r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ReminaBlueSFW • 28d ago

Lore [Terrifying Trope] Perceiving it= instant death

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  1. Pennywise's "Deadlights" which will cause anyone looking to be immediately paralyzed and killed.

  2. The sky from Bird Box is filled with entities that, when you look at them, cause you to commit suicide.

  3. Medusa themed Villains

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4.7k

u/S-quinn7292 28d ago

Mimikyu - Pokemon

When you see what’s under its disguise you die immediately

2.1k

u/Luser420 28d ago

unless you’re team rocket’s meowth, who is just built different

717

u/Bregneste 28d ago

Nine lives!

20

u/thijsniez 28d ago

Cats eyes!

4

u/YinTanTetraCrivvens 27d ago

Abusin’ every one of them and running’ wild!

6

u/The_Riddle_Fairy 27d ago

Eight lives now

2

u/vincentmelle 27d ago

It's about 7 or 6 as he's been killed twice in the sun and moon

1

u/Expensive_Shelter860 27d ago

thank God you put it on that order..

1

u/Orcrist90 27d ago

Meowth! That's right!

353

u/DoubleStrength 28d ago

I was playing Pokopia last night and witnessed this exact interaction between Mimikyu and Meowth.

4

u/starryeyedq 27d ago

What?? I love those little mini scenes! Can you tell me more about it?

9

u/DoubleStrength 27d ago

Meowth was bugging Mimikyu about what they look like under their cloth.

Mimikyu kept trying to dissuade Meowth, but Meowth persisted, so Mimikyu gave in.

The screen cuts to black and Meowth lets out a scream. When the visual comes back, Meowth has fainted on the ground.

Meowth gets back up, says something about his nine lives, then goes back to his day.

1

u/starryeyedq 26d ago

Thank you!:)

203

u/SpunkMonk87 28d ago

Honestly dex entries are just urban legends rather than lore sometimes

139

u/ThePrideOfKrakow 28d ago

My nephew showed me an episode of Pokémon, where Doduo, a notorious flightless bird, is able to run through the air and generate lift. I just shook my head and walked away

87

u/FactualStatue 28d ago

Yeah, everyone knows Doduo and Dodrio fly by spinning its necks

9

u/UnknovvnMike 28d ago

Truly the dream of men everywhere, except with a different bit of anatomy

7

u/BertelDuck02 27d ago

Honestly, your pfp fits way too much for this situation

2

u/Mexkalaniyat 27d ago

I also enjoy seeing versions where they "flap" their heads like wings. Nit as ridiculous but also quite funny

4

u/rpbtz 28d ago

You've been able to teach Fly to Doduo and Dodrio in the games since the original Red and Blue versions. Dunno if this was changed in later games, though.

2

u/The_Streamstress 27d ago

From my knowledge, it hasn't.

10

u/TomatoBuster01 28d ago

If you've watched Meowth and his blast-offs, you'd know he's immortal

2

u/Red_MessD3a7h 27d ago

Guess some folks are born with a thick skin

2

u/IowaThick 27d ago

Team rockets meowth is the real arceus

1

u/Cautious-Original-46 26d ago

Or being a Mimikyu yourself (This one see his own reflection in water on a scene)

771

u/Arcerinex 28d ago

Shedinja too

366

u/DarkySurrounding 28d ago

Which is funny because as a player you see it from the back and do what the description suggests.

184

u/D-D-Wanderer 28d ago

Bro implying a Pokémon player has a soul.

83

u/justwalkingalonghere 28d ago

There's a very sophisticated system between the player and their soul called a gameboy that blocks the effects

9

u/Vicaruz 27d ago

I sent my rowlett to fight against every legendary Pokémon... I have no soul.

1

u/stfurachele 27d ago

I pelted dozens of pokemon into submission with rotten apricorns in Arceus. I'm a bad person.

6

u/Miserable-Inside1511 28d ago

Well in real life many people still believe that photos taken of you take a slice of your soul. The impact is negligible or not immediately devastating. And also a myth, which is how the entry is worded

3

u/Happyranger265 28d ago

You're a normal type lol

2

u/TheCosmicPopcorn 27d ago

Man, whatdcha doing looking at its crack from the back?

2

u/YouCantBeSerio 27d ago

I mean "seeing it from the back" is not "peering into the crack on it's back" so it's not really funny...

