Tropey, ready for action.note
Tropey The Wonder Dog! Howya doin' boy? Whoosagoodboy? That's right, you are!
What's that, Tropey? We're here to talk about something?
Oh, we're here to talk about tropes that use a metaphorical dog like yourself?
And Timmy's fallen in the well? You want us to bury him with rocks? Sounds like a good idea to me! Good boy! And maybe after we finish, we can go play some Basketball!
Tropes:
- Adopt the Dog: Someone who was neither good nor bad does something nice and then joins forces with the good guys.
- Beg the Dog: One character will frequently abuse someone else, but is not too prideful to desperately beg them for help when they have no other way out of a tight spot.
- The Dog Bites Back: An often-abused character gets their revenge.
- Dog-Kicking Excuse: Someone can't bring themselves to be mean, so they try to look for some excuse to be mean to the person or animal they're being mean to, often a reason to be angry.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: A slightly more literal case than most, but still falls under Tropey's purview. This is when the major villain is someone you least expect.
- Pet the Dog: Someone does something nice just for the heck of it, which lets the viewer/reader know they have a good side to their otherwise awful personality.
- Licked by the Dog: An animal or child acts like they like someone who's thought to be a nasty piece of work.
- Photo Op with the Dog: A character makes a big show out of doing something nice, in order to better their image.
- Kick the Dog: Somebody does something mean purely randomly to set them up as a baddie.
- Kick the Morality Pet: A good guy is starting to turn evil but feels guilty when they accidentally hurt or offend someone they care a lot about.
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: The villain threatens the protagonist and also a friend of theirs, who's completely innocent.
- Bait the Dog: The writers set the villain up as being kind of affable, but then make them do something evil so you'll stop liking them.
- Poke the Poodle: Someone is too nice to do something mean, so they do something ludicrously minor instead and pass that off as evil.
- Shoot the Dog: A character does something that could be seen as immoral because they have to.
- Shoo the Dog: Someone is forced to send someone else away for the greater good.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: A story's buildup has no payoff.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: A "Shaggy Dog" story where, not only does it end up being pointless, but someone dies for a senseless reason.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Something good happens to someone who's generally unlucky.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: It looks like something good happened to a Butt-Monkey, but eventually, the good thing goes away or something bad happens.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed, Death by Newbery Medal, Eat the Dog, Microwave the Dog, Scare the Dog, Post-Apocalyptic Dog and so on are merely friends of Tropey, as their dogs are less metaphorical. And then there's Tropey, Come Home, which is as literal as it gets. Not to be confused with This Index Barks, which is about real dogs. (Make the Dog Testify is borderline; while the "Dog" in question does not have to be a Canine, it does have to be an animal, and it usually is a Canine.)
