History Main / ApeShallNeverKillApe

In reality, this is generally not the rule for life on Earth, as countless species will fight amongst themselves for territory, resources, or mating rights. And of course, humanity's long history of warfare and murder speaks for itself.

* VideoGame/DaysGone: Averted. Freakers will happily kill and eat each other, and seeing different Freaker packs fight is a common occurence.

* In ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness'', Flonne the angel trainee [[LoveFreak isn't violent by nature]], but over the course of the plot she won't hesitate to fight both demons and humans. Later in the game she finds herself going against other angels, which horrifies her as it is strictly forbidden by angelic law. When she meets up with the Seraph, she confesses her crimes and accepts the consequences, [[BalefulPolymorph getting turned into a flower]]. However, because she had good reason and the Seraph is a ReasonableAuthorityFigure, her ''real'' punishment is merely to become a FallenAngel, which means [[{{Unishment}} she can stay with her friends]].

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Ironically, the trope doesn't apply to most real life apes, since most species show to be ''very'' eager to murder their own for a variety of reasons. There a few exceptions that play it straight, though:
** Bonobos are one of the few primates who do not exhibit brutal infighting, preferring to settle conflicts peacefully, usually through sex.
** To a lesser extent, gorillas will usually avoid straight-up violence in a conflict, and prefer using threat displays that (most of the time) stops a deadly fight from happening. The most obvious reason for this is pragmatism, since two silverbacks can do serious damage to each other, and they would rather avoid that.
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[[folder:Film]]

* This is one of the original Seven Commandments of ''Literature/AnimalFarm'', conveniently discarded when UsefulNotes/JosephStalin {{Expy}} Napoleon became convinced there were traitors in his midst.

* Played with in ''Literature/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents'', where Dangerous Beans decides one of the Rules is "No Rat Should Kill Another Rat", but acknowledges it's not quite as simple as that.
-->'''Peaches''': But what if you have to?
-->'''Dangerous Beans''': [[PragmaticHero Then you have to]]. But you still shouldn't.
::Or, as another Discworld character [[Literature/ThiefOfTime once put it]], the point of rules is to ''think'' before you break them.

* Bonobos are one of the few primates who do not exhibit brutal infighting, preferring to settle conflicts peacefully, usually through sex.

->'''Female Changeling''': As I said, I wish the circumstances of this meeting were different. You killed a Changeling, Odo.\\
'''Odo''': He was trying to kill my friends. I had no choice.\\
'''Female Changeling''': Of course you had a choice, and you chose to side with the Solids. To protect them, you were willing to violate the most sacred law of our people.\\
'''Odo''': No Changeling has ever harmed another. \\
'''Female Changeling''': Until you.
-->-- [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E26BrokenLink "Broken Link"]], ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''

** {{Subverted}} for Ranboo, who is half-Enderman. He will kill Endermen if he has to, but he really doesn't like killing them and tries his best to avoid having to do so.

* Discussed and defied in ''[[ComicBook/JonathanHickmansXMen House of X]]''. During the first meeting of the Quiet Council, the mutants there start to discuss what laws they should take. Mr. Sinister suggests that mutants should never kill other mutants. However, because [[DeathIsCheap there's a way to resurrect mutants]], they come to realize that this point is really moot. They amend the idea to just mutants not killing humans unless it's self-defense.

* The Lunarians in ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' make a pretty big deal about how disgusting it is that the creatures living on Earth have to kill each other to survive. Of course, that won't stop them from killing anyone on Earth who threatens their own survival on the "deathless" moon.

* The Souls from ''Literature/TheHost'' would never harm each other...but don't extend the same courtesy to humans (they do seem to want to prevent unnecessarily killing humans, but likely only so they can be used as hosts).

** Minbari have a tradition called denn'sha, which is a ritual fight to the death. The meaning of the word means "Denial", and by partaking in it, they deny being Minbari for the duration of the fight. The loser is not considered "killed" by their opponent so much as having committed ritual assisted suicide.

** The Cylons justify their genocide of humanity with "they would have destroyed themselves anyway". [[spoiler:We find that a whole tribe of Cylons ''actually'' destroyed themselves. Plus, the modern Cylons mostly destroyed themselves too.]]

** Played straight, however, by the semi-sentient Cylon Raiders, who refuse to continue attacking the Fleet after [[spoiler:one of them scans Sam Anders and recognizes him as a humanoid Cylon]], with the Basestar Hybrid even repeating the mantra, "They will not harm their own." Until Brother Cavil decides to have the Raiders lobotomized so that it won't happen again, which sets off an EnemyCivilWar when the Sixes, Leobens and Sharons object.

** Played straight, however, by the semi-sentient Cylon Raiders, who refuse to continue attacking the Fleet after [[spoiler:one of them scans Sam Anders and recognizes him as a humanoid Cylon]]. Until Brother Cavil decides to have the Raiders lobotomized so that it won't happen again, which sets off an EnemyCivilWar when the Sixes, Leobens and Sharons object.

