History Main / Autocannibalism

** Earlier, a minor character is locked in a tower and left to starve. She is found dead with her fingers chewed off.
** A mercenary captain known as the Tattered Prince recounts an incident where one of his troops tried to desert because of the bad quality of food. The Tattered Prince chopped off the deserter's leg, roasted it, and fed it to him, and then made him company cook. Oddly, the man didn't hold a grudge, and willingly signed up for another tour of duty.

* The Franchise/EvilliousChronicles song '[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkrwKCRJH-s Evil Food Eater Conchita]]' by Music/{{mothy}} depicts a deranged aristocrat who devours everything she can get hold of, including her servants, before finally turning on herself. Even the [[LightNovel/EvilFoodEaterConchita tie-in novel]] doesn't elaborate on how the heck she pulled this off.

* The music video for "The Devil in I" by Music/{{Slipknot}} involves a scene where Sid Wilson, the band's turntablist, commits suicide by eating his arm and fingers.[[/folder]]

* One of the people kept in The Attic in ''{{Series/Dollhouse}}'' is a man forced to eat his own legs as sushi.
-->"I must stay here and enjoy myself."

* Gary, a Fae butcher, in the ''Series/LostGirl'' episode "Death Didn't Become Her"
-->'''Gary''': You know what they say-- sometimes a flesh-eater is just too tired to get out of bed, go to the fridge, know what I mean? [''bites off his own index finger''].
** In his defense, they do grow back.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer:'' Referenced as one of Anya's past vengeance curses in "The Prom":
-->'''Anya:''' "... then, this one time, a girl wished that her ex would cannibalize ''himself.'' Even I had a hard time watching that one, let me tell you--"
* A ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit with Chevy Chase as [[IAmAHumanitarian Jeffery Dahmer]] had him trying to convince his lawyers to let him act like he's insane during the trial so they can try for the insanity plea. They try to convince him that no shenanigans are necessary. He seems confused that someone might think he's insane without acting insane... as he begins to calmly eat his own fingers.
* ''Series/MondayMornings'': It's revealed that some women are allowed to take home their placentas after giving birth, and it's known that they probably get eaten. It's supposed to be helping them to deal with stress. One patient uses it as an argument when she wants [[spoiler:to take home her own kidney which was supposed to get transplanted into her sister. She wants to eat it. Um, that's how she deals with her grief, and it's also a ritual from one eastern culture. She's deemed completely sane, but it caused some major in-universe squick.]]

* ''Series/TheILand'': Taylor tries to leave the island in the raft, only to wash up on another deserted island and passing out from the fatigue. When she wakes up, one of her hands is wrapped in bandages and there's a pot of chicken soup left for her by the island's only native. As Bonnie and Clyde later inform her, [[WhamLine there are no chickens on the island]].

* Happens in a children's song by Swedish poet Lennart Hellsing. A RealityWarper sorcerer from India is goaded by the Emperor of China to turn himself into a glass of lemonade (presumably because his magic is dangerous or at least annoying, it isn't clear). However, it was a very very warm day and the sorcerer got thirsty...
* The music video for "Obscure" by Music/DirEnGrey features, among other bizarre things, guitarist Die ripping his heart out of his chest and eating it.

* [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]] in some versions of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' are depicted as doing this if there isn't enough food for them, using their regenerative abilities to heal the damage. [[FridgeLogic Don't think too hard about how this would actually work]].
* One of the many, ''many'' white cards in ''TabletopGame/CardsAgainstHumanity'' reads "Autocannibalism."

* Happens in an episode of ''WebAnimation/SaladFingers''. [[MindScrew Or not.]] It's not very clear just what is going on only that Salad Fingers likes his doppelganger's {{brain|Food}}s.
* The ChristmasEpisode of ''WebAnimation/RetardedAnimalBabies'' had Puppy receive a GagPenis for Christmas as a present from Satan Claus, and as a result, he sucks on it until he explodes.
* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' has autovory, eating a brain-dead clone of oneself alive while hooked up to the clone's sensory outputs. In some polities, one can buy clones of celebrities for this purpose as well. Or, for a slightly less disturbing example, the setting mentions the practice of cloning pieces of one's own body to eat being a "fad" for a while.

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'':
** PlayedForLaughs in the ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' "island". Strong Bad imagines that in a typical cartoon scenario, if he and Homestar were stuck on a deserted island Strong Bad might try to eat his own foot at one point.
** In the email "interview", Strong Bad claims that being around [[CloudCuckoolander Homsar]] for too long makes him start to think "gnawing my own leg off would be a more better way to spend my time."

