Reluctant Monster: Difference between revisions

''Even nothing."''|'''The Tragically Hip''', "Family Band"}}

The [['''Reluctant Monster]]''' (usually) has no idea that they're a monster. They're a member of a species that traditionally does nasty things to people, but for them it just never crossed their mind. Folks tend to scream and run away, which is rather disheartening and lonely.

In darker stories, people [[Van Helsing Hate Crimes|will try to kill them]], and it's easy to fall into depression. Occasionally there are other, more traditional members of their kind who ''do'' terrorize humanity, but the [['''Reluctant Monster]]''''s mild temperament sets them apart from their own kind just as much. In more traditional groups, they're the [[Minion with an F In Evil]].

== ComicsComic Books ==

* Nightmare Nyx from the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic]]'' fic ''[[Past Sins|Nightmare Nyx]]''. She knows she's been turned into a monster, but she doesn't want to be, desperately tries not to be, and {{spoiler|actually doesn't do too bad a job as queen of Equestria, after a few false starts}}.

* The various ''[[Frankenstein's Monster|Frankenstein]]'' [[Film|filmsfilm]]s have often portrayed the monster who acts as a main character as a confused beast who doesn't want to hurt anyone and is unfairly hunted down by the villagers. In the original novel, the monster was like this at first, but after being hunted wherever he is found, he vows revenge on his creator and kills Frankenstein's brother, friend and wife. At which point Frankenstein becomes the hunter.

* [[Discworld]] novel* ''[[Discworld/Reaper Man|Reaper Man]]'' features a boogeyman who is actually very agoraphobic and vastly prefers hiding behind things over jumping out from behind them at people. He gets better {{spoiler|just in time for a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment, where he saves everyone from a sentient shopping mall}}.

** ''[[Discworld/Unseen Academicals|Unseen Academicals]]'' has {{spoiler|Nutt, an orc pretending to be a goblin-thing because of the stigma surrounding orcs. (Orcs were created by an [[Evil Overlord]] to be used as super-soldiers in some war}}.

== Live -Action TV ==

* [[Cirque Du Soleil]]'s [[Widget Series]] ''Solstrom'' played with this via a [[Metamorphosis]] -- in—in the horror pastiche "Howling Wind", a hotel is transformed into a [[Haunted Castle]] / [[Hell Hotel]] hybrid via magic. While surprised, the elderly Hotel Owner decides to go on with business as usual as best he can, and thinks nothing of (if he even notices) the help being transformed into ogres, vampires, and sundry eccentrics, or even that ''Death'' is now a guest. As it turns out the magic is slowly turning ''him'' into a [[Wolf Man]]. But he's hardly aware of his increasingly monstrous form -- whenform—when he notices that his fingernails are turning into claws, his response is simply to try filing them down. So preoccupied is he with being a good host that it's a shocked guest whose reaction alerts him to the fact that he's grown a ''tail''. {{spoiler|In [[The Stinger]], the transformation is complete but he is still affable and harmless.}}

* In ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'', this effect is called "Disquiet", and affects all of the Frankensteinian heroes -- peopleheroes—people will eventually turn on them no matter where they go.