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Pet Monstrosity

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Pet Monstrosity (trope)
A pairing that will set your heart aflame… along with the rest of you.

"You already have a pet. He's an Arco-flagellant combat cyborg. He's seven feet tall, and eats 30 pounds of raw flesh a day. You named him 'Skippy'."

A character keeps as a pet what would normally be considered (and the same species may be in every other instance) a bloodthirsty monster. Such a creature may be given a deceptive name. A person with such a pet may be a Fluffy Tamer, if not The Beastmaster. May be a Team Pet. Extremely prone to Fluffy the Terrible naming conventions.

See also Mon and Unusual Pets for Unusual People. Compare Monster Roommate and Monster Allies. When the monster is much more human-like, see Supporting the Monster Loved One.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Tokkô, Kureha keeps a small pet phantom in her jacket pocket.

    Comedy 
  • There's a Marty Feldman sketch in which he visits the vet with a large creature in a basket. Of course it ends up eating everyone and their pets in the waiting room.

    Comic Books 
  • Black Moon Chronicles: Pilou takes a dragon egg and decides to hatch it so he can raise the baby dragon. This makes sense, since his origin story shows that he himself was raised by dragons.
  • Bone: Smiley Bone adopts a Rat Creature and names him Bartleby.
  • The Transformers (IDW) has featured Sunstreaker's pet Insecticon, Bob. Later on, there's an inversion with Thundercracker (Ex-Decepticon gone native) and Buster (an ordinary puppy).

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animated 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet, Baron von Kratzmar grew a huge carnivorous plant he named Adele. He treats her as his pet, affectionately calling her "Adelka" and speaking very softly with her. He grew her with one purpose only, though — to get revenge on his former biology professor.
  • Lake Placid: It turns out that the old lady living on the lake has been keeping the giant crocodile as a pet for years, occasionally feeding it her livestock. By the end, she's still looking after the baby crocodiles left behind after mama croc has been captured.
  • In Return of the Jedi, the Rancor Keeper sobs over the corpse of the Rancor that Luke killed in self-defense. Jabba the Hutt, the creature's owner, is also rather upset about it.
  • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Klingon Commander Kruge has a snarling, drooling part-dog, part-alligator... thing... that serves as his Right-Hand Cat.

    Literature 
  • Boojumverse: The protagonist of "Mongoose" has a pet 'cheshire', a small friendly Eldritch Abomination with More Teeth than the Osmond Family used for hunting inter-dimensional horrors. At the end of the story, someone speculates that a cheshire is a tamed and artificially-stunted Bandersnatch, the unstoppable Eldritch Abomination that's at the top of the food chain. In "The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward" it's shown that Arkhamer spaceship use Cheshires as their version of a ship's cat, killing both ordinary rats and the extradimensional toves.
  • Cal Leandros: Robin Goodfellow is followed home from the Metropolitan Museum by an undead, mummified cat. He decides to keep her, and names her Salome. While this may not seem the most horrifying of pets, she does manage to kill his neighbor's Great Dane and leave it on Robin's pillow as a gift.
  • The Dresden Files: Mouse is a dog that can take on a van, or The Fair Folk, or he gets shot, and shakes it off. He's great with kids. When Harry's daughter Maggie says that there used to be a monster under her bed until Mouse slayerized it, Harry isn't sure whether she's joking or not.
  • "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth": The evil wizard Gaznak treats his closest guard, the monstrous dragon Wong Bongerok, more like a pet than anything else, allowing it to lie curled and slobbering at his feet and feeding it with pieces of man-meat from his own table. In turn, the dragon is unfailingly loyal to his dark master.
  • Harry Potter: Hagrid kept a pet Acromantula as a student, and hasn't really broken out of the habit by the time of the books (and likely never will). He seems to have an innate natural rapport with such creatures, and always seems surprised that other people have trouble dealing with them. The in-universe book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has a threat rating system for magical creatures — the most dangerous level has a note from Harry in his copy saying "anything Hagrid likes".
  • InCryptid: Alex keeps a breeding pair of basilisks — but he's a cryptozoologist, and keeps them at the zoo where he works rather than at his house. He also once tried to hug a manticore when he was six, but it's unknown if it ended up being a pet. Some gorgons keep basilisks or cockatrices as livestock, like we would chickens (since they're immune to the petrifying gaze).
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Quintus a.k.a. Daedalus has a Hellhound, a shaggy, hummer-sized killing machine that appear to mortals as poodles (miniature or full sized is unsaid), named Mrs. O'Leary. She is actually quite nice. Quintus later gives her to Percy.
  • The Reynard Cycle: Tiecelin's flock of Shrike Chimera. They're utterly loyal to him, and generally leave his allies be, but they are unsettling bird creatures with human faces, and they feed primarily on human corpses. Understandably, most people are uncomfortable around them.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • The Stark children, including Jon Snow, each get a direwolf pup, who — while they quickly become capable of tearing out throats — are very loyal to their master and family and generally don't attack people unless they're a threat, with the exception of Shaggydog, who is extremely vicious and feral.
    • Daenerys Targaryen has three dragons who hatched from petrified eggs. They grow fast and soon begin to terrify even her because she is unable to tame them completely. Dragons were thought to be extinct and she doesn't know how to train them properly.
  • Vos Draemar: Atan's maug, Paiseon, whom they have befriended, tamed, and taught to do tricks and haul heavy loads for House Vigilance. Maugs are giant, bear-like animals with six legs, thick, color-changing manes, and all the traditional hallmarks of dangerous carnivores. As apex predators of the Great Lupine region, they regularly hunt ictharrs (which are horse-sized).

