The alien archetype

[anijen21]

yeah, superdimensional mice could be watching our every move

[Yarin]

hell yeah fellow hitchhikers

[Terenia]

So...yeah. About archetypes.

Actually, looking at Hitchhiker's is a good example of how aliens aren't all the same. There are a vast amount of races explored in Hitchhikers, and they all act vastly different. Then again, they aren't necessarily confronted with life on Earth.

Take Star Trek, though. Aliens and humans intermix frequently, and rarely do you run into an 'Ax' character.

In short, I think that there are alien archetypeS, emphasis on the 's'. There is not one way for aliens to act. There is the 'emotionally reserved' alien, the 'humanity-obsessed' alien, the 'violent-culture alien' and so on and so forth.

[Chad32]

Yeah, it's quite possible.

[Yarin]

well star trek is not a kids show

[Terenia]

well star trek is not a kids show

So? Star Trek still has alien's, and therefore the potential for alien archetypes. It doesn't matter what age range it is presented to (unless the creator of this thread wanted to narrow it down in such a way). If anything, it strengthens the argument of archetypes importance/existence if they can transcend age and appeal to a broader audience.

[Chad32]

Star Trek aliens are all Humanoids. It's a bit different from a n Andalite falling in love with a Hork-Bajir. Fortunately, morphing power negates the squick factor.

[Terenia]

But is an Andalite falling in love with a Hork-Bajir an archetype? That's just a singular event.

[Yarin]

whats squick?

[Terenia]

If something squick's you out then it's icky and makes you cringe. More or less.

[Yarin]

neat

[voodooqueen126]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Squick
Yeah aliens are basically a vehicle for the author to comment on humans other examples are: Edriss infesting an Iraqi soldier and saying 'poorly run', her low opinion of drug addicted Jenny Lines, and Essam"s high opinion of Lowenstein.
This tendency goes back to Gulliver's travels. What is funny is that you never read stories in which an Englishmen visits Australian aboriginals and starts saying 'these people failed to invent the wheel and have no word for the number 1 and no other colours but dark and light' because that would be very offensive, instead he will learn a deeply spiritual lesson about respecting indigeneous culturer or whatever politically correct message the author wants to shove down our throughts. Even though a post industrial englishmen visiting pre-contact australia would have a greater technological gap then the one between Yeerks and humans in the animorphs.