Well, it looks like this is the end. TheEldritch Abomination rears up on its ugly, misshapen limbs, and devours thelovable hero face first. The audience does a collective cringe since, as everyone knows, watching someone gettingeaten alive isnot a particularly pretty sight. Audiences prepare for the sickening crunch as the monster...
Wait, is that a spitting sound?
Yes, that's right. It looks like the monster doesn'twant to eat the lovable hero. It seems that something about them, be it their whiny, unlikable personality, their lack of any skills that would allow the villain to startMega Manning instead of getting dumber, or even their really bad taste in deodorant or shampoo is enough that a monster simply does not want to eat them. Now, strictly speaking, is this being picky? Well, yeah—but it's not like you'd put justanything in your mouth, so why should a human-eating monster be any different? Just because they're a monsterdoesn't mean they're a savage!
Note that, broadly speaking, this trope does not just concern itself with eating. A monster could also just plain beunwilling to dignify an unworthy subject with the honor of being killed. One particularly creepy variant is that theEldritch Abomination or similar evil devours, grabs, attacks, or just confronts the character... and is immediately terrified and runs, sometimes screaming, back to whence they came. This is usually played for laughs, but sometimes it implies that this character, or perhapshumanityas a whole, is in fact worse than any Cthulhu-esque abominations or reality-warpinghomicidal lunatics could ever be. This can also include anEmotion Eater being overloaded by the emotions of its victim, such as a monster who eats rage being overloaded by the hero'sUnstoppable Rage.
In theIrresponsible Captain Tylor episode "The Day the Soyokaze Vanished", it is revealed that there are rumors that the Soyokaze was demoted and sent to this exact same sector of space once ten years before. During that time, a number of the crew committed suicide by flushing themselves into space, due to a combination of shame and boredom, and the captain (a former friend of Admiral Fuji, who arranged for the Soyokaze to be demoted so that he could be promoted) committed suicide. This is proven true and the ghost of the captain returns to the Soyokaze, trying first to kill Lieutenant Yamamoto (mistaking him for the captain), then Tylor. Just as he is about to kill them, Yamamoto and Tylor start arguing, revealing just how irresponsible and lacksadasical Tylor is about his commission, disgusting the ghost so much that he breaks off his murderous efforts and ends the haunting, angrily declaring them to be too pathetic to bother with.
A non-comedic example. InHellsing, Alucard, one of fictiondom'smost insanely overpowered characters, has a habit of eating his defeated enemies' souls to enslave them and assimilate their power.He's almostKilled Off for Real when he chows down on walking physics anomaly Schrodinger, whose power is so bizarre it causes Alucard to undergo a quantum existence failure. He does recover, but it takes30 years.
In a fight between Seras and Zorin, Victoria bites off Zorin's fingers, and spits them out saying she would never drink blood of something like her.
Another non-comedic example inFullmetal Alchemist. After he is critically injured,Kimblee is devoured by Pride. Not long after, however, Kimblee emerges from the thousands of tormented souls trapped within Pride to distract and weaken him at a key moment. Pride doesn't understand how Kimblee could have managed to retain his sanity in the maelstrom, but he overlooks the fact thatKimblee is already insaneand loving it.
Another non-comedic example inSlayers. The Holy Tree Flagoon was planted to absorb the evil miasma generated by demons, and in season 1 / novel 3 is able to consume the Demon Beast Zanaffar whole. In season 2 / novel 8, the tree tries to absorb the miasma of Hellmaster Fibrizo... and dies instantly.
A comedic instance occurs in the very first episode. A dragon stepsover Lina rather than step on her, shortly after Lina has learned of a rather... unflattering nickname for herself relating toexactly this sort of situation. A similar joke is used in one of the OVAs, where Lina and her employer confront an army of dragons, whoimmediately put onOh Crap faces andadvance to the rear at full speed.[context?]
The nickname also refers to the fact that she just generally terrifies dragons... and pretty much everyone else.
A similar example appears inAxis Powers Hetalia, when England tries to curse America with an evil chair.Russia sits on it instead and 'Russia is more evil than the chair, so the chair exploded'.
When England and America capture Italy, they send him back to Germany (in a boxlabelled "fuck", no less) because he's a pain to take care of.
InIchigo Mashimaro, after being tossed out the window in a tiger costume Miu returns asDracula, and proceeds to pretend to suck Matsuri's blood. ("Nothing like the taste of a sweet virgin's young blood," she remarks.) She turns to Nobue, but stops. ("No, wait. Old lady blood? Bleh...") Nobue protests that her blood's delicious, as she's only 16.
Non-comedic example inA Certain Magical Index: Himegami Aisa possesses the ability 'Deep Blood' which makes her blood seem attractive to vampires and kills them when they drink it. A vampire attracted by this ability converted her family and friends into vampires resulting in their deaths.[context?]
In chapter 527 ofNaruto, The Raikage talks about two criminals known as the Kingin Brothers, who tried to seize the power of the Kyuubi, and got eaten for their troubles. For the nexttwo weeks, they caused him so much indigestion that the Ninetails couldn't stand it anymore and spit them out.
