Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Benevolent Monsters

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/harry_and_the_hendersons_e1471012882696.jpg

"Pokémon only do bad things because master bad."
— Ekans, Pokémon: The Series, "Island of the Giant Pokémon"

Monsters are born of human fears. Ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggety beasties, and Things That Go "Bump" in the Night, and they all share a common factor — they threaten. Their claws are sharper, their muscles are stronger, their fangs tear faster... you can generally count on monsters to be capable of hurting things, usually you.

And then there are these guys. These monsters aren't after you. They don't want to hurt you. Mostly, they want nothing to do with you in the first place. They might even be kind to you if you encounter them.

Benevolent Monsters are fantastic creatures that are usually no more dangerous than Real Life flora and fauna. Many times, they will even be safer, despite any indication of powers or prowess to the contrary. Any threat they pose to the good guys is often due to Poor Communication Kills (it could be that the Monster Is a Mommy) and may even be a case of Let's You and Him Fight, with the monsters joining forces with the heroes to take on the villains. Settings with Benevolent Monsters are usually the best residence for the Zombie Advocate, though be on the watch for Van Helsing Hate Crimes.

Note that for Benevolent Monsters to be in effect, non-maliciousness must be the default state of all or most of the monsters, so that malice or villainy becomes the rare exception to the rule. This can also apply to certain species of monster within a work, rather than all the varied types (i.e. the vampires in Setting X are all evil, but the werewolves are all Benevolent Monsters).

All of the above types of monsters are usually depicted as being evil and scary. Also closely related to the Reluctant Monster, which is a monster that may look frightening, but has no actual desire to harm people. Also see Dark Is Not Evil, where characters themed around dark or terrifying things are actually benevolent or at least not malicious, and Face of a Thug, which has the same general "looks scary but is actually nice" dynamic as this trope without necessarily being about monsters specifically. See also Domesticated Dinosaurs, where this trope applies to prehistoric animals.

Compare this trope with Humans Are the Real Monsters, which is this trope's blood brother; after all, if the monsters aren't evil, then somebody else probably is. Compare and contrast with the Non-Malicious Monster, which is a monster that really is very dangerous, but is not consciously evil or malevolent; it is simply acting out of animalistic instinct (i.e. killing and eating people just to survive). Lastly, there's Not Always Evil, which would be when the monsters in question have other interests besides being villains all the time.

As this is frequently a form of The Reveal, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

Sub-tropes:

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The Demon Prince of Momochi House: Main love interest Aoi Nanamori is a human-turned-Nue.
  • The Demons of Galuna Island in Fairy Tail. They look quite freaky, but don't have an evil bone in their bodies. They even started a rumor that Galuna was cursed so people wouldn't come to their Hidden Elf Village and be horrified by their appearance.
  • Heterogenia Linguistico: The werewolves, Lizard Folk, minotaurs, and so on are just as sapient as humans, they just communicate in different ways. And far from being "monsters", they all have their own complex cultures and customs, which Hakaba has to learn to navigate. No one has been actively malicious to him, though some behaviors can seem rude or hostile to those unfamiliar with the culture.
  • Pokémon. In the anime, this comes up a lot. Check the quote from Team Rocket's Ekans from the anime's first season up top.
    • Most "bad" Pokémon have the most justifiable of motives (like stealing food to support themselves or their pack members in desperation). Exaggerated in the movies, where almost every Pokémon that causes a problem does so completely on accident (Palkia and Dialga would simply be content to fight amongst themselves in Another Dimension except they keep accidentally intersecting the heroes' world), or because a human interfered with them or put them up to it.
    • You can count anime aversions on one hand. There's one particularly mischievous Teddiursa who showed up in the fourth season and a cartoonishly evil Togepi in the twelfth.
    • There were also three Malamar in the X and Y series who, rather than having been psychopaths that sought to Take Over the World because of circumstance, were simply just evil. Unlike the former two, they were also quite dangerous.

