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Emotion Eater / Western Animation

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  • Angel Wars: Demons apparently can be this under some circumstances; a demon named Morg was empowered by a human's negative emotions, but it took a great deal of setup to hook Morg up to that human's emotions. By the same token, some positive human emotions, such as hope, can be repellant or even lethal to demons.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: A bit of a twist with the Face Stealer Koh. He doesn't eat emotions — but he will steal your face if you show any emotion.
  • Castlevania (2017): "Labyrinth": The Stone-Eyed Cyclops turns its victims to stone with its eye to feed on their terror while trapped in their own bodies.
  • Danny Phantom: By posing as a school counselor, Spectra can meet with teenagers, discover their insecurities, and pick at their pain and misery, which she in turns feeds on to keep herself looking young.
  • Darkwing Duck: Paddywhack devours negative emotions.
  • Dragon Tales: In "The Fury Is Out On This One", the Fury feeds on the anger of whoever released him from his pod, and the more mad that person gets, the bigger he grows. If that person calms down, the Fury shrinks.
  • Frankelda's Book of Spooks: Spooks are monsters whose existence depends on people being afraid, as they exist in the physical world through the power of nightmares written to life by a master writer. Procustes's inability to produce meaningful nightmares is why Herneval sought out Francisca Imelda as his replacement.
  • The Ghost and Molly McGee: Both the Sobgoblins and the Chairman feed on misery, sadness and other negative emotions.
  • Miraculous Ladybug does this with Hawk Moth's akumazation, in which a butterfly he sends out hones in on a citizen feeling an extremely negative emotion such as anger, guilt, jealousy, etc. This then transforms them into the featured Villain of the Week, and the spell can only be broken if Ladybug destroys their weapon.
  • My Life as a Teenage Robot: The episode "This Time With Feeling" features a villain named "Himcules", a Hercules-esque ripped man who gets incredibly strong from causing emotional pain to others. He takes advantage of this by using his strength to act like a total Jerkass to anyone around him, bullying others into giving him what he wants or making them do humiliating tasks. This intially proves useful to him against Jenny after she has nerve-endings placed on her that are sent to "pain" However, this proves to be his undoing, as after Jenny's nerve-endings are set to "tickle", her new sense of ticklishness allows Jenny to laugh off Himcules's attacks. The rest of the city follows suit by laughing at Himcules for losing to a girl, causing his muscles to deflate and reducing him to a (sic) "90-pound weakling".
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is full of these. Seriously, a significant part of the ecology seems to use emotions as sustenance:
    • Discord, the spirit of Disharmony from the season 2 premiere: the Cutie Mark Crusaders' violent argument over the meaning of his statue (actually him Taken for Granite) is apparently the factor that tips his strength enough over the edge for him to break free.
    • The Windigos seen during the pageant in "Hearth's Warming Eve" feed on hate and anger, and shroud the land for miles around in an endless winter. It's implied that they make a habit of freezing their victims alive so that they can use them as a perpetual food source.
    • Changelings feed on love, and use it to power their spells. The love between Princess Cadance and Shining Armor was so strong that it allowed their queen, Chrysalis, to defeat Princess Celestia in a one-on-one magical duel, an act that even shocked Chrysalis herself. When they're shown feeding, this typically takes the form of a sort of energy being drawn directly from their victims' bodies. The sixth season finale, "To Where and Back Again", ultimately reveals that feeding on love like they do is a highly inefficient way of eating as it leaves them starving, but it makes Chrysalis stronger. When Starlight Glimmer convinces the changeling Thorax to share love instead of stealing it, it fills them up and heals their bodies, showing their true forms for all to see.
    • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks: The Dazzlings, aka the Sirens, use their magic pendants to absorb bad vibes, which they evoke in their subjects via music.
  • The Real Ghostbusters: The Boogeyman derives his power from the fear he instills in his victims.
  • Rick and Morty: In one episode, an alien spa that the eponymous duo visits uses an alien creature that directly consumes stress.
    Rick: These things are just doing what they do in the wild. It loves swallowing stressed-out creatures for twenty minutes and then puking them up.
    Morty: My whole body's like a baby's ass!
  • The Simpsons:
    • "Threehouse of Horror VI": In "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesore", the giant advertising mascots live off of attention. The advertising agency who created them says that advertisements lose their power when people stop paying attention to them, so simply ignoring the giant monsters and denying them attention would cause them to die. With some help from Paul Anka (who stars As Himself in the episode) this plan works.
    • "The Canine Mutiny": Parodied: Homer, after telling a tearful Bart that crying isn't going to bring Santa's Little Helper back (SLH had been repossessed in the place of a dog Bart purchased with money he didn't have), he briefly theorizes that dogs might be attracted to human tears if they smell enough like dog food. Therefore, Bart has two choices: go out and find his dog, or cry while eating can after can of dog food until his tears smell enough like dog food for his dog to come back.
  • South Park: In "Scott Tenorman Must Die", after getting revenge on Scott by tricking him into eating chili made from his dead parents, Eric Cartman literally drinks Scott's tears of despair, and comments on how delicious they are.
    Stan: Dude, I think it might be best for us to never piss Cartman off again.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Preston Change-O is a magician who drains the joy from his audience after entertaining them, feeding himself and leaving them depressed.
  • Teen Titans (2003): Mother Mae-Eye is a rare villainess who gains power from being loved. Anyone who has eaten her mind-controlling pie would think she is and has always been their mother. She then takes care of everything until her "children" love her so much that she can bake them into a giant pie and get all of their fabricated affection without meeting any resistance.
  • Tigtone: The Scream Demon, an invisible demon that feeds on screams and kills anyone that's not screaming. Her favorite are internal screams, which Tigtone himself is constantly generating.
  • Wander over Yonder
    • "The Troll": The eponymous Troll from feeds on the negativity and anger of those who respond to his insults; the more hatred he feels, the bigger he gets .He shrinks when ignored.
    • "The Heebie Jeebies": The Phantom Mimes are a group of perpetually smiling mimes that seek residence in the dark forest that Wander and Sylvia enter, and seem to feed on their fear. The more scared the duo are, the more mimes show up, and once the two conquer their fears, the mimes vanish.
  • W.I.T.C.H.: The Knights of Destruction feed on hatred, anger, fear, and anguish. Tridart becomes enormous during the first attack on Kandrakar, which terrifies the heroes. Later this becomes a major weakness for the Knights as the opposite emotion they feast on weakens them and in Shagon's case destroys him. Not surprisingly, their boss decides to phase them out for her old team.
  • WordGirl: This is the secret to Miss Power's strength. As long as there are people in the area who are feeling upset and uncertain, she is unbeatable (or at the very least, stronger, faster, and tougher than WordGirl is). She is really good at taunting people to make them feel this way. When WordGirl finds the strength and confidence to stand up to her and ignore her taunting, Miss Power is forced to retreat.

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