"You all think I am crazy, but I'm not! Aliens have invaded" Psychosis in fiction.

[Scott_Plaid]

I started a a thread about comic book writer Judd Winick’s new project, a cartoon show about a young girl who is charged with repelling creature who threaten to harm society. Normally, such creatures are everywhere, but quite invisible, and intangible , (Like in a H.P. Lovecraft story I read), but sometimes, they are in danger of doing material harm to our world, so she steps into action. Of course no one can see them, save for her.

I asked for examples of simular situations in my last thread, figuring that if no one wanted to talk about the show, they could talk about this one. Well, it was quite successful in it’s own right, so I am asking the question here. What works include:

The topic of monsters that may or may not be real that only the hero can see comes up a lot, from Mercedes Lackeys’ SIERRAted Edge series of books, to The Maxx, to just about every sitcom that involves magic. However, I was wondering 1) What is the psychological term for when this happens in RL? ("The vampires are out to get me? Why don’t you see them?) 2) What series include it? I seem to recall an early 90s tabletop RPG in which reality crossed over with fantasy, and the Orc you killed may or may not have been Mall security, but I can’t remember the details.

[HPL]

@Scott Plaid

I started a a thread about comic book writer Judd Winick’s new project, a cartoon show about a young girl who is charged with repelling creature who threaten to harm society. Normally, such creatures are everywhere, but quite invisible, and intangible , (Like in a H.P. Lovecraft story I read), but sometimes, they are in danger of doing material harm to our world, so she steps into action. Of course no one can see them, save for her.

I asked for examples of simular situations in my last thread, figuring that if no one wanted to talk about the show, they could talk about this one. Well, it was quite successful in it’s own right, so I am asking the question here. What works include:

I believe the RL term is Paranoid Scizophenia, or something like that. Usally it’s people who think the CIA put electronic bugging devices in their brain.

[Kamino_Neko]

@HPL

I believe the RL term is Paranoid Scizophenia, or something like that.

That would be the opposite - believing something that’s not true. This is refusing to believe something that is true because it clashes with one’s world view.

[davenportavenger]

@Tengu

This is refusing to believe something that is true because it clashes with one’s world view.

Reality control/doublethink? Although that doesn’t have anything to do with magical creatures.

The first thing I thought of was Michigan J. Frog. The second thing I thought of was Gazoo (“The Flintstones”).

[rjung]

Cognitive dissonance.

[HPL]

@Tengu

That would be the opposite - believing something that’s not true. This is refusing to believe something that is true because it clashes with one’s world view.

Oh, that would be Someone Else’s Problem

[CalMeacham]

There have been a lot of stories and series using this. Eric Frank Russel’s Sinister Barrier is a (the?) classic example. The TV series The Invaders used it, of course. The almost-final scene of the 1950s film Invasion of the Body Snatchers has Kevin McCarthy trying to convince people on the freeway of an invasion. (The studio made them tack on the “happy” ending where people believe him.) When Philip Kaufman remade the film he got McCarthy back to re-create the scene. (He does it again in the recent Looney Tunes movie).

At the beginning of Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters no one believes it, even with an uber-FBI telling people it’s true (The book The Puppet Masters, by the way, predates the book The Body Snatchers, as is much better done IMHO.)

[LonesomePolecat]

@CalMeacham

At the beginning of Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters no one believes it, even with an uber-FBI telling people it’s true (The book The Puppet Masters, by the way, predates the book The Body Snatchers, as is much better done IMHO.)

I tend to agree that *The Puppet Masters * was the better book, but The Body Snatchers was definitely the better film.

[devilsknew]

The smart ones never warn anybody because they know nobody would believe them anyway and staying under the radar of both the aliens and the humans would be the only beneficial survival strategy. The consequence is that they live with a seething terror that can never be expressed. No one to trust, they have only grim knowledge and fatalism.

[CalMeacham]

I tend to agree that The Puppet Masters was the better book, but The Body Snatchers was definitely the better film.

That’s 'cause Don Siegel did the first one and Philip Kaufman the second version (I forget who did the third), while the movie of the Heinlein bookmwas not well done. (It’s been filmed twice already, once without his permission.) I read an account of how the script came to be written – as in the case of Heinklein’s Destination Moon, you come away amazed that, after going through the Hollywood Meat Grinder, the film came out as close to the original as it did.

Maybe someday they’ll get a Heinlein film done right. But at least the aliens looked belieavable and cool, if not exactly what Heinlein described.

[HPL]

@devilsknew

The smart ones never warn anybody because they know nobody would believe them anyway and staying under the radar of both the aliens and the humans would be the only beneficial survival strategy. The consequence is that they live with a seething terror that can never be expressed. No one to trust, they have only grim knowledge and fatalism.

You mean a Cassandra Syndrome.

But you’re right. Smart people know that running around telling people about Aliens only serves to make people think they’re either somewhat nutty or very nutty. If you want to stop the invasion by yourself, or shut up until you have proof, then good, but otherwise, stay quiet.