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Would this character be considered a Humanoid Abomination?

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Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#1: Oct 19th 2013 at 9:41:05 PM

I'm not sure if a similar question has been asked already (I've been scouring the various forums trying to find it), so I figured that I'd just create one. I'm currently writing a story in which the Big Bad, a witch named Thana Krelios/Nadia Denashel is heavily implied to have long ago become something other than human through delving into Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. She's essentially the Voldemort of the story's setting. I've tried to make bullet points of her monstrous traits.

  • Nadia has lived for over four thousand years, which has allowed her to manipulate the rise and fall of entire kingdoms and regimes within those nations as suits her agenda. Though she appears to be a woman in her mid-thirties, I describe her voice as being that of an elderly woman, sharp and commanding—-though she can make her voice sound like a young woman's if she wishes.

  • Her skin is entirely devoid of wrinkles, not just age-related, but all the normal lines and roughness that all humans have are completely absent.

  • Her eyes are an iridescent yellow color and not only lack pupils but the irises are slightly larger than an ordinary human's. In addition to that, she does not blink except for a few times and it is obvious that it is a conscious gesture to put those she's talking to at ease.

  • When irritated, angry or in the midst of a passionate discussion of some kind, black vein-like markings appear underneath Nadia's skin and creep across her face; the more excited she is, the more noticeable they are.

  • Nadia's blood is a thick, yellow-colored syrupy substance that oozes out of whatever wounds are inflicted on her. Touching it or getting any on one's skin causes a brief feeling of unbearable, searing hatred, and despair.

  • She seems to feel no pain at all. Throughout the story she has been injured several times, losing a hand, having most of her torso and the left side of her face ripped away and being blasted with fire and burnt to ashes. At one point she is impaled on a character's sword and walks toward him along the blade to prove just how useless it is. She simply expresses mild annoyance, anger or even compliments someone at being able to hurt her in reaction to these wounds but not ever pain.

  • Nadia is able to create energy shields around her body that are impenetrable to magical or physical attack. She can transfer this barrier to others by touch and she uses it to crush the bodies of her enemies. It is a magic entirely unique to her, no one else in the setting has it. She is also immensely strong, able to do a Neck Lift to someone twice her size after losing her right arm in a magical duel.

  • She can incorporate magical artifacts into her body by basically shoving them into her chest. Her flesh becomes temporarily malleable like putty and the object sinks into her. She can then use the artifact's ability until it's power burns out, whereupon she ejects it by spitting it out, though she only demonstrates this once.

  • Nadia can corrupt others merely by being in their presence, though this is a very vague concept and we only see it twice. The first is the sorcerer-king who I presented as the Big Bad before revealing her, and in his case, we only see the results. Her presence preys upon latent hatred within that person's mind and enhances it. It is different for each person; the king in question became a brutal dictator and Well-Intentioned Extremist but remained generally an honorable man.
One of the protagonists, a fire mage who had been seeking revenge for the murder of his entire family fell under her spell and by the end of the story is pretty much a Ax-Crazy zealot for her cause.
  • It also takes quite some time; the king took decades for her to brainwash. Her control also isn't accomplished solely through this power; she also is a cunning manipulator using lies or at other times truths people were better off not knowing to confuse and frighten them and weaken their willpower.

  • Nadia can "see" if people are "pure-blooded" magic-users or if they received their powers through the communal magic that allows all humans to access supernatural powers and replaced the Elder Magic that only worked for people with magical gifts.

  • One last thing, though it isn't particularly eldritch, is that whenever she is around, the comedy STOPS. While the story already dealt with some dark issues (War, genocide, human experimentation, racism, individual rights and freedoms vs the needs of the many) there was still room for comedy and laughs—and there still is after Nadia is revealed, but things get far more serious in a hurry, considering her plan is basically to summon a real Eldritch Abomination and fuse with it to kill all magic-users who are not "gifted".

