...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

The Horseshoe Effect

417 statements
77 feature instances
57 referencing feature instances

The Horseshoe Effect	type	FeatureClass
The Horseshoe Effect	label	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect	page	TheHorseshoeEffect
The Horseshoe Effect	comment	This trope is when two groups who are ostensibly ideologically opposed to each other actually have a lot of ideology in common. Conventional political theory holds that all political ideologies sit on a linear spectrum from left to right: communism on the far left, fascism on the far right, and everything else somewhere in between. This theory implies that the further away an ideology is from the centre, the more different it is from a corresponding ideology on the opposite side of the spectrum: centre-left and centre-right political parties are distinct but still fairly similar, but communist and fascist political parties are dramatically different from one another, as they sit on opposite extremes of the spectrum. In the case of the horseshoe effect, however, this is not so. Rather than a linear spectrum from left to right, political ideologies all sit on a curved, horseshoe-shaped arc, in which the two extremes of the spectrum are closer to each other than they are to the centre of the spectrum, and they have less "space" between them than less-extreme points do (if this sounds like a Mind Screw, look at the page image again). This means that the more radical and extreme an individual's political beliefs get, the more they come to resemble the beliefs of individuals on the "opposite" end of the political spectrum. For example, far-right fascist or theocratic governments, to advance the national agenda and engender absolute loyalty to God/the state, will interfere with individual rights such as freedom of speech, interfere with individual-institutional rights such as freedom of the press and media, seize property rights for service to God/the state, enact censorship laws, and even try to control the Individual's very own personal life via Thought Crime, punishing behavior considered as aberrant such as homosexuality and the like. Meanwhile, in Marxist-Leninism, an ideal communist society would be a classless, stateless one, but the direct transition of a capitalist society into a communist one is held to be impossible, which is where "the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" comes in: the workers seize control of all private property. The Revolutionary Transitional government will engender absolute loyalty to the state among their citizens, interfere with individual rights, maintain rigid, censorious control of the press and media under the grounds that the state will eventually wither away once the reactionary enemy is defeated, eventually enact Thought Crime policies ostensibly to ensure that no reactionaries ever emerge, which means taking control of a person's individual life (up to and including their sexuality etc.). Although the ideologies of the two governments in the example above are ostensibly on opposite ends of the political spectrum (such that both states would consider one another mortal enemies), in terms of practical de facto policies, they end up becoming rather similar. This theory was first observed in comparing far-right and far-left governments, but is also visible when comparing political groups or organisations on each end of the spectrum. Consider how some far-left radical feministsnote In feminist circles, some refer to such people as "trans-excluding radical feminists" (TERFs) and "sex workerâ€“excluding radical feminists" (SWERFs). tend to have remarkably similar attitudes towards prostitution, pornography and Transgender people as do conservative fundamentalists; or how some far-right white supremacist groups and some far-left black supremacist groups have been known to collaborate with one another in order to achieve common goals (segregation, for example).note For example, the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, and White Aryan Resistance have tried to establish a working relationship with the Nation of Islam (NOI) based on their shared antisemitism and opposition to the LGBTQ+ community and committment to racial separation. Malcolm X revealed one such attempted collaboration after renouncing and denouncing the NOI. It is commonly seen in concert with tropes such as He Who Fights Monsters, You Are What You Hate, Became Their Own Antithesis or Full-Circle Revolution. It is similar in some respects to Poe's Law; in that trope, the more extreme an opinion becomes, the harder it is to tell whether it is intended satirically or not,note e.g. whether it is a legitimate opinion being expressed by someone on the left, or a satirical opinion expressed by someone on the right to make fun of the left; or vice versa whereas in this trope the more extreme an opinion gets, the harder it can be to tell whether it is coming from the far-left or the far-right. It could also be considered a form of Moral Myopia. There's also a fair degree of overlap with Both Sides Have a Point; in this case, both sides don't realize they're making the same point. This trope can also lead people to misguidedly believe in the Golden Mean Fallacy, wherein the correct solution to a problem is assumed to be the middle of two extremes. Among political science circles, this trope can be criticised on the grounds that it presents centrist liberalism as the only option for society to take, which can end up being nothing more than calling for the status quo. Mentioning this trope is also something of a Berserk Button for individuals on either end of the political spectrum, who often resent the suggestion that they have anything ideologically in common with the individuals on the opposite end (as testament to this, look no further than the numerous Justifying Edits this page has undergone since its launch). And also, radicals often have their own versions of the Horseshoe Effect where they claim that centrists serve to only bolster the side they oppose and are most prone to supporting and being swayed by them This is often called the Fish Hook Effect (however, those who are against this idea claim that it's a closed-minded reaction against Horseshoe Theory fueled by bad-faith assumptions & an "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality). Best practice is not to take the existence of this trope as hard-and-fast evidence that opposing political groups or governments always end up ideologically similar to each other; after all, it's the Horseshoe Effect, not the Horseshoe Law. Compare Mirroring Factions, which is likely to use this trope. If someone makes this realization in story, they may point it out with a "Not So Different" Remark. Compare Mirror Character, in which two characters are much more similar than they might appear. Can be related to Enemy Mine, wherein two enemies nevertheless realise they have a common goal and decide to work together to achieve it. Conversely, it can be related to Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters, when enemies don't realise they have a lot in common. It may also explain why people tend to lump Communists and Nazis together in the popular imagination. See also Villain Has a Point and Jerkass Has a Point, when characters the heroes and the author represent negatively nevertheless are in the right for once (and Strawman Has a Point, when this happens unintentionally). For more information, see this article on That Other Wiki. Note: This page lists examples of works in which two ideologically opposed groups are presented as having beliefs in common. This page does not pass judgement on whether that presentation is fair, charitable or justified. If you think that a particular presentation is unfair or uncharitable, this page is not the place to argue the point. noreallife
The Horseshoe Effect	fetched	2024-04-07T05:01:21Z
The Horseshoe Effect	parsed	2024-04-07T05:01:21Z
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to AlienNonInterferenceClause: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to ArmsDealer: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to AssholeVictim: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to BigBadDuumvirate: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to CentralTheme: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to CommieNazis: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to FemaleMisogynist: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to ForeverWar: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to FullCircleRevolution: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to GoldenMeanFallacy: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to Hikikomori: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to ItsAllAboutMe: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to Kaiju: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to KnightTemplar: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to NebulousEvilOrganization: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to OurElvesAreDifferent: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to OurGodsAreDifferent: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to PhysicalGod: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to ShowWithinAShow: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to StarWars: Not an Item - CAT
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to TheHashshashin: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingComment	Dropped link to invokedtrope: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Horseshoe Effect	processingUnknown	NebulousEvilOrganization
The Horseshoe Effect	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Horseshoe Effect / int_10d303a2	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_10d303a2	comment	Shin Megami Tensei IV and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse reveals that humans subconsciously decide what is real based on their perception, so YHWH decided to make the Order Versus Chaos conflict so that humans would take sides, and inadvertently doom all the others who didn't believe in gods or demons. The two sides are so similar in nature because they were designed by the same entity for the same purpose — get humans to believe in order demons and chaos demons, and ultimately reinforce YHWH's existence. This also explains why a demon that was on one side may be on the other in the next game — whatever gets them more popularity points from the players.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_10d303a2	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_10d303a2	featureConfidence	1.0
Shin Megami Tensei IV (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_10d303a2
The Horseshoe Effect / int_12381dc	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_12381dc	comment	In Divinity: Original Sin II, Malady discusses how there's little practical difference between the omnicidal chaos of the Voidwoken and the despotic order of the Magisters — in game, they both deliberately inflict terror, disarray, and mass death on the greater population, and both even make use of the Black Ring Apocalypse Cult.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_12381dc	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_12381dc	featureConfidence	1.0
Divinity: Original Sin II (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_12381dc
