History Main / AbstractEater

When prayer is eaten, this overlaps with GodsNeedPrayerBadly. If the food is something intangible like "magic" or "life force" it overlaps with PhlebotinumMuncher. See also DreamStealer, who may or may not eat the dreams.

'''The Centaur''': Elves steal power. The rest of us... exchange it. That's more than fair, don't you think?

* The Malacus version of Mr. Jordan in ''Literature/TheNewNarnia'' explains that the Nanny feeds on her victim's "power" -- the power to feed oneself, dress oneself, wipe oneself, etc. -- as a tradeoff for the PowerFantasy she gives them, rendering them mindless babies.
--> '''Katlynn''': You stole his... his adulthood?\\

* In ''Literature/TheNewHanselAndGretel'', instead of milk, the stuff Mathair bottle-feeds jack and Jamie is "childhood nostalgia."
--> They were memories of simpler, perhaps happier times: He recalled the simple satisfaction of draining a bowl of its milk, after eating all of the cereal inside while he watched cartoons on a Saturday morning, clad only in his underwear. He thought of sweet chocolate milk served as a special treat in a sippy cup when he had finally graduated from Pampers to Pull-Ups. He remembered suckling on his breakfast, much like this one, content as his mother changed his sodden diapers first thing in the morning. Through it all he was vulnerable. He was exposed. He was weak. And that was all okay because he was little.

* {{Youkai}} in ''Manga/UshioAndTora'' have many different diets, usually [[IAmAHumanitarian people, organs or souls]], but the recent Youkai Ikkaku (a fish-like monster who dwells in motorcycles and possess people) gets its nourishment from speed itself, forcing the user to go faster and faster with no regards for safety.

* In ''Literature/TheSagaOfBilly'', Vetherr [[GodOfEvil the Betrayer]] earned his nickname when he devoured the fertility of [[EtTuBrute one of his lovers]] and the reason of [[{{Polyamory}} the other]] (or his mothers', [[EthnicGod depending on the interpretation of the myth]]).
* Creator/DianeDuane's ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novels have the Iruhe, who eat the minds of sentient beings, leaving only breathing but mindless bodies. They appear briefly in ''Literature/TheRomulanWay'', where they devour the minds of two ships' worth of Romulans (who have just left Vulcan and were in the process of looking for a new homeworld, and were lured in by the Iruhe's illusions of a water-rich, habitable planet); the rest of the fleet barely escape. The Iruhe are also the villains of her TNG book ''Intellivore'', where they have gained the ability to move their planet about to prey on planets rather than just starships.
* The grammasites, from the ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' series. Parasites that live in books, examples include adjectivores, spelling vyruses, and the like.

* ''VideoGame/GodOfWarRagnarok'' has [[AnimalisticAbomination Garm]]. It is quite telling that despite the fact that he is [[CompleteImmortality unkillable]] and can tear up dimensional holes in the fabric of reality with his claws, threatening to destroy the seven worlds and quite literally leave them in tatters, the thing that makes him TheDreaded is his appetite: According to Mimir, there used to be a word for that feeling you get when you're so hungry that you stop being hungry. There isn't any longer though, because Garm ate it. There also used to be five seasons, with the fifth one taking place between Winter and Spring. Garm ate that one, too. Including its nature and its name. Now, only some of the oldest, wisest beings alive are aware of the fact that the word and the season ever even existed, but they cannot really talk about them in depth due to the linguistic issues that arose when the word and season were devoured.

* The tutorial of ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' has fun with this idea.
-->'''Diablo:''' How tastes your fear, mortal!
-->'''Raynor:''' I wouldn't know, I'm not sure you can actually taste fear.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'':
** The [[EldritchAbomination Daedric Prince]] Vaermina has been eating the dreams of the inhabitants of the town of Dawnstar, leaving nightmares in it's place. The quest ''Walking Nightmare'' involves helping a Mara priest named Erandur to seal Vaermina's shrine and stop her from eating more dreams. [[spoiler: If you side with Vaermina, betraying and killing Erandur, she will give you a staff that also charges its power from "eating" dreams.]]
** According to legend, [[DraconicAbomination Alduin]] once devoured the lifespan of the entire Nord population down to age six.
* The Phantom mobs in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' are [[TheUndead undead]] [[AirborneMook flying]] [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial manta rays]] that are "attracted to insomnia". They appear in the skies at night when a player hasn't slept for 3 days and swoop down to attack that player.

* ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'':
** The Hive (and the symbiotic worms that give them power) feed on death and grow stronger with every kill they make, in accordance with their guiding philosophy, the sword logic: if you kill something, you prove that you‘re more powerful than that thing. However, the more they kill, the bigger their worm’s appetite gets too, forcing them to ever-greater feats of violence — if they fail to sate their worm, the worm eats them instead. The gods of the Hive, the oldest and mightiest of the species, were forced to build an elaborate metaphysical tithe system drawing from every single other Hive to gather all the death their worms demanded, as even with their vast power they were unable to do enough killing on their own to satisfy them.
** The Ahamkara are shapeshifting dragons capable of granting wishes. They do this by ''eating'' the difference between "reality as it is" and "reality as you want it to be", bringing the two together, though they somehow manage to be {{Jackass Genie}}s at the same time. It's not clear if they eat (or are even capable of eating) anything else.
* In ''VideoGame/Prey2017'', January speculates that [[EldritchAbomination the Typhon]] have evolved to feed on consciousness and that they can quite literally "eat minds". Subsequent events in the game more-or-less confirm this to be the case while positing it as a rather horrifying answer to the UsefulNotes/FermiParadox: Any civilisation that gains self-awareness gets [[TitleDrop preyed upon]] by the Typhon.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' season five BigBad Glory had to manage her hell god composure by eating human sanity, leaving her victims gibbering wrecks.

-->'''Diablo''': How tastes your fear, mortal!
-->'''Raynor''': I wouldn't know, I'm not sure you can actually taste fear.

** The [[EldritchAbomination Daedric Prince]] Vaermina has been eating the dreams of the inhabitants of the town of Dawnstar, leaving nightmares in it's place. The quest ''Walking Nightmare'' involves helping a Mara priest named Erandur to seal Vaermina shrine and stop her from eating more dreams. [[spoiler: If you side with Vaermina, betraying and killing Erandur, she will give you a staff that also charges its power from "eating" dreams.]]

* [[PlayedWithTrope Symbolically]], this is why Mr. Snake in ''WesternAnimation/TheBadGuys2022'' loves Gueni pigs as his TrademarkFavoriteFood as he explains to Mr. Wolf.