Sinister Sentient Sun

Who would want to be orbiting around that?

You will not go gently. On all mortality's behalf, you will mount a (certainly futile) attack on death itself...
But you are in the heart of a star's power, and your rebellion cannot last more than an instant. Light washes over you. You are no longer permitted to exist. You cease.

— "Rage against the light of dying", Sunless Skies

Since the Sun is the main provider of life, heat and energy on Earth, it is a symbol of health and light, and is often depicted as a benevolent being.

Well, This Is Not That Trope.

Sometimes, the Sun is depicted as a sentient, malevolent entity that actively tries to harm the life forms it shines upon. Some works also feature sun-like beings that bear malicious intentions.

Not that this is completely unjustified: while obviously not sentient, the Sun can be dangerous to the people that are exposed to its light. Aside from the visible spectrum, it emits a vast array of electromagnetic radiation that can be exceedingly dangerous, most notably ultraviolet light, which can cause various skin cancers (including the deadly melanoma), cataracts, sunburns and sunstroke (which can be lethal), among others. Earth is only livable because its own magnetic field shields and ozone layer shields us from most of the Sun's radiation. It's only logical to see/portray it as an evil entity in some works.

Sub-Trope of Sentient Stars and Light Is Not Good. Compare The Power of the Sun and Stern Sun Worshippers. Can overlap with Evil Is Burning Hot and The Face of the Sun, usually with an angry, menacing expression for the latter.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Dr. Elefun/Ochanomizu creates an artificial sun in Astro Boy; originally conceived as a prop for films, it is eventually used by a criminal to melt and rob bank safes. This was eventually referenced in a quick cameo at the end of the western Astro Boy film, too.
• Implied in Canaan by the eponymous character.
  "I hate the Sun for being blue. That is the color of hatred. Whenever I see blue, I find an enemy."
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, one of DIO's minions, Arabia Fats, has The Sun as his Stand, which takes the form of a gigantic ball of fire that hovers in the air, disguising itself as the actual sun. As well as being able to radiate lethal levels of light and heat (enough to make night appear as day), it can also fire concentrated beams of energy at Fats' enemies. Fortunately for the heroes, its one-dimensional nature doesn't provide its user with any defensive capabilities, and they're able to defeat it by finding where Arabia Fats is hiding and knocking him out, rendering The Sun inactive.
• Prometheus from One Piece is a malevolent Homie formed from a portion of the Yonkou Big Mom's soul that takes the form of a sun to deep-fry anyone who angers Big Mom.
• The world Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee is set in has no natural sun, so the people rely on an artificial sun for light source. Halfway through the series, it is revealed that the artificial sun is alive and feeds on people's hearts to recharge itself and the Government "extracts" people enter the Capital to be used to power up the heart. In fact, the "sun" is actually a massive gaichuu that will awaken and will probably devour the whole world once it runs out of hearts.

Comic Books

• The Adventure Time comics have primal elemental embodiments of the universe's Natural Elements of Candy, Ice, Slime and Fire that are Eldritch Abominations that existed before life and death itself. The fire elemental is literally the sun, covered in eyes, and it wants to roast the Land of Ooo to feast.
• The Scorched Earth Arc of The Authority revolves around the Earth's sun turning malevolent. The superhero Winter piloted the orbital platform into the Sun to kill some aliens and save Earth from the alien infestation, where is was presumed he died. However, his energy-absorbing powers allowed him to survive, evolving his consciousness to spread throughout the Sun to give it sentience using his own mind. His experience trapped Winter in scorching agony, driving him insane and desperate to find someone who could kill him. As such, he started trying to destroy the Earth by accelerating the Sun's life cycle to induce a supernova to provoke a response from Earth.
• The DCU:
  • Solaris is an evil artificial sun and one of Superman's nemeses in DC One Million and All-Star Superman. It is often nicknamed the "Tyrant Sun" or the "Evil Star".
  • A form is presented in the New 52 with Apollo, who in this interpretation is a massive and unrepentant Jerkass despite being the God of the Sun, to the point that he attacks Superman out of spite and even empowers Zod and Ursa with sunbeams to beat Superman and Wonder Woman to a pulp out of petty revenge for Superman humiliating him earlier.
  • The Sun King is the Big Bad of the entire 25-issue Shadowpact series. He is a solar deity from another dimension that feeds on entire universes and is the one whom Dr. Gotham and the Pentacle ultimately answer to. When we first see him he appears as a large yellow head resembling a sun but takes on a a more humanoid form in the final battle.
• The Kool-Aid Man comic has the thirsties as its main antagonists. They are little evil suns who want to dry everything.
• In the aftermath of the Beyonder's supposed death during Secret Wars (1984), his released energies in the Beyond Realm take the form of a new universe which is entirely encompassed by the Beyonder itself. Once the Fantastic Four arrive there, the Beyonder takes the form of the universe's sun and immediately threatens them with death.

