Van is not a question of how much he wants him to grow, it is a question of Van not sparing expenses in food matters, the worst problem of parenting will not be the number of children, it will be that Van cannot stop spoiling them and is almost incapable of correcting it (Just like most mothers, the most serious ones like zadiris or iris are basically going to have to carry it alone in that matter). I had some funny thoughts there, I imagine that at least one of the children will be like a kinder version of nurgle, but then I thought that the way things are going, the entire 40k pantheon would be born, maybe even a god emperor (if not to consider to Van practically its equivalent on a smaller scale), who would be the mother of each one? and another funny thing was that a hypothetical son between Van and pauvina was born as a 3-meter version of adam from record of ragnarok, but because of his orc genes, he would covet having a body with the perfect proportion between fat and muscle, a gutural manly voice and the perfect bowl hairstyle, instead of his body that would make davince gouge out his eyes for there is nothing more anatomically perfect, his genderless voice that equally conveys a fatherly feeling that makes you want to trust him with your existence and his blonde hair that it seems never to have been touched by a single speck of dust.
Other way around, isn't it? Pete has anti dragon abilities because he likes eating them. But the distinction is admittedly a petty one.
Have we all forgotten that Van grew up in a "cannibal" society that eats their enemies out of sheer necessity? As Saphira tells Eragon, "I am not about to apologize to anyone for the source of my sustenance." When the choice is between eating your enemies, who intend to kill you for bodyparts, and take your women to rape and enslave, or starving in a land where it's almost constant famine, and your biology doesn't allow you to leave said land easily, it's hardly surprising the culture teaches the former.
Neither Van nor his followers are cannibals. None of the ghouls have ever eaten other ghouls. Same for everyone else. A ghoul eating a human is not cannibalism.
Van didn't grow up in a cannibal society, he grew up in Japan. None of the people he knows eat people out of necessity anymore either. They do it because it's yummy. Remember, he almost razed the Noble Orc Kingdom simply because they're delicious. Though personally I don't care for pork, so I don't get the appeal. Maybe if they were the Minotaur or Harpy nation.
Yes, Van grew in Japan and Japaneses eat anything. If it moves it is food. The only thing Japaneses don't eat are human, because they are humans too. Van is not human, he is Dhampir, so he can eat anything if it is not Dhampir. If he eat Dhampir it would be cannibalism (but he have eaten himself, so he don't really care about it too).
would it be any dhampir or specifically a dark elf descended dhampir? Would it need to be descended from the chaos elf progenitor? Since Van is a demigod and descendant of the chaos elf progenitor also possessing the blood of Vida his conditions for cannibalism are quite steep. For that matter has Van eaten human meat?
Arguing cannibalism in this series is just weird, saying it's normal for ghouls to eat humans because they aren't human is forgetting that with their low birth rates ghouls have had to rely on their conversion ritual more than the other new Vida races, so most of those ghouls were human and have human sensibilities. No the real questionable thing in the most recent chapter was using the worship of Vida and adoration of Jeena, to feed colossus meat to Titans, that's like going up to a Christian after mass with "hey you really like Jesus huh, I happen to have a chunk of God meat right here, wanna have a barbecue?" though Van would throw in the angel blood and wings as part of the service.
If cows get mad cow disease after eating other cows, what happens to colossi who eat other colossi? Maybe they'll go crazy, climb tall plants and start making up weird poetry. "Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of Vida's son. Be he man or be he ghost I'll swear my allegiance to his host."
IIRC, Mad cow disease did not come form nowhere. It is caused by feeding Cows the remains of other cows that have certain traits (basically the remains of infected cows, and IIRC it only really comers from certain parts of the body) likely it originated from a genetic mutation and takes years to develop. But in a world with healing magic, or whatever built in function these long lived races have to prevent Cancer, it is likely easily curable. Not that it is not without risk, or unethical, but it likely not problem medically.
Cannibalism actually is a fantastic way to spread disease, so you're not wrong. Iirc life magic isn't actually much good for cancer, right? I think Van said something about that. Life magic healing usually influxes the patient with loads of healing energy which just makes cancer grow faster. For something like cancer you actually want death magic for targeted destruction.
Amamiya Hiroto grew up in Japan, with their cultural sensibilities. Experiment D-01 grew up in an Origin laboratory. Vandalieu grew up in a ghoul tribe thanks to a certain adventurer taking a hand-delivered note stating Van's mother was a high-ranking member of an evil cult as fact and then fleeing when the hunters who ratted Darcia out openly bragged in a tavern, to the cheering of the townsfolk, that they only did so because she wouldn't spread her legs for their leader Orbie, forcing Van into going on the run as an infant. This adventurer then spent the next 10 years telling himself, and anyone who will listen, that he seeks to end the systematic oppression while at the same time still being seen as a "hero" to the very system doing the oppressing, and fails to notice how contradictory those two goals are.
