History WhatMeasureIsANonHuman / LiveActionTV

*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E9EmpressOfMars "Empress of Mars"]] explains the discrepancy by having them [[spoiler: leave the remnants of their ruined empire on Mars and begin a new, diplomatic, coexistence with other species.]]

** Buffy has no problem with beating Spike to a bloody pulp shortly after voluntarily sleeping with him after his HeelFaceTurn. Well, she [[TheMasochismTango beat him to a bloody pulp]] ''while'' she was sleeping with him, too. Sure, Spike is a vampire (but so is Angel, Buffy's previous lover). The justification given was that Spike possessed no soul (true ''at that time''), while Angel did. Though even despite her insistence otherwise, it becomes increasingly clear that she's haunted by the guilt for the way she'd been using and abusing Spike regardless of his lack of a soul, as he was still an individual who truly did love her (even if he was terrible at expressing it in a human manner).

** In ''Series/{{Angel}}'', the rule is more like "what measure is a ''dangerous'' non-human?" Killing innocent demons is treated as a hate crime almost as bad as killing humans (see the Season 3 episode ''[[Recap/AngelS03E03ThatOldGangOfMine That Old Gang of Mine]]'') but killing demons who are a) animalistic and predatory or b) evil is treated as heroic, whereas killing a human is treated as wrong no matter how evil the human is.

** ''Series/KamenRiderFaiz'' is pretty much based entirely around exploring this trope, with Orphenoch protagonists getting as much screentime as the Riders, and the second Rider's hatred of them regardless of alignment being only one of his many {{Jerkass}} qualities. It helps that the "monsters" are formerly human, and generally forced or bribed into evil. In the end, some humans and some Orphenochs survive.

** ''Series/KamenRiderOOO'' 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.]]

** {{Deconstructed}} with the Inves in ''Series/KamenRiderGaim''. At first, the heroes have absolutely no problem with using lethal force against the creatures, believing them to be mindless beasts. Then comes the WhamEpisode where [[spoiler: Hase/Kamen Rider Kurokage is transformed into an Inves, while Micchy learns that many of the creatures are actually mutated humans, and that the first Inves Kamen Rider Gaim ever killed was actually his best friend Yuya]]. After [[spoiler:Hase]] is brutally executed by Kamen Rider Sigurd, Kouta tearfully asks why the boy had to die, at which point Sigurd, smug {{Jerkass}} that he is, simply smiles and says that killing monsters is what Riders do.
** ''Series/KamenRiderDrive'' plays with this in a very complicated fashion that lingers heavily on the point of view and AlternativeCharacterInterpretation. [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Roidmudes]] are shown to be sentient and as capable of emotion as humans. The problem is that they are, by programming and other causes, very rarely anything else than AlwaysChaoticEvil. Shinnosuke usually doesn't have any issue with fighting them because they cause suffering and chaos, but doesn't have problem with accepting the ones who do not. On the other hand, the second rider, Gou holds the adamant resolution that all Roimundes are evil and throws a nasty fit when proved otherwise. From the point of Roimundes, they are as worthy as humans and what the riders do is a slaughter. They view ''humans'' as lesser, though. As such, you'll have a Roidmude general filled with righteous fury over the Rider as a murderer, but shrug off "yeah, and what about all the humans you lot have killed?" with "they were just humans."
** ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' provides a zigzagged example. The resident MonsterOfTheWeek species, the Bugsters, are video game characters that spawn in real world by infecting people in form of virus. As such, they are bound by their programming and thus only capable of emotion or independent thought as much as it allows. Usually, there is no way to save the patient without destroying the Bugster spawned. Most Bugsters are violent because they were programmed as villains of their respective games. Emu has some success trying to reason with the benign ones. Other Doctor riders don't have such moral compunctions if presented oppurtunity.

* Tokusatsu series ''Series/ChouSeiShinGransazer'' has an ugly version of this. Many episodes feature a MinorCharacterOfTheWeek, 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 HeroicSacrifice, but it comes off as RedemptionEqualsDeath to atone for the "crime" of being an alien.
** ''Series/ChouSeiKantaiSazerX,'' an indirect sequel to Gransazer, heavily averts this trope by having some of the major characters being aliens played by PeopleInRubberSuits. These major characters all survive. On the flipside, most of the human looking villains unceremoniously die, one of them being a victim to having [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived her usefulness]] to the BigBad.

* The 2000s ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' 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 [[{{TomatoInTheMirror}} Cylon sleeper agents.]]

