Was Once A Man / Literature

Was Once a Man in Literature

---

• Angel: Image has a guy who once was human but became more and more demon (and grotesque) in order to stay alive for hundreds of years.
• The Black Spider: The titular murderous, venomous, giant monster used to be a farmer's wife who tried to wiggle her way out of a deal with the devil.
• Chrysalis (Beaver Fur): The Terran is aware from their "birth" that they were once human, complete with memories as a human, and they seek to preserve their humanity through many methods even as they build themself a spaceship body in their quest for revenge, chief of which being their refusal to make restorable backups of their consciousness.
• Conan the Barbarian:
  • "Red Nails": Tolkemec lived apart from humanity for so long that he ceased to be human.
  • "Rogues in the House": Thak is an ambiguous example. It's unclear whether he degenerated from humanity into his apelike form or whether he ascended from apedom into something resembling humanity.

• The Cosmere: All of the Shardholders were once mortal men and women who took up the Shards, godlike power that slowly warped them into little more than extensions of the power; in Mistborn: The Original Trilogy Ruin, especially, was once a kind and generous man who became nothing but raw destruction and the desire for the same. In The Stormlight Archive, Cosmere-aware individual claims that Odium is basically a force of nature at this point, but Hoid disagrees.
• The Dark Elf Trilogy: Pech technically was never human, but he was a harmless creature turned into a monstrous hook horror by a wizard.
• Date A Live: Some of the Spirits, namely Kotori and Miku, were once human. They became Spirits because of a mysterious entity known as Phantom. It's eventually revealed that almost all of them were originally human. The only ones who weren't are Mio (the first Spirit, of whom Phantom is one part) and Tohka. Mio-as-Phantom gave her power in the form of Sephira crystals to humans, but one of these developed its own ego and became Tohka.
• Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword: The Rainmaster, a unique, acid rain-spawning undead horror, is a former human wizard from the order of Arc, cursed by the Black Sword of Humankind. The same curse also afflicts his daughter Sylvia in later novels.
• Discworld:
  • Unseen Academicals marks the first appearance of orcs in the series. During the course of the book it is revealed that they are a manufactured species made from goblins. Only as it turns out, that's a misconception. As Vetinari puts it, "Goblins wouldn't have been nearly as ferocious." Discworld orcs were made from men.
  • The Librarian was turned from a regular human wizard into a sapient orangutan due to a massive magical event. He's perfectly happy being an orangutan for the rest of his life; just don't call him a monkey.
  • In Moving Pictures (Discworld), the Necrotelicomnicon claims that nearly all the ancient inhabitants of the Holy Wood "became one withe (sic) the fishes and the lobsters" when their city was submerged. Sure enough, the ocean there is still teeming with fish and huge lobsters, "walk[ing] backwards along the deep, drowned streets..."
• The Divine Comedy: Virgil introduces himself to Dante not as a man, but as a shadow of one. This intro makes it clear early on the the damned who will be encountered in Inferno are mutilated souls rather than whole humans.
• Dr. Franklin's Island, inspired in part by the Island of Doctor Moreau, has a couple of teenaged girls transformed into mutant animals. They grow used to their new forms before too long, but are always aware of what they look like to others. One of the scientists, face to face with one for the first time since she woke up like this, is struck with horror and hopes out loud that she doesn't have the same mind.
  Dr. Skinner: "It's different close up. I thought I knew what seeing you changed would be like, but this is bad, this is real... I remember you, Semi. I remember what you looked like. I think I saw you smile, once-"
  I wished he'd go away, but I wanted him to stay. I liked seeing him suffer, to tell you the absolute truth. There was no chance that Dr. Franklin was going to suffer any painful pangs of guilt, but Skinner was better than nothing.
• The Dresden Files:
  • There are also the three types of vampires: those of the Black and Red Courts are created in a typical way (humans turned through blood-drinking/exchange), while the White Court are born as humans (from other White Court) then turn into vampires sometime during their late teens/early adulthood.
  • In Death Masks, Harry gets a nice shock to the system when he looks into the eyes of the latest monstrosity to cross his path and sees the human soul it has.
  • In Cold Days at the end, Queen Mab tells Harry that she was mortal once. And Molly fills this as she becomes a Fae Queen as well.
• The Empirium Trilogy: Fidelia's crawlers were once women who have been mutated through experiments so as in to create monstrous soldiers for the Undying Empire.
• Everlost: The monster called the McGill is revealed to have been Mary's brother, who sank down to the center of the earth and clawed his way back up. When he returned, he was a monster.

