History PetTheDog / Literature

* Hilarously lampshaded in the ''KnightAndRogueSeries''. The villain of the second book has taken pity on a mute dog and given it food and shelter. Fisk is unimpressed by this, saying he's known many villains who were kind to animals and more who loved their mothers.

* One could argue that the entire GauntsGhosts and CiaphasCain ('''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!''') book series of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' are extended Pet the Dog moments for the entire Imperium of Man, showing unmodified, poorly equipped, (relatively) poorly trained human beings fighting wholeheartedly for the Imperium and the Emperor, and that many of them are genuinely good people with noble motivations, forced to fight horrors beyond comprehension by sane minds.

** Yun, a Dark Jedi apprentice from the DarkForcesSaga novelizations, is spared by Kyle Katarn, which starts all sorts of philosophical questions going in his mind. He begins to wonder if the Dark Side really is stronger, and if his masters are right. His first and most significant PetTheDog moment is when a cave-in in an archaeological mine traps a worker beneath a massive slab of rock. The other workers and droids can't lift it as it slowly crushes him. Yun, unwilling to leave the man to die, as any other Dark Jedi would, tells the others to get ready to pull him to safety and focuses all of his willpower on lifting the rock. He succeeds just long enough for the soldiers to save the man, and only afterwards realizes that he had abandoned the Dark Side when the chips were down.

* There's a ''huge'' PetTheDog moment in Antonia Forest's ''Autumn Term'' involving Lois Sanger, the Marlow twins' arch nemesis, who gets them both kicked out of Guides earlier in the book, and makes trouble for Nicola Marlow later on in the series. Their form opt to put on a production of ''ThePrinceAndThePauper'' for the school festival, and Tim Keith, who writes the play, wants to narrate. However, Tim is terrible and Lawrie Marlow panics about the play being a failure. Tim remembers hearing that Lois is a good reader, and when she shows her the script, Lois is impressed with it and offers to do the narration herself, effectively saving the play.

** This is taken even further in the final book. Narcissa is the one who checks Harry's body after Voldemort used the Killing Curse on him. Of course she realizes he is alive, but she does not reveal this information to Voldemort. Instead, she asks him one question: ''Is Draco alive?'' At Harry's confirmation of her son's welfare, she turns to Voldemort and, with a completely straight face, lies through her teeth. This action leads almost directly to Voldemort's demise.

* It's easy to spot the hero of Robin McKinley's ''Literature/{{Deerskin}}'' as heroic. Not because he's a prince of the blood (he is, but he didn't ask to be born one), not because he's tall and blond and heroically built (he's none of those), not because he gallops into battle on his mighty charger (he doesn't) ... but because he ''sits up at night with orphaned puppies''.

* There's a ''huge'' PetTheDog moment in ''Autumn Term'' by Antonia Forest involving Lois Sanger, the Marlow twins' arch nemesis, who gets them both kicked out of Guides earlier in the book, and makes trouble for Nicola Marlow later on in the series. Their form opt to put on a production of ''ThePrinceAndThePauper'' for the school festival, and Tim Keith, who writes the play, wants to narrate. However, Tim is terrible and Lawrie Marlow panics about the play being a failure. Tim remembers hearing that Lois is a good reader, and when she shows her the script, Lois is impressed with it and offers to do the narration herself, effectively saving the play.

* There's a ''huge'' PetTheDog moment in ''Autumn Term'' by Antonia Forest involving Lois Sanger, the Marlow twins' arch nemesis who gets them both kicked out of Guides earlier in the book. Their form opt to put on a production of ''ThePrinceAndThePauper'' for the school festival, and Tim Keith, who writes the play, wants to narrate. However, Tim is terrible and Lawrie Marlow panics about the play being a failure. Tim remembers hearing that Lois is a good reader, and when she shows her the script, Lois is impressed with it and offers to do the narration herself, effectively saving the play.

* Jefferson Pinkard from HarryTurtledove's ''{{Timeline-191}}'' series starts out as a very likable character but slowly does a FaceHeelTurn until he's become the alternate universe's equivalent of Adolph Eichmann, ruthlessly sending the black population of the CSA to their deaths in concentration camps. However, to the end of the series he genuinely loves his wife and stepson and often worries about what will happen to them when the war turns bad for his side.

* Henry, from ''TheSecretHistory'', did organize the murder of one friend, attempt to kill another, and represent himself as a MagnificentBastard in general. But he did save Richard from dying of exposure in the Vermont winter.

* ''TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea''. Captain Nemo has several of these moments, the greatest one being when Arronnax finds him [[TearJerker sobbing over a picture of his family]].

