What is Hillbilly's story inspired from ?
So I have always been very intrigued by Hillbilly's lore, and I am very excited for us to eventually getting a tome based on him ( and another survivor ), but there is something I have always been wondering about.
So far we know Hillbilly was born as a deformed boy, unaccepted by his family, and fed through a hole. This is very similar to many other fictional stories, to give a simple and universal example, it reminded me of Hugo Simpson's story from Treehouse of Horror VII.
What is/are the original piece(s) of fiction (novels ?) which inspired the story of Hillbilly, or even the idea of a "deformed boy unaccepted by his family, fed through a hole and revolting" ? It seems to me this theme tends to come back a lot, so I presume there must be an original story.
Thank you for the answer!
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I'm not familiar with much in the way of literature, so if that's the inspiration I'm unsure. But in Greek mythology there is a God named Hephaestus, he was the son of Zeus and Hera, but was so hideous that Hera cast him from a cliff into the ocean. A sea nymph raised him and he became an amazing blacksmith, often making jewellery for the sea nymph who raised him. When Hera found out about this, she invited him to Mount Olympus. When he arrived, he presented a jewelled throne for Hera but when she sat on it, she was trapped on it. In order to release her, Zeus offered Hephaestus Aphrodite's hand in marriage in exchange for Hera's freedom. It's not quite the exact same, but it was the first thing that sprang to mind. Sorry for the wall of text :P
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Your sister is your mother
Your father is your brother
You like to [Rhymes with pluck] each other
The Hillbilly Family.
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From what I found in tvTropes, the trope about “someone ugly/mad that is hidden in a house” seems to come from Jane Eyre, a gothic romance novel, publicized in 1847 and generally, seems to be a trope from that era of the ghotic horror,at least the “locking up people inside walls” part. And as mentioned, a family rejecting a son from being ugly has been in forever, so they probably combine those two to create the backstory of Hillbilly.
I also think that, in slashers, that backstory of some slasher villains tends to be that they were deformed and hidden from the world in some way until they get free and start killing, like in the reboot of Black Christmas or in that halloween episode of the Simpsons.
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That indeed could be in the roots of all types of stories based on this theme!
Sweet Home Alabama
Thank you for the very precise answer, i will go check these out!
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