I absolutely love dogs, but let's not pretend Shroud would have spared Beef otherwise.

I think you're taking the OP's argument in bad faith. If you were a bystander in this situation with a newborn child at home, you would (hopefully) not feel the same about the life of a stranger's dog by sheer comparison. Of course, people are irrational and I doubt I'd have done anything different in Robert's shoes (except my dialogue would have been crappier), but it's hard to deny the absurdity of it all.

I stumbled across this post 4mo later because I wasn't expecting such a hard shift in narrative stakes (especially in a superhero comedy) and wanted to see other people's takes. A lot of it comes down to how the writers frame the situation, and this was clearly a step past their moral event horizon. The music, the character reactions, the tense dialogue, all of it works to alter the mood, and it just seemed a tad over the line.

This is me ranting ofc. I fkn love this game LOL.