History AlwaysChaoticEvil / Literature

** The Hork-Bajir, used as shock troops by the Yeerks, ''seem'' evil (they look like roughly humanoid raptor-type dinosaurs with knife blades growing all over them), but once we meet free Hork-Bajir, they turn out to be peaceful and good-natured, although on the lower end of the IQ scale for sentient beings with the exception of the "Seers". They didn't even have a concept of war before the Yeerks invaded their planet; when Seer Dak Hamee first gets attacked by a Hork-Bajir-Controller, he ''cannot'' understand what's happening, since the thought of another Hork-Bajir purposefully hurting him had never occurred to him before. The blades growing from their bodies are for climbing and harvesting tree bark, their main food source. They were, in fact, genetically engineered by the natives of their homeworld to keep the world's decidedly fragile ecosystem stable by acting as a species of arboretum keepers.

** The [[PuppeteerParasite Yeerks]] are built up as a monolithically evil species who enslave other races because they're dicks. However, we later learn that Yeerk "slugs" without hosts are almost blind and deaf, and can only swim about feebly in small pools; thus, the fact that they possess other species is understandable, if not commendable. Later still, we encounter Yeerks who do not agree with enslaving other species and either enter a voluntary commensal relationship, or live out their lives in Yeerk Pools. Even later, we find out that [[spoiler: the Iskoort, which consist of the 'Isk' and the 'Yoort' (the later of which is basically a Yeerk) generate artificial "Isk" bodies to live in which have no minds of their own... and have genetically altered the Yoorts to ''only'' be able to live inside an Isk as a nod to playing nice with other sentient species]].

** The Hork-Bajir, used as shock troops by the Yeerks, ''seem'' evil (they look like roughly humanoid raptor-type dinosaurs with knife blades growing all over them), but once we meet free Hork-Bajir, they turn out to be peaceful and good-natured, although on the lower end of the IQ scale for sentient beings with the exception of the "Seers". They didn't even have a concept of war before the Yeerks invaded their planet; when Seer Dak Hamee first gets attacked by a Hork-Bajir-Controller, he ''cannot'' understand what's happening, since the thought of another Hork-Bajir purposefully hurting him had never occurred to him before. The blades growing from their bodies are for climbing and harvesting tree bark, their main food source. They were, in fact, genetically engineered by the natives of their homeworld to keep the world's decidedly fragile ecosystem stable by acting as a species of arboretum-keepers.

** The [[PuppeteerParasite Yeerks]] are built up as a monolithically evil species who enslave other races because they're dicks. However, we later learn that Yeerks without hosts are almost blind and deaf, and can only swim about feebly in small pools; thus, the fact that they possess other species is understandable, if not commendable. Later still, we encounter Yeerks who do not agree with enslaving other species and either enter a voluntary commensal relationship, or live out their lives in Yeerk Pools. Even later, we find out that [[spoiler: the Iskoort, which consist of the 'isk' and the 'yoort' (the later of which is basically a yeerk) generate artificial "isk" bodies to live in which have no minds of their own... and have genetically altered the yoorts to ''only'' be able to live inside an isk as a nod to playing nice with other sentient species]].
** Taxxons are vicious, cannibalistic monsters who are constantly in the grip of an absolutely irresistible hunger, and who apparently voluntarily submitted themselves to Yeerk domination. However, they are also intelligent, and there is a group of rebels on their home world fighting against the Yeerks. Their vicious nature is a result of evolving on one of the harshest planets in the galaxy. In the end, [[spoiler:they all morph into pythons and live out their lives as animals to escape the constant hunger]]. The reason they volunteered themselves for controllership was ''also'' an attempt to free themselves of the hunger. This didn't work.
** The Howlers were a fascinating {{subver|tedTrope}}sion. They were created by the GodOfEvil / EldritchAbomination Crayak, and had spent at least thousands of years wiping out countless species across the galaxy for no apparent reason. Cassie, however, refused to believe they were Always Chaotic Evil if they were truly sentient. When Jake eventually morphs one and gets to experience its natural instincts, he finds out [[spoiler:that their minds are closest to ''dolphins''.[[note]]This book was written [[ScienceMarchesOn before we gained a better understanding of what dolphins are really like.]][[/note]] They're childlike and playful, and [[InnocentAliens honestly don't know that other species have sentience]] until the Animorphs infect their HiveMind with their own memories]]. They have no concept of death or suffering, since any Howler who experiences pain or injury is destroyed before its personal memories can enter the HiveMind. They basically think they're living in a giant game.
** The Hork-Bajir ''seem'' evil (they look like dinosaurs with knives growing all over them), but once we meet free Hork-Bajir, they turn out to be peaceful and good-natured. They didn't even have a concept of war before the Yeerks invaded their planet; when Dak Hamee first gets attacked by a Hork-Bajir-Controller, he ''cannot'' understand what's happening, since the thought of another Hork-Bajir purposefully hurting him had never occurred to him before. The blades growing from their bodies are for climbing and harvesting tree bark, their main food source. They were, in fact, genetically engineered by the natives of their homeworld to keep the world's decidedly fragile ecosystem stable by acting as a species of arboretum-keepers.

