The Decagon House Murders

Written by Yukito Ayatsuji

Mystery

A few weeks ago I was reclining on a couch playing a murder mystery game with my friends. The game takes place on a tropical island where a class of high school students need to solve a string of murders amongst themselves in a series of mysteries. One of these murders features a puzzle about a secret room called the Octagon where the presumed murder weapon was acquired. The puzzle had a deceptively easy request to make of us; spot the Octagon in the picture, nothing more to demand, a ten second task surely. After all, we had three other buildings in this murder mystery; a square building, a cylinder building, and a hexagon building. Why would it be difficult to find the Octagon?

Well, first take a look at the picture provided to us, dear reader, and see if you can point out where the Octagon is.  

The perceptive among you note that there in fact is no Octagon in this photo.

There is in fact no discernable octopus-centered shape at all in this photo. The next moments were definitive pandemonium. My friends and I languished in this 8-sided Sisyphean purgatory for entire minutes, screeching at absent gods for the true answer as to where our muse lied - that desirable Octagon and the end of this shape-shuffling spectre.

Eventually we did figure out what the Octagon was.

But the burned memory remained, fried onto my frizzled synapses whenever I closed my eyes.

It was a few weeks later when I thought of the Octagon again while browsing online.

A social media post showed a book called the Decagon House Murders and on that post was a ten-sided drawing of a map. Two sides off from eight. A map of a shape with ten rooms. Two rooms off from eight. A map in the shape of a decagon. Two sides off from an octagon.

A twinge of irritation in my heart, I swore then that I would not be bested by basic geometry again.

This was my opportunity, my journey, to best what I barely could before; to one-up a decagon, along with the dastardly octagon.

I looked online and I found the excerpt of the book; 

a group of university students

stuck on an island

trying to solve a spree of murders

Coincidence? No, this could not be. Two pieces of murder mystery media perfectly aligned to match; students, stuck on island, spree of murders, one larger mystery, one geometric shape.

I would not falter; this time, I would not be denied!

I ran to my local library, breezed through the book, questioned what allegories and symbolism laid inside, finished it, realized the blatant gap of symbolism which I originally expected, and thus the rest of the review was born.

What Is The Decagon House Murders?

The Decagon House Murders is a murder mystery where a group of university students who are part of the university's mystery book club take a trip to a remote island off the coast of Japan. For some context the island was previously owned by a famous architect named Nakamura Seiji, who lived on the island with his wife, a pair of married servants, and a gardener. Six months ago he was found burned alive, his wife and servants dead, and the gardener missing and presumably at large. About one year ago, Seiji's daughter Nakamura Chiori died while attending the university's mystery book club party due to a misfortunate mix of alcohol and a chronic heart condition.

The book is divided between two points of view. One is the group of university students on the island who are staying at the only building still intact after Seiji's death, a decagonal house aptly named the Decagon House.

The other point of view is from an ex-member of the book club named Kawaminami residing in Japan who has received a threatening letter from the dead Nakamura Seiji accusing him and all the other mystery club members of murdering Nakamura Chiori. He decides to investigate and spends his time in Japan trying to figure out who sent the letters.

The book goes through a step-by-step, day-by-day narrative where we jump between Kawaminami and the rest of the cast as the murders slowly progress one-by-one. 

The book has a manga adaptation, however I will not be covering it as I have only read the written novel, and the only significant change to the plot is how Chiori died. 

Who Is The Author?

 The author is part of the new traditionalist writing movement in Japan, and particularly is fond of closed circle murder mysteries and the classic whodunnits, with limited suspects, a set of motives, isolated locale, and a prevalent murder placed at the very beginning. What this means is that the murder mystery suspects are all people you meet in the story upfront; no one hiding in the background. It also means the motives are usually clear-cut and personal for the murderer.

I will be honest; I like this style of mystery. The appeal is clear. I also like mysteries where it is more "slow-burn", with the characters being built up over long periods of time with the occasional murder.

He is one of the founders of the Honkaku Mystery Writer's Club of Japan, and has actually written the Decagon House Murders as part of a "series" of mysteries where murders occur in a locked house. He has also written a popular murder mystery manga called Another, a fact that I was initially oblivious to and surprised by.

What Is The Symbolism (And Lack of It) + Some Extra Details

Before going into the themes, please note these discussions and analysis's are centered on the English translation of the book. Translation is not a 1:1 interpretation and my analysis of the themes comes from my own interpretation of the translated sentences, some of which were more ambiguous than others in their phrasing. The following themes discussed all weirdly tie together while remaining separate:

It's Not Actually In Order

Author's Partial Self-Insert and Inspiration

Social Commentary

The Lack of Social Commentary

Foreshadowing That Is Also A Spoiler

At the beginning of the book we start with our point of view coming from the murderer, who says that they will kill every last one of the victims in order, one by one. This does not mean that the murderer is planning on killing certain people in a certain order, it means they will kill their victims one at a time. In order does not mean that the killer has a planned method of who will die first, second, third, etc... I did not realize this until halfway through the book. My friend didn't have this problem, so maybe this was just a me issue. Regardless I'm putting it here just in case.

Moving on, one of the characters in this book is named Ellery, and while I do not know for sure, my friend and I have the sneaking suspicion that he partially acts as a self-insert character for the author. Ellery acts as the detective of the novel and the other characters regard him as snobbish in tastes of mystery literature, criticize him for holding a cold and callous stance towards the death around him, and is frequently subject to the butt of scrutiny regarding him being a potential murder suspect. He embodies the archetype of the incompetent detective and is seen as callous by the rest of the cast.

So why do I think he is partially a self-insert character? Well in spite of the negative light the character is written in, Ellery is particularly fond of locked room mysteries, especially those with a clear culprit, suspects, and locale. Essentially, whodunnits and closed circle murders, same as the author. Ellery also gives a critique to most modern mysteries (or at least modern in the 1980's), complaining that modern forensics make it nigh impossible to set a murder mystery in the modern day without some external isolating incident (rain, a storm, disabled communication, or being isolated on an island). This likely aligns with the authors preference for closed circle whodunnit mysteries, which while not relevant to the other themes I will be discussing is still a fun detail I noticed.

