History Main / NoPartyLikeADonnerParty

* In Russia after UsefulNotes/RedOctober. During the Russian Civil War, there were many reports of starving villages (their crops having been taken by the Red and White armies) eating their dead or even selling salted body parts.
* It happened in Ukraine during [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor the Holodomor]], a horrific [[TheFamine famine]] from 1932-1933, caused or at least made worse by Stalin's forced collectivization policy. By some accounts, it was so common that signs were posted reading, "Eating Dead Children Is Barbaric".
* An urban legend said this was commonplace in the mid to late forties in Germany (both East and West). Multiple versions exist, some detail [[HeroicSacrifice people willingly choosing to sacrifice themselves or their relatives]], while others detail [[ScareEmStraight cannibal gangs roaming the streets at night preying on homeless people, drunks, or schoolchildren who stayed out too late]]. This hasn't been confirmed ''or'' denied.
* Under Tsarist Russia, the Famine of 1601-1603 (partially caused by a volcanic eruption in Peru), and the Famine of 1891-1892 (caused by weather and Alexander III's incompetent and oppressive government), had this effect in some areas.

* When the Chinese city of Suiyang (now part of Shangqiu) was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Suiyang besieged during the An Lushan Rebellion]], the city's garrison and inhabitants resorted to eating their dead to survive, later moving to eating the living. Allegedly, no one rebelled against their grim fates and odds. The commanding general Zhang Xun was commemorated for withstanding siege for a whole two years, despite the mass cannibalism, and the length of the siege is believed to have been key for the Tang dynasty's eventual victory over the Yan state.

** Not all Japanese Garrisons took this route. Those who were stranded at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabaul#World_War_II Rabaul]] did something remarkable. They managed to re-organize themselves into a farming community and grew their own food. By the end of the war, Rabaul had been turned into a self-sufficient colony and, by all accounts, were ''better'' fed than most Japanese troops.
* According to medieval chronicles, the knights participating in [[UsefulNotes/TheCrusades the First Crusade]] were so hungry and undersupplied at the Siege of Ma'arra that they resorted to eating meat from the backsides of slain Saracen warriors, and even "when it was not yet roasted enough by the fire, they devoured it". Some sources, including Cracked.com, even claim that the knights ''[[EatsBabies roasted and ate babies]]!''
* This was the "Modest Proposal" suggested in Jonathan Swift's [[Literature/AModestProposal essay of the same name.]]

** A malnourished mother cat might eat some of the recently born kittens to recover the nutrients so she can breastfeed the rest. She will also eat the unhealthy and the stillborn which if left on their own might spread diseases. Stress from labor and insecurity also trigger this behavior.

Note that, in a real-life survival situation, this isn't all that helpful. The meat of a starving human, by definition, does not contain the necessary nutrients to support a starving human. (See [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning fat starvation.]]) Also worth noting is that digesting meat requires certain vitamins that can't be replenished through meat alone.

Note that, in a real-life survival situation, this isn't all that helpful. The meat of a starving human, by definition, does not contain the necessary nutrients to support a starving human. (See [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning fat starvation.]]) Also worth noting is that digesting meat requires certain vitamins that can't be replenished through meat alone, potentially leading to death by malnutrition.

Note that, in a real-life survival situation, this isn't all that helpful. The meat of a starving human, by definition, does not contain the necessary nutrients to support a starving human. (See [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning fat starvation.]])[[note]]while one alone might not be enough to support a starving human, multiple might.[[/note]]

** In the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS17E4TreehouseOfHorrorXVI Treehouse of Horror XVI]]" segment "Survival Of The Fattest", Burns decides to start HuntingTheMostDangerousGame. Homer resorts to cannibalism after being chased for just a few hours, eating Professor Frink offscreen.

* A rescue team receives a transmission from the survivors of a plane crash. They only manage to relay that six people survived, before the transmitter dies. When the rescuers finally find the crash site, they see a sole survivor surrounded by bones and mutilated corpses of others. Challenged by their horrified and disgusted looks, the man jumps up to defend himself: "Look, I know how it looks. I hate myself for it, believe me. But I was desperate! The prospective of a slow excrutiating death from starvation weighed more and more on me until I couldn't take it anymore! Self-preservation kicked in and eventually overwhelmed all concerns of decency. In the end I did what I had to!" One of the rescuers finally finds his words and quietly says: "I get it but... it's only been three days..."

* ''Film/{{Alive}}'' is a TruthInTelevision tale about a team of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive:_The_Story_of_the_Andes_Survivors rugby players whose plane crashed high in the Andes]]. In the bitter cold at altitude, with no vegetation or animals, the survivors eventually resort to eating the remains of the deceased. The movie takes an extremely sympathetic and nonjudgmental stance in depicting just how far people will go and how much they'll endure in order to survive.

