THE ONCE AND FUTURE REPETITION

 A qualification to my definition of repetition here: because as I said that repeated scenarios for this type of fictional sadism took place in separate time-frames, it's not strictly necessary to show more than one such scenario to establish that it either represents one in a series of past repetitions, or one that will continue in like wise in the future.

Regarding past repetitions, domestic thrillers are so replete with examples that I feel no need to provide any here. The moment a husband-character seems to wield disproportionate power over his better half, the viewer doesn't have to SEE anything; it's assumed that there have been any number of sadistic acts of one toward the other. Usually the wife-character is entirely reasonable, in order to underscore that the husband's desire for control is outside the bounds of matrimonial give-and-take. At the same time, some thrillers will confine themselves to one real-time act of sadism, which stands as a synecdoche for all past actions.

As a means of expressing a pattern of action for the future, the following "gag splash panel" should serve.

The mostly forgotten backup humor-series STELLA THE STARLET appeared in various issues of a teen-humor magazine from Ace Publications, HAP HAZARD. Except for this gag-splash from HH #18, there's not that much about STELLA worth remembering.

In truth, the gag-splash barely has anything to do with the main story. In the principal tale, Alonzo, the short-statured agent to glamorous actress Stella, seeks to overcome various pitfalls in order to propose to his client, with predictable comic results. The two characters never get to the altar in the main tale, but in the gag-splash the artist (said to be Sol Brodsky of later Marvel fame) added a clever reversal on a couple of marriage-tropes. In the background, all the female guests are smiling confidently, while all the male ones are openly weeping. And Alonzo is shocked to note that that his stautesque bride has brought not just a bridal bouquet, but a bridal rolling-pin. There's no overt suggestion that the "real" Stella of the series wants not to get laid but to lay into her boyfriend with repetitions of sadistic violence. But in the world of the gag-splash, it's not just the actress, but implicitly all women, who desire to lead guys to the altar in order to cudgel them into submission. So in a sense, the gag-splash represents both once and future sadisms.

REPETITION AND PROLONGATION PT. 2

 All of the examples of prolongation and repetition discussed in Part 1 were dominated by a relatively serious tone, which meant that in every scenario the sadist and his victim were radically opposed into a "winner" and a "loser." But this pattern of oppugnancy breaks down somewhat in the more ludicrous mythoi, where "accomodation narratives" might in theory outnumber "confrontation narratives."

In this near-myth analysis, I took issue with Gershon Legman's claim that all teenage comedy comics were just filled to the brim with young women panting with desire to harm/humiliate fathers and boyfriends. But to test his theory fairly, I scanned all of the adventures of an Archie Comics teen-heroine, Ginger Snapp, lasting from the middle forties through the early fifties. I did find some examples of the heroine Ginger occasionally visiting quasi-sadistic humiliations on either her father or her boyfriend, but there weren't enough of them for GINGER to support Legman's faulty thesis. Thus the few stories that existed in this venue fit my category of "prolongation," because the sadism-scenarios are confined to particular issues and don't reinforce one another.

The one story I analyzed, "Nightmare," was interesting because the victim's humiliation stems largely from his reactions to the titular series-star, not from overt deeds by Ginger. The story's action proceeds from Ginger's old man Mister Snapp. She asks him for money for a baseball uniform, but he, playing the "heavy father," wants to make her prove her devotion to the sport. He embarrasses himself by trying to keep up with the young folk, and then his daughter, only indirectly the author of his torments, beans him with a baseball by accident. Snapp then experiences a dream in which his daughter goes out of her way to clobber him with a giant bat, and he goes through other prolonged sufferings until he wakes up. So in his mind at least, Snapp is the "loser" and Ginger "the winner," though the only way in which the real Ginger torments him is just by the fact of being younger and healthier than her dad. This would be "exothelic prolongation" in that the reader feels humorous antipathy for Snapp, given that he becomes victimized by his own illusions.

I've written much more frequently on this blog about other serials, particularly in Japanese manga, in which sadism-scenarios recur frequently, so that all of the relevant features-- LOVE HINA, MAYO CHIKI, URUSEI YATSURA, and NISEKOI-- partake of the pattern of repetition. Often the accomodation narrative is focused on a male who keeps offending the woman, or women, who attract him, and getting clobbered by them for his transgressions. 

I examined a few key texts of NISEKOI in TENDER LOVING SADISM PT 2.  In contrast to GINGER, there were a lot of sadism-scenarios in the ongoing series, but "The Promise" is of special interest because it established that Raku, the male lead of the series, wants to live a life free of violence, and nurtures a yen for a similarly mild-mannered young classmate, Kosaki. But the manga-god controlling Raku's fate wants him to reach an accomodation with the less predictable aspects of life (or so I believe). Thus his potential new love Chitoge comes into Raku's life like a March lion. Chitoge is always "the sadist" in that she wallops Raku for the least infraction, even if she regrets her temper later on. But unlike "serious victims," Raku benefits from this "endothelic repetition" torment because it makes him stronger and more resilient. Arguably, Chitoge's aggressiveness, and that of her servant Tsugumi, even spreads to two other women in Raku's "harem," Kosaki and Marika, who don't normally beat on him. In "Transformation," it's comically implied that all four of them get drunk and "have their way" with the helpless male, though conveniently Raku's memory edits out whatever happened. After all, there's just so much "accomodating" an ordinary guy can do in that kind of situation. (And to be sure, all four females are substantially seen as "good girls," so the reader doesn't really think they molested him in any significant manner, and is mostly amused by the possibility that they could have done so.)