Line #16 Main/TheTamingOfTheGrue


1	[[quoteright:342:[[Franchise/CthulhuMythos https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/IMPTYVHP003_360_7590.jpeg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:342:Creator/HPLovecraft must be rolling in his grave... Or at least [[HeadDesk banging his head on a wall]] [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/81337 really hard.]]]]
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4	Monsters exist all over folklore. Dragons, vampires, werewolves, etc. And usually, they start out as AlwaysChaoticEvil as they come, or even just mindless beasts who destroy because they don't know any better.
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6	Except, as a particular monster gets more popular, it has a tendency to get less... monstrous. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]] (which at least in Western mythology were once giant, winged, fire-breathing lizards that burned villages and were slain by knights) first got more intelligent, then more likely to be a "not really a monster" subversion, until, in the modern era, stuff like ''Film/{{Dragonheart}}'' and ''[[Film/PetesDragon1977 Pete's]] [[Film/PetesDragon2016 Dragon]]'' are nothing to bat an eye at. Similarly, [[OurOrcsAreDifferent orcs]] - who were invented for ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' to be ''bred evil'' (and mostly stupid) often appear as "{{noble savage}}s" after just eighty years.
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8	There are also cases where said monster is modified in order to appeal to younger demographics (and {{otaku}}s) by making him (or [[{{Moe}} her]]) more cute, huggable, and so forth.
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10	In short, this trope is VillainDecay on the species level - what happens when OurMonstersAreDifferent turns the [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch exception]] into the [[PlanetOfHats rule]]. Criticism of the AlwaysChaoticEvil trope may also play a role.
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12	See also AdorableAbomination, CuteMonsterGirl, YouSexyBeast, LovecraftLite, {{Disneyfication}}. FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire is a subtrope of this. DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu can lead to this effect if done often enough. JustForFun/NotToBeConfusedWith the plot of ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe1''.
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14	!!To avoid ranting, examples list should only be those contained to be a single franchise or canon:
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16	* Regarding [[OurDarkElvesAreDifferent dark elves]]:
17	** The [[TokenHeroicOrc heroic dark elf]] Drizzt Do'Urden in ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' has fast-tracked the taming of his race in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', where they're also known as drow. The race was still mostly evil, but the template of the ChaoticGood renegade dark elf became an OverusedCopycatCharacter by now, even though the archetypal Drizzt himself was more [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch unique]] when first introduced because good drow were way less common back then. [[https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/23/21300653/dungeons-dragons-racial-stereotypes-wizards-of-the-coast-drow-orcs-curse-of-strahd In 2020, Wizards of the Coast would introduce several new non-evil Drow cultures, putting them further into this territory]]. An article titled [[https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd Diversity and Dungeons & Dragons]] has more details about newer depictions of Drow.
18	*** Untaming the grue is very much in mind with drow in ''TableTopGame/{{Pathfinder}}''. The drow of that setting are fleshwarping, demon-loving complete monsters who tried to crash an asteroid into the surface in order to bring about a second age of darkness and destroy any resistance to enslaving the surface dwellers. They would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those damn player characters.
19	** Dwarfs in Myth/NorseMythology may have conceptually evolved from dark elves; indeed, the ''Literature/ProseEdda'' equated dwarfs with ''dökkálfar'' and ''svartálfar'' (literally "dark elves" and "black elves" in Old Norse, respectively). As such, you'd expect these guys to be pretty {{depraved\|Dwarf}}, and they often were in the myths. But as time went on, they became shorter and less malevolent until they were recognizable as the [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]] (spelled with a ''v'', following Creator/JRRTolkien's example) that we know and love today.
20	* [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elves]] and [[OurFairiesAreDifferent fairies]] in general have gone from TheFairFolk to often AlwaysLawfulGood over the course of modern history.
