http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadPeopleAbuseAnimals

Proverbs 12:10, The Bible "The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel."

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There's something about cruelty towards animals that really gets to a lot of people. Maybe it's the fact that there's so little they can do to defend themselves. Maybe it's the fact that it's often so gratuitous and unnecessary. Or maybe it's the fact that we instinctively feel protective over all things small and adorable. Whatever the reason, almost all societies are going to look down on somebody if they hurt an animal for no good reason.

Animals considered to be dangerous, such as crocodiles, snakes, bears, sharks, and big cats are usually an exception, though; see What Measure Is a Non-Cute? for a possible reason, though it may also have a lot to do with the fact that those animals aren't as defenseless and therefore are not seen as easy victims, though they are still likely to be seen sympathetically under certain circumstances. Pets in particular are seen as defenseless as tame animals tend to trust humans. Furthermore, they may be a threat to people and understandably force them to use violence. As Real Life shows, however, there may be exceptions with people neutralising the threat of dangerous animals in order to toy with them. In this case, they are as defenseless as the harmless animals and the perpetrator is just as bad as the others and even more clearly a Dirty Coward.

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An almost sure-fire way to make a character irredeemable is to invoke this trope. In addition, animal cruelty, especially mutilations, are often treated as an early warning sign for future violent criminals. Serial Killers are especially common in this regard. Sometimes, however, the whole thing may be played for Black Comedy (and Cringe Comedy) instead, in which case the show may take Refuge in Audacity and the person involved may not exactly be bad so much as he's stupid.

Note that as a general rule, the abuse must be human-on-animal (or, in Speculative Fiction, sapient-on-nonsapient), except for situations involving Furry Confusion. The animals must also not be anthropomorphic. Being able to use Animal Talk is acceptable, but the animals in the work must have roughly the same relationship with humans as they do in Real Life, so far as the humans concerned don't know about their sapience.

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Kick the Dog and If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten are not always related, since any act of gratuitous evil besides hurting animals can be substituted there. See also Cruella to Animals and Exotic Entree for more specific variants, and Enemy to All Living Things for a more supernatural one. Chronic Pet Killer may also overlap if the killing isn't done on accident. Contrast with Black Comedy Animal Cruelty, when this trope is Played for Laughs. Animal Lover is the direct inverse.

While exaggerated in fiction, psychologists have even observed that animal abuse is a common early warning sign of a Serial Killer. As noted on the same sources , this is especially true of children living in an abusive environment who may use an animal to reenact violent episodes from their life. Given help, many of these kids grow up to lead healthy and productive lives.

Since there is a lot of debate on what does and does not count as animal abuse, No Real Life Examples, Please! As a rule of thumb, your example will need to legally qualify as animal abuse in Real Life in order to count. Also, just like Abusive Parents, this page is not for complaining about characters you don't like.

Sub-Trope to Good Taming, Evil Taming. Compare Menagerie of Misery, in which bad people also own zoos and abuse animals.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Comic Strips

Footrot Flats: Unlike his father and brother, who restrict their bullying to those who can theoretically fight back, Fat Bastard 'Hunk' Murphy likes to indulges in such petty acts of cruelty as pulling the wings off butterflies.

Fan Works

In Darkrai's chapter of the Beginning Trainer's Guide to Pokémon , the in-universe author tells the story of a Trainer he knew who caught a Darkrai and decided to make it hate him as much as possible to maximize the power of its Frustration (a move that gets stronger the more the Pokémon hates its Trainer). He accomplished this by feeding it bitter medicine and forcing it to fight Fighting-type Pokémon it was weak against, so it would get knocked out constantly. Eventually the Darkrai turned on him and attacked him so ferociously that he was forced to release it, but it continued to haunt him and inflict terrifying nightmares on him every new moon. Four years later, the Darkrai was still stalking its old Trainer and forcing him to endure its nightmares, causing him to be reduced to a shadow of his former self.

the in-universe author tells the story of a Trainer he knew who caught a Darkrai and decided to make it hate him as much as possible to maximize the power of its Frustration (a move that gets stronger the more the Pokémon hates its Trainer). He accomplished this by feeding it bitter medicine and forcing it to fight Fighting-type Pokémon it was weak against, so it would get knocked out constantly. Eventually the Darkrai turned on him and attacked him so ferociously that he was forced to release it, but it continued to haunt him and inflict terrifying nightmares on him every new moon. Four years later, the Darkrai was still stalking its old Trainer and forcing him to endure its nightmares, causing him to be reduced to a shadow of his former self. The Bolt Chronicles: There are two examples in the series. The puppy mill owner who abandons his dogs and leaves them to starve in The Seven. Mittenss adoptive family (especially Jack, the head of the household) in The Survivor. Jack has a history of flushing or abandoning his daughters pets, tries to starve and kill Mittens, and has her declawed. His daughter Claire is depicted as neglectful (losing interest in the pets she acquires) rather than outright abusive.

Five Things The Baker Taught Anastasia, and One Thing They Learnt Together : The contrasting personalities between Anastasia and her sister Drizella is showcased by Drizella taking joy in animal's miseries. As a kid, she'd pull the legs off of bugs and laugh at animal deaths.

: The contrasting personalities between Anastasia and her sister Drizella is showcased by Drizella taking joy in animal's miseries. As a kid, she'd pull the legs off of bugs and laugh at animal deaths. His History Revealed: A Dr. Robotnik Biography: It was an unintentional death, but a sign of Harold Robotnik's cruelty and Sanity Slippage is how he tried to power his engine using his son's puppy . It didn't work as expected and the puppy all-but exploded.

. It didn't work as expected and Turning Point: According to Hector, the same healer who accused Lisa of witchcraft also liked to poison cats.

Films — Animation

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

Religion

From the Book of Proverbs in The Bible: "The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel." (Proverbs 12:10) That's also partly why the Sabbath day law was instituted by God for His people Israel — not only for the sake of His people being given rest, but also so that their work animals would be given rest. Jesus points this out to the Pharisees for their condemning Him for healing people on the Sabbath, challenging them by saying, "Don't you let your animals loose on the Sabbath so that they can be watered?" or "Don't you rescue your animals on the Sabbath if they fall into a pit?"



Theatre

In The Little Foxes, Alexandra complains about Leo beating the horses when they were out riding together. This cruelty is portrayed as representative of the Hubbard family, since their having "killed animals they couldn't use" was very offensive to Birdie's late mother.

Westeros: An American Musical: Joffrey, when forcibly escorted away from Oberyn's welcoming comittee because he's throwing a tantrum, threatens to retaliate for the forced departure by killing eight kittens.

Video Games

Visual Novels

In Spirit Hunter: NG, Kubitarou is quickly established as a nasty spirit due to its modus operandi being the murder and decapitation of people's pets.

Webcomics

Web Original

Western Animation

Other