Tropers / Pfff 133

Topiary Park

• Adopt Topiary Zoo

Topiary is the practice of creating organic sculptures by clipping trees and bushes with fine and dense foliage into an artificial shape. It is an art form of unknown origin but that was already in use by the Romans of the 1st Century BC, who favored it for their indoor gardens. With the decline of The Roman Empire, topiary fell out of favor and its popularity waxed and waned in the centuries thereafter. In 1963, topiary got a boost into mainstream culture with the introduction of wire topiary at Disneyland. Conceived in 1962, this form of topiary relies on a pre-shaped wire cage on which plants are grown. There are two benefits to this method: the sculptures are easier and faster to manufacture, taking around half a year, and it is possible to combine different plants and thus add a level of detail traditional topiary cannot produce. A drawback is that wire topiary isn't as durable as traditional topiary.

Traditional topiary requires long-term dedication of its creator. Only dense-foliage trees and bushes are fit to create a uniform surface and of course these plants take a long time to grow. A given plant cannot be cut into the desired shape in one go either because the foliage is less dense below the surface, thus when the branches have been clipped, the plant needs time to regrow surface foliage. More complex shapes may need several clipping sessions. Fiction, however, likes to pretend that you can keep cutting away at a plant and always encounter the same density of foliage and never even a hit a stem. It also likes to pretend that any tree or bush is suitable for topiary. There is a modern alternative to creating traditional topiary where a cage is build around a budding plant to force it into a shape as it grows, but fiction only ever depicts the creation of topiary as the meticulous handiwork of a person with hedge clippers.

The difficulty in creating and relocating topiary gives it its prestige. Topiary in spacious gardens that belong to a Big Fancy Castle or Big Fancy House signify wealth and legacy. The grander the topiary and the more generations ago it was created, the better. What the topiary depicts also reflects on the owner and can roughly be split into two groups: geometric shapes (this includes hedge mazes) and representational shapes. The control associated with the former hint at a stately owner while the playfulness of a topiary zoo or a tea set topiary indicate a whimsical disposition. As such, if the owner also is the one who personally created the topiary, odds are that the topiary is playful.

Owners and especially creators of topiary can be expected to be kind (openly or secretly), trustworthy, and a tad old-fashioned. The two main exceptions are those in horror stories and cases in which the topiary vainly depicts the owner. If creature-shaped topiary shows up in supernatural settings, there's a solid chance that the sculptures will be alive as guardians of their garden. This does not mean that Living Topiary is evil, but it is likely to be hostile.

Super-Trope to Hedge Maze and Sister Trope to Living Topiary. Compare The Thing That Goes Doink for another garden element that signifies wealth and tradition.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Black Butler: In S1E3, Grelle and the other servants are gardening while discussing the death of the previous head of the Phantomhive household. Distracted, Grelle cuts all of the trees and bushes into the shape of skulls.

Film — Animated

• The King and the Mockingbird: The palace of the vain King of Tachycardia is filled with artwork depicting him. There are paintings, statues, a clock, and, of course, topiary. Like all the art, the topiary gets freshened up in preparation for the king's wedding.
• Meet the Robinsons: In front of the grand Robinson House is a topiary garden featuring geometric shapes, robot shapes, various trimmings that together make an entire tea set, and a gate composed of two topiary R's and a "hidden Mickey". The playful design fits the energetic household.
• Pocahontas: Wiggins, the foppish valet to Governor Radcliffe, makes a topiary parade consisting of an elephant, a bear, a giraffe, an unicorn in the wilds of Virginia while everyone else is busy establishing the settlement. When the Powhatan launch an attack on the invaders, Wiggins hides behind the topiary and remains unheard. All the topiary, however, ends up decapitated, full of arrows, and smoking from gunfire.

Literature

• The Castle of Yew: The elderly lady's enchanted garden is full of sights, such as topiary animals that stand along the path to her house and a field where the pavement, grass, and flowers are arranged so that they form a giant chessboard. On and next to the giant chessboard are topiary chess pieces with a life-like quality. Joseph and Robin find that the castles are hollow and can be homes to small people, which they can become simply by wanting to. Robin also brings one of the knights to life as his personal horse, which he names Emerald. The two boys play around inside their yew castle until it's time to go home and be normal-sized again. Emerald too returns to her spot as a topiary knight.
• The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Chris Van Allsburg: According to the cover, there are various animal topiaries in the exquisite garden precious to the retired magician Abdul Gasazi.
• The Children of Green Knowe: Because the Green Knowe manor vaguely resembles a large boat, several generations ago the head gardener decorated the surrounding garden with topiary animals and one topiary Noah. Noah was brought to life by a gypsy witch the household angered to hunt for victims in the garden on dark nights. Still, it took some time for people to learn of Noah and once they did over thirty years prior to the present, his maintenance was stopped in the hope the curse would dissipate in the absence of human form. So while all the animals were kept looking fresh, Noah lost much of his form but grew two eerily long arms. Tolly is targeted by Noah one dark stormy night while out. The disoriented boy sees Noah's form where it shouldn't be only in the flashes of lightning and begs for help from the St. Christopher statue nearby. Noah subsequently gets fried by lightning, followed up the next day by being chopped up into firewood. Tolly resolves to plant two new, curse-free yews and trim into the shapes of a Mr. Noah and a Mrs. Noah.
• City of Thieves (1983): Rotten as Port Blacksand is, the population did care to set up Public Gardens maintained through an entrance fee. Among the sights in one of these gardens are various hedge animals that surround a central raised bowl that contains lotus flowers. The hedge animals guard these flowers, coming to life if any is taken. Because the adventurer needs a lotus flower for their quest, a fight with the hedge animals is inevitable and may be won with either fire or sword.
• Fright Time #6: In "Night Creatures", an elderly man known as the Zooman may have created but in any case maintains a garden full of monstrous topiary that is surrounded by a tall stone wall. There are over thirteen topiary creatures, including a bear, a tiger, a dragon, and a winged lion. They are alive and connected to the Zooman in that he experiences any injuries they sustain. When the Zooman is hospitalized, the topiary monsters break free and terrorize the neighborhood until Warren and Carrie lead them to the woods. Once the topiary monsters reach the woods, they calm down, walk inwards, loose their shapes, and return to being normal bushes.
• The Little White Horse: In the garden nearby the gate of Moonacre Manor are multiple yew topiaries resembling cocks and knights. They represent the men of the Cocq de Noir, to whom the topiaries' creator belonged before her marriage. She planted and shaped them as a hateful message to her husband for his deceit. Because they contain her curse, their shapes don't grow out and cannot be altered either. Only after Maria rights the wrongs of the past do the topiaries becomes normal topiaries once more.
• The Night Gardener by Fan Brothers: The orphan William lives on Grimloch Lane, a dreary place that one day is livened up by the mysterious appearance of giant topiary animals cut from the crowns of trees, the most gorgeous of which an Eastern dragon set on two trees. William sneaks out at night to uncover the artist and meets the Night Gardener, who allows him to assist him as he works on the park trees. Thereafter, the Night Gardener leaves never to return, but he gifts William shears of his own to continue making topiaries and the world a little more beautiful.
• The Queen's Bracelet: On her search, Sesame comes across a tall circular fence on which two royal gardeners are cutting thirteen topiaries to match the thirteen charms on the queen's bracelet. Sesame passes through an opening in the foliage where the gardeners are working on a dolphin and a cat. When at sundown she has to return, she uses the dolphin and the cat to locate the opening.
• The Remembered Visit: Drusilla and her governess Miss Skrim-Pshaw visit the home of Mr. Crague for tea. Mr. Crague was once a man of standing, but the years haven't been kind to him. Likewise, the topiaries of various animals that decorate his garden are in the early stages of losing their shape.
• The Reptile Room: Dr. Montgomery's house is fronted by a lawn dotted with shrubs trimmed to look like snakes. Each is unique in pose and design, but all of them are eerie. The Baudelaire children aren't happy to have to walk past them as they go to live with the doctor.
• The Shining: There are seven evergreen hedge animals: a rabbit, a buffalo, a dog (German Shepard), a horse, and three big ones vaguely evocative of lions. They're stationed nearby the playground in front of the Overlook Hotel. As the only prominent garden foliage, they stand out and come across as the hotel's guardians. As part of the hotel, they are very much haunted too and come to life to attack whomever the hotel needs to be attacked. When the hotel goes up in flames, the hedge animals too burst into flames and cease being.

Film — Live-Action

• Edward Scissorhands: After his creator's death, Edward comes to live alone in his castle. One of the few hobbies his scissor-hands allow him to pursue is topiary, which he becomes highly skilled at, creating a sharp contrast between the perfectly maintained whimsical garden and the dilapidating castle. When he goes to live with the Boggs and gets to help out with the garden, he impresses the family by trimming two bushes into the shape of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and into the shapes of the family. The rest of the neighborhood is also impressed and Edward gets a lot of requests for topiary; once more, his fanciful art is contrasted, this time by the sprawling monotony of the suburb.
• The Shining: There are several hedge animals of which three lions. They're stationed nearby the playground in front of the Overlook Hotel. As the only prominent garden foliage, they stand out and come across as the hotel's guardians. As part of the hotel, they are very much haunted too and come to life to attack whomever the hotel needs to be attacked. When the hotel goes up in flames, the hedge animals too burst into flames and cease being.

Video Games

• MediEvil: The Asylum Grounds, also known as the Garden of Zarok, constitutes a large hedge maze filled with topiary in the shapes of people, animals, and objects. Around half of the topiaries are normal sculptures, while the other half are alive and sometimes hostile and capable of breathing fire. The entire garden is under control of Jack of the Green, who uses the living hedge creatures to test Sir Dan.
• Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo: Three topiary animals, those being a monkey, a tiger, and an elephant, are set up as decoration at the entrance of the Cartown Zoo. They can sing.
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: One of Ratchet's weapons is the Topiary Sprinkler, upgradeable to the Toxiary Sprinkler. The Topiary Sprinkler is a glove which plants auto-turrets. The turrets shoot out a liquid that turn any creature hit by it temporarily into topiary. Topiary-ized creatures can not move, making the effect akin to a freeze ray.
• RuneScape: The topiary bush is grown from a bagged topiary hedge in the Superior Garden of a player-owned house. With a pair of (magic) secateurs, the topiary bush may be clipped into the the form of any of seven boss creatures that has already been defeated once.
• The Sims:
  • The Sims 2: Pets: Four decorative items for purchase at the Automatastic are topiaries: Topiary Cat, Topiary Hissing Cat, Topiary Dog, and Topiary Sitting Dog.
  • The Sims: Bustin' Out: There are several ornamental bushes for purchase, including one shaped like a llama.
  • The Sims 3: Ambitions: The sculpting skill allows Sims to pursue any of six classes of sculpting, the sixth of which is topiary sculpting. It is the most limited sculpting branch, allowing only four possible creations: Penguinopoly, Felix the Giraffe, Anna the Panda, and Dragon Dougherty.
  • The Sims 4: Cottage Living: When Lord Volpe was still alive, he spent a lot of his time creating topiaries. Each year around the time of the Finchwick Fair, he decorated the village with topiaries. In his memory, this topiary tradition still exists today.
• Undertale: One of the remarks Papyrus, a skeleton with ambitions to be a knight, makes during his battle against the Human Child is "The King will trim a hedge in my smile!" In the good ending, King Asgore indeed is working on a topiary of Papyrus's head.
• Zoo Tycoon: Topiaries are foliage that improve the happiness of the guests. There are five to choose from: spiral, giraffe, polar bear, rhinoceros, and elephant.

