Sea Monster: Difference between revisions

Since [[Older Than Feudalism|ancient times]], some cultures have had a superstitious fear of the ocean. It was vast and almost completely unknown. It could smash any ship man dared float on it, or sweep it away, never to be heard of again. Oh, and there may have been [[Attack of the 50 -Foot Whatever|gigantic monsters in it]]. Until recent centuries many sea charts were illustrated with mythical and fearsome sea-creatures in unexplored regions, and even today the weirdest creatures on Earth are to be found beneath the waves, and we're still finding more. [[Truth in Television|Some of them]] ''[[Truth in Television|are]]'' [[Truth in Television|pretty enormous, too]] (though they're [[Everything Trying to Kill You|not the most dangerous things down there]]).

There are many flavours of [['''Sea Monster]]''' (well, yes, [[A Worldwide Punomenon|most taste a lot like squid]], unsurprisingly). These subtropes include:

See also [[Fish People]], [[Our Mermaids Are Different]], [[Space Whale]], [[Giant Flyer]], [[Everything Is's Even Worse Withwith Sharks]] and [[Everything's Squishier Withwith Cephalopods]].

== [[Anime]] &and [[Manga]] ==

* The Three-Tails and Eight-Tails from ''[[Naruto]]''.

* WaterFrom Pokemon''[[Pokémon]]'', water Pokémon. Let us see, we have giant crabs (Kingler), giant lobsters (Crawdaunt), giant jellyfish (Tentacruel), a mini Loch-Ness monster thing (Lapras), giant clams (Clamperl and Cloyster), a torpedo shark (Sharpedo. Yeah.), ancient water animal plant things (Lileep, Anorith)...and the waters hide many, many more.

== Commercials[[Film]] ==

* ''[[Star Wars]]'': There's [[Always a Bigger Fish]] on [[Star Wars|Naboo.]] First, there's the Opee Seakiller, a bizarre fish-crab hybrid that eats with a long, sticky tongue. Then, there's the larger Colo Clawfish, a giant sea serpent with clawlike appendages used to capture smaller creatues (especially baby Seakillers, which can even chew out of a Clawfish's stomach to escape). And finally, there's the Sando aqua monster, the biggest predator in Naboo, who can and will eat almost anything (including the aforementioned Clawfish and Seakiller) that stands in its way.

* In ''[[Orlando Furioso]]'', two different women, Angelica and Olympia, were offered to placate two different sea monsters -- at least one of which was called an orc. Also, the enchantress Alcina uses a whale as transport.

* The illustrated [[Discworld]] - The illustrated novel ''The Last Hero'' features a map of the disk with all sorts of monstrous sea creatures popping up here and there. Then a later illustration shows Mustrum Ridcully fishing... with all those creatures lying in a pile at his feet. Turns out the creatures on the map weren't quite on scale.

* ''[[Sense and Sensibility Andand Sea Monsters]]'' lives on this trope.

* In ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians|Percy Jackson]]'', Percy encounters the legendary Charybdis and Scylla in ''The Sea of Monsters'', a random sea serpent in the short story ''Percy Jackson and the Stolen Chariot'' from ''The Demigods Files'', and sees a whole army of them attack Poisden's forces in ''The Last Olympian''.

* The Con Rit, or Tarrasque, a sea serpent claimed to be found in the South China Sea. Some theories say that the possible sea serpent is inspiration to both the Oriental Dragon, and the South African Snake God. <ref>In French mythology the Tarrasque was originally a tortoise-shelled, eight -legged land -bound dragon that menaced the French region of Tarrascon (thus the name) until defeated by a female saint. The French drew on this legend for their name for the beast of Halong Bay while Vietnam was still part of French Indochine.</ref>

* ''[[The Kalevala]]'' has a giant pike and Iku-Turso, a malevolent sea monster.

