History Main / MonsterWhale

* ''ComicBook/SubMariner'': The Giganto are a race of Altantean beasts that resemble whales with arms and legs. Their origins are unknown, but are said to have been genetically engineered by the Deviants. They sleep on the ocean floor until wakened/summoned by whoever blows the Horn of Proteus. When Prince Namor believed that the surface world was destroying {{Atlantis}}, he blew the Horn of Proteus to awaken a Giganto and unleashed it on the surface world. Since then, various Gigantos have been summoned either by Namor or others who have managed to get their hands on the Horn of Proteus and sent to unleash mass destruction.

* Though its descendants, the modern sperm whales, were probably the original inspirations behind the depiction of whales as monsters, the prehistoric whale ''Livyatan melvillei'' may very well be the closest to actually living up to the image. At an estimated forty to fifty-seven feet long, it was one of the largest predators to have ever lived, living up to its Biblical namesake. An apex predator in the Miocene oceans of 10-8 mya, it not only competed with the giant shark ''megalodon'', who lived alongside it, it may have been the only species the giant shark genuinely ''[[HorrifyingTheHorror feared]]''.

Given how old this trope is, it goes without saying that many of the examples are not particularly accurate to real whales. They may combine features of various species together -- it's not uncommon to see a sperm whale depicted with the massive teeth of an orca and the grooved throat of a baleen whale, for example. It's also very common for these creatures, especially in cases where an individual whale or a specific breed is noted to be much more aggressive than normal, to be white. Other times, especially in older works from the Middle Ages and earlier, they might not look like whales at all, instead being an example of InformedSpecies. Check a medieval map, and you'll often find strange creatures with boarlike tusks and fish scales, only discernible as a whale by the waterspouts from their head. As a general rule, historic depictions of water monsters didn't always sharply distinguish between types of aquatic creatures, meaning that concepts such as "dragon", "sea serpent", "monstrous fish" and "monstrous whale" tended to be much more porous and flexible than a modern audience might expect.

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: In the ComicBook/WonderGirl Impossible Tale in issue 111 a giant whale that looks like a combination sperm and pilot whale attacks Renno the merboy and a sea-centuar. Diana saves them by tricking the massive whale into attacking its own reflection until it knocks itself out.

* ''Literature/MobyDick'': The title character is undoubtedly one of the most iconic examples of this trope. He's an incredibly destructive and fearsome albino sperm whale who's so notorious for killing whalers and destroying their vessels that he's speculated in-universe to be some kind of malevolent supernatural entity.

* ''VideoGame/CthulhuSavesTheWorld'': One of the optional bosses is the Fire Whale, a [[TerrestrialSeaLife land-dwelling]] whale with fire powers who is fought in the Swamps of Despair, guarding the Fire Tome in the treasure chest.

* The Trolual (a Latinized form of "trolval", meaning troll-whale), is one of the more familiar sights on Renaissance ocean maps. It's a type of tusked whale large enough to have vegetation growing on its back, and it's known to take a proactive approach in killing humans by crushing and capsizing their ships.

Given how old this trope is, it goes without saying that many of the examples are not particularly accurate to real whales. They may combine features of various species together -- it's not uncommon to see a sperm whale depicted with the massive teeth of an orca and the grooved throat of a baleen whale, for example. It's also very common for these creatures, especially in cases where an individual whale or a specific breed is noted to be much more aggressive than normal, to be white. Other times, especially in older works from the Middle Ages and earlier, they might not look like whales at all, instead being an example of InformedSpecies. Check a medieval map, and you'll often find strange creatures with boarlike tusks and fish scales, only discernible as a whale by the waterspouts from their head.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedUAqopPBg This video]] depicts the Bloop (an unidentified sound from the Southern Ocean that has often been associated with sea monsters in pop culture) as a gigantic, ferocious whale, which [[BehemothBattle fights an equally huge eel]] called El Gran Maja.

* ''WebOriginal/CodexInversus'': Armor whales are ferocious beasts covered in lobster-like armor. They are aggressive predators that mainly hunt krakens, but will readily attack ships due to mistaking them for prey.