This trope is the ugly side of exploration. The characters are out of food, and resort to cannibalism not because [[EvilTastesGood they like it]], but because they have no other choice. [[ShootTheDog It's that or starve to death]].

Note that, in a real life survival situation, this isn't all that helpful. The meat of a starving human, by definition, does not contain the necessary nutrients to support a starving human. (See [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning fat starvation.]])[[note]]while one alone might not be enough to support a starving human, multiple might.[[/note]]

* Priscilla from ''Manga/{{Claymore}}''. After she killed her yoma infected father, she was trapped in their house for a month and is implied to have eaten part of his corpse.
* This trope is suggested as part of [[spoiler: Senshi]]'s backstory in ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon''. After being stranded in the dungeon for many days, his crew was whittled down to three people by monster attacks and starving to death. The other two left the room, there was an argument, then a loud struggle, and then only one of them came back, fatally wounded but holding a hunk of meat, saying a monster had attacked them but he managed to kill it. That meat let [[spoiler:Senshi]] survive along enough to be rescued, but it was ambiguous whether the meat he ate came from a monster or another dwarf. [[spoiler: It is ultimately subverted, however, as Laius deduces that the meat Senshi ate was actually hippogriff.]]

* [[https://comick.app/comic/cambyses-no-kuji/ojxGY The Draw of Cambyses]], a Creator/FujikoFujio one-shot, have this as the hero Sark's backstory. Originally an Assyrian soldier sent on a campaign across a desert, when they run out of food in their crusade the army is forced to draw lots for "volunteers" as food supply. Sark unfortunately drew a short straw and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere ditches his army]] before he can be sacrificed.

* During Sanji's flashback in ''Manga/OnePiece'', he and the pirate Zeff are stranded at sea for over two months. Though Sanji rationed his share of the food they'd washed ashore with, it only lasts him 25 days. 45 days later, young Sanji tries to kill Zeff and take his seemingly large remaining share of food, only to find that it was all treasure, and the pirate chef had been forced to eat his own foot at the beginning of their time stranded, secretly giving Sanji all the food to keep the boy alive. It's a horrifying [[TheReveal reveal]] for the boy and pretty clearly illustrates why he stays with the "old crap-geezer". In the anime adaption, the chef cuts off his foot in his attempt to save Sanji because it was trapped, and spends the whole time eating nothing.
* In ''Manga/ShamanKing'', Tokagero states his mother had given him "her own flesh" so he would survive. A little bit later on the story, we find out he really meant it.

* In ''ComicBook/PocketGod'' issue #23, half of the tribe is trekking through the desert with their provisions running low. Kinsee gets so hungry, she considers eating one the other pygmies. While they can [[ResurrectiveImmortality resurrect from death]], they keep her from doing it because they don't want to be cannibals.

* ''ComicBook/TheChroniclesOfWormwood'' one-shot ''The Last Enemy'' has a back-up story titled "Donna Partie: God Will Forgive Her", the titular character being a woman with a nasty habit of resorting to cannibalism when she gets too hungry. The story ends with her and her friend stuck in a traffic jam after picking up the latter's baby. [[EatsBabies One can probably guess what they did next.]]
* ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'': During the journey to Washington, Rick and the other main characters are stalked by The Hunters, a group of survivors who resorted to cannibalism after running out of food, starting with ''their own children'', and have been surviving by ambushing lone travellers or smaller groups ever since, keeping them alive as long as possible to keep the meat fresh. Their justification, that they couldn't get a grasp on hunting actual animals and had to eat something to avoid starving to death (leaving their old neighborhood behind and search for food elsewhere like everyone else apparently never occured to them), rings especially hollow considering that NO other characters, even the most depraved villains like Negan and The Whisperers, ever resorted to the same. The Governor technically did, but only tasted it once while feeding [[WhatHappenedToMommy his zombified daughter]]. He didn't like it.

--> '''Goat:''' Pig...they ate each other.
--> '''Pig:''' I would not re-hire that caterer.

* ''Film/DeadtimeStoriesVolume2'': In "The Gorge", three cavers are trapped by a cave-in. One of them, Gary, has his leg badly mangled in by a falling rock. Nearly a month into their ordeal, they are reduced to eating hibernating bats to stay alive. Gary's leg goes gangrenous and Donna and Craig are forced to amputate it. Donna and Craig then eat the leg. The taste of the flesh drives then crazy with hunger, and they kill Gary and devour him. This keeps them alive long enough for rescue to arrive.
* ''Film/FiresOnThePlain'': Three starving Japanese soldiers are struggling across the island of Leyte in February 1945. One of them takes his rifle, goes hunting, and brings back "monkey meat" for his companions. The third soldier eventually catches his companion hunting a different Japanese soldier, and realizes that the "monkey meat" really wasn't monkey. At the end, the hunter kills the other soldier in their three-man party and eats him raw.

