Friend to All Living Things



"What is this place; filled with so many wonders; casting its spell that I am now under? Squirrels in the trees, and the cute little bunnies... birds flying free, and bees with their honey..."

- Fluttershy, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

A character, almost Always Female and the heroine of the piece, is shown to be almost supernaturally innocent, sweet, altruistic, or any combination thereof, by the way that all manner of wild forest creatures flock to her. Deer will shyly eat out of her hand, chipmunks will frolic at her feet, and birds will alight on her finger, shoulder or head (and not void their bowels while doing so). Occasionally, a male is used due to St. Francis of Assisi being the patron saint of animals, in which case the character is rather shown to be wise, calm and kind-hearted. As for the animals, they will all be cute, at least in a typical example.

Of course, any other person approaching will break the spell and send the timid woodland animals fleeing, but not before they witness the supernatural wonder of her loving heart in action.

Sometimes the heroine has such influence over the wild creatures that they will perform small tasks for her. In the case of gods or saints, flowers will spring up at their feet.

This is a frequent attribute of The Messiah, and Princess Classic. Sometimes a trait of the Fluffy Tamer, who prefers living things with fangs, scales, and/or the capacity to breathe fire.

Compare Green Thumb. Contrast with Evil-Detecting Dog and Enemy to All Living Things. Also see Not Good with People for a semi-subversion of this character type. In more cynical shows, the Friend to All Living Things is commonly also a Cloudcuckoolander. With females, this may be related to the myth that only a virgin girl may approach a unicorn.

In Fan Fiction, this is an early warning sign of a particularly blatant Purity Sue, being tricky to play well in a fanfic. This goes double if they also strike up an immediate friendship with characters like Tinker Bell, i.e. those who, in canon, are at best distrustful of and at worst violent towards newcomers.

Opposite of Animals Hate Him. See also Licked by the Dog.

This is often parodied. If the parody is clearly referencing the Disney Animated Canon examples below, it falls under Disney Creatures of the Farce, and the examples should go there. Note that, while Friend to All Children sounds similar, it isn't necessarily the same thing—and, unlike this, is about just as likely to be a male trait as a female one.

Some works actually acknowledge that the ability to befriend nearly any living thing could be a lot more Badass than it seems. It's easy to forget that the same princess whose singing summons an entire forest full of animals could, if she so chooses, send her animal friends to beat the tar out of you. Being Friend to All Living Things will sometimes also mean the person is a Fluffy Tamer, in which case they're even friends to snarling, terrifying living things.

