Fridge / Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Fridge pages are Spoilers Off pages, as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Fridge Brilliance

• Literally any of the series' narrative slip-ups, inconsistencies, questionable characterization, or poor research can be handwaved by Midnight Society just making actual mistakes in their stories. It's only natural newbie writers will slip up now and then.
• In "Tale of the Fire Ghost", Jake doesn't know why the fire ghost doesn't die from the extinguisher. But there is a reason: The Fire Ghost is supposed to represent Jimmy's anger towards his parents' divorce. It could only be extinguished by Jimmy's choosing to let go and forgive, ultimately represented when he tricks the fire ghost into becoming pure fire and setting off the sprinklers.
• The "Tale of the Unfinished Painting" is brilliant when you realize artists put their heart and souls into their artwork. And unwittingly, signing Ms. Briar's unfinished paintings is like signing a contract with the devil to sell your soul.
• In "Tale of Train Magic", it's interesting to note Tim and Ray Lawson are not so different. Tim obsesses over trains because he wants to relive a time when his dad was alive. Ray and his ghost passengers keep reliving the night they died because Ray himself is obsessed with that one mistake he made years ago that cost so many lives. But in the end, the one thing that sets them apart is when Tim recognizes his brother and his friend Cap are more important than clinging to the past. Whereas Ray, as Cap so puts it, is left with "nothing but the night and these old tracks". He's forced to face the reality that he's a ghost of days gone by.
  • What's more, it's oddly prophetic of how we've outgrown trains as a mainstream means to deliver goods and passengers.
  • Perhaps specifically of an older social use of the technology, as freight trains remain widely used.
  • It borders on Fridge Horror, but there's a reason why Ray chose Tim. By taking Ray's place as the conductor who was killed, Tim was willingly allowing himself to die. Why? Because he wants to see his late father again. Ray was counting on the boy's nostalgia and grief, rather than mere hypnosis or a trance to do the job. Good thing Tim changes his mind and breaks Ray's watch.
• The "Tale of the Pinball Wizard" episode. When Ross, the protagonist, finds himself trapped in a twisted version of his local mall, the first strange event that occurs is that thousands of quarters fall from the ceiling. When it's later revealed that he's trapped inside a pinball machine, this takes on new meaning: every one of those quarters is a credit in the machine, and thus a round of the game he has to play before escaping, if he ever can escape.
• Something interesting about "The Tale of the Midnight Madness": it's a parallel to the history behind the actual movie "Nosferatu". Known fact about "Nosferatu", it was a blatant rip-off of the book "Dracula", which was unfortunate to Bram Stoker's struggling widow. In the end, the company that made "Nosferatu" got its comeuppance when she rightly sued them. The manager tries to take all the credit for Dr. Vink's ^note  "with a V-V-V" movie that saved the theater. Just like Stoker's widow, Dr. Vink gets his due in the end.
• At the end of "Tale of the Mystic Mirror", the episode ends on the line "I guess you can't tell by looks whether you're a beauty or a beast". At first, this line would sound cheesy. But bear in mind, Cindy is referring to Ms. Valenti (The Beast who looks like a beauty) and her employees (Beauties turned into beasts).
• "Tale of the Closet Keepers" has the Keeper steal children for his zoo. The brilliance comes in when one recognizes, zoo animals are usually born and raised in captivity because adult zoo animals can't adapt as well.
  • Fridge Horror kicks in when one realizes the children captured in the zoo would've grown used to living in the zoo had they not been rescued.
• In "The Tale of the Water Demons", why does Sean change his tune so quickly and come to the conclusion that stealing is wrong when the Water Demons abduct Dean? Because he's seeing first-hand that stealing can affect the innocent as well as the guilty. Dean didn't steal anything, but he's still punished by the Water Demons in Sean's stead. Despite his rotten demeanor, this indicates even he finds it unfair for anyone to suffer for what he did.
• In "The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner," Hooper seems odd—she's clearly a nerd, but her social awkwardness is more extreme than usual depictions. Her characterization makes a lot more sense, though, when you realize she probably has some kind of autism spectrum disorder. She has a tendency to repeat herself in a flat tone (whenever she runs into Ethan, she says the exact same thing—"I sit across from you in science class"—verbatim in the exact same way, even though it's clear he knows who she is), under-reacts to surprising things ("Did your house just explode?"), admits to "not having much of a sense of humor" (one of the hallmarks of ASDs is not quite understanding jokes and sarcasm), is exceptionally gifted in science and math, and doesn't smile very often (some individuals with autism spectrum disorders score low on facial expressiveness tests). It also explains the Disability Superpower trope that kicks in when the Grinner tries using his zombifying smile on Hooper—her brain is literally wired to not process humor like everyone else does, so of course his ability fails!
• "The Tale of the Night Nurse" is not just about AJ giving Emily a second chance at life. It's also a redemption for the Nurse, who made an horrible mistake and went down falsely branded a child killer.
• In Carnival of Doom, Aikiko takes a video of Mr. Tophat's performance, only to find he doesn't appear on-screen, as though invisible. This isn't just to be scary, it may foreshadow that he sold his soul to the devil to get these powers.
• In "Curse of the Shadows", there's something brilliant about the Book of Shadows having a spell for "protection" when really it's meant to protect the Shadow Man. How else would the Shadows be able to enhance their hold on the world unless they have a spell that tricks people into using spells they think they need?
• Also in "Curse of the Shadows", Seth may be annoyed when the others refer to him as a wizard instead of a "magician". However, in DND terms, a wizard is a magic-user whose abilities are earned by studying magic, something Seth has a burning passion for. If anything, "wizard" is very fitting for what he is in the Midnight Society.
• "Curse of the Shadows" Sardo proves to be rather callous towards children, but after he informs Lucas he's mean to children to keep them from being victims of the Shadow Man's Curse, it puts things in perspective. For instance, why does he make it hard for kids to enter his shop unless they know the password? Because he doesn't want them to also know about the Shadow Man. His willingness to keep Lucas and his friends out was an attempt to give the Curse less victims.

