Living Shadow: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

You're sitting by the fire one night, reading your book, when suddenly there's a gust of wind. The light flickers and you see your shadow move - except ''you're'' not moving. You get up and see that there's actually ''two'' shadows - one is yours and one, well, that one's moving independently of you. How (creepy) amazing!

Voluntarily separating yourself from your shadow is one of the more dangerous things you can do.

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Leliel, the 12th Angel in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]],'' proved to be {{spoiler|a two-dimensional creature ''resembling'' a shadow that projected a three-dimensional, spherical shadow; everyone understandably assumed the sphere was the Angel. You attack the sphere, you get eaten by the "shadow".}}

* An episode of ''[[Ranma ½]]'' had Ranma train against his shadow (literal "shadow boxing"). Inevitably, the shadow became evil and had to be put back to normal.

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' has the monster "Wall Shadow", which is pretty much [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]. A living creature hiding inside its shadow, only capable of moving along walls. In the actual card game, however, it is just a level 5 monster with 1600 ATK and 3000 DEF, capable of attacking just like any other monster.

* [[Right-Hand Hottie|Seiichirou Tatsumi]]'s power in ''[[Yami no Matsuei]]'' is manipulating shadows as a mean of transport ''and'' as a weapon.

 

== Comic Books ==

* [[Sergio Aragones]] "The Shadow Knows" strips for ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' depict people's shadows acting out their secret fantasies.

** The [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Shadow Demons]] from the ''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]'' crossover are two-dimensional silhouettes of the Monitor, and their merest touch can be deadly.

* ''[[The Sandman]]'' story "Season of Mists" makes a specific point of describing the odd behavior of each of the Endless' shadows as they are introduced. Desire has two of them, Despair's has its own odor, Delirium's is tangible and changes shape on its own, Destiny doesn't have one, and Dream only has one when he remembers. Death's is not mentioned (although she is consistently the most human-like of the Endless), and Destruction is not present at the time.

* In ''[[Freddy vs. Jason]]'' Freddy Krueger plays with this trope by projecting his shadow to attack a potential victim; however, because Freddy's still recovering from his time [[Gods Need Prayer Badly|deprived of Springwood's fear and belief]], the shadow passes clean through the teenager without harming him.

* ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'': one of the denizens of Halloweentown is a living shadow that likes to cross the moon. Although he looks like Oogie Boogie, there's no connection.

* In ''[[A Christmas]] Carol (2009)'', the Ghost of Christmas Future is Scrooge's shadow.

 

== Literature ==

* [[Hans Christian Andersen]]'s story ''The Shadow'' is about a writer whose shadow comes to life and eventually overcomes its owner. It has a [[Downer Ending]], too. He wrote it in 1847, which makes this [[Older Than Radio]].

** Adapted into a play by the Russian playwright Eugeny Shwartz (and later into two movies). The concept of living shadow is deconstructed - when the Shadow becomes the king and orders its former master beheaded, {{spoiler|it loses its own head. Its henchmen are forced to resurrect the writer but the Shadow is nevertheless exposed and dethroned.}}

** A shadow which is actually a Fallen Angel.

** It even paces round the walls of a room when bored, or as close as the avatar of an immortal, soulless fallen angel can get.

* ''[[Harry Potter|Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them]]'' describes Lethifolds, which look like shadows but are actually just very flat black creatures.

* A particularly frightening variant is introduced in the second book of ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''.

* The titular [[Cosmic Horror]] in [http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/53 "The Double Shadow"] by [[Clark Ashton Smith]].

* The titular ''Haunter in the Dark'' in a story by [[H.P. Lovecraft]] appears to be some type of a shadowy creature (with wings, tentacles and a three-lobed burning eye). It's weakness is light (little light hurts it, bright light will banish it).

* The sleeping humans on Dorma Island in ''[[Welkin Weasels]]'' are guarded by their now-independent shadows. {{spoiler|The weasels get past them by waiting till noon. Since it's near the equator and the shadows are still cast in the same way they would be if the humans were attached, the shadows are reduced to tiny blobs which the weasels can just step over.}}

* Shades from Karen Marie Moning's ''[[Fever Series]]'' are low-caste Unseelie which hunt at night and drain their victims until there's nothing left except clothing and the dehydrated remains of whatever they couldn't eat.

