Number 6
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come
(75 points on 5 of 12 lists. Top Vote #6 Imrahil)
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, also known as The Ghost of Christmas Future, or sometimes just Christmas Future (if you are dumb and lazy) or Pointy the Spooky Pointing Ghost, is the ghost that haunts the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, in order to prompt him to adopt a more caring attitude in life and avoid the horrid afterlife of his business partner, Jacob Marley.
Scrooge found the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come the most fearsome of the spirits; he appeared to Scrooge as a figure entirely muffled in a black hooded robe, except for a single gaunt hand with which he points. Although the character never spoke, Scrooge understood him, usually through assumptions from his previous experiences and rhetorical questions. The Ghost's muteness and undefined features (being always covered by his robe) may also have been intended to represent the uncertainty of the future
When the Ghost made his appearance, the first thing he showed Scrooge is three wealthy gentlemen making light of a recent death, remarking that it will be a cheap funeral, if anyone comes at all. One businessman said he would go only if lunch is provided, while another said he did not eat lunch or wear black gloves, so there was no reason for him to go at all. Next, Scrooge is shown the same dead person's belongings being stolen and sold to a receiver of stolen goods called Old Joe. He also saw a shrouded corpse, which he implored the ghost not to unmask, and a poor, debtor family rejoicing that someone to whom they owed money was dead and thinking his successor creditor wouldn't be as harsh as the deceased creditor was. After pleading to the ghost to see some tenderness connected with death, Scrooge is shown Bob Cratchit and his family mourning the passing of Tiny Tim. Scrooge was then taken to an unkempt graveyard, where he was shown his own grave, and realized that the dead man of whom the others spoke ill was himself.
Moved to an emotional connection to humanity and chastened by his own avarice and isolation by the visits of the first two spirits, Scrooge was horrified by the prospect of a lonely death and by implication a subsequent damnation. In desperation, he queried the ghost:
“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?”
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”
And in an epiphany in which he understood the changes that the visits of the three spirits have wrought in him, Scrooge exclaims:
"I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope! ... I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”
His transformation complete, Scrooge was ready to re-enter the world of humanity as a changed man as he does in the almost immediately.
Tee-hee. Intercourse.
Malevolence1/10
Not evil, just the facts.
Spookiness10/10
The future can be a scary place