In fiction, slimes, also called oozes, are amorphous creatures composed of gelatinous ooze. In literature and film, slimes typically take the role of horrific monsters, while in video games and anime they are often depicted as cute low-level enemies.
Slimes as monsters in literature originated with the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. In his novella At the Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft described shoggoths, shapeless beings made of black slime. Lovecraft's writings would go on to influence later Gothic fiction and other aspects of popular culture.[1]: 12–17 [2]
In the game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, slimes appear as low-level monsters, which inspired their appearance in Dragon Quest.[3] The Dragon Quest slime, designed by Akira Toriyama,[4] became a highly popular and recognizable character, and went on to influence slimes in other fantasy video games. Slimes in video games are typically "cute" characters, sometimes appearing not only as common enemies but also as allies or pets.[5]
Slimes also appear in tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons, although their depiction in that game is more horrific, being partially inspired by horror films such as The Blob.[6][7]: 193 Slime creatures in Dungeons & Dragons, such as the gelatinous cube, envelop prey before dissolving them in acidic ooze.[8]
In October 2018, the anime That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime released. In the anime, the protagonist is reincarnated in a fantasy isekai world as a small blue slime inspired by the slime from Dragon Quest. This series created a trend of anime focusing on cute slime creatures.[9]
According to Steven Shaviro, slime creatures in fiction often take the form of either a unicellular organism or a superorganism, "both of which cannot grasp its complex nature." Additionally, slimes lack the differentiation of organs and tissues that are characteristic of multicellular life. In this difference, slimes are "a collective without individuals, without any specialized parts, and without any sort of articulated (or hierarchical) structure." Marijeta Bradić writes that the motif of slimes in fiction "serves as a tool for questioning the idea of human exceptionalism."[10]
Slime has had symbolic meaning in fiction. In science fiction, slime is often "a metaphor for the intangible or unthinkable", according to designer Steven Heller.[2] Historically, some male writers, including Lovecraft, associated slime with femininity, characterizing women as disgustingly different from men, as in Lovecraft's short story "Dagon", which features a monster made of ooze and shares a name with Dagon, a Mesopotamian deity sometimes depicted as a hybrid of a fish and a woman.[1]: 23–25 American journalist Daniel Engber considered slimes in cinema of the 1980s, such as Slimer and the ectoplasm in Ghostbusters, to be emblematic of cultural fears during the Cold War of nuclear radiation and radioactive slimes created by nuclear weapons.[11]
Writing for Polygon, Ana Diaz described video game slimes as "loyal punching bags", owing to their role as common low-level enemies.[12]