History Main / HonorableElephant

%%* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': ''Hobo Bobo''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness'', Constable Hu is an elephant ByTheBookCop. He has occasionally been an antagonist, for instance in "The Midnight Stranger", when he bans kung fu entirely, but will graciously admit his mistakes when they become apparent.

* Fumbo the mighty jumbo is among the friends (and accomplices) of WesternAnimation/TheHairBearBunch.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRuffAndReddyShow'': The story arc of "Pinky the Pint-Sized Pachyderm" featured elephants who come to assist the heroes and Pinky while giving the villain Scary Harry Safari his just desserts.
* WesternAnimation/BozoTheWorldsMostFamousClown befriends Hercules, the circus elephant. Hercules comes to the rescue after Bozo and Butch are held captive by two thugs who stole the circus receipts.
* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou'': In "Bedlam in the Big Top," Scooby gets an elephant at the circus to help Daphne snap out of a hypnotic trance. The elephant soaks up a trunk full of water and douses Daphne with it.
* Shep is the pet elephant of WesternAnimation/GeorgeOfTheJungle, whom George says is "a big peanut-loving puppy dog."

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': In "Jerry and Jumbo", an elephant loyally defends Jerry from Tom after [[AndroclesLion Jerry pulls a nail from the elephant's foot]].

* All the prehistoric elephants rescued in ''Fanfic/PrehistoricParkReimagined'' prove to be largely friendly and agreeable [[GentleGiant gentle giants]]. But just to be safe, all the adult males are largely kept separate from the youngsters and adult females at the park, [[CruelElephant just in case]].

-> ''[[IGaveMyWord I meant what I said, and I said what I meant!]]''

-> [[IGaveMyWord''I meant what I said, and I said what I meant!'']]

-> ''I meant what I said, and I said what I meant!''

* Downplayed in ''VideoGame/UnchartedTheLostLegacy''. [[AwesomeAussie Chloe]] and [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Nadine's]] PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure is healed when they work together to save a female Asian elephant pinned under a stone column that [[BigBad Asav's]] men blew over with their explosive weaponry. They then have a PetTheDog moment riding the elephant back to her family, but once they're reunited, the elephants don't do anything more to help the girls, and Nadine has to warn Chloe not to step too close to them, otherwise the [[CruelElephant bull]] "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Will. Kill you]]."

Thanks to its size, the movements of an elephant tend to be slow and ponderous. While it's impossible to know whether an elephant's inner life is more somber and dignified than, say, that of an [[PlayfulOtter otter]], it certainly ''looks'' that way. This impression of elephants is compounded by the fact that elephants are observed engaging in what appears to be reverence for their dead. It seems likely that they are aware of their own mortality. The [[ElephantsNeverForget prodigious memory]] of elephants also makes it seem that their lives must be more burdened by history and the past than animals with less powerful memories, which exist more "in the moment".

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'': Manny is an honorable mammoth. He feels morally obligated to return a human baby to his family even though he knows that the child could one day grow up to be a mammoth-killer.

* ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': Behemoth -- a {{Kaiju}} who resembles a cross between a mammoth and a ground sloth -- plays with this; he's portrayed as destructive under [[TheCorrupter Ghidorah's]] command, but [[spoiler:later proves to be a docile and beneficial creature once Godzilla takes charge, [[FertileFeet restoring much of the Amazon rainforest just by walking around]]]].
* ''Film/{{Mowgli}}'': This incarnation of Haithi is more true to his book counterpart, being a benevolent ruler of the jungle. He saves Mowgli from a tiger pit and later gathers the other elephants to help the boy defeat Shere Khan [[spoiler:in return for showing him the hunter who shot part of his tusk off]].

* In ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'', honorability seems to increase in the proboscidean family tree as it gets closer to modern elephants.

** The goofy-looking ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeritherium Moeritherium]]'' in "Whale Killer" are [[GentleGiant perfect pacifists]] that don't really look or act like elephants. One is chased by the threatening ''Basilosaurus'', but unlike most prey animals in the series it is given the chance to escape.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Primal}}'', Spear and Fang hunt and kill an injured wooly mammoth for food and insulation. The rest of the herd come across the dead mammoth's remains and track down Spear and Fang to the cave where they're hiding for the night, upon which the herd attacks the two of them relentlessly. As it seems, though, what they really wanted was a tusk of the dead mammoth, which the herd leader picks up; they bring the tusk to an ElephantGraveyard to mourn him.

