Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,872
edits
m (added Category:Fruit and Vegetable Tropes using HotCat) |
(→Mythology and Religion: Put the two Greek Mythology examples together) |
||
(16 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"There never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got for eating it."''|''[[
An apple, the '''alleged''' original [[Forbidden Fruit]] (see below). Few others have attracted so much [[Faux Symbolism]] than the good ol' ''Malus domestica''.
Line 13:
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** Covers most mythical fruit, eh? How about the Misa-Persephone symbolism?
** The "forbidden fruit" metaphor is stated pretty directly in the first opening credit sequence of the show.
Line 24 ⟶ 23:
* The ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'' Playstation game introduces Mew Ringo (apple). Her origins are different from the rest of the cast, being both a Mew Mew and fused with a Mew Aqua, and she's the only [[White Mage|healer]] in the franchise.
** The pomegranate-as-the-fruit may explain [[Tokyo Mew Mew|Mew Zakuro's]] association with [[Creepy Cool Crosses]], but we may be giving Ikumi-sensei and Yoshida-sensei too much credit.
* The ''[[
* In ''[[Darker
* In ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]'', the symbol of NERV is a half eaten apple with a fig leaf.
** "God is in heaven, and all is right in the world."
* In ''[[Bizenghast]]'', there are apples that can cure severe illnesses and even possibly bring someone back from the dead, Dinah is warned to take only one - but is convinced to surreptitiously take another one (which of course later revealed to have turned deadly by the fact she stole it)
* At the end of ''[[Ghost in
* ''Zan [[Sayonara, Zetsubou
* In the latter half of the ''[[Soul Eater]]'' anime, Medusa, a [[Animal Motifs|snake witch]], is associated with apples several time.
** Rachel, the child Medusa takes over, watches something on TV. What, you ask? A little girl reaching for a certain red fruit which is then repeated several times: "An apple! An apple! An apple!"
* In his [[Pet the Dog]] moment, [[Monster (
** Though given that this is [[Complete Monster|Johan we're talking about]] he probably didn't mean for it to be a [[Pet the Dog]] moment.
* The [[Superpower Lottery|Devil's Fruit]] from ''[[One Piece]]'' include banana and pineapple shaped fruits, but no apples so far.
* Near the beginning of ''[[Animatrix]]'' the Earth-wide crisis following the creation of AI is shown by the image of apple devoured by worms from inside.
* ''[[
* In the [[Zelda Manga]] of ''[[A Link to The Past]]'' done by Himekawa, Link wants to be an apple farmer.
* At the end of the [[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* ''[[
== Fan Works ==
* Used with several levels of irony in ''[[
* ''[[
* In [[DC Nation]], the apple of desire was passed around during the Olympics plot. Jesse Quick sees a world where her father's still alive. Donna Troy saw a world where she was reunited with her family, Titans and Terry Long. It is enough to shock Donna into realizing that she really wants to be with her living family and {{spoiler|give up her dead children to Persephone's care so she can return to the Titans}}.
== Film ==
* The [[Trope Namer]] is Paul Newman in the movie ''[[From The Terrace]]''. In context it's more of a [[Take That]] after he's screwed over his bitchy wife.
* "Do you know the first thing I'm going to do after the curse is lifted? Eat a whole bushel of apples." ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'': More thinky than it looks.
** Seems to follow Barbossa: his [[Back
** Back then people who were away at sea a lot had to eat fruits to avoid scurvy, so there's some [[Truth in Television]] to it. For Barbossa it just became a [[Trademark Favorite Food]].
** It's also because the undead pirates can't eat without the food turning to ash in their mouths. He just wants to taste something again.
Line 59 ⟶ 56:
* François Truffaut's 1966 film of ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'' featured a bowl of apples in the house which is confiscated and burned in the opening sequence. At the end of the film, the owner of that house is seen once again, munching an apple.
* Used in ''[[Pleasantville]]'', where the male lead is offered an apple by his girlfriend in a film all about a [[Trapped in TV Land|fictional town's]] loss of innocence.
* Gurgi from ''[[The Black Cauldron]]'' loves his "Munchings And Crunchings".
* Titular character of ''[[Fantastic Mr. Fox]]'' is eating an apple shortly before getting trapped in a cage, along with his wife, which sets off the plot of the film. At the end, he eats a genetically modified apple that has stars on it.
* In the 2009 ''[[Star Trek (
* Averted in ''[[
* King Leonidas in ''[[300
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Indiana Jones and
* In ''[[Animal House]]'', Donald Sutherland's shady, [[Teacher-Student Romance|student-romancing]] English professor is shown lecturing on ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' from a [[Satan Is Good]] perspective, and then biting into an apple.
