Line #19 HumansAreTheRealMonsters/LiveActionTV


1	%%%
2	%%
3	%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
4	%%
5	%%%
6	!! Works and franchises with their own page
7	[[index]]
8	* ''HumansAreTheRealMonsters/KamenRider''
9	[[/index]]
10	----
11	!! Examples
12	* In ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'', the character Seamus Harper is a human who grew up on Earth. Earth in this 'verse has been invaded by both the HordeOfAlienLocusts Magog and the genetically-engineered Nietzscheans. As Harper tells his alien shipmate Trance Gemini in one episode, the Nietzscheans were worse because they were human. Granted, not that they ''just'' were capable of even more oppressive, creative cruelty than the brutal monstrosity of the Magog, but that the fact that, despite their superior attitude and holding themselves apart like a different race entirely, they are not another species and that makes it worse.
13	** In another episode, Harper wonders aloud if Castalians (a genetically-engineered human variant that breathe water) eat fish or if it would be like humans eating monkeys, and Captain Dylan Hunt points out that humans ''have'' eaten monkeys, [[IAmAHumanitarian and other humans]].
14	* Byron from Season 5 of ''Series/BabylonFive'' is convinced Mundanes Are Bastards, that when telepaths engage in actions such as murder and MindRape, it's only because mundanes have pushed them to it. However, this is obviously not the case, as he and his people end up doing plenty of horrible things out of a sense of entitlement, and Byron's statements probably made things worse with ideas of "we deserve this" and "it's ''their'' fault, not mine".
15	** When humans [[spoiler: dig up a Shadow Battle Crab on Mars, they look at its horrible blackness that induces internal screaming]], and immediately think "Hmm...how can we make this work for us?"
16	* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica\|2003}}'': While the Cylons definitely hold that view towards humanity, at least in the first couple of seasons, Cylons are pretty much better than humanity at everything. Including self-righteous hypocrisy (given they make statements like "humans don't respect life like we do" after exterminating most of humanity in a nuclear holocaust and about to gun someone down).
17	* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
18	** Anya felt this, which is why it was easy for her to be a vengeance demon. Three years of fighting alongside the Scoobies allowed her to see the goodness in people and made it hard to go back to vengeance.
19	** During Season 6, both Xander and Dawn openly state that Warren is just as much of a monster as the vampires and demons that the Scoobies slay regularly and thus support Dark Willow's plan to kill him, whereas Buffy [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman simply cannot condone killing humans for any reason]].
20	** Caleb, hands down. Even before joining up with the First Evil, he was a HeManWomanHater and SerialKiller responsible for the deaths of at least two girls. The fact that he, a human, serves as TheDragon to the biggest evil of the Buffyverse speaks volumes for just how monstrous Caleb really is.
21	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Sometimes humanity comes off as worse than the monster of the week, and as much as the Doctor likes humanity, he doesn't have a problem pointing this out.
22	-->'''The Doctor:''' [[HumansAreMorons Humans have got such limited little minds.]] I don't know why I like you so much.\
23	'''Sarah Jane Smith:''' Because you have such good taste.\
24	'''The Doctor:''' That's true. That's very true.
25	** Some stories of the First Doctor feature this trope. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites The Sensorites]]", the first ''Doctor Who'' story to feature humans interacting with aliens outside the main cast, Sensorites fear humans because a previous expedition of humans that came to the Sensesphere have been poisoning the water supply in order to claim the planet as theirs. In a subversion, it later turns out the poisoners were driven half-mad (unintentionally) by the Sensorites' telepathic interference, and were as much victims as anyone else. The true villain of the story, as with the Silurians below, is a xenophobic Sensorite.
26	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E3TheRescue "The Rescue"]]: The villain of the piece is a man who killed the survivors of his spaceship crash, as well as the local alien population. He has been posing as one of those aliens to keep the only other survivor, Vicki, in check. He does all this because he killed a man on the spaceship, but it had not yet been reported to Earth before the crash, prompting him to kill all the witnesses and use Vicki to corroborate his own story.
