Just because you're not a roadrunner doesn't mean you're safe.
"They married in a junk yard, the honeymoon was spent in a fight! This was coyote love for certain, instead of trading kisses they bite!"
— Hank the Cowdog: Daddy Packed His Suitcase 'Cause Mama was a Mean Old Bag
Coyotes have made a name for themselves in both real life and in mythology as one of the wiliest animals on planet Earth, being portrayed as clever tricksters and even spirit guides. But then, there's the other portrayal of coyotes, which paints these canines in a more negative light.
This trope is when coyotes are depicted as just plain unpleasant. They may still be wily, but they will also be cruel, thuggish, furtive, nasty, and all around ruthless bastards. Much like cats, they will be all too willing to antagonise smaller, more innocent creatures, and will often take sick joy in doing so. At the same time, they will often flee when confronted by larger animals, furthering the image of coyotes as little more than the vicious bullies of the animal kingdom.
This trope has probably been around for as long as humans and coyotes have been in contact. Coyotes are very adaptable and opportunistic, and will gladly prey on farmers' chickens or even gang up on larger livestock such as sheep. Coyote packs are not as structured or as coordinated as wolves, and violence between pack members is more frequent, making coyotes appear more savage to human eyes. In recent decades, however, coyotes have become far more infamous as they move into urban and suburban areas. Most people aren't particularly willing to risk needing a rabies shot by confronting a coyote, so they tend to leave the animals alone, causing them to become accustomed to humans and to regard them as less of a threat. This has led to numerous instances of coyotes brazenly attacking small children and pets, often in broad daylight. That said, there have so far only been two confirmed cases of coyotes actually killing humans, with the first one being a little girl named Kelly Keen and the second being Canadian singer-songwriter Taylor Mitchell who was attacked by a group.
Coyotes may be depicted as an Unpleasant Animal Counterpart to canids who are typically depicted in a more positive light, such as domestic dogs, wolves, and foxes.
For other antagonistic canids, see Beware of Vicious Dog, Bully Bulldog, Deadly Dingos, Foul Fox, Hell Hound, Mister Muffykins, Psycho Poodle, and Savage Wolves. See also Those Wily Coyotes, which can sometimes overlap with this trope.
No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Comic Books
- The Beep Beep the Road Runner comic books published by Gold Key Comics make Wile E. much meaner and more malicious than he is in the animated Road Runner shorts, as he is also willing to try and catch the Road Runner's three unnamed children alongside their father.
- In the Archie Sonic comic books, Antoine D'Coolette the Lovable Coward is a subversion. His mirror universe counterpart, Patch, however is incredibly cruel. He switches places with Antoine, dumps Twan's loving girlfriend while disguised as him, then schemes to take over the kingdom by poisoning King Max and marrying Princess Sally. Patch nearly succeeds. Sonic almost doesn't catch the deception in time, though once he figures out Patch isn't the coyote he knows and trusts, Sonic quickly defeats him and returns Antoine to his proper universe. Patch did however manage to fatally poison Antoine's dad, mostly because he could, and even taunts Antoine about it the next time they meet. More than most counterparts the two coyotes truly detest each other.
Fan Fiction
- In Old West, Ramirez Arvenga, The Dragon to Big Bad Dufayel, is an Ax-Crazy coyote who is a vicious outlaw. He also scornfully taunts Rango at one point about how he doesn't have it in him to kill the coyote, whereas Ramirez has killed plenty of people throughout his life with no remorse for what he has done.
- Prehistoric Park Reimagined: Downplayed with the Pleistocene coyotes rescued for display at the titular Extinct Animal Park. While the entire pack (especially their leader Dag) is perfectly happy with teasing and antagonizing the dire wolf pack that lives in the paddock next door to their own paddock and also not above trying to cheat in combat in order to gain an advantage in combat against them, they flee with their tails between their legs the instant the dire wolves have a fair chance at fighting them.