Anime & Manga

 * Shion (Or Sion) of No. 6 is beloved by all animals, especially robot mice and dogs.
 * Vash the Stampede in Trigun. Apparently the animals have never heard how dangerous he is...
 * Arika in Mai-Otome.
 * Chachamaru (the robot) in Mahou Sensei Negima. Later, Konoka exhibits this trope as well as Fluffy Tamer.
 * Umi and Sora, with countless marine and shore animals, in Children of the Sea.
 * Belldandy in Ah! My Goddess, although she talks to the machine spirits of motorcycles far more often.
 * Ruka Nogi in Gakuen Alice has an animal pheromone which allows him to communicate with animals. He himself says that other than Natsume, the animals are his best friends. He genuinely loves and cares for the animals, whom he can also control. He is seen perpetually carrying a rabbit on his shoulder.
 * Sakura in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. She's not exactly The Messiah but she is the linchpin in a Xanatos Roulette. Her power is described as 'speaking to things that do not have voices', and therefore can communicate with ghosts and even inanimate objects. The unfailingly gentle persona does start to develop cracks in the second half of the series, however.
 * Alice (and Mokuren) in Please Save My Earth can talk to plants and animals, and makes plants grow when she sings.
 * Quill in Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito.
 * Kusanagi in X 1999 (manga and TV series, the movie leaves it out) is a rare male example. A 6-feet bulk of a paratrooper sergeant hearing trees talk, feeding pigeons and befriending cats.
 * Parodied in School Rumble. Harima Kenji, in a fit of despair over a broken heart, rejects civilization to live as a hermit. In time, he gains the ability to talk to wild animals and a veritable zoo follows him wherever he goes for a time.
 * Played straighter with Yakumo.
 * Not really. She often has difficulty with her cat, Iori.
 * Dragonball Z has Dr. Gero's android 16 portrayed this way. Interestingly, he had still intended to follow his programming and kill Goku, but otherwise had no particular ill feelings towards anyone else.
 * Except Cell, enemy of all living things.
 * Goku himself was portrayed like this, but only in movie 5 really. However his speech to Freeza makes him seem like this.
 * Trunks in the Cell Saga. Seems that no matter what happens, he's feeding a small bunch of squirrels.
 * Gender-reversed with one of Naruto's newer characters, Juugo.
 * Also parodied/lampshaded recently when Naruto goes through training that requires him to be still enough to balance on a stone slab on a spike. When he finally manages to do it a bird perches on his shoulder... which throws him off balance and sends him plummeting to the ground.
 * Killerbee is definitely every animal's friend. Probably because they can tell how awesome he is.
 * Taken to the extreme when
 * Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh has a scene where she dreams herself as St. Sakaki of Assisi. But there is this cat Kamineko that always keeps biting and scratching her.... Poor Sakaki. She loves animals, but most animals hate her.
 * Beautifully used to send up all expectations in the Wham! Episode of Gun X Sword. Wendy meets an old man in a park who's feeding the birds. The animals are gathered peacefully around him, and birds even land on his outstretched finger. He has a pet St. Bernard, and gives a speech about dreams, adding that his own is world peace. This charming old man, loved by all the animals,
 * Yukina, from Yu Yu Hakusho, was portrayed this way in her first appearances. The manga has an off-hand mention of the birds being Reikai messengers, however, and later, one of Hiei's Whole Episode Flashbacks has her make an interesting statement...
 * I'd call Yukina a subversion of the trope, if anything.
 * Caro of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha worked for the Wildlife Preservation Division before the events of the third season. In the manga that showed her time there, we see her surrounded by birds she had befriended (Not in that way), with her superiors talking about how her nature as a summoner lets her connect with animals easily.
 * Monster has a rather tragic example of a man who used to be a Friend to All Living Things in the forest he grew up around. That was before he killed an innocent man in the place because he was ordered to.
 * Played straight with the main character Dr. Tenma, who is also The Messiah himself, though surprisingly enough manages not to make it into Purity Stu. When he's talking to the aforementioned guy after (of course) saving his life, a finch lands on his arm. It is cute.
 * The manipulative vindictive Freesia from Jubei-chan hangs out in the village of the cute talking animals for a bit before she sets off to collect the hero's head.
 * Subverted in Sketchbook. The cats don't view Sora as such, since she always gives them expired food. Double-subverted after Sora finally gives them good food.
 * Also subverted in Basilisk, where Hotarubi of the Iga Tsubagakure has to power to summon insects and reptiles... and use them to kill.
 * Kaoru Kaidoh from The Prince of Tennis is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold/borderline male Tsundere whose soft side emerges when around puppies and kittens. In the Gakuensai no Oujisama Dating Sim, the final date with Kaidoh takes place either in an aquarium or a zoo.
 * Shido Fuyuki from GetBackers, who also Speaks Fluent Animal. His girlfriend, Madoka Otowa, also picks it up; in fact, when Shido goes live with her in Madoka's Big Fancy House, Shido's beloved animals join them too.
 * Jinpei in Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, big time. A prime example is in episode 18 when he blows the team's mission just to save a baby whale, getting them all in hot water with Dr. Nambu. Then there's his puma in the second series...
 * Yellow from Pokémon Special. She is not only a particularly kind and gentle trainer, but she has the power to both heal and listen to the thoughts of Pokémon, which leads to her befriending just about any Pokémon that isn't being trained by an enemy.
 * Hareta from Diamond and Pearl Adventure actually lived with Pokémon for most of his life, and can even make a Gallade owned by Commander Saturn smile at him.
 * Lance, Yellow's Shadow Archetype, is basically Friend to All Pokemon gone wrong. He hates humans for destroying Pokemon's natural habitats and tried to wipe out mankind.
 * Diamond as well. Byron even notes how he managed to quickly tame a Shieldon even he couldn't handle. He befriends Steelix, the cavern boss of Iron Island as well, and can
 * America from Axis Powers Hetalia loved to play with bunnies and bison (if you count, uh, sort've dancing with them?) as a young child and befriends whales as an adult. It's so over the top that he even comes to befriend extra-terrestrials, one of which lives in his house (hi there, Tony). Nevertheless, he doesn't particularly care about global warming and whatnot.
 * He's even friends with the unicorn England gave him, whom he can't see.
 * According to some Himaruya chibis, Taiwan is one as well.
 * England is a friend to all mythical creatures, which apparently only he can see. In one episode he even befriends a Kappa, who laments being forgotten in his own country.
 * Gon from Hunter X Hunter is a male example, especially in the first few chapters/episodes.
 * Princess Fala/Allura of Voltron can talk to mice (at least space mice).
 * The main character from Binchou Tan.
 * Appachai in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple. Occasionally the omake will exaggerate this, such as him thinking he only needs to stand still for the next 20 days and the birds nesting on top of his head will be gone.
 * Fumina Konoe from Shakugan no Shana, when she's a sort of scout/spy form where she's acting/temporarily really as just a normal girl at the school. It would be spoilered that it's her but it's kind of really obvious. She has something of an affinity for birds, getting easily distracted by them, and they tend to love her back.
 * Sara in Shokojo Sera is a straight, if somewhat realistic example. Her animal friends include a pony, a parrot, the Seminary's comic cat, the sparrows outside her attic, and even a group of mice that live in her attic.
 * Parodied, (surprise, surprise) in Violinist of Hameln when Lute's entourage of birds eventually grows into a mob of adoring animals, including crocodiles, gorillas, and a boa constrictor, which prove to be difficult to shoo off. His original bird companions stick around, played fairly straight, though lampshaded by people around him.
 * Used oddly in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: the last Parallel Works video shows Lordgenome was a Friend to All Living Things when he was a kid. Possibly deconstructed, in that he later decided to genetically modify the animals into his army Beastmen.
 * Saint Young Men has animals gathering around Jesus and Buddha and helping them with their daily needs, even going so far as to serve themselves on plates when they're out of food.
 * One chapter of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack, "The Painting Is Dead!", features a horribly tragic version of this. Artist Go Gan is seen chatting happily with cute animals gathering around him as he paints in a jungle on a South Seas island... that's suddenly hit by the shock wave from a nearby atomic bomb test, leaving Go Gan the only survivor, surrounded by dead bodies of animals and natives, and horribly stricken with radiation poisoning.
 * Also played tragically in the newer TV series. One of Black Jack's friends is a young scientist who adopts one of his former experiments, a deer with human-level intelligence, and treats him like a brother much to BJ's skepticism.
 * Ataru from Urusei Yatsura, a.k.a. the most lecherous man in the universe, sometimes shows his side as a friend to all living things. He manages to hatch a fairy egg, raises a caterpillar into a fairy using the Power of Love, and saves the life of a kappa.
 * Leo Aoi of BeastMaster. Yuiko also tries to be, but she's just a little too enthusiastic...
 * In Buddha being one is a sign of some spiritual enlightenment or supernatural gift.
 * An inverted case with Zoro in One Piece who doesn't care much for animals but animals appear to flock towards him. An octopus stuck on his head when he was inspecting a shipwreck. A South bird stayed near his side during Skypiea (to get his food) and his crewmate Chopper (a half-reindeer) clamps on his head when he's scared.

