History Main / CatsAreSuperior

Compare KingOfBeasts, CuteKitten, CunningLikeAFox. Contrast DogsAreDumb.

* Yoruichi from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' falls into this trope. [[spoiler: And then you see her true form and it all makes sense]].

-->'''Deety''': Eureka, do you have Dorothy's permission?
-->'''Eureka''': What a silly way to talk. Dorothy must get my permission. Feed me the lobster first, then the shrimp. You may have the last piece of shrimp for yourself. [snip] Ignore these jungle beasts; they are not cats. Be it known that Felis domestica has been civilized more generations than all you lesser breeds combined. As my serene ancestress, Bubastis, Goddess of the Nile, was wont to say: "Where Cat is, is civilization." Hurry up with that lobster. [snip] Scratch behind my left ear - gently. I shall sing, then I shall sleep. Maintain a respectful silence.
* The Glass Cat in the ''Literature/LandOfOz'' books also had this attitude.
* The Cheshire Cat from ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' has this.
* ''Literature/{{Petaybee}}'': Coaxtl, the giant cat, loves this trope.
* So does [[FairyCompanion Edgewood Dirk]] of Creator/TerryBrooks' ''Literature/MagicKingdomOfLandover'' novels. Of course in his case, he is actually ''literally'' a fairy, and in that world, fairies might as well as be [[StarfishAliens Starfish Aliens]] as well as aware of far more magic, knowledge, and philosophy than mere humans could, so some of this may be justified. Doesn't stop his SmugSnake, DeadpanSnarker, and HolierThanThou attitude from becoming very annoying sometimes, though. Though Dirk seems to identify himself as a cat first and Faerie second, to the point where any time he tries to explain or justify his attitude, it's always by reminding the person annoyed at him that he is a cat, never that he is a Faerie creature.
* ''Literature/TortallUniverse''
** [[Literature/SongOfTheLioness Faithful]] (or [[Literature/ProvostsDog Pounce]]) is a very [[CatsAreSnarkers sarcastic]] companion to his humans, who he adopts largely out of boredom. He has a number of strange magical abilities and isn't above showing off.

