​It's the corruption hidden in plain sight that is particularly harmful. Insidious poison destroys the body slowly, bit by bit, while the whole time the poisoned aren't aware of it. When they are finally aware of it, it is too late, and they are bound to a horrific end. 

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Worst of all is when the corruption presents itself as beautiful. Evil manifests in the form of an angel, after all. This is in fact how many horror movies work. The monsters appear in the form of something friendly, familiar, perhaps even beautiful. It slowly lulls people who are increasingly enticed, deceiving them into darkness. 

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The Sadako commentary from Electric Literature claims to promote justice and presents itself as a fulfilling, victorious resolution for the long history of terribly wronged women. However, it does so in a deeply disturbing way—creating a corrupt and twisted moral framework to do so. Ultimately, it perpetuates a corrupted sense of justice. Not only that, it even disturbingly beautifies it by likening it to empowerment and justice. It celebrates the very violence that makes the movie so disturbing and horrific in the first place, with lines such as "The audience screams, and I scream too. Except I find that I am screaming 'Yes!' I realize immediately that I’ve changed sides. To me, this is not a plot twist—it is an exercise in victory." This article, in commenting on horror movies, becomes like one in itself. Like a monster that appears as an angel and entices you to death, it slowly lulls you, makes evil appear increasingly beautiful, and who knows what the consequences of that would be. 

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The article embodies the antithesis of what makes horror movies meaningful. Horror is meant to warn you about cycles of darkness and monsters, reawaken your conscience, not to pull you into the cycle of darkness and turn people into monsters themselves. 

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The article I'm talking about is called "The Monsters We Fear Tells Us Something Essential About Who We Are." The title itself paints the picture of an article that dives deep into the human psyche and explains how horror reflects identity. It's very enticing. After all, fear is such a vulnerable, intimate thing. The idea that one's own most feared monsters could bring about profound revelations about oneself is appealing. What makes it even more insidious is that this, taken as a standalone principle, is true. In principle, it is indeed the case that our worst fears reveal the self, because what is most feared reveals what is most loved, and what a person loves most determines who that person is. But the article is deceiving. It dives into culture and analysis. It presents itself as self-revelatory, builds up with dramatic descriptions of watching Ringu and other horror movies, then presents wrongs and victimhood. It contextualizes these wrongs and victimhood. Finally, it hits you with a revelation about how ghost vengeance is "victory," and the stories were about "dispensing justice" all along.

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The structure of the article is deceptively about culture. Its corrupt sense of justice is hidden in plain sight. It strikes you as a moral analysis. It strikes you as an engaging narrative with engaging terms. It talks about Sadako and the experience of watching her. It uses that to make you invested in the message. Then, it pivots and distorts that emotional investment into moral justification for something deeply troubling.

Then it gives lessons about how horror is a warning—which is true. But it then misapplies that truth to justify joining in the monster's revenge.

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"To survive, you must transform from victim to villain just like she did, and in doing so, must understand her pain. Into a well of your own you go: Who’s the monster now?"—the article says, but is it saying this as if it is a good thing? Or as if it is inevitable? The framing implies not that tragedy should be healed, but that evil should be embraced and re-weaponized. That is not catharsis. That is corruption.

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We have to understand the deep spiritual confusion of this framing: it suggests that healing from injustice requires perpetuating injustice. That to survive you must become like the very thing that destroyed you. This is not justice—it is surrender to the cycle of horror.

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When the article says, "Watch enough horror from across Asia and you’ll see an even deeper pattern emerge: Women being killed. Women refusing to die," this completely misunderstands Japanese culture and how people become onryōs. Language like this almost frames it as empowerment, rather than what it really is—a profound entrenchment, a horrendous distortion of human consciousness, and a perpetual cycle of darkness and despair. They did not refuse to die. This goes against basic understanding of how people actually become onryōs. It happens because people's souls are bound to the world and cannot move onto an afterlife. It's because of a lack of peace, not because of "the will to live." It's not even a conscious choice!