Another part of the story is that it heavily references Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", where a group of people are all accused of committing a past murder and are killed off one by one. This reflects the book, from the accusation of the group committing murder, to them then being killed off one by one. The ending of the referenced book is spoiled, although the identity of the culprit isn't revealed, but just in case you don't want to know maybe read "And Then There Were None" first. 

Now as I said before, Ellery also complains about a few things that the characters chastise him on. One of these things is that mysteries in the modern day focus too much on prevalent social issues; abusive relationships, politics, inequalities, power dynamics, workplace abuse, Ellery believes all of these shift the story away from the traditional culprit-with-a-motive style of writing. Hearing this, of course, you may remember that Ellery is seen as "stuck-up" by the other members of the cast and because of this you may mistakenly think, like my friend and I, that Ellery's diatribe is the authors way of foreshadowing the opposite - foreshadowing the mystery WILL revolve around a prevalent social issue, one which frequently reappears throughout the book.

While reading I kept this comment from Ellery in mind, believing it to be a subtle hint towards the motive and killings, and as such looked for subtext in the book while I was reading.

Spoilers for significant chunks of the book by the way!

In the novel, I originally thought misogyny was a key theme. Some examples include:

1. The murderer intending to kill the women of the group first. While one of these murders makes sense as the "murdered-to-be-in-question" would best understand the killer's motivation and likely be able to identify who the killer is the moment the murders begin, there isn't really a reasoning as to why the other woman was intended to be murdered immediately after; considering the killer plans on poisoning almost everyone in the group, and there is another male character who can easily identify poisons and how someone died, why not target him? This point honestly doesn't hold as much ground as I am making it out to be, as the remainder of the order of the murders committed are done solely through chance-based time-bombs, but it's still something I thought about when trying to identify social issues in the book.

2. A decent chunk of the characters in the group are casually misogynistic. The women are the ones who are serving food and coffee to everyone throughout the entire novel, even after the murders start. One character in particular is guilty of this (Carr), but he's written to be intentionally an intrinsically unlikable and intolerable character who we as an audience, and the characters in the story, dislike.

3. The backstory of Seiji, the previous owner of the island, originally decided to live on the island because he was afraid his wife was cheating on him with his brother. Shepherding your wife away to a geographically isolated island because you are worried she might cheat on you is, as you may imagine, not vindicative of a healthy relationship. Also, when Seiji's daughter dies, he sexually assaults and murders his wife. 

4. Chiori's death is originally caused by her being pressured by her friends into excessively drinking at a party. The murderer claims that Chiori would not have ever agreed to drink, and was likely pushed to do so by everyone else. 

5. The motive behind these killings in the first place is because the killer states that they and Chiori were secretly in love. Except it wasn't publicly known. And I doubt Chiori even returned the killer's feelings because the murderer states that (and I am paraphrasing here) "they chose to have a love without words, staring from afar, to avoid any embarrassment that may come about if their love became public". The killer tries to justify that they were in love because they had "a couples ring", which was a ring that had both of their initials carved onto it. Here's the thing though - remember that one woman who died first in the murder spree? The one who had to die because she would have immediately know the motive of the killing? She is the one who is given Chiori's couple ring after Chiori's death. She was also indicated to be the closest to Chiori as she is the only one at the island specifically to grieve her death, is one of the few in the group who knew her relation to Seiji and her family, and is the only one in the group who actually was invited by Chiori to the island previously. So, I don't exactly trust the killer's reasoning of "we were in love we just couldn't publicly show it or talk about it."

Spoilers -------- OVER!

With all of this in mind, I read a decent chunk of the book expecting to uncover a resolution that commented on the effects of misogyny in the modern day (or 1989, if you count when the book was written) given the information provided of Seiji's wife, Chiori, and the attitude of some of the club's members (primarily Carr). However, you may be surprised to learn that there is no moral regarding social issues in the story. Ellery's complaint, the points I listed above, all of them come from simple one-to-two sentences used to set up future motives and preface the background of the island for the story. Ellery's complaint was not intended to be interpreted as either a red herring as to how the book would conclude, or as a hint that the book will be covering social issues. It is simply a case where my friend and I read the line, overanalyzed it, and proceeded to read several lines of the book way more in-depth than the author probably intended.

This whole section wasn't really anything more than a ramble about how I failed in a way most mystery books fail; ignoring Occam's Razor. In this circumstance, the meaning behind the book, did not exist; it's existence was solely in my mind due to my overinterpretation of the novel's elements. 

I still thought that I should write it down here however because if my friend and I misinterpreted Ellery's line as foreshadowing then it's likely someone else will too, and end up very confused two-thirds of the way through the novel trying to dissect the murder motive.

The final piece that I would like to discuss regarding the book is also a piece of foreshadowing, and this time it is probably intentional.

Spoilers, again. Big ones; literally spoils who the murderer is so... 

While my friend was reading, they figured out the murder early on.

By this I mean, I realized who the murderer was, and then had two back-up suspects I could pivot to if they ended up dying.

My friend immediately figured out the killer, and the twist of their murders.

The murderer -

BIG SPOILERS AHEAD IM SERIOUS DO NOT KEEP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW

okay still reading on ahead? good.

- has an alter ego on the mainland. Everyone in the mystery club uses fake pen names when meeting because they like to be dramatic, a sentiment I kind of understand. In the prologue, the murderer monologues about God, and fate, and justice, and so on. However as part of their alibi the murderer claims that they are painting a picture of Buddha, an activity mentioned and brought up several times through out the book. This foreshadows the identity of the murderer. Furthermore, the murderer requests divine punishment if their actions are wrong, an idea emphasized by them: a, throwing a bottle with their murder plan on it into the sea, b., the lead detective on the mainland being a priest, and c., at the end of the novel both the priest and the bottle end up in play. 

This is just a part of foreshadowing that I personally didn't notice that DID hint at the identity of the murderer.

The final thing I want to mention is the manga adaptation of the book. I have not read it, or know anything about it, except for a change in Chiori's death. In the manga, Chiori died after the mystery club boat capsized, and someone took her life jacket to save another drowning member. This was allegedly (according to TV Tropes) done to make the rest of the members of the club more culpable in Chiori's death. I disagree with this change as I feel the original cause of death was messy, blurred, and ambiguous in culpability, making all of the club members much more culpable even as bystanders (and the murderer having a clearer justification against the entire group rather than a single member). 