Comics

 * Oddly, several Batman villains exemplify this trope with regard to certain animals:
 * Catwoman, in several interpretations, has a feline-specific version. From the tiniest kitten to the largest tiger, there's something about her that they all instinctively trust.
 * Unsurprisingly, Catman has shown a similar affinity, particularly with the big cats.
 * The Penguin has a similar ability regarding birds. A Secret Origins special written by Neil Gaiman even has one of his ex-henchmen describing this with awe to a TV crew.
 * Poison Ivy is a Friend To All Living Plants. (Wait... isn't she a vegetarian?)
 * Subverted by Doomsday, the DC Comics character who killed Superman. In one of his first appearances, while he was still wandering aimlessly through a forest, a deer came up and nuzzled his hand. Doomsday, of course, broke the poor deer's neck. He did the same thing to a bird that landed on his palm.
 * Cooch from Footrot Flats is described this way from day one, and is notable for caring for even introduced feral animals, which even Australian and New Zealander environmentalists would shoot on sight. He says that somebody's got to care for them. However, he's not a vegetarian, and makes some great cave weta sandwiches.
 * In James O'Barr's graphic novel The Crow, Eric Draven is shown with all of the cats living in a tenement happily following him.
 * In an interesting subversion, Eric isn't actually that knowledgeable about cats—he names one Gabriel, and it turns out he's a she. A pregnant she.
 * One of Wonder Woman's more obscure powers is "Unity With Beasts," a gift from the goddess Artemis that fits this trope perfectly.
 * The Silver and Bronze Age versions of Hawkman and Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman had the ability to speak with and befriend Earth birds.
 * Aquaman, of course, is most famous for being able to talk to fish and other sea life.
 * Subverted/parodied in Beetle Bailey - the chaplain (an appropriate sort of character for this) just had crumbs of food on his clothes that the animals liked.
 * Parodied in Strangers in Paradise, when Katchoo dreams she's a Disney princess, despite being rather unlike that in her waking life. She charms birds and chipmunks with her singing for all of a few moments, when the dream turns nightmarish as the animals shun her for smelling of death.

Film -- Animated

 * Nausicaä in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is one of the classic examples of this trope, perhaps even prototypical. She takes it much further than most others; she not only befriends cute wild animals but also horrifying battleship-sized insects, slavering-jawed giant dragonflies and so forth. Her compassion extends to people of all nations as well, so she really is a friend to All Living Things.
 * The  in the manga is a nasty subversion of the trope, as.
 * Kira from The Dark Crystal.
 * Just about every Disney Princess gets a forest scene where she sings and all the animals flock to her, with birds sitting on her hand or shoulder and joining in the song.
 * Snow White is probably the Ur-example. Watch the scene on YouTube, starting around 3:20.
 * Briar Rose (Princess Aurora) in Sleeping Beauty has a host of animal friends that ends up stealing the prince's clothes so they could assemble together as a kind of homemade dream prince.
 * Cinderella begins with the heroine's animal friends waking her up in the morning and helping her shower and get dressed. They also make her a dress while she's too busy with her chores, and eventually end up saving the day in the end.
 * Ariel of The Little Mermaid is friend to all living sea critters. Which makes a certain degree of sense, since her father is king of the sea and considers all the ocean life, not just merpeople, as his subjects. (In fact, he rails against Ariel visiting "the surface" because the barbarian humans eat fish.) Leads to a Hilarity Ensues when someone tries to serve her Sebastian on a plate for dinner.
 * More recent Disney films have tried to avoid this to varying levels of success. Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, for example, is friendly with birds and a tiger, but they grew up around her, so it's at least justified. Mulan's horse and cricket simply act like wacky sidekicks along with Mushu. Belle tries to talk to farm animals, but they don't seem to understand what she's saying, so it's just another reason for the townspeople to think she's insane. Even her trusty horse tries to run away when she's being attacked by wolves. She is at least somewhat friendly with birds, but they abandon her for the Beast when they see he's got more food.
 * Pocahontas has her raccoon and hummingbird companions; though the weirdest moment is probably during Colors of the Wind, where she helps show John Smith the importance of understanding living creatures by picking up a bear cub in front of its mother.
 * Megara from |Hercules is about the only Disney heroine without any animal friends. In one scene, she even tells some cute and cuddly animals to get lost. (They turn out to be Pain and Panic in disguise.)
 * There are so many parodies of these classic Disney moments that they have they have their own trope.
 * Subverted in Oliver and Company: the character whom the birds help dress up in the morning is a spoiled, vain show-dog, voiced by Bette Midler, singing one of her songs of course.
 * Johnny Appleseed in Melody Time. It helps that he doesn't carry any sort of weapon, but having the ability to pet a skunk takes a true air of benevolence.
 * A male example from Disney; Cody from The Rescuers Down Under is good friends with a lot of animals from the Australian outback, including a kangaroo, some wombats and a giant golden eagle.
 * Parodied in Shrek 3. Snow White starts off with a cute little song to bring a bunch of animals to her before starting the opening riff from Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" to make them attack.
 * In Treasure of Swamp Castle, Princess Szaffi is lost in the flood at the beginning and adopted by gypsies.