The Horseshoe Effect / int_18f4b8c1	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_18f4b8c1	comment	Jreg parodies this in his videos with Horseshoe Centrist, a personification of someone incapable of seeing the difference between literally opposite things. In general, a theme of his videos is that centrism will always be a threat to extremes far more than the extremes will be to each other, which prompts the 4 extremes to do a Villain Team-Up. Otherwise, the series is based on the Political Compass instead of Spectrum, and therefore any similarities between ideologies are explained due to them hugging one axis of the compass together. Commie and Fascist in Centricide 5 end up summoning Nazbol to defeat Horseshoe Centrist which simultaneously proves his theory right and wrong.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_18f4b8c1	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_18f4b8c1	featureConfidence	1.0
Jreg (Web Video)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_18f4b8c1
The Horseshoe Effect / int_230b3240	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_230b3240	comment	Jack Ryan: Tom Clancy's novels don't usually indulge in this, and he especially have no patience for this trope being invoked to equate the two sides of The Cold War. There are times, however: Patriot Games is set against the backdrop of The Troubles. While all of the villains featured are on the Catholic/Republican side, none of the CIA or FBI personnel in the book have anything nicer to say about their Protestant/Loyalist enemies, viewing both sides as equally repellent collections of bigots and fanatics. The icing on the cake is that even their British counterparts seem to feel this way; it's stated repeatedly that outside of Northern Ireland, even and especially in the British Army, the sentiment of "let's just leave and let the two crazies sort it out" is a very popular one. Communists are the most common villains in the series. However, similar to the James Bond example above, a lot of them are quite prone to behaving in exactly the ways they attribute to their right-wing enemies, a hypocrisy the author is happy to point out. The ruling classes of communist nations tend to be shot through with corrupt opportunists who constantly abuse their power to satisfy their own greed. Racism is also shown to be a problem endemic throughout communist regimes and movements, regardless of their ethnicity. Invoked and subverted in Without Remorse:
The Horseshoe Effect / int_230b3240	featureApplicability	-0.3
The Horseshoe Effect / int_230b3240	featureConfidence	1.0
Jack Ryan	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_230b3240
The Horseshoe Effect / int_24c4c4ad	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_24c4c4ad	comment	The Corellian Trilogy: The Saccorian Triad is an impressive three-way version of this: a crime syndicate that supports human supremacist, Selonian supremacist, and Drall supremacist movements alike (one for each of the three species native to the Corellian system). It helps that all of them hate the New Republic and don't want to find themselves accountable to its (or any) laws.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_24c4c4ad	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_24c4c4ad	featureConfidence	1.0
The Corellian Trilogy	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_24c4c4ad
The Horseshoe Effect / int_25d97c04	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_25d97c04	comment	James Bond: SPECTRE is a living Horseshoe Effect, as it liberally recruits former Nazis and former Communists alike. Their successor in the Daniel Craig movies, Quantum (which is eventually revealed to be either a branch of or a forerunner to the rebooted SPECTRE), similarly declares that it works "with the left or the right, with dictators or liberators." Despite its roots in the Cold War, the franchise gives us quite a few capitalists who are willing to work with or for the communists: Auric Goldfinger, Francisco Scaramanga, Aris Kristatos, Max Zorin, and Brad Whitaker most notably. For their part, the communist villains, despite their ideology, are often quite prone to corruption and self-enrichment, behaving much like the stereotype of the capitalists they allegedly hate. Lampshaded in Die Another Day: The Big Bad Duumvirate in Octopussy take this up to eleven. General Orlov is a Soviet general, while his partner Kamal Khan is exiled Afghan royalty. This in 1983, when Afghanistan was fighting a war against the Soviet occupation, a few years after its monarchy was overthrown in a left-wing coup.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_25d97c04	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_25d97c04	featureConfidence	1.0
James Bond (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_25d97c04
The Horseshoe Effect / int_271e5495	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_271e5495	comment	Four Days in September: Fernando is a member of an underground terrorist group fighting against the brutal, authoritarian right-wing government of Brazil. His group, MR-8, elects to take direct action against the government—by kidnapping the American ambassador and threatening to execute him if the government doesn't release political prisoners. Fernando has a friend, Cesar, who shares his left-wing ideals but disapproves of violent action. When the two of them meet after MR-8 kidnaps the ambassador and Cesar has figured out his friend was in on it, Cesar observes that Fernando and his terrorist gang are really no different from the government they're fighting.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_271e5495	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_271e5495	featureConfidence	1.0
Four Days in September	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_271e5495
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2c3cd68a	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2c3cd68a	comment	X-Wing Rogue Squadron: The Warrior Princess story arc features the Priamsta, the aristocracy of the planet Eiattu VI, and the People's Liberation Battalion, a revolutionary movement locked in a civil war against it. Despite their mutual enmity, the leadership of both factions leads up to the same place, being thoroughly compromised by the local Imperial ruler: Count Labaan of the Priamsta is an Imperial Intelligence agent, while the deposed Prince Harran, who leads the PLB, is in fact an impostor working for Moff Tavira.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2c3cd68a	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2c3cd68a	featureConfidence	1.0
X-Wing Rogue Squadron (Comic Book)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_2c3cd68a
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2f203125	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2f203125	comment	Shin Megami Tensei: Law and Chaos may be diametrically opposed about the meaning behind their side's actions ("absolute submission to the Greater Good" or "freedom is more important than anything"), but both are ready and willing to deceive, kill (a lot), mutilate, play god and break entire worlds if it brings them closer to victory. Likewise, a victory for one side will entail humanity losing itself one way or the other. Shin Megami Tensei IV and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse reveals that humans subconsciously decide what is real based on their perception, so YHWH decided to make the Order Versus Chaos conflict so that humans would take sides, and inadvertently doom all the others who didn't believe in gods or demons. The two sides are so similar in nature because they were designed by the same entity for the same purpose — get humans to believe in order demons and chaos demons, and ultimately reinforce YHWH's existence. This also explains why a demon that was on one side may be on the other in the next game — whatever gets them more popularity points from the players.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2f203125	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_2f203125	featureConfidence	1.0
Shin Megami Tensei (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_2f203125
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3148086e	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3148086e	comment	Years and Years: Discussed when a far-left party in Spain takes over due to a brief revolution. Daniel laments that they have a policy of repatriating refugees as well. Viktor says far-left meets with far-right in the middle.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3148086e	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3148086e	featureConfidence	1.0
Years and Years	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_3148086e
The Horseshoe Effect / int_353bdeb0	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_353bdeb0	comment	In the Humanx Commonwealth prequel Diuturnity's Dawn, a human-supremacist group has no problem teaming up with a thranx-supremacist group to plan a terrorist attack, since they share a mutual hatred, a total disregard for their own people's lives, and an opposition to the formation of The Federation, and can agree to table the question of whose species is superior.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_353bdeb0	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_353bdeb0	featureConfidence	1.0
Humanx Commonwealth	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_353bdeb0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_35f1d3fb	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_35f1d3fb	comment	G.I. Joe: The Baroness hops from one end of the horseshoe to the other. Born to a family of wealthy European aristocrats, her Start of Darkness was becoming a left-wing radical terrorist as an act of youthful rebellion against her parents. In her present incarnation as a Cobra leader, she combines the revolutionary terrorism of her radical days with the high-end lifestyle and appreciation for the finer things of her noble upbringing (not to mention the title of Baroness). However radical or aristocratic, she remains an autocrat in her politics, an elitist in her attitudes, and generally hostile to the United States.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_35f1d3fb	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_35f1d3fb	featureConfidence	1.0
G.I. Joe (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_35f1d3fb
The Horseshoe Effect / int_390c96cd	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_390c96cd	comment	The Poet and the Lunatics: In "The House of the Peacock", the antagonist is a man who has built his life around acting directly contrary to every superstition he can think of. Gabriel notes that this man is just as ruled by superstition as the rustic yokel who obeys every superstition he knows.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_390c96cd	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_390c96cd	featureConfidence	1.0
The Poet And The Lunatics	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_390c96cd
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3953baf0	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3953baf0	comment	In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frollo pursues an insanely harsh and fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity. In the process, he commits numerous sins while trying to do "God's work", including pride and wrath. By the end of the movie, he goes so far as burn the very cathedral he claimed to defend, becoming the Satanic being he claimed to oppose.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3953baf0	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3953baf0	featureConfidence	1.0
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_3953baf0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_39bc9c8a	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_39bc9c8a	comment	In Inherent Vice, Tariq Khalil - a member of The Black Geurrilla Family prison gang - has struck up a friendship with Glen Charlock of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood because "...we found we share some of the similar opinions about the U.S. government".
