Note: I would like to thank the Warrior Cats YouTube content creator Bright Guardian Akira for inspiring me to create this part. In a particular video of her's, "The Mapleshade Problem", she analyzed the problematic nature of the character Mapleshade's backstory in her novella, pointing out that Mapleshade's revenge scheme was completely glorified for all the wrong reasons. It made me think of a similar cliché in horror fiction that I have seen a lot and sadly have not noticed a lot of people talk about at all. So yeah, The Warrior Cats fan community is responsible for what I am saying here.

  No other story is as succulent as the forbidden fruit that are revenge stories in the horror genre.  While the author and especially the audience knows deep down that loving these types of stories may put them into a kind of a gray area morality wise, they can't resist seeing a cast of characters get even with someone who truly wronged them.  After all, the subject of revenge in itself is a relatable subject matter a lot of people can attest towards.  When the karma police will for some reason spare a twisted person, in general many people feel they should take the law into their own hands and dish out vengeance that affects the wrongful party in a mental or a physical way.  The idea of an eye for an eye is very relevant to the public, even thousands of years after The Code of Hammurabi first mentioned the concept towards the Ancient Babylonian people.

  It is sickly sweet revenge stories after all that made the Warrior Cats book series character Mapleshade such a popular icon in the fan community.  Through her novella story Mapleshade's Vengeance, many people felt a connection towards the wicked cat for putting the law into her own hands when she was badly wronged.  Connecting three particular cats to the death of her children, Mapleshade goes on a blood soaked murder spree to get her own version of revenge.  Though the audience knows she is in the wrong, they cannot help but root for her due to the main motivation of the villainous cat.  Even after Mapleshade is punished for her actions by being sent to the cat version of Hell, The Dark Forest, which is the authors' way of subtly stating she was in the wrong throughout the narrative, there is a strange sense of accomplishment for her actions in the character's mind as well as the reader's.

  So with strong evidence through history from The Code of Hammurabi and audiences better connecting with characters like Mapleshade, is revenge wrong?  Is there a weird moral gray that allows people to be free to get revenge whenever they please?  Should we celebrate the story concept of revenge or bash it for glorifying violence?

  In my mind at least, the concept of revenge in any type of story should not be as celebrated as most people make it out to be.  It is a storytelling tool that if used wrongly, definitely can glorify the concept of violence and even murder if the author is not careful.  Even in genres such as horror, there should be a moral fine line in what is seen as right or wrong.  The audience should be given a better understanding that revenge plots often lead to undesirable effects that not only mentally destroys the person dishing out the revenge, but those connected to the desired target of revenge.

  We should not celebrate characters like Mapleshade who killed others despite the wrongs they may have gone through.  After all, by committing these crimes against the wrong party, you yourself are doing wrongs that fill you with the same amount of bad karma.  Unless in self defense or if it is the only feasible option, murder or harm to another person in any media should not be celebrated.  It does not matter about the circumstances involved. 

  You can make yourself the better person by not acting upon dark urges such as revenge.  By doing nothing to the other party, they gain nothing else from you and thus gain no satisfaction in seeing you fall into darkness because of them.  The same morality should be applied to fiction as well.  Unless the wrong is irreparability terrible, you should not tempt the karma gods by acting upon dark impulses like revenge.  As for fictional characters, you should not act upon the cliché of glorifying violence by having them kill a karma-filled party without a very justifiable motive.  Making fictional characters act upon dark impulses like revenge so easily will just make the audience wrongly see them as being in the right due to relatable feelings they might have themselves on the subject.

  Stop making revenge stories that put the characters in a morally wrong area that makes them just as bad as the aimed target.  If you wish for karma to come upon a bad character, there are other more original concepts you can come up with that would be just as satisfying.