CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I often find myself cringing when I watch graphic violence in movies and such, primarily if it feels like it's unnecessary. However, when I read it in a book, it rarely bothers me. Am I the only one who feels this way?

I'm actually the opposite. I might cringe at both but I'm more affected by the ambience of a book, but only if it's well-written. Still, it depends on the visuals. I watch some stuff with graphic violence but not the torture porn stuff. I don't see that it has a point to it.

It really depends on the writing, like W4J mentioned. If the violence is written realistically enough, it's just as effective (if not more so) as some violence in movies.
Though, some people respond more to visual things than written things or vice versa. Therefore, a movie that might be too violent for you may not bother another person, but that person may be bothered by the violent content in a book that doesn't bother you.

Agreeing with Goldenspines. it's like how some people can hold up to sexual stuff better and have problems with violence, or how some can handle violence but not sexual stuff.

Some thing happens to me, though- I can totally read Dracula (while cringing and being creeped out), but watch Interview with a Vampire? Ugh! Totally freaked out.

I think that just comes with the medium. Books, by their very nature, use your imagination to create the effect of the story, whereas movies show it to you just as it happens. I have come across several violent/gory passages in books that have seriously disturbed me (like A Tale of Two Cities and Lord of the Flies), but generally it doesn't bother me as much as it would if I actually saw it happening visually in front of me.

For example, I could read a passage about someone gouging someone's eyes out and go, "Ew ew ew!!!" But then if I saw that in a movie (as I did in the director's cut of Blade Runner), that would seriously freak me out and haunt my memory for a considerable amount of time.

Agreeing with the_wolfs_howl... I can imagine quite a bit, but it's not always coming across the same way as when I'm seeing it.

So... no; I can take some amounts of gorey violence in movies, but I don't force myself to watch. I can, however, take considerable amounts of gore in manga, and quite a bit in books. I can't really think of a violent/bloody scene in a book that I couldn't handle.
(But, I'm not saying that I've read all kinds of graphic books that I would know for sure how much I can take.)

yeah it's always 10X worse when i'm seeing it XD

Yeah, watching the whole icicle vs. Eye thing in Die hard 2 was a little more cringie than anything I've read.
Although that might just be because of an eye injury I have.
Or my Dad saying the eye was probably still intact, just uh... displaced. >.~

I find it more unnerving to see this sort of stuff rather than to read it.

This is probably because when you read it you can just sort of speed past it without seeing/imagining what it looks like, whereas in a movie its right there in your face.

Sometimes it can be far worse when read than watched.

For example when I was 14 I read Stephen R. Lawhead's book, The Celtic Crusades Book 1 The Iron Lance It's a book set during the First Crusade. It's about a teenage boy who lives in Orkney Scotland whose home is taken over by corrupt priests. His father and brothers have gone on the Crusade so he takes off to follow them to convince them to come home.

Anyway near the end of the book the boy ends up inside Jerusalem while the Crusaders are sacking it. To this day I don't think I've read something more disturbing. The sheer barbarity of the scene is astonishing, especially when the boy witnesses a soldier smashing a baby's head against the wall while its mother desperately tries to reach for the baby.

Blacklight (post: 1413432) wrote:Agreeing with the_wolfs_howl... I can imagine quite a bit, but it's not always coming across the same way as when I'm seeing it.

So... yes]can[/I] take.)

Sorry, that's what I meant to say, but it's way past editing...

I don't like either, and tend to avert my eyes for movies and skim read over the violent bits in books, but I acctually do tend to not be bothered quite as much for the books

I hate it when it happens in movies but when I had to read Lord of the Flies (I do [b]NOT[b/] recommend this book, actually I wouldn't wish it on anyone I disliked it that much) I couldn't read it, it killed me inside... (Only class assigned book so far that I haven't loved)

Only book this happened to me though otherwise it's still annoying but tolerable...

Lord of the Flies was a good book. Intense, disgusting, compelling, convicting...but a good book. It really affected me, but I still like it in an odd way. It was an interesting experience; as intense as it was and as strongly as I felt everything, I didn't cry until I reached the final line of the book. It was like I couldn't allow myself to cry until I felt the relief of it all being over.

That being said, I staunchly refuse to see a movie version of it. If it was faithful at all, I wouldn't be able to stomach it.

It all depends for me. A movie leaves little up to the imagination, showing you exactly what happens. Books on the other hand, as so many of you have previously stated, leave it up to the imagination. It only bothers me in books when i hear particular words that i don't like, for an example, when i was little, my mother use to read me a children's book series called Babar the Elephant. It was a very long time ago, yet i can remember hearing the word "wound" for the first time. It bothered me much more than seeing blood on an actor or in a cartoon serious for the very first time. So as the_wolfs_howl stated, i think it all depends on the medium.

I think as I get older and see more and more graphic violence on film, it's effect on me has weakened. My wife senses this, too. I showed her the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan during the 4th of July in an attempt to stir some patriotism, but she didn't find it all that difficult to watch. I remember first watching it in the theater and being shocked at the violence of it all.

Graphic violence in a book, though, can definitely stay with me and haunt me if written well. All the more so if it's non-fiction. I'll never forget the images burned in my brain from reading about the Rape of Nanking and of the tortuous death of a young woman several years ago which I read about online.