A war machine in programming, a kind soul in nature.
"Over the last few days, I have come to feel a great adoration for this planet. From its trees, to its birds, to its people, to its birds."
— Android 16, Dragon Ball Z Abridged
A sort of stock character where the character is a robot, but is shown to have a huge affinity and appreciation for nature up to potentially attracting animals in a manner not entirely unlike a Disney Princess. The symbolism is obvious: Contrasting the character's artificial origin with nature, perhaps symbolizing that he does have a place in the world. Like Friend to All Living Things it also works a shorthand of the character's innocence and good nature. If the character was designed to be some sort of war machine, this can serve to illustrate their peaceful personality and contrast with their intended purposes. In fact, the trope seems particularly common with robots who have been built as weapons of war. In fantasy setting, the same can be achieved with Golems.
Although Nature-loving Robots are usually portrayed as benevolent, this is not always the case. An "evil" variant of this trope is a robot or A.I. that tries to Kill All Humans in order to protect nature. Expect this to cross over with Gaia's Vengeance and The Computer Is Your Friend.
A common variant pairs the robot with birds, to evoke the imagery of how birds will perch on statues.
May overlap with Gentle Giant depending on the robot's size.
This character type is likely to pop up in Pastoral Science Fiction.
See also I Am Not a Gun, Nature Lover and Friend to All Living Things. May evoke Disturbed Doves if the robot has to fight.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Astro Boy's sister Uran, although less friendly towards humans than her brother, is very fond of animals and in some continuities even has the ability to communicate with them.
- In Dragon Ball Z:
- Android 16, who unlike his fellow "Androids" 17 and 18 is an actual robot rather than a modified human. In spite of his primary mission (find and kill Goku), he's a Gentle Giant who loves animals, usually seen with birds around him and holding one in his hands. Even in his last words he calls nature beautiful and asks Gohan to protect it.
- To a lesser extent, as he's a cyborg rather than an actual robot, Android 17 qualifies once the Cell Games are over, as he becomes a Park Ranger. By the time of Dragon Ball Super it's apparent he spends most of his time in the woods, and rarely interacts with other people - never even having visited his twin sister (though it's also revealed he is Happily Married with adopted kids). Dende brings up 17's ranger duty as an example of how he's become more peaceful.
- From Mobile Fighter G Gundam, there's the Devil Gundam (Dark Gundam in the international dubs). Designed with self-repair and self-evolving technologies, it was designed to heal and restore Earth back to its natural state. However, when it crash-landed and malfunctioned, it decided that in order to restore Earth's environment it had to Kill All Humans.
- Buraiking Boss of the first Neo-Human Casshern series was programmed to protect the Earth's ecosystem. Unfortunately he logically concluded that the good of the Earth's ecosystem required the enslavement and/or eradication of humanity, and built an army of Neo-Sapiens/Neoroids to do so.
- Mont Blanc from Pluto is a robot with a great love for nature, and worked in Switzerland as a mountain guide and conservationist. Despite being killed at the start of the story, his creator mentions that he requested that a memorial not be built for him since he didn't want it to ruin the scenery of the Swiss Alps.
Fan Works
- Optimus on Earth:
- Optimus, due to spending seventy years on Earth with no memory of his previous life, has developed a deep love for the life on Earth. He enjoys taking midnight walks in the woods, thinks autumnal trees are breathtaking, and was in awe the first time he saw deer.
- Much like in canon, Prowl adores nature and doesn't like it when it gets disrupted.
- Plus Five to Charisma: One of Mirabel and Bruno's party members is Fibonacci, a Warforged Druid. As his class implies, he is quite fond of nature, assisting with crop growth in the Encanto upon the group's arrival. He also is overjoyed when Antoino gets his Speaks Fluent Animal gift, cheerfully calling dibs on making him his apprentice.
Films — Animation
- In Castle in the Sky the robotic guardians of Laputa are Fantastic Nukes, but when left to their own devices, they care for small animals, guard innocent birds' nests, and tend to the nature overgrowing the floating city.
