What Measure Is a Non-Human? in Fan Works.
- In The Butcher Bird, this comes up with regards to Sea Kings. They're intelligent enough that to a ghoul they qualify as a food source, but are treated as little more than wildlife.
- In An Extraordinary Journey, the Ori consider the Cylons useless to their campaign to gain worshippers as the Cylons apparently don't have souls.
- Referenced in the Batman/The Lord of the Rings crossover The Gotham Knights of Middle-Earth; Tim Drake (Robin) and Cassandra Cain (Batgirl) both become part of the War of the Ring, but they never kill any of Sauron's human servants and only use lethal force against the orcs, which Tim compares to Darkseid's Parademons or Doomsday clones as they are nothing but monsters bred for destruction rather than fully sentient beings.
- The second and third books of Infinity Train focus on how denizens are nothing more as props for the passengers to become better people. If they get injured or even wheeled by some more apathetic passengers like the Apex? So what? They don't have numbers so they aren't important. In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail and its prequel, the stance is played with how denizens are affected by the Apex and how bitter and vengeful they are on how these humans have the right to treat them like dirt. It's then flipped over its head when it's revealed that some denizens are actually reincarnated passengers who died while on the Train, one of them being a former Apex child, and thus the Apex are essentially a bunch of serial killers.
- The Many Dates of Danny Fenton (Danny Phantom, Western Animation, TV Series, and Comic Books.): Played With. Danny immediately regrets offending Jenny Wakeman after he accidentally makes an insensitive comment about her being a robot and doesn't hesitate to apologize to her once it sinks in that she has feelings.
- Pony version in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic. Titan's henchponies are artificial beings and considered not worth rescuing by the heroes when the reality they fought in starts to collapse around them and they are too weak to escape.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku initially calls the kaiju spawn inhabiting Korusan Island monsters and bats them away without a second thought. But after realizing that they're trapped on the island due to their inability to swim, he realizes they aren't so different and flies down to apologize to them. Despite being tentacled creatures with shark-like heads who make terrifying screeching noises, he discovers they're quite docile and intelligent when they're not threatened.
- Kyril from The Night Unfurls is a walking defiance of this trope. Indifferent to whatever fantastic race one is, he believes that character is the only thing that matters. Human or non-human, they bleed and die all the same, should anyone choose to cross him or join the Black Dogs.
- In Chapter Five of One Hat to Rule them All
, the Straw Hats don't accept the Orcs and Trolls as Always Chaotic Evil because of their experience with Fantastic Racism in their world, so they refain from killing them, much to the protest of Gondor. Because their meat was in a state of rotting, Luffy concludes that the orcs are only malicious because their master Sauron gave their terrible food. The orcs pretty much go along with it and aid the heroes because they're more scared of Luffy than Sauron.- Though Played for Laughs later when Gandalf has to stop them from shooting down the eagles and eating them.
- In Shinji's Nightmare, Shinji calls out the adults for disregarding his ideas and opinions on his new form after he's become an Alicorn. Such as his desire to stop eating vegetables all the time as his form is clearly an omnivore, only for them to insist "Horses don't eat meat Shinji."
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl crossover The Vampire of Steel, Supergirl is serious about not killing. Vampires, though? She won't slay them herself, but she won't stop Buffy from doing so.
- Marooned in Madagascar does this with Chauncey.
- A Foe in Need has Karl returning to Madagascar after Bruce killed his cockroach friend, devastated and seeking solace with his old Friendly Enemy. But King Julien doesn’t view an insect as a sentient being that’s worth grieving over and deems Karl a drama queen while making half-hearted attempts to cheer the fanaloka up, like forcing him to come to a party (despite Karl hating parties), which ultimately leads to Karl learning the truth about his former nemesis and thinking that his life was always meaningless.
- Later in The Odd Family, Kowalski wrecks Chauncey’s memorial, thinking it was hiding some kind of booby trap, and then refuses to apologize to Karl, citing the latter’s attachment to a “lesser being” as illogical, and promptly makes a bitter enemy out of Karl.
