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Meg
- 665 statements
- 131 feature instances
- 19 referencing feature instances
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The flagship series of novels by Florida author Steve Alten — except the "flagship" is actually a really, really big Threatening Shark."Meg" is short for "megalodon", the name of an actual giant prehistoric shark (although its size, strength, intelligence, and probably its ferocity are frequently exaggerated in the books; that, and it glows). The books detail the adventures of Cmdr. Jonas Taylor (and later, his family), a former member of the Navy who came face to face with the shark while diving in the Mariana Trench, reacted about the way you might expect, and was drummed out of the Navy for allegedly going insane. Later, having become a marine biologist obsessed with proving he isn't crazy, Jonas ventures back into the trench, meets the shark again, and accidentally unleashes it. Terror, thrills, and more all ensue.And we do mean ensue. These books delight in taking their narrative about humans going up against giant sharks everywhere and anywhere they can think of, no matter how crazy, unrealistic, or controversial it may be. Indiana Jones—caliber exploits by members of the human cast tend to be the result, with a Moment of Awesome or Funny Moment, or both, often capping it all off at the finale.The series is also becoming notable as one of Steve Alten's outlets for issuing a Take That! against whomever he's mad at, and there seem to be a lot of them. The result may well qualify as Badass Decay for many readers, and although Steve Alten has improved as a writer tremendously since he wrote the first Meg book, the series has arguably declined in quality as Alten continues to supplement the series that everyone still associates with him.And yet, the series at its peak is affable in its cheesiness to the point of being like an old B Movie—So Bad, It's Good, if you will, and there's just something about a man slaying a shark by letting himself be swallowed and then cutting up the shark's organs using one of its lost teeth or a shark attacking a baseball game, of all things that has the ability to put a smile on readers' faces, even as they shake their heads.A film adaptation was in some truly memorable Development Hell since 1997 under the now defunct Hollywood Pictures. In the mid-2000s, New Line Cinema held the rights to the series with Jan de Bont (Of Speed fame) and Guillermo del Toro involved. Eli Roth later came onto the project, but it fell through. Principal photography finally began in October 2016, with Jon Turteltaub as director and Warner Bros. scheduled to release the film in March 2018, before being bumped back to eventually airing in August 2018. | |
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Meg / int_106f1a77 | type |
A Form You Are Comfortable With | |
Meg / int_106f1a77 | comment |
A Form You Are Comfortable With: The consciousness inside the alien ship appears to Zach as his middle school science teacher, chosen because he was the only mentor young Zach really trusted. | |
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Cool Old Guy | |
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Cool Old Guy: Jonas and Mac are both in their 60s by the time of Primal Waters, and still manage numerous death-defying stunts to save people from the megs. | |
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Meg / int_177a6464 | type |
Genre Shift | |
Meg / int_177a6464 | comment |
Genre Shift: Vostok looks like it's going to play out as another creature horror book, but while it does have numerous large monsters on the rampage at various points, it turns into a Conspiracy Thriller with aliens and time travel thrown in. | |
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Meg / int_178ca149 | type |
The Worf Effect | |
Meg / int_178ca149 | comment |
The Worf Effect: There are many examples in the series where a megalodon defeats equally large and dangerous predators, but only the opening scene of the first novel qualifies (where a meg eats a Tyrannosaurus rex) because the marine reptiles are too obscure to the general public to be this trope. The megalodon Scarface is on the receiving end in the first chapter of Hell's Aquarium. Having spent the previous novel terrorising Jonas and Dani, it is swiftly and unceremoniously killed by the Liopleurodon to show how dangerous it is. | |
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Meg / int_18aff462 | type |
Artistic License – Biology | |
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Artistic License – Biology: Angel is presented as reaching sexual maturity in only four years, a ludicrously short amount of time. Many larger shark species take several decades to reach breeding age, and for a giant shark adapted for the nutrient-poor deep ocean to grow from an infant to a mature adult weighing over forty tonnes within only a few years is extremely implausible. The behaviour of the megalodons is portrayed as unrealistically aggressive and bloodthirsty (such as on numerous occasions when they abandon huge whale carcasses to eat some puny humans that happened to be nearby). In real life, most predators don't immediately and persistently attack competitors with intent to kill on sight (since risk of fatal injury is too high). When mating and reproducing, they are depicted as instantly trying to kill and eat their own mate and pups the moment they separate, making their aggression verge on a species-wide Too Dumb to Live. Later books try and fix this by depicting it as a reaction to living in the Mariana Trench, where food is much scarcer and any other shark could be a competitor. The surface-spawned Bela and Lizzie show that megs can do active parenting in conditions where food is plentiful. It's explained the Kronosaurs, as well as other marine reptile, are able to survive in the Mariana Trench because they evolved gills. However, no animals have ever re-evolved gills after having lost them (although some freshwater turtles can absorb oxygen from the water through their cloacal tissue), and in any case, it's heavily implied this change happened very quickly in response to the K/Pg-extinction, when it would probably take millions of years for a chance this reversion could occur. What's even more unbelievable is this happened independently numerous times, as it's stated to be a potential "natural transition" for sea reptiles. Chances are, the amount of morphological and behavioral changes the extinct species underwent over million years would mean they'd be classified as a new species (for example, the megalodons are depicted as now being deep-sea animals with pure white, glowing skin and light-sensitive eyes that have a longer gestation time and slower metabolism). It's very unlikely there'd be enough large prey for multiple species of giant active predators to survive for millions of years in same region of deep-sea (particularly in the case of megalodon, which was a warm-blooded carnivore that preyed predominantly on fat-rich whales). | |
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A Lighter Shade of Black | |
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A Lighter Shade of Black: Angel. She may be The Dreaded to the human characters for her appearances in the series, but she's frequently shown to be the lesser evil against the kronosaurs (in The Trench), her male offspring (in Primal Waters) and the Liopleurodon (in Hell's Aquarium). | |
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The Brute | |
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The Brute: From Hell's Aquarium onwards Bela is frequently described this way in comparison to her more calculating sibling Lizzy. | |
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Meg / int_1c6ded94 | type |
Wicked Cultured | |
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Wicked Cultured: Benedict Singer is very fond of quoting various philosophers in French and Latin, gives all his submarines names based on classical Greek mythology, and is both knowledgeable in the arts and incredibly well-read. He's still an evil Manipulative Bastard through and through though. | |
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Heterosexual Life-Partners | |
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Heterosexual Life-Partners: Jonas and Mac. David and Monty look to be heading this way. | |
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Cruel and Unusual Death | |
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Cruel and Unusual Death: Even by Alten standards the description of Fiesel Bin Rashidi's death stands out for its graphic horror. He's eaten alive by the Liopleurodon pup, with a gruesome depiction of his desperately trying to claw his way out of its stomach while the creature's stomach acid melts his fingers and extremities. It then regurgitates him, blinded and begging for death, before crushing him into pulp with its jaws. | |
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Meg / int_20f689e9 | type |
Adaptational Villainy | |
Meg / int_20f689e9 | comment |
Adaptational Villainy: More a case of Adaptational Jerkassery, but Terry takes being replaced by Jonas for the Challenger Deep dive in the rewritten version far more poorly than in the original novel, trying to freak Jonas out mid-dive by playing loud rock music (so he'll be written off and she can replace him). Later, she tries to kill the Meg by replacing the tracking dart with a 20mm cannon shell, despite the fact that capturing the Meg alive is the only reason JAMSTEC are continuing funding the construction of Masao's lagoon. | |