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'':
** PlayedForLaughs in "Graveyard Shift", where Squidward tells [=SpongeBob=] a GhostStory, prompting [=SpongeBob=] to [[RapidFireNailBiting bite his nails]]. Next cut is of him actually eating his arms (they grow back ridiculously fast), then going through them like a paper shredder, [[EscalatingPunchline then eating down a bucket of his own arms like popcorn]].
** "Just One Bite" had Squidward claim that he hates Krabby Patties enough that if he were at the bottom of a well for three years with nothing to eat but one, [[WouldRatherSuffer he'd sooner eat his own legs]], "and not just the extra ones".

* In the last episode of ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2002'', Zodak mystically hypnotizes four of King Hiss' heads into eating the fifth, and main, one (had the show gone on for another season he would have regenerated it).

* Done apparently offscreen in ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim''. In one episode we see [[ButtMonkey Skoodge]] being shot into a planet via cannon. He later shows up alive and well, much to the confusion of The Tallest. According to the writers, he survived by eating his own skin.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'', Billy gets a job selling Chocolate Sailors but ends up eating them all himself. He turns into chocolate himself and eats himself until only his head is left. He's not the only Chocolate Sailor who has this problem -- their leader even complains that he has trouble maintaining a crew due to how often they eat themselves.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/BrandyAndMrWhiskers'', Brandy's [[HollywoodToneDeaf horrible singing]] makes a snake eat his own tail and disappear from existence. Lola later tries to do the same before Mr. Whiskers stops her.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':
** Mentioned in the episode "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS2E32ThePromise The Promise]]": when Gumball and Darwin went on a camping trip and forgot to bring Banana Joe home with them, he apparently had to eat a piece of himself to survive.
** His father, Banana Bob, appears in the episode "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS5E38TheLine The Line]]", where he's gone insane waiting in line for the new ''[[MayTheFarceBeWithYou Stellar Odyssey]]'' movie before production began and demonstrates to the Wattersons just how insane he's become by eating himself.
** At the beginning of "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS4E21TheGirlfriend The Girlfriend]]", when [[TheDreaded Jamie]] is prowling the cafeteria for food from the other kids, Anton (a piece of sentient toast [[TheyKilledKennyAgain who regularly dies and just comes back each time through his toaster]]) hastily makes himself into a sandwich. Jamie isn't in the mood for one, so he's forced to eat himself.
* Played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/{{Histeria}}''. In a skit spoofing Ken Burns' [[Series/TheCivilWar Civil War]] documentary, a soldier, desperate to escape the sorrowful violin music constantly playing out of nowhere, writes that he has eaten his own head.

* The second victim in ''Film/TheChristmas Season Massacre'' had his ripped off testicles shoved down his throat.

* At one point in ''Film/LandOfTheDead'', the group going out to reclaim [[BaseOnWheels Dead Reckoning]] from Cholo comes across one of the city's military commanders, who has recently been zombified. The zombie of the commander appears to be finishing the job that the other zombies started, and is eating bits of itself.
* In ''Film/{{Adaptation}}'', Donald is writing a horror film where the killer does this to his victims. But given [[MindScrew the villain, the protagonist and the leading lady are the same person]], once the killer forces the girl to eat herself he dies.
* A character in ''Cannibal'' coerces another into cutting off his penis. They cook and eat it, though judging by the looks on their faces as they do so, it isn't quite as tasty as they thought it would be.
** This was based loosely on the Armin Mewes case; in that event, Mewes burned the penis while cooking it, which helps to explain why they don't like the taste in the film.
* In ''Film/{{Hannibal}}'', Hannibal manipulates a drugged Mason Verger into cutting off and eating his own nose, and also feeds Paul Krendler his own brain.
* Chop Top from ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2'' is constantly picking at the exposed metal plate in his head with a heated coat hanger. He eats any skin that gets caught on it.
* The talking fox in ''Film/{{Antichrist}}'' is found eating its bowels.
* In ''Film/{{Airplane}}'', one of the parodied SpinningNewspaper segments includes the headline "Boy Trapped in Refrigerator Eats Own Foot".
* The protagonist of ''Film/InMySkin'' winds up so fixated on this she has room for little else in her life.
* In ''Film/AGirlWalksHomeAloneAtNight'', the vampire bites the drug dealer's finger off and shoves it into his own mouth.
* In ''Film/{{Daybreakers}}'', the [[TerminallyDependentSociety vampire civilization]] is swiftly running low on its supply of blood, resulting in widespread shortages. Vampires who are starved for too long (or who feed on other vampires to satisfy their hunger) end up transforming into bestial creatures called 'subsiders.' The main character, Edward, encounters one such subsider that used to be his gardener, who sped up his transformation by feeding upon himself.
* The mutant sharks from the ''[[Film/FiveHeadedSharkAttack #-Headed Shark Attack]]'' movies have a HealingFactor and a tendency to gobble up their own blown-off or mangled heads whenever the human characters manage to destroy one. [[spoiler: In ''3-Headed Shark Attack'', the creature ultimately dies when its heads, riled up by the humans, turn on and eat each other.]]
* One of the Mud Demons in ''Film/{{Riddick}}'' is eviscerated by Riddick with a shiv...which then proceeds to devour its own trailing innards.

