Cyclopean Creature

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A Cyclopean Creature -- or informally just a "cyclops" -- is a character or creature that naturally only has one eye, and typically only one orbit for that eye. The term is derived from the Cyclopes of Classical Mythology: here, "cyclops" more accurately translates to "circle-eye" or "wheel-eye", referring to the eye's size rather than its number - the Cyclopes themselves were giants as well.

As a design trope, monocular vision is very occasionally symbolic of a narrow vision and lack of (figurative) perception, and some humanoid villains will have one functional eye as an indication of their myopic worldview -- this manifests either as this trope or as an Eyepatch of Power. Characters with a single eye might also sport Peek-a-Bangs or some other ocular obtrusion. If the eye takes up the entire head, then it's also a Faceless Eye. The Cyber Cyclops is a typically-robotic subtrope.

Compare to the other deviations from normal eye structure:

  • Eyeless Face, where the eyes are missing from a being's features.
  • Extra Eyes, which describes characters with more than two.
    • Third Eye, a common motif and design trope that often places an additional eye in the middle of the forehead.
  • Oculothorax, where a creature's body is almost entirely taken up by a giant eyeball, and may or may not have other eyes besides.

For other uses of the term, see the disambiguation page.

Examples of Cyclopean Creature include:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • X-Men member Scott Summers AKA Cyclops averts this - he has two eyes, but also has a mutant power that causes them to constantly emit a powerful energy, requiring him to wear the distinct visor that he's named for. In the Age of Apocalypse timeline, he really did only have one eye, since Wolverine gouged out the other one.
  • A pair of cyclopean-looking young adults appear as minor characters in Preacher. They're from an isolated family living in the swamps of Louisiana, and were born from generations of in-breeding.

Film

  • Mike from Monsters, Inc. is a cyclopean Cephalothorax, and his girlfriend Celia is also one-eyed. The logo of the titular company also features a single eye.
  • The Cyclops in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which looks like a giant one-eyed satyr with a horn on its head; it is defeated when Sinbad blinds it by shoves a fiery torch into its eyeball, then leads it off a nearby cliff. A second, two-horned one also appears, and follows Sinbad and the princess into a cave; Sinbad baits a dragon into fighting the Cyclops, and the two successfully make their escape while the dragon kills it.
  • The Golden Voyage of Sinbad had a one-eyed centaur.
  • In the 2007 TMNT film, a one-eyed centaur is one of 13 immortal monsters released from a portal 3,000 years ago.
  • The Cyclopes in The City of Lost Children are a group of religious zealots who are all blind, and see through the aid of Borg-like eyepieces called "Optacons" that they emphatically only wear over their left eye. Their temple is designed after the forges of the Cyclopes in Callimachus' hymns, and features huge open furnaces and mountains of coal.
  • Krull has Rell, a cyclops that aids the protagonist Colwyn and his army.
  • B.O.B. in Monsters vs. Aliens is a one-eyed Blob Monster.
  • Many of the Minions in Despicable Me have only one eye.
  • Disney's Hercules:
    • A giant fat Cyclops appears as one of the Titans, which Hades sent after Hercules while the rest of the Titans attacked the gods of Olympus; Villainous confirms his name to be Arges.
    • The three Fates share one eye between themselves as in the original tales, and one of them has a single orbit in her head.
  • Agent Wendy Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch is a Plorgonarian, a race of tripedal one-eyed aliens.
  • Bert I. Gordon films:
  • In the Peter Jackson adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron is represented as an enormous fiery eyeball. The Great Eye is also his symbol in the book, though he's implied to still have a physical body that presumably has two eyes.
  • Shrek:
  • In Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, two Cyclopes are among the monsters that pursued Thalia Grace and her friends on their way to Camp Half-Blood seven years prior - one of them ends up nearly killing Thalia after she wounds the other in the leg. Another Cyclops, a young and friendly one named Tyson, is a son of Poseidon that attends the camp. Polyphemus also appears as the guardian of the Golden Fleece.
  • In Cyclops Island, the ten-minute sequel to Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (also known as Sinbad and the Cyclops Island), Sinbad and his crew decide to spend their vacation on the tropical island of Krakatoa and end up fighting a tripe of Cyclopes.

Live-Action TV

  • In Classic Doctor Who the ambassador from Alpha Centauri in the "Peladon" stories is from a Cyclopean species.

Music

  • Long time fans of Dr. Demento will remember the song "Cyclops" by David Little, which received some airplay on his show in the 1980s.

