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| 5 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
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| 10 | [[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/{{BPRD}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hellboy_wendigo_8153.jpg]]]] |
| 11 | [[caption-width-right:350:One more big reason why you DontGoInTheWoods.]] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ->''"The Wendigo, the Wendigo\ |
| 14 | I saw it just a friend ago\ |
| 15 | Last night it lurked in Canada\ |
| 16 | Tonight on your veranada!"'' |
| 17 | -->-- '''Creator/OgdenNash''' |
| 18 | |
| 19 | [[InconsistentSpelling Also spelled]] Windigo, Weetigo and Wetiko among roughly 35 others (depending on the language and region), the Wendigo is a human being turned into a cannibal monster in [[Myth/NativeAmericanMythology the mythologies of several Algonquian and Athabaskan peoples]]. |
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| 21 | The causes of this transformation and the Wendigo's general appearance vary from region to region. Some lores have it that eating human flesh is [[EvilMakesYouMonstrous what makes you turn into one]], but in others you can become one just by coming across a Wendigo, being possessed by the spirit of a Wendigo or even dreaming of a Wendigo. Its most common description is a dreadfully skinny giant of ice devoid of lips and toes, while newer works often portray it as a hunchbacked creature with the antlered head of a deer, or perhaps a deer's SkullForAHead thanks to ''Film/{{Wendigo}}''. The more it devours, the larger and more powerful it grows, and thus it can never find enough food to satisfy its hunger; the largest and most powerful can summon wildlife and natural disasters to do their bidding. In the mythologies of several Amerindian Nations, the Wendigo can revive if you don't destroy its body entirely, so you may need to KillItWithFire; later stories say that an AttackOnTheHeart is the only way to kill it. More info on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo the Other Wiki.]] |
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| 23 | A potent source of NightmareFuel. Not to be confused with the [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti Bigfoot/Sasquatch]], though some writers connect the two anyway. Also not to be confused with Franchise/{{the Slender Man|Mythos}} [[Film/{{Windigo}} film of the same name.]] Compare OurGhoulsAreCreepier for stories of monsters associated with cannibalism from a more arid climate. Sometimes they are confused with the SkinWalker. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[AmericansHateTingle In general, Native American audiences typically do not respond well to Wendigo portrayals in media]] due to [[SadlyMythtaken mainstream misinformation of what these things mean within their cultures]], and because those cultures often consider the entity itself a taboo topic. Creative discretion is advised. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[AC:Tropes often applying to depictions of wendigos:]] |
| 28 | * AnthropomorphicPersonification: Of greed, winter or starvation, depending on who you ask. |
| 29 | * AttackOnTheHeart: In later stories, stabbing a wendigo through the heart with a silver stake is the only way to kill it. |
| 30 | * BloodyHorror: Native American wendigos have blood pouring out of their eyes, bloody stumps for feet and torn, bloodied lips. |
| 31 | * CannibalismSuperpower: By way of CursedWithAwesome. |
| 32 | * CursedWithAwesome: Wendigo are supernaturally strong, fast and tough and in some stories can fly. In many stories, they can inflict horrific hallucinations on humans to drive them mad and summon wildlife and natural disasters to do their bidding. |
| 33 | * DemBones: In some modern depictions, they are hunchbacked skeletons with deer skulls for heads. |
| 34 | * EvilIsDeathlyCold: AnIcePerson: Are sometimes portrayed as having ice powers, and are always associated with winter. |
| 35 | * FromNobodyToNightmare: Anyone can become possessed by the wendigo spirit and become one, which is part of what makes it frightening (compare zombies). |
| 36 | * HorrorHunger: Because they represent greed, they have an insatiable hunger for human flesh, where no matter how much they eat they're always emaciated. They may also have no lips from chewing at them. |
| 37 | * HumanoidAbomination: In Native stories, the creature is much closer to human form, more like a walking corpse or a revenant, which is also unnaturally tall, skinny and fast. The modern non-Native take on it as an AnimalisticAbomination looks very different and is more like a werewolf in concept. |
| 38 | * HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Within most Algonquian traditions, Wendigos are essentially just sociopaths, or otherwise metaphorical for human evil, rather than anything supernatural. |
| 39 | * ImAHumanitarian: [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier Ghouls]] are the only monsters more associated with cannibalism. |
| 40 | * KillItWithFire: In Native American stories. After European influence, the way to kill it is said to be driving a silver blade into its heart, smashing the heart, placing the pieces in a silver box, burying the box in a churchyard, salting and burning the body and scattering the ashes. |
| 41 | * LeanAndMean: Wendigo are often described as emaciated due to their associations with starvation and famine. |
| 42 | * TheMarvelousDeer: Often an inversion or subversion in newer works (see NewerThanTheyThink). Modern wendigos commonly blend humanoid and cervine traits, either resembling an [[HornedHumanoid antlered humanoid]], or a human body with [[NonHumanHead a stag's head]] or [[SkullForAHead rotting skull]] in place of a human head. |
| 43 | * NewerThanTheyThink: The "skeleton with a deer skull" look is strictly a 21st Century invention, originating with the 2001 movie ''Film/{{Wendigo}}''. |
| 44 | * NighInvulnerability: There are only a few ways to kill them, which varies somewhat between tellings of the stories about them. Fire is often one, because they have hearts of ice. In some cases, they can be killed by gunshots or being chopped into pieces, but not easily. Other ways to get rid of them may be spiritual or shamanistic. |
| 45 | * NothingButSkinAndBones: Quite literally, because it looks like it's starving to death. Despite this, it's unnaturally strong. |
| 46 | * OminousOwl: This one rarely shows up in pop culture, but in the original Algonquian and Athabaskan folklore, wendigo were sometimes associated with owls, to the point where in some dialects, a single word can refer to either creature. |
| 47 | * OurGhoulsAreCreepier: Wendigoes are often treated as the icy version of this. |
| 48 | * OurGiantsAreBigger: In the belief of some tribes, wendigoes are ice giants. They're usually tall and skinny enough that their bodies can be mistaken for the limbs of trees. |
| 49 | * OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: The first written accounts of the wendigo specifically compare it to the European werewolf myth, as it too is a seemingly-normal human, suddenly driven to a ravenous and cannibalistic hunger. |
| 50 | * SinisterDeerSkull: Modern examples often have antlers and sometimes even full deer skulls for heads. Notably, [[SadlyMythtaken this is not a common feature of the wendigo in indigenous folklore]], but may have been added along the line to add a sense of the unsettling dichotomy of something that embodies both predator and prey, the forest devouring its own and weaving it into its flesh. |
| 51 | * SpeakOfTheDevil: Some Natives from cultures where the wendigo is part of their mythology don't like to talk about the wendigo and won't say or write its name, because they traditionally believe that even thinking about it can lead to being possessed by it. |
| 52 | * TheVirus: The wendigo isn't just a creature, but more properly it's a spirit that can enter and take over a human and turn them into the monster if they're vulnerable to it (isolated, starving, etc.). |
| 53 | * WasOnceAMan: The point of the Native stories about the creature is that the wendigo is AnAesop about the loss of humanity from greed and selfishness (which is why it's endlessly hungry and appears in the winter, a time when there would be little food and communities would need to rely on each other most to survive). This detail might be missed in adaptations by Western writers who may simply portray it as terrifying because it's like a wild beast and there is no reasoning with it. |
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| 55 | ---- |
| 56 | !!Examples: |
| 57 | |
| 58 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 59 | |