Film -- Live Action

 * Altaira in Forbidden Planet has this ability, even charming a tiger, until she falls in love with Captain Adams.
 * In M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, the identifying mark of The Healer is that he/she attracts butterflies.
 * The eponymous Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is a male example of this used straight in a comedy. Animals instinctively know to obey him. He suffered an Heroic BSOD and retreated to a Buddhist monastery when he failed to rescue a raccoon. He's able to get animals to protect him by using baby talk. The only exception is bats, which he absolutely hates.
 * Layla from Sky High can control plants, and her mother can talk to animals.
 * There's a running theme in Children of Men that animals like Theo, even the farm dogs who supposedly hate everyone. He's also the one who manages to get  to calm down near the end.
 * The title character of The Golden Child, a young Buddhist monk with mystical powers.
 * One female character in Ilya Muromets (The Sword and the Dragon) is portrayed this way. In one scene she sings cheerfully, surrounded by forest animals.
 * I Really Hate My Job: What does Suzy do when she spots a rat in the kitchen? Interview it, and ask how its day has been.
 * Disney's Enchanted plays this very straight in the animated segment before memorably parodying it in the live-action part.
 * In Seven Years In Tibet when the Buddhist monks have to build a building in their monastery, they first comb the ground of the would-be construction site in search of earth worms and carry them away to safety.
 * A scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou? shows Delmar looking at a bunch of butterflies that are landing on him.
 * Griffin in Zookeeper. He can even talk to them.
 * Subverted with the blind woman in the Haters hideout in the Apocalypse film series movie Revelation, who by her own admission became a vegetarian not because she loved animals, but because she hated plants.
 * The protagonist of Pee-wee's Big Adventure; in the movie's climax, he rescues the animals inside a pet store that's on fire, even the snakes - which he's obviously terrified of.

Newspaper Comic

 * Garfield, of all people, parodied this trope in an early Sunday comic, where he was out expressing that he loves all the animals in the field he was in, and invited them to his home for dinner, much to Jon Arbuckle's shock.

