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To Serve Man: Difference between revisions
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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.
Named for the classic ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' episode (itself based on a short story by Damon Knight) that dramatically shows you [[Subverted Suspicion Aesop|cannot judge a book by its title]]. See [[I'm a
{{examples}}
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* 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}}.
* In their first appearance in [[
** YMMV, though, as the "[[Humanoid Aliens]]" had a lot of insect-like features to them.
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* Again inverted in ''[[District 9]]''- some of the Nigerians believe that by eating the aliens, they'll gain the ability to use their DNA-coded weapons (this is based on [[Truth in Television]]—albinos in Tanzania are hunted by a superstitious but dangerous few trying to gain their "power"). [[Humans Are Bastards]] ''is in full effect''.
** Also played straight with {{spoiler|Koobus's fate}}. It seems everyone's got a taste for everyone else in that universe.
* In ''Dude, Where's My Car'', the first thing that {{spoiler|the alien [[Amazon Brigade]] do after merging into the [[Attack of the
* The ''[[Tyrannosaurus Rex|Vastatosaurus]] [[Expy|rex]]'' of Skull Island in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of ''King Kong'' seemed to find blonde heroine Ann Darrow an irresistible tidbit, eagerly pursuing her with intent to devour regardless of circumstances. One actually drops the half-eaten carcass of its reptilian prey (massing about as much as a human) to pursue her, and later a V-rex struggles to bite her while dangling by (industrial strength) vines over a canyon floor! (Maybe blonde female humans are "carnosaur crack" and just the sight or scent of one immediately addicts the poor brute.)
** After the brontosaur stampede ends with the entire herd of sauropods literally left in a pile - which, given their huge size, would have left most of their skeletons effectively pulverized and probably killed instantly in [[Real Life]] - the predatory ''[[Raptor Attack|Venatosaurus]]'' pack promptly ignores the already-disposed of banquet before them in order to pursue the small band of fleeing humans (who are armed with Tommy guns, no less).
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* The iconic giant plant from ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'', is an {{spoiler|alien species that}} survives only by feeding off of fresh human blood, and {{spoiler|arrived on earth in the first place to conquer America and feed off of its inhabitants, supposedly due to an extreme lack of food on the species' native planet.}}
* ''[[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 ''[[
== Literature ==
* In ''The Awakeners'' by [[Sheri S. Tepper]], humans are allowed to immigrate to the planet Northshore after the government essentially makes a [[Deal
* 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 [[To Serve Man|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".
** What courses are Man served at the Autumn Feast? <small>''"MAN. This elegant little biped has long been valued as a delicacy. It forms a traditional part of the Autumn Feast, and is served '''[[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|between the fish and the joint]].''' Each Man--"''</small> We don't know what it says after that because Jill stopped reading.
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** The Rraey have ''cooking shows'' about how to serve humans.
* In ''[[Literature/Parasite Pig|Parasite Pig]]'' by [[William Sleator]], there are [[Giant Enemy Crab|crablike]] aliens that have a whole gourmet tradition for cooking humans and similar creatures (complete with treating them as guests and fattening them up), even though they don't have space travel and have to wait for humans to come to their home planet. (In that [[The Verse|verse]], [[Casual Interstellar Travel]] exists, but Earth-inhabiting humans don't have access to it, and it generally doesn't seem as if the crabs in question do.)
* The [[Eldritch Abomination|godlike Managers]] [[Sealed Evil in
* The main reason the devils in ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]'' have any interest in people whatsoever is their oh-so-tasty souls.
* [[Averted]] in Piers Anthony's "Small Mouth, Bad Taste", in which a prehistoric race of sentient lemurs was driven to extinction because, ''unlike'' we humans, they were quite tasty to predators.
* In Anne Rice's ''[[Vampire Chronicles]]'', vampires usually feed from humans, but have no problem whatsoever with existing on animal blood if they have to. Lestat even explains this to Louis in ''[[Interview
* ''[[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.
* The Martians in [[
* They actually have the cookbook in real life, inspired by the [[Twilight Zone]] episode.
