Basic Trope: The Hero performs a morally reprehensible act because it's the most logical/merciful/convenient/"decent" thing to do.
- Straight: The easiest way to activate the MacGuffin is by taking a life. Bob uses an innocent dog to do so.
- Exaggerated:
- The only way to use MacGuffin it's commit massive number of sacrifices. Bob kills hundreds of dogs to do so.
- Godzilla Threshold
- Downplayed:
- The sacrifice to activate the MacGuffin is a small amount of blood. Bob grazes the dog with his gun to get the blood.
- Bob has been Walking the Earth peacefully, but when he gets involved in a conflict, he shoos the dog because he doesn't have time to take care of it and it could get in danger hanging around with him.
- Justified:
- There is no other way to activate the Macguffin than by shooting a dog.
- The dog is the only one who they can stand to lose at that moment - losing human members would end badly for the group as a whole.
- It's a Mercy Kill -not shooting the dog would be worse.
- Godzilla Threshold — it's a Sadistic Choice to shoot the dog to save the world, but at least there will still be a world to condemn Bob for shooting the dog afterwards and "you stood there and left Evulz Maximus genocide England" is a comparatively worse condemnation.
- Inverted:
- Honor Before Reason.
- Or rather, the dog shoots Bob.
- The dog forces Bob to shoot it.
- Emperor Evulz pets a dog out of Pragmatic Villainy.
- Subverted: Bob prepares to shoot the dog, but Alice stops him at the last minute, and convinces him to activate it some other way.
- Double Subverted: ...Then Bob shoots the dog anyway, when he finds he's running out of time.
- Parodied:
- Bob shoots the dog, then beats its carcass into a pulp, tears out its intestines and wraps them around his head and starts splattering blood all over the place, all the while sobbing and raging at the heavens that this for the greater good!
- While Bob spends an hour ruminating back and forth over whether to be good or logical, the dog rolls its eyes, pulls out a revolver and shoots Bob instead. The MacGuffin activates. The dog saves the cosmos and is hailed as a hero.
- The "evil" is very minor, such as poking the dog lightly. Bob still doesn't want to do it.
- Zig Zagged: Bob seemingly shoots the dog. Then it turns out it's just playing dead. But actually he meant to shoot it, he just missed. He tries again, but it survives. The reason it survived is that it's a zombie, so Bob eventually resorts to Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain. Then it turns out that doesn't even work on this kind of zombie...
- Averted: Bob doesn't shoot the dog.
- Enforced: The writers need to show that things have become extremely serious, so they have Bob need to shoot the dog to continue his quest.
- Lampshaded: "We're going to have to shoot poor Fido now, aren't we?"
- Invoked: The Big Bad sets up a situation where the only way out is to shoot an innocent puppy.
- Exploited: The Big Bad uses a video of Bob shooting the dog to break public support for him.
- Defied:
- Bob takes steps to keep from having to shoot any dogs.
- Jim, the Implacable Man owner of the dog, gets in Bob's face and growls: "If you ever so much as carry a weapon around that dog, or if you ever shoot any damned dogs EVER, I'm gonna do things to you that would make John Wick go all "whoa, dude, it was just a dog, CHILL!!!", do you understand me?" Bob decides to check if the sacrifice can be done with something else — like a whole lot of ketchup.
- Discussed: "Just watch, we're going to have to shoot a dog or something."
- Conversed: "They're shooting a dog? Are you serious?"
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's shooting of an innocent dog makes him a pariah in the eyes of the world, leading to his downfall.
- Sooner or later, it becomes evident that Bob's continued shooting of dogs are not because it is necessary: it's just easier.
- Bob not only gets used to shooting dogs, he starts enjoying doing so.
- The dog's owner arrives afterwards and gives Bob a lesson he'll never forget.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob's shooting of the dog makes him a pariah, until everyone learns exactly why it was necessary to do so.
- But the alternative would cost even more lives.
- But that was until he realized the dogs he shot were not so innocent after all.
- Bob forgets about the lesson given to him by the dog's owner and continues shooting more dogs left and right, before justifying it as an act to reduce rabies risks.
- Played For Drama: Bob is forced to kill his only companion from all these years, to ensure millions don't die.
- Played For Laughs: The act Bob must do is a Felony Misdemeanor like allowing his dog to piss his bathroom. It still carries all of the gravitas of a man weighting whether or not to allow a dozen men to die to save a billion.
- Played For Horror: Bob's decision to shoot a dog is his first step to becoming a totalitarian sociopath.
Back to Shoot the Dog.
