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The owner of this website (scdlifestyle.com) has banned your access based on your browser's signature (5122-ua98).Moss GraffitiIntroduction: Moss GraffitiBy FollowHorticulturist's of the past came up with a brilliant recipe to encourage the growth of moss to age and add interest to their garden designs, this recipe can be used as an an environmentally friendly alternative to spray paint.
The success of the recipe itself can be very hit and miss and is very much dependent upon choosing exactly the right location an moss thrives in the damp and can most often be found growing near to a leaky drainpipe or rain-soaked wall.
If you have difficulty finding the right climate in which to grow your moss, grow it indoors (where it can be frequently spray-misted with water) and transplant it outdoors as soon as it has begun to grow.
This is what I have done in the example shown in this instructable.
RECIPE
*Several clumps of moss
*1 pot of natural yoghurt or 12oz buttermilk (experiment to see which works best)
*1/2 teaspoon of sugar
*blender
*Plastic pot (with a lid)
*Paint brush
*Spray-mister
If growing your moss inside you will also need a seed tray containing compostAdd TipAsk QuestionDownloadStep 1: Find Some MossMoss can often be found growing in damp areas, between the cracks in paving stones, on drainpipe covers or, in this example, near to a riverbank. Add TipAsk QuestionDownloadStep 2: Gather Several Clumps of MossGather several clumps of moss in a bag and take them to a place where you can easily wash themAdd TipAsk QuestionDownloadStep 3: Wash the MossCarefully clean the moss of as much mud as possible.Add TipAsk QuestionDownloadStep 4: Add the IngredientsPlace some of the moss, the buttermilk (or yoghurt) and sugar into a blender and start to mix.
This must be done in small phases as the moss can easily get caught in the blades of blender.
Keep blending until you have a green milkshake with the texture of a thick smoothie.
Pour the mixture into a plastic container.Add TipAsk QuestionDownloadStep 5: Paint Your DesignPaint your chosen design onto your chosen location or (if growing indoors) on top of a flattened layer of compost in a seed tray.Add TipAsk QuestionDownloadStep 6: Spray Mist Your DesignEnsure that your moss design is kept moist by spray-misting it with water regularly.
After a few weeks the moss should start to re-contitute and grow.Add TipAsk QuestionDownloadStep 7: Transfer Your Design OutdoorsIf growing moss indoors transfer it to a suitable location (where it is likely to be kept damp) outdoors.
Return regularly to the location and see its progress, spray-misting it if it starts to dry out.Add TipAsk QuestionDownloadShareDid you make this project? Share it with us!I Made It!Recommendationsby
4,488 EnrolledMake it Move ContestPets ChallengeWoodworking ContestAdd TipAsk QuestionWe have a be nice policy. Please be positive and constructive.Add ImagesPostTipsAdd TipQuestionsAsk Questiondb:: 4.34::TeamViewer error connection could not be established reason unknown fz
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Always Chaotic Evil
They're all just
to see you.note&
"Do not offer them riches, they care not for your coin. Do not offer them surrender, they care not for victory. Offer them nothing, for they come only to murder."
— On the ,
A common concept of the sci-fi and fantasy genres (and especially games of those genres) is the notion of not an organization, not a clan, not a city, but an entire race of bad guys who
Evil they are.
Though the
is , this trope is actually
— are there any myths and folk tales that don't have some creatures that are portrayed as always evil?
Note that the race can also be
or . In fact, 99% of the time, it will be a race that simply is evil to the core, with some individual differences in their stances on . The orcs in
are a perfect example: they are arguably a
race overall, even if
Just because there's an army of
humans, doesn't mean that the evil army that opposes them can't also be lawful. It must be said that merely showing an evil, conquering army is not enough to prove this trope, so long as a doubt that everyone of the same nationality or race approves remains. They are part of the same group after all, of course they would share the same beliefs. Nor does showing a few evil members of a species proves that this species qualifies. It must be beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this holds true for every single individual, and in the well-done cases even justified. Also a variation playing with this trope is of creatures having basically the same background, but some choosing evil and .
How, exactly, these folk have
(especially ), when
, is often unknown and . When the ethos is , often the race is explicitly artificial in origin, rather than natural. Their nature is determined by the evil individual who created them as slaves/warriors/etc — thus dodging the problem that . This is often reinforced by having their society believe in ... and in this case, anyone weak (good) will be killed very quickly.
Expect the national dress to be
and , the reason for keeping pets to be , and their language to be the .
typically comes from this stock, usually with , or after having become an . Having an ancestor from such a race usually qualifies a character's evil (or potential for it) as being "".
It's quite common for a fantasy
to have an Always Chaotic Evil race at the ready to use as
(). It's usually justified as an
among the various . The heroes are likely to be from races where good and evil are possible, to .
When a fictional character (whether human or a member of another fictional race) wrongly and unreasonably believes that a fictional race in his/her world is this trope, it's a case of . A member of a fictional race holding the same unjustified and false belief about humans would likewise be Fantastic Racism.
May be the subject of a , sometimes going so far that a
against the defined-as-evil race is portrayed . This is
when evil is the hat. For evil professions like pirates and hitmen, see . For cases where humanity, aliens, or predators really are this trope, see ,
and . For tropes that include cases where animals are Always Chaotic Evil, see , , , and .
Be careful when writing these: may lead to .
See also , , , , and . If the trope's subjects are a distinct species as opposed to an ethnicity, their reasons for being this may be . Compare . Contrast . Should not be confused with .
of this trope, when it turns out that an enemy race is not necessarily bad, see .
Add Examples, ya scum! Get crackin! If
catches you lollygagging,
what will happen!
&&&&open/close all folders&
&&&&Anime & Manga&
Most of the Saiyans are barbaric, planet destroying bullies. Goku (who was raised as an Earthling and became mellow after hitting his head), his and Vegeta's children (who had human ancestry to mellow them out), Goku's mother, Gine, who was born with a soft heart, and Vegeta's younger brother Trable are the only known exceptions. Vegeta himself, the only other full-blooded Saiyan to survive the series, took decades of living among humans to even slightly mellow out. This is often overlooked by fans, which Akira Toriyama parodied in Neko Majin Z with the character of .
subverts this with Universe 6, which exists parallel to Universe 7, home to the mainline Dragon Ball series. U6 Saiyans are described as a race of noble warriors who sometimes take jobs to defeat villains and hunt down criminals. Rather than being a case of , it's implied that this is just how Universe 6's S they still have their homeworld, Planet Sadla, which in Universe 7 was destroyed by internal conflict.
Also subverted in the same story with Freeza's species. Frost is to be a kind person who helps people in need and is a hero in U6.
