I Am a Monster

I'm a monster. Monsters...can't live with humans. All we can do is destroy.
—Chrono, Chrono Crusade

When a character feels they are not human, due to a certain situation that occurred, they may ask What Have I Become? and declare themselves as a monster or a freak. When the character is either not human or is a Half-Human Hybrid, they may feel like a monster if others are scared of them or call them a freak. This trope can also apply to non human characters as well as long as something about them makes them stick out compared to other characters who are the same race/species. If a character utters My God, What Have I Done? (if they killed or hurt someone for example), this will very likely be followed up by I Am a Monster and declare themselves not human for doing such a sinful act. Once a character call themselves a monster, they will most likely tell supporting characters to back off and stay away from them so that they won't be hurt or hurt further.

"Be Yourself" may not be good advice here.


SPOILERS AHOY for non-human and half-human characters.

Examples of I Am a Monster include:
  • At the end of day 2 in Parasite Eve Aya starts to grow afraid that because of her powers being similar to Eve (Aya is a human while Eve is a mutated human whose mitochondria have changed her), she may become a monster like her.

Aya: I... I think I may be a monster...like her!
Daniel: What?! What are you saying, Aya?!
Aya: I don't know. What if... What if I end up by killing you ?! Please, Daniel! I don't know! I just don't know anymore! Please go away from me!
A few moments later.
Aya: Even if I am a monster, I don't ever want to kill you, Daniel...please...! I...I could never forgive myself if I killed...you...

  • Buster on Arrested Development screams this every time he accidentally hurts somebody with his hook hand.
  • Raziel in Soul Reaver 2 has this exchange with his past self, after said past self killed Janos Audron.

Sarafan Raziel: You're a righteous fiend, aren't you?
Raziel: Apparently, I am.

    • Also turned on its head in one encounter in Defiance:

Demon Hunter 1: [pointing] Monster!
Demon Hunter 2: Where?!
Raziel: [sliding into frame] Here!

  • A variation occurs in Chrono Crusade when Joshua accuses Chrono, a demon, of being a monster. The statement makes an impact on him, which he later shows by echoing the statement, claiming that he's a monster and "all I can do is destroy."
    • Of course, his self-perception as a monster has a lot more to do with personal trauma and the fact that as part of Aion's revolutionaries he slaughtered hundreds of other demons on a battlefield in Pandemonium, then got Mary killed, and is now slowly consuming Rosette's soul, than with his race, though he's not wholly comfortable with that anymore either, especially vis-a-vis most of his friends being church-folk and the whole soul-consuming thing. But that still falls under this trope.
  • Alex in Madagascar says this once his lion instincts start kicking in out of hunger, and his friends start turning into Meat-O-Vision steaks.
  • Blackarachnia of Transformers Animated believes herself to be a freak and a monster due to her partially organic robot form (the result of using her powers while damaged by a giant alien spider's venom—really), and subsequently joins the Decepticons and reinvents herself as a Femme Fatale. However, a lot of it seems to be in her head, as she now posesses a number of spider-related powers in addition to her original abilities, and most of the non-Decepticon Transformers she encounters seem to find her smokin' hot.
  • White Mage in this Eight Bit Theater strip.
  • Vash from Trigun feels directly responsible for Knives's crimes and it is strongly hinted that he believes that independent plants are monsters who pose a direct treat to humankind. In the manga, he is terrified of their potential uses of plant power and is shown struggling with the ethical implications of his existence and Knives's. He even thinks at least twice that they shouldn't exist: at the end of the Jenora Rock incident, he thinks that Knives and him shouldn't have been born. At the end of the manga, he also tells Knives of his decision that they should both die together because they are too powerful and have no place in the future of Gunsmoke. (Ironically, though, Vash and Knives are strongly implied to be (fallen) angels come to pose judgement on humankind—which is what Wolfwood seems to believe.)
    • He does do some "stay away from me," especially to the girls in the anime. Most notably, at the end of 'Diablo,' after the plot finally starts.
    • Wolfwood has a little bit of this himself, when he's feeling particularly down. Anime Wolfwood in purely moral terms; manga Wolfwood, who is a much more dyed-in-the-wool utilitarian and cynic,[1] about the combination of moral issues and his fucked-up body. He has nightmares about going back to visit the kids at the orphanage where he grew up and drowning in the blood on his hands.

"I'm sorry, guys... It seems I am no longer qualified to hold you...

Myrrh: It's because I'm a dragon. My father explained it to me. We are both human and monster. And because we are both, we are also neither. [. . .] We have the power of dragons; therefore, we cannot live together with humans... We have the hearts of humans; therefore, we do not belong with monsters. We are outcasts in this world, never a part of either community. And so we live our lives alone, never to be understood by anyone.

