History Main / SnakePeople

!! Examples:

[[folder:{{Anime}}]]
* The titular protagonist of ''VampirePrincessMiyu'' fights against a terrifying snake woman in one of the episodes of the TV series.
* Early ''InuYasha'' villainess Mistress Centipede was a centipede variation.

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

[[folder:{{Film}}]]
* Medusa in ''ClashOfTheTitans'' (1981 and 2010).

* In ''{{The 7th Voyage of Sinbad}}'', an evil magician temporarily combines a woman and a snake to create a four-armed woman with a snake's tail.
* ''{{Beetlejuice}}'': Snake!Betelgeuse, except no arms.
* ''TheGoldenChild''. The woman who gives information from behind a screen turns out to have a lower body consisting of several long tails. You see, one of her ancestors was raped by a dragon...
* The vampires from ''LairOfTheWhiteWorm'' hover between this and LizardFolk.
* ''StarWars'' has [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Thisspiasian Thisspiasians]], specifically Oppo Rancisis in the background of the Jedi Council scenes in the first two prequels.

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
* A naga-like one of these (called "Man-Serpents", having human heads with snakes for hair on purely serpent bodies, to differentiate themselves from "Serpent-Men", who have scaly human bodies with the heads of snakes) appears in the ''{{Conan}}'' story "The God in the Bowl," sent in a large jar to a man who dabbled with secrets he shouldn't have touched.
* There are no nagas in ''HarryPotter''. However, the legend may be known — Voldemort's snake familiar is called Nagini, which is either a reference to the naga or to Kipling.
* ''{{Xanth}}'', FantasyKitchenSink that it is, is home to a race of Nagas, the princess of which ends up as a LoveInterest to one of the characters.
* In the StarTrekNovelVerse, there's a race known as Resaurians, who are essentially snakes with upper grasping limbs. They're usually quite friendly.
* In ''FightingFantasy'', one of the many oddities/dangers of Port Blacksand is the so-called Serpent Queen, a woman whose head and neck have been replaced with those of a giant snake.

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]
* ''HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' episode "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Path The Wrong Path]]". The title character fights the She Demon, which has the upper half of a woman and the lower half of a snake.
** Echidna, the Mother of All Monsters (and specifically of the She-Demon) also appears half woman/half snake. Sort of, but it's a bit of a stretch. She had serpent tails/tentacles for her arms and legs, but she did have '''two''' of them coming out of her hips.
* One of these appeared briefly in ''{{Sanctuary}}'', a cunning predator that had been accidentally released in the Sanctuary.

[[folder:{{Mythology}}]]
* In Hinduism, The king of Nagas is either the Vedic god of storms, Varuna, or a being called the Nagaraja, and they live in the seventh underworld, Patala, its capital known as Bogavat. They are nature spirits associated with water — rainfall, lakes, rivers, wells, seas and springs — and will bring droughts and floods if provoked.
** Naga occur frequently in the ''{{Mahabharata}}''. Even though the text proclaims them to be the "persecutors of all creatures" and they are powerful, poisonous creatures that are hellbent on biting other creatures, the naga we see in the story vary between good and evil.
** The Buddhist tradition, on the other hand, tends to associate the naga with whatever dragon-like deity exists in the local culture, such as the Chinese long or Tibetan klu. The Buddhist naga is usually depicted as a cobra, sometimes with several heads, or as a human with a snake behind its head, indicating that it shapeshifted into a human form. The most famous naga in Buddhism is Mucalinda, the naga that protected the Buddha. When you see the Buddha meditating under the hood of a coiled cobra, that is Mucalinda.
* In Thailand, the Naga is a pluto-analogue, an underworld deity associated with wealth. Another related being is a dragon that lives in the Mekong River, where the Naga Fireball phenomenon occurs.
* The Malay believe nagas are multiple-headed dragons.
* Laosians view the naga as sea serpents with beaks.
* Cambodians believe they are descended from the daughter of the King of the Nagas, a race of snake creatures with a vast empire under the Pacific Ocean. Seven-headed Nagas decorate Angkor Wat, hinting at this union.
* Speaking of the Chinese, there's always [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_White_Snake Madame White Snake]] and her sister. They even had a Western opera done up in Boston.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melusine Melusine]] was supposed to have been like this, though they are often depicted with two tales instead of the standard one.
* The snake-headed Roman deity Glycon, worshipped by AlanMoore, is closer to the trope, as are certain depictions of the serpent in the garden of Eden, sometimes shown with a woman's head.
* As mentioned above in the Live Action, Echinda, the mother of all monsters from Greek mythology is something of this. She's depicted as having anywhere from one to two snake tails. She is technically called a dragon-lady or drakaina, but she comes close to being this.

