Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,447
edits
The Worm That Walks: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (moved real life section to end of page) |
No edit summary |
||
| (9 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
Line 9:
Well, you call this guy. He isn't just ''one'' bug, he's ''[[The Swarm|millions]]''! Millions of tiny creepy crawlies make up his body, as if his entire body is composed of [[Synchronized Swarming]] controlled by a [[Hive Mind]]. Sometimes it's worms, sometimes it's insects - [[Everything's Worse with Bees|bees]] are always good - and sometimes it's just any creepy thing you can think of. Don't worry; The Worm That Walks can make them all into [[Nightmare Fuel|fuel for subconscious terrors]].
Monsters like this aren't always the most lethal, but are often very hard to hurt. Trying to punch one is like trying to punch water (only far more disgusting). In some cases, they are almost impossible to kill, because if even one of the creatures that makes up its body survives, there is the possibility that [[From a Single Cell| it will return]] (though it may take a while). [[Kill It with Fire]] is often your best bet.
An extreme version of the [[Totem Pole Trench]]. See also [[Combining Mecha]] for the mechanical counterpart of this trope.
Line 18 ⟶ 20:
* An ad for [[The BBC]] had a head made of disembodied heads. People complained.
* This [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OHY-2bv0vk Duracell Ultra commercial] accidentally evokes this trope. Anyone else thinks that these little pink Duracell Bunnies look like...a mass of squirming maggots?
* There's a recent{{when}} Prius commercial that centers on a human...made out of dozens of tiny humans. The horrifying beast gets out of bed, brushes its "teeth," etc. Yes, a link to it or something might be more informative, but really, you don't [[Body Horror|want to]] [[Uncanny Valley|see this]].
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Beelzebub in ''[[666 Satan]]''.
* ''[[Naruto]]'' has Shino Aburame and the rest of the Aburame clan, who while not made of bugs, house swarms of energy-draining beetles in their bodies since sortly after their birth - perhaps even more disturbing than simply being composed of the insects. A "[[Me's a Crowd|Bug Clone]]" technique also exists, in which the user creates a clone of himself out of those beetles, more true to this trope.
Line 105 ⟶ 107:
** He also gives us the 'throng-bear', an unintelligent variant from ''[[Iron Council]]''.
** Don't forget {{spoiler|Skool, who is a bunch of fish inside a wetsuit. He's also a rare heroic version of this.}}
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'', a vampire can only change into a single bat if they've been feeding on human blood, since it takes great magical power to change one's bodymass in the setting. Belonging to the teetotaller Black Ribboners, Sally in ''[[
** Also in a Discworld book (''[[
** A more comical example from ''A Hat Full of Sky'', reappearing in the subsequent book ''Wintersmith'', is [[Totem Pole Trench|the Nac Mac Feegles disguising themselves as a human (singular) by stacking themselves up inside several stolen items of clothing]].
** Borrowing a swarm of bees is a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Granny Weatherwax in ''[[
** A minor version of this occurs in the character of Hex in the Unseen University... a 'computer' controlled by the ant colony living inside it... a similar type of machine can be seen in the Glooper in "Making Money", although that one is controlled by water and tides and the economy...
* The Vermiform in Steph Swainston's ''Castle Circle'' series is one of these.
Line 125 ⟶ 127:
* In Niven and Barnes' ''The Barsoom Project'', the sins of humanity make an appearance in the Fimbulwinter Game as a swarm of monstrous insect-like vermin, which assemble themselves into four giant humanoid figures to put [[Humanity on Trial]].
== [[Live
* Norman Pfister from the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episodes "What's My Line, Part One" and "What's My Line, Part Two." He's a group of maggots that can appear like a man (but not for very long, as he starts to go all [[Uncanny Valley]]). Xander and Cordelia manage to kill him with [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|a bucket of glue]].
* ''[[Reaper]]'' had an episode with a woman made of bugs.
Line 134 ⟶ 136:
* In ''[[Andromeda]]'', a guest turned out to be composed of nanobots.
* In ''[[Smallville]]'', Clark Kent battles a [[Spider-Man]]-esque villain named Greg Arkin in episode 2. When Greg gets crushed by falling debris, his body breaks up into dozens of beetles.
* Based on how he escapes being trapped in Crowley's answering machine, this seems to be an attribute of Hastur in the Amazon Prime production of ''[[Good Omens (series)|Good Omens]]''.
== [[Music
* The [[Music Video]] for
* The music video for [[Rammstein]]'s Links 2-3-4 has a horde of giant insects coming to destroy some ants. The ants then eat the giant insects, and then ''dance on their corpses'
== Myths and Religion ==
Line 143 ⟶ 146:
== New Media ==
* Diana from ''[[Descendant of a Demon Lord]]'' became this after people slit her throat and threw her into a bog. Despite her 'biological integrity', she is nervous she'll fall apart (and die for real), and studied magic that would go towards preventing that (like binding). Despite that, she thinks her 'body' has enough benefits that she wouldn't exchange it for a conventional body. She also maintains a sense of modesty, such as covering her chest when it isn't
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
Line 150 ⟶ 153:
** It was based on a creature that appeared in the [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]] story "The Festival":
{{quote|''"[H]appy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For…the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."''}}
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]
** Ravenloft
** In the [[Epic Level Handbook]]'', and [[Pathfinder]] Bestiary (part II), there is a monster called "Worm That Walks", a dead spellcaster that has become the [[Hive Mind]] for an army of worms - gaining insect-related powers and a great deal of additional resilience. Usually it's the evil ones that choose this method of life after death.