    Comic Books 
  • Princeless: The dragons breathe fire and eat knights because it is the cultural expectation of the humans that they will protect the princess until a worthy suitor comes to slay it and rescue the princess. The dragons are intelligent and generally don't realize that they're supposed to just die for the sake of the hero. Adrienne actually befriends her dragon and informs her of this. Sparky is resultingly horrified and happy to change the status quo.

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) fanfiction, Monster X is essentially this to the human race. Monster X is a gigantic Kaiju and rather terrifying-looking, but it's overall highly benign and even benevolent to humans who haven't crossed it, and it goes more out of their way than even heroic Titans like Godzilla and Mothra do to avoid human casualties when it can. This trope is particularly prominent when Monster X tries asking terrified civilians for directions at one point.
  • Godzilla: New Era: The third Godzilla, later revealed to be the fully grown Junior from Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, is revealed to be this. Whereas his predecessors were fully destructive, he goes out of his way to protect humanity due to remembering being raised by a kindly biologist and being treated well by humans as an infant. This isn't immediately obvious however and required the G.P.N. to figure it out. His seeming incursions into civilization and hostile actions were revealed to be because he was aware of and chasing the Millennian the humans were ignorant of.

    Films — Animated 
  • Beauty and the Beast: The Beast starts out more or less as a monster in every measure, but under Belle's influence, he begins to show such qualities as kindness, thoughtfulness, selflessness and table manners.
  • The title characters in The Boxtrolls are kind-hearted creatures that do little more than take trash to their underground lairs to make contraptions. The people above ground, however, fear them because they don't know what they really are, and are goaded along by the film's real Big Bad, who plots to use them to advance his social status.
  • In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Chester V draws Flint and crew to the island by warning him of the human-eating Cheespider, with its taste for Live Corp. employees and its plans for global domination, but as the heroes explore the island, it seems that almost no other species on the island poses them any threat. Indeed, Flint's dad's biggest problem is the mischief from the pickle people. It turns out that, in stark contrast to the first film, even the Cheespider is benevolent; the animals all hate Live Corp, which has evil designs for the FLDSMDFR and the unnatural wildlife.
  • How to Train Your Dragon:
  • Pixar's Monsters, Inc. features this as the foundational Worldbuilding point — monsters scaring children at night is just business. Indeed, monsters would be perfectly content to leave humans alone if they weren't dependent on human children for energy. The same goes for Monsters University, the prequel. Besides the heroes, many of their co-workers and classmates are exceedingly unscary.
  • In A Monster in Paris, when Lucille faints after seeing Francœur's face, he automatically reaches out to catch her. The majority of the movie is Lucille passing off Francœur as a masked musician to allow him to perform in public. The true monster in the movie is the glory obsessed police commissioner looking to kill Francœur to save his reputation.
  • The monsters in Monsters vs. Aliens have no malicious intent whatsoever, and are merely imprisoned to keep from scaring people with their presence. At least one, the Missing Link, likes to scare people for laughs, but otherwise, they're pretty decent.
