"Dark gods gain power from causing evil and lose power from causing good, even if it's unintentional. Using that dead abomination to improve lives, thwart evil, and create great works permanently weakens it, and with it the Underworld!"
She blinked. There was a giant, glaring problem with that explanation. "Shouldn't all the misery and suffering created by the Underworld empower it even more, then?"
Unperturbed, the Duke smiled. "Yes, but, fortunately, evil is self-defeating." He chuckled. "To be more precise, the other dark gods ruin everything. As usual. Only the last god involved reaps the spoils."
She blinked. There was a giant, glaring problem with that explanation. "Shouldn't all the misery and suffering created by the Underworld empower it even more, then?"
Unperturbed, the Duke smiled. "Yes, but, fortunately, evil is self-defeating." He chuckled. "To be more precise, the other dark gods ruin everything. As usual. Only the last god involved reaps the spoils."
One of the differences between heroes and villains is their willingness to work together. While heroes aren't immune to fighting among themselves, it's usually due to misunderstandings or being manipulated by the bad guys. By contrast, evil is naturally more prone to infighting without any outside impetus. The primary reason for this is that while good people are usually concerned with the well-being and greater good of others, evil is much more prone to selfishness and greed, which leads to villains being more willing to betray each other or refuse to work together even if cooperation would be more beneficial in the long run.
This trope typically manifests in one of two ways. In stories in which there are multiple good and evil factions, the good factions will be shown as more willing to form long-lasting alliances and partnerships, while evil factions will regularly fight among each other and only occasionally perform temporary alliances that will end when one group backstabs the other or they have no reason to cooperate — and indeed, the betrayal is often acknowledged to be inevitable. In stories where good and evil are all under one umbrella, the good side will be mostly loyal to one another to the point of dying for one another, while the forces of evil will be full of schemers who will gladly betray and abandon one another when for their own gain. Some works may even combine the two variations, with good groups being shown as less prone to infighting than evil ones.
While the above are the most common manifestations of the trope, there are other ways it could show up; one example is a group of good guys who will gladly work together versus a group of villains who would turn on each other if it weren't for fear of reprisal from their superiors. Another is that Evil Overlords tend to be abusive, exploitative and, above all else, ungrateful of their evil minions' loyalty, often leading to a Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal or some other form of betrayal. When it comes to differing ideals and beliefs, the heroes are generally more open-minded when it comes to cooperating with people who don't agree with them, while the villains are more dogmatic in their beliefs.
Needless to say, this trope is often the reason why more powerful villains tend to lose to weaker heroes, as the former's infighting leads them to being much less effective than they could be, while the latter's comradery allows their side to consistently match and surpass the more divided villains. If the heroes have to deal with multiple villain factions, then the only reasons why the heroes don't lose is because the villains hate each other too much to work together and because the villains fighting of each other plus the heroes leads to their resources and forces being stretched thin. It also might be invoked by a clever hero; for that, see Set a Mook to Kill a Mook and Divide and Conquer.
See also Evil Versus Evil, Eviler than Thou, Even Evil Has Standards, Evil Versus Oblivion, Stupid Evil and No Honor Among Thieves. Compare We ARE Struggling Together. Evil Cannot Comprehend Good naturally leads to this trope, since loyalty and honor will be met with zero regard and Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves. Could be a reason why Being Evil Sucks and why Evil Will Fail. Villains who are The Social Darwinist might actively promote division in their ranks in order to weed out weakness; this, incidentally, is what contributed to the Fascist, but Inefficient reality of Hitler's Germany. See also Enemy Civil War, which can be triggered either from villainous ambition or betrayal, or when the A Lighter Shade of Black elements of an enemy group go to war with the darker ones. Contrast Evil Is One Big, Happy Family, where villains with disparate goals are still willing to work together, Good Versus Good, when heroes are the ones at eachothers' throats, and Who Needs Enemies?, where two people fighting on the same side against the Big Bad are morally at odds with one another and hate eachother.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: The Demon Slayer Corps, despite their members' differing backgrounds and/or ideologies, are fully capable of working together to bring down whatever demons cause trouble for humanity. The demons meanwhile are almost incapable of working together, save for a select few, which is due to Muzan Kibutsuji's paranoia that it would lead to his own minions rising up against him. Like his many other personality flaws, it comes back to bite him in the ass in the final battle when the remaining Kizuki refuse to aid each other even when it would give them a bigger advantage against their foes.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: One of the many, many reasons why the Principality of Zeon fell to the Earth Federation: despite having the early advantage of completely wrecking their space forces with their new Mobile Suits and easily capturing most of the planet, many of them are glory hounds who would wreck everything just to one-up someone. Conversely, the crew of the White Base might be a Ragtag Band of Misfits in over their heads since most of them were originally just civilians and many of them bicker at each other (especially if it's Kai Shiden), they become something of a Found Family that even the Federation trusts to keep Zeon occupied while they get ready to fight back.
- Sailor Moon: The Sailors may bicker over petty matters like shopping, dates, and who is the better leader, but in the end they truly love each other. The villains, from the Dark Kingdom, Black Moon Clan, Witches 5, and so on, are quick to betray each other for personal gain, until by the end only one remains. The finale of the first arc exemplifies this, in which the Sailors' love for each other is so strong that even after death their spirits are able to overpower Queen Beryl, who is all alone after killing her lieutenants.
- Transformers:
- Transformers Victory: Downplayed example. While the Autobots are united under Star Saber in his role as commander of the Pan Galactic Peace Alliance, the Decepticons are shown to have split into two major forces: one led by Overlord and made up of surviving villains from that series, and the main one led by Deathsaurus. Leozack is The Starscream, quietly plotting to gain enough power to overthrow his boss. However, Deathsaurus is completely aware of this. He simply ignores it because so long as Leozack actually does his job, he doesn't really care. He also doesn't think Leozack has the intelligence, skill and experience to actually be a threat. When the series begins the final arc, Deathsaurus attacks Leozack and warns him that he can no longer tolerate his plotting, as things are becoming so serious that he would rather kill Leozack (and lose the power of Liokaiser) than risk betrayal at a critical moment. Leozack complies. note
- Beast Wars II: While the Maximals are mostly made up of childish idiots (most prominently Diver and Tasmania Kid), they at least know to shut their mouths and do their jobs properly when Lio Convoy begins issuing orders. Conversely, the Predacons spend much of the series backstabbing and undermining each other.
- Starscream and BB (later Hellscream and Max-B) plot to undermine Megastorm to take his place as Galvatron's second in command. Starscream even goes so far as to try to bluntly report to Galvatron that Megastorm attempted to assassinate him while he was in a coma.
