Genius Loci: Difference between revisions
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Usually, the Genius Loci has [[Shapeshifting|some control over its own form]], and uses that control to communicate with the other characters. [[Mobile Maze|Alternately, it can]] [[Closed Circle|trap them]] in [[Alien Geometries]] and torment them with [[Living Memory|Living Memories]] for [[The Lost Woods|shoots]] and giggles. It can be a [[Hive Mind]] formed from the various organic life-forms that inhabit a place, a nonphysical being [[Demonic Possession|possessing the area itself]], a mythological spirit of a locale, or a computer system laced through the brick and stone. It can be helpful, neutral, or antagonistic.
The name comes from the [[Altum Videtur|Latin]]<ref>
Contrast with the non-tangible but often similar [[Sentient Cosmic Force]]. Compare [[Sapient Ship]], [[That's No Moon]], [[Anthropomorphic Personification]], [[The Lost Woods]], [[Fisher King]], [[Fisher Kingdom]], and [[Smart House]]. May overlap with [[Environmental Symbolism]] or [[Eldritch Location]].
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** The DCU also had a ''sentient galaxy'' in some story that I can't seem to recall exactly. But it aligned a bunch of stars to give [[Superman]] a huge powerup. Also there were some smaller living (but not sentient) galaxies, artificially made by some uberpowerful race as bioweapons. Supes, again, kept one as a pet.
* From the [[Marvel Universe]], the first foe the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' fought in the [[The Bronze Age of Comic Books|Bronze Age]] [[Revival]] was Krakoa, the Living Island, whose indigious life had been [[Hive Mind|mutated into a single organism]] by a [[I Love Nuclear Power|nuclear test]]. Marvel also had the aptly-named Ego the Living Planet, who tangled with such persons as [[The Mighty Thor]] and [[Galactus]]. Another living planet known as Kathulos once appeared in a [[Doctor Strange]] story. [[Earthshattering Kaboom|He blew it up.]]
** [[Deadpool]] once destroyed a
** Cloud, one-time member of [[The Defenders]], was a sentient nebula, an immense cloud of gas, with the ability to assume human form.
** Another living location is Spragg the Living
** In the ''Realm of Kings'' crossover, a fault in space opened the way to an alternate reality. In said reality it was revealed that {{spoiler|not only is the other universe sentient, it's an [[Eldritch Abomination]] that wants to consume ours.}}
* The ''[[2000 AD|Two Thousand AD]]'' series ''Ace Trucking Co.'' included a story about fast-breeding 'Bampots' attempting to colonise a living planet called Gordon.
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* Htrae, the Bizarro-copy of Earth that was home to the Bizarros, was sentient simply because regular Earth ''wasn't''. (Though this was only so in ''[[Ambush Bug]]'', which isn't really in continuity.)
** ''All Star Superman'' certainly seems to indicate Htrae has some semblance of intelligent and/or sentience.
* In ''[[The Authority]]'' Jack Hawksmoor can talk to and command all cities, implying that they are ''all'' Genii Locorum, albeit fairly sedate ones who don't interfere in their own affairs very often. Apparently they all have wildly different personalities, and even genders, though these are somehow strangely
** And more recently, a bizarre borderline example: Gaia Rothstein, a century baby. Her astral form looks like the ten-year-old girl she really is, but her physical form is an island... which looks like a walking, talking, two-mile high version of the [[Swamp Thing]].
* In ''[[Zot]]'', a [[Time Travel|trip to the future]] results in the hero meeting a small girl in purple clothes who makes some enigmatic comments before vanishing. She is later said to be the living embodiment of the planet Sirius IV.
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* Pandora in ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]''. At least partly.
* Tony Stark's mansion in ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' should count. It's controlled by JARVIS, a sophisticated AI that takes diction, helps manage Stark's projects, suggests new color schemes, and is an unflappable [[Deadpan Snarker]].
* The movie ''[[Osmosis Jones]]'' treats each human being as a
* As [[Samuel L. Jackson]] says in the film version of ''[[1408]]'', the room isn't haunted by any
* The titular ship in ''[[Event Horizon]]'' is strongly implied to be this. At one point a character refers to the ship as "she" with the heavy implication it was more than just the standard anthropomorphism of vessels. This was not [[Star Wars|Han Solo's "girl."]]