This is in fact a , as Frost really is a genocidal monster like all the rest of them. Vegeta even says they shouldn't have expected anything else from Frieza's race.
the akumas are specifically created by the earl to be this. They are actually supposed to be more weapons than characters. The level 1 and 3 play this completely straight but the level 2 have shown to be able to develop other interactions with humans though their killing urge will eventually come back. Level 4 are an exagerated examples as they are sadistic bastards whose only defining trait is killing humans. Oh..and they also kill their own allies.
The Mazoku, from . Given that they , they have a lot more reason to be this way.
Also, they are , whose stated goal is to . It's just how they were created. Oddly enough, the Dragons, servants of the gods, are oftentimes .
This moral ambiguity is a major point of season 3. Throw in that , a Mazoku, can sometimes be
when not actively trying to end existence, and you get a fair amount of moral ambiguity. At one point Xellos helps save the world, because he .
Played utterly straight with trolls and other monsters (it is based on , after all).
are zombies revived thanks to cybernetic implants by the
Dr. Hell. Since he mechanized their brains, wiped their minds out to erase any memory of their former lives and any shred of independent thought and programmed them to be absolutely and unquestionably loyal and obedient, they have no choice other than being Always Chaotic Evil.
: The Mycenae play with this trope. The
with the head of a Mycenae soldier implanted in the giant mechanical body. Since the soldiers are indoctrinated to attack and wipe out anything non-related to the Mycenae civilization, the trope is . On the other hand, the commanders of the army display different personalities and honorable qualities (specially Ankoku Daishogun), and though they are not portrayed as good, neither are they portrayed as proud of being evil, but a
who want to return to the surface world after being forced to .
: At the beginning it looks like the trope is being played straight, but it is finally averted. Several of the Vegans are decent people and many of them are given redeeming qualities.
: For a while it seemed the trope was being played straight, but was ultimately averted. The Campbellians attacking Earth were not representative of the entire race, but a rebel fraction led by leaders constantly indoctrinating their troops into believing it is HUMANS who are Always Chaotic Evil. The greater part of the Campbellians were not presented as evil or harbouring ill will towards humans, and actually at the end Deus, the Campbellians' true leader, came to Earth to stop
Empress Janera personally, and vowed he would help to rebuild what Janera destroyed on Earth.
Ditto for the mazoku from . There actually are
two exceptions, but the rest feel that their calling is to torment humanity
(Sure, their whole race exists through magical power gained by
consuming human blood and souls, but regular mazoku cannot extract it, so
still is the driving reason for their atrocities).
Subverted in
(although differently, depending on which version you're watching). In the manga, this seems to be the case at first (with Chrono being the only exception), but it turns out that the Sinners are more complex than that, and among other demons most of them are simply following orders in a corrupt culture that can't even remember how they got that way in the first place, making them practically victims of a bureaucracy who simply refused to question WHY things were the way they were. In the anime, the Sinners are portrayed as more blatantly evil, while the rest of the demons seem contractually obligated to play "villains" for God in order to keep humanity in line, making them a bit more like .
The crows in
are shown this way — justified because they're characters escaped from a fairytale. They're so evil that even their blood can affect a character's personality.
In , you can count EACH and EVERY member of Blue Cosmos/LOGOS (and, to a lesser extent, Earth Alliance) an irredeemably evil, racist bastard, with the most likable person being a
super soldier who Shinn falls in loves with.
But since Blue Cosmos is, by the period the series take place in, very clearly shown to be an organization of such people, completely gone off track from its original purpose, this shouldn't be a surprise. LOGOS just exists to keep wars happening because hey, it's good for business.
The Veigans in
are all fanatically loyal to Lord Ezelcant without exception, deeming the extermination of all non-Veigans from their prized Eden to be a national goal/ideal.
The New Blood, or, at least, those directly related to Sicks in . For a long time, they intentionally bred so that the most evil would be the ones to reproduce. Eventually, they actually became a separate species, according to Sicks.
Lampshaded in ! After it is revealed to the main character that he is
and must seek out his :
Yuri: ... a holy sword that you need to defeat the last boss. Wolfram: A holy sword? Yuri: It's not? ... Gwendal: Of course it's a demon sword!
The youma from , who live entirely to eat humans. And the awakened beings, whose nature is also to feed on humans, but are far more dangerous.
This probably has something to do with the fact that the youma are manufactured. The chaotic bloodthirstiness of the Awakened Beings is implied to be a bug the Council is desperately trying to work out, or at least turn into directed bloodthirstiness. The youma aren't even truly evil being mindless parasites. They mutate their hapless human hosts, driving them insane with a hunger that can only be satisfied by human flesh.
The Diclonius from
are viewed as beings that are hardwired to cause destruction and extinction among humans (with the exception of Nana), making them a near- example, though their behavior may also be influenced by the inhumane treatment they received .
Though, by the end of the manga,
we find out that the Diclonus are descendants of the Oni from ancient times (with Lucy being the only true genetic descendant), and that their need to kill humans stems from their demonic ancestors genetically encoding them to want to seek revenge on their destroyers.
the man who believed that turned out to not be a Diclonius at all but rather have a case of atavism, bringing that whole origin into question. Lucy
was just the result of a mutation in her mother.
are genetically predisposed to cause destruction, and indeed, . There is one case where a witch's magic can only be used creatively (i.e. healing), and she is an outcast because of it.
Although Always Chaotic Evil is how
and most of the world view witches, Kid, the future
and thus leader of the DWMA, starts to have his doubts after he discovers . While trying to
he ultimately comes to the conclusion that everyone has some sense of order and destructive instinct, even witches. He reasons that if they were really chaos incarnate, they'd never have formed a functional society. Conversely, he claims a destructive urge isn't nec humans can channel such things to a positive, so .
Hollows in
are considered to be a race of evil spirits, driven to eating anything living or dead (including each other). Their more evolved "" counterparts have been portrayed as having different dispositions, ranging from evil (, ), to
(, ), to outright good ().
The evil, thieving, drunk, cowardly, scumbag-y mice from .
Vampires in
are mostly like this. Good vampires, like Seras, are a very special exception. It is not clear if the transformation to a vampire brings out the worst of person or if all vampires are all irredeemably evil. It is possible that since the survival of a vampire requires killing people for blood and souls at some point all vampires simply give up to their bloodlust. At one point one vampire even comments on how he and his comrades can never enjoy things normal people enjoy, but are forced to live the life of a monster.
Most of the vampires we see in the series were
before becoming vampires, being vicious war-mongers. . In their case, becoming vampires didn't turn them evil. It just gave them fangs.
