Humans Are Cthulhu/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • An Eldritch Abomination is, as one of defining traits, Inconceivable, not just something unfamiliar, but an insane mockery of natural law altogether. Come down to the animal world, where species use basically the same behavior patterns for ages. A usual predator will have his senses, one, two built-in weapons and some tenth' offensive maneuvers at all in his arsenal, mostly relying on less then that. He, or his prey, will also have about the same limited amount of countermeasures, that again stay the same across generations, while being determined by natural selection if his species is the fittest and maintaining the overall balance of the ecosystem. Here comes the Inconceivable: it's one giant melee fang (and probably a sturdy carapace) in the morning, no such fang but a tamed fire that kills from afar in the afternoon, warping the world, natural selection and the laws of the universe themselves so that Everything Is Trying to Kill You, and if nothing of that works, expect a full new bag of tricks tomorrow, and another after that, and another. We're talking what, hundreds, thousands weapons and absolute uncountable amount of patterns, all wielded by one squishy species and changed at will? This is madness! (Yes, yes, we know. This is Humanity!)
    • According to HP Lovecraft, some of the defining characteristics of Eldritch Abominations are that they are inherently unnatural and uncaring. Humans not only disrupt ecosystems and destroy habitats with their very presence, but have accidentally exterminated so many species that we've LOST COUNT. We're just like the uncaring Old Ones Lovecraft kept rambling about.
      • Humans do care. They may not care enough do do a whole lot to help wild animals, but they will avoid being unnecessarily cruel. This is not something that is true of nature in general. Evolution cares only for genetic fitness.
        • Some Humans care anyway. Many others really don't. They tend to vary between those that don't care about eradicating large sections of the planet's biosphere and those that will try to stop it.
      • The fact that we care at all is something unusual. Humans are generally the only species that will do something for another species completely at our own will and without expecting anything in return. This is pretty much the opposite of the above. If animals could truly grasp this concept, it would likely blow their minds, but humans who will be kind to animals must be borderline angelic through their eyes. Some strange creatures just made sure their life would continue or gave them food for reasons they will never understand, and that is to assume that there really is a reason behind it. While we may be effectively Eldritch Abominations in the eyes of wild species, at the very least we'll often be fairly benevolent while we're at it.
    • Also, it is rather creepy the things civilization has built. Cyclopean flying spires possessing the power of the Sun, unleashing The End of the World as We Know It as soon as they awake from their underground slumber. Wolves that become servants and find Happiness in Slavery, massive artificial metal monsters swimming at the bottom of the sea and searching for each other with mysterious powers. Hand-held thunder that can kill from a distance. Plants that grow at our command. Artificial mountains made up of Sinister and/or Alien geometries. Light in darkness. Non-euclidean two-dimensional prisons of entire multidimensional worlds. Herds and populations finding Happiness in Slavery in concentration camps, only to be slaughtered by Nightmare Fuel. Artificial servile lightning that is the lifeblood of an omnipresent, omniscient, all-powerful Hive Mind of eldritch superintelligence. And so on.
  • We shape the development and population of farm animals, so that we can consume them. Just like the Great Old Ones.
  • Imagine you're a deer in the forest. You come across something that blends in with its surroundings, can imitate your voice, and fires from the trees an immensely powerful weapon you can't fathom. If you come across one of your species that has encountered it, you'll find they have been horribly mutilated and parts are missing, taken as trophies. That's right, humans are The Predator.
    • It gets ever better: It's semi-well-known that humans are the best endurance runners in the animal kingdom. How did we get that way? It's how we hunt. Yeah, that gazelle is faster than you at the moment, but lets see how it's doing three or four hours later. For (even more) added Nightmare Fuel, consider that the point of this is to run a specific animal to exhaustion. Most other predators will just take whatever member of the herd gets in the way of their fangs, but the human? Coming for you, personally ...and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
  • To large, dangerous animals, or animals that use venom, humans would be Squishy Wizards. Yes, the humans can warp the environment to their whim, kill from a distance, turn night into day and make fire, but get in close enough to use claws, fangs or poison, and they die like any other prey...
