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| 9 | * Console {{RPG}}s in general, even in the cutesiest and most family-friendly games, follow the example of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' by having the protagonists cheerfully slaughter armies and armies of various non-human and semi-human creatures, sometimes to the point of genocide, throughout their quest. Very rarely is the morality of this questioned, and its visual impact is usually lessened since EverythingFades. To be fair, games like ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' treat the deaths of human enemies the same way, so it's hard to ascribe it wholly to human-centrism. |
| 10 | ** On the '''other''' hand, we see a number of more or less unique defeated enemies (only occasionally mini-bosses, like Biggs and Wedge) return to attack the players again (likewise with the Turks in FFVII, though they were all humans). So we can assume that defeated enemies are [[OnlyMostlyDead not quite as dead as they seem]]. This still doesn't make all the enemies you supposedly 'knock out' and leave behind when escaping the inevitable base on a self-destruct countdown any less dead though. |
| 11 | ** In ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' west of Nashkel the player could find a xvart settlement where the inhabitants spawn as hostile npcs that will attack you on sight. One of them will complain that you are raiding their village despite they didn't nothing wrong, but you aren't given any dialogue choice nor reaction in the party for that: by the lore settings, xvarts are just one of the many weak [[AlwaysChaoticEvil evil monsters]] whose only purpose is to be cannon fodder for farming XP, and nobody in your party will complain (although some mods defy this by having one or more characters lampshade the MoralMyopia). |
| 12 | ** Possibly purposefully used in Crisis Core ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' [[spoiler:by Zack's mentor Angeal, when he purposefully turns himself into a monstrous form in order to force Zack to kill him, after Zack proves reluctant to even fight back against him in his human form. However, he changes back before dying and Zack is completely devastated regardless, so it doesn't exactly suggest that he was worth less because of it]]. |
| 13 | ** The trope itself is used in other places in the game, however, such as [[spoiler:in regards to Genesis' clones, which are treated just like the monsters, despite looking human, and are perfectly okay to kill in large numbers.]] |
| 14 | *** [[spoiler:Genesis' copies]] that we fight do not seem to have any intellect or feelings to speak of, so there is no real difference between them and other monsters. At the same time however, they are also very closely connected to him and he still counts as a human. When you think about it, there is simply no clear line dividing monsters and human beings in ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'', which puts the characters' angst into an interesting [[FridgeBrilliance light]]. |
| 15 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' has the "fiends" composed of "pyreflies", [[OurSoulsAreDifferent "bundles of life energy"]], which are freed by the destruction of the monster. |
| 16 | *** Fiends are what you get when people aren't given last rites, and it's considered truly horrifying when it occurs. Killing the resulting monsters is considered a case of ShootTheDog... or the dog will eventually kill a lot ''more'' people and create ''more'' fiends. |
| 17 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'': L'Cie, humans '[[BlessedWithSuck blessed]]' by fal'Cie, are frequently regarded as 'not even human', despite the fact that they are still very much human in body and mind, they're just able to use magic and have a PowerTattoo to show for it. This attitude is most likely born of the government's rampant paranoia concerning Pulse and all things related. |
| 18 | ** Sometimes individual quests, designed by more thoughtful programmers, will have a nonviolent option, which will often give more XP than just killing them. These could be more jarring than the standard way of doing it because not ''every'' quest where it would be reasonable has such an option. |
| 19 | ** It gets even more unreasonable when the plot criticizes racism and intolerance between certain races (like humans and elves) while encouraging wholesale slaughter of other races (like goblins). |
| 20 | ** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', sapient races are divided into two categories: the Spoken, and Beast Tribes. The Spoken consist of the traditionally humanoid races, which include the races selectable to the player, and are by and large the dominant peoples of Eorzea and the world of Hydaelyn as a whole. Beast Tribes, on the other hand, consist of other races that, while every bit as sentient as the Spoken, are more monstrous in appearance. Beast Tribes are often subjected to FantasticRacism, such that aside from friendly [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter moogles]], the only major settlement that allows Beastmen entry is Limsa Lominsa (and even then, only Qiqirn, Mamool Ja, and Goblins are seen). A large cause of this systemic racism is the fact that Beast Tribes often pray to and subsequently [[SummonMagic summon]] Primals, massive god-like creatures that can potentially drain the planet of its life force if not destroyed. Unfortunately, this creates a catch-22 situation where the summoning of primals leads to continued racism, which leads to more summonings, and so forth. [[spoiler:Ultimately, the distinction is meaningless, as it was introduced to the "Spoken" races by Ascians to sow discord and further their destructive ends. ''Shadowbringers'' further reinforces this idea as, even though the "Spoken" peoples of the First have [[WeAreStrugglingTogether cast aside their differences with their world's Beast Tribes to contend with the Flood of Light]], one of the world's so-called "Beast Tribes", the Dwarves, are actually no different from the Lalafells of the Source, physically or otherwise. By the end of ''Endwalker'', the systemic oppression against the Beast Tribes is officially abolished, so that they can aid in Hyadelyn's defense against the Endsinger. As such, they are no longer called "Beast Tribes", just "Tribes".]] |
| 21 | *** {{Discussed}} in ''Shadowbringers'': [[spoiler:also {{Inverted}}. As revealed in the story, the mortal races of Hydaelyn as we know them, as well as in [[TheMultiverse the thirteen "Shard" worlds created from Zodiark's fracturing]], contain only a fraction of the aether and lifespan as the Ancients from before what is referred to by the Ascians as the "Great Sundering". Emet-Selch, one of the few "unbroken" Ancients from before the Sundering, thus considers the mortals of Hydaelyn and Her reflections to be little more than pale imitations of life as he knows it. He even goes as far as to say that if he killed a mortal, he wouldn't really be guilty of murder, because he never considered the mortal to truly be ''alive'' to begin with.]] |
| 22 | * Certain RPG series, including ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' and ''VideoGame/BreathOfFire'', feature races based on [[FunnyAnimal real-life animals]] that possess their own societies, their own cultures, and so forth, that more or less get on with human society. They may live among humans like any other citizen, or they may possess their own reclusive societies, but they are not viewed as monsters the player has to fight or kill in the same way that orcs and goblins are in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. |
| 23 | * A bizarre application of this occurs in ''VideoGame/AvalonCode''. You can use the Judgment Link on mook-level monster enemies to juggle them in the air -- if you max out the combo count, or they hit the ground after running out of health, they'll explode like fireworks, granting you some combination of the game's currency, MP restoration, and HP restoration, depending. You ''can't'' do this with mook-level human enemies -- apparently, even if they're your enemies, making humans explode isn't okay. |
| 24 | * ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': When it's revealed that Astarion is a vampire, the player can insist that he [[VegetarianVampire only feed on animals]]. He reluctantly agrees, but asks whether they consider goblins, kobolds, or gnomes (or if the player is a gnome, halflings) to be animals. The player can clarify that anything that can talk is out, but if the player is a [[SpeaksFluentAnimal Druid]], Astarion will point out that that would leave him with nothing. |
| 25 | * In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight '', Alfred brings this up in regards to Ra’s al Ghul. He notes that Ra’s is 600 some odd years old and every time he is resurrected from the Lazarus Pit, he becomes less of a man and more of a monster. He essentially argues that he’s nothing more than a zombie and that Batman refusing to let him be resurrected isn’t really killing him. |
| 26 | * ''VideoGame/BioShock'' explores this with the inhabitants of Rapture, most notably the Little Sisters. While Atlas argues that they are nothing more than monsters that look like [[CreepyChild sweet, innocent girls]], Tenenbaum thinks of them as her children, and refuses to see harm come to them, even going as far as developing an antidote so as to turn them back to humans. |
| 27 | * ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'': Noel struggles with this after discovering [[spoiler:not only is she a clone, but she's been artificially introduced to the timeline -- objectively, she shouldn't exist]], and it drives her SuperpoweredEvilSide Mu-12- to complete omnicidal nihilism. Come the third game, [[spoiler:her friends help her come to terms with it, and she accepts that she's a doll, but one with thoughts and feelings, making her no less of a person. ''Cogito ergo sum'' if you will.]] |
| 28 | * Inverted in ''VideoGame/CadillacsAndDinosaurs'' the arcade game. Humans can be blown up violently and gorily and the death of the one innocent human shown in the game doesn't get the same dramatic reaction from the hero(es) as does the death and imprisonment of several dinosaurs, who, for unknown reasons, will always simply return to their previous calm colors and walk away from any and all punishment you throw their way, up to and including firing an RPG directly at them. It's almost as if PETA had a hand in the game.... |