** [[Word of God|The author explained]] that this is an allegory of the Jungian concept of the Shadow.

* The first of Walter B. Gibson's hundreds of novels of [[The Shadow]] was titled, ''The Living Shadow.''

* [[George MacDonald]] was apparently fond of this trope. In ''Phantastes'', a dark shadow attaches itself to the protagonist, causing him to suffer a severe depression. They play a more benevolent role in a short story entitled "The Shadows," in which they cast themselves on walls to comfort the bereaved, amuse children, inspire musicians, and confront guilty parties with their misdeeds.

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[Iron Shadows in the Moon|Shadows in The Moonlight]]" this is ''one'' of the problems.

{{quote|''Far below her something moved. It was as if a black shadow detached itself from the gulf of shadows below her. It moved slowly up the sheer face of the cliff--a vague bulk, shapeless in the semi-darkness. ''}}

* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter|Prospero Lost]]'', the barghests combine this trope with [[Hell Hound]].

* In ''[[Shadows of the Apt]]'', Scyla is haunted by a shadow from the [[Artifact of Doom|box]].

* In [[The Lost Years of Merlin]] series, Merlin eventually gets his shadow to come alive. His shadow ends up being headstrong and mischievous, and leaves after an disagreement with Merlin. {{spoiler|Luckily, he comes back just in time for the final battle, having gone to recruit the swamp ghosts to aid their cause}}.

 

* There's an episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' called "The Shadow Man," about a living shadow that lives under a boy's bed and will harm anybody ''except'' the person whose bed he lives under. At the end of the episode, {{spoiler|the Shadow Man starts choking the boy, saying that he is a Shadow Man from a different bed}}. Brrr.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has had plenty of [[Paranoia Fuel]] over the years, but they ramped it up to eleven with the Vashta Nerada from "Silence in the Library." They are piranhas of the air, things that live in shadow that can literally ''melt flesh''. They exist on billions of worlds, including Earth, where, though they mainly feed on roadkill, they still kill humans, and are the reason why every intelligent form of life is afraid of the dark. Plus, if they get inside {{spoiler|a suit meant to keep them out, they can control your skeleton and use it to chase down your friends, all whilst your last words repeat endlessly and remind the Nerada's new victims just whose corpse is chasing them down}}.

** {{spoiler|Technically the last words part was a side effect of the communicators and happens for non-Nerada deaths too, but we all know it's really there to make the Nerada victims even more creepy.}}

** [[Expanded Universe]] rivals [[Faction Paradox]] combine this with [[Nightmare Fuel]] and [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]. How? They use their [[Magitek|weird technology]] to transform their shadows into living arsenals capable of directly manifesting in 3-D, allowing their priests to calmly sit down for a spot of tea as their shadows tear all enemies around to pieces.

* An episode of ''[[Supernatural]]'' dealt with creatures who were invisible except for their shadows.

* One [[Monster of the Week]] in ''[[Lois and Clark]]'' was a man like this. He was an invincible killer who could enter any place as a shadow and kill his target without being seen or leaving any trace of his presence... but unfortunately, he was facing a guy with laser eyeballs and light means to him [[Weaksauce Weakness|just what it means to actual shadows.]]

* Not precisely "living," but on one episode of ''[[The X-Files]]'', an experiment involving antimatter [[Gone Horribly Wrong|goes horribly wrong]], causing the shadow of the scientist to consume the body of anyone it fell upon, leaving only a scorch mark on the wall/floor. [[Nightmare Fuel|Guaranteed to cause nightmares for days]].

* In ''[[Charmed]]'', the Woogyman appeared like this when giving instructions to the people it had possessed.

* In an episode of ''[[Smallville]]'', "Prey," one freak-of-the-week was a meteor freak partly based on Shadow Thief.

* In ''[[Bear in the Big Blue House]]'' there's a living shadow character. She falls under the friendly/mischievous category.

