Tempting Apple

Careful, Snow. That apple probably isn't as sweet as you think.

"There never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got for eating it."

— Good Omens

Apples are very frequently used to symbolise temptations and lusts of many kinds. Often this is by indicating that a given choice of action is alluring but will have extensive harmful consequences later. When used as a character motif, it tends to signify someone who frequently offers such temptations or indulges in them.

There is a short list of examples that are exceptionally iconic:

• The Apple of Discord, which has its own page.
• The Golden Apples of Immortality, which are doubly tempting but invariably at least protected by the threat of divine retribution
• The apple eaten by Snow White, chosen to be beautiful but poisonous
• The Apple of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is practically a linguistic accident (or an intentional Pun on the part of the monks who translated it into Latin) but nonetheless the one the audience is most likely to think of. Likely to be offered by a Satanic Archetype.

Details for these four are in the examples. Because of their influence, apples are very likely to specifically symbolize the temptations of secret knowledge, health and immortality, beauty, and wealth. They are also likely to be poisoned or be associated with snakes.

See also Forbidden Fruit, which, despite the title, is not strictly about fruits. Has nothing to do with Tempting Fate (At least, probably).

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• The titular MacGuffin in Appleseed is a technology that allows Bioroids to have a lifespan just as long as humans.
• In Bizenghast, there are apples that can cure severe illnesses and even possibly bring someone back from the dead, Dinah is warned to take only one - but is convinced to surreptitiously take another one (which of course later revealed to have turned deadly by the fact she stole it).
• Death Note: Ohba, the writer, apparently requested apples just because he thinks they look cool. In continuity, however, Ryuk finds them addictive, and they're one of the things he enjoys about Earth - next to mass murder and Criminal Mind Games, which are also among the chief draws of the series for the audience. He receives all three from Light in exchange for power, which ultimately leads to Light's death.
• In Dragon Half, Rozario offers an apple to a PO'd Mink, but Mink rejects it, knowing it is poisoned. Rozario can't believe that the "Snow White strategy" failed.
• In Granblue Fantasy, Drang tries to convince the party to accept their offer of a free airship (and subsequently leave Port Breeze unharmed), all while extending an apple in his hand. Vyrn obviously shivers while resisting the temptation, his Trademark Favorite Food.
• In Kemono Friends, no actual temptation is involved, but the library building resembles an apple core, evoking the Biblical version.
• In The Legend of Snow White, Snow White is warned in advance of the poisoned apple, but also warned that the disguised queen is carrying a magic staff that can undo the curse she cast on the forest. She bites into the apple anyway, causing the queen to lower her guard as she uses the last of her strength to go for the staff.
• In Monster, Johan Liebert gives the all-but-blind Schubert an apple to convince him that the woodland of his younger days is still there. In the short run, this ingratiates himself with him; in the long run, if he ever finds out otherwise it's likely to contribute into Johan's favorite trick of driving people to suicide.
• One Piece:
  • Doc Q of the Blackbeard Pirates makes his appearance offering the unassuming people (And Luffy) of Mock Town apples. However, some of these apples, when bitten, explode! Luckily, Luffy got a normal apple. It's the Doc's weird way of testing out someone's fate.
  • The Time Skip gives us SMILE fruits, artificial Devil Fruits of the Zoan class. These apples look like black apples with white dots, and if they work, they give their eater a partial animal transformation of variable usefulness. However, only 1/10 SMILEs even do that much. The other 9 just turn their eaters into a Perpetual Smiler, on top of losing their ability to swim.
• In Rebuild of Evangelion, the symbol of the conspiratorial organisation NERV is a half-eaten apple with a fig leaf.
• The opening of Season 2 of Seraph of the End has Krul bite into an apple; given the number of references to Christianity in the anime, it is likely intentional.
• Snow White with the Red Hair: The basketful of perfect apples the same color as Shirayuki's hair that Raji sent to her after she fled from him into the neighboring kingdom. They are of course poisoned just like the perfect apple from "Snow White" which the manga is inspired by, though she is not the one who takes a bite out of one of them.
• In the latter half of the Soul Eater anime, Medusa, a snake witch, is associated with apples several times. One such moment is when Rachel, the child whose body she snatches by disguising herself as a cute dog, is watching an educational television program: A little girl reaching for a certain red fruit, which is then repeated several times: "An apple! An apple! An apple!"
• Tokyo Ghoul:
  • The One-Eyed Owl (as Eto Yoshimura) offers an apple to Kanae while explicitly referencing the temptation of Eve. Symbolically, the Owl is asking Kanae to join Aogiri Tree in exchange for power and the love of Master Shuu.
  • The other Big Bad, Kichimura Wasshu, has also been drawn on the cover of :re Volume 6 holding an apple in a way clearly meant to evoke this trope.