** This is exploited in the episode ''Screaming Skull''. Before the main film, Mike and the 'bots watch the ''WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}}'' short "Robot Rumpus", in which a bunch of housework-performing (and apparently non-sapient) robots go rampant and start destroying property. Gumby and his dad forcibly dismantle the wayward robots, and this is all presented as comedy. Crow and Tom Servo, robots themselves, are thoroughly traumatized by the proceedings.
** Taken to its (il)logical extreme when Cambot, their handy camera-wielding robot, starts crying at the end of ''Film/DangerDeathRay'' after the hero blows apart a series of the villain's... security cameras.
** Tom Servo's had a ''lot'' of clones of himself. During ''Film/DangerDiabolik'', he casually obliterates all of his spare Servos without a second thought and in ''Film/{{Reptilicus}}'', Crow casually clones Tom and just as casually sends them off to be destroyed (except for one because somehow the real Servo got mixed up in the call to slaughter and the spare didn't.)
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': This trope is explored in several episodes, with respect to androids in "The Hunt", "In Our Own Image" and "Glitch" and the titular SlaveRace in "The Grell". It also comes into play and gets inverted for both sides in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E21PromisedLand Promised Land]]".

** When he first appears, Andros, a HumanAlien, cryptically says "Not everything human has to come from Earth." The meaning of this statement has been much debated in fandom, but seems to indicate that ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' considers "looking human" and "being human" to be close enough.

* ''Series/RedDwarf''
** Played both straight and for laughs in the episode "The Last Day". Lister is horrified that Kryten has built-in obsolescence and convinces him to stay alive, however his replacement Hudzen is programmed to kill him if he doesn't shut down on his own. Hudzen [[ThreeLawsCompliant cannot harm humans]], but when the boys from the Dwarf stand up to him, his StatOVision reads "Hologram - Ex-Human - Viable Target", "Felis Sapiens -- Non-Human -- Viable Target" and "Homo Sapiens -- Barely Human -- What the Hell".
** Similarly, "Back to Earth" has a new hologram taking Rimmer's place, and trying to shut him down. When he asks if this isn't murder, she replies "No. Holograms already dead. Ethically, morally, legally, hologram killing fine." So he pushes her in front of a bus.
** And again in "[[Recap/RedDwarfThePromisedLand The Promised Land]]," with Lister convincing a despondent and physically damaged Rimmer that he's more than just a light-bee computer simulation.

** 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:

** In Season 6, we find out that all these supernatural creatures [[spoiler:are created by the children of one Mother and tend toward AlwaysChaoticEvil, especially when she's around.]] In Season 7, we see that it's still possible for at least one monster to choose not to give in to TheDarkSide most of the time. Every time a monster or witch doesn't act evil, though, it never seems to last -- resulting in the [[HunterOfMonsters Hunters']] [[VigilanteMan position]] making more sense.

** This trope is further discussed in Season 8 on several occasions. There's Benny, the vampire, who [[spoiler:helped Dean escape from Purgatory,]] thus creating a conflict between the brothers regarding what to do with him, [[spoiler:Dean obviously wanting to protect him.]] Later, in "Man's Best Friend With Benefits", Sam and Dean come across an old friend [[spoiler:who has turned to witchcraft,]] and they must decide whether or not to give him a "free pass", as Sam calls it.
** Possibly adding to the evidence that the boys let their emotions do the decision making, they're good friends with a werewolf ([[spoiler: Garth]]) and his eventual family and make no moves to hurt him or his werewolf acquaintances. While he's a [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire very friendly werewolf not known to hurt anyone]], they also were already friends with him before he was bitten, when he was a fully human fellow hunter.

* This was brutally answered in an episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' called "The Lonely". A man who has been exiled to an asteroid for life is left with a female robot by a sympathetic captain. The man eventually [[CargoShip falls in love with the robot]]. During his next visit, the captain tells him he's been pardoned and can come home, but there is no room for the robot. While the man tries to think of a way to take her with him, the captain shoots it in the face, revealing its wires and circuitry. He truly thought that the robot was sentient and harbored true love. It is left open ended if it was truly sapient or if it Corry attributed more to her [[GoMadFromTheIsolation due to his isolation]]. Regardless, either he left once the illusion was broken, or he trudges off, denied what he truly wanted.

* ''Series/{{Andor}}'': The contrast between the title character and his close friends treatment of droids as people and the way the Imperials and other characters treat them as simple tools is one of the first definitively positive traits Cassian displays. B2EMO is treated with the most humanity of any droid in ''Franchise/StarWars'' so far. Maarva, Cassian and Brasso all talk to him like a person, and when B2EMO displays emotions, they never dismiss them. Brasso is especially accommodating of his displays of grief after Maarva's death. An imperial operative knocking over B2EMO is the act that ignites a PowderKegCrowd into a violent riot.

