With allies like these, who needs enemies?
Forget Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, here's an ally you can really sink your teeth into... or rather, one who'll sink their teeth into you given half the chance, if you don't watch your back. A primarily comedic (but sometimes dramatic) trope where one character—most commonly a predatory animal or monster—will surreptitiously attempt to eat an allied character when they're not paying attention. Only rarely will they actually succeed in the attempt, most often playing innocent when caught in the act or being forced to regurgitate their ally. It can also be played seriously for drama, as a source of tension between allies.
Most often performed by a villain or Token Evil Teammate, but commonly an element of a Predator-Prey Friendship where the predator struggles to resist the urge to eat their prey friend. It can also happen if they're stranded with no resources and starting to experience Meat-O-Vision. Can also be a case of attempted Monstrous Cannibalism if both the subject and object of the trope are members of the same species. Can also be part of a literal case of Devour the Dragon.
Subtrope of With Friends Like These..., and is often a problem with "friendly" vampires, werewolves, and other monsters who struggle with Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Delicious in Dungeon:
- After Falin is eaten by a red dragon, her best friend Marcille is forced to use the dragon's flesh to resurrect her, as all that's left of Falin's body is the skeleton. Unfortunately, this enables the elf sorcerer and Dungeon Master Thistle to transform Falin into a centaur-like dragon chimera under his control. To free Falin, her brother Laios suggests they eat as much of her dragon half's flesh as possible to prevent Thistle from seizing control of her again. Laios sees nothing wrong with this, but the others — especially Marcille — are horrified. Ultimately it works and Falin is restored as a Little Bit Beastly but mostly human Cute Monster Girl.
- While attempting to save Senshi the dwarf from being eaten by a griffin (actually a transformed hippogriff), Marcille and Laios use some leftover food supplies to create a familiar that the former can puppeteer, and she becomes quite attached to it. Once Senshi is safe, however, Laios unceremoniously cuts up her food familiar with the intent of cooking and eating it, and is confused by her horrified reaction.
- Pokémon the Series:
- James of Team Rocket has extremely poor luck when it comes to carnivorous plant Pokémon, as all three he's owned—two Victreebel and a Carnivine—have made a habit of trying to eat him when unleashed from their Pokéballs.
- In Pokémon Journeys: The Series, Ash's Dracovish attempted to chomp down on him and Pikachu upon being frankensteined by Cara Liss and Bray Zenn. Even after being officially caught by him, it retained the habit of playfully biting his head.
- Slayers: An interesting case takes place in the first season of the anime. Zelgadis helps Lina escape from his ostensible "allies" and kills fishman Noonsa in the process with a fireball. When werewolf/troll hybrid Dilgear asks if someone is cooking something, his comrades bring in Noonsa's cooked body. While Dilgear is mourning Noonsa's passing, he hears strange noises and turns to see his colleagues standing, trying to look innocent, with utensils hidden clumsily behind their backs and blocking the view of Noonsa. Dilgrear returns to mourning Noonsa until he hears the sounds again, and turns to see that his allies have eaten Noonsa's corpse.
Dilgear: You ate him! You ate him all! And you didn't leave any for ME!
Comic Books
- Deadpool: Back in Black: After Deadpool re-bonds to the Venom symbiote, a trio of alien bounty hunters led by Killer Thrill attempt to capture the symbiote for the Collector by using its prior host—Spider-Man—as bait. Seeing Spider-Man unconscious, the symbiote takes over Wade and tries to eat him, but is barely stopped by Wade pulling a Go Through Me to protect the Web-Slinger.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): In one of the Off Panel mini-comics, Cream the Rabbit is shown having a tea party with Cheese the Chao and the Tails Doll—a Mechanical Abomination created by Dr. Eggman, disguised as a "cute" plushy modelled after Tails, and sent to spy on Sonic and his allies. As she looks away to get more cookies, the Tails Doll assumes a nightmarish form and looms over her with its fanged maw gaping and prehensile tongue extended to grab her… only to revert back to its doll form when she looks towards it again and scolds Cheese—who'd been trying to warn her—for being rude.
- Thunderbolts:
- Thunderbolts (1997): During the period that Mac Gargan was bonded to the Venom symbiote he struggled to resist its ravenous appetite for flesh, attempting to eat Bullseye while ensorcelled by Morgan le Fay and going on a berserk feeding frenzy after being gaslit into embracing its bloodlust by a trio of psychics the team had captured.
