Scary Scorpions

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"There are around over a thousand species of scorpions, of which 25 to 50 have venom that is dangerous to humans. OK, fine, but Bond assassins probably use one of the dangerous ones. Even then, the adult mortality rate for a sting is around one percent. So you'd really need a whole suitcase full of scorpions and for Bond to lay still for you for a bit while they get 100 stings in. And if he's being that cooperative, you could honestly just kill him with the suitcase."

—Cracked, "5 Things That Aren't Nearly As Scary As Hollywood Thinks"

In Real Life, scorpions are mostly shy, retiring arachnids, preferring to stay out of trouble and only using their pincers and stinging tails to subdue prey or defend themselves (some even use them to calm down their uncooperative partners during sexual intercourse).

In fictionland, scorpions often make appearances as deadly foes. This is probably a combination of Rule of Cool and their distinctively Badass appearance, but it does tend to get them a fair bit of Demonization due to Animal Stereotypes. Scorpions, being of the arachnid class, are distantly related to spiders, and as with spiders and their fangs, scorpions are pretty much universally known for their tails, and are, admittedly, pretty scary things to come across, large or small. Because of their venom, they are used as Animal Assassins. You can often expect scorpions in Shifting Sand Land. Spider Tanks may have the appearance of a scorpion. May be stabbed.

However, as the above Cracked quote points out, the majority of scorpion stings are not dangerous to humans. The Emperor Scorpion, probably the largest and most iconic scorpion species, is frequently seen, despite being one of the least venomous species and are even popular as pets (popular as far as arachnid fans go, anyway).

Examples of Scary Scorpions include:

Anime and Manga

  • Adiane, the scorpion-tailed Ms. Fanservice in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
  • The Ayakashi species of Sasorigama from Kekkaishi are a straighter example. They also smell so horrible that Madarao and Hakubi cannot take it.
  • The Scorpio from Gundam Wing is one of the largest and most powerful mobile suits in its universe. Naturally, its alternate form resembles a giant red scorpion (though like the ReGZ, it starts off in its flight form and must jettison parts to transform).
  • The Death Stinger of Zoids: Chaotic Century was a hyper-aggressive scorpion-type Zoid with a Wave Motion Gun for a stinger.
  • Sasori the puppetmaster from Naruto. Granted, only his "outer form" looks vaguely like one (complete with bladed tail.)
  • The Puzzle Scorpions in Impel Down. They can "merge" together and form a giant centipede.
  • Pokémon has a noteworthy subversion in Ash Ketchum's Gligar (later Gliscor) during the Sinnoh arc. Not that Gligar generally look too menacing to begin with, but this one has such a tendency towards Cry Cute and The Glomp with its trainer that it's borderline impossible to be the slightest bit intimidated, even when it evolves into its more threatening-looking final form.
    • On the other hand, Ash's Rival during the same arc, Paul, has a Gliscor who is more threatening, and a Drapion who can be downright terrifying. The trope is played even straighter with the Drapion who is owned by Pokémon Hunter J, which is just as ruthless and sociopathic as its trainer.

Comic Books

  • Mac Gargan / the Scorpion from Marvel Comics, of course. He was created - with funding from J Jonah Jameson, no less - to take out Spider-Man, and actually trounced Spidey in their first fight. He's been mostly B-list since then, however, eventually ditching the Scorpion suit entirely to become the new Venom. He now has a female sort-of-Legacy Character, Carmilla Black.
  • In Marvel Star Wars, in order to get information out of someone, Luke Skywalker once has to prove his bravery by using chopsticks in his left hand to fish something out of the same bowl as an alien scorpion creature.

