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alt title(s): Gaias Vengeance 
"Mother Earth is here...and she's pissed!"
—Item description for Organic Power, Disgaea
History shows again and again
how nature points out the folly of man
—Blue Öyster Cult, "Godzilla"
Oh great, now humanity has done it. We aren't just jerks, but we've gone and messed up the planet; environmental pollution, wars, negative karmic vibes, etc. Or our development has become a Game Breaker in the whole "Survival of the Fittest" thing; so humans are now alien to the planet that birthed us. (This also suggests that every other living species exists in some kind of Hive Mind state, everything they do for survival follows "the rules.")
This has resulted in a situation where Mother Earth has sicced her champions on us. This result in either a bunch of ethnically diverse kids learning how to recycle while a hero beats up really idiotic and shallow villains... or Eldritch Abominations that are programmed to wipe out the infection, i.e., humankind.
A metaphor for the destruction that environmental damage will do, because really, what aesop can't be delivered through the metaphor of "If you do this, someone or something will beat the crap out of you?" In better series, will be a logical effect of a certain action; in worse ones, will just be a flat-out " Science Is Bad!"
If intelligent, Gaias Vengeance can have Wall Banger contradictory assessments of humanity. Predators and parasites who kill are simply following their nature. Humans "should know better" yet shouldn't think themselves different than said animals.
We can divide this trope threefold:
- Gaias Vengeance proper - Nature is a sentient, or, at least, independent and real being, who can direct the efforts of an entire ecosystem, or even weather et al. And willing to direct it against this annoying little sentient species that finally pissed it off. Bonus points for it being called Gaia, Planet, or similar.
- Gaias Vengeance metaphorical - was I hallucinating, or was Jerry really eaten by humongous shark? This is the case when enviromental neglect results in local or global tragedy. An example of the former would be a loose swarm of killer bees or Attack Of The Fifty Foot Whatever fed on local toxic waste dump, of the latter - global warming. As opposed to above, it does not actually need Nature to act anymore than you'd need snow devil or whatnot to start an avalanche.
- Gaia's Avenger - here, Nature may or may not be sentient, as well as pollution does or does not have to be a problem at all. At least to anyone but this person, who took it as a personal quest to fight any real or perceived polluters, all in the name of Mother Earth. KnightTemplarship abounds, but there are some right.
May be the reason for Absent Aliens, ie when they get too technologically advanced, they wipe themselves out, or their equivalent of Gaia does it.
Compare The Scourge Of God, Green Aesop, Gaias Lament, Nature Spirit and Global Warning. Often a Space Whale Aesop. Clock Roaches are this for Father Time.
Examples
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- Gaia, the "will of the planet", and Alaya, the "will of humanity to survive", in Nasuverse (Tsukihime, Fate Stay Night). Gaia initially created vampires to keep the spreading humanity under control. Both have access to the Counter Force, which basically keeps the balance of power and makes sure no one destroys the planet; when something like that starts moving, the Counter Force will use a greater power to destroy it. A threat coming from humans will be dealt with by Alaya, while an external factor will be up to Gaia (not that they're very friendly with each other... or feel emotions at all).
- An older Nasu Kinoko work, Notes, deals with an apocalyptic future where Gaia finally dies, and with its death, the Ultimate Ones are summoned to destroy what's left of humanity, which abnormally refused to go down with the ship.
- In the anime Blue Gender, Earth creates a horde of giant insects called "The Blue" that force humanity to become hunter-gatherers, and blows up any ship trying to leave the planet to go to another one.
- Various beings in the works of Hayao Miyazaki, notably the Ohmu is Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind and the animal spirits in Princess Mononoke.
- Although the Ohmu were found to be Gaia's creation to help clean up the earth, not to destroy humanity.
- This is actually subverted in the manga: the whole new purifying ecosystem is revealed to have been created by human scientists before the collapse of civilization in order to eventually make the planet fit for a new human population.
- The Raajah in Earth Maiden Arjuna.
- The human Dragons of Earth from X1999 by CLAMP.