- Trade Us for the World plays with this; initially, Marcy subconsciously sees the residents of Wartwood as NPCs. Once Sprig and Polly call her out on this, she mentally notes that she hasn't been treating them like humans because they don't look human, immediately acknowledging this as a flimsy excuse and vowing to do better.
- Dæmorphing dissects this in much greater detail than in canon. In Welcome Home, during a battle against Hork-Bajir Controllers Jake encounters a Human-Controller and briefly starts his usual consideration when fighting humans, how to get her out of the way without killing her, before giving up on it. The host is present and probably unwilling, but that's the case with most people he fights.
- Eleutherophobia:
- Tom values the lives of humans much more than aliens, especially Yeerks. In Ghost in the Shell, it takes him a while to entertain the idea that the serial killer is human. In The Thing from Another World, he's horrified by the sight of dead humans on the Skrit Na ship, but shoots an "innocent baby smooshball" with no remorse to protect Marco.
- In A Straight Line Down Through the Heart, Cassie mentions that some people want the Hork-Bajir to be legally classed as animals... presumably so they can get away with exploiting them.
- Both played straight and inverted in Gods and Monsters. Each side thinks this about the other.Armitage: If the future of humanity depended on you killing just one Third, would you do it?
Ross: Armitage...
Armitage: Would you?
- Briefly referenced by Vinnie in Evil Jack: Domestic Bliss when he dismisses Charley's new daughter Hannah as "the loopy kid that thinks Charley's her mom" (in Vinnie's defence, at that point he was unaware that Hannah had been genetically engineered by Karbunkle as part of a scheme to get Charley away from the Mice).
- Many Bleach fics touch on this, but Downfall engages this head-on. Unohana treats Hollows with dignity and respect, and as a result, most of the more humane examples gravitate towards her. More importantly, Aizen, of all people, questions Soul Society's "Kill 'em all" mindset. Of course he's a good guy this time around but that's par for the course. The way the war is shaping up, many of the main characters will be forced to confront this concept.
- In Emerald Dawn, Xander learns that many demons take advantage of Buffy always turning in by 2am by simply waiting until then before leaving their lairs. After a couple weeks of sniping every demon he sees, Xander overhears a group of demons talking to their human employer about leaving town due to a new hunter that's killing every demon he sees. In fact, just the other night he'd killed a young couple out for a walk and left their toddler an orphan.
- In Spy Game, members of the Watcher Council are horrified that Xander would kill a human necromancer that was raising an army of zombies but aren't remotely bothered they slaughtered an entire village of Kwaini (a race of universally non-violent demons). That is, until they learn said Kwaini were considered German citizens and now the government wants answers.
- Danganronpa 2/3 Redux: Return Unto Death: In an effort to revive their failing franchise, Team DR comes up with the idea of cloning sixteen former participants, claiming this is a more "humane" way of continuing the Deadly Games. Upon learning this, the survivors are horrified at the prospect. However, it turns out that none of the former participants agree with Team DR and have been trying to shut the game down.
- endure this tragedy that we like to call home: As an artificial intelligence, Kiibo is considered to be the property of his creators, who store his A.I. on a tablet tucked away in a storage closet.
- Three-Point Shot: Kiibo is deeply dismayed when he's informed that Team DR considers him to be nothing more than a walking camera, and that he wouldn't be allowed to leave the academy as he's considered to be nothing more than property.
- Digimon Trinity: Digimon are seen as living beings with the same rights as humans; thus, Rika and Renamon killing Digimon and uploading their data makes them wanted criminals.
- In the Tamers Forever Series, DC briefly questions whether it's right for him to kill a wild Cyclonemon, seeing as how it's only trying to survive. However, he soon decides "it's either him or me".
- Fate/Gamers Only: Rikku considers Mordred rude for calling Victor Frankenstein's artificial human a monster because even as an artificial human, she's still a human.
- In The Fight we Chose, the Gate opens up in the United States during The '60s opening up a doorway to a fantasy medieval world designated by the US government as the 'Special Region'. Back on Earth, a fair amount of debate is brought up regarding the demi-human population and if they scientifically count as humans. Another hot topic contested amongst the politicians is if they should allow these demi-humans the same rights and protection like any fellow American citizen, while the Civil Rights Movement continues to rage on in the background.
