I do not like stories or movies that feature threatened children. They never bothered me until I actually had kids, but now I can’t watch or read them at all. I am completely unable to disconnect the Mommy Bear circuit long enough to enjoy the fiction, so I avoid it.
Today I was reading a mild thriller (book title omitted to avoid spoilers). The book tricked me. I was introduced to a pair of children that were a match to Gleek and Patches in genders and ages. I was introduced to them obliquely in such a way that I never expected them to be seriously threatened. I saw them several times and thought “Oh how cute! JUST like Patches!” And then the children were not only threatened, but the little boy died.
I finished the book because it was hard not to. Then I threw it. I am MAD. I am mad at that author for making me care about those children. I’m mad the little boy died unecessarily from a bioterror weapon. I’m mad that his father comitted suicide and I never heard whether the mother recovered from the gunshot wound and I have no idea what happened to the terrorized little girl. And all of this is part of a subplot as if this tragedy wasn’t really important. This was NOT a happy book. A well written, interesting book, but not happy. I won’t be reading any more of this author’s books because I can’t trust her to not make me mad.
The rest of this evening will be spent snuggling Patches and generally appreciating how wonderful all of my kids are.
As a screenwriter and film maker I haved use the device of putting kids in danger, but I NEVER let them get hurt. Before becoming a parent I never thought about it but now it really affects me. Whenever I read obituaries of kids, it always makes me cry-probably the momma bear in me too. The book you read does sound really depressing. It funny, I can do my own dark and depressing movies and stories, but other peoples really bother me (probably ’cause I know how mine will end and it’s not a surprise for me). Who knows.
Most of the time I’m not as bothered as this. I can quickly identify whether a child is likely to end up threatened during the course of the adventure. If I feel it is likely, then I prevent myself from getting emotionally attached so I can deal with it. Usually if a hero has wife and kids they either die in the first 10 minutes (Or 5 chapters) or they’ll get grabbed and threatened later. I don’t attach to the children of heroes. They’re doomed.
What bugged me in this case is that I figured we were being introduced to the kids to provide background motivation for him to go and do something else. I didn’t expect to see the kids again because of the way the scenes were written. By the time I realized they were woven into events it was too late not to care.
In other news, I had a really nice evening. All my kids are wonderful and Patches got extra snuggles.
Just a suggestion…?
Don’t be mad at the writer. He’s just writing about the world that we live in.
Be mad at the people who have created a world in which such things are allowed to happen in the name of political expediency, and shrugged off with a momentary solemn expression and an empty euphemism like “collateral damage” or “unavoidable sacrifice” or “the cost of victory”.
If I want to read about the world we live in, I’ll read the news. Most of the literature Sandra and I pick up is escapist in nature… we don’t WANT to read about the world we live in when we’re on recreational time.
–Howard
Oh, I entirely understand what you mean there. It’s one reason you’ll rarely ever see me pick up a contemporary thriller, let alone a murder mystery. (OK, OK, certain Schlockiverse arms dealers excepted…. and granted, another is because the inevitable factual errors tend to annoy me.)
Nevertheless, it’s a poor book set in anything remotely pretending to be a realistic setting that tries to pretend innocents are never harmed, however much we may dislike the fact — though of course that does not in any way mitigate the unpleasant surprise of coming upon it unexpectedly with the turn of a page.
I’m not even going to begin to argue that my anger at the author is logical. It isn’t. It’s my irrational Mommy Bear looking for SOMETHING to attack since I got her all worked up.
I know what you mean. That’s how I felt after reading the fourth Harry Potter book: I was all upset, and esecially upset with myself for being upset about what happened to a fictional character. :/