| 60 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 61 | * ''Manga/TheAncientMagusBride'': Elias Ainsworth is (in what seems to be his ShapeshifterDefaultForm) a tall, lean creature covered in fur, with a horned SkullForAHead (although it's not a deer skull). He is first encountered by Lindel in a freezing cold forest somewhere in the North, and claims to have eaten humans in the past, and occasionally still feels this urge in the present. He is never explicitly referred to as a wendigo, but to date, [[MysteriousPast this is likely the best explanation for his existence the fandom has come up with]]. |
| 62 | * [[Franchise/{{Digimon}} Wendigomon]] is the villain for the first ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' movie (though it is never identified as such). It is a corrupted evolved form of Wallace's Chocomon (infected by a virus, and referred to solely by that name in the movie), compared to Turuiemon, named for the Festival of Rabbits. It's an apelike creature with stretching arms, ice breath, and [[ChestBlaster giant laser cannons that burst out of the flesh in its chest.]] Early American Bandai materials mistakenly called it ''Endigomon'', while it Japan it is known as ''Wendimon''. However, there are no elements of cannibalism here, so the name is the only overt connection to the myth. |
| 63 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'': Chopper's Monster Form was very inspired by this, being a giant monster with reindeer-like features. His most dangerous form, he manages to control it post timeskip. |
| 64 | [[/folder]] |
| 65 | |
| 66 | [[folder:Audio Plays]] |
| 67 | * In ''AudioPlay/TheCartographersHandbook'', Wendigo is a name given to the savage, zombie-like creatures that have overrun the world, named as such to specifically invoke the original legend. |
| 68 | [[/folder]] |
| 69 | |
| 70 | [[folder:Card Games]] |
| 71 | * ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' features the [[https://scryfall.com/card/me2/186/wiitigo Wiitigo]], a big creature that gets larger the more it fights other creatures, but shrinks as soon as it runs out of foes to fight/feed on. Notably, it's typed as a [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti yeti]] creature. The Aura [[https://scryfall.com/card/csp/120/shape-of-the-wiitigo Shape of the Wiitigo]] allows the player to twist any creature into a Wiitigo. |
| 72 | * ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'': El Shadoll Wendigo is named after these monsters. Wendigo is a corrupted Wen. In fact, Wendigo is an extended version of Wen's name. |
| 73 | [[/folder]] |
| 74 | |
| 75 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 76 | * A run of ''ComicBook/{{BPRD}}'' involved a Wendigo curse being [[TransferredTransformation transmitted from person to person]]. This one is a particular TearJerker, since the Wendigo retains his memories as a family man, though he had been unaware that his family thought him dead and had moved on. He is told that he will eventually lose his humanity, and when he asks Abe and Hellboy to kill him, is told that it won't work, since the only way to break the curse and let him die peacefully is to kill someone else and pass the curse on. HB and Abe regretfully inform the Wendigo that they have no choice but to lock him up. The last shot of him curled up in his cell with nothing but a photo of him with his family for comfort makes this example something of a [[TheWoobie Woobdigo]], particularly as it's clear he'll eventually forget who they are, and may be starting to already. |
| 77 | * ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': In Creator/DonRosa's "War of the Wendigo", Scrooge [=McDuck=] investigates reports of wendigo attacks at a lumber mill of his in Canada. However, these "wendigo" are described more like TheFairFolk; small, mischievous but relatively harmless tricksters who play pranks on people in the forest. Said wendigo turn out to be the Peeweegah Indians from "Land of the Pygmy Indians" by Creator/CarlBarks, who once again [[MagicalNativeAmerican have to teach Scrooge a]] GreenAesop. |
| 78 | * Ithaqua from the Franchise/CthulhuMythos makes an appearance in ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' when it accidentally takes over Allen Quartermain's body while he's astral-projecting. Ithaqua was perfectly happy to be a nightmarish mass in an infinite void of space, and isn't particularly pleased to be in Quartermain's [[HumansThroughAlienEyes disgustingly alien, human meat-body.]] |
| 79 | * In Creator/MarvelComics, anyone who eats human flesh in the frozen north becomes a Wendigo. The creature is best known as a villain of the ComicBook/XMen and spinoff team ComicBook/AlphaFlight, but has tangled with [[Characters/MarvelComicsPeterParker Spider-Man]] and others. In fact, he seems to be the standard villain for superheroes visiting Canada. It's well-known for shouting its CatchPhrase: "[[PokemonSpeak WEN-DI-GOOOO]]!" The Wendigo in Marvel Comics is portrayed as a muscular Sasquatch-esque creature with white fur rather than a skinny elongated monster. |
| 80 | ** It's a common [[Characters/MarvelComicsBruceBanner Hulk]] villain too, having made its first Marvel appearance in his book. (And its ''second'' story in that book was the first appearance of [[Characters/MarvelComicsLogan Wolverine]], giving the association more historical weight than it might otherwise have.) |
| 81 | ** In ''ComicBook/EarthX'', [[Characters/XFactor Multiple Man]] is transformed into one when he eats one of his own doubles to survive. He doesn't lose his self-duplication powers. |
| 82 | ** [=Todd McFarlane=] infamously used the Wendigo as a poor, misunderstood victim during his Spider-Man run. |
| 83 | ** ''ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderMan1963'' #277, pencilled by Charles Vess, featured a demonic spirit called Wendigo who descended upon New York during a fierce blizzard. No relation (that we are aware of) to Marvel's regular Wendigo. |
| 84 | ** In the ''Amazing X-Men'' storyline World War Wendigo, a confrontation between two Canadian meat packing plant employees resulted in one accidentally killing the other. The perpetrator decided to cover it up by running the victim's body through a meat grinder, which ended up being consumed by several people, resulting in a mass break of the Wendigo curse. |
| 85 | ** A Wendigo is a member of Omega Flight, the Black Ops Counterparts of Alpha Flight in ''ComicBook/TheAvengersJonathanHickman'' as the counterpart to Sasquatch. We don't learn if he's under the curse or has a different origin, or anything else about him before he gets killed. |
| 86 | ** In an issue of ''ComicBook/SpiderWoman'', Jessica Drew visited a Canadian ski lodge, where an EvilChef was serving human flesh to his unwitting patrons in order to invoke an outbreak of Wendigos. Drew managed to prevent most of the patrons from eating human meat by pretending to be a militant StrawVegetarian, knocking morsels out of people's mouths while shouting things like "Meat is murder!" |
| 87 | ** During a Year of Marvels one-shot, [[Characters/MarvelComicsLauraKinney X-23]] and ComicBook/SheHulk teamed up to fight the Wendigo Sisters, a pair of ''intelligent'' female Wendigos named Grace and Harmony, who were willingly transformed by their mother. |
| 88 | ** ''ComicBook/WeaponH'' reveals that eating a Wendigo's flesh turns you into a kind of [[GiantMook Double Wendigo]]. |
| 89 | * The obscure one-shot ''ComicBook/{{The Wendigo of Manitou Valley}}'', notable for its cover depicting the eponymous beast fighting a robot. |
| 90 | * The appropriately-named ''ComicBook/WendigoWood'' has the protagonist entering a forest [=FULL=] of them in his search for his missing daughter. |
| 91 | [[/folder]] |
| 92 | |
| 93 | [[folder:Fanfiction]] |
| 94 | * In ''Fanfic/TheBridge'' the three Windigos from Equestria are given an AdaptationExpansion that draws wholesale from Algonquian myth. They are given a physical alternate form that is gaunt, very tall, and looks like a frostbitten corpse with icy growths resembling hooves on the feet and an antlered deer skull on their faces. While they feed off of and perpetuate misery instead of specifically human flesh, cannibalism is mentioned as another means of causing despair. The winter theme is also played up as a manifestation of the evil they can emotionally manifest. |
| 95 | * Several wendigo, portrayed as lanky and pale humanoids with elk skulls for heads, appear in ''The Luna Syndicate'', which is part of ''Fanfic/TheCalvinverse'' series. They hunt in packs, can walk on walls, and have the ability to mimic humans to lure their prey into a trap (one pretends to be a crying little girl to lead the main cast to its pack). They are also influenced by a red star like all the other monsters. |
| 96 | * ''Fanfic/DannyPhantomVsTheParanormal'': The second story, ''Danny Phantom vs The Wendigo'', involves Danny traveling to Canada due to claims of a ghost causing trouble. He soon learns it's actually the Wendigo. |
