Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Difference between revisions

== Anime and Manga ==

* The anime ''[[Queen's Blade]]'' has a snake doing nasty things to one of the main characters.

* In ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'', the Earth government refers to its enemies in the war as "Jovian Lizards" because of this trope, even though they only send [[Mecha-Mooks]] into battle so most people don't actually know what they look like. {{spoiler|In fact, they're actually ''humans''.}}

* The ''[[Pokémon]]'' anime features several, but the most prominent is the Ekans (later [[Evolutionary Levels|Arbok]]) owned by [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]] Jessie of Team Rocket. And later she comes into ownership of a Seviper, yet another snake Pokémon.

* The ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' anime includes a set of Reptile monsters, but their only major appearance was in [[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX|GX]] while being used by Professor Viper. Ganzley, [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] and [[Big Bad]] of [[Five-Bad Band|The Big Five]] uses a Reptile deck that focusses on locking down his opponent's cards. Dinosaurs, however, appear on both sides.

* ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' has the Zokugaku Chameleons, with their linebacker, Habishira, having long arms like a chameleon's tongue. The much tougher, [[Affably Evil]] Hakushuu Dinosaurs are another example.

* It isn't quite clear how ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' feels about this trope. {{spoiler|Machina}}'s alternate form (seems to be) a giant snake, and his first acts include {{spoiler|nearly killing the main character}} and acting like an all-around bad guy. But as of Ch. 255-ish, he starts being more than friendly with the heroes, even (jokingly?) asking Maria to marry him for her (and Sakuya's) hamburger-making skills.

* ''[[Bleach]]'': As if Rukia hadn't made the connection several hundred chapters back, Ichimaru Gin himself gave this little monologue in Chapter 414.

{{quote|[[Animal Motifs|I am a snake.]] [[I Lied|My skin is cold.]] [[Ax Crazy|I have no heart.]] [[Devil in Plain Sight|I slither around,]] [[Affably Evil|seeking prey with my tongue]]. And I swallow my favorites whole.}}

** Kobra is a terrorist cult who uses a snake motif for their criminal activities. They later appeared as a cult in ''[[Batman Beyond]]''. In their most notorious story, from "Batman Beyond", a few of them transformed themselves into [[Petting Zoo People|snake people]] with the help of [[Lego Genetics|Splicer]] technology and... [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|dinosaur]] DNA... And then they were going to throw a "Thermal Bomb" down a volcano (!?) to raise the temperature of the world (they are, of course, "cold blooded"), [[Kill All Humans]], and take over the planet. Yeah.

** The ''Checkmate'' arc plays with this trope. After the Rooks take out a major Kobra base they find a large nest of baby snake people. The Rooks decide to raise them.

** Killer Croc, one of [[Batman]]'s most brutal enemies depending on who's writing for him, is a man with a bizarre skin condition that gives him the appearance and toughness of a crocodile. He has Crocodile-like habits in ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' as well. Although there's at least one continuity where he gets to go off and live in peace with [[Swamp Thing]]. Croc also sometimes appoints himself protector of sewer-dwelling homeless and runaways.

*** Later depictions of him have him behaving much more [[Petting Zoo People|beast-like]] than before (he has grown a freakin' tail), due to a virus injected in him by Hush; now he's often engaging in cannibalism.

** Turtle Man is a rare example of a mean ''turtle''. He's "the Slowest Man Alive" and is a minor enemy of [[The Flash]]. He was originally a joke villain, but later became a credible threat when he gained the power to drain speed from other objects, including the Flash himself. (He's still pretty silly, though.)

** The tommy-gun-toting alien alligator-men from the planet Punkus who fought Captain Marvel as part of the Monster Society of Evil. No, seriously.

* The [[Marvel Universe]]:

** In ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'', Curt Connors's experiment to help people with missing limbs, like himself, caused him to transform into The Lizard, a monstrous reptile who [[Kill All Humans|detests all "warm-blooded" life]] (though it probably goes without saying that he doesn't like spiders either). In the well-loved '90s cartoon, he looked a great deal like a giant, very anthropomorphic Anole.

