The Childish Cruelty of Peter Pan

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The original Peter Pan story presents a boy who's also a bird, a son, a cruel dictator... but most importantly, a child.

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[TheTaleFoundry]

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[TannerJ]

"I won't ruin your childhood I promise"
*proceeds to ruin the meaning of childhood*

[catherineescobar]

Agatha Christie has a quote I think of about this cruelty:

“Youth is crude, youth is strong, youth is powerful-yes, and cruel! And one thing more-youth is vulnerable.”

[dursty]

it's interesting that "when you grow up, your heart dies" and "growing up means growing a heart" can both be equally true.
growing from childhood into adolescence and young adulthood involves growing a heart, but growing too far into adulthood and forgetting your childhood causes your heart to die.
what a strange world, eh?

[YukoValis]

In the words of Sonic from Sonic Boom: "I can't be swimming around with a bunch of 5 year olds. They can be so cruel when they sense weakness"

[atlantic]

“I can do no wrong. For I do not know what it is.”

[henryph__am]

Ask someone who’s bullied as a kid and they’ll tell you how cruel kids can be

[dorrin]

"The heartlessness of children."

Empathy is a learned trait.

[dionettaeon]

Peter Pan "thinning out" the lost boys in the original was the first time I'd heard of his darker side, but in retrospect, that side of him had clear signs even in the Disney version. He clearly has some selfish tendencies, engages in rough play and sometimes bullying behavior, and those are minor compared to some of the other things he's done. For one, he cut off Captain Hook's hand and seemingly has no shred of remorse over it. But more importantly, he absolutely _revels_ in the idea of Hook being eaten by the crocodile, later a giant octopus in the sequel, even hammering the point by repeatedly referring to him as a codfish.

[GrateGuardian]

I always thought you always stay the same in Neverland, realising that Peter could just control his age is even more bizarre than what I thought it really was.

[analogsergal]

KIDS ARE CRUEL, JACK! AND I AM VERY IN TOUCH WITH MY INNER CHILD

[obilesk]

"Perhaps it's the Heart that weighs everyone else down.." Damn... that, that really hits.

[johnpett]

The way I see it, Peter Pan was meant to be this morally grey character that represents the good and bad about childhood.

There are many things about being a kid worth holding on to, but there's also a lot of growth and maturity that you miss out on if you don't grow up.

We must embrace our inner child without letting it be the dominant force in our lives.

I think Hollywood has definitely forgotten about that side of the story

[markmerk]

Kind of reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life, ” where this one kid has omnipotence, and all the adults in town have to walk on eggshells to avoid angering him, because he’s just a kid, and doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions

[MattMay]

"Innocence involves an unseeing acceptance of things at face value, an ignorance of the area below the surface. In that humiliating moment I looked beyond myself and into the depths of another person. This was the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence."

- Eugenia Collier, "Marigolds"

[ChincerDante]

reminds of how many horror movies have absolutely horrifying children characters, what happens if a powerful being is just a baby instead of a grown person that might have plenty of concepts like regret, death and empathy, even if they choose to ignore them. in the words of marge simpson "kids can be so cruel"

[debbiemoore]

Ironic how many adults are overgrown children based on their behaviours and responses when you assert a boundary.

[chatteringbox]

The way Peter Pan is described in his classic incarnations remind me of The Collector from the Owl House.
He's basically a god, a demigod at the very least, able to manipulate space-time and transform any sort of matter into what he sees fit at the snap of his digits.
However...he's still a child. He's like a seven year old whose games of make believe never seem to have any end. He's not malicious, but moreso playfully oblivious, unaware of the damage he's capable of doing.

[Icecypher]

Another source of danger for the Lost Boys besides Peter thinning out the ranks as they grew up was when they were winning against the pirates, but Peter did not want the gane time to end yet. In those cases, he would simply switch sides and start attacking his own former teammates. He forgets them as soon as they die, too.

[IllyDragonfly]

As a child I HATED other children so badly because in my autistic brain they were cruel little monsters who kept bullying me. I couldn't even be mean towards them because I was 'wait, when somebody insults me on my appearace I feel bad, I would be the bad person if I did the same!' that was such a frustrating phase in my life 0.o I feel the empathy I got was double theirs and that is still biting me in the rear decades later, even when crappy adults scream at my face without trying to listen to what I have to say and I'm too empathetic to scream back at them. Yay.