  • The title character in Shrek is an ogre who, while anti-social, isn't malicious in any way. He mostly plays the part to scare people away so he can live in peace. Once he's friends with you, he's loyal and true, if a bit cranky.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Godzilla's various incarnations have fallen under this as have other monsters in the Toho universe. After his Heel–Face Turn, the Showa (1955-1975) incarnation of Godzilla is a more heroic character that protects earth from various evil forces.
    • Both Minilla and Junior are Gentle Giant versions of the Godzilla species who live peacefully alongside humanity. Like the Showa Godzilla, they are protectors of the earth.
    • Mothra is by far the most benevolent of the Toho monsters. She's often portrayed as a guardian deity of the fictional Infant Island and will only attack to defend her Shobijin companions from being captured or to save her larvae from being eaten by predators.
    • Biollante, thanks to the human DNA and spirit as part of her genetic makeup, is also a peaceful creature, except where Godzilla or threatening her father is concerned. She kills and drives off three intruders seeking the Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria in self- and home-defense, and in their first encounter, she seeks to neutralize Godzilla as well as join them together, since they have the same DNA. In their second battle, after she has evolved into her titanic crocodile-plant form, she ruthlessly tries to kill Godzilla, but again in order to stop his rampages.
    • The film War of the Gargantuas features the two titular monsters. One of them, Gaira, is a horrific green giant who feeds on human flesh. The other, Sanda, is also a giant, but he's far more peaceful due to being raised by humans rather than eating them. Sanda even performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save mankind from his brother's voracious appetite by fighting him to the death.
    • The 2014 US version of Godzilla is capable of causing tsunamis just by walking out of the water. He doesn't mean to, of course. It's just that he's so huge he ends up causing destruction by accident. For the most part, he prefers to spend his time swimming peacefully in the oceans and feeding on Earth's natural radiation sources. The only reason he even showed up in civilization in the first place was to fight the comparatively more vicious MUTO.
    • Although it would be a stretch to apply this to previous incarnations of the character that is normally a classic Non-Malicious Monster, Kong: Skull Island treats Kong himself this way via Adaptational Heroism. Excluding accidents due to his sheer size, he's virtually harmless to humans who don't antagonize him first, and will even go out of his way to protect them.
      Kong's a pretty good king. Keeps to himself mostly.
  • Harry in Harry and the Hendersons. A Sasquatch that Mr. Henderson hit with his car and eventually befriends the family.
  • The title character in A Monster Calls is a gigantic tree-man who seems to want nothing more than to help a boy come to terms with the possibility of his mother's death and his strained relationship with his grandmother. It's open to interpretation whether he is simply an Imaginary Friend, or — as a Freeze-Frame Bonus suggests — possibly the ghost of the boy's grandfather. There's also a scene where the kid and his mom watch the original King Kong (1933), and are clearly sympathetic to Kong himself, mostly because — like the mother — his death seems inevitable.
  • The Shape of Water takes this trope even further, with the heroine falling in love with the Amphibian Man she is trying to save from dissection. And yes, they do have sex.
  • The Troglodyte, a sort of giant Frazetta Man, in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. When he first appears, the heroes are scared of him and prepare for a fight, but they quickly realize he's more scared of them than they are of him. Once they're able to communicate with him, he tags along for the rest of the adventure, even fighting alongside Sinbad at the climax and dying bravely.