Literature
"He began filling it with handfuls of wheat from his pockets. In a swarm the grain-eaters arose around him as a flock of tame pigeons. They perched on his arms and the cap, and in the stress of hunger, forgetting all caution, a brilliant cock cardinal and an equally gaudy jay fought for a perching-place on his head"
 * Subverted in the Discworld book Moving Pictures. When sending for a new archchancellor, the wizards select Ridicully the Brown on the note that he loves nature and assume that he will be very naive and easy to murder because of this trope. Turns out, he's an avid hunter and damn near impossible to kill to boot, and single-handedly stops the University's tradition of You Kill It, You Bought It.
 * Also in Wyrd Sisters, where the population of the local forest, carnivore and herbivore alike, shows up on Granny Weatherwax's front lawn, in an attempt to silently guilt her into . Subverted in that her response is to say, "I don't know what's going on, but when it wears off, some of you buggers better be quick on your feet or you'll be lunch."
 * Likewise, Granny's practice of leaving out food for animals she's Borrowed: it's the sort of thing this trope would do, but she'd never admit it's for any reason other than equitable payment for the temporary use of their senses. In fact, it's kind of an insight into her character; given the option, she'd just Borrow and be done with it, because she doesn't much like anyone, person or animal, but obligations are pretty central to how she works.
 * Subverted in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where one character, Ford Prefect, stands alone in a field, smiling serenely. A deer comes up and rubs against him, whereupon Ford immediately reaches out and breaks its neck. He attributes the effect to "pheromone control" and notes, "You just need to emit the right smell".
 * In Rudyard Kipling's story "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat" from The Second Jungle Book, the title character renounces his worldly goods and becomes a holy man, befriending all of the animals that live in the hills near his shrine.
 * In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Jerk with a Heart of Gold Mauricio Babilonia is always followed around by swarms of yellow butterflies.
 * In Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy, Jaenelle, being made up of both human and animal dreams, is the catalyst for the reconciliation of the kindred and Blood when she convinces the kindred to open their realms again.
 * This is a mixed blessing for Una in The Faerie Queene: On the one hand, an army of forest critters save her from being raped by Sansloy, but then they practically kidnap her and force her to stay with them so they can worship her until she's rescued by Satyrane.
 * A fitting punishment for Canon Sue-ism?
 * Subverted in H.P. Lovecraft's mythos. Nyarlatothep is described as having wild beasts licking his hands, and in some RPGs based on the mythos, it is specifically mentioned that no animal can attack him. This is probably related to his unnatural charisma and has some effect on people too (he tends to gather a large following wherever he goes). Of course he's pretty much the exact opposite of sweet and innocent.
 * Also played somewhat straight in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, where Randolph Carter befriends the cats living in the dream world. He aids them on several occasions, and is aided by them in return.
 * In Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic children's novel A Little Princess, heroine Sara Crewe befriends and tames the rat who lives in her attic.
 * Her other classic children's novel, The Secret Garden, has two gender-flipped examples: Ben Weatherstaff, who is good friends with the robin who leads Mary to the garden, and Purity Stu Dickon, who has tamed darn-near every creature on the moor.
 * In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars, Thuvia can tame with her words the banths that seriously threatened the combined forces of John Carter and Tars Tarkas.
 * Subverted hard in Darkest Powers with Derek, who tends to send animals into screaming fits of rage or fear just by being within a fifty foot radius of them. He explains this to Chloe as, being that he’s a werewolf, the animals see a human but smell something entirely different, which makes them nervous. It’s still hilarious when he mentions that a Chihuahua randomly attacked him at one point and took a chunk out of his hand, though.
 * In Jim C Hines's The Princess Series, Danielle ("Cinderwench") is often underestimated because she has no obvious skills or magic. However, she can speak to animals and strongly persuade them to agree with her. Beyond that, animals simply like her, and will help her out even if she doesn't ask for (or want) their help.
 * Conan the Barbarian: In "Beyond the Black River," "Zogar boasted that he could summon wild beasts to do his bidding." Then, he inverts just about all the other traits usually associated with it.
 * In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero in Hel, Calvin remembers Miranda being like this, as a child, singing to an orchid to make it grow.
 * Mephisto's staff summons creatures but does not make them obedient. Mephisto manages by friendliness.
 * In Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series has a Badass male example. Quintus Sertorius, a renegade Roman general and brilliant tactician possess an uncanny ability to attract and tame wild animals (including an eagle at one point.) A barbarian tribe even considers him a servant of the gods after observing him feed a skittish albino fawn from his hand.
 * In Gary Larson's There's a Hair in My Dirt!: A Worm's Story, most of the book is the worm's father telling him a story about a human girl who is a clueless Deconstruction of the trope and it ends with the the moral that loving nature is different from knowing it.
 * Cassie in Animorphs. Her affinity for critters also makes her the best morpher in the group.
 * Justified for Francis Sandow in two novels by Roger Zelazny, but only for animals he's designed, on the planets he's created. When a lizard is momentarily frightened of him in one book, it shows he's entering enemy territory.
 * Onyesonwu in Who Fears Death.
 * In Gene Stratton Porter's Freckles, Freckles. It mitigiates the effect of solitude on him.


 * In John C. Wright's Count to a Trillion, Prince Ranier. Menelaus realizes that he should have realized when he saw a mural of an attack from their starship: the prince would never had countenanced it for any reason.

Live Action TV
"Cameron: Goodbye bird. There's a 51% chance I wouldn't have killed you."
 * Radar from M*A*S*H. The 4077's company clerk had lots of guinea pigs, mice, rabbits, and the like as pets (including at least one goat), and took excellent care of them, despite being close to the front lines in a war. His deeds involving animals have included taming a runaway horse (which became Col. Potter's pet, Sophie) and saving a lamb from slaughter by getting it a military discharge.
 * This was subverted in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which Willow lures a fawn to her in the forest... and she then slaughters it to collect its blood for the rite which will raise Buffy from the dead.
 * Despite being very aware that she wasn't actually killing the fawn, actress Allison Hannigan was traumatized over even having to act it out.
 * An episode of Jim Henson's The Storyteller called "Sapsorrow" showed the titular princess having this power. The episode was based on the German folk tale "Allerleirauh" and featured Princess Sapsorrow having her coat made by all her animal friends.
 * The Goodies. After Tim Brooke-Taylor becomes Bigfoot (his right foot has swollen from walking around the sides of mountains, looking for legendary creatures) he retreats to the wild (so people will stop laughing themselves to death over the sight of his enormous foot) and becomes friends to all the animals, who join him in a rendition of the "Bigfoot" theme song.
 * Subverted in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

"Howard: What about the polar bear? Vince: Oh, we got on. Howard: You don't "get on" with a polar bear! Vince: We did, we just clicked!"
 * The Janitor from Scrubs becomes one of these when he starts wearing a baby blue uniform. While he switches back to gray to regain his "fearitude", he's later shown wearing it off duty, and surrounded by birds again.
 * Vince Noir from The Mighty Boosh is one of these. He can talk to animals and is referred to as Mowgli in Flares—although he often "squanders" his gift by talking to the animals at the zoo about Gary Numan and and dressing the lion up as Adam Ant. Sometimes his boundless charisma does prove useful, however.


 * Carrusel has a male example. Mario Ayala has a German Shepherd and a rabbit. He had also found a stray dog that he was fond of- but returned him to the righteous owner, who then gave him the German Shepherd.
 * Sookie from True Blood. Right in the first episode she is licked by a stray dog and her grandma's cat is shown purring in her arms while she's having a dream.

