Tropescilloscope: Kick the Dog

A gratuitously cruel action serves to darken a character. (read more at tvtropes.org)

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More Tropes Soundtrack Dissonance Be Careful What You Wish For Token Minority Catch-Phrase Hero Antagonist Celebrity Paradox The Mafia B-Movie Would Hit a Girl Yandere Alpha Bitch Dumb Blonde Evil Brit Genre Shift Redemption Equals Death Sadistic Choice Bloodless Carnage Arc Words Dark Reprise Exactly What It Says on the Tin One-Man Army Gold Digger Get Out! Freeze-Frame Bonus Skewed Priorities Wham Line Animated Credits Opening Artistic License – Gun Safety Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" Big "NO!" Country Matters Adaptational Badass The Ace The Lost Lenore O.O.C. Is Serious Business Due to the Dead The Ditz Fatal Flaw Film Noir Mooks Martial Arts Movie Dramatic Gun Cock Rule of Funny World of Ham Creative Closing Credits Girl-on-Girl Is Hot Corrupt Corporate Executive Off with His Head! Face Death with Dignity Rule of Three Loads and Loads of Characters Plucky Comic Relief May–December Romance Apocalypse How The Un-Favourite aka: The Un Favorite Character Development Romantic False Lead Reality Is Unrealistic Action Girl Parental Neglect Happily Married It's All About Me My God, What Have I Done? From Nobody to Nightmare Well-Intentioned Extremist Properly Paranoid I Need a Freaking Drink Hell Is That Noise Darkest Hour Artistic License – History Gory Discretion Shot Anguished Declaration of Love Scenery Gorn Aluminum Christmas Trees "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue Attempted Rape Undying Loyalty Vampire Fiction Artistic License – Law Arranged Marriage Dramedy And Starring Take That! Made of Explodium Butt-Monkey Re-Cut Body Horror Final Girl Red Eyes, Take Warning Guile Hero Meaningful Background Event Taking the Bullet The Remake Action Prologue The Hero Agony of the Feet The '80s Deal with the Devil Heterosexual Life-Partners Expy Distracted by the Sexy Sole Survivor I Have Your Wife Dramatic Irony Left the Background Music On Vomit Indiscretion Shot True Companions Naïve Newcomer Science Fiction Films The Dragon Evil Is Hammy No-Sell Chekhov's Gun Pragmatic Villainy Motor Mouth Big Brother Instinct Lighter and Softer The Cavalry Precision F-Strike Fat Bastard Small Name, Big Ego Roaring Rampage of Revenge The Hero Dies Those Two Bad Guys The Stoic Television Movie Index Insane Troll Logic The Brute Rated M for Manly Crazy Jealous Guy Toilet Humour aka: Toilet Humor Whole Plot Reference Make It Look Like an Accident I'm a Humanitarian Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! Mistaken for Gay Knife Nut Ambiguous Disorder Silence Is Golden Big Damn Heroes Stealth Hi/Bye Bi the Way Big Bad The Smurfette Principle NO INDOOR VOICE Contrived Coincidence Disney Death Funny Background Event The Reveal Adapted Out Same Language Dub Star-Crossed Lovers As the Good Book Says... Central Theme As Long as It Sounds Foreign Intrepid Reporter Beard of Evil Villainous Breakdown Stealth Pun Anachronic Order Did Not Get the Girl Stuff Blowing Up Camera Abuse Light Is Not Good The '60s Cool Shades 20 Minutes into the Future Annoying Younger Sibling Deadpan Snarker Belligerent Sexual Tension No Ending Domestic Abuse Only a Flesh Wound Amusing Injuries Extremely Short Timespan Mind Screw The Power of Love Armor-Piercing Question Men Are the Expendable Gender Adorkable Tap on the Head Action Genre Public Domain Feature Films Black Comedy Rape Outrun the Fireball Mighty Whitey Laughing Mad He Who Fights Monsters Psychological Thriller Mr. Exposition Artistic License – Biology Not So Stoic