And they survived byeating the Kyuubi's flesh.
Yu Yu Hakusho has two examples of this. The first is when a villain whoeats people toabsorb their powers eats someone withincredible regenerative capabilities, and is slowly taken over by him. The second is in backstory, though revealed rather late in the manga—a woman many centuries ago treated diseases by eating flesh from diseased corpses, building up antibodies, and then feeding bits of her own flesh to sick people. When a demon tried to eat her, she taunted him with the knowledge that he'dalmost certainly die of it, and he wound upseducing her instead.
After Momoo's tailfin is initially kicked by the Strawhats, he will run away after preparing to attack them once he recognizes their faces.[context?]
Also, in "Little Buggy's Big Adventure" in the chapter openings in the manga and a few fillers in the anime, Buggy is eaten by a giant bird and spat into the distance immediately.
Perona has intangible ghosts that make people feel negative if they go through that person. Usopp, who feels negative all the time, not only is unaffected, but the ghosts that went through him felt negative.
During the final match of the Devil Chojin arc, Buffaloman manages to steal Kinnikuman's life force, killing him...and then burst into flame because the Burning Inner Strength was more than he could handle. He had to return the power to Kinnikuman's body and resurrect him to save his own life.
In one earlier anime episode, Kinnikuman is fighting a sea monster for publicity, only to find said monsterfar larger than he is and gets swallowed whole. As a funeral is held in his honor, the sea monster stomach makes some unpleasant noises... and Kinnikuman crawls out from under it. It's not hard to figure out how Kin escaped.
InHanako and The Terror of Allegory, Kanae is being haunted by a demon which intends to take her soul as payment for granting her wish of being an idol singer. To stall for time, Kanae keeps making more extravagant wishes, forcing the demon to try and make her into an international superstar despite her lack of talent. When Daisuke finally bursts in to rescue her, the exhausted demon screams at him, "Save me, please! She's the devil!"
The Oni inRanma ½ that spend the entire episode trying to get saintly Kasumi to be evil shifts his possession to Happosai so he can gather evil faster. A little too fast, since Happosai turns out to be too evil for even the Oni to stomach.
As it turns out inAlice in Jails, Isaac's brazen idiocy manages toprotect him fromLadd's homicidal impulses.[context?]
Firo: Hey, come to think of it, isn't Isaac the kinda guy you said you hate? The kind who think they'll never die. Ladd: Nah. I've been keeping my eye on him for a few weeks now, and... Well, let's be honest here. There's something wrong with the guy's head. Getting mad at him'd be like getting mad at a puppy. He honestly doesn't have enough brains to know any better.
A serious variation appears in aBatman/Final Crisis crossover. A couple of Darkseid's henchmen capture Bats and try to extract his memories in order to implant them in a clone army. Trouble is these memories are so traumatic (just roll with it) that they short-circuit said clones.
With some of the recent retcons, I can understand this. All the silver age stories were either hallucinations due to Joker/Scarecrow gas, or part of an experiment by a younger Batman to try to understand the Joker's mind. Not to mention his past, Jason Todd,The Killing Joke, some of the things he's met and the fact that one of his Silver Age stories was Superman and him being friends as kids (beforeHIS PARENTS WERE DEAD!!!!!!!) and Supes buildinga machine that could see the future.
InNextwave, Forbush Man transports four fifths of the Nextwave team into nightmare visions of their own existence conjured up from the recesses of their minds. This doesn't work on Tabby, whose mind is so utterly shallow as to render her immune. She explodes him.
In one ofMarvel Comics' goofierCaptain Marvel stories in recent years, the Psycho-Man, amind-raping emotion-controlling mad scientist, attempts to usedim-witted "hero" Drax the Destroyer as his pawn. Unfortunately, fear makes Drax cower in the corner, doubt makes him stand around baffled, and hate makes him attack whatever's in his path (such as Psycho-Man). Cue Psycho-Man musing that he's got to add some new emotions to his device.
When taken prisoner by a man who plans to use the regeneratingDeadpool as an infinite source of food for hisintelligent zombies, said zombies quickly find him to be completely unappetizing. Could be because hetastes like cancer.
In the last issue ofDeadpoolTeam-Up, Galactus makes Wade his newest Herald after Wade sees an ad for the position in the classifieds. Though Wade does a good job as a Herald,his incessant chatter drives the mighty planet devouring entity nuts. Galactus is saved when theSilver Surfer arrives and beats the Power Cosmic out of Wade.
Not to mention the timeDaredevil's Typhoid Mary got a crush on Deadpool. She made him look sane by comparison.
Same deal with Madcap. Wade thought at first he'd found a kindred spirit, but Madcap proved far too crazy even for him.
InSupreme: The Return, Korgo the Space-Tyrant beats up then-President of the United States Bill Clinton to take his place as "ruler of the free world." Among the spoils he claimed was Clinton's wife, Hillary. By the time Supreme could come and beat him up, Korgo breathlessly thanked him for taking him away from her.
In the firstHellboy story arc, Rasputin tried to tap into pyrokinetic Liz's powers in a bid to awaken one of the Oggru-Jahad's spawn. This backfired when Rasputin lost control of Liz's power andfried theEldritch Abomination.