Film

  • At one point in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the kids are attacked by a scorpion after taking shelter in a LEGO brick. Anty, an ant they befriended earlier that day, tries to save them and succeeds, though at the cost of its life, buying the kids enough time to get their act together and drive the beast off with their torches and sharpened sticks. Of course in this case, since scorpions are predators, a scorpion really would be scary and dangerous if you'd been shrunk down to the size of an insect.
  • The Scorpion King
  • Dentist who is part of the diamond smuggling ring in Diamonds Are Forever is assassinated with a scorpion.
  • Murder By Death
  • The Arrival
  • In Clash of the Titans (1981) the blood of Medusa causes normal scorpions to become giants (Giant Enemy Scorpion?).
    • In The Remake, there are still massive killer scorpions but it's caused by the blood of Calibos, who has been given godly powers by Hades. The scorpions seem to be better at the job than Calibos was.
      • The scorpions kill two Argosian soldiers (as opposed to Calibos's four), but they tend to make more of an impression, being, you know, giant scorpions.
  • Pinocchio in Outer Space. While exploring below the surface of Mars, Pinocchio and Nurtle are chased by a gigantic scorpion.
  • Some giant mutated ones make a cameo in Damnation Alley.
  • The 1950's science fiction film The Black Scorpion involves a volcanic eruption in Mexico unleashing gigantic scorpions upon the land. Some closeups of goofy puppet heads aside, the stop-motion scorpions are fairly nightmarish, esp. in a scene where one attacks a telephone repair crew.
  • In Hook, the eponymous pirate locks a pirate who bet against him in a large trunk called "The Boo Box." Apparently it is a common and deathly frightening punishment for pirates on the Jolly Roger, because the man Screams Like a Little Girl, is thrown into the trunk, and has a bunch of scary scorpions dropped on him while the others scream "Boo!"
  • Opening credits of Three Thousand Miles to Graceland feature two cartoonishly CG scorpions duking it out.
  • In The Cave, Jack encounters a cavern full of them, upon which they try to chase him off.

Literature

Live-Action TV

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • There's a very old story called "The Scorpion and the Frog." Basically, the scorpion wants the frog to get him across a river. The frog initially refuses, afraid the scorpion will sting him if he lets him on his back. But the scorpion assures him he won't, since then they'd both drown. So the frog relents and lets the scorpion hop on board. Midway across the river, the frog feels a sharp pain in his back and realizes the scorpion's stung him. He demands to know why he did it, since now they'll both drown. The scorpion replies, "It's in my nature."
    • Or depending on the Aesop, "Scorpions can swim."
    • In another version, the final line is "Because this is the Middle East."
    • Chakotay tells a version with a fox instead of a frog to make a point about an unwise alliance with the Borg.
  • In Classical Mythology, when Artemis fell for the great hunter Orion, her brother, Apollo, didn't approve, so he sent a giant scorpion to kill him. Orion and the scorpion killed each other, but Zeus was so impressed with their battle he put the two as constellations - Orion and Scorpius.

