Turtle Island: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples|page=turtle islands}}

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', Naruto {{spoiler|and Killer Bee}} hide and train on an island turtle (which has long since been guarded by the Cloud Village), which is a very good place to hide because they can get it to move if they need to. And apparently it's not a summon, unlike the usual giant beasts seen. Gai's personal summon is shocked by the size of one of the turtles who promptly informs him it's only a hatchling.

* El Doradimon from ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' is one of these.

* [[Kurohime|Genbu]] is a [[The Four Gods|Spirit King]] who occasionally tromps around a nearby continent and is covered in ogres. He's also a [[Grumpy Old Man]].

 

* ''[[The Authority]]'': Infinite City, the place where all the Jenny incarnations that have passed are placed, is a city on the back of a giant turtle.

* In the ''[[Lanfeust]]'' comic book series, {{spoiler|the Magohamoth}} isn't exactly a turtle, and it's intelligent and speaks to people telepathically, but it fits this trope otherwise. The protagonists follow its trail to an island off the coast of a river delta, and after some bizarre hallucinations we get a [[Distant Reaction Shot]], and the entire island is what they were looking for. Below the waterline it looks sort of like a manatee. With a volcano on its back.

 

* In ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]] and the King of Thieves'', the [[MacGuffin]] is on one of these, called "The Vanishing Isle".

 

* Happens in the first of the 1990s ''[[Gamera]]'' movies.

* In the 1984 fantasy classic, ''[[The Neverending Story (film)|The Neverending Story]]'', there is a giant turtle Morla who lives in the Swamps of Sadness.

 

* Taken to extremes in ''[[Discworld]]'': the Great A'tuin the star turtle carries four less-giant elephants on its back, who in turn carry the Discworld itself on their backs, and swims through space. A Turtle Planet, if you like.

** There's also a parody in ''[[Discworld/Jingo|Jingo]]'': Leonard dismisses sailors' tales about giant turtles being mistaken for islands as obvious myths, on the grounds that "you don't get giant turtles that small".

* ''[[Artemis Fowl]]: The Time Paradox'' has Kraken, which are described as an "acorn barnacle, albeit a barnacle which could easily house an Olympic Stadium or two". They are often mistaken for islands. They become a plot point and a [[Chekhov's Gun]].

 

* The Italian singer, Ligabue, had a [http://cdn.blogosfere.it/festival/images/Ligabue_cover_Arrivederci,%20mostro!%28media%29.jpg Fish Island] on the cover of his album ''Arrivederci, Mostro!''

 

* Mythologies from around the world came up with the idea of Earth as the body of a large creature, sometimes called a [[World Turtle]], often swimming in a cosmic ocean that predates the Earth, with the sky as another ocean above the firmament of stars.

* The mythologies of several Native American and First Nations cultures tell of a giant tortoise that rose out of the sea when animals needed land to live on. In fact, the Iroquois Creation Myth has the ''entire planet'' as just one really big turtle in an infinite sea. Some current-day Native Americans and First Nations peoples prefer to use "Turtle Island" instead of "North America", making them the [[Trope Namer]]; you'll hear the name used on the [[CBC]] Radio show ''Reclaimed''.

* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: Pliny the Elder in his ''[[Natural History]]'' describes a giant fish called ''pristis'', which is so big that sailors have taken it for an island and landed on its back.

 

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

** ''Al-Qadim'' setting. The Zaratan, a huge turtle (200–350 feet across) with rock outcroppings on its shell and flippers that looked like small reefs. When asleep on the surface, it could be mistaken for a floating island.

* ''Space Master'' supplement ''Aliens & Artifacts''. Living Islands, which can grow up to 2 kilometers in diameter. They can dive under the surface, leaving whatever was on top of them behind.

 

* At least one of the ''[[Golden Axe]]'' games has a village on the back of a giant turtle, and it actually swims across the sea as you make your way through the level.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask]]'' has a giant friendly turtle of an island who takes Link to a dungeon in the middle of a maelstrom. He shows up in the ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Melee'' level based on the area, too.

* The fourth ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' expansion Mists of Pandaria introduces a massive Turtle Island named Shen-zin Su, the Wandering Isle, as the starting zone for the pandaren.

 

* Played for laughs in [http://70-seas.com/?p=1271 this] chapter of ''[[Main/ptitleioj 2 t 8 k 1|70-Seas]]''.

* Also seen [https://web.archive.org/web/20140106063437/http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2010-07-27 here] in "[[Dominic Deegan]]".

 

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110817062236/http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/windows7backgrounds2/1008047677 This Windows 7 wallpaper], with flying for added awesome.

* [[Zoofights]]: {{spoiler|The Snapture became one after vol. 5.}}

 

* In "[[Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor]]," this island is alluded to as being the island where the egotistical, bullying Sinbad lives.

* ''[[Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas]]'', the Dreamworks animated film, has this, but instead it's a giant fish.

* Once in ''[[Adventure Time]]'', Finn and Jake visited the City of Thieves. It's built on the shell of a giant dead tortoise in the middle of the desert.

 

* The Turtle Island cosmology mentioned above in Mythology has become the basis for a famous often-cited [[Straw Man|"argument"]] or thought experiment in cosmology and metaphysics known as [[wikipedia:Turtles all the way down|"Turtles All The Way Down"]]:

{{quote|'''Man #1:''' If Earth is the back of a giant turtle, then [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress|what's holding up]] the ''turtle?''