Dracula vs. Superman is resolved when Dracula hypnotizes Superman, and bites into him to gain the Kryptonian power in his blood. One problem; Superman issolar powered.
An issue ofRunaways substitutes Dracula with "random vampire teenager" and Supes with Karolina, with the same results.
AHellblazer arc has the King of the Vampires tormenting John Constantine while he's at his lowest point (homeless and alcoholic after a bad breakup) by killing the one guy he'd been friends with since his time on the street andtormenting him about the general worthlessness of humans. John finally relents and lets the King drink his blood... forgetting that he got a blood transfusion from the demon Nergal. The King'sjaw dissolves, and John uses the second wind to piss on him and drag him screaming into the sunlight.
TheUltimate Galactus arc has Professor Xavier trying to make contact with Gah Lak Tus'sHive Mind, only to gethurt pretty badly, as is standard in interactions with thePlanet Eater. However, he realizes that the reason Gah Lak Tus acts in such a way is because it'sdisgusted by organic life, so he sets up a psionic amplifier...
"Hello, Gah Lak Tus. I've brought six billion of my friends."
There are multiple theories on precisely what's going on insideCarnage's head, but we know that his personality hasn't changed in the slightest since his encounter with an alien symbiote, and we know that typically these symbiotes either coexist with the original personality (as in Venom's case) or take over completely. One interpretation is that Carnage was soAx Crazy that he completely overwhelmed the alien's mind.
InThe Flash storyline "Hell to Pay," SatanExpy Neronbargains for Wally's love for Linda in exchange for stopping the rampage of Wally's soullessRogues Gallery through Keystone—and thanks toExact Words the city seems about to be flattened anyway. However, Neron finds that their love is so strong he's actually started to feel un-Satanly compassion, and consequently shows up demanding that they take it back. They refuse to do so until he agrees to hit theReset Button on the entire business, even bringing back the people that the Rogues killed.
Similarly, aBlack Panther arc had Black Panther make a deal with Mephisto for the sole thing that could save the day. Mephisto came to claim his soul... which was also the seat of the power of the Black Panther, and tied to every other noble soul that's channeled said power. And they werepissed.
In a What If story, Mephisto tried to claim the soul of theSilver Surfer. It backfired when theIncorruptible Pure Pureness of the Surfer's soul manifested as a brilliant light that burned Mephisto. Since the Surfer already agreed to spend eternity in hell, Mephisto would burnforever. In this case, Surfer isn't too powerful or too evil for Mephisto—he's toogood. Ironically, that's exactly why Mephisto wanted Surfer in hell in the first place since he didn't like seeing someone that good in the universe.
In the eponymous series,Harley Quinn was exiled from Hell due her focus on joy and love.
In one story,Lobo died. The story ends with Lobo back among the living and Heaven and Hell making him immortal for everything he did. OK, his rampage that devastated Heaven was justified, after they reincarnated him as a squirrel and he died squished by his own corpse dying his original death (it wasn't on purpose), but everything he did before that wasn't.
Toward the end ofAll Dogs Go to Heaven, Charlie is captured by theBig-Lipped Alligator, who then proceeds to eat him alive, but when the Alligator was about to take his first bite, Charlie starts howling very loudly. The Alligator, upon realizing that he can never eat anyone that can sing as good as Charlie immediately lets him go and instead starts singing "Let's Make Music Together" aka the...
Seen in the live-actionRocky and Bullwinkle:Bullwinkle is too dense for mind control to have any effect.
Also in the original cartoons."No brain, no effect."
InStar Wars V:The Empire Strikes Back, R2-D2 gets swallowed by a swamp monster on Dagobah. A few seconds later, he gets spat out. Luke comments, "You're lucky you don't taste very good." (theRecut inexplicably changed it to "You're lucky you got out of there.")
And yet, somehow, the giant evil-eating blob that engulfs the city at the end is so repulsed by her innocence that it spits out Barbarellaand a villainess who just happens to be next to her.
No wonder. 90% of Barbarella's characterization is that she is innocently sensual, with no malice. Ok, some malice.
InMe and the Big Guy a parody ofNineteen Eighty-Four, a lonely citizen tries small talking and playing board games withBig Brother and even puts on sock-puppet theater for the "Big guy" on the screen. An annoyed and disgusted Big Brother calls him out, telling him that Big Brother is supposed to be a feared and omniscient oppressor, not a personal friend, but as the citizen continuities this behavior, Big Brother turns the double-way screen off in frustration to avoid communicating with him. Of course, it is subtly suggested that this was the citizen's intention from the start.
At the end ofMen In Black, K intentionally gets himself swallowed to retrieve his gun. The result is less than enjoyable for the bug...
The title character ofBobbie Faye is refused by the governor of Texas (and quite a few other states) as the governor of Louisiana tries desperately to pass her on(off).
One of the heroines winds up as the hostage of an evil wizard who is attempting to breed griffins. In this setting, griffins can only draw nourishment through eating virgin maidens. The rest of the heroes arrive "too late" to save her from being tossed into the griffin feeding pit only to discover a very alive and very annoyed princess who basically says "It had already eaten. That's the only reason I'm still alive. Understand?"
