History Main / HumansAreInsects

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': [[spoiler:Saint Jaygarcia Saturn of the [[OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Five Elders]] (the highest-ranking [[AristocratsAreEvil World Nobles]] and heads of the [[UnitedNationsIsASuperpower World Government]]) repeatedly compares not just humans, but pretty much every other living being to insects. As such, he doesn't much care for their lives or their feelings, sees their being concerned with his own welfare as an annoyance at best, and will readily sacrifice thousands if not millions of lives [[DespotismJustifiesTheMeans if that is the price for maintaining the World Government's hold on the planet]].]]
-->"Humans are no different than insects... ''[[WeHaveReserves Even if they lose their numbers, they will reproduce again.]]''"

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Saint Jaygarcia Saturn of the [[OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Five Elders]] (the highest-ranking [[AristocratsAreEvil World Nobles]] and heads of the [[UnitedNationsIsASuperpower World Government]]) repeatedly compares not just humans, but pretty much every other living being to insects. As such, he doesn't much care for their lives or their feelings, sees their being concerned with his own welfare as an annoyance at best, and will readily sacrifice thousands if not millions of lives [[DespotismJustifiesTheMeans if that is the price for maintaining the World Government's hold on the planet]].

* ''Manga/FairyTail'':
** Acnologia is a dragon who doesn't bother talking with humans when attacking in the same fashion that humans don't talk to lower animals when dealing with them. [[spoiler:This is especially poignant when it's revealed that Acnologia WasOnceAMan [[BoomerangBigot himself]].]]
** The [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons]] of the dark guild [[TheLegionsOfHell Tartaros]] see themselves as a whole to be superior to humans to varying degrees between each member, with [[DragonInChief Mard Geer]] considering them lower than insects, and going so far as to [[DisproportionateRetribution brutally punish]] one of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Nine Demon Gates]], Kyoka, for [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing]] Erza, not because it wasn't necessary or even because it didn't work, but because it implies to him that she ''likes'' humans, even if only as playthings.
* This is one of the key views held by {{Mayor|Pain}} [[BigBad Takeshi Hirokawa]] in ''Manga/{{Parasyte}}'', as best shown by his MotiveRant right before he is killed in Chapter 55 / Episode 21. [[spoiler:Despite being a human himself.]] Mayor Hirokawa's fundamental belief in the wastefulness of humanity and their lack of care on how this impacts the Earth, causes him to see the Parasites as the solution to preserve the Earth - reducing the human population via preying on them. Thus, he argues humans to be the true parasites infesting the planet Earth, as opposed to the Parasites themselves. His speech provides the page quote above.
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' when Madoka asks the BigBad if they care at all about the Magical Girls who suffered as part of their plan to [[spoiler:[[SavingTheWorld save the universe]]]], they respond by asking, "Do you feel any guilt to remorse for the livestock you consume? Have you ever thought about how those animals become the food you eat?"

* The villains of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' tends to be of this variety, treating everyone who doesn't have a power level of a god like insects. The biggest example is probably Frieza, who has spent decades and possibly centuries tormenting the entire galaxy, wiping out planets on a whim, exterminating countless species, or sometimes not even bothering to get his hands dirty and sending his sadistic henchmen to do it for him. Cell and the Androids are much the same, but Cell isn't around for long, and the Androids only get around to this in the BadFuture.
* In ''Literature/Overlord2012'', it would be faster to list the inhabitants of Nazarick who ''don't'' fit this trope. Humanity in the New World is one of the weakest races of all, and they've nearly gone extinct twice in the past 600 years. Many kinds of demihumans, who are oftentimes predators, see humans the same way humans see livestock.

{{Eldritch Abomination}}s often have this attitude, which may even be their defining trait.

* Most Homeworld Gems from ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' see humans and most organic life in general as curiosities at best and pests to be eradicated at worst. The civil war with the Crystal Gems in the backstory was essentially what happened when several Gems decided that HumansAreSpecial and fought to keep the Earth from being harvested for resources. Though it should be noted many of them [[NotInThisForYourRevolution were in it for]] [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal their own mistreatment rather than humanity]], and even to the present day they still have a bit of condescension to the humans they swore to protect. Even [[TheParagon Rose Quartz]] saw humans for most of her life as more like amusing animals than persons until she met and fell in love with Greg Universe.

* The original ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' novel speaks of how humans have acquired a newfound empathy for wild animals in the wake of the Martian attacks, having learned what it's like to be exterminated as vermin by a vastly more powerful species. One character also rejects characterizing the events of the novel as a war, arguing that "It never was a war, any more than there’s war between men and ants." In his analogy, the Martians are the men and the humans are the ants. He also says humans shouldn't judge the Martians too harshly, as they've done the same thing through wiping out animal species before, and even other human groups too.

This is humans getting a taste of their own medicine. This villain has no love, respect, hate, or even scorn for human feelings. Well, maybe scorn, but only if he has to. Often he's so godlike that to him, humans are nothing more than animals to be exterminated, manipulated, kept as pets or experimented on. In such cases, it's common to [[PitifulWorms compare humans to insects or worms]], because humans don't pay these things even the scant attention that they do to mammals and birds.

->'''Last Castoff''': Help me destroy the creatures that dwell here!
->'''Inifere''': Better two ants make war on the seasons, brother.

