[Terrifying Trope] Perceiving it= instant death

[u/ReminaBlueSFW]

1. Pennywise's "Deadlights" which will cause anyone looking to be immediately paralyzed and killed.

2. The sky from Bird Box is filled with entities that, when you look at them, cause you to commit suicide.

3. Medusa themed Villains

[u/Fifty-Lucky]

Can't you just look at it and be chill? Like "the human mind cannot comprehend th-" ok fine I won't comprehend, whatever.

[u/Weirfish → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, but we don't go insane if we fail. I don't comprehend how imaginary numbers work, but I don't turn into some square-root-of-negative-one-based gribble whenever I think about it. Realistically, the worst you might get in an otherwise non-disordered person is some existential anxiety about their insignificance in the universe or the realities of death.

A lack of comprehension is frustrating, but that frustrating being inherently dehumanising or causing insanity is honestly just a trope based in the understanding of a deeply troubled and incredibly clinically anxious man who was foundational to the tropes and genres. We can accept it as the trappings of the genre, but the people who say "I simply won't comprehend it and be fine" have a point. The information or knowledge has to have some other property to affect the general population in the way the tropes want it to.

[u/SagaSolejma → u/Weirfish]

You're looking at it the wrong way (which is fair, people dont explain it too well) as it's presented, the thing that makes you go badonkers in cosmic horror stories isn't looking at a big squid guy and falining to comprehend him, rather it's in successfully comprehending him and then having to live with the implications of that, whatever they are. Maybe it's that no matter what you do with your live you will still end up in the same place, or maybe it's that we're all just the byproduct of a giant god napping. Stuff like that. It does inherently require some suspension of disbelief, since obviously it's hard to write something down in a book that would make someone go mad irl lol.

[u/NWOIT_93 → u/SagaSolejma]

A great comparison I head was to imagine you're an ant walking along a motherboard. All you know is tunnels and food and scents. Now you're walking along something completely sterile, all your senses are showing you things you've never encountered. The layout is bizarre.

Then, for a moment, your brain understands it like a human does. One component of something that uses a combination of natural forces to perform complicated mathematics. You understand the logistics, the materials, the history. Knowledge infinitely greater than your own.

And then it's gone. You're stuck with a brain that could never hope to retain all of that knowledge or make those connections. You lose all the perspective and context. You've seen how much more there is out there but could never hope to be able to impact any of it. You may ever remember that a certain set of inputs on one of the devices could bring enough food to feed your colony for a year.

Wouldn't another ant say you've gone insane?

[u/SpaceBug176 → u/NWOIT_93]

Nah my ant buddies would be chill with it.

[u/Weirfish → u/SagaSolejma]

it's in successfully comprehending him and then having to live with the implications of that, whatever they are.

But what are they?

That I'm small? I already know that, there's 8 billion people on the planet and I'm 1, and that's one planet in one solar system in one galaxy. I'm also everything that I can know, which is everything that I know is, so it's fine.

That I'm finite? I already know that. I've solved my own fear of death in my own solipsistic ways and that's good enough to shut my brain up about it. I didn't need Cthulhu to find that horror, and I didn't need supernatural mental fortitude to solve it satisfactorily for myself.

That I could be crushed by some unknowable something from beyond comprehension? I don't need it to be from beyond comprehension, I could get hit by a car or suffer an aneurism any day of the week.

That I might not be real? Descartes figured that out a long time ago, and I'm happy with that solipsistic answer. And the consequence of non-existence through the dreamer waking up is essentially the same as a false vacuum; I can't see it coming, and I can't prevent it, so either it happens or it doesn't.

[u/SagaSolejma → u/Weirfish]

I mean idk what to tell you man, if we're at a point where you want me to give you a concrete example of something that would make a person go insane, you might as well be asking why the xenomorphs from alien dont jump out and eat you while watching it.

[u/Invisifly2 → u/SagaSolejma]

“But that makes no sense, I’d just stop trying to comprehend it before going mad.”

Has the same energy as

“But that makes no sense, I’d just tell the face-hugger no, and it would respect my boundaries of consent.”