Later, she corners her boyfriend and demands an explanation for why the griffin really didn't eat her, since he assured her that some undefined (but obviously sexual) act "didn't count".
And later on, as the griffin is released on a Mayday festival equivalent, a random maiden sees the griffin as it catches her scent and makes a hurried attempt to force herself on the man whose advances she had just rejected a minute earlier in an effort to make herself inedible - all while the griffin is trying to break the house down.
TheShel Silverstein poem "Always Sprinkle Pepper in Your Hair" refers to a tactic for keeping yourself literally too spicy for a hag to make into soup: "She'll pick you up and sniff you, and then she'll sneeze 'Achooo,' and say, 'My tot, you're much too hot, I fear you'll never do'."
Harry Potter does this in several places. There are several times whereVoldemort tries to touch (and later possess) Harry and can't because of this trope.
Possibly an inversion; the character in question is toopure, rather than too evil.
A Year At The Movies features Kevin Murphy recalling the time he and fellowMystery Science Theater 3000 alum Mike Nelson went out to enjoy Hollywood's latest bomb. They, who had suffered through the likes ofManos: The Hands of Fate,Monster a Go-Go!, andHobgoblins, ended up sweating and squirming in their seats, checking their watches anxiously. The movie they were seeing?Corky Romano.
InThe Lord of the Rings, Shelob (anEldritch Abomination in the form of aGiant Spider) finds Gollum absolutely inedible, despite the fact that she'll eat almost anything else, up to and including orc. Consequently, Gollum is able to convince Shelob to spare him - so long as he brings her more edible beings to feast on,like hobbits...
A story with a somewhat darkly comedic bent inThe Hellbound Hearts had a trio of youths, who were being held captive by anextremely sadisticOutlaw Couple, summon the Cenobites using a puzzle box the couple had in their possession. The Cenobites at are first eager to take them as their new guinea pigs in exploring the realms of sensation and experience, but after one of them comes into contact with one of the three, decides against it, having sensed they've already been through pretty much every form of torture and indignity imaginable at the hands of their captors, who the Cenobites decide to take as a consolation prize.
OneGoosebumps book,How To Kill A Monster, ends with the heroes captured by the monster, even after their attempts at killing it by making it fall through the stairs and poisoning it.Said monster is allergic to humans, and keels over dead after merely licking one. Unfortunately, the monster's friends are pissed off after this. Cue the chills, as the book ends with the heroes alone, far away from town,and in a marsh filled with these hungry, soon to awaken creatures. Hopefully the other monsters are allergic to humans too.
Jack C Haldeman'sHome Team Advantage, published inAsimov's Science Fiction magazine, has alien Arcturians winning a baseball game, with the prizing being that they get to eat the entire human race. By the vote of fans, Julius Hawkline, the Howard-Cosell-expy is chosen to be the first devoured. After the Arcturian coach bites off and chews The Hawk's nose for long minutes, it's decided that humans are inedible and some other form of compensation will need to be worked out. The Hawk is one tough old bird.
InMonster Hunter International Nemesis a ghost controller tries attackingAgent Franks by making ghosts share their torment with him. It doesn't work sinceas anAscended Demon, Franks spent a lot of time in Helland remembers it (his attacker had no way of knowing this) prompting the ghosts to flee in terror.
In at least two episodes ofTorchwood, the rampagingMonster of the Week encounters Owenafter he waskilled and resurrected, and, after a moment of disgusted inspection, rejects him as a possible victim. The first time, in "Something Borrowed",the monster doesn't eat dead meat, and the second time, "From Out of The Rain",the villain steals your last breath - and Owen had his last breath some weeks beforehand.
This trope actually forms a major part of the Series 1 finale. TheBig Bad of the season, Abaddon feeds directly off life energy. So how do they kill it? The immortal Captain Jack allows Abaddon to feed off him, but Jack's life energy doesn't run out and Abbadon can't handle it.
In Spike's very first appearance (and hisEstablishing Character Moment) he relates how he was at Woodstock and fed on a drugged up hippie - not something he remembers fondly.
Buffy suffers this once while she's working at theDouble Meat Palace. Standard vampire fight happens, except the vampire gets the upper hand (Buffy was quite depressed this season and verged on suicidal at more than one point. She almost let a singing demon kill her once.)...but when the vamp almost bites her, he finds he 'can't stand the smell' and tries to leave;turning his back on the Slayer proves a fatal mistake.
In another episode, Angelus bites a jock, but spits out his blood in disgust. The jock was taking steroidsand was mutating into a fish-monster.
An early episode had thePudgy Pig defeated when the Rangers fed him food that was literally too spicy for him. He promptly spat up their weapons, which he had eaten, allowing the Rangers to destroy him.
A very literal example was with the Invenusable Flytrap. Heliterally swallowed Jason, Kimberly, Zach, and Billy, but they escaped later by blasting their way out. This was actually a sort ofAchilles' Heel for thisMan-Eating Plant; as his name implied he was armored and very hard to hurt, but his insides weren't so well-protected.
