Humans Are the Real Monsters: Difference between revisions

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' qualifies for this trope in regards to the majority of the Villagers. The Villagers, during the song "Little Town/Belle," outright mock Belle for her interest in reading, a wife was seen beating up her husband, among other things. Then there is their praising Gaston, who is not only a scumbag, but seems to have no problem bragging about it in his character song. It only gets worse when Maurice arrives, as they throw him out and mock him because they think he's crazy (and even if they didn't, they probably would have done it anyways), and going by the final lyrics of the aforementioned character song, they are in full support of Gaston's plan of [[Blackmail]]ing Belle to marry him by locking him up in the asylum. When it gets to the plan being in place, the villagers were jeering Maurice. At this point, they are straddling between [[Jerkass]] territory and [[Complete Monster]] territory.

** If you sit down and watch the movie again, "Bambi" is not as bad as [[Bambification|some of its successors]]. For one thing, [[Walt Disney]] pointedly refused to make the hunters larger characters because he would have had to show them as two-dimensional villains given their actions.

** This is even subverted in ''[[The Iron Giant]]''. A pair of hunters shoot a deer that the titular Iron Giant had been watching, but they are not characterised negatively at all, and the scene is used to show the Iron Giant first learning about the concept of death.

* In ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' Leeloo despairs when she learns about the human race's tendency to inflict horrible things onto themselves (specifically World War 2) to the point of her seeing no point in helping them escape destruction, but then decides otherwise when Corben professes his love for her.

* ''[[The Toxic Avenger]]''; hideously deformed as the title character is, he's ''far'' less a monster than the crooks in Tromaville whom he fights.

 

== [[Gamebook]] ==

* HG Wells in Warehouse 13 comes to this conclusion after her 8 year old daughter was murdered.

{{quote|'''HG''' Open your eyes Myka have you seen the world in which you live? The divide between rich and poor! Hunger and famine! War and violence and hatred all flourishing beyond control! Indeed, men have found new ways to kill each other that were inconceivable in my day, even by fiction writers!}}

 

== [[Music]] ==

** Though there is also Philemon, The Crawling Chaos' rival who believes humanity can become enlightened.

*** Although Philemon himself may embody this trope even better than Nyarlathotep, in his own way—you kinda expect the personified essence of humanity's evil to be a total asshole, but you don't quite expect his opposite to be the dick Philemon acts like.

* Given how prevalent this trope is, it's worth noting that Konami's ''[[Suikoden]]'' series averts it—the kobolds are largely portrayed as personable, but elves and dwarves tend to be ''very'' arrogant and xenophobic, and although most of the villains have been humans, it seems to be because they're more numerous rather than because there's fewer bastards in other races.

* A recurring theme in the ''[[Lunar]]'' series:

** Of all the blasphemous experiments undertaken by Umbrella, the one orchestrated by Vincent Goldman, the antagonist of ''[[Resident Evil: Survival]]'', stands out as one of the cruelest. After having [[Would Hurt a Child|dozens of teenagers kidnapped]] and brought to the remote Sheena Island Goldman’s research team had them vivisected, as in, dissected while still alive, using no anesthetic. This was done intentionally. The goal of the experiment was to harvest beta hetero non seratonin from the victims. This hormone is secreted mostly during late stages of puberty (thus the reason teenagers were used as subject) and is directly linked to the body’s production of noradrenaline, which the body produces while in an extreme state of fear or panic. In other words, Goldman and his henchmen wanted these unfortunate victims as terrified as possible during the horrific process in order to get the best results. At very least, Goldman’s sadistic career came to an end [[Hoist by His Own Petard|at the hands of a “Hypnos T-Type”]], a Tyrant he himself had created and designed.

** As far as [[Dirty Cop]]s go, Chief Brian Irons was one of the dirtiest, and is arguably the most hated villain in the franchise. His [[Start of Darkness]] occurred while still a child, where he would catch rabbits and torture them to death. As a young college student, he was arrested for rape twice, but with morally corrupt officials willing to vouch for him due to his exemplary academic record, he was never charged criminally, instead sent to a psychiatric hospital for “evaluation” and eventually released due to circumstantial evidence. As Chief of the Raccoon City Police Department, he was a crony and accomplice to Umbrella (chosen as such for his complete lack of morals), the substantial amounts they paid him in bribes used for selfish acts of debauchery. Initially, this was expensive artwork that depicted disturbing images of torture and executions, but he was also engaging in child trafficking to provide Umbrella with victims for their experiments and orchestrated the creation of S.T.A.R.S. in order to use as unknowing pawns should an accidental outbreak occur. (Bad for PR, after all.) In addition, when more honest cops started to question where Irons’ funds were coming from, he personally murdered them (including his own secretary), most of them women, one of them a sewer worker for nothing more than making a joke when Irons was in a bad mood. The victims’ bodies were never found, but Irons’ own records suggest he [[Wax Museum Morgue|turned them into taxidermy displays]] (a hobby of his) and at least intended to do so to Katherine Warren, [[Yandere|a woman he was obsessed with]]. Irons was the one who [[Uriah Gambit|sent the S.T.A.R.S. team to the mansion in the original game]], an act that led to suspicions placed on him. Finally, during the outbreak that occurred in ''[[Resident Evil 3: Nemesis]]'' he went completely off the deep end. Believing he was infected (ironically, he was not) and knowing he was doomed he became determined to take the whole city with him, making sure survivors had no escape routes and police were ill-equipped to fight the horde, killing many of them personally. While his eventual death is different depending on the version of the game, [[Karma Houdini Warranty|both versions are horrific]], and to the opinion of most fans, [[Asshole Victim|well-deserved.]]

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* ''[[Terinu]]'''s race was wiped out by the humans, after it was discovered that {{spoiler|they were the power source of the [[Big Bad]]}}. Made worse because Ferin are inherently adorable critters.

** [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|Oh, so if they were ugly you wouldn't care?]] Plus {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] isn't very nice as well what with enslaving races and making them their power source}}

* ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' had a particularly good example as to ''why'' [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1670#comic Humans Are Bastards]

* In ''[[Freefall]]'', [[Zig Zagged]] heavily. Some people treat the AIs (technically including Florence) as just slaves. Many others treat them, and her in particular as people.

* Ever notice that most of the antagonists on ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' are humans? Mostly Montana Max and Elmyra Duff but the only sole exception to this is Mary Melody, in fact there is a better owner for Furrball than Elmyra was.

* That ''[[Aaahh!!! Real Monsters]]'' episode where Zimbo exaggerated Ickis' sickness and everyone got afraid. The Gromble reminds that monsters aren't supposed to be afraid of what they don't understand, that's a human trait.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Humans Are Indexed]]

[[Category:Tropes of Hats]]