| 97 | * The third story in ''Fanfic/TheDresdenFillies'' series, "Great Power", has Harry contact a Wendigo for help in a case that he's working on. The Wendigo first appears to look like a regular person, but after Harry gives it a gift of three plucked turkeys it reveals its true form of a white haired, deer-headed giant. Wendigos are not incredibly popular among the supernatural world, so they have to hide themselves very well (and a modern city like Chicago is basically a giant buffet for a Wendigo, which can sustain itself on the dozens of all-you-can-eat restaurants that populate such areas). |
| 98 | * The Buffyverse story ''[[http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-3182/DonSample+Tales+of+the+Slayer+Wendigo.htm Tales of the Slayer: Wendigo]]'' tells of a Slayer being called in pre-Columbian America. |
| 99 | [[/folder]] |
| 100 | |
| 101 | [[folder:Film -- Animated]] |
| 102 | * ''WesternAnimation/IronManAndHulkHeroesUnited'': A whole pack of them is first seen hanging around the power plant, then they fight Hulk and Iron Man later on. [[FailedASpotCheck JARVIS claims they're just a myth as he's scanning them.]] |
| 103 | [[/folder]] |
| 104 | |
| 105 | [[folder:Film -- Live Action]] |
| 106 | * The plot of ''Film/{{Antlers}}'' revolves around the creature. In the film, a boy named Lucas Weaver's father was attacked by a Wendigo and later on [[spoiler: transforms into one]]. |
| 107 | * The creature In ''Film/DarkWasTheNight'' is implied to be one of these. When Paul begins searching the internet for animals with feet that match the prints found all around Maiden Wood, the camera lingers on a Wikipedia entry for ''windiga'', an alternate spelling of wendigo. |
| 108 | * In the 2021 horror film, ''Film/{{Dawn of the Beast}}'', a wendigo spirit haunts a specific track of woods and targets a collegue class investigating bigfoot sightings. In a case of [[ShownTheirWork accuracy]], the wendigo is a spirit that possesses others into becoming monstrous rather than a physical entity. Those possessed become gaunt, ravenous ghouls overtime, who can attack in a ZergRush when amassed. Fortunately, a {{Sasquatch}} functions as a GuardianEntity to kill the possessed and is capable of forcing the wendigo spirit back after coming to the rescue of the survivor. |
| 109 | * ''Film/DeadtimeStoriesVolume2'': At the end of "The Gorge", Donna is transforming into one: [[NotUsingTheZWord even though the word 'wendigo' isn't mentioned]]. Trapped in a cave-in, she eats her injured fiancé to survive. After being rescued, she discovers she has an insatiable craving for human flesh. In the last scene of the segment, she is physically transformed into a more monstrous form, and is stalking tourists in the cave system where she was trapped. |
| 110 | * ''Film/DevilInTheDark'': In Washington State, Adam visits his estranged brother Clint to reconnect their relationship after fifteen years apart from each other. Clint has always been the favorite of their father Glen, and Adam feels grief and sorrow. The plan to go in a hunting party along the weekend to hunt deer and supersede their problems. When they stumble upon a cave surrounded by deer antlers, they flee from the spot. But they are chased and stalked by a supernatural creature. Will they escape alive from the being? |
| 111 | * Mentioned, though not by name, in the 2021 film ''Film/DontSayItsName'', which has a Cree director and a mostly-Cree cast. When a series of mysterious, seemingly-supernatural murders take place at a reservation in Alberta, one of the cops (who happens to be white) proposes that it's actually a case of culturally-specific mass hysteria, pointing to to historical cases of so-called "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo#Psychosis wendigo psychosis]]". The Cree characters find this a rather condescending theory. Descriptions of the movie [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer often refer to the movie's monster as a wendigo]], although it's really more of a [[GhostlyGoals vengeful ghost]]. |
| 112 | * Creator/{{Troma}} created a movie in the late '80s named ''Film/FrostbiterWrathOfTheWendigo''. It has less to do with monstrous cannibal spirits, and more to do with killer animated pots of chili, however. |
| 113 | * ''Film/{{Ghostkeeper}}'', where an insane woman keeps the Wendigo that was once her son locked in the basement. |
| 114 | * The werewolves are assumed to be these in ''Film/GingerSnapsBackTheBeginning''. |
| 115 | * ''Film/TheLastWinter'': One of the characters opines that nature itself has turned against mankind. Documentation and research found in an abandoned shack in the middle of the Arctic by another team member suggest that the Earth is releasing 'The Last Winter'. This implies that the rapacious, virus-like behavior of oil-seeking humans has resurrected the 'ghosts' of the fossil-fuels being siphoned out of the ground. The chief catalyst here is allegedly the spirit of the Wendigo; Dawn, while treating one of Elliot's nose bleeds, refers to a similar spirit from Algonquin mythology known as the Chenoo. |
| 116 | * Tonto in ''Film/TheLoneRanger2013'' believes that Butch is a Wendigo ([[TipisAndTotemPoles despite the fact that Tonto is a Comanche and the Wendigo is an Algonquin legend]]). He eats human flesh, and at one point [[spoiler:eats the heart of the main character's brother in front of him]], so his conclusion is understandable. |
| 117 | * Someone can turn into a Wendigo after experiencing a devastating personal betrayal or by looking into the eyes of one in ''Film/{{Maneater}}''. |
| 118 | * In ''Film/PetSematary2019,'' Louis comes across a picture of one in a book of Native Mythology. Judd tells him that to the Miq'mak who used to live there, it wasn't a fairy tale; they were deathly afraid of it. [[spoiler:He may or may not have spotted it through the trees while carrying Ellie's body to the cursed burial ground.]] |
| 119 | * ''Film/TheRake2018'' is explicitly compared to this early in the film and we see it functions pretty much the same as a spiritual entity that attaches itself to a victim and forces or drives it to do horrible things before it can physically manifest. |
| 120 | * The Wendigo Myth features prominently in ''Film/Ravenous1999''. In the film, eating human flesh is addictive and gives you super-strength. The movie is set in California, but the Native character who first mentions the legend explicitly names it as an Ojibway story. |
| 121 | * In ''Film/TheRetreat'', a man named Gus finds himself tormented by a wendigo during a winter backpacking trip with his friend Adam in the Adirondack High Peaks of upstate New York. |
| 122 | * The 2001 American horror movie titled ''Film/{{Wendigo}}''. The Wendigo in this is a deer-headed man that [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not exist]]. The movie leaves it up to the viewer but the more likely explanation for the cannibals in the movie are real psychological problems. This is also the movie that pretty much invented the trope of the wendigo as having the head of a stag. Also worth noting is that the movie was directed by Larry Fessenden, who would go on to work on ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'' and ''Film/TheLastWinter'' - both of which also involve the wendigo myth. |
| 123 | [[/folder]] |
| 124 | |
| 125 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 126 | * ''Literature/TheBeastOfNightfallLodge'' is the 2nd and final book of S.A Sidor's ''[[WeirdWest The Institute of Singular Antiquities]]'' duology. Our heroes spend the night amongst a DwindlingParty of other guests who have appear to have fallen victim to a Wendigo. [[spoiler: It's actually worse, the culprit is an EldritchAbomination spirit from the depths of outer space that loves being a cannibalistic serial killer]]. |
| 127 | * The Wendigo is discussed, and it is ambiguous as to whether it's actually encountered, in the novel ''Literature/{{Bonechiller}}''. The dad of the protagonist's love interest describes to them a legend about one. |
| 128 | * Franchise/CthulhuMythos: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaqua Ithaqua]] is a Great Old One who lives in the North and was inspired by the legend of the Wendigo. Blackwood's short story was the inspiration for ''The Wind-walker'', the story in which Ithaqua debuted. |
| 129 | * Such a creature is mentioned in Michael D. O'Brien's novel ''Literature/EclipseOfTheSun'' by a young boy called Arrow. |
| 130 | * Daniel González short story ''Literature/GemidosEnElViento'' (Screams in the Wind) published in the Ominous Tales magazine is about the Wendigo myth affecting two excursionists in Canada. |
| 131 | * In ''Literature/TheGeneralSeries'' by Creator/DavidDrake and Creator/SMStirling, the Skinners, descended from French Canadians, refer to Raj Whitehall as the "Gran' wheetigo," translated in-story as the "Big Devil." |
| 132 | * "Literature/GhostInTheMachine", a Mercedes Lackey short story in "Trio of Sorcery", features a MMORPG enemy infected with a Wendigo spirit. |