- Glitched Miko AU: Oddly averted for the most part. Aside from the evil organization involved in her creation, nobody else whose aware of her status as a Glitch treats her as if she's anything but human.
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
- Frankie Rules points out that things like therapy for imaginary friends are very recent developments, with Eric Johnstone being a psychiatrist who specializes in dealing with imaginary friends.
- The central theme of The Parselmouth of Gryffindor. Wizarding society seems to think the answer to this question is "anything that isn't a Homo Sapiens or maybe a goblin". Hermione disagrees. Vehemently.
- The Rigel Black Chronicles: Harry is rather put out that the first Triwizard Task includes centaurs and a transformed werewolf, both intelligent and in some situations civilised, alongside the acromantulas and manticores.
- A number of Hetalia: Axis Powers fics go into this, in regards to the Nations' Ambiguously Human status and whether or not they do terrible things out of a genuine desire to do so or because they are under their bosses' control. Some, like Human Curiosity, have humans use the Nations for experimentation (and in said fic, one human character speculates that the feelings and actions of the Nations are only reflections of their people, meaning they have no personalities or thoughts of their own and thus are not human).
- A major theme in Unwanted Free Ugly Troll and Loophole. Trolls are shown to be fully capable of thought and emotion, yet are treated as pets and have few rights — one of the goals of the protagonists of both stories is to change this attitude. Loophole, especially, plays this for all the Tear Jerker it's worth; Vriska, a former fighting troll, is viewed as a savage monster by most, when she's really just a scared little girl. She is eventually euthanized by court order.
- A major plot point in It's not the Raptor DNA is that Elise the Indominus rex has self-awareness (thanks to having human DNA as part of her genetic makeup) and the ability to feel empathy, even being able to communicate with humans through sign language. Many characters in the story question the morality of her being owned by a company and used as an attraction in Jurassic World.
- Averted in Kamen Rider Kage after Hikaru and Tao Takashi appear, after which the Akuma are treated with the same respect in death as a human, even getting a hall in the Anti-Akuma HQ dedicated to remembering them.
- Natural Selection: Ryuko's mindset Inverts this mentality. From her perspective, humans are little more than insects and she couldn't care less how many she kills, be they innocent or otherwise. This is because she was brought up by Ragyo to see mankind as nothing more than cattle for the Life Fibers. Meanwhile, anything that happens to the Life Fibers or those connected to them like her family is seen as an inexcusable offense to her. When she saw that Satsuki created a false Kamui, she was so disgusted with what she did to the Life Fibers that she actually vomited. She even goes as far as to compare it to if she decided to make a dress out of stillborn babies.
- Best Enemies delves into this after Bego starts showing signs of sentience, along with a mysterious connection to Joss.
- Discussed and explored in Kirby of the Stars: The After Story throughout the first arc.
- Pureblooded demon beasts have little intelligence and only exist to cause destruction, and according to Meta Knight, they aren't even considered living beings. In the cases of Gooey and Unknown, their higher intelligence among other things helped people to realize that they weren't demon beasts, but something else entirely, and so they're treated very differently. In Gooey's case, it leads to his redemption and making amends with Cappy Village; in Unknown's case, this is still up in the air, but at least Kirby feels more sympathy for him.
- It's also revealed that Kirby has only defeated purebloods over the course of the anime, so there were no qualms about killing them. Now that the enemies he's facing are normal creatures under Demonic Possession, he feels much more pressure to control his powers so that no one is killed or majorly injured.
- The treatment and rights of Waddle Dees are given a larger focus compared to the anime, particularly in Chapters 9 and 10.
- In The Legend of the Princess, the Darknuts and the Bokoblins have stopped being considered enemies of Hyrule. In the past they were seen as monsters for their inhuman look.