The Horseshoe Effect / int_39bc9c8a	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_39bc9c8a	featureConfidence	1.0
Inherent Vice	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_39bc9c8a
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3ab3f93f	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3ab3f93f	comment	Don Camillo: Don Camillo and Peppone. One's the town's priest ("reactionary priest" the other side says), the other is the town's communist mayor. At the end of the day, both work for the common good of the village, favor helping the poor and downtrodden and oppose the selfish landowners.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3ab3f93f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3ab3f93f	featureConfidence	1.0
Don Camillo	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_3ab3f93f
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3c33a32c	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3c33a32c	comment	The Day of the Jackal includes a passage describing a controversial French police official. The writer uses the opportunity to take a few swipes at both the extreme-left and the extreme-right (the official's most prominent critics), pointing out the ways in which they're not so different from what they hate:
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3c33a32c	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3c33a32c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Day of the Jackal	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_3c33a32c
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3fe6b4fb	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3fe6b4fb	comment	Thrackan Sal-Solo, the leader of the human movement, seems incapable of avoiding this trope, despite being a very sincere human supremacist. In the New Jedi Order era, he ends up becoming leader of the Peace Brigade, the movement collaborating with the Yuuzhan Vong, the extragalactic alien conquerors trying to take over the galaxy. (To add insult to injury, the Peace Brigade is itself a multi-species movement). As with the Corellian Trilogy example above, it helps that Thrackan and the Yuuzhan Vong share a burning hatred of the same group (the Jedi).
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3fe6b4fb	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_3fe6b4fb	featureConfidence	1.0
New Jedi Order	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_3fe6b4fb
The Horseshoe Effect / int_40b716af	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_40b716af	comment	In Assassin's Creed, it is revealed at the end that Al Mualim — AltaÃ¯r's mentor and leader of the Levantine Assassin Order — was manipulating AltaÃ¯r into killing high-ranking members of the Templars so that he could secure the entire Templar Order (and by extension the Apple of Eden) for himself, having worked with both organizations to achieve this.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_40b716af	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_40b716af	featureConfidence	1.0
Assassin's Creed (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_40b716af
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4142730f	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4142730f	comment	Patriot Games is set against the backdrop of The Troubles. While all of the villains featured are on the Catholic/Republican side, none of the CIA or FBI personnel in the book have anything nicer to say about their Protestant/Loyalist enemies, viewing both sides as equally repellent collections of bigots and fanatics. The icing on the cake is that even their British counterparts seem to feel this way; it's stated repeatedly that outside of Northern Ireland, even and especially in the British Army, the sentiment of "let's just leave and let the two crazies sort it out" is a very popular one.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4142730f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4142730f	featureConfidence	1.0
Patriot Games	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_4142730f
The Horseshoe Effect / int_44836236	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_44836236	comment	The Dogs of War centers around a British industrialist's attempt to overthrow the government of a small West African nation. It's made very clear that this would make no substantive change in the country's fortunes; both the current dictator and his expected successor are violent and power-hungry thugs, both would be largely beholden to a foreign patron (with the Soviet Union switched out for the British industrialist's MegaCorp), and both would leave the population poor, ignorant, exploited, and lacking in any government services. The mercenary hired to carry out the coup, thankfully, ultimately chooses to Take a Third Option.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_44836236	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_44836236	featureConfidence	1.0
The Dogs of War	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_44836236
The Horseshoe Effect / int_457b671e	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_457b671e	comment	24: The villains in Season 2 are an extended application of this trope. Wald, one of the first antagonists we meet, is an American Right-Wing Militia Fanatic plotting an act of terrorism. Unknown to Wald, he's being manipulated by Second Wave, a jihadist movement plotting to set off a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. Second Wave, in turn, is being enabled by a Corporate Conspiracy of Western oil barons and arms manufacturers trying to provoke a war in the Middle East.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_457b671e	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_457b671e	featureConfidence	1.0
24	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_457b671e
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4abb6c74	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4abb6c74	comment	Invoked and subverted in Without Remorse:
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4abb6c74	featureApplicability	-0.3
The Horseshoe Effect / int_4abb6c74	featureConfidence	1.0
Without Remorse	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_4abb6c74
The Horseshoe Effect / int_540d133b	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_540d133b	comment	Young Jedi Knights gives us the Diversity Alliance, a terrorist organization that claims to be a response to the Empire's abuses against alien species... except that they don't just blame the Empire, but all of humanity. Not only do they share the Empire's general racist mindset, just in the other direction, but their master plan to exterminate humanity is literally based on an Imperial weapon, the Krytos virus, retooled to target humans specifically.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_540d133b	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_540d133b	featureConfidence	1.0
Young Jedi Knights	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_540d133b
The Horseshoe Effect / int_54870df8	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_54870df8	comment	Frequently mentioned and discussed on Less Wrong.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_54870df8	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_54870df8	featureConfidence	1.0
Less Wrong (Blog)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_54870df8
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5908ee91	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5908ee91	comment	In Skyrim, take a race that prides themselves for completely shaping modern Tamriel into what it is today, who bull-headedly looks down on other races and professions that are commonly not used in their culture even though history has shown that they were once skilled practitioners of it, follow a religion that is basically a combination of Men and Mer beliefs while a sizable minority still follows their old religion. All of these can easily describe both the rival Nords and the Altmer as of the 4th Era.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5908ee91	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5908ee91	featureConfidence	1.0
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_5908ee91
The Horseshoe Effect / int_597d7a1e	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_597d7a1e	comment	Radio Free Albemuth: In the film, when Nicholas tells Phil that Fremont is a secret Communist, the latter objects that he's a fascist, while Nick says there's no real difference in practice. Fremont in any case is also pretending to be a right-wing anti-communist, so it's not surprising he'd be called a fascist. Both also used very similar tactics.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_597d7a1e	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_597d7a1e	featureConfidence	1.0
VALIS	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_597d7a1e
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5cd1aa89	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5cd1aa89	comment	A recurring theme in Nineteen Eighty-Four: The ideology of the totalitarian Party is called Ingsoc (English Socialism), and yet the society it governs has a great deal in common with far-right fascist dictatorships, with a strictly regimented class system based upon a subservient working class and a hierarchical, dictatorial system of rule. Goldstein's book, which describes the society, puts it rather baldly: The premise of the book postulates an ongoing Forever War between three superpowers (Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia), the political ideologies of which are, respectively, Ingsoc, Neo-Bolshevism and Obliteration of the Self. To the extent that the citizens of each superpower are aware of the other superpowers' political ideologies, they deride them as monstrous outrages upon common sense. However, as Goldstein notes, the three ideologies are functionally indistinguishable, as are the societies they support.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5cd1aa89	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_5cd1aa89	featureConfidence	1.0
Nineteen Eighty-Four	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_5cd1aa89
The Horseshoe Effect / int_60f02ddb	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_60f02ddb	comment	In the American Dad! episode, "Stan of Arabia", Stan, a right-wing, uber-patriotic American, longs for the days when men had the final say in a marriage, and women did as they were told. After he and his family are sent to Saudi Arabia for a shit job, he realizes that Sharia laws matches his values pretty well, and ends up renouncing his American citizenship to stay there. In the same episode, Hayley, a leftist, feminist, American teenager, ends up bonding with a Saudi radical over their shared distaste for American militarism.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_60f02ddb	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_60f02ddb	featureConfidence	1.0
American Dad!	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_60f02ddb
The Horseshoe Effect / int_663064e3	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_663064e3	comment	In These Words Are True and Faithful, religious-right Pastor Mandeville agrees with Cassilda Saunders or other radical feminist lesbians on pornography, gay men's sexual freedom, and transgender issues. He even works with them in the Anti-Porn League.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_663064e3	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_663064e3	featureConfidence	1.0
These Words Are True and Faithful	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_663064e3
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67a513b8	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67a513b8	comment	In Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg, Huey Long is a right-wing Authoritarian Democrat (without the "democrat" part) and virulent anti-Syndicalist, but his Share Our Wealth plan is nonetheless rather socialist and would give the American people much of what the Syndicalists actually want.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67a513b8	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67a513b8	featureConfidence	1.0
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_67a513b8