Newspaper Comics

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • The Trope Namers are the Cyclopes of Classical Mythology, of which there were two types:
    • One was a group of people-eating giants - the most famous of them is Polyphemous from The Odyssey.
    • The other was a group of giants that worked in Hephaestus' forges, and were responsible for creating Zeus's thunderbolts among other things; these Cyclopes feature somewhat prominently in the first three Hymns of Callimachus.
  • Sinbad the Sailor encounters a man-eating giant during his third voyage, which Sir Richard Burton translates as a Cyclops (believing it to be Polyphemus specifically).
  • Japanese folklore is full of one-eyed creatures, including the Hitotsume Nyuudo (one eyed monk), the Aobozu (Blue Monk) and the Ippondatara (a giant with one eye and one leg).

Tabletop Games

  • The Cyclopean Ghoul in the Earthdawn supplement Scourge Unending.
  • Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) supplement Pursuit to Kadath, adventure "The All Seeing Eye of the Alskali". The title Alskali monsters, whose single eye can hypnotise their victims.
  • Dungeons & Dragons has had a variety of cyclopes:
    • The 1st Edition Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia has a Greek-style Cyclops, while Monster Manual 2 from that same edition also features Cyclopskin.
    • Zigzagged with the beholder, who has one big eye on its face but ten smaller eyes on eyestalks.
  • In Changeling: The Lost one of the Ogre kiths is the Cyclopean. They almost always have a missing eye and their mien makes it look like one central eye. They do come in other varieties though.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Thousand Sons, is also known as "the Red Cyclops" - his defining features are coppery red skin, being a giant and having just one eye. Magnus lost his right eye in a bargain to save his Legion from mutation, with a being whom he would later discover to be Tzeentch; the mutations did go into remission, albeit temporarily. After the Burning of Prospero, Magnus gave in to Chaos, becoming a Demon Prince of Tzeentch.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! card game has many an instance:
    • "Hitotsu-Me Giant" (or simply "Cyclops" in the OCG) is an EARTH Beast-Warrior and one of the earliest examples. A very similar-looking monster named "Cybernetic Cyclopean" is a Cyber Cyclops and possibly a counterpart, as they share a Type and Attribute.
    • "Opticlops" (OCG "Red Cyclops") is a DARK Fiend-type example.
    • "Cameraclops" is a LIGHT Warrior-type with a camera for a head, with the camera lens acting as its "eye".
    • "Sengenjin" is another EARTH Beast-Warrior type, and in some video games appears as a Ritual Monster that explicitly uses "Hitotsu-Me Giant" as a base.
    • "Serpent Marauder" and "Flame Viper" are cyclopean snakes (and no, not that kind).
    • "Diceclops" is a FIRE Machine-type that uses the "one" side of its die-like head as its face.
    • "Granel" is one of the three Meklord Emperors and has a single red eye.

Theatre

  • Cyclops by Euripides tells the story of the aforementioned Polyphemus from The Odyssey.

