Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Have you tried... ''not'' being a mutant?''|'''Madeline Drake''' (to her son [[An Ice Person|Bobby]]), ''[[X-Men (film)|X2: X-Men United]]''}}

Then they find others like them - also living in secret and ostracized from society. A subculture, upholding a [[The Masquerade|masquerade]] of being normal by day, but living out a secret lifestyle in seedy bars and locations. They might [[Trial Balloon Question|ask their family if they would still love them]], but chances are that if they ever tell their parents, acceptance will be hard, and they'll inevitably be asked, "'''Have you tried...''not'' being a monster?'''"

* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Slayers]]'' {{spoiler|''Next''}} when heroes face the fact that a charming prankster they traveled with is milleniamillennia-old and extremely powerful [[Exclusively Evil|Mazoku]]. [[Love Freak|Amelia]], [[Lord Error-Prone|of course]], immediately and [[Genki Girl|passionately]] exhorted the character to "become a real human". Even ''[[Idiot Hero|Gourry]]'' saw just how grotesque this was.

* Done in a more sensible fashion in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS]]''. It's more along the lines of "Have you tried not being a group of morally-devoid combat cyborgs?" At the end of her fight with Nove, Wendi and Deed, Teana tells Nove that if she cooperates, she will be able to start over and enter rehabilitation, prompting Nove to respond that they, being combat cyborgs, are made to do battle. Teana responds that {{spoiler|Subaru}} is a case of someone who was made as a combat cyborg but nevertheless became a kind person. Teana's three opponents get the message and enter rehabilitation, with Wendi and Nove crediting Teana as the one who inspired them to change.

** See the ''[[X-Men (film)|X2: X-Men United]]'' entry below.

'''Spider-Man''': Hey, I'm not a mutant! ...NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat.[[Not That There's Anything Wrong with That]].}}

* In Bill Brittain's book, ''Wings,'' the main character grows a pair of batlike--andbatlike—and ultimately functional--[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|wings]]. He is forced to have them [[Bittersweet Ending|surgically removed in the end]], however, at the insistence of his father.

*** ''[[Angel]]'' then reverses that: Cordelia misreads the signals she's been getting from the new vampire Harmony, and ends up thinking Harmony's a lesbian. She calls Willow to ask "why didn't you tell me?" and the conversation [https://web.archive.org/web/20120510072624/http://vrya.net/bdb/clip.php?clip=5488 is full of mixed signals]. Finally:

* The live-action series ''[[The Tick (animationtelevision)|The Tick]]'' had an episode of this trope, centered around Arthur coming out as a superhero to his mom and sister. Tick is referred to as Arthur's "Partner" and "Special friend". In one scene the mom and sister, upon first entering the restaurant Arthur and Tick frequent, notice a superhero leaving and ask, "Is this one of '''those''' kind of places?"

** Creator [[Ben Edlund]] later regretted putting this in people's minds when they made the episode about the relationship between superhero and sidekick, which he described as "very marriage-like" in the commentary.

** ''Deep Space Nine'' also invoked it with respect to Dr. Bashir's genetic enhancement. Bashir was outed as having a trait that is not only considered revolting and wrong by the general public but is also illegal and can lose his military job and even his citizenship, even though Bashir wasn't the one who chose the trait in the first place. That episode read as if it were a metaphor for forced outing of gays. To make matters worse, it creates an [[Unfortunate ImplicationImplications]] with respect to [[Psycho Lesbian|future references to other genetically enhanced characters]].

** Especially the Changelings of ''[[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'', since the other supernatural creatures are born or turned from sires or parents, but Changelings may be born to any family, love theater, sex, and the arts,<ref>PS: the Nockers say "fuck that."</ref>, and have a miserable time fitting in with "banal" normal society. Changelings also either come into their fae identities in early childhood (realizing they're "different" from the other neighborhood kids) or during puberty (dealing with this new rush of sensations and body issues).

* In the [[Dragon Age]] series mages are basically magical mutants born to elves and humans with a stronger connection to the [[Spirit World|Fade]] than others. Untrained mages are vulnerable to [[Demonic Possession]] and are taken to [[Wizarding School|Circles]] to be trained and watched by [[Knight Templar|Templars]] who also double as [[Mage Killer|Mage Killers]]s if they do become possessed or "apostates" that try to run away from the their Circles. Besides the legitimate danger of having a magic-user around to unsettle parents there is also the undercurrent of "magic equals sin" courtesy of the creation of the [[The Horde|Darkspawn]] and other magical transgressions of [[The Magocracy]] that once ruled Thedas; many parents are happy to be rid of their "tainted" children despite the fact that magic ability is universally acknowledged as hereditary and not due to the mage's actions. Of course, there are also examples of parents and families that subvert this: {{spoiler|Isolde}} in ''Origins'' makes some really bad choices to keep her mage son from being taken away, Finn in the ''Witch Hunt'' expansion pack is loved by his parents enough for them to give him an [[Overly Long Name]] and a crappy yet lovingly made hat (that actually has good stats) while the Hawke family in [[Dragon Age II]] chose to stick together and risk persecution by the Templars despite having at least two apostate mages among them.

* The famous [[wikipedia:Kara Neumann case|Kara Neumann case]] is another [[Real Life]] example, where young Kara Neumann came down with type-one diabetes, which is completely fatal unless treated. Her parents were convicted of reckless homicide for [[The Fundamentalist|praying over her instead of]] [[Abusive Parents|taking her to a doctor, because they thought she was "posessedpossessed by demons."]] In this case, they killed her because they ''made'' her try to be normal, [[Sarcasm Mode|with ''very'' obviously good results.]]