RisenPhoenix

To briefly go back to The Day After, I was in like fifth grade when it came out. We were required to watch it for school, and then if that wasn't scarring enough, we then had a full week of discussion and going through a work book provided as a companion to the show where we got to imagine fun things like how long it would take the radiation cloud from the nearest large city to reach our rural area (two days), what percentage of our family members would likely die, and what some of the effects of radiation poisoning were. I'm not terribly squeamish, but to this day I can't watch anything relating to radiation sickness. The first falling clumps of hair and I'm out. I had nightmares for years, so, thanks for that 80's adults. After the Red Wedding I no longer Watch Game of Thrones unspoiled. I read comments on episode threads here, then watch the episode if I think I won't be too destroyed by it. On the other hand I cheered and clapped for the Purple Wedding and when that mofo Littlefinger got his. Final fun fact, I met my now husband of 20 years while living on the opposite coast from my parents, and the first time they ever saw him was on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. He was one of the experts they brought in to discuss why a given testimony of an event (a death) was virtually impossible to be true, but my Dad got a lot of mileage out of telling people, "Oh yeah, first saw my son-in-law on Unsolved Mysteries," and then letting them draw unfortunate conclusions. He thought it was hilarious. Dads.

I agree. I have a hard time with the idea that "people" can't ever go through difficult times, or bad episodes, or generally act like a-holes when they are in pain. Actual people all have dark marks on their records, times when their behavior was bad. The idea that characters aren't allowed to have the same "dark nights of the soul," is confusing to me. A recent example to me was the outcry over Maze's behavior on Lucifer. I hated what the character was doing, but I didn't think it was some crazy, out of character behavior. She's a demon who has never felt emotion in her life who felt abandoned and betrayed by every one of the beings she'd developed feelings for. So she did some super horrible dark stuff, because she's a demon and she fell back on what she knows. And when the chips were down, she snapped out of it and still came through. Just like happens in real life all the time, minus the demon bit. People don't always react well to difficulty. The idea that they somehow should have to is lost on me.