* Like the ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' example above, the underground base from ''[[Resident Evil (film)|Resident Evil]]'' qualify, since it's completely run by a highly intelligent AI named The Red Queen.
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*** Don't forget Saybrook's Planet from "Green Patches". Every single organism on the entire planet, from the lowest bacterium to the most advanced terrestrial animal is merely a part of a single, amalgamated mind. (Referred to in the story as "Organized life").
* In [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'':
** [[Word of God]] on the character of Tom Bombadil (aka Iarwain Ben-adar, Forn, Orald, the Eldest) is intentionally vague; but strongly implies that he is a kind of
** The main characters speak as if they sincerely believe that Mount Redhorn (aka Caradhras) is a ''genius loci''. However, the book never says whether so truly is the case.
*** [[The Film of the Book]] simplifies it: rather than the mountain being hostile, Saruman is the one causing the storms and avalanches that hinder the party. However, as [[Genius Bonus]], the spell that Saruman speaks in ''Quenya'' consists of him goading Caradhras to wake up and raise his wrath, while Gandalf's counterspell tries to put him back to sleep.
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* In [[Harry Harrison]]'s ''Deathworld'' the hero finds himself on a planet whose flora and fauna are in constant full-on attack against the human miners/settlers. Everything is deadly, poisonous, powerful, stabby, etc. It turns out that the planet itself has a mind (is a mind?) and has been psionically directing the attacks.
* Frank Herbert's ''[[wikipedia:Whipping Star|Whipping Star]]'': The Calebans are living stars which interact with human beings through constructs called Beachballs.
* [[Stephen King]] liked to use this one. The Overlook hotel from ''[[The Shining]]'', the house on Dutch Hill from ''[[The Dark Tower]], Book 3: [[The Dark Tower/The Waste Lands|The Dark Tower]]'', and the eponymous hotel room from the short story ''[[1408|Fourteen Oh Eight]]'' are all
** The eponymous mansion from ''Rose Red''.
** The Dark Tower is the ultimate example.
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* The eponymous planet from [[Stanislaw Lem]]'s ''[[Solaris]]''.
* In the [[Faction Paradox]] books, there's mention of the City of the Saved, a huge galaxy-sized colony in which every human being ever to exist lives again. And yes. [[Captain Obvious|It's sentient.]] Not so bad, and even quite nice... until you find its {{spoiler|"son" infested parts of its structure, transforming really nice places into industrial nightmares with specialized factories for the processing of human beings. }}
* The shellpeople of [[Anne McCaffrey]]'s ''[[The Ship Who]]'' series are starships and cities that exhibit all the signs of a
** Another Anne McCaffrey series, the ''[[Petaybee]]'' series, features the titular sentient planet that communicates via echoes and lightshows in caves, and changing the climate/topography of the land when it's so inclined to benefit its inhabitants or drive off bad guys.
* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' [[Horus Heresy]] novel ''Fulgrim'', the Laer temple makes Julius think that it's alive.
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** Unseen University itself, which has a personality likened to that of [[Big Friendly Dog|a large, overenthusiastic shaggy dog]]. If it could get away with it, it'd roll over on its roof to have its foundations scratched.
** During the [[Journey to the Center of the Mind]] in ''Hat Full Of Sky'', it turns out {{spoiler|that the hillside on which the Feegles find themselves turns out to be...the Chalk. But Tiffany and the Chalk are '''one'''.}}
* In a more serious tone than Mount Sorrow above, the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] has the rogue planet [[New Jedi Order|Zonama Sekot]]. Zonama refers to the world itself, while Sekot refers to its [[Hive Mind|self-aware, Force-sensitive biosphere]]. It grows living matter around mechanical components to produce intelligent [[Living Ship
** The Galaxy of Fear series also includes [[Punny Name|D'vouran]] a planet {{spoiler|which is in fact a [[I'm a Humanitarian|carnivorous]] bioweapon.}}
* [[John Varley]]'s ''[[Gaea Trilogy|Titan]]'' bears the tagline: "The alien that is, itself, a world."
