Literature / Stielauge Der Urkrebs

Stielauge der Urkrebs (German for Stalk-eye the Primal Crab) is a novel by the German author Batti Dohm, released in 1933.

It tells the story of the trilobite Stielauge in the primordial ocean.

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This book provides examples of:

• Four-Legged Insect: The creature Stielauge encounters in the desert is called "Kerfe", which means insect, but it has only four limbs and looks a bit like a scorpion.

• Absurdly Sharp Claws: Stielauges spikes are likened to turkish knives.

• Alien Sky: Over the second half of the book, the moon gets bigger and bigger or rather closer to earth
• All Just a Dream: After the boys see Stielauge's adventures in the end of the book, they wake up in the morning and it was All Just a Dream. Or was it?
• Alternate Animal Affection: Trilobites touch their antennas instead of kissing.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Stielauge meets various creatures, most of them are bigger than anything he's met before. The biggest is Kokk, the placoderm, and even he is dwarfed by the ray. Even the ray meets his end through the Worf Effect.
• Amnesiac Hero: Stielauge, due to not having a brain, doesn't remember anything ever.

• Anachronism Stew: Stielauge meets a human in chapter 10, despite the story taking place in the devonian age. Humanity actually survives until the modern age, where history pretty much works out like it really did (as far as the author was concerned)
• Ancient Rome: Roman intruders to the Eifel are briefly mentioned in the epilogue.
• Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag: It's repeatedly mentioned that Stielauge has no brain and acts purely on instinct, but all of his actions are told in an antropomorphised way, as if it was more than instinct. He is even seen talking with his love interest and other trilobites talk about him. In chapter seven it is handwaved that Gibberish of Love doesn't need intelligence anyway, so trilobites might as well be able to do it.
• Anyone Can Die: At first it seems like Stielauge has Plot Armor, as he survives lots of troubles against all odds, but then he finally succumbs to his injuries after fighting Kokk.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: Deliberately invoked by God when he uses the flood and the harsh desert conditions not only to wipe out weaker creatures but also to strenghten the stronger ones.
• Apocalypse How:

• Apocalypse Wow: Every major cataclysm is described in detail.
• Artistic License – Biology: Arthropods like trilobites do indeed have brains, despite the author repeatedly reminding us that Stielauge doesn't.
• Artistic License – Paleontology:
  • Despite Stielauge being called an "Urkrebs", which literally means "primal crab", trilobites are not crustaceans.
  • And then there's the whole humans since the devonian age thing.
  • Also, the first humans being described as blond while blond hair has only evolved much later. This is most likely a case of Humans Are White.
• Artistic License – Physics: The creation of the moon and the following disruptions on earth last less than a month.
  • Also, it's the second moon that earth had. In reality, there was only ever one moon for earth.
  • Third, in accord with the Welteislehre, the moon is made out of ice and only its core is made of stone and metal.
• Atlantis: Atlantis is a tropical island to the west of Gondwana, Stielauge's birthplace and his destination when he flees from the ice age.
  • Atlantis' existence in this book is based on a hypothesis by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess, who erroneously believed that in the Paleozoic there were two large continents in the Northern Hemisphere: "Atlantis", North America connected to Europe by a peninsula (=Greenland and Iceland); and "Angara-land", eastern Asia, named after the Angara River in Siberia. Angaraland also gets sometimes mentioned in the book, but it doesn't have a mythical counterpart like Atlantis.
  • Another famous sunken continent, Lemuria, is mentioned as being located at the other side of the world.
• Babies Ever After: What Stielauge and his love interest plan in chapter seven.
• Be the Ball: Like pill bugs and real trilobites, Stielauge and other trilobites roll into balls to shield themselves from damage.

• Bible Times: The early days of life on earth are likened to events from Genesis.
• Biblical Motifs: While the book describes evolution and several processes happening in ancient earth, it likens them to the first days of creation according to the bible. In the end of some chapters, there are even bible quotes which are part of the story.
• Big Brother Bully: Stielauge is this to Wangenhorn when he reaches maturity.
• Big Brother Instinct: Stielauge towards Wangenhorn when he first meets him.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Several examples:

• The horseshoe crab is even bigger and the first creature to be a real threat to Stielauge.
• The sea spider towers over Stielauge.
• Like the horseshoe crab, the millipede in chapter eight is almost half a meter long, but Stielauge never finds out if it's even alive.