Websites

• Neopets: Topiaries and hedges are available as regular items, as furniture for neohomes, and as wearables for a neopet's avatar. Most topiaries and hedges are in the shapes of neopets, while a few are in the shapes of petpets or objects.

Western Animation

• My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Magic Coins, Part 3", the ponies visit the Haunted Garden to acquire the Golden Rose to give to Niblick in exchange for him undoing the havoc wreaked by his magic coins. The Haunted Garden is a hedge maze with five topiary animals, two of which recognizable as a bull and an elephant and three of which undefinable. Everything is well and good until the ponies pick up the Golden Rose, whereupon the topiary animals come to life to retaliate. The dragon Spike uses his fire-breath to force the topiary animals back long enough for the ponies to escape.
• The Simpsons:
  • The couch gag of "Brawl in the Family" opens with a bush seated on the family's couch. A gardener walks by and clips the shape of the family.
  • In "Cape Feare", Ned Flanders uses menacingly looking knife gloves to cut an angel topiary.
  • In "Moe Baby Blues": Various topiaries adorn the Springfield Botanical Gardens. There's an elephant, a unicorn, Jebediah Springfield, the aliens Kang and Kodos, and Binky.
• Wonder Pets!: In "Save the Hedgehog", the Wonder Pets travel to England to save a baby hedgehog that has managed to get stuck in the mouth of a hedge lion. After they save the hedgehog, they get their likenesses cut out among all the other hedge sculptures.

Real Life

• The walkway leading up to the replica of Noah's Ark at "The Ark Encounter" in Williamstown, Kentucky includes life-size topiary of pairs of adult lions, giraffes, elephants, etc.

Living Topiary

To be wary of topiary...

Heart Throb: Spike, I think these hedge animals are alive!
Spike: Of course they're alive, Heart Throb. They're plants.

— My Little Pony, "The Magic Coins, Part 3"

Topiary is the art of clipping trees and bushes into artificial shapes to serve as organic sculptures. a contradiction of the order Man vs. Nature. On one hand, they're plants and thus part of nature. On the other hand, the plants have been tamed into a material by mankind to shape as pleased. And then back on the first hand, if the shapes chosen are animals, then the association with nature kicks in for a second round. As forms created from life, there is a Frankenstein-esque element to topiary that makes its mobile variant excellent for horror and fantasy setting to incorporate.

Extraordinary Topiary sits on the crossroads between Plant Person and Living Statue, generally with a stronger leaning towards the latter. There are topiary creatures that derive their essence from being living material to begin with, but more often what makes them tick is whatever makes a stone or metal sculpture tick. Because topiary requires upkeep, such creatures portend the presence of another entity, be that a supernatural gardener

For Extraordinary Topiary to be in effect it is not required that the topiary is of animal shape. It's just the most popular version. Human-like and humanoid mobile topiary is rare, especially in comparison to other kinds of Living Statues. And geometric or abstract forms aren’t used at all, except for hedge mazes

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Examples:

Advertising

• EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival 2018 video: When the park closes down, various topiary figures secretly come to life to eat and dance. They return to their spots when dawn breaks, although Mickey freezes while still holding a plate of cake.

Films — Live-Action

• The House With a Clock in Its Walls: There's a large topiary griffin that guards Jonathan Barnavelt's garden and, being poorly trained, poops mulch into the pond.

Literature

• The Castle of Yew: Inside the elderly lady's enchanted garden is a field where the pavement, grass, and flowers are arranged so that they form a giant chessboard. On and next to the giant chessboard are topiary chess pieces with a life-like quality. Robin climbs onto one of the knights and bends it forward, upon which it comes to life. Robin names the horse, which is small like him and bay-colored with a yew-green mane and tail, Emerald. She is his loyal steed for as long as the boy plays around as a miniature knight. When Robin and Joseph return to their normal sizes to go home, Emerald returns to her spot as a topiary knight. It is hinted that next time the boys come to play, Emerald will be waiting for Robin and Joseph will get to bring the other knight to life as his steed.
• The Children of Green Knowe: Several generations ago the head gardener decorated the Green Knowe manor's garden with topiary animals and one topiary Noah. One day, the household angered a gypsy witch, who cast a spell to make Noah roam the garden on dark nights in search of victims. Ironically, the witch herself may have met her end that way. Rumors regarding the demon yew grew until Noah's maintenance was stopped in the hope that if he no longer resembled a human, the curse would go away. However, while Noah lost much of his human shape up to the present, he also grew new and eerily long arms. People can tell when he's on the prowl by a warning cry from the household's peacock. Tolly is targeted by Noah one dark stormy night while out. The disoriented boy sees Noah's form where it shouldn't be only in the flashes of lightning and begs for help from the St. Christopher statue nearby. Noah subsequently gets fried by lightning, followed up the next day by being chopped up into firewood.
• City of Thieves (1983): The adventurer has to collect a lotus flower from Port Blacksand's Public Gardens. Said flowers are located in the center inside a raised bowl surrounded by hedge animals and a sign that warns against picking any flowers. Ignoring the warning sign causes three hedge animals to come to life as leaf beasts. They attack the adventurer by trying to smother them under their foliage. The surefire way to escape them is to use the ring of fire, but with the right stats the sword also works.
• Fright Time #6: In "Night Creatures", the elderly man known as the Zooman may have created but in any case maintains a garden full of monstrous topiary that is surrounded by a tall stone wall. There are over thirteen topiary creatures, of which the fiercest a bear, a tiger, a dragon, and a winged lion. They are alive and connected to the Zooman in that he experiences any injuries they sustain. While usually fed bone meal, they consume anything organic they can get their paws on. When the Zooman is hospitalized, the topiary monsters break loose from the garden. Warren and Carrie decide to stop them by using themselves as bait to lead the topiary monsters to the woods. It is a close call, but once the topiary monsters reach the woods, they calm down, walk inwards, loose their shapes, and return to being normal bushes. The Zooman returns home soon after with no recollection he ever had topiary.
• The Little White Horse: In the garden nearby the gate of Moonacre Manor are multiple yew topiaries resembling cocks and knights. They represent the men of the Cocq de Noir, to whom the topiaries' creator belonged before her marriage. She planted and shaped them as a hateful message to her husband for his deceit and her hatred took the shape of a curse. Therefore, the topiaries don't grow out and their shapes cannot be altered by human hand either. Only Maria ever sees their heads move, because Maria is a reincarnation of sorts of their creator. She also feels the "living evil" leave them when she rights the wrongs of the past.
• The Shining: There are seven evergreen hedge animals: a rabbit, a buffalo, a dog (German Shepard), a horse, and three big ones vaguely evocative of lions. They're stationed nearby the playground in front of the Overlook Hotel, coming across as the hotel's guardians. Which, being animate, they are, but they can't touch the hotel itself and normally can't move if observed. In order, Jack, Danny, and Halloran get to deal with them. Jack, who's busy re-trimming them, finds the hedge animals menacingly blocking his way. However, after he closes his eyes and wills himself sane, everything returns back to normal. Danny isn't so lucky; after escaping a ghost in the playground, he finds that the lions close in on him. He chooses to run, reaching the safety of the porch just as a claw grazes his leg, leaving behind the "scent of blood and evergreen". Halloran is attacked by a lion when he returns to rescue Danny and Wendy. He chases it off with fire and speeds past the rest of the menagerie to the porch. When the Overlook Hotel goes up in flames due to the boiler, the hedge animals are alighted too and cease being.

Live-Action TV

• Jim Henson's Mother Goose Stories: In "Dicky Birds", a princess fond of birds is gifted the finest birds the kingdom has to offer. One of these is a living topiary peacock the royal gardener creates for her. Like the other birds gifted to the princess, the topiary peacock is spoiled and haughty.
• Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: In "Hat Trick", Regina and Jefferson enter the hedge maze of the Queen of Hearts to get to her vault. Suspicious of the maze, Jefferson throws a stick at a wall and sees the greenery grab and consume it. Acknowledging the danger, Regina simply burns a hole through the hedge maze to the vault.
• The Shining: There are several hedge animals of which three lions. They're stationed nearby the playground in front of the Overlook Hotel, coming across as the hotel's guardians. Which, being animate, they are, but they can't touch the hotel itself and normally can't move if observed. Jack and Danny both have an encounter with them. Jack, who's busy fixing up the playground, notices the animals approach him and he hears them too. He tries to run but trips. When he's certain the lions are just a bite away, the noise stops and everything is back to normal when he looks up. Days later, Danny is playing in the snow when his mother gets distracted, leaving an opening for the animals to sneak up on the boy. Both his parents return timely and Danny never becomes aware of the danger he was in.

Tabletop Games

• Forgotten Realms: Topiary guardians are topiaries animated with magic for the evident purpose of guarding. The bigger the topiary, the bigger a dosis of the expensive oils and tinctures needed. Bushes, moss, and kelp are known to work towards creating a topiary to be animated. Topiary guardians are vulnerable to fire and slashing, but aren't harmed by stabbing.
• Magic: The Gathering: Cards #160 and #290 of Streets of New Capenna are Topiary Stomper, a creature described as a plant dinosaur #160 is a sort of tyrannosaurus, while #290 is not identifiable.

Video Games

• Alone in the Dark 2: The hedge maze in front of Hell's Kitchen is alive, or at least near the secret underground entrance into Hell's Kitchen. A face appears in the wall if a trespasser walks by and prehensile branches further down the path will attack said trespasser.
• Battle for Wesnoth: Plant elementals are living topiary tigers.
• Brain Dead 13: The hedge maze outside Dr. Neurosis's is sapient and has prehensile vines to ensnare a trespasser with.
• Citizens of Earth: West of the luxurious Executive Retreat is the Hedge Maze. The strongest mob inside is Mr. Maze, a piece of the maze's wall with great strength and a chance to cause sickness with its thorns. It's weak against fire, but holds up against electricity.
• Dragon Story: Topiary Dragons are dragons from which flowers and leaves grow that they spend a lot of time on trimming to perfectly represent them.
• Dungeons & Dragons Online: There are four topiary mobs: Topiary Goblin Archer, Topiary Lion, Topiary Nymph, and Topiary Satyr. They are of the plant type, the animated object race, and all four are active during The Icemount Curse. Outside of quests, they're encountered in The Feywild and the Topiary Lion alone also shows up in the Tower of Frost.
• EverQuest: The verdant topiary lion is a mount summoned with the verdant hedgerow leaf. It is a fully-leafed lion except for the torso, which is wooden.
• Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Topior the Shrubbagazzor is a topiary dragon animated to life by a druid with anima. It is part of the Murder at Castle Nathria set and its effect summons a topiary dragon whelp, Whelpagazzor, whenever a Nature spell is cast. Despite being plants, Topior the Shrubbagazzor and Whelpagazzor still breathe fire like normal dragons.
• Heroes of Newerth: The Topiary Warden is an alternative avatar of the nature-themed Emerald Warden. In this form, their body is composed of red and green plants and their wolf mount and bird companion also become formed plant life.
• MediEvil: The Asylum Grounds, also known as the Garden of Zarok, constitutes a large hedge maze filled with topiary in the shapes of people, animals, and objects. Around half of the topiaries are normal sculptures, while the other half are alive and sometimes hostile and capable of breathing fire. The entire garden is under control of Jack of the Green, who uses the living hedge creatures to test Sir Dan.
• Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo: Seated in front of the Cartown Zoo are three living topiary creatures: a monkey, a tiger, and an elephant. With the backup of a tulip chorus, they sing the theme song.
• Trove: Topiary Terrapin is a hybrid mount included in the Botanical Blaster Pack. It is a terrapin composed of wood, leaves, and flowers.

