Spirit of Halloween

Unlike other candy-based holidays, Halloween doesn't have its own specific mascot. As such, many works of fiction have come up with their own unique characters to represent the holiday. While the character is likely to be a literal spirit, exactly what they physically look like varies. They can be any type of monster commonly associated with Halloween such as skeletons, ghosts, goblins, and especially Pumpkin People.

In addition to their appearance, the morality of these characters tends to vary, as well. Sometimes, they may be a Dark Is Not Evil Peek-a-Bogeyman who just wants everyone to have a good, scary time. Other times, however, they may instead be the Big Bad of the story (possibly the Token Evil Teammate amongst other holiday icons). In this case, they're likely also a demon and will try to turn everyone into real monsters and/or alter reality so that it remains Halloween forever. Despite this, they're not likely to die, since they still have a holiday to manage.

It should be noted that while there is no singular icon of Halloween, there are at least two folkloric names that are commonly used as examples of this trope. The first is Stingy Jack, a character from Irish folklore who made a Deal with the Devil that ended with him Walking the Earth, carrying a lantern carved from either a turnip or a pumpkin; it is believed that this is where the term "Jack O' Lantern" originated from. The second is Samhain (pronounced "Sow-wen", it is of somewhat unclear etymology but there is evidence it literally means "end of summer"), the name of a harvest festival celebrated in Dark Ages Ireland. The actual connection between Samhain and Halloween is historically fairly shaky, but it has stuck in the popular consciousness nonetheless, as has the wholly erroneous idea that Samhain was the name of an Irish God of the Dead or a demon associated with the festival, rather than the festival itself, which as far as we can tell was a largely secular event.

Whether they're good or evil, they're also likely to be the leader of a Halloween Town or the ruler of a Halloween-based kingdom, with legions of monsters at their command. Alternatively, they may even rule The Underworld.

Sub-Trope of Holiday Personification. See also Monster Lord, which this trope tends to overlap with. If they're a villain, they may also be a Satanic Archetype. Compare Stingy Jack, who is to this trope what The Krampus is to Santa Claus.

Not to be confused with Spirit Halloween.

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Examples:

Comic Strips

• Peanuts: Linus van Pelt strongly believes in the existence of the Great Pumpkin, who is supposed to rise from a pumpkin patch and give children toys — effectively, Santa Claus but on Halloween. His awaiting the Great Pumpkin during Halloween is something of a Once a Season gag, which is described in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Fan Works

• Gaz's Horrible Halloween of Doom presents Samhain, the Celtic god of death and the harvest, as the default spirit of Halloween. Dib attempts to make an offering to him in exchange for good luck, only for Gaz to destroy it to spite Dib's beliefs. This pisses Samhain off, and he curses her with bad luck, leading to a night-long Humiliation Conga.

Film — Animated

• Holidaze: The Christmas That Almost Didn't Happen features a rare female example: during a meeting between various holiday icons, the representatives of Halloween are a pair of Goth-styled ghost sisters named Trick and Treat.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King, also called the King of Halloween. He is a skeleton in a tuxedo who sometimes dresses like a pumpkin-headed scarecrow and leads the parade every year in Halloween Town. Unlike most examples, he is the main protagonist of the film, and the plot involves him becoming bored with Halloween and trying out a different Holiday (specifically, Christmas).
• Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King: The titular Goblin King is implied to be one of these, given that the rest of the Halloween monsters greatly fear him and his goblin army.

Film — Live-Action

• Sam (whose name is clearly a play on "Samhain", although the movie does actually know how to pronounce that word) from Trick 'r Treat was actually created because Halloween doesn't have its own mascot. He is a pumpkin-headed creature resembling a child dressed in a homemade scarecrow costume whose duty is to make sure everyone follows the rules of Halloween. Anybody who doesn't is promptly murdered.

Literature

• Chuck Tingle has written two pieces of his trademark brand of extremely niche queer erotica on the subject: The Handsome Physical Manifestation of Autumn Turns Me Gay and the lesbian story The Sentient Physical Manifestation of Halloween Eats Me Out. Both stories have covers showing their respective Anthropomorphic Personification love interests as attractive humans with jack-o'-lanterns for heads.

Live-Action TV

• Roseanne: "Halloween IV" is a spooky take on A Christmas Carol, with Roseanne, who ordinarily loves Halloween, becoming a Scrooge about the holiday. She's visited by the Ghosts of Halloween Past (a Bedsheet Ghost with a disembodied heart under the sheet), Present (a giant candy corn), and Future (a jack o' lantern in a hooded robe), who all teach her to appreciate the festivities again.
• Supernatural: "It's The Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester" introduces Samhain (incorrectly pronounced as Sam-Hane rather than Sa-Winn), an ancient and powerful demon who possesses the unique ability to summon and control all manner of ghosts, zombies, and monsters. It's stated by Sam that most Halloween rituals were created in response to him by the ancient Celts (wearing monster masks, for instance, began because he possesses terrible eyesight and can't differentiate between a person in a mask and a genuine monster). In reality, these traditions are all much younger and sprung up long after Samhain - again, a festival, not a god or demon - was ancient history.