Subverted with the Ill from , who seem like this at first before we see any of the good ones. The organization that hunts them still believes them to be this trope, though.
The people Heuller kills were planning to kill Rodin, and she was just trying to protect him. Too bad he never found out about her reasons.
The beaver woman was misguided, but she is shown to genuinely care for her (adopted)son.
The possessed doll in chapter 13 never harms anyone, was only trying to entertain his owner, and killed himself so that the
could get lucky and get the girl.
Pretty much every Uchiha in , though , has sunk into evil. One or two Uchiha, such as Itachi and Shisui, are basically decent but have made some . The reason for this has been revealed to be that they get their power from .
In , the titular giant humanoids devour humans for no apparent reason other than because they . They are incapable of digesting food, seem to draw their energy from the sun, and ignore animals completely. In fact, when their stomach becomes full from devouring victims, they vomit to make room for more tasty human treats. The unique variants that do display
are even more dangerous, actively seeking to
while showing no interest in eating anyone themselves.
Only it turns out to be far more complicated than that. The Titan Shifters are all morally complex individuals, most of them traumatized
struggling with the terrible duties they've been assigned. The regular Titans are similarly not what they seem, but are transformed humans trapped in a
with no control over their actions.
theorizes that their instinct to devour humans is because eating a Titan Shifter allows them to regain their humanity via .
The rest of the world sees Eldians as this, especially Eldians living on Paradis Island (even to non-Paradis Eldians), thanks to propaganda by the Kingdom of Marley, who are in an eternal power struggle with the Eldia Empire for control over the Nine Titans.
The Life Fibers from
are revealed to be a parasitic race of aliens who travel from planet to planet and later implode them to scatter their seeds throughout space. They disguise themselves as clothing because simply covering their host whole overwhelms and kills them. The sole exceptions to this are Senketsu and Ryuko, and it's only because .
that's a Myotismon variant or has
in their name is pretty much guaranteed to be a villain.
incident on the "lower yokai" to having the shape of large insects or worms. In really every opportunity when you see them, they have nothing else in mind than attacking humans (or half-yokai). And although many can speak of them, they do not seem to be overly clever.
The yokai that have a human-like figure that thing however is different. Even among them there are many who are evil, but many are good. Apparently they are endowed with reason at the same level and as sentient human beings, even if many of them despise the humans.
Inverted completely, it is with the "Trickster-Yokai" such as Shippo and Hachiemon. Each of them seems to be really good. Shippo is even the most innocent character among the protagonists.
However, they seem already to have a (harmless) tendency to scare people, annoy or playing pranks.
regarding Demons in . While some demons like Sirene and Kaim are capable of displaying care for others, the vast majority are bloodthirsty, violent hedonists eager to destroy humanity and take their place as the dominant species, and only through being dominated by a human they attempt to possess and becoming a Devilman are they capable of displaying selflessness and compassion (and even then the Devilman still has to fight against their baser urges.)
&&&& Comic Books&
The Wolrog Empire in
is composed entirely of
claims that all aliens are Always Chaotic Evil, although even he privately acknowledges that this is a lie given to justify the extreme
of his regime. The series, in fact, spent much of its early run subverting the common application of this trope to the more grotesque aliens.
Subverted in
of the early-to-mid . That era almost invariably depicted alien cultures as having made a choice between . Every alien race was assumed capable of both "good" and "evil", and "evil" regimes could always be overthrown, while "good" ones could always be subverted.
has several examples:
The Skrulls, the most recurring evil race and, in fact, the first one created by Lee and Kirby. The Kree are evil as well, being an empire of smug space fascists, but we usually see them though
(usually using the name "Captain Marvel"), rather than as a full evil race.
Instances exist of good or good-leaning Skrulls, such as Ethan Edwards () and Jazinda. Also, Cadre K, the mutant Skrulls who were brought together and taught by Professor X. And occasionally a Skrull who's gone native after impersonating humans for too long, such as
They are rare, though.
The Brood ( of the aliens from ) are depicted as inherently, irredeemably corrupt because of the . In , Broodling manages to make a decent play at being good, but when she tried to reproduce, she ended up having to kill her own spawn to save some children from them.
The Dire Wraiths from
wholeheartedly embraced evil. Their planet was so supernaturally suffused with corruption that
. The Wraiths were about as close to being literal demons as a flesh and blood race can hope to be, and they took pride in it. While one Wraith did try to make a
after disguising himself as a family man for years and , his comrades taught his son how to be evil, and the boy took to their lessons so well that he eventually murdered his parents. The Dire Wraiths actually enforce evil by indoctrinating it into their young so decent Dire Wraiths are the exception rather than the rule. It also turns out they're actually a divergent offshoot of the Skrulls (or maybe the other way around), above.
In Jack Kirby's Eternals, the Deviants qualified abundantly. The Celestials
them with constant mutations, causing them to generally look monstrous, and inflicting them with a seriously high infant mortality rate - their culture uses eugenics simply to keep mutations from getting too out of hand. They also hate baseline humans, previously enslaved them in prehistoric times, and would generally like their slave empire back, thank you. However, Neil Gaiman's 2007 reboot introduced considerable ambiguity into the picture.
we have the Dark Elves and Fire Demons. The Dark Elf culture is built on treachery and violence with even the nicer members of the species shown as war-mongerers. The Fire Demons have a desire to kill everything that isn't them. Both are responsible for numerous wars of aggression against the other realms, are willing to commit any atrocity imaginable and no regret about any of it.
Prior to the DC reboot, the precursors of the , the Burning Martians, were psychotic monsters that fed on flame and destruction.
's "Breakworld" arc in
this trope with its portrayal of the eponymous . The Breakworlders, whose society is built around , are set up as the antagonists of the arc for fairly obvious reasons. But then it's revealed that
is the ultra-pacifist leader of a , who wants to end the wars by
and . The conclusion points out that, in a society where violence and tyranny are the norm, the truly "evil" people would be the ones devoted to peace. Accordingly, their actions would probably be far less moral and logical than the average people who simply believe what they were raised to believe.
Also, they were only trying to destroy Earth because they thought Earth was trying to destroy them.
shows more of the Decepticons' lives, aside from destroying planets and good-guys. The Autobot Ore mentions that his goal at the end of the war was to get a new alt-mode and befriend a 'Con as "they can't all be psychopaths right?". The story shifts to 6 Decepticons for an arc t they joke around, fail at their quest, and their leader tries to reign in the more eccentric of their group, but they also joke about killing organics, and rob their dead comrade instead of mourning him, because hey, he ain't gonna be needing those parts.