27	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians "Doctor Who and the Silurians"]], in which despite all the Doctor's best efforts the humans' greed, stubbornness and fear sends the situation spiralling out of control, culminating in the Brigadier murdering an entire race of hibernating people (or at least, a large population of them, as Silurians continue to pop up). While the Silurians wanted to destroy the humans at least as much (and one in particular was a xenocidal maniac) they do show nobler tendencies, as the Old Silurian is the only morally respectable character aside from the Doctor and Liz. Even the "bad" Silurian's choice to sacrifice himself for the good of his people contrasts with the petty, selfish and emotional reactions of the "bad" human characters. In fact, every appearance by the Silurians throughout the series will invoke this trope at least once or twice, to differing levels of success.
28	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E4TheMutants "The Mutants"]]: The titular mutations are a natural stage of an alien culture's life cycle, and the main villains are a group of bigoted human colonialists plotting to commit genocide via HostileTerraforming. The story was consciously written as a satire on the white supremacist regime in the former British colony of Rhodesia.
29	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate "Warriors' Gate"]] features an interesting use of this trope. The villains of the story are the human crew of a spaceship that's transporting alien slaves. With the possible exception of the captain, the slavers aren't characterised as evil or malicious, they're just [[PunchClockVillain ordinary people who think nothing of enslaving (and sometimes killing) sapient creatures.]] This makes their immoral actions all the more disturbing.
30	** [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]]: After Harriet Jones has the retreating Sycorax ship blasted into smithereens, the Doctor is so angry that he briefly seems to lose all respect for humans in general: "I should have told them to run, as fast as they can, run and hide, because the monsters are coming: the human race!"
31	*** Though this scenario is a little more complicated, since the Sycorax had spent the day essentially attempting to extort humanity by holding a gun to their head, then murdered a couple of peace envoys for no particular reason, and Harriet Jones' reasoning (that the Sycorax would go out and tell people about the Earth and that it's a pretty rich planet, with just one bloke in a phone box defending it) is proved to be correct — the Doctor isn't always going to be around, and Earth can't just spend its time HoldingOutForAHero. The Doctor ignores her and promptly arranges her deposition, which allows the Master to take power the following season.
32	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E4DaleksInManhattan "Daleks in Manhattan"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E5EvolutionOfTheDaleks "Evolution of the Daleks"]]: Dalek Sec gives this as the reason why [[spoiler:he chooses to merge with a human]], noting that humans feel hatred and ambition, and possess a genius for war. Subverted as this causes him to develop human emotions and pull a RedemptionEqualsDeath.
33	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords "Last of the Time Lords"]]: The creatures that the Master uses to terrorize the planet, literally decimate the population, and enslave the human race turn out to be [[spoiler:the human race from the future]].
34	--->"The human race. Greatest monsters of them all."
35	*** Even more of a downer when you realize that [[spoiler:these are the same humans that the Doctor gave such a giddy "humans are indomitable" speech about]] in an [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia earlier episode]] of the finale.
36	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]]: [[spoiler:The humans who found them isolated the Ood Brain (the core of their ''{{hive mind}}'') and after an indefinite amount of time started to hack off the Oods' hind-brains (the external chunk of brain sticking out of their face that governs personality) and replace them with translator orbs. They're treated like cattle and gassed if they become violent.]] Of course, not ''all'' humans are bastards: there are people protesting against the slavery. They're called "Friends of the Ood".
37	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E6TheDoctorsDaughter "The Doctor's Daughter"]]: Humans are far more violent than the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Hath]]. [[BatmanGrabsAGun The Doctor comes within a finger twitch]] of shooting one of them.
38	** A prime example in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight "Midnight"]]: no one knows what the MonsterOfTheWeek is, or what it can do. It's possessed a woman, and the humans trapped in the shuttle with her start discussing what to do. If the Doctor weren't there to talk them down, they would have thrown her out of the shuttle they were on. When it possesses the Doctor (or rather steals his voice), they ''almost throw HIM out.'' All because they were scared.