Websites

• Neopets: Topiary Beasts are topiaries shaped like Grarrls. They are located in the Royal Gardens and aggressive towards trespassers, all provided that they are real and not made up by Katya.

Western Animation

• Crystal Tipps and Alistair: In "Topiary", Alistair designs a topiary bird after Birdie. The topiary temporarily comes to life to play with Birdie.
• DuckTales (1987): In "Scroogerello", Scroogerello has to traverse a giant hedge maze to reach the castle in the middle to save Princess Goldie. The fairy Webby brings two flowers and four hedge animals — lion, elephant, rhino, and goat — to life to get them through, but Glomgold sets fire to the maze. The plant creatures panic and are as much of a bother as the fire until Webby casts a snow storm to end both threats.
• Johnny Test: In "Johnny's Rough Around the Hedges", Johnny and Bling-Bling Boy are signed up for topiary therapy at the Porkbelly Park. The enjoy creating a swamp monster, a bear, a rhinoceros, and a dinosaur, but quickly grow bored and steal experimental growth hormone with life-giving nutriets and hydro-hyperfertilizer to improve on their creations. All four topiaries become huge and alive and they create chaos in the Porkbelly. Weapons prove useless, so Johnny and Bling-Bling Boy simply cut the topiaries into new non-creature shapes to stop them.
• My Little Pony: In "The Magic Coins, Part 3", the ponies visit the Haunted Garden to acquire the Golden Rose to give to Niblick in exchange for him undoing the havoc wreaked by his magic coins. The Haunted Garden is a hedge maze with five topiary animals, two of which recognizable as a bull and an elephant and three of which undefinable. The five are alive, but stationary like statues until the ponies pick up the Golden Rose. As the guardians of the Haunted Garden's treasure, they attack the ponies for their thievery. However, the dragon Spike uses his fire-breath to force the topiary animals back long enough for the ponies to escape.
• Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders: In "The Wizard of Gardenia", the Jewel Riders visit Gardenia and meet the gnome Chance who was the wizard Mallory's apprentice. Chance maintains the gardens Mallory created, which consist of hedge mazes, topiary animals, untrimmed plants, and a magical fountain. The fountain turns the normal topiary animals into living crystal animals to guard the gardens, but does not affect the living pieces of wall of the hedge maze. These walls can talk and walk around and alter the maze as needed, generally being passive, but they can also encircle other beings to turn them into living topiary creatures that may become crystallized. Chance aids the Jewel Riders by cutting the hedge walls to pieces, creating at least two harmless living topiary animals, a cat and a dog, while he's at it.
• The Real Ghostbusters: In "Mrs. Roger's Neighborhood", the powerful entity Wat takes on the guise of an elderly Mrs. Rogers and assigns its minions to take the form of or possess various objects in their home. Two ghosts take the form of topiary lions stationed at the front door. They keep intruders away and are the last to attack the ghostbusters when they finally escape Mrs. Roger's house, but the ghostbusters zap them before they can do harm.
• Rupert: In "Rupert and the Hedgehog", Rupert and Bill unintentionally cut down Rupert's father's camel topiary to a hedgehog topiary. Seeking to undo the damage, they acquire a growth formula from the Professor, but use more than the few prescribed drops. Not only does the hedgehog grow to the size of a camel, it becomes alive and uncontrollable. Although the Professor has no anti-growth formula, the boys get some from the Autumn Elves, but can't get near the hedgehog to spray it. Therefore, they create a bird topiary, bring that to life with the growth formula, ride on its back to return the hedgehog to normal topiary first, and lastly land to also return the bird to normal topiary.

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• Living Fountain
• Living Sparring Dummy^note  Chop Chop Ninja: Chop Chop Academy uses living training dummies to test its students' fighting skills., [https://reddead.fandom.com/wiki/Manny_Quinn Manny Quinn], Rising Zan: The Samurai Gunman, Point Blank
• Living White Horses
• Unidentified Mysterious Animal

Pages I'd like to make or see made one day

Open

• Art
  • Abu Simbel temples
  • Colossi of Memnon
  • Iron pillar of Delhi (if only it'd be hilarious to get this working as tropeable)
• Fairy- or Folktale
  • Krabat
  • Het Vrouwtje van Stavoren
  • Ys
• Literature
  • The Merman and the Figurehead by Clara F. Guernsey
  • My Laughing Philosopher by Eden Phillpotts
  • The Mummy! by Jane Webb
• Short Story or Novella
  • The Bell Tower
  • Isabella von Agypten
  • Die Vogelschuhe by Tieck
• Films
  • Gakkou no Kaidan 1
• Tropes
  • African American Crow (if only because people keep not understanding why this is not okay)
  • Bokkenrijder
  • Cornucopeia^note See Bag of Holding, Seaside Adventure (animated short), Loomian Legacy, "Cornucopia of Grondar" Conan, spongebob golden
  • Grootslang
  • Zhi Ren/Zhizha^note MODAO ZUSHI, Paper Dolls series
  • Living Wax Work^note Radio/Suspense - The Waxworks, Goober And The Ghost Chasers, '"Tales to Astonish'' - Vandoom!, Monster Squad, Film/Waxwork
  • Living Pinata^note Western Animation/Morph - PIŇATA, Viva Pinata, Mickey Mouse - ¡Feliz Cumpleaños!, Skylanders Pain-Yatta, Robot C Hicken - S&M Present - Living Pinata, Todd and the Talking Pinata, Adventure Time - Manfried, Dragon City - PINATA DRAGON, Tibia - Piñata Dragon, Dragon Story - Pinata Dragon, Pepe is a minor character in Candy Crush Saga. He is a piñata that is encountered in the 23rd episode, Munchy Monolith, Pinata Punishers
  • Living Iron Maiden/Sarcophagus(?)^note Jingle Jangle 26 Spry, shin megami, splatter master last level, Cofagrigus, Power Sokoban shaman king
  • Snappy Snapdragons^note Hortense Jingle Jangle 10 & 26 Chauncy, Dragonquest, monster high, plants vs zombies, yugioh, Mystic Towers
  • Shu Bronze(?)
  • Tsetse Fly Of Sleep
  • Open Car Car Wash^note Brum and the Shop Window Dummy, Dadnapped, Mickey Mouse wishing well episode
  • Dogu^note Atomic Runner Chelnov, Star Tropics, Ganbare Goemon Kirakira Dochuu: Boku ga Dancer ni Natta Riyuu, Bang Bang Buster Wrecking Crew '98, Musya, Dark Stalkers, Megaman, Pokemon, Sunsoft's weirdo game
  • Terracotta Army^note VB - Return to Spider-Skull Island - clay samurai, Son Son arcade taito
  • german grey/ Captured Alien: "The Girl Can't Help It" is the 16th episode of Kill la Kill, heaven's design team, bunny dogu game, Ginga Ninkyouden, pokemon - Elgyem, keroro gunsou episode, metal slug mars panic gallery mode https://mobile.twitter.com/nishi_game_/status/1227891049751666688, MTPC 39 Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure!, choco invaders https://www.bandainamcoent.co.jp/cs/list/chocovader/uz_toraerareta00.html

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Active tlp backup

New Golem description

Golems are constructs from centuries worth of Jewish folklore. While they weren't unknown to Western society for almost as long, it wasn't until the Romanticism of the early 19th Century it took interest and put its own spin on the creature. For about two centuries, the golem in non-Jewish works didn't stray far from the one in Jewish works until 1975. This was when Dungeons & Dragons introduced golems to its setting with Greyhawk supplement.

Doing away with almost everything that before made a golem a golem, Dungeons & Dragons redefined the term as a class of constructs with elemental properties. The first three golems thus were the flesh golems, taking a cue from Frankenstein's Monster, the iron golems, inspired by Talos, and the stone golems, pretty much Living Statues. Clay golems, which take after the original, followed a few months later in The Strategic Review #4.

In the years since, the elemental angle assigned to golems has inspired more variations, such as crystal golems and magic golems, and the first four have seen reinterpretations, such as Second Edition clay golems being based on the Chinese Terracotta Army. Dungeons & Dragons furthermore went on to influence the worldbuilding of Tabletop RPGs and Video Games in general. Dungeons & Dragons's take on golems was gratefully copied, in part because the "golem template" allows for a limitless variation of creatures for players to interact with. Anything with readily identifiable properties and cultural connotations makes for a potential golem, from lava or blood to books, junk, dirty laundry, and live maggots. Golems are usually a kind of Perpetual-Motion Monster and, whereas Dungeons & Dragons originally maintained the Familiar angle of folklore, it's much more common in modern works for golems to show up in groups if not outright armies.

The popularity of fantasy golems has made it so that "golem" these days is a bit of a go-to term for living statues and Rock Monsters, to the point it might come as a surprise that, while Kabbalic golems can be made of any material, there weren't any stone golems prior to 1975.

Magical Sister Trope to Robot. Super-Trope to Flesh Golem, Improvised Golems, and Snowlem. See also Rock Monster, Living Statue, Frankenstein's Monster, Artificial Human and Magitek. Not to be confused with the other Gollum or the game Golems.

Living White Horses

There was a moment of indescribable freshness and exhilaration, like a wave breaking over one's head, and then the sea-sound died away in the distance and, opening their eyes, they saw again only the faint grey ghostly light that showed them no more than just the faint shapes of the trees and the outline of each other's faces. The white horses had all gone... all except one.

— Narration, The Little White Horse

When wind blows across water, it transfers energy to the surface. The harder the wind blows, the more energy is transferred, which pushes the water to break apart into small bubbles to create a greater surface to accommodate the transfer. The result is foam-crested waves, which are called white horses due to visual similarity between a galloping herd and the rushing waves.

In fiction, white (sea)horses may appear as living creatures. They're a type of water horse and NatureSpirit native to British folklore and adopted by Nautical Folklore. Because white horses grow more numerous the stronger the wind blows, the creatures are associated with storms and getting through a storm is therefore likened to taming horses. They are, however, rarely depicted as malevolent. Other than the occasional human, their riders are The Fair Folk and the Lord of the Ocean.

To be clear, there are many water horses in Northwest Europe and traits overlap among them, whiteness being a common one. The one trait that defines a white horse is that it's a horse that's a wave. And funny that, the term "wave horse" is a poetic alternative for "ship" and does not refer to any supernatural horse whatsoever.

Sub-Trope of Nature Spirit and Cool Horse. Compare to the Nine Daughters of Aegir and Ran from Norse Mythology, who also represent waves. See also Living Dust Bunnies for another pareidolia-turned-creature.

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Examples:

[folder:foldercontrol]] [folder:Advertisement]]

• Surfer is a 1999 television advertisement, part of the "Good things come to those who wait" campaign, by Diageo to promote Guinness-brand draught stout in the United Kingdom. In the ad, a group of Polynesian surfers take on a gigantic wave, which turns into living white horses. One by one, the surfers fall until only one conquers the wave. The others join him in a celebration on shore.

