Needs Help: Eldritch Abomination

I think we have two tropes here: "Monster beyond human comprehension" (what Eldritch Abomination is supposed to be) and "Super-Weird thing (the Giant Calamari From Space)"

Splitting the latter off seems like the way to go.

But second don't need to be really calamari thing.

But tropers will still refer to Eldritch Abomination for any Super-Weird thing, and the new split-off trope would wither and die, and we'll be right back here, trying to fix this whole thing again. Changing Eldritch Abomination by making it's original definition of "Monster beyond human comprehension" it's new definition's exaggerated Internal Subtrope is the best thing we can do.

I know there are tropers who are trying to defend Eldritch Abomination's original meaning because they think changing it would lessen it from what they think is a "Real Motherfucking Monster", but we have to be realistic here.

Splitting off it's commonly used meaning won't change anything, and only delays solving the real issue of Eldritch Abomination's constant misusage.

edited 1st Apr '12 1:42:11 PM by Ekuran

Why won't creating a new trope help? All you've said is "tropers will keep misusing Eldritch Abomination because that's what tropers will do." We don't know that.

"Eldritch abomination" is a pre-existing term, used by the Cthulhu mythos' writers to describe the collective Trope Namers. You would need one hell of an overwhelmingly convincing reason to justify degrading the proper term for the trope to meaning its theme-park version.

edited 1st Apr '12 1:59:23 PM by MarqFJA

If that's the case, then this is a case of Trope Namer Syndrome.

We do.

There will be constant Justifying Edits from tropers for why they're favorite monsters aren't Eldritch Abomination-lite, and that's if they even care (or know) about this new spilt-off trope, and they will ignore both it and Eldritch Abomination's actual meanings for what they think it means (which is the exact same thing that happened with Nightmare Fuel, Ho Yay, Crazy Awesome, Beyond the Impossible, and a whole bunch of other Overdosed Tropes).

edited 1st Apr '12 2:20:43 PM by Ekuran

Not necessarily; the Cthulho mythos various eldritch abominations are both the Trope Namer and the Trope Codifier for Eldritch Abomination, and the also Trope Maker for Cosmic Horror Story. And IIRC "eldritch" itself owes its modern popularity to the HP Lovecraft's usage of it to describe the aforementioned abominations.

edited 1st Apr '12 2:22:12 PM by MarqFJA

And despite all of that, if people don't know what "Eldritch" means, the title is myopic.

As stated by someone on a No Lewdness No Prudishness-related thread (regarding the word "prurient"), if people are already browsing this site, then they obviously could just Google the word to get its basic definition within less than a minute, hence we here on TV Tropes should not be responsible for their unjustified laziness.

And to be fair, when I first saw "eldritch" in my entire life, I am fairly certain I thought along the lines of "hey, this word sounds/looks similar to 'elf'; maybe it has a 'fantastic'/'mysterious'-related meaning?" I wasn't off the mark by much, I must say.

edited 1st Apr '12 3:32:53 PM by MarqFJA

However, one of the basic meanings of "eldritch" is simply "weird".

According to our article on The Fair Folk, "eldritch" is actually derived from "elfish".

According to the dictionary, that is false.

(edit) also, I've just searched through The Fair Folk and I can't find any reference to what you just said.

edited 1st Apr '12 3:50:03 PM by Spark9

This is semantics. There is no point to discuss this.

The trope's history reveals that Pacific Mackerel had removed that part several months ago. And you might want to look at the other entries in that link; the second and the third ones specifically mention "elf" as a possible etymological origin.

edited 1st Apr '12 3:59:33 PM by MarqFJA

So anyway.

Some people are making the argument that everybody knows what eldritch means, and if not they can look it up. Other people are countering that no, not everybody knows that, and if they look it up they will find that it has multiple meanings.

Do we have proof either way? Well, there's a lot of abuse and trope decay on this eldritch trope.

Yes, there is a large amount of Trope Decay which actually needs to be addressed.

My last post (which was ignored) pointed out exactly why making a new trope for what Eldritch Abomination is used for (it's downplayed/theme park version) won't work, so the only real solution we have is to change the definition.

edited 1st Apr '12 4:49:51 PM by Ekuran

Apples and oranges. We're talking about naming a trope here.

And in any case, there's nothing about the definition of the word "Eldritch" which explains everything this trope is claiming to be. IN FACT, according the definition Spark 9 provided and Meta Four summed up, your argument is more in favor of changing the current trope into the Theme Park Version.

edited 1st Apr '12 4:56:02 PM by KingZeal

I think part of the reason for this mess is that in prose it's so easy to say "ears tingled to impulses which were not wholly sounds" but outside prose it's very difficult to depict something like that. Prose can also say "It glared at me with things that were not eyes" but how is something like that supposed to be depicted visually besides just making the thing look as weird as possible?

I feel that the Theme Park Version of this trope is still this trope, just without the benefit of fancy prose.

And other people have pointed out that it's also impractical and unfair to change the definition of Eldritch Abomination. It may be misused, but it's not a lost cause.

Redefining Eldritch Abomination is the equivalent of creating a new trope for the decayed version and using a previously used name. The name is not automatically what's causing problems with a trope. The description, as people have pointed out, is overly wordy and confusing. It's also applied to describe (and potholed to) beings that have the "decayed" aspects as well, so people get the wrong impressions. Another issue is that some examples clearly have Cosmic Horror Story fiction in mind and try to use the Eldritch Abomination trope, but fail to capture the trope properly. It's using a trope in spirit, if not in actuality, which is quite common.

Can you blame people for making the "mistake" of adding Eldritch Abomination on a tentacled, monstrous Sealed Evil in a Can named Ug'nag'lubu that screams 'Cthulhu knockoff' on every level, but isn't technically an Eldritch Abomination? That's the problem of tropes spun off from one major source.

And drastically redefining a trope with such a ludicrous amount of wicks and inbounds is flat-out wrong. Were all of those inbounds meant to tell people about the decayed version? Come to think of it, have we even had a wick check? I don't see one on the thread.

edited 1st Apr '12 5:20:39 PM by Treblain

There's also the Downplayed Trope aspect. Downplaying a trope still counts as an example of the trope in question.

This isn't a radical change, you just think it is. An incomprehensible monster would still fit under the redefined Eldritch Abomination, because Tropes Are Flexible. All those wicks and inbounds would still be valid.

All that's going to change is that your Cthulhu knockoff would become a valid example since the "spirit" of Eldritch Abomination would be the actual definition now, and an incomprehensible entity will simply be The Same But More example of this trope.

Considering how much controversy the definition has already engendered, a link check may be damn near impossible to pull off in a way that everyone will agree with the results.

And again, we already have a trope for "super-weird icky thing". It's Our Monsters Are Weird. If we made a new trope, it would be a duplicate.

Our Monsters Are Weird is weird monsters generally. It's not specifically Theme Park Version Of Cthulhu. We could probably use a trope for the latter, considering the amount of use Eldritch Abomination is getting for that.