- Thrust and Dirge (later Thrustor and Dirgegun) try to take Starscream and BB's place as the premier air assault unit.
- Megastorm (later Gigastorm) realises he likes being in charge and tries to assassinate and replace his older brother Galvatron. Unusually, Galvatron turns a blind eye to Megastorm/ Gigastorm's attempts out of nothing but familial love. However, when Gigastorm blatantly tries to shoot him in the back during a battle Galvatron can no longer pretend not to notice, and beats him into submission.
- Versus (2022): After the 13 worlds were merged, the human survivors of each were quick to band together, while the Natural Enemies menacing them began fighting each other. Even among the ones that aren't mindless forces of nature, diplomacy and joint rule of the Merged Reality are out of the question; each Natural Enemy faction is too used to being on top, and sees peers only as rivals to be eliminated. In contrast, the most friction the human alliance goes through is the occasional Culture Clash, as everyone is a different kind of Genre Refugee.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Yami and Kaiba are challenged by Lumis and Umbra. The latter specifically trained and synchronized their decks to be unbeatable in a tag team duel, but they were easily manipulated by Kaiba into turning on each other. All it took was a few suggestions that the other person wouldn't have used their good cards to save them.
- During the Virtual World Arc, Yugi and Joey tag team against the Big Five, the former board of directors to the Kaiba Corporation. As they are virtual minds in a virtual world, they are looking to escape using the bodies of Yugi and his friends. Having already acquired Tristan's body, the five use it to duel Yugi and Joey, five against two. Despite being outnumbered, the five constantly bicker against each other, each one believing they are the better duelist; while Yugi and Joey remain united and focused.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Slightly inverted. In a tag-team duel to keep themselves from getting expelled, Jaden Yuki and Syrus Truesdale, go up against the Paradox brothers. Though the brothers perform excellent teamwork, Jaden and Syrus struggle due to the latter's confidence issues. It was only due to Jaden that the duo managed to persevere. However, thanks to Jaden providing the right support, the two turn the duel around and pull out a grand standing win.
Comic Books
- Wolverine:
- Old Man Logan: Averted in the comic's backstory, where the villains of the Marvel Universe finally manage to put their differences aside and team up to kill nearly all of the world's superheroes. Played straight in the main comic and its spinoffs, with the few remaining heroes generally working together while the villains that rule over America, having divided the country among themselves, stand on their own, making them easier targets for the heroes than they were 50 years ago.
- All-New Wolverine: In the storyline "Old Woman Laura", its backstory is a repudiation of Old Man Logan with the bad guys easily falling apart after uniting, allowing the heroes to swoop in and defeat them once and for all.
Fan Works
- Code Prime: An important part of R1 is that the Autobots and Black Knights are able to work out their differences and come together against their enemies while the Decepticons and Brittania are at odds with each other due to their differing goals and internal backstabbing. It's only in R2 that the bad guys start functioning as a single unit, if only because Megatron beats his traitorous minions into submission and destroys Brittania and conquers the remnants.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: The God of Good collective is fighting a God of Evil "Dark God" pantheon, but that pantheon rarely works together for a common purpose, so even though, if properly utilized, the heavy-hitter Sorcerous Overlord Keepers made by the Dark Gods could win against their good counterparts, they don't work together enough to do so.
- Infinity Train: Blossomverse: In general, the heroes always stick together whereas the villains (usually the Apex) end up separated due to their own vices and arrogance turned against them.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: The Red Lotus Trio, later Quarto, work together to enter the Fog Car to stop a deadly plot to end the Apex and to end the Apex in general. In contrast, thanks to machinations prior to the story beginning, Grace and Simon of the Apex are divided from their little cult and Grace and Simon's perspectives over what the Train is truly about causes them to argue and for the Apex to ultimately splinter once they see how killing nulls and not caring to work on themselves is literally going to be the death of them.
- Infinity Train: Voyage of Wisteria: While the villains this time around do end up working together, all of them attempt to undermine one another to get a bigger piece of the pie. Mad Ben and Dahlia each believe they'll get away with usurping Ogami and Vox, Vox ends up sabotaging Mad Ben's new Omnitrix in case of his death, and Dahlia is quick to pin the blame on others for their faults. End results? The heroes live, the villains (barring Mad Ben) don't.
- Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus: Once again, the Apex is completely divided and Grace and Simon butt heads with one another but Simon is the one trying to get the Apex out of the Train while Grace wants nothing but to murder Chloe Cerise. Thanks to Ryu, who works for Elipzo and is The Mole hiding in the Apex, the Apex cult dissolves as they leave to get their numbers down and rename themselves as Jericho. On the Pokémon side of things, Sara was able to break Chloe and Goh's friendship apart thanks to her classmates acting nice and sweet towards Goh yet when he's gone, push Chloe to the brink of suicide. However, when Chloe is gone and they resort to breaking her little brother's knee in retaliation, they are recorded and Parker is saved by the likes of Trip and Ash and the public despises them with the prequel revealing that not only were they thrown into jail to save them from the inevitable backlash but they eventually started pointing fingers and blaming each other for their downfall. Conversely, when Sara returns having been (accidentally) powered by the Unown and she has an attack dog in an abusive Unown version of Professor Cerise, while she initlaly looks like she has the upper hand on Chloe and has literally frozen any aid from helping her, Chloe endures every single blow until Sara gives up and wishes to get everything she wanted...which allows Chloe's allies in Specter and Asher to put her in a coma and her Unown attack-dog gets an asskicking of his life, and then said Unown construct starts being abusive to her for not listening to him when Chloe goaded her to smash her head in.
- Innocence Once Lost: Inverted in the sidestory After The War - Luna Aeternal, in an alternate timeline where Equestria and humans went to war and reconciled, shortly after the war is over the alternate versions of Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle, travel to a human Moonbase to sign a peace treaty, however two terrorist groups, one composed of humans and another composed of ponies, who have the common goal of restarting the war because they want to drive the others species to extinction, join forces to launch a terrorist attack on the peace conference, while Luna, Twilight, Luna's guards who came as part of the escort and the human security forces prevent war from breaking out once again it comes at a heavy cost, the human leader is assasinated and Luna is crippled for life trying, and only partly succeeding to contain an explosion which still claims thousands of human lives, in the main story Alternate!Twilight meets Canon!Twilight and mentions how part of the reason why the attack caused so much damage is that not only didn't the Equestrians expect their own citizens to be radicalized into a terrorist group, they didn't expect two extremist groups dedicated to mutual genocide to be able to work together so efficiently while Luna, Twilight and their allies had to deal with paranoia from the human authorities who suspected them to be complicit in the attack (it doesn't help that one scene implies Twilight actually did unwittingly help a mole in Luna's Night Guard get a long range teleportation spell homing beacon past a security checkpoint allowing the rest of the terrorists to board the moonbase,simply because she assumed a Royal Guard wouldn't do anything wrong).
