Sentient animals without the "evil race" problem?

I'm working on a xenofiction story focused around owls where all animals are sentient, but a realistic food chain is still in place. I've seen a lot of xenofiction media that runs into the problem of portraying predatory species as Always Chaotic Evil in this type of setting. Can I get some tips on how to avoid this?

Just off the top of my head, I'd suggest having the predators operate with a clear code of honor.

Killing for any reason other than obtaining sustenance would be a huge no no. On the other side there would be no resentment for a hunted animal successfully escaping or defending itself because that's just the nature of the hunt. The predators may have additional rules of engagement that aren't necessarily realistic or practical on their part, but drive home the idea that the hunt is seen as a necessary part of their existence rather than something they would chose to do even if it wasn't necessary.

It would still probably be hard to argue that the predators are good precisely, but it would at least push them out of "evil for the sake of evil" category.

Have you ever seen The Lion King?

@Falrinn Ty for the advice, I'll definitely consider that & see if I can fit it in.

@De Marquis I have, but it doesn't focus much on hunting ethics (and is for a younger audience than my project aims for). Plus... I mean, the hyenas from TLK are literally the page image for Always Chaotic Evil, haha.

My suggestion would be to establish the predators (and Scavengers because they have their own baggage that is simialr to what you wan tto avoid) has more desperate than evil. Forced into Evil basally. They have to hunt to survive or else they woudl starve.

However I'd would save it for the animals that do not have any other options in nature, as I assume that some of the carnivorous animals are actual omnivores that prefer meat for convenience (I am not a biologist or zoologist though so take that with some salt)

"It's only evil if you kill without eating it afterwards."

Animals prey on plenty in nature, cannibalism is common practice, even herbivores munch down on smaller animals when given the opportunity like how deer have been seen killing and eating rabbits and small birds or how sheep chomps on baby-birds when opportunity present itself.

Heck, pelicans eats anything they can eye up the moment the chance appears and they're not considered evil. Animals like birds, rabbits, rats, puppies.

Just because sentience is included in the picture then it doesn't mean it will get munched up as food if the opportunity present itself.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Dec 7th 2023 at 5:41:53 PM

You could give the predators an amoral mindset about it. They feel no hatred, sadism or even superiority towards the animals they kill, but they also feel no remorse for them either.

Do your animals have religion? Predators could believe they're sending their prey to an afterlife, and it could even be viewed as honourable to die for the food chain, like how some real life cultures treat it as honourable to die in battle.

I haven't seen Beastars, but have heard the aquatic animals have a system like this. They believe prey animals will be reincarnated as predators, and vice versa.

I suppose that my question is this: Do any of the predator species attempt non-predation means of survival? Do any of those with varied diets attempt to find vegetarian solutions? Do any that require meat attempt to find means of gaining enough carrion? (Perhaps via deals with prey species.) etc.

Actually, another question: Since the animals are sentient, are the prey animals keeping their own numbers under control, in order to not leave themselves with no food source...?

I would suggest making a show of how they have no choice but to prey on others, meatless solutions might ail them and corpses that aren't fresh could be vectors of disease anyhow, unless you're a scavenger

Eh, most predators scavenge pretty freely, if I'm not much mistaken.

At the least, in a setting in which they're intelligent, social institutions might be arranged so that they get quick access to the newly dead.

Another option would be going after criminals whenever possible. It'd have its own moral baggage, but it'd be better than preying on innocents, and would make predators come across more as anti-heroes/anti-villains than as evil races.

I think the problem with this sort of fiction is that it's an extremely unrealistic premise that just appears out of nowhere, so you can't really do much realism with it. Like what does this evil race problem even say about reality?

For example, a sentient predator race would simply domesticate non-sentient races or turn sentient ones into non-sentient foodstock over thousands of years. Or develop non-meat alternatives, i mean we managed that ourselves. It's extremely difficult to create a scenario where this sort of thing happens naturally and yet somehow no solution has ever presented itself.

