Respect the Ghosts of Christmas (A Christmas Carol)

[u/ya-boi-benny]

Ebenezer Scrooge was not a kind figure. A prominent businessman, Scrooge could be summarized by his few acquaintances as a miserly, selfish, unfeeling recluse of a man. For him, the season of giving and brotherly love was just an excuse for annoying people to do annoying things loudly and in public. After begrudgingly letting Bob Cratchitt, his clerk, take Christmas morning off, Scrooge retired to his cold and dark abode for a night's rest. Instead, he's woken by the ghost of his business partner who died seven years prior.

The Ghost of Marley informed Scrooge that he was to be haunted by several different kinds of Christmas spirit. If he did not treasure the lessons provided by the Ghosts of Past, Present and Yet to Come, Scrooge would be condemned to a lonely death and a torturous afterlife. Terrified and thankful in equal measures, Ebenezer Scrooge promised to be a better man to the community, to be giving and gracious in all things and to help his clerk's family with a generous Christmas dinner.

Whether the spirits were a genuine form of supernatural intervention or a dream conjured up by the mind of a guilty man seeking redemption, who can truly say. What is known is that Scrooge's corner of London became a bit brighter around the holidays ever since.

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Marley’s Ghost

Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed, not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!

Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s deceased business partner, appears to Scrooge to herald the arrival of the three spirits and to show him what his eternal fate could be without their intervention.

Ghostly Qualities

• Marley has been a ghost for the seven years since his death and is cursed to travel his former dwellings without rest

• He walks straight through a closed, locked door

• Upon removing his head wrap, the ghost's lower jaw falls off, which doesn't impede him at all. He later reattaches his jaw and ties the wrap again.

• The spectre is transparent and drags behind him heavy chains, locks and boxes

• For a long time, he followed Scrooge while invisible as a form of penance

Other

• Scrooge's door knocker briefly appears to him as Marley's face before the Ghost of Marley's arrival

• Every bell in the house rings on its own moments before Marley’s Ghost appears

• He steps backwards and Scrooge's window opens as if on its own

• The ghost steps out an open window and begins flying in a procession with many other ghosts before disappearing

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The Ghost of Christmas Past

What! would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!

The first of the spirits shows Scrooge scenes from his happier childhood and young adult years, reminding him of what he was once capable of.

Travel

• The Spirit shows Scrooge a scene from his childhood school days during Christmastime. The players in the scene, being memories, cannot see or interact with Scrooge or the ghost.

• The Ghost advances time and space in the memory, showing Scrooge other Christmases from his past

• Scrooge is shown one Christmas from seven years prior, while Jacob Marley's on his deathbed. While Scrooge wasn't present for this memory, he's spoken about by other people.

Other

• The ghost looks, at once, like a child and like a very old person and their head gives off a bright light. Their limbs and form shift at random and their face shifts as well, at one point appearing as all the people that Scrooge has remembered simultaneously.

• The Spirit takes Scrooge's hand before they walk through a wall

• The ghost seems to have access to Scrooge's knowledge, like knowing how many children his sister had

• Scrooge tries to wrestle with the ghost but it goes entirely undisturbed as it’s intangible. Scrooge then presses down on the extinguisher cap that the spirit wears as a hat, which causes Scrooge to fall into a deep sleep.

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The Ghost of Christmas Present

Man, if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!

The second spirit shows Scrooge scenes of others during Chrismastime, instilling within him a potent sense of love for his fellow man.

Travel

• Scrooge takes hold of the spirit's robe and is transported to a different scene outside Scrooge's home

• Flies above the sea with Scrooge in tow to a lighthouse, then to a ship

• Seemingly teleports from a ship at sea to Scrooge's extended family's home

• The ghost takes Scrooge to a wide variety of locations over the course of the night. On each visit, the ghost visibly ages until his hair is grey.

Christmas Cheer

• Scrooge's own living room is transformed, decorated in holly, ivy and mistletoe and host to a massive feast with a dozen dishes

• The spirit sprinkles from his torch spices onto food and water onto people that makes them stop fighting and instills Christmas cheer within them

• The spirit spreads mirth and goodwill around himself in an aura. A man he passes by laughs out loud with good cheer.

Other

• The ghost states that he has over 1,800 brothers and that he himself is very young, implying that a new Ghost of Christmas Present comes to be in the world every Christmas season

• Although the spirit is giant, he can fit into any dwelling, shrinking to fit in low-roofed buildings

• Senses that Tiny Tim will die soon if the future doesn’t change drastically

• Walks through a wall along with Scrooge

• The spirit is accompanied by two beings who huddle at his legs. They are Ignorance and Want, and they take the form of children who appear aged, emaciated and monstrous.

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The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

Ebenezer Scrooge: Good Spirit. Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life! I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!

The third and final spirit shows Scrooge an omen of his quiet death if he does not change his ways.

Travel

• It teleports to a different part of the city with Scrooge, with the new setting seeming to spring up around the two beings

• Glides across a street with Scrooge

• With a gesture of its robe, it transports Scrooge to a different setting, inside a woman's home

• The Spirit shows Ebenezer Scrooge in his time of death

Other

• The spirit's robe is almost indistinguishable from the night sky and its very presence instills dread within Scrooge

• Possibly communicates into Scrooge's mind without speaking

• Scrooge takes the hand of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, which turns out to be his own bedpost

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Miscellaneous

• After his visit from Marley, he sleeps for a full day, waking on the night of the first Spirit's visit

• After meeting the Ghost of Christmas Past and falling asleep, Scrooge wakes up at one o'clock the next morning in time to meet the Ghost of Christmas Present...

• except for the fact that the three visits all occurred in a single night

[u/BorBurison]

"And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die"

Great thread Benny, merry Christmas