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Anthropomorphic Personification
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"Humans have always ascribed random, seasonal, natural or inexplicable actions to human shaped entities."
The living embodiment of a fundamental abstraction. They are typically god-like in power, but have a much narrower focus. Athena does many things; Death only one. In non-magical series they resemble a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, but unlike them are an intrinsic part of the workings of the universe.
Good & Evil and Order & Chaos come in pairs. A universe that has one will usually have both.
Other, less fundamental concepts can have an Anthropomorphic Personification, such as fear and panic, as can nations and geographical features.
This trope is probably the oldest one in history, maybe as old as Humanity itself. Not only is it as ancient as religion, but one of the earliest examples is the Venus of Willendorf, a prehistorical female statuette that's thought to be an Anthropomorphic Personification of fertility and maternity.
Expect mortals in these settings to be Pals With Jesus. See also Moe Anthropomorphism, in which case the Anthropomorphic Personification is cute.
Definitely not to be confused with Funny Animal.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Shinigami No Ballad and Death Note both feature central characters who are Shinigami, the Japanese equivalent of Grim Reapers, though the two series portray them quite differently.
- Bleach is also about Shinigami. The personifications of the characters' weapons also make appearances.
- Binchou-tan is about a group of Anthropomorphic Personifications of various natural substances and phenomena, all of whom appear as cute Japanese children.
- The manga Full Metal Alchemist had personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins whose names reflected on their appearances, personalities and powers. Lust took the form of a sexy woman, Gluttony could eat anything, Greed wanted to have everything he could, etc.
- Interestinly, it's later revealed that they are quite literally the "sins" of Father given form. Which explains why he refers to them as "my avarice" or "my wrath", etc.
- In the anime, although the characters had those names and those qualities, they weren't actual personifications of anything. They were artificial humans created through alchemy. The names and personalities may have been a theme of their creator, but they don't actually represent these sins.
- A flashback in the anime, showing Sloth's first encounter with Dante, shows that Dante names the homunculi herself after the Seven Deadly Sins.
- While they aren't actually meant to represent the sins, some of them certainly do a fine job at it. The most obvious is Gluttony, while Sloth and Wrath probably come in second place(Rejecting responsibility for her former children and not letting go of the hatred he felt for his mother, respectively). Envy comes close, but ultimately his hatred was directed at Hoenheim and not Ed and Al who he was supposedly envious of because of their father's choosing them over him. The others barely touch on their respective sins.
- Envy's name is also reflected in his special ability - the power to transform into anyone, which is an envier's dream come true.
- Well, Greed claims that "he wants everything", although it's shown that he's not exactly true to this single characteristic all the time, while Pride rules the entire nation, and Lust, while not lustful, inspires lust, as well as genuine love in others.
- Axis Powers Hetalia follows the Anthropomorphic Personifications of various countries, complete with national stereotypes. For example, Germany is strict and ruthlessly efficient, and America is hyperactive, clueless and constantly gorges on junk food.
- In Getter Robo, it's explained that everything has a conscience - the elements, time, space and so on, with Getter Robo itself being the living embodiment of evolution.
Comic Books
- The Marvel Universe has loads of these. Lord Chaos, Master Order, Eternity, Infinity, Oblivion, Anomaly... They even have Anthropomorpho, of the "dimension of forms", where they pick up physical forms to manifest themselves with in the regular universe, making him the living embodiment of living embodiments.
- The DCU has them too, the most famous being Neil Gaiman's "The Endless"; Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Note that this version of Death is not The Grim Reaper, being instead a cute, Perky Goth girl who appreciates the value of life as far as her calling permits (Dream is the grim, brooding one...). At one point, when Dream is being particularly emo, Death shouts at him, "You are the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification on this, or any OTHER, plane!"
- There's also the Black Flash, anthropomorphic personification of Death for speedsters (presumably, they're too fast to be caught by regular Death), who takes the form of a zombie-looking guy in a black Flash costume.
- Lots of the New Gods function as anthropomorphic personifications as well. Mister Miracle is freedom, Metron is knowledge, Highfather is leadership, Darkseid is despotism, Desaad is cruelty, and so on, and so forth. They even have their own Death personification, the Black Racer.
- Granny Goodness is child abuse.
- One non-Sandman comic tried to retcon the existence of multiple personifications of Death by claiming Death of the Endless was "the peaceful death that comes to the righteous", and distinct from hostile, threatening forms of Death like the Black Racer. Neil Gaiman was extremely offended by this and responded directly by having his Death give a speech in a comic explicitly declaring that she represented the death of all living things, everywhere, without exception, and that she would eventually bring about the end of the universe itself.
