Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Nothing "special" about it; we typically don't just kill off small children in books, either, because they are dependent upon us, as are animals.[...]
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
I don't think many romance novels kill people, but that is a feel good genre.
Animals get special treatment because they are dependent on us.[...]
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Not sure I'm fully convinced by the "dependent" argument. It's part of it, sure, but I don't think it's the full story because the prejudice appears to extend even to those animals that don't depend on us. (Although
Twilight did get away with killing bears and cougars - but I certainly wasn't happy about it.) It might just be that it seems such an unfair match between human and animal, but then many of the murders of people aren't fair either.