Fan Works

• RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse features Corona, the Tyrant Sun. Once, she was Celestia, the Undimmed Daystar, Equestria's guardian and leader. But that was before she fell into madness, before she brought ruin and death on her little ponies, and before her sister was forced to use the Elements of Harmony to bind her into her own Sun. Even a thousand years later, fear and hatred of her is one of the core foundations of Equestrian society.
• The sun in Teletubbies is portrayed as this in virtually every single work derived from the series. Canonically, it doesn't really do anything except laugh, but it is considered that creepy.

Literature

• In the Labyrinths of Echo Spin-Off Nests of Chimerae, when Max enters the Stramoslyabians' domain, the Sun suddenly turns into a grinning monstrosity looming ominously in the sky. Subverted when he learns that it is just an illusion created by the shaman patrons of Stramoslyabians.
• The world of Nowhere Stars regularly experiences "Solar Embraces", an astronomical phenomenon wherein the sun bathes the planet in incredibly bright light; people rush to get inside or under shade, because those who look into the light become "Eyeless", people who have become Brainwashed and Crazy by whatever it is that causes these things. The one character who is immune to this looks at the sun and sees a massive flaming eye, wreathed in planet-sized streams of lightning. The implication is that the sun is either under the control of a very powerful Harbinger, or, more terrifyingly, is a Harbinger.
• In Ra, the Sun is the host, residence and primary fuel source of the titular supercomputer and its genocidal inhabitants.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: In "42", the Doctor and Martha must rescue a spaceship that is being pulled into the sentient sun of the Torajii system. Subverted, as it doesn't try to destroy the spaceship for malicious purposes, but because the crew had stolen its core, and it wanted the core back.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Masks", our heroes learn of an ancient culture who feared a malevolent sun goddess, Masaka. The only one who could counter her was the more benevolent moon god, Korgano.

Mythology and Religion

• Bila from Aboriginal Australian Myths is a sun that also happens to be a cannibal, roasting her victims over a fire. That's where daylight comes from.
• Aztec Mythology: The sun is a god named Tonatiuh, which requires Blood Magic to move in the sky. This is why the Aztecs performed thousands of Human Sacrifices — to feed him with human blood. It should be noted that he wasn't seen as evil in their culture, where human sacrifice was commonly accepted — although the Spaniards were certainly shocked by this kind of worship when they discovered the Aztecs.
• Balor from Celtic Mythology personified the negative aspects of the sun and brought blight and devastation to anything that fell under the gaze of his single eye.
• Classical Mythology:
  • Quite possibly Medusa. She is speculated to be the remnants of an old Middle Eastern sun goddess (that of Arinna being a good candidate), which explains quite a few things: the "snakes" are actually beams of sunlight, while the power of the evil eye is otherwise attributed to the sun and his witch offspring (i.e., Circe). Thus, the sun is basically a monster that turns you into stone.
  • On that note, the sun titan Hyperion is considered to be aligned with Kronos and locked in Tartarus. Helios (who, depending on the many sources, is either Hyperion's son or Hyperion himself) is generally the Extreme Doormat in mythology, but gives evil powers to his witch daughters and does dickish things sometimes.
• Egyptian Mythology: Sekhmet is a sun goddess who almost commits genocide on mankind and can only be stopped by making her drunk on beer. Meanwhile, there's a demon that's basically just a sun with a knife.
• The primordial Sun is not a kind deity in Tagalog mythology. He oppressed the Tagalogs with slavery and almost made the world too hot to live. Bathala Maykapal had to overthrow him by putting out his eye so he'd turn down the heat. In some myths, Bathala also needed to push the sky higher to accommodate his giant height, as the Sun was making the sky too hot for him to stand up straight).