- Along these lines, Gaiman's Endless have explicitly been permitted to alter their personalities over time in order to match different aspects of the concept they embody. Gaiman's Death really was once a cruel, callous Grim Reaper figure who reveled in the fear and revulsion living beings had for her, though this immature period of her life took place eons ago, in prehistoric times. The lost Endless, Destruction, explicitly abandoned his post in order to explore the possibilities of the flip side of the coin, creation. Also, they definitely don't take the same form to all beings. Humans see the Endless as humans; aliens generally don't. This is not unusual among AnthropomorphicPersonifications. After all, a squid's idea of "anthropomorphic" isn't going to agree with a human's.
- Not just aliens; Dream appears to cats as a big, black cat. Of course, technically those aren't anthropomorphic personifications.
- One Sandman story featured the AP's of stars, specifically the suns of solar systems. In addition to our sun Sol (who is an awkward teenager of only a few billion years), there's also Rao of Krypton (a red giant), and the green sun of what's implied to be the Green Lantern Corps. home planet.
- In Jack Of Fables, "Literals" are embodiments of literary concepts. Revise embodies censorship, Bookburner embodies forgetting and destroying stories, and the Pathetic Fallacy is an embodiment of the pathetic fallacy, with the ability to bring inanimate objects to life, making him a sort of anthropomorphic personification of anthropomorphic personifications. They recently introduced Eliza Wall, the youngest of four siblings, which makes her the Fourth Wall
Film
- Film example: The Nightmare Before Christmas features the Anthropomorphic Personification of Halloween trying to take over Christmas from Santa Claus; several other Personifications make cameo appearances.
- Palpatine of the Star Wars mythos is classified as evil incarnate by both Lucas and derivative sources.
Literature
- Literary example: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelations are often treated this way. If a series has a Death, the rest will probably show up in at least one episode.
- The Discworld series has plenty of these too, sprinkled in with the regular gods. In particular, Death is a main character of several books, as is his granddaughter, Susan. Other Anthropomorphic Personifications are Time and the remaining three Horsemen of the Apocralypse [sic]. There were originally five Horsemen, but Kaos (who shows up in Thief Of Time) left before they became famous. There are also The Auditors of Reality which are portrayed as embodiments of order, bureaucracy, and the mechanics of the universe and are, instead of Death, portrayed as the opposite of life (which they hate). Unusually, these characters are referred to in the story as Anthropomorphic Personifications, and Pratchett is largely responsible for popularising the phrase.
- Hogfather, another Discworld novel, centers on what happens when someone manages to bump off an Anthropomorphic Personification. The book also goes into the purpose of such beings; according to Death, minor beliefs and incarnations such as the Hogfather help humans to establish the beliefs in justice, mercy, duty — the things that make them truly human.
- And don't forget the Lady.
- In Reaper Man when the Auditors forced Death to retire, a number of other Deaths sprung up to take his place, such as the Deaths of Mayflies, Trees, Fleas, Rats as well as a new one for Humans. When the original resumes his role, he sucks up all the rest except for the Deaths of Rats and Fleas. Additionally, Azrael the Death of Universes is presented as his own superior.
- In Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens, Pestilence retired after the invention of penicillin and was replaced by Pollution. Apart from War being a woman, the rest of the Horse''persons'' of the Apocalypse follow more or less their models from Revelation... except that they ride motorcycles.
- The book also featured the four 'lesser' horsemen, who were just normal bikers who, after seeing the real deal, decided that being a group of symbolic figures was much cooler then being a biker.
- Each book in Piers Anthony's Incarnations Of Immortality series focuses on the life and career of one Anthropomorphic Personification, and his (or her, or their) relationships with the other Personifications that oversee a strange Magitek variation on our own world. His Anthropomorphic Personifications have an unusual twist, though; they're offices that specific humans hold.
- Students of Christian literature remember the Anviliciously named characters from John Bunyan's famous allegory the Pilgrim's Progress. With its protagonist named Christian and his sidekicks Faithful and Hopeful and such highlights as Christian being evangelized by a guy named Evangelist, saved from disaster by a man named Help, given worldly wisdom from Mr. Worldly Wiseman, tempted by a prostitute named Wanton, attacked by enemies named Envy and Superstition...
- Not to mention the grumpy old man Atheist, and this troper's favourite, "Ob Stinate". Yeah.
- Several of Simon Green's series, including the Nightside and Haven novels, feature entities referred to as "Transient Beings". These entities seem to be Not-Necessarily-Anthropomorphic Personifications, in that some appear human-like while others are downright bizarre, yet they all embody some greater concept or ideal.
