Join us in this spine-tingling episode as we journey deep into the heart of darkness with Scott Smith's "The Ruins." This survival horror novel, written in 2006, takes us on a harrowing adventure with a group of young tourists who ignore the warnings of locals and find themselves trapped in a remote Mayan archaeological site known as "the hill."
We delve into the themes of body horror, ecological fear, and the loss of identity as the characters grapple with the relentless grip of the killer vines. We'll also explore the fascinating connection to Aristotle's theories on plant souls and how recent scientific discoveries about plant sentience lend an eerie plausibility to the story.
Additionally, we'll touch on the broader history of plant horror in literature and film, from Victorian fascination with carnivorous plants to B-movie classics like "The Day of the Triffids" and "The Happening."
Sources
Aristotle’s Biology - https://iep.utm.edu/aristotle-biology/
Aristotle on Self-changing plants - https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/rhiz-2019-0002/html
Cancun News - https://riviera-maya-news.com/category/mexico-news/cancun
From the Century of the Pods to the Century of the Plants: Plant Horror, Politics, and Vegetal Ontology - https://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.531845729&site=eds-live&scope=site
Lives of the Monster Plants: The Revenge of the Vegetable in the Age of Animal Studies https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353018701_Lives_of_the_Monster_Plants_The_Revenge_of_the_Vegetable_in_the_Age_of_Animal_Studies
Monster Plants and the Humans who Invent Them | Monstrum - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5KwJjwhuPc&ab_channel=Storied
“Nothing alive here but us and the plant”: Ecological Terror and the Disruption of Order in Scott Smith’s The Ruins - https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/57300441/Coby_page_proofs.pdf?1536064342=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DNothing_alive_here_but_us_and_th
TW and SPOILERS for all episodes, listen at your own discretion.
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