Season of Spooky: "Biblical Monsters", Southern Gothic, and Me · 3:26am Jul 29th, 2016
"Biblical Monsters" by Horse Voice is just one of those stories that was not only hyped by more than one person when I wrote my initial Season of Spooky blog, but was genuinely worth all the hype. Most of my time spent making assessments of "Biblical Monsters" was specifically spent not in asking if the story was good but asking myself exactly why it was so good. Excellent prose? Yes. Unique premise? Yes. Interesting themes explored? Oh yes.
In the end none of those things were quite what I wanted to talk about. I want to talk about what "Biblical Monsters" has in common with Southern Gothic stories. And also about me, a little.
Oh and spoilers ahead.
Southern Gothic is one of those genres that I don't really hear brought up very often in connection with horror, and to be fair that's usually because it isn't usually all that scary - though I can think of a few stories that might qualify. From what little I know about the academic definition of the genre, Southern Gothic writing is defined by stories that focus on grotesque elements and damaged, sometimes delusional characters in order to expose inherent weakness and fragility in the social order of the South. Flannery O'Conner and William Faulkner are noted authors within the genre, as anyone who had to sit through "A Rose for Emily" or "A Good Man is Hard to Find" for class can tell you.
I say that, but "A Good Man is Hard to FInd" is one of the best short stories ever, period, full stop, and "A Rose for Miss Emily" is brilliant too but I'm very biased towards Flannery O'Conner on account of "A Good Man" just being so much better.
You may be asking yourself what this genre focused on criticism of the order of the old south has to do with a story set near the northern seaside. Answer - everything.
"Biblical Monsters" is a horror story, but it's also a morality fable. Not only does it have a point it wants to make, that point is specifically about the human moral condition. And it makes that point through the creation of complex, human characters in a very compressed word count, as well as through the use of applied realism.
It's Southern Gothic as applied to the whole human race.
Alright that covers the generic here's-what-impresses-me universal response where I try not to get personal. Here is my actual response.
I went to Christian school for the first time when I was fifteen. Middle school has been accompanied by the onset of puberty, depression, and what in retrospect was possibly the first stirrings of gender dysphoria. I ended up attending a private christian school, my parents believing it would be better for me. I spent the following three years being exposed to ideologies and faith circles far more extreme than my own. The Presbyterian Church I attended was full of creationists, preached against the evils of homosexuality and transgenderism, and all the rest - but it had a vibrant outreach community to Hispanic locals, and eventually began hosting a separate Spanish-language church within the same building. I was indoctrinated, but much of my indoctrination consisted of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, incredibly intelligent and witty writers. My church is largely Republican but also quiet about it - politics are politics, prayer is prayer. When I entered Fresta, I encounter a world where many of these boundaries were erased. Ultimately the bullshit I picked up there lead to my exiting the church entirely, stage right, even before I so much came out as bisexual -and at the time, I hadn't even considered whether or not I was comfortable in my own skin.
When I read "Biblical Monsters", I can't help but draw parallels between Adams - the fundamentalist doomsday-believer - and so, so many people I've met.
Adams both is and isn't those people. I dispute whether or not the Left Behind-reading crowd I knew would, for instance, choose to kill what they believe is a harbinger of the apocalypse. For all he knows, Twilight might be a judgment from the Almighty about to be unleashed on the unsaved. Horse Voice was kind enough to talk with me about the story and mentioned that I'm not alone. Plenty of people see differences between their own particular faith traditions - current or of origin - and Adams' behavior. I think the reason we even bother to comment is that even if the specifics don't match, the framework does. Adams is both a dedicated worker, a kind man willing to sacrifice for others, and an inhuman monster who ultimately kills an innocent person because he thinks she might be a monster.
The protagonist goes a step further, becoming complicit in this murder because he begins to wonder if Twilight Sparkle might be a harbinger of disaster. Discussing the things that scare him just never seems to occur to the poor guy.
These two are meant to be a portrait of humanity in miniature. An illustration of our failings. We are meant to feel criticized for our shortcomings, our petty fears, our xenophobia, our doomsaying, when we see what the results are.
And yeah. Yeah, that is kind of terrifying.
But me, I'm mostly mad that the story just ends with Princess Celestia showing up when there was a perfectly good opportunity to make a parallel between Twilight Sparkle and The Beast from the Sea in Revelations. That one with ten heads. It rises from the sea and survives a mortal wound. Yes it's probably a coded reference to the Roman Empire, but come on! Twilight gets buried at sea with a knife wound and this isn't how we end a story called "Biblical Monsters"? So many opportunities for multiple heads and eyes!
All of which is to say that "Biblical Monsters" is kind of fantastic and all my criticisms of it are basically just "why isn't this more perfect than it already is".
Now on to whether this scared me:
No.
Not even a little.
Bad Horse proposed in the comments of a previous blog that "horror of the soul" is knowing that just around the corner is someone you chopped up with a chainsaw. Stories like "Biblical Monsters" are aiming for that effect because the ultimate goal is to confront the reader with the knowledge of their own failings on some level. A sort of "there but for the grace of God am I" effect. This is great. I love it. The problem is that I am also - milage will vary - a bit insulated to this because I grew up hearing exactly how sinful all of humanity is. A calvinist education does a great job at drilling into your mind the idea that all humanity is inherently despicable, defaulting to evil choices whenever possible and dragged away from what is best by feeble human nature. It's not challenging knowledge, and if a morality tale doesn't challenge, it can't really scare.
So that leads into a follow up question. Should good horror stories be judged by whether they scare you?
I would also argue 'no'. Good horror has a quality that goes beyond simply scaring you. It sticks with you. It burrows into your brain. It makes room for itself. And the ideas it presents never quite let you go.
