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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] plots in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
== Subpages ==
{{subpages}}
== Other Examples ==
* Omnipresent in the "Buffyverse":
** Both instantiated and subverted in the episode "I Was Made to Love You" from season five of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', where, after chasing [[Robot Girl]] April for most of the episode with the intent of bringing her down, Buffy finally ends up staying with her as she slowly fades away, allowing April to "die" with dignity. Later, however, she does not show such concern for the worth of the "Buffy-bot" Spike has built for his amusement. Certainly, anyone would be [[Squick|Squicked]] over being the basis of somebody's -ahem- artificial stimulation, but the series had established that these robots are people too.
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**** Then again Caleb had already killed two potential slayers (Molly and Dianne), stabbed another one and gouged one of Xander's eyes. Mostly self defense
** Willow being "evil" in the first place. If Warren had been anything but human, nobody would have minded Willow going on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]. In fact, the group would have gone with her.
** In ''[[
*** In fact, there's a scene in the season 3 episode ''Forgiving'' where Angel is threatening to torture a human and Lorne, who's a demon, tries to dissuade him, saying "Angel, that's not a slimey demon you've got there, that's a human". Apparently, even good demons value human life more than demon life.
**** Actually, Angel's group seems to believe this more than Angel - when he let Darla and Drusilla kill all those lawyers, he was doing exactly what he would have done if they were demons. He doesn't see it as a [[Moral Event Horizon]], though the group do.
**** However, Angel had Lorne assassinate Lindsey, and two of members of the Circle of the Black Thorn assassinated by Illyria were also human, at least in appearance. Speaking of Circle of the Black Thorn, there was also that politician that Gunn killed.
* Oddly, ''[[Smallville]]'' lampshaded it and tossed it aside in the 7th season finale. The sentient, apparently emotional robot Brainiac, at Clark's mercy, tells him he could never kill a man. Clark quickly replies [[Just a Machine|"You're a machine,"]] then electrifies him.
* [[Russell T. Davies]] has a rule for his tenure in ''[[
** Honestly this show suffers from this trope with the Doctor himself despite the Doctor ''being'' an alien. He kills numerous non-human aliens, he does try to show mercy usually but is [[Ping
*** The show is currently much more consistent about this. In ''The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood'' a major conflict arises from the Doctor trying to prevent a woman who believes her child murdered from killing a captured reptilian agent, for the sake of proving that humans can in fact be civilized.
*** One example where the trope is played straight is in "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit." Faced with a choice between rescuing one human and a whole bunch of enslaved tentacle-faced aliens, the Doctor picks the human.
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** The Doctor also had a long running argument with the Brigadier about "the military mind's" tendency to solve everything with "five rounds rapid".
** The two parter ''The Rebel Flesh''/''The Almost People'' explores this with the gangers. Every character except the Doctor and Rory consider the gangers to ''not'' be human. The Doctor and his ganger manage to prove them wrong, and throughout the episodes the death toll for gangers and originals is pretty even, with two of the eventual survivors being gangers.
** Even in the above examples, the Doctor's attitude is iffy at best. The Doctor defends the rights of a Silurian prisoner but when she gets killed anyway, he protects [[Karma Houdini|her human murderer]] (who's an attempted ''mass'' murderer) yet does nothing to prevent the death of the dead Silurian's vengeful sister, even though apart from one being green they seem to be [[Not So Different]]. He claims gangers are people, then kills one just to prove she is a ganger. ([[Word of God]] attempts to justify it by saying that ganger is non-sentient but it's still a massive [[Broken Aesop]].) Possibly the original series' most awkward is example is the Ice Warriors. They appear in four stories. In one of them, they're treated as surprising allies. The other three (one of which was made afterwards) treat them as [[
* Although they were ''all'' technically aliens, ''[[Power Rangers]]'' could kill "monstrous" villains but not "[[Human Aliens|human]]" ones. In a particularly [[Egregious]] case, a bunch of "monstrous" villains were killed but the few human-looking ones were turned good, with both of these outcomes resulting from the same attack.
** This turns out to have been a case of producers interfering - they refused to kill the humanoid villains, even though the writers had scripted all villainous characters, "monstrous" and human alike, would be destroyed.
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*** And this can not be pointed out strongly enough: Rito was ''Rita's brother''. Unless Rita was originally a human(oid) adopted by Master Vile, ala Astronema.
*** Things of note: 1. We never do ''see'' what happened to Goldar and Rito, or Squatt, Baboo, Finster, or long-unseen Scorpina. 2. It has been speculated that Rita and Zedd being purged like that was a ''[[Villain's Dying Grace]]'' kind of thing, leaving them alive, memories intact, but now able to feel guilt over all the death and destruction they wrought. 3. Rita is implied to have been rotten from the beginning. 4. Divatox being spared was because of the fact she was supposed to be Dimitria's kidnapped sister. 5. With the exception of Ecliptor, the villains we see destroyed were ''much'' less popular than Rita and Zedd. Especially Elgar.
