I believe that sanitizing this aspect of the modern and ancient world is at the root of our troubles as a culture now. We're bred to be smug about how peaceful we are, so we can watch television and feel safely distant from violence, when it is part of our makeup. That smugness means we don't feel we have to do anything about the violence we see, because it's obviously committed by people who aren't as educated or civilized as we are. By holding ourselves aloof from global and historical violence, we allow it to continue. If we are ever to survive as a species, we need to admit we are violent and find ways to ease the plight of the victims of violence worldwide. (No, invading a violent country and bombing it will not inspire its people to give violence up. Go figure.) We must face who we are and what creates violence: helplessness, envy, rage, even the drive to grab the good things of the world that are flaunted in the faces of the poor. We must take responsibility and protect each other from violence.
That is why there is violence in my books, although even I sanitize my violence. If I were to write the true, constant, vicious, grotesque violence of history or of the contemporary world (say, on the level it's been practiced in Rwanda and Cambodia in my lifetime), I would not be allowed to publish books for kids at all. I pull my punches. I try to walk the balance between showing that we are a violent species and that we must recognize it and deal with it, and wallowing in just how very badly human beings treat each other, within their homes, hidden in woods and fields, on our roads and in our skies. I want to emphasize heroes, not mindless brutality, and the courage of the kind of people who will say "Enough. It stops here." That is why I will continue to include violence in my writing. I have been the victim of violence. The only way I know to put a stop to it is to stand against it, gain for myself a safe zone where there is no violence, then bring others into it. If you want to ignore the violent world around us, if you want to tell yourself that we are better and more civilized than other people, then perhaps you shouldn't read my books. I tend to be very cynical about those ideas. For us to change, we have to look at the thing that needs to be changed and make it stop, not watch it on television and say to each other, "It's the only thing they'll respond to." We need to respond to it. We need to face it, even in books. Even in fantasy.
