Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-10502460-20180901022714/@comment-10502460-20180904014101

DrBobSmith wrote: HopelessNightOwl,

The problem with deciding what to use to represent evil incarnate or even evil manifested is the culture of the reader.

Spiders aren't evil in many cultures.

https://www.countryliving.com/life/g5065/christmas-spider-tradition/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Grandmother

That doesn't make it a bad or an invalid choice to use. There's always a chance someone else will think "Christmas spider, how cute" instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_spiders

When I think of manifestations of evil and death, I think of ravens circling overhead. They manifest evil death. (Not the death of an old man surrounded by his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but the death of a dying sinner.) That is cultural for me.

While I get what you're saying, part of the point of this story is that evil is universal. I wanted an image that was just disturbing enough to convey the idea, while still being understated and simple enough for a child's mind to process quickly. Something more intricate like a group of ravens would take a lot more narrative work to pull off, and the idea of the spider is that it just barely stands out among the chaos on the TV.

Plus, although spiders may be benevolent in a lot of folk traditions, in modern popular culture they are increasingly being portrayed to represent wickedness (remember "It"?)