Fridge Horror

• In "The Tale Of Old Man Corcoran", Cissy's behavior towards Jack and Kenny seems odd and quite hostile before The Reveal. She's the only one of the group that doesn't want them to join, made up the story about Old Man Corcoran being a Vengeful Ghost to scare them and shoos them away from her "hiding place". All the other kids, in contrast, invite them enthusiastically into their graves. In retrospect she did all this to try and keep them away, since it's also revealed that she was the last to join meaning that it's quite possible she was tricked and killed by the other ghosts and is trapped playing "hide and seek" forever. If Old Man Corcoran hadn't appeared at the end when he did, it's likely they would've joined them.
• In the tale of the dream girl a quick Freeze-Frame Bonus of the newspaper detailing the incident mentions the aftermath of the crash. Apparently, the collision badly mangled Donna's and Johnny's bodies to the point of leaving their severed limbs strewn around for 1/2 a mile and the teens needing closed casket funerals. Fridge Horror and Tearjerker when you realize that both their families which included Johnny's sister would've have had to look at and identify those bodies.
• Peter is shown in "The Tale Of The Captured Souls" to spy on Danielle and her family through his mirrors as part of his plan to steal their youth. The cameras include views of the tub in the bathroom and the bedroom. Does this mean Peter has watched Danielle and her parents undress when changing, to take a bath, or going to bed? Especially alarming when one considers that he's implied to have disturbing intentions towards Danielle.
  • Also, he has signs outside which have crossings on them to indicate how many lives he's taken to stay young. One sign depicts man outline with 21 tally marks, 15 tally marks for the women, 34 kid tally marks, and 10 dog tally marks.
    • One wonders if he's taken more lives than what was shown to be tallied. Like whether there are tally marks on the back or he's storing already marked sign outlines somewhere.
  • If Danielle hadn't stopped him she would've been an orphan and Peter would've probably continued to take souls to stay young if another family came to stay at his home, and would use Danielle herself if she refused to join him.
    • More Fridge Horror can be had when one thinks about Peter's family. He looks annoyed when finding out that Danielle found out "our" plan (which could mean his family) meaning the whole stealing people's life essence to stay young is implied to have been a thing his family's been doing for generations. One also wonders what happened to Peter's family: Did Peter use them to stay young as well or did they use him?
• The ending of The Tale Of The Dark Music: Andy sics the monster on the bully that's been tormenting him all episode. However, he accidentally gets him eaten in the process. In return for this... the monster gives him a new bike (the bully destroyed his old one) and promises to give him anything he wants as long as he keeps feeding him. The final kicker, though? The last shot of the episode implies that he's more than willing to give the monster what it wants with a subdued Slasher Smile.
  • Of course the nightmare is subdued when its revealed that one of the narrators mentioned that he didn't completely go through with feeding his sister to the monster. Yet it still adds a dose of Fridge Horror when said narrator mentioned that he used the monster as a form of intimidation towards his sister. Which still screams He Who Fights Monsters territory. Even if he didn't feed his sister to "It", I'd hate to be anyone who got on that kid's bad side. In fact, I'd hate to be anywhere near that kid whenever he wanted something that he somehow couldn't get on his own.
  • The fate of the bully becomes a lot more disturbing when you realize it means he was ultimately right. His bullying was clearly influenced by two things: His own abusive family, and the rumors about Andy's uncle. The reveal about the monster and how Andy uses it implies all of the rumors about Andy's uncle were true. It doesn't excuse the bullying, but coupled with his Freudian Excuse, it makes him come across as a bigger victim than the protagonist in hindsight.