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Chekhov's Gun | |
Meg / int_22cf536c | comment |
Chekhov's Gun: The Panthalassa Sea and Liopleurodon are both introduced by Michael Maren (though not using those terms) when he and Jonas meet again in Primal Waters, but do not appear until Hell's Aquarium. | |
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Meg / int_25bc8511 | type |
Generation Xerox | |
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Generation Xerox: An interesting genetic example; due to the megs cutting the males out of the reproduction process, 3 of the sharks Angel gives birth to will eventually turn out as exact genetic copies of their 74ft, 50 ton mother. The Liopleurodon does the same thing, and it's stated to be the reason why the other prehistoric species of the Panthalassa have been able to survive. More traditionally, the fourth book sees Angel and the Liopleurodon battle, with the reptile winning. Two books later the Liopleurodon's offspring battles Luna, Angel's grandaughter, and swiftly gets slaughtered. | |
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Meg / int_269e82c1 | type |
Death of a Child | |
Meg / int_269e82c1 | comment |
Death of a Child: In the very first book, both of Angel's brothers are killed off, one moments after birth by its mother, the other (rewritten to be a female in the 2015 "Revised and Expanded" edition) at just a few days old by a pack of orcas. The Trench has two children dying, one killed by Angel, the other being Jonas and Terry's unborn child, who was stillborn before the events of the book. | |
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Meg / int_272232f7 | type |
Moby Schtick | |
Meg / int_272232f7 | comment |
Moby Schtick: Occurs on numerous occasions and also lampshaded several times. Bonus points that the megalodons are also albino. | |
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Meg / int_272abb98 | type |
Shoot the Shaggy Dog | |
Meg / int_272abb98 | comment |
Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Over half of the fourth novel sees David, Jonas's son, try to save/protect his girlfriend from the abyss and their less than scrupulous employers. Near the end it looks like he has succeeded as they narrowly escape the abyss. She is then promptly eaten by the Liopleurodon (by accident, no less). It's... jarring to say the least. | |
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Meg / int_27ab0123 | type |
Offing the Offspring | |
Meg / int_27ab0123 | comment |
Offing the Offspring: Angel's mother devours one of her own sons moments after birth. Flashbacks in Primal Waters have another Meg female doing much the same. Near the end of that book, Angel kills her own older son after mating with him. | |
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Meg / int_2ae29c0d | type |
The Dreaded | |
Meg / int_2ae29c0d | comment |
The Dreaded: While the megs and later the Liopleurodon are this generally due to their size and ferocity, Angel holds a special dread for virtually all the main characters, and the fear of her escaping is a prevalent theme until the Liopleurodon kills her. It's even revealed to be the reason for Bela and Lizzie's symbiotic behaviour, as their mother's scent and dominant behaviour led them to constantly swim in formation to give the appearance of a much larger animal. | |
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False Flag Operation | |
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False Flag Operation: The villains of the book are planning this, intending to set off a nuclear weapon and blame Al Quaeda for it, thus spurring continued warfare in the Middle East. | |
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Stuff Blowing Up | |
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Stuff Blowing Up: How True attempts to kill the Purussaurus he accidentally let loose in the Loch in Vostok, baiting it with a dead cow stuffed with C-4. Instead, the explosives go off early and kill True. Fortunately, this is undone in the final time reset. | |
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Gender Flip | |
Meg / int_34889673 | comment |
Gender Flip: In the original book, Angel is the only female born to her mother. The 2015 revised edition changes one of her brothers, who is later killed by orcas, to a female. | |
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Kick the Dog | |
Meg / int_34dcfc96 | comment |
Kick the Dog: After seeing Lizzy and Bela butcher the orca packs he loved in Night Stalkers, whale-loving nut Nick Van Sicklen reappears in Generations sending Jonas footage of the resurgent orcas ripping apart one of Lizzy's offspring and taunting him about it. Even worse, later in the book it's revealed the infant megalodon was captured by his employees first and had one of its pectoral fins taken off with a chainsaw before it was thrown to the killer whales. | |
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Ate His Gun | |
Meg / int_37cb353b | comment |
Ate His Gun: In all versions of the original novel, during the climactic confrontation with the female Meg, Bud Harris commits suicide by sticking his pistol in his mouth and blowing his brains out. | |
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Sequel Escalation | |
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And finally, Generations gives us a 187-foot Titanoboa. Not only is it a deep-sea predator, it is about 5 times the length of the largest estimates for the real thing, and is large enough to swallow a two-man submersible whole. | |
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Face Death with Dignity | |
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Face Death with Dignity: In Generations Terry is calm and collected after learning she has cancer, being solely concerned with ensuring Jonas and her children are ready for her eventual death. | |
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Adaptational Sympathy | |
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Adaptational Sympathy: Downplayed but still present; in some ways Maggie is worse in the rewritten version of Meg than the original, but there are also a few scenes that present her side of why she wants away from Jonas so badly — seeing her husband become increasingly guilt-ridden and bitter after what happened in the trench, and withdrawing away from her into his megalodon obsession. Their final farewell before her death also has a hint of regret for the way things turned out. | |
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Villainous Legacy | |
Meg / int_3a29c5c8 | comment |
Villainous Legacy: Celeste dies in The Trench, but her memory is what inspires Maren to construct his elaborate revenge scheme in Primal Waters. And once he dies, his notes on the Panthalassa Sea lead to its exploration and the Liopleurodon getting released into the world's oceans. The memory of Angel's various escapes and the many, many people she killed along the way lead to her offspring (and their offspring) in Generations being targeted for death before they're fully grown and can repeat her exploits. | |
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Bad Boss | |
Meg / int_3cb1d38d | comment |
In the fourth book Brain Suits seems to be your typical obstructive Bad Boss to David as he tries to train the Crown Prince's recruits. However, from Suits' point of view David may be a brilliant pilot but he's also arrogant, unwilling to take advice and awful at working in a team. He gives David an assignment to fish a corpse out of the waters off Dubai with Monty as his copilot, one they flunk spectacularly. Afterwards, Suits makes the point that if they screwed up in 100ft of decently-lit water, how could David be expected to survive down in the Panthalassa, something a humbled David agrees with. | |
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Curb-Stomp Battle | |
Meg / int_3d699462 | comment |
Zigzagged with the megalodons themselves, and explained fully in Generations. Prehistoric megalodons were active parents that taught their pups how to hunt. However, when the species descended into the Mariana Trench, the limited food supply led to their perceiving all other megs as threats, even their own pups — Angel's mother devours the runt of her litter of pups shortly after birth, and Angel attempts to do the same when her two male pups are born. Born away from this, Bela and Lizzy are the first megs in thousands of years to return to active parenting, claiming the Salish sea as a nursery and massacring the local orca pods to give their pups a fighting chance. More notably, when Paul Agricola captures one of Bela's pups, the enraged shark and her sister attack his boat in a futile attempt to rescue it. | |
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Surprisingly Realistic Outcome | |
Meg / int_3ed23024 | comment |
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: At the conclusion of The Loch, Zach killed the now-crazed Nessie to save Brandy, True and Angus. The start of Vostok shows that by publicly revealing this he completely tanked Loch Ness' monster-dependent tourism industry, causing severe economic hardship for the locals. | |
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Meg / int_40c57041 | type |
Manipulative Bastard | |
Meg / int_40c57041 | comment |
Manipulative Bastard: Angus in The Loch. He plays Zach, the courts and the Black Knights throughout the novel in an effort to reveal the truth about/kill the now-openly dangerous Nessie. | |
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Downplayed Trope | |
Meg / int_42c9f1ec | comment |
The Mariana Trench is a downplayed example, being a poorly explored region with two relict prehistoric creatures still living there. | |
