∇
troperville

∇
tools

∇
toys

SubpagesAnalysis
Awesome
Characters
FanficRecs
Funny
Haiku
Headscratchers
Heartwarming
HighOctaneNightmareFuel
Laconic
Literature
Main
NightmareFuel
Quotes
TearJerker
Trivia
WMG
YMMV

main index

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

random

Subpages:

Literature: The Ugly Barnacle

The most unforgettable scene from The Film of the Book.

"Once, there was an ugly barnacle. He was so ugly that everyone died. The end."

—The opening and ending lines

"The Ugly Barnacle" is a classic Short Story in the Pacific literary canon, the authorship of which is generally attributed to one Patrick Star. According to legend, Star improvised "The Ugly Barnacle" in an attempt to cheer up his friend, a Mr. Spongebob Squarepants, who was suffering from a case of the ugly at the time.^note Unfortunately, the story didn't help at all.

Despite the fact that "Barnacle" failed to accomplish its initial goal, it eventually found its way to Bikini Bottom's intellectual community, which hailed the story for its harsh realism, innovative use of minimalism, and detailed characterization. Slowly but surely, the story spread from Bikini Bottom to the rest of the world.

An animated film adaptation of the tale, also titled "The Ugly Barnacle", was produced in 2000. Unusually, the movie is both a Film Of The Book and a Biopic, as it focuses on both the legendary story and the events surrounding its creation. The film managed to avoid many problems commonly faced by page-to-screen adaptations, a fact which many critics attributed to Star's heavy involvement in the film-making process. Experience this work of art here.

and now in Spanish

Another film adaptation is planned for a 2014 release and will be directed by the legendary Patrick Star.

Tropes provided by "The Ugly Barnacle":

