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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28283
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28283
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Other as enemy is one of the most basic tropes in all of fiction because it speaks to one of our most primal fears -- fear of the strange, the alien, the unpredictable.

We are tribal beings. Individually we are weak. Our strength lies in our ability to form alliances and to cooperate with each other. Forming these alliances and feeling secure in them depends on love and trust. Members of the tribe must love each other to be willing to sacrifice and take risks of each other. They must trust each other so that each person does their part, relying on their neighbours to keep the battle line intact.

The stranger, the alien, is not loved (we don't know them well enough) and they are not trusted (we don't understand their goals, their language, or their mannerisms). The stranger, therefore, represents danger. This is very very basic to our psychological makeup. Social animals that do not think this way would be at a huge evolutionary disadvantage. We fear strangers because animals that fear strangers live long enough to pass on their genes.

So, no, the villain from another planet will never ever get old. Fear the stranger is the most basic story there is.

There is, of course, more than one way a fear the stranger story can go. The stranger may become the enemy or they may become the friend. Both are compelling story arcs. But, as we perhaps too diligently instill in our kids, stranger=danger.

Original score: 5