History Main / NoPartyLikeADonnerParty

* Defectors from North Korea have [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41966-2003Oct3?language=printer said]] that cannibalism was practiced during a 1996 famine. It's also been alleged to have happened during other periods of famine in the last several decades. (Warning: That article is a nice mine of HighOctaneNightareFuel.)

* The visual novel ''SayanoUta'' is essentially based around this concept. Sakisaka Fuminori suffers brain damage in a crash, only to be rescued by neurosurgery that inflicts him with full-sensory Agnosia and completely destroys his sanity. Because he sees, smells, and tastes all food as [[NightmareFuel rotting bloody flesh]] (as well as everything else), Fuminori discovers (via his girlfriend Saya [[spoiler: who is actually an ''EldritchAbomination'' from another dimension that feeds on flesh]]) that human actually tastes delicious now, making it the only thing he can eat without wanting to throw up. (He is initially unaware of what it is, but [[spoilers: he figures it out eventually and helps Saya kill and refrigerate chunks of human for them to live]].) Depending on your choices in the story, Fuminori either [[spoiler: kills his best friend Kouji and feeds him to Saya right before she 'blooms' causing global infection]], or [[spoiler: has Saya fix his brain so that he can go back to reality, where he lives out his days with senses restored, in an asylum.]]

* The visual novel ''SayanoUta'' is essentially based around this concept. Sakisaka Fuminori suffers brain damage in a crash, only to be rescued by neurosurgery that inflicts him with full-sensory Agnosia and completely destroys his sanity ([[Understatement]]). Because he sees, smells, and tastes all food as [[NightmareFuel rotting bloody flesh]] (as well as everything else), Fuminori discovers (via his girlfriend Saya [[spoiler: who is actually an ''EldritchAbomination'' from another dimension that feeds on flesh]]) that human actually tastes delicious now, making it the only thing he can eat without wanting to throw up. (He is initially unaware of what it is, but [[spoilers: he figures it out eventually and helps Saya kill and refrigerate chunks of human for them to live]].) Depending on your choices in the story, Fuminori either [[spoiler: kills his best friend Kouji and feeds him to Saya right before she 'blooms' causing global infection]], or [[spoiler: has Saya fix his brain so that he can go back to reality, where he lives out his days with senses restored, in an asylum.]]

* The visual novel ''Saya no Uta'' is essentially based around this concept. Sakisaka Fuminori suffers brain damage in a crash, only to be rescued by neurosurgery that inflicts him with full-sensory Agnosia and [[Understatement completely destroys his sanity]]. Because he sees, smells, and tastes all food as [[NightmareFuel rotting bloody flesh]] (as well as everything else), Fuminori discovers (via his girlfriend Saya [[spoiler: who is actually an ''Eldritch Abomination'' from another dimension that feeds on flesh]]) that human actually tastes delicious now, making it the only thing he can eat without wanting to throw up. (He is initially unaware of what it is, but [[spoilers: he figures it out eventually and helps Saya kill and refrigerate chunks of human for them to live]].) Depending on your choices in the story, Fuminori either [[spoiler: kills his best friend Kouji and feeds him to Saya right before she 'blooms' causing global infection]], or [[spoiler: has Saya fix his brain so that he can go back to reality, where he lives out his days with senses restored, in an asylum.]]

* In obscure manga ''Because I'm The Goddess'', one of the protagonist Aoi's sisters loves this trope. She ate several of her own personal maids - and her pet parrot - because she ''loved'' them so much. She's also in love with Aoi, and [[ImAHumanitarian guess what that means...]]

* In ''The Road'' by Cormac [=McCarthy=], an unnamed calamity has pretty much blocked out the sun and killed most of the life on Earth. Human survivors resort to eating each other, keeping captives as food stores and amputating their limbs, presumably to keep the rest of the meat fresh. This also brings new meaning to referring to a pregnant woman as having a "bun in the oven".

* The other well-known case of cannibalism at sea occurred in one of the boats from the whale-hunter ''Essex'' (which was rammed and sunk by a whale; Melville didn't make that up!). After the survivors were rescued, the officers in charge of the boat went back to sea and had little difficulty filling their crews, which is usually taken as a sign that their actions were [[IDidWhatIHadToDo accepted as necessary]].

* Done for laughs at the beginning of ''The Road to Morocco'', where Geoffrey (BingCrosby) and Oliver (BobHope) are stranded at sea.

* In the iPod version of the game the leader of the Donner Party shows up in a town and gives your party food, insisting that they've got more than enough to spare. ...Yeah

* In ''OregonTrail II'', if you take the California Trail (And more specifically the Hastings Cut-Off if you're playing on higher difficulties) in 1846, you encounter the same snowstorm that the Donner Party got stuck in. The game also allows you to [[EatTheDog butcher a draft animal]] if you run out of food, although you don't get to cannibalize your wagonmates. {{The Dev Team Thinks of Everything}}!

* ''CannibalTheMusical'', brought to you by the creators of ''SouthPark'' with all of their usual good taste.

* On an episode of ''AmericanDad'', the family and a tour guide are shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a bunch of guys who want to [[TheMostDangerousGame hunt them for sport]]. While fleeing from the hunters, they are trapped in a cave and are forced to eat the tour guide to survive. Then, the hunters dig them out, and it's revealed that it was just a "Most Dangerous Game Theme Park", and they weren't in any danger. [[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain The Smiths agree to never speak of this again.]]

*** That is of course, ignoring the diary entries in which the surviors themselves said they ate their dead.

*** Japan has always been a big importer of pork, and the war probably damaged relations with its trading partners. SoYeah...

** Actually, it's strongly implied since the first time, the Pilot got [[Iamahumanitarian addicted to human flesh]]

* In ''OregonTrail II'', if you take the California Trail (And more specifically the Hastings Cut-Off if you're playing on higher difficulties) in 1846, you encounter the same snowstorm that the Donner Party got stuck in. The game also allows you to [[EatTheDog butcher a draft animal]] if you run out of food, although you don't get to cannibalize your wagonmates. {{The Devs Team Thinks of Everything}}!

* In ''OregonTrail II'', if you take the California Trail in 1846, you encounter the same snowstorm that the Donner Party got stuck in. The game also allows you to [[EatTheDog butcher a draft animal]] if you run out of food, although you don't get to cannibalize your wagonmates.

* Who can forget ''Ravenous'', which was a take on the wendigo where anyone who eats people gains power and life force? Spawning possibly the best closing line of any movie: [[spoiler: as the two men are caught in a bear trap, the villain says "If you die first, I am definitely going to eat you. The question is, if I die first... what are YOU going to do?"]]

* In one episode of ''KinosJourney'' Kino encounter some snowed-in traders. Almost starving to death, they had eaten their cargo. Turns out they were slavers. Connect the dots...

An entire society that does this is a CannibalTribe. Named for the famous example of the Donner Party, who ate the bodies of their comrades who had died of hunger.