http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NatureIsNotNice

Ishiro Serizawa, Godzilla (2014) "The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control... and not the other way around."

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You've found yourself alone in the woods. No big deal, nature is a perfectly fine place to spend some time, wandering around. But now you can't see the edge of the forest anymore. And you realize that you can't see the sun, either, so you can't tell which direction to go in to get out. Let's add some scary strange noises. Watch yourself randomly running in some direction, looking for a way out, screaming for help, as the sun goes down and afternoon turns into dusk, which turns into a moonless night...

Oh, what's that? You wanted to escape the boredom and corruption of human civilization in the first place, and seek to live in the untamed wild in complete, perfect harmony with nature and its denizens? Don't be surprised when you find that it's a merciless, dog-eat-dog world out there, where disease runs rampant, natural disasters tear through everything in their path, parasites dig into your skin, animals devour each other without the slightest bit of hesitation or regret, and babies are little more than free meals for predators. This is how Mother Nature operates, and if you out there treating her as something out of a Disney movie, she will chew you up and spit you out like the sheltered weakling you are.

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Soon you'll learn that Nature Is Not Nice.

This trope comes into play when a work's creator chooses to subvert the romanticized, saccharine image of nature as harmonious and maternal by portraying its uglier aspects: the horror, danger, amorality, and ruthlessness of untamed nature that works tend to gloss over. It's prime material for a Rescue show where the rescue team has to find a person lost in the wilderness, or a Nature Hero has that task. Any cute or pretty creature will likely be shown being devoured by fierce predators, or even subvert What Measure Is a Non-Cute? by being shown to be equally ruthless and violent to drive the point home.

The truth is, nature isn't consciously cruel; it just doesn't care about you. The forest is a big scary place in which you can get lost, or killed by disease or wild and ferocious animals. The desert has only about a hundred ways for you to be injured or die. The jungle is even worse. Even a lake or a river is a dangerous place for a person who isn't prepared.

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This is also why Appeal to Nature is a Logical Fallacy; just because something is 100% natural doesn't mean it's good for you.

Related to the Naïve Animal Lover, who doesn't realize how brutal wildlife can be. Compare this with Death World. Contrast this with Ghibli Hills, though the tropes are not always incompatible, since nature can be portrayed as beautiful even though it has harsh elements. When you combine the two tropes, you get Green Hill Zone. Inversely related to All-Natural Snake Oil. A supertrope for Nature Is Not a Toy. Also see Don't Go in the Woods, where forests in particular are unsafe places for humans to visit.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Princess Mononoke skillfully combines this with Humans Are Bastards. The human characters want to assassinate the local forest god so that the wilderness will become easier to conquer, but the local nature spirits are no angels either, and are demonstrably willing to maim and kill anyone in their way.

In Trigun, this was the defining moment in Vash and Knives' childhood, as they watch a butterfly caught in a spider's web. Vash wanted to save both, while Knives was more than happy to just kill the spider.

Comic Books

In the New 52 DC Universe, Alec Holland gave up trying to replicate the formula that gave him his powers because of this. The plant world is dangerous, and submersing Earth in it would be a disaster.

In Sin City, Marv has an Internal Monologue commenting on perceptions of nature. He notes that most people consider nature something beautiful and friendly, and remarks that they have probably never spent a night tied to a tree in the woods. Marv is one of the most violent, dangerous men in a series entirely filled with violence and danger, and he is terrified of the woods.

Fan Works

Film

Literature

Live-Action TV

Mythology and Religion

Newspaper Comics

Early in Dilbert, a personified Mother Nature made a few appearances, each time doing something rather nasty without shame.

Tabletop Games

The Thyrsus from Mage: The Awakening embody both nature's beauty and its brutality.

This is the reason Green magic in Magic: The Gathering isn't a "good" color; while there are many cards that reflect the life-giving and nurturing facet of Mother Nature, there are also many cards that reflect Mother Nature's brutality as well. "Stompy" creatures with high power and toughness, spells which increase the power and toughness of your creatures, spells which target [non-natural] artifacts, spells which turn your lands into Elemental creatures with snarky "why are you surprised that the ground steps on you?" flavour text, are typical examples.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Garou are nature's warriors, and some of the tribes are brutal social Darwinists.

Dungeons & Dragons gives us the deity Obad-Hai. He is a Neutral aligned God of Nature who represents the primal, unkind aspects of nature as a neutral, impartial judge of worth - his spheres of influence are nature and woodlands, but also hunting and beasts. He has an unfriendly rivalry with a Goddess named Ehlonna, who represents the kinder aspects of nature. In universe, Obad-Hai and Ehlonna are respectively True Neutral and Neutral Good.

Video Games

Web Comics

Frequently played for laughs in Sandra and Woo, mainly centered around the realities of carnivorism. Woo and Shadow have sometimes threatened to eat Sid the squirrel, even though they're normally friends, and Shadow had even shared a chunk of his childhood with Sid. Or an Eagle captures Woo to eat him, only to watch Woo eat its eggs. Or most recently, the carnivore animals claim to have been inspired by Zootopia to act nice to the herbivores, but it turns out to be a trick to attack and eat the herbivores now that their defenses are down.

Oddly enough Vegan Artbook has done this, when comparing the eating of meat to a list of barbaric things that animals do, such as "animals steal from each other" "animals kill rival males" "animals rape their females" "animals kill their own babies". But then it contradicts itself with its more frequent messages of having compassion towards animals and scorn for humans.

Web Original

The subreddit, r/natureisterrible , is dedicated to exposing the horrors and suffering of the natural world and defying Appeal to Nature and In Harmony with Nature while finding ways to ease natural suffering. The subreddit exposes the dark side of nature by posting articles and photos of animals getting eaten by predators and parasites, or killed by extreme weather. The subreddit also exposes how ideas such as conservationism and environmentalism contain speciesist implications or originated from speciesism. The subreddit even has this trope's name as its tagline. WARNING, content will be very disturbing and upsetting. Another subreddit, r/natureismetal , is dedicated to showing nature in a 'badass' way. Many posts show animals during or after a hunt, often covered in blood or showing large wounds. The difference is that r/natureisterrible portrays nature's brutality and indifference in a negative light, while this subreddit glorifies them.

, is dedicated to exposing the horrors and suffering of the natural world and defying Appeal to Nature and In Harmony with Nature while finding ways to ease natural suffering. The subreddit exposes the dark side of nature by posting articles and photos of animals getting eaten by predators and parasites, or killed by extreme weather. The subreddit also exposes how ideas such as conservationism and environmentalism contain speciesist implications or originated from speciesism. The subreddit even has this trope's name as its tagline. WARNING, content will be very disturbing and upsetting.

Western Animation

Real Life