History Main / SoulEating

* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': Trained Sourcerers like the {{Player Character}}s can consume {{Soul Jar}}s and the spirits of the dead for [[{{Mana}} Source]] points, which inflicts CessationOfExistence and is portrayed as an utterly monstrous act. (which the Pantheon is ''fully'' complicit in constantly doing). However, the ability only acts as ManaDrain on a living target, leaving their soul untouched.

* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'': Ragna's Drive ability "Soul Eater" eats the souls of people. In-game, this is translated into LifeDrain attacks. There's also the EldritchAbomination of the verse, the Black Beast, who devoured mass amounts of souls in its rampage. [[spoiler:Ragna's source of his ability is the Azure Grimoire, an artifact made out of Black Beast's corpse.]]

** Soul eaters in the ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}'' setting are otherworldly predators that resemble black mist from which taloned hands emerge to strike their victims. They can be summoned by high-level villainous clerics to hunt down enemies, but it's risky: if bested by their initial target, they return to attack their summoner instead.
** Black Razor, a sentient sword from the classic module ''White Plume Mountain'', devours the souls of any humanoid slain by it, granting its wielder some temporary buffs each time it does so. However, if it goes too long without being used it will attempt to eat the soul of its wielder.

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* Creator/GamesWorkshop games:
** Mournguls, from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', are monstrous, [[OurGhostsAreDifferent inhuman spirits]] driven by a ravenous hunger to devour not only the flesh of the living but their very souls as well. The souls of their victims nourish the Mourngul, healing its wounds and sustaining its unholy existence.
** ''Tabletopgame/Warhammer40000'':
*** The Dark Eldar, who drink the souls of their victims, whom they torture for death for amusement. The main reason they devour souls is in order to maintain their youth, thus preventing them from dying and feeding Slaanesh with their souls, or because Slaanesh is continually draining their souls while alive and they use their victims' souls to replenish or as a substitute for their own souls, DependingOnTheWriter.
*** Souls comprise the diets of daemons and Chaos gods, either mortals or weaker daemons. Notably, Slaanesh devoured all but three of the Eldar gods shortly after awakening.
*** The C'tan devoured the souls of the Necrontyr, the original race of the Necrons.
*** The Doom of Malan'tai is a Tyranid capable of devouring souls.
* In the [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness Classic]] and TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness:
** In ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' and ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'', Diablerie is the act of consuming another vampire's blood and their very soul. It is reviled among many vampires (to the point that it is expressly forbidden in the Traditions in ''Requiem''), but some vampires (such as the Sabbat from ''Masquerade'') do it to gain the power to challenge their elder rivals. Worse, the act is incredibly addictive.
** In ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheForsaken'', entities from the SpiritWorld consume other spirits to become more powerful. They often acquire traits of the consumed spirit as well, unless it was another spirit of the same type or one that would be "in its nature" to eat, an example being a fox spirit eating a rabbit spirit. A very rare few learn to supplement their diet with human souls.
** ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'': Tremere liches in take ImmortalityImmorality to the extreme by requiring a steady diet of souls, which they claim through Death magic or the advanced powers of their [[PrestigeClass Legacy]]. If they can't consume souls, their minds fall apart and they eventually end up DeaderThanDead.

* ''VideoGame/EvolveIdle'' has the Soul Eater trait, where the standard food resource replaced with souls (and production buildings like farms replaced with soul wells). Wendigos, as well as Imps and Balorgs all share this trait.
* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'': Raziel is a vampire whose blood-hunger is replaced by soul-hunger. He's a servant of the [[EldritchAbomination Elder God]] who feeds on the souls Raziel devours and on most souls of those deceased.
* In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' expansion pack ''Hordes of the Underdark'', Mephistopheles devours souls in his home plane Cania to fuel his power to raise an army of undead in the Forgotten Realms.
* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'': In the expansion pack ''Mask of the Betrayer'', your character is inflicted with a curse called the Spirit-eater, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin which requires them to periodically nourish themselves by devouring spirits.]] Initially it only works on [[ElementalEmbodiment elementals]], [[TheFairFolk fey]] and [[OurGhostsAreDifferent incorporeal undead]], but you can learn how to direct the hunger at souls and corporeal undead.
* ''VideoGame/SoulSeries'': The cursed sword Soul Edge and its host Nightmare become more powerful by devouring the souls of its victims.
* ''VideoGame/ATotalWarSagaTroy'': Cerberus devours the souls of his victims alongside their flesh, growing in power as he does so.