- Nymph and the Corrupted Miraculous: Catastrophe and Volpina are both incredibly dangerous villains, no question. However, their biggest weakness is the fact that they don't communicate with one another or work together (as they can barely stand each other in or out of the masks). Belle Aube and Nymph's Champions, however, are fully willing to work together, which is often their biggest strenght over the villains.
Films — Animation
- The Powerpuff Girls Movie: Mojo Jojo’s scheme to create an army of apes as intelligent as himself falls apart when, rather than unite under his leadership, all of the newly sapient simians would much rather declare themselves the leader and wreak havoc on Townsville their own way. Consequently, they’re unable to cooperate by the time the Powerpuff Girls show up to kick monkey butt.
Films — Live-Action
- Avatar: Fire and Ash: The RDA leadership is clearly operating on Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Ardmore doesn't like Quaritch recruiting the Always Chaotic Evil tribe of Na'vi (thinking he's Going Native, just like Jake did) and bringing them into her base, Quaritch doesn't like Ardmore openly criticizing his methods and allies, and nobody like Selfridge complicating operations by demanding Spider be captured alive so his ability to breathe Pandora's atmosphere can be replicated, Ardmore sarcastically asking if he's going to call "daddy" (the chairman) if he doesn't get his way. Meanwhile, Jake is able to call the Na'vi clans together again by riding the Toruk Makto, his son Lo'ak is able to break the tulkuns from their Suicidal Pacifism, and Kiri, Spider and Tuk are able to work together to briefly commune with Eywa, and even Neytiri is able to let go of her resentment towards Spider. It culminates in the Makwang tribe waiting for the RDA to be defeated to attack, Ardmore going down on her sinking ship, and Quaritch jumping to a Disney Death.
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps: Galactus' only ally in the film is his herald, the Silver Surfer. As Johnny eventually finds out, though, she became his slave after she sacrificed herself to spare her family and world, and she has no true loyalty to him (which isn't surprising since he is willing to hurt her if she displeases him). The Four, in sharp contrast, are a family who talk through their problems, have unshakable trust in one another, and have the ability to work as a team.
- Star Wars:
- While the Light Side of the Force favors selflessness and cooperation, the Dark Side favors individuality and selfishness. As such, the Jedi were able to comfortably function for eons with an Order of tens of thousands to a hundred thousand, while the various Sith Empires were such morasses of backstabbing and infighting that the last Empire's only surviving Sith instituted the Rule of Two, reducing their numbers to a single master-apprentice pair at a time, as the only way to avoid defeating themselves again. The Rule of Two ensures that, though betrayal among the Sith is inevitable, the sole master and apprentice are incentivized to not kill one another immediately until they’re sure they’ve gained all of each other’s secrets. Each betrayal thereby leaves the Sith stronger, rather than increasingly atomized and fractious, as they did when their numbers were greater.
- The conflict between the Rebels and the Galactic Empire zig-zags this; initially, the rebels are highly divided and disorganized, split between various cells that have limited communication with one another, with some even being outright hostile to each other, as seen with Saw Gerrera's Partisans. The Empire, though, is even worse when it comes to this. The system is set up as a bureaucratic nightmare, with multiple overlapping and redundant agencies, so people in the Empire are constantly plotting to undermine each other and advance further in the chain of command, often through violence. Despite the disunity of the Rebel Alliance, they can keep being a problem due to the Empire's often inefficient responses. Once the rebels are finally able to unite under the Rebel Alliance properly, it is then that they are finally able to start making big differences with the liberation of Lothal and the destruction of the Death Star, all while the Empire can't quite shake off its problems with infighting. After Palpatine's death, the Empire splits further with multiple competing factions trying to gain a piece of the pie. The Rebels easily steamroll the rest of the Empire, and it collapses in just a year after Palpatine's death.
- The sequel trilogy initially inverts this; the government set up after the fall of the Galactic Empire, the New Republic, eventually devolves into a lot of the same problems that plagued the Galactic Republic. With constant political infighting and a weak, inefficient government, and the senate constantly deadlocked. The First Order, at the same time, while problems are already starting to emerge, is initially able to unite more under their shared hatred for the New Republic and their desire to restore the Galactic Empire. The divides within the New Republic render all their attempts to quell the rising First Order threat ineffective. So once the First Order takes out Hosnian Prime, the New Republic collapses almost instantly. Unfortunately, for the First Order, once they take over, they end up devolving into the same issues as the Galactic Empire, while the remaining New Republic regroups into The Resistance. With the First Order leaders constantly fighting and betraying each other to gain more power and for their own self-interest, it is weakened immensely and collapses in slightly over a year, playing this trope more straight.
- The Wind in the Willows (1996): The heroes (Toad, Rat, Mole, and Badger) all form strong friendships with each other that motivate them to save each other from danger. By contrast, the villainous Weasels believe that everyone must look out for themselves only, which leads them to betray each other in the climax, throwing the Chief Weasel's plan into chaos.
Literature
- The Belgariad: Several characters observe that the champions of the Light Prophecy have The Power of Friendship on their side, whereas the Dark side keeps undercutting each other out of self-interest or simple malice.
- In the Belgariad, a large part of why the heroes win against the dark god Torak is that one of Torak's disciples steals the Orb of Aldur from another disciple for personal gain rather than let him have the glory of delivering it to Torak.
- Late in the series, the main characters are able to attack Torak directly in part because two of the nations under his control went to war with each other rather than focus on Torak's enemies.
- In the Malloreon, Zandramas is a petty Sadist who kills her underlings and pawns as soon as they've served their immediate purpose, which slowly erodes a months-long head start on the heroes down to nothing and undercuts her international power base.
- The Lord of the Rings: This is a recurring theme in the work, as the Orcs of Moria and the Uruk-Hai of Isengard are fighting between one another about the fate of Merry and Pippin, as the Uruk-Hai have been ordered to bring them to Saruman alive and unspoiled, while the Moria Orcs are hungry and think bits of hobbit might make a tasty meal. Later, Frodo is captured by a group of Orcs in Mordor, who then begin to fight amongst themselves over who gets to possess his mithril shirt and other belongings, to the point that they end up slaughtering each other.
