Sacred Hospitality: Difference between revisions

{{examples}}

* Planters mascot [[Anthropomorphic Food|Mr. Peanut]] is always a gracious host at his parties, even towards [[Foil|Richard]], a Christmas nutcracker who [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBE3mby0p6M seems to have "problems" behaving at them.]

* This trope appears to be in strong effect in ''[[Kino's Journey]]'', where nearly every country welcomes any travellers from the outside world as guests of honour and gives them free food, lodgings and guided tours at the drop of a hat. Apparently travellers in this world are so rare that this doesn't unduly tax their resources, but it's still amazing how many countries maintain luxurious hotels ready just in case a traveller comes along every few years and needs a place to stay.

* Results in a somewhat tense moment in ''[[Nurarihyon no Mago]]'' when some [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil|old enemies]] show up...[[Rivals Team Up|as guests, this time]].

* In ''[[PS238]]'', Hestia, a pre-teen avatar of the same-named Greek god of the home, has the ability to totally incapacitate or worse anyone who breaks the laws of hospitality.

* One [[Wonder Woman]] story, The Hiketeia, deals with Diana offering protection to a runaway girl from Gotham City. This is before the runaway is revealed as a murderer (the people she killed [[Kick the Son of a Bitch|needed to go, though.]]) Eventually [[Batman]] shows up to arrest her, but [[Wonder Woman]] promised her guest protection and hospitality, so [[Let's You and Him Fight|she and Batman fight to the death over conflicting morals.]] The girl [[Take a Third Option|Takes A Third Option]] and leaps [[Driven to Suicide|off a bridge.]]

* In the original version of ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'', this is how Beauty ends up the Beast's prisoner, because her father violates the custom. He finds a castle whose doors open to allow him access, and its unseen lord provides him with much needed food and shelter. Then, however, he finds a garden full of roses, and remember that a rose is the one thing Beauty asked to bring back for her, steals one of them. The castle's lord - the Beast, of course - catches him in the act, and is furious at his hospitality betrayed by petty theft. He only spares the man when Beauty agrees to take his place.

* Invoked by name in [http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=1707&pid=177974#pid177974 this vignette] from ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]''.

* In ''[[Troll 2]]'', the father stresses the wonders of "typical country hospitality". It turns out that the [[Corrupt Hick|country folk]] are actually evil goblins who want to eat our heroes.

** You can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!

* In Disney's ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'', the Beast's offense was not allowing a poor old woman shelter. Lumiere welcomes Maurice into the castle as a guest when he seeks shelter from the wolves, and when Belle takes his place, Lumiere declares that Belle should also be treated as a guest, rather than a prisoner.

* The D'regs in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' books have very strong laws to show hospitality to a guest for three days. In ''[[Discworld/Jingo|Jingo]]'', "[[Cowboy Cop|71-Hour Ahmed]]" [[The Magnificent|got his name]] when he broke this law by killing his (murderously evil) host an hour before the three days were up; another character comments that it wouldn't have mattered so much if he had just waited the extra hour.

* [[Word of Dante|According to the]] ''[[The Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]'', betrayal of one's guest or host is such a dire sin that it not only gets you sent to the lowest level of Hell (a [[Evil Is Deathly Cold|frozen lake]]), but you actually go there before you die—while a demon takes over your living body.

** Also, the Free Cities have an unusual variation of this: You must protect your guests...unless they show suicidal tendencies. Then its your responsibility, as a gracious host, to put them out of their misery.

* In [[Stephen Hunt]]'s ''The Court of the Air'', the commodore welcomes Molly to the hospitality of their house.

{{quote|''Then the dwarves bowed low before their Gate, but words stuck in their throats. "Good-bye and good luck, wherever you fare!" said Balin at last. "If ever you visit us again, when our halls are made fair once more, then the feast shall indeed be splendid!"

"If ever you are passing my way," said Bilbo, "don't wait to knock! Tea is at four; but any of you are welcome at any time!"'' }}

** This is also one of the reasons why he gives extravagant gifts (as well as being part of his persona and to ingratiate himself with people) - he wants to be in nobody's debt. Whenever someone tries to give him a gift, he gives them a more valuable one to even things out.