• In "The Tale Of The Dollmaker" Melissa realizes that the dollhouse replica of the house found in Susan's parents' house holds the key to finding her missing best friend. Her first attempt has her trying to jump out of an attic door, which she is only deterred from doing by her Uncle, and good thing he did. Otherwise, as we see from her perspective, she would have fallen off of the roof and to her death in the middle of the night.
• In "The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner", the bruised look around the eyes of the Grinner's victims is eerily similar to that of patients in Real Life who were subjected to the trans-orbital "ice pick" lobotomy.
• In "The Tale Of The Chameleons" it's very likely that the Creepy Child in the pet shop at the beginning is a chameleon who had already pulled a Kill and Replace, given that what he says comes true and the fake Janice also implies that there are more around than just her and in the box she carries.
• "The Tale of the Zombie Dice" gave us Mr. Click. The way he can make children as small as canaries is already creepy, but how he can make a business out of this? What kind of person would buy a miniaturized human being as a pet?
  • To make matters worse... Who said his customers are human at all?
  • Another dose of Fridge Horror comes with the ending. Although the episode does end on a happy note, with Mr. Click himself being shrunken and unable to kidnap more kids, there's still the matter of all his previous victims. There could be dozens or even hundreds of kids out there who are still the pets and playthings of giants who don't care that they're depriving a human being of their freedom and autonomy.
• "The Tale of Vampire Town" ends with Stanley about to bite and presumably turn Adder. Right after that, it's more than likely he went to kill Adder's parents who were waiting for him outside of the hotel.
• "The Tale of the Night Nurse" - The titular Night Nurse is a tragic character despite her antagonism beforehand. She killed an innocent child in her care by accident all because Emily had dropped her medical bracelet when she fell. She probably spent her whole life destroyed by guilt, and legend painted her as someone who willingly murdered a little girl in cold blood (though the parents would likely know the mistake once they discovered that Emily's bracelet had fallen off). The Nurse herself looks rightly terrified once AJ pulls out the bracelet - realising what she almost did.
• At the end of Carnival of Doom where after Mr. Top hat is defeated, we learn through the cover of a magazine that all of the children he captured throughout the years were not only set free, BUT they haven't aged a day during their time as Mr. Top hat's prisoners. Happy ending right? Well, it would be if they were only captured for like 3 or 4 years but Mr. Top hat has been capturing children for their youth for almost a century! The longer the children have been imprisoned the harder it's going to be for them to re-adapt to society! Especially for those whose families are long dead! The worst part is that it's NOT part of a Midnight Society story, it's actually happening within the AYAOTD universe! Which means while the Midnight Society are telling scary stories the kids they freed are going through ACTUAL HORRORS of their own!
• Bordering on Fridge Brilliance, Mr. Murphy threatening to murder (the original) Sardo's grandson actually explains his M.O. as the Shadowman. His abducting children is his vengeful response to losing his only daughter. All those children being abducted is because he personally feels "If I must lose my child to these cliffs, so must everyone else..."
  • There's also the cruel Dramatic Irony that he threatened Sardo to take his grandson and kill him if he got in the way of what he wanted. Knowing he kills Sardo's grandson but 25 years later for helping the children set the trap, it's sobering to realize he made good on his threat.
• How many kids before Lucas and co. accidentally invoked the Shadow Man's curse without realizing it? Just by staying out a little past sunset!

Fridge Logic

• In "Tale of the Lonely Girl" why didn't Nanny move away already if (A) she wasn't wanted by Beth and (B) she didn't fare well living so close to the house where her daughter died?
• In "Tale of Locker 22", how did the science teacher make vice principal when at least one person knew he had been involved with an incident that killed a student of his?
• In "Tale of the Nightly Nurse" why does grandpa ask the girls if they're "still" hunting for the ghost if, after fixing the ghost's past, the Nurse's ghost shouldn't even be haunting that house?