Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been walking through a busy street--when all of
a sudden, out of the corner of your eye--you caught sight of someone you know well, slipping
past in the crowd. An old friend, a distant cousin--but then, your heart sinks. It’s
not them--just their Doppelganger. Their spitting image. You see, it’s a disposable phrase
that we often use--a throwaway term of endearment--to let someone know that you were thinking of
them. After all, there are only a certain number of faces, right? The thing is though,
there is a far more sinister undertone to this conversation piece. The fear of the self
is a very difficult concept to approach. Deep down, in the inner recesses of our mind--the
most obscure, and most challenging fear to face--is our own image. Let’s see where
it all came from.
Hello horror fans, what’s going on--and once again welcome back to the scariest channel
on YouTube--Top 5 Scary Videos. As per usual, I’ll be your horror host, as today--we continue
our Lore Explored Series--and take a look at the Origins--of The Doppelganger.
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you, that scene--of course, was from 2019’s US--written and
directed by Jordan Peele in his sophomore sequence as a horror tour-de-force--and one
film in particular that managed to take the concept of the Doppelganger, put it through
the modern horror machine--and then take it to the next damn level. As a side note--that
whole scene is brilliantly well made. And yeah--whilst that movie is pretty damn awesome
and worthwhile of your attention--it also gave us The Tethered--and we’ll talk about
those guys in good time, because by that point--we may be looking at the Uncanny from a whole
new perspective. The point is though, cinema, particularly horror cinema--has often used
the concept of the Doppelganger--ever since the early days of the silver screen--but it’s
origins, are far, far older than that.
Also--we should probably preface this video with the fact that the fear of the uncanny
is one of my deepest, darkest fears. I’m not scared of much--but I am absolutely terrified
of things that resemble the human form or people that I know--that then turn out--aren’t
those people at all. That goes for mannequins, cyborgs--and yes, clones. And also, sorry
to anyone that is an identical twin but you give me the heebie jeebies. So yeah, let it
be known that I’m facing my fears.
First--and most importantly--we should probably approach this Lore Explored as we do all others.
After all, what’s in a word? And if you’re a fan of The Kingkiller Chronicles, then you’ll
certainly know that knowing the true name of something or someone is power enough. Particularly
if you know the name of the wind, but that’s a story for another time. You see, the etymology
of The Doppelganger is as straightforward as you may imagine. The German language is
remarkably efficient--and so, it is a compound noun formed by the two German words, doppel--meaning
double, and Ganger--meaning walker, or goer. Literally, Doppelganger means Double Goer.
The non-biological spitting image of someone--or something. Now, whilst the phrase was first
coined in the German language, in a novel written in 1796 which we’ll get to later--the
origins of it are older still.
It is a function of folklore that has been disseminated since ancient civilization--which
perhaps harkens back to the fact that the fear of the self is indeed hardwired into
the human mind. Now, hold that point--because to understand the Doppelganger we have to
go back as far as possible--and interestingly enough, we have to poke our head into the
mythology of ancient Egypt. You see, in Egyptian mythology, in perhaps the first example of
the uncanny--their ancient belief system portrayed the human soul as being split into several
different components. One of those--was Ka--which formed as a tangible spirit double which would
manifest on the mortal plane and possess the same memories and feelings of their original
counterpart. In The Greek Princess, an Ancient Egyptian Myth that took place during the age
of Pharaoh Seti the II and presented a view of the Legendary Trojan War--Helen of Troy
found her own ka manifesting without her knowledge, misleading Paris and subsequently ending the
war.
Now, useful--certainly, but it painted a picture of a human’s soul acting independently in
the best interest of the whole. Interestingly enough though, that same function occurred
again, in an equally ancient belief system. In Norse mythology, a vardoger--which loosely
translates to soul watchman--was a ghostly double who would be seen as a sort of guardian
spirit carrying out the actions of an individual before they had happened. Again, this would
later occur in Finnish mythology--forming the basis of a figure known as an etianien--a
firstcomer--an integral part of Finnish folklore that would later become a sort of premonition,
a clairvoyant feeling of someone that was no longer present.
And here is where folklore does what it does best--and begin to take a primordial feeling
or a concept, and then layer it throughout many different cultures. You see, that same
feeling and cluster of emotions evidently hung on a chord in Ancient Society. After
all, in such a tumultuous time--it was only fitting that the widow of a warrior, or the
son of a bloodthirsty king--would see ghosts of the past out of the corner of their eye.
Although they perhaps didn’t know it at the time--it is a psychological experience
that has long lingered in the human mind. You see, the origins of The Doppelganger are
inexplicably tied to that of the dead.
Later, in Breton mythology--which includes Cornish, Welsh and Norman folklore--the Ankou
is a familiar figure of this same paranormal feeling. A personification of death, that
would often take the form of the last person to die in a parish every year--and then assume
the duty of calling for the dead. A familiar face, collecting the souls of the deceased.
In the 19th Century folklore compendium, The Legend of Death, written by renowned Breton
poet Anatole Le Braz--he described:
The Ankou as the henchman of Death. Oberour ar maro. And he is also known as the graveyard
watcher. They said that he protects the graveyard and the souls around it for some unknown reason--and
he collects the lost souls of his land. The last dead of the year, in each parish, becomes
the Ankou of his parish for all of the following year. When there has been, in a year, more
deaths than usual, one says about the Ankou: On my faith, this one is a nasty Ankou.
