Why Giant Spiders in Media Often Fall Short, at least for me, And Some Ideas to Potentially Remedy That
Like most people, I have a level of visceral disgust and fear towards spiders. It’s gotten alot better during the last year or so and I can share a room with them without being bothered by it, but as soon as one of these eight-legged fucks falls onto my bed, I scream like a little bitch.
For both yours and my sake, there will be no pictures, however since imagination is a powerful thing I will be still tagging it with an Arachnophobia Trigger-Warning. I don’t want to cause anyone any distress.
This’ll be a long post, buckle in.
One issue I find is that when scaled up, they’re often treated like mammalian predators. They hiss, they spit, they thud along the ground as they chase you like a mutated wolf from the depths of Chernobyl with a case of rabies so severe it might as well be its own disease.
And at that point I ask: why a spider?
And most people would answer any number of reasons-- that they’re creepy, they have an ungodly number of limbs with joints to match through which their movement is unnatural, they hide in cramped, tight and often dark spaces that they’ll skitter from as soon as their den is displaced-- or they hang their in the centre of their webs, watching, waiting, their silhouette on display for any unfortunate passerby to behold.
They seem uncanny, like they’re not an animal acting of of survival instincts, trying to make it through this unforgiving world like any other organism-- they feel like they have a mind-- and not in the humanising sense, more like they’re inherently malevolent, like they intent to hide amongst your belongings, in the garden shed, in the attic because they’re demons of the dark, boogeymen you search your room for before you turn the lights of and go to sleep.
Realising they’re just animals was a big factor in lessening my fear... and so when media treats them as so, it dampens the uncertainty, that unease that these creatures are even of this world. Sure, the scene can still be very tense, no doubt, but it often sacrifices that unpredictability that spiders have.
Think about how we interact with spiders, too. They often seem to appear out of nowhere-- you lift a cushion and BAM, there it is, with all its horrible legs skittering wildly as you make to swat it with a shoe. Or maybe you’re reading, your back against the back of your seat, relaxing after a long day, and maybe your eyes absentmindedly scan the room when HOLY SHIT THERE’S A SPIDER ON THE WALL NEXT TO ME--
When talking about giant spiders, having the character look up and suddenly spot a massive fucking spider either blended into a tree-trunk or stark against a stone wall could be a great way to capture that “OH SHIT-” moment.
Oddly enough, a boss that managed to capture this feeling was Kuromori from Shadow of the Colossus. It’s a huge, lizard-esque construct found in this tall, narrow arena with many openings. It scales the wall and spews lasers at you-- granted, I am biased since for some reason enemies with fuck-you lasers scare the absolute shit out of me-- and your goal is to avoid these lasers while attempting to shoot each of its legs so it loses its grip and falls to the bottom, exposing its weakpoint. Let me tell you, watching that bossfight makes me squirm horrendously-- in a way, its a sort of reversal of the way we find and kill spiders, and it works wonderfully; and it doesn’t even have all the visual grotesqueness that’d no doubt make this even more potent.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that despite the number of eyes most spiders have absolutely shit eyesight, and as such mostly depend on touch and hearing, and their hunting habits reflect that-- often being ambush predators, or simply waiting around for food to come by. Of course, there’s alot of variety and there’s always an exception to the rule, but I feel like this is good to take into account if we’re talking about the garden-variety house spider lookalikes.
I also find that often in movies there’s far too much focus on the face-- is it unpleasant looking? Yes, but we’re no often looking straight into a spider’s face, now are we? There’s an instinctive unease at the silhouette of a spider-- our ancestors learned to fear it due to the risk of potentially dying from a venomous bite that could fester and rot. For me, its the legs that really get me, especially arched ones. It just looks so... wrong, hideous, a twisted abomination. Its even worse when the spiders have an almost fleshy look to them-- it makes me want to puke.
When it comes to tarantulas, while I don’t feel particularly grossed out by them as they’re big and soft, there is alot you can do with them. They’re ambush hunters, dwelling in cramped, silk-lined tunnels, waiting for unsuspecting prey to stumble across their threshold-- hell, some species like the aptly named Trapdoor Tarantula create a little hatch for said tunnel. They attack by suddenly leaping out, and dragging whatever poor creature they caught back in.