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons/Pathfinder: The Zeitgeist adventure path has the players come across Obliatas, the Devouring Light during their journey to a collection of broken demi-planes. A star that was once the avatar of a sun god, it lit a world that was unfortunately devoured by a cosmic undead horror. Since then, it has gone mad and become obsessed with destroying undead, including the peaceful, benevolent skeletons of nearby Iratha Ket, who only stave off genocide with daily rituals that are slowly weakening. The players have the option of using it to repair their home solar system, giving it a second sun, but if they're foolish enough to put it in the place once occupied by their world's moon, it will bake the planet to death.
• In Dark Alleys: The original sun of our solar system was intelligent and often cruelly punished humans for any transgression. The-Powers-From-Beyond (the forces that have trapped humans in their current form) decided it was too violent and flung it into another galaxy. Now its trying to find its way back and has been contacting people via their dreams, giving them the power to set fires with their minds.
• Magic: The Gathering: These have been a number of malevolent or at least dangerous sun-related entities:
  • In Kamigawa (based on Japanese Mythology), the sun kami Terashi is a terrifying Eldritch Abomination siding with most of the kami to kill everyone.
  • In Theros (based on Greek Mythology), the sun god Heliod is a horrible, petty tyrant that has a long list of atrocities to his name, most famously killing his loyal champion, Elspeth, out of pure spite.
  • In Ixalan, the sun is embodied as dinosaurian avatars that eat people.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The Gloomspite Grots are nocturnal by nature, and their preferred habitat is the dark, humid, fungus-rich gloom of deep caves, overgrown ruins, and the depths of tangled forests. As such, they perceive the light of Hysh, the Realm of Light that serves as the "sun" of the other Mortal Realms, as a hostile and searing presence, and like the light of stars little better. In their shamanistic religion, these become embodied as a wicked god named Glareface Frazzlegit, depicted as an angrily glaring sun or sentient ball of light, whom they perceive as a cruel tyrant that blasts the land with heat and light and forces them to hide in their secluded lairs.

Video Games

• Astro Boy: Omega Factor features a boss known as the Artificial Sun; it is a robotic sun capable of melting anything in its path that grows larger the more Astro shoots at it.
• In Digital Devil Saga, the Black Sun emits ray that turns human into stone, unless they have the Atma virus that allow them to turn into demons. The reason for this phenomenon was because God, also known as Brahman, received data from Sera and was disgusted by the action of one man who wanted the power of God that it emits a deadly curse unto the Earth. Things escalates as the events of the second game caused Sera to emit corrupted data unto Brahman again and it decided to download the Earth until it was confronted and restored the Sun to normal. Since the Sun is the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon where you find Brahman at the end, which is deep inside, it's possible that the Sun is Brahman's manifestation.
• In the Fallen London cosmology, the Sun is one of the Judgements, almighty entities that use their light to impose their own laws upon everything they shine upon. In Sunless Sea, the Dawn Machine functions as an artificial Sun that gained sentience, and it's just as nasty as the source material.
• Hollow Knight sports a nasty partial example in the form of the Radiance, the True Final Boss of the game. A moth goddess of light itself and also the source of the neon orange Infection that's ravaged Hallownest far beyond the kingdom's downfall. She appears in certain dreams that you enter as a rising sun, which you eventually challenge after beating the eponymous Hollow Knight. That's when the sun grows wings and she finally reveals herself. As for anyone you don't burrow into the dreams of, she's described as a blazing, burning light that actively hurts the bugs who are Infected, while also projecting her thoughts — which are mostly dead-set on killing you due to your connection with her "ancient enemy," the Void.
• Mr. Bright is a small sun that is fought as a boss in Kirby's Adventure alongside its moon counterpart, Mr. Shine. They reappear in Kirby's Dream Land 2 and as a sentient painting in Kirby's Dream Land 3.
• The Final Boss of Miitopia is the Darkest Lord, who takes the form of a giant sun/coin with the Great Sage's face and is surrounded by smaller coins bearing the faces of stolen Miis (including some of your party members). The model is reused by the strongest Optional Boss of the post-game, the Dark Sun, which is grey and comprised only of partial faces, making it more of an Eldritch Abomination.
• Sunless Skies:
  • The Halved is an unusual example of this trope, being a shadowed, sinister Judgement that emits a black anti-light that cancels out other Judgements' Law and actively aids the Liberation of Night. By the standards of almost every other entity in the High Wilderness, it would be an utter bastard, but as Judgements go, its 'do as thou wilt' attitude towards mortals makes it almost benign in some ways. In order to complete the game's tagline and 'murder a sun', you will need the Halved's help, which is possibly one of the less tasteless deals with sinister god-like entities you'll have to go through to reach your goals.
  • There's also the Sapphire'd King in the Blue Kingdom, which is a natural, perfectly normal (if strong) and lively Judgement. Naturally, this means it's also an utter bastard, who set up a whole mass of asphyxiating bureaucracy to process the souls of the dead only to basically prop itself at the metaphorical pearly gates with mouth wide open, eating every soul that's done all the paperwork.
  • While artificial, the Clockwork Sun on the ridge of Albion is a hateful and malevolent entity that bathes Albion in a toxic light that can turn the nearest people and environment into jagged glass, bringing them excruciating pain. The people operating it must wear full-coverage suits in order to avoid those effects. Also, the Sun houses a prison that leaves its prisoners without any protective gear, leaving most of them to turn into glass and go utterly insane in the ordeal.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Bros. 3 has the Angry Sun, a miniature sun enemy with a furious face that tries to ram into the plumber from above, and only appeared in two levels. It would later reside in the Desert Hills racetrack in Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii, where it shoots Fire Snakes that act as obstacles to the racers. It wouldn't make a true return to the franchise until Super Mario Maker 2.
  • Wario Land 3 has the Taiyo, which is found in the Vast Plain and Colossal Hole levels. It flies around the sky during daytime, trying to set Wario on fire. Its name even means "Sun" in Japanese.