* ''Videogame/ArxFatalis:'' The evil god Akbaa mentions he will "drink" the souls of everyone in the underground city of Arx.
* ''Videogame/WizardryTaleOfTheForsakenLand:'' The Dark God intends to do this to everyone in Duhan. You can even see the souls of his victims inside his mouth during the final battle.
* ''Videogame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel:''

* ''Videogame/MegaManZX:'' Cyber-elves, like in [[VideoGame/MegaManZero the previous series]], are EnergyBeings infused with the consciousness and data of an AI; a soul with an energy medium, essentially. In this series, it's also possible to turn living beings into Cyber-elves, as the line of humans and robots in the setting have become blurred. The [[MegaCorp Slither Inc.]] is revealed to be responsible for turning mass amounts of people into elves without the populace knowing, so that they'll become food for [[ArtifactOfDoom Model W]].
* ''VideoGame/BloodstainedCurseOfTheMoon'': Many of the bosses have devoured the other heroes both body and soul. When freed, Zangetsu has the option to kill them and consume their soul to gain their "Soul Power" rather than save them.

* ''Videogame/BlazBlue:'' Ragna's Drive ability "Soul Eater" eats the souls of people. In-game, this is translated into LifeDrain attacks. There's also the EldritchAbomination of the verse, the Black Beast, who devoured mass amounts of souls in its rampage. [[spoiler:Ragna's source of his ability is the Azure Grimoire, an artifact made out of Black Beast's corpse.]]
* One of Tichondrius the dreadlord's lines in ''Videogame/WarcraftIII'' is "I must ''feast'' on souls!"
* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' has Shang Tsung, who is {{cursed|withawesome}} to devour the souls of his enemies in order to maintain his youth (and much more importantly, his life). His sorcery is also fueled by the souls of those he devours, making it doubly important that he devours more in order to maintain his power.
* Shadow Fiend from ''VideoGame/{{Dota2}}'' take souls to power his attack through ''Necromastery'' and release an unholy surge of energy through ''Requiem of Souls''.
-->"So, you're curious where I come from? There's one easy way to find out for yourself."
* Shesha from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'' devours the souls of people [[spoiler:in order to fuel the [[WombLevel Cosmic Egg]] - of which is actually Shesha's body - to create a new universe.]]
* The Soul-Eating Monster from ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' is a serpentine monster who lives off the unfortunate souls of the Underworld. He's not alone, either, as the game's BigBad occasionally compares souls to food items like taffy and outright states they taste good with everything "like bacon". [[spoiler:The Chaos Kin indulges in a particularly sadistic version in that it takes over the minds of those it possesses while slowly consuming their souls for nourishment, which Palutena is only able to resist for three years thanks to HeroicWillpower and still almost gets her soul completely eaten when it decides to just [[YourSoulIsMine forcibly tear it out of her chest]]]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonFable'' has Roirr consume the souls of his host bodies. [[spoiler: This bites him back big time when they are all expelled from him, leaving him a charred skeleton.]]
* Vulgrim from ''{{VideoGame/Darksiders}}'' consumes souls collected by War as currency.
* In ''{{VideoGame/Overwatch}}'' one of the lines Reaper may say when he spawns is "I will feast on their souls" and in-game he can absorb 50 health from each Soul Globe he collects from a downed enemy. Flavor text also mentions that the bodies of his victims are pale, empty husks drained of life, their cells showing signs of intense degradation.
* ''{{VideoGame/Toukiden}}'' has demons that devour people's souls. [[spoiler: Kikka even mentions that the souls are still conscious and aware in the demon and that they are screaming. She also mentions their souls long to be reunited with their loved ones, those emotions helping the demons to come over into this reality to invade.]]