• The Executioner and Her Way of Life: The Human Errors were once ordinary people transported to a new world and granted fantastical powers called Pure Concepts. However, each use of their Pure Concept erodes the mentality of the user until they become inseparable from their concept and turn into a monster. Thus, it is up to the Executioners to Mercy Kill the otherworlders before they cross the point of no return.
• Felix Castor: All the monsters having once been human is a major theme and source of conflict in the novels.
• Forest Kingdom: More than once.
  • In book 1 (Blue Moon Rising), the castle's moat monster was originally a messenger who made the mistake of disturbing the High Warlock in the middle of an experiment. It turns out that he could have changed back, but liked life in the new form so much he refused to.
  • In book 4 (Beyond the Blue Moon), it's revealed that the demonic hordes were originally humans who were warped by the Darkwood.
• God-Emperor of Dune: Leto II (mostly internally or to those close to him) laments his loss of humanity after becoming a giant sandworm, but he knows this is necessary for the survival of the human race.
• Gotrek & Felix: In the first novel, the pair are hired to rescue a village's children from a mad scientist. After fighting their way through his mutant minions, they confront the scientist, only to find no trace of the kids. Felix suddenly realizes that those mutants were suspiciously smaller than usual right before their foe confirms his fears.
• Halo: Primordium is narrated by the prehistoric human Chakas, now an AI more than 100,000 years old, and on his deathbed. At the end of Primordium, the AI's name is revealed: 343 Guilty Spark, the Monitor of Installation 04.
• Hothouse: The flymen are former humans, who have been mutated by exposure to intense radiation between the Earth and the moon.
• H. P. Lovecraft stories:
  • In "The Beast in the Cave" (one of Lovecraft's earliest stories written when he was 14) a man lost in a cave finds that there is some monstrous other creature in there with him, which turns out to be another man who also got lost in the cave long ago and has reverted to an animalistic state.

• "The Shadow Over Innsmouth": People descended from the Innsmouth bloodline start out human and gradually transform into hideous Fish People.