39	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow "The Beast Below"]]: It's revealed that the engine for Starship UK is actually [[spoiler:a [[SpaceWhale Star Whale]], the last of its kind]]. In order to keep the ship afloat, [[spoiler:the whale is regularly tortured. The Queen chooses to forget this every 10 years, as she believes the alternative is to doom the entire population by releasing the whale from captivity.]]
40	*** Worse, every five years, citizens go into a room and learn the truth. They then get a vote: Forget or Protest. The first button causes the last few minutes to be erased from their memories, allowing them to live in blissful ignorance. The second button [[spoiler:drops them into the basement to be fed to the Star Whale]]. Children who fail in class are also treated to the latter, although [[spoiler:the Star Whale doesn't want to eat them]].
41	*** Amy overcomes this trait after first succumbing to it. Despite the seemingly impossible situation, [[spoiler:she realizes the Star Whale's fondness of children is what led it to Earth in the first place, and if she frees it from prison, it will stay for the children's sake]].
42	*** The discovery of Amy having made the "forget" choice herself and the Doctor thinking he has to choose between dooming the ship or mercy killing the whale leads to him raising his voice in anger for one of only two occasions in Eleven's run on the show.
43	---->"Nobody ''human'' has anything to say to me today!!"
44	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E3ATownCalledMercy "A Town Called Mercy"]] has the Doctor longing for ''Daleks''. "Frightened people... give me a Dalek any day."
45	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E4ArachnidsInTheUK "Arachnids in the UK"]]: CorruptCorporateExecutive Jack Robertson, whose shoddy, cost-cutting and illegal business practices created the {{Giant Spider}}s in the first place, is far more the villain than they are. His shooting of the mother spider, which was already dying due to the SquareCubeLaw, is portrayed as cruel and cowardly.
46	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E6DemonsOfThePunjab "Demons of the Punjab"]]: The Thijarians look menacing and have a bad reputation, but turn out to be visiting Earth to fulfill a peaceful mission. The real villain of the episode is [[FourEyesZeroSoul Manish]], a Hindu fanatic and Islamophobe who [[spoiler:murdered an old priest in cold blood to prevent his brother from marrying a Muslim woman, and when that fails, he arranges the murder of his brother instead.]]
47	* Shown a couple times in ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', especially in the episode "A Human Reaction" where John returns to Earth and the government immediately imprisons and kills both D'argo and Rygel to study alien anatomy. The entire episode paints a particularly bleak picture of the human race. Possibly subverted in that [[spoiler:it is actually all an engineered environment made by aliens that are using John's memories and knowledge of the human race to judge how humans will react to aliens. Apparently John doesn't have too much faith in humanity.]]
48	** [[spoiler:Somewhat justified in the Season 4 episodes dealing with several of the humans' reactions and the crew's interactions when they actually do reach Earth.]]
49	** Subverted/inverts another trope at the same time. [[spoiler: Sebacians aren't ScaryDogmaticAliens. They're genetically engineered humans]].
50	* Given [[RousseauWasRight the kind of person]] Creator/JimHenson was, he usually had a more thoughtful take on this issue. To wit:
51	** ''Series/FraggleRock'' stands dedicatedly on the "humans are misguided" side. Uncle Traveling Matt quickly dubs us "the Silly Creatures", which really says it all. On the few occasions Doc threatened the others, he did so without realizing it (shutting down the pipes in his house shuts down the water supply for the Fraggles, Doozers, and Gorgs). [[spoiler:When he finally meets Gobo face-to-face, he's careful to take this sort of thing into consideration.]]
52	*** Most behaviors that Traveling Matt observed in humans weren't silly at all -- not even, in many cases, the way he misinterpreted them. For example, he thought paperboys fed hungry houses. The main exception is that when humans noticed him, they apparently mistook him for one of them.
