Carnivore Confusion: Difference between revisions

 

See also [[Super-Persistent Predator]], [[Let's Meet the Meat]], [[Ascended to Carnivorism]], and [[I Taste Delicious]]. Compare [[Furry Confusion]], [[Cats Are Mean]], [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]] (notice that small lizards and turtles, two groups that include herbivores, get to be non-abhorrent far more frequently than snakes, which are all carnivores), and [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?]]. As with What Measure is a Non Cute, do not expect to see realistic animal behavior taken into account. When it's between a [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]] and a human, it's [[Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere]]. Things get ''really'' ugly when [[I'm a Humanitarian]] gets thrown into the mix.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'' has played a bit with this problem (despite being guilty of this trope itself in early episodes): after all animals make peace under the new "lion king", they are suddenly facing a situation where no-one is allowed to eat anyone else, thus reducing their entire carnivore population to live solely on insect (and even THAT gives them moral qualms; lucky that a man who's been trying to invent "artificial meat" eventually comes along...)

*** [[Did Not Do the Research]], Bears are Omnivores.

* [[Did Not Do the Research|Incredibly epic fail]] in ''Pride'' which shows a vegan lioness doing pretty well until both plant and animal are depleted in the 'badlands' area where she lives after running away from her parents for them trying to force her to obey her carnivorous nature. Its essentially vegan propaganda aping the appeal of the flood of lion movies after. Also Sean Bean as a big macho lion badass probably didn't hurt funding either. In the end the entire [[What Happened to the Mouse?|vegan subplot]] vanishes to make way for a more traditional good lion/evil lion showdown as the lions from the badlands attempt to take over the heroine's pride.

* An in-movie bit in ''[[Babe]]'', when Farmer Hogget somehow assumes Babe killed the sheep.

* ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (animation)|How to Train Your Dragon]]'' had the giant Green Death dragon swallow an unfortunate Gronckle who failed to give it enough food. This is hardly surprising since alot of animals have no qualms eating other animals related to them such as cobras eating other snakes, lions eating cheetahs, etc.

 

== Literature ==

** Bagheera doesn't shy from eating river-turtles though, who would only occur ''within'' the river. Also, said turtles are repltiles, but then so are snakes, so where is the line drawn?

* On the ''[[Discworld]]'' some animals have human-like intelligence, due to magical effects, but it's very rare. In ''Moving Pictures'', the cat half of the Tom and Jerry parody has sworn off mice since "Jerry" started talking, and in ''The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents'', the titular cat always offers his prey a chance to speak before eating it. {{spoiler|Although when he was a normal cat, he ate a talking rat because he didn't know better. That's how he gained the ability in the first place.}}

*** How "intelligent" ordinary dogs are is very up for debate: "Good boy Laddie!"

*** It's also sort of implied that everyone resorts to the "legal fiction" that the owner in question is acting according to the wishes of the dog - in other words, the owner effectively IS the translator. Of course, everyone knows this is a lie, but everyone also ACTS like it's the truth, because admitting the truth would be in bad taste.

*** Mr Slant says to [[Those Two Bad Guys]] in ''The Truth'' that via the Watch werewolf, a canine witness would be acceptable in a court of law.

**** Though it's clear that legal precedent isn't the same thing as "sane" in this setting.

* In the kids' book ''Tiddler'', all the characters are sea creatures. Tiddler, a fish, asks a shrimp for directions at one point. Meanwhile back at Tiddler's school, the other fish kids are eating seaweed and '''shrimps''' for lunch.

* ''[[Redwall]]'' gets very confusing on this issue. The heroes are mostly mice and for the most part, all the villains (though we never actually ''see'' them eat anyone) are mouse predators (see also [[Cats Are Mean]]). The confusion sets in when it turns out that animals who eat mice (a lot in some cases) are also found among the heroes. There's one especially strange book where the mice fight [[Ravens and Crows|an army of ravens]] by teaming up with an ''owl'' and a ''hawk''. Now if you're a mouse, is it really corvids who keep you constantly anxious rather than raptors?'

** In an episode of ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' the Chef tried to make a Thanksgiving dinner. Trying to make turkey doesn't work since the turkeys can talk; trying to make pig stew is as bad, with pigs in the cast. He goes for "veggy weggy stew" but the vegetables can talk and fight him. In the concluding scene the Thanksgiving dinner consists entirely of ''vitamin pills''.

** In another episode he tried to boil a Lobster until the Lobster's brothers rode in Mexican-Bandito style, shooting up the kitchen with their revolvers and rescuing the main course.

** In ''[[The Muppet Christmas Carol]]'', Rizzo the Rat is about to eat some vegetables prepared by the Swedish Chef...but they join in song, and he shakes his head and relates his mother's advice: "Never eat singing food."

** Then there was the frog's legs skit, the duck soup episode...once his spaghetti tried to crawl away from the plate while he was checking on the tomato sauce, and ended up attacking him when he slapped it back. Another time, bread dough started inflating and finally took him over. And each and every time it was absolutely hilarious.

* There was a ''[[Tales from the Darkside]]'' episode called "Your Weight Is Over" that took this concept to the very extreme. A malevolent "diet company" gave a woman the power to hear food talking. Any food, vegetable, or animal. So whenever she bit in, it screamed. She starved to death in the end.

** Puzzling, in as much as fruits (and many so-called vegetables, such as tomatoes and eggplant) are not whole organisms; they are in effect fertilized ovaries, deliberately cast off by a plant in order to facilitate its reproduction. Even if you pluck an apple from a tree instead of waiting for it to fall, you're not killing (or indeed hurting) anything. The seeds are ''designed'' to pass through an animal digestive tract unharmed and viable.

