History CarnivoreConfusion / Literature

* Daine, the main character in Creator/TamoraPierce's ''[[Literature/TortallUniverse Immortals]]'' books, suffers from Carnivore Confusion. She's a "wildmage" who, among other things, can talk to animals and [[VoluntaryShapeshifting turn into them]]. Before she started to learn about her magic, she grew up eating meat like anybody else, and continued to hunt and eat meat for a long time after discovering it -- she says at one point that she doesn't see why this would surprise anybody, since animals kill and eat each other all the time, and it's not as if she kills for sport or uses her magic to lure prey towards her. This changes, however, after a bad experience or two when ''she herself'' is pursued in animal form by hunters -- game meat becomes NauseaFuel for her, and she can't stand to eat it anymore, having felt what the animal went through. She doesn't object to it in principle or try to stop other people; she just can't stomach it herself. For a while she gets by okay with domesticated meat by never bonding mentally with any farm animals, but by the end of the series she can "manage" meat from only fish, mutton, and chicken.

* Daine, the main character in Creator/TamoraPierce's ''[[Literature/TortallUniverse Immortals]]'' books, suffers from Carnivore Confusion. She's a "wildmage" who, among other things, can [[VoluntaryShapeshifting turn into any animal she wants]]. Before she started to learn about her magic, she grew up eating meat like anybody else, and continued to hunt and eat meat for a long time after discovering it -- she says at one point that she doesn't see why this would surprise anybody, since animals kill and eat each other all the time, and it's not as if she kills for sport or uses her magic to lure prey towards her. This changes, however, after a bad experience or two when ''she herself'' is pursued in animal form by hunters -- game meat becomes NauseaFuel for her, and she can't stand to eat it anymore, having felt what the animal went through. She doesn't object to it in principle or try to stop other people; she just can't stomach it herself. It's mentioned that she gets by okay with domesticated meat by never bonding mentally with any farm animals, and how she feels about [[NoCartoonFish fish or insects]] isn't mentioned.

** What's very rare for animals to be able to ''speak''. Werewolves and talking dogs can both talk to normal dogs, who have been shown to be intelligent. When someone mentioned to Death something about humans being more important than chickens, he responded that that's a distinction commonly made by humans. Also, dogs aren't treated particularly well. For example, in ''Making Money'', a dog became the chairman of the bank, but the employees just did what his owner said, rather than using an actual translator.

* On the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' some animals have human-like intelligence, due to magical effects, but it's very rare. In ''Moving Pictures'', the cat half of the Tom and Jerry parody has sworn off mice since "Jerry" started talking, and in ''The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents'', the titular cat always offers his prey a chance to speak before eating it. [[spoiler:Although when he was a normal cat, he ate a talking rat because he didn't know better. That's how he gained the ability in the first place.]]

*** Because [[SelectiveObliviousness everyone knows dogs can't talk]]. And also, as established in The Truth, they are still dogs (with exceptions for special cases) and can't really think outside the kennel.

* William Steig's ''Doctor De Soto'' is about a mouse dentist who treats various other anthropomorphic animals, in case of larger creatures by climbing into their mouths. He's wary of treating carnivorous animals, and when a fox with a particularly bad tooth-ache comes to him begging for help, De Soto feels the need to take precautions so the fox doesn't [[UngratefulBastard give in to the temptation to eat him once his tooth is fixed]].

* ''The Terraformers'' takes place in a distant future where many species have been [[UpliftedAnimal uplifted]], and thus nearly everyone is vegan or eating [[FutureFoodIsArtificial grown muscle tissue]]. One of the many creepy things that [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Cylindra]] does is run a farm with regular cows, which disturbs the uplifted cows when they see it. [[spoiler:Which is made all the worse by the heavy implication that they ''aren't'' normal cows, but uplifted cows that were modified just enough that [[AndIMustScream they can't communicate that to others]].]] On the flip side, Destry's mother once gave her milk donated from a cow friend of hers.

