Basic Trope: A cartoon character doesn't resemble any known species.
- Straight: Alice has a combination of traits that could potentially identify her as numerous species, but is never explicitly mentioned to be from any in particular.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is drawn in a realistic style, and still is of an unrecognizable species.
- Even Alice doesn't know what she is.
- All the characters are unrecognizable animals.
- Downplayed:
- One may be able to piece together certain species that Alice could potentially be, but actually identifying her could fall under Informed Species and/or Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit".
- Alice falls within a certain recognizable species, but outside any recognizable breed or variant of the species (she could clearly be a dog, for example, but a dog of an utterly bizarre breed in a series where other dogs are clearly identifiable)
- Justified:
- Alice is a Mix-and-Match Critter of some sort.
- Alice is supposed to be an alien, monster, or other fictional species.
- Inverted: Ambiguously Human
- Subverted: Alice's species is revealed at one point.
- Double Subverted: ...but she turns out to be an alien hybrid.
- Parodied: Alice is such an unrecognizable creature that when zoologists try reasearching her, they go insane.
- Zig Zagged: Depending on the Writer, Alice may look more or less like a real species of animal.
- Averted: Alice's species is explicitly recognized.
- Enforced:
- Rule of Cool and/or Rule of Cute
- Even the writers don't know what Alice is. Or the designers couldn't decide what to make her.
- Lampshaded: "What is Alice supposed to be?"
- Invoked: A mad scientist creates a genetic hybrid that doesn't resemble any known species in particular.
- Exploited: Alice uses the ambiguity of her species to distract the other characters by demanding they label her as the appropriate animal.
- Defied: "I'm clearly a porcupine!"
- Discussed: "I wonder what kind of animal Alice is. She doesn't really look like any I can think of."
- Conversed: "Why do some cartoon characters have no known species?"
- Implied: ???
- Deconstructed: A scientist captures Alice to investigate what kind of creature she could be.
- Reconstructed: The scientist turns out to be friendly.
- Played for Drama: Alice feels like a freak among the other animals.
- Played for Horror: Alice turns out to be a demon, or an Eldritch Abomination.
Okay, so what exactly is the Cartoon Creature supposed to be?