    Literature 
  • Animorphs: The Hork-Bajir are fearsome looking creatures with blades sticking out in almost every direction, but when they are introduced, Elfangor stresses that they are good people when they don't have a Yeerk in their brain. The blades are actually for slicing apart the plants they eat on their homeworld. The Animorphs actually manage to free a few and find out it's true, they're some of the most chilled out characters in the series, if a bit dim.
  • Bogeymen in Discworld have the time-honoured role of scaring kids, but there's no record of them actually harming anyone, and the first ever bogeyman started to see itself as a protector, becoming the first tooth fairy.
    • In fact, "monsters" in Discworld mostly have the same moral spectrum as humans so several of them are this. Angua is a vegetarian werewolf and Lawful Good watch member, and it's implied that the werewolf community, in Ankh-Morpork at least, largely police themselves and avoid hurting humans. Margolotta, Otto von Chriek and many others are Friendly Neighborhood Vampires. The first orc to show up in Discworld is a Badass Bookworm who tries to achieve worth by doing good work. The monstrous monsters like Wolfgang (a werewolf), Dragon King of Arms (a vampire) and Mr. Gryle (a banshee) are actually the minority of villains; most books' antagonists are humans.
  • In InCryptid, most sapient cryptids (the more fearsome-looking include dragons, chupacabra, and gorgons) are no more good or evil than any given human, and the non-sapient ones are as incapable of being evil as any mundane animal. The real villains are the Covenant of St. George, who want to exterminate all non-human sapients and many of the non-sapients. The major exception is the Johrlac species, of which almost all known members are, if not Always Chaotic Evil, operating on such Blue-and-Orange Morality that it makes no difference. The few non-sociopathic Johrlac are definitely Benevolent Monsters, though they look physically indistinguishable from humans.
  • As part of the double-twist ending of I Sit Behind The Eyes, the titular Entity is revealed to be this. After the first twist of the Narrator being a Tomato in the Mirror, who has been doing a Body Surf throughout the entirety of human history, it turns out that it only ever possesses Psychopaths and ruthless tyrants. The little girl it is currently possessing is actually an Enfant Terrible who had attempted to murder a local bully.
  • In the John Carter of Mars series, most of Mars' intelligent races are essentially Human Aliens, with the sole exception of the towering Green Martians, who have four arms, tusks, antennae, and are up to sixteen feet tall. Over the first book, Carter befriends a Green warrior named Tars Tarkas, who — by the end of the book - has became jeddak ("king", roughly) of the Thark tribe, and is a recurring supporting hero for the next few books.
  • E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series has the Velantians, Rigellians and Palaininans to name a few; monstrous sentient creatures which not only don't resemble humans (i.e. they are not even bipedal) but often have completely different sets of values - and who are wholly on the side of the good guys.
  • Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak features Max, a troublesome child, who is sent by his parents to his room. After a series of escapades, he meets the titular Wild Things. While they frolic quite fiercely, they're not in other ways malicious.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who: In "Demons of the Punjab", the Thijarians used to be the universe's foremost assassins, but after the destruction of their homeworld, the survivors took on a mission of witnessing the deaths of people who died alone and unmourned. When they turn up on Earth to remember the unmourned of the violence triggered by the Partition of India, the Doctor, only knowing them by their outdated reputation, initially assumes they're on Earth for malevolent reasons.
  • In Grimm, most Wesen are harmless law abiding citizens. In fact, some are ridiculously harmless, like Eisbibers and Mauzhertz who tend to be quite docile and quiet. Although, there are some species that lean toward being Always Chaotic Evil.
  • The Muppets: Similar to Sesame Street below, the Muppets have a wide range of monsters, some of which are likely to eat you, but also a lot who are generally friendly, particularly Sweetums, a 7 or 8 foot tall ogre who's usually quite agreeable and helpful. There’s also Thog, a huge blue creature who is very gentle and kind.
  • Sesame Street has long made a point of featuring the cuddliest of monsters, from Elmo to the easily-amused Count, to the ever-hungry Cookie Monster. The worst of the lot is usually Oscar, who's just the Grouch. Indeed, some of the nicest monsters are the toughest, scariest-looking, like Herry and Frazzle. In many of Herry's early appearances, he appears to be mean or frightening, but ends up showing his friendly side (often after he unintentionally scared others off).
  • Although most monsters on Supernatural tend toward Always Chaotic Evil with a few exceptions thrown in, Season 11 introduces the zanna, a benevolent race of fae-type creatures who act as children's imaginary friends, guiding and helping them to grow up and moving on to a new child when the previous one no longer needs them.
  • A number of Ultra Series feature Gentle Giant Kaiju, either as allies or as Monsters of the Week who are protected, assisted, and/or spared. Some notable examples are:
    • Pygmon/Pigmon from the original Ultraman is actually human-sized, but is a noteworthy mention here because it is friendly with humans and often helps the defense teams against the giant and less friendly monsters.
    • Ultraseven's Capsule Kaiju are a trio of monsters that Seven would call up whenever he needed a helping hand against the Monster of the Week.
    • Ultraman Cosmos featured these by the dozen, alongside many Non Malicious Monsters. Cosmos's duty was not to battle them for humanity like a typical Ultra might, but instead he often had to save them from the corrupting powers of Chaos Header and help them coexist with humans.
    • Ultraman X featured a Gomora Spark Doll who belonged to Daichi as a Tragic Keepsake from his parents disappearing during the Ultra Flare that set the series off. When the crew of XIO did an experiment to temporarily restore it to its normal form, it quickly became evident that it was extremely gentle, and was later visibly horrified seeing what happened when Dark Thunder Energy caused it to go on a rampage as EX Gomora.