* [[This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedUAqopPBg]] depicts the Bloop (an unidentified sound from the Southern Ocean that has often been associated with sea monsters in pop culture) as a gigantic, ferocious whale, which [[BehemothBattle fights an equally huge eel]] called El Gran Maja.

* In ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', cachalots are described as hulking monstrosities who are mostly teeth and jaws. Anyone not familiar with archaic species names might be forgiven for thinking that Creator/JulesVerne was describing mythical beasts rather than sperm whales. That being said, this is a bit of a {{deconstruction}}, as Nemo's wanton slaughter of them to protect a pod of baleen whales (which [[ArtisticLicenseBiology sperm whales don't even prey on]]) is not portrayed in a positive light: [[GreatWhiteHunter professional harpooner]] Ned Land [[EveryoneHasStandards doesn't bother hiding his contempt]], and the massacre serves as an early indicator of Nemo's less savory side. The message is clear: even if they are monstrous, that doesn't give humans the right to massacre them wholesale.

* ''WebOriginal/{{Mortasheen}}'' has a huge variety of [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampiric sea animals]], but the largest of them is the [[https://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/vampiathan.htm Vampiathan]] -- a vampire whale that feeds by engulfing prey in its cavernous mouth and draining it of its blood.

So it's no surprise that, for centuries, it was very common for whales to be portrayed as {{Sea Monster}}s. Creepily enigmatic at best and outright malevolent at worst, whales were frequently cast in a negative light. For centuries (even millennia in some places), the most common image of a whale in many cultures was a violent, ravenous beast that devoured everything it could and destroyed whatever it couldn't. Tales abounded of unlucky people being SwallowedWhole by whales, to the point that "{{belly of the whale}}" became a common metaphor to describe a dangerous and difficult to escape situation. Sperm whales in particular were hit with this image, due to how dangerous they were to hunt.

* ''ComicBook/SubMariner'': The Giganto are a race of Altantean beasts that resemble whales with arms and legs. Their origins are unknown, but are said to have been genetically engineered by the Deviants. They sleep on the ocean floor until wakened/summoned by whoever blows the Horn of Proteus. When Prince Namor believed that the surface world was destroying Atlantis, he blew the Horn of Proteus to awaken a Giganto and unleashed it on the surface world. Since various Gigantos have been summoned either by Namor or others who have managed to get their hands on the Horn of Proteus and sent to unleash mass destruction.

* Icelandic folklore generally didn't depict real whale species this way, especially not the blue whale, which was imagined as benevolent and heroic. However, it did have some ''imagined'' whale species called illhveli (equivalent to either "hell whales" or "evil whales") that fit this trope to a "t", being devoted to the destruction of humans and benign whales and taking sadistic pleasure in the death and devastation they cause. Notable species include the raudkembingur ("redcomb"), a bloodthirsty predator that will die of frustration if its prey escapes it; the mouse-faced mushveli, which can clamber on land to pursue targets; they stökkull ("jumper"), which has eyes obscured by hanging folds of skin and leaps in the air to smash ships to flinders; the sverdhvalur, which uses its sword-like dorsal fin to slice ships open; and the cowlike nauthveli, which lures cattle into the sea to kill them. The sole exception is the skeljungur, which is described as NotAlwaysEvil (and unlike other illhveli, its flesh is edible).

* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'': Jeremiah Whitewhale is a human-sized anthropomorphic whale who is a monster in the metaphorical sense: a CorruptCorporateExecutive who mistreats and even [[BadBoss outright murders]] his own employees. He is still a "giant" in the business sense and "swallows" smaller companies by buying them out similarly to how a real whale swallows its small prey.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyrios_(whale) Porphyrios]], a large whale (either a sperm whale or a unusually large orca) which harassed and sank ships for over fifty years in the waters near Constantinople in the sixth century. Porphyrios was so terrifying that many ships took detours around the waters where the whale most commonly swam.

* In ''LightNovel/ReZero'', the White Whale is a demonic land whale that has been TheDreaded for 400 years. If a giant flying whale that hunts people isn't terrifying enough, it also possesses a mystical fog that's capable of {{Ret Gone}}ing anyone it touches and erasing all trace of them from history.