* Truly bizarre [[B-Movie]] ''[[The Apple]]''
* In the commentary for ''[[
* In ''[[Tron
== Literature ==
* In Anthony Burgess’ ''[[A Clockwork Orange (
* ''[[Narnia|The Magician's Nephew]]'', the [[Prequel]] Narnia [[Creation Myth]] installment. There, the apples in question are ''[[Silver Has Mystic Powers|silver]]'' and can cure any ailment.
* In ''[[Treasure Island]]'', Jim overhears the pirates planning mutiny while trying to get an apple from the ship's barrel.
* The front cover of ''[[Twilight (
** There is also the Hackey Sack Apple of [http://pics.livejournal.com/cleolinda/pic/000acxq2 I See What You Did There] in the movie.
* The quote from ''[[
** The phrase is also literally uttered by Hastur (to Crowley, the aforementioned serpent, so possibly as a lampshade.)
* The second book of Meredith Ann Pierce's [[The Darkangel Trilogy]], ''A Gathering of Gargoyles'', features a tree that fruits differently for each person who crosses the Sea-of-Dust. (All the fruit are called apricoks, though.) The fact that several of the same fruit grow for Aeriel and she takes them with her on her journey later becomes very important.
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' short story "The Sea And Little Fishes" opens with the line "Trouble began, and not for the first time, with an apple".
* '' [[The Illuminatus Trilogy]]'' repeatedly plays with Greek mythology's version of the Apple of Discord.
* [[
* The cousins in [[Diana Wynne Jones]]' ''The Game'' have a whole collection of golden apples that they have collected from various myths.
* "A POISON TREE" from ''[[Songs of
* In [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Sylvie and Bruno]] Concluded'' they see and catch a thief stealing apples from the orchard.
* In the last book of ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'', an enormous apple tree grows in the middle of the arboretum of forbidden knowledge, and at a pivotal moment the Incredibly Deadly Viper offers one of its apples to the orphans {{spoiler|because they have just realized the apples contain an antidote to the Medusoid Mycelium, but are too weakened by the fungus to get one for themselves}}.
* In the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series, the [[Magitek]] computers are all Apples, but the symbol is of an apple without a bite taken out of it. This is symbolic of the universe before [[Satan|The Lone Power's]] rebellion.
* Avalon from [[King Arthur]]'s legend derives its name from Welsh noun 'afal' meaning 'apple'.
* Phyllis Ann Karr's ''[[
* In Vilhelm Moberg's ''[[The Emigrants|Emigrants Suite]]'' Kristina's astrakan apple tree is almost its own character. There was an astrakan apple tree at her parents' farm in Sweden and growing up she loved the fruit from the tree. To help cure her homesickness in America Karl Oskar asks her father to send them seeds from an apple so that she can grow her own tree at their new home. The tree becomes her pride and joy. In the fourth book {{spoiler|the tree finally bears fruit as Kristina lays dying. Karl Oskar picks the first apple off the tree and gives it to her. She manages to take a bite but dies before she can swallow, the apple falling out of her hand. Before she dies she feels the taste of the apple and cries out that she is home.}}
* The first ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' book features a scene of the two leads sharing an apple in a rather sexy way, nearly leading Kahlan to lose control of her Confessor's power.
* In [[Tanith Lee]]'s ''[[
* In ''[[
▲== [[Live Action Television]] ==
▲* In ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' this is invoked by Eve, who offers Angel an apple to represent the power Wolfram and Hart offers. He takes a bite out of it.
** Holtz also offers Wesley a slice of apple when Wesley comes to betray Angel.
* The catch phrase is used on ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' by Aphrodite as she wreaks havoc with a golden apple that causes the holder to be a love magnet. Hercules [[Meaningful Echo|echoes]] this line when he uses the same apple to solve the problem.
Line 105 ⟶ 99:
** In the [[Tom Baker]] story ''The Pirate Planet'', the Doctor told Romana that he had dropped the apple on Sir Isaac Newton's head(see Real Life below). Newton's response was to tell the Doctor to get out of his tree, so the Doctor explained it all over dinner.
* ''[[Kamen Rider Faiz]]'''s opening prominently features hero Takumi Inui biting into one.
* ''[[The Collector (TV series)|The Collector]]'': The Devil peddles weird black apples "plucked from the tree of knowledge you'd rather not have". They make people realize unpleasant things about themselves, sometimes by restoring forgotten memories.
* ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'': Regina Mills (otherwise known as Snow White's evil stepmother) had a carefully cultivated and tended apple tree in her back yard. Emma takes a chainsaw to one of its branches when Regina goes over the line harassing her.
* ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]'': [[Al Capone]], first introduced in the pilot as a young, childish thug under the watch of Johnny Torrio, undergoes a maturation process during the first season that ends with a scene where he guns down a rival [[Mook]], takes an apple from the fallen and eats it. By the next season, he shows contempt at the idea of being anything but a gangster.
== Mythology and Religion ==
* [[Greek Mythology]]:
** This goes [[Older Than Feudalism|all the way back]] to the [[The Trojan Cycle
* [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]]: The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Contrary to popular conception, [[The Bible]] does not, in fact, name the original [[Forbidden Fruit]] an "apple." Some researchers believe than it was [[Lost in Translation]] back in Ancient Rome, since "malus/malum" can mean both "evil" and "apple" in Latin. So, technically, the Biblical apple is likely a [[Fanon]] coupled with absorbing Greek notions of the Apple Of Discord. And an [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]. An alternate explanation for the 'Latin mistranslation' is that "apple" in English used to be a generic name for all fruit, and it [[Have a Gay Old Time|changed its meaning]].▼
** Greek myth has all food in the underworld serve similar to Biblical [[Forbidden Fruit]], and of course only fruit become story-relevant. Eating it dooms you to never being able to leave; Hades tricks Persephone into becoming his wife this way. She ate between three and seven pomegranate seeds and has to spend that same number of months out of the year with Hades, the rest she spends above ground with her [[Overprotective Dad|Overprotective]] <s>dad</s>
** In fact, Judaism presents in the [[Talmud (Literature)|Talmud]] a rather large selection of possible contenders for the original fruit, stating that God deliberately did not identify it in the Bible so as not to cause a backlash against it (the fruit, after all, wasn't at fault here). The candidates include commonly known fruits in the Middle East (not apples), such as figs, dates, pomegranates, etrogs (a citrus fruit kind of like a giant, sweet lemon), and ''wheat.''▼
▲* [[
▲** In fact, Judaism presents in
** Some say that given the climate of the supposed garden and the location scholars had given, the fruit was probably a pomegranate, making it even cooler because then it's ripped right from Persephone's tale.
*** This would have some added symbolism, including the legend that the pomegranate has 613 seeds, the same as the number of laws in the Torah.
** Fun fact: Carl von Linne, the creator of the Linnaean species naming system, was convinced that the [[Forbidden Fruit]] was a ''banana''. Considering one interpretation of the whole "temptation" bit (and trust us, [[Dirty Old Man|Carl Von Linne]] ''would'' make that connection) that actually makes a [[Freud Was Right|strange amounts of sense]].
** [[Hieronymus Bosch]], the Dutch painter, liked to use exotic (to him) oranges for his Forbidden Fruit. Probably partly because Oranges are called Sinaasappel (Chinese Apple) in Dutch.
Line 121 ⟶ 116:
** In Islam, the forbidden fruit is traditionally wheat. This has interesting implications, placing the Fall of Mankind with the agricultural revolution. [[Jean Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]] [[Rousseau Was Right|would be pleased]], as he had much the same opinion.
** Some have also proposed the passionfruit. On the one hand, it just ''sounds'' so much more tempting than a plain old apple. On the other, it makes a clever call forward to Jesus, who had to basically [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] in the garden.
* Idunn's golden apples in [[Norse Mythology]] granted one
* Chinese myth, in ''[[Journey to
▲* Greek myth has all food in the underworld serve similar to Biblical [[Forbidden Fruit]], and of course only fruit become story-relevant. Eating it dooms you to never being able to leave; Hades tricks Persephone into becoming his wife this way. She ate between three and seven pomegranate seeds and has to spend that same number of months out of the year with Hades, the rest she spends above ground with her [[Overprotective Dad|Overprotective]] <s>dad</s> Mom--who ''[[Just-So Story|causes winter]]'' every year out of grief when her daughter's gone. (Note that not only does 'pome-granate' mean 'seeded apple', but considering [[Freud Was Right|other]] Greek myths, this is probably some kind of euphemism.)
▲* Chinese myth, in ''[[Journey to The West (Literature)|Journey to The West]]'', features ''peaches'' of immortality, but they take several centuries to ripen.
▲* The poisoned apples in "[[Snow White (Literature)|Snow White]]".
* The legend of a great archer forced by a king to demonstrate his archery skill by shooting an apple balanced on his own son's head. He readies two arrows, but successfully hits the apple with the first one. When the king asks about the second arrow, the archer explains that if the first arrow had gone into his son, the second arrow would have gone into the king. (The most familiar version of this story is the Swiss legend of [[William Tell]], in which incidentally the [[Feudal Overlord]] involved isn't a king, but similar legends exist in many European countries.)