* Androxus from ''VideoGame/{{Paladins}}'' was cursed with an insatiable hunger for souls after [[KillTheGod slaying a sinister goddess]]. He roams the Realm to feed his hunger, condemned to live with the curse for all time.
* Implied in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'' as one of several methods being secretly used by the [[spoiler:Church of St. Eva]] to power up the demon god, Deathevan. Apparently, the souls of [[spoiler:St. Eva's]] believers are sent to Deathevan's domain whenever they die, where he presumably devours them to feed his own growth. This religion constantly and aggressively tries to gain more and more followers, so it's likely that thousands of unwitting souls may have ultimately met this horrific fate.
* This is essentially what the Entity does in ''VideoGame/DeadByDaylight''. After a survivor is sacrificed to it, the Entity drains out their fear and then dumps them back into the next match. Each time they come back, they are slightly more numb (both physically and mentally) and it is inferred that the Entity is slowly eating away at their soul with every feast.
* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': Trained Sourcerers like the {{Player Character}}s can consume {{Soul Jar}}s and the spirits of the dead for [[{{Mana}} Source]] points, which inflicts CessationOfExistence and is portrayed as an utterly monstrous act.[[note]]Which the Pantheon is ''fully'' complicit in constantly doing.[[/note]] However, the ability only acts as ManaDrain on a living target, leaving their soul untouched.
* ''VideoGame/TitanQuest'': Referenced by the name of the rare club, "Soul Feast", which does LifeDrain and ManaDrain.
* Get far enough into the lore of ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'' and you find out that [[spoiler:this is all humanity was made for. When you die, your soul goes to the local [[SentientStars Judgement]] to be ground up and eaten. The Devils were created to serve the Judgements by making souls more appetizing, and although most rebelled, they sacrifice the souls to create their own version of paradise instead. On top of this, it's implied the "Bell" in Low Barnet was created by the London Admirality to feed souls to the [[MechanicalAbomination Dawn Machine.]]]]
** ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'': [[spoiler:In this alternate timeline, the Judgement of the Blue Kingdom is triumphant and claims ''all'' mortal souls. Everyone in the afterlife eventually passes through Death's Door, only to be eaten. In one ending, the captain defeats the Judgement once and for all by poisoning one of their meals with a Sorrow-Spider meme. The Judgement involuntarily reality-warps a HiveMind of [[HorrorHunger ravenous]] giant spiders into existence, which then eats their soul instead. For bonus schadenfreude, the spiders use the Judgement's soul to give birth to clusters of eggs, which immediately hatch and go straight for more of the Judgement's flesh and essence.]]
* ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternity'': In one ending, you force an entire community to partake in this trope. ''This is considered a 'good'-ish ending''. Context: [[spoiler:Your former master in your previous incarnation harvested the souls of thousands to prevent their reincarnations from revealing the AwfulTruth. After you kill him, you now have a giant tank of souls. You could restore them to the natural order or use them for your own benefit... or, you can crush them into cosmic essence and feed the essence to the miserable people of Drywood, strengthening their souls with sheer determination and saving their country from total collapse.]]
* ''VideoGame/Persona4'': A collectible SP-restoring item is called the Chewing Soul, which restores 100 SP to a party member when eaten.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': The raid boss Kokytos is a monster which can trap the souls of the dead in a lanternlike object and ingest them to gain their powers and personalities, regurgitating them whenever it wants to use a different set of abilities. It's running amok within TheLifestream, and the players need to kill it before its gluttonous devouring of souls damages the cycle of rebirth.

* ''WebAnimation/{{Dreamscape}}'': [[YinYangBomb Keedran]], in her monster form, can suck out souls like a black vapor.
* ''WebAnimation/{{Glitchtale}}'': In Season 2, it's revealed that [[spoiler:Betty, seemingly a human with an unusual soul, can absorb souls to power her Fear magics.]] It's actually a construct of one of the original seven wizards, Amber, who had turned to evil in her desperation and pride and created it to be her final act of spite towards human-and-monsterkind.

** Happens in "Venom vs. Crona", [[spoiler: as Ragnarok not only pulls Venom's soul out, but Eddie Brock's soul as well and consumes both of them.]]

