Needs Help: Eldritch Abomination

I'm reluctant to delete a lot of examples, just because the elaboration is interesting, but I think most of them are wrong by simple English. Eldritch means weird, hard to describe or understand, abomination means hated or worthy of hatred.

D-Reaper of Digimon? Abomination? Yes, it is. Eldritch? No it isn't, we know everything about its origin and how it works. It might not make complete sense in real world physics but not any less than the titular monsters or anything else in the franchise. The various devas, gods and nagas of Hinduism, eldritch? Yes, nothing about them makes sense except that they have to send avatars down to Earth because it can't contain their true forms. Abomination? No, they love you, preserve your world from decay and protect you from demons.

Mantorok from Eternal Darkness is a better example. He tries to be nice but he's only desirable as a deterrent to other abominations. He corrodes existence just by existing and contact with his essence corrupts life beyond recognition, abomination he is. His powers make little sense and trying to read the book he provided for understanding causes sanity loss. It fits Eldritch and that the book is made of Human Resources makes him even more abominable. His creations keep popping up throughout the game to finish what little sanity reading the book left or just try to eat you and this apparently is also his idea of legit help. It just cements it all.

But I think tackling examples will be easier if we ax these redirects. Cosmic Horror is a genre. No, we are not the first to use it that way but that doesn't make it any less incorrect. Just because a big ugly monster features in a Cosmic Horror Story does not mean it is an Eldrtich Abomination. The D-Reaper for example. The X and Ing from Metroid get pot holed as this trope often when they aren't anymore than Star Fish Aliens. Horrifying aliens, but too well understood by both viewers and characters in story to be truly eldritch. The Alien series is pretty much a cosmic horror series but the aliens themselves are not Eldritch Abominations.

Great Old One and Old One have too much overlap with Elder Gods and Time Abyss, which can be examples of this trope but again, not every elder god or time abyss is an eldritch abomination. Eldritch Horror I might keep but I could see it go too. Eldritch Abomination is not exclusive to the horror genre, far from it. Trope Codifier Lovecraft HP considered the Kull and Conan stories good enough for his mythos and indeed they do feature vaguely comprehensible monsters out to cause suffering for vague reasons but they are rarely ever played for horror rather than just another thing that happens to be.

So maybe you're Gnostic-Nay-Theist or whatever and hate God, or at least think that half the Bible is about the evil "demiurge". Fine, then God/Demiurge would be an Eldritch Abomination in the purest since but the large majority of the Old Testament are still not horror stories. So that's my argument for axing these redirects. They are incorrect and only confuse people's understanding of the trope.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

The examples might not fit your strict dictionary warping of the words, but the fit the trope both in spirit and in trope description. I see nothing wrong with the examples you brought up. They seem like perfectly fine examples of the trope to me.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I can't speak regarding most of the examples, but the D-Reaper is clearly intended as analogous to a Lovecraftian monstrosity. (The director of that season makes a lot of Lovecraft references throughout his work.)

edited 20th Mar '12 9:39:10 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Cider, if you're willing to go through 800+ wicks for Cosmic Horror and change 90% of them from "<thing/beast/creature> is a Cosmic Horror" to "<thing/beast/creature> is an Eldritch Abomination" yourself, then you can suggest we ax that redirect. The redirect was made because that was the kind of misuse the Cosmic Horror was getting — and that was st least two years ago.

edited 20th Mar '12 9:48:28 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Shout Outs are what they are, but in the end, they basically defeated it by hitting the reset button. They knew exactly what it was, how it worked and how to deal with it. Granted, they had to some research to see how it had been adapting while they weren't looking at it and the scale it worked on seemed too grand at first but they had all the data, it took a couple days to figure out, it wasn't any more eldritch than half the main cast, just bigger and meaner.

Eldritch Abomination is a common Cosmic Horror Story trope, but just using cosmic horror tropes does not automatically make something an Eldritch Abomination. That Cosmic Horror is a redirect perpetuates the misconception that two things are one in the same. They aren't and the other listed redirects are misleading too.

Edit: I could get started but don't we ask for help on special efforts when misuse goes off the charts? Isn't repair shop the place where we cut out the roots, because the very name is the root.

edited 20th Mar '12 10:09:50 PM by Cider

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

While I can attest to a certain trope decay of Eldritch Abomination (It's often applied to anything that is remotely weird or odd looking. We cut a Real Life section that was 90% just that), I don't think it's bad enough to warrant renaming or axing working redirects. I do think though the description could use a bit of a clean up. It kinda meanders about and includes so many "Oftens" "maybes" "mays" that they make the term really hard to properly define.

edited 21st Mar '12 8:22:27 PM by Ghilz

Meandering description that doesn't do a good job of explaining anything.

Well, it is a Lovecraft trope.

Don't ax Cosmic Horror as redirect for Eldritch Abomination. It's more easy to spell (especially for non native English speakers) and that why it's used so often (but I may be wrong, and it's only me who doing that).

Because he know I'm going to go out in this plane and I'm going to remove one of His creations from His universe.

EDIT: Ignore me; I'm stupid.

edited 22nd Mar '12 6:29:47 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

Renamed Tropes

"Cosmic Horror Story used to be "Cosmic Horror" (the proper term), but people kept using it to refer to the monsters that usually inhabit them, Eldritch Abominations. Cosmic Horror is now a redirect to Eldritch Abomination."

Because he know I'm going to go out in this plane and I'm going to remove one of His creations from His universe.

Ah, sorry about that. I didn't know that Cosmic Horror was made into a redirect for Eldritch Abomination.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

How about Nyx from persona 3?

