AnthonyS11

Great read. I am always intrigued by the influences and allegories to Tolkien’s Middle-Earth (though Tolkien himself supposedly despised allegories). Wagner’s opera The Ring of the Nibelung is another great (part) adaptation of the Norse myths that also influenced Tolkien.P. Craig Russell does an incredible job adapting the opera into the comic form and is worth checking out if you haven’t read it! I also enjoyed your information regarding the use of songs and where Tolkien drew inspiration from.

In all seriousness, I wonder what Jung would have thought of in regards to ideas like vengeful ghosts? I didn’t know he had a potential encounter with a spirit (if that is true) but it is fascinating to consider his relationship with both the psychological and the paranormal, and the ties that the two have. Insightful read!

Fear is just as important to embrace to young children as sadness is. I really enjoyed your scientific and literature based analysis and I think the same can be said for horror films when we grow older.
Many people, including myself, often embrace the horror genre when we are going through a rough period in our lives, as, just like you say, it’s a way for us to embrace a feeling that we can control, whereas in the real world, we may be dealing with particular emotions that are difficult to understand and we are sometimes left to ourselves to try and control them. Once we leave the movie theatre or the pages of a book, those anxieties we feel from the situations or characters in those fictional worlds definitely do follow us into our own independent realities. Part of the fear we experience stays within those stories, because we can look away or remind ourselves that it isn’t real, but the best kinds of horror are the ones that mirror a certain aspect of the real world.