    Tabletop Games 

    Video Games 
  • A few of the Youkai in Ayakashi: Romance Reborn could certainly qualify, considering they're much nicer than their classical depictions. It's most pronounced with Kuro, who is The Cutie and a Keet... and a Nue, which has a reputation for being a bringer of misfortune (which isn't true at all in the game).
  • Bloodborne: Your job is to hunt monsters who've been terrorizing a remote city, and most of what you find (including the humans) will attack on sight, but there are a few creatures who are quite friendly.
    • The Messengers of the Hunter's Dream look like freaky little emaciated people, but they have a childlike innocence and adore hunters. They help you out through the game (they give you weapons, act as shopkeepers, deliver notes from other players, and so on), and you can even find small items that serve no purpose other than letting the Messengers play dress-up. It's surprisingly adorable.
    • The Plain Doll's background info emphasizes her Uncanny Valley nature (the description of the Tear Stone calls it "naive" to think that a doll crying Tears of Joy is cute), but players are more likely to disregard this and focus on how she's one of the few characters in the game that are unfailingly nice to the player character (she won't even care if you kill her), she provides invaluable help by leveling you up, and will perform cute responses to gestures. She'll also become your caretaker if you get the Childhood's Beginning ending and become an infant Great One.
    • The Great Ones could be considered this trope at best and non-malicious at worst; they are described as "sympathetic in spirit" and seem to largely be trying to help out, with problems arising from humans being as alien to them as they are to us, and humans either biting off more than they could chew, very deliberately misusing the knowledge, or going to immoral lengths in an attempt to learn more.
  • In Dragon Quest Builders 2, not all monster tribes are affiliated with the destruction-worshiping Children of Hargon. Some, like the fat rats and bodkins of Furrowfield island, have a history of living in harmony with humans.
  • Umaro the Yeti from Final Fantasy VI, who is in fact a party member.
  • Beastmen in Final Fantasy XIV are generally territorial and hostile towards the other races with only a handful being non hostile and willing to work with other people. Every beast tribe also has summoned a primal at least once, which causes damage to the land andtempering people to become the primal's slaves. The Namazu are only beast tribe that's actually friendly (only a few are hostile) and are willing to make trades with other people. They are also the only beast tribe that has never summoned a primal.
  • Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] has the benevolent Spirit Dream Eaters who eat bad dreams and ally with you as opposed to the hostile Nightmare Dream Eaters who do the opposite.
  • The Nether Update in Minecraft introduces the Strider, the first passive mob exclusive to the Nether. By using its favorite food, warped fungus, and a saddle, the player can ride a Strider to safely traverse the vast lava lakes in the Nether.
  • Moshi Monsters: All of the monsters who belong to an established species (Zommers, Katsumas etc) are benevolent as are most of the Cartoon Creature's. The exception is C.L.O.N.C (the Criminal League Of Naughty Critters) which is a group consisting of all the villains.
  • The Walking Bushie in Mother 3 is a random encounter who, rather than attack you, will instead cast Lifeup α and Healing α on your whole party systematically until everyone is at full health, make your whole party feel refreshed with some fresh air, and finally greet them politely and leave. The closest it will come to actually "harming" the party is by solidifying one by becoming friendly and affectionate, unless you go well out of your way to bring Kumatora along who can hit them with Brainshock.
  • Pokémon has gone far, far out of its way to establish this (despite the fact that the mascot is a footlong rat that can shoot lightning from its face), with the inevitable result of Humans Are the Real Monsters; no matter how rational any given Pokémon is, you can generally expect the moral weight of its actions to be assigned to the trainer.
    • In Pokémon Gold and Silver, Elm's aide waxes depressing about the starter Pokémon stolen by the Jerkass rival, and mentions that Pokémon turn evil when used by evil trainers.
    • The main conflict in Pokémon Black and White is that people treat Pokémon unfairly by taking them for granted, which would make sense only if the humans assumed they posed no more threat than the average well-kept housepet.
    • Shadow Pokemon are a Double Subversion. The main premise of the games is that these are special Pokémon who will attack humans on command (as though they normally wouldn't), but these Shadow Pokémon are created by subjecting normal ones to what is suggested to be a kind of Mind Rape. They can be healed by good treatment, companionship, and sometimes even a visit from one of the Olympus Mons.
    • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon has one or two officially evil Pokémon, like the absolute creep of a Gengar from the first installment, but they don't count for much since all the characters are Pokémon. And even Gengar eventually reforms in a bonus quest, which reveals that he was originally a human (specifically, the one who abandoned Gardevoir and started the whole Ninetales legend that he was accusing you of perpetrating).
  • Undertale's entire premise is based on this trope. Although in practice, it plays with it, as most of the "main" monsters the player meets do genuinely intend to hurt the player... they just don't quite realize that hurting actually hurts, or don't feel they have a choice, or it's their job, or it's for a good cause, or... you get the idea. The only actively malicious monster is Flowey, who isn't actually a monster at all, but the Soulless Shell of Asriel Dreemurr.
  • A single one of the Vipers in Secret of Evermore is friendly, or at least neutral, and not only scolds you for striking him but also provides a handy save point in their lair. Dialogue with him implies that his entire Viper species were once little more than mere rivals toward humans who typically only did what they needed to do to survive or benefit their own kind, until someone took command of them and made them be aggressive toward humans.
  • The Merchant in Resident Evil 4 is clearly infected by Los Plagas like the other insane villagers, but would much rather sell Leon firearms, give him a firearm if he shoots some medallions for fun, or host a fun shooting gallery minigame for free. True he charges what are apparently exorbitant prices for his services, but since they use the archaic and rather worthless currency of Pesetas, it means he's selling you that rifle for about $80.
  • World of Warcraft: It bears repeating that just because the Horde have all the monstrous races - Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Forsaken Undead, Goblins, Blood Elves, Nightborne and Vulperi - doesn't necessarily mean that they are always the bad guys or in the wrong.

