Names to Run Away From Really Fast/The Adjective One

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Names to Run Away From Really Fast, similar to names that sound like adjectives, but these "names" are purely adjectives usually for Eldritch Abominations and really ancient evils, presumably so old their real name is forgotten... or they're from a time before proper nouns existed.

Not to be confused with The Adjectival Man.

Examples of Names to Run Away From Really Fast/The Adjective One include:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • The Endless from Sandman.
  • Green Lantern: The Green Lantern Probert was known as "The Bad One." He's one of two anti-hero Green Lanterns introduced in the '90s (three, if you include the five minutes Lobo wore one.
  • Played With: "The Fantastic Four" fits this naming format, but sounds goofy, harmless, and overblown. This is a really bad assumption to make.
  • Doctor Strange has The Ancient One: The most powerful sorcerer of his generation -- or any generation -- for six hundred years.

Film

  • The Evil One was the villain from Time Bandits. Just Evil for short.

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • Angel: Quor'toth is a hell dimension that's so nasty there are no portals to it, cosmic holes have to be punched through to travel back and forth there. The natives of that realm are so terrified of one being there that they know it only by the name of "The Destroyer". When the gang learn it's on its way to Earth, there are several comments from characters commenting that anyone called that has to be someone you don't want to meet. It turns out to be Angel's kidnapped son, Connor.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • The Anointed One. ... is a subversion, because he's pathetic and is quickly killed by Spike.
    • The other other Old Ones.
  • Rule of Three: The First Evil.
  • The First Ones, from Babylon 5, though those who weren't Shadows or Vorlons weren't really that bad.
  • Aerys "The Mad King" Targaryen of Game of Thrones, who thought it was a jolly jape to off people by burning them to death.

Tabletop Games

Toys

Video Games

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

Real Life

  • Yellow Fever.
  • In Ancient Greece, certain soldier types were referred to in this way. Heavy infantrymen were known as "hoplites", which is most accurately translated "the equipped ones".
  • Byzantine heavy cavalrymen were called "kataphraktoi" - "the armoured ones".
  • According to Herodotus' Histories, the Persian army had "The Immortals", an troop of ten thousand elite soldiers named so because as soon as one man died or retired, he was replaced.

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