History Main / SweetsOfTemptation

[[caption-width-right:350:We've heard of frostbite, but this is ridiculous.]]

* In 2004, a woman named Donna Ozuna-Trout was arrested for trying to poison her neighbors, the Eickhoff family, by leaving a two-liter bottle of Vess root beer and a box containing glazed donuts and a Bavarian cream coffee cake at her door, all of them contaminated with lye and antifreeze. Stephanie Eickhoff believed they were meant for her children, as their birthdays had been the day before and they might have thought someone had sent them birthday treats if they'd gotten to the package first.

* Peggy Carr died of thallium poisoning in 1989 while her family suffered its ill effects after drinking copious amounts of tainted Coca-Cola left behind by her neighbor George Trepal in an effort to create a "perfect crime" for his local Mensa chapter.

* In 2004, a woman named Donna Ozuna-Trout was arrested for trying to poison her neighbor Stephanie Eickhoff by leaving a two-liter bottle of root beer and a box of cakes and donuts at her door, contaminated with lye and antifreeze.

** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-490 SCP-490]] is a self-driving ice cream truck that activates between 2-5 am and starts playing music, which lures people to it. Anyone who enters the truck will be processed into "Super Surprise Flavor!" ice cream bars made out of human flesh.

When we were children, our parents always warned us about all the bad things that would happen if we ate too much sugary food like candy, cake, and ice cream: our teeth would rot, we'd get fat, we'd get diabetes, and all those other wonderful things. Turns out this metaphor also works on a deeper level when it comes to things in our adult lives that are bad for us, too. Life is filled with temptations big and small, and any one of them could lead you down a path you don't want to go down, just like eating too much delicious candy can leave you with a mouthful of rotten teeth.

** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-490 SCP-490]] is a self-driving ice cream truck that activates between 2-5 am and starts playing music, which lures people to it and processes them into "Super Surprise Flavor!" ice cream bars made out of human flesh.

-->certainly is having nothing 2 do with dado seeing peoples on dado television (now on sale at dado electronics mart and fish emporiums) being smack about by police. no sir says dado. nothing 2 do with so many fine dado customer being harass and threaten and beat upon by police. dado certainly is feeling no obligation for dado to come to defense of consumerbase. dado certainly is not taking stand against fine local policemen, only sell upon policemen some fine dado-nut. all policemen like dado nut.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5740 SCP-5740]] is a series of donut-dispensing machines set up by dado that advertises [[DonutMessWithACop free donuts for cops]]. If a cop eats one of those donuts, it causes a live, full-sized pig to magically appear inside their rectum which they have to crap out over the course of a few hours (and [[DirtyCop the dirtier the cop]], the bigger the pig--the worst cops have gotten pigs weighing up to ''500 pounds''). When asked why this was happening by an incognito Foundation agent, dado said:

* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'': In the "Keebler Attacked" skit, Cookie Monster attacks the Keebler elves' tree, so they kill him by holding his mouth in place with a giant metal hook and pouring massive amounts of cookies down his throat until his stomach explodes.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewSchool'' online game ''Red-Eyed Tree Frog Man'', the plot is kicked off by Yzma giving Kuzco a special boysenberry pie (labeled "Special treat just for Kuzco") that turns out to be dosed with a potion that turns him into a frog. He has to free himself and all the other frogs or they'll be used in a science class experiment.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheCupheadShow'': Sugarland is a separate dimension made entirely of sweet treats and ruled by Baroness Von Bon Bon. Cuphead finds it by chance after he had gotten into a fight with Mugman over stolen Halloween candy. Once there, Cuphead must abide by two rules: don't tell anyone about Sugarland, and don't take even a tiny bite of the Baroness's sugar castle. [[spoiler:Of course, Cuphead being Cuphead, he immediately breaks the first rule by bringing Mugman, and Mugman breaks the second rule while there. As a result, both Cuphead and Mugman are transformed into sweets themselves, perfect for the Baroness to devour. They barely manage to escape with their lives]].

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E01E02TheWayOfTheWarrior "The Way of the Warrior"]], Garak and Quark use root beer as a metaphor for the Federation.

