Curse of Tails Doll

[melon24]

My 9 year old son is currently terrified witless about the curse attached to Tails ( the cute two-tailed fox character in Sonic the Hedgehog games). He first mentioned it a few weeks ago (amazing how children pass stuff around the playground) and is insisting on having lights on at night. I have had a look on'tinternet and there is quite a bit around about this. The general gist being that if you play and complete the SonicR game the the Tails doll will haunt your games console and find it's way out into your house - hide out in your bathroom, and end up sucking your soul out! If you have a doll of Tails, you are also at risk! My son doesn't have the game, nor a doll, but he is absolutely terrified of it and it is all his friends talk about, scaring each other witless - embellishing like mad. Then of course it comes to bed time and all those little additions become so real to children this age.

Reminds me of Chucky...

 

[Stormkhan]

This form of Chinese Whispers of horror curses has been around for decades. Kids may be scared by such tales but they also find it fascinating. Hence adults enjoying horror/slasher movies, I suppose.

 

[Kondoru]

Get him one so he can scare his friends silly.

Think of the fun you can have!

 

[Xanatico]

Tell him that Mario will keep him safe from Tails.

 

[PeniG]

Nine is old enough for a conversation about the nature of curses and stories. Explain to him that people tell these stories because it's fun to scare each other, but you have to learn to distinguish between the factual, the possible, the plausible, and the unlikely. Introduce him to Snopes and to stories you used to almost believe, and to techniques for not believing in them too much after the lights go out. If necessary, teach him prayers or magic charms (making sure he understands that these are tools he controls). I've never played a Mario game, but isn't there something to which Tails is vulnerable? Encourage him to make his own magic charm based on that.

Give him power over the stories and the dark.

 

[Xanatico]

So you want to teach him about distinguishing the factual and the unlikely, and then have him do prayers and magic charms?

 

[PeniG]

It works for me - not prayers (which should be done only in the context of a religion, which I don't have), but a spoken magic charm against the dark is just a mind-trick, exactly like the mind-trick you're playing on yourself with the original scary story, and anything you can do to get your mind working for you instead of against you is a good thing. Whistling in the dark is a magic charm for these purposes.

Obviously the parent is the only one who can judge the best means of explaining such techniques and which ones to use, to a nine-year-old.

 

[Rushfan62]

Its hard to imagine where these tales (sorry) start. Sonic R was a game on the Sega Saturn which was not the most successfull console and it was blown out of the water by the advent of the Sony playstation. Tails the fox (who I recall was also known as Miles Power) was in several games before this and I never heard of any curse untill reading this thread. Its just a thought, but was there some gimmick in the Original Sonic R game which meant if you completed the game with the tails character then he appeared to haunt the console?
The most complete description of the curse I found was:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 530AAI3lup

 

[Mister_Awesome]

Its hard to imagine where these tales (sorry) start. Sonic R was a game on the Sega Saturn which was not the most successfull console and it was blown out of the water by the advent of the Sony playstation. Tails the fox (who I recall was also known as Miles Power) was in several games before this and I never heard of any curse untill reading this thread. Its just a thought, but was there some gimmick in the Original Sonic R game which meant if you completed the game with the tails character then he appeared to haunt the console?
The most complete description of the curse I found was:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 530AAI3lup

I suspect some of his classmates were just make stuff up to tease him. I have never heard of such a thing either, but I do remember kids telling similar stories about other things when I was a young-un.

 

[Rushfan62]

Strange though that a "Curse" should attach itself to something as innocuousas a Sonic the Hedgehog character - I mean why not something from Resident Evil, Silent Hill or similar? Maybe that would be too obvious or maybe they're just not well known enough by the age group most likely to believe in such twaddle.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Let me point out that witches-under-the-bed and closet-demon fears at such a comparatively late age as nine or 10 can be a sign of developing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

I also speak from personal example on that one. With me it was Egyptian mummies rather than two-tailed foxes.

 

[Rushfan62]

If I'd looked harder , i'd have spotted this before as it's a link on the page Ilinked to in my last post (if you get me)
The whole Tails curse story is the invention of Quacker and Bowen web comics, simple as that!
Someone somewhere has mistakenly (or deliberately) read the many case histories of the curse on their site and blown it all up in to a genuine UM!
So there we are, If your sons stilled worried, show him their site and point out that they describe themselves as a web comic, ie - not real![/u]