Fan Works
- Played with by Bonawte, one of the three Legendary Pokemon showcased in this video
by Prag Magik for his Pokémon game concept Pokemon Eventide, set in the Cornera Region (a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the American Four Corners). Bonawte is known as the Corruption Pokemon and takes the form of a bipedal coyote with an intimidating sinister appearance. In the mythical past of Cornera, Bonawte created three other agents of chaos to plague the people of Cornera with war, floods and fire, out of jealousy towards his brother Sohawle, the Pokemon of Light. Years later, Bonawte's darkness still lingers in Cornera in the form of mysterious crystals that corrupt Pokemon (more specifically, they turn them into the Shadow Pokemon from Pokémon Colosseum). Additionally, the local evil organization, Team Echo, is a Cult that plans to use this darkness to turn Sohawle himself into a Shadow Pokemon, along with every Pokemon in Cornera, so that they can turn their home region into a "lawless dark wild land with no rules but survival of the fittest". With all that in mind, you'd think Bonawte would be perfectly suited to be the Big Bad of the game, right? Wrong. At the Final Battle, right after Team Echo successfully corrupts and enslaves Sohawle, Bonawte himself shows up and joins the Hero's team, defeating Team Echo and purifying his brother. Afterwards, Bonawte speaks to the Player Character, and tells them that in his time spent in solitude, he came to realize that light and shadow are meant to work in tandem with each other, which is why he wanted to stop Team Echo from corrupting all Pokemon with his darkness. He has faith that the player will be able to cure Cornera of his mistakes. In other words, Bonawte started off as a Cruel Coyote, but then at some point had a Heel–Face Turn and became a Caring Coyote.
Films — Animation
- The main antagonist of Barnyard is a sadistic, heartless coyote named Dag, who leads a pack of coyotes just as vicious as he is and terrorizes the farm where the main characters live. Whereas his pack hunt for food, he seems to prefer killing his victims over eating them and even proves this by holding a keychain adorned with chicken feet. Finally, he is even responsible for the death of Otis' father Ben, fully pushing him into the irredeemable territory. To further illustrate just how truly evil Dag is, the film's otherwise comedic tone disappears in a flash whenever he shows up.
- Far From the Tree has a coyote with Icy Blue Eyes that ends up injuring Marie, the raccoon protagonist.
- Tom And Jerry Snowmans Land: About halfway into the film, Jerry, Nibbles and Larry the snow mouse come face-to-face with a trio of aggressive coyotes during their journey to Snowman's Village.
Films — Live-Action
- Killers of the Flower Moon: Mollie, who is Native (specifically Osage), initially associates her husband Ernest with coyotes for his charm and obvious lust for her wealth. It becomes far less of an Affectionate Nickname as the true breadth of Ernest's crimes against Mollie's family and people become known to her over the course of the film; in their last meeting in the film she uses it spitefully, confirming her views on his cruelty.
Literature
- Michael Peak's novel Cat House features a vicious pack of coyotes determined to kill off the domestic cat protagonists.
- A similar pack appears in Catamount by the same author. They begrudgingly befriend a pack of stray dogs in hopes they can convince them to kill the puma protagonist so that they can take her territory. They make their contempt for the dogs and the fact that they're using them very clear.
- Gone: Lana encounters a pack of coyotes who have enhanced intelligence, with the leader being able to talk. They serve the Gaiaphage (the Eldritch Abomination Big Bad) and kill many children in the FAYZ.
- Hank the Cowdog: Hank's most recurring enemies are the coyote tribe. In the original books, they speak in a You No Take Candle way (or at least this is Hank's interpretation) and are known to routinely attack the ranch for its chickens. Their culture is portrayed as enjoying violence, getting drunk on silage, and singing badly. The only exception is Missy Coyote, The Chief's Daughter whom Hank helped when her head was stuck in a can, and aside from that visits the cowboy Slim when he feeds the cattle.
