The Problem of Evil in Spooky Stories
“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?”
Those are words spoken by a superstitious old woman to Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897). Fearing for the outsider’s safety, she gives him a crucifix. “I did not know what to do,” Harker writes, “for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind.”
But later, overcome with terror in the bowels of the Count’s Transylvanian castle, he has reason to be most grateful:
Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! For it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula. . . .
Over a century later, Stephenie Meyer managed to write four bestselling books concerning vampires (later translated into a quartet of popular movies) without the word crucifix appearing even a single time in her hundreds of thousands of words.
My comment: Fan that I am BUFFY and ANGEL and of much of Joss Whedon’s work, I have always been disappointed and offended at how weak, silly, inept or arbitrary the supernatural Powers of Light have been portrayed in the seasons I watched. (A confession: I gave up watching BUFFY when Spike became Buffy’s BFF. At that point, I realized that Mr. Whedon was just interested in jerking my chain, and no longer interested in telling me a witty, gripping and entertaining tale of vampire-slaying derring-do.)
I seem to recall that when Cordelia went to Heaven, she was simply bored by it, and wanted out. On the other hand, when Buffy returned from Heaven, she could not revert to normal life, because Earth seemed like Hell compared to that enervating bliss. So here in the same show are two opposing views of the Power that opposes Hell, demons and vampirism, and in the first case, it is as bad as anything Achilles laments, and in the second, it is no better than what the Buddha seeks.
The Council of Watchers in BUFFY (which I am secretly convinced is one and the same as the Council of Watchers in HIGHLANDER, and is probably run by Methos and Vandal Savage together) is the nominal good guys, but they are portrayed as ruthless, bureaucratic, and unworthy of anyone’s trust or loyalty.
In a similar vein, the angels or angelic hosts as portrayed in other spooky stories, such as the SANDMAN by Neil Gaiman, or the Alan Moore run on SWAMP THING, or even the angel in SPAWN (who is a bounty-hunter) are portrayed as being about as admirable as the Watchers of BUFFY: namely, either indifferent or harmful to human affairs, and not someone you can turn to for help, and certainly someone you would never turn to in prayer.
(I might also mention Phillip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy has the same type of evil or unappealing portrayal of Heaven, but that was deliberately written as an anti-Narnia and ant-Christian diatribe, so any similarities between these stories and his are not to their credit. Whether deliberately or not, these other tales reflect the same world-view, not unchristian, but antichristian.)
In none of the stories I just mentioned, even stories where the image of Our Lord in His suffering nailed to a cross is what drives back vampires, is any mentioned made of the Christ. Is is always an Old Testament sort of God ruling Heaven, or no one at all is in charge.
So why in Heaven’s name is Heaven always so bland, unappealing, or evil in these spooky stories?
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