It's such a grey area... I did a blog aaaaages ago about women in comic books, how rape was used as a quick means of garnering audience sympathy or "developing" character. For me, in that context, it doesn't work.
In urban fantasy, there seems to be a trend of heroines undergoing some trauma (usually rape) before gaining their powers. Zoe Martinique in Phaedra Weldon's excellent Wraith springs to mind immediately. If it's done well, I don't have a problem with reading it.
However, I couldn't accept a hero who was a rapist. I think even the "forced seduction" angle would give me trouble. I don't think I could even accept a redeemed rapist as a hero, because I just don't think there are many things humans can do to each other that are worse.
I could forgive a hero who'd hit a woman, if it was well-written. (I kind of have to, because one of the main characters in my UF series has hit women in the past!) But it would depend on context and the skill of the writer to get me there.
You know, Naomi, I almost mentioned that? (the "heroine is raped=instant sympathy" stories.) It's one of my biggest pet peeves, along with "heroine lost a child". I hate feeling emotionally manipulated.
True, rape implies such a selfish callousness for one's own pleasure, such a violation, it's hard to see much that's worse.
Same here - I want to like a heroine because they're likeable, not because they've suffered.
On the other side of the coin though, you have characters like Phaedre from Jackeline Carey's Kushiel series, who undergoes tremendous trauma, and who you never feel you've been short-cutted into liking.
True. I think it depends on where in the book the tragedy occurs, and how it's handled. I just know I've read too many books where that's the first thing we discover about the heroine, and it bugs me that it's used as a shirtcut to identifying with/feeling sorry for her.
I'm in the "throw across the room" camp at the idea of a redeemed rapist. In a literary work that is a study of the character and motivations, it might work. In UF/paranormal romance, I really can't see it. Even plot points like Carrie Vaughn's Kitty's sex with the pack alpha in book 1 that seem forced/coerced give me the willies.
I think I could buy it if it happened long in the past. I mentioned on Blogger about a guy I knew who'd raped someone once, when drunk. I knew him a dozen years after it happened and knew how horrified he was at even the memory of it (he refused to touch even a drop of alcohol after that) and how absolutely out of character such a thing was for him at the time that I knew him. It took me a little bit to get past that. Ultimately I did, because I'd known him for a long time--we worked together for a year.
But I have to admit I probably wouldn't have dated him if he'd asked (which he didn't, he never so much as touched me and I had a boyfriend anyway.)
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In urban fantasy, there seems to be a trend of heroines undergoing some trauma (usually rape) before gaining their powers. Zoe Martinique in Phaedra Weldon's excellent Wraith springs to mind immediately. If it's done well, I don't have a problem with reading it.
However, I couldn't accept a hero who was a rapist. I think even the "forced seduction" angle would give me trouble. I don't think I could even accept a redeemed rapist as a hero, because I just don't think there are many things humans can do to each other that are worse.
I could forgive a hero who'd hit a woman, if it was well-written. (I kind of have to, because one of the main characters in my UF series has hit women in the past!) But it would depend on context and the skill of the writer to get me there.
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True, rape implies such a selfish callousness for one's own pleasure, such a violation, it's hard to see much that's worse.
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Same here - I want to like a heroine because they're likeable, not because they've suffered.
On the other side of the coin though, you have characters like Phaedre from Jackeline Carey's Kushiel series, who undergoes tremendous trauma, and who you never feel you've been short-cutted into liking.
Reply
True. I think it depends on where in the book the tragedy occurs, and how it's handled. I just know I've read too many books where that's the first thing we discover about the heroine, and it bugs me that it's used as a shirtcut to identifying with/feeling sorry for her.
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But I have to admit I probably wouldn't have dated him if he'd asked (which he didn't, he never so much as touched me and I had a boyfriend anyway.)
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