Ghosts

[X Equestris]

What are your thoughts on ghosts or haunted spaces, be it as characters, symbols, settings, whatever? Do you like to use them a lot, or perhaps they're not particularly noteworthy and fit where they fit, or perhaps traditional ghosts are a bit corny and you've got your own take on them?

Ghosts are fun, but traditional ones didn’t fit my main fantasy world, since I’ve always wanted to maintain ambiguity around the existence of an afterlife and whether there’s truth to any of the religions for thematic reasons.

After some inspiration from The Return of Sir Richard Grenville, I decided to try putting my own spin on them. Rather than the souls of the dead, ghosts are formed when an ald—immaterial creatures born from emotions of ideas—becomes so fixated on a deceased individual who embodied the same emotion as it that the ald deludes itself into believing it is them. It stats to think like them, act like them, and even manifest in the physical world as them.

One of these ghosts kickstarts the story I’m working on now, “Out of Oblivion”. The main character’s husband died about a month before it starts, shielding her from what would’ve been a mortal blow. This act of self-sacrifice attracts the attention of an ald who embodies love, and out of his love, it manifests to warn her of impending doom.

No matter the spin on ghosts, I like how effective they are as a tool for showcasing how someone can continue to influence the world even after they’re gone.

 

[Stuart Dren]

Ghosts are fun, but traditional ones didn’t fit my main fantasy world, since I’ve always wanted to maintain ambiguity around the existence of an afterlife and whether there’s truth to any of the religions for thematic reasons.

After some inspiration from The Return of Sir Richard Grenville, I decided to try putting my own spin on them. Rather than the souls of the dead, ghosts are formed when an ald—immaterial creatures born from emotions of ideas—becomes so fixated on a deceased individual who embodied the same emotion as it that the ald deludes itself into believing it is them. It stats to think like them, act like them, and even manifest in the physical world as them.

One of these ghosts kickstarts the story I’m working on now, “Out of Oblivion”. The main character’s husband died about a month before it starts, shielding her from what would’ve been a mortal blow. This act of self-sacrifice attracts the attention of an ald who embodies love, and out of his love, it manifests to warn her of impending doom.

No matter the spin on ghosts, I like how effective they are as a tool for showcasing how someone can continue to influence the world even after they’re gone.

That's pretty neat. Takes martyrdom to a different level. Actually, in some ways it could weaken martyrdom, which is also interesting.

The fact that the olds have a certain categorical emotion/conceptual identity, potent but otherwise empty, made me think of Taxi Driver of all things.