In fact, the present position is an outright reversal of Kayser's. The comic, just as the sublime, originates in some threatening event, which is observed at a sufficient distance from the danger for the observer to feel safe. An observer who does not feel sufficiently safe will respond in an opposite manner. What characterizes the grotesque, according to some psychologists and literary theorists, is a disruption of alternativeness . Instead of deciding unambiguously in favor of one or another defense mechanism, the grotesque leaves the observer in an intermediate state, in uncertainty, in a state of indecision.
Many people find such an emotional state difficult to bear.
For these people a comic, or even a fearsome devil would be more tolerable than this state of emotional disorientation. So, they are likely to suppress one of the conflicting emotions, achieving an unambiguously fearsome or unambiguously funny devil. They have no names, and the categories mixed have never been seen together. Consider figure 3. His hind quarters have fallen away, revealing a hellish tavern scene within, while his head supports a large disc on which devils and their victims promenade around a large bagpipe.