* The ''[[Friday the 13th: The Series]]'' episode "Shadow Boxer" revolves around a pair of cursed boxing gloves that allowed a washed up boxer to bring his shadow to life. While the boxer was in the ring, the shadow would murder someone while the gloves granted the boxer a surge of strength, allowing him to win any fight he entered.

* An extraterrestrial [[Monster of the Week]] from ''[[Fringe]]'' resembles a three-dimensional shadow.

 

== Music ==

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGCsyshUU-A&feature=relmfu This video] by hip-hop violinist Lindsey Stirling, "Shadows", has Lindsey playing and dancing alongside her own shadow, similar to Fred Astaire's "Bojangles of Harlem" number listed above.

 

* There's the [[wikipedia:Shadow people|shadow people]], whom various people have "witnessed" and speculated about.

* [[wikipedia:Wraith|Wraiths]] and [[wikipedia:Shade (mythology)|Shades]] sometimes.

* In Nigeria, the Yoruba people believe that a person has at least three spiritual beings. One of them, the Ojiji, is a shadow that follows its owner and awaits his return in heaven when he dies.

* In Roman mythology ghosts were usually jet-black, and resembled living shadows.

 

== Radio ==

* There was an episode of ''[[Hall Of Fantasy]]'', an old time radio program in 1953, called "The Shadow People."

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* A practitioner of Ebon Shadow Style, from ''[[Exalted]]'', can temporarily transform into this.

** Another example is Five Days Darkness, the shadow of the Unconquered Sun. He's a pretty nice guy, but he has a hard time helping people since he disappears in sunlight.

** Ebon Dragon, the Shadow of All Things, used to be this before the Primordial War, but the wounds he suffered forced him to become an actual three-dimensional dragon instead of just the shadow of a dragon.

** Additionally, in 4th Edition, one of the Epic Tier Arcane Familiars is the Shadow Incarnate. It is implied to actually be the caster's shadow separated from them, and once per encounter it can be used to determine line of sight, effect, etc. for your arcane spells.

* The Lasombra of the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' had the Discipline of Obtenebration (shadow manipulation). Their Antediluvian [Lasombra] {{spoiler|becomes a creature of pure shadow living in the Abyss, and comes to the world during Gehenna}}.

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[Blue Dragon]]'', each character has a magical blue living shadow.

* Also in ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'', there are shades that are incorporeal and can only be hurt by swords.

* Some versions of Dark Link in ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]''.

** Midna takes the form of Link's shadow whenever he's in his real form (not the wolf) in ''[[Twilight Princess]]''.

*** During early wolf-outside-twilight sections of the game, you can see her shadow riding Link's shadow...but there's no physical Midna on Link's back to match.

* ''[[Lost in Shadow]]'' : You play as a boy's shadow which has been ripped from its owner and thrown off a tower. The aim of the game is to get back to him.

* The [[Fairly Oddparents]] video game ''Shadow Showdown'' has as its main villian the Chamberlain's Shadow.

* Kind of turns up in Heaven's Feel route of [[Fate/stay night]]. The shadow {{spoiler|[[Super-Powered Evil Side|Dark Sakura]]}} kills people and {{spoiler|can [[Fate Worse Than Death|corrupt]] all Servants other than Gilgamesh. Including your love interest from the previous two routes (well, certainly from Fate, and possibly from UBW).}}

* In [[Diablo]] 2 the Assasin can summon a shadowy clone to fight on her side.

 

* Shadow2 and the other "glass-eyed men" from ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]''.

* The Shadowchild from Ursula Vernon's ''[[Digger]]'', who was supposedly 'hatched' from a dead bird and has absolutely no idea what he is. In addition to being a shadow, he can also eat the shadows of other things, which apparently kills them on the spot.

** And Sweetgrass Voice, who is far more malevolent than the innocent but powerful Shadowchild.

* ''[[Misfile]]'' has the [[Big Bad]] of Book 8, a shadowy entity dubbed the Wraith by fans. {{spoiler|Apparently, it was the manifestation of [[Enemy Within|Bronwyn's confused inner desires towards her boyfriend]]. Finaly stopped when [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Rumisiel]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|stuffed it back where it came from]]}}.

