The 5 Greatest Books With Psychotic Fanbases
#2.
The Collector - Serial Killers
The Classic Book
The Collector by John Fowles is the chilling story of Frederick Clegg, a socially inept loser who collects butterflies. Creeeepy, right?
Oh, and girls.
He collects girls, too. But mostly the butterfly thing.
In the story he kidnaps and locks a girl in his house, but struggles with the morality of his baser urges that push him to abuse her. Ultimately, he manages to resist his psychosis and not rape or murder her, though she tragically dies of pneumonia anyway.
We guess the moral is, "Why bother not murdering - nature's gonna get 'em anyway."
The Offenders
If you found yourself nodding quietly along with that previous statement, you're probably a serial killer. Because that's exactly what they got out of the story: Load's of them took inspiration from Clegg's actions, except that they actually did all the fucked up shit that he abstained from. Take Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, who have an estimated body count of 25. They dubbed their spree "Operation Miranda" after a character in Fowles's book, documenting their crimes in a series of videotapes and diaries. Christopher Wilder, another spree killer of women, had the book on him when he was shot by the FBI. Robert Bordella took inspiration from the film version of The Collector, killing six young men. But all the other serial killers laugh at him; the book-motivated murders were way better than the movie-motivated ones.
Why the Bullshit Interpretation is Exactly That
The Collector was intended as a cautionary tale about the divisions of class in our society, and the dangers of power becoming available to people who are too untrustworthy to handle it. It was in no way a glorification of kidnap or murder. In fact, Fredrick Clegg, the anti-hero of Fowles's novel, repeatedly disapproves of physically harming or sexually abusing his captive--only wanting to be loved by her. The killers who took inspiration from the novel are the exact kind of people which Fowles was warning of: Complete lunatics who abuse the power that they're allowed.
Which is pretty much to be expected of serial killers. You'd just figure that, of all the many things they insist tell them to kill--from Son of Sam's dog to John Wayne Gacy's catalogue of ICP albums--a book whose central message is "try not to kill people" wouldn't be that high up there.
#1.
Lolita - Millions of Pedophiles
The Classic Book
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is the story of the unfortunately named Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged professor who's also basically a deranged pedophile. Humbert kidnaps a young girl, Lolita, and travels the country with her, until she runs off with another middle-aged man. Man, talk about jumping out of the pot-bellied frying pan and into the hair-plugged fire, right?
Oh, and then everybody dies.
The kids will love it.
The Offenders
Japanese pedophiles.
Japan--presumably struggling to outdo its long and storied tradition of mind-boggling lunacy--has a booming "lolicon" industry. That's a portmanteau of "Lolita complex" and, yes, it's porn. Obviously. It is Japan after all.
The term specifically refers to animated pornography that depicts children in an erotic context. Even more disturbing? The volume: Almost half of the animated porn released in Japan every year (which is like, all of it. They seriously love to hump cartoons in the Land of the Rising Sun) fits comfortably into the lolicon genre. Though the studies aren't exactly concrete, many do suggest that the prevalence of lolicon in Japan has reportedly led to significantly increased sex crime rates against children and teens.
Why the Bullshit Interpretation is Exactly That
The message of Lolita is hardly "pedophiles are awesome!"
In fact, it's pretty much the exact fucking opposite. Remember how everybody dies and all? We don't know how the translation was handled, but we're pretty sure the Japanese version didn't end with all the characters laughing and leaping into the air for an '80s sitcom style freeze-frame. Most of the interpretations of Nabokov's famous novel point to Humbert being a gigantic collection of dick-shaped blobs--a completely and utterly reprehensible human being that should by no means be emulated. Nabokov himself even hated the character, as evidenced by the fact that he wrote him as a goddamn pedophile.
For more crazy fans, check out 6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Great Movies Better. Or find out about some assassination attempts that blow the mind, in The 6 Most Utterly Insane Attempts to Kill a US President.
Last entry was a disappointing end to this article. What studies? And why even mention them when they're "not exactly concrete"? I'm also curious about how there's no links to the supposed (exclusively Japanese?) paedophiles who think Lolita champions paedophilia, when all other entries have had them and even mentioned specific crazy people who thought the other books supported them.
ReplyHow Thorpe assumes all "lolicons" to love the book and even have read the thing is beyond me. That's like saying everyone with an Oedipus complex is familiar with Greek mythology and thinks the myth encourages boning one's mother.
