Conceptions, Intuition, and Truthiness

The other day the following interesting article came to my attention. It was titled "Would You Wear a Serial Killer's Sweater?" It also asked, and I asked again on Twitter, "Would you fear the volunteer who did put on the sweater?" All sorts of factors surrounding social interactions, concepts of what is real and what isn't, intuition about what's real, among others, come into play in this discussion. This is a different tack toward the same kind of idea being explored here lately. All of them come together to build connections between the characters in a story, the plot, and both the expectations and impact upon the audience of the work. Many narratives carry one singular reality, whether or not it is an exact replication of the real world or something very fantastical and different.

How does the sweater play into this? First it does not matter that it is not actually a serial killer's sweater. The insinuation or claim that it is such is enough on its own. Likewise it does not matter that the item is laundered. It still carries the connotations as if it were still stained with the blood of the killer's victims. The idea makes people nervous and uncomfortable. Its proximity causes anger in some even before the outrageous request for someone to don it. It is a tainted item. Worse, that taint may rub off. Conceptually it is an artefact of evil. Fascination with it, shown by taking the offer to wear it, points to the evil nature of that volunteer. It is something that should be reviled and likely feared. Those not espousing such emotions are questionable. Or so the theory goes.

It is a gut instinct, an emotional response that the sweater is bad. This is the same intuitive sense people have upon learning of a person's criminal record. It is of course worse if the intuiting person is familiar with the exact crime, and hard to look past if it was violent. This all begs the question, which is more important, actual fact, or just perception of the truth of something? That word truthiness, trite as its origins are, and frightening as the concept is, seems to sum up the answer to that question as today's society would answer it. Perception is everything in a large segment of the population. This is something that can and should be capitalised on in fiction. It comes up on this blog more than once for a reason. It is depth well used for characterisation, direct plot, and secondary conflict.

Mood: airy.

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Divergent Meanings

I would like to start with a little bit about what has happened during the hiatus I planned. I had every intention of starting the blogs back up in the middle of the month, after finding that the Battered Spleen Productions Knowledge Base coding work was taking longer than expected. Then when it came time to write the first article I was sick the entire week. So here we are now. Please accept my apologies.

Sometimes words are a losing battle. One word that gets a lot of bad press is stereotype. There are times that an idea is a stereotype not because it's an easy, and often incorrect assumption upon which to fall back, but because it is actually such a common occurrence. Other times it does suffer from bias and misinformation. Such biases and the flurry of reasoning and illogic, both at once in some cases, had been covered before the hiatus. Getting back to the losing battle, sometimes one of these stereotypes, when tied to a single word should maybe be considered a lost cause. When this happens there are essentially two options to consider. One is to use a different word altogether. The other is to accept, in the sense of ignore, the negative connotation.

Now, I in no way mean to malign anyone with this, or stir up trouble, or look down on anyone. Caveats and warnings like this usually are enough to cause confrontation, practically something of a tie in--in and of itself--to the themes being pursued in these Dark Corners. What I speak of is a word that has rather negative connotations to many and varied people, but at the same time strikes at, beyond the direct offensiveness of it, another group. The controversy over misappropriation of this word may even be to one degree or another misinformation itself. It may only be a piffling insult. It is hard to tell from the outside. Such is the nature of bias and ignorance. So, what is this contentious word that deserves such preamble? The word is witch.

To horror lovers everywhere witches are evil and vile people bent on vengeance, violence, depravity, and associating with all kinds of other evil. Witches though are also members of the Wiccan faith. Therein lies the problem. It might be inferred now that I would consider using the word witch in connection with the beliefs of Wicca's a lost cause. I am in no position to decide such a thing. The problem lies in using the wealth of horror mythology and material on evil or satanic witches. Some people take offence at putting the word evil in front of a group's name, like there is any group of any size that is 100% free of evil, no matter how much we wish to dismiss such people as not belonging to the group. However, doesn't that fly in the face all that has been discussed on twisting ideologies?

Mood:

Music: First Band on the Moon by Motley Crue and Back to Madness by Stratovarius.

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