- The Redemption of Althalus: The biggest advantage that Althalus and his group have over Ghend and his associates is that Althalus and his teammates all trust and love each other like a family, whereas Ghend and his associates are constantly scheming against each other in hopes of currying more favor with their patron, Daeva.
- Worm: This is why Taylor, as Skitter, despite being a "villain" spends more time fighting other villains than heroes.
Live-Action TV
- Odd Squad: Since one of Odd Squad's modus operandi is teamwork, they are consistently shown being much better at it than the villains. Villain Team-Ups have happened, but they more often than not end in failures because said villains butt heads and get into spats, so most tend to operate separately.
- Odd Squad: Mobile Unit: Wanting to turn Odd Squad's preaching of Team Spirit against them, The Shadow decides to subvert this trope and make a league of united villains, all with the same common goal of defeating the organization. Naturally, when she gets them all in the same room, tempers flare and fights break out, and she, along with Brutus, is forced to play mediator to make sure her plan succeeds. Eventually, the villains are successful in creating a new "Villain Network" and very nearly win by the three-part mid-season finale before Opal intervenes.
- A common feature among Power Rangers antagonists is the heroes being united against the villains with the villains constantly trying to backstab each other.
- Power Rangers Zeo: The Rangers, being goody two shoes, never really fight or meaningfully disagree unlike the villains. The main villains of Zeo are the Machine Empire, led by King Mondo with his older son, Prince Gasket creating schemes to forcibly grant himself title of king. This upsets his younger brother Prince Sprocket, who is mostly loyal to their father and wants Mondo to give him the title of king. Mondo is destroyed, however he will be rebuilt; Sprocket eventually creates Louie Kaboom who takes over the Machine Empire, despite Queen Machina's protests; and Gasket and Sprocket work to defeat Louie in secret. Eventually, Louie is defeated, with King Mondo returning and regaining control of the Machine Empire. The previous villains, Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, are still around and unhappy about being replaced by the Machine Empire. They eventually return to combat the Machine Empire so that they can defeat the Power Rangers.
- Power Rangers in Space: While the Rangers start off on rocky terms with Andros prefering to work alone, they do manage to come together and help Andros realize that he's a part of a team. The villains, however are so power-hungry that they betray each other at the drop of the hat. Astronema creates the Psycho Rangers by siphoning power from the main Big Bad Dark Specter in the hopes that it will weaken him so she can take over; whilst Darkonda is trying to undermine both Astronema and Dark Specter, so that he could take over. The season finale has him attempt to use a powerful missile to kill Dark Specter, only for Dark Specter to take him with him.
- Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: The Rangers do bicker with each other, and Leo has massive insecurities over not being chosen by the red Quasar Saber; however the villains make betraying each other into a game. Scorpius's daughter, Trakeena, fabricates evidence to get the ironically loyal Treacheron killed for treason; then Deviot, wanting more power, crafts a scenario to get Scorpius to leave their spaceship and confront the Rangers in a weakened state, which ends in Scorpius dying. Captain Mutiny temporarily takes over as the main villain before Trakeena kills him, only for Deviot to make it a habit of working in secret to betray Trakeena so that he can take her cocoon for himself. Eventually, Trakeena's loyal mentor, Villamax abandons out of his personal sense of honor, after she ends up fused with Deviot and starts using the Stingwingers as suicide bombers.
- Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue: Both the Rangers and the demons are fairly united for part of the season; however, Impus's ascension into Olympius and Queen Bansheera's ruthlessness slowly demonstrate how divided they truly are. Olympius is willing to sacrifice his fellow demons to ensure that his mother, Queen Bansheera is fully awakened, and Queen Bansheera will abandon her minion Loki to die, which causes her most loyal minion Diabolico to turn against her.
- Power Rangers Time Force: The Rangers have trouble getting along due to Jen's obsession with capturing Ransik, versus Wes's laidback nature; however Wes matures and Jen opens up to him. The villains at first appear united until Ransik's second in command, Frax betrays him revealing that when Frax was human, Ransik nearly killed him and left him to die. Frax cybernetically augmented himself, engraciated himself to Ransik, and shatters all the serum vials Ransik needs to treat his illness. Ransik eventually captures Frax and effectively lobotimizes him.
- Power Rangers Wild Force: Cole and Taylor start off butting heads as Taylor's strict leadership conflicts with Cole's more carefree leadership style, but he team eventually comes together against the human-hating Orgs. The Orgs are led by Master Org, who is actually a human slowly becoming the reincarnation of the original Master Org; his Duke Orgs, Jindrax and Toxica summon a General Org, Mandalok to kill him for being a human. The General Org Nayzor summons Zen-Aku to manipulate him against the Rangers, only for Zen-Aku to remember his humanity and turn against the Orgs for their attack against his pet wolfdog. At one point, Mandalok's minion, Onikage betrays him revealing that he only serves Master Org.
- Power Rangers Ninja Storm: The Wind and Thunder Rangers originally were enemies as Lothor manipulated the Thunder Rangers into thinking that their master killed the Thunder Rangers' parents. Eventually, the ghosts of the Thunder Rangers' parents reveal Lothor killed them, and the Wind and Thunder Rangers unite. Lothor eventually ends up working with his greatest enemy, Vexacus to take down the Rangers, only for Vexacus to conspire against Lothor, even trying to use his nieces, Mara and Kapri against him.
- Power Rangers S.P.D.: The rangers start off the series with conflict as Blue Ranger Sky is upset that he wasn't picked to be the Red Ranger, and that Red Ranger Jack is actually some criminal who was given the powers without having to go through SPD training. However, Jack trains himself and grows into a better leader, with Sky slowly coming to respect him. The villains, by contrast start off on mostly good terms with Emperor Gruumm working with arms dealer Broodwing. Broodwing's only real loyalty is to money as when Gruumm starts to break the bank, Broodwing turns against him to protect his profits.
- Power Rangers Operation Overdrive: While the Rangers are a team, their villains (Moltor, Flurious, Kamdor, and the Fearcats) each want to conquer the Earth themself, and fight against each other as well as the Rangers. In "Once a Ranger, Part 1", a new villain, Thrax, tries to convince the other villains to team up with him to destroy the Rangers. At first, the other villains are all outraged by the idea of working with each other, only relenting when Thrax says it will be a temporary alliance and they can go back to trying to destroy each other after they’ve destroyed the Rangers.