The biggest draw of lolicon (and by extension, shotacon) materials is, I think, cuteness. It's not, "Oh god, s/he's a child, FAP FAP FAP" but rather "Oh god, s/he's so cuuuuuuuuute, FAP FAP FAP". Flandre from Touhou is almost five-hundred years old but that doesn't stop porn being made about her.
Tolkien was a conservative Catholic who did show some broad sympathy to the fascist cause in the Spanish civil war, primarily because he saw them as champions of the Catholic church in Spain. Obviously it's a huge leap from that to seeing 'The Lord of the Rings' as Neo-Nazi (not least because it's wedded to a notion of English landscape and national identity that was literally under threat from Nazism while the book was being written) but Tolkien's sympathies were at least one of the factors that led to his increasing estrangement from C.S. Lewis.
Reply"Seuss intended Horton Hears a Who to serve as an allegory for the American post-war occupation of Japan,..."
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesAre you kidding? Look at the political cartoons that Seuss drew during the war. He championed American involvement and the internment of Japanese Americans. I'd really like to see a credible reference that even suggests that the American occupation of Japan had anything to do with the writing of "Horton..."
Um, try the Wikipedia article for one reference, and their first listed reference for another.
Stivali - wikipedia is not a reference.
OliverCromwell- Aren't you dead?
I love this, I thought they all were hilarious -- except #1 didn't quite click. I've read Lolita, and I know that lolicon exists, but I don't think lolicon lovers are exactly a huge deranged fanbase of the book. It probably got its name from it, but people who are fans of lolicon aren't necessarily fans of the book at all, and I don't know that there are a lot of people in or out of Japan who use the book in their defense if busted for pedophilia.
ReplyOther than that love this.
Agreed regarding Lolita. Japan has all those "Lolita" teen fashion subcultures for the lolicon nuts to feed off instead. Also the other books are misappropriated in some dumb way, but Lolita is a different kettle of head-dip. You're in HH's head and he eloquently justifies himself on every page. You have to want to hate him. Which pedophiles and narcissists might forget to do.
Agreed regarding Lolita. Japan has all those "Lolita" teen fashion subcultures for the lolicon nuts to feed off instead. Also the other books are misappropriated in some dumb way, but Lolita is a different kettle of head-dip. You're in HH's head and he eloquently justifies himself on every page. You have to want to hate him. Which pedophiles and narcissists might forget to do.
I am bored. So I am going to go on about how a random children's book is propaganda used by scientologists.
ReplyThe book Artemis Fowl is ancient astronaut propaganda. On an episode of "Ancient Aliens" entitled "Underground Aliens", they discuss the topic of a sentient racies of creatures "protecting the planet" that appear "alien" and have cities. They also go into details of their technology, such as Laser guns and UFOs.
Artemis Fowl is about an Irish kid that is bored, so he feels like surfing the internet. Instead of finding things like porn or this webiste, he somehow discovers that there's a race of fairies that live in the center of the earth. So he does what any Irish kid with a bunch of cash and a seven-foot tall bodyguard would do: kidnap a fairy and ransom it to the fairy government. If this does not sound like a story about a pedophile, look at a picture of the author, Eoin Colfer. (The same guy that wrote the sixth Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
Might I mention that these "fairies" have a civilization that predates humans by thousands of years, have been protecting the earth, have UFO like ships, and laser guns.
Or maybe the History channel is REALLY running out of material, so they are trying to take stories from Irish children's books and take up air time trying to show how they are plausible. Oh, and the book was published almost a decade before Ancient Aliens ever came on view.
Wow, I should write a topic here on how that book is scientologist propaganda.
That did not make any sense. At all.
I know it can't be on this list.. but the misinterpretation of the movie Scarface by idiots everywhere infuriates me!
ReplyPeople actually used "Horton Hears a Who" to support a pro-life agenda? Wow, that's one of the DUMBEST interpretations for a children's book ever. I don't know about how it represents the US occupation of Japan though.
ReplyThey f*****g say "A person's a person no matter how small" ALL THE f*****g TIME!! I can't stand pro-life psychos.
Lolita is one great mind-fuck of a book. Nabokov was an effing genius.
ReplyI'm going to see how many FBI watchlists I can get on by buying The Collector, Catcher in the Rye, Lolita, and the Ragnar Benson collection. Wish me luck!
ReplyIf you get on more than six you get a free trip to Cuba. I'm only on two but I'm keeping my eyes on the prize
Isn't there some sort of boxed set I can order on Amazon?
"Horton is not a book about abortions. These notions are distortions; they're heaping portions of deciduous contortions piled high with a side of whamdiddly dodortions."
ReplyIt took more cues than I'm willing to admit to realize that wasn't a real quote. Well played, Cracked. Well played.
