Basic Trope: Elephants are jerks who tend to throw their weight around.
- Straight: Phanty is an elephant bully who torments other animals and love to scare people with his size.
- Exaggerated:
- Phanty is a Xenophobic Herbivore supervillain looking to Take Over the World and crushes victims to death with his feet.
- Elephants are Always Chaotic Evil and love tormenting other creatures.
- Downplayed: Phanty is a surly jerk who's generally unhelpful, and wants to be left alone.
- Justified:
- Phanty was bullied because elephants are considered pushovers and people wanted his ivory, so now he's getting back at the world.
- Because everyone believes elephants are honorable and wise by default, Phanty grew an ego and thinks he can be a jerk and get away with it.
- Phanty can get away with this behavior because he's so much bigger and stronger than the animals he bullies that there's really no way for them to fight back.
- Phanty is in a state of musth.
- Inverted: Honorable Elephant.
- Subverted: Phanty only acts like a jerk to spook predators away, and protect his herd.
- Double Subverted: ...turns out Phanty is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that pretends to his herd, only to bully and manipulate them behind their back.
- Parodied: Despite being cruel and physically powerful, everyone pretends like Phanty isn't a threat because of the stereotypes of elephants being slow to anger and non-aggressive
- Averted: Elephants aren't shown as particularly good or evil
- Enforced:
- The writers want to subvert animal stereotypes, and decide to use an elephant.
- The work is about the living conditions of captive elephants, and incorporates an elephant rampage to emphasize its Central Theme.
- Lampshaded: "Are elephants supposed to be that cruel?"
- Invoked: Someone teased Phanty behind his horde, and Phanty is pissed.
- Exploited: A villain who runs a horde of elephants, thinking Predators Are Mean, uses them to crush the carnivores who attempt to tease them, even the pet cats.
- Defied: Phanty decides not to be mean to other animals, and tries to build his positive image among the wildlife.
- Discussed: "Keep an eye on the horde of elephants. They are no way as benevolent as they are supposed to be."
- Conversed: "Well, elephants are giant and tough creatures, and we have to respect them. Their contribution to their family shouldn't be taken with a pinch of salt."
- Played For Horror: The elephants are Galactic Conquerors who have Ascended to Carnivorism, and unleash planet-wide genocides to all of the animals, be it Nice Mice or King of Beasts.
Back to Cruel Elephant.
