Papa Wolf/Playing With

Basic Trope: A man fiercely defends his loved ones.
 * Straight: A man's children are threatened and he leaps to their defense.
 * Exaggerated: A man inflicts Disproportionate Retribution on anyone who even annoys his children -- even justifiably. See Knight Templar Parent.
 * Justified: They're his children, and his protectiveness is an expression of his love for them.
 * The protective dad is a wolf.
 * Inverted: A man will protect any and every one but his children, whom he will abuse for getting into trouble.
 * Or the adult children fiercely defend their aging father against all threats.
 * Or the father is fierce and defensive until you threaten his kids. Then he becomes a docile, Bumbling Dad.
 * Offing the Offspring
 * Gender Inverted: Mama Bear
 * Subverted: A man's defense of his children keeps them too sheltered to survive when he dies, so they end up worse off than before.
 * The father tries to be a Papa Wolf, but proves woefully inadequate against the threat against his children...
 * Double Subverted: He arranged for a Parental Substitute, since no matter how hard they tried, they would never have been able to face their dangers.
 * ...but his attempt buys them enough time to escape anyways.
 * Parodied: Unending conflicts between fathers over real and imagined slights to their children.
 * Deconstructed: Fathers obsess over their children to the neglect of what else is their duty, and shelter them into helplessness.
 * Reconstructed: A father learns his Aesop and teaches his children to defend themselves, and brings them along to help others.
 * Zig Zagged: The little girl who the old man goes out of his way to protect at all costs is under a magical effect that has reduced her to the appearance of a child. She's his mother.
 * The father and the daughter are a Battle Couple protecting each other fiercely.
 * Averted: Disappeared Dad
 * The father is too cowardly to try to protect his kids.
 * Enforced: "If he doesn't protect his kids, it means he doesn't care about them, and it makes him look like a Jerkass.
 * Lampshaded: "Just because he's a shop clerk doesn't mean we can risk his seeing us harm his kids!"
 * Invoked: "I knew if they did that, they would bring down the father's wrath on them."
 * Defied: "I know my kids can take care of themselves -- I won't steal their thunder."
 * Discussed: "He would do anything to protect his kids."
 * Conversed: "You have to write in a son for him. It gives him a motive. Men in stories like that will punch out God to save their son."

Back to Papa Wolf, and get your hands off my son!