Quite different from the gracious and beautiful elves, the Undead usually represent a form of corruption, decay, evil and obviously death. Corpses of dead men/animals raised from their eternal rest with only one mission in their usually mindless heads; to eat and kill – which usually means the same thing. Fearsome creatures not only because they do not possess the weaknesses of the living like danger of dying of blood loss, heart attacks etc. but mostly because once they kill someone, he becomes one of their own. Shady dark creatures with an infinite number of varieties, from malicious skeletons and zombies to lovely vampires, the Undead are probably the most dangerous ‘monsters’ of legend. Like with the elves, I’d like to discuss two of these varieties a bit, so;
Ghosts
In itself, the concept of a ghost, can be different depending on the legend/culture/fiction etc. But they usually share some traits like all of us already know. They can usually fly (or at least float, meaning their legs do not touch the ground as they move) they can pass through anything as if it wasn’t there, like walls, and other inanimate objects – even through other ghosts and can usually become invisible. Interesting is the fact that even though they can do all that, they somehow CAN touch people, paralyze them, even kill them, which makes them extremely fearsome as people CANNOT actually touch them. But the most dangerous of their powers is that they can make their essence go inside a dead or living body, possess it and control it as if it were their own. I like in particular the legend that states that every ghost is actually some part of the soul/spirit of someone who had deep regrets upon dying, and thus the ghost will move on to real death if someone solves their problem. However not all ghosts in literature are used to scare us, as there are many ghost stories who are actually funny and popular, like Casper. Many different aspects of ghosts can be discovered with a small research, like wraiths and revenants, but as they are also popular themselves, they have varied aspects of their own, meaning that (for example) not all wraiths are ghost-like creatures and some have a body of their own, and do not need to possess one like ghosts do. In general, ghosts are one of the most popular kinds of the undead along with zombies and vampires having many small tales being created for them every day from haunted mansions to people spotting weird apparitions, earning them a special place to the hearts of the occult fans.
Liches
Probably the most powerful undead creature and the most dangerous. A lich is a powerful mage who transformed into an undead aspect of himself thus becoming almost immortal. Unlike most of the undead creatures, a lich retains all of his intelligence and thoughts from when he was alive making him even more dangerous than the regular undead. Usually they practice various necromantic spells allowing them to build immense undead armies of lesser undead such as skeletons and zombies. Not only are they powerful and immortal, but these two facts combined along with their intelligence create the single most dangerous aspect of the liches. Since they will not die, they have immeasurable time to achieve their schemes. Meaning that if a lich wants to control a town from behind the scenes but the current ruler is a powerful threat to the lich that it could cost him his eternal life, the lich can simply wait until his enemy dies from old age, and take the town from a weaker ruler, making as simple and easy as possible. Interesting (and scary) is the fact that even if you destroy the lich, it still will not cease to exist. Liches contain a piece of their soul (or several pieces of their soul) in secret places called phylacteries allowing them to continue to exist even after their undead bodies are destroyed, giving them the opportunity to find a way to get a new body, and revenge to their enemies. Only if both the body and the phylactery(-ies) are destroyed will the lich finally cease to exist. Liches are favoured as enemies in popular fantasy video games and literature as important bosses of immense power and great armies, as the fact that they are powerful, smart and almost indestructible make them awesome villain quality.
In general, Undead whether they are spirits or walking dead bodies are probably the most frequently used concept for scary stories. Stories like The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Count Dracula or games like World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons etc. all use their different types of undead creatures as fearsome and powerful entities. Interesting is the concept of Death itself, as literature often provides us with different Gods of Death, or ‘The’ Death like Hades from Greek Mythology and Death from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. I find all of this, one of the most interesting topics of discussion regarding fantasy stuff, as you can begin a conversation about funny skeletons from movies like Corpse Bride and end up discussing serious topics about life and death. Definitely awesome!
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου