History HumansAreTheRealMonsters / Literature

* According to Creator/LFrankBaum's . . . odd elaboration of the SantaClaus legend, ''The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus'', this was drilled into young Claus' head by his [[TheObiWan mentor]], the Great Ak.

* In TheDresdenFiles, the entire supernatural world lives in pretty much constant low-level terror of a large-scale breach of TheMasquerade because of the fear of incoming lynch-mob justice. Though it's not so much that humans are bastards in general as it is that with a population of six billion, the ones who _would_ react immediately with violence and are well-armed enough to make it stick would outnumber the relatively low-population supernatural community a hundred to one or worse (especially because the wizards, who are one of the most powerful non-human factions, would probably consider themselves close enough to side with humanity and not the other signers of the accords).

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': It says a lot when a series that features zombies, ice demons, and dragons, showcases human beings as being the real threat. Namely, it is the selfish machinations of the people in charge, and the human frailties of everyone else, that has been making the world more and more in danger of being taken over by the aforementioned creatures.

* Mentioned in EoinColfer's ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' books -- [[TheFairFolk The Fae]] blame having to move into underground cities on humans expanding, and constantly call humans "mud people", which just happens to be a real-life ethnic slur. Overall, the trope doesn't really apply, although this case isn't made explicitly -- the human villains often don't know who's helping Fowl or are brainwashed, and more often than not, the actual villains are other fairies.

* In Creator/RoaldDahl's ''TheBFG'', the title character tells human girl Sophie that humans are just as bad as giants because "humans are the only animals that kill their own kind" (which isn't even close to being true, incidentally). This is part of a fairly long and {{anvilicious}} conversation about how humans suck. Much of Dahl's work for both children and adults reveals a misanthropic streak. At the extreme, we find ''Fantastic Mr. Fox'', which has a plot only inasmuch as it enables him to elaborate on the physical and mental grotesqueness of the three farmers and/or the noble brilliance of the fox they harass (since they're clearly too greedy to grudge him a chicken or two).

* In ''AnimalFarm'', humans are portrayed as the corrupt nobles of Tsarist Russia, more or less. The pigs, who represent the leaders of the Communist revolution, eventually start emulating the humans as they become more and more corrupt. The AnimatedAdaptation made this even less subtle, ending the film with a BolivianArmyEnding.
-->'''GeorgeOrwell:''' ...I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat.

* Another fine candidate for the title of magnum opus of fictional Human Bastardry is an illustrated science fiction novel entitled ''ManAfterManAnAnthropologyOfTheFuture''. TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, the well-to-do people of the world set off to leave Earth and colonize other worlds. Before they do, they use [[LegoGenetics genetic modification]] technology to physically alter the people who weren't able to afford the trip, changing them to survive in different biomes. Time passes and we get to see how the mutated humans gradually evolve over the eons after being left to their own devices - and then, suddenly, a race of PlanetLooters invades Earth, enslaves the mutants, and strips the planet of its resources. For their next trick, they wipe out all life more complicated than bacteria. [[spoiler:Those invading "aliens" were actually the unrecognizable descendants of the '''humans''' who'd left Earth millions of years ago. Dude...]]

* Author TadWilliams seems to be fond of this trope with the ''MemorySorrowAndThorn'' series and the ''Shadowmarch'' series. [[TheFairFolk Faerie]] races exist in both: in the former it is the Sithi (immortal elves), while in the latter it is the Qar. In both instances, humans attempted to carry out a campaign of genocide against the kingdom of Faerie for no other reason except they wanted the land or they thought the Faeries were evil. In the ''Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn'' series, the BigBad is a dead Sithi prince who gave his life defending his people against human invaders and now wants his revenge. Unfortunately, it seems he's willing to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the world]] to do it, so even the remnants of his people rally to fight him. [[spoiler:His final undoing? The one human who actually bothers to ''apologize''.]]

* In the DavidWeber authored ''Literature/{{Bolo}}'' books there is direct neural interfacing between Bolo commanders and the later model Bolos [[TankGoodness (Battleship size self-aware tank)]]. A Bolo has a warrior personality but nobody had realised how much the safeguards had inhibited its ferocity until they saw the first Bolo-Human mental fusion go into battle. Humans have no inhibitory safeguards.

* One of the themes in StephenieMeyer's ScienceFiction novel ''Literature/TheHost'', where the invading aliens are kind, pure creatures who regard humans as animalistic and vicious. [[BrokenAesop Kind of ironic,]] [[DesignatedHero since the aliens are]] [[AndIMustScream imprisoning the humans in their own bodies forever]]...

* Lampshaded in SMStirling's [[Literature/TheDraka Draka]] series. The Draka ''admit'' that they're bastards, and frequently upbraid the Alliance for its hypocrisy in not owning up to the bastard deeds of their own history: "We couldn't exterminate our aborigines, the way the Yankees did."
* UrsulaKLeGuin's novella ''The Word for World is Forest'' features humans descending upon the forested planet of Athshe, harvesting the valuable lumber and terrorizing and enslaving the native inhabitants.

