I thought you could trust books

Okay enough is too much! My childhood has been officially ruined. It was ruined by a book. Books were always our friends. Books took us to far-off, imaginary places. Books got you out of studying for your algebra test. It’s true. When my mother asked if I was studying, if I said I was reading a book, she let it pass. Of course, I was probably reading the instruction manual to some video game, but she didn’t need to know that.

The book which completely destroyed me was a revised version of the Three Little Pigs. If you don’t know it, here’s the synopsis.  SPOILER ALERT I am going to tell you the ending, because frankly I don’t care if I ruin a hundred-year-old fairy tale. It’s not like I’m ruining a movie that just came out. I be upset about that, but after a hundred years if you don’t know the ending by now it’s your own fault.

The Grimm tale of the three pigs

The Three Pigs is a Grimm Fairy-tale and yes, it’s pretty grim. There are these three pig brothers, who got kicked out of their parents’ basement at thirty. I under this, most of them sit in a barn all day, doing nothing. Anyway, the pigs complain, leave, then all decide to build houses. Why? I don’t know I didn’t write the stupid thing. Frankly, I would have just moved into something already built, but who am I to judge. The first pig was into the counter culture and smokes a little weed, so he’s kinda lazy, and builds his house of straw. Cool, but you do have to watch out for the fire inspector.

The second pig is a real nature-freak and heads straight to the middle of the woods and builds his house out of fallen sticks. I’ll admit with the natural shade he saves a lot on air conditioning, but the falling leaves must’ve been hell on his lawn. The third brother is some kind of freaky work-a-holic, and finds stones to build a rock house. Totally crazy, but again, it’s not my story. Tile, flooring and fixtures are never discussed. The funny thing is they all build their houses in the same amount of time.

After a while a wolf comes by. I like to think he was riding a motorcycle but Grimm doesn’t say. He gets to the first pig’s house, and tries to break down the door but can’t. So, he takes a huge breath and blows the whole house down and eats the pig. Wait a second! He can blow the house down, but can’t get through the door? I guess you really can get good help from those lumber stores, but I digress. Next, the wolf goes to the second pigs house, blows down the stick house and eats the second pig. I have two problems with this. First, those pigs must have been huge, and wolves are smaller. Does Grimm expect us to believe he ate two pigs in one day? Not Happening! Second, what about trichinosis? That wolf must’ve felt some ill effects, but let me get back to the point. At the third pigs house, the wolf tried to blow it down but couldn’t. No Duh! So, he climbed down the chimney and was burned in the fire. The end.

After eating his brothers, I’m surprised that animal could get anywhere near a ladder, but this is the way Grimm wrote it. Some versions say the first pig escaped to the second pig’s house. Then the two of them escaped, made it to the third pigs house, and they all survived. Not the true story but fewer nightmares for the kiddies, so I’m good. What I can’t accept is the newest version I saw in a bookstore.

The happy tale of the three pigs

I am not making this up. In the new version it’s all the same until the wolf can’t blow down the stone house. The wolf yells at the pigs that he will get them eventually. The pigs ask, “Why?” The wolf says he’s upset with the pigs because he has no brothers, and the pigs have a good family life so the wolf feels he must bully them. In the end the all become friends and there’s a picture of them playing ball together. I’m not kidding. The poor wolf wasn’t bad, he was just misunderstood. Bull Cookies!!

Better bad guys

What happened to villains? Aren’t we allowed to have bad guys anymore? Disney has gone to great lengths to soften their villains by giving backstories to Cinderella’s stepmother, Cruella Deville, and Maleficent, showing them in a positive light. Then there’s the newish movie The Bad Guys. In it a wolf, spider, shark, snake, and piranha, who get a good feeling about getting a compliment change their lives. I’m sorry, I don’t want that. I want bad guys. Evil people, for the sake of being evil.

Marvel comics has been doing this too. In one of the spiderman movies, supervillain Sandman is only stealing stuff so he can see his tiny daughter again. It’ll make you cry. I don’t want sympathetic characters with touching motives. I want to love the hero and hate the villain. When the bad guy is destroyed, I want to cheer. If there is a chance, he or she isn’t really dead, that’s great. A good villain needs a second chance. I hate crying as the hero is about to destroy the evil-doer because his aunt Tillie will never walk again. There is even a Dare Devil story where the baddie is falling and Dare Devil tries for three pages to save him. Eventually he falls, but secret identity Matt Murdock pays the family. BOOOOOO! I don’t want to cry for him.

Why I’m mad an I don’care who knows it

The reason I’m so adamant about all this is I read a lot of books. All the books are doing this. They take page after page to tell me why the antagonist is so conflicted and sees no choice, but to do evil. I yell at the pages, but they never listen. Almost always they have unexplored options like food stamps. The authors I’ve written say they couldn’t suggest that because then there would be no story. I suggest making adversaries pure evil, but new authors always ignore that.

I may be a minority, but I love villains. I want to hate them from page one. I don’t want characters to pull at my heartstrings. I want heroes in fiction the same way. They need to be pure of heart, not conflicted about whether to go to Church or the adult book store. I want external conflict. Not nine-hundred pages of people trying to come to grips with the death of their pet mouse, Melvin. Unless of course, that demise sent them on a course to destroy all of Cincinnati. Then knowing about it is Okay.

OK, yes it is all about me

I may be ranting, but I’ve written two books, that no one will publish because of poor interpersonal relationships. Here’s a link to one of them Amazon.com: Beyond The Glow eBook : Christopher, Charlie: Kindle Store. It’s a good story without sap.

I don’t mean to toot my horn, but I need to know. Where have all the villains gone??