No Party Like a Donner Party/Playing With

    Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


    • Basic Trope: In a situation where it comes to a Sadistic Choice between cannibalism and starving to death, cannibalism is the choice made.
    • Played Straight: The Tropers are lost in the wilderness, and are running out of supplies. As they die off, rather than being buried, the corpses are eaten by those still alive.
    • Exaggerated: The Tropers are actively killing each other off for food.
    • Inverted: The Tropers have enough rations to live on and/or can live off the land (i.e. gathering roots, leaves, seeds, berries, and mushrooms that they know are safe, and/or hunting small animals like rabbits)
    • Justified: Given a choice between eating human flesh and dying of starvation, survival instincts have taken precedence over human morals and taboos or emotions.
    • Subverted: The Tropers resolve to make their rations last as long as possible, and see what edible items are around them in the wilderness.
    • Double Subverted: But then the rations run out, and food sources are limited in the surrounding wilderness, and survival instincts take over.
    • Deconstructed: They may feel bad about it, especially if the people they're contemplating consuming are their friends and/or relatives, and may be regarded as outcasts if and when they get back to civilization.
      • Also, eventually, this food source will run out too.
    • Reconstructed: The Tropers learn wilderness survival, and try to avoid getting into situations where they'd be lost without any supplies in the first place.
    • Parodied: Eventually, the women gather around and trade gossip...and recipes for Roast Hubby, Braised Bratty Teenage Daughter, and Grilled Grandpa.
    • Lampshaded: "I say we Just Eat Gilligan."
    • Averted: See "Reconstructed"
    • Enforced: Rule of Drama
    • Invoked: See "Double Subverted"
    • Defied: The Tropers decide that cannibalism is still a Moral Event Horizon crossover, no matter how bad their circumstances are. No one is killed for food, and the corpses are buried, not eaten.
    • Discussed: "If you and your mom were ever stranded on Far Side Island with no food, would you eat her?"
    • Conversed: "No way. I'd live off the coconuts and try to catch some fish instead."
    • Played For Laughs: See "Parodied"
    • Played For Drama: Almost always is.

    Let's bring a few friends back to the trope for lunch, eh? There's No Party Like a Donner Party, after all.