The Unreal

I don't like to write or discuss or in any other way talk about something as if it isn't real. I'll snark about people's take on things, and I'll scoff at times about beliefs that I find ridiculous. But there is always some incarnation of belief that I will treat as if it were absolutely proven true.

In the fictional (and that means spiritual too), especially in horror and fantasy, everything represents something else. That is the creative bits of human brain making little puzzles to better explain the world. And because the unreal is also beyond language, every invisible thing is put away behind the veneer of fiction. So the old faerietales, the racist, sexist, homophobic, gentry-centric stories from wherever (but mostly Europe.) contain everything that is locked away in an attempt to make it stop existing.

We can't have a story about good versus evil without showing the evil, and if we think that some thing is truly evil, we only need to show it as it really is (Except if it swears. If it swears, then we can't write what it says. Or if it is naked, we must clothe it.). Because evil is evil is evil, so clearly a [insert minority here] can be represented by any evil thing. Most often by creatures that seem human but are the mythical predators to which humans are prey.

Likewise, the status quo, which is invisible, also takes its place in the form of faerietale fathers or deities or the more simply demonstrated 'law enforcement' people. They aren't the robbers, because bandits attack the average 'good' citizen. They the princes or the gods or upstanding nobles. Whether for good or for ill, they keep power where it is and strike down everyone else. And whether for good or for ill, the rogues tear down the status quo, often with limited success.

So whenever I talk about vampires or faeries or anything else, I'm going to start with the premise that they are real. Because even if one does not believe in them, they very much are real. Even if there were no historical precedent, the belief and/or love which people have for a thing causes change. People are influenced by it. And then anything which people were influenced by long ago continues to affect the world. There is no escape from the unreal.