Rape in fiction

[Mentat]

Also, the entire Terez thing in LaoK was one of the things that ruined The First Law for me as a series. I was disgusted by how it was treated almost as comic relief (like isn't it cool we get to put this stuck-up dyke in her place...).

Both Terez and Cersei married young and healthy kings who were attempting to found a royal dinasty within a faux-mediaeval setting whilst intending to maintain a relationship with someone else and never have sex with their actual husbands.

There's no way that was going to end well.

(It might help if you used a more hypothetical example - Robert and Cersei is very specific and it's easy to get sidetracked into details from the series. If I understand your point correctly, you would need proof that Tywin was actually likely to kill Robert for refusing to have sex with Cersei, and that's never going to fly.)

I don't think Robert's position was that easy. He would have had to have sex with Cersei during the bedding ceremony right after the wedding. Had either of them refused they would certainly have incurred in Tywin's wroth. Also, had Cersei remained childless while Robert fathered bastards with other women, the political situation would also have been very complicated. Tywin would have taken hands into the matter, and if Cersei said it was because Robert refused to have sex with her then Tywin would probably have had serious words with him. Same goes with Jezal had Terez started complaining that he wouldn't have sex with her, as Bayaz wanted a dinasty.

I think both Cersei's and Terez's inconformist attitudes towards sex with their husbands makes very little sense. Cersei at least tries to pleasure Robert and deceive him about having penetrative sex, but Terez just doesn't make any sense. Jezal is incredibly gentlemanly with her, but he could simply have hit her and taken her by force and nobody would have batted an eyelid. How did she know he wouldn't do it? If they had let their unloved husband have their way with them while at the same time pursuing their relationships with their loved ones (who were both ideally positioned) their characters would have been more in accordance to the setting, and much conflict in their life might have been averted. In ASOIAF, lots of husbands look for their wives' consent before having sex with them. While this is what should happen, I'm not sure it's what I would expect from a society with a mediaeval approach to marriage.

One of the things I like about fantasy and sci-fi literature is the immersive feeling in a different world. Attitudes towards sex and gender roles and relationships is an important part of world-building, and I agree with Wastrel that in a world which is very close to mediaeval earth sex and gender issues should in turn be very similar too (or there should be a good explanation of why they aren't). That said, gruesome events that make lots of people (including myself) uncomfortable should be kept to the background or treated with a tasteful use of the elipsis (I like how it's done in the Arya chapters in ACOK, for instance, where lots of bad things happen to innocent people but the book averts its eyes, so as to speak, generating tension with these events without reveling in them or describing them too closely). The problem is sometimes that the wish to keep rape to a background often creates a rather jarring contrast between main characters (who are respectful towards women and modern in their attitudes) and background characters (who are violent, sexist and casual rapists) without always providing a suitable rationale for this contrast. Maybe being less gritty and mediaeval and making more of an effort to craft an original fantasy with original gender relations world would in turn lead to less rape and more coherence.

[Dreadwolf]

…I would prefer to avoid encountering it in my reading), but the thing that bothers me even more is that some readers, evidently, came to expect it in any darkish fantasy work…

I definitely do not like horror and monstrous violence in the related fictions/ movies and including any supporting although episodic scenes in otherwise decent works.

It will not be fair if we just say that it is attributive only to modern art.

The Bible is a classical example to that effect.

I do not think that art shall mirror the RL so close neither it must pedantically follow any statistics regarding the frequency of miscellaneous occurrences in attempt to be realistic to the highest degree. Not all the trash and sh**s that surrounds everyday living is equally represented in accordance with its repeating and probably not without a reason. Some stuff just not have esthetical virtues to be depicted - especially in details.

It seems to me however that as if the presence of similar motives and themes (I mean violence related) has been recently gradually increasing. Technologies, communications, turnround and all that are rapidly advancing so that may be one of the reasons. But that is another topic.

I can agree however that these elements in the narrating (including some more concealed implications) may be skillfully used for achieving a specific impact and eventually significantly contribute the art-work.

Speaking about ASOIAF Gregor (Clegane) most probably would not be the same Gregor if some specific details were spared. And I would not have that attitude towards lord Tywin too I guess.

