this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Horror is subjective.
I couldn't get into this one personally, because there are all sorts of inventions and ways we could do that would explore the holes without ya know... jumping into them?
Like, I dunno, throw a cell phone camera in there and see where it goes?
I guess the "horror" was the mass hysteria that caused people to mentally link themselves to a hole and think they had to jump in. But psychology doesn't work like that, as far as I'm aware (and there's some psychological horrors in the real world, like schizophrenia, that do scare the bejezus out of me).
But yeah, I realize everyone else thinks its a masterpiece. But... I just couldn't take it seriously. But give it a try, maybe it works for ya!
But the scariest part of this story isn't the holes, it's the irresistible urge to go in..
Yea, it’s the fact that it seems impossible to resist. Yes, there are better ways than described to check out the holes, but it doesn’t ruin the story for me. I get those impulsive thoughts to jump off of cliffs or drive off roads so this story is the fear of following those thoughts.
It's a very sad story actually, which I don't think gets discussed much. All the characters who go in seem accutely isolated and lonely. That feeling of isolation from the world, if you've ever felt it, well, the story resonates. The characters literally only fit in to their own little place, completely separated from the rest of the world. There's no room for anyone or anything else. But what comes out of living like that in the end? Well, it's not pretty.
It's an examination of modern life and hyper-individualism.
The surreal aspects beg you to drop your hyper-criticism and to look for deeper imagery. I love it. And he can do it in such a short form, while also managing to singularly capture the psychological horror as well as anyone.
Imagine present day Stephen King telling stories through a one-shot manga. The action wouldn't even be started before he ran out of paper! Of course, King has his own masterful way of conveying horror and it works very well, too.
Those impulses are so common the French have a lyrical term for it:
The call of the void.
Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of, too. It's called l'appel du vide ("call of the void" in French).
I love that Junji Ito has a bunch of stories that are metaphors for stuff like this. This one. Snail Girl being the same allegory as Metamorphosis. The tall actress being about the anxiety you feel when you know a coworker might ruin the business but everyone else seems to not care. The woman in the window and the window creeping closer is one of the ones most on the nose.
But then he also has the hot spring to hell which is literally "stupid man experiences stupid horror". He just felt like making cheap horror that month, lol.
Psychology doesn't work like that though... and there's some really messed up crap in real world Psychology that's horrific enough. No need to make something up.
The modes where-in the human brain malfunctions is easily understood and can be manipulated by various actors (be they accidental, or purposefully). Well, understood from the perspective of a manipulator, I don't think scientists / doctors know exactly why our brains do this. But these defective modes are well understoood and well studied.
It's not about how psychology works, it's the unknown pull to go in. AFAIK our physiology doesn't turn us into weird gangly monsters if you put pressure on our neck and limbs, but you don't seem to have a problem suspending your disbelief in that way, at least not in any way you mentioned. I think the urge to enter the holes is framed as almost supernaturally strong. Maybe it was written with a basis in the idea of intrusive thoughts, but its more like a cognitohazard that enters your mind when you see "your" hole that compels people to climb inside. I find the horror comes more from the idea that you might find a hole that you become convinced is yours and would travel all the way there just to enter. (And then the claustrophobic darkness too)
If we leave the realm of "real", then we've got much worse "cognitive superpowers" IMO.
Lets put this into DnD terms. The Enigma of Amigara Fault is roughly on the level of a "Suggestion" spell (level 3 in DnD). That is: you magically compel someone into thinking "X" is a good idea, and they'll work to try to do X. It doesn't mean that they'll "do" X, only that they think its a good idea now.
I'm not necessarily saying higher-level spells are scarier, but there's "Dominate Person" (ex: become a mind-slave to someone entirely). As well as body-horror like stuff (ex: Magic Jar. Your very soul is swapped out and another entity takes over your body entirely)... as well as alignment-change magic (Helm of Opposite Alignment) that can magically compel you to actively change who you are, and turn into something you never wanted to be originally. Stuff on a higher power level than just a magically-compelled Suggestion.
I mean, "Charm Person" can be a horror story if written well enough. Magically befriending people, and causing those "friends" to have harmful behaviors can be horrific. But there's a reason why Charm Person is a level 1 spell, and "Dominate Person" is a higher level spell.
Or perhaps in Anime Terms: both Code Geass and Death Note, far more popular manga/anime, have more horrific mind-compulsion mechanisms than what I've seen in The Enigma of Amigara Fault.
So its not about the "power" of the compulsion, there's more powerful stuff in anime. The question then comes down to the values and subjective feeling that this story offers that other stories do not offer. And that's clearly where Enigma of Amigara Fault tries to connect with the audience. But for me, it failed to connect with me.
