What Measure Is a Non-Human?/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

* 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 the Mirror|Cylon sleeper agents.]]

* 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.

* 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.

* ''[[Farscape]]'' subverts the "duplicates are worthless" concept, ''hard'', with a villain who has a machine that can create instant, perfect duplicates - such that the question of "which is the original" is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. When Chiana is duplicated and one of them is killed, she tries very, very hard to convince herself that she's okay because it was just a clone and she's definitely the original... but she chokes up when she gives this speech. Both Johns are treated as equal, {{spoiler|and when one of them dies, Aeryn can't even look the other in the face for a while}}. Also, the [[All the Myriad Ways]] treatment of identical opposites is thoroughly deconstructed (see that page). As for the show's and the characters' treatment of humans versus non-humans, well, the characters are various degrees of amoral and the creators love painful deaths, so it's hard to say.

** This trope is explored with a twist (What measure is a non-animal?) in the episode "Bone to Be Wild":

'''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:

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 [[Always Chaotic Evil]], especially when she's around.}} In season seven, we see that it's still possible for at least one monster to choose not to give in to [[The Dark Side]] most of the time. Every time a monster or witch doesn't act evil, though, it never seems to last--resulting in the [[The Hunter|Hunters']] [[Vigilante Man|position]] making more sense.