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VILLAINOUS_MASK

                                          May 28, 2008
  One of the driving
  forces of pulp fiction                            Beginning with some
  is cowardice about                                material quoted from
  facing your own demons.
                                                            BLAZING

                         ATTRACTION-REPULSION


       A small example:
       in a Shadow story
       ("The Golden
       Master", I think)                  A common device:
       a woman is                         white-washing the
       hypnotized by the                  salacious material
       bad guys and goes                  by attaching it to
       prancing about in                  villains that are
       a revealing                        slated to come to
       oriental outfit.                   bad ends.

       But this slutty                    [ O'Donnell fills ] the story with
       behavior is Not                    pages and pages of the villains
       Her Fault: this                    twisting their mustaches.  They're
       is an alter-ego                    typically vile sadists with some
       imposed from                       sort of sexual kinks that O'Donnell
       without.                           revels in as he reviles them.

       Oh, how terrible.

                                                      VILLAINY



                  And then nearly every
                  story is based on a
                  contrived situation           ROMANCE
                  where extreme behavior
                  is justified.


                          "Is there this kind of
                           ugly anger in a man that
                           waits for this kind of
                           virtuous excuse?"

                                -- Meyer, in John D. MacDonald's
                                   "Pale Gray for Guilt" (1968)



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