- Thunderbolts (2012): Realizing that the Thunderbolts' violent methods were making it difficult for him to resist the Venom symbiote's bloodlust, Flash Thompson tested the team to see if they could stop him if he lost control by cutting the symbiote loose. Deadpool (poorly) disguised himself as Spider-Man, prompting Venom to swallow him whole, chew him up, and spit out the pieces—Flash later complaining about how disgusting Wade tasted.
Film — Animation
- Deep: Maura, an eel who joins a team of her natural prey, is routinely conflicted about whether or not to eat them. She eventually manages to get control of herself, but not after several close calls and one case of consuming them in her sleep.
- The Land Before Time:
- The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists: The two antagonists of the film are the large but nearly blind Deinosuchus Dil and the small but keen-sighted Ichthyornis Ichy, who rely heavily on each other despite constantly bickering. Near the end of the film, Dil accidentally eats Ichy, and although she spits him out upon realizing her mistake the incident leads to their final falling out—Dil sending Ichy flying with her tail before being attacked by a hungry Plesiosaurus.
- The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island: The musical number "Friends For Dinner" invokes this trope and ensues after Littlefoot's friends assume that the young Tyrannosaurus rex Chomper intends to eat them despite ostensibly being their friend, Littlefoot—the only one to trust Chomper implicitly—rolling his eyes at their paranoia.
- Madagascar 1: When Alex dreams about steak after his awakening predatory instincts cause him to want it as he's stuck on the island of Madagascar, he wakes up to find himself licking Marty's body as his friends act confused. He covers it up by pretending he was counting Marty's stripes.
- My Tyrano: Together, Forever: While Rucchi and Gocchi—a pair of bumbling Gorgosaurs—are spying on Punon the Pteranodon and Tyrano the Tyrannosaurus, Gocchi surreptitiously attempts to eat Rucchi while he's not paying attention only to pretend he wasn't doing anything when Rucchi catches him in the act.
- The Secret Life of Pets: Tiberius, a hawk, befriends the dog Gidget and only Gidget. Because of this, he only spares her friends (In particular, the guinea pig Norman) because it would make her unhappy if he ate them. This doesn't stop him from grabbing and eyeing up Norman the first time the two meet.
- The Wild Robot (2024): Fink the fox volunteers his services to help Rozzum 7134 (or Roz for short) raise a baby goose she accidentally orphaned as repayment for plucking porcupine quills from his face after he'd tried to eat the goose's egg... and to amuse himself. Noting the baby goose to be a runt and unlikely to survive until winter, Fink offers to eat the baby goose to spare Roz the grief of him dying after she's gotten attached... and then promptly tries to do so before she can respond. Roz jams her hand into Fink's mouth to extract the baby goose before he can swallow, but he makes several more attempts that the baby goose dodges, and eventually gives up on it.
- You Are Umasou: Heart the Tyrannosaurus tries to eat Umasou (Japanese for "Yummy") the baby Ankylosaurus while the latter is asleep, but finds he can't stomach doing so—having been raised by a mother Maiasaura when he was young—when Umasou calls him "father" in his sleep, instead opting to look after Umasou and train him to defend himself.
Film — Live-Action
- Enchanted: When Giselle uses her The Music Meister magic to summon animals to clean Robert's apartment in "Happy Working Song", she ends up with a horde of pigeons, rats, cockroaches, and flies. One of the pigeons surreptitiously eats one of the bugs, despite them all having been enchanted to work together.
- The Little Shop of Horrors: The film's cover shows Audrey Jr. preparing to eat the oblivious Seymour Krelboin as he happily examines a potted flower.
- Space Jam: During the basketball game, Sylvester the Cat tries to eat Tweety Bird despite them both being on the same team. Michael Jordan stops him by throwing the ball at him.
- The Suicide Squad: While Task Squad X is sleeping at camp, Bloodshot is warned by one of Ratcatcher's rats (which, mind you, he's absolutely terrified of) that King Shark is preparing to eat a sleeping Ratcatcher. Bloodshot blasts King Shark away from her, waking up the rest of the team.
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage: Annoyed by SFPD officer Patrick Mulligan talking down to Eddie Brock while on their way to interview serial killer Cletus Kasady, the Venom symbiote attempts to eat him while his back is turned. Eddie narrowly manages to stop it by dragging it into the nearest room—the women's washroom—for a stern talking to.