53	** Not really avoided in ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' or its movie spin-offs. As far as the biggest bastard Kermit ever met is concerned, Creator/RogerEbert said it best: "As soon as Kermit gains legs, he meets a human with an unsavory use for them."
54	** The famous anti-hunting rendition of "For What It's Worth" featured little woodland animals singing about "a man with a gun over there", and periodically ducking under cover as trigger-happy human hunters blundered through the scene, firing at everything that moved. [[spoiler:And then promptly subverted at the end when the hunters reveal they were trying to bag ''construction equipment''.]]
55	** Henson also wasn't above taking a stab at the trope:
56	--->'''Kermit the Frog''': [[BreakingTheFourthWall You may have noticed that the heroes in this story are all animals, and the villains are all people]]. [[FantasticRacism I hope none of you take that personally]].
57	* ''Series/TheHexer'': As in the original books. Throughout the series, Geralt faces or at least witnesses more threats, discrimination and various problems from humans than he ever gets from the actual monsters he's hunting down. Episode 4, which is based on ''[[Literature/SwordOfDestiny The Bounds of Reason]]'', also includes his drunk rant about humans being the real evil, giving him jobs not to protect themselves, but to get rich on selling body parts of completely peaceful creatures.
58	* ''Series/{{Lexx}}'': The Divine Order is a fanatical ReligionOfEvil that enslaves 20,000 worlds. Genocide, sexual slavery, mutilations, and MindRape are everyday affairs. The leader of the Divine Order, His Shadow, turns out to be [[spoiler: the last survivor of an insectoid species that humanity wiped out in a war thousands of years previous. Rather than directly attack humanity for revenge, His Shadow instead decided to found the Divine Order with itself as the godlike leader, and use humanity's own darkest impulses to destroy itself.]] Thousands of years later, the human race proved not to disappoint, carrying out His Shadow's monstrous directives with great enthusiasm.
59	* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' seems to be going this route with the overriding conflict between [[spoiler:Jacob]] and the Man in Black/[[spoiler:Smoke Monster]]:
60	-->'''MIB:''' They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.\
61	'''[[spoiler:Jacob]]:''' It only ends once. Everything that happens before that... is just progress.
62	* ''Series/MonstersWeMet'' shows how prehistoric humans drove prehistoric megafauna, even the mightiest predators such as ''Homotherium'', ''Megalania'', and the Haast’s Eagle, to extinction.
63	* Creator/RodSerling's other series ''Series/NightGallery'' had "Class of '99", an episode where a professor played by Creator/VincentPrice is teaching the students to hurt one another. [[spoiler:The class are robots. There was a global war and the world needs to be repopulated. The robots aren't being taught to be assholes, they're being taught to be human]].
64	* In ''Series/OnceUponATime'', Giants see humans like this. They turned out to be right, because [[spoiler: Two humans fool the one giant that believed that humans are not only violent, ambitious creatures into giving a way the location of the beanstalk and thus allowing them to wipe most of the giants for treasure and beans]].
65	* In some of the more serious seasons of ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', [[NeverSayDie of all things]], this trope is in play:
66	** In ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'', Ransik is a mutant. However, it turns out that in the future, humans are perfect DesignerBabies for the most part, and when the process doesn't go right, the results are hated and shunned by a society that doesn't have much room for the imperfect. The "monsters" were DrivenToVillainy by the "perfect" humans. (Of course, we saw what Ransik did to the one guy who ''did'' help him, so it's hard to know just how much pity he himself is owed.)
67	** In ''Series/PowerRangersWildForce'', the villains suspect their BigBad isn't what he seems. Turns out Master Org was once Viktor Adler, a human who's taken the role and powers of the real deal so he could get revenge for a petty jealousy against the parents of the eventual Red Ranger. He became a murderer and the kind of guy who'd seek to ''become'' Master Org all on his own, and rejected every chance to leave his destructive path since then, while no less than three purely-Org major villains have a change of heart.
