2021-11-22 6:27:07 ¶ ●

I’ve seen a post (maybe multiple) that said that Jonny forgot about snakes in his categorization, even though ophidiphobia affects one-third of adults apparently. But, in-universe, they must be covered by an entity. So which one?

Edit: so far, our options are Corruption, End, Hunt, Spiral. Keep reading to find out more. It’s already getting long. The post is also updated without deleting older writing, and the bolded options are the most recent version. Sound off in the notes: which entity are snakes?

I’ll start by crossing out (figuratively) the ones that don’t make sense: Buried, Corruption, Dark, Desolation, Eye, Flesh, Lonely, Spiral, Stranger, Vast, Web.

So we have End, Hunt, and Slaughter. According to Wikipedia, a study theorizes that mammals may have an innate fear of snakes (and spiders) because it was necessary for survival and identifying a threat. The threat is that they’re going to kill you.

I’m leaning towards Hunt here? But it’s difficult to pick between those three.

Edit: More debate has taken place! Corruption and Stranger/Spiral have been plopped back into the mix. (Also tossing out Slaughter because a snake bite really isn’t all that violent. You know? It hurts but it’s not…violent.)

phrenic-a pointed out that snakes can appear to be sticks and then suddenly slither towards you, thus deceiving you. Now, whether it’s Stranger or Spiral…

The wiki says this: “It is the fear of things that are almost human, but not quite, a fear of the unknown and the creeping sense that something is not right.” for Stranger and this: “It is based on the fear of madness, that your world isn’t right, that your mind is lying to you. It deals with deception, lying, deceiving the mind and senses.” for Spiral. I would have to go with Spiral because it’s outright deception. My counterpoint is that I don’t know if people actually become paranoid about snakes being there if they fear snakes. I mean, probably, but I don’t know that Spiral is the central fear.

And Corruption because in my research there’s a lot of connection with fear of spiders and a sort of disgust. (Slimy, slithering, etc. Although they’re not slimy.) And we’ve got the Garden of Eden thing, although that’s only one mythology.