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Addams Family has a pet carnivorous plant named Cleopatra, which is a bit different than your normal Venus Flytrap. There's also Morticia's pet lion, Kitty Kat.
  • The Day of the Triffids (1981): The protagonist discusses how some people are keeping the carnivorous walking plants as pets — which isn't a problem if you keep them on a chain and dock their stingers on a regular basis, but shows how humanity is becoming complacent about the triffids, convinced they're just another form of nature they can keep under control.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • The Stark children each get a direwolf pup that is soon capable of ripping out throats, as warned by Lord Eddard. Robb even becomes infamous among his enemies for taking his into battle. Fortunately, the wolves are very loyal to their masters and family and generally don't attack without good reason. They do become aggressive if there really is a good reason, but their owners tend to ignore these warnings. Shaggydog is the wildest of the litter and really doesn't like being chained in a kennel; justified in that his owner and trainer is a six-year-old boy who has been rendered slightly unstable due to his entire life collapsing around him.
    • Daenerys' dragons are also this, as they grow fast from little creatures that can stand on her shoulders to dinosaur sizes, and begin to frighten even her.
    • Played with, with the Bastard's Girls. They're all regular domestic dogs, but they've been bred to be vicious and have a taste for human flesh.
  • House of the Dragon: Targaryen family members are usually bonded to baby dragons early in their life, when the beasts are small.
  • The Munsters: Spot is a pet dragon that lives in a secret room under the staircase.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise: While on Vulcan, Captain Archer and T'Pol find themselves stalked by a sehlat. T'Pol mentions that she kept a domesticated sehlat as a pet when she was a child.
    T'Pol: They were smaller. [off Archer's look] Slightly.
    Archer: How slightly?
    T'Pol: You have Porthos.
    Archer: Porthos doesn't try and eat me when I'm late with his dinner.
    T'Pol: Vulcan children are never late with their sehlat's dinner.
  • The Walking Dead (2010):
    • In season two, Michonne has two pet zombies.
    • Later, King Ezekiel has a pet tiger.

    Mythology 
  • In Classical Mythology, Hades had Cerberus, a massive, three-headed dog with a serpent tail and a mane of snakes.

    Podcasts 
  • Cool Kids Table: The trio in Bloody Mooney realize that Mooney is this when they discover Keri's mother torn aport and Mooney eating her corpse.
  • The Seneschal: King Ulmer's pet beast is not described, but it's certainly not a dog given the monstrous sounds it makes, and it's big enough to kill and devour the Sex Slave he throws to it out of boredom.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons: This often happens to druids and, to a lesser extent, rangers. At higher levels, you can keep huge and dangerous beasts such as dire bears, tigers, or sharks as your animal companion.
  • Exalted: Hran-Tzu, the god of decay, owns what is far and away the most unusual pet in Creation or, at least, in Yu-Shan — the Ur-Snake, a quarter-mile-long fifty-headed serpent that was created by the Primordials to be the template on which all snakes, worms and slithering things would be based on, and which the god now keeps as a very effective watchdog for his mansion. Getting the beast into Yu-Shan at all required both considerable work and research into whether this was even permissible, and it's a testament to Hran-Tzu's influence that he was able to achieve it all and keep it despite ongoing attempts to rid Yu-Shan of the creature.