And the horrors of war became more palpable. Only several examples that I think were not mentioned above:

- miscellaneous references where Arya was threatened with rape were really terrifying to me, being her fan;

- Bronn*s (strangely to me I noticed that many borders are fond of that guy) several mentioning that after a fierce and mortally dangerous fight (or it was after some kills) a man needs a woman to complete the pleasure. While rape is not directly pointed out I don*t believe he necessarily meant consensual sex; It is connected with Cersei*s remark that after the battle men become more hungry for flesh rather than for anything else.

- Theon is another example which image IMO would have been more faint without that brutal scene in the bed chambers of the lords of Winterfell - Moreove the fact that as if he had some feelings and even cared about that girl. Very expessing IMO.

Regretfully or not we cannot completely avoid the exhibition of violence reproduced in modern works of art. It is everywhere and even several hours watching TV, or reading newspapers (RL shadow not art) made us familiar with terrible and evil stuff infesting.

The good thing with the art, TV, papers, magazines and the web is that you can drop it as quickly as you wish once you have decided it is distasteful. And it is clear that any work that re-produces violence w/o any idea will not stand. Looking for shocking and striking effect and the simple attempts of imitation of some successful authors by copying their <know-how> is may be a potential danger. B/c it may have some temporary flooding effect. Especially if the effect of shock is chased for its own purpose. That may cause constant attempts to increase the irritating factor just to impress the readers and setting highest limens. It is actually one of the many dangers that humanity must face and withstand.

But I also think (somehow contributing to your major concern) it is mainly readers/ perceivers responsibility to fix the borders and discard all the worthless trash. But Looking into human*s history and seeing what does after all remain outstanding I am actually optimistically minded.

[Happy Ent]

You seriously think the reader is meant to cheer for this?

I think we cannot help but.

Reading puts us in the mind of people. And we will rationalise their behaviour to ourselves, just as we rationalise our own behaviour. Hence depiction becomes endorsement, not so much by the mighty power of the author’s pen, but by the psychological mechanisms in the reader’s mind.

[Insert Edit]

I think we cannot help but.

Reading puts us in the mind of people. And we will rationalise their behaviour to ourselves, just as we rationalise our own behaviour. Hence depiction becomes endorsement, not so much by the mighty power of the author’s pen, but by the psychological mechanisms in the reader’s mind.

But a clever author or film-maker will make you examine your own reactions. Tarantino's 'Inglorious Basterds' does this by showing you a scene early in the film where people in the theater cheer for an act of violence committed by the 'good' guys, and then later shows you another scene where people in a movie audience are cheering a scene of violence committed by the 'bad' guys.

You can watch that movie, and read Abercrombie's book at different levels of course. You can not reflect on any of the moral quandaries at all.

To use another movie example, I've heard countless people over the years say that 'Clockwork Orange' celebrates rape. That if glorifies rape. I heartily disagree. Kubrick asks that you think about that crime, and other violent crimes as well. He doesn't give you any answers - but I think that people who say he's glorifying rape are missing the boat.

[The Evil Hat]

I think we cannot help but.

Reading puts us in the mind of people. And we will rationalise their behaviour to ourselves, just as we rationalise our own behaviour. Hence depiction becomes endorsement, not so much by the mighty power of the author’s pen, but by the psychological mechanisms in the reader’s mind.

I don't agree at all, and I found what you're saying to be one of the main elements to Abercrombie's books. The disconnect between what we felt for the characters and who they actually were is what made them worthwhile, imo. We start out thinking that Logen (to pick an example) is such a good guy, willing to change, etc, and we swallow all of his bullshit, but at the end when we realize it's not...we feel deceived. It's due to what you said, we took his reasoning for his own, and so we feel betrayed when it turns out that he was something else all along. the difference is that I'd classify that as both an awesome look at genre tropes (and morality, in general) than as endorsement of torture, etc.

[Liadin]

I think it often feels as if we're meant to accept whatever the main characters of a book do because 1) the vast majority of authors want their main characters to be admirable and believe them to be so and 2) that vast majority turns into 100% when you're looking at kids' or YA books, which is where most of us started and where our reading habits were formed. So our default assumption is that an author identifies with his protagonists and wants us to do so as well.

