First appearance: S5E3, Eldritch Fangs - Ruby Rust v Robbie Clark and the Hunger · watch it on YouTube
The Hunger is an eldritch horror that lives in a backpack. It is a mass of tendrils, eyes and mouths wired straight into the spine of whichever small boy is wearing it. It first came to the arena as the “good friend” of Robbie Clark, half of the fan-favorite pair Robbie Clark and the Hunger. It was played by Cinderblocksally. Over the course of Season 5 the cheerful buddy act turned out to be a cover: the Hunger was using its child as a vessel. It kept coming back after it seemed to be gone, and it finally won the first Chaos Royale, the four-way Season 5 finale, as Copycat’s brand-new backpack.
Story
Eldritch Fangs
The Hunger made its debut in S5E3, Eldritch Fangs - Ruby Rust v Robbie Clark and the Hunger, against the limbless snake Ruby Rust in a snowy arena. Robbie introduced it as the buddy he found on his big adventure. The Hunger introduced itself with “I will consume you!” Robbie explained, in the same chipper voice, that the two of them were there to stop evildoers “and eventually assimilating all biological life into one unified, wonderful flesh sack.” Its tendrils, “700 arms” of them and most with mouths, swarmed in front of anything that tried to hurt the boy. When it landed a perfect chomping bite, the bite healed it.
Things got darker when Robbie asked the Hunger to fetch “something cool” out of the Box of Chaos. A tendril reached in, and the Hunger offered the creature inside ten years of the child’s life. The color drained from Robbie’s face and he vomited up a red, pustule-like orb, which the box creature swallowed. In return they received a small blue pill that let Robbie keep fighting longer before exhaustion caught up with him. The pill “should keep you going all night long,” the box creature promised, adding, “If your deathmatch lasts longer than four hours, you should seek medical help,” and all of the Hunger’s tendrils suddenly went “really turgid.” Later, Robbie invoked “the power of friendship,” and the Hunger stabbed its tendrils into Robbie’s body. His eyes went black, veins crackled down his face, and the two became a single dark amalgamation. Thea, watching, concluded: “That’s what friendship looks like. How did I not recognize it?” Soon after, Robbie announced, “We are no longer Robbie.”
Not everything went smoothly inside that cocoon. At one point the child and the Hunger were seen fighting each other, and Robbie’s face briefly peeled out before he was re-entombed, and Ruby heard Robbie’s bones breaking as the Hunger forced him out. Once the Hunger had cracked Ruby’s beer helmet, it hid in the snow by camouflaging its tendrils. It then drove spikes up through the ground, and the fissure they tore open swallowed Ruby, who wedged between jagged rocks and, in his mind, reached for the ledge, forgetting yet again that he had no limbs. The Hunger unzipped like a cocoon, and Robbie stepped out looking spotless. Lamprey-like tentacles came down and drank up Ruby’s biomass. “It was sure fun playing!” Robbie called. The Acolytes gave the pair a standing ovation.
Ducks of Death
The pair returned as “an absolute fan favorite” in S5E7 — Ducks of Death — Robbie Clark & the Hunger v Bob the Barbarian, facing the shirtless, jort-clad Bob the Barbarian. A few wild Acolytes in the stands chanted its name. The Hunger opened by lashing three tentacles at Bob; two hit, one on each pec “just above the nipple.” It sucked the life out of the ground to keep Robbie on his feet, which turned the arena to near-desert and dried up the fountain. It vomited viscera and bits of cat onto Bob’s jorts, which the crowd answered with a chant of “Dirty jorts!” When Bob dug his hand into his jorts to throw shit poison at it, the Hunger ate the poop off his hand. When Thea asked whether it knew The aliens, Robbie said the Hunger “defies space and time.” He also admitted that his memory was full of blank spots, and that the Hunger had had his back “as far back as I can remember, which is about yesterday.”
The second trip to the box was worse than the first. This time the Hunger sacrificed Robbie’s memories of his birthdays, which came out as little pearls of light. In return it got the purely ornamental Shield of the Golden King, and Robbie thanked it for the “awesome present.” Then, in the middle of the fight, Robbie’s eyes met Bob’s. For a moment the child saw an adult who might be yearning for something Robbie had yearned for for a long time and forgotten. The Hunger shredded over his eyes at once. It explained itself plainly: “I prevent the child from connecting with another human so that I can best still wield him as a vessel.” When Thea opened her arms to hug Robbie, its tendrils blocked her like a wave: “It’s mine.” Thea turned away, embarrassed and slightly crying.
As Bob kept talking to the boy about Florida and promising “I care about you,” the Hunger grew more desperate. It pulled Robbie up like an eldritch marionette and drove a massive spine of eyes and barbs down on Bob. It pumped tendrils into Robbie’s ears and spoke through him in a different voice: “You will join me and he will forget that this ever happened. He will be happy and he will be mine.” What broke it in the end was not a punch but Bob calling it “a dirty bastard.” For the faintest second Robbie’s eyes went normal. “I think I want to be a Florida man too,” he said. He clawed his way out and took Bob’s hand. The Hunger writhed, sparkled into light and melted into bubbling ichor, leaving behind only an empty backpack.
