History Main / EmpathyDollShot

Whenever a movie wants to add pathos to a war or crime scene, expect a shot of an abandoned toy, usually a doll or stuffed animal. Teddy bears and bunnies seem to be the most popular, and the more worn and tattered the better.

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'' has a cutscene showing villagers fleeing a Soviet air raid that ends with a long zoom-in on an abandoned teddy bear with a bullet hole shot through it. To make this one worse, it's a '''Victory''' cutscene from a Soviet mission. The player was the one directing the air raid. Not at all helped by the fact that the Briefing, where you are given the order by none other than UsefulNotes/JosefStalin himself, there is a slideshow of the aftermath of a chemical gas (possibly ''SARIN'') attack. And since it was the first mission, it was an easy mission, with not much fighting back. Gives the player a warning though: If you wanted to play the good guys, put the Allied Disk in your CD drive ''right now''!

* ''VideoGame/DeadSpace 2'' features a tricycle in one area. The average player use the game's logic, grabs it with Kinesis, and then tests [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential if it can land a kill on Necromorph]]. There are also some ship models throughout the game.

* Early on in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', Dr. Freeman comes across the rusted and busted remains of a playground, complete with the sad remains of a plastic doll that makes sad little talking doll sounds when you throw it at a wall.
** When you enter the playground, you hear brief echos of children's laughter...

* In ''Videogame/MegaManZero1'' the LaResistance base is stormed by Neo Arcadian Forces. While the bodies of a few resistance soldiers are found if Zero enters the hallway where [[TokenMiniMoe Alouette]] is usually found, only the stuffed animal she always clutches will be lying on the ground. [[spoiler: Once the threat is taken care of, she reclaims her lost companion.]]
* The standard trope occurs in teddy bears [[http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Teddy_bear found throughout]] the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' and ''Modern Warfare'' series.
** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 1'':
*** A variant: after [[spoiler:the end of Sgt. Paul Jackson's campaign, in which your aircraft is downed by a nuclear bomb, and just before your death after crawling out of the wreckage of your helicopter]], it is possible to make your way to a ruined playground a few feet ahead of the downed craft, where the player can hear the faint echoes of children playing.
*** Similarly, while moving through the remnants of Pripyat, Ukraine, you can hear echoes of children playing in the background. A teddy bear can be found lying around an apartment in Pripyat.
*** There's also one in the house where you find the informant.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "A Sacred Trust", a flashback to a mercenary attack on an African village shows a girl dropping a doll that is then trampled by one of the soldiers.

* Let Cereza get taken away by a Joy or Beloved in ''VideoGame/Bayonetta'', and [[NonStandardGameOver instead of the usual game over screen]] in which Bayonetta gets DraggedOffToHell if you don't continue, you'll instead be greeted by her doll.

* Done in the final issue of ''Comicbook/BlackestNight: Comicbook/TheFlash'' to imply that [[spoiler: Owen -- Captain Boomerang Jr. -- had fed innocent children as well as bad guys to his zombified father Digger in an effort to get him back.]]

* ''Series/TheStand1994'' does this twice. A doll probably belonging to Campion's daughter is shown on the road after the evacuation scene, and later, during the Crowded House song montage, there's a shot of a teddy bear in the surf on a beach.

* One of these shots appears in the second ''Anime/NarutoShippuden'' movie, during the scene where Amaru runs inside his destroyed village.

* ''Film/ThePursuitOfHappyness'': In one of Chris and Christoper's pursuits to get to the shelter on time, Christopher loses his ComicBook/CaptainAmerica action figure and cannot go back to retrieve it.