Basic Trope: A villain abuses animals to show how evil they are.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz likes to beat his pet dog and underfeed him.
- Exaggerated: Emperor Evulz's ultimate evil plan is to kidnap and abuse a bunch of animals for fun.
- Downplayed: Emperor Evulz is cold and occasionally neglectful to his pets because he doesn't feel anything for them.
- Justified: Evulz has strong sadistic urges that he can't satisfy on his enemies during quiet times, so he harms his pets instead.
- Inverted:
- Evulz's kind treatment of his pets is his sole redeeming feature.
- Evulz leads a group of animal activists-cum-terrorists, since he sees animals as "morally superior" to humans.
- Bob is a hero, but he hates animals and will abuse them.
- The pet abuses his loving owner Bob to show how hateful and evil he actually is.
- Evulz never hurts animals. He never explains himself and he goes way out of his way to be a Complete Monster otherwise, so the audience does not knows if it's out of love, standards, pragmatism or the production team being squeamish about adding animal abuse.
- Subverted: Evulz raises his hand to hit his dog in punishment, but then shakes his head and scratches his chin.
- Double Subverted: And once he's got it into a sense of security, he chokes it.
- Parodied: Supervillainess Alice has a cold, so she feels crappy. Loyal minion Bob cheers her up by buying her to a petting zoo... and turning it into a cute-animal barbecue.
- Zig-Zagged: Evulz is kind to some animals but abuses others.
- Averted:
- Evulz does not abuse animals.
- How a character behaves towards animals has nothing to do with whether they're good or bad.
- Enforced: Evulz has been suffering from Villain Decay, so the execs decide he should abuse animals to reestablish why he's a detestable villain.
- Lampshaded: "He even hits his dog? Evulz has gone too far this time!"
- Invoked: Evulz is a Villain with Good Publicity, so Bob sends him a dog so he can be caught abusing it and get his reputation ruined.
- Exploited: When attacking Evulz's lair, Bob sets all of Evulz's animals free, knowing they'll be out for Evulz's blood because of all the abuse.
- Defied: Evulz decides that animal abuse is too evil for him, or maybe just not useful, and avoids doing it.
- Discussed: "Why is it that Evulz has to make everyone and their dog so miserable? And the part about the dog is, like, a literal one... Has he been attacked by a dog as a kid, or something?"
- Conversed:
- Alice, a superhero, is petting her dog and wonders aloud if her nemesis has any pets. Bob, her sidekick, says that he thinks her nemesis probably hates animals, and only likes abusing them.
- Implied: Evulz has a bunch of cages with claw and teeth marks on them in his lair.
- Deconstructed:
- Evulz manages to get mauled by a dangerous animal long before his evil plan goes anywhere because of his wanton abuse.
- Alternately, animal protection and the police got wind of Evulz's abuse and arrested him for that, and possibly poaching.
- Reconstructed:
- Evulz sticks to abusing animals that can't retaliate.
- Evulz simply butchers the animal protection and police when they come to arrest him.
- Played for Laughs: Much to Evulz's annoyance, his cheery dog won't stop licking him no matter what he does to it.
- Played for Drama: Evulz kidnaps Bob's dog Tropey and subjects him to horrible abuse.
- Played for Horror:
- Evulz tortures animals to death on a constant basis and it's best not to ask what he does to Bob's...
- As a a very clever man once said, "where there are small crimes, there are big crimes". The police's investigation regarding his cruelty to animals eventually leads to the reveal of what he keeps in his fridge…
Back to Bad People Abuse Animals.
