Well, friends, it’s October again. Halloween decorations are creeping out onto porches, and the smell of pumpkin (spice lattes) is in the air. With my pandemic workload back in 2020, I let some annual traditions on this site get away from me, so for the 2021 Halloween season, I wanted to revive a series near and dear to my heart. So join me, won’t you, for a journey into the paranormal with this new installment of What Makes It Scary?
Admittedly, there’s a spectrum of sea monsters that run from the cute, harmless Luca of Disney all the way to the world-destroying Jörmungandr of Norse myth. For our purposes, we’re going to skew a little more toward the latter.
From the earliest creation myths, the sea has represented unknowable chaos. In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the sea dragon Tiamat embodies the chaos which the hero Marduk slays in order to create the world. In the first chapter of Genesis, the Spirit of God hovers over “the waters” before creating light, life, and order. Later on, the biblical sea monster Leviathan would stand in as a metaphor for chaos (particularly in the book of Job, where God references catching the monster on a fishhook). For cultures who hadn’t yet mastered sea travel, the water stood as a mysterious and threatening barrier— an uncrossable abyss reminding them of the natural world’s dominance.
Even with advances in shipbuilding and navigation, there was something about the unknowable depths of the ocean that sparked imaginations. Just look at the adventures of Odysseus in Greek mythology or the Abbasid tales of Sinbad the Sailor. Early mapmakers marked uncharted waters by drawing in ornate serpents to signify possible danger, sometimes adding the famous expression hic sunt dracones: “Here be dragons.” Monster sightings were a staple of maritime lore for centuries from Aristotle through the 19th Century HMS Daedalus, captivating ancient and modern listeners alike.
And of course, when author H.P. Lovecraft sought to describe beasts of unfathomable cosmic horror, he drew on sea creature imagery. Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu Mythos” has inspired countless other creators since, including Jack Kirby and Stan Lee of Marvel Comics. In fact, if you watched the recent Disney+ Marvel series What If…?, you may have even seen some Lovecraft-esque inter-dimensional tentacled entities make an appearance.
Krakens and gill men and giant squids, oh my!
Sure, sea monsters have taken on different iconography over the years, but their association with the unknown remains consistent. Deep in the depths of the sea lurk all kinds of strange creatures which defy our imaginations— symbols of the limits of even our most advanced science and storytelling. There is so much about this world we still don’t understand, and no matter how much order we try to impose, nature’s uncharted waters will always hold a little chaos for us. Thus, a battle with a sea monster isn’t just about humanity against nature. It’s about all the chaos and mystery nature can muster. As human beings, we inherently look for patterns and order, but the bizarre life living in the ocean depths challenges us. It reminds us that chaos is always lurking on the periphery of the knowable.
And that’s why sea monsters are scary.
Not Nessie though. Nessie is cool.