* The Lizard League, ''[[Invincible]]'''s [[Alternate Company Equivalent]] to the Serpent Society.

* Teknophage from ''[[Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man]]'' is an obvious one. A [[Magnificent Bastard]], as well as [[Chessmaster]] as the ruler of many multiverses, including his home planet Kalighoul.

 

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* In ''[[Alligator]]'', cute baby gator Raymond is flushed into Chicago's sewers and starts chowing down on pet corpses spiked with experimental growth hormone; so he isn't really mean, just hungry. Notable for being among the first of many, many ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'' rip-offs -- and for being [[Better Than It Sounds|one of the best]].

* ''[[Snakes on a Plane]]'' had snakes as the designated villains, and in this case they were riled up by a spray of pheromones. It gets to the point that [[Samuel L. Jackson]] has [[Memetic Mutation|had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane]].

* In the excellently titled ''[[Ssssssss]]'', the [[Mad Scientist]] in the movie didn't mind snakes. As a matter of fact, he turned people into snakes for fun. The people in question didn't share his enthusiasm.

{{quote|"I'm addressing, of course, the vicious, bigoted pattern of lizard-hate in the culture, and in the media.

''[[Star Wars|The Phantom Menace]]'' doesn't just contain one species-ist character, it slurs the entire reptilian phylum." }}

* [[Indiana Jones]] when dumped into a snake-filled pit of doom:

{{quote|"Why did it have to be SNAKES?!"}}

* In a ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' film, the primary antagonist Thulsa Doom is the leader of a snake cult. He can [[Scaled Up|turn into a giant snake]] and even uses one as an arrow.

* ''[[Live and Let Die (film)|Live and Let Die]]'': Mr. Big/Dr. Kananga uses snakes to kill adversaries, either releasing one into their hotel room, or using one in an elaborate voodoo ceremony (pulled from a coffin full of snakes). Then there's his crocodile farm/heroin processing center.

* In ''[[Race with the Devil]]'', the cultists hide a pair of live rattlesnakes inside the heroes' RV.

* Lampshaded in the film version of [[Ray Bradbury]]'s ''[[The Illustrated Man]]'', where Rod Steiger's character crushes a garter snake with a rock and feeds it to his dog. When another character asks why he did it, noting that garter snakes are harmless and good to have around, he angrily responds, "It ain't no good to anyone, it's a damn snake!"

{{quote|''The Cimmerian recoiled, remembering tales he had heard -- serpents were sacred to Set, god of Stygia, who men said was himself a serpent. Monsters such as this were kept in the temples of Set, and when they hungered, were allowed to crawl forth into the streets to take what prey they wished. Their ghastly feasts were considered a sacrifice to the scaly god.''}}

* ''[[Dark Heavens]]'': "Some of my best friends are snakes."

{{quote|"Mammals. Why did it have to be mammals?" }}

* Subverted, invoked, ''and'' reconstructed in ''[[Dreamsnake]]'': Someone's violent phobia of snakes is what kicks off the [[Frontier Doctor]] heroine's troubles. And while she views her cobra and rattlesnake (which serve as her medical kit) as both [[Cool Pet|pets]] and essential tools, not even ''she'' can find anything likable about the dangerous, ill-tempered, and downright ugly sand vipers.

* Subverted in [[Andre Norton]]'s ''[[Operation Time Search]]'', when a young man from 20th Century America is flung back in time to the war between [[Atlantis]] and Mu, and is surprised, though he doesn't say it aloud, to find that his Murian hosts revere snakes. A nine-headed serpent motif is often used in jewelry -- and the [[Reasonable Authority Figure|Emperor's]] crown.

* [[Our Goblins Are Different|Goblins]] in ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' are a reptilian species of fairy. They're presented as extremely stupid and almost unversally prone to a criminal disposition. They are also the only fairy race with the ability to conjure fire.

* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', the [[Friend to All Living Things]] Freckles makes an exception for snakes. Killing one was an important part of [[Face Your Fears]] for him, and the summer where they retreat to the swamp is nasty.

