Articles The Silence and the Slender Man by DJ Forrest

When I first saw the beings that were The Silence something in me sparked a memory of having seen this creature somewhere before, and it wasn’t until I started to do some research on the internet that I found out why I had heard of it.  On a forum http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Slender_Man_in_Mythology_and_Culture I found The Slender Man, a being who was dressed like the Men in Black, which to all intents and purposes is just like The Silence. 

People who witnessed The Slender Man or Der GroBmann would never be seen of again, which set me wondering, if perhaps Steven Moffat had taken the idea of The Silence from this being, there were definitely some similarities.  Both freakishly haunting in character, both with the ability of removing someone from the face of the earth, to what their intention was, is unclear, but if you saw The Slenderman, your time on the planet was limited.  Although it was fully created from a group of people on a forum, it did give lend to an ideal that somewhere in German folklore this creature could exist, and for a while it did give me some pretty scary stories that presented themselves in my brain, firmly planting my character in a scary scenario that will one day grace these pages.

But what of The Silence?  A creation in the mind of the writer the Men in Black characters were first introduced in Doctor Who in the opening trailer of the 2011 episode of ‘The Impossible Astronaut.’ 

Quoting from Tardis.wikia.com

The Silence was a religious order who considered themselves the "Sentinels of History". They tried to kill the Doctor to prevent the fruition of a specific prophecy, which stated: "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered."

Last year I wrote a story that involved my character, a young man who was desperate to prove himself, and he had been working tirelessly on one particular investigation, but Jack, his boss, who feared he had discovered something he couldn’t handle, tried to dissuade him from investigating further, only The Slender Man had now manifested itself within his thoughts and he couldn’t shake them, he was scared, could see these figures where ever he looked, and for a while it got inside of my head, and the weeping willow tree in a neighbours garden did begin to take on the creepy form of the Slender Man.  So I stopped writing that particular story, yet despite knowing that this creature didn’t really exist, didn’t help.  For years while watching Doctor Who I have been spooked by the most unusual objects and will now not walk through a graveyard in the daylight, which at one time seemed the ideal time to walk through one, but now since Steven Moffat created another freakishly scary monster, who only moved when you looked away, I have to run or avoid statues altogether, no longer wishing to stand beside one in case I disappear to some obscure past. 

But Steven Moffat’s Silence is very striking, the Men in Black suits, the bulbous heads and the sunken eyes had been partially based on the Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, but only partially, so had Steven’s ideas also been based around the ideas of a group of people on the aforementioned forum?

Although The Silence has never been involved in a Torchwood storyline before, it doesn’t mean to say that Jack Harkness has never actually witnessed them before, because people who have seen them forget once they look away. 

This week (28/5/13) I asked the fans which of the two creatures created by Steven Moffat scared them more – Weeping Angels or The Silence.  In a unanimous vote on Facebook AND on Twitter it seems that the Weeping Angels took the majority of the votes for being the scariest of creatures created by Steven Moffat. 

In the comment box below please feel free to tell us at Project: Torchwood which scared you the most?  For me it has to be the Weeping Angels, but the Silence still fascinates me and always will. 

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Silence Source information including website adhering to the Slender Man

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