Basic Trope: Someone who has had many pets that have died due to things unrelated to natural causes.
- Straight: Alice has had a dog, cat, parrot, lizard, hamster, fish, horse, and rat at some points in her life, but they all died.
- Exaggerated: Alice has had over 100 pets that are dead.
- Downplayed: Alice has had a few hamsters that died too early.
- Justified:
- Alice is prone to not knowing her own strength and accidentally being too rough with her pets, which tends to kill them.
- Alice is not actively trying to kill her pets, but she doesn't know how to take care of her pets or just keeps forgetting to take care of them, and ends up accidentally killing them through sheer negligence.
- Alice is intentionally killing them because she's cruel.
- Alice lives in a place very susceptible to disease.
- Alice is a Walking Wasteland.
- Alice is just that unlucky.
- Inverted:
- Alice is known for bringing multiple pets back to life.
- Alice is known for having a lot of pets, and she takes very good care of all of them.
- A pet has had many owners but they've led to their owners' deaths every time.
- Subverted: Alice mentions having a lot of deceased pets, but it's revealed that they died of natural causes.
- Double Subverted:
- She uses the "Gravity is natural" argument, because she actually pushed them off a building.
- The "natural causes" were a disease they got from not being cared for properly.
- She was lying.
- Alice and the person who performed the revelation are both believers in karma and coincidences being a natural part of the world, and thus that being a Jacques Clouseau-level klutz is somehow part of the cosmic balance. Under that thought, she has as much to blame about her pets dying as a tsunami has of wiping out a coastal village.
- Parodied:
- Alice insists that she's very responsible with her pets... but then she accidentally reveals her graveyard full of animal tombstones.
- Alice realizes she can't take care of pets properly, and ends up getting a stuffed animal instead, which somehow dies as well.
- Averted: Nobody has a lot of pets that ended up dying.
- Enforced: Pet care PSA
- Lampshaded: "Alice's three-month-old cat is dead now. Like all those others before..."
- Invoked: Alice is raised in a cult and is told that she will have to sacrifice all her pets to the gods after some time...a sacrifice that isn't even part of her religion.
- Exploited: If a pet isn't wanted around any longer, it is given to Alice.
- Defied:
- Alice learns how to properly take care of pets before getting them.
- Alice's parents put their feet down and forbid her from getting any pets unless she actually learns responsibility.
- Played for Laughs: Black Comedy Pet Death
- Played for Drama: Alice feels guilty over all of the animals she accidentally killed.
- Played for Horror:
- Alice is revealed to be a Serial Killer for animals.
- Alice's dead pets reanimate and attempt to kill her to get their revenge.
- Implied:
- The animals and owner of the pet shop gets tense and nervous wen Alice walks by.
- During an argument, Alice's father yells at her about how they're banned from every pet shop in a 30-mile radius.
- Alice has disparate animal care items (litter box; leash and collar; fish tank; hamster wheel) scattered around her house and they all look minimally used.
- The first time the audience gets an establishing shot of Alice's house, there is a strange row of lumps on the front yard.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice's chronic pet killing ends up costing the family an enormous amount of money and eventually her family goes into debt.
- Alice's chronic pet killing is a sign of her irresponsible nature and it eventually manifests in other irresponsible acts like being a spendthrift, experimenting with drugs and similar activities.
- Alice's chronic pet killing gets her arrested and sent to prison along with a court-ordered lifetime ban on owning any more pets.
- Alice and her family develop a social stigma as animal abusers even if Alice's chronic pet killing is a series of horrible coincidences and misunderstandings (as the world sees it, killing one pet is a tragic misunderstanding; killing thirty means there has to be something conspiratorial).
Back to Chronic Pet Killer
