tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post764875666129739975..comments2024-02-05T10:41:31.777-05:00Comments on I Saw Lightning Fall: Ross on the Ethics of Murder in FictionLoren Eatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12488412683340389286noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post-78783942843835944412014-04-01T14:56:17.773-04:002014-04-01T14:56:17.773-04:00Want to talk troubling trends in children's en...Want to talk troubling trends in children's entertainment? For years, Disney has made the prime conflict in its stories the killing off of or abandonment by parents. That's troubling on a thematic level for little viewers.<br /><br />Regarding the <i>via negativa</i> (showing the "negative way" in stories), I agree that there's a place for it. Violence is horror. However, I always use it sparingly because I know that somewhere out there is a maladjusted person who's ignoring my intent and getting his jollies from the portrayal.Loren Eatonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12488412683340389286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post-44897519001398016602014-03-28T11:56:13.824-04:002014-03-28T11:56:13.824-04:00If there's one pet peeve that I'm quickly ...If there's one pet peeve that I'm quickly developing, it is the way that children's entertainment increasingly glamorizes the killing of innocent people for no good reason but personal fulfillment.<br /><br />The Lego Movie was, of course, the nadir of this, but so many epics have this problem. In The Lego Movie, we first know that the main character might be The Chosen one when he's capable of a high-speed chase in which a bunch of semi-faceless police officers are presumably killed. That's right: kids films now present heroes whose creative ability to play with LEGOs boils down to the murder of cops. Presumably because, since he doesn't know any of them or their families, they don't count as human. And then we wonder why, as a nation, we aren't at all concerned about the number of American citizens and foreign citizens who are executed by drone without a trial.<br /><br />That said, I think the responsible presentation of situations in which "the deliberate ending of someone's life is laudable" is a pretty central to literary practice. I can't imagine King Henry V without the scene where he hangs his friend Bardolf, because the law is the law and King Henry must be just. Similarly, the Illiad has one of the most profound scenes of grief and reconciliation in literature, but it is only enabled by the "rage of Achilles" in which the world's greatest warrior kills the epic's most sympathetic character, loses his best friend to the violence of war, and is nearly overcome by the rage and chaos of war.<br /><br />Honestly, I think the problem with literature is that it needs more violence, rather than less. We need more Katniss Everdeens, whose acts of killing provide such a toll on her that in the end she's reduced to a quivering pile of PTSD neuroses. We need kids shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the young heroes have to deal with allies willing to wipe out a town of civilians to further their righteous revolutionary aims. In short, it's not that authors shouldn't ever celebrate violence--it's that they should tell the very disturbing, ugly truth about violence. What we need to get away from is films that lie about violence. The problem is not the glorification of violence; the problem is stripping violence of its horror.Chestertonian Ramblerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01550643992523840950noreply@blogger.com