The Glow Cloud took over the Dog Park, or something

[schneefink]

"Welcome to Night Vale" was just sort of there, one day, at least on Tumblr, so I thought I'd check it out. The first few times I fell asleep during listening - Cecil has a very relaxing voice! Then I figured out that I shouldn't lie down, heh.

I listened to the first eleven episodes and two later ones, but while I enjoyed a lot of the weird whimsical stuff, overall I just couldn't get into it. It's too far into the horror genre for me, I generally don't enjoy horror. Sure, they (more accurately, Cecil) make fun of most of it, but still, people die all the time and nobody is bothered by that? (Alternative: some citizens are bothered, but they can't leave Night Vale. More horror.)

I just can't imagine a town where everyone is okay with people dying all the time. Are they all so emotionally detached that nobody cares about each other? But Cecil seems to like Carlos! Are they weirdly religious and figure that everyone will be happier in heaven? Christianity tried that and people still grieve. Is everyone who "dies" resurrected a few months later and comes back as if nothing happened? That seems most plausible to me at the moment. Or is there some sort of explanation in a later episode I haven't listened to yet?
I wonder how Cecil would react if Carlos died.

I might listen to a few more episodes when I have the time; I'm admittedly curious about the Dog Park. And in the meantime I can still enjoy the fanart on Tumblr.

Comments

[busaikko]

My headcanon for Night Vale is that everyone there is already dead: it's a kind of limbo, between this world and the next. Hence the sky being a void, and 'death's not being mourned, and the dream-like quality of everything. After all, no one is allowed in "The Dog Park"; no one who goes in comes out. And d-o-g is just g-o-d backwards...

It's canon that most citizens cannot feel physical pain, but I think many of them are emotionally numbed as well. The children who die are already dead, and they just travel on to whatever comes next. A bit like the Brothers Lionheart going to Nangijala, and Nangilima...

Thoreau quoted Richter as saying:
"the earth is every day overspread with the veil of night for the same reason as the cages of birds are darkened, namely, that we may the more readily apprehend the higher harmonies of thought in the hush and quiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns into smoke and mist stand about us in the night as light and flames; even as the column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius in the daytime appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar of fire." (http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/thoreau/night-moonlight.html) (er: which is random, but kind of fits?)

[schneefink]

That's also a cool view! Maybe it would be much easier to enjoy the show without thinking about the worldbuilding behind it, but how could we get such nice theories otherwise? *g*

[sholio]

I've listened to a few episodes so far. It's a nice background thing to have on while I'm doing dishes or whatever, and I thought my husband might find it amusing (which he does -- and I do, too). But yeah -- the worldbuilding doesn't hold together at all, IMHO. It makes me think of Looney Tunes or something, where it's more like a series of small, entertaining jokes that aren't really meant to make sense, rather than something which is a coherent place that has emotional consistency between episodes. Which is why I guess I'm not really interested in fanfic (well, that and most of it hits my RPF squick, because Cecil Baldwin is the actual guy reading the scripts, and I'm just not into that), and I'm not really interested in marathoning it. An episode here or there when I need something distracting to listen to is about all I want of it.

[naye]

For me, it really worked marathoning it - mostly because I was stuck in the library doing stock check and bored to tears, and it was a great alternative to that. I don't think I would've been as hooked if I'd only listened to a couple of episodes...

But, yeah, the story telling is very episodic and random - I also follow the Night Vale Twitter, and the episodes are quite a lot like longer collections of those weird little random bits of dark humor with a bit of Eldritch horror thrown in for extra fun.

...it's not RPF, though? Because none of the fandom's many Cecils are anything like the real Cecil Baldwin (who, when he got a Facebook, started by filling it with Night Vale art he'd found on Tumblr!). Cecil Baldwin is a bald, tall, skinny guy and the Cecil in Night Vale is "neither tall, nor short, neither fat, nor thin" and wears a tie and that's all we know. Absolutely nobody at all is writing or drawing Night Vale Cecil as a NYC actor. (Who, BTW, really appreciates the relationship between Cecil and Carlos.) I have only glanced at the fic out there, but there's tons of gorgeous art, and literally none of it is of Cecil Baldwin if that helps. (Night Vale Cecil has no official last name, and I'm annoyed at the people who call him "Baldwin" because that really does make me think there's RP-something going on and that's weird.)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

I'm trained to make sense of worldbuilding full of holes! I've done it for years for (almost) every show I've ever watched and (almost) every book I've ever read. I'm good at handwaving things or finding workarounds or ignoring stuff. For some reason it doesn't work for me here, though. I'll probably enjoy the podcast much more when I give up trying to make sense of it - difficult, because my brain keeps wanting to come up with story ideas for some of their ridiculous stuff *g*

[doctorskuld.livejournal.com]

Nope nope nope, don't make sense of the world-building. That way madness lies, because the universe is comprehensibly abstract. That's never going to happen.

[naye]

This is a little bit of a spoiler, but for some of your questions, skip to episode 25 (One Year Later).

Also, I'm usually bothered by people dying in droves (a certain major SF movie that came out this year pretty much ended with a city being leveled and yet nobody cared?!) but I think in Night Vale it's just... A thing? Like. I'm usually bothered by gore, but I still laugh at the Black Knight sketch from Monty Python because it's just so absurd? And that's Night Vale, I think - you have to leave your normal expectations behind, and just buy into the concept.

Alternatively! This is a headcanon I've seen floated around: there is no horror happening in Night Vale; Cecil is just a very bored community radio operator who makes shit up because he knows nobody is listening but it really amuses the people of his little town when he uses their names for his outrageous stories. So nobody's really dying - Cecil is just a fantastic storyteller making up stories about whatever crosses his mind.

I don't know - you'd think I'd be bothered by Night Vale but I love it to the point where I'm on my third listen of it, and I love the absurd sense of humor and the slowly building plot lines (there are a couple of things that keep appearing over and over again) and Cecil and also the fact that Cecil's crush on Carlos is totally canon and no big deal at all. ♥

If you haven't yet, I'd recommend "The Sandstorm" (parts A & B) for a bit of Night Vale Does Cool Plot, and 15, "Street Cleaning Day" for actual reactions to the horror (the last couple of minutes), and 13, "A Story About You" for a lot of weirdness and no deaths that I can remember (a distant explosion?) . But mostly - don't think too much about it because none of it makes sense. It's like following the Night Vale Twitter - little doses of lots of weirdness without actual resolution.

Otherwise - there's no rule saying you have to like it. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing. And that's okay too. ♥

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the episode recs!

It's weird, but I'm not so much bothered by lots of people dying and more that it seems to be such a non-issue and what implies for their everyday lives. I usually love imagining the worlds of things I watch/read/listen to, building stories etc., but for Night Vale this one particular thing makes it impossible. I think I could handwave everything else, lots of practice... I might be taking it too seriously. I want the world to at least attempt to make sense, damnit *g* Maybe I'm just not in the mood for absurdity. Or absurdity + horror, because usually absurdity means more humor. Or maybe it's just not for me ;)

But I like the storyteller!Cecil headcanon too.

[naye]

Cecil being a storyteller and the townspeople keeping quiet about how many of them are listening to his show because then he'd get all self-conscious and go back to doing normal community radio stuff is kind of an adorable idea. ♥

I'll let you know if I ever find a fic that ties together things in a satisfying way - I don't think the show ever will. It's just not... that kind of story, I think? I enjoy it because I'm in it for the next hilarious absurdity (the city under the pin retrieval area of the Desert Bloom Bowling Alley And Arcade Fun Complex; the Glow Cloud first raining small animals - already dead! - on the town and then joining the PTA; Hiram McDaniels wanted for insurance fraud and oh also he's an 18-foot tall, 5-headed dragon) and Cecil's total infatuation with Carlos, and don't actually think too hard about how it all hangs together. Some things show up more than once, some are forgotten seemingly before the end of the episode they're mentioned in and never come up again.

But yeah, nobody really reacts to what's going on because that's just how things have always been and the town of Night Vale kind of changes constantly and doesn't make sense to anyone who isn't from there? Like their invisible, teleporting, multi-million clock tower and terrifying librarians and oh also parts of town are regularly decimated. This just happens and nobody cares very much and if you think too hard about that it just hurts your brain. (I've been listening to Night Vale mostly while doing other stuff - library stock check, train rides, internet browsing - so that helps with my not focusing on anything except the short-term bit.)

...talking about all of this has made me want some good, solid fic. XD

And it's always okay to not be into something! ♥ It's just what happens. Don't force yourself. *hugs*

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Focusing on the crazy thing of the week is probably the correct way to enjoy the show. I've found that saying "All Hail the Glow Cloud" at inappropriate moments in a dark voice can be a lot of fun xD

[naye]

"Remember - this is America! Vote correctly, or never see your loved one again" is a popular saying in our home whenever the latest real-life bit of unbelievable shit the US does/legislates comes up on the news.

Some of my other favorite things in Night Vale are the angels (the ones who live with Old Woman Josie, down by the car lot) that aren't real and only tell lies; Khoshekh, the cat stuck floating 4 feet over the floor in the men's room at the radio station; the Apache Tracker ("Can you believe he said he used 'ancient Indian magicks'? What an asshole!"); and again all stories involving the public library, just because. All of those are recurring things, so while there is no overarching plot to Night Vale, there are developments involving those same places/people/things.

ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD.

[doctorskuld.livejournal.com]

I want the world to at least attempt to make sense, damnit

One of the hallmarks of Lovecraftian horror is that Things don't make sense. As the consumer, you either buy that or you don't. One of the mainstays of the Lovecraftian view is that the universe is actually abstract and incomprehensible, and that the rational world we perceive as sane humans is a thin veneer enforced by our psyche.

The key to Lovecraftian horror isn't death/ghosts/corpses/gore, it's that humans have fragile minds and that understanding the alien and chaotic nature of the universe drives humans insane. Of course, since Night Vale is post-Lovecraftian, it incorporates some of the abstract randomness of Lovecraft's world (where things don't make sense in traditional logical or narrative fashions) and adds in some humor to make it enjoyable to a wider swath of listeners.

If you think Night Vale is going to Actually Make Sense, it never will. We will never know what What is Going On in Night Vale, because there is nothing unusual about Night Vale. Why things happen in Night Vale needs no explanation because everything is normal in Night Vale.

These two points are pretty important if you want to enjoy Welcome to Night Vale.

You either accept that (you're never going to figure out what's "wrong" with Night Vale, there will never be a coherent, linear narrative) and enjoy the rest of the series, or you don't, and you don't have to be into everything the internet is in.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Okay, but there's a difference between "the world doesn't make sense" and "the way the humans react to this world doesn't make sense", if we use our world's humans as a template. Everyone being insane actually makes it more plausible again. Except it makes me wonder about Carlos, because he seems to have arrived as the "normal" outsider to the insanity of Night Vale. Maybe there's some sort of mind control thing going on? ...aaand too much horror again *g* And if the humans in Night Vale are so different that they react so differently it makes it much harder for me to empathize with them.

Fun to speculate about, but probably not really my thing for more than occasional moments of boredom.

[sholio]

The Monty Python comparison makes a lot of sense to me! ... because that's really what the show feels like, that it's not supposed to make sense and you're not really supposed to think about what happens to these people or try to relate their lives to anything coherent or consistent. It's a black-humor sketch comedy that has recurring characters -- at least that's the level I'm relating to it on, I guess.

The idea that Cecil is an extremely bored small-town radio show host who is just pulling things out of his ass is absolutely hilarious, though. :D

[doctorskuld.livejournal.com]

I think one of the things about the horror in Night Vale, in the sort of post-Lovecraftian genre that it comes from is the concept that everything is normal. That's part of what makes it so amusing, and also so absurd, is that everything that happens in Night Vale is normal. It's normal to have the Sheriff's Secret Police, it's normal to be told by the City Council you don't know anything about the Celestial Hierarchy of Angels, and part of that is that people die and the population is decimated. I think that in a world as strange as Night Vale, death isn't the final be-all end-all of horror the way that it is in the real-life or film conception of horror, given what they live with on a regular basis. *shrugs* Either you buy into that kind of world or you don't. I dunno, I think that's amusing as part of the cosmic horror, but I guess to each his own. The Lovecraftian or post-Lovecraftian thing isn't for everyone.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

I'm probably thinking too much about it. But I also like my resurrection theory ;)
It might just be too much horror for me to really enjoy. I think I'll listen to a few more episodes and then see if I want to continue.