** Zigzagged with {{spoiler|Mack}} from ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]''. {{spoiler| The fact that he was an android may have been intended as a way to make his [[Heroic Sacrifice]] easier to accept, but it didn't make him any less of a hero, and when it became obvious that the other Rangers couldn't repair him, they were clearly ''very'' upset about it. Still, they still managed to save him - using magic to make him truly human, clearly a just reward.}}
* Several [[Jim Henson|"Muppet"]] productions have addressed this. The little-known holiday special "The Christmas Toy" takes on the [[Living Toys]] issue (we're starting to sense a pattern here). In "The Muppet Movie", one of the first humans Kermit meets wants him to be the spokes-frog for "French Fried Frog's Legs", [[Let's Meet the Meat|effectively selling out his species!]]
* These issues some up multiple times with many different races in ''[[
** In ''Atlantis'', the Atlantis Expedition has allowed itself to perform war-crime experiments on some captured Wraith, because "if they were there when the Third Geneva Convention was signed, they would have eaten the attendees instead". This comes back to bite them, in the form of Michael.
** It gets worse. The ''Atlantis'' team has yet to extend sympathy to ''any'' non-human, including those {{spoiler|that used to be human, like Weir. They guilt her into killing herself and all the other friendly sapient Replicators with her}}. Their utter disregard for non-humans of any kind is reaching [[Designated Hero]] / [[Complete Monster]] levels here.
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*** It turns out that the treatment isn't perfect, it tends to break Wraith technology.
** The ''Atlantis'' team helped a non-human civilization's probe rebuild said civilization recently. It was kind of surprising that Sheppard was so amenable, given that {{spoiler|the probe mentally tortured him}}.
** In ''[[
*** From O'Neill's perspective, Fifth's [[Face Heel Turn]] just proves he was right not to trust him all along. But then. Jack's morality is a bit more black-and-white than the target audience's.
*** Jack still has more shades of grey though than ''any'' of Atlantis' cast.
** Occasionally brought into question in regards to how casually the Goa'uld are thought of - sometimes when dealing with the Tok'ra and once with a trial between Skaara and the Goa'uld Klorel for who was allowed his body. Mostly, though, the trope is inverted with the Goa'uld, who think 'What Measure is a Human?'
*** On the subject of Goa'uld, don't forget [[Affably Evil|Ba'al]]. And [[Department of Redundancy Department|Ba'al]]. And [[Rule of Three|Ba'al]]. And [[Me's a Crowd|Ba'al]]... He's [[Comedic Sociopathy|killed to the point of making it]] a [[Running Gag]]. Sometimes twice in the same episode. Gotta love clone Goa'ulds. {{spoiler|He is also the final remaining villain in the main SG-1 series, nearly conquering humanity in ''[[Stargate: Continuum|Continuum]]''.}}
** This issue is also addressed with the Unas in a number of ''[[Stargate SG
** Also, in the ''[[Stargate SG
** And [[Running Gag|Ba'al]].
* The 2000s ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' is practically built on toying with every permutation of this trope. At the beginning, humans automatically treat Cylons as machines and Cylons automatically treat humans as cattle. As the series goes on, dissenters emerge in both races. Made more confused by the fact that Cylons, despite being artificially born and having cybernetic neural properties, practically are biologically human, and several 'human' characters are [[Tomato in
* Subverted in Victorious when Rex the puppet gets sucked into an incredibly powerful sucking machine, and suffers a serious injury. Everyone is just about as sad about this as if it were a real person. Played straight with Jade.
{{quote|
* Tokusatsu series ''[[Chouseishin Gransazer]]'' has an ugly version of this. Many episodes feature a [[Minor Character Of The Week]], who may be a human or a benevolent alien. At the end of each such episode or arc, such a characer will almost always be saved if human, but an alien will invariably die. Often ostensibly by a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], but to this viewer it came off as [[Redemption Equals Death]] to atone for the "crime" of being an alien.
* ''[[
** This trope is explored with a twist (What measure is a non-animal?) in the episode "Bone to Be Wild":
{{quote|
'''John''': To murder sentient beings in order to save a few stinking plants?
'''Zhaan''': How animal-centric of you, John.
'''John''': Sorry, Zhaan. I forgot. You're a-
'''Zhaan''': I am a "stinking plant". }}
* The Winchesters of ''[[Supernatural]]'' and their allies seem to care less and less about killing or torturing demons as the show goes on, despite demons possessing human bodies with the original occupant still in there. To be fair, they are in a very bad situation where mercy isn't always an option, they're facing hordes of demons and little time later on, and it's stated and shown that many demons put their hosts through a lot of punishment, possibily killing them even if they are expelled. This is why the human version of [[What the Hell, Hero?|Meg calling Sam out on it]] was such an awesome moment.