[[folder:TabletopRPG]]
* ''DungeonsAndDragons''
** Nagas (snake with a human head) and Marilith demons (AlwaysFemale, human head and torso, snake tail, and six arms; pictured above).
** The Yuan-Ti mix human and snake features to a varying extent, ranging from almost entirely human with a few snakelike parts to being entirely snakelike.
*** Their ancestors, the Sarrukh, from the ''ForgottenRealms''.
** And the Lillend, a rare explicitly good-aligned example, who has wings along with the female human torso & arms.
** Then there is the Salamanders, who are a [[WreathedInFlames fire-version]] of this (they have arms, reptillian heads however).
** The Jarkung in Dragon magazine #14 and #37. Snake-like body, 2 arms, long tail with a knob on the end.
** {{Medusa}}e are fully humanoid SnakePeople, having no tails, but definately reptilian features, scaly skin and, of course, snakes for hair.
* The Followers of Set in ''VampireTheMasquerade'' acquire the power to become this at advanced levels.
* ''{{Earthdawn}}''. The Horror named Ysrthgrathe in the supplement ''Scourge Unending''.
** ''Earthdawn'' also has its own Nagas, as seen in ''Creatures of Barsaive''.
* ''The Lexicon (Atlas of the Lost World of Atlantis)''. The tropical jungle of Yallock had the Nagaraja, who were half human, half serpent.
* One of the races (and a former playable faction) in ''LegendoftheFiveRings'',the Naga are an ancient race of snake-folk. Despite their alien nature (and the assumption of many characters early on that they were demons) the Naga were dedicated to the destruction of The Foul (their race's term for creatures of the Shadowlands and Lying Darkness.)
* In ''WerewolfTheApocalypse'', the Nagah weresnakes turn into this in their warforms. Unlike most examples, this is not meant to be sexualized; similar to other werecreatures in the game, their heads are fully snakelike, and their humanoid torsos have the same scale pattern as the rest of them.
* In ''ChangelingTheDreaming'', merfolk from House Melsinee have the lower halves of airbreathing sea creatures, which can include snakes.

[[folder:VideoGames]]
* Lamia, the first boss in ''TheBattleOfOlympus''.
* Deis/Bleu from the ''BreathOfFire'' series.
* ''EverQuest 2'': The Nizari. There's also the Onaya and Ca'Na as aquatic variations.
* ''{{Warcraft}} 3's'' naga are this. [[BizarreSexualDimorphism The males are more monstrous, the females more human-like with 4 arms]].
** They show up again in most beachside zones of ''WorldOfWarcraft''
* The ''FinalFantasy'' series occasionally includes Lamia as an enemy type.
** The [[UndergroundMonkey upgraded]] version are often called Liliths.
** The very first game has the Fiend of Fire, Kary/Marilith as a powerful, multi-limbed snake person. It's the game's second WakeUpCallBoss (the first being Astos).

[[folder:{{Webcomics}}]]
* [[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?id=767 Kwaii]] from ''{{Drowtales}}''.
* Kia's sister Guinness in the original ''{{Krakow}}'' (she's based on the D&D marilith).
* In ''TheWotch'', both the [[http://www.thewotch.com/comics/2005/03/20050325.jpg title character]] and the writer Anne Onymous have been portrayed as shapechanged into the form of a naga.
* Nagas (both armed and armless) are just one of the local species of PettingZooPeople in ''{{Crossworlds}}''. Apparently both male and females have NonMammalMammaries; it's implied that the females are armless while the males are not.
** It's AllThereInTheManual, or at least in the background information on the site. The naga have a caste system, and a naga's status is based on the number of arms, with the eight-armed being the leaders down to the two-armed being the peasants, and armless being an "untouchable" caste. Armless Naga gain telekinesis to allow them to manipulate objects and are commonly gifted with sorcery.
* Brooke from ''EerieCuties''. She's a Melusine.

[[folder:WebOriginal]]
* Erotic TF artist Darin Brown uses the pseudonym Naga, and has drawn several "self-portraits" of his female Naga persona. [[http://www.nagasden.com/ NSFW link]].
* Nagas appear in ''{{Felarya}}'', often [[IncrediblyLamePun scaled up]] to AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever [[StealthPun proportions]].
* Snakes in the [[DarwinsSoldiers Darwin's Soldiers]] universe take this form. They have no hair, no breasts and only two arms. Just try not to break your brain figuring [[FridgeLogic out how they can wear clothes]].

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
* "[[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampies]]" in ''RoswellConspiracies''.
* Nagas appear in ''TheSecretSaturdays''.
* ''ConanTheAdventurer'' had a naga that was less a human with the lower half of a snake, more like a large snake with small arms and a humanoid face. The Serpent-Men are examples of the rare "fully humanoid" version, having snake-like facial features (including fangs, tongue and breathing tube), scaly skin and legs, without any hint of a tail.
* There was a episode of ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'' where Jasmine began turning into a venomous naga, and Aladdin had to go on a quest to find the cure.
* ''BatmanBeyond'' had an Aesop villian become some kind of naga with stuff added [[ItGotWorse before going]] ClippedWingAngel
* There was an episode of ''TaleSpin'' where the villain was a cobra fellow, which was interesting because he was this while clothed, but [[MobileSuitHuman lost his outfit at the end, and was somehow just a big snake.]]
* Cedric, TheDragon from the first season of ''{{WITCH}}'' is one of these in his true form, though he spends a lot of his time shapeshifted as a human. Interestingly, his race all seem to be shapechangers, but aren't all SnakePeople- the only other one shown, [[CreepyChild Miranda]], changes into an anthropomorphic ''spider''.
* In an early episode of ''AquaTeenHungerForce'', [[ButtMonkey Carl]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext picks a mummy's headdress out of the garbage]] and shows it off to the other characters, completely unaware to the fact his legs have turned into a snake's tail.