Also, in the IDW-verse, as things get more and more complicated, we see characters who were Decepticons working alongside Autobots more than once. Even Starscream can rein in
for the right reason. They're definitely shown to be individuals once
no longer applies.
has the , who exist solely to destroy all the Dreamkeepers and, by extension, humanity.
The Evronians from
that need to attack other races to drain them of the emotions that feed both them , and cause untold and unneeded destruction for no other reason they can. It's
by both a few individual members (especially Gorthan) and the fact that, before
exterminated most of them, they were trying to solve the energetic problem (in fact one possible alternative power source was Xadhoom herself, had they managed to keep her captured long enough), and after that a group of survivors prove themselves relatively peaceful when they ask Earth for help, but is later
when that same group of survivors use the chance to insert a
on Earth to prepare a future invasion.
In the reboot it's shown the Evronians had not always been like that, and imply that they had become that way due a combination of the emotion-powered technology and
(in fact, when
Zondag changes the timeline to prevent the birth of the Guardians it results in the Evronians becoming peaceful, not using emotion-powered technology anymore and using their dietary needs to free people from bad emotions).
: Just about every species within the Hierarchy are evil to the last individual. The Succubi at least have the justification of , but others like the Psicos revel in bullying other species by lording their vast psychic powers over them.
The baddies of Weird Comics #2 are a race of mermen who sadistically torture anybody who enters their domain.
The baddies of Weird Comics #5 are the Sea Demons, a race of brutal conquerors raiding the Sea Amazons.
Gnomes are all either lazy slavers or sadistic tricksters.
Ogres are all brutal thugs who eat babies.
The olfs are three billions of xenophobic assholes who get even worse when King Bouboulou comes back from the dead, as he removes the reforms such as capital punishment being abolished and break the treaty with the only race they are allied to with glee, as a bloodbath is the best way to celebrate his return.
The invisibles are a race of
who made the treaty with King Bouboulou. The treaty was simply: The invisibles may live on the rooftops in exchange for mutilating every non-olf they spot in the city. They are also shown to be siding with the
despite not needing to breath like the other conscripts (who'll lose their oxygen the moment the villain hear their treachery), implying they are just fine with a demon ruling the world.
The Great Khan's G&henne army are made of winged lizards who only care about strength, drinking and eating villagers. They have a twisted code of honor about blind obedience and preying on the weak and those with no honor just change blind obedience to .
: The Slogons are a race of ruthless conquerors.
&&&&Fan Works&
In crossover
fics, usually with the , the Twelve Colonies from
are portrayed as psycho gun-happy Earth invaders, despite there being no evidence for this. Most of these fics are absolutely horrible
of , which laid most of the blame on the leaders, and the Average Joe Colonial earnestly believed that they're doing the right thing and helping Earth with their invasion.
: Subverted in chapter 15. After Shinji mentions that he and Asuka got forced to work for military dictators, Rayana says there are groups of purely evil people... but simultaneously she remarks that those groups are mercifully rare.
?Which is why target discrimination and appropriate levels of force are integral parts of our military’s training. We know that purely evil people and groups are thankfully rare. So we exercise careful attention when it comes to meting out judgment on those who become our enemies.? Daniel swallowed a bit of his own fish. ?And as for Jinnai, we?ll see to him later. Death may be a little too merciful for him.?
The Muk and bug-type Pok&mon in the
series are portrayed as mindless killing machines.
fanfic The Council Era, the dezban race are perceived as being utter savages by the rest of the galaxy. For the vast majority of the species, this became true after the Great War, but an exception is introduced in the dezban bounty hunter Sevalaus Morkaneto, who is both rational-thinking and far less aggressive than most of his brethren.
The Uchiha are usually portrayed as this, except Mikoto, Itachi, Obito and, on rare occasions, Sasuke. Obito is increasingly less likely to be portrayed as an exception, since he turned out to be the
Subverted in the
with Discord's species, the Draconequi. While
and have , they're for the most part out to help the universe keep running smoothly. Even their mother Entropy, the
of the End of the Universe, is only an
because it's essentially her job description. Discord is the only one that's actually genuinely evil.
The Wedding Arc makes a point about how the Changelings are not inherently evil. The Interviewers even say that every race has its saints and sinners.
This trope is
as a significant plot point in the
regarding whatever Oni (which is something ) and other demons are evil by default:
After hearing both Jade and Jackie's side of what has happened, Jade's former teacher Liz Hartman decides that evil is a conscious choice and believes that like , other dark entities the Chans have fought , saying that there is no such thing as inherent evil.
filled talk with Jackie causes him to come to a conclusion similar to hers, which leads him to allowing her transformation into an Oni to be complete and let her prove her point. When's he's called out of this by Uncle, he in turn
that are a large factor in how far Jade is out of their reach. He brings up the time they used the
into his light and dark sides as an example that even demons have their own , and when
even when it would have benefited him more to simply let him be sucked away. He also states that the
are monsters because of their personalities rather than their species and that they chose to use their abilities for evil, just like any number of humans have.
Uncle has a more unbending
view of the whole situation, and insists that while Jade is their niece, she is now an Oni and has to be stopped. He's unhappy when Jackie's above mentioned
moment forces him to reconsider long held beliefs and wonder if he has already
without realizing it.
When asked of Tohru's opinion, it comes between those of Jackie and Uncle ? he thinks that Jackie has a theory that has some evidence to support it, but he's unsure if it's worth the risks. He proposes that dark entities suffer from a functional disorder that makes them more inclined to darkness than light, making it hard to determine how much of their nature and actions are inherent or a matter of choice. He also suggests that their liberty of choice may be taken away when everyone, including themselves, thinks under the assumption that it doesn't even exist.
Subverted in , as it's stated that the monster races of Hyrule are not mindlessly evil, but were long ago cursed by Demise to obey anyone who summons them, for whatever purpose. As such, Vaati's servants go along with his , and actually befriend the ponies of Ponyville.
And when Demise is reborn, and subsequently destroyed for good, at the end of Season 2, the curse is broken, allowing the monster races to integrate peacefully into Equestria.
&&&&Films — Animation&
In , even the narrator states that rats are always greedy, dirty, unheroic, and terrified of the light, with the exception of Rascuro who falls to the dark side for a while after he tries not to be Always Chaotic Evil.
The Vikings of the film
initially believe that all dragons are horrible monsters who will always go for the kill. This is later proven false when Hiccup befriends Toothless and a few other dragons.
The Hun army in
is portrayed as evil and blood thirsty.