* ''Webcomic/ProjectFuture'', a fan comic for ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'', features the creation of 'artificial souls' for creatures to consume, avoiding many of the ethical, moral, legal, health and sanity problems associated with consuming natural souls.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheCupheadShow'', the Devil generally tries to collect souls and put them in his vault. However, as is revealed in “Release the Demons”, he has contemplated (and maybe has done so in the past) eating people’s souls if they make him mad enough. In particular, he wanted to eat Cuphead’s soul because he hates the little guy for causing him so much grief.
* On ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'', the guys [[UnabashedBMovieFan watch a horror movie]] about a "cannibal ghost", who "scares you to death and eats your ghost".
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'', Emperor Belos consumes some sort of magical substance from [[{{Familiar}} palismen]] he cracks open to [[spoiler:extend his lifespan]]. "Hollow Mind" reveals that this consumes their souls as well, which then stalk his mindscape as a horrid amalgamated monster.

* Big Mom of ''Manga/OnePiece'' ate the Soul-Soul Fruit, which lets her physically interact with people's souls. The first time she demonstrates this power is during a hunger filled rampage where she steals a portion of one of her son's soul, shaving 40 years off his life, nearly killing him.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}:'' one DangerousForbiddenTechnique summons the ''Shinigami'' with the user's body as its conduit, which then rips the enemy's soul and then devours them. As the payment for this technique, the user's soul will also be consumed by it and get [[SealedEvilInADuel locked in a fight]] with the souls its user ripped.
* ''Manga/BlackButler'':
** The terms of Ciel's FaustianBargain with Sebastian is that once Ciel has achieved his life's goals Sebastian gets to eat his soul. In the meantime he acts as his utterly loyal butler.
** In season two of the anime Alois' brother Luca made a contract with a demon to kill all the villagers who mistreated them and his soul was eaten leaving an empty shell of a body. [[spoiler: Alois eventually learns that it was Hannah who ate him and makes a contract with her so they can be together again. After she collects the two of them are heard talking inside her.]]
* In ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' vampires consume the souls of those they kill by draining blood, human or vampire, and keep them on call as "familiars" that can be summoned or expended to power their strongest abilities. [[spoiler: Alucard is nearly impossible to kill because he's eaten millions of souls, towards the end he summons them all as an army. But then he eats Schrodinger and his bizarre quantum-something powers cause him to disappear for decades. Because he had to kill all of his other consumed souls, leaving just him and Schrodinger. But that makes him even more unkillable than before, since he gained Schrodinger's power of being both dead and alive at all times.]]
* The Tsukumo Toad from ''Manga/InuYasha'' imprisons pretty women inside gigantic eggs in order to eat their souls if he's hungry or wounded in combat. It's never stated if the eaten souls are gone forever or if killing the Toad releases them.
** Kikyo also has to eat souls to stay "alive" after she CameBackWrong. She has to keep eating a steady supply of souls, but whether this is because she "digests" and permanently destroys the souls or because they move on to the afterlife once she uses up their energy is never explained. But since Kikyo develops into a sympathetic AntiHero with once she realizes that it was the BigBad and not Inuyasha who caused her death, fans presume it's the latter.
* ''Manga/UshioAndTora'': both [[SeaMonster Ayakashi]] and [[EldritchAbomination Mikonjiki]] are sea-dwelling monsters that imprison people in barriers, devour them and feed on their souls, slowly enjoying them like candies for the rest of eternity. However, once they're both killed their barrier is dispelled and all the souls they gathered are free to complete the journey to the other side. The latter's name [[MeaningfulName even translates as "Soul Devourer"]]. Most of the other youkai are content with eating flesh.

* ''Manga/DragonBall'': Cell is an Artificial Human/"Android," an artifical biomechanical lifeform created by combining the genetic code of the strongest warriors in the galaxy, including several Saiyans (Goku, Vegeta) whatever species Freeza is (Freeza himself, plus his father King Cold) and a Namekian (Piccolo.) In addition, he was also designed with the ability to increase his power and metamorphose into stronger forms by not only liquifying and consuming the bodies of living creatures, but also through the absorbtion of the Ki/life force/souls of sapient beings along with their bodies (with the last step to complete his final metamorphosis into his ultimate "Perfect" form being the absorbtion of the two infinite energy engines built into the earlier "Androids" #17 and #18.) There is a scene in the anime version in which Cell powers up and the ghostly faces of the people he had consumed appear around him floating within his Ki aura. In addition to being an artifically designed amalgamation of the strongest fighters in the galaxy who is powered by TWO infinite energy sources, Cell is also basically a living vampire.

