To Serve Man: Difference between revisions

[[File:toserveman.jpg|thumb|350px|[[Bilingual Bonus|Evidently,]] we [[Tastes Like Chicken|taste of chicken]].]]

 

 

The planet Earth in fiction seems to be a magnet for every hostile alien, demon, trans-dimensional being and human-created atrocity known for a very simple reason.

Can also be justified if the monsters are a result of [[The Virus]], if said virus is human-specific and spreads through a bite, since it can be altering its host's mind in order to spread itself around more effectively.

 

 

{{examples}}

* Homunculi in ''[[Busou Renkin]]'' eat humans, but this doesn't seem to be necessary for their survival; after an early feeding frenzy, Papillion Mask doesn't eat another human for the duration of the series. {{spoiler|Victoria Powered later suggests that it's because, unlike other homunculi, Papillion has absolutely no wish to be human again. Notably, this tidbit comes after the line, "Want a taste? It's my mother."}}

* The "Processing Plants" in ''[[Cannon God Exaxxion]]'' convert humans into food, among other things, some of which is actually sold back to other unwitting humans. Somewhat justified as the aliens' main motivation is to colonize the planet & making the dominant species into a foodsource is simply convenient.

* This is ''literally'' a genetic imperative of the aliens in ''[[Parasyte]]'' - as one tells the main character, the first thing all of them hear in their heads when they take over a body is "Kill and eat this species!" This is further expanded on early in the story, when the main character sees a Parasyte that accidentally landed in a dog - it's eating another dog.

* The demons in ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', combined with [[Carnivore Confusion]]. It doesn't say whether ''all'' species of demon have to eat human flesh to survive, though. This leads, later in the series, {{spoiler|to a [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|what measure is a human]] discussion, as well as Raizen's death via [[Love Redeems|starvation for his medieval Japanese human lover]], from whom Yusuke is descended}}.

** YMMV, though, as the "[[Humanoid Aliens]]" had a lot of insect-like features to them.

 

* As you can see in the page quote, ''[[Nextwave]]'' explains monsters' preference for eating humans.

* One ''[[Strontium Dog]]'' story had a planet of aliens who imported many other sentient species as slaves. The fit ones were put to work building monuments to the king, while the sick, lame, and old were put in battery farms to be fattened up before eating.

* ''[[Marvel Zombies]] 5'' involves a world where H.G. Wells' ''War of the Worlds'' happened. Then the Martians came back, immune to Earthling's diseases. Then, they did human farming. So, what do you do with the Zombie virus? It's a dirty war, let's poison the enemy's food.

 

* This is the premise for [[Peter Jackson]]'s (yes, ''that'' Peter Jackson) first movie, ''[[Bad Taste]]'': if the aliens have their way, our entire species will be served throughout the galaxy as "Crumb's Country Delights"...

* The sci-fi movie [[Daybreakers]] explores this trope with an interesting twist --- what if 95% of the population are now vampires, and only 5% are humans?

* ''[[Battle Beyond the Stars]]''. [[Reptiles Are Abhorent|Caymen of the Lambda Zone]] captures [[The Chick]] and, though he admits he'd normally get a fine price elsewhere [[Mars Needs Women|for a pretty thing like her]], he's now going to feed her to an alien who's purchased her body for more carnivorous purposes.

* Weird sci-fi flick ''[[Lifeforce]]'' has an unusual spin on vampire mythology: vampires are actually aliens who visit humanity from time to time to suck us dry of life energy.

 

* In ''The Awakeners'' by [[Sheri S. Tepper]], humans are allowed to immigrate to the planet Northshore after the government essentially makes a [[Deal with the Devil]] with a native species (that resemble human sized, talking birds). {{spoiler|When a person dies they are fed a liquid, The Tears of Viranel, which supposedly helps them on into the afterlife. In reality this liquid turns them into walking zombies, and tenderises their flesh so the native species can eat them.}} Um, yeah...

* In ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]: The Silver Chair'' the children are invited to stay in the giants' castle, where they will be "part of the great Autumn Feast in their honor". The older female giants fawn and tut-tut over their charges. Then they discover a giant-sized cookbook in the kitchen... it lists Man as a delicacy, albeit with very little actual meat. The cookbook goes so far as to list Marshwiggle ([[Non-Human Sidekick]] Puddleglum), claiming that while edible, they are very stringy and have a "muddy flavor".