* [[The Travels of Marco Polo|Marco Polo]] wrote that during his travels he came across the district of Kamul. When strangers arrived, the male head of a household would leave his own house and allow the stranger to live there as if it were his own, and as if all the females of the household were his own wives. The people of Kamul felt so strongly about this custom that when the Khan banned it, they sent a delegation to ask him to reverse his decision, which he did. Pretty lousy for the wives, though...

* In one novel by [[Alan Furst]] an [[OSS]] agent in the Balkans is sheltered by a fishing village. Sometime later the villagers discover that left on the shore for them is a feast (smuggled in by the [[OSS]] of course) with a note left to them thanking them. The villagers thereupon wonder what [[Yanks With Tanks|Fabulously Rich]] [[Noble Fugitive|refugee]] they had obtained the gratitude of.

* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Stardust (novel)|Stardust]]'', when one witch [[I Gave My Word|pledges]] to treat another as if she were her guest, the other takes it as a perfect promise.

* In Robert Louis Stevenson's ballad "Ticonderoga" a Highlander shelters a fugitive. In the night his brother visits him in a dream and tells him that the reason the guest is a fugitive is because he killed the brother of the Highlander. The Highlander is forced to choose between Family Honor and Sacred Hospitality and chooses the later, letting the fugitive stay without taking vengeance. As a result he is given a curse from behind the grave with the word "Ticonderoga". When the Highlander cannot figure what the word means, he tries to work off his worries by enlisting with King George. He soldiers heroically around the world until he ends up in North America where he is finally finds out he is fighting near Ft Ticonderoga. Which is where he is fated to die.

* [[Blake's 7]]: In the episode [http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/Episodes/Reviews/DeathWatch1.html Death Watch] it is stated that the [http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/SevenCyc/T.html Teal-Vandor Convention] will protect guests from external enemies as long as the guest obeys the local laws.

* Averted on ''[[Come Dine With Me]]'', in which people are invited to each other's houses, waited on hand and foot, and then encouraged to bitch and moan about the slightest flaws in the food or entertainment. [[Fridge Brilliance]] sets in when you realise that like most [[Reality Show]]s, you're ''meant'' to hate the contestants, and there's nothing better for [[Kick the Dog|making someone look unpleasant]] than seeing them complain about someone else's hospitality.

* In the solo adventure module "A Bad Batch of Brownies" (from ''[[Dungeon]] #58''), the reason the brownies are [[Dare to Be Badass|acting "bad"]] (tattooing themselves, wearing leather jackets, trying to sound and act "tough", and making the forest a complete and utter mess) is because they're trying to emulate an unusual guest. "Wild Jack" is a street tough from a biker gang who came through a Well of Many Worlds from an Alternate Prime Material Plane [[From Beyond the Fourth Wall|(as in, ours)]], and while he's not the most cordial or polite of guests, the brownies insist he not be killed or abused, as he's a guest. Not to mention it was their fault he's here, as they were misusing the Well of Many Worlds and now have no idea how to help him get home. The player's goal is finding a way to do that.

* As pictured above, in ''[[The Ring of the Nibelung|Die Walkuere]]'', Hunding finds his wife sheltering a man he's been pursuing, and, presumably having learned from the mistakes in Mythology above, lets him stay freely before trying to kill him in the morning. Siegmund betrays Hunding's hospitality by running off with Hunding's wife (Siegmund's long-lost sister). The gods are cool with the incest, but the goddess Fricka demands that Wotan punish Siegmund for his poor guest-behavior with death.

* In [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Macbeth]]'', Macbeth worries about killing Duncan while he was a guest in Macbeth's castle.

''Later that day'': "Hey, that pile of baskets is looking great." And so on... }}

* In the days when kinship dominated the political scene honorable hostage exchange was a quirky example of this. Though a hostage could be executed if his ruler broke a treaty until then he was treated as a guest. Some versions of this had the guest fighting in the host's army and it was not unknown for a famous warlord to win his spurs in this way.

* During the Russian Revolution, Paul Zaharrof sheltered among Moslem tribesfolk who had known him before the war as a wandering hunter and scientist. One household knocked out a hole in the wall and boarded it up with him inside; though it was an excruciating torture, but it prevented him getting caught when the house was searched. In general, the locals liked him because he had been wandering around long enough to be established as a neighbor. They did not like Russians in general, but Whites at least had a recognizable religion and traditional hierarchy and [[Not So Different|were easier to understand]] than Reds. All that said, Zaharrof got to safety by the hospitality of locals.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Morality Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]