Fictional revenge
June 7, 2012 11:59 AM   Subscribe

Your favorite fictional revenge scenes?

I'm trying to write a fictional work where one of the pivotal scenes will feature a revenge scenario, in which the main character pulls out all the stops and goes nuts on their main antagonist in the story.

I'm having some technical problems around this - I'm torn about whether this get-back scene should be driven by a physical thing - a weapon or physical skill the character uses on the other person,
or whether the main character should triumph over the person verbally - by revealing an astonishing secret, trumping them in a battle of wits, humiliating them in front of an audience, or something else. I suppose my scene could involve both of these approaches.

The problem with the skill option, is that the skill can't be miraculously produced at the moment when it's needed - it has to be prepared for.

So I just need some inspiration here - I'd be interested to find some examples of memorable revenge scenes in fiction. What are your favorites? I'd like to keep this to examples of written fiction, rather than scenes from movies. I'd also be interested in knowing which revenge scenes didn't work too well for you, and why.
posted by cartoonella to Media & Arts (31 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Big parts of The Lies of Locke Lamora, which I will not spoil for anyone, but yes. Revenge is delicious.
posted by PussKillian at 12:09 PM on June 7, 2012 [3 favorites]


Well, one of my favorites is the Don Gately toothbrush fiasco from Infinite Jest. The gist of it is: Gately, to get back at the ADA who jailed him, broke into the ADA's home upon his release with a partner and they stuck the toothbrushes of the ADA and the ADA's wife up their asses and took a picture. They put the toothbrushes back and then mailed the photo to the ADA some time later, causing the ADA's wife to have a sort of PTSD reaction.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:12 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


The Count of Monte Cristo is the gold standard.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:12 PM on June 7, 2012 [6 favorites]


PussKillian, I was just coming in here to recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora! Fantastic book, *extraordinary* revenge sequences.
posted by artemisia at 12:15 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


The Princess Bride really did this well--Inigo Montoya hunting down and killing Count Rugen was awesome in both book and movie. The book's description of Inigo's single-minded preparation for the day that he would face the Count and of course the repetition of 'My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.' in that final scene (before and after Inigo is horribly injured, and he just keeps going) really works.

It was epic for the same reason that the Count of Monte Cristo was epic, because of the complete dedication of the wronged person to their revenge and the insane lengths that they went to to achieve it. You also get some perspective about the surprise and terror of their antagonist as they slowly begin to understand the extent of the preparations that have been made for their downfall. Good revenge really needs the chance to develop over time.

Kill Bill is another great example of this genre, with a similarly implacable protagonist hunting down and avenging herself.
posted by _cave at 12:20 PM on June 7, 2012 [8 favorites]


**hunting down the bad guys, I meant to say.
posted by _cave at 12:22 PM on June 7, 2012


Lisbeth Salander's revenge on Nils Bjurman in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo instantly comes to mind.
posted by futureisunwritten at 12:23 PM on June 7, 2012 [4 favorites]


Not a Penny More or a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer. Not exactly high literary art, but a fun read with several different revenge "scams" going on to try and steal back money stolen from them, so you get several revenge scenes. The sneakiness and the lengths they go to get revenge is fun, as is the fact that each character in the ensemble has skills that come into play in their part of the revenge/con.
posted by wwax at 12:29 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


Probably the greatest revenge tale of all time: The Count of Monte Christo, as Ghostride mentions above.

All great revenge relies on obsession. The most compelling examples to me are those in which the reader sees the cost to the protagonist: the fact that the hero's obsession with revenge blinds them to the opportunity of love, or pushes them to evil, or creates spiralling, unintended consequences.

In science fiction, some of Iain M. Banks most compelling work relies on vengeance - Sharrow in Against A Dark Background, Lededje Y'breq in Surface Detail. It's obvious at the end of each book that they are women exhausted by what they have been through, changed to the point at which the revenge itself is almost anticlimactic.

Jim Harrison's Revenge did this also, for male characters. In pulp fiction, Trevanian's Shibumi.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:31 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


My first thought was of The Shawshank Redemption.
posted by Elly Vortex at 12:34 PM on June 7, 2012 [3 favorites]


For a totally nontraditional example, this South Park episode is extremely memorable in that regard (spoilers!!).

http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Scott_Tenorman_Must_Die
posted by Occula at 12:45 PM on June 7, 2012 [3 favorites]


Patrick Swayze. Road House.
posted by fredericsunday at 12:45 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Great responses here! I'm enjoying your thoughts on why revenge scenes work, and how the psychology of the characters play into it. So true that obsession fuels revenge - a revenge scene can't be a tacked-on thing, it's really organic to the story.

Thanks again for these great examples and links :)
posted by cartoonella at 12:51 PM on June 7, 2012


Oh god, I'm so sorry I didn't make that a live link. Haven't had my afternoon caffeine.

http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Scott_Tenorman_Must_Die
posted by Occula at 12:52 PM on June 7, 2012 [2 favorites]


The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, by Fay Weldon. Basically the whole book after the first three chapters. The BBC version is much better than the movie, if you want to watch instead of read.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:55 PM on June 7, 2012 [3 favorites]


Poe's The Cask of Amontillado does revenge well.

Also, Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold (as you might guess from the title) is all about this. It's a brutal fantasy about a female mercenary general who, after being betrayed, systematically gathers up a team of shady characters and goes after the people who tried to kill her.

