unforum

[Lithp]

It'll be the Entry I've Been Waiting For when The Operator actually attacks someone.

[Teedub]

Well, to be fair, it is sort of implyed that The Operator attacked Alex in Entry #14. It is also implyed again during Tim's crazy trip in #65.

[FalloutGhoul]

[Geneaux486]

[CraicIsMighty]

I think it would probably be detrimental to show TO doing too much. If the way he moves or attacks ends up looking silly then you just end up making him look comical instead of threatening and scary.

[The Condor]

[Geneaux486]

Subtlety is key with Slenderman. He's that thing you can't understand, that shouldn't be able to exist, that you can't get rid of, that you think you see out the corner of your eye all the time, that might be driving you insane directly or indirectly. I've never seen an active, mobile Slenderman that looked scary.

[Teedub]

I agree 100%. The Operator shouldn't be associated with humanity; however, the opening of the door in Entry #14 is my only exception. They pulled it off quite well.

[The Condor]

[Geneaux486]

It's the Operator. Alex is in his bed at the time.

[Lithp]

[Geneaux486]

[Jingleman]

Regarding the Operator as a threatening entity, it seems to me that it comes down to, in the first place, what the Operator actually is and what he wants from his victims, and in the second place, the degree to which we're willing to impute possible indirect supernatural effects to the consideration of the danger of the Operator himself.

First, we don't know what the Operator wants from his victims or what he is doing to them in the process that we don't see. Because we have so little information about the Operator and his goals, it's difficult to say whether, for example, the Operator acts or intends to act identically toward every person who he encounters, or whether he chooses different people for different purposes. The uncertainty about these sorts of issues is part of the menace, but it also makes it difficult to quantify the threat to any particular person.

Second, there are a number of secondary or indirect effects that are not absolutely certain to be attributable to the Operator. For example, if we accept the proposition that the Operator is the root cause of all of Tim's mental issues, then we could view the situation as the Operator continually torturing Tim in a very literal sense over the course of decades. There are more subtle effects, like the (possibly entirely natural) long-term psychological effects of being stalked. We've seen personalities change and characters slide into varying levels of paranoia and teeter on the edge of insanity. Those threats, if we accept them as legitimate, are potentially orders of magnitude more dangerous than a physical attack.

Speaking of physical attacks, we should consider the possibility that a number of the physical attacks we've seen from other characters, like Alex, have occurred under the direction or influence of the Operator. Again, we know very little about how he works, and the degree to which we ought to be attributing these secondary effects to him, but it's something to discuss.

If they do choose to show a direct attack, I think simplicity should be the order of the day. The Operator doesn't need to touch anything; the characters just need to start writhing in agony around him while the cameras distort a little. Darth Vader just had to point at somebody to choke them, and I think that sort of minimalist technique works well in the Marble Hornets aesthetic.

[Toadbert]

I get the feeling that the "presence to the Operator" thing is what causes Tim to cough up blood, in fact, I'm pretty sure of it. #65, he's keeled over in the tunnel coughing his lungs out.

The blood in the sink was definitely a scary thing back when I first saw it. More scenes of the Operator causing people to bleed would amp up his scare factor a lot, I think.

[Geneaux486]

There's the coughing, the blood, the coughing up of blood, and the fact that he turns people into murderers. And those are the people he seems to like.