Talk:Beholder

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1 Creator?
2 Important info?
3 Floating Eye != Beholder
4 Origin of name
5 Metallica

[edit] Creator?

Does anyone know who created the Beholder? and what real mythological creature(s) it is based apon?

No, Meeler, your latest version is extremely awkward, what with the "e.g." and the parentheses. You seem to be allergic to the word "fictional", relying on it to be implied from "D&D", "fantasy", etc. But as I pointed out, D&D creatures comprise real, fictional (made up by Gary Gygax & thousands of others) and mythological (made up long before D&D) creatures. Wikipedia exists not for us to demonstrate out knowledge of the arcane, but to inform readers who don't have that knowledge. As such, it's burden some on them to expect them to figure our what an article implies.

Try this thought experiment: imagine you're a Chinese person who is browsing Wikipedia as an adjunct to the beginning English course you're taking. Being a rural Chinese, you've never heard of D&D, and being a beginner at English, your grasp of the word "fantasy" is somewhat overly: you've mostly heard it in the context of psychology (Fantasy (psychology)) because that's the literal translation of certain denunciations of the West you've encountered from the Chinese Communist Party. Now, a close reading of the Beholder article might still cause you to conclude that the beholder doesn't really exist; but we also want to accommodate readers who only have time to glance at the page. As for instance, the poor Chinese fellow whose English class assignment is to write an essay, in English, on bizarre animals of the world.

Now of course this is a contrived example, but it will also apply to a twelve-year old home schooled Pentecostal girl who has never been allowed to play D&D, or a kid from the Atlanta housing projects who has never seen other than domestic animals, and thinks that perhaps along with bear and badger, beholders really do lurk in the woods of Appalachia.

Don't rely on your readers to figure out what you mean; don't assume they hail from the same background or possess the same knowledge you do; if they did, they wouldn't need to be reading your Wikipedia entry. The article is for them, not for your ratification. Spell out what you mean. -- orthogonal 13:40, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, the current phrasing works better than previous attempts (mine and yours). I'm happy with the article in its current state. I think we both had valid points, and now the article is improved. Best wishes, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 14:42, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In the Futurama episode referenced, the Beholder had a comrade number. I believe it was either 16 or 19, but I'm not very confidant about this. Does someone want to add this to the final paragraph of the page? 129.110.240.1 06:57, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

spikebrennan asks: If the beholder was first introduced in that 1975 "Greyhawk" supplement that was referenced, can a specific person be credited with inventing the beholder?

From an interview with Gygax

"Where did you get the idea for the Beholder?" "That was Rob Kuntz's brother, Terry. He had the basic idea, but I detailed it for publication." (full interview can be found here http://ridureyu.tripod.com/ggygax.html)

[edit] Important info?

"The "bomb" creatures in the Final Fantasy games are likely inspired by the beholder."

Is this information really important? I mean, personnaly I don't think they look like beholders at all. Yes they are ball shaped, but have two eyes and no eyes/tentacles on top. They are mainly just balls of fire with eyes and a mouth, that have the ability to explode... I don't see how this can relate to beholders much...

The page has now been updated and doesn't contain this information anymore

I think I was the one that added that a long time ago because I remembered a creature mentioned in the AD&D monster manual that that was listed in the beholder section. It was called a "gorbel" and it was described as "a wild, clawed beholder-kin lacking magic but with the nasty habit of exploding if attacked." I don't really care to press the issue, but it seems like that's a near exact description of the Final Fantasy bombs. If you don't feel it's worth mentioning though, I'll accept that. Here's the link to its online entry, if you're curious http://www.planetadnd.com/interactive_books/mm00020.php Quixoto 12:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Floating Eye != Beholder

Floating eyes are not beholders in Nethack! They are simply floating eyeballs which have a paralyzing gaze. Beholders do exist in Slash'Em and appear only in Nethack in some commented out code until the DevTeam figures out a way to make their implementation feasible within Nethack. It is appropriate to refer to floating eyes as beholder-kin.

[edit] Origin of name

I always thought that the origin of the monsters name came from the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I think that its name was meant to be an humorous reference to the phrase. Is there any evidence that supports or disproves this? If there is any, I think it should be added to the article.

like you, i always thought so. i do think that this may also be simply because in the english language as we know it today, the word doesn't really appear anywhere else but in that exact phrase. so this explanation could possibly be just your (and my) way of (not necesseraly correctly) reasoning the origin of the word. unless somebody comes up with some hard evidence to prove this theory, i guess that's just what it'll stay - a theory.