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How do we decide which brutalities are worse in Grimdark?


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Recently, it was being discussed in another thread what made Bakker's book so much more unbearable than other's of the same genre. Yes, I agree there is a certain scene in his book The Warrior Prophet, that was very graphic and quite possibly that toughest thing I've ever read (the Epilogue). But, in all of the series I've read of this genre there are always unspeakable horrors. Whether on screen or off, they are there. Most have at least a few scenes described in vivid details. So, what makes one worse than the other? Who sets the bar for this? My personal opinion is that it depends if you like the books or not, if they strike your fancy, your cup of tea. If so, you'll rationalize why it isn't as bad as another. If you don't, well, its just unspeakable and only degenerates with a warped view of reality could read such garbage. Please discuss, and try and help me understand the rationale behind this.

I am not trying to put anyone down for their views, I just want explanations. But, I want serious ones, not because its your opinion that said author is what he is trying to portray. I need to know why one brutality is worse than another. Why raping a child is any different from murdering one. Why raping a woman is different from degrading her and sticking them in kennels. See I feel its all part of the genre and the authors are trying to show us the evil side of humanity. They just go about it differently, well, because they're different. Different styles of writing and story telling. What makes it any worse because of the way they portray it? It is still part of the story.

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I think that bit in Bakker is so outlandish that for some readers the horror might not strike them as much as more realistic scenes, e.g. the various Glokta torture scenes (as well as hints what the Gurkish did to him) in First Law.


Or what Ramsay does (mostly offstage) compared to creepy and gross things like consensual sex with skin spies.


(As far as vomit-inducing disgust goes I think there are a few scenes in "Weaveworld"

forced sex with some kind of undead creature that also almost immediately produces gross-looking offspring

that are considerably more disgusting than that Bakker scene although not as cruel.)



There is also a difference in whether a main and somewhat sympathetic character could be considered a "serial rapist" or whether the brutalizer is an over-the-top villain (like Gregor)



so I think a combination of


- personal


- realistic


- explicit


makes us find descriptions particularly harrowing



If you want more objective answer from moral psychology why rape is so bad, it maybe boils down to two things:


One is an idea of honor and integrity vs. denigration or despoiling that seems quaint and old-fashioned but also so deeply ingrained that we cannot escape it by rational consideration.


The second is that rape destroys a potentially pleasurable and beautiful thing by cruel exploitation and "objectification" of the victim.


Like a betrayal of friendship or loyalty rape is a particular vile violation of something we normally consider a high good (and rightly so). Whereas murder is "just bad" but not a perversion of something good.


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If you want more objective answer from moral psychology why rape is so bad, it maybe boils down to two things:

One is an idea of honor and integrity vs. denigration or despoiling that seems quaint and old-fashioned but also so deeply ingrained that we cannot escape it by rational consideration.

The second is that rape destroys a potentially pleasurable and beautiful thing by cruel exploitation and "objectification" of the victim.

Like a betrayal of friendship or loyalty rape is a particular vile violation of something we normally consider a high good (and rightly so). Whereas murder is "just bad" but not a perversion of something good.

OK, I understand all that, but thank you for elaborating, that's what I want out of this thread. Here's more to what I'm pondering. Why is a rape portrayed by one author worse than one betrayed by another. Ramsay rapes a 14 year old Jane and Theon for that matter on screen. How is this any less horrific than what Cnaüir does? Or Karsa Orlong of Malazan? And people do say that one is worse than the other. I will cut and paste if you need me to.
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OK, I understand all that, but thank you for elaborating, that's what I want out of this thread. Here's more to what I'm pondering. Why is a rape portrayed by one author worse than one betrayed by another. Ramsay rapes a 14 year old Jane and Theon for that matter on screen. How is this any less horrific than what Cnaüir does? Or Karsa Orlong of Malazan? And people do say that one is worse than the other. I will cut and paste if you need me to.

Ramsay's rapes dont happen on page. Its a "fade to black" moment, so to speak.

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And we're not limited to the example I gave there are many more. And those not involving rape. But travesties committed in all these series and yet certain books catch a bad rap. Why? You guys don't think there are brutal happenings in ASOIAF? Hell, I thought that for some, that's what sold them on it.

