History Main / MonsterIsAMommy

* Pretty much all the insects in ''NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', in the manga moreso than the film. They only attack Asbel because he crash-lands into a nest, and the scene in the well in a Dorok village, with Nausicaa petting a giant insect and leaving it under its eggs is quite touching. [[spoiler: And not to forget that the Crypt of Shuwa is itself a mommy of sorts, containing in itself seeds for the post-purification world and a new race of humans.]]

* ''DragonBallGT'': Gohan (as the Great Saiyaman) tried to take a baby dinosaur away from Satan City before its parents showed up.

** In ''Film/{{Godzilla 2014}}'', while hiding from the female [=MUTO=], Ford spots its unusually round belly, filled with hundreds of glowing orange eggs. Naturally he and his fellow soldier [[OhCrap exchange a look of horror]] upon this discovery.

* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' approached this from a different angle. Herc goes about Greece slaying beasts and whatnot, and only ''after'' that he meets the Queen of Monsters, a gigantic several snake tentacled Lamia. Later he finds the King of Monsters, who's just a giant played by Glenn Shadix who was trapped by Hera so that the Queen of Monsters would go evil and be willing to send her children after Herc. When they reunite the two ... erm... [[{{Squick}} Squicky]].

There's also a fairly common inversion where the heroes battle one or more monsters before discovering the HiveQueen or MonsterProgenitor, who is several steps up the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil from her offspring -- and is now [[YouKilledMyFather out for revenge...]]

!!Examples

* {{Filmation}}'s ''{{Superboy}}'' did this twice in its first season.

[[caption-width-right:245:Mother's Child, Boris Vallejo]]

* In episode "The Egg" of ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'', Wander thinks a big, mean monster on a rampage is upset because its egg has fallen out of its nest. [[spoiler: The egg belongs to an entirely different species, and it is just a big, mean monster. The egg's ''actual'' mother, however, is bigger, meaner, and ''very'' grateful to Wander and Sylvia for helping its baby.]]

* A shark in ''Jaws3D'' is captured, blamed for the attacks, and then put in the water park as an exhibit, promptly dying from the stress early in the film. Then its gargantuan mother shows up...

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'':

* A different subversion seems in order in the short story "Honor is All" -- set in the ''{{Dragonlance}}'' RolePlayingGameVerse, it follows a noble knight who tracks and slays a dragon, and discovers that it has a hatchling. Just as he is about to do away with the infant dragon, however, he discovers that the creature he just killed was not a ferocious [[AlwaysChaoticEvil white dragon]], but an albino [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience silver dragon]]--one of the most powerful servants of Good, branded as a monster because of a tragic mutation.

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''{{IT}}'', the titular monster turns out to be a female, but that actually makes things worse rather than better.
* Subverted in both the novel and film versions of Michael Crichton's ''TheLostWorld1995'' (one of the few plot points they have in common). The team takes an infant tyrannosaur back to the trailer to fix its broken leg; unfortunately, neither Mommy nor Daddy is very grateful for their saving the baby's life.

* In Terry Goodkind's ''TheSwordOfTruth'' series, the hero makes an ally of an extremely dangerous dragon by helping her save her egg from the bad guy.

* Played straight in ''[[MalazanBookOfTheFallen Reaper's Gale]]'' without the bonus points for cuteness. Onrack tracks an emlava, the story's equivalent of a steroid-using saber-tooth tiger, and kills it, only to realize after that its behavior was not typical of a hunting emlava. It had several cubs and his party takes over stewardship of them. Said cubs are less than cute, requiring the characters regularly check to ensure no limbs are in range of them.

* The [[BigCreepyCrawlies giant bug]] in the ''{{Sanctuary}}'' episode "Instinct".

* Parodied in ''{{Outnumbered}}''; 6-year-old Karen invokes this trope to heap guilt on her mother for setting out a mouse-trap, arguing that the dead mouse was probably a mummy and all its babies will now starve.

* ''DoctorWho'' in "Hide" had a variation of this where the monster that had been chasing them in a pocket universe merely wanted to reach the main universe where its mate had accidentally wound up. Once the Doctor deduced this, he was more than happy to help out.

* The Nue, the first major boss in ''BreathOfFireIII'', is only attacking people to get food for its cubs (it's a really bad season). In an expansion on the trope, the cubs are all dead, but the Nue couldn't tell.
** Not so much that it couldn't tell rather than it was driven mad with grief and refused to accept that they were dead, to further emphasize the sadness that the vicious beast was really a grieving parent.