68	** In ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'', one of the ''least'' serious seasons, the man behind the monsters is indeed a man -- in fact, [[spoiler: the twin brother of the mentor]]!
69	** In ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'', though the true BigBad was the Cthulhu-esque "Master" who spent most of the season as an eye peeking through a big hole in the floor of the lair, the absolute worst of the three generals who took the role of TheHeavy during each arc of the series was Imperious, who proves to be [[spoiler: a member of the mystic order who'd turned against them in the past purely out of lust for power]].
70	* Played for laughs in ''Series/{{QI}}'' in the tenth season episode "Jeopardy". The question was "What is the deadliest creature in Australia?" Australian comic Julia Zamiro answered "[[TakeThat Rupert Murdoch]]" (and oddly enough didn't get the klaxon). After the other guests wrongly answered with "Shark", "Box jellyfish" and "Snake", Creator/RossNoble chimed in with, "[[LargeHam Is it...MAN? The most DEADLY of ALL CREATURES?]]" [[note]]The correct answer, for the record, was "Horse". Evidently there are more reported deaths from horse-riding accidents than from shark or jellyfish attacks in Australia per year.[[/note]]
71	* In ''Series/SirArthurConanDoylesTheLostWorld'', the AffablyEvil [[LizardFolk humanoid lizard]] Tribune keeps humans as slaves and occasionally eats them. Yet, he claims, "To kill is in our nature. To pull the wings off a fly... that's a human thing."
72	* Semi-subversion in ''Series/{{Mongrels}}'', the [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist animal characters are as bad if not worse]] than the humans, with the possible exception of Nelson.
73	** In episode 5 Kali decides that the human race needs to be wiped out after her date is shot in a pigeon culling. Her plan involves breeding a master race of "pigeox" [[spoiler: and when it turns out to be a normal pigeon with red feathers she tells [[TheSociopath Vince]] to eat it]].
74	* In ''Series/TheSandman2022'', Calliope and Morpheus are divine beings that exist to protect and inspire humans (through the arts and through dreams respectively), yet both find themselves imprisoned and abused by the very people they've intended to help.
75	* In an episode of ''Series/{{Smallville}}'', Brainiac claims that humans are worthless and trying to save them is a waste of time. To prove it, he causes a blackout (one that affected ''airplanes in flight''), and everyone except for the main characters goes completely nuts: rioting, looting, ''sending a car through a building''. Clark Kent exhausts himself running around the city trying to keep the peace, until his friend Chloe tells him to just find Brainiac and defeat him.
76	** Clark starts thinking this when [[spoiler: Davis Bloom proves that he is pure evil ''after'' he had been cured of his Hulk-like transformations into Doomsday.]]
77	* As a whole, ''Franchise/StarTrek'' -- especially ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration the Next Generation]]'' -- posits a world in which humans ''were'' bastards, and rarely loses the opportunity to lecture their 20th-century viewers on how far we still have to go. Good news, though; we get better. In fact, we're even sorta charming, especially to advanced races who gauge others for 'potential'.
78	** Even so, in one episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Quark the Ferengi lectures Commander Sisko about how ''his'' species never practiced slavery or genocide (particularly {{anvilicious}} as it's already established that Ferengi not only did keep slaves but ''still do'' (sort of) -- anyone who goes into debt they can't repay is legally enslaved to their debtor. This also ignores the extreme sexism his race continues to practice). He also tells Nog in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E08TheSiegeOfAR558 The Siege of AR-558]]":
79	--->''"Let me tell you something about Humans, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people -- as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts... deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers... put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time... and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces, look at their eyes..."''
80	*** The franchise as a whole also tends to have healthy doses of HumansAreWarriors, and BewareTheNiceOnes. [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Captain Kirk]] was very willing to engage in GunboatDiplomacy when he needed to, and even the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Klingons]] recognize that it's better to form an alliance with humanity than risk all out war with it. The Founders found this out the hard way when humans infected their ''entire species'' with a deadly disease, and only gave them the cure after the Dominion unconditionally surrendered. This is succinctly summed up in Nog's reply to Quark's monologue:
81	---->'''Nog:''' I feel sorry for the Jem'Hadar.