- In Mugen Densetsu Takamagahara Dream Saga, the heroes go around Takamagahara calming the monsters that have sworn revenge on polluting humans. Then they find out that the whole journey they were chosen to complete was meant to destroy the worlds, as Amaterasu thought them too far gone. They obviously don't take this too well and decide to Save Both Worlds.
- Tokyo Mew Mew were born "Earth's chosen ones", but in a slight twist, genetic engineering (i.e. science) was required to complete the transformation into world-saving Magical Girls. The Mew Aqua, which turns polluted areas into Ghibli Hills, is also a natural phenomenon.
- Eureka Seven has one that is different in two ways. It's not actually the planet but a gigantic lifeform that covered Earth, forcing people to abandon it and move back to live on the new surface made from the lifeform without knowing it was earth, and also that it was something the Government Conspiracy was intentionally invoking. They had a series of Kill Sats attack specific points to slowly kill it. These attacks also caused huge uprisings of monstrous creatures that killed everyone very violently, and they then used the publicity of their ineffectual efforts to stop it to get public support.
- In Parasyte this is what the parasites are. Or think they are. It's involved, anyway.
- The anime versions of Casshan have the Neo-Sapiens/Neoroids as androids designed to protect Earth's environment — who inevitably decide that the best way to accomplish this is to Kill All Humans. The live-action adaption, Casshern, reduces this to subtext of the Shoot The Shaggy Dog ending.
- The aliens in Gunbuster were apparently produced by the Universe itself to deal with the human infection. Considering that the creatures were the size of houses, used ships of astronomical scale and destroyed stars to reproduce, it's a bit questionable which species actually makes more objective harm on the galactic scale.
- G Gundam Supposed to be main villain Master Asia turns out to be a Well intentioned Extremist who wants to rid earth of humanity by using Devil Gundam.
- Additionally, the
Ultimate Devil Gundam was originally programmed to help restore the Earth after a couple centuries of war, pollution, and periodic Giant Robot brawls turned it into a practical hell hole. Guess how it's decided to do that. Go on, guess.
- An episode of Cowboy Bebop featured a group of environmental terrorists who believed that being Gaias Vengeance was their purpose in life...if you accept the notion that the will of nature only gives a damn about the Ganymede Sea Rat. It portrays them as more than a little crazy go nuts, willing to release a retrovirus or something that will turn anything remotely human into a hooting ape over the harvesting of an animal that's considered a delicacy and isn't, as far as I'm aware, endangered in any sense of the word. The episode ends with them trapped in hyperspace and Hoist By Their Own Petard.
- A few people in The World Is Mine wonder if Hakumadon, a giant bear-like creature, is an ancient Ainu spirit avenging the planet; other people think it's having a killing contest with a pair of Serial Killers.
- Count D of Pet Shop Of Horrors, and the entire D lineage, beings who can communicate with animals and sense their suffering and death, will apparently not rest until humans are driven to extinction as revenge for the animals that they have driven to extinction.
- The D lineage also has a more personal issue against humanity: Humans killed all but ONE of D's kind, after all!
Comic Books
- The modus operandi of Poison Ivy, the Batman villain, is defending plant life against all of humankind.
- This is also the motive of Ra's Al Ghul, another Batman villain, who considers the earth vastly overpopulated and defiled by humanity. He's not really into the whole Gaia thing, though. He just wants to kill a lot of people and rule the ones left over.
- Ra's AL Ghul: "Humanity on it's own is a destructive force. It needs a master."
- Brillantly subverted in the Alan Moore run of the Swamp Thing. D-List villain Jason Woodrue AKA the Floronic Man declares that the Green has told him to make all the plants on Earth pump out the purest of oxygen (which would be fatal both to every single mammal, bird, bug, fish and amphibian on Earth, but because pure oxygen is toxic and because it is highly flammable, as is shown when a man lights a cigar in a neighborhood that Woodrue has decided to make an example of). This is major Nightmare Fuel, so much so that the Justice League just sits up in their satelite waiting for the end to come. Thankfully, Swamp Thing owns Woodrue by pointing out that without animals and humans to release carbon dioxide, all the plants would end up dying.