Live-Action TV
- Grimm: The Coyote Wesen, the Coyotls, have a reputation for being nasty, vicious bullies and predators, and are considered the Wesen equivalent of street gangs. Generally they live in large, insular packs composed of close family members, being hostile to all outsiders, and they hold the pack mentality to the point of murdering members who try to leave. Interbreeding is likewise common within packs, to the point of them having a ritual where following a new female's seventeenth birthday, all the male members of the pack will "induct" them on the night of the first full moon. Eating humans is likewise not unheard of, with a pack being able to strip grown men to the bones. However, there are Coyotl who at least try to break away from the packs and live normal lives, a good example being Hank's best friend Jarold Kampfer.
- Teen Wolf: Were-coyotes are notoriously anti-social and can't live in groups larger than two or three because of the constant infighting and tendency towards vicious backstabbing. The other were-communities do their best to completely avoid were-coyotes because of the pure chaos and destruction they can cause. There is a season-long plot about Malia (a wolf-coyote were-hybrid) being in danger of being murdered by her full-blooded were-coyote mother who believes that giving birth to Malia cost her some of her were-power and killing the girl is the only way to reclaim it.
Mythology & Religion
- The Mexican-American Trickster God Coyote (named for the animal, whose form he takes) is renowned for carrying out instructive practical jokes on unwary humans, shamans, and Seekers After Truth. Some of his pranks can justly be regarded as having an edge of sadistic cruelty to them. For instance, Huehuecoyotl, aka the Old Coyote, from Aztec Mythology, is a shape-shifting trickster known for being equally likely to perpetrate cruel pranks against his fellow gods and mortals alike.
Tabletop Games
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Nuwisha (werecoyotes) are notorious pranksters, who allege that their "pranks" are meant to instruct others, but other shapeshifters just find them a nuisance.
Video Games
- Bugs Bunny: Rabbit Rampage: Wile E. Coyote serves as the boss at the end of Level [really long math formula], pitting him against the game's player character Bugs Bunny.
- In Dusty Revenge and Dusty Raging Fist, coyotes are a recurring enemy in the desert stages who repeatedly try to attack the titular rabbit. Dusty's ally, McCoy was in fact introduced sniping a coyote gunman trying to ambush Dusty via Moe Greene Special.
- Fallout: New Vegas: One of the enemies in the game is called the Nightstalker, which is a coyote/rattlesnake hybrid, combining it with Snakes Are Sinister. The Nightstalker is commonly seen throughout the Mojave wasteland, but can also be found at the Big Mountain research facility where they were created before the Great War by Doctor Borous, one of the scientists performing research at Big Mountain. When a Nightstalker sees the Courier, they will attack as a group, either with their fangs or with the rattlesnake head which also serves as a tail unless the Courier has the Animal Friend perk, in which case the Nightstalkers will become non-aggressive.
- Laika: Aged Through Blood: While living in the Wasteland would make anybody surly and antisocial, Laika and her coyote family take this to another level due to the callousness towards life they incur from being cursed with Resurrective Immortality. Laika herself has very few moments across the game where she's not grumpy or confrontational, and her mother Maya is even worse, being a parent whose Tough Love bordered on physical and emotional abuse. The only one of them to avert this is Puppy due to her just being a kid, but even then she displays a disturbing eagerness for Laika or even herself to go out and slaughter the Birds to take revenge for them killing Poochie.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Wasteland Coyotes are aggressive canines native to Hyrule's arid regions that are known to prey on humans and will attack Link on sight.
- In Red Dead Redemption, a random event can occur where John has the opportunity to save someone being attacked by a pack of coyotes. However, they'll avoid John if he's on horseback.
- Red Dead Redemption II also potrays Arthur's spirit animal in periodic cutscenes as a coyote if his Honor is Low.
Web Animation
- No Evil has the coyote spirit Huehuecoyotl (Huey for short) seen as this by the citizens of McCoy In-Universe, who believe that he's a spirit that works for their rival town Hatfield; this isn't reflective of reality at all, as Huey wants to help those in both towns, but much like the Feuding Families the towns are named after, they assume the worst of anyone associated with their opposite.
