The tag implication #42989 hydra -> multi_head has been rejected.

Reason: Hydra is by definition a multi-headed creature.

EDIT: The tag implication hydra -> multi_head (forum #324356) has been rejected by @NotMeNotYou.

Hydras start with one head and grow more as they get decapitated. It is possible to have a hydra with only one head, so this implication wouldn't always be correct.

siral_exan said:
Hydras start with one head and grow more as they get decapitated. It is possible to have a hydra with only one head, so this implication wouldn't always be correct.

Then how could you identify it as a hydra according to TWYS? Multiple heads are the only feature distinguishing them from any other dragon.

scaliespe said:
Then how could you identify it as a hydra according to TWYS? Multiple heads are the only feature distinguishing them from any other dragon.

that's the problem. I was literally ranting about this to myself, if we bastardize the source material and depictions of it, like Disney's Hercules, then we have a proper functioning tag, but it also becomes synonymous with multi_head. There is literally no point in having the hydra tag if all we took from it is "they're reptilian and have multiple heads", since there exists multi-headed dragons, and probably other creatures in mythologies I'm not familiar with.

On the other hand, if we keep the mythos and depictions and expect them to only look like those (vaguely), we would have a properly working hydra tag but the mythological hydra starts with only one head, and even Herc "kills" it by trapping it's last, singular head under a pile of rocks, so we can't have it imply multi_head because the mythological hydra doesn't always have more than one head.

It's almost like how the mythological cyclops can be oversimplified, but if you do so you remove all value in it because a cyclops is just a giant with one eye, and we don't need a special name for "nondescript giant with one eye". Though Greek mythology has some amazing creatures, they're also incredibly vague unless they're named (as characters, not as species), so only other copyrights would have value of a character tag for such monsters. The actual "defining" properties, such as the "inability to die from decapitation" that the hydra actually has, since other Greek monsters like the chimera also has multiple heads, are valueless on e6... unless you see them getting their head lopped off.

And as insane as I may sound right now, the takeaway is that either we adhere to the Greek mythology, which more or less falls into TWYK unless you actually see the "one head off, two heads on" process... or we alias it away since there is nothing actually unique to the hydra without knowing the mythology behind it. It was just a monstrous lizard that Hercules was tasked to kill, and when he tried lopping it's head off two heads grew from the stump. The "multi-headed lizard" concept we get is from the epic battle Herc had to wage against it, which inspired various forms of media to shorthand it to "multi-headed lizard that keeps growing heads", instead of "one-headed lizard that grows more heads when decapitated".

Is it still multi_head if all you see are the neck stumps of the hydra post-decapitation?

thegreatwolfgang said:
Is it still multi_head if all you see are the neck stumps of the hydra post-decapitation?

Should be. There's nothing about it that specifies that the heads need to be intact.

funeralopolite said:
This should still apply to the above, I feel. Even if not very common, it's possible to have a hydra with no heads cut off and only the one given at birth.

Tagging is twys-based. If it's not visually identifiable as a 'hydra', then it's not a hydra.

It appears some people are using "hydra" as a synonym for "multi head", in reference to characters that definitely do not belong to the species from Greek mythology, such as King Ghidorah.

Additionally, unusual exceptions like post #1110984, post #1618926, post #1694492 and post #2204831 make this implication invalid from my point of view. It can be argued whether those posts actually depict anything that could be called a hydra, but I would rather stay on the safe side.

genjar said:
Tagging is twys-based. If it's not visually identifiable as a 'hydra', then it's not a hydra.

So, you're saying that a one-headed hydra is still a hydra, correct? Which would mean the implication to multi_head is incorrect. Because you can identify the hydra from Disney's Hercules, which only started with one head, pretty easily IMO.

This discussion just goes to show how inconsistent Greek mythology is when they described their monsters. The real focus on Greek mythology was the heroes, "in hindsight", since they put far more effort describing the "good guys". As I now go through the internet to see "maybe there's more than one hydra that might mistake people", I see that indeed, there is a hydra that started off with nine heads. This is counterintuitive to the one I grew up with, and I was able to find "my" hydra just as reliably as this one, though mostly mine is depicted in Disney, likely because Disney actually cares about these details. In any case, now there's 2 hydras floating around, any person who was around for VHS could know of the one-headed hydra and Greek is contradicting themselves as to whether or not "the Hydra" had 1 or 9 heads.

I still say "no, the more classic depictions of hydras can have one head", and I took a screencap of the Disney hydra to prove my point, if anyone wants to see it. Chimera also suffers this, I've seen 3 separate, but similar, "designs" for the one Greek monster... Greeks did not give two fucks about their monsters, apparently. this greatly infuriates me, TBH, Greek mythology was my all-time favorite and this just sours my mood.

siral_exan said:
In any case, now there's 2 hydras floating around, any person who was around for VHS could know of the one-headed hydra and Greek is contradicting themselves as to whether or not "the Hydra" had 1 or 9 heads.

Could this be argued as a typical 1-headed hydra getting its head lopped off at least nine times before it was encountered in story?

Look, when I look for hydra I expect to find multi-headed characters, especially of a scalie nature. I hate finding a normal lizard/dragon when I specifically asked for hydra.

furrin_gok said:
Look, when I look for hydra I expect to find multi-headed characters, especially of a scalie nature. I hate finding a normal lizard/dragon when I specifically asked for hydra.

That's extremely selfish of a reason, especially since single-headed hydras exist.

But this song and dance goes even further back, if we reduce hydras to "scalie multi-headed" creatures, then what's the difference between them and "mammal one_eye" creatures (the cyclops)? Or every other combo tag e6 has shot down in the past? If people only think the hydra tag represents multi-headed scalies, it would be better to just alias it since that's all that hydra would be good for. The only "good" reason for hydra to exist is because some people want the Greek mythology part of the hydra, e6 already has the tools for everything else. This unfortunately shunts hydra into TWYK territory, it's damned if it does and damned if it doesn't because there's little visual differences between the Greek hydra and your average dragon OC Donut Steel, multi-headed or otherwise. Those OCs absolutely exist, if we oversimplify hydra then those characters count as hydras because (unless they're furred or etc. dragons) they have scales and at least one head.

So I say we keep it Greek. E6 denies users combo tags, so we don't get to treat hydra any differently just because someone expects multiple heads, since there are depictions of a single-headed hydra. If you want the multi-headed hydra, just use hydra multi_head in your tag search like every other e621 user.

siral_exan said:
That's extremely selfish of a reason, especially since single-headed hydras exist.

I see no hydra in that image. Yes, that lizard turns into a hydra once Hercules slices its head off, but it's not a hydra while it only has one head.

The hydra has to also have a long neck, not just multi-heads, so it does go a bit further. I'd rather see mythological ones moved over to hydra_(mythology).
post #3079741 post #3080189
These guys are just heads off the torso. Not hydras.
post #3080817 post #3078653 post #1846691
These guys have the proper necks, they're hydras.
Long necks usually accompany scalies, but they can belong to furred or feathered creatures too. There's plenty of images under hydra -long_neck which do fit that qualifier.

The tag implication hydra -> multi_head (forum #324356) has been rejected by @NotMeNotYou.