Writing Craft
Why “The Haunting of Hill House” Is Better Than “The Fall of the House of Usher”
According to Aristotle
I spent the past week bingeing “The Fall of the House of Usher.” I didn’t want to sit around and wait years before I checked it out, which is exactly what I did with “The Haunting of Hill House.” Having watched almost all of Mike Flanagan’s work since then, I was thrilled when I watched the trailer for the “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Mike Flanagan and Edgar Allan Poe? What better way to the month of Halloween?
It didn’t take more than half an episode to realize that maybe, once again, Mike Flanagan wouldn’t be able to live up to the standard he set with “Hill House.” “Usher” was good — intellectually. It was glamorous, with social commentary, and it wove together character incentives. It offered pretty much every person who grew up in the American school system a lot of nerdy-gasp-inducing moments with its clever re-interpretations of Poe’s stories.
And yet, I just couldn’t get into it. I ended up bingeing it just to figure out what the hell was at the end of the show’s big mystery (who is Carla Gugino’s character?), but it just didn’t hit the way “Hill House” did.
“Hill House” is better than “Usher”
“Hill House” haunted me for months. Hell, even till today. I’ll be sitting around with my family when out of nowhere someone not-so-infrequently will say, “That was a good show.” I almost never rewatch shows, but I would rewatch “Hill House” till the end of time (moreso if it wasn’t so damn scary).
“Usher” was fine. But I wouldn’t rewatch it. Why? Because it didn’t make use of the biggest advantage of TV shows: characters.
Films end in three hours tops. You barely get introduced to a character before you have to go on the ride of the plot. Filmmakers have to get economic. It’s not so surprising that films often rely on tropes, or that the most memorable writer-directors are masters at painting complex characters with few words.
A TV show takes eight hours of your life. If it gets renewed, even more. You can watch the show in one go, or you can spread it out week to week. In some cases, you might be spending a decade with a set of characters (e.g. F.R.I.E.N.D.S.).
What brings the viewer back to the screen, again and again? Plot can certainly help. A juicy mystery. Games of power. Teenage shenanigans.
But we would barely care about any of that if we didn’t like the characters.
The Usher family is a caricature of the rich we would like to eat.
To be clear, not all characters have to be likable or even good for us to like them. Walter White was not a good man, and yet he’s become an icon in the American imagination. Despite his flaws, many of us could relate to him. Find ourselves in his shoes. Liked being in his shoes for an hour to see what it feels like to walk in them.
The characters in “Usher” are despicable start to finish. I kept waiting for Roderick Usher to have his redeeming moment. He used to be an okay guy who was nice to his wife, but he becomes a greedy, scummy scammer just like that, making us question whether his kindness was ever genuine. He says he loves his granddaughter, but he sold her life long ago — without hesitation. The other kids are scumbags without much further explanation: pretty much all are abusive partners, they’re dishonest in business, and they’re willing to commit atrocities for the sake of preserving their egos.
The characters in “Hill House” are so lovable you want to adopt them. Loyal and vulnerable Nelly is of course the fan favorite. Luke and Theo are wounded birds. Shirley is just keeping it together. Steven is hotly contested, but even still, they all seem so fiercely devoted to each other that you can’t help but root for them.
The Crain family in “Hill House” are more relatable, not just because they’re more similar to the average viewer socioeconomically, but because they’re normal, mostly good people with flaws. The Usher family is a caricature of the rich we would like to eat. Any warmth they display ends up feeling hollow when they turn on the drop of a dime into vindictive, contemptuous creatures.
Surprisingly, Aristotle would agree that “Hill House” is the superior show.
What does Aristotle have to do with this?
In “Poetics,” Aristotle said a tragedy is a story in which:
- A good but flawed person
- goes from a good to bad situation
- through a hamartia, which is usually translated as a tragic flaw but is more accurately described as an error in judgment.
He said these elements were essential to 1) evoke catharsis, and 2) evoke pity and fear. If a bad person went from a good to bad situation, we wouldn’t feel pity or fear, though we might be satisfied by the sense of karma.
A good but flawed person is someone we can both aspire and relate to. We’re invested in them. When they go from a good to a bad situation, we feel bad for them.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” doesn’t work because the family is utterly unlikable.