Fairy Tales

• In The Jezinkas, one Jezinka (a beautiful but wicked member of The Fair Folk) uses an apple to tempt Johnny.
• In the Armenian folktale The Liar (folktale), a king offered to give a golden apple to the biggest liar in the kingdom. Eventually a peasant wins the apple by using by stating that the king owed him a pot of gold. If the king denied it, then the peasant would win the lying contest. If the king didn't, well, he'd have to give the peasant the pot of gold. So the king parted with the golden apple instead.
• "Snow White": The queen disguises herself as a peddler in order to kill Snow White, and the third and successful attempt involves a delicious-looking, but poisoned apple.

Fan Works

• In the Dragon Age fanfic Accursed Ones, the main character 'Amell' has an apple motif; 'Apple' is even his nickname. Amell is also a user and advocate for forbidden magics such as blood magic and demonology, which he constantly invites others to share. Anders finally accepts Amell's offer to learn blood magic at about the same point in the story that he enters into a sexual relationship with Amell.
• In DC Nation, the apple of desire was passed around during the Olympics plot. Jesse Quick sees a world where her father's still alive. Donna Troy saw a world where she was reunited with her family, Titans and Terry Long. It is enough to shock Donna into realizing that she really wants to be with her living family and give up her dead children to Persephone's care so she can return to the Titans.
• Death And Ker is rife with apple symbolism, including allusions to Eris's apple of discord, Snow White's poisoned apple, and the golden apples of immortality tended by the Hesperides. During one confrontation, Minako is even tempted with an apple.
• In Of Fur, Fangs and Flying Brooms, Fukase (depicted here as a demon) uses one of these in his second attempt to convince Oliver to make a deal with him, with all the obvious Biblical symbolism in effect. In this case, the apple seems to function similarly to a Magically-Binding Contract.

Films — Live-Action

• In Animal House, Donald Sutherland's shady, student-romancing English professor is shown lecturing on Paradise Lost from a Satan Is Good perspective, and then biting into an apple.
• Truly bizarre B-Movie The Apple has Mr. Boogalow's temptation of the female lead to stardom represented by an oversized prop apple.
• Doctor Strange is eating an apple when he sneaks into the library to try a Dangerous Forbidden Technique. As well as the Biblical Forbidden Fruit symbolism, he also reconstructs a missing page explaining the secret of immortality, as per Greek Mythology.
• In Enchanted, Queen Narissa sends Nathaniel to feed Giselle a poison apple. His botched attempts include giving her a caramel-covered^note the caramel forms a skull-shaped pattern, as Giselle apparently doesn't notice poison apple in honor of "Free Caramel Apple Day", and later brewing one into a martini, which he claims came from Giselle's secret admirer. Giselle accepts both of these, but different circumstances prevent her from ingesting them. Eventually, Narissa decides to poison Giselle herself and offers an apple she claims will erase Giselle's memories of experiencing heartbreak in New York. Giselle finally bites this one, but True Love's Kiss saves her from a permanent death.
• In the commentary for Eve's Bayou, the director and writer points out that even she thought her use of Eve and the apple and Eve and the snake were a little heavy-handed.
• In Fright Night (1985), Jerry Dandridge is usually seen snacking on apples - unless he's snacking on someone's neck instead.
• In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Girl of the Week Willie Scott is disgusted by the dinner served at the temple and refuses to eat, despite being obviously hungry. Retiring for the night, the Belligerent Sexual Tension between Willie and Indy is heightened by Indy appearing with a big juicy apple that Willie devours with lust.
• A Deleted Scene in Lolita has Dolores biting into an apple as Humbert tussles with her while secretly stimulating himself. The two actions are intercut together as Humbert approaches orgasm.
• At the end of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Parnassus is selling small theater mobiles, he glances up to see Mr. Nick offering an apple to a couple of nuns, affirming that he is Satan and his goal is to continue to corrupt the pious with the temptation of sin.
• Employed in Men as one of the film's main riffs on Biblical Motifs. One of the first scenes of the film is one of the protagonist Harper helping herself to a morsel from the rented property's apple tree. To hammer it home, the property's caretaker, Geoffrey, later on scolds her for this, calling it "forbidden fruit", though he quickly claims that he is just joking. Even later, we see the mysterious naked man who appears to be stalking Harper taking an apple for himself while he is skulking around in the garden and watching the house.
• In Oz the Great and Powerful, Evanora offers her sister Theodora a green apple, promising her that one bite will give her ultimate power to have vengeance on Oz and Glinda. It turns her into the Wicked Witch of the West.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Apples are Barbossa's Trademark Favorite Food, and his inability to taste them as an undead pirate in the first film is the most important consequence to him for his theft of the cursed Aztec gold. He also keeps them on hand at all times, to eat one as soon as he's free of the curse again, which allows Jack to mockingly eat one in front of him in order to goad him into making a deal. It's the temptation and the consequence all at once! When he finally returns from the dead at the end of Dead Man's Chest, naturally the first thing he does is eat one.
• Used in Pleasantville, where the male lead is offered an apple by his girlfriend in a film all about a fictional town's loss of innocence.
• In TRON: Legacy, Clu sees his reflection in a silver apple, recalls his creation by Flynn (who he has come to passionately hate), and loses his temper. With all the stuff in the movie that could be considered religious symbolism, in this case the apple was made by a well-meaning but flawed creator and rejected by his vicious and even more flawed creation.

