Post by QuirkyBestiary on Dec 21, 2018 14:16:19 GMT
Obviously you've all heard of the three infamous characters in the title of this thread, and so not all of the information that I am about to provide will be a surprise to you - but who knows? I have a few tricks up my sleeve. All three are unquestionably fakelore, but there are some segments of their characters which I think tow the line between movie monster and folkloric boogeyman. Here goes nothing.
The Babadook
A bad book. Its name is an anagram, and was also designed to be something nonsensical-sounding that a child might have made up - like the Jabberwocky. Jennifer Kent, the Australian director the film in which the Babadook first appeared, and was 100% made up entirely for, said that 'I wanted to create a new myth that was just solely of this film and didn’t exist anywhere else'. The movie is ultimately about a mother facing her suppressed grief, which manifests as a nightmarish humanoid monster - saying that it will only become stronger if she continues to deny its existence. Obviously, Mr. Babadook is a metaphor for the grief of the mother, and is ultimately defeated when the mother stands up to it and forces it into a cellar. The monster is first encountered as a result of a disturbing pop-up book, and becomes more real as the storyline goes on; thus being almost like a tulpa or thought-form.
However, because of the monster's iconic design and its mysterious and sudden origins in the public consciousness, it has taken on a life of its own as something of a runaway idea. It is included on several lists of urban legends and mythology, and was originally one of the earliest creatures I added to Lore and Order before deleting it when I discovered that it was just a construct of a filmmaker. The Babadook is not, and has never been, a folkloric monster - it was simply designed to appear that way to the casual viewer. This is the one of the three characters under discussion here that is conclusively not folkloric, in my opinion. If it is going to exist in my worldbuilding project, it will be as a tulpa or as a form assumed by a trickster or demon to torment a victim. It is not going to be an entity in its own right.
The Candyman
The Candyman is a slightly more interesting case than the Babadook, but its origins are still pretty clear. It was first created by the horror author Clive Barker in his short story 'The Forbidden' - summarised by Wikipedia thusly: 'A university student named Helen is doing a thesis on graffiti, and selects a run-down estate to focus her study. She notices disturbing graffiti in an abandoned building that makes references to an urban legend known as the Candyman. Further inquiries lead her to believe this is connected with recent murders and mutilations in the neighbourhood, although the locals are seemingly reluctant to discuss the incidents. She eventually encounters the Candyman himself, gaining notoriety by becoming his latest victim'.
This short story was then adapted into a series of three movies, the first of which was vastly more popular than its two sequels. The story in these movies goes that the Candyman was once the son of a slave, named Daniel Robitaille, who was chased down and killed by a lynch mob after falling in love with the daughter of his wealthy employer. He was a painter in life, and so his right hand was cut off and he was covered in honey and left to be stung to death by bees. A small child called him the Candyman because he was covered in honey, and the name stuck. Like the genuine urban legend figure known as the Hookman, his hand was eventually replaced by a deadly hook - and his wrathful spirit took a leaf out of Bloody Mary's book and now slaughters whoever says his name five times in a mirror.
So there it is - the origins of the Candyman. He is not an organic urban legend like the two figures on which he is seemingly based; the Hookman and Bloody Mary, but seems to have considerable staying power in modern folklore seeing as he is featured on popular urban legend websites such as 'Scaryforkids' and Shane Dawson even did a video in which he treated the Candyman like any other urban legend. In Lore and Order, the Candyman certainly exists - but is a tulpa just like the Babadook could be. The Babadook does not have an independent existence as a fully-formed tulpa, whereas the Candyman does. Although his backstory may be fictional, enough people believe in him to bring him to life as a supernatural killer.
The Bye-Bye Man
The origins of this fairly recently-generated monster are murky to say the least, which is why I would ironically say that this is possibly the closest one of the three characters to being a genuine piece of modern folklore. The Bye-Bye Man was first mentioned in the chapter 'The Bridge to Body Island' in Robert Damon Schneck’s book 'The President's Vampire' - and the tale recounted in this chapter was an allegedly true tale told to Schneck by three people who had apparently been in contact with spirit entities through use of a ouija board. One of these spirits told them a story about an albino child who lived in an orphanage in Algiers, Louisiana, in the 1920s. He was apparently a mentally disturbed individual who was shunned by others, and he eventually stabbed a nurse with some scissors before escaping the orphanage to ride the railways on a serial killing spree. He would cut his victims up, and created a canine companion called 'Gloomslinger' from their skin, which eventually came to life and helped him find more victims. With just as much explanation as everything else in this admittedly-ridiculous story, the man who would become the infamous Bye-Bye Man eventually became psychic and began using his own legend to hunt down more victims, being drawn to people who thought of him or said his name.
The three ouija board users had some more strange experiences, but would eventually move on with their lives, despite still telling the story of the Bye-Bye Man every Halloween. They eventually told the tale to Schneck, who was the author of several books on strange but allegedly true stories. Shneck doesn't think that the story of the Bye-Bye Man is true, however, because he did research and found that none of the events described were ever recorded to have occurred - and obviously it's just common sense that skin-golem dogs don't exist.
However, that leaves the true provenance of the Bye-Bye Man something of a mystery. If the story as the three people told it is true, then it was likely constructed from the subconscious of the ouija-board user and then effectively typed out onto the board through the ideomotor effect. This is a really interesting origin for an urban legend if I've ever heard one, and although it may obviously not be true - the story's unconscious and presumably non-deliberate genesis gives me ground to count it as being the closest of these three tales to being a genuine piece of modern urban legendry.
