This is one bird no one wants to mess with.
The powerful and intimidating appearance of birds of prey has earned them the fear and respect of people worldwide. Whether a character in their own right or a symbol of the strength of another, raptors are an intimidating prospect.
One reason why birds of prey are made antagonistic is because of their large size and strength (as well as their rather intimidating appearance) since many are incredibly powerful predators, capable of taking down much larger animals. The fixed raptor glare is also rather off-putting.
The other reason is, quite simply, a lot of animal fiction has their natural prey as protagonists. Birds of prey, as their natural predators, are the obvious choices for antagonists. In a story where birds are the main characters, whether anthropomorphic or not, birds of prey will often be the villains.
This trope does not just apply to actual birds of prey, but to humans and other creatures that use bird of prey symbolism; associating a villain with a bird of prey can symbolise his predatory nature and/or relentlessness.
A bird of prey can also symbolise an aristocratic villain or Anti-Hero — either through the real-world example of heraldry or having a bird of prey as a Right-Hand Attack Dog. This symbolism is because of the sport of falconry, which was historically practiced only by royals and nobles.
Generally, this trope applies to falcons, hawks, and, more rarely, eagles. Whilst owls and vultures are also birds of prey, they have very different connotations in fiction. Only add examples pertaining to them here if they fit the trope description.
Compare and contrast Noble Bird of Prey, which features birds of prey as noble, proud, and majestic. A subtrope of Feathered Fiend and Predators Are Mean. For the nocturnal equivalent, see Ominous Owl. For the scavenging equivalent, see Vile Vulture.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Bleach, the Arrancar Abirama Redder can transform into a giant four-winged eagle man with red feathers and is an hot-blooded, vicious Blood Knight who psyches up before a fight by tossing violet death threats at the opponent as is, in general, brutal. He can even power up by slashing bloody marks across his body.
- Buso Renkin: Washio, the eagle homunculus, is the strongest of the man-eating animal-type homunculi. He is able to transform into a half-man/half-bird hybrid who gives the main characters their toughest fight of the A New Life arc. However, he later turns out to be a Noble Bird of Prey who doesn't care about anything except protecting the master who brought him back to life.
- In Chrono Crusade, Aion first appears by channeling his voice through his familiar — a bald eagle with glowing red eyes.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: Pet Shop is the guard falcon of DIO's mansion, and is as cruel and sadistic as his master. His ice powers just make him extra dangerous.
- Yaiba, when Fuuma Kotaro goes One-Winged Angel he transform into a humanoid hawk who proceed to brutally fight the protagonist with ninjutsu and raw speed.
Comic Books
- Batman: Over the course of his career, the Penguin has used a variety of birds of prey as weapons.
- In the Disney Mouse and Duck Comics, Emil Eagle is a Mad Scientist-and in some stories is the Lex Luthor to Super Goof's Superman. That is all.
- Hellboy: Vladimir Giurescu is a vampire lord with the power to shapeshift into an large eagle.
Films — Animation
- Hayabusa, Shan Yu's falcon in Mulan, serves as his master's loyal scout.
- The antagonist of the first act of Rango and current trope image is a giant hawk who routinely terrorizes the Western town called Dirt (the inhabitants of which are all animals who would naturally be the hawk's prey). Even Rattlesnake Jake is terrified of it. (Which makes Rango's accidental success in killing it unfortunate, as it was the only thing restraining Rattlesnake Jake in any way.)
- At one point in The Sword in the Stone, Wart, who's learning to fly as a bird under the tutelage of Archimedes, is suddenly attacked by a hawk. After it chases him into the forest, he finally escapes by diving down a cottage chimney. Sadly, things go From Bad to Worse for Wart, because the cottage he's hiding in is that of Madame Mim.
- The main villain of Valiant is a German pigeon-intercepting falcon voiced by Tim Curry, who is portrayed as an Ax-Crazy psychopath. Fitting with the bird of prey's association with nobility, he is portrayed as a Nazi Nobleman.