*** Processed meat certainly wouldn't be able to speak, either, so both must just be a trick.

*** Fresh vegetables can feel "pain" much better than processed meat. Animals feel pain via nerve cells, which are dead at that point. The vegetable's equivalent damage-recognition system (which is based on hormone changes and cell membrane voltage) is fully functioning while it's fresh. Of course, vegetables do not have central nervous systems to process the sensation, so the point is moot unless you have an aversion to damaging food in general.

* In ''[[Freefall]]'', the only furry is a she-wolf, and she [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00023.htm has] [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff200/fv00183.htm been] [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00228.htm shown] to eat other animals. She [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff200/fv00193.htm justifies] this by explaining nature's natural food cycle, but later on she seems to just [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01081.htm go to restaurants] instead.

** It's probably easier to go to restaurants than deal with Helix's apparently Disney-fied view of how nature works. [[Fridge Logic|Also, the planet they live on is still being terraformed, and Florence is an engineer by training; she probably doesn't want to eat an animal that's important to the terraforming process.]]

* ''[http://suburbanjungle.com The Suburban Jungle]'' follows the 'fact of life' approach. Except in specific situations, such as the workplace, or a specifically 'No Predation Allowed' bar, it's basically A-OK to eat each other. Although you might expect a girl to get cross if it turns out you accidentally [http://suburbanjungleclassic.com/?p=49 ate her date].

* The ''Shivae'' has this as an important, if not main issue: most characters are non-anthropomorphic animals, the protagonists are predators, and all carnivores seen so far are sapient (and mostly sympathetic). Herbivores seem to be split between sapient and non-sapient within each species, and sapient herbivores show little respect or concern for non-sapients, even those part of their own herd, and allow predators to hunt the latter. It is considered taboo to kill another sapient animal, but since they can all communicate with each other, it's easily avoided. Then the [[Petting Zoo People|very anthropomorphic]] colonists show up, and for some reason can't communicate with the non-anthropomorphic cast members, who they consider to be all dumb beasts...oh, and did I mention their society [[Bambi|is advanced enough to have guns]]?

* ''[[Doc Rat]]'' [http://www.docrat.com.au/comic/regarding-the-meat-truck/ Regarding the Meat Truck].

* ''[[The Kenny Chronicles]]'' seems to avert this, herbivorous [[Funny Animal|Tarneki]] seem to have no problem with their non-anthro cousins being on the menu.

* Played [http://www.housepetscomic.com/2008/10/03/stop-the-revolution-i-want-to-get-off/ very straight] in ''[[Housepets]]''.

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Trog tries very hard to stop Aylee (an alien like from, you know, ''[[Alien]]'') from eating humans. The cast at one point have an intervention for her in which she eats John a man who went through cannibals anonymous. A strip later Torg enrolls her in the program. She eventually stops eating humans just in time for Riff and Torg to get trapped in the 1999 annual cannibal convention. Torg realizes trying to change Aylee's nature is pointless and unleashes Aylee on the cannibals this fails but they all survive due to a damn heroes moment. ironically a few arcs later Aylee transforms into a dragon that eats potatoes nullifying the whole process. As far as we know she hasn't eaten humans since.

** Coming at it from another direction, there are characters who pointedly avoid transforming into livestock...

* The ''[[Futurama]]'' episode, "The Problem With Popplers" has addresses this several times. First, there's a bunch of hippies trying to enforce vegetarianism. Leela points out eating meat is a part of nature, and the hippies point to a lion they taught to eat tofu. It's sickly and looks like it'll fall over dead at any second. Also the main characters casually bring up a few animals they eat in the future that are not usually thought of as food here in the present, such as parrots.

*** "When my species grows up, we eat our moms!"

* Interpersonal relationships in some children's series sometimes get a little...odd...if adults think about them too long. For instance ''[[Franklin]]'', where the cute turtle and goose and rabbit are bestest buddies with the equally cute bear and fox, or ''Little Bear'', in which the titular hero hangs out with a duck and a chicken...and a cat, and an owl. (Also a human girl, but that's a [[Furry Confusion|whole 'nother story]]...)

* While adult humans are (almost) immune to Carnivore Confusion, most children are horrified when they first learn (or figure out) where meat comes from. Even adults are not completely free from it - people tend to be squicked out by eating animal species that are, in the given culture, usual pet species or otherwise held in high regard. That's the reason people in the West often think that eating cats, dogs, parrots, small mammal pets, or horses is terrible (though horse is eaten in France), while it's perfectly fine to eat pigs, which are at least as intelligent as any of the above, and certainly more similar to humans socially.

** Pets are seen as part of the family. Pet species have been bred to become part of the family. The concept of someone eating dog or cat meat is akin to someone eating your adopted brother, sister, or kids. Universal prey species are generally immune from being thought of in such a manner because they're rarely kept as pets. Livestock such as cattle and pigs have been bred to be less intelligent and more tastey then their wild counterparts.

**** In my societies where cats and dogs are eaten, they aren't raised just for the purpose, but are taken (stolen) from someone (who raise them as pets and most often quite treasure them), since raising a cat or dog well is much harder than the profit it provides. Many people come to hate the food after their pets are stolen.

** There are semi-vegetarians who classify meat sources by how intelligent they are believed to be (although how accurate these beliefs are vary, especially as science marches on). There are many people who will eat fish but are squicked out by the thought of eating squid/octopus.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Animal Tropes]]

[[Category:Animal Anthropomorphism Tropes]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]