* Subverted in ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' when Rex the puppet gets sucked into an incredibly powerful sucking machine, and suffers a serious injury. Everyone is as sad about this as if it were a real person. Played straight with Jade.

* ''{{Series/Westworld}}'': The androids are used as something to kill or have sex with (whether consensual or not within the storyline) by many guests. Some who begin to malfunction eventually realize what happens to them, and want revenge.
* [[MonsterOfTheWeek The more human-like mutants of the week]] on ''Series/TheXFiles'' tend to get the harsher treatment, being portrayed as instinctive killing machines (or animalistic predators), to be stopped by any means necessary. However, earlier in the series, this had yet to be established. Eugene Tooms (the liver-eating, hibernating, contortionist mutant from Season 1) was supposedly rehabilitated and released back into society. Similarly, Flukeman from early Season 2 was committed to a psychiatric institution for observation, despite being a radioactively created fusion of Primate and flatworm DNA. In the second case, Mulder argued that the creature did not deserve the same legal treatment that a human serial killer would, because he did not see it as human. Later episodes focused more on ordinary humans with strange gifts or victims of unusual circumstance (many of whom killed by accident) rather than the traditional "mutants." Later in the series, a brain-eating humanoid creature [[HaveYouTriedNotBeingAMOnster tried living like a human]], but ultimately failed (proving Mulder's point). At least he got a sympathetic POV. Interestingly, in the episode featuring a severely inbred family as a MonsterOfTheWeek, this doesn't get brought up, implying that the monstrous Peacock Clan is more "human" than (presumably) human-derived mutants like Tooms.

* ''Series/{{Extant}}'': John objects to one of the board member's questions as to whether he has a plan of how to destroy Humanichs in the event they revolted by saying [[WesternAnimation/RobotBoy Ethan]] is his son, and questioning whether she has a plan to kill her daughter. The woman counters by saying that her daughter has a soul, to which John says there's no appreciable difference between humans' and Humanichs' brains. It soon degenerates into insults.

*** Some episodes show that the Wraith, or most of them, are not evil per se, but the laws of nature dictate that they feed on humans to survive. Those same laws dictate that humans do not calmly accept this, but instead kill Wraith to survive, ala dolphins killing sharks. It's all a matter of who wins, not good and evil, at least until the treatment to make Wraith not need to feed on humans is invented. The Wraiths' specific requirement of human LifeEnergy instead of nonsapient animals brings this far into the FantasticAesop territory. The species is just written to provoke this conflict.

** 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 [[KarmaHoudini 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 NotSoDifferent. He claims gangers are people, then kills one just to prove she is a ganger. (WordOfGod attempts to justify it by saying that ganger is non-sentient but it's still a massive BrokenAesop.)

** Both instantiated and subverted in the episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E15IWasMadeToLoveYou I Was Made to Love You]]" from season five of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', where, after chasing RobotGirl 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}}ed over being the basis of somebody's -ahem- artificial stimulation, but the series had established that these robots are people too.

** When Willow turns evil and kills people in season 6, Buffy tries her very best to help her and worries for her sake more than for the people she's trying to kill. When Anya turns evil in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E5Selfless Selfless]]", Buffy immediately decides she has to kill her, justification being Willow is human, Anya is a demon. It is explicitly said later in the episode that vengeance demons have souls, which makes it all a lot worse.

** In ''Series/{{Angel}}'', the rule is more like "what measure is a ''dangerous'' non-human?" Killing innocent demons is treated as a hate crime almost as bad as killing humans (see the season 3 episode ''[[Recap/AngelS03E03ThatOldGangOfMine That Old Gang of Mine]]'') but killing demons who are a) animalistic and predatory or b) evil is treated as heroic, whereas killing a human is treated as wrong no matter how evil the human is.

** Played with throughout the series-- originally, [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons were humans]] who had [[DealWithTheDevil intentionally given up their souls]], but as time wore on, more variations occured: a [[HalfHumanHybrid half-manticore]] child, families of demons who were [[AlwaysChaoticEvil apparently born that way]], and of course Cole Turner. The sisters end up killing them all at some point anyway.

** It subverts the "duplicates are worthless" concept, 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 ExpendableAlternateUniverse 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 turns out to have been a case of ExecutiveMeddling--the producers refused to kill the humanoid villains, even though the writers had scripted all villainous characters, "monstrous" and human alike, would be destroyed.