    • Yet they quickly find that in by doing so, they would ruin their reputation to the world forever and have invoked the wrath of these mysterious beings who would have normally left them to their own devices. These beings can hold grudges forever. The predator then becomes the prey as these animals realize with growing horror that thet are being hunted by countless Super Persistent Predators whose single-minded goal is to exterminate them. There will be no negotiation. There will be no quarter. These beings will not stop until they have their revenge.
      • Hell, we'll hunt individual animals for weeks, months, even years to bring them down if necessary. There you have it, humans are an overprotective guild of mages.
      • We're more likely to relocate them now unless they make a habit of it. Something about almost wiping out entire species in a region for revenge of a single death now strikes people as wrong.
      • This is the reason it is a taboo among the animals in Kipling's Jungle Books to eat humans. They will tell their cubs that it is because it is tasteless, or unethical, or unhealthy ("If you eat human meat, your teeth will rot!") but the real reason is a maneater causes human to go berserk at the environment, to the detriment of all. The reason Shere Khan is despised by the other animals is he is actually a cripple, and the only big prey he can catch are humans and their cattle, causing trouble for other big predators everyone else.
    • Even if larger or venomous animals could take down a single human (and there are many of them that could) they probably won't. Most animals--even big freakin' predators like bears and sharks--place humans high on their "DO NOT TOUCH" list. They might observe us, they might even put on a show to try and scare us; but when push comes to shove, most animals are hesitant to attack us unless we provoke them first. Why would you willingly pick a fight with Cthulhu?
  • To animals, the human body itself is probably almost irrelevant, considering how many "bodies" we can just put on, including:
  • Think of how pets like dogs might see us, if they had language and our ability to compare things. We bring foods that they would never see and demand that they perform in unnatural ways, take them to have their hides ruffled and worked over with sharp instruments, bring them to trot in circles and be examined, the vet, the kennel. Some might manage to "dominate" their owners, but they don't know how to be alpha to humans and get stressed out, and if they do a very dog thing and bite, we do not allow them to live.
    • Of course, it's not that we make them act in unnatural ways. All dog behaviors are natural behaviors they already did on their own. However, we generally ask them to either do them at 'inappropriate' times or they are puppy behaviors that we ask them not to unlearn when they mature. It would be more appropriate to say that we ask them to act like Cloudcuckoolander toddlers.
      • Although, given the side-effect of domestication known as neoteny, they essentially are infants (well, juveniles) that never grow up.
    • This is why it's so important for a dog owner to learn to "speak dog". If you can read a dog's body language and use it back at them, things get so much easier!
      • Bear in mind that we took wolves and bred them to create dogs in the first place. Unlike with other tamed animals the behaviours we look for aren't any more unnatural than the dogs themselves, they're the ones we bred for.
    • Then again the reason we keep them around (nowadays at least, when they aren't working dogs) is because of their comforting loyalty and easily met needs, compared to neurotic self-centred humans. Some people keep them because they get a kick out of dominating another being's life, but not most people.
    • They probably respect and are intimidated by us. After all, a good hunting day for a dog is catching a rabbit or bird and chowing down. A human goes out "hunting" (actually going to the grocery store), and in 1/2 an hour returns with generous portions of Pork, Chicken, Beef, Eggs, and enough food to feed a dog for weeks. They probably think we're the greatest hunters in the world!
    • Cats, on the other hand, seem to see us as rather like elephants. Big, useful, potentially dangerous, but somehow rather goofy.
      • The big cats (including lions) that once lived in Europe and Asia probably thought we are goofy, too, until they were all hunted down with just bows, arrows and spears.
    • And of course, there's the pampering, hugging, playing, giving treats and making a huge fuss over the pet when it does something right aspect of the relationship as well. Godlike-beings we may be, but in healthy human-pet relationships it's certainly not an unloving/unloved one.
      • Best summed up in this joke:

Dog: You feed me, you love me, you take care of my every need. YOU MUST BE A GOD!
Cat: You feed me, you love me, you take care of my every need. I MUST BE A GOD!

  • Most wild land animals that have had prolonged exposure to humans treat them with fear and respect. The exception is zoo or reserve animals that are frequently handled by humans directly.
    • Urban pest species such as rats or pigeons would feel this trope even more strongly, in that our actions are inscrutable as well as miraculous. One minute we're dumping tasty garbage and bread crumbs for them to chow down on, the next we're exterminating them with poisons, traps, and deadly predators (dogs, cats, ferrets) that slavishly do out bidding.
