Gothic Horror

Gothic Horror is a subgenre of Horror based in the Gothic Literature traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries. The grimdark fruit of the Romanticism movement, Gothic Horror relies heavily on emotional manipulation and a dreamy atmosphere; it was a very natural outgrowth, considering that common characteristics of Gothic Literature include:

• Gloomy, decaying setting (haunted houses or castles with secret passages, trapdoors, and other mysterious architecture)
• Supernatural beings or monsters (ghosts, vampires, zombies, giants)
• Curses or prophecies
• Damsels in distress
• Heroes
• Romance
• Intense emotions

Gothic Horror, when done well, consists of dark tales of corrupt grandeur and terror, peopled with vivid, melodramatic characters. Passion, danger and tradition collide within a Gothic Horror story. This is the genre that birthed Frankenstein, Dracula, the Invisible Man, the Wolfman; in many ways, it was the foundation for horror as we know it today. The key to this kind of horror lies in laying bare the fears of the time; that the self-certainty with which people viewed their world was a falsehood. The horror of these stories lies in the sickening sense that the order of reality itself is being violated. Victorian readers liked to believe theirs was an age of reason, in which Science had conquered Superstition. In the course of gothic romances, protagonists' assumptions are brutally shattered, and the world they live in becomes a darker and less certain place than it had been before. The survivors (if any) are sadder, wiser men whose newfound knowledge separates them forever from the world they love so much.

This has, in fact, given Gothic Horror some issues in managing to stay relevant, since quite a few of the basic "assumptions" that it depended upon to manifest its full effectiveness have been left behind by a changing moral zeitgeist. Still, the genre left such an impact of Western culture that it is doubtful that it will ever truly die.

Gothic Horror Themes

Note that these are generalizations; a given Gothic Horror story won't necessarily display all of these themes at the same time. They are picked, mixed and matched to the needs of the story in question.

Sins of the Fathers

Secrets will be revealed, and all debts will be called in, even if this means exacting payment from a child for the wrongdoings of his father.

The clouded past obscures the sun today. History is full of unpaid debts waiting to come due, and anyone who delves too deeply into its secrets may find that he or his friends are forced to pay the piper. Just as the past is immutable, so are its consequences inexorable. More cunning villains manipulate events to force innocents to pay the price of their own misdeeds.

The horror may lie in a hero's knowledge that an innocent loved one is threatened because of his past actions, and he is powerless to interfere. Or the source of the threat may be unknown, until investigation shows that it is of a deeply personal nature. If an antagonist takes a deep interest in someone, it is because of shared history; perhaps they are distant relatives, or some past action had far-reaching effects that could not possibly have been known at the time. Locations may also hide dark histories. Who knows what evils might once have unfolded in the cellars of a mansion, or whether a factory was built on the site of an old plague pit? The owner of such a house will pay for the mysterious crimes committed within it.

Family Honor

Family honor is crucially important to Victorians of all classes. Once that honor is tarnished by taint or a broken taboo, the stain will affect every member, including those not yet born. So there is an overwhelming sense of duty to one's family, over and above any mere affection (or rivalry) between individuals. Scions of tainted ancestry may find that their family has tried to cover up its past by faking records, changing names, or emigrating. But family shame will out; the ties of blood can never be escaped.

A family legacy can be far more dreadful than mere shared history. Inheritance may include diseases, mental illnesses, bargains with infernal entities, and physical deformities. Unacceptable offspring may be hidden away by parents who are ashamed to admit their existence, even to other members of the same family.

Melodrama

Emotions are powerful forces of nature that wrack the souls of great and small alike, and all men are equal before them. Anyone can be driven to the edge of insanity and beyond by the grand passions of jealousy, desire, shame, and despair.

Raw emotions are the strongest and most important motivators of all. Although antagonists may seem cold and unfeeling to their victims, the truth is that even the iciest of gothic villains is tortured by raging torrents of emotions. Given the slightest excuse, melodramatic NPCs will let pent up feelings spill out in rants, weeping confessions, temper tantrums, and moody poetry. These forces may equally drive servants or tradesmen, who must keep their true feelings hidden in front of their "betters."

Not everyone will have felt emotions so strong as to threaten sanity, but because of the hold of the gothic past over the present, such feelings may not die away with time. A woman who lost her love to a "friend" when she was 18 will feel the bitter sense of betrayal and jealousy until the day she dies. A man who vowed in childhood to avenge his father will pursue his quest until the end of his days, regardless of the consequences. These tragedies and their inevitable consequences form the stuff of melodrama, Strong feelings may drive a man or woman beyond the bounds of propriety and reason. In gothic settings, deranging passions may themselves be evidence of taint.

Gothic heroes may be defenders of rationality and order, but even they are allowed to engage in melodramatic exclamations of fear and dread, especially when the virtue of an innocent is at stake. It is a way for them to express their own honor: an honorable person is expected to be shaken and appalled when confronted with the darkness that tries a man's soul.

