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lafcadiosadventures · 5 days

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Madame Putiphar Groupread. Book Two, Chapter XL

various instances of Rembrandt rejecting the tradition of depicting rape in visually pleasing or erotic ways. clockwise from top: detail of Susannah and the Elders, sketch for the same work, and a sketch for the Rape of Ganymedes.

{ @counterwiddershins + @sainteverge }

brace yourselves bc there's A LOT i found interesting in this chapter, Lots of fascinating rhetorical choices by the king, who in this chapter is portrayed exclusively by how he talks. Deborah continues to be assertive and smart and attempting to fight back openly, instead of being a hypocrite or a pretender/diplomat. She is moraly incapable of using the strategies of the court for very long.

-in the beginning the king pretends to be the baron of Gonesse. the false persona allows him to persuade Deborah that his power is limited. Deborah pretends to believe him for a while, even humors him with some moderate language of seduction (“I languished, I waited ardently for your arrival”) This doesn't last, as soon as The king enquires about her mourning arm ribbon, the memory of Patrick and the hope that the king is humane enough to be touched by her story, she speaks like the Deborah of old. She even calls her abduction an abduction to his face. No sugar coating or diplomacy from her. She accuses Villepastour and Pompadour openly, and expects the King to help her avenge herself. But the King is currently pretending to not be the King. Deborah's intrinsec belief that all people share her human decency + some idealizations of the role of the king as assigned by god, cloud her judgement. Not only the king knows the women are abducted, he doesn't care -to understand this classist mentality, Sade's letter are especially illustrative. Men of certain standing deserve to have women of lower status abducted for their fun, there is no solidarity because he doesn't even consider the women to be in the same species as he, the whole divine right idea ennables this mentality-

-the role the king plays as Gonesse is that of a busy diplomat -as opposed to his reality in this novel as a diletante-who is forced away from gallant affairs by diplomacy on the borders. He paints himself as a romantic soldier and politician, longing for love while busy defending the frontiers of his nation. He admits having abducted Deborah, and pretends to think abducting people is wrong and not something he does on a daily basis, but what was he to do, the love he felt was too strong, and he has his whole life to attone and make it up for her.

-the word abduction is thrown back at him by Deborah when asked about her mourning arm band.

-When “Gonesse”claims to not be an all powerful man, Deborah asks him to speak to the King, to which Gonesse answers with assorted cynic ideas on men and women and conquest, she lost a lover but earned two, and if that is bad, women should take better care of their lovers. In a rhetorical move worthy of Benvenutto Cellini's manipulations of the Pope, Deborah paints a more flattering picture of the king: He would never say those things to an abducted widow in mourning, because he hates crime and is a paldin of justice. To which the King can only say he is flattered, tries to brush it all off saying she will be “satisfied”only now it's not the right time to talk of those sad things, since Gonesse is a very susceptible to melancholy and fits of terror (we see slowly how the king's formidable appearance in his grand entry, that which drove deborah to her knees crumbles down. His performance of power is weak, when inflamed by desire he can only rely to two strategies, not more sofisticated than those of Villepastour, distracting Deborah with stories -remember Villepastour pulling out a porn pocket volume out of his Green redingote?- or, physical violence, something the woman is blamed for forcing the men to resource to. As we will see, these are the two paths the king will use in this whole Seduction Scene(tm). Fiction and story telling are a mirage, violence is what lies behind the embezzlement-even within it, we will see what kind of images the King's imagination summons.

-even in this initial verbal phase, violence cannot be separated from his royal sexuality. He cannot praise Deborah's beauty without saying how -if he were the King of France- he'd quickly annex Ireland and live there if all women were as beautiful as her. This is the kind of thing you can picture a king saying casually, as a joke, without batting an eyelash. Deborah being who she is, she cannot let this pass. And not diplomatically either, calling him a hammer, a yoke, an imposer of the law of the strongest.

-The king jokes that once she knows him better she would never call him any of that, nevertheless he is flattered and not insulted. The king's speech continues to be peppered with sexism, reifying Debby by asking her not to move once she asumes a facial expression and pose that turns him on-interestingly, a pose of sorrow and pain- he asks her to become a statue, because this pose highlights her white shoulders and her breats. He makes some veiled allusions to cannibalism -never shipwreck in Tovy-Poenammou- making his speech once again, etnocentric and colonial, and comments on his taste on women's clothes, the incresingly low necklines and wide decoletages can stay, but the neck ornaments and gauzes are annoying obstacles that women wear emmiting thusly a double signal of provocation and mock prudery. The word choice once again, is very, very interesting: women are shrouded in bandages, like an open sore, the image is vaginal and violent. Has this man ever pleased a woman or does he only know how to cause pain?

And the subject of gauzes makes the king wonder into his next piquant story to distract Deborah and get her in the mood for love. This is what the king meant when he inived her to talk of love for a while, sadism and colonialism. Even when thinking he's making pleasant small talk the violence of his role just drips through.

The story is about two women who seeked to satisfy both “reason and customs.”by riding a carriage through the Tuileries gardens, naked under white sheer dresses, people gazing at them like melons are savoured with the eyes through the glass bells containing them. The connection to Deborah is only through the gauze on her neck, revealing the king's no longer thinking much with the head between his shoulders. Indeed, he declares to be in a fight between reason and his education, whic is what keeps him at bay from devouring Deborah, like a cannibal. Through their dialogue only, we see how the king wants to get things in motion, and Deborah attempts to defend herself. The dialogue is really succesful here, Deborah accuses him of acting unworthily of the role that God has bestowed on him. But Gonesse is only a man! A man, yes, but he acts like a dog, retorts Deborah. The not-King protests, (i can imagine his surprise at being spoken like this, even while acting as Gonesse he's still playing the part of a noble) Deborah too wants to get her own plot in motion, admits she knows he is the king. In return, he claims she is dreaming, and his touch becomes forceful. Deborah replies:

““Is this the hospitality a foreign girl finds in your Kingdom! her husband is murdered, and then she is dragged in a nameless place, and she is fattened up for the King’s pleasures, and the King rapes her. (...)”

tr. @sainteverge

the rest is about the kind of good kings Patrick and Debby idealize, she asks him if he is not ashamed for acting in ways that would displease them (which is fun because these kings were as much colonial brutes as the more modern, supposedly decadent ones...)

{--Also, spanish speaker moment: the word engaissé in french, which Debby uses for fattening, has a double meaning in french that engrasado in spanish doesn't share, which made me check if french kept the “greased up”meaning, and it does, it means mainly fattened, but also greased, so it's an interesting if secondary allusion to lubrication --}

Anyways I strongly appreciate Borel not going for an euphemism for rape here. The book boldly dares to call the king a rapist, no excuses, no attempt to soften facts.

Deborah continues with her rhetorical mastery while trying to appease the previously loquacious king who is no longer verbal but exclusively physical now in her attempt to overpower her:

“You want pleasure: I am no more than bramble, than a thorny bush of which the leaves and flowers have fallen with the wind of misfortune. I am only a pleasure-less and awkward foreigner, sad, mournful, wilted, her heart full of poison and loathing and dejection, regretting her native mountains, weeping her mother whose grave is still freshly stirred, and her spouse whose blood is still steaming.—Mercy, mercy, Sire! let me go: you are asking pleasures from an urn, you are asking caresses from a cypress! Look! I am cold and icy like the dead!—Please! please! humanity, Sire! my womb is full: do not give the orphan whom I am bearing a prostitute for a mother!... ”

As the narrator had done before, Deborah likens her body with hostile botanical and geographical terms,her body is arid and spiky like thorny bushes of her motherland.