Overall, read this book. It's considered a classic for a reason and while I thought some plot points of the murderer's plan were unnecessary (and trust me, I can rant for a long time about what I liked and didn't like about a murder mystery, how the murderer could've done the crime better, and speculate who will live and die), it was a simple, enjoyable experience.

 

 

 

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz

Directed by Robert Wiene

Art Direction by Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, and Walter Rohrig

Horror

Okay. I know. 

I swear this was initially going to be a short review.

I anticipated it. 

I thought an old movie from the 1920's with a single hour long plot would be maybe a thousand words long.

I thought the themes wouldn't run that deep, that it was going to be a relatively niche movie where the central interests would star in its age, practical effects, and writing at the near beginning of cinema.

I thought the documentation of the film itself would be sparse and disconnected, especially considering that the film has been out for over a century.

I did not consider that maybe I would be wrong on all of these accounts.

How Will The Review Be Structured?

The Movie, My Thoughts, and its Plot

Analysis of the Themes and Ending

A Ton of Facts Regarding the Creation, Thematic Analysis Already Performed, and Reception

Recommendations of Similar Movies

.

The Movie, My Thoughts, and its Plot

Hey, this movie is only a hour long and is in the public domain. If you want to watch the movie itself, or just want a thematic analysis, then skip this section. 

The movie is structured into 6 Acts, with each Act going over a key point in the story and lasting about 11 minutes on average. It takes place in a small town named Holstenwall when a local communal fair is being set up. 

There are a few characters in this story that we need to keep track of, and will list here for easy reference.

Franzis - the main character telling the story

Jane - a woman whose romantic interest Franzis and Alan are competing for; and Franzis claims she is his fiancee at the start of the movie

Alan - Franzis' friend who wears a hat

Dr. Caligari - a man who wishes to perform a somnambulist (sleepwalking) act at the community fair

Cesare - the sleepwalker who is part of Dr. Caligari's act 

You probably have seen the movie before or read a synopsis, so I will quickly brush through.

Act 1

The movie begins with a man named Franzis, who is regaling another man about a terrible incident he experienced recently with his fiancee Jane. In the town of Holstenwall the local fair has come to town and Alan (Franzis' friend) and Franzis have decided to attend. Meanwhile a man named Dr. Caligari requests the town clerk to perform a somnambulism act in the town. Also they have a live baby chimpanzee in baby clothes in the foreground hissing at random extras because it was the 1920's and no one was concerned about OSHA and animal violations.

Act 2: 

Rather short act that previous one was. Anyways, there's been a murder. The town clerk has been found to have been stabbed to death. Anyways (again), back to the fair. Alan and Franzis attend Dr. Caligari's somnambulism act and spectate Cesare, a 23-year old man who Dr. Caligari claims has been asleep for 23 years, only wakes up when Dr. Caligari commands it, and knows the answer to every question in the world.

I would, as you might now be dear reader, skeptical about the credibility of a man who has been asleep since he was born. I would also be skeptical that this man apparently just so happens to be able to be woken up exclusively by the one person who is running the event. I don't know if the concept of comas, acting, or artificial anesthesia, was well-known in the 1920's (according to a quick Google search it was), but I also am aware that people were probably excruciatingly bored if they were going to see a man asleep and likely didn't care if it was genuine. Moving on then.

Alan asks Cesare when he will die, upon which Cesare claims he will be dead before morning. 

Rough luck buddy.

The two head home with Jane and say, despite competing for Jane's affection, promise to remain friends no matter what.

Alan, about to suffer from prophesized death syndrome. (Does the silhouette look like a man in a cowboy hat to you, or someone raising a knife next to their head to stab someone?)

Act 3:
Unfortunately, this friendship would not last long as Alan has received the affliction of a prophesized death and in the night Alan is murdered. Franzis vows to find out who killed his friend and enlists the help of the police to investigate the carnival tomorrow at dawn. Also, the murderer is caught in the middle of the night.

Act 4: The murderer that was caught was merely a copycat killer. Jane is almost murdered by Cesare, but he decides to try and fail kidnapping her instead.

Act 5: Caligari flees to an asylum, where it turns out he is the current medical director, and is placed under observation. After snooping around it is revealed that Caligari wants to replicate an old Italian serial killing from the 1700's where a man named Dr. Caligari used a sleepwalker named Cesare to commit a murder spree in a small town. The reason? Well, partially to gain insight into if a person can be subconsciously compelled to kill through their sleep, partially because the fake Caligari is obsessed with the idea of being the Caligari from the 1700's.

Act 6: We learn that Franzis, and Jane, are actually patients in an insane asylum. Jane isn't Franzis' fiancee, and Franzis has the delusion that the current director of the asylum is Dr. Caligari. 

The Analysis, My Thoughts (Again, but Structured), and The Ending

When I watched the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the first thing I noticed was the distinct lack of sound. The movie was made in the 1920's, meaning it is a silent movie. Audio is portrayed through flashcards of giant jagged blocks of text that scroll up and down. Due to the silence in the movie, the only noise comes from the sound effects and orchestra composing of wind, rattling cobblestones, and harsh musical notes. The music is interesting because it consistently feels like its off-key; notes are jumbled together and the best word that comes to mind is disjointed, like my eardrums have started falling down the stairs and they just keep falling.

This aspect of skewed audio applies to the visuals of the movie as well. The props are slanted, bars and windowsills are at diagonal angles, dark lines run in swirls and paths across the set pieces, roads twist back and forth in sharp corners - its almost reminiscent of a play-pretend house from a children's book. Indeed, many of the backgrounds were actually painted onto giant canvases making the whole thing feel simplistic and out of place. 

One of the best shots in the movie

The lighting also should be mentioned. Every shot is either tinged in a blue, orange, or white filter. Initially while watching I thought that the difference in colour insinuated a theme that would be running deeper in the movie, but I noticed that the colours most often shifted for an easier reason - the time of day; blue for night, orange for day and dim indoors, and white for what I presume to be extremely bright light.

