Humans Are the Real Monsters: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' had an entire episode called ''The Evil of Men'' near the middle of the Buu saga. Essentially, it explores how even we, the normal, non-powerful humans can be just as cruel as the monsters Goku and co fight on a regular basis. Case in point: A gang of thugs arrive to shoot up Buu and Mr. Satan (who is in the process of rehabilitating Buu) and end up shooting Bee the puppy. Later, one of them comes back and shoots Mr. Satan point blank in the back and runs off. Sure Buu managed to save him in time (and saved the puppy in the first attack), but witnessing this cruelty literally caused him to unleash his evil side, and thus, the entire rest of the Buu saga is the world paying the price for what those men did.

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' makes a point of showing how inhuman and amoral ''almost every human'' seems to be. At times it seems the diclonii—mutants who are feared for their murderous tendencies, and abused accordingly—are [[The Woobie|more human than the actual humans]].

* In Peyo's original "King Smurf" comic, later [[The Smurfs (animation)| adapted for the cartoon]], the plot entails Papa Smurf leaving to look for rare ore, and another smurf [[Adaptational Villainy| (Brainy in the animated version)]] taking over as leader, then becoming [[Drunk with Power]] and becoming a cruel tyrant. This leads to a rebellion among roughly half the smurfs and a civil war between the two factions that nearly destroys the village until Papa Smurf comes back, and after finding out what happened, shames them all into realizing that they're the idiots they are with six words: "You've been acting like human beings!" [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped| The moral could not have been clearer]]; this side of humanity is something that the peace-loving smurfs have always despised.

 

* Humanity and all of its sub-species in ''[[Aeon Natum Engel]]''.

* In ''[[The Return (fanfic)|The Return]]'' this is [[Exclusively Evil|humanity's hat]], [[Humans Are Special|their defining quality]], and [[Muggles Do It Better|why they're still alive]].

* In ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7170477/1/Renegade_Reinterpretations Renegade Reinterpretations,]'' a ''[[Mass Effect]]'' fanfiction, the human race's first contact with the wider galaxy happened much earlier, and with the [[Exclusively Evil|Batarians.]] Humanity spends the next hundred years playing catch-up, and is only able to survive by becoming a race of total bastards. In this timeline, Cerberus is viewed as ''heroes'' for experiments that even the ''canon'' Cerberus would be squicked at. At one point, once Humanity decides to go on the warpath against the Batarians (and is capable of doing so), the Citadel offers to make humanity a member race, give them reparations, money, land, medicine, technology, and all former Batarian territory. All they had to do was '''NOT''' invade the Batarian Homeworld. Humanity's response? "They went to the trouble of looking up what the largest fleet in the galaxy had been so they could surpass it by a time and a half."

 

* ''[[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.

* ''[[Bambi]]'': As a whole, [[Western Animation]] with animal characters tends to be bad about this but "Bambi" is the best known example.

 

 

* The [[Alien]] series, it's usually the humans' attempts to exploit the aliens for profit that set the plot in motion. {{spoiler|In the first film, the [[Mega Corp]] expects a crew member to be impregnated. In the second film, Burke tries to impregnate Ripley with an alien. The third film follows as a result of the second, but Company members arrive and try to cash in on the aliens. In the fourth film, it's the military that is tinkering with alien genes to create weapons.}}

{{quote|'''Ripley''': "I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage."}}

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

 

* According to [[L. Frank Baum]]’s… odd elaboration of the [[Santa Claus]] legend, ''The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus'', this was drilled into young Claus’ head by his [[The Obi-Wan|mentor]], the Great Ak.

* A ''lot'' of early American sci‐fi has this theme. Any number of [[Ray Bradbury]] stories qualify (including, of course, [[The Martian Chronicles]]).

 

 

* The music video for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDaOgu2CQtI Do the Evolution] showcases humanity's evil actions throughout history, though it also implies that life on Earth in general has always been naturally savage and brutal.

* Parodied in ''Robots'' by [[Flight of the Conchords]]. Robots have annihilated all humans for this trope, but one of the lieutenants notes that they did the same thing as them by killing them.

 

 

* When [[Our Mermaids Are Different|merpeople]] are concerned, expect a subversion as well. Granted, humanity has had a conflicted relationship with the oceans, but it's usually only mer''men'' that exhibit any misanthropy as a result of it; [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|it doesn't seem to stop mermaids]] from [[Interspecies Romance|seeking out human boyfriends]].

** The [[Interspecies Romance]] between human and merpeople is a modern thing; in traditional tales, all merpeople hated humans.

 

 

* Christianity states this is the whole reason for the Incarnation and Sacrifice of [[Jesus]]. Paul even yells at other Christians for [[Squick|having sex with their stepmothers]] (1 Corinthians 5)

* [[The Bible]] delves into this territory at times, especially in the Old Testament. The Lord is great and righteous. Humanity, not so much.

* From ''[[Dark Sun]]'', this is the reason Athas is the barely hospitable [[Death World]] it is. While the mastermind behind the [[Would Be Rude to Say Genocide|Cleansing Wars]] was [[Predecessor Villain|Raajat]], who was a Pyreen (sort of an evolutionary offshoot of halflings), his fifteen disciples who led the genocidal armies to exterminate non-human races and slaughter everyone they found were all humans who made the most brutal of the savage humanoids on Oerth and Toril look like saints. Kobolds, Ogres, Trolls, Orcs, Gnomes, Lizardfolk, Pixies, Goblins, and many lesser-known races [[A Nazi By Any Other Name|were all eradicated during these genocidal wars]] - and many others, such as dwarves and elves, were left on the brink. At the very least, they were less monstrous than Raajat himself, as [[Even Evil Has Standards|they eventually turned on him]] when they realized he wished the same fate on humans as well.

 

* [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Richard III]]'':

{{quote|No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity, but I know none, therefore am no beast.}}

'''Oliver''': '''''"Both."'''''}}

 

* [[The Imageboard That Must Not Be Named]]. That is all.

* The [[GIFT]], as well as [[Troll]] and [[Griefer]]. Griefers wouldn't do ''half'' the things they do to you in-game to tick you off merely because you can shut the game off or hit them in the face. Trolls and other such types on the internet wouldn't say ''half'' the stuff ''to your face'', because then that means you can get them back for it.