Bears are Bad News/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Whenever a bear shows up, things turn very messy.

  • Straight: While roaming on a forest, Bob is attacked by a bear that leaves him seriously injured.
  • Exaggerated:
  • Justified: Bob was wielding a hunting rifle and getting close to the bear's cubs, so it attacked him out of preservation instinct.
  • Inverted:
    • Bears tremble when they hear Bob's name, because he pummels them with his bare bear hands to show how unstoppable he is.
    • Alternatively, the bear drastically improves Bob's situation.
    • Bears are shown to believe that Everything's Worse With Humans.
  • Subverted:
  • Double Subverted:
    • Confronted with a puma, Bob is cornered and in serious danger until a bear shows up and scares the feline. Then he thinks "Saved by a bear. Who would have thought it? I guess they aren't so b- AAAAAAAaaaaaaa...!!".
    • But when bear finished with the villain, it immediately follows Bob.
  • Parodied:
  • Deconstructed:
    • We see the horrible psychological consequences of the attack, as they have turned Bob into a shadow of what he used to be. The incident also ignites a sentiment of hatred that eventually leads to the systematic extermination of every single bear in the forest.
    • Bob becomes a hermit, roaming the wilderness for the white whale bear that attacked him.
  • Reconstructed: Despite his bitter experience with the bear, Bob feels lucky to be alive and turns his story into An Aesop about why mankind should respect nature's power.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • Turns out it was a bi-polar bear, you just never know how they are gonna react.
    • The bears act as Laser-Guided Karma and only show up to maul anyone whose recent actions mean they deserve it.
  • Averted: Bears are just another animal, not treated as more or less dangerous than any other large predator.
  • Enforced: "We needed a way to justify Bob's absence on this season, so we thought a bear attack would be more dramatic than just making him falling from the stairs"
  • Lampshaded: "First there were the mosquitoes, then the beavers and now a friggin' bear?! WHY?! Why does nature hates me so much?!"
  • Invoked: A villain installs mind control devices on several bears with the hope of getting Bob while he's roaming in the forest.
  • Defied: Before venturing into the forest, Bob coats himself with a substance used to repel bears and other wild creatures.
  • Discussed: "This is horrible! Bob is being attacked a furious bear... And I don't have a camera to record it!"
  • Conversed: "The situation has just turned even more unBEARable than usual, don't you think?" "Enough with the bear puns!"
  • Exploited: Bob is chasing/being chased by his archnemesis, Alice the Nefarious. One or the other of them steers the chase into the deep forest, hoping that a sudden bear attack might dispose of the other for them.

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