History Literature / TheGreatGodPan

* DeathBySex: The unspeakable horrors that drive Helen's victims to suicide are strongly implied to be sexual in nature, although Victorian propriety prevented Machen from elaborating.

* NoodleIncident: Quite possibly the most skillful and frightening use of this trope ever.
* OccultDetective: Villiers would qualify if he knew what he was investigating was supernatural.
* PlatonicCave: Raymond believes in this, and it is what drove him to perform the experiment.
* RapeAsDrama: Or rather, rape as horror. Never spoken outright, but it permeates the story in implication, from Dr. Raymond's creepy possession of and regard of Mary as his property, [[MysticalPregnancy what Pan does to Mary]] and of course what Helen does to her victims, which is almost explicitly sexual in nature and traumatizes them to madness and suicide.
* ShapeShifterSwanSong: Apparently, [[spoiler:Helen becomes a sort of living, primordial ooze upon dying.]]
-->"Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me, and an odor of corruption choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged or accursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lying there black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as adamant, began to melt and dissolve.\\
I know that the body may be separated into its elements by external agencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For here there was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that caused dissolution and change.\\
Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeatedly before my eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the beasts whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to the depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, which makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed."

-->--''#Creator/HPLovecraft''', "Literature/TheDunwichHorror"

--> -- from "Literature/TheDunwichHorror" by Creator/HPLovecraft

* SemiDivine: [[spoiler:Helen is the child of a god and a female human, which makes her a monstrous and twisted version of a demigod]].

%%* LuckBasedSearchTechnique: Pretty much every single clue in the mystery is found this way. This was actually a staple in pretty much all of Machen's early works.

* EldritchAbomination: This version of Pan is definitely very different from the merry satyr god of Myth/GreekMythology. In addition, it is strongly implied Pan is also the [[Myth/CelticMythology Celtic god]] Nodens, who would later join Lovecraft's works as one of his eldritch deities...

* ShaggySearchTechnique: Pretty much every single clue in the mystery is found this way. This was actually a staple in pretty much all of Machen's early works.

%% * MysteryMagnet

* BreakThemByTalking: Although Helen's horrors are widely considered to be related to sexual or physical experiences, the only time we have a glimpse of what happens in her bedroom she is simply sitting in the bed while telling something to his soon-to-be-dead husband. ''What'' was she saying, of course, is unrevealed.

''The Great God Pan'' is also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_God_Pan#Influence considered by]] Creator/StephenKing to be "one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language." He has stated that 2008 novella ''N.'' was a "riff" on it.

* AmbiguousSituation: It's never clarified [[spoiler:how Villiers convinces Helen to hang herself, given that his plan to call the cops on her if she doesn't oblige seems feeble considering that her "murders" left no proof that a {{Muggle}} police would buy and that she is, well, an EldritchAbomination after all.]]
** [[spoiler: Given that there's at least one transcription of what Helen's "parties" had going on in them, she probably wouldn't be arrested for ''murder''.]]

* BreakThemByTalking: Although Helen's horrors are widely considered to be related to sexual or physical experiences, the only time we have a glimpse of what happens in her bedroom she is simply sitting in the bed and telling something to his soon-to-be-dead husband. ''What'' was she saying, of course, is unrevealed.

** "The man in the wood! father! father!"

* EldritchAbomination: This version of Pan is definitely very different from the satyr god of Myth/GreekMythology. In addition, it is strongly implied Pan is also the [[Myth/CelticMythology Celtic god]] Nodens, who would later join Lovecraft's works as one of his eldritch deities...

* ShoutOut: Helen Vaughan is likely a ShoutOut to Helen of Troy, an outstandingly beautiful and charming daughter of Zeus and Leda.

* MeaningfulName: [[spoiler:[[TheBible Mary had a child with a divine entity]]]].

* UncannyValley: Several characters describe Helen as beautiful but... wrong.

* UncannyValley: {{Invoked}}: several characters describe Helen as beautiful but... wrong.

* DisposableVagrant: What Dr. Raymond regards Mary as (see the ValuesDissonance [[YMMV/GreatGodPan entry]]).

* SemiDivine: [[spoiler:Helen is the child of a god and a female human, which make her a monstrous and twisted version of demigod]].

* BreakThemByTalking: Although Helen's horrors are widely considered to be related to sexual or physical experiences, the only time we have a glimpse of what happens in her bedroom she is simply sitting in the bed and telling something to his soon-to-be dead husband. ''What'' was she saying, of course, is unrevealed.

-->"Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me, and an odour of corruption choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged or accursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lying there black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as adamant, began to melt and dissolve.\\

Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before my eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the beasts whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to the depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, which makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed."

* HalfHumanHybrid: [[spoiler:Implied to be less of a hybrid and more an avatar.]]

* UncannyValley: {{Invoked}}: several characters describe Helen as beautiful but . . . wrong.

* RapeAsDrama: Or rather, rape as horror. Never spoken outright, but it permeates the story in implication, from Dr. Raymond's creepy possession and of and regard of Mary as his property, [[MysticalPregnancy what Pan does to Mary]] and of course what Helen does to her victims, which is almost explicitly sexual in nature and traumatizes them to madness and suicide.

* AdaptationalHeroism: In Helen'sStory by Rosanne Rabinowitz, Helen Vaughan is the anti-heroine protagonist of her respective story.

%% * GoneMadFromTheRevelation

%% * MadScientist: Dr. Raymond has a lot of this going on.

%% * MysticalPregnancy
%% * NatureSpirit: A very, ''very'' dark version.

%% * TheVamp: Helen.

* AdaptationalHeroism: In [[Helen's Story]] by Rosanne Rabinowitz, Helen Vaughan is the anti-heroine protagonist of her respective story.

* AdaptationalHeroism: In ''Helen's Story'' by Rosanne Rabinowitz, Helen Vaughan is the anti-heroine protagonist of her respective story.

* Adaptational Heroism: In ''Helen's Story'' by Rosanne Rabinowitz, Helen Vaughan is the anti-heroine protagonist of her respective story.