reply to post by Dark Ghost
Read the Game of Thrones series of novels, or, watch the show.
The running theme is right at about what you're talking about. All the good, noble, unselfish, virtuous folk, one by one get chewed up in the meat
grinder, killed, and/or fall into the worst of all lots.
The more you like and identify with a character, the more likely that character is on the short list for horrible torturous painful agonizing
death.
The novels are very much a reflection on how life really works in the real world regardless its fantasy setting, where here in the real world we tend
to rather like the fantasy of our happily ever afters.
Edit:
There's also a saying I once heard that goes ... "If you're not a bleeding heart liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not a
cynical, conservative by any age of 'maturity', you have no brain."
Life aint pretty. Instead of happy talking animals and friendly inanimate objects that want to be our friends in childhood, we'd probably be better
prepared for adulthood if we had to compete and fight with every dirty underhanded trick we could learn or devise just to get the crayons, or achieve
anything.
An entire pre-adulthood of gladiator life would make the rest of adulthood the vast majority of our lives a vacation, a reward well earned all to be
appreciated for surviving those formative years.
Thankfully, that's not how things are, but, it's fascinating and abhorrent at the same time to think about it.
edit on 18-3-2013 by Druscilla because: (no reason given)