The Shadow Knows… Confronting Our Fears through Fantasy

Fear of the dark and the shadows that dwell within are primal fears. Since the dawn of humanity, we’ve had an innate awareness that things we couldn’t see represented potential danger or death.

Prehistorically, people would have been more at risk of being attacked by predators or enemies after the sun set. Through evolution, we have developed a tendency to be scared of darkness and shadow — it’s how we’re hard-wired.

In the fantasy realms of the Folktellers Universe, we address these primal feelings and fears in our new Guidebook Series. This is a place where the world has been infiltrated by Shadow People, dwellers of another realm who are determined to spread their darkness across the universe.

So, why is that scary?

Martin Antony, professor of psychology at Ryerson University in Toronto, notes:

“In the dark, our visual sense vanishes, and we are unable to detect who or what is around us. We rely on our visual system to help protect us from harm… The unknown is an inherent association that humans make with the color black, as It prevents them from seeing distinct shapes and veils potential threats.”

Fear of the dark is directly correlated to fear of shadows. For darkness is the environment in which shadows thrive. This is the premise that makes Shadow People so unsettling — They represent our worst fears without ever giving us full confirmation of them. Shadows tap into our imaginations, creating the horrors and terrors of our nightmares, hinting at what might really be under our bed.

In her seminal work, “Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales,” Marie-Louise von Franz shares her Jungian perspective by reminding us that:

“The shadow is simply a ‘mythological’ name for all that is in me about which I cannot directly know — the unknown. Upon deeper exploration of the unconscious, we discover other clusters of reactions, feelings, moods and ideas that make up our sense of Self…Shadows reside in these dark places inside us that we have yet to discover, both as individuals and members of a larger society.”

In the Folktellers Universe, shadows initially appear as evil antagonists with a single-minded drive to steal the stories Folktellers share. That seems easy enough. But as the series progresses, we learn that these beings from another realm or much more than pesky, wispy wraiths. They are complex, intelligent creatures who have found a way to tap into humanity’s subconscious — into the primal fears that scare us most — manifesting as forgotten myths and legends from around the world.

Now, the once-creepy shades of the unknown become full manifestations of our worst collective fears. JK Rowling did a great job of interpreting this concept in the Boggart, a shape-shifting creature that assumed the form of whatever most frightens the person who encountered it.

But in the Guidebook Series, the Shadow People take it much further, forming as forgotten myths and legends from regions across the globe. The monsters that our heroic teens must face are drawn up from collective unconscious of myriad cultures, tapping into what uniquely terrifies people from different places around the world.

OK, but how does this type of fantasy help us confront our fears?

Fantasy stories provide a much-needed exploration of both our communal and individual spectres. For shadows exist in the world outside, as well as within each and every one of us — we all have our own ghosts and demons.

Christine Louise Hohlbaum points out in Psychology Today:

“Our shadow selves are the dark sides of our being. We are scared of their potential. They remind us of our fallibility, vulnerability and aptness to fall into deception of our inner truth.

At the same time, our dark sides can teach us a lot. They speak of our fears and of the worst possible scenarios that could inhabit us if we let them take the upper hand.

When you really think about it, our shadow side is the one that is listening, and lurking, beneath what we try to be. In reality, it is a part of our true essence that we often wish to hide.”

Fantasy, for both children and adults, provides us a mechanism for delving into that shadow realm from the relative safety of our own imaginations. It gives us the opportunity to confront our own dark places through the exploits and adventures of others.

By participating in the hero’s journey, we’re able to sort out some of the darker aspects of own lives, while gaining a better understanding of how we might make the world around us a little less shady.

Ultimately, what fantasy gives us is a vehicle for exploring the unknown, the darkness, and shadow from a healthy, proactive position of empowerment, while acknowledging that this is all part of our never-ending journey.

The real trick is in our willingness to accept the quest and engage in the adventure into the Shadow Realm.

As Robert Louis Stevenson so aptly put it:

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see…