My Favorate Case For Possession

[Denaes]

Yeah, possession is spooky and scary and often adds a wrinkle in that you try to stop the host, well it's an innocent. So you want to harm/eject the possessor if possible.

But, something is to be said for just flat out human craziness.

What is scarier, a human who hunts other humans and wears their skin for clothing or a human who was possessed by something to do the same? Yeah, thats a personal preference. Human depravity vs the horror of doing things you have no control over WHILE being sane and hopefully watching like a passenger in the backseat of a car.

Well, are the two mutually exclusive?

• Meatbag observer - Saying that when you're possessed, you're not just out, but you're still there. Watching. Hearing. Maybe not 100% clearly, maybe not aware you're possessed and maybe not 100% of the time. Maybe like a dream where you're drifting in/out of awareness... maybe even regaining control for periods of time.
  
  Okay, for some reason you get unpossessed. Demon leaves, ghost is busted, etc. Do you just shudder over the horrors? Cry over the foul deeds? Or is this just the spiritual awakening you needed to learn your true calling in life? Will this just drive you totally and naturally insane? Maybe insane as in becoming a recluse and fearful or maybe insane like continuing on in the good faith your personal angel showed you that you should live life?
  
• Voice in the Head - A few movies cover this well, we could call this the Nicholson effect or the Amnityville effect
  
  A human is just taunted, prodded, poked, nudged and shown horrors until they're spun around and grab firmly onto reality, only thats over there and they're gripping some demon/ghosts/mages version of reality like it's the only thing that will make anything make sense.
  
  Now in this case, there just isn't a spell to make things right. The supernatural and magic caused this indirectly, but the guy isn't possessed... or magically hallucinating... or under the effect of a spell. The guy is just insane. Maybe therapy, but maybe that'll just give you an insane therapist?
  
  In the end, something influenced this guy to a means, and they've sure influenced this guy right down to the core of his sanity. This doesn't mean they got the exact result they were looking for or that this guy is the perfect pawn for their plans. This crazy guy could be even ounce as crazy as you can be and still reject and oppose his puppeteer.
  
  Imagine Jack Nicholson from the Shining as a Ghostbuster! Given time, there could be other hunters who are just exposed enough to go slightly insane or full blown batguano insane.
  
• Possession, yes but... I know in the book possession is defined as something inhabiting and/or controlling someone. What if they were just inhabiting the person? They were inside, but not in control. The ghost/demon was in the back seat? The cultist was stuck in this body without any control?
  
  I saw one of the best concepts of this on the TV show Angel. The whole episode was about family with an evil child. Well our heroes learn that he's possessed and has been so for a really long time. They get the demon out and it's just thankful to be out. He had no control over the child and was in fact held prisoner and made to watch the child do things more evil than it wanted to do/see (in Angel not all demons are automatically the blackest of evil... there is also good, neutral, evil light, etc). Basically this demon would rather be destroyed than live inside of that kid.
  
  Now that could go other ways. Evil demon in an Eviller human... Evil in a good soul - the demon is just powerless because of the purity of this person. Good(ish) entity trapped in an evil person?

I like twists, but I guess you couldn't just keep on throwing them out left and right and having them be twists. Eventually the party would just consider them other options to be considered when dealing with a possessed or just crazy human.

[mrloucifer]

I saw one of the best concepts of this on the TV show Angel. The whole episode was about family with an evil child. Well our heroes learn that he's possessed and has been so for a really long time. They get the demon out and it's just thankful to be out. He had no control over the child and was in fact held prisoner and made to watch the child do things more evil than it wanted to do/see (in Angel not all demons are automatically the blackest of evil... there is also good, neutral, evil light, etc). Basically this demon would rather be destroyed than live inside of that kid.

I was thinking of this episode before you brought it up and was going to bring it up myself. Nice reference!

I forget the name of that episode, but its one of the earliest and to me it's when the show first found its legs to where I thought it was superior over the Buffy show it spun from.

[mrloucifer]

I like twists, but I guess you couldn't just keep on throwing them out left and right and having them be twists. Eventually the party would just consider them other options to be considered when dealing with a possessed or just crazy human.

The horror genre requires twists to keep the theme fresh. Horror hits us in such a primal and simplistic place, and being as it was the first kinds of stories we told one another were horror stories. Once you look past the conventions/ tropes of a given horror flick, book, story,etc. you'll notice a familar pattern. THe older and more horror savvy you get the harder it gets to find the fun of being scared as you've been there before. That where the twists come in and make it interesting again.

There are moments in my life where I wish I could forget a film or book so I could enjoy it with brand new eyes. Like the movie Halloween, or the first time I read the book "IT", you love them, but repeated watchings proves that you cant quite bring the same feeling and fear back the first time time you enjoyed being scared so much.

The horror genre has been mined out long ago, so yu gotta keep making new tunnels to keep it interesting. Sadly there is a lot bad side of this (namely the remake craze the films are going through when most of them suck) but the genre has also proven to be good to those who are great at bringing us new takes and twists on familar subjects (H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker and up and comer Brian Keene,etc.)

[Denaes]

I forget the name of that episode, but its one of the earliest and to me it's when the show first found its legs to where I thought it was superior over the Buffy show it spun from.

Yes, Buffy was far more B&W. Sometimes they would hit a gray area.

Angel (the show and character) lived in the gray area, which to me was a lot more interesting. Some monsters/demons really had some personality and you could see their POV

[Denaes]

I like twists, but I guess you couldn't just keep on throwing them out left and right and having them be twists. Eventually the party would just consider them other options to be considered when dealing with a possessed or just crazy human.

The horror genre requires twists to keep the theme fresh.

You sir are correct. I'll amend my statement. What I was meaning is that these are twists on possession, but once you throw them out, as you said, it's not fresh anymore. It's not so much a twist as a variaton. Once might be a fluke, but toss them out multiple times and they'll just be another variety of crazy/possession.