Basic Trope: An entire race of creatures is evil, every last one.
- Straight: There's a race of demonic beings who are all evil in some way.
- Exaggerated:
- From the moment they are born until the moment they die, every member of a humanoid demon race slaughters everything in sight and runs around in a fit of purposeless bloodlust.
- The cacodaemoniacal creatures cross the Moral Event Horizon round the clock, regularly commiting iniquities the dark eldar find excessive.
- Downplayed:
- There's an entire race/species of jerks.
- Most of the species is evil but they have a very small amount of nice members.
- The species are all Anti-Villains who try to do the right thing, but end up doing something evil instead.
- The demonic beings all consist of
True Neutrals, Chaotic Neutrals, and Lawful Neutrals; all of which have evil tendencies. - The race can be any alignment except for goodnote .
- A demonic race is a form of evil but can range from the lawful-to-chaotic spectrum depending on the character in the race.
- The Devourers are non-sapient and thus not technically evil, but they are still a hyper-aggressive invasive race which cannot be negotiated with and will exterminate every other race if not first exterminated themselves.
- Always Lawful Evil.
- Always Neutral Evil.
- A demon raised outside their society can be as good or evil as anyone else, as can rare exiles, but the society as a whole quickly kills off anyone who isn't vicious enough to fit in.
- Justified:
- The race is led by an emperor who does not take well to traitors and orders the instant death of those who do not conform to his evil beliefs - most, therefore, choose to go with evil's path for the sake of their lives.
- The race used to have both good and evil members, but the evil members committed some mass genocide upon the good members, leaving only the evil ones.
- The race is from a Death World where only the violently selfish survive.
- They were artificially created to be evil/so ravenously violent that they're functionally evil.
- They are controlled by some vast, evil intelligence.
- The race follows a full-blown Religion of Evil—complete with a "Might Makes Right" morality (which admittedly raises questions on if they consider themselves evil)—and the best a heretic might hope for is to be executed for said heresy instead of being a Butt-Monkey.
- The race followed a religion but then decided to do away with it so they could make up whatever moral code they wanted. However, that religion, for some reason, acted as a moral restraining bolt and things go downhill as everybody decides to make up their own rules regardless of others. Conversely, they took up a religion hoping to restrain what they saw as flaws in their morality. However, they became so pious that they turned into zealots and started using dogma to justify atrocious acts.
- You have to be evil to be a member of the race.
- Their gods simply made them that way.
- The devil corrupted a group of mortals into ugly, violent maniacs to serve as his Mooks.
- The race cannot understand virtue/goodness, and as such, no one in the race has these qualities.
- The race suffers from a case of Blue-and-Orange Morality, and what they do registers on our scale as Chaotic Evil, but on theirs is normal or even good.
- The race is full of emotion eaters who gain energy and nourishment from the pain and misery of others.
- The race's psychology makes them want to bring pain and misery to others.
- It turns out that those transformed into Lifedrinkers can choose not to prey upon humans. However doing so dooms them to a slow death by starvation. While some may spend their last days trying to die at the hands of lifedrinkers which lack their morals ultimately the species can only survive as evil.
- Phages are not born that way. You become one by performing an arcane ritual that requires killing an innocent, and only works if the person undertaking the ritual fully understands what being a phage entails and is willing to kill innocent sapients to keep himself from death.
- Shadows are the end product of an Evil Makes You Monstrous transformation. If a Shadow ever attained redemption, it would turn back into a Bright One.
- Inverted:
- Always Lawful Good
- Members of the race can be any alignment except Evil alignments.
- Subverted:
- Not Always Evil.
- We see some demon race on the side of evil, but then it turns out that there are just as many of them allied with the hero's side - we just hadn't run into them yet.
- Characters find their children, and Children Are Innocent.
- Characters find an "evil" dragon, except that it is being held prisoner by The Hero, and expresses nothing but concern for them.
- The race isn't actually evil, but it's portrayed as such due to a massive propaganda campaign. The heroes are actually working for a Grey Morality side.
- The race isn't actually evil; they're just pretending to be evil so that the real bad guys or an actual Always Chaotic Evil race doesn't kill them.
- The race isn't actually evil, but their culture demands strict laws and brutal punishments, so it looks violently repressive from the outside.
- The race has a set of laws, even if violence is rampant.
- Double Subverted:
- The 'evil demon race' turns out to not be entirely evil, since some are on the good side, until the inbred evil desires in their blood cause the good demons to switch sides when things start to get tough, or because of a species-wide case of Chronic Villainy. Visa versa for the 'evil' characters allied with the hero's side.
- The children really are Enfant Terribles - this is just a disguise.
- The dragon is Affably Evil to lure them into freeing it.
- The race really is evil; the propaganda campaign is just letting everyone know that. The heroes work for A Lighter Shade of Grey.
- The race has long since become the mask and are just as bad as the race they're acting for.
- Meting out those brutal punishments is the race's only form of entertainment.
- The race's only law protects the rulers from retribution from their victims, who are afforded no protection in kind.
- Parodied: A race shouts how evil they are while Poking The Poodle.
- The race is also intimidated by cute and sweet things like puppies and candy.
- Zig Zagged: A race is forced to be evil because of an Evil Overlord. When he is defeated, they try to be good, but social stigma force them to work only for other evil overlords. A minority of them works to raise the public opinion and manage, in the end, to redeem the race, giving them the opportunity to live honest lives. Only, it's a conspiracy to infiltrate the human society. Again, they manage to clean their public image, only to find integration too hard, so they try to conquer the world. Defeated, they choose to lose all power and strength, so humans won't fear them anymore and they can start playing good. So they became extreme capitalists who inflict suffering and despair in "legal" ways.