| 133 | * In ''[[Literature/HeklasChildren Hekla's Children]]'' by James Brogden, the ''afaugh'' is a fictitious cannibalistic spirit from the dark world Un. A starving Bronze Age tribe in what would be ancient Britain, encounters it when a horrified mother finds her baby missing. A search reveals it to be slowly being eaten by a tribesman possessed by the ''afaugh'' and it takes the ritual sacrifice of a hero to imprison it until the modern age. In-story, archaeologist Tara Doumani mentions that throughout the world - entities like the afaugh appear in folklore and she cites the Wendigo in North America and the Preta in India. James Brogden mentons in an interview that it was the Hungry Ghost that influenced his creation of the Afaugh. |
| 134 | * The ''Literature/ImmortalsAfterDark'' series by Kresley Cole has a variant. One becomes a Wendigo when bitten or scratched by one, although Lothaire reveals the heretofore little-known fact that rubbing salt into the wound halts the transformation. They hunger for flesh, like the archetype. |
| 135 | %%* ''Literature/LeagueOfMagi'': Coldheart. |
| 136 | * The second book in the gory ''Literature/{{Monstrumologist}}'' series is called ''Curse of The Wendigo''. A "neither living or dead version of the Wendigo" is the main antagonist. |
| 137 | * ''Literature/PetSematary'': The Indian burial ground and the path leading to it are frequented by the Wendigo. Whether this is the cause or the result of the curse on that area isn't made clear. At one point, the protagonist nearly meets the Wendigo, but it's a foggy night so he's spared from seeing it. The burial ground having "gone sour" is connected to cannibalism. Later, it's... creatively euphemized that [[spoiler: the resurrected Gage]] engaged in this. |
| 138 | * ''Literature/ScaryStoriesToTellInTheDark'' features a loose adaptation of the Blackwood story, with a wendigo that is more of an elemental of wind and cold. The Wendigo calls you out of the tent with its eerie, windblown song, and drags you along the ground until your feet burn, then carries you up into the sky and drops you. |
| 139 | -->Oh, my fiery feet! My burning feet of fire!\ |
| 140 | Diego lifted up the hat, and screamed. There was nothing beneath the hat but a pile of ashes. |
| 141 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': Robert N. Charrette's ''Secrets of Power'' trilogy (''Never Deal with a Dragon'', ''Choose Your Enemies Carefully'' and ''Find Your Own Truth'') has a Wendigo as the main villain. He uses illusions to appear human and [[spoiler: turns the main character's sister into one as well, leading to her eventual HeroicSacrifice [[DyingAsYourself before she loses her humanity]]]]. |
| 142 | * In ''Literature/SorrowsKnot'', the people of the Great Sea don’t have White Hands, but sometimes people go into the forest and come out taller and hungry for human flesh. Orca’s father Three Oars was bitten by one of these stretchy cannibals, and Orca was supposed to talk him into the sea, but couldn’t face it. |
| 143 | %%* ''Literature/ThreeDayRoad'': The Wendigo myth features prominently.%%How? |
| 144 | * In the ''Literature/UrbanDragon'' series, where eating human flesh is surprisingly common among the characters, wendigos are only created when the person who consumed flesh was already the descendant of another wendigo. Since it's a latent condition, most people who are susceptible don't know it until it's too late. |
| 145 | * "The Wendigo" by Creator/AlgernonBlackwood, which introduces the legend and influenced the modern version of this trope. In it, the Wendigo is primarily portrayed as a wind spirit, which snatches its victims up and drags them through the sky. If it ever returns them, they soon die of exposure and frostbite. |
| 146 | * Two well known poems address the wendigo. Creator/OgdenNash's "Wendigo" uses the legends as a source of humor but Louise Erdrich's "Windigo" is more serious, claiming the only way to kill a windigo is to melt its frozen heart. |
| 147 | * ''Wendigo'' (also released as ''Edgewise''), a horror novel by Creator/GrahamMasterton, features one that is a spirit of the woods and can be called up to find and recover missing people - in this case, the kidnapped children of a woman from Minnesota, who is horrified when she learns it's also killing and eating the people responsible for the kidnapping. Then, when she reneges on the deal she made with the two native Americans who called it up for her (he wants a piece of land that once belonged to his tribe, and she can't get it), it starts killing other people who try to help her escape or stop it, and kidnaps her young nephew as leverage against her (implied to be on orders from the people who summoned it). Algernon Blackwood's story is referenced at one point, and it's pointed out that he got things reversed - the Wendigo ''itself'' will catch on fire if dragged along the ground (and this is the only way to kill it), it doesn't inflict this fate on its victims. |
| 148 | * "[[Literature/WendigosChild Wendigo's Child]]", by Thomas Monteleone, transplants the creature from the American Northeast to the American Southwest and replaces its familiar deer's head with that of a predatory bird. Its hunger for flesh remains unchanged, however. |
| 149 | * In ''Literature/TheStrain'' series, the wendigo myth is said to have been inspired by TheMaster, one of the [[MonsterProgenitor first vampires]], and - for most of history, anyway - the only one in the New World. |
| 150 | [[/folder]] |
| 151 | |
| 152 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 153 | * ''Series/BloodTies2007'': In "Heart of Ice", Henry and Vicki hunt a wendigo that is living in the sewers and preying on the homeless population. |
| 154 | * ''Series/Charmed1998'' features one in the first-season episode "The Wendigo", though it's a bit of a hybrid between this and OurWerewolvesAreDifferent -- the first wendigo apparently ate his treacherous lover's heart, but the curse is [[ViralTransformation spread by scratches]] and transformation takes place on the "[[ArtisticLicenseSpace three nights of the full moon]]." There's also a twist that, having been created by scorned love and vengeance, it specifically targets virtuous people. |
| 155 | * ''Series/TheEdisonTwins'': In "Gone with the Windigo", after their campsite is ransacked, Annie insists on finishing the orienteering race and rallies the Weston team to a spirited finish, before accompanying Tom in a search for the Windigo monster. As night sets in, Tom and Annie follow the trail of the woodland marauder and Paul and Lance lose each other in the forest. Alone in the woods, Paul overcomes his fear and makes a startling discovery and Annie is saved from a poisonous snake by the mysterious Windigo. |
| 156 | * ''Series/FearItself'': One of these possesses a man in "Skin & Bones", which was directed by Larry Fessenden, who appears to have a bit of an obsession with the myth, as he also did the aforementioned ''Wendigo'' and ''The Last Winter'' films and ''The Wendigo of Manitou Valley'' comic. |
| 157 | * ''Series/TheForestRangers'': In "Wendigo", a young Indian girl named Emesenah is chased through the bush by an evil spirit called "Wendigo." She is in danger and panic sets in. Ted and Chub follow her to Seven Wolves Lake where she fights off the spirit with a ceremonial mask only to find her father is still alive. She thought he had been taken by the "Wendigo". |
| 158 | * In ''Series/{{Grimm}}'', Wendigos are Wesen who eat humans and hide their remains under their lair. According to the Kessler Archive, Jeffrey Dahmer was one. |
| 159 | * In ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', a deer with raven feathers is used as a recurring AnimalMotif in Will Graham's dreams and hallucinations, and WordofGod confirms that it represents a Wendigo. Given [[ImAHumanitarian who the title character is]] it's fairly obvious ''who'' the Wendigo is supposed to be. In the season 1 finale, Will hallucinates that Hannibal is a humanoid Wendigo, with a black, emaciated body and antlers. The humanoid Wendigo then continues to symbolize Hannibal in Will's dreams and hallucinations in season 2. |
| 160 | * ''Series/{{Haven}}'': In "Who, What, Where, Wendigo?", three young girls have their Trouble activated and gain enhanced physical abilities and senses, but a HorrorHunger for human flesh as well. Apparently, their ancestors inspired the Native American tales of the Wendigo. |
| 161 | * ''Series/LostTapes'': A Wendigo, in the form of [[spoiler:a lost hiker who kills and eats a severely injured friend, before killing and eating the other friends on the trip]], is the MonsterOfTheWeek in the episode with the same name. |
| 162 | * ''Series/RabbitFall'': In "The Weetigo", old wounds are stirred when a missing American tourist washes up on the notorious Dog Island. His body is half eaten and the people of Rabbit Fall are convinced the Weetigo- a creature who takes over humans' souls and turns then into cannibals- is back. The discovery coincides with the return of John Spence, a child killer who cannibalized his victim in one of Rabbit Falls's most haunting crimes. Fear morphs into frenzy and a group of vigilantes sets out to destroy the alleged Weetigo before he strikes again. The case spirals out of control when Tara brings Spence into protective custody. |