All hyenas seen in
are the hungry, antagonistic pawns of Scar. In
this trope was
away when Kion meets a good hyena who insists that most hyenas are good. It just so happens every hyena seen so far besides her has been evil. There is also another good hyena in a non-canon book for the first film that is probably the inspiration for this character. Two of Janja's (main hyena antagonist for the show) lackeys are shown not to be so bad after all, as they readily and genuinely agreed to behave when in the Pride Lands after he kicked them out of the group, and true to their word they did no harm. They are pretty much the animal equivalent of , only doing wrong because he's their boss.
franchise has a few species that seem to fall into this. The most notable examples are gorillas (although the television series has some morally ambiguous gorillas), crocodiles (with the exception of Master C according to
he did a ), and especially wolves. Snow leopards aren't shown in a very positive light either, considering that this is the species of both
and the . The young snow leopard Peng Tai Lung's nephew is an exception. So much so that when he thought he might end up following Tai Lung's path he temporarily gave up Kung Fu.
&&&&Films — Live Action&
The Skeksis in .
Justified in that they're the other half of a species that accidentally split itself into good / evil races.
From , the Judean Peoples' Front.
And the Romans, according to the Peoples' Front of Judea. You know, .
The aliens from
are kind enough to use a
to let humanity know straight-out that there can be no possible peace with them and that the only thing they want humanity to do is "die."
The alien invaders in
are an entire race of , and are consequently all pure evil. They're essentially , but rather than , they're all utterly sadistic and genuinely enjoy murdering people in increasingly gruesome ways and laughing psychotically about it.
was criticized for , although it is justified by the ...and the fact that the Persians are an invading army. It's also implied that many of the Persian soldiers are
cowering in fear of their god-emperor's might. It's only the immortals and literal demons who are pure inhuman evil.
Gremlins from, well, . Gizmo is the only member of the species who is good, and you'll notice that he never becomes a gremlin himself. The other Mogwai spawned from Gizmo also apply, but they're somewhat more benign than the full Gremlins. The novelization explains that the Mogwai were a failed attempt by alien scientists to create the perfect companion. Most Mogwai turned out to be dangerous. The rare few who turned out right like Gizmo are called "Eternals".
The goblins in
fit the bill pretty well. All of them want a tasty snack of the humans in the movie, and the best part is that !
The martians in . Besides this one, relevant tropes include , , and . The cards on which the movie was based subverted this, showing a much more peaceful organization of martians who opposed the invasion. Given that, in the same set, humanity invaded Mars, kicked their asses while the war machines were off to Earth, and it eventually ends in Mars blowing up, it leads to the most unfortunate of implications. Or further villainization of the aggressive side of the populace for ruining it for everyone.
The Djinn race from . They're essentially demonic beings created at the dawn of time by God, and all their wishes boil down to a , so this trope is to be expected.
The Deadites in all three
films, as well as the Army of the Dead in the third, .
as they're .
The Tusken Raiders (or Sand People) are a very lit as far as the movies go, they never seemed to be portrayed as anything other than . In , they show up very briefly, and it's just to randomly shoot at podracers. In , they kidnap and torture Anakin's mother, killing her when Anakin finally shows up, though Anakin's massacre of them is treated as a
moment . In , they are shown to be
random human beings into unconsciousness and . In the
there is one Tusken Jedi (actually a human foundling ) who initially seems to be an exception. Then, after surviving Order 66, he becomes evil anyway when he embraces the Tuskens' ruthless culture. , and he's a
in his own right. The Tuskens' way of life is
incarnate, so it's understandable that good people don't appear among them.
Another Star Wars race that are almost never depicted in a positive light are the Hutts. Every Hutt seen in the movies—and most of the ones in the
as well— are greedy, conniving mobsters who run criminal enterprises. There was one known instance of a Hutt Jedi, but even he fell to the Dark Side.
The Bugs in . Although it's deliberately left unclear whether the Bugs started the war or if the humans did, they are absolutely merciless in battle and kill the humans without restraint.
makes it clear that the Bugs themselves see humanity as this, regarding them as a virus. In any case, the humans'
toward the Klendathu is obvious, to the point that they stomp on little, harmless bugs for reminding them of the big ones.
The Xenomorphs in . They seemingly exist for the sole purpose of killing everything on a planet. It is subtly implied that they are indeed intelligent, not just bestial animals, which simply makes them even more terrifying. If you listen to , this is because they were designed to be weapons. They can't help killing everything in sight that isn't them, it's what they're for.
plays with the trope a lot. More than a few characters who start out believing the aliens to be pure evil on par with
himself eventually come to the conclusion that they're no more evil than a volcano or a tsunami — simply a terrifying, destructive but ultimately neutral force which cares nothing for whatever morality its prey ascribes to it.
The Subsiders in . The regular vampires feed on blood but retain enough human qualities for some of them to even be sympathetic characters, but the Subsiders are feral monsters that kill on sight and prey on vampires and humans alike.
has at least two intelligent alien species, the Bugs from
(represented by Edgar) and the Boglodites from
(represented by Boris), who are completely hostile to everything else out there due to their nature as ravenous . Serleena from
is implied to be similar, but we never find out if she has any brethren. Discussed in the first film regarding the Bugs:
Kay: Bugs thrive on carnage, Tiger. They consume, infest, destroy, live off the death and destruction of other species. [...] Imagine a giant cockroach, with unlimited strength, a massive inferiority complex, and , is tear-assing around Manhattan Island in . That sound like fun?
The Witches in the film , based on the
, are s evil, ugly, hateful and despise all the children with murderous rage (with only one exception).
All cars became this in
after a comet makes them sentient.
Subverted in . While Some of the solders clearly believe this is the case for all Germans, Wardaddy tells Norman early on that most of the enemy army are simply doing exactly what they are doing (which doesn't they should go easy on them). Wardaddy does have a special disdain for the SS for understandable reasons.
However, one of the only acts of Mercy (and the only one done outside of Geneva Convention regulations) is done by not only a German but by a member of the SS.
got a lot of criticism for depicting people who don't share Christian beliefs this way. Pretty much every Atheist character in the films is characterized as a smug, angry, selfish, obnoxious, mustache twirling and unhappy person who wants to destroy christians because he hates their faith.
&&&&Gamebooks&
Orcs and goblins in the
books are always evil. Dark elves are an interesting case — in most books, they are portrayed as powerful and very, very evil, but in ,
against the
. The first one the player meets explains that he doesn't want to see his entire race destroyed, just as the PC, a human, would not want to see all humans wiped out.
The book Titan, which serves as
for the world that most Fighting Fantasy books are set in, subverts this trope with the Halfhand brothers. The humans Rerek and Myzar Halfhand, and their human followers, invaded and slaughtered a nation of orcs that were living in a fertile territory that the humans wanted. The book
the fact that the humans were very much in the wrong in this case, since they were the ones who attacked the orcs first, even though the humans are also celebrated as the heroes!
