Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
- Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
There is a common theme in a lot of stories where evil is "sterile," incapable of creating, only able to corrupt and destroy. This trope is especially common in fantasy media, probably partially because of Tolkien. But the idea that evil cannot create, only corrupt is much older and goes back to early Christian writers.
Part of the reason why I want to discuss this trope is because in many fantasy/sci-fi stories, I have noticed that many of the monsters I enjoy are ones that are use this trope a lot. First, we will discuss examples of monsters in popular media that embody this trope.
Illithids from Dungeons and Dragons
Now, there are many, many monsters in D&D that embody this trope. The Sibriex and abyssal ichor can chaotically warp the flesh of those exposed to its corrupting magic. Aboleths can mutate those that touch their mucus into aquatic slaves. Fomorians are malformed giants that were cursed by fey for their hubris. Nothics are corrupted sages and mages that can rot the flesh of those their evil eye gazes upon. Nearly every undead is a corruption of a living creature, especially vampires. In Eberron, there is Dyrrn the Corruptor, an alien dealkyr lord that specialized precisely in corrupting living creatures and twisting them to serve his own purposes. In Dark Sun, the Sorcerer-Kings used defiling magic to gain immense power while simultaneously corrupting themselves and the world. We could spend hours discussing examples from D&D alone. But the main example I want to discuss, which is the creature that got me thinking about this trope, are Dungeons and Dragon's Illithids.
The Mind Flayers are one of the oldest and most iconic monsters from D&D history, created by Gary Gygax in 1975. These psychic, brain-eating humanoid cephalopods FROM SPAAACE are perhaps D&D's best example of this trope. While Mind Flayers do reproduce, they do it in a strange and horrifying manner. Mind Flayers lay eggs, which then hatch into tadpoles, which are then inserted into the head of a living - typically humanoid - creature. This tadpole then devours the brain and begins ceremorphosis, a week-long transformation into a mind flayer. This involves the reorganization of internal organs, shedding of the skin, and sprouting of tentacles. The only way Mind Flayers reproduce is through corrupting a living body and turning it into a new Mind Flayer.
But the key detail that makes Mind Flayers unique is how ceremorphosis can have different effects depending on which creature the tadpole corrupts. There are variant types of Illithids based on which species the tadpole infects. Here are some examples:
- Gnome Ceremorphs - Miniature Mind Flayers that keep the inventive minds of their Gnomish bodies, and can be any alignment.
- Mindwitnesses - Corrupted Beholders, with both tentacles and eye-stalks, which extends the hive-mind.
- Tzakandi - Tentacled lizardfolk that spit acid
- Urophions - Brain-eating ropers
- Brainstealer Dragons - Squid-faced dragons with a Mind Blast in place of the normal breath weapon
And for a last point on the Illithids, we need to discuss their hive minds. Almost every Mind Flayer colony is controlled by an Elder Brain, an extremely powerful Illithid brain which resides in a brine pool at the center of the colony. While Mind Flayers can mentally dominate the minds of lesser creatures, Elder Brains can dominate the minds of other Mind Flayers. This brain's extreme psionic power allows it to control all Illithids within 5 miles of it. In a sense, the Elder Brain is the colony incarnate, and to destroy the colony the brain must be killed. While this may not seem immediately relevant to discussing the trope, a strange amount of Corrupting Monsters involve some sort of hivemind.
Reapers from Mass Effect
Disclaimer: This section will contain spoilers for the first three games. I will not hide them using the spoiler function, as that would be nearly all of this section. Skip this part if you wish to avoid spoilers for the series.
In Bioware's sci-fi space opera video game series of Mass Effect, this theme is incredibly important to the plot of the first three games. In the first mission of the first game, you encounter husks; cyborg zombies that are created from the corpses of killed humans. This is the introduction of the theme of artificial corruption which becomes a central aspect of the series, although the importance of this theme is not made clear until the end of the second game. As you progress the plot, you will learn that the main villains of the series are the Reapers, giant black spaceships created through the "harvesting" of a sentient species. Once the entire species is harvested, they are dissolved into genetic paste mixed with nanomachines, which is then used to construct a single Reaper. There are thousands of Reapers, and they've been harvesting the sentient species of the galaxy for about a billion years. The games present this hybridization of life and technology as an answer to the existential risk of AI. The games set up a dichotomy between living organisms and sentient machines, stating that living organisms will always create sentient machines that will ultimately destroy them. The Reapers believe that they prevent the destruction of all life by synthesizing the organic with the artificial. As we'll see in later examples, the synthesis of the technological and organic is a common theme for monsters that embody this trope.