- Technically, that's a You Fail Biology Forever, as both fungi and the plants themselves (at night) could still convert oxygen to carbon dioxide, even without animals. But losing their pollinators and seed-dispersers would hurt an awful lot of angiosperms, so presumably the Green still got the hint.
- The first series of the British comic Knights of Pendragon consists of Dai Thomas investigating various murders of eco-criminals. And then it gets weird (but still beautiful and heart-rending).
- Godzilla: Occasionally he'll kick the butt of other threats to the planet, but never forget he'll slap our human asses around if we get uppity with nuclear power.
- Battra from Godzilla vs. Mothra was created by the Earth to destroy an Atlantis-esque civilization tens of thousands of years ago, and popped back up in the present day.
- In Godzilla: The (Animated) Series, Western Terrorists try actively invoking this trope by releasing monsters to destroy humanity.
- There's also Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.
- The 2008 film The Happening centers around this trope. While the movie failed at this, the concept of the "virus" itself was pure High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
- The Heisei Gamera trilogy has characters on occasion worrying that the titular turtle will fill this role if humanity takes too many liberties with the environment. In the third movie, sinister Mister Exposition Kurata Shinji describes the enemy monster Iris this way ... but he's pretty much nuts to begin with.
- The entire plot of The Day After Tomorrow.
- Both versions of The Day The Earth Stood Still center around this trope. The original has the aliens coming to Earth to get us to stop using nuclear weapons, while the remake exchanges nukes with environmental destruction and global warming.
- The originals did it right, the remake not so much
- The Last Winter When Alaska's northern areas start to melt, spirits of extinct animals start to manifest from the oil.
- In Avatar, the humans invoke the wrath of the deity of the Na'vi, Eywa, during their final assault. She promptly sends in a flock of dragon-like creatures, a herd of bulletproof rhinos, and a giant cat-like predator to take care of them.
- The book No Blade of Grass.
- In David Brin's novel Earth, the primary villain thinks she's doing this by creating gravity wave creatures that attack humans, but she's just Ax Crazy.
- In the Whateley Universe, the story "The Braeburn Report" suggests that this trope is happening right now. Word Of God says the authors of that report may not be right.
- And then, of course, there's The Lord Of The Rings, in which Saruman learns the hard way why you do not fuck with Fangorn Forest. Ever.
- Two words: Whomping. Willow.
- Happens in Good Omens, the result of a Reality Warper child reading all the local Granola Girl's magazines in one go. At which point the rainforest starts reclaiming South American shopping malls, and Leviathan awakes, and sets his sights on Japanese whalers.
- The Creature Feature song "The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth" is about this trope. At least according to the liner notes - the lyrics are a little garbled by their standards.
- The song "Insect Nation" by Bill Bailey.
Tabletop Games
- The Changing Breeds in Werewolf: the Apocalypse were each created to aid Gaia in some fashion. Werewolves are Gaia's warriors, werebears are Gaia's healers, wereravens are Gaia's spies, weresnakes are Gaia's judges, and so on and so forth. Nowadays many of them are massively pissed off by humanity's destruction of the natural world and (what they see as) general acts of evil, that will cause The End Of The World As We Know It (it is right there in the name of the game, after all), with some thinking that allowing humans to develop past the Stone Age was the bigest collective mistake of shapeshifters.
- Of course, the game also subverts this; the Kill All Humans factions are typically presented as extremists (even though, setting-wise, they have some points), and it's made clear that the rampant paranoia of the werewolves has strongly screwed them over — their genocidal actions against both stone-age humans ("culling the herds") and against all other shifters races respectively (the War of Rage) cast them as monsters in the Genetic Memory of most mankind and alienated (at the least) the allies they were supposed to work with in keeping Gaia's shit together. One of the running premises of the game is that it's up to your generation of werewolves to get everyone's shit together before the world ends up in the Wyrm's deep fryer. Not to mention that some werewolves have been actively recruited by the Wyrm.
- Werewolf: the Apocalypse had Technology Is Bad written all over it with the subtlety of an anvil. Funnily enough, when the End Times of the old World of Darkness finally arrived it happened not because of humans starting nuclear war as prophecied, but because of the Wyrm arising/ a group of ancient all-powerful vampires awakening/a lot of demons from Outer Space entering Earth's dimension. Something that humans like the Technocracy had been trying to prevent all that time. I'm just saying.