** The Kushan Empire can mutate animals into shock troops, [[https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/Makara including a whale that takes on elephant characteristics like a long trunk]], reverting to its original form once killed.
** A trolual appears during the Elf Island arc to highlight the mythical world merging with the real one. Thankfully it doesn't attack or even come within sight of the ship, [[https://mangapark.net/manga/berserk/i2073019/v35/c308/8 it just shows up]] to eat a {{Sea Serpent|s}} [[SummonBiggerFish that was about to eat a seabird]].

* In ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', cachalots are described as hulking monstrosities who are mostly teeth and jaws. Anyone not familiar with archaic species names might be forgiven for thinking that Creator/JulesVerne was describing mythical beasts rather than sperm whales. That being said, this is a bit of a deconstruction, as Nemo's wanton slaughter of them to protect a pod of baleen whales (which [[ArtisticLicenseBiology sperm whales don't even prey on]]) is not portrayed in a positive light: [[GreatWhiteHunter professional harpooner]] Ned Land [[EveryoneHasStandards doesn't bother hiding his contempt]], and the massacre serves as an early indicator of Nemo's less savory side. The message is clear: even if they are monstrous, that doesn't give humans the right to massacre them wholesale.

* Though its descendants, the modern sperm whales, were probably the original inspirations behind the depiction of whales as monsters, the prehistoric whale ''Livyatan melvillei'' may very well be the closest to actually living up to the image. At an estimated forty to fifty-seven feet long, it was one of the largest predators to have ever lived, living up to its Biblical namesake. An apex predator in the Miocene oceans of 10-8 mya, it not only competed with the giant shark ''{{megalodon}}'', who lived alongside it, it may have been the only species the giant shark genuinely ''[[HorrifyingTheHorror feared]]''.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonUranium'': Leviathao, one of the Sea Monster Trio of Legendary Pokémon that roam the seas of Tandor, is a gigantic narwhal-like sea monster. Its horn can penetrate solid steel, earning it its nickname of "the Unstoppable Spear", and it constantly battles the serpent-like Baitatao and octopus-like Krakanao for dominance over the seas.

* One of the optional bosses in ''VideoGame/CthulhuSavesTheWorld'' is the Fire Whale, a [[TerrestrialSeaLife land-dwelling]] whale with fire powers who is fought in the Swamps of Despair, guarding the Fire Tome in the treasure chest.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'', whales are hunted by humans (as they are in RealLife), but are monstrous borderline EldritchAbomination versions of the creatures we'd recognise. They have giant razor teeth, tentacle-like protrusions around their mouths, and some connection to [[EldritchLocation The Void]]. Pandyssia, the native land of the plaguebearing rats, is also said to be home to land dwelling variants.

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', Bismarck is the Primal worshiped by the Vanu Vanu as "the White". It's a massive, whale-shaped monster with no eyes, wing-like fins covered in feathers, and a massive gaping maw with MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily. Unusually for this trope, this whale ''flies'', forcing the Warrior of Light to do battle with it atop an airship.

* ''VideoGame/{{Alundra 2}}'' features an entire level inside the belly of a gigantic whale, [[GentleGiant once very gentle]], but now a rampaging cyborg demon whale. The player had to escape the enormous cetacean's body (now a mishmash of a WombLevel and EternalEngine) by returning it to normal.
* One world in ''VideoGame/SuperMonkeyBall'' takes place inside a whale that has swallowed entire cities (and is even called ''Inside a Whale''). In ''Super Monkey Ball 2'''s Story Mode, the whale swallows [=AiAi=] and his friends along with Dr. Bad-Boon, and the player must complete ten stages to access the next cutscene, where the monkeys try to escape. The world also hosts ten various stages in Challenge Mode that differ between different games in the franchise.

* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': In the episode "[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS04E04Doppelganger Doppelganger]]", a malevolent alien parasite sets up shop inside people's minds to induce [[YourWorstNightmare their worst nightmares]]. Rodney's worst nightmare is being alone at sea, stalked by a monstrous whale that wants to swallow him. Apparently, his father had read ''Literature/MobyDick'' to him as a child.

* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio'': Lorenzini's KarmicTransformation, in reflection of his greedy and mean spirited nature, is being turned into a gigantic Monstro-like sea monster with [[UncannyValley human teeth]] and four flippers.