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Dropped a Bridge on Him | |
Meg / int_43a045de | comment |
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Brutus, the 80-foot Livyatan melvillei whale that proves such a headache in Night Stalkers, escapes early in Generations, setting up the possibility it'll clash with either Luna or the Liopleurodon pup — then it turns up dead halfway through the novel, having beached itself in confusion at being away from its natural habitat. | |
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Extinct Animal Park | |
Meg / int_45aaa618 | comment |
Extinct Animal Park: A reoccurring plot line in the novels is characters capturing the various prehistoric marine animals to put them in huge aquariums (starting with the megalodons, but marine reptiles and ancient whales get added in later books), partly because giant predators swimming loose in the modern day oceans is a real bad thing. Inevitably, attempts to capture them go awry or they somehow manage to escape. | |
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In-Universe | |
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Taken up to eleven in Hell's Aquarium, which gives us a 122ft, 100-ton Liopleurodon — a good five times the length and 50-100 times the weight of the actual historical Liopleurodon. This is justified In-Universe as being an evolutionary adaptation to cold water living, but this still violates the Square-Cube Law, as a Liopleurodon that size would weigh well over two hundred tons. | |
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Meg / int_4781adbb | type |
Jerk with a Heart of Gold | |
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Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Angus is a cruel, emotionally abusive ass on his best day and a bitter old drunk on his worst (and admits as much near the end of the novel) — but he's very much not OK with John Cialino's domestic abuse of his wife, is the only one to recognise that Nessie needs to be killed despite his blood oath and escapes prison to help his son when he enters Nessie's lair alone, despite being a total dick to him for most of the book. | |
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Break the Cutie | |
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Break the Cutie: Brandy MacDonald, Zach's love interest, underwent this in the years before Zach's return to Scotland. She's gotten better, but it took some doing. | |
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Artistic License – Paleontology | |
Meg / int_4c4bebf4 | comment |
Artistic License – Paleontology: Much like its sister series, it runs into this one a lot: The Purussaurus is described as being over 40 tons. The real species weighed in at about an 8th of that. Livyatan melvillei wasn't really any bigger than modern sperm whales, being more on the order of 50-60 feet long than 80. However, sperm whales have also been known to grow exceptionally large. Perhaps most egregiously, an evolutionary biologist puts forth the hypothesis that whales evolved from giant filter feeding fish like Leedsicthys. While to a casual observer this may seem at least somewhat plausible, one need only take a cursory glance at the skeletons of whales to see why this makes no sense. | |
Meg / int_4c4bebf4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_4c4bebf4 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_4c4bebf4 | |
Meg / int_4e9fe57d | type |
Trauma Button | |
Meg / int_4e9fe57d | comment |
Trauma Button: The events that lead to Zach's near-drowning on his ninth birthday are his trigger, causing him to suffer from fierce migraines whenever anyone mentions them. He eventually gets over this after being forced to confront his inner demons and the truth about that night. | |
Meg / int_4e9fe57d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_4e9fe57d | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_4e9fe57d | |
Meg / int_4ee5989a | type |
Bizarre Alien Senses | |
Meg / int_4ee5989a | comment |
Bizarre Alien Senses: When Kwan begins his transformation, he gains electroreception, which he notes is like "feeling the heartbeats" of people in another room— not hearing them, but somehow able to distinguish them. | |
Meg / int_4ee5989a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_4ee5989a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_4ee5989a | |
Meg / int_51300dbf | type |
Fat Bastard | |
Meg / int_51300dbf | comment |
Fat Bastard: Michael Maren has piled on the pounds by Primal Waters due to the loss of his mobility, something Jonas repeatedly points out. It doesn't stop him from using Scarface to kill over half a dozen people. | |
Meg / int_51300dbf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_51300dbf | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_51300dbf | |
Meg / int_53aab01d | type |
Prehistoric Monster | |
Meg / int_53aab01d | comment |
Prehistoric Monster: As the series has gone on, more and more of these have been introduced. Aside from the titular megalodons, there have also been Kronosaurs, a giant Liopleurodon, Mosasaurs, Livyatan melvillei (an 80ft ancient sperm whale with a lower jaw shaped like an orca's) and most recently a near-200ft Panthalassa variation of Titanoboa. Interestingly, aside from the prologue to the first book, no actual dinosaurs appear. | |
Meg / int_53aab01d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_53aab01d | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_53aab01d | |
Meg / int_53c5f30e | type |
Happy Ending Override | |
Meg / int_53c5f30e | comment |
Happy Ending Override: The Loch ended with Zach being happy, famous and married. Vostok, starting about three years later, has he and his family almost bankrupt, and he and Brandy are on the edge of divorce. Fortunately, the time reset at the end lets him regain his wealth and repair his relationship with his wife. | |
Meg / int_53c5f30e | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_53c5f30e | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_53c5f30e | |
Meg / int_59a9605d | type |
Never Smile at a Crocodile | |
Meg / int_59a9605d | comment |
Never Smile at a Crocodile: Purussaurus, a prehistoric species of caiman, is on the cover of Vostok. Several live within the lake itself. | |
Meg / int_59a9605d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_59a9605d | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_59a9605d | |
Meg / int_5b8c285b | type |
The Conspiracy | |
Meg / int_5b8c285b | comment |
The Conspiracy: MAJESTIC-12 is the main antagonist of Vostok, not only suppressing evidence of alien life but preventing clean energy sources from coming into widespread use and threatening Big Oil, which is a large source of their revenue. | |
Meg / int_5b8c285b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_5b8c285b | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_5b8c285b | |
Meg / int_5beef860 | type |
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? | |
Meg / int_5beef860 | comment |
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: After the accident in the Sargasso Sea, Zach develops a crippling fear of the water. Like his migraines, confronting his inner demons (and Nessie) causes him to get over this. | |
Meg / int_5beef860 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_5beef860 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_5beef860 | |
Meg / int_5deb34da | type |
Ace Pilot | |
Meg / int_5deb34da | comment |
Ace Pilot: Jonas is an outstanding enough pilot in the Abyss Glider submersible that he's able to outmaneuver Megs, Kronosaurs and all manner of other prehistoric nasties in the water. David is shown to have inherited this ability in later novels. | |
Meg / int_5deb34da | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_5deb34da | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_5deb34da | |
Meg / int_5f930b19 | type |
Named After Somebody Famous | |
Meg / int_5f930b19 | comment |
Named After Somebody Famous: Four of Angel's five daughters. Runts Mary-Kate and Ashley were named for the Olson Twins. Their older half-sisters are Elizabeth, or Lizzie for short, who is named for Elizabeth Bathory, the infamous "Countess of Blood". Belle, or "Bela the Dark Overlord" (so named for her dark coloration, as she is the only known megalodon with pigment) is named for American serial killer Belle Gunness. | |
Meg / int_5f930b19 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_5f930b19 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_5f930b19 | |
Meg / int_5fcb9ad1 | type |
Time Skip | |
Meg / int_5fcb9ad1 | comment |
Time Skip: There's a seven-year one between parts 1 and 2 of Vostok. | |
Meg / int_5fcb9ad1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_5fcb9ad1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_5fcb9ad1 | |
Meg / int_606244c2 | type |
Parental Incest | |
Meg / int_606244c2 | comment |
Parental Incest: Benedict Singer and his daughter Celeste in The Trench. Also Angel and her nameless elder son in Primal Waters, though it's portrayed as less unnatural given the very low numbers of surviving megalodons. | |
Meg / int_606244c2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_606244c2 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_606244c2 | |
Meg / int_62434fe2 | type |
Sanity Slippage | |
Meg / int_62434fe2 | comment |
Sanity Slippage: Jonas spends most of The Trench convinced that capturing Angel was a huge mistake — jeopardising his marriage in the process — and, once she escapes, spends most of the book taking more and more reckless actions to put an end to her. It's only when he's nearly killed by hypothermic shock he decides to let it go, looking at it as God giving him a second chance. | |