Music
"''Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near? Just like me, they long to be close to you."
 * Within Temptation's "In Perfect Harmony" is a textbook example, apart from the subject being male.
 * Close to You by Carpenters.

"She plays "Wipeout" on the drums, The squirrels and the birds come Gather 'round to sing the guitar"
 * Inverted in target but not in effect by The Clams' "Close to Me".
 * Played with in Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs. "Do I really want to be near somebody who causes birds to appear suddenly? Didn't Alfred Hitchcock do a horror movie about this?"
 * Also parodied in this Xkcd comic: "Wait, are those turkey vultures?"
 * Ben Folds Five's "Kate" plays on this trope, to an admittedly exaggerated effect:


 * And later, "And you can see the daisies in her footsteps," and "She never gets wet; she smiles and it's a rainbow."

Myths & Religion

 * Saint Francis of Assisi, according to legend. (Next to Buddha, he might be the most commonly featured figure in garden statues.)
 * And Saint Martin of Porres. He's often represented with a dog, a cat, a bird and a mouse... that eat peacefully from the same dish placed at the saint's statue's feet.
 * And St. Anthony and the fishes, St. Aegidius with the doe, St. Raymond Nonnatus with cats, St. Kevin of Glendalough with the blackbird nesting in his hand, St. Jerome and the lion, St. Gall with the bear, St. Agnes and the lamb—this is a very common trait in hagiology.
 * Contrary to common belief, Francis of Assisi is not the only patron saint of animals. There are also Anthony of Padua (represented alongside birds), Anthony the Abbott, Nicholas of Tolentino and Blaise. More info here.
 * Noah
 * The most well-known tenet of Jainism is veneration of all life, no matter how small.

Tabletop Games

 * The Ranger and (especially) Druid classes in Dungeons & Dragons have a version of this ability, animal empathy, but they definitely don't have to be innocent or naive.
 * The Binder class from Tome of Magic in the 3.5 rules has a vestige that grants an even better ability more in keeping with this trope. Animals start with a default attitude of friendly toward the Binder when this vestige is bound. Animal Empathy, by contrast, requires a check.
 * A subversion can be found in the AD&D 2e monster-books, which describe how ordinary rats or mice will emerge from hiding because they're drawn to a wererat's presence, timidly following the lycanthrope around. D&D wererats, as it happens, are Always Lawful Evil and are Friends To Nobody. The same applies to many other shapeshifters (both were-beasts and beast-weres).
 * "Heroes of the Sea" article in Dragon magazine (for AD&D 2e) introduced the liminals, a race of Half-Human Hybrids descended from water elementals with the power to befriend marine animals, especially dolphins.
 * The Book of Exalted Deeds supplement for v3.5 has the prestige class "Apostle of Peace", which is this trope incarnate. It gets a lot of neat abilities, but it can't kill any living thing. The entry mentions how most apostles drink their water through a strainer to avoid swallowing any bugs.
 * Bride of Portable Hole parody sourcebook responded with "12 Year Old Gamer Girl" template ("ability to cast animal friendship as a spell-like ability at will", etc).
 * Exalted: Raksha with very high Cup Grace is this trope. And it's not even a mental compulsion. But of course, like everything Raksha, it's all fake.
 * GURPS. The Animal Empathy advantage gives this quality.
 * The superheroine Lynx in the GURPS Supers supplement Supertemps. She Speaks Fluent Animal too.