Badass Boast Intergenerational Friendship An Axe to Grind Blood from the Mouth Ax-Crazy Victoria's Secret Compartment You Killed My Father What Happened to the Mouse? Older Than They Look No Name Given Early Installment Weirdness Setting Update As You Know folderlabel Only One Name Continuity Nod In Name Only The Load Big Fancy House Parental Incest Adaptation Dye-Job And the Adventure Continues She Cleans Up Nicely For the Evulz And I Must Scream Artistic License – Military Bullying a Dragon Adaptational Villainy Unreliable Narrator Took a Level in Badass Mythology Gag Take a Third Option Beauty Is Never Tarnished "Well Done, Son!" Guy Defrosting Ice Queen Fiery Redhead Flashback Cruel and Unusual Death Animal Motifs Arch-Enemy Manly Tears Offscreen Moment of Awesome Film Noir Index Antagonist Title Babies Ever After Evil Cannot Comprehend Good Facial Horror Fish out of Water Face–Heel Turn Hypocritical Humor Award-Bait Song Evil Is Petty Woman Scorned Dull Surprise Madness Mantra Historical Villain Upgrade Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene I Did What I Had to Do Downer Ending She's Got Legs Decoy Protagonist Friend to All Children Actor Allusion Daddy's Girl In Medias Res The Smart Guy La Résistance Demoted to Extra Author Avatar Evil Plan Loophole Abuse You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Show Within a Show No Celebrities Were Harmed The Bully Casting Gag Spiritual Successor Vomit Discretion Shot Put on a Bus More Dakka Accidental Murder Roger Ebert: Great Movies List Historical Hero Upgrade Cold-Blooded Torture Bait-and-Switch Ascended Extra My Beloved Smother An Arm and a Leg Mystery and Detective Films Bring My Brown Pants A Father to His Men Neck Lift Defiant to the End Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Hollywood Darkness Tagline Grievous Bottley Harm Chekhov's Gunman Imagine Spot Badass in a Nice Suit Death of a Child Colour-Coded for Your Convenience aka: Color Coded For Your Convenience Obfuscating Stupidity Maybe Ever After For Want of a Nail Logo Joke Smug Snake The End... Or Is It? Hypocrite Karmic Death Alas, Poor Villain Ms. Fanservice Kill It with Fire Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? Nice Hat Nothing Is Scarier Rule of Cool Eyepatch of Power It Will Never Catch On Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Morality Pet Not Using the "Z" Word Catapult Nightmare Naked People Are Funny Even Evil Has Standards Missing Mom A.I. Is a Crapshoot Genre Throwback Not So Above It All Rich Bitch Running Gag Karma Houdini Age Lift Bittersweet Ending Rule of Symbolism Call-Forward Lock and Load Montage Man on Fire Not Quite Dead Unusual Euphemism Mad Scientist Evil-Detecting Dog An Aesop BFG Self-Deprecation You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! Advertised Extra Auto Erotica The Faceless Groin Attack Dark Action Girl Punctuated! For! Emphasis! Recycled IN SPACE! Married to the Job Adult Fear Shown Their Work Death Glare Jump Scare All Men Are Perverts Spell My Name with an "S" Meaningful Name Gilligan Cut Five-Man Band Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Canon Foreigner Stylistic Suck The Big Guy Wicked Cultured The Alcoholic Cool Old Guy Real Life Silent Movie Your Cheating Heart Slap-Slap-Kiss Say My Name Enemy Mine Chuck Cunningham Syndrome Disguised in Drag Big Applesauce Fainting Slashed Throat MacGuffin Insistent Terminology Trailers Always Spoil Laser-Guided Karma Famous Last Words Badass Bookworm There Is No Kill Like Overkill Novelization Author Appeal It Can Think The Alleged Car Developing Doomed Characters "Awesome McCool" Name Destination Defenestration