Sources
The Babadook
The Candyman
The Bye-Bye Man
The Babadook
A bad book. Its name is an anagram, and was also designed to be something nonsensical-sounding that a child might have made up - like the Jabberwocky. Jennifer Kent, the Australian director the film in which the Babadook first appeared, and was 100% made up entirely for, said that 'I wanted to create a new myth that was just solely of this film and didn’t exist anywhere else'. The movie is ultimately about a mother facing her suppressed grief, which manifests as a nightmarish humanoid monster - saying that it will only become stronger if she continues to deny its existence. Obviously, Mr. Babadook is a metaphor for the grief of the mother, and is ultimately defeated when the mother stands up to it and forces it into a cellar. The monster is first encountered as a result of a disturbing pop-up book, and becomes more real as the storyline goes on; thus being almost like a tulpa or thought-form.
However, because of the monster's iconic design and its mysterious and sudden origins in the public consciousness, it has taken on a life of its own as something of a runaway idea. It is included on several lists of urban legends and mythology, and was originally one of the earliest creatures I added to Lore and Order before deleting it when I discovered that it was just a construct of a filmmaker. The Babadook is not, and has never been, a folkloric monster - it was simply designed to appear that way to the casual viewer. This is the one of the three characters under discussion here that is conclusively not folkloric, in my opinion. If it is going to exist in my worldbuilding project, it will be as a tulpa or as a form assumed by a trickster or demon to torment a victim. It is not going to be an entity in its own right.
The Candyman
The Candyman is a slightly more interesting case than the Babadook, but its origins are still pretty clear. It was first created by the horror author Clive Barker in his short story 'The Forbidden' - summarised by Wikipedia thusly: 'A university student named Helen is doing a thesis on graffiti, and selects a run-down estate to focus her study. She notices disturbing graffiti in an abandoned building that makes references to an urban legend known as the Candyman. Further inquiries lead her to believe this is connected with recent murders and mutilations in the neighbourhood, although the locals are seemingly reluctant to discuss the incidents. She eventually encounters the Candyman himself, gaining notoriety by becoming his latest victim'.
This short story was then adapted into a series of three movies, the first of which was vastly more popular than its two sequels. The story in these movies goes that the Candyman was once the son of a slave, named Daniel Robitaille, who was chased down and killed by a lynch mob after falling in love with the daughter of his wealthy employer. He was a painter in life, and so his right hand was cut off and he was covered in honey and left to be stung to death by bees. A small child called him the Candyman because he was covered in honey, and the name stuck. Like the genuine urban legend figure known as the Hookman, his hand was eventually replaced by a deadly hook - and his wrathful spirit took a leaf out of Bloody Mary's book and now slaughters whoever says his name five times in a mirror.
So there it is - the origins of the Candyman. He is not an organic urban legend like the two figures on which he is seemingly based; the Hookman and Bloody Mary, but seems to have considerable staying power in modern folklore seeing as he is featured on popular urban legend websites such as 'Scaryforkids' and Shane Dawson even did a video in which he treated the Candyman like any other urban legend. In Lore and Order, the Candyman certainly exists - but is a tulpa just like the Babadook could be. The Babadook does not have an independent existence as a fully-formed tulpa, whereas the Candyman does. Although his backstory may be fictional, enough people believe in him to bring him to life as a supernatural killer.
The Bye-Bye Man
The origins of this fairly recently-generated monster are murky to say the least, which is why I would ironically say that this is possibly the closest one of the three characters to being a genuine piece of modern folklore. The Bye-Bye Man was first mentioned in the chapter 'The Bridge to Body Island' in Robert Damon Schneck’s book 'The President's Vampire' - and the tale recounted in this chapter was an allegedly true tale told to Schneck by three people who had apparently been in contact with spirit entities through use of a ouija board. One of these spirits told them a story about an albino child who lived in an orphanage in Algiers, Louisiana, in the 1920s. He was apparently a mentally disturbed individual who was shunned by others, and he eventually stabbed a nurse with some scissors before escaping the orphanage to ride the railways on a serial killing spree. He would cut his victims up, and created a canine companion called 'Gloomslinger' from their skin, which eventually came to life and helped him find more victims. With just as much explanation as everything else in this admittedly-ridiculous story, the man who would become the infamous Bye-Bye Man eventually became psychic and began using his own legend to hunt down more victims, being drawn to people who thought of him or said his name.
The three ouija board users had some more strange experiences, but would eventually move on with their lives, despite still telling the story of the Bye-Bye Man every Halloween. They eventually told the tale to Schneck, who was the author of several books on strange but allegedly true stories. Shneck doesn't think that the story of the Bye-Bye Man is true, however, because he did research and found that none of the events described were ever recorded to have occurred - and obviously it's just common sense that skin-golem dogs don't exist.
However, that leaves the true provenance of the Bye-Bye Man something of a mystery. If the story as the three people told it is true, then it was likely constructed from the subconscious of the ouija-board user and then effectively typed out onto the board through the ideomotor effect. This is a really interesting origin for an urban legend if I've ever heard one, and although it may obviously not be true - the story's unconscious and presumably non-deliberate genesis gives me ground to count it as being the closest of these three tales to being a genuine piece of modern urban legendry.
Sources
The Babadook
The Candyman
The Bye-Bye Man
