Top of the food chain the creature wasnt nice
"At the end there, when I was trying to cut a deal, the ambassador was scared... That's why he wouldn't come to our aid. That's why we're on our own. Because the demons are afraid of what we're hunting." Show Humans are the dominant species. We're at the top of the food chain. That's part of what makes a lot of monsters scary and badass; they dethrone us from our position of power. But when you think about it, eating people is kind of old-hat. After a while, you begin to lose track of all the different types of monsters that eat humans. It just becomes a fact of life, so by the time you run into that guy who wants to devour your flesh to add to his own power, you just sort of yawn because it's exactly the same as everything you've seen anywhere ever. So how do you make something distinctive, then? Well, if monsters that eat humans are no longer a threat... what about monsters that eat other monsters? To establish a Food Chain Of Evil, all you have to do is make the last threat the preferred prey of the next one. This will often result in situations of Horrifying the Horror for the first monster, where it's deathly frightened of the thing now trying to eat him. Anything which eats monsters that eat humans counts. Basically, this is power tiers established via fictional food chain. This can also be used in worldbuilding to establish ecological relationships between fictional creatures, in order to make the setting feel more interconnected and dynamic instead of just a collection of fantasy monsters with no relationship with one another. No real species exists in isolation from its neighbors, and only very few creatures don't have at least occasional predators, so showing predator-prey relationships between different monsters can help make a fictional world seem more structured and organic. Contrast Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors and Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors, where the food chain is circular. When this sort of food chain exists within a species, that's Monstrous Cannibalism. See also:
Not to be confused with carnivores are evil or Villain Pedigree, although there's probably some overlap with the latter. Examples:open/close all folders Anime and Manga
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What creature is at the top of the food chain?The highest level, known as quaternary consumers, is reserved for apex predators like polar bears or orcas who do not have natural predators within their typical habitat. Who is the top in the food chain?At the top of the system are the apex predators: animals who have no predators other than humans. What animal stands at the top of the food chain?The animal that stands at the top of the food chain, other than human beings, varies depending on the ecosystem. In the ocean, it would be a predator such as the great white shark or killer whale. On land, it would be a predator such as the lion or the polar bear. What is the top predator in a food chain called?An apex predator, also known as a top predator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own. |