 

** Blatantly invoked in a recent series, ''[[Fatal Attractions]]'', during an episode about an [[Crazy Cat Lady|animal hoarder]] who owned several Nile monitors and allowed them [[Too Dumb to Live|free reign of his apartment]]. The man died in his apartment and his body was discovered in a heavily decomposed state, with his pet lizards having fed upon the body. The show seemed to go out of its way to demonise the reptiles themselves (as well as the people who own them, painting them as egomaniacs who form no emotional bonds with their pets), with no shortage of re-enactments featuring close-up shots of plotting, shifty-eyed lizards filmed in a sinister monochrome. The show also [[Wild Mass Guessing|hypothesised]] that the monitors [[Evil Plan|deliberatedly envenomated their owner and waited around for him to die]] like Komodo Dragons, a hunting strategy which Komodo Dragons themselves [[Science Marches On|are no longer believed to use]], let alone Nile Monitors. It also [[Did Not Do the Research|perpetuated]] the [http://www.reptilia.org/pdfs/habitarium/HabitariumPrograms-SalmonellaandReptiles.pdf myth] that reptiles spread salmonella.<ref>Reptiles are no more ''specifically'' prone to carrying salmonella than any other animal, and 95% of all reptile-related salmonella infections come from green iguanas and red-eared sliders, (both of which are species unsuited for but commonly kept by novices, and often in unsanitary housing conditions.)</ref> The show also neglected to mention the far more likely possibility that the man simply died and was scavenged upon by his starving pets.

** A season two episode about pet crocodiles seems to have a very black-and-white issue on the subject. Crocodiles are depicted as either mindless cold-blooded killers or as intelligent beloved pets. There is, sadly, no middle ground stating that crocodiles are intelligent predators that should NEVER be kept as pets because of how dangerous they are, but that we shouldn't go about mindlessly killing them just because they're predators.

* In the episode of ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' starring James Coco, Kermit's nephew Robin was too afraid of snakes to go to bed. Kermit tried to show him the better side of snakes by having him envision beautful dancing snakes. It works for Robin but the appearance of the snakes unnerves poor Kermit. Snakes ''are'' major predators of frogs...

* ''Triple'' subverted in the ''Bad Feng Shui'' episode of ''[[The Haunting Hour the Series]]'' which discusses this trope, and how it doesn't apply with Chinese folklore. However it ends up with a snakelike villain anyway. {{spoiler|Until it's revealed he's more of a misguided [[Literal Genie]], who thinks he's helping the protagonist.}}

 

 

== Music ==

* There's a [[Playground Song]] based upon a [[Shel Silverstein]] poem called "I'm Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor", which exploits the fear of a snake being able to eat a person.

{{quote|''Oh, heck! He's up to my neck!''

** The Reptilicus/Old Bryyonians in ''[[Metroid Prime]] 3: Corruption'', who'll attack you on sight. To be fair, though, the lore entries that you can scan on Bryyo imply that they were fairly nice guys at one point, but more or less turned "evil" after a schism broke out between the "primal" ways of magic and the "new ways" of [[Science Is Bad|science]].

* Subverted in ''[[Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]''; the lizard people in the game, the Bedokkan, are introduced as [[Always Chaotic Evil|a barbaric, primitive people]] who have captured an elf; the most obvious solution is to kill them all. However, with a bit of negotiation, you find that the Bedokkan are a peaceful-ish tribe of indigenous people with a threatened homeland, albeit one that is made up of 9-foot tall magic lizards.

* In ''[[Ty the Tasmanian Tiger]]'', the main [[Mooks]] are frilled lizards. In the second game, however, a frilled lizard is the cook for Bush Rescue, and responds to Ty's surprise at seeing him with "Not all lizards are bad, you know!"