Meg / int_62434fe2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_62434fe2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_62434fe2 | |
Meg / int_63cad64b | type |
Threatening Shark | |
Meg / int_63cad64b | comment |
Threatening Shark: And even more threatening when they're giant sharks! | |
Meg / int_63cad64b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_63cad64b | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_63cad64b | |
Meg / int_658f7193 | type |
Lack of Empathy | |
Meg / int_658f7193 | comment |
Lack of Empathy: After an accident in The Trench where Angel kills three high teens trespassing in the lagoon for a lark, Benedict Singer's representative Celeste suggests preemptively suing the dead kids' parents for loss of income, something a horrified Jonas turns down flat. | |
Meg / int_658f7193 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_658f7193 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_658f7193 | |
Meg / int_68da6712 | type |
Canon Welding | |
Meg / int_68da6712 | comment |
Canon Welding: Vostok brings The Loch, formerly a standalone novel, into continuity with the Meg series. | |
Meg / int_68da6712 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_68da6712 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_68da6712 | |
Meg / int_6a492371 | type |
Truly Single Parent | |
Meg / int_6a492371 | comment |
Truly Single Parent: Sharks in general are apparently moving towards reproduction by parthenogenesis. Angel's three youngest daughters (Mary-Kate, Ashley and Angelica) were born this way, and they and their half-sisters Lizzie and Belle are fully capable of it. Night Stalkers reveals that the Liopleurodon is also capable of doing this. | |
Meg / int_6a492371 | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_6a492371 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_6a492371 | |
Meg / int_6b05b601 | type |
Jerkass Has a Point | |
Meg / int_6b05b601 | comment |
Jerkass Has a Point: Jonas' first wife Maggie is manipulative, greedy and openly tries to makes Jonas look like a lunatic in order to get a favourable divorce agreement. However, the rewritten book also has her note that he didn't make her life any easier after the accident, becoming increasingly bitter and angry at being railroaded by the Navy after the accident, and ignoring her dreams in favour of his megalodon research. It's still presented as a blatant attempt to get him to cooperate for her story, but Jonas at least acknowledges the truth of what she's saying. In the fourth book Brain Suits seems to be your typical obstructive Bad Boss to David as he tries to train the Crown Prince's recruits. However, from Suits' point of view David may be a brilliant pilot but he's also arrogant, unwilling to take advice and awful at working in a team. He gives David an assignment to fish a corpse out of the waters off Dubai with Monty as his copilot, one they flunk spectacularly. Afterwards, Suits makes the point that if they screwed up in 100ft of decently-lit water, how could David be expected to survive down in the Panthalassa, something a humbled David agrees with. In Generations Cyel Reed is a traitor conspiring to kill off the last surviving megalodons of Angel's line. He's a sneering, money obsessed No-Respect Guy feeling slighted the much younger David is in charge — but makes the excellent point that the megs invariably escape when large enough, killing many people along the way, so why not off the last pups before the cycle repeats? Tellingly, it convinces Jackie, who had been ready to stop him up to this point. | |
Meg / int_6b05b601 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_6b05b601 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_6b05b601 | |
Meg / int_6bda9a30 | type |
Meaningful Name | |
Meg / int_6bda9a30 | comment |
Meaningful Name: Several of the megalodons, including Angel (short for "white angel of death") and Scarface (the second-born of Angel's first litter, named by Michael Maren). In addition, four of her daughters are Named After Somebody Famous. Averted with Scarface's nameless brother and Angel's fifth daughter Angelica. | |
Meg / int_6bda9a30 | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_6bda9a30 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_6bda9a30 | |
Meg / int_6d332aea | type |
Driven to Suicide | |
Meg / int_6d332aea | comment |
Driven to Suicide: Bud Harris, a friend of Jonas who's also been sleeping with his wife Maggie in the original book. After she's killed by the megalodon and he fails to kill the shark itself in revenge, Bud blows his own brains out. David Taylor tries this when he slits his own wrists in the two months after his girlfriend is killed by Liopleurodon. Fortunately, the wounds aren't fatal. Jackie deliverately overdoses in Generations out of guilt at misjudging Brutus' awakening, which subsequently sank the Tonga and killed many of her friends note she's actually innocent, Bin Rashidi having laced her harpoon drug cocktail with a stimulant that caused the whale to go berserk as a means of sabotaging the cousin taking over his project . Fortunately, Monty makes sure she survives. In both The Trench and Night Stalkers characters trapped underwater elect to drown themselves rather than be eaten by the Megs. One luckless character tries it in the original novel when he's trapped in the sinking Nautilus — unluckily the Meg gets him before he can finish the process. | |
Meg / int_6d332aea | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_6d332aea | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_6d332aea | |
Meg / int_6eb1268c | type |
Extreme Omnivore | |
Meg / int_6eb1268c | comment |
Extreme Omnivore: Megalodons will eat almost anything they can catch. However, there is one notable aversion: even Angel's largest male pup, over 60 feet in length and weighing over 30 tons, can't digest a full-grown grizzly bear, as seen in Primal Waters. | |
Meg / int_6eb1268c | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_6eb1268c | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_6eb1268c | |
Meg / int_722171e7 | type |
Straw Character | |
Meg / int_722171e7 | comment |
Straw Character: Both left and right. The animal rights group in Hell's Aquarium are the most obvious example. | |
Meg / int_722171e7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_722171e7 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_722171e7 | |
Meg / int_723be11b | type |
Villain Has a Point | |
Meg / int_723be11b | comment |
Villain Has a Point: One of Maren's many, many reasons for hating Jonas in Primal Waters is that the proceeds from Angel's performances didn't benefit anyone except him and his family, leaving other scientists with hopes of exploring the Mariana Trench and Philippines sea plate with nothing. It seems to have resonated — at the end of the novel, Jonas announces part of the profits from Angel's return will be used for exactly that. | |
Meg / int_723be11b | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_723be11b | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_723be11b | |
Meg / int_73f38fe0 | type |
LEGO Genetics | |
Meg / int_73f38fe0 | comment |
LEGO Genetics: A key element of the plot, as shark DNA is incorporated into Kwan Wilson, resulting in his transformation into the title character. | |
Meg / int_73f38fe0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_73f38fe0 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_73f38fe0 | |
Meg / int_76cbbc0b | type |
George Lucas Altered Version | |
Meg / int_76cbbc0b | comment |
George Lucas Altered Version: In 2015 Alten completely rewrote the original novel, changing numerous scenes, inserting Mac into the narrative much earlier, having a larger role for Maggie in the book's middle and altering the ending (with Jonas blowing up the Meg from the inside by igniting the whale oil in its stomach, rather than cutting its heart out as in the original). | |
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Meg / int_76cbbc0b | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_76cbbc0b | |
Meg / int_77b03c0a | type |
Remember the New Guy? | |
Meg / int_77b03c0a | comment |
Remember the New Guy?: Paul Agricola was introduced in the E-Book Meg: Origins — set prior to the first book but released after Hell's Aquarium. If you've not read it, his sudden prominence in Night Stalkers can come across as a bit forced. | |
Meg / int_77b03c0a | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_77b03c0a | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_77b03c0a | |
Meg / int_7831b670 | type |
Gaia's Vengeance | |
Meg / int_7831b670 | comment |
Gaia's Vengeance: The monster goes on a rampage when the vibrations from dynamite, used during construction, set it off. When oil gets into its brain and damages it, she gets even crazier. | |
Meg / int_7831b670 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_7831b670 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_7831b670 | |
Meg / int_7870735b | type |
From Bad to Worse | |
Meg / int_7870735b | comment |
From Bad to Worse: In Primal Waters an unscrupulous property developer attempts to plant mines to blow up the door of the Meg lagoon, so that Jonas will be forced to sell the land to him to turn into profitable hotels and condos. Unluckily for him, he has no idea that Angel's largest male pup (over 60ft in length and 30 tons in weight) has been lured into the lagoon and is attacking the gate in order to get out. He immediately tries to swim away — then the even larger Angel herself shows up... | |
Meg / int_7870735b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_7870735b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_7870735b | |
Meg / int_7a4013f3 | type |