* 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.}}
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* [[Stargate Atlantis]]'s Wraith can only subsist on the life-energy of humans; alternative food sources won't work. Much of the protagonists' challenge involves keeping them from finding Earth, which they desire because of its large population even though it's in another galaxy. Yes, there are humans in another galaxy. [[Neglectful Precursors|It's]] [[Ancient Astronauts|Stargate]].
** It's not that alternative food sources won't work; after puberty, a Wraith's digestive system shuts down and while they can still consume food and drink orally, they won't derive sustenance from it. We never saw one starving to death since they can just hybernate when hungry but Todd did show signs of it like randomly fainting (or [[Crowning Moment of Funny|going delirious and speaking in rhymes]] in an alternate universe).
* 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".
* To elaborate on the [[Trope Namer]], it was the word-for-word title of an episode of [[The Twilight Zone]]. The story begins when {{spoiler|[[Captain Obvious|seemingly]]}} benevolent aliens come to Earth bringing solutions to the world's issues of war, hunger and poverty, and eventually offer humans rides back to their home planet. Said aliens are carrying a book instructing them on how to aide humans, entitled "[[Title Drop|To Serve Man]]" (that is, {{spoiler|presumably,}} to be of service to man). However, as more of the book is translated, its true nature is discovered, leading to the reveal: {{spoiler|[[It Was His Sled|"It's a cookbook!"]]}} (Most likely [[Better Than It Sounds]])
** 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.
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** The episode foreshadowed the twist ending by saying metaphors that compared humans to livestock. In fact, one of the first things the aliens did was {{spoiler|build huge containment shields, ostensibly to end war forever.}}.
* The aliens in ''[[V]]'' plan on making humanity into a food source. Subverting the trope since it didn't follow though, however, they seem to have no problem with eating ''other'' mammals as well (see: the famous sequence where one swallows a guinea pig whole).
* 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."
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[
** 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 ''[[
== Videogames ==
* The whole plot of ''[[
* ''[[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.
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** 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]]''.
* In ''[[
** Actually its the Troll Witchdoctor, and his last taunt (before cycling back to the non-pissed phrases) is a hilarious parody of the [[Iron Chef]] cooking show!
* 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)
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** A common joke about the second game, Terror From the Deep, is that bases undoubtably eat hearty after fending off Lobster Men attacks.
* 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 ''[[
* 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.
* ''[[Touhou|Touhou Project]]'''s [[Youkai]] are generally said to be man-eaters (no, not THAT kind), though this is usually kept in the background:
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* 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.
** Also the zombies. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] because not only do they need to eat humans, they need to eat SPECIFIC PARTS, because they literally "are what they eat". Their bodies constantly rot, and only regenerate the body parts they consume. Hence, the ones that go after BRAAAAAAINS end up being as smart as regular humans while those with a low-brain diet are stupid like regular zombies.
* Schlock from ''[[
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== Western Animation ==
* It's been mentioned in ''[[
* [[Inverted]] in the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Problem with Popplers". The Planet Express crew discover a delicious life form on an uncharted planet, and market it as a snack food. Unfortunately for them, it turns out the popplers are actually larval Omicronians, who are none too pleased when they find out. Somewhat subverted when the Omicronians insist on eating humans (i.e., Leela) as compensation. Unfortunately for them, {{spoiler|she isn't a human, she's a mutant.}} But the difference isn't easy to notice in behavior.
** Parodied in the chapter about the slurm's factory
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* 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).
* The Uglions in the ''[[Sam and Max]]'' animated series open a restaurant "to serve man". The [[Twilight Zone]] episode gets another [[Shout-Out]] in the game "What's New Beelzbub?", when Max exclaims that Stinky's baby book is a cookbook.
* [[Zig
** 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 the ''[[
* A [[What a Cartoon Show]] Short called Gramps Lampshaded this when a character runs to Gramps, exclaiming what he found before he is hit by a golf club by Gramps, exclaiming, "It's been done!"
* In ''[[
* ''[[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.
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