- Limitless Potential explores more the humans' perspective about reploids through Dr. Cain and Dr. Fujiwara. After discovering X, Cain treats him as a person while Fujiwara sees him as a means to bolster his career, which includes forcing him to fight and destroy mechaniloids, even reacting with puzzlement when X feels bad for "killing" one in self-defense and generally being annoyed at his reluctance to use his X-Buster. Furthermore, while he agrees to build a new body for Roll at X's request, he doesn't give her the capacity to shed tears (which X is shown to have), judging it as unnecessary, and even refers to them by their serial numbers as opposed to their proper names at first. Fujiwara's daughter Chiyo has a similar view, as after the ten-year Time Skip she doesn't consider reploids that different from mechaniloids, with X and Roll being the only exceptions. She does begin to rethink her views after Sigma begins his rebellion and a navigator in the Maverick Hunters' HQ ends up dying after protecting her from being shot.
- CONSEQUENCES: Discussed in WORLD BEYOND: PART II. Su-Han makes clear that he has no reservations about killing a sentimonster, but Ladybug and Chat Noir intervene, pointing out that Félix is still a sentient being and should face justice for their misdeeds in court.
- Mother Hen: Mayura's heartless murder of Sentibug right after Ladybug had granted the sentimonster freedom leaves Ladybug, Chat Noir and Mother Hen shocked and traumatized.
- The Wavering Peahen: One of the ways Lila abuses the Peacock Pin's powers is by making sentimonster copies of various celebrities in order to fabricate "proof" of her Celebrity Lies. She sees absolutely nothing wrong with disposing of them afterwards, even after her sentimonsters prove sentient enough to recognize her intentions and beg for their lives.
- Phoenix's Tear: Reignition: Inverted by C.P. during Protectorate of the Color Pandora; while he isn't exactly thrilled about it, he's still willing to let Genki risk his life against Stone Dragon, but outright refuses to let any of the younger monsters do the same.
- When Izuku gets captured by the League of Villains in Izuku Midoriya the Rabbit, many Government and HPSC officials advocate against rescuing him since they believe a rabbit (even a sapient one) isn't worth rescuing.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- In Friendship is Optimal, Celest-A.I. has no regard whatsoever for non-human life since she hasn't been programmed with any, and will readily destroy anything non-human she encounters to turn it into more computing resources.
- The Iron Horse: Everything's Better With Robots! features a robotic pony named Turing Test. As she is the first of her kind, a lot of the other characters don't really regard her as a person with rights.
- Sophistication and Betrayal Inverts and Averts this; as the only human in Equestia, the protagonist winds up being granted special protection by Princess Celestia, and it's noted that they're technically covered by the Exotic Creatures Act.
- Would It Matter If I Was centers around Fluttershy discussing this with Twilight as she poses the titular question. After all, changelings are just as intelligent as ponies, and if she was a changeling, wouldn't her very existence prove that their kind are capable of living peacefully amongst them? Would her being a changeling make her life less valuable?
- Explored in A Drop of Poison; most shinobi regard bunshin as nothing more than a temporary means to an end, even the more technically intricate kage bunshin/shadow clones. However, the longer-lived of Naruto's clones prove that they are fully sapient beings, despite being less durable. When Kiritori-sensei sacrifices themselves to protect Muremaru, Muremaru feels deeply guilty afterwards, believing himself to be naturally expendable.
- Obito-Sensei: This is Played for Drama with Kushina, who is so convinced that the Bijuu are Made of Evil that she sees absolutely nothing wrong with how she gets treated for hosting Kurama inside of her. She has internalized this so much that she doesn't even bat a lash at learning Mikoto intended to Mind Rape her into submission, believing they were only making such plans "for the greater good of Konohagakure".
- The Moon Cries in Reverse: Near the end of Lunar Lamentations, Hashirama suffers a Surprisingly Sudden Death. While they had been brought back by the Edo Tensei, Naruto reflects that this doesn't make their demise any less painful for those left behind.
- In Rising of the Dark, anyone who isn't a member of the traditional Light races (Humans, gnomes, dwarves, halflings and high elves) is at best considered animals and at worst are killed on sight. Dark races like orcs, trolls, and dark elves are slaughtered wherever they're found as part of the Great War (which functionally ended nearly a thousand years prior to the story), while more bestial races like Minotaus and Loxodon are hunted like animals. Even the most progressive of the light races are merely uncomfortable with killing the children of dark races and disapprove of hunting bestial races.
