Basic Trope Description: An imprisoned character is freed with the help of an animal.
- Straight: Alice is locked up in a prison cell, and she sends her pet rat, who followed her in secret, to get her the keys for the cell to escape.
- Exaggerated: Alice sends a whole horde of rats to get the keys of all the cells to free the other prisoners alongside herself.
- Downplayed: The guard drops the keys before Alice's prison cell, and Alice's rat just pushes it through the slit under the door to her owner.
- Justified:
- Alice can talk to animals.
- Alice's rat is sentient.
- Inverted: Alice's pet rat is locked up in a scientific enclosure, and she gets the keys to free her.
- Subverted: Alice tries to get her pet rat sitting on the other side of the corridor to bring her the keys—but the rat is too stupid to get it right.
- Double Subverted: Finally, the rat finds the right key by dumb luck and hands it to Alice.
- Enforced: Alice has to be free again in time to fight the Big Bad, and the author wants to avert Damsel in Distress.
- Averted: Nobody uses an animal as a helper in a prison escape.
- Zigzagged: When Alice tries to get her pet rat to bring her the keys, it works. When Bob tries to convince a spider to get him the keys, it doesn't work, and when Charlie tries to make his dog bring him the cell keys, he runs directly to the Big Bad and brings him the news about the order.
- Parodied: In dog school, dogs and their owners practice how to bring their owners cell keys into a prison cell.
- Invoked: Alice teaches her rat how to find keys before.
- Lampshaded: "Luckily there is always a clever little pet around."
- Discussed: "But how can we escape?" "Let's send my rat. She will get us the keys."
- Conversed: "And of course the pet is clever enough to know how to do it."
- Defied: Alice's captor has double-checked his copy of the Evil Overlord List and made sure to lock up her pet rat in a secluded basement.
Back to Pet Gets the Keys, I guess. Tropey, go and bring the keys!