Guilt & Shame

Shame and guilt are strongly tied to specific past events, another example of how the past looms over the present. These feelings can drive a man out of his mind over a period of years; if his position in society matters to him, he can do little to stop the slow descent into madness. To avoid this, some seek to escape, leaving behind the familiar people and surroundings that evoke the pain. Others keep their secrets, living a false life until the day they die.

Admitting feelings of guilt is impossible without describing the crime. There can be no release other than confessing and facing the consequences. To a proud man, this is unthinkable. This is the horror of being trapped with no hope of escape, not physically but mentally. Some may resolve the need to confess by telling a trusted friend, a priest, or a servant who speaks no English (or cannot speak at all). But sooner or later, a man's sins are sure to find him out, often when he least expects it.

Natural Law & Taboo

There are natural laws which apply to every man and woman on Earth. They are inescapable, immutable, and more fundamental than any human law. Natural justice will deal harshly with violators.

Nature is cruel and all-powerful. Her unwritten laws define the ways in which it is proper for man to act toward his fellow man. as well as toward the natural world. All good and decent human beings have strong inner guidance to inform them of right and wrong. There is no distinction between scientific "laws" such as "what goes up must come down," and moral "laws" such as strictures against incest, patricide, and cannibalism. In a gothic world, actions are determined to be criminal, not by society's whim, but by the very nature of the universe.

Deliberately breaking one of nature's laws is a sign of unfitness to be numbered among the human race. Such an offender becomes an outcast and a nonperson. If word ever gets out, he and his entire family will be ruined. Gothic stories often deal with the breaking of taboos; crimes that society finds not only unforgivable, but "unnatural," crimes against nature itself.

Unspeakable Vices

Landowners, aristocrats, and authority figures have a feudal relationship to those under their control; in return for power and loyalty, they have responsibilities to their "vassals." They are expected to be morally able to resist any temptations that this brings. Those who abuse positions of power, breaking this natural law, often engage in unspeakable and unnatural vices, in the form of debauched orgies of perverted sex, depravity, blasphemy, and obscenity.

To early Victorians, it was almost within living memory that the Marquis de Sade had claimed the right to commit sadistic torture and rape on lesser beings as an inalienable perquisite of the aristocracy. Only a truly corrupted soul would consider it to be his right to indulge in activities that go beyond the pale, and even he must make his arrangements private. Such vices are often indulged in hidden rooms and require any evidence (such as dead bodies) to be covered up.

The Abuse of Power

This can involve anyone who betrays a trust or a responsibility. A parent or guardian who abuses a child, a policeman who accepts a bribe, or a cruel aristocrat who misuses his tenants is betraying a natural trust, a responsibility that society has given to them. This betrayal is an act of treachery against society itself, one of the most pernicious crimes against nature imaginable. It strikes to the very heart of "the way things should be."

The abuse of power by an authority figure will visit doom and corruption on his entire house. These unavoidable consequences will bring down the guilty parties - and the innocent as well, if they maintain any misplaced loyalty to the corrupted organization. If something feels "wrong" about an institution, the first suspect is the man in charge. A corrupt abbot could bring a monastery to its knees, an amoral doctor could turn an asylum into a hellhole, and a corrupt monarch is... unthinkable.

Gothic villains abuse their power over people or places, and over nature, with dreadful consequences. Heroes may come to the slow realization that an institution is being corrupted from within by a cruel leader, but what to do about it?

Fatal Omens

Everything is predestined. Signs and portents warn sensitive souls of what the future holds.

Foreshadowing is a common motif in gothic stories. Signs and portents are used to indicate that unnatural forces are at work, and that the future is writ in stone. They can involve repetitive dreams that afflict the sensitive, or events that play on the magical themes of sympathy or contagion, For example, when a stone statue of a duke falls and breaks, it may be a sign of his impending death. The superstitious will see omens everywhere, and are adept at interpreting them creatively.

As tensions mount, it is easier to see signs and portents where none exist. These omens are terrifying because they imply that the future is fixed, and doomed.

Crimes Against Reason

The light of reason can penetrate the darkness of corrupt and unnatural practices; those who deliberately blind themselves to it are courting the darkness.

Dark forces are arrayed against the new Age of Reason. Superstition, mysticism, and religion are shadows from the past that would cripple this new rationality and everything it has accomplished. Pernicious superstitions or very traditional priests are signs that reason is weakening its hold over an area. If an antagonist deliberately turns aside from rational thought and trusts instead to the occult to gain power or knowledge, he risks losing touch with civilization. The powers of unreason can drive a man insane, reducing him to a primitive, almost animal state.

The gothic hero is a modern creature, with modem sensibilities. He believes that it is by reason alone that man can hope to find out where and why nature's laws have been broken, and only an open mind, uncorrupted by the darkness, can bring these powers of reason to bear. A strange report may turn out to have a rational explanation, but there is always a moment when investigators are not entirely sure of reason's reign.