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#2: Oct 19th 2013 at 9:54:08 PM

Ah, I forgot the last detail. Stupid metongue. She regenerates from wounds in a way that no one is really certain of. For instance, after having her entire body burnt to ashes, she walks up the stairs and back into the room where she was destroyed and steps over her own ashes and calmly asks the person who did it not to do so again because it won't work. Likewise with her lost arm and part of her face. Now, there is healing magic in this universe, but we never see her using it, and it definitely won't bring someone back who has been reduced to dust. We simply see her reappear with whatever wound she sustained as good as new. I have given hints as to how she has accomplished this, but it still creeps out the protagonists.

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
Prany Since: Apr, 2013
#3: Oct 20th 2013 at 2:00:08 AM

All these powers are nice and stuff but are there any explanations for her or any of her powers? If you as author can't give any, than you have what you want. Most abomination tropes deal with things beyond human understanding thus you need to give only very basics about that... thing. By being mysterios and such you can make even seemingly regular person come of as monster.

edited 20th Oct '13 2:00:52 AM by Prany

Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#4: Oct 20th 2013 at 7:41:07 AM

Well, it's a little hard to explain. There is a definite explanation behind her powers, though The Reveal doesn't happen all at once, though we do find out more of her back-story as time goes on. But before anyone finds out the reasons behind her powers and mindset, she is quite horrifying, because—-like Voldemort—-she is essentially that world's boogieman. Only unlike Voldemort, people used her name all the time to frighten children into behaving, only faintly believing that she was real, and thinking that even if she was, she had been dead for four thousand years.

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
ohsointocats from The Sand Wastes Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#5: Oct 20th 2013 at 8:13:03 AM

I don't understand how she can get away with all of this if she is so noticeably a freak.

Also you have to question why it is so important that this character is a humanoid abomination or not.

Noaqiyeum Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they) from the gentle and welcoming dark (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#7: Oct 20th 2013 at 10:31:15 AM

@So Into Cats. She doesn't really "get away" with things; in fact before she is revealed as the Man Behind the Man, there are only four people in The Haven (the world of the story) that even know she is still alive. Plus, though she has noticeably inhuman traits, the people she picks to interact with and use as pawns aren't the sort who would be put off by those things. She always chooses desperate or traumatized individuals to advance her plan. Nadia actually spends a large part of the story disguised as a blind servant, and only comes out as her true self after several critical events have happened. Once she takes center stage as the Big Bad, she doesn't really care what people think of her.

It isn't really important that she be considered a Humanoid Abomination, I'm just curious if she would qualify as one under the trope. Nadia's one of my more complex and intriguing villains for a variety of reasons, so I was just wondering.

@Noaqiyeum, is there any reason why she isn't? Just for reference in case I really am trying to create one in a later story?

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
ohsointocats from The Sand Wastes Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#8: Oct 20th 2013 at 10:49:14 AM

What people think of people who have power is important. I am doubting that someone like her would be able to "influence centuries of politics".

nekomoon14 from Oakland, CA Since: Oct, 2010
#9: Oct 21st 2013 at 5:46:10 PM

Mystery is the most important aspect of an abomination; your villain's motivations and origins should never be revealed (but you should know them, and they should be so bizarre that even you barely understand them) and her methods should be unpredictable - she might swing from rage to rapture, from cruelty to apparent kindness. In the end, the protagonist should STILL have no idea what the villain's deal was; he/she has to just be content with their presumably Pyrrhic Victory. You can have all the horrid powers you want but they don't make you abberant; if anything Blue-and-Orange Morality do. That said, I like this character; whether or not she's an abomination.

Level 3 Social Justice Necromancer. Chaotic Good.
Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#10: Oct 21st 2013 at 6:40:58 PM

@ Nekomoon Thanks so much; I'm glad you like her.grin Yes, Thana/Nadia (She has two names, similar to Voldemort as well, Nadia is her real name but Thana is the name she uses for the movement that worships her almost in the manner of a goddess).

Unfortunately by the criteria you pose, she isn't a humanoid abomination. She turns out to not be one in-universe; The Reveal shows the characters that she has far more in common with a Lich than something from beyond human comprehension, but I was trying to express just how alien and horrifying she is in a world where all sorts of magical hijinks have already occured. Her motivations...put simply her plan is to summon the Source of all magic in the world and fuse with it, becoming a goddess and plugging her in to the life force of everyone on The Haven. She'll then use her already strong ability to "see" people's bloodlines just by looking at them to cause everyone not of Pure magic blood to drop dead instantly. She's a Nazi By Any Other Name but because her plan will theoretically murder everyone in the world due to so much mingled blood, she comes off more as an Omnicidal Maniac.

