Talk:Grue (monster)

removing confusing and incorrect citation sentence

I'm removing the incorrect earliest use/etymology in this reference: "Probable first occurrence in print of the term grue denoting a living creature would have been this quote in this initial serialization of this story/chapter, "Cil", in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1965, although the phrase "It gave me the grues" (i.e., a feeling of fearful revulsion, short for "gruesome") occurs in the 1934 murder mystery The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers."

The Oxford English Dictionary has grue "intr. To feel terror or horror, shudder, tremble; quake; to shrink from something; to be troubled in heart" cited much earlier than 1934, including this definition in 1595: "1595 A. Duncan Appendix Etymologiae: Index in Latinae Grammaticae, Horror, gruwing, or feare."

I'm not clear on the serialization reference -- Cil is from the same Jack Vance universe, so this may be an initial serialization, but there is not a good reference to check. Note that in Google books, at least, the novel(?) title is given as "Cugel the Clever: (previously titled The Eyes of the Overworld)". As far as the serialization, here is the bibliography info for the magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction -- http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/bibliography/fsfserieswho17.htm :

       Vance, Jack
        Overworld, The 	1965 DEC 	nv 	1st story of 5 in Cugel the Clever series
 	Mountains of Magnatz, The 	1966 FEB 	nv 	2nd story of 5 in Cugel the Clever series
 	Sorcerer Pharesm, The 	1966 APR 	nv 	3rd story of 5 in Cugel the Clever series
 	Pilgrims, The 	1966 JUN 	nv 	4th story of 5 in Cugel the Clever series
 	Manse of Iucounu, The 	1966 JUL 	nv 	5th & last story in Cugel the Clever series; N-1966 NEB; this series coll. in The Eyes of the Overworld(1966 fixup), is the 2nd novel in his Dying Earth sequence
 	Seventeen Virgins, The 	1974 OCT 	nv 	6th & last story in Cugel the Clever series; this story, with 11 original stories & one pub. in Lin Carter(ed): Flashing Swords! #4(1977), coll. in Cugel's Saga(1983)
 	Faceless Man, The 	1971 FEB-MAR 	no 	1st story in his planet Durdane, or Gastel Etzwane series, a trilogy
 	Brave Free Men, The 	1972 JUL-AUG 	no 	2nd story in his planet Durdane, Gastel Etzwane series, a trilogy
 	Asutra, The 	1973 MAY 	no 	3rd story in his planet Durdane, or Gastel Etzwane series, the last novel in a trilogy

Skandha101 • 20:42, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Typical exchange?

To someone who has absolutely no idea where the term "grue" came from and first reads this article, the "typical (rather circular) exchange" lacks context. Is that a typical exchange in the game? A typical exchange among hackers joking around? A quote from an online joke or comic perhaps? For that matter, I know full well what a grue is and I'm not quite sure. Jdavidb 15:44, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Content

Much of this article appears copied from the Zork games. Marnanel 00:05, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Thus the first line saying "A grue is a fictional predator from the Zork series of interactive fiction games by Infocom."

References to Grue

• Megatokyo strip 201: "Help! A grue is munching on my toes!" --Jsnow 05:32, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Real Life strip 502 --Jsnow 16:53, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Sexy Losers strip 100; NSFW -- Jessica Gamba 1:36, 12 Feb 2005
• User Friendly: Steven Hawking has a troubling realization -- MyrddinEmrys (talk) 23:38, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• xkcd: Zork meets CounterStrike -- Inane Asylum (talk) 14:56, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
• Forumwarz: Forumwarz E-peen --Squaredevil (talk) 14:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I saw my addition was deleted as a "trivial in-game achievement". Well, it seems to me Grues are basically all in-game creatures and this is yet a valid reference to a Grue, so I thought it was worth the addition. Anyone for\against? --Squaredevil (talk) 17:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
    • The article already talks about how "grues are a common reference in hacker culture or among computer-savvy people" - yes, the title of a Forumwarz achievement is a "valid" reference to the grue from Zork, but we aren't trying to build a full list of every passing mention that's ever been made to them. (In fact, I'm not exactly sure what this talk page section is trying to achieve.) --McGeddon (talk) 18:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Wishbringer reference

If I recall correctly, grues also appeared in the Infocom game Wishbringer, and one task involved getting grue's milk. Was there a baby grue involved as well? Should there be references in this article to other Infocom games that use grues?