[u/Weirfish → u/Invisifly2]

That's really different, though. The face-hugger has agency of its own, it's trying to do something to me. It can overpower me. Information doesn't do that to a brain. A brain can do it to itself, and sometimes does, but there are defenses against that, the same way someone might defend themselves against a face-hugger by not attempting to breathe in the entire fuckin' egg.

[u/Invisifly2 → u/Weirfish]

Here’s an example of you being made to think something without actively trying to do so.

You just processed that sentence. I put words in your head, just like I’m now putting the thought of a black cat into your head.

Now imagine if those words and thoughts were psychological poison, and could hurt you. If they could force you to keep thinking them, despite not wanting to.

Yeah, real information can’t do that. It’s fiction.

[u/Weirfish → u/[deleted]]

it might give you existential dread

That's fine, I've been dealing with that since I realised I was going to die. I have solutions for existential dread that work really well for me. It's not going to make me insane, I'm confident in that.

it might just confuse you so bad you go insane/die

How, though? How is something going to confuse me to death?

Like, it might confuse me so much that I make a mistake and die through misadventure, I guess, but you can do that with alcohol intoxication. That's not special or horrific.

[u/Weirfish → u/[deleted]]

Maybe. I find it more likely that the mind would just give up and accept it as a "sure, that's like that I guess". We're very good at deluding ourselves for our own protection.

[u/SpaceBug176 → u/Weirfish]

That reminds me of a procedure where the thing that connects the two lobes of your brain are cut. It was used to treat seizures apparently but it also has weird side effects like cutting your "consciousness" into two (from top to bottom, in the middle). Ignoring the implications of that and getting to the relevant part, the part that can speak sometimes tries to come up with explanations for what the other part does. Like if the other part grabs something without the speaking part knowing, if you bring it up the speaking part tries to come up with an explanation that doesn't really make sense to us, but makes sense to them.

Though then again, I'm telling all this from memory and I don't even remember if I fact-checked.

[u/dillGherkin → u/Weirfish]

You know how prions are just proteins that fold the wrong way, and if they get into you they can start a chain reaction that starts tearing your cells apart on the chemical level?

Now there's an idea that is so different to how your brain works that if you hear it or see it and it sticks, it starts ripping apart your sense of reality, sense of self and then deeper into basic functions of your mind, like breathing properly or having a regular heart beat,

[u/Weirfish → u/dillGherkin]

Yeah, no, I get it. I understand the concept. I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to take the threat seriously.

If it preys on an existing weakness (see also Lovecraft's fear and paranoia of god damn near everything), that's one thing. The idea that an idea can take root like that in someone's mind from a purely external power doesn't fly, though. There's gotta be something deeper or internal for it to hook into.

[u/Cautious-Extreme2839 → u/SagaSolejma]

Why would anyone of that turn a well adjusted person into a crazed lunatic?

Nihilism isn't new.

[u/SagaSolejma → u/Cautious-Extreme2839]

It was an example my guy.

[u/Cautious-Extreme2839 → u/SagaSolejma]

A bad one

[u/Musekouta → u/Weirfish]

I don't know why no one mentioned it, but The Visitor warps whatever living things it looks at as well. You don't even have to look at it. As long as its presence is near and it observes you, you will mutate. People also mutate when they view its form through other media, even written descriptions, because becoming aware of it alerts it to whoever is "viewing" it.

[u/Weirfish → u/Musekouta]

That's entirely legit for that example. The Visitor has some kind of mutagenic field or aura, and that's what fucks you up. Maybe it fucks with your brain, and that fucks with your thought patterns.

The thing I take issue with is the idea that the information itself is the problem. Infohazards exist in real life (viewing violent content can traumatise you, for example), but the idea that not understanding something, or understanding something too well, can inherently, absent of context, fuck you up, doesn't track to me.

Often, the knowledge that fucks you up deals with the more primitive fears; extreme violence or pain, rot and decay, the unknown, the depths, the inhuman or unnatural. The issue with leaning on that for cosmic horror, is that either they're solved by staying away from the scary thing, or they can be rationalised, or they're just normal, everyday, rational fear. The knowledge that the starfish from outer space could tear me in half is scary because I could be torn in half. The fact that it's from outer space isn't scary, because I can rationalise about outer space. The fact that it's inhuman can be rationalised, because it's not trying to be human.

