Rape in fiction

[Datepalm]

What's wrong with proscribing reader reactions?

If someone watched Schindler's List and came away thinking it was a hilarious romantic comedy about the inability of Nazi's to properly set up a systematic genocide, I'd call them a fucking idiot.

Well, er, what do you say to the claim that anyone coming away from PoN without the view thats a sexist books that revels in objectifying and degrading women is an idiot?

Personally, I thought List was hilarious. Pure holocaust cheese.

[Shryke]

Yes, but if Spielberg had intended it to be a hilarious romantic comedy, he couldn't subsequently complain about viewers thinking it was about genocide. :dunno:

Yes, but that would (potentially) be a criticism of the creator's ability to convey his theme and not a criticism of the theme itself.

It might also be that the viewer wasn't paying attention.

Or a combination of the two.

Well, er, what do you say to the claim that anyone coming away from PoN without the view thats a sexist books that revels in objectifying and degrading women is an idiot?

No, but I'd say they were missing the point.

[Happy Ent]

I don’t think we can find much to disagree about in our evaluation of Bakker, RoD. And I certainly think people are in their right to not like reading Bakker.

But you write:

I find it facile to boil down control, domination, self-rationalization and abandon so easily to Sex and therefore find it gratuitous that rape/sexual abuse looms so large in that particular thematic tapestry.

How can it be gratuitous? It’s at the very core of the themes he wants to exploit. Also, there isn’t a lot of it, and very little is described in any detail.

I can’t remember—did we get a rape at all in the last volume? There’s finally an almost-rape, complete with paternal saviour-hero, but I think it’s the first occurrence of this situation, which seems to be otherwise a standard trope. (A similar scene with Serwë comes close, but she comes out of that scene anything but helpless.) I may be misremembering.

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

What's wrong with proscribing reader reactions?

I was using "proscribe" tongue-in-cheek, of course, referring to your attempt to depict me as trying to prohibit people from writing certain forms of fiction. What you describe is "objecting to a ridiculous interpretation of a work," which isn't any sort of "proscription" or prohibition and is perfectly fine... as long as you accept that you actually have to back up your reasons for finding the interpretation ridiculous. Then the other party can back up their reasons, and you can thenceforth have either a flourishing and enlightening dialogue or a take-no-prisoners flamewar, both of which are entertaining in their own ways.

[Happy Ent]

Nazi's

Nazi is the one word where you want to get your grammar right, lest the former come after you for the latter.

[Shryke]

I was using "proscribe" tongue-in-cheek, of course, referring to your attempt to depict me as trying to prohibit people from writing certain forms of fiction. What you describe is "objecting to a ridiculous interpretation of a work," which isn't any sort of "proscription" or prohibition and is perfectly fine... as long as you accept that you actually have to back up your reasons for finding the interpretation ridiculous. Then the other party can back up their reasons, and you can thenceforth have either a flourishing and enlightening dialogue or a take-no-prisoners flamewar, both of which are entertaining in their own ways.

What's the difference?

An objection to a particular interpretation is being wrong/stupid/whatever is itself a proscription of that interpretation.

[MinDonner]

What's the difference?

An objection to a particular interpretation is being wrong/stupid/whatever is itself a proscription of that interpretation.

What's your point, then? You're just arguing for the sake of it now. You think our interpretation is wrong, we think yours is, everyone's proscribing left right and centre.... and?

[Shryke]

What's your point, then? You're just arguing for the sake of it now. You think our interpretation is wrong, we think yours is, everyone's proscribing left right and centre.... and?

I'm directly addressing his point.

I'm sorry you can't see that. You seem to be having an off day with this stuff.

[MinDonner]

I'm directly addressing his point.

I'm sorry you can't see that. You seem to be having an off day with this stuff.

:lmao:

Yeah, that must be it.

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

How can it be gratuitous? It's at the very core of the themes he wants to exploit.

If we accept the parameters of any story as a given, nothing in any text could be "gratuitous" except if it broke the rules the author themselves set up; the term is of far more interest when talking about the story's relationship to things outside itself that it's commenting on or attempting to comment on. I think often the test of whether a setting works isn't just how well it plays by its own rules -- that's just the basic criterion -- but whether its attempts to draw inspiration in from outside its fictional boundaries wind up making sense.

Bakker's story, for example, makes large points about the basic levers on human behaviour that clearly (at least to me) aspire to being more than just restricted critiques of the fantasy setting of Earwa. Even after suspending disbelief for the Bene Gesserit-style superpowers of the Dunyain, I find that a good deal -- though not all -- of the analysis-of-human-behavior material that's joined with it either deals with the trivially obvious or frequently falls flat. In particular, his obsession with the sexual dimension of power and dominance seems "gratuitous" in that I think he frequently assigns more importance to it than is warranted; the game of interpersonal power is way more complicated and can rarely be neatly illustrated in sexual parallels.

Basically, Bakker strikes me as someone who takes Freud too seriously, which I think oughtn't to be done.

I can't remember—did we get a rape at all in the last volume?

Yes. Sort of a prison rape, it's part of the Conphas character arc. (Actually, despite what I've said above, I don't think Bakker is always wrong or uninteresting, otherwise I wouldn't read him. Cnaiur urs Skiotha's particular character arc was in some ways very interesting, even despite what seemed to me an overreliance on using his sexual conflictedness to drive and illustrate it.)

