A quote on violence

Was reading a webcomic — well, actually a bought-and-paid pdf of a webcomic because that makes turning the pages quicker — and came across this statement from the creator.

I have to say, mostly to add relevance to this introduction, that I agree.

I love fictional violence. I adore it. But it has to be completely fictional. Real violence disturbs me, angers me, frustrates me or just leaves me with a nauseous feeling of dread and sadness. Many of you may disagree with me, but I’m one of those people who believe that fictional violence does not really lead to real violence.

So that was the quote.

As for the idea, I’ve often felt the same about great many reality-disagreeable things. Well, most of them, actually. Maybe all. I have the sort of a mind that sees something horrible, and while doing all the proper and moral reactions shelves a copy of that horror away, away into the box of toys on the other side of the mirror. Because there they are adorable.

Just think Darth Vader. He would not be nice in real life. Imagine a knock at the door, and there’s this black-clad Satan Himmler there, with white-clad masked iron-heeled storm troopers, all of them about to ask you questions about rebel spies. And if you don’t give him useful information, then — whether or not you have that information, and actually whether you give it or not — it’s force choke and laser bolt and good bye. In real life, you’d gundark yourself in zero point two seconds, because Darth Vader is neither good nor nice. But in fiction, he is hot stuff and wicked cool!

(Which is a silly example, but the serious one ended up having the phrase “a rapacious cackling Bizarro-Superman ero-guro Tarantino fanboy” in it, so not using that one.)