Pet Monstrosity



"You already have a pet. He's an Arco-flagellant combat Cyborg. He's seven feet tall, and eats 30 pounds of raw flesh a day. You named him "Skippy"."

- Eastwood, Exterminatus Now

A character keeps as a pet what would normally be considered (and the same species may be in every other instance) a bloodthirsty monster. Such a creature may be given a deceptive name. A person with such a pet may be a Fluffy Tamer. May be a Team Pet.

See also Mons. Compare Monster Roommate and Monster Allies.

Anime & Manga

 * In the Tokko manga, Kureha keeps a small pet phantom in her jacket pocket.
 * In Utawarerumono the child of the villiage adopts and raises the orphaned child of the tiger god that had been menacing the village. And rides it into battle.

Comedy

 * There's a Marty Feldman sketch in which he visits the vet with a large creature in a basket. Of course it ends up eating everyone and their pets in the waiting room.

Comic Books

 * Recent issues of Transformers Ongoing have featured Sunstreaker's pet, Bob.

Literature

 * In the Harry Potter series, Hagrid kept a pet Acromatula as a student, and hasn't really broken out of the habit by the time of the books (and likely, never will). He seems to have an innate natural rapport with such creatures, and always seems surprised that other people have trouble dealing with them.
 * Percy Jackson and The Olympians Quintus  has a hellhound, a hummer sized shaggy killing machine that appear to mortals as poodles (miniature or full sized is unsaid), named Mrs. O'Leary. She is actually quite nice. Quintus later gives her to Percy.
 * Robin Goodfellow in the Cal Leandros series is followed home from the Metropolitan Museum by an undead, mummified cat. He decides to keep her, and names her Salome. While this may not seem the most horrifying of pets, she does manage to kill his neighbor's Great Dane and leave it on Robin's pillow as a gift.
 * In A Song of Ice and Fire the Stark children each get a dire wolf pup, which quickly become capable of tearing out throats, although they're very loyal to their master and generally don't attack people unless they're a threat. Then there's

Live-Action TV

 * The Addams Family had a pet carnivorous plant named Cleopatra, which was a bit different than your normal Venus Flytrap.
 * The Munsters had Spot, the dragon under the stairs.

Tabletop Games

 * Often happens to druids and, to a lesser extent, rangers in Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 and 3.5. At higher levels, you can keep huge and dangerous beasts such as dire bears, tigers, or sharks as your animal companion.

Video Games

 * Half Life 2 has Lamar, a debeaked headcrab.
 * In Disgaea: Hour of Darkness one demon child has zombies as pets. Etna apparently had pet zombies as a child as well.
 * The child's zombie was one of his own creation, complete with one of the most potent ingredients possible...
 * A few Yao Guai (zombie bears that are third to Deathclaws) are tamed in Fallout 3.
 * Moira's computer records mention her experiments with domesticating mole rats, and according to her they made good pets, as long as they were declawed, defanged, and lobotomized.
 * The Metroid Prime games make occasional reference to Space Pirates with pet Metroids. It tends to end badly.
 * Samus gets a baby metroid for a pet at the end of Metroid 2. This also ends rather badly.
 * Mabinogi has a wide assortment of buyable pets, some of them things like venomous snakes or giant spiders.
 * Torchlight and the Fate series have ordinary pets, but they turn into powerful monsters when fed fish.
 * A crazy man you meet in the sewers in Baldurs Gate II has a carrion crawler, a seven-foot long flesh-eating grub, as a pet. Or friend. Hard to tell.
 * World of Warcraft's Hunter class allows the player to tame a beast mob and keep them as a pet. This can include anything from cats and wolves to the Warcraft equivalents of crocodiles, zombie bears, and tyrannosaurus rexes.
 * And that's just for starters. With the appropriate talents, you can tame even more interesting creatures.
 * The Forsaken domesticate massive spiders.
 * Although maybe not pets in the strictest sense, the Warlock class's demonic minions could count as well.
 * Guild Wars allows Rangers to tame a number of dangerous beasts, ranging from tigers to bears to spiders the size of a large dog.
 * Olaf, one of the vikings from The Lost Vikings suggest keeping as a pet one of the dinosaurs found in Prehistoria, as he thinks they are "kinda cute".
 * Vindictus's Tieve was friends with the giant spider that climbed the bell tower and was killed by the heroes in the prologue. While not technically a pet, it was kept to protect the town, and Tieve could talk to and understand the beast.
 * Ragnarok Online has several tameable monsters. They don't do anything but hop around and talk when their intimacy reaches 'Loyal'. Besides the cute Mascot monsters like Poring, Drops, and Poporing you can also befriend the suicidal undead ghosts of virgins and other undead monsters, demons, orcs, and half-human creatures. Another odd pet is Alice, a humanoid maid with a broom that doesn't seem to mind being nothing more than the player character's eye candy.
 * In Skies of Arcadia, Alfonso calls Antonio 1 and 2 his pets. Since they resemble armored bulls, he probably doesn't pet them.

Web Comics

 * Zombie Godzilla in the webcomic Megatokyo that is shrunk and kept as a pet.
 * Though we don't actually get to see it, in Sluggy Freelance the Demon King's pet appears to be one of these.
 * The Verres family from El Goonish Shive have a have a cat with hedgehog spines as a pet.
 * And it seems Stern Teacher (among other things...) Mr. Raven also has one.
 * In addition to Skippy (page quote), Virus from Exterminatus Now has Blasphemy, a chao which has modded itself with daemon DNA.
 * The Order of the Stick has Xykon keeping an unknown creature deep in the shadows. We have no idea the nature of this beast, as it has been eternally kept in shadow.
 * Not quite: we do know that it is ungodly powerful, and actually rather nice.

Western Animation

 * In Superman the Animated Series, Bizarro gets a horrifying three-mouthed beast as a pet, which bites him constantly. Of course, being an imperfect clone of Superman, it can't hurt him and is in fact amused by its attempts, and he treats the monster like a dog (even calls it "Krypto").
 * Referenced in Legion of Super Heroes with Drax's Phantom Zone pets, which look like two larger versions of the same creature, but with full Kryptonian powers.
 * Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, who is actually supposed to be one of the most dangerous alien experiments created by Dr. Jumba Jookiba.
 * Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. Despite his name, Toothless actually does have teeth. Retractable ones.
 * Puffy Fluffy. Oh sweet lord...PUFFY FLUFFY.
 * Dot's 'pet' is kept in a tiny box that grows three times larger into some horrendous abomination. Rarely the same creature twice.
 * Starfire adopts one of Killer Moth's monster moth larvae as a pet, and names it Silky.