Just What Is an Eldritch Abomination

Likewise, the majority of final bosses in Kirby games are "Eldritch Abominations" in aesthetics only as they superficially pose an existential threat to Kirby's people (but Kirby defeats these abominations every single time).

Yeah, what I'm saying does include your point. As amatheiu13 observes, I don't think we're saying different things. I just think we're using a different way of making similar points. I was trying to say that, while Lovecraft has come to dominate the idea, it does predate that and is not limited to it. The important element is that it's "existential" rather than "horror" — or, as you and Theriocephalus put it, it's "unknowable". The work itself should give us some indication of whether that's in effect, and how that will be presented to both us and the characters.

I don't know Puella, but from what everyone is describing, I think Kyubey does sound like an example.

Regarding the wick check that began. Apologies for disappearing. I had a lot going on in real life and lost of track of this thread. If it's still ongoing, I'm happy to jump in and help.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 25th 2022 at 1:27:20 PM

It's still ongoing. Not much happened with it since my contribution.

As for the Pokemon examples, I think the only mons that have a shot at counting (off the top of my head, at least) are Mimikyu and Arceus. We have no idea of what Mimikyu look like under its sheet, and trying to look for yourself is suicidal. The most we get is from the anime, and even there it's a shadowy blob. Arceus is stated to be just a tiny fragment of something far larger, possibly multiverse-spanning, that we have little idea about.

Addndum: I guess I should probably mention it, but the Ultra Beasts feel a lot more like really weird, otherworldly, but otherwise regular Pokemon than truly eldritch and unknowable (I'd say Guzzlord's the closest to proper eldritch-ness because of the whole "no bodily waste" thing, which means it's either essentially a living black hole or screwing with the laws of thermodynamics. IDK though.)

Edited by badtothebaritone on Dec 25th 2022 at 7:39:21 AM

I personally think that even if one can understand the motives of a being they can still count as a EA if there nature is sufficiently alien, Nyarko is an example of what I mean since her powers and place in the setting undermines any sense of normalcy and scientific explainablity that underpinned the lives of human characters. Especially given that her kind are the insetting inspiration for one of HP's scariest EA's.

I re-organized the folders. It seems like the majority of wicks are either about extraordinarily ancient and/or powerful entities in general, or potholes (good grief). 90 more wicks to go.

Sandbox.Eldritch Abomination Check is finished. Feel free to give me some feedback.

Sorry for triple-posting, but Tropers/amathieu13 created the wick check the first place. I just reorganized and checked the remaining wicks. Is it ok for me to put Eldritch Abomination in Sandbox.TRS Queue, or more discussion is needed?

Sorry about being MIA. The wick check looks really solid. The only question/comment I have is that Folder 2 is for any examples that can easily be replaced with another trope. I was wondering how many in folder 4 (extraordinarily ancient and powerful beings) fall under The Old Gods or Precursors and might shift to folder 2 with those 2 in particular in mind.

I think before adding it to the queue we should discuss what to make of these results and what is going to be recommended for the TRS thread.

Edited by amathieu13 on Apr 10th 2023 at 2:22:05 PM

Re: the Pokemon examples, I don't think the Ultra Beasts really count. Even with Guzzlord and such, it's emphasized in-game that they're still Pokemon and motivated by animal motives like food, shelter, etcetera. A lot of them are explicitly stated to be common organisms in their home worlds. They're only "alien" because they're invasive species.

In the "What is an Eldritch Abomination" question, how much can we use Cosmic Horror Story's description's list of questions and just trim off the ones that are horror-specific?

I like the wick check. Very thorough.

Category II seems the easiest to deal with, just move them to whatever trope fits best.

A lot of the appearance one are also probably cuttable, especially the ones that just boil down to "this thing has tentacles" or "this thing looks alien". Those aren't... really a trope by themselves, although some can probably go to various specific appearance tropes. There might be worth in creating a trope for "chaos anatomy" where something has random collections of body parts instead of an ordered anatomical plan?

IV is more complex. A lot, I agree, can go to God of Chaos, The Old Gods or Primordial Chaos with minimal issues. However, some others describe beings that seem to exist outside of or predate the basic framework of reality as depicted in the works, and those are probably worth keeping.

Second all of that. It's pretty much my own assessment, too.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 12th 2023 at 9:25:35 AM

Nyarlathotep himself, one of the most famous gods of the Cthulhu Mythos, is defined by his complete understanding of human morality and comprehensible motive of pure sadism. Is he not an Eldritch Abomination just because we can call him evil by human standards?