Literature

• Used subtly in A Brother's Price; the kisses of women Jerin should not kiss (as he's supposed to be chaste until marriage) taste of apples.
• In The Dragon Hoard, one of Jasleth's first attempts to seek his fortune is a (short-lived) job in an apple orchard, hoping to find that one of the apple trees bears magic apples or is an enchanted princess. Much later, he encounters a grove of magic fruit trees that grow fruit made of gold; the varieties mentioned include oranges, plums, damsons, and, inevitably, apples.
• In the Christian allegory The Faerie Queene, a false god's last offer to convince Guyon to worship him is to offer him a beautiful golden apple. The text identifies it as the same type of fruit that Eris used to kickstart the Trojan War. Despite having gone three days without food, Guyon refuses, and the narration assures us that it is only this that saved Guyon from certain death.
• The quote from Good Omens above, in which Adam Young's mischievous apple-scrumping is directly (and not disapprovingly) compared to that other Adam. (Not to mention that the actual serpent from the Garden is one of the main characters of the book.)
• The Illuminatus! Trilogy repeatedly plays with Greek mythology's version of the Apple of Discord.
• Played With in The Lunar Chronicles: Winter's Trademark Favorite Food is a kind of apple-flavored candy, which is switched out for the real apple in the last novel's "Snow White" retelling.
• The Magician's Nephew, the prequel Narnia Creation Myth installment. There, the apples in question are silver and can cure any ailment. The protagonist is instructed to fetch one to plant as a ward to protect Narnia, but it occurs to him to steal it to give to his dying mother instead. He ultimately resists doing so, only for Aslan to give him another as a reward. It turns out that if he had stolen it, it would have worked - but only in a Be Careful What You Wish For kind of way.
• In the last book of A Series of Unfortunate Events, an enormous apple tree grows in the middle of the arboretum of forbidden knowledge, and at a pivotal moment the Incredibly Deadly Viper offers one of its apples to the orphans because they have just realized the apples contain an antidote to the Medusoid Mycelium, but are too weakened by the fungus to get one for themselves, deliberately twisting an allusion to the Garden of Eden.
• "A POISON TREE" from Songs of Experience features a bright, shiny, and poisonous apple.
• The first Sword of Truth book features a scene of the two leads sharing an apple in a rather sexy way, nearly leading Kahlan to lose control of her Confessor's power.
  • There's also a mention early on that red apples are poisonous in Midland, courtesy of a D'Haran curse during the war. Red apples were chosen for being the most delicious-looking sort of fruit.
• In Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno Concluded they see and catch a thief stealing apples from the orchard.
• The front cover of Twilight has someone holding an apple, representing that Edward and Bella are each other's Forbidden Fruit.
• In the Young Wizards series, the Magitek computers are all Apples, but the symbol is of an apple without a bite taken out of it. This is symbolic of the universe before The Lone Power's rebellion.