* A number of aliens in [[John Scalzi]]'s ''Old Man's War'' universe like to eat humans, most notably the Rraey. This tends to be the main issue with human-Rraey relations.

** The Rraey have ''cooking shows'' about how to serve humans.

* The [[Eldritch Abomination|godlike Managers]] [[Sealed Evil in a Can|imprisoned beneath the showgrounds]] in ''[[The Pilo Family Circus]]'' consider the entire human race little more than an exquisite but miniscule delicacy.

* The main reason the devils in ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]'' have any interest in people whatsoever is their oh-so-tasty souls.

* ''[[The War Against the Chtorr]]'' series has an invading alien ecology [[Terraform|transforming Earth]] into a world where humanity will not only serve as food, [[Eat the Dog|but will welcome it]].

* In David Weber and Steve White's ''In Death Ground'' (a novel based on the ''Starfire'' tabletop wargame), on every human-colonized planet the Arachnids take over, they eat the locals.

* This trope is one of the main themes in Michel Faber's ''Under The Skin''. The book plays with the reader's perceptions as {{spoiler|the aliens call themselves "humans" and refer to Earthlings as "vodsels". The protagonist's job is to pick up human hitchhikers while disguised as a voluptuous human female, and deliver the meat to a farm to be processed and sent to the home planet for the rich to eat as a delicacy.}}

* ''[[World War Z]]'' (and '''[[The Zombie Survival Guide]]'' before it) had the zombie hunger for human flesh as part of the solanium virus's lifecycle. Zombies feed largely because a single bite is enough to convert the victim (they don't ''need'' to eat; human flesh simply builds up in their digestive systems. If they live long enough, food intake will [[Squick|push undigested flesh out of their rear]]). The major problem with this is that "Feed" instinct usually outweighs "Spread" instincts.

* In Robert Asprin's ''[[Myth Adventures|Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections]]'', Skeeve is in disguise in a Pervish restaurant and asks for "something from [his home dimension of] Klah", and is brought what appears to be an entire cooked Klahd/human; it turns out it's a fake constructed out of other kinds of meat.

 

* In ''[[Angel]]'', [[Big Bad]] Jasmine needs to regularly eat humans whole for nourishment. When Gunn finds out about this, he screams "''To Serve Man''! It's ''To Serve Man'' all over again!" When Angel mentions this as one of his reasons for opposing her, she quickly retorts "Like you never have?"

** In the episode "Unleased" a group of depraved culinarists catch a werewolf for her meat. Since a werewolf returns to human form when it dies, [[Squick|it has to be eaten alive.]]

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' serial ''The Two Doctors'' featured Shockeye, an alien who prattled on endlessly about the gourmet possibilities for the preparation of human flesh.

** There's a subversion/inversion in "The Impossible Planet", in which the Ood advance on the Doctor and Rose repeatedly stating "We must feed" - their translator was malfunctioning and they meant "We must feed you" (they're servants).

* Quite a few monsters in ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' are prone to snacking on people or specific parts of them, but the Leviathans certainly take the cake, as their entire M.O. seems to be "they eat people".

** Of course, double meanings do not carry over well in translation, which raises the question just how stupid or unlucky the translators must have been.

*** It's not impossible, depending on the language structure. The "poor luck" scenario in this particular case is more a 20% chance or so than a 1% chance, at least in Earth languages.

* The first season of ''[[War of the Worlds (TV series)|War of the Worlds]]'' ends with the Blackwood team allying itself with an android sent by a "friendly" alien race to help protect mankind from the invaders. Her final message back to her homeworld before leaving, subtitled for the benefit of the audience, but untranslated for Blackwood and his team, changes a hopeful ending to a [[Downer Ending]]. The message? "Humanity still in danger as future food supply."

 

 

* In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'', one of the rules that all werewolf clans are supposed to follow is not eating humans. This is explained as being partially because it's dangerously close to cannibalism (all werewolves have a werewolf as one parent and either a human or a wolf as the other), but mostly because with all the preservatives we eat, we're just not very healthy for them. One clan (consisting only of werewolves with a wolf parent) breaks this rule whenever they can, but this has more to do with their inherent misanthropy than anything else.