- The New World Of Darkness supplement Changing Breeds provides a look at several werecreatures who aren't Uratha and view themselves as stewards of the earth. The game gets a mixed reception from fans of the line, seeing as Werewolf has moved on from "Gaias Vengeance" to "Spirit World border patrol."
- In Demon The Fallen, the Devourers were the angels in charge of the wilds before the Fall. Many of them have taken the mantle of "Avengers of the Earth" on themselves now that they've gotten out of Hell. Subverted in that the ones that want to Kill All Humans as revenge for the despoiling of Earth are generally the crazy ones, and that the angels of the actual Earth (the Malefactors) are far less depressed about the current state of things.
- In the "Invasion" storyline of Magic The Gathering, the Phyrexians, demonic machine-monsters, invade the world of Dominaria seeking to kill all life to secure the planet for its resources, whereupon it's revealed that Gaea, Dominaria's living spirit and the only true god in the setting, had been preparing for this by "growing" the monstrous kavu - gigantic reptilians resistant to the Phyrexians - beneath her surface for thousands of years in advance. (Unfortunately for the humans, elves, and others holding back the Phyrexians, the kavu find machine-demons and mortals equally tasty...)
- In Dungeons And Dragons settings it's part of druids' work to hand out Gaias Vengeance in measured portions when there's demand.
- 4E has the Warden, whose entire job is basically this.
- Subverted in Monsterpocalypse, where the ancient Terrasaurs seem only interested in targeting industrial complexes so as to consume the raw pollution they produce. Besides this, and their occasional desire for a human-sandwich, they are quite tolerant of humanity as a whole.
Video Games
- The Devouring Earth in City Of Heroes are animate plants, rocks, and fungi who were created by Hamidon Pasilima, an eco-terrorist Mad Scientist who turned himself into The Hamidon, a giant single-celled organism that's the toughest Giant Monster in the game.
- Ironically and hypocritically enough, heroes (and villains) are fighting the Hamidon to keep it from devouring the entire planet.
- Not Earth-based, but Planet of Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri has the Mind Worms, that respond to excessive pollution by making a beeline for the offending habitation and gruesomely killing everyone inside. So, either you keep your Planet rating high, or you'd better have some real strong defences. By the way, some of them can fly, and they're perfectly capable of penetrating airtight sea-based colonies too.
- In the expansion, Planet ups the ante with artillery (spore launchers), submarines (sealurks), and entire organic factory/fortress deals known as fungal towers. This is on top of the battleship/transport isles of the deep, mind worm standard combat troops, and airborne locusts. Did I mention they completely ignore your technology?
- There are technologies that are useful against them (Neural Amplifier, Trance Training, etc...) and you can even breed your own, domestic mindworms.
- Final Fantasy VII has an entire squad of colossal monstrosities called WEAPONs which are stated to be the planet's self-defence mechanism. Once awakened, they seek out and eliminate any threat to the planet's wellbeing with extreme prejudice. So, who do they go after first? Not the guy who summoned a giant magical meteor to destroy the planet so he could be come a god OR the alien organism who's very presence on the planet perverts nature, no they go straight for the humans who've all but destroyed the environment.
- It has been suggested that the reason Holy didn't stop Meteor at the end of the game was because it felt that allowing Meteor to wipe out humanity would be a good thing for the Planet in the long term (given that the threat of Sephiroth had been neutralised by that point).
- This is what everyone believes Sin to be in Final Fantasy X. The truth is a bit more complicated.
- The Criosphinx from Chrono Cross. It "represents the dying of the land" and then attacks you, and it REALLY attacks you if you don't answer its riddle. If you beat it after this, it scolds you for "using violence to solve your problems" and then drops one of the most powerful offensive accessories in the game. ...wow, I'm getting messages so mixed they came out of a blender.
