I devoted some attention in REPETITION AND PROLONGATION PT. 2 to differences in the ways sadism-scenarios are used respectively in accomodation narratives and confrontation narratives, noting how in the former the consequences were almost never as dire as in the latter, as per all the Poe and Sade examples referenced in the first part. And another way of approaching these distinctions is by incorporating a dichotomy I came across in some forgotten book on comedy: that of "downgrading" vs. "degrading."
Usually, when we think of "sadism"-- particularly because of the stories written by the man for whom the syndrome was named-- we think of people trying to degrade others by nullifying their will, abusing their bodies, minds, or both together. This is also the motive of what I'd term "pure sadism," which is not connected to such gains as learning enemy information or the location of hidden treasure. This is usually, though not universally, characteristic of sadism-acts in "confrontation narratives."
But "accomodation narratives" are usually about "downgrading," not degrading. Downgrading does not destroy the will of the one subjected to it, but rather alters it, seeking to purge parts of the will that the character does not recognize as disadvantageous. In Part 2 my foremost example was that of Raku Ichijo in NISEKOI, who, if I correctly interpret his creator's wishes, needs a little pain and humiliation to get him out of his romantic comfort-zone.
That said, not all serials are structured like NISEKOI, with a beginning, middle, and end. The open-ended teleseries BEWITCHED begins as an accomodation narrative concerning the difficulties of a young married couple-- one an ordinary, somewhat priggish mortal, the other a witch with supernatural powers. The first three episodes of the show merely set up some basic tropes of the situation. But the fourth episode, reviewed here, established the most fundamental trope that dominated most of the episodes, which might be formulated: Uptight Husband Tries to Restrain Wife's Identity and Her Relatives Make Him Pay For It.
This segment of my review recapitulates the main action between the mortal husband Darrin Stevens and his wife's mother-in-law Endora, whom he encounters for the first time in this episode.
When Darrin and Endora meet that evening, it's mutual hate at first sight. Darrin wants no interactions with Samantha's weird family, and Endora threatens to turn Darrin into an artichoke. This is one of the very few Endora episodes wherein Endora does NOT wreak some magical alteration on her son-in-law's helpless mortal body, and it's probably the first in which Samantha asserts that she can't do anything to cancel the spells of another witch. To the extent that Endora represents Samantha's own rebelliousness, one might regard this claim as Samantha's tacit consent to tolerate the comical acts of violence her mother perpetrates upon Darrin. Indeed, it occurred to me for the first time that every time Endora or any other witch changes the way Darrin looks or acts, Darrin gets some part of his own identity erased, even as he repeatedly insists that his wife must.
Endora is hardly the only witch-spawn who gives Darrin trouble over the eight seasons of the show. Yet she is the only character who's more than a "guest star," given that actress Agnes Moorehead shared principal co-billing with those playing Darrin and Samantha, even for episodes in which her character did not appear. The sadistic acts that Endora and her brood perpetrate upon the helpless Darrin are fundamentally harmless and frivolous, and they're usually directed at "downgrading" his assumptions of absolute authority.
Yet in marked contrast to the example of Raku Ichijo, Darrin never learns from any of his victimizations. Occasionally he might show a moment of relative tolerance, but by the next episode he's back to shouting and demanding and thus inviting yet another humiliating spell. And to some extent Endora, to the extent she has any consistency, enjoys tormenting her son-in-law so much that she invents the most tenuous logic to give herself the excuse. I suspect that as the showrunners approached the eighth and last season, no one thought for a moment of wrapping up the series by forging some stable rapprochement between Darrin and Endora-- and indeed, the very last episode is just a remake of a Season Two tale, with Endora playing another prank on Darrin and his workaday world. The showrunners knew they were doing simple done-in-one stories that always went back to the original status quo. And it should be said that the status quo allows Darrin to look like a successful professional to the outside world, all his eccentricities swiftly forgotten. But the audience at least sees that he brings some of his humiliations upon himself, and that was apparently enough to grant the series long life.
It's of course possible for "degrading sadism" to appear in comedies, usually directed at minor characters in whom the audience has no investment, like the suckup Brice in 1988's SCROOGED. And a fair number of "serious" adventure-stories concern men or women being martially trained, and often these include trainers who seem to be perpetrating sadistic acts on their students, though the rationale is usually "what doesn't kill them makes them stronger." Thus the Jackie Chan character in his breakout film DRUNKEN MASTER keeps dodging the painful rigors of training, but eventually buckles down and endures all the downgrading torments needed to improve his kung fu and to triumph over an enemy.
Still, "degrading" is more associated with the "serious" mythoi, and "downgrading" with the "ludicrous" ones.
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