Basic Trope: A villain commits a gratuitously evil act to reduce audience sympathy.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz kicks a puppy even though it would not serve him at all.
- Exaggerated:
- Evulz kicks a puppy to death, then cuts its head off and starts playing hackeysack with it in front of its owner. And then he eats it.
- Evulz blows up a dog pound just to spite the hero, and to prove that he can.
- Evulz indulges himself in all sorts of gratuitously evil cruelty because he is evil and that's what evil people do.
- Moral Event Horizon
- Complete Monster
- Downplayed:
- Threw My Bike on the Roof
- Slightly more than Poke the Poodle.
- Justified:
- Evulz's entire motivation has no logical sense as he is a sadist.
- Evulz was punishing the dog for an assault that even Evulz found horrendous.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Evulz kills a bystander, and later it turns out that the bystander had been trying to defeat him (and he knew this).
- Asshole Victim
- Evulz actively avoids kicking, or harming dogs in general, because he can't stand the whining dogs make.
- Evulz steps on and destroys Alice's Orphan's Plot Trinket...by complete accident and without even realizing it. He's suitably confused by her anguished reaction and declaration that what he just did is unforgivable.
- The dog came out of nowhere, Evulz couldn't stop his walk in time.
- Evulz ends up regretting what he did.
- Double Subverted:
- But he didn't know that at the time, nor did he do it for any particular purpose.
- He kills the bystander in an unnecessarily gruesome way.
- The “Asshole” part was slandered by Evulz.
- Until Evulz gets some earplugs.
- Once Evulz finally figures out what happened, he is ecstatic that he could get so much emotional pain from Alice through such a simple act and immediately starts searching for more trinkets (or friends) to destroy.
- The sign did warn about unleashed dogs in the park, but Evulz deliberately didn't slow down his walk through it.
- For about five seconds.
- Parodied:
- Evulz has a compulsion to kick any puppy he sees, even if he has to drop whatever he's doing and chase it.
- A dog breed is mentioned to have been specially bred by Evulz to "maximize kicking pleasure".
- Zig Zagged: Evulz refuses to kick puppies, but that's because he happens to be a dog lover. He'll happily stomp on a passing kitten. Oh, wait, he didn't know the kitten was there. Actually, he did, and he also lied about it for no good reason.
- Averted: Evulz’s actions may be evil, but they all have purpose.
- Enforced:
- "Our villain's morality is still more ambiguous than we would like, so let's have him kick this puppy."
- Hate Sink.
- Lampshaded: "I didn't have to kick that puppy, but it was fun."
- Implied: Evulz marches out of an alley quite proudly as we hear a dog's pained whimpers coming from inside it.
- Invoked: "But how will anybody know I'm eeeeevil if I don't kick this puppy?" *PUNT*
- Exploited: Evulz kicks a dog because it will anger the heroes who in their anger will make mistakes that he can take advantage of.
- Defied:
- Evulz refuses to kick any puppies without a good reason.
- Evulz actually likes puppies, and not only he would never dare to hurt them, but he kills anyone that tries to do so.
- "Oh come on, nobody in real life would kick the puppy. Let's scrap that scene."
- Discussed: "You'd better watch out for him. He's the sort of guy who would kick a puppy just because it was there."
- Conversed: "Have you noticed how the villains in this show need to keep proving how evil they are?"
- Deconstructed:
- Evulz is a fairly realistic violent sadist/psychopath who genuinely can't pass by a helpless target without being compelled to hurt it. The misery and frustration it causes Evulz is the focus of the story.
- Evulz is killed by his pragmatic superior.
- The Dog Bites Back.
- The damage of Evulz's act of cruelty was a bit too much for what he was originally aiming for (ex. making a puppy balloon explode while a kid was hugging it ends up deafening the kid) and the subsequent backlash will be very bad (ex. that kid's Mama Bear is gonna want a literal pound of flesh on top of the truckload of cash she will get from the lawsuit).
- Evulz was pretty pragmatic and competent for most of the story. But this one act of unnecessary, useless and impulsive evil was the moment he made Just One Little Mistake and set himself up for a fall.
- Evulz’s subordinates are horrified by his cruelty and defect to the heroes' side.
- Bob the Anti-Hero was perfectly okay with Evulz giving him the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique in order to find out what he knew, as well as being called every racial epithet under the sun, have his car robbed, his wardrobe set on fire, his couch pissed on and his coffee spilled because it's nothing he hasn't suffered before, nothing he can't fix in a jiffy and (in his really twisted mind) considers it just business as long as it affects only him. He probably would have even told Evulz what he knew eventually, once he was completely at the end of his physical tolerance range. Evulz kicking his dog, however, is just too much and Bob makes him his sworn enemy, with all the collateral damage that ensues.
- The dog (or whatever is standing for one) could have been an awesome, powerful weapon that would have allowed Evulz' forces to accomplish their final goal with great(er) ease... hadn't Evulz killed it strictly for the sake of being a colossal dick to the dog's owner, whom he doesn't like (or worse yet, just because he doesn't like). Evulz' forces, as a result, lose a great many resources and men (probably to the point that they will inevitably lose) in confrontations that could have been prevented. But try and see if Evulz sees reason.
- If the (In-Universe) writers' idea was to make sure Evulz was hated, they did too good of a job. If the writers' idea was to showcase Evulz is still a villain (even if one that the audience was supposed to root for), they also did too good of a job.
- Reconstructed:
- Evulz’s act of petty cruelty is so gratuitous that it forces everyone to reevaluate his character, leading to big changes in how the cast react to him.
- Evulz’s superior is annoyed by his sadistic tendencies, but keeps him alive because he does achieve results for Team Evil.
- Played For Laughs:
- Evulz makes clear before kicking the dog that he's only doing this because it's in his contract, both the one for his Weird Trade Union membership and the one with the production company.
- Evulz doesn't just kicks the dog, he performs a soccer trick shot performance with the poor thing.
- Evulz tries to kick the dog, but he completely screws up.
- Evulz kicks a dog stuffed doll and it didn't receive any damage, but everybody reacts like he had committed savagery to a real animal.
- Comedic Sociopathy
- Played For Drama:
- Evulz kicks Bob's dog for the sheer sadistic love of hurting something Bob loves.
- The dog doesn't survive the kicking.
- The dog kicking is the moment everybody decides to go to war against Evulz, leading to a lot of pain for all sides.
- Played Literally: Bad People Abuse Animals: Evulz literally kicks dogs as his act of evil.
- Plotted A Good Waste: Evulz is presented as an absurdly vile individual through his continuous acts of dog-kicking so when Horriblus takes center stage and kills Evulz, we'll find him more sympathetic (or "cooler") because he has his head on straight and doesn't does more damage than strictly necessary.
Oh look, a cute puppy. Let's kick it!
