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Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Difference between revisions
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Despite not even being closely related to them, Amphibians sometimes are portrayed this way too. Toads in particular have become heavily correlated with abhorrence due to their poisonous secretions, association with witches, and the myth that touching one will give you warts. However, there are many favorable depictions of frogs in fiction.
This is not a character trope. It is a pattern only visible when looking at an entire cast of characters. Merely having a few bad reptiles among a majority of good reptiles does not invoke this trope. When the only reptilian character in a work or the majority of the reptile-themed characters are bad guys, this trope is in play. This trope does not require that reptiles be [[
Sometimes the trope in invoked in-universe. Characters may assume that reptiles are more likely to be evil, whether or not it's justified. In these cases you may have Reptiles Are Abhorrent crossed with [[Fantastic Racism]].
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* Similar to the Disney's ''Aladdin'' example, the Queen of Underland in ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|The Silver Chair]]'' turns into a giant snake when she finally runs out of subtler options for killing the heroes. Prince Rillian is glad of this, because it meant he [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl|wouldn't have to kill a woman.]]
* Debora Chester's ''[http://www.lucasaliens.com/ Alien Chronicles]'' series has the Viis, who resemble giant frilled lizards. They're a despotic race that has enslaved various mammalian races, with the only other reptilian species being their allies instead. When the mammalian races leave to find a utopia, not even their Viis underclass allies go with them, and what becomes of the turtle-people is never said. The web page for the series even invokes this trope.
* In [[Clive Barker]]'s ''[[Abarat]]'' series, despite the archipelago of Abarat being home to a host of wildly different creatures, Finnegan Hob is out to kill all dragons, even young ones, because ''one'' of them killed his bride. All dragons appearing on-page are unsympathetic (and ugly), while Hob is depicted sympathetically, and none of the other characters have a problem with him basically wanting to commit genocide of a sentient species. Notable in that this [[
* In Taylor Anderson's ''[[Destroyermen]]'' series, a pair of WWII destroyers slip sideways into a [[Alternate History|timeline]] where dinosaurs were never wiped out and humans never evolved. Instead two other intelligent races did, one mammalian, one reptilian. Guess who the bad guys are?
* In his ''[[Pellucidar]]'' series, [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] created two reptilian species: the Snake People Horibs who are villains right out of central casting, and the more nuanced [[Giant Flyer|Mahars]] who are telepathic, parthenogenic pterosaurs who start out ruling Pellucidar but are overthrown by the human hero. {{spoiler|It later turned out that the Mahars -- who are deaf and communicate ''entirely'' by telepathy -- were unaware that humans were sapient.}}
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* 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
* In ''[[The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel]]'', Quetzalcoatl is one of the more evil-aligned Elders (seriously, people need to [[Sadly Mythtaken|stop making the nicest Aztec god evil just because he's the only one they've heard of]]) and a Komodo-dragon-like monster called a Nidhogg is summoned and nearly eats Scathach in the first book. Also, everyone's magical aura has a different smell, and one of the villains' auras smells like a snake.
* 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.
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** More obvious, the snake found in the [[Our Wormholes Are Different|wormhole "wall"]], which [[Kill All Humans|wants to eat just about anyone]] ''from another dimension'' although the ones that had the most encounters with it say [[False Reassurance|it'll just mind its business]].
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'':
** Subverted with the Unas. When first introduced, the lizard-like Unas are unquestionably evil. This is, of course, because the only ones encountered are possessed by the [[
** However, there was also the first [[Big Bad]], Apophis, whose Jaffa wore snake-themed armour, and he himself wore golden snake armour.
* In the ''[[CSI]]: Miami'' episode "Identity," a sunbathing woman is killed and swallowed (but for some reason not digested) by a boa constrictor. Once again, this is more a case of Humans are Bastards, as the snake had been illegally imported and died soon thereafter.
* The Sleestak were the worst sentient villains in ''[[Land of the Lost (TV series)|Land of the Lost]]''. And the other villains? Well, they subverted [[Everything's Better with Dinosaurs]] by being carnivores who chased the cast... except for Dopey.
* The main [[Big Bad|Big Bads]] of ''[[Space Cases]]'' were the Spung, an [[
* [[Kamen Rider Ryuki]] has Kamen Rider Ohja, which means [[Meaningful Name|King of Snakes]]. And Oh how [[Complete Monster|evil]] [[For the Evulz|he]] [[Blood Knight|is.]]
* A brief scene in the ''[[Davy Crockett]]'' mini-series featured Davy up against a few alligators.
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** Ridley, a [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|giant pterodactyl cyborg]], and Kraid, a [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|humongous lizard]] with [[Made of Iron|optical shield-tough skin]], occupy the top of the Space Pirates chain of command ([[The Dragon|directly under]] [[Big Bad|Mother Brain]]). They're arch nemeses of [[The Hero|Samus Aran]] (Ridley in particular, given the series' backstory).
** 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 [[
* ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star FOX]] 64'', along with (ab)using several other [[Animal Stereotypes]], plays this trope straight. One of the members of the evil rival group, Star Wolf, is a chameleon called "Leon". Not only that, but the boss characters for Corneria's secret path and Area 6 look reptilian in their avatars. (According to the manual, the lizards are the native species of Venom and were enslaved by the evil Andross and his simian scientists.)
* 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!"
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** Throughout the game, players also encounter winged snakes called wind serpents. These serpents are almost always hostile to the player.
** The most obviously evil wind serpent is the father of them all, Hakkar the Soulflayer. Hakkar is either an offspring of or manifestation of the will of the [[Cosmic Horror|Old Gods]] and corrupted the entire jungle troll nation and damn near destroyed it completely. His hobbies included eating the souls and drinking the blood of those captured by his troll followers or, baring that, his followers themselves.
** The [[Naga]] are a powerful race of former elves [[Scaled Up|transformed into snake-things]] by an [[Cosmic Horror|Old God.]] Guess how friendly they are? ''Warcraft'' generally tries to show everyone except demons as being fairly morally neutral depending on what their leaders choose to do, but Naga get very few instances where they aren't being [[
** There're even more nasty snakes in the expanded universe.
** The snake loa was never given the opportunity to do anything bad given what we see. The wind serpent loa is a rather nasty fellow, but not completely unjustified. He/she decides to spend his/her eternity as a now-incorporeal being torturing and murdering those who betrayed him over and over for shiggles. Then again, it does help you out, and they do sort of deserve it.
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