Is it acceptable to kill a child character?

I am. Tragedies are fun.

 

Haha, well I was trying to be diplomatic. I agree, but that's an odd view we share.

 

I don't think that killing a child character is a cheap way to create a thrill for readers at all. Many comments have already been made that as long as it's done in a way that fits with the story, it's totally fine, and I agree. Obviously if you write the death of a child into your book purely with the intention of thrilling your audience, then a cheap thrill is exactly what you've just created, but if it's what you feel your story needs, then it's what you need to write. In an instance like that, I think it would be cheap if you DIDN'T kill the character...

 

But teenagers are irritating, cocky, and they suck in general. (I'm still a teenager and have to put up with their crap on a daily basis.) Then again, kids can be quite irritating as well.

*Goes on a child-oriented killing-spree.

 

Okay don't just kill them for the heck of it but if their death will create something significant in the story then go for it. I mean look at J.K. Rowling (God bless her for all eternity) she killed people, main characters and children alike, left and right and people still loved her stories.

 

I think by having a child die it can appeal to the reader's emotion, one piece I wrote recently had a little girl shot dead by a soldier, and it meant the MC breaking down and wanting revenge - she kills the soldier, but she takes the grudge up with a man at the top. It can be horrible to have a kid die, but it can be effective in sparking emotion, particularly as child murder is considered more outrageous than adult murder.

I think it's what made Pet Semetry by Stephen King effective as well, it dealt with the grief of losing a child and the desire to want them back, of course in Stephen King's world it would involve and indian burial ground and the undead.

 

True, fiction is fiction, but in real life, there is no such thing as merciful killing with people. Now, I know you are all going to hate me for this, but people are so much more important than animals. Sure, we are supposed to take care of the animals, and in that case a dog who just got run over by a car and is in extreme pain could very well be subject to "mercy" killing. With people this is very different. Who are we to judge who lives or dies? There have been people who were at a point where death seemed very appealling, but who made it through and changed the world. There have also been people who lived the rest of their lives in pain, but how are we supposed to tell the difference? We are not capable of deciding who dies. It isn't in our hands. Bad things happen to people all the time, it's part of life and we need to live with it. In some places death is used as a punishment for certain crimes like murder, and that actually makes sense, since the murderer is responsible for his own actions.
In fiction, this can get really interesting. The villain is allowed to kill anyone, any age, because that is his role. He is the evil guy and everyone disagrees with him anyway. Killing a child would certainly make us hate him more.
Second scenario. One kid lives, one dies, who is it going to be? Now if both children are safe infront of the hero, don't kill either, but if both are falling off a cliff, you can save one of them without worrying about people hating the hero for killing the other, because it wasn't the hero's fault (if they are going to hate anyone, it will be the author). If it was the hero's fault, too bad for him, since he will live with a terrible guilt for the rest of the book. You don't need to worry about the dead child because he isn't on earth anymore, but you should feel sorry for friends and family, since I can assume they feel bad.
Third scenario. Bad guy forces good guy to kill the child, or else both of them die. Logically, the good guy should not kill the child. If he does kill the child, then most people won't think of him/her as the good guy anymore.
Fourth scenario. Bad guy forces good guy to choose between two children. Good guy needs to kill one, and the other will live. If he doesn't do that, both children will die. First thing good guy should do: sacrifice his life if at all possible. If that is not possible, the good guy should not say anything at all. He should try to save the children, but shouldn't kill any of them. From then on, if anyone dies, it is the bad guys fault and the good guy has nothing to do with it. Seriously.
Here is my list of scenario's in which a good guy is allowed to kill anyone, whether adult or child.
-self defence. Not just kill him before he kills you. The kind where the last possible thing you are able to do is kill the bad guy.
-The bad guy is about to harm anyone innocent/defenceless. The good guy should only do this when there is no possible way to capture the bad guy.
-If the good guy catches the bad guy, he should hand him over to a form of power which will judge this guy properly unless..... the form of power is the bad guy, the form of power would release the bad guy (in that case, find a competent form of power) or the hero is the form of power, in which case he should judge wisely.