Video Games

 * Dizzy in the Guilty Gear series.
 * A character in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series, Acro, is constantly loved and flapped around by birds. These birds even attack Phoenix when
 * Well, more like absently peck at his forehead while Phoenix barely notices.
 * The birds actually desert Acro when he's at his most intense, but come back afterward.
 * In the third game, Dahlia Hawthorne is similarly accompanied by a trio of butterflies most of the time.
 * Marin, from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and the ocarina boy from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Link himself shows some tendencies in this direction at times, too.
 * In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Aryll always managed to attract seagulls, which eventually helps the player later on.
 * Ilya in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, although the primary critter she's Friend to is Link's horse.
 * Amaterasu, the main character in Okami, takes this to the logical extreme. Not only do animals adore her, but she also makes flowers bloom wherever she steps. She's a Physical God though, so it only makes sense. Nor is it one-sided—she will stop any time, anywhere, to feed the animals she encounters on her travels, whether rabbits or tigers.
 * And when you make flowers bloom near animals, they get hearts over their head and run over to Amaterasu to nuzzle up to her.
 * Shows up occasionally in Final Fantasy:
 * Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII.
 * Guy, from Final Fantasy II, is a lumbering giant of a man... who speaks squirrel, is pure of heart, and has stats that make him an ideal White Mage.
 * Lenna from Final Fantasy V, to the point that she steps on poisonous plants to rescue the wind drake. She became this after.
 * To a lesser extent, Krile—she's able to speak with every sentient being, but she doesn't go to the extremes that Lenna does.
 * In Final Fantasy VI, this seems to be the case with Relm, who becomes instant friends with Shadow's Right-Hand Attack Dog, Interceptor. It may be subverted, however, if Interceptor is simply picking up on the fact that Then again, she managed to make Ultros go "D'AWWWW" and let her paint his portrait while he was in the middle of attacking your party.
 * In Fable if you get your good rating high enough, butterflies start flying around you. If you get your evil rating high enough, flies do the same.
 * Sakura Wars V's Diana has a specific bond to birds... they flock to her and she can't stand to see them harmed. She actually faints when served Fried Chicken at a Harlem Church. Coqulicot from the third game lives in a circus and is a variation on this trope as well.
 * Celia from Harvest Moon. That includes plants.
 * Erana from the Quest for Glory series is a powerful mage whose goodly influence you will come into contact with throughout all of the games. Several gardens have sprung up wherever her magic is at work, causing animals to gather and exerting an influence of calm and purity over everything.
 * The Wildhammer Dwarves in the Warcraft universe.
 * Subverted with druidic races like Night Elves, Tauren, and Furbolgs. They're at one with nature, but in a Circle of Life way - they take pride in hunting, as it's their role in the food chain.
 * Taken to the point of parody by Mylune, the dryad in Mount Hyjal.
 * Fia from Riviera: The Promised Land is a prime example of this. She refuses to eat meat, which becomes very annoying during boss battles since you can only equip four items.
 * Satori of Touhou. Thanks to her ability to read minds, all animals love her since she can understand them. Of course, that same ability makes her feared by humans and youkai who don't like having their mind read like an open book.
 * Also Reimu, up to and including feeding wild animals by hand, summoning birds via wistle and fish forming bridges under her feet.
 * B.B. Hood of Darkstalkers is a funny case—plants sprout around her, and butterflies and moles like her far more than is normal, but she does not get along with wolves. (It should be noted that she has a lot of "cute" traits and a less-than-cute personality.)
 * Played even more bizarrely with Huitzil/Phobos, the local killer robot who shows to be quite fond of birds, squirrels and kids.
 * Mono, from Shadow of the Colossus. She's got the birds and fawn and everything. Even the squirrel looking up at her.
 * The "Animal Friend" perk in Fallout makes you this (somewhat). The first rank of it makes it so animal enemies won't attack you. The second makes animals attack enemies (except other animals, which they already do anyway making the 2nd rank practically useless).
 * N from Pokémon Black and White, a male example and
 * Morgan LeFlay in Tales of Monkey Island. Not only does she like monkeys, but she also loves cute parrots, especially one that is made of pyrite, which she says she'll keep as a souvenir once she's done with Guybrush.
 * It is revealed in Chapter 3 that Santino even loves bugs, as discussed by Moose.

Web Comics

 * Grace of El Goonish Shive has definite elements of this. It helps that she can communicate with squirrels.
 * Also Susan, in some fillers and wallpaper. There is no evidence of this in canon, however, besides Jeremy.
 * Deliciously subverted in Killroy and Tina, along with Dumb Is Good, here.
 * Lumina in Sodium Eyes.
 * Marsha of CRFH. She sees it as a curse, calling it "Snow White Syndrome"....until she realizes the ballistic value.
 * Saint Francis in Hark! A Vagrant because he's like insane holy.
 * Subverted in Dumnestor's Heroes by Dark Lordess Tyfnee. She first appears in silhouette with what looks like a bird, a butterfly and a fawn cuddling up to her while she sings about how her broken heart will be made whole when she finds the man she's looking for. The last panel reveals that the animals are actually a bat, a moth and a hyena, and the last line of Tyfnee's song is her need for vengeance.
 * Though the bat, moth, and hyena are still insanely cute.
 * Tavros from Homestuck can commune with the many creatures of Alternia, though given the nature of Alternia the results can be Nightmare Fuel. Somehow remains adorable, though.
 * In No Rest for The Wicked, Prince Ricardo is also known as "Dick the Picky" for his disdain for princesses. The Boy sings a song about his seeing a princess who is this, and how the prince would think she must have fleas.
 * Kanryl of Ears for Elves isn't ever seen without animals of some kind, and ensures that others do not disturb any creatures.
 * In Sinfest, Squigley, under the influence of mushrooms.

Web Original

 * Whateley Universe example: Aquerna, who is kind and innocent, and has a special bond with squirrels and chipmunks. They'll do whatever she tells them to, and they'll follow her around.
 * Rorschach from Saturday Morning Watchmen is "friend to the animals/When he's not clowning around!"

Western Animation
" You are going to LOVE ME!!! "
 * Fluttershy from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic certainly gets along with the animals; actually, it's her job to care for the animals surrounding the town.
 * Note that instead of being limited to "cute" animals like squirrels and birds, Fluttershy is also indicated to be a friend to perceived "ugly" animals like snakes and bats. She even refers to a parasprite as the cutest thing ever. The "all living things" part comes a lot closer to applying literally in Fluttershy's case than it does for the more conventional of examples.
 * The trope is Deconstructed in a way, however. In the episode "The Best Night Ever", while trying to make new friends with some animals, they actively shunned her like most animals do to regular people. Fluttershy took this very badly.