I haven't read Abercrombie's books, but it's risky business writing a book with deliberately immoral protagonists, one of the risks being that it looks like endorsement. Unless all immoral characters die karmic deaths, it can be hard to tell. Generally, I assume that if a character whose behavior I find immoral is neither called out by the other characters, nor gets what (in my mind) is coming to him, that the author thought his actions were acceptable.

Another problem is that some readers have no moral standards for fictional characters. They value badassery above all. (Witness the people constantly justifying the child-killing and maiming in ASOIAF. Holy crap.) So if you haven't actually read interviews by the author, and one of his characters is an unrepetant rapist, and you've met people on online forums who think such behavior is okay, how do you know the author doesn't think so as well? That he isn't acting out a "badass" fantasy of his own? Of course there are a lot of subtle cues, but some readers are slower to pick up on subtlety than others, and there will always be people who take depiction for endorsement. (Hell, some even think that's true when the villain does something. Tons of parents try to get To Kill a Mockingbird banned from schools because of a certain word that's used--regardless of the fact that it's used by the bad guy, whereas an admirable character is seen telling his kid that it's Definitely Not Okay. But I'm getting off-topic.)

[Morrigan]

Generally, I assume that if a character whose behavior I find immoral is neither called out by the other characters, nor gets what (in my mind) is coming to him, that the author thought his actions were acceptable.

Why would you assume that, though? Unless you're exclusively reading kid's stuff, of course.

[Jon Sprunk]

Art often makes us uncomfortable. That's one of its primary duties to society.

[Shryke]

I think we cannot help but.

Reading puts us in the mind of people. And we will rationalise their behaviour to ourselves, just as we rationalise our own behaviour. Hence depiction becomes endorsement, not so much by the mighty power of the author’s pen, but by the psychological mechanisms in the reader’s mind.

Frankly, I don't generally pay attention to the opinions of people who mistake Depiction for Endorsement.

[Liadin]

Why would you assume that, though? Unless you're exclusively reading kid's stuff, of course.

Because even in adult literature (I don't do the kid/YA stuff anymore; my point was that it conditions us to read in certain ways, and I doubt I was the only one getting protagonists-are-always-heroes in massive doses between ages 4 and 14), protagonists are usually meant to be sympathetic. The vast majority of protagonists are presented in a positive light. The vast majority of authors I've heard speak or read interviews/FAQs from seem to like, even admire their characters. If you read books about writing, they'll tell you how to make your characters sympathetic. Few authors dare to challenge this. It is the default.

Add to that the fact that people are diverse; lots of people have values and morals very different from mine. If the text doesn't give me a reason to believe that the author disapproves of the character, I assume the author approves of the character. I've never read an author who I didn't think had someone whose moral judgments he or she agreed with in the cast, so in stories where protagonists do bad things (which happens more often than the protagonists just being bad people), there's generally someone there to say "Wait a minute... WTF was that?" Barring that, the narrative itself can punish a character for misbehaving. If neither one happens, there are ways to show that you don't approve of the character.... by describing acts of villainy in off-putting detail for instance.... but it's chancier. Not everyone will pick up on it. And some people just don't judge fictional characters the way they would judge real people committing the same acts, and thus disapprove of nothing as long as it's proactive and moves the story along.

[Shryke]

But that's just acting for art that is safe and never challenges the reader.

Bad things are always punished and the book/movie/whatever always tells you how you should feel.

[The Evil Hat]

You're right, 99% of fiction depicts an "admirable" protagonist...that's why I think works that do not are so valuable. There's no better way to get into someone's head than fiction (in my opinion), so we inherently sympathize with whoever we're reading from the perspective of. When our innate sympathies are challenged, however, we're forced to confront the issue in a way that can't be addressed in any other way.

As for the depiction=endorsement thing, I honestly don't understand it. That's like saying that people who bring up questions of racism are, undoubtedly, racists. It doesn't add up. How can we examine these issues if we pretend they don't exist? It's simply impractical for authors to always say something along the lines of I'M NOT A RACIST, HONEST. In fact, it'd ruin the story. Let's take the Black Company (spoilers for the first book in the omnibus, which's all I've read so far):

We're told that Elmo and several other soldiers rape women after a battle. Croaker does not partake, but he does not condemn them. Why? Because it would be completely out of character. Croaker is not a good person. That kind of behavior would be common in something like The Black Company. To have Croaker speak out against it - or worse, to have another character pop on stage for the sole reason of doing so - would violate the world that Cook was creating. Do you really need the author to tell you, explicitly, "I do not agree with these beliefs?"

