An Impassioned and Sloppy Rant Against Pathos

Warning: Blog post may contain British swear words


See that title? See it? I guess you can say what you will about pathos (and trust me, I intend to) but you can't fault it as being ineffective. Trouble is, I'm supposed to be mad at a character in a book right now. And I am, just not the one I'm supposed to be mad at. But I'm more mad at the author.


At the moment, for school, I'm having to read a certain book. Interestingly, I've read this book before, but it was some years ago and I remembered very little about it. I certainly didn't remember the icky, emotionally manipulative chapter I've just finished reading. I probably blocked it.


This chapter, or more specifically the story arc it concludes, is at its heart about a horse. This horse is the dearest possession of his conviction-lacking, easily controlled, and in all other ways depressing master. The one good thing the master has ever done has been the gentling, training, and befriending of this horse. In an earlier chapter, another character even observes that despite the uselessness and extreme lack of personality of this man, his treatment of his horse shows that he can't be all bad.


CAN YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING YET?????


Here, I'll tell you. Dorky Mr. I-Have-No-Strength-of-Character, who's broke because he gambles too much and can't keep a job, sells his horse to an INFAMOUS horse abuser who insists that he'll just keep the horse until the horse's rightful owner has enough money to buy the horse back. Long story short, the horse is dead within about 15 pages of the transaction.


I think I'm supposed to be mad at the horse abuser. Maybe I'm even supposed to be irritated with the poor, mindless fool who sells the horse in the first place.


But I'm not.


So who (besides the author) do I feel like strangling right now?


Our hero.


Yes, our brave, epic hero, who stands silently by watching the transaction, knowing the inevitable result, and doing nothing. Oh, no, wait, he does do something. He encourages the easily swayed and very trusting owner to sell his horse to the abuser. Hooray for him.


Oh, yes, our hero, who allows the idiotic abuser who knows nothing about horses to have his own way when they're planning how to transport some horses. The result of this? Ultimately, the abuser is left alone with the horse in a creepy wood that makes everybody jumpy, a location which would have been avoided completely had our hero taken charge of the situation from the start.


Our bloody hero, who finally beats the tar out of the abuser only after he's inflicted a good deal of abuse on the horse. And the result of this? When the abuser is later left alone with the horse in the creepy wood and the horse tries to run away and the abuser gets the bright idea of firing a shot in front of the horse, thereby scaring the horse into running back to him, his arm is stiff and bruised. So he misses and hits the horse's leg. So the horse has to die.


And did I mention that when the abuser gets back to his ranch, the horse's rightful owner has arrived with the money he's earned to buy his best friend back? No? Well, he has. And of course, the abuser lies about how the horse died. So the chapter ends on this incredibly happy and uplifting note:


"He rode away in mournful spirits. For he had made so sure of once more riding and talking with Pedro, his friend whom he had taught to shake hands."


Oh.


My.


Word.


You know the really upsetting thing about all this? I'm not even entirely sure that this passage was originally intended to be pathos-ridden.


The book was adapted into one continuous narrative from a collection of short stories the author had written and published previously. This section of the book is actually the first short story in which the book's grand hero originally appeared. It was based on an actual experience that the author had. Reportedly, he witnessed a horse being horribly maltreated and felt wretched because he was powerless to do a thing about it. Thus, he created the story's hero, a brave, strong, just man powerful and willing enough to punish the abuser for his wrongdoing. Now that would actually be a great story and not even remotely pathos-y. Instead of some angst-ridden outcry to..... something, it would have been a story told simply for the author's own benefit, a mental reimagining of events in which a man the author held in contempt and had long desired to punish finally received his just desserts.


Which is why it makes no sense that the horse ultimately dies because of the hero's vengeful actions against the abuser.


Or does the horse die because of the hero's ridiculous silence(s) earlier in the story?


Seriously, why would you create a hero for the sole purpose of avenging a horse's memory, and then have that hero be almost completely responsible for the death of the fictional horse based on the real one?


Also, why make the horse's original owner such a pathetic creature? The notes in the book I'm reading that explain about the story inspiring this passage have no comment on the owner character, so it's impossible to tell whether some version of him existed in the true event or whether he was born of the author's imagination. If the latter is the case, the whole thing becomes even more disgustingly Nicholas Sparks-y. Let's see, how can I make this scene even more affecting? I know! I'll make this horse the only bright point in the exaggeratedly depressing life of a character whom I describe over and over as being a "lost dog"!


(No, seriously. The first chapter in the two-chapter-long story arc is called "Progress of the Lost Dog".)


Is my confusion striking anybody else here, or is my anger making my writing confusing? I really don't know. I'm too furious to really know anything at the moment.


Here's something else I don't know: What emotion is this moronic writer trying to appeal to? What lesson is he trying to teach? Be kind to animals? Don't let yourself get cowed into selling your most precious possession to a known jerk? Don't beat people up? I honestly have no idea. The only person whose conduct is painted as reprehensible is the abuser's, but as I've already said multiple times, it's the hero's negative reaction to the abuser's behavior that finally causes the horse's death. Although I guess that the hero is never blamed. In the horse's death scene, the writer seems to fault the abuser's impulsiveness in firing the warning shot before endeavoring to figure out what is causing the horse's skittishness.


Okay, now that I think about it, I think (key word being think) that the writer's ultimate message is one against losing one's temper. It is anger which makes the abuser abusive and frustration which makes him fire a shot with a bad arm.


Considering this post, it would be somewhat hilarious if that was in fact the author's intended message.


But see, that's the thing about pathos. It invariably seems to have the opposite effect on me that it's meant to. Things that are supposed to be making me sad annoy me. Things that are supposed to incense me do, but I always end up getting incensed at the author or at a character I'm supposed to be rooting for.


Don't get me wrong; as a writer myself, I have no objection to a little emotional manipulation in storytelling. But it has to be subtle. For example, as of right now only one scene in a book has ever made me shed material tears. In this scene, the gravely injured main character has a dream. In this dream, he is surrounded by all the loved ones he has lost over the years, save one, who happens to be the one he misses most of all. When he discovers that she's a long way off and he tries to get to her, all the others hold him back, protesting that they can't bear to lose him again, and dang nab it, I'm tearing up just writing this (granted, I'm in a bit of an emotionally unstable state at the moment). But do you at least see what I mean? Yes, it's emotionally manipulative, but it's not pushing some agenda or trying to force me to act or think in a certain way. (Note: That previous sentence may be redundant. I'm really not sure, my mental faculties now being greatly compromised by my emotional upheaval.) I don't feel when I'm reading it like the writer wrote the scene with the express intention of eliciting strong emotion from me. I just feel like I'm reading a story, a very good story, about love and loss and longing.


As I indicated it would be in the title, this post is sloppy and impassioned, but I really needed to get my feelings sorted into semi-coherent thoughts somewhere, and my blog felt like a reasonably good place to do it.


Here's the really special part: I still have four more chapters I need to read tonight if I want to finish this stupid book by the deadline.


Ugh.


If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go mope and eat cookies for a short while. Maybe after that I'll be in a good enough mood to continue reading.


Maybe.


~Pearl Clayton