http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilVersusOblivion

Ash: You really want to help!?

James: Of course!

Jessie: We don't want the world destroyed!

James: 'Cause even if we survive...

Jessie: ...thered be no one left to steal from!

James: We'd be out of work! Jessie and James explaining why they're helping Ash out of a bind, Pokémon 2000. explaining why they're helping You really want to help!?Of course!We don't want the world destroyed!'Cause even if we survive......thered be no one left to steal from!We'd be out of work!

Our first character or faction is a villain with either a sense of self-preservation, a taste for others' misery or a plan to Take Over the World. He's an evil guy, no mistaking it, but happens to enjoy his life and would prefer that the world continue existing, if only to continue his Evil Overlord rule, indulge his greed, lust, and/or generally pursuing his own evil interests and schemes.

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Our second character is a Straw Nihilist, a Misanthrope Supreme, an Omnicidal Maniac, or an Eldritch Abomination and wants to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. Even if the first villain would be able to somehow escape from this disaster unharmed, there likely wouldn't be anyone left to rule over or torment for his own twisted pleasure. So the first villain steps in to, surprisingly, help save the day, if only to prevent the second from upsetting the status quo that allows him to continue being evil on his own terms.

Now, in the darkest times, when the world is about to be destroyed by Oblivion, here comes its last chance. Good held out as best it could despite the futility, but Evil climbs into the ring to fight, and Oblivion is in for a whole new level of combat unlike before.

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A subtrope of Evil vs. Evil where the story avoids Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy by offering two reasonably different flavors of evil. May overlap with Even Evil Has Standards and Enemy Mine or result in a Mêlée à Trois with the heroes. Often present in worlds with Angels, Devils and Squid, with the Devils representing Evil and the Squid representing Oblivion. Villains opposing The End of the World as We Know It can be on any part of the "evil" side of Character Alignment, although Lawful Evil ones are a bit more common since they rely on an established system of rules to benefit themselves, which would be upset by a threat of this scale. Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil examples generally have the "I'm having too much fun to stop now" motivation in comparison. On the flipside, the oblivion side can be the sympathetic side too, especially if the villain in question is a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds wanting to destroy the world to end the cycle of suffering caused by the evil side by any means necessary. After all, if the universe is already in a state of endless suffering, it is a lot easier to end the cycle by destroying it all than trying to restore it.

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A typical stock justification the usual villain uses to gain the heroes' trust (which pretty much always works and is reliable) is to say "This planet is my home too."

This trope has a Fridge Brilliance side: it justifies many heroes for their Thou Shalt Not Kill attitude. The Fridge Logic side is that a villain who sides with the hero to prevent world destruction should realize it's not that smart trying to kill the hero in the next episode. He may achieve world domination, then end up having the world destroyed because the hero is not there to fight the greater evil any more. See Pragmatic Villainy for more examples.

A subtrope of The Good, the Bad, and the Evil and Evil vs. Evil.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Comic Books

Fan Works

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

In the Arrowverse Crisis Crossover, Crisis On Infinite Earths, subverted at first with Lex Luthor who went and took the time to travel the Multiverse killing as many Supermen as he could while whole universes were getting destroyed. However eventually played straight when all the Infinite Earths cease to exist and it's just him and the Paragons, where he finally joins forces to fight with them in restoring the universe. Lex : If there's anyone who's going to take over the universe, it's going to be me!

In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Becoming", Angelus is planning to perform a ritual that will bring about the end of the world. Spike sides with the heroes to stop him, and tells Buffy that under the big talk of wanting to end the world because they're evil, a lot of vampires like the Earth just as it is — millions of people running around helpless like "Happy Meals with legs", and a comparative small handful of people who hunt and kill them. Angelus is just one of the few vampires insane, fanatical and (most importantly) dickish enough to actually do it, which Spike doesn't want.

In Charmed, the Hollow can be restrained only by a Yin-Yang Bomb spell of good and evil.

