Basic Trope: Humans are evil compared to other intelligent species.
- Straight: When viewed impartially in comparison to other intelligent species, humanity is basically evil, perhaps even by its own standards.
- Exaggerated:
- Humans are Always Chaotic Evil and Complete Monsters, down to the very last member of their race. All they do every waking hour is betray, lie, steal, torture and murder each other. And over the most trivial of reasons too. In fact, scratch that, for no reason whatsoever. They constantly cross the line, and either consistently insist on being called evil or insist that they are doing the right thing. Other species meanwhile, are Always Lawful Good and Incorruptible Pure Pureness (or evil, but they have a better reason to be evil) and would never do such horrible things as humans have.
- Humans not only take over hell but exploit it ruthlessly as a colony, turning it into Industrialized Evil for immortality and violation of conventional laws of physics despite knowing that should they die they will suffer the same fate as all of the other damned.
- The story's Darkseid wanna-be, a God of Evil that terrorizes and annihilates, corrupts and plots to a degree so excessive that the heroes not only can never escape his shadow, but are absolutely sure they cannot defeat… is the Disc-One Final Boss, with the reveal that he is the whipped attack dog of a Corrupt Corporate Executive of the "if I cannot mine the entire galaxy for profit, I will burn it to a cinder" type - and yes, it is quite established that the Darkseid-type has absolutely no way to cast off his chains.
- Humans are residual evil entities and consciously Always Chaotic Evil demons who are also Omnicidal Maniacs and anthropomorphic personifications of The Corruption from many galactic mythos, birthed from the collective hatred of all peoples and will exist As Long as There Is Evil. Their blood is pitch black and they are so one-dimensionally, mind-boggingly evil that religious devices spontaneously combust around them and plants wither in their presence and birds drop from the skies. Their face is a nightmare and so is their appearance because Beauty Equals Goodness and humans are complete monsters.
- Downplayed:
- Humans aren't all card carrying villains, but almost every other species consider them to be a bit of a Jerkass.
- Earthlings are Totally Lame
- Humans aren't all evil, but by comparison the worse villains in intergalactic history were all human, despite the rest of the race being accepted and civil.
- Most humans are pretty much evil... well, most of them over the age of ten, at any rate.
- Humans reserve their malevolence for other humans.
- Humans are vicious brutes, but the other intelligent nonhumans in the neighborhood are barely any better.
- Some humans are good, and in a meeting with other aliens, the good human representative try his best to say that the monstrous humans don't represent the face of all humans when there are also many good humans, as a whole, Humans Are Flawed. However, the aliens don't buy it, they claim that by letting the monstrous humans exist at all instead of punishing or purging them, these 'good humans' are no better.
- Humanity is a bunch of assholes, but they don't go out of their way to slaughter the alien's young or blow up their life-bearing planets.
- Justified:
- Human violence is an uncontrollable instinct.
- Violence and aggression are essential for human survival, evolution and innovation. The aliens didn't go down this route.
- It's actually averted, but for other reasons: The humans that would try their best to get along with everybody are forced to stay away from the borders of the human empires, effectively shutting off any humans who only want peace.
- Humanity was bred by Ancient Astronauts to be a warrior species. The project ended up Gone Horribly Right.
- Humans are Always Chaotic Evil and knowingly choose to be so, which makes them look horrible compared to non-human species which don't do the same thing.
- Inverted: Humans are paragons of virtue compared to alien species.
- Subverted:
- Humans are gruff and harsh, and their cities are a grim sight, but in the end it turns out to be that their moral standards are actually higher than those of the alien species, who live in a Crapsaccharine World.
- Humans aren't any more evil than the others. However some quality about them makes them more effective than the others.
- Humans Are Flawed
- Humans are seen being highly violent raiders who attack from unprovoked from stealth. This isn't out of malice but from circumstance. The peaceful humans were wiped out through a combination of open attacks and betrayals from those claiming to help them. Now they don't trust anyone and kill to ensure they will survive. This isn't a mere Freudian Excuse - once they receive a Doomsday Device, they don't use it for revenge but to instead forge a peace that doesn't depend on trust but instead on the universal fear of both sides being caught in a mass extinction of galactic proportions should any major solar system, owned by human or alien be destroyed by the other.
- Humans are only evil compared to the Aurori, a pacifist race, who see mankind as brutal and destructive. In reality, the brutal humans are the exception, not the norm.
- Humans are considered evil monsters by an alien race and are ordered to be eradicated. However, during their invasion, the aliens slowly realize that Humanity is benevolent from birth, their homeworld is a Utopia, and their society encourages goodness. Once the realization finally sets in, cue the aliens having an My God, What Have I Done? moment en masse as the now know who the real evil monsters are.
- Animals hold humans as have near incomprehensible goals that they transform the world recklessly in service of. The animals advance and catch up and defeat humanity only to find that given sapience and using it to further their goals they act almost exactly the same.
- Double Subverted:
- ...But then it turns out that any redeeming qualities that humanity seemed to have don't really exist, and humans are really as bad as they seemed to be at the beginning of the story.
- But then the humans enslave every other race out there, uniting them against the species.