"Homer: Guys, please, will you give me five minutes?"
 * Also, the "All Living Things" part also includes mythical creatures. She's calmed down a Manticore and shamed a full grown dragon into submission then soothed it motherly and calmly asked it to leave (Adult dragons in this world are Kaiju-sized monsters and one of the most feared creatures in the world). Even mythical monsters listen to her! If she wasn't such a nice person, she'd probably be the most Badass member of the cast. As this piece of fanart demonstrates.
 * Posey from the original My Little Pony series. Fluttershy is essentially a Shrinking Violet version of her with wings.
 * Penelope Pitstop often uses animals to escape her perils.
 * Another male version: Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * Admittedly, Aang is basically a spiritual being in a mortal body, so why not animals?
 * Word of God is that the Avatar spirit is why he attracts animals.
 * Prowl of Transformers Animated isn't only a male-version, he's a giant alien robot. The savage Dinobots listen when Prowl speaks (... well, sometimes). He even has a room with a hole in it that has a tree growing through.
 * His room also apparently came with a poster of a puppy, captioned "Keep Your Chin Up!". Even though he made the rest of his space into a neatly-kept traditional dojo, he doesn't seem to mind leaving the poster on the wall
 * When he and the other Autobots are trapped in Soundwave's virtual reality world as humans in the episode "Human Error Part 1", guess what? When the group stops at the burger place to eat, everyone else eats burgers. He eats a salad.
 * Beachcomber, from the original cartoon. He seems to have a special connection with birds, and even learned their language!
 * Jana of the Jungle often communicates with the animals of the rain forest, and they obey her commands, especially when innocent people need to be rescued.
 * The Histeria! episode "When America Was Young" has a scene where Charity Bazaar show herself to be an example of this.
 * Ma-Ti from Captain Planet. Not necessarily an extension of his Heart Power; in his introduction sequence, he calmly faces a jaguar about to eat his future pet monkey Suchi and manages to save the latter without throwing an attack against the former.
 * The girls of the Five-Man Band are a bit like this as well. In her first appearance the Tsundere Linka is seen playing music for a bunch of birdies, who then bring her the Wind Ring; during hers, Team Mom Gi is wind-surfing and playing with a dolphin as she gets the Water Ring.
 * In Moral Orel, who better than God to have this power? In the opening sequence, a bluebird lands on God's finger and it has to be flicked away.
 * The titular Orel himself has this, particularly in "Nature". Well... the first part.
 * Roxy of Winx Club is the fairy of animals, so every animal from a bird to a white tiger loves her. (Yes, she picks up a white tiger cub and pets it like it's a good little kitty.)
 * Flora is the fairy of nature, mainly meaning plants, but she goes into animal lover mode sometimes, too.
 * Codename: Kids Next Door:
 * Kuki/Numbuh Three is very affectionate towards animals, and they adore her in return. It goes to the point even the villains' mascots love her (as seen with the Crazy Cat Lady's cats).
 * Nigel/Numbuh One is one of these too, even if he's reluctant to admit it. In Operation FERAL, he befriended a horde of Rainbow Monkeys; and in Operation CAKED-THREE, a horde of chickens took an extreme liking to him.
 * To a certain extent, Emily from the children series version of The Future Is Wild. Then again, it's more like she's the friend of species she wants to be friends with, though almost invariably any animal species she wants to contact with becomes friendly with her.
 * Gnomes from The World of David the Gnome, and the Dutch books on which the series is based, embody this trope regardless of gender.
 * Parodied in an episode of The Simpsons: Homer briefly has a spiritual awakening after seeing God in a dream had while skipping church. As he talks to Lisa about this, several animals light on his hands and shoulders. Smash Cut to Homer in the shower, the animals still there.


 * Zeta from The Zeta Project is a rare male robot example. Animals can sense the hostile intent of several humans in the series, but since Zeta is an Actual Pacifist and gentle person, they gravitate to him.
 * Suzie Chan, oldest Chan sister and the Naive Everygirl from The Amazing Chan and The Chan Clan. Her younger sister Nancy has shades of this, too.
 * Eunice from the Ben 10: Alien Force episode "The Transmogrification of Eunice".
 * The titular character of Jimmy Two-Shoes.
 * Mr Scatterbrain in The Mr. Men Show is always seen with an animal friend which he pulls out of nowhere.

Real Life

 * Steve Irwin loved all animals, and while he may have wrestled an awful lot of crocodiles, it was always to help them (by relocating them to safe places.) He loved crocodiles so much that he felt incredibly guilty after once accidentally knocking a croc's tooth out. There wasn't an animal on Earth he was afraid to hang around (except maybe hippos), and he was extremely devoted to his dog Sui, to the very end. Irwin did say there was one type of animal that never got along with him—surprisingly, that was birds.
 * He used to say that if he was ever killed by an animal, not to blame the animals because they were just protecting themselves from this scary ape-thing that was intruding on their territory. People kind of forgot about that once the stingray got him.
 * Two Three words: Sir David Attenborough.
 * According to Ripley's Believe it or Not, Elie Gourbeyre of Nouara, France could lure any bird to her shoulder by merely crooking her finger. This lasted only from the time she was six until she was twelve years old.
 * Values Dissonance: This type of character is almost Always Female...in North America and Northern Europe! In Latin America and Southern Europe...well, back then, it was a tomboy (Artemis / Diana the Greco-Roman goddess of wildlife). Nowadays it is a guy (Francesco D'Assissi). While in the USA it is often considered typical that All Girls Like Ponies- in many parts of the world this automatically deems you a tomboy.
 * People with autism, for all their trouble connecting with other people, are often said to have a special connection with animals.
 * A fairly famous example of this is Dr. Temple Grandin, who said that she was able to invent a new kind of cattle chute because she could look at it from the perspective of a cow instead of a human.
 * Well, we have Kevin Richardson as in this video.