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[folder:Art]]

• There are two illustrations of Neptune ushering forth white horses by Walter Crane, both called Neptune's Horses.
  • The first is from 1892 and depicts Neptune and the white horses as ghosts atop the waves moving towards the beach. In 1892, Walter Crane spent some time in Wauwinet on the island of Nantucket and it's assumed he was inspired by the waves he observed coming in daily to create his painting.
  • The second is also from 1892 and was on display that year during an exhibition at the Royal Watercolour Society. In the painting, Neptune and the Horses are front-and-center and form one long wave that is about to crash onto the beach. A second version was made for publication in The Greek Mythological Legend in 1910, which among other things is recognizable from the earlier version because Neptune is positioned away from the viewer while in the original he looks forward with spread arms. The white horses are depicted as having fin-hooves.

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[folder:Films — Animation]]

• The film adaptation of The Last Unicorn merges the unicorn and the living white horse as per the book: he unicorns aren't naturally or willingly part of the sea, but forced into it by the Red Bull on orders of King Haggard, who finds happiness only in possessing all the unicorns there are. They are set free when the one uncaptured unicorn overcomes the Red Bull. However, compared to the book the white horse aspect has a stronger presence due to there being visuals when they escape their marine prison.

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[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

• In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Arwen summons up a flood at the river Bruinen to prevent the Ringwraiths from further pursuit of her and Frodo. The flood takes the form of horses.

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[folder:Literature]]

• Two stories in The Great Sea Horse by Isabel Anderson feature living white horses.
  • The Great Sea Horse of the title story "The Great Sea Horse" has webbed hooves, golden-brown seaweed for mane and tail,^note The accompanying illustrations add brown fur, but give him normal hooves. loves playing among the waves, and is amazingly strong. He's also full of himself. One day, he wants to see more of the world and ventures up the river. He torments the two humans he encounters until their friends, the river sprites and fairies, chase him back to sea. When the Great Sea Horse returns to the ocean, he witnesses a ship sinking in the storm and recalls the human he nearly drowned. Remorseful, he rescues one sailor, lacking the means and time to save the others. For this change of heart, Neptune honors him by making him one of the mounts that draw his chariot.
  • In "The Ocean Giant", Neptune arrives at the would-be-wedding of the Ocean Giant and the Lady of the Seals in his chariot drawn by white horses.
• Christina Rossetti compares "foaming sea-horses" with land horses in the short poem "The Horses of the Sea" and argues that land horses are more reliable.
• Like The Little White Horse did before, The Last Unicorn merges the white horse and the unicorn. A key difference, however, is that the unicorns aren't naturally or willingly part of the sea, but forced into it by the Red Bull on orders of King Haggard, who finds happiness only in possessing all the unicorns there are. They are set free when the one uncaptured unicorn overcomes the Red Bull.
• In "The Little Brown Dress Talks", published in The Friend. Volume 95 in 1827, the titular dress spends about a month on the bed of the ocean. They're annoyed they didn't get to see "a single mermaid, nor a white seahorse, nor the King of the Deep-Sea Palace, nor any of the wonderful things" they had heard about and that overall the experience was boring.
• The titular horse in The Little White Horse is both a living white horse and a unicorn. It lives with the other white horses, who aren't unicorns. Each morning, the white horses rush from the sea into Moonacre Valley, during which time they are intangible. Centuries prior to the story's present, the Little White Horse got stuck between the branches of a blackthorn-tree due to its horn and was found and captured by Sir Wrolf, master of most of the valley. When he married the Moon Princess, he gifted her the horse. Their union came to an end when she gained reason to believe Wrolf had murdered her father and half-brother. She and the Little White Horse left and while the Moon Princess was never seen again, the Little White Horse reappeared whenever a "new Moon Princess" came to the valley to guide her in fixing the errors of the past. Incidentally, in return for the Little White Horse, the Moon Princess gifted Sir Wrolf her dog, who's hinted to actually be a lion and by now centuries old. A lion and a unicorn together makes for the heraldic duo of the United Kingdom.^note Little White Horse was written during World War II, so this symbolism probably came about to deal with the awfulness of reality in those years. The Little White Horse itself also gets a spiritual successor in the grey pony Periwinkle, which by all accounts is a normal pony, but takes the place of the Little White Horse in daily life in the valley. Periwinkle is shared by the two final Moon Princesses.
• In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Elrond summons up a flood at the river Bruinen to prevent the Ringwraiths from further pursuit of him and Frodo. The flood takes the form of horses and their riders.
• Inspired by the white horses out in the sea, a sculptor molds a sand horse relief at the beach in The Sand Horse. It comes to life during the evening, but is unable to move. The white horses call out for him to join them, which the sand horse wants to do but can't. The waves then crash onto the beach, destroying the sand horse's form and dragging its remains along back into the sea. The sand horse reforms as a white horse and leaves with the rest of the herd.
• Wild sea horses are the main means of travel between the shore and the horizon for sea-brownies in The Sea-Brownie Reader Part II by John Walter Davis and Fanny Julien. BrownieBen, a house-brownie, wishes to see the horizon for himself and so sets out to ride with the sea-brownies. They're welcoming and help him get settled on a gentle sea horse, which darts underneath ships and leaps over fishes, but leaves when they reach a part of the sea where no waves can exist.
• In Umi no Shiro Uma^note The White Horses of the Sea by Yamashita Haruo, the young Harubou is told about the white horses of the sea by his fisherman grandfather. Shortly after, Harubou meets a big white dog on the beach and assumes it to be another form of the waves. He returns to the beach daily to play with the dog, causing a fight between him and his grandfather who is afraid to boy will drown without supervision. Then Harubou's grandfather fails to come home when he's supposed to during another stormy day. While waiting for him at the beach, Harubou is pulled along into a herd of white seahorses and screams for his grandfather. At his most desperate, he wakes up at home where his grandfather is safe and sound.
• Michael Morpurgo's The White Horse of Zennor is about the Veluna Family whose farm in Zennor is on the verge of bankruptcy when the children, Arthur and Annie, save the life of a knocker one September evening. They get to make a wish each as thanks, which prompts Arthur to wish for the farm to be saved and Annie to wish for a horse to ride, since the family had to sell their one horse to pay the bills. Annie is gifted a magnificent white stallion for A Year and a Day, after which she has to return him. The horse is an asset in making the farm profitable once more and Annie takes excellent care of him, naming him Pegasus. While the family notices that Pegasus is attracted by the sea, it isn't until Annie returns him that the knocker tells her Pegasus is a living white horse and has effectively been locked out of his home all this time. However, because Annie was so good to him, Pegasus returns for her to ride him every year on that one September evening.
• The poem "White Horses" by Eleanor Farjeon looks to be about normal horses that are white. However, the poem invokes the number 9 by claiming that a wish will be granted upon encountering nine white horses in one day. Traditionally, the ninth wave at sea is considered special and its water can be used to create a Good Luck Charm, which is a belief the poem seems to be referencing.
• The white horses in the poem "White Horses" by Hamish Hendry rest in green caves at the bottom of the sea. It's when the huntsman and his hounds awaken that they flee their homes to leap through the foam onto shore.
• The white horses in the poem "White Horses" by Irene F. Pawsey race with the tide until the weather forces them back home to the green caves at the bottom of the sea.
• In The White Sea Horse^note Also published as The Little Sea Pony and The Little Sea Horse. by Helen Cresswell, the titular horse is small, about the size of a cat. It's caught by a fisherman who gifts it to his daughter Molly. It's discovered that the mini-horse brings luck to anyone who touches it, causing the townspeople to confiscate it to serve as the town mascot. Molly sets out to free the horse and return it to the sea.

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[folder:Music]]

• The narrator of "White Horses (Are Calling Me)" by Brian Bedford is by their own admission most definitely not a sailor, but still they hear the call from the white horses to come ride them.

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[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

• The Tuatha De Danann of Celtic Mythology were said to ride white horses that could travel across both land and sea. The exact meaning of this varies, with some stories definitely being about waves as horses and others being ambiguous about it. Of note is that, for instance in The Voyage of Bran mac Febail, the sea is said to be only sea to humans, but to the Tuatha De Danann it's an ever-green plain.
  • The one named white horse is Enbarr (alternatively spelled Aonbharr), whom belongs to the sea god and psychopomp Manannan mac Lir, but for a long time was loaned to Manannan's foster-son Lugh along with many others of Manannan's finest treasures. One Medieval manuscript explains the horse's name as [en "water" + barr "foam"], while a modern analysis comes to [aon "one" + barr "mane"]. This might be less of a difference than it seems, because some takes on white horses specify that the foam is their mane.
  • In the tragic tale of Niamh, a princess of Tir na Nog, and Oisin, a human, Niamh travels across the sea to Ireland on a white horse. She invites Oisin to live with her in Tir na Nog, which he takes. After three years, Oisin grows homesick and is given Niamh's horse to return to Ireland on the condition he won't step off the horse. Either in a moment of forgetfulness or due to an accident, Oisin does set foot on Ireland and promptly ages as he would've done outside Tir na Nog. The horse returns to its master without her husband.
  • The legend of O'Donoghue as recorded in Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland states that O'Donoghue was a human and who joined the fair folk across the Lakes of Killarney, but who returns every May Morning to his old home for a minute visit. On such occasion, he, the white stallion he rides on, and his fey followers are preceded by a wave. The horse and the wave are separate but similar, suggesting a connection. For instance, the wave is likened to a "proud high-crested war-horse" and changes direction as O'Donoghue orders his horse to turn another way.

[/folder]]

[folder:Video Games]]

• Enbarr is a mount in Final Fantasy XIV that can be acquired by defeating Leviathan during the The Whorleater trial (extreme mode). The description notes that Enbarr is said to have been born of the surging waves.

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[folder:Real Life]]

• A 17th Century plaque on the wall inside the Clare Island Abbey depicts a version of the coat-of-arms of the O'Malley Clan that is topped by a horse. This is a white seahorse, most notable as the emblem of the pirate captain Grace O'Malley. Her personal ship was called the White Seahorse and the flag her ships flew depicted a white seahorse against a blue background.

UMA

"Unidentified Mysterious Animal", commonly shortened to "UMA", is a popular Japanese(-made English) term that's in essence equivalent to the English term "cryptid". "Unidentified Mysterious Animal; UMA" is a remodeling of "mikakunin doubutsu" ("unidentified animal"), the conventional translation for "cryptid", to resemble the term "Unidentified Flying Object; UFO". It was created by Yuu Mori, a paranormal researcher, and Tatsuo Saneyoshi, an animal researcher, in 1967 and debuted in Saneyoshi's UMA: Nazo no Mikakunin Doubutsu.

Over time, pop culture has broadened the meaning to where the term can be used for whatever creature a writer wants it to refer to, serving to add an investigative or sciency flavor. Consider the following three examples of the usage of "UMA" listed in decreasing equivalence to "cryptid":

• The Little Bit Beastly cast of Kemono Friends have a bit in their bios about their conservation status. Friends based on real animals are ranked on a scale from "Least Concern" to "Extinct", while Friends based on fantasy animals are always separately ranked "UMA". Such friends include actual cryptids like the tsuchinoko and skyfish, youkai like the kamaitachi gang, Captain Ersatzs like the peach panther, and any and all collaboration characters like the Friends versions of the tank robots from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
• In Little King's Story, "UMA" comprises all enemies except for the rival kings and (sometimes) their immediate servants. The 53 entries-long list of UMA includes The Undead, Mushroom Men, Rock Monsters, a typhoon family, and UFOs.
• The UMA of Undead Unluck are Eldritch Abomination-like Anthropomorphic Personifications of "the rules of the world" and named accordingly. Among them are Language, Spoil, and Clothes to give an idea what "the rules of the world" entails.