- Chrono Cross was particularly Anvilicious about this trope. Just setting foot in the Hydra Marsh is an invitation for everyone in it to berate humanity for its sins, starting with the Hydras going extinct. When the party drives the Dwarves out of the Marsh, the latter go on a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge on the fairies living in Water Dragon's Isle (the irony that the Dwarves use heavy machinery that belches out thick black smoke is lost on everyone.) The fairies then blame you squarely for the slaughter, instead of, you know, the Dwarves. Later on, Serge & Co. meet the Demihumans, then the Six Dragons, all of which have their own bone to pick with mankind, and choose you to be the representative.
- It's worse. The "good" result of the aformentioned dwarf vs. fairy war can only happen if you actually kill the hydra(one of your party members can save its baby), as if you leave it alone, another set of adventurers comes through and kills both it and the baby. The "bad" end has you not doing this and dooming the marsh. The worst ending on the other hand, has you killing the hydra without the character and then letting the aformentioned character's sister die, after which you are rewarded with her ultimate magic. WTF?
- Apparently, Reptites=Good (they live as one with the planet,) Mankind=Bad (they build stuff.) At least according to the history of Terra Tower. It gets so bad, one wonders whether the scenario writers were trying to outdo Kojima's "Nukes Are Bad!" persona.
- One of the endings is explicitly about a Roaring Rampage Of Gaias Vengeance, where with FATE gone, the fused Dragon God allies itself with the non-human inhabitants of El Nido, and proceeds to annihilate all of humanity across the entire planet. Harle expresses some remorse at this, but everyone else is happy as a clam.
- Arguably, Chrono Trigger also has a form of Gaias Vengeance. If Robo's theory is correct, the appearance of the Time Gates that allow the cast to time travel and save the world is the direct intervention of the spirit of the planet, aka The Entity, in a counterattack against Lavos.
- God Of War II takes the term a bit more literally, as Gaia herself joins in the revolution against the Olympians (although this has more to do with avenging the Titans' defeat at the hands of the gods than avenging nature).
- Like most God Of War entries, it's worth noting Gaia was pretty much like this in Greek mythology as well. There wasn't any generation of deities that she didn't take issue with. If she wasn't providing assistance to their enemies, she was spawning monsters to kill them on her behalf.
- The rarely Animesque videogame Shogo Mobile Armor Division has these as the possible Big Bad, depending on the choices made by the player.
- The protagonists of the video game Radiant Silvergun spend the entire game fighting an enigmatic stone-like object that had effectively destroyed the planet. However, at the end of the game, it's revealed that the object was Earth itself all along, wiping mankind off the face of the planet to effectively "reboot" the human race, due to its extreme warlike tendencies. It's also implied that the events of the game have happened before, many times, and that it potentially won't be the last time they do.
- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time had the Exterminators once you got to the moonbase.
- Jade Cocoon, a relatively obscure videogame created in part by Studio Ghibli, starts out after Gaias Vengeance took place. Humans are barely clinging to meager existence, but it's clear that total obliteration is only a matter of time. Then, it gets worse.
- Sim Earth lets the player unleash the wrath of Gaia onto the planet they tend to, and oh - poking Gaia in the eye does piss her off.
- In Secret of Mana, the Mana Fortress uses the life-force of the planet to fuel the Mana Fortress, a particularly evil Kill Sat. The champion of Earth du jour is the Mana Beast, a white dragon hell-bent on smashing the Fortress to pieces. In an odd twist the Beast, while good-natured, has gone mad with rage, and destroying the fortress would cause a catastrophic restructuring of the balance. So the heroes have to kill the Beast after killing the Big Bad in charge of the Fortress
- In The King of Fighters, Orochi believes itself to be a servant of Gaia, carrying out her vengeful will (he even goes by the title of "Gaia's Will"). Of course, he's also an evil world-destroying god, so...
- This troper is convinced that the Locust in Gears Of War are an army of Gaias Avengers. Humans fought each other for generations for control of oil reservoirs and destroyed nature with its use. A method was developed to win energy from another strange liquid, found deeper inside the planet, to end the wars and polution. But being bastards, they just start to fight for Imulsion shortly after, more destructive than ever before. The wars only end when a huge army of monsters comes from holes in the ground with the sole intent of killing all humans. They don't want to talk, take any prisoners, or even loot the destroyed cities. At the very end The Queen is shown saying that the humans just don't understand what the Locust fight for, and that they will continue fighting until either humanity or every single locust are dead.
