animals in comics makes me sad

[nickwire]

so i was flippin through pride of baghdad last night in a book store (i still havent bought it yet, dunno why) and the last few pages feel like a punch in the gut. am i the only one who gets choked up when things happen to lil ole animals? the three saddest things ive ever read in comics are WE3, the last couple of pages of baghdad and when the monkey dies in Y. i might just be a sap though but i can see people die all the time in comics, just not animals i guess

[Ares]

Your not a sap.I just find it funny that people will accept people getting killed very gruesomely but will throw a fit when its an animal

[nickwire]

thats what im trying to figure out, why myself and others think that way. the other day i watched a doc on captain cook and how when he died, he was chopped to bits, didnt think anything of it...weird

[Senormac]

Maybe your a Martian.........do you know your parents???

[Turtle]

I think it's just we're just desensitized to the killing of humans. I'm sure if we saw animals killed in movies, comics, and tv as much as humans, we'd eventually get desensitized to that, too.

 

I'm not there yet. I always get a little choked up when I watch Equilibrium and you hear the gunshots and the yelps of the dying dogs in the background. I see Christian Bale smash 6 guys faces in in the matter of about 8 seconds, but the dogs are what phased me...

 

On a somewhat related note: I used to work in a video store. Next time you're in one, go to the action or drama sections and count how many covers have a gun on them. It's a pretty high percentage.

[joe_collector]

Nah, kill all the animals you want - I care more about old people and little kids.

[joe_collector]

Your not a sap.I just find it funny that people will accept people getting killed very gruesomely but will throw a fit when its an animal

 

It's because the movie is written that way.

 

The animals are usually innocent bystanders, inserted to create a "save the cat" or "pet the dog" scenario for the hero. It's exactly the same thing if we see an innocent little kid getting mowed down, like that memorable scene in the first-and-only Assault on Precinct 13.

 

If the animal is a bloodthirsty villain, it's a totally different, and I don't remember anyone getting all choked up at the end of Jaws, Anaconda, Lake Placid, or Deep Blue Sea.

[mikeyboy9000]

If the animal is a bloodthirsty villain, it's a totally different, and I don't remember anyone getting all choked up at the end of Jaws, Anaconda, Lake Placid, or Deep Blue Sea.

 

Heh, "noooo not jaws! Get him jaws, get him!"

 

I feel the same way though as the OP, nickwire, kill the people, zombie get the kids, whatever, dog goes near zombies and suddenly i'm yelling at a screen for a dog to move it's , while telling the kids to trip so the dog gets away...:shrug:

[joe_collector]

I feel the same way though as the OP, nickwire, kill the people, zombie get the kids, whatever, dog goes near zombies and suddenly i'm yelling at a screen for a dog to move it's , while telling the kids to trip so the dog gets away...:shrug:

 

Here's some great advice: Don't have kids!

[Mac Man]

I think it's just we're just desensitized to the killing of humans. I'm sure if we saw animals killed in movies, comics, and tv as much as humans, we'd eventually get desensitized to that, too.

 

This was part of the reason Brian K. Vaughn decided to write Pride of Baghdad as an anthropomorphic tale versus one using humans. It has less to do with our feeling bad about animals being killed if they appear to deserve it (i.e. some Rottweilers getting shot for attacking a person) than it does with seemingly innocent animals getting killed for no reason.

 

And Nickwire, I always turn the channel when one of those Sarah McLaughlin / SPCA commericals come on. If you're a sap, then you have me for company!

[Turtle]

^Good point about the movie being written to influence your feelings. While there's definite truth to that, I still feel that because we see more human deaths than animal deaths, some people feel more emotion regarding the animal death. A few examples:

 

The opening sequence of Disney's Tarzan. Tarzan's human parents and the gorilla's baby die at pretty much the same time under effectively the same circumstances (a la Jaguar). I have to say that I felt worse for the little Gorilla than I did for the parents. Although one could argue that losing a baby more emotion-invoking than losing a full-grown adult.

 

The sequence you mentioned in Assault on Precinct 13 or the Thomas Jane Punisher movie. Both had a kid die in it, but I had more of an emotional reaction to both the Equilibrium example from above or the dog's last scene in I Am Legend.

 

More facetious example: It could be argued that by the end, the dog in I Am Legend was a bloodthirsty villain, but I still felt choked up when she died.

[joe_collector]

Both had a kid die in it, but I had more of an emotional reaction to both the Equilibrium example from above or the dog's last scene in I Am Legend.

 

Different strokes. I had zero reaction to any of those "dog death" scenes (the Equilibrium one was a quite blatant "save the dog" trick), but I still remember that little girl getting blasted away in Precinct 13.

 

And yes, the baby gorilla example is entirely due to it being a baby, as the response to Tarzan's gorilla father dying is on par with his real parents. Killing babies is almost verboten in movies, as it affects us on a very deep level.

[joe_collector]

A great example of this is The Sweet Hereafter, which hit many people very dramatically, especially the "scalpel on the baby" part where the narrator is ready to plunge it in her throat should she stop breathing.

 

I've seen lots of people turn away from that scene, and also be very affected by the loss of a town's entire generation.

[Turtle]

JC,

 

Good points and well-put at that. Just out of curiosity, though, do you have kids and/or pets? Maybe this is a factor, maybe it's not.

