History Main / PrimalFear

*** [[CatchPhrase "I wish you hadn't done that."]] [[NightmareFuel *shivers*]]

!!!This page is about the trope. For the film starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton, [[Film/PrimalFear click here]]. For the band "Primal Fear", [[Music/PrimalFear click here]].

* In ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', all Devils are personifications of Human Fear. These include objects, animals, concepts, and everything inbetween -- Chainsaw, Shark, Blood, Violence, and Angel are among the many encountered in the series. The more people are afraid of a specific Devil, the more powerful it becomes. After the Gun Devil caused a worldwide event that killed millions, governments actively sought to censor depictions of Gun Violence in an effort to weaken the Devil. The series also name-drops this trope with the Primal Fears, {{Eldritch Abomination}}s born from the most primordial of horrors. The two that have appeared thus far, Darkness and Falling, are suitably disturbing beings that are so powerful, they have maintained their original identities throughout history.

* In ''Fanfic/LiveAHero'', Izuku is deathly afraid of the dark after the League of Villains locked him in a pitch-black room for hours by himself as child. He has five nightlights in his room at all times, wears almost nothing but brightly colored hoodies, has sneakers that light up when he stomps on the floor and brings a flashlight wherever he goes. Later on, he has glow-in-the-dark star stickers strewn about his room.

* In ''LightNovel/AnotherNote'', we are told ''why'' [[VillainProtagonist Beyond Birthday]] is so fucked up. It's because he can see other people's lifespans, due to somehow being born with [[Franchise/DeathNote "Shinigami Eyes."]] He knows when everyone will die, just by looking at them. [[spoiler:He exploits this ability: his victims were all at the end of their natural lifespans anyway.]] As [[LemonyNarrator Mello]] puts it, he was constantly surrounded by death. That, and his best friend A committed suicide due to the pressures of living up to L.

* While the ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' has featured almost all of these, the best example would be the strip portraying a psychiatrist's controversial technique of simultaneously confronting fear of heights, snakes, and the dark. A small dark box suspended in the air, full of snakes. His test subject was not enjoying it.

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* In ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', Devils get their powers from their name and the fear it represents. So it's no surprise that the Darkness Devil is one of the most powerful foes in the series, enough so that [[spoiler:[[AnArmAndALeg he cut everybody's arms]] upon appearing before anyone (including somebody who has shown SuperSpeed before) could do anything, and then effortlessly kills half the people present. After that, Power becomes terrified of the dark in an extreme case of BreakTheHaughty. ]]

* In ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', all Devils are personifications of Human Fear. These include objects, animals, concepts, and everything inbetween -- Chainsaw, Shark, Blood, Violence, and Angel are among the many encountered in the series. The more people are afraid of a specific Devil, the more powerful it becomes. After the Gun Devil caused a worldwide event that killed millions, governments actively sought to censor depictions of Gun Violence in an effort to weaken the Devil. The series also name-drops this trope with the Primal Fears, {{Eldritch Abomination}}s born from the most primordial of horrors. Darkness is the first to be named, but is suitably disturbing when it appears.

* In ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', all Devils are personifications of Human Fear. These include objects, animals, concepts, and everything inbetween -- Chainsaw, Shark, Blood, Violence, and Angel are among the many encountered in the series. The more people are afraid of a specific Devil, the more powerful it becomes. After the Gun Devil caused a worldwide event that killed millions, governments actively sought to censor depictions of Gun Violence in an effort to weaken the Devil. The series also name-drops this trope with the Primal Fears, {{Eldritch Abomination}}s born from the most primordial of horrors. Darkness is the only one named so far, but is suitably disturbing when it appears.

* ''Fanfic/VariousVytalVentures'': The short story, ''Hide and Seek'', has Team RWBY, Team JNPR, Velvet Scarlatina, Sun Wukong, and Penny Polendina trapped by a Nightmare Grimm's [[YourWorstNightmare bad dream-inducing powers]], each of which display their worst fears.

* The scene in ''[[WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree]]'' where Pooh gets stuck in the hole has probably inspired more than a bit of claustrophobia in young kids. He was later stuck inside a [[NightmareFuel beehive]].
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' also had a scene where Zuko was underwater and had to melt a hole in the ice that was covering it. One of the people on the DVDCommentary even noted that it was his nightmare because "You would not have firebending to get out".
* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "Only a Dream" the Doctor Destiny traps several members of the League in [[YourWorstNightmare their worst nightmares]]. {{Franchise/Superman}} loses control of his powers and kills his friends, Franchise/GreenLantern becomes alienated from his human roots, Franchise/TheFlash becomes trapped in superspeed forever...and Hawkgirl is ''buried alive in a coffin''. Seeing the badass warrior woman pounding on the coffin walls incoherently shrieking in fear was incredibly disturbing.
** Especially since, thanks to {{Foreshadowing}}, she's the only one who's completely beyond her friends' ability to help.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BarbieInAMermaidTale2'', this is one of the fears Eris's nightmare powers preys on.

* Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages can be unnerving, if not utterly terrifying for some people. You're watching TV, enjoying watching your favorite show, maybe even drifting to sleep, when suddenly you hear a blaring honk and a piercing bleep as your TV screen turns black and a digital voice, not just announces a test, [[FromBadtoWorsebut starts rambling about an emergency in your area.]] It's even worse if you have a smartphone and gets those alerts at night.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1502 Percy does a good job of covering it up.]]