-> ''I meant what I said, and I said what I meant! An elephant's faithful, one-hundred percent!''

* Creator/DrSeuss wrote of Horton, an elephant who was always faithful, 100%: He both [[Literature/HortonHearsAWho safeguards the Whos]] and [[Literature/HortonHatchesTheEgg incubates an egg in his custody]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967'', elephants are like honorable, respectable (if not too bright) [[StiffUpperLip British army officers]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}'': Tantor, the African elephant, may be a [[CowardlyLion coward]], but when his friends are in danger he [[LetsGetDangerous overcomes his fear]] and helps them.

%%* ''Literature/TheAntAndTheElephant''.

** In "Mammoth Journey", female woolly mammoths and their young live in family groups that stick together and quietly help each other when facing predators and climatic hardships. The most unprovoked aggression seen consists of an adult male on heat chasing a bison herd away with a mildly threatening trotting and an old male scaring two cave lions out of his way when he migrates south (but [[AcceptableTargets said lions]] were feeding on [[IAmAHumanitarian a human carcass]]).
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinotheriidae Deinotheres]] in "Next of Kin", in contrast, are sadistic bullies that seem to revel on [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman chasing hominids]] out of waterholes or because they are on heat. Bear in mind that this is as much elephantine behavior as the one exhibited by the mammoths. The series gives all positive traits to one lineage and all negative traits to the other, who also happens to be [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute the uglier, less elephant-looking one.]]
** Goofy-looking [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeritherium moeritheres]] in "Whale Killer" are [[GentleGiant perfect pacifists]] that don't really look or act like elephants. One is chased by the threatening ''Basilosaurus'', but unlike most prey animals in the series it is given the chance to escape.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard'' has the Pride Lands' local African elephant herd which consist of these. Particularly Ma Tembo, the leader of the herd, and Mtoto, a young calf who looks up to Beshte and hopes to grow up into a hero like him.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheWildThornberrys'', every elephant which Eliza befriends has played this trope straight.

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[[folder:Religion and Mythology]]
* Literature/TheBible: A likely candidate for the Behemoth, a biblical creature mentioned in the Literature/BookOfJob, is the now extinct giant Syrian elephant. Described to show the limits of man's power against God's nature, Behemoth is described as the most powerful land animal on the planet. In particular, the wording used to describe its greatness imply both physical and intellectual might. It's so big it has to use trees for shade and has giant horns/tusks it can gore the Leviathan with -- certainly a beast that shouldn't be trifled with. Yet it spends its days peacefully in the fields and swamps, eating grass as the smaller beasts play around it, showing that it's a GentleGiant herbivore if left in peace.
* UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}}: The Buddha was an honorable elephant in several of his previous lives, and the popularity of white elephants in Thailand has to do with Buddha taking the form of a six-tusked white elephant.
* Myth/HinduMythology: Played entirely straight, as elephants often symbolize wisdom, grace, power and kingliness. Eight divine elephants carry the world on their backs, and a white four-tusked elephant is the mount of the storm god Indra. The elephant-headed god Ganesha, one of the most popular gods in Hinduism, removes obstacles and gives people good luck, as well as protecting children.
[[/folder]]

%%* Creator/RichardScarry: Polite Elephant.

-> ''I meant what I said, and I said what I meant! An elephant's loyal, one-hundred percent!''

Some aspects of RealLife elephants, such as their excellent memories, may be portrayed widely in fiction, while other aspects, such as the feeling of UnstoppableRage and lust males feel during ''musth,'' may be played down. [[ElephantsAreScaredOfMice Except in the case they encounter]] [[YouDirtyRat dirty rats]].

Some aspects of RealLife elephants, such as their excellent memories, may be portrayed widely in fiction, while other aspects, such as the feeling of UnstoppableRage and lust males feel during ''musth,'' may be played down.

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