She is an urn, a cypress, the tree you can find in every cemetery, even her body is cold, she is partly dead because of the triple mourning of her husband, her mother and her motherland. (there is nothing appealing in this inactive/inert/dead nature, as opposed to other romantic texts)

Deborah also subverts nobility related rhetoric: his rape will render her a prostitute. The king corrects her, he is Zeus abducting Ganymedes. His touch ennobles, if any of them is abasing themselves, it is the king, by touching a lowly creature such as her.

The king truns to persuasive talk once more, making her believe she can be the next Pompadour. If she lets him rape her, she can rule his heart, she can have every luxury, yada yada, fame, even her revenge, even Cockermouth Castle can be moved to France if she misses it.

The king's description -paying her yielding with goods, social status and revenge-convinces Deborah further that she is being put into the role of a prostitute, and that is, according to her deeply religious and influenced by sexism beliefs, a dishonourable role. (while it should be enough for her to think, I don't want to have sex with you, I am so disgusted by you I cannot bring myself to do it even if I don't want to, because you kidnapped me and are unmoved by the fact that I don't want to have sex with you. The end) Her liberty is owed to her, she wants it back. The king insists, Deborah resists, she begs desperately on her knees, the king, we asume, pulls his dick out, Deborah's refusal of it and her insulting him as a king: (“King, you are infamous!”) has him accusing of being a Lucretia, who was brought up on analysis of book one, the allusion is perfect, because her fighting back after her rape by Tarquinius ended a monarchy and inaugurated the Roman republic.

The most memorable line of the book is uttered by Deborah, and with it ends book three. Recalling to the defeats that are covert victories Montaigne speaks of in his des Cannibales, we can say this desperate cry is not that of a beaten person, but a war cry of someone who will bounce back after the ordeal.

“Tarquin! someone shall avenge me!” “Who?” “God and the people.”

dieu et le peuple. We shall see how Borel shows this fated revenge on later chapters......

#madame putiphar #long post #discussion of rape

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heretherebedork · 2 years

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Ah. Yes. I can feel the 'consent' from here. If you don't fuck me, you'll get beaten and not allowed to leave. But I can let you leave safely if you just fuck me. See, you agreed to fuck me, right? You said yes. That's all that matters! Me threatening you? Unimportant. You said yes.

... Oh, wait, no that's consent under duress and coercive rape, I forgot.

Sky's face during the sex almost killed me, he's struggling between enjoying the physical feeling and the fact that he doesn't want this at all. Ugh, baby boy. I'm so sorry.

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skull-bearer · 1 year

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Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Dalamar the Dark/Raistlin Majere, Caramon Majere/Raistlin Majere Characters: Raistlin Majere, Dalamar the Dark, Caramon Majere, Bupu, Tanis Half-Elven, Gilthanas Kanan, Goldmoon (Dragonlance), Riverwind (Dragonlance), Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Sturm Brightblade, Onyx, Kitiara uth Matar, Alhana Starbreeze Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Sibling Incest, Not Graphic but very implied, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Abuse, Escape, Abusive Relationships, Despair, Supportive Bupu, Dragonarmies Dalamar, Loneliness, Isolation, Almost an Ivory Blood and Ebony AU, If You Squint - Freeform, Dark, i did warn you, Caramon is not a good guy in this one, Murder, Hurt/Comfort Summary:

“Want to keep you safe.” Bupu's grubby hand knotted into his robes.

A gully dwarf and a Dark elf. He was doing well, now two people gave half a damn if he lived or died. A great improvement on flat zero. He hoped Nightson had escaped the collapsing city. “You cannot.” Chapter 7: Capture Raistlin's luck runs out. No one else is particularly fortunate either. (I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry)

#dragonlance #raistlin #dalamar #raistlin/dalamar #caramon #raistlin/caramon #reference to rape #discussion of rape #things get even uglier somehow #tanis #goldmoon #riverwind #capture #escape #hurt/comfort #more on the hurt this time

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firein-thesky · 18 days

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Why is it that dc such as r@pe, sa, and incest is totally okay to write about and romanticize but y’all draw the line at racism, fat phobia, and homophobia *talking about the writings creators make, not personal beliefs*? Whats the difference between these things? All of them are hurtful and affect people in real life, so why is everybody on here choosing and picking one and not the other? Do writers on here think that they are not comparable or that one is okay to romanticize and the other is going way too far?

Im just genuinely curious as I have seen this topic be brought up again and again, which has made me realize this and Id like to see it from someone else's pov.

hi! there is a lot to answer and unpack here and i have every intention of doing so underneath the cut. forgive me if this gets long, but you’ve asked me 4 very massive questions that i think warrant detail, nuance, and thought. there is a lot i’d like to say here.

that being said, mind the content warnings and protect yourself.

cw: mentions of rape, incest, racism, homophobia, fat phobia, discourse in general

firstly, i am going to choose to give you the benefit of the doubt in assuming you are actually curious in hearing another side and you are not simply looking to stir a pot or pick a fight with beliefs you have no intention of changing or having an open discussion on. your accusatory tone in the first half indicates otherwise and kindly, i am not an idiot. but i want to earnestly talk to you about this and again, will think better of you than you perhaps have indicated you think of me.

secondly, you do not have to censor words like rape in my inbox. that sort of censorship has become wildly popular because of tik tok and other money-hungry social media that also desperately want to silence people. do you know why you have to censor words like that on tik tok? or words like genocide? suicide? racism? 1. so that they can make money and market and push their squeaky clean algorithms but 2. and perhaps worse, so they can silence victims. if social media platforms and capitalism and the systems of powers had it their way, you would never utter these words again—whether to call someone out for justice or to have an open discussion like this one. i encourage you greatly to think critically about this and how you choose to use censorship and why.

now, to your questions.

to preface, i am interpreting this ask as being anti-dark content in fiction as you state that ALL these subjects harm people in real life. or at least, you are being critical of all dark content in fiction and the way writers engage with them, effectively ‘picking and choosing’ which are deemed acceptable and which aren’t, when they are all hurtful. i apologize if that wasn’t your intention/what you believe, but regardless, i’ll endeavor to answer you.

i personally have drawn no lines about dark content nor spoken about any of these topics specifically really, which indicates to me you have a different narrative and/or are coming from more inflammatory arguments that are always circling fandom lately. in the post i most recently reblogged, i spoke mostly of violence. which, of course, all of those things can be. but i didn’t name one of those topics in particular.

regardless, i don’t believe in the censorship of any dark content in art, but rather advocate strongly for critical analysis on a case-by-case basis. in general, i encourage thinking critically about every aspect of the world around you.

i do not believe that rape, incest, and sa are okay to write about or create art about but racism, homophobia, and fat phobia are not. i believe all of those topics are ones that can, should, and will be explored in the safety of art. all to varying degrees of success, earnestness, impact, and intent. you’re right that these are real things, that can hurt people, and the fictional work about them can have impact on our society that is tangible but the actual art or fiction created is not real. and again, this is all to varying degrees on a case-by-case basis.

art and fiction also historically and massively do discuss these dark content topics and have actively swayed the public’s opinion on matters, whether for better or for worse. throwing away all dark content in art and fiction because it is ‘harmful’ is deeply, deeply dangerous and reductive. a lot of art that engages with dark content actually makes very succinct points about it—i think of vladimir nabokov’s lolita or octavia butler’s bloodchild or speak by laurie halse anderson.

this is where we must exorcise critical thinking. some pieces of work will handle dark content poorly—white saviors making art on racism. men making art about a woman’s experiences that (as you are so interested in) romanticize her pain. etc. etc. and some art will handle it’s dark content incredibly and be transformative, perhaps even revolutionary in how we talk, perceive, or acknowledge systems of oppression, violence, and dark content in this world. some dark content in fiction will have damaging beliefs and effects on society, some will not—we must also look at scope for this, at the writer perhaps, the historical moment, their audience etc.

