There are something over 6000 Known Tropers who have made troper pages. There are at least that many Known Tropers who haven't made troper pages. For most of the time that the wiki has been around, you didn't even have to be Known to edit. That means that there are tens of thousands of people who may have added those items. There's going to be a huge variance in what that many people find frightening.
^^ True. Its deep in YMMV territory by it's very nature. But for me, HONF should be the stuff that keeps you awake at night, makes you not want to turn around, makes you leave the light on all night because you're that freaked out. Most of the time I read stuff and think, 'maybe that would be scary if I was five, but I don't see what's so terrifying'.
I wonder if anything could be done to narrow the definition somewhat. But then again, like we've been saying, one person's HONF could be someone elses Narm.
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...I'm just gonna add, a lot of it probably has to do with individual phobias (as in the condition). Clowns, spiders, specific types of violence, whatever. Like I know someone who generally isn't squeamish, but is terrified of dogs because of an incident in his childhood.
If it were me I'd put a qualifier that the example has to involve injury/harm/death in some way, but it's not something I'm gonna push.
Nah, then you leave out Psychological horror, and supernatural horror.
I see what you mean about phobias. My sister is terrified of sharks to the point where even looking at a picture of one freaks her out. Then you have the weirder kinds of phobia. Like Beard Phobia. Or Beautiful Woman Phobia (yes, this exists). I suppose given the variety of things people have irrational fears about, it's kind of inevitable that this trope has so much variance. If someone had a fear of nuclear war, I can see why they might find that Ace Combat example scary.
BTW, Demons Souls needs a subpage. Tower of Latria is unnerving to say the least.
edited 13th Jul '11 8:24:33 PM by OmegaKross
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...Maybe I have a broad definition of "harm", mental breakage falls under that IMO, and so does most supernatural/psychological horror. If the connection to harm is a long stretch, then maybe it fits better under Paranoia Fuel.
Well, put it this way. I find mirror scares really freaking scary. If I were to look into a mirror and see something that wasnt there a second ago standing right behind me, I would absolutely shit myself, even if whatever it was couldnt physically hurt me.
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...HONF is not the place to go to find things that are scary. Fetish Fuel, now that's where you go to creep yourself out.
I think there is some low-tolerance, but like someone else mentioned, most people are just looking for a plug for their favorite series.
I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -WanderlustwarriorThis trope and its Accidental Nightmare Fuel cousin are simply a mess. I don't think either one can ever possibly be salvaged from the misuse of the period where people saw HONF as "Nightmare Fuel But More So". If I didn't run across the potholes all the time, I would just quietly pretend both didn't exist. As it is, I just do my best to ignore them.
And I do agree that at least some of this is individual. About the only things I've seen potholed to either page that would literally give me nightmares are things that have to do with spiders.
The problem is how to set criteria on something based on personal opinion.
Personally, I think much the same reading through the page, people talking about mundane stuff as though it were the spawn of Elder Gods. (Personal 'favourite' was somebody claiming a rather upbeat boss battle tune was "Despair Incarnate.") Stuff like that makes me question its use.
Of course, how to limit it? If I recall, the pages started as only a receptacle for a few items. Notably the rather terrifying scene in Disney's take on A Christmas Carol where Scrooge is thrown into an open grave that's far deeper than it has any right to be, with the casket blowing open, billowing clouds of smoke as the inside glows red. And this was a CHILDREN'S Movie! Stuff like That I can understand.
Ah, well. Personally I wouldn't mind purging the pages and leaving it as a fanspeak term, but I'm not sure people would like that idea.
Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation."Either that or people are misusing the trope, inserting examples which are actually Fridge Horror" - Omega Kross
You say this as if Fridge Horror couldn't be deliberate. What would you say about concepts like Ascended Fridge Horror, then?
