If it's the innocence of children that makes their deaths in fiction so unbearable, what about when they have no innocence, or when that innocence gets twisted into something else entirely? The best example again returns to Stephen King's Pet Sematary, where little Gage, once the victim, returns to life but with a thirst for murder. It almost twists at you to the point where you don't know what to feel. The scene of his death is heartbreaking, but when he comes back and turns on his family and neighbors, it's with such violence and ferocity that you can't even feel pity for him, even if he didn't ask for what he became. At the same time, you can't see him as just another murderous monster to be stopped, so everything is conflicting, which is part of what makes this story so powerful.
Sometimes though, it's because of that innocence that they take such dark turns. They don't have a full understanding of how the world works, or why things are the way they are, so when left to their own devices, they reach ideas and conclusions that just aren't acceptable in the world at large. Even at young ages, without the burdens of society, children can turn to violence and savagery every bit as brutal as any adult could unleash. Is there a better example of this than The Lord of the Flies by William Golding?
I think this version of children is the most terrifying, as I don't think there's any human which has a stronger bond to their natural instincts as a young child. Human beings are hunters by nature, we kill things for food, for territory, and for safety. At that level, we also have little qualms about killing others of our own kind, or even engaging in cannibalism. All the violence and horrific acts are justified in their minds, and no matter how much we don't want to admit it, we understand it. We see mirrors of ourselves in it before we turn away.
It does happen, though, that sometimes people are just broken from the start. Whether children can really just be born evil, I don't know, but with an organism as complicated as a human being, there are bound to be errors in the programming occasionally. In this vein, we have stories like The Omen, where the children are evil from the very beginning. It might be because they are the spawn of Satan or some other religious sect, or it could be that they're just broken. Regardless, these are easily viewed as more monsters than men, and it's easier to cheer for their destruction as they seemingly had no innocence in the first place.
The main thing about these monsters is that because they're so broken, they're unpredictable. There's no instinct behind their actions, nothing relatable in their motives, and because of that they can do anything. Children acting out some form of revenge have limits. Children acting on pure instinct still have limits. People, even children, that are just broken human beings from the start, don't. They're psychopaths, and one of the scariest things about psychopaths is that you can't see them for what they are until it's too late. And that goes ten times greater when that psychopath is a child.
So, I know some people can't stand to see children as victims, but what about the monsters and villains? Thoughts? Any favorites out there?
~ Shaun
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