Doctor Who: In "The Pandorica Opens", the Daleks and most of the Eleventh Doctor's Rogues Gallery Before that, the serial Logopolis did this with the Master. The Master against Rassilon in The End of Time, though it was for more personal reasons. The Master: *fires electrical blast at Rassilon* "You did this to me! All of my life!" *fires second bolt* "You made me!" "1!" *fires 3rd bolt* "2!" *fires 4th bolt* "3!" *fires 5th bolt* "4!" *fires last bolt*

Heroes has Sylar. Head-splitting serial killer of specials by day, but would rather not have New York explode since it doesn't fit his agenda. He comes around when he gets a vision of the future where it does fit his agenda.

Supernatural: In season 5, Crowley — a powerful, successful and very evil demon — helps the brothers to combat Lucifer and the world-shattering threat of the Apocalypse, as he's quite enjoying himself. Earlier in the same season, a group of pagan gods who would otherwise happily engage in human sacrifice briefly joined in an anti-Apocalypse alliance as they were not happy with the plans of either Heaven or Hell, until Lucifer personally intervened to wipe them out. In season 7 Crowley does this again, as the Leviathans are organizing the wholesale slaughter of mankind, every other monster race besides themselves, and threaten to destroy the demons if they weren't occupied elsewhere. Over the course of the season he subtly aids the Winchesters to find a means to kill the Levi leader and destroy their army. In season 11, Lucifer, Crowley, all the other demons, and Rowena all join forces with the Winchesters and the angels in order to prevent the Darkness from destroying all of creation, since obviously that would destroy them, too. In season 13, Lucifer himself eventually goes into an omnicidal hissy-fit after his half-angel son Jack finally rejects him for his evil actions, stealing Jack's grace so he can wipe out all Creation. Dean decides that teaming up with a "merely" genocidal version of Michael is worth it to stop Lucifer for good.

In season 8 of Stargate SG-1, Ba'al, the last of the Goa'uld System Lords, joins forces with the SGC to keep the Replicators from eating the galaxy. And then to stop his boss Anubis from wiping out all life in it. Also later helps out against the Ori. The team gets used to him being willing to do this, but never forgets that he is still the bad guy, which he does prove now and again. In fact, in the end, he becomes the Big Bad of the final SG-1 movie

Cyrus Crabbe in the Dinotopia TV movie joins with the Scott brothers to save the island from the rampaging pteranodons, even though he hates the Dinotopian way of life and wants to leave. Crabbe: Don't you get it? I'm trying to save this hell of a place. Not 'cause I like it, but 'cause I'm trying to save me own skin.

This is Captain Janeway's reasoning for "making an appeal to the devil" and offering to aid the Borg against Species 8472 in Star Trek: Voyager. Sure, the Borg's catchphrase is "Resistance is futile," but Species 8472 introduce themselves with "the weak shall perish," and they're soundly kicking the Borg's ass, with no indication that they'll stop with them. A season later, when her decision is thrown back in her face by someone whose species was assimilated by the Borg, she uses this as her justification.

Myths & Religion

Probably the reason why Set, the fratricidal god of chaos in Egyptian Mythology, helps Ra to slay the serpent Apep. After all there would be no world worth terrorizing if the sun and heavens were destroyed.

Tabletop Games

Video Games

Visual Novels

Fate/stay night's third and final route, Heaven's Feel, comes down to this for the two major villains, but it's a little more complicated on the Oblivion side in a way that actually makes it more sympathetic than Evil. Kotomine Kirei allowing a creature of "ultimate evil" to be born . His true goal is answering the question of whether anything can truly be "evil" if all it does is act according to its nature.

. His true goal is answering the question of whether anything can truly be "evil" if all it does is act according to its nature. In Zero Time Dilemma Second Zero reveals that Free The Soul released Radical-6 to stop a Religious fanatic from sparking a nuclear war which would've destroyed the world. Since Radical-6 would've killed about 75% of the world's population there's pretty good chance that the fanatic would be among them.