 

I have no kids and I've grown up with dogs; I have 1 now. Maybe this influences my reactions.

[joe_collector]

Had dogs when I was a kid, and have kids now that I'm an adult.

 

And it's not that I don't react to animal deaths, I just don't appreciate the type of overt manipulation of the above two scenes in Legend and Equilibrium.

 

On the other hand, I was affected by the dog's death in The Road Warrior, as it saved his life in a very selfless act. That was a good death.

[conditionfreak]

I will probably become the butt of jokes because of this, but I will tell the truth anyway.

 

I have been a meat and potatoes eating guy my whole life. Steak was #1.

 

Two years ago, I found a baby White Tail deer approximately one or two days old and injured. I took it to a vet and he fixed it up and told me that it would not be a good idea to take it back where I found it as he knew I had several dogs and with the smell of humans and dogs on the baby, the mother may abandon it.

 

So, my wife and I raised it by bottle (goats milk) but alowed "Kobe" to live in the woods, not fenced in. We took care of him until he was what they call a "button buck". When he was older and lived free, he still came to our back door at 8 am and 2 pm, every day, looking for food and companionship. We fed him grapes (his favorite), carrots and apples. Occasionally he would even "ask" for a bottle of milk still (he would keep nudging my hand which he always did when I had a bottle of milk in it when he was a baby).

 

I introduced Kobe to both my neighbors who were hunters, so they would not shoot Kobe, as hunting season was approaching. They both took to him and started feeding him by hand (which, honestly, made me jealous a little). I put a blue ribbon around his neck (stapled, not tied, so that it could break away if it got caught on a limb), and painted "PET" in orange, on his sides (there is a product used to mark cows and such that I used).

 

Anway: short version. My neighbor who was a renter next to me, on 48 acres, shot and killed Kobe, and cut him up for the freezer, to eat. Apparently he had purchased a deer tag and had not gotten a dear yet and it was the last day of hunting season, so he took Kobe.

 

I was devasted. Kobe was my best frind at the time. We took walks, played "head butting", even danced with his front hooves in my hands.

 

I seriously considered killing my neighbor, but he had a wife and a 5 year old son, so I did not. After all. It was just an animal and Kobe was on his land (because he had been handfeeding Kobe up until hunting season). I figured he was feeding Kobe to use Kobe in the future to lure other deer to the spot where he always fed Kobe (I now know that there is a deer stand in a tree at that spot). This neighbor moved away to parts unknown, just two weeks after killing Kobe.

 

Since the death of Kobe, I have had difficulty eating my favorite food: meat. This has went on for quite some time, and I had railed against God for creating a world whereupon most things eat other things, and usually eat them alive. Seems to me that an all powerful God, could have made us (and everything else), just eat carrion, or rocks, or just plants. Why is it like it is? I have a family full of hunters and I know that for every deer that is taken, there are two to four that are shot and never found. They just go hide and die a slow and painfull death. Hunters claim that they are just getting food for their families. Hogwash! Why do they hand the heads on their walls? Why do they shoot button bucks? Why do they relish the stories of their hunting exploits and how the kill went? Laugh about how the animal did a flip when shot, or how they had to chase down a three legged deer and club it to death after they shot it (this happened in my presence once).

 

I decided two months ago to quit eating meat and now my wife calls me a "veggin". I just can't stomach it anymore. Eating meat. It is actually more expensive to not eat meat than it is to eat meat. Which surprised me as meat is usually the most expensive thing one buys at the grocery store. The veggie substitutes for weiners, burgers and such, cost more than the actual meat products.

 

I honestly do not know how long I will be able to go without eating meat, but I have to try. It was my number one item of food for most of my life. Many times I ate just meat for my meals, and nothing else except maybe some bread.

 

My best friend has recently been discussing it with me and asked me if I am going to just feed my dogs veggies. It has me thinking how silly that would be, so I am confused. I am still not eating meat because I can survive that way, but I do not think that the dogs could be healthy and happy that way, so they get their meat.

 

I am really one confused person right now, with this internal turmoil. Make my life harder and more expensive (and honestly, a LOT harder), or simply just give in and do what most do and apparently what we are "made" to do. Eat meat.

 

I have to be able to live with myself, so I am doing what I think is right for me. But it is a pain in the arse. Any other vegitarians out there?

 

[Mac Man]

WTF. I mean that is seriously FUBAR and it makes me sick to my stomach.

 

I'm okay with hunting. I used to hunt and trap as a teen. But what that individual did was absolutely disturbing. I've placed salt licks to get deer comfortable with an area before going in to set up a stand, but that guy not only KNEW that animal was essentially a pet, but also participated in the care for the animal.

 

I know some members here will simply say, "Tough, suck it up and move on." My : that fella is one sick puppy and I'm really sorry that happened to you and Kobe.

[Ares]

Not to make fun what happened.. That is pretty sick.

But wasn't naming the deer Kobe which is a type of beef raised for steaks a little unusually...

 

Or was it for Kobe Bryant

[joe_collector]

That neighbor is bad news, and creepy stuff like that is probably only the tip of the iceberg with that freak.

[Turtle]

Sad story.

 

Was the neighbor that shot Kobe one of the ones that you introduced to Kobe earlier? Did you confront him about Kobe after the fact? Did he know it was Kobe when he shot?