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67d0fb7b	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67d0fb7b	comment	Although both German Communists and the Soviet Red Army are among the main enemies of the Freikorps in The Outlaws, the protagonist cannot help sympathy and admiration for their attitude, if not for their ideology. After all, he and many of his comrades are revolutionaries themselves and therefore way more eager to respect other revolutionaries rather than a government which they perceive as weak and corrupt. During his imprisonment, the hero even befriends an activist of the German Communist Party.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67d0fb7b	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_67d0fb7b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Outlaws	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_67d0fb7b
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6c2c4bf3	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6c2c4bf3	comment	X-Men Film Series: The X-Men want equal rights and peaceful coexistence between mutants and baseline humans. As such, they routinely find themselves caught in the middle between mutant supremacists who believe it's their destiny to overthrow and replace the human race, and human supremacists who fear that this is true and must be stopped by any means necessary. Both sides are violent supremacist bigots, the only difference being which species they hold allegiance to. Best exemplified in X2: X-Men United, whose main villain, Colonel Stryker, is a military scientist who stole and repurposed the X-Men's Cerebro to exterminate all mutants. Magneto helps them stop him in the nick of time... and then promptly retargets Cerebro in an attempt to exterminate all humans.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6c2c4bf3	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6c2c4bf3	featureConfidence	1.0
X-Men Film Series	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_6c2c4bf3
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6fd4e61f	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6fd4e61f	comment	By the end of Animal Farm, the oppressive pigs running the farm are scarcely distinguishable (in appearance or beliefs) from the oppressive farmers they deposed. Contrary to Common Knowledge, this was less about communism in general and more about Stalinism in particular — Orwell was himself a socialist, albeit one that was highly critical of the Soviet Union and highly supportive of democracy.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6fd4e61f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_6fd4e61f	featureConfidence	1.0
Animal Farm	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_6fd4e61f
The Horseshoe Effect / int_70814599	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_70814599	comment	Stargate SG-1: The Trust essentially flips from one end of the horseshoe to the other. Originally, it was set up by rogue NID agents who claimed to want to protect the United States and Earth from the Goa'uld and other alien threats, and didn't trust Stargate Command to do so. In Season 8, it's completely infiltrated by the remnants of the Goa'uld: not only are they taken over by the same enemy they were supposed to fight, they turn into a lifeline whose resources the almost-extinct Goa'uld use to find refuge on Earth and try to rebuild themselves. Even before the takeover, the rogue NID and their allies had a great deal in common with the Goa'uld. Both factions are extremely ethnocentric and treat other species with depraved indifference at best and raging bigotry at worst. Both are run by power-hungry sociopaths whose claims to represent higher ideals are a mask for their own greed. And both of them grew to their present strength by following the same MO, pillaging the technologies of living and dead civilizations alike rather than trying to negotiate or trade for them. Implied with Senator Kinsey and his Russian contact, General Kiselev. Their connection goes back to the end of the Cold War, when they were part of secret talks between their respective governments. Kinsey has previously been shown to be an American nationalist and Christian fundamentalist, while Kiselev is said to have been the same kind of hard-liner on the Soviet side. Given this, one might expect them to hate each other, but Kinsey instead remembers him fondly and says they developed "a mutual respect." (Of course, given what we know of him, it's an open question how much any of Kinsey's beliefs are sincere, and the same is likely true of Kiselev: O'Neill is anything but surprised when he finds that they're friends). The Free Jaffa occasionally fall into this. In "The Warrior", Katano appears to be a revolutionary leader seeking to free his people from the Goa'uld by any means necessary: SG-1 notes that his extreme and autocratic tactics largely treat his Jaffa followers as expendable pawns, and fears that his victory would ultimately be a Full-Circle Revolution after which the Jaffa would serve Katano in much the same way they previously served the Goa'uld. He's proven right, as Katano turns out to be a Goa'uld in disguise. We never learn whether he was trying to destroy the Jaffa rebellion, or simply co-opt it for his own purposes. In Season 9, the Free Jaffa Nation under Gerak's regime also shows some signs of this: when cautioned against using the same torture devices the Goa'uld used to enslave their people, Gerak replies that it's only appropriate that the Jaffa should use them in turn. It's an open question whether the Tok'ra are the Good Counterpart of the Goa'uld, or the other end of the horseshoe. Like the rest of their species, they take human hosts. Unlike them, the process is voluntary, and they share the human's body in a symbiotic relationship. Many Earthers remain skeptical of them, Jack O'Neill in particular, believing (with some justification) that the Tok'ra still don't treat humans as full equals. In fact, when we first meet the Tok'ra leaders, they initially distrust the members of SG-1 because its human members aren't immediately volunteering to become a new host to a symbiote whose host is dying. It doesn't help that, in extreme circumstances, Tok'ra have been known to seize control of a human host without their consent in order to stay alive. For the longest time, they're also quite willing to send Jaffa and Human soldiers into battle without committing any of their number to the fight, and while they will get furious if a Tok'ra dies (SG-1 gets bawled out by the Tok'ra council because a Goa'uld battleship they destroyed a year ago that was invading earth at the time had Tok'ra agents aboard), they care little about the deaths of their allies, echoing the System Lord's casual regard for their warriors in favor of their own lives. The two major factions of ascended beings, the Ori and the Ancients, fit the bill as well. The Ori believe in using their powers to subjugate the beings on the lower planes of existence, whom they then force to worship them as gods. The Ancients, ostensibly their Good Counterparts, believe strictly in non-interference with the lower beings, who they believe should be allowed to develop and achieve ascension (or not) on their own. The end result, however, is that while the Ancients may not oppress the lower beings as the Ori do, they're just as sociopathically indifferent to whether they live or die. By the end of Season 8, they were willing to watch the entire Milky Way Galaxy be purged of all life by the semi-ascended being Anubis, all to teach a lesson to one of their renegade members about the dangers of helping people ascend.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_70814599	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_70814599	featureConfidence	1.0
Stargate SG-1	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_70814599
The Horseshoe Effect / int_75149ccd	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_75149ccd	comment	X-Wing Series: A rare benevolent example in Wraith Squadron's collaboration with Imperial Admiral Rogriss. The two sides cheerfully admit that they're ideological opposites and will be shooting at each other again very shortly. However, they're willing to put their differences aside to bring down Warlord Zsinj, the renegade Imperial admiral who's been threatening both sides for the past year. While their beliefs in democracy versus dictatorship are irreconcilable, both groups share a sense of military honor, as well as a general commitment to and willingness to sacrifice for a cause greater than themselves. This is in contrast to Warlord Zsinj, and even many of his underlings, who are ultimately just bandits loyal only to themselves.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_75149ccd	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_75149ccd	featureConfidence	1.0
X-Wing Series	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_75149ccd
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7e30fd9f	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7e30fd9f	comment	Soma Spirits: Form and Dissonance are zealots for the emotions of Joy and Sorrow respectively, believing that only their preferred emotions are good while the opposite emotions are evil. After the world is split into Joy and Sorrow halves, they each want to destroy the half of the world that they disagree with and have the exact same plan of turning their proteges into living weapons who are just as obsessed with their respective emotions as their mentors. In the true ending, both are so dogmatic about their ideals that they decide to team up to destroy Soma when their proteges render their plans impossible.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7e30fd9f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7e30fd9f	featureConfidence	1.0
Soma Spirits (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_7e30fd9f
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7ee99a29	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7ee99a29	comment	A recurring theme in TektonTV is that anti-theists ("fundie atheists") have much in common with fundamentalist Christians in the way they interpret The Bible.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7ee99a29	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_7ee99a29	featureConfidence	1.0
TektonTV (Web Animation)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_7ee99a29
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8434f949	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8434f949	comment	The Net: The story involves Chul-woo, a humble North Korean fisherman who accidentally defects to the South when his fishing boat his caught by the current, only to be arrested as a spy. The security services of North and South Korea are indistinguishable from each other in behavior. They both arrest Chul-woo, handcuff him, and take him to little interrogation rooms where he is beaten. Both interrogators demand that Chul-woo write down his story, multiple times.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8434f949	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8434f949	featureConfidence	1.0
The Net (2016)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_8434f949
The Horseshoe Effect / int_863b7825	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_863b7825	comment	Yes, Minister. Sir Humphrey, arch-conservative, and Agnes Woodhouse, militant socialist, are nominally on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but are united in their utter disdain for the common people and belief in the need for strong, authoritarian government. The only thing they really disagree on is who should do the governing, and over the course of their interaction, they go from shouting to wistfully declaring it a damned shame they are on opposing teams.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_863b7825	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_863b7825	featureConfidence	1.0
Yes, Minister	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_863b7825
The Horseshoe Effect / int_87527199	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_87527199	comment	Team America: World Police: The Film Actors Guild, an organization that preaches peace, non-violence, and understanding, aligns itself with Kim Jong Il - a man who believes in none of of these things - in order to take down Team America.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_87527199	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_87527199	featureConfidence	1.0
Team America: World Police	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_87527199