But even then, if you need to eat meat for your survival, the idea that this is evil is IMHO nonsense. Asking entire species to go extinct because killing some animals is off-limits is not very utilitarian, for example.

Like, just consider that in a universe where grass is also sentient, herbivores would be evil. And if insects are - guess what. You can apply this arbitrary sentience to anything and come to the conclusion that existence is evil.

Chickens and pigs will cannibalize too. Chickens will also eat their own eggs.

Edited by devak on Dec 14th 2023 at 9:50:12 PM

When it comes to "Evil & Good" between "Predator & Herbivore" then the herbivores would be considered the "evil" ones in the setting.

What a predator does is not evil, it's natural and part of the natural order, there is nothing wrong about that.

What a herbivore does is not evil but part of the natural order as well.

But when a herbivore tries to force their way of life on a carnivore by essentially branding them as "murderers/criminals/monsters" just for eating meat, then they have crossed the line of morals, since some predatory species can't eat anything but meat to survive, that's just how things are.

Not to mention plenty of seemingly "herbivore"-species also eats meat when opportunity presents itself, making their diet optional and them massive hypocrites if they call predatory species "evil" for eating meat.

So there is that.

Well, it's also part of the natural order for herbivores to fear predation. Not that it'd make either side evil, they'd just be two different groups wanting to survive. Of course, if the herbivores ate meat anyway despite not needing to, or the carnivores killed more than they had to, that'd be a different story.

Anyway, just looked over the Sapient Eat Sapient page, which has a list of possible solutions. A body donation system sounds like a good possibility, much like organ donation.

It's also not unheard of for a herbivore to kill its would-be predator during a hunt.

I'd imagine a sapient predator likely wouldn't even see its hunting of sapient prey as bad if it's been doing so for its entire history. Just look at the stuff various human cultures got up to in how they treated others.

Yeah, it's entirely possible predators wouldn't even recognise their prey as sapient, especially if different species speak different languages.

Thinking about it, it strikes me as a tad odd that sapient wild species can often communicate perfectly with each other in xenofiction, even though real animals have drastically different communication methods. If they have civilisation, politics, trade etc it's more understandable, since they could learn each other's languages, so how advanced are your societies? If they're completely wild, the owls would probably view mice as non-sapient, or at least less so than they are.

Even if they did recognize their prey as sapient, that might not stop them.

Considering, as mentioned above, that cannibalism is a common practice in nature then they might not be bothered by it even when recognizing the meal as someone of their own species.

Rule number one on our Earth: "Nature doesn't care."

But for a society to work between all species... yeah, it needs an global universal translator.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Dec 15th 2023 at 5:40:18 PM

If they're sapient, they'd probably have some kind of law and moral code, even if it's strange by our standards.

Regardless, if they frequently commit murder just because they can, and are fully aware of what they're doing, most of the audience will consider them evil or at least unsympathetic. We don't think highly of human serial killers, after all. And this is exactly what sleebykiddy is trying to avoid.

Intelligent creatures being casually cruel for the sake of it + extremely high death rate = good recipe for Too Bleak, Stopped Caring. It's why the original version of The Fox and the Hound ended up on that trope page.

Edited by CalicoCaitSith on Dec 15th 2023 at 8:08:17 PM

That said, for all of the morally-questionable from our perspective actions committed by all life on earth, it is also capable of great goodness and kindness as well.

As the Interspecies Adoption trope may demonstrate on the Real Life section.

There's also animals that are only capable of eating meat, such as snakes. I think that they wouldn't like others telling them to try going vegan because that literally cannot work.

It completely depends on the type of story you want to tell, and how human you make the animals.

I'm Narina there are both Talking Animals and dumb animals. Talking Animals only eat the dumb ones.

I think a large part of why carnivores get treated this way is because plants are never granted sentience along with animals in fiction. From an herbivore's perspective, carnivores are killers. From a plant's perspective, herbivores are killers and carnivores are protectors. If you want to find a good example of this, look into how the introduction of wolves to the US national parks benefited the ecosystem.

Excluding plants from sentience and focus in fiction featuring sentient animals paints an incomplete picture of nature.