Similar to the Illithids, Reapers can corrupt humanoid species, creating different cybernetic horrors based on which creature is corrupted. Throughout the series you meet a variety of sentient alien races. In the third game, you fight corrupted versions of these aliens, each variant of corrupted alien having an appearance and abilities based on the species they were created from. Here are the main examples:
- Husks - Created from humans
- Banshees - Created from Asari
- Ravagers - Created from Rachni
- Marauders - Created from Turians
- Cannibals - Created from humans and Batarians
- Brutes - Created from Turians and Krogans
As you can see, while the specifics of how Mind Flayers and Husks are created are very different, there is a lot in common. Both monsters corrupt sentient species with a corrupting transformation, which results in different monsters depending on which species is transformed. Additionally, they both have some type of hivemind and a psychic emanation that can brainwash people. Both serve as amazing villains, merging cosmic horror with body horror to become iconic antagonists.
Darkspawn from Dragon Age
In Bioware's Dragon Age fantasy adventure series of video games, the main antagonists of the first game are the Darkspawn, demonic humanoids corrupted by "the taint." The taint is a magical curse, which corrupts both body and spirit, which is normally spread through contact with Darkspawn blood and other fluids (although it can be spread other ways). The taint is a psychic rhythm which connects all Darkspawn, allowing them to sense each other and communicate like a hive-mind. The taint is spread through contact with Darkspawn fluids (usually blood), and is nearly always fatal, but if you survive you become a Ghoul. Female ghouls can then be turned into [NSFW link] Broodmothers, which give birth to different types of darkspawn based on which species the ghoul was:
- Human Broodmothers give birth to Hurlocks
- Dwarf Broodmothers give birth to Genlocks
- Elf Broodmothers give birth to Shrieks
- Qunari Broodmothers give birth to Ogres
Phyrexians from Magic: The Gathering
I highly recommend you watch Phyrexia is Hell if you have time, as it explains Phyrexians and their history in M:tG far better than I ever could. But to summarize; Phyrexians are cyborgs created through corrupting living creatures with glistening oil infections and cybernetic implantations. And, you guessed it, they have a hive-mind. In my opinion, Phyrexians are probably the best implementation of this trope. They only corrupt, twisting all living creatures into cyborg horrors that wish only to assimilate the rest of the universe. The body horror theme that is present in all previous examples is turned up to 11. Similar to how the Darkspawn taint can be spread through ingesting a single drop of blood, a single drop of Phyrexian oil is enough to allow Phyrexia to corrupt a creature or even an entire world. And unlike the Illithids and Reapers, their hivemind includes all Phyrexians.
And of all these examples, Phyrexians have the most diversity in their appearance. Phyrexian oil can corrupt nearly any living creature, leading to an incredible variety of Phyrexian monsters. I couldn't list all or even most of the corrupted variants of M:tG creatures if I tried. But there's everything from corrupted angels to demons to gorgons to dinosaurs. The Shadow can corrupt everything, until all is one and one is all.
Conclusion
When I first played Mass Effect, I noticed the similar themes that Reapers had with Illithids, and it got me thinking about other monsters in sci-fi/fantasy media that shared those elements. Corruption instead of true creation, conformity and assimilation instead of individuality, cosmic and body horror all merged into one. The sci-fi examples (Reapers, Cybermen) often have an undercurrent of "this is what happens when you play God and recklessly create revolutionary technology." There are a lot of monsters that fit into this trope, these are just the main ones that came to mind and I wanted to discuss. Other examples to note are The Borg from Star Trek, Cybermen from Doctor Who, the Infected from the Last of Us (and a lot of other zombies from media), and the FEV and the Master from Fallout.So, any thoughts? If you think of any other examples of monsters that fit into this trope, please share them and explain. What's your favorite example? Why do you think this is so common and effective?