* The Creator/StephenKing short story "Survivor Type" centered around a surgeon and drug runner who becomes shipwrecked, and is ultimately forced to eat himself by cutting off bits because there's so little on the island that he could eat otherwise.

* In ''Literature/{{Misery}}'', Annie cuts off Paul's thumb, uses it as a candle on a birthday cake, and threatens to make him eat it.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'',
** The leader of [[PsychoForHire the Brave Companions]], Vargo Hoat, gets hacked to pieces one part at a time by Gregor Clegane while he is imprisoned. The flesh is then fed to Hoat and the rest of the prisoners. [[KickTheSonOfABitch It should be noted that Hoat absolutely deserves this.]]
** Earlier, a minor character is locked in a tower and left to starve. She is found dead with her fingers chewed off.
** A mercenary captain known as the Tattered Prince recounts an incident where one of his troops tried to desert because of the bad quality of food. The Tattered Prince chopped off the deserter's leg, roasted it, and fed it to him, and then made him company cook. Oddly, the man didn't hold a grudge, and willingly signed up for another tour of duty.
* It's mentioned in ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' that while [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty cannibalism in dire circumstances]] is acceptable (it's supposedly a military rule that it doesn't count as cannibalism if you don't eat the whole person), eating your ''own'' leg is frowned upon. So you swap legs with a partner.
-->"It's not done to eat your ''own'' leg, is it? You'd go blind."
* In the [[Creator/SimonRGreen Hawk & Fisher]] story ''Guard Against Dishonor'', a teenager doped out of her mind on [[PsychoSerum super-chacal]] has her belly ripped open by her equally-berserk boyfriend. When Hawk and Fisher find her, she's nibbling on her own exposed guts.
** In another incident, Hawk cuts the umbilicus that connects a small parasitic demon to its host. Denied its source of nourishment, the demon attacks Hawk, jabbing at his throat with the severed cord's end in an attempt to make him its new host. Hawk grabs the cord and jams its end into the demon's own belly, and it sucks itself bodily into its own umbilicus and disappears.
* ''Literature/EndersGame'' has Ender munching on his own hand while sleeping--a slightly uncommon example in that it's not out of starvation but a manifestation of stress and guilt [[spoiler: after [[BreakTheCutie riding Petra until she cracks up]]]].
-->"I don't care how much you eat, Ender, self-cannibalism won't get you out of this school."
* In Jeff Long's ''Deeper'', a monster gets his comeuppance when he's paralyzed from the neck down and left to starve to death in a desolate cavern. He regains partial mobility in his hands, but it happens so very slowly that he realizes he'll die before he can crawl his way to food; he therefore finger-climbs his hand up to his face, and begins eating [[{{Fingore}} his own fingers]]. [[spoiler: And then gets attacked and killed before he can move anything else, meaning he chewed himself up for nothing.]]
* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', GiantSpider and EldritchAbomination Ungoliant, according to one in-universe theory, devours herself while wandering in the wastelands of the Middle-Earth after finally running out of other ways to sate her HorrorHunger.

* In the novel ''The Journeyer'' by Gary Jennings, set in 12th-century China, a section of the book is devoted to the art of torture. The fate for people accused of treason is called The Death of a Thousand. According to the book there are 332 places on the body that will cause pain, and four that cause sudden death. The torturer writes these body parts on pieces of paper in a basket and goes to work as he draws the names. The Death of More than a Thousand is the same, except the person's body parts are fed to him/her.
* ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' has a rare example of this trope played for badassery. When Xiahou Dun has [[EyeScream an arrow shot into his eye]], he proceeds to rip it out and eat it.