- Parodied:
- All humans are Card Carrying Villains and the source of all evil in the universe.
- Humans Are Cthulhu by default, because most aliens fear them.
- All humans did was Poke the Poodle and the other alien races never let them forget it.
- A group of proudly evil alien invaders become genuinely friendly with humanity because they find humanity's evils to be much greater and worth learning from, both humbling the aliens and putting their view on humanity in a "positive" light.
- Humans are perceived as being literally Made of Evil, with all those deadly diseases like Smallpox and all, infecting everyone and all, and of course we cannot forget about it oozing out of their pustules they call 'sweat glands'... Squick
- Zig Zagged:
- Humans are jerks, but they're jerks with hearts of gold. But some humans aren't.
- The level of good and evil varies greatly by species. While aliens may consider lying on a daily basis as unforgivably deceitful and capitalism as disgustingly greedy. Meanwhile, their concept of honor is viewed as utterly disproportionate and their insistence on food being still living barbaric. Some of both species fit the other system of morality better.
- Humans are considered a moral Wild Card and dangerously unpredictable. When they seem good they can get caught up and go too far. When they seem evil they often drop everything and make amends after they have conquered half the galaxy. Sometimes it is generational, other times it happens when they age. Most aliens suspect that their brains still have some evolutionary glitches.
- Humans are actually an advanced evolution of themselves, with the side effects of making them act like the real monsters. Meanwhile, the other races actually originated from the old humanity, and they showed nice values and flaws that normal humans would have. The new humans have taken over the term 'human' and makes these new 'races' closer to humans hang their head in shame that their ancestor's name has been taken over by monsters.
- Averted: Humans are neither particularly good nor particularly evil compared to aliens.
- Enforced:
- The author is misanthropic.
- The writer considers an alien/other race being more evil than humanity to be an example of
Unfortunate Implications, so he decides to subvert it by having man act morally depraved. - The market has been a bit plagued for a while now with Alien Invasion films and the writing team decides to attract audiences by making it a "humans are the bad guys, the hero is a Badass Adorable alien" tale.
- Lampshaded: "Lousy human bastards!"
- Invoked: Humans have been created as a Servant Race to a more intelligent, manipulating race. The "master" race makes sure that no genuinely nice human lives a happy life, no evil deeds go unrewarded, and puts neural implants to the brains of every single human to program them into heartless psychopaths.
- Exploited: An alien uses this as an excuse for being a racist against humans.
- Defied:
- The human ambassador gives alien children lollipops and shakes the hands of every alien he meets. That's after making sure the lollipops won't poison and his hands don't have a disease that would be very fatal to the aliens.
- The things the aliens do to establish dominance during First Contact alone are a whole lot more brutal than anything any vile human in Earth's history has done, or will ever do, and they continue to do them afterwards to keep establishing dominance.
- Discussed: "Unbelievable! How dare those humans act so rude to us!"
- Conversed: "Man, we're such assholes in this show, aren't we?"
- Implied: It’s Xenofiction so no humans are ever shown, but some characters bring up a race of strange bipedal creatures who have been enslaving other races across the universe.
- Deconstructed:
- The reason the aliens view humanity as evil beings is because that they are just as bad the humans themselves. They see them as a scapegoat for their own violent actions and behavior. The discovery of credible evidence of humans who show genuine affection for each other and are willing or even capable of changing their ways after decades or even centuries of ruthlessly exterminating humans under the belief that they deserve to go extinct for their perceived sins is enough for the invading aliens to suffer either a species-wide My God, What Have I Done? moment, Go Mad from the Revelation of humanity's virtues, become trapped in an internal conflict of conservatives who hate humans and those who think they can prove themselves worthy in the eyes of them, or all of the above.
- Humanity just has really bad public relations with the rest of the universe, due to their liaison being a General Ripper or a Jerkass.
- The reasons humans are scum is because they've been treated like scum for their entire starfaring existence-at some point, decided as a species, that if they weren't going to have respect as allies and trusted friends, then they would have it as conquerors and manipulators.
- Reconstructed:
- The aliens, realizing their hypocrisy, right their ways. However, the humans begin a vicious cycle by using the aliens as a scapegoat for violence in return.
- This public relations representative has a lot more influence than the aliens realized, and though not all of humanity are Jerkasses, humanity still rises up under their corrupt leader's flag during an ensuing species war. It's then they realize that humanity in general isn't to blame for its sins, it's their woefully outdated politics and society that need to be enlightened.
- The Fantastic Racism toward humans was entirely justified, and all humans are doing is proving the aliens’ point.
- Played For Laughs: The human ambassador is a pompous asshole who whizzes on the feet of the alien king, kisses the alien queen, kicks their pet, and gives the chancellor a wedgie.
- Played For Drama: Humanity, upon first meeting another sentient species is immediately branded as a race of bastards, whether it be justified or not. Humanity must continuously prove this to be true in order to survive, leading to an unending war between the two or more forces.
- Played for Horror: Upon their first contact with an alien race, humans brutally murder alien diplomats and publically display their mutilated corpses.
Head back to Humans Are the Real Monsters you human scum! If you're not human, then you're all good. Just head to the non-human housing areas.
