Church overseer, Amakusa Shirou Tokisada, who was also the previous Grail War's Ruler, and he was definitely gunning for the Grail then as he is now.
  • In Fate/type Redline, Tsukumo Fujiyama was invited to take part in the Imperial Holy Grail War on the Church's behalf. While this is a more benevolent example since they intentionally deployed Tsukumo as a spoiler for the war since the other factions after the Grail are much worse, there's nothing stating that the Church — or at least Tsukumo's contact with them — doesn't have their own designs.
  • Fate/Samurai Remnant doesn't involve the Church, for once... but the overseer Tsuchimikado Yasuhiro still turns out to be a Master out to get the Grail himself, on behalf of the Shogunate, no less. Because he and his Servant Caster are the ones who actually designed the Waxing Moon Ritual in the first place, he goes so far as to directly interfere with the leylines in Edo in order to cast a spell that will let him mind-control a good chunk of the Servants and set them to kill the rest. Meanwhile, the war's Ruler-class Servant is Gilgamesh, who doesn't favorably come down on any side... or rather, has pretty much blown off any interest in mediating the conflict in favor of being a shopkeeper at a textile shop while at best giving cryptic hints and tools to Iori and Saber to solve things instead. And at worst, he can straight-up decide to go for world conquest while offering Iori and Saber a place as his vassals.
  • While the current Einzbern homunculi don't count on account of being True Neutral to their core, the human Einzbern family that created the ritual did so purely to return the Third Magic (the Holy Grail in question) to their family. Yes, not even the original designers of the Holy Grail War were on the level, aiming to give the war's winner "only" Your Heart's Desire while the Einzbern family themselves would gain Reality Warper powers. Perhaps fortunately, this never came to pass.
• In Final Fantasy VI, Figaro is ostensibly neutral in any armed conflict involving the Gestahlian Empire, taking no action against them and not invoking the Empire's wrath. However, King Edgar is providing political support and it is heavily implied he is also providing money to the Returners, La Résistance to the Empire who are trying to take Emperor Gestahl down. Eventually, however, events result in Figaro becoming Neutral No Longer and siding full-time with the Returners.
• Knights of the Old Republic:
  • The ocean planet Manaan, home to the Selkath Fish People, is independent of both the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire and militantly enforces a Truce Zone in Ahto City, its only surface settlement. However, the storyline reveals that the Selkath government doesn't trust the Sith to respect their neutrality forever given dark Jedis' typical behavior, and therefore are secretly working with the Republic on a project to increase kolto production.
  • Jolee Bindo is considered a neutral Jedi by the game, with his character alignment being dead-center between light and dark, but not as much by the story. Jolee is neutral only in the sense that he does not affiliate with either the Jedi or the Sith; he's still a fundamentally good person (despite, or perhaps because of, his somewhat checkered background) and won't hesitate to put his life on the line to stop a Player Character who decides to go dark side. His philosophy is less "Both Sides Have a Point" and more "The Jedi are right, they just need to be less Lawful Stupid".
  • The sequel had Kreia, aka Darth Traya, who was essentially an Evil Counterpart to Jolee. Her character alignment was shown to be neutral as well, as she was exiled by the Jedi and betrayed by the Sith. However, she was very much aligned with The Dark Side as she spent the entirety of the game acting as an Evil Mentor to the Player Character, trying to mold them into a Manipulative Bastard like her.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II: After the start of the civil war, the party forms an organisation called Crimson Wings, and proclaims themselves to be a "third party", independent from both the Noble and Imperial sides. However, they side with the latter at every occasion and never oppose them. It helps that Noble Alliance is mostly composed of Hate Sinks, and all sympathetic members eventually defect. Eventually Deconstructed, after Imperial side wins the war and its leader, chancellor Osborne, who was presumably assassinated at the start of the war, reveals himself to be alive. He makes it look like Crimson Wings was backed by him, thus gaining even more political support, and rendering the party's efforts to create a viable "third party" moot.
• Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening: Zlonyth the Observer is a self-professed Middle Evocation, meaning he does not side with either the Inner Evocations, who are invading the human world, or the Outer Evocations, who have allied themselves with humanity and are trying to protect them. Despite this, it is eventually revealed that he has taken some actions in the background to help the Outers and their human allies. He is the one who opened the portal to the city of Daybreak, which had become a pocket dimension, to Alicia Copeland, allowing her to meet the Outers and recruit allies to their cause. He also revived Viola and Erick Vaughn when they are murdered by William so they can continue to help the heroes. By the time that the Outers are threatening the fabric of reality, he outright becomes Neutral No Longer and openly aids the heroes in traversing their headquarters and saving the universe.
• The goblins of the Steamwheedle Cartel in World of Warcraft are neutral in the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde, and their quests and hubs are available to both factions. However, Gazlowe, the leader of the Steamwheedle town of Ratchet, is much more closely aligned with the Horde. In Warcraft III, he designed the Horde's main city of Orgrimmar, and later the Horde commander's garrison in Warlords of Draenor. He even leads a Horde-aligned island expedition in Battle for Azeroth. Meanwhile, Ratchet offers few quests to Alliance players and they mostly use it as a convenient travel hub. In Patch 8.3 of Battle for Azeroth, after Gallywix disappears, Gazlowe finally drops the pretense and becomes Trade Prince of the Horde-aligned Bilgewater Cartel.

Web Original

• Jenny Nicholson: In "I read the terrible Episode IX pitch where Rey is a robot", one of the criticisms Jenny has against the treatment is how the "neutral" alien race very much sides with the heroes, to the point of joining together to fight the bad guys for their neutrality.
  Jenny: This is not neutral. This thing they're doing of joining forces with one side to fight the other side and also supporting them financially and harboring them against the other ones—none of this is neutral.

Western Animation

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Many leading figures of the Separatist Council claim that they and the corporations they run are neutral in the conflict between the Republic and CIS, though they show blatant favoritism for the latter by supplying them with soldiers, ships, weapons and other resources. All while using the thinly veiled excuse that their support of the Separatist cause is their personal choice and doesn't speak for the companies as a whole.
• Visionaries: Merklyn's sole desire is to restart the Age of Magic, and to do that he uses both the heroic Spectral Knights and the villainous Darkling Lords as his agents. In theory this makes him a neutral facilitator, willing to empower either side or both provided they perform tasks for him. In practice the Darkling Lords' treacherous nature coupled with the Spectral Knights being more willing to help out has caused him to heavily favor the good guys over the bad, even if he won't revoke his magical help from Darkling Lords.

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