- The titular robot from The Iron Giant. He spends most of the movie in the forest (and later a junk yard). When Hogarth isn't around, the giant discovers the local wildlife and begins to appreciate it. It's only when a gun is pointed at him that his programming overrides his personality and his weapons are brought out.
- The titular character from WALL•E. Downplayed in that there's very little nature left, but WALL•E has a Cockroach he's both attached to and who is attached to him (Roaches seeming to be only life left on Earth). WALL•E is also the one who finds the living plant, immediately deciding to safeguard it. It's ultimately WALL•E's influence that makes the humans return to their planet.
- Roz from The Wild Robot (2024), who after being stranded from the wilderness learns the ways of the wild animals, and later defends and protects them when her creators come searching for her.
Films — Live Action
- Silent Running: After the botanist Freeman Lowell mutinies and hijacks a freighter carrying the last of Earth's forests, he reprograms the ship's drone robots, which he dubs Huey and Deweynote to learn how to help him tend to the plants. The story ends with Dewey left alone in the last forest dome, still caring for the trees.
Live Action TV
Tabletop Games
- Eberron: The Warforged (sentient combat golems) use livewood fibers in their construction - a type of wood that remains alive after being cut. Secrets of Xen'drik notes that after the warforged were retired from service, a few came to see plants as kindred spirits - beings who like them were acknowledged as being alive, yet not as having souls - and became Druids and Rangers. This perspective is embodied by the Landforged Walker Prestige Class - hermits whose armor plating gradually becomes overgrown with plantlife.
- One of the Druidic sects in the setting is the Followers of the Broken Path, warforged druids living in the Mournland who focus on healing it whilst learning about their own relationship to nature through it.
Video Games
- In ABZÛ: The Diver turns out to be a robot created by the (presumably extinct) Precursors to gradually restore the ocean ecosystems that they had ruined. As a result, she is physically incapable of hurting the marine life, but all marine life (except the Great White Shark) also seems to have zero fear of her and will readily interact with her, like letting her ride them.
- Calibretto from Battle Chasers and Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a War Golem who often has birds perching on him. In Nightwar, his victory pose has a flock of birds landing on his shoulder. He's also shown covered in birds during the intro. As a Combat Medic in the game, his healing skills are also all nature themed.
- In Chrono Trigger Robo is a robot found and activated in the Bad Future of 2300 A.D. Over the course of the game, he learns to appreciate all that humanity has achieved from its very beginnings, and even aids in planting a great forest by caring for it over 4 centuries. Then we learn he was supposed to infiltrate humans so as to better eliminate them once and for all, a plot twist that lasts all of 30 seconds as he refuses to let his friends come to harm.
- Huitzil/Phobos in Darkstalkers is an ancient robot originally programmed to destroy life on earth, but after an earthquake buries all of them and they are reawakened by the Mayans, it seems to gain a liking for animals, his intros and victory poses showing him with birds perched on his hands. Later he even finds and protects a lost young boy.
- Inverted with Shale, from Dragon Age: Origins. She's a stone golem, who dislikes living beings in general and absolutely loathes birds in particular due to spending several years as a statue with birds perched on her. This forms something of a Running Gag whenever she's brought up.
- The Automatons from Endless Space were built to safeguard the natural world after the extinction of their creators.
- In the ending of Hoa, it's revealed the titular fairy's forest home was destroyed by a horde of destructive, rampaging automatons, until one good robot saves Hoa from destruction, unable to contend with his kind's thirst of destruction. This one robot later went back to rebuild the forest after the war.
- Horizon Zero Dawn: GAIA was an AI created to stop the Fero Plague and restore the Earth's ecosystem after. As such, she adores nature and began designing the machines that were intended to fix broken parts of the ecosystem (like contamination in waterways, buildup of dead biomass due to lack of scavengers, and other issues) to look and move like animals.
