Tragedy Thrills me

For a long time i have noticed that tragedy is the one thing that thrills me. whenever i am reading a book, i looks for the personal tragedies of the various characters. and if i do not find any character with a tragic part, then i no longer like it. here i wish to take a pause, and define what i mean by tragedy. when i say tragedy, i mean, that the character must suffer some great misfortune. the character must not ever be happy, right until the end of the story (and preferably not even then).
i love it when i read a character who is in pain. and even more than that, i love it when the pain is self-inflicted. when the character has done something stupid, and is now suffering the consequences. for example, recently i read a book, 'the black prism'. it involves the story of a man, who has imprisoned his own twin, to be king of the world. and, he is father of a child he refuses to claim as his own, for the sake of the woman he loves. now i havent read the whole thing yet, but insofar as i have, i enjoyed knowing of the poor king, who was being pulled in a thousand different directions, and quite literally torn apart from all the pulling!
in this manner, i suppose i really love reading Mr George R R Martin. because he is oh so kind to his characters. in the first book of his series 'A song of fire and ice', he introduced a noble family of 10. by the end of the book, the head of the family was dead, his brother missing in the wilderness, his eldest son fighting a war he did not understand, the man's basterd son looking for the missing brother, his next son, a cripple without legs, his elder daughter a prisoner, and the younger one fleeing from those who imprisoned her sister. his wife meanwhile is looking for some way to keep her family together, while the youngest child, a son of 5 years, is yet to come to terms with life, which is tragic enough as it is. oh and by the way, a great winter, which is somewhat like a mini-ice age is prophesized to come in soon. talk about tragic.
no offense to that great genre of writing, where great heroes took it upon themselves to rid the world off evil. those guys, chose to suffer, and well, they came out on top of it to triumph. and i love that kinda literature too. but the special corner of my heart goes out to the people who are just in plain misery.
yes i am a sadist, a narcissist, and i rely on other peoples misfortunes to make myself happy, and i do not shy from acknowledging it. but before anyone critisizes me for this, i'd like to ask a question. are you any different?
its a human trait, so lets not shy from it. lets be honest and acknowledge it. we all love a great comedy, but even more we love a great tragedy. there are countless soaps, that in India are popular only because they involve a matriarch who is always havign to fight to save the family. some of the most famous movies ever, were those in which the people always had problems. stepmom for example, involved the mother dying, and having to actually tell her kids to love the woman who had after a fashion stolen her husband. the most famous sitcom of the ninetis, FRIENDs, relied almost throughtout the series, on the ever-tragic love of Ross and Rachel (of course they made it a tragic comedy, which is something i approve of, for whatever my approval is worth).
almost everyone loves a good trgedy. its almost as if we dont want to hear a story where everyone is happy, and living a normal, uneventful, simple, easy, and HAPPY life. if thats the kind of story we are asked to read, we're most likely going to sleep off halfway through. if the main protagonist of the story does not have struggle, pain, and misfortune, i dont think anyone likes it.
in fact, i think the band TOOL summed it up nicely in their song VICARIOUS-


Eye on the TV
'cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavour
It happens to be like;
Killed by the husband
Drowned by the ocean
Shot by his own son
She used the poison in his tea
And kissed him goodbye
That's my kind of story
It's no fun 'til someone dies

Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother
Holds her child
Watches him die
Hands to the sky crying
Why, oh why?
'cause I need to watch things die
From a distance

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
You all need it too, don't lie

Why can't we just admit it?
Why can't we just admit it?

We won't give pause until the blood is flowing
Neither the brave nor bold
The writers of stories sold
We won't give pause until the blood is flowing

I need to watch things die
From a good safe distance

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
You all feel the same so
Why can't we just admit it?

Blood like rain come down
Drawn on grave and ground

Part vampire
Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Stare at the transmittal
Sing to the death rattle

La, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie

Credulous at best, your desire to believe in angels in the hearts of men.
Pull your head on out your hippy haze and give a listen.
Shouldn't have to say it all again.
The universe is hostile. so Impersonal. devour to survive.
So it is. So it's always been.

We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I


well as they said, we just cant admit it, because that would make us all monsters. but we all like it, we all love it. we need to watch things die... well i for one, admit it. i need it. if that makes me a monster, so be it.
but does anyone else admit it? no. never. well atleast i can be the monster you want to critisize. i'm only human, and so i can even admit, that i'm glad you think me a monster. at least i got that out of you.