Basic Trope: A tentacled creature is portrayed as a horrifying monster.
- Straight: Otto the octopus is a nightmarish monster that regularly strangles people to death.
- Exaggerated: No one can set foot in the ocean without an evil tentacled monster killing them.
- Downplayed: Otto the octopus is scary enough, but is portrayed more or less like a normal animal.
- Justified: Some cephalopods are very dangerous in real life.
- Inverted: Otto is a cute Funny Octopus.
- Subverted: Everyone is scared of Otto, but then he turns out to be friendly underneath his scary appearance.
- Double Subverted: Once everyone has a false sense of security, Otto eats them.
- Parodied: Otto is a Funny Octopus who only thinks he's scary.
- Zig-Zagged: Otto is sometimes genuinely menacing, sometimes Played for Laughs.
- Averted: Otto is not seen as especially scary.
- Enforced: The execs believe audiences will be scared by tentacled monsters.
- Lampshaded: "Why'd it have to be octopi?" "Octopuses." "Whatever, they're scary."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Everyone starts killing off endangered squids and octopuses because they hate tentacled creatures.
- Reconstructed: An environmental program advocates for cephalopods while killing tentacled monsters.
- Implied: Bob has a strange sucker-shaped scar.
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