** In ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken]]'', werewolves are forbidden from eating humans or wolves - their cousins on either side of the spiritual family tree. Thing is, if they break that rule, they gain Essence back...

* In ''[[Starfire]]'', one alien race, the Arachnids, finds humans to be a delicacy.

 

* The whole plot of ''[[Commander Keen]] 6'' revolves around saving the protagonist's babysitter from aliens that want to eat her (the full name of the game is ''Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate my Babysitter!''). The game even features a level which contains a book with "How To Serve Man" written on the cover with alien alphabet.

* ''[[The Journeyman Project|Buried in Time: The Journeyman Project Part 2]]'' features a player death sequence in which the hero accidentally teleports himself onto the table of some aliens preparing to sample earth cuisine, and is mistaken for Kung Pao Chicken.

* The [[Kaiju]] Gods of ''[[Primal Rage]]'' can eat the humans who enter the battlefield to pray to their respective god during battle to gain health. Taking this to the extreme is Sauron ([[The Lord of the Rings|No, not that one]]) whose insatiable appetite has him eating ''everyone'' in his ending.

** Undead characters also have a racial ability called "Cannibalize" that enables them to consume humanoid corpses every so often to restore a percentage of their health.

* The alien invaders' objective in ''[[Body Harvest]]''.

* It's hinted in the ''[[X-COM]]'' series that one of the reasons aliens harvest humans is for food... some fan works retaliate with [[Alien Lunch|humans dining on the aliens in return]]. ([[Rule of Funny]] is in play)

** One of the ways that players can earn money in the game is selling recovered alien technology—including alien corpses. It is never made entirely clear who buys those corpses, but in the official ''X-COM'' tie-in novel by Diane Duane, the protagonist actually wonders if restaurants are buying them.

* In Tomb Raider, dinosaurs (and other various large creatures) seem to find Miss Lara Croft a delicacy, considering they attack her on sight with or without provocation, in addition, in various QTE's, Lara can get [[Swallowed Whole]] by either a T-Rex or Snake creature, with the former ignoring several Raptors to eat Lara.

* Aside from using humans or various parts thereof in their war machine, the Strogg from ''[[Quake II]]'' and ''[[Quake 4|Quake IV]]'' also reprocess humans into Stroyent to feed their troops. When {{spoiler|the player himself is Stroggified, he can also use it as a means of replenishing health.}}

* This is a required survival behavior for the player's monster in ''[[Crush Crumble and Chomp]]''; eating humans staves off hunger and heals damage. Unprotected civilians are the best, while armored tanks and infantry provide minimal benefit.

** The prologue of ''Perfect Cherry Blossom'', written by a Hakurei shrine maiden (possibly [[Main Character|Reimu herself]]) notes that humans are delicacies to the youkai and that teams of them regularly leave Gensokyo to kidnap outside humans for food, [[The Masquerade|disguised as accidents or people running away from home]].

** In ''Perfect Memento in Strict Sense'', [[Unreliable Narrator|Heida no Akyu]] says on one hand that the humans of Gensokyo are no longer hunted by youkai as food ... but later comments that ''outsider'' humans are common prey (as well as hermits).

** One of the few times a youkai has threatened to eat a human in-game is the encounter with [[Final Boss|Utsuho Reiuji]] in ''Subterranean Animism'', when playing as Reimu and Suika. Utsuho finds Reimu rather tasty-looking, and expresses her desire to eat Reimu right then and there.

 

* Aylee from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' seemed to eat nothing but human beings at first. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] since her species is specifically designed to take over worlds, so she'd naturally be geared towards attacking the dominant species.

* Schlock from ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' occasionally delves in here, albeit not too often. the biology aspect is kinda laid aside due to the fact that Schlock's immune system is good enough to reject even nanobot assault.

** [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-11-09 Occasionally] this actually ''is'' much more convenient than other options.

 

* Demons in ''[[Tales of MU]]'' are required to feed on humans, either something physical or intangible, depending on the individual. Even ones who feed on blood apparently find human flesh tasty, as do other races such as ogres and even {{spoiler|mermaids (Why did you think they were so attracted to sailors?)}}. With members of these races integrated at a human university, it can lead to culture clash.