82	*** But then Nog points out the situation: they're in the middle of a battlefield. If the humans are like this now, it's because they've been [[HoldTheLine defending a key installation]] against a very determined adversary ([[SuperSoldier the Jem-Hadar]]). When you're defending yourself, things get rough. And later, Nog's point is proven when ''Quark'' attacks a Jem-Hadar to protect Nog. You can see the utter shock on his face when he realizes [[NotSoDifferentRemark when it matters, Ferengi are no different]].
83	** The Vulcans are a more extreme example of former bastards. They often act condescending to other species, but the subtext is often that they realize that since they were bastards, other species can benefit from logic as well, and often get shirty when they don't. A young Tuvok from Voyager was once shown complaining about humanity always expecting other species to be like them, apparently not recognizing a classic ''Vulcan'' move when he sees one.
84	** This is expanded upon in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''. Vulcans are cold to humans, because they recognize so much of themselves in us. We went from a nuclear holocaust to warp travel in 100 years. It took the Vulcans ''1500'' years to do the same, and they learned to calm their violent nature through logic in the meantime. They see us as their unreformed society, but with the same technology, and it horrifies them how violent that means we could be.
85	** The jabs at humans that [[TheSpock Spock]] and other [[StrawVulcan Vulcans]] like to make via examples from human ''history'', however, go uncalled-out, even though all indications are that Vulcans were just as bad in their own early history. Spock himself admitted that Vulcan, like Earth, had its warring colonizing period that was considered brutal even by our standards, and that some Vulcans ([[spoiler:you might know them as Romulans]]) still hold to their warlike roots.
86	* A common theme of ''Series/StrangerThings'' is [[SubvertedTrope subverting]], [[InvertedTrope inverting]], and [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructing]] this. Throughout the series, the protagonists are almost always contending with a BigBadDuumvirate between the supernatural forces of the Upside Down and various human villains (Brenner, Billy, the Russians, etc.), but it's always ultimately emphasized that the human villains are a complete ''[[BigBadWannabe joke]]'' compared to the visceral, unholy evil of the Upside Down's eldritch rulers who seek to conquer Earth. Whenever the two forces [[EvilVsEvil collide]], the human bad guys are always [[CurbStompBattle laughably outclassed]] by the Upside Down forces, either being near-instantly killed by them or manipulated into furthering their goals. Driven home in season four, when it's revealed that [[BigBad Vecna]] himself — [[SatanicArchetype "king" of the Upside Down]] — [[spoiler:used to ''be'' human but also a MisanthropeSupreme who long cast aside his humanity]]… not because of this trope, but because he views "human evil" with withering contempt as a pale imitation of the ''real'' thing, even more worthy of destruction then [[RousseauWasRight the majority of good, normal humans who oppose him]], dismissing all the human villains like Brenner as pathetic, mediocre men jealous of their betters.
87	* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': While Sam and Dean usually fight supernatural monsters, the first season episode "The Benders" involves humans who hunt down other humans for fun, the second season episode "Houses of the Holy" involves a man with dead bodies in his basement, an email-using pedophile, and an attempted rapist, all of whom deserved their instant death, and the third season episode "Sin City" features a demon talking to Dean about how much humans suck. The fourth season episode "Family Remains" involves a man who raped his daughter and then shut the resulting twins away under the house, where they became animalistic scavengers. "The Benders", "Family Remains" and "Thin Man" are notable for being the only episodes so far that don't actually involve anything supernatural, just urban legend-like events of a mundane sort. Dean: "Demons I get, people are crazy."
88	** Interestingly, Lucifer believed that Humans Are The Real Monsters and was furious that God showed more attention to those "murderous hairless apes" than to someone who was perfect and wonderful, [[SarcasmMode like him]].