(for example, there is a significant difference in a main stream male writer, writing of a woman’s experience with rape in a published book in a way that makes it sound romanticized, sold to thousands and thousands of general public vs. a woman using fanfic to explore rape, take control of it, or whatever in a fanfic for a small online community where there are warnings on it. indicating she is aware of its potential damage in a way her male counterpart is not…)

but i still believe in dark contents’ existence in art. of course there is differences between all of these topics you brought up, but i don’t think their differences matter in this answer. i believe in their right to be explored in art. i am talking broadly of media/art here, which i think is the more relevant conversation, but i think you are actually more interested in a much smaller scale of people. ie. fandom. ie. mostly marginalized people in small communities online writing and creating dark content.

people will choose and pick which ones they’d like to create art over and which ones they don’t, which ones they read and which ones they don’t. there’s no ‘hard line’ drawn anywhere. and i can’t control it and neither can you. perhaps you think violence is okay to be explored in fanfic, but racism isn’t. someone else will have different preferences. i do not believe in its censorship.

now, let’s move onto your interest in romanticization and what i think you are more pointing to, which is fandom. you are specifically referring to people in fandom who write about rape, incest, etc. and ‘romanticize’ it—ie. they write about it in a way that is a fantasy. it is perhaps supposed to be horny or sexy. so let’s talk about it.

i must remind you that these topics you’ve brought up (rape, incest, sa) being written are fiction and it is (most often) done by someone marginalized who has either experienced this or is in threat of experiencing this under a patriarchy. i assure you, they are aware of its harm. hence the copious warnings in fandom spaces.

if i can be candid, sometimes i think that people forget how systems of oppression work when discussing fandom and whether dark content being created should be allowed or not.

for example, i sometimes think people who are anti-dark content in fandom believe that a woman or afab person writing a fictional fanfic about rape or sexual violence then influences people to go out and rape people or that women actually like it. when the reality, in fandom spaces, is that rape and sexual violence happen frequently under the patriarchy and then these women in fandom write fictional fanfic in response to cope, explore, take control of, etc. etc.

to insinuate that women or afab people (which fandom mostly is) exploring dark content safely in fiction then causes their own oppression and harm or trauma is rather victim-blame-y to me. fandom exploring dark content does not cause these things to happen in our society….these actions (rape, incest, sa) happen in our society or systems of power and fandom reacts to them in their art by exploring it in dark content. do you understand what i’m trying to say?

it’s not a matter of what is ‘okay’ to romanticize and what isn’t. i do not think the romanticization that fandom does with dark content (ie. my kidnapper actually loves me! or this sexual act that i did not consent to…maybe feels good) is not actually romanticizing but coping because of the systems of power that i described above. and this can be coping with anything—shame of sexuality, shame of fantasies, trauma, fear, etc. etc.

as i said in my tags in that post i reblogged and as plato said, dark content in art is a safe place to explore what would otherwise be harmful and dangerous in real life. it is cathartic. potentially even, a purging.

and even if it isn’t all that—maybe it just is trashy fantasy. it is still playing pretend. it is still fiction and in fandom spaces, it is still most likely being created by a marginalized person. and again, even if it isn’t, we don’t get to censor it. we can be critical of it or wary or whatever, but to censor it, is a slippery, slippery slope. do deem some topics as “acceptable” and others as “unacceptable” is dangerous.

just like kids play pretend where they ‘fight’ or ‘kill’ or ‘kidnap’ or ‘shoot’ each other in games of cops and robbers or heroes and villains, they are safely exploring adventure, dark content, fantasy, tragedy, and higher emotions. adults can do the same in fiction and with adult topics like sex.

and at the end of the day, we don’t get to demand the credentials to do so either. we don’t get to censor them or control them and nor should we be allowed to. i cannot stress enough that i encourage you to be critical of censorship or the absolute disgust in dark content and at those (again—often marginalized people) who engage with it in fandom. i believe it is deeply puritanical, conservative, and dangerous.

you don’t have to like dark content or consume it at all and fandom makes it easy not to with all the warnings and tags, but you cannot control others or police them. nor should you want to.

and at the end of the day, i have some questions for you. you don’t have to respond to this, perhaps they’re just things to think about. what is the end goal here? what is the point in harassing, shaming, attacking, criticizing, or interrogating people in fandom spaces who create or support dark content? do you believe that if it is purged from fandom, it will be purged from our society? if you want it purged from society—shouldn’t you start there rather than in the inbox of marginalized writers in fandom? people in fandom did not create rape, incest, and sa nor do they in their exploration of fiction…they are merely reacting to a world that did create it.

i hope at no point i came off as rude to you, as was not my intention. i intended to stand up for myself and respectfully state my opinions and thoughts on this matter. i’m sorry it got long, but also i don’t believe in being brief on such complex matters. i am a writer who engages critically with the world around me and sometimes, things cannot be made into short, snappy answers. sometimes, we must unpack.

genuinely wishing you well.

#i cannot guarantee that i’ll have the time patience or energy to answer every ask like the one above in such detail #going forward #but i do support open discussions and i wanted to be kind to this anon #these are just my 2 cents on all of this #cw: rape #cw: incest #cw: racism #cw: fat phobia #cw: homophobia #discourse

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serialunaliver · 4 days

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accidentally clicked on "send message" and saw this. how accurately is tumblr describing your blog

HELLO?

#sometimes if I rb something discussing rape or incest trauma I tag it but just for anyone who blacklists it not like. to search for it

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eerna · 23 days

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in a world filled with books written by male authors that make me go "uhhhhh this writer does Not have a good outlook on masculinity and women, this was definitely written by a man", the Chaos Walking trilogy stands as a complete opposite where I spent the entire series being like "WOW I never really thought about masculinity in this way, WOW this is painting a really interesting picture of gender dynamics and generational relationships, this was definitely written by a man"

#whenever discussion on manly male book things like rape and toxic masculinity pops up i am like. cw did it and did it well.#you CAN write a lead who makes up excuses for why he participates in a system that oppresses women!!! you CAN write about a dude falling #into the spiral of toxic masculine approval!!! you CAN give him horrible role models!! i am not opposed to that!!!#but you can't do it if part of you worships those ideals and doesn't really like women all that much. patrick ness on the other hand gets i #chaos walking liveblog #every spring i think of my kids idek why. i am still too traumatized to reread. or am i <3

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cupcakeslushie · 8 days

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I sincerely see little issue on you coping like that, as long as its not, you know, graphic

Would i be uncomfortable? Very. Im still not quite over my own experience

But I'd be lying if i said i hadnt thought of putting some characters i relate to in such things and having they deal with it and feel like i did (as much as they can in the circumstances)

Yeah as long as this stuff isnt fetishized im on full support of it

Okay I feel like I’m stuck in a loop where the target is still being just slightly missed. I appreciate your intentions with this ask, and I can see where you were going. But “as long as it’s not graphic” and “as long as it’s not fetishized” are still putting qualifiers on art.

Art has no bounds. As long as triggers are tagged properly, and put behind a “read more” for the visually graphic images, any art can be created. When we start requiring stipulations for artists to meet before making art, we start the process of sanitizing it. If you read the warnings and still click on the post, then your discomfort is on you. If you aren’t mature enough to know your own limits in what you can handle, the artist shouldn’t have to issue a statement decrying their art, and listing all their traumas for some kind of purity tribunal to then decide it’s okay, and only when it’s being used as a coping mechanism.

It’s kinda funny, after all this, I likely wasn’t even going to actually DRAW anything sexually graphic, and at most, simply hint at it. But it doesn’t matter. If I wanted to, I should be able to, as long as it’s given all the warnings required. If I don’t like certain triggers, I avoid them. I’m not delusional enough to think that in all the whole, wide expanse of the internet, people will pander to my specific icks, likes and dislikes. I curate my own internet experience.

I can only hope, as I go about my day, that I am given the same courtesy of being warned ahead of time in the summary and tags, that I’m giving. But if another artist does want to draw that, I’m not going to request to see their trauma resume, just so I can approve of what they made. If I clicked, after reading the warnings and knowing damn well I would be triggered, I’m not going to be mad at the artist. That’s on me.

#ask slushie #kendratello au #tw rape mention #tw sa mention #tw discussions of rape

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nebulouscoffee · 10 months

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The thing about Kai Winn's storyline ultimately being a tragedy is, it's not only a tragedy because her fate (in the eyes of the non-linear Prophets) was already known and nothing she did or said was ever going to make them acknowledge her- not only because she wanted so badly to have a big role to play in the grand, historic story of the newly independent Bajor and just couldn't handle the fact that she was never meant to- not only because the Prophets spoke to Sisko and Bareil and Kira and literally even Quark but not her- not only because she was deceived and raped and killed in the end- but most of all because, it was partly her love of Bajor that killed her.

Think about it- her whole regression during that final arc with Dukat is so tragic precisely because she was THIS close to redemption! Throughout the show, we see that her brain processes information in very rigid, binary ways: if you are not my ally, then you are my enemy. If you disagree with even one of my opinions, you are my enemy. If you refuse to endorse and support me in this mission, you are my enemy. That's part of why she's so easily swayed by fascist rhetoric, I think- she's just unable to cope with nuance. (This is foreshadowed in 'Shakaar', where she puts the whole of Bajor under martial law just because Shakaar disagreed with her over how she was handling soil reclamators.) Her personal narrative is I am the one who will save Bajor -> anyone who gets in my way is my enemy and therefore an enemy of Bajor -> I must stop them using any force necessary for the good of Bajor because I am after all the one who will save Bajor.

But when Sisko discovers the city of B'hala in 'Rapture', she is for the first time forced to accept the truth that he really hasn't been faking this whole "talks to the Prophets" thing- he's the real deal. We learn later on (when she tells "Anjohl" about how she honestly felt nothing the first time she saw the wormhole open) that a small, small part of her actually always doubted the existence of the Prophets. Now, she is faced with definitive proof that they are not only very real, but they also really do have a bond with Sisko. And for a while, she even comes to terms with this! In fact, at the end of the episode, she and Kira have possibly their first completely honest exchange:

KIRA: Maybe we're the ones who need to trust the Prophets. For all we know, this is part of their plan. Maybe they've told Captain Sisko everything they want him to know. WINN: Perhaps. I suppose you heard that Bajor will not join the Federation today. The Council of Ministers has voted to delay acceptance of Federation membership. KIRA: You must be very pleased. WINN: I wish I were. But things are not that simple. Not anymore. Before Captain Sisko found B'hala, my path was clear. I knew who my enemies were. But now? Now nothing is certain. KIRA: Makes life interesting, doesn't it?

Like, YASS babygirl- you too can learn to handle nuance!! I believe in you!!💪💪

And later on, at the onset of the Dominion War, she comes to Sisko for advice herself. She doesn't want to see her planet colonised again, and she's even willing to put aside her desire to be the main character to ensure it doesn't happen. Driven by pride and the need for power as she is, she is also driven by the desire save Bajor (and preferably be the one saving Bajor, which is the subsection of this desire that ultimately ends up being her downfall) - and she does briefly decide that cooperating with the Emissary is the best way to do this! I think about this scene from 'In The Cards' so much:

WINN: ... I have asked the Prophets to guide me, but they have not answered my prayers. I even consulted the Orb of Wisdom before coming here and it has told me nothing. So I come to you, Emissary. You have heard the voice of the Prophets. You were sent here to guide us through troubled times. Tell me what to do and I will do it. How can I save Bajor? SISKO: You want my advice? Then this is it. Stall. Tell Weyoun you have to consult with the Council of Ministers, or that you have to meditate on your response. Anything you want, but you have to stall for time. WINN: Time for what? SISKO: I don't know. But I do know the moment of crisis isn't here yet, and until that moment arrives we have to keep Bajor's options open. I'm aware that this is difficult for you, given our past, but this time you have to trust me. (Winn holds Sisko's left ear.) WINN: Very well, Emissary. We put ourselves in your hands. May we all walk with the Prophets.

In the earlier seasons, Winn would often casually make claims that the Prophets had "told her" something, or that she was just "doing what the Prophets asked"- and her political position as Kai always allowed her to just lie about being in contact with them all the time. Now, you can see the sheer humility- the embarrassment, even- on her face as she (for the first time) openly admits to Sisko that she has never actually heard them speak before; and that they clearly "prefer" him. Yes, there's some (understandable imo) bitterness here- but not at him, at THEM. And when she tries to read his pagh at the end- something she probably does to dozens of people every day, most of whom would unquestioningly believe anything she declares afterwards- she doesn't even try to pretend she felt anything there. It's one of her most genuine moments in the whole show, you can just SEE the redemption arc in reach and it's so heartbreaking!!