* ''FinalFantasyVII'' allows you to examine a nest of chicks with treasure inside. Attempting to take the treasure forces you into an easy fight with the chicks' mother, after which you can steal it freely. However, even Cloud is guilty about doing it, and he becomes a lot less popular with his team-mates afterwards.
** Hacking into the relationship mechanics shows that this scene has no effect on anything driven by relationship points.
* The Dynablade segment of ''KirbySuperStar'' uses this plot. Dynablade is attempting to gather food for her chicks, destroying crops in the process. After Kirby defeats her, he realizes the truth and helps feed the chicks by taking them to Whispy Woods, a boss that attacks by throwing an endless supply of apples at the player. Dynablade would later aid Kirby in the Revenge of Meta Knight segment.

* The arcade game ''SavageQuest'' has a T-Rex mother whose clutch of eggs were stolen by a shaman (Karn) and his fellow cavepeople. An interesting twist is ''you'' play as the T-Rex and beat the living hell out of everything in your path to try to get those eggs back.

* One of the minibosses of KingdomOfLoathing's Nemesis Quest is Argarggagarg the Dire Hellseal. After you beat him, you find out that he's actually female and has a child. Because of the general tone of the game, your character's response is roughly "Score! A new familiar!"

* In several of Fredrik K. T. Andersson's (often {{NSFW}}) artworks, a human adventurer is surprised to see the unholy child of some (still alive) creature. With the added twist that [[spoiler:[[AnythingThatMoves he's the father]]]].
** Links [[http://andersson.elfwood.com/Family-Gathering.2524339.html here]] and [[http://andersson.elfwood.com/DragonLayer.2524328.html here]].

* In ''TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' Jean is kidnapped by [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti Bigfeet]] because they think she knows the location of their missing child. [[spoiler: Their hairless child is the strip's resident GentleGiant, Rocko]].
* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick,'' when [[TheSpock Vaarsuvius]] failed to consider that the dragon [[AmbiguousGender (s)he]] was killing might be a ''son.'' Several hundred comics later, his mom hunts [[AmbiguousGender him/her]] down...and [[MamaBear she is]] ''[[RoaringRampageOfRevenge pissed]].''

* This also was the plot of one of ''TheHerculoids''' segments on ''Space Stars''.
* Played with in the "Woodland Critter Christmas" episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. Stan is enlisted by cute woodland creatures to kill a mountain lion that has been terrorising them, but once he has killed it he is dismayed to discover that it was the mother of several cubs. It then transpires that the cute woodland creatures are actually evil servants of Satan, and that the mountain lion was the only thing that could stop them.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'' episode "The Krakken", the monster was protecting its eggs. Milked a bit when, after the eggs are recovered, the hero prevents the monster from finishing off the poacher that had stolen them, and she relents and leaves peacefully.

* In ''SuperFriends'', Superman and Green Lantern are called to India to stop a rampaging elephant. After dealing with the damage it was causing, they decide to follow it and found that her calf is trapped in a hole and she cannot get her child out. Of course, doing that is a simple matter for two of the big guns of the Super Friends and the elephant immediately calms down.

* Played for ironic laughs in ''BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand''. An animal loving doctor saves the life of a young worm creature in front of its man-eating mother. Buzz expects that the mother will now be indebted to them and spare their lives. However, the worm does not share his point of view and still tries to eat the pair. Later, the doctor rebukes him for his way of thinking: "They still only see us as prey!".
* In ''TheLandBeforeTime II: The Great Valley Adventure'', the heroes (a bunch of young, talking herbivorous dinosaurs) accidentally lose one of Duckie's parents' eggs in a nest in the Mysterious Beyond. They pick one of the eggs, take it back to the Great Valley, and take care of it themselves, but what finally hatches out is a baby Sharptooh (specifically a ''Tyrannosaurus rex''). Sharpteeth have been [[BigBad antagonists]] since the first movie but they decide to keep him, call him Chomper and go on their merry way (They become friends and Chomper inadvertently saves their lives). But they end up getting pursued by not only one full-grown Sharptooth this time, but two - the [[MamaBear T-Rex mommy]] and the [[PapaWolf T-Rex daddy]]. But upon the returning of their baby, they end up not hurting the protagonists and actually save them from "eggnappers", smaller, vicious egg-stealing dinosaurs who had caused the entire mess in the first place when they took Duckie's parents' egg.
* There's a quick bit in ''{{Pocahontas}}'' where John Smith is about to shoot a huge, menacing bear. Pocahontas stops him, and the pair follow the bear at a discreet distance to a cave, where they see it is a mother with two cubs.
* ''BrotherBear'' has this as a plot-twist late in the film.

* One episode of ''TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee'' had a gigantic stone eating lizard rampaging around the park eating statues. After June tries to take it on and is beaten and knocked unconscious, the monster thinks she's the baby because earlier in the episode, June had gotten the baby's scent on herself. This resulted in the mother trying to feed June rocks that were chewed up in her mouth (similarly to a mother bird), and cleaning her by licking June with her massive purple tongue.

* An episode of ''ThePowerPuffGirls'' had the main characters deal with a monster who was just looking for his pet kitty. Monster is a Pet Owner?