Imagine some characters walking through the underbrush when suddenly one of them is grabbed by this massive fuck-you tarantula and gets dragged into its lair, leaving the other characters to follow them it, weapons bared, along the dark, narrow, sticky passage littered with the shells and bones of its previous meals, possibly coming across a shed exoskeleton or two-- I don’t like jumpscares, but by god that is some potentially neat jumpscare material.
Now, while I’ve been writing this I’ve been mostly referring to spiders about the size of a bear and upwards, but what about having spiders merely a couple feet long? Imagine feeling a tickle on your neck, and finding one of these fucks crawling up your back? Now THAT is fucking terrifying. Hell, you could still have spiders bigger than that maybe about four feet in leg-span clinging onto the walls of a dungeon, illuminated by your torchlight.
If you’re going for a sky-scraper tall, huge as all fuck kaiju of a spider that blots out the sun, I’d say go for a spindly, gnarly-legged dark spider that’ll stand out against the sky-- however, if you have an idea that works better or that you’d want to try, go for it!
However, I think I’ve gone on long enough. Sorry for the ramblings, this has been on my mind for months now, and I love breaking things down to see how they do or don’t work-- especially when it comes to biology and animal behaviour(???).
Ultimately, go with whatever works best for you! These are just the things that set me off, and I’d love to hear other ideas or expansions upon the ones I presented!
And of course, if giant arthropods are possible, why stop at spiders?
Father's identity and motives + Nora complex mystery
Ok, chapter 62 and all the posts about it just fucked me up and everyone’s already saying everything that came through my mind after reading it so I'll talk about some others matters. But, honestly the last 15/20 chapters got me hooked -even if I’ve been reading Noragami for about 2,5 years I am currently obsessed over this damn manga, I’m thinking things even further and shit is so heavy.
The first thing I’ll tackle is the fact that Father/Fujisaki was never clearly introduced, meaning we only know little about him : he apparently created Yaboku, a magatsukami - or god of Calamity (or so he says, but the motherfucker could have totally been lying since the beginning, right?). We’ve also learnt a few chapters ago the goal he is pursuing -and which is making him the major antagonist- : apparently, his special someone (this mysterious freckled lady -yessss finally some damn freckles in Japanese manga, I feel represented lmao) got killed by an arbitrary decision from Heaven. But. Was she a goddess, and Trash-dad too ? Or were they both humans, and the shit he blames to Heaven is just bad odds, like illness, famine or deadly stuff like this that could have killed his lover ? I mean, as readers and with what the story has revealed to us, Heaven was only shown to us from Gods' point of view : mostly one of a tribunal. → You a god, you do shit, you get shit and this is all quickly dealt with and over by death or punishment.
Of course, Noragami readers still get the human perspective from Hiyori, but she's experiencing Heaven the same way as Gods : as this huge-ass arbitrary and severe tribunal. BUT in all kinds of religions (catholicism, islam, judaism, buddhism and stuff) Gods are largely perceived by their believers as the rulers of the World, heavens and odds ; following this reasoning, they were as much the reason for happiness as for sadness and rough times. Common belief was that bad odds like illnesses, crises and all kinds of plagues were decided by Gods. So what I'm trying to pull is lying there : maybe the loved one's death was just another common death among others, and trash-dad, desperate, put it on the account of Gods ? I mean, it's only natural to try to blame someone, uh?You know, in this panel here :
needless to say this page is truly aesthetically nice
I'm certain the bubble “It's people” placed exactly on him holding his dead loved one is not innocent at ALL. Father IS people. Father is human. Or at least was.
He says himself that “the ones that do the forgiving is people, but I am not going to!” meaning he's not going to do like everyone else.
BUT THEN AGAIN if Father is actually only just a troubled human, another problem rises:
-> If he isn't a god -he resents heavy SO much and, come on, if he was a major god like in the Tsukuyomi Theory where he is Izanami's husband, Heaven would have noticed him going astray and rebelling- why can father name and use a regalia? And also why is this motherfucker immortal?
At the time being, Noragami showed us regalias as owned by gods only, right?