* ''Literature/BooksOfTheRaksura'': {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Fell. They're introduced as a HordeOfAlienLocusts whose hive rulers are [[TheSociopath rapacious sociopaths]] with [[BadPowersBadPeople mind-control powers]]. However, the third book adds two heroic half-Fell [[OrcRaisedByElves who were raised by Raksura]]. The fourth then introduces a rogue Fell hive whose ruler learned basic morality from a Raksura BreedingSlave and now leads by consensus rather than mind control; given free will, even the {{Mooks}} turn out to have goals and desires very similar to the Raksura, dreaming of founding a safe, stable colony.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' has the Elves/Fairies, most of which are Always ChaoticEvil, although Nac Mac Feegle are more Always Chaotic Neutral. And the Auditors, who are Always LawfulEvil (from humanity's point of view) [[spoiler: except, eventually, for Myria [=LeJean=]]]. And the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, which [[EldritchAbomination are beyond human morality]], and often too stupid to understand it. And Demons, who are evil. Every other race, however, subverts this by being stereotyped as vicious monsters by humans but actually being mostly quite nice.

* ''Exordia'' by Seth Dickinson contains a deconstruction. The titular Exordia is a tyrannical, genocidal intergalactic empire ruled by a race of snake aliens called khai who not only are all ontologically evil on such a level that other species immediately know they're evil simply by looking at them, due to a special psychic effect called the cultratic brand, but provably all go to hell when they die. (Their scientists checked.) It has absolutely nothing to do with their choices; the species was marked long before they formed the Exordia, and no amount of goodness removes the brand or the damnation. Ssrin, a khai who has given up everything and repeatedly risked her life to free the galaxy from the Exordia, horrifies humans by her mere presence even when she's actively in the middle of rescuing them and will go to hell right along with her gleefully genocidal kin. Knowing this has utterly warped Exordian culture--while Ssrin is far from the only rebel khai, and there are plenty of non-rebels who nevertheless oppose the empire's worst excesses, the species as a whole has essentially flung up their hands and decided ThenLetMeBeEvil. [[spoiler: At the end of the book, it's revealed the cultratic brand is actually a ''signature''--somebody did this to them, and the cosmic weapon awakened by the protagonists intends to find out just who.]]

* In the ''Literature/InCryptid'' universe, the telepathic predators known as "cuckoos"; the Price family, whose entire deal is peaceful cohabitation with nonhumans, has a shoot-on-sight order for them. Every cuckoo is by human standards an insane sociopath, literally from birth; pregnant cuckoos spend nine months telepathically immersing the fetus in their worldview, and by the time the kid is born, the conditioning is in deep. The only known exceptions are a cuckoo with no receptive telepathy and the adoptive daughter she spent a great deal of time deprogramming.

* [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Goblins]] in ''Literature/GoblinSlayer''. Make no mistake, the goblins here are possibly [[NightmareFuel the most absolutely vile and depraved depiction]] of the standard fantasy goblin in modern fiction. Every goblin is without exception a self-obsessed and pitiless savage who would watch every other living thing on the planet die with a smile, including a fellow goblin. Adventurers captured by goblins can expect to be tortured, EatenAlive and, [[MarsNeedsWomen in the case of female adventurers]], [[RapeAsDrama raped]]. There is a conversation brought up from time to time about whether benevolent goblins exist or not, and interestingly enough, the eponymous Goblin Slayer himself -- who's a shameless full-blown SociopathicHero when it comes to killing goblins -- ''does'' actually believe that there might be goblins who aren't evil. But the way he sees it, if they ''do'' exist, they're likely to keep to themselves rather than seeking out any sort of interaction with humans in the first place, and his viewpoint is only reinforced by the sheer evilness of virtually every goblin the cast ever comes in contact with.

