Problematic Horror Trope- How to Fix it?

[Moesakuara]

Some of you may be familiar with the "locked up/hidden away ""crazy/deformed/monstrous"" family member in the house," which is a trope which comes up in horror, especially older horror or gothic storytelling, frequently.The most famous example I can think of is Jane Eyre, where Mr. Rochester's "mad" first wife is secretly hidden in the house. She's the one behind a series of seemingly unexplained events at the manor.

I would like to use this trope in a story I'm working on, but do not want to rely on the (pretty obvious) ableist and misogynist cliches of the trope. Is it possible to use this trope without the ableism/misogyny inherent to it? Or is it impossible to separate these elements from it?

Part of me thinks there is the potential to reinvent it to comment on the cruelty or selfishness of taking someone's agency away, but maybe that's me wishing there was a good way to pull off a plot including these elements. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

[redfish]

it might depend on the time period, but this person could be locked up because their captor genuinely thinks its best for them (e.g. being away from people who can hurt them, staying indoors where it's safe, terrified something might make their condition worse).It could be non malicious ableism. Misguided help, but just making it worse.

[TedGravesArt]

They don't have to be locked up in there because they're deformed or anything, they might just be murderous and psychopathic, but the family loves them too much to commit them to a mental hospital, which were infamous for being horrible, what with the awful living conditions and lobotomies and all that. That might give you the horror angle you're looking for, without the crap attached.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Part of me thinks there is the potential to reinvent it to comment on the cruelty or selfishness of taking someone's agency away, but maybe that's me wishing there was a good way to pull off a plot including these elements.

No, no, I think that's exactly how you do it. ^^ If you want to use storytelling elements with problematic roots, I think the only morally correct way to go about it is to reframe it somehow, use it in a different way or show a different perspective.

The hideous locked-away family member can still be a terrifying entity, they can still be full of rage and hate and want to hurt others, and they can still be a problem and/or an antagonist for the MC. But through the story that you tell, you can make it clear that a large part of the way they are now is because of how they were treated, not the other way around.

Or if you don't want to be quite that sympathetic, at least show both sides of the issue. Maybe this person is just kinda unhinged and they were always that way, but the person who married them/took them into their home just to imprison them and pretend they don't exist anymore is also in the wrong.
Honestly, the simplest way to humanize a monster in any story is to just sprinkle a little evil around in the rest of the cast as well, rather than having them be the lone 'bad one' in a community of innocents.

[Moesakuara]

I like the idea of the family trying to keep this character away from something worse. This character is hurting people, but I don't want to imply that mentally ill people are more violent than those who aren't (because, well, it isn't true, lol). The character isn't mentally ill, but you could read physical or mental disability as coded into the fantasy element of their affliction.She's kind of a werewolf, more or less.

[Moesakuara]

I do feel like this totally plays into it, as I mentioned to Ted. For context, my story has a group of werewolf type creatures living together in a small town. Animals, and then people are killed, and the killer turns out to be the love interest's aunt, who is supposedly dead. In reality, she is alive, but locked in the house in some other form, maybe half-transformed, I'm thinking, or as the progenitor of this werewolf curse in the family.

I like the idea that the love interest is being selfish or misguided, like you said, and scared to let her aunt go, whose condition is clearly getting worse. The aunt is becoming less human, and the actions of her niece, who is very attached to her-- is making the situation dangerous.

Since the aunt is "off screen" so to speak for most of the story, until the middle, I'm definitely running the risk of her becoming a non-character with no personality or nuance. A pitiful victim or a complete monster.

[river121693]

hmm in my opinion, the ablelist/misogynist aspect isn't inherent to the trope but rather the framing of the trope by the story.

It's problematic when the story associates of mental health, disabilities, and physical features outside of the "norm" with "monstrosity" which legitimizes the character being punished in the narrative. In other words, those with mental health, disabilities, and physical features outside of the norm are often portrayed as harmful monsters and villains in stories, therefore, they should be locked up.

Either that, or they are framed as victims who needs saving. They often face graphic violence/death to manipulate viewers into hating the villain and root for the heroes (which are usually not them). This framing is disempowering, speaking as someone on the spectrum.

imo, there's no issue with using the "locked up" trope as long as you write the locked up character as a fully realized human being, avoid overly traumatic spectacle, avoid problematic tropes associated with their marginalization, and directly condemn/punish/villainize the people who locked them up.

[river121693]

I think the issue here might be that the violence is directly due to her half-transformed state of being? to solve this, perhaps you can reveal that she wasn't violent, but in a misguided attempt to make her "normal" (either full werewolf or full human) with some kind of cure, the love interest made her more violent, and so have to lock her up to hide their crime?

[Moesakuara]

I don't know if I want her to be half transformed, per say, but maybe the originator of the curse, so the most afflicted. Just something which sets her apart from the others in the group and could motivate her to act in this way.

Part of me is wondering if I should just excise her as a character, as she was in my original draft but may not fit now, and actually make the other "hidden" person in the house a straight up creature or non human entity. Then again, if I can just as easily swap a human character for a non human one, that could be a sign that I don't have a grasp or a place for that human character any longer.

My downside with cutting her out altogether is losing the impetus or character driven reason my love interest would hide this other character. If the culprit is someone the love interest cares about, it makes sense that she would be invested in hiding or protecting this person even if they are doing wrong. And, that wrong could be motivated-- maybe her aunt hates the town, rejects her humanity or has a toxic relationship with her niece, despite the love they also share. My lead herself is bitten and struggling between her humanity and new nature, so having a character who has fully rejected or is rejecting her human side may be a nice foil or warning for the lead. Another layer to this whollleeee thing is that the niece is gay, as is the lead, and villainizing the love interest feels wrong to me too. She and her aunt aren't villains, I think, but they are morally grey.

