I'm a Humanitarian: Difference between revisions

In [[Speculative Fiction]], cannibalism is generally extended to include all sapient or humanoid creatures, even if they aren't technically human. Any species that includes humans (or other humanoids) [[To Serve Man|in its diet]] is usually portrayed as [[Exclusively Evil|villainous]]. Likewise, humans treating other sapient species as food are rarely treated sympathetically (unless [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]] is in effect).

 

 

Compare with [[Alien Invasion]], [[Auto Cannibalism]], [[Brain Food]], [[Cannibal Clan]], [[Cannibal Tribe]], [[Cannibalism Superpower]], [[Carnivore Confusion]], [[Eat the Rich]], [[Eats Babies]], [[Human Resources]], [[I Ate What?]], [[Let's Meet the Meat]], [[No Party Like a Donner Party]], [[To Serve Man]], and [[You Are Who You Eat]].

** It also has the normal air of cannibalism as both Evangelions and Angels are made form the same source- Adam.

*** Except that {{spoiler|Unit-01 isn't: She is specifically mentioned as being the ''only'' Evangelion created from Lilith instead of Adam}}.

** In a early side-story, Buggy the Clown had to deal with a [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]] that was going to eat his crew.

** Here's a non-human [[Subverted Trope|subversion]] from ''[[One Piece]]''. Hatchan, an octopus fishman who was a henchman in the early Arlong saga, resurfaced as a purveyor of takoyaki at Sabaody Archipelago. Keep in mind, takoyaki is made with ''octopus''. He is aware of this, and says he makes his takoyaki with other tentacled creatures like squid.

* Possibly the case with the Russian Sushi restaurant in ''[[Durarara!!]]'', although it's likely/hopefully just an urban legend. Simon is [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|oddly insistent]] that the sushi is made of fish, not people, but in a later episode threatens some thugs that if they don't stop beating someone, they will provide ingredients for the sushi.

* Chapter 406 of ''[[Bleach]]'' reveals that {{spoiler|Aizen}} intends to do this to {{spoiler|Ichigo.}}

** [[It Gets Worse|It doesn't stop there.]] The mothers {{spoiler|drink the blood of other patients and personnel every night}}, first using piercing tools like braces and drills, then {{spoiler|[[Body Horror|mutated mosquito-like proboscises]]}}. And near the end, lots of people seem to think that {{spoiler|those affected by [[Baleful Polymorph|the snail curse]]}} look mighty tasty...

* [[Played For Laughs]] in ''[[The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal]]'', who eats her friends after they are caught by fishermen.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** [[Wham! Line|"IT'S PEOPLE...."]]

* In ''[[Dog Soldiers]]'' a group of British soldiers on a training exercise find an abandoned cabin, inside one of the soldiers finds a stew cooking on the stove. After eating a bowl he comments that he doesn't know what it is but it ''"Tastes like pork."'' Later they discover that the missing residents are anthropophagous werewolves. Whether the werewolves themselves are cannibals is debatable (half-cannibal?).

** And in the third, ''[[Doomsday]]'', the guy who played one of the flesh-eating monsters in ''[[The Descent (film)|The Descent]]'' now gets to go the full hog - he prances about onstage singing a song by the ''Fine Young Cannibals'', then tosses little plastic plates to his followers, cooks a guy, and starts handing out pieces of charred corpse.

*** In addition to the Crawlers and the cannibalistic savage, that actor was also one of the previously mentioned werewolves. Neil Marshall obviously loves both this trope ''and'' this actor.

* The French black comedy ''[[Delicatessen]]'' deals with cannibalism in a post-apocalyptic 1950's France.

* [[Tim Burton]]'s adaptation of the classic [[Stephen Sondheim]] musical ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (film)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'' - which was itself an adaptation of the old magazine serial ''The String of Pearls'', which was written by either J.M. Rymer or Thomas Prest - with Johnny Depp as the eponymous barber. Todd and Mrs. Lovett aren't cannibals themselves, as far as we know, but Mrs. Lovett does sell meat pies made from Sweeney's victims to her customers.

