[18+] Cyclopia - The one-eyed curse

Hey there, traveler!

I think I should start with a stern warning because today’s post is really disturbing. We’re dissecting a common creature appearing in mythology, pop culture like movies and video games – the one-eyed giant, cyclops. Following our theme from Wednesday, we’ll be taking a look at a real-life disease concerning this creature, and that is not for the faint of heart. I’ll try to keep it relatively tasteful and not include medical university level pictures, but if you know you’re horrified by the grotesque, you might want to skip this one.

For those of you who take the risk, welcome to a rollercoaster of how badly nature can fuck a human up. Here we go!

I. The mythology

Let’s start with a bit of culture, to keep it classy. The concept of a cyclops originates in Greek and later Roman mythology, although there origin and features vary with the source material. In Hesiod’s Theogony (The birth of the gods), there are three named giants with one eye in the middle of their forehead, called Arges, Brontes, and Steropes. They are the sons of Uranus (must. resist. the. joke.), and brothers to the Titans and the Hundred-Handed Giants. These three were responsible for creating Zeus his famous weapon, the thunderbolt (so they basically invented thunder itself), as well as Poseidon’s trident and the helm of Hades.

Another famous source is Homer’s Odyssey, where the titular hero encounters a race of one-eyed giant shepherds (while also other things happen, like one particular cyclops, Polyphemus eats half the crew of Odysseus). Homer’s cyclopses are very different from Hesiod’s. They live among the humans (and eat them) for one and also behave way less civilized. They aren’t the humble craftsmen described in the Theogony, even their origin is completely different. Polyphemus claims to be the son of Poseidon, which is proved to be true when the angry sea god curses Odysseus to wander the seas for killing the giant.

As for pop culture, cyclopses are a common occurrence in old-school fantasy titles, like Dungeons&Dragons or Heroes of Might and Magic. In Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, Percy has a half brother named Tyson who’s revealed to be a cyclops fathered by Poseidon. 

So, where can such a creature originate from?

The answer – nightmares. Living nightmares.

II. The medical condition

If you translate the name ‘cyclopia’, it comes out as “circle eyedness”, which is really unspecific. In medicine, cyclopia is a serious manifestation of holoprosencephaly, the genetic malformation of the brain.

Cycloptic babies have really distorted facial features. As you can guess, they have a singular, large eyeball, although it almost never functions. Their nose is missing, their zygomatic arch (or cheekbones) are invisible and the formation of their jawbones stops.

As I said, this is mainly a brain malformation, the facial structure changes are due to their connection to the brain. The prosencephalon is biologically the oldest part of the whole brain, and it serves as the base of smell, but since this is the part where the optic nerve connects to the “seeing” part of the brain, it has a large effect on the formation of eyeballs. During embryonal development, this brain part is singular, like a tube unlike the clearly divided lobes found in adults or even healthy babies before birth. Certain toxins, like the aptly named cyclopamine, or genetic defects disrupt the process that divides the early prosencephalon into two halves, which in turn prohibits the forming of two separate eyes and causes failure in nasal formation.

An interesting (and no less disturbing) thing is that cyclopamine is a product of the herb corn lily, which some farm animals are likely to digest. Yepp, cyclopia is not a human-specific problem, it is more common in horses, cows, sometimes chickens and other livestock. That’s some Lovecraft shit for you. For everyone’s sake, I’m not going to include any pictures in this post, but if you’re willing to endure the sight, the Wikipedia page for cyclopia and a Google image search can find some really eldritch images.

III. Is it the origin?

As always, the answer is a solid… maybe. Prosencephaly is incompatible with life, so sadly these patients do not survive for long. Usually, it causes miscarriage, or very early infant death, minutes after birth, so adult cyclopses couldn’t possibly exist. However they can be born, and the horrific sight could shock a nursemaid so hard their mind tries to find plausible explanations for the phenomenon – and thus a myth is born. 

Well, that’s it. I hope those brave souls who read this post found it interesting and I didn’t scar you for life. Nature is sometimes more horrible than tales, but there’s always a message in every strife: that we shouldn’t discard anything as impossible.

I’ll return next week, maybe with something lighter, maybe something just as dark, depending on how this post is received. Until then, take care, travelers.

Cheers,

Dar