History Main / TurtleIsland

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/AladdinAndTheKingOfThieves https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vanishing_isle_1.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The Vanishing Isle: known for its turtle soup.]]
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A variant of this trope place the beast on land rather than in the sea -- a Turtle Hill, so to speak. In these cases, the creature may be mistaken for a regular hill or mountain, as soil and dirt may cover its body entirely and forests or villages grow on its back, until something prompts it to move and a piece of the landscape stands up and walks away. Flying variants also occur from time to time, especially when TheSkyIsAnOcean with its own [[FloatingContinent floating islands and continents]].

A variant of this trope place the beast on land rather than in the sea -- a Turtle Hill, so to speak. In these cases, the creature may be mistaken for a regular hill or mountain, as soil and dirt may cover its body entirely and forests or villages grow on its back, until something prompts it to move and a piece of the landscape stands up and walks away.

* The music video for the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gr6HBMDu0 From Finner]] by the Icelandic band Music/OfMonstersAndMen depicts a whale-like creature swimming with a city built on it's back.

* ''VideoGame/{{Ultrakill}}'': [[spoiler:[[HumongousMecha The 1000-THR "Earthmovers"]] are colossal {{Killer Robot}}s that dominated warfare to the point where war is entirely dependent on them. Their battles are so devastating that they blotted out the sun, causing civilians to build cities on the war machines' backs to survive as the surface was severely polluted and barren of flora and fauna life.]]

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

[[caption-width-right:350:The Vanishing Isle, never in the same place twice.]]

* ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'': In the first episode of ''Mysterious Ocean Adventure'', the ground starts shaking and creating cracks in the ground
and uprooting trees, causing distress with the Goats' Village inhabitants. Wolffy and Master Paopao note the sudden disappearance of Goats' Village from its place at the end of the episode. The next episode reveals the reason why: Goats' Village is on top of a giant turtle-like creature that carries it and the surrounding plains on its shell, and it decided to start moving.

* ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'': In the first episode of ''Mysterious Ocean Adventure'', the ground starts shaking and creating cracks and uprooting trees, causing distress with the Goats' Village inhabitants. Wolffy and Master Paopao note the sudden disappearance of Goats' Village from its place at the end of the episode. The next episode reveals the reason why: Goats' Village is on top of a giant turtle-like creature that carries it and the surrounding plains on its shell, and it decided to start moving.

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-169 SCP-169 ("The Leviathan")]] is a sea creature 2,000-8,000 kilometers long that has spent at least the last few millenia just below the surface of the ocean. The rock-like plates protruding from it constitute an archipelago of islands.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1585 SCP-1585 ("Red Queen Island")]] is a giant jellyfish 544 meters across. It secretes calcium carbonate, which creates a rigid surface over the upper portion of its bell and causes it to appear to be an island. Many creatures and plants live on its top layer.

* ''Animation/AinboSpiritOfTheAmazon'': the gigantic tortoise spirit Motelo Mama carries a whole forest on her shell.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDeep'': Tartaruga is one of the few known Monumentials. It appears to be a moving island, but under the surface of the water it is revealed to be a giant sea turtle.

[[caption-width-right:350:The Vanishing Isle: known for its turtle soup.]]

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/AladdinAndTheKingOfThieves https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vanishing_isle_1.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The Vanishing Isle: known for its turtle soup.]]

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[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Anime/TheUltraman'' has Islanda, a shell-shaped kaiju the size of an island who appears harmless when immobile, until it reveals itself to unwary ships by lashing out with it's hidden tentacles.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

* ''Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon'':
** ''WesternAnimation/AladdinAndTheKingOfThieves'': The [[MacGuffin Hand of Midas]] is located on one of these, called "The Vanishing Isle".
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'': Te Fiti, the Goddess of Creation, is a woman big enough to be an island when she lies down.
** ''WesternAnimation/StrangeWorld'': [[spoiler: Once Searcher and Ethan reach the other side of the mountains, they discover that their homeland rests on the back of a gigantic, continent-sized organism, and that the subterranean world they've been navigating is actually the inside of its body.]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
%%* ''Film/GameraGuardianOfTheUniverse''.

* ''Literature/AbaratDaysOfMagicNightsOfWar'': Near the end, Candy Quakenbush washes up on the shores of an island and happily dozes. The island is not actually a turtle, but another kind of creature entirely, with a tree and other foliage growing straight out of its back. Interestingly, Candy first realizes she must be on a creature instead of an island because real islands in the Abarat are frozen at a single hour of the day, and she notices that the light has changed since she washed ashore.

* ''Literature/{{Expedition}}'' has Grovebacks, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as their name implies]], host groves of trees on their backs while dormant.
* In ''Literature/GrandmasterOfDemonicCultivationMoDaoZuShi'', Wei Wuxian's capturing Wen Chao as a counter hostage against the Wen sect is disrupted by the realization that the island that they're both standing on is really the tortoise yao they'd been hunting.

* Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium: In ''The Adventures of Tom Bombadil'', there is a hobbit rhyme about "Fastitocalon", a giant turtle mistaken for an island. Tolkien got the name from an Anglo-Saxon verse bestiary; it was a distortion of the Greek "aspidochelone" ("Shield-Turtle").

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': The fourth expansion, ''Mists of Pandaria'', introduces a massive Turtle Island named Shen-zin Su, the Wandering Isle, as the starting zone for the pandaren. [[spoiler:The climax of the Pandaren starter story involves the player in a massive effort to save Shun-Zin Su's life.]]. It's revisited and established as the Order Hall for Monks in the sixth expansion ''Legion''.

%%* ''WesternAnimation/TheDeep'': The Nektons come upon one of these.

* ''VideoGame/KatamariDamacy'': In the final levels, when rolling up the entire world your Katamari will grow large enough to start snatching up entire islands and landforms by the dozen. Some of the islands will actually try to ''run away'' from you -- not just because Katamari Damacy is [[WidgetSeries really]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs weird]], it's also because those 'islands' are actually "Giant Sea Turtles".

Mythical creatures of mystery: fish, whales, or turtles (there's a definite preference for turtles over any other animal, as their hard shells appear especially suited to holding up or forming chunks of landscape) big enough to be mistaken for islands or even continents have shown up in {{Mythology}} and {{Legend}}s for thousands of years. This creature is often called an ''Aspidochelone'' or, if specifically a turtle, ''Zaratan''. They are often portrayed as being ''so'' large and ancient that soil and plantlife have grown on its back, sometimes ancient species containing something so rare that the hero (or villain) must marvel at it or try to obtain it. Often the hero gets only a brief opportunity to marvel at its existence, before it decides to set out and dive deep underwater, leaving the protagonist high and dry (or wet and drowning if he doesn't manage to get off in time). [[FridgeLogic How the fauna and flora on its back can survive and grow when it frequently dives underwater is rarely addressed]] -- although, in some cases, the beast never dives, instead spending its time cruising at the ocean surface.

While turtles are a common choice for this treatment, crocodilles and whales share the similar trait of sometimes sitting near the surface of the water such that they resemble large rocks, and thus are common alternate types of animal islands when scaled up to enormous sizes.

** [[https://scryfall.com/card/lrw/269/howltooth-hollow The]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/moc/415/mosswort-bridge five]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/lrw/272/shelldock-isle Hideaway]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/clb/916/spinerock-knoll lands]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/clb/930/windbrisk-heights appearing]] in ''Lorwyn'' are implictly enromous creatures deep in slumbed and covered by soil and vegetation, though four of the five are the Turtle Hill variation. In ''Shadowmoor'', [[https://scryfall.com/card/shm/68/hollowborn-barghest they]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/shm/123/mossbridge-troll all]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/shm/40/isleback-spawn wake]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/shm/98/knollspine-dragon up]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/shm/26/windbrisk-raptor together]].

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=139513 The]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=532638 five]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=146178 Hideaway]][[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=532650 lands]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=482949 appearing]] in ''Lorwyn'' are this trope, though four of the five are the Turtle Hill variation. In ''Shadowmoor'', [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=146095 they]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=146021 all]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=147370 wake]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=147398 up]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=146090 together]].

* ''Animation/{{Ainbo}}'': the gigantic tortoise spirit Motelo Mama carries a whole forest on her shell.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagiNation'', the underwater civilization of Orothe builds some of their cities on the backs of giant sea turtles, as seen [[http://bluefurok.com/BSImages/Giant_Parathin.jpg here]]. They're mostly mermaids and the turtles themselves usually stay submerged.

** ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'': In the adventure [=DL12=] ''Dragons of Faith'', while voyaging on a ship, the PlayerCharacters encounter a small rocky island that turns out to be the back of an old sea dragon resting on the ocean surface. If they go ashore to explore, the sea dragon will swim away from their ship and attack the party, hoping to have them for dinner.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'':

** ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'': In the adventure ''Dragons of Faith'', while voyaging on a ship, the PlayerCharacters encounter a small rocky island that turns out to be the back of an old sea dragon resting on the ocean surface. If they go ashore to explore, the sea dragon will swim away from their ship and attack the party, hoping to have them for dinner.

** ''Anime/DigimonDataSquad'': El Doradimon is a tortoise big enough to bear a temple and its surrounding city and jungle on its back. Another one appears in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure2020'', [[spoiler:initially acting as a base of operations for Devimon against its will]].

A very common trope in world mythology, Turtle Island for instance being the name used for North America by some indigenous people. Not to be confused with [[WesternAnimation/TurtleIsland the 1995 animated series]].

While turtles are a common choice for this treatment, crocadilles and whales share the similar trait of sometimes sitting near the surface of the water such that they resemble large rocks, and thus are common alternate types of animal islands when scaled up to enormous sizes.

* Anime/PokemonTheSeries: Averted. In an early episode, Ash and his friends, Misty and Brock, visit an island shaped like a Squirtle shell, inhabited by a group of Squirtle and Wartortle led by a Blastoise.