Figments of the imagination

12 islands home to mad scientists, scary pirates, and fantastic beasts!

Image: Jad Limcaco

Whether idyllic or dangerous, mapped or mysterious, fictional islands make us want to get on a boat and become castaways. Cinema, television, and literature have allowed us to discover countless exotic lands that, despite being invented, are still fascinating. From Atlantis to Neverland, discover 12 fictional islands that, although they never existed, have earned a well-deserved place on the maps of world culture.

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The legendary island of Atlantis is arguably the inspiration for many of the other islands listed in this article. It first appeared in Plato’s writings and was described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world. Since then, Atlantis has become an allegory for lost civilizations and has been depicted in literature, films, and television shows many times.

Although nowadays everyone agrees on the story's fictional nature, there is still a debate on whether a real place influenced Plato. The search for it has attracted the attention of fictional heroes, but many real-life archaeologists and explorers have also devoted much time and effort to the quest.

Image: Nadjib BR

A tale of pirates and treasures buried in the sand, Robert Louis Stevenson's novel laid the groundwork for the Caribbean island archetype —beautiful, exotic, and deeply wild— that other writers and screenwriters would later replicate for decades.

In addition to the numerous film and television adaptations, the characters, setting, and events of this novel have greatly influenced modern imagery of pirate fiction, including schooners, treasure maps marked with an "x," and one-legged sailors with parrots on their shoulders.

Image: Dave Harwood

Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna are two islands supposedly located west of Costa Rica in the Pacific Ocean that serve as the main setting in the novels and film adaptations of Jurassic Park. However, for the film version, Steven Spielberg used the Hawaiian island of Kauai as a stand-in for the fictional islands.

On Isla Nublar lies the zoo that houses the genetically engineered dinosaurs created by John Hammond and the InGen Corporation. On Sorna, on the other hand, the dinosaurs are on the loose. Fun fact: Isla Nublar is perhaps the only island people can actually visit —so to speak— since there’s a replica at Universal Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.

Image: Michael

Odysseus visits countless islands during his great journey back home: the island of the nymph Calypso and the beautiful sorceress Circe, the island of the Lotophages, the island of the Cyclops, and the island of the gigantic Lestrygonians, among many others. However, the one that stands out the most in the work of the Greek poet Homer is Ithaca, home to his beloved Penelope and his son Telemachus.

Although there is an island of the same name in Greece, Homer's Ithaca is a figment of his imagination. The author describes it as a rocky island, unsuitable for horse breeding but rich in wheat, vineyards, and pastures.

Image: Hanson Lu

Skull Island is a fictional island lost in the Indian Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Sumatra. In the center of the island stands a huge rock that resembles the shape of a human skull, from which it gets its name.

Skull Island is the home of King Kong, several other prehistoric species of creatures, and a primitive human society. It's the main setting of three major films and a pseudo-documentary about the island's animal life.

Image: JCK5D

This idyllic island lost in the middle of the ocean appears in the works of Thomas More. Utopia is an example of the perfect state where its inhabitants enjoy physical and moral well-being. Utopia literally translates as "no place", coming from the Greek οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place").

Inspired by the fantastic narratives of the New World, More imagined an island created by the people, a crescent-shaped belt of land, housing 54 city-states all of equal size where religious freedom is celebrated and private property is condemned.

Image: Olga Subach

"The Island" is the major setting of the popular six-season-long television show Lost. This particular fictional island is not only a remote and mysterious place, it also serves as a character.

The Island has mysterious powers that can go beyond its geographic location. It is difficult to find and can apparently "move" through an unknown process. This place is so incredible that it features time travel, slave ships, supernatural monsters, large deadly animals, hidden treasures, scary scientists, supervillains, references to antiquity, and more. In short, a combination of various aspects of the other islands on this list rolled into one.

Image: Hoodh Ahmed

Deserted islands are often a metaphor for human isolation. This thesis is more than proven in Life of Pi, a best seller and famous film about a boy who must survive a journey back to civilization accompanied by a Bengal tiger.

