 Horror/Scary: September 17, 2014 Issue [#6551] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Beautiful but deadly Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week:“It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy, just different.”
~Cassandra Clare |
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Which of these is more frightening?
A) A rotting zombie
B) A snarling werewolf
C) A bloodsucking vampire
D) A beautiful butterfly resting on a flower
Most of you probably did not pick D as your first choice. But what if the rose had poison tipped thorns and the butterfly had a sting? Humans are attracted to beautiful things, so we get a shock when they turn deadly. 
Nature has many examples of beautiful things that can kill, such as tigers, hawks, and snakes. The bright colors of coral snakes and poison dart frogs are an advertisement that says, "Stay away. I'm dangerous." Monarch butterflies contain a poison from the milkweed leaves they eat. Any bird that eats one will get so sick that it will never eat another one as long as it lives. Most people wouldn't think of spiders as beautiful, but many of them have wonderful color patterns, and their webs have a delicate symmetry.
Mythology also contains examples of lethal beauty, such as the sirens who captivated sailors with their lovely songs. Unable to resist the siren song, the sailors met death when they wrecked their boats on the rocks. Other dark beauties of mythology include the Morrigan of Celtic myth and Persephone, the Iron Queen of the Underworld. While these characters are dark forces of nature rather than villains, they could be great horror characters.
Disney movies even have some beautiful dark characters, such as Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty" and the Wicked Queen in the story of Snow White.
The short story "Rappacini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells of a doctor who experimented with poisonous plants. His daughter, Beatrice, grew up with the plants and became resistant to the poison, and in the process, became poisonous to other humans. Beatrice isn't evil, but a victim of her father's obsession with poison.
Something to try: Write a horror story that features a beautiful villain.
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