- Power Rangers Jungle Fury: The team have trouble in the beginning as Casey is a rookie, whilst Theo and Lily are martial arts experts. However, Casey slowly improves to match them and demonstrates incredible skill. The Forces of Dai Shi mostly get along, however there are instances where they try to betray each other. One of the Five Fingers of Poison, Naja plots against Dai Shi, believing him unfit as a leader, and possibly angry about what happened to his fellow Fingers of Poison members. Naja tries to convince Dai Shi's righthand Camille to turn against him, only for Camille to betray him for Dai Shi. Dai Shi's mentors and generals tend to hate Camille believing her to be weakening him, and try to eliminate her. Dai Shi soon demonstrates that he doesn't value his underlings and repeatedly allows them to be killed so he can gain victory. Dai Shi's possession over Jarrod potentially weakens and he comes to resist Dai Shi to protect Camille.
- Power Rangers RPM: The team have trouble getting along on occasion, especially with skepticism of Dylan being a cyborg and a brooding loner. They eventually come together against Venjix, a computer virus who has successfully wiped most of humanity. Venjix's generals don't get along all that well: Tenaya 7, a human cyborg, frames General Shifter for trying to assassinate Venjix. Venjix exiles Shifter, only for Shifter to try to annihilate both Venjix and the Rangers. One of Venjix's other generals, Kilobyte wants to eradicate Tenaya 7 for being a cyborg instead of a full robot.
- Power Rangers Samurai: The Rangers are all united against the Nighlok, with very little conflict. The Nighlok are mainly led by Xandred; however, eventually we learn that the Nighlok have a king, Serrator, who is trying to create a crack in the Earth and fill it with Sanzu river water in a manner that could jeopardize both Earth and the Nighlok realms.
- Star Trek: Discovery: After the crew of the USS Discovery gets stranded in the Mirror Universe, the idealistic Tilly is forced to pose as her evil alternate-universe version (because alternate-universe Tilly is the Captain of that universe's Discovery) and worries that she won't be able to survive in the harsh landscape of the Terran Empire. Michael consoles her that while the odds seem to be against her, she has an advantage over the Imperial officers, because she has a team that she can trust to back her up, whereas nobody in the Terran Empire trusts anybody else, and when push comes to shove, the individual Terran will prioritize saving their own skin or advancing their own goals over everything else.
- Super Sentai:
- Choujin Sentai Jetman: The Vyram elites (Radiguet, Tran/Tranza, Grey, and Maria) are too busy sabotaging each other under the belief that whoever defeats the Jetman personally will claim the right to be the supreme leader of Vyram. As opposed to that, while the Jetman team starts out as a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, they eventually learn to cooperate and fight together genuinely. By the time someone reaches the top (Radiguet) by backstabbing everyone else, the Jetman have spent their time getting stronger together, and eventually they defeat the Vyram for good.
- GoGo Sentai Boukenger has multiple villain factions that each have a piece of the traditional Tokusatsu villain. One group has the Mooks, one group has the Elite Mooks, one group has consistent Monsters of the Week, and the last group have access to consistent Humongous Mecha. While the rangers are all united under one banner, it's very rare for the villains team up, and the alliances don't last very long.
- The Shadow Line of Ressha Sentai ToQger each has their own plans aside from the classic world domination scheme, and frequently snipe at and plot against each other in the process of chasing those plans. Schwartz wants to conquer the Rainbow Line, Nero wants to revive Emperor Z, Noir wants to groom her daughter Gritta into the perfect wife-to-be for Z, and Gritta wants to help Schwartz. Even the Emperor has his own plans in pursuing and learning about light. Meanwhile, the titular ToQgers are Childhood Friends and True Companions through and through.
- Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga lampshades this with Darrgon, who notes that while humanity is united in their fight against them The Dark Giants became divided to the point they can't even talk to each other with Kyrieloid's illusions completely breaking what comradery they have left.
Roleplay
- In Embers in the Dusk, the "good" factions are collectively known as "The Sane". As per the W40k tradition, the alliance includes its share of horrible cultures (like at least one would-be-robotic-apocalypse), but at least they are willing (with some oversight) to put the old grudges aside until the bigger issues are handled. Chaos, in the meantime, has shot itself in the foot no less than three times during critical moments, leaving the Void Dragon as the main threat as of the third thread.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- The fiends of the Lower Planes significantly outnumber the celestials of the Upper Planes and could quite probably overwhelm them before setting their sights on the wider multiverse. However, the majority of their energy is spent on the eternal, genocidal Blood War between the Lawful Evil devils and the Chaotic Evil demons, which hate one another due to their very different societies and lifestyles. Additionally, most of the archdevils and their minions scheme and plot extensively against each other, while the demons' own society, such as it is, is riven by endless feuding between rival warlords, petty tyrants, and upstart rebels. The celestials, while less numerous overall, are generally much better able to actually cooperate.
- In the Dragonlance campaign setting, this is actually built into the cosmic rules. Evil will reliably turn against itself. Even with Takhisis trying to keep her followers in line, there is still constant backstabbing. Takhisis's relationship with her consort Sargonnas is more adversarial than romantic, and the rest of the evil gods are even less agreeable, including her daughter Zeboim and son Nuitari. An attempt was made to create an evil knighthood that would emulate the honor and loyalty of the good-aligned Knights of Solamnia, but the Dark Knights likewise fell to infighting and assassination. Granted, good is less unified in the setting on a typical day too. But when faced with serious threats, they tend to pull together more readily. When the leader of the Gods of Good, Paladine, sacrificed his godhood to likewise strip Takhisis of hers, the good deities quickly settled on Paladine's wife Mishakal as their new leader. Meanwhile, the evil deities are engaged in an ongoing conflict to claim Takhisis's place.
- Bane is the Forgotten Realms god of Hatred, Tyranny and Oppression, and his church used to be a textbook example of the "evil is divided" side of this trope — being fractured into several different factions who all fought against and competed with one another. Bane allowed this because he was amused by the strife and thought that it would weed out the weakest parts of his church. Following the Time of Troubles, he realized that it was only undermining his power, and dropped this approach in favor of Pragmatic Villainy — his re-established church works on very strict, hierarchical lines with clear lines of command, and he encourages resolving disputes with negotiation and compromise.
- In the world of Exandria, the Prime Deities exist in a loose alliance, occasionally bickering with each other over ideological differences but working together when the world they created or their mortal worshippers are threatened. In contrast, the Betrayer Gods typically see each other as threats to their own schemes and goals and rarely cooperate with one another.