Live-Action TV
- Sesame Street: In the "Crumby Pictures" skit "Star S'mores" (a parody of Star Wars), the whole conflict is that "Flan Solo" (actually Cookie Monster) is trying his hardest not to let his instincts to eat Chewbacca (who is now a giant cookie) get the better of him.
Video Games
- Baldur's Gate III: An early-game event during a long rest will have Astarion, a vampire spawn and recruitable companion, attempt to feed on the player character while they sleep. If the player lets him, he'll get a condition called "Happy", which gives a +1 to every roll of his, at the expense of the Player's avatar getting the Bloodless condition, which gives a -1 to all rolls.
- In Digital Devil Saga's second game, Earth of the Tribhvana devours his teammates Heaven and Air, changing his Tuner transformation from Ubelluris into Abaddon and allowing him to shift his elemental affinities to theirs. Cielo, a true believer in The Power of Friendship, is especially disgusted with Earth.
- Kirby: Beginning in Kirby Super Star, Kirby can manifest Copy Abilities he's obtained into Helpers—allied versions of the enemy he ate to obtain that power. To get rid of a Helper, Kirby can either change them into an Ability Star or simply eat them again to reabsorb their power.
- LEGO Batman 3: While the heroes and villains are teamed up to try and stop Braniac, Killer Croc makes a half-hearted attempt to eat Robin, coughing up the Doctor Fate helmet that saves his life later in the process.
- Shantae: The zombie girl Rottytops desires to eat the titular half-genie hero Shantae's brains and made a serious attempt to do so when they first met. In later games, it's played for laughs, and she seems to desire Shantae's friendship more and be (mostly) joking about still wanting to eat her brains.
- Xenoblade Chronicles X: Having helped rescue Tatsu the Nopon from being eaten by Prone soldiers, a running gag develops where Lin Lee Koo teasingly expresses the desire to eat Tatsu herself and regularly tries to trick him into letting her cook him—Tatsu catching on at the last minute each time and Lin performing a "Silly Me" Gesture as he indignantly berates her.
Web Animation
- Satellite City: Lucy Lacemaker has a nasty habit of trying to eat her half-squirrel roommate, the smaller and meeker Hyzenthlay. Despite their frequent antagonism and Lucy scarring her eye at one point, it's implied Lucy has deep-seated affection for her as a sort-of friend.
Lucy: It's Halloween! You know what that means!Hyzenthlay: You're gonna try and eat me with the mouth in your chest?
- Toon Sandwich plays this trope for laughs at the start of their 2020 Trailer Trash-up
hosted by Harley Quinn. Harley's pet hyena Bruce repeatedly tries taking a nibble out of it's master's fingers, only for Harley to repeatedly pull away in the last second without noticing what Bruce was up to.
Webcomics
- Sandra and Woo: Shadow, a fox who fraternizes with the squirrel Sid, has to consistently remind his friends not to eat them. Even then, multiple strips have Sid outrunning his 'friends' to avoid such a fate.
Western Animation
- All Hail King Julien: Mary Ann, a fossa, is married to the lemur Horst. Although the two love each other, their relationship is frequently put on the ropes by her trying to make a meal of him. He seems to have come to terms with it by "The End Is Near", where he responds to her devouring attempts during a picnic by merely telling her to wait until he's finished eating.
- Back at the Barnyard: A regular gag involves Freddy the ferret struggling to avoid eating his chicken friend Peck, often just barely letting his carnivorous urges slip.
- An episode of Disney's Doug has Mr. Dink own a Fromage Vegetalus or Venus Cheesetrap. At one point, it actually scoops him into its mouth and attempts to swallow him whole, something his wife Tippy says happens three times a day. Fortunately it only eats cheese.
- Krypto the Superdog: After saving several zoo animals (a giraffe, rhino, lion, and warthog) in the first episode, Krypto tells them not to bite each other before departing. The lion briefly considers eating the warthog, who quickly catches on and calls him out for it.
- The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries: Sylvester the Cat repeatedly attempts to eat Tweety Bird despite both of them being Granny's pets and helping her investigate mysteries, but is constantly thwarted by Hector the Bulldog catching him in the act and beating him to a pulp.
- Timon & Pumbaa: In "Bigfoot, Little Brain", Timon discusses the trope when he remarks that his mother told him to never make friends with food because "Eventually you'll wind up full, but lonely."
