The Evil You Know

Warning! Mention of rape and child abuse

I recently listened to a horror podcast called The Magnus Archives (more on that in a different post) and its writing is brilliant, its narrative compelling and the way it builds horror and unease is amazing. But no matter how many upsetting eldritch creatures it introduces, how many creepy, disturbing and deeply unsettling stories it tells, nothing fucks me up like that one character's completely mundane backstory.

Part of the reason for my intense emotions, surely, is the fascinating way the podcast developed its characters, so that the backstory could take its full devastating effect, but another part of it is the phenomenon I want to talk about now: the evil we know is more terrifying.

We can easily see this phenomenon take shape in fandom spaces. While only very few people actually like Voldemort, for example, his evil is abstract in a grandiose genocidal way (though not without its clear real world counterpart). So while people generally don't like him, any dislike is (for the most part) impersonal in nature. Dolores Umbridge, on the other hand, is easily one of the most hated - if not THE most hated - characters in the Harry Potter franchise. And while misogyny might be, in this case, at least partially to blame, another reason is that the evil Umbridge represents is much more tangible for some people. A lot of people have had to deal with cruel and unfair teachers in their lives that made school a living hell. The emotions she invokes, therefore, are much closer to the audience' everyday lives.

A similar case can be found in Supernatural, where a large part of the fandom definitely likes some of the big bads the show has to offer. Lucifer, for example, who planned to kill all of humanity and hurt and murdered characters is actually pretty popular. What he does, is clearly fantastical in nature and, therefore, easy to ignore. The Winchesters' father, however, is markedly less popular, even though the show itself doesn't even position him as anything less than a tragic anti-hero. As a neglectful and at least emotionally abusive father, his misdeeds strike a chord with audience members, who might have their own difficult relationships with their fathers.

When Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton's actor in Game of Thrones) wondered why people were more upset about season 5's rape scenes than they were about the horrific torture earlier, he missed the point. Torture as shown in the show is clearly medieval and so far removed from anything any of the audience is likely to experience that, while it is upsetting to watch, it is not the same as rape since rape is a very real danger that people face in their everyday lives. 

Coming back to what I started out with: The Magnus Archives is full of wonderfully disturbing horror stories, featuring nightmare scenarios like wandering an empty world until your body gives out, being buried alive and unable to die, falling through an empty sky forever, being overtaken by a hive of worms and many more. And still, the worst I've felt while listening, is that one backstory that doesn't have any supernatural elements at all. Instead it's a father leaving the family when the mother gets sick and a mother who from then on starts hating the son forced to take care of her.

I've wondered why this is so much worse for me even though it lacks the classic horror elements. 

And now I think it's - at least partially - BECAUSE it lacks those elements. Its horror is real.

Satori over and out