* The "Trolls" in ''Literature/TheApocalypseTroll'' by David Weber. Though only one is technically featured, the rest are described as just as psychopathic, manipulative, and {{omnicidal|Maniac}}. They're like robots, but with the apparent ability to choose not to kill everything in their path -- they just choose to do so, most of the time.\\
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Unfortunately, they're not actual robots. They're [[BrainInAJar human brains, often cloned when "fresh" ones are unavailable]] -- and guess ''how'' they get the fresh ones -- which are then tortured horribly to the point where all they want to do is [[OmnicidalManiac kill everything]] in revenge for being made into what they now are. Given the choice, which they do ''not'' have, they'd turn on their masters in a heartbeat. Then go back to killing humans because it's "[[ForTheEvulz fun]]". Their creators, nicknamed the Kangas (and guess what they look like), are psychopathically xenophobic because of their religion that states that anything appearing as a non-Kanga is the Devil in another disguise.

* Creator/LFrankBaum:
** The good witches of the ''[[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]]'' books were a subversion of witches as Always Chaotic Evil.
** In TheFilmOfTheBook ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', the Wicked Witch's guards are expected to be the {{mook|s}} version of this trope, but once Dorothy defeats the Witch, the guards thank her and praise her. This doesn't happen in the book, as it was explicitly stated that the Wicked Witch had enslaved the Winkies (the people of Western Oz).
** The Mangaboos play this straight, as they are violently xenophobic towards anyone who enters their territory, and have no problems with [[TheScapegoat blaming]] and [[WouldHurtAChild ordering the executions of children]] for ''natural'' disasters. It is implied that [[BigGood Princess Ozma]] had them all exterminated afterwards for their cruelty towards Dorothy.

* Justified in Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/CouncilWars'' series. The Changed who make up the majority of New Destiny's military forces may be innocent victims, but thanks to the engineering of MadScientist Celine Reinshafen, they're evil, raping, pillaging, killing machines to the core. When they aren't just DumbMuscle, who are also evil.
* In ''Jim Butcher's'' ''Literature/CodexAlera'' series, this is played straight at first and averted later. The Canim and Icemen are considered mindless killing machine races by the Alerans, and their Relationship with the Marat is only slightly better. Until, of course, they get to know them and begin to understand the differences between their cultures that have lead to conflict int he past. The Vord play this straight, being essentially a HordeOfAlienLocusts. The Queens are the only actually sapient members of the species, controlling the other members in the process of destroying all other life.

** Played with in a later book, when a high-ranking demon defects to join the good guys after [[spoiler: seeing Artorian [[OneManArmy single-handedly wipe out all his forces.]] ]] He [[TokenEvilTeammate shows no signs of actually being good,]] he's simply driven by self-interest and not wanting to be on the losing side of the conflict. Later, as Artorian eventually begins to treat him well for his help, the demon [[GoodFeelsGood starts to feel good about it,]] which [[EvilCannotComprehendGood leaves him nauseated.]]

* From ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'':
** All three kinds of [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]] are regarded as this by the White Council, and the fact that they naturally prey on humans means it's largely accurate. Black Court vampires are straight-up killing machines, Red Court are vicious predators who can at least put on a veneer of humanity to manipulate their victims, but are ultimately dominated by blood-lust. White Court are minor deconstruction -- they are essentially composed of a human and demon in symbiosis, and while the demon is an Always Chaotic Evil predator, the human is more or less just a person. Of course the demon still does have to be fed (although it can be and often is done non-lethally), so White Court vampires who try to resist it are few and far between.

