One of my favorite books is The Time Traveler's Wife (even with Rachel McAdams, who's simply amazing, the movie was pretty bad. Just read the book.) When Henry, the time traveler, is 5, his mom gets killed in a car accident. He would have died as well, but he traveled in time forward just about 5 minutes and landed outside the car, avoiding the crash. This violence was caused by the author, not one of the characters. It obviously dramatically affects Henry and Henry's father (who becomes an alcoholic)'s lives. Fortunately, Henry's able to travel back in time and talk to his mom, though he can't control where he goes. He also frequently visits the crash, but is never able to change what happens.
Henry provides some violence himself. At one point, when he's 32 and is visiting Clare (his wife) when she's 16, he badly beats up someone. Clare was at a party, and the guy wouldn't leave Clare alone. Henry got really pissed off and destroyed the guy. This had different effects - Henry eventually went back to his present (8 years later, married to Clare) and got away with it. Clare's reputation was totally changed, however. She had always ignored guys at her school (she had known Henry since she was 6 had pretty much loved him since then), and it was revealed here that she had what appeared to be a (much older) boyfriend. You can only imagine how people in her school would react to her having a 32 year old man no one knows beat up a guy from her school.
I also really like this novel. I, however, had always tied it to the concept that love prevails over everything. Not once had I really stopped to consider the violent aspect of it. I'm glad that you pointed this out because it gives me a better perspective of the story. It really shows all the negative affects that violence can have on people's lives. In the end, though, I think that this aspect is not enough to outweigh other elements of the story.
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