In the animal kingdom, growling is universally a sign of displeasure.
So what better way to show that a character is still in touch with their savage, animalistic side than to have them give a menacing growl when something (or someone) manages to piss them off enough?
Usually, characters who do this are a Little Bit Beastly or even a full-on Beast Man. The Wolf Man especially may be prone to this, as well as the Proud Warrior Race Guy.
Can overlap with My Species Doth Protest Too Much.
Not to be confused with Grumpy Growler, which means a character's voice is coarse and gruff all the time, though there can be overlap, for obvious reasons.
Compare Furry Reminder and Angrish.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- BNA: Brand New Animal: Beastmen in general often growl or bare their teeth when they're especially angry, both in their human and their animal forms.
- This is quite common in Seton Academy: Join the Pack!, since more than 90% of the cast are animals. Despite having the appearance of human girls, female animals will still growl when mad.
Comic Books
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police: In Night of the Gilded Heron Shark, Max gives off one of these during a brief moment of unadulterated rage.
Fan Works
- Fate of the Clans: Cú Chulainn occasionally growls like an animal if he's angry.
- In A Moth to a Flame, Marcy has been shown to do this when enraged, most notably when she holds Sprig out of the window and pulls a Go Through Me on Yunan when she threats to attack The Core.
Films — Animation
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Sunset Shimmer gives off a doglike snarl as Twilight's friends celebrate her for not giving up the crown. She does it again after her One-Winged Angel transformation, as well as a hoglike squeal.
- In Turning Red, when Mei is triggered to transform at school for the first time she lets out an angry bear-like roar.
- Wolfwalkers:
- Mebh, being a Wild Child who's also a Wolfwalker, is prone to growling when she's angry or trying to be intimidating. She also tends to have a growl in her voice when she's particularly angry.
- During the climax of the movie, Bill also lets out a wolf-like growl when he activates his new Wolfwalker abilities after seeing that Robyn is about to be killed.
Films — Live Action
- The Lord of the Rings: Orcs tend to make animalistic growls, shrieks and roars when going to battle or when they are angry (which is nearly all the time).
- Lost Creek: The trick-or-treaters that the monster sends after Peter, Bill, and Maggie makes sounds akin to this.
- Thor: Odin just lets out a roar of anger
at Loki when he tries to speak up for Thor after his bad behavior at Jötunheim.
Literature
- Prior to his Heel–Face Turn, Asa Pike from Children of the Red King is working with the bad guys. Due to his endowment being the ability to turn into a large and vicious wolf-like beast every night at dusk, he can be prone to occasionally acting like an animal while still in human form. This tendency ends up biting him in the backside in The Castle of Mirrors when, during an attempt to pursue protagonist Charlie Bone and his friends into The Pet's Cafe, he ends up, as per protocol, held up by bouncer Norton Cross. Specifically, after Norton asks the first of two questions that guests to the cafe must answer prior to entry (are you a human, or an animal), Asa ends up growling animalistically in annoyance at the delay to his pursuit, which promptly causes him to get forced off the property by Cross.
- The Heartstrikers: Dragons are frequently mentioned to hiss out their words when they're angry, and they occasionally growl warningly. Julius never does, which is one of the reasons he can pass for human more easily. In DFZ, Opal, who is human, often growls or hisses, which is most likely a result of being raised by a dragon.
- The Twilight Saga: The werewolves and the vampires both tend to do this when they're displeased with a situation.
Video Games
- Sam & Max: Sam is an anthropomorphic dog who is usually squarely in the Heroic Dog category. However, when his partner Max is endangered, expect to hear him growl a lot.
- The Wolf Among Us: Big bad wolf Bigby has the option to growl at a suspect to intimidate them or to try and make them back off.
Web Animation
- The cast of demons from Helluva Boss growl like angry dogs when angered (most fittingly for Loona, who is an actual Hellhound), and often when Millie goes berserk, she'll roar like a cougar.
- Spooky Month:
- In "Deadly Smiles", as Kevin hears Skid explaining his and Pump's lost doll, Kevin quickly pieces together that the same doll was the one that attacked him earlier, letting out a notably low lupine growl as his face increases to that of bestial rage.
- In "Tender Treats", after Bob Velseb has been distracted, Kevin quickly has Skid and Pump escape into the back, where before Kevin finally gives in to giving the duo a Candy Can, he growls like a canine once more out of fury of the new trouble they brought him.
- An easy-to-miss one is emitted in "Hollow Sorrows" right as he gives two candy jars to Skid and Pump from the trampled stack.
- happens sometimes in Wolf Song: The Movie, but this is justified as the characters are all wolves.
Western Animation
- Hazbin Hotel: In "Welcome to Heaven", in response to Adam acting smugly superior over Angel spending the night drinking, Charlie (a mostly-human-looking demon) bares her fangs and gives a low, animalistic growl.
- Loonatics Unleashed: Tech E. Coyote has a habit of growling whenever he gets annoyed.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Hordak is prone to growling when he is annoyed. By contrast, his superior Horde Prime is quiet in a creepily polite manner. After Prime brainwashes Hordak, a sign that the latter is beginning to regain his memory is when he growls upon seeing Entrapta.
- The Simpsons: In "Bart Sells His Soul", after Bart sells his soul to Milhouse, he hisses like a cat when a light is shined on him.
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Temporal Edict", Dr. T'Ana (a Caitian) viciously hisses when she performs a flying kick against three Gelrakian soldiers.
Real Life
- The father of the Wild Child "Genie" would often growl and bark like a dog to intimidate or silence her; as a result, she had a strong fear of dogs and after her rescue needed intensive therapy to interact with dogs normally.