* The ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12745761/1/Unconquerable-Souls Unconquerable Souls]]" has Darla summon a soul-eater to try and take Angel’s soul to restore Angelus, with the ‘aid’ of a couple of witches. It devours a range of souls, including the soul of Catherine Madison (while she was using her daughter’s body, which allows Amy’s soul to return to her original form), but [[spoiler:when Buffy sacrifices herself to save Angel, the purity of that act essentially ‘overloads’ the soul-eater and kills it due to the power of a soul fuelled by love. The rest of the White Hats eventually deduce that the soul-eater essentially uses the souls like batteries rather than literally eating them, which allows them to find a ritual that draws the souls out of its corpse so that they can either pass on or return to their original bodies]].

* ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet4TheDreamMaster'': Freddy is now harvesting the souls of his victims to power himself. Just to freak out Alice, he presents a pizza with screaming human faces on it, one of which he promptly devours in front of her.

* In C. S. Lewis' ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', demons eat the souls of other demons as well as of humans.
* In Matthew Costello's novelization of ''Film/ChildsPlay3'' Chucky's god, the voodoo loa Damballah, is revealed to be this in a flashback scene. Chucky specifically refers to it as "the soul catcher" and "the eater of spirits".

* Downplayed in ''Literature/{{Warbreaker}}'': everybody is born with a single Breath, which is the currency of the magical art of Awakening. The Returned CameBackStrong from death but must consume one Breath every week. The country of Idris abhors the Returned as soul-stealing abominations, but the fact is that the [[AnatomyOfTheSoul Breath is distinct from the spirit]] and people are only mildly inconvenienced by losing it.
* ''Literature/{{It}}'': {{Implied|Trope}} with Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It claims to be "the Eater of Children", but doesn't seem to eat them physically. It does, however, trap their souls in "the deadlights", suggested to be a FateWorseThanDeath. It may also be able to summon up those It's eaten, to taunt or communicate with prospective prey, unless that's just It creating illusions.
* The Tuunbaq from ''Literature/TheTerror''. It is implied that it will eventually die from devouring the souls of corrupted men.
* The ''Literature/DreambloodDuology'': "Gathering" a soul with {{Dream Weav|er}}ing involves ushering it into the afterlife-DreamLand of Ina-Karekh, then collecting the dreamblood that maintains the soul's link to the body. "Reaping" a soul involves cracking the soul open and {{Mind Rap|e}}ing it into oblivion with nightmares, wringing out the dreamblood until there's nothing left to sustain the soul's existence.
* ''Literature/{{Patternist}}'': Doro absorbs the minds of the people he {{Body Surf}}s into; he likens the experience to a "hunger" that he needs to satisfy every few weeks or months. Millennia spent sustaining himself in this manner have left him [[ImmortalityImmorality completely apathetic]] to the cost in human lives.