* Creator/DavidEddings:
** The countries and, thus, races in ''Literature/TheBelgariad'' are dramatically stereotyped: the Drasnians are sneaky, while the Arends are all brash to the point of stupidity and definitely belong somewhere in a pseudo-medieval hierarchy. The bad guys are split into a number of groups, but can all be described simply as "bad guys". There are degrees of nuance hinted at in the first series, but this isn't really expanded upon until the sequel.
*** The author handwaves this by having the "races" be the product of selection by the gods and the corresponding influence the god in question had on them - where Aldur's original disciples all ended up looking somewhat like him over the centuries, the same seems to have happened on a societal level with the rest. Chaldan, god of the Arends, values honour and courage over brains (or, at least, common sense). So when he got to select his chosen people, he picked accordingly, their traits were driven into overdrive, and things got predictably out of hand from there. Belar's a brash, irreverent young god with a fondness for the ladies and drinking, so the same happens with the Alorns. Likewise, the Angaraks were bad guys in large part because they were driven to it by a bad god who wasn't pushing them in the sequel, being dead.
*** The author justifies this in the ''Belgariad'' by stating that the three "bad guy" countries are controlled by [[ReligionOfEvil a rigid and invasive religious hierarchy of the cruel god]]. This means that, for the Belgariad, all the antagonists are products of a chaotic evil society. The most "liberal" of the three is still populated by people who fear the priest caste. The fourth "bad guy" country is governed by a more cosmopolitan and urbane group, and, thus, is less chaotic.
** In the sequel series, the ''Malloreon'', however, the author takes great pains to humanize at least some of the bad guys, usually by adding them to the protagonist's adventuring party. At that point, the Angarak nations get more distinguished by their individual [[PlanetOfHats hats]] than the fact that they're evil, with the general impression being that they're all human, for better or worse.
** The Nadraks and Thulls are never really presented as evil. The Nadraks tend to be more closely aligned with the Drasnians than their fellow Angaraks, and the Thulls are straight up victims of Angarak society and will quite happily surrender to any western force that happens by just to get away from the Grolims.
** Likewise, nuances hinted at in the first series are expanded upon:
*** The Arendish hat of pride and courage leads to endless, needless conflict over arcane concepts of revenge and they never bother to ''talk'' to each other, and their society is built on the misery of serfdom, which is barely a step up from slavery - oh, and one of the Duchies wiped out the third, Wacune, entirely.
*** The Tolnedrans are ruthlessly mercenary, having explicitly committed a total and brutal genocide of the Marags for the sake of the rich gold reserves in the country and sold the survivors into slavery to the Murgos, the most 'evil' of the bad guy nations (and that because for the five centuries before the main series it was ruled by a dynasty with hereditary madness, and ''really'' ruled from behind the scenes by [[SorcerousOverlord Ctuchik]]). Their capital is repeatedly referred to as the most corrupt city in the world, and their politics are noted to be barely any less vicious than the Angarak civil war in the second series.
*** The Nyissans are perpetually drugged and are perpetual opportunists. However, as Sadi, the main Nyissan viewpoint character points out, drugs aren't that different from the Alorn habit of binge-drinking (and it's eventually chalked up to cultural differences), and Nyissa is a tiny, swampy kingdom that's caught between the resident superpowers of the Alorns and the Angaraks, so they have to play both sides against the middle just to survive - and to avoid antagonising the other, again, to survive, because the last time they really enraged the Alorns, the Alorns nearly wiped them out.
*** The negative side of the Alorns is shown in greater detail: the arch-conservatism and sexism that's present even in sympathetic characters is dialled up several notches into xenophobic misogyny (they despise Ce'Nedra simply for being Tolnedran) and a desire to conquer all the other Western Kingdoms, RapePillageAndBurn style, by [[TheFundamentalist the Bear-Cult]], who are the single most fanatical and violent religious group outside of the Grolims - and they repeatedly try to seize power in the Alorn Kingdoms throughout both series, something that's revealed to have been going on for thousands of years. Similarly, there's a general streak of savagery in the Alorn nature, with witch-burnings being far from unknown, and Arendish style feuds aren't unknown - clan wars are mentioned, and Brand explicitly says that Alorns are almost as impulsively emotional as Arends. Which, like Arends, leaves them vulnerable to being manipulated.