• Immortals After Dark: The ghouls and wendigos both turn people into more of them with a bite or scratch.
• The Island of Doctor Moreau: Subverted. The narrator thinks that Moreau's creations are transformed humans, but they are actually animals that Moreau has turned into Beast Men.
• Journey to Chaos: There are all manner of creepy, dangerous, and/or scary monsters roaming Tariatla, and a good many of them used to be sapient. Perfectly civil and friendly, until they were mana mutated. During Looming Shadow, Kallen encounters a monster and is about to kill it, when she realizes that it hasn't finished transforming yet, and that its threatening roars were actually screaming of pain.
• Legacy of the Dragokin: Jihadain can transform humans and other beings into monsters and one bite transforms their victim into the same kind of monster.
• Level Up Hero: Horrors used to be gifted humans who had so much negative emotions like anger and trauma that they get turned into monsters.
• Mistborn:
  • The Steel Inquisitors are humans who have been transformed into nigh-immortal killing machines via the dark art of Hemalurgy. The Koloss from the same series were originally humans as well, created by a similar process.
  • The First Generation of kandra were also former human Feruchemists who were friends of the Lord Ruler before his ascension; the others are descended from mistwraiths that were also Feruchemists, who weren't friends of the Lord Ruler and so didn't get to be sapient after he was done with them. Kandra are made from mistwraiths using the same Black Magic that makes Inquisitors and koloss.
  • Unusually for these tropes, it's not all that horrifying or morally dark. Kandra are intelligent and have no memories of being human, except for those of the first generation, so it's not traumatic for them. The Black Magic that turns mistwraiths into kandra is "black" because it is Blood Magic, sort of, and turns them into The Mole, but that part doesn't come up until the end of the last book of the trilogy.
• The Mortal Instruments has Astriola, a venereal disease transmitted by demons that infects only shadowhunters. Some time after the infection, the shadowhunter also turns into a demon. There is only one known case in the books, but it is mentioned that there have been many more such cases in the past.
• Old Kingdom: Most of the various types of Dead were originally human in body and/or spirit (though some of the weaker ones, like the gorecrows, were once animals). Hedge starts out as a human necromancer, but becomes progressively inhuman as the Destroyer's power over him increases (thankfully, we never learn what exactly he was turning into, though it doesn't seem to have been Dead).
• Pahua Moua: The poj ntxoog were once humans but became twisted and vengeful after they were killed by spirits.
• The Perfect Run: Psychos were once regular Genomes who took a second Elixir (willingly or not). Due to their unstable genetic code, they now have a Horror Hunger for more Elixirs, warped personalities, and various flavors of Body Horror that can become a full-on And I Must Scream situation.
• The Powder Mage Trilogy features Wardens. Wardens are inhuman creatures created by the Kez Royal Cabal using dark magic. They are twisted creations designed to be unshakeably loyal and specifically designed to defeat the titular powder mages. In the second book, the mad god Kresimir begins building "Black Wardens" out of powder mages themselves, which are even worse. There is a subplot about a viewpoint character growing increasingly certain that his missing son has been transformed into a Black Warden.
• Even Redwall, despite being a setting with very little actual magic, has a few examples of Was Once an Animal:
  • The Gloomer from Mossflower apparently started at some point long ago as a normal water rat. By the time we see it, a long time living in an underground lake has turned it into a horrific, monstrous feral creature with sodden rotten fur that hunts by smell alone and is chained up by the rulers of Kotir as an attack beast.
  • The Dirgecallers from The Bellmaker are a more realistic and more unfortunate example. Twin ermine slaves, they were raised in a cage and abused until they became mindless tracking and killing machines for the villains.
• In The Relic, the museum beast is revealed to be a scientist mutated by an ancient retrovirus.
• Resident Evil: Mentioned in the Resident Evil 3: Nemesis Novelization by Jill when she has the titular Nemesis on the ropes. She acknowledges that it was probably once a man and she almost pities it... before putting the damned thing down once and for all with a high-calibre revolver.
• Secret City:
  • Moryanas are the race of cute slender girls who can shapeshift into musclebound, regenerating killing machines. While they reproduce sexually (they can interbreed with most of the races but give birth only to Moryanas, no matter who the father was), the first of them were artificially created from two human women each.
  • Hiperboreans, or Kadath, draw their power from Golden Root, a drug that grants or boosts magical abilities, but is extremely addictive, and prolonged use causes mutations. Most of Hyerarchs of Kadath, the elite, do not even resemble men by now. However, several most powerful look completely human save for their Supernatural Gold Eyes.
• The Southern Reach Trilogy:
  • There's something strangely human-like about the eyes of certain creatures in Area X. Many of them are implied to have once been expedition members before being transformed into their current states, and the Crawler is what remains of the lighthouse keeper.
