Basic Trope: A harmless creature has a threatening name.
- Straight: Bob names his adorable (and harmless) kitten Deathbringer.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob names his adorable Exotic Shorthair kitten Spineripper, That Which Removes Your Internal Organs for Fun.
- Alice names her pet sloth "Killroy Thanatos, That Which Annhilates All of Time and Space for Great Evil."
- Charlie names his pet baby otter "Gutslurper, That Which Destroys Pairs of Towers for Pleasure."
- David names his pet baby pitbull "Emperor Adolf Maou Evulz, the Reincarnation of Oda Nobunaga, Demon King of the 6th Heaven, He who Destroys Pairs of Towers, Pentagonal Buildings, Blows Up Mosques, Cancels Good TV Shows Like Firefly... And Jaywalks for Pleasure."
- Downplayed:
- Bob names his cute Doberman puppy Killer, knowing he'll at least grow up to fit the name.
- Bob's kitten Deathbringer is, for the most part, a harmless kitten... until it's pushed over the line.
- Justified:
- Bob wanted his pet to have a cool name — plus, it's funny for such a harmless animal to have a scary name.
- Bob named his kitten "Adolf" back in 1922, it's not his fault that a fellow German would taint the name in the 1930s/40s.
- Inverted: Fluffy the Terrible
- Subverted:
- Deathbringer appears harmless but is quite threatening.
- Deathbringer The Adorable is heart attack inducingly cute.
- Double Subverted: But it still takes a really long time before he reaches that point.
- Parodied: The characters are afraid of Deathbringer due to initially not seeing it, but breathe a sigh of relief when they see it's just a harmless kitten.
- Zig Zagged: If he trusts you, Deathbringer is as friendly and cuddly as they come; if he doesn't, he's as deadly as his name suggests.
- Averted: Bob names his adorable kitten Fluffy. In other words, Fluffy the Adorable.
- Enforced: "We've got a pet for a Big Bad Wannabe. Make it cute and give it an intimidating name."
- Lampshaded: "Man, I was expecting a much different animal here. Who names their kitten Deathbringer?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Bob's a Manly Man and can't stand the idea of getting food bowls and the like for "Fluffy", so his kitten being named Deathbringer saves him a lot of embarrassment... so long as the cat's not present for the purchase.
- Defied:
- "Bob, when we adopted this kitten, we said we weren't gonna give it a stupid name. Call it Whiskers instead."
- When Bob named the kitten "Deathbringer" it was because he was going to make it the meanest cat in the block, by any means necessary.
- Discussed: "What are the odds that Deathbringer is actually really cute, like that sitcom with the Pomeranian named Throatripper?"
- Conversed: "I know how this episode's going to go. They're going to spend 20 minutes being terrified of Deathbringer, only to find that it's a tiny kitten."
Back to Deathbringer the Adorable.