* ''Literature/EndersGame'': Subverted -- [[spoiler: the buggers are presented as this until the end of the book]].
* The dark elves (a.k.a. moredhel, a.k.a. Brotherhood of the Dark Path) from Creator/RaymondEFeist's ''[[Literature/TheRiftwarCycle Midkemia]]'' series are presented as ruthless, murderous, and unscrupulous. In an interesting twist, they are of the same blood as the eledhel, the High Elves of the series. It's explained that their differences are solely cultural, and that their cruel tendencies are mostly due to the lingering influence of their former dragon rider masters, the destructive Valheru. They're shown to have grey areas, and have ProudWarriorRaceGuy and NobleDemon tendencies. Occasionally, a moredhel will leave his or her people and join the eledhel, after which, he or she is considered an eledhel.
** The Pantathians are snake-people who are described and shown to be [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent alien and destructive in their very natures, with no chance of redemption]] (even a Pantathian that's hatched from its egg minutes earlier will attack any non-Pantathian on sight). But they're justified by [[spoiler:having been created by an evil mistress as minions]].
** The various extradimensional creatures, such as the demons and the Dread, neither of which have ever been shown doing anything ''besides'' trying to destroy the world and devour all life. They're too alien to life on our plane to coexist peacefully with it.
** The Dasati in the ''Darkwar'' subseries are introduced as Always Chaotic Evil, to the point that their society hunts down and kills their own pregnant women and children to ensure that only the strongest will survive their attacks, and there are no doctors or healers. However, we quickly learn that there is a secret society known as the White that is working to reform their culture, and they are not irredeemably evil.
** The one race in the Riftwar-verse that is utterly and irredeemably evil is the Valheru, a.k.a. The Dragon Lords. Beings of nigh-godlike power, who ride dragons throughout the multiverse, looting whatever worlds capture their fancy, and killing and eating all manner of other creatures, including each other. While not sadistic, the Valheru are power-hungry, completely immoral, and so powerful that they cannot be allowed to be free...well, anywhere.
*** Though the novels themselves point out that the Valheru aren't so much ''evil'' as they are ''other'' -- they come from a time when [[BlueAndOrangeMorality good and evil were meaningless concepts]], unlike the modern world after new gods arose, and as such, can't really be allowed free reign anywhere in it because they upset the balance of the universe just by doing what Valheru do (which is to say, whatever they please).
** This is actually discussed in a scene depicting a meeting between the king and his council of advisors in ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'' novel ''Rise of a Merchant Prince'' about the Pantathian threat. Calis, one of hid advisors bluntly points out how how different they are from the other opponents the kingdom has faced after the king objects to the idea of slaughtering their eggs and young:
--->''"You may somehow think that these creatures are born innocent. That is not the case. Everything we know about them says they are born hating from the moment they hatch from their eggs. They are created to be the way they are. If we killed every adult and child, and took the eggs, and hatched them in this palace, raising those who were born here, they would come to consciousness hating us and seeking to reclaim this 'lost goddess' they so mistakenly believe in. It is their nature to be this way, as it is the nature of a viper to bite and poison. They cannot help it any more than can the viper. You may someday forge a treaty with the Brotherhood of the Dark Path, as you call the moredhel. You may see goblins obeying Kingdom law and visiting our town markets in some dimly imagined future. You may see open borders with Great Kesh and free travel between the two nations. But you will never know a moment's peace in this world so long as a Pantathian draws breath. Because it is in his nature to scheme, kill, and do whatever needs to be done to seize the Lifestone in Sethanon and reclaim the 'lost goddess' Alma Lodaka, the Dragon Lord who created him."''

* ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'': The [=HorrorLand=] monsters, who run a [[AmusementParkOfDoom deadly amusement park]] to kill families for fun. They may act welcoming and friendly at times, but don't let this fool you -- [[FauxAffablyEvil it's an act]]. They'd serve you up for lunch as soon as amuse you. And their idea of "amusing people" is to scare them to death or put them in lethal traps.
* In the fairy tale '''Literature/GorgoTheOgre''', all Black Ogres are evil, twisted and malevolent, with their king being this up to eleven, so much that his own subjects are afraid of him.
* In ''Literature/{{The Guardians|MeljeanBrook}}'', both the nosferatu and the demons are Always Chaotic Evil. Justified in that the demons are {{Fallen Angel}}s who followed Lucifer in his rebellion against God, and the nosferatu are the angels who did not choose a side and were cast down to Earth.

* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', we have a race which is Always LawfulStupid: the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat callous and bureaucratic]] Vogons. Douglas Adams came up with a justification for this which was put into the movie; the Vogon homeworld is covered in paddles that fly up and whack you in the face whenever you have an idea.

---> "''... That was just the name of their'' '''race'''. ''The name of their army was something quite horrific''."

* Christopher Paolini's ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'':
** The Urgals play with the trope. Early on they are treated this way, as apparently they've hated humanity from the get-go (and vice-versa). The Urgals are presented as primitive, monstrous creatures that have no issues with killing and will do anything to get what they want, which seems to be death to all the other races. Later on we find out that one of the key sources of conflict is that they physical strength and combat victories basically determine their entire cultural hierarchy, and their coming of age ritual is to send the young Urgal off into the woods to kill literally anything. However later in the series we learn that Urgals do have an organized society and care for one another in a manner to dissimilar from humans. They were misled by Galbatorix into working for him (he plans to exterminate them eventually) and start helping the Varden after they realize what a screwup the whole arrangement was. [[spoiler: After the war with Galbatorix ends Eragon attempts to help bring peace by setting up an Olympics style tournament to replace the previous system of combat victories dictating prestige. Their leaders have doubts about how well it'll work until Eragon reveals he also plans to modify the spell to allow Urgals (as well as Dwarves) ''become Dragon Riders.'']]