* "The Coming of the White Worm" by Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith: The White Worm Rlim Shaikorth travels from world to world on a magical iceberg, searching for powerful wizards to devour body and soul. His victims are subsumed entirely by his mind while he's awake, and are lost in infinite darkness while he sleeps.
* In Creator/StevenBrust's ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'' setting, Morganti weapons will devour and utterly destroy the soul of anyone killed with it, and Vlad was able to sense that one he was being attacked with was definitely alive and ''hungry.'' The Great Weapons have Morganti weapons as the base, so, in addition to whatever other powers they have, they can ''all'' destroy the souls of their victims. (They can also ''not'' destroy them, or even temporarily store and then return them.) Morganti weapons were originally created by an ancient race that wanted to make war too horrible to consider. It worked... for ''them.''
* Mulia, the soul eating demon from Creator/AsiHart's ''Literature/TheManInTheCornerRoom'' can create material goods and flesh-automatons in exchange for souls. His powers aren't used wisely.
* ''Literature/TheDevourers'': The titular [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent werebeasts]] consume their human victims' flesh and spirit in one, which grants them {{Ghost Memor|y}}ies and [[ImmortalityImmorality fuels]] their [[TheAgeless agelessness]]. They can eat animal flesh, but it doesn't provide the same benefits.
* According to the elves in ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight'', the [[EvilOverlord Witchkings]] were in the habit of this, and this may have been how their magic could surpass even that of the elven magisters of their times. We never actually see them doing this when they appear in the short stories, though, so [[AmbiguousSituation it's possible]] that this was merely elven propaganda.
* ''Literature/ChroniclesOfAncientDarkness'' has the villain team of the Soul Eaters, dark shamans who call forth demons. Most of them don't actually do much soul eating, though [[spoiler:Tenris]] and [[TheDreaded Eostra]] try to [[CannibalismSuperpower eat Torak's soul]] to [[spoiler:gain his [[BodySurf spirit walking]] powers]].[[note]]It's also worth noting that in this series, everyone (including animals and natural features like rivers) has 3 souls – a name-soul, a clan-soul, and a world-soul. It's possible to remain alive if only one soul is lost, though [[AndIMustScream it's not a pleasant existence]].[[/note]]
* ''Literature/IntoTheHeartlessWood'': King Elynion devoured the Gwydden's soul centuries prior, earning him the moniker of the Soul Eater among the creatures of the wood.

* In ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', the apparently-magical recurring villain Maldis claims to eat souls, although this might just be mystification of something like LifeEnergy.

** In season 11, it is revealed that [[spoiler: The Darkness/Amara]] is eating human souls and growing with the power that they provide. Unusually for the trope, that entity claims that its victims continue to exist within it, in some kind of alternate afterlife.

* ''Series/LovecraftCountry'': [[spoiler:Ji-Ah]] devours men's souls after having sex with them through inserting her tails into all of their orifices. Due to this, she also absorbs their memories. She must devour one hundred to become human again.

* In Myth/EgyptianMythology the deceased would face the Judgment of Osiris before they could enter the afterlife, who weighed their hearts to see if they had lived wicked lives. If the heart was too heavy, he would feed it to the demon Ammit. Also, the GodOfEvil Apophis would stalk passengers on their way to the land of the dead so he could eat their souls.

* ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}'': In the religious beliefs of the woolly trunkos, those killed by predators have their souls completely devoured, barring them from their afterlife. As a result, it obligates them to kill their predators on sight so that as much of the family can survive death as possible.

** Servants can do this to replenish their {{Mana}}, though the more wholesome ones are understandably quite averse to it. In [[LightNovel/FateApocrypha one]] [[UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper case]], the Servant -- a ChaoticEvil AntiVillain -- expressed a preference for ''evil'' souls, because their foulness makes them that much tastier, and souls of similar alignment are easier to digest.
** It's not commented on often, but other kinds of magical creatures are able to do this since a soul is a pretty nifty source of {{Mana}} and can even be used to extend one's lifespan, and even mages can get in on this. However, it's often looked down upon in modern magical society since, moral issues aside, plenty of things can go wrong in the process and even if successful, prolonged usage ''will'' cause DeathOfPersonality even in the best case. [[spoiler:In ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'', it turns out Darnic Prestone Yggdmillenia has devoured souls in order to prolong his life to achieve his dreams, but the ritual is dangerous enough to potentially kill him each time he does it and by the start of the story he's reached the point he will undergo DeathOfPersonality if he does it one more time.]]

[[folder:Fanfics]]

* ''VideoGame/Persona4'': A collectible SP-restoring item is called the Chewing Soul, which restores 100 SP to a party member when eating.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In ''Manga/SoulEater'': Humans with the weapon bloodline (essentially a gene which allows them to become an EquippableAlly) can eat the souls of other humans to grow stronger (the good guys only consume the souls of corrupted humans, villains tend to be less picky), so long as they also consume at least one witch's soul. Those that indiscriminately eat other humans slowly become [[HumanoidAbomination Kishin]].

