#The only real 'in canon' backup reason I can cite right off the top of my head as to why

[ride-a-dromedary]

So we know Halsin obviously prefers terrestrial animals, but given the choice between flying animals and aquatic ones, which do you think he prefers?

Halsin loves all creatures of Toril, big and small, maggots included.😌

But something in my heart says he prefers flying animals if made to pick between those two options - partially for his fondness for ducks, but there were also just so many birds in the Grove and I feel like he had more chances to be very closely in their company more consistently. He would have loved those Ancient Giant Eagles on top of the Rosymorn Monastery.

I do feel like he would be fascinated by the astronomical biodiversity present in bodies of water - that would, at the very least, pique the academic interest. He strikes me as a swamp, pond and wave pool type of person.

#BG3 Musing #Halsin Posting #Jemi gets asks #autistichalsin #*emphasis on creatures - humanoids and shapeshifters are an entirely different story #The only real 'in canon' backup reason I can cite right off the top of my head as to why #is his fondness for ducks (and apparently swans and eagles if the unsubtle flirting with Gale is any indication) #he also does talk about bird nests a few times #otherwise it's a vibe and a vibe only

[scripttorture]

Sorry for the multiple asks. In Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom's parents were tortured to what I assume is catatonia by the cruciatus curse. Is this a realistic portrayal of the effects of torture, or does it involve some degree of magical handwaving? If realistic, then would you mind suggesting some avenues, both grounded in reality and more fantastical, by which their condition may be helped?

So I had a long answer written out for this and then it got eaten and I’d deleted my backup (both of them) and don’t you just despise technology sometimes? Join me as I scream into the void.

 Once more, from the top-

 No need to apologise for multiple asks. They are in fact encouraged. I’d rather you looked for answers to your questions then assumed you already know the answer. Thank you for coming to me. Thank you for taking an interest. It really does mean a lot to me to see people engaging with the subject. :)

 It’s been a long time since I read Harry Potter. From what I can remember I don’t think the books handled torture survivors well.

 I think this particular portrayal landed smack bang in ‘torture makes victims passive’. It was also pretty explicitly using that misconception about torture survivors being unable to live full, happy lives or make any kind of recovery.

 You could make the argument that these are magical, rather then the effects of torture. But I don’t think Rowling did any work to show that was the case. From what I can remember the stuff that’s actually in the books just suggests the curse causes pain and… that’s it.

 Which doesn’t stop you from trying to make a bad portrayal better.

 @scriptshrink is the mental health professional in the family and may disagree. From what I can remember I don’t think the description of the Longbottoms in the books was exactly catatonia. It seemed more like a combination of catatonia and late stage dementia to me.

 Which creates a bit of a problem for a narrative arc if you want to treat these characters in a more realistic way. Because catatonia is easily treated now with drugs and late stage dementia is… there’s basically no effective treatment. There are things patients can be given to slow the progression of dementia but what they’ve lost is gone. (I’ve spent quite a long time around people with various forms of dementia and I’m going to cite experience as my source there).

 The reason that’s an issue for a narrative is that there really isn’t a middle ground between ‘take this pill to recover’ and ‘there is no treatment at all’. And that’s not on you, it’s on the source material.

 So, suggestion time: I do have a few different ideas depending on what you want from a recovery arc and how you want to characterise Wizard culture in your story.

 Let’s assume that (like catatonia) this fugue state survivors of the curse are in is easily treatable. What happens when you take it away? When survivors are present, not dissociating and remember what happened to them?

 Well suddenly you get confronted with an actual torture survivor with all the loud, messy, complex mental health problems that implies.

 And if you don’t know a lot about mental health? Then it looks like you went from someone who is calm and ‘at peace’ to someone who is incredibly distressed and obviously in pain. It also means you went from someone biddable and ‘easy to handle/care for’ to someone who is exponentially less likely to put up with shit. Someone who demands explanations, cries hysterically, has panic attacks or flashbacks.

 With that sort of big visceral difference- A culture that doesn’t know how to deal with mental illness might well decide survivors are ‘better off’ in that fugue state.

 Because it would probably be easier to take care of a quiet, unemotional drone then to deal with trying to help someone with severe, complex mental health problems.

 With that kind of cultural background the dementia-like state might actually be the result of the treatment survivors are given. Because they’re ‘better off this way’.

 This would give you a much more traditional recovery arc in your story but by its nature demands a narrative discussion of how mentally ill people are treated by society. Which may not be something you want in the story.