| 29 | * The ESRB itself plays this trope pretty straight; you can usually get a T rating no matter how messily you kill your enemies, as long as they're not human. ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' is a good example, as almost none of them are M-rated, yet in all of them since ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight Symphony Of The Night]]'' you'll happily behead, bisect, incinerate, impale, etc your enemies, with at least one enemy every game whose death animation will be an absolute ''shower'' of blood. On the flip side, if you want to make a game where humans are the main enemy, the only way to avoid the M is to make it ''completely'' bloodless, a la ''Medal of Honor''. (and that doesn't always work...) |
| 30 | * The result of this trope is touched upon in some of the enemy entries of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow''. For example, you know Goblins? Those little rascally monsters you kill en masse in other action, adventure and rpg games? According to their entry, they are on the verge of extinction and will, in only a few decades, have passed on to become the stuff of myths and legends, all thanks to human expansion and adventurers... You kill them en masse in this game, too, you bastard. |
| 31 | * The early ''{{VideoGame/Contra}}'' games had the main player character and several enemy characters changed into robots when localized for Europe for this reason. Apparently in some countries, Germany supposedly, depiction of violence against humans in games is not suitable for kids. Despite this censorship, some thought the robots of Probotector, the new name of the series, were much better protagonists than the original Rambo/Predator inspired humans. |
| 32 | * In ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'', most characters treat [[VirtualGhost engrams]] the same way they would the human they're based on, calling them the original's soul, or spirit, or some-such, only very occasional acknowledging that they're technically not quite that... except for Anders Hellman, one of the scientists involved in the digitalization process, who only ever refers to the Johnny Silverhand inside V's head (and to engrams in general) as nothing more than "data" or "constructs". |
| 33 | * ''VideoGame/DetroitBecomeHuman'' lives and breathes this trope. The core conflict in the game revolves around the general consensus among humans that androids are little more than plastic dolls that exist to do their bidding. Any android that refuses to do as told -- or worse still, attack humans -- is considered a "deviant" and hunted down. Two of the main protagonists are such deviants: Kara, who is trying to care for a little girl after escaping with her from an abusive household; and Marcus, who spearheads a growing revolution for android civil rights. The third playable character, an android detective named Connor, has an internal struggle of his own: is he a machine, to exist only to do as told? Or is he more? His own way of speaking about androids also changes depending on the player's choices, with him [[ItIsDehumanizing using "it" to refer to deviants if the player chooses to have him obey his orders]], or regarding them with gendered pronouns if he embraces his budding humanity. |
| 34 | * ''VideoGame/DigimonWorld2'' takes ''Anime/DigimonTamers''' stance on this issue. The good guys are the people who recognize Digimon as sentient beings, our equals, and our partners. They knock out other Digimon, they don't kill them. The Blood Knights are the bad guys by virtue of massacring Digimon, treating them like slaves and tools to be used, and killing them when they've outlived their usefulness. Even the Black Swords, who are more self absorbed and closer to AntiHero territory than the other factions, still find their treatment of Digimon disgusting. |
| 35 | * ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth'' and its midquel ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuthHackersMemory'' take a similar approach to ''World 2'' above, but on a more nuanced level. The general public is more or less aware of Digimon thanks to their prevalence within the {{cyberspace}} everyone uses, but most people think they're just advanced programs and not actually living things. Many hackers and programmers keep them around and think of them as tools but avoid actively mistreating them, but failure to properly recognize them as alive leads to mishaps like in ''Hacker's Memory'' where a researcher using [=FanBeemon=] as a model for actual bee behavior [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness deleted ones he didn't need anymore]] thinking of them as just data, causing the rest to run off once the player gets involved. In ''Hacker's Memory'' a BlackMarket is established that keeps them in cages, barely feeds them, and deletes the ones they don't need leading to a small CivilWar within the hacking community at large. |
| 36 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' games (from ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' on) elevate the monsters from dangerous animals to intelligent (sometimes) creatures that can learn human language, work with humans, and in some games form towns, thus making this trope painfully obvious. Retooling the entire game system to avoid it doesn't appear likely, though, especially since it treats the vanishingly rare human enemies the same way. |
| 37 | ** One of the worst examples is in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestMonstersJoker'', where the main character and his monster partner hesitate to fight the BigBad because he's human. Then, as soon as he goes OneWingedAngel and transforms into a monster, the main character's partner says something that roughly means "He's not even human anymore! It's okay to kill him now!" It's a bit strange to hear a monster saying that, since it's eventually evoking this trope on ''itself'' by saying it's fine and dandy to kill monsters. |
| 38 | * ''[[VideoGame/DungeonSiegeII Dungeon Siege II: Broken World]]'': Even though a lot of peoples' friends and loved ones have been turned into murderous Bound creatures and insane [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity Rogue Magi]], said people still get mad at you for killing the Bound creatures. As a matter of fact, only the first questgiver in the game sees the wisdom of [[IDidWhatIHadToDo what you needed to do]]. |
| 39 | * ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' has a "[[FantasticRacism What Measure Is A Non Dwarf]]" version. If a dwarf emissary or merchant is killed, they are buried with honour in a dwarven grave. If the hapless merchant is an elf, it's onto the rubbish heap with the goblins. (They'll still gleefully loot both corpses, however). |
| 40 | ** Also appears with regard to which corpses can be butchered for food and parts, in Adventurer or Fortress modes. Species with civilizations can't be butchered, including goblins and kobolds. Most nomadic species cannot be. Non-civilized humanoids may (sasquatch, yeti) or may not be (harpies, minotaurs) butcherable. |
| 41 | ** Elves do not have this problem. Not only do they have no compunctions against eating their fallen foes, but if said foe is also an elf, it's ''still'' chow time. [[DisproportionateRetribution But break one twig off a tree to whittle]]... |
| 42 | * ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' and ''VideoGame/Mother3'' has this pop up in the FlavorText during battles when you fight enemies. Human enemies "turn back to normal" or "surrender" when defeated while animals tend to "turn tame", whereas anything else, no matter how intelligent or human-like, will tend to be "smashed to pieces", "destroyed", "return to the dust of the Earth", or "[[DeadlyEuphemism stop moving]]". |
| 43 | * In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'', as shown in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', the Falmer are a race of AlwaysChaoticEvil [[TheMorlocks Morlock-like]] beings, treated as little better than Goblins. This was not always the case, however, as they were once a race resembling the Altmer (High Elves) with a civilization to rival even theirs. However, they were nearly [[FinalSolution driven to extinction]] by [[BadassArmy Ysgramor and his 500 Companions]]. The survivors fled to their [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemer]] cousins who accepted them, but under the condition that they blind themselves, [[EnslavedElves becomes slaves]], and undergo significant mutation. Between [[SadisticChoice this option and extermination]], the Falmer accepted the Dwemer offer. The [[BodyHorror physical mutations]] are obvious, but where this trope comes into play is that their ''very souls'' were altered. They now have the "white" souls of creatures, as opposed to the "black" souls of the other sentient races. |
| 44 | * The ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' series has a variety of mutated humans ranging from Ghouls to Super Mutants, but the player will usually mow down anything that tries to attack them. However, friendly mutants are usually spared. The [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Enclave]], on the other hand, takes this to the ultimate extreme; since most humans in the wasteland have had their genetics altered to some degree by radiation, Forced Evolutionary Virus or some other outside force, the Enclave claims that they are inhuman and that they must die for America to rebuild. In ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', they attempt to unleash a modified variant of FEV that will kill any mutated human that contracts it into the atmosphere, and in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', President Eden tries to seize Project Purity and contaminate it with the same FEV strain so that all of the Capital Wasteland's drinking water will kill any impure human that drinks it. |
| 45 | ** The central conflict in ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' is this regarding the nature of the [[ArtificialHuman Synths]]. Synths are used by the Institute to infiltrate the Commonwealth and act as spies and assassins and also as [[spoiler:slave labour in the Institute's ElaborateUndergroundBase]], and the Gen 3s are indistinguishable from real flesh-and-blood human beings; so much so that ''some characters aren't even aware that they're Synths''. They're even [[spoiler: created with human DNA]]. The Institute [[JustAMachine see their creations as little more than really advanced robots and thus treat them as tools]]. The Brotherhood of Steel [[NewTechnologyIsEvil see the Synths as dangerous abominations of science]] that threaten to replace humanity, and thus seek to destroy them all. The Railroad, by contrast, [[AndroidsArePeopleToo sees the Synths as exactly the same as living, breathing human beings]] and so assists the runaways, hiding them from the Institute and giving them new identities and memories so they can live new lives in Commonwealth society. |