Web Comics

The Order of the Stick: In In this strip , Evil Overlord Xykon explains why he won't let the world be destroyed by the Snarl: Xykon: I like the world. Some of my best evilness took place here. I wouldn't mind ruling it, in fact. I'm certainly not about to destroy it unless I get really, really bored. His Dragon, Redcloak, walks the line. The plan is to give his god, the Dark One, the ability to unleash the Snarl at will to threaten the other gods into giving goblins a better lot in life. Though if things go south and the Snarl winds up destroying the world (again), the Dark One will get a say in how the next world is created, ensuring that the goblins of that world get a better deal. So whether Evil or Oblivion wins, so does the Dark One. At least, so he thinks. Thor later reveals that the Dark One hasn't gathered anywhere close to enough godly power to survive the transition between two worlds, and would certainly undergo the divine equivalent of starving to death if he tried. It's unclear whether the Dark One is aware of this. Later, Tarquin promises to help Elan, despite being on opposite ends of the alignment scale, precisely because he knows Elan is on a quest to save the world and, as the power behind the throne of a good-sized kingdom, he has a vested interest in seeing that happen. The deity Loki opposes his daughter Hel's plot to force a vote to end the world, and worked for some time with his friend/enemy Thor in order to limit her influence. Loki's stated rationale for not wanting to vote to end the world is that he finds the world's inhabitants entertaining and wishes to give them a chance to contain the Snarl before jumping the gun. Hel: I am most looking forward to taking the soul of Thor's high priestess. My dear puppy Garm is in dire need of a new chew toy, after all.

Loki: Humiliating Thor is not enough of a reason to do this, Hel. It's a pretty funny reason, sure, but not enough of one. Lampshaded when Vampire Durkon gives his reasons for supporting Hel as "I'm evil now". Roy points out that this isn't a reason. Roy: Xykon is an Evil lich. Tarquin's an Evil human. Neither one of them wants to destroy the world. Heck, Belkar is an Evil halfling and he's like 70% toward wanting to save it.

Kid Radd has three villains. Crystal wants to conquer the world, in revenge for the wrongs she has endured. GI Guy wants to destroy the world, out of despair after two failed utopias. The Seer wants to conquer the world then destroy it before moving to the next planet and repeat the process, because that's what a Computer Virus does (with a dose of sadism too).

Goblins: During the Maze of Many arc (in which thousands of alternate versions of Minmax, Forgath, and Kin are competing to complete the dungeon crawl), a Psionic version of Minmax is attempting to revert the extradimensional maze to Oblivion. He plans to alter the rules of logic and prove that One equals Zero, proving that nothing in the maze has ever existed. Naturally, anyone in the Maze at that point would revert to Oblivion as well. While the protagonists are good-aligned, most of the alternate versions of Minmax, Forgarth, and Kin are evil, and when they find out about Psionic Minmax's plans to preemptively erase them from existence, they immediately stop fighting each other and Zerg Rush him.

True Villains takes a turn in this direction when the squad of unrepentant Villain Protagonists faces the forces of Malanor, the First Vampire , who seeks to wipe out all life on the continent. The extremity of the situation even forces Sebastian's resolutely Good and thoroughly estranged sister Alyssa into an Enemy Mine alliance.

, who seeks to wipe out all life on the continent. The extremity of the situation even forces into an Enemy Mine alliance. In this arc of Full Frontal Nerdity, Lewis's computer gets infected by a malware video game called Darkunhaus Necroquest that threatens to overwrite his entire hard drive if he stops playing. Lewis's computer is saved when a different malware program (anthropomorphized as a London Gangster) which is using Lewis's computer to mine bitcoin for shady businessmen in Siberia destroys the video game.

Web Original

Happens in the backstory of Reflets d'Acide when the Demon Lord Bélial shew up for the first time. His arrival resulted in Evil Overlord Alkor joining force with King Mage Maender, presumably for this reason. Notably, it seems the alliance actually survives after Belial was defeated.

SCP Foundation: One of the Foundation's many, many contingency plans in the event of the destruction of most of humanity is to release the rapists, murderers, and other locked-up scum of humanity, in the hopes that there still be a humanity.

Web Videos

Atop the Fourth Wall has Lord Vyce and The Entity. The former claims he started as a genuine hero, merely warning alternate realities of the danger they were in, but became a ruthless Multiversal Conqueror after everything else failed. Also, Doctor Insano is not only willing to call a truce, but even ignore Linkara stealing his prized deathbot in order to defend the stability of hypertime.

Western Animation