Kraken and Leviathan: Difference between revisions

[[File:cawh oc vs 7782.jpg|link=Magi Nation|frame|For scale, that turtle is carrying a '''city''' on its back.]]

 

 

These are the big ones. These are the sea monsters whose size not only matches ships but dwarfs them. When these are introduced, all you'll see is an overhead shot of a small boat on top of a much larger shadow in the water and "small boat" ranges from fishing ship to aircraft carrier. These beasts aren't just big, they're [[Title Drop|leviathan]].

 

If you were looking for the book by [[China Mieville]], see ''[[Kraken (novel)|Kraken]]''.

 

** {{spoiler|[[Oh Crap|He did.]]}}

 

 

* In ''[[Star Wars]] Episode One'', the Naboo ocean seems to be filled with monsters each getting bigger and bigger as you go deeper and considering the fact that the planet is meant to be hollow and full of ocean that gets you some pretty big fish. Also the oceans of Kamino. Ah hell, any planet with an ocean in the Galaxy Far Far Away is bound to have sea monsters in it.

* The creature from ''[[Cloverfield]]'', possibly.

*** Though said creator seems to have taken on the anger of the co-Gods by saying as such, since the others went with the alien explanation, or at the very least wanted viewers to make up their own truths.

* The Kraken from the ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' series gets bonus obfuscation points for being called "Davy Jones' Leviathan" once. Maybe they just meant leviathan as in "really big thing".

* Most people know of the Kraken thanks to ''[[Clash of the Titans]]''. Never mind [[Sadly Mythtaken|what a Scandinavian creature was doing in Ancient Greece.]]

** Not to mention that it is... you know... nothing resembling a squid that pretends to be an island. According to the director's commentary, they didn't even know about the Kraken's mythological origins and attributed its creation to the poem by Tennyson that [[Small Reference Pools|most people these days have never heard of]].

*** Not to mention, just because the Kraken is from Scandinavia doesn't mean it has to stay there. It could just swim wherever the hell it wants!

** The thing from Clash was supposed to be Cetus/Ketos, the sea monster that Princess Andromeda was supposed to be sacrificed to, but they changed its name for no clear reason.

* Ursula's [[One-Winged Angel]] form in ''[[The Little Mermaid]]''.

 

* The "Leviathan" mentioned above is described in the Book of Job (Ch. 41, all of it), in the Old Testament of [[The Bible]], and referenced elsewhere. Unlike most sea creatures, the Leviathan has an affinity for fire or something reasonably similar. Job 41:8 ("Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.") seems to indicate a reasonably high encounter survival rate, considering that this creature is essentially a seagoing dragon.

** Leviathan represents the sin of Envy. "Envy lurks in the hearts of men, as Leviathan lurks beneath calm waters."

* Drowned Wednesday from the [[Keys to the Kingdom]] series was cursed to turn into a massive, omniphagic whale.

* Father from ''[[Animorphs|The Ellimist Chronicles]]'', a sponge-like creature big enough to cover an entire planet.

* Shimmer, the dragon protagonist from Laurence Yep's ''[[Dragon Series]]'' gets into a fight with a raiding party of krakens.

* In ''[[Narnia|The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]'', the eponymous ship is attacked by a large sea serpent, which almost manages to crush it in its coils.

* In ''[[Tortall Universe|Wild Mage]]'', during the attack on Pirate's Swoop, Daine tries to convince a pod of whales to attack the Carthaki backed pirate fleet. [[Actual Pacifist|When they refuse and leave]], Daine sends her awareness far out after them, and wakes the Kraken. [[Affably Evil|He's more than happy]] to destroy any fleet she wants. She knows full well it's [[Deal with the Devil|a deal with a demon]], but she's desperate and agrees to his offer. He's described as an octopus with too many arms that are a mile long each, with a body that's a mile and a half. He's also fast: Daine found him out past the Copper Isles, a four day sail. He made it to Pirate's Swoop in the space of a morning.

 

* If we go with the view that [[Space Is an Ocean]], Moya's species of giant living ships called "Leviathans" count as examples of this trope.

 

 

* Jormungandr the World Serpent of Norse myth is also under the sea, long enough to wrap around the world, some legends say ''twice''.

** There's also Scylla (or is it Charybdis?),from ''[[Odyssey|The Odyssey]]''.

*** Scylla was a six headed, snake necked creature that sat atop a cliff and snatched sailors from passing ships. The reason they didn't just sail around was because of the creature opposite the cliff, Charbydis. Basically she was a giant mouth under water. Every time she opened her mouth, a whirlpool formed to suck everything down. The original rock and hard place.

* Apep might also count. He was a colossal serpent that stalked the ancient Egyptian underworld, hoping to devour the sun god. According to [[The Other Wiki]] one of his nicknames was "World Encircler", making him similar to Jormungandr above.

 

* In ''[[Rifts]]'', the biggest [[Sea Monster]] is the Lord of the Deep, also referred to as ''both'' Kraken and Leviathan, a massive [[Cosmic Horror]] resting at the bottom of the Marianas Trench with tentacles that can reach for thousands of miles.

** The splatbook ''Elder Evils'' has the Leviathan, an immense world-spanning sea monster made out of pure chaos which was a side-effect of the creation of the world. It sleeps at the bottom of the ocean and will eventually fade away into nothingness, provided nobody wakes it up. Unfortunately, since this is [[Apocalypse How|Elder Evils]] we're talking about...

** Kraken and another Leviathan also appear in the various ''Monster Manuals'', the former being a particularly [[Giant Squid]] with magical powers, the latter being a really, ''really'' big whale. Supposedly.

