Other Origin Ideas

Before I begin, a brief sidenote (Because that’s why you’re all here. The little sidenotes. I can’t imagine what other reason you’d come to a Slender Man blog.)
A long time ago, before Encyclopedia Slenderia even existed, there was another blog based on Slendy information. However, it went unactive, leading me to the only logical conclusion that the author had been eaten by the Slender Man.

As it just so turned out, that was not the case. Those of you who read the comments will have seen Z Wakey’s post, and know there is a chance that Z’s Slenderblog may become active again at a later date. And since I can’t miss a chance to plug an informative blog, here’s a link: http://theslenderblog.blogspot.com/


But there are other things to talk about here. I’ve gone over the Tulpa theory, which is one of the most popular explanations for Slender Man. However, it is not the only one. The way the Mythos works, any writer with a new idea can create a completely new origin story for Slender Man. We rarely see people taking advantage of this (which might explain the lack of an origin story about how Slender Man was bitten by a radioactive tree after seeing a college aged film student gun down his parents and decided to become a vigilante who hunts society’s greatest threat: Liberal Arts Majors), as many who don’t use Tulpa Theory prefer to leave his origins a mystery. However, there have been a handful of explanations that have been given.


Alien Slendy

Yeah, it sounds corny, like something out of a 50s movie. Which is probably why it so rarely is used; just look at what happened to the fourth Indiana Jones movie when they introduced aliens. Up until that point, we’d been willing to accept the Ark of the Covenant, Hindu gods, the Holy Grail, but aliens? It’s as though our culture has become so thoroughly desensitized to the use of aliens in media that we’re no longer able to take it seriously anymore.

In spite of the risk using this may pose, it has occasionally come up. While no blog that I have seen has fully adopted this hypothesis, a few have mentioned the possibility. Chief would be Searching for Angels, which had a post saying Slender Man was an alien, and then explaining his attributes and actions in that context. The next post was essentially, “Haha, we fooled you, there never was a Slender Man!”, but the soundness of that claim is in even more doubt than the alien one. The last Searching for Angels post was in January, so whether or not the alien hypothesis will/would have been expanded on remains a question.

The Slender Man Chronicles occasionally alluded to aliens, and the MIB, but does not state Slendy to be an alien. They just kinda mention it in passing, as a part of their other, Crowley style Tulpa theory.

So what about this whole alien deal? As said before, it’s hard for us to take aliens seriously in horror anymore. Unless it’s something like a Lovecraftian, ancient being traveling from aeons beyond the stars, aliens tend to put us in the mind of flying saucers abducting cows. It also has the implication that Slender Man is a race, not an individual. The thought of a planet full of Slender Man, oddly enough, makes him less scary. Possibly because that implies Slendy having a legitimate society, and now I have a mental image of a faceless man in famers clothes plowing a field while another faceless man waves to him as he drives by in a car which is all doing nothing to make me feel frightened at all.

Finally, making Slender Man an alien causes us to have to stretch “Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” to the near breaking point. The abilities Slendy shows aren’t natural; but if we make Slender Man a naturally created species, just one who happens to be from a different planet, then we need to explain those abilities through technology. And whatever technology lets Slendy do all he does has to be some pretty spiffy technology. There’s also the problem in that letting his abilities be technology based has the implication that we as humans could copy his abilities; we just need to figure out how to build it.

Overall, alien Slendy doesn’t work that well. Maybe it’s just we haven’t seen anyone really pull it off amazingly yet, but making him an alien does so little to build on the horror aspect that it doesn’t seem to be a good idea.

Ghost Slendy

This is a hypothesis that I’ve only seen in discussions; thus far, I haven’t seen a single blog seriously consider the idea of Slender Man being a ghost. And for good reason: ghost Slender Man is even more difficult to take seriously than alien Slender Man.

We’ll start with the obvious that, like aliens, ghosts are seen as old and corny nowadays. As a kid, I grew up watching Scoob-Doo. Someone starts talking to me about ghosts haunting a place, and I wonder when the talking dog and his friends are going to show up and take off Old Man Jenkin’s mask. Occasionally, someone will try to make a movie/book/whatever which has serious ghosts in it, but more often they’re kept in the realm of children’s stories told around campfire.

However, what I see as the biggest problem with the ghost idea is the implication that Slender Man was once human. Ghosts are the spirits of the dead; so unless we’re also including dead creatures, concept, emotions, or ideas, we’ll have accept that Slendy was once a human. And like that, he goes from an unknowable being whose purpose we can never comprehend to a dead guy who enjoys violent poltergeist activity.

Crowley’s Tulpa

Here’s the hypothesis from Slender Man Chronicles. I’d have included it in the Tulpa Theory post, but I feel it’s separate enough from regular Tulpa Theory to be put into a separate post.

I’m really tempted to just post the link and tell you to read it, as it would be hard to do the full post justice with a summary. What it all comes down to is the occult, and drawing on the power of transdimensional beings. The author goes over occult history, talking about the Initiated Brothers of Asia”, Nazis, and finally, Crowley and Thelemic Occult. The author focuses on one of Crowley’s rituals, the “Babylon Working”, which supposedly opens a gateway between realities. Here he theorizes that Tulpa beings have passed through the gateways opened by the Babylon Working, drawing psychic energy from all the rituals which have been occurring through history. Then one Tulpa comes through, except instead of appearing as a loch ness monster or a big headed green alien, this one came wearing a suit and lacking a face. Then boom, there’s your Slender Man.

For a fuller idea of what the post said, well go and bloody read it: http://slendermanchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-slender-man-who-slender-man.html

Sadly for me, I haven’t been able to get into contact with my usual source of info for the occult, so I can’t double check everything here. I’ll say what I can about it, but I’ll need to do more research before I make fully supported claims.

What I can speak on is his talk about the Nazi’s occult. Hitler’s interest in occultism is often very exaggerated in fiction, and it’s taken to an extreme in the post. It’s true that the Nazis were involved in weird stuff, but most of that was Himmler being crazy on his own. Hitler tended to just grant permission to Himmler for whatever crazy ideas he had, like a tired parent telling an annoying child that, yes, he could go play outside if he would just shut up.

Also, Operation Paperclip did exist. Except it wasn’t an attempt to sneak out scientists who worked on flying saucers; it was trying to sneak out the scientists who worked on rockets, like the V2. Besides, saucers are not known for their aerodynamic capabilities.

But none of that is a really essential part of the hypothesis, so I’m not capable of disproving the entire thing here. Moving on.

Unknowable

Stupid Slender Man and his “cannot be comprehended by your puny human minds” excuse. It shows up in pretty much every post I make. No matter how many ideas we throw out there, there’s never any final word which can confirm which hypothesis is the true one (although it seems Victor Surge is fond of Tulpa Theory).

But this isn’t a weakness: if anything, this can add to the horror. Not every story needs an explanation of what Slender Man is, and for many readers, explanations take away from the horror of the unknown.

Useful Links
Slender Man Chronicles - Why the Slender Man? WHO the Slender Man?: http://slendermanchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-slender-man-who-slender-man.html
Slender Man Chronicles – We Cannot Undo What We Have Wrought: http://slendermanchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-cannot-undo-what-we-have-wrought.html
Slender Man Chronicles – What You Don’t Know Will Eventually Kill You. With Lasers.: http://slendermanchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-you-dont-know-will-eventually-kill.html
Searching For Angels – I Care: http://eyespie.wordpress.com/page/2/