Deuteragonist | |
Meg / int_7a4013f3 | comment |
Deuteragonist: David fully becomes this from Hell's Aquarium onwards. | |
Meg / int_7a4013f3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_7a4013f3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_7a4013f3 | |
Meg / int_7c48b272 | type |
Summon Bigger Fish | |
Meg / int_7c48b272 | comment |
Summon Bigger Fish: Purposefully invoked in Hell's Aquarium, and with an actual fish to boot — descending into the Panthalassa to rescue David, Jonas is immediately assailed by the legion of prehistoric monstrosities that call it home — and so decides to have Angel, who is significantly bigger and nastier than almost any predator there, accompany him to frighten them off. | |
Meg / int_7c48b272 | featureApplicability |
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Meg / int_7c48b272 | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_7c48b272 | |
Meg / int_7ccd3698 | type |
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever | |
Meg / int_7ccd3698 | comment |
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Nessie has grown to over 50 feet long due to being trapped in the loch for so long, unable to escape, mate and die like her ancestors did. | |
Meg / int_7ccd3698 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_7ccd3698 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_7ccd3698 | |
Meg / int_7eebe99c | type |
The Alcoholic | |
Meg / int_7eebe99c | comment |
The Alcoholic: Mac has let himself go in a big way by the time of Primal Waters, and spends much of the book in AA after Jonas forces him to realise the damage it's doing to his personal life and relationships. | |
Meg / int_7eebe99c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_7eebe99c | featureConfidence |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_7eebe99c | |
Meg / int_81c4faa3 | type |
Entertainingly Wrong | |
Meg / int_81c4faa3 | comment |
Entertainingly Wrong: The only reason Jonas goes along with Masao's plan to dive back into the Mariana trench is spotting what he thinks is a fresh megalodon tooth in the wreckage of their destroyed UNIS robot. Eager to prove the sharks are real, he dives down and retrieves it — only for it to be what's left of a giant albino starfish, to the hilarity of Terry, Heller and everyone else listening. Then an actual Meg shows up... | |
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1.0 | |
Meg / int_81c4faa3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_81c4faa3 | |
Meg / int_823c6e3e | type |
Large Ham | |
Meg / int_823c6e3e | comment |
Large Ham: Mac. Also Monty from Hell's Aquarium onwards. | |
Meg / int_823c6e3e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_823c6e3e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_823c6e3e | |
Meg / int_8d0785d5 | type |
Didn't Think This Through | |
Meg / int_8d0785d5 | comment |
Didn't Think This Through: The now-land-hopping Liopleurodon charges into Luna's pen to confront her in the climax of Generations, then swiftly realises that the relatively small tank cancels out its greatest advantage against the more efficiently evolved shark — its greater maneuverability with its four flippers. Cue Luna swiftly slaughtering it. | |
Meg / int_8d0785d5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_8d0785d5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_8d0785d5 | |
Meg / int_8d23f3a7 | type |
Timey-Wimey Ball | |
Meg / int_8d23f3a7 | comment |
Timey-Wimey Ball: A huge part of the story of Vostok, eventually encompassing alternate dimensions and multiple timeline resets as Zach gets repeatedly killed trying to access the alien spaceship. | |
Meg / int_8d23f3a7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_8d23f3a7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_8d23f3a7 | |
Meg / int_8e5c862 | type |
Ancient Conspiracy | |
Meg / int_8e5c862 | comment |
Ancient Conspiracy: One is responsible for trapping the largest beasts in the loch in the first place, forcing them to serve as guardians of a silver casket containing the heart of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329. | |
Meg / int_8e5c862 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_8e5c862 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_8e5c862 | |
Meg / int_8ed5c6e4 | type |
Asshole Victim | |
Meg / int_8ed5c6e4 | comment |
Asshole Victim: David Caldwell, a self-promoting hack who mostly relies on stealing other people's work to advance his own position. When Nessie eats him, nobody is upset. | |
Meg / int_8ed5c6e4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_8ed5c6e4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_8ed5c6e4 | |
Meg / int_8f612013 | type |
Token Good Teammate | |
Meg / int_8f612013 | comment |
Token Good Teammate: In Hell's Aquarium actress Lana Wood is the only member of the animal rights group to actually give a shit about the ethics of the meg pups being raised in captivity. Every other member of the group we see are motivated by either piggybacking off Angel's notoriety to become stars or financial benefit (one has a lucrative side business based on recovering and selling fresh megalodon teeth). | |
Meg / int_8f612013 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_8f612013 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_8f612013 | |
Meg / int_90b330ab | type |
No-Respect Guy | |
Meg / int_90b330ab | comment |
In Generations Cyel Reed is a traitor conspiring to kill off the last surviving megalodons of Angel's line. He's a sneering, money obsessed No-Respect Guy feeling slighted the much younger David is in charge — but makes the excellent point that the megs invariably escape when large enough, killing many people along the way, so why not off the last pups before the cycle repeats? Tellingly, it convinces Jackie, who had been ready to stop him up to this point. | |
Meg / int_90b330ab | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_90b330ab | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_90b330ab | |
Meg / int_90e31482 | type |
Laser-Guided Karma | |
Meg / int_90e31482 | comment |
Mac marooning Maren in the wastes of Alaska is treated as a satisfying Laser-Guided Karma moment considering Maren had been trying to ruin Jonas. The following novel, however, reveals that it wasn't just something to be shrugged off— it cost Maren most of his toes due to frostbite. Also, while it was satisfying in the short term, in the long term it only made him that much more vengeful toward the heroes, and allowed him to garner sympathy with his future collaborators. | |
Meg / int_90e31482 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_90e31482 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_90e31482 | |
Meg / int_93399c3c | type |
Patricide | |
Meg / int_93399c3c | comment |
Patricide: Celeste kills her own father in The Trench shortly after discovering he IS her biological father. | |
Meg / int_93399c3c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_93399c3c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_93399c3c | |
Meg / int_970c790a | type |
Big Bad | |
Meg / int_970c790a | comment |
Big Bad: Angel's mother could be considered the main villain in the first book, though she wasn't outright evil. Benedict Singer serves as the main antagonist in the second book and Michael Maren in the third. | |
Meg / int_970c790a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_970c790a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_970c790a | |
Meg / int_978a82e6 | type |
Big Bad Duumvirate | |
Meg / int_978a82e6 | comment |
Big Bad Duumvirate: The two leaders of RAW (a PETA-type organization), could qualify as this in Hell's Aquarium. They form a Big Bad Ensemble with the Liopleurodon. | |
Meg / int_978a82e6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_978a82e6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_978a82e6 | |
Meg / int_984ef9ef | type |
"Not So Different" Remark | |
Meg / int_984ef9ef | comment |
"Not So Different" Remark: At several points in his narration, Zach does this with himself and his father Angus — once he descends into alcoholism after his life falls apart and again when he punches out his former coworker Caldwell. | |
Meg / int_984ef9ef | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_984ef9ef | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_984ef9ef | |
Meg / int_99ddfcec | type |
Unwitting Instigator of Doom | |
Meg / int_99ddfcec | comment |
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Meg: Origins (and later Night Stalkers) reveals that the reason that Jonas originally encountered a Meg in the Mariana Trench — the event that ruined his career and set up the events of the first book — was because scientist Paul Agricola had accidentally lured it into the area while trying to get it to surface. | |
Meg / int_99ddfcec | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_99ddfcec | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_99ddfcec | |
Meg / int_9a7d4472 | type |
Stock Ness Monster | |
Meg / int_9a7d4472 | comment |
Stock Ness Monster: Nessie herself is revealed to be part of a species of giant eel known by the Black Knights as the Guivres, kin to the Anguilla (or Conger) eel. Others of her species are known to the public as the Bloop, a mysterious noise initially detected in the Atlantic Ocean by the Navy in 1997. A Purussaurus egg is transported to the Loch in Vostok and subsequently hatches, becoming a new Loch Ness Monster, nicknamed Plessie, but it proves to be a violent killer that, since it's a reptile and can freely go on land, is even more dangerous than Nessie. Fortunately, this is undone by Zach changing history at the end of the book. | |