** More later seasons occasionally feature villains who are human--not HumanAliens or human-disguised monsters, but humans--being vaporized by the Rangers after taking on [[PeopleInRubberSuits rubber suit]] advanced forms.

** Played both straight and for laughs in the episode "The Last Day". Lister is horrified that Kryten has built-in obsolescence and convinces him to stay alive, however his replacement Hudzen is programmed to kill him if he doesn't shut down on his own. Hudzen [[ThreeLawsCompliant cannot harm humans]], but when the boys from the Dwarf stand up to him, his StatOVision reads "Hologram - Ex-Human - Viable Target", "Felis Sapiens - Non-Human - Viable Target" and "Homo Sapiens - Barely Human - What the Hell".

** Oddly, the show lampshades it and tosses 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 [[JustAMachine "You're a machine,"]] then electrifies him.

*** 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?'

*** In the season-three episode "Urgo", the team encounters a program which was downloaded into their brains, and unintentionally results in an AI named Urgo. Who constantly pesters them. They go to Urgo's creator to have him removed, but Urgo is afraid that he will be destroyed. Sam and Daniel decide that destroying him would be akin to murder, because he is intelligent, aware of his existence, and afraid of death, and these together define him as sentient. They convince the rest of SG-1 and Urgo's creator to agree with them, so Urgo's creator downloads the AI into his own brain instead of destroying him.

** In season six, we find out that all these supernatural creatures [[spoiler:are created by the children of one Mother and tend toward AlwaysChaoticEvil, 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 TheDarkSide most of the time. Every time a monster or witch doesn't act evil, though, it never seems to last--resulting in the [[HunterOfMonsters Hunters']] [[VigilanteMan position]] making more sense.
** On the other hand, [[GrimReaper 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.

** In season seven, Sam still prefers not to kill and Dean still would rather kill than be sorry later (although considering everything that came between, it might be "again" rather than "still"), but Sam's [[spoiler: not exactly stable enough to stay that way consistently]], and Dean's still [[DeathSeeker tormented]] enough that he can slip out of this [[IDidWhatIHadToDo practicality]].
** This trope is further discussed in season eight on several occasions. There's Benny, the vampire, who [[spoiler:helped Dean escape from Purgatory,]] thus creating a conflict between the brothers regarding what to do with him, [[spoiler:Dean obviously wanting to protect him.]] Later, in "Man's Best Friend With Benefits", Sam and Dean come across an old friend [[spoiler:who has turned to witchcraft,]] and they must decide whether or not to give him a "free pass", as Sam calls it.

* Played with throughout ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' -- originally, [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons were humans]] who had [[DealWithTheDevil intentionally given up their souls]], but as time wore on, more variations occured: a [[HalfHumanHybrid half-manticore]] child, families of demons who were [[AlwaysChaoticEvil apparently born that way]], and of course Cole Turner. The sisters end up killing them all at some point anyway.
** Played straight (painfully so) in a later season, with a demon [[HeelFaceTurn trying to help the sisters]] in return for a soul. [[StuffedInTheFridge Needlessly killed]] by the BigBad before she can become human again, but [[RedemptionEqualsDeath after holding up her side of the bargain]]. And they were so close to turning her again, too. Her borrowing one of Phoebe's dresses in her last minutes showed just how ready they had gotten for it, and even caused question as to whether they actually pulled it off. This only made her vanquish even more painful.
** Subverted in an episode where the sisters were hunting what they thought was a demon going after an innocent baby. Turned out the 'demon' [[MonsterIsAMommy was actually the baby's father]], who had learned magic and transformed himself [[IDidWhatIHadToDo so as to have the power to protect his son from his mother and her kind]]. (This baby would be the half-manticore child mentioned just above here.) Not only did the sisters give the fellow a chance to explain the truth (despite him being willing to kidnap and endanger them), they stopped the real demons, saved his life (after his brush with death [[ThisWasHisTrueForm restored him to his human self]]), and got his son back for him. All of this despite the Elders telling them that 'the baby was a (half) demon and [[AlwaysChaoticEvil can never be raised to be anything else]]', which they point out is untrue since as he's half-human, he has the capacity for ''good'' as well and his future is his to decide.

* This was brutally answered in an episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' called "The Lonely". A man who has been exiled to an asteroid for life is left with a female robot by a sympathetic captain. The man eventually [[CargoShip falls in love with the robot]]. During his next visit, the captain tells him he's been pardoned and can come home, but there is no room for the robot. While the man tries to think of a way to take her with him, the captain shoots it in the face, revealing its wires and circuitry. He truly thought that the robot was sentient and harbored true love. It is left open ended if it was truly sapient or if it was just well programmed. Regardless, either he left once the illusion was broken, or he trudges off, denied what he truly wanted.