Both used and subverted in the
franchise. Those beings created directly by , the , such as Agarash and the Darklords, have his essence in place of the souls that living creatures possess, accounting for their Always Chaotic Evil nature. Their servants, such as the orc-like Giaks, are evil only because they have never had any other choice, having been bred and used as warrior-slaves for generations. They do not know love, kindness, or compassion because they have never seen it, and readers are swiftly led to feel pity for them even as they kill and torture their way across the heroes' homelands. Also, anyone described as "swarthy" is not to be trusted (leading to some very ).
&&&&Literature&
in the eleventh century epic , written by Persian poet Ferdowsi and drawing from much older myths. Zal, the son of the Shah's Pehliva (king's champion) goes to Kabul, and is well-received by the royal family, despite the fact that they descend from an evil three-headed dragon who ate brains, learnt magic from the Zoroastrian devil equivalent and tried to . Zal was warned not to sleep in their home or eat their food, and complies, candidly saying why (he was raised by a bird and has ). Deeply humiliated, king Mehrab... does nothing, and keeps treating him well, even innocently recounting the whole thing and praising him to his daughter Rudabeh behind closed doors. The proud Rudabeh he starts acting like , seduces Zal, and they proclaim their desire to marry against the Shah and his father's advice... and nothing bad happens untill the shah and Zal's father march against Mehrab's kingdom. Then, Mehrab finally has enough... and asks his daughter if she would agree to be executed by the Shah, to save their people. At this point, Zal goes to his father and performs a guilt slinging over his abandonment of him as a child, and the girl's mother goes the Shah, convinces him to take a good look at her daughter, and proves him that she isn't a man-eating serpent. Everything ends well.
Vampires in
all delight in causing pain and death. They are capable of playing along with society's rules and refrain from murdering people, but they still unleash their sadistic fury on animals behind closed doors. Possibly also the
races seen briefly.
In , we have a race which is Always : the
Vogons. Douglas Adams came up with a justification for this which wa the Vogon homeworld is covered in paddles that fly up and whack you in the face whenever you have an idea.
Now, the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax — they were about as evil as one could get in Hitchhiker.
"... That was just the name of their race. The name of their army was something quite horrific."
repeatedly in :
are built up as a monolithically evil species who enslave other races because they're dicks. However, we later learn that Yeerks without hosts are almost blind and deaf, and can only swim about f thus, the fact that they possess other species is understandable, if not commendable. Later still, we encounter Yeerks who do not agree with enslaving other species and either enter a voluntary commensal relationship, or live out their lives in Yeerk Pools. Even later, we find out that
the Iskoort, which consist of the 'isk' and the 'yoort' (the later of which is basically a yeerk) generate artificial bodies to live in which have no minds of their own.
Taxxons are vicious, cannibalistic monsters who are constantly in the grip of an absolutely irresistible hunger, and who apparently voluntarily submitted themselves to Yeerk domination. However, they are also intelligent, and there is a group of rebels on their home world fighting against the Yeerks. Their vicious nature is a result of evolving on one of the harshest planets in the galaxy. In the end, they all morph into pythons and live out their lives as animals to escape the constant hunger. The reason they volunteered themselves for controllership was also an attempt to free themselves of the hunger. This didn't work.
The Howlers were a fascinating . They were created by the
Crayak, and had spent at least thousands of years wiping out countless species across the galaxy for no apparent reason. Cassie, however, refused to believe they were Always Chaotic Evil if they were truly sentient. When Jake eventually morphs one and gets to experience its natural instincts, he finds out that their minds are closest to dolphins.note& They're childlike and playful, and
until the Animorphs infect their
with their own memories. They have no concept of death or suffering, since any Howler who experiences pain or injury is destroyed before its personal memories can enter the . They basically think they're living in a giant game.
The Hork-Bajir seem evil (they look like dinosaurs with knives growing all over them), but once we meet free Hork-Bajir, they turn out to be peaceful and good-natured. They didn't even have a concept of war before the Yeerks
when Dak Hamee first gets attacked by a Hork-Bajir-Controller, he cannot understand what's happening, since the thought of another Hork-Bajir purposefully hurting him had never occurred to him before. The blades growing from their bodies are for climbing and harvesting tree bark, their main food source. They were, in fact, genetically engineered by the natives of their homeworld to keep the world's decidedly fragile ecosystem stable by acting as a species of arboretum-keepers.
Surprisingly played straight with the Helmacrons, an entire race of
who run on .
has the "weapon races," which were created by the Consult using
and magic to exterminate humans and the . All of them have a sexual lust for violence. The scranc are a hardy breed of dog-sized creatures who breed explosively and
relentlessly. Bashrags are three humanoid bodies twisted into a hideous ogre-creature. Skin-spies can imitate and impersonate people to act as spies and assassins. Wracu are essentially dragons.
The good witches of 's
books were a subversion of witches as Always Chaotic Evil. Also, in
, the Wicked Witch's guards are expected to be the
version of this trope, but once Dorothy defeats the Witch, the guards thank her and praise her. This doesn't happen in the book, as it was explicitly stated that the Wicked Witch had enslaved the Winkies (the people of Western Oz).
Subverted in most of the works of . Several races in his science fiction novels appear to be evil, but on closer inspection, it is usually revealed that they are evil because of some aspect of their culture rather than anything inherent.
The vicious nomadic Green Men in his
series turn out to be violent and sadistic with
because . It does make them fit t the unusual part is that they're, nevertheless, not simply antagonistic all the time. The Thark nation often helps the good guys after it comes to be led by an individual who actually knows some personal affection, and because the other Tharks aren't too picky about their causes if it involves fighting under someone badass enough.
The cannibal men of U-Gor in the seventh Martian novel turned to cannibalism out of desperation because their
enforced policies that led to starvation.
The hideous Coripies from the
novels are antisocial and violent because they kill women who have a lot of children to control their population, making women , and men avoid sexual relations with any woman they like.
The Mahar of Pellucidar seem to be evil at first, but turn out to have a sense of justice and honor. Also, the Mahar don't know humans are anything other than animals, since they are deaf and communicate through telepathy, and thus can't hear human speech. (Admittedly, missing human tool-using and technology, even of a Paleolithic culture like most of Pellucidar, seems pretty
for a species which is supposed to be at least as smart as humans, probably smarter...)
The Wieroo in the
come a little closer, in that we're never explicitly told why they developed their sadistic religion. But when you discover that your entire race is doomed because you can't produce fertile women... except that you can reproduce with normal humans... who unfortunately consider you hideous monsters, and thus will never willingly sleep with you... well, it's still awful, but unsurprising that something had to give.