While watching the movie, I found the whole thing to be a form of "cosmic horror". Not the traditional genre of cosmic horror, that with the meaningless and insignificance of existence so often quoted, but instead the similarities in narrative structure for cosmic horror at the time. I of course am talking about H.P. Lovecraft, who was alive and writing during this time period. 

Tracing aliens, dead gods dreaming of living cavities in between the callous stars, and the foul insidious nature of air conditioning, it must be noted that the movie follows the narrative structure and flow of these stories instead of the original plots.

The typical narrative structure of H.P. Lovecraft is an ordinary person who is suddenly thrust into investigating supernatural or horrific circumstances, usually caused by some major implication about the world that is revealed at the end. Franzis finds himself bludgeoned with the sharp reality of his best friend's murder and compels himself into solving it, learning the terrible truth behind Dr. Caligari and his experiments with sleepwalking.

There was a similar story actually by H.P. Lovecraft that follows an identical parallel. While I have not read this story myself, I know the near legendary synopsis of the tale of Charles Le Sorcerer (that is his name). In the story a family vulgarly upsets a man who claims to be a wizard, named Charles Le Sorcerer, who prophesizes the tragic deaths of each of the family members. What follows is the stricken shock of the family finding their relatives dying one by one, and toss themselves forth in a desperate attempt to solve the murders before the curse presumably comes for them. It is however eventually revealed that the murders are merely caused by Charles Le Sorcerer himself, who is breaking into their house and killing them in the night.

The comparisons between these two stories reflective of the common horror plots of the time enunciate why The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is regarded as a horror movie classic, perhaps even being the first horror movie in cinema.

One tidbit in the movie is that, while Caligari is beginning to develop his obsession about the prior Italian murders, he is pursued by the words "Du Musst Caligari Werden" - you must become Caligari.

Skipping towards the end of the movie we are shown that the protagonist is actually in an asylum and Jane isn't his fiancee. We do not know if the story Franzis told is a complete fabrication, a partial truth, or is true and Dr. Caligari is actually the asylum director. The story is based on an unreliable narrator, and thus cannot be cemented entirely in reliable truth. Franzis is biased in his retelling of events; is Alan real, were the murders real, if so did Franzis commit them or someone else? These are never answered. But Francis does portray himself in no negative light through his story. In fact, we also see Cesare at the end while Franzis is in the asylum; awake, cognizant, gently petting a flower - not silent startling and stern, reducing credibility in Franzis' story of Cesare as a persistently sleeping murderer. 

Jane is an interesting character in this scene, as she says the words:

With this we can insinuate that, if Franzis' story is true, then Jane was in love with Alan and has spurred Franzis. It could also be implied that, even if the story of Dr. Caligari is false, it is not unreasonable to assume that mayhaps Franzis murdered Alan himself. 

If the story is entirely false and Franzis bears no relation to Jane, then she is a person who Franzis has projected his delusions onto.

A Ton of Facts Regarding the Creation, Thematic Analysis Already Performed, and Reception

I was not expecting this film to have much external insight or analysis performed on it. I was expecting it to be niche, with quiet review and sparse documentation. I was not expecting it to be a significant cultural cult classic with a Wikipedia article spanning 13k words. 

Dr. Caligari and Cesare

The movie has been subjected to decades of review and analysis by scholars, critics, and historians of German cinema. There has been a lot on it, and therefore it is too much. I don't want to just regurgitate meaningless facts and portions of newspaper articles without a point. I will go over some of the interesting facts that relate to the plot, and contextual influences, of the movie. I cannot, however, go over every single thing that is known across the numerous articles of media - I have an abundance of reviews after all, and dwindling time. This means I will not be able to do the film justice, unable to cover its extensive history or every interpretation that's been pronounced. However, if you do want to learn more, check Wikipedia, the book Caligari to Hitler, Britannica, or other online articles. From what I could find, many people have similar opinions about the movie, often referring to it using the tagline "the first horror movie ever made", as I have earlier in this article (I presume this is due to a tradition much like when you first start coding where you are expected to write the phrase, "Hello World" as the first command.).

What Genre is the Movie? - German Expressionism and Horror

The film was shot in 1920's Germany, post World War I, and was part of German expressionism. What is German expressionism? German expressionism is defined by is extreme angles, reflection of internal perception and ones own subjective state of mind, and a strict detachment from the notion of reality in favor of more emotional experiences

German expressionism stemmed from the isolation of Germany during World War I, where all foreign media was banned and the urge for domestic cinema was on the rise, and the Weimar Republic that shortly followed. I, unfortunately, do not know enough about German history or the Weimar Republic's impact on the social, economic, and political context of Germany so I cannot give an adequate analysis on its impact. If you want, you can check out the "Interpretation" section in the Wikipedia article here, or Siegfried Kracauer's book titled, "From Caligari to Hitler", which analyzes the phases of German cinema between World War I and II. According to Wikipedia, one reason for these surges of German viewership was in part from inflation, with the mindset of you may as well spend your money if it was going to be worth less tomorrow. 

Odd Beginnings

The following analysis is mostly taken from Wikipedia, which cites several sources, regarding the peculiar nature of the film's script writing. I have decided to summarize the points made for two reasons: One, to demonstrate that the entire film, whether deliberately or not, was directly inspired by real life experiences and feelings that the writers had. Two, the nature of the films production and the source of these themes are interesting to learn about. The two writers of the film initially met post-WWI, an experience which left them distrustful of authority and medical treatment of the time. One of the writers faked insanity to avoid military service - with the resulting experience serving as the main inspiration behind Caligari. The scene of Cesare predicting Alan's death is also inspired by a real life incident where someone the writer knew had their death prophesized at the beginning of WWI, which eventually came to pass. Obviously the carnival was also inspired by real life fairs at the time.

One of the writers, Janowitz, says the film likely reflects an unconscious bias he had towards authority and the authority of the state at the time of filming, however this was on reflection several decades after the film and is noted to possibly influenced by already established interpretation. Despite this, it is clear that the majority of the film is taken from the script writers own personal world.

