History KickTheDog / Literature

* ''Literature/TheWitchOfKnightcharm'': The evil witch Lily Rutherford does this when she stops during a race to execute a fallen competitor named Luban. While Luban was herself an evil mage, she'd been defeated and trapped by the protagonist, amd she was no longer any threat to anyone. But Lily still chose to slaughter her anyways, and why? Because Luban had dared to challenge Lily in the first place, which offended Lily so much that she decided murder was the most appropriate reaction.

* Thomas Harris isn't above giving villains a crack at this trope:
** Amazingly, perhaps his most horrific scene does not occur in any of the Hannibal Lecter books, but in ''Literature/BlackSunday''. As if Harris believed the reader needed further convincing this far in of just how nuts the pilot is, we get a scene in which he brings a kitten to his wife as a gift, then gruesomely kills it [[spoiler:via kitchen garbage disposal]] when they quarrel.
** Though that's ''very'' debatable for anyone who's read ''[[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal]]''. Mason Verger is much worse than Lecter himself, and this is [[EstablishingCharacterMoment established in quite an early scene]] where he [[spoiler: calls an adopted orphan into his private room and [[TraumaCongaLine not only brings up all the insecurities the child would already have, but then tells him that his beloved pet cat is going to be taken away and suffer a terrifying death, and that the boy should feed her rat poison to save her. This incident is mentioned later, when it turns out that the boy is in hospital after taking the rat poison himself.]] Mason calmly orders the family to be paid off, [[ButForMeItWasTuesday with the sort of tone that suggests this sort of thing is not unusual for him]].]] [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment This incident is not tied in any way to his revenge on Lecter]], and serves no purpose beyond making you wish the bastard suffers a truly hideous death. [[spoiler: [[KickTheSonOfABitch Much to the pleasure of the readers]], [[CruelAndUnusualDeath he does]].]]

* ''Literature/CoralIsland'': When pirates arrive on the castaways' island, one of them swings Peterkin's cat around by the tail before tossing it into the lagoon. Jack says, "You see what we may expect. The man who will wantonly kill a poor brute for sport will think little of murdering a fellow-creature."

-->''[[WhatTheHellHero Jason told Dad he was right out of order]] and pushed Dad. Then Dad pushed him back. Grandpa Fred told Jason to calm down and Jason told him to keep out of it. Buster was howling, Lily and Barney were screaming, and Louise started to cry...''

** In "[[Literature/TalesFromTheMosEisleyCantina Nightlily: The Lovers' Tale]]", Feltipern Trevagg is introduced in the process of driving an impoverished widow and her children out of their house. Makes it all the more satisfying when [[spoiler:his blood stains the hotel bedsheets aqua]] through his own CriticalResearchFailure on an unrelated pursuit.

* ''Something Different About Dad: How to Live With Your Asperger's Parent'': [[HollywoodAutism Mark]] ''literally'' does this to Jason and Louise's pet dog Buster in Chapter 4 during his (Mark's) breakdown. Mark's ranting while going off his rocker in Chapter 4 in general, to be more precise.

-->''Everyone was ''really'' happy about the baby... but not Dad. He started shouting and shouting. He shouted at Louise, saying really mean things -- that the baby would cry and ruin our holiday, just like how Barney had ruined last year's holiday. He said that Louise was ''stupid'' for having another baby, when she couldn't manage the ones she had already... Mum got really upset. She tried to get Dad to calm down, but he wouldn't listen. He just kept shouting. He just got more and more angry. It was horrible. He started shouting at Lily and Barney... And he ''kicked'' Buster... [[WhatTheHellHero Jason told Dad he was right out of order]] and pushed Dad. Then Dad pushed him back. Grandpa Fred told Jason to calm down and Jason told him to keep out of it. Buster was howling, Lily and Barney were screaming, and Louise started to cry... And then, Dad just... ''lost it''. He just shouted and shouted and didn't stop. I've never, ever heard him shout so much. I was really frightened. He told everyone to {{get out}} of his house.''