* The villains of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' tends to be of this variety, treating everyone who doesn't have a power level of a god like insects. The biggest offender is probably Frieza, who has spent decades and possibly centuries tormenting the entire galaxy, wiping out planets on a whim, exterminating countless species, or sometimes not even bothering to get his hands dirty and sending his sadistic henchmen to do it for him. Cell and the Androids were much the same, but Cell wasn't around for long, and the Androids only got around to this in the BadFuture.
* In ''[[Anime/Overlord2012 Overlord]]'', it would be faster to list the inhabitants of Nazarick who DON'T fit this trope.
** Humanity in the New World is one of the weakest races of all. And they've nearly gone extinct twice in the past 600 years. To many kinds of demihumans, who are oftentimes predators, they see humans the same way humans see livestock.

* ComicBook/{{Galactus}} doesn't think about the people he kills when he eats a planet. He's just hungry. Mind you, he's not HAPPY about it; Galactus himself [[WasOnceAMan was once a humanoid alien named Galen]]. He's a slightly more sympathetic version of this trope than normal as well, as Galactus is actually a SentientCosmicForce used to keep the {{anthropomorphic personification}} of Entropy imprisoned.
* Mr Mxyzptlk, a trickster-villain from the ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' comics, belongs to a society of reality-warping imps from the Fifth Dimension who view all species from our dimensions this way. Notably however, they do so in a semi-benevolent way, and have laws against torturing or mistreating us, not because they value our lives but because they believe it's beneath their species' dignity to sink to such base cruelties. As such, Mxyzptlk is considered a criminal by them as well.

** In the episode "The Ensigns of Command", an alien civilization plans to exterminate a human colony of 15,000 from a planet they regard as their property. The aliens are courteous enough to warn the humans three days in advance, but since they do not regard humans as anything of value, after the deadline arrives they plan to simply destroy the colony and any remaining colonists who haven't been evacuated.

** The [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons]] of the dark guild [[TheLegionsOfHell Tartaros]] see themselves as a whole to be superior to humans to varying degrees between each member, with [[DragonInChief Mard Geer]] considering them lower than insects, and going so far as to [[DisproportionateRetribution brutally punish]] one of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquadNine Demon Gates]], Kyoka, for [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing]] Erza, not because it wasn't necessary or even because it didn't work, but because it implies to him that she ''likes'' humans, even if only as playthings.

* Acnologia the Dragon from ''Manga/FairyTail'' doesn't even bother talking with humans when attacking in the same fashion humans don't talk to lower animals when dealing with them. [[spoiler:This is especially poignant when you learn that Acnologia WasOnceAMan [[BoomerangBigot himself]].]]
** In a similar fashion, the [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons]] of the dark guild [[TheLegionsOfHell Tartaros]] see themselves as a whole to be superior to humans to varying degrees between each member, with [[DragonInChief Mard Geer]] considering them lower than insects and even going so far as to [[DisproportionateRetribution brutally punish]] one of [[QuirkyMinibossSquad the Nine Demon Gates, Kyoka]], for [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing]] Erza, not because it wasn't necessary or even because it didn't work, but because it implies to him that she ''likes'' humans, even if only as playthings.

-->"Laugh at you? Certainly not. Do you laugh at worms crawling in the dirt next to the sidewalk? Of course not. They're too small, too insignificant. You don't even notice them. That is precisely how I see humanity."

Basically LackOfEmpathy meets PunyEarthlings. Contrast HumansAreCthulhu.

* The original ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' novel speaks of how humans have acquired a newfound empathy for wild animals in the wake of the Martian attacks, having learned what it's like to be exterminated as vermin by a vastly more powerful species. One character also rejects characterizing the events of the novel as a war, arguing that "It never was a war, any more than there’s war between men and ants." In his analogy, the Martians are the men and the humans are the ants.

* Very much the case in ''Animation/FantasticPlanet''.

This is humans getting a taste of their own medicine. This villain has no love, respect, hate, or even scorn for human feelings. Well, maybe [[PitifulWorms scorn]], but only if he has to. Often he's so godlike that to him, humans are nothing more than animals to be exterminated, manipulated, kept as pets or experimented on. In such cases, it's common to [[PitifulWorms compare humans to insects or worms]], because humans don't pay these things even the scant attention that they do to mammals and birds.

->''"We feed off you and preserve the balance of all species! Compared to us, you are nothing but worms...or parasytes."''
-->-- '''Mayor Takeshi Hirokawa''', ''Manga/{{Parasyte}}''

* Played with in ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. [[BigBad Zero]] compares humans to termites at one point, but the comparison ''isn't'' negative. Zero sees termites as natural architects, capable of creating beautiful things without even realising it and claims that humans might be similar and be creating beautiful thing that only someone more intelligent than average human can admire. [[spoiler:It's implied to be a metaphor for the nature of the morphogenetic field; a normal human cannot see multiple timelines in physical space but a higher being that could surpass three dimensional space might.]]

* In ''[[Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia]} The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'', a Yeerk with a little girl for a host gives Tom a speech about how humans are nothing more than micro-organisms destined to be [[TheRightOfASuperiorSpecies enslaved by an infinitely superior species]].

* Discussed in ''Film/TheMothmanProphecies'', where the strange beings do deliberately interact with humans, but their purposes are never clear.

* The original ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' novel speaks of how humans have acquired a newfound empathy for wild animals in the wake of the Martian attacks, having learned what it's like to be exterminated as vermin by a vastly more powerful species.

* ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'': Most of the entities these stories revolve around are basically uninterested in humans as a matter of scale: They exist at least as far above us in the cosmos as we do above ants. Humanity's primary defense against them is being completely beneath notice. Nyarlathotep, however, has plans for which humans happen to be ideal. Or he just likes having sentient beings to torment for his own amusement, it's difficult to tell with him. Yog-Sothoth is kind of back and forth with; he couldn't care less about human life, but he does have uses for us, mainly to create HalfHumanHybrid offspring, which are footholds into our physical universe for him.