In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.

What about it?

I regularly check out this article, add some stuff, delete other stuff (if deemed appropriate, of course, and if I cut out something I usually explain myself), and there's frankly not much wrong with it right now. While I admit that the description could be improved, your personal definition is IMHO a bit narrow considering the subject matter (especially considering one of their main traits is being hard to define). As for the redirect, I vote it stays, because I remember the confused mess that was the original Cosmic Horror page, which lumped both Cosmic Horror Story and Eldritch Abomination into a single trope.

Also, what Ghilz said

edited 27th Mar '12 9:46:14 AM by Paireon

I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me.

Old One is too vague and hardly exclusive to this concept. Wisdom is an old one, The Dark Tower has Great Old ones but they are far away from Lovecraft's use and I could go on, the term is about as Exclusive to Eldritch Abomination as Elder Gods, which got a separate page.

Cosmic Horror doesn't work because people keep potholing things like The Magus or some boss that had a "One-Winged Angel" when they really belong on Our Giants Are Bigger or Physical God or One wing angel. Magus is just a really really big Technarchy. His comic has shades of a Cosmic Horror Story, but focuses not on Eldritch themes but on something all too familiar. The problem with the cosmic horror redirect is anytime cosmic horror tropes are present alongside an ugly monster it gets used, accuracy not accounted for.

Imagine if we made Slasher Villain a redirect to Implacable Man just because they show up in slasher movies. Suddenly slasher villains like the guys from Vacancy would be getting links even though they were not implacable. Just being a big ugly monster doesn't not automatically make an example, even if they are a Cosmic Being. The Celestials for where potholed even though they're just Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. Plenty of not particularly intelligent mortals have the know how to work their stuff, power requirements are the problem and even then, the smart guys have a sound theory, just not the resources.

I'm sorry I wasn't around for previous cleanup but I'm putting a long redirect cleanup on my TV Tropes to do list. Then I'll start thinking of alternative redirects, something that's easier to spell and more indicative of the trope.

edited 27th Mar '12 10:32:47 PM by Cider

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

I agree Old Ones isn't a good redirect for this.

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

I've been meaning to do something about this for a while, but I think the problem lies elsewhere. Partially it's trope decay and people apparently acting in the belief that something being an Eldritch Abomination makes it a cooler villain (much the same problem as Complete Monster has had), but in addition, as I see it, there are two fundamentally different things being lumped together here. One is 'a thing from beyond that inherently defies human comprehension and understanding', ranging from physical manifestations of the works of MC Escher to things that can't be sensed directly and things you're not sure even exist; and the other is 'giant squibbly crustacean-squid from another world', with incomprehensibility frequently or typically an Informed Ability. Lovecraft used both in his works, and some of the things he wrote about were both, but I don't see there's reason to allow his pathological fear of marine biology to overshadow the entire trope. More so, because just because a work is a Cosmic Horror Story doesn't mean it actually contains a Cosmic Horror - the Deep Ones are not Cosmic Horrors of either variety, even the really big ones like Hydra and Dagon.

The Colour Out Of Space is the first kind but not the second. The Mi-Gou are the second kind, but not the first. Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth are almost if not entirely the first; Shub-Niggurath and Cthulhu are almost if not entirely the second.

The Quiet and The Deep are the first kind. The Pa'anuri are the first kind. The Dark Presence is the first kind. The house is the first kind.

Most of the Angels are the second kind *

. Most of Warhammer 40 K is about the second kind. The Thing is the second kind. The Ultracosmic Horrorterrors and Eldrazi are the second kind.

The beings Sutter Cane summons are both.

Hence, I advocate clean-up and splitting.

edited 28th Mar '12 11:13:27 PM by Noaqiyeum

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

Splitting would just confuse people. Better do something like Slinding Scale instead 2 similar tropes (what people will use to describe same monster).

Problem is that some people don't get idea of this trope, I remember seeing Princess Celestia and Pinkie Pie added, you know ponies (first is Big Good Physical Goddess and second is Rule Of Funny fueled 4th Wall Breaker).

I think people keep potholing that name because (like I said before) it more easy to spell.

Because he know I'm going to go out in this plane and I'm going to remove one of His creations from His universe.

I pretty much fully agree with this. It's how I usually see the trope used around the wiki. As either of those definition. Well that and as a shorthand for "something that is weird".

Please. Not a sliding scale. Those rarely work out cleanly in practice.

As to Type one and Type 2, I'm not sure when it started being used for "giant squibbly crustacean-squid from another world"s that didn't also meet the criterium "What actually defines the Eldritch Abominations (or as we puny Homo sapiens can only define them) is their defiance of natural law, as humans understand it. They are the things that should not be, the ultimate aliens".

A clean-up to get rid of those that are only giant calamari from space is certainly in order.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Giant Calamari From Space ought to be tropable on its own.

I didn't write any of that.

I agree. Do we need a crowner for "clean up misuse, and shunt said misuse to Giant Calamari From Space"?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Let me get this straight - Cthulhu will be no longer Eldritch Abomination but only this new trope?

Because he know I'm going to go out in this plane and I'm going to remove one of His creations from His universe.

No, Cthulhu still counts, because the form that is described is just what human minds can barely comprehend of his unfathomable true form before they Go Mad from the Revelation, i.e. You Cannot Grasp the True Form.

edited 29th Mar '12 9:59:43 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I am pretty sure that Cthulhu is an Eldritch Abomination in the sense of a "nature-defying entity", but a lot of entries seem to be shoehorned.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman