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*