Even the half-phantom theory (basically him being like Hiyori) is fragile as well : we don't have any evidence about half-phantoms' immortality, and it's actually quite the opposite as they are more exposed to death than any other creature due to their complex position between Far and Near shore. But then again, if you go with the idea of Father not being human, even more questions rise : who the fuck is really Yaboku/Yato ? But I won't go there because this point is too much to handle and is already being discussed enough ahah (and of course if Yato is, in fact, Tsukuyomi, Father identity might change too -or maybe not if he is trash till the end and is actually just a freak who made up stories and somewhat found Yato and kept him to do bad shit with him.)
Well now that I'm over with Father's case, I just go to Mizuchi/Hiiro/Nora's one.
As we know, she's a stray with multiple names (even Ebisu got a hold of her) named by Father, too. She's always been a weird one as Yato says, she doesn't seem to hold any heavy feelings against anything, and stays calm and composed most of the time -when you pissed her, you PISSED her bad.
So, I read a really interesting theory linking her calm and cold nature to her special ability : water. We know that Tsuyu, one of Tenjin's familiars/regalias is actually a plum spirit. In the real Japanese folklore, Tenjin was initially a human who rose high in the government but fell into a plot orchestrated by a rival family, and thus was convicted to exile. But during his life, the legend said he loved a ume tree so much the tree flew from the capital to Kyushu, to get reunited with him again as he was exiled. In Noragami, Tsuyu embodies this tree from Sugawara no Michizane's legend as it is said she is the spirit of a ume tree, and that she's been loyal to Tenjin since forever. As a tree spirit, Tsuyu has some unique abilities, like the one to talk with trees. (However, we don't have any further evidence about her being granted a name and, as such being a shinki but I'm going to roll with this.)
Without looking at real folklore anymore, we can guess Mizuchi's ability to use water, to “embody” water (remember, each time she appeared -in the manga and the anime- we had a closeup on a water drop + the sound) is due to her being some kind of water spirit ? Also, what caused me to write this post was her presence in this picture :
Here are 'the' most important regalias from Noragami : Kazuma and Yukina the hafuris, and Daikoku and Tsuyu the guideposts. So why is Mizuchi here? Of course I know she's a key character and stuff, don't get me wrong, but the four other shinkis are all very pure and noble : hafuris and guideposts ! She's here, among these honorable regalias, and she EVEN is on the center of the couch. The first thing one sees when looking at the picture is her. At first, she was THE antagonist, the cold hard bitch willing to harm as much as possible, not giving any fucks about anything or anybody except Yato and Father. SO WHY NOW? Why is she exposed now with the other regalias? Let me remind you ; in chapter 61 she appeared right in front to Yukine, whom she is supposed to hate, to warn him about the danger Yato was exposed to and also to beg for his help, even giving him some advices (ok that might have been a way to manipulate him but STILL). In chapter 62, she's definitely super silent, seems worried and unsure. What is going on with Mizuchi? Why is Adachitoka is making her grow more ambiguous and hard to understand each chapter that passes by? She has always been all black, decidedly villain, but now she's starting to get hard to put in a “team” in the basic villains x good guys
well I have so much other things to talk about but I am so tired as English is not my native language, this even took me like 2 hours to type ; even worse than a damn essay. You'll forgive my possibly enormous mistakes and possibly my weird english but I tried. Hard.
Oh and hey just because I like to fuck people up : you know how Sakura's real name was Tamamone ? Ne is written 音 in Japanese. And guess what, it's the vessel character Yato puts in all his regalias names : Yukine (雪音), Tomone (伴音). Here you go, do whatever you want with this but crying a little bit is okay.
Well then, thanks for reading and have a nice morning/day/evening/night my dear noragami fellows
I was born in a catholic family, my grandma was catholic, my mom and dad are catholic but they never told me that Catholicism was the only religion and they told me that I should believe in what ever I wanted, I thank them a lot for that. Right now I think I can’t say that I’m 100% catholic, I believe in some stuff, I’m really spiritual but I’ve had a lot problems with a lot of stuff they do. I still do criticism to church, I still believe religions (all religions) are dangerous when they are used in the wrong way but since Bergoglio was elected as pope I’ve been in more good terms with my religious past...and he’s doing some good stuff to make people think about their life's and their responsibility as persons to respect and tolerate the other.
Aoyama Gosho such an amazing author. He can keep the story in line--I mean, there's a connection between the episodes/chapters... So they're all connected. Kinda confused, to be honest, but that's the X-factor that keeps me to wait for the next published comics haah
