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Basic Trope: Individual eats others to acquire their abilities.

  • Straight: Bob consumes fire monsters to acquire their pyrokinetic abilities.
  • Exaggerated: Bob eats the Top God and thus, becomes the most powerful being.
  • Downplayed:
    • Bob can only acquire abilities from certain creatures or entities.
    • Bob only acquires part of the powers, like teleportation without spatial awareness or flame immunity but no pyrokinesis.
    • Bob only needs to eat a little to gain other people's powers.
  • Justified:
    • Bob feeds on mutagenic entities, thus acquiring the powers through warping his own biology.
    • Bob's biology adapts to what was taken in, thus something standout like teleportation makes a clear impact.
    • Bob's special copy magic needs to sample some of the soul, and the easiest way to do that is kill and eat someone.
    • Bob was taught this technique by Kirby.
  • Inverted:
    • Bob can expel his powers into new lifeforms by first feeding on someone as fuel.
    • Bob can give others powers by feeding them his flesh.
    • Eating another being with powers is a sure way not only to lose whatever one might have but to be barred from ever acquiring them.
  • Subverted: Bob seems to copy the abilities of others by eating them, but eventually admits he just likes eating others.
  • Double Subverted: ...However eating them does make it each easier for him to copy their powers.
  • Parodied: Bob occasionally forgets about his powers and eats fast food, transforming into a burger and fries.
  • Zig-Zagged:
    • Bob manifests pyrokinetic powers shortly after eating a fire monster. But it transpires that eating that specific monster wasn't the proximate cause of his new abilities ... eating a different monster two days earlier was.
    • Depending on whether Bob has the power(s) of the class of powered beings he eats, he gains or loses them after eating one of them.
  • Averted: Eating others simply doesn't give you their abilities.
  • Enforced: "We need to power up Bob, but each Neo-Human is only supposed to have one power... Have people eat some others to assimilate their genetic powers."
  • Lampshaded: "Wait, so eating people does give you their powers? Then where're all our cannibalistic god-kings?"
  • Invoked: Bob, wanting to terrify criminals further, picks up superpower cannibalism to Scare 'Em Straight.
  • Exploited: Drake baits Bob by flaunting his powers, and leads him into a trap.
  • Defied: Bob refuses to eat others, deciding that's just too horrifying a thing for others to accept.
  • Deconstructed: Just because Bob gains powers that way doesn't mean he is immune to the other negative effects of cannibalism both psychological and physiological. Furthermore, nobody wants to work with him. Even if they aren't bothered by it morally, they won't work with him out of worry he'd eat them for their powers if given half the chance!
  • Reconstructed: Bob develops the Required Secondary Powers needed to avoid merely incurring negative impacts on himself, the hard way, and arranges to have himself put out of commission if he ever inadvertently eats an ally.
  • Discussed:
    Emperor Evulz: Some ancient cultures believed one could acquire a warrior's strength by consuming their heart. Not that I need any extra incentive to tear you to bloody pieces, but it's a nice thought nonetheless ... I might even try it once I'm done with you.
  • Conversed: "I've heard of 'You are what you eat', but this is ridiculous! Does that mean he acquires a distinctive smell and taste of hamburger whenever he orders fast food?"
  • Implied: Bob is not known to have Power Copying yet always seems to turn up with new abilities after someone else with them goes missing.
  • Played for Drama: Bob ends up shunned and feared because of his superpower cannibalism, yet he doesn't feel like he can trust others to create a utopia. Thus, having to choose between devouring others to become a functional God or stop and leave it all to chance.
  • Played for Laughs: Scavenger Bob gains abilities when he eats others but keeps on getting the least useful ones possible. He ate a police officer once and only managed to gain knowledge of traffic law.

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