The island in Life of Pi is hauntingly beautiful at first glance, with jungles, meerkats, food, and drink. However, it soon reveals itself to be carnivorous, feeding on its own inhabitants and reminding Pi that excessive comfort can also be dangerous.

Image: Snapwire

The book The Mysterious Island was a sequel to Jules Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways. In this story, five men, Northern prisoners during the American Civil War, find a way to escape thanks to a hot air balloon. After several days suspended in the air due to a hurricane, they finally land on an island they name Lincoln, in honor of Abraham Lincoln.

While on the island, thanks to the protagonist's knowledge in the fields of physics, agriculture, and chemistry the group are able to sustain themselves. When they find a message in a bottle a whole host of adventures ensue.

Image: Greg Rakozy

Neverland is a fictional island described in J. M. Barrie's fantasy play and novel Peter Pan. Remote and exotic, on this island children don’t grow up and live without rules or responsibilities, spending most of their time having fun and living adventures.

Neverland is home to the Lost Boys, fairies, fearsome pirates, Indians, mermaids, and other fantastic creatures that inhabit the jungles and deep waters. According to the legend, if you want to reach Neverland, you must fly to the top of the sky and turn to the second star on the right, flying until sunrise.

Image: Tom Winckels

While some islands offer sun, beaches, and a warm climate, not many can boast a community of wild human-beasts created by a mad scientist. The island of Doctor Moreau, or Noble Isle, as described in the original book by H.G. Wells, is an isolated piece of land populated by animal-human hybrids trying to find a balance between their social principles and their animal nature.

Multiple film adaptations of this story, and the whole notion of animal experimentation by a mad scientist, serve as a definite precursor to Jurassic Park, and probably a few of the storylines in Lost.

Image: Nenad Radojčić

Mr. Roarke, an enigmatic host at a luxury resort on a mysterious island somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean receives people who arrive by seaplane, upon payment of US$50,000, to make their most extravagant dreams and fantasies come true.

Although not fully described in the television series aired from 1977 to 1984, on this island some fantasies have to do with the real world and others have mythological elements. Whatever the case, there is always some mystery, illusion, and wizardry involved in the plots.

READY, SET, SAIL!

Rock The Boat With These 10 Everyday Expressions Of Nautical Origin

Image: Andrew Neel

Languages in general are perpetually evolving entities, and English is no exception. Ever-changing, over the years the English language has adopted words and phrases from other languages and even completely invented slang.

Many idioms, sayings, and figures of speech like "batten down the hatches" or "hunky-dory" that we still use in the 21st century, actually have a nautical origin, from the golden days of sailing. You may already be using many of them in your everyday conversations, not knowing the true meaning behind them. That's why we've put together a list of ten naval sayings and sailing phrases to let you know the history behind them. So hoist the mainsail and set course for discovery!

Image: Andreea Swank

There’s little chance you’ve never used this expression, by a long shot. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a long shot means "a venture involving great risk but promising a great reward if successful". It is an idiom we also use regularly to express "by a great deal".

Its origin can be traced back to early naval guns from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, whose accuracy left a lot to be desired. Apparently, these weapons were effective only at close range and weren’t very good for targets placed at great distances. So if a long shot managed to hit its target, it was considered out of the ordinary and something to celebrate.

Image: Torsten Dederichs

The literal meaning of this expression is "to fasten the entrances to the lower part of a ship using wooden boards". However, in our everyday conversations, we use it when we want to prepare ourselves or others for a difficult or dangerous situation.

The term batten was originated in the 18th century. It refers to an iron bar used to secure the covering of a hatchway on a ship when bad weather was expected. **The earliest record of the expression "**batten down the hatches" was found on Vocabulaire des Termes de Marine, a French-English dictionary of sailing terms published in 1799. The first example of a colloquial use of the phrase, similar to the one we have now, appears as recently as 1955, in an article published in the Bulletin of the General Contractors Association of New York.

Image: sharkolot

Name one TV crime series where the phrase "all hands on deck" has never been used. There probably isn’t a single one! Today we use this figure of speech in an informal way to call for everyone available to get involved in a group task or an urgent situation. However, a long time ago it had a more straightforward meaning. In times of pirates, captains would urge their crew to help whenever a storm was coming or if enemies were attacking the ship. It literally meant "All available sailors come to the deck". Over the years, as the English language evolved, it just became the expression we use when we need as much help as we can get.

