That’s part of what makes Sarah’s characters so interesting.  Most authors write about characters who seem to know themselves very well.  Sarah’s characters are more like real people, who generally don’t know themselves all that well, who hide things from themselves, who have a slightly (or more than slightly) different view of themselves than what they are in reality.  Her skill in showing the difference between the character’s perception of themselves and the reality of their true nature, is one of the things that sets her writing apart.

To me, these two chapters show how easy it is to make a mistake and have it snowball into something horrendous.

Or maybe it’s just me again, trying to convince myself that Elly is something that she is not XP

Elly’s actions had far greater consequences than Sam’s single act.  Sam should have known better, obviously and yes, what he did could have scarred Elly for life.  But it didn’t.  Instead she used that moment to her advantage to get what she wanted from Sam, attention and, eventually, sex.  Elly was innocent went she was six (really, even that’s up for discussion considering her obvious maturity at that age) but not as she grew up and learned to use such a situation to her advantage.

Her intentions were good when trying to heal her grandfather but instead of thinking about what she was doing, she just did it because she wanted a relationship with him.  She didn’t think of what she was doing would actually do to him.  His death was a result of Elly’s want to satisfy herself.  She did what she did because it’s what she wanted.  Again, she wanted to manipulate the situation to her own advantage.  And it resulted in someone’s death.

The same thing happened with Sam, just without the masked altruism.  Elly used Sam in order to get back at Sien and then turned the situation on its head in order to benefit herself.  The result was Sam’s death.

Because of entirely selfish acts, Elly caused two deaths.  She deserves the weight she has on her shoulders and I don’t pity her for it.  Sam was most definitely a sleaze but it didn’t render him dead.  And the difference between Elly and Sam, Sam learned from his mistake.  Didn’t stop him from being a sleaze but he never put himself in that situation after that with her.  So regardless of how much of scum he is, there is some semblance of a brain functioning in his head.  Not to say Elly’s stupid but she’s obviously not thinking things though, nor is she learning anything at 16 like Sam did at 15.  Remember, he did keep his distance to an extent but Elly goaded him on, something she even admitted to herself.

So for me, the scales tip greatly for Elly to deserve everything she has coming.  I never liked her much to begin with when she was a child because she was so manipulative but this pushed it right over the edge.  That’s not to say Sam isn’t a piece of crap and didn’t deserve a thorough beating but he didn’t deserve to die because of some self-serving little girl.  Consensual statutory rape happens every single say (Miley Cyrus and her boyfriend, anyone?) so I don’t think he deserved to die for having sex with a 16 year old.

I weigh action and consequences.  Maybe if we couldn’t see into Elly’s head and didn’t know she was so manipulative, it’d be different.  But since we see, step by step, just how she utilizes every situation to her own advantage, I find it very hard to pity her, especially when her manipulation caused people to die.  That’s not to say I readily pity Sam.  I know a few torture techniques that would be fitting on him but, for me anyway, it’s hard for me to see him as such a disgusting sicko that deserved to die when Elly was there milking his attention for all it was worth and knew exactly what she was doing to him.  And then lead him to slaughter so she could remain Daddy’s Little Girl.  I just don’t see that as being right.

My point is simply that you can certainly have pity for someone when they get what they deserve.

Obviously, you can decide against having pity for that person — like deciding against pitying Sam and considering Elly justified in whatever she did, or pitying only Sam and not Elly.  That just leads me to wonder, why righteous rage against Elly for her wrongdoings but not for Sam?  Do you judge a teenaged girl more harshly for her sins than a teenaged boy?  Doesn’t matter if he’s not a “true pedophile,” he should never have exposed himself and tried to initiate contact with a 6 year old.

I guess you could say my opinion is that everyone deserves a little pity because there’s no one who makes the right decision, the selfless decision, in every situation.  Characters who do that aren’t believable as real people.

In the end, both Elly and Sam did wrong things and will continue to suffer consequences for the rest of their lives.  I never let any of my characters go unpunished, but then, obviously it would be pointless to write about them if my readers have no pity for them.

Liseli’s going to be pissed!

“He was obviously more scared of the idea of her being raped that she was.”
that vs than