Live-Action TV

• In Angel, this is invoked by Eve, who offers Angel an apple to represent the power Wolfram and Hart offers. He takes a bite out of it. Holtz also offers Wesley a slice of apple when Wesley comes to betray Angel.
• Boardwalk Empire: Al Capone, first introduced in the pilot as a young, childish thug under the watch of Johnny Torrio, undergoes a maturation process during the first season that ends with a scene where he guns down a rival mook, takes an apple from the fallen and eats it. By the next season, he shows contempt at the idea of being anything but a gangster.
• Advertising for Caprica made use of this theme, showing a naked Zoe Graystone (the first humanoid Cylon) holding only a bright red apple with a bite taken out of it. It's supposed to reflect humanity's temptation and hubris to create artificial life, metaphorically eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
• The Collector: The Devil peddles weird black apples "plucked from the tree of knowledge you'd rather not have". They make people realize unpleasant things about themselves, sometimes by restoring forgotten memories.
• The opening titles of Desperate Housewives use an apple motif. A giant one with the show's name written on it falls on Adam (in the painting shown at the beginning) and the four main characters are shown catching apples at the end. Much of the show's promotional material also makes use of the motif.
• Doctor Who: In "The Doctor Falls", the Twelfth Doctor takes advantage of the absence of Mary Whitehouse to offer a little girl the chance to blow up some Cybermen.
  The Doctor: I don't like guns. I've got a better idea. Are you good at throwing?
  Alit: Better than all the boys.
  The Doctor: Then how about humanity's first weapon? [hands her an apple] Tempting, isn't it?
• In the Good Eats episode "Apple Family Values," Alton discusses this trope, before being offered an apple by "Eve," who is represented as a woman's arm poking out from between some apple trees. Since AB already has an apple in his hand, he replies, "No, thanks...I've already got one...nice snake, though."
• Good Omens (2019): The series starts with Eve eating the Apple, followed by her and Adam leaving Eden. The snake who tempted her then slithers up to the angel who was supposed to be guarding the tree and strikes up a friendly conversation about it. Crowley (the snake, who found the name "Crawly" not distinguished enough) says that he was just told to "stir up some trouble", and finds the whole scenario a bit too on the nose, and doesn't see the problem with knowing the difference between Good and Evil anyway. Aziraphale (the angel) then reveals that he gave his flaming sword to Adam because they looked all sad and pathetic. It's implied very strongly that Aziraphale giving humanity a weapon was far worse in the long run than Crowley giving them knowledge.
  Crowley: What if I did the right thing with the whole "eat the apple" business? A demon can get into a lot of trouble for doing the right thing.
  [in the distance, Adam brutally kills a lion; Aziraphale looks worried]
  Crowley: It'd be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad one.
• In the Heroes episode "Strange Attractors", Sylar bites into an apple and invokes Forbidden Fruit as he torments Matt Parkman's sanity and home life. The apple is seen again after it's revealed that after Matt blacked out from drinking too much, Sylar has taken over his body.
• Lucifer (2016): The most famous apple is referenced when the first thing Eve, the First Woman, does on the show is order an appletini at the bar. Later, she and Lucifer mention that there was never a real apple in the Garden; the actual Original Sin was Eve cheating on Adam with Lucifer.
• At the start of Season 2 of Luther, the title character promises his boss he won't make contact with Alice Morgan. That same episode he visits her in prison and exchanges a secret message inserted into an apple that he throws over the prison wall.
• Once Upon a Time: Regina Mills (otherwise known as Snow White's evil stepmother) uses the last of her magic (a Tragic Keepsake) to grab the poisoned apple from the Fairy Tale realm. She uses it to bake a "special" apple turnover for Emma (so she can get rid of her son's biological mother and have the kid all to herself). Henry (the son) intervenes by gobbling it and dropping into a magic coma, forcing both his mommies into an Enemy Mine to break the spell.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: In "Where No Man Has Gone Before", when Gary Mitchell is attempting to persuade Elizabeth Dehner of his viewpoint that they're above humanity now, he creates a Kaferian apple tree with his god-like powers and splits an apple with her.

Music

• Played with by the K-Pop group LOONA in their music video "new". Yves, pronounced Eve, eats in an apple referencing the biblical story of Eve biting into the Forbidden Fruit, but this "Eve" is aware of the consequences and wants to fall from the good graces of Eden.
• The Vocaloid song "Alluring Secret, Black Vow", which focuses on an angel who makes a Deal with the Devil to give up her divinity and become a human man in order to be with the woman she fell in love with, symbolizes the deal and its consequences with apple imagery.