So kill anyone you want in your story. It should have a purpose, and it should be done well. Be careful you don't make the good guy a bad guy. This changes with who is reading the story, but there will be a point where everyone will hate the hero who has gone too far. The only time a good guy should become a bad guy is when that is part of the story. Even it is, I won't be happy with you. Then again, many of you are probably already very unhappy with me, so I guess we'll be even.

 

I expect you must have a pretty good reason in your storyline for contemplating this. The advice from your friend or whoever it was sounds pretty right-on-target to me. I can't think of anything that ought to be included in a novel without good reason--especially something so shocking that it's bound to be seen as purely "sensational" (pornographic, in a way). But if it's central to the storyline for some reason, then sure. I mean, "fictionally" speaking, anything's permissible, depending upon your targeted audience and the skill with which you deliver it.

 

Evelyanin, why all the good-guy/bad-guy talk? It's all irrelevant, IMO. The only thing that matters is whether or not a child death plays an important role in your story. If it's in your story plan, then keep it there. If not, then don't put in in "just 'cause".

If the man who flung the boy from the tower (see my earlier post) hadn't been a child murderer, his character would have been lacking and consequentially less interesting. Whether children actually die or not is irrelevant. I would treat it the same as any other part of my story. Is it worth the word count? Can I trim this? How important is it, really? The same questions that apply to everything.

 

Actually, it is very relevent. The question wasn't whether or not it is in your story plan, it the question was whether it was "acceptable". The reasons I gave were ones when or where it would be acceptable, and because of a whole list of comments relating to that, I had a whole list of other things that were also related. I am the kind of person that, when I have a thought, I put down all of it. I would be completely dissatisfied with only, "It is only acceptable sometimes." I guess that is one of my weak points. I tend to make essays out of everything. Be grateful your not one of my emailing friends.

 

In reality, children die. There is nothing wrong with killing a child character, because it's something that truly happens, and often. In many situations, children simply die because they are weaker than adults; this truth should not be distorted in books. It is true that it effects readers emotionally, but I feel that this is in part because it "rhymes" with reality, and makes the story harder, more realistic. I am currently writing a novel based in a demented future society in which the government experiments constantly on the population. To demonstrate the twisted nature of the world they live in, I describe equal suffering in adults and children alike, to demonstrate that the government's oppression extends to everyone. The deaths of children create a sense that the world is flawed, and that those flaws are universal.

 

And I was simply saying that it's "acceptable" when a death plays an important role in your story plan - in any way whatsoever. If it's important, then it's a keeper. There are infinite ways in which it could be important, so I guess I didn't really see the need to list specifics - especially when you seem to imply that those examples are the only ones that apply.

Btw, I'm fond of long posts and I write too many. I wasn't objecting to your 'essay', but rather the black-and-white nature of your argument. In my experience, things just aren't that simple, unless you're conforming to a simple formula. I would say that your list certainly applies to most steriotypical storylines, but not to stories in general.

That said, my own argument is admittedly simple.

 

Yes, you do make a good point, though in the end the stereotypical scenarios do fit with almost every story. There is no such thing as grey, just black and white. People like to invent the grey. For example, murdering someone would be in the black category, but killing someone because they murdered your friend is suddenly in the grey category. In reality, killing a murderer out of revenge is in the same category: black. Watching someone being beat up on the street and doing nothing about it is also black. Stealing a pen from work is just like stealing from the bank, black. The reason why we have a hard time figuring out what is white and what is black is because many of us don't have a clear idea of what is right and what is wrong. You put everything you said about the boy thrown out of the tower into context, and I would be able to tell you if it was right or wrong, unless I wasn't sure about what right and wrong really is. Most of us have a pretty clear idea about what is right and what is wrong, but we still stumble on some things about which we aren't sure, and that is where the "grey" comes from.
So in the end, it is really simple, the only problem is that us humans make it more complex than it really is.

 

You could also argue that there is neither black nor white; it is transparent. Morality is a concept imagined by humanity; without us to judge, there is no black or white. If we had a different viewpoint of the universe, we might even see morality in color. But it is more logical to accept that morality means nothing to the universe at large, and that it simply comes from our mental evolution. But then, how can anything be defined, if not by us?

 

I wrote that in my original post, but then deleted in an edit when I realised I had already said it in an earlier post, some time ago. . .

