Wenn Diagram

[Herr D]

I am attempting to construct a Wenn Diagram relating fear topics. (There happen to be mindsets, lifestyles, conditions, and disorders which make people more or less afraid of certain people, places, events, and things than the vast majority.)
For example, there is only one werewolf story in all of werewolf lit. tradition that ever scared me. [it went out of print more than 30 years ago, synopsis below line of asterisks] Here is my question to all of you: what one thing do you think you should be MORE afraid of and why? or why shouldn’t you be? my werewolf answer will appear below synopsis.

***************************
WWII France. A Frenchwoman sent her servant on a fool’s errand after seeing an unclothed man behind her house. Stories of mauled Nazis, starvation, and rarity of meat were on her mind. She invited the man in and provided him clothes, vegetables, wine.
He confessed to being a werewolf and a French resistance fighter, responsible for mauling Nazis locally. She shot him with a silver bullet, extrapolating that shooting him before the moon was out would cause him to metamorphose into a wolf after death. And she ate meat that night.

I think I have always been afraid that I will underrate or underestimate an enemy as badly as people normally do me.

[Herr D]

I forgot to mention why werewolf stories DON’T scare me normally. Monsters in general are identifiable, have known weaknesses. If you were to see one, you’re either hallucinating or you need to behave exactly certain ways to survive. Life is so much harder. Any awful person, place, or thing you encounter is a LOT less cut and dried, a LOT less predictable, and, let’s face it, a LOT less identifiable. Wednesday Addams dressed up like a homicidal maniac because they look like everybody else. The stranger you’re rude to might be your next job interviewer. The stranger you’re kind to might be your next stalker. Cars break down unexpectedly. Sinkholes sometimes form in seemingly stable ground, swallowing buses. Floors cave in. Sometimes cops are crooked and gangbangers are kind. A boring week where you do very little more than eat, sleep, be bored at work, do chores and maybe are too tired to pursue hobbies or friends is sometimes the luckiest week of all. The only thing easier to thrive in is to be in situ: “hey, don’t bother shooting it a SECOND time; you’ll make it madder. Just stay over here on THIS side of the river and help me melt down this silver. . . ” And those who don’t listen? Well–you can’t worry about them for very long.

[Author]

Posts