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8838aff8	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8838aff8	comment	In full effect in Not for Broadcast. The two major factions, Advance and Disrupt are on complete ends of the political spectrum, Advance being a left-wing authoritarian party that seeks to create equaltiy through totalitarianism and control of the media and later expansionism and nuclear war, and Disrupt is a resistance group headed by right-wing libertarian types that care less about Advance taking away civil freedom, and more about the economic freedoms they lost (which is why several celebrities and formerly rich people are pro-Disrupt). Often you're forced between choosing to support one or the other throughout the game, and while Disrupt might at first seem like the lesser of two evils, not only will they ask you to censor speech much like Advance, the endgame reveals that Disrupt is secretly funded and directed by a council of oligarchs that are upset that Advance took away their power and forced them to live amongst the 'common people'. Not only are they also wannabe dictators that are arguably worse than the Advance leadership, they're willing to use any depraved methods to gain power and money; from trafficking drugs to sex slavery. Ultimately, the only way to get a positive ending is to force Advance to reinstate democracy and then reveal both Advance and Disrupt's dirty laundry to the nation. This will cause the centrist party Accord to win the election in a crushing victory.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8838aff8	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8838aff8	featureConfidence	1.0
Not for Broadcast (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_8838aff8
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8aaeda7e	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8aaeda7e	comment	MonsterVerse: Mostly of the hostile Titans threaten to create ecosystem-destroying conditions on a regional, continental or global scale if they win, speculated by Monarch to be said Titans Hostile Terraforming the environment to their liking. However, amongst the Big Bad Titans that have had these goals, the MUTOs in Godzilla (2014) are prehistoric creatures which are overall Non-Malicious Monsters who merely seek to survive and reproduce according to their instincts — Ghidorah in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) by contrast, is extraterrestrial in origin and is an unnaturally-sadistic Omnicidal Maniac, and the novelizations suggest Ghidorah is attempting to create an ecosphere-destroying extinction event not so much out of environmental necessity as out of malice and hatred for all other life. If there's just two things that all the human Contrasting Sequel Antagonists of every film have in common besides being Knight Templars, it's these: they don't care how many people have to die to see their plans through, and they're too reckless to care that their actions risk causing The End of the World as We Know It.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8aaeda7e	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8aaeda7e	featureConfidence	1.0
MonsterVerse (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_8aaeda7e
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8ac4e993	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8ac4e993	comment	In the Gundam franchise, particularly those set around Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, the Titans were formed as an elite unit meant to wipe out the remnants of the Principality of Zeon. Seems straightforward enough, except that the Titans then loop around to the same kind of fascist supremacists as the Zeons, committing identical atrocities right down to using the same illegal nerve gas. This is also the Watsonian explanation for recycling Zeon mecha designs (the actual reason, of course, being that audiences want to watch a Gundam cut up Zakus).
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8ac4e993	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8ac4e993	featureConfidence	1.0
Gundam (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_8ac4e993
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8e8086c3	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8e8086c3	comment	Despite its roots in the Cold War, the franchise gives us quite a few capitalists who are willing to work with or for the communists: Auric Goldfinger, Francisco Scaramanga, Aris Kristatos, Max Zorin, and Brad Whitaker most notably.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8e8086c3	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_8e8086c3	featureConfidence	1.0
Goldfinger	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_8e8086c3
The Horseshoe Effect / int_96a4ad60	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_96a4ad60	comment	Played to a disturbing degree in Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72: In the first part of the story we see the rise of Mao Yuanxin, Mao Zedong's sociopathic nephew, who pushes an extreme left-wing ideology that rejects Soviet imperialism, yet copies Stalinist policies, including the mass murder and enslavement of millions of people, and the purging of many leadership roles. In the second part of the story, Donald Rumsfeld becomes President and pushes strict anti-Communist, pro-capitalist policies, but part of this platform includes incarceration of political dissidents in asylums, censorship of the media, seizing of intellectual property, restrictions on interstate travel, and the creation of deranged paramilitaries. After Rumsfeld is overthrown, the Christian Values party comes to power in America to impose their version of Evangelical Christianity. Like with the Lesser Mao, they eventually nuke parts of their own country, obliterate America's most valuable historical monuments, and have slaughtered millions of Americans. In a more benign example, Ron Dellums (the far-left African American congressman) and George Wallace (the Dixiecrat Governor of Alabama) both campaign for the Democratic nomination. Despite being different, they both touch upon themes of political corruption and bringing power back to the people. Eventually Dellums endorses Wallace, and later serves in Wallace's cabinet once elected. In another benign example Libertarian Party gains a massive political following in the American West, promising economic liberalism and individualistic freedom, but by the late 1980s, they've created a series of collective communities, called Bozeman communes across the Midwest. Rumsfeld even sees them as Communists.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_96a4ad60	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_96a4ad60	featureConfidence	1.0
Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_96a4ad60
The Horseshoe Effect / int_9d34190a	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_9d34190a	comment	The Elder Scrolls: The Morag Tong is a legal Dunmeri assassin's guild of Professional Killers. They hold Mephala, a Daedric Prince whose sphere is "obscured to mortals", but who is associated with manipulation, lies, sex, and secrets, as their patron deity. The Dark Brotherhood is an illegal assassin's guild (leaning closer to a Psycho for Hire organization) which split off from the Morag Tong long ago. They practice a relative Religion of Evil, serving the "Dread Father" Sithis and his wife, the Night Mother, a mysterious entity who leads the Brotherhood and speaks through the Listener of the organization. According to some sources, the Night Mother may very well be an aspect of Mephala, meaning that both groups, despite their differences, are still dedicated to the same deity. The Aedra and the Daedra are typically viewed as opposites, particularly by mortals. Good and Evil. Order and Chaos. Light and Dark. Gods of Good and Gods of Evil. Angels and Demons. However, prior to the creation of Mundus, the mortal plane, there was no distinction made between these et'Ada ("original spirits"). The Aedra are simply the et'Ada who participated in creation (which is why their name means "our ancestors" in Old Aldmeris, while the Daedra ("not our ancestors") did not. This is why scholars and, in a few cases, the deities themselves, are quick to point out that these are beings truly Above Good and Evil who operate on their own Blue-and-Orange Morality. Anyone trying to classify them as such is simply trying to apply mortal moralities to immortal beings, which is a foolhardy endeavor. Vivec, the Tribunal deity, clearly was never a big fan of the Dwemer. As one of Nerevar's councilors, Vivec believed that peace could not be had between the Chimer and Dwemer. He later urged Nerevar to make war on the Dwemer when evidence was brought forth that showed they were in possession of the Heart of Lorkhan and were attempting to tap into its power. However, Vivec would later draw his own divine powers from the Heart and the A God Am I-type response he gives if you question his past actions is very similar to the one he attributes to the Dwemer Architect Kagrenac when Nerevar originally questioned him about the Heart in The Battle of Red Mountain: In Morrowind, Mages Guild Archmage Trebonius Artorius is an incredibly skilled Battlemage, which allowed him to rise in the ranks of the Mages Guild. However, he quickly proved utterly incompetent at managing Guild affairs, so he was Kicked Upstairs to be in charge of the Guild branch in the most backwater district of the Empire, keeping him out of the hair of his mainland superiors. In Morrowind, the Imperial Mages Guild has to compete with the native Dunmer Great House Telvanni, a Magocracy made up of ancient and rather amoral sorcerers, when it comes to the business of magical arts. Trebonius, notorious for assigning his underlings Impossible Tasks, will demand that the Player Character kill all of the Telvanni councilors. His eccentric demands and power without common sense actually make him very similar to a typical Telvanni mage lord, and his solution for dealing with them is exactly what a Telvanni would do to his rivals. In Skyrim, take a race that prides themselves for completely shaping modern Tamriel into what it is today, who bull-headedly looks down on other races and professions that are commonly not used in their culture even though history has shown that they were once skilled practitioners of it, follow a religion that is basically a combination of Men and Mer beliefs while a sizable minority still follows their old religion. All of these can easily describe both the rival Nords and the Altmer as of the 4th Era.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_9d34190a	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_9d34190a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Elder Scrolls (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_9d34190a
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a04b0ca3	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a04b0ca3	comment	Tintin: The Calculus Affair satirizes the Cold War by portraying rival Syldavian and Bordurian agents fighting over Professor Calculus' latest invention. The two sides are indistinguishable in every way, both seeking to turn it into a weapon of mass destruction, and both resorting to kidnapping and violence to try to force him to work for them. This is especially notable since Syldavia and Borduria had previously been portrayed as polar opposites, the former a monarchy run by a Reasonable Authority Figure and hosting peaceful international scientific programs, the latter an aggressive and dictatorial regime that draws alternatively from Nazi and Communist inspirations. This was the first time the two sides had been portrayed as morally equivalent.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a04b0ca3	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a04b0ca3	featureConfidence	1.0
Tintin (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_a04b0ca3
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a8610093	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a8610093	comment	Demonstrated by Frostpunk via the Order and Faith paths. The Order path focuses on keeping people productive by suppressing discontent, while the Faith path keeps people productive by inspiring them with hope. However, as the trees go further on, both begin exercising increasingly brutal and oppressive means to enforce the captain's will, and are functionally identical by the time they hit the final law: New Order/New Faith.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a8610093	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_a8610093	featureConfidence	1.0
Frostpunk (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_a8610093
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ad6b641b	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ad6b641b	comment	In The Screwtape Letters, the titular demon speaks about how any ideology can be used to turn a human to evil. He encourages creating zealots on both sides, and claims that after death their opposing souls can be blended into a most appetizing wine.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ad6b641b	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ad6b641b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Screwtape Letters	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_ad6b641b
