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[AxMxK]

 Just What is He?

[The Sound Ninja]

Mind if I amend that? How he gathers Maskies and tries to reach out and touch his victims to do something to them suggests that he might be the embodiment of the fear of being alone along with a fear of the unknown.

He always seems to cause people to run away from their friends and families, cutting them off from the very support they would need to be able to get away and survive.

[Unwanted4Murder]

In several of the original Slender Man posts on SA, he was described as leaving bodies impaled on sticks, and taking out organs, shoving them in plastic bags, then putting them back into peoples' dead bodies... so the part about not knowing whether he kills them or not isn't entirely true in all cases.

[AxMxK]

[The Count of Tuscany]

You know what's funny? While reading through this post, I felt the urge to post "tl;dr Slenderman is humanities collective fear taken to physical form". Then I noticed you were going in the exact same direction as I was.

But to elaborate, I'd personally say, yes he is the embodiment of fear itself. But not to those who have not yet felt such fear. Not until one takes on the fear. Through the eyes of the brave and the sane, I'd go as much as to say he will never appear.

But why then does he appear on camera? Well that's the part of my theory where it becomes debunked, unless you wish to go as far as every Slenderman mythos based series plays on the audiences fear, and this alone being the reason he shows up on film. (weak argument, yes. But valid.)

[Aperion]

More than that

[Unwanted4Murder]

[The Count of Tuscany]

Re: More than that

[SticktheFigure]

[Aperion]

Re: More than that

[AxMxK]

Hmm... To address the whole bodies issue:

While some stories involve finding mutilated bodies of the victims, I personally prefer to run under the idea that we don't know what happens to them, as they disappear. Googling Slender Man, the first two links essentially say the same thing about the topic:

"Whether he absorbs, kills, or mearly takes his victims to an undiclosed location or dimension is also unknown as there are never any bodys or evidence left behind in his wake to deduce a definite conclusion."

And I personally run under this assumption; that there are no bodies left in his wake. Not to say that this is "official" or anything, but it appears to be popular belief?

HOWEVER if we DO assume that bodies are sometimes found, mutilated as such, I don't personally believe that Slender Man HIMSELF is responsible for the organic remains left in the way they are. I would like to think that certain individuals, driven mad from the fear and perhaps previous victims that have "disappeared" are doing these sadistic and serial killer-esque things, believing it might somehow appease Slender Man. Fear can make people do strange things.

I guess the reason I run under the first assumption is that I simply cannot picture Slender Man actually killing then disemboweling a person, then putting things in bags. It's easier for me to see an individual whose mind has broken under the fear (think of a mixture of a deranged Evan a totheark) killing a person, then bagging the organs, thinking it would somehow sate Slender Man.

I know that Slender Man lore is for the most part left up to the interpretation of the individual. So, out of curiosity, I ask you, do you believe he kills them and mutilates the bodies, or is he simply indirectly responsible for the victims vanishing from the face of the Earth?

[Das Omega]

From a meta perspective, it makes sense that Slender Man would appear to be the embodiment of human fears, due to his existence as a collaborative work. Instead of just being based upon a single author's fears, he is based upon everyone's fears. Sometimes a new idea will be added on, and if most people find it scary enough, it will stick. On the other hand, occasionally something that only a few people find scary will be left out in most other stories, until it isn't used at all. Kinda like a natural selection for his abilities, where only the ones which the majority of people consider scary remain.

As for whether he actually tears apart the victims, I'd say he does. There are quite a few stories where the author actually sees Slendy physically attacking a person. Although there is no explanation right now for how he decides who he kills and who he has vanish.

[AxMxK]

Would anyone like to offer their own personal theory behind Slender Man?

I've heard many, from inter-dimensional being, to "an idea brought to life through sheer belief."

TELL ME THEM.

[Dray]

AxMxK, I will have to write this up more thoroughly when I have my book out to quote from, but if you have read Joseph Campbells 'Hero With 1000 Faces', the correlation between Slender Man and the Beyond/Other/Outside is a very strong one.

Campbell speaks initially of a duality between time/eternity, space/infinity, creation/destruction, conscious/unconscious, the latter of which is often a place from which spring all of our fears. In the monomyth, the hero must challenge a dragon (or an antagonist of some kind) in order to delve into this darkness, outsideness, other realm beyond our conception. Once there, he must past tests and increasingly more harrowing instances before he can achieve his goal. (In the monomyth, Campbell suggests that the goal is often a sacred marriage or an atonement with the father, both of which are chatter for making amendments and obtaining a prize.) Once he's managed to obtain his prize, the hero is then either guided by the benevolent creatures of this other place back to civilization, or in the case of the creatures being malignant, must take flight in order to escape them. The hero, on reaching civilization, takes this prized elixir to renew humanity.

While Slender Man is an embodiment of the gatekeeper to the depths of the unknown, I think that he's also a personification of this place. The destroyed basements and buildings that we see in many of the SM Mythos stories are very similar to the 'otherness' of the monomyth; I would argue also that SM is the ogre-father that Campbell speaks of an atonement. Many people have wondered why SM just stands around. Some have mentioned that it often seems that he's offering to hug those that he takes with him. He embodies an atonement with the father, who is also a terrifying monster.

The part where the SM Mythos diverges from the monomyth is the flight back to consciousness/civilization. As of yet, all of the characters that we see disappear somewhere in the stages of harrowing tests. They go crazy, they disappear and don't post again. 'The Ark' could be said to be the elixir which the hero must bring back to renew humanity, and it's not being found. There is a disconnect.

For whatever reason, the Slender Man is not only a force of the unknown/subconscious/eternity, he is a force that is blocking the renewal of of humanity. Instead of a parable or a happy ending, we're left instead with only a mystery.

Hurp durp TL;DR: Slondormons is half of the cosmogenic cycle and is kicking our asses in a way that stories haven't in the past. :I

[5_pak]