- Mage: The Awakening: the villainous Seers of the Throne possess a lot more temporal power than the "good-guy" Pentacle and have a more-or-less direct line to the Exarchs that run the show from the Supernal; their incessant backstabbing and internal fighting, compared to the Pentacle's Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, is sometimes cited as one of the reasons why the Seers haven't defeated the Pentacle already.
- Pathfinder: While the good-aligned outsider races and deities may disagree on a number of fronts, they rarely let their philosophical differences get in the way of doing what's right or resort to fighting. By contrast, the various evil gods and outsider races rarely like each other; not only are the different outsiders and evil gods willing to fight each other, their respective worshippers also have various degrees of infighting, from the subtle politicking of the Lawful Evil groups to the outright murder performed by Chaotic Evil groups. As a result, while the forces of evil are much more numerous, their forces are stretched thin by the good, neutral, and other evil forces that oppose them.
- Trench Crusade: Both Christian and Muslim forces are united (for the most part), but the forces of Hell are divided into so many factions and subfactions that they can barely hold an alliance in their war against Creation.
- Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy: It's downplayed, as in both settings, every army needs to be able to fight every other army and the "good" guys are only a little better than the evil ones. However, in both games, a number of evil armies (orcs/orks, Chaos, Skaven...) are characterized by being highly fractious and only held together by the authority of their leader (the forces of Chaos follow four gods who reward the slaying of champions of any god including themselves). Many evil invasions have been defeated by the death (accidental or otherwise) of said leader collapsing the entire army into squabbling easily-defeated warbands.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- Ciaphas Cain has twice managed to end planetary invasions by causing the invading leader's death (having stumbled on the ork warlord Korbul's lair in the first case, actively seeking a duel with the Chaos warmaster Varan while neutralizing his Compelling Voice in the second), breaking the invasion force into multiple independent factions that hate each other (although as he points out he had help both times from organized Imperial forces ready to exploit those weaknesses).
- Khârn the Betrayer earned his name on the frozen planet of Skalathrax, where the subzero temperatures caused boththe Khorne-worshipping World Eaters and the Slaaneshi Emperor's Children (who serve opposing Chaos gods) to stop fighting to seek shelter. Infuriated by this lack of moral character, Khârn grabbed a flamer and ran around torching all the tents he could see to force both sides to fight, dealing such damage to his own side that he singlehandedly destroyed the World Eaters' ability to function as a unified force.
- Warhammer Fantasy:
- Grey Seer Thanquol spent an entire book sabotaging his fellow Skaven's plans so they could be removed for their failure, meaning that once he was the only one in charge, his weakened army was no longer able to carry out its objectives).
- Sigvald's Folly is the name given to Sigvald the Magnificent's ill-fated campaign into Ulthuan, where he was constantly harried by elves and constantly had to cut down challengers to his authority for rightfully pointing out he was going to get them all killed.
- Dletch Ogrefeeder was a Chaos warlord who hired ogres as part of his army at a price of one man per ogre per day. When his army ran out of victims, he had to feed his own soldiers to the ogres, hence his memory being particularly reviled.
- Warhammer 40,000:
Video Games
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series: One of the reasons the Brotherhood of Nod keeps losing to the Global Defensive Initiative (GDI) is because several of the high-ranking officials kept backstabbing and killing each other, most especially when their beloved leader, Kane, is absent. It even goes as far as some officials declaring that they can lead the Brotherhood way better than Kane. On the other hand, GDI does have its own disagreements within their organization, but it usually focuses more on bureaucracy, as seen with Acting Director Raymond Boyle in Tiberium Wars. Unlike Nod, GDI keeps its conflicts internally and puts its differences aside to focus on its war effort.
- In CookieRun: Kingdom, the Ancient Cookies see each other as True Companions who come to each other's aid when Dark Enchantress Cookie returns to conquer Earthbread. In contrast, the Beast Cookies can hardly stand each other with their hatred towards the Ancient Cookies being the only thing keeping them together.
- Ironically, the two Crash Bandicoot games where the villains attempt to turn Crash's allies against him end up this trope.
- In Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced, N Tropy and N Trance brainwash Crunch and Coco, as well as Fake Crash, mistaking him for the real one. After realising their mistake when Crash deprograms them all, they have a Never My Fault argument. When Crash and Aku Aku finally track them down, N Tropy forces N Trance to fight Crash, who teams up with Fake Crash to defeat him while N Tropy tries to escape.
- In Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage, Cortex teams up Spyro the Dragon foe, Ripto to take over both their worlds, using decoys to try and trick Crash and Spyro into fighting each other. While the two villains never really betray each other, as Crash and Spyro figure things out and team up to stop them, they quickly devolve into petty Blame Games and name-calling.
- Diablo III: Tyrael mentions at one point that one of the biggest advantages the angels have over the demons in the Eternal Conflict is that demons' egos get in the way of them working together, and on at least one occasion, an almost-successful invasion of The High Heavens has fallen apart at the last second because the Demon Lords leading the invasion started quarrelling amongst themselves without securing their victory. During the final stretch of the main game, Diablo manages to unite the Seven Great Evils into a single being, the Prime Evil, with himself as the dominant personality, and almost manages to completely destroy heaven before being stopped by the Nephalem.
- Dragon Quest II: In the HD-2D Remake, the four Scions of Erdrick are united together as one and have many allies that stand alongside them at their backs, and while they occasionally squabble, they still stand together. The Children of Hargon, however, are all divided with Hargon's four Champions fighting amongst each other and outright refusing to cooperate, in part due to the cult leader's fanatical obsession with unmaking the world in the name of his matron, the Dragon Queen.
- Final Fantasy XIV: Played with. From the base game to A Realm Reborn, the city-states of Eorzea unite against The Garlean Empire after it conquered Ala Mhigo prior to the start of the series. However, following the red moon, Dalamud's, descent, the city-states have been reduced to bickering and distrust, making them an alliance in name only. The Garlean Empire itself was largely united under Emperor Solus zos Galvus but following the Emperor's passing away without naming a successor, the Garleans descended into a civil war. With the aid of the Scions and the Warrior of Light in combating the beast tribes primal gods and an attack from the Garlean XIV Imperial Legion led by Gaius van Baelsar, the city-states finally get their act together, succeeding in thwarting Gaius but their victory is short-lived when learning that the empire's civil war ended shorter than expecting when the emperor's grandson, Varis, successfully seizes the throne. From the Heavensward and Stormblood expansions, the Scions work on strengthening the Eorzean Alliance which include bringing the formerly reclusive Ishgard, the liberated Ala Mhigo and even the Beast Tribes into the fold. The Garlean Empire by the Shadowbringers expansion meanwhile begins to fall apart after Emperor Varis is killed by his son, Zenos, but refuses to take the throne, leading the imperial legions to fight amongst themselves over who will assume the throne. By the Endwalker expansion, the Eorzean Alliance is stronger than ever while the Empire is left in ruins.
