Our Ghosts Are Different: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* In one of the few ''[[Inuyasha]]'' stories to take place in the present day, Kagome encounters the spirit of a little girl who died in a fire and is angry at her mother for not rescuing her. The girl haunts her mother and little brother until Kagome manages to redeem her with [[The Power of Love]].

* In some variants of ''The Famous Flower of Serving Men'', the heroine's love appears to the king as a bird to explain how he was murdered and the heroine had to disguise herself as a man and go to work for the king.

* In "The Unquiet Grave", the dead love begins to speak after [[A Year and a Day]] to complain that the lover's laments will not let her rest.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Site specters, are the same as regular ghosts, except that they attach themselves to specific locations.

** Demighosts, which are ghosts controlled by other ghosts, and who can actually touch things.

 

== [[Fairy Tales]] ==

* [[Fairy Tale]] stepchildren are often aided against the [[Wicked Stepmother]] by their dead mother, as in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130824062133/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/stories/german.html Aschenputtel] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20131104152714/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/stories/birch.html The Wonderful Birch].

* "The Shroud", another Grimm Brothers one, had the little boy returning because his mother was mourning too strongly: her tears had soaked his shroud so he could not sleep.

 

== Fan Works ==

* Although ''[[What Dreams May Come]]'' is primarily about the afterlife, its protagonist does hang around in the living world as an invisible, intangible ghost for a bit, unwilling to bear leaving his home or wife. When he tries to touch her, she's immediately overwhelmed by her grief and wails miserably, which convinces him he should move on and spare her from the pain of his unseen, unreachable presence.

* [[Lake Mungo]]: Alice's ghost is pretty standard with the exception that {{spoiler|she saw her own ghost before she died.}}

 

== Literature ==

* The Sonja Blue Series by Nancy A. Collins had a mad architect design a house he called Ghost Trap; and it did just that—trap and confuse ghosts inside its bizarrely designed walls. (Collins probably based this on the real life Winchester Mystery House, designed to do just that.)

* The title character of the 1965 young-adult book ''The Ghost of Dibble Hollow'' by May Nickerson Wallace had unfinished business holding him to the earth, and very strict conditions controlling who could see (and thus help) him.

*** Note that ghosts' [[Psychic Powers]] seem quite limited in this setting, as it took every bit of fortitude Verence I had, merely to sprinkle unpalatable amounts of salt on his killer's food.

* [[Douglas Adams]]' ''[[Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency]]'' features a character who's learning what it's like to be a newly restless spirit. He's definitely in the Unfinished Business camp; luckily his business consists merely of {{spoiler|finishing the long-winded voice messages he was in the middle of when he was so shockingly, unexpectedly shot}}.

** Although the main point of {{spoiler|finishing his message was to warn his sister.}}

** Origins: the common variety are dead people who stuck around in a less palpable form for some or other reason - often from feeling strong emotions while dying, which is one of the reasons why many are quite insane. Or running into some magic. There's even a magical procedure to ''make sure'' the subject will become a ghost upon death (at any later time, there's no limit) - amusingly, some purchased this service not because they fear the great unknown or want to play a [[Spirit Advisor]], but as a deterrent to the potential killers. There are at least two other sorts: some other types of free-roaming spirits were snared in weird magic that turned them into humans "real" in almost every way, but when they are killed or this magic loses power they become "ghosts" (and implied to not even leave corpses behind); it's also possible to [[Liquid Assets|transfer away]] someone's corporeality, which turns the subject into a ghost - the process skips the whole "dying" part, and can even be reversed.

** Status: ghosts are banned in vicinity of Echo (not clear whether they are kept away from state secrets or Heart of the World), but it's not enforced too seriously. The rumours that Secret Investigators destroy every ghost they meet, while exist, are greatly exaggerated. For one, Lesser Secret Investigations Force ''itself'' has ghosts on payroll, just not in the capital; Juffin being Juffin, he took it as the challenge to invent method of making a ''card deck'' ghostly to play with them, but none proved to be a worthy partner. Also, father-in-law of one LSIF member was allowed to stay in Echo by the King's decree - [[I Want Grandkids|he wanted grandkids]] and to look after his shop until he'd have some, and the King decided there's no reason not to, and it's a good excuse that this shop is ancient enough to be considered a national endowment. There's also former Chief of Huron River Harbor, who was killed when very drunk, and remained in this state - his legal status is unknown, but authorities evidently consider his presence beneficial - after all, he stays around the Custom House and appears mostly to scare some unfortunate smuggler into showing all the stashes. Usually, found ghosts are quietly presented to "Most Reverend Chief", who gives them some starting tips on their new existence - especially the multiverse-traveling part.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** As this editor recalls, the young man of the song takes Laurie back to her home, leaves, realizes he forgot the sweater he gave her to keep warm with, and goes back for it. The person at the house tells him "She died a year ago today" and that she's buried in the local cemetery. He goes there to look at her grave, and finds the sweater folded up on top of it. So, even truer to the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend.