Narrator Obviously Evil Betty and Veronica Cain and Abel Cloudcuckoolander Dark and Troubled Past Almost Kiss Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy Fingore No Antagonist Hollywood Law Pun aka: Incredibly Lame Pun Mood Whiplash Deliberately Monochrome The '90s The '70s Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday Conspicuous CG Improbable Infant Survival aka: Infant Immortality The '50s Green-Eyed Monster Manic Pixie Dream Girl Suspiciously Specific Denial Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas Sir Swears-a-Lot Accidental Misnaming Villain Song Retired Badass Never My Fault Chiaroscuro Interrupted Suicide Sinister Minister Mugging the Monster Blood Knight Red Oni, Blue Oni Only in It for the Money Shout-Out Slasher Movie Department of Redundancy Department I Want My Beloved to Be Happy Parental Substitute Fatal Family Photo Paper-Thin Disguise Adaptation Expansion The Cameo Scenery Porn After the End Retcon Pet the Dog Evil vs. Evil Shirtless Scene Drives Like Crazy Coming-of-Age Story Death Seeker Getting Crap Past the Radar Air-Vent Passageway Combat Pragmatist Bury Your Gays Wounded Gazelle Gambit Black and Gray Morality Jerkass Has a Point Bottomless Magazines A Minor Kidroduction Rousing Speech Works Set in World War II Improbable Aiming Skills Dissonant Serenity Rewatch Bonus Only Sane Man Hero of Another Story Affably Evil Truth in Television Fake Shemp Crucified Hero Shot Red Herring Taking You with Me Four-Temperament Ensemble Last-Name Basis Death by Sex timeperiod Peek-a-Boo Corpse Immune to Bullets Evil Sounds Deep Serious Business Politically Incorrect Villain Anyone Can Die Eiffel Tower Effect Parental Abandonment In the Back Femme Fatale Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Handicapped Badass Wretched Hive Gorn Curse Cut Short Batman Gambit Evil Counterpart Irony Psycho for Hire Jerkass Leaning on the Fourth Wall Australian Movies Mr. Fanservice Kubrick Stare Vacation Films Meet Cute Authority Equals Asskicking Hidden Depths Romantic Comedy Card-Carrying Villain Captain Obvious Deconstruction Deliberate Values Dissonance Amoral Attorney Bland-Name Product Berserk Button Deus ex Machina Action Survivor Insult Backfire Worthy Opponent Serial Killer Smoking Is Cool Awesome, but Impractical Police Brutality Diabolus ex Machina Chase Scene Genre Savvy Bilingual Bonus Aside Glance Cat Scare Idiot Ball Male Frontal Nudity Improbable Weapon User Driven to Suicide Blackmail Captain Ersatz One-Word Title Bond Villain Stupidity Time Skip Car Fu Villain Protagonist Suspiciously Similar Substitute The X of Y Instant Death Bullet Stalker with a Crush Killed Mid-Sentence Beware the Nice Ones Really Gets Around Cool Guns Real Life Writes the Plot Broken Aesop Fate Worse than Death A Date with Rosie Palms Kill 'em All Line-of-Sight Name The Starscream Very Loosely Based on a True Story Punny Name The Dreaded Adults Are Useless Only Known by Their Nickname Animal Title Index Large Ham Gender Flip Fanservice Extra Breaking the Fourth Wall A God Am I Comically Missing the Point The Stoner Bad Boss Oh, Crap! Establishing Character Moment Slasher Smile Leave the Camera Running The Great Depression Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Our Zombies Are Different Artistic License – Geography Training Montage Fanservice Dark Is Not Evil Affectionate Parody Poor Communication Kills Improvised Weapon Important Haircut Even Evil Has Loved Ones Race Against the Clock Shower Scene Sacrificial Lion Eye Scream From Bad to Worse Zombie Stories Based on a True Story Scary Black Man Throwing Your Sword Always Works Humiliation Conga Obstructive Bureaucrat