A related but rarely used term coined by the same duo is "Extinct Mysterious Animal", commonly shortened to "EMA". "Extinct Mysterious Animal; EMA" refers to animals that are officially extinct, but for which claims of sightings continue to be made. The Japanese wolf, for instance, is an EMA, and the plesiosaur version of the Stock Ness Monster is both a UMA and an EMA.

Note that "uma" and "ema" are also normal Japanese words. "Uma" means "horse" and "ema" refers to a wooden votive offering (that replaces an older practice of horse donation). On occasion, this is exploited for pun value.

Because "UMA" is a Japanese term that overlaps in full with other concepts, both Japanese and not-Japanese, this is a definition-only page. Please take any examples to Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious, Alien Tropes, Youkai, or whichever other fictional creature trope is applicable.

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Drafts: tropes and works in progress

Literal Spelling Bee

The pun of associating literal bees of the insect variety with spelling is almost as old as the term "Spelling Bee". "Bee" in "spelling bee" is a dated synonym for a "get-together" and the full 1850 1808. The oldest pun is

Spelling bees primarily show up as a motif. If there's a Spelling Bee being held, there's a decent chance of a bee showing up, if not an entire swarm. The more fantastic

Truth In Televsions In real-life, someone in a costume.

Alternatively, spelling bees may show up as actual fantasy creatures, akin to Literal Bookworms and

A recent manifestation of literal spelling bees is to reinterpret "spelling" as "casting spells".

[folder:foldercontrol]] [folder:Advertising]]

• https://library.chethams.com/collections/prints-and-photographs/political-cartoons/

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[folder:Comic Books]]

• The villain of the Codename: Kids Next Door story "Operation: S.T.I.N.G.E.R" is a bee tamer who uses her minions to take out the competition during a spelling bee. At first, Numbuh Four and Numbuh Five suspect Beatrice, a haughty girl who has the name and the Beehive Hairdo to be the perfect fit for the modus operandi. She proves innocent — it's her companion Collette, who wears thick winter clothes and has multiple Stock Beehives hidden under her coat, who's playing dirty. Numbuh Five saves the day by handing Collette the winner's bouquet, which draws the bees back to her.
• One Mary Jane and Sniffles comic in Four Color Comics #402 sees the two protagonists come to the aid of a spelling bee and his hive, which is under attack by bumblebees. Literal Bookworm
• The villain of the The Powerpuff Girls story "Spellbound" is the Spelling Bee, a woman dressed up as a bee who taunts the City of Townsville by literally spelling out her criminal plans on TV. Circumstances make this a very effective tactic: the Powerpuff Girls are bad at spelling and Ms. Keane does not want anyone to give them the answers lest they never learn how to spell. As such, the Powerpuff Girls keep getting the targets of the Spelling Bee wrong and fail to act against her, until they do decipher that the Spelling Bee's henchmen aim to attack City Hall (and not Kitty Hall). The girls beat the villains up before they can escape in the Spelling Bee's bookmobile.

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[folder:Literature]]

• Dorothy and old King Crow "bamboozlement"
• The Phantom Tollbooth Spelling Bee vs Humbug

[/folder]]

[folder:Live-Action TV]]

• The Book of Pooh "Busy as a Spelling Bee"
• Bee Sting is a villain in Who Wants to Be a Superhero? that's active for the first two episodes of the second season. She takes the heroes captive at an abandoned school, where she forces them to compete in a spelling bee with a trick rule revealed only after the first contestant gets "besieged" supposedly wrong. All words have "be" in it and each "be" has to be spelled out as "bee", thus making it "bee-sieged". Bees are released into the chambers the heroes are locked in for every word they spell wrong. Once the challenge is completed, the heroes are dunked with honey as something to remember Bee Sting by.

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[folder:Video Games]]

• Among the many pun-based enemies in the library of Crayon Chronicles are Spelling Bees, which look like ordinary bees. There's also ArcHives, which are books with a honeycomb print on them.
• The bee Rumor Honeybottoms of Cuphead is a pun-heavy Insect Queen. One of the puns relates to her combat methods during the first round of fighting her: she casts spells, thus she is a spelling bee of the magical variety.

[/folder]]

[folder:Web Original]]

• Ned wins a spelling bee in the webisode "Spelling Bee" of The Misfortune Of Being Ned. His reward is the appearance of a severely hostile and humongous bee that repeatedly stings him in the head.

[/folder]]

[folder:Western Animation]]

• The Buzz on Maggie "Spelling Bees"
• Hermie & Friends Short Srumble Bees Spelling Bee
• In the episode "Spelling Bee-Hemoth" of Little Rosey, Rosey has a a spelling bee showdown with Jeffrey and is worried about her odds. Her imagination turns the school bus into a spelling bee, who takes her to its hive to battle a bee version of Jeffrey for the title of Queen of the Swarm. A fantastic take on the proceedings of a spelling bee follows: Each contestant rides on two bees. Words to be spelled manifest as projectiles aimed at the mounts and can only be made harmless if the contestant spells out the word correctly and timely. A contestant can thus afford only one mistake, since a second one will take out both bees. Rosey wins and the scene morphs to her winning the non-fantasy spelling bee at school.
• Lily takes part in a spelling bee in the Mona the Vampire episode "Spelling Bee". The contest's sponsor is Mr. Harry, who owns Mr. Harry's Hive-Away Honey Farm and is the inventor of Beesy, a robot queen bee through which he can instruct his bees to greater productivity. Beesy also is the contest's mascot. Lily's opponent is Sonny Spellman, a boy dressed in a bee-striped shirt whom the heroes discover is the son of Mr. Harry. In truth, Mr. Harry wants Sonny to win so that he doesn't have to pay up the prize money and to show off his son as a bee-like workaholic. Sonny is a horrible speller, but Beesy allows Mr. Harry to pass the correct answers to him. What the heroes think Mr. Harry wants is to use Beesy to mutate everyone at the spelling bee into worker bees under his control. All the same, they expose his scheme.
• Punky Brewster episode "Spellbound": Punky is on her way to Washington D.C. for a spelling bee. Glomer zaps a bee that makes people spell out words when it alights on them to help Punky, but she refuses it saying that would be cheating. The bee takes off on its own where it disrupts a senator's campaign rally.
• In the episode "Spelling Bee Situation" of Stanley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XoQpMagTZs&feature=share
• Invoked in the Totally Spies! episode "The Black Widows". The B-plot deals with Sam preparing for the school spelling bee, while the A-plot deals with the Spies searching for the missing cheerleader team The Honeybees. One off-hand joke by Alex explains the thematic connection: cheerleaders often use spelling in their yells.
• T.U.F.F. Puppy "The Spelling Bee"
• Uncle Grandpa "Spelling Bee"

Water Horses

Jan Klaassen de Trompetter

"Jan Klaassen de Trompetter" is a 1973 Dutch song sung by Rob de Nijs, orchestral conducting by Bert Paige, lyrics by Lennaert Nijgh, melody by Boudewijn de Groot. Het nummer kwam terecht op het album In de uren van de middag. Protest Song

Tropes:

• Allegorical Character:
• Blow That Horn:
• Bittersweet Ending:
• Friend to All Children:
• "Just So" Story
• Lyrical Dissonance:
• Resigned to the Call:

Peter Lorreplica

When Peter Lorre was cast for the role of the villainous Abbott in The Man Who Knew Too Much, he developed a voice that would become a legacy on its own. It is a hoarse whisper, not unlike the human equivalent of a radio broadcast hampered by static, matched with a prolongued manner utterance. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, it , it is suggestive of danger

In an extended Monster Mash, Lorre's voice is certain to show up and may come from any character not already accentually spoken for. A vampire ("bluh") or a werewolf (snarling) won’t have the Lorre voice, while a living skeleton might. Lorre's voice and mannerisms are in particular associated with The Igor. Peter Lorre never played this character, but he did play Dr. Einstein in Arsenic and Old Lace. Dr. Einstein is a plastic surgeon and the partner-in-crime of the serial killer Johnathan, whose last bout of surgery has left him looking like the Monster of Frankenstein. In the early 1940s, the audience was fresh from the successes of Son of Frankenstein and The Ghost of Frankenstein, in which Ygor and the Monster are companions. This allowed Lorre to become one-on-one'd with the Igor, backed up by the associations left from his role as the Frankensteinian Dr. Gogol in Mad Love.^note Incidentally, Peter Lorre did play a drugdealer nicknamed "der gebogelte" ("the Hunchback") in Der weiße Dämon in 1932. This role won't have influenced the Lorre-Igor association, but it shows an overlap of physical traits between the actor and the character. The closest Peter Lorre has to a monster of his own is the blue-skinned man that appears in Famous Studios's 1950 short Boos in the Nite. This figure shows up alongside the Monster of Frankenstein in a Shout-Out to Arsenic and Old Lace.

voice - eyes - pronounced lips - short/rotund - blue skin

This is a subtrope of No Celebrities Were Harmed and a supertrope to Terminator Impersonator.

https://www.facebook.com/TheAnimatedPeterLorre

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Examples:

[foldercontrol] [folder: Advertising]]

• Boo Berry by General Mills

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[folder: Audio Play]]

• The Further Adventures of Nick Danger One of Danger's criminal nemeses is Rocky Rococo (Philip Proctor), described as a "little man" and a "slimy weasel", based on Dashiell Hammett's Joel Cairo as portrayed by Peter Lorre in the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon. In the role, Proctor imitates Lorre's distinctive voice. In pictures supplied with the How Can You Be in Two Places... album, Bergman portrays Rococo, creating the image of a bald man wearing a fez.

[/folder]]

[folder: Comic Strips]]

• The Addams Family Gomez Addams

[/folder]]

[folder:Films — Animation]]

• Mad Monster Party? Yetch
• Western Animation/Aladdin - genie zombie mode
• The Brave Little Toaster Elmo St. Peters' Shop lamp
• Corpse Bride Maggot
• The Haunted World of El Superbeasto - Jekyll & Hyde presentator at strip club
• Monster Mash (2000) summoner
• "Looney Tunes Back in Action" (2003). He appears for what must be one minute tops, but steals the entire scene with his expressions and cackles, exactly like the real PL would.
• Western Animation/Frankenweenie Edgar "E" Gore
• The Nightmare Before Christmas Igor

[/folder]]

[folder:Live-Action TV]]

• Stingray Agent X20, who sounded like Peter Lorre, though his appearance was based on Claude Rains.
• Fraggle Rock Marlon Fraggle

[/folder]]

[folder:Video Games]]

• Dead Head Fred Sam Spade
• Crash Bandicoot Doctor N. Gin
• Quest for Glory Ugarte, Lorre's character in Casablanca, as a minor recurring character alongside Sydney Greenstreet's Signor Ferrari

[/folder]]

[folder:Western Animation]]

• Gravedale High J.P. Ghastly III
• Scooby-Doo
  • The New Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show "Where's Scooby-Doo?" little guy
  • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! "That's Snow Ghost" Mr. Leech
• Looney Tunes shorts
  • "Horton Hatches the Egg" fish
• The Tick The-Guy-That-Looks-Just-Like-Peter-Lorre "The Tick vs. Chairface Chippendale"
• The Ren & Stimpy Show Ren Höek Mainly the rant in The Maltese Falcon
• Monster Force Renfield
• Famous Studios short "Boos in the Nite" creep that scares ghosts with Frankenstein's Monster.
• USA Cartoon Express block Monster Bash the Igor-esque mad scientist
• The Simpsons "Bart the Genius" train conductor nightmare assistant to Martin machinist
• Zug from TUGS
• Morocco Mole from Super Secret Secret Squirrel
• Little Gruesome from Wacky Races
• The Chameleon from T.U.F.F. Puppy
• The Dick Tracy Show Flattop
• The Tarsier Timon & Pumbaa "Congo on Like This"
• In the first season Dog City episode "The Bloodhound," Ace's unnamed client is a short, manic Peter Lorre-soundalike.
• The fourth season Dinosaurs episode "Monster Under the Bed" features monster movie character Igor. While otherwise fitting the hunchback Igor stereotype, he doubles the horror referencing by possessing a Peter Lorre voice.
• Krool is the assistant to 'The Phantom of the Opera' in the episode 'A Fright at the Opera' (Season 1, Episode 21). Count Duckula
• SpongeBob SquarePants "Sponge Bob's Big Birthday Blowout" Slappy - Dr. Lorre reference
• Western Animation/Snagglepuss Mr. Evil Scientist
• Rocky and Bullwinkle Mr. Big
• Milton the Monster - Heebie
• Igor Fritz Radev Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
• Creepy Crawlers Goopy
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers Wart
• Drak Pack Toad
• Sonic Underground - Sleet

An Air Rod Called Skyfish

• Seriously need to tone down the hostile cynism here

Cameras see the world differently than eyes do. This is common knowledge and yet not, resulting in curiosities such as expectations of Lens Flare and cryptids like air rods. Poetically known as skyfishes, air rods occur when the shutter speed is slower than the speed of the object being recorded. This causes the object to be indistinctly multiplied along its trajectory. Unsurprisingly, most air rods are caused by insects because insects are fast and aren’t noticed by the operator as something to avoid getting in the shot. So it was before March 19, 1994 and so it has been since.