[Morrigan]

You're right, 99% of fiction depicts an "admirable" protagonist...that's why I think works that do not are so valuable. There's no better way to get into someone's head than fiction (in my opinion), so we inherently sympathize with whoever we're reading from the perspective of. When our innate sympathies are challenged, however, we're forced to confront the issue in a way that can't be addressed in any other way.

As for the depiction=endorsement thing, I honestly don't understand it. That's like saying that people who bring up questions of racism are, undoubtedly, racists. It doesn't add up. How can we examine these issues if we pretend they don't exist? It's simply impractical for authors to always say something along the lines of I'M NOT A RACIST, HONEST. In fact, it'd ruin the story. Let's take the Black Company (spoilers for the first book in the omnibus, which's all I've read so far):

We're told that Elmo and several other soldiers rape women after a battle. Croaker does not partake, but he does not condemn them. Why? Because it would be completely out of character. Croaker is not a good person. That kind of behavior would be common in something like The Black Company. To have Croaker speak out against it - or worse, to have another character pop on stage for the sole reason of doing so - would violate the world that Cook was creating. Do you really need the author to tell you, explicitly, "I do not agree with these beliefs?"

Agreed. I brought that example up on the last page. On the other hand, we are shown some disapproval by the Captain (though only a sad head-shake and no actions or measures taken to stop the rape). Maybe that's what koolkat is getting at? In truth, while it lifted my spirit just a little to see the Captain mutter in disapproval, it almost (I do mean *almost*) felt out of character for him. I mean, realistically speaking, why would the leader of a ruthless mercenary band give two shits about the fate of captive women? But, it's not implausible either and Cook handled it well enough. Having the Captain actually react and go "stop, stop guys, don't do that!", on the other hand, would not have been believable.

But all in all I concur that mistaking depiction for endorsement is hard to comprehend for me. Just because most protagonists are not bad, or are punished for doing bad things, doesn't mean anyone should assume the author is writing about his personal values and feelings within the protagonists. In fact, if you can discern a noticeable author bias or preachy tone in the fiction, it's usually a very bad thing (see: Goodkind).

[Ouroboros]

When you mentioned the Black Company and the actions of the Captain (Never read the books) my mind went to Randyl Tarly. Here's a man who isn't very nice, doesn't have any redeeming features and is a brutal son of a bitch, who also disapproves of rape and punishes it brutally. Is it unrealistic that such a man could exist or be believable in a realistic medieval setting?

[Happy Ent]

[...]Randyl Tarly. [...] who also disapproves of rape and punishes it brutally. Is it unrealistic that such a man could exist or be believable in a realistic medieval setting?

Maybe this quote of Lord Randyl tempers you infatuation with him a bit:

Go where you want and do as you will . . . but when you're raped don't look to me for justice. You will have earned it with your folly.

He disapproves of rape like he disapproves of any other disturbance to society. In particular, the victim can be at fault. In particular, I’d be surprised if Tarly’s men behaved differently than all other soldiers after a victory.

[Galactus]

To be honest, a good chunk of officers DID disapprove of rape. Although it seems as much because it encouraged soldiers to wander off as for any other reason.

[Liadin]

Agreed. I brought that example up on the last page. On the other hand, we are shown some disapproval by the Captain (though only a sad head-shake and no actions or measures taken to stop the rape). Maybe that's what koolkat is getting at?

Sort of. What I'm getting at is that the vast majority of books depict protagonists the authors approve of. Yet, many protagonists take actions of questionable morality. Sometimes they kill people, sometimes they steal things, etc. It's usually pretty clear from the narrative whether or not the author approves--and while rape is more black-and-white, you'll find plenty of authors who think their characters are justified in their murders/thefts/whatever, while others show that they think the character was wrong (other characters showing signs of disapproval is one way to do that). There have certainly been times when I as a reader was rooting for a character to do something technically immoral, too.

