***DISCLAIMER! WARNING!: There will be spoilers for the ending of the PlayStation game “Until Dawn” in this post! You have been warned.
I was a little disgusted at first when Dante introduced Count Ugolino in Canto XXXIII. I can barely handle raw meat for my dad to grill on Sundays, let alone read about a man gnawing on the neck and brain of an Archbishop. Once the Count told his story, his punishment for his "crimes" hit me right in the emotional tendon. The Count was locked in a tower with his sons after being betrayed by the Archbishop. He had to listen as the only way out of the tower was sealed off (46-47). The only human contact that Dante mentions he had in this tower was that with his sons. Along with dealing with the pain of his own hunger, he had to listen to the cries of his sons as they (LITERALLY) starved to death. He watched them fall one by one, powerless to help them (70). “Then fasting overcame my grief and me” (Dante, 75). The mental torture this man went through is unfathomable. I mean, at least the witch fed Rapunzel.
On a- slightly- lighter note, I noticed a comparison to one of my favorite storylines in this tragic tale. Anyone who has played the masterpiece that is “Until Dawn” knows the terrifying story of the Wendigo. It became popularized in a CreepyPasta post, but its origins are Native American. They believed the Wendigo came to be as a by-product of cannibalism. The one who feeds on the flesh of their own brethren will slowly morph into a skeletal monster, unrecognizable to others. It resides in the forest, preying on other humans who enter at their own risk. So. Creepy. In "Until Dawn," Hannah and Beth are twins. They fall into a precipice in the forest in the middle of the night and are never found by their friends. Beth perishes first, and her sister feeds on her to survive. This awakens the Wendigo spirit and sets up the rest of the game.
It seems like Count Ugolino became a Wendigo in some sense. Like Hannah, he was faced with starvation and ate his loved ones. He is doomed to gnaw on the flesh of the one who made him starve, just as Hannah is doomed to hunt humans.
The beginning of this quote wraps up the connections in both stories. "Before the dawn... / I woke and heard my sons... / cry from their troubled sleep, asking for bread" (Dante, 37-39).
P.S. I commented on Kaitlyn Terry's and Lily Caswell's posts.
OKAY UNTIL DAWN IS MY FAVORITE GAME AND IM SO GLAD YOU MADE THIS CONNECTION! I hadn't thought about this at all but now that you said it, you're completely right. Cannibalism is really seen as a betrayal of humanity, and as such, is punished by utterly evil curses. I'll never be able to un-see Count Ugolino as Rami Malek in some dark cave!
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