The Frame Story Debacle

Dr. Caligari looks like a cat that was suddenly transformed into a human, I do not know why

A frame story is when a single story is told inside of another story; think of it as reading a book about two people chatting for coffee, and partway through one person goes on a tangent about a story they experienced for a wide section of the book. In the movie, this is used when we find out that the main "meat" of the story (the tale of Dr. Caligari and the murders) are overshadowed with the revelation of the "end story" that Franzis is trapped in an asylum.

I do not know all of the details and may have the accounts slightly wrong. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about this, and I had to mentally map out a chart to make sense of it.

One of the directors wanted to add a prologue and frame story into the plot in an attempt to help the audience better watch and understand the movie. Apparently, the writers (according to Janowitz) heavily disagreed with the use of a frame story, feeling it would devalue the anti-authoritarian messaging in the film. Instead there was initially not going to be an opening prologue where Franzis sits down and discusses his tale, and it was theorized the original film  had no frame story at all. According to more recent findings we now know that the frame story, according to the original screenplay, DID exist but only the prologue; Franzis would tell his story to guests at a dinner party, easing into the tale of Dr. Caligari. It was the conclusion, where Franzis is institutionalized, which was added.

The reason the frame story is important is because many people debate over the meaning of the film itself, given the socio-political context of the time. 

Without the frame story (i.e. Franzis' institutionalization and revelation of the story being possibly false), the tale is about an asylum director who thoroughly abused their authority to pursue their own ends; needlessly preying on medical patients and killing out of self-aggrandizing egotism. 

The addition of the frame story subverts the tale into one of speculation, where it can possibly still be interpreted that Franzis is telling a partial truth, but also one where it could be interpreted as the entire tale being fabricated - a tale where the asylum director is the good, benevolent, kindhearted doctor and Franzis is the extreme and jagged one. 

Some Interpretations of the Movie (SOME, not All)

Authoritarianism:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari clearly defines authoritarianism as a prominent theme throughout it's plot, a sentiment shared by (one) of the writers and other critics. Caligari is the head of an institution who is abusing his power for his own gain, a gain that the public must bear to lose, while Cesare acts as an independent "henchmen" or personal killer for Caligari to indulge his power fantasy. This negative perception of authority extends to other characters of the movie as well, such as the asylum doctors, police, and town clerk. It is not unreasonable to state that the majority of investigative work, and pursuit for the truth behind the murders, is solely performed by Franzis. Even at the end of the film when we realize Franciz is an unreliable narrator, we are still told by him that it is the authority of the doctors that placed him there, not insanity.

World War I and Post-War Germany:

The film was written and directed in a post-war Germany, and as such many critics have mentioned that Caligari may represent the fears of the public at the time. Still recovering mentally from the sudden death brought about by the war and living in a period of economic and political uncertainty, especially with the validity of institutions being called into question, the film offers itself as a reflective lens into a small isolated town that has found itself hurdling towards an unspeakable rash of death.

Of course, both of these viewpoints are taken from Siegfried Kracauer's, "From Caligari to Hitler", which takes an angle of debate that views the movie as an insight into themes of authoritarianism. However, the intent of the critic does not always align with the view of the writer, especially when there have been numerous influences for the movie. Other viewpoints may be more prevalent depending on the souce.

Recommendations 

If you enjoy German Expressionism, the childish playful backgrounds, or the unsettling brooding nature of the film, the movie House (1977) would be right up your alley. It has gained a cult following in recent years and I found it to be a pretty good movie to watch with friends.

The Daisy-Filled Monster

 

The Daisy-Filled Monster - Subversion and Execution

This article discusses and uses images from the following resources:

Limbus Company - by Project Moon

Vampire the Masquerade - by White Wolf RPG

Tokyo Ghoul - by Sui Ishida

The three-paragraph backstory that inspired this - Limbus Company

Gonna prove my version of justice; is more just than yours - Hero, by Mili

A bright sun blazes over the blistering black tarmac of an Arizona motel. I sit crouched by the window, knees locked, aching for the past four hours. The stench of unopened slimy takeout boxes, the white wallpaper, peeling back to make room for the flies and wasps nesting within my walls. I slit open the blinds and see you, face laid bare, as you step out of your car. I watch and wait as you walk, fingers laced around a revolver outlined in your pocket, rapping on the downstairs doors one by one. I hear you and catch my breath as your footsteps knock down the hallway, step by step by step, pausing outside my door. I taste the air and feel you, waiting outside in the hellish sun. The door splinters, a crack of searing light emerging, then another. The door breaks down. My skin flakes off in crusted ash. You did not wait. You did not speak. I should have known you would not knock.   

Vampires. Oh, I love vampires. A desperate affliction of the human being personified into the quintessential components of abuse, a person who is hunted by an obsessive creature that is ruthless, unchanging, a being who who cannot help but crave blood no matter how it tries to stem the urge, a creature who is hunted not out of ironic punishment for its wicked deeds but persecution for its mere existence. Vampires are staple literary devices; abuse, love, obsession, death, stagnation, all of it can be packaged into a single horror monster staple. Vampires can often be depicted as the ravenous ghoul that stalks the land, unchanging, indulgent in wrath and horror while still retaining the ability to be subverted to follow an inverse depiction; a human plagued by an unfortunate thirsting malady who is ruthlessly stalked by those who claim its mere condition is a threat that must be extinguished, in the name of God or otherwise.

In face of evolution, biological, narrative, and social, as all in the world, things will eventually change with the passage of time. This applies to the genre of villains known as monsters; beings characterized by either superhuman abilities, their callous disregard for human life, or both. Primarily, these monsters reflect some aspect of humanity or are used to examine societal issues from a metaphorical lens. 

The easiest example for this are vampires; undead beings who must slake themselves on blood. As previously mentioned, abuse, love, obsession, sexuality, persecution, oppressive hierarchies, and family are all themes covered frequently in vampire novels. There is also an interesting facet of vampirism often cited, that being the question if vampires are inherently evil for a condition they may not have even willingly consented to (no, they aren't, but it is interesting to see their changing viewpoint of the world when they grapple with the idea of drinking blood while also being tempted by the notion of immortality).

