Works of fiction will address Carnivore Confusion in one of several ways, often depending on the target audience and message:
- By far the most common approach, especially in older fiction, is the Predators Are Mean subtrope. All your heroes are herbivores. All the villains are carnivores à la The Big Bad Wolf from The Three Little Pigs.note This subtrope is so strong culturally that people assume Real Life predators are mean, evil, and nasty, and all the herbivores are cute, cuddly, and friendly. Anyone with any knowledge of real animal behavior knows that's not the case at all; some herbivores like rhinos and hippos can be extremely aggressive, while social predators (wolves, orcas, etc.) can be tamed, trained, and even become companions — this is why domesticated dogs and cats, in real life, even exist in their modern forms.
- Sometimes your heroes are predatory animals. Now carnivores are okay, so scavengers often become the Villains By Default. The usual ethos is that only evil weirdos eat carrion, and only cowards do not hunt. They will be depicted as ugly and intimidating. Often the carnivorous heroes will never be seen actually killing and/or eating another animal. Example: The Lion King.note
- An increasingly popular option in fiction has been to render the carnivore's prey in a realistic, non-cute manner. The prey does not talk — the prey is not humanized in any way. Fish, in particular, are nearly always a viable mealtime option, unless they're major characters. Invertebrates of all kinds usually get a pass as well, again with the exception of times where they are the main characters.
- Similar to the option immediately above, some works such as The Chronicles of Narnia and the Spellsinger novels make it clear that only some of the animals have human-like intelligence, while others are normal animals. In some fiction, there are explicit differences between the anthropomorphic and normal members of the same species — bipedality, speech, clothing, etc. It's okay for a talking lion to eat a non-talking deer, but eating a talking deer would be tantamount to cannibalism, even for a human.
- Establish that the carnivore is unlucky (Wile E. Coyote) or that their chosen prey is too fast or aggressive to catch — for example, Jerry of Tom and Jerry. This makes the point moot, since we never see the predator eat.
- Invert most of the above examples by making the prey totally unlikable. The cat gets double satisfaction when eating that jerkass rat, as not only is he delicious, he also deserves it.
- The prey is suicidal and wants to end their life. The suicidal prey does this by waiting to be caught by the predator or walking/running/crawling/slithering/flying into the predator's mouth/beak. The predator, who would likely eat nonsuicidal prey, doesn’t want to eat the suicidal prey.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: Depart from real-world biology completely: the carnivore can choose to go vegan if they really want to. A common way of doing so is by rendering carnivorism as something similar to alcoholism (An American Tail, Finding Nemo, etc).
- Somewhat similarly, the solution in works with more of a science fiction bent is that the technology available has created meat substitutes that are readily available for humans and animal carnivores (Star Trek: The Next Generation explicitly pointed this out in an early episode).
- Some works, such as Happy Feet, will half-refer to this problem, and then avoid the issue entirely.
- Others, such as Pearls Before Swine, will play it up for Refuge in Audacity. The pig knows enjoying a nice ham dinner is cannibalistic, but just doesn't care.
- Still others, usually ones that take place in a World of Funny Animals, will completely ignore the issue altogether. The cow will happily join her dog friend for some burgers, and absolutely no one will think of the implications.
- This may be caused by Predator Turned Protector: a carnivore for some reason decides to protect their prey and live with them.
- More recent works will use this aspect for social commentary (Beastars, Zootopia, etc.). YMMV on how well they do.
- Animals might donate their bodies to be used as food, skins and other products after natural death, similar to real life organ donation. Some animals might even make sure to die in areas with carnivores with the latter waiting for the animal to die peacefully before eating.
- Similar to the example of predators protecting their prey, there will occasionally be an Interspecies Friendship between a predator and a prey animal, which usually leads to one of three outcomes: 1.) The predator still eats members of their friend's species, but would never eat their friend in particular, 2.) The predator still eats meat, but has given up eating their friend's species, or 3.) The predator struggles not to eat their friend, particularly when hungry. The third variation is typically played for Black Comedy.
- Finally, predation can be treated as just a fact of life. See Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, the Dinotopia books, and the Webcomic Kevin & Kell, among a very, very few others: Carnivorism happens, it's nature, and it may even be incorporated as a part of both the talking animal economy and social structure.