Mythology and Religion

• This goes all the way back to the stories of the Ancient Greeks. The Apple of Discord was inscribed ΚΑΛΛΊΣΤῌ ("For the fairest") by Eris, Goddess of Strife, and thrown into the round of undeniably vain Olympians, eventually resulting in The Trojan War. Gods sure tend to overreact... Then there's also Hera's orchard of golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides, the apple by means of which Akontios tricked Kydippe into marrying him, and the golden apples Hippomenes used to distract Atalanta in a race and earn the right to marry her. Don't get 'em mixed up.
• The Bible: The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Contrary to popular conception, The Bible does not, in fact, name the original Forbidden Fruit an "apple". Some researchers believe that it was Lost in Translation back in Ancient Rome, since "malus/malum" can mean both "evil" and "apple" in Latin. So, technically, the Biblical apple is likely a Fanon coupled with absorbing Greek notions of the Apple Of Discord. An alternate explanation for the 'Latin mistranslation' is that "apple" in English used to be a generic name for all fruit, and it changed its meaning.
  • In fact, Judaism presents in the Talmud a rather large selection of possible contenders for the original fruit, stating that God deliberately did not identify it in the Bible so as not to cause a backlash against it (the fruit, after all, wasn't at fault here). The candidates include commonly known fruits in the Middle East (not apples), such as figs, dates, pomegranates, etrogs (a citrus fruit kind of like a giant, sweet lemon), and even wheat.
  • Some say that given the climate of the supposed garden and the location scholars had given, the fruit was probably a pomegranate, this would have some added symbolism, including the legend that the pomegranate has 613 seeds, the same as the number of laws in the Torah.
  • Fun fact: Carl von Linne, the creator of the Linnaean species naming system, was convinced that the Forbidden Fruit was a banana. That would certainly lend support to the "forbidden knowledge is carnal knowledge" interpretation (and Carl von Linne would have known it, too).
  • Hieronymus Bosch, the Dutch painter, liked to use exotic (to him) oranges for his Forbidden Fruit. Probably partly because oranges are called sinaasappel (Chinese Apple) in Dutch.
  • In Islam, the forbidden fruit is traditionally wheat. This has interesting implications, placing the Fall of Mankind as the agricultural revolution. Rousseau would be pleased, as he had much the same opinion.
  • Some have also proposed the passionfruit. On the one hand, it just sounds so much more tempting than a plain old apple. On the other, it makes a clever call forward to Jesus, who had to basically Set Right What Once Went Wrong in the garden.
  • Some have also proposed the quince, a large fruit that kind of resembles an apple (and is botanically related), but is not.
• Irish Mythology: In The Sons Of Tuirenn, the sons of Tuirenn are to get three golden apples from the well-guarded Garden in the East of the World. One bite of these fruits can cure any wound or sickness.
• Idunn's golden apples in Norse Mythology granted one immortality. For a while, anyway. If the gods don't continue munching those apples, they get old. This aspect was explored in a tale involving Loki and the frost giant Thiazi.
• Even when they're not being used for temptation, apples seem to be the go-to "evil" fruit throughout mythology. In the legend of William Tell, it's an apple the villain uses to torture the hero by forcing him to shoot it off his son's head.
• Gesta Danorum: On their way to Geirrodsgard, King Gorm and Thorkill are hosted by the giant Guthmundus. Thorkill however knows that any mortal who eats the food offered by Guthmund or who has intercourse with a woman of Guthmund's realm will lose his mind and can never leave Guthmund's realm again. After Guthmund has tried to trap them twice by inviting them to a feast, then by offering them his maidservants as concubines, he leads them to his garden and asks Gorm to try the fruits growing there. When he is foiled again by Gorm evading to accept the offer, Guthmund gives up and allows them to continue their voyage.

Radio

• One of several Adam & Eve metaphors in the BBC series Earthsearch. Darv and Astra have sex for the first time shortly after Darv offers her an apple. Unknown to them, their processed food has been laced with drugs to keep them in a state of sexual immaturity, but they inadvertently get round this by eating the food directly from the trees in the food gallery because it tastes better.
  • In the Season 2 novelisation Earthsearch: Deathship, the protagonists are abducted from the planet Paradise after a bomb hidden in an apple sprays them with Knockout Gas (the radio series just has them gassed by a surgical droid).

Tabletop Games

• In Warhammer40000, Leman Russ is looking for apples from the Tree of Life to get the Emperor back on his feet. He's been looking for ten damn millennia.

