Aura of death and darkness

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anders

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, people react to the Monster on a visceral level, not because of anything he does or how he appears, but because he is an abomination, something deeply unnatural. Would this be best modeled as an Odious Personal Habit?

No. While it isn't accurate that people aren't reacting to Frankie based on how he looks, if they were, (as in fact happens in Promethean), then that would best be modeled as a Divine Curse that causes reaction penalties.)

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

No, because people who are not aware of the monstrous nature (like the blind man, or the family Adam spies on) are not affected by the stigma penalty, while the supernatural aura would still be felt by them.

Also, some people react differently than others. The morally superior character of the story is neither the Creature nor Victor, but Captain Walton, and he is able to overcome the repulsion.

In the case of the Creature, the problem was not just that he was ugly. It was a very particular sort of ugly. Some of his individual features were in fact beautiful, or would have been in other context, but the combination with the botched aesthetics of the rest made the whole even worse.

It was probably an 'uncanny valley' effect. His looks manage to land precisely in the sour spot, he might actually have been better accepted if he had been uglier than he was.

[whswhs]

I've thought for some time that Victor's conviction that his newly animate creation is hideous is a lot like postpartum depression. On the other hand, we have the creature's testimony that the exiles he had been helping drove him away in horror when they first saw his appearance.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

It was probably an 'uncanny valley' effect. His looks manage to land precisely in the sour spot, he might actually have been better accepted if he had been uglier than he was.

I like that idea. Not that he was terribly ugly, but rather that his featureswere mismatched such that he appeared inhuman.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I like that idea. Not that he was terribly ugly, but rather that his featureswere mismatched such that he appeared inhuman.

I thought towards the end of the story, his features and scars healed, and he was both articulate and handsome. Indeed the very thing the doctor was trying to create in the first place.

But it has been decades since I read the original and have read so many things based on the original story that my memory may have gotten them mixed up.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

I thought towards the end of the story, his features and scars healed, and he was both articulate and handsome. Indeed the very thing the doctor was trying to create in the first place.

Hmmm. Thinking about that...

But it has been decades since I read the original and have read so many things based on the original story that my memory may have gotten them mixed up.

This is also the case with me. Having read two different takes and countless movies since... yeah. Maybe it's time for a reread of the classics.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

I thought towards the end of the story, his features and scars healed, and he was both articulate and handsome. Indeed the very thing the doctor was trying to create in the first place.

But it has been decades since I read the original and have read so many things based on the original story that my memory may have gotten them mixed up.

No, he remained hideous to view to the end. The last person to see/converse with the Creature in the book is Captain Walton, who is able to overcome the instinctive revulsion but does feel it.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I've thought for some time that Victor's conviction that his newly animate creation is hideous is a lot like postpartum depression. On the other hand, we have the creature's testimony that the exiles he had been helping drove him away in horror when they first saw his appearance.

I do think you're half-right. The uncanny valley effect of the Creature's appearance is what it is, and it probably contributed to Victor's reaction, but there was more to it than that.

I'm not sure postpartum depression is the right metaphor or comparison, though. That's at least in part a function of physical chemistry in the body and brain, what was going with Victor was more intellectual/emotional.

I think the issue was that Victor had spent the previous two years or so (IIRC that's about how long it took to make the Creature) entirely engrossed in his own obsession. He himself tells Walton later that he neglected his duties to his father and friends, did not keep up his social life or spare any time or attention to the little things of life, every thought, every emotion, was caught up in his own self-generated fantasy of what the outcome of his work would be. The only external, physical reality his mind had time for was the actual work of assembling the Creature, everything else was abstract, fantasy, self-absorbed dreaming.

No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs...

...It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time....

...Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow-creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become -- the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete....

He had cut himself off from reality, totally wrapped up in an obsessive dream.

Then he finally succeeds, brings the Creature to life, and is face-to-face with the external physical reality of what he's done, wiping out the fantasy. The reality is utterly different than what he was fantasizing about.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! -- Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

Rather than post-partum depression, I think a better comparison might be with a stalker, oddly enough, or a similar romantic obsessive. If and when they actually get the object of their affections, it's usually a great disappointment because the reality is different than the fantasy they actually pursued/obsessed over.

It's sort of like that with Victor. He built up a beautiful, fulfilling fantasy, but it could not survive contact with reality. The horrid physical appearance of the Creature made it far worse, but I suspect that even if the Creature had been handsome, Victor's emotions would have been similar.

[DangerousThing]

OK, then my memory was mixed up.

Though from the description, it sounded as if the creature looked diseased rather than just ugly.

One of the best versions that I read was an "elseworlds" Superman story (a story out of continuity, that is usually called an "imaginary' story). In this I think it was Dr. Luther that created the creature, and after a while healed into something that very much looked like Superman once he was out of Luthor's influence. And of course Dr. Luthor's girlfriend, Miss Lois Lane, was killed, and remade (much better looking) to eventually be the creature's bride.

They also did a couple of interesting stories set in the world of Metropolis (the movie). At the end of the two stories, the Superman ruled the day, and the Batman ruled the night.

Of the original story, I loved that the creature learned language from evesdropping. His voice was obviously good enough to sound human. It would only have been his appearance that was messed up.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Of the original story, I loved that the creature learned language from evesdropping. His voice was obviously good enough to sound human. It would only have been his appearance that was messed up.

Other than his physical appearance, Victor's experiment was a spectacular success. In terms of performance, the artificial life form embodied multiple critical successes on Victor's skill roles, he was physically superior, probably the most physically powerful and capable humanoid on Earth, his senses and attributes would be high, and he was almost as smart as Victor himself.

It's just that he had no place in the world, or human society, and could have no such place.