  • When the Operative says the exact words of the trope title to Mal in Serenity, that is not an example of the trope. But when River tells Simon after the brawl on Beaumonde that she should just put a bullet in her brainpan that is.
  • Sousuke from Full Metal Panic!, especially in the novels, has instances where he thinks that others must think he's a monster for killing so many people and not feeling anything. In the novels, Kaname actually starts thinking he is, reacting by flinching away from him and telling him he scares her.
  • In the first season finale of Code Geass, Lelouch and CC have a discussion about this. CC reveals that everyone called her a witch because of her immortality, to which Lelouch responds, "If you are a witch, then I am a warlock."
  • From "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton:

I'm not a monster, Tom
Well, technically I am
I guess I am...

    • Somewhat played with, as he treats it as more of an office joke, and then continues with his requests for delicious brains.
  • in the new Shin Mazinger Zero manga, Kouji has a moment of this after a moment of unnatural Unstoppable Rage in which destroys a rogue manufacturing robot with his bare hands

Sayaka: What? How in the world did you do...that!?
Kouji: I...I don't know. It just happened
Sayaka: It "just happened?" Kouji, that wasn't even humanly possible...
Kouji: ...Does it scare you?...I'm like a monster, huh?
[Sayaka's response to this question is not what he was expecting]

  • In Batman Beyond, Batman pleads with the Magma Man of the Terrible Trio to not destroy the city by continuing the experiment that gave them their powers, because he's a hero. Magma disagrees:

Magma: No, I'm not a hero. I'm an accident. Heroes had a choice, we had none.

  • Dan from DMFA, who has feared this since learning his mother was a succubus and his own 'Cubi abilities emerging. This may be self-fulfilling, since Dan has been told by multiple people that not learning to control his new abilities (Dan refuses to attend the school the 'Cubi have set up for just that purpose) dramatically increasing the chance that he'll lose control and become the monster he fears.
  • In the Final Fantasy VII prequel Crisis Core, Angeal displays his degeneration-wing and announces that he's become a monster. Zack, the protagonist, replies that it is the wing of an angel. Not that it's *that* reassuring...

Angeal: Don't monsters usually want either world domination or revenge?

  • Setsuna, Mahou Sensei Negima's local albino half-tengu demon hunter, has severe personal issues about her past. This is somewhat fixed by Konoka going But Your Wings Are Beautiful and Setsuna becoming an fairly importent part of Negi's Nakama.
  • As the page quote indicates, this is actually a survival mechanism in Vampire: The Masquerade. Since you're now a vampire, you're going to have to assault people for blood. You can do it secretly as part of seduction, or you can do it in a flat-out ambush, but odds are, they never asked for it. But by admitting that what you're doing is awful and knowing when to stop, that keeps you from seeing killing as "just another thing" and losing yourself to the Beast. Well, unless you're Sabbat, in which case, good luck.
    • Not quite. The quote's meaning is closer to "I hunt humans and drink their blood so I don't turn into a mindless, frenzied beast in desperate hunger, because that's not pleasant for anybody." It's one part I Am a Monster, one part I Did What I Had to Do.
  • The intro of Prototype:

Alex Mercer: My name is Alex Mercer. I'm responsible for all of this. They call me a murderer, a terrorist, a monster. I'm all of these things.

Alternate!Takumi: I am a monster, a jackass, a man slut and a demon, and it is awesome. Good God, I love my life! I'm gonna go rob a McDonald's!