* In Somerset Maugham's novel ''The Magician'' the villainous wizard Oliver Haddo (modeled on Aleister Crowley, who wrote a review of the book when it came out) kicks the heroine's dog and immediately gets a thrashing from her fiancé -- which begins a deadly feud between them.

-->''He started shouting and shouting. He shouted at Louise, saying really mean things -- that the baby would cry and ruin our holiday, just like how Barney had ruined last year's holiday. He said that Louise was ''stupid'' for having another baby, when she couldn't manage the ones she had already... He started shouting at Lily and Barney... And he ''kicked'' Buster... Buster was howling, Lily and Barney were screaming, and Louise started to cry... And then, Dad just... ''lost it''. He just shouted and shouted and didn't stop. I've never, ever heard him shout so much. I was really frightened. He told everyone to {{get out}} of his house.''

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'': Done in ''Eclipse'' by the Volturi to the newborn vampire Bree Tanner. Despite her being able to control herself, surrendering, and not knowing the laws of vampires, the Volturi kill her even after the Cullens had volunteered to take her in.

* ''Literature/TrailOfLightning'': Longarm is a corrupt cop with a chip on his shoulder, but because he's human Maggie isn't willing to get in a fight with him. That changes when he beats and tries to execute a civilian.

* In ''Valley of the Dry Bones'', a dystopian novel set in 2016 America, we know that society is really going downhill when the book casually mentions parties where the entertainment includes torture-and-snuff child porn. This takes place several pages after comments by law enforcement about the curious recent increase in missing children.

* Vikram Chandra's ''Sacred Games'' starts off with a man taking revenge on his adulterous wife by tossing her cute little puppy out the window.

* Little Willie Connolly in J.R. Lowell's 1972 thriller ''Daughter of Darkness'' is a DeliberatelyCuteChild and a super-intelligent ChildProdigy, and secretly a practicing witch. She asks her parents for a kitten, but her mother buys a [[http://www.petmd.com/sites/default/files/breedopedia/maltese3.jpg Maltese]] puppy instead. Unfortunately, Willie's expertise doesn't extend to the fact that she could easily have made the little dog her {{Familiar}} (a dog like that would have clinched the Cuteness Factor besides averting AllWitchesHaveCats). Using a combination of animal psychology and a cursed charm, Willie cold-bloodedly arranges to have her puppy run into heavy traffic in midtown Manhattan. The next day she has her kitten.

* A literal example in ''Literature/Caliphate'' When Fatima and Zainub come across a injured puppy on one of their patrols, the sadistic pair decide to kick it between each other like a ball until Fatima gleefully crushes it’s skull beneath the heel of her steel toed boot.

** Not long after becoming king, Joffrey passes judgment on several court cases, and only seems interested in the ones from which he can derive sadistic pleasure. He has a thief's hands cut off, has two knights duel to the death to resolve their land dispute, has a traitor's wife sent to the dungeon when she asks for her husband's head so she can bury it, and gives a minstrel who made an insulting song about Robert choose between keeping his hands or his tongue.

* The Thénardiers in Victor Hugo's ''Literature/LesMiserables'' do this in just about every scene they're in. Javert also gets one when he frightens Fantine to death (albeit unintentionally) by telling her the mayor is a convict. Notably, this is one of the only moments where Valjean [[BerserkButton briefly loses his cool]].

** Catelyn Stark has a kick the dog moment when Jon Snow comes to visit a comatose Bran following his fall from a tower, and Catelyn says to Jon "It should have been you."

* ''Literature/{{Wasp}}'': Sagramatholou's first on-page action is to beat up an old man and kick him while he's down. [[spoiler:This grants him AssholeVictim status once he dies by Mowry's hand.]]

* ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'': [[TheDragon Cree Bega]] of ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheJerleShannara'' specialises in Kick TheWoobie. He forces Elven Prince Ahren Elessedil to watch while The Morgawr devours the minds of a ship's crew, and later, during their [[TheDogBitesBack final battle]], smugly informs Ahren of his crush's torture and suicide, then taunts him for being unable to save her. There is no reason for Cree Bega to do any of this, it doesn't serve to advance [[BigBad the Morgawr's]] plans or his own; no he just likes to hurt people.