Yattering Jabbering...

Readings in the Genre – Week 6 – The Yattering and Jack

Ugh… let’s get this done, finger to keyboard. *Hack-hack*

Yes, I’ve been ill hence the tardiness of this. *Cough*

Here we go, a monster that exists in every culture, has every conceivable form and ability depending on the tradition, and chills people's souls... The Demon.

There are a couple creatures in popular imagination that seem to exist in an infinite variety of beings.  Their portrayal seems to change in each separate rendition.  A great example of this is the Demon, Daemon, Shaitan, or whatever else you want to call them.

Let’s face it.  Demon is a catch all category that can only really be defined as a malevolent spirit or creature.  I’ve use Demons in my thesis novel (though I do not name them that) and I’ve always felt that when designing them it seems that they function much better if created with an alien set of morals or rules then make them simply evil or immoral.

The Yattering in this story is a good example of that device.  It is a demon, and has the defining characterization of being a demon… it’s attempting to manipulate, tempt, or madden a mortal.  But it's not really that frightening, it's like the Imp... an annoyance out to drive you crazy.  Why?  It’s just that this is its job.  It has a set of rules that it operates by.  In some ways this is an inversion of the typical ‘immoral demon’ character design, but it makes for a rather useful and interesting device.  One can easily argue that the demon is the protagonist for at least a portion of the story.

I’ve noticed a continuing thematic element in a lot of horror stories is that the real monster is us.  Jack in some ways is very much the antagonist of the story, he frustrates the Yattering into being bound to Jack as his servant and doesn’t care that this means damnation, he has power over his own demon now after all, that’s a pretty malevolent person to be selling one’s damnation for a pet nuisance.

Next Time… Horror goes Geo-political with World War Z