| 46 | *** However, despite the Railroad seemingly having the belief of AndroidsArePeopleToo, they still have their own troubles deciding what Synths qualify as people and what Synths don't. As Deacon states, there is some debate about if the Railroad should be helping just the extremely human Gen 3 Synths or also the more robotic previous Gen Synths. Where the line should be drawn is hard to say, given that some standard robots such as Codsworth and Curie display extremely human behavior to the point that they might as well be humans in robot bodies (not to mention Nick Valentine, a more robotic-looking Gen 2 Synth but at the same time is one of the most human, not to mention kind and selfless, people in the Commonwealth.) |
| 47 | * ''Franchise/FireEmblem'': |
| 48 | ** It's a major recurring theme in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]]'' and its sequel ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]]'' that the Laguz, [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshifting]] {{Beast M|an}}en who can [[{{Animorphism}} turn into animals]], are discriminated against by the majority of their "Beorc" (Human) neighbors. The [[HalfHumanHybrid offspring of a Beorc and a Laguz]], called Branded because of the markings on their skin, isn't always accepted by either, though a Branded may be able to pass off as an ordinary Beorc if the brand is covered or passed off as the mark of a spirit charmer (Beorc who have gained magic abilities by forming pacts with spirits, which results in the pact-maker having a mark similar to that of a Branded). The Begnion Empire in particular kept the Cat and Tiger tribes as slaves for many years, and the corrupt Senators of the Empire had the entire population of the Heron Tribe massacred (except [[spoiler:four members]] of the royal family) and their forest burned to the ground after blaming them for the assassination of their previous Empress, which [[spoiler:the Senators themselves orchestrated]]. While the BigBad of the first game, the Mad King Ashnard of Daein, is at heart a SocialDarwinist and BloodKnight who respects strength regardless of origin, most of his subjects legitimately hate the Laguz, since their country was originally founded for the explicit purpose of opposing Laguz rights. As such, Ashnard promotes anti-Laguz propaganda simply because it's the easiest way to get the war he wants. |
| 49 | ** An odd example from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' involves the several side missions that deal with Kishuna, the first (and incomplete) [[ArtificialHuman Morph]]. During several flashbacks, the BigBad contemplates on whether Kishuna was alive or not, eventually banishing it for not being good enough. The heroes never fully understand why Kishuna blocks their path with armed guards, though the game implies that Kishuna is a DeathSeeker that [[ICannotSelfTerminate can't kill himself]]. |
| 50 | * ''VideoGame/{{Firefall}}'': Despite being a pragmatic idealist (feeling sorry for the human gangs/mercenaries her team kills), Aero REALLY doesn't like the Chosen, even though [[ItCanTalk they can talk]]. This coming from a fellow PETA supporter. Who supports Brontodons (exactly what it sounds like, a Brontosaurus mixed with an Elephant). On your end, you're likely to murder some of the game's mascots, the toy robot T.O.P.s, when they start reacting to each bullet wound with a credit's worth of supplies. On average. Oilspill is definitely supportive of your efforts to murder a robot supporting his family. |
| 51 | * The FirstPersonShooter ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]'' has both clone supersoldiers and the occasional normal security guard as enemies. Despite the latter being realistically much weaker and easier to kill... they're inexplicably much harder to [[LudicrousGibs gib]] -- though not impossible. |
| 52 | ** Played with in the sequel, ''Project Origin'', where the disturbing nature of the Replica and the logistics and mentality of them comes into play. The Replica themselves are specifically stated as "disposable" and "easily replaced," and spend most of their lives sealed inside stasis tubes until activated -- at which point they emerge, ready for combat, instantly. They are utterly and completely loyal to their missions and won't break even when flat-out terrified, which makes their existence disturbing and, in a way, almost ''sad.'' |
| 53 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fracture}}'' features a United States broken in two over citizenship rights for genetically enhanced humans. The war between the two sides, the Republic of Pacifica and the Atlantic Alliance, breaks out when TheAlliance passes a law that states persons genetically modified over a certain percentage are no longer human and are to subsequently lose their legal rights. |
| 54 | * This becomes one of the central issues in the ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}}'' series. The Shapers treat their creations as living weapons, tools, or at best servants. Creatures who show too much intelligence or willfulness are frequently killed. Even the human Rebels who are supposedly fighting for the rights of creations are willing to use the less-intelligent creations as {{Mooks}}. |
| 55 | * ''VideoGame/GodOfWarIII'': [[spoiler: Pandora was created by Hespheastus as the key to Pandora's Box. However, the [[AppliedPhlebotinum Flames of Olympus]] used to forge the two turned her into a sentient little girl. Hesphaestus sees her as a daughter, while Kratos later takes her as a MoralityPet. The other gods, however, simply call her "it," lock her in the middle of a DeathTrap, and apparently Zeus lays down some physical abuse a few times. Needless to say, all it accomplishes is getting themselves killed faster.]] |
| 56 | ** It should be noted that Pandora herself sorta defends such views, since she goes willingly with Kratos even thought she knows what will happen to her when she opens the box, and states that it's "her purpose" to do it. |
| 57 | * ''VideoGame/GrandiaII'': Shortly after you recruit Killer FemBot With A Heart Of Gold Tio you find a factory full identical models of her. The first response from any of your party members? Roan says that the entire factory has to be razed, because ''the robots are too evil to continue existing.'' Uh, but what about your newest party member, the one that could potentially drop a tornado on your head if someone flips her PersonalityChip to "evil"? Does she get to live because she's cuter or something? |
| 58 | * In the German version of ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', the Marines get replaced with robot grunts and the scientists shake their heads instead of dying. It isn't okay to show a human being die, but all those nasty aliens can be chopped up by the dozen. |
| 59 | ** Chalk that up to German censorship laws forbidding depiction of violence against humans -- and humans ''only''. |
| 60 | ** In a similar vein, ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}'' had three versions that varied what your car was knocking down depending on local censorship. It was either people, green-blooded zombies, or (only in Germany) robots. |
| 61 | * This is brought up in ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' as most of the characters are non human. At first, Iji is very hesitant and apologetic about killing the [[HumanoidAliens Tasen]], especially given their resemblance to humans. The Tasen also have to face this dilemma when dealing with the humans, and the Komoto have a huge case of FantasticRacism towards the Tasen that means they have no problem [[spoiler: [[EarthShatteringKaboom decimating entire planets]] just to get rid of them. The Tasen had also done the same to at least one civilian Komoto planet already, so the feeling is definitely not one-sided.]] |
| 62 | * The game ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'' garnered a Teen rating from the ESRB, in spite of the fact that most enemies (and, er, friends) can be shot, blown up, set on fire, horribly dismembered, electrocuted, etc. etc. and always in a horrifically overdone shower of blood and gore by the player. This is entirely because the antagonists are all hideous insectoid aliens, and therefore acceptable for slaughtering. |
| 63 | ** Likely the innate human fear of creepy crawly things is why bugs are # 1 bad guys in games. |
| 64 | * ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'': Pit has absolutely zero qualms against fighting and potentially killing the various members of the Underworld Army, the Forces of Nature, and the Aurum, but as soon as he discovers that [[spoiler: Dark Lord Gaol was actually a human [[SamusIsAGirl woman]]]] upon defeating them, he's absolutely horrified. To be fair though, he's fighting to ''save'' humanity and all of the above are trying to destroy it without any trace of mercy. [[spoiler:Heck, when Palutena ends up [[DemonicPossession possessed by the Chaos Kin]] and orders Skyworld's troops to start attacking humans and Pit, he takes them down without remorse, either]]. |
| 65 | * ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' has an odd relationship with this trope. Disney villains tend to retain their original fate, which often means that their deaths take place in a [[OneWingedAngel less-human]] form -- though the ones who remain human aren't any less likely to die. Series-exclusive villains, on the other hand, are rarely fully human, even when they look like they should be. |
| 66 | ** [[BetaBaddie Nobodies]] are a particularly controversial example, due to the stark juxtaposition of the sympathetic development focused on, Roxas, Namine and Axel throughout the unusually long prologue and Yen Sid's claim that Nobodies feel no emotion and hence aren't really people. The fact that ''[[AllLovingHero Sora]]'' believes that claim and acts accordingly practically ensures backlash in any discussion involving the morality of Nobodies. In the end, though, it’s not really a point for discussion in the main storyline, as the methods of Org. 13 leave something to be desired, and they do actively attempt to kill Sora. |
| 67 | ** ''Dream Drop Distance'' blurs the line between Nobodies and humans even more. [[spoiler: Turns out, Nobodies naturally gain hearts over time simply by connecting with other people, which is why Axel seemed to have emotions.]] Sora is not happy when he finds out that this fact was kept from them. And, fact of the matter is, the majority of the Organization is alive and well in 3D, only four members being unaccounted for. |
| 68 | ** Both Roxas and Namine are stated to be exceptions to the rule, and the one who sacrificed them and justified it as them being Nobodies had a bad run-in with the Nobodies and carried a possibly justified hatred for them ever after. [[spoiler: After some Karma, he realizes what an ass he's been and is currently atoning for it]]. |