The countries and, thus, races in
are dramatically stereotyped: the Drasnians are sneaky
or , while the Arends are all brash to the point of stupidity and definitely belong somewhere in a pseudo-medieval hierarchy. The bad guys are split into a number of groups, but can all be described simply as "bad guys".
In the sequel series, the Malloreon, however, the author takes great pains to humanize at least some of the bad guys, usually by adding them to the protagonist's adventuring party. At that point, the Angarak nations get more distinguished by their individual
than the fact that they're evil.
The author handwaves this by having the "races" be the product of selection by the gods: Chaldan, god of the Arends, values courage over brains. So when he got to select his chosen people, he picked accordingly, and things got predictably out of hand from there. Likewise, the Angaraks were bad guys in large part because they were driven to it by a bad god who wasn't pushing them in the sequel, being dead.
The author also justifies this in the Belgariad by stating that the three "bad guy" countries are controlled by . This means that, for the Belgariad, all the antagonists are products of a chaotic evil society. The most "liberal" of the three is still populated by people who fear the priest caste. The fourth "bad guy" country is governed by a more cosmopolitan and urbane group, and, thus, is less chaotic.
The Nadraks and Thulls are never really presented as evil. The Nadraks tend to be more closely aligned with the Drasnians than their fellow Angaraks, and the Thulls are straight up victims of Angarak society and will quite happily surrender to any western force that happens by just to get away from the Grolims.
The dark elves (a.k.a. moredhel, a.k.a. Brotherhood of the Dark Path) from 's
series are presented as ruthless, murderous, and unscrupulous. In an interesting twist, they are of the same blood as the eledhel, the High Elves of the series. It's explained that their differences are solely cultural, and that their cruel tendencies are mostly due to the lingering influence of their former dragon rider masters, the destructive Valheru. They're shown to have grey areas, and have
tendencies. Occasionally, a moredhel will leave his or her people and join the eledhel, after which, he or she is considered an eledhel.
The Pantathians are snake-people who are described and shown to be
(even a Pantathian that's hatched from its egg minutes earlier will attack any non-Pantathian on sight). But they're justified by having been created by an evil mistress as minions.
The various extradimensional creatures, such as the demons and the Dread, neither of which have ever been shown doing anything besides trying to destroy the world and devour all life. They're too alien to life on our plane to coexist peacefully with it.
The Dasati in the Darkwar subseries are introduced as Always Chaotic Evil, to the point that their society hunts down and kills their own pregnant women and children to ensure that only the strongest will survive their attacks, and there are no doctors or healers. However, we quickly learn that there is a secret society known as the White that is working to reform their culture, and they are not irredeemably evil.
The one race in the Riftwar-verse that is utterly and irredeemably evil is the Valheru, a.k.a. The Dragon Lords. Beings of nigh-godlike power, who ride dragons throughout the multiverse, looting whatever worlds capture their fancy, and killing and eating all manner of other creatures, including each other. While not sadistic, the Valheru are power-hungry, completely immoral, and so powerful that they cannot be allowed to be free...well, anywhere.
Though the novels themselves point out that the Valheru aren't so much evil as they are other - they come from a time when , unlike the modern world after new gods arose, and as such, can't really be allowed free reign anywhere in it because they upset the balance of the universe just by doing what Valheru do (which is to say, whatever they please).
series, the species of a character alone will (almost) always tell you if they're good (mice, moles, shrews) or evil (rats, ferrets, stoats). Even one of the evil species who was raised in Redwall turns out bad, because it's apparently . Cats seem to be the only species to avoid this, as there are examples of good and evil cats in the series.
at the end of the book. However, he . Bryony's theory is that he turned bad precisely because it he was always accused of theft when something went missing and generally treated like a bomb about to go off by the rest of the Abbey dwellers, so he started living up to their expectations out of spite. Oddly, at the end she decides he was evil all along, even after he'd saved her life.
Then there's Blaggut from , the only vermin who isn't evil from the moment of his entrance. He's a decent guy who gets manipulated by his traditionally-evil captain. Eventually, he strangles the captain to death for having murdered the abbey's Badger Mother, and then leaves Redwall out of guilt. It's established that he pays it regular visits afterward, and the Dibbuns are very fond of him.
And Romsca, though she doesn't last very long either.
The biggest exception to this rule is at the end of Marlfox, when almost all of the rats under the Marlfoxes' control do a
and become peaceful.
Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall series, has explained on his website that most of his animal creations are based on the mythological interpretations of the animals — wolves and foxes are sly and clever creatures, badgers are noble and proud, and birds such as sparrows are based on the author's personal observations of sparrows in his back yard (note that the sparrows aren't truly evil-only one of their kings). He also stated a dislike of moral ambiquity in his work: "Goodies are good, and baddies are bad" as he put it.
On the other side, there were only a few evil examples from the good species-a couple voles, and one shrew.
The various Shadowspawn from
are a case of the "artificially created to be evil" variety, being genetically engineered to be the Dark One's slaves. With different kinds of Shadowspawn, we see different variations on this trope.
are exceptionally violent, bloodthirsty animals who are too stupid to know what they're doing is wrong.
The gholam has human intelligence but is a straightforward living weapon and quite proud of that fact. However, he takes a dispassionate view of his purpose, and is not usually malicious, being more like a : he was created to be an assassin, so he assassinates. Also, he needs to drink fresh human blood to survive. As he puts it, "Fish must swim, birds must fly, I must kill."
The Myrddraal, though, are definitely the creepiest - the commanders of the Shadowspawn, they are absolutely emotionless and driven to conquer the world for . They derive no pleasure from anything except inflicting pain (and they don't show it - the fact that they go out of their way to do it in the first place is the only indicator that they like it) and have a heavily implied fetish for raping human women, which almost always drives the victim insane (why they do that is probably best left unknown). It's very telling that the Dark One himself uses a modified Myrddraal, Shaidar Haran, as his .
"": Have you ever seen a Deep One that wasn't evil or Cthulhu-allied, even in Mythos works not written by ? (OK, there was one in
and another in
played with this in his short story . However, it does acknowledge the evil-alignment at the end, when it is implied that the detective-hero is not actually Sherlock Holmes, but his antagonist, who is working against the evil he perceives in the Great Old Ones, is. Considering that it's blatantly stated that the Old Ones eat people, and that the peace they brought to the Earth is one of terror and subjugation, I'd say he's not playing with it that much.
