it’s the irresistible urge to go in
Psychology doesn’t work like that though… and there’s some really messed up crap in real world Psychology that’s horrific enough. No need to make something up.
The modes where-in the human brain malfunctions is easily understood and can be manipulated by various actors (be they accidental, or purposefully). Well, understood from the perspective of a manipulator, I don’t think scientists / doctors know exactly why our brains do this. But these defective modes are well understoood and well studied.
It’s not about how psychology works, it’s the unknown pull to go in. AFAIK our physiology doesn’t turn us into weird gangly monsters if you put pressure on our neck and limbs, but you don’t seem to have a problem suspending your disbelief in that way, at least not in any way you mentioned. I think the urge to enter the holes is framed as almost supernaturally strong. Maybe it was written with a basis in the idea of intrusive thoughts, but its more like a cognitohazard that enters your mind when you see “your” hole that compels people to climb inside. I find the horror comes more from the idea that you might find a hole that you become convinced is yours and would travel all the way there just to enter. (And then the claustrophobic darkness too)
If we leave the realm of “real”, then we’ve got much worse “cognitive superpowers” IMO.
Lets put this into DnD terms. The Enigma of Amigara Fault is roughly on the level of a “Suggestion” spell (level 3 in DnD). That is: you magically compel someone into thinking “X” is a good idea, and they’ll work to try to do X. It doesn’t mean that they’ll “do” X, only that they think its a good idea now.
I’m not necessarily saying higher-level spells are scarier, but there’s “Dominate Person” (ex: become a mind-slave to someone entirely). As well as body-horror like stuff (ex: Magic Jar. Your very soul is swapped out and another entity takes over your body entirely)… as well as alignment-change magic (Helm of Opposite Alignment) that can magically compel you to actively change who you are, and turn into something you never wanted to be originally. Stuff on a higher power level than just a magically-compelled Suggestion.
I mean, “Charm Person” can be a horror story if written well enough. Magically befriending people, and causing those “friends” to have harmful behaviors can be horrific. But there’s a reason why Charm Person is a level 1 spell, and “Dominate Person” is a higher level spell.
Or perhaps in Anime Terms: both Code Geass and Death Note, far more popular manga/anime, have more horrific mind-compulsion mechanisms than what I’ve seen in The Enigma of Amigara Fault.
So its not about the “power” of the compulsion, there’s more powerful stuff in anime. The question then comes down to the values and subjective feeling that this story offers that other stories do not offer. And that’s clearly where Enigma of Amigara Fault tries to connect with the audience. But for me, it failed to connect with me.
Consider this, then. We understand how psychology works and why this situation is complety outside of any realm of possibility. Yet it is happening anyway. Consider that there is something out there, something external, something unknown, that we aren’t even aware of yet that can have an effect on the human brain beyond the scope of our understanding or capabilities.
D&D has mindflayers that command a powerful control of the psyche. In that world, it is a logical reason for unusual or impossible behaviors. Harry Potter has the imperious curse as a logical way to accomplish something similar. These don’t work in the real world and we have no real world equivalent.
But, the things in those worlds weren’t always known about. There had to have been a period of discovery. Same with our reality. There have been many things we never knew we never knew until they were discovered. Applying logic to these situations with the knowledge of the time made it harder to understand or take seriously because we didn’t have a concept yet for what it was. Yet it was there.
The fault represents that unknown both in knowledge as well as understanding. It isn’t meant to be taken literally as “This thing can cause supernatural brain control.” Rather, it is playing on that concept of discovery of the unknown. The hole we as humans must dive into to understand the world around us. The comic doesn’t reveal the reason for it. But isn’t that the very nature of exploring the unknown? We are driven to it to fulfill a need.
Sure, it could be that there is an unknown “thing” the comic never reveals, something left to our imagination to fill in the blanks which can often be a lot scarier than anything we can come up with. But it is stirring those thoughts of curiousity to find the reason, the source. The hole is considered “my hole” not because it was made for us, but because that is our personal passion, our special interest, our allure for discovery. And through it, you are changed.
Rather, it is playing on that concept of discovery of the unknown
But why must we jump into our hole? Why aren’t these people driven to drop cell-phones into the hole and record what happens inside?
Because if you read the whole story you find out that the people whose holes these were did something horrific to deserve this fate over and over again. So their compulsion stems from an external source outside of their control.
If you find a hole hidden under geological eras, and it was made just for you and you knew it… you wouldn’t feel tempted at all to just… take a step in… a unique hole unlike any other in the world, this one welcoming you like your own shadow with its depths… and confirm that someone really did carve out your exact silhouette?
It’s certainly something I could imagine happening in a dream. Like my recurring dream of driving off of bridges.
There is a Buddhist element of reincarnation going on which might be lost on some foreign audiences, but the feeling it is trying to summon should be familiar - a strange familiarity of something that should be unknown to you, an inexplicable intuition, something that feels like it could be from a past life, a premonition, deja vu.
If none of this is relatable to you, that’s okay, but it is relatable to myself and many others. Hopefully you don’t have recurring dreams about driving off of bridges, either.
What is going on here? Do you guys not understand the holes are supernatural? They appear from seemingly nowhere and draw people in from all over the world only to find the holes match those particular people’s exact form. There may be a metaphor baked in for an exaggerated form of the ‘call of the void’ but the real horror is an external force that is actually responsible for the call and it ultimately leads you to an existence of ever increasing suffering with no way back.
