why didn't cyclopses become a mainstay in western fantasy the way other man eating giants like ogres or trolls did? are they just too silly?
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why didn't cyclopses become a mainstay in western fantasy the way other man eating giants like ogres or trolls did?
Cos Tolkien didn't include them
he didn't use ogres, either
Bilbo mentions ogres in The Hobbit
his use if trolls where essentially ogres.
See
btfo
Cyclopes are used far more often than Ogres in western media, with Shrek being the single outlier. Trolls are common, but they also are a multi-purpose monster that can look and act a hundred different ways, so they don't really work as an archetype. By contrast, every single greco-roman inspired film, comic, video game, or book series included Cyclopes. At least two of the biggest fantasy RPG settings explicitly position Cyclopes as the ancient advanced civilization who's ruins your party is always looting.
tldr; why do people make threads about shit they have done zero looking into?
I loved the part in gladiator when he fights the cyclops
Oh man I love the cyclopses in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
>no cyclopses in lotr
>cyclopses rarely show up in D&D or Pathfinder
>no cyclopses in TES
>Cyclopses in Warcraft are just a rare ogre mutation
>no cyclopses in warhammer
No cyclopses in Narnia, despite there being giants, too.
>no cyclopses in warhammer
https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Great_cyclops
not sure why it was cut after 1st edition, but whatever.
Cygor should probably count too. Bit beastly, but they are big and have only one eye.
>rampant anti-Fimirism
Fimir are roughly man-sized, doesn't fit the depiction of cyclopes as giants. They are also too reptilian in appearance.
>At least two of the biggest fantasy RPG settings explicitly position Cyclopes as the ancient advanced civilization who's ruins your party is always looting
And those RPG settings are?
My guess is he played Kingmaker, where cyclopes are somewhat prominent.
They're pretty silly
Nobody knew how to deal with them easily.
hyuk hyuk hyuk
Nice.
CARLOOOOOOS
No idea what this means, so I suspect all the replies are samegayging.
Think back to the Illiad, and how the encounter went down with the cyclops there.
Give it a minute or two, if you still don't get it, look up that scene up, in text form or a scene from a movie or something.
They're not samegayging.
>The Illiad
It's the Odyssey anon, ffs
lmao
my bad I misspoke
I first started writing out the name of the character, but realized I didn't want to name Odysseus to give anon more time to think about the joke and not give it away too much, and in the midst of rephrasing to avoid saying Odysseus I turned moronic and wanted to avoid saying Odyssey as well and said the previous story instead
Are you blind? You've never heard the reference? It's all Greek to you?
>are you blind
my sides
kek
cyclops are also just shepards and fishermen, they're really a lot like humans but cloer to the gods and older so much more powerful, and being giant sized. You'd think they'd have a cyclops be a smith to make powerful weapons and armour but that job is often given to dwarves instead, or tolkien elves
>why didn't cyclopses become a mainstay in western fantasy the way other man eating giants like ogres or trolls did?
Cyclopes come off as redundant and handicapped to a lot of fantasy creators & writers, "why do I need a one eyed man-eating giant when I have several perfectly good man-eating giants with more eyes?". The expanded 'official' literature and mythos attached to Cyclopes also failed to launch into the west (ironically) like it did for Ogres and to a lesser extent Trolls (which are more somewhat defined by arbitrary pop-culture tropes). Very few 'fantasy fans' over here know or appreciate Cyclopes for their smithing, their masonry, or their connection to storms, the ocean, volcanos, and the gods.
Cyclopes are infinitely more popular in Japanese media. *Probably* for several reasons:
-There are around half a dozen Cycloptic Yokai: including a giant that made their mountains, ?occasionally their smithing god?, a fake buddhist monk, one who makes and sells tofu, that umbrella with the leg, the one where the eye is in the anus, etc.. They vibe with the aesthetic.
-There's a sub-culture of Japan that's just really, really, passionate about obscure folklore, pagan mythos, and occultist trivia. I think this gives them an advantage when introducing foreign ideas/content.
>-There's a sub-culture of Japan that's just really, really, passionate about obscure folklore, pagan mythos, and occultist trivia. I think this gives them an advantage when introducing foreign ideas/content.
Too bad they just turned most of their monsters into ghost/spirits rather than phisical beings.
>Too bad they just turned most of their monsters into ghost/spirits
monsters in most parts of the world always start out that way. Kobolds were the ghosts of dead children, for example
That distinction is not as absolute as you think.
it's probably also the cyclops having a more mythic or supernatural association as opposed to more commonly used orcs, ogres or trolls that can feel more grounded. like all of those things *can* be magical, but they don't all have to be. a cyclops though is on that line where from a naturalistic view it's all disadvantages, the cyclops needs the magical / mythological angle to be interesting.
I mean trolls did often have magic powers in their folklore, ogres too
hell the most famous fairy tale with an ogre antagonist was puss in boots, and that ogre could magically turn into different animals
Giants, Ogres, Goblins and Trolls still existed in several legends even at modern times, Cyclops disappeared from histories after ancient greece.
Nobody wants to frick them
Fricking cyclopes is generally far more preferable to dealing with ogres and trolls though.
lies and slander
>posts two eyed b***h
He did love penetrating that one-eyed monster.
i disagree
>too lazy to upload another pic
>meet Cyclops, the Cyclops
>take him on a ruse cruise
>stab his fricking eye (singular) out
>he is blind
>"AHHHHH PLS HELP ME I AM BLINDED"
>"Ok nerd who the frick blinded you, you are a giant."
>"NOBODY BLINDED ME!!!! AAAAAA PLS HELP!!!! NOBODY IS A GIANT DOUCHEBAG!!!"
>"Lmao nerd shut the frick up."
Cyclops got owned into irrelevance in the Odyssey with a really simple and stupid trick, so that's why they aren't relevant.
well they're are pretty shallow as a concept, they lack depth perception
The serious answer is that Medievalists tried to and succeed at pushing Greek and Roman myth out of Western folklore.
>why didn't cyclopses become a mainstay in western fantasy
Oh cool, another shitty low effort thread where OP makes a false statement and then waits to get corrected! Frick off.
they show up sometimes but they're rarely anyone first choice when someone goes "we need a man-eating giant for our heroes to fight"
unless it's specifically a greek story
Ogre isn't a specific being (outside of as a translation for oni). It's just a term for an abnormally large man-eating humanoid.
Strictly speaking, man-eating cyclopes and trolls are ogres.
>anon never played God of War
>Greek setting
Missing the point, I see.
The real answer - people were short-sighted and didn't see the big picture.
because they are moronic
This is your punishment for not engaging in weeaboo media. I hope you enjoy it, down there in the dark.
The eye Arisen! Aim for the eye!
I'll hold its legs.
I love it when cyclopes are depicted with tusks, because I read once that their legends were inspired by the skulls of elephants.
>because I read once that their legends were inspired by the skulls of elephants.
I have heard this explanation several times and it seems plausible
Are there any TTRPGs out there that capture the "Clash of the Titans" style of action/adventure?
Mazes & Minotaurs!
http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/revised.html
Cyclopses were included in 2nd Edition D&D.
but not really utilized to be fair
CR 6
They don't have a niche to fill. We already have plenty of large humanoid monsters to pick from and their classical role as black smiths are already filled by dwarves.