Tired Trope Kick-out

I was watching what was a great series of horror shorts when one of the pieces comes out of the blue with an excessively overused trope that I am really sick of seeing. You know it very well too I bet. A person has information that could help the police once they get past the fact that it is a supernatural perpetrator. This in and of itself is not a story problem even as often I've seen it. Now, this informant meets with the detective on the case and starts in about how the detective will think the informant is crazy. Mistake number one. Certainly the informant is intelligent enough to know that it's hard to believe so why don't they think ahead to find a way around that? This is way too often made worse by how the informant came into this information about the supernatural, which is a part of the trope--and the worst of it all--that there was a previous case involving just such a modus operandi as the current crimes.

In the particular case of this series there is a further bit of information. The informant knows about the particulars not only because of the previous case, but also because a relative was directly involved in the old investigation. Yet, the informant never does what any reasonably intelligent mammal would do and start off the conversation with "Hi, my name is Clara and I have something to tell you about your case because my deceased grandfather was a crime scene photographer and I found old case files that seem just like what I saw in the news papers." No, instead the conversation goes, "You'll think I'm crazy... there's something unnatural going on... the victims eyes are missing..." and the detective immediately has suspect number one right in front of him because no one not on the case is supposed to know anything about the missing eyes.

Instead, why can't script writers--I have no idea if this trope is repeated in novels but I have to imagine it is--sidestep this tired, and frankly pretty lame from the first instance whenever that was trope? What happens if this and other overused plot devices are put aside? How will the stories differ? Sometimes movies with tongue firmly planted in cheek, or with an attitude that all of their competition sucks flaunt these ideas. Sometimes they even knock these scenarios with flare and style. Not all tropes are bad, just like stereotypes. The word trope itself refers to different things with the meaning I have here being in line with the idea of "TV tropes" rather than traditional literary tropes. I'm personally fond of a trope I like to call "heritage speaking" where intelligent, somewhat socially awkward, characters speak as if they come from an older time period, but it is instead actually a matter of their family's status and its link to stuffy archaic thought and speech.

Mood: breezy.
Music: Phantom of the Opera by Iron Maiden and The Phantom Opera Ghost by Iced Earth.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #19: Dead Men Tell All

The old saw that dead men tell no tales takes on a sense of irony in a world with ghosts, mediums, and necromancers. For people that can communicate with those beyond the grave there is almost nothing that cannot be learned. The only catch is in finding a source of information, and convincing it to help. The type of information needed from the dead can be anything from book-style knowledge to more know-how knowledge depending upon at least three factors. The first question the author needs to ask is how much the setting and mood is going to allow. The second is about the scope, especially in the sense of how far back can information be gained, how old are the oldest ghosts? The third is a little more mechanical, how can the information be passed on to the living?

From the standpoint of being just another source of information spirits and those no longer amongst the living can negatively impact the horrific mood. Unlike other sources though they can also keep or strengthen the mood in other ways. For starters the knowledge can come at a price. It can even be a high price. There are a number of examples. A spirit may need to be found in a place that is guarded or otherwise patrolled. The timing of the visit can be an added difficulty. Ghostly manifestations can be harrowing and escalate up to violent even without interference from a psychic. A medium may have to turn over some control of their body to an otherworldly entity even just to have it speak. Such an endeavour has its own inherent dangers.

Finding the keeper of a required bit of information can run the gamut from tracking down a name and asking around in the spiritual or astral realm, to finding a resting place, to dealing with forces best not meddled with. That is if there is someone or something left to know it. How long can a spirit hang around? How long does a ghostly echo last for? Some things may be lost to antiquity no matter how powerful the seeker. That is unless the dictated setting allows otherwise. That begs a few questions. How do the non-living sustain themselves? Do they change and grow, becoming more powerful, frightening, and dangerous? Is there a point where they no longer truck with mortals or just give up on the living and refuse to speak to them?

Then there are the mechanical concerns of such beings from beyond imparting their knowledge. Some ghosts may be able to speak to anyone. Some may not be able to speak but can intimate things by repeating a scene over and over or by psychic means such as empathic transmission. Others yet may be able to speak through a medium, or control such a psychic like a puppet due to the link they create. Those with that ability may be able to pass on more than words. They could complete tasks to which the host is unaccustomed. Even more than moving up to training they could enhance the host, or otherwise act symbiotically. Then there are those things that can take control of anyone they wish unchecked by anything but an exorcism.

Mood: verbose.
Music: Stay With Me Tonight by Quiet Riot and Borley Rectory by Llewellyn.

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