How human empathy affects scary stories
We all like to believe we are good people. Whether we live virtuously or not, we always find a way to justify our actions, point out our good qualities and look at the bright side — but what if there was no bright side? What if the only choices available were bad and worse? Would we still be “good people”?
Modern apocalypse stories ask these very questions, forcing the consumer to question their true identity and morals. A major theme among popular apocalypse stories is the protagonists, not the villains nor the literal issue at hand. In fact, many such stories could be read as allegories to other issues.
For instance, “The Walking Dead” is an apocalyptic show that lasted nearly a decade. The story follows a sheriff named Rick Grimes who awakens from a coma to discover the world has been overtaken by zombies, known as walkers. Now, in this new, chaotic world, Rick has to reevaluate his life, ethics and identity. Is he still a sheriff if there is no law? Is he still required to keep the peace if there is no peace? Is he justified in protecting strangers if it puts him and his loved ones at risk?
The show had a massive following. By season five, “The Walking Dead” broke records as the most-watched cable show of all time, according to Forbes. Despite this, the show began to falter. Fans commonly believe that the pitfall of the show was due to killing off too many main characters, bringing in unlikeable new characters and focusing on human violence over that created by the zombies. In short, it no longer resonated with people.
Rick was the moral backbone of the show, doing the right thing even when the odds were against him. If he committed a crime, such as killing another human, it weighed heavily on him even if it was in self-defense. His empathy and sense of justice were so high that even when he had to kill in order to save his young son, he cried. This unbearable display of human love was something everyone resonated with.
The show not only asked if we would do the right thing, but how we would cope with the aftermath of it. As such, the zombies were not the true focus of the story. Rather, “The Walking Dead,” like so many other apocalypse stories, was an allegory for human nature and morality.
Another popular apocalyptic story is “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, which has parallels to “The Walking Dead.” In it, a nameless man and his son wander aimlessly to survive after an apocalypse. The story never says what happened to them, or why things were as bad as they were. It simply focuses on the relationship between the two characters.
The man and his son are bonded by their love for each other, though they are starkly different from one another. Where the man is calloused, the boy is sweet. Where the man is cruel and selfish, the boy is pure and giving. The man would do anything to protect his son, no matter the cost. But the boy only wishes for a better world and to help strangers.
The story follows the man’s perspective, and so it implies that the boy is wrong to trust other people. According to the father, if it were not for him, the boy would die. But from the boy’s perspective, others may have already died because they didn’t help them.
Throughout the story, the boy is fixated on one question: “Are we still the good guys?”
Are they the good guys if they turn their backs on strangers? Are they the good guys if they kill in self-defense? Are they the good guys if they see evil happening around them and do not try to stop it? Are they the good guys if they run away?
By the end of the story, the father dies of an illness that has overtaken him. Before he dies, he tells the boy to stay safe and reminds him not to trust strangers. But in a final act of disobedience, the boy walks out into the middle of the road and meets a family with a son his age. The family is kind and adopts him, giving hope to an otherwise hopeless story.
Much like Rick’s son in “The Walking Dead,” the boy from “The Road” opposes his father in many ways. There is a generational divide between those who were forced into the apocalypse and those who were raised in it. With this difference, there is also a difference in morality. Rick and the father lost their way, but their sons never did. If it were not for the sons, the world would not change.
There are countless apocalypse stories around the world and in different forms of media. Not all stories are the same, but many from the apocalypse genre pose philosophical questions that force viewers to re-contextualize their opinions about the world, ethics and humanity. Importantly, they also propose a thesis: If it were not for the innocent at heart, the pure and the beloved, the world would be doomed.
The reason we love apocalypse stories, no matter how gruesome they may be, is because they put hope in our hands and force us to remember that the outcome of the world is shaped by the actions we take. We can be logical, calloused and self-preserving, like the father in “The Road,” or we can mourn the bad things around us like Rick and try to always do the right thing, like the boy. Either way, our future, and our souls, are based on how we treat others in times of hardship.