Well, it seems that you guys had a *lot* to say about this list--and I’m glad, really--because
any discussion about literature is a good discussion in my books.
Heh--see what I did there?
Sorry, I’ll try and keep the puns to a minimum in this video.
The fact of the matter remains, in our previous video we began by quoting The Dark Tower’s
Jake--with go then, there are other worlds than these.
And thankfully for us--the sprawling, infinite imaginarium of the glorious human mind has
delivered us a myriad of worlds for us to sink our teeth into.
Some of them are full of hope and joy--others of adventure and eternal endeavour--and others,
are just straight up horrifying.
In that case, I guess we better take another look.
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 Jack Finch--as today, we curiously take a look
at the Top 5 Most Terrifying Places In Literature--Part 2.
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you, that clip was from Season 1 of The Handmaid’s Tale--a
fantastic series starring the remarkable Elizabeth Moss--based upon the equally fantastic and
terrifying novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood.
For all intents and purposes--Gilead deserves it’s spot on any terrifying place in literature
list--but I’m pretty hopeful that whole pile of crapola is gonna burn to the ground--so
yeah.
Consider it today’s most honorable of honorable mentions.
Let's get to it shall we?
Kicking off at Number 5 -- Castle Gormenghast, The Gormenghast Series
Alright guys--I’m probably telling a little bit of a white lie with this one--but stick
with me, because I’m fairly certain for those that are unaware of this gem of a series--it’s
well worth it.
The Gormenghast Series written by Mervyn Peake, is one of *the most* fantastic works of gothic
fantasy horror ever written, and it’s still strange to see it as such an enigma in the
works of literature.
Honestly, Gormenghast is so underrated that it borders on criminal--but still, it has
its place where it counts, and beyond the realms of contemporary fiction--it’s considered
one of the finest fantasy series ever written.
That’s because it is.
And now, if I’m being honest--it’s not *that* scary unless you find yourself in the
way of the Machiavellian Mind of Steerpike--but for the fact of us detailing one of the most
mysterious and looming structures in the whole of gothic literature, it’s probably worth
it--and as far as ancient, impossibly large castles go--Castle Gormenghast is the blueprint
for all of them.
In Mervyn Peake’s first novel--Titus Groan, written way back when in 1946--it details
the ancient family of Groan--headed by Lord Sepulchrave--the seventy-sixth Earl of Groan,
and his wife Countess Gertrude.
The couple give birth to the family’s heir, Titus--but the novel itself isn’t focused
on the newborn.
Instead, it details the rise of Steerpike, one of the most fascinating anti-heroes ever
written, who starts life as a Kitchen Boy in the castle’s bowels--and slowly makes
his way upward, both physically and heirarchally.
I mean, whether you want to carry the series on is another question--but Titus Groan on
it’s own paints such a vivid picture of an impossibly large and imposing structure,
that it’s so easy to get lost in it’s labyrinthian description.
Honestly, I know it might not sound it--but reading Titus Groan is an experience.
Mervyn’s prose winds like echoed footsteps in a stone corridor--and before you know it,
you’re there.
In a maze of murder and intruige and ancient rituals.
Yeah, I’m cheating a little bit--because to be honest, I just wanted to talk to you
guys about Gormenghast.
There we have it.
On with the show.
Swinging in at Number 4 -- Carcosa, An Inhabitant of Carcosa
Okay.
Let’s get into the meat and bones of this whole list with a little bit of everyone’s
favourite medicine--cosmic horror.
The fact of the matter remains, that although this specific place was only first ever alluded
to in a short story--with the mere passing of a reference--it has gone on to spawn one
of the most mysterious, and intriguing locations in the whole of literature without ever once
describing it.
And so because of that, we’re best served by delving into all of them.
For fans of the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft--which, let’s face it--is the vast majority of you--you’ll
know that the resounding writer of cosmic horror owed several of his literary titles
to one of his predecessors--Ambrose Bierce--who in 1886, first penned the name of the ancient
and mysterious city of Carcosa in his short story An Inhabitant of Carcosa.
It details a man, wandering alone through a bleak and bizarre wilderness--who eventually
realises that he is dead, and stumbles through the ruins of the ancient and famous city of
Carcosa.
And the rest, as they say--is history.
Because it wasn’t until 1895 that the fantastic author Robert W. Chambers then borrowed the
name--for his horror series, The King In Yellow--again, laying the foundation for the majority of
Lovecraftian fiction--where he outlined the possible location of Carcosa, on the distant
shores of Lake Hali--in the star cluster Hyades.