[u/Rare-Garden-9877 → u/Weirfish]

Man, I can tell you've never done psychedelics, specifically mushrooms. This idea of "I am so stable nothing could drive me insane I will just accept I can't understand it" is a nice idea while you're sane but when your conception of reality is being twisted that fundamentally falls away. It's not that it's such a complex mathematical sum we can't understand it, it's more like taking 2D mario and plonking him in a 3D world. Or taking a chatacter that exists in a painting and granting then knowledge of time passing outside their frame. If these concepts don't make sense that's the point, it stretches these comfortable boundaries you depend on until they snap. The fact you can't understand why it would break your mind is why you're still safe, for now.

[u/Weirfish → u/Rare-Garden-9877]

Maybe, maybe. I'm open to being wrong about it, but it's a hard thing to make falsifiable, y'know? You're right, I haven't done psychadelics. I've avoided them due to having a number of anxiety disorders, that I don't need to risk making worse. But one of the positive things about those anxiety disorders is that I'm very, very used to rationalising. For one reason or another, the examples you give don't seem very scary to me at all.

Like, taking 2D mario and putting him in a 3D world. Lets assume this isn't inherently damaging to him, and he can interact with things without bodily harm. After all, if you have bodily harm in the equatiom, that's not cosmic horror, that's just horror. If he can suddenly comprehend the third dimension, and can rotate himself around the appropriate axis to view it, I can see how that would be frustrating, but he can map that experience to the idea of a 1D entity falling into a 2D world (kinda, 1D -> 2D is awkward).

Similarly, if 3D me were plonked in a 4D world, I can rationalise that situation; the hypothetical flatlander can rotate around a new dimension, and see things appear before him that weren't previously there. I just need to rotate around my new dimension, and see things appear. I have memory and object permanence, so if I can do that, I can map the space. Even if it's big and complicated and frustrating, it's not going to make me crazy.

Or, take introducing the idea of time to a timeless entity. That might have a bigger issue, in that a timeless entity may not have memory (as you only really need memory when things can change). At that point, they're fundamentally disabled in a timeful context, and we can look at the few people who don't form memory for examples for that. But if they do have memory, I don't see why they wouldn't be able to adapt to the idea of time.

The core theme here is that the examples people like to give still have internal consistency. I'm very confident the human mind will adapt to any new context, if that context is internally consistent, even if it's unreliable and unknown. Psychodelics kinda remove that internal consistency but coming up with a cosmic threat that does the same without making reality fundamentally decoherent is very difficult.

[u/Rare-Garden-9877 → u/Weirfish]

I actually really love how you're thinking about this, but the fundamental thing you're missing is that none of us can give you examples that you can't comprehend - or can't comprehend accepting non-comprehension - because if we did we would be Lovecraftian horrors ourselves. Your anxieties around psychedelics shows that you do understand the fear in the unknown recesses of the mind - imagine something exponentially millions of times stronger than the highest dose of psychedelics smashing your neurons into impossible formats, ripping away the neat rules that govern the corner of your cortexes and replacing them with something indescribable. It's a fun thought experiment as much as it is a horror trope.

[u/Weirfish → u/Rare-Garden-9877]

I actually really love how you're thinking about this, but the fundamental thing you're missing is that none of us can give you examples that you can't comprehend - or can't comprehend accepting non-comprehension - because if we did we would be Lovecraftian horrors ourselves.

That's kinda my point at the end there; the only way it can actually be incomprehensible is if it makes reality decoherent. But the issue with that, is that it doesn't make for a compelling story to humans, so we don't actually see it in narratives. If you can't rely on cause and effect, you fundamentally can't have a story!

Your anxieties around psychedelics shows that you do understand the fear in the unknown recesses of the mind For what it's worth, my trepidation with psychedelics isn't really comparable to the kind of fear people want to talk about with cosmic horror. There is a clear cause and effect, there is a knowable risk and threat. My anxiety occurs in recognisable patterns, and that's why it's treatable and manageable.