* In [[Irish Mythology|Irish legend]], the Sons of Tuirenn are
* In the Armenian folktale "[[
* Another Armenian folktale example: [[The Stinger]] of just about every Armenian folktale usually comes with some variant of the phrase "Three apples fell from heaven; one for the storyteller, one for the listener, and one for whoever pays good attention."
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
== Theatre ==
* The "Malo" aria in Benjamin Britten's opera ''[[The Turn of the Screw]]''. The word "malo" has various reverberating meanings in latin: it may mean "evil", "prefer", and "apple":
{{quote|
''Malo''... in an apple tree
''Malo''... than a naughty boy
''Malo''... in adversery. }}
== Video Games ==
* ''[[
** It also had inventors [[Gadgeteer Genius|Apple Kid]] and [[Bungling Inventor|Orange Kid]].
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'': Who's the older woman eating an apple? {{spoiler|EVA}}, of course.
Line 150 ⟶ 143:
** In an interesting twist {{spoiler|Adam}} refuses to take the apple from {{spoiler|EVA}}. And he's the baddy while she tries to turn him back to the Light Side.
* In ''[[Elasto Mania]]'', the goal of every level is to collect all the apples, then touch the flower to end the level.
* The battles with Whispy Woods in the ''[[Kirby]]'' games and the Green Greens stage in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]''.
* In chapter 7-3 of ''[[
* In the ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' games, the Apple is a relic created by [[Abusive Precursors|Those Who Came Before]]. It tempts those who seek it with great knowledge and powers over the minds of people at the cost of individual freedom.
** The second game heavily implies that the apple is {{spoiler|[[All Myths Are True|EVERY apple in the mythology tab.]]}}
* The goal of the [[Konami]] game ''[[Antarctic Adventure|Penguin Adventure]]'' is to get a golden apple to cure the penguin princess.
* One of the goals in ''[[Professor Layton and
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei I]]'': To pass Cerberus to get to Tokyo Destiny Land, you need a golden apple. {{spoiler|If you fused Pascal with a demon to make Cerberus, it will be a reunion. Regardless if you fused pascal or not; Cerberus will join your party}}
* ''[[Minecraft]]'' sports both regular and golden apples; the latter will heal you fully and grant regeneration for half a minute.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[
** ''Sinfest'', by its nature, invokes [
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
** Also, when Nergal Junior poses as Mrs. Butterbean to get revenge on Sperg for bullying him, he eventually stuffs all the apples Sperg used to bribe the teacher into his mouth, while saying "How you like them apples" and breaking out into a wicked [[Slasher Smile]].
*** It ''does'' get fought over, for those very powers, when [[Schmuck Bait|'entrusted']] to the three leads in one episode.
== Real Life ==
* And of course there's the apocryphal story of [[wikipedia:Isaac Newton#Apple analogy|Isaac Newton]] either witnessing the fall of an apple or (in some versions) being hit on the head with it, inspiring the theory of gravity.
* [[wikipedia:Johnny Appleseed|Johnny Appleseed]]. What most people don't realize is that the apples he grew weren't fit to eat, and were instead used to make hard cider, which was very valuable in the frontier, where its high alcohol content made it easy to store and safer to drink than water in many cases.
* Apple Computer is so named partly to be ahead of Atari in the phone book, and partly because of the long association of the fruit with intelligence and rational enquiry (from Eve through to Newton). Before Apple came along, however, the fruit had something of a negative association in computing, as a cyanide-laced apple was Alan Turing's chosen means of death (he was a fan of Snow White).
* The "other" company to use Apple, [[The Beatles]]' Apple Corps, was inspired by a [http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=herrajuntero.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fherrajuntero.files.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F10%2Faurevoirlejeudemourre.jpg&sref=http%3A%2F%2Fherrajuntero.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F10%2F04%2Fgranny-smith-rene-magritte-etcetera%2F Rene Magritte painting]{{dead link}}, and the name was [[Just for Pun]] ("apple core").
* Bringing a whole new meaning to giving an apple to a teacher, physicist and "father of the atomic bomb" [[wikipedia:J. Robert Oppenheimer|J. Robert Oppenheimer]] (unsuccessfully) tried to poison his tutor with an apple covered in toxic chemicals.
* Apples are ofted used as academic symbols at many schools. This is why stereotypically a teacher will have an apple on their desk.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Food Tropes]]
[[Category:Motifs]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:Fruit and Vegetable Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Asked You a Question]]
|