Everything's Worse with Wolves

As if being lost in a spooky forest wasn't bad enough...

So you're out in the wilderness having a jolly time. Then you feel like you're being followed. You ignore it at first and keep going. Then you become aware that you are being hunted. Congratulations, you are being hunted by a wolf.

At first glance, you would think that dealing with a wolf is not so bad as dealing with a bear. However, there's one thing to keep in mind.

Wolves. Hunt. In. Packs.

Contrast with Big Badass Wolf, which normally deals with one wolf. This deals with multiple wolves.

Examples of Everything's Worse with Wolves include:

Anime and Manga

  • In One Piece, there are wolves guarding the fifth floor of Impel Down. They were moved there from Level 2 so they wouldn't kill all the other beasts there!
    • Subverted earlier when the crew was in Upper Yard. The wolves appear menacing at first, but after their leader is impressed by Nami's ferocity, they join the campfire.


Film

  • White Fang - For a Disney film, the scenes where the characters are being hunted by a pack of wolves in the opening 20 minutes or so is almost downright terrifying.
  • Season of the Witch
  • A pack of mystic wolves are the main antagonists in Wolfen.
  • The Grey. This is the plot of the movie. The survivors of a plane crash in Alaska not only have to survive the elements, but survive the pack of wolves that is chasing them down.
  • Wolf Town
  • Wolves take predatory interest on Dan after he jumps from the ski lift and breaks his legs in Frozen.
  • Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog
  • Look Who's Talking Now featured a group of wolves during the final act of the film. Played for Laughs.


Literature

  • Inverted in The Jungle Book.
  • Inverted at first in The Fifth Elephant then played straight after the Big Badass Wolf who's keeping them in line dies and they revert to their natural instincts, which include killing any werewolves they come across, (even Angua). She doesn't begrudge their hostility though, she knows and accepts that they have some pretty good reasons to hate werewolves.
  • JRR Tolkien liked this one. Packs of intelligent wolves (called Wargs) threaten the main characters of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
  • In a story by Saki, two men, the heads of feuding houses, are badly injured and trapped in the woods. No sooner do they decide to put their differences aside do they hear a rustling in the bushes. One man can see their presumed rescuers coming. When the second man asks if they are his men or the other man's men, the first man answers with one word. "Wolves."
  • While he's watching the Alphas in action in The Dresden Files, Harry notes that humans in this age of guns and helicopters have forgotten just why we used to be afraid of wolves, and that there are several very good reasons.
  • The Wolves of Willoughby Chase: In the novel that gave its name to the series, an alternate England where packs of wolves roam the 19th century Yorkshire countryside, the young heroine is almost killed when one such pack attack a train. She's only saved when the man sharing her carriage stabs the wolf that's got in with them to death.
  • During the "War of the Five Kings" in a A Clash of Kings it's become apparent that an enormous pack of wolves, possibly numbering in the hundreds, is roaming the Riverlands under the leadership of a fearless direwolf, presumably Arya's former pet Nymeria. The pack has apparently grown stronger by the events of A Dance With Dragons.


Tabletop Games


Video Games

  • Spiral Knights has Wolvers, they are quick, depending on the breed can inflict status effects, and if they're accompanied by an Alpha, their attack increases, players will often be killed by a pack of wolvers at least once in their in-game life.
  • The Note had wolves as early encounters.
  • As did Vagrant Story.
  • In Red Dead Redemption, wolves are tough, highly aggressive, persistent, have a knack for showing up precisely when you don't need them do, love to kill your horses, and attack in waves. You gun down four or five of them, look around, and the coast seems clear, only for another batch to arrive just as you put your gun away.
  • In World of Warcraft, many Wolf-type enemies have an ability that causes them to howl and alert other nearby wolves of the player's presence, effectively swamping you if you're not very careful.
  • In the game Gun, wolves pop up from time to time. They're quite big.
  • Wolves act as enemies in the forested areas in Friday the 13 th.
  • In Sly 3, there is a huge wolf called Lupis Gigantormus that roams Holland.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins you'll occasionally run into packs of wolves as enemies. There's even one specific encounter on the overworld map that can be especially vicious on higher difficulties, a rare form of That One Random Encounter.
  • In Skyrim, it's not uncommon for a player to find themselves being attacked by two or three wolves at once. They're rather easy to kill, but they are quite large. However, they can become Paranoia Fuel if you can hear the howls but are unable to see them or know the direction the howls come from.
  • Wolf packs are one of the worse non-zombie threats in the Cataclysm Roguelike. They're made all the worse by the fact that their letter color can make them very hard to spot before they're on top of you.
  • In Minecraft, wolves normally mind their own business, and can even be tamed and used as guard animals. But if you attack a wolf, it and its whole pack go berserk and try to kill you.
  • Latter portion of the cemetery stages in Medievil feature wolves.
    • In order to leave the cemetery, you have to fight two stone wolves which guard it.


Web Original

  • Played with in Tasakeru, where wolves are one of the eight sentient species. The other species think they're scary, primitive, carnivorous savages, but they're just following very old traditions.


Webcomics

  • The Wolf Apocalypse in Gunshow, which was caused by God who had forgotten Jesus's birthday, and was trying to make it up to him.
  • Gored By Them Things featured Rudwulfon trying to invoke this trope, but having to settle for evil dogs due to budget constraints. He hires the Elvis Dogs, who torture the heroes by singing Elvis tunes badly off-key.

Western Animation

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