Again, the legend of Carcosa grew--this time being wrapped up with The Yellow Sign--before
being picked up again by Lovecraft and added into the Cthulhu Mythos--and that's where
things got really terrifying--because instead of clarifying on the matter, only more mystery
remained.
Alright, I get it guys--Carcosa, by its nature--is indescribable and unknowable--but that’s
the point of cosmic horror, right?
The real weirdness is how many times this damn city has cropped up in other works of
literature.
It’s been alluded to in more Lovecraftian fiction than you can imagine--but not only
that, appears in the works of David Drake, George R. R Martin--Alan Moore and countless
others.
In the fantastic season one of True Detective, Carcosa--again, is the crux of the whole show--and
The Yellow Sign appears too.
Hey, if you’ve seen True Detective--you know the implications of Rust Cohle’s and
Marty Hart’s findings at Carcosa.
Yeah, put a pin in this one--because we may never know.
Next up at Number 3--The Abyss, Dungeons and Dragons
Alright guys--I’m not going to lie--this list is a little bit of a crowd pleaser.
But hey--it’s got everything I love.
Gormenghast, Cosmic Horror--and then the next best thing, D&D.
For those of you that have played Dungeons and Dragons--the finest pen and paper roleplaying
game ever created--you’ll know how rich and impossibly vast the fictional cosmology
of it’s world truly is.
And for a canon that relies on over 45 years of expanded universes upon expanded universes--there
is perhaps only one place that takes the cake as the home of everything and anything evil.
Well, chaotic evil to be specific.
The Abyss--otherwise known as the Infinite Layers of the Abyss--or the aforementioned
666 Layers of the Abyss--a place of such overwhelming evil that even Warlocks fear to tread.
The fact that the Abyss has seen so many incarnations of what it is--and what it *could* be--has
given rise to a whole topographical list of terrifying terrains.
A plane of existence that hosts a myriad of death and misery--fierce desert sandstorms,
exposible volcanic activity--boiling lava and molten rock.
Whilst at the same time, as you slip through its layers--it’s then a wasteland of blinding,
sub-zero glaciers--bottomless oceans filled with terrifying leviathans--putrid hellscapes
of death, disease and all manners of fungal infection--and of course, the blank, infinite
void of space.
It’s safe to say that if your party ever ends up in the Abyss, for whatever reason--you’re
pretty much good and dead--even if your alignment is chaotic evil and you think you’re the
most evil demon in the valley.
Not only that though, the Abyss thrives on it’s demonic denizens--the Tanar’ri--the
ancient Obyriths--the Loumaras, and an unimaginable number of unknown and unexplored demonic lifeforms.
And if that’s not enough--the true terror of the Abyss is that you’ll never--ever
really know where you are, given the fact that it’s infinite layers and planes of
torment twist and turn eternally.
The layers of the Abyss are often described as a deck of playing cards shuffled and then
tossed away--piled together haphazardly or sometimes not at all.
Chaotic Evil shuffles the deck--and before you figure out where you may be--it’s already
too late.
The Abyss.
Sinkholes.
Demon Lords.
Yeah, it’s a headache to say the least.
It’s a good job I play a bard--so I can just Dimension Door out of there.
Safety first.
Coming in at Number 2--Todash Darkness, The Stephen King Macroverse
Ahhh.
This one has been a long time coming--but I for one am glad that we finally made it
here.
Also, I’ll try and keep spoilers for this entry to a minimum--but please note, we’ll
be talking a lot about The Dark Tower series--and pretty much the outcome of some of the most
important works ever written by Stephen King--so yeah.
You’ve been warned.
Now--where do we even start with Todash Darkness?
Or--well, Todash Space, maybe--or the Macroverse.
No one’s entirely sure what it’s called--or what it even is.
In fact, whilst it’s very nature is to *be* mysterious and elusive--it’s no great secret
that the works of Stephen King are--in fact--connected.
All of them--pretty much, from The Stand to ‘Salem’s Lot--to the Mist, the Tommyknockers--IT.
All of the works of Stephen King are interconnected in a mind-bending multiverse, or macroverse--and
it all converges in his resounding series, The Dark Tower.
Okay.
We’ll stop there, because spoilers are abound.
The point is--this macroverse, so to speak--in the strange edges and dark corners of it--is
populated by Todash Darkness--the home of unknowable and unimaginable evil.
