Triffid
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The triffid is a tall, mobile, carnivorous, prolific and highly venomous fictional plant species—the titular antagonist in John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids and Simon Clark's 2001 sequel The Night of the Triffids.
Triffids were also featured in the 1957 BBC radio dramatization of Wyndham's book, a considerably altered film adaptation which was produced in 1962, a more faithful 1981 television serial produced by the BBC, and in a 2009 two-part TV series also produced by the BBC.
Since 1951, when The Day of the Triffids was first published, the word "triffid" has become a popular British English colloquial term for large or menacing-looking plants.
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Fictional history
Origins
The origin of the triffid species is never fully revealed in Wyndham's novel. The novel's central character, Bill Masen, dismisses the idea that they are a naturally occurring species, or that they are extraterrestrial in origin:
- "My own belief, for what that is worth, is that they were the outcome of a series of ingenious biological meddlings—and very likely accidental, at that. Had they been evolved anywhere but in the region they were, we should doubtless have had a well‑documented ancestry for them."
The 1981 TV series and some editions of the book have Masen speculating that the triffids were the creation of the real-life Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko. According to Masen's narration, the triffids first came to the attention of the Western world when a man named Umberto Christoforo Palanguez presented the Arctic & European Fish Oil Company with a mysterious vegetable oil originating from Russia. Once the scientists of Arctic & European realised how potent the oil was, Palanguez' offer to smuggle some seeds of the plant out of Russia was accepted. Palanguez disappeared, but Masen guesses that his plane carrying the triffid seeds was shot down by the Red Airforce, allowing the seeds to be carried all over the globe by wind.
Name
According to Wyndham's novel, the name Triffid alludes to the plant's three leg-like protusions and was originally "trifid", Latin for "split into three parts".
Initial outbreaks and exploitation
The first documented triffid outbreaks occur in Indochina, where they receive little press attention, until triffids begin appearing in Sumatra, Borneo, Belgian Congo, Colombia, Brazil and other equatorial regions. Although they develop faster in tropical zones, triffids soon begin establishing themselves in many regions outside the polar and desert regions. Once it is discovered that triffids are predatory creatures, they are culled in large numbers and almost exterminated until it is discovered that they are also the source of the valuable oil. Once it is established that docking their stingers renders them harmless, docked triffids soon become fashionable in public and private gardens. As it takes triffids two years to fully regrow their stings, captive triffids need to be pruned every year. Triffid farms are built in order to produce triffid oil, which is of greater quality when taken from undocked specimens.
During and after the Great Blinding
After a large part of the Earth's human population is rendered blind by a brightly coloured comet shower, triffids begin escaping confinement and easily kill large numbers of blinded people. They soon overrun mainland Europe and the British Isles, thus forcing the majority of survivors to escape to the Isle of Wight and other islands. In The Night of the Triffids, set 25 years after the events of Day, triffids in the British Isles are still valued as energy and food sources. Due to a yearly purge Triffids remain absent in the Isle of Wight, until they are transported there by large floating mats of debris and vegetation. Triffids also become more aggressive, as a comet shower has blotted out the sun and thus necessitates them to increase their nutritional intake.
In North America, triffids begin evolving new shapes and behaviours: standard triffids develop a form of echolocation, swamp-dwelling triffids become fully aquatic and a small number of super-sized triffids attack New York. Members of the Algonquin tribe manage to escape attack due to their immunity to triffid venom. By the end of the sequel, it is revealed that due to their constant exposure to small doses of triffid venom present in their food, a quarter of the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight are immune to triffid venom, thus encouraging them to return to the British mainland.
Characteristics
Appearance and habits
According to the novel, the fictitious triffid can be divided into three components: base, trunk, and head (which contains a venomous sting). In The Day of the Triffids, adult triffids are described as measuring on average seven feet in height. European triffids never exceed eight feet, while those living in tropical areas can reach 10 feet. In The Night of the Triffids, a small number of North American triffids manage to reach 60 feet in height.
The base of a triffid is a large muscle-like root mass comprising three blunt appendages. When dormant/docile, these appendages are rooted into the ground and are used to draw nutrients, as with a normal plant. When active, triffids use these appendages to propel themselves along at a moderate walking pace. The character Masen describes the triffid's locomotion as such:
- "When it "walked" it moved rather like a man on crutches. Two of the blunt "legs" slid forward, then the whole thing lurched as the rear one drew almost level with them, then the two in front slid forward again. At each "step" the long stem whipped violently back and forth; it gave one a kind of seasick feeling to watch it. As a method of progress it looked both strenuous and clumsy—faintly reminiscent of young elephants at play. One felt that if it were to go on lurching for long in that fashion it would be bound to strip all its leaves if it did not actually break its stem. Nevertheless, ungainly though it looked, it was contriving to cover the ground at something like an average walking pace."