** Actually, one of the reasons [[The Heart|Sam]] starts out using [[Psycho Serum|demon blood]]-fueled powers is because it lets him exorcise demons quickly and without endangering the host. When Ruby tries to persuade Sam to work with her, Sam orders her to vacate her current host. To placate him, she goes to a hospital and possesses the empty body of a Jane Doe who just flatlined, which Sam reluctantly accepts. Basically, the Winchester Brothers care less about hosts when Sam isn't in any position to be a [[Morality Pet]] or isn't really being [[The Heart]]. Or when the other is threatened.
** In fact, ''no'' supernatural creatures are allowed to live, with the exception of the nest of vampires (led by [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Amber Benson (Tara)]], ironically) who live off animal blood. {{spoiler|She gets a [[Mercy Kill]] later, when the dark sides of the monsters are brought out by their Mother.}} Even the sympathetic (or just pathetic) creatures, like shapeshifters (who were born preternaturally mutated and cast out from society and kill because of their [[Freudian Excuse]]) and werewolves (people who are bitten, black out when they turn, and have no idea that they spend the night murdering innocent people) must die. The only werewolf episode is "Heart", and it explores this trope.<br /><br />Two of the three shapeshifter episodes, "Skin" and {{spoiler|"Monster Movie"}}, give us pieces of insight into the shapeshifters' painful existence; the first shapeshifter was an intentionally cruel rapist/murderer, but the second was incredibly lonely and a victim of society's narrow-mindedness and his own killer instincts:
{{quote|
'''Shapeshifter:''' Or maybe I kill people ''because'' I'm lonely.
Which is a godawful excuse, but that guy was twisted. Dean actually felt sorry for him, which is a change. A similar example would be a man who was turning into a creature known as a rougarou, which feast on humans. He was born that way and the brothers tell him what is happening to see if he can fight it off and hold in his vicious nature. Then a fellow hunter's actions force him to turn into a monster and they are left with no choice. }}
** In season six, we find out that all these supernatural creatures {{spoiler|are created by the children of one Mother and tend toward [[
*** It's likely but not certain that the general attitude of Hunters toward Sam as an "abomination" for having psychic powers (from demon blood) by itself would have led most of them to hunt and kill him as [[Not Quite Human]], but most gun for him pretty hard once they know [[You Monster!|he brought on]] [[The End of the World
** On the other hand, [[Grim Reaper|Reapers]] must be kept alive. Considering they [[Psychopomp|fulfill a function]]--harvesting those whose time has come--rather than actively killing, the distinction is understandable.
** An odd example is Castiel, an angel. When he's losing his power and collapses, the Winchesters show genuine concern for him, despite disliking the other angels (although the others are trying to bring about the apocalypse).
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* Played with in [[Mr. Bean]]. He had at least two [[Companion Cube|companion cubes]]: his teddy bear and his car. Teddy can get decapitated and ripped apart every episode. The audience always laughs but also "Awwww"'s at close ups of the cute little toy bear, indicating that they sympathize with the toy but still feel it can be beaten up a little. His car provided a stranger example. In one episode, Bean's car was demolished. The audience apparently has a case of [[Mood Whiplash]] by laughing, showing sorrow, and then laughing again.
* [[Kamen Rider Kiva]] has Fangire who, while often evil, have been shown on various occasions to be capable of living peaceful lives without killing people, and to be able to love humans. However, Wataru generally has no qualms about killing them. Though he doesn't go out of his way to kill peaceful ones and has on occasion spared some.
** Kamen Rider in general has this to some degree. It normally varies on home morally right the hero is and how peaceful the monster is. The main Rider normally won't kill a kaijin who isn't hurting anyone, but sometimes the [[Second Rider]] might not be as merciful and consider all of the species to be [[
* [[Kamen Rider OOO]] has a particularly jarring example, in that the non-human in question is a main character. Ankh is a Greeed, and, technically speaking, not even alive. Very little regret has been shown about hurting or destroying others of his kind, and the only reason Ankh isn't lumped in with the other Greeed is that he is incapable of making Yummy and causing the kind of havoc and slaughter that the other Greeed can. However, even {{spoiler|when Ankh regains enough power to create Yummy and hurt people, the thought of him dying is still upsetting to the main characters, and they try reasoning with him instead of flat-out fighting him as they would with the other Greeed, who they never try to reason with.}}
* [[Monster of the Week|The more human-like mutants of the week]] on ''[[The X
* The
* ''[[The Tomorrow People]]'' have a barrier in their mind that keeps them from (knowingly) killing. In the second story of the original series, a captive boy says that he could kill Jedikiah by sending him into magma because Jedikiah is a robot so it doesn't count as killing.
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