There's No Such Thing as Evil Animals

[Lady_Alizarin]

I've noticed that some people consider some kinds of animals to be evil. Most commonly I've seen people say such things like...
"All snakes are evil because they bite and kill people"
"Coyotes are evil because they killed my cat"
or even "Sharks are mean"
"Bats are evil because they suck blood"
"Wolves are bad because they kill farmers sheep"
"Foxes are no good because they all kill and eat kits"
 
Out in Bonfire Island I was watching these two players roleplaying as a crocodile and an aligator. Most of the time, they were just laying on the beach like most gators and crocs do to relax. Well a few people would come up to tease them or harass them, even though they were just laying there doing nothing. This one pup character came up and said in quote -Growls at the crocodile- "Why are you so evil? Answer ME!" And then there were a couple of times when I was just sitting around out in Flourite Plains as my fox characters, and some Warrior Cat roleplayers would come up to me and start accusing me of being evil. One warrior approached me (I was my grey fox at the time) and asked OCC "Excuse me? Are you by any chance an evil fox?" I said to her. "Of course not. Why would I be?" and she replied. "Well because most foxes are evil," and walked away.

Is there such thing as an evil animal? No!

There is no such thing as an evil animal. The only evil animals that exist are those in fiction literature, folklore, fairy tales, movies, and other media. In fiction stories, anything can happen. The villians can be anyone or anything. In many fiction stories, wolves were percived to be evil animals of the night. The only ones who think they are evil are people, because of old superstitions and folklore. They are not evil monsters, they're animals. Snakes are another animal that are often associated with evilness. Snakes aren't evil either, they are just animals.


Snakes don't bite people out of meaness or because they are evil. Snakes bite when they feel threatened or when they feel their life is in danger. Snakes have bitten people because they felt like the person was going to do them harm, even if that person didn't see the snake hiding in the grass. Crocodiles and alligators don't attack animals out of meaness. They do it because they need to eat. Carnivorous animals do the things they do in order to SURVIVE. It's not evil, it's NATURE.
I once saw a video that showed a mother moose trying to defend her calf from a pack of hungry wolves. In the end, she lost the calf to the wolves. A bunch of people commented hateful things by saying that the wolves should have been shot to save the calf, or someone should have stepped in to save the calf. There were some sane people who said, "That's not a bad thing. That's nature!" Those wolves probably had their own pups to feed. Wolves don't attack baby moose to be evil, they do it to feed the pack and feed their own young.

Evil animals? No such thing!

Have you ever played an animal that was considered "evil" by someone else? Got any stories or opinions to share?

[FantasyDawn]

Bats are simply despised because they are somehow related to vampires.But these mythical creatures don't exist,bats are ordinary living beings.Cats eat mice,who are small,fluffy and adorable(no,i dont mean rats).All animals(predators mostly) have to kill so they can live.If all living beings that kill are evil,well....we,humans,are evil.We destroy forests,we pollute the planet,we kill without even needing food,whilst animals just kill for their own need,not because they feel like killing.So,in conclusion,the only evil animal out there would be us.(not all of us,of course)

[sparticles]

Well in my honest opinion I don't think any animal is evil. They all have their own lifestyles of livving, sleeping, relaxing, socializing and of course hunting. Many say sharks, snakes and crocs are dangerous because everytime there is a death cause I by any of these animals people make it a big deal. If they didn't hunt they would die, we kill animals and eat them some even hunt them for fun. So why is it a crime that the animals do this?.
Anyway in my opinion no animal is evil and shouldn't be accused of being so. I have many times been stopped and attacked for my animal being 'evil' on my wolf, croc, dino, fox and sometimes even a lion. But I just have to choose to ignore their immature behaviour.