** While it never appeared in the original novels, the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' modules based on the Chronicles trilogy give us the King of the Deep. The King of the Deep is a nightmarish sea monster with the body of a huge fish covered in silver hairs, the head of a giant squid, and a pair of long, deadly lobster claws, created when ten (or twelve in the updated 3rd Edition version) of the corrupted priests of Istar offered themselves to the [[Big Bad|Queen of Darkness]], who turned them into this monster.

** The Space Wolf homeworld has a ''massive'' kraken (said to be a [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Tyranid]] offshoot) and sea serpents straight out of Norse myth, appropriate given the Space Wolves' Viking theme.

** A sea monster is said to live on the planet Armageddon, where it attacked Ork ships. Given the nature of the setting, it's a safe bet that most world with any oceans have at least one.

** It also has a kraken, although said kraken is made of magma.

 

* In [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', Oberon sends Puck off with orders to complete "before the Leviathan can swim a league".

 

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' features Lusca, one of the biggest [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|Giant Monster]] class enemies in the form of a colossal octopus that menaces Independence Port, and takes over a dozen players to systematically defeat. Oddly, the Kraken in that game is less aquatic, but [[That's No Moon|you don't want to know about the Leviathan]]...

** The thing called Kraken is a giant alien from another dimension. During a mission in [[Ancient Rome|Cimerora]] you must fight off tentacles of the actual Kraken.

* ''[[Resistance]] 2'' features the Kraken. It's actually kind of puny compared to some of these, but it's enormous and tentacley. It also features a creature called a Leviathan, but that one's more [[Kaiju]] than [[Giant Swimmer]], despite living in the mostly-flooded Chicago.

* [[Final Fantasy X|Sin]] is an unusual example in that it shows it can fly toward the middle of the game, but otherwise fits this trope. It appears in [[Ansem Retort]] as "World-killing God-whale," and it's [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

* The second ''[[Endless Ocean]]'' game has both of these. There, the Leviathan is a large albino sperm whale with a back story lifted from ''[[Moby Dick]]''. The Kraken appears in the form of Kraken Jr., a young giant squid.

* In ''[[Kid Icarus]]: Uprising'', you fight a [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere|Giant Space Kraken]] at the end of Chapter 8.

 

* ''[[Wapsi Square]]'' features a creature bearing some resemblance to the kraken. It is ancient and large enough to [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/little-too-long/ drop a U-boat on a beach.] At one point in the past, Bud made a [[Cool Pet|pet]] out of it and named it Stinky.

* In ''[[Scary Go Round]]'', the Kraken is caught by Ernest Cromerty, Gibbous Moon and Desmond [[Fish People|Fishman]] (who [[Red Herring|was previously suspected by some readers to be himself the Kraken]], because he was designated with this term in a prophecy).

 

* [[SCP Foundation|SCP-]][http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-169 169]. It's probably bigger than Europe.

** The [[SCP Foundation]] has plans of varying effectiveness to contain and/or prevent everything from multiple zombie apocalypses to holes in reality that periodically spew monsters. Their plan for this? When you cut through the formal scientific sounding terminology, it amounts to "Hope to hell it doesn't wake up, and if it does, hope it's friendly. The thing is just too damn big to do anything about."

* Three members of [[The League of STEAM]] recount their encounters with a Kraken in "[[Tall Tails]]."

 

* In an episode of ''[[Martin Mystery]]'', a Leviathan was guarding a treasure and attacked anyone who tried to steal it.

* On ''[[Catscratch]]'', Gordon goes hunting for the Kraken, who will supposedly grant a wish to whomever would defeat it in battle. In a later episode, the Kraken is revealed to be from another dimension.

* [[Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas]] features a leviathan which the crew mistake for an island, complete with vegetation. {{spoiler|It isn't actually aggressive, and is actually quite useful, as they can use it to tow the ship where they need to go.}} This leviathan gets points for being one of the comparatively few depictions that actually ''is'' big enough to be reasonably mistaken for an island.

 

* [[Steampunk]]s often talk about how their [[Cool Airship|airships]] are in danger of attack by Air Kraken.

 

* Whales, [[Captain Obvious|obviously]].

** There's a fossil whale species named ''[[wikipedia:Livyatan melvillei|Livyatan melvillei]]'' (from the Hebrew spelling of "Leviathan" and the author of ''Moby Dick''). And it is pretty [http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/6/30/1277901299026/Artists-impression-of-gia-002.jpg scary-looking].

* For a while researchers theorized that the stories of the Kraken were exaggerations of [[wikipedia:Giant squid|Giant Squid]] sightings, but more recent discoveries might prove that the tales [[Truth in Television|were not so exaggerated]]; specimens as large as eight meters (26 feet) have been caught, and it's theorized they can grow to 10 to 13 meters in total. They've also been shown to display aggressive hunting behaviors, in contrast to the hypothesis that they are slothful drifters.

** Then there's the [http://squid.tepapa.govt.nz/ Colossal Squid]. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Colossal_squid_caught_in_February_2007.jpg A live specimen was caught in 2007], and initial estimates put its total length at 10 meters (33 feet) long before the tentacles shrank post-mortem. It's theorized that there may be even larger examples of the species in the wild, as the beak of the live specimen was smaller than what they'd found in the stomachs of sperm whales.

* There have always been unpleasantly large cephalopods throughout the history of the world:

** One was ''Cameroceras'', an Ordovician (about 440 million years ago) genus of primitive shelled cephalopods which had long, conical shells ranging from 3 to 11 feet in length.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Sea Monster]]

[[Category:Bigger Is Better]]

[[Category:Steampunk Index]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]