• The Big Damn Kiss: Despite being not even named, the humans share one in chapter 10.
• Big Eater: Stielauge everytime he finds enough food.
• Brain Freeze: When Stielauge tries to eat hail because he mistakes it for some sort of jellyfish.
• Catch Your Death of Cold: Stielauge's illness is a sign of the impending ice age.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Goldfuß looks like one to the farmers and shepherds of the Eifel.
• Colony Drop: Happens with the moon. Twice!
• Color Failure: When the starfishes die in the great flood, their color fades (except for the black ones).
• Coming of Age Story: Stielauge starts the story very young, but finally reaches sexual maturity in a later chapter.
• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: At least the Welteislehre und Atlantis are real. The author even provides a list of books about both topics at the end of the book, but none about paleontology, the main inspiration for the book.
• Corpse Land: The coastal areas after the second moon is created and the tides started.
• Crapsack World: Every now and then a moon crashes on earth before another one is created, both events leading to cataclysms and floods, there are predators everywhere and before plants invade the land, it is a harsh, lifeless desert.
• Creator Provincialism: While most of the story takes place all over the world in the devonian age, the epilogue in the modern age takes place in the Eifel, where the author lived.
• Crossing the Desert: What Stielauge has to do when a storm drops him off in the middle of the desert.
• Dance of Romance: Stielauge performs a dance for his love interest in chapter seven.
• David Versus Goliath: Stielauge vs Krummhorn, and later the even bigger Kokk.
• Deal with the Devil: The ray is accused of making one to get his electric powers.
• A Death in the Limelight: The ray first appears in chapter 14, after Stielauge's death, is the protagonist of this chapter and then dies like all the other animals.
• Death World: Every other chapter, some major cataclysm destroys many lifeforms.

• Destroyer Deity: God invokes this for Population Control
• Determinator:
  • Stielauge when he runs towards his new wife in chapter 11. He doesn't even stop to eat.
  • All the animals when they flee from the ice age. They just swim and walk away from the cold, only stopping when they die or reach warmer waters.
  • When he finally dies, it's stated that Stielauge fought until the end, just as he had to fight for his whole life.
• Detonation Moon: What happened to the first moon. And later to the second one. And three others before today.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Most of chapter seven is dedicated to Steilauge's romance with a female trilobite, but they get separated during a fight against an ammonite and he doesn't find her again.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Stielauge manages to hurt Krummhorn enough to cause him to retreat despite being tiny in comparison.
  • Later, he manages to badly hurt and even partly blind the even bigger Kokk.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: At some point between Stielauge's death and the modern day, humanity has to deal with dragons. The timespan implies that they are dinosaurs. There's also a picture of one of those dragons which looks like a Slurpasaur and is surrounded by Pterosaurs.
• Disaster Scavengers:
  • Stielauge has to resort to this when he is dropped in the desert.
  • In chapter four, starfishes and brittle stars are mentioned to take advantage of the Corpse Land that is found at every coast.
• Distant Finale: The last two chapters tell the story of humanity from the catastrophe that killed off Stielauge until today and how the author found the fossil.
• Doomed by Canon: Stielauge lives in the Devonian age, so it's only natural that he doesn't survive until past the Permian Great Extinction.
• Duel to the Death: The General challenges Stielauge to one after our hero has insulted him, but he decides to let him live after he has beaten him. Stielauge however learned nothing from it.

• Dying Alone: Stielauge dies alone in the Great Disaster near the end of the book, far away from his wife.
• Eccentric Mentor: Stielauge sees himself as a mentor to the younger Wangenhorn he just met shortly before messing with another young trilobite for no particular reason.

• Eye Scream: Stielauge blinds Kokk by impaling his optic nerve from within.
• Fantasy Keepsake: After the boys find out that Stielauge's adventures were all just a dream, they really find Stielauge's spikes in Kokk's skull.
• First Love: The female trilobite from chapter seven is this for Stielauge
• First Snow: In chapter eight, Stielauge sees and feels his first hail.
• Fish out of Water: Stielauge when he finds himself in the desert after a storm.
• Fling a Light into the Future: Stielauge involuntarily does this by fossilizing after his death.
• Flying Seafood Special: Stielauge and the ray do this at different times in the book due to being hurled out of the water by a storm.
• Foregone Conclusion: We see Stielauge's fossil in the beginning of the book. Later, he dies and the fossilization process is described.
• Fossil Revival: In the end of the book, God revives Stielauge to show the boys all of his adventures. Then it turns out it was All Just a Dream.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: More like first date marriage. Stielauge and his wife marry immediately.

