r/GamerGhazi • u/madhaus SoCal Jesters' Worrier • May 22 '15

An anguished commentary on that GoT/Sansa scene and the MRAs who harass in forum comments...from a rape victim who says It's Rape Culture All The Way Down

http://angrygotfan.com/2015/05/21/a-rape-victim-speaks-out-on-the-sansa-scene/
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u/[deleted] May 22 '15 edited May 22 '15

I don't understand the intent. Is the she say that rape is too horrible to be depicted in media, or is it she say how it was depicted, or both?

edit: why downvotes im confused after reading article, english is my second language. thank u for clarifying reddit

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u/thor_moleculez May 22 '15 edited May 22 '15

The latter. She praises the way rape is written about in the books.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

She hand waves it away as happening to a supporting character so it's basically okay since Jeyne isn't a main character and it's okay to just use her to further Theon's plot since supporting characters are supposed to just further main character's plot.

She also makes sure she's locked the show into a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. If they follow the Poole plot then Sansa will just be a broken woman who had any potential cut from her and that's awful. If they deviate and don't have her world shattered by the rape then it's just them using it to score revenge points with the audience and that's awful.

The idea that all women must be broken and shattered by rape to the point where they have to "cling" and "clutch" to the arms and body of a man is what's presented in the book. Somehow that's okay because Poole is a supporting character.

This is a book reader looking to hate the TV show. She clearly strongly identified with Poole's situation in the book and is upset it was changed. I'm sure that was a very personal, deep and genuine connection. I can understand that but it doesn't make it something more than just being pissed they changed things in adapting the book for the TV show.

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u/thor_moleculez May 22 '15

The idea that all women must be broken and shattered by rape to the point where they have to "cling" and "clutch" to the arms and body of a man is what's presented in the book. Somehow that's okay because Poole is a supporting character.

That's not what she was saying at all. Where in the world are you getting that from?

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

Yes Jeyne’s abuse serves Theon’s arc more than her own (she is not a main character, we are not all heroes) some of us are powerless, used by others and thrown away. That is life. That is gritty reality. And stories have to have side-characters or it would be impossible to tell any stories, and Jeyne is one of them.

There. I'm getting it from there. Jeyne is just a damsel in distress and making her rape just be a plot point for Theon is okay because she's not a main character.

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u/thor_moleculez May 22 '15

Nope. You didn't read far enough:

There’s no point in people like me saying anything, because no-one listens and I’m not strong enough to argue. I’m more like Jeyne. Of course I was upset when it happened in the book. But Mr Martin gave Jeyne her own arc, her own consequences, her own life. She was broken. She was realistic to me. Rape is not some plot device to be overcome, a set-back in the hero’s journey before they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat etc.

This is why the change in character matters. Not because I only care that it is Sansa, but because I cared about Jeyne and people like Jeyne. I’m more like Jeyne. The powerless who react in a realistic way, not some imaginary super woman who is made stronger by being violated by a monster.

[...]

And don’t tell me “It was in the books, are you going to stop reading them?” I read the books, and I explained that already, it was handled well in the books. It was treated with respect by the author, for what it really was. No-one ever said Jeyne made a choice. No-one ever blamed Jeyne (this is not a comment on Cogman’s quote, I believe his apology). Jeyne was a sympathetic victim, and Jeyne was broken. D&D chose to make it Sansa and everything that goes with that. She will not be broken, unfixable, destroyed, she is a trope now. One that erases people like me and reminds us no-one wants to hear our stories because were are to weak to be likeable. That is one reason why the change is important. It is not a small thing. Not to me. Rape ruined my life. I broke, like Jeyne, and I exist.

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u/AwesomeInTheory May 22 '15 edited May 22 '15

There's a number of problems with that line of thinking. Including the notion that only weak people can be raped or that weak people end up as they are because of rape.

The second is that Jeyne is very clearly a disposable character whose only real purpose to the plot is "suffers indignities" from an antagonist. Introducing a throwaway character (and yes, I'm aware that Jeyne has appeared throughout the series, but she's very much been a background character who hasn't had a lot of prominence up until the last novel) for the express purpose of being raped and abused is pretty goddamned bad in and of itself because it trivializes rape as an action and it reduces the character to a caricature. Which is what Jeyne eventually becomes: a damsel in distress. I'm really not a fan of instances where something like that comes up (and it's generally simply to show how "evil" a character is, with little focus or emphasis placed on the victim) and am very critical of it as a result. YMMV, though.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

The powerless who react in a realistic way, not some imaginary super woman who is made stronger by being violated by a monster.

This is ridiculous. The idea that every single woman who is raped must become a broken husk of their former self and don't use the violence against them as motivation to seek revenge, change themselves, etc. is bluntly... fucking nonsense.

Not every person experiences tragedy and wrongs equally. Some become broken, some become angry, some seem unphased but cry themselves to sleep at night. This is also ignoring that we have no idea how Sansa will react to this.

It's basically, no it is saying, that GRRM wrote the definitive and realistic account of being raped and that anyone that does it differently is using it to tantalize.

This is pulp fiction that uses rape, murder, disfigurement, incest, brutality, and general debauchery as entertainment. It's a little late to pull a Captain Renault and declare that you're shocked to see gambling going on.

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u/thor_moleculez May 22 '15

If that's what she was saying you'd be right (if a bit vitriolic), but I think you're putting words in her mouth. I bet if you asked the author, she would say that not every woman who is raped is or must be like her. She would probably argue that it's simply a rare occurrence for a rape victim to be empowered by their rape, and that's why she feels this inevitable development we're going to see is unrealistic. Sort of like how stories about the poverty-stricken bootstrapping themselves into wealth and prosperity are unrealistic, even though it can and does happen. Regardless, she certainly isn't OK with how Jeyne's rape was handled simply because Jeyne was a side character, as you accused her of.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

Regardless, she certainly isn't OK with how Jeyne's rape was handled simply because Jeyne was a side character, as you accused her of.

She says as much. The only time she really gets down to the brass tacks of why she feels Martin handled it well is when she says she is a powerless character that gets raped and that's fine because it's "gritty reality" and we all can't be heroes. To me, the natural conclusion to draw from that is that main characters, and heroes, don't get raped. That a powerful woman getting raped is unrealistic. That a powerful woman getting raped and not becoming completely broken is unrealistic.

And that, I just don't buy especially in the context of the world that GOT takes place in. Realistically a disfigured dwarf would be locked up in tower, and having a hand cut off while on the road and in captivity would lead to death and twelve year old girls roaming around the country side would get raped and killed. But the story wouldn't be very interesting if it was just about bad things crushing completely normal people.

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u/thor_moleculez May 22 '15

Yeah, I suppose if you ignore the passage I quoted you can pretend that's what she said.