Yet on that day, Jose Escamilla from Roswell went alien hunting. He did not find aliens, but he did get the then-unnamed artifacts in his recordings that he’d present to the world as a newly discovered lifeform. He maintained this claim until his death in 2018 with mixed results. Air rods have not caught on as well the The Greys or Chupacabras, but they have their share of enthusiasts. They're rarely included in Western works of fiction, but reasonably common in Japanese works.

There are two major takes on air rods: the insect one and the fish one. If a work goes for the insect approach, the air rod is depicted as a dragonfly or damselfly with one long tubal body and wings all over its body. If a work goes for the fish approach, the air rod is depicted as a long fish with undulating body-length fins on either side. Related to the fish version is the theory that air rods descend from the extinct anomalocaris, which had a similar method of locomotion. This theory may be tacitly acknowledged by the joint-inclusion of air rods and anomalocares. Furthermore, it's up to a particular work whether air rods are depicted as aliens (whether planetary or dimensional) or as native creatures.

Air rods are associated with speed and light. As per Escamilla's theories that air rods are too fast to be registered by sight alone, human characters are sometimes in need of cameras or special goggles to see the air rods zoom about. Crawfordsville monster

Sub-Trope of Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious and Flying Seafood Special.

---

Examples:

[foldercontrol]] [folder:Anime and Manga]]

• In Chapter 48 of Delicious in Dungeon, the group has to save Senshi from a griffin. Marcille makes a familiar from the food supply to fly after the griffin and distract or attack it so Senshi can escape. The first two, a bird and a wyvern, are a failure, leading Marcille to conclude that they need speed to outmanoeuvre the griffin's keen sight and own speed. Therefore, she makes a skyfish, a long worm with multiple dragonfly-like wings. Not only does it distract the griffin, but Marcille uses its speed to shoot like a bullet through the griffin's wing, incapacitating it for Laios to deal the finishing blow. Afterwards, Laios prepares the skyfish into a delicious meal so as not to waste what's left of their food supply.
• Skyfishes look like green translucent boomerangs of varying sizes in Eureka Seven. They are Coralian creatures that have adapted to float upon trapar (transparent light particles) waves . Skyfishes are hunted for their skin for the production of reflection film, which is the material that gives the humans' various vehicles the same capacity for trapar travel.
• Featured in the Stone Ocean arc of the manga Jojos Bizarre Adventure, the stand of Rikiel is called Sky High. It allows him to attract and control skyfishes that absorb body heat as food, which shuts down the bodily functions of the prey.
• A trio of skyfishes appears in Episode 3 of Uchurei!. They steal Takashi's food, strike Miki's behind, and steal Uchurei's hitaikakushi. That was a mistake, because while the humans can't see the skyfishes and retaliate, Uchurei can see them and he has the speed and power to teach them a lesson. They escape him by dizzying him.

[/folder]]

[folder:Live-Action TV]]

• power rangers 2x

[/folder]]

[folder:Video Games]]

• When Date asks Iris what she would do if she stops time, she says she would try to catch a sky fish. This is a reference to how you obtain the Sky Fish soul in Castlevania: Chronicles of Sorrow. AI: The Somnium Files

Day 4: syuurAI, during the 4:43 PM investigation segment: Lots of magazines in that rack. Iris icon Iris: "Special: Catch a Sky Fish!" Iris icon Iris: Next time these magazines get replaced, I'm taking that one!

Broken Clock Three Months Later: kassAI, while visiting Boss's Office: There's a clock off to the side of her desk. Boss icon small Boss: Iris, if you had the ability to stop time, what would you do? Iris icon Iris: Hm, let me think... Iris icon Iris: I want to catch a skyfish!

• Sky fishes are rare enemies in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. They can only be encountered in two rooms in the Underground Reservoir, where under normal circumstances they'll zoom by in an ethereal flash. To have a chance at killing them and obtain their soul to benefit from Blessing, Time Stop needs to be activated and even then they're still faster than most other enemies are with time flowing normally.
• Final Fantasy XIV, where they're described as "from a distance, the skyfish appears to be no more than a simple rod outfitted with three sets of transparent wings
• Centipares and Adult Centipares in Hey! Pikmin are based on skyfishes and designed to be like dragonflies and damselflies. They are harmless and serve as moving platforms.
• Skyfishes are common Wind-type enemies in Iruna Online. Anomalocares are also included as a rare Water-type enemy, but they aren't related to the skyfishes.
• A skyfish is among the Unidentified Mysterious Animals in the 2015 game that launched the Kemono Friends franchise. She's fast, goods friends with Tsuchinoko, and incapable of speech. Her lines are depicted in punctuation marks and some stars and notes, possibly to denote that she's an alien.
• La-Mulana
• The Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children series features skyfishes that look like aerial torpedoes with nose art. They also have fewer fins than skyfish designs usually feature, but their size and speed are well in line.
• Skyfish and its evolution Chemogen Skyfish from Monster Strike are dragon-like renditions of skyfishes. They belong to the Dragon class, the Light element, and the Speed type.
• The skyfish is the subject of Archive #092, found on the roof of the Siren Shack, in Siren. It depicts the skyfish with a human face and

The skyfish is an unidentified creature that can be captured at Gojaku Peak in Hanuda Village. As told in legends, Gojaku Peak was a mystery spot which would cause scratches of unknown origin to appear on all who entered it. Due to skyfish - odd creatures with stick-like bodies and fish fins - flying around the area, they got these wounds... or so has been the interpretation since ancient times, but you can actually knock down a skyfish on top of the siren shack at Hanuda Mine during the game. Skyfish are a kind of UMA (Unidentified Mysterious Animal) that have been repeatedly witnessed worldwide since the 90s. They are mysterious being that fly around at high speeds, and it is apparently impossible to see one with the naked eye. They shoot through the sky with vicious speed, looking life fish, and even when captured on film were only able to be seen using slow-motion or frame-by-frame examination. Apparently, all of the Yamirei originally came from the dead body of a giant skyfish, who fell from the heavens billions of years ago.

• super robot taisen z sky fish

[/folder]]

[folder:Visual Novels]]

• In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Yasuhiro Hagakure mentions that he's researching sightings of skyfishes in Kamata, Tokyo because he hopes to make some money warning Haneda Airport of, what he thinks, is a great danger. He also mentions the anomalocaris and the artificial life forms theories.

[/folder]]

[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

• The optical effect that is the skyfish is visible in Melody (S.W.A.L.K.). When the camera pans down to follow the teachers' rush down the fire escape to stop the wedding,^note Between 95 and 100 minutes. the skyfish shoots out from the red-bricked arch in the lower right corner.

[/folder]]

Solo And Mon Naming

One of the many ways to connect characters through their names is to pick an existing famous name, break it apart, and then hand each character one part. So instead of naming a team of four Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, you'd name the members of four sets of duos Leo, Nardo, Dona, Tello, Raph, Ael, Michel, and Angelo. Needless to say, this form of theme naming can only be used on small groups.

• Named After Somebody Famous: "One way this can be done is to give a group of characters a set of names which, when combined, form the name of a famous person." - Literally all examples I can think of aren't on that page, so is it or isn't it different?
• Judge And Ment Naming: For items? Kat & Ana of Wario Ware, Bungy & Jumpy of Spacix, and Si & Am of The Lady and the Tramp.

A duo named after the The Mona Lisa, with one being Mona and the other being Lisa. Sometimes title: Lisa del Giocondo Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ma donna

Sub-Trope of Theme Twin Naming in particular and Theme Naming in general.

---

Examples:

[foldercontrol] [folder:Advertising]]

• Spacix: The twin princesses Afra and Dita are named after Aphrodite, the Ancient Greek goddess of love. They are part of the royal fmaily of the planet Cupida, which is all about love.

[/folder]]

[folder: Anime and Manga]]

• Parallel Paradise:
• Pokémon: Various partners-in-crime are named after historical figures with a dangerous reputation. Jessie and James are named after Jesse James, Butch and Cassidy after Butch Cassidy, Annie and Oakley after Annie Oakley, and Attila and Hun after Attila the Hun.

[/folder]]

[folder:Comic Books]]

• Transformers: Generation 1: The Powermaster duo of Clio (huge robot alien) and Patra (human alien) are named after Cleopatra. In response to a letter to the The Transformers comic series in 1990, it was tongue-in-cheek confirmed that the transforming car in the Renault Clio commercial was a genuine Transformer. The response ran on with the joke by stating that Clio had a partner in Patra.

[/folder]]

[folder: Films — Live-Action]]

• Machete and Machete Kills:
• Princess Madam:

[/follder]]

[folder: Live-Action Television]]

• Hallo Spencer: The one set of twins among the cast are Mona and Lisa, who are visually only distinguishable by their hair styles: Mona has pigtails, while Lisa has a single ponytail.
• Sana Dalawa ang Puso

[/folder]]

[folder:Video Games]]

• Destiny Child: Mona, Lisa, and Davi.
• Genshin Impact:
• Max Payne: Mona & Lisa Sax
• Streets of Rage: The twins Onihime and Yasha of Bare Knuckle were renamed Mona and Lisa, after the Mona Lisa, for the Western releases. They serve as a recurring Dual Boss in the series.
• Veronikka's To-Do: The identical twins Marko and Apolo are named after Marco Polo.

[/folder]]

[folder: Western Animation]]

• The Simpsons: Mona Simpson and Lisa Simpson, named after the Mona Lisa, are a rare case where the split name duo is intergenerational. Mona is, through her son Homer, Lisa's grandmother. They are both kind and intelligent idealists, a set of traits not shared by anyone else in the family.

[/folder]]

[folder:Real-Life]]

• The twins Mona and Lisa Wagner were named after the painting. They've made use of this for their careers in the music industry, for which they've formed a pop rock band called The MonaLisa Twins.