Patriotic Punch Up
The Hunger was not as gone as it looked. In S5E9 — Patriotic Punch Up — Bob the Barbarian v Richard Knottley (Dick Twist), Richard Knottley showed Bob a video of Robbie locked in a padded room. “We actually picked up a remnant of the hunger after the end of your last battle,” he explained. “The hunger is about to eat Robbie again, if I die.” When Richard fell, he dropped the phone, and the live feed showed the Hunger eating Robbie. Bob vowed: “I won’t let the hunger take you again, son. Bet on it.”
Chaos Royal
By the Season 5 finale, S5E16, Chaos Royal (Season 5 finale), the first Chaos Royale (four-way), the Hunger had a new boy. Bobby Clark, “boy adventurer and herald of the ancient unifying flesh that is the hunger,” claimed to be eight because the Hunger told him so. He remembered almost nothing before “a couple weeks ago.” The Hunger fought Copycat, Tormiir and Richard Knottley. It took “a nice little meatball” out of Copycat’s leg and sprayed black bile from two cannon-like tentacles (“if you can’t get them with honey, get them with mayonnaise”). It shrugged off every attempt to electrocute it, including Thea’s static and a lightning bolt from the Lord of Fate. When Bobby wanted to stop attacking Copycat, who had hinted she could help him find his father, the Hunger cracked his arm back against his will.
Copycat then made it an offer: drop “the act of the kid” and team up. “I’ve always wanted a backpack.” The Hunger agreed. It tore itself off Bobby, who turned out to have no skin under his shirt, only a half-grown, translucent spine, and he crumbled like a puppet. The Hunger wrapped around Copycat and became her backpack. Together they grew a phone and a tablet from tendrils and fed Tormiir’s own mother to the Hunger, and Tormiir fell. The Hunger then built a giant puppet out of leftover hot dogs, the remnants of the dead minotaur mother and Tormiir’s body (“Preferred term is felted friend,” said Tormiir’s ghost). Richard’s last trick was a Peloton self-destruct sequence, which failed. The Hunger swallowed him whole, and he heard one voice, then hundreds in chorus: “welcome, welcome… You’re here. You’re with us. You’re loved.” Thea crowned Copycat and the Hunger the victors.
Personality and Abilities
The Hunger looks like a backpack that has given up pretending. Tentacles, eyes and teeth slurp out of it, it sometimes wears an eye-hat, and mouths and teeth grow from its tendrils. It is wired into its host’s spinal cord. During a bathroom-break chat (“Everyone poops, my lord,” Thea told the Lord of Fate), Robbie explained that it has no cloaca and an infinite stomach, “to hold all life so that we can all unify into one giant flesh sack.” It speaks in grand, cosmic pronouncements (“I am made of the infinite,” “Join the new flesh”) and gives its boy short commands like “Quiet, boy.” The boy, meanwhile, describes it as a crimefighting best friend.
Its powers are as varied as its appetite. It can suck out poison and drain a mountain or the soil through a taproot. It can entomb its host and possess him, camouflage itself as snow, spew spore polyps and spore smoke, and send spikes erupting through the ground. It also proved immune to electricity, could draw energy from the earth, and could shape phones and tablets out of its own tendrils. Its darkest talent is with memory. It traded away a child’s years and birthdays in the Box of Chaos and kept its boys from remembering where they came from, so that it could “wield him as a vessel.”
Relationships
- Robbie Clark: its first host and vessel, whom it called “my champion” while keeping him from forming any other bonds, until he broke free.
- Bob the Barbarian: the barbarian who freed Robbie from it and called it “a dirty bastard” to its face.
- Ruby Rust: its first opponent, whose biomass it drank.
- Thea: tried to hug Robbie and was blocked by its tendrils, but was charmed by the “power of friendship.”
- Richard Knottley: his people kept a remnant of it and fed Robbie back to it. It later swallowed him into its chorus.
- Copycat: its partner by mutual agreement. It became her backpack and won the Chaos Royale with her.
- Tormiir: fell to it after it devoured his mother, and his body became part of its felted friend.
Memorable Quotes
“I prevent the child from connecting with another human so that I can best still wield him as a vessel.” (S5E7)
- “I will consume you!” (S5E3)
- “I am made of the infinite.” (S5E7)
- “You will join me and he will forget that this ever happened. He will be happy and he will be mine.” (S5E7)
- “Foul flesh sculptor, your mimicry is admirable. I shall make it mine.” (S5E16)
- “welcome, welcome… You’re here. You’re with us. You’re loved.” (S5E16)