| 163 | * ''Series/SleepyHollow'' has one show up in a Season 2 episode, when Sheriff Corbin's son is cursed into one by [[spoiler:[[TheHeavy Henry/Jeremy]]]] (using bone dust made from one of the Pied Piper's bone flutes) -- the scent of blood triggers the transformation into the blue-furred, antlered beast, which can only be reversed by feeding on human flesh and organs. Oh, and if the cursed one feeds three times, the change is permanent. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Ichabod learns of a Shawnee spell that breaks the curse.]] |
| 164 | * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': One shows up in [[Recap/SupernaturalS01E02Wendigo the second episode]]. Par the course, it's formerly human, feeds on human flesh, and lives in the woods. It also [[RegularlyScheduledEvil only feeds once every 23 years]], and keeps some of its victims in storage. |
| 165 | * In ''Series/TeenWolf'', a family of Wendigos briefly appear before [[spoiler:being murdered]]. From what was shown, they are usually nice people as long as they're able to regularly eat human flesh. Otherwise they gain HorrorHunger, a bad attitude, and some [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily new teeth]]. |
| 166 | * ''Series/TheXFiles'' has the season 1 episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E19Shapes Shapes]]", whose MonsterOfTheWeek is a pretty faithful depiction of the Wendigo myth. However, the creature is referred to as a "Manitou", despite the fact that Manitou were benevolent spirits in most Native American belief systems. |
| 167 | [[/folder]] |
| 168 | |
| 169 | [[folder:Magazines]] |
| 170 | * ''Boy's Life'' had a story about a story that was told by a kid to his friends to [[DefangedHorrors scare them.]] It's implied the story teller falls victim to one a later night as they hear the moan it was described to make around the time he disappeared and was never heard from again. One of the kids even saw a giant shadowy figure in the distance looking down on him while trying to find the lost boy and concludes that they were so scared of the story they brought it to life. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 174 | * ''[[http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/125681 Operation Wendigo]]'' by Doug the Eagle: "[[NarmCharm They foxified me!]]". |
| 175 | * ''Marah in the Mainsail'' has a song called "Wendigo," the singer of which [[ZombieInfectee is in the process of becoming one,]] but has two guns (a pistol, and a rifle if that doesn't work, each with a single bullet) for when he inevitably falls to the curse. |
| 176 | * American folk duo Penny and Sparrow's fourth studio album (released Sep. 1, 2017) is titled ''Wendigo'', featuring the title track "Wendigo" which mentions the creature both literally and thematically. |
| 177 | [[/folder]] |
| 178 | |
| 179 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 180 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Arduin}}'': The windego is a tornado-like creature from the 18th plane of Hell that grows up to 300 feet tall, with glowing red eyes. |
| 181 | * In ''TabletopGame/BleakWorld'', wendigo are a class of vampire. |
| 182 | * ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' includes Ithaqua as a possible menace for player-characters to run away from really really fast. The Wendigo is just about the non-mythos monster most associated with the Call of Cthulhu system, due mostly to the fact that ''Alone Against the Wendigo'' together with ''Alone Against the Dark'' were the first two solo-adventures published by Creator/{{Chaosium}} for the system. |
| 183 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Chill}}'': The tamanous is a similar cannibalism-promoting Native American monster. It resembles a warrior's corpse partially covered in tar. The difference is that it can't just eat human flesh, it has to eat the flesh of a human who has [[FoodChainOfEvil themselves devoured human flesh, knowingly or otherwise]]. So that ought to make their lives difficult, right? Not when you consider their [[ParanoiaFuel love of opening restaurants, or dining clubs, or just giving out free meals to anyone who looks hungry...]] |
| 184 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'': Wendigos are something of a {{Stock Monster|s}} in the Weird and Wasted Wests. And no surprise, given that [[spoiler: cannibalism falls under the direct purview of one of the {{Big Bad}}s]]. |
| 185 | ** ''Deadlands'' wendigos are created when a human eats the flesh of another human in the appropriate parts of the country; it can happen to PlayerCharacter types, and according to WordOfGod, it can even happen if the character doesn't know what they're eating. Not that a sadistic [[GameMaster Marshal]] would [[SarcasmMode ever]] trick a PlayerCharacter like that... |
| 186 | ** There's also a variant wendigo that is created not by cannibalism, but by food hoarding. If a hoarder causes others to starve to death because of his greed and selfishness, he runs the risk of being wendigofied. |
| 187 | * ''TabletopGame/DemonTheDescent'' features the wendigo as a monster in its Storyteller's Guide: an Imperative, a minor and barely sentient angel created by the God-Machine for minor tasks, was created to drive a man lost in extreme cold to become a cannibal to fulfill an occult matrix. And was then abandoned, so it hasn't ''stopped'' acting out its programming ever since. To those few capable of seeing it, the Imperative, known as Wendigo Psychosis, appears as a horribly emaciated and frostbitten humanoid of indeterminate gender. |
| 188 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': Wendigos are adapted for use in the 3rd edition ''Fiend Folio''. They're nature spirits that embody the hungry, dark and terrifying side of nature, and can turn themselves into wind and back at will. They like to pick one person out any group that enters their territory and stalk them until they're jumping at shadows, and they can turn people into more wendigos by draining their Wisdom points; the resulting creature resembles a deformed mockery of its former self, with charred, bloody stumps instead of feet. The creature is actually a template that can be added to humanoids, giants, or even animals. |
| 189 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Edgewalkers}}'': A Wendigo is a HeinzHybrid of the three monster races. It's what happens when a Sasquatch (A ghoul with lycanthropy) is infected by vampirism. Fear of becoming a Wendigo is the reason that Sasquatch's stay away from urban areas with a high vampire population. |
| 190 | * ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'': One ''GURPS Horror'' adventure titled ''The Old Stone Fort'' riffed on the fiction of Creator/ManlyWadeWellman by using Cherokee demons and monsters as the villains, including a wendigo for the BigBad. |
| 191 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' wendigos are directly inspired by the Algernon Blackwood and Larry Fessendon versions. [[HumanoidAbomination They're emaciated, stag-headed humanoids with legs ending in ragged, scorched stumps hovering just off the ground, created when desperate people descend into cannibalism and driven by mindless, burning hunger for meat]]; they're as powerful as they're hideous, some of the strongest monsters in the game. They [[UndergroundMonkey also come in a desert variety related to death by thirst and hoarding water, and a void version that can hibernate for millenia on derelict starships]]. |
| 192 | ** Ithaqua of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos has also been statted in ''Pathfinder''. It's an EldritchAbomination that's a Wendigo. |
| 193 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': In keeping with its FantasyKitchenSink (and sci-fi kitchen sink, and horror kitchen sink...), the setting has two types of wendigo: the "spirit" wendigo, wise supernatural hairy hominids friendly to the local MagicalNativeAmerican tribes, and the wendigo demons who are truer to the original myths, if slightly underwhelming (it's a good thing they travel in packs, because a lone one wouldn't be much trouble for the average ''Rifts'' low-level PC group). |
| 194 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': A wendigo is an [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Ork]] (human variant) infected with the HMHVV (Human Meta Human [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampiric]] Virus). They're around 2.5 meters high, weigh 130 kilograms, and look like a sasquatch with white fur. They have magical powers, and mentally influence their victims into becoming cannibals. |