Yeah, one person's HONF could be another's narm, and some of the same PSAs ending up on each trope's advertising section prove this. That said, I think you misinterpret the point of the trope. It's not defined as "the stuff that keeps you awake at night, makes you not want to turn around, makes you leave the light on all night because you're that freaked out." It's simply defined as what is deliberately scary, in contrast to Accidental Nightmare Fuel, which is simply accidentally scary. The distinction is not perfect, as intent is hard to judge, but it makes clear that different concepts are being referred to here. It doesn't specify an extent for a threshold.
Now, it was once the case that nightmare fuel was defined as just scary for kids, and high octane nightmare fuel as scary enough to scare adults. A lot of people seemed to still think this until the name change, and I wouldn't be surprised if some still do anyway. This distinction relies on age stereotypes, though, and ignores the point that some things are scarier to adults than they are to kids. The former definition for nightmare fuel has since been replaced by Defanged Horrors anyway.
In any case, you never know how exactly how scary someone else found example X, let alone how scary someone else thinks something needs to be to qualify as HONF... but still, at least it's used for what it means (deliberately scary... well, for most examples, I guess) which is more than can be said of Accidental Nightmare Fuel.
edited 14th Jul '11 7:15:54 AM by neoYTPism
Well, there's also always the issue of just what qualifies as accidental versus intentional.
Let's take Metroid. It's managing to have entries for both regular
and high octane
nightmare fuel. But there's quite a bit of overlap between those two (for example, the SA-X from Metroid Fusion is listed on both), even if it does manage to be the rare series that manages to have both (it's not impossible... you just need to be able to scare people part of the time intentionally and unintentionally the other part).
Part of me thinks the best option might be to use Nightmare Fuel as an index page for things that could be scary (like Body Horror or Ludicrous Gibs) and nuke all examples. The other part of me thinks that's a good way to get offended tropers to hunt me down and make me an object lesson on this trope in real life.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Well yeah, my definition of High Octane Nightmare Fuel is pretty different from what the trope description actually says. Its because the name implies 'stuff that is completely terrifying', not 'stuff that's deliberately creepy/disturbing/scary'. I'd suggest a name change if HONF wasn't such an ingrained name.
Maybe we could have a trope for the stuff that is objectively terrifying. 'Night Terrorr Fuel' or something like that. Of course, it would probably just turn into HONF The Same But More.
As for deliberate Fridge Horror, of course it belongs on HONF if it is blatantly meant to scare you when you think about it. What bugs me is when people take a moment that really isn't that scary on its own, like a disaster scene or something, think about every possible implication, decide 'thats kind of nasty when you think about it', and stick it on HONF. To demonstrate my point:
Example 1: A universe where the only God is absolutely evil, and everyone who dies is just dead. Implied Fridge Horror: All religion is actually devoted to an evil god who may even be manipulating its worshippers to commit atrocities in its name, there is no afterlife, no salvation, and the only reward for living is the grave.
pretty goddamn bleak, and worthy of a place on HONF.
Example 2: A nuke/phlebotimun bomb/superpower meltdown goes off in a large city. Implications: Enormous loss of life, beyond most peoples capacity to concieve.
This one doesnt belong. A Million Is a Statistic after all, and we've all been exposed to disaster movies and the like on a regular basis. Without any implications other than massive loss of life, it doesnt invoke HONF.
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...
The problem is, of course, the same as with any other specific emotion (which has come up in many other threads) - when it comes to something that triggers an emotional response, there is no objective example.
After all, for this trope, there's a reason that Nightmare Fetishist exists - because someone will not have the reaction of fright, no matter how many people find something scary. Any example out there, we can find people that'll say that it isn't scary. By default, it has to be a YMMV trope.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster."Well yeah, my definition of High Octane Nightmare Fuel is pretty different from what the trope description actually says." - Omega Kross
Your definition? Uh, definitions don't work that way. o.o
"As for deliberate Fridge Horror, of course it belongs on HONF if it is blatantly meant to scare you when you think about it. What bugs me is when people take a moment that really isn't that scary on its own, like a disaster scene or something, think about every possible implication, decide 'thats kind of nasty when you think about it', and stick it on HONF." - Omega Kross
Well, whether it is intended to make viewers think about said implications or not is uncertain, just as whether nightmare fuel in general was accidental or deliberate is uncertain. That's the nature of the distinction between these tropes. No matter what, we're running on assumptions by distinguishing them to begin with.
edited 14th Jul '11 10:36:53 AM by neoYTPism
Okay then, so what word was I supposed to use instead of 'definition'?
