Basic Trope: The monster is dangerous, but it can't be called 'evil' because it isn't acting out of malicious intent. Any harm it causes is a byproduct of Blue-and-Orange Morality, not fully understanding the situation (i.e. a giant monster not noticing it's stepping on humans because they're too small for it to even see), or acting out of pure instinct.
- Straight: A werewolf is the main antagonist, but it has the mindset of a simple predator. It only attacks the protagonists because either a)it's hungry and they smell/act like prey, or b) they do something that it considers threatening, and it attacks in self-defense.
- Exaggerated:
- Benevolent Monsters - the werewolf is sapient and actively tries to avoid doing anything that's wrong.
- The 'monster' is more like a natural disaster. Even if for whatever plot reason it looks like a creature, it doesn't have feelings and only destroys because that is how it works.
- Downplayed:
- The werewolf isn't a serious threat, but does occasionally chase the protagonists due to mistaking them for escaping prey.
- Obliviously Evil
- Justified:
- The monster grew up in an environment/culture that was by nature exceptionally hostile to human life. You can forgive it a few social mistakes when dealing with what are, to it, nigh-incomprehensible aliens.
- The monster is a normal predator. Yes, it's dangerous; that's because being good at hunting things is how predators survive, and it has no reason to consider that these weird bipedal things are more 'bad' to hunt than any prey animal.
- Inverted: A creature accidentally does good things, despite having no idea what "good" is.
- Subverted: The werewolf seems to be acting out of instinct, but later shows that It Can Think and begins to actively hunt people down.
- Double Subverted: ...Or so they thought. The werewolf might be more cunning than an average wolf, but ultimately its only motivation is instinct.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: The werewolf is fully sapient and intentionally hunts people down.
- Enforced: "Monsters probably don't understand what they're doing; it'd probably be more mysterious to give the monster no concept of right and wrong."
- Lampshaded: "A transformed werewolf is just a big-ass wolf. Why would anyone expect human morals to apply?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited:
- The monster is defeated by giving it a moral compass of some sort; de-transforming a werewolf, explaining human cultural concepts to the aliens, and so on.
- If the monster is acting out of simple predatory instinct, that means it can be fairly easily predicted for someone experienced in the behavior of similar animals, and as such they can be headed off by mundane means. Is the monster hungry? Give it an easier meal or prove too annoying to be worth hunting. Is it scared? Leave its territory and it won't pursue you.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: "Why is the werewolf attacking us?" "Maybe you scared it, or maybe it's just hungry. Transformation's gotta burn a lot of calories."
- Conversed: "Why do you think monsters are always invading cities or killing people in fiction?" "Do you think they even know that's what they're doing? Maybe Godzilla was just attracted to Tokyo 'cause it's got a harbor for the monster to swim to."
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