Here is a <3min long vid summing up the Man-eaters of Tsavo if you're uninformed: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EH7Kjlb-314 Gustave the Crocodile is a large (for its kind) Nile Crocodile credited with killing over 300 people and was reportedly shot repeatedly yet continues to thrive.
Is it possible that Unique Monsters are more than a mere game mechanic, and that they've also killed [an alarming amount of] people and have earned their names and reputations for the same reason that Gustave and the Man-eaters of Tsavo have earned theirs?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_Man-Eaters
It’s clear to me that going forward, The Terror will be anthology style horror series with each season unconnected to the last. So I think this is a good way to explore different historical horrors across the globe. Infamy is an alright season but to my knowledge was for the most part an original story. The context surrounding it - the Japanese Internment camps & what part Japanese Americans played during the Second World War - is real. But its characters are original creations. Compare that to S1 which is adapted from a work of fiction yet its protagonists were actual historical figures from a very real tragedy.
With that in mind I think we have a good basis for Season 3. Based upon the very real horrors of the two Man-Eaters of Tsavo. For those unaware, these were a pair of giant maneless lions that killed hundreds of workers on the river Tsavo at the beginning of the 1900s. The two beasts were killed by Colonel John Henry Patterson and today are stuffed in a Chicago museum.
If this sounds familiar, the story was previously adapted as “The Ghost and the Darkness”, a 1995 film that somewhat changed events but remained faithful to what happened for the most part. Although as an adaptation for The Terror, it would make sense that the Tsavo Man-Eaters would be told in a more horror leaning way rather than classic safari adventure.
I would call it “The Terror: Man-Eaters” or “The Terror: Beasts”. Unlike the somewhat exploitative narrative written by Colonel Patterson, I’d use the season to explore the POV of the African and Indian laborers of the camp as well as the local Africans perspective. It was said that untold numbers of these laborers were killed in the years these animals lived. And considering their skill & brutality its speculated even more people couldve been killed before the railway project. That in itself is horror right there.
Patterson would still kill the lions in this work but perhaps the circumstances would be changed to fit a more compelling original story. Then Patteron’s book written off as him abridging or omitting events such as the roles the non white characters played in stopping the lions.
The one thing I am sort of unsure of changing or not is the element of the supernatural. The 1995 film for the most part kept the lions as just actual animals. It was the fear of them that leads the characters to think of them as evil spirits or demons. The real horror is that these are just animals - yes even with killing so
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I've read The Man Eaters of Tsavo a few times through now and It has become my favorite nonfiction title. The way he constantly fends of the two man eaters and simultaneously try to keep order in his camp to complete the bridge he was commissioned to build intrigued me to no end. I think It is a fantastic turn of the century book that often is written by the actual man who fought these beasts. What are your thoughts on this novel?
any one have any idea where i can find one or and old on cant seem too find anything older than 2009 on google
The story of these nigh-unstoppable maneating lions seems to be almost made up but it is based on a true story. How much is true and how much is false?
Why do Historians claim that Patterson over-exaggerated his claims on the number of victims the two Tsavo-maneaters killed? How has this been proven if at all and why would the man lie about it, what is his gain from lying?