The cannibal featured in theCriminal Minds episode "Lucky" originally ate prostitutes, but eventually switched to a different demographic of women since most of the prostitutes in the area used drugs, which makes them "taste funny".
In an episode ofAngel, a demonic tree drains people's body-fluids with its vines, but it becomes poisoned when it tries this on Angel, who is a vampire.
Another episode seesa small boy possessed by a rather evil demon.The boy is an even more evil psychopath, who commits all of "the demon's" crimes himself; the only thing the demon does is try to make the boy commit suicide to endits own suffering.
Another episode recycles the plot ofCast a Deadly Spell under Films - Live Action, with Angel being hired to ensure the daughter remains a virgin (with precisely the same outcome).
When she fights Angelus Faith dopes up then lets him feed on her. The drugs she took are so strong than he promptly stops and passes out.
TheDoctor Who episode "The Lodger" has an alien spacecraft trying to repair itself using people who want to leave. When a man who is comfortable sitting on his sofa all day connects himself to the main controls the whole ship overloads.
It wasn't so much the "sitting on the sofa" as thePower of Love.
In the new series episode "The Next Doctor", the Cybermen attempt to convert Mrs. Harttigan. Problem is, she's too strong-willed, and dominates them instead.
"The God Complex" has an alien minotaurfeeding onthe faith of those trapped in its prison by revealingtheir worst fears. When Rory shows up, all it does is show him the exit becausehe is neither religious nor superstitious and, unlike Amy, does not have an abiding faith that The Doctor will always save the day. Also, because after the events of "The Pandorica Opens"... there isn't really anything left for him to be afraid of.
In theStar Trek: The Original Series episode "Obsession", the gaseous monster attacks Spock, only to find his copper-based Vulcan blood inedible, and flees. McCoy wryly jokes that Spock "must have left a bad taste in its mouth" which Spock says is figuratively true.
One episode introduced the Kazon, whom the Borg found so utterly unremarkable that assimilating them would add nothing to the Collective. Presumably an in-joke reference to how audiences found the Kazon to be at best entirely uninteresting and at worst a reason to not bother watching, leading to them getting dropped from the show after barely a couple of seasons.
Also the aliens known only by the Borg designation Species 8472, whose biology makes the Borg's nanoprobes useless, and actually makes them desperate enough that Janeway is able to cut a deal with them to team up against the threat.
Patsy Stone: The last mosquito that bit me had to check into the Betty Ford clinic.
InKenan and Kel episode,Ditch Day Afternoon, Kenan comes up with a plan to avoid his bad day of both school and work by ditching both areas for the day with Kel along with him. While at the bank, two robbers, one black another white, arrives. Knowing theycould end up with the bad day they were trying avoid, Kenan and Kel decided to stay as hostages. The boys were ultimately forced to face their fate when the robbershad enough and abandon them.
Magazines
In Quest featured hypothetical battles between characters from different fictional continuities. When they set the Borg fromStar Trek up against Orcs fromMagic: The Gathering, the Orcs were slaughtered by the thousands... until one of them was assimilated. Then the Borg retreated, since the Orcs had nothing to offer them.
Calvin and Hobbes: Hobbes puts Calvin's head in his mouth, but spits him out, claiming he tastes terrible. This is also aRunning Gag for every person he "eats".
Except Tommy Chestnut, who apparently did taste awful, but was eaten anyway.
Big Finish Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor in "Phobos". When facing a monster that feeds on adrenaline but is harmed by actual fear, the Doctor conquers it effortlessly by showing it his own mind. He starts by feeding it memories of all the things he's seen in the past, followed by all the evil he's seen from the future... and as a final blow,all the things he's afraid he might do someday. The wholeCrowning Moment of Awesome takes several minutes, with the Doctor continuously mocking the monster throughout. Oh, and he does itwhile bungee jumping into the monster's transdimensional portal.
In one old module forCall of Cthulhu, players have to stop a plot to link the mind of anEldritch Abomination to the psyches of all humanity, by which the villains intend to reduce the human race to its gibbering worshippers. If they fail to stop it, there's a campaign-preservingGM Saving Throw option of having the villains' scheme run its course successfully... only to have theabomination be driven insane, by whatever standard of "sanity" might apply to Lovecraftian horrors, because the sheer number of human beings on Earth is so great that their cumulative psyches can overpower its own singular mind.
The Kroot inWarhammer 40,000 evolve byassimilating the genetic material of what they eat, progressing certains groups along specific developmental lines (to the point where every single animal on their homeworld Pech is a Kroot derivative, their ancestors filling all available niches). However, the Shapers (basically guides as to what should be eaten) instruct their brethren to avoidGenestealer hybrids or thosetainted with Chaos due to their potential to corrupt the entire species.
Big EaterTao (who attempts/considers eating various other characters in story mode) also chooses not to eat Arakune on the grounds of how disgustingBlack Squiggly looks.