Video Games

  • Ogre magi in the Warcraft universe have two heads, one with two eyes and another with one eye. Cyclopean ogres of the single-headed variety also exist in the Warcraft Expanded Universe. The latter category rarely appear in World of Warcraft (although ogre magi are common enough), but WoW did introduce the gronn, their kin who bear a resemblance to the Harryhausen cyclopes from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
  • Various God of War games based on Greek Mythology have these as recurring enemies in a few varieties. A common method of finishing them off is to rip their eyes out.
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon Red and Blue introduces the Electric/Steel Magnemite, a small vaguely robotic Pokémon with a single eye - it evolves into Magneton, which appears as a fusion of three Magnemites.
    • Pokémon Gold and Silver introduces the Unown, glyph-like Psychic Pokémon whose eye takes up most of their bodies.
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire add some examples:
      • Duskull is a Ghost Pokémon with a single red eye behind a skull mask-like face. It evolves into Dusclops, which appears as a mummy-like ghost with a more "traditional" cyclopean eye.
      • Beldum is a Steel/Psychic Pokémon that resembles a floating arm, and has a single eye positioned in the "joint".
    • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl introduces Dusknoir, an evolution of Dusclops that appears more djinn-like but retains the single eye.
    • Pokémon X and Y add some more examples:
      • Honedge is a Steel/Ghost Pokémon that appears as an animate sword with a gem in the hilt that appears to be its "eye". Its evolution Doublade subverts this, as its body is composed of two swords (with one 'eye' gem for each sword); the final evolution Aegislash plays it straight, with more of an actual 'eye' situated where the blade and hilt of its body meet.
      • Trevenant is a Ghost/Grass Pokémon resembling an animate tree with a single red eye.
    • The cells and Cores of Zygarde (a Pokémon introduced in X/Y) are ambiguous examples - each have a single visible eye next to a white oval that could possibly be another eye.
    • Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! add Meltan and Melmetal, amorphous Steel Pokémon that have a single sphere for an eye - said sphere usually rests within their heads, which resemble gold hexagonal nuts.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield adds a few more still:
      • The Pokédex entry for the Gigantamax form of Melmetal describes it as a cyclopean giant that inspired a legend in a distant land.
      • Rolycoly is a Rock Pokémon that appears as a chunk of coal with a single red eye.
      • Runerigus is a Ground/Ghost Pokémon formed from a cursed painting absorbing a Galarian Yamask, and its ghostly form only has a single eye visible within the slabs composing its body.
  • Doom:
    • The original introduces the cacodemon, spherical flying horned monsters with a single eye and a toothy maw. Cacodemons attack by spitting a ball of lightning, and can bite you at close range, though knockback from damage typically prevents the latter. Cacodemons are something of a Mascot Mook among the games' community.
    • Doom II introduces the pain elemental, a cacodemon-like monster with a pair of cyberdemon-like horns and stubby arms. Pain elementals shoot lost souls at you, and when killed collapse in on themselves and explode, spawning three lost souls - this is notable in that it cannot respawn on Nightmare! difficulty (the hardest) like most monsters. It can be revived if it is crushed while dying, leaving a small pool of gibs; these gibs can be resurrected by an arch-vile, creating a ghost monster, and is an incredibly rare event to witness.
  • Massmouth, from the Doom Game Mod series The Adventures of MassMouth. (He was originally a Quake II skin.) He also appears as a bot in Skulltag, a source port focused on multiplayer, where one of his lines is a complaint about his lack of peripheral vision.
  • Many enemies in The Legend of Zelda franchise sport a single eye, often as their weak point, and many of them are recurring enemies as well.
    • The first game introduced its share of examples to start:
      • The Tektite is a one-eyed Giant Spider which often hops around the map; Gohma is a Giant Spider boss that can usually only be damaged by attacking its eye.
      • Armos are animated statues that debut with the one-eyed design the use in many of the later games.
      • Ghinis are one-eyed ghosts found solely around graveyards, and touching the graves will cause more invincible Ghini to spawn.
      • Digdogger is a giant urchin-like monster with a single eye; the Japanese manual instead calls it a giant Unira. Playing the recorder while in the same room as it will cause it to shrink into a smaller form, which can be damaged with other weapons. One is fought as the boss of Level 5, and a second appears in Level 7 that instead splits into 3 of its miniature self.
      • Patras are a horde of flying winged eyeballs that appear as bosses, and only appear in Level 9 within the first quest.
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has the ghostly Moas, Fiery Moas and the eyeball-like Girubokku.
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past sees the return of Tektites, while Armos use a different design that averts this trope. Examples that debut in this game:
      • The incredibly-durable Eyegores are statue-like cyclopean beasts. The green Eyegores are tough to damage, but are weak to arrows; red Eyegores are immune to every other weapon save for arrows.
      • The Beamos are invincible statues that shoot lasers at you if their single rotating eye spots you.
      • Hinox appear as monsters that roam the Dark World and lob bombs in Link's direction; they take several hits with the sword to defeat, but can be easily felled with one of Link's own bombs.
      • Ku are Dark World counterparts to Zoras that behave the same, surfacing from the water to shoot fireballs at Link.
      • Arrghus is a large jellyfish monster with a single eye that acts as the boss of Swamp Palace, and must have the polyps on his body (called Arrghi) pulled off with the Hookshot before he can be attacked directly.
      • Eyeball Bats are Dark World counterparts of Keese that appear in Thieves Town and Ganon's Tower, and are essentially winged eyeballs.
      • Kholdstare, the boss of Ice Palace, appears as a giant cloudy eye encased in ice; once its icy shell is broken with the Fire Rod or Bombos Medallion, it splits into three and floats around the boss chamber.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
      • Twilit Parasite Diababa is the three-headed boss of the Forest Temple, and has an eye hidden inside the large main head that only appears during the second phase.
      • Averted with Armogohma, who has lesser eyes in the same place a normal spider would - the large eyeball you normally target is on its back instead. When seemingly defeated, it's revealed that the eyeball itself is the abdomen of a smaller spider.
  • The Cyclops in Castle Crashers, whom you must defeat to rescue the Green Princess. He is revived by The Necromancer as part of the final Boss Rush.
  • Cyclopes appear as Myth Units in Age of Mythology if you progress to the Classical Age with Ares. Another Cyclops, Gargarensis, is the main antagonist of the "Fall of the Trident" campaign.
  • The Cyclopes in Rift seem to be denizens of the Plane of Earth. They're built along the same large and solid lines as bahmi (although they tend to be even taller), but have ivory-yellow skin, vaguely bestial features, and the definitive single, centrally-positioned eye.
  • Polyphemus appears as a boss in Titan Quest. You also meet some other cyclopes while ascending Mount Olympus.
  • A Cyclops heavily based on the one from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad appears as the first boss in Will Rock, capable of hitting you from far away by spitting stones at you. It becomes a Degraded Boss soon enough.
  • The boss enemy Gorpus from Musashi: Samurai Legend is a gigantic scorpion with a single huge eye hidden under his helmet.
  • In the NES game Day Dreamin' Davey, there is a Cyclops that Davey has to destroy by attacking his eye in one Greek mythology stage. Of course, that "Cyclops" in his imagined state turns out to be a girl whom he just hit in the eye in class! Oh Crap!
  • The Inkies and their leader in De Blob have one eye, which also functions as a mouth, or at least flexes when they talk.
  • In the Xena: Warrior Princess game for the PlayStation, a cyclops guards King Valarian's island stronghold in the Isle of Kronos stage, and tosses rocks at Xena from afar before climbing up to confront her at the top of a cliff. The Cyclops is depicted Harryhausen-style, with one horn on his forehead - if the player uses the "chakram-cam" feature, they can see satyr-like legs as well.
  • Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu: Nyudo Monster, the fourth stage boss.
  • Space Harrier had one-eyed woolly mammoths.
  • Fleepa, Optomon and the Final Boss in The Guardian Legend.
  • Team Fortress 2 has MONOCULUS, a giant Faceless Eye monster. It was created when the RED Demoman's missing eye was haunted and grown to monstrous size by the Bombinomicon, then summoned when the RED Soldier breaks Merasumus's staff. Introduced to the game during a Halloween event, it appears as the boss of several King of the Hill maps when 10 people are playing; defeating it gives the "Optical Defusion" Achievement and the accompanying "MONOCULUS!" cosmetic 'hat', which replaces the wearer's head with a MONOCULUS eyeball.
  • In NetHack, a classical-style Cyclops appears as the quest nemesis of the Greek-themed Healer role, and even generates with a wand of lightning that parallels the thunderbolts forged by the mythical ones.
  • Bomberman:
    • Bomberman Quest has several examples among the monsters you need to recapture. Blobby and Ghostey are encountered in the Field Zone; Fruity, a flying plant shoot, appears in the Forest Zone; Despider (which usually has at least two eyes in other appearances) is found in the Beach Zone; and Jackenboxx and Shadow Knight are fought in the Desert Zone.