| 195 | * ''TabletopGame/TheStrange'': Cannibals in the Thunder Plains suffer a terrible curse that strips them of their humanity, turns them into monsters with an appetite for human flesh and causes them to hibernate in the hinterlands until the winter, when they become wendigos and prowl the darkest hours in search of human prey. |
| 196 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': Mournghouls are fundamentally very similar to the mythical wendigo, being created when people driven mad by cold and hunger in the far north of the world turn to cannibalism to survive, only to later succumb to the elements and rise as monstrous undead creatures driven by an endless, insatiable hunger that they can never relieve. |
| 197 | * In ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'', there is a werewolf tribe named after the Wendigo who worship the cannibal spirit as their tribal patron. Powerful members of the tribe can summon an avatar of the Wendigo to track down and devour their enemies. |
| 198 | ** Fifth Edition gets rid of this, however, given the ''implications'' of having a tribe of proud native warriors and indigenous rights advocates sworn to an embodiment of cannibalism and greed. (Many Indigenous writers aren't even comfortable referring to the clan by ''name'' when writing about them.) Instead, the Wendigo are replaced by the Gale Stalkers, who follow the spirit of the North Wind. |
| 199 | * ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheForsaken'', the SpiritualSuccessor of ''Werewolf: The Apocalypse'', has the [[PrestigeClass Lodge]] of Wendigo, where most of the members have a somewhat lax attitude towards the whole "don't eat the flesh of men, wolves, or werewolves" taboo. Especially since they have rituals that grant them access to special knowledge if they sample a bit of another's flesh. |
| 200 | [[/folder]] |
| 201 | |
| 202 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 203 | * ''Theatre/HowlOScream'': Featured in the ''Wendigo Woods'' scare zone, where sightings of the creatures began to increase in a research compound named after them, [[TooDumbToLive prompting people to go out and investigate]]. |
| 204 | [[/folder]] |
| 205 | |
| 206 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 207 | * ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' features a boss monster called Wendigo. |
| 208 | * ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'': Several of the game's bosses, most notably the Cleric Beast and Vicar Amelia, draw heavily on the Wendigo for inspiration. |
| 209 | * ''VideoGame/BloodWest'' has Wendigos as higher-level enemies, depicted as humanoid beasts with shaggy white fur and powerful talons. They're even called Wendigos in-game. |
| 210 | * In ''VideoGame/BraveTheSearchForSpiritDancer'', the Wendigo is the main villain, although it's generally described as a "great evil", and appears as the upper half of a giant, flaming, horned, skeleton. |
| 211 | * In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'', the Feeders are necromorphs that resulted from humans eating infected corpses [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty out of desperation]]. They are fairly weak individually, but (like the Pack from [[VideoGame/DeadSpace2 the previous game]], who may or may not be the child version) [[ZergRush always attack in groups]]. |
| 212 | * Wendigo is the official name of the line of monsters that starts with Gargantuan Beast and ends with Yeti in ''VideoGame/DiabloII''. |
| 213 | * Although not encountered in the game, one of the codex entries in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' mentions that people possessed by [[OurDemonsAreDifferent hunger demons]] become cannibals. |
| 214 | * An enemy introduced in the second episode of ''VideoGame/{{Dusk}}'' is named after the creature. On top of the looks (they have the appearance of human skeletons with the skulls and antlers of deer) and the implied taste for human flesh (the level that introduces them has no living enemies before their first appearance, just a lot of pre-placed corpses), they've also gained {{invisibility}} that lasts until the player lands a hit on them. |
| 215 | * One of the forms the restriction blocks in ''VideoGame/EdnaAndHarveyHarveysNewEyes'' in one part of the game is a Wendigo, despite it looking nothing like it. |
| 216 | * ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' series: |
| 217 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' features wendigo in the more dangerous areas of the map. One of the storylines of the main quest reveals that the wendigos of the Fallout universe are the cannibal variety. And then there's the Wendigo Colossus, a three-headed variant whose piercing shrieks can terrify the player characters, causing them to involuntarily run in a random direction. As of August 2020, there's even an OptionalBoss fight against a Wendigo Colossus named... [[TomTheDarkLord Earle Williams.]] [[labelnote: Note]] The reason he has such a mundane name is because he WasOnceAMan; he was trapped in a mine with no food and when one of the other miners died, they cannibalized him. Slowly, Earle started to go insane, trying to eat all of his colleagues, living or dead...and he became a Wendigo Colossus. [[/labelnote]] |
| 218 | ** In ''VideoGame/FalloutDust'', an unofficial GameMod for ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', a creature called "Wendigo" or "The Tall Man" can be encountered in the Zion canyon. The monster is a [[ParasiteZombie spore carrier]], which mutated and grew to enormous size after being exposed to a chemical weapon. [[spoiler:This is what happened to Joshua Graham after dying from the [[FesteringFungus Vault 22 infection]].]] |
| 219 | * The Wendigo is a recurring enemy in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series, with its most notable appearances being ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII VIII]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII XII]]'' as a regular enemy, and ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV V]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX X]]'' as a boss. |
| 220 | * ''VideoGame/GemsOfWar'', the Boss of the Wild Court mission is the Wendigo, appearing as a hulking, fur-covered humanoid with a deer SkullForAHead and hunt-related magics. It is classified as [[TheFairFolk a member of the Fair Folk]] and in the background story he [[DragonAscendant took over the Court]] after the [=PC=] and heroine Atlanta took care of Orion, the previous Master of the Hunt. |
| 221 | * ''VideoGame/GhostMaster'' features a SecretCharacter[[note]]If right conditions are met, you may encounter him later in the game captured by Ghostbreakers[[/note]] Windwalker, a Wendigo-class ghost. He is a hunchback ghost of ice and wind with BritishTeeth. Right from the start, he can howl in the night, driving people crazy, summon winds, and even cause a Siberian cold on the whole map. Train him further, and he'll be able to freeze everyone and make people outright mad with anger. |
| 222 | * Humorously, a wendigo named Wendy appears in ''VideoGame/GrandChase'', but looks like [[http://grandchase.wikia.com/wiki/Wendy this]] until ArtEvolution set in... |
| 223 | * There are monsters called "Wendigo" in the French version of ''VideoGame/TheGranstreamSaga''. |
| 224 | * ''VideoGame/GrimDawn'': |
| 225 | ** Wendigoes appear as the result of the Ravager influencing those who resort to cannibalism; since the apocalypse has struck, and naturally many people have to resort to it, wendigos are running rampant in several regions. You get a sneak peak of two of them on Asterkarn Road in Act 4, but they don't show up in force until Act 5. In the ''Ashes of Malmouth'' expansion, you even find [[spoiler:a whole AffablyEvil {{town|WithADarkSecret}}]] of Wendigo cultists that worship the Ravager, and purport at least they're not quite as savage as the actual Wendigos. It also lets you find an incomplete aspect of the Ravager called the Reaper of the Lost if you ''really'' piss them off. |
| 226 | ** The Shaman mastery has a skill called "Wendigo Totem," which {{Life Drain}}s enemies. It's modifier skill, [[DealWithTheDevil Blood Pact]], adds a combat buff to this aura. It's noted that these totems are usually taboo among most wildmen tribes, since contact with the wendigo's spirit form usually turns the shaman into its vessel. |
| 227 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hexen}}'' has an enemy type called "wendigo", found in frosty areas; they look like humanoid beings made of ice and they shoot spiky lumps of ice at you. |
| 228 | * Horror adventure ''VideoGame/{{Kona}}'' makes mention of the myth, as you track through rural Quebec in a blizzard, trying to solve a murder and string of disappearances. [[spoiler:It turns out to be far more than a mention, with the wendigo being invoked as an instrument of revenge by a local native after a hunting incident gone wrong. When the intended target of revenge died, the wendigo was left to rampage and kill everyone in town by encasing them in ice, until it was shot through the heart with a crossbow bolt. The game climaxes with you accidentally releasing the beast by pulling out the bolt, and being chased by the wendigo before making a narrow escape.]] |
