The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at the Trope Launch Pad.
There's Bad People Abuse Animals, but that (explicitly per the description) must qualify as "animal abuse". If the kids are killing the squirrels in this case, that could count. If they're dissecting already dead ones, it wouldn't, even though I'd argue it's in the same spirit.
Thanks, that makes sense. In particular, the line from that article "In addition, animal cruelty, especially torture and mutilation, is often treated as an early warning sign for future violent criminals such as a Serial Killer." sounds like the trope I was thinking of.
In the case of Ender's Game, the kid in question was, in fact, killing squirrels, iirc (haven't read that book since highschool english class, so could be wrong). He doesn't grow up to be a serial killer, but he is definitely manipulative+sociopathic (in the way fictional "sociopaths" are ofc). As for Rinne, my sister argues that he's in a hunter gatherer society, and therefore hunting down an animal to dissect it falls more under "playing with your food" than it does animal abuse. My argument is it's still stated to be weird even among the people in the village, to the point they attempted to exorcise him multiple times, but again, I digress.
I guess I wonder if there's a trope regarding specifically when children do it? Mainly because I feel like it's used to denote to the reader that the kid will grow up to be evil/antagonistic, or even that they are already. Or even a lower-key version, like the kid that burns ants with a magnifying glass, for example, that's usually a trait given to the school bully or something.
Basically, to sum it up, I feel like Bad People Abuse Animals is often used in combination with Creepy Child/Enfant Terrible/Ambiguous Innocence/The Bully/etc, to the point where I was wondering if it could be considered a trope in-of-itself. That would veer this conversation to something that would probably fit better on "You Know, That Thing Where" though.
i may be cringe but i am free

I dunno if this can qualify as a trope in-of itself but I couldn't find any relevant trope pages that mentioned this trait specifically, but I feel like its a pattern for characters who grow up to be evil or "sociopaths" or whatever to dissect squirrels or something as a kid. I think the big brother from Ender's Game did this?
The main relevant tropes to go along with this would be Creepy Child or Enfant Terrible, I figure, or maybe something like Ambiguous Innocence.
Anyways, the main thought that prompted this was when I was playing Ensemble Stars!! at my sister's recommendation, it mentioned that the "favorite character" she talked so much about, Rinne Amagi, apparently dissected woodland creatures as a kid. Admittedly, it was implied to be more of a "scientific curiosity" thing rather than any sort of actual maliciousness (he grew up without access to formal education), but I still told her "that's such a trope of COURSE he grows up evil". Now that I've finished the main story, I was surprised to find his character page didn't actually mention that? It actually gave him the "Used To Be A Sweet Kid" trope, albeit "played with".
All that said, I digress. I'm not here to criticize how the page was written, just here out of curiousity now that I'm wondering is this like, an actual trope at all? Is there a trope page that does mention it that I just couldn't find? Did I just imagine it, and this isn't actually a thing after all??
Edited by jazmin