Anachronism Stew Hate Sink Bloodier and Gorier Toplessness from the Back Creepy Child Brother–Sister Incest Ghost Fiction Match Cut Adaptational Heroism Unresolved Sexual Tension Those Two Guys Fun with Acronyms Henpecked Husband Villain Opening Scene Frame-Up Japanese Films '80s Hair Framing Device Mundane Made Awesome The Oner The Lancer Revenge Russian Films Manchild Overprotective Dad Brutal Honesty The Place Book-Ends Break the Haughty Woman in White Military and Warfare Films Spanner in the Works Fire-Forged Friends Badass Normal Dying Moment of Awesome Does Not Like Shoes Faking the Dead Guns Akimbo Earn Your Happy Ending Unusually Uninteresting Sight My Greatest Failure Too Dumb to Live Creator Cameo Villain with Good Publicity Hope Spot Major Injury Underreaction Curb-Stomp Battle Rape as Drama Meaningful Echo I Just Shot Marvin in the Face Sports Stories Reasonable Authority Figure Honor Before Reason Not What It Looks Like Calling the Old Man Out Screw This, I'm Outta Here! Pre-Asskicking One-Liner Pyrrhic Victory Shoot the Shaggy Dog Hoist by His Own Petard French Films The Musical Rasputinian Death Funny Foreigner Humans Are Bastards All There in the Script Eagleland Jerk with a Heart of Gold Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! Bolivian Army Ending Half the Man He Used to Be Epic Fail Horror Films The Chick Cluster F-Bomb Tranquil Fury Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Ungrateful Bastard Cool Old Lady Big Bad Duumvirate Took a Level in Jerkass Crazy-Prepared Screw the Money, I Have Rules! Red Shirt Stock Footage Shipper on Deck Knight Templar Kids Are Cruel Dies Wide Open Storming the Castle Dressing as the Enemy Bowdlerise Cat Fight Implacable Man Black Comedy Better to Die than Be Killed Historical-Domain Character Camp Gay Market-Based Title Random Events Plot Music Stories Failed a Spot Check Boom, Headshot! "The Reason You Suck" Speech Documentary The Ghost Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Retirony Kick the Dog Fantasy Films Bare Your Midriff Asshole Victim Early-Bird Cameo Death by Irony Mercy Kill Off-into-the-Distance Ending Does This Remind You of Anything? The Mole Love Triangle Corpsing Heroic Sacrifice Visual Pun Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping The Un-Reveal Gainax Ending Cool Car Alliterative Name No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Badass Grandpa How We Got Here Not Even Bothering with the Accent Playing Gertrude Blatant Lies Back from the Dead Male Gaze All Girls Want Bad Boys Fantastic Racism Brainless Beauty Police are Useless The Dog Bites Back Reality Has No Subtitles Dual Wielding Plot Hole The Film of the Book Bunny-Ears Lawyer Artistic License – Physics Italian Films The Vamp Word of God Expository Hairstyle Change Historical In-Joke Here We Go Again! Ass Shove Canadian Movies Non-Indicative Name Easily Forgiven Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome Darker and Edgier Dwindling Party Despair Event Horizon Determinator Break the Cutie Grey and Gray Morality Daylight Horror Sassy Black Woman Redshirt Army Recap / RiffTrax aka: Riff Trax Movies Made of Iron Drowning My Sorrows Wrong Genre Savvy Faux Affably Evil Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique Unspoken Plan Guarantee Ironic Echo All for Nothing Closed Circle Christmas Movies Index Gone Horribly Right Dirty Old Man Sequel Escalation Drugs Are Bad Red Right Hand Fan Disservice Love at First Sight Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane Wham Shot Good Is Not Nice Damsel in Distress Moment Killer Monumental Damage Punch-Clock Villain Broken Pedestal Once More, with