We can surely all recall famous scenes of cinematic horror: The moment when the eyes suddenly move on a hitherto peaceful portrait of an old nobleman. The moment a hand twitches in the spasm of reawakening on a corpse that had been lying quietly until then. The instant a previously rigid wax figure moves and grips the throat of an unsuspecting visitor. The cut in which an ancient puppet moves, revealing hidden life. The horror of discovery made by members of a space expedition when they realize one of them is a robot with bizarre intentions. An Aztec mask that controls its wearer. An unnaturally adult child with disfigured features relishing human flesh. The cold glow in the unhuman eye of a seemingly ordinary person who is actually a werewolf or a demon. Cards coming to life, creatures crawling out of a screen, animated puppets, dolls, and toys… we know them all too well from movies and books.
Yet perhaps we know something remotely similar (even if only as a hint) from our own lives—the startle and subsequent relief when we momentarily mistake a store mannequin for a real person in a department store. The unease we feel if we have to spend the night in a room (though few sleep in castles) where there is a life-sized statue or painting with a suggestive (“living”) appearance. A certain respect we afford to dolls and puppets, the fear of a guilty conscience when we are about to just throw them into the trash bin, and so on.
Let us consider what all these horror images have in common. It is primarily two things in mutual combination:
1.) Something inanimate comes to life.
2.) The object resembles a human, but is not one.
Point number one, in my opinion, is not the crucial one. Imagine that something comes to life that is not an imitation of a human—a chair, a vacuum cleaner, dishes. It would certainly cause us considerable astonishment, and we would be afraid because we wouldn’t know if the newly animated piece of furniture might want to strike us, but it would not be that essential dread associated with human imitations. Conversely, we can fear a human likeness even without it coming to life—there are people who are terrified of puppets, masks, and, of course, corpses.
Perhaps some will ask why I classify a corpse as an imitation of a human when (as some might say) it actually is a human. In my opinion, however, it can be placed there—a human is only a human when they are a psycho-physical unity. As soon as this connection is broken, the human ceases to be. What remains is merely a kind of biomass that is a reminiscence of a human. An advanced biological laboratory could produce an identical-looking (and obviously inanimate) biomass without much trouble. Yet, it would only be an image of a human. Merely a thing that, due to the functioning of our brain, refers to a human, giving us the feeling that it is, in some sense, close.
It matters not, then, whether it is a mask, a puppet, a painting, a statue, a dead body, or a shadow in the crown of a tree that momentarily evokes the impression of a watching face. They all share one thing in common—they are an image, imago, likeness, a simulacrum of a living being. It is precisely this trait that is the signature of dread.
Before we look closer at some interesting details of this observation, let us list the basic types of simulacra, or imitations:
MASK – Latin persona or larva (larva means mask, visor, or the ghost of the dead in Latin). The mask is an ancient source of dread. Even the laughing masks of Greek comedies possess something terrifying within them. Aside from the basic fear that it is an imitation, the mask’s function as a hider of reality plays a role here—anyone could be behind the mask, but subconsciously we suspect a monster, something inhuman that must be concealed.
PUPPET – and its alternative, the toy. It is essentially a miniature statue. Indigenous idols of smaller size are often perceived by travelers as puppets or “dolls.” Aside from the element of imitation, the classic characteristic of a puppet is its lack of autonomy—a puppet presupposes some player or puppet master who moves it.
PAINTING/STATUE – the basic, seemingly neutral representation of the depicted subject. In the human subconscious, however, there exists an innate idea that an image is mysteriously connected to the original. Many people hesitate somewhat when it comes to tearing up or crumpling a photo of a loved one—and if not in adulthood, then at least in childhood. The cruel magic of voodoo is based precisely on this connection between the model and the original. In many horror stories, we encounter the motif of a painting or statue bound to a specific person—aging along with them, or instead of them, displaying the true form of a disguised human monster, or predicting a future death. Another motif is the painting as a manifestation of an evil spirit, or a painting alive on its own.
THE DEAD – a very broad topic. Theoretically, a corpse could be viewed as a highly faithful imitation of the original person made from biological material. The Lenin Mausoleum is an example of this. The fear of the dead, which is entirely universal and omnipresent, certainly cannot be explained from the standpoint of logic or evolution. The dead we have the opportunity to see are, for the most part, our relatives, over whom we mourn and whose passing we regret. This was true in the past as well. Yet, for millennia, humans have burned their dead, bound them into a crouched position, or placed immensely heavy boulders upon them, driven by a massive fear that the deceased, whom they loved in life, would return. No one desires such a return. The chill felt when looking at a corpse is therefore essentially similar in character to the chill felt when looking at a perfectly “living” statue—the subconscious feeling that this dead mass might move.
ROBOT/GOLEM – a dead mass that moves. Whether it is clay, as in the case of the Golem, or the remnants of human bodies, as in the case of Frankenstein’s monster, or whether it consists of nuts and bolts or liquid crystals—subconsciously, it is always a “corpse that moves.” This is the sole reason why the recurring trope that whenever robots exist, they must rebel, is so fascinating. It is because deep within the human subconscious, we perceive robots similarly to the dead. They are dangerous, and we don’t even fully know why.