It is said that IT--more commonly known as Pennywise the Clown--was a creature that existed
in the void between the Macroverse before he ran into the Loser’s Club--but that’s
another story for a different time--because it is thought that Todash Darkness isn’t
just populated by IT--or the Deadlights, the evil, all consuming eldritch energy that IT
actually IS--but an entire host of impossibly evil creatures and creations that are just
waiting to spill out into all of existence.
Todash--in essence, is the act of travelling between the thin spaces of the Macroverse--or
thinnies--as is explained in the Dark Tower series, but I’ll leave that for you to find
out--and Todash Darkness, is the evil that is conjured if you linger there too long.
It is the home of C'thun--and the leatherheads from Under the Dome.
In the Mist--the Arrowhead Project is believed to be the reason why the town of Bridgton,
Maine suddenly became a target of the Macroverse--and the whole host of cosmic horrors that spawned
around the town were of Todash Darkness.
They are the Tommyknockers.
It’s even thought that in From A Buick 8--the car itself is a portal to Todash Darkness--and
that, by proxy, Christine--the car from the novel of the same name--is a similar Macroverse
vessel.
Yeah.
Todash Darkness.
Your guess is as good as mine.
And finally--coming in at our Number 1 spot--The Warp, Warhammer 40K
Okay, okay--I kind of got a little bit of flak in Part 1 of this list for featuring
Commoragh, the home of the Dark Elves--instead of The Warp--but hey, we’re working our
way toward the big, bad--baddies of literature, okay?
Part two guys.
We’re planning for the future.
And if you think the concept of Todash Darkness is terrifying--move over--because it merely
pales in comparison to the myriad of chaos and horrors that call the Warp their home.
This absolute box of cosmic horror.
Also known as the Immaterium, the Empyrean, the Aether--the Sea of Souls--the Realm of
Chaos--Warpspace--or in more succinct terms--the Warp.
It has many names for the many sentient species that try and bend it to their will--but of
course, such is a sentient civilizations folly.
It can’t happen.
This place is evil itself.
It is the bizarre, anomalous dimension composed entirely of pure, psychic energy--that ties
together the already terrifying Grim Darkness of the Warhammer 40K multiverse--and that’s
saying something.
Now, whilst technically Commorragh is a location somewhere in the Warp, the Immaterium is a
much, much bigger beast--and there’s a lot to chew through.
The Warp is the sole source of all psychic power and energy--that make up the Grim Dark
*magic* of Warhammer 40K--and because of that, it is also the home dimension of the Chaos
Gods--and their impossibly vast legions of demons in their Realm of Chaos.
Khorne, the Lord of Battle.
Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate--Nurgle, the Lord of Decay--and Slaanesh, the Dark Prince
of Chaos.
Yeah--if they’re not already terrifying enough in their own rite--this place is their
stomping ground.
It’s their back yard that you just took a wrong turn into.
It is thought by many that the psychic energy that makes up the Immaterium is believed to
be the direct result of the existence of all sentience in the universe--in particular the
many intelligent species that make up the Milky Way Galaxy.
It is considered to be a dark reflection of that material universe--and the Warp is the
ocean that relies on the chaotic, psychic energy--all raw emotions comprised of the
physical form constantly swimming through the lifeform.
It is also thought by many races that the Immaterium is the final resting place of the
spirits of the dead--and for all intents and purposes, it is the literal hell of Warhammer
40K.
If you know anything about Warhammer--even the most joyful of places is already hell--so
yeah, this is like… the bottom of all hell.
It doesn’t get much worse.
Well--there we have it--our list for the Top 5 Most Terrifying Places In Literature--Part
2.
What did you guys think?
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Have any more to add to this list?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below, as well as any choice picks
of your own--and who knows, maybe Part 2 will be on the cards.
Before we depart from today’s video, let’s first take a quick look at some of your more
creative comments from over the past few days.
Meggie McGuire says--
The Host was funny as hell!
Smiley face.
-- Ahah!...
Oh.
I thought you meant me, but then I realise that you mean 2006’s The Host directed by
Bong Joon-ho… yeah.
So close.
So--close.
Alright--well there we have it--unfortunately, that’s all we’ve got time for in today’s
video--cheers for sticking around all the way until the end.
If you were a fan of this video, or just Top 5 Scary Videos in general then please be a
dear and hit that thumbs up button, as well as that subscribe bell, and I’ll be seeing
you in the next one.