History Main / TheTamingOfTheGrue

* Regarding [[OurElvesAreDifferent dark elves]]:

* Elves and [[OurFairiesAreDifferent fairies]] in general have gone from TheFairFolk to often AlwaysLawfulGood over the course of modern history.

* There are [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]] plushie dolls (as shown in the page image). Not to mention [[Literature/TheHoundsOfTindalos Hounds of Tindalos]], gugs, Mi-Go. Moreover, recent fiction is ''much'' more likely to play these guys for laughs rather than straight. In a sense, it was bound to happen: Creator/HPLovecraft's works played heavily on the fear of the alien and unknown. His works becoming household names, meaning that now everyone knows about them, ironically defused their entire point.

** The [[TokenHeroicOrc heroic dark elf]] Drizzt Do'Urden in ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' has fast-tracked the taming of his race in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', where they're also known as drow. The race was still mostly evil, but the template of the ChaoticGood renegade dark elf became an OverusedCopycatCharacter by now, even though the archetypal Drizzt himself was more [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch unique]] when first introduced because good drow were way less common back then. [[https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/23/21300653/dungeons-dragons-racial-stereotypes-wizards-of-the-coast-drow-orcs-curse-of-strahd In 2020, Wizards of the Coast would introduce several new non-evil Drow cultures, putting them further into this territory]].

In short, this trope is VillainDecay on the species level - what happens when OurMonstersAreDifferent turns the [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch exception]] into the [[PlanetOfHats rule]].

** The [[TokenHeroicOrc heroic dark elf]] Drizzt Do'Urden in ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' has fast-tracked the taming of his race in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', where they're also known as drow. The race is still mostly evil, but the template of the ChaoticGood renegade dark elf has become an OverusedCopycatCharacter by now, even though the archetypal Drizzt himself was more [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch unique]] when first introduced because good drow were way less common back then.

* The trope namer, grues, first appeared in Creator/{{Infocom}}'s classic ''VideoGame/{{Zork}}'' games as the unseen (and, because they never leave pitch-dark areas, unseeable) monsters who would eat adventurers careless enough to wander in dark places without a light source. Later works such as ''VideoGame/{{Wishbringer}}'' and ''Zork: The Undiscovered Underground'' would play grues for laughs; ''Wishbringer'' featured a grue lair with a refrigerator whose light goes out when you open it and a mother grue with an apron, while ''Undiscovered Underground'' had a grue convention where grues would discuss topics such as 'Surviving the lean years'. The grues were still dangerous, but played less seriously than in earlier works. Somewhere in between was ''VideoGame/{{ADOM}}'s'' treatment of grues, which made them killable monsters -- played seriously aside from the ShoutOut aspect but less formidable than an unseen, unbeatable threat. The once-popular humorous wiki Uncyclopedia pokes fun at grues even more, making them look like the weird Japanese character [[Anime/DomoTV Domo-kun]] for the hell of it.

See also AdorableAbomination, CuteMonsterGirl, YouSexyBeast, LovecraftLite, {{Disneyfication}}. FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire is a subtrope of this. DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu can lead to this effect if done often enough. JustForFun/NotToBeConfusedWith the plot of ''WesternAnimation/{{Despicable Me}}''.

[[caption-width-right:342:Creator/HPLovecraft must be rolling in his grave... Or at least [[{{Headdesk}} banging his head on a wall]] [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/81337 really hard.]]]]

* [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werewolves]] have this problem, on and off. Old folklore describes them as vicious animals, at best, but contemporary works tend to humanize them more. They still get cast as vicious animals, but their humanity is still more pronounced. Some traditions have werewolves as a type of witch who sold their soul for their ability to transform, so even as human beings they were evil. Modern werewolves tend to either be innocents who contracted the curse by being the victim of another werewolf, or having been born that way (and usually possessing some degree of control). Either way, they can't help what they are.
** The softening of the Werewolf dates back as the 12th Century where Creator/MarieDeFrance writes the tale of the Literature/{{Bisclavret}} who was trapped in his Wolf form by a treacherous wife after revealing his secret and is captured then kept as a pet by the King who he remains loyal to, even as a Wolf.