* In ''Film/HellsHighway'', the group watches the last few minutes recorded by the camera, which shows Lucindia shooting all of their friends during a botched séance. Lucindia then turns to the camera and tells the story of a settler couple that became trapped in the valley; to try and save his wife (implied to be Lucindia), the husband killed himself so that she could consume his flesh. Her husband's body was not enough to sustain her, and in her last dying hours the woman cursed God and prayed to the Devil for salvation, and received it in exchange for a steady stream of victims.

* ''Film/MrJones2019'': One of the horror scenes witnessed by Gareth in Ukraine. Three emaciated children welcome Gareth in their home and he shares their meal, an unspecified meat. When Gareth asks what kind of meat it is, they answer with the name of their elder brother. And Gareth assumed they said their brother hunted some forest animal, which they then cooked.. Later, Gareth leaves the house and finds a frozen, emaciated corpse lying in the outside, with some flesh carved up from his leg... Cannibalism was TruthInTelevision during the Holodomor.

* ''Film/Ravenous1999'': Colqhoun claims that this is what happened to the travel group he was a part of as they got stranded in a cave trying to cross the Sierra Nevadas. After running out of food and killing all their work animals(even Colqhoun's dog), he returned from chopping wood to find the others cooking a slave who had died from malnutrition. Then HorrorHunger took over and the group's leader, Colonel Ives, started killing people to sate it, so Colqhoun [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere left to go get help]]. Later in the film, it turns out [[spoiler: Colqhoun was ''lying'' and actually ''is'' Colonel Ives, and that he killed and ate the rest of the party. Reich only figures this out as Ives is killing the rest of the Fort Spencer rescue team. Much later in the film, Ives reveals to Boyd that he [[SubvertedTrope deliberately got the party lost in the mountains so he could eat them]], as he was already a {{Wendigo}} by that point]].

--> '''[[spoiler: Curtis]]:''' Know what I hate most about myself? I know what people taste like. I know that [[EatsBabies babies taste best.]]

* ''Film/WinnieThePoohBloodAndHoney'': In the prologue, it's revealed that Christopher Robin's animal friends (who are depicted here as [[AnimalisticAbomination "abominations"]] rather than stuffed toys) were left to fend for themselves after he left for college. During the harsh winter, Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit and Owl ended up cannibalizing Eeyore to survive, [[StartOfDarkness turning them twisted and feral]].

Because Bob draws the shorter straw, he'll cut himself for the next meal. Looking through his limb, thigh, chest... every part seems to hurt, until he decide, ah well, since the penis doesn't have any bones in it, he'll slice ''that'' off for their next meal. \\

"Well, there are at least three good reasons why you should do that." Rob replies. "Firstly, it'll be your last chance. Secondly, it'll provide more meat. Thirdly and most importantly, it's been a while since I ate anything with ''[[{{Squick}} sauce]]''!"

* In Creator/PiersAnthony's ''Literature/BioOfASpaceTyrant'' series, the titular space tyrant's journey to Jupiter as a refugee from Callisto is chronicled in ''Refugee'', in which the space bubble he and his family are on is attacked multiple times by roving gangs of SpacePirates who seldom leave without murdering or raping anyone (and sometimes they commit rape ''and'' murder). It eventually gets to the point where every adult male has been murdered, the only ones left to pilot the bubble are inept women, and their food supplies are running low. Eventually, they decide upon eating the corpses of the men "buried" on the hull for food.
* In Creator/GeneWolfe's ''Literature/BookOfTheShortSun'', it is heavily implied that the Vironese ate each other on the landers leaving the Whorl since they on weren't equipped with proper supplies.

* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibal_Reign Cannibal Reign]] by Thomas Koloniar (as you can probably guess by the title); civilization is heavily damaged by an asteroid impact and the resulting TheNightThatNeverEnds which will last for several years at least. The main character, his friends, family and a few others survive in a converted missile silo, the core U.S government relocates to Hawaii which fares slightly better, but virtually every other survivor on the surface resorts to cannibalism within a year. This ranges from roaming scavengers, to a degenerate CannibalTribe holed up in a hospital, to an organized militia consisting of deserters (the closest the novel has to a BigBad).

* In ''Dreams of Joy'', the sequel to ''Literature/ShanghaiGirls'', Joy goes to visit her friends on the commune she lives on in 1950s China. She returns to see her husband and his family staring at something on the table. It's another woman's baby, which is close to death. She takes the baby back to the other woman's house and finds them at the table staring at her baby. The practice was called Swap Child, Make Food, when families would trade babies (presumably no one wants to eat their own baby) that are close to death and eat them.

