Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Supernatural

Hey! So reading Sam and Dean's comments totally reminded me.

You know how I mentioned that I had to go back through my book a few times? Of course you do.

Look at this.


Cool, right? Found it at Half-Price Books. Only copy there. Told Nick that was my Christmas present.

Now look at this.

Before any of you says anything, I know it's from a TV show and everything in this must be taken with a grain of skepticism.
But a lot of it is based on truth. By 'truth' I mean they did actual research into the myths they put on the show.

This particular episode was really neat. And hilarious. And spawned the running gag of the Ghostfacers.

In fact, I didn't even know it was tulpa related until I read this entry. Let me pull some snippets out...

"They say if enough people believe something, it's true."
"A tulpa is, pure and simple, a being created by the act of someone imagining it."
"In the Tibetan mystical tradition, highly advanced lamas and laymen could give their thoughts and imaginings an actual physical appearance."

This is an interesting tidbit paraphrased from their father's notes: "A tulpa created through intense ritual visualizations are called Dubthab. The ones that are created specifically to harm people are called Dragpoi Dubthab."

And: "A tulpa will inevitably turn on its creator."



As for the actual episode the tulpa appeared in, it starts off with some kids doing what appears to be hazing in what is proclaimed as a "haunted house". One of them ends up dead (surprise, surprise), the rest run off.
Apparently, the house is haunted by the ghost of Mordecai Murdock. Except it really isn't, it's just an urban legend....until Sam and Dean (the actual characters, not the real life siblings :P) encounter two ghost hunters that call themselves the Ghostfacers and learn that the pair has taken the legend and spread it onto their website, greatly increasing the popularity of the story.

Which helps Mordecai become real. You read that right - a fictional killer was brought to life by the internet.

I'll let that sink in.

Okayokayokay. I'll finish the story now.

Mordecai's behavior is never consistent due to there being several versions of the legend. 
(He only targets girls, only targets girls with certain hair, hangs girls, doesn't hang girls...or something like that.

Regardless, people are actually dying. Sam and Dean have to fix that. That's kind of their job.

So there's this thing, a sigil. A Tibetan sigil used to focus thought and belief.


ADDENDUM: Because Dean is a cool person and he caught this...the picture above is not the sigil. That is a symbol from a band called the Blue Oyster Cult. I forgot about that part of the episode. This is both my fault for not double checking and the book's author's fault because HE didn't double check either. The REAL sigil looks like this:
 There we go. You may carry on with the reading now.

Sam and Dean think, "Okay, we'll just go destroy the sigil then."

Except nothing happens when they do that. So they go seek out one of the kids from the beginning and interrogate him. Turns out he and another girl vandalized the place to look demonic and spray painted weird symbols everywhere. Good going, kids.

The Winchesters' last idea? Hunt down the Ghostfacers. And get them to publish a story that Mordecai was...either killed by or accidentally shot himself (can't remember) with a gun. And now Mordecai is terrified of guns. The result they're hoping for being that shooting at the ghost tulpa will get rid of it.

So they do that and it looks like it's going to work but the server crashes and the story ends up NOT working.

And I'm pretty sure they just solved the problem by burning that entire house down.

The details are foggy there.


So let's review:
- Tulpa was an urban legend.
- Tulpa was created through the belief spreading through the internet.
- Tulpa's behavior changes based on how the legend goes.
- Tulpa was almost destroyed by spreading a story that changed its behavior.


I know these things haven't worked for most of us. The stories didn't help Zero (purportedly). Frap says that He says He can't be harmed by changing His story.
No I'm stupid. Frap said that ROBERT said that He/It/Whatever can't be harmed with stories. Frap himself believes in the stories. Thinking back...yeah. I completely mixed that up. Eheh...

But they have to work somewhere.

They have to work for someone.


He doesn't behave the same for everyone. Not everyone has quite the same story. This all has to make sense somehow...


I have to go make cupcakes for Casey's belated birthday present. Toodles.