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' Harry has a massive 20+ pound cat named Mister. Harry routinely comments on how 'above-it-all' Mister holds himself. Upon having a puppy brought into the apartment, Mister responded by creating a tradition of swatting it half way across the room with a paw. Since then the puppy has become a very large dog, but Mister sees no reason that should stop his treatment of the dog, ''and the dog accepts it.''
** The Sight allows Harry to see the true form of whatever he looks at. His dog glows with hidden power, his cop friend looks like an angel, monsters look even more hideous...and his cat looks exactly the same as it does when this power is turned off.
*** Mister's continual intimidation of Mouse is made exponentially more impressive over the next few books when it is gradually revealed that [[spoiler: Mouse is a ''total badass'' powerful enough to be feared/respected by a 2000 year old terrorist and Harry's Faerie Godmother.]]
* In ''Literature/TheCinderSpires'' (by the [[Creator/JimButcher same author]]), cats are fully sentient creatures who cohabit the Spires with humans. The chapters narrated by Rowl, [[WarriorPrince Prince of the Silent Paws clan]], show them to be incredibly arrogant and selfish, but nonetheless very brave, honourable (albeit with BlueAndOrangeMorality,) and capable of forming strong bonds with humans who earn their affection (though they usually find some way to justify their displays of affection to avoid acknowledging actual ''care'' for the lowly humans]].
* Creator/HPLovecraft's works:
** The essay [[http://www.psy-q.ch/lovecraft/html/catsdogs.htm Cats and Dogs]] is all about this.
** In the novel ''Literature/TheDreamQuestOfUnknownKadath'', cats are high-powered, intelligent and benevolent.
* ''Literature/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents'': Amazing Maurice. He calls himself amazing for a reason.
* Creator/MercedesLackey [[AuthorAppeal loves this trope]]. Cats are usually intelligent, often wise, skillful at getting around in the world, and occasionally magical.
* In Alan Dean Foster's ''Catalyst'', some cats are powerful energy-based aliens that pose as cats and watch over other sentient beings. Of the three we meet, one attaches herself to the human protagonist, the second is actually evil and has a VillainousBreakdown near the end, and the last is run ragged by the absent-minded plant-like aliens who started everything a long time ago. It is the last that makes the main character somewhat suspicious - how do ''aliens'' have house cats?
* Werecats in the [[Literature/TheInheritanceCycle Inheritance Series]]. Especially Solembum.
* Creator/{{Saki}}'s "The Achievement of the Cat".
* In ''Literature/TheLastUnicorn'', all cats can talk - they just don't often feel inclined to do so.
-->"I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer."
* ''Literature/TomcatBlueEyesDiaries'': Blue Eyes is very sweet little tom-cat who usually likes meeting other animals and respects more experienced cats but he is horrified when he meets a dog who belongs to his human's friend. He cannot understand how the dog can be so submissive and so satisfied taking orders. Eventually they become somewhat friendly but still, he's not Blue Eyes' favourite animal.
* "The Cat Who Walked By Himself" makes bargains with the first humans where other animals become servants. OlderThanRadio.
* Cats became a extinct species [[spoiler: until near the end of the book]] in ''Literature/TheWorldAtTheEndOfTime'' when a fatal plage affected Newmanhome and nobody could make a cat to wear a gauze mask impregned with an awfully smelling fungicide -the cat that acknowledges no law but its own even if it dies for it.-
* ''{{Literature/Redwall}}'': Cats have exactly one non-villainous non-evil example, and all those think considerably more of themselves than the vermin they rule over (especially Ungatt Trunn, ANaziByAnyOtherName). Riggu Felis goes even further by reigning over other cats (he considers that he's superior to them by virtue of being a wildcat, while they're merely feral cats. The fascinating implication of there still being humans to tame cats this late in the series goes unexplored).
* Subverted in ''Literature/TheJungleBook'': Bagheera is among the biggest badasses in the jungle (and not afraid to remind people of it), but even he can't stand Mowgli's gaze for more than a few seconds.
* ''Literature/{{Bravelands}}'':
** Lions are one of the few animals who [[HollywoodAtheist don't worship]] the Great Spirit or respect the Great Parent. As a result, other animals dislike them for being haughty.
** Subverted with cheetahs. They worship the Great Spirit and generally aren't presented any worse than the other animals.
* Cats in ''Literature/TailchasersSong'' believe themselves to be the superior species and the first species that was created by their cat goddess. Humans are deformed cats cursed to serve and worship cats for all of eternity. At worst they're looked down upon with scorn and at best they're exist for cat's amusement. Feral cats do fear humans, however they're still seen as beneath them nevertheless.
* In one of the ''Literature/TheLionKingSixNewAdventures'' stories, Nala's cubhood friend Chumvi believes that lions are superior to other animals.
* Abigail Tucker's non-fiction book, ''The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World'', explores the history of this trope from Ancient Egypt to Website/YouTube cat videos.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'', perhaps. He's definitely smarter than his owner. The cartoon takes it a step further, with cats actually being aliens that "rule" humans in that they get free food and don't have to do anything all day.
* A story in ComicStrip/MandrakeTheMagician has Narda, Mandrake's girlfriend, [[AllJustADream dream]] - [[OrWasItADream or does she?]] - that cats are descendants of aliens that got stuck on Earth and used the primitive humans to survive, having lost their technology. (The same applies to dogs - the dog aliens and cat aliens were at war, and the hostility between cats and dogs are a remnant of this.)
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[[folder:Theater]]

* A subtle example shows up in ''TabletopGame/{{Pugmire}}'', or rather, in a comparison between ''Pugmire'' and the companion game ''Monarchies of Mau''. Where the dog CodeOfHonor (the Code of Man) asks the dog to obey a worthy master, the cat code (the Precepts of Mau) asks the cat to always reward loyalty -- or, in other words, to ''be'' a worthy master. That the primary dog state has a strong central government while the cats are organized into a loose confederation may have a connection to that.

* A subtle example shows up in ''TabletopGame/{{Pugmire}}'', or rather, in a comparison between ''Pugmire'' and the companion game ''Monarchies of Mau''. Were the dog CodeOfHonor (the Code of Man) asks the dog to obey a worthy master, the cat code (the Precepts of Mau) asks the cat to always reward loyalty -- or, in other words, to ''be'' a worthy master. That the primary dog state has a strong central government while the cats are organized into a loose confederation may have a connection to that.

* Abigail Tucker's non-fiction book, ''The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World'', explores the history of this trope from Ancient Egypt to YouTube cat videos.

* The popular stereotype that cats are (much) smarter than dogs, their classical archenemies in fiction, is actually a difficult affair. In 2017, a studio published in ''Frontiers of Neuroanatomy'' showed that cats have "only" 250 million neurons in their brains, much less than the 530 million dogs have, which theoretically would make for less powerful brains for the felines. However, in the same ranking long finned pilot whales beat us humans in number of neurons, which means this doesn't necessarily prove cats are dumber than dogs. Measuring animal intelligence in experimental conditions is particularly difficult with cats because they don't easily pledge to the scientists's commands (in marked contrast to dogs, which are social animals that happily obey whoever they perceive as their masters), and thus getting them to show quantifiably their problem-solving skills is just as arduous as getting them to do any non-free will action in daily life. Cats also display a surprising amount of individual variation and personalities, which makes it even hard to find a veritable measure of their ethological intelligence. That said, it has been found that, whenever they comply, cats do tend to try more strategies and solutions than dogs, who often resort to just stare back to their human handlers in the hopes of receiving help if facing an apparently unsolvable problem. It can be concluded that, smarter or dumber, cats ultimately seek to act by themselves and for themselves in comparison to other species.