* Count Ugolino, of ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Inferno]]'', is trapped inside his own tower, and ends up eating his children. Which is why he shows up in the Inferno. The only consolation in this is that he gets to gnaw for eternity on the head of the bastard who put him there, because even Hell has a sense of honor.

* In ''Literature/LifeOfPi'', this is the nature of the alternate story Pi tells after being found. It also comes up in the narrative proper when he crosses paths with ''another'' stranded shipwreck victim, who pretends to be friendly just to get him to come close and then tries to kill and eat him. The tiger's name, Richard Parker, is a reference to the coincidence that multiple people with that name have happened to be involved in real cases of mutiny, shipwrecking and/or cannibalism.
* In ''Literature/LucifersHammer'', the remnants of a National Guard unit start off only killing and eating people because they have a hard time finding anything to eat. Later, they descend into ImAHumanitarian territory, and use forced-cannibalism ("You can eat it, or you can be eaten. Your choice.") as a sadistic recruiting tool, since cannibalism "indelibly marks a person, on their soul", making said persons permanently pariah with any "decent" folk.

* ''Literature/TheMartian'': When the crew of the ''Hermes'' decide to return to Mars to rescue Mark Watney a probe of supplies is put together to provide the food they'll need. During a video chat with her father Beth Johanssen admits to him that the crew have come up with a contingency plan if something goes wrong with the probe: they'll all kill themselves to provide Beth, who's the youngest, smallest (so needs the least food), and has the necessary skillset to fly alone, with enough meat to sustain herself on the way back to Earth.

** When [[spoiler: Stannis']] army is snowed in, several soldiers are said to have killed and eaten another and are therefore executed for it [[spoiler:(although most of the Northmen suspect they didn't, in fact, murder the guy they wound up eating, so think the followers of R'hllor are likely being over-pernickety about this whole affair specifically because they want an excuse to burn a few people for BloodMagic rituals: donner vs sacrificial-magic to a god of an unknown nature -- donner wins as being more socially acceptable in the North, if rather more risky to defend with the raving fanatics who tend to ''burn people alive'' when crossed)]].

* ''Literature/{{Testament}}'', by Creator/DavidMorrell. The protagonist and his daughter have to [[TryAndFollow hide above the snow line in a winter forest from implacable pursuers]]. The daughter dies, and the father is so desperate for food he wonders if he can bring himself to eat her. Fortunately a wolf which stole some food from their fire earlier returns with an animal it's killed -- turns out it liked the taste of the cooked meat and wants the human to make more.

* ''Literature/TheUnwomanlyFaceOfWar'': A female partisan mentions an episode of cannibalism occurred in a group who escaped from a gulag. The modus operandi was bringing in the group a young, naive boy, who was to be sacrificed when the fugitives would inevitably start to starve. The female narrator did have someone like that in her group but she's grateful beyond speech that they are saved before they seriously start to starve.

* Occurs in ''Series/The100'' during the TimeSkip between seasons 4 and 5. Trapped in a bunker with no way out and their Hydroponics Garden contaminated with a fungus that will take a year to recover from, the Wonkru survivors are confronted with this. They end up butchering those who were killed in gladiator combat (their method of dealing with lawbreakers). Worse, it gets pointed out that anyone who starves to death will be so nutrient deprived that they won't be suitable food. Octavia ends up enforcing human consumption under the threat of death to anyone who refuses, and even murders a man who doesn't want to eat his own brother. The entire process traumatizes all of Wonkru, and they dub the ordeal "The Dark Year".

* One episode of ''Series/{{Medium}}'' opens with two men, one clean and in a suit, the other disheveled, eating in a fancy dining room. The disheveled man keeps asking what the great tasting meat dish is and the other finally says "It's you. More specifically, it's your right leg. Go on, take a look." At this point, the man looks down to see his right leg amputated and Allison wakes up. Later on, it's revealed that both men were part of a group of Vietnam [=POWs=] who ate another soldier who was dying so they could survive.

* Played for humor in one episode of ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'' when Red, Mike and Harold get snowed in at the lodge. Mike becomes convinced they need to eat Harold in order to survive and makes some thinly-veiled attempts to do so.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': One of the "Delicious Dish" sketches about a fictional NPR cooking show featured host Creator/KelseyGrammer playing nature expert Graham Stanslerthere to share tips on finding food in the wilderness. He first recommends "GORP" (granola, oatmeal, raisins and peanuts) and bark, moss and grubs when that runs out.

* This trope is the catalyst of the storyline on the Hong Kong drama ''Series/WhenHeavenBurns'', when four young men are lost on a mountaineering trip and forced to murder one of their own to survive. The drama then explores the implications and trauma that the incident had on them.

* Following the incident of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a posek (rabbi who answers questions of Jewish law) was asked whether 1) if all other options were exhausted a Jew would be permitted to eat the flesh of a corpse, since preserving life supersedes virtually all other commandments, and 2) whether the Jew would have to say the usual blessings before and after eating over "that ghastly meal". The answers were yes and yes.