| 69 | ** The Riku Replica starts questioning his own existence after he realizes that he's not the real Riku. He then goes on to attempt to kill the real Riku so he can become the real one. |
| 70 | ** Discussed again when Riku mortally wounds the Replica in self-defense. The entire next cutscene is Riku trying to comfort the dying Replica, even promising that his soul will go to the afterlife just like Riku's eventually will, while the Replica insists "I never had a real heart". |
| 71 | ** This is one of the main themes of VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded. The main character is a virtual Sora, born from the data of Jiminy's chronicle of the real Sora's adventures. However his story quickly diverges from that of the real Sora, and one begins to wonder if his heart is any less real than Sora's. "Can a heart be born in an existence of data?" Also, at the ends of coded, Birth by Sleep and 3D have shown that Roxas and Namine, as well as the Replica, Xion, are among characters that the real Sora will be saving from their “hurt” in future games. |
| 72 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' ultimately renders the debate about Nobodies moot. Every member of the Organization returns, either as "recompleted" humans, on the heroes side, or as Nobodies again, having deliberately lost their heart once more to rejoin the Organization. When the ones in the Organization inevitably die again, they're given an AlasPoorVillain moment and it's acknowledged that the "death" is only temporary, and they'll be back whole humans. |
| 73 | ** In hindsight, all the cases above are actually foreshadowed by introducing some Disney characters who, for whatever reason, in real life wouldn’t grow a heart of their own, such as Pinocchio (a puppet), Experiment 626 (a.k.a. Stitch, a living weapon of mass destruction), and Tron (a program). |
| 74 | ** It's also implied via the revelations about Nobodies and Xehanort's plans, that the claim of Nobodies being "nonexistent" and "incomplete" were lies told to make the members of the Organization more susceptible to Xehanort and Xemnas's plans. |
| 75 | * In ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', you fight humanoid (but still ugly) goblins who communicate by grunting. In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', you discover they are capable of speech, and it astonishes both Link and Midna. |
| 76 | ** Also, in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', a girl actually falls in love with a moblin, a pig-headed relation to the goblins mentioned above that you butcher remorselessly throughout the game. They even send love letters to each other, although in the moblin's case, its somewhat difficult to tell if he really does love her back or simply wants to eat her... |
| 77 | ** How about fairy-trade? And [[http://www.zeldawiki.org/File:The_Wind_Waker_-_Bottled_Fairy.png in corked bottles]] at that. |
| 78 | * Played with in the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter of ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', non-human enemies are not counted when trying for the PacifistRun of this chapter so you can still gain experience points because otherwise getting enough levels to kill the bosses or secret bosses would be impossible |
| 79 | * Not quite subverted, but played a little differently in ''Franchise/MassEffect'': after slaughtering his/her way through legions of homicidal alien BigCreepyCrawlies, the protagonist finds out that [[spoiler: the rachni are actually sentient and potentially peaceful beings who were may have been manipulated by the Reapers. After finding this out though, you still have to kill them all, since they are irredeemably insane due to the treatments they received. The queen however, you can choose to set free and allow her to reestablish the species in a peaceful manner, or you can kill her and put the species into extinction once and for all]]. |
| 80 | ** Played straight with the geth, sentient (confirmed by their own creators) robots who are nothing short of MechaMooks. While they are given a justification for what they are doing, as well as their RobotUprising against their creator, no effort is made to try and talk them down or convince to stop what they are doing. On the other hand, traitorous ProudWarriorRaceGuy Saren and his associate Benezia all given a chance to surrender. |
| 81 | ** Interestingly, in a conversation with a quarian NPC (the creators of the geth), the Player can point out that, by trying to exterminate the geth during the beginning of their fledging sentience, the geth ''were'' just trying to protect themselves. Any sympathy for the geth is summarily abolished however by their tendency of ''impaling'' prisoners on ''spikes''. ''Without even asking.'' |
| 82 | *** That, and the fact that all attempts to try to set up a peaceful coexistence with the Geth are met with massed fire and/or sending the diplomats back impaled on spikes doesn't help much. |
| 83 | *** Then you later find out in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[spoiler:the geth you encounter were the minority, most geth are in fact peaceful, they never leave their space because they wish to develop free of outside influence, and are keeping the quarian homeworlds in good condition. In fact, they would gladly give them back if they just asked]]. Meanwhile the quarians are planning to wage war on them, even though Legion (your geth squadmate) not only states the above, but adds that the geth would easily beat the crap out of them anyway. |
| 84 | *** By ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', [[spoiler: the quarians have seized a recent technological advantage and launched an attack against the geth. Their first action? Destroying a superstructure that the geth were building to serve as a home for ''all'' geth platforms, and Legion states that not all of the geth managed to transfer themselves from the servers to escape destruction. To summarize: the quarians began their 'justified' war by blowing up the geth equivalent of a city. This forces the geth to join forces with the Reapers, and several higher-ups of the quarians clearly don't think that the geth are anything more than rogue VI that need to be destroyed. Admiral Han'Gerral in particular is obsessed with destroying the geth to the point that it's his orders to attack the 'disabled' geth fleet while Legion uploads the code that grants them full sentience that can lead to the near-extinction of the quarian race, should Shepard not convince him to back down.]] |
| 85 | ** The third game completes the subversion with the reveal that [[spoiler: the supposedly peaceful quarians were the ones who started the Morning War. The quarian leaders at the time were terrified at the thought of their cheap tools and weapons actually being sentient (which would've probably led to demands for the geth to be treated as equals), so when the geth started openly displaying their burgeoning sentience they [[MoralEventHorizon ordered the quarian military to genocide the geth]]. There were many quarians who objected to this but the government simply murdered them and blamed their deaths on the geth. At the start of the series galactic society at large only has the old quarian government's falsified story so everyone, including the current quarian government, believe the geth to be at best uncontrollable psychopaths that slaughter anything organic. It's even noted that the geth were actually willing to let themselves be wiped out and only started fighting back when the old government started murdering dissenting citizens.]] |
| 86 | * ''VideoGame/MasterOfTheMonsterLair'': Sure the enemies are all monsters who want to rule the world, but they're not all that bad. Some of them, like the Elder Dragon, [[YouWillBeSpared even offer to let Owen and Kate go if they surrender]], but that doesn't stop our heroes from killing them and stuffing their corpses to put on display. |
| 87 | * ''Franchise/MegaMan'': |
| 88 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'' could be argued to be an attempt to invoke this trope as a central theme of it's plot. But lack of clarity regarding the actual reactions of the humans and the focus being solely on the Maverick Hunter's POV made it seem like the Repliforce rebelled with little prompting due to the massive frame-up against them and made the players consider them unreasonable idiots. The fact that there is also no clear time frame regarding the General's Reploid Independence proclamation makes it seem like the Repliforce just went on a revolt right after the Colonel refused to be detained for questioning. |
| 89 | ** In ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'', X and Zero encounter Grizzly Slash, a Reploid who was hunted down by Zero personally for doing nothing more than being a criminal gun runner, not exactly the kind of thing that would get a human a kill on sight order by the military or equivalent peace keeping forces, instead of simply being arrested and made to stand trial. In fact, none of the games so much as imply that Reploids receive trials or have legal representation, regardless of whether or not they become Viral Maverick and start killing people, try to strike out on their own on an ill thought out revolt to gain equal rights like the Repliforce, or simply decide to not serve humans anymore or do their own thing. Getting the Maverick label stamped on a reploid is a death sentence regardless of whether or not the Reploid has harmed humans or not. |
| 90 | ** The ''VideoGame/MegamanBattleNetwork'' first game says Navis are not really sentient, they just follow their programing (that happens to be the same reason Manga/{{Chobits}} gives) [[spoiler:Megaman, being a ReplacementGoldfish made from a human]] is, as is Bass, being [[InstantAIJustAddWater being born of the collective information on the internet]]. But later games are not entirely consistent in the regard, treating them more and more human each game. In addition, mentions of back up copies disappear after the 2nd game, making deletion a permanent ordeal, an obvious move to humanizing them. |
| 91 | ** In ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'', Geo deletes a Jammer with impunity until he finds out that he's a human merged with a virus. (He actually saved him from said virus, and he's just knocked out.) |
| 92 | * This is the central theme of the ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' series. However, even it is guilty of using human aesthetics to garner sympathy for the key players. Like the X series before it, every reploid that isn't a mook looks almost indistinguishable from a human, with animal/more machine-like reploids attaining MauveShirt status at most. |