If you want to add a section like "List of games with grues" or "Pop-culture references to grues" go ahead. Also sign comments with ~~~~. --Yath 01:00, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Sorry about the lack of signature - I'm learning, slowly but surely. fsufezzik 21:22, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Alternate grue image

I have an image of a grue from a Zork Zero graphics file. I'm going to upload it. If anyone objects, I would be willing to take it down. --66.91.90.248 02:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

As it's been taken down, why not use a new image, like from the infotater or books? Maybe someone could scan the pic. 66.63.86.156 22:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

NetHack

Should NetHack be written consistently as such, instead of Nethack as in the UserFriendly reference? (unsigned)

Answer: To indicate an erroneous (or erroneous-looking) word or phrase in a quote, include the adverb "sic" in brackets after the reference, as, "Nethack [sic]". In this way you will not be misunderstood as incorrectly quoting, nor will it appear that you do not know the spelling. (Carpentis (talk) 18:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC))

GUE

"Great Underground Empire" is spelt "GUE". The calendar in Zork Zero starts at 0 GUE, presumably when the underground empire was built. The resemblance to "Grue" is a coincidence, I think. Alex Dodge 04:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I really don't think it's a coincidence. Part of the lore of grues is that nobody who has ever seen one has actually lived to tell anyone else what it looked like. The game of Zork itself was subtitled The Great Underground Empire, so presumably the idea was that playing the game in real life caused one to get sucked into spending all of one's time on the computer, never to be heard from again.73.154.104.67 (talk) 04:49, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

D&D appearance of Grues:

The article is worded such that it appears that Grues first appear in Dungeons and Dragons in third edition. This is not at all accurate, Grues are a historic AD&D monster. Grues (originally at least) filled the role of evil elementals. They are discribed in: The Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix (1994) on Page 50, and The Monster Manual II (1983) on Page 72. The Monster Manual II entry is especially interesting as it indicates that Grues were incoporated into AD&D lore very soon after their initial appearance in Zork.

description of grue

in the game "zork: the undiscovered underground" you will be the first human to see a grue, and there is a little description how he is looking. maybe this is usefull to complete the article, so if somebody trys it out...? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.235.119.226 (talk • contribs) 11:06, 7 January 2007.

Actually, that statement is incorrect. Undiscovered Underground incorrectly states that the character is the first person to see a grue. The statement is incorrect because you also get to see a grue in Wishbringer, and probably even Sorcerer and Spellbreaker. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.176.135.5 (talk • contribs) 08:41, 26 February 2007.

Yes, you get some description in Sorcerer if you type FROTZ GRUE. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

(Also in Sorcerer's Grue Lair and Spellbreaker's Grue Cave.) Double sharp (talk) 09:55, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Voltigores

Reminds me of the blob-like critters in Half-Life that live those dark underground tunnels. Need infra-red gizmo to see them properly, IIRC. Bastie 19:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Voltigores. They swarm in the Opposing Force sewers and have excellent night vision, unlike the player. Bastie 03:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Cite tag

I am going to pull the cite tag unless there is serious objection. There is no doubt that "grue" is notable enough since it is as well known in computer and gaming culture as 3 strikes in baseball. It is also unlikely that grue is going to show up in any peer reviewed journal. This tagging of decent articles really needs to be tempered with a bit of reason. Keith Henson (talk) 15:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Deletion

The alternative is to put this really decent article up for deletion. I am inclined to do that since it would have a welcome home at Wikia. Comments? Keith Henson (talk) 05:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Who says that it can't be used in both? This is the Internet. If you have a banana, and I copy myself your banana, we have a banana each. You said that reason is necessary for making the decision, which it is, and that reason speaks for this article, so let us leave it be. --Kizor 18:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, as I said (in not so many words) in my succesful request for adminship, guidelines are just that - means to an end, and means that say in big letters right on top that they can give incorrect results and should be ignored when there's good reason to do so. Trying to make all-inclusive, no-thought-required legislation beyond the core principles in a place this chaotic would be madness. --Kizor 19:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Cite tag since June

I deleted the cite tag as above. If there is a cite for Grue in the academic literature it hasn't been found in 6 months. This is one of the article that Wikipedia will have to live with primary sources or delete it, which would be a shame. Keith Henson 13:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Remembered that there's always this. Put here for later integration.