** After conquering the North pole, they realise they don't have enough supplies for the way back (all calculated perfectly, but forgot to multiply it by two), so they decide to spit-roast a frozen member of a previous expedition, [[MeaningfulName Beran]][[note]]Means 'ram'[[/note]].

* Dr. Eisenberg from ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator II'' is implied to have eaten several of the group he was with when stuck on an alien infected world.

* Sufficiently-desperate player characters in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'''s Adventure Mode will be able to butcher sapient creatures for food, even if their species normally frowns on cannibalism.
* ''VideoGame/EmpireEarthII'': One of the Egyptian levels has a famine ravaging the country, along with starving people breaking into pyramids to drag out the mummified corpses to eat them. Becomes unintentionally hilarious when you notice the dead bodies are just resources like any other,and in fact nothing stops you from harvesting those corpses yourself.
* ''VideoGame/GrimDawn'' has a series of ApocalypticLog lore notes in the Asterkarn Road area detailing this. A caravan of migrants seeking to travel south become trapped when the Cult of Ch'thon closes the pass through the mountains and snow keeps them from heading back north. At first the cannibalism is incidental, eating the bodies of people who had died of other causes. Then the narrator and her husband start using their pre-teen daughter as a HoneyTrap to bait men and kill them, then they eat the husband when he gets badly wounded. [[spoiler: By the end the mother and daughter have gone utterly feral and turned into {{Wendigo}}s.]]
* In ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'', [[spoiler: it is implied to have happened at some point in the City of Tears. In the pleasure house you can find a kitchen that is littered with the corpses of sentient bugs. You can talk to the ghost of one of the corpses, who calls himself a "big, juicy, fatty oily... scrumptious bug" and wonders if it will be dinner time soon. It is unclear if the bugs started to eat their own before or after the magical plague that turns bugs hostile to life reached the city itself.]]

* At the very end of the game, Six from ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'' has another one of her hunger attacks, and there is nothing in sight to eat but [[spoiler:the Lady]]. The [[spoiler:Nome she ate might also count as cannibalism, since they could very well be sentient creatures]].

* ''VideoGame/Reverse1999'' plays this for laughs with [=APPLe=], a sentient, floating, magical apple. When his captain, Regulus, says that she's out of money for food and hungry, [=APPLe=] says she could drink "this fresh apple juice" if it comes to that. Regulus quickly realizes what he means, panics, and tells him they're not they're yet.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'', it is possible to order your colonists to ''butcher and skin human corpses for meat and hides''. This is generally an absolute last-resort to fend off starvation when there is no other food available, as butchering and eating human meat will severely impact the morale of your colonists unless they have the Cannibal, [[AxCrazy Bloodlust]] or [[LackOfEmpathy Psychopath]] traits. If you start in an arctic biome (where wildlife is scarce and crops are impossible to grow) then cannibalism may be a ''requirement'' for survival.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Signalis}}'', a late game map has a briefing document for the Gestalt [[CallARabbitASmeerp (Human)]] pilot of the deep space exploration Penrose class ship to use in the case of starvation situations, advising against eating their [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Replika]] co-pilot. The debrief points out that the organic components are mildly toxic, and the "blood" is actually [[AlienBlood anti-oxidant fluid]] that will cause sickness. The briefing instead suggests that they ask the Replika to euthanize the pilot, or enter the cryopod permanently. Despite being averted in the game itself, it's an open question whether this document was drafted with foresight, or whether it was from macabre experience.
* An early level in ''VideoGame/TheSuffering: Ties That Bind'' features a small Great Depression-era soup kitchen. According to the backstory and various hallucinations, the priest that ran the kitchen was so desperate to feed his starving congregation that he resorted to cooking up human corpses. Even worse, the [[ExtremeOmnivore always-hungry]] monsters inspired by the event now roam the area in the present.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'', Bruce Irvin's backstory includes him being reduced to this as the sole survivor as a plane crash, at least until some of Kazuya's forces find him.
* In his ''VideoGame/TwistedMetalBlack'' backstory, Mr. Grimm was forced to eat a fellow soldier while in Vietnam. He then [[SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset kept the man's skull and wore it as a mask]]. If he wins the tournament however, Calypso offers him a mano-a-mano with the officer who put him in the situation to begin with... [[IAmAHumanitarian and Grimm realizes he acquired a taste for long pork]]. No explanation needed for what comes next.

* ''{{VideoGame/Valheim}}'': While you don't actually ''need'' food to survive (food determines your maximum stamina, health and regeneration thereof), you can commit cannibalism of a sort by making sausages (a mid-tier food item), which requires entrails. Entrails being dropped by the rotting ''zombies'' known as draugr...