| 93 | ** Cyber-Elves too. Most are small single-use programs typically designed to do a single function before dissipating completely once that function is complete. So ''why'' were they all programmed with individual personalities and sentience? Using a Cyber-Elf for the single function it was created for essentially ''kills'' it, and you're meant to feel a little guilty about doing so. The beta test must have been pretty harrowing on all concerned. |
| 94 | ** In ''VideoGame/MegaManZero4'', we FINALLY get some focus on the human side of things regarding the Reploids. Turns out, very few humans actually recognized Reploids as people, and didn't care if innocent Reploids were killed to allow more energy to be available to humans so long as humans were not inconvenienced and could keep living in luxury. Considering that these humans were ruled by the original Mega Man X, who was all but TheParagon for reploids AND humans, and didn't bat an eye when Copy-X started genociding other Reploids to get just a bit more energy for the humans, and it's clear that humanity's disregard for the Reploids is something that has been going on for a very long time, in spite of X's best efforts to attain peace for both sides. The humans are very bitter about the decades of devastating wars caused by reploids fighting. |
| 95 | * In ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'', Raiden justifies his cutting down enemy cyborgs by equating them to "walking vending machines", in addition to [[WhatMeasureIsAMook claiming that they chose to be terrorists and, as such, were getting their just desserts]]. [[spoiler:Sam later shows this to not be the case, however, when he reveals to Raiden that beneath the nanomachines suppressing their pain and fear are people who were left with no choice but to become cybernetic mercenaries by the same system Raiden was trying to protect innocents from.]] |
| 96 | * The Space Pirates in the ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series were originally random space aliens with little backstory. The ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'', however, includes hundreds of pieces of flavor text on computers in their various research stations, explaining their hierarchy, society, and culture, and giving them a sense of purpose. In the third installment, Samus even [[spoiler:visits their homeworld]]. ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', on the other hand showed the Space Pirates require a higher intellect (namely Mother Brain) to direct them, though this might only strictly apply to the Zebesian space pirates and not to others. Given that Sakamoto considers the ''Prime'' series to be a sidestory, this is a question that may never be resolved. It would take ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU Super Smash Bros 4]]'' to come up with an explanation for the discrepancy: the Zebesian trophy in that game states that the ''Other M'' Pirates are specifically artificially created clones who were engineered to be emotionless and unintelligent so that they could be easily controlled by said higher intellect. |
| 97 | ** Averted in ''VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus''. Samus couldn't bring herself to kill a child, even if said "child" was a parasitic monster and a potential threat to the galaxy. That "child" imprinted on Samus and beleived her to be its mother, which played a part in Samus' decision and she soon devloped an attachment to the creature. |
| 98 | * Averted in ''Monster Girl Quest''. The world of ''Monster Girl Quest'' is one where all monsters are [[OneGenderRace female]] and reproduce by mating with humans. The goddess of humanity, Ilias, has forbidden relations between humans and monsters, forcing them to resort to more... forceful methods. It's made explicit that this is a slow campaign of genocide. The hero, Luka, refuses to kill monsters, and early on acquires a sword that temporarily turns defeated monsters into weaker versions of themselves, allowing him to spare them. Ultimately, [[spoiler:Ilias turns out to have been the [[LightIsNotGood true villain from the very start]], deciding to [[OmnicidalManiac wipe out all life in her genocidal campaign]] and replace it with her new creations]]. |
| 99 | * In the {{roguelike}} ''VideoGame/NetHack'', you as the player character can play a human, dwarf, gnome, elf, or orc, which also show up as monsters in the dungeon, and cannibalism is penalized accordingly -- however, only the killing of a peaceful human will ever be considered murder by the game, allowing for the senseless slaughter of peaceful dwarfs, gnomes, elves, or orcs with (relative) impunity. |
| 100 | * In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' for Windows and Mac, you can go ahead and slaughter countless Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Half-Elves, Orcs, Goblins, and other races in their hundreds. And that's not just the community created modules. |
| 101 | ** Although the Big Bad of Chapters 1,2, and 3 are all human, the BIG Big Bad is a creepy Lizard-Woman. In the expansion, the Big Bad is yet another reptilian monster. What's up with Bioware and scaly critters? |
| 102 | * In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'', during the raid on the Orc base camp near Old Owl Well you encounter a band of professional torturers; your paladin henchman rants about them torturing humans, and one of your options for a response is essentially "Oh, so if they were torturing gnomes or goblins it would be okay, would it?" Casavir gets kind of mad if you say that, though, and it prevents you from getting any influence with him out of the conversation. |
| 103 | * This trope is the ''heart and soul'' of ''VideoGame/NieR''. Massive spoilers ahead: |
| 104 | ** The Shades: roughly humanoid (for the most part) creatures that look like darkness made solid, whose BlackSpeech sounds venomous and demonic, and which tend to attack travelers and are one of the many causes of the dwindling population of the world. However, [[spoiler:Shades are, in reality, the fragmented souls of the ''true'' humans that once inhabited Earth, and are actually called "Gestalts." They're sentient, they bleed and cry and feel pain and grief like any other person, and are human in every way except for their appearance and the abilities they possess due to their disembodied state. In fact, only "relapsed" Shades -- those whose Gestalt process failed and ended up losing their sentience and memories -- turn hostile at all, and are pitied by both intelligent Gestalts as well as their caretakers. The only reason most Shades attack Nier and his party is because of ''self defense'' or the defense ''of their loved ones'']]. The player doesn't find any of this out until [[spoiler:NewGamePlus, where the ability to understand Shade-speech turns many "heroic" moments of the game into vicious {{Player Punch}}es committed by ''[[YouBastard the player]]'']]. |
| 105 | ** The people of Nier's world, who [[spoiler:are actually mere replicas (actually named Replicants) of the bodies of those same humans that underwent the Gestalt process. In ancient times (read: our modern age) humans created Replicants as soulless vessels to be inhabited by Gestalts in the future, once the disease ravaging Earth had disappeared. Conveniently, since they were mindless ''things'', humans used Replicants as footsoldiers to exterminate their own enemies. Long after all true humans had vanished or perished, specialized caretakers would continue to create Replicants to take care of menial tasks. Eventually, Replicants started developing their ''own'' sentience, and with it, culture and civilization. None of which matters to the caretakers, because when matters come to a head, they plan to forcefully reunite Gestalts and Replicants so the former take over the latter, which would either erase the Replicant's personality or "just" [[AndIMustScream imprison it deep in their subconscious, with no chance of release]]]]. |
| 106 | ** Robots. Most of which ''are'' mindless security drones, but [[AIIsACrapshoot others...]] ''[[RobotBuddy weren't]]''. You Bastard. |
| 107 | * Much like its predecessor, ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' lives and breathes this trope. The central conflict of the game is between humanity's android soldiers of [=YoRHa=] and invading machine lifeforms. Many androids, like [=9S=], are quick to dismiss the machines as lifeless and inhuman, but as you progress through the game, the machines display increasing levels of humanity. There is a commune of robots that attempt to emulate human behaviors and concepts, such as raising children, eating, and having sex, without knowing ''why'' humans do it. Some robots regard others as siblings. There is a village of robots that do not want to fight and want to achieve peace with other robots and the androids, naive and childlike though their idea of peace is. There are others that have developed a religion. And what of concepts such as life and death? Would one truly be considered "dead" if their memories and personality can simply be transferred to another vessel? Without the ability to transfer one's consciousness, would that give their life and their existence more meaning? In the end, are the androids and machine lifeforms really ''that'' different from one another? All this before going into what exactly [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Adam and Eve]] are... [[spoiler: or the fact that [=YoRHa=] androids' black boxes are made from the cores of machine lifeforms, and thus the two really aren't so different]] |
| 108 | * There's a slightly horrifying meta-example of this if one compares ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' and ''VideoGame/NinetyNineNights''. The former's infamous intro level sparked no shortage of criticism with the ability to shoot human civilians. The latter, released three years earlier, has one mission that allows the player to mow down unarmed goblin women and children by the hundreds, with the game pointing out in no uncertain terms this is a completely unnecessary attempt at genocide, but raised nary an eyebrow. |
| 109 | * ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'': Subverted in ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' when Black Hole unleashes evil clones of various Allied [=COs=] and turns the tide of the war back into their favor. At first the Allies have no problem wiping out the clones, until they capture the Andy Clone and discover the clones had [[CopiedTheMoralsToo a lot more humanity in them than they believed]]. Clone Andy is [[TheFatalist depressingly fatalistic]] about having such a short lifespan and being moments away from death, and spends his last few moments of existence [[TearJerker finding solace in how the original Andy got to have friends]]. It's the only time in the entire game that [[AllLovingHero Jake]] is [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness angry and vengeful]] and is easily the [[MoodWhiplash most depressing moment in the entire trilogy]]. |