* During their hunt for the killer shark in ''Literature/{{Jaws}}'', Quint puts on a show for Brody and Hooper by gutting several smaller sharks, and then throwing them into the sea with their guts. The two then watch in horror as the creatures thrash around in a feeding frenzy, constantly eating their insides that they are unable to keep in their stomachs.

* ''Literature/HeLoverOfDeath'': In the backstory it's said that the Prince, a brutal gang leader, once force-fed a rival his own ears.
* In ''{{Literature/Wander}}'', Temple tells Wander about a girl who had her limbs amputated and fed to her by the smilers.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', Chouji suffers from the medical version (body devouring itself) after overclocking his metabolism with his clan's DangerousForbiddenTechnique stimulant pills.
* In ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'' gourmet cell users will suffer from "the autophage" (which they are at constant risk of due to their HyperactiveMetabolism) which gives them a power boost but kills them rather quickly.

* In ''Manga/HunterXHunter'', [[MonsterClown Hisoka]] gets an arm cut off in a fight. To demonstrate [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction how much of a shit he doesn't give]], he picks it up and eats some of his own skin off of it.
* In Adam Warren's version of the ''ComicBook/DirtyPair'' universe (specifically "Run from the Future"), Kei and Yuri are at one point called upon to capture a cabal of autocannibalistic cyborgs who believed that eating their flesh allowed them to concentrate their life essence.
* In the first chapter of ''LightNovel/TrinityBlood'' Abel Nightroad eats his own severed arm, with a mouth in his other hand, then grows the severed arm back.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid''. The titular dragon maid, Tohru, enjoys eating her own tail as a RunningGag. It helps a lot that she has a HealingFactor (regrowing another tail within a minute, to apparently eat later), but she nonetheless [[LetsMeetTheMeat uses her own tail]] as a ''first resort'' in feeding Kobayashi. In her own words, her tail tastes [[CrossesTheLineTwice "sweet and creamy"]].

* Creator/DCComics villain ComicBook/VandalSavage, having lost his immortality in one story, restores it by eating a disfigured clone of himself.
* ''[[ComicBook/EarthX Universe X]]'' had Multiple Man eat a duplicate of himself while lost in the frozen wilderness. This result was him becoming the new {{Wendigo}}.

* ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} was forced to do this during a storyline where he was stuck in a snowstorm. Unlike most of the people here, his HealingFactor made this less of an issue.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSmurfs'' comic book story "The Hungry Smurfs", one of the Smurfs wishes that he was still a sausage so that he could eat parts of himself during a village famine in winter.
* A reboot of ''Terror, Inc.'' under Marvel MAX featured an immortal villain who had two demonic snakes bound to him which needed to feast on human brains regularly. The main character entombs him in a deep cavern for centuries, where the snakes eventually grow hungry enough to feed on their host, who being immortal grows his brain back, and this keeps repeating over and over and over... The villain's name and story both come from ''Literature/TheShahnameh''.

* In ''Skull Island: Birth of Kong'', set in the ''Film/MonsterVerse'' continuity, features the Death Jackals: cannibalistic dinosaur-like predators that are known to eat their own limbs when hungry enough.''

* Hinted [[http://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2012/08/08 here]] in ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}, combined with in-universe FridgeHorror.

* The ForceFeeding form is one of the many ways Pinkie Pie [[ColdBloodedTorture tortures]] Rainbow Dash in ''Fanfic/{{Cupcakes}}''.

* One of the sidechapters of ''Fanfic/{{Hivefled}}'' has a definite type two (torture), where the Condesce [[spoiler: cuts out the Psionic's extraneous organs and [[{{Squick}} feeds them to him]].]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfic ''Fanfic/BlackQueenRedKing'', Rex eats his own arm after it gets shot off in order to recover the [[HealingFactor nutrients he needs to heal]].
* ''Fanfic/FalloutEquestriaProjectHorizons'' features a synhtetic virus that turns the afflicted into crazy cannibals who will chew on their own legs just to pass time or quell their ravenous hunger if no other meat is available.
* Reiju Vinsmoke in Fanfic/ASLInRed makes the big, huge mistake of attacking Trafalgar Law with a modified strain of Amber Lead poison while taunting him that it was developed by desecrating the stolen corpses of his countrymen. He promptly feeds her own kidney.

