Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Difference between revisions

[[File:lawndogs-gun.jpg|link=Lawn Dogs|frame|[[Little Miss Badass|Shooting a man and threatening others with a gun is just the beginning...]] ]]

 

 

[[Children Are Innocent|Kids should be kids]], at least that's how the saying goes. That means worrying about little kid things and doing little kid things, such as playing on the trampoline, watching TV, going fishing, or whatever it is that kids do locally. What we don't expect kids to do is to drink alcohol, smoke, have sex, use drugs, hitchhike, commit violent crimes, or do other things we associate only with teenagers or adults. Yes, many adults are upset when a teenager drinks beer, but it's disturbing when a 10-year-old does it.

** Probably [[Ax Crazy|Revy]]. From what can be gathered from the tiny flashbacks, she was raised on the streets of [[Brooklyn Rage|a less-good place in]] [[New York City]] and probably learned her gun skills from gangsters, and killed someone using a pillow as a silencer when she was still pretty young.

* Seta Soujirou of ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', given his [[Abusive Parents|horrible childhood]] and subsequent "adoption" by a [[Social Darwinist]] to act as his [[The Dragon|Dragon]], slaughters people with a [[Dissonant Serenity|cheerful smile]].

* In ''[[Saiyuki]]'', there is a scene of a pre-teen Gojyo smoking in his room while his [[Parental Incest|older brother calms his stepmother down.]]

* Meet [[Umineko no Naku Koro ni|Maria Ushiromiya]], 9-year-old walking encyclopedia of all things relating to Western occult lore and "black magic." Also has a rather [[Annoying Laugh|irritating]] [[Evil Laugh]] and a habit of using it at [[Creepy Child|incredibly inappropriate times]], like after seeing {{spoiler|her mother and 5 of her relatives'}} horribly mutilated corpses.

* Vincent in ''[[Pandora Hearts]]''. Taking scissors to stuffed toys? Indicative of problems, but not completely unheard of. Taking scissors to {{spoiler|the eyes of Alice's cat? And what about ALICE HERSELF?}} That's not a good sign. It also borders on [[Psychopathic Manchild]] behavior since he still does it as a young adult.

** In confusing flashbacks and illustrations, Alice {{spoiler|or more accurately, the Will of the Abyss... [[Mind Screw|sometimes...]]}} also does this, displaying [http://dragonempress.net/curious/images/pandora-09-05-03.jpg somewhat unsettlingly flirty behavior]{{Dead link}} with Jack and being cheerfully vicious with Vincent. Eventually leading to yet more of this trope from {{spoiler|''Gilbert''}}, who tries to strangle her.

* This is a staple of [[Shōnen manga]] and sometimes [[Shoujo Demographic]] manga along with [[Harmful to Minors]]. It's usually treated lighthearted and without any real damage though, unless it's a plot device or a [[Deconstruction]].

* The first time we see Akane Awakusu in ''[[Durarara!!]]'', she's gleefully chasing down Shizuo with a heavily modified stun gun and shouting "Die!" It turns out that this isn't exactly normal for her, as she was a [[Cheerful Child]] before she [[The Runaway|ran away from home]] and only did it because {{spoiler|Izaya told her that Shizuo was an assassin who would kill her family.}}

** Broly is an extreme case, but Saiya-jin children in general are pretty disturbing by human standards. Originally, Kakarot was sent to Earth to ''wipe out all life forms''. They may look cute and innocent, but [[Not So Harmless|looking is as far as it gets]].

* Played for laughs with ''[[Crayon Shin-chan|Shin Chan]]'', a preschool age boy with the libido of a middle-aged man, who constantly hits on hot women. His baby sister Hima is also occasionally shown to find grown men attractive.

 

=== Comic Books ===

* In one episode of ''[[Bones]]'', the murderer turns out to be an 11-year-old girl, who shoots her tutor with a shotgun when he refuses to help her cheat on a school project.

* ''[[CSI]]'' had one in the form of a 12 year old girl who was taking senior level high school courses. At her older brother's trial for murder of a classmate, she testifies that she's the real murderer and produces evidence to support her case. She pulls off the plan so well that she convinces the court that there is too much doubt to her brother's involvement (mainly, that he was a D student in chemistry and the murderer needed to know how to handle pure Sodium) and that there was too much doubt to convict her (she was too small to move the victim's body). As if that wasn't the worst of it, she says to Sarah that had she been convicted, she could get her degree by 18 and/or write a book about the crime, since Nevada has no "Son of Sam" law. Finally, it was revealed that {{spoiler|she had no involvement in the murder and Sarah just got played.}}

* ''[[Leverage]]'': Poor Parker. Mostly, it's played for laughs, but the ages at which she started committing various crimes is alarming. Car stealing at twelve, and getaway driving ''before'' that. Cut to a flashback of what looks like a nine year old Parker skidding around an old lady with a terrified robber in the passenger seat.

* In one episode of ''[[Grey's Anatomy|Greys Anatomy]]'', a man is brought into the hospital after supposedly being accidentally shot by his six-year-old daughter, using a gun that had been carelessly left outside. However, scans show that this man has been shot 17 times. When the daughter is questioned about the event, she asks why her father wouldn't just die, since she had shot him so many times. As it turns out, the girl and her mother had been putting up with severe abuse at the hand of the alcoholic father. The girl, seeing her father begin another attack on his wife, grabbed the gun (which had been left in an easily accessible place) and shot her father.

* The Gallagher Children in ''[[Shameless]]'' are all examples of this (or were, at some point in the show's backstory), but they run the spectrum from [[Promoted to Parent]] "reponsible" types like Fiona and Debbie to absurdly worldly but irresponsible or immature [[Street Urchin]]-types like Lip and Carl (who is arguably way more naive than the others). Ian's somewhere in the middle, being self-disciplined and responsible but not taking an active role in raising his younger siblings.

* A major theme in ''[[The Wire]]'' is that the children at the low-rises of Baltimore are already involved in the drug game by the age of ten, even earlier. On the violence aspect, Snoop and Kenard come to mind.

 

=== [[Music]] ===

* ''[[Borderlands 2]]'' introduces Tiny Tina, a 13-year-old girl who has a psychotic personality, and even displays interest in two adult women, Maya and Mad Moxxi. Her hobbies include having tea parties, role-playing, and [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|exploding Bandits while singing]]:

{{quote|"All around the Sta-actus plant, the stalker chased the bandit, the stalker thought 'twas all in fun - POP! (Bandit explodes) Goes the bandit!"}}

 

=== [[Web Comics]] ===

* The Delightful Children From Down The Lane from ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]''.

* When we see [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Azula]] in a flashback to when she was about 8 years old she engages in typical activities such as teasing her brother and her friend who has a crush on him, doing cartwheels, throwing rocks at animals, throwing fireballs at people, hopefully suggesting that her uncle and cousin might die in battle so her father can inherit the throne, setting dolls on fire, mocking her uncle for leaving a battle after her cousin died, {{spoiler|cheerfully telling her brother and mother that her father has been ordered to murder her brother...}}

* Played for laughs in ''[[South Park]],'' where pretty much all the kids ([[Token Wholesome|except Butters]]) curse and do other adult behavior all the time. Taken to extremes with [[Token Evil Teammate|Cartman]], however, who has gone so far as [[Moral Event Horizon|attempting to start new Holocausts]].

* On ''[[Daria]],'' [[Dumb Blonde|Brittany]]'s little brother Brian not only acts out of control, he is [[All There in the Manual|apparently]] the reason why the family [[Fridge Horror|doesn't even bother naming their pets anymore]].

[[Category:Depressing Tropes]]

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