PE proposal: The Snatcher

What's the work?

Goosebumps is a series of childrens horror books that are the second best selling childrens book series in the world. While most of the books have a dark comedic element to them, some of the villains are truly despicable creatures. And this is one of them.

Who is the canidate? What did it do?

The Snatcher, from the book Return to Ghost Camp is an enigmatic spirit that haunts Camp Full Moon. Every summer, it would randomly select a child camper, kill the and damn their spirit to haunt the camp for all eternity unless a living camper would canoe from one side of the camp river to the other. As a result, the ghost children would select a living camper to try and be their savior, however none succeeded as the river was full of river monst.

One summer however, two new campers, Dustin and Ari switch places at the camp by pretending to be the other camper, but this backfires when the ghosts mistake Dustin for Ari and make him their savior. In a state of panic, Dustin runs into the forest where he meets a girl named Laura who was also fleeing from the ghosts and the two plan to escape together.

The following night, the snatcher tried to kill Dustin by luring him into the river, but he was saved by one of the ghost children, who also revealed that Laura was really the Snatcher in disguise. Enraged, the Snatcher turned into a fox and tried to kill Dustin itself. But Dustin escaped by boarding a canoe and escape to the other side. The Snatcher tried to follow Dustin... only to be killed by the monsters lurking in the river. With the Snatcher dead, the ghost children were finally free, and passed on into the afterlife.

Fraudian Excuse

It has none. The Snatcher is a remorseless child killer who kills only for the sake of killing. We're never given a backstory, but that's nom excuse to me. Whatever the Snatcher is doesn't matter to me, nor would it change the nature of it's crimes.

Heinous Standards

While most Goosebumps villains I know have a tragic, honorable, or comedic side that keeps them from the PE status, the Snatcher has no tragedy, honor, or comedic element to it. It is a cruel and malicious being that robbed innocent children of their futures. Those children can never go home, never run wild on weekends, never grow up, never finish never get jobs, never have children and families of their own, etc. The best thing for the children now, is for someone to defeat the Snatcher, and allow them to pass into the afterlife where they can be at peace, and free.

And the snatcher hurt their parents. Now the childrens parents have outlived their beloved children, and NO parent should outlive their child. They can't see their children graduate, grow up, and feel the good feeling that parents get when their children start their own journey. But the Snatcher didn't care at all about that. It killed those children out of sheer malice. Even though the book ends with good triumphent, it's a bittersweet victory as those poor children are still dead. But at least they have been avenged and are free.

Final Verdict

In The Dark Knight, Alfred Pennyworth said that some men just want to watch the world burn, meaning that there are some individuals who do terrible things out of sheer malice. Well, I never thought I would find one that kills children, in a book MEANT for children. But I suppose sometimes the family unfriendly aesop that says that there are people who do terrible things for no reason than to sate their desire for blood. The Snatcher is considered one of the darkner Goosebumps villains, and given the choice between the Snatcher and the Elfen Lied Bullies, I'm taking the bullies.