* Jack and the Denizens from ''[[Sequential Art (webcomic)|Sequential Art]]''.

* Lord Greed from [[Parallel Dementia]].

 

== Web Original ==

* Of [[The Tale of the Exile|The Shadows of Miir]], only Despair really fits this trope. The other Shadows are more like [[The Fair Folk]].

* An Easter Egg in a [[Homestar Runner|SBEmail]] features Homestar being [[Mirror Match|pitted against his shadow self]], fighting game style. He begins to mock to old "dip the main character in ink and make him fight himself" trope when he gets his bwathom whomped almost before the fight even really starts.

 

== Western Animation ==

* Ebon from ''[[Static Shock]]'' could turn into a living shadow and teleport people.

* In the ''[[Men in Black (animation)|Men in Black]]'' cartoon series, there were some shadow aliens.

* One of the villains in ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' was a living shadow named the Shadow Thief.

** Who has traditionally been an enemy of Hawkman, and also appeared in ''[[The Batman]]''.

* In one "U.S. Acres" segment of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'', Wade's shadow, brought to life briefly through the [[Rule of Funny]] by way of [[Tempting Fate]], gives him good reason to reassess his realization that shadows cannot hurt him.

* Piglet of ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' befriends his shadow when his friends are too busy to play with him in an episode. The shadow feels neglected and leaves when Piglet returns to his normal friends. Piglet's friends try to fill up his lack of a shadow by offering to give him their own shadows, but he's happily reunited with his shadow at the end.

* In one Aesop and Son segment from ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' the story of the dog who dropped his bone because he was trying to steal the one his reflection had was changed to the story of a dog who attacked his shadow for the same reason. He ends up knocking himself out and his shadow simply steals both bones and walks off. When he realizes that he no longer has a shadow he has to buy one off the black market. His new shadow once belonged to a man named Charlie who, it's implied, met a rather sticky end. Charlie's shadow refuses to mimic his new owners actions and the two of them don't get along very well. After they both learn to work together, it's reveled that {{spoiler|"Charlie's shadow" was really the dog's old shadow all along.}}

** Bullwinkle also had to deal with fighting his own shadow(and losing) while reading "My Shadow" (from Robert Lewis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verse").

* In ''[[The Mask (animation)|The Mask]]'', one recurring villain was Skillet, an [[Really 700 Years Old|immortal]] [[Enfant Terrible]] intended as an evil [[Expy]] of Peter Pan. One of his powers was to release his shadow to consume those of others, causing them to rapidly age while keeping him immortal.

* In an episode of the German/Italian cartoon School For Vampires, the vampire kids learn how to control their shadows, causing them to do everything from backflips, to picking up and holding physical objects. But the main character Oskar's shadow goes wild and becomes fairly menacing until he learns to control it.

* Judging from her appearance and [[Word of God]] on her origins [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|Nightmare Moon]] may very well be one of these.

* In ''[[The Smurfs (animation)|The Smurfs]]'', Jokey's shadow comes to life when he accidentally sprinkles Mother Nature's magic powder for bringing trees to life onto it.

 

== Real Life ==

* A phenomenon known as [[wikipedia:Shadow People|Shadow People]] entails humanoid shadows appearing in the periphery of some peoples' vision, only to disappear when confronted. There are many explanations, both scientific and pseudoscientific, for this phenomenon, but little agreement over the true causes.

** More recent studies have suggested that this and similar/related phenomenon such as dopplegangers and out of body experiences are a result of, more or less, a part of the brain misfiring. Essentially, the part of the brain that's responsible for spacial self-awareness (ie how the brain knows where your hands are and how you're positioned so it can do basic things like walk and put your finger on your nose) can, if stimulated, result in the brain being fooled that you are, in effect, somewhere else such as three feet behind and to your left. Consequentially, the rest of the brain tries to reconcile the fact [[Voodoo Shark|by freaking out even more]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Otherness Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Radio]]

[[Category:Villains]]

[[Category:Horror Tropes]]