* The ''OldMansWar'' series explores the concept. In ''The Ghost Brigades'', a scientist who defected to an alien race angrily pronounces humans as arrogant, elitist bastards who are deliberately refusing to sign a universal peace accord for no reason but superiority issues. However, the end of the book makes it clear that the scientist was only giving half the issue - the aliens are asking for some truly jawdropping accommodations for their "peace", and several other species are against it. ''The Lost Colony'' further reveals that the aliens behind the accords are real pricks, and that humanity (while pretty arrogant) isn't all that bad in the end. The overall balance of the series shows humanity as flawed, but not monstrous.

* Done in a harshly {{anvilicious}} fashion in a NeilGaiman short story, "Baby Cakes", where humanity suddenly realizes that it has made most of the various animal species extinct, and bemoans the fact that now we have nothing to perform medical tests on, no meat to eat, no source for products like leather and such. But, the text says, humanity is clever, and we figured a way out of that, by using the least productive members of society to replace all that: babies. The end of the story notes that now the babies seem to be gone, but humanity is clever. We'll figure a way out of this...

* Creator/BruceCoville's ''{{My Teacher|IsAnAlien}}'' series as well as the ''RodAlbright'' series both use this trope: aliens are aware of Earth but refuse to interact with humans because they consider them to be barbarians. It is revealed that one of the aliens in the "My Teacher" series invented television to keep people stupid so they couldn't advance technologically any more. We're so bad Bruce had to introduce [[spoiler:the pain and minor brain damage implied in cut-off telepathy]] to explain why we are as we are. We're also apparently the only species to do things like have homeless people, while most of the other aliens can't even understand the concept of a race at our technological and social level still having such problems (apparently other races fix things like poverty and wars long before they get as far as we have). It basically stops just short of actually having the aliens scratching their heads at this whole "capitalism" thing.

** Meyer likes this theme a lot. Despite Edward and Aro saying that HumansAreSpecial, much of ''Literature/Twilight'' has humanity portrayed as boring, stupid, petty, and useless. In particular, [[TheLoad Bella]] blames all of her shortcomings on her humanity (it could somewhat be justified as a case of OvershadowedByAwesome, except she even complains about the human need to ''sleep''). Much of ''Midnight Sun'' is also devoted to Edward complaining about how shallow and stupid most of the people around him are (which could be justified by his constantly reading their minds, except he can block them out when he wants).

* In the ''HouseOfNight'' series, all vampires seem to have a rather dim view of humanity in general. In the first two books, Neferet tells Zoey that humans are violent and hateful and should be shunned by vampires on principle. While [[spoiler:Neferet does turn out to be evil and have her own reasons to be bitter towards humans]], her backstory novella has her own mentor telling her that vampires are all far superior to humans in terms of art, culture, and intelligence. Zoey gets on board with this pretty quickly, berating humans for hating vampire celebrities simply for being jealous of them. Tellingly, the only humans portrayed as good are [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality the ones who agree that vampires are the best things ever and inexplicably believe in Nyx as well]].

* The evil Fallen living amusement park rides of ''Literature/{{Twisted}}'' are created when the original non-living rides they come from are damaged or destroyed by humans.

* A ''lot'' of early American sci-fi has this theme. Any number of Creator/RayBradbury stories qualify (including, of course, ''Literature/TheMartianChronicles'').

* DavidGemmell makes this point at least once per novel. In ''Stormrider'' he has one character, explain that a human witch has the ability to cultivate and grow and spread the magic in the world, but that the sum total of her ENTIRE LIFETIME of work and toil can be consumed by a single day of war.

* Creator/CSLewis' ''Out of the Silent Planet'' and the rest of the [[TheSpaceTrilogy Cosmic Trilogy]]. The idea is that there are several inhabited planets in our solar system, but Earth is the only one where [[spoiler:Original Sin took place. This caused our world to fall out of communication with the others -- we are the titular Silent Planet]].

* One of the themes in StephenieMeyer's ScienceFiction novel ''Literature/TheHost'', where the invading aliens are kind, pure creatures who regard humans as animalistic and vicious. Kind of ironic, since the aliens are [[AndIMustScream imprisoning the humans in their own bodies forever]]...

* Lampshaded in SMStirling's [[TheDraka Draka]] series. The Draka ''admit'' that they're bastards, and frequently upbraid the Alliance for its hypocrisy in not owning up to the bastard deeds of their own history: "We couldn't exterminate our aborigines, the way the Yankees did."

* Often comes through in ''TalesOfMU'', which focuses on the lives of non-human students at a university with FantasticRacism. Not that the merfolk, ogres, (surface) elves, or kitsuyokai are any better.

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