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • Leela of Futurama, who initially was presented as a member of an unknown alien race, but turned out to be a human mutant.
  • Saffi, Cerbee and Dorkus from Jimmy Two-Shoes are examples of this, with Saffi providing the page image.
  • ChalkZone: Biclops ononly had one eye before Rudy drew him his second one above it.
  • Kang and Kodos from The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween Specials.
  • Iris from Ruby Gloom.
  • The Monster of the Week roster for The Powerpuff Girls includes a few one-eyed creatures.
    • "Bubblevicious" has a red one-eyed creature with crustecean-like claws among the monsters Bubbles fights after sneaking into the training simulator and cranking it Up to Eleven.
    • Big Billy of the Gangreen Gang is revealed to be one-eyed under his Blinding Bangs in "Schoolhouse Rocked".
    • "Down n' Dirty" has Buttercup fighting a human-like cyclops after being kicked out of the house for refusing to take a bath. She dodges the giant's punches easily, then runs up its arm and punches its head clean off - which then sprouts stubby legs and runs away. Soon after, the monster's body inexplicably falls vertically into halves... which flatten Buttercup with their hands before sprouting two eyes each, forcing her to outwit them by getting them tangled up.
    • One of the deformed Powerpuff Clones seen near the end "Knock It Off" has an eyeball in place of their head.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • Plankton. It runs in his family, too - they are single-celled after all.
    • "Spongebob in Randomland" has one of the titular Wackyland area's denizens, a one-eyed woman who makes off with the food Spongebob and Squidward were delivering.
  • Cherri Bomb and Niffty from Hazbin Hotel are one-eyed demon-girls.

Real Life

  • Cy, the internet-famous one-eyed noseless kitten, who was born December 2009 and died a day later.
  • A cyclops goat was born in Nigeria. It caused quite a stir - the owner was even accused of an act of bestiality.
  • A one-eyed piglet with a severely deformed nose was also in China in 2005.
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