Also, its Kross. With a K.
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...
"Interpretation" would have been a more fitting word, as it doesn't imply that the actual definition depends on it. Now if you'll excuse me I have a typo to fix.
@Omega Kross: I would say there is no such thing as "completely objective fear". We have Nightmare Fetishists, we have people with a much more jaded opinion of what is scary then others... I mean, looking at your examples, I don't find either scarier then the other, at least in part because my opinion of A Million Is a Statistic can only be given in obscenities. Neither would literally give me nightmares, but as I mentioned there's not much that does.
I do agree with the posters who have complained about the way entries are written: it's just a slightly different way of Gushing About Shows You Like by describing their elements as the "SCARIEST X EVER!!!!!" instead of "FUNNIEST/COOLEST/SADDEST X EVER". If we could purge all that from the site, I might actually read the HONF pages, but until then, as I said before, I just try to pretend that they don't exist.
Maybe the page could use a cleanup, and a notice to not use HONF to gush about whatever show/game/movie, etc. Thing is, there's like, a bajillion subpages.
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...Now that I read the description, seems like my INTERPRETATION of the trope isn't so far off after all:
There's Accidental Nightmare Fuel. Then there's this. This is the stuff that is not only intentionally scary, but so horrifying that it can give people the creeps for the rest of the day, several days, months, or even years. This is the stuff that can scare the pants off of just about anyone, possibly to the author/creator's delight. This is stuff that makes you shrink in the back of your chair, look over your shoulder, and remind yourself that what's going on is (usually) only fictional.
Looks like most of us cant even decide what qualifies for this trope, even without the YMMV aspects.
Also, Christ on a pogo stick, why does Ace Attorney have a sub page? Oh no, a scary blank portrait!, Oh no, a guy whose hand tenses up into a skull face when he's nervous! This is scary? really? I despair. Sometimes I really do despair.
edited 14th Jul '11 7:50:17 PM by OmegaKross
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...Ordinarily, I'd do the routine about how it's difficult to say whether or not the creator really intended it to be completely horrifying or not.
But for the Ace Attorney games? Yeah... I'm going to say that they weren't doing it intentionally, given the rating. I can see why some people might get scared of one of those... but even still, that should be in the other flavor of Nightmare Fuel.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Okay, this is something that has been bugging me since I first came to the wiki, and it seems to have gotten past the point of ridiculousness now. It seems that anything that could be considered mildly disturbing, or overly violent, or has unsettling implications counts as HONF. But is it really that scary to some tropers? Because for the most part I find myself reading through the examples and thinking 'that isn't even mildly scary'. I notice it mostly when the HONF comes from Fridge Horror, and especially with videogame examples. Like the Ace Combat example where a nuke goes off after it seems you have prevented its launch. Look, I get that a nuke going off in my vicinity would totally ruin my day, but it's not something I lose sleep over. Or the entire Mortal Kombat 9 Sub Page. Look, it's a violent game, but from the examples, you'd think it actually gave people night terrors.
I guess what I'm asking when it comes down to it, is this: Does the average troper have a low threshold for what they consider scary, or am I desensitized beyond all ability to feel creeped out.
I get that it's a heavily YMMV trope. I just didnt think anyones mileage could vary this much.
Either that or people are misusing the trope, inserting examples which are actually Fridge Horror, or Accidental Nightmare Fuel.
Anyone else feel like they're the only troper with the stomach for this stuff?
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...