Charlie Ho-Tep inSam and Max, the ventriloquist's dummy that unlocks Max's psychic ventriloquism power, used to belong to Junior, the youngest of the Elder Gods. Junior hated him; played with him for about ten minutes, and then chucked him aside, declaring him to be creepy as shit and wanting nothing more to do with him. That's right; he was too creepy for the brain-melting abomination against reality.
Even Max finds the dummy creepy. Max is also an abomination against reality.
InKingdom of Loathing, one yearThe Borg crash lands in the Kingdom. They exhume a nearby grave and reanimate the dead, then try to assimilate them. The problem was that the body was of Father Crimbo, who (because it was Crimbo time) was powerful enough to assimilate them, creating the Crimborg.
Within a Deep Forest has a large catlike monster who will gobble up any ball that gets near it.Except the Pathetic Ball; it can bounce right past the beast without incident. The implied reason is that the monster wants to absorb your ball's powers, and only the Pathetic Ball has no powers worth absorbing.
InPortal 2,GlaDOS decides to let Chell go, because she's tired of Chell's killing her and wrecking the Enrichment Center.
Actually happens inDark Corners of the Earth at one point.In order to kill a "Cthulhu spawn-like monster" inside a cell you must feed it a blue flower that is apparently deadly to Cthulhu's creatures.
Parodied in anearly strip ofThe Order of the Stick with aMind-flayerIllithidPsionic Danger Squid-thingy. On the next page, it compares Elan'sbrain to a Diet Coke, but Belkar is a better example of this trope because the Squid-thingy compares him to a taco and thinks, "Too angry... I'd get heartburn."
This is how Torg ofSluggy Freelance avoids getting devoured by Aylee at first contact...and the second. - "Thank god for dandruff shampoo!".
El Goonish Shive off-continuity arc "Goonmanji". The evil cursedReality Warper game is thoroughly frustrated: the main cast is far too perverted and accustomed to theMad Science to treat whatever it does to them as something more thanFetish Fuel at best and petty annoyance at worst.
InthisDork Tower strip,Igor attacked a mind flayer with purple nurples and wedgies. Since this effectively proved his character didn'thave a brain to flay, he won.
InSam and Fuzzy, Fridge attempts todemonically possessOx. It works poorly because Ox is so dumb that it limits Fridge's own mental capabilities. For a frame of reference, Fridge's mental capabilities were higher when it was possessingfridge mold in Sam's refrigerator.
Leaf: Besides, while she's with us, monsters will avoid us - they have dignity. And dignity andpixies don't mix.
In aside story anembodiment of chaos and magic accidentally got summoned to a wizards' guild accounting department, "changing things randomly as it touches them".
Curiously, the book explaining the taxes applicable to importing galaxy-sized dragons remained unchanged. Accountants have so far failed to agree whether this was because the concept was silly enough in its own right, or the tax law was so chaotic already that there was nothing the Ur-pixie could add.
In theHomestar Runner Halloween cartoon "Jibblies 2", Homestar is immune to the Rocoulm'sjibblies-inducing phrase "Come on in here!" presumably because he'sThe Ditz. The cartoon's Easter egg reveals thatCloudcuckoolander Homsar is also immune; in fact, he gives the Rocoulm a case of the jibblies.
In keeping with the trope, Homestar agrees to be trapped in the painting forever in exchange for everyone else to be released from the jibblies. He then proceeds to drive Rocoulm insane, but due to the terms of the agreement,he is completely unable to release Homestar.
Despite reviewing loads of really, really bad comics,Linkara has stated that he will never, ever reviewSonichu.
He also stated that he wouldn't reviewany webcomic, primarily because they're free entertainment mostly done as a hobby, and it's unfair to treat them the same way as comics done by professionals.
He also refuses to reviewOne More Day. He doesn't want to devote any air time to it or even acknowledge its existence—he just hates it that much.
And in his defense, if you were to add together all of the screentime in separate episodes he's dedicated to explaining why he hatesOne More Day, you'd have a whole episode, easily.
The Cinema Snob—or rather Brad Jones—loves him some exploitation films. His favorite movie isCaligula and he scoffs at the epithet "torture porn". However, even he felt dirty after watchingA Serbian Film.
In theFuturama episode "Raging Bender," a brainslug begins feeding on Fry's brain. It dies of starvation (acknowledged by the writers as being the "Oldest. Joke. Ever."). Later, in "The Day The Earth Stood Stupid," it is revealed that Fry isThe Chosen One to defeat the Brains; he's immune to their stupefaction ray, because he's the only creature in the universe who doesn't have the brain-waves used to think. The Nibblonians comment on his "superior, yet inferior brain".
The next time Fry meets them, the Nibblonians acknowledge that it's all because he'sHis Own Grampa.
InAnimaniacs, Yakko and Dot challengeThe Grim Reaper at checkers to bring Wakko back to life, with their lives at stake. They lose—but thenThe Grim Reaper realizes he'll have to host the three loons in the underworld for all eternity, and he lets them go. In other episodes, they getDracula andSatan to let them go for the same reason. They subvert their own pattern in a later episode, as thisfails to work on anArmy drill sergeant; he just assigns them to worse and worse duties until their pranks result in him getting knocked out cold.
