Evil Is Deathly Cold: Difference between revisions

[[File:fvwrath-of-lich-king 3320.jpg|link=World of Warcraft|frame| [[Hellfire]] is overrated.]]

 

 

[[Dark Is Evil|Evil is not only dark]], it is also cold and deadly, while good embodies warmth and life as well as light.

 

Not to be confused with [[Evil Is Cool]].

{{examples}}

* ''[[Code Breaker]]'': Sakura, who is sensitive to people's scents and body heat, is shocked when she discovers {{spoiler|her friend Ogami's [[Evil Twin]] [[Light Is Not Good]] possible brother}}'s body is "as cold as ceramic".

* The vampires from ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' have incredibly cold body temperatures. In fact, Joseph was able to tell Straights was a vampire simply by the fact that his breath was not visible when temperatures were below freezing.

* In ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', this is a running theme with the names in Frieza's family: Lord Frieza/Freeza, King Cold, Cooler...

 

* In [[Marvel Comics]], N'Kantu, the Living Mummy, describes undeath as "like life, only colder."

* Also, in [[The DCU]], Kid Eternity was surprised to find, after being dragged into Hell by Beelzebub, that Hell is incredibly cold. Beelzebub explains that "It's cold in Hell. So cold you'll pray for eternal fire. And eventually, we answer your prayer."

* [[Batman|Mr. Freeze]] is a twist, in that he's a villain, and [[Captain Obvious|he's deathly cold]], but [[Anti-Villain|he's not completely evil]].

 

* The Plains of Death in ''[[With Strings Attached]]'' are desperately cold: “The chill of death.” The Twisted Temple, high up in the Misery Mountains, is also frigid, and [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|The Brothers of Doom]] are immune to cold.

 

* Officer Matt Cordell of the ''[[Maniac Cop]]'' trilogy is described as feeling like ice, even through his clothing. At one point in ''[[Maniac Cop 2]]'' a blind war veteran describes coming into contact with Cordell as being similar to an incident in the war where he was trapped under a pile of mangled corpses.

* In ''[[The Secret Life Of Ian Fleming]]''—yes, ''[[James Bond|that]]'' Ian Fleming—Fleming is able to identify female enemy agents by the fact that their lips are cold. Later, he hooks up with his UST, and notes her lips are burning hot.

* In ''[[The Exorcist]]'', Regan's bedroom is shown at times to be so cold that other characters pause to put on heavy coats before entering the room.

 

* [[Older Than Print]]: While Christian Hell is usually hot, Dante's ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' portrays the deepest circles in Hell, for the worst evil, as frozen, because Satan, the giant in the middle of it all, [[Red Right Hand|whose beauty has been twisted into hideous ugliness,]] is constantly beating all six of his wings, trying to get up to Heaven, and the resulting wind freezes all the water in Hell. [[Self-Inflicted Hell|Of course, if he ever stopped trying to ascend, the ice would melt and he could be free.]]<ref>This leads to a fascinating Biblical [[Historical In-Joke]]. As described by Revelations, Satan will eventually be freed as part of [[The End of the World as We Know It]], implying that after a few thousand years, he finally figured it out; a joke that only gets funnier with age. Not to mention, [[After the End]], he'll be rid of the lake of ice... by being cast into a lake of fire.</ref> The sinners down there are frozen solid, [[And I Must Scream|conscious, with the amount of their bodies frozen increasing as the crimes become worse.]] The fire and brimstone levels are higher up, and for sinners whose crimes are comparatively less severe ([[Values Dissonance|or are at least considered so for the time]]).

* ''[[wikipedia:The Snow Queen|The Snow Queen]]'' (1845) by [[Hans Christian Andersen]].

* In [[James Thurber]]'s ''[[The 13 Clocks]]'', the Duke is explicitly described as cold while his niece is warm. The title clocks are frozen, and the Duke has concluded that he has killed time. {{spoiler|In the end, his niece gets them to move again.}}

{{quote|''He was six feet four, and forty-six, and even colder than he thought he was.''}}

* ''[[The Dark Is Rising]]'' by [[Susan Cooper]]: The Dark uses powerful cold-based magic to prevent the retrieval of one of the six Signs.

** Also averted, as the ice candles are actually neutral, and end up being reclaimed by the Light.

** Also, the wizarding school Durmstrang - where Dark Arts are actually ''taught'' to students and Karkaroff is headmaster - is [[Grim Up North|'somewhere north']], based on their heavy cloaks and school clothes.

* While she isn't evil as much as just lonely and pure horror itself, the Groke from [[The Moomins]] is also very, very cold and probably as close to a cosmic horror you can have in that kind of series.

** The Other in ''[[Otherland]]'', also by [[Tad Williams]], causes a sensation of killing cold in most people who encounter it within the virtual world. The reason for this is a key plot point.

* In ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]'', Bobby describes Saint Dane as being deathly cold when he grabs him.

* [[H.P. Lovecraft]] was afraid of the cold, hence stories like ''Cool Air'' and ''At The Mountains of Madness''

* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series starts off this way, with a "year without a summer" as the result of the Dark One's influence. Inverted several books later with a "year without a winter" from the same cause—or perhaps a subversion, since the first may have really been the work of [[The Dragon|Ishamael]].