SHADOW – a shadow is likely the first “imitation” we encounter in our lives. We see something black reaching for our hand and precisely repeating its movements on the wall. It is a very simple silhouette representation of a human, but it works. In myths and stories, the shadow plays an almost exclusively negative role—a shadow that stalks someone, a shadow that is disobedient and suddenly does something unexpected. A shadow that wants to murder its original and take its place. The shadow is an excellent example of an imitation in the sense that, in its primitiveness, it reveals its mythological reality—darkness.
THE DOUBLE – whether it is someone who happens to look like the hero or an identical twin, the plot usually contains something sinister. The role of the double is primarily to usurp the position of the original. Only stories constructed in reaction to this basic scheme afford to show the double in a good light in order to achieve novelty.
THE MIRROR – much like the shadow, the mirror is one of the fundamental forms of the simulacrum. Just as the shadow points to accompanying mythological symbols through its darkness, the mirror does so through its properties. Indeed, the primal form of a mirror is the water’s surface, and water thus remains forever tightly bound to the formation of doubles. Human mirrors are then very frequently made of silver or silvered glass. Both water and silver have a solid relationship to the moon, which is thus effectively the patron of duplication, since it is itself the double of the sun—and the moment of an eclipse can then be interpreted as the victory of the double over the original. Silver is also a very important substance in classical photography—and photography is just another form of the simulacrum.
Now it is time to address where this dread in the image comes from. I do not have the answer. I do, however, have several accompanying thoughts. First, the common denominator for the horror of a rising corpse, a moving statue, a robot, a puppet, etc., is surely that it does not possess life. People of past centuries would say that the object in question “has no soul.” While we may no longer believe in a soul, we feel it intuitively. The soul is quite possibly not that crude superstition we disbelieve in, but something far more mysterious that we cannot name. Something that is not a category for physical or spiritualistic investigation, but rather a fitting object for deep psychological study. Perhaps the soul corresponds far more closely to today’s concept of “life,” which, it seems, is not very firmly defined. Its definition in scientific encyclopedias is not very transparent, and rather than a verbal grasp of a clear reality, it resembles an experimental, asymmetrical delineation of everything that we feel, by intuition or established custom, to be alive.
Thus, we have the “inanimate living”—a sort of walking paradox, and it is precisely the paradoxical nature of this phenomenon that can strike us as so bizarre and threatening.
The second point worth mentioning is that the threat may be caused by the fact that although the image resembles a human, it is not one. It is always lacking something. A mask is merely stylized, lifeless, wooden; a statue is made of stone and lacks organs; a puppet is tiny; and a painting lacks a third dimension. A corpse has sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, and over time displays further signs of decay, thereby increasing its distance from the original. The imitation is therefore always only partial. There is no image that holds more within itself than the original—which makes sense from a creator’s logic, because a derivative can, at most, be on the same level as the original, or worse. The very act of derivation, however, necessarily places it deep below the original.
This brings us to an important equation: simulacrum = deficiency (lacking). Every simulacrum lacks something compared to the original, or possesses some monstrous or ridiculous trait compared to the original that makes it inhuman. At this point, the simulacrum completely intersects with another cultural menace—demons and monsters.
Demons and monsters are also always deficient, incomplete. Devils have a hoof instead of a foot; water-sprites (vodníci) speak with a lisp or have water dripping from their coat tails; trolls, vampires, and others die or turn to stone in the light, and so on. Deficiency carries something terrifying within it, even in its most childish forms. On one hand, it points to the constant attempt of demons to somehow surreptitiously sneak into human society, and on the other, to the ultimate impossibility of their coexistence—the abyssal difference between life in this world and in the dark netherworld.
In concluding this overview, it must be said that we do not know the reason behind the terrifying nature of imitations and images. We can only note their unprecedented power and universal validity. Unlike the fear of an armed enemy or a hungry bear, this is not just a simple fear for one’s life, but a kind of transcendent dread whose objective origin lies in the darkness—perhaps because that is truly where it came from.
Notes for Game Mastering
Any of the simulacra mentioned above is a perfect and precise means of evoking horror if used correctly. They can be varied infinitely, and a good storyteller can constantly find new forms for them. Given the deep symbolic interconnectedness of the archetypes of the mirror, the image, the shadow, and the corpse, one can continuously find new layers of meaning, thus building fear not only in breadth but also in depth.
At the same time, however, a clear equation applies: fear and tension will increase only to the extent that the phenomenon remains unexplained. The more explanation, the less fear. A total explanation equals fear hovering at zero.
Therefore, I explicitly recommend not explaining. There are two distinct advantages to this: an unexplained mystery grows more terrifying with each subsequent step. An unexplained mystery can be developed arbitrarily; you can add any further elements that didn’t even cross your mind at the beginning, and everything will still fall into place because there is no explanation for it to contradict.
The darkness of non-explanation is then the perfect breeding ground for the roots of mystery: IF THE ROOTS OF A MYSTERY ARE EXPOSED, IT DIES. Just like a tree if its roots are uncovered, or a human if their entrails are exposed. The state of being unexplained is therefore natural for mysterious dread, and an explanation is the most humiliating thing one can do to a plot. Generally speaking, every additional hour of the plot left without an explanation is an advantage. During the time when the meaning of the plot dwells in the darkness of non-explanation, it has the time it needs to mature into its proper form. If the meaning is revealed too early (meaning when it truly forces one to reveal it), the result will only be a green, unripe fruit.
Good luck with your game, wishes
© 2005
