White Elephants was is an influential slenderblog founded and formerly run by Robert Sagel. The whole story begins one day while he was on his way home from work when he spotted Slendy stalking some children and tried to intervene by keeping all attention drawn to himself. From there, the weapons tested against the Humanoid Abomination after goading the thing into attacking him as much as he could for purposes of killing it and ending the mythos.
This slenderblog introduced the Core Theory, Role and Title System, and the possibility of truly killing the Slender Man of the mythos (on levels Zeke Strahm didn't even dream) on the Solstice. However, sometime after Robert renamed himself greenlight, things got worse as of one hell of a Wham Episode which introduced major villain redlight. His actions and interference in Slender Man's business gave the other bloggers hope. This sparked the other various wham episodes that happened in late November in which Slender Man and his legions launched an all-out assault on the slenderbloggers to counter whatever optimism had been instilled in the bloggers.
You can find a cached version of the blog that's been recovered here: [1]
An archive of the blog is now available here: [2]
The blog seems to be continuing, albeit not narrated by Robert, but by Sophie, at its original location here. It's probably best to read the cached version first as much of the original blog was deleted.
Redlight has take over the blog again and Robert has become rehaunted. God knows what will happen next.
Robert's back.
Robert's dead. His blog has been taken over by a girl named KK
KK's moved on to her own blog. And it appears that Robert's back again.
Tropes associated with White Elephants
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: What was thought to have happened to Robert at the "end" for a while. Subverted by Redlight's introduction.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: Robert, but not a direct example. So far he's of the variation who has found out about his past exploits by reading the cached version of the blog.
- Big Brother Instinct: Robert. Both times he becomes haunted, it's because he was protecting children from Slender Man.
- The Blank: As usual, Slendy.
- Book Ends: Three key plot developments were made when Robert witnessed Slender Man targeting children.
- The blog began with an account of Robert turning Slendy's attention from some children to himself, thus becoming a target.
- The blog seemed to have ended for the first time shortly after Robert witnessed children attacked by Slender Man in a forest and defending themselves with a swiss pocket knife.
- After Redlight's mind wipe Robert became haunted again after he saw Slendy stalking children at a playground and interrupted him.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: While this is the norm for most slenderblogs, in White Elephants Robert effectively escapes the Slender Man through Laser-Guided Amnesia... only to get pulled back in again.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Yes, it is possible for a slenderblog to go through this, especially since White Elephants was once one of the most optimistic slenderblogs out there. Then Late-November happened and Redlight surfaced. Then Robert was rendered amnesiac and was apparently roughed up enough by Redlight to warrant hospitalization. Then Sophie posted Robert's memoirs. Then Robert became rehaunted and now thinks he's caught in a vicious cycle in which he will again lose his sanity only to regain it over and over and over again until he dies of old age.
- Combat Tentacles: Slendy.
- Dark World: The dwelling of the Slender Man. There was a portal to it inside a shed visible from Robert's back yard. He even sent a toy truck with a camera strapped to it in.
- Dead Man Writing: Well, more like Forcefully Rendered Amnesiac Man Writing, but it seems a new player named Sophie has found some messages Robert left behind in periods of lucidity before Redlight got to him and is posting them.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Probably what ultimately got Robert in trouble towards the end there.
- KK's entry to the Slenderverse
- The Dragon: Redlight and the proxies and agents to Slender Man.
- The Faceless: Not, not Slender Man. Redlight. No one knows who this guy is as he has never made any attempt to explain himself, only that he is aligned with the former Humanoid Abomination. Zero from A Hint of Serendipity had a theory that redlight is a split personality of Robert's, but there has never been any way to prove it.
- Genre Savvy: Very. Unfortunately, not as much as M, even going as far as ignoring Three Rules inarguably too long, but his good senses and knowledge of his enemy carried him far.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Not within the blog itself, but the role of Robert's Hero was to ultimately defeat the Slender Man but die in the process.