• Tom Videan. Steele, Eric S. Raymond (1996). (ed.) (ed.). The New Hacker's Dictionary (3rd ed.). MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-68092-0. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

And though I'm on the wrong continent to find it personally, there's a thesis called: You are Likely to be Eaten by a Grue: How Computer Games are Consuming Modern Culture --Kizor 08:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, the documentary which features the song It Is Pitch Dark is starting to be imminent. --Kizor 22:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh look. We definitely have enough stuff for an article now - not that we shouldn't have had an article before - so all we have to do now is to wait for me to recoherentize and clear my backlog, or have someone else integrate them. --Kizor 16:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

What's with the xkcd hate?

If nothing else, it's the only item in the popular culture references that's actually frigging cited. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

main page supplies no picture

the main page supplies no picture which is why i see it as just a tad unreliable, got here by the eternal darkness sanitys requim game wiki (it doesnt list any guns or items you find just monsters and stuff, meaning you have to see recent activity like every other gaming wiki) i think if info. is to be supplied someone should ALWAYS be willing to take screenshots with f12 of any kind or right clicking and hitting "save picture as" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.20.242.10 (talk) 00:58, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

There are some good reasons it's not "unreliable" to have a page about grues with no picture:

1. Grues come from text adventures.
2. They only appear when it's too dark to see them.
3. Only a handful of brave adventurers have ever encountered one.
4. Whenever grues are described or depicted, it's invariably contradictory to the previous description (except in the areas of the fangs, slavering, and claws, razor-sharp).

Infocom ran up against this same issue at least twice (in Nemesis and in the Encyclopedia Frobozzica), and handled it by using a solid black square as a picture of a grue, but I don't think that's appropriate for Wikipedia.

Besides that, judging an article's reliability by whether it has a screenshot is a bit strange. There are perfectly decent articles about, say, King Æthelred I and all his predecessors, despite the fact that there are no good pictures of most of them (and only a few of them lived in the dark and ate anyone who tried to paint them). --12.249.226.210 (talk) 22:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Length

The ends of this article are too far apart. --No qwach macken (talk) 21:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Better now, but still very unstructured. --No qwach macken (talk) 00:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Etymology

The etymology listed here seems completely disconnected from the meaning. Unless there is some confirmation from the person who coined the word, I would recommend removing this guess. In its place, I recommend an etymology relating to the English word grue, perhaps as a back-formation of gruesome. -- AudiblySilenced (talk) 18:22, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Spellbreaker - magical plane of darkness?

I'm very dubious about calling it that. Is there any reference showing that the blorple locations are their own magical planes? (Isn't the only time other planes get mentioned in the guncho spell?) Besides the Packed Earth and Water Room areas are connected, so are all the cube rooms really leading to separate planes? (Whether the cube rooms are in different planes is another matter altogether.) Double sharp (talk) 08:15, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Grue ???

The fist line of text presented in Zork I is --

ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire

Anyone ever notice GRUE can be an acronym for GReat Underground Empire?

This can't possibly be a coincidence and I'm surprised this isn't mentioned anywhere else in the article.69.65.91.78 (talk) 12:48, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Picture....................????????????????

This article should have a picture of a grue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.65.91.78 (talk) 19:42, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, strange to be missing this way. Maybe a grue came and ate the picture!? :) Naki (talk) 22:06, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

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External links modified

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How is there not an artist rendering here?

I think we need one. - Scarpy (talk) 23:37, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps fair use could be claimed for the picture in the Sorcerer infotater. The alternative of using the picture of a grue "in its natural habitat" (a blank black square) seems a bit too silly. ;) Double sharp (talk) 06:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, this is needed.Naki (talk) 11:50, 9 September 2021 (UTC)