Web Animation

• One skit in the deleted scenes of asdfmovie has the sun sadistically call out a human to directly look at it. The results are predictable.
  The Sun: HAHA now you're blind!
• Mokey's Show: In "The Sun", eventually Mokey is fed up by the Sun's heat and sadistic bullying and shoots at it. This only makes the situation go From Bad to Worse, as the Sun is visibly unharmed but still takes huge offense to this. Thus, he proceeds to end the episode with burning and destroying the Earth.

Webcomics

• The Books of Adam comic aptly titled "fuk u sun" has the sun in Faux Affably Evil mode. It doesn't last.
  Sun: Let me kill you
• In several Brawl in the Family strips, the Sun is a cheerful character that falls in the Obliviously Evil category:
  • In an alternate ending of Sun's Song, the Sun has a family reunion with many other suns, right next to the Earth, which really can't take all that heat and ends up completely burnt.
  • Other strips (seen here, here and here) has the same Sun joyfully sending beams to Earth to please either a flower or the planet itself, only to burn the entire world to a crisp.

Websites

• SCP Foundation: Implied in the SCP-001 proposal "When Day Breaks". For no apparent reason, the sunlight starts turning everyone into horrific blob monsters that want to convert the few humans still in hiding. It's a very bleak scenario with little hope for humans. However, only some stories in the Loose Canon claim the sun did this maliciously. In fact, one story actually inverts this trope — the sun did all this in a misguided, well-intentioned attempt to protect humans from the hateful star SCP-1548.

Western Animation

• Chowder:
  • One episode has a quick gag with Chowder exclaiming "The sun is rising!" Cut to a sun-shaped monster emerging from a crevice in the earth, with knights scrambling to attack it, only for the Sun-monster to scare them off with flame-breath.
  • There is also this example of a violent sun with a club.
• Mr. Pickles assumes this form in the "sunrise" trailer. This is probably Foreshadowing for the finale, in which it is revealed that whatever caused him to be evil is related to sunlight.
• Helios from the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Royal Pain" overlaps this with Obliviously Evil, as demonstrated in the dialogue between King River and Star.
  King River: He ruins all the parties, and is completely oblivious about it!
  Star: Funny. I can weirdly relate!

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the sun is a deadly lazer

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