Theatre

• In John Milton's Comus, the younger brother invokes this when explaining his fear for his sister.
  But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree
  Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
  Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye
  To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit

Video Games

• In the Assassin's Creed games, the Apple of Eden is a relic created by Those Who Came Before. It tempts those who seek it with great knowledge and powers over the minds of people at the cost of individual freedom.
  • The second game reveals that the Apples of Eden are all apples in mythology.
• Crisis Core: Genesis often offers Banora White apples to people he tries to convince to join his cause. He tries to give one to Sephiroth, but the latter turns it away, representing the end of their friendship.
• Flower Knight Girl features one Flower Knight known as Apple, based on the Malus domestica plant, with "Temptation" being one of her Language of Flowers. She even has a golden apple as the catalyst of her magic attacks. Personality-wise, she's defined by how she gets enamored with girls she sees as beautiful, which leads to her often getting a self-destructive Nosebleed.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Who's the older woman eating an apple? EVA, of course. Who brings her the apple? Snake. Whom does she try to give it to? Ocelot, whose real name is Adam. Adam refuses to take the apple from EVA. And he's the baddy while she tries to turn him back to the Light Side.
• The goal of the Konami game Penguin Adventure is to get a golden apple to cure the penguin princess.
• The final Palace in Persona 5 Royal has a model of the Biblical Garden of Eden at the very top, with a gigantic tree at the center, bearing apples with bite marks on them. This symbolism is also alluded to in the very beginning, with said Palace's ruler having apple juice as his Trademark Favorite Food, and always keeping a box of it in his office.
• In Power Pete, some of the food items in Fairy Tale Trail are apples, but some are poisonous decoys. The only way to tell them apart is to run over them (while down a point) with a shield - if it doesn't pick up, it's a poison one.
• One of the goals in Professor Layton and the Curious Village is the hunt for the village's great treasure, the Golden Apple. Turns out the Golden Apple is the late Baron's daughter Flora, who has an apple-shaped birthmark.
• Twisted Wonderland: Epel Felmier is based on the Evil Queen's poison apple from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As such, he's the pretty, delicate-looking son of a family of apple farmers, and he's mentored by Vil, the Evil Queen-based character, to use his good looks to his advantage.
• We Know the Devil has this from the true ending where the characters embrace the Devil/themselves and intend to spread their new life to everyone else:
  There is nothing to fear when there is two against the devil.
  But we can't wait to see what they'll do against the three worst girls since Eve.
  We have a new apple. For everyone in the world.
• Yo-kai Watch 3 has the food item, Forbidden fruit, which is coincidentally a red-and-purple-hued apple, and it makes any Yo-kai who eats it automatically befriend you, making it useful for winning over those high-ranked Yo-kai you only get to battle once a day.

Web Animation

• Free Apple. The skull just lets you know how natural and organic it is!
• Hazbin Hotel: Apples are heavily associated with Charlie's father Lucifer, as a reference to the Biblical version of this trope.

Web Comics

• In Olympus Overdrive, the symbol of Eris is an apple, referring to the Apple of Discord.

Web Video

• Slimecicle Cinematic Universe: In "Minecraft, but every 5 minutes there's a natural disaster", Jschlatt (essentially the video's equivalent to God) offers Charlie a golden apple to ease his hunger. Charlie takes and eats it — and Schlatt ominously declares "[he] fucked up", disappears, and spends the rest of the video being a Jerkass God, offering more apples along the way. Naturally, the Biblical references are lampshaded.
  "We've all read the Minecraft bible and know the tale of Alex and Steve!"

Western Animation

• Garfield and Friends' parody of "Snow White" had Lanolin Sheep (wearing a purple hood and a basket of apples labeled "poison apples") offering a poison apple and openly saying it's poison ^note  In foreign dubs of the episode, she says it's just an apple to Snow Wade while the other dwarves are still in the house. Just like in the story, Snow Wade then eats it and dies. His reason? "I'll accept anything that's free!"
• In a Rocko's Modern Life episode spoofing multiple fairy tales, "Cinder-Heffer" gets tricked by a witch (played by Filburt) into eating a blue apple, washing it down with a potion, and finishing it off with a mysterious mint. Cinder-Heffer gets turned into a Pinocchio-like puppet, until the prince, Rocko, fits the witch's glass slippers on Cinder-Heffer's feet.
• In the VeggieTales episode "Larryboy and the Bad Apple", we get an apple villainess literally named "Temptation", taking the trope to an extreme

Real Life

• Bringing a whole new meaning to giving an apple to a teacher, physicist, and "father of the atomic bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer (unsuccessfully) tried to poison his tutor with an apple covered in toxic chemicals.

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