* [[Norse Mythology]] has the Kraken of course. And then there's Jormungandr, the Midgard (World) Serpent, the sea monster to end all sea monsters. An immense sea snake, he wraps all the way around Midgard, holding his tail in his own jaws. He has a major rivalry with Thor, and plays a key role in [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|Ragnarok]].

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering]]'' has tons of Sea Monsters. Leviathans, Krakens, Sea Serpents etc... Notably enough, they're often both blue and absurdly huge, despite blue colour being anything but based on brute force.

* ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]''

** The ocean-oriented ''Stormwrack'' book includes many Sea Monsters.

* ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' has a few, though they're rather obscure. The Space Wolf homeworld has a ''massive'' kraken (said to be a [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Tyranid offshoot]]) and sea serpents straight out of Norse myth, appropriate given the Space Wolves' Viking theme, and a sea monster is said to live on the planet Armageddon, where it attacked Ork ships. Given the nature of the setting, it's a safe bet that most world with any oceans have at least one.<br /><br />The "Iron Snakes" chapter has a mostly ocean-bound home world (their fortress-monastery is on one of the moons), and one of the challenges which aspirants wishing to join the chapter have to face is single combat with a sea serpent using only a harpoon and a canoe.

* The WaterSapphire DragonDrake from[[Bonus Boss]] of ''[[OkamiWild ARMs 4]]'', {{spoiler|which turnsthe outplayer tofirst besees thepreying kingon of''another'' thesea Dragonians}}monster.

* * ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]'':

* ''[[La -Mulana]]'' is maybe the only video game to use the Babylonian interpretation of Tiamat (fierce ocean goddess) rather than the [[Dungeons and& Dragons]] interpretation (five-headed dragon queen).

* ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' -: The Demoman considers the Loch Ness Monster to be his mortal enemy, and he accidentally [[Self-Made Orphan|killed his adoptive parents]] in an attempt to [[Mad Bomber|blow it up]].

* ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' had the Zilla, a freaky whale/bear hybrid.<ref>And a shout-out to Godzilla, whose original Japanese name was a contraction of the phrase for "gorilla-whale".</ref>

* Morpheel in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]]'': Twilit Aquatic Morpheel is a giant tentacled sea serpent.

* ''[[Monster Hunter (Video Game)|Monster Hunter Tri]]'' features new mechanics which allow your character to swim and fight underwater. Obviously this has introduced a whole slew of new aquatic monsters including athe lightning-spewing serpent/crocodile mix Lagiacrus and athe large, grotesque Anglerangerfish FishGobul capable of perfect camoflage, blinding flashes of light, and inflating into a spined ball. And the Gobuls encountered in the game are said to be ''juveniles'', with the adults being impossibly huge and lurking in the deep sea.

* A boss in ''[[Metroid|Metroid Fusion]]'' is Serris, a sea serpent capable of [[Super Speed]].

* ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]'' features two: the electric eel colossus that is [[Primal Fear|frankly terrifying]], and the wading lake monster, which is terrifying AND''and'' [[AI Roulette|frustrating]].

* ''[[Endless Ocean]]: Blue World]]'' features several prehistory-dating creatures to be encountered, one of whom even tries to attack you. There's also lots of benign marine life which have monster-esque names, such as a large giant squid named "Kraken Jr." and an albino sperm whale named "Leviathan". Sadly, all of the prehistoric creatures are relegated to cutscenes only and cannot be swam with.

* Expansion packs for the original ''[[Zoo Tycoon]]'' allow you to raise and exhibit plesiosaurs and Loch Ness monsters. Not together, though: - they eat each other's eggs!

* Nintendo game ''[[Cobra Triangle]]'' featured several different sea monsters to include a [[Giant Enemy Crab]], a [[Giant Squid]], sea serpents and [[Everything's Even Worse Withwith Sharks|a giant shark]] {{spoiler|as the final boss}}.

