TW...to think celebrating Halloween and horror is outrageous

[Mamabear04]

TW for talking about the tragic accident that happened in Edinburgh yesterday evening.

I just don't understand why people celebrate Halloween or indulge in horror when the reality of it is just so awful. I mean there is enough horror in the world why would anyone want to celebrate violence and death? I know a lot of people will say that you can celebrate it in a happy way with nice costumes with songs, poems and sweets but at the heart of it, it does celebrate death and gore otherwise why would all the merch be skeletons and ghosts etc? That poor man in Edinburgh and his poor family and all the people who thought that the horrific incident was a Halloween prop. Why are people so disconnected from the reality of what it truly represents? I'm pretty sure hardly anyone celebrates Halloween as in the true sense of Samhaim as with other cultures with similar traditions. Everywhere I've looked for the past month just seems gore and death. Lots of people I follow on Instagram posting dress up of their kids in horror centred costumes and then in the next story it's about how awful all the death and destruction in Gaza. It just seems to bizarre to me. AIBU to just think with all the news, images, films at our finger tips that people just don't have a sense of the reality of things? That people are so numb to it?

We celebrate Samhain as pagans. We also love fun Tim Burton films and pumpkins and ghosts etc. Halloween in it's traditional sense is about remembering the dead hence the links with ghost ghouls and death. I really don't see the issue.

I think you're overthinking it tbh

Historical halloween in England stopped mostly and has come back in a different form. Rome wasn't celtic so it was a Christian 3 day event.

I lived in another country that carried on the original Halloween and we were looked at as odd for continuing the triduim here 20 plus years ago.

We didn't demand anyone join in, we just did our thing, lighting candles in a turnip and what not.

As long as joining in isn't compulsory and people get on with it in their own home, I can't see why anyone has an issue.

I think it’s separate things. It’s shocking that people not only film an accident/death and then share it, I don’t understand it at all. But that’s not to do with Halloween.

Even the first stories we tell our children involved the risk of death - big bad wolves, Peter Rabbit's father put in a pie etc. It's part of the fabric of life.

What happened??

I don't like blood and gore we do primative Halloween with cats and brooms, owls and spiders and bats

A man was decapitated by a coach on the street in Edinburgh. His head was a distance away from his body and was mistaken as a Halloween prop and picked up and dropped and mocked. There is video footage of this which has been shared across SM. And of his body too.

I don't really think kids dressed as witches or ghosts is celebrating gore and death.

As for horror - I love it. Social commentary in the 70s and 80s, biting satire in the 90s, twisty stuff in the 2000s. People like horror stories because it's a safe way to explore your fears and those of others, triggers adrenaline (like rollercoasters) and 9 times out of 10, the good guys win. It is absolute fiction.

Clearly this is awful, but to say people shouldn't enjoy Halloween and horror/horror films because of one isolated incident over the weekend is ridiculous.

@fourelementary seriously? Someone thought his head was a prop?! My gast is flabbered if this is true

I would recommend you avoid Nursery Rhymes too.

Oh god that’s terrible!

Yup. The video is all over SM. Don’t look!

I am sorry for the man's remains and hope he rests in peace soon, my thoughts are with his family and the people who thought he was a prop.

The thing is you have a small minority who brough back pagan stuff, you have the secular world that brough the American Pumpkin Halloween amd a minority who are sticking with an old fashioned Catholic Halloween, All saints, all souls day event.

People won't stop because of that horrible tragedy.

I have always struggled with this. A child l taught in school had her birthday at Halloween. As part of decorating for her party her parents had a miniature coffin brought into the house. I was horrified as anyone who has a real coffin ever in their house knows its dreadfully upsetting. I hate shopwindows decoded with gravestones etc. Why?? It's so dark and encouraging children to partake is awful.
I hadn't heard about Edinburgh but how absolutely awful.

I agree with you OP. The whole Halloween thing has become very commercialised with decorations and costumes everywhere. What's it actually all for? I don't get it. But then I can be a right old bah humbug!

It’s not that deep.

Thanks, how utterly awful!
When people say a coach I assume they mean the transport not an actual footy coach.

Yeah a coach as in a bus!

We love Halloween and it's a marking of the change of seasons

Initially it was a Catholic three day event that came from Rome not the celts. The celts made it their own. Some countries retain what it originally was. You had a turnip with a candle for a Jack represention and to trick evil you dressed up. Some dress up on All saints day as saints and have another party as its a fast day. People attend graves, hence grave stones and ghosts.

Because it's fun, and god knows we all need a bit more of that in our lives these days.

That's basically the opposite of every source on the history of Halloween that I can find (that seem to universally say that it was a Celtic festival appropriated by the early Catholic church).

That's awful

yes I find commercial Halloween grim

terrible story about Edinburgh. RIP to the poor chap.

The Catholic church was ruled in Rome, Rome wasn't celtic. If you look in Mexico and Poland, they all do things a little differently as did the celts.