Video Games

• Animal Crossing: Jack, who has the head of a jack o' lantern, is the proud czar of Halloween. He has the player get candy from the villagers for him and gives them Halloween-themed items in return.
• My Singing Monsters has the Seasonal monster Punkleton, available only during the "Spooktacle" season of October. It is depicted as a skeleton with the head of a jack o' lantern and autumn leaves adorning it, and according to its bio, likes to pop out of the ground and try to spook other monsters.
• World of Warcraft: The annual Hallow's End event sees the appearance of the Headless Horseman, a specter that haunts the festivities, setting fire to villages and terrifying the children who only want to get their candy and have some fun. Adventurers must face him in the Scarlet Monastary to finally put his spirit to rest.

Webcomics

• Sluggy Freelance: When Bun-Bun goes on his holiday murder spree one of his victims is the more-goofy-than-scary Pumpkin King, though his predecessor was the genuinely horrifying Basphomy, whom Bun-Bun freed to help him kill the Pumpkin King.

Web Original

• Critical Role: In "The Night Before Critmas" one-shot, a Whole-Plot Reference to The Nightmare Before Christmas from the perspective of a group of Santa's elves, the Hallow King (a Jack Skellington Expy) is implied to be this, as the ruler of Halloween Town. He is much more terrifying in appearance than his animated counterpart, with translucent skin and candy ribbon muscles, but he still makes amends for the Santa kidnapping plot and helps the protagonists save him from Worm Sack (Oogie Boogie).
• SCP Foundation: SCP-2331 is a Pumpkin Person that hosts raves (most often in October) under the alias "Scravecrow". In a phone call a Foundation researcher had with an associate of SCP-2337, the associate implies that "Jack" is this, having become a disc jockey to stay relevant in (or as a reflection of) the changing demographic of Hallowe'en celebration.

Western Animation

• Danny Phantom has the Fright Knight. He is the ghostly embodiment of Halloween who was imprisoned in the Ghost Zone a long time ago. To win a haunted house contest, Danny travels to his prison and steals his magic sword, freeing the Knight and allowing him to escape the Ghost Zone and try to Take Over the World so he can make it Halloween forever. The Fright Knight also returns in a non-Halloween-themed TV movie, where he reluctantly serves as The Dragon to Pariah Dark.
• The Daria episode "Depth Takes A Holiday" features a personification of Halloween, who escapes Holiday Island alongside the personifications of Christmas and Guy Fawkes Day. Appearance-wise, she looks like a black-haired woman wearing an orange bustier and black skirt.
• The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special presents David S. Pumpkins and his two skeleton sidekicks filling this role, as they teach children "the true meaning of Halloween," and if you place miniature boxes of raisins inside a jack o' lantern, he will magically turn them into candy.
• Dilbert: In the episode "Holiday", after all official holidays are abolished in favor of "Dogbert Day", several holiday icons appear on a television show to voice their anger at Dogbert for being put out of a job. Among them is a personification of Halloween, who's a person with a jack o' lantern for a head.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Subverted in "Christmas Every Day". Following Timmy wishing that it would be Christmas every day, the other Holiday Personifications are enraged at losing their jobs and team up to get rid of Santa. As Timmy meets them, we're introduced to a seeming ominous pumpkin-headed being called the "Hallo-weenie Dog" only for it to turn out to be the Easter Bunny's pet dog wearing a cheap costume that breaks apart, only there because the Easter Bunny didn't want to leave him alone at home.
• Gravity Falls: In the episode "Summerween", a character appears out of nowhere called the Summerween Trickster. Angered at Dipper's lack of Summerween (a special version of Halloween held in the summer) spirit, he demands the latter and Mabel fetch him a large amount of candy to be forgiven. When they fail this task, he reveals he is a mound of living unwanted candy, and tries to kill them, but Soos eats him. He dies, happy someone finally wants him.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The festival of Nightmare Night is held in commemoration of Princess Celestia's defeat of her sister Luna, who becomes the incarnation of nightmares and a kind of boogeyman for pony-kind. On the first Nightmare Night after her release and redemption, Luna visits Ponyville to see the night that is ostensibly held in her honor but is put off when everyone flees in terror. Eventually, Twilight Sparkle convinces her to embrace her role as the terror of the night because "sometimes it's just really fun to be scared."
• The Real Ghostbusters has Samhain (pronounced in the show as Sam-Hane, rather than as Sa-wane), a pumpkin-headed spectre with an Irish Accent who claims to be Halloween, and is trying to create an eternal night where ghosts and things of the night rule.
• The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XIX" introduces "The Grand Pumpkin," a parody of The Great Pumpkin from Peanuts (mentioned above). He's brought to life in a pumpkin patch by Milhouse's tears and is appalled upon discovering that pumpkins are carved up by people and used for food, so he seeks vengeance by eating several people whole, including Homer, Groundskeeper Willie, and Nelson, and later kills Principal Skinner. Realizing that Milhouse can bring things to life by believing in them, Lisa tells him about "Tom Turkey", a symbol of Thanksgiving, who comes to life and kills the Grand Pumpkin, freeing everyone he ate. The segment ends with Tom Turkey beginning a similar rampage after learning of what people do to turkeys on Thanksgiving.
• Teen Titans Go!: In "Halloween", when the Titans stop showing interest in Halloween and are no longer scared by the concept, Raven summons the Spirit of Halloween, a personified gourd, to use his magic to turn them all back to children and instill fear and the spirit of trick or treating back into them. The Titans eventually have to overcome their fears to put a stop to the Spirit of Halloween, who used that opportunity to seize power. Later, in "Halloween v Christmas", when Santa Claus tries to take over the entire holiday calendar and turn everything into Christmas, the Titans enlist the aid of the Spirit of Halloween to help put a stop to him.

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