I must live under a rock or something because the only other time I've heard of 'The Collector' was Criminal Minds 'The Fisher King Quest' episodes (which, after reading this, make more sense).
ReplyIts also one of the only films to have a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomato.
I agree with madplatypus: not all anti-abortionists are crazy or psychotic. We have our opinions (both political and spiritual) as do pro-abortionists. Seuss' classic tale is a clear story of honoring the dignity of life-whatever form that life may take. In the case of his era, j*panese-Americans subjected to internment camps. The beauty of a classic story is that it is timeless and yet personal to each era. Seuss had great respct for children and the learning process, so I cannot imagine he wouldn't have seen the Whos as children in general. But the story can be applied to other areas as well. And I always use it in class to teach about respect for life and for fellow man, no matter the age, development, religious/political-persuasion or citizenship.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesPost-war allegory. POST-war. As in, after the war when the internment camps were closed up and the US was occupying Japan. Please try not to co-opt my national history to your personal agenda.
If we can take the Constitution, a document written over 200 years ago, and apply its language to a variety of problems that its framers could not have foreseen (which we do, and with good reason), then I see no reason why the message of a book written just over 50 years ago can't be used the same way.
No, you are f*****g crazy. Stop f*****g trying to snatch pop culture to support your anti-woman, control freak agenda. You can have respect for life without being a d*****t or vilifying women who choose abortion.
...SIx books that don't really have f**king fanbases; that's not what this f**king thing is about in reality, instead it's about twisted d*****ts who either a: misunderstood the material, or b: were pretty much independent of the material, and it would just be cool to make f**king s**t up, based on some unusually correlating "conspiratorial" lines.
ReplyWow, that's completely unreadable.
That is one hell of an unreadable, run-on sentence. Get rid of the George Carlin photo; he's ashamed of you.
The way I see it, LotR was inspired by WWII but Tolkien hated Alagory so he messed with it my making the tall blone white people and the Germanic horse riding people the good guys and the Africans and Orcs the bad guys, athough he also gave Saruman voice-based powers and an interest in war machines and breeding programs.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesKinda like how Starship Troopers III was made durin the War on Terror, yet it made the RELIGIOUS people the ANTI-war ones. (Then again I'm probably giving that movie too much credit.)
I think you're giving proper grammar & spelling too much credit.
ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?
To be fair, Alagory did steal Tolkien's girlfriend.
No, it has more to do with the previous 1500+ years of European history. Usually the invaders, weather Huns, Mongols, Magyars, Goths, ect, came from the east, were shorter than the Europeans, and had slightly darker skin.
The only thing I wanted to kill after reading Catcher in the Rye was Holden Caulfield. The world had only just survived WWII and this kid is whiny about not being the centre of the universe. He was the sign of what was to come when the babyboomers came of age in the sixties. Not all of them are like Caulfield but most of them where/are.
ReplyI agree! Holy crap, did that book suck. I read it for the first time in fifth grade as an idiot ten year and didn't like it. Then I read it again in my Honors English class for a research paper sophomore year of high school and the paper was basically me trashing it in the most veiled, objective way possible. Because he's that much of a whinny bastard.
Isn't calling us pro-lifers psychotic a bit of a stretch, in comparison with Neo-Nazis and things? Sure, some of us get rather heated up about it, which would only make sense seeing as we believe abortion is murder. But still, comparing us with Neo-Nazi's, and even putting us as more psychotic then them is just sad.
Reply Hide All See All 12 RepliesAbortion clinic bombings.
Well, yeah, notice the article didn't even mention that.
He probably felt he didn't have to, since that's what everybody was already thinking.
Let me see if I understand. Of the millions of pro-life Christians in the world, four or five go bats**t insane and think bombing an abortion clinic or shooting an abortion doctor is okay, and for that you condemn the entire movement as nuts?
Actually, I follow your logic. I'm in complete agreement with you. From now on, muslims should no longer be allowed to fly on airplanes or gather in groups. After all, if FIVE OR SIX anti-abortion Christians are representative of THEIR ENTIRE FAITH AND MOVEMENT, then certainly the hundreds and hundreds of terrorist and insurgent trained muslims are themselves indicative of their faith and movement, right?
More muslims participated in the 9/11 attacks than Christians have participated in abortion killings, so they present a stronger representative sample than the relatively few anti-abortionites out there.
It's so cute how liberals try to make points sometimes.