| 229 | * In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon'', a monster boss named "Wendigo" appears in act III in a glacier, on the way to the actual ArcVillain. He resembles a massive, grotesque humanoid with a skull-like head, exposed ribs and heart and a long tail. It's also missing an arm, apparently because the ArcVillain you're after mutilated him, but can summon a phantom copy to use. As a nod to mythology, the party member who notices his presence in the pre-bossfight cutscene is Kongol, who vaguely resembles a native american, and you can instantly kill him [[spoiler: [[AchillesHeel by using the Satchel on his exposed heart after he perform a certain move]].]] |
| 230 | * Kaichi "Susukichi" Suzuki from ''VideoGame/NeoTheWorldEndsWithYou'' gives this vibe as part of his boss battle, with his massive [[TopHeavyGuy top-heavy]] build, deer AnimalMotif, and eyes emanating dark auras that make [[SkullForAHead his head look like a skull]]. Ironically, [[KillItWithIce he's weak to Ice.]] |
| 231 | * In ''VideoGame/NeoScavenger'', [[spoiler: eating human meat will slowly transform you into a wendigo, and reduce the sustenance you obtain from other food. You can cure it at the ATN, but only once - if you relapse after that, they kill you on sight.]] |
| 232 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Outward}}'', people who commit cannibalism transform into wendigos, powerful undead that exude cold. They're commonly found around bandits, who abuse and neglect their captives to the point that cannibalism approaches inevitability. The bandits themselves are also prone to turning. |
| 233 | * ''VideoGame/PacmanMonsters'': Surprisingly coming in all elemental forms and evolving from Gremlin {{Mooks}}, Wendigos here are large mammal/reptile combos that are powerful in battle. |
| 234 | * Appears in ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' during the mission to [[LovecraftCountry Solomon Island]]. Here, they're portrayed as muscular semi-human monstrosities crawling on all fours, and are commonly found in the forests and mountains of the area. Though not given specific focus in the missions, Lore entries note that Wendigoes are the result of possession by a malignant spirit usually kept away by magic rituals, are effectively [[TheAgeless unaging]], and doomed to [[HorrorHunger grow hungrier the more they eat]]; worse still, with most of their usual prey having been herded away from the forests by the ongoing ZombieApocalypse, the local Wendigoes have resorted to eating literally anything else - including trees and rocks. |
| 235 | * Wendigo appear as demons in several ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games. |
| 236 | * ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerII'': ''The Curse of the Vampire Coast'' introduces the abovementioned Mournghouls to the [[Characters/TotalWarWarhammerTheVampireCoast Vampire Coast]] and [[Characters/WarhammerVampireCounts Vampire Counts]] rosters. |
| 237 | * ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerIII'': ''Shadows of Change'' introduces The Incarnate Elemental of Beasts to the [[Characters/TotalWarWarhammerTheTzardomOfKislev Kislev]] and [[Characters/WarhammerBeastsOfChaos Beastmen]] rosters, which is a more traditional Wendigo. |
| 238 | * Specimen 8 in ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'' appears to be modeled after one, having a deer-like head with antlers and being in a prominently wooded area. |
| 239 | * ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'': [[spoiler:Wendigoes, depicted as emaciated, corpse-like humanoids with abnormally long limbs, serve as the main supernatural threat. The mountain has been infested with them since 1952, when a group of miners [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty resorted to cannibalism to survive]] after being trapped for weeks by a cave-in. The survivors were taken to a nearby sanatorium where, once they finished their transformation, they massacred the staff and the other patients. Years later, Hannah also turned into one when she ate her sister Beth to survive after they both fell off a cliff and were presumed dead. They're no larger than a normal human, but they're substantially stronger and more acrobatic, while their tough skin means that bullets only slow them down, so they have to be [[KillItWithFire killed with fire]]. The characters initially think they're fighting zombies, which leads to misplaced ZombieInfectee drama upon finding out that one of them bit Emily]]. |
| 240 | * ''VideoGame/WeirdWest'' has the "Wiindigo", a being who was a human that was cursed by his [[GoldFever all-consuming greed]] whose very greed is a magical curse that ravages the denizens of the West. It serves as the antagonist to Native warrior Across Waters, whose tribe has been tracking it down. [[spoiler:If Across Waters ends up making various story decisions that demonstrates greed and distrust of others, he will end up becoming cursed into a Wiindigo by the end of his storyline]]. |
| 241 | * In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' there is a rather common type of enemy sporting the name "Wendigo", [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti although they more resemble yetis than actual wendigos]]. |
| 242 | ** And, in a strange if amusing coincidence, wendigos in the game (as well as the sasquatch and yeti that share its wireframe) are among the only creatures in the game that actually have functioning, individually-rendered toes instead of sock-shaped feet with the toes painted on. |
| 243 | ** Wendigos in the ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' series date from earlier than that - there were already some in ''Warcraft III'', being the arctic equivalents of the Sasquatch. |
| 244 | * A large one is what kills Mason during the tutorial level of ''VideoGame/WestOfDead''. He can pay it back in kind during "The Hunt", gaining the ability to fast travel between sigils he's found on the current level he's on as a reward. |
| 245 | * In ''VideoGame/X2WolverinesRevenge'', The Wendigo appears in the mountain levels and is the second boss fight. |
| 246 | * Marvel's Wendigo shows up as a boss character in the old ''VideoGame/XMen1992'' arcade game, and again in the boss rush that was the final level. He's fast, hits hard, and is constantly shouting "Wen-Di-Go!" as long as he's on screen. |
| 247 | * ''VideoGame/ZombieExodusSafeHaven'': Woody, an anthropology post-graduate, believes he has encountered one shortly before the outbreak while living in a Native American community. It bears a striking similarity to those infected with the Zeta virus. |
| 248 | [[/folder]] |
| 249 | |
| 250 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 251 | * In ''VisualNovel/{{Echo}}'', the vixen Jenna is a descendant of the story's FantasyCounterpartCulture for Native Americans and was told stories of Wendigos by her late grandmother. She is reminded of these tales when faced with the Socket Man, a monstrous creature haunting the town of Echo who shares the Wendigo's sickly slender frame and mutilated humanoid appearance and, unbeknownst to the characters, [[spoiler: also [[WasOnceAMan used to be a man]] (or, at least, a Funny animal) like the Wendigo of mythology, a transformation which was caused by a DealWithTheDevil out of an obsession with finding the truth, arguably its own form of greed.]] The Socket Man, however, has the uniqueness of being a "Wendigo" roaming an arid southwestern environment rather than a northwestern forest, as well as being associated with EvilIsBurningHot rather than EvilIsDeathlyCold, [[spoiler:having turned into the monstrousity he became by burning in a fire.]] |
| 252 | [[/folder]] |
| 253 | |
| 254 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 255 | * ''WebAnimation/LetsSplitUp'': The main characters, Di and Klied, are wendigos, creatures that prey on humans and can shapeshift to look like them. In their wendigo forms, they are long-limbed and gangly with antlers, tufted tails, claws, fangs, and yellow eyes. |
| 256 | * ''WebAnimation/UnclassifiedEncounter'' has Wendigos appearing all the way in the Ardennes, Belgium, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom no thanks to a Native American soldier stationed there turning himself into one out of desperation]]. Unfortunately for the unnamed soldier, the {{curse}} cannot be reversed, anyone bitten and killed by the Wendigo is turned into one themselves, and Wendigos cannot distinguish between friend or enemy. |
| 257 | [[/folder]] |
| 258 | |
| 259 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 260 | * TheBigGuy Sevink from ''Webcomic/GeistPanik'' is a Wendigo who has 'achieved critical flesh', and you would have to kill him as many times as the number of people he's eaten. He's described at one point as being "...up to the population of California", rendering him nigh unkillable. |