- Humanoid Abomination: Perhaps this trope should just be automatically wired into any articles concerning this meme.
- Implacable Man: Guess who.
- Kick the Dog: Redlight is an undisputed master of this. After taking Robert out of the picture, he took over White Elephants and used it to mock slenderbloggers relentlessly with the hopelessness of the situation.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Robert's ultimate fate. He has since returned to his old job with only the memories of his time fighting Slender Man gone from his mind. Redlight, the person, or thing, that did this to him also offered this as a means of escape from the war.
- Mad Scientist: Remember how we said M showed shades of this? Well, Robert was a certifiable one. He tested weapons on the Slender Man ranging anywhere from guns, baseball bats, knives, to spraying it with a Fire Extinguisher (which oddly enough worked). Then later employed gunk that slopped off Slendy as a possible weapon as well.
- Rule of Three: Envoked in picking the Sages. First he titles himself, and two other bloggers named Jay and Shaun as the original Sages. Then when Robert became the guardian of the Macguffin and Jay perished, the title was passed to Zero, Amelia, and Maduin. Shaun was retitled Guide to coordinate the new Sages.
- The Three Sage Rule subverts the team of three principle with both generations of Sages, as Robert and Jay were both Spocks and Shaun is/was The McCoy. As for the second group of Sages, Zero and Amelia were both Kirks while Maduin is The Trickster.
- Sanity Slippage: At least according to redlight. How much Robert's theories have been disproven are up for debate since his defeat at former's hands only proves Slender Man eventually caught up with him and erased his memories of the events surrounding his discoveries. ]
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: White Elephants is starting to shape up to be this. Robert, yes Robert, said in his latest post that he dreamed of an old man who was driven insane, then regains his sanity only to have it driven from him again He fears this may someday by his fate.
- Shout-Out: To Princess Tutu of all things.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Robert's author had a very bad habit of barging into other people's stories, shaping them to suit what he wanted, and then walking away once he was done no matter how it affected the other authors that he had interfered with.
- Tempting Fate: Possibly Sophie, the new face that's been narrating White Elephants. She's been told to stay away and don't get involved by various bloggers who have commented on the entries she had posted at Robert's behalf. We'll just have to wait and see if her curiosity gets the better of her or not, or if just carrying out Robert's request was enough to infect her.
- That Man Is Dead: Not a stark example, but Robert claims not to be the same man who started the blog once upon a time.
- Wham Episode: Hello, Redlight.
- This Entry. Despite having had his memory wiped, Slender Man has began to haunt Robert all over again.
- This Entry.
- Wild Mass Guessing: Arguably all of Robert's theories ranging from the Core Theory to the Roles and Titles, to the weapon.
- The Core Theory was the Slender Man is just one of many horrors infecting our world brought on by the Tulpa Effect. He considered that each nation has it's own monster and each one was brought down by a Hero, who was guided, by Sages, Hermits, and Mystics, helped by Warriors, but ultimately would not survive the encounter. Each time a special weapon was used to defeat the monster and restore piece, but the monster could never be truly killed and would eventually return.
- Robert considered times like Halloween or the Winter Solstice to be when Slender Man would be the most vulnerable.
- Blogger Zero along with several others ran a Batman Gambit to compound on this idea to try to injure Slender Man or at least weaken him. It didn't work.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Just what has happened to Sophie since she posted those blog entries at Robert's request?
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Would it be an entry into The Slender Man Mythos without this trope? Of course, Robert has a different take on it outside of the Tulpa Effect. While he did consider Slender Man's presence in our world to be a product of us willing him here, he doesn't think we created him. He proposed a Dark World in which Slender Man and other horrors dwelled when not willed into existence in varying countries via myths and legends.
- The theory he had was that All Myths Are True, but the monsters in them are brought here from that Dark World via the Tulpa Effect, that each and every nation has a monster, and that Slender Man is ours. Pop!