• Giant Enemy Crab: Invoked with Stielauge himself, who, once he reaces maturity, is an apex predator.
  • The horseshoe crab, like Stielauge not a real crustacean, is even bigger.
  • Then there's the "Panzerkrebs" (armored crab), whoe actually seems to be a crustacean and has a size of nearly half a meter
• Giant Spider: The sea spider, at least compared to Stielauge. Technically, it's not a spider, but it fits this trope.
• Giant Squid: Krummhorn is a giant ammonite.
• Gibberish of Love: Stielauge at first isn't able to say a word to his love interest, but he gets better.
• Gluttony Montage: Everytime Stielauge finds a place with lots of food, it's described in detail while he eats.
• Go for the Eye: Stielauge impales Kokks optic nerve from within.
• Good is Not Nice: Invoked with God, who realizes that in order to prevent an Overpopulation Crisis, he has to destroy a lot of life and make conditions harder in order to strenghten the survivors.
• The Great Flood: A flood happens near the end of the book when the moon is destroyed. In one of The Bible quotes it's specifically mentioned that God created it to wipe out humanity except for Noah and his family. However, this is later proven wrong since the only human surivors are shown to be the nameless and his wife and he is then given the name Manu.

• Grim Up North: While "Nordland" is a warm place at first, it's the first land to be hit by the ice age.
• Grumpy Old Man: Rauhschild
• Hand Wave: The explanation why trilobites without brains (Stielauge and his love interest) are able to talk to each other: Gibberish of Love doesn't need intelligence, anyway.
• The Hero Dies: Stielauge dies during one extinction event.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Stielauge saves his wife from Kokk and actually manages the fight him off, but in the next chapter, he dies from his injuries.
• Historical Domain Character: August Goldfuß, a german zoologist and paleontologist.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: "Bis über beide Ohren verliebt sein" (literally: to be in love over both ears), a German expression for being head over heels in love, is replaced with "Bis über beide Antennen verliebt sein" (literally: to be in love over both antennas).