Meg / int_9a7d4472 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_9a7d4472 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_9a7d4472 | |
Meg / int_9b06e314 | type |
Greater-Scope Villain | |
Meg / int_9b06e314 | comment |
Greater-Scope Villain: The Arab conglomerate (including Osama Bin Laden) that backs Benedict Singer's organization. The UAE royals behind Dubai-land are this for the later books, as their drive to create their theme park for profit leads to megalodons, Liopleurodons and various other monstrosities going on the rampage. | |
Meg / int_9b06e314 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_9b06e314 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_9b06e314 | |
Meg / int_9d12bbc1 | type |
Foreshadowing | |
Meg / int_9d12bbc1 | comment |
Foreshadowing: In Primal Waters Maren rants to Jonas about encountering a Panthalassa sea monster over 100ft long and over 100 tons in weight that effortlessly shredded one of his drones. Come the following book, it's revealed he was talking about a super-sized example of the Liopleurodon species. | |
Meg / int_9d12bbc1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_9d12bbc1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_9d12bbc1 | |
Meg / int_9e1e14ea | type |
Ambition Is Evil | |
Meg / int_9e1e14ea | comment |
Ambition Is Evil: In this case it turns you into a fame-hungry gold-digging Jerkass; Maggie's need for attention and recognition lead her to constantly sabotage Jonas (at one point hiring David Adashek to provoke him into a public incident as grounds for divorce), mine every aspect of the Meg story to establish herself as a credible reporter, and ultimately gets herself killed when her accurate hunch about the shark's behaviour leads her to try and film it underwater instead of informing Jonas and the authorities of its location. Even her initial attraction to Jonas is presented as being as much a result of his fame as a Navy pilot as his physical attractiveness. Fiesal Bin Rashidi in the later books desires to be head of the Dubai-Land complex, and takes charge of the efforts to capture the Lio. He's A Lighter Shade of Black to the Crown Prince in the fifth book, but his fury about being bought out by his cousin and a desire to found his own aquarium with Paul Agricola leads him to deliberately sabotage the effort to free Brutus, leading to the deaths of over 40 people when the whale goes berserk. | |
Meg / int_9e1e14ea | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_9e1e14ea | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_9e1e14ea | |
Meg / int_a2b38d3b | type |
Eye Scream | |
Meg / int_a2b38d3b | comment |
Eye Scream: How Nessie dies — Zachary Wallace faces the overgrown Guivre in its own den and stabs through its eye and into its brain with a sword he finds down there. If that didn't finish it off, the creature's flailing, causing it to crush its own skull against the rocky ceiling, did. | |
Meg / int_a2b38d3b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_a2b38d3b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_a2b38d3b | |
Meg / int_a63f45d5 | type |
Cool Uncle | |
Meg / int_a63f45d5 | comment |
Cool Uncle: Mac plays this role to David from Hell's Aquarium on. | |
Meg / int_a63f45d5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_a63f45d5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_a63f45d5 | |
Meg / int_a89efdf8 | type |
Wife-Basher Basher | |
Meg / int_a89efdf8 | comment |
Wife-Basher Basher: Angus, of all people. Johnny Cialino's death came about when he started getting violent with his wife, and she called Angus for help; in the resulting meeting near Loch Ness, the two men argued until Angus punched him hard enough that Cialino stumbled backward, tripped over a tree root and fell backward into the loch. And then Nessie rose up and killed him. | |
Meg / int_a89efdf8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_a89efdf8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_a89efdf8 | |
Meg / int_ac7df45e | type |
Giant Equals Invincible | |
Meg / int_ac7df45e | comment |
Giant Equals Invincible: Subverted with the Liopleurodons; the mother is the largest animal in the series, over 120ft long and weighing well over 100 tonnes, while the pup in Generations is over 80ft. Despite this, they're not as efficiently evolved as killers as the adult megs, which are faster, have a more lethal bite and a far superior suite of hunting senses. The first one almost loses to the smaller Angel until the humans accidentally save it, while its pup is later easily killed by Luna. | |
Meg / int_ac7df45e | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
Meg / int_ac7df45e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_ac7df45e | |
Meg / int_af4bb41a | type |
Shark Man | |
Meg / int_af4bb41a | comment |
Shark Man: Kwan, the main protagonist, is turned into one. Sabeen Tayfour is also given the treatment, but it doesn't work quite the same way. | |
Meg / int_af4bb41a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_af4bb41a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_af4bb41a | |
Meg / int_af5f2180 | type |
Avenging the Villain | |
Meg / int_af5f2180 | comment |
Avenging the Villain: Michael Maren blames Jonas for Celeste Singer's death, which is part of what motivates him in Primal Waters. Allison Petrucci, his assistant and fiancee, has the same goal in Hell's Aquarium, though she's mostly kept in check by her bosses Bin Rashidi and the Crown Prince. | |
Meg / int_af5f2180 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_af5f2180 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_af5f2180 | |
Meg / int_b11ac9f5 | type |
Abusive Parents | |
Meg / int_b11ac9f5 | comment |
Abusive Parents: Kwan's father, "The Admiral". Before the events of the book, his last interaction with Kwan was to come to the hospital and tell him the car accident that killed his mother was entirely his fault and his paralysis was "God's penance"; Kwan mentions the only reason he came to the hospital at all was to sign a 'do not resuscitate' order. Later, when Kwan becomes the titular Sharkman, The Admiral decides he is useful and manipulates Kwan into trusting him. It seems like his feelings might be genuine, until Kwan uses his enhanced senses to overhear a conversation where The Admiral barely protests against his son's execution, agreeing that he is no longer useful. Overall, he may be one of the worst parents ever put on paper. | |
Meg / int_b11ac9f5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_b11ac9f5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_b11ac9f5 | |
Meg / int_b2cb7993 | type |
Brains and Brawn | |
Meg / int_b2cb7993 | comment |
Brains and Brawn: It's stated that Lizzy (the brains) and Bela (the brawn) have this relationship, although it doesn't quite fit this trope because Lizzy (being a fifty-foot great white) has brawn to match. Interestingly, Generations reveals the sisters taught this to their offspring, with each of Lizzie's pups pairing off with one of Bela's and assuming the same relationship. | |
Meg / int_b2cb7993 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_b2cb7993 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_b2cb7993 | |
Meg / int_b3d5d61 | type |
Real-Person Cameo | |
Meg / int_b3d5d61 | comment |
Real Person Cameo: Actress Lana Wood makes an appearance in Hell's Aquarium as part of an animal rights group concerned about the conditions Angel's pups are being reared in. Being a Steve Alten novel, things inevitably go tragically wrong and she's eaten by Bela. Word of God has it that Wood and her grandson are big fans of the series, so she contacted Alten asking him if he could write them both in. | |
Meg / int_b3d5d61 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_b3d5d61 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_b3d5d61 | |
Meg / int_b4a6ae4c | type |
Everyone Has Standards | |
Meg / int_b4a6ae4c | comment |
Everyone Has Standards: Angus may be an abusive and manipulative alcoholic, but even he draws the line at beating women. This leads him to confront John Cialino about abusing his wife, ending with Angus punching him into the loch, where he's eaten by Nessie. | |
Meg / int_b4a6ae4c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_b4a6ae4c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_b4a6ae4c | |
Meg / int_b58b4e3c | type |
Too Dumb to Live | |
Meg / int_b58b4e3c | comment |
Too Dumb to Live: Tania Cruz, the old lady from Night Stalkers who becomes convinced she can swim with Lizzy and Bela without their harming her, and that Lizzy is essentially benign and leaving her food "gifts"of slaughtered whales like a dog would. Needless to say, she gets herself and the wildlife photographer she invited to see the event killed. | |
Meg / int_b58b4e3c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_b58b4e3c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_b58b4e3c | |
Meg / int_b77eb3b2 | type |
Revenge by Proxy | |
Meg / int_b77eb3b2 | comment |
More than a few people who lost loved ones to the Meg attempt Revenge by Proxy, suing the people who tried to capture the beast instead of outright killing it. | |
Meg / int_b77eb3b2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_b77eb3b2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_b77eb3b2 | |
Meg / int_b8e3f20a | type |
Demoted to Extra | |
Meg / int_b8e3f20a | comment |
Demoted to Extra: In Primal Waters Jonas and Terry's daughter Dani is a major character, with one of the book's main plot threads devoted to her and Jonas bonding while avoiding being killed by Michael Maren and Scarface the Meg. She's reduced to a minor character in Hell's Aquarium and has a page of dialogue tops in Night Stalkers. | |
Meg / int_b8e3f20a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_b8e3f20a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_b8e3f20a | |
