Foundations of Fear

[vianegativa]

So, I have an idea germinating in my fevered brain about a D20 Modern game setting. The key concept though is something I need to delve into further as I'm trying to create archetypes of monsters by using archetypes of modern human psychological fear.

It's not to hard to pair off a classic monster archetype with an associated set of fears, both Primary or Secondary, but I'm really trying to get a better handle on some fears we have as a modern society so I can work with those in my game.

Some relatively apparent breakdowns are:

Zombies-- Fear of Loss of Individuality; Fear of Being Consumed/Predation; Fear of Disease
Vampires-- Fear of Being Consumed/Predation; Fear of Disease; Fear of Degradation?
Werewolves/Werefolk-- Fear of Being Consumed/Predation; Fear of Losing Self-Control
Frankenstein-- Fear of Perverted Nature; Fear of Perverted Science
"Aliens" Movies-- Fear of Perverted Nature; Fear of Being Consumed/Predation
Witches-- Fear of Powerlessness

These are just a few examples. The big Kahuna fear FEAR OF DEATH isn't up there because I really think that's a fair constant in the human condition. As a given, I don't think I need to point it out.

So what I'm digging for are what are some fears we have in modern society? Fear od disease? Fear of senseless violence? What scares the beejezus out of us these days? Or are we still as primal and raw in our psychology as we were in front of the first fire so long ago?

I'd appreciate any thoughts from my friends on this.

Comments

[dedos.livejournal.com]

Ooh, those are good ones.

How about Fear of Failure / Success?

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

It is very hard to create a successful monstrous archetype based on the fear of failing your SAT's. ;-)

[dedos.livejournal.com]

Every game needs kobolds/goblins/cannon fodder! :P

[booboobob.livejournal.com]

Why?

Flying #2 pencils... and being sucked into one of the filled in circles on the test paper.

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

On a serious note, any of these fears being considered are really mortal fears in the end result.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

How do you mean that?

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

I mean the fears end in either physical destruction or severe impairment of the subject of the fears!

[shadowbearmn.livejournal.com]

Fear of Technology run amok or gone too far. OOooooohhh........Borg Werewolves...what does that mean? Combine two or more creatures types :)

[shadowbearmn.livejournal.com]

Or are we still as primal and raw in our psychology as we were in front of the first fire so long ago?

The primal fears are still there but as we have advanced technologically so have the level of complexity of our fears. I think we are approaching an overlaod stage as a society...look at all the stress and mentally related illnesses. There are fears we can comprehend and that may be why the world is f*cked up the way it is.....too much information and not having the capacity to use it constructively.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I think running through many of these types is a fear of loss of control over one's own body. You see it with modern lycanthropy (where the change is involuntary, as opposed to mediaeval lycanthropy, where it wasn't), with zombification, and with the face-huggers of Aliens. Isn't being held in stasis to nourish a violent enemy life-form a metaphor for having a terminal disease (and not even possessing the autonomy to commit suicide)? Of course, the strongest manifestation of this fear would be Exorcist-style demonic possession.

Then there is the guilt-driven revenge slasher genre, best typified in its non-supernatural form by Fatal Attraction. All of us fear that some indiscretion in the past will come back to haunt us; in these movies, it does so spectacularly.

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of the most prevalent subtexts in modern slasher movies (splatterpunk) such as Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th is punishment for societal indiscretions by young people.

I'm pleasantly surprised by your observations.

I'm noting in your ideas that there is no real fear representing spritual jeopardy. I suppose the fires of Hell qualify somewhat,but all those punishments are traditionally presented as physical tortures; perhaps it's because the concept of spiritual torment is so far removed from our realm of experience that most folk simply cannot related unless it's termed in pains of the body.

[booboobob.livejournal.com]

Actually, the fear of spiritual jeopardy usually results in zealotry.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That may well be because of where we're looking. IME, film is uniformly terrible at depicting realistic spirituality, so it's not at all surprising that there are few examples of spiritual torment to be found there. The vampire genre is a case in point. Although it's primarily derived from Stoker's novel, every adaptation basically jettisons the central, spiritual conflict and takes the plot in an entirely different (usually sexual) direction. Although there was a climactic physical confrontation in Dracula, the principle struggle is for Mina's soul, not her body or her emotions or anything else.

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

I just think that for most people, the idea of spiritual torment is usually presented in terms of physical suffering since most humans aren't capable of grasping deep spiritual torment as a threat. I don't feel this is confined to movies alone, but all media, fictions, and religions.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I agree; most literature I can think of portrays it in psychological rather than physical terms. This treatment isn't well suited to a visual medium like film, which therefore substitutes physical depictions.

