Month: March 2018

You’ve come to the right place with this question. 

My answer is: Yes, it counts as cannibalism, since the body being consumed was human, while only the spirit inhabiting it was the immortal Maia. If you eat a natural human body, you’re also just eating the body and not the spirit (at least according to the Rules of Tolkien Metaphysics– obviously their are other interpretations available including some IRL ones that I can’t speak for). 

In fact, I’d call that “guilt-free” cannibalism*, since no one really died and only one Maia was inconvenienced by the loss of a mortal guise. And furthermore, the meat should be entirely free of environmental contamination and probably won’t even be especially gamey since this “human” didn’t spend a lot of time in the wild, eating whatever it wanted. (Er, unless it’s one of the Istari. Then all bets are off– Gandalf is probably wicked gamey and stringy and I don’t recommend sampling him). 

So it should be reasonably tasty as far as people-meat is concerned AND healthy! –Unless the Maia in question was just fudging the details vis-a-vis proteins and whatnot, in which case, I take no responsibility for the resulting “Mad-Maia Disease” or incredible indigestion suffered by the cannibal.

*Do not attempt to exploit this glitch for an “infinite meat hack”; Maiar can only go through so many bodies before they run out of power, and they’re likely to get very annoyed at you well before then.