Films — Live-Action
- The MonsterVerse version of Rodan in Godzilla: King of the Monsters is built a lot more like a bird of prey, with a larger wingspan and digitigrade feet. Being a Kaiju, he doesn’t speak a line of dialogue and therefore his character is open to interpretation, but he’s usually interpreted with some mix of either a Wild Card, a Dirty Coward, The Quisling, Hot-Blooded, The Starscream, Blue-and-Orange Morality, being turned Brainwashed and Crazy by Ghidorah, and/or having a severe case of Hair-Trigger Temper, I Fight for the Strongest Side!, and/or Loyal to the Position. He is awakened during a volcanic eruption under a smoky red sky, promptly takes off after Monarch’s aerial forces (although only after they shoot at him), then proceeds to chase them far longer than an ordinary animal reacting to an attack would. However, Ghidorah’s approaching their position, and the decision is made by the Monarch top brass to lure Rodan to fight him. In the process, Rodan completely annihilates the squadron of fighter jets and seems to enjoy it, even eating a few of the ejecting pilots. However, when Rodan senses Ghidorah up ahead, he briefly has a visible and audible moment of true panic- before charging into battle anyway and getting his ass well and truly kicked. After Godzilla seemingly dies, Rodan promptly bows before Ghidorah and proceeds to take a more active role than some other Titans in following the destroyer hydra’s commands to wipe out all life on Earth by causing a Natural Disaster Cascade- The novelization states his role in the plan is to cause volcanoes to erupt as he flies. Notably, he stays by Ghidorah’s side even after the ORCA device disrupts Ghidorah’s Alpha Signal, though the novelization notes it’s possible that Rodan’s close physical proximity to Ghidorah as opposed to the other Titans (who were all hundreds to tens of thousands of miles away) was the cause of this. However, after Mothra proceeds to trash Rodan in single combat and Godzilla retakes the throne of the Titans, Rodan seems to actually try to challenge him, before quickly reconsidering and prostrating himself, with his expression screaming “Uh… Please don’t kill me?”. Then, the Creative Closing Credits indicate his new nesting site in Fiji has become a tourist attraction, so he’s clearly calmed down considerably.
- Not literal birds, but the Opposing Sports Team of The Mighty Ducks is the Edina Hawks. They're larger than the District 5/Ducks players and enjoy bullying them. They also have a nearly unbroken winning streak going back decades.
- Night of the Eagle: Using a form of auditory hypnosis over a loudspeaker system, Flora convinces Norman that a giant stone eagle perching at the top of the university chapel has come to life to attack him.
- The Shadow of Chikara: When Moon recovers the horses after they are let loose, onem of the has scars on its flanks as if from the talons of a massive eagle. Later they meet Dancer who has similar scars on his face and, according ro Rafe, has been unable to speak ever since he was attacked by a giant eagle. This eagle might be Chikara, the guardian spirit of the mountain.
- In Silent Tongue, Awbonnie's ghost summons an eagle that attacks Prescott, Talbot and Veldava.
- In the second Stuart Little film, an evil and cunning falcon is the main antagonist. He manipulates Margalo into assisting his criminal schemes and nearly kills Stuart.
- In The Terror, Andre is attacked and nearly killed by a falcon when he arrives on the beach. Later, the same falcon attacks Gustav, gouging his eyes out and driving him off a cliff.
Literature
- Tobias in Animorphs (a boy stuck in the form of a red-tailed hawk) has a hatred of eagles — Sixth Ranger Traitor David chooses a golden eagle as his first morph, a bird easily larger and more dangerous than any other the kids have morphed into so far, with the exception of Rachel's bald eagle.
- In The Book of Dust, Olivier Bonnevile, one half of the Big Bad Duumvirate of The Secret Commonwealth, has a sparrowhawk as a daemon.
- Discworld
- The Air Watch is staffed by Feegle, who use tamed, or at least semi-domesticated, birds of prey as air patrol vehicles, adding an eye-in-the-sky to the capabilities of Sam Vimes' City Watch. This necessarily adds an extra dimension of apprehension to anyone at ground level who is considering criminality.
- Lady Jane in Lords and Ladies is a gyrfalcon who has thus far responded to all attempts at training by viciously attacking the falconer, who is now univerally known as "Hodgesaargh" because that's how he introduces himself. When an elf orders her to attack Hodgesaargh, however, it turns out she responds this way to anyone who gives her orders.
- The vicious birdlike Shryke race in The Edge Chronicles resembles humanoid birds of prey and are a matriarchal race of warriors and slavers who are notorious for their brutality, to the point of eating their enemies — and even each other. Male shrykes are treated little better than slaves, led around on chains by the larger females.
- Although he is an owl rather than a diurnal raptor, the case of Metalbeak and the other Pure Ones (an organization of Nazi-esque barn owls) from the Guardians of Ga'Hoole books cannot be ignored here. The guards at the St. Aegolius Academy are nothing to laugh at either.