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0282745	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0282745	comment	Buck Danny: Occurs in the "nuclear alert" story arc. The main villains, the International Federation of Armed Revolutionary Groups, are a movement of extreme-left Western Terrorists. They ally with a cabal of anticommunist Central American generals in order to steal a pair of F-14s from the U.S. Navy. Slightly downplayed in that the generals have no idea who they're dealing with: the IFARG approach them by pretending to be a Corporate Conspiracy interested in financing their rise to power as a bulwark against communism. When the collusion is discovered, the irony of "fascists allied to leftists" is lampshaded.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0282745	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0282745	featureConfidence	1.0
Buck Danny / Comicbook	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0282745
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0fc9724	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0fc9724	comment	Saturday Night Live: Parodied on the recurring "Black Jeopardy" sketch. Tom Hanks played a stereotypical southern redneck Trump supporter who did surprisingly well playing a game whose questions are intended for urban black stereotypes. Parodied again in the game show sketch "Republican or not", in which people would give a few vague statements describing their political beliefs and contestants would have to guess if the person is a Republican. Without context, everything everyone says could indicate that they are conservative or liberal.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0fc9724	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0fc9724	featureConfidence	1.0
Saturday Night Live	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_b0fc9724
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b40554c8	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b40554c8	comment	In the Black Dynamite episode "Bullhorn Nights" or "Murder She Throats", the KKK and the Black Pumas are revealed to be working together and killing Black porn stars in hopes that it would cancel the interracial porno "Willy Wanker & The Chocolate Factory".
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b40554c8	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b40554c8	featureConfidence	1.0
Black Dynamite	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_b40554c8
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b4d8fe25	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b4d8fe25	comment	BioShock 2: Andrew Ryan is an extreme Objectivist whose ultimate goal is to promote Enlightened Self-Interest, while Sofia Lamb is an extreme Collectivist who wants to suppress individualism for The Needs of the Many. Both are oppressive, hypocritical despots who lead Rapture down similar paths to ruination.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b4d8fe25	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b4d8fe25	featureConfidence	1.0
BioShock 2 (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_b4d8fe25
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b5a2b326	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b5a2b326	comment	In Morrowind, Mages Guild Archmage Trebonius Artorius is an incredibly skilled Battlemage, which allowed him to rise in the ranks of the Mages Guild. However, he quickly proved utterly incompetent at managing Guild affairs, so he was Kicked Upstairs to be in charge of the Guild branch in the most backwater district of the Empire, keeping him out of the hair of his mainland superiors. In Morrowind, the Imperial Mages Guild has to compete with the native Dunmer Great House Telvanni, a Magocracy made up of ancient and rather amoral sorcerers, when it comes to the business of magical arts. Trebonius, notorious for assigning his underlings Impossible Tasks, will demand that the Player Character kill all of the Telvanni councilors. His eccentric demands and power without common sense actually make him very similar to a typical Telvanni mage lord, and his solution for dealing with them is exactly what a Telvanni would do to his rivals.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b5a2b326	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_b5a2b326	featureConfidence	1.0
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_b5a2b326
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb5f7a3f	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb5f7a3f	comment	The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy shows us that at least some of the factions the Empire kept under its boot were every bit as xenophobic and genocidal as the Empire, just rooted in a different species.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb5f7a3f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb5f7a3f	featureConfidence	1.0
BlackFleetCrisis	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb5f7a3f
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb984dbf	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb984dbf	comment	Sleeper Cell: Alex went from a Neo-Nazi who beat up Muslims to a Muslim terrorist (his Muslim wife is horrified by this). He tells some white supremacists about once being like them, and they retort that Alex is even now.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb984dbf	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb984dbf	featureConfidence	1.0
Sleeper Cell	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_bb984dbf
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c4a9bbdb	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c4a9bbdb	comment	Terra Invicta: The Servants (idealistic and pro-alien) and Humanity First (cynical and anti-alien) employ similar tactics despite being polar opposites philosophically. These are the two factions most likely to engage in wars of aggression (including nuclear first-strike policy), both display Cultish language and behaviour, both harshly punish dissent, and both are flagged as "extremist", giving them certain brutal event decisions and possible alliances with international terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda, which other factions do not get. Woe to the world if both factions end up in control of countries with nuclear weapons stockpiles.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c4a9bbdb	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c4a9bbdb	featureConfidence	1.0
Terra Invicta (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_c4a9bbdb
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c6817d66	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c6817d66	comment	Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Gives us Master Eraqus. Master Xehanort warns Terra that Eraqus is so obsessed with the Light that it blinds him. We see this firsthand when Ventus and Terra go to confront Eraqus and, rather than explain his reasoning to his own students he instead decides to just kill Terra because his potential to join the Dark is too great and Ventus for having the potential to see Xenahort's dark plans come to fruition. This, of course, leads to his own death and his failure to stop both events from occuring anyway.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c6817d66	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_c6817d66	featureConfidence	1.0
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_c6817d66
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ce851203	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ce851203	comment	You Don't Mess with the Zohan: The racist hillbillies who Walbridge hires to force the Middle Eastern immigrants out of their property decide to use terrorist attacks, with the main racist willing to suicide bomb himself out of sheer hatred.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ce851203	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ce851203	featureConfidence	1.0
You Don't Mess with the Zohan	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_ce851203
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d342953	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d342953	comment	The Emperor of Paris: Eugene Vidocq's gang brings together people with monarchist, republican, and Bonapartist backgrounds who've all somehow ended up in the Paris underworld. It's understandable, since whatever their origins, all of them are now criminals with different priorities. However, Joseph FouchÃ©, the secret police chief who comes to rely more and more on Vidocq, darkly suggests that Napoleon's whole French Empire runs on the same principle:
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d342953	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d342953	featureConfidence	1.0
The Emperor of Paris	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_d342953
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d46beefd	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d46beefd	comment	Wild Wild West: The "Loveless Alliance" consists of Arliss Loveless and the neo-Confederate remnant under his command, plus the governments of Britain, Spain, France, and Mexico (i.e. every foreign power that once had land in what is now the United States), plus one vaguely defined Native American faction. ... For context, Mexico by this point was a liberal republic, while France was a colonial empire which had very recently tried to impose a conservative monarchical puppet state on Mexico, with the brutal war between both sides only concluding three years before the time of the movie. The alliance also means that the Native American faction trying to recover some land for itself is working alongside three colonial empires who were still in the process of expanding their territory and subjugating various natives (Mexico's record on that front is also less than ideal, but it did have a Native chief of state at the time). All of this is justified by the fact the purpose of the alliance is to destroy and split up the United States amongst its members, an enormous prize with more than enough land and resources to satisfy everyone... at least for the moment. It also doesn't hurt that despite its name, the "alliance" largely leaves all the work to Loveless, his minions, and his mechanized inventions (even his Confederates get thrown away as soon as their usefulness to him ends). The other powers' involvement is limited to financing him, so it's not like the war requires ordinary French and Mexican soldiers to get along.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d46beefd	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d46beefd	featureConfidence	1.0
Wild Wild West	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_d46beefd
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d9673ef7	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d9673ef7	comment	The Handmaid's Tale: The book depicts radical feminists as having worked together with far-right religious fundamentalists on at least some issues that helped lead to the foundation of the theocratic state of Gilead (after which, the far-right fundamentalists turned around and slaughtered their former allies). Specifically, both had a similar disdain for things such as pornography and prostitution, among other issues. The earliest mentions and descriptions of Offred's mother make it sound like Offred was raised in a religious household, what with Offred mentioning that she watched ultra-conservative Female Misogynist preacher Serena Joy on TV as a child, or her mother's distaste for pornography and delight in burning it. As we later find out, Offred's mother was on the radical feminist side.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d9673ef7	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_d9673ef7	featureConfidence	1.0
The Handmaid's Tale	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_d9673ef7
The Horseshoe Effect / int_db96ded4	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_db96ded4	comment	In the final season of The Legend of Korra, Kuvira's Earth Empire uses methods uncomfortably similar to those of the previous Earth Kingdom, including rule by intimidation and forced conscription. Her plan to take over the United Republic by force had already been planned by the Earth Queen for similar reasons (the Republic was founded on Earth Kingdom land).