And your attempt at using logic is simply precious, Chris, since you're saying that lumping all Muslims together like that would be a crazy right-wing satire of liberal treatment of abortion clinic bombers, when in fact, millions of right-wingers made the exact same point in seriousness about a decade ago - and have done so ever since then.
At best, you could point out that those who commented earlier were doing the same things that conservative retards have been doing for years. That'd be closer to being legit. Pretending that it's something only a liberal would think up, though, just makes you look like a f**king idiot looking smug while spouting bulls**t. Which doesn't seem entirely inaccurate.
But even then, it's not quite right. They were lumping them all together to call them 'psychotic'. You're attempting to make an equivalence not by calling names, but actually taking action against them. Anyone with a brain would realize that that's apples and oranges.
Earlier comments: Pro-lifers have bombed abortion clinics and killed people, I'm going to call them crazy.
You: Islamic extremists committed terrorist acts and killed people, I'm going to remove their constitutional right to assemble, and make it more difficult for them to travel.
If you think that these two are on par with each other, you're absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid. And if you realize that it's bulls**t, but were just hoping that no one else would catch it, then you might well have a career in the Republican party. Either way, you're incapable of making a legitimate, honest point, and your smugness while failing to do so is . . . about what I'd expect from a right-wing nutjob.
But on the other hand, when someone here in this thread (that isn't a sock puppet) says that abortion clinic bombings clearly mean that pro-lifers shouldn't be allowed to assemble any longer, and should all be required to stay a certain distance from any building where abortions are performed, then you'll have a legitimate point. Until then, maybe you should try thinking harder (if that's actually possible for a conservative) until something actually accurate pops into your tiny, right-wing brain.
There was nothing saying ALL pro-lifers are psychotic. Just the ones slavering over Horton Hears a Who like it's the second f**king Bible.
@ChrisRivan your line about 4 0r 5 "bats**t insane" people ruining it for everyone else is quite an exaggeration don't you think? Since no one said anything about every pro-lifer being a nut job except you and madplatypus
It's so stupid how conservatives try to blow everything out of proportion sometimes
As a Kansan, I have to say that comparing "pro-lifers" with Neo-Nazi's is not that big of a stretch. Our world famous clinic that provides women with this service has seen untold threats, bombings, & most disturbingly the shooting of Dr. Tiller AT HIS CHURCH. The only way anti-abortionists (this is the correct term) are not psychotic is that most of them have some idea of what they are doing. They aren't crazy, only misguided and following a tribalist mentality
It is nuts, because anybody who is actually educated on abortion at all is pro-choice.
I'm sorry, pro lifers, but in America law abiding citizens should have their rights. If a woman chooses early in her pregnancy to abort, that is her RIGHT. Just as it's another's right to choose adoption or to raise their child. You have the right to disagree of course, but I don't think anyone should have the right to take away others' rights, as long as those rights aren't harmful to a person who really should just keep their nose out of other people's business.
This article didn't refer to pro-lifers as psychotic. It referred to RABID pro-lifers as psychotic. There is a huge difference between a person with a moral objection to the termination of a pregnancy and an insane, slobbering lunatic who is so against it that he finds it perfectly acceptable to utterly destroy anyone who disagrees with him. Perhaps the majority of people who insist that Horton Hears a Who is anti-abortion aren't going to go out and bomb clinics and/or commit murder, but they are twisting something innocent towards their cause. It's not as destructive, but it's a step in that direction.
I'm not here to point fingers, and yes, some of you are reasonable. Sadly, the vast majority of anti-choicers, along with any other group on the 'right', are just babbling lunatics who believe fairy tales define reality.
Look. If you don't want an abortion, don't have a goddamn abortion. If you do want one, go ahead and have one. WHAT THE HELL IS SO DIFFICULT ABOUT THIS? I feel like just to be smart I have to be liberal because I don't hate gays, I feel women should get choices, I'm not Christian and I know Obama is not a f*****g Kenyan! Conservatives: If any of you out there are actually good people, SAVE YOUR PARTY! PLEASE!
And seriously, people? Fuckin' HORTON? Go to hell. The place you believe is for gays, Jews, blacks, and pretty much anyone.
The problem with #5 is that "everybody dies" is in no way a deterrence or negative message in j*panese culture. Their literature and drama has been in love with death for a long time, to the point where "and then the lovers commit dramatic suicide in order to spite everybody" is actually considered a BETTER ending than "and they lived happily ever after," because getting old and wrinkly is not as romantic as dying young and pretty.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesWhile people in real life j*panese society don't off themselves quite as much as their books and plays suggest, still, there is no way in which a book ending in "And then everybody dies" would be taken as a NEGATIVE message. Hell, if anything it's stamping the relationship with approval.