21	* Franchise/{{Godzilla}} began as a horrible monster and nuclear bomb metaphor. Later on he became a protector from other monsters, to the point of being unambiguously heroic during TheSixties and TheSeventies, before being re-tooled as a different kind of nuclear bomb metaphor: still a defender, but [[GodzillaThreshold one you don't want to have to use]].
22	** As of the mid-2010s, however, two ''very'' disparate depictions of Godzilla popped up in modern culture: the American ''Film/Godzilla2014'' that portrays him as a noble anti-hero who represents nature's order, and Japan's ''Film/ShinGodzilla'' that portrays him as a horrific abomination against nature that man unleashed onto themselves. Strangely, either depiction [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor isn't really unfaithful to the "returning to the darker roots" concept]] that both films advertised.
23	* The Main/{{Kaiju}} genre, of which Franchise/{{Godzilla}} and Film/KingKong are the most prominent examples, are subject to this.
24	** ''Film/PacificRim'' provides an in-universe depiction. Kaiju, once as deadly as natural disasters, are kept in check thanks to the Jaeger program. For most people, kaiju go from a terrifying threat to a distant annoyance, and humanity acclimates to their presence. A quick montage depicts kaiju re-branded as mascots, spiritual icons and kid-friendly cartoons (much as they have been in RealLife).
25	* There are [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]] plushie dolls (as shown in the page image). Not to mention [[Literature/TheHoundsOfTindalos Hounds of Tindalos]], gugs, Mi-Go. Moreover, recent fiction is ''much'' more likely to play these guys for laughs rather than straight. In a sense, it was bound to happen: Creator/HPLovecraft's works played heavily on the fear of the alien and unknown. His works becoming HouseholdNames, meaning that now everyone knows about them, ironically defused their entire point.
26	* In-universe example for ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxTheDevilsPlayhouse''. Turns out that back near the beginning of our planet's existence, molemen were powerful, destructive creatures who could successfully fend off {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. [[BadassDecay They didn't evolve well.]]
27	* [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werewolves]] have this problem, on and off. Old folklore describes them as vicious animals, at best, but contemporary works tend to humanize them more. They still get cast as vicious animals, but their humanity is still more pronounced. Some traditions have werewolves as a type of witch who sold their soul for their ability to transform, so even as human beings they were evil. Modern werewolves tend to either be innocents who contracted the curse by being the victim of another werewolf, or having been born that way (and usually possessing some degree of control). Either way, they can't help what they are. The softening of the Werewolf dates back as the 12th Century where Creator/MarieDeFrance writes the tale of the Literature/{{Bisclavret}} who was trapped in his Wolf form by a treacherous wife after revealing his secret and is captured then kept as a pet by the King who he remains loyal to, even as a Wolf.
28	* [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]] can be more or less human, and more or less hostile to non-undead, depending on the writer. In recent times, with growing popularity of VampiresAreSexGods, they've gotten a bit softer. See FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire.
29	** As the [[TropeCodifier torch-bearer of vampire fiction]], Literature/{{Dracula}} has been hit especially hard by this, with most modern depictions and cameos (almost always using Creator/BelaLugosi as their main reference, [[VampireVords accent and all]]) either deliberately making him [[AdaptationalHeroism more]] [[AdaptationalNiceGuy sympathetic]] or turning him into a joke for the heroes (or the ''[[EvilerThanThou real]]'' villains) to run rings around. Even the modern adaptations/pastiches/etc. that ''do'' try to play him as a straightforward monster usually can't do it without some level of self-aware {{Camp}}.
