as a form of enrichment i have chosen to reverse-engineer the various versions of addams family lore from the fanfic written about the recent wednesday show, rather than look anything up that i didn't know from cultural osmosis. this has been fun on several levels but i particularly like the takes on how the addams family can, like, genuinely attempt violence on each other for fun but no one ever really gets hurt.
the idea that they're physically hard to kill, semi-immortal or whatever, is easily the least fun. them being *narratively* hard to kill is better; fate will ensure an addams will die only in an appropriately addams-ish way.
but even better is the notion that they simply cannot harm *each other* in any lasting way, and are otherwise mortal. (uncle fester can just do that stuff, don't worry about it.) so like. of course every generation of kids attempts to murder each other for funsies, they know they won't do any real harm. of course gomez surprise duels his kids. of course morticia has so many deadly plants hanging around. and of course wednesday is a fucking nightmare of blades and violence against other people, because she was raised in an unending no-consequences and thus no-holds-barred cage match against her family.
this is a both narrative and physical power. pugsley can shoot at wednesday with a crossbow all he likes, he'll never manage more than a scratch, but of course wednesday would view that as defeat and still dodges as if her life is on the line. wednesday can put pugsley in a stretching rack for a bit and it's fine, it's entertainment for both of them, he'll be a bit sore maybe but that's all.
and obviously this is powered by love. because the addams family is the healthiest and most genuinely loving family ever. they care about each other very very much, and express it in different ways, and respect that they express it in different ways. but they nearly all share a tendency to express it through violence. and this is fine, because they love each other so much they've effectively granted each other achilles's curse and turned it into a blessing in the process