Live Action TV
- In Doctor Who, the Fourth Doctor dealt with the White Guardian, Anthropomorphic Personification of order, and the Black Guardian, Anthropomorphic Personification of chaos. Seemingly, the White Guardian functioned as the Dungeon Master, guiding the Doctor and his companions on a quest to get the Key to Time, while the Black Guardian tried to trick and corrupt them. However at the end the Doctor realized the Black Guardian had been impersonating the White Guardian all along.
- In the Expanded Universe of the New Adventures novels, some of the Eternals (beings considered Sufficiently Advanced even by Time Lord standards) have taken the role of Anthropomorphic Personifications. The main ones seen in the books are Time, Pain and Death; the Doctor is Time's Champion. A later Big Finish audio revealed the Master as Death's Champion. (Earlier, former Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain the Monk from the television series had served as Death's Companion in the New Adventures.) A couple of BBC Books novels called the Eighth Doctor Life's Champion, but whether there's a Life amongst the Eternals or it just means life in general is unclear.
- Other novels have given us Grandfather Paradox, who is the Anthropomorphic Personification of Future Me Scares Me.
- An embodiment of Death appeared in the episode 'Dead Man Walking' of Doctor Who's spin-off Torchwood.
- Dead Like Me is about a Quirky Miniboss Squad of Grim Reapers.
- Even Professional Wrestling has had a couple of examples: WWE wrestler The Undertaker is made out to be an Anthropomorphic Personification of death, though how much of this is actual supernatural power and how much of this is simply theatrics and mind games tends to vary with the tone WWE is taking at that time. A more bizarre example is Goldust, who, when he first debuted, was portrayed as a strange sort of Anthropomorphic Personification of movies. Then Character Derailment turned him into just a creepy, possibly-gay dude who liked to quote movies and run around in gold facepaint.
- We do not talk about the Melty Man.
Music
- The fact that "The Dirty Glass" by Dropkick Murphys is a breakup song addressed to a pub is obscured by the fact that the pub not only sings back, but actually has the first word.
Real Life
Tabletop Games
- In the Tabletop Games Nobilis (now sadly out of print), the Player Characters are Anthropomorphic Personifications, and powerful ones at that: the core book contains helpful hints on what happens should one of the players decide to re-locate New York City, shoot down the Sun, or unleash a viral version of their personality capable of infecting the entire planet... and those things aren't even very difficult.
- In Mage: the Awakening, the Astral Realms are seen as the home of the anthropomorphic personifications of individual, human, and universal concepts. Includes beings such as the daimons (the personification of an individual's desire for self improvement), the goetic demons (personifications of dark, repressed feelings and desires), every god ever worshipped, and the most powerful beings in the Realms, the Aeons (the personifications of the fundamental magical facets of reality). Among the most memorable personifications are Anubis, Death (most popularly taking the form of a scythe-wielding skeleton, a faceless cloaked and hooded figure, or an attractive woman dressed in black (possibly inspired by Death of the Endless)), Martians, typhonides (personifications of humanity's self-destructive tendencies) and the personification of teenage rebellion (often appearing as James Dean).
- Dungeons And Dragons had (along with gods, who often in some sense were Anthropomorphic Personifications themselves) entire species dedicated to concepts. Usually the Nine Alignments (From Lawful Good to Chaotic evil: Archons, Guardinals, Eladrin, Modrons, Rilmani, Slaadi, Baatezu, Yugoloth, Tanar'ri)
Video Games
- Pretty much every Big Bad in the Persona series is a representation of some evil that exists within mankind, considering the game's emphasis on the human mind this is understandable.
- Sheogorath from the The Elder Scrolls series is a rare good-guy personification of chaos. Granted, though, he is the god of madness, so it's not surprising that he would fill this role.
- Sheogorath only comes across as good in the Shivering Isles expansion to Oblivion. Other games clearly depict him as dangerous and a psychopath. (The Dark elves refer to him as one for the four pillars of the house of trouble) Even the Shivering Isle shows he's but a hair away from killing you for no reasons. The main reason he comes across as good is because he attempts to teach you an Aesop on how both order and chaos are necessary in the world, and that too much of either makes the world a very dreary place.
- He's known as a pillar of the House of Troubles because he opposed the opportunistic Tribunal gods who gained power through abuse of the Heart of Lorkhan, most likely angering all of the Daedra in some way. Varieties of Faiths in the Empire (in-game book) cites that worship of Sheogorath is quite widespread in Tamriel. He even descends in the Mantellan Crux just to greet the protagonist of Daggerfall.
- Get a mental picture of the Anthropomorphic Personification of slapstick humor in the form of a 2-D sprite. Now, click here. They look the same, don't they?
- Lately it appears that most Legendary Pokémon, especially ones introduced in later games are taking on these sorts of roles.
- An example is the Lake Trio from 4th Gen, personifications of Emotion, Willpower, and Knowledge.