Cats are almost always portrayed as particularly intelligent, cunning, and independent, and in works with [[SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism any degree of anthropomorphization]] a cat is likely to be TheChessmaster, a DeadpanSnarker, (see also CatsAreSnarkers) or one of the other [[TheTrickster Trickster]] archetypes. Sometimes they are all but stated to be a SuperiorSpecies.

* Cats in ''Literature/TailchasersSong'' believe themselves to be the superior species and the first species that was created by their cat goddess. Humans are deformed cats cursed to serve and worship cats for all of eternity. At worst they're looked down upon with scorn and at best they're exist for cat's amusement. Feral cats do fear humans, however they're still seem as beneath them nevertheless.

* You could make a case for Plagg from ''WesternAniamtion/MiraculousLadybug'' -- he's not a cat, but a cat-themed, um, "kwami", but he tends to just want to sit around eating [[TrademarkFavoriteFood camembert cheese]] all day, regardless of what Adrien tries to tell him. That is, until an [[MonsterOfTheWeek Akuma]] shows up, upon which Plagg becomes one half of his TransformationTrinket and undergoes a sort-of FusionDance with Adrien into his superhero identity, Chat Noir.

* ''Anime/TheCatReturns''.

* Depending on your source, there are 6-8 [[https://www.livescience.com/33870-domesticated-animals-criteria.html criteria]] that animals must meet to be domesticated by humans. Cats do not meet the criteria. First of all, they're obligate carnivores, which makes them relatively difficult to feed -- you can't feed them pretty much anything you have lying around like you can dogs, pigs, or donkeys. Second, and more importantly, they're not pack animals who live in hierarchical groups and thus know how to take orders and can be taught to see humans as the proverbial alpha. While humans domesticated dogs long before the agricultural revolution and have since created many new dog breeds. cats are genetically still the same as their ancestors thousands of years ago. Not only did humans not intentionally breed cats the way they did dogs, but cats didn't start living with humans until long after the agricultural revolution. Cats were never intentionally raised and bred by humans to serve an intended purpose -- they simply began hanging out around human settlements to feast on the booming rodent populations therein and convinced the residents it was in humans' best interest to welcome them and their free pest control by providing them warmth and shelter. Cats truly ''aren't'' and never were pets the way dogs, fish, rabbits, etc. are -- since cats initiated the partnership, it wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to say that cats [[ThisIsMyHuman made humans their pets]]. How's that for superior?

* ''Webcomic/TheFuzzyPrincess'': The main character is literally a cat princess.

* This is not just for interspecies breeding regarding cats. Cats are also not opposed to outbreeding the way humans are and are more vehemently opposed to inbreeding and incest and than humans. Although Homo sapiens interbred with Homo neaderthalensis a big back when both were around, one of the reasons why the latter went extinct was because they inbred, and Homo sapiens since the agricultural revolutions (one in the Middle East, one in China, and one in the Andes) is not much better. Inbreeding tends to be the trend for human royal families and there were times in history when humans criminalized racial mixing. Humans also foist their incestuous ways onto other species, especially onto domesticated animals like dogs and cultivated plants like bananas and crop plants. This is so bad with Cavendish bananas that they are clones of each other. Wildcats (Felis silvestris), on the other hand, happily breed between subspecies. Mother cats also have their male kittens set off to a different area to mate so as to prevent incest from occurring.

* The fossil record is currently available suggests the reason there are so many more cat species than canine is that cats were driving canines extinct by virtue of being superior hunters, the exceptions usually being canines who formed packs.
** Study of actual living felids suggests that they regard the notion that you can't reproduce outside your species as quaintly provincial. For felids in general, species in the same Genus and of compatible sizes are more likely than not to be cross-fertile, and quite frequently the offspring are also fertile (unlike mules, which are also a cross-species hybrid, but are generally sterile). Some exotic pet cat breeds are the result of crosses with smaller wild felines, such as servals.

* Cats in ''Literature/TailchasersSong'' believe themselves to be the superior species and the first species that was created by their cat goddess. Humans are deformed cats cursed to serve and worship cats for all of eternity. At worst they're looked down upon with scorn and at best they're their for cat's amusement. Feral cats do fear humans, however they're still seem as beneath them nevertheless.