  • You know those old stories about people taking food from The Fair Folk and being trapped in their realms forever? Well, that happens to animals, too. Animals that take food from humans learn to depend on them, and forget how to find food on their own. Or worse, they are lured to their deaths by humans who take advantage of their complacency.
  • Fishing is like a near-death experience for small fish. They get fed, go up into a white light where they can't breathe and see all their dead relatives around them. Then, a great voice says "Nah, too small. Throw 'im back."
    • Jeff Foxworthy joked that catch-and-release must be the fish version of the near death experience. "I was surrounded by my dead relatives. And I saw God. He was wearing a flannel shirt and a Budweiser cap. He told me it was not my time and threw me back."
    • Imagine the thoughts of a pet fish. You're in a relatively small environment, and only invisible walls protect you from the unbreathable air. Strange apes stop just beyond these walls, and do little more than stare at you for no apparent reason. Once or twice a day, food mysteriously rains from the sky. There's also this strange contraption that pulls in a current and spits out bubbles. Then every once in a while, one of the strange monkeys actually sticks their hand in the water, bringing a strange tube that drains the water, making the already small environment even smaller. Just when it seems dangerous, fresh water is put back in. Also, if a friend dies, they are caught by a green net where they ascend beyond the water into the great beyond. No wonder it's so common for them to stress out and die.
  • There are countries where monkey brains are considered a delicacy. For the monkeys, it's like the plot of some stupid old alien movie: creatures from far far away, with powers far beyond the monkeys' comprehension, abduct them to actually eat their brains!
  • Actually it is quite common that Humans Are Cthulhu to other people. That is how a Conspiracy Theory comes about, and why this trope fits in our imagination so easily.
    • Even today, in the more severe cases of Does Not Like Men and He-Man Woman Hater, it might end up sounding like "Men Are Cthulhu" or "Women Are Cthulhu," especially when they start talking about possibly just becoming gender separatists.
  • A commentary on Alien Abduction notes that what aliens allegedly do to people (sneak up on them at night, carry them into mysterious vehicles, and perform incomprehensible and invasive medical procedures, often leaving some kind of implant in the body), and what demons supposedly did back when people believed in things like incubi and succubi, can seem very similar to what our scientists do to animals in the wild.
    • It also suggests that the abducting aliens are bumbling incompetents, as causing more than the absolute minimum of stress in wild animals is always undesirable, from the standpoint of valid field research. (Otherwise, you're just learning about abnormal animal behaviors, not natural ones.) Yet many abductees claim -- even boast -- that they get snatched over and over again, despite becoming complete basket cases from their alleged experiences.
    • Another thing, if Aliens exist and are watching us, there probably listing down the reasons there superior.
      • Alternatively, there could be a tiny minority of people who are prone to remembering the abductions and the vast VAST majority of people never know they happen at all.
      • Another alternative is that the point of the tests for those who remember are to see what kind of abnormal behaviour crops up. As long as it is only a few and actual evidence is not present, it would be fairly safe, and if the normal behaviour have already been studied, why not?
  • Naturally, we have yet to discover aliens. However there's a lot of research dedicated to learning what kinds of alien life can conceivably exist, so long as the basic laws of molecular biology as we understand it apply throughout the cosmos. This line of thought introduces ideas such as aliens that require ammonia or formaldehyde instead of water and using nitrogen or phosphorus instead of carbon. However the type of environmental conditions for such elements and chemicals to sustain the basic principles of cellular life, as we understand it, are quite bizarre. How does this fit the trope? Well depending on the "alternative combinations" involved, to these theoretical life forms: our homeworld becomes a boiling vat of caustic gasses, the liquids that flow through our veins are flesh melting corrosive acids, the atmospheric pressure we move gracefully through would crush their skeletons (endo or exo) into paste, and the mere sound of our voice could rupture organs (it being a form of kinetic energy).
    • Oxygen is one of the most corrosive elements in the known universe. And we breathe it.
      • Also, our two most common beverages are water and alcohol. They are also our two most used industrial solvents.