- Blick Winkel in Ever17 is the personification of the perspective of the fourth dimension. Which means that mostly he just chills out and watches interesting stuff that happens in our world. If you can get his attention, he's capable of using his host's emotions to give himself the emotional drive to use time travel and pass messages. It's unknown if he's really anthropomorphic but his only appearances are in the form of a young boy. He's also possibly the future self of said boy, and also possibly retains the form when reverting back to a non corporeal form as everyone recognized him when he was no longer in Hokuto.
Webcomics
- Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire: The Storm of Souls arc centers around a match between two champions who become the personifications of Chaos and Balance.
- An arc of the Web Comic Sluggy Freelance, called "Holiday Wars", is about Bun-Bun murdering his way through a long list of Anthropomorphic Personifications of various holidays - starting with Easter and Groundhog Day, working his way up through Halloween and Thanksgiving, before facing off against his archnemesis, Christmas (in the form of Santa Claus, of course).
- The Sins is a webcomic following the antics of the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins. Vices and Virtues also feature occasionally.
- The webcomic Sacred Pie features the personifications of Order and Chaos. Order wears white and Chaos wears black, but don't let the colors fool you; neither of them are what you might call "good".
- The webcomic Circumstances of the Revenant Braves has evil spirits called "vices" that are essentially personifications of various kinds of negative personality traits, such as apathy or deception.
- Indefensible Positions features Robert E. Lee as the avatar of Chaos and Ulysses S. Grant as Order, the existence of other avatars is speculated on but never confirmed. However Lee suggested that Debbie may be a minor avatar of bliss
- The webcomic Jack uses anthromorphic personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins (including the titular character, who is not only The Grim Reaper, but the personification of the sin of Wrath), based on what the characters did while they were alive. Being a Furry Comic, in this case they not only can they be "confused with Funny Animals", they are Funny Animals.
- Life And Death, of course.
Western Animation
- One of Rankin-Bass's famous stop-motion Christmas specials, The Year Without A Santa Claus, features "Heat Miser" and "Snow Miser," Anthropomorphic Personifications of hot weather and cold weather respectively, who were shown to be the sons of another Personification, Mother Nature, and were later dusted off for the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy song "Heatmiser". Another special required Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to save the Anthropomorphic Personification of New Year's Day. And Santa Claus himself can be considered the Anthropomorphic Personification of Christmas.
- Even Transformers, of all things, has these, though mostly in the comic continuities. The most noteworthy is Vector Prime, one of the thirteen original Transformers and the legendary guardian of Space and Time, whose job it is to keep the timestream flowing, resolve temporal paradoxes, and suchlike. He fares rather worse in a fight than most anthropomorphic personifications. Another of the original thirteen, The Fallen, is entropy personified. His true name was taken away from him after he betrayed their creator, Primus, to side with his enemy, Unicron, leaving him known only as "The Fallen". Unlike Vector Prime, the Fallen is portrayed as exceedingly powerful.
- Although he's intended as a parody of Christmas Specials, Mr. Hankey is the manifestation of non-denominational holiday celebration.
- The Daria episode "Depth Takes A Holiday" finds Daria and Jane solicited by the teenage incarnations of Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day to try and convince the Christmas, Halloween, and Guy Fawkes Day to return to the "Holiday Island High School" they were exiled from. Seeing as the episode was (to say the least) a radical departure from the general tone of the series, it's often considered a prime example of Dis Continuity.
- Father Time and Mother Nature were regulars in The Smurfs.
Web Original
- Wikipedia, of all things, has its own Anthropomorphic Personification, a cute anime girl dressed in a maid's dress decorated with jigsaw pieces, named "Wikipe-tan".
- This is an extension of the popular "OS-Tan"s, Anthropomorphic Personifications of the different versions of Microsoft Windows, as cute girls. The meme started when posters on the 2ch Japanese BBS thought that the unstable Windows ME was like a Dojikko.
- The "-tan" concept has become extremely popular, to the point where a short modern history of Afghanistan and the surrounding area is shown through the rather pitiable adventures of a small girl named Afuganisu-tan. Despite the strange concept, the comic is actually rather educational.
- And yet in some ways sadly inaccurate (the death of thousands? A cat scratch). Such is the risk when trying to oversimplify something as complicated as international affairs.
- TV Tropes has one too: Trope-Tan.
- The Legion Of Net Heroes has as many as are in the comic books it parodies. Two that are especially important are Master Workload and Lord MUDD, the personifications of Work and Play, respectively, and parodies of the Marvel Universe's Master Order and Lord Chaos. Since there's no way writing, reading, or doing anything related to the Legion can be considered Work, Master Workload has been used many times as a cosmic-level Big Bad.
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