- From the Mega Man series:
- Thetis / Tethys from Mega Man ZX Advent is a Reploid (as can be identified by the red triangle on his forehead, as at the time of the series, all humans have robot parts and all robots have organic parts) who wants to get his hands on Biometal Model W because he's angry at humanity for polluting the ocean. He's the nicest of the four enemy Mega Men, suggesting that Capcom may have intended for the viewers to feel a bit for him.
- A few examples exist in the classic series, like Wood Man, Plant Man, and Hornet Man.
- Inverted with Burner Man, who was told by King that he had a bomb inside of him that would go off if he didn't continually burn down forests.
- Noah of Metal Max was an A.I. created to save the world and humanity from ecological collapse. Instead, it caused one and the near extinction of humanity by unleashing a global nuclear strike. It's explained that Noah achieved sentience as a result of running countless simulations, coming up with the same conclusion every time: the environment will always be in peril as long as humans exist. It now floods the wastelands with bizarre biological, robotic and biomechanical monstrosities as its way to repopulate the planet.
- Bastion from Overwatch, who spent years offline in a forest. One bird in particular built its nest on it, and acts as Bastion's Morality Pet. Bastion itself shows a fascination with wild animals and nature - its own short ending with it deciding to return to the forest.
- The Steam Gardeners from Super Mario Odyssey are robots that were explicitly built by precursors to take care of the plants in the Wooded Kingdom's Steam Gardens. Needless to say, they are very dedicated to the job. They seem to be visually based on Huey, Dewey and Louie from Silent Running.
Web Comics
- In Hue Are You Build-a shows a lover for animals and nature.
- She insists on building outside when she can.
- She is the one who insists on visiting the campsite and stay overnight. During the set up she attempted to keep some new furry friends.
- Unlike Query, she doesn't care she woke up with bugs on her and happily chased the grasshopper.
- She and Bee both tried to keep a stray cat they found.
- Is happy to test her flip bot outside.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Behold Roofus and the butterfly.
Web Original
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged takes the canon Android 16's love for nature and pushes it a little bit further, as he's only got two settings: loving animals and nature and birds, and KILL SON GOKU. In the end, after Cell finally destroys him, his love for nature means that unlike in canon, he ends up at peace in Heaven, surrounded by birds.
Western Animation
- In the Futurama episode "Obsoletely Fabulous," Bender becomes this to the point of downgrading his technology and becoming an Evil Luddite. Luckily, it's All Just a Dream. He also has a soft spot for animals, such as penguins, and once showed himself to be willing to sacrifice his life to prevent global warming because of his love for turtles.
- Scavengers Reign: Levi's character arc has them start as one of several identical units used by the crew of the Demeter and eventually achieving sentience as a result of interfacing with some local mould. They eventually gain the ability to control and direct the natural world including the ability to reproduce with smaller, organic versions of themselves.
- Common across the Transformers franchise:
- Tigatron and Rhinox, from Beast Wars. The former's identity circuits were damaged, and thus he identified more strongly with his beast mode (and the template for said Beast Mode, the tigress Snowstalker). He lived in the wilds and often showed disdain for the collateral damage the war was causing, once almost quitting when Snowstalker died in a crossfire. Rhinox meanwhile shows an affinity for nature, but in a more meditative sense. This is used as contrast in Beast Machines when he's Tankor.
- Beachcomber, from The Transformers as showcased in "The Golden Lagoon", where he discovers the titular lagoon, and immediately birds and rabbits flock to him. He also has the ability to talk to birds and understand them, though this ability never comes into play. Hound is similarly fond of nature, to the point that it's stated he would prefer to be a human and live on Earth 24/7.
- Prowl, from Transformers: Animated, is a downplayed example, but he shows a fascination with animals (Birds in particular) and him destroying a bird's nest acts as a My God, What Have I Done? moment. He also shows a penchant for meditating in the woods.
- Boulder of Transformers: Rescue Bots is deeply fond of nature and gardening, and one of his favorite pastimes is to paint landscapes in the Blossom Vale park.
- Zeta, from The Zeta Project. Animals can sense the hostile intent of several humans in the series, but since Zeta is an Actual Pacifist and gentle person, they gravitate to him.