Basic Trope: A normally carnivorous Funny Animal goes on a vegetarian diet.
- Straight: Stanley, who is a shark, swears off eating fish and other sea creatures, deciding to eat seaweed and coral instead.
- Exaggerated: Every single shark decides to go vegan.
- Downplayed:
- Stanley does generally prefer to eat plants, but will still eat fish if he has to.
- Stanley is a dog who needs some meat to survive, but refuses to eat more than absolutely necessary.
- There is explicitly an exotic vegetable in a mutualistic relationship with Stanley's speciesm the vegetable provides enough to nourish a carnivore while Stanley's species plants its indigestable to them seeds and scares off herbivores which could digest the seeds. They will still eat any herbivore too desperate or dumb enough to swim next to a shark.
- Justified:
- Stanley is a bonnethead shark— a species that is omnivorous in real life.
- Stanley is a whale shark.
- In a strict sense of the word, he eats eggs, but not meat.
- Stanley has a birth defect or curse that makes it very hard for him to eat meat.
- Stanley is about as carnivorous as his options.
- Inverted:
- Stanley is a squirrel that likes to eat hamburgers, steaks and the like, and has never eaten a nut in his life.
- Benny is a bunny who has given up hay for flesh.
- Subverted:
- Stanley says he's on a "vegetarian diet". It turns out to mean that he only eats vegetarians.
- Stanley states that he only eats plants, only for a character spotting him eating a fish...
- Double Subverted: ...Except it's just a fish animal cracker.
- Parodied: Stanley is a Straw Vegetarian who hates other sharks for eating meat, thinking they're inferior, but later dies of malnutrition.
- Zig-zagged: Stanley decides to be a vegetarian, but later decides to finally give fish meat a try. He hates the taste, and decides to stay vegetarian. Later, though, he does develop a taste for clam meat.
- Averted: Stanley likes meat.
- Enforced: "We want Stanley to be a likeable character despite being a shark, so let's make him a non-threatening vegetarian. After all, every fish is sentient, so we can't have a protagonist who hunts and kills them."
- Lampshaded: "Wait, you eat plants only? But that seems unhealthy for a shark..."
- Invoked: One of Stanley's friends tells him about the benefits of being a vegetarian. He agrees to live the lifestyle.
- Exploited: Stanley is locked in a cage made out of meat, which his refusal to eat it keeps him trapped.
- Defied: Stanley knows he's a shark, and therefor cannot eat plants like an herbivore. Thus, he refuses to eat plants.
- Discussed:
- Conversed: "A kids movie with sapient fish, and a shark as the main character? I bet they'll make him a vegetarian, somehow."
- Implied: Stanley is only ever seen eating plant matter, but never confirms whether or not he's a vegetarian.
- Deconstructed: Stanley's digestive system, being less suited to break down plant matter, starts to cause him problems. He gets very sick and unhealthily thin, causing him to have a much harder time swimming and dealing with tough opponents.
- Reconstructed: Stanley has the benefit of science however — he manages to create artificial food that supplies his obligate carnivore needs without harming any fish. It is pretty bad tasting, but he is happy to overcome his limitation.
- Played for Drama: Vera the Straw Vegetarian tries to feed her cats a vegan diet, which leaves them malnourished.
Back to Vegetarian Carnivore