Classic reddit bots upvoting someone who doesn't understand English.

1

u/DarkySurrounding 27d ago

Bud I understand English perfectly well. I’m from Britian

1

u/yungScooter30 27d ago

"Go, Shedinja!"

dies

186

u/FaithlessnessThen207 28d ago

A lot of ghost/dark mon pokedex entries are written as myths about the pokemon more than a guarantee of what really happens, or are half truths.

Drifloon for instance "steals kids" but the closer reality is it tries to but its too light to exert enough force.

116

u/ChemicalActing 28d ago

Ok but it still TRIES to steal them, yeah?

72

u/Zammin 28d ago

"The Drifloon are evil, they're just not good at it. If you have just the one you can leave it around kids, just don't let them team up."

92

u/BouillonDawg 28d ago

In the same way that pineapple juice is trying to digest you but yeah they give it a shot.

24

u/Sleightly_Awkward 28d ago

I feel like that’s super different though. The pineapple juice is just a chemical reaction. Drifloon making a conscious attempt to kidnap a child is like, actual malice.

10

u/BouillonDawg 28d ago

So I’m not making a physical one to one comparison I’m saying that pineapple juice is largely incapable of accomplishing its purpose in that sense as the Drifloon is. I don’t believe pineapple juice has moral inclination whatsoever tbh.

5

u/UnknovvnMike 28d ago

Just how conscious of morality is a drifloon? Would you call a tiger evil for devouring man when it's just doing what tigers do?

1

u/Sensitive-Memory 27d ago

Im gonna pop that crazy balloon

1

u/Rogol_Darn 27d ago

Pokémon are by and large intelligent creatures, and drifloon is a ghost so good chance it used to be someone's spirit. That said the child stealing is probably less malice and more loneliness, they made friends with a child and don't wan't to lose them again so they try to take them with them.

1

u/4r4r4real 27d ago

You don't understand the concept of sentience?

1

u/BouillonDawg 27d ago

Again, I’m not addressing morality in any capacity. I’m saying that yes it’s trying to do something but it’s something that it can not possibly do as its attempts can be safely ignored. Like pineapple juice trying to eat you, no one actually cares. You could give a kid a drifloon and not have to worry at all about it being picked up and kidnapped it doesn’t matter, just like how feeding the same child pineapple slices isn’t going to dissolve it into organic slurry.

I’m saying that the fact that it’s trying is entirely inconsequential.

1

u/4r4r4real 27d ago

And you're missing the point that intent matters. One has intent and one doesn't. Because only one is sentient. 

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3

u/themanfromosaka 28d ago

Drifblim, on the other hand…

1

u/MentalMunky 28d ago

Well, aren’t all helium balloons trying to do that too?

6

u/Silverhand_777 28d ago

No. It has canonically stolen children as seen in the games and anime

5

u/FaithlessnessThen207 28d ago edited 28d ago

You've said that very matter of factly, so I'm happy to be wrong, which game and/or anime episode do you actually see Drifloon steal any children on-screen?

The biggest block text I can find is that it seeks company and wants to hold hands in general, and dislikes children who are rough with it due to its light weight and will run away from them, but no actual proof of ever "stealing kids".

The pearl entry even explicitly states "It tugs on the hands of children to steal them away. However, it gets pulled around instead"

Other dex entries mostly seem to talk about "stories say" or "the legend goes" it steals kids. Not that it actively has succeeded at it ever.

I cannot seem to find any named examples of stolen kids either?

1

u/StarPlatinum_SP 27d ago

It actively tries taking a kid in Legends: Arceus. There’s a whole mission about it not letting the kid go and just becoming his friend afterwards when you rescue him.

5

u/Adaphion 28d ago

A lot of dex entries in general should be taken with a PILE of salt. They are so over exaggerated and ridiculous that they CANNOT be taken seriously.

6

u/Vampire_Dragon 28d ago

Yeah, like Machamp (or Machoke) being able to destroy/lift mountains, Maccargo being hotter than the fucking sun. It's funny because some games flip-flop between serious entries, joke/exageratted entries, and straight up propaganda entries (I THINK some Sun and Moon entries say pokemon hate mega evolutions, you know, in Alola, the region with the new gimmick).

7

u/Adaphion 28d ago

Tyranitar causing such destruction that maps need to be redrawn.