Webcomics
- An interpretation of the Navajo Coyote appears in Gunnerkrigg Court. In addition to manipulating the citizens and researchers of the Court for at least a couple of centuries and erasing the memories of his second-in-command Ysengrin, Coyote enacted a Thanatos Gambit which involved Ysengrin 'killing' him, taking on his divine power and becoming Loup, hoping that Loup and protagonist Antimony would fall in love with each other so that the latter would feel anguish when she killed Loup... but Loup fell for someone else entirely.
- Max from Housepets! ran into a hungry coyote and her right-hand crow back when he was a kitten, which didn't stop the coyote from gleefully hunting Max down. Luckily for kitten Max, Rufus was there to save him.
- Spacetrawler: Subverted by Ruddock, a talking coyote who is generally friendly and (tries to be) helpful. He is fond of chasing and eating robot mice though.
Web Original
- Game Grumps: Dan recounts the times when his dog Camilla would get excited whenever she saw groups of coyotes playing, well aware that they were trying to lure her away to eat her.
Western Animation
- Elena of Avalor: One of the series' numerous antagonists is an evil magical coyote named Troyo whose goal is to rule over the Avaloran jungle.
- Looney Tunes
- Wile E. Coyote subverts this for the most part, as all of his schemes and traps fail to catch the Road Runner (or Bugs Bunny) as intended, and even the audience sympathizes with himnote . However, Looney Tunes: Back in Action plays this straight and puts him on the villains' side, as he tries (and of course, fails hilariously) to murder the four main heroes when they are out in the desert, and later in the film's climax, DJ's father. Interestingly, Wile E. was created in response to Mark Twain's dislike for coyotes, and how he had likely lost a few of his nineteen pet cats to them over the years.
- Tiny Toon Adventures
- Calamity Coyote is even more of a major subversion than Wile E. is, as other than following in his mentor's footsteps by chasing Little Beeper, he often helps out the protagonists with his inventions, and some of his free time is spent working on them. That is not to say he has his moments of the trope though, as he tries to catch Buster for Elmyra Duff in the "Bag that Bunny" segment of "It's Buster Bunny Time" and is on Montana Max's side in "Hero Hamton".
- The episode "High Toon" features a gang of outlaw coyotes and their leader, Coyote Kid, as the main antagonists.
- Martha Speaks: Subverted in "Down on the Farm" — Helen, Martha (a talking dog), and T.D. are visiting C.K.'s farm, which is next to a forest, and there are several mentions of a scary animal possibly being in said forest. It leads to a scene where the sheep are terrified and sure enough, there is an animal approaching them, scaring Martha... until she sees that it's a coyote and only poses danger to the sheep; not herself or the humans. She then easily scares the coyote away from the sheep by barking and growling at it.
- Rocky and Bullwinkle: The Aesop and Son segment "The Coyote and the Jackrabbits" centers around a retired racing rabbit named Hasty who moves to the desert after failing to win his last race, and his next-door neighbor is an obnoxious, loudmouthed coyote who keeps popping up out of nowhere to hit him, whether he is taking a bath or getting ready for bedtime. However, he ultimately gets what's coming to him, as during the boxing match near the end of the segment, Hasty's butler Wallace pricks his master in the rear with a cactus, causing Hasty to charge forward in pain and knock the coyote out with a punch.
- Wild Kratts: In the episode "Roadrunner", Chris, using roadrunner powers, chases a collared lizard (referred to in the episode as a "mystery lizard" until the end) which suddenly retreats into some bushes. When Chris tries to catch up to the lizard, a coyote jumps out from said bushes, mistakes Chris for a roadrunner and starts chasing him, resulting in a certain scenario many Looney Tunes fans may recognize. While trying to escape from the coyote, Chris incorrectly assumes that roadrunners are too fast for coyotes before Martin tells him through a wrist communicator that coyotes can outrun and catch roadrunners. Sure enough, the coyote has managed to catch Chris, but is then startled and runs off when he deactivates his roadrunner powers and returns to normal.