Meg / int_bb18a227 | type |
It's All About Me | |
Meg / int_bb18a227 | comment |
Jonas' first wife Maggie is manipulative, greedy and openly tries to makes Jonas look like a lunatic in order to get a favourable divorce agreement. However, the rewritten book also has her note that he didn't make her life any easier after the accident, becoming increasingly bitter and angry at being railroaded by the Navy after the accident, and ignoring her dreams in favour of his megalodon research. It's still presented as a blatant attempt to get him to cooperate for her story, but Jonas at least acknowledges the truth of what she's saying. | |
Meg / int_bb18a227 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_bb18a227 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_bb18a227 | |
Meg / int_bd8b2b0b | type |
To Serve Man | |
Meg / int_bd8b2b0b | comment |
To Serve Man: Nessie has developed a taste for human flesh, due in part to its natural food chain being disrupted. Oil is seeping into the Great Glen and has damaged her brain, causing her to become more violent. | |
Meg / int_bd8b2b0b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_bd8b2b0b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_bd8b2b0b | |
Meg / int_be03ba89 | type |
Lost World | |
Meg / int_be03ba89 | comment |
Lost World: The sequel features Vostok, a six thousand square mile liquid lake, over a thousand feet deep located two-and-a-half miles beneath the Antarctic ice cap, home to Mesozoic life forms long thought extinct. And to something responsible for the evolution of modern man. | |
Meg / int_be03ba89 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_be03ba89 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_be03ba89 | |
Meg / int_c335b9ec | type |
Irony | |
Meg / int_c335b9ec | comment |
Irony: By the time of his appearance in Night Stalkers Zach has adopted many of the tactics Angus used on him in The Loch, manipulating Jonas and Terry towards his desired endpoint (keeping Vostok sealed away) without telling them what's going on until it's absolutely necessary. He's even adopted Angus' strong Scottish accent and "Buts are for crapping" line to boot. | |
Meg / int_c335b9ec | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_c335b9ec | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_c335b9ec | |
Meg / int_c48a0fe6 | type |
Actually, That's My Assistant | |
Meg / int_c48a0fe6 | comment |
Actually, That's My Assistant: Subverted in Hell's Aquarium, and also used to show why this trope often doesn't work in a modern high-tech world. When Bin Rashidi and the other Saudi representatives come to pitch Jonas on capturing the Panthalassa creatures, the Crown Prince presents himself as merely one of Bin Rashidi's entourage. However, Jonas and Mac have done their homework via their government contacts and know who he is in advance, forestalling any attempt at this. | |
Meg / int_c48a0fe6 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
Meg / int_c48a0fe6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_c48a0fe6 | |
Meg / int_c75df49a | type |
Shout-Out | |
Meg / int_c75df49a | comment |
Shout-Out: Alten clearly binged the Walking with… spinoff Sea Monsters prior to Hell's Aquarium, as virtually every major Mesozoic predator from that series shows up in the book. The illustrations of the Liopleurodon in the book even use the same colour scheme as in the series, even though the later books describe it with dark brown colouring. | |
Meg / int_c75df49a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_c75df49a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_c75df49a | |
Meg / int_c83a589c | type |
Luke, I Am Your Father | |
Meg / int_c83a589c | comment |
Luke, I Am Your Father: Benedict Singer is the biological father of his protege Celeste. Given that he's also her lover, she does not react well to learning this. | |
Meg / int_c83a589c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_c83a589c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_c83a589c | |
Meg / int_c868a42a | type |
Freudian Excuse | |
Meg / int_c868a42a | comment |
Freudian Excuse: Generations reveals that Jackie's reluctance to get close to David stems from her experiences with a deadbeat father that regarded her mother solely as a means of supporting him, then beat her into brain death when she refused to play along. | |
Meg / int_c868a42a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_c868a42a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_c868a42a | |
Meg / int_c95d04f2 | type |
It Can Think | |
Meg / int_c95d04f2 | comment |
It Can Think: Alten really started playing up the Megs' intelligence from Primal Waters on. In the later books Lizzy is actively portrayed as being able to outsmart the human characters on several occasions, while her daughter Luna is shown to have inherited her mother's smarts. | |
Meg / int_c95d04f2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_c95d04f2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_c95d04f2 | |
Meg / int_cc7fae30 | type |
Outside-Context Problem | |
Meg / int_cc7fae30 | comment |
Outside-Context Problem: In a series famous for its increasingly large and vicious sea monsters, the Lio pup turns out to be able to briefly survive on land in Generations, something which gets both Paul Agricola and Fiesal Bin Rashidi killed. | |
Meg / int_cc7fae30 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_cc7fae30 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_cc7fae30 | |
Meg / int_cda501da | type |
Killed Off for Real | |
Meg / int_cda501da | comment |
Killed Off for Real: Angel in Hell's Aquarium, at the jaws of the same Liopleurodon that previously killed her son Scarface. The Liopleurodon then kills Angel's daughters Lizzie and Bela in Night Stalkers, and is subsequently killed by David Taylor, but both the sharks and the Liopleurodon have surviving offspring — until Generations, where Lizzy's last pup, Luna, kills its Liopleurodon rival. | |
Meg / int_cda501da | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_cda501da | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_cda501da | |
Meg / int_ce104b8e | type |
Serial Escalation | |
Meg / int_ce104b8e | comment |
Serial Escalation: Each installment tries to top the last with the number of giant marine predators the characters are hunting down. The first novel has just one megalodon (there is another, but the main megalodon kills it off quickly). The Trench has the first megalodon's offspring Angel, who is even bigger than her mother, as well as a family of Kronosaurus. Primal Waters has Angel and her two sons all loose at the same time. Hell's Aquarium introduces the Panthalassa Sea, a primordial ocean hidden beneath the seafloor filled with all sorts of prehistoric sea creatures, including mosasaurs, Dunkleosteus, Shonisaurus, and a one-hundred ton Liopleurodon. And Angel has also birthed a litter of pups, who are growing fast. Night Stalkers has two of Angel's pups, Bela and Lizzy, the Liopleurodon, as well as the ancient sperm whale Livyatan melvelli (with minor appearances by a family of Shastasaurus and a mosasaur). Generations not only introduces a Panthalassa subspecies of megalodon whose average member is bigger than Angel (who was enormous by the standards of her Mariana Trench genetic line), but near-200ft aquatic Titanoboas. | |
Meg / int_ce104b8e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_ce104b8e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_ce104b8e | |
Meg / int_ceec4df5 | type |
Roaring Rampage of Revenge | |
Meg / int_ceec4df5 | comment |
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Terry Tanaka wants the female Meg that killed her brother dead; she eventually loses her anger at the creature and winds up surviving the book (though the Meg does not). Bud Harris, Frank Heller and Richard Danielson team up to try and kill Angel's mother after the deaths of Bud's lover, Frank's brother and most of Danielson's crew; none of them survive the attempt. More than a few people who lost loved ones to the Meg attempt Revenge by Proxy, suing the people who tried to capture the beast instead of outright killing it. At the very end of Hell's Aquarium, David Taylor makes it clear that he wants revenge on the Liopleurodon that killed his girlfriend. He succeeds in Night Stalkers, but holds no such grudge against its offspring. | |
Meg / int_ceec4df5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_ceec4df5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_ceec4df5 | |
Meg / int_d0f0a80d | type |
One-Word Title | |
Meg / int_d0f0a80d | comment |
One-Word Title: Meg, obviously. | |
Meg / int_d0f0a80d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_d0f0a80d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_d0f0a80d | |
Meg / int_d7f4e6e1 | type |
Mysterious Antarctica | |
Meg / int_d7f4e6e1 | comment |
Mysterious Antarctica: The setting of the sequel. | |
Meg / int_d7f4e6e1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_d7f4e6e1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_d7f4e6e1 | |
Meg / int_d9cf40fa | type |
Screw This, I'm Outta Here | |
Meg / int_d9cf40fa | comment |
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Origins Paul Agricola and his crew bolt almost the moment they realise his Meg-baiting experiment led to it attacking a Navy submersible. | |
Meg / int_d9cf40fa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_d9cf40fa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_d9cf40fa | |
Meg / int_dbbaed55 | type |
Monster Is a Mommy | |
Meg / int_dbbaed55 | comment |
