Carnivore Confusion: Difference between revisions

Content added Content deleted
VisualWikitext
m (Mass update links)
m (update links)
Line 45:
 
== Comics ==
* ''[[Fables (Comic Book)|Fables]]'' takes the "only some animals can talk" route. The [[Big Badass Wolf|Big Bad Wolf]], sending his children out for some hunting practice, tells them to be sure to chase the animal long enough to make sure it isn't sapient before they kill it. Not all the carnivores will do this though. There are some that have no issues with eating talking animals and even Bigby himself used to be like this, so this is more an issue of personal ethics. The problems seem to come when the prey are recognized citizens of Fabletown and so protected by its laws.
* In the short-lived furry comic book, ''SpaceWolf'' (Not ''[[Space Wolf|that]]'' one!), the characters are of intelligent furry species that still have the predator/prey relationship such a Wolf species raiding a planet populated by humanoid sheep. Eventually, the sheep rebel and a long war starts that is only resolved when the sheep develop soy-curd meat substitutes which satisfy the predator species' needs. However much later, a villainous Sheep monarch decides to seize power by first demonstrating the lethality of an awesome planet destroying weapon. As terrible as that is, that is actually the lesser of his two major threats to cow the interstellar population: he also threatens to cut off the flow of soya-cord food to any resisting planet and let it fall back into murderous predator/prey chaos.
** Of course, that raises the question of what the hell the wolves were eating before they invented spaceflight.
*** They ate sheep from their own planet. That's why they are extinct, and why they have to go to space now.
* The [[DC Comics]] series ''[[Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew (Comic Book)|Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew]]'' takes place on Earth-C, a parallel Earth populated solely by anthropomorphic animals. The series presents the world's populace as being vegetarian (though eggs are acceptable, and vegetarian versions of burgers, hot dogs, etc. exist), including carnivorous-in-real-life species such as felines. The comic explains that while their prehistoric, uncivilized/unevolved ancestors did eat meat, animal-kind ceased doing so once it became "civilized". A villain in one story attempts attacking the Zoo Crew with fierce prehistoric animals brought from, as he describes it, "the age of the flesh-eaters." The idea of eating another animal is viewed among Earth-C's populace as cannibalism, as seen in one story where a "[[Our Werewolves Are Different|wuz-wolf]]" -- a friendly wolf who, under a full moon, becomes a feral human -- attempts to eat a pig.
* In ''[[Blacksad]]'' we see a photograph of a barbeque where two polar bears and an arctic fox ([[Petting Zoo People|anthropomorphic]] of course) are grilling sausages. In the ''[[Blacksad]]'' world not all animals are anthropomorphized...but the pigs are.
* The French comic ''[[De Cape et de Crocs]]'', which is set in a [[Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!]] world, plays with this trope. In one book, the main characters are taken prisoner by a tribe of savages who, at first, seem to be your average [[Cannibal Tribe]]: they bind them, dump them into a cauldron of boiling water and vegetables, the usual works. The heroes manage to free themselves and befriend the tribe leader, who is confused when they complain to him about the barbaric custom: his tribe, he says, have never been cannibals. That's when the characters seem to remember that they are, actually, an anthropomorphic ''fox'' and ''wolf''. And the savages, while not cannibals, definitely have no problems with eating dog meat. (That's only one way in which the comic parodies and subverts the heck out of various adventure tropes.)
Line 71:
** Heh. What an appropriate title.
** Lest we forget the many times [[Donald Duck]] has worried about not having enough money to put a Thanksgiving/Christmas turkey/goose/chicken on the table. And yet has shown objection to [[Furry Confusion|the idea of roast duck once or twice]].
*** Donald may not be as "furry confused" as he seems, [[wikipedia:Duck|ducks]] are, at most, only as closely related to [[wikipedia:Goose|geese]] as [[wikipedia:Human|we]] are to [[wikipedia:Chimpanzee|chimpanzees]] and, no more closely related to [[wikipedia:Chicken|chickens]] and [[wikipedia:Turkey chr(28)birdchr(29bird)|turkeys]] than we are to [[wikipedia:Pig|pigs]], [[wikipedia:Cattle|cattle]], or [[wikipedia:Sheep|sheep]].
** All those times Pete has kidnapped Minnie...was it for love...or [[I'm a Humanitarian|lunch]]?
*** Well, Pete ''is'' [[Cats Are Mean|a cat]] - a really fat and ugly one, yes, but still a cat.
Line 237:
* While there aren't any talking animals in the [[Codex Alera]] (well, there are the [[Our Werewolves Are Different|Canim]], but they're a different species), the [[Predators Are Mean]] subtrope is present in full force in ''Furies of Calderon''. The two tribes of Marat who attack the human settlements have predatory [[Bond Creatures]] (wolves and terror birds), while the two that eventually ally with the humans have more herbivorous ones (ground sloths and horses).
* In ''The Wild Road'', a book where most of the protagonists are feral cats, all or at least most animals can communicate with each other, but they largely befriend only members of their own species, and try not to talk to prey. However, the Majicou has a fox (Loves a Dustbin) and a magpie (One For Sorrow) as comrades, who help the hero of the story, Tag, and his friends, and they form a tight companionship (although Tag and Loves a Dustbin are quicker to become friends than he and One For Sorrow, since the latter taunted Tag in his kittenhood, causing him to try to eat him more than once). The line "You can't eat your friends!" is brought up first by One For Sorrow, then by Tag at the end of the book when {{spoiler|[[Tear Jerker|One For Sorrow dies, and his last request is for Tag and his friends to eat his body so he can always be with them]]}}. They do.
* Frequently averted with predatory species in the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]]. The Pahkwa-thanh (like Dr. Ree in [[Star Trek: Titan]]) have always considered their prey animals sapient. They don't eat humanoids and "civilized" beings, not because they have an objection to it as such, but because it would be rude. Humanoids don't consider themselves part of nature; to eat them would be impolite, which Pahkwa-thanh are not. If you think you're prey, though, they'll happily eat you. The Frills are another more-or-less-friendly race that is happy to eat sapient prey. Both Frills and Pahkwa-thanh, it should be noted, are Federation members, and thus allied with the heroes. For a less pleasant sapient-meat eater, there's the Fethetrit. They consider slow consumption of a sapient being, while keeping them alive as long as possible, to be sport.
* This seems to be averted in the ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' series with the cats being the only sentient animals. Dogs are portrayed as dumb brutes; foxes are sly, vicious predators; badgers kill mercilessly; and prey species (rabbits, voles, mice, birds, fish) are unintelligent, so it's okay to eat them. However, in ''The New Prophecy'', it is revealed that other animals also communicate and are somewhat aware. They meet a badger who speaks the cats' language, as well as the languages of foxes and rabbits. You might think this would raise eyebrows about what the cats have been eating all along, but it's stated that, while badgers can be intelligent as a plot device, rabbits are stupid and don't talk about (read: think about) much of anything at all.
* Thinking about it, this is present in ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'', and hence a great many [[Follow the Leader]] supernatural novels which feature a vampire dating a human.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Carnivore_Confusion"