Consider this, then. We understand how psychology works and why this situation is complety outside of any realm of possibility. Yet it is happening anyway. Consider that there is something out there, something external, something unknown, that we aren't even aware of yet that can have an effect on the human brain beyond the scope of our understanding or capabilities.
D&D has mindflayers that command a powerful control of the psyche. In that world, it is a logical reason for unusual or impossible behaviors. Harry Potter has the imperious curse as a logical way to accomplish something similar. These don't work in the real world and we have no real world equivalent.
But, the things in those worlds weren't always known about. There had to have been a period of discovery. Same with our reality. There have been many things we never knew we never knew until they were discovered. Applying logic to these situations with the knowledge of the time made it harder to understand or take seriously because we didn't have a concept yet for what it was. Yet it was there.
The fault represents that unknown both in knowledge as well as understanding. It isn't meant to be taken literally as "This thing can cause supernatural brain control." Rather, it is playing on that concept of discovery of the unknown. The hole we as humans must dive into to understand the world around us. The comic doesn't reveal the reason for it. But isn't that the very nature of exploring the unknown? We are driven to it to fulfill a need.
Sure, it could be that there is an unknown "thing" the comic never reveals, something left to our imagination to fill in the blanks which can often be a lot scarier than anything we can come up with. But it is stirring those thoughts of curiousity to find the reason, the source. The hole is considered "my hole" not because it was made for us, but because that is our personal passion, our special interest, our allure for discovery. And through it, you are changed.
But why must we jump into our hole? Why aren't these people driven to drop cell-phones into the hole and record what happens inside?
Stories ultimately are a way for the author to try to connect with the audience.
If there's a connection here you feel with the author, that's real. But all I'm saying is that this story, despite me reading it in its entirety, failed to connect with me.
That's fine. Horror is always subjective. But throughout the entire horror here, I just couldn't get around the fact that this magical compulsion-mechanism could have been solved through much less... horrifying... means? Again, cellphone on a long string. Or whatever. If they really wanted to "explore" the hole (and yes, I seem to recall that "feeling of exploration" being suggested in the story).
Because if you read the whole story you find out that the people whose holes these were did something horrific to deserve this fate over and over again. So their compulsion stems from an external source outside of their control.
I'm not against Karma in stories. Mind you, I don't believe in Karma, but I accept it as a storytelling mechanism. But things with karma don't get more horrific, if anything, it lessens the horror because "I'm a good person, so that won't happen to me". Innocent people dying in horrible ways is more horrific, at least to me.
But as I said before, horror is subjective. I've given this particular story a lot of thought and... it just doesn't scare me. And no matter how much I ponder on it, I can't make the story scare me. I don't know if its my personal experiences or something. But it just doesn't work for me.
It's metaphorical. To drop a camera into the (physical) hole is to take your first step into the (rabbit) hole of research and discovery.
Well, in Cosmic Horror, dropping the camera and perceiving what's in the hole only compels you harder to go in as it only strengthens the Great Old One's grip on your mind.
Which would have been a better story. The more you research, you (inadvertently) get pulled into the mind-virus more and more. That's why cosmic horror is... horrifying. The very act of trying to understand it only pulls you deeper into the horror.
I'm not saying "I don't want an answer" or that "space-magic" isn't cool. I'm saying that it was poorly written. A better written story should have had a good answer to the obvious "Try a cell phone first". The fact that none of the characters tried "obvious" solutions to the problem makes it incredibly unbelievable IMO.
This "hole compels you to jump in" crap is just not as horrifying to me as the better written stories out there. You have to have the main characters do something the target-audience would do, so that the target-audience can form a connection with the characters. Even if "magic" or "supernatural occult stuff" is the answer to the end, you can work around that.
Suppose it's magical and not scientific then
Its not about magic vs science. Its about "I've talked to people, and have encountered real world events, that are far far worse than this story".
No need to make something up? You hVe to be trolling. What a dumb thing to say. "No need for fiction to exsist" is basically your statement
If you find a hole hidden under geological eras, and it was made just for you and you knew it... you wouldn't feel tempted at all to just... take a step in... a unique hole unlike any other in the world, this one welcoming you like your own shadow with its depths... and confirm that someone really did carve out your exact silhouette?
It's certainly something I could imagine happening in a dream. Like my recurring dream of driving off of bridges.
There is a Buddhist element of reincarnation going on which might be lost on some foreign audiences, but the feeling it is trying to summon should be familiar - a strange familiarity of something that should be unknown to you, an inexplicable intuition, something that feels like it could be from a past life, a premonition, deja vu.