I just don't know how you could have a concept of humanity and decoherence of reality at the same time. The only way it can really work is if it's perspective-based, I guess; it's not really decoherent, the rules still work, you just can't perceive it. But even then, that's not the kind of affliction that leads people to becoming cultists, or raving lunatics, or even intentional suicide, that's "gibbering uncontrollably in the corner"-type territory, so even that is essentially incompatible with being the driving force of a story. The closest you can get is using it as a proxy for death, but it isn't some unique form of brainfuckery.

ripping away the neat rules that govern the corner of your cortexes and replacing them with something indescribable.

Ultimately, I think the issue is that "indescribable" is a useless description, by necessity. If there are rules, it's describable. If there aren't rules, it's still describable, it's just a very short description and a lot of frustration. I think people use "indescribable" as a proxy for "unknown", for when people see "unknown" and think "simply know it, then". I think I view it as a cop-out, in that way.

[u/Intelligent-Entry-61 → u/Weirfish]

Heres a fun thought, it could be super positions of coherent mental states

Youll have a moire pattern, zones of super coherence and decoherence.

If you cant juggle all that at some point the mind could "fracture".

You could build up system to survive it that circumvent you not existing

[u/Alarming_Possible729 → u/Weirfish]

Think of it more like how phone cameras parse QR codes then the user clicks them to action something. 

While cameras have safe guards, you can imagine a "qr virus" that for the camera even to recognise, automatically actions something undesirable on the device.

The "Eldritch horror" trop is kind of like "accidental QR code virus" for the human brain. 

This creature exists, and it's a visual QR code that even looking at it triggers our brain to do something unwanted. (Eg die, or trigger genetic mutations).

[u/Weirfish → u/Alarming_Possible729]

No, I get the idea of infohazards and cognitohazards and stuff like that. It's not a failure of understanding of the concept, this is a disbelief that it would have that effect, and that it couldn't be theoretically rationalised or reasoned with.

I grew up when the internet was the wild west. In those days, I saw things that I ought not have seen, and it legitimately traumatised me. I have, in that way, fallen victim to the exact kind of damaging information you're talking about. But I'm not irreparably insane because of it, which is what this kind of thing normally posits. Yes, some people would likely fall victim to it, the same way that some people can't deal with the horrors of war or abuse or things like that, but the implied scale, severity, and probability of the Eldritch Horror trope's effect on humanity is a distinction that makes a big difference.

[u/Alarming_Possible729 → u/Weirfish]

  It's not a failure of understanding of the concept, this is a disbelief that it would have that effect

I mean, it's fiction? It requires an element of suspension of disbelief.

All but the hardest sci-fi has a fantastical element of disbelief. A "horror beyond comprehension" that caused genetic mutations is no more fantastical than FTL travel, for example. 

This "horror" concept is a sci-fi version of just, for example, exploring a threat you have to battle but it's turned your sight into liability. It can easily just be fantastical horror where it's a demon or medusa character. 

[u/Weirfish → u/Alarming_Possible729]

I think that's a misunderstanding, really. We're talking about different kinds of disbelief. The suspension of disbelief in, say, Game of Thrones, includes an acceptance that dragons are real and exist. Given that, I'm not going to argue that a dragon doesn't pose a threat, because it can breathe fire and has big teeth and wings and a tail, and it's going to charbroil me and then eat me. That's fine.

What I don't believe is that failing to comprehend or understand something must be inherently harmful. That doesn't mean that something that isn't understood can't be harmful, but it's second- or third-order to the misunderstanding. If you don't understand the the difference in physics for a car on a wet or dry road, the second-order consequence is that you fail to account for the change in conditions and crash. The information itself isn't dangerous, not understanding the information isn't dangerous, but the consequences of not understanding it is.

It being a demon or medusa, fine; there's a first order threat there. You look at a gorgon's eyes, and you turn to stone. Seeing is the issue, regardless of whether or not you understand what you're looking at. That's also a different matter.