[[folder:Fanfic]]

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

* ''Franchise/FateSeries''

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

* ''Literature/TheLaundrySeries'': As exceptionally dense stores of information, souls make great food for extradimensional entities that range from worm-sized demons up to {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. [[spoiler:Bob Howard]] gains the ability to consume souls from a botched SummoningRitual and later [[spoiler:inherits the full power of an EldritchAbomination known as the Eater of Souls]].

* [[HornyDevils Succubi and Incubi]] eat souls. Traditionally, they took in the soul via stealing the breath from other humans. In modern times their method of soul-taking have varied considerably.

* ''Fanfic/SpellboundLilafly'': Cat Sidhe are able to consume the souls of the dead, which permanently increases their magical power -- but in the case of half-fae, having more magic makes them less human. [[spoiler:A human who was violently killed by the fae asks Félix to do this to her as a DeaderThanDead MercyKill, and he reluctantly complies.]]
* The ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' fic “[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12745761/1/Unconquerable-Souls Unconquerable Souls]]” has Darla summon a soul-eater to try and take Angel’s soul to restore Angelus, with the ‘aid’ of a couple of witches. It devours a range of souls, including the soul of Catherine Madison (while she was using her daughter’s body, which allows Amy’s soul to return to her original form), but [[spoiler:when Buffy sacrifices herself to save Angel, the purity of that act essentially ‘overloads’ the soul-eater and kills it due to the power of a soul fuelled by love. The rest of the White Hats eventually deduce that the soul-eater essentially uses the souls like batteries rather than literally eating them, which allows them to find a ritual that draws the souls out of its corpse so that they can either pass on or return to their original bodies]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheCupheadShow'', the Devil generally tries to collect souls and put them in his fault. However, as is revealed in “Release the Demons”, he has contemplated (and maybe has done so in the past) eating people’s souls if they make him mad enough. In particular, he wanted to eat Cuphead’s soul because he hates the little guy for causing him so much grief.

* The Akujiki from the ''VideoGame/Shinobi2002'' drinks souls.

** Tremere liches in ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' take ImmortalityImmorality to the extreme by requiring a steady diet of souls. If they can't consume souls, their minds fall apart and they eventually end up DeaderThanDead.

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' has Shang Tsung, who is cursed to devour the souls of his enemies in order to maintain his youth (and much more importantly, his life). His sorcery is also fueled by the souls of those he devours, making it doubly important that he devours more in order to maintain his power.

* ''ComicBook/XMen'': The aptly-named Soul-Drinker, an EldritchAbomination, has this as its shtick, though it is only able to consume one soul per summon. For its adaptation into the [[WesternAnimation/XMen 90s animated series]] it was somehow made more menacing ''and'' LighterAndSofter, as it could in that continuity consume multiple souls, but it also took time to digest them and if it was destroyed quickly enough, the souls it consumed would be restored (as happened when Wolverine and Gambit ultimately dispatched it).

** Daemons are {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s who devour every mortal soul they can, [[EvilVersusEvil angering]] the devils and demons who prefer to use them in trade and as [[PoweredByAForsakenChild raw materials]]. People crazy enough to try MainliningTheMonster can refine daemon spinal fluid into a potent drug that contains the memories of the souls they've digested.

** Vavakia demons arise from the souls of mortals who already engaged in this practice -- or more generally in [[YourSoulIsMine extracting or enslaving souls]] -- in life. In their new forms, they can breathe out green flames that burn away the should of their victims, and which the vavakia can inhale to heal itself.

** Barghests grow by feeding on the bodies and souls of their victims, which can leave them too damaged for even the most powerful resurrection magic to work on them.
** Devourers consume the essence of living beings, creating a spectral effigy trapped in their exposed ribcage bearing the image of the victim, which is depleted by the use of their spell-like abilities. Destroying the Devourer before the essence is depleted allowed the victim to be resurrected.

** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': The favored prey of Kezef the Chaos Hound is the souls of pious mortals; he has no taste for the souls of atheists and the faithless, and finds the "unripened" souls of the still living to be repulsive. The souls he devours are destroyed forever, and cannot be restored even by divine intervention.