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The article claims the wronged women "found a way to survive." No, they didn't find a way to "survive," because, of course, they are dead. In fact, they're in a fate far worse than death. In Japanese culture, onryōs are clearly not surviving or thriving. They're trapped in a profound state of darkness and survival. They're surviving in the same sense as people who remain alive only to suffer immense, perpetual torture. Consider Sadako's fate. Would you really relish existing like her? Would you relish being bound to exist in perpetual, unresolved rage and trauma, with no end in mind but killing people for eternity? Do you truly wish to be powered by nothing but vengeance for your entire existence? Where you cannot do anything else—you cannot connect with people, cannot eat or drink, read or write, feel the Sun on your skin, feel the beauty and richness of nature breathe on you?

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The article doesn't just claim they survived, but claims they had "victory."

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This is morally wrong. Of course, they have not found victory. How can they have found victory if they can never stop doing what they're doing?

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It's also wrong in terms of story structure. If you look at Ringu, clearly one of the main story arcs is about whether Sadako's story is finally known and understood. If there's one thing I somewhat agree with in the article, it's that Sadako is actually a protagonist forced into an antagonistic role, not a genuine antagonist.

By the article's logic, then every single Japanese yūrei folk tale would be reframed not as tragedy, but as empowerment. That is false.

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When I looked at the article, at first I thought it was going to illuminate psychological depth. But instead, it redirected that depth to justify uncritical glorification of pain turned into punishment.

The article briefly mentions Jason Voorhees. Jason was also wronged deeply. If we take the article's reasoning seriously, Jason Voorhees is also just dispensing justice. Yet, as a serial killer, Jason clearly does not dispense justice. A vast number of villains across fiction, and a vast number of people in real life who do evil were themselves greatly wronged, and are evil. By the article's reasoning, we should now suddenly accept them all as heroes who bring about justice, as well as people who refused to die and stood up against their oppressors. By the article's reasoning, next time we go to a court hearing and the murderer suddenly says, "Yes I killed this person, but it was to dispense justice against this person," we now have to drop all charges, let them go, and proclaim this murderer as a hero.

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Why would the article only apply to women in Asian media if it's really about justice?

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Countless sources say that Sadako's story is profoundly tragic—not a story of victory or justice served.

To say that Sadako's curse is a representation of empowerment to dispense justice is to trivialize Sadako's trauma and suffering. Sadako's curse is a manifestation of unresolved agony—not agency.

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The idea is utterly absurd—factually, and most importantly, ethically absurd. If Sadako's curse was indeed about "dispensing justice," then if Ringu took place in the same universe as DC or Marvel, then Sadako could have easily been a superhero. The Justice League would have loved reading the article and would have thought of Sadako's tragedy and curse as an inspirational superhero story—because if we take the article's message to be true—then, of course, the paragons of justice would be deeply satisfied in how so many wronged women are finally given justice, and celebrate their incredible victory. After that, the Justice League would simply take Sadako's cursed tape, and "exact justice" by showing it to every person in the world, eliminating humanity in the process.

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But Sadako's curse does the complete opposite of what Superman does.

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Wonder Woman, a paragon of feminine virtue and justice and female empowerment, is the antithesis of the article's essence.

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We have stories that portray suffering not as a license for revenge, but as a call for redemption. Sadako’s story could have been one of healing—but it was twisted by pain and misunderstanding. That is what makes it tragic.

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A Much More Ethical Interpretation: It Is About the Consequences of Evil

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Okay, well maybe the article is making a much more abstract sense of justice—not saying Sadako is "exacting justice" on specific people.

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Even so, the author has a responsibility to make it clear in order to avoid unintentionally perpetuating a concerning message. Especially when ambiguous terms and emotional framing can make it easily seem as though violence is justifiable. Obviously, a message that is intended to promote justice should be clearly spoken in order to avoid unintentionally conveying the opposite message.