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We all have at least one family member or friend who is uncontrollable and unpredictable. In our everyday vocabulary, we usually call this type of person a "loose cannon", although perhaps we’ve never stopped to think about what it really means or where it comes from.

The origin of this metaphoric expression can be sourced from the cannons that used to be mounted on the decks of warships in the early 1900s. During combat or a storm, these big and heavy weapons sometimes got dislodged, causing serious damage to the vessel and its crew. We can say that something similar happens when people with erratic behavior are around.

Image: Alex Knight

The origin of this cute little slang phrase meaning "quite satisfactory, fine" is a bit obscure. There are a few theories that explain where "hunky-dory" was first coined, but our favorite has nautical connotations. Legend has it, the expression comes from "Honcho dori", a term that means something like "main street" in Japanese, where lonely American sailors allegedly went for all sorts of diversions and services in the 1860s.

This Japanese influence was first suggested by American historian and linguist John Russell Bartlett in the 4th edition of the Dictionary of Americanisms of 1877. His theory, although picturesque and with some historical merit, can’t be 100% proven. But for the moment let’s just say: it’s all hunky-dory!

Image: Ksenia Makagonova

Yes, the word ship has given us away. As you can imagine, this commonly used expression has a clear naval origin. The term can be traced back to when ships were made out of wood and needed to be properly sealed to prevent any leaks. Captains used to supervise this operation and apparently were very rigorous about it.

In its more metaphorical sense, it alludes to a ship in which the ropes are taut, meaning it is strictly managed. In a tight ship the crew and officers work well together, that is to say, the phrase has a very similar meaning to the one we give it today. In informal and colloquial situations we now use it to refer to an institution or business that is highly organized and running efficiently.

Image: Annie Spratt

Once upon a time, when battles were fought in faraway seas, ships would heave their national flag before a battle. However, some captains were known to be swindlers. To have an advantage over their enemies, they would carry flags of other countries in order to confuse them on the high seas. This practice was especially common in the 17th century among Spanish sailors and it was referred to as bamboozle (sounds familiar?).

Nowadays, we use this expression to describe a dishonest person who eventually reveals who he or she really is. It would be great if some people came with flags, don’t you think?

Image: Tanner Mardis

Starting at a new job can feel overwhelming until you finally learn the ropes. That’s probably how rookie sailors felt like in times before steam or fossil fuel ships. A long time ago, when almost all ships had sails, new recruits had to learn how to manipulate ropes and tie knots. The nautical origin of the expression, therefore, is very clear.

It is true that ropes are rarely used in modern jobs, but the phrase has survived for centuries and we still use it today to refer to the special way things are done in a particular activity. So now that you know, you’ll never be able to teach someone to do something again without thinking of a poor young sailor handling ropes out in the cold sea.

Image: Jason Schuller

Not surprisingly, the origin of the idiom "sink or swim" is nautical. Today, we use it to mean that a specific situation will fail or succeed. The source of this expression, however, is purely literal and a bit bleak. In Medieval times, suspected witches were thrown into deep waters to prove their condition. If the victim sank, she would die, but if she managed to swim, she was considered evil and therefore executed.

The first written example of the idiom, as we use it today, can be found in Shakespeare’s play Henry IV: "If he fall in, goodnight! Or sink or swim!".

Image: Benoît Deschasaux

In the 17th century, sailors would rub empty barrels used to store food to recover any remaining scraps and not waste anything. These leftovers were presumably of inferior quality, giving the expression the negative connotation it has today. This metaphorical usage, to be forced to use one’s last and weakest resource, might have originated in the US in the 1930s, but it certainly never gets old.

We’ve reached the end of this ranking but that doesn’t mean we are scraping the barrel! There are a lot more idioms and figures of speech of nautical origin that you can explore. Can you think of any other examples? Now that you have a snapshot of what nautical expressions look like, you won't stop finding them!