  • More explicitly horrific examples would be the eleventh expedition's psychologist, who became the moaning thing in the reeds, and the twelfth expedition's biologist herself, who becomes a Kaiju-sized glowing leviathan covered in eyes (many of which are still human, others... not so much).
• In Starlight and Shadows, Shakti encounters a Yochlol, one of the hideous slime demons which serve as the Handmaidens of Lolth, which dimly recalls its former identity as a drow priestess.
  Yochlol: Before you stands the glorious form to which a priestess of power and prestige might aspire!
  Shakti: You are not long dead. You still remember your life and your name.
  Yochlol: In time, all this will fade. The priestess will be forgotten. Only Lolth will remain.
• Star Wars:
  • New Jedi Order: The mindless Bioweapon Beasts known as the Vagh Rodiek were once Rodians who were twisted into their current forms when the planet fell to the Yuuzhan Vong.
  • Rakghouls, vicious monsters who live only to kill and feed, are always created when the Rakghoul plague infects a human and twists them into a mindless beast.
  • Abeloth was once a mortal woman (species unclear) who served the Father, the Son, and the Daughter. She was eventually promoted to The Mother and loved her new family. As she aged, she grew paranoid that her ageless family would abandon her, so she drank of the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge. While this granted her immortality and advanced Force powers, this also mutated her into an Eldritch Abomination. Sadly, this event caused her family to abandon her.
• Sword of Truth: The mriswith and sliph were once human, turned into this by ancient wizards to use in war.
• There and Back Again: Rattler, the cyborg Gollum-equivalent, was human until the Resurrectionists started experimenting on her.
• Tolkien's Legendarium: In Tolkien's concept, evil and the various Big Bads cannot create, only pervert: therefore, almost every evil creature is a corruption or mockery of a pre-existing being.
  • As individuals, there are the Nazgûl, who were once human rulers who were turned into bodiless shades bound to Sauron's will by the Nine Rings, and Gollum, who was once just an ordinary proto-hobbit before ages spent in the dark with only the One Ring for company took their toll.
  • The orcs in some sources are descendants of elves twisted by Sauron's master and predecessor, Morgoth. If you really want a squicky thought, it's rumoured that the Uruk-hai were partly men in some fashion. Trolls are a mockery of ents. Subverted in the case of the undead barrow-wights, who only possessed the dead bodies of those buried. However, the orcs-from-elves theory is only one possible explanation — Tolkien kept revising that one. Some dislike the idea that orcs were literally corrupted elves as that would imply the orcs have genuine sapient and intelligence, which Tolkien implies on a few occasions is not the case, so some suggest the orcs are corruptions of various non-sapient animals.
  • Per Morgoth's Ring, a collection and analysis of unpublished Legendarium materials by his JRR's Christopher, Tolkien's final explanation was probably that they were sapient, but not former Elves: rather, they were Men.
    This then, as it may appear, was my father's final view of the question: Orcs were bred from Men, and if 'the conception in mind of the Orcs may go far back into the night of Melkor's thought' it was Sauron who, during the ages of Melkor's captivity in Aman, brought into being the black armies that were available to his Master when he returned.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Blood Angels: In Red Fury, the Bloodfiends have fragmentary memories of the Blood Angels whose blood they have drunk; Rafen, fighting one, is reminded of his dead mentor Koris, and when he kills it, its last breath might have been a word: Brother.
  • Gaunt's Ghosts: In His Last Command, the stalkers are Guardsmen and ogryns captured by Chaos and reshaped into beasts.
  • Path of the Warrior reveals that Eldar Exarchs were once Eldar, but lost themselves in the struggle to control their rage and became part of a gestalt consciousness dominated by the first Exarch to lead their shrine, trapped and unable to die, subsumed into the whole, and speaking only in stream-of-consciousness. This has been part of the background fluff for Eldar since the beginning. Path of the Warrior simply gives us a very up close and personal exposure to what it's like inside the head of an Exarch.
  • Space Wolf:
    • Ragnor is most horrified about the nightgangers that they find in a Chaos-tainted cave because they, or their ancestors, had been human once.
    • In Sons of Fenris, when the Space Wolves and Dark Angels go up against Cadmus's elite forces, the tattered remnants of their uniforms is the only evidence they had once been human; some still wield weapons, but only those merged with their flesh.
  • Ultramarines: Dead Sky Black Sun, Uriel realizes the Unfleshed — monstrous, gigantic (next to him, a Space Marine), and flesh-eating — were once not only human but children. When they are willing to speak with him, having smelled that he came from the same place they were made, he finds that they are still good and will help him in his quest. One sadly confesses to him that they loathe themselves because of their forms. In The Killing Ground, Uriel must Mercy Kill the last survivor and is left deeply melancholy thereafter.
• The Word and the Void: Demons are former humans who gave up their souls for power.
• Xanadu (Storyverse): Every non-human in the stories was formerly a human cosplayer hit by a transformation at a fan convention.

---