The Horseshoe Effect / int_db96ded4	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_db96ded4	featureConfidence	1.0
The Legend of Korra	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_db96ded4
The Horseshoe Effect / int_e6267766	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_e6267766	comment	Star Wars Legends did this a few times: X-Wing Series: A rare benevolent example in Wraith Squadron's collaboration with Imperial Admiral Rogriss. The two sides cheerfully admit that they're ideological opposites and will be shooting at each other again very shortly. However, they're willing to put their differences aside to bring down Warlord Zsinj, the renegade Imperial admiral who's been threatening both sides for the past year. While their beliefs in democracy versus dictatorship are irreconcilable, both groups share a sense of military honor, as well as a general commitment to and willingness to sacrifice for a cause greater than themselves. This is in contrast to Warlord Zsinj, and even many of his underlings, who are ultimately just bandits loyal only to themselves. The following book in the series, Isard's Revenge, deconstructs the concept by pointing out that the Horseshoe Theory can be perilously close to the Golden Mean Fallacy: The one after that, Starfighters of Adumar, does however give us a straight example in the person of Tomer Darpen, a New Republic Intelligence officer who's backing a violent and autocratic regime in order to gain control of a strategically important planet. Wedge refuses to go along with this, pointing out that there's no point in overthrowing the Empire if the New Republic is simply going to sanction identical regimes whenever it's convenient: The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy shows us that at least some of the factions the Empire kept under its boot were every bit as xenophobic and genocidal as the Empire, just rooted in a different species. The Corellian Trilogy: The Saccorian Triad is an impressive three-way version of this: a crime syndicate that supports human supremacist, Selonian supremacist, and Drall supremacist movements alike (one for each of the three species native to the Corellian system). It helps that all of them hate the New Republic and don't want to find themselves accountable to its (or any) laws. Thrackan Sal-Solo, the leader of the human movement, seems incapable of avoiding this trope, despite being a very sincere human supremacist. In the New Jedi Order era, he ends up becoming leader of the Peace Brigade, the movement collaborating with the Yuuzhan Vong, the extragalactic alien conquerors trying to take over the galaxy. (To add insult to injury, the Peace Brigade is itself a multi-species movement). As with the Corellian Trilogy example above, it helps that Thrackan and the Yuuzhan Vong share a burning hatred of the same group (the Jedi). Young Jedi Knights gives us the Diversity Alliance, a terrorist organization that claims to be a response to the Empire's abuses against alien species... except that they don't just blame the Empire, but all of humanity. Not only do they share the Empire's general racist mindset, just in the other direction, but their master plan to exterminate humanity is literally based on an Imperial weapon, the Krytos virus, retooled to target humans specifically.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_e6267766	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_e6267766	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Wars Legends (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_e6267766
The Horseshoe Effect / int_eb66065e	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_eb66065e	comment	Parodied in A Confederacy of Dunces: Most obviously, this appears when Myrna sends Ignatius a letter describing a folk singer who gave her a pamphlet detailing a conspiracy theory that the Pope was planning to amass a nuclear armory. She assumed that the folk singer was a leftist anti-religious civil rights activist, and only later realized that the pamphlet was actually published by the notoriously anti-Catholic far-right Ku Klux Klan. Less obviously, Ignatius and Myrna themselves are examples. Theoretically, Myrna is a Jewish far-left proto-hippienote Proto-hippie because the book is set in 1963, when hippies weren't really a thing yet who's all for socialism and thinks sex will solve everything, while Ignatius is an Irish Catholic far-right avant-la-lettre neoreactionary who believes in medieval-style monarchy and holds very conservative beliefs about sex (so conservative that even the contemporary Catholic Church seems liberal by comparison). Under the surface, however, their political views lead them to rather similar critiques of their common enemies (particularly conventional White Protestants), and Ignatius and Myrna's political views are basically a product of their difficult relationships with the Establishment. In other words, their obvious mutual attraction (despite Ignatius' protestations to the contrary) is clearly less strange than it might appear at first.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_eb66065e	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_eb66065e	featureConfidence	1.0
A Confederacy of Dunces	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_eb66065e
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ec9155b1	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ec9155b1	comment	Small Gods features an atheist character of such burning passion that it works just like belief in the gods. This was because he very specifically didn't believe in Om (in fact, he pointedly refused to believe in Om to Om's face); another character who's a general atheist (in a "they're not real but there's no point thinking about it" way) just gets hit by lightning a lot.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ec9155b1	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ec9155b1	featureConfidence	1.0
Small Gods	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_ec9155b1
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ed0803a7	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ed0803a7	comment	Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a classic example. The villains are Federation nationalists terrified of peace with the Klingon Empire, and Klingon nationalists terrified of peace with the Federation, who conspire together to keep the war between their two factions going.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ed0803a7	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ed0803a7	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_ed0803a7
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ee6ac780	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ee6ac780	comment	The Mask of Zorro crosses this with Full-Circle Revolution. In theory, the Mexican War of Independence was supposed to replace the colonial and monarchical Spanish administration with an independent liberal Mexican government. In reality, the same elites are able to game both systems to remain at the top, while leaving the ordinary people oppressed and neglected. The movie opens with the last Spanish governor gifting the Crown's lands to the local gentry, ensuring the survival of his social class into the new order. Twenty years later, California is still as poor and class-ridden as ever, and the Mexican government has no presence there other than a handful of corrupt and inept soldiers totally beholden to the local gentry, who in turn behave with complete impunity. The villain has his own spin on the Horseshoe Theory. From his point of view, the Spanish and Mexican governments were equally disappointing, because while both of them allowed him privilege and wealth, neither of them allowed him to be the ultimate authority. A situation he plans to remedy by breaking off California into an independent republic, with himself at its head.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ee6ac780	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ee6ac780	featureConfidence	1.0
The Mask of Zorro	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_ee6ac780
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef337a8b	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef337a8b	comment	DarkMatter2525: The "Christian VS Muslim" video argues that fundamentalist Christians exhibit many ideological similarities with fundamentalist Muslims.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef337a8b	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef337a8b	featureConfidence	1.0
DarkMatter2525 (Web Animation)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef337a8b
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef4c300f	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef4c300f	comment	In Assassin's Creed III, Haytham Kenway's arc at the beginning of the game is played just like a regular Assassin in both plot and gameplay. The twist is revealed that the entire time he was working in the interests of the Templars, their motivations so similar to one another that neither Desmond nor the players realized this until it is flat-out stated that Haytham and his friends work for the Templars. Later in the game both factions back the Rebels in the American Revolution for their own reasons, leading to many awkward moments when Haytham and his Assassin opposite Connor are both hanging around with Washington; in one mission they outright team up.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef4c300f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef4c300f	featureConfidence	1.0
Assassin's Creed III (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_ef4c300f
