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Okay, your job is to think of a good moment in literature in which the consumption of food is the means of a metamorphosis. The transformation could be physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. The work in question should be relatively well known but can come from any time period or literary tradition.
A few examples to get you started: Circe's magical brews, the Judeo-Christian Forbidden Fruit, Persephone's pomegranate...
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Proust and his cookies. Peter Rabbit and his garden feast. Alice, and just about anything she injested in wonderland. Violet Beauregard and her Magic Chewing Gum "Violet, you're turning violet, Violet!" Oh, and what are those yam things in Niven's Ringworld that evolve you into a super-being? I think Teela Brown eats some. And "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie", it will turn into quite a pest.
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Ooops, it's written madeleines actually. You're right about how it's made. Here it's a common sentence to talk about "la madeleine de Proust" when you have a strong reminiscence.
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I hear that beans, beans are a magical (or sometimes merely musical) fruit, which are said to promote analgesic bodily processes.
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When Daenerys Targaryen consumed the raw heart of a stallion in A Game of Thrones. It was her a HUGE turning point with her. I think that moment is when she became a woman, her husband's equal, and most importantly, a queen.
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In West World they could tell the difference between the robots and the people by who could drink water.
In Harry Potter Nearly Headless Nick laments not being able eat as one of the things he misses most about being alive.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Tante: that wasn't exactly from Ringworld it was from his Tales of Known Space. "Protector" was one of the novels.
I should re-read those...
Yeah, me too. It's been years. I'm pretty sure that Teela Brown ate some at some point in the Ringworld saga. Maybe in Engineers? It was the ultimate fulfillment of her ultimate luckiness.
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I have a good one.
When Daenerys Targaryen consumed the raw heart of a stallion in A Game of Thrones. It was her a HUGE turning point with her. I think that moment is when she became a woman, her husband's equal, and most importantly, a queen.
Hm...that was when she was fairly huge with child, wasn't it? I'd say that the turning point for her was more when she decided to conceive the Stallion that Rides the World.
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quote:Tante: that wasn't exactly from Ringworld it was from his Tales of Known Space. "Protector" was one of the novels.
True and false. The book "Protector" is all about that idea, but Teela Brown *does* turn into one in one of the Ringworld books. The protagonist of those books (I can't recall his name) says that only an ex-wirehead (which he is) would have been able to resist eating it.
There's Popeye and his spinach.
When a vampire eats off of somebody, often times the person being eaten is turned into a vampire.
Or in other vampire lores, if you drink the blood of a vampire you either turn into a vampire yourself, or a ghoulish slave to that vampire.
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quote:Hm...that was when she was fairly huge with child, wasn't it? I'd say that the turning point for her was more when she decided to conceive the Stallion that Rides the World.
Yes, she was pregnant, and she was showing more and more signs of becoming independant. But she still had serious doubts as to her ability to go forward with the task, and was still basically subordinant to both Viserys and Drogo (Edit: or was Viserys already dead? I need to get my timeline in order). She wasn't a "queen" yet, in her own eyes, or in anyone else's. I'm not sure when she "decided" to concieve anything, unless you are talking about her having sex with Drogo out in the open, and with her on top (it was when she ate the heart that the Crone's declared her child to be the Stallion Who Mounts the World). If so, then yeah, sure that was a very important turning point for her. Would she have walked in the fire at the end of the book if she hadn't eaten the heart? I seriously doubt it. And if she had thrown any of it up, would any of the Dothraki have followed her after Drogo died?
Perhaps I will reread some Dany chapters tonight to re-evaluate the signifigance of that scene, but it was huge from what I can remember. And isn't that the whole reason that scene is in the book? To show her growing into a queen?
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I'll have to reread that section as well. I was talking about her decision to initiate sex with Drogo, with her on top, yes. I *think* that Viserys was already dead by the time both of these scenes took place, but I'm not at all sure. If you reread it before I do, let me know what you find.
I guess I think of the scene with her eating the heart more as a further illustration of her character rather than as a defining moment in her life. When you first read it it *looks* like a defining moment, but then the prophesy fizzles, and the whole story that seemed to be unfolding unravels.
Maybe I'm misremembering though. As I said, I'll take a look at it.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: if you drink the blood of a vampire you either turn into a vampire yourself, or a ghoulish slave to that vampire.
Which is one of the reasons that I avoid doing that.
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Okay, in strict point of fact, it IS a homework assigment...sort of. I'm 16 pages into my final 20-page paper of the semester and was hoping for one or two more quick examples to throw in. <yawn> I started this thread a bit before I went to bed this morning, and I just recently got up again. Time to get back to writing, I guess.
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Tante
