How many times have we groaned at a character who refuses to listen to the protagonist? How many times have we shuddered at the sight of a corrupt leader who leads his people into a chasm of death, so much so that once they climb out there’s nothing left of them? What about that forgettable character, the one who blatantly ignores common sense and, in the next thirty seconds, will get themselves killed? How much pain has been caused, in both literature and reality, from people who allowed their arrogance to get in the way?

For the longest time, pride has been used by horror writers to convey the most chilling aspects of humanity. Pride is, after all, one of the seven deadly sins, and can lead people to do things they would otherwise not even consider. Ego plays a powerful role in a character’s actions, and once it takes over, the character is reckless and volatile, so much so that if they don’t achieve their goals, they’re prone to bouts of madness. It can lead them to fear the ordinary, indulge in the darkest corners of their hearts, even though they know better. These are the kinds of aspects that have crippled the minds of the sane, who could only guess at what the psychotic dream about. However, this pride can also destroy common sense, block out our survival instincts, and trap us in a conflict of our own making. 

In the movie Pet, the main character tries to save a girl who has killed over and over again because she fell in love with the carnage. In Insidious, Josh Lambert strayed too far trying to find his son in a demonic realm called the Further, all the while endeavoring to stand up to the Bride in Black, and thus allowing her to take control of his body. In Appel’s The Mask of Sanity, the narrator decides to kill his colleague after catching him in an affair with his wife, but not because he was angry, but because he had an excuse to do so. In Flower’s Feast, a woman goes after Titus’s business, blindly ignoring the fact that her sons were missing, and were, thus, subsequently being fed to her. In Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, Dr. Faustus allowed his pride to make a deal with the devil and, in exchange for power, he lost his own soul. This pride isn’t even limited to horror: in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the Capulets and Montagues played a role in their children’s death, not even wanting to reconcile, and thus allowing their children to play into their recognizable tragedy. 

The characters in these works were blinded by vanity. It’s because of that foolishness that many characters were led into the most horrific situations. It’s what leads men to forsake their own sanity, what leads them to push away their innocence and instead pleasure themselves in decadence, what lets humanity turn away from having faith in their loved ones, or even in themselves, in order to save whatever face they have left. And it’s that arrogance that allows those horrors to manifest in their minds, the paranoia feeding off them like a parasite. It’s this very sin that haunts readers. No matter how much the reader shouts, or screams, or begs that somehow the character would see their own follies, in the end their pleas will fall on deaf ears.