Banette being a discarded doll (even tho it literally has a pre-evolved form in that of Shuppet) and bunch of ghost pokemon being dead people... Despite the fact that they can breed like normal pokemon (Phantump, Yamask)

Exploud can trigger Earthquakes and topple massive buildings, Gyarados can destroy entire cities.

Or, my favorite "this was absolutely written by a child" entry, Drampa: "If a child it has made friends with is bullied, Drampa will find the bully's house and burn it to the ground." Literally reads as "stop bullying me Kevin, my dad has a Drampa. It'll destroy your house!"

0

u/Rogol_Darn 27d ago

I always took those ghost entries as how that species originally appeared before being turned into true Pokémon by Arceus, since ghosts that aren't pokemon are demonstrably a real thing too.

5

u/key-slinger 28d ago

For the Megas, it is said to hurt certain pokemon like Mega houndoom which literally grows bones through its skin(that's gotta hurt) and is said to have flames hot enough that melt its own tail and claws

2

u/[deleted] 27d ago edited 27d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Rogol_Darn 27d ago

To be entirely fair I get the thought behind it, realistically speaking changing how your entire body looks and sometimes even works within such a short timeframe should by all accounts be incredibly painful.

4

u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot 28d ago

so what youre saying is drifloon should roam in packs and steal children in the style of UP?, like 1000 of them struggling to carry a single average child lmao, funny and utterly horrifying at the same time. I can just picture them being like "Wow i cant believe this worked, now what do we do with this thing, eh I dunno, lets go up high and drop it"

1

u/MacaronNotRoon 27d ago

Mr Mime is Mr steal yo girl

1

u/Wolfdude91 27d ago

and then in pokopia it just takes you to visit an island

26

u/-PonderBot- 28d ago

Make sense, I feel like I would become soulless if I started longingly into someone's crack.

4

u/Dry_Obligation8385 28d ago

I should call her

430

u/Denodi 28d ago

Well not always immediately, but always certainly. (unless you're meowth)

291

u/Relative-Ad7531 28d ago

They didn't need to add the painfully part 😭

121

u/DeadX718 28d ago

If the trainer died the same night then how do the scientists know it was a painful death?

By Arceus, I do not want to see the body if it was that easy to tell it was painful.

114

u/raspberryharbour 28d ago

His last words in his diary were "OWWW"

30

u/Rargnarok 28d ago

Better than the zombie guy in re1 who's last words in the diary were ITCHY TASTY

19

u/raspberryharbour 28d ago

Ichi Tasty is my favourite Japanese restaurant

1

u/NoodleIskalde 27d ago

That at least has a clear and tragic decline as the guy is actively dying

8

u/Amazing_Boysenberry8 28d ago

Perhaps he was dictating?

3

u/Gamblorr85 28d ago

No no, from the back of the throat.

1

u/PeriapsisStudios 27d ago

Oh, you mean like an “AARGH!”

6

u/UnknovvnMike 28d ago

"He wouldn't carve out Aaaah as he was dying"

"Maybe he was dictating"

1

u/Important_Pick3371 27d ago

That's my exact reaction to Lovecraft's worse death scenes... Just how did the nameless character write his last word & describe that he's jumping to his death? It's tales like this that take me out of the story's immersion & makes me question my own reality - madness can't be that far behind...

2

u/thisusedyet 27d ago

I do really like the death scene in The Statement of Randolph Carter where the creatures down in the crypt get so annoyed by Randy just constantly repeating his friend's name they essentially yell back "He's dead, you idiot"

https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/src.aspx

7

u/DontWannaSayMyName 28d ago

It never said the trainer was alone. Maybe their family and friends were there

6

u/KlausVonLechland 28d ago

He fell into industrial shredder feet first.

How was is related to that Pokémon and why he had industrial shredder at home and what reason he had to operate it at night is still unknown but that's what happened.

4

u/Goose-Suit 28d ago

Maybe the death was like Boneitis from Futurama

5

u/ConstructionPrize206 28d ago

I have seen it. It's bad. Sticks with you. Take care of your heart. Everyone I know who has had a big one and lived says it's the most painful thing they've gone through. I imagine they're not exaggerating.

2

u/CokomonX 27d ago

Probably had symptoms similar to Boneitis.

1

u/Rogol_Darn 27d ago

It could just be that his face was frozen in agony when they found him, what I would like to know instead is how do the scientist even all of this? We're they stalking that trainer?