However, over time the inverse of this formula was introduced with characters who I like to refer to as the Inquisition; vampire hunters who ruthlessly persecute vampires for the simple fact that they exist - disregarding whether or not they have actually harmed a person, instead hunting and culling for the sake of it. In these stories, it is often vampires who are highlighted for their humanity, or as victims of a manageable condition, while the hunters are shown as prejudiced zealots bent on wiping them out.

From here we can derive two main narrative tropes, and two subtropes, centered around these character archetypes:

1. Vampires are ruthless monsters, and humanity is portrayed as the valiant hero

2. Humans are the real monsters, and vampires are reviled victims of humanities cruelties

3. Both vampires and humans are highlighted as being monsters, both sacrificing others for their own gain and needlessly brutalizing any who stand before them. Usually, the message is that all are capable of evil and exploitation; vampire or not. 

4. Both the vampires and hunters both have benevolent intentions despite their conflict. Neither wants to recklessly harm the other but due to misfortune, misunderstanding, or simple disagreement in personal philosophy, they end up in violent altercations. In these, characters are often morally gray or trying to do what they think is best in the moment. These are the rarest stories, as they require full understanding of the issues being discussed and deeply nuanced characters.

Now, these tropes all have their ups and downs. Some want a classic dichotic good versus evil, while others want to highlight characters where neither is technically in the wrong. The problem arises when someone tries to do both in a way that circumvents the narrative.

This is what I call the Daisy-filled Monster.

The Daisy-Filled Monster

The term Daisy-filled Monster is when a characters heinous actions are justified (or attempt to be justified) in light of another character, whose actions are usually much more extreme in comparison. It could also be extended to when a character finds out something that changes their perception of another character in the story (seen with twist villains, twist heroes, and so on). Monster in this case refers to the idea of a person committing atrocities most would consider horrendous, explicitly terrible, and morally reprehensible; monster as the person, not the idea of monster as a supernatural being. Daisy-filled just refers to the flippant dismissal of the characters prior or current behavior.

This crops up from time to time in vampire media, spurred on by the idea of how humanity and the morality of an action is subjective based on who is performing it.  Unfortunately, this is not always in a "here's how terrible people try to justify terrible actions", and "cognitive bias impacts our perceptions of ourselves and others". Instead I have seen it been used in an unironic "you thought this person was a villain, but they were actually doing it to stop something worse so they're justified". To be blunt, this falls flat. And I will be giving a few examples that fall into this trap, some which don't, and why it does and doesn't work in the context they are giving.

Keep in mind, I am referring to this trope not when the antagonist is trying to justify themselves to the protagonist/another character in the story, I am referring to when the antagonist, and by extension the author, is trying to justify their actions to the reader - and fails because the reasoning given to the audience is insufficient, a fallacy, or the action itself is irredeemable. 

For context, all of these media usually have different names for vampires and vampire hunters (because every iteration of vampire media uses a new name to refer to vampires to stand out). To keep things concise from here on out I will be referring to any vampires as Vampires, Ghouls,  or Family (an organization of vampires) and any vampire hunters as Hunters or the Inquisition (organization of hunters).

Example 1: Limbus Company: Or The One That Inspired This Article

A good example would be a backstory for an alternate character in Limbus Company, whose story actually inspired me to make this article after realizing how common it was. The story is only a few paragraphs long and follows a hunter named Hong-Lu and an unnamed vampire . In it we see the hunter break down the front door of the vampire, before assaulting it and insinuating that they got the vampires address by torturing their Family. The vampire claims that it only feasts on dead humans and never hurt a live one, a fact that we are told by the narrator is true, and that it has done no wrong. The vampire says it only wants to live a regular life as a human does with the rest of its Family and asks the hunter why they are being hunted, upon which the hunter proclaims it is simply because they are a vampire before torturing and killing them. 

At the end of all this, it is revealed that person who contracted the hunter was a relative of a human who was turned into vampire by the unnamed vampire in the story. It is unclear if the person who was turned was willing or not.

Oh look, Death approaches! - Limbus Company

Now, this isn't a complete depiction of the Daisy-filled Monster. This is actually an example of trope number 2 I made above, where humans are the real monsters and vampires are hunted needlessly. The hunter is not justified in their actions by the end of the story, thus preventing it from being a tale about a Daisy-filled Monster. They hunt out of hatred, a statement they repeatedly make, and are contracted by a family member who wishes for the vampire to be hunted out of the perception of losing a relative (through the method of them becoming a vampire), regardless if that relative actually wished to become a vampire. So why mention this at all? If this story has no relation to the idea of the Daisy-filled Monster, why go over it?

Because there are alternate versions of this story I've witnessed and heard that follow a near-identical format with one major difference. Specifically, the portion of the story I want to extrapolate on is the final part where the hunter reveals he got the contract from a human family member of the vampire turned.

Example 1a: The Hypothetical, and Daisy-Filled Monsters Done Wrong

Imagine for a moment the exact same scene played out; the door being kicked in, the hunters monologue, the death at the vampire, but at the end the hunter reveals that the reason the vampire was being hunted was for the murder of several dozen innocents. This reveal, that the hunter was actually hunting a vampire responsible for the death of dozens of regular passerby, is often used to justify the prior extreme actions they have taken in the story while subverting the audiences expectations of what the story is about. 

It... doesn't exactly sit right, you could say. The audience themselves has no idea about the vampires actions until the very end of the story, and the reveal that all of the sympathy gathered towards the vampire (and the lack of it for the hunter) throughout the story was leading up to a singular rug pull. You have here a story of a person harassing and killing a person in a frankly brutal fashion, only for them to turn around and say "no, here's why I did it. It's okay I did all of that because they were a worse person", without a hint of irony, expecting us to applaud their clever subversion as we laugh and bellow "OH, you GOT ME! I thought the fellow you were hunting was innocent, but you showed my folly for certain."  

This is performed in an attempt to appear like you are discovering deep facets of a character which you did not initially consider, and to consider your initial views of other people and situations before coming to a conclusion. Obviously, this is not a good lesson in this context. Its not a lesson, its a fallacy. Any rational person would not derive this moral of "don't judge a book by its cover", when we just saw that protagonist talk about blind hatred for 90% of the plot only for the book to turn around and say it was justifiable in this case because of a narrative fact the audience was deliberately obfuscated from.. Note, the critique is not surrounding a "good versus evil" or a "morally gray versus evil" story. Its criticizing a story where we are shown our protagonist as evil and the antagonist as good, and are then told at the end that actually the protagonist is better (or at least has a subjective moral high ground) because the antagonist was - SHOCK - secretly evil, in an attempt to lessen our negative viewpoints of the deeds of the protagonist.