Clarity! Dirty Cop Papa Wolf Pay Evil unto Evil British Films Up to Eleven The Stinger Spiteful Spit Ambiguously Gay Dirty Coward Abusive Parents Spared by the Adaptation Together in Death No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Vitriolic Best Buds N-Word Privileges Nice Guy It's Personal Needs Wiki Magic Love Ship Tease Impaled with Extreme Prejudice Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Never Found the Body Translation Convention Ominous Latin Chanting Demonic Possession What You Are in the Dark Twist Ending Actually Pretty Funny The Voiceless Shut Up, Hannibal! Those Wacky Nazis Biopic Adaptation Name Change Foreshadowing Pimped-Out Dress Sci-Fi Horror You Have Failed Me Double Entendre Video Credits All There in the Manual War Is Hell Let's Get Dangerous! No OSHA Compliance Suddenly SHOUTING! Race Lift What the Hell, Hero? Manipulative Bastard Composite Character Bound and Gagged Big-Bad Ensemble Soft Glass Straight Gay Freudian Excuse Sexy Discretion Shot Flipping the Bird Chekhov's Skill Big Eater Overly Long Gag Anti-Hero Ripped from the Headlines Would Hurt a Child Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism Crapsack World Unwitting Instigator of Doom Depraved Bisexual All Just a Dream Not So Different Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Stepford Smiler Refuge in Audacity Never Trust a Trailer Thriller Extreme Doormat Chewing the Scenery Eldritch Abomination Horror Comedy Covers Always Lie Malevolent Masked Men Sealed Evil in a Can Black Dude Dies First Disappeared Dad Eureka Moment Sequel Hook He Knows Too Much Brick Joke Pretty Little Headshots Cassandra Truth Gratuitous English Ambiguous Ending Heroes Want Redheads The Quiet One Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer Never Trust a Trailer aka: Trailers Always Lie Disproportionate Retribution Informed Ability Empathic Environment Adaptational Attractiveness Dutch Angle Riddle for the Ages The Bad Guy Wins The Casanova Danny Peary Cult Movies List Didn't Think This Through Bald of Evil Our Vampires Are Different Tempting Fate Product Placement Children Are Innocent Every Car Is a Pinto Villain Ball Heel Realization Call-Back Jitter Cam Pretty in Mink Scare Chord Psychopathic Manchild As Himself Homage "Shaggy Dog" Story Hooker with a Heart of Gold Cowboy Cop Offscreen Teleportation Abhorrent Admirer Room Full of Crazy Pragmatic Adaptation Bar Brawl The Sociopath Death by Adaptation Index of Film Westerns Pre-Mortem One-Liner Beta Couple Totally Radical Hong Kong Films Your Head A-Splode Title Drop Evil Laugh Greater-Scope Villain Broken Bird Mexican Standoff Bond One-Liner Heel–Face Turn Posthumous Character Bad "Bad Acting" Sanity Slippage Dropped a Bridge on Him Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Badass Longcoat Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other Hair-Trigger Temper Neck Snap Exact Words Lampshade Hanging Epic Movie Reality Ensues Double-Meaning Title Determinator aka: The Determinator Super Strength Anti-Villain Becoming the Mask Film Series Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! Bavarian Fire Drill Credits Gag Dogged Nice Guy This Is Gonna Suck Foregone Conclusion Kick the Son of a Bitch Bloody Hilarious Heroic BSoD Protagonist Title Jerk Jock German Films Superhero Have a Gay Old Time Disney Villain Death Blonde, Brunette, Redhead One Steve Limit The Atoner Costume Porn Leitmotif Reckless Gun Usage Names to Run Away from Really Fast Foil The Chessmaster Adaptation Distillation Fourth Date Marriage Mama Bear Everyone Has Standards Noodle Incident Black Best Friend Drill Sergeant Nasty Shell-Shocked Veteran