History Main / OxymoronicBeing

** Koishi Komeiji, [[BonusBoss extra stage boss]] of ''Subterranean Animism''. Like her sister, she is a satori, a youkai species that [[PowerIncontinence constantly]] [[{{Telepathy}} reads the minds]] of everyone around them [[MindOverManners out loud]], leading to them being [[FantasticRacism the most despised youkai species]] in the setting. Koishi got around this prejudice by giving herself a PokeInTheThirdEye (located on her [[EyesDoNotBelongThere external heart]]) which had the unforeseen side-effect of [[EmptyShell sealing off her heart and mind]], leaving her to operate solely via her subconscious. The result is [[BrokenAngel a mind-reader that cannot read minds; not even her own.]] In ''Symposium of Post-Mysticism'', Buddhist monk Byakuren Hijiri describes her state as being close to Enlightenment and expresses a strong desire to meet her and recruit her to her temple.

** The Auditors of Reality try really hard to be the personifications of impersonality because, even though that's not their real function, they hate personality. This causes them to frequently disappear in a [[PuffOfLogic puff of flawed logic]], just from accidentally using first-person singular.

** The Auditors of Reality try really hard to be the personifications of impersonality because, even though that's not their real function, they hate personality. This causes them to frequently disappear in a PuffOfLogic, just from accidentally using first-person singular.

** Neilette in ''Literature/TheLastContinent'' joins a troupe of drag queens in her brother's place, so she's a female female impersonator (-impersonator).

** Neilette in ''Literature/TheLastContinent'' joins a troupe of drag queens in her brother's place, so she's a female drag queen (impersonator).

* The word "sophomoric", derived from sophomore, may be considered an oxymoron in Greek; it derives from the Greek words "sophos", wise, and "moros", stupid, (from which we get the word moron). A sophomoric person may be defined as [[KnowNothingKnowItAll conceited and overconfindent of knowledge, but poorly informed and immature.]][[note]]The concept may be described by Film/TheThreeStooges whenever one of them (usually Moe) says "Oh, a wise guy, huh?" in response to another's smart-alecky attempt at "wisecracking" a pun.[[/note]]
** Alternatively, since a sophomore student is around the middle of their tenure at college, [[MindScrewdriver you could interpret it as indicating that they're learned a lot since when they first started (sophos) but still have a lot to learn before they're done (moros)]],

** The doctrine of the Trinity states that {{God}} is one god, and yet also three persons simultaneously. No one's entirely certain just how that works; that's why it's called a divine mystery.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': Pattern Screamers are things that exist despite being nothing. The nothing is fine as long as it's left to non-existence, but human minds have a tendency to see patterns where none exist, and when confronted with Nothing, that is what they do, giving non-existence an existence as this pattern they see. [[TorturedMonster This is why they scream]], and why they're so dangerous; they try to destroy the minds forcing them to exist (i.e. people who know about them) so they can go back to non-painful nonexistence. Pattern Screamers ''can'' gain a complete existence with time, but this ix an extremely painful process and most don't bother or don't realize that existence can ''not'' hurt. At least one Pattern Screamer has gone through with this completion and decided to integrate with human society by becoming a [=VTuber=].

* Himself from ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons''. According to the internal logic of the universe, [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Devils]] exist in one of two forms. In their primal form, devils are unnamed, unbound and unmasked; mindless {{Eldritch Abomination}}s devoid of anything but the pure need to feed. By being summoned and bound by others, they are named, bound and masked, at which point they take on a form, gain sentence and the ability to form memories. Bound Devils live to collect names (through [[DealWithTheDevil Deals With Humans]]), with a FantasticCasteSystem where a Devil's power and mask colour is tied to how many names they have collected and shed from themselves; the most powerful Bound Devils have only a few, high-tier names for themselves while lower-caste ones have a large collection they haven't been able to sieve through for the really good ones yet; the most powerful ones have only one name, [[IKnowYourTrueName which is their own]]. Then there's Himself. His name is, well, [[ShapedLikeItself "Myself"]]. In other words, he appears to be a Devil who has named and bound ''himself'', an oxymoron since Devils inherently lack the sentience to do that.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': Pattern Screamers are monsters that live on the border between what exists and what does not exist, [[TorturedMonster which is why they are always screaming]].

* In ''Fanfic/YouWithMe'', [[spoiler: Stretch is a ghost, which is defined in the [[Film/{{Casper}} original movie]] as the lingering soul of someone with UnfinishedBusiness, whose cause of death was [[DrivenToSuicide shooting himself in the head]].]]

For the record, no, "[[AcceptablePoliticalTargets honest politician]]" doesn't count.

* Amphibians get their name (meaning "of both kinds of life") from the fact that they start life as fish-like water-breathing animals but become reptile-like air-breathing animals as adults. The axolotl is an amphibian that doesn't have a two stage lifecycle. It never matures out of its larval stage, which other amphibians have to do before they become sexually mature. So this means that a mature axolotl is both an adult and a larva at the same time and is a animal of two kinds of life that is of only one kind of life.

** ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'': ''Technically'' speaking, Daredevil's super senses allow him to see as well or better as a person with regular vision. So he's a blind superhero without actually being completely blind. Somewhat suberted in that these super senses basically give him omnidirectional vision - he can see in all directions at once.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': Pattern Screamers are monsters that live on the border between what exists and what does not exist, [[TorturedMonster which is why they are always screaming]].