* In EarthTheBook, the authors (this book is jokingly intended to be read by aliens who visit Earth long after we're all gone) take time to give Pet's a special section when discussing animals, and end their notes saying, [[CrowningMomentofHeartwarming "we're good boys. yes they were."]]

* [[AntiHero Edmund Pevensie]] from ''ChroniclesOfNarnia'' is a complete JerkWithAHeartOfJerk and [[BigBrotherBully bully]] to his younger sister, Lucy, in the first book. He is the only one who supports and believes in her in the second one and, by the third part, [[TheNotLoveInterest his primary concern is to take care of her and keep her safe]]. So they're practically the two characters whose relationship has evolved the most.

* In ''HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', we see that Narcissa Malfoy might be a snobby pureblood supremacist like her husband, but she still is willing to risk Voldemort's wrath to find Snape (who, at this point, is morally suspicious to the good guys, the bad guys, and the readers in general) and beg him to protect her son from the suicide mission he's been given. Bellatrix, meanwhile, cements herself as a monster by dismissing Narcissa's fears and panic as her failing to realize what an honor her son was granted.
** In ''HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', Fleur is much less of a bitch after we see how frantic she is when she fails to rescue her sister during the Second Task.
** Cruelly subverted in the case of Mad-Eye Moody. After he seriously upsets Neville on his first day of class, he invites the kid for tea, talks to him about Herbology (the one class Neville is very good at), and loans him a book about magical plants of the Mediterranean. [[spoiler:We later find out that "Moody" was secretly one of the people who tortured Neville's parents to insanity and only gave him the book as a way for Harry to figure out how to beat the Second Task, to get him one step closer to the plan to resurrect Voldemort.]]

* Although Chichikov (the main character of ''DeadSouls'') is a cheapskate, the author informs us that he'll always give a copper to a beggar.

**

** We're so used to scheming and lies in this series that the revelation (once we finally get her POV) that Melisandre actually does mean everything she says -- that she really is a kind, even gentle person who really is only killing a bunch of people because she honestly believes that doing so is the only way to bring about the rebirth of a messiah that will save all of humanity -- hits most readers out of nowhere. Jury's still out on whether this revelation is heartwarming or terrifying.

* Zavahl has a lot of these in the ''{{Shadowleague}}'' trilogy, foreshadowing his eventual HeelFaceTurn because he discovers [[YouNeedToGetLaid sex is fun]].

* Invoked in JohnCWright's ''[[Literature/HermeticMillenium The Hermetic Millennia]]'': Menelaus listens to a plan of massacre and its justification, and concludes that a man who likes dogs can indeed be all bad.

* The later books in the ''HonorHarrington'' series like to do this with the Mesans. One of them is a fan of Manticoran classical music, another one is a genuinely loving husband and father. The fact that they ''aren't'' monsters by the standard metric only makes [[AMillionIsAStatistic what they do all the more chilling.]]

** The only StarWars villain less likely than [[CompleteMonster Jabba the Hutt]] to have a pet the dog moment is Palpatine, but in a bit of EU canon a close friend of Jabba's recalls the time the Hutt saved his life. Long before the events of the original trilogy, Jabba and Ephant Mon were raiding an Imperial weapons cache only to be double crossed and attacked by stormtroopers. They escaped but were caught in the middle of a fierce blizzard with no transportation or shelter. When Ephant Mon passed out from the cold, Jabba shielded him with his layers of fat to keep him warm, saving his life. This wasn't because the Hutt needed him for some reason, but because they truly were friends.

* In ''HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', we see that Narcissa Malfoy might be a snobby pureblood supremacist like her husband, but she still is willing to risk Voldemort's wrath to find Snape (who, at this point, is morally suspicious to the good guys, the bad guys, and the readers in general) and beg him to protect her son from the suicide mission he's been given. Bellatrix, meanwhile, cements herself as a CompleteMonster by dismissing Narcissa's fears and panic as her failing to realize what an honor her son was granted.

* The later books in the ''HonorHarrington'' series like to do this with the Mesans. One of them is a fan of Manticoran classical music, another one is a genuinely loving husband and father. The fact that they ''aren't'' {{Complete Monster}}s by the standard metric only makes [[AMillionIsAStatistic what they do all the more chilling.]]

* In ''FromTheEarthToTheMoon'' by Creator/JulesVerne, the antagonist, Captain Nicholl, eventually challenges one of the protagonists, Mr. Barbicane, to a duel in the wilds of Florida. When two other protagonists try to stop the duel, how do they find Captain Nicholl? He has put his weapon aside, to save a small bird who has got stuck in a tarantula's net.