Most of the time they are depicted as slithering upright like a cobra (as in, a cobra who's about to strike) instead of slithering face-down with their whole body. Why? Well, for one thing, the NonMammalMammaries on the females might get awkward. For another, MostWritersAreHuman, and usually, SnakePeople are interacting with humans too.

Traditionally, [[SadlyMythtaken Lamia was a Lybian queen who ate children]], but JohnKeats might have turned her into a snake woman even though she wasn't originally, probably confusing her with Lilith, who was associated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Compare with GorgeousGorgon and CuteMonsterGirl, when the human part of the SnakePeople are hot. Because SnakesAreSexy this happens a lot. May or may not talk in SssssnakeTalk. Villains sometimes [[ScaledUp turn into these]]. Often these races are evil because ReptilesAreAbhorrent, but like many other {{Cute Monster Girl}}s, DarkIsNotEvil may come into play. Due to the influence of HinduMythology, many such serpents are MultiArmedAndDangerous. {{Medusa}} is often depicted this way.

Most of the time they are depicted as slithering like a cobra (as in, a cobra who's about to strike) instead of slithering with their whole body. Why? Well, for one thing, the NonMammalMammaries on the females might get awkward. For another, MostWritersAreHuman, and usually, SnakePeople are interacting with humans too.

* Early ''InuYasha'' villainess Mistress Centipede wasn't a Centipede variation.

[/folder]

* Cedric, TheDragon from the first season of ''{{WITCH}}'' is one of these in his true form, though he spends a lot of his time shapeshifted as a human. Interestingly, his race all seem to be shapechangers, but aren't all SnakePeople- the only other one shown, [[CreepyChild Miranda]], changes into an anthropomorphic ''spider''.

* In the modern novel continuity of the StarTrekExpandedUniverse, there's a race known as Resaurians, who are essentially snakes with upper grasping limbs. They're usually quite friendly.

[[/folder]]

** And the Lillend, who has wings along with the female human torso & arms.

* There was a episode of ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'' that has the title character and Jasmine [[InvoluntaryShapeshifting turn into]] these.

* Snakes in the [[DarwinsSoldiers Darwin's Soldiers]] universe take this form. They have no hair, no NonMammalMammeries and only two arms. Just try not to break your brain figuring [[FridgeLogic out how they can wear clothes]].

Traditionaly, [[SadlyMythtaken Lamia was a Lybian queen who ate children]], but JohnKeats might have turned her into a snake woman even though she wasn't originally, probably confusing her with Lilith, who was associated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* Nagas appear in ''{{Felarya}}'', often [[IncrediblyLamePun scaled up]] to AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever [[StealthPun proportions]].
[[/folder]]

* In ''The 7th Voyage of Sinbad'', an evil magician temporarily combines a woman and a snake to create a four-armed woman with a snake's tail.

* A naga appears in the ''{{Conan}}'' story "The God in the Bowl," sent in a large jar to a man who dabbled with secrets he shouldn't have touched.

* ''ConanTheAdventurer'' had a naga that was less a human with the lower half of a snake, more like a large snake with small arms and a humanoid face.

** However, the D&D Lamia is ''not'' an example. That's closer to a lion-taur.
*** Or, depending on edition, a beautiful elven woman [[spoiler:who is actually a swarm of scarabs]].

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'': Nagas (snake with a human head) and Marilith demons (AlwaysFemale, human head and torso, snake tail, and six arms; pictured above).

*** Their ancestors, the Sarrukh, from ''ForgottenRealms''
*** And the Lillend, who has wings along with the female human torso & arms.
**** However, the D&D Lamia is ''not'' an example. That's closer to a lion-taur.
*** Then there is the Salamanders, who are a [[WreathedInFlames fire-version]] of this (they have arms, reptillian heads however).

Compare with GorgeousGorgon and CuteMonsterGirl, when the human part of the SnakePeople are hot. Because SnakesAreSexy this happens a lot. May or may not talk in SssssnakeTalk. Villains sometimes [[ScaledUp turn into these]]. Often these races are evil because ReptilesAreAbhorrent, but like many other {{Cute Monster Girl}}s, DarkIsNotEvil may come into play. Due to the influence of HinduMythology, many such serpents are MultiArmedAndDangerous.

* ''Earthdawn''. The Horror named Ysrthgrathe in the supplement ''Scourge Unending''.

* Kia's sister Guinness in the original ''Krakow'' (she's based on the D&D marilith).

* "[[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampies]]" in ''Roswell Conspiracies''.

Most of the time they are depicted as slithering like a Cobra (as in, a cobra who's about to strike) instead of slithering with their whole body. Why? Well, for one thing, the NonMammalMammaries on the females might get awkward. For another, MostWritersAreHuman, and usually, SnakePeople are interacting with humans too.