| 261 | * A storyline in ''Webcomic/ScaryGoRound'' [[http://scarygoround.com/sgr/ar.php?date=20080314 involved a Wendigo sold to France by the Canadian government]] as an EasterBunny. It returns in the SpinOff ''Webcomic/BadMachinery''. |
| 262 | * Eloria from ''Webcomic/WhiteDarkLife'' is a [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demon]] classified as a wendigo. She usually appears as an armored woman with ram like horns but her OneWingedAngel form swaps them for the appropriate deer antlers. |
| 263 | [[/folder]] |
| 264 | |
| 265 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 266 | * In ''[[https://theoddcatlady.tumblr.com/post/170698112968/guardian-angel Guardian Angel]]'', it's implied that the titular "Angel" who saved Tanya from the car crash is actually a Wendigo. [[spoiler:The ending of the story outright states that Tanya has become one too]]. |
| 267 | * The horror tale [[http://www.amazon.com/I-am-the-Wendigo-ebook/dp/B009F0LK14 "I am the Wendigo"]] is told from the perspective of a once-human wendigo on the hunt. |
| 268 | * Wendigos are basically interchangeable with [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls]] in ''Literature/TheKingdomsOfEvil''. Wendigos are basically mass-manufactured cannibal [[TheSociopath sociopath]] {{Super Soldier}}s used by [[TheNecrocracy Skrea]] as spies. |
| 269 | * The Website/SCPFoundation has [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-323 SCP-323,]] the skull of a Wendigo that still has plenty of effects on people. It's somewhat ambiguous if there was ever more to it or if the possessing spirit bound in the skull is the actual Wendigo and the "original" body was just a former host that survived long enough to mutate further than those the Foundation has directly observed. |
| 270 | ** It is a popular theory that [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-096 SCP-096]] is a Wendigo, given its tall, thin and utterly psychotic nature as well as its natural habitat being a snowy mountaintop. It's harmless...until you [[BerserkButton see its face.]] |
| 271 | * The investigators in ''Literature/ShadowUnit'' postulate that, given the [[LogicalWeakness metabolic demands of superpowers]] in their setting, the wendigo legends may have originated from hungry snowed-in [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual gammas]]. |
| 272 | * Artist Keith Thompson has his own take on the beast [[http://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/wendigo.html here.]] |
| 273 | [[/folder]] |
| 274 | |
| 275 | [[folder:Web Video]] |
| 276 | * ''WebVideo/BedtimeStoriesYoutubeChannel'' has an episode that covers the legend surrounding the Wendigo, as well as recent eyewitness accounts and alleged video evidence of its existence. |
| 277 | * The Mordeo in the ''WebVideo/CryptTV'' universe is this in all but name: being a monster that pulls a DemonicPossession on those who cannibalize in its woods and turns their head into a rotting deer skull painfully. |
| 278 | * Creator/{{PBS}} Digital has a [=YouTube=] series called Monstrum (on the [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO6nDCimkF79NZRRb8YiDcA Storied]] channel) that looks at the folkloric, pop cultural, and social factors behind various mythical creatures. They did [[https://youtu.be/guiuXIMZ2vE a great episode on the wendigo]]. |
| 279 | [[/folder]] |
| 280 | |
| 281 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 282 | * A Wendigo appears in the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' episode "[[ChristmasEpisode Last Christmas!]]". This version of Wendigos are lost people turned by obsession and desperation into muscular goat-men with sharp teeth, glowing eyes, clawed hands, lion-like tails, and three-toed dinosaur-like feet. Even spirits are capable of turning into a Wendigo, [[spoiler:as demonstrated by the Ghost of Christmas Past]]. |
| 283 | * ''WesternAnimation/HulkAndTheAgentsOfSMASH'': When the curse of the Wendigo begins spreading across the team in "Wendigo Apocalypse", the Hulks fight their way out of a real live horror movie, starting with Hulk's old rival Wolverine. |
| 284 | * A Wendigo appears in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleHulk1996''. This version appears as a human being cursed by a spirit, and Banner/Hulk's interference allows them to break the curse, and save the life of the brother of a woman who took pity on the Hulk. Leaving the Hulk/Banner to contemplate who the real monster was. |
| 285 | * The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E13HearthsWarmingEve "Hearth's Warming Eve"]] features equine blizzard spirits called windigos that, however, feed not on flesh but [[ThePowerOfHate hatred]]. Whether their origin is natural or [[FridgeHorror closer to their]] [[WasOnceAMan mythological roots]] has thus far gone unaddressed... |
| 286 | * The second season of ''WesternAnimation/LegendQuest'' features wendigos in one episode, which happen to be reindeerfolk that can be easily persuaded from eating people with chocolate. In a series otherwise [[ShownTheirWork incredibly accurate]] to most myths it depicts, this is uniquely far removed from the original concept. |
| 287 | * ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRobotsInDisguise2015'': Thunderhoof's appearance allows him to masquerade as one, allowing him to form a cult out of some gullible humans who believe him to be a supernatural creature and trick them into helping him build a space bridge back to Cybertron. |
| 288 | * The Wendigo character appears in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen2009'' where ComicBook/NickFury sends Wolverine to hunt down the [[Characters/MarvelComicsBruceBanner Hulk]] in Canada after a team of his goes missing, only for Logan and Bruce Banner to find the Wendigo behind the disappearance and ''transformation'' of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents into Wendigo themselves. [[spoiler: They eventually discover that the WENDIGO project was an attempt by S.H.I.E.L.D. to create super-soldiers that went wrong and cure the victims. Logan figures out that Fury knew all along and shows his displeasure by punching Banner in the face to trigger his transformation for Fury to deal with. Even being knocked into the next county by the Hulk doesn't spoil his glee at one-upping Fury.]] |
| 289 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Centaurworld}}'': The Nowhere King strongly resembles the modern (see above why this isn't traditional) wendigo iconography: a vaguely humanoid shape dripping with darkness, with an elk's skull for a head. In a way, his story mirrors that of folklric wendigos, attaining his current state through dark magic, but whereas Algonquian wendigos reject their humanity (in a sense), he rejects his animal side. Also he's a cannibal. |
| 290 | [[/folder]] |
| 291 | |
| 292 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 293 | * The so-called "Wendigo psychosis" is a culturally specific mental disorder observed among several Algonquian peoples. It's specifically applied to cases where people kill and eat humans (often relatives) in circumstances where it doesn't make any sense, i.e. there's no famine whatsoever. This psychological category is very controversial, in part because Western society has cannibal serial killers too[[note]]They've even been charged with being a werewolf in the past, especially during the era of the witch trials, while others have outright claimed to be werewolves while on trial, showing a similar idea of cannibal serial killers being viewed as cursed monsters[[/note]]. Note: Cases do not always involve killing. Often, its simply taking a bite out of someone, usually whoever is sleeping next to you. Not that that's much better for the people involved mind you, as they are alive when the bite is taken. It must also be noted that it is considered imperative to kill these "Wendigo" infected people, leading to the Canadian government taking them away from their groups and putting them in psychiatric care. They don't display any unusual traits, and are largely kept contained to protect themselves from the attacks of others, as cannibalism was a major taboo in Algonquian societies, even [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty when threatened with starvation]]. |
| 294 | * Some cryptozoology circles consider the Wendigo to be a cryptid just like the Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster. |
| 295 | * A strong anthropological hypothesis for the origin of the myth is that it could have originated as a way to reinforce the taboo against cannibalism. Again, the power of suggestion plays a role, and people who have violated the taboo [[YourMindMakesItReal believe they will turn into wendigos and thus display the symptoms]]. |
| 296 | [[/folder]] |
| 297 |
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