One episode features somethingso horrible, even the Warner siblings can't deal with it:"Baloney" the Dinosaur.
The episode involving Satan also featured them accidentally ending up inHellHades and fleeing in terror from their assigned punishment: listening to "whiny protest songs from the sixties" for all eternity.
This is one of the central tropes ofThe Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. No matter how powerful or evil theMonster of the Week is, it can never stand Billy and Mandy. Aside from the above, in "Creating Chaos" Eris, goddess of Chaos, plans to use Billy as a tool in driving the world insane. He promptly drivesher insane by taking forever to get ready, doing such things as dripping honey on toast and watching paint dry.
In "Little Rock of Horror!", a brain-eating meteor-creature first attempts to eat Billy's brain but finds nothing. When it later devours Mandy's brain, it screams in pain, dies, and then reforms—but with Mandy in control. She comments "I guess my brain was a little too... spicy [for him]."
Another episode has a Chupacabra latching onto Billy's face, which Grim claims to be an attempt to suck out his brain. Mandy laments that the poor creature would starve.
In "Big Trouble in Billy's Basement", Billy is pulled through a dimensional portal byYog-Sawhaw, but thrown back, and Billy explains in dejected tones "They didn't want me" (prompting everyone to say "Well I guess that makes you a total loser").
A short in "Treehouse of Horror II" had Mr. Burns putting Homer's brain inside a slave robot. Unfortunately, the robot still had Homer's laziness, gluttony, etc.
Another "Treehouse of Horror" special had a zombie horde clamoring for "Braaaains" inspect Homer's head, then abandon him in disgust...He's actuallyoffended by that turn of events.
In the first "Treehouse of Horror", the haunted house the Simpsons moves into wanted each member of the family to die. When Marge had enough, she offers the spirit a choose: deal with them or leave them alone. The housedestroy itself after telling the family to leave for a moment as he decided, even Lisa makes a comment about it.
On "Treehouse of Horror XXVIII": After being removed from Maggie, Pazuzu gets trapped in Bart. Pazuzu wants to get out of Bart because he's too evil, by his standards. Bart orders Pazuzu around.
Subverted in the episode "The Joy of Sect". A cult brings all of Springfield to their compound to be brainwashed into worshipping their almighty Leader. Everybody is controlled except Homer, whose attention span isn't long enough to listen to the brainwashing. The cult leaders despair over his "powerful mind." Then one of them simply sings "Leader!" to the tune of the oldBatman theme song, and he is instantly brainwashed.
ThenDouble Subverted later in the same episode, when Groundskeeper Willie tries to de-program Homer and winds up being brainwashed himself.
InSpongeBob SquarePants, the Flying Dutchman gave SpongeBob and Patrick up as slave crewmen in "Shanghaied" because they were incredibly bad at it. In a subversion, rather than letting them go, he planned to eat them, but they escaped. Then the Dutchman catches them, but he offers them three wishes before they're eaten. After accidentally using up two of their wishes, they use their final wish to turn the Dutchman into a vegetarian. Butthen they appear in a blender, somehow transformed intofruit, with the Dutchman preparing to eat them.
Speaking of the Flying Dutchman, in "Born Again Krabs" Mr. Krabs trades SpongeBob's soul for 62 cents. Just as he starts tofeel bad about it, the Flying Dutchman comes back to return SpongeBob after being annoyed by his incessant chatter about his hobbies.
In a third Flying Dutchman example, namely "Scaredy Pants", SpongeBob is shaved down by Patrick to make him rounder for a sheet he uses as a Flying Dutchman costume to try to scare everyone in the Krusty Krab for Halloween. He fails miserably, but as the entire restaurant is laughing at him thereal Dutchman arrives, angered by SpongeBob's insulting costume and about to steal everyone's souls. He takes a moment before doing so to explain the concept of being scary to SpongeBob, then removes the sheet... and flies away screaming when he sees the sponge had been shaved down to facial features, a brain, and a "spinal cord".
Literal example fromThe Powerpuff Girls: Following a succession of increasingly dirty encounters and not willing to wash Buttercup once became so filthy and stinky that a huge monster who tried to swallow her spat her out and refused to fight her until she cleans herself. That was the only thing that actually persuaded her to wash.
In another episode, the girls capture a brain-sucking monster...when it is desperately searching the Mayor's empty head for sustenance.
Before the series waspulled prematurely off the air, an unfinished episode ofInvader Zim would have had Zim being judged on trial by the Control Brains (the central decision-makers of Irken society). After finding him unquestionably guilty, they try to upload Zim's Memory Drive in his Irken Pack (where his real personality is located) before deleting his memory, but his memories drive them completely insane. Before the end of the episode, the now-insane brains declare Zim the most incredible Irken ever and granted ten minutes to control a giant ship called the MASSIVE.
The Halloween episode featured Zim and Dib becoming trapped in a twisted alternate universe populated by monster versions of the regular characters. When they escape and the monster version ofSadist Teacher Bitters follows them, she's scared off when she witnesses the destruction caused byCloudcuckoolander robot Gir attacking childen out for tricks-or-treats and eating all their food.