- A Crown of Stars: In chapter 20 Asuka and Ching discuss the subject:Ching: I'm active duty Navy. I've got a whole set of combat implants and nanoware boosters. On top of that, you're Homo Sapiens, I'm Homo Avalonis. It not really a fair contest. Even without my military gear, I could outrun cheetahs without much trouble.
Asuka: You're not even human? No fair. And I was already tired, too.
Ching: 'If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?' I'm human, Asuka, I'm just not Homo Sapiens. Mere species is neither the measure nor definition of humanity here. Human is as human does. There are plenty of people on this planet alone who don’t have even a single codon of Homo Sapiens DNA in them, but are very human. And you know damn well there are plenty of people walking around on your world that are one hundred percent Homo Sapiens that are not human in the least. Be careful, some might take what you said as rather an insult.
Asuka: (taken aback by his sharp tone) Sorry. - Neon Genesis Evangelion R: Tenkei's treated as a thing by NERV, even more than Rei was (who Gendo seemed to have genuine affection for). However, he's clearly capable of emotion, forms a close bond with Rei, and is a clone of Kaji. On the other hand, he is a weapon of war and has quasi-deific rings to him.
- Exactly how human Gestalts, Replicants, and Grimoires are treated in Tower of Babel depends on how much information the characters have. Nier killed Gestalts without mercy because he thought they were just monsters. When he finds out that they are sapient beings, he is horrified. Relapsed Gestalts, however, really are mindless monsters that will kill everyone in their path and cannot be reasoned with.
- Discussed on multiple occasions in A Mid-Sinnoh Night's Dream. For the most part, Psychic-types are only a step below humans, as they are as or more intelligent than most humans but are still definitely Pokemon. The same goes for most others, excluding the majority of Water and Bug-types, as fish and bugs are generally accepted to not have sapience. It's implied that fish are the only legal source of meat in-universe. Hilbert considers everything else to be around the same level of existence, and tries not to place himself above his partners.
- The Power That's Inside centers around this question.
- Zorua Trainer reimagines Ash as a Zorua disguising themselves as human. Due to this, he frequently tries to impress upon others that pokémon are just as sentient as humans. Notably, when lecturing Goh about his cavalier attitude towards catching 'mons, it's Misty who yells at Goh about how pokémon are just like people.
- The Utonium Trials revolves around this. Professor Utonium is arrested and put on trial for breaking the "Neo-Tokyo Protocol", which puts strict restrictions on chemistry, biology, and robotics worldwide. The Powerpuff Girls are deemed dangerous monsters on the grounds of being Artificial Humans. The fic revolves around trying to prove they're just like any other normal kids their age.
- Personality Conflicts: Under galactic law, Alpha 5 is not considered to be a living being, despite how he's achieved sentience and is considered by most of the Rangers to be their brother.
- An important theme for the four in The Keys Stand Alone, inasmuch as they pretty much regard everything with a brain and a face, and even large plants, as Things Not To Be Harmed. To the point where they get into trouble because they refuse to harm monsters that everyone else gladly slaughters. (Mind you, a war is more or less taking place, but they're there involuntarily.)
- Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness deals with this on a frequent basis:
- Throughout the first four acts of the fic, the angels consider all monsters automatically evil: upon death, monsters are automatically sent to Limbo, whereas demons such as Kurumu and Dark are sent to Hell by default. In fact, Rason was nearly executed for murdering an evil human man that was about to rape a good monster girl, but one of the elders instead elected to give Rason a chance to prove that monsters can be good by having him exiled and sent to Yokai Academy. On another side, in Act IV chapter 16, they outright state that, even if Hokuto is a monster now, he is still considered human in their eyes because he was born a human. As of the end of Act IV, the angels have accepted that monsters can be good to, and arrange for some to be sent to Heaven.