* This is the entire point of the [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|World Monster Fishing]] mode of [https://web.archive.org/web/20150101013347/http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1093537-PS1-Big-Ol-Bass-2-(AKA-EXTREME-FISHING-THE-GAME) the obscure but awesome] ''[[Big Ol' Bass 2], an obscure but awesome fishing game]''. You can catch everything from [[Eagle Land|bass with the American flag colors]] to [[Mona Lisa Smile|a trout with the Mona Lisa on it]], from [[Everything's Even Worse Withwith Sharks|a shark]] [[Panthera Awesome|with a leopard design]] to {{spoiler|[[Up to Eleven|Dinosaursdinosaurs]]}}.

* ''[[Oblivion]]'' has the [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Giant Slaughterfish]].

== Webcomics[[Western Animation]] ==

*** Which feeds on [[Call a Smeerp Aa Rabbit|elephant]] [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|koi.]]

* Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent from ''[[Beany and Cecil (Animation)|Beany and Cecil]]''

* The pilot of ''[[The Drinky Crow Show (Animation)|The Drinky Crow Show]]'' involves whales, which is appropriate because it's set on a whaling ship. The whales are drawn in the style of those really old maps with "Here be dragons" written in the corners.

* ''[[Star Wars: theThe Clone Wars]]'' - [[The Scrappy|Jar-Jar]] summons a bigger fish.

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' - When bob yells that there are sea monsters on the beach to keep people out of the water, an erudite serpent reminds him that "we sea monsters have made great strides in the fields of science and literature."

* The giant Nautilus of ''[[Cybersix (Animation)|Cybersix]]''. She beats it by dropping a bridge on it, literally.

* ''[[Care Bears]]'' had a sea serpent named "Shaky" who needed work on his confidence.

* In other ''[[Star Wars: Clone Wars]]'' the Mon Calamari fought the separatist forces with knights riding on giant eels.

* ''[[Duck TalesDuckTales (Animation1987)|Duck Tales]]'': The sea monster that ate Scrooge [[McDuck]]'s ice cream is actually a submarine colored to resemble an orca.

* ''[[Yellow Submarine (Animation)|Yellow Submarine]]'' had an entire Sea of Monsters.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* And including extinct animals, we have [[Stock Dinosaurs Non Dinosaurs|plesiosaurs and similar creatures]] like the ichthyosaur and mosasaur, and [[Megalodon]], a prehistoric shark the size of a whale. Its modern counterpart may be the Whale Shark, which is thankfully nonaggressive and feeds on plankton.<br /><br />Indeed, so many different creatures like this existed in the past that one can argue that plesiosaurs can't have survived to the present, because ''the mosasaurs would've eaten them'', long before the K-T extinction took down subsequent forms of reptilian [[Sea Monster]].<br /><br />The modern equivalent of ''Carcharocles megalodon'' might be the Whale Shark from a size perspective, but in every other respect it's basically a Great White that is... bigger.

* Saltwater crocodiles can be even larger than Gustave. Large adult male saltwater crocodiles can be more than six meters long and weigh more than 2,600 lbspounds.

** Interestingly enough, the signal originated from a point in the South Pacific roughly 950 nautical miles from [[Cthulhu Mythos|the sunken home of another large monster.]] Now, if the Bloop was made by... '''THAT''', then we [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|might be in for a surprise]] sometime in the future...

* ''Tullimonstrum'', a bizarre fossil invertebrate, bears a striking external resemblenceresemblance to the Loch Ness Monster, except it's barely a foot long and found in North America.

* The Coelacanth. Now, fair enough -- asenough—as fish go, they're small and rather harmless. But the fact the coelocanthcoelacanth has been swimming around virtually unchanged for millions and millions of years, makes a lot of supposed sea-monster sightings just a little bit creepier.

* The whole point of fishing shows like ''[[River Monsters (TV)|River Monsters]]'', ''Hooked'', and ''Monster Fish''. Their catches range from the modest (Taimen), to the bizzarebizarre (catfishes of the Amazon), to the truly gargantuan in scale (marlins, giant catfishes, and the Mekong Giant Stingray).

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