** Players can actually turn themselves into a Worm That Walks, although it carries a chance of failing and just leaving them as a rotting corpse.
Line 163 ⟶ 166:
** The Worm That Walks shows up again in 4th Edition as the "Larva Mage." Not quite as evocative...
*** The Larva Mage has some cousins, too. The Larva Assassin is the soul of a [[Psycho for Hire]] given form through a swarm of hornets and centipedes. Larva Snipers were [[Cold Sniper]]s (or at least sadistic marksmen) in life, now an undead composed of wasps. Larva War Masters were [[General Ripper]]s, [[Blood Knight]]s and similar depraved, insane warriors in life, their souls called back and thrust into undeath as the [[Hive Mind]] of a swarm of carnivorous beetles.
*** And Kyuss himself is back, one of the [[Eldritch Abomination]]s of the ''Elder Evils'' sourcebook, plus the one on the cover art.
** The [[Call a Pegasus A Hippogryph|Lamia]] from 4th Edition [[Dungeons & Dragons]] is an evil fey creature which is a seething swarm of scarab beetles wrapped around the flesh-stripped bones of a powerful fey creature. Many lamias take the form of eladrin that they've hollowed out this way.
** The great-granddaddy of all these D&D Worms That Walk was the cifal ([[Fun with Acronyms|Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life]]), a rather forgettable colonial-insect monster from the 1E ''Fiend Folio''.
*** Whom they just dumped into the recent{{when}} version of ''[[Gamma World]]'', along with [[Our Monsters Are Weird|all the other effed-up D&D monsters]]
** A rare Good-aligned version appears in, of all places, the [[Eldritch Abomination]]-filled ''Lords of Madness'' 3.5 sourcebook, with the silthilar—sentient swarms with just a touch of the [[Mad Scientist]] when they fuse into their solid form.
** Roach thralls in ''D20 Modern''.
** Yet another version from 3.5, in the ''Exemplars of Evil'' book (for designing villains) is the former archmage of the Tolstoff family who researched the deceased god the Worm That Walks, learned evil spells, acquired foul magic items, and made pacts with dark entities. Eventually the deity noticed him and "rewarded" him with its filthy blessing, an attack of ravenous worms and maggots that ate his physical body but which absorbed his soul. Sealed in a vault within the catacombs beneath the mansion by his horrified daughter, he then proceeds to whisper and corrupt his grandchildren into evil servants who will stop at nothing to free him from his tomb. He later appeared in the aforementioned ''Elder Evils'' as [[The Dragon]] to Kyuss.
* ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' includes the Ananasi, werespiders who, in their animal form, turn into their weight in spiders. Since they can eventually regenerate their entire bodies from even one of those spiders, it makes for a great escape technique.
** Also in ''Werewolf'' are the Hollow Men, a breed of fomori (humans under the thrall of [[Demonic Possession]]). The Hollow Men specifically are humans who were killed and whose bodies were mostly emptied out (hence the name), the insides replaced by a swarm of small animals controlled by the demonic spirit in question. Doesn't have to be insects/arachnids; reptiles and rodents are also popular choices. They're capable of speech and can ''try'' to pass themselves off as fully human, but generally, even other fomori find them creepy as hell.
Line 232 ⟶ 235:
* While it isn't entirely clear, one of the [[Big Bad]]'s lackeys in ''[[Dead of Summer]]'' may be one of these. He summons a swarm of insects seemingly out of nowhere (the art suggests they either come from around him or ''inside'' him) to attack {{spoiler|[[The Protomen|Commander]]}}. He's swarmed and bitten so much his movements are slowed, and he screams that they're eating him alive.
* Gavotte, the head of the''[[Skin Horse]]'' department, is a sentient swarm of bees. She (?) is surprisingly congenial and enjoys having a cup of tea with her employees, but they're often somewhat unnerved by the disembodied voice and the offers of free honey.
* ''[[Dilbert]]'' had [[Pointy-Haired Boss]] [https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-07-29 mention] that he somehow hired termite colonies disguised with clothes and makeup… three times in a row. The readers, of course, pointed out that employees as organized, hard working, goal-oriented and adaptable as termite colonies probably were the best hires in his department, or maybe in that entire corporation.
== [[Web Original]] ==
Line 270 ⟶ 274:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Invertebrate Index]]
[[Category:Evil Is Visceral]]
[[Category:Villains]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
▲[[Category:The Worm That Walks]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Worm That Walks, The}}
| |||