* A number of cat Franchise/{{Pokemon}} are like this, including Mewtwo for a bit.

* [[Discworld/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents Amazing Maurice. He calls himself amazing for a reason.]]

* In the "Nature's Balance" arc from ''Webcomic/NerfNOW'', the cat gets dissed for its Charisma-focused build, and the bigger feline asks if it intends to ''charm'' the humans into submission. Needless to say, it does so, surviving comfortably while bigger cats are mounted on the wall.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', his pet lion is this and KingOfBeasts -- he's got all sorts of special powers and stuff and assists in battle, but rarely follows Steven's orders and tends to wander off on his own.

** ''Disney/TheAristocats'' has the song "Everybody Wants to Be A Cat", where the cats sing an ode to their species' superiority. It actually has nothing to do with cats the animal. The song is a pun, since at the time in the Jazz world, referring to someone as a "cat" meant that s/he was a hip and swingin' musician. If you listen to the lyrics, it does nothing to diss other animals, only "squares."

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast''. Eureka the cat has this attitude while eating dinner with Deety, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger.

* So does [[FairyCompanion Edgewood Dirk]] of Creator/TerryBrooks' ''Literature/MagicKingdomOfLandover'' novels. Of course in his case he is actually ''literally'' a fairy, and in that world fairies might as well as be [[StarfishAliens Starfish Aliens]] as well as aware of far more magic, knowledge, and philosophy than mere humans could, so some of this may be justified. Doesn't stop his SmugSnake, DeadpanSnarker, and HolierThanThou attitude from becoming very annoying sometimes, though. Though Dirk seems to identify himself as a cat first and Faerie second, to the point where anytime he tries to explain or justify his attitude, it's always by reminding the person annoyed at him that he is a cat, never that he is a Faerie creature.

* In Alan Dean Foster's ''Catalyst'', some cats are powerful energy-based aliens that pose as cats and watch over other sentient beings. Of the three we meet, one attaches herself to the human protagonist, the second is actually evil and has a VillainousBreakdown near the end, and the last is run ragged by the absent-minded plant-like aliens who started everything a long time ago. It is the last that makes the main character some what suspicious - how do ''aliens'' have house cats?

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' has Rita and Runt, a cats-rule-dogs-drool OddFriendship. However, Rita is more of a sympathetic nature, as despite her arrogance and selfishness, most of her misfortunes have been examples of [[DudeNotFunny unfair and unequal treatment]]. Still others are brought on by her own ego, so there's a slight subversion there, and Runt is frequently saving her bacon.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats2011'' This is {{deconstructed|Trope}} and PlayedForDrama, since the {{Catfolk}} of TheEmpire of Thundera are a {{Proud Warrior Race|Guy}} who are [[SuperiorSpecies genuinely excellent]] fighters, have an [[TheOrder order]] of KungFuWizard[=/=]{{Magic Knight}}s and possess powerful {{Ancient Artifact}}s. As a result, they do much CulturalPosturing around [[MasterRace believing]] their own press, that they were and are the great civilizers of their planet, who "brought law and order to a [[WorldOfFunnyAnimals world of warring animals]]." This is a deeply-rooted societal justification for [[AnimalJingoism jingoistic]] FantasticRacism against other [[PettingZooPeople Animals]]. They place minorities like {{Dog|faces}}s in a FantasticGhetto to be victimized by "Alley Cats" (the bottom rung of Cat society, who apparently distract themselves from their own low status by lording it over the even lower-status Dogs). In their war with the {{Lizard|Folk}}s, the Cats [[MadeASlave enslave]] the hungry Lizards they catch raiding crops (due to the Cats' monopolization of arable land) even [[VigilanteExecution lynching]] them, if they feel like it. Its only a matter of time until the Cats' sense of security undoes them. [[spoiler: It turns out that this is all due to the Cats being Mumm-Ra's most trusted lackeys back before crash landing on Third Earth when they overthrew Mumm-Ra. The cats were put in charge of the new society; generations later, it went to their heads.]]

* The fossil record as currently available suggests the reason there are so many more cat species than canine is that cats were driving canines extinct by virtue of being superior hunters, the exceptions usually being canines who formed packs.

* Creator/HPLovecraft's essay [[http://www.psy-q.ch/lovecraft/html/catsdogs.htm Cats and Dogs]] is all about this. Also, in his novel ''{{The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath}}'', cats are high-powered, intelligent and benevolent.

* A number of cat Franchise/{{Pokemon}} are like this, including SelfDemonstrating/{{Mewtwo}} for a bit.

* ''Literature/TheWayBack'': Friday doesn’t think any humans are worth as much as him except his owner Anna.