* ''[[House of Leaves]]'': the hallways that begin to appear in the {{color|blue|house}} on Ash Tree Lane are described as being very cold, so that when Navidson and the others go on the explorations they are wearing winter coats. Navidson himself almost dies of cold after being inside for too long.

* In the novel ''[[Grunts!]]'', the Nameless Necromancer gets a freezing aura in addition to his [[Animate Dead]] skills. It's sufficient to coat nearby grass with frost as he walks.

* Used in Melissa Mar's ''[[Wicked Lovely]],'' where the main villain is the queen of the Winter Court, who made a deal that allowed her to seal the summer king's power and expand winter's influence, which would eventually plunge the world into endless winter and kill everything. {{spoiler|Averted in later books, as the Winter Court comes under new leadership and the Dark and High Courts are explored. It's implied that none of the courts are truly good or truly evil, but are merely being what they represent.}}

* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter|Prospero Regained]]'', Hell has large chunks of frozen wasteland.

* [[Evil Sorcerer|Fistandantilus]] as presented in the [[Dragonlance]] main series and the [[Kingpriest Trilogy]] combines this with [[Walking Wasteland]], as he's surrounded by a continuos aura of cold that withers plants and kills small animals near him. The spellbooks he writes are also painfully cold to the touch. Inverted with his apprentice/reincarnation Raistlin, whose skin is inhumanly hot and whose spellbooks give off an unnatural warmth.

* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'', the power of the Dark Forest freezes over {{spoiler|1=StarClan territory}} in ''The Last Hope''.

* At least two of [[Terry Pratchett]]'s books describe things being "as chilly as the slopes of Hell".

 

* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', [[Archangel Lucifer|Lucifer]] shows this trope freezing a window with his breath, and states "Sorry if it's a bit chilly. Most people think I burn ''hot''. It's actually quite the opposite."

* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'''s season four premiere shows the Dorocha, spirits of the dead resembling skeletons, who leaves their victims frozen and dead with one touch.

* In ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' episode "White Light Fever", the eerie glow that chases Harlan Hawkes is blue and cold. At the end {{spoiler|he is told by another character in the [[Afterlife Antechamber]] that the place she is heading is much warmer than his destination, which is implied to be Hell}}.

 

* A common belief in Northern Russia and [[Norse Mythology]] is that hell is very cold. Understandably, a religion that was born in the desert would think a lake of fire would be the worst fate a man can get, while up north, that sounds just delightful. Thus in Norse Mythology, while the warriors who died gloriously in battle get to live it up in Valhalla, those who died of sickness, old age, or in just plain boring ways get stuck in a cold, misty snorefest of Hel. Straighter examples still are the frost giants, who are more or less the ultimate evil in Norse Mythology.

** That said, [[Norse Mythology]] also managed to mix this with [[Evil Is Burning Hot]]; not only is Loki, who tends to get identified with [[Satan]] (even if, at least before the whole thing was [[Hijacked by Jesus]], it was a bit more complicated than that) a god of fire, but during [[Apocalypse How|Ragnarök]], the forces of evil are led by Surtr, one of the oldest and most powerful of the ''fire'' giants. In conclusion, as in general in Norse Mythology, the safest way to characterise things is less either of these tropes and more '[[Crapsack World|everything is trying to kill you]]'.

* Some Jews who believe in Hell believe that some souls suffer in ice and others in fire.

 

* Unusual variant: the Necrons of ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' are often associated with cold, but not ice-and-snow sort of cold-rather, the cold nature of the mechanical and [[Space Is Cold|the chill of the void]].

** Played straighter in the ''[[Imperial Guard]]'' novel ''Ice Guard'' by Steve Lyons. The planet of Cressida is plunged into an ice age-like state by the Chaos powers that are taking it over.

* In ''[[The Dark Eye]]'', the Netherhells, home of the forces of chaos that want to destroy the world, are proverbially cold.

 

* While there are ice-themed villains in the ''[[Bionicle]]'' toyline, the comic book begins with a focus on Kopaka, Toa of Ice. He averts this trope in his internal monologue: ''There is evil on this island, and it is about to learn that justice...can be...'''[[Bold Inflation|cold]]'''.''

 

* ''[[Warcraft]]'':

** The Lich King. No depiction of him will neglect to have ice and snow added.

* [[Our Liches Are Different|Liches]] in ''[[Lusternia]]'' gain the ability to cloak themselves in an aura of cold, passively freezing their foes. They can do the same thing even faster with a touch.

 

* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'s'' [[Spider Sense|ghost breath]] is explained by the fact that ghosts make the air around them very cold. If he can see his breath in an ordinarily warm place, there's ''definitely'' a ghost about. Eventually his "ghost breath" turns into ice-based powers.

* In ''[[American Dad]]'', Karl Rove freezes Klaus in his bowl as he floats past.

* Nekron, the villain of ''[[Fire and Ice (animation)|Fire and Ice]]'', has ice-based superpowers.

* Icy, one of [[Big Bad Duumvirate| the Trix]] in ''[[Winx Club]]''. She didn't [[Meaningful Name| get that name for nothing, y'know.]]

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Native American Mythology]]