I think 'The Reckoning' is a huge episode for her too, for many reasons- but let's talk about how it sets up this fascinating parallel between her and Kira (who Odo describes in this episode as having "both faith and humility"). The Prophets choose Kira as their "vessel" because she was "willing"- meanwhile, Winn was right there just begging to be a part of this! Here she is, with a Prophet right in front of her face- and she prays and postures and begs and prays some more, all just to get ignored. Kira's brand of faith is very, "I am ultimately insignificant and I surrender my power and my body and pagh to the Prophets"- Winn's is more, "if I do all the right things, then I will be able to prove to the Prophets that I am worthy of their attention, worthier than everyone else, and maybe then they'll appoint me the saviour of Bajor! It's My Destiny, You See!! (Why Isn't This Happening For Me??)" And the events of this episode are kind of a big slap in the face to her honestly, because they sort of prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Prophets have no interest in her. Maybe stopping the battle was also an attempt at regaining some kind of agency with them- I DID THIS, I pulled a switch and it had a direct effect on the Prophets, so there!! (Whatever that effect entails). She does care about Bajor. Of course she does. But her ideal configuration of Bajor involves her being a major player in its salvation, which she was just never meant to be. And this is why she's so tragically susceptible to Dukat's manipulation- he was the first person ever to tell her everything she always wanted to hear.

And the intriguing thing about Dukat's deception is, it doesn't all fall apart at one go. It falls apart in layers. And this makes for some excellent, excellent Winn characterisation imo.

First, she thinks the pah wraiths are the Prophets- and they tell her, hey, The Sisko has faltered, Bajor needs you, and only you can fix this. Good lord, imagine finally getting to hear those words after a lifetime of silence! And it's very telling that her first reaction isn't to gloat like she would've in the earlier seasons, but instead to humbly- even anxiously- pray. Bajor needs her, the "Prophets" have asked her to do something, this is her moment! Then, this random lovely Bajoran farmer comes in and tells her even more things she has always wanted to hear- that her activism during the Occupation (ignored by Kira and Sisko alike) saved lives, that he always wondered why the Prophets would choose an alien as their Emissary, that surely Sisko and his followers were mistaken- and finally, "our world will be reborn- with YOU as its leader". Sounds good, right? But THEN she finds out she's been speaking to the pah wraiths and the lovely farmer is a devil worshipper actually. And she tries the "wash away my sins" approach- she wants some kind of quick fix ritual that will "purify" her, so she can continue to be Kai the right way. She even admits to Kira that she's always been power hungry and she wants to change- and I believe her! Unfortunately, Kira then tells her something she doesn't want to hear- that she has to step down as Kai. And surely that can't be, right? She's the saviour of Bajor! She's so complex... it's not simply her love of power that this scene reveals imo, but more significantly, her inability to see herself as not a vital part of Bajor's history; of this whole larger narrative. Like-

WINN: I'm a patient woman. But I have run out of patience. I will no longer serve gods who give me nothing in return. "GIVE ME"!! ADAMI MY BESTIE MY GIRL MY BUDDY THEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM!!!

So, okay, fine, now she's swayed over to the side that maybe the Prophets aren't that great, and maybe the pah wraiths are the true gods of Bajor (because they were willing to talk to her), and maybe she's okay working with the devil worshipper. But then it turns out he's DUKAT- and at this point, she's literally murdered someone, she's ready to stop this, to go back to Sisko and set things right- but then the book of the Kosst Amojan lights up because of the blood she spilled. She did that. It happened as a direct result of her actions. She's just so desperate to be acknowledged... to have a role to play in all this, no matter who offers it to her. So the pah wraiths actually giving her a reaction isn't something she can resist. And here's where things get even more tragic.

WINN: But the prophecies! They warn that the release of the Pah wraiths will mean the end of Bajor. DUKAT: The old Bajor, perhaps. But from its ashes a new Bajor will arise and the Restoration will begin. WINN: Who will be left to see it? DUKAT: Those the gods find worthy. It will be the dawn of paradise. And you, Adami, are destined to rule it. WINN: You're sure of that? DUKAT: It is meant to be.

Again with the ease at which she's swayed by fascist rhetoric! Let's be clear, she was (and is) absolutely against the Cardassian Occupation. But her worldview is built on the pursuit of being "worthier" than everyone else, of being "closer to god" than everyone else- her expectation of faith is that it's some sort of determiner of who's doing it The Most Effectively, rather than it being a practice- and she just completely misses that any sort of plan that executes masses and spares whoever is deemed "worthy" is... literally exactly what people like Dukat did to her planet. Something something faith as competition, faith as determiner of inherent superiority, faith as a way to gain power via proximity to god… never faith as submission. And the worst part is she’s self-aware. It’s heartbreaking.

And it's about to get even more heartbreaking, because she truly believes she has arrived at her girlboss moment in the finale (I think the tragedy of her being a rape victim and knowing this and having to hide the body of the one (1) person who was looking out for her while being stuck with her rapist speaks for itself.) After kicking Dukat out on the street (lol), she studies the eeevil texts and realises that to set the pah wraiths free, you need to make a sacrifice. So now she gets to deceive him in return. And she does! The look of shock on his face when he discovers she poisoned him is priceless imo, and her triumph as she taunts his dead body, the sheer joy on her face as she casts off her Kai robes, when she recites those incantations and something actually happens- and that too such a large pyrotechnic spectacle- is so sad knowing what's coming. Because ultimately, the pah wraiths want to destroy Bajor, right? And Winn just doesn't. Of course they don't choose her. Of course they choose Dukat over her! She really thought that by tricking and murdering him, she'd made him the unimportant piece of the puzzle, that she was stealing back his thunder- but tragically, it turns out even the pah wraiths see her as disposable. Of course they resurrect Dukat (a man who's proved time and time again that he wants to see Bajor & Bajorans destroyed) and turn her into the sacrifice. The way she screams "NO!" here breaks my heart- she's betrayed her planet, and it was all for nothing. (Dukat's "are you still here?" is particularly devastating.) I think it's very significant that her final words are "Emissary, the book!"- it shows that in her last moments, she's owning her mistakes- she's stepping away from power and putting Bajor first, and leaving her own fate in the hands of the Prophets. Who, of course, once again ignore her, and choose to save Sisko instead. God.

The utter tragedy that even in the pah wraiths' plan, she was just a pawn. That she died at the hands of the gods she thought chose her, but used her, all while the gods she'd coveted her whole life stood by and did nothing. The Prophets chose Sisko because they believed he would put Bajor's interests over even his own- and now they ensure he will be back one day to see the new Bajor. She never will.

Yes, it was her pride that got her here. Her mean streak. Her inability to cope with nuance. Her inability to see herself as ultimately insignificant. Her inability to surrender to a higher power in any way that didn't involve becoming more powerful herself; more relevant, more "close to god". But it was also her love of Bajor. Because if she'd cared about Bajor less, then maybe the pah wraiths might have chosen her- or at least spared her, or taken her to their realm after she burned, the way they did with Dukat. Now, she ends up being the one thing she never wanted to be: insignificant.

Honestly if I had to summarise the tragedy of her arc in one sentence, it would probably be Kai Winn: Too Evil For The Prophets, Not Evil Enough For The Pah Wraiths. She and Dukat are not the same! She is a perfectly pathetic, sad and wet blorbo and I am holding her gently in my hands while apologising for her crimes <3

#cw rape mention #ds9 #just to be clear: I did write this post after seeing the take #'the prophets never spoke to winn because even they found her insufferable & knew she didn't even care about bajor'#which I happened to disagree with (as I do w/ every take that claims she didn't care about Bajor or that she and dukat were 'equally evil')#BUT! this is absolutely not meant to be a callout post or anything #there is a lot of general misogyny in discussions about her and I have my issues with the way people make light of her trauma #but if you just don't happen to love her as a character that's totally fine! honestly the very last thing I want #is to make anyone reading this post feel bad (or for it to be used to hate on people who just like other fictional characters more)#so I kindly request that people not reblog this post with that sort of energy thank you <3 #(also I might turn off reblogs if I suddenly get shy lol)

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distort-opia · 4 months

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Hi!