  • Skunks' major defense is their stink gland. Skunks' most common cause of premature death in developed areas is getting run over by a car. Cars, of course, are exclusively engineered, built, maintained and driven by humans. What human has ever smelled skunk stink while driving and thought "I'd better stop the car"?
    • Generally by the time the driver can smell it, it's already too late for the skunk (and, by the way, the car).
  • Talking birds (parrots, for instance): To put it succinctly, what we hear as "Polly want a cracker" is probably "IA IA HUMANS FHTAGN" to themselves and other animals. In other words, parrots and other talking birds are the "dark cultists" of the animal world.
  • You're a bird, flapping along, enjoying your first good thermal of the day, when you hear a rumbling in the distance. Before you can turn to see what it is, the rumbling becomes a roar and a vortex seizes you, tossing you around. The last thing you see are blades. Congratulations, you just became bird strike.
    • Birdstrike can bring down planes and kill people. More like Accidentally Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu.
    • Same for animals that become roadkill, or manatees that get hit by boats.
      • Only most animals killed by land/sea motor-vehicles don't send the passengers hurtling to their deaths... (Note: Dumpsters and landfills should be kept far away from airports. Really far away.)
    • A bird flying against a glass window. Freaky invisible barrier!
  • Man also possesses the ability to wear products made from dead animals, making him one of the Face Stealers of the animal kingdom, like the nudibranch and hermit crabs. But instead of the nudibranch's usage of assimilating jellyfish or the hermit crab's obvious naturality, the skins that humans wear are instead transformed into numerous varieties that are totally unrecognisable from where they came.
  • Isn't it very uncanny that the octopus, the Cthulhu of the animal kingdom, is eaten by us?
    • Speaking of octopi, imagine being the octopus in the aquarium. You were just fine chilling in the sea, until suddenly a giant lattice comes out from the heavens and encapsulates you. You find yourself in what appears to be a small chunk of the sea. A force field is all that seperates you from a world you're unfamilar with. If you squint, you may see some other sea creatures. Your captors are like no living thing you've ever seen. The only thing remotely similar is the prescence of a fish-like mouth and eyes. Unlike most examples, you have the intellect to be confused and try to figure out what is going on. And, if you try and flee, you find it impossible for you to breath. These...things with four vaugely tentacle-like appendages, somehow don't need water. Humans Are The Alien Invader, travelling from beyond the sky and living in the airless void. And then you discover the sky.
  • Imagine that you are a whale that has accidentally beached itself. In this unforgiving enviroment, you are unable to even move, and will eventually dehydrate and suffocate to death, crushed under your own weight. Suddenly, you're surrounded by dozens of strange-looking creatures, effortlessly skittering around on their spindly appendages without any water to hold them up! They can move water outside of water, and they command great growling beasts strong enough to lift whales! And throughout this all, they touch you and rub you with their gangly limbs, and make strange babbling noises with their blowholes, as if they were trying to communicate...
    • Kindly creatures as well, considering how much effort they put into to getting you back into the water.
      • Unless, of course, putting you back in would turn out to be impossible, in which case they then BLOW YOU UP!!
  • Mosquitoes have extremely poor sight, instead relying on their ability to smell chemicals and detect body heat to find food. Insect repellent eliminates the odors, but leaves the heat detectable. From the mosquito's point of view, this means that a giant torch is walking around. Yikes.
  • Imagine being in a zoo. You're in some replica of your environment, one that's quite off. Your prey is given to you as carcass. And during the day, a group of your captors appears and...just watches you. Why? To prepare you for their feeding? Are they worshipping you? Something else? You'll never find out.
  • Consider the human brain for a moment. It is capable of conceptualizing things beyond what we can see and feel, can create false realities inside itself when we are asleep, and apparently has a memory storage capacity that exceeds the natural human lifespan by several orders of magnitude, such that we will never know just how much information it can hold until we can live several hundred years or more. The human brain can also act on a whim without any need for instinct, ignore logic when it feels like it, and say one thing and do something else without us even realizing it until it's already happened. On top of that, the human brain is perfectly capable of being fully aware it's doing all of those things and even plans for it. It has functions that exceed our needs as a species significantly, seemingly only to taunt us with how little we understand about it and just daring us to push ourselves further to make use of those functions, only to show us something else we didn't know we could do later on.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Humans_Are_Cthulhu/Fridge?oldid=1861752"