When we were children, our parents always warned us about all the bad things that would happen if we ate too much sugary food like candy, cake and ice cream: our teeth would rot, we'd get fat, we'd get diabetes and all those other wonderful things. Turns out this metaphor also works on a deeper level when it comes to things in our adult lives that are bad for us, too. Life is filled with temptations big and small, and any one of them could lead you down a path you don't want to go down, just like eating too much delicious candy can leave you with a mouthful of rotten teeth.

* A BitchInSheepsClothing-type villain has a dessert motif, or is an [[AnthropomorphicFood anthropomorphic dessert of some kind]].

When it comes to this trope, candy examples tend to be more associated with child characters, while dessert examples are more associated with adult characters, given that candy is an AgeStereotypicalFood. This trope is also more strongly associated with female characters than male ones, probably because of the assumption that GirlsLoveChocolate. (A male character associated with this trope is likely to be a SissyVillain, because everybody knows RealMenHateSugar.) Related to that, expect the color [[pink:pink]] to be featured prominently (and probably an intense, eye-searing shade of bright pink rather than a soft, pale pink) due to its separate associations with sweet food and [[PinkIsFeminine femininity]], in which case it likely overlaps with PsychoPink.

* ''Manga/JunjiItoKyoufuMangaCollection'': In "Ice Cream Bus," Sonohara, a single father, moves to a new neighborhood with his young son Tomoki. There is a bus that drives children around the neighborhood, with the friendly driver giving them free ice cream. Sonohara becomes suspicious of this, and discovers that the children eventually start turning into ice cream if they eat enough of it.

* ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'': Mr. Willy Wonka holds a contest where five lucky children who discover Golden Tickets in their candy bars will be given a wondrous tour of his magical chocolate factory and a lifetime supply of sweets each. Over the course of the book, four of the children get humiliating punishments for being greedy and/or messing with things they shouldn't: Augustus falls into the chocolate river while drinking from it and gets sucked up a pipe, Violet tries some experimental gum and blows up into a blueberry, Veruca tries to catch herself a nut-cracking squirrel and gets thrown down the garbage chute, and Mike gets shrunken down when he tries to teleport himself in the Television Chocolate room. Charlie is the only one able to resist all the temptations of the factory, and is rewarded by being made Mr. Wonka's heir.

** Sweetsleep is a medicine that can be used as a sleep aid and seizure treatment in tiny doses, but it's so strong that as little as three pinches is enough to kill a grown man. Because it smells and tastes sweet, it is easily hidden by assassins in sweet foods like cakes, pies and honeyed wines.
** In ''Literature/ADanceWithDragons'', at the grand re-opening of the Meereenese fighting pits, the Sons of the Harpy force a confectioner to prepare poisoned honey locusts for Queen Daenerys Targaryen. Her soldier Strong Belwas, a notorious BigEater, eats them instead by accident. He gets very sick, but miraculously survives.

--> '''Sheldon:''' Ah, there it is, the tear-stained mattress in the back of the van.
* ''{{Series/Heathers}}'': In a series of promotional posters for the show, the characters are seen eating dangerous-looking sweets, including a lollipop with a razor blade in the center (pictured above), a popsicle with a knife handle for a stick, a Slurpee [[SymbolicBlood with red syrup leaking down the side]], and a cupcake with prescription pills instead of sprinkles.

* Peggy Carr died of thallium poisoning in 1989 while her family suffered its ill effects after drinking copious amounts of tainted Coca-Cola left behind by her neighbor, George Trepal, in an effort to create a "perfect crime" for his local Mensa chapter.

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'': Harry's FatBastard cousin Dudley is forced to go on a diet when his school runs out of uniforms that fit him. When the Weasleys arrive at the Dursley house to pick up Harry for the summer, Fred and George "accidentally" drop several candies in brightly colored wrappers on the floor, and Dudley picks one up and eats it. It turns out to be a magical prank candy called a Ton-Tongue Toffee that makes his tongue turn purple and swell to four feet long. Mr. Weasley angrily calls them out for this because he knows they did it on purpose, knowing Dudley wouldn't be able to resist it because he was dieting.

* ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic'': Literally. [[spoiler: Corinne poisons her children in order to make sure that nobody finds out about them (because it would cause her to be disinherited) with arsenic-laced sugar powder in the desserts they eat.]]

* ''WebVideo/PopCrossStudios'': In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_wdv7FSsjU&list=PLItBjti8LwWHhsedk81k_h_ht_BdovFjx&index=2 What if CUPHEAD BOSSES Were FOLKLORE CREATURES?!]], the [[CreatureHunterOrganization Van Helsing family]] is tasked by a [[SatanicArchetype Crossroads Devil]]- in [[CompositeCharacter a similar manner]] to the original VideoGame/{{Cuphead}} brothers- to hunt down and kill a bunch of evil beings and creatures who [[DealWithTheDevil made deals with him]] and refused to pay up. The first debtor they were sent after was the Bonbon Witch, a malicious HumanoidAbomination who lures hungry children to her with a sweet smell, then welcomes them to her candy kingdom, inviting them to eat as many sweets as they want, with the help of her [[AdorableEvilMinions candy minions]]. Sadly, as soon as any child eats these sweets, they immediately feel sick and fall to the ground, whereupon the Witch's [[FauxAffablyEvil sweet demeanour]] vanishes, and she turns the lower half of her body into a "[[OurDemonsAreDifferent horrific candy fiend]]" with [[TentacledTerror tentacles]], pulls them into her mouth and eats them. The [[LemonyNarrator narrator]] of this video notes that [[WhoWouldBeStupidEnough he can't picture himself ever trying to eat a castle made of sweets]]- even if he didn't know the tale of the Bonbon Witch, the sweets could be centuries old [[NauseaFuel and all manner of forest animals might have urinated against the walls]]. (Bear in mind, Christian created this depiction of Baroness Von Bon Bon [[HilariousInHindsight before]] the ''Cuphead Show'' did the same thing.)

** In particular, in "Operation C.A.R.A.M.E.L.S.", the magic ritual that creates the Sacred Golden Caramels, "the most delicious sweets that ever existed", requires the seeker to give up the quality they treasure most to create them. If the seeker is greedy enough to eat all of their caramels, they are cursed to lose that trait forever. [[spoiler: It is revealed that five years before, Heinrich was once a girl named Henrietta, but lost her beauty during the ritual. When Abby left her, she ate all the sweets she had, leaving her as Heinrich. But Abby had secretly taken Henrietta's last caramel with her to save Heinrich/Henrietta from themselves until they could learn to share. When Abby reveals this, Heinrich has a HeelFaceTurn and shares, causing Heinrich to revert back to Henrietta.]]

* ''Literature/HanselAndGretel'': While hungry and lost in the woods, Hansel and Gretel come across a lovely gingerbread house decorated with candy, which they help themselves to. It turns out to be the house of a witch who uses it as a trap to lure in children so she can kidnap them, fatten them up, and eat them.

* AWeightyAesop: Too much sugar is bad, [[WesternAnimation/SouthPark m'kay?]]

This trope is more strongly associated with female characters than male ones, probably because of the assumption that GirlsLoveChocolate. (A male character associated with this trope is likely to be a SissyVillain, because everybody knows RealMenHateSugar.) Related to that, expect the color [[pink:pink]] to be featured prominently (and probably an intense, eye-searing shade of bright pink rather than a soft, pale pink) due to its separate associations with sweet food and [[PinkIsFeminine femininity]], in which case it likely overlaps with PsychoPink.

* An assassin attempts to kill a target by [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink poisoning a dessert]], hoping the sweet taste will cover up the poison and/or that the dessert will tempt the target to eat it.

* An assassin attempts to kill a target by [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink poisoning a dessert]], hoping the sweet taste will cover up the poison and/or that the target will be tempted by the dessert itself.

* An assassin attempts to kill a target by [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink hiding poison in a dessert]], probably at a big, fancy banquet.

* Music/TenThousandManiacs: "Candy Everybody Wants" uses candy as a metaphor for schlocky media driven by sex, violence, and not much else, with the song's narrator peddling it to viewers "so their minds are soft and lazy."

'''Indices''': SweetTreatsIndex, BakedIndex, {{Symbolism}}, SubvertedInnocence

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