Tabletop Games

Tabletop RPG

  • Dungeons & Dragons had large, huge and giant scorpions.
    • It also had Trobriand's and Scaladar Automatons, which were sometimes made in the shape of giant scorpions.
    • The Dark Sun setting had several examples.
      • The Mastyrial came in two versions. The Desert variety was a 6 foot long with a sonar sense that could detect invisible enemies, pincers and tail that could inflict lethal damage, a tough shell that gave immunity to blunt weapons and the ability to quickly regenerate damage. The Black version was smaller (3 feet long) and did less damage, but they hunted in packs and had psionic abilities that allowed them to lure their victims closer and attack them.
      • The Scorpian also had two versions. The Barbed type was 8–12 feet long, covered with barbs that damaged anyone that attacked it from close range, and its attacks did massive damage. The Gold was much smaller (1–2 feet long) but still did tremendous damage with its sting.
    • In 3rd Edition scorpions could grow up to 80 feet long.
  • Dying Earth RPG: the Silver Desert has large scorpions (among other hazards).
  • The Scorpion Clan in Legend of the Five Rings is known for being equal parts Guile Hero, Lawful Evil, and I Did What I Had to Do. (Amusingly, one of the Clan's major families subverts the Folklore entry above—in their version of the tale, the scorpion reveals at the end that he can swim. Hence that family's motto: "I can swim.")
  • Shadowrun
    • Paranormal Animals of Europe. The Scorpyrine is a scorpion about 40 centimeters (16 inches) long which is immune to fire and has a acidic venom that can kill a victim in five minutes.
    • California Free State. The Nova Scorpion is a meter long and its stinger has one of the deadliest animal poisons known to metahumanity - it can kill in one hour.
  • Rolemaster
    • Space Master supplement Aliens & Artifacts. Ice Scorpions, which are found in Arctic ecosystems and are 3 meters long.
    • Shadow World supplement Master Atlas. The Gemsting scorpion is 4–6 feet long and injects a respiratory poison.
  • The Giant Scorpion in the GURPS Bestiary, which is 2 yards long.
  • Deadlands has Vinegaroons which are scorpions about the size of a pony. (Vinegaroons aren't actually true scorpions, but when you're about be eaten by something the size of a pony, your average cowpoke ain't inclined to quibble.)
  • The Morrow Project. One of the mutant monsters walking the Earth 150 years after a nuclear holocaust is a scorpion 1.5 meters long with a poison that has about a 50% chance of killing the average human.
  • Mutant Future: giant mutant scorpions are around 6 feet long and have a sting that injects a lethal poison.

War Games

  • Warhammer Fantasy Battle's Tomb kings can summon giant undead scorpions from underground.
  • The Dark Eldar's Talos in Warhammer 40,000 is a giant-scorpion-like skimmer, with huge claws and a weaponized tail.
    • The Apocalypse expansion also has a mechanized scorpion for Khornate Chaos Space Marines.
  • Car Wars: Autoduel Quarterly magazine Vol. 7 #2 adventure "Mutant Zone". Hanger A in the Air Force base is home to a giant mutant scorpion, the victim of a biotoxin spill.