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Even this abstract interpretation, however, fails because it conflates justice with something else—vengeance. Justice heals; vengeance perpetuates suffering. Horror stories must be careful not to glorify the latter as if it were the former.

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The Implications

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The article discusses historical mistreatment and wrongs against women. These are valid and true themes. I agree. It’s right.

 

But the response to injustice must not become a celebration of eternalized pain and destruction. True justice restores. Sadako was not restored. She was trapped. That is not victory. That is devastation.

"The only thing left unambiguous was Sadako’s rage—murderous, indiscriminate, everlasting." But this completely misunderstands the point. The rage is not power. It is bondage. The fact that it’s indiscriminate is the tragedy. It shows that she is no longer human in the full sense. Her curse no longer distinguishes good from evil. It is not moral clarity. It is total spiritual blindness.

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The article says, "The audience screams, and I scream too. Except I find that I am screaming 'Yes!' I realize immediately that I’ve changed sides. To me, this is not a plot twist—it is an exercise in victory." 

 

Although screaming "Yes" during Natre's vengeance is somewhat understandable, it is still deeply unethical, because it takes pleasure in a disproportionate response. Taking pleasure in vengeful hatred, and devalues human life. The author then makes another profound ethical misstep—it extrapolates Natre and treats her revenge as a victorious archetype across all vengeful ghosts. This is profoundly flawed. You cannot extrapolate Natre to every other vengeful ghost, as those other vengeful ghosts, like Sadako and Kayako, are often indiscriminate in their violence.

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If you take pleasure in this kind of vengeful violence, then who gets to decide that others' lives are worth less if they have done what? Humans alone are fundamentally limited in doing that. Can you really decide it on a whim, when you don't have all the information, are limited to your own perspective, and perhaps judging only by appearances—when your judgment is so clouded by emotion, by personal desire?

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When the article claims that these stories are about "dispensing justice," it gravely misinterprets the nature of justice itself. Judicial punishment is dispensed by courts and law to prevent people from ending up in cyclical violence and revenge, to give everyone due process, and to exact justice not according to personal subjectivity but rather according to truth. It is not perfect, but far better than people deciding when and how to "exact justice" for themselves.

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It is surprising and deeply disturbing that this section made it into the book, and made it onto such a prominent editorial platform as Electric Literature.

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To my shock, as far as I have searched, there are very few responses that already call this out. Perhaps this article is even the only one. This deeply puzzles me. Why does such a morally corrupted article from a book this prominent exist—and why is there hardly a response to it?

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Cultural hubs and platforms like these should be upholders of morality, not celebrants of moral confusion. The silence in response to this article is not just disappointing—it is indicative of a deeper cultural failure to discern the difference between catharsis and corruption, between moral reflection and moral decay. When stories that glorify indiscriminate revenge are held up as models of empowerment, something has gone wrong at the level of narrative conscience.

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While a variety of interpretations exist, some more abstract and well-meaning than others, we must draw a clear boundary: interpretations that glorify or aestheticize vengeance—even under the banner of empowerment—are fundamentally irresponsible. They confuse trauma with triumph and perpetuate a narrative that spiritual decay is somehow liberating. They reduce justice to personal wrath and equate moral clarity with emotional satisfaction.

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True horror, when at its best, exposes the consequences of evil, the danger of hatred left unresolved, and the tragedy of justice perverted. It is meant to humble us, not harden us. It should make us long for restoration, not celebrate destruction. Sadako's story, in its rawest form, is not one of triumph—it is one of lament. It is a cry for help trapped in the language of terror. To treat her vengeance as victory is to abandon her humanity entirely, and in doing so, ours.

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We should not allow horror to become a medium that desensitizes us to the very pain it portrays. Instead, horror must return to its higher calling: not the exaltation of monsters, but the recognition of monstrosity so we may turn from it, repent of it, and overcome it. That is where real justice begins. Instead, horror must return to its higher calling: not the exaltation of monsters, but the recognition of monstrosity so we may turn from it, repent of it, and overcome it. That is where real justice begins.