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

An objection to a particular interpretation is being wrong/stupid/whatever is itself a proscription of that interpretation.

No, you can't in fact "proscribe" an interpretation by disagreeing with it. Doesn't work that way.

[EDIT: I suppose I should've said, "Look, this isn't an argument! It's just contradiction!" ]

[Shryke]

No, you can't in fact "proscribe" an interpretation by disagreeing with it. Doesn't work that way.

[EDIT: I suppose I should've said, "Look, this isn't an argument! It's just contradiction!" ]

Sure it does. You can condemn a view point (which is the same as proscribing it).

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

Sure it does. You can condemn a view point (which is the same as proscribing it).

From our good buddies at Dictionary.com (emphases mine):

pro⋅scribe

[proh-skrahyb]

1. to denounce or condemn (a thing) as dangerous or harmful; prohibit.

2. to put outside the protection of the law; outlaw.

3. to banish or exile.

4. to announce the name of (a person) as condemned to death and subject to confiscation of property.

You would have to denounce your hypothetical Schindler's List "idiot" as a danger to others in order to be "proscribing" them, and even that's a weak connection in most of the more common senses of the term. Nice try, though.

On the upside, I'm pleased that we've put the disagreement about Bakker sufficiently behind us to be splitting hairs about the correct use of the term "proscription." Next up: is a "decarch" properly speaking a "member of a decarchy" or a "leader of a group of ten people"?

[Happy Ent]

Bakker's story, for example, makes large points about the basic levers on human behaviour that clearly (at least to me) aspire to being more than just restricted critiques of the fantasy setting of Earwa.

Agreed.

Yes. Sort of a prison rape, it's part of the Conphas character arc.

Ah, but there’s already a fourth book. Book three contains plenty of sexual violations of various flavours; I mentioned Conphas’s upthread (as “the Aspect Emperor’s dinner with the weeper”).

[Nerdanel]

I think POV is very important in rape scenes.

Donaldson did it well.

The scene shifts briefly to Lena's POV.

Abercrombie failed due to POV.

Terez doesn't have a single POV moment during the entire First Law. Indeed, most of the time she's seen through the eyes of the others, she is being mean and vicious and unreasonable. She is then "punished" with rape. We have only the author's word here that it wasn't supposed to be funny.

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

Ah, but there's already a fourth book.

Oh, I getcha. Fourth book is rape-free as I recall, there's just the incest thing I mentioned.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

Oh, I getcha. Fourth book is rape-free as I recall, there's just the incest thing I mentioned.

It wasn't really incest, because

Spoiler

Mimara wasn't really Akka's daughter, she ony wanted to believe she may be.

[The Evil Hat]

I think POV is very important in rape scenes.

Donaldson did it well.

The scene shifts briefly to Lena's POV.

Abercrombie failed due to POV.

Terez doesn't have a single POV moment during the entire First Law. Indeed, most of the time she's seen through the eyes of the others, she is being mean and vicious and unreasonable. She is then "punished" with rape. We have only the author's word here that it wasn't supposed to be funny.

...What? I mean, yeah, I suppose there's no flashing letters saying THIS ISN'T FUNNY in the middle of the scene, but I don't know why everyone viewed it as some form of slapstick climax. Glokta was a pov character, yes, but he was also a horrible person. He worked for the greater good most of the time, but he did so by brutally torturing people. I don't think that anyone's wondering if Abercrombie condones torture, are they? This is practically the same thing. For the greater good (not Terez's greater good, but the nation's), he forced Terez. But why is this supposed to be comical? It's not like any of Glokta's other plots were particularly light hearted or hilarious.

[Nerdanel]

...What? I mean, yeah, I suppose there's no flashing letters saying THIS ISN'T FUNNY in the middle of the scene, but I don't know why everyone viewed it as some form of slapstick climax. Glokta was a pov character, yes, but he was also a horrible person. He worked for the greater good most of the time, but he did so by brutally torturing people. I don't think that anyone's wondering if Abercrombie condones torture, are they? This is practically the same thing. For the greater good (not Terez's greater good, but the nation's), he forced Terez. But why is this supposed to be comical? It's not like any of Glokta's other plots were particularly light hearted or hilarious.

Failed comedy and failed tragedy can be surprisingly hard to distinguish. We know that The First Law has a lot of very dark humor in it. Thus it's not at all obvious if the author is trying to make a joke about rape and failing to be funny or if the author is trying to portray rape as a bad thing and failing to make the victim sympathetic.

[Datepalm]

Failed comedy and failed tragedy can be surprisingly hard to distinguish. We know that The First Law has a lot of very dark humor in it. Thus it's not at all obvious if the author is trying to make a joke about rape and failing to be funny or if the author is trying to portray rape as a bad thing and failing to make the victim sympathetic.

I don't think it came across as funny, or as a comeupance to that mean lesbian Terez - it was tragic, but I think the sympathy there is first on Jezal, duped into being the unknowing villain of a loveless marriage, and secondly on the depth of Glotkas moral decline, and only thirdly on Terez herself as rape victim. Perfectly rational, given that shes a much more minor character, but still unfortunate in some ways.