    Visual Novels 

    Web Animation 
  • Holidaze (2019):
    • While Jangle is out frightening trick-or-treaters, it is implied that he has no real zeal for scaring, quickly losing steam as he does so on his own and takes no joy when his friends frighten off Jingle. It isn't until he meets Jingle does he come out of his shell and start socializing like a normal person.
    • Jingle is a reindeer-like monster who represents the Spirit of Christmas. Because of this, he has zero desire to scare and all he cares about is spreading joy and cheer.

    Webcomics 
  • The titular Erma is a Half-Human Hybrid Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl modeled after Sadako of The Ring, but though she tends to like pretty macabre things she's a sweet and friendly kid and generally uses her extensive powers (levitation, telekinesis, using TV screens as portals, etc.) for nothing more malicious than childish pranks (well, as long as you don't do anything stupid like threatening her friends or babysitter). She takes after her mother Emiko, who is a full yokai with similar powers but is a caring parent and is Happily Married to her human husband Sam.
  • In Meadowhawk, the dragons still have all the fangs, claws and spikes from the bad old days, but in modern times they're almost invariably pacifists and usually don't even eat meat.
    Tater: If history is to be believed, we were once a species of marauding monsters. Bloodthirsty, airborne, fire-spewing terrors. Look at any Dark Ages story, and there we are: "RAAAAWR!" Now we have food shelves, hospitals, we live in houses... most of out kind would be loath to harm even a fly.
  • Muted: Dendro is an adorable demon that gives hugs and emotional support.
  • In The Order of the Stick, Serini Toormuck has assembled a group of unusal non-humanoid monsters that even humans who might consider orcs and goblins to be people would probably see as abominations (in some cases because that's literally their creature type), apparently just by being nice to them. In particular, a beholder who sees her as a parental figure, and who really doesn't want to hurt anyone. This is in keeping with OotS's thesis that the Always Chaotic Evil races are only that way because everyone expects them to be, and won't give them a chance to be anything else. Except vampires. Those guys are very specifically created to be irredemably evil, and also utter jerks about it.
  • Pebble and Wren: All the monsters we see are friendly and amicable, and quite a few of them live in harmony with humans.