* ''VisualNovel/CookingCompanions'' is rather coy about the concept at first; the Companions are trapped in the mountains with dwindling supplies, but it's presented as a DatingSim with cutesy mascot characters. However, the story is a PsychologicalHorror at heart, and phrases such as "butter someone up" and "wind up on the chopping block" have obvious double-meanings that will inevitably be examined.
* ''VisualNovel/TheFruitOfGrisaia'': [[spoiler:Amane Suou]]'s route features a high school field trip bus crash in an isolated forest in the mountains. Weeks pass without help and eventually with the food supply having dropped to effectively nothing, [[spoiler:the survivor's first eat the dead puppy that a student smuggled with her to a field trip. That doesn't sustain them long enough as eventually some of the students start passing away from malnutrition or their injuries from the crash. The teacher 'conveniently finds' some meat at this point and distributes them to the students (Kazuki Kazami, a student partnered with Amane, refuses to eat it and successfully advises Amane to do likewise.) The meat turns out to be the remains of the dead students which he was supposed to have respectfully buried. Amane and Kazuki attempts to make their escape once it becomes apparent that at some point the teacher and the other students start to mentally degrade out of hunger and desperation to an aggressive ghoul state where they won't even wait for the other students to die on their own before consuming them]].

* In ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'', this happens ''all the time'' in the commoner classes. When food gets scarce, as it so often does in the drow's underground home and food costs raise, eventually ''slaves'' start costing less than food, causing many drow to resort rather quickly to eating their slaves. These slaves can be a wide range of species, from human, to elves and other drow.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': Discussed. When it becomes clear that [[LittleStowaway Reynir]] is going to be staying with the crew over the duration of the mission, the first thing on everyone's mind, including Reynir's own, is what this is going to mean for their food supply. All Reynir can really do about it is apologize and promise to not eat too much. Mikkel, the man he's apologizing to, happens to like trolling people, so his reply includes (hopefully) joking that in the worse case scenario, they can always eat Reynir.

* Parodied in an episode of ''WebAnimation/RWBYChibi''. Sun, Jaune and Ren do an escape room while supervised by Qrow, however Sun proceeds to panic, disregarding the obvious clues and believing they'll never get out, much to Qrow's chagrin. He immediately decides they must eat Jaune to avoid starvation, a proposal Ren ''actually considers'', remarking his team mate is 'tender'. All is resolved when Yang accidentally punches through their wall while trying to do her own escape room challenge.

* The ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' special "Interview with a Campfire" has the families attend a camp that is supposedly cursed by a group of pioneers who disappeared during a harsh winter 100 years before, as detailed in a play they put on. Later, Tommy and his group finds out what happened to them: [[spoiler: they got trapped in a cave, with nothing to do but play cards, and froze to death. Also, Dil's new friend, Bean? [[TomatoInTheMirror Actually the ghost of one of the pioneers.]]]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Mystery Dungeon", a motley band of Ooo citizens (Ice King, the Earl of Lemongrab, NEPTR, Tree Trunks, and Shelby the worm) is trapped in a dungeon. When it looks like the group is stuck in a dead end, Lemongrab is quick to ask the Ice King how he tastes and tries to order him to "make yourself into food, immediately!" Fortunately, NEPTR points out an oven and some baking supplies in a corner of the room.
* On an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', the family and a tour guide are shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a bunch of guys who want to [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame hunt them for sport]]. While fleeing from the hunters, the tour guide is crushed in a cave in, trapping the family within. Francine, Steve, and Haley all decide that they should eat her since she has died, but Stan holds out on moral grounds until he finds out she is an organ donor on her drivers license. After they get through eating her, the hunters dig them out, and it is 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.]]

** And in the [=Y2K=]-bug apocalypse episode, Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons eat their news-crew colleague, Tricia Takanawa.

** Another episode had the Griffins racing up Mt. Everest against The Fishmans, another family they'd become rivals with, but a massive snowstorm hits the mountain, and the Griffins get lost and run out of food due to Peter's poor packing (he thought Lois told him to bring a mix tape rather than trail mix for provisions), only to discover the Fishmans' son Ben dead from exposure. Rather than die from starvation and cold, Brian suggest they eat him, though the whole family is very reluctant... with the exception of Peter, who doesn't even wait for them to stop talking. Stewie later lampshades them resorting to cannibalism rather than EatTheDog.

* In a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruwxZfiC9dI skit,]] [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura]] and a RedShirt are stranded on a planet and decide to resort to cannibalism (Uhura outright calling it "a Donner party situation"). They tell the Red Shirt to sacrifice himself, to which he replies:

'''Kirk:''' [[OhCrap Uh... oh.]]

** During the Black Friday Trilogy, one of the people being interviewed is a father who ate his own 5 year old while waiting outside the mall for Black Friday.

