Ancient ✦ Wisdom ✦ Atlas

Motif family

Conditional Invulnerability and Hidden Weakness

The repeated structure is stronger than ordinary combat: apparent invulnerability is limited by an omitted exception, exposed body point, special method, or self-disclosed weakness.

28 traditions

187 occurrences

185 mapped motifs

8 sub-families

  • afro caribbean
  • arctic inuit
  • arthurian
  • buddhist
  • celtic irish
  • celtic welsh
  • comparative
  • daoist
  • estonian
  • finnish karelian
  • germanic
  • greek
  • greek roman
  • hindu
  • inuit
  • khoisan south african
  • native american northwest coast
  • native american plains
  • native american southeast
  • native american southwest
  • navajo
  • norse
  • persian
  • roman
  • romanian
  • slavic
  • sufi
  • zuni

Conserved neighbors: divine warrior · sacred combat · external soul

Sub-families · the next landing down

Boon protections with omitted or excluded exceptions

7 motifs

Resistance to weapons, elemental ordeals, and hanging

4 motifs

Vulnerable body points, protective apertures, and altered vital anatomy

5 motifs

Crushing, non-piercing, and alternate means that bypass weapon resistance

3 motifs

Monster slain through indirect sight

1 motifs

Monster self-destruction after a solution condition is fulfilled

1 motifs

Targets revealing their own hiding place or weakness

2 motifs

Separation from weapons or impairment of faculties

2 motifs

Not yet placed in a sub-family

160 motifs, showing the 60 most attested

Each motif link opens its evidence page: every tagged passage with its quote, and a path into the book where the passage lives.