Edited by MasterN on Apr 15th 2023 at 2:28:53 AM

Well, then you get into whether it's possible to understand anyone well enough to make that sort of judgement, be they human or abomination. Without direct access to someone's inner thoughts, any moral judgement of them is going to be made based on incomplete information, their motives and thought processes being things we might surmise, but can't truly know.

Question: Entity A breaks defined in-universe laws and has madness-inducing abilities, yet is of good alignment. Does Entity A count as a EA?

... yes, I'd be inclined to say so.

To clarify: I feel that, the more something breaks in-universe laws of reality or categorization the more difficult it gets to classify it as good or evil or whatever. However, as long as it's clearly established as something that, at least on some level, cannot be understood using the laws of reality as established in the work, it should at least squeak by.

I'm not so sure. Depends on what Entity A is outside of having Reality Warper powers. Is it monstrous in form? Shrouded in mystery? Said to be very ancient, possibly as old as the earth? From a different dimension or alien? All of those things don't have to be a match but a majority of them should, given that's how the Trope Maker / Trope Codifier is.

I'd also agree with this, at least in concept. I think it's because we have some dominant writers that have heavily shaped the concept that it can be hard to remember that alignment as humans may understand it isn't necessarily so important. Yes, they're most commonly evil as humans comprehend the concept (or beyond any human concepts of good and evil), but that doesn't mean they can't be something else. As long as most important elements are met then an EA that appears to humans to be "good" would still be able to count.

I know this is an older post, but I'd say yes. Just because he can and does take on forms that appear comprehensible to humans, it doesn't change the fact that he's capable of taking forms that break the minds of men and cannot be comprehended. There's nothing that says an EA can never take a form that humans can cope with, only that they are beings that are — at their core — something both mind-bending and setting-bending.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 24th 2023 at 3:45:37 PM

Very insightful thoughts. Thanks everyone.

Definition question: The trope page says: "The power of these beings can greatly vary. Some of which can be defeated by mortals, usually via a special weapon specifically meant to kill them, some of which are more powerful than gods, but are often still able to be defeated. In the Cosmic Horror Story genre, however, these beings are usually unbeatable, or are technically beatable, but will result in a Pyrrhic Victory with an incredible cost unless the story is a bit "lite" in comparison to your usual fare against Eldritch entities." It seems to me that if something is concrete and finite enough for a human to meaningfully engage with it, much less defeat it, its eldritch abomination status is questionable. Things that can be resolved by (qualitatively) hitting them with a rock generally do not shake a human's place in the universe. Is this portion of the description accurate?

I wonder if a lot of the misuse could be moved to Lovecraft Lite?

TBH, the entire existence of Lovecraft Lite is an argument against the overly-stringent definitions for Eldritch Abomination in my book.

That's... a good question. I'm not entirely sure where to put the boundaries there... I don't think that an EA needs to be unbeatable, or at least not literally so, but I do agree that if something can be dealt with just by hitting it enough times with a stick then it probably doesn't fit the concept.

Call it a "sharp rock test"? If a thing is portrayed such that it can be defeated by hitting it enough times with a sharp rock then it's not an EA? Does that seem useful?

All right then, how would you define it?

I'd actually go the opposite route and say Lovecraft Lite is a thing because many don't actually feature Eldritch Abominations. They feature monsters, often very powerful monsters, but they don't reach true EA standards which is what makes the stories less horrific / nihilistic

See, that's the thing: I think there's an insistence by fans of Cosmic Horror specifically on a very 'purist' definition that does not match up to the way the concept is understood in practice, which does not require that the being be literally impossible to comprehend rather than merely alien, or completely beyond the ability of ordinary humans to affect in any way. (Like I said much earlier, I think one of the less noted but important ways in which Lovecraft is quite dated is that he was writing at a time where our scientific understanding that the universe was much larger, older, and not centered around humans had vastly expanded, and he assumed that this was something that was inherently existentially challenging to humans in a way that history has not borne out.)

I can admittedly also see the flip side that less-stringent definitions lead to it becoming a pretty weakly defined trope for any Big Weird Monster. But I do think that the insistence on the most extreme definitions is basically dismissing the entire existence of Lovecraft Lite as a genre, and generally I think that's only an argument a certain type of fan purist would make - it doesn't really fit TV Tropes' own philosophy.