* The Posleen from Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/LegacyOfTheAldenata'' series at first seem to be this -- they are a voracious HordeOfAlienLocusts that loot worlds and eat the inhabitants. However, it is later revealed that they are genetically engineered {{Super Soldier}}s created by a long-gone alien race, and are merely following their programming. Individual Posleen even show some level of nobility when they are viewpoint characters. Michael O'Neal, Jr even comments that he does not hate the Posleen, but if he ever runs into their creators, he'll ''really'' hate them.
* Creator/RASalvatore plays with this trope in his ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' books. [[TheLegionsOfHell Denizens of the Abyssal planes]] fit the trope; drow mostly stay true, with one very notable exception (and a small group of Chaotic Good drow that end up dead); orcs were monolithically portrayed as such until Obould showed up and started civilizin' the lot.

* The German SF series ''Literature/{{Maddrax}}'' has the [[FishPeople hydrites]]. They are actually a peaceful and benign species, morally much more developed than humans. However, when they eat meat, they immediately become [[EvilFeelsGood vicious and aggressive]].
** The [[{{Ratmen}} taratzes]] were initially presented in this way, but you have seen again and again good taratzes. With them, it is more like a case of ''Mostly Chaotic Evil''.
* The Koloss in Creator/BrandonSanderson's ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' trilogy, explained in the third book by appropriately horrific sorts of mutation and mind control. Played with in the form of Kelsier, the Legendary Hero Whose Name The Masses Whisper In The Iron Grip Of The Evil Emperor, who thinks of everyone on the opposing side as Agents Of The Darkest Evil Who Must Be Purged. Most of his crew, while on board with the whole rebellion thing, are deeply unnerved.

* Subverted and discussed in ''{{Literature/Nevermoor}}''. Most characters ''think'' Wundersmiths are this, but Jupiter points out that there are good and bad people in ''every'' group, and the idea of an ''entire'' class of hundreds of people all being irredeemably evil is complete nonsense. [[spoiler:As proof, our heroine Morrigan is herself a Wundersmith, and despite the prejudice she faces, she's a kind, clever, sensitive young girl. [[BigBad Ezra Squall]], the one known as ''The'' Wundersmith, really ''is'' as bad as people say, though, meaning it's mostly a case of one Chaotic Evil guy making a bad name for everybody.]]
* The Dead in Creator/GarthNix's ''Literature/OldKingdom'' trilogy. They were originally humans, [[ZombieApocalypse but have been reanimated]]. They'll suck the Life out of anything even if they ''aren't'' allied under a necromancer. Being an animated, twisted sin against the cosmic order will do that to ya. Specifically, the Dead NEED to kill living beings in order to remain active. This is well known among citizens of the Old Kingdom, so anyone who ''isn't'' evil chooses to walk past the Ninth Gate.

* The Epics in Brandon Sanderson's ''Literature/TheReckonersTrilogy'' are regular people who have been gifted with superpowers. A side effect of using those powers is to drive the user paranoid and violent, causing every single one to subjugate and oppress normal people, when not fighting each other for dominance.

** Veil in ''[[Literature/{{Redwall}} The Outcast of Redwall]]'' [[spoiler:[[HeelFaceTurn turns good]] at the end of the book. However, he [[RedemptionEqualsDeath dies from it]]]]. Bryony's theory is that [[ThenLetMeBeEvil he turned bad precisely because it was expected of him]]; he was always accused of theft when something went missing and generally treated like a bomb about to go off by the rest of the Abbey dwellers, so he started living up to their expectations out of spite. Oddly, at the end she decides he was evil all along, even after he'd saved her life.
** Then there's Blaggut from ''[[Literature/{{Redwall}} The Bellmaker]]'', the only vermin who isn't evil from the moment of his entrance. He's a decent guy who gets manipulated by his traditionally-evil captain. [[spoiler:Eventually, he strangles the captain to death for having murdered the abbey's Badger Mother, and then leaves Redwall out of guilt. It's established that he pays it regular visits afterward, and the Dibbuns are very fond of him.]]

** Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall series, has explained on his website that most of his animal creations are based on the mythological interpretations of the animals -- wolves and foxes are sly and clever creatures, badgers are noble and proud, and birds such as sparrows are based on the author's personal observations of sparrows in his back yard (note that the sparrows aren't truly evil-only one of their kings). He also stated a dislike of moral ambiguity in his work: "Goodies are good, and baddies are bad" as he put it.