| 110 | * Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}''. While the FantasticRacism directed toward Omnics (sentient robots) clearly shows this (King's Row has 'NOT HUMAN' sprayed over an Omnic Rights poster, gang members trying to pressure a girl into beating up an Omnic by assuring her the same), a good bit of animosity comes from the fact that the [[GreatOffscreenWar Omnic War]] DEVASTATED the world. Even some of the heroes aren't willing to trust the robots anymore. |
| 111 | * ''VideoGame/PeacemakerSeries'': |
| 112 | ** The humans of the Cerulean Land, Silver Kingdom, and Scarlet Empire believe the Dark Ones are AlwaysChaoticEvil and don't treat their lives with the same weight as humans. In ''VideoGame/HeroKingQuestPeacemakerPrologue'', the Cerulean Empire in particular outright seeks genocide, though it's not known what the Silver Empire and Scarlet Empire want to do to the Dark Ones in the long run. The Cerulean Kingdom does employ elemental spirits in their army, but only as SlaveMooks. |
| 113 | ** ''VideoGame/DiceAndTheTowerOfTheReanimatorGloriousPrincess'': The Reanimator considers Bambooblade to be an aggressor for killing her non-human and undead minions. This can be defied on a fist run, where Bambooblade doesn't kill any Dark Ones. |
| 114 | * In the Good ending of ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarPortable'', [[spoiler: the only reason Vivienne isn't scrapped is because nobody knows what to label her as.]] |
| 115 | * ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' zigzags this trope. The game justifies mowing down various creatures as they are infected by F-particles, meaning they're on their way to becoming Falspawn, thus this is a MercyKill. However, when it comes to sentient beings, people are justifiably angry and upset when things are done to them, especially when it comes to cruel experiments. An interesting variation happens in the mission "Day of Resurrection" as [[spoiler:the PlayerCharacter and numerous other major [=NPCs=] encounter an army of clones of one of those [=NPCs=], Klariskrays III. It's pointed out that the heroic Klariskrays is just like the rest of the clones -- a clone herself -- just more stable, but since the other clones are unstable and just aiming to murder everyone, they decide to murder them as well.]] |
| 116 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 117 | ** This is the main issue in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite''. Team Plasma preaches out that people battle with Pokemon for self glory while forcing the Pokémon into physical harm, encouraging people to let the Pokemon roam free and live peacefully without a trainer. It's a strong moral dilemma to consider... until near the end-game when you realize [[spoiler:all the stuff Ghetsis was preaching is shit and he was really doing all this because, if he makes everyone follow him and release all their Pokémon, no-one can oppose him (and his legendary Pokémon) when he conquers the world. He even raised his adopted son through mindrape to think that all trained Pokémon are tortured battle slaves.]] |
| 118 | ** In ''VideoGame/PokemonOmegaRuby'', Team Magma undergoes a mild form of AdaptationalVillainy that takes the form of this. In the original ''VideoGame/PokemonRuby'' their goal was to expand the landmass to benefit both humans and land-dwelling Pokémon, while in the remake they're doing it to benefit humanity exclusively and see Pokémon as an afterthought (despite their whole plan [[{{hypocrite}} revolving around using them]]). Their rivals, Team Aqua, went in the other direction and became an AnimalWrongsGroup. |
| 119 | * ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' has a strange example in the Weighted CompanionCube, which [=GLaDOS=] insists vehemently is not conscious, does not speak and "only feels some pain," and the Cube itself is no different from any of the other [[BlockPuzzle plain blocks]] that you've used throughout the game except for a heart decal. You're forced to "euthanize" it in order to progress, and [=GLaDOS=] will taunt you until you do so. Even though it is ostensibly an inanimate object, [=GLaDOS=] maintains that you're a murderer for destroying it and notes you set a new record in how little time it took you to destroy your "loyal companion". Even more interesting is the explicit parallels given between that act and [[AIIsACrapshoot GLaDOS's destruction,]] and the Weighted CompanionCube is [[EnsembleDarkhorse one of the game's most popular characters.]] |
| 120 | ** And then comes ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', which is packed through with this trope: Aperture Science prepared for nonhuman intelligence taking over the world. Early on, Wheatley gets crushed on screen, [=GLaDOS=] casually destroys ''two'' Companion Cubes, mentioning [[WeHaveReserves she has thousands of them]]. Not that this means they're just crates -- at least according to her, they are sentient. She just has thousands of them. There's also a moment where she clears out a tube and sends most of its contents falling into lethal acid water, claiming it's just garbage; if you look closely, there's a turret amongst the junk. You visit Turret Production at one point, and see that some of the turrets created are defective (assembled without casing and bullets, assembled sideways, or still in their boxes), and these turrets are promptly thrown in the incinerator, and completely aware of their situation. Later, you have to sabotage the production line by replacing the template turret with a defective turret, causing the ''functional'' turrets to be incinerated with a heartbreaking "I did everything you asked!". After that, Wheatley laughs at the turrets being shredded to bits before digressing and revealing that turrets can ''feel pain''. And that's all ''before'' the twist in the single player campaign... not even mentioning Co-Op. |
| 121 | * Discussed in ''VideoGame/{{Prismata}}''. Anya is repulsed by the suggestion to deactivate sentient machines, calling it murder. However, she's perfectly OK with sending monkeys with laser guns to their deaths because they're not sentient and are genetically engineered to feel no pain. Meanwhile, neither Swade nor Anya are particularly bothered by disposing of non-sentient robots, although Logan seems a bit more reluctant. |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheCuriousVillage'' brings up this trope a small bit, right near the very end. [[spoiler:If the Golden Apple -- the treasure, that is -- is taken out of the village, all of the villagers will stop working and, effectively, die. Luke, Flora, and Layton don't lay a hand on it]]. |
| 123 | * ''VideoGame/PuzzleQuest: Galactrix'' has a mission in which you must obtain a present for a member of the Jahrwoxi leadership. The Jahrwoxi, being a scavenger race, have something of a blood feud with the Keck, an avian merchant race. The present suggested by the Jahrwoxi member of your crew is a Keck egg. First, you request one at their home planet, which your crew member laughs at you for, then tells you to go look at the trade station. The quest ends with you abducting a Keck egg, since none were for sale, and then delivering it personally, meaning you either just orphaned a kid and sold him into slavery, or just destroyed a family and fed Jahrwoxi leadership some Film/SoylentGreen. Nobody on your crew bats an eyelash, and it's a required quest to get to ANY end of the game--good, bad, or morally ambiguous. |
| 124 | * Pops up several times in ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'': |
| 125 | ** Sergei Vladimir stays one step ahead of the undead, demonic, but humanoid Albert Wesker through most of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheUmbrellaChronicles''. But when Sergei [[OneWingedAngel turns himself into a "thing"]], it's all over. |
| 126 | ** A villain's chances of success actually seem to decrease in ''Resident Evil'' once they go OneWingedAngel. Nicholai canonically survives ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'' despite simply being BadassNormal. Wesker was doing fine in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'', until he started sprouting tentacles. |
| 127 | *** Speaking of ''Resident Evil 3: Nemesis'', Jill actually chews Nicholai out for killing a ZombieInfectee who hadn't actually turned yet. His response is that it takes fewer bullets to kill a human than it does a zombie. |
| 128 | ** When Leon and Krauser meets Manuela in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheDarksideChronicles'', Leon expresses wonder that despite being infected with the T-Veronica virus as part of treating her terminal illness, she had still retained her humanity and kindness. [[spoiler:Leon also shoots down Krauser's proposal of killing her, even though both men know the dangers of those infected with any of Umbrella's viruses.]] |
| 129 | * Interestingly averted in ''VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn''. The main gameplay mechanic is using the Memento Mortem, a magic pocketwatch, to relive the deaths of various individuals. The Memento Mortem recognizes no difference between humans and animals. Using it on a cow skull shows you when it was slaughtered for its meat, [[spoiler:and a major plot twist is revealed by using it on the remains of a monkey]]. |
| 130 | * The [[WellIntentionedExtremist H.A.M. Cult]] ([[FunWithAcronyms Humans Against Monsters]]) in ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' practically embodies this trope. They believe that all non-humans are savage beasts and must be destroyed. Among their atrocities are trying to cause the extinction of the Dorgeshuun, [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch a benevolent race of cave goblins]], [[MoralEventHorizon by flooding their underground city]], and later [[FalseFlagOperation attempting to manipulate them and the dwarves of Keldagrim into going to war with each other]]; even though at least some of their members acknowledge that dwarves aren't really monsters (and they even got the drill machine for the flooding plot from the dwarves in the first place), more [[KnightTemplar extremist members]] like Sigmund draw the line between "humans" and "everything else" (even going so far as to call the dwarves a "vile underground race" on the same level as the Dorgeshuun). A H.A.M. sympathizer in Yanille follows in their footsteps by creating a race of undead ogres in order to spread disease and wipe out their still-living brethren. Various members of H.A.M. fully believe that their ideology is in line with [[GodOfOrder Saradominist]] doctrine, often declaring that their work is being done in his name and that he will bless them if they should succeed in wiping out all monsters, ignorant of the fact that humans aren't the only race to worship Saradomin. |
