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Reading English authors, I often wonder if the unconscionable bullies they write actually exist in real life or if it's a sort of literary trope. It just seems odd that an adult who lives in a society where other people, yanno, observe and judge your actions all the time, could be so oblivious to the fact that what they're saying violates all notions of restraint, decorum, and civil behaviour. I say English because I only find this type in English lit-- from Lady Catherine de Burgh down to the latest Pratchett, which is what got me thinking. Granted, I need only go online and I find the bullying attitude everywhere, fuelled by an unquestioned sense of moral superiority and knowing that one is Doing The Right Thing. But I don't generally find it among English bloggers.

Finished Ze 10 this morning. I won't say gakkari but I'll be thinking it hard. No, I'll be thinking Oh god I might have known the reveal could never live up to the mystery. And I must be growing old. The sober serious fans over at FFR are having kittens over the most basic of yaoi plots, as if yaoi fluff had any connection to reality at all. But here is me thinking Oh way to go, sensei: shota-con and bestiality in one extremely unlikely package. Do you know what love is, Waki? "Sure I know. A boy loves his dog".

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I have to say that I have never met anyone quite that bad, but I may just have been lucky.

I think it may just be a literary trope. We write the bullies because we want to see them put down.

Distinctly possible. Though the widest array of bullies I've come across is in Dick Francis, where they don't exactly get put down, or at least not in the visceral knock 'em down way that a more ahem American-leaning reader wants. Francis' heroes foil the bullies' plans and consider that quite sufficient; no further revenge required. It's a very high-minded putting down, by me.

Pratchett is also pretty genial in putting down his bully, who crumples rather more easily than I'd have expected. he disconnect from reality that so many bullies I've seen show usually leads them to think they can brazen out any kind of unmasking.

In this particular Pratchett example, if it's the one that I think it is (Midnight), I think he's also poking at the idea that the character in question is nothing but a bully. Many of the characters in this particular story have secondary aspects, and she's one of them.