Needs Cleaning Up: Humans Are Bastards

"It sounds like humans are being compared to violent, destructive animals. Who, unlike humans are not evil due to sheer animal stupidity. Humans, though, are malevolent and intelligent."

That actually means the human type of monstrosity is worse, since monsters can't help it.

But doesn't humanity need to be compared to another intelligent species? Or am I missing the point of the trope?

I think the description is making it too narrow. This is a common theme in works even with mindless monsters, like zombies.

The reason why it is misleading is this isn't about people who hate other people, or humans who hate humanity as a whole. That's The Misanthrope, and Hates Everyone Equally. If the title doesn't make it clear this is about another species against humanity, then the rename will not change a thing about how people use it. It should sound like dialog, specifically it should sound like the kind of dialog you'd here when another species puts Humanity on Trial or something.

Calling crowner.

We have a consensus to rename. Let's see some activity.

I think what is wanted is a little bit more than merely "renaming". If I remember correctly, there was some discussion that the misuse could itself be a trope that could be plugged into here. Or if it would be Not A Trope, turn the current page into a disambiguation.

Anyway, do we have some wick check out here to tell what the misuse was? It could help in making the correct decision here.

So is the idea to change the current trope's name to Humans Are the Real Monsters and create a new YKTTW for Humans Are Bastards, or is it supposed to be the other way around?

The current trope is supposed to be renamed to Humans Are the Real Monsters. But we need to know what to do with the wicks for Humans Are Bastards - we need some really detailed wick check to see if a trope transplant, a disambiguation or a plain rename are needed.

Can someone make such a wick check, please?

OK, so I have done the page move and the indexes, but there are some things still to-do:

• Humans Are Bastards is a disambiguation now. Given the very generic name that resembles Jerkass, I've noted it on the disambig, but we may need some more entries there.
  • Or one or more new tropes for a Trope Transplant or split (respectively)
• Wicks need fixing
• Quotes.Humans Are Bastards has 50+ inbounds. While we can't redirect it due to it breaking the navigation via the index bar, it would be nice to do something about them.

Any progress here?

Somebody is already doing the rename (slowly), but we need to know what to do with the Humans Are Bastards page here.

I do want that Humans Are Bastards page to be a trope. You say we need a wick-check?

Yes. To see which trope it is.

Two years and nobody came up with "Earthlings Are Bastards"....Weird.

The trope description for Humans Are the Real Monsters does not reflect the examples. If this is supposed to reflect both fantasy species thinking humans are bastards, and humans thinking they themselves are bastards, then it should be changed. The description as stands explicitly refers to humanity in space, or meeting aliens from another world.

Also, most of these examples are about "humans are bastards" in the broad sense of the term; that is distinct from thinking humans are "the real monsters", I would think. For a start, it implies that the speaker (for lack of a better term) thinks that humans are monsters but they aren't- and again, not reflected in all of the examples.

And there are too many examples of that nature to not at least warrant them their own trope page.

I'd personally like to just revive Humans Are Bastards and give it a better description this time around. And take back all the examples from the "Real Monsters" page and let that one die. If the humans v space aliens thing still holds appeal, come up with a better name.

But that is just me.

edited 5th Jul '12 5:45:07 PM by masamune1

Face value "humans are bastards", with no relation to other races. This ranges from "this one guy is this book is evil" to "the whole story is an author tract about how much humanity sucks":

• Targets
• Swarm On The Somme
• Tales of MU
• Stanley Steamer Space Ship
• Stock Monster Symbolism
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Rune Factory 3
• Rule of Rose
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge
• Real Life (not there anymore)
• Night of the Living Mooks
• Live-Action TV
• Goosebumps
• Galápagos
• Earth That Was
• Antipaladin Blues
• All Hallows Eve

In a work centered around non-humans, all the human characters are bastards:

• Space Goofs
• Over the Hedge
• Leafie A Hen Into The Wild
• Animated Film

The human race does horrible things to other races in a story:

• What Measure Is a Non-Human?
• Star Trek
• The Missing Link
• Literature/Cerberon
• Ambiguous Innocence
• Age of Wonders
• Metro: Last Light

An opinion held by non-human races:

• Yggdra Union
• Tropes G-J

An opinion held by a non-human character:

• Dexter's Laboratory
• The Unofficial MK Vs SF Saga
• Jungledyret Hugo

An opinion held by a human character:

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• Thief
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• The Unofficial MK Vs SF Saga
• Fringe Amber
• Fire Emblem Tellius
• Dancougar Nova

Dunno:

• Summon Night
• Mutant Draft Board
• Water Trilogy

edited 5th Jul '12 6:53:56 PM by abk0100

So...... what, then, about settings where humans are, generally speaking, bastards? Where humans are the only sentient species (or at least the species that gets by far the most screentime and plot focus)? What would that be, if not the rather aptly-fitting Humans Are Bastards? While some settings like this may fall under the new Humans Are the Real Monsters, in which case they've got unthinking animalistic zombies and such, I'm sure there are others where humans are the only main species and there aren't any fantastic elements, such as Nineteen Eighty Four.

I feel that this would usually fall under The Sliding Scale Of Idealism And Cynicism

Earthlings Are Bastards! Can't believe no one thought of that. Maybe we should change all the "Humans Are X" tropes to "Earthlings Are"

That's probably true. But I'd counter that we have Rousseau Was Right ("deep down, people are good). It couldn't hurt to have its opposite too. And, c'mon, no one likes using those sliding scale tropes.

For the record, Rousseau Was Wrong is a redirect to Humans Are the Real Monsters. It was a redirect to Humans Are Bastards previously.

What the hell does Rousseau have to do with aliens? God damn it. If people don't want a trope about the ills of humanity being used in a context that doesn't include other sapient species, okay, but redirects like that absolutely confuse the issue.

I thought Earthlings Are Bastards did come up as a suggestion for the Humans Are the Real Monsters trope back then. It didn't make it to the crowner because people seemed to prefer using "Terrans" instead (for Terrans Are Bastards), until they didn't. I could be misremembering though.

(Edit: hmm, no, reviewing the thread it looks like it never did. That is weird.)

We still do have that sandbox page for the proposed definition of Humans Are Bastards meaning "people are bastards," but it lacks examples.

edited 14th Jul '12 11:55:05 PM by Tyoria

So, someone started a YKTTW for a trope called Man Is A Wolf To Man, which is pretty close to the "humans are bastards" trope we're talking about.

edited 18th Jul '12 6:23:16 AM by abk0100

What's left to do here?

Looks like deciding whether the old "humans suck without comparison to other races" is tropable, and what to do with names and redirects associated with the old page that had significant inbounds and wicks.

Only a wick check can tell what we need to do with the wicks. I personally think "humans are bastards" is a trope - given that Most Writers Are Humans, you would not expect humans to be insufferable jerks?