Revenge...is it really that sweet?

[East]

In cases like this, no.

Many people do not deserve to be forgiven, because they do nothing to change the behaviors that they do nor make amends.

It wasn't like this was an accident on their side, these were willful acts of harm which I countered with swift, harsher punishment. This wasn't over petty stuff like stealing my Mp3 player. This was serious stuff, harmful stuff where giving them forgiveness was giving them permission to please hurt me more.

When forgiveness is seen as weakness, it doesn't make the forgiver a winner, its likely to get them killed.

In my eyes and my experience...forgiveness is a great strength versus being a weakness.

It really isn't even about the other person and they don't even have to know you have forgiven them...I see it more like reclaiming whatever part of you they took and becoming a survivor versus staying a victim or becoming embittered. It would piss me off I think to let them have a long term effect on me more than whatever they did.

Forgiving myself is ALOT harder.....hope I can master that one before I die.

[HumbleTangerine]

There is something disturbingly sweet about revenge in the short run, with a simple perspective, yeah. Revenge movies are very popular and audiences seem to thrive on seeing raped and victimized women in particular slaughtering their rapists or abusers as violently as possible.

In the long run, however, I believe it's destructive. When taking revenge on someone you're simultaneously lowering yourself to something more basic, primitive and carnal as opposed to a being of rationality and compassion. You're dehumanizing yourself to have your revenge at someone who mistreated you.

This is why rape-and-revenge flicks never really appealed to me. They try to sell themselves as feminist stories where victimized women pull themselves together to kill their enemies, but really all there is to it is a woman being horribly mistreated and then horriby mistreating herself in the process of revenge. It's dehumanizing.

[Edward]

I'm not vengeful, but I'll never forget if someone has done something bad to me.

[bluefox4000]

I just move on........ain't worth it i tell ya. We all get hurt it's life. suck it up.

Mick

[Borg69]

Resistance was futile...

[supasyd]

what was it the dalai lama once said something like 'revenge is like poisoning yourself and expecting the other person to suffer the effect' (paraphrasing heavily here). It's natural to be consumed in an urge to seek revenge when we're hurt sometimes, but in practice, revenge is never satisfying. It disrupts your own pattern of life more than the victim......It's not healthy at all really.

Don't believe in karma either. Too many kids in Africa dying of starvation for that to be real.

[Pix]

There is something disturbingly sweet about revenge in the short run, with a simple perspective, yeah. Revenge movies are very popular and audiences seem to thrive on seeing raped and victimized women in particular slaughtering their rapists or abusers as violently as possible.

In the long run, however, I believe it's destructive. When taking revenge on someone you're simultaneously lowering yourself to something more basic, primitive and carnal as opposed to a being of rationality and compassion. You're dehumanizing yourself to have your revenge at someone who mistreated you.

This is why rape-and-revenge flicks never really appealed to me. They try to sell themselves as feminist stories where victimized women pull themselves together to kill their enemies, but really all there is to it is a woman being horribly mistreated and then horriby mistreating herself in the process of revenge. It's dehumanizing.

Interesting enough this is often true where the vigilante is male. As just one example, the classic Death Wish has a man turn vigilante after his wife and daughter are gang raped (wife killed, daughter in an insane asylum, IIRC).

I've always found it strange...and a little disturbing by its implications...how many countries use the idea of their women being raped by the enemy to rile up the population (particularly men) and get them prepared to fight while turning a blind eye to the rape by their own people of others even to the point (at least in the USA) where female soldiers who point out rape are themselves punished for it. It's disturbing because I think they don't see women as real, but as property, and to rape HIS woman or women is an "honor" thing.

Gods, how I hated that song Coward of the County. Wife gets raped by 3 men, IIRC, and the point of the entire song is how the man had to get some respect by beating up the ones involved, not for his wife but for his own honor, and as far as the song says his wife is fine after (or maybe it just doesn't matter).

That said, I think the movie Death Wish showed a man's love for his wife and daughter rather than some sick "my property" thing. So did my cousin who swore revenge on any who raped me (and I believe his believed threats were why I wasn't raped). But sometimes it's more about men "owning" their female livestock rather than seeing them as human beings. Yet interesting enough a man will take his revenge be it for supremely egotistical honor or out of genuine love, and they can be very popular movies, and I think Death Wish is more popular than say I Spit on Your Grave or even Thelma & Louise.

Also interesting to me is how rare "man is raped, gets revenge" movies are. The only one I can think of offhand was more of a subplot found in the movie Pulp Fiction, and not many details were shown visually.

[Miles]

The only one I can think of offhand was more of a subplot found in the movie Pulp Fiction, and not many details were shown visually.

And even so it only came off to me as a convenient "something to be swept under the rug" plot device, to allow the rescuing character to get away with events that would otherwise end with him dying.

[Virge]

Revenge is a dish best served cold...

That quote is one I did some reading on a couple years back because I wasn't sure how to take it... did it mean cold as in bitterly cold, cold as in unemotional, cold as in heartless....

No, it was meant to be understood as cold as out of the oven and cooled off. While doing all that reading I found two quotes I liked better about revenge....

"revenge is no more than your own way of punishing yourself for a crime you didn't commit."

"The only lasting revenge is a life lived well."

[East]

OK...now that I think about Anita Bryant..I have to admit that revenge sounds like it might be satisfying...though I am not 100% sold on it.