In shorter terms, this is an attempt at subverting the expectations of the audience. A poor one. It isn't a good subversion, its only bad storytelling. You didn't set a moral where one could improve themselves as a person. You've just made a moral where a heinous action was introduced, justified, and brushed off without exploring inkling of the undertones you initially intended to explore. You shot yourself in the foot. Whatever subtext and metaphors you were trying to make are now likely void, because we are supposed to sympathize with the protagonist, one who justifies bigotry using hate, without irony, with a stone-faced one-note intention of calloused arrogance and the moral fallacy of comparing ones own actions to another. 

You blubbering fool.

But what about the inverse, I hear you ask? Does that fall under the same clause? And to that I say no, to my own surprise.

Lets go through a story in the complete opposite where:

The protagonist is shown as good

The antagonist is depicted as evil

The antagonist is revealed to actually be a good person after their death.

In this story, we have a narration that tells us that the antagonist is evil, however after their death it is revealed they are actually just a regular person trying to live their life. In this story, the moral is the consequence of bias. The protagonist, despite their protestations that they are performing a moral action, are revealed to have murdered an innocent being. This can be set with the undertone of the protagonist trying to justify their actions even leading up to the eventual murder, similar to the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. 

We have a moral from this story, a good one. We have a subtext, we have a metaphor for our fellow hunter and vampire, we have a reason why this twist of surprise morality is relevant to the lesson that is trying to be told, and the twist additionally highlights the prior plot so when we reread this story we can further identify what is actually happening.

Example 2: Vampire the Masquerade: The Monsters in the Mirrors

The Contextual and Ambivalent Daisy-Filled Monster

Weirdly, Vampire the Masquerade has a lot of well (depending on the module and story you are looking at) written groups with conflicting interests, in the sense that everyone is inherently out for their own invested interests instead of being solely evil or good (most of the time). It should be noted that Vampire the Masquerade is a roleplaying game, meaning that the roles vampires and hunters take will vary heavily in between different playbooks and campaigns, and the quality of these playbooks will differ depending on the author and the gamemaster running it.

In this setting, vampires are rigidly self-serving. They perform actions out of personal self-gain and while some are blatantly evil or anti-human, the vast majority are more concerned with internal politics and hierarchal standing instead of waging an endless war with humanity. From this we can see a good representation of vampires, one where the themes of family, hierarchy, obsession, abuse, and the lengths one is willing to hurt others for power are put on full display. The game features heavy tones of people using and manipulating other people for their own end, to the point that it is not only acceptable in vampire society to exploit those around you but also expected. There is additional punctuation in this topic by the contrasting views of rebellion and the status quo in this exploitative society.

The Inquisition, on the other hand, takes an approach reminiscent of a double-sided coin. Most of the Inquisition have the singular goal of studying or exterminating all supernatural beings they find (I may be wrong about this, but it does depend on the playbook). Here, many hunters hunt for the sake of it, or to further their own political power (mirroring the vampires). However, a decent chunk of the Inquisition are former victims of vampires as well, hunting other vampires out of a perceived vengeance, fear, or rebellion to what they view as an all-controlling force (also mirroring the vampires politics).

As a result, the vampires and hunters in Vampire the Masquerade are individuals with their own agendas; there is no homogenous group of singular identity. Everyone is part of a group for their own reasons and personal philosophy, only cooperating as a means to further their own ends. The personal identity and motivation is held before the group; the faction itself is only used as a tool to further an individuals own inner philosophy and beliefs.

Describing these factions, you should reach the conclusion that the Daisy-Filled Monster is not only used often in this game, but it is actively expected. Betrayal is often a core theme of the game, and usually both protagonists and antagonists perform actions which would be seen as manipulative or coercive throughout the story. Characters use others for their own ends and justify their actions either for furthering political change, interpersonal conflict, or out of a perceived moral necessity. These cases are a good example of the Daisy-Filled Monster. Everyone is trying to downplay their actions while remaining ignorant of those they harm. Often both protagonist and antagonist characters in these scenarios could both be reasonably considered being victims of and being Daisy-Filled Monsters.

The justification of ones terrible actions is prevalent when comparing morality in immortality versus mortality. The notion that power corrupts is a common one, and misuse of power can harm even if intended others. Unfortunately, sometimes this notion is combined with the Daisy-Filled Monster in a way that causes a lackluster narrative.

Example 3: Tokyo Ghoul - Two Lightbulbs in a Dark Room

I have not finished Tokyo Ghoul, so let it be said that I am biased in this section of the article.

I finished at about 30 chapters in and I found the side characters of the book to be one-note, extreme in a single personality trait, or dumb. I don't watch a lot of anime so I may have a harsher critique as I am not as accustomed to its tropes or more common themes. That being said, there is some stuff I should unpack in relevance to Daisy-Filled Monsters, particularly the protagonist and a hunter.

For context: Ghouls are people who have to consume human flesh to survive; a vampire but with meat substituting blood. They can go out in sunlight. Ghouls are also public knowledge. Hunters are part of an government organization to exterminate the Ghouls, as they are viewed as a threat to humanity, and hunt using the organs of dead Ghouls. The protagonist, a student named Ken Kaneki, who after a terrible accident and organ transplant finds himself slowly turning into a Ghoul. Residing in a sector of Ghouls who believe in eating corpses instead of the living and maintaining a life of normalcy (a sector that is frequently referenced as the most peaceful sector, with others having devolved into open turf wars between sects of Ghouls and the occasional Inquisition hunting party).

The book is also proclaimed as a tragedy and covers the internal conflict of the self and external conflict of the outside world.

Now, most of the story does not follow into the Daisy-Filled Monster. When a monstrous person is trying to typically justify their actions in Tokyo Ghoul we are distinctively not meant to sympathize with them. They are meant to be portrayed as extremists, illogical, or unforgivable. 