Above the base are upturned leafless sticks which the triffid drums against its stem. The exact purpose of this is not fully explained in The Day of the Triffids. It is originally assumed that they are used to attract mates, although Bill Masen's colleague, Walter Lucknor, believes that they are really employed for communication. It is revealed that removal of these sticks causes the triffid to physically deteriorate. In The Night of the Triffids, the character Gabriel Deeds speculates that the vibrations made by the triffid's sticks serve as a form of echolocation.
The upper part of a triffid consists of a stem ending in a funnel-like formation containing a sticky substance which traps insects, much like a pitcher plant. Also housed within the funnel is a stinger which, when fully extended, can measure 10 feet in length. When attacking, a triffid will lash out at its target using its sting, primarily aiming for its prey's face or head, and with considerable speed and force. Contact with bare skin can kill a person instantly. Once its prey has been stung and killed, a triffid will root itself beside the body and feed on it as it decomposes by tearing at its softened flesh with its stinger and pulling the rotting meat into its funnel.
Triffids reproduce by inflating a dark green pod just below the top of their funnel until it bursts, releasing white seeds (95% of which are infertile) into the air.
Aquatic triffids appear in The Night of the Triffids, but remain largely unseen, with the exceptions of their stingers which are described as being prehensile, unlike those of land based triffids.
Intelligence
A recurring theme in The Day of the Triffids is whether or not triffids are intelligent or merely acting on set instincts. The character Walter Lucknor states that although triffids lack a central nervous system, they nonetheless display what he considers intelligence through their killing method:
- "And there's certainly intelligence there, of a kind. Have you noticed that when they attack they always go for the unprotected parts? Almost always the head—but sometimes the hands. And another thing: if you look at the statistics of casualties, just take notice of the proportion that has been stung across the eyes and blinded. It's remarkable—and significant."
Later, after the Great Blinding, the triffids are observed to herd blind people into cramped spaces in order to pick them off more easily. Triffids are also observed to root themselves beside houses, waiting for the occupants to come out.
Appearances
[[File:Dayofthetriffids.jpg|thumb|A triffid, as displayed on a promotional poster of Steve Sekely's 1962 film adaptation of Wyndham's novel]] Triffids made their first screen appearance in Steve Sekely's 1962 film adaptation. The triffids are portrayed as extraterrestrial lifeforms transported to Earth by comets. This is directly contradictory of the literary source, in which Bill Masen states:
- "In the books there is quite a lot of loose speculation on the sudden occurrence of the triffids. Most of it is nonsense. Certainly they were not spontaneously generated, as many simple souls believed. Nor did most people endorse the theory that they were a kind of sample visitation—harbingers of worse to come if the world did not mend its ways and behave its troublesome self. Nor did their seeds float to us through space as specimens of the horrid forms life might assume upon other, less favoured worlds—at least I am satisfied that they did not."
This is later reinforced in The Night of the Triffids, in which a young David Masen replies negatively to his teacher's question as to whether or not triffids are extraterrestrial.
The 1962 film triffids (now given the binomial name Triffidus celestus) also differ physically from how they are described in the books: the film triffids were designed with flaying tentacles below their stems, which they use as slashing weapons and to drag their dead prey toward them. Also, their stinger is shown as a gas propelled projectile, rather than a coiled tendril. Finally, the film triffids are shown as being vulnerable to sea water, which has the effect of dissolving them.
Triffids later appeared in the 1981 BBC serial, in which they are portrayed accurately to the book. Designed by Steve Drewett, the triffids were operated by a man crouched inside, cooled by a fan installed in its neck; the 'clackers' were radio controlled. The gnarled bole, based on the ginseng root, was made of latex with a covering of sawdust and string while the neck was fibreglass and continued down to the floor, where it joined with the operator's seat. The plants were surmounted by a flexible rubber head, coated with clear gunge. After the end of the production one was displayed for a time in the Natural History Museum in London, where Drewett had once been employed. Some inferior copies of the props later threw a cocktail party for Angus Deayton during an episode of Alexei Sayle's Stuff.
In the 2009 two-part TV series, the triffids are portrayed as being a naturally occurring species from Zaire, which is discovered by the West and selectively bred as an alternative to fossil fuels in order to avert global warming. The triffid design differs from the descriptions given in the original novel; rather than walking on three blunt stumps, the triffids drag themselves with prehensile roots which are also used to constrict prey. Their stalk is surrounded by large agave-like leaves, and they secrete their oil (green rather than pale pink) from their surfaces. Their stingers, which in previous film adaptations could not penetrate glass, are powerful enough to shatter windows, true to the original triffids of the novel. Instead of a cup they have a pink flower-like head, resembling a cross between a lily and a sweet pea, that enlarges before releasing the sting.
In The Simpsons game, Tapped Out, triffids appear as one of the crops you can plant on Cletus's farm. The harvest reward being listed as "The end of humanity".
Use of the word for real plants
In the real world - as opposed to fictional appearances - Chromolaena odorata is known as a Triffid throughout the Durban area of South Africa. The similarity of these plants to the fictional Triffid is in name only, however, as they pose no threat to humans unless ingested, in which case they may be carcinogenic.
