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Superior Species: Difference between revisions
Remived the potholing of the pun in the description to A Worldwide Punomenon. If you have to lampshade a pun, it wasn't a good one to begin with.
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(Remived the potholing of the pun in the description to A Worldwide Punomenon. If you have to lampshade a pun, it wasn't a good one to begin with.) |
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"I'd just like to say that if I were a member of an alien race -- [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|which I'm]] ''[[Most Definitely Not a Villain|not]]'' -- I'd have to take this opportunity to say -- [[Puny Earthlings|Filthy Earth creatures]]! It is clear who the superior species is! Isn't it? '''Isn't it?!''' [[This Loser Is You|You stink!]]"''|'''[[Large Ham|Zim]]'''
If [[Humans Are the Real Monsters]], then it follows that other races must be better than us. Even when humans are realistically portrayed, there may be a race that is [[Puny Earthlings|stronger]], [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|smarter]], and [[Perfect Pacifist People|purer]] than us.
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A Superior Species doesn't have to follow all of these requirements; demonstration that the species is "superior" to humanity is enough. [[Tropes Are Tools|Though it can be handled well]], this trope is difficult to pull off - [[Unfortunate Implications]] and accusations of [[Mary Sue|Mary-Suedom]] are common results. After all, [[Fantastic Racism]] starts seeming a whole lot more reasonable when one species is objectively better. One common balancing measure for writers to introduce is for the Superior Species's positive qualities to not be their only superhuman aspects - when a member of one goes bad, he/she/it goes ''really'' bad.
And no, this trope is not automatically a
See also [[This Loser Is You]], [[Ultraterrestrials]] and [[Our Elves Are Better]], for the race most often portrayed as... better. Contrast [[Humans Are Flawed]], where humans not being perfect is a ''good'' thing. Compare [[Born Winner]], where an ''individual'' is innately better than everyone else, and [[Designer Babies]], a common method of artificially developing one of these. For a species that only ''thinks'' they're this, and want to force everybody else to think it too, see [[Master Race]].
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* S.L. Viehl has had to make many a [[Author's Saving Throw|saving throw]] to keep her [[Stardoc|Jorenians]] from being one.
* The Dark Elves in the ''[[Icewind Dale]]'' trilogy, [[Dark Elf Trilogy]], and any other novel with Drizz't in it. They live for centuries. Are as silent as death. Weave intricate webs of deceptions that humans could never hope to unravel. Every one of them carries magical adamant weapons and the least skilled of them can stand toe to toe with the elite warriors of other societies. They all have some magic, and many of them grow to be potent wizards. And their rulers, the most powerful of thier kind, are priests commanding the powers of their dark god. On the other hand, they're only capable of cooperating with each other due to direct and repeated intervention from their deity, and then they [[Exclusively Evil|can barely manage a functioning society]]. For all their power, their sheer ''evil'' keeps them from being effective—but said power still tends towards the ridiculous, if only because the weak tend not to reach adulthood. So, subverted, or played absolutely straight?
* The Martians in ''[[Stranger in
== [[Film]] ==
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