- Averted: There is no 'evil demon race'. Evil is made up of races that are also just as likely to be good.
- Enforced:
- "The race comes from hell itself - if we portrayed them as being friendly in any way on a popular show, the Moral Guardians will be angry with us."
- They need to justify why the heroes can kill them without moral hesitation.
- Lampshaded: The heroes ask a member of the 'evil demon race' why he's serving the villain, and he answers with "Haven't you seen? The whole race is evil!"
- Invoked: A race of demonic creatures raise their children to act evil because enough of them are mean that they'll probably end up stereotyped as evil anyway, and they don't want the trouble of being a nice person struggling against the views of others.
- Exploited: Bob, a Sociopathic Hero, wants to kill people, but he can't or else he'll be seen as evil, so he finds the always chaotic evil race and can kill as many as he likes while still being seen as morally good.
- Defied:
- A member of the normally evil race decides to live a life of kindness and heroism, refusing to be classified by their race.
- A bright member of the race begins preaching that they all have free will and do not have to simply be evil. This gains credibility among everyone, some members turn good, some remain evil. The ones who remain evil feel reinvigorated because they have now chosen evil, and become more evil than ever. The evil members proceed to kill the Messianic Archetype, For the Evulz.
- Discussed: "See, if this were a fantasy book, I wouldn't be able to be nice to you guys, since demons have to be evil and all. You guys are lucky!"
- Conversed: "And of course, in those RPGs I play, you never get to meet, say, an affectionate, cheery demon, or a pleasant and polite swamp monster. What a shame, don't you think?"
- Deconstructed:
- 1. The demon race is all evil...because the villain is controlling their minds and thoughts. Eventually, they are freed from this, but their all-evil image gains them the hate of others and the race faces serious troubles as they struggle to cope in the world.
- 2. The presence of an Always Chaotic Evil race leads to discussions of moral relativism vs. moral absolutism and whether or not we can force our moral standards on a race.
- 3. Everyone assumes that an alien race is all evil...thus subjecting those members of it who are good to prejudice.
- 4. The Demons spend as much time fighting themselves and imposing Draconic laws upon their subjects as they do fighting the heroes. As a result, the heroes win without fighting as they watch the Demons destroy themselves.
- 5. The Always Chaotic Evil race is considered a victim rather than an aggressor- after all, if they physically lack the ability to do good, can they really be held responsible for doing evil? Rather, hatred and judgement is directed towards humans, who can choose to be good but do evil anyway.
- 6. Much like misanthropy is common among humans, the demons take this to extremes. Many loathe themselves and others of their kind over their incapacity for virtue. They're often Driven to Suicide, and some even go so far as to attempt the destruction of their own species. Tragically, some try their utmost to be good and fail.
- 7. If Lifedrinkers are evil because they kill sapients to survive, are humans just as bad for essentially doing the same thing by fighting them? In fact, are they worse? While Lifedrinkers kill individuals, at least they're not debating genocide, which is more than can be said for humans...
- Reconstructed:
- 1. Having been freed and hated on, they give up and go with being evil anyway, every single one of them.
- 2. The discussion ends by pointing out that, while all other races engage in evil occasionally, all the Always Chaotic Evil race does is evil.
- 2. V2 The evil race is powerful and a threat to all the other races. Everyone has tried to make peace/form an agreement with the evil race but it always fails. Some even looked into the very heart of the evil race to find anything redeemable about them, only to find nothing but pure raw malevolence. It's made clear to everyone that the evil race is irredeemable, but what to do about them is the big question. The discussions of moral relativism vs. moral absolutism applies to the scale of idealism vs cynicism in both the setting and with the characters themselves. For example, on the idealistic side, the heroes find the power to seal the evil race off from the rest of the world so they can no longer cause any harm; that way, the heroes would be able to triumph without having to make morally questionable decisions. On the cynical side, if such methods like sealing the evil race away prove to be ineffective and destroying them all is the only way to truly stop them, the heroes may need to rethink their values, understanding that their ideals are too unrealistic to work in the setting, thus adopting the moral relativism thinking; they are prepared to shoulder the weight of morally questionable actions for the sake of protecting the world from an irredeemable evil, because letting such an evil live might lead to more devastating consequences for the rest of the world.
- 3. The alien race is assumed to be evil because refugees from scores of other planets have arrived to warn others.
- 4. The Demons maintain their dominion through twisted rationality, emphasizing that they're evil, not stupid.
- 4. V2 The Demons oppress and war against humans even more than they oppress and war against themselves, because xenophobia is evil and as such they must be xenophobic.
- 4. V3 The Demons are Explosive Breeders. They simply won't die off even though they have conducted evil en masse on their own kind.
- 5. Metatheical speculation aside, the fact is that they do hurt people and cause significant harm. Even if we can't judge them, it's still important to stop them just as much as their human allies.
- 6. Demons don't even understand the concept of virtue, much less care about it.
- 7. Humans Take a Third Option and find a way to restore Lifedrinkers to their original form, or invent an artificial food source for them.
- Played For Horror: Imagine a species whose very compulsion to exist is to inflict pain upon others, for little to no reason in sight, and whose every waking thought is dedicated to discovering the path that maximizes the suffering of the victim and minimizes the suffering of the self, all so that they can live another day to further grind their world(s) into the sinkhole of unadulterated, meaningless violence. Should they ever choose to cooperate, they would together create an unimaginable nightmare of a civilization built on the ideals of spontaneous torture, murder, rape, and other pointless puppy-punting activities that making the criminal look like the asshole even if the dog deserved it.
Every last example on the main page is pure evil.
