Line #11 Literature/Monstrumologist


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7	[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_monstrumologist.jpg]]
8
9	''The Monstrumologist'' is a tetralogy by Rick Yancey. It chronicles the adventures of a scientist who researches and studies monsters in the 1800s, and his young assistant.
10
11	The books include:
12
13	* ''The Monstrumologist (2009)''
14	* ''The Curse of The Wendigo (2010)''
15	* ''The Isle of Blood (2011)''
16	* ''The Final Descent'' (2013)
17	----
18	!!This Series Contains Examples Of:
19	* AbusiveParents: Pellinore to Will Henry (although he's his guardian, not his parent). When he's not insulting him, he's ignoring him. He's always exposing Will to horrible things that make even the toughest men go mad. There are moments when Pellinore admits to Will how much he needs him, but those moments aren't heartwarming when you considerdon't all the mental damage he's caused, leading to Will becoming cold and merciless by the fourth book.
20	%%** Alistair Warthrop to Pellinore.
21	%%---> '''Kearns''': "Who was he to you? More important, who were ''you'' to ''him''? You defend a man who barely tolerated your existence."
22	%%* AmbiguouslyEvil: Kearns, whose behavior borders on sociopathic.
23	%%* AnachronicOrder: ''The Final Descent'' jumps all over the place.
24	%%* AndIMustScream: A man on bedrest rots away while he is still alive.
25	* ArbitrarySkepticism: Pellinore. Anthropophagi? Fine. Weird worms that grant nigh-upon immortality? Boring. But the wendigo? Never in a million years! It gets worse when Pellinore describes the magnificarum and it comes off sounding like a campfire story. No one knows what it looks like or how it behaves, yet he unquestionably accepts its existence as fact. Mind, that this is a creature [[spoiler:whose saliva will drastically and horrifically alter the body and mind of anyone it comes into contact with]], while one book earlier, he declares that the idea of a creature that can produce symptoms similar to wendigo possession in its victims ''spits in the face'' of everything be believes in.
26	%%* {{Autocannibalism}}: The [[spoiler:magnificum]] found in the third book resorted to this when it could no longer find food.%%To what?
27	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Jack the Ripper was a monster hunter [[spoiler:named Dr. Kearns]].
28	* BrokenAce: Chanler, who was much more fun before [[spoiler:discovering his wife loved his best friend, and turning into a monster]].
29	%%* BungledSuicide: [[spoiler:Dr. Warthrop]]
30	* ByronicHero: Dr. Warthrop is a troubled, moody, self-centered loner utterly devoted to the study of Monstrumology.
31	* ClassicalChimera: The chimera is one of the multiple supposed extinct creatures reconstructed by Dr. Black, who gives it the three heads -- goat, lion and snake -- a regular snake tail and a triple vertebra for its three necks to anchor to. He speculates that its heads allowed it to feed on disparate food sources -- the snake and lion heads could hunt when prey was abundant, the goat head graze when it wasn't -- and that it was related to similarly snake-tailed and polycephalic hellhounds.
32	* CleansUpNicely: Pellinore is actually quite handsome when he isn't covered in viscera.
33	%%* CloudCuckoolander: Dr. Pellinore
34	%%* DeadpanSnarker: It's especially noticeable in the third book.%%Quotes aren't context.
35	%%-->'''Dr. Warthrop''': "... ''tipota'' is the Greek word for nothing."\
36	%%'''Will Henry''': "It is?"\
37	%%'''Dr. Warthrop''': "No I am lying to you. It is actually the Greek word for 'stupid child.'"
38	%%* DeathOfAChild: In Book 2.
39	* DeathSeeker: While all monstrumologists get into a fair amount of trouble, considering [[spoiler:Pellinore]]'s history of suicidal tendancies, this may account for some of the messes he gets into.
40	%%** Dr. Chanler.
41	* DownerEnding: ''The Curse of the Wendigo''. [[spoiler:Chanler dies, the rest of the Mostrumologist Society votes in favor of expanding their scope into more supernatural monsters (which is hinted will start a chain of events that will lead to the entire field of monstrumology being discredited), and Pellinore sends Will away]].
42	%%* DrivenToMadness: [[spoiler:Ultimately, Will Henry himself.]]
43	%%* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Anthropophagi = Man-eaters
44	* FantasticScience: It's a series about a scientist who researches monsters.
45	* HaveYouTriedNotBeingAMonster: Pellinore is convinced that Chanler just thinks he's a Wendigo and will get better.
46	%%* HeWhoFightsMonsters:
47	%%** Dr. Kearns is arguably even more disturbing than the Anthropophagi.%%Examples aren't arguable.
48	%%** Pellinore has hints of this, as he doesn't seem to care if people die so long as he can study monsters.
49	%%** [[spoiler:Chanler literally becomes this after a Wendigo encounter.]]%%Quotes aren't acceptable context.
50	%%--->'''Will (Narrating)''': Gently he pulled my hands into his. His warm lips touched my knuckles. He blew onto my dead flesh. He vigorously rubbed my naked hand between his. Feeling began to return, and with it a measure of pain, the proof of life. He crossed my hands over my chest and pushed his body against mine, wrapping his long arms around me. I felt the delicious warmth of his breath against my neck."
