Malice

Origin: Hell Gate, Hellish Abyss, the Rift
Area Affected: Himuro Mansion, Minakami Village, Kuze Shrine/Manor of Sleep
Associated Disaster: The Calamity, The Repentance, The Unleashing
Notable People Affected: Kirie Himuro, Himuro Family Master, Mourners

Malice (瘴気, shouki), or miasma in Fatal Frame III, is foul air from the Underworld. In places where the boundary between worlds is thin, Malice can spill out and affect the world of the living. Spirits touched by Malice are trapped between life and death in endless suffering, unable to pass on or rest peacefully. The sacrificial rituals of the first three games are concerned with preserving the barrier between life and death and keeping the Malice contained.

Fatal Frame

The Himuro family considered it their duty to perform the Strangling Ritual, sealing the Hell Gate and preventing the Calamity. However, Kirie's ritual failed, and Malice poured out from the Hell Gate. The Holy Mirror was broken, and 1,347 souls perished. Those that were not killed by the initial wave of Malice were killed by the Himuro Family Master - driven mad by the Malice, he searched the mansion for survivors and decapitated them, including the four Family Priests. Kirie herself was split into two entities; a malevolent spirit possessed by Malice, and a benevolent, younger version of herself that remained untainted, wanting to stop her older self.

When Miku reaches the Hell Gate at the end of the game, she will remark that she cannot get too close to it because of the Malice.

Fatal Frame II

When the time of the Crimson Sacrifice Ritual approached, Malice would seep from the Hellish Abyss, affecting anyone who came into contact with it. During the year after Itsuki Tachibana's failed ritual, it became strong enough to drive several Mourners mad, causing them to commit suicide by jumping into the Abyss.

After Sae Kurosawa was sacrificed, her spirit was tainted by the Malice, and she, along with the Kusabi, massacred the inhabitants of the village.

Fatal Frame III

Whenever the Last Passage was opened, a miasma would fill the Rift. The spirit list includes the ghost of a shrine carpenter who was sent to repair a bridge in the Last Passage, but was unable to endure the miasma and drowned himself. Residents of the Kuze Shrine developed the Purifying Light, a special candle that could cleanse the darkness and temporarily dispel the miasma. After the Unleashing, the miasma spread beyond the Last Passage, and the Engraving Shrine courtyard was sealed by Shrine Carpenters to contain it. When Kei enters this area, and again when he reaches the Chamber of Thorns, where the miasma is thickest, he remarks that the air feels heavy.

Gameplay

From Hour X onwards, the miasma becomes a gameplay element. When your condition becomes miasmatic, the screen turns monochrome, and hostile spirits will appear more frequently. Purifying Lights can dispel the miasma, but only for a short time.

During the final battle, the skull-like form floating above Reika will sometimes fly at Rei as if to attack her. This induces a brief but powerful miasmatic state, during which movement is slowed down and the field of vision is reduced to a small circle around Rei.

In the Real World

In Japanese and Chinese, 瘴 means malaria or the climate that produces it, and 瘴気 refers to noxious air which was thought to cause illness. For centuries before the discovery of germs, miasma theory was one of the main theories used to explain how diseases spread. A remnant of this theory can be found in the name malaria, which comes from the Italian words mala aria meaning "bad air". While incorrect, this theory did encourage improved sanitation practices as a way to ward off sickness.

The English word 'miasma', the standard dictionary translation of 瘴気, comes from the Ancient Greek word meaning pollution, as the Greek physician Hippocrates was one of the first people to propose a link between air quality and health. In Greek mythology, a miasma was a kind of contagious curse caused by particularly heinous crimes, which lingered on the family of the evildoer until some restitution was made (usually a sacrificial death).

'Malice' is a more general term meaning wickedness or ill-will. The concept of a harmful energy called Malice (マリス, marisu) also appears in the Japanese RPG Shadow Hearts, a contemporary of Fatal Frame.