Basic Trope: Subfaction leaves a larger group due to a disagreement, holding the similar ideas but different attitudes/methods, usually being more evil/malicious/radical.
- Straight: A splinter faction with more evil tendencies breaks away from their original group.
- Exaggerated:
- The splinter faction is so zealous and violent that even the fanatics they broke off from are horrified.
- Many splinter factions break off from the original group, each with varying methods and ideas, from good to downright atrocious, on how to accomplish the same goal.
- Downplayed:
- While the splinter faction has a different name and a change of leadership, there is actually little to no difference between the splinter and main groups' methods.
- The splinter "faction" is not officially separated from their original group, but everyone knows there's an internal clique of people who have often disagreed with their leadership about how to run the group.
- Justified:
- The splinter faction believes that the main group's methods are ineffective, and that extreme means are needed to achieve success.
- The splinter faction follows unorthodox beliefs that cannot be reconciled with the main group's orthodox beliefs.
- While not overtly against their main organization, the splinter faction has their own agenda that is different from the mainstream group.
- The main group has incompetent leadership, causing many members to start a splinter faction in the hopes of doing things better.
- The main group is rife with cutthroat interfactional politics and internal divides and it was inevitable that a splinter group would form sooner or later.
- Inverted:
- The splinter faction is nicer and more benevolent than their original group and broke away because they were too evil.
- A splinter faction leaving results in the main organization becoming more villainous to compensate for the loss of members.
- Subverted:
- The splinter faction isn't really going rogue - it's still secretly following orders from the main organization.
- The splinter faction is officially part of the main organization, but covertly conducts evil acts that are unauthorized by the main organization.
- The splinter faction breaks away for a short period of time, but then rejoins the main group when threatened by a common enemy.
- Double Subverted:
- They eventually allow the veneer of Plausible Deniability and "being the ones who do the hard choices" to get to their heads, though, and perform something too atrocious for the main organization to stand.
- The evil faction is exposed for its crimes, and is either kicked out by the main group or formally breaks away from the main group.
- In reality, the splinter faction is only going back to recruit more people and siphon more resources away from the main group, planning to break away again once the common enemy disappears.
- Parodied:
- The Renegades is a evil splinter group of the Provisional Renegades, which is a radical splinter of the People's Renegades, which itself is a extremist splinter of the National Renegades, which is a corrupt splinter of...
- The Renegades is a rogue branch of the Dairy Delivery Company. They're against milkmen using plastic jugs, going door to door replacing deliveries with glass jugs "as was originally intended!".
- The splinter faction still follows the main tenets of the main faction, they just disagree over comically minor details such as eating bread with the butter side down.
- Zig Zagged:
- The nature of faction is unclear because of contradictory information, plot twists, or vague nature of the group.
- The splinter faction breaks away from the main group, but then rejoins after long and tense negotiations with the main group that lead to many compromises. However, this upsets a significant part of the splinter faction which refuses the negotiations and breaks away from the splinter faction AND the main group, calling them both "traitors to the real cause".
- Averted:
- The reader expects the villain to be a renegade, since the trope has been used in the series before. However, this time the villain is taking official orders from his country, and not some fringe group.
- The main group manages to keep its members united and there are no splinter factions.
- Enforced: The writer is told by his publisher that they don't want the bad guys to be a real world group - could be bad for business. To comply, the writer creates a fictional radical faction that broke away from the real world group.
- Lampshaded:
- "So what made you decide to go renegade? You guys weren't allowed to eat your buttered toast butter side down?"
- "Hey, hold on. You aren't leaving us to make your own splinter faction, are you?"
- Invoked: Seeing divisions within an organization, Bob encourages the formation of a splinter faction to weaken the whole group by spreading rumors about how the main organization is failing them and insinuating that its members should turn against their leadership.
- Exploited:
- Realizing that there will be a schism, Bob uses the splinter faction as part of a plan to gain more power or influence within the main organization.
- A rival group turns the splinter faction against its original group by promising them that the rival group will install the splinter group as the leadership of the original group.
- Defied:
- Bob realizes the danger of a radicalized ideology brewing in a large group, and convinces people that the radical ideology would only weaken the whole group to prevent a schism from occurring.
- Bob discovers the subgroup's leaders are corrupt, and exposes them to the main faction before they go renegade.
- The main group figures out who is conspiring to make a splinter faction, and imprisons/executes them all to prevent it.
- Despite a splinter faction wanting to break away from the main group, they cannot acquire enough resources and members to pull it off.
- Discussed: "These guys are doing the complete opposite of what their group usually does. You think they're part of a splinter group or something?"
- Conversed: "You know, this new group is written as a dark perversion of this other group."
- Deconstructed: The splinter group's radical actions and methods cause international outrage against both them and the original group, ultimately leading to their overall cause losing support and dying out.
- Reconstructed: Although the splinter group is more radical than the original, their leaders begrudgingly work together to moderate their conduct to an extent, knowing that too much violence and death will result in backlash.
Back to Renegade Splinter Faction.