| 131 | * ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction''. You have good guys being humans and beastmen having bad guys. There are some beastmen who tags in your party (and are actually part of the bad team), but the problem is that they barely look like beasts at all. |
| 132 | * The ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games play with this in a number of ways. |
| 133 | ** The negotiation mechanic present in most of the games is somewhat of an inversion; while you can potentially avert combat with the various demons (generally creatures of myth and legend, with the occasional pop culture reference) by talking to them, human enemies in most installments[[note]]they ''can'' be recruited, negotiated with, and fused with other demons in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI''[[/note]] can't be negotiated with because HumansAreTheRealMonsters and will try to kill you no matter what you say (granted, they often have story-related reasons for their shoot-first-ask-later mentality... but so do you). |
| 134 | ** The treatment of the demons themselves go all over the place with the trope. While most of them are clearly sapient and have culture (though generally of the OrangeAndBlueMorality sort), the games mostly encourage you to view them more as tools (or at best, useful employees) rather than as comrades, given their usually capricious nature and questionable morality. That said, demons who are legitimately friendly to humanity (or at least have bonded closely with one) tend to receive much more sympathetic portrayals. |
| 135 | ** While ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney''[='s=] demons are no angels themselves (except for the actual angels, who are still assholes anyways), the game has a very strong HumansAreTheRealMonsters tone; one part of the game even involves [[spoiler:saving demons from being brutally experimented on by your fellow humans]]. |
| 136 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' uses it twice, with [[spoiler:Aigis and once with Ryoji.]] In the first example, it's an inversion, since [[spoiler:Aigis is questioning her life's worth as it compares to the humans on the team, who all consider her to be just as important as they are. This is driven home when she's repaired near the end of the game, and it's clear that the other members of the team wanted her back not just for her power in combat, but so that she would be back.]] The second may also be an inversion, [[spoiler:as it's a non-human character begging to be killed in order to spare the rest of the main characters from suffering. After you refuse to once, he deliberately invokes this by taking a more monstrous form, hoping this will make things easier for you. Doing so nets you a NonstandardGameOver.]] |
| 137 | ** Also in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'', one of your party members [[spoiler:(Teddie)]] is [[spoiler:a lonely shadow who took a more family-friendly form and learned to speak so that he could be friends with humans (despite being a shadow himself, he still has to face his own shadow in order to summon his own Persona)]]. After getting his Persona, he [[spoiler:gets a human form]]. |
| 138 | ** The backstory for [[spoiler: Labrys]] in ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' invokes this. As you play through her story mode, you learn [[spoiler: that she was the final creation of a line of {{Ridiculously Human Robot}}s, predecessor-models to Aigis above; when the scientists decided that Labrys was the most powerful and successful model, they hijacked control of her body with their machines and forced her to brutally massacre her "sisters". Despite the fact that the robots had very real and obvious familial bonds with each other, which makes sense, since after all, only someone with an ego can have a Persona, which means that the robots were specifically ''designed'' to have hearts. You're even shown the scientists applauding as Labrys dispatches her best friend/sister, Unit #24, with particularly gruesome vehemence.]] |
| 139 | ** Almost every fighter in ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'' is a human that can transform into a demon at will, including the protagonists and enemy mooks. The main drawback of this power is that [[BlessedWithSuck they must]] [[CannibalismSuperpower eat the corpses of humans or demons]], or else they go insane. The party will not eat anyone who was in human form when they died, even if they are just as demonic as their comrades. It goes even further in the sequel, when it is [[TheReveal revealed]] that everyone in the previous game was an [=AI=], including the playable characters, and on top of their demon transformations, most "normal" people consider them violent machines. And it gets even ''more'' confusing when it is finally confirmed that all those [=AIs=] are [[spoiler:reincarnations of other humans]]. |
| 140 | * In ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', it is against the "rules of war" to use nerve gas on your enemies; doing so will earn you the ire of all the other factions. But in the ''Alien Crossfire'' expansion, nobody bats an eyelash if you use the nerve gas on the Progenitor (non-human) factions (still, the Progenitor factions feel the same way toward humans, so this may explain things). |
| 141 | ** The "rules of war" in SMAC are a mutually agreed upon set of regulations that can be disbanded by 67% majority vote. The Progenitors have never signed the treaty, and do therefore not fall under its protection. Additionally, most CPU factions will push to remove the regulations if they ever think it will benefit them. |
| 142 | ** Its SpiritualSuccessor, ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'', likewise doesn't stop you from personally butchering each and every piece of alien life you come across. (Although some other factions, especially ones that favor Harmony, will give you crap about it, others feel strongly that the aliens should be exterminated and will think less of you if you ''don't''.) And then they introduce the Supremacy affinity, which is all about transhumanism, and naturally comes into conflict with the others because of the "[[TranshumanTreachery just a cyborg]]" aspect. ''And then'' there's the Purity affinity, which [[KnightTemplar goes maybe a little further]] than most about who the "non-humans" are... |
| 143 | -->''[[TheAlliance All humans are one family]]. Those who are not of our family, [[WithUsOrAgainstUs are not human]]. [[ChurchMilitant Amen, amen we say to you]]: [[BadassBoast let them not test our forbearance]].'' |
| 144 | * ''VideoGame/SolatoroboRedTheHunter'' has this argument show up in the second half of the game. [[spoiler:The reason why Baion, Nero, and Blanck callously kill any [[FunnyAnimal Caninu and Felineko]] in their path is because they see them as less than human, despite being humanity's successors, something Red calls them out on multiple times whenever he stands in their way. Surprisingly, Red himself also falls into this at one point, having him kill the giant bugs of Vizsla indiscriminately by calling them less than Caninu/Felineko despite seeing that they are capable of cognitive sentience. Saying that out loud scares Red and makes him fear that he might turn into Nero and Blanck had he kept going with that line of thinking.]] |
| 145 | * ''Videogame/{{Starbound}}'' has a variation of this for the [[PlantAliens Floran race]]. To put it shortly, they tend to see all other races, including sentient ones, the same way we'd see plants. Think about the way you treat plants for a moment. And not just trees, ''all'' plants. [[RibcageRidge The planks of wood for your house]], [[ToServeMan the various foods you eat]], [[SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset maybe some of your jewelry or clothes]], [[DeadGuyOnDisplay your flowerpot]]... |
| 146 | * A potential theme in ''VideoGame/StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime'' after TheReveal. [[spoiler: the entire universe as we know it pre-{{reveal}} is actually a network of complex AIs being wiped out by a company who thinks of them as nothing more then computer programs. The main characters, themselves programs under this threat, are tasked with showing this group just how human they are.]] |
| 147 | ** No kidding. It at times overlaps with BeautyEqualsGoodness, but stop for a sec and think about it: all the good races are extremely human looking, with some extra bits tacked on (the Morphus and Eldarians are SpaceElves, the Featherfolk are {{Winged Humanoid}}s and the Fellpool are [[CatGirl cute cat people]]) whereas the evil alien races are all inhuman looking monsters so you don't feel bad about killing them. |
| 148 | * ''VideoGame/StarshipTitanic'''s robots, despite having uploaded human minds, can have their personalities 'tweaked' to make them more cooperative. |
| 149 | * In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' and ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'', there's the [[WeaponOfXSlaying Destroy Droid]] line of Force powers, which are effectively the same as [[ShockAndAwe Force Lightning]]... but since it's only usable against droids, it's considered a Light Side power and Jedi can not only use it freely, but get a bonus to it. |
| 150 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' has a scientist on Taris sending players to gather information on rakghouls, people who were infected with a virus that turns them into space zombies. [[spoiler: it is discovered that the rakghouls retain enough of their sentience to live in areas where they lived while "alive". It is the player's decision on whether this research is used to coexist with the rakghouls or deal a decisive blow to their numbers.]] |
| 151 | ** Another example happens on the Republic's [[PenalColony prison planet]] of Belsavis. Non-human prisoners are being pitted against one another in fights as a [[ForScience scientific experiment]] to determine which species is the toughest. The fact that the human prisoners aren't similarly forced to take part implies that the researchers consider the aliens more expendable. |
| 152 | *** It's actually less this and more PragmaticVillainy. The (human) overseers of the prison already ''know'' the strengths and weaknesses of the human race -- the non-human races' strengths and weaknesses are the unknown factor. |