* The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party Donner Party,]] a group of US pioneers trying to settle in California. In May 1846, they [[ShortCutsMakeLongDelays took a shortcut that turned out to be a longcut]], which left them in the position of trying to cross the Sierra Nevada mountain range during a very harsh winter. By October 1846, they were SnowedIn high up in the Sierras, atop what later was named Donner Pass. When the food ran out (which didn't take long), many of the party resorted to eating their dead (there were allegations that some members didn't wait for people to die of natural causes). While most everybody chose to wait it out, a party of messengers set out to seek help; they reached civilization in January. It took four separate rescue parties to evacuate the remaining survivors, the last of whom did not reach shelter until April 1847. Interestingly, it turns out that one of the Washoe tribes in the region actually encountered the Donners after they were snowed in and attempted to aid them with gifts of food, but were driven off by gunfire. Between this and observations of acts of cannibalism among the Party, the Washoes simply avoided them.
* In 1845, a British Naval expedition attempting to find the fabled "Northwest Passage" through the Arctic, under the command of Captain John Franklin, ended in disaster, with the loss of both ships and all 129 men. While the exact circumstances of their fate are unknown, various search expeditions over a century later found scattered clues left behind from the voyage. In 1992, a modern expedition found a mass grave of the crew on King's Island, Canada, containing over 400 bones. Forensic testing of the bones showed conclusive evidence that the at least some of the crew had resorted to cannibalism in their final days.

* The case of R v. Dudley and Stephens, where three shipwrecked sailors in a lifeboat murdered a fourth, started eating him and were rescued less than a week later. It's often taught in law-related classes, both because it established the important historical precedent that in English law necessity is not grounds for justifiable homicide[[note]]Precedent establishes that necessity is a positive defense to cannibalizing a corpse provided that the victim was ''already dead''[[/note]] and because the teachers probably figure that at least it's one case the students are sure to remember.
* The other well-known case of cannibalism at sea occurred in the boats from the whale-hunter ''Essex'' (which was rammed and sunk by a whale on November 20, 1820; [[Literature/MobyDick Melville didn't make that up]]). Though the crew was able to pack some provisions prior to leaving their sinking ship in three small whaleboats, their food soon ran out. Following a brief stop at the unoccupied Henderson Island, the boats headed out to sea again in hope of finding rescue, where the crew were forced to resort to cannibalism as the men began dying off. On one boat, containing four men (one of them the ship's captain, George Pollard), the situation was so dire that the men decided they couldn't wait for someone to die in order to avoid universal starvation. They chose to draw lots to determine who would die, and then drew lots again to determine who the executioner would be. Only two of the three whaleboats were found by passing ships, containing five survivors. Another three men who had chosen to stay on Henderson Island were later picked up as well, for a total of eight survivors out of the 20-man crew. After the rescues, 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]]. Ironically, the boats took a longer way to the land (southwards and then eastwards to South America instead of Marquesas Islands lying to the west) because the sailors feared that the islands might be inhabited by {{cannibal tribe}}s.

* It happened in Ukraine during [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor the Holodomor,]] a horrific [[TheFamine famine]] from 1932-1933, caused or at least made worse by Stalin's forced collectivization policy. By some accounts it was so common that signs were posted reading, "Eating Dead Children Is Barbaric".

* Alferd (or Alfred) Packer was an incompetent mountain guide who ate the rest of his party when they became snowbound in the Rockies due to his bad organization. At his trial, the judge lamented: "There were only seven Democrats in Hinsdale County and you ate five of them!" The student canteen at the University of Colorado (Boulder) is the Alfred Packer Grill; motto: "[[BlackComedy Have a friend for lunch]]." Accounts vary regarding the exact circumstances of the event (not surprising, as Packer was the sole survivor). Authorities believed he murdered them all himself, while Packer always maintained that it was a partymate who murdered the others and tried to kill Packer himself before he was able to kill him in self-defense, with the cannibalism a simple matter of survival. Amusingly, after serving a 40 year sentence for manslaughter [[note]]Packer was initially tried and convicted of murder, but the conviction was overturned on constitutional grounds, and Packer was re-tried on a lesser charge[[/note]], Packer was said to have been a vegetarian for the rest of his life.

* When the French frigate ''Medusa'' ran aground in 1816, the upperclass passengers were loaded into the lifeboats, while the remaining 150 sailors, traders and labourers were forced onto a makeshift raft. Fearful that the desperate survivors would slow them down, the lifeboat passengers soon cut the tow ropes and set the raft adrift in the open ocean. Violence, mayhem and cannibalism soon overran the helpless raft, and only fifteen people survived to be rescued. This horrific incident was immortalized by Theodore Gericault in his 1818-19 mural ''Art/TheRaftOfTheMedusa''.
* There's widespread evidence that [[EatTheRich cannibalism against the wealthy and educated]] was practiced in [[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,160807,00.html China's Guangxi province]] during the [[ReignOfTerror Cultural Revolution]]. It's vehemently denied by the Chinese government, but cheerfully acknowledged by (some) residents of the province.
* Defectors from UsefulNotes/NorthKorea 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 country over last several decades.