* From the ''[[Soul Calibur]]'' games:

** ...Until you get to Operative Grillo's story arc in Grandville. You know those low level Snakes you stomped on as a newbie? {{spoiler|Snakes not only have a racial name (The S'lisur,) they're also descended from an Incarnate, which makes ''every single S'lisur'' partially an Incarnate. As in "Physical Embodiment of a ''God''" incarnate. And that Incarnate is ''still alive''. And she's ''PISSED'' that you've been killing her kids.}}

** Stheno is named after one of Medusa's unpleasant sisters in [[Greek Mythology]].

* ''[[Age of Wonders]]'' has the Lizard Men and the [[Our Dragons Are Different|Draconians]]. Both are portrayed as savage and believing in survival of the fittest, but their morality is neutral rather than evil.

* While the Gorn in [[Star Trek]] doesn't play this Trope straight, the ones in [[Star Trek Online]] sure do, though it probably doesn't help that they've been conquered by the [[Proud Warrior Race|Klingons]].

 

== Webcomics ==

* In one arc of ''[[The Wotch]]'', Anne and Robin turn into a snake and dragon respectively through changing [http://www.thewotch.com/?epDate=2005-03-25 the dimension they're in].

* ''[[Eerie Cuties]]'' has twin lizard boy bullies. And a nice girl Brooke Lynn who as a Melusine is sometimes considered scary by other students. She [http://www.eeriecuties.com/d/20090930.html uses] this intentionally [[Bully Hunter|on said bullies]], but is mostly shy about it.

* The horror story ''[http://everything2.com/user/grundoon/writeups/We+don%2527t+make+good+wives?author=grundoon We don't make good wives]'' explains why one should never [[Shapeshifter Mode Lock|Mode Lock]] a shapeshifting snake woman, no matter how much of a [[Cute Monster Girl]] you think she is.

* The ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' has not one, not two, not three, but ''four'' serpent-themed villain groups: the Serpent Society, the Viper Squad, the Venom Brotherhood, and finally the Cthonians, an ancient race of [[Snake People]] who predate humanity and want to bring back the rule of [[Eldritch Abomination|the Old Ones]].

* In a ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' webisode, one of the villains is a humanoid snake called [http://heroeswiki.com/The_Constrictor the Constrictor].

 

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* '''Extremely''' evident in ''[[The Get Along Gang]]''. Some episodes had a turtle (of course) joining the Gang. The Cartoon Over-Analizations blog described him as "the Furry equivalent of a [[Token Minority]]".

* ''[[Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars|Bucky O Hare and The Toad Wars]]'' concerns an interplanetary war between the Toads and various mammalian species ([[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|of course]]). In one episode, a guy named Al Negator tries to get a job on Bucky's ship. As he's a shifty-looking reptile, the crew is generally suspicious. But Captain Bucky O'Hare hires him on anyway, making a big point of mentioning how he trusted the gunner Deadeye Duck, despite him being a pirate with somewhat questionable morals (and of course [[Morally-Ambiguous Ducktorate|a duck]]). So it looks like a "beauty is on the inside" or "different doesn't mean bad" kind of Aesop... until ''Al betrays them'', steals classified info, and sabotages the ship! So is the [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|message]] "[[Beauty Equals Goodness|if they look evil, they are evil]]"?

* ''[[The Swan Princess]]'' had evil alligators, and a heroic turtle.

** Anthro alligator Leatherhead is a villain in the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|first cartoon]]; all other versions of the canon play him much more sympathetically, but he does tend to have a [[Unstoppable Rage|nasty temper control problem]] that can make him a threat even to his friends.

** And obviously, TMNT makes exceptions for certain "cute" reptiles, given the nature of its titular characters. Reptilian anthros are mostly good guys. The cartoon is a bit shakier about this as noted above. Then again, Leatherhead the alligator may be more a case of [[Carnivores Are Mean]]; not to get too graphic but a turtle's shell doesn't work so well against those jaws...

* Baron Silas [[Meaningful Name|Greenback]], [[Arch Enemy]] of ''[[Danger Mouse]]'', is a toad with a penchant for [[Greed]].

* ''[[Tuff Puppy]]'' has Francisco the crocodile, a member of [[Fun with Acronyms|DOOM]], and [[Shape Shifter|The Chameleon]].