Edit: Yes, I still have to make cupcakes. I just thought I'd point out that I didn't know the episode was tulpa related because I'm stupid sometimes and despite remembering a ridiculous amount of otherwise useless crap, I did not remember this.
And any curious people can watch the episode here: Season 1, Episode 17 - Hell House

17 comments:

  1. I used to love that show....

    Wow.

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  2. It is my lifeblood.

    Sort of.

    I love it.

    ~ Branwen

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  3. Fictional killer brought to life by the internet.... doesn't make sense at all.... oh wait yeah it---


    ow... I just got smacked....

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  4. Wait, no! ROBERT said that! Don't quote me on that! I was quoting Robert in his "Revised Core Theory"! I think stories are a very powerful tool!

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  5. OH! xD

    Let me go fix that because I'm an idiot then! :D

    HA...yeah...sometimes...sometimes I mix up things when I'm trying to remember them.

    Sorry.

    ~ Branwen

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  6. You know...
    You'd think I'd remember that correctly considering I participated in the proxy story...

    Jimminy Christmas. Sometimes I wanna punch myself.

    ~ Branwen

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  7. Sam won't let me skip ahead in the series to watch that one... she says I have to watch them in order.

    And... I want cupcakes. Cupcakes sound so deliciously nomtastic.

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  8. So, this Slender Man thing is a created monster? That doesn't really make sense. How does that work? I mean sure I've heard of poltergeists and the like. I believe in spirits and such. But. the Tuplas that's a bit far fetched to me.

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  9. @ Aiden: Maybe I'll make you some. C:

    @ Sam: Maybe. Maybe not. Ours don't seem to be...I don't think. Ours seem to operate by a different set of rules.

    That doesn't mean that somewhere out there there isn't another victim who's fear was born entirely out of the collective thoughts of the...heh...Slendernation.

    I still subscribe to the idea of different scenarios for different Runners/Fighters.

    Even though it sort of doesn't make sense and hurts my head. Not a lot of things make sense here anyways.

    ~ Branwen

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  10. YES. For the last time. We're a created monster. Everything about us is borrowed. What you people don't get is when we were sprung into existence. And you know what? I'm not telling you.

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  11. Well jeez. No need to got all frustrated sounding with me about it.

    And thank you for confirming.

    ~ Branwen

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  12. But he's just NATURALLY frustrated.

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  13. Bran, here's the thing. That symbol there in the picture? That's not the Tibetan symbol. That symbol comes from Blue Oyster Cult. The Tibetan symbol

    This here is the Spirit sigil- http://www.evilrestuneasy.com/Pictures/SpiritSigil.jpg

    That's what made the Tulpa real and to remain there. It's kinda weird and a bit disconcerting too. Because that's very similar to the rune one draws in the earth when we call our spirit guides.

    Also, you kinda messed up how the episode proceeds as well. That was one of my favored episodes... especially after I started learning about the Slender Man theory of Him being a Tulpa.

    And I'm done sounding intelligent for now. Back to jammin' to my music.

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  14. Oh! Thanks. I should probably pass that on to Pete. I was just going by what the book said, so hey...

    And yeah, I figured I did. I haven't seen that episode in months.

    ~ Branwen

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  15. Theeereeee we goooo...my firewall said no but I found a tiny version of that picture on Google. I'll post an addendum to that now.

    Really, thanks for the correction. I don't wanna mess up important things.

    Maybe I should go back and watch things over again...

    ~ Branwen

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  16. both of those symbols are wrong. its this one: http://supernatural.wikia.com/wiki/Tulpa:_Tibetan_Spirit_Sigil

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  17. okay this stuff is all great, but that's not the right symbol either. That's a demon summoning sigil, used by John Winchester when he was summoning Azazel to trade the Colt and his life for Dean's. Here's the REAL tibet symbol, as appears in the episode "Hell House": http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101228102737/supernatural/images/4/47/Tulpa.jpg

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