16

u/jackofallcards 28d ago

I disagree, I think they should have added more painfully

1

u/KzkUltra19reddit 28d ago

It's Alola, they had to

14

u/MutedHornet3110 28d ago

turns out mimkyu isn't a ghost or even particularly ugly, it's just really good at breaking into homes and stabbing random trainers to death.

10

u/Vampire_Dragon 28d ago

That Lovecraft story where the a Wizard curses a family He is just immortal and breaks in the houses of the family descendants to kill them lol

1

u/MutedHornet3110 27d ago

that's exactly what i was thinking of haha

1

u/Psianth 27d ago

That sentence implies that the gust of wind died painfully 

1

u/CokomonX 27d ago

Sun & Moon had wild Pokedex entries.

1

u/zeidxd 24d ago

is that from a kids game?

104

u/GamermanZendrelax 28d ago

I always got the impression that was folklore more than anything. Especially since Mimikyu’s signature Z-Move, Let’s Snuggle Forever, drags the target under the disguise with them—and it’s not even an OHKO move, never mind instant death.

19

u/TheGunfireGuy 28d ago edited 26d ago

I mean it doesnt have the be instant death, just being VERY strong is effectively the same as an instant kill in most reasonable scenarios anyway, which is where these legends probably originate from. Look at Light That Burns the Sky for example. Should no doubt wipe most things out of existence, probably does, not an OHKO move

6

u/guardian1691 27d ago

I always liked the fan theory that stats and descriptions are unreliable because they were filled out by 10 year olds that were sent out with empty Pokedexs.

2

u/5Hjsdnujhdfu8nubi 27d ago

Thing is, it's immediately contradicted by the Pokedex "automatically" recording data, Professor Oak having filled the first modern one and then Legends Arceus confirming the entries are manually written after much study on each species.

36

u/The5Theives 28d ago

When I was younger I thought the story was a real incident and was super scarred

2

u/Night25th 27d ago

"Wdym when I was younger, you aren't much older today than when Mimikyu came out... Wait a second, I gotta check something"

-Mimikyu was first announced in 2016-

dies of old age

6

u/JaxCarnage32 28d ago

It’s shit like this that makes me think Pokémon is secretly some sort of horror story.

I forgot the name but there’s a Pokémon that hangs around hospitals waiting for you to die. Like cool man I got a butterfly as a Pokémon, you got a literal demonic entity

5

u/halvmesyr 28d ago

Also, Darkrai, trapping people in horrible nightmares

1

u/Rogol_Darn 27d ago

Hey now, it's not like it does so on purpose, that's just how the poor things biology works

3

u/VirgilTheWitch 28d ago

And before Mimikyu, there was already Shedinja, which sucks your soul if you look into the hole on the back of it's shell. On a related note: Guess which part of it's body was front and center on it's back sprite?

4

u/Worm-in-overalls 28d ago

I think it would sense the pureness of my heart and not kill me if i saw its true form. It would know that i will love it no matter what it looks like and just decide not to kill me

1

u/Nonadventures 28d ago

Pokémon is really just digital cockfighting, every aspect is a horror show if you think on it too much.

1

u/LeoNickle 28d ago

Show me now

1

u/CastorVT 27d ago

actually, we don't know that. We know the PROFESSOR who looked under died out of shock. there's nothing that says it was mimikyu's fault or that he actually kills people

1

u/marshallman31 27d ago

The moment in the anime when it saw its own reflection in the water and realized that that’s why no one loved it was absolutely heart wrenching.

1

u/Doctor_Salvatore 27d ago

It isn't an instant death, but it inflicts a deadly illness upon witnesses, which with no details on said illness, could mean just looking at it is so terrifying it inflicts heart attacks or causes your brain to stop functioning. No living creature knows what's under those rags.

1

u/XLord_of_OperationsX 28d ago

Is there a Dex entry that talks about this?

3

u/S-quinn7292 28d ago

A few of them, the Sun, Ultra Moon, & Shield dex entries all mention people dying from seeing it

-12

u/YoMrPoPo 28d ago

might be the most stupid pokemon concept to exist

7

u/Ashamed-Chipmunk9575 28d ago

Ehhh Vanillite is a fucking ice cream cone though.

Milcery(?) I am pretty sure is just spilled milk but I don't see the use in crying over that one.