Allegiant, Day 4

*Long sigh*


Well, I'm done. Finished. Another series read and filed away in my memory.


This morning, as I was taking a short break before finishing completely, I thought about some of the many things I considered saying and ended up leaving unsaid throughout this process, because I changed my mind or I couldn't figure out a smooth way of fitting them into the posts or because I got so carried away writing about something else that I forgot about the other points I was going to make. Some of those omitted things were silly, like the observation that I really hate it when books say "so-and-so said" or "so-and-so says" when so-and-so has just asked a question (here's a better example that's actually from Divergent: "I look at her and say, 'Then why did you come, if you didn't believe him?'") (this happened, like, at least once every conversation, too; it about drove me insane). Others were more serious, like the revelation that the main reason I tend to hate dystopias so much is the frequent appearance of frustrating preachiness so thinly veiled it might as well not be veiled at all.


Basically, I got a lot of thoughts and impressions reading this series, so many I couldn't realistically record them all. But I didn't get a lot of feelings. Now, that doesn't mean that this series didn't effect me emotionally. It did. But other books have made me laugh from amusement or joy. Other books have gotten me misty-eyed with happiness or empathy or sadness. One book has succeeded in giving me such a mess of emotions simultaneously that it brought real tears onto my cheeks. Divergent did none of those things. (Actually, I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but during the scenes which were probably supposed to make me cry I found myself quoting "Sherlock", singing a song from Wicked, and thinking, "For pity's sake, Tris, haven't you ever read poetry?". 'Cause see, I'm eccentric and I like to avoid the mainstream.)


That doesn't mean Divergent is a bad series. It isn't. I don't think it's some new pinnacle of great literature, and I'm not adding it to my list of favorite books and book series, but it isn't bad. I read it, I liked it, I'll remember it, and now I'm moving on.


But first, there's one more thing I need to write about.


Killing off characters.


Why do authors do it? What purpose does it serve? How can it possibly make a narrative better?


I find that most writers do it, me included. I've written two stories, am currently writing a third, and have several more elaborately planned out that feature at least one character dying. It's instinctive, somehow. I get an idea, I work on it a little, and pretty soon I'm asking myself, "Should I kill anyone off?"


I have a bit of a method, though, which I discovered as I was mentally drafting this post earlier. Once I've marked a character as doomed, I groom them for it. I damage them through circumstances within or beyond their control. I create characters so demented or desperate or despairing or dysfunctional that they couldn't possibly heal, couldn't possibly build fulfilling lives for themselves after the events of the story have concluded. I manipulate my stories so that, for the characters I've chosen, an early death becomes the only truly satisfactory fate.


I don't feel like this is a common practice.


A similar practice that seems slightly more common among more popular authors, especially of older books like Little Women and Daniel Deronda, is the practice of killing characters who are old or have been sick for a while, characters who have had time to make their peace with God and the past and who go out gently. These deaths, I think, hurt the most, but they might very well be the most justifiable. They remind us of our mortality and force us to ask ourselves who we will become and what will matter most to us when our own deaths approach.


But by far the most common practice, I think in recent years especially, is the practice of creating what I have decided to call "Casualties of Expectation".


J. K. Rowling was a bit of a pioneer in this practice. Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth and, undoubtedly, many others are following in her footsteps, all of them killing off so many characters they make you afraid to like anyone, any character, anywhere. It's become an expectation that there will be casualties, fatalities. So there are.


If you asked any of the authors of action series, Rowling or Collins or Roth, why they wrote so many death scenes, they'd probably say, "It's a war. It's a battle. I'm only trying to be realistic." But I can't help but feel, reading, that characters die who realistically wouldn't have. Authors write past the point of logic just for the sake of killing the youngest characters, or the ones with the most elaborate plans for their lives. They do the exact opposite of what I do. Or at least, it seems that way.


Some of these characters die bravely and heroically. Most don't.


I go on a lot of fandom-themed pages on Facebook, and there I constantly see reactions to all these Casualties of Expectation. Posts like, "Hush little fandom, don't you cry; you all knew your favorite character was going to die", or "Look at this great picture of all my favorite fictional characters!" accompanied by a drawing of a graveyard. Fangirls talk about their "feels" (a word which can mean one's emotions, one's capacity to feel emotions, or simply negative emotions) being broken, or destroyed, or simply being felt. They write about how much they wish they could read a story where all the best characters are alive and living happily ever after come the last page.


But here's the thing (watch out for possible spoilers).


The Charlie Bone series has (in my opinion) the best, brightest, and most hopeful final chapter of any book or book series ever written. The Tiffany Aching series has a happy ending. Really, compared to most modern teen literature, The Lord of the Rings has almost no death, at least not among named main characters. You would think that these series would be massively popular (and I guess that Lord of the Rings is, but at the moment it's rather paling in comparison to Divergent and HG and the like), seeing as how fangirls seem to be constantly begging for them.


And yet they're not.


This is where we get to the disturbing part.


I think that, for some reason unknown to me, we crave death. We crave grief. Fangirls can cry, "You broke my feels!" and "Who gave you the right?" and "I wish so-and-so hadn't died!" all they like, but deep down they're always looking for more. I think that some part of all of us yearns to feel heartache and longing, and fiction has always existed as a safe place to feel it, a place where people can die and be mourned without harm coming to anyone of flesh and blood, a place where we can experience loss and whatever positives we're apparently deriving from it without there being truly irreparable damage done.


And then, there's that even darker impulse, the one I think is buried deep in most authors: the desire to cause heartache. From some dark recess within ourselves we get a horrifying, sickening craving to write pain into existence, and we do. I'm aware of it in myself, and that's why I think I only kill characters whose stories couldn't end any other way. Even though I'm the one who made them miserable in the first place, the fact that I'm ending their misery and sending them to better horizons means I can say they would have been more miserable if they'd survived the story, that their deaths are merciful, necessary, and that I don't have to be terrified of myself.


I wonder if Rowling and Collins and Roth, if the infamous George R. R. Martin and the ruthless Julian Fellowes, feel it too. If you went up to them and asked "Why did so-and-so die?", I wonder if they would immediately reply with an inaccurate, kneejerk excuse like "realism", or if they would pause and blush and look at their hands because they dislike facing their dark sides as much as I dislike facing mine.


*Shrugs*


And with that, I'm out. Through. Run dry.


Finished.


So...... does anyone have any suggestions for next summer?


~Pearl Clayton