I love your meta posts and I was curious about your opinions on the killing joke’s adaptions, I’m talking mainly about the movie and the novel.

Something that really bugs me is the way the story is considered, rightfully, misogynistic in its treatment of Barbara but every sigle time someone tries to “fix” it they are only capable of making it even worse.

I read the novel version recently and it was so bad 😭 not only they added an incel type character that Joker recruits (he straight up says “nice guys like us”, which is just cringe but at least he was being manipulative here) and made him witness Barbara’s torture (btw she forgives him at the end of the story…), they also strongly implied that she was raped and generally made the whole thing even more humiliating by setting up a camera that live shared a video of her, while naked and bleeding to death, all over Gotham ( coupled with disgusting comments on how the footage looks at first like a porn). These exemples are just the tip of the iceberg! The book is filled with sexualised female characters, sexist remarks and the decision to add Harley just to paint her as a dumb horny woman surrounded by incompetent people that ignore the fact that she is clearly having sex with her patient.

At the end, the authors have the nerve to dedicate the novel to women…

I feel like this is the same thing that happened with modern versions of Jarley, they just write Joker more and more abusive and Harley without any kind of agency (ex. the new origin story with the bleached skin…ugh) to make her story more feminist. At this point It’s not even funny to read a comic that feature both of them :(

Sorry for sending you such a negative ask 🥲

To conclude on a more positive note, I love your fics and I can’t wait to read more! 💞

To be honest I don't have much to add, I entirely agree! You've written great commentary. I also did not even read the novel adaptation of TKJ precisely for the reasons you outlined; I was told how shitty it was. But fucking hell, I did not know the full extent of it. As you said, they keep trying to "fix" Barbara's treatment in TKJ but they just keep making it so much worse... And a similar thing is happening with Harley, because DC wants her to be a hero now-- so her previously darker traits must be either erased or completely attributed to Joker's Evil, Abusive influence. It's indeed pretty infuriating, both for Harley fans and Joker fans.

(And thank you, glad you like my writing!)

#I will not ever read that book. got pissed off just from reading your description #sigh. anyway back to our regularly scheduled program of pretending certain stories don't exist!#asks #joker #batman: the killing joke #rape mention #abuse mention #discussion of rape #fandom negativity

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verycharismaticdragon · 9 months

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Okay, so I went a lil overboard with a reply to LBH criticism over at @controversial-blorbo-bracket, and I figure 4.5K words that probably should be put under a community label are a bit too much for a reblog, so I'm posting it separately.

CW for general discussion of sex, and for rape mention (assumption of rape is discussed and rebutted).

------

You know what, I was going to reply to this the usual way, you know, 'oh look at that, another person with surface level reading who hates binghe!' because fr every single binghe disliker has the same talking points - which, you know, individually were long discussed (and disproved) by ppl in fandom - but then I was suddenly hit with a spoon beam so now I'm writing a long-ass answer.

Starting with the most glaring, this sentence:

Their dynamic ended up coming off more as SQQ tolerating this unmanageable man-baby and letting him fuck (and hurt him in the process, and then cry about that, more than SQQ himself did) him just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, like giving a toddler a biscuit to appease them.

has clued me in to the largest thing anon has missed. Remember how I said "surface-level reading"? Let me explain. There are great many avenues for analyzing a book, especially one as crunchy on a meta-level as svsss (you'll see what I mean by that later).

But the most basic thing - the LVL1 if you will - is asking yourself the following questions: (1) whose POV is the book written from? (2) is that POV omniscient or limited? (2.1) are there cases where the POV character doesn't know something we, the reader, have inferred? (3) if it's limited, how reliable is their narration? (3.1) are there cases of their actions not aligning with their narration? (3.2) are there reasons for them to lie to themselves and/or the reader?

For SVSSS, the answers are: (1) mostly Shen Qingqiu's POV; (2) limited; (2.1) e.g. he doesn't know what's going on in Luo Binghe's head (we'll get back to this more in-depth later), most notably not realizing Luo Binghe is in love with him for good 2/3rds of the book; (3) unreliable; (3.1) think him insisting he is fine when he's clearly grieving post-Abyss - which we can see both from other characters' reactions, and from stray thoughts that he himself has and then dismisses (eng.edition chapter 4: "No! Bah! Shen Qingqiu mentally slapped himself. Who are you calling a grieving widow?! Whose husband died?! That's not something you should just say--you're really getting worse by the day.") (3.2) off the top of my head: the trauma SQQ is going through, with his two coping mechanisms being 'not thinking about it' and 'making light of the situation'; internalized toxic masculinity - as in, the idea that it's shameful for a man to have emotions; internalized homophobia - as in, being unable to examine his attraction to men (evident from very early on, actually) without having a knee-jerk 'it's wrong!' reaction.

To sum it up: Shen Qingqiu's POV is limited and his narration is unreliable. What does this tell us? That we should take what he says in the narrative voice with the grain (or like, a spoonful) of salt, and that it's worth to close-read him. Don't just believe him when he says something; look for evidence!

Going back to anon's words, saying that SQQ appears to just 'tolerate' Luo Binghe tells me that you have not caught SQQ's lies at all.

(cont. under cut)

SQQ is, pardon my language, fucking obsessed with Luo Binghe - just in a different way than Luo Binghe is with him. He is constantly thinking about Luo Binghe even when the latter is not around! (Contrast it to how he thinks about his family from his og world like, 3 times over the course of the book, despite loving them.) And when LBH is around, SQQ can't go a page without mentioning how incredibly beautiful he is! (And then blames it on Luo Binghe being a protagonist, like, of course the protagonist is the most beautiful person in the world, that's natural!.. We later get the POV of a literal author of the world, btw, and he says he wrote LBH as a conventionally beautiful prettyboy type, and his own ideal man is completely different. Which is how we know that SQQ going on about LBH's radiant showstopping obvious-to-anyone beauty is really only his own opinion that he's trying to sell to us as a universal truth.)

And, speaking of LBH's crimes anon mentions (I will not be calling them 'warcrimes', sorry, none of the very few less-than-moral things he does can be classified as that) - you may notice that, for both actual things LBH did and for things SQQ attributed to him mistakenly, those never changed the way SQQ feels about Binghe. He thinks LBH killed his kinda-friend and still jumps in to sacrifice himself to save LBH's life. He sees the guy LBH mutilated, and is disturbed by that... but still continues to protect LBH. Gives him a lil forehead kiss like 20 minutes later.

Oh, and let's not forget the scene where SQQ is punished with a hyper-realistic dream of original LBH tearing off his limbs, and his reaction to that is "I need to see my Binghe asap immediately like rn, I need my cute version of Binghe to feel better about this."

This all is to point out that SQQ continuously fails to be normal about LBH. That's a feature! That's what makes their relationship fun! "Clearly you are perfect for each other pls dont involve anyone else in whatever the fuck is wrong with you" kinda situation.

