Instant Dogend



"He smoked incessantly but the weird thing, Carrot noticed, was that any cigarette smoked by Nobby became a dog-end almost instantly but remained a dog-end indefinitely or until lodged behind his ear, which was a sort of nicotine elephant's graveyard."

- Guards Guards

Many fictional characters who smoke cigarettes often demonstrate a peculiar ability: any cigarette they light -- even if it was just taken from a completely fresh pack -- is instantly crumpled and bent out of shape.

Characters who are wealthy or otherwise "fancy" seem to be immune to this, particularly Femme Fatale characters. Presumably they're buying a more expensive brand, but even the cheap ones are evidently more expensive than the cigarettes you can buy in Real Life, which are extremely difficult to crumple up without breaking them and rendering them unsmokable.

Anime and Manga

 * Sanji in One Piece as pictured above.
 * Nicholas D. Wolfwood in Trigun. Justified in that the setting is a desert world where tobacco almost certainly can't grow, so any and all cigarettes to be found are "old technology".
 * Mamimi in FLCL
 * Oscar in Count Cain: God Child. It becomes an important plot point towards the end of the manga.
 * Jigen in the Lupin III films. A Lampshade is applied in The Castleof Cagliostro, which shows him lighting a butt taken from the ashtray of Lupin's car.
 * Most of the main characters from Cowboy Bebop.
 * Most of the main characters from Black Lagoon.
 * Jean Havoc in Fullmetal Alchemist
 * Stein in Soul Eater
 * Bard in Black Butler

Eastern Animation

 * Wolf from Nu Pogodi!

Films

 * Heather Mooney, in Romy And Michelles High School Reunion. "Twice the taste in half the time for the gal on the go"; she reportedly invented fast-burning paper, which means that cigarettes become dog ends very quickly.

Literature

 * Corporal Cecil Wormsborough St. John "Nobby" Nobbs from the Discworld novels is frequently noted for displaying this ability. It's said that cigarettes quickly become butts in his presence, and stay as such for an apparently infinite amount of time.

Newspaper Comics

 * Andy Capp.

Video Games

 * Played with in Wild Arms 4, in which one of the supporting cast, Gawn, appears to have a perpetual dogend, but when asked about it, explains that it's not a cigarette but rather a freeze-dried noodle.
 * Probably a Bowdlerization, there is a frame at 0:44 in the second version of the animated intro sequence where he is very obviously smoking.
 * Gabriel Cunningham of Trauma Team, in addition to being a very thinly veiled House Expy, has this ability.