Her origins are sympathetic though, even though by the time the protagonist (and we, the readers) encounter her, she is a Determinator who is cruel, vindictive and ruthlessly selfish—-though she manages to cover this up by being a calm manipulative chessmaster...most of the time. Again, thanks for the critique. If you want to know more about this character just askwink

edited 21st Oct '13 6:45:51 PM by Swordofknowledge

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
nekomoon14 from Oakland, CA Since: Oct, 2010
#11: Oct 21st 2013 at 7:19:42 PM

I only learned this stuff recently myself; I'm just passing it along. Characters, plot, motifs, setting; I learned a lot of what I know within the last few years and I've been writing since I was eleven.

Level 3 Social Justice Necromancer. Chaotic Good.
Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#12: Oct 21st 2013 at 7:35:53 PM

Oh cool, another long-time writer!grin I've been at it since I was around that age too, but it really took off when I was thirteen; my English teacher gave us an assignment to write our own stories, and it gradually occured to me that I was essentially the master of that world; I could make anything I wanted to happen. That was what first fascinated me and then I just grew to love the feeling of telling a story and having other people read and remark on it, even if those remarks weren't the best. I've been hooked ever since.cool

More to the point, I learned a lesson from this particular case; I thought this trope was about a character's appearance and less about actual nature. Oh well.

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
nekomoon14 from Oakland, CA Since: Oct, 2010
#13: Oct 21st 2013 at 8:15:51 PM

[up]I pretty much had the same realizations. The reason I specifically write fantasy is because I've been in love with magic and monsters since I was like seven. My uncle gave me a copy of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and the magic captivated me; so did the story, actually. Shorty after, I was introduced to Merlin, with Sam Neill; I fell in love with the magical world presented therein. Fast forward ten plus years and I'm more obsessed with fantasy fiction than I've ever been[lol]

Level 3 Social Justice Necromancer. Chaotic Good.
Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#14: Oct 21st 2013 at 8:44:04 PM

[up]Oh Final Fantasy...memories. My brother and I grew up on those games and I just finished 13-2 this summer. Even though I've (largely) moved on different stories. When I'm writing now, I usually use the "crutch" of the real world to back up my writing, as it's easier than building a world. Archmage Reborn the story with Nadia as villain has taken me since 2008 to really create The Haven and flesh out its politics and its people and I've given up on it more than once. All I know is that when I finish the trilogy I'm currently writing, and maybe I'll get back to fantasysmile.

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
nekomoon14 from Oakland, CA Since: Oct, 2010
#15: Oct 22nd 2013 at 1:05:35 AM

I have this really bitchy character named Nigel (among other things) and I wanted to make him aberrant but he's too much of a person to me and I couldn't really become emotionally detached enough to pull it off. He's a straight-up Villain Sue and he's so hard to work with that I have to keep him in the background of all my stories; he's always the Bigger Bad. And the worst part is that I LOVE a good Karma Houdini so he never REALLY loses.

Level 3 Social Justice Necromancer. Chaotic Good.
Prany Since: Apr, 2013
#16: Oct 22nd 2013 at 8:02:38 AM

[up] Tsk, tsk, tsk.wink

As for OP you shouldn't worry about what your characer is as long she/it is a good character. But I guess you already came to that comclusion.

edited 22nd Oct '13 8:03:12 AM by Prany

Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#17: Oct 22nd 2013 at 10:40:11 AM

@Nekomoon 14 Ha ha, I like the name Nigel, it perfectly suits a villainous character. Don't worry about him being a Villain Sue. As long as you keep him in the background as a Bigger Bad then you are fine to make sure he stays outside of justice. At least that's just my humble advice.