- Journey to the West, the Golden-Winged Peng is one of the strongest opponents faced by Sun Wukong and a ruthless bird demon skilled with his halbeard and able to catch up even with Sun Wukong's own Cloud Jump. The Peng King used to be a divine bird in Heaven, but got fed up with vegetarianism and went down to Earth to have some fun.
- There's a children's book called "SQUAAAAWK" in which, if you open a magical book, you allow the Roc magically bound inside to get out and terrorize your town.
- In the Warrior Cats series, ordinary birds of prey such as hawks and eagles are portrayed as terrifying predators. Justified, since they're cats, after all, and the birds are very large to them — large enough to carry off a kit, or, with an eagle at least, a full-grown cat.
Live Action TV
- The New Avengers: In "Cat Amongst the Pigeons", the Villain of the Week uses a falcon as an Animal Assassin in an attempt to dispose of Steed.
Music
Mythology & Religion
- Classical Mythology has several examples.
- The Caucasian Eagle is probably one of the biggest qualifiers; a massive eagle, often said to be the offspring of resident Eldritch Abominations Typhon and Echidna, who was utilized as the eternal punishment for Prometheus by pecking out and eating his forever regenerating liver. It was ultimately killed by Heracles when he encountered Prometheus, freeing him from this torment.
- The harpies were often said to be part-woman and part-vulture, and they were nasty creatures that kidnapped humans, stole food and made it smell too horrible to eat when humans objected.
- The Stymphalian Birds, deadly bronze-taloned birds that could fire their feathers out like arrows, might have been this, though sources disagree on just what types of birds they were—some artwork depicted them as looking like corvids, geese or storks instead.
Tabletop Games
- Res Arcana: The resemblance to an angry bird of prey contributes to the creepy appearance of the Jeweled Statuette, which can produce a lot of Death essences for you and even gives some to your opponents.
Video Games
- Borderlands features the Friendly Sniper Mordecai as one of the possible player characters. His Action Skill is to send out his pet Bloodwing, a predatory bird of indeterminate species, to attack an enemy within his line of sight. Especially good for flushing enemies out from behind cover.
- In Far Cry 4, Everything Is Trying to Kill You (unless, of course, it's a pig, or a tapir, or an Honorable Elephant), and one of the dangerous native animals of Kyrat are their black eagles. If you ever hear one of the Golden Path soldiers shout "EAGLE!!", look to the sky, because that eagle is most likely going to swoop down and introduce your face to its talons. As a testament to the danger posed by black eagles, they can literally carry off pigs, despite the fact that those pigs should weigh more than they do. Then Far Cry Primal and Far Cry 5 introduce bald eagles that fill the same role. Rather appropriate, since the fifth game takes place in Eagleland.
Webcomics
- In Champions of Far'aus, Edvard, the head of a dragon egg smuggling operation, is a monstrov with a bird of prey-like monsterous form.
Websites
- Neopets: Though Darigan pets are not necessarily evil, they have traditionally evil looks, such as dark colors, spikes, horns, and red eyes. Eyries (a griffin-like Neopet) in the Darigan color have dark colors, red eyes, hooked beaks giving them the appearance of fangs, and hooked talons. Lord Kass is a villainous Darigan Eyrie. With his large frame, color scheme, and hooked beak, he is designed to look menacing, and his bird of prey features accentuate this.
Western Animation
- In DuckTales (2017), Falcon Graves is an anthropomorphic falcon and a ruthless corporate saboteur.
- The Lion Guard episode "Ono and the Egg" has an African harrier-hawk named Mpishi as its main antagonist. She invades the Pride Lands (where hawks are not allowed to hunt due to not having a territory there) in search of new prey to eat and teams up with Mzingo's right-wing vulture Mwoga in order to outwit the Lion Guard.
- Played with in The Penguins of Madagascar episode, "The Falcon and the Snow Job"; Skipper falls in love with Kitka, a falcon who crash-lands at the zoo and injures her wing. The other animals are suspicious of Kitka, since she eats smaller mammals, and think that Skipper's crush on her makes him oblivious to that fact, but Kitka promises not to eat Skipper's friends. One day, King Julien goes missing, and when a falcon feather is discovered in his habitat, the animals are all quick to point fingers at Kitka. Skipper travels to Kitka's nest to prove Kitka's innocence, and he turns out to be right; a male falcon was the one who snatched Julien and tried to eat him, and Kitka saved Julien from him.
- Laserbeak and Buzzsaw from The Transformers are Decepticons that resemble vultures.
- The Predacon Divebomb (not those) turns into an eagle.