[Tearless]

Though I agree that animals can't really be 'evil' in the sense we know, there are definitely reasons why certain species are more frequently cast as the villain. For one thing, it's human nature to project emotion and motives onto animals (heck, people project ulterior motives onto their laptop when it doesn't work right). Dogs aren't able to feel guilt in a human sense when they do something wrong, only fear that their owner is angry, but they look like they do because that's what pacifies their human, and you always hear people saying things like 'he feels guilty, he knows what he did.' Likewise, wild animals probably don't have the capacity to do something with malicious intent the way a human would, but they often do things that, if they were human, would be seen as evil or sociopathic behavior, and we easily see it that way because our brains are wired to. Where a fox sees an easy target to provide food with minimal risk to itself, a human sees a cute little innocent bunny frolicking happily in the meadow, about to meet a tragic early end at the hands of a conniving, ruthless carnivore. It's even more so with coyotes and other animals who might take beloved pets, even though, of course, the coyote can't know or care whether its food belonged to a human.

Pair that with the fact that most stories need a villain or antagonist, along with the fact that we've been hearing about sly foxes and big bad wolves for centuries. If you have a fox character and a rabbit character, it only makes sense for the rabbit to assume the fox might be thinking of eating it, making it the obvious choice for villain over its harmless vegetarian counterpart (how would you even write an evil rabbit in a realistic RP? "Muahahaha, I'm not going to let the fox catch and devour me, and it will starve! MUAHAHA. NOW I'M GOING TO EAT THIS GUY'S LOVINGLY TENDED RHUBARB PATCH. I'M SO HARDCORE).

Not that it isn't really annoying when you're just sitting there on a fox/crocodile/lion and a prey animal randomly tells you off for being evil just because of your species (it's also kind of rude, honestly, and brings up a whole other issue of confusing OOC with IC), but it's kind of what people are naturally inclined to do.

Sorry, I should probably stop writing little mini-essays in Game Discussion threads...

[~Stargazer~]

You are right, none of the animals that The Lord has created are evil.
It's all nature. If every calf lived and every wolf died the moose population would increase dramatically and there wouldn't be enough plants to provide the moose with. Therefore a lot of moose would die of starvation. That is what you call the balance of life.
Animals attack others either because they feel threatened or they need food for their young. They don't do it to be cruel.

[Killian]

I always see this in FH, just a few weeks ago I was messing with some lions with a friend and another person came over who just happened to be light brown with a sickle tail. "MOM! A HYENA!".

He said he wasn't a hyena, one thing led to another, things got nasty then they said he was ''acting'' like a hyena. This annoys me, how does someone act like a hyena? Ugh, they be giving lions bad names if anything.

[duna the killer]

Nothing in this world is evil. Sharks, bats, foxes, wolves and all the others are just trying to stay alive. Foxes don't mean to be evil by killing kits. Sharks don't mean to be evil by attacking humans. Sure you can make your character 'evil' by giving it a bad backstory or just making their core evil. But any natural animal that God created had no intention what so ever to be evil. Sure in some stories they are the 'bad guys' like in the Three Little Pigs, the wolf tries to eat the pigs. But that doesn't mean every wolf in the world is evil. Those innocent crocs Lady mentioned were just lying there, a croc or gator will only attack something if it is defending something or hunting. No creature on this Earth was created for evil intentions.

[BouncyLion101]

In the Bible, or what I've picked up from the Internet that said that it was in the Bible, it stated that snakes were evil and that a the devil was posing as a snake and to trick Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the tree.
I think that's a reason many people find snakes evil, and that snakes tend to attack from hidden places when they are feeling scared or threatened.

It's mainly people that don't understand how it works in the wild that think that wild animals can be evil.
No, they really aren't. I completely agree with you, Lady.

In the wild, it's all about surviving. If a human intrudes onto the territory of a wolf, of course that wolf is going to try and defend its home.
Sort of like if an intruder is in a human house, that owner of the home will defend their house if they can. I don't see any evil in defending and trying to stay alive.

[MadMoai]

This is interesting. :3

Yes, there's no such thing as 'evil' animals... others have already gone over lots of points supporting that, so I won't ramble or anything.

What I think is most interesting is that people think snakes are evil, but a lot of times snakes actually represent healing and recovery. You know that symbol for medicine that's basically a staff (stick) with a snake coiling around it? Yep, that's one example. Snake venom is also good medicine, in some cases.
If you have one animal you think is evil, some culture in the world is going to disagree with you and have decent evidence to back it up... yeah, no such thing as evil animals, ehehe.