Basic Trope: An animal rights group does not care how much harm they cause or how many humans they hurt/insult so long as the animals are OK.
- Straight: Animal Rights Group BABY (Because Animals are Better than You) threaten to blow up animal vivisection laboratories, protest at zoos, circuses and fast food restaurants and generally seem to care more about animals than people.
- Exaggerated:
- BABY plans to kill off all humans with Right Hand Attack Dogs — including themselves — so animals can live in harmony.
- BABY members actually transform themselves into animals/werewolves/forest elves/whatever because they hate anything related to the meat-eating, animal-torturing humans so much.
- BABY members commit cannibalism, claiming they are just "paying the meat eaters back in turn".
- Downplayed:
- BABY has some extremist members, but most are sane.
- While the members of BABY never resort to violence, they do use blackmail, harassment, and other underhanded tactics.
- Werebeast Wrongs Group.
- The activists don't do anything illegal, but they do have one hell of an insane and ridiculous publicity campaign with their Right Hand Cats.
- Justified:
- Unfortunately Truth in Television; some animal rights activists really are this extreme.
- BABY aren't just targeting random animals to protest. They are targeting certain animals that happen to be held. Because of the nature of the animals, BABY are willing come off as extremists to hide the nature of what they are doing from those who would use the animals in a way that would cause great suffering.
- BABY’s leader and members are animals who’ve gained human forms and intelligence.
- Inverted: Cruella to Animals.
- Subverted:
- FBI agent Alice comes to the office of BABY. At first she expects them to be nut jobs, like so many animal rights activists she encountered before — but they actually turn out to be pretty nice people.
- The 'animals' that BABY are obsessed with are sapient beings arguably smarter than humanity, suffering from downright inhumane conditions. This makes even actions which looked before like insane extremism potentially justifiable morally.
- The "animal" part of the group was only a PR move. BABY has been exposed for killing people's dogs on sight.
- Double Subverted:
- When Alice starts eating a salami sandwich, or even petting a Right-Hand Cat, then they go ballistic.
- The BABY were just pretending to be nice. They were somehow made alert of the coming undercover law enforcement "visitors" and quickly put their more public-friendly materials on display while hiding the more extreme and unlawful content. As soon as Alice leaves, they're back to being nasty towards fellow humans.
- Parodied: The agents of BABY seem to be a little too fond of animals. The founder of the group was rumored to be flirting with a polar bear, and one woman member says she wants to marry her pet turtle.
- Zig Zagged: Some animal rights activists are quite nice and friendly and all, but some... not so much.
- Averted:
- There are animal right activists, but none of them go to extreme lengths.
- Or, there are no animal rights activists at all, not even mentioned. Humanity prevails!
- Enforced:
- The director does not like the extreme animal rights activists and thinks they are crazy.
- The writers are trying to send the message that it's okay to love animals, just don't be like these nutcases about it.
- The executives demand a Ripped from the Headlines plot for their next episode. The writers choose an article about how PETA will use any chance to make themselves heard, even traffic ticket hearings, and do a little "punching up" and Writing Around Trademarks.
- Lampshaded: "Why is it caring for animals too much seems to make some people hate everything else by default?
- Invoked: Adam decides to found an animal rights group that he thinks will be more effective than existing ones.
- Exploited: The Big Bad knows the reputation BABY has and either coerces the group or has agents imbedded within to commit crimes for his benefit, causing BABY to take the blame as a distraction for the heroes.
- Defied: The activists try their best not to be extreme on protecting animals, and try to talk nicely to people who thinks otherwise.
- Discussed: "Are there any sane animal rights advocates, or they're all raving loony madmen secretly wishing to Kill All Humans?"
- Conversed: "Oh, please. Organizations like that don't exist in Real Life ... or do they?"
- Deconstructed:
- The attacks against fellow man do not go unnoticed by the media, and the organization is caught and shut down.
- Their attacks against fellow man result in a huge backlash by the public: burger sales are through the roof, fur is coming back into style, hunting resurges in popularity...
- Their attacks lead to someone's death and subsequent legal problems.
- Their lack of knowledge and failure to understand the animals they claim to champion means that actions they take to 'save' animals causes stress and harm (or even death) for the animals they were trying to save. They also cause damage to the ecosystem in the process.
- People start attacking or even killing BABY members, causing BABY members to retaliate in kind. The cycle of violence then spirals out of control until a full-blown war breaks out.
- Reconstructed: Another group takes their place, showing that there will still be people to carry out harm against humanity in favor of animals.
- Played For Laughs:
- The members of BABY are an animal-obsessed cult, who worship a cow and threaten to bomb all Burger Fools.
- Their activists storm an Animal Control building to save some dogs, cats and other animals from being put down... to which these animals respond by biting all the members of BABY and giving them all rabies.
- Played For Drama:
- Animal rights activists storm a laboratory, liberating all the animals within. One member comes to a cage with some sickly monkeys inside. A scientist warns the activist that those monkeys contain a genetically engineered virus that could doom the human race to extinction, to which the activist merely smirks and says "Perfect!"
- A scientist has their lab and life's work destroyed by radicals, and they soon become so enraged that they embark on a vindictive rampage against all animal rights activists, even the sane ones. And in the end, they become the terrorist they hated.
- Played For Horror: A group of Western Terrorists that unleash death and mayhem anywhere that they feel like by any means possible (including Right Hand Attack Dogs) for a very flimsy reason that even they barely understand and with no concept for "non-combatants" or "mercy" is a very scary Truth in Television nowadays and all the production company needs to do is pull no punches when it comes to the misery that is left behind and the Paranoia Fuel that people want you dead and will dedicate their lives to make it happen just because you eat meat.
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