- Fruits Fulcute!: The Rotten World generals, particularly the Witches of the Deadly Sins, tend to either not get along at best or outright get into conflict with one another at worst, contrasting the Player Character's Fruitea members being generally unified to help counteract that which threatens the World of Fruits. Occasionally, this can lead to one member wronging another, thus spurring a desire for vengeance — like Carvil towards Sinavil, when the latter turned the former into an unrecognizably wrinkly state, with the self-conscious Carvil furiously wanting Sinavil's head shortly after being cured.
- Halo: Despite having been in the midst of an interplanetary civil war when the Covenant attacked, humanity manages to put their differences aside to defend each other as one against an alien invasion. Inversely, despite the Covenant empire well outstripping humanity in population and technological firepower, internally it is full of cracks due to tensions in its inter-species caste system. The fall of the Covenant comes about when its warrior caste the Elites, respecting humanity's bravery, start asking too many questions about the war to their leadership the Prophets, who make an ill-advised attempt to kill the Elites and replace them with the Brutes. This triggers a schism across the Covenant, resulting in the Elites allying with humanity, with the two groups defeating the Covenant together.
- Kingdom Hearts: The first game's Legion of Doom consists of five Disney Villains (and Oogie Boogie) under the leadership of Maleficent, who formed this group with the goal of conquering all worlds by means of her Heartless army. Unfortunately for her, all of them serve her out of pure self-interest and don't assist each other once Sora puts each one of them to the ropes. Maleficent attempts to form a new one in the second game with the help of Pete, but both the Organization XIII's meddling and the lack of valuable allies make this task tedious from the start. Things haven't improved in the third game, either, as even Hades (the last remaining member of the original council) refuses any cooperation with her.
- Overwatch: Zig-zagged; The titular international organization of heroes initially lost the war of attrition against Talon, collapsing as a result of infighting and corruption among its heroes from dealing with their increasingly capable enemies. However, once Overwatch rebounded as a ragtag strike team of veterans and newcomers alike, it became the villains' turn to start buckling: Talon's alliance with Null Sector has led to increasingly aggressive friction, largely due to their members having conflicting visions: Doomfist wants to start a Forever War enabled out of Darwinist principles, Reaper wants revenge on the world after it failed him and his attempts to bring about peace and order, Ramattra sees himself as the liberator of Omnickind and fundamentally detests humanity, Maximilien simple greed, etc. Vendetta — the daughter of one of Talon's late great agents, who was denied her inheritance after Talon seized it for themselves — came back for revenge and usurped leadership of Talon from Doomfist, along with the help of those like Maximilien who was already turning his back on the group due to their failures convincing them it's a lost cause. This radical shift makes Talon more aggressive and authoritarian, but whatever allies its new leaders make are entirely out of convenience, and further members also end up defecting (namely Reaper, Sombra, and Widowmaker).
- Persona 5: The Phantom Thieves are a group of friends who work to achieve their goal of removing corrupt individuals from power, and though they may have disputes, they always come back together. On the other hand, the Antisocial Force members have no loyalty to one another. The leader of the conspiracy is willing to have any conspirators who are liabilities killed, doing so no less than three times during the course of the game and being willing to order additional killings. His assassin, meanwhile, is planning to betray him all along, a betrayal that the leader had anticipated.
- Sea of Thieves: Athena’s Fortune, the heroic pirate faction, urges sailors to seek glory and adventure united rather than fighting over gold, saying as much with their signature shanty “We Shall Sail Together”. The villainous Reaper’s Bones, on the other hand, lay claim to “true piracy” because, save for their leader Flameheart, they profess to have loyalty to no one but themselves. The Reapers even openly encourage hunting each other to steal one another’s plunder and weed out the weak in their ranks.
- Super Robot Wars: While the heroes have varying personalities and come from differing backgrounds and goals, by the end of each game they will all be united (though We ARE Struggling Together can come into play). By contrast, while villains might team up with one another, they are almost always divided into various factions, and some levels with villains from different factions will have them fighting each other as well as the player's army, which can make said levels easier (though you won't get any exp, money, or drops from this).
- The Classic series zigzagged this, with some villain factions being unified all the way up to the end like the Divine Crusaders, while other factions like Neo Zeon collapsed into infighting (Haman Karn discovering that the Gihren Zabi, Kycillia Zabi and Dozle Zabi who had miraculously survived their deaths turned out to be clones).
- The Alpha series similarly, with several villain factions with mutually exclusive goals while others shared them. For example, Alpha 2 had the Jamma Empire of Kotetsu Jeeg be revealed as being a subordinate empire of the Mikene Empire due to their "god" turning out to be the Mikene's Emperor of Darkness. The Mikene meanwhile battled against the various invading alien forces as well as the heroes.
- Super Robot Wars T plays with this, with The Company eventually absorbing a number of survivors of defeated villain factions. Before that, the trope is played straight with a number of the villain factions at odds with each other. Some of them at least agree to non-aggression or non-interference clauses, where they agree not to fight each other partially because they recognise that would just weaken their forces.
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: While the various fighters, including the villains, are willing to cooperate against one another to stop Dharkon and Galeem, the latter two certainly aren't. The True Final Boss has you fighting both of them, which, while difficult, is mitigated by the fact that not only are their attacks capable of hurting (but not defeating) the other, when one is helpless, the other will actually attack while they're down, which takes off a good chunk of their health.
- An accidental version happened in early patches of Total War: Warhammer, known by the fandom as the Ordertide. Essentially, late-game good factions (Empire, Bretonnia, non-Dark Elves, Dwarves, Lizardmen etc.) can research various diplomacy buffs with other good factions, resulting in them forming a massive unified bloc that drowns the Chaos hordes, Skaven, Undead etc. in high-tier armies (and basically the opposite of what happened in canon).
Western Animation
- Avengers Assemble: This becomes a plot point in season one; after the Avengers have beaten C.A.B.A.L. several times (despite their constantly recruiting new/stronger members), Red Skull realizes it's because each villain is acting on their own, without trying to work with the others. The Avengers are able to beat them so often because they work as a team and play off of one another's strengths. When Red Skull starts encouraging his people to work with each other instead of all trying to be the star player, they get a lot more dangerous...