* Ref. Monty Python sketch where an irate Royal Navy officer insists that "we're dealing with it - it's the bloody RAF who have got the problem!" (See above). In 1942, Fleet Air Arm officer Lieut. Charles Lamb was in a prisoner-of-war camp run by the Vichy French. As camp provost (in charge of discipline among prisoners) he interviewed a newly-arrived Royal Air Force crew, who the French had discovered drifting in the Med for over a month after being shot down. Lamb remarked that their make of plane normally has a four man crew but only three had arrived as prisoners. The three survivors looked at each other, and confessed to Lamb there had indeed been a wounded fourth crew member. At least at first...
* During the island hopping campaigns of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (see WorldWarII/WarInAsiaAndThePacific for more details), Japanese soldiers were known to resort to this. Their supply lines were typically poor, especially with any Japanese attempt to reinforce them by sea or air being [[SpannerInTheWorks frequently frustrated]] by US Air Force and Naval blockades. As a result, deceased comrades would be eaten. To make it more horrific, however, this was a fate that befell some unfortunate prisoners of war, some of whom were still alive when subjected to this treatment. One infamous case was when the Japanese garrison on the island of Chichi Jima executed and ate Navy fliers who were shot down. (Freakishly enough, the one pilot who was rescued by the US Navy was UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush). 30 of the Japanese garrison were tried, and five convicted. It has also been alleged that instead of being killed straight away, some were kept alive - to keep the meat fresh.
** Not all Japanese Garrisons took this route. Those that were stranded at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabaul#World_War_II Rabaul]] did something remarkable. They managed to re-organize themselves into a farming community and grew their own food. By the end of the war Rabaul had been turned into a self-sufficient colony and, by all accounts, were ''better'' fed than most Japanese troops.

* The NamelessCity in which ''ComicBook/TheGoon'' is set is located on the edge of Horse-Eater Wood, named for a group of pioneer who became snowed in there in the old days, and despite eating all their horses, only one of them survived, swearing that she never resorted to this trope. That's the official story anyway, but the tortured ghost of another of the settlers tells us that not only did she resort to cannibalism, she did so enthusiastically and without guilt, and even manipulated him into [[PaterFamilicide killing his own wife and children]] so she could have more.

* Believed to have happened to the native inhabitants of UsefulNotes/RapaNui. While it was originally widely accepted that the Rapa Nui foolishly cut down all the trees on their island (which meant that they could no longer build canoes to go out into the ocean to fish), then killed an ate all the native birds, then turned to cannibalism, this version of events is now disputed. Modern research now disputes the idea that they built log rollers to move their Moai and the destruction of the island's forests was instead a result of rats that had been accidentally introduced to the island eating the seeds. Likewise, the "evidence" of cannibalism on skeletal remains found on the island is now believed to have been a mixture of damage inflicted by the natives' funerary practices combined with overzealous Europeans determined to "prove" that every non-European culture was cannibalistic. While there may have been some cases of cannibalism on the island, it's no longer believed to have been widespread.

* Believed to have happened to the native inhabitants of UsefulNotes/RapaNui.

* ''LetsPlay/RatsSMP'':

Compare EatTheDog, ReducedToRatburgers, TooDesperateToBePicky, EatingShoes and ColdEquation. Contrast ImAHumanitarian, where the character eats their fellow human out of enjoyment. When animals or monsters eat their own kind, thus demonstrating they're ravenous and/or vicious, that's MonstrousCannibalism.

Compare EatTheDog, ReducedToRatburgers, TooDesperateToBePicky, and ColdEquation. Contrast ImAHumanitarian, where the character eats their fellow human out of enjoyment. When animals or monsters eat their own kind, thus demonstrating they're ravenous and/or vicious, that's MonstrousCannibalism.

* Referenced in ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' in the email "night life", in a cutaway where Homestar is dreaming he is in a Girl Scout troop.
-->"Okay, girls. We're stuck in the woods, with no troop leader. It's time to decide who we eat first."

-->"I suspect it would be like most cartoons. You know, we'd start to go nuts after a while and I would look at Homestar and he [[MeatOVision would look like a big steak]]. And then Homestar would look at me and I'd look like, you know, some kinda brownie sundae. So we'd chase each other around the island, trying to eat each other. And at some point, my foot would look like a sandwich, and [[{{Autocannibalism}} I would put salt on it and try to eat it]], and it's like 'Oh, it's my foot!'"''