The “motif” as folks tried to outline it in the dead Wikipedia article referred mostly to tales and mythology in which otherwise normal acts of observation resulted in extraordinary results. (The article had no sources so it was nuked, and I liked it despite the terrible name, which is why “harmful sensation” is on my google watch. I’m actually tickled pink whenever someone references it in a paper because it means it’s one step closer to getting back into Wikipedia :D) The prime element in mythology and legend is supernatural. Arguably this applies to fictional advanced science, as per Clarke’s third law it is indistinguishable from magic.
The minute the harmful sensation and its results become explicable or rational, it’s just normal sensation with a harmful outcome. Gloomy Sunday, as the “Hungarian Suicide Song” is a good example of the motif in urban legends because it was believed to have an extraordinary power to drive people to suicide, but was ultimately found to be responsible for none. The concept is inextricably linked with fiction and, I would say, our fear of things we cannot really control. (The minute you glimpse the gorgon, or catch a strain of the siren’s song...)
(I actually am not sure I consider the Evil Eye to be an example of the motif, versus an active curse. If the eye or the giver of the look is magical somehow, I would tend to call it a curse, rather than harmful sensation. If the look bestows a curse via the nature of the look itself—that is normally benign—then it would be an example.)
There are easily arguments to the contrary, but I think that the VALUE of this concept lies in fiction. For example, if it is not focused on extraordinary results, you simply have a fancy name for “Things that encourage us decide to do self destructive things.” Cheeseburgers taste awesome, and they make me fatter, but that’s not something I want examine in literature, or compare to Lovecraft’s Necronomicon.
The “motif” as folks tried to outline it in the dead Wikipedia article referred mostly to tales and mythology in which otherwise normal acts of observation resulted in extraordinary results. (The article had no sources so it was nuked, and I liked it despite the terrible name, which is why “harmful sensation” is on my google watch. I’m actually tickled pink whenever someone references it in a paper because it means it’s one step closer to getting back into Wikipedia :D) The prime element in mythology and legend is supernatural. Arguably this applies to fictional advanced science, as per Clarke’s third law it is indistinguishable from magic.
The minute the harmful sensation and its results become explicable or rational, it’s just normal sensation with a harmful outcome. Gloomy Sunday, as the “Hungarian Suicide Song” is a good example of the motif in urban legends because it was believed to have an extraordinary power to drive people to suicide, but was ultimately found to be responsible for none. The concept is inextricably linked with fiction and, I would say, our fear of things we cannot really control. (The minute you glimpse the gorgon, or catch a strain of the siren’s song...)
(I actually am not sure I consider the Evil Eye to be an example of the motif, versus an active curse. If the eye or the giver of the look is magical somehow, I would tend to call it a curse, rather than harmful sensation. If the look bestows a curse via the nature of the look itself—that is normally benign—then it would be an example.)
There are easily arguments to the contrary, but I think that the VALUE of this concept lies in fiction. For example, if it is not focused on extraordinary results, you simply have a fancy name for “Things that encourage us decide to do self destructive things.” Cheeseburgers taste awesome, and they make me fatter, but that’s not something I want examine in literature, or compare to Lovecraft’s Necronomicon.