    Video Games 
  • A crazy man you meet in the sewers in Baldur's Gate II has a carrion crawler, a seven-foot long flesh-eating grub, as a pet. Or friend. Hard to tell.
  • Shayne from Battleborn treats Aurox like he's some sort of pet much to the djinn's chagrin.
  • It's eventually revealed at the end of Borderlands 2's DLC Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty that Roscoe, Scarlett's missing mascot, was a Rakk Hive, a monstruous mammoth-like creature with a hideous face, able to spawn Rakks, which the player previously fought near the climax of Borderlands 1.
  • In Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, one demon child has zombies as pets. Etna apparently had pet zombies as a child as well. The child's zombie was one of his own creation, complete with one of the most potent ingredients possible... a horse weiner (which you can steal for yourself).
  • In Dragon Quest Monsters, your main character allies himself with all of the monsters who you fought in all of the Dragon Quest RPGs, from little Drakee to huge Dragons.
  • Dwarf Fortress allows for pet dragons, hydras and sea serpents, amongst other things.
  • The Dark Brotherhood in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a pet frostbite spider named Lis; killing it earns you the same penalty as attacking one of the other members (i.e., being suspended from the group). You also fight a crazy mage named Hamelyn who has a bunch of pet skeevers during a Thieves Guild mission.
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout 3:
      • A few Yao Guai (Lightning Bruiser mutant black bears) are tamed by scavengers.
      • Moira's computer records mention her experiments with domesticating mole rats, and according to her they made good pets, as long as they were declawed, defanged, and lobotomized. (A couple of pet mole rats can be found in a shack in Fallout: New Vegas.)
    • Fallout 4 comes up with several options:
      • Two perks (Wasteland Whisperer and Animal Friend) allow the player character to tame any hostile creature or animal below their own level. The beast will then follow the Sole Survivor around until killed or left behind during an area transit. Higher perk levels unlock additional abilities like inciting the target to attack or giving it specific commands. The list of tamable critters includes pretty much everything the Wasteland has to offer, up to and including Yao Guai, Radscorpions and, yes, Deathclaws.
      • The Wasteland Workshop DLC allows for the construction of a wide variety of cages to catch an equally wide variety of monsters, including the ones mentioned above. Combined with a Beta Wave Emitter they can be turned docile and used as a potentially extremely powerful defence force for player-owned settlements.
      • Played with when it comes to Kat and Gus, a young girl and her huge sentry bot who can be met roaming the Commonwealth in a random encounter. Sentry bots may not be monsters in the traditional sense, but since every single one of them is basically a Boss in Mook Clothing, the trope applies regardless.
  • Guild Wars allows Rangers to tame a number of dangerous beasts, ranging from tigers to bears to spiders the size of a large dog.
  • Half-Life 2 has Lamarr, a debeaked headcrab named after Hedy Lamarr.
  • In Kero Blaster, Nanao's office pet is a Negativus Legatia, a dark blob monster that grows massive and glitchy over the course of the story. It eventually swallows up your coworkers and Nanao before becoming the final boss of Normal Mode.
  • Olaf, one of the vikings from The Lost Vikings suggest keeping as a pet one of the dinosaurs found in Prehistoria, as he thinks they are "kinda cute".
  • Mabinogi has a wide assortment of buyable pets, some of them things like venomous snakes or giant spiders.
  • Ragnarok Online has several tameable monsters. They don't do anything but hop around and talk when their intimacy reaches 'Loyal'. Besides the cute Mascot monsters like Poring, Drops, and Poporing you can also befriend the suicidal undead ghosts of virgins and other undead monsters, demons, orcs, and half-human creatures. Another odd pet is Alice, a humanoid maid with a broom that doesn't seem to mind being nothing more than the player character's eye candy.
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Swamp: Lila's pet giant alligator, Suji.
  • In Skies of Arcadia, Alfonso calls Antonio 1 and 2 his pets. Since they resemble armored bulls, he probably doesn't pet them.
  • Torchlight and the Fate series have ordinary pets, but they turn into powerful monsters when fed fish.
  • Muffet of Undertale has a pet giant, freakish spider/cupcake fusion with a voracious appetite, which seems appropriate given her love for her fellow spiders and for baking.
  • In Utawarerumono, the child of the village adopts and raises the orphaned child of the tiger god that had been menacing the village, and rides it into battle.
  • Vindictus: Tieve was friends with the giant spider that climbed the bell tower and was killed by the heroes in the prologue. While not technically a pet, it was kept to protect the town, and Tieve could talk to and understand the beast.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • Hunter class allows the player to tame a beast mob and keep them as a pet. This can include anything from cats and wolves to the Warcraft equivalents of crocodiles, zombie bears, and tyrannosaurus rexes. And that's just for starters. With the appropriate talents, you can tame even more interesting creatures.
    • The Forsaken domesticate massive spiders.