89	** The HorsemenOfTheApocalypse also hold this view. War claims that he just gives people a little push, and then we kill each other on our own; Famine, similarly, states that our cravings for what we can't have are already there, and he just makes us realize. Pestilence notes that germs aren't destructive, ''we'' are. The one exception is Death, who just views us as [[InsignificantLittleBluePlanet insignificant]].
90	* ''{{Series/Torchwood}}'' uses this trope too.
91	** Perhaps the most disturbing example is the episode "[[Recap/TorchwoodS1E6Countrycide Countrycide]]", which is notable as [[spoiler:the only episode in the Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} not to contain any science fiction elements (other than Jack's immortality and a few pieces of Torchwood technology, both of which are incidental to the plot). The villains are human cannibals who engage in horrifying acts purely ForTheEvulz.]]
92	** However, it is brought out on a truly large scale in ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' and ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'', where the primary antagonists that the Torchwood team must deal with are really evil humans, with the alien threat being more of a catalyst than a core issue.
93	* Ultimately what happens to most of the human cast in ''Series/TrueBlood''. In Season 7, [[spoiler: the Humans prove to be just as dangerous if not even more so than the infected Vampires, plan to kill anyone different than they are, and kill Alcide.]]
94	* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' is rife with this trope. In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E22TheMonstersAreDueOnMapleStreet The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street]]" as well as in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S3E3TheShelter The Shelter]]", a suburban town tears itself apart after a perceived invasion/attack; "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S3E32TheGift The Gift]]" demonstrates that fear turned against outsiders, no matter how well-intentioned. "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S2E6EyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]" and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S5E17Number12LooksJustLikeYou Number 12 Looks Just Like You]]" highlight our superficial views on aesthetics (TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside). "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E14ThirdFromTheSun Third from the Sun]]" (with a hint of NuclearWeaponsTaboo) and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S5E9Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]" show our repetitive barbarous irresponsibility. "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir I Shot an Arrow in the Air]]" shows our hatred and evil tendencies in the face of death. "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S2E24TheRipVanWinkleCaper The Rip Van Winkle Caper]]" shows how greedy we can be even with our "friends". "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S3E28TheLittlePeople The Little People]]" shows DrunkWithPower, and perhaps the best example of this trope; "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E25PeopleAreAlikeAllOver People Are Alike All Over]]", in which [[spoiler:alien benefactors who shower gifts upon an earthling reveal their demeanor as a ruse when they abduct him for exhibition in a martian zoo]] (FaceHeelTurn).
95	* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': Subverted in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E15 A Small Talent for War]]", in which aliens arrive on Earth and announce that they seeded the planet with humans ages ago, but now [[spoiler:they are destroying us because they were attempting to breed warriors, and we aren't ''big enough'' bastards]].
96	* While the trope isn't as much as ubiquitous compared to ''Franchise/KamenRider'', the ''Franchise/UltraSeries'' is also not a stranger to the fact that some humans can be as morally corrupt and heinous than the kaiju and evil aliens that their respective titular Ultras fought, thus making the possibility for humans to coexist with kaiju and aliens in peace even more difficult, or if anything, be rendered moot.
97	** ''Series/UltraSeven'': Majority of alien attacks in the series are attributed to this trope. Poignantly so in the episodes "Dark Zone" and "Envoy from Nonmalto", the latter episode comes to a conclusion where even Dan is left wondering if it's true. While half of the rationale are for aliens trying to invade the Earth just [[AliensAreBastards because they can]]. The ''Series/HeiseiUltraseven'' spin-off series takes the trope a step further; where humans would attempt to exploit the alien technology salvaged from the invaders they defeated and use it against them, with terrifying results; in addition to revealing that the Nonmalts were right all along and humans ''are'' invaders who colonized Earth and many will go through great lengths to cover that up, even if it means [[HeKnowsTooMuch killing those who learn of the truth]].
