GOTHIC DNA
What term refers to the idea that old secrets, guilt, or trauma return and continue affecting the present?
The past doesn’t stay dead
The study of knowledge: essentially asking, “How do you know what you think you know?”
What is epistemology?
A heightened state of constantly scanning your surroundings for possible danger.
What is hypervigilance?
You know something is coming. You have absolutely no idea when.
What is temporal uncertainty?
In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Farquhar hears a metallic sound becoming agonizingly slow and intense.
What completely ordinary object is actually producing the sound?
What is his watch?
This is the emotional feeling or mood produced by a setting.
What is atmosphere?
You enter the classroom, and the floor is wet.
“The floor is wet” belongs in which category: KNOW, INFER, or ASSUME?
What is KNOW?
Your attention keeps locking onto anything that might signal danger while you ignore harmless information.
What is threat-biased attention?
You know somebody is somewhere inside the building. You don't know where.
What is spatial uncertainty?
In The Hanging Stranger, what first convinces Ed Loyce that something is deeply wrong with his town?
People are casually ignoring the dead body hanging in the town square.
A mannequin turns its head slightly when you aren’t looking. It looks completely familiar, yet something about it feels fundamentally wrong.
What is the uncanny?
The truth exists, but you currently do not have enough information to know it with certainty.
What is epistemic uncertainty?
You know something bad might happen sometime tonight, but there is no immediate attack. The anxiety remains for twenty minutes.
What is sustained anticipatory anxiety?
You hear breathing underneath your bed but have no idea what is making the sound.
What is identity uncertainty?
In Blackthorn Manor, what substance actually contained the fatal dose of digitalis?
The brandy in Edmund’s tumbler. The tea only contained his normal prescribed dose.
What term describes fear that comes from a character being unable to trust their own mind or perception?
What is psychological fear?
You decide someone is guilty. From then on, you notice every suspicious thing they do but dismiss anything suggesting innocence.
What is confirmation bias?
A harmless hallway becomes darker. Then you hear a voice. Then footsteps. Then you discover the exit is locked.
What mental process keeps increasing as more threat information accumulates?
What is threat appraisal?
The thing behind the door might attack…or it might never do anything.
What is probability uncertainty?
In Blackthorn Manor, why was Dr. Vale a stronger final theory than Julian, Margaret, Thomas, or Evelyn even though no single clue proved he was the killer?
Because multiple independent pieces of evidence corroborated the same explanation:
In Gothic literature, what is the term for existing between two states, such as life/death, safe/dangerous, or real/imagined?
Being “between two worlds” / liminality
A watch. A chair. A key. A glass. A strange voice. A receipt.
A character becomes convinced that every single detail must be evidence of a conspiracy.
What is interpretive paranoia?
A door suddenly bursts open, and a figure lunges directly toward you. Your body produces a short, immediate defensive reaction.
What is a phasic threat response?
You know the creature has found you. What you don't know is what it will do to you.
What is outcome uncertainty?
Across all aspects of the horror unit, what did Mr. George say is the greatest fear of all?
What is uncertainty?