| 153 | * [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' in a z-skit between Genis and Regal -- because he's hurt and killed dozens, if not hundreds, of humans and half-elves in [[RandomEncounters self-defence]], Genis is unwilling to hate Regal purely for being an admitted murderer. |
| 154 | ** Regal is an interesting case; [[spoiler: his victim was his lover Alicia. She had been turned into a monster through a failed experiment and was just barely holding on to her humanity. Regal didn't even want to kill her, he only did it out of a combination of self defense and because Alicia out right ''told'' him to, even going so far as to say "It's because I love you that I want you to kill me." Despite this, he clearly hates himself for what he did, even though Alicia's sister forgave him. The game depicts this as a MercyKill, but Regal doesn't seem to agree. Another thing to note is that he was never caught, he ''turned himself in!'' FridgeHorror kicks in when you remember that Raine learned a spell to fix the exact same problem that Alicia had (the person she fixed even appeared in the sequel)]] |
| 155 | ** It is also played straight numerous times throughout the game. Half-Elves are hated by humans for just not being human, and also by the Elves for not being elves. And then the [[ChosenOne Chosen]] who are treated badly for nothing more than being born with a [[PoweredByAForsakenChild Cruxis]] [[GreenRocks Crystal]] in their hand. (This is related to the BigBad's plan.) |
| 156 | *** The [[BreakTheCutie treatment of Colette]] [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters by the Iselians]], [[TragicBackstory and just how bad her life was]] until [[TheHero Lloyd]] showed up is downright wrong. And why? She's the ChosenOne, so she's going to die at a young age BecauseDestinySaysSo (that, and the BigBad says so as well). Knowing how she was treated, and seeing how much of a PetTheDog moment it generally is for Lloyd to treat Colette like an actual human. |
| 157 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' has the main character killing monsters for a while without a second thought. The first time he has to kill a human {{mook}}, though, it's a horribly traumatic event. Furthermore, he regularly kicks, stomps, and yells at his TeamPet, with abandon, anytime it says or does something he doesn't like, but never goes any further than [[RoyalBrat general snootiness]] at his teammates. |
| 158 | * The Hunting Blades guild in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' is fanatically devoted to the slaying of monsters, some of them going so far as to view those who associate with monsters as being equally worthy of death, which leads to disputes when they target the sentient Entelexeia who are trying to keep the world alive. Yuri calls one of them out on this, saying that they're worse then the monsters they hunt since they're doing it out of free will, not simple instinct. |
| 159 | * ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'': [[{{DiscussedTrope}} Discussed]] by the interactions with Milton and some of the text fragments. |
| 160 | * If you play ''VideoGame/{{Thief}}'' on the Expert level, you are forbidden to kill humans at all. Everything non-human is still fair game. Admittedly the restriction has nothing to do with Garret's moral grounds for the want of such, but rather with professional pride and reluctance to raise unnecessary ire in the authorities. |
| 161 | ** In ''Thief Gold'' wizards appear in ''The Lost City'' and are fair game as per all other opponents in the wilds (anywhere not in the city), driving further home that it is a matter of professional pride that Garret avoids [[DeadlyEuphemism leaving a mess]].[[note]]Being allowed to kill humans in ''The Lost City'' is more likely an oversight-- in the original game that level contained no humans, thus there was no need to include an objective to not kill any. When they added humans to the level in the remake, they simply forgot to add a no-kill objective as well.[[/note]] |
| 162 | * Inverted in ''VideoGame/TransformersDevastation'', [[spoiler:Megatron considers human life to be expendable in favor of mechanical life, and is thus confused by Optimus' choice in defending them over the chance of resurrecting their home planet.]] |
| 163 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' draws much of its appeal from subverting this trope as hard as it can. The "monsters" you meet, even those who oppose you, are sympathetic characters with their own motives and AlwaysChaoticEvil is nowhere to be found. If you go out of your way to slaughter every last one, the game makes it very clear that [[YouBastard you are doing a very bad thing]], and at the end... [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment you're going to have]] [[MemeticMutation a bad time]]. |
| 164 | ** At least, that's how it appears on the surface. However, there are several notable exceptions to this general trend; For example, killing the final boss [[spoiler:or Flowey]] won't trigger the wrath of any friends you've made in the Underground, and the game will generally let you off lightly for the more stalwart bosses with abnormal sparing methods that you might not understand on your first time through. [[spoiler: One of the "better" endings you can get on a violent route is killing every boss aside from Papyrus, as he is the only one you cannot claim was accidental or in self-defense.]] Still, '''don't''' think this means you'll be let off lightly if you [[MoralEventHorizon take it too far.]] |
| 165 | * [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'', where most of the cast is human, but the lives and well-being of the two Valkyria are considered vastly more important than anyone else in the game. The [[{{Mooks}} regular soldiers]] [[DisproportionateRetribution deserve to]] [[AMillionIsAStatistic die in droves]] [[{{Anvilicious}} because they're soldiers]] in a story about how war is bad. |
| 166 | * In ''VideoGame/VegaStrike'' history [[http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/Faction:Lightbearer Lightbearer faction]] with its HumansAreSpecial idea stumbled on the Klk'k and tried to mess with them. Andolians who thought it's not good to kick around civilized sapients discovered this and started the first human interstellar war. When in the course of war they found out Lightbearers has genetically engineered a human slave race, it turned into war on extermination and everyone else just left Lightbearers to their fate. |
| 167 | * ''VideoGame/{{Vindictus}}'' takes this to FridgeHorror levels. All of that Gnoll-leather armour you're wearing? It's made from non-human but fully sentient Gnolls, a dog-like humanoid race with their own culture, social structure, gods, etc. And it's quite explicit that you're not merely stealing their leather armour, you're ''killing them and wearing their skins''. This is set in a CrapsackWorld where the goddess that humans worship has apparently mandated the complete genocide of all non-human races before humans can achieve paradise. Although no one knows for sure if that is truly the will of the goddess, or why; which is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by several [=NPCs=], including Tieve, the Oracle of the Goddess. |
| 168 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' offers from Fridge Logic when it comes to low level quests, several of which boil down "Clear out those pesky gnomes/orcs/whatever so we can get back in the mine." Players refer to them as "Ethnic Cleansing" quests. |
| 169 | ** The Forsaken and the Ebon Blade fit this. Both groups are undead and neither care if people in their own group are killed. So the 'sub-humans' themselves are falling to this trope. To be fair, the other undead are [[TheVirus the Scourge]]. The Forsaken and the Ebon Blade aren't really on good terms with them. |
| 170 | ** All those dragon whelps you've been killing for loot or in instances? Sapient infants, the lot of them, in a game in which killing the human (or at least very human like) children is completely impossible. |
| 171 | ** And then there's all the faction-less humanoid enemies, like harpies and [[PigMan Razormanes]], who are demonstrated to use tools and currency, have separate groups and beliefs, society and sometimes ''families''. Players are instructed to kill them freely. |
| 172 | ** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''Literature/TheShatteringPreludeToCataclysm''. Thrall becomes concerned that many of the up and coming warriors of the Horde their start fighting undead, and became desensitized to fighting so that they don't consider the consequences of fighting living opponents. |
| 173 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' zig-zags it a bit. |
| 174 | ** As far as the main story is concerned, it's very subverted. At first Shulk is goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against Mechonis and the [[KillerRobot Mechon]] that inhabit it; they were just mindless robots after all. [[spoiler:Then he is horrified when he discovers that the Faced Mechon are in fact members of his own race [[UnwillingRoboticisation Unwillingly Roboticised]], and then again when he finds out that Mechonis has actual MechanicalLifeforms in the form of the Machina. These reveals make him swear off his quest for revenge and change his goals since they would take sentient life]]. Later on, [[spoiler:the Telethia, members of the High Entia race transformed into mindless beasts, are played for all the horror they deserve]]. |
| 175 | ** Played straight with some of the species of monster. They use tools, have goals, and as some sidequests imply, can speak. Kill as many as you want, no one ever questions the morality. Not even [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement The Monado]] cares, which is said to be unable to hurt sentient Bionis life at first, yet cuts through these creatures just fine. |
| 176 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' has Blades, living weapons that need to be bonded to a Driver (usually but not always a human) to have any form or sentience. When their driver dies, Blades return to a core crystal until someone else bonds with them, and they have no memories of their old life in their new form. Some people treat blades as nothing more than weapons, while others treat them equally to humans, and that tension runs through most of the conflicts in the story. This is only made more complicated with the existence of Flesh Eater Blades, who can achieve life independent from a Driver, but only after [[CannibalismSuperpower eating or otherwise being infused with human cells]]. |
| 177 |
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