Eat the Dog: Difference between revisions

'''Reverend''': Eat the dogs?!

'''Benjamin''': Aye, dog is a fine meal.

 

Sometimes the [[Ridiculously Cute Critter]] in the series isn't the [[Team Pet]]. Sometimes the characters are just keeping this poor animal around as emergency rations. Humor is often obtained when the creature is aware of their fate. There may even be a minor subplot about it trying to escape.

** Earlier, in ''[[The Dark Tower/The Waste Lands|The Dark Tower]]'' Roland mentions that a billy-bumbler's meat is no good, and he'd rather eat a dog (which [[It Tastes Like Feet|he did]]).

* This is the driving point for the entire plot in ''[[Charlotte's Web]].'' At least, after Wilbur's told by the goose that's what's going to happen to him eventually.

** Also the subject of a weirdly upbeat running joke that various characters use to hint that they never had enough to eat as children. Even Vimes gets into it at one point. "The small animal looked up at him. He remembered how he'd always wanted a dog as a child. Mind you, they'd been very hungry. Anything with meat would have done." And in another book: "Pets can be a great comfort in times of stress. And in times of starvation, too."

{{quote|"There's nothing ''wrong'' with it," [Teach] said hurriedly, with the sincerity of a man who had ordered bamboo shoots and bean curd for himself.}}

* Disturbingly inverted in one of the chapter-opening "quotes" in Orson Scott Card's ''[[Children Of The Mind]]''. A man always keeps his dog around even though it cannot be taught anything useful or funny. His friends tell him, "That's not a dog, it's a wolf." Then there's a plane accident and the man is terribly injured. The dog strolls up and begins chewing on him, and his last thoughts are "Thank goodness at least one of us will not starve." "[[Nightmare Fuel|This is the most beautiful story I know.]]"

* In David Gerrold's ''[[War Against the Chtorr]]'' novels, it appears that, at best, this might be the role assigned to humans in the invading Chtorran ecosystem. It's already the role assigned to the cute Chtorran bunnydogs.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Narrative Devices]]

[[Category:Food Tropes]]

[[Category:Animal Tropes]]