51	* HumansAreBastards: The NY police beat up a hallucinating and wounded child to try to make him lie and rat out his only family figure as a murderer.
52	* GreenEyedMonster: [[spoiler:Envy is ultimately Chanler's motivating force. Learning his wife never stopped pining after his best friend (and in fact, may have married him in the first place to spite said best friend), he's driven to despair, and heads out into the wilderness in search of the Wendigo...]]
53	%%* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Important theme of the third book and the root of Pellinore's savior complex.
54	* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler:Chanler]] becomes this after his encounter with the Windigo. He has a particular fixation on the heart.
55	%%* InsufferableGenius: Pellinore.
56	* InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous: The second book is full of fleeting references to real and famous people who somehow become involved in the Society.
57	* ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne: Will Henry is an assistant to a monster hunter, meaning he is in danger all the time, lives with a man who rarely allows him proper human interaction, [[spoiler:will outlive any loved ones he might manage to obtain due to a parasite that lives within him]], and is often a target for monsters. After being told by a shaman that his LifeEnergy ReadingsAreOffTheScale and being called by a Wendigo, it seems likely that Will Henry is destined for something.
58	%%* JerkassWoobie: Concerning his distant father, Dr. Pellinore can fall into this from time to time.%%Into what?
59	* LovecraftCountry: The main setting is the fictional small town of New Jerusalem, located somewhere in 1880s New England.
60	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Despite the fact that monsters are real, Pellinore refuses to believe that supernatural monsters exist. So, Anthropophagi are real but vampires are not. [[FlatWhat What.]]
61	%%* MoralityChain: Will, to Pellinore.
62	%%-->'''Pellinore''': "And you--I do not pretend to understand how or even ''why''--but you pull me back from the precipice. You are the one... you are the one thing that keeps me human."
63	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Will Henry's reaction to seeing [[spoiler:the baby he abandoned while searching for Chanler.]]
64	* PapaWolf: Pellinore to Will Henry, and von Helrung, less obviously, to both Pellinore and Will Henry.
65	* PeerlessLoveInterest: By Book 4, Will Henry has built up an idealized image of Lilly Bates as this. A bit ironic, when you remember that this is still the same girl who, 2 books earlier, [[{{Troll}} baited him into picking up the Mongolian Death Worm.]]
66	* PrecisionFStrike: Is especially noticeable because the series seems to avoid cursing.
67	* PrettyBoy: Dr. Kearns is described as having long blonde hair, a cherubic face, and "sensuous lips" by Will Henry.
68	-->'''Will Henry (after being given a handkerchief soaked with ambergris)''': "Despite the gift of regurgitated whale shit, I could smell Kendall's decay."
69	* ReflexiveResponse: Will Henry will (almost) always answer Pellinore's requests with "Yes, sir". Both characters {{Lampshade}} it but Will Henry continues with it anyway.
70	%%* ShooOutTheClowns: Pellinore tries this, [[SubvertedTrope but]] Will Henry will have nothing to do with it.%%Tries what? How?
71	%%-->''I reached across the space that separated us -- no further than a foot and wider than the universe -- and gathered the monstrumologist's hand into mine.''
72	* ShoutOut: Several references to the works of Creator/WilliamShakespeare, Kearns also being named Richard Cory (the name of an Edwin Arlington Robinson poem about a rich man with a good life who [[spoiler:shoots himself]]), and one remark regarding "that ill-fated expedition to Sumatra" that could be a reference to a NoodleIncident from Literature/SherlockHolmes
73	* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: Whenever Pellinore tells Will Henry that he is "indispensable" could count as this.
74	* SpoiledBrat: Lilly, though in the last book she seems to have grown out of it.
75	* StagesOfMonsterGrief: [[spoiler:Chanler goes through a few of them, as he initially refused to eat (since he could only eat people as a Wendigo), but later embraced it.]]
76	%%* StepfordSmiler: Kearns is a full-on Type C.
77	%%* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
78	%%** John Kearns gives one of these to Malachi in ''The Monstrumologist''.
79	%%--->'''John Kearns''': Go on. Pull the bloody trigger, you insufferably melodramatic, semi-suicidal, blubbering bugger. Do you honestly think I care if I live or die? But you may wish to include in your calculations the fact that our work is not finished. ''She'' is still out there somewhere in the dark, and not very far, I would guess. That said sir, I would not presume to pass judgement upon the passage of your judgement. Fire at will,sir, and I shall die as I lived, with no regret.
80	%%** Pellinore gives one of these to Will during ''The Curse Of The Wendigo''.
81	%%--->'''Pellinore''': You ''disgust'' me! Only the intelligent can afford to be so judgemental. Who are ''you'' to question my decisions? You thickheaded sycophantic piece of snot. I've dissected worms with larger brains than yours! You've been nothing but a burden to me, an albatross around my neck... God damn your parents for dying and foisting your despicable carcass upon me. [='It's all right sir! I'll make the fire now, sir'=]. You make me sick. Everything about you is repulsive, you nauseating, worthless mealymouthed half-wit."
82	* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: How Pellinore [[spoiler:tries to debunk van Helrung's argument about magical monsters since the only real witness could have been hallucinating]].
83	%%* WorldsMostBeautifulWoman: Will Henry considers Muriel to be this.

Context Literature / Monstrumologist