• Humans Are Cthulhu: When Stielauge meets a human, it's described in detail as something bigger than a mountain and really terrible.
• Humans Are Special: Humanity existed since the devonian age and is the only species from back then to survive until today.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: There is a pretty detailed description of the human from Stielauge's point of view, and it's strange and terrible.
• Hypocrite: Stielauge himself only thinks about eating when he senses the pile of corpses in chapter five, but is disgusted when he sees that the starfish and brittle stars also gorge themselves on the corpses.
• I Ate WHAT?!: Stielauge mistakes hail for a jellyfish-like creature and tries to eat it, only to get a nearly fatal Brain Freeze.
• Idiot Hero: Stielauge is not able to think and acts purely on instinct.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Stielauge and other animals are absolutely stunned by the beautiful voice of the humans, even before it's revealed that the voice belongs to a human.
• Jerkass Realization: Stielauge after he gets beaten by the Panzerkrebs
• K Names: Kokk, the placoderm, manages to have a name which is 75% K and he's the most powerful monster Stielauge meets.
• Kid Hero: It is mentioned that Stielauge is too young to reproduce, but he finally reaches his final molt and maturity in chapter 6.
• Kill It Through Its Stomach: This is how Stielauge defeats Kokk.
• Kill It with Ice: Done by the ice age in chapter eight to a lot of animals.
• Killed Offscreen: After Stielauge's fight with Kokk, we see Stielauge succumb to his injuries. Later it's revealed that Kokk died even before Stielauge from his own injuries.
• Kiss of Distraction: Though not intentional, the female human distracts the male with a kiss long enough for Stielauge to flee.
• Laugh of Love: Stielauge's love interest in chapter seven does this sometimes.
• Let's Duet: Stielauge and his love interest sing a song together.
• Level Ate: How Stielauge sees the black mud with all the prey animals in it.
• Local Reference: Stielauge is based on a specificl trilobite fossil the author found near his home, and the epilogue tells a brief version of the place's human history including the finding of the fossil.
• The Lost Lenore: It's not clear if she's dead, but Stielauge's wife definitely disappears after his fight with Kokk.
• Love at First Note: Stielauge falls in love with the female trilobite in chapter seven before seeing her just because of her voice.
• Love Cannot Overcome: In a variation, Stielauge's love interest is nowhere to be found after he fought a monster for her and he, being an Amnesiac Hero, promptly forgets her.
• Love Floats: Non-supernatural example. Due to living under water, Stielauge swims and does a three-dimensional dance of love.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Stielauge attacks Krummhorn despite being many times smaller and weaker.
  • Also, this is used to justify why Stielauge and his love interest are able to talk to each other. Gibberish of Love doesn't need intelligence, so brainless trilobites might as well be able to do it.
• Love Redeems: After his jerkass-episode, Stielauge noticabely calms down after meeting his love interest.
• Lunacy: The moon is created by God in order to destroy a lot of lifeforms to prevent an Overpopulation Crisis.
  • Later in the book, it is noted that the moon controls the animals of the sea and is the reason for Stielauges jerkass behaviour and his love episode.
• Mama Bear: When all animals flee from the ice age, those who are mothers are the only ones that still aggressively defend themselves and their offspring.
• Meaningful Name: Stielauge is German for stalked eye. His genus, Cyphaspis, really had stalked eyes.
  • There are also Wangenhorn (en. cheek horn) and Rauhschild (en. rough shield)
• Medieval Stasis: Or rather stone age stasis. Humanity apparently lived from the devonian age until roughly 13,000 years ago without any technological advances, only to develop technology like we did in real life since then.
• Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: Stielauge and his love interest play this straight.
• Mind-Control Music: The sound in chapter five stuns Stielauge and other animals because it's so beautiful.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Stielauge meets the first human in Atlantis. While the first humans really appeared in Africa (and hundreds of millions of years later than in the book), Atlantis is really seen as the origin of humanity by Atlantis-fanatics.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Kokk is described as "Panzerfish", which means he is a placoderm, but he also has elements of lobe-finned fishes as well.
• Most Writers Are Human: The writer wouldn't have to include humans in the devonian age or an epilogue where humans find Stielauge's fossil for the story, so it seems to be due to this trope.
• Mouse World: Due to trilobites and most other animals back in the devonian age being much smaller than humans, the 0.5m long Panzerkrebs and several other normal-sized invertebrates appear as giant monsters.
  • When Stielauge later meets a human, it picks him up with one hand and tries to eat him.
• My Own Private "I Do": Stielauge and his love interest decide to marry in secret. They never do it since they loose each other.
  • Later, when he meets the trilobite who would eventually (that means, this very night) become his wife, they marry in her cave with no guests present.
• The Nameless: The humans. It's implied that they are Adam and Eve before God calls the male Manu near the end of the book.
• Nearly Normal Animal: Stielauge could count as ANA, despite acting purely on instinct.
  • It's later revealed that the trilobites can even talk to each other, but it's not Animal Talk because they can't talk to other species.
• No Export for You: The book was never released in English, which might have something to do with it being released in Germany during World War II.
• No Romantic Resolution: The romantic arc in chapter seven just ends when Stielauge's love interest disappears while he fights Krummhorn and he forgets her afterwards due to not having a brain. His marriage ends in a similar way after fighting Kokk.

• Nubile Savage: The first humans are depicted naked in the pictures.
• Ocean Awe: After being thrown onto the land, Stielauge does everything he can to get back to the ocean.

• Our Dragons Are Different: The ray is described as a dragon twice. Later, dinosaurs are described as dragons.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: It's mentioned that between the age of dinosaurs and the modern age, humanity had to deal with giants.
• Overpopulation Crisis: God knows that this will happen if he doesn't use Population Control
• Pale Females, Dark Males: While Stielauge is described as black, his love interest is said to be green with black higlights.
  • Later, when he meets his wife, we see a picture of them, with him being remarkabley darker.
• Papa Wolf: Stielauge attacks the much bigger Kokk when he threatens his wife and eggs.
• Playing Hard to Get: Stielauges love interest in chapter 7 does this despite obviously being in love with him and even planning to have children together.
• Poison Is Evil: The yellow starfish in chapter 5 that uses poison to kill its prey is depicted in a much more negative light than other predators.