Next time, I talk about my dark horse pick from the recommendations, and why I love it so very much. Because it does a great job at communicating what's terrifying about an idea.
I agree. Horror stories are not supposed to be scary, they're supposed to be horrifying.
I've been really digging these deep write-ups. Thank you very much for taking the time to do them, and to do them so well!
4119360 Yep. I think it's kind of telling that the two horror things that stuck with me the longest are both more horrifying in implication than subject matter.
4119436 Aww, thank you for commenting!
"Biblical Monsters" is a great story, and this is a great analysis of it.
4119473 Tbf, it's not like you couldn't have found this out from reading the Royal Canterlot Library take on it. I think my only 'unique' contribution is just noticing that it reads a bit like "A Good Man is Hard to Find".
But thanks ^^
The tragedy of Biblical Monsters comes about because the humans assume Twilight would act like humans would (colonizing and conquering Earth) while Twilight assumes that the humans would act like ponies would (e.g. desire control over nature). The horror is that it makes the case that the human worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the utopian pony society we all admire.
In some sense, the story is more related to science fiction in that it subverts the idea that aliens would come to Earth to conquer us War of the Worlds-style. Biblical Monsters argues that this trope comes from us projecting our own societal failings onto others, and that in a first contact scenario with other intelligent life, humanity might pose the greater threat.
4119616 Reservations, but I like the cut of your jib.
Amusingly, War of the Worlds is itself critical literature with its roots in the rapid conquering and colonization of the British Empire, a topic far more relevant at the time it was written. It essentially flipped the roles, presenting a situation where the "civilized" readers are forced to empathize with people being invaded by a superior civilization that cares little about those it conquers and seeks only to take. Yes it's projection, but it's projection for the sake of social criticism, which is the exact same thing "Biblical Monsters" is doing.
So I guess tl;dr, I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think the point is that the trope of conquering aliens specifically comes from human mistrust. Because it does, but it's roundabout. "Biblical Monsters" feels more like an argument for the inherent shortcomings and mistrust of humans in general, and the fragility it creates. There's also an effort to broaden the scope because while the protagonist is motivated by worries of an invasion, Adams is motivated by a blind fear of doomsday in general. In both cases, they're projecting their fears - whatever they might be - onto Twilight. And Twilight is, of course, projecting her desires right back. It's just that, you know, she didn't want to kill anyone.
...Also I'd have phrased it "human condition" rather than "human worldview", because both Adams and the protagonist have wildly different worldviews that are limited by their human failings. Ultimately the specific reasons why are trumped by what they're driven to, but that leads you down this weird idea that all-creeds-are-basically-the-same taken to a logical extreme and argle blargle flargle.
I'm very glad to hear you enjoyed Biblical Monsters, your opinion is quickly becoming something I treasure. :D Now I'm excited to see what's next!
4119633
I think we basically agree. War of the Worlds and other similar alien invasion stories are nearly all commentaries on European imperialism that try to make their audience sympathize with the plight of colonized peoples (I wonder if other cultures tell similar alien invasion stories or if they get enough of it from the history books). However, the general fear of an alien invasion that these draw from does stem from the projection of our failings onto others (as happens in Biblical Monsters). Alien invasion stories comments on society by presenting us with another version of ourselves; Biblical Monsters achieves its commentary by juxtaposing humanity against Twilight Sparkle.
I also agree that Horse Voice is making a generalized statement on humanity in Biblical Monsters, and not one specific to Christianity.
I said the same about the Southern Gothic--and I also had strong O'Connor vibes. (I'm also wandering through blogs because it's lunch time). You know, O'Connor somewhat cynically (and probably truthfully) commented that the label of "grotesque" was often implied to anything explicitly southern and that she thought it had more to do with a cultural divide than with her personally. Also also she's great, but I gotta give my home boy Faulkner the prize for overall. O'Connor is better with short stories tho.
Okay
Adams. Complicit? Absolutely. But is he really the driving force? I'd argue that he isn't.
I got a strong strong colonial vibe here. This is fundamentally a first contact story. This is meeting the Other in a tangible adorable way. But it's more than just that. The narrator rejects the whole biblical monster thing out of hand, and he never REALLY explicitly accepts it. He is at best spooked by it. No he is thinking in terms of human history. He is thinking of invasion and colonization, and he uses that to bring Adams on board.
This reminds me of our own colonial history. Adams first reaction is dismay and antipathy. But as the story progresses he loses much of his desire to do Twilight harm, and in fact at one point one gets the strong impression that he is thinking more about evangelizing to the ungulates than danger. In fact, I question whether Twilght would have died at all if Adams had been alone. He is gruff, yes, but even when he distrusts Twi he is more resigned to judgement day then fighting it.
It is the narrator, a sort of stand in for the secular, that pushes them both. Beneath the tragedy of the misunderstood and the suspicious we have a character who is fundamentally self-motivated. He seduces the only other human in the story into breaking his moral code for purely speculative survival reasons. He actually isn't talking nonsense. Twilight makes several statements which are very very very easily interpreted as "we are going to invade your world and make you a client people like you did so many others but in a nice way" to someone who knows about history. There's an unintended paternalism in Twilight here. We know she is talking about exchange and learning. But the narrator only sees an ominous veiled threat.
Which is to say, he sees himself and the history of his own species.
If anything, BM to me seemed mostly to highlight the dangers of arrogance in regard to our own knowledge and imagination. The Narrator cannot escape the alien-invasion/colonization narrative and he mirders someone because he can't. Adams is unable to suspend his own certainty regarding his interpretation of Twilight and the nature of both her magic and her mentor, and so is easily convinced. It is precisely Southern Gothic for a lot of reasons, but a big one is in how the limits of our fundamental ability to understand the universe is questioned and our optimistic certainty regarding that ability is attacked.