So, since sometimes both authors and readers are okay with certain immoral actions on the part of the protagonists, how can we tell whether the author is presenting a certain action as heroic, or the protagonist making a mistake? We look to cues in the text. Disapproval from other characters, the immoral actions coming back to haunt the protagonist, etc. While some authors do go too far in trying to tell us what to think, I'm not at all arguing that they should do so, or that all protagonists should be good, upstanding people. I'm just saying readers can be forgiven for thinking an author isn't bothered by a protagonist's actions when there are no clues to the contrary in the text.

[Gigei]

To be honest, a good chunk of officers DID disapprove of rape. Although it seems as much because it encouraged soldiers to wander off as for any other reason.

Of course. This applies to professional/actual armies and not just random bandits or gangs. You've got to have some discipline or else things break down badly such what happened in Magdeburg.

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

I'm just saying readers can be forgiven for thinking an author isn't bothered by a protagonist's actions when there are no clues to the contrary in the text.

More than this: rape in fiction is very delicate ground to tread on because it has a long history as a subject of very lurid fascination in modern fiction, even when the fiction in question purports to disapprove of the rapist's actions. This is not unlike:

- The fascination that old-school pulp fiction used to demonstrate with lesbianism or sexual "promiscuity", wherein lascivious, lingering descriptions gave the lie to supposedly moralistic attitudes.

- The fascination that contemporary homophobia very frequently demonstrates with the fine details of gay sex, which it's often decrying on the supposed rationale that the gays are having such mind-blowingly powerful and wonderful sex all the time that those darned perverts are addicted to it.

In both cases, what's usually happening isn't realism, but cartoonish distortion produced by pornograph...ization. This is also, quite often, true of rape, whether or not the protagonist is "punished" for it. It's a key reason why many readers become suspicious of rape as a plot device, because too often it's used as a kind of cheap ploy -- a sort of "have your cake and eat it" scenario in which the author can pretend outrage while milking the assault for prurient interest on the side. (This needn't progress to actual rape; the implied threat of rape can be milked the same way, which is why the "damsel-in-distress/heroine-in-peril" trope often squicks people out.)

I've been skimming across this thread and I can't speak to whether this is true of some of the examples that have been under discussion, but I can think of a couple of clear examples of it:

1) An obvious one would be the Gap books by Donaldson, whose plot includes the perpetually-abused heroine acquiring a device that -- among other things -- actually allows her to project the illusion of getting off on rape. Does the author necessarily "approve" of all this? Heavens no! The reader is invited to be outraged by it at every opportunity. But all the disapproval just happens to hinge on a plot twist that just happens to bequeath rape-based superpowers on a sexy victim/heroine. So, yeah. Gross. Extremely gross, in fact, in a way that contaminated all my previous appreciation of the man's work.

2) To take it into film, Strange Days was another example of this, actually taking the audience on a ride through a vivid rape-snuff scene (slightly deconstructed a little while later, no doubt to provide legal cover for somebody's arse) on the pretext of moral outrage.

3) The Prince of Nothing books have been mentioned upthread, and legitimately so IMO. There's a prurient edge to its treatment of sexual abuse, which is partly as prevalent a theme as it is because of plot contrivances carefully set up to put it centre stage (of which the worst is the Consult, whose fiendish creations are inspired by the immoralities of Aliens From Outer Space Who Really Like to Do The Nasty).

If there's a dynamic that way, way too many SF authors show no evidence of understanding, this is the one. Portraying rape is not itself the problem. Rape happens, and if you're portraying a setting where it would probably happen, pretending it didn't would be (at least arguably) irresponsible. But when the narrative goes to considerable lengths to furnish us with the super-sexy victim/heroine or the damsel-in-distress, even on the pretext of outrage -- and particularly where it looks for excuses to make the rape much sexier than its real-life counterpart would be -- then something is up and it's not good. This is also generally true of narratives that go out of their way to provide pretexts for male characters to indulge in rape or sexual abuse on the belief that their victim was "willing." (Hello, Piers Anthony.) Fiction in which women and children impinge on the narrative primarily to furnish victims of various forms of rape and abuse also touches this nerve.

[Xray the Enforcer]

At the risk of a total threadjack: Piers Anthony :o

That said, good post SRoD. Welcome to the boards. Another book that has serious issues with what you're describing is The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. I think the author probably meant well, trying to not shy away with the realities of what someone in that situation would endure, but a poor execution nonetheless.