- Hazbin Hotel: Zig-zagged in Season 2 between the members of the Hazbin Hotel and the Vees, both of whom are groups of True Companions whose cooperations are put to the test during the season, leading to infighting mainly caused by their respective leaders' selfishness and recklessness. Charlie's obsession with proving the possibility of redemption to Hell at large and later trying fight against the Vees' advances leads to her unwittingly taking her teammates for granted and eventually getting furious at those who disagree with her, but after an all-time low period for both her and Husk, the rest of the Hotel group stick to their shared goal of redemption for the most part, and help Charlie and Husk to return to their senses. Vox, on the other hand, basically dragged Valentino and Velvette into his scheme to rally the Sinners to take over Heaven, with the two only agreeing to it because of the material benefits it'd bring to them, and being visibly dismayed at Vox's goal to earn godhood status; Vox's growing megalomania as he gains more and more public support, plus his obsession with one-upping Alastor even after the latter willingly gave himself up to him, leads to him distancing himself from Valentino and Velvette, to the point that he considers ditching them once he's done with his scheme just to prove to Alastor that he can stand on his own. The contrast between the two groups becomes crucial in the Season 2 finale, "Curtain Call", wherein Vox has a massive Villainous Breakdown and tries to kill himself alongside many of his enemies and then-allies from both Hell and Heaven just to spare himself the feeling of defeat, prompting Valentino and Velvette to neuter Vox and pull a temporary Enemy Mine with the Hotel group to prevent Vox's attempt to destroy much of Pentagram City.
- Justice League Unlimited: Downplayed; the League bickers and disagrees, but mostly remain united. Project CADMUS initially presents a united front of an off-the-books government agency led by Amanda Waller and featuring several morally-ambiguous side characters who get along until they don'tnote , and the Secret Society initially work together until Luthor and Grodd fight over who's in charge due to their goals not being alignednote . This infighting ultimately results in the return of Darkseid, who ends the bickering real quick.
- Miraculous Ladybug: At the start of season 5, Monarch has a sizeable network of allies, both willing and unwilling, at his side, with Nathalie Sancouer as his strategist, Tomoe Tsurugi developing new technologies to help him control the Miraculous, Chloé, Lila, and Sabrina ensuring that he has a steady stream of kids to Akumatize, and Conspiracy Theorist Jalil Kubdel helping proselytize against Ladybug and Cat Noir on social media. By contrast, Ladybug and Cat Noir only have each other, as well as the Resistance, a team consisting almost entirely of normal teenagers (and they quickly become compromised when Nino reveals the team's existence to Gabriel Agreste, not realizing that he is Monarch). Obviously, the odds are not in the heroes' favor. However, Monarch proves to be a spectacularly Bad Boss, alienating Nathalie early on because of his obsession with defeating Ladybug at the cost of their original objective of saving his wife, and his over-reliance on Lila comes back to bite him in the ass when she turns out to be The Starscream. Meanwhile, Ladybug and Cat Noir's bond has only gotten stronger in the face of adversity and the Resistance ends up being surprisingly well-organized, and together, they put up much more of a fight than Monarch anticipated, even managing to depose Chloé after Monarch installs her as a dictator of Paris and grants her a small army of superpowered robots.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: This is lampshaded in the final season. Grogar assembles a Legion of Doom of several villains the Mane Six have defeated and points out they have always failed to beat them because they work together, stating if they all do the same then they will finally conquer Equestria. King Sombra is the only one to outright refuse this alliance in favor of going solo, and Grogar uses his subsequent defeat and death as an example to the others of what will happen if they don't go along with his plan. When they are seen later in "Frenemies", Grogar is frustrated over how they have made no progress in working together at all, with Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow constantly arguing with each other and trying to prove who is better between the three of them. When he sends them on a mission to retrieve his bell, they eventually start to get along after bonding over their shared hatred of Twilight and her friends, but they stop just short of becoming a Villainous Friendship due to being too proud to ever accept The Magic of Friendship themselves. They decide to continue working together, just until they can betray Grogar and defeat their enemies, then they state their alliance will be over. Their cooperation proves successful for the most part, but when they begin to run out of enemies to face together they slowly begin to return to their arguing and in-fighting. Meanwhile, Twilight and her friends all stick together despite being in their Darkest Hour, and ultimately all of their allies from Equestria and beyond arrive to help support them in their final battle.
- In the Recess episode "Lawson and his Crew", the Recess Gang find themselves repeatedly one-upped by the eponymous Psycho Rangers assembled specifically to Beat Them at Their Own Game. This lasts until the gang remembers that they are bonafide True Companions who genuinely have each other if nothing else, whereas Lawson's crew has no chemistry or camaraderie other than glory hounding, and quickly dissolve when their conflicting motives become apparent.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Zygerria arc (S4 E11–13) features this. The Queen successfully enslaves all five of the heroes (Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Rex, and R2-D2), but when Dooku arrives, he and the Queen start fighting each other, giving Anakin the chance to escape and free everyone else.
- This is a constant in nearly every Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show. The Turtles, even if they have very different personalities, love one another and will always have their brothers' shells in a fight. The Foot Clan members may have a Villainous Friendship or two among them, but it's mostly every villain for himself (with in-fighting or beatings from Shredder happening at least once a day). This is especially prevalent in the 2012 series, where the Cold Open of one episode went out of its way to show how the Turtles work together on a mission while Bradford, Xever, and Stockman basically just gripe at each other.
- Transformers: In general, the Autobots, while they often argue and disagree with one another, rarely ever have to deal with treachery and backstabbing. By contrast, the Decepticons tend to be practically infested with treachery, with Starscream being the most prominent.
- The Transformers: Optimus Prime leads the Autobots, who often look to their leader for guidance, and are willing to follow him due to his experience and leadership skills. The Decepticons on the other hand, are led by Megatron, whose second in command is the quintessential Starscream, and some episodes show that any Decepticon is willing to take over from Megatron if the chance presents itself. This is sometimes played with: the Decepticons even without Megatron have the drive to keep going, the Autobots without Optimus fall apart because none of the others have the charisma or power to provide leadership.
- Played with in Transformers: Prime, where Megatron spends a few episodes getting his house in order. In the season 2 finale, the Decepticons attack the Autobot base so ferociously that the Autobots are forced to scatter to escape, with Optimus Prime being caught in the base's explosion. Lampshaded when Megatron and Starscream stride through the ruins, observing, "United we stand, divided they fall." Despite power struggles between them in the following seasons, the Decepticons are so united at the end of the season that following Megatron's death, it's Starscream of all Decepticons most reluctant to retreat without at least avenging him, with Shockwave literally carrying him off the field.