Basic Trope: There are two sides. One is orderly whilst the other is chaotic.
- Straight: Alice maintains order and enforces laws. She clashes with Bob who despises order and has no qualms in sowing chaos.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is a ruthless Knight Templar who punishes citizens who shows the slightest act of disrespect towards the law because she thinks breaking a single law (even jaywalking) would cause disruption in society. Bob, on the other hand, is an unruly criminal whose sole purpose is to cause mayhem whether it would be by breaking down buildings or by painting the town red.
- It is an Evil Versus Evil war between a totalitarian dictatorship and a Wretched Hive.
- It is a Good Versus Good war between two utopian societies, one which is orderly and the other is rule-free.
- Downplayed: Alice is orderly while Bob is freedom-loving. While they may not outright hate each other, due to their lifestyles, they don't necessarily like each other.
- Justified: The morals of both sides are the exact opposite of the others, and the Golden Mean Fallacy doesn’t solve the problem.
- Inverted:
- While Alice is orderly and Bob is chaotic, this doesn't hinder their partnership so much as enhance it.
- Three Neutral factions are in conflict with each other.
- Subverted:
- Alice or Bob start their conflict along Order vs Chaos lines, but in practice one of them is more moral than the other.
- Alice and Bob start out in conflict, but soon find their lawful and chaotic tendencies complement each other and they end up cooperating instead of fighting.
- Double Subverted: ...but both characters claims that morality has nothing to do with order and chaos. Alice is concerned with law while Bob is concerned with freedom.
- Parodied: Alice is Lawful Stupid and clashes against Bob who is Chaotic Stupid.
- Zig Zagged: Either Alice or Bob have proven themselves to be chaotic or orderly characters from time to time.
- Averted: Orderly and chaotic characters are not in conflict.
- Enforced: "Good vs Evil is getting boring, let's create a new conflict in chaos versus order."
- Lampshaded:"I love it when everything in my room is in its place." "I love messing up my room and placing my stuff around randomly." "...We're not gonna get along well, are we?" "Probably not"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz plays up the differences between Alice, general of his regimented Legion of Doom, and Bob, his flamboyant and individualistic master assassin, using this trope, ensuring they will never unite and overthrow him.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: "I doubt this is a fight between good and evil. They have a point; our world is flawed. It's really just a battle between order and freedom, two things we all want, and we have to accept that.
- Conversed: ???
Back to Order Versus Chaos
