So, Not Exactly Walking Anything Back...

Yesterday, I went on a bit about the femme fatale knockoff I met in 'The Couple Next Door,' and my reaction to the final chapter, in which the sexy scheming lady(tm) is stabbed by the crazy girl (tm) despite the sexy scheming lady, in my estimation, not really deserving such an attack. Like, the book ends with the schemer being put in an ambulance.

My gut reaction was to think this was an author working out some jealousy.

I don't know the author at all, so that isn't a fair assessment. It's a species of the genetic fallacy: I write the way I do because I have thought about what is best for my story; you write out of phobias and neuroses. I don't know why she wrote the final chapter. It isn't my job to know, and may not reflect anything at all about her.

But I'm not changing my mind about this femme fatale knockoff or any like her.

The femme fatale, and even the cheap knockoff, has her place in books. A distaff master manipulator will always make a good villain in many stories. However, she needs to earn it. Being sexy and having some ambition doesn't make you a murderer, and she has to really be a master manipulator- not just around a couple of mouth-breathingly stupid dudes. Or the guys she is around have spines of jellyfish. At least the actual master manipulator of 'The Couple Next Door' is the guy, and he had always been this sort of schemer.

Like I said, the stepdad is who should have been shanked. I take back any evaluation of the author, but my headcannon is reversing the stabbing and you can't stop me.

And if your final scene is the good girl(tm) shanks the sexy scheming lady(tm) for flimsy reasons, my first thought is going to be 'grow up, author.'