* ''Franchise/KamenRider'' in general has this to some degree. It normally varies on how morally right the hero is and how peaceful the monster is. The main Rider normally won't kill a non-human who isn't hurting anyone, but sometimes the SecondRider might not be as merciful and consider all of the species to be AlwaysChaoticEvil. Though to be fair, some of the non-human races are truly AlwaysChaoticEvil, such as the war-like [[Series/KamenRiderKuuga Grongi]], but most are depicted as having good and evil members.

*** The monsters are androids that are hacked and reprogrammed to kill any human in sight. While Aruto rarely hesitates to put one down if it's a danger to others, he's otherwise a firm believer that AndroidsArePeopleToo. Meanwhile, the SecondRider Isamu is a nearly {{Rabid|Cop}} CowboyCop who hates robots and is convinced that every one of them, hacked or not, is secretly a killing machine deep down (thanks to suffering childhood trauma when several went berserk); and his second-in-command Yua sees them simply as machines that are useful, but easily replaced if they break.

** Buffy has no problem with beating Spike to a bloody pulp shortly after voluntarily sleeping with him after his HeelFaceTurn. Well, she [[TheMasochismTango beat him to a bloody pulp]] ''while'' she was sleeping with him, too. Sure, Spike is a vampire (but so is Angel, Buffy's previous lover). The justification given was that Spike possessed no soul (true ''at that time''), while Angel did.

** Possibly adding to the evidence that the boys let their emotions do the decision making, they're good friends with a werewolf ([[spoiler: Garth]]) and his eventual family and make no moves to hurt him or his werewolf acquaintances. While he's a [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire very friendly werewolf not known to hurt anyone]], they also were already friends with him before he was bitten, when he was a fellow (fully human) hunter.

*** The monsters are androids that are hacked and reprogrammed to kill any human in sight. While Aruto rarely hesitates to put one down since there's no way to salvage them, he's otherwise a firm believer that AndroidsArePeopleToo. Meanwhile, the SecondRider Isamu is a nearly {{Rabid|Cop}} CowboyCop who hates robots and is convinced that every one of them, hacked or not, is secretly a killing machine deep down (thanks to suffering childhood trauma when several went berserk); and his second-in-command Yua sees them simply as machines that are useful, but easily replaced if they break.
*** However, while the show has the audience sympathize with the robots, it also plays this trope straight by the fact that the robots-turned-monsters are treated worse than humans-turned-monsters are. Usually in ''Kamen Rider'', humans that get turned into monsters are able to be reverted to normal (unless they're the BigBad or there's some dark plot twist like ''Gaim''[='s=]). The robots get no such courtesy; once they're reprogrammed the person they used to be is gone and they have to be scrapped. The first kill of the series was even destroyed in LudicrousGibs that would have been far too graphic for the target audience if it was flesh and blood instead of metal and oil.

*** The monsters are androids that are hacked and reprogrammed to kill any human in sight. While Aruto won't hesitate to put one down (once informed that they can't be salvaged), he otherwise generally treats androids well and defends them as humanity's dream. Meanwhile, the SecondRider Isamu is a nearly {{Rabid|Cop}} CowboyCop who hates robots and is convinced that every one of them, hacked or not, is secretly a killing machine deep down (thanks to suffering childhood trauma when several went berserk); and his second-in-command Yua sees them as simply machines.
*** However, while the show has the audience sympathize with the robots, it also plays this trope straight by the fact that the robots-turned-monsters are treated worse than humans-turned-monsters are. Usually in ''Kamen Rider'', humans that get turned into monsters are able to be reverted to normal (unless they're the BigBad or there's some dark plot twist like ''Gaim''[='s=]). The robots get no such courtesy; once they're reprogrammed the person they used to be is gone and they have to be scrapped. The first kill of the series would even have been considered LudicrousGibs if it was flesh and blood instead of metal and oil.

* ''Series/TheTomorrowPeople'' 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.

*** The monsters are androids that are hacked and reprogrammed to kill any human in sight. While Aruto won't hesitate to put one down (once informed that they can't be salvaged), he otherwise generally treats androids well and defends them as humanity's dream. Meanwhile, the SecondRider Isamu is a nearly {{Rabid|Cop}} CowboyCop who hates robots and is convinced that every one of them, hacked or not, is secretly a killing machine deep down; and his second-in-command Yua also hates them but can at least stay professional.