  • Both Shizuo and Anri from Durarara!! have issues concerning this—Shizuo because of his combination Super Strength/Unstoppable Rage and Anri because she's the host for the Evil Weapon Saika.
  • Van Hohenheim from Fullmetal Alchemist.
    • This is his catchphrase for at least the first half of the manga. (Usually in the form of 'What the hell are you?!' 'A monster.') Once we get his backstory and he joins up with the rest of the main plot, he more or less stops saying this. Partly because he had to reassure one of his sons that he was human.
  • Bat Boy: The Musical: the title character, in the Despair Event Horizon song 'Apology to a Cow'.
  • Jimmy Two-Shoes: Lucius says this, not in response to his Faux Affably Evil nature, or all the Kick the Dog moments, but because his horns have been ruined.
  • Kerovan from The Crystal Gryphon: his mother intended him to be the Witch World's equivalent of Damien Thorne, and while it didn't work out that way, he still has Eyes of Gold and cloven hooves for feet. He tells his fiancee Joisan, "No fit mate for any human woman am I." She thinks, "He has been named monster until he believes it--but if he could only look upon himself through my eyes--"
  • This seems to be the near constant mindset of Morbius which he's more than willing to monologue about.
  • I am what they say I am...a monster
  • Jack, one of the half-human protagonists of Morphic, considers suicide because of this trope. He's talked out of it by Gabriel, a former Nice Guy who just set a villain on fire and discovered that he liked it. The way Gabriel sees it, if Jack's a monster, Gabriel's far worse--so he won't let Jack die for his supposed evil.
  • In John Dies at the End, Dave discovers that he is actually an "evil" clone that killed and replaced the real Dave, and has been this way for quite a while. After this revelation, his friends don't let him be alone for fear that he might try to kill himself. Again. His friends are aware that he's only done good deeds up to that point (aside from killing the real Dave, which he has no memory of), and eventually convince him to live. In the end, it turns out to not really matter, and his true nature only comes up occasionally when John jokingly refers to him as Monster Dave.
  • Dexter has become so comfortable with the notion that he's a monster that he usually just mentions it in passing, cracking Inner Monologue jokes about it. The most dramatic it ever gets is when it occurs to him that he may not be as monstrous as he previously thought.
  • If you pursue a Rivalry with Anders in Dragon Age II, he will come to believe this after destroying the Chantry and sparking the Mage-Templar war. He explains that his hatred and resentment corrupted Justice into a demon, and Anders/Justice is just another murderous abomination that needs to be put down. If you do go through with killing him he will only say that "you should have done this years ago."
  • John Taylor is constantly asked why he returned to the Nightside and stayed there after living in the normal world for five years. His answer? "I belong here--with all of the other monsters."
  • Michael develops shades of this at the end of The Last Knight in the Knight and Rogue Series when he develops magic. Fisk eventually manages to pull him out of it, mostly. Whenever the issue comes up Michael is still incredibly fearful of it.
  • Tiger and Bunny's Kotetsu used to have this attitude towards himself when he was a child, both because of the ostracism he had to endure for being a NEXT and because of the destructive, uncontrollable nature of his powers. He's mostly over it, but he didn't emerge from it entirely unscathed. (Word of God says his childhood fear of hurting others still lives on as a reluctance of worrying people with his problems.)
  • Said by the Monster of the Week in the Supernatural episode "Heart" while pleading with Sam to kill her.
    • And by the vampirized Gordon in "Fresh Blood" while rationalizing his newfound willingness to hurt innocent humans to get Sam.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "I know you'll never love me. I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man and that's..." Though Spike's breakdown towards the end of "Never Leave Me" is a bit closer to the trope.

Spike: If [Buffy] turns to me for comfort, well, I'm not gonna deny it to her. I'm not a monster.
Xander: Yes. You are a monster. Vampires are monsters. They make monster movies about them.
Spike: Well, yeah...you got me there.

  • Tyrion Lannister, the much despised dwarf (as in a human afflicted with dwarfism rather than the more traditional fantasy race), says this a few times. Normally he says it to manipulate people in some way and doesn't actually believe it himself, but the It Got Worse nature of the Crapsack World he's in keeps pushing him more and more, so he skirts very close to truly thinking this of himself.
  • Angel. Lampshaded but averted in "Five by Five"—a flashback scene shows a starving and ensouled Angelus who beats up a woman's protectors and tries to feed on her, all the time shouting "I am a monster!" He is unable to go through with killing her. Likewise Faith after a rampage of violence and torture is reduced to flailing ineffectually at Angel's chest while shouting "I'm evil! I'm bad! I'm evil! Do you hear me? I'm bad!" and begging Angel to kill her.
  • Loki from Thor:

Loki: What, because I... I... I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?

  • In Schlock Mercenary Kowalski repeatedly was called monster by people aware of who and what he is, but one of his clones flatly admitted this (and also advised to kill the original, though on her own eagerly ran with the duty to the very end). Either it's ego pruning, or he doesn't feel as cocky as he acts. He certainly became something more than a human, and may have indeed become less even before that, but it doesn't seem to really run that deep

Admiral Emm: You have a conscience?
Sergeant Kowalski: It's vestigial. It's only good for giving me twinges of guilt when I'm being really effective.

    • Or, to himself:

Kowalski/MaKo: Wallscreen on. Check the queue for scary movies. (logs on)
Kowalski/update: "Scary movies"? Really?
Kowalski/MaKo: Have you looked at what we do? Or how we do it?

  • Genji in Overwatch believed he had become a monster after his conversion into a cyborg, partially justified after the Omnic Crisis that left many people in the world fearful and mistrusting of all forms of sentient machinery and the shady missions he participated in as a member of Blackwatch, Overwatch's secret ops division. He subsequently fled the crumbling organization and wandered around the world until he met Zenyatta, who convinced him that his new cybernetic nature wasn't inherently monstrous.


  1. ↑ who goes from around fifteen to no more than eighteen over the course of the series
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