Empathizing
Last night I was looking over a supplement book for Hunter. The book is called Slasher, and it deals with the antagonist type of the same name. Slashers are the archetypical horror movie characters. Freddy Kruger, Jigsaw, Leatherface, Hannibal Lecter, and Stuntman Mike are all listed examples of Slashers.
The thing is that the Slasher book, and the Slasher characters are several notches more horrific then the regular inhabitants of the world of darkness, which are already horrifying. Even without doing a deep reading that book shook me, and interestingly it didn't shake Kevin who was reading over my shoulder. I think I may have figured out why.
Whenever I'm presented with a character like this, one which can be thought of as "playable," I immediately slip into a bit of subliminal role playing. It's one thing to hear the description of the kid who used to slowly cut long strips of flesh off of cows not out of anger or even a sense of violence, but simply because killing was what he did, and be horrified. It's another thing entirely to hear that and then think about thinking as that person. To step, at least partially, into the role of the sociopath who kills in a state of zen cruelty. That's much much scarier. It's scarier because the basic goal here is to try to understand these things.
It's not even necessarily an unpleasant experience, thinking like this is a fascinating exercise, but I'm going to have to be more careful about when I do it. I spent a lot of last night reading Slasher, so when I went to sleep my mind was still tossing around these ideas. And when I sleep this little tossing around of ideas suddenly goes from being idle banter to being a full scale production with full visual and tactile stimulus. Idle thoughts about how to make a slasher seem trustworthy become my own little horror movie about someone who seemed so kind reminding me that you've gotta keep the little angels safe. Lord knows you've gotta keep the little angels safe.
So, given the spontaneous empathy principle, no more thinking about horror stories after sunset. It's getting too destructive
The thing is that the Slasher book, and the Slasher characters are several notches more horrific then the regular inhabitants of the world of darkness, which are already horrifying. Even without doing a deep reading that book shook me, and interestingly it didn't shake Kevin who was reading over my shoulder. I think I may have figured out why.
Whenever I'm presented with a character like this, one which can be thought of as "playable," I immediately slip into a bit of subliminal role playing. It's one thing to hear the description of the kid who used to slowly cut long strips of flesh off of cows not out of anger or even a sense of violence, but simply because killing was what he did, and be horrified. It's another thing entirely to hear that and then think about thinking as that person. To step, at least partially, into the role of the sociopath who kills in a state of zen cruelty. That's much much scarier. It's scarier because the basic goal here is to try to understand these things.
It's not even necessarily an unpleasant experience, thinking like this is a fascinating exercise, but I'm going to have to be more careful about when I do it. I spent a lot of last night reading Slasher, so when I went to sleep my mind was still tossing around these ideas. And when I sleep this little tossing around of ideas suddenly goes from being idle banter to being a full scale production with full visual and tactile stimulus. Idle thoughts about how to make a slasher seem trustworthy become my own little horror movie about someone who seemed so kind reminding me that you've gotta keep the little angels safe. Lord knows you've gotta keep the little angels safe.
So, given the spontaneous empathy principle, no more thinking about horror stories after sunset. It's getting too destructive
posted by Max at 8:05 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home