• Population Control: God creates the moon in order to cause storms and kill of most life on earth.
• Predation Is Natural: Stielauge views most creatures as his food
• Purple Prose: The whole book is written in a very flowery way with many details.
• Quest for Sex: While the book definitely isn't a Quest for Sex, when Stielauge runs to reach his future wife, it's noted that everything he did up until now was to build up this moment.
• Reduced to Ratburgers: When Stielauge has to eat a sea cucumber because there's nothing else to eat, he views it as the most disguisting food he's ever eaten.
• Scary Scorpions: The creature Stielauge encounters in the desert looks a bit like a scorpion, but is only called "Kerfe", an old German word for insects.
• Scenery Gorn: Every time when a major cataclysm destroys life on earth, for example in chapter two and four, it is described in every detail.
• Scenery Porn: The Scenery Gorn in chapter four is interrupted by detailed descriptions of how plants conquered dry land and made it green.
• Science Marches On:
  • Trilobites are not crustaceans. They were, however, classified as such in the 1930s.
  • The book makes frequent allusion to the Welteislehre that was very popular in Germany back when it came out, but is now regareded as completely wrong.
  • The dragon, which is obviously a dinosaur, looks nothing like modern depictions of dinosaurs.
• Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: Stielauge seems to live for several million years and sees lots of other species coming and going. Or all those events happen within a much shorter timespan than in real life.
• Second Love: Stielauge ends up marrying the female trilobite he meets in chapter 11, long after his first love.
• Secondary Sexual Characteristics: The female trilobite is described as being much more slender and elegant than the more robust Stielauge.
• Secret Relationship: Nobody ever finds out about Stielauge's relationship in chapter seven, but it's only intentional on her side.
• See Water: Justified since all characters are aquatic animals and this their eyes are made for seeing underwater.
• Sex Is Good: When Stielauge and his wife finally mate, it's treated as something that God himself approves of.
• Shock and Awe: The ray uses electricity to hunt.
• Shown Their Work: Despite some cases of daated science and Artistic License, the writer also shows good knowledge about trilobites. For example, Stielauge has to go through a molt early in the book, and rolls into a ball when threatened, like real trilobites did. It's also noted that crinoids are indeed animals and that their young are not sessile.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: God towards all life.
• Slurpasaur: The "dragon" looks like this
• The Snack Is More Interesting: When Stielauge gets chased by a horseshoe crab and finds a pile of delicious animals, he quickly forgets that he's fleeing and only has eyes for the food.
• Snow Means Death: The result of the ice age in chapter eight.
• Sociopathic Hero: Stielauge, due to only acting on instinct, doesn't show any regard for the lives of others and happily eats other creatures if he is hungry. Despite that, he still sees them as his subjects.

• Spoiler Title: Chapter 13 is called "Und so starb Stielauge" (And that's how Stielauge died)
• Starfish Language: The trilobites communicate by touching each others antennas and vibrating them.
• Super-Persistent Predator: The horseshoe crab seems like this at first, but Stielauge manages to shake it off.
• Swallowed Whole: Kokk swallows Stielauge, but that's exactly what Stielauge had in mind.

• Technicolor Toxin: The venomous starfish has a bright yellow color.
• Teens Are Monsters: When Stielauge reaches maturity, he becomes a jerk before finally reverting to a more calm personality. It's noted that this fate befalls every creature with puberty.
• Temporary Bulk Change: In chapter eight, Stielauge finds himself near the southern shore of the northern continent, where there is lots of food. He eats until he's fat, which later helps him survive the ice age.
• Terrestrial Sea Life: Stielauge and some other aquatic animals sometimes find themselves on land, either intentionally or not.
• Thirsty Desert: Everywhere on land before the first plants get a hold there.
• Threatening Shark: Kokk is not a shark but a placoderm, but he nonetheless plays this trope straight.

• The Unapologetic: After Stielauge insults the General, he doesn't apologize, which causes the General to beat him in a duel.
• Weird Moon: It's actually the second moon. And there are at least three more to come before the modern age.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Both of Stielauges love interests disappear from the story when he fights some kind of giant animal for them and we never hear about their fates.

• The Worf Effect:
  • The adult Stielauge is stated as an apex predator for whom every creature is nothing more than food, but immediately after it is told that even he is small and insignificant compared to God. Cue God creating a great flood in which Stielauge only barely avoids being killed.
  • Later in the book, Stielauge meets various creatures that prey on him.
  • In chapter 14, the ray's power and superiority to all other marine life is described for several pages, only for him to die in The Great Flood
• Write What You Know: Author Batti Dohm was a geologist and paleontologist, so it's only natural for him to write about trilobites.
• Xenofiction: The story is told from the point of view of a trilobite.

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