* OlderThanRadio: Creator/LewisCarroll had a couple scenes like this in ''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass''. In the poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter", which is told by Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the two protagonists lure a group of oysters out of their oyster bed for a pleasant chat and walk, only to eat them later. Even worse, while the Walrus seems to be sympathetic towards them in the poem, the Tweedle brothers later tell Alice he was lying, only acting like he was to get more oysters than the Carpenter. Later, Alice herself shows this at the banquet scene after being promoted to Queen, being only too willing to eat the living mutton leg and pudding. (Of course, she had been given a carving knife by the other Queens, who later told her that it would be rude to "cut" someone you had been introduced to. But then, it's hard to make much sense of ''any'' of the stuff here.)

** The ''[[Literature/AnimalFarm farmer pigs raising pigs]]'' in one of the books!

* ''Literature/{{Dinotopia}}'', which takes place in a land where only [[LionsAndTigersAndHumansOhMy about ten percent of the population is human]] and the rest are {{Intellectual Animal}}s of all imaginable species, has a relatively clever approach to this problem. All carnivores have switched to a diet of fish and it's implied that those who can (most notably humans) have gone entirely over to veganism. The twist is that some animals refused to make the change and have exiled themselves to the Rainy Basin and Backwood Flats, where they live as their wild ancestors did (similar to The Wild in ''Kevin and Kell''). Interestingly, this is treated by the major characters as more of an alternate lifestyle choice than a break of the rules and such characters are not vilified as one would expect. (At least, not in the book. The movie is another story...)
** In one of the not-quite-Canon spin-off novels, a city-dwelling herbivore was shown journeying through the Rainy Basin as she was about to die, providing the carnivores with food. This act was referred to in almost religious terms.
*** Though the spin-off novel is not-quite-Canon, the act is canon and mentioned in the original book.

** Additionally, leathers, skins, and furs were seen in use by the Dinotopians. Readers had to wait until ''Journey to Chandara'' for the explanation: Arthur Dennison is given a new journal bound in the skin of an IntellectualAnimal "whose dying wish was to donate his body to science". [[FridgeLogic Um...]]
*** Gets even {{Squick}}ier when you realize that, until the 1800s or so, books bound [[http://web.archive.org/web/20060110162137/http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2006/01/07/some_of_nations_best_libraries_have_books_bound_in_human_skin/ in human skin]] were not entirely unheard of...

* The Creator/HarlanEllison short story "Quicktime", from the anthology ''Angry Candy'', deals with this trope. In a FeudalFuture society, Lord Garth escapes an army of rebellious peasants through a time-machine programmed to travel into [[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs the early age of dinosaurs]]. The scientist who invented the time machine assures Lord Garth that he will be safe because the dinosaurs in the time he will be sent are all herbivores and will not eat him. [[spoiler: As Lord Garth learns too late, the only way for an herbivorous dinosaur to learn whether something is edible is to bite into it and spit it out if it isn't palatable. [[KarmicTwistEnding He doesn't get eaten, but he's no less dead]].]]

-->Child: Mr. Hawk, where are you taking us?
-->Hawk: Lunch!
-->Child: What's "lunch?"
-->Hawk: Watch!
-->(The Hawk bites Father Mouse, realizes they're just cloth and metal, and drops them.)
-->Hawk: You're not part of the balance of nature! (flies off)

* The illustration of the Long-Eared Bat in ''Literature/TheButterflyBallAndTheGrasshoppersFeast'' clearly shows a bat in clothes bearing down on an insect who is ''also'' in clothes. No other scene shows sentient-on-sentient predation, but "The Feast" acknowleges not only that some of the guests are insectivores, but that some are ''cannibals'', and implies that the Feast ''caters for this''.

* In ''{{Literature/Dinoverse}}'', kid TimeTravel and end up possessing the bodies of various dinosaurs. The "normal" dinosaurs are [[AmplifiedAnimalAptitude quite intelligent]] but non-speaking. Firmly inoculated with PredatorsAreMean, NiceGuy Mike, in the body of a TyrannosaurusRex, reluctantly accepts that he can't go vegetarian and subsists on fish, refusing to even eat carrion unless it was killed by something else. In a later book, Patience, in the body of an Acrocanthusaur, eats carrion without hesitation but refuses to kill a herbivorous dinosaur.