I think everyone is capable of understanding the threat posed by psychological or emotional torment, which is why hell was always depicted in those terms when I was growing up. There was never a mention of brimstone and devils with pitchforks; hell was separation from God--forever. All of us knew enough about loneliness and abandonment at that point to be terrified enough at this thought. It helps that the Christian tradition basically characterises God largely through parental metaphors, so projecting the fear of losing parental love onto a cosmic scale is not a stretch at all.

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

Speaking specifically of the horror genre, I think psychological/spritual terror is underutilized and almost never enacted for its own sake; all horror/terror/thriller novels prey upon the reaction of our happy little reptile-mammal survival instincts. The end result of the fear will result in termination of the person, and very often the spirit is considered in only the most collateral way. Since we have no proof of the afterlife, any threats to the soul itself are dealt with in only the most peripheral way. Only folks capable of understanding the implication of the maiming or obliteration of identity/essence really grok the "soul in jeopardy" angle.

To relate it to role-playing game terms, it's why the loss of Humanity score as consequence was and is the greatest failing of the Vampire game. Only those who truly comprehend what that might be like dread it. Other players trample across it greedily in a race for more power or juvenile gratification.

As a culture, we are only taught to comprehend the immediate, physical world and the dangers therein. As God's love is not a quantifiable resource, it's hard to get most people worked up in fear over something they have no practical comprehension of; that's why the fall-back metaphor of any religion that touts punishment for sins is always physical.

I'm happy to hear your church taught the spiritual implication of damnation as opposed to making it sound like a Disneyland for the Marquis d' Sade, but you're getting a benefit most folks never enjoy.

Simply put, if you were to give most folks the choice of the death of the soul as opposed to physical death, primitive reaction takes over to preserve the organism. For most, spiritual terror can only be framed in terms of physical experience, and even then it's a topic for drawing room debate at best.

Just a thought.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not entirely convinced. Again, to draw on an RPG mechanic, consider the SAN score in Call of Cthulhu (one of the few RPGs that is a game of horror rather than one that simply exploits horror tropes and setting). I think you would find it hard to argue that players don't fear insanity as much as death. The end game result is much the same: The character is taken out of play. But I think the psychological impact of having one's alter ego devoured by a Shoggoth is very different from having him locked up in a rubber room in Arkham Asylum and the key discarded.

This is not a trope that is foreign to horror films. How many end with Our Hero being dragged off by the men in white coats, screaming "YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME!!" as others regard him with pity or utter indifference? You could call this horror of mental illness (a physical condition) or fear of imprisonment (loss of physical autonomy), but I think it's the isolation from others, the pain of being utterly ignored that really gives it its kick.

[redcub.livejournal.com]

Vampires have also been associated as sexual fears; werewolves as puberty phobias.

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! I haven't thought about it deeply enough yet to associate them with those fears in particular, but it's blatantly obvious. Thank you!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Or Teen Wolf!

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

*groans*

[booboobob.livejournal.com]

Hell, you can use just about any phobia and alter the focus of that phobia to be truly monstrous.

This is easy with the zoological fears... it's the abstracts that you have to work on... things like fear of heights, fear of enclosed spaces, fear of crowds, etc.

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Hmm... As a more modern "monster", why not exploit the relatively new concept of memes? Not as they're considered on LJ (i.e. quizzes and the like), but rather as a purely idea-based organism that reproduces by infecting the minds of new victims. Wikipedia has a pretty good article here and a rather drastic example with some possibilities can be found here.

And something that's definitely a modern fear is the loss or invasion of one's privacy. Interestingly, it's often paired with a desire to invade/probe someone else's privacy. An archetypical monster representing this would probably be a Psychic/Telepath. Most popular media that I'm aware of (aside from RPG material that allows one to *be* a psychic) cast telepaths as inherently creepy, if not outright evil.

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Another one I just thought of is the fear of change. The technology curve is rising exponentially these days and the subsequent generation gaps are becoming wider and wider. Hell, a few years' age difference can be enough nowadays.

[bookbear.livejournal.com]

Zombies: Fear of being misunderstood (lack of communication. read: Schiavo, if ya want.)
Vampires: Fear of exposure/being exposed
Frankenstein's Monster: again Fear of not being able to communicate our thoughts/wishes
Witches: Fear of power structures (The Man)

[nytemarewulf.livejournal.com]

I'll have to remember to bring my compiled list of mental aberations for you to use...