** On the other side, there were only a few evil examples from the good species-a couple voles, and one shrew.

* Subverted in Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/TheScar''. The Grindylows are set up like this, but it is revealed that [[spoiler:they are merely zealous defenders of hearth and home]]. A throwaway line in the next novel, ''Literature/IronCouncil'', reveals that they have become allies of New Crobuzon against Tesh.

* The Kibmadine from Creator/AEVanVogt's short story ''The Silkie''. Telepathic, shapeshifting literal sexual predators whose chief delight is [[MindRape changing]] the victims' terror into a longing to be eaten alive.

* It's perhaps inevitable that the ''Franchise/{{Star Wars|Expanded Universe}}'' ExpandedUniverse be chockfull of alien species whose cultures cling closely to the stereotype of PlanetOfHats, especially when they play minor or relatively minor roles -- and all too often, the particular stereotype is that they're all criminals, barbarians, or savage warriors. The writers do try to justify this by often giving the species a plausible FreudianExcuse: they're ignorant (such as the Noghri, who serve the Empire because they're superstitious primitives and don't know any better), [[CultureJustifiesAnything it's part of their culture]] (the Rodians ''had'' to become ruthless bounty hunters to survive the predators on their homeworld), or they're just ''horribly'' misguided (the Trandoshans, [[ReligionOfEvil whose goddess they worship]] [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything promises to reward them in the afterlife for committing murders and certain other atrocities]]). A particularly tragic case were the ancient Sith, who suffered from a ''[[VillainousLineage genetic mutation]]'' that predisposed them toward the Dark Side of the Force. But there's no justification for the vile Hutts: while their extreme arrogance can be chalked up to their mythical beliefs (according to their mythology, [[AGodAmI they are literally gods]]), nothing could ever excuse their incredible sexual perversity and cruelty, even to the point that [[ComedicSociopathy the suffering of other creatures is their primary form of entertainment]]. Not ''all'' Hutts are sadistic, and a few are willing to stay out of the Hutt crime syndicates (though mostly out of pragmatism or apathy), but trusting a Hutt is still only something you should ever do if you have some kind of power over them.
* The [[Literature/NewJediOrder Yuuzhan Vong]] are initially introduced as being pure evil down to the last warrior, but [[NotAlwaysEvil it turns out]] that they're caught up in the stranglehold of a ReligionOfEvil that is manipulated by their insane leadership. Over the course of the later books, we're introduced to Yuuzhan Vong who are more human, for lack of a better word, and in the end, a lot of them wind up doing a HeelFaceTurn or committing suicide when they find out that the gods they were fighting for were either horribly misinterpreted or (in one case) didn't exist at all.\\
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Being ScaryDogmaticAliens is a cultural thing (due to living under a ReligionOfEvil for millennia and mass SenseLossSadness from losing their connection to the Force). There's nothing in the Yuuzhan Vong's genetic makeup that causes them to be evil, and several of them are given sympathetic [=POVs=] later in the series (Nen Yim, Harrar, Vua Rapuung -- even [[MagnificentBastard Nom Anor]] to an extent). Jacen explicitly says they're no better or worse than humans would be under the same situation.

* Creator/JRRTolkien's [[Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium Middle-earth stories]] have evil creatures mutated from natural ones by [[{{Satan}} Dark Lord Morgoth]]: Orcs, Trolls, Dragons, Werewolves, Wargs, etc. However, as a devout Catholic who believed in spiritual salvation, the idea of a race of inherently or irredeemably evil creatures was one of Tolkien's major sticking points with his own work. He spent much of the latter part of his life as a writer trying to [[JustifiedTrope justify it]]. He never did come up with an explanation that satisfied him.

* Dementors from ''Literature/HarryPotter''. This is a race that cares for nothing except [[EmotionEater sucking up human happiness]]. The only way to get them on your side is to give them a bunch of human souls to suck on. Even if you can do that, they'll turn on you the second someone else shows up with a better deal. To make it even scarier, they're apparently capable of breeding ''and'' immortal. This is an unusually justified example because they are [[MadeOfEvil supernatural forms of negative emotions]] given sapience more or less. This is averted, however, with some races which are normally given this treatment. For example, goblins are LawfulNeutral {{Loan Shark}}s, but they're not considered inherently evil.