* ''Film/WrongTurn4BloodyBeginnings'' reveals One Eye and Three Finger acquired their trademark deformities this way.
* When he isn't collecting it in a box, Goldmember from ''Film/AustinPowersInGoldmember'' enjoys eating pieces of his own skin.
** Slightly less horrifying than the other examples on this page, since his skin simply peels off in thin layers, similar to a sunburn.
* The Japanese horror film ''Splatter: Naked Blood'' depicts a gluttonous woman eating herself after being given an experimental drug.

* One of the creepiest examples ever - in an already incredibly creepy category - is ''The Shunned House.'' A young woman obsessively plays her violin to ward off evil spirits. Her violin strings break, whereupon she gnaws her own arm open until the sinews are exposed - ''and then plays the sinews with her violin bow!!!'' Shudder.
* The second victim in ''The Christmas Season Massacre'' had his ripped off testicles shoved down his throat.

* While in prison, the suspected cannibal Nathaniel Bar-Jonnah was said to enjoy eating his own scabs and blood with the same apparent pleasure as if he had sex.

* ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' has a rare example of this trope played for badassery. When Xiao Dun has [[EyeScream an arrow shot into his eye]], he proceeds to rip it out and eat it.

* The Self-Consuming Hunger Caligo lets creatures of the Darkness take resistant damage to generate Willpower to cast other Calignes. This trope is one of the possible explanations for how that works.

* The ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' novels use this as an aspect of the taxxon race's HorrorHunger. Though sapient, the [[DeathWorld extreme harshness of their initial environment]] caused them to evolve a super-powerful hunger response that neither their own will, nor even infestation by a [[PuppeteerParasite yeerk]], can control it. Whenever Visser Three turns a taxxon into HalfTheManHeUsedToBe ([[BadBoss which is often]]), the half with a mouth will instinctively try to eat the other.
* The Creator/StephenKing short story "Survivor Type" centered around a surgeon and drug runner who becomes shipwrecked, and is ultimately forced to eat himself by cutting off bits.

* In Native American Folklore, the {{Wendigo}} is described as having missing lips and skin on parts of their body, implying that ontop of eating other humans, they also eat parts of their own bodies in an effort to cope with their own hunger.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/BountyHamster'' has Marion discovers his BagOfHolding cheeks are actually a portal between dimensions so, in order escape the dimension they're trapped in, he eats Cassie then himself. (ItMakesSenseInContext... kinda).

* PlayedForLaughs in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', where Squidward tells [=SpongeBob=] a GhostStory, prompting [=SpongeBob=] to [[RapidFireNailBiting bite his nails]]. Next cut is of him actually eating his arms (they grow back ridiculously fast), then going through them like a paper shredder, [[EscalatingPunchline then eating down a bucket of his own arms like popcorn]].
** Another episode had Squidward claim that he hates Krabby Patties enough that if he were at the bottom of a well for three years with nothing to eat but one, he'd sooner eat his own legs.

* ''[[ComicBook/ECComics The Vault of Horror]]'' story "Two of a Kind!" has a dating couple who are secretly monsters (he's a flesh-eating ghoul, she's a vampire) who each initially plan to prey upon the other, but find they really do love each other. Unfortunately, during their date (a skiing trip) they end up snowbound in a cabin without any other means of nourishment. Not wanting to hurt the other as they starve, he ends up eating himself and she drinks her own blood. They end TogetherInDeath. Awww... but also ew.

* It's mentioned in ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' that while [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty cannibalism in dire circumstances]] is acceptable (it's supposedly a military rule that it doesn't count as cannibalism if you don't eat the whole person), eating your ''own'' leg is frowned upon. So you swap legs with a partner.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'', Billy gets a job selling Chocolate Sailors but ends up eating them all himself. He turns into chocolate himself and eats himself until only his head is left.

* As an emergency procedure for if you starve yourself for a few days, your body will convert it's own protein content into glucose in an attempt to stay alive. In essence, your body eats up your muscle tissue for energy.

Played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/{{Histeria}}''. In a skit spoofing Ken Burns' [[Series/TheCivilWar Civil War]] documentary, a soldier, desperate to escape the sorrowful violin music constantly playing out of nowhere, writes that he has eaten his own head.