I will translate your post to current Earth situation. I am white, if I eat black person will it be cannibalism? Because he is different, he is black, so it should not be cannibalism. Dhampir is race name and all dhampirs are dhampirs.
Maybe because ketchup goes well with meat ? After all, even if you are a cannibal, you need condiments to enhance the taste of your food, especially when you can't get some fava beans and a nice Chianti ...
Not really. A dark elf dhampir and a human dhampir are like a leopon and a tigon, aka leopard/lion hybrid and tiger/lion hybrid. I don't think the story is making that distinction, but dark elves and humans are not the same species, so any hybrid made with a vampire should really be pretty genetically distinct. But then again, all these races can bear fertile offspring together apart from elves and dwarves, so in one sense you could say they actually are all the same species. For the record, by the way, I've been using cannibalism to refer to any intelligent being eating another comparably intelligent being. I know it's not scientifically accurate but it's a pretty common use of the word in fiction. I won't insist on anyone else matching my definition, but I think it's helpful to be clear on things.
Okkkkkk, science time. First, linguistics. The definition of insane, as it applies to Van is listed in the dictionary as some variation of this: Seems very correct to me. Insane should not be confused with silly crazy, it is more of the psychotic side. Second, cannibalism. It limits to species, a titan eating a colossus is probably closer in analogy to a wolf eating a pet dog. From memory, there are species on Earth that practice it, but they aren't many. Humans have indeed practiced cannibalism... again from memory, consuming the placenta was supposedly a thing, consuming part of the dead as a funeral rite is definitely a thing. The example I specifically remember is roughly the cremation of the body with the resulting ash being baked into bread. The practice is "make a bit of the departed a bit of you, such that the ancestors remain in the tribe after they died"? The taboo status in most cultures is probably an expansion of human instincts about the dignity and desecration of the dead with some of the soul related religious views mixed in. If I'm honest, that whole part was a touch weird even if I can rationalize it. Next, theology ... Have you heard of this really weird Catholic thing called transubstantiation? The principle is roughly that, at some point in the whole process of communion, the "substance" of the bread and wine becomes the literal body and blood of Jesus. The best I understand it is that it's the divine version of high level polymorph... "she might be physical the same as a human but she's actually a pretty angry dragon" ... so yeah, take that as you will. And finally, medicine. So here's the deal with mad cow disease: it's entirely the fault of humans being horrible to animals. The actual condition itself, BSE, is straightforward. It's not a genetic mutation in the normal sense, nor is it from eating cows in the general sense. It's a particularly nasty thing called a prion disease, it's incurable and causes physical damage to the brain/CNS so good luck with healing magic. I can't remember what the consensus is on how patient zero comes about, but prions are screwed up versions of a very common protein, they hang out in your brain and do horrible things... thankfully they are rare, can't be jump species, and are effectively not contagious. Or at least they are if you don't do really stupid things. BSE happens to be an odd case where it works on humans as well as cows due to common proteins, so it doesn't have to jump to us. They're only rare when naturally occurring, the damn thing is suddenly everywhere once it is given the transmissible requirements. Because you can get a prion disease by eating flesh that's infected with them, think parasites only way more lethal. So summary goes: Cow gets BSE and becomes deaded; Idiot human uses the cow's brain and other infected tissue as part of cow feed; BSE prions are now in the food, so more cows get infected; repeat until you have a national health crisis. Somewhere in this process another idiot human manages to contaminate human-grade beef with cow-grade prions, now you have CJD and mass panic. It really shouldn't be a concern if you're not dealing with a species that practices cannibalism with high frequency. Though, I should mention that there are a handful of human prion diseases and we know relatively little about them, so that's fun. This is a surprising unhelpful definition ... there are a massive number of species on Earth that could be said to have a reasonable level of intelligence and humans eat quite a few. Sapience is the rare one.
Intelligent is very relative thing. Lion can be said is intelligent life form and he eats other life forms who are of very similar intelligent level. So, lions and all other predators will be cannibals. They will not be cannibals if they eat humans, because intelligent level of lion and human are very different.
I get the Douglas Adams argument with the talking cow. However anything I can have a conversation with I will not be eating myself. Titans being the offspring of Vida and a Colossus, not telling them in advance what they were eating was a bit of a jerk move. If they were informed and ate colossus meat anyway that's on them. I view fantasy cannibalism as any official playable race eating another on the list. Humans and elves aren't the same species but should have the same ick factor when you get caught eating a neighbor.