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* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Chronicles of Chaos|Orphans of Chaos]]'', Bran the Blessed appears as a gigantic decapitated head. He describes what he has done to shelter the British islands, and demands an [[The Promise|oath]] not to harm them, under any condition, before he allows Amelia to perform magic on his islands.
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene|The Golden Age]]'', Rhadamanthus, a mansion's AI, appears regularly and advises Phaethon. Other mansions have their own AIs.
* The ''[[Sector General]]'' series includes a planet with living
* The [[Lost Woods]] around Ikos in [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''Fox'' series.
* John DeChancie's ''Castle Perilous'' is a vastly powerful interdimensional demon torn from primal chaos, who happens to get [[And I Must Scream|trapped in the form]] of a city-sized castle. The whole "chaos" deal means it frequently changes its internal layout and contains portals to thousands of universes.
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* In [[Madeleine L'Engle]]'s ''[[A Wind in the Door]]'', the protagonists visit one of Charles Wallace's mitochondria. This makes Charles himself, or possibly Yadah (the mitochondrion) the Genius Locus. By the way, mitochondria are so tiny that all animals have dozens of them in ''every single one'' of their living cells.
* The [[Deathstalker (novel)|Deathstalker]] series by Simon R. Green has the Red Brain: a giant, sentient forest, that may or may not be an entire planet. There is also another, ''literal'' living planet, and then at least one other world that was effectively a Genius Locus after a [[Grey Goo|Big Gray Goo]] scenario. The AIs of Shub may also count, being three sentient computers the size of a planet.
* There is a
* The Labyrinth in [[The Death Gate Cycle]].
* In one earlier book of the ''Bionicle'' series, two Toa end up trapped within a living room.
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* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', the Taxxons are spawned from the Living Hive, which makes up most of a large mountain and several cave systems on the Taxxon home world.
* In Richard McKenna's ''Hunter Come Home'', the humans inflict such biological havoc, that the biomass becomes self aware in its own defense.
* Anne Rivers Siddons' [[The House Next Door]] is about the making of a
* The [[Tortall Universe]] has the Chamber of the Ordeal, a very small but very powerful one. Squires ready to become knights go in and are forced to live through their worst fears. ''Protector of the Small'' shows that it really does have a mind and will of its own.
* The house in the short story [http://www.short-story.me/horror-stories/224-a-hot-time-in-the-old-town.html "A Hot Time in the Old Town"] by Desmond Warzel becomes a
* In Ben Bova's ''Saturn'' it's revealed that {{spoiler|the rings of Saturn are a lifeform, although whether they're sentient or not is never explored}}
* In ''Angelmass'', it is revealed that the 'Angel' particles the titular miniature black hole emits are counterbalanced by the Angelmass itself becoming a demon, capable of propelling itself and destroying ships with bursts of [[Hand Wave|Hawking radiation]].
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* The ''Shivers'' installment ''A Ghastly Shade of Green'' had a malevolent (when angered) swamp.
* In the ''[[Rivers of London]]'' series, there are many ''Genii Locorum'' across London (including for the rivers, as the title implies). Mama Thames prefers the West African term "Orisa".
* Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age books feature one of the [http://www.nypl.org/help/about-nypl/library-lions lions in front of the New York City Public Library] as a
* The French novel ''Planète Verte, Peur Bleue'' (approx. "Green Planet, Black Terror") has planet Isol 50, alias "That".
* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', Freckles half-seriously describes Angel as this.
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** There's also lots of smaller gods, of things like individual mountains, cities, forests and such. Some PCs can reasonably expect to [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|beat them in a fight]].
** And the first real enemy in the quick start scenario is {{spoiler|a spirit of laziness and apathy that possesses an abandoned baseball stadium. And is actually capable of causing a [[Total Party Kill]].}}
** Also, in the original ''Mage'', there was a Merit-Flaw combination (Manifest Avatar/Phylactery) that could turn your soul into one of these. Meaning that you had to be standing in that place (and somehow make it obvious that it was important) to be able to cast, but it would act as a
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' has multiple examples:
** Fossergrims and Oreads are to waterfalls and mountains (respectively) what Dryads are to trees. Dryads can't really be called an example of this trope, unless you consider a tree a place.