 The other main suggestion I had was to treat this fugue state and this unrealistic depiction of memory loss as if it’s part of the curse itself.

 The cruciatus curse is supposed to be designed to cause the maximum amount of pain, so why not factor lasting generational pain into that? Stripping away important, foundational memories with longer use of the curse seems like it could be an additional terror tactic.

 ‘It doesn’t matter if they survive. It doesn’t matter if you rescue them. You’ll never get them back.’

 In that kind of scenario you’d probably end up with a different recovery arc, one that’s as much about magic as mental health. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing when you’re explicitly dealing with something magical.

 If you wanted a plot line involving some kind of magical quest this would be a really good fit. I think it would also work well with a more… straight forwardly heroic story? There’d be less of the cultural and moral arguments that are naturally brought up if you’re talking about cultural attitudes to different medical treatments. It would also be a good pick if you want to lean into the intelligence/research skills of some of the canon characters: a combination of cleverness and compassion resulting in a breakthrough that saves the day.

 I’ll finish off with a short general discussion about writing torture survivors realistically and writing them in fantasy.

 I’ve got a post on the common long term symptoms of torture here. And I’ve got a post on what memory problems look like in survivors here.

 We don’t have a way to predict symptoms. Different individual survivors get different sets of symptoms and we’re not sure why. Because of that variation I think that it’s best to treat symptoms as a writing choice.

 Pick symptoms based on what you think adds to the story and creates interesting narrative opportunities. If a symptom emphasises the themes in your story, creates good opportunities to show the readers something about the characters or makes for interesting conflict then it’s a good choice. Conversely if a particular symptom doesn’t appeal to you or you don’t want to write it for any reason, feel free to choose something different.

 I stress realism and writing survivors realistically. I don’t do that because I think fiction ‘must’ be realistic. I do it because the ways we choose to break with reality matter.

 And right now most of the ways we choose to be unrealistic tacitly support/condone torture.

 The majority of the time that’s not the author’s intention. I certainly don’t think it was Rowling’s intention here. (I’ll admit I haven’t been keeping up with her string of controversies but I don’t think active support for torture was ever among them.)

 But these tropes keep getting repeated. Partly because finding accurate information on torture is hard. It’s difficult to search for. It often costs money. A lot of it just isn’t translated (I’m actually saving up to get a bunch of core texts translated into English when the plague is over.) And oh boy do not get me started on the lack of inter-disciplinary communication because I will go off like an unplanned quench of an NMR’s super magnets.

 These are issues that hamper academic researchers to a huge degree. It’s no wonder they impact non-specialists trying to make sense of this mess.

 Having said all of that: I think that we should make space for metaphor and fantastical elements in our fiction.

 The issue is passing off tropes that are unrealistic and harmful as if they’re fact.

 I have significant issues with portraying torture survivors as passive objects. I think it really hampers general understanding of torture and ethical treatment of survivors today. It encourages people to think that real survivors are ‘faking it’ because they don’t look like the passive objects we see portrayed in fiction.

 That said, if a story explicitly states that what it’s doing is magical and unrealistic, it should be less of an issue.

 I do not think that’s what Rowling did in this particular portrayal. I think she presented a curse that the audience was supposed to read as only causing extreme pain and she linked that to the idea of pain turning people into passive objects. You can remove the magic from this scenario and it’s unmistakably torture apologia.

 But I can imagine alternatives where a fantasy story could separate these things out. It would be hard work and require a lot more focus on the curse itself.

 Say you have a fantasy story that takes one of the non-Western approaches to ideas about human souls. Particularly the idea that our memories and experience constitute a separate spiritual part of ourselves.

 Magic that stole and imprisoned that portion of someone would, by the logic of the magic system, create something a little like this catatonia/late-stage-dementia symptom set Rowling presents. And I think if that was presented, divorced from ideas about pain and what suffering ‘should’ do to people- Well it’s no longer really talking about torture. It’s talking about a fantastical scenario.

 We’re not really used to thinking through the implications of where we break with reality. But it does get easier with practice.

 I hope that helps. :)

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#nobodystormcrow #writing advice #tw torture #tw ableism #writing recovery #writing survivors #fantasy ask #Harry Potter #effects of torture #torture survivors are not broken #attitudes towards torture survivors #pain #catatonia #dementia #mental illness #memory problems #cultural attitudes to survivors