- In Acts V and VI, the Human Defense Agency, a Creature-Hunter Organization founded in the wake of The Unmasqued World, is rather quick to write off all monsters as evil, even believing that the monsters orchestrated Alucard's resurrection just so they could kill him and make themselves look like heroes; one HDA soldier in particular outright tells Moka and Akasha to their faces that he doesn't even consider monsters animals. On two different occasions, members of the HDA ask if they can guarantee that no further monster attacks will happen; as is pointed out, they can't guarantee it because monsters have free will just like humans, with Akasha remarking that perhaps monsters wouldn't be so eager to attack humans if the HDA didn't constantly threaten them.
- A key factor throughout the entire series is that Tsukune and co. constantly argue that "a life is a life, no matter what it is." In short, they themselves value all life, human and monster alike.
- Pawprints:
- Humans born with animorphism powers called "Panthers" are considered sub-human. If they don't integrate into society as humans, it's okay to kill them. Hunters and Huntresses routinely kill them (even cubs) and, if they're in animal form when they die, it's not uncommon to skin them for their pelts.
- Animal-born Panthers are killed upon birth. Unlike human-born ones, they're considered too dangerous to let live. Humans see them as simple-minded animals who simply pretend to be human in order to get close to their prey.
- In SERZ: Sonic: Evil Reborn Zero, this comes up during Episode 15, "Rockette's Revenge" but is lampshaded multiple times before.
- The Stargate SG-1 fic “The Power of a Kiss” adds an interesting twist to the events of “Tin Man”; with Sha’re part of the SGC, after the robot SG-1 have been identified as copies rather than the originals transplanted into robot forms, Sha’re volunteers to have her consciousness copied into another robot so that the robot Daniel doesn’t lose her, recognizing that the robot Daniel is still her husband in a sense.
Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go
- The plot of The Truth of Fatherhood is set in motion when a man claiming to be Chiro's biological father returns and demands his son come with him. When he is denied, Chiro's father sues the Hyper Force for custody. A major problem is that while the Hyper Force are technically Chiro's legal guardians due to housing him in a non-abusive family for more than two years (as per Shuggazoom City law), some refuse to see it that way due to them not being human. The Hyper Force manages to win the case, only to find out that the whole thing was a distraction by Mandarin to enact his real plan of turning Chiro into a monster.
- Hellsister Trilogy: Superman and Supergirl are immensely reluctant to kill humans, but they aren't at all bothered by the fact that they destroyed hundreds of Darkseid's winged demons in battle.
- Limpet AU: The second story, Driving Lord Vader, has Darth Vader destroy a couple of media droids who were harassing his grandson and namesake, Anakin, on their way to the latter's driving license test. Anakin objects to his grandfather killing the droids, but Vader dismisses his complaints, stating that droids are not alive. When Anakin asks if he'd be that indifferent to droid life if it was Artoo, Vader dismisses the comparison by saying that R2-D2 is "different".
- In Splint, most people — including Cadoc to start with — see Orcs as nothing but violent monsters who deserve everything they get. To be fair, Orcs do have a tendency to commit Rape, Pillage, and Burn and kill humans indiscriminately. However, when Cadoc meets and gets to know Rukhash, he begins to view them more sympathetically and reassesses his previous beliefs about them. There are also some humans out there, such as the Dunlendings, who feel more kinship to Orcs than other Men and sided with them during the war for various reasons. The narrative itself largely takes the view that Both Sides Have a Point and that Orcs are just as much people as humans, with all that entails.
- In Everqueen, Isha does her best to alleviate all suffering, not just that of Eldar, but also of humans and even Machine Spirits.
- The Dark Fic Lost Causes focuses on this. Toons have no rights whatsoever and are seen as little more than a commodity. Jessica was created with the mentality of an infant and it took a while for mind to catch up with her body, yet she was still used in pornographic animation nevertheless. She spent her past living at the bottom of the Toon hierarchy and being abused by near everyone who interacted with her, until she was rescued by Roger.
Other/Unsorted
- Played with in Mary-Sue Hunter stories. While series like Protectors of the Plot Continuum can give a Sue the option of joining a hunter organization's ranks, others treat the Sues as little more than human-shaped anomalies that need to be exterminated.
