Off and on I read modern supernatural novels. They make very odd reading, some of them, and I finally figured out why: all the characters in them who are placed central to the reader’s attention (I’d hate to think the reader’s expected to identify with them) are so profoundly narcissistic. Suzy McKee Charnas, talking about her werewolf protagonist in “Boobs”, described her adolescent mindset as “Whatever people do to me is horrible but whatever I do is OK,” or words to that effect*. That’s the mindset of the characters in those books. Even ones set up as heros, by the writing and the structure of the stories, are narcissistic monsters. Although they have frequent attack of angst – I don’t think I can even call it guilt, it is so impotent – about the fact that they’re killers, their behaviour never changes. They just go out and kill different people. Redemption, such as it is, comes in hunting down monsters worse than themselves.
*I like “Boobs” – because it is written straight, without false glamour or lashings of hypocritical angst.