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I have not read Bakker, but for me ASOIAF touches on brutalities, but does not.linger on them, or describe them in explicit detail. There is still brutal and horrific stuff but its not overly explicit. I dont know if Bakker describes the.brutalities in his series in greater detail or lingers on them or whatever. I would say things like Glokta's torture scenes in The First Law trilogy are more brutal than asoiaf because they are far more explicit.

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I have not read Bakker, but for me ASOIAF touches on brutalities, but does not.linger on them, or describe them in explicit detail. There is still brutal and horrific stuff but its not overly explicit. I dont know if Bakker describes the.brutalities in his series in greater detail or lingers on them or whatever. I would say things like Glokta's torture scenes in The First Law trilogy are more brutal than asoiaf because they are far more explicit.

I wouldn't say Bakker linger's on them, but yes, he tends to be graphic when he touches on them. Yea, Glotka does some sick things, can't forget about him.

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I have not read Bakker, but for me ASOIAF touches on brutalities, but does not.linger on them, or describe them in explicit detail. There is still brutal and horrific stuff but its not overly explicit. I dont know if Bakker describes the.brutalities in his series in greater detail or lingers on them or whatever. I would say things like Glokta's torture scenes in The First Law trilogy are more brutal than asoiaf because they are far more explicit.

I think it's safe to say that he does, with a kind of naturalistic pleasure, at times.

Agreed on the rest.

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As I said I think there are different factors at work and it seems that readers react differently to them.


As far as details go, Bakker and Abercrombie are IMO clearly "worse" than Martin.


But there are also casual things like the standard behavior of the Dothraki killing and raping whole villages without second thoughts. This is not described in detail, although Dany is outraged (and "saves" MMD) and so a reader will not linger. But when you think about it, it is about as bad as it gets.



Similarly, I find the casual callous brutality (including rape although not described in detail) of (14-15 y.o.!) Prince of Thorns very repulsive but many reader do not seem to care because it's not so explicit and he is a cool badass (and also traumatized).


Bakker does (sometimes) linger and has that Gigerian obsession with oversized phalloi, so obviously this is more offensive to some readers. But on second thought it will also border on the comical (as shown in many parodies and spoofs by sologdin and others in the Bakker threads) whereas Martin keeps even the outlandish brutality of Ramsay terrifying enough by more indirect descriptions.



It's been a while I read the Glokta scenes but they also have that humorous aspect (because of Glokta's sardonic (inner) commentary) that is lacking in the respective scenes by Martin.


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The way to make this determination is to read the works in question, form an opinion, and then say, hey, I think the brutalities in work A are worse than that of the others (I take it that we mean more disturbing, rather than which brutality would quantifiably inflict the most net pain on the victims).

Also, it's not necessary to find any of the brutalities as disturbing. I personally don't find anything Martin, Bakker, or any other author has written in a fictional story to be remotely disturbing. I think to myself, that would suck, and then move on. And I don't find Bakker's Argument, or any philosophy or atmosphere portrayed in any book I've read so far as disturbing either. I enjoy Grimdark, but I don't read it for the shock value because I do not get shocked easily, and so far none of it has succeeded in that capacity.

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I think as long as it's well written and as long as it serves something in the story then it's okay, but grimdark just to be grimdark is where the line should be drawn.




I don't think GRRM is grimdark at all and Erikson less so. To be honest I think the TV show is more grimdark, but then that could just be the writer's obsession with rape porn.



And what I mean by that is that every consensual sex scene seems to have been turned into rape for rape sake.

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Bakker does (sometimes) linger and has that Gigerian obsession with oversized phalloi, so obviously this is more offensive to some readers.

Hmmm, Gigerian, that's a most appropriate adjective (though at least Bakker's phalluses don't have steel-fanged mouths and burst out of chests).

I admittedly think some readers find the scene at the end of The Warrior Prophet especially disturbing because its from the point of view of a victim, and a male one at that. Personally i found it grotesque but it didn't give me the same sense of nausea I've got from reading some other 'grimdark' scenes (one that comes to memory is the rape scene in Erikson's Forge of Darkness - on the surface, it is much more mundane and less grotesque, but I think because the POV is sympathetic with the victim yet joins in, it is more emotionally uncomfortable).

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I think it's a combination of the fact that, when he wants to, Bakker can write more viscerally and evocatively than most of his competition, and the fact that he doesn't write that evocatively all the time. A lot of the neutral or potentially pleasant things are described with a degree of naratorial distance, which makes the fact that many horrible things are described in detail with skill all the more noticable.


