我的问题：
Dear Emily.
Hello~~~~Miss Carroll.My name is Jasmine.Nce to meet
you(on email)~~~~~I like your drawing style.I want to ask what"His
face all red" exactly means?I don*t understand the intension.I read
this so many times and discussed with others but I still can*t dig out
the meanings of it.Could you tell me?
原作者的回复（有人能翻译一下吗？）：
I get this question so much! No one is satisfied at all at the end of my
answer!
Here’s the thing with that story: it can be read extremely literally.
That is to say, a beast attacks a town, two brothers go to hunt it, the
humiliated brother kills the other one, a version of the dead man comes
back and yet does not lay blame etc etc. There is no puzzle to crack, no
secret breadcrumbs that lead to the truth, no correct interpretation. It
is supposed to be a mysterious story, built to play on feelings of guilt
(sinking, nauseous guilt) and envy (shameful envy, deeply buried) and
the guilt that comes when you are envious of someone who is nothing but
kind to you, who is someone you should otherwise adore. It is an
examination of those emotions -- but, it is also a creepy story, and
should work just as a creepy story too.
A lot of people have sent me theories, like the dead brother is a
werewolf, or a vampire, or the narrator has gone mad, or the whole thing
is a dream he’s having (I would never, ever, ever, make a “and it was
all a dream” story, so no worries there!). I think part of this story is
maybe what the audience brings to it, and what they see upon reading.
I’ve never told anyone they’re wrong, but all the above are things that
had never occurred to me on creating it. I think to explain the story
completely, and say what “really” happened, would be undermining its
whole purpose. It is supposed to leave one with an unresolved feeling,
like those feelings of guilt/envy which also are impossible to solve
for. In a way, I suppose it was my response to feeling jilted by horror
stories that explained how to kill the monster by the end, or what the
monster was, at which point I was always less scared and didn’t really
enjoy it anymore.
How I perceive the end of this story: in order to reassure himself that
his brother is actually dead, is actually at the bottom of this pit, the
narrator lowers himself inside it. He finds his brother’s corpse --
which is in a way a comfort, because his brother IS dead, that element
of his feelings are resolved. But on the final panel, when the brother
turns, the dread that comes with that moment is not simply that he is
now trapped in a pit with some sort of ghost, but that he has come face
to face with his betrayal, with the overwhelming weight of what he has
done and tried to conceal -- not just the murder itself, but the
feelings that led up to it, the envy that always shamed him, that he
never spoke of outright. He descends and is confronted with the worst
part of himself, and is trapped, unable to escape them at last.
So… like I say, I doubt this will satisfy everyone or anyone, but I hope
that it at least illuminates my process on it a little more!
Dear Emily.
Hello~~~~Miss Carroll.My name is Jasmine.Nce to meet
you(on email)~~~~~I like your drawing style.I want to ask what"His
face all red" exactly means?I don*t understand the intension.I read
this so many times and discussed with others but I still can*t dig out
the meanings of it.Could you tell me?
原作者的回复（有人能翻译一下吗？）：
I get this question so much! No one is satisfied at all at the end of my
answer!
Here’s the thing with that story: it can be read extremely literally.
That is to say, a beast attacks a town, two brothers go to hunt it, the
humiliated brother kills the other one, a version of the dead man comes
back and yet does not lay blame etc etc. There is no puzzle to crack, no
secret breadcrumbs that lead to the truth, no correct interpretation. It
is supposed to be a mysterious story, built to play on feelings of guilt
(sinking, nauseous guilt) and envy (shameful envy, deeply buried) and
the guilt that comes when you are envious of someone who is nothing but
kind to you, who is someone you should otherwise adore. It is an
examination of those emotions -- but, it is also a creepy story, and
should work just as a creepy story too.
A lot of people have sent me theories, like the dead brother is a
werewolf, or a vampire, or the narrator has gone mad, or the whole thing
is a dream he’s having (I would never, ever, ever, make a “and it was
all a dream” story, so no worries there!). I think part of this story is
maybe what the audience brings to it, and what they see upon reading.
I’ve never told anyone they’re wrong, but all the above are things that
had never occurred to me on creating it. I think to explain the story
completely, and say what “really” happened, would be undermining its
whole purpose. It is supposed to leave one with an unresolved feeling,
like those feelings of guilt/envy which also are impossible to solve
for. In a way, I suppose it was my response to feeling jilted by horror
stories that explained how to kill the monster by the end, or what the
monster was, at which point I was always less scared and didn’t really
enjoy it anymore.
How I perceive the end of this story: in order to reassure himself that
his brother is actually dead, is actually at the bottom of this pit, the
narrator lowers himself inside it. He finds his brother’s corpse --
which is in a way a comfort, because his brother IS dead, that element
of his feelings are resolved. But on the final panel, when the brother
turns, the dread that comes with that moment is not simply that he is
now trapped in a pit with some sort of ghost, but that he has come face
to face with his betrayal, with the overwhelming weight of what he has
done and tried to conceal -- not just the murder itself, but the
feelings that led up to it, the envy that always shamed him, that he
never spoke of outright. He descends and is confronted with the worst
part of himself, and is trapped, unable to escape them at last.
So… like I say, I doubt this will satisfy everyone or anyone, but I hope
that it at least illuminates my process on it a little more!
