Humans Are the Real Monsters: Difference between revisions

* Every single character in [[Cormac McCarthy]]’s ''[[Blood Meridian]]'', even the hero is a multiple murderer who later on carries a necklace of ears around his neck. The only possible exception is {{spoiler|The Judge, as though he’s [[Complete Monster|the worst of the bunch]], there’s a suggestion he’s not human.}}

* In ''[[Animal Farm]]'', humans are portrayed as the corrupt nobles of Tsarist Russia, more or less. The pigs, who represent the leaders of the Communist revolution, eventually start emulating the humans as they become more and more corrupt. The [[Animated Adaptation]] made this even less subtle, ending the film with a [[Bolivian Army Ending]].

** Collectively, humans in Discworld exhibit traits from the whole spectrum, being bastards included, and it seems that it’s all pertaining to a theme of [[Humans Are Special]].

{{quote|'''Ratcatcher''': This is inhuman!

'''Keith''': No, it’s ''very'' human. It’s extremely human. There isn’t a beast in the world who’d do it to another living thing, but your poisons do it every day.

* In ''[[Good Omens]]'', the demon Crowley contemplates telling his superiors that they might as well shut Hell down and move to Earth, since humans are far more creatively evil than demons could ever be. He then decides against it since they often turn around and be stunningly good in the next moment. Often with the same people involved. He fully admits that their behavior confuses him.

** This is after he gets a call congratulating him on the Spanish Inquisition, ''which he had nothing to do with''. After he realized humans cooked the whole thing up themselves [[I Need a Freaking Drink|he went out and got]] '''[[I Need a Freaking Drink|real]]''' [[I Need a Freaking Drink|drunk]].

* In ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', the final voyage has Gulliver land in a place where he encounters the Yahoos — mindless, crude beasts that are ''visually indistinguishable from humans''. To the point that the “enlightened” (and horse‐like) Houyhnhnms eventually forbid him from staying because he’s too much like them. They try to use moral threat as a [[Freudian Excuse]], but they’re obviously not really afraid of Gulliver’s baser moral tendencies. This moral contradiction makes the Houyhnhnms even bigger bastards than anybody, but Gulliver is so wrapped up in his newfound misanthropy that he doesn’t notice (or probably doesn’t want to).

* Another fine candidate for the title of magnum opus of fictional Human Bastardry is an illustrated science fiction novel entitled ''Man After Man''. [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], the well‐to‐do people of the world set off to leave Earth and colonize other worlds. Before they do, they use [[Lego Genetics|genetic modification]] technology to physically alter the people who weren’t able to afford the trip, changing them to survive in different biomes. Time passes and we get to see how the mutated humans gradually evolve over the eons after being left to their own devices — and then, suddenly, a race of [[Planet Looters]] invades Earth, enslaves the mutants, and strips the planet of its resources. For their next trick, they wipe out all life more complicated than bacteria. {{spoiler|Those invading “aliens” were actually the unrecognizable descendants of the '''humans''' who’d left Earth millions of years ago. Dude…}}

* 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]] ==

* [[Arch Enemy]]'s "Beast Of Man" uses the page quote in its lyrics.

* Pick a [[Heavy Metal]] song, any of them, and chances are it's about this.

 

== [[Mythology]] ==

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

* Definitely inverted in the earliest writings of Greek mythology, where the ''gods'' are the ones who are [[Jerkass God|bastards]]: they greedily hoard power, bully the all-but-defenseless humans, and [[Disproportionate Retribution|respond with self-righteous homicidal vengeance when some human offends them in any way large or small]]. In the more satirical stories, the gods will come off as [[Alpha Bitch]]es or [[Jerk Jock]]s who get their comeuppance at the hands of plucky, crafty humans. Only as Greek society became more civilized - and, therefore, more liable to preach respect for traditional authority - did the gods begin to be depicted heroically, and their punishments of mortals begin to seem somewhat justified.

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* An alien on ''[[Prickly City]]'' has decided to call off his invasion because he doesn't want to catch whatever we have.

* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' played this up quite often, with the sentiment usually voiced by Hobbes. Sometimes, however, Calvin himself would experience the [[Cultural Cringe]]. One strip which showed him becoming disgusted at the garbage that other humans had thoughtlessly discarded in the woods, ends with him ''stripping off all his clothes and walking naked through the forest with Hobbes'', proclaiming "I'm with you." In its own absurd way, it was a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].

 

== [[Religion]] ==

* [[New Age|New agers]] often believe that there are many alien races out there watching over humanity, but are withholding assistance because we're too violent and nasty to each other and aren't [[Perfect Pacifist People]] like they are.

 

* In almost any other setting, [[The Empire|The Imperium of Man]] of ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' fame would certainly go straight into [[Complete Monster]] territory, being a xenocidal, fanatical, corrupt, racist, mass-murdering apparatus. However, in the context of the setting, it's [[I Did What I Had to Do|justified and thus avoid the complete monster label]] because [[Aliens Are Bastards|pretty much every other species is just as bad]], if not ''worse'', and without the Imperium's harsh rule mankind would be doomed to slavery, extinction, or [[Fate Worse Than Death|Fates Worse Than Death]].

** There are two candidates for "lest messed up" are idealistic Tau (collectivist imperialist aliens often accused of brainwashing by fans and Imperial humans alike, though they at least sometimes leave the client species largely alone), the arrogant Eldar (who will gladly kill a million Humans today to save one Eldar a century from now, but at least they have brains to stand against Chaos to the best of their ability, such as it is), or Orks (they are [[Ax Crazy]] bullies, but in a way that's merely adequate for their universe - whoever you are, in 40k "there is only war", after all, so may as well enjoy it rather than going gibbering mad or extinct). All the other races are much, much worse: the daemonic legions of Chaos are largely psychotic, the Tyranids want to eat the galaxy, the soulless Necrons want to end the existence of souls, Dark Eldar ''literally'' get off on inflicting and receiving pain. Essentially, no matter how insanely vicious the Imperium gets, you'd still cheer them on. These are people who use other people for machinery, commit genocide and human sacrifice, and just generally run a totalitarian police state in which you can be killed for thought crimes. They have a branch of the government AND whole sections of planets devoted entirely to torture (church worlds-dungeon section). It is best not to read this series if you get easily depressed.

** 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.]]

 

* The ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' prequel book ''[[Start of Darkness]]'' does this, with humans killing off goblins and other races solely for being classified as evil, even if they weren't doing anything. However, the goblin Redcloak, whose village was slaughtered by human paladins and went on to become [[The Dragon]], shows himself to be just as bad in his own way, with his hypocrisy and less-than-balanced view of humans being brought up both in the book and in the on line strips.

** Tsukiko uses this as justification for her necrophilia in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0700.html this strip]. Humans are the antithesis of undead. But Humans Are the Real Monsters. Therefore, [[You Fail Logic Forever|undead must be good.]]

''The hands insert the plug into the outlet and the balloon cries out in pain'' }}

* In the ''[http://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/ref/universes/jenkinsverse Jenkinsverse]'', the races of the galaxy are weak, fragile beings mostly descended from herbivores who regard human beings much in the way that we regard [[Predator]]s—as unstoppable, [[Nigh Invulnerability|nigh-invulnerable]] killing machines.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Cynicism Tropes]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Humans Are Indexed]]

[[Category:No Real Life Examples, Please]]

[[Category:Tropes of Hats]]