*** All made especially effective and actually creepy by the disarming early 60's (made in 1965) music that accompanies this telling. Not surprisingly, Dickie Lee was responsible for about three or so of the songs that [[Don McLean]] called 'dirges in the dark' in American Pie—the song, not the movie series.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In the world of ''[[Exalted]]'', ghosts didn't even exist at first. Then the titular Exalted killed a few of the creators of the world, who were too vast and complex to be subject to the cycle of [[Reincarnation|death and rebirth]] they had ordained for the rest of the world. The result was the creation of the Void, and the Underworld that formed around it. Now, anyone who dies with a strong attachment to the world will end up as a ghost in the Underworld instead of reincarnating. If they're lucky, they can resolve their attachments and return to the cycle of reincarnation. Otherwise...Well, remember the Void in the middle of the Underworld? The ghosts of the slain Primordials are still there, they're bent on [[Omnicidal Maniac|destroying everything so they can die for good this time, and they have a nasty habit of overwhelming ghosts with the desire to kill everything that lives and destroy everything that's not alive, consigning all that exists to Oblivion]]. Or [[And I Must Scream|forging the uncooperative ones into soulsteel]].

** Since humans have [[Anatomy of the Soul|two souls]], only one of which can be reincarnated, they also leave behind a Hungry Ghost, a generally animalistic entity that guards the corpse of the fallen, and can be given to rampage if they don't recieve proper [[Due to the Dead]] or the body (or its [[Grave Robbing|tomb]]) is desecrated.

 

== [[Theatre]] ==

* ''[[Hamlet]]'s'' dad. Definitely wants revenge.

** And boy, [[Kill'Em All|does he get it]].

 

== Theme Park ==

* [[Disney Theme Parks]] offer three different variants. The Haunted Mansion is said to be a retirement home for spirits from all over the world. ''[[The Twilight Zone]] Tower of Terror'', however, states that the ghosts there are trapped within the hotel permanently. Finally, the Phantom Manor contains a malevolent ghost tormenting a bride in old age.

** In one of the very few cases of ghosts appearing, Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights 2010 will feature TWO houses involving ghosts: Legendary Truth: The Wyandot Estate, which is about ghost hunters purposely trying to gather the spirits murdered in a house in Ohio and getting more than they bargained for, and Psychoscarepy: Echos of Shadybrook, which has you traveling through the Shadybrook Asylum of past horror events 15 years after closing and facing the restless spirits of the patients.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Monster Girl Quest]]'' has two types. The first are the standard ghosts of dead people, which apparently can only be left by dead humans (not by monsters or angels). The second are Ghost Girls, undead monsters born from dark magic and souls. The latter type has several subtypes such as Mimics.

 

* The defunct ''Ghost Cat'' webcomic

* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'':

** Mort is a [[Bedsheet Ghost]] who's a [[Shape Shifter]] and a [[Master of Illusion]], haunting the Court and trying to scare people simply because it's his job. (When he isn't trying to scare you, he's a pretty nice guy.) He's visible to anyone, and he has implied that ghosts are attracted to Spirit Mediums—or maybe he's just attracted to one Medium in particular. According to [[Word of God|Word of Tom]], Mort's haunting is not normal for spirits in the afterlife, but something that had to be arranged with the [[psychopomp]]s.

* In ''[[Erstwhile]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20130902124323/http://www.erstwhiletales.com/littleshroud-04/ the little boy returns, and starts to cry when he sees his mother crying.]

* ''Dangerously Chloe'' had Teddy "only mostly dead"... and as such, visible to humans only via special goggles. During misadventures while his friendly roomie succubi tried to revive him, {{spoiler|Abigail}} accidentally got sort-of-killed, but not assigned anywhere (it's not "her time" at all). Confirming her status as the resident [[Cloudcuckoolander]], she started with "Wheeee! I can fly!", then managed to get into Heaven and be brought ''back'' before she noticed her own body on the floor, and even then it took her a little while to figure out that it's her and that she's technically dead.

 

== Web Original ==

* [[Gaia Online]] had a Halloween event that started when a by-product from the [[Omni Drink]] Corporation's operations was revealed to form a spectral barrier that prevented the spirits inhabiting the graveyard where it was dumped from moving on. Unfortunately, by the time [[The Atoner|OmniDrink's disinherited heir]] managed to fix this, the ghosts had all gone a bit [[Ax Crazy]] from [[And I Must Scream|being trapped in their graves for decades...]]

* In ''[[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]'', ghosts are spirits fuse with [[Horny Devils|Succubi]]'s demonic energy, so they are all pervert. At first, they can't interact with the world physically and will [[Demonic Possession|possess humans]]. The victim will get his or her mind filled with obscene imaginary from possessing ghost. The ghost will get spirit energy by absorb it from a male host (or during female host's sex act), until it's enough to manifest herself in physical world, then she will engage in sex act directly.

 

== Western Animation ==

* The ghosts of ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' usually resembled living monsters more than ghosts; discussions of death were ''verboten'' in Saturday morning fare at the time. There did seem to be a broad definition in-story of what was a “ghost” and what was “not a ghost”; if the heroes’ equipment was at least useful in “busting” it, it was a ghost. If not, it was “not a ghost”, a group that consisted of trolls, gremlins, vampires, and the Boogeyman. Creatures defined as “ghosts”, on the other hand, included skeletons, zombies, goblins, lycanthropes, and various demons.

** The [[Sequel Series]] ''[[Extreme Ghostbusters]]'' took this [[Up To Eleven]], as it was rare for the heroes to bust monsters that could be considered traditional ghosts. Leprechauns, Golems, the Sphinx, the Pied Piper, Fenris, and demons of all varieties (including Native American, Indian, and Japanese origins) all seem to qualify as “ghosts” via the definition above.

* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' had [[Big Eater|Beezy]] being haunted by the ghost of his uneaten pizza crusts.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Haunted Index]]

[[Category:Our Monsters Are Different]]

[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]

[[Category:Index]]

[[Category:Undead Index]]