 

* It's been mentioned in ''[[Ben 10]]'' that humans are one of the universe's most delicious species.

** Parodied in the chapter about the slurm's factory

{{quote|'''Fry:''' Maybe...the secret ingredient is humans!

'''Fry:''' Really? how's it taste?

'''Leela:''' It varies from person to person. }}

{{quote|'''Announcer:''' It's a buncha muncha cruncha humans!}}

* Subverted in an episode of Sunbow's ''[[G.I. Joe]]'', of all things, where Scarlett mentions that animals actually find that humans taste rather bad (all while being chased by a mind-controlled T-Rex).

* [[Zig-Zagging Trope|Triple-subverted]] in a ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Simpsons Hallowe'en Special]]'' parodying the [[Trope Namer]]. Lisa finds a book entitled ''How to Cook Humans'', but Kang quickly wipes away some dust to reveal the true title - ''How to Cook '''for''' humans''. Lisa then wipes away some more dust, revealing that the title is in fact ''How to Cook For'''ty''' Humans''. Finally, Kang wipes away the last of the "space dust", showing that the full, complete title is ''How to Cook '''for''' Forty Humans''. After that, the aliens are so disgusted at Lisa's assumption they would eat her that they leave Earth for good... after trying everything you'd expect from a secretly "humanitarian" race, including the book that looks like a cookbook, the neverending feast, constantly saying things that sound like a [[Double Entendre]] about eating people, etc. Although it ''is'' partially justifiable, as they've probably never done this with humans before and didn't expect to be thought of as people-eaters.

** It's been said that Matt Groening wanted the title to turn out to be ''How to Cook For Forty Humans and Then Eat Them'', but he was fortunately vetoed—having them be wrong about it is much funnier.

* In ''[[Adventure Time]]'', Jake invites his rainicorn girlfriend's parents over for dinner. He tells them Finn is his goblin servant to impress them. When he finally fesses up that yes, Finn is a human, they start licking him. When they realize Jake and Finn are friends, though, they settle for artificial human.

* ''[[Regular Show]]'' episode "Meat Your Maker": A group of hot dogs (the leader of which is voiced by [[Tim Curry]]) marinate the cast with this as the intention. Then Rigby squirts mustard on them, and they eat each other instead.

 

* Carl Sagan, in ''Pale Blue Dot'', has a footnote about this during a part of the book where he refutes various arguments against watching for other life.

{{quote|Surprisingly many people, including ''New York Times'' editorialists, are concerned that once extraterrestrials know where we are, they will come here and eat us. Put aside the profound biological differences that must exist between the hypothetical aliens and ourselves; imagine that we constitute an interstellar gastronomic delicacy. Why transport large numbers of us to alien restaurants? The freightage is enormous. [[Pragmatic Villainy|Wouldn't it be better just to steal a few humans]], sequence our amino acids or whatever else is the source of our delectability, and then just [[Cloning Blues|synthesize]] the identical food product from scratch?"}}

* Abundant fossil evidence indicates that early human ancestors were regularly food for any number of large carnivores, including big cats, hyenas, and eagles. One species, Dinofelis, a leopard sized sabretoothed cat, may have even been a hominid specialist. This continued up to at least the time of Homo erectus, the discoverer of fire and the first human species to legitimately be a competent major predator in its own right.

* The idea that humans are somehow unpalatable or repugnant to most predators is probably a myth. We are unlikely to taste much different than your average monkey or ape, which are part of the regular menu for many predators. Instead, living predator species for the most part have learned the hard way that humans are dangerous prey and not worth the effort. Those that have not learned this are no longer with us. It also may not that humans taste bad, rather we generally don't have much meat compared to other similar-sized animals. Combined with having guns and stuff, humans are not very good prey. It's not really worth all the trouble. We also ''look'' a lot bigger than other animals of our body weight, due to our vertical posture. A predator that'd happily take down a human-sized quadruped is likely to hesitate before tackling a creature that towers over its usual game.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Food Tropes]]

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]

[[Category:Artistic License Biology]]