Revenge: it's a dream of flames fueled by scorched remains that are lit to a torch and brought back upon the one who burned you.
Perhaps this is what Henry James meant when he talked about the __rresponsibility_ of characters. Characters are irresponsible, art is irresponsible when compared to life, because it is first and foremost important that a character be real, and as readers or watchers we tend to applaud any effort made towards the construction of that reality. We do not, of course, indulge actual people in the world this way at all. In real life, the fact that something seems real to someone is not enough to interest us, or to convince us that that reality is interesting. But the self-reality of fictional characters is deeply engrossing, which is why villains are lovable in literature in ways that they are not in life.
The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel
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Perhaps this is what Henry James meant when he talked about the __rresponsibility_ of characters. Characters are irresponsible, art is irresponsible when compared to life, because it is first and foremost important that a character be real, and as readers or watchers we tend to applaud any effort made towards the construction of that reality. We do not, of course, indulge actual people in the world this way at all. In real life, the fact that something seems real to someone is not enough to interest us, or to convince us that that reality is interesting. But the self-reality of fictional characters is deeply engrossing, which is why villains are lovable in literature in ways that they are not in life.
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This isn__ how things were supposed to happen. I was supposed to be me. Not this.
An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.
Blame is the creed of the disempowered.