You see, if this feels familiar--that’s because it is. The Ankou is formed on the
basis of many other Celtic figures of folklore. The Banshee. The Wraith. In many other senses--the
ghosts of tradition. In Irish folklore--it is The Fetch--a doppelganger often regarded
as an omen--depicting an impending death. It is one that is often related to The Morrigan--the
great phantom queen--Mor Rioghain--that would occur as a shade of a warrior just before
their death, leading them by the hand to the other side. And you see, this is perhaps the
reason why The Doppelganger has so often been tied to the fear of death. In folklore throughout
Europe and the wider world--seeing a shade of yourself, or a version of yourself that
should not exist--heralded your untimely demise. If you caught a glimpse of yourself, or your
loved one--where they shouldn’t be--it often meant that the spirit already had one foot
through the threshold.
In 1617--the English metaphysical poet John Donne, claimed that on one fateful night whilst
travelling through France, he caught a glimpse of his wife’s doppelganger--where he claimed
it to be a wraith--roaming through the streets of Paris. Unbeknownst to him--that same night
would be the stillbirth of their daughter. And five days later, his wife Anne, tragically
died from the same postnatal complications. And here is where we can bring it back full
circle, to the first written occurence of the word--Doppelganger--although, by now we
should certainly take note that the term itself takes many different forms. After all, not
everything is as it may seem. In the Romantic Novel, Siebenkas--written by German writer
Jean Paul in 1796--the unhappily married titular character, Siebenkas--consults his friend,
Leibgeber, about what to do to end his unhappiness. Unbeknownst to him, but aware to the audience--Leibgeber
is the alter ego--or Doppelganger--of Siebenkas--and he advises him to fake his own death to get
out of it.
Now, whilst Siebenkas is a relatively comedic tale--the uncanny was still tied to the act
of death or dying, cemented in the folklore of Europe, and so used as a literary device--but
it was in the later, more gothic period of literature where the true horror of the *other*
took another turn. In the 1820 four-part drama, Prometheus Unbound--Percy Shelley speaks of
the character of Zoroaster walking through a vast and abundant garden--and meeting with
his own image. Although only brief, it laid the seed--and this narrative device was used
far more abundantly by Shelley’s life-long friend, the notorious Lord Byron--who employed
the figure of the Doppelganger as a metaphor for the duality of human nature. Again, although
Byron skirted around the truth of the form--it was an example of a far more ancient feeling.
Fear of the self. An extension of the human mind--coalescing on the mortal plane. The
consequence of one's actions. The metaphysical manifestation of fear and desire.
In 1815--in The Devil’s Elixir, a novel written by E. T. A Hoffmann and based on the
Gothic classic, The Monk--a man murders the brother and stepmother of the beloved princess
Aurelie on her request--who then finds that his doppelganger has instead been sentenced
to death for these crimes. After battling with his own demons, he goes to great lengths
to free his own doppelganger--who then goes on a rampage and kills the princess. Consequence,
in action. Later, in the 1825 work, Tales by the O’Hara Family--written by brothers
Michael and John Banim--they talk of The Fetches--the familiar images of villagers that occur throughout
the twisting tales of Proto-Gothic Horror--this time taking a function of folklore and describing
it on a larger scale.
More importantly though, several decades later in 1846--the legendary Russian writer Fyodor
Dostoyevsky--would pen one of his most remarkable novellas. The Double. It centers on a government
clerk who goes mad--and the text itself deals with the internal psychological struggle on
it’s character--a theme which would lay the foundation of Dostoyevsky’s work--and
would later occur in many of his more complicated characters, notably--the Brothers Karamazov
and Notes from the Underground. Dostoyevsky dealt with the gothic motif of the Doppelganger,
by describing it as a character at odds with itself. The Inner Conflict of the human mind--one
that could only be resolved by either side winning out. Which one would win, would often
by the vessel in which this horror was delivered--because spoilers, but The Double has a far from happy
ending.
The point is--the 19th century was a period in the history of horror literature where
The Doppelganger truly found it’s stride by taking components of these tales of folklore
and applying them to a far more psychological image. The Uncanny. The Mimic. The Character
who is far too familiar to be coincidental. In the 1913 German Expressionism film, The
Student of Prague--this horror concept finds itself literally in combat with its own Doppelganger--a
visual demonstration of exactly what these 19th century writers were trying to portray.
Later, in 1970--in the Basil Dearden film, The Man Who Haunted Himself--Roger Moore played
a character whose doppelganger sprang into existence following his brief-death on an
operating table--who would then descend into madness, trying to figure out if this Doppelganger
was indeed real, or just a figment of his own imagination.
And then--of course, in 2019--we come full circle, and we have Jordan Peele’s US. The
Tethered. A mirror image of a family haunting the same family, The Tylers--each of them
with a Doppelganger of their own. Now, I certainly don’t want to spoil any of the content of
this movie, because if you haven’t seen it then you certainly should--but what Jordan
Peele does in this film, like his predecessors before him--is take the ancient image of the
Doppelganger, and give it a far more insightful meaning. You see, in 2019--in this strange,
new, modern society and rapidly spiraling out of control technology--we are finding
it increasingly difficult to look in the mirror and stare *ourselves* down. It seems that
the truth behind our own Doppelganger--may be our most important fear to face.
Well, there we have it folks--our most recent entry into this Lore Explored series. And
I have to say--I am increasingly enjoying it. And yeah, I’m still scared of The Uncanny.
What do you guys think? Are you scared of the Uncanny too? Ever seen your own Doppelganger?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below. Before we depart from today's
video though, let’s first take a quick look at some of your more creative comments from
our last entry in this series--The Necromancer.
Frontal Lobe says--
I think you’re probably my favorite Jack clone out of all of you--just saying.
-- Uh. Too soon, buddy. Too soon.
Alyssa Fell says--
This was so well done that I watched it twice. Cheers!
-- Twice, woah! Why stop there? Go for three! Four even. Alright, okay. Four is probably
a little too much. Twice is fine. Thank you.
Well, on that note, unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for in today's video--cheers
for sticking around all the way until
the end.