Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers
23,028
edits
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Difference between revisions
m
→top: Fixing links to disambiguation pages
m (clean up) |
Derivative (talk | contribs) m (→top: Fixing links to disambiguation pages) |
||
Line 18:
*** It should also be mentioned that a typical way for a Vampire to die (turning to dust/ash) also means that it's a lot easier to ''show'' a Vampire dying or being killed onscreen. Considering that the original way of killng a vampire was far more complicated and involved (i.e.: you had to turn it to ash [[Kill It with Fire|the hard way]]), it should probably be the other way around: that Vampires started dying that way ''because'' it was safer to show on TV.
** Special mention must be made of [[Beta Baddie]]s as they are often on the same level as vampires on this scale (and more than a few vampires have been Beta Baddies). These are characters who ''would'' be considered normal people were it not for a [[Uncanny Valley|few very strange differences]]. The troubling part is this: even though they often look like normal people, even if they go on and on about how [[I Just Want to Be Normal|they wish they were normal people]] (and they often gain the audience's sympathy in the process), '''none''' of the heroes seem to take any of this into consideration and dispatch them with clean consciences. Eerily, some fiction in which Beta Baddies appear even [[Lampshade Hanging|acknowledges]] how twisted this is—and let the good guys blithely kill then off anyway. (Hi, [[Kingdom Hearts|Sora]].)
* On to living things. The value of the life of a non-human [[Animal Motifs|animal]] in fiction, distressingly, tends to relate directly to how much humans like said animal. Thus dogs are protected by [[Infant Immortality]] but [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|snakes]], spiders and [[Bug War|insects]] are trampled without a second thought. Sadly, this is [[Truth in Television]]. To paraphrase an old Dennis Leary routine about the Endangered Species Act, "You ''know'' how this is going to end! Eventually, [[Humans Are
** There is also the fact that when a character ceases to be human, they no longer matter. And the fact that it is totally wrong to treat humans like cattle but fine for any other species.
* Not that they appear much as characters in fiction, but [[That Poor Plant|plants, protists, fungi, bacteria, and so on and so forth]] do not count ''at all'' on this scale.
Line 33:
* Supernatural entities vary depending on alignment. Typically demons are on the same level as undead.
This is often one of the reasons why [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|Humans Are Bastards]]. It can get especially awkward, however, when it happens in works of fiction where many of the ''heroes'' aren't human either, leading to uncomfortable [[Fridge Logic]].
In general, the more thought that is put into the script, the more value nonhuman life will have. This trope is often used as a metaphor for the [[Real Life]] issues of animal and human rights. See also [[That Poor Plant]], [[Of the People]], [[Zombie Advocate]] and [[Van Helsing Hate Crimes]]. The flipside of sorts is [[What Measure Is a Non Super]]. Related tropes are [[Uncanny Valley]], [[They Would Cut You Up]], and [[Emergency Transformation]]. Contrast with [[Androids Are People, Too]].
| |||