Defining an "Eldritch Abomination"

So an Eldritch Abomination (according to the Laconic page) defies the laws of reality within a work. But this isn't how the word is often used on the wiki. The page SquarePegRoundTrope.E To K makes note of this; "Any vaguely terrifying/gigantic/powerful monster will be called an Eldritch Abomination at some point, despite not meeting the qualifiers for being an inexplicable entity that breaks defined in-universe laws."

So if it breaks the rules of the universe it exists in, then wouldn't that mean that nothing counts for this trope? Because for it to even exist in-universe, that would mean it exists in accordance with the rules of the setting, otherwise it wouldn't exist. Pretty much the only way for this trope to be in effect is for the whole "it breaks the laws of reality" thing to be a mere Informed Ability.

You would have to wonder if even some of H. P. Lovecraft's creations count as Eldritch Abominations by the definition on this wiki. I think a better way to define the trope would be "An entity that does not conform to known laws of reality" but even that has it's problems.

Do the subtropes of this require as specific a definition? I.e Animalistic Abomination, Humanoid Abomination, Botanical Abomination, Draconic Abomination

The Lovecraft mythos and the Eldritch Abomination is more that they are impossible to fully define and comprehend according to the established rules of the setting, an unknowable entity. The terms about "breaking reality" is maybe confusing, as it implies they are all Reality Warpers when more often it is psychological rather than magical.

Edited by EmeraldSource on May 15th 2022 at 11:36:57 AM

I would beware of relying on the laconic definition: laconics are, I gather, not-uncommonly unreliable.

I'd rather look to the page itself, which says similarly, but distinctly:

That is—by my interpretation—we have science, an understanding of how things work in the natural world, a framework by which we predict how processes will proceed.

An eldritch abomination doesn't conform to that framework; if it has logic at all, it's a logic that's alien to us, that doesn't fit our understanding of how things "should" work.

In a sense, it's less that the "abomination" "breaks the laws of the setting" than that it shows that what we consider to be "natural law" is merely a halcyon within the broader, more-inimical laws of the setting—indeed, perhaps even a purely local phenomenon.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 16th 2022 at 10:26:24 AM