On the other hand, I love a good "justice is served" type of plot; my villains can't really get away with anything grin. They may commit horrific atrocities and seem to get away with it for a long time, sometimes years (or centuries in some cases) but they will always have some sort of punishment get handed down either by the heroes or just events in general. Likewise with my protagonists; if they are AntiHeroes who do morally dubious things, people are going to call them out on it, or at least they will suffer some sort of repercussions from what they've done. It's interesting because in real life I have been angrily called out for being "cynical" and I most definitely believe that Karma Houdini (at least in this life) is an unfortunate reality we have to live with.

@ Prany, 100% agreement with you there. I was just curious if she counted as the trope. One of the things I've loved about this website since I discovered it five years ago was how it just broke down and analyzed people and events from books, movies, animes, etc that I've read/watched and I wanted to subject one of my original characters (and maybe one of my stories) to its discerning eye.

edited 22nd Oct '13 10:40:58 AM by Swordofknowledge

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
Noaqiyeum Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they) from the gentle and welcoming dark (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
#18: Oct 23rd 2013 at 1:53:57 PM

@Noaqiyeum, is there any reason why she isn't? Just for reference in case I really am trying to create one in a later story?
Basically, she seems to be humanoid first and abomination second. This is difficult to pin down precisely and could partly be a matter of presentation, but here are some of the things I notice.

You've described her in various points as being irritable, excited, angry, and other fundamentally human emotions, rather than this being simply a public display of a largely-unreadable consciousness beneath. Similarly, her corrupting influence directly affects particular emotions, which is a connection to something natural that she herself is a natural being rather than something from outside nature. (The fact that this influence affects conventionally negative emotions does not help either, since convention associates undesirability with evil. Contrary to popular belief, vast dark shapes that feed on fear and madness and yearn to digest the souls of humanity for eons on end are completely missing the point of cosmic horror... but I digress.)

Her desires seem to be for power and some sort of "magical purity", which are respectively egoistic and ideological in nature. Power and purity are conceptions of human consciousness, so if a character uses such ideas the same way as humans do it's a strong example of thinking in human terms and motivations. Well-written abominations are motivated by principles that fundamentally differ from those with which humans are familiar or can easily grasp - either by because their interactions with reality are more bestial (instinct, hunger, survival), more abstract (putting tremendous effort into achieving the seemingly inconsequential, remaining apathetic about apparently undesirable side-effects), or simply differently prioritised compared to human expectations. (I want to give some examples here, because it's important that I distinguish this from abnormal but well-known human mental conditions like autism or psychosis, but the only two examples I can think of off-hand are non-antagonists. -_- I'll give those if you like but otherwise I'll think about it and come back.)

From a physical standpoint you have her not-quite-humanity pretty well-covered (I really like your idea of how she mysteriously survives death!), though some of her traits imply a connection to magic as a force of nature. This is a pretty minor issue, though, if no other such beings are known (or if magic itself has unnatural origins to your world).

Does that help?

edited 23rd Oct '13 1:59:48 PM by Noaqiyeum

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
Swordofknowledge Swordofknowledge from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Swordofknowledge
#19: Oct 23rd 2013 at 2:35:40 PM

@Noaqiyeum Thanks so much for the well thought out reply. It was really informative. grin Yes, since I started this thread I've come to realize that I have misunderstood the trope Humanoid Abomination, or at least had a very incomplete understanding. The mindset part (being after some humanly incomprehensible goal or being at the level of a beast) is always hard for me, because I like my antagonists to be as human as possible, at least in the sense that they represent the depths to which humanity can sink—even if the villain in question isn't human. So again, thank you very much.

  • Oddly enough your incomprehensible goals and alien nature explanation describe another character in the same story—the Source of all magic in the world. To be brief, it granted certain humans magical powers when it arrived in the world millions of years ago merely by being around them, is described vaguely as a humanoid being tall enough to reach the clouds and composed of some sort of wood—-though that is the closest the minds of those seeing it can come to viewing what it actually looks like. It is utterly indifferent to humans, even when people are fighting to capture it and it collects the memories of all who use magic for some unknown reason.

edited 23rd Oct '13 2:35:53 PM by Swordofknowledge

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
Prany Since: Apr, 2013
Nomic Exitus Acta Probat from beyond the Void Since: Jan, 2001
Exitus Acta Probat
#21: Oct 24th 2013 at 12:46:02 PM

Some Abominations have fairly humanoid motivations, tho. Even Lovecraft had Nyarlathotep, who when you get down to it, has quite understandable motivations.

I based the main villain in my story, the Herald of the Outer Gods, on Nyarlathotep (hell, his title is a variant of Nyarlathotep's title of Messager and Soul of Outer Gods), and basically extrapolated his personality from what you can gleam from Lovecraft's writing. The end result is suprisingly human. The basic thing is that he really despises his "job", as the manifestation of the will of the Outer Gods. Hes an immensely powerful being in his own right, yet he is forced to serve the will of even more powerful ebigns that even he can barely comprehend. After uncounted aeons with no chanse of retirementor promotion, that gets frustrating. So he takes out his frustration by messing with beings less powerful than himself, making him the one in charge for once. All of his machnations during the story are essentially a game he plays on his "off-time", and half of it has no agenda or planning behind it beyound "lets see what happens if I do this".

Noaqiyeum Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they) from the gentle and welcoming dark (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
#22: Nov 5th 2013 at 7:04:08 AM

[up][up][up] You're welcome! This is something of a favourite topic of mine. :) I think the magic Source you describe is a much better example (though perhaps on the far end of being able to be called humanoid).

You're right that it can be more difficult to make humanoid abominations thematically relevant, but it is possible. It lends itself particularly well, I think, to themes of how easy it is for people to believe they understand something that they don't, particularly the ways in which humans don't really understand each other. Another way would be to focus on what things it does that are recognisable, and what traits it lacks, as a comparison. (A lot of abominations that are particularly close to humanity seem to have It Amused Me as a recurring motive, and just amuse themselves in strange ways, but I tend to lean against that just because there are so many examples to compare it against.) Some closer-to-human examples -

  • The Laundry Series: Angleton used to be a geometric being that guarded the system keeping the Sleeper in the Pyramid on the Dead Plateau in a dormant quantum state. When British Intelligence took over the site, they recognised its potential as a powerful tool and forced it to possess an human body, which they then tried to indoctrinate and brainwash into obedience. While the lessons in mimicking human behaviour were effective, their attempts to control it didn't take - but Angleton decided to throw in "his" lot with them anyway, because the stars are almost right and he seems to think his own best chance of survival lies with humanity.
  • Tomie: Tomie's origins are unknown, but she appears to be an extraordinarily beautiful young adult obsessed with her own attractiveness. Every fragment of her will eventually regenerate into a new Tomie (including organ transplants), and they all hate each other - a "newborn" Tomie has been seen to turn on the Tomie from which she was separated within the first moments of her independent existence. She cyclically seduces her admirers and infects her rivals, trying to incite them to murder the other copies of herself and abandoning them before they too inevitably turn on her.

[up] Nomic - [twitch]

I think the simplest way to explain my issues with Nyarlathotep is to focus on what you said about "even Lovecraft". Lovecraft deserves credit for everything he did in creating cosmic horror as a genre, but (a) not everything he wrote is cosmic horror, (b) he is not the epitome of what the genre can represent, and (c) a lot of his cultural significance comes by way of how other people have interpreted him.

In regards to Nyarlathotep particularly, he is indeed an humanoid abomination, but even leaving aside how much of his apparent sadism and pride are played up in adaptations of Lovecraft I do not consider him a very good one. That doesn't make him a bad character, mind you - he just has more in common with Mephistopheles than the Outer Gods.

edited 5th Nov '13 7:08:08 AM by Noaqiyeum

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
ohsointocats from The Sand Wastes Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#23: Nov 5th 2013 at 8:06:47 AM

So question: Abominations being mostly harmless, yes or no?

Noaqiyeum Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they) from the gentle and welcoming dark (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
nekomoon14 from Oakland, CA Since: Oct, 2010
#25: Nov 5th 2013 at 2:31:43 PM

[up][up]Normally, I think, but there are times when the abomination just wants to chat with you or your mom; theoretically, you could have an altogether helpful abomination (I'm thinking alignment Helpful Neutral).

Level 3 Social Justice Necromancer. Chaotic Good.

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