Glass Creature

Stained glass: Castlevania, Medi Evil, Blasphemous, Gift of Orzhova, The Glass-boned Creature, movie Young Sherlock Holmes, http://dedpihto.narod.ru/games/Monsters1/MM00142.htm D& D, The Glass Knight Warcraft, Glass Giant D&D, http://www.magieck.nl/index.php?page=campagne&campagne=26&chapter=154&story=854, wizard 101 central, http://benlinalexander.blogspot.com/2014/10/destroy-stained-glass-monster.html , Wizardry, https://www.blogtorwho.com/analysis-doctor-twice-upon-time-trailer/, family guy Peter

Mandrake

• "The Accursed Flower" (Creepy Magazine #49):

Hopsville critter

• "The Night the Creatures Attacked" (Creepy Magazine #53):

• "The Thing from the Sea!" (tales from the crypt) - "The Upper Berth" by American author F. Marion Crawford.
• Adventures into Terror #16 - My Name Is Death!

The Cat on the Cradle

De Kat in de Wieg, ook bekend als Hoe Kinderdijk zijn Naam Kreeg, is a Dutch Fairy Tale that's become closely associated with the St. Elizabeth's flood of 1421 in the provinces Zeeland and Holland. The core story is that amidst incomprehensible devastation, a baby survived because its cradle is kept afloat by a cat that uses its weight to counterbalance against the waves. It’s possible that the story predates the flood, but the earliest evidence of its existence is a panel painting from around 1490. It was commissioned by survivors from Wieldrecht and the left wing depicts a floating cradle with a cat on it.

William Elliot Griffis wrote "The Cat in the Cradle" in 1918; Dutch Fairy Tales. Different story altogether – unknown origin; probably made himself given the religious overtones and his history as pastor.

Oldest reference from aroound 1490, with the cat and the cradle depicted on the left

de omgeving van Dordrecht werd door deze ramp zwaar getroffen: 23 dorpen gingen ten onder en 2000 mensen vonden de dood. De nabestaanden lieten later een altaarstuk maken. Op de buitenpanelen werd de ramp afgebeeld, met rechts de dijkdoorbraak en links het veilige Dordrecht.

• http://www.gestolengrootmoeder.nl/wordpress/de-drijvende-wieg/
• http://www.verhalenbank.nl/items/show/51291
• http://www.vergetenverhalen.nl/2015/09/21/het-wiegje-van-de-sint-elisabethsvloed/
• https://bertvanzantwijk.wordpress.com/2020/02/28/utrechtse-volksverhalen/

Living doll

Consider merging with sexbot; not sure if that trope is technology-only. A robot with a function is something different from the trials and tribulations of a magical being.

Examples:

• Various female golems
• Sennentuntschi
• "Gogol's Wife"
• Dummy by Cody Heller
• "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning" of Supernatural
• Air Doll has been adapted by Kore-eda from a 20-page short manga The Pneumatic Figure of a Girl by Gouda Yoshi.

Living Spells

Examples:

• Monster High: The Spells of Casta and the Spells.
• Lumpy from Grotbags.
• The negative dragons from Dragon Ball GT.

Wasn't Even a Romantic Rival

Killing off male friends and family of a female character to facilitate her falling in love with the hero.

• Dragon Ball Z: Android 17's and Android 16's deaths opens Android 18 up to become emotionally attached to Krillin.
• Dying Light: Rahim's and Amar's deaths play a role in Jade's and Crane's romance.
• Treasure Planet: Mr. Arrow's death pushes Captain Amelia into Doppler's arms.

Non-pumpkin jack o'lantern list

The oldest documentation of a melon monster in Japan is the 18th Century Buson yōkai emaki. It is a scroll by Yosa Buson that depicts eight youkai with a minimum amount of annotation. The leading theory behind the scroll's creation is that it was created in the 1750s to practice painting and that the youkai included came from stories he heard about during his travels. Two of the youkai are the suika no bakemono of Kizu (a former village in Osaka) and the makuwauri no bakemono of Yamashiro (a former region in Kyoto), respectively a watermelon-headed humanoid and an oriental melon-headed humanoid. The scroll is the only remaining evidence those youkai were once part of folklore.

• Kabocha jack o'lanterns hang in the trees of the haunted town level of Captain Silver. When Jim nears them, they let themselves fall and slide in his direction. In the MSX version, the final boss of this stage is a witch that stores kabocha jack o'lanterns under her skirt to throw at Jim.
• After Tina joins the party in Secret of the Stars, the new enemies encountered include the Echo Cat and the Pumpking. The Pumpking is a short, corpulent fellow with a kabocha jack o'lantern for a head. Its English name "Pumpking" is a freeform translation of "カボチャ大王" or "(Great) King Kabocha". Echo Cats have the ability to summon Pumpkings either as aid or to fuse with. The fused form replaces the Echo Cat's head with the kabocha head to form King Cat, in Japanese "ドラネコ大王" or "(Great) King Tabby Cat".
• Starting Stage 47 of Energy Breaker, pumpkin-headed monsters known as bogeymen show up as enemies. They're pink humanoids with grass clothes. The pumpkin head itself is brown, yet when they attack these enemies let out a cry that summons a kabocha to fall on their target.
• The first boss of Super Fantasy Zone, which also is depicted on the cover, is a giant kabocha jack o'lantern wearing a crown. Like all enemies, he's a member of the Dark Menon Force, an army comprised of revived souls.
• The first boss in Residence of king, or the seventh boss overall, in Heavenly Guardian is Pumpkin King, who has a kabocha for a head, a cape as body, and floating gloves as hands. He summons kabocha bombs of varying sizes to harm Sayuki. Prior to Pumpkin King is his army of smaller pumpkin monsters. They're of similar design to the king, just with blue capes instead of a red one and they are armed with lanterns from which they can summon fireballs.
• Two mappemon types in Eternal Eyes are pumpkin- & kabocha-based. Mappemon no. 112 & no. 113 are Pumpkin Head and Head (Pumpkill in Japanese), which are respectively a pumpkin- and a kabocha-headed humanoid. They take off their heads to swing at opponents. Mappemon no. 114, no. 115, and no. 157 are Mad Pumpkin (Mad Pump in Japanese), Big Head, and Y.P.puppet (Typhoon in Japanese), which are respectively a large pumpkin, a large kabocha, and a large yellow pumpkin. They attack by jumping up and falling down on their opponents.

---

• There are four kinds of produce mummies in Barnyard Blast: Swine of the Night. Produce mummies have a head that's a carved-out fruit or vegetable and a body that's in wraps. The three regular ones are pumpkin, green (possibly a bean), and mango (which looks like an eggplant on account of its purple shade). Apples are a tree's minions, hanging from its branches by their necks and falling down to attack Robert. It was an apple that abducted Cliffy. Produce mummies are fairly harmless, as they can only hurt Robert by direct contact.
• In the 46th episode of Choujin Sentai Jetman, the monster of the day is "トマト大王" or "Great King Tomato", who has a carved-out tomato for a head. His modus operandi is to give everyone tomato heads, though no one but him has something resembling a face. He is defeated when the protagonists realize he's a projection of Raita's difficult relation with tomatoes, which he conquers by eating tomatoes.

---

• Summerween is a summer variant of Halloween in Gravity Falls and tradition dictates jack o'lanterns carved out of watermelons, which are called jack o'melons. The Summerween Trickster, a monster composed of unwanted candy, disguises itself as a human by wearing a mask with a picture of a jack o'melon on it.
• The first Gakkou No Kaidan movie opens with a retelling of the Mary-san Urban Legend. Only instead of a doll, it's a floating watermelon jack o'lantern. (Get it? Mary the Melon!). And instead of her previous owner, she stalks and kills a school janitor.
• One of the playable characters in Redungeon is Creep A. Crow, a scarecrow with a watermelon as its head. Its abilities are Cobweb Immunity, which means cobwebs won't trap it, Boo!, which scares or kills mobs, and Bridger, which makes jumping over voids safe.
• There's a scarecrow UMA in Little King's Story who commands the meloncholies. The meloncholies are effectively melons with bodies and carved-out smiling faces. They are a mirror image to King Korobo's subjects much like the scarecrow is a mirror image to King Korobo himself. Which, looking at their sorrowful name yet happy appearance, gives reason for pause.
• In Linkle Liver Story, watermelon jack o'lanterns are the main enemies in Helene Ridge. They are near-immobile, but act like gun turrets filled with watermelon seeds. They jump on the spot in-between rounds.
• Shimura Ken was a comedian with a special talent for fast-eating watermelon. As such, two of his sketches involve the consequences of eating lots of watermelon and not spitting out the seeds, which according to urban legend will result in watermelon vines sprouting from your body.
  • The first horror episode of the comedy series THE DETECTIVE STORY is about Shimura eating too many slices of watermelon and being turned into a zombie-like watermelon man due to all the seeds lodged in his body. By spitting seeds onto others, he turns humans (and one dog) into watermelon-headed monsters too. They, in turn, go on to infect more people. An attempt to kill the watermelon men by blowing up the heads goes fruitless, because the pieces just reassemble. On the other hand, they loathe shrimp tempura and can't resist salt. Katō and a female doctor use salt to lure Shimura to a tempura-rich exorcism, and by returning him to normal all melon men are returned to normal.
  • In Shimura Ken no Baka-tonosama, Shimura's character eats so much watermelon that vines start growing from his behind. They overtake him and turn him into a watermelon man.
• In Chapter 23 of Gakkou Kaidan by Yōsuke Takahashi, titled "Watermelon Monster", Yamagishi wakes up buried up to his neck on the beach. He is then approached by a group of carved-out watermelon-headed figures that he desperately hopes are his friends and teacher trying to scare him. They are and they are also not, which becomes clear when they go suikawari on his head. As the watermelon monsters feast on Yamagishi's blood and brains, they become regular people eating a regular watermelon. They realize they left Yamagishi buried and run over to free him, but they only find a slightly bloody watermelon jack o'lantern with a crack on top. For a moment, the watermelon being eaten turns back into Yamagishi's head. It's left up to the reader what's going on.
• A summer event in 2017 of Avabel Online made it possible for players to acquire melon-themed articles of clothing, notably watermelon masks. The event started by purchasing a skill ring, after which players could go hunting for watermelons to smash to earn the clothing. The three sets include a regular watermelon mask and suit, a gold watermelon mask and suit, and an uncarved red box-shaped watermelon and suit.
• A summer event in 2019 of Mo Siang Online called Fruit Party caused monsters to drop green watermelon seeds and golden watermelon seeds. These could be used to spawn Small Green Water Melon monsters, Large Green Water Melon monsters, Small Golden Water Melon monsters, and Large Golden Water Melon monsters, all of which watermelon jack o'lanterns with limbs. Defeating them yielded various stat-boosting fruits.
• Puppet Theater Tomte has a bunraku play titled Suika Dorobou (Melon Thief). The head of a village that farms watermelons acquires the aid of a watermelon ghost, a Bedsheet Ghost with a carved-out watermelon head.
• In the episode "Sozin's Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King" of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sokka creates a scarecrow with a watermelon head to substitute for the Fire Lord during training. He dubs it the Melon Lord and assigns Toph as its actor. She happily takes the role.
• When meeting Jack Pumpkinhead in Return to Oz, Billina questions whether he's a man or a melon. Jack corrects her that he is a pumpkin.
• One of the playable characters since 2015 in Road to Dragons is the (Great) King Watermelon Uribou, "西瓜王ウリボウ". He is a plump, regally dressed figure with a carved-out watermelon hat. His true form is that of a giant watermelon with an X across his forehead, a scar over his left eye, and the top of the melon carved open into a crown so that the edible red underneath is visible almost like a brain. Uribou's story is that he was raised and named by a boy who passed away from illness and ever since then Uribou has lived to fullfill the boy's wish that there'd be enough watermelons for everyone. To acquire Uribou, the Watermelon Festival event has to be active, during which players have to battle regular watermelon jack o'lanterns, watermelon-themed weapons, and eventually defeat Uribou himself.
• Among the very first enemies in Community POM are both carved pumpkins and carved watermelons. Watermelons face forward and roll towards Lulu. Pumpkins, which may also be kabocha as the color scheme is both green and orange, face backwards and spawn feet to become mobile for battle. The forest's boss is a giant watermelon which is carved and animated by a giant worm. It attacks by using its vines as whips and spitting seeds.
• Melonhead of the 2019 Summer Struck Series of Monster Strike is a watermelon with a carved-out face and an invisible body except for where he's dressed. In reference to the Smashing Watermelons game, he's armed with a wooden sword and wears a bandana around his head. His evolution is Beach Guardian Melonhead and his ascension is Melonhead of the Tropics. In the later form, his head is turned into a drink.