I do see the aunt either dying, or fully transforming and escaping off into the wilderness. I don't envision this story having a happy ending, per say. It's a gothic noir type story, so there will certainly be a resolution, but something maybe that is grime and inevitable.

[lizardlullabye]

Just to throw an unlikely idea out there.

The love interest was the one originally bitten by the werewolf, but the aunt actively choose to transfer the werewolf curse to herself (through magic blabbery) to protect the love interest.

Since no one really know how curse transfer works, it might be a good reason for keeping the aunt close and away from other werewolves and possibly asking for help. The love interest is likely scared and stressed which can led to terrible decision-making. That doesn't fix anything, but it gives the aunt a bit more choice.

[river121693]

The issue seem like werewolf has been code for disabilities and physical "abnormalities" , and the "locked up" trope just bridge that connection?
To me, that there are other werewolves, like the love interest, who struggle between their "humanity" and new nature, definitely dampens the "lock up" trope, since the wrongdoing is not caused solely by them being a werewolf.

So maybe the aunt can also have the choice to do wrong. Maybe the love interest is scared that they'll become like their aunt, but later realize that the aunt she made the choice to kill for revenge or power. Or maybe the aunt was being harmful for more “empathetic” reasons, like finding a cure to become human again?

You can also change the plot to avoid the locking up trope too.

It's definitely a hard line to walk , but I think it's worth exploring, and more interesting than making it just some creature. I also think there’s a place for problematic villains who go against the world due to their existence at the margins.

[RosesnWater]

this is just an idea that came up, I don't know if it was mentioned yet as I only read a few comments, but I noticed you said you didn't want to make her a non entity character with no connection to the reader. It isn't my favoriite mode of revealing story to readers, but you could do tiny flashbacks?? Flashbacks in my opinion work better when its a comic but I think they're still possible in novels. That way you could deceive the audience into thinking the aunt is dead somehow by the way the MC is reminiscing over her aunt who is no longer in the picture. the MC can even dance around the subject like someone asks her about her aunt and she mentions they were very close, but then she lost her, while at the same time showing flashbacks of little interactions between the MC and her aunt to show the stakes of the precious relationship that the MC will lose (and in actuality has already lost). In this case you have to tread carefully because its like severe dementia or Alzheimers where the individual isn't able to live in their own life anymore but with the deadly twist of the individual being more dangerous too. I'm not sure if its a genetic thing for the aunt or a disease or something that was done to her on purpose like a poisoning of some sort but like I said I think it can work. You just have to have some way of showing how important that relationship was to the MC which would cause her to be unable to act in this horrible situation. I'm actually thinking like Jennifer's Body where a girl gets possessed by a demon after being killed by some assholes and her friend has to be the one to kill her because she's the only one who knows the truth. At first the MC can't bear to do it because they have so much history (and some possible chemistry) but in the end she does because her friend isn't the same person and she's actually become a really sad dangerous version of herself.

[monotone_ink]

write it so that the real monster was actually the friends we made along the way

[Moesakuara]

I wish I could come up with a different plot, lol! I’m pretty stumped with this one. I have all my puzzle pieces but have definitely struggled to put them together. It would be easy to just have the love interest be the antagonist, and again as queer characters, kind of a total cliche. I know I need a midpoint revel that flips their relationship on its head, causes my lead to run from her new life, only to realize she must embrace it to defeat the big threat in the story. Maybe the issue is her rejecting her new state- maybe she needs to be made into returning to human life, only to realize she has to proceed as a combination of the two worlds, human and werewolf, to win the day.

Spinning my wheels here, lol!

[Moesakuara]

Not the main characters aunt, but her love interests aunt- still, you made some great points about reinforcing the relationship visually! And Jennifer’s body has been on my mind. This idea of a changed or “lost” version of someone you knew. Thank you for bringing it up

[RosesnWater]

no worries! your story idea made me think of it ^^

[skyfarron]

1. The Madhouse: The person being locked up is a danger to themselves and to others. The family is aware that what they're doing is cruel, but they have no other choice. The imprisoned is clever enough to know and understand the consequences of their actions, but has chosen a violent path and will return to it at every opportunity, only feigning innocence long enough to lure victims in.

2. Scapegoat: The family is locking the person up to protect one of their dark secrets. The imprisoned is not actually a threat to anyone, they're just misunderstood, and the family makes up dark stories about them to keep anyone from trying to let them out. They could even go as far as to disguise themselves as the imprisoned, pretend that the person "broke out", and commit horrible acts, meanwhile the imprisoned has never actually left their captivity... a narrative has been created that paints them as evil. They may even have a monstrous transformation, but are docile while under it. Meanwhile, their family has the same transformation, but is violent, and they've chosen the imprisoned as their scapegoat.

3. To Catch A Predator: The imprisoned is actually a horror villain from a story long past, who was dealt with justly. Now a new generation of victims, naive and ignorant of the forgotten tragedy, lets the villain out, unleashing a wave of vicious terror and murder upon their town. The villain quickly establishes dominance by posing as a trusted figure, and integrates themselves in the town so nobody (except the people who unleashed them) will suspect that they are the culprit. The only way to stop them is to have a monster-hunter of some kind (your Van Helsing/Chris Hansen) go in and catch them in the act.

[system]

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