InBeast Wars, the Predacons infect Rhinox with a virus that turns him into a Predacon. Rhinox immediately embraces Predacon philosophy and starts plotting against Megatron (perfectly acceptable practice). However, unlike most of Megatron's underlings, Rhinox is smart. He would have defeated Megatron, if the Maximals hadn't interfered. Optimus Primal, to his credit, anticipated this outcome, knowing Rhinox.
Apparently, Megatron doesn't learn. InBeast Machines, he putsRhinox'sspark into the Vehicon general Tankor. When his original personality resurfaces, Tankor begins plotting against his master.
Nay! He did, in fact, learn his lesson. Tankor is a moron, An Idiot, a rube and a fool. It is obvious that this was yon Megatron's solution to the bot's questionable loyalty! It took an external intervention to restore Tankor's intellect.
He even added aRestraining Bolt when he placed Rhinox's spark inside Tankor. At the moment of truth, it left Rhinox/Tankor paralyzed and Megatron with complete control of the superweapon Rhinox practically handed to him on a silver platter.
God, the Devil and Bob: The Devil finds himself on the end of this trope more than once. When he hires Martha Stewart to help redecorate the fourth circle of Hell ("She's on the speed-dial"), she quickly takes over and leaves him painting pictures of sad clowns in a side-room. In another episode, he shapeshifts into a normal teenager and dates Bob's daughter to mess with him, only to realise he's forgotten how depressing teenagers can be and abandon the scheme without any outside interference. And in a later episode, it's revealed Nixon was so much of an unstandable person that the Devil refused to keep him and he ended up in Heaven.
In theMetalocalypse episode "Snakes N Barrels II", Dethklok consider Los Angeles to be so brutal and messed up that they would kill themselves if they lived there.
Adventure Time's Gunther is so evil that even Marceline'sdad is afraid to suck out his life force. But isn't he socute!
In theSouth Park episode "Trapper Keeper", the Trapper Keeper becomes sick and is destroyed when it assimilates Rosie O' Donnell
InThe Fairly OddParents, Timmy's imaginary friend Gary is eaten by an imaginary monster version of Vicky. She spits him out and says "I hatecool!"
In theLooney Tunes cartoon "The Hole Idea", an inventor has created a portable hole, which he eventually uses to get rid of his overbearing wife, which drops her all the way to Hell. Then the devil pops up to return her, protesting "Isn't it bad enough down here withouther?"
Pinkie Pie fromMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic spends most of her time doing utterly impossible and sometimes fourth wall breaking antics. But even she can't handle eating a rainbow.
Double points for Pinkie reacting to it bybreathing fire. So the rainbow was literally too spicy for Pinkie Pie.
InRugrats episode,Ruthless Tommy, two criminals kidnap Tommy, thinking he was a member of a wealthy family. The duo ends up coming to this conclusion when Tommy’s natural infant behaviors cause problems from them.
Beavis and Butthead episode,Kidnapped, the duo “kidnaps” Steward in order to secure money for a concert only to discover how much goes into the concept, not to mention how annoying he becomes.
Though a mother trying to instill discipline in their daughters inThe Big House, Helen is forced to come to this conclusion when Daria uses the time under house-arrest to resort to mind games. Jake admits he had little clue about the house's rules himself. This happens after Quinn snitches on Daria for sneaking out. Just as Helen was about to let Daria have, she's reminded of the likely outcomes.
Helen: I see your point.
In theFamily Guy episode "Dead Dog Walking", Chris gives vaping a try, creating a circle ring. CueSadako Yamamura entering from the smoked ring, causing Chris and Stewie to run for lives. Then, cue Sadako Yamamura running for hers fromwho else but Quagmire.
TheExtreme Ghostbusters episode "Killjoys" has vampire clowns, who feed on laughter; thus, when one of them catches Kylie in an early scene, it doesn't want to eat her - she's a glum type who doesn't laugh much. Which might mean... Kylie was TooBland for Yog-Sothoth?
This is aRunning Gag in theWoody Woodpecker cartoon "Alley to Bail". Over the course of the story, Woody's rival Buzz Buzzard falls victim to aMan-Eating Plant, and also to a female gorilla and female octopus who... seem to think he's handsome. Unfortunately for the poor beasts, Buzz is so slovenly unwashed that he makes all of them sick.
InKite Man: Hell Yeah!, Insect Queen is a vampish villain who seduces men so she and her hive can devour them, but she doesn't need to eat Queen of Fables to know she'd taste horrible, telling her this to troll her. This works in Fables' favor, as she believed up to then that her original body was eaten by bugs and that her magic fairy tale book had been destroyed. In truth, Insect Queen kept both, and Fables is able to take them back.
The violence in the Japanese movieAudition by Takashi Miike also causedEli Roth, John Landis, andRob Zombie to find the film difficult to watch.
Despite being caught and sent to a POW camp during the Vietnam War,Humbert Roque Versace was executed by the Viet Cong after the American of Puerto Rican-Italian decent was proven was too difficult to both mental and physical break his spirit. That’s right; Versace was killed by the Viet Cong all because his willpower was tooindomitable to make a dent.