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By Everam’s will; a re-read of the Demon cycle:


Varysblackfyre321

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2 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Just kind of over the whole rape thing appearing in fiction. 

Rape is not necessarily something that should never be used in fiction, but if it is used, it should be depicted with sensitivity and a light touch (remembering that a sizeable amount of any given readership will have suffered some kind of sexual abuse, for which your depiction may act as a trigger), and it should always be presented as a massively negative thing.

Brett handles it with all the subtlety and sensitivity of a bull on crack in a china shop, of course, so that doesn't apply here.

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31 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Rape is not necessarily something that should never be used in fiction, but if it is used, it should be depicted with sensitivity and a light touch (remembering that a sizeable amount of any given readership will have suffered some kind of sexual abuse, for which your depiction may act as a trigger), and it should always be presented as a massively negative thing.

Brett handles it with all the subtlety and sensitivity of a bull on crack in a china shop, of course, so that doesn't apply here.

Meh, I don’t particularly think he handles it worse than a lot of his  writing peers.  This isn’t to say he handles it excellently. Or really that this should be taken as compliment. Writers tend to handle this topic poorly imo. Even ASOIF I find Martin’s depiction of sexual assault in story to leave much to be desired.  There are clearly some massive problems in the Demon cycle in this.But I don’t think to the level of it making women into PTSD-suffering sociopaths or meni nto badasses. 

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1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah. We used to refer to book 2 as The Rape Spear, cause, DAMN. 

This coming from a man who enjoyed the Prince of Thorns which features its 15 year old male protagonist and his followers sexually assaulting women within the first couple of chapters, and whose literally stated to have all his sexual conquests prior to paying a prostitute being sexual assault. What are your specific problems in Desert Spear? I’m not going to pretend there’s no problems there(and there are certainly problems). Just curious on how you see this as worse than prince of thorns in terms of depicting sexual assault.

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9 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

This coming from a man who enjoyed the Prince of Thorns which features its 15 year old male protagonist and his followers sexually assaulting women within the first couple of chapters, and whose literally stated to have all his sexual conquests prior to paying a prostitute being sexual assault. What are your specific problems in Desert Spear? I’m not going to pretend there’s no problems there(and there are certainly problems). Just curious on how you see this as worse than prince of thorns in terms of depicting sexual assault.

Lol, I don't even know where to begin with that one. So I won't.

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10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Rape is not necessarily something that should never be used in fiction, but if it is used, it should be depicted with sensitivity and a light touch (remembering that a sizeable amount of any given readership will have suffered some kind of sexual abuse, for which your depiction may act as a trigger), and it should always be presented as a massively negative thing.

Your level of eloquence and thoughtfulness on this topic is hugely appreciated. Thank you Adam. 

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On 4/17/2019 at 10:37 AM, baxus said:

Also, I think Brett should've stuck a bit more with the difficulties he put in heroes' way. What seems like an insurmountable obstacle in one book is a mere annoyance in the next one, or even a couple of hundred of pages later in the same book. And that would not be a problem if something happened to make it so, instead of just "ah, we've dealt with this already let's move on to the next thing".

This is one the main problems. The premiss of the first book is brilliant (demons cannot be fought, only be warded) and the first options for fighting them devised by Arlen (and in the second book in that pseudo-muslim city) are well thought out and still stress the danger and skill involved. But already within the second book, demons become cannon-fodder. I stopped after that second one. Then there's the rape including incest, sodomizing small boys for educational purposes and the ridiculous "saving myself for the raping day" storyline of that herb girl but worst of all is that the style devolves into something like a high school RPG script with people in one defense battle of a village referring to the wood demons (that were spine-chilling and invincible foes until yesterday) as "woodies". Like pets or the members of another HS football team "Go Woodies!"

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Later in the books it becomes even worse. I mean, they find some metal that can be used to enhance demon bones thingies (didn't read it in English so I don't know original names for them) and it's supposed to be extremely rare, they even say there's estimated something like one cubic foot of that material in the whole world only to have god damn everything plated with it a few chapters later. If I remember correctly, they mention something like: "Oh, we found another source" and that's it. I mean, such a gamechanger should definitely be covered "on screen".

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5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Then there's the rape including incest,

Wait did you have as visceral reaction to Gilly ACOK? I’m genuinely asking here I think I remember you saying you were uncomfortable with some of the rape scenes in ASOIF.

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

sodomizing small boys for educational purposes

Did not actually happen like that. Sexual abuse was prevalent in the warrior school of Kaisan but this was  a weapon used by the older students to break their enemies particularly those of other tribes-not educate them. This isn’t really that unrealistic given the levels of toxic-masculinity we’re shown about them in the first book-where they’re in constant strife with each other trying to demonstrate their manliness and thus their superiority, and  shown to think women to be the lowest thing one could be in society. So one of the most shameful  things that can happen to a man would be to be raped-because they would be dominated “like a woman”.