Bora Horza Gobuchul's comment above about revenge relying on obsession is right on. I won't spoil the book, but let's just say that along the way, the protagonist's obsession does indeed create spiraling, unintended consequences. Fantastic, bloody, twisty consequences.
posted by snowleopard at 1:01 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


There's a scene in one of the Aubrey-Maturin novels where, after about 5-6 books worth of spying and betrayal and counterbetrayal build-up, Stephen's main antagonists are killed in the middle of some havey-cavey scheme (off-screen, so to speak), and he very casually dissects them (for science!) afterwards. (I forget if it's one or both of the antagonist dudes.)
posted by elizardbits at 1:03 PM on June 7, 2012 [2 favorites]


Abstractly, you have two issues you need to address.

1) Why the protagonist want's revenge. You want their motivation to be clear, believable, and realistic (if you're not going for comedy). And, of course, you want the protagonist to be someone the readers can sympathize with. Otherwise their revenge won't have much meaning to the reader.

2) You want the antagonist to be hurt by the revenge. If you're torn about if you want the revenge to be physical, psychological, or economic then you don't know your antagonist well enough. The method of revenge should be specific to them. If money is important to them, pull the money away. If pride is important to them, humiliate them. If it's going to be physical pain, make sure you show why pain is revenge and not simple torture.

Generally the type of revenge is going to mirror what the antagonist did to the protagonist, because they're going to have competed in something that is mutually important to them. Otherwise why was did their conflict happen?

But spending time on the antagonist is what will make their downfall worthwhile.
posted by bswinburn at 1:03 PM on June 7, 2012 [2 favorites]


There's a pretty great sequence of revenge scenes in Rushmore.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 1:06 PM on June 7, 2012


Sleepers.
posted by Thug at 1:16 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


Chaucer's Miller's Tale is worth a look for its crudeness and for its unexpected twists.

Many of the urban legends in Brunvand's collections have revenge as an underlying and overarching theme.

Jack Vance's Demon Princes series is five novels worth of revenge scenarios of greater and lesser magnitude, and features a number of vengeances within paybacks wrapped in retributions that I can't remember any other examples of.
posted by jamjam at 1:29 PM on June 7, 2012


I don't know how useful this will be to you, since it requires reading over 1000 pages for it to have the appropriate impact, but in Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo series, there is an astonishingly cruel, long-game act of revenge that happens to the main character Nicholas at the end of the fourth book in the series, Scales of Gold. I haven't read past it yet (it was pretty gutting, and I need some time to recover), so I don't know what the fallout is from that one act of revenge or any further vengeance, but it was a definite HOLY SHIT moment.

I don't want to spoil it, so I'll be vague. The act of revenge in Scales of Gold has its devastating impact for a few big reasons: a) it's hideously, painfully personal and emotional to the character who is the object of the revenge, especially coming after the events of the rest of the book, b) it comes after internal conflict on the part of the person doing the avenging and the one who's the object of it, and c) it comes after Nicholas having engaged in multiple acts of vengeance on his own, so seeing the tables turned on him in such an emotionally painful way has a lot of impact. It's the culmination of some serious obsession on the part of the avenger, and is all the more painful because both parties pretty clearly have actual feelings for each other. I think it can come across as insanely disproportionate to the original perceived wrongs, but once you think about the characters involved, it makes sense for them. I also think it's a great example of the tragedy of revenge: if these characters had truly understood each other or had made the leap to trust each other after they underwent some pretty serious trials together, vengeance wouldn't have been necessary.

Nicholas himself engages in his own acts of revenge throughout the books, and they're always brutally well-planned to effect the complete ruin of whoever's at his mercy. Nicholas's acts of vengeance (whether economic, physical, or political) come together with a sort of implacable, ruthless glory, the full extent of which is really only clear in hindsight. What makes these scenes really work is the meticulous build up, and the way Dunnett mostly just hints at the simmering emotions driving the acts of vengeance.
posted by yasaman at 2:24 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


Not precisely 'revenge', but the printer scenes in Office Space, just for the utter loss of control - you really get to see someone working out their frustrations...
posted by pupdog at 2:49 PM on June 7, 2012 [4 favorites]


Thomas Harris gets revenge very well. I don't have the books handy (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, etc.) but I remember quite a few revenge moments where the punishment most definitely fit the crime. Lecter is also one of those obsessive characters who isn't about to let bygones be bygones.

His latest, Hannibal Rising, goes into detail about how a young Hannibal Lecter comes into his own as a murdering, revenge-filled sociopath... though in my opinion was either ghost-written or FAR below his best work.
posted by ToucanDoug at 2:50 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


The Twilight Samurai is an excellent example of this.
posted by Soliloquy at 3:59 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


Nine to Five
posted by salvia at 5:19 PM on June 7, 2012 [1 favorite]


The Legend of Miaree--cosmic revenge comes at the very end of the book--what a satisfying ending!
posted by I'm Brian and so's my wife! at 6:21 PM on June 7, 2012


Oldboy
posted by abitha! at 8:07 PM on June 7, 2012


From Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus V.iii:

TAMORA: Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?

TITUS ANDRONICUS: Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius:
They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue;
And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.

SATURNINUS: Go fetch them hither to us presently.

TITUS ANDRONICUS: Why, there they are both, baked in that pie;
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
'Tis true, 'tis true; witness my knife's sharp point.

He kills TAMORA.

posted by permafrost at 3:41 AM on June 8, 2012


There's a Norma Klein (I think) book (for adults) in which a betrayed wife goes into the apartment her ex-husband now shares with a new girlfriend, and writes "fuck you" in calligraphy on and in many of the objects and books int he house, the idea being that they will keep finding them for months and years going forward.
posted by Riverine at 12:15 PM on June 8, 2012


Stephen King's short story "Dolan's Cadillac" is a really great revenge story. Tons of build up and suspense.
posted by Twicketface at 12:50 PM on June 12, 2012


« Older What do do on my anniversary?   |   paying it forward Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.