Reptiles Are Abhorrent/Playing With

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Basic Trope: Reptiles are usually associated with evil.

  • Straight:
    • The supervillain Lisa Lizard is trying to take over the world. She's the only reptile-themed character in the story.
    • King Blackstone's evil Snake People and Lizard Folk armies are trying to take over the world. They're the only reptile races in the story.
    • The heroes have stop the evil Snake People army from taking over the world. They are aided by the virtuous Lizard Folk Brigade.
    • The characters constantly distrust entirely innocent Snake People and Lizard Folk peasants, assuming they're evil, out of Fantastic Racism.
  • Exaggerated:
  • Justified: Lizard Folk are the Exclusively Evil spawn of humans mating with Infernal demons, and therefore nobody trusts them.
  • Inverted: Reptiles are the only good guys in the story and everyone else is a Jerkass.
  • Subverted: The heroes have to stop the evil Snake People terrorists from taking over the world. But when the heroes' army invades Snakeland, they discover that King Slither and his virtuous Snake People army have been trying the whole time to stamp out terrorism in Snakeland. Most Snake People are decent.
  • Double Subverted: The heroes have to stop the evil Snake People terrorists from taking over the world. When the heroes invade Snakeland, they discover that King Slither and his Snake People army have been trying to stop terrorism. Then later it turns out that Slither and his army secretly want to mutate everybody in the world into mindless slaves by selling them drugged food products. Terrorism just isn't subtle enough.
  • Parodied: Lisa Lizard and her kin perform acts such as jaywalking and kicking old ladies in the shin.
  • Zig Zagged: Slither joins the good guys, but then turns out to be The Mole... only for the team to be saved by Pythus, a heroic snake-man. Pythus later turns on them... until they manage to break him free of King Blackstone's mind control.
  • Averted:
    • Pythus is a reptile on the side of good.
    • Reptile-themed characters are no more likely than non-reptilians to be villains.
    • The heroes have to stop the evil Snake People terrorists from taking over the world. They are aided by King Slither and his virtuous Snake People army, who want to stamp out terrorism in Snakeland.
    • There are no reptile-themed characters in the series.
  • Lampshaded: "Why is it that reptiles are the only evil animals? Is it something in the water in Snakeland?"
  • Invoked: Evil King Blackstone tricks the heroes into attacking his arch-enemy Lisa Lizard by framing her for a crime. The evidence is shoddy, but they assume Lisa is evil because she's a lizard. Blackstone correctly predicts the heroes will fall for it because Reptiles Are Abhorrent.
  • Discussed: "Well, of course Lisa Lizard is Obviously Evil. It's her nature as a reptile."
  • Conversed: "So a six-foot tall tool-using reptile is an acceptable character, but a six-foot tall tool-using reptile with empathy is absurd?"
  • Deconstructed: Due to their Exclusively Evil nature, a genocide against all reptilians is started across the world, even the ones who turn to be not so bad.

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