But you must look through the cover of SQQ's misdirections for it - like again, trauma! toxic masculinity! internalized homophobia! It's difficult for him to admit his feelings even in his head, but he is getting better about that. In Mei vs Ge extra, SQQ admits he wanted LBH to push a little more about them sharing a bed and that he would have agreed. And is kinda put out that LBH simply accepted his refusal. Then in Deep Dream extra, SQQ is literally the one to jump LBH. And in Wedding extra, he almost manages to look directly at the fact that he's very happy that LBH is proposing to him! So yeah, he is getting better at admitting it too. But honestly, his feelings about LBH were always really intense. In different ways over the course of the novel, but he adored LBH from before he transmigrated, and that adoration never lessened, despite everything that happened between them. You just gotta look at his actions and not his 24/7 mental stand-up routine.

All right, next, in the same paragraph the previous thing came from, I'll abridge and highlight for relevancy:

Their dynamic ended up coming off more as SQQ tolerating this unmanageable man-baby and letting him fuck [...] him just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, like giving a toddler a biscuit to appease them. And it came off very gross, especially in the epilogue, when Luo Binghe was blatantly manipulative about that, pushing and cornering Shen Qingqiu into doing more than he already was, and using his tears to his advantage, in a way that was clearly in the text not unintentional.

...Listen, for someone claiming to hate how one-dimensional LBH ended up, I'm seeing a distinct lack of effort at actually understanding the character. Luo Binghe's teary act (in the moments when it is an act, because there are also many moments when his tears are genuine, we'll get to that later) is, first and foremost, for Shen Qingqiu's benefit.

Shen Qingqiu admits it himself that he finds it easier to be "frank" with Luo Binghe who is "willing to cling to his legs and throw a tantrum to seek comfort" (Return to Childhood extra). It's the internalized toxic masculinity and homophobia thing again. It's actually pretty interesting how he rewires his brain from its knee-jerk reaction of "homosexuality wrong" by mentally comparing Luo Binghe to a girl - like calling him Bing-mei, thinking he's acting "like a lovesick maiden", etc. God I want to study this man like a bug. Anyway, yeah, the point is that LBH acting cute and whiny helps SQQ be more comfortable with giving affection to a man, something that he struggles with because of his personal issues.

And Luo Binghe, while not aware of the exact nature of SQQ's issues (having grown up in a world where homophobia doesn't seem to exist), does understand this - that Shen Qingqiu’s thin face and pride make it difficult for him to show emotions. And it's not something LBH intrinsically knows either; he has to figure it out (not without help, everybody say thank you papa Airplane), confirm it for himself (the "But other than hearing Shizun crying..." - "Who was crying?" - "Other than hearing someone crying, [...]" scene comes to mind), and then accept it as truth (which he doesn't seem to fully do until at least the Maigu Ridge, and Shen Qingqiu outright saying "I do it for you and only you!" - if not even later.) It takes him time to learn how to work with this knowledge too...

And, to be brutally honest, how blatant and over the top he gets with the act is entirely due to how SQQ keeps rewarding the behavior.

Now... you might consider this a conjecture, given how we only get the tiniest glimpses into Luo Binghe's mind - in the rare moments the author shifts out of the primary POV. But fortunately, one of those moments can be used to prove that Luo Binghe is not, in fact, "pushing and cornering" Shen Qingqiu into doing things Shen Qingqiu doesn't want to do.

The moment I'm talking about is in the Mei vs Ge extra: Shen Qingqiu, having agreed to "do some exploring together", sees LBH's giant 🐓, goes "absolutely not" out loud, and attempts to give him a handjob instead — which also doesn't go too well. Bringing us to (LBH's POV emphasized):

No matter how calm Shen Qingqiu kept himself, he couldn’t stop his expression from twisting. Luo Binghe had secretly been paying attention to his face the entire time. At this moment, he carefully said, “Then, Shizun, how about… you do it?”

LBH is attentively watching SQQ's reactions to figure out what he's thinking and feeling. The moment Binghe comes to the conclusion that SQQ is uncomfortable with bottoming, he offers to let him top. Notice how he doesn't start crying or whining to get his way, when it's something that might be a genuine hard line for SQQ?

And it's actually the same in the Regret of Chunshan extra: when SQQ shot LBH's idea down, LBH "looked a bit disappointed, but didn't push the issue". Yes, later SQQ will say LBH was "putting on a pitiful act"; but if you read the scene carefully, LBH did not do anything but look a bit disappointed - and SQQ just walked himself into feeling bad about refusing completely on his own.

Now, when does Luo Binghe use crocodile tears then? Well, the answer seems to be: when it's about small things. Like wanting to do it face to face (after they've already agreed on both sex in general and on who will top), or begging SQQ to call him 'husband' (after they have gotten married). Ultimately inconsequential things, and, likely, things that he suspects SQQ is avoiding only because of embarrassment and not anything more serious.

So, to sum up this section: Luo Binghe's crybaby act is for Shen Qingqiu's peace of mind first and foremost, and Luo Binghe does not actually use it to coerce Shen Qingqiu into anything he wouldn't be willing to do. LBH is not responsible for the fact that Shen Qingqiu has no bottom line when it comes to him and can't handle seeing him even minorly disappointed, let's be real.

Okay, last thing from that paragraph (yes there's another thing):

and letting him fuck (and hurt him in the process, and then cry about that, more than SQQ himself did)

See, with the way anon describes it here, I can't even tell which scene this references, but luckily I have a rebuttal for both options.

Like, is this about the Maigu Ridge? Aka the scene where LBH is not in his right mind (literally hallucinating, among other things) - and then comes back to consciousness to see that he, by all appearances, had brutally raped the person he loves with all his heart? No fucking wonder he starts crying?!.. And to clarify, he did not rape SQQ, because SQQ had given informed consent here. If anything, there was nobody in that scene less consenting than Luo Binghe himself.

Or is this about the scene in Mei vs Ge. Which is like. Entirely on SQQ, who decided to keep quiet instead of telling LBH that it hurts. Like, whatever that was about! It's only, oh, one of the major themes of the novel that hiding your feelings and struggles is bad, and will hurt not only you but people who care about you.

...Btw, if someone not in fandom is reading this with increased befuddlement for why those two are having so much painful sex. Well, aside from the scene where LBH is tripping balls because of a cursed sword, and the situation is forced by the literal will of the narrative (more on this later), our couple are two adult virgins with no sex-ed, and one of them is in possession of (canonically) the biggest dick in the world. Given those factors, it would be weirder if they were able to have flawless sex right away. (And it's a meta-commentary, something we'll also get to later.)

Speaking of the cursed sword, it's somewhat amazing that anon says all this

Why did they make him become this? I understand what he went through, I'm not asking about cause and effect, I'm saying the effect could have been so much better and more realistically (in my opinion and from my personal experience with trauma) written. I'm not saying he couldn't be burnt or bitter or jaded, nor that he couldn't be clingy or overly emotional or manipulative, I just think it could have been done better, and I HATE what his character became for the second half (realistically, most) of the story.

and completely fails to mention that between LBH's return from the Abyss and the end of the main story, LBH's actions are severely affected by a cursed sword that amps up his emotions with the express purpose of destroying his mind. Seems somewhat relevant to why his behavior isn't written as a realistic trauma response? And instead as a trauma response amped up to eleven and set on fire? And that's without even getting into LBH giving himself supernatural brain damage as a form of self-harm. Which uh. doesnt simply map onto any irl concept really.