** The countries and, thus, races in ''Literature/TheBelgariad'' are dramatically stereotyped: the Drasnians are sneaky {{Chaotic Neutral}}s or {{Chaotic Good}}s, while the Arends are all brash to the point of stupidity and definitely belong somewhere in a pseudo-medieval hierarchy. The bad guys are split into a number of groups, but can all be described simply as "bad guys". There are degrees of nuance hinted at in the first series, but this isn't really expanded upon until the sequel.

* Creator/RASalvatore plays with this trope in his ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' [[Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt books]]. [[TheLegionsOfHell Denizens of the Abyssal planes]] fit the trope; drow mostly stay true, with one very notable exception (and a small group of Chaotic Good drow that end up dead); orcs were monolithically portrayed as such until Obould showed up and started civilizin' the lot.

** Trolls: Aside from Treebeard's theory above, Tolkien suggested that Trolls were artificially created from stones. Yet in ''Literature/TheHobbit'', William the Troll has mercy on Bilbo and insists that the other Trolls let him go. William "had already had as much supper as he could hold; also he had had lots of beer." The other Trolls also seem reasonable, but are concerned that there may be other 'burrahobbits' in the woods and don't want to be attacked in their sleep.

** Northstrider, Akura Fury, and the Beast King are listed as great enemies of dragonkind. They insist that dragons spend half of their time destroying everything they can and the other half [[TheRightOfASuperiorSpecies toying with humans in lethal games just because they can]]. Evidence demonstrates that dragons aren't ''that'' much worse than anyone else, but considering that the default state on the world is AsskickingEqualsAuthority and MoralMyopia, "slightly worse than average" comes off as pretty bad. The fact that the Dragon King is an avowed anarchist and SocialDarwinist who thinks civilization is the root of all ills probably doesn't help.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' has the Fairies, most of which are Always ChaoticEvil, although Nac Mac Feegle are more Always Chaotic Neutral. And the Auditors, who are Always LawfulEvil (from humanity's point of view) [[spoiler: except, eventually, for Myria [=LeJean=]]]. And the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, which [[EldritchAbomination are beyond human morality]], and often too stupid to understand it. And Demons, who are evil. Every other race, however, subverts this by being stereotyped as vicious monsters by humans but actually being mostly quite nice.

** Overall, Pratchett likes playing with this trope. Elves are ACE because of the parasitic nature of their home universe: we never hear of a pureblooded elf settling on Discworld, but half-elves exist and are morally no different from humans. Orcs were bred to be ACE but have ceased to be so now that the power that created them no longer exists. [[PunchClockVillain Demons are evil because it's their job]]; not all of them seem to enjoy it, or to be evil when they don't have to be. Vampires have a predatory culture and a major corruption-of-power issue, but are still perfectly capable of rubbing along with other species. Noble dragons are brutal and merciless because that's how people imagine they are, but one is still horrified to learn that humans can be that way ''and claim it's good''.

** Ghouls are vicious, predatory creatures who tend to be the supernatural community's go-to Psychos for Hire.
** Winter Court fairies aren't necessarily ''evil'' (BlueAndOrangeMorality is in full swing with ''all'' fairies) but they're uniformly harsh, unforgiving, and dangerous, even when they're legitimately trying to be helpful. Of course they're actually [[spoiler:the good guys in the grand scheme of things, responsible for defending all existence from the [[EldritchAbomination Outsiders]]. Their harsh nature is explained as a necessity to survive their ongoing war.]]
** Fallen Angels are a fairly straight example, though in this case, they're Fell ''because'' they're evil, not the other way around.

** The countries and, thus, races in ''Literature/TheBelgariad'' are dramatically stereotyped: the Drasnians are sneaky {{Chaotic Neutral}}s or {{Chaotic Good}}s, while the Arends are all brash to the point of stupidity and definitely belong somewhere in a pseudo-medieval hierarchy. The bad guys are split into a number of groups, but can all be described simply as "bad guys".
*** The author handwaves this by having the "races" be the product of selection by the gods: Chaldan, god of the Arends, values courage over brains. So when he got to select his chosen people, he picked accordingly, and things got predictably out of hand from there. Likewise, the Angaraks were bad guys in large part because they were driven to it by a bad god who wasn't pushing them in the sequel, being dead.

** In the sequel series, the ''Malloreon'', however, the author takes great pains to humanize at least some of the bad guys, usually by adding them to the protagonist's adventuring party. At that point, the Angarak nations get more distinguished by their individual [[PlanetOfHats hats]] than the fact that they're evil.