It doesn't help that Lovecraft treats actual human "races" in a very similar manner (read the descriptions of the cultists in "" for a fine example), besides creating several inbred communities in rural America and the infamous fishmen of Innsmouth, who stand out as an ugly, racist metaphor concerning immigrants. The entire basis of Lovecraft's horror is set firmly upon the idea that anything alien or different is terrifyingly evil and he was apparently rather open about his xenophobia, even going so far as to tell his Jewish wife that he thought mixed marriages were a bad idea. To be fair, Lovecraft also had no trouble in writing about degenerate, barbaric white people, and did it with far greater frequency than writing against black people. As might be obvious from the above mention, Lovecraft also wasn't antisemitic, which was more than could be said for many racists in his time.
His racism aside, the Always Chaotic Evil nature of the beings in the Lovecraft mythos was because their psychology and morality were normal to them, but .
Averted in the case of the Elder Things in . The narrator even praises their determination:
"poor Lake, poor Gedney... and poor Old Ones!
God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men!"
Also averted for the Great Race of the Yith in "". What at first seems a rather straightforwardly, almost supernaturally evil plan, stealing the bodies of mankind as hosts for a race of time-traveling aliens, actually becomes rather sympathetic over the course of the story. The Yith aren't really aggressive so much as they're desperate to preserve the galactic heritage of accumulated knowledge that they tend, and are using body-switching as a last resort to escape from actual mindlessly evil beings they're losing a war against. They give their inadvertent captive freedom to move around and are even nice enough to explain things to him so that he doesn't freak out... essentially because they're being nice, as if they'd left him an incoherent broken-down wreck it would have concealed their activities completely. They're still planning to displace humanity, they just have a very reasonable attitude and aren't actively malicious about it, and kinda feel for us.
Subverted in 's . The Grindylows are set up like this, but it is revealed that they are merely zealous defenders of hearth and home. A throwaway line in the next novel, , reveals that they have become allies of New Crobuzon against Tesh.
The Mijaki in Karen Miller's
that had to be contained with their own land so they wouldn't overrun the world, which they do.
The Alesians of
are humans but they still seem to embrace this trope, being clearly the most vicious Thyll Mooks. They are infamous for their banditry and .
The Dead in 's
trilogy. They were originally humans, . They'll suck the Life out of anything even if they aren't allied under a necromancer. Being an animated, twisted sin against the cosmic order will do that to ya.
Specifically, the Dead NEED to kill living beings in order to remain active. This is well known among citizens of the Old Kingdom, so anyone who isn't evil chooses to
The Urgals from Christopher Paolini's
seem to be this. Apparently, they've hated humanity from the get-go (and vice-versa), and when Galbatorix tries to convince his subjects that the Urgals weren't actually evil, just misunderstood, absolutely no one believes him. The Urgals are presented as primitive, monstrous creatures that have no issues with killing and will do anything to get what they want, which seems to be death to all the other races.
Subverted later in the series, when we learn that Urgals have organized society and were misled by G they start helping the Varden after they realize what a screwup the whole arrangement was.
After the war with Galbatorix ends Eragon attempts to help bring peace by setting up an Olympics style tournament the Urgals hold every year to satisfy their competitive nature. Their leaders have doubts about how well it'll work until Eragon reveals he also plans to cast a spell that will let Urgals (as well as Dwarves) become Dragon Riders.
The Ra'zac are this trope played straight.
At least to humanity and Dragons, as those are their natural prey. Every individual of the species seen is straight-up evil... but that's only about four total.
The Posleen from 's
series at first seem to be this - they are a voracious
that loot worlds and eat the inhabitants. However, it is later revealed that they are genetically engineered
created by a long-gone alien race, and are merely following their programming. Individual Posleen even show some level of nobility when they are viewpoint characters. Michael O'Neal, Jr even comments that he does not hate the Posleen, but if he ever runs into their creators, he'll really hate them.
plays with this trope in his
. drow mostly stay true, with one very notable exception (and a small group of Chaotic Good drow that end up dead); orcs were monolithically portrayed as such until Obould showed up and started civilizin' the lot.
The Koloss in 's
trilogy, explained in the third book by appropriately horrific sorts of mutation and mind control. Played with in the form of Kelsier, the Legendary Hero Whose Name The Masses Whisper In The Iron Grip Of The Evil Emperor, who thinks of everyone on the opposing side as Agents Of The Darkest Evil Who Must Be Purged. Most of his crew, while on board with the whole rebellion thing, are deeply unnerved.
have evil creatures mutated from natural ones by : Orcs, Trolls, Dragons, Werewolves, Wargs, etc. However, as a devout Catholic who believed in spiritual salvation, the idea of a race of inherently or irredeemably evil creatures was one of Tolkien's major sticking points with his own work. He spent much of the latter part of his life as a writer trying to . He never did come up with an explanation that satisfied him.
Orcs: In , the Elves theorize that Orcs were Elves tortured and corrupted by , and in
Treebeard voices a similar theory about Trolls being bred as a mockery of Ents. Both of these are beliefs of characters, which are never directly confirmed by the author. Another idea was that Orcs are generally just Human tribes and are "evil" precisely because of Sauron and Morgoth's magic.
These later explanations of Orcs can be seen as an exploration of institutionalized abuse and slavery. While they may be a "species" genetically distinct from their Elf and/or Human ancestors, their evil cultures resulted from millennia of slavery, , and deliberate corruption. They are less inherently evil than a race that's been warped by external forces into cannon fodder. Tolkien even wrote "deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master (Morgoth) whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery."
Perhaps the most tragic and frightening thing about Orcs and Trolls is that we can never know what they would be like if Morgoth and Sauron hadn't ruined them, or if any of them were able to grow up in a less cruel culture. They're never given the opportunity to be anything but evil. They're raised in cultures that encourage hoarding and greed and hatred, and the differences between them incite the violent tendencies bred into them by the Dark Lords. In an Orc society, cooperation would reduce your own chance of survival in a dangerous situation (i.e. leave your partner to the wolves and escape on your own). Sauron's propaganda also convinced them that their enemies, particularly Elves, were even crueler than Orcs, to discourage them from ever surrendering in battle.
In one letter, Tolkien points out that some Orcs display
if nothing else, and that they wouldn't have been able to function as well if they were completely evil. And he was generally quite good at giving individual Orcs distinct personalities. (This is touched on in the animated version of , where some
that they don't want to go to war but their officers and Sauron .)
Trolls: Aside from Treebeard's theory above, Tolkien suggested that Trolls were artificially created from stones. Yet in , William the Troll has mercy on Bilbo and insists that the other Trolls let him go. William "had already had as much sup also he had had lots of beer." The other Trolls also seem reasonable, but are concerned that there may be other 'burrahobbi}