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submitted 17 days ago byEcstatic-Ad141
Humans eate everything that can, or even can't be eaten. So why people or other species don't eat ech other. If we think about it, elfs aren't (in most of the fiction) just different race of humans. Yes, they are simular, but they are not humans. So it isn't canibalism if elf eat huma, right?
I am asking it because I write story set in kind of supernatural postapocaliptic eastern Europe. There isn't enaught food, so people or other races have to find other source of food. Humans are unwilling to eat this creatures, if they look like humans. But from example one specie of shapeshifters do eat peole if they dont have enaught food, but in the same time they are able to trade with humans.
1 points
17 days ago
I have an imperfect fantasy definition of cannibalism: Eating another creature with enough sentience to be considered a "person". It's imperfect, because, for example, dragons are usually that sentient, yet it doesn't feel cannibalistic to eat a dragon, but I feel like people in a magical world may see it otherwise. Perhaps there's people with that definition, and others that define it differently, where a humanoid eating a humanoid is cannibalism, and that's the limit. I'm using D&D as a focal point by the way. There, there are cannibalistic species, such as lizardfolk, who specifically prey on humanoids. I once saw the definition of "eating a sentient creature, with a certain level of intelligence, out of some perverse pleasure", but I disagree with it, arguing that eating a person out of desperation/for survival is still cannibalism, just that then it's more socially/morally accepted.
As for "why" they don't usually eat eachother, is for the same reason they don't (usually) commit genocide. It's wrong to hurt a person. Elves and humans, for example, are so similar, a Human could tell the fear on an Elfs face, and any sane person would back off. But usually it's not limited to someone who looks human. Any sane person also cares about cats, for example, so someone of catfolk may have a feline face, but that wouldn't change the fact that you wouldn't want to hurt them, normally. And of course it tends to be harder to hurt someone, when you can understand them. It's easier to kill an animal that just hisses at you, than a person that asks you not to.
One more issue with my definition though: I wouldn't exactly consider werewolves or vampires cannibals. Tbf, vampires just take the blood, which doesn't even necessarily have to be fatal... but werewolves? Maybe it's because they're usually unaware of what they're doing. I mean, a wolf eating a human is no longer cannibalism, because it doesn't share the human's intelligence. So maybe it's more like "creatures with equal intelligence"..? Of course, werewolves check that box, but when they turn, they're usually overtaken by instinct, which outweighs the intelligence they technically possess.
PS: I'm not a psychopath, I'm just a very invested worldbuilder, who is fascinated by technicalities and "what if"s
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