#but we don't really have a better tag for 'eating a sapient creature'

[prokopetz]

One of the more entertaining consequences of broadcast standards for children's media during the 1980s is that villains weren't allowed to express or directly imply the desire or intent to kill the protagonist, but they were allowed to openly state their intention to eat the protagonist – provided that at least one of the hero or the villain were non-human.

(i.e., human villain expressing the desire to eat a non-human protagonist: okay; unambiguously monstrous villain expressing the desire to eat a human protagonist: okay; human villain expressing the desire to eat a human protagonist: not okay.)

This often led to interesting characterisation choices, like Shredder's strange preoccupation with making the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into soup in the 1987 series – he's not allowed to threaten to kill them, but he can freely threaten to eat them!

#media #tropes #violence mention #death mention #cannibalism mention #i mean technically not *really* cannibalism because the villain and the hero were never the same species #but we don't really have a better tag for 'eating a sapient creature' #well #okay #we don't really have a better tag for *non-sexually* eating a sapient creature #sex mention in tags