Unsurprising in a school where they’re dehumanized, rewarded for cruelty, and and constantly grilled into asserting their “manliness” through violence and taking control of others that this tactic is used often. 

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

and the ridiculous "saving myself for the raping day" storyline of that herb girl

Not sure exactly what you’re referring to here. I think I have an idea but I’m going to just ask you to elaborate first.

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

but worst of all is that the style devolves into something like a high school RPG script with people in one defense battle of a village referring to the wood demons (that were spine-chilling and invincible foes until yesterday) as "woodies". Like pets or the members of another HS football team "Go Woodies!"

Until over a year ago. Since then they’ve been able to kill them far more easily thanks to the weapons Arlen has given them. 

 

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1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Until over a year ago. Since then they’ve been able to kill them far more easily thanks to the weapons Arlen has given them.

It's not just that. "Woodies" pose no threat anymore, except when in huge numbers and augmented by other types of demons. Sure, effective weapons against them do help but they should still be at least somewhat dangerous.

I mean, we're not talking about D&D campaign in which goblins and kobolds are of no consequence once you reach a certain level.

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1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

One of worst thing that could be to a man would be to be dominated, by a man dominates a woman in their eyes.

The punctuation and/or grammar here is a bit confusing to me. Any chance for a rephrasing to clarify the intended meaning?

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51 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

The punctuation and/or grammar here is a bit confusing to me. Any chance for a rephrasing to clarify the intended meaning?

Fair enough. I’ll try to fix it up. My point was that rape being frequently used as a weapon in this setting is realistic given the idea of a man’s masculinity being the most important thing. Being raped is seen as something a “real man” shouldn’t “let” happen. 

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On 4/18/2019 at 4:05 PM, Werthead said:

Rape is not necessarily something that should never be used in fiction, but if it is used, it should be depicted with sensitivity and a light touch (remembering that a sizeable amount of any given readership will have suffered some kind of sexual abuse, for which your depiction may act as a trigger), and it should always be presented as a massively negative thing.


A bit off-topic, but I've just been re-reading the Acts of Caine and as much as I overall love the series it's quite bad about this. Nowhere near the level it sounds like Brett gets to here but casual rape is basically Stover's way of delineating Caine, who would be a villain by almost any other fantasy standard, from the real monsters, and while not quite approached with glee it's definitely not what you'd call a light touch.

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17 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

In the context of Brett's books, or .... ? 

In the context of a patriarchal society-the type of society the Kaizans have. Often in real life, many men who are sexually abused  (especially in a place where there’s a strict view of what a man is), feel they’re less of a man because of it, or seen(wrongly I have to add) as less of a man because of it by many of those around him. 

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11 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Nowhere near the level it sounds like Brett gets to here but casual rape is basically Stover's way of delineating Caine, who would be a villain by almost any other fantasy standard, from the real monsters, and while not quite approached with glee it's definitely not what you'd call a light touch.

You're referring to Berne?

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5 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Often in real life, many men who are sexually abused  (especially in a place where there’s a strict view of what a man is), feel they’re less of a man because of it, or seen(wrongly I have to add) as less of a man because of it by many of those around him. 

If I could give you a cookie for your sensitivity and awareness on this topic, I totally would. Thank you. :) 

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1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

You're referring to Berne?


Not just Berne.

Kollberg in Book 2 and the Black Knives in the book 3 flashbacks also do it (Marade and Tizarre's entire narrative purpose is basically to be raped and tortured so that Caine has a really good reason to hate both the Black Knives and Berne, which is my least favourite thing about the series by a stretch and a trope I'd have hoped Stover would be much better than considering how well he usually subverts the usual narratives of villainy and heroism).

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2 hours ago, polishgenius said:


Not just Berne.

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Kollberg in Book 2 and the Black Knives in the book 3 flashbacks also do it (Marade and Tizarre's entire narrative purpose is basically to be raped and tortured so that Caine has a really good reason to hate both the Black Knives and Berne, which is my least favourite thing about the series by a stretch and a trope I'd have hoped Stover would be much better than considering how well he usually subverts the usual narratives of villainy and heroism).

 

Oh yes. Those passages as well. It's been a few years since I read CBK and CL. 

With Kollberg though - wasn't the Blind God acting through him, thus making him really ... well, extra-horrible? (I'm in the midst of a BoT reread that got derailed by my picking up Abraham's Long Price Quartet. And I am sadly a painfully...slow...reader.)

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