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f15f622e	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f15f622e	comment	MacGyver (1985): A recurring trope, appropriately for a show that was fairly patriotic and anticommunist, but also maintained a liberal and activist spirit that often tried to shine a light on the abuses of the U.S. government and injustices of American society. Early Retirement featured Mac's boss and friend Peter Thornton being framed and replaced by a rogue U.S. intelligence officer, who uses his new position to plot the capture and torture of a visiting dictator and Muammar Gaddafi expy that he suspects of supporting terrorism. After the plot is stopped, the dictator declines to press charges in international courts, candidly admitting that it's exactly the kind of thing he would have done. The main villain of The Gun is a firearms manufacturer and strong Second Amendment advocate who's fond of invoking the U.S. Constitution. He's also dealing arms under the table to Middle Eastern terrorists trying to foment anti-Western violence. The second TV movie, Trail To Doomsday, takes the same concept up to eleven. One of the main villains is a high-end Arms Dealer who's built an off-the-books nuclear reactor and is planning to sell H-bombs to various rogue states. His partners and first clients are a Renegade Russian faction attempting to restore the Soviet Union. MacGyver lampshades the oddity of a communist ideologue working with a capitalist billionaire. Downplayed in that the communist leader was entirely aware of the irony, and had planned from the beginning to eliminate her supplier as soon as he'd provided her with the bombs.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f15f622e	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f15f622e	featureConfidence	1.0
MacGyver (1985)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_f15f622e
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f542bd1f	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f542bd1f	comment	Joseph Bertrand III and Brooke Augustine from inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS: Second Son respectively are both Boomerang Bigot Conduits with extensive military forces that oppress a city with an iron-fist and encourage anti-conduit bigotry in the populous. However, while Bertrand hates conduits and plots to have them all destroyed in a grand scheme, Augustine plots in a misguided attempt at saving conduits.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f542bd1f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f542bd1f	featureConfidence	1.0
inFAMOUS 2 (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_f542bd1f
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f7d93e4a	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f7d93e4a	comment	Assassin's Creed: The Order of Assassins and the Templar Knights are both opposing organizations that have fought for centuries due to their conflicting opinions of how mankind should regulate itself. The Assassins believe that free-will is worth the trial & error and must be protected, while the Templars believe that free-will will destroy mankind and how they must enslave mankind to ensure its survival. Yet both of them have the long-term goal of a world at peace and their means are murder, sabotage, localized control of cities as power bases and income sources, etc. Furthermore, the Assassins follow the creed "nothing is true; everything is permitted", but this creed has led to more than one of their members working against their order's interests, including flat-out joining the Templars. In Assassin's Creed, it is revealed at the end that Al Mualim — AltaÃ¯r's mentor and leader of the Levantine Assassin Order — was manipulating AltaÃ¯r into killing high-ranking members of the Templars so that he could secure the entire Templar Order (and by extension the Apple of Eden) for himself, having worked with both organizations to achieve this. In Assassin's Creed III, Haytham Kenway's arc at the beginning of the game is played just like a regular Assassin in both plot and gameplay. The twist is revealed that the entire time he was working in the interests of the Templars, their motivations so similar to one another that neither Desmond nor the players realized this until it is flat-out stated that Haytham and his friends work for the Templars. Later in the game both factions back the Rebels in the American Revolution for their own reasons, leading to many awkward moments when Haytham and his Assassin opposite Connor are both hanging around with Washington; in one mission they outright team up.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f7d93e4a	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_f7d93e4a	featureConfidence	1.0
Assassin's Creed (Franchise)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_f7d93e4a
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fd49dcff	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fd49dcff	comment	For their part, the communist villains, despite their ideology, are often quite prone to corruption and self-enrichment, behaving much like the stereotype of the capitalists they allegedly hate. Lampshaded in Die Another Day:
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fd49dcff	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fd49dcff	featureConfidence	1.0
Die Another Day	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_fd49dcff
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fe8ef766	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fe8ef766	comment	Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Death Of Captain America storylines give us an extended horseshoe effect with Alexander Lukin and the Red Skull. The former is a Soviet general who was left adrift at the end of the Cold War, the latter is a Nazi who was once Hitler's personal Dragon. Despite their mutual disdain, both of them hate the United States and the free-market democracy it promotes, and want revenge on it for destroying their respective empires, which is ample reason to work together. The original plan is Lukin's, who hopes to cause a massive economic crisis in the United States to demonstrate the emptiness of the capitalist lifestyle, ultimately with an eye to bringing back the USSR. The Skull modifies it to suit his purposes more and more, ultimately culminating in an attempt to help a fascist third-party candidate become President of the United States.
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fe8ef766	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_fe8ef766	featureConfidence	1.0
Captain America (Comic Book)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_fe8ef766
The Horseshoe Effect / int_feb24a76	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Horseshoe Effect / int_feb24a76	comment	Braindead 2016: Jules (an extreme right-winger) and Noah (an extreme leftist) actually get into a road rage incident over their opposing views, but are persuaded to ally later because they both agree on so much (never compromising, going to war in Syria, etc.).
The Horseshoe Effect / int_feb24a76	featureApplicability	1.0
The Horseshoe Effect / int_feb24a76	featureConfidence	1.0
BrainDead (2016)	hasFeature	The Horseshoe Effect / int_feb24a76

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Horseshoe Effect	processingCategory2	Morality Tropes
The Horseshoe Effect	processingCategory2	Philosophy Tropes
The Horseshoe Effect	processingCategory2	Sociology Tropes
Belle (2021) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Less Wrong (Blog) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Red Skull (Comic Book) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Divided and Entwined (Fanfic) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Firebird's Son (Fanfic) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
A Clockwork Orange / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Black Panther (2018) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Four Days in September / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Jesus, Bro! / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Network / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Team America: World Police / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Triangle of Sadness / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Vera Cruz / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Shin Megami Tensei (Franchise) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
A Confederacy of Dunces / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Animal Farm / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
It Can't Happen Here / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Nineteen Eighty-Four / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Now I'm a Demon Lord! Happily Ever After with Monster Girls in My Dungeon / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Small Gods / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Star Wars: Bloodline / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Handmaid's Tale / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Outlaws / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Screwtape Letters / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
VALIS / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
TheHorseShoeEffect	sameAs	The Horseshoe Effect
Chapo Trap House (Podcast) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Babylon Berlin / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
BrainDead (2016) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Kamen Rider BLACK SUN / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Mayor of Kingstown / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Years and Years / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Yes, Minister / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Carrie (Theatre) / int_eac9760d	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Assassin's Creed III (Video Game) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Back to the Future: The Game (Video Game) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
BioShock 2 (Video Game) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Caves of Qud (Video Game) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Chronicles of Elyria (Video Game) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Disco Elysium (Video Game) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Not for Broadcast (Video Game) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Nib (Webcomic) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
ContraPoints (Web Video) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Jreg (Web Video) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Spectrum Pulse (Web Video) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
The Mysterious Mr. Enter (Web Video) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Wisecrack Edition (Web Video) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Polcomp Ball (Webcomic) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Reddit (Website) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
Neo Yokio / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect
NIMONA (2023) / int_73f799ed	type	The Horseshoe Effect

Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.