** This is in direct contrast to the book, where an accusation of Orc cannibalism is seen as a horrible slur. (Though this may not apply to Uruk-hai eating Morgul orcs.)

* ''Dying Breed'' involves a bunch of young people stumbling upon a remote community in Tasmania where humans are on the menu, to emulate the behaviour of the convict who founded the place. The kicker is that the Tasmanian state government is trying to use the film to attract tourists.

** [[Through Darkest America]] is an [[After the End]] novel with some similar themes to ''The Barn''. In much of North America, animals other than humans are extinct. To allow meat production to a society mostly at about an 1800 technology level, they have "stock": They LOOK like humans, and are believed to be able to interbreed with humans (although there's a strong religious taboo against it), but they cannot speak so they must not have souls, so eating them isn't wrong. Then the hero finds out what happened to his little sister when she got to move to the government's claimed reconstructed area...

* [[Robert Heinlein]] used cannibalism in ''[[Farnham's Freehold]]'' as a way of showing just how screwed up the [[dystopia]]n future his characters found themselves in [[After the End]] was.

*** Also subverted because Valentine Michael Smith is a Humanitarian in ''both'' senses; the ethical sense and the eating sense.

* In ''The Bad Place'' by [[Dean Koontz]] the bad guy drinks the blood of his victims. His sisters dug up their dead mother and ate some of it and shared the rest with their mob of cats - so their mother 'would always be with them'.

* The only official rule of ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' is "wait a minute before entering the arena". [[Even Evil Has Standards|An implied one is "don't eat your adversaries"]], as shown by [http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/Titus the story of] [[Meaningful Name|Titus]].

* {{spoiler|The big secret of the Boneys}} in the ''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'' sidestory "Raft".

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

* The [[Robot War|Denver Zonemind]] in ''[[GURPS Reign of Steel]]'' sometimes renders its dead human slaves into a "high protein soup" to feed the others. (In the slaves' defense, though, the robots don't tell them where it comes from!)

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has too many "really omnivore" sentient creatures to list, but even there are some outstanding examples.

** Co-narrator of some ''[[Planescape]]'' accessories Xanxost the slaad intersperses his planar chant with offhanded mentions of eating sentient beings: mephits (he digresses to mention this favourite food at any opportunity), humans, fiends... and [[Crosses the Line Twice|turns it into comedy gold]].

{{quote|'''Xanxaost:''' They are hateful. Vicious. Bad-tasting.}}

* Humans and metahumans in ''[[Shadowrun]]'' infected with the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus turn into Vampires, Ghouls, and other things (depending on what they started out as), all of which require either blood, raw meat or internal organs of other humans/metahumans to survive.

** The Germany sourcebook contains a shadowtalk-post about a cannibal-cuisine restaurant in the lawless enclave of Berlin, although another shadowtalker's post immediately afterwards claims it's a load of hooey.

** Though, amusingly, some of the characters who aren't bothered by it are among the protagonists, and only one recurring character doesn't get used to it fairly quickly.

* ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon]]'s'' [[The Dragon|Dragon]], Paxton Fettel, eats the flesh of his victims. It is indicated [[All There in the Manual]] that he gains memories and information directly from their corpses.

* In the background lore of ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' series, the [[Our Elves Are Better|Wood Elves]] are cannibals, eating both their own dead and the bodies of those they've killed in battle. They try to avoid war unless they've had a suitable fasting period beforehand.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the Forsaken (Undead) race can eat the corpses of humanoids to restore their health.

* An episode of ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'' featured an [[Pig Man|antropomorphic pig couple]] who were set up as this. It's {{spoiler|eventually revealed}} that they only make food {{spoiler|scupltures}} and courage just misunderstood {{spoiler|the situation}}.

* In ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' episode "Girl Gone Mild", the Girls fought a [[All Bikers Are Hells Angels| demonic motorcycle gang]] called the Dooks of Doom (evil and bad spellers, apparently) who were cannibals.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==