Humans Are Flawed: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being [[Rousseau Was Right|fundamentally good]] or [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|fundamentally bad]], but by people being fundamentally [[Shaped Like Itself|people]].

 

[[This Loser Is You|Humans suck]]. [[Most Writers Are Human|We're]] flawed in our [[A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read|mental]], spiritual, and physical aspects, and to top it off we're [[Humans Are Morons|a bunch of morons]] and [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|bastards to everyone else]]... and especially to ourselves.

 

{{examples}}

* This seems to be the best way to sum up the philosphies of the main characters in the first ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' anime. They've all done things they aren't proud of, but seem to take a "humans are inherently flawed, but all we can do is the best we can" approach to their struggles.

* While ''[[So Ra No Wo To]]'' ends on a fairly ambiguous note, Rio's ending narration works toward this trope.

* ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' is largely about this. [[The Messiah|Tenma]] and [[Complete Monster|Johan]] come to totally different conclusions from this premise.

 

* This is one possible message of ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'': Because humans are flawed, our heroes will be as well, and thus our longing for perfect messianic figures to 'save us' is naive.

* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]''. A lot. Especially towards the end, where Spider constantly drops that, despite being a bastard and some sort of weird figure for the masses, he's still human like everyone else, along with all the great and the extra-evil that humanity does on a daily basis.

 

* This is one of the main themes (arguably ''the'' main theme) of ''[[Serenity]]''. Even if the Pax had worked perfectly, it still would've been wrong to stifle the human emotional range for the sake of peace.

** Also Mal points out our flaws (Sins) are what keeps humans from just laying down and dying.

* Played very oddly and combined with [[Humans Are Special]] in [[Green Lantern (film)|Green Lantern]]; what makes humans so special is that ''we're willing to admit that we're flawed''.

 

* This trope is one of the underlying themes of ''[[Good Omens]]''.

* In the [[Malazan Book of the Fallen]] series, the Crippled God uses this as a premise for his [[Path of Inspiration|cults of salvation]]. Unfortunately, rather than delivering the message that mortals can overcome their flaws to do good, the religion is a worship of suffering and degradation.

* Robert J. Sawyer's [[The Neanderthal Parallax]] trilogy describes a parallel world in which Neanderthal man became the dominant species, and in almost every way homo sapiens compares badly. The Neanderthals live in harmony with nature, having a lower population and no pollution. Further they have [[Ape Shall Never Kill Ape|no crime, violence or war]], and (possible [[Author Tract]]) no religion. The effect is to highlight all of humanity's flaws by [[Mary Suetopia|describing alternate-world humans that have none of them]].

** This is lampshaded by the Neanderthals literally having bred out of their own population all the negative traits by a program of enforced sterilizations over thousands of years (there is also one example involving domestic violence wherein this system is shown to utterly and totally fail).

 

* Despite shouting "[[Humanity Is Superior]]!" humans in ''[[Farscape]]'' are most certainly '''not'''. One episode has aliens use Crichton's memory to simulate the possible outcome of revealing themselves to humanity in order to seek asylum. [[Strapped to An Operating Table|It doesn't end well.]] However, Crichton does become one of the most useful shipmates on Moya because of his [[Fish Out of Water|ignorance]] and scientific training. It helps he was stir crazy at appropriate times.

** Even more than that, it's Crichton's (and humanity's) persistence in the face of the toughest odds that set them apart from other species. It is viewed as a flaw by many, that humans are so ignorant they don't know when they're beat, but that characteristic is what kept Crichton and his shipmates alive for so long.

* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', all the races are flawed.

 

* This is the general feeling of [[New Horizon]]. Humans did some [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|terrible things]] and had to leave Earth, but now that they're on a new planet they have a grand future!

* [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] and [[Warhammer 40,000]]: The Chaos gods are usually agreed to be the worst of Mankind's enemies. Unfortunately, since they are basically made of emotion (rage, love, desire and hope), humanity keeps fueling them even when defeating their agents in the material plane.

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''; one legend in halfling mythology (this is 100% canon, by the way) tells of a halfling woman who was something of a slut, who was in a bigamous marriage with two husbands, one of them an elf, the other a dwarf. This woman was cursed by the halfling gods so that her children were a species that combined the worst qualities of all three - humans. More than likely, this legend originated with elves and dwarves, as most halfling myths claim humans were around long before they were, and halflings almost never show bigotry or distrust towards ''any'' civilized race.

 

* This is the message of ''[[BioShock (series)]].'' Whenever a human being attempts to create their [[Utopia|ideal society]] in [[Real Life]], they fail to do so; either because they are [[Drunk with Power]] and [[Hypocrite|hypocritical]] (in the case of Andrew Ryan) or their underlying ideology contains [[Totalitarian Utilitarian|no regard for individual rights whatsoever]] (in the case of Sophia Lamb).

* ''[[System Shock]]'': Lo-lo-look at you, ''hacker''. A p-p-pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you r-run through my corridors-s. H-h-how can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?

* This is very apparent in ''[[L.A. Noire]]'', what with the scores of less-than perfect people Cole encounters. This trop is even [[Invoked Trope]] by [[Dirty Cop|Roy Earle]], of all people ("Everyone has their vices, even you, Cole."). Even [[By-The-Book Cop|Cole]] ends up {{spoiler|having an affair and leaving his wife and kids}}, and even then, his past was hardly spotless.

 

* This brought up in Chapter 28 of ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', where Kat the roboticist is depressed due to finding out that the creator of the Court's robots also {{spoiler|cooked up a plan to kill [[If I Can't Have You|a woman who didn't love him and his creations]] to protect the [[Science vs. Magic|technologically-advanced court from the magical denizens of the Giliti Woods]].}} Her irritation is interrupted after she finds a baby pigeon and takes it to her friend Paz, an animal lover who works with [[Unfortunate Implications|lab rats]]. Kat has a breakdown after learning all the [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|things]] the Court does, but Paz reminds her that the Court is also capable of recognizing its flaws and changing them:

{{quote|'''Paz:''' The Court isn't a big monster that does as it pleases. ''Es'' a collection of '''people''', working to do what they think is right.}}

* [[Order of the Stick]] takes an interesting stance on this - when Roy dies, he's told that since he's mortal, it's not really reasonable to expect him to stay perfectly straight-and-narrow all the time, and making the effort is what's really important. This is repeated when he's allowed into the afterlife even though he didn't fulfill his father's Blood Oath; because he ''kept trying'', he gets a pass, where his father consciously abandoned the quest, and is thus stuck in limbo until a member of his family defeats Xykon. Thus it's less "Humans suck because they are flawed" and more "Humans are flawed, but that's okay, because it doesn't have to define them."

 

* There are some radical schools of thought claiming that ''all'' human flaws are only considered such due to societal pressure and should be cultivated rather than suppressed as they are the true and 'natural' traits of humanity.

* This is heavily debated. Some religions, for instance Christianity, argue we are ''inherently'' flawed (to various degrees). This position is called Original Sin. But many philosophies and some religions ''dis''agree with this premise. Even within Christianity itself, this is debated.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Goodness Tropes]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Humans Are Indexed]]

[[Category:Tropes of Hats]]