** Played straight, however, by the semi-sentient Cylon Raiders, who refuse to continue attacking the Fleet after [[spoiler:one of them scans Sam Anders and recognizes him as a humanoid Cylon]]. Until Brother Cavil decides to have the Raiders lobotomized so that it won't happen again, which sets off an EnemyCivilWar when the Sixes, Leoben and Sharons object.

** Played straight, however, by the semi-sentient Cylon Raiders, who refuse to continue attacking the Fleet after [[spoiler:one of them scans Sam Anders and recognizes him as a humanoid Cylon]]. Until Brother Cavil decides to have the Raiders lobotomized so that it won't happen again, which sets off an EnemyCivilWar.

** The {{irony}} is that Caprica-Six prevented D'Anna-Three from unknowingly committing another act of Cylon-on-Cylon violence. Patricide, in fact.

This is something of a TruthInTelevision as well, since many of the so-called "barbaric" cultures were only so to the outsiders. Also compare the opening paragraph with humanity's prohibitions on human-abuse vs animal-abuse - when, in fact, humans ''do'' regularly commit murder of their own kind, and for a variety of reasons. But humans are also the only known ones who feel even the tiniest bit bad about doing it, or revile others who do it; many animals kill each other even more freely.

* Sometimes invoked by humans suffering from a case of species CulturalCringe -- "At least monkeys don't have wars," etc. Doesn't take them long to be corrected (monkeys in fact ''do'' fight over land and resources, and even commit murder within their own groups, just as humans do).
* If anything, many animal species tend to '''invert''' this trope: members of one's own species, viewed from the evolutionist's purely-pragmatic standpoint, are ''far'' more likely to be in competition for the same food, territory, and resources, and are by definition one's ''only'' competitors for mates. An organism that's sufficiently different from one's own kind is at best a potential meal or at worst a potential predator, in which case it's better avoided than fought.
* Oddly enough, one of mankind's two closest relatives, the bonobos, have never been observed killing each other, as they prefer to settle conflicts peacefully (with sex being a particularly favored method). On the other hand, humanity's other closest relative, the chimpanzees, are known to fight wars among themselves (first discovered with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War "Gombe Chimpanzee War"]] in Tanzania from 1974 to 1978), and have even routinely been observed ''eating the children of rivals''. Some of this can be chalked up to a varying scarcity of resources -- bonobos live in more resource-rich habitat than chimpanzees and hence have less need to compete -- but studies have shown that unlike the highly tribalist chimpanzees, bonobos are naturally inclined to share with strangers.

* Oddly enough, one of mankind's two closest relatives, the bonobos, have never been observed killing each other, as they prefer to settle conflicts peacefully (with sex being a particularly favored method). On the other hand, humanity's other closest relative, the chimpanzees, are known to fight wars among themselves (first discovered with the "Gombe Chimpanzee War" in Tanzania from 1974 to 1978), and have even routinely been observed ''eating the children of rivals''. Some of this can be chalked up to a varying scarcity of resources -- bonobos live in more resource-rich habitat than chimpanzees and hence have less need to compete -- but studies have shown that unlike the highly tribalist chimpanzees, bonobos are naturally inclined to share with strangers.

* ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'' is ultimately the {{Trope Namer|s}}, although it ultimately does not play this trope straight.

** The phrase "Ape shall ''not'' kill ape" appears in the second movie, ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'' as part of a SadisticChoice forced upon the apes by the psychic human mutants: the gorilla soldiers are given a vision of their comrades [[CruelAndUnusualDeath dying in slow agony]], begging for a MercyKill, even though it would violate this law. Dr. Zaius, however, is able to intuit that the whole thing is an illusion created by the PsychicPowers of their enemies, [[TakeAThirdOption freeing them from the moral dilemma]].

** The final film in the original series, ''Film/BattleForThePlanetOfTheApes'', is the one that really emphasizes this trope as one of the prime laws of ape society, and it's a huge plot point when the law is finally, unambiguously broken: [[spoiler: General Aldo [[WouldHurtAChild kills]] Caesar's son Cornelius, and is then killed in vengeance by Caesar himself]]. The shock of this realization is what ultimately forces Caesar, the ape leader, to stop his paternalistic CulturalPosturing and accept that apes, [[HumansAreFlawed like humans]], are flawed, and therefore, must be treated as equals.

* In ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'', the Playing Characters not only regard all [=NPCs=] as disposable -- either they can be killed for XP, or they're just expendable minions to handle the dangerous jobs -- but they actually [[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/1404.html tell them so]] when speaking in character. Fortunately, Paploo wasn't familiar with role-playing games, so just took offence because he assumed Han was accusing him of being a Non Profit Company -- still deeply offensive to a proudly capitalist Ewoc.

** The The phrase "Ape shall ''not'' kill ape" appears in the second movie, ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'' as part of a SadisticChoice forced upon the apes by the psychic human mutants: the gorilla soldiers are given a vision of their comrades [[CruelAndUnusualDeath dying in slow agony]], begging for a MercyKill, even though it would violate this law. Dr. Zaius, however, is able to intuit that the whole thing is an illusion created by the PsychicPowers of their enemies, [[TakeAThirdOption freeing them from the moral dilemma]].