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** Module [[wikipedia:Master of the Desert Nomads|X4: ''Master of the Desert Nomads'']], for original [[Dungeons and Dragons]], features a swamp with a sentient area called the Malakaz: "It is not a monster, but an evil force. The hut was once the home of a particularly evil female wizard. When she died, the hut and the area around it became filled with the essence of all her evil."
* In ''[[Shadowrun]]'' the fact that the earth has a presence on the astral plane is seen by some as evidence that the planet itself is alive.
** Shamans can also summon a ''Hearth Spirit'', literally the
** ''Shadowrun'' also has a phenomenon called "background count," in which the mana of a place can be warped by events that take place there. This doesn't exactly make the area alive, but it has an impact on anyone who visits.
* ''[[Rifts]]'' has quite a few. Millennium Trees are huge thousand-foot tall trees that form living cities, nurtured and protected by the Trees' own latent psychic field. And there's at least two living planets, one (Wormwood) is inhabited and in the middle of a demon invasion, and the other (Eylor) kept hidden by transdimensional slavers who have a monopoly on giant magical eyes [[Eye Scream|harvested from its surface]].
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* In ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'', one early quest involves helping a living street give birth. Another involves ''helping'' a haunted house. Oh, and a door that only opens when you aren't looking at it. And the Lady of Pain may be the Genius Loci of Sigil.
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'', two of the dungeons that Young Link must go through are the Great Deku Tree (a giant sapient tree that is the protector of the Kokiri Forest and its perpetually-childlike denizens) and [[Womb Level|Jabu-Jabu's Belly]] (the interior of a giant fish/whale that is the deity of the aquatic Zora race). In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages|Oracle of Ages]]'', Link must once again traverse the interior of Jabu-Jabu, except this time it's the god of a different group of Zoras, in the land of Labrynna.
** In both ''Oracle of Ages'' and ''Oracle of Seasons'', Link can enter the Maku Trees, which are also giant sapient guardian trees. However, there's only one room inside, and it only houses a character whose function is to transfer data between the two games, so the
** Arguably, the Moon from ''Majora's Mask''. Whilst it has a actual (rather intense-looking) face, it never moves it or shows any other signs of sentience. Like the rest of the game, it's all rather mysterious.
* In ''[[Klonoa]]: Moonlight Museum'', the eponymous museum is sentient. {{spoiler|It's also the [[Big Bad]] of the game, and plots to steal people's dreams to host as art exhibits.}}
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** Since GLaDOS controls much of the testing facility (possibly all, [[Alternate Character Interpretation|depending on your thoughts on her motives]]), she also functions as one.
** In the Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC for ''[[Portal 2]]'', one iteration of Cave Johnson is in fact the entire planet.
* The city of Leá Monde in ''[[Vagrant Story]]''. Every cobblestone, every wall in the city is inscribed with ancient Kildean runes, turning it into the Gran
* Carnate Island and Baltimore in ''[[The Suffering]],'' according to many theorists throughout the two games- human or otherwise.
** It's implied that ''any'' place that has enough evil in its past can become this sort of malevolent Genius Loci, and begin spawning Malefactors representing the sins that brought it to this state. It's further implied [[Paranoia Fuel|that]] '''[[Paranoia Fuel|everywhere]]''' [[Paranoia Fuel|actually has enough evil for this -- you just have to look to discover it.]]
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* ''[[Gene Catlow]]'' has ethereal entities tied to many locations. The most familiar is the Friendship Island Entity, who opposes a group of others known collectively as The Host.
* A [http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=4&issue=6 guest comic] for ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'' applied this to ''Myspace'', of all things.
* Castle Heterodyne in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' was originally a single, artificially-intelligent
** A kitchen built specifically for a cook that went up the pole and started poisoning everything he cooked (but amused the Heterodynes) that may or may not recognize Agatha;
** In the crypt is the Throne of Faustus Heterodyne, by which the seneschal of Mechanicsburg can communicate directly with Castle Heterodyne (the central brain itself is in the library), that considers Agatha a ''possible'' heir; and
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*** ''Of course'' it's kill-happy. It was given its mind by old Faustus Heterdyne, who was apparently one of the ''[[Mad Scientist|madder]]'' Heterodynes, which is like saying that a particular inmate is one of the crazier people in the asylum.