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** The books pull out all the stops on {{Primal Fear}}s. Snakes, death, giant bugs, parental abandonment, humiliation... Name a fear, Ms. Rowling put it in her books.
** In-universe, we have the boggart, a creature that always looks like the worst fear of the closest person. The good news is that it can be defeated with the "Riddikulus" spell, which turns it into something funny. The bad news is that depending on your fear, this can be quite difficult. Primal fears, like the death of loved ones, are almost impossible to make into a joke. So in order to combat the thing that is basically fear incarnate, even if you know the spell, your worst fear must be something ''capable'' of being turned into a joke, you have to be able to think of how to turn it into a joke, clearly picture the joke, ''and'' be able to think clearly enough to remember all of this in the first place while staring your absolute worst terror in the face. Frankly, it's remarkable a class of 13 year olds was able to pull it off.

* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' causes the dungeons to get scarier as the light reduces, with enemies moving faster and hitting harder, and the sound mix shifts to emphasise the ambient noises of the terrible pits. It even includes a certain measure of speculation about the origins of the fear of the dark, namely, that [[EldritchAbomination the Shambler]], an utter bastard of a BonusBoss who will give even the toughest party a hard time and is a HeroKiller in and out of universe, lurks within it...

* An especially horrifying episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', Timmy's pet hamster comes back as a rotted, violent zombie. And at the end of the episode, all his ''other'' dead pets rise from the grave, bones showing through sloughing-off skin.

* Death is one of the few certainties of life; you ''are'' going to die, no matter what you do. Think about that.
** [[NightmareRetardant Now the antidote:]] [[Series/RedDwarf "You're born, and then you die. It's the part in the middle that matters, and that's still to come!"]]

* Viacom's dramatic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOdmFtG4EYY&NR=1 "V of Doom"]] VanityPlate from the 70s and 80s was the cause of many a nightmare among kids of the time.

* Picture this: You're playing ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion''. You enter a dark, quiet room. You forget briefly that ghosts will appear suddenly with a loud noise behind you. You scream and drop the controller when one does. And then it takes a long time for your heart rate to go back down... Just so that it can happen again later.

* Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages can be utterly terrifying. You're watching TV, enjoying watching your favorite show, maybe even drifting to sleep, when suddenly you hear a blaring honk and a piercing bleep as your TV screen turns black and a digital voice starts rambling about an emergency in your area. It's even worse if you have a smartphone and gets those alerts at night.

* In ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'', the sight of a room filled with dead Engineers is surprisingly powerful. Not only is all of humanity reduced to a genetic experiment by a race of alien creator-gods (which would be bad enough on its own), and not only is it likely that such an experiment happened for no better reason than because the Engineers could do it, but those same creators, previously worshiped as deities, are shown to be nothing but flesh-and-blood animals like the rest of us, who all died in terror and ignominy when yet another experiment simply got out of hand. A bleakly pointless answer to all of human history.

* Panphobia is the fear of everything. We all have something that terrifies us; imagine feeling that fear constantly, from ''everything.''

* You wouldn't expect to see LFO here, but the video for their song "Freak" features a group of dancing Japanese schoolgirls whose playtime shenanigans rapidly devolve into a vicious schoolyard brawl. The fight culminates in one girl being pushed over, hitting her head, and having a fit. The way her violent convulsions are synchronized to the pounding music is particularly unsettling. The visit to UncannyValley doesn't help, either. There's also the fact that she looks like she's trying to [[RapeAsDrama escape something]].

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' takes place InAWorld where humanity is being hunted to near-extinction by a race of UncannyValley-esque people-eating giants (see Giants above). Since the manga focuses on the RedshirtArmy responsible for defending humanity, characters are ''constantly'' getting eaten by the Titans, and the series does not shy from showing us the [[{{Gorn}} gory details]].

* The Espada in Manga/{{Bleach}} all represent various aspects of death. When Barrengan releases his blade, he takes a GrimReaper-like form wearing an elaborate crown. He then goes on to explain that his aspect is "old age", the only kind of death that is utterly unavoidable: No matter how powerful you are, one day you will die and crumble to dust. True to his nature, he is in no hurry to destroy his enemies, moving slowly forward as his entropic powers disintegrate everything around him. [[spoiler:Hachi finds out that he is no exception to this rule so he uses his own power against him in order to destroy him.]]

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Äs Nödt's power isn't about explicable fear, it's about fear that goes to the very core of what it means to be alive. It's the kind of fear that runs solely on instinct; it cannot be rationalised and cannot be fought. In short, he weaponises fear into an EmotionBomb that instantly "nukes" the victim. The form the fear takes can be absolutely anything - from what a person can expect to fear to what they never believed could ever bother them. There is no defence, even ''[[TheStoic Byakuya]]'' succumbed. [[spoiler: It manifested for Byakuya as a hallucination of Rukia's face rotting to pieces.]]

** In ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'', Woody experiences this (along with a bout of [[GreenEyedMonster severe jealousy]]) when Buzz Lightyear shows up and apparently replaces him as Andy's favorite toy. This leaves the cowboy fearful of losing Andy's love, leading him to try and [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident "misplace"]] Buzz, only to knock him out the window instead, causing most of the other toys to turn on him. The subsequent journey allows him and Buzz to become inseparable friends, as Woody understands that Andy's happiness comes from allowing him to share his status as the favorite with the space toy, and he still has a place in the boys heart.

* Name your fear. The Wiki/SCPFoundation has something that embodies that fear in a supernatural object for you.

* In the world of ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', the fear of an idea spawns a devil; the greater the fear, the more powerful the devil. The Darkness Devil represents the fear of the dark and is a Primal Fear Devil. Fittingly, it is '''the''' most powerful devils seen in the story, noted to have ''never'' died in its incalculable lifespan when devils as powerful as the Gun Devil regularly go through a ResurrectionDeathLoop. The heroes don't even try to beat it, they try to get out of Hell (literally) as soon as possible.

** The Cyclops looks for Hercules in Thebes, striking terror into its citizens.