Basic Trope: Mythical creatures don't believe in humans, while humans don't believe in mythical creatures, yet both exist.
- Straight: Alice and Bob don't believe in dragons, until they meet a dragon who doesn't believe in humans.
- Exaggerated: All kinds of mythical creatures conceived in mythology and religion exist in the work, and none of them believe in each other.
- Downplayed: Most dragons don't believe in humans, but a few do.
- Justified: Seeing as humans have never really seen dragons, it is logical that dragons may have never really seen humans either.
- Inverted: One species very firmly believes in the existence of the other, even in the absence of concrete proof.
- Subverted: Humans don't believe in dragons, but dragons do believe in humans.
- Double Subverted: ...or rather, the dragons have heard of humans and their stories, and though they take inspiration from them, they don't actually believe in them, even though their daily lives suggest they do.
- Parodied:
- Not only do monsters not believe in humans, monster children are scared of humans under their beds.
- It turns out dragons watch TV on a regular basis, but insist all of the humans they see are "stunning state-of-the-art CGI", yet believe the movies they see with CG dragons in them really were filmed with dragons.
- Economists are treated as mythical creatures with the rationalization that they clearly don't believe that humans really exist..
- Zig Zagged: Some dragons believe in humans, and some don't. Some humans believe in dragons, and some don't. On the whole, how one species regards the existence of the other is never clear.
- Averted:
- There are no mythical creatures in the story.
- Mythical creatures do believe in humans, and vice versa.
- Enforced: The creator believes in dragons, and wants humans to consider the possibility that dragons don't believe in the viewers.
- Lampshaded:
- "So you never believed in us, either?"
- "I thought humans were a legend!"
- Invoked: "Well, it turns out they don't believe you exist either..."
- Exploited: Bob goes on a crime spree in a dragon city full of dragons who refuse to believe humans exist, because the telltale evidence of a human having been there will either be ignored or interpreted completely differently. Belief that a human did it will be, at best, regarded as a conspiracy theory.
- Defied: One dragon knows better than to simply believe as his skeptical brethren do regarding humans because they live in a land where anything is possible, so he feels a human could show up sooner or later, whether via some kind of warp from another world or having lived in hiding there all the time. Till then, he doesn't identify as a believer or disbeliever.
- Discussed: "So you don't believe in dragons? Maybe dragons don't believe in us..."
- Conversed: "It's funny when mythical creatures don't believe in humans in stories."
- Implied: A dragon expresses surprise hearing that Alice and Bob are humans.
- Played for Laughs: Dragons continue to disbelieve that humans are real, even though the evidence is very strong.
- Played for Drama: Seeing as dragons don't believe in humans, they start unintentionally harming them because they're not watching out for them.
Back to Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either.