    Western Animation 
  • Class of the Titans had a few, most notably Cerberus; while he certainly looked terrifying, what with his size, the venomous serpent for a tail, and the three skulls with glowing red eyes for heads, but for the most part he was a Big Friendly Dog, at least when his master Hades was around (which was most of the time).
  • Fangface was a '70s animated show about a werewolf who was a good guy, and helped his human friends catch other monsters.
  • Disney Television's Gargoyles were relocated from Scotland to Manhattan by The Chessmaster David Xanatos to serve as his bodyguards and enforcers. However, once the Gargoyles learned that they were being manipulated by Xanatos, they have a Heel–Face Turn, and instead work to defend the people of New York. Except for Demona, of course, who is a genocidal maniac.
  • Inhumanoids: the Inhumanoids themselves are pure evil, but the two factions of Mutore — the Granites and the genuinely terrifying-looking Redwoods — are good guys. There's also the weird magnetic being Magnokor, who is a good guy and has been keeping the Inhumanoids' leader, Metlar, restrained for most of human history.
  • Kong: The Animated Series: Kong is this due to Adaptational Heroism. He is the island's legendary guardian beast who spends the time he's not helping his human friends rescuing animals on the island from danger. In one episode he even sneaks out of the airplane hangar where the humans left him and spends the night saving people from street thugs.
  • Hal Seeger's Milton the Monster was not intended as this. When Professor Wierdo created him, he accidentally poured an entire bottle of tenderness in the mixture creating Milton instead the intended tincture.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Several types of monsters and other scary creatures are far less dangerous or malevolent than their appearance would suggest. Manticores are surprisingly nice, gentle and communicative — the only hostile manticore in the series was driven to aggression by the pain of a thorn in its paw, and calmed down once it was removed. Cerberus is a titanic, terrifying Hell Hound, but behaves more like an overly affectionate Big Friendly Dog than anything else. The gigantic, six-eyed, frog-like bufogren is a perfectly friendly and helpful sort, once one gets past its blood-curdling halitosis.
  • Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends has Ti-Yet, a Yeti whose tribe settled in the Himalayas. Although initially antagonistic he is a creature of honor who is only seeking to defend his people who have been safeguarding a Doomsday Device from those who might abuse it. He eventually becomes friends with Nick Logan and an agent for the Alliance.
  • Summer Camp Island has monsters who are friendly to the campers At least the current generation is.
    • Even their god monster is like this - After revealing that Oscar is still alive after being 'kidnapped' by said monster.
  • The Unstoppable Yellow Yeti: Gustav is a friendly yellow yeti who befriends Osmo and Rita after meeting them.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

The Bugs

The magical crocodile tongues had turned mundane bugs into anthropomorphic creatures, though none of them are in any way bad, even becoming James' new family.

Example of:
Big Creepy-Crawlies

Bug-A-Boo

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top

The Bugs

The magical crocodile tongues had turned mundane bugs into anthropomorphic creatures, though none of them are in any way bad, even becoming James' new family.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (5 votes)

Example of:

Main / BigCreepyCrawlies

Media sources:

Report

The Bugs

Bug-A-Boo