Affectionate Parody: Of "The Ugly Duckling".
Ambiguous Situation: A number of tantalizing details are left out. We aren't told, for instance, how or why everyone dies, nor whether or not that includes the barnacle itself. Similarly, the barnacle's relationships with the rest of the cast are quite vague.
All Just a Dream: Sort of. In the end, it turns out to to be a story Patrick was telling to SpongeBob himself.
The Aloner: If the barnacle didn't die in the end, he probably became one of these.
And Man Grew Proud: One interpretation of the barnacle, of how it became ugly enough to kill everyone and of how, and why, we still tell its harrowing tale.
Anti-Hero: Possibly.
Anyone Can Die: And everyone does in the end.
Apocalypse How: Could be Species Extinction, could also be Total Extinction, the latter depending on whether you interpret everyone dying as including things like plant life and bacteria.
Apocalypse Wow: See above.
Artifact of Doom: Another interpretation of the barnacle.
The Bad Guy Wins: The ending could be this, assuming the barnacle is evil.
Bad Powers, Bad People: Possibly.
Barnacle of Mass Destruction
Beautiful Void
Beauty Equals Goodness: And conversely, ugliness equals evil.
- Possibly inverted if one considers the Barnacle to be the hero of the story and everyone else to be irredeemable bullies.
- Alternately, it could be an exaggeration by showing the aforementioned counterpart to the trope.
Beige Prose: The barnacle's plight is narrated in the most blunt manner possible.
Beyond the Impossible: It shouldn't be possible for someone to be so ugly that everyone dies, yet the ugly barnacle does it.
Bittersweet Ending: Another interpretation of the ending. Everyone died but at least they don't live in a world with an ugly barnacle.
Black Comedy: To some, the story is a hilarious nihilistic take on children's stories.
Book Ends: The first three and last three lines are identical.
Brown Note
Character Title: The titular Ugly Barnacle.
Chekhov's Gun: Early in the story, Patrick mentions that the barnacle is ugly. The barnacle's ugliness kills everyone later on.
Cosmic Horror Story: If mere BARNACLES are enough to Kill 'em All, imagine what other things in the ocean are able to do.. Not a lot, since they're all dead.
Crapsack World and/or Crapsaccharine World: In the Barnacleverse, the existence of a single unattractive crustacean is enough to trigger the Apocalypse. Despite this, Patrick narrates the tale like a bedtime story, and originally told it as an attempt to cheer up Spongebob.
Cruel Twist Ending: Without giving too much away, the ending is pretty merciless.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Nobody had any chance of stopping the Barnacle from killing everyone.
- Technically unspecified.
Doorstopper: Possibly one of the harshest inversions of this trope in the history of fiction.
Deconstruction: Of the traditional fairy tale where the hero can overcome his or her challenges through believing in him or herself. Instead, everyone died.
Downer Beginning: "Once there was an ugly barnacle..."
Downer Ending: "He was so ugly that everyone died. The end."
Driven to Suicide: One of the many interpretations of how everyone died.
- And, depending on you definition of "everyone", this may include the barnacle itself.
Eldritch Abomination: How else to describe a being that can apparently kill everyone by its mere appearance and/or presence?
The End: The words that conclude the story.
Enemy to All Living Things: The barnacle. So very, very much.
Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: The barnacle.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's a story about a (maybe the) barnacle that is ugly.
Eyeless Face: Real Life Barnacles do not have eyes, or even any kind of identifiable facial features, so the reader can assume that the same applies to The Ugly Barnacle, and may be part of what makes it ugly enough to kill everyone.
Fan Fic Fuel: See the Fan Fic Recs tab at the top of the page.
Finger Poke of Doom: The Barnacle's mere appearance is enough to kill everyone.
Fractured Fairy Tale
Framing Device: The rest of the episode of Spongebob Squarepants.
Furry Confusion: The barnacle in the story is presumably anthropomorphic, yet ordinary barnacles exist in the universe this story is set in.
- This was never explicitly stated in the story, however, so it is currently unknown whether the barnacle is anthropomorphic or, indeed, if he is in fact the only remaining barnacle in the story's universe.
Gambit Roulette: Assuming that the barnacle's actions were deliberate, there was really no way to guarantee that it would be potent enough to kill everyone.
Genre Shift: The viewer was promised an uplifting tale of someone overcoming their appearance issues. They get it...for one sentence.
Gonk: Deconstructed.
The Grotesque: The barnacle.
Happily Ever After: Subverted.
Helium Speech: Averted, this never comes into play.
The Hero Dies: Assuming he was a hero. Patrick did say that everyone died, so shouldn't that include the barnacle itself?
- It's not specified who the hero is, but assuming one existed, we can safely assume he/she died.
Infant Immortality: Averted. Everyone dies.
Informed Deformity: We're told that the protagonist is ugly, and we're told of the ramifications of his ugliness, but it is never made clear exactly what features he has that make him so ugly.
- Fridge Brilliance: It's possible that if we were told, we would die
Invincible Hero: It's difficult to do anything with a "hero" who can and did go up against anyone and kill them.
Invincible Villain: If the barnacle was in fact a Villain Protagonist, then any hero would not be able to stand against it, for he would just kill them along with everybody else.
Kill 'em All: The ugly barnacle was so ugly that everyone died.
The Juggernaut: Nobody was capable of stopping the barnacle, thus, everyone died.
The Law of Conservation of Detail: Patrick doesn't include many non-essential details about the cast.
Machinima: In Super Scribblenauts, one can type in 'Nuclear Ugly Barnacle', which creates an ugly barnacle, and then everybody dies.
Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: There's never any evidence that the barnacle intends to kill everyone.
A Million is a Statistic: Everyone dies.
Mind Screw: After the ending, we're left with a great big pile of unanswered questions. Just how did the Barnacle's ugliness kill everyone? Did the Barnacle himself die? Literally nothing is ever explained.
Mood Whiplash: At first, it sounds like a charming fairy tale. At first.
Never Say "Die": Heavily averted. In fact, it's used at least once every fifteen words.
Nigh Invulnerability: Considering that you can't even go near the barnacle without dying...
Minimalism
Nobody Poops: Either played straight or averted, depending on whether you count the emptying of bowels after death.
No Dialogue Episode: At no point in the story does a character speak.
No Hugging, No Kissing: The story features no romance at all, and instead focuses on the tragedy of everyone dying.
Nominal Importance: The story's protagonist, the ugly barnacle, is the only character to get a name.
No Name Given: The main character is simply known as "the barnacle" or "the ugly barnacle".
Obliviously Evil: How some people view the barnacle.
Offstage Villainy: Assuming that the barnacle is evil.
Oh Crap: Presumably the thoughts of everyone before they died.
Omnicidal Maniac: One interpretation of the barnacle itself.
Once Upon a Time: Averted. The closest the story comes to using the phrase is "Once there was an ugly barnacle."
The Scapegoat: You'll notice that nothing actually says that the barnicle's ugliness is what caused everyone to die or even that it was responsible. Thus, this is another possibility.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: "A Marine Crustacean of the Subclass Cirripedia Which, To Its Own Misfortune, Was Quite Repugnant.".
Shoot the Shaggy Dog
Short Story: Taken to its logical extreme.
Shrouded in Myth: The only source we know of concerning the barnacle is one Patrick Star.
Soundtrack Dissonance: The soundtrack would suggest this to be a much more upbeat story than it is.
Spiritual Successor: To the saga of Kevin the Hamster.
Starfish Aliens: Perhaps the reason why the barnacle was so ugly was that it was from a different planet? Everyone can be quick to assume that anything not like them is ugly. Also the storyteller is a starfish.
Sword of Damocles: The threat of the barnacle is enough to stop anyone from doing anything. Ever.
Thirteen Is Unlucky: The actual story, discounting the "The End" tag, is exactly thirteen words long, and you can't get much unluckier than having everyone die.
Trailers Always Lie: It was set up in a way to make it seem as if it is an uplifting tale about someone overcoming the stigma of being ugly. Instead, we get a Kill Them All Downer Ending.
Troperiffic: The story is only 13 words long (15 if you count The End), but it has 99 tropes, plus another 26 under YMMV and 26 character tropes, averaging out to 11.46 (or 9.93) tropes per word.
True Beauty Is On The Inside: Apparently, not so much.
Truth in Television: In Real Life, Barnacles are quite ugly◊. Not enough to kill everyone, but their repulsive anatomy *
They have prehensile penises
and lack of any identifiable features, including eyes or even a face, were obviously a fitting inspiration for something as exceedingly hideous as The Ugly Barnacle.
Twist Ending: Be honest: Were you expecting the barnacle to kill everyone?
Ultimate Life Form: Arguably, the barnacle, as it was able to kill everyone.
Undead Author: If everyone died, then how did Patrick survive to tell the story? And how did SpongeBob survive to hear it?
Unreliable Narrator: The story was initially told by Patrick Star. Of course he would get some details wrong. And it didn't even help the person he was telling it to!
Villain Protagonist: Possibly.
Walking Wasteland: Technically averted. Barnacles can't walk.
Wham Episode: The story starts off calm and unassuming.The second sentence changes everything in a Darker and Edgier fashion with a Kill 'em All conclusion.
Wham Line: One near the very end that completely changes the direction the story was heading.
He was so ugly that everyone died.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?: Invoked, Exaggerated and of course Played for Laughs
What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Surprisingly averted. Not only is the barnacle portrayed sympathetically, but the story even implies that it's possible for barnacles to be cute.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Barnacle.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Well, you can't do it and survive...