If their fall from grace is caused by an error in judgment — something so human — it strikes fear because we understand it could happen to any one of us. If their fall from grace is caused by a tragic flaw — a character trait that’s usually considered noble or at least neutral — it also strikes fear because we come to understand our vulnerability: even if you live an upstanding life, those same principles might come back to bite you. This is in contrast to if tragedy befalls the good but flawed person due to vice. If a good man gambled away his fortune, we would feel less pity for him, since he understandably caused his own undoing, but we would not feel fear, because such a disastrous outcome is to be expected when we indulge our vices.
Take Oedipus from “Oedipus Rex,” for example. He is a riddle solver. Thanks to his cleverness, he saved Thebes from the terror of a riddling Sphinx. But this is exactly what led to his downfall: he couldn’t stop trying to solve the riddle of who killed the former king, until he found out it was he — the former king’s son — who murdered his father and married his mother.
“Hill House” and “Usher” in the context of Aristotle
“The Haunting of Hill House” works because it hits all three of these principles. The family was lovely. Their bonds withstood the stress of their mother dying. Though tense, their relationships are ultimately loving.
The Crain family’s error in judgment was staying in the house when there were clear signs they should’ve left. They didn’t stay in the house out of hubris or obstinance. They stayed because the parents didn’t think it would be healthy for the kids to run away at the first sign of trouble. They’d be teaching the wrong lessons. Plus, they were financially strapped. They needed to sell the house. They persevered. That no-nonsense perseverance — usually an admirable trait — turned out to be fatal mistake.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” doesn’t work because the family is utterly unlikable. I’m not usually one to say someone is “bad,” but the accusation holds true for each of these characters. They’re leery of each other for a reason: because they know they’re scammers, arrogant, addicts, and total assholes.
How to fix “The Fall of the House of Usher”
“Usher” doesn’t fill the first or third principles: the Usher family are not good people, and they fall due to their own vices. In every single instance, everyone ends up effectively killing themselves due to guilt or vengeance gone wrong, which is in line with (brilliant) themes throughout Poe’s work.
We can solve much of this by changing one plot point: let the children know that their father, Roderick Usher, has CADASIL, a dementia-like impairment, early on.
(spoilers ahead)
Roderick Usher finances one big investment for each of their children. He takes his job as an angel investor very seriously. He workshops every child’s business pitch until it passes muster. Then, after the initial investment, he monitors them like a hawk to make sure they succeed. The guiding principle? “To change the world,” because that’s what Ushers do.
But do the kids really want to change the world, or do they just want to stay in the will? Based on their candid — and crude — conversations, it’s clear the kids care way more about the latter. To the extent they want to make good on Roderick’s investment, it’s because they’re driven by panic, or ego (“I’ll show you”).
Knowing about their father’s illness could change their incentives, or at least the way we see them.
Take Victorine, for example. Her father pressured her to get her medical device to market ASAP, and though she and her doctor partner were already barely scraping through animal trials with falsified data, Victorine rushed ahead to human trials for the sake of her own ego (which includes maintaining a good standing with her father, who’s also her sponsor).
If Victorine knew her father had CADASIL, and that that was why he wanted human trials, she would have a more sympathetic reason for rushing ahead. It wouldn’t necessarily make her a good person, but instead of being a fraud desperate for her father’s money and approval, she would be a daughter trying to save her dad.
Take Perry or Tammy. They rushed ahead into their their respective businesses at the expense of other people to make good on Roderick’s investment. As the youngest, Perry wanted to be taken seriously, like a true Usher (a status that is contested due to his mother). For Tammy, she had a chip on her shoulder being a female businesswoman.
But if they knew about their father’s illness, their incentives could shift. They could be rushing ahead to make something of their lives before their father’s ailment took over. Maybe they want to make him proud before he loses his mind. Maybe they feel the need to get their act together so they can take on their father’s mantle, a heavy crown to bear.
A missed opportunity to elevate the show
This wouldn’t fix all the problems in the show, but it would give it a fighting chance of being the type of tragedy Aristotle wrote about. The kind that captures our collective imagination for years, like “Oedipus Rex,” or “The Haunting of Hill House.”
By giving the characters the chance to be good but flawed people, who make bad choices not because of a vice (like greed, stupidity, or resentfulness) but because of a relatable error in judgment or character flaw (like loving your dad too much), “Usher” could have been as haunting as “Haunting.”