Most of the Inquisition is depicted as being morally okay with killing Ghouls, regardless of who the Ghoul is. When they justify their actions to others, these characters (and the author) are not trying to convince you that they are justified or a good person. Instead it is meant to highlight their hypocrisy and the depths of their idolatry and extremism. You are not meant to sympathize with them, and you are not meant to believe their reasoning for hunting Ghouls. This can make many of the hunters fairly one-note. We don't see (at least up to 30ish chapters) why some of them have chosen this profession (minus one particular character). Some of the hunters just like killing for the sake of it. This doesn't make them very efficient Daisy-Filled Monsters because the reasoning behind their actions are insufficiently told outside of a staple "evil as a personality". Narratively they are not expected to have a reasoning behind their actions besides being antagonists, meaning there is no intention for them to be Daisy-Filled Monsters because the audience and characters around them are not meant to find their explanation justifiable.

Average Inquisition/Ghoul Side Character

 The same can be said for some of the Ghouls, who reject the notion of eating corpses and believe they should be free to kill who they please, when they please, regardless if they are Ghoul, human, child, or elsewise. Feeding should be indulged out of pleasure, not starved out of necessity for helping humans.

But if both the Inquisition, and most of the Ghouls, are not good samples of Daisy-Filled Monsters, who is?

Two characters. The best written characters. The protagonist, Ken Kaneki, and a hunter named Amon. 

Kaneki is an unique protagonist who initially starts off the story distrusting of Ghouls, seeing the act of eating flesh abhorrent, before gradually shifting towards the perception that the Ghouls are being needlessly hunted down and persecuted by members of the Inquisition regardless of their involvement in actually killing people. 

Kaneki, Not Wanting to Kill

Amon is dedicated to the systematic tracking and hunting of Ghouls, who he see's as a threat to humanity (much like the other hunters). Amon thinks that innocent people are being hurt by the Ghoul's existence and believes he is committing the lesser evil by hunting them, as the Ghouls retaliation against the Inquisition often leads to casualties with anyone even related to it; an action he believes to be unjust and unfair.

Dead Coworker Blues

Both echo the statement, "This world is wrong", and present an ideological drive to change it for what they believe to be the correct one.

However, both of these characters viewpoints have open flaws and biases in their viewpoints.

For Kaneki, we have seen Ghouls kill people; several. It appears to actually be the norm to all Ghouls outside the sector Kaneki lives in, often being cited as having open hunting territories to the point that they are openly fighting the Inquisition in the streets or actively hunting victims. Secondly, while Kaneki may wish for the ideal of Ghouls living amongst humans in a life of normalcy (a vision shared by the rest of the Ghouls in his sector), we see why this is inherently a difficult idea to achieve. In vampire media its common for a vampire to enter a "feeding frenzy" if sufficiently hungry, blindly attacking people to feed itself. This is also true in Tokyo Ghoul. Kaneki, a recent Ghoul who despises the notion of killing or eating flesh from a previously living human, almost succumbs to this appetite numerous times in the first 30 chapters. Additionally while the idea of vampires living with humans is appealing (likely by sustaining themselves off of blood donations, the feasibility of which is another worthy article in of itself), its harder when the "blood" presented here is "human flesh and organs" - typically needed for transplants or desired to be buried. Finally, not all Ghouls follow the dream of living peacefully among humans. Some view humans as "lesser", or merely as food.

As for Amon, he is part of an organization dedicated to exterminating Ghouls, plain and simple. He is dedicated to exterminating them just like any other hunter, however the reason why he does them sets him apart (don't worry, I'll get to judging him just like Kaneki in a bit). Amon has personally witnessed the impact of Ghouls, seeing his coworkers and friend die at their hands, and catching Ghouls who have been conducting serial killings. Amon bears a strong resentment towards them for what he views as innocent lives; children, family members, colleagues, Amon cites all of these as victims of Ghoul attacks in recent years, and thus tries to justify his actions as reducing casualties for a world stricken by serial cannibalism. 

Amon Monologuing about Dead Friends

However this is also a crutch Amon uses to justify his hunting, hunting Ghouls that have never harmed a living person, or Ghouls that are children. It can also be repeated that many, many of the hunters are extreme in their points of view. Amon is not as extreme in his viewpoints and measures of his co-workers, but does view the hunting of Ghouls as a necessity.

Amon Crying Over A Dead Friend, Who Was Considered Extreme Even by Inquisition Standards. Like, his hobby was collecting Ghoul corpses. I can't stress enough how terrible he was. He ends up in hell and his reaction is that he can now kill more Ghouls.

The topic of gray morality is a central message between these two characters; holding near opposite opinions about the world yet being driven by the same ambitions - keeping loved ones safe, living a normal life, fixing what they see as a flawed unjust system. These two are foundational examples of Daisy-Filled Monsters because they try to justify their worldviews to themselves, other characters, and by extension the audience in a way that neither or is completely in the "wrong". Both demonstrate valid concerns or motivations and both value life to such an extent that these motivations end up overlapping.

As such, these core contrasts and similarities are juxtaposed in such a way that both sides can be at least partially sympathized with. Its hard not to feel bad for either one; the story is labelled as a tragedy after all.

Conclusions and Wrapping Up

In conclusion the trope of the Daisy-Filled Monster is not limited to vampire media. Any media incorporating a character who tries to justify themselves through comparison of another person, or who is viewed differently in light of new information, could be classified as a Daisy-Filled Monster. The trope can be done well, with the point of recognizing unconscious biases, showing how people are drawn or unwillingly forced into committing these actions, or introducing gray moral dilemmas. Or they can be poorly done where a character is arbitrarily changed or expected to be viewed differently due to an insufficient reason. Just because a character isn't a serial killer mean that I, the reader, should forgive them for kicking a puppy down a flight of stairs - and neither should the rest of the cast and characters who are seemingly okay with it.

All in all, how a trope is done is dependent on the writer, the characters, the context they find themselves in, and what message is trying to be portrayed. If the Daisy-Filled Monster nullifies that messaging, then its presence is making the story weaker and defeating what could have been a prevalent theme. If the Daisy-Filled Monster highlights these themes, or makes sense in the context of the story, then go for it.