* The mythical [[BasiliskAndCockatrice cockatrice]] worked along these lines. In medieval thought, everything was assumed to have a final purpose and to happen for a reason and along certain preordained lines. Every part of a cockatrice's origin story, however, defies or breaks this order. It hatches from a rooster's egg; roosters don't lay eggs. Its egg is missing some integral part, such as a yolk or a shell. It's then hatched by a snake or a toad; animals don't brood each other's eggs.[[note]]Brood parasites such as cuckoos do trick other animals into incubating their eggs, though in this case it's another bird, and snake and toad eggs are very different from chicken eggs.[[/note]] A cockatrice is thus the warped result of natural laws breaking down and things happening that never should, and the creature is as a result a WalkingWasteland completely incompatible with the natural world.[[note]]though that last part was a result of it being confused with the sort of similar looking [[DependingOnTheArtist (by that point)]] but otherwise unrelated basilisk[[/note]]

* The mythical [[BasiliskAndCockatrice cockatrice]] worked along these lines. In medieval thought, everything was assumed to have a final purpose and to happen for a reason and along certain preordained lines. Every part of a cockatrice's origin story, however, defies or breaks this order. It hatches from a rooster's egg; roosters don't lay eggs. Its egg is missing some integral part, such as a yolk or a shell. It's then hatched by a snake or a toad; animals don't brood each other's eggs.[[note]]Brood parasites such as cuckoos do trick other animals into incubating their eggs, though in this case it's another bird, and snake and toad eggs are very different from chicken eggs.[[/note]] A cockatrice is thus the warped result of natural laws breaking down and things happening that never should, and the creature is as a result a WalkingWasteland completely incompatible with the natural world.[[note]]though that last bit was a result of it being confused with the sort of similar looking [[DependingOnTheArtist (by that point)}} but otherwise unrelated basilisk[[/note]]

* The mythical [[BasiliskAndCockatrice cockatrice]] worked along these lines. In medieval thought, everything was assumed to have a final purpose and to happen for a reason and along certain preordained lines. Every part of a cockatrice's origin story, however, defies or breaks this order. It hatches from a rooster's egg; roosters don't lay eggs. Its egg is missing some integral part, such as a yolk or a shell. It's then hatched by a snake or a toad; animals don't brood each other's eggs.[[note]]Brood parasites such as cuckoos do trick other animals into incubating their eggs, though in this case it's another bird, and snake and toad eggs are very different from chicken eggs.[[/note]] A cockatrice is thus the warped result of natural laws breaking down and things happening that never should, and the creature is as a result a WalkingWasteland completely incompatible with the natural world.

** Mawile, Klefki, Magearna and Zacian in its Crowned Form are Steel/[[OurFairiesAreDifferent Fairy]] types. Fairy types are [[ColdIron weak to steel]], but these ones are ''made'' of it.

* In ''Fanfic/IfWishesWerePonies'', Luna Lovegood encounters Discord in the Hogwarts Station and is given an Animagi form due to the fact that among the 43 attending Pony students heading to Hogwarts: not a single one of them were either a Night Pony or a Crystal Pony. Discord resolves this by transforming Luna Lovegood into a Crystal Night Pony: with the benefits of having a reflective crystalline coat, and sharp nocturnal eyes. She now has to rely on wearing Sunglasses to be able to see while in her new pony form.

StarfishAliens and {{Eldritch Abomination}}s are plenty strange, but an Oxymoronic Being's mere existence is self-contradictory, like a tall dwarf or a short giant or a kind [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Demon (in the Christian sense)]] or an AnthropomorphicPersonification of nothing. To make one, take any two mutually exclusive characteristics; anything that somehow has both is an Oxymoronic Being.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' gives us the episode "Dark Heart", which features ComicBook/TheAtom versus a giant {{nanomachine|s}}.

* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' has Vex, [[GrumpyBear a perpetually gloomy yordle]]. To explain, yordles are magical spirits [[PurityPersonified born out of and personifying happiness and companionship]], but Vex is a major exception as [[EmptyShell she's almost completely incapable of feeling either]], [[EvilCannotComprehendGood confused and disgusted by joy]] and preferring to sulk on her lonesome. This ends up making her instrumental to the return of [[EvilOverlord Viego, the Ruined King]], as she's the only known yordle who wields magic and [[LackOfEmpathy doesn't at all mind using it for apocalyptic purposes]].

** Alternatively, since a sophomore student is around the middle of their tenure at college, [[MindScrewdriver you oculd interpret it as indicating that they're learned a lot since when they first started (sophos) but still have a lot to learn before they're done (moros)]],

** The Impidimp line is a line of Dark/Fairy-type Pokémon, which [[SubvertedTrope subverts]] this. A prominent element of the Fairy type is light and goodness, while the Dark-type is, well, darkness. However, there are also elements of TheFairFolk; Impidimp and its evolutions are based on malignant fae.

* In ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'', the Inklings and Octolings are evolved sea creatures that dissolve in water, being living ink blots and all. For an extra layer of oxymoron, their cultures are so stylish and fashion forward that areas like lake/seaside buildings and clothes designed for swimming are completely normal for them.

* A few ''VideoGame/{{Temtem}}'' species are described as such in the [[MonsterCompendium Tempedia]]:

* ''{{VideoGame/The Legend of Zelda Oracle|Games}} of Seasons'': Frypolar is a spirit of burning fire and chilling cold, and alternates between these opposite states during its battle.