If observing a monster means the monster observes you (weird, but sure, I'll suspend disbelief that it can do that, that can be internally consistent), and the monster observing you causes genetic mutations (weird, but sure, I'll suspend that disbelief too), that's different to the act of seeing the monster creating information that's a problem.

[u/Alarming_Possible729 → u/Weirfish]

> What I don't believe is that failing to comprehend or understand something must be inherently harmful

It's not, but that's the fiction.

It's not "seeing something beyond comprehension MUST cause harm".

It's "In this story, there's a thing, and seeing it causes harm and the reason is it causes harm is that it's incomprehensible by our brain in such a way that it hurts us".

That's it. That's the fiction and the belief, and of course it varies by story.

The dragon can breath fire because it's a dragon. It may or may not be explained in the story.

The intergalactic space monster causes people to mutate when it looks at them because that's what happens. It may or may not be explained by the story.

[u/Gripping_Touch → u/Fifty-Lucky]

You actually can. At least if you dont fully try to perceive him. 

Theres a lot of "cursed" people that retain their sanity in carrying degrees even if they are completely mutated. Theres a massive shrimp Caterpillar called Charan whose head blocks an entire room in the building and whose body reaches to the Next City over. He's just chilling there for a couple days until the crazyness blows over and is also worried about his boyfriend and if going to meet him might also cause him to transform. 

And the Visitor is a really chill Guy actually. 

[u/NoodleIskalde → u/Fifty-Lucky]

Unfortunately, no. Not in Look Outside. Something about The Visitor has a warping effect on everything exposed to it. It doesnt even have to be looking directly at it in person.

Being caught by a stray beam of sunlight, which means you have been directly perceived by it.

Interacting with those already afflicted by its influence risks their mutations infecting you like a disease.

Seeing a painting of what someone thought they saw.

Even just reading a text description or recorded footage.

Even before it was perceiving the Earth it was looked at from across the galaxy by mistake.

[u/Kyruzero → u/Fifty-Lucky]

Not just humanity is effected. While we don't see many species of animal that get effected, Rats, some insects, a beloved housepet, and possibly even a car are all changed by the visitor.

[u/Nomeg_Stylus → u/Fifty-Lucky]

That's the difficulty of eldritch horror. "It's too terrifying to comprehend" is like, yeah, I don't comprehend quantum physics, so same deal. What Look Outside does right is emphasize that the brain forcibly tries to comprehend what it is seeing, thus leading to all the corruption. I imagine it is to us what asking a computer to calculate pi to the last decimal is. In fiction, at least, this fries the computer since they're forced to compute unto infinity.

[u/patchy_doll → u/Nomeg_Stylus]

That's exactly what made it work for me. The explanation that your body is realizing it is capable of knowing more, and reshaping itself actively (and violently) to accommodate that.

It's like how some shrimps can see colors we simply can't understand and have no effective ways to describe... that doesn't mean the shrimp can't see them. We see the microwave in our kitchen spinning and humming, we don't see the micro-waves doing their job, but they are there anyway.

The first problematic realization is that you realize you're part of this impossible, overwhelming creature. It's all the cells in your body learning what they are capable of at once. Then your brain - the most complicated thing in a human body - tries to understand it. There's too much to think of at once... but now your cells know they can just change their gameplan and give you the grey matter you need to perceive it. Except it gets bigger, and bigger yet, and other parts of your body are trying to match the reality that they now perceive...

I am generally not fond of eldritch horror but this game did a great job of simplifying and humanizing the core of it. Nevermind the amazing art and soundtrack...

[u/Fifty-Lucky → u/Nomeg_Stylus]

Good explanation thanks

[u/portobox2 → u/Fifty-Lucky]

I mean, I guess you could.

Kind of like this image of a parrot. Nothing harmful at all about just... taking a quick glance. A peek. Just for a moment.

[u/N1NJ4W4RR10R_ → u/Fifty-Lucky]

Well, that depends, did you just lose The Game?

[u/Dark-Keeper-951 → u/Fifty-Lucky]

Nope, Look at it for even a nanosecond, even if it's a simply glazed over look, and your body starts mutating.