Ambiguously Human: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

 

** Bear in mind that there are also normal humans (as far as we know) with [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|odd hair colors]] in the series, so that's not a dead giveaway for identifying "interfaces" in disguise.

* If you do a screengrab of Beppo in ''[[Gankutsuou]]'' and then clone her skin tone in MS Paint or a similar program, it suddenly becomes noticeable that her skin is ''mauve''. Then you add in that manga!Beppo lacks nipples, in a canon that doesn't usually [[Barbie Doll Anatomy|eliminate those]]...

** Ofcourse the said lack of nipples might also be intended as evidence of body-modification. It's strongly implied that Beppo is a pre-op [[Transsexual]]

* ''[[Soul Eater]]''; the only indication that Death the Kid is ''not'' a member of one of the 'verse's common races (Human/Weapon, witch) is his black-and-white striped hair. Unless you hurt or upset him enough that his Defence Mechanism Superpower/Super Mode kicks in.

* As [[What Could Have Been|they were originally planned to all be inhuman monsters]], whether or not some of the members of Akatsuki in ''[[Naruto]]'' are human isn't initially clear. Kisame is a [[Fish People|shark man]], Kakuzu is a living rag-doll that steals people's hearts and can split demon-like creatures off from himself, and Zetsu is a [[Plant Person|Venus flytrap man]] with a [[Literal Split Personality]]. Later chapters and [[All There in the Manual|supplementary information]] show that Kakuzu {{spoiler|is a human who heavily modified his body with forbidden ninjutsu}}, Kisame {{spoiler|is just a weird looking human}}, and Zetsu'{{spoiler|s white half is an artificial creation of Madara's made from the first Hokage's cells while the origin of his black half is still unknown.}}

* The Medicine Peddler from ''[[Mononoke]]'' has [[Unusual Ears|pointed elf-like ears]], [[Cute Little Fangs|barely noticeable sharply-pointed canines]] and mononoke-exorcising powers -- not to mention an alter-ego specifically designed for the purpose. Though his actual species is never revealed, it's rather obvious (to the viewers, anyway) that he isn't a normal human by any means.

** Then, of course, there are all the residents of the magic world, who are completely human but for, say, pointy ears, or dragon horns.

** Chachamaru went comically unnoticed by most of the rest of the class ([[Lampshade Hanging|apart from, of course,]] [[Meta Girl|Chisame]]), and has become more so with the addition of Synthetic Skin. This has reached the point that, where once it was obvious due to mechanical limbs, it's only the antennae that really distinguishes her as an android anymore.

 

 

== Comic Books ==

 

** Additionally, there is also "Homo Supreme", a sort of super-mutant; the only known example is Mr. Immortal, who is theorized to have "evolved past death".

* Sometimes comics will have comic relief characters with tenuous-at-best ties to continuity - like Ambush Bug, 'Mazing Man, or Forbush Man - who have cartoonish bodies (oversized heads or feet, unnaturally thin limbs, no nose, etc.) but everyone they interact with is a normally proportioned human. Basically, they're [[Gonk|gonks]]. They're are assumed to be human because, well, what else would they be?

== Film ==

 

 

 

== Literature ==

 

** Ford and Zaphod (the two aliens in the picture) ''do'' look human, though. Ford is able to pass for one for fifteen years without difficulty, and while Zaphod normally has two heads and three arms, when the extras are absent he can attend a human party with nobody raising an eyebrow.

* In ''[[The Edge Chronicles]]'' there are various fantastic races (there are ''no'' Earth animals or plants whatsoever) but all of the protagonists are human-ish (they have pointy ears) and aren't given a race name. In around the tenth book, one of them is named as a 'fourthling' and described as pretty much what you get if you add up all of the other races and take an average.

* In the ''[[Thursday Next]]'' series, fictional people and objects (from the Book World, where all literary characters live) are said to look different from "real" people and objects, but Thursday can't quite put her finger on the reason. When a villainous fictional character, {{spoiler|Yorrick Kaine,}} escapes into reality, he's tricked into revealing his true nature because [[Medium Awareness|he can't discern who's talking without literature's "he said / she said" dialogue tags at the end of each spoken sentence.]]

* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', the people of Middle-earth are described as unsure how to classify wizards---they look like men, including with long white beards, but like elves they don't age even after centuries. In reality they're {{spoiler|Maiar, angelic spirits that are just taking human form}}. Also Tom Bombadil, who looks human but obviously is something else. (Even [[Word of God|Tolkien]] [[Shrug of God|doesn't know what]].)

* Randall Flagg, antagonist of several [[Stephen King]] stories. His back story implies that he at least ''was'' human once, but his later incarnations are a bit less obvious about that fact.

* [[Discworld|The City Watch of Ankh-Morpork]] is sometimes described as being comprised of "humans, dwarves, trolls, goblins, gargoyles, a vampire, a werewolf [[And Zoidberg|and Nobby Nobbs."]] He carries a certificate identifying him as human, but that only [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|makes some people]] ''[[Suspiciously Specific Denial|more]]'' [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|suspicious.]]

* [[Those Two Bad Guys]] of ''[[Neverwhere]]'', [[Mr. X and Mr Y|Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar]], are confirmed as nonhuman by Door, but we never find out what they are.

** This goes for essentially everyone in London Below: they mostly look like (extremely idiosyncratic) humans, but have a variety of never-explained super-powers, seem to have been down there for generations, and occasionally traffic with overtly non-human beings.

** [[Word of God]] from Sanderson is that the [[Fantasy Pantheon]] of his cosmology came from a world with humans, and so when they created their own worlds they used them as a template, but put their own spin on it. Also notable is the humans from ''[[Mistborn]]'', who are capable of surviving in a post-apocalyptic ash-choked wasteland that would certainly kill earth humans, though they don't ''look'' any different.

*** well it's explicitly stated in the third [[Mistborn]] book that The Lord Ruler screwed around with the genetics of the people of the Final Empire so they could survive.

 

* Occurs frequently in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', as non-Earth stories would feature human-like characters as often as not, but would rarely indicate whether they were spare-faring humans or [[Human Aliens]]. Even the more expensive new series isn't bereft of it, as the passengers in "Voyage of the Damned" seem to be entirely human but come from other planets in a time before humans develop interstellar travel.

** The [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] attempts to justify this by explaining that Rassilon, the founder of the Time Lord race, intentionally tinkered with genetics on a universal scale to make other species more likely to evolve into a form that resembles his own species. So when the Doctor says that humans "look Time Lord", it's the literal truth. It also [[Retcon|Retcons]] some of the human "aliens" in the show into descendants of human colonists.

** The sixth series episode "Night Terrors" features a little boy named George who seems to be developing OCD. {{spoiler|He's actually a powerful shapeshifting alien, but mimics humanity in order to be accepted by his human adoptive parents. His anxieties stem from fear that the masquerade won't be good enough.}}

* ''[[Blake's Seven|Blake's 7]]'': Is Cally a [[Human Aliens|Human Alien telepath]] or from a race of humans who have artificially modified themselves to possess psionic gifts through cloning and genetic engineering? The series is confused on this issue. Dayna is also referred to as an "alien" at one point, but that may have been a legal as opposed to a biological definition: the implication being that she couldn't receive medical treatment on Earth because she wasn't an Earth citizen. In-universe, the common claim that all intelligent life originated on Earth is disputed, and several planets have "primitive" populations that may or may not have been descendants of colonists from Earth.

* ''Mr. Young'': Mrs. Byrne looks, behaves, and is treated like a human, but considering [[Really 700 Years Old|her age]] she's far too old to be any known species.

== Video Games ==

 

** The series also gives us the Shy Guys, a sort of "tribe" of little guys so shy that they never expose a single square inch of their bodies to anyone. They wear long cloaks, shoes, belts, masks and gloves, and when they lose their masks the first thing they do is run away while covering their faces. It's unlikely, given the Mushroom Kingdom's populace, that they actually ''are'' human, but their basic shape indicates that they are.

*** In one of the ''Mario Power Tennis'' endings a Shy Guy's mask falls off. He's turned away from the screen, so you can't see what's underneath the mask yourself, but poor Luigi can see it perfectly. Luigi immediately falls over, looking like he saw a ghost, trembling in fear as the Shy Guy walks past him. This seems to imply that the Shy Guys are [[Nightmare Face|anything]] [[Humanoid Abomination|but]] human.