If none of this is relatable to you, that's okay, but it is relatable to myself and many others. Hopefully you don't have recurring dreams about driving off of bridges, either.
What is going on here? Do you guys not understand the holes are supernatural? They appear from seemingly nowhere and draw people in from all over the world only to find the holes match those particular people's exact form. There may be a metaphor baked in for an exaggerated form of the 'call of the void' but the real horror is an external force that is actually responsible for the call and it ultimately leads you to an existence of ever increasing suffering with no way back.
I had to reread my original post because I believe I said 'seemingly out of nowhere.' Also, supernatural is not synonymous with inhuman. Supernatural is inherently linked with death, the afterlife, and even strong emotions felt by living people.
I think this one rings true to a lot of people who struggle with intrusive thoughts. It’s not about logic, it’s about that weird urge to do the worst possible thing. You get the urge to climb in because it’s scary. So scary you can’t focus on anything else. But maybe if you just did it, at least you could stop worrying about it.
If people's minds were so weak to give into intrusive thoughts, I'd have committed suicide maybe a year or two into my intrusive thoughts.
As I said before: what happens in this comic is unrealistic. People who struggle with undiagnosed depression can (and do), survive for years despite thinking about killing themselves every day, every hour, for years.
I know. I went through this. You don't just "give up" randomly (and emperically speaking: people at this stage don't often commit suicide IIRC), though the feeling does wear you down and make you anxious over time. There's "stages" of depression and suicide, and if its just intrusive thoughts that are messing with you every waking hour of the day, you're not quite at the depths of suicide quite yet. (Yes, it gets worse than just thoughts. Although you probably should seek help if you are at this stage).
As I've said in the other comment: real life is far worse than what's presented here. Those who HAVE gone through this can't relate to it, because the people who jump into the holes were so far less weak-willed than any real world person.
There are "stages" after intrusive and chronic long-term thoughts... when your brain starts to actively plan to do something harmful. An entire tier of thoughts and planning that goes far deeper than the horrors that was in the holes story.
The horrors of living with suicidal depression for months, years, is knowing what lies on the other side of the hole, but deciding to jump in anyway. Real world is far worse than what happens in the hole story. I know I'm going to die if I give into the thoughts. Its not some mystery or drive to explore or something that's causing my brain to think those thoughts. (And honestly, if it were "just" a feeling to explore or figure out the mystery, it's far less horrific).
I totally agree, intrusive thoughts aren’t often acted upon.
I think the story is trying to capture what it feels like to have intrusive thoughts, how horrifying they can be, and is maybe a way for the artist to work through the idea of “what if those thoughts became so bad - through some supernatural mechanism - that we all succumbed to them?” It’s not meant to be realistic, but just to capture and communicate that feeling of dread combined with compulsion.
It’s kind of similar to Lovecraft’s way of telling stories. He tells you about horrifying and incomprehensible actions taken by regular people and gives some hints about their motivation. But he can’t really convey the full experience of cosmic horror so he leaves you to fill in the blanks. Some people are really affected by it, and for some it’s just too vague and speculative.
If this is the take, then its shallow. Cthulu / Great Old Ones, Lovecraftian horror, has a simple "solution' to the question I pose.
"If you drop a cell phone into the hole, and see what's inside of it, it only compels you far more deeply than ever before". Lovecraftian / Cosmic Horror is about how observation is itself an act, and the act of observation is all you need to do to fall prey to Cthulhu's mental control of you. And the more you understand the situation, its your [b]very understanding itself[/b] that draws you deeper into the horror story.
Let me tell you a horror story. Lets say the god of this world is evil. But not only that, the very act of me telling you that "god of this world is evil" is enough to put you on god's hitlist. The fact that you've even read this sentence, the omniscient god already knows you've been tainted by my words and its too late for you to be saved. (This is the story of "The Ring". If you watch The Ring, it will haunt you, because its the very knowledge of the video-tape that traps you into the situation).
Okay, so I'm not a good writer. But there's all sorts of ways that "intrusive thoughts" have been turned into a horror story by many different writers. There's "better ways" to invoke a horrifying a mind-virus upon the reader (or in the case of "The Ring", the viewer).
They... they don't jump in though. They press themselves into their hole slowly, and continue to press themselves deeper in, so slowly that they are physically pressed and molded into something monstrous.
Like... yeah, mass hysteria doesn't work exactly like that, but it's fiction? It in no way resembles something that could take place in real life. The fear comes from putting yourself into the headspace of everyone around you seeming to lose control of themselves, and then the same thing happening to you, but you don't seem to care, you just slowly begin to yearn desperately for the tight pressure of the hole that fits you perfectly.