- An interesting theory, a wrong theory, but interesting. The Locust can seem kind of like they're the world reacting to human drilling, but then in Gears 2 the Lambent come from the Imulsion and they're busy killing the Locust. The Locust Queen is just a hypocritical bitch who has something against humanity, condoning the Cold Blooded Torture of women and children because of a few bad mistakes the human government has made.
- This troper actually thought the Locust were supposed to be a subversion of this trope: They're as bloodthirsty & ruthless as humanity, if no moreso. Look at the way the queen lectures humanity in the opening narration as she unleashes hordes of biological war-machines to do away with man with brutal efficiency. Gaia's revenge, or self-righteous Cold Blooded Ice Queen who is just tired that the human race has been running the show and wants to replace them on the evolutionary ladder. "We could have cooperated with the ground walkers for our mutual salvation, but they are humans, and they only understand dominance and ownership." -This coming from someone whose own race is destroying itself in a civil war.
- Radiant Silvergun features a Gaia's Avenger and Vengeance the Stone-like is not only the guardian of the Earth but it IS the Earth.
Web Original
- In Orion's Arm the AI named GAIA was slowly given more responsibility for running Earth. After some very serious disaster GAIA finally decided that humans were messing everything up. She declared that all but a select few sentients had to leave, those who didn't were slaughtered.
Western Animation
- Captain Planet And The Planeteers
- The movie FernGully: The Last Rainforest had a tree in the titular rainforest containing Sealed Evil In A Can, a demon named Hexxus who fed on pollution. Conveniently, he represented the destruction caused by humanity while posing a threat to humanity, getting the message across while still portraying nature in a strictly heroic manner ("Can't you feel its pain?" ;_;).
- Even though, strangely, Hexxus is implied to be of natural origin in the backstory...
- Barbie Presents Thumbelina uses a mild version of Gaia's Avenger as the Twillerbees use their power over nature to prevent a construction crew from destroying the field that holds their homes.
Other
- Comedy example: New Zealand brewery Speights ran an ad campaign with the tagline "don't mess with mother nature" where a man learns not to throw his gum out the car window. Learns hard.
Truth In Television
- Plants and trees will release different chemicals when under assault that attract other predators to drive the things off; in the case of plants tended by ants, for example, the chemicals are a signal for a massive Zerg Rush.
- Massive deforestation results in an erosion of top soil that causes floods and reduced land productivity; most farming societies learned very early on that it's a good idea to rotate crops to include plants that put nutrients back into the ground.
- Exhaust from factories and cars will cause acid rain, hazardous smog, and global warming.
- Entire classes of chemicals have been banned (CF Cs and insecticides, for example) due to its impact on the environment.
- Inverted by the actual "Gaia Hypothesis", which doesn't say that the Earth will annihilate any species that causes significant environmental disruption. Rather, disruptions quickly cause vulnerable species to die out and ones that can exploit the new conditions to flourish, until a new sustainable balance is achieved.
- Subverted by the fact that cyanobacteria weren't smacked down by Gaia a couple of billion years ago, for pouring atmosphere- and ocean-choking levels of toxic oxygen into the environment. Their "pollution" killed off the vast majority of living organisms on Earth that preceeded them, yet the planet didn't do jack-squat to stop it.
- Sweet, bring on the H3s!
- That still means we die you know.
- Or the entire biosphere and a good portion of the lithosphere is consumed by human artifices and machines. If we kept up the 1994 population growth rate the entire mass of the earth would be converted into human flesh in less than 2000 years(not practical for obvious reasons). But even that does not take into account the amount of mass that is converted into machines and artifical habitation. Gaia might not get revenge because she'll be dead. Although for environmentalists that may be considered a type of revenge in of itself.
- The Whistling Thorn serves as a base of operation for its own private army of vicious ants that attack herbivores foolish enough to try and get past the thorns.
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