Line #25 YMMV/GreenAntarctica


1	%%* CreepyAwesome
2	* CrossesTheLineTwice: The Tsalal's gruesome brutality frequently goes so over-the-top that it loops around to becoming hilarious. Of particular note is the mock "Ask Me Anything" session with a Tsalal poster, who regards the nightmarish horror of the culture around him as [[DeliberateValuesDissonance normal, if slightly embarrassing]]. The Tsalal poster is inordinately proud of himself for convincing restaurants to stop selling the meat of Irish slaves, and while he says that he has never seen ''Film/TheHumanCentipede'', he claims to have met one once.
3	* DracoInLeatherPants: While not ''fanfiction'' per se, some derivative works, such as [[https://www.deviantart.com/j-roge1/art/Sailpunk-850734445 this map by J-Roge1]], reimagine the Tsalal as being otherwise normal people who were unfairly slandered by xenophobic propaganda. {{Administrivia/Tropes Are Not Bad}} in this case, as the timeline is heavily criticised for being too over-the-top in its depiction of apparently normal Tsalal atrocities, and this concept can definitely serve as catharsis for horrified readers; especially for those who have found the depiction of a non-white people whose culture apparently revolves around grotesque acts of violence to be in extremely poor taste.
4	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
5	** Whenever Tsalal "[[AdaptationDecay adaptations]]" of Western media is brought up.
6	--->Right now, I'm watching ''Literature/OliverTwist''. It's at the gripping scene where [[RonTheDeathEater Oliver]], having sold Nell into slavery and murdered Fagin, '''is conspiring with the Artful Dodger to start the great London Fire.'''''
7	** The [[GodIsEvil Zhu]] interpretation of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'':
8	--->Skrog cares nothing for people, and refuses to participate in the rites of guarding. God sends a series of visions to terrorize Skrog, but instead of knuckling down, Skrog becomes ever more adamantly opposed to God and God's will. His example is so ferocious that the community rallies around Skrog, and in the end, they sacrifice all the newborns, in a massive blood ritual.
9	** In which the Tsalal have... [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids interesting]] ideas of what counts as acceptable children's entertainment (not that the children themselves agree with these choices-- [[ComicallyMissingThePoint for all the wrong reasons]]):
10	---> Oh I hate [the Tsalal adaptation of Literature/The120DaysOfSodom]. Festival time when we were kids, we'd get dragged out to watch it, every single year. Yes, yes, yes, beloved children's classic the whole wide world over. But damn god, there's no plot to it, no story, it just goes on and on and on.
11	* MemeticMutation: Green Antarctica and the Tsalal have become bywords on Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom for evil, depravity, and general {{Dystopia}}- and {{Squick}}-iness.
12	* {{Narm}}: More than a few reviewers have stated that they find the Tsalals' brutality to be almost too much to be able to take seriously, stating that it feels more like shock value for the sake of it.
13	* NightmareFuel:
14	** The Yag, the Kings in Yellow and how the Hali treat torture. Everything about the Tsalal.
15	** The Tsalal have their own brand of NightmareFuel, the "Nameless Glacier" in the center of Antarctica. And the culture of the so-called Cold Islanders.
16	** The Cold Islanders are so evil and depraved that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even other Tsalal fear and hate them]], considering them inhuman. The Cold Islanders believe that everything is exactly the sum of its parts. This philosphy leads to exceedingly brutal treatment of slaves, who are seen as no more than resources. It also advances the baffling idea that since humans are no more than the sum of their parts, [[InsaneTrollLogic it should therefore be possible to cut someone into pieces, put them back together, and get a living human]]. Obviously this never worked, but they tried it out on a ''lot'' of people. While they never succeeded in making a true "Remade Man," they did make mutilated faux-Remade Men who have grafted body parts from other people and were tortured into ''believing'' they were "remade" in this way.
17	** One of the large carnivores living in Antarctica is the Antarctic Teratorn, a GiantFlyer vastly larger than any other flying bird in the world. Normally it scavenges off the frozen bodies of large animals, but in summer it has to hunt. It does this by harrying its victims and spraying them with stomach acid until they collapse from exhaustion, at which point it devours them alive. One story follows a European explorer who meets this exact fate; he is ripped open and devoured, his bones broken and his flesh torn off in strips, [[CruelAndUnusualDeath and yet he remains alive for some time after it starts eating]].
18	* NightmareRetardant: The project is so much more focused on RuleOfScary than plausibility that it ends up being more silly than terrifying to many readers.
19	* {{Squick}}:
20	** Some types of hive monkey were selectively bred so that their females could serve as concubines for the Tsalal.
21	** The eating and mating habits of the Tsalal -- cannibalism, bestiality, and necrophilia are not uncommon.
22	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The general consensus nowadays is that the author is too interested in shock for shock's sake to take full advantage of what's otherwise a genuinely interesting premise.
23	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: Soldiering through ''Green Antarctica'' requires a strong stomach and a lack of sensitivity to the extreme gruesomeness which is commonplace in the setting; qualities that many readers, who were first drawn to the work by its speculative evolution and in-depth cultural history, inevitably lack.
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Context YMMV / GreenAntarctica