30	* The {{Trope Namer\|s}}, grues, first appeared in Creator/{{Infocom}}'s classic ''VideoGame/{{Zork}}'' games as the unseen (and, because they never leave pitch-dark areas, unseeable) monsters who would eat adventurers careless enough to wander in dark places without a light source. Later works such as ''VideoGame/{{Wishbringer}}'' and ''Zork: The Undiscovered Underground'' would play grues for laughs; ''Wishbringer'' featured a grue lair with a refrigerator whose light goes out when you open it and a mother grue with an apron, while ''Undiscovered Underground'' had a grue convention where grues would discuss topics such as 'Surviving the lean years'. The grues were still dangerous, but played less seriously than in earlier works. Somewhere in between was ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery'''s treatment of grues, which made them killable monsters -- played seriously aside from the ShoutOut aspect but less formidable than an unseen, unbeatable threat. The once-popular humorous wiki Uncyclopedia pokes fun at grues even more, making them look like the weird Japanese character [[Anime/DomoTV Domo-kun]] for the hell of it.
31	* Zombies and Skeletons: while never portrayed as cute or cuddly ([[AttractiveZombie most of the time]]), in cartoons it's not uncommon to see {{Friendly Zombie}}s and [[FriendlySkeleton Skeletons]], who can detach and attach their parts at will. Then there are movies such as ''WesternAnimation/HotelTransylvania'', ''WesternAnimation/DaddyImAZombie'' and ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'' (In which the undead were much more lively and upbeat than the extremely dreary land of the living) and of course the ''Toys/MonsterHigh'' franchise. Even then there are fantasy novels and videogames which may feature Zombies who are friendly but either wish to be accepted by humans, or wish to die due to seeing themselves as monsters. Subverted in Videogame/{{Fallout}} in which the "Zombies" aren't actually zombies [[BerserkButton (And don't use that word in front of them)]] but are humans mutated by radiation to look like a corpse, but if their brain become radiated enough they can become "feral" and act like typical zombies.
32	* Over the course of the franchise the ''Velociraptors'' in the ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' movies got this treatment. They were outright villains in the first two movies, but got a slight AntiVillain treatment the third. By the time ''Film/JurassicWorld'' came out, they were treated more as anti-heroes, and one, named Blue, was a straight-up hero.
33	** Rexy the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' has also been hit with this. In the original novel, she was very much an antagonist, relentlessly hunting down Alan Grant and the children to the point of leaving behind a dinosaur she'd just killed when she noticed they were nearby. She got a similar treatment in the first movie, and the fact that she saves them from the raptors is treated more as a lucky coincidence than anything else. Come ''Jurassic World'', she's deliberately used to defeat the Indominus Rex, and in ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' she once again returns to eat the human villain, while leaving the heroes alone.
34	* In ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'', Bacchus and the Maenads undergo this treatment. The original Greco-Roman myths depict Bacchus as a fearsome god of alcohol and madness, and the Maenads as frenzied cultists who partake in orgies of ecstasy and gruesome violence akin to TheWildHunt. In ''Prince Caspian'', on the other hand, Bacchus is almost like the Disney version of ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', and the Maenads are the female equivalents of the Lost Boys. To someone versed in Myth/ClassicalMythology, this comes off like a kiddie cartoon called "[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom Mola Ram]] and Friends." This is somewhat justified in-story by the implication that they're changed by [[CrystalDragonJesus Aslan's]] presence, losing the aspects of their character associated with corruption and becoming representatives of harmless joy and high spirits. Susan even comments that "I wouldn't have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan." It's a clear reference to the Christian "baptism" of pagan symbolism (e.g., the use of pre-Christian Germanic traditions at Christmas).
35	** Upon reading an early draft of ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe,'' Lewis' good friend Creator/JRRTolkien apparently felt this way about Mr. Tumnus, commenting to a third party that a myth-accurate satyr would have done more to Lucy than give her tea.
36	* In their original appearance in the ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse, the Terra-Firmians were sociopathic subterranean savages who cared not a whit about the massive destruction and loss of life their [[FictionalSport rolling competitions]] caused on the surface. Their appearance in ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' was much softer, with the Terra-Firmians being much less monolithic in their self-absorption. Then comes ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'', where they're practically cuddly -- they're just plain folks who live underground, look like rocks, and occasionally come up toward the surface to explore.
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