Toys


Video Games

  • Pokémon: Gligar, Gliscor, Skorupi, and Drapion. However, the Gligar/Gliscor Ash had in the anime was adorable.
  • EarthBound Zero has your regular scorpions, as well as the more dangerous Bionic Scorps.
    • The sequel EarthBound has a creature called a Skelpion, which is basically a scorpion skeleton, which is weird because scorpions are invertebrates.
  • The Stinger from Resident Evil Zero
  • One of the protagonists of Deadly Creatures
  • There are a large variety of scorpions in RuneScape.
  • Golden Sun has the King Scorpion boss and giant scorpions later on.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has an Emperor Scorpion as an edible animal during the mountainside section of the game, though it provides little stamina and in any case Snake hates the flavour. Sadly, they're also depicted as being capable of killing Snake when they sting him, despite the fact that Emperor Scorpion venom isn't fatal to humans. That said, this makes them a pretty decent (if lethal - remember the Pacifist Run option) Improvised Weapon if you capture one alive and throw it at an enemy.
  • Warcraft's mages had the ability to summon scorpions.
    • They make a reappearance in Warcraft 3 under the name of Arachnathid and covered in fur, in the polar regions for some reason.
    • Giant scorpions also make a reappearance in World of Warcraft, this time called Scorpids. Hunters can tame them as pets. There are also regular sized scorpions as critters in some areas, and one scorpion non-combat pet, and now a scorpion mount. The arachnathids have inexplicably disappeared.
    • Fire scorpions appear in the Firelands, and Druids of the Flame can transform into them.
  • There are (radiation-mutated) scorpions everywhere in all of the Fallout games.
    • In the first two games, they essentially make for an early game nuisance/slight challenge. In the third game as well as New Vegas, the regular variety is still a nuisance, though the giant ones may serve as a legitimate threat, having no head to target for additional damage and being faster then the player, hardly slowed down at all by crippled legs. Then the Broken Steel DLC gave us the albino radscoprion, every bit as big and fast as a regular giant radscorpion, but harder to see from a distance, having a much higher damage potential, and being durable enough to take a nuke on the chin and keep on going as if nothing happened (and this is not an exaggeration), regenerating all the while, being one of the DLC's three bosses in mook's clothing.
    • There's a radscorpion queen in Fallout: New Vegas who is extraordinarily difficult. Tough, fast, lots of damage, and fought in extremely close quarters so that escaping damage is impossible. You fight her along with a couple of her kids, too, just for extra hurt.
      • The Old World Blues DLC has Dr. Mobius' Robo-Scorpions that can shoot Frickin' Laser Beams, with a Giant version as a boss. And by Giant, we mean Giant.
  • Tales of Symphonia had a desert that featured these.
  • The Scorpion Tank from Halo
  • Final Fantasy Mystic Quest features scorpions as a tough early-game enemy. They don't first appear in the Shifting Sand Land, but in Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • Kratos fights a giant one of these in God of War III.
    • He also fights several who are merely large before and during the aforementioned fight.
  • No More Heroes has a minigame where Travis has to scoop up scorpions while avoiding stings.
    • Desperate Struggle has that same minigame, and scorpions are also enemies in some of the 8-bit retro minigames.
  • The Big Bad in Drone Tactics operates a giant mechanical scorpion.
  • A puzzle in episode 5 of Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People involves getting a chunk of scorpion food away from a horde of 8-bit scorpions.
  • Giant Scorpions exist in Puzzle Quest, where their major abilities are (a) hiding (letting them do double damage until you damage them out of hiding) and (b) poisoning you. However, once you've clocked three of them, you can capture and tame one to act as your steed (no access to the poison, but you do get their Hide ability).
  • In King's Quest VII the Princeless Bride, Valanice is attacked by a giant scorpion.
    • Sierra liked this trope. Gigantic black scorpions are also a common foe is the desert setting of Quest for Glory II, and have a powerful venom that makes them one of the more dangerous foes in the game.
    • Graham also encounters a scorpion in King's Quest V Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder. Despite being significantly smaller than the one Valanice comes across, it's also far more deadly, resulting in an instant death as soon as you reach the screen it shows up on (whereas Valanice's giant scorpion rather courteously gives you some time to deal with it before attacking).
    • Space Quest 3: "OH NO! A venomous scorpazoid. Watch out."
  • The second act of Titan Quest, set in Egypt, is full of large scorpions (black ones as large as a men and yellow ones big as grown elephants.) as well as the infamous Scorpos, a hybrid of man and scorpion. Their king is the boss that protects one of the artifacts necessary to continue the story.
  • Surprisingly, even if he's named after the creature, Scorpion isn't really heavily based on the trope. However, he CAN turn into a literal giant scorpion for a Fatality.
  • Bug!! had loads of them in the desert stage. Some just walked back and forth, others tried to attack with claws, and a few tried to sting bug with their tail. Thankfully, they all took one hit to die.
  • The Endegras from The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings are a mix of this trope and Giant Spider; they all have pincers but only Warriro Endegras also have stingers.
  • Parasite Eve: The Museum of Natural History features a particularly large, tough scorpion enemy with a stretchable tail that can reach almost across the room.
  • Moldarach in The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword.
  • Giant Desert Scorpions from Dwarf Fortress, who in addition to being very, very large and lethally venomous have prehensile stingers and a penchant for snatching weapons off attackers and using them in addition to their claws and sting.
  • The true form of the Final Boss of P.N.03 is a giant mecha-scorpion, although it rarely uses its "stinger".
  • Diablo III has Tormented Stingers, which look and sting like scorpions but are actually tortured human sacrifices with their body sliced open to form the legs and its legs mutilated to make the tail.
  • Psicorps and the Dune Scorpion from Bug Fables are vicious predators that stalk the Lost Sands. The Dune Scorpion in particular is so dangerous that it's responsible for bandit leader Astotheles losing his arm, and also nearly kills Leif before it's finished off by Zasp.

