Discussion KickTheDog / AnimeandManga

Naruto section cleanup time.

• Tobi tried to kill a baby. And to make it worse, that baby was Naruto himself, meaning the very first minute of his life had gone to shit.

Attacking baby Naruto was a distraction to get Minato away from Kushina, whom she needed to get his hands on Kyuubi.

• Later on, not only does he directly cause Neji's death, but immediately afterward he taunts Naruto about failing to live up to his promise not to let his friends die.

Neji's death was in combat, while taunting was attempt to Break the Badass.

• Madara Uchiha has arranged death Rin, with the Zetsus intentionally bringing Obito just too late to help, to Break the Cutie and get Obito on board with the Moon's Eye plan.
  • And to make it even worse, he refuses to allow Obito to escape him and/or redeem himself.

Mad was manipulating Obito to get him to help him, the Heel–Face Door-Slam was to stop him from beciming Mad's enemy.

• Orochimaru bringing back the 1st and 2nd Hokages to upset Sarutobi Hiruzen

Ol' Hebi WAS nasty when he summoned previous hokages, but they were still dangerous weapons for dangerous enemy.

• Pain nearly killing Hinata right in front of Naruto. Made worse in the anime, by extending the fight into a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • And if nearly killing Hinata wasn't enough, Pain already has Naruto restrained; all he has to do is just leave and deliver him to the Akatsuki. Instead, he decides to twist the knife that much further by fatally wounding her out of spite. Needless to say, karma catches up to him very quickly when Naruto finally snaps and unleashes the Nine-Tails.

Pain stabbed Hinata after she joined the fight, he was just dealing with enemy who tried to kill him.

• Deidara luring Naruto into fighting him by confirming Gaara's first death.

Deidara was trying to capture Naruto, taunts were to lure him away from teammates.

• The Fourth Kazekage, while ultimately a man with good intentions, kicked lots of puppies in order to keep his village afloat. Among them included sealing a well-known dangerous demon into his premature son Gaara while his wife was still pregnant with him, an act that would ultimately kill her. Then, when poor Gaara was unable to control the demon, he sent Gaara's maternal uncle Yashamaru, who raised him, to assassinate him. When the attempt failed, Yashamaru told Gaara that he hated him and that his mother never loved before attempting a Taking You with Me by blowing himself up... all under the Kazekage's instructions. At the point, Gaara was only six. His father constantly sent assassins after him since then, and by the time he was twelve, his youngest son had been driven insane to the point of becoming a psychotic Serial Killer.

All of this was done in order to get Shukakku under control or to test if he IS under control, never just because.

• Despite being a hero (well, Anti-Hero), Lelouch from Code Geass gets a definite Kick the Dog moment when he orders the slaughter of anyone connected with the Geass as part of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for his close friend Shirley's murder. Since a Geass user killed her, his anger is somewhat justified, but taking it out on civilians and children is the point where it crosses into this or the other trope. Yes, it IS true that the scientists were hardly innocent, but the kids were both Child Soldiers and victims of said scientists's experiments (which made them into Child Soldiers in the first place).
  • It's meant to show that Lelouch was definitely losing it. On the other hand, considering that one of the Geass Users, given the chance, quickly steals one soldier's body and uses him to kill his team-mate, and shows no reaction for doing so it clearly drives home the point Cornelia gave in the previous episode: you never, ever, give Geass Users an opportunity. Just take a step back and think about it - Lelouch kills three or four dozen heavily armed soldiers over the course of the series using the same method simply because they give him the few seconds needed to make eye contact, and can create a small army with a half-hours work. Lelouch knows just how stupid it would be to take chances. They're not even victims: they're fully trained child assassins, armed with the most powerful of personal weapons - mind control - possess absolute loyalty to the master that's fed and trained them for as long as they remember, and have no morals or compassion for human life. They're dangerous. So, this is more of a "Shoot the Cerberus" moment, because he can't win with any other method, and he can't run, because they'll attack him, and he can't defeat them if they have the advantage of surprise, and he's only avoided them because they don't realise he knows about them.
  • Charles did this to Lelouch as well on a couple of crucial occasions as well (like saying "old news, what about it?" when young Leluch called him out on his indifference towards Marianne's murder).
  • Schneizel manipulating an already unstable Teen Genius into creating a Sphere of Destruction for him — and telling her repeteadly that, by joining him and doing his bidding, she'd be fulfilling the wish of the person she was in love with. Said person? His own dead sister Euphemia. He also sabotages the reconciliation between Lelouch and Suzaku by arresting the former, and sets up the betrayal from the Black Knights with a Quote Mine from said meeting. The bastard doesn't stop there, though. After Lelouch has decided on his ZeroApproval Thanatos Gambit after also believing Nunnally to be lost as well thanks to the FLEIJA destruction Schneizel caused, Schneizel sets up Nunnally, who has been hidden away by him, as his enemy.

Charles seem like legit example but Lelouch and Schneisel are clearly not. What Zero did to Geass research facility was rather queastionable to put it mildly, but Examples Are Not Arguable. And the reason he did it(aside from being pissed) was that these kids were really f-ing dangerous. He had experience what happens when geass kid is left without control when he faced Mao. Leaving them in Brittania's hands would be very risky, and by destroying the facility he denied his enemy a huge advantage.

As for Schneisel convincing Nina to make a nuke... well there is obvious gain to it. She made him a nuke. Which he could use to blow up Black Knights. Lelouch was his primary enemy so any action he took against him is disqualified. taking care of enemy is taking care of enemy, one side has to lose, and you don't want to be the one.

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Hm. I see that several examples here are less about Kick the Dog and more about straight-up character bashing. Haruhi kicked the puppy, yeah, but she does get better and shows more empathy like when she stays by Kyon's bedside for days straight in Disappearance and takes care of Yuki when she's sick, and her bashers deliberately 'ignore it. And then there's the really pathetic device of using filler material to bash the shit out of Sakura (and stuff that is more often than not Played for Laughs) and show her as a bitchcuntwhore. While digging much LESS on the Naruto males who have done far worse stuff than she does)

So yeah, I'm not 100% impressed. Can we do something to separate genuine puppykicking from rabid and frothing character hate?

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