98	** ''Series/UltramanTiga'': Keigo Masaki, a minor antagonist in episodes 43 and 44, believes he can achieve [[GodhoodSeeker godhood]] and superiority over humanity through harnessing the power of [[EvilKnockoff Evil Tiga]]. The fact that Evil Tiga was driven insane by Masaki's ambition and greed serves as a harsh reminder of how mankind will go far to extreme lengths to seek power not realizing the [[EvilIsNotAToy destructive consequences it could bring to the user and to the rest of the world]]. And the real kicker? Ultra warriors bond with a human that possess a courageous and selfless heart like [[TheHero Daigo]]; Masaki is everything what Daigo is not -- [[ItsAllAboutMe arrogant and selfish]] who desires power in order to be worshipped as a god.
99	** ''Series/UltramanGaia'':
100	*** {{Subverted\|Trope}}: The Radical Destruction Bringer views humanity as malignant lifeforms and brought its minions to KillAllHumans for posing a threat to the Earth. Half-way to the series' endgame, the RDB's true intentions come to light as they want to exterminate the human race [[FantasticRacism merely because they]] ''[[FantasticRacism really]]'' [[FantasticRacism mean it]] under the [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist hypocritical pretense of claiming]] to be a protector of the universe. Let's not forget the fact that the RDB even manipulate a few humans into [[MaddenIntoMisanthropy turning against humanity]], Fujimiya in particular. Let that sink in.
101	*** The episode "The Silver Eyes of Izac" also discusses this, concerning the eponymous MonsterOfTheWeek, an extinct Altes Tiger known as Izac, more specifically a clone of the tiger that scientists are trying to create being captured by the aforementioned Radical Destruction Bringer. According to Fujimiya, Team Seagull's Koyama, and Commander Ishimuro himself, humanity itself played a role on the Altes Tigers' extinction, and seem to acknowledge the fact that Izac views them [[NotSoDifferentRemark similar]] to the Destruction Bringer.
102	---->'''Commander Akio Ishimuro:''' Gamu, do you understand why the Destruction Bringer revive an extinct animal that once lived here on Earth into a mutated monster? It was to make us realize that ''we humans'' made these creatures extinct.
103	** An underlying theme of ''Series/UltramanZ'' from episode 20 onwards, [[spoiler:and it's made apparent there are some humans proved to be unrepentant scumbags compared to the kaiju and aliens that the titular Ultra and STORAGE fought, from a group of ruffians trying to kidnap an artificially-created lifeform for its blood sample to constructing an ultra-powerful WaveMotionGun using the remains of a [[Series/UltramanAce Choju]] that could break the fabric of dimensions; the development of said weapon is from the very organization that established STORAGE and their mechas. Even the heroes oppose the idea of firing said weapon, that even includes ''[[TokenEvilTeammate Juggler]]'' of all people, just as the Earth was about to be overwhelmed by a [[Series/UltramanMebius Kelbim]] horde, and the weapon is used either way [[GoneHorriblyRight with disastrous results]]. What's even worse that said organization also built a robot modeled after an Ultraman, in this case, Franchise/UltramanZero, for the purpose of fitting the aforementioned WaveMotionGun, thus invoking a BewareTheSuperman vibe.]] As it turned out that the trope is {{exploited\|Trope}} by [[spoiler:[[BigBad Celebro]]]] as part of his omnicidal endgame in that he wants to make sure humanity is in its absolute worst by creating weapons in what they thought to protect the Earth [[spoiler:but would lead to their downfall because he knows that [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves self-destruction is part of human nature]]]].
104	* [[spoiler:HG Wells]] in ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' comes to this conclusion after her eight-year-old daughter was murdered.
105	-->'"Open your eyes, Myka! Have you seen the world in which you live? The divide between rich and poor! Hunger and famine! War and violence and hatred all flourishing beyond control! Indeed, men have found new ways to kill each other that were inconceivable in my day, even by fiction writers!"
106

Context HumansAreTheRealMonsters / LiveActionTV