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Animal Assassin: Difference between revisions
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This is when somebody uses some sort of dangerous animal as discreet murder weapon. There's the old trick of leaving a snake in their hotel room, for instance, or the one where you drop a spider near their bed, or perhaps the one where you hide a [[Scary Scorpions|scorpion]] in their suitcase. Whatever the animal, it's being used as a subtle but deadly surprise for the intended victim. The reasons for doing this vary: maybe the villain [[Make It Look Like an Accident|hopes that the murder will be deemed an accident]] (since sometimes, the animal could have gotten there by itself), although other times, it seems that the villain just likes [[Complexity Addiction|doing things the difficult way for no good reason]]. Sometimes it's supposed to be some sort of trademark such as a villain with a [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|snake theme]]. Sometimes it can be an ordinary house pet trained to cause an "accident" like leaving on the gas (read: turning it on after the victim is asleep).
Often, the murder animal will even be [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know its role in the story. Rather than waste time hiding or just wandering around aimlessly, as a real animal might do, it gets straight to the point and attacks the hero by the quickest route, despite having no apparent reason to do so. No matter how big the bedroom is, the spider will almost always end up crawling onto the face of the sleeping hero -- and not, say, scuttling into the wardrobe, which is arguably more likely but rather less helpful for the plot. Don't expect a lot of sympathy for the animal, either. The ones chosen as assassins are generally a species which people consider [[
Not to be confused with a [[Shark Pool]] or other up-front use of animals as a means of execution. This is just about the animals which are delivered to the victim (rather than the victim being delivered to the animal) and which the victim isn't supposed to know about until its too late. Compare [[Attack Animal]] for when someone directly commands an animal to attack, rather than leaving it as a trap.
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* In ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]] Gaiden'', after [[Gundam Wing|Dekim Barton]] is defeated, [[Braiger|Khamen Khamen]] [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|deemed him useless and promptly snuck a king cobra to bite and kill him, without Khamen being on the place]]. It almost bit Isaac, but [[Daitarn 3|Haran Banjou]] shot it dead in the nick of time.
* In the ''[[Total War]]'' games, animals are sometimes used by Assassins in cutscenes, i.e. an assassin slipping a snake into someone's bed in ''Medieval II''.
* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'', you can fling scorpions at unwitting soldiers, watch them dance around in a panic, and then die from the poison. [[You Bastard|Shame on you for laughing.]]
* ''[[Nancy Drew]]''
** In the game ''Secrets of Shadow Ranch'', Nancy's hosts at the ranch aren't there when she arrives, as a rattlesnake somehow got into their bedroom and sent one of them to the hospital. Possibly a subversion, as it's never confirmed that the culprit actually put it there.
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