    Visual Novels 
  • Demonbane: Al Azif keeps a freaking shoggoth as a pet. Its name is Dunsany, and she primarily uses it as a water bed. The fact that she can call upon the powers of the Great Old Ones probably goes a long way toward explaining why it never rebels.
  • The It Lives series offers these as premium choices that can be paid for with diamonds. For "Woods," you get a vine monster with the default name of Maurice who helps fight off against other monsters that's loyal to you and your party. In "Beneath," you can adopt a jackalope that looks more like something fused dead animal parts together into a misshapen bunny with the default name of Thumper.

    Web Animation 
  • A Day With Bowser Jr: Iggy Koopa owns a pet Chain Chomp, who is as tender as he is deadly. Just ask some of the members of the Mario Fan Club.

    Webcomics 

    Web Originals 
  • In The Jenkinsverse, Grickas are a race of feral, savage predators from an unknown deathworld, kept by militaries as biological weapons or by foolhardy individuals looking to prove their bravery by attempting to tame and cohabitate with them.* Humans know them as domestic cats, and have been keeping them as pets since time immemorial.
  • SCP Foundation:
    • SCP-040 ("Evolution's Child"): Instances of SCP-040-1 are essentially this trope. They are created by SCP-040, a little girl that can cause mutations in animals to the point of creating entire new species, all of which behave like domestic house pets and are completely loyal to her.
    • SCP-1550 ("Dr. Wondertainment's Custom-Pets™"): They were designed to live in any environment that normal animals can live in and be pets to the children who live there.
  • Void Domain: Arachne is one of these in her spider form. Out of her spider form, she's just a regular monstrosity.

    Web Videos 
  • Life SMP:
    • Deconstructed in the Double Life SMP. On Day 3, Tango summons a Warden from the Ancient City, naming it "Rancher's Revenge" to unleash it on Scar's Jellie Panda Reserve for burning down the Ranch (his base) the previous session; he affectionately calls the Warden "my child", "little man", "my (little) boy" and "my baby" and is devastated at its death, even holding a funeral for it. That said, it's still an uncontrollable, Boss in Mook's Clothing-level hostile mob, so Tango is still understandably terrified of it and refuses to get too up close to it in fear of his own life, is only able to wrangle the Warden due to strategic use of in-game mechanisms and exploitation of mob AI, and all his revenge plans go down the drain the moment he gets the Warden to the surface because it just runs off on its own to terrorize the rest of the server, almost killing several people in the process (including Scar, who barely survives the attack, and actually indirectly causing BigB and Ren's second death), and it's by sheer luck that everyone else manages to trap it in a river in the valley, where it can't easily hurt anyone else.
    • Played straight and reconstructed in the Wild Life SMP. While Gem knows full well that the Immortal Snail assigned to her was sent out to hunt her down to kill her and can do so with a One-Hit Kill, she thinks it's very cute and mostly just treats it as a pet that follows her around everywhere and talks to it like it's her livestream chat, simply always staying on the move to dodge its attacks and keeping a look-out should it ever get too close to her. Contrast it with most of her other server-mates, who spend Day 3 living in perpetual terror of being stalked by their own murderous molluscs, ready to round to corner and jump-scare the life out of them — in some cases, literally.

    Western Animation 

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