Monster Is a Mommy: A recurring theme in the series. The original Meg gives birth to Angel and two other offspring (neither of which survive) in the first book before being killed, while Angel gives birth to two male pups at the end of The Trench — one of whom later impregnates her again in time to have given birth to a new brood for Hell's Aquarium. This becomes a major plot point in that novel when it turns out that the megalodon species has evolved to the point where the females inseminate themselves, basically disregarding the males to produce genetic clones of themselves. The species of the Panthalassa sea can also do this — the escaped Liopleurodon gives birth mid-way through Night Stalkers. | |
Meg / int_dbbaed55 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_dbbaed55 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_dbbaed55 | |
Meg / int_dda99fa8 | type |
Despair Event Horizon | |
Meg / int_dda99fa8 | comment |
Despair Event Horizon: After all the years of megalodon-related tragedies, Terry's cancer diagnosis is explicitly stated to be the thing that finally cracks Jonas. | |
Meg / int_dda99fa8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_dda99fa8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_dda99fa8 | |
Meg / int_e016e53f | type |
Throwing Off the Disability | |
Meg / int_e016e53f | comment |
Throwing Off the Disability: By stealing the shark stem cells and injecting them into himself, coupled with dosages of saline and human growth hormone, Kwan manages to heal his severed spinal cord, allowing him to walk again. Unfortunately, it comes with side-effects (namely, a shark-like mutation). | |
Meg / int_e016e53f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_e016e53f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_e016e53f | |
Meg / int_e13156e1 | type |
Mama Bear | |
Meg / int_e13156e1 | comment |
Mama Bear: Zigzagged with the megalodons themselves, and explained fully in Generations. Prehistoric megalodons were active parents that taught their pups how to hunt. However, when the species descended into the Mariana Trench, the limited food supply led to their perceiving all other megs as threats, even their own pups — Angel's mother devours the runt of her litter of pups shortly after birth, and Angel attempts to do the same when her two male pups are born. Born away from this, Bela and Lizzy are the first megs in thousands of years to return to active parenting, claiming the Salish sea as a nursery and massacring the local orca pods to give their pups a fighting chance. More notably, when Paul Agricola captures one of Bela's pups, the enraged shark and her sister attack his boat in a futile attempt to rescue it. Played straight with the Liopleurodon in Night Stalkers, which follows the supertanker which captured its pup all the way from Antarctica to California to rescue it. | |
Meg / int_e13156e1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_e13156e1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_e13156e1 | |
Meg / int_e29e0304 | type |
Peggy Sue | |
Meg / int_e29e0304 | comment |
Peggy Sue: Zach, during his trip to Vostok, gets seven tries to escape to the surface, each ending in his death; the last time, he's allowed to remember the sixth attempt. When he returns to Vostok again seven years later, following an encounter with his own past incarnation, he returns to the day the book started with full knowledge of the future, allowing him to effectively shut down the Vostok mission and prevent the tragedies that resulted, including the death of his brother-in-law. | |
Meg / int_e29e0304 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_e29e0304 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_e29e0304 | |
Meg / int_e6a901a3 | type |
Meaningful Rename | |
Meg / int_e6a901a3 | comment |
Meaningful Rename: Mary-Kate and Ashley, two of Angel's daughters from her second litter, are renamed Afra' (Arabic for white) and Zahra' (Arabic word for "bright" or "shining") after being purchased by the prince of Dubai. | |
Meg / int_e6a901a3 | featureApplicability |
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1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
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Meg / int_e70127 | type |
The Mole | |
Meg / int_e70127 | comment |
Hell's Aquarium has Virgil Carmen be The Mole for the animal rights group, freeing Belle and Lizzie so he can receive a hefty payday. Then he falls into the lagoon after a scuffle with Dani and is promptly devoured by one of the sharks he was setting free. | |
Meg / int_e70127 | featureApplicability |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_e70127 | |
Meg / int_e8ca5cb3 | type |
Freudian Slip | |
Meg / int_e8ca5cb3 | comment |
Freudian Slip: David accidentally calls Luna, a 60ft subadult shark, his girlfriend in an attempt to justify why he's spending so much time with it, much to Monty's disbelief. | |
Meg / int_e8ca5cb3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Meg / int_e8ca5cb3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_e8ca5cb3 | |
Meg / int_e8e56799 | type |
Blue-and-Orange Morality | |
Meg / int_e8e56799 | comment |
Blue-and-Orange Morality: At many stages the human characters, particularly Jonas and David, assign various human characteristics to Angel and her offspring, variously seeing them as saviours (when Angel spares them from the Kronosaurs) and evil (the many, many times they kill or wound the lagoon employees). Ultimately though, they're apex predators, with their actions guided by the need for food and reproduction only. | |
Meg / int_e8e56799 | featureApplicability |
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1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_e8e56799 | |
Meg / int_ea22de4b | type |
Pet Monstrosity | |
Meg / int_ea22de4b | comment |
Pet Monstrosity: Not an actual pet, but Angel and her offspring are certainly regarded as such by the Taylor clan at various stages in the series. Jonas zigzags it: he shows a sense of understanding towards Angel after she saves him and Terry from the Kronosaurus in The Trench, reciprocally saving her from another Meg in Primal Waters and even noting "Angel is my monster." He drops it in Hell's Aquarium after another accident in the lagoon leads to Angel killing several of his employees. David plays it straight with Bela and Lizzy, outright trying to save them from the Liopleurodon in Night Stalkers. In Generations he begins to form a bond with Lizzy's last pup Luna the same way, to the point he's able to freely swim with her in her tank without her attacking. | |
Meg / int_ea22de4b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_ea22de4b | |
Meg / int_eb8ec7c8 | type |
Jerkass | |
Meg / int_eb8ec7c8 | comment |
Jerkass: Even in a series where Steve Alten's pet hates are portrayed very negatively, Jonas' fame-hungry ex-wife Maggie in Meg and Paul Agricola from Night Stalkers really stand out. | |
Meg / int_eb8ec7c8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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1.0 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_eb8ec7c8 | |
Meg / int_ec21bb62 | type |
Sea Serpents | |
Meg / int_ec21bb62 | comment |
Sea Serpents: The Titanoboa from Purgatory are essentially depicted as this, instead of the anaconda-like swamp-dwellers they would have been in real life. | |
Meg / int_ec21bb62 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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Meg | hasFeature |
Meg / int_ec21bb62 | |
Meg / int_fd1b902c | type |
Non-Malicious Monster | |
Meg / int_fd1b902c | comment |
Non-Malicious Monster: For all the death and destruction they cause, all of the PrehistoricMonsters in the series — the various megalodons, the kronosaurs, the Liopleurodon — are simply acting on their instincts to find food, reproduce and survive. Even the Liopleurodon killing Kaylie in the fourth book is portrayed as a total accident, with David's quest for vengeance in Night Stalkers being entirely one-sided. The only exceptions seem to be Bela and Lizzy, and it's not clear how much of their shown intelligence and maliciousness is Jonas projecting onto them. | |
Meg / int_fd1b902c | featureApplicability |
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Meg | hasFeature |
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Meg / int_name | comment |
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
MEG | sameAs |
Meg | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Rule of Cool / int_f01bf4a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Adaptive Ability / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Admiring the Abomination / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
American Literature (J To M) / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Artistic License – Marine Biology / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Extinct Animal Park / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Feed It with Fire / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Kraken and Leviathan / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Lost World / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Megalodon / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Prehistoric Monster / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Sea Serpents / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Shark Stories / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Speculative Biology / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Stock Dinosaurs / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Stock Ness Monster / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Trauma Button / int_f01bf8a2 | |
Meg | hasFeature |
Wife-Basher Basher / int_f01bf8a2 |
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