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I admittedly think some readers find the scene at the end of The Warrior Prophet especially disturbing because its from the point of view of a victim, and a male one at that.

This makes it worse why?

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I'm not answering on anyone's behalf but I always assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that male on male sexual violence is usually less well represented in the media. I know a lot of work is written with the "male gaze" and I think the sexual violence against male characters is more difficult to read about. This is especially consistent when taken into context of readership demographics for SFF.



Anecdotal evidence based on my own feelings admittedly so may not reflect opinions as a whole. I have to agree with GOMR on this - male on male sexual violence is harder hitting (probably due to a lack of de-sensitisation) than male/female violence. I read an interesting article on this where a lot of women are raped in fantasy history analogues "because that's the way it was" yet there seems to be a lack of representation showing as an example - rampant homosexuality and male on male sex crimes (I am not relating homosexuality and sexual assault here) it is just they are both not as strongly represented.

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I don't think that male on male sexual violence should be treated with levity--just as i don't think that male on female sexual violence should be treated as titillating or business as usual. Both are horrible things. However, I do think that the "novelty" of male on male sexual violence in the media does make it harder for some to fathom. (This is a huge problem: why is male on male violence rare and shocking when male on female violence is so goddamn common that we've become desensitized to it?! Both should be treated as they are, as horrible things and not as cheap jokes or cheap ways to titillate or whatever. Still, the sheer cheap use of male on female violence is shameful and much more problematic, I think. But I've digressed.)



I find atrocity the most disturbing when it has a "human" factor to it. A detailed description of rape or torture is bad, but when the author reflects on the impacts of said rape or torture on the victim (for example, Theon's recollections of Ramsay's torture or Aenglas's mental as well as physical torment) or the thought process of the rapist or torturer (Glokta, maybe, as stated in a previous post? I haven't read any Abercrombie yet, so I could be misinterpreting...), it's so much worse for me.


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Glokta's not really a rapist,

his threatening to have Terez's lover gang raped was a little jarring to read though, given he seemed to have a soft spot for women up until then,

but he is a son of a bitch. That being said he's also one of the most entertaining and fascinating First Law characters to read. His POVs demonstrate Abercrombie's ability to flawlessly move from black humor to content that's truly sickening without missing a beat. Body found floating in water cracked me up every time, then a few pages later he'd start cutting off people's fingers and make my stomach churn.

Ironically the one person he tortures that we

don't read in gruesome detail, is the one guy that really deserved it.

I don't think anyone was saying he was a rapist, just ('just' mhmmmmm, weird use of the word there :p). But yes, completely agree, from black humour to stomach churning horror
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I'm not answering on anyone's behalf but I always assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that male on male sexual violence is usually less well represented in the media. I know a lot of work is written with the "male gaze" and I think the sexual violence against male characters is more difficult to read about. This is especially consistent when taken into context of readership demographics for SFF.

Anecdotal evidence based on my own feelings admittedly so may not reflect opinions as a whole. I have to agree with GOMR on this - male on male sexual violence is harder hitting (probably due to a lack of de-sensitisation) than male/female violence. I read an interesting article on this where a lot of women are raped in fantasy history analogues "because that's the way it was" yet there seems to be a lack of representation showing as an example - rampant homosexuality and male on male sex crimes (I am not relating homosexuality and sexual assault here) it is just they are both not as strongly represented.

Actually, it's not at all certain that the SFF readership demographic skew towards male readers.

While I mostly agree with you, on the reasons, I'd also add that it's about identification. Men-as-readers are less used to identifying with female protagonists and rape of women is more like cruelty to animals: not nice, but something that is removed from the self. It's rarer for male readers to feel like "this could happen to me".

This may also put in perspective why Bakker can be somewhat of an effort to get through for many women readers, and why the repeated assaults on women make one weary: women are more likely to identify with female characters getting raped and/or beaten up, and when it happens repeatedly and relentlessly, it gets difficult to read. After all, the character so many male readers got so upset about didn't upset me *more* than what happened to the female characters who had atrocities visited upon them, often repeatedly and at times also by the later male victim. I might add that to me, it was not better or worse than what was visited upon the female characters, but presented within the text as worse, by way of being special. But then emasculation/homosexuality is a heavily laden topic at least within the first three novels.

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