* In ''{{Gandahar}}'', a huge reptilian beast attacks [[spoiler:the transport in which TheHero and his LoveInterest are held captive, then proceeds to fuss over them as if they were her hatchlings]].

* One episode of ''GodzillaTheSeries'' had HEAT visit a scientific station at Loch Ness to investigate reports of the Loch Ness monster attacking the station. The monster turns out to be all too real and on the rampage, and not even Zilla Jr. is able to drive her off for long. It turns out that the head scientist had captured Nessie's baby, and when he tries to escape with it Zilla Jr. and Nessie work together to capture him and free her child.

* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' approached this from a different angle. Herc goes about Greece slaying beasts and whatnot, and only ''after'' that he meets the Queen of Monsters, a gigantic several snake tentacled Lamia. Mind you later he finds the King of Monsters, who's just a giant played by Glenn Shadix who was trapped by Hera so that the Queen of Monsters would go evil and be willing to send her children after Herc. When they reunite the two ... erm... [[{{Squick}} Squicky]].

* ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' has a variation in the episode 'Little Monsters', in that 'Monster is a '''Daddy'''', and is really a human who inadvertently disfigured himself while trying to use magic in order to make himself strong enough to take back his HalfHumanHybrid son from a group of [[MonsterOfTheWeek maticores]].

* In ''Literature/Sinbad'', the shipwrecked title character finds a roc's nest. Leaving the egg alone, he is able to tie himself to the roc and get off the inhospitable isle. Later, he's part of a ship that finds another egg; ignoring Sinbad, the crew chop it open and eat the chick. Back at the ship, Mommy (and Daddy) show their displeasure. With dropped boulders.

** Links [[http://www.elfwood.com/art/a/n/andersson/family_gathering_colored.jpg here]] and [[http://andersson.elfwood.com/DragonLayer.2524328.html here]].

* ''HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' approached this from a different angle. Herc goes about Greece slaying beasts and whatnot, and only ''after'' that he meets the Queen of Monsters, a gigantic several snake tentacled Lamia. Mind you later he finds the King of Monsters, who's just a giant played by Glenn Shadix who was trapped by Hera so that the Queen of Monsters would go evil and be willing to send her children after Herc. When they reunite the two ... erm... [[{{Squick}} Squicky]].

* ''KyoryuSentaiZyuranger'' had Goda, a legendary monster that lived underground. She was initially seen terrorizing some hunters and then attacking the heroes, but it turns out that she was just protecting her eggs. [[spoiler:After Bandora makes her think that the Zyurangers destroyed her eggs, tricking her into selling her soul, the heroes are reluctantly forced to kill her.]]

** Links [[http://andersson.elfwood.com/Crossbreed_Scorpion_Kid.2524314.html here]] and [[http://andersson.elfwood.com/DragonLayer.2524328.html here]].

-->The dragon fell upon the ground
-->'Twas then I heard a whimpering sound
-->A dragonling to his father clung
-->Who only fought to protect his young

* According to [[WordOfGod interviews]], the ''{{Cloverfield}}'' monster [[spoiler: is an infant who swam up to the surface and is terrified because he misses his mommy. If that sequel ever gets off the ground, she will definitely definitely appear.]]

* The ''Film/{{Godzilla}}'' remake.

* ''TheLostWorldJurassicPark'' film has concerned mother AND father T-Rexes chasing our heroes all the way round the island, and then around San Diego, all because they have a baby T-Rex.

* In Leafie, a Hen into the Wild (a Korean film done in a very anime-esque style), a hen who raises an orphaned duckling learns this about the weasel who had killed the duckling's parents and nearly her on one occasion, having accidentally discovered the baby weasels and realizing they are hers when the weasel screams at her to leave them alone. This leads to both mothers reaching an understanding with one another, both protecting their child/children. [[spoiler: In the Korean ending, which was deemed too sad for most translations, after the duck leaves with his new flock the hen consents to letting the weasel kill and eat her, as the weasel is starving and cannot nurse her babies without food. The weasel is clearly shocked by this gesture, and is in tears when she kills the hen, having no other choice.]]

** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. The episode "The Devil in the Dark" uses this plot. While the Horta are neither cute nor cuddly (they look kind of like living lava flows, and the children are still unhatched eggs at the point of the episode), Spock's relaying of the mother/broodwatcher's emotions is one of the most powerful moments in ''Star Trek'' history and the civilized resolution to the conflict is one of the happiest ones.

* In "[[Literature/TheJungleBook Riki-Tiki-Tavi]]", the titular mongoose defends an Anglo-Indian family from a vicious cobra. Upon finding out that she had laid a clutch of eggs, he finds them, kills all the eggs but one, uses the last one to lure the cobra away from his owners and then kills the cobra and, ostensibly, the last egg.