THE PONTIANAK, IN FICTION
The following is one of a pairs of essays I wrote as a Stretch Goal for A PERFECT WIFE.
Pretty basic stuff for hantu aficionados, of course. But it is designed as orientation for GMs / players who are unfamiliar with the Malaysian context—a primer of the pontianak’s pop-cultural significance; an author’s note for why I wanted to treat her story the way I did.
This essay—alongside another essay titled “The Supernatural, in Southeast Asia—will appear as appendices in the zine, which you can support
>>>HERE<<<
Three days left!
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Malaysian culture is replete with monsters.
Many are gendered female, and cluster around childbirth, that oldest and bloodiest of terrors. A toyol is created from the flesh of a dead fetus. The penanggalan seeks the blood of new mothers and infants. A woman who perishes while pregnant or in labour may rise as a langsuir or pontianak.
If you have read through or played this adventure, you have already met the pontianak.
She is pretty famous! She lends her name to a city in Indonesia. She headlines horror movies: the first was a Cathay-Keris production, Pontianak (1957); the latest is Glen Goei and Gavin Yap’s Dendam Pontianak (2019). One of the three protagonists in Charlene Teo’s litfic novel Ponti (2018) is the aging star of a fictional 1970s pontianak film.
There is much scholarship about the pontianak. A frequently-cited paper is Alicia Izharuddin’s The laugh of the pontianak: darkness and feminism in Malay folk horror (2019). Alicia focuses on one of the pontianak’s trademark features—her laugh, popularly a cackle of wild abandon—as a site of radical resistance.
Nothing scares men more than a woman “laughing at patriarchy, laughing at power, laughing from below.”
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It is said the pontianak “can only be subdued by striking a nail to the back of her neck” (Lee & Balaya, 2016). So thwarted, she turns “into a beautiful woman and a good wife until the nail is removed” (Lim, 2008).
With fortitude, craft and cunning, a hero may snare this female creature for himself. Vanquish the monster, get the girl! Because the monster is the girl.
A notable depiction of the pontianak-as-perfect-wife appears in Gergasi (1958):
A hunter, driven by the prospect of winning a “woman of incredible beauty”, stalks a fanged and taloned pontianak. He watches her kneel by a stream to drink. In this private moment she looks tired: an old crone.
He attacks her from behind with hammer and nail.
She screams. Falls into the water. When he fishes her out again, she is a transformed: a young woman—confused, afraid. Quiet, she shrinks away from him. He tells her: “You have awakened from a terrible dream. Let us go home.”
“Home?” she asks. She has no idea where she is, who he is.
“My home,” he says. “Do not doubt. Believe in me. I am human, just like you.” He yanks her into his arms. “Let us build a palace of happiness together.”
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Watching such a scene today feels uncomfortable. Physical assault at a moment of vulnerability. A man taking control of a woman when she is too disoriented to consent. Penetration used as a guarantee of marriage.
The nail is a straightforward symbol: with it, the pontianak is pinned in place, like a moth specimen in a lightbox.
The pontianak-as-captive-wife narrative is rare, nowadays. Nowadays she is allowed to be a sympathetic villain. In Shuhaimi Baba’s Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam (2004), she rises to exact vengeance on her murderers. We acknowledge the fact that women suffer at the hands of bad men, sometimes!
It is satisfying to see justice done. To bad men—and to monsters. The pontianak typically meets one of the following ends:
- She is banished by devout Islamic prayer;
- She fades away, having exacted her revenge;
- She escapes into the dark, so a sequel can be made.
In all cases:
With the avatar of abhorrent femininity gone, a conventional ever-after is possible. The male lead safely marries his lady love, starts a family. Baby-making and heteronormative gender roles resume. The order of the world is upheld.
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A PERFECT WIFE is set in the aftermath of a pontianak story. Dr Azman is a good man, enjoying the just reward he believes he deserves. All is well, in the order of the world. Yet Sara wonders why her happy ending feels pyrrhic.
What will you do about it?
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A PERFECT WIFE is a modern-horror adventure for TTRPGs, published as a print art zine and PDF. Its publication is helping fund flights and expenses for Amanda Lee Franck, Scrap World, and myself, to travel to Nottingham for WEIRD HOPE ENGINES, in March 2025.
SUPPORT US >>>HERE<<<
A PERFECT WIFE - Now On Kickstarter!
What happens when a toxic man forcibly marries a murderous vampiress?
A PERFECT WIFE is an adventure of contemporary supernatural horror, featuring the Malaysian pontianak, set in modern-day Kuala Lumpur.
A TTRPG zine with art by Amanda Lee Franck and Scrap World, layout design by David Blandy, and text + design (+ some art) by me!
This is also a fundraiser! Everybody working on the zine is part of a visual art exhibition called WEIRD HOPE ENGINES, happening in Nottingham in March 2025. Proceeds from our zine will go towards paying for air tickets and travel expenses to get me and Scrap and Amanda to the UK.
SUPPORT US >>>HERE<<<
(Draft layout)
The zine version of A PERFECT WIFE is an expanded, up-punched version of the adventure I posted on this blog:
- Sharper-drawn setting details and locations;
- A shift away from a genericised Asian city, to Kuala Lumpur specifically;
- Double the number of NPCs;
- Player-character background packages;
- A less-straightforward string of clues, for more satisfying investigative play;
- Proper cartography and better art.
To wit, here’s Sara from the blog post:
And here is Sara, in the zine:
But that’s just my art; strictly dilettante-grade stuff.
You are here for Amanda and Scrap, who both contribute sick, hand-painted, full-colour art to the adventure, oozing with moody dread:
I mean, come on.
We hope that all this is enough to entice you to back us. As of writing, we’ve already raised enough for a print run of the zine (with a fold-out of the location, and A5 art prints of Amanda’s and Scrap’s paintings), but we still need help with the flights-and-travel fundraising bit.
SUPPORT US >>>HERE<<<
Still not convinced? What’s it gonna take?
You know what? I’ll write something for you. I’ll write you a bespoke NPC, that you can use your game, when you play A PERFECT WIFE at your table.
I’ll even make art of this NPC for you. Original hand-drawn pen art which I’ll physically mail to you.
I’m not joking. This—alongside the option of having Amanda draw you a creepy (maybe cute) owl—is literally one of the add-ons you can append to your backer rewards on the Kickstarter.
(The show that we will all be part of. More info here.)
If it sounds like I’m begging—I am.
I’ve admired Scrap and Amanda for years. What a privilege to have worked with them on this zine, to have them make art from my words, my imagination.
It would be a dream turned real for me to be able to meet them for the first time, and thank them in person.