Japanese School Ghosts

• Needs better name!

Ever since the early 90s, a big part of the Japanese horror landscape aimed at children is occupied by the school ghosts. The school ghosts are a collection of youkai established in Urban Legends that with little exception are either objects commonly found at schools or the spirits of dead students. Children are their main target and encounters may occur at school, just outside the school gates, at junctions passed on the way home, and occasionally home isn’t any safer. While the school ghosts are individual monsters from separate urban legends, they are often presented as a group similar to how the Monster Mash unites Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, and so on. This means they can be one supernatural team with shared goals but just as much it can be that the only thing connecting them is that they live in the same building.

The school ghosts may be found in any school building large enough to host the lot of them, but the Old School Building is their absolute natural habitat. Not only will that have been their original haunt in-universe, it also makes for a good excuse as to why they remain elusive even in the digital age. Most ghosts are associated with a particular area in the school, sometimes because they’re objects associated with a particular room, such as the copy of the Mona Lisa in the art room, and sometimes because their death fits a particular dwelling, such as is the case for the pool ghost even if the pool isn’t the place they drowned at. This setup, of course, fits nicely with the needs of kimodameshi.

A common formation the school ghosts show up in is as The Seven Mysteries. In this form, the school ghosts are always a team and the selection is predictable: it's going to be Hanako for the bathroom, the living anatomical model for the science room, Beethoven’s portrait for the music room, Ninomiya’s statue for the outside terrain. The remaining three are variable, but not by much. Because there are multiple bathrooms in a school building, there may be another bathroom ghost besides Hanako. While the copy of the Mona Lisa is a popular urban legend, the role of living painting is already filled by Beethoven’s portrait, and if the art room is included at all it’ll be the bust that's the local ghost. And the mirror is

Inside

• Bathroom ghosts
  • Hanako (& co)
  • Yamiko – two forms
  • Akai Kami Aoi Kami
  • Hand
• Science room ghost
  • Anatomical model, skeleton model, formalin-stored small animals
• Music room ghost
  • Beethoven's portrait (Bach)
• Art room
  • Bust
  • The Mona Lisa copy
  • Clay figures
  • Artist mannequins
• Stairs
  • Mirror
  • Fourth step (kokkuri-san)
• Hallway
  • Giant

Outside

• Pool
  • Pool ghost (ghost, monster, or monstrous ghost)
• Gym
  • Bouncing ball
• Entrance
  • Ninomiya statue
• Non-specific or outside of school
  • Teketeke, slitmouth, jinmenken, Mary-san

Balloon list

• The Comi Color Cartoons short "Balloon Land"
• The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Ghostbusters (2016)
• The third boss in Ninja Clowns is a human-looking balloon machine with balloon parts. It generates balloon dogs to sic on the player.
• Alan Keane from The Amazing World of Gumball, who dates the cactus Carmen.
• Second boss Krusty Balloon in The Simpsons, which spits exploding balloons and bombs.
• Balloons and Balloon Legions in The Rising Of The Shield Hero.
• For his second stage, Beppi the Clown returns with gas tanks and becomes a balloon. This includes his head popping off and remaining grounded to his body only by a string. He attacks not himself, but sends out balloons in the shape of dog heads that home in on Cuphead and Mugman.
• "The Hanging Balloons" and "Return of the Hanging Balloons" by Junji Ito.
• Kumachan a smiling bear wearing an orange hat, who is an unlockable character in the Sega Saturn port of Fighting Vipers and as a regular combatant in Fighters Megamix. It is a human-sized version of the giant floating balloon mascot seen in the Old Armstone Town stage. It uses Sanman's fighting style, and its 2nd player counterpart is called Pandachan, who holds a beach ball.
• Sunset Overdrive Fizzie Balloon?
• The Crook from The City level of Pid
• Harmful Park first boss

Junk

The term "construct" or "simulacrum" covers any and all creatures that come into existence through means other than biological reproduction. Examples include Living Statues, Homunculi, and Robots. The definition of "biological reproduction" is subject to context in stories with fantasy species, but generally applies to whatever the reproductive method of the species is as long as this method isn’t derived from a constructive method. For instance, in a scenario where there just are robots and they reproduce by building more robots, it may count as biological reproduction. In a scenario where robots have replaced their creators and build more robots by the same method their creators once used to create them, it’s a constructive reproduction.

Examples of constructs can be found in the mythology and folklore of all cultures. Popular is the story of how the gods or singular god created humans, but there's no dearth of stories about humans creating their own constructs, usually a humanoid to act as a servant, partner, or child. The idea to categorize them together, however, is new, and may have its roots in 19th Century Romanticism while the category took properly hold at the end of the 20th Century. In turn, this new way of thinking has given rise to new constructs. (new items – bop bag? Old items – dogu?)

Note that few of the pages below intrinsically are about constructs. The same creatures may also be featured in a story as a fantasy species, a Baleful Polymorph, a haunted object, a Soul Jar, or something that’s just never explained.

https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/488163989636104012.html

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/73543/man-toad-rabbit-9-cultural-explanations-what-people-see-moon

https://mitosmonstruosyleyendas.blogspot.com/2014/07/el-duende-de-hopkinsville.html

http://darts-x.sakura.ne.jp/m/?p=1913 https://hogetofficial141210.blogspot.com/2019/ http://happism.cyzowoman.com/2013/01/post_1778.html

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Example notes for stuff I don't want to type up right now.

Scarecrow example notes

• https://americanliterature.com/author/mary-e-wilkins-freeman/short-story/jimmy-scarecrows-christmas - Jimmy Scarecrow's Christmas by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9028938-the-scarecrow-other-stories – The Scarecrow of Hodmadod
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5137175-don-t-be-scared-scarecrow
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18002012-worzel-gummidge-and-the-railway-scarecrows
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3545738-the-scarecrows-and-their-child
• https://archive.org/details/scarecrowandoth01firgoog/page/n36/mode/2up?q=scarecrow scarecrow Gwendolyn wormser
• https://archive.org/details/KlokkenLuidenDeC.L.Sleich/page/n5/mode/2up
• https://archive.org/details/nederlandseballa01zijd/page/14/mode/2up?q=sprookje
• The Wizard of Oz SNES
• Feathertop Fables
• Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz

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Critiques of existing tropes

Unclear tropes are a grave annoyance. The forums are a death wish. So, I'm using this space to vent. Feel free to bring any of this up over there, because I won't.

Open

• Brown Note Being: The first sentence states that to qualify a being must have no (or at least reduced control) over their brown note. Yet the description down below already mentions Enthralling Sirens. While the sirens' song may be inherently a brown note, the act of singing is voluntarily and ostensibly not difficult not to do. A character like Marvel's Black Bolt whose every uttering is destructive, that makes sense for a Brown Note Being, but not the sirens or banshees and anything like them.
• He Who Must Not Be Heard and every single "subtrope", if that's what they are: Zero communication between the tropes on when which one applies, making it unnecessarily difficult to figure out which to add to work pages.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: This may have started as being about good & evil, but right now it's about much more, like power levels and elemental affinity. "Telling Wings" would be my vote for a new name.
• Jeweler's Eye Loupe: As an amateur jewelry collector, this trope annoy me a lot. Several examples mention their use of the eye loups is anachronistic, yet the description lacks a timeline to contextualize that claim. Why is is called a jewelers eye loupe when half the paragraphs associate it with other jobs and situations? Why is there nothing about what a eye loupe actually does and how you can't use it in real life to call fake on a gem, as per the image, unless it's a very bad fake? Or how about the real-life situations where bringing along an eye loupe shows you actually have limited knowledge of what you're appraising? The last paragraph also strikes me as a different trope, because that size joke is also common with magnifiers.
• Martians / OctopoidAliens: There are no instructions how to deal with kaseijin. Like, kaseijin are a type of monster and don't necessarily have to be from Mars or, for that matter, an alien to be kaseijin. Kind of how a wrapped-up mummy is a generic rpg enemy and not necessarily Egyptian. What do I do with a kaseijin that contextually isn't an alien?^note GOD mezameyo to yobu koe ga kikoe, Bonk's revenge - tentacle aliens
• Mr. Vice Guy: This is definitely a trope, but as is it lacks a lower limit and it shows in the examples. Some of them are nothing more than "this character has a negative trait". The Disney Afternoon examples are a good look into that; Scrooge & Darkwing? Sure. Baloo, Rebecca, and the child characters? No.
• Training Dummy: Poor name that leads to problems. The trope is described can overlap with an actual training dummy, but quite a few examples are just about the object and not the trope (I imagine some of the examples would be better off as "showing the character is training" trope, comparable to a training montage). The real-life section is weird as heck.
• Training Boss: "Area or location where" – then why is it called "training boss" instead of something like "training grounds" (and is there a difference between "area" and "location" to begin with?) Poor description and examples aside, I don't think this is necessarily a different trope to Training Dummy anymore than, say, Flowers of Romance needs to be split in four.
• Voodoo Doll: "If you see someone pounding nails to a straw doll in anime or manga, in most cases it's not Hollywood Voodoo but a Japanese curse ritual called ushi no toki mairi." – Okay, so, is the page only for voodoo dolls or does it include these kind of curse dolls too? (And in the latter case, Curse Doll would be the more sensitive and sensible name.)
• We Can Rebuild Him & Came Back Stronger: These two tropes are described as each other's technological and magical counterparts, but that's not true. The first is about reassemblage through technology (which may make one stronger), while the second is about resurrection that makes you stronger (which may happen through magic). And it's not like there isn't a long tradition of magical reassemblage (such as Osiris's resurrection, or Pelops's) to be a true counterpart to We Can Rebuild Him.

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• Classical Mythology has the Eurynomos, which had bluish-black skin, wore clothing made of vulture feathers, and feasted on the flesh from corpses, stripping them down to the bone. They were said to live/come from the underworld, making them something of the Demonic Ghoul type.
• The Trials of Apollo: Eurynomoi are humanoid monsters with bluish-black skin, milky-white eyes, sharp teeth, claws, and wear loincloths made from vulture feathers. Extremely ravenous, they eat corpses and every corpse they strip down to the bones rises again as an elite skeleton warrior. The claws of an eurynomoi are particularly dangerous because a single scratch can infect victims with a withering disease that, if it kills them, will raise them up as a vrykolakas. The big bad of book 4 used dozens of eurynomoi as sheep dogs to heard his army of the dead.