Actually, I take it back. This isn't really a problem with entry #5 so much as it is a problem with j*pan.
Doesn't j*pan have a suicide forest? So yeah, they do off themselves alot.
I would like to see the neo-nazi's off themselves.
suicide is deeply ingrained in j*panese culture, yes. the real evidence to the condemnation of pedophilia is in the narrative structure. seriously, read it
So you guys are like, really racist and stuff.
too true. I have never seen a Japanese (or Asian romantic movie for that matter), where the lovers didn't both die, or one die , or somebody leaves . It's never happily ever after
You're only partially correct. A suicide in Japan is seen as a huge apology as in "I'm sorry, I won't embarrass you any further". There are stories about forbidden lovers committing suicide but they're no different from Romeo and Juliet (then again, Romeo and Juliet killed themselves over a plan that didn't go well).
Another thing, according to Wikipedia, the characters dies in different ways. I'm assuming the article implied that the remaining characters died of natural causes and the other died resulting from a murder. I don't think their deaths are that relevant to Japan's notion about suicide.
*"notion about suicide" should be "notion about death".
Is it sad that I know that girl in the Lolita entry is reading Goblet of Fire?
ReplyAnyway, the fanbases seem to be four kinds of folks with murderous intent and one kinda loopy political faction. If they'd evened it out with, say, the people who think Sherlock Holmes was a real person, and a generic label for anybody who has projected their own distinctly modern notions onto Shakespeare, it'd be more of a grab bag.
At your question: no, it is actually kind of impressive.
As long as you didn't fap to her.
There's so many things wrong with the Lolita entry:
Reply Hide All See All 5 Replies1) There is no "booming" lolicon industry. It's all a niche market.
2) j*pan didn't even invent the slang lolita. Lolicon, yes but not lolita.
3) A lot of j*panese are aware of what the novel was about. Lolicon was suppose to have a negative context.
4) That link is horribly vague.
5) Correlation =/= Causation
Lolita isn't the slang...it's the name of the book and the character.
uuhh ya I'm sure most can assume 1 is an exaggeration genius (comedy site remember?) and I'm sure 3 too because again comedy site and most people know j*panese people aren't total dumbasses d:
I get what ergeis is trying to say, as well as WizardFlowrite's point. We are all aware that this is indeed a comedy site, but there's something about how #1 is written that is a bit off. It's like it's saying the book is the cause of the whole lolicon niche market in Japan.
I forgot about this comment until today and I have no idea if any of you are still here but here goes:
>SuperLawyer: According to Webster, it is a separate slang word from lolicon and its use was inspired by the book.
>WizardFlowrite: Right. That argument again. You do realize that this is the same site that is convinced that the bestiality restaurant was real (which by the way was actually a joke written by the Japanese version of Cracked)? Besides, over the years this site is more about trivia than jokes.
>mushrooom: Bingo.
Arg, stupid formatting.
A: None of this s**t has anything to do with fans, jackass. It just has to do with d*****ts who woulvd've spent time doing similar rascist thinngs, anyway. and C: Lord of the Rings was a commentary on the f**king Nazis, not an instruction manual on how to be one (just decided to chuck this one out, as yet another fun-filled, intelligent fact you can (oft. untentionally, so like comedy) learn from me)B: the people protesting aren't necessarily anything other than s**theads like the above, or just people to simply misinterpreted the f**kin' film. So how does any of that lead to fans, why make any kind of hellf**kin' association like that, when I could do the same thing with kids, blacks, vampires, or pretty much any other kind of group? Plenty of this s**t is covered by s**tloads of other people who sometimes are valid, but regardless, they don't make the kinds of excess bulls**t assumptions the guy who created this article, among several other people, have made. To the guy who wrote this: YOu got some things right, but not much else, and all of you who make the aforementioned f**k-ups: f**king die, you all feed each other.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesEverybody sing with him. A, C, B,O,F, T, L....
Really bro? A, C, B? Hellfuckin? Vampires? Quit crack, then we'll talk.
Yeah, Meteo, you really have to learn logic. That made no sense. None. The point of the article is misinterpretations, so, yeah, LOTR was taken as fascist propaganda because it was a misinterpretation. Before you up and insult something, read into the context of the article and making death threats by telling him to "fucking die" is less providing an argument and more proving that you never had one in the first place. Your entire argument was just...no. Just no.
Its really sad when you see a cussing, thumbs down comment, then scroll further down to see another, longer, more cussing, more thumbs down comment and realize that the second one was a second try.