Continuing from this, I think it's time for me to expand on one of the points from earlier: about how Shen Qingqiu doesn't know what's going on in Luo Binghe's head for most of the novel. It will be tied to this particular bit of criticism on anon's part:

I feel like the author utterly assassinated his character in the 2nd half of the novel (ever since he came back from the abyss) and turned him into a one dimensional caricature of himself, and I HATED IT.

What I want to suggest here is tied, once again, to how Shen Qingqiu’s POV is limited and unreliable. So, a new batch of questions: (4) is our understanding of other characters' actions affected by the limited POV? (5) is there a particular reason for the author to keep other characters' motivations opaque to the POV character? (6) can anything be gleaned by reconstructing other characters' perspectives?

The answer to (4) is a yes so resounding the POV character himself admits it: "First, he'd thought Luo Binghe was unbelievably cruel and evil, then he'd thought Luo Binghe was unspeakably strong and bright." (ch.21) Shen Qingqiu has the very same problem as anon does: he sees Luo Binghe as one-dimensional, making assumptions about how he's supposed to act - instead of trying to understand what's there.

Which leads us neatly into the answer to (5): people making assumptions about what's best for the other person instead of asking them what they need, and hurting them as a result, is also a major theme, present in many relationships throughout the novel! And that's only half of the answer.

The other half will require us to go a little meta. You see, BingQiu's relationship, among other things, are meant to echo the relationship between the reader and the character. The reader loves the character, but they are also the reason for their suffering - as for the story to go on, the character must continuously face more and more difficult obstacles. Shen Qingqiu both loving Luo Binghe and causing him unspeakable amount of trauma is meant to mirror that. Shen Qingqiu's expectations for how Luo Binghe should act, and attempts to fit him into one or the other archetype, are also, yknow, reader behavior.

And... are we not also readers? Are we not expecting Luo Binghe to act a certain way (for example, when I first read the novel, I fully expected him to keep being a classic ML: to swallow all his grievances and keep being unquestioningly and ardently devoted to MC. Which, once articulated, is such an unfair expectation!), and feel it's "character assassination" - to borrow anon's words - when he does not adhere to the role he's supposed to inhabit, based on our idea of his personality and place in the story?

So: is there a reason the author seems to deliberately make Luo Binghe hard to understand, irrational, or one-note, to both Shen Qingqiu and us? Making it harder to sympathize with him? For example, can it be commentary on oversimplifying complex characters to just their role, or just one aspect of their personality...

As for the answer to (6), I ultimately want to leave it for you to try it out and decide. I'm literally the person who wrote a 90k character study fic to try and figure out the minutiae of Luo Binghe's post-Abyss mental state, so my answer is I think obvious. He has a lot going on!

Which kind of brings me to another of anon's gripes:

And actually that made me really sad because I wanted to enjoy it so much, because I LOVED the beginning, and I love Shen Qingqiu, but the evolution of Luo Binghe and the refusal to let him KEEP evolving inescapably ruined the story for me. He was insufferable, and I kept hoping he would grow and get better, but he just never did.

Look, I simply cannot agree that Luo Binghe did not grow and get better; it just largely happens at the very end of the main story and in the extras. I know anon has missed that, since they missed the more obvious things like Shen Qingqiu being obsessed with Binghe right back and Binghe using the pathetic act to help Shen Qingqiu feel more at ease, so I'll get to that in a bit. But first, I want to make sure we are on the same page about everything before that.

The part of Luo Binghe's arc between the Abyss and the Maigu Ridge is a downward spiral. He's going through the corruption arc, just as the original version of him did; the narrative demands it.

And it's not like 'the narrative' is a nebulous force here; there are literal actors of its will in the story, the System and Xin Mo sword. Like, in particular, the Maigu Ridge sex scene is a perfect example of how those two actors push Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu. The System literally withholds a key item that can help Luo Binghe regain his conscious mind until Shen Qingqiu has sex with him - you know, until the demands of the narrative of a romance story are fulfilled. And Xin Mo literally corrodes Luo Binghe's mind so that he acts like the original version from PIDW, because the truth is, SVSSS Luo Binghe would rather die than actually force himself on Shen Qingqiu. (Binghe's first reaction to seeing what he'd done is to ask "Why didn't you kill me?" and like. understandable. im crying also)

Oh, right, I promised to explain how bad sex is meta, this is a good spot for that. You see, it's a commentary on the 'flawless first time' trope, and also 'sex is a cure' trope. The author posits that two virgins having sex would naturally be awkward and not magically good. And that having sex in a highly stressful situation where one of the parties is not in control of their faculties would naturally be really fucking bad, and also not magically good.

But back to narrative demands. The point is, Luo Binghe simply cannot get better until "the story" ends. He can't heal while the world around him is literally deadset on dragging him down to become a bloodthirsty, sex-obsessed tyrant. The only thing that saves him is Shen Qingqiu managing to get them into the happily ever after zone by the skin of his teeth. There's a reason the main story of the book ends with: "The story circulating through the world might already have ended. But the story between you and me has only just began". 'The story circulating through the world' is the narrative the characters were trapped in; only once it has ended can Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe be allowed to go free, to actually live their lives and be happy. (This novel is very meta, I'm telling you.)

All right, now, back to how Luo Binghe actually did grow and get better! We're almost to the end! I fear to see how long this post is, at this point!

Now, I could be pointing out specific details, like Luo Binghe letting SQQ be brought back to Cang Qiong because he thinks that's what SQQ would want - when his whole breakdown before was about how he couldn't keep SQQ with him. Or I could be reminding you of the second section of this post, and saying that Luo Binghe learning to bypass SQQ's embarrassment by playing cute is actually also character development, even if you didn't like it.

But I think we should go for the heart of the issue. You see, yet another prominent theme in SVSSS is toxic masculinity. It's baked into the setting, with the "original" book our MC transmigrated into being a heterostraight harem novel; it's something our MC struggles with, when his learned toxic behaviors screw over both himself and the person he loves; and - most important to our current topic - it's the chief source of tension within Luo Binghe's character.

Literally, there are even names for two polar axes of his personality in the story: Bing-ge (ge=big brother), coined by in-story fandom to describe original Luo Binghe of PIDW, and Bing-mei (mei=little sister), the nickname SQQ comes up with specifically for "lovesick maiden"-acting Binghe.

"Bing-ge" side, of course, represents toxic masculinity. Extremely obviously in OG!LBH's case, what with him being the protagonist of 'male wish fulfillment and misogyny: the novel', but if you think about it, SV!LBH also demonstrates toxic masc behaviors, starting post-Abyss and up to Maigu Ridge. Noticeably, exactly when he had Xin Mo fucking him up - Xin Mo in general is symbolic of the "original" narrative, pushing SV!LBH to replicate the OG's behavior. And also it's a sword. The symbol of toxic masc version of the narrative is. A sword. RIP Freud you would've loved Scum Villain.

But what does "Bing-mei