* Mumbo the shaman and Gruntilda the witch in the ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'' series. Both of them have human forms, albeit with very strange skin color (bright pink and green, respectively), and Mumbo's face has been magically transformed into a skull-like mask, so there's no telling what he may have originally looked like. These two characters, [[All There in the Manual|says the manual,]] used to be magic partners, so they could be members of the same species. A [[Witch Species]], perhaps?

** In the recent games the Hylian/human distinction has become irrelevant to the point that pointy ears are merely a visual shorthand for important characters. In ''Twilight Princess'', pointy-eared people are referred to as humans too.

** Sakuya is classified as human, yet her time and spatial manipulation abilities are far beyond the capabilities of any other human (as well as being very similar to the abilities of a Lunarian character), and characters have noted her to be far more mature and worldly than her apparent age would indicate.

** Sanae's position isn't particularly ambiguous (she's a human that's ascended to godhood while still alive), but whether the human or the god part of her is more important varies depending on her mood. The profiles list her as human, though.

== Web Comics ==

 

** He also claims to be 24, [[Younger Than He Looks|but looks about 14]], which is commented on in-universe. While it's entirely possible that he's just scrawny, one can't rule out the idea that his aging may be supernaturally stunted.

** Ples "Tik Tok" Tibenoch also counts, with the most popular fan theory being that he's some sort of [[Clockwork Creature|clockwork cyborg]]. The [http://hanna.aftertorque.com/?p=775 mixture of blood and oil] certainly seems suspicious.

* {{spoiler|Sister Catherine}} from ''[[Sister Claire]]'' seems human enough. But look closer. She's drawn differently than the other human characters. A lither body, angular eyes...on occasion you can actually spot some {{spoiler|[[Cute Little Fangs]]}}. All of this, of course, is related to the comic's obsession with [[Animal Motifs|a certain]] [[Cats Are Superior|species of animal]]...

 

== Western Animation ==

 

** Of course, then there's Cyborg, who [[Captain Obvious|is a cyborg.]] The only normal-human-looking main character is Robin.

** It's made clear that there's nothing ''ambiguous'' about Starfire- even strangers she meets at a party know she's an alien, and her [[Bizarre Alien Biology]] is a frequent source of humor (and occasionally, plot points). Raven ''is'' more legitimately ambiguous, both in the sense that its unclear if anyone outside the Titans knows she's a nonhuman, and that it's never specified how different physically her demon heritage makes her from baseline humanity, beyond the obvious cosmetic aspects.

* Ms. Bitters, the "skool"-teacher on ''[[Invader Zim]].'' She looks like an old woman, yet she can hover, move sinuously, pass through walls and is burned by the sun. [[Word of God|One of the creators]] is on record as saying she's non-human, but her exact nature is never exactly qualified.

* V.V. Argost in ''[[The Secret Saturdays]]'' {{spoiler|is actually a Yeti}}.

** People also wonder about his hooded, hairy, shadowy minions; are they humans, gorillas, or are they demons?

** Further hints have been made that Susan Strong is human, and one other character has been confirmed as ''ex-''human: {{spoiler|the Ice King}}.

* There's some debate over whether Heloise on ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' is human. She and Jimmy are the only two human-shaped citizens of Miseryville, but given that only Jimmy is hinted to be a [[Fish Out of Water]], some fans wonder. With her occasionally slithering movements, one [[Epileptic Tree]] is that she's a naga (we never see her feet), though it has been shown she has two appendages under her dress.

** There's also a theory that they're young men who got to looking old quickly from working in the mines-apparently it would happen for real at one time due to working conditions and the harsh toll they took.

* ''[[The Pirates of Dark Water]]'' took place on "the alien world of Mer" which was populated by many nonhuman humanoid creatures, as well as a more common type of ambiguous human (or [[Human Aliens]]?) with distinct slanted eyes. What species the Pirate Lord Bloth belonged to was similarly ambiguous, considering his immense size, blue skin, and unusual facial features. Most of Bloth's pirate crew was similarly humanoid but probably not human, though ambiguous cases like Konk and Mantis did exist.

* ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'' takes place in a galaxy full of all sorts of alien-looking races, most of which are identified by name if a significant enough character is a member. Buzz himself, however, is never specifically called "human", his home planet is never identified, and he never removes the purple "cloth" over the back of his head, even in civilian clothes - for all we know, it could actually be part of his head.

* The Gangreen Gang from ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]''. It's never specified if they're humanoid monsters or weird-looking teenage boys.