Basically, the man did this thing because his own family was at risk. So he could allow the boy live, and likely the lives of his children, lover, and himself would be forfeit. He acted without much hesitation. The path was obvious. It was also entirely selfish; just a man protecting his interests. Still, murdering a child is instantly condemned as an act of evil (I thought this when I read it). It seems black and white until you come to understand the man.

As my understanding grew I actually came to respect him for making these tough calls. He makes a lot of hard decisions, often without much internal debate. You could call him cold, but that's far from true. He's very passionate. You'd have to read the books to fully understand the character, but essentially he turns out to be quite heroic in his own way. Of course, he will always be an unsung hero, because he's the type of guy who would kill a kid without a second thought to protect his own.

If presented with a similar situation, the vast majority of people would eventually choose to off the kid that wasn't theirs. Obviously. But many would also turn it into a grand moral dilemma, which might cost them everything as they wring their hands and waste time. It is mostly fear, after all, that drives morality, and not so much a deep abiding concern for doing the "right thing." Of course, that's just my opinion - which is part of what makes this a "gray area". The character is, in my mind, simply less fearful and more honest than most people, with a strength of will to match. You could call him evil for a supposedly evil action, and brand him a villain if you like. Or not. You ultimately decide whether or not it's a black and white issue - and your decision is purely opinion.

As for the question of the thread. . . "is it acceptable to kill the child character" I answer with an emphatic yes. Whether the kid survived, or died from the fall, the character's action in that moment helped to define him for the entire series as a supremely capable individual. He would have been boring if not for that.

 

Thank you! Exactly. It's all just opinion, no matter how you slice it, which is why the idea of black and white irks me. Things can be black and white for you, but that's only for you and whoever might agree with you. As long as there is someone who disagrees, it is not universally black and white. That would require universal agreement.

 

I guess I can see why the guy would do that, but that still doesn't make what he did right. Ofcourse I didn't read the story, but there may have been other possibilities. He attempted to murder someone, whether the boy was innocent, I do not know, but that doesn't change the fact that the guy threw someone out of a tower with murderous intent.
As for universally acceptable, in the past most people agreed that the world was flat. I suppose that was something that was considered a universal fact. There have been many things in history that were considered "universally acceptable" and countless numbers of them have been proven wrong. So just because something is universally acceptable, does that mean that it is true?

 

This is getting off topic, but. . .

If you're talking about scientific facts, then obviously not. If you're talking about something which exists only as an idea, then yes. If every single human being believed in the same idea of morality, then whatever they agreed on would pretty much be true. It doesn't exist, therefore it has only the power you give it. Internal morality is a self-imposed law of sorts. You adopt your sense of morality from others, but you still enforce the law upon yourself. If you don't believe in it, then, being an idea, it simply does not apply to you.

Of course, you would inevitably get the crazy old guy running naked through town, waving a bloody chicken and shouting, "Free your minds, you hapless drones! It's all an illusion!" (that guy would be me) Then it wouldn't be a universal truth anymore.

Natually, the general consensus is law in the sense that you'll go to jail or pay a fine for most serious moral encroachments. To get a sense of how silly and distorted the idea of common morality really is, just take a look at some of the crazy laws that exist in every single country.

 

Actually, no. The ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs knew the world was not flat, just off the top of my head, and I'm fairly certain a few other older civilizations figured it out as well. It's not terribly hard to figure out as these things go.

The myth of the flat-earth came about in the middle ages of Europe, when most people were illiterate, let alone exposed to the type of education we take for granted today.

An appeal to popularity is never a valid argument.

That said, it works both ways; on what basis do we take your conjecture that morality is always binary?

 

Death happens to all ages, wither a miscarriage, cot death or accidently harm to children.

Remember reading not long ago that Mike Tyson's 4 year old daughter accidently hung herself from a string on a exercise bike.

In Hannibal Rising (the prolouge to the Hannibal series) Hannibal's sister 4 year old sister Mischa is killed and eaten by a gang of men. Whom Hannibal kills one by one as revenge. Hence him started his way on being a cannibal.

 

The first page of this thread was really catty.

Anywho... We're like seven pages deep so I can't image it has gone unmentioned,
but just in case the obvious has been left out, V.C. Andrews anyone?

 

If the story calls for it, I guess I could say don't hesitate to kill child characters. I've had to do it a lot and especially in my current story, it's absolutely essential.