Rambles: Monsters were never meant to represent 'people'

A repost of something I rambled off on MeWe:

"My understanding of 'fantasy monsters' at their most basic is that they represent the impersonal forces of destruction of early human lives (animal, disasters and diseases) made into a coherent and physical, yet beatable form. Not that they represent 'the other'. Barring those cases of folklore/mythology mixed with potentially historical events, mind you.

To me this is the mythological root of 'the monster'. Something you normally cannot fight again is made manifest and physical for the hero to triumph over and, maybe, in the process tell a cool story around a campfire. That monsters exist in the myth of highly insular people, all over the world, seem to show the very concept of them is something deeply rooted in the human psyche. That and, of course, fear of the dark and the unknown. Of what lies beyond the light and warmth of the fire of civilization be it a simple tribe or a burgeoning nation.

Why do you think even young children in this day and age worry about monsters in the dark? It's the primal fear of what cannot be known nor controlled."