Crimes against sensibility are horrific because they strike at the heart of everything in which rational Victorians believe. If they cannot trust their logical thought processes, then perhaps the world is truly insane. Supernatural creatures are terrifying because reason says that they cannot exist.

Religious Themes

If God's in His heaven, then why is all not right with the world?

Religion is another area in which old traditions struggle alongside the modern ones. Only the uneducated or foreigners (that is, Catholics) get overexcited about their religion; a "proper" Englishman attends church on Sundays and is on speaking terms with his vicar, but more would be unnecessary. Although atheism and pantheism are no longer the dangerously revolutionary concepts they had been a century ago, open enthusiasts still carry the whiff of scandal about them.

The medieval church embodies religion as an enemy of reason, ripe with laws and taboos that no longer apply to modern times. Its institutions are secretive and corrupt, its icons smack of ritualistic paganism, and senior figures abuse their positions to engage in forbidden Gnostic rites. The church is also a hoarder of ancient knowledge, with many books locked away never to be used again. Traditional rituals hold spine-tingling power; they are awe-inspiring, rich, and strange. But are they the tendrils of a superstitious Church that wants to drag modern humanity back into the dark ages? Non-Christian religions are viewed as primitive cults, especially if most worshippers are foreign.

In comparison, the modern church looks increasingly powerless, fractured, and irrelevant. Although evangelical movements are strong, especially among the working class, most rational people believe in a rational, passive God. A vicar (or priest) may well be a rationalist, constantly forced to balance the demands of faith and reason. When confronted with the darkness ahead, no one could be blamed for losing his religion...

The Corruption of the Innocent

Innocents are both guiltless and naive. The weight and darkness of life has spared them, even if they were raised in desperately squalid surroundings. Naturally, they are prime targets for any gothic villain. The antagonist needs to seduce the victim, to tempt him slowly but surely into the pits of moral depravity and corruption. Only when it is too late to escape does the captive realize that he has bartered away the most precious thing he had, and gotten nothing in return. If temptation fails, imprisonment and torture may break the victim's spirit. The classic gothic heroine, eyes shining with innocence, is imprisoned in an ancient building with her tormentor. The horror is that purity of soul alone may not protect her, and that even after her descent into screaming insanity, just enough of the victim's mind may be left to remember what she once was.

Tragically, an innocent may also fall by associating with debauched friends, or a debased institution. The loss of innocence is a terrible, primal tragedy. Like a fragile flower, once the bloom has gone it is lost forever.

The Taint of Social Disorder

Social disorder is a plague upon normal society (in which everyone knows his place).

Society dictates what a man is and how he lives, and it embodies what is right and wrong in the form of etiquette and taboos. The Victorians are proud of their civic institutions. Someone who is deliberately antisocial or tries to isolate himself from the rest of society is automatically suspicious, because "normal" people don't act this way. Threats to the fabric of society, such as political scandals, agitation among the working classes, or riots on the streets, are strong thematic indicators that there is a darkness at work in the land.

The Mob Has Spoken!

If the uneducated masses' terror and hatred reaches fever pitch, they succumb to a mass insanity and form mindless mobs, whose only desire is to destroy what they do not understand. This is society's last resort, as normal social structures break down under the strain.

Anyone who becomes involved in doings that might rouse the suspicions of the uneducated hordes must be cautious, and ensure that rumors don't get out. Political agitation in this era often leads to public demonstrations and masses rioting in the streets. Political candidates hire mobs to cause unrest around election times, and the French Revolution is recent history; no one needs to wonder what a mob might do if given its head.

Powerlessness & Imprisonment

All is lost! There is no horror like that of being utterly powerless. A man of action feels powerless when it isn't clear that any actions will help: perhaps an opponent is unknown, or unassailable. A man of science feels powerless when facing the forces of unreason: none of his knowledge will be any use. A man of faith feels powerless in the face of untold horrors that no just God would allow. In such a scenario, the skills on which the protagonist has relied are suddenly irrelevant and useless. Gentlemen and ladies can also be prostrate before their own emotions. Impending insanity or grand passions are external forces that can take tyrannical control of a man's soul, so that he can only watch in horror as events unfold.

In gothic stories, protagonists feel utterly powerless in the face of dark forces as they investigate. Kidnappings and imprisonment are commonplace. No matter how bleak the outlook, there must always be a way forward, whether from outside help or a change in dynamics within the prison.

/tg/ Relevance

Gothic Horror has its fans amongst the /tg/ crowd, as it does everywhere else. It's a common secondary element in many Gaslamp Fantasy or Steampunk settings - the latter is so common as to earn the nickname "Screampunk" - and its 90s offspring Gothic Punk was even defined by a /tg/ creation; the World of Darkness.

Pure Gothic Horror games are rarer; perhaps the most notable example is Ravenloft, although GURPS has support for gothic horror (of course) in "GURPS Horror", and also has the dedicated GURPS Screampunk splatbook.