* In ''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'' its been suggested that the Temple of Fiends may be one of these (says Drizz'l, "Frankly, we'll be lucky if the architecture is '''only''' sentient. It could also be filled with rage. Or crazy").
** Also, played with in Black Mage. Nexus points are locations along the faultlines of reality which contain great raw energy and destructive force, but Black Mage is in the rather unique position of being the manifestation of a nexus point, so he's actually more like a
* In ''[[Earthsong]]'' all of the planets have spirits, and can sometimes manifest in humanoid, ghostly forms. Many of the planets are said to be "asleep" and rarely venture in their spirit form, but the eponymous planet is an active part of the story.
* The [[Scary Librarian]] at the [[Wizarding School]] (but for [[Horny Devils|Cubi]]) in [[Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures|DMFA]] is bound body, mind and soul to the Library.
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* [[Megas XLR]]: Coop once fought a gargantuan organic planet that ate radio waves.
* The Foggy Swamp in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', location of [[The World Tree]]. The Avatar themself is the human form of the World Spirit, which explains their connection with all four lands; [[All There in the Manual|this is not actually said in the show, but it is implied]].
* "[[The Fairly Odd Parents|MIKE, THE
* The first "Treehouse of Horror" episode on ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' had a sequence where the Simpson family moves into a haunted house that turns out to be self-aware. The house tries to scare them off because [[Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth|it can't stand them]], but eventually gives up and simply [[Driven to Suicide|implodes]] rather than live with them. A later Treehouse of Horror had them install an AI with [[Pierce Brosnan]]'s voice into their regular house, who [[Mars Needs Women|desires Marge's bod]].
* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "Godfellas", Bender encounters what appears to be a sentient ''galaxy'', which initially speaks in binary and may or may not be God.
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* His Elevated Eminence in the ''[[My Little Pony]]'' episode, "Crunch the Rockdog".
* The Cave of Wonders in ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]''.
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes", the eponymous department store that invades the town is a combination of [[The Heartless]] and
** The episode "Lice Capades" tells the story of a group of, yes, ''lice'' living on the scalp of one of the boys. The story becomes a parody of natural disaster movies ("The planet is trying to tell us something!") when the kid starts using delousing shampoo.
* As listed under [[Comic Books]], the ''[[Transformers]]'' animated canon has several examples, most notably Metroplex, Trypticon, Unicron, and Primus.
** In ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', {{spoiler|the Autobots' ship is actually the ancient Autobot warrior Omega Supreme.}}
** Torkulon, the planet where Cyclonus tried to get Galvatron's insanity cured in the original series, was enough of a
** On a much smaller scale, could [[Cool Ship|Tidal]] [[Transformers Armada|Wave]] qualify? After all, he does dwarf every single Transformer, due to him being a giant frigging battleship.
*** He does in the game, where {{spoiler|you don't know you're fighting inside him until [[The Reveal]]}}.
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* Combining certain elements of the Gaia theory, Jung's belief in the collective unconscious, and [[The Singularity]] leads to this trope as the logical extreme. The internet itself could be viewed as a tangible form of Jung's collective unconscious, or even a full-on [[Hive Mind]]. And since most people in the developed world are expected to have access to the internet, certainly at home, if not on them at all times in the form of a smart phone, [[The Singularity|the point]] may well come very soon when nearly ''all'' human beings have constant access to this shared mind, making the human race the "brain" for a global superorganism consisting of all life on the planet.
* The [[Anthropomorphic Personification|national spirits]] of countries (Britannia and John Bull for Britain, Marianne for France, Columbia and Uncle Sam for the United States, etc) can be regarded as this.
* Systems theory, without directly positing this, makes little distinction between sufficiently complex metasystems in terms of sentience, whether those be biological, architectural, sociopolitical, or ecological; there's support to be found for
{{reflist}}
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