Web Comics

  • In The Order of the Stick #692, a large desert scorpion threatens Belkar's pet cat Mr. Fluffy. Belkar kills it and roasts it over a campfire.
  • Vriska from Homestuck corresponds to the astrological sign of Scorpio. Actually, she's more closely related to spiders, but most definitely scary.


Web Original

  • In the Descendents story 'Little Girl Lost', the team encounters dog sized scorpions, only to discover that killing them makes them combine into even bigger scorpions.
  • The Deathstalker from RWBY -- a giant scorpion with a tropism for humans. One is part of an absolutely awesome battle in episode 8 of the show's first volume.


Western Animation

  • The Nightmare Before Christmas: while planning (and singing about) the capture of Santa Claus, the girl Shock has a box of large scorpions that she uses to illustrate her plan for herself and her brothers to hide in a box that Santa would open so they could kidnap him.
  • The Venture Brothers
  • Jonny Quest TOS episode "The Curse of Anubis". A scorpion menaces the Quest team, but Race Bannon kills it with a whip.
  • A giant scorpion (actually a robot) shows up in an Ancient Egypt episode of Scooby Doo.
  • Kuzco and Pacha were briefly attacked by several scorpions after being chased by several jaguars.
  • Scorponok from Transformers transforms into a giant scorpion.
    • Unless if it was Movie Scorponok, however. And Beast Wars Scorponok (Optimus Primal and Cheetor are the exact size of the animals they scanned, and Scorponok is their height, so he may not even be human-sized.)
    • However, that's still giant compared to an actual scorpion. The giantest, however, is G1 Scorponok (the transformed form of The Hive's base.) Short of Unicron and Primus, G1 Scorponok may be the biggest Transformer of them all.
  • Giant scorpions can be seen at the very beginning of Duck Tales the Movie Treasure of The Lost Lamp.
  • An episode of Xiaolin Showdown was actually about Kimiko accidentally setting an evil scorpion demon named Sibini free after accidentally smashing a Shen Gon Wu called the "Mosaic Scale" (also Sibini's supposed prison) to pieces, and as a result, she and her partners had to put it back together again otherwise Sibini will wreak havoc upon the entire world.
    • Another episode featured a Shen Gon Wu called the "Emperor Scorpion", which actually served as some sort of mind-control device.
  • Fievel is almost killed by one in An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Considering he's a mouse it's not that surprising.
  • Teen Titans introduces Terra by having her running from/fighting a giant scorpion.
  • A scorpion serves as a recurring enemy in Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness.
  • Six and Bobo encounter a nest of giant scorpions in the Generator Rex episode "Breach".
  • Averted and then played straight in the Sniz & Fondue cartoon "A Toxic Tail" on KaBlam!. Fondue buys a Madagascar Scorpion to keep Sniz out of his room. Sniz tells him that he's not scared since the scorpion is in a tank. Once it gets loose though, everyone freaks out since "one sting and it kills."


Real Life

  • Smaller scorpion species, such as the desert scorpion, are pretty dangerous. Should you come across one, the best thing to do is not to give it an excuse to attack you.
  • The Emperor Scorpion, probably the largest and most iconic scorpion species, is often used as the model for these Scary Scorpions, but don't fall for the Reality Is Unrealistic trap. They're one of the least venomous species of scorpions.
    • In general, the biggest scorpions, like the Emperor and the few others kept in the pet trade, are minimally venomous. This is because their claws are so big they can kill their prey with brute force and don't need venom, whereas the smaller scorpions do.
  • At least one Arizona highway "rest area" has signs warning of poisonous snakes and scorpions. Kinda unsettling if you're an East Coast city boy. On the lighter side, the sign shows outline pictures of a scorpion and a coiled rattlesnake — but the text warns that "Poisonous snakes and insects inhabit the area".
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Scary_Scorpions?oldid=2012190"