* Subverted in the children's book-turned-anime ''Stormy Night'' (Literature/ArashiNoYoruNi). The story features an unlikely friendship between a wolf and a mountain goat, and the wolf being a carnivore is actually one of the main points of the story. (He is always fighting down the urge to eat the goat, while the goat is painfully aware of this). In the anime the wolf gives up goat meat, but keeps on preying on (sapient) animals such as mice; the goat is not happy about this, but accepts it as inevitable, knowing full well that his best friend would starve to death if he stopped eating meat entirely. [[spoiler:In the book they die together.]]

* The Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and others in the Literature/LandOfOz series tend to be examples of "the carnivore can go vegetarian if he really wants to". Granted, living in a magical land probably alters certain biological rules that would apply in our world. The Hungry Tiger, as explained in ''Literature/OzmaOfOz'', is hungry all the time because his conscience won't let him eat all the delicious people and animals that surround him.

* While there aren't any talking animals in the Literature/CodexAlera (well, there are the [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Canim]], but they're a different species), the PredatorsAreMean subtrope is present in full force in ''Furies of Calderon''. The two tribes of Marat who attack the human settlements have predatory BondCreatures (wolves and terror birds), while the two that eventually ally with the humans have more herbivorous ones (ground sloths and horses).
** although in the later books, all the Marat tribes are basically at peace with the Alerans and are all seen trading at the marketplace that was set up for trade between the races.

* Creator/BeatrixPotter has a few examples.
** I'm not sure that Literature/TheTaleOfPeterRabbit counts, since Mr. [=McGregor=] isn't an animal.
** Literature/TheTaleOfSamuelWhiskers .
** Literature/TheTaleOfMrTod

* {{Literature/The Animals of Farthing Wood}} pointedly make an oath to protect and not attempt to eat each other until they reach White Deer Park, the oath is later extended for perpetuity, but it isn't clear how the carnivores don't starve.

*** And one book features humans from our world eating a talking parrot. They didn't know better.

*** Mr Slant says to ThoseTwoBadGuys in ''The Truth'' that via the Watch werewolf, a canine witness would be acceptable in a court of law. Though it's clear that legal precedent isn't the same thing as "sane" in this setting.

** [[Disney/TheJungleBook The Disney film]] pointedly avoids the issue, even though most of the main characters are carnivores. There is a scene in which the tiger Shere Khan is hunting a deer, but fails to catch it.

** The animals in ''Discworld/MovingPictures'' were only able to talk because of the influence of Holy Wood. When it's sealed at the end, and they lose their human-level intelligence the cat goes right back to chasing the mouse. Gaspode regains human-level intelligence in an unrelated incident between books.

** The street dogs in ''Discworld/MenAtArms'' seem considerably more sentient than pet dogs like Laddie or Mr. Fusspot. Justified by the intensity of natural selection on the streets of Ankh-Morpork, where a stupid dog quickly becomes an even stupider fur muff and/or takeaway stir-fry. Also, feral dogs probably scavenge off the same refuse that made the rats from ''Amazing Maurice'' into intelligent creatures, albeit not often enough for most of them to learn to speak Human.

* Frequently averted with predatory species in the Franchise/StarTrekNovelVerse. The Pahkwa-thanh (like Dr. Ree in ''Literature/StarTrekTitan'') have always considered their prey animals sapient. They don't eat humanoids and "civilized" beings, not because they have an objection to it as such, but because it would be rude. Humanoids don't consider themselves part of nature; to eat them would be impolite, which Pahkwa-thanh are not. If you think you're prey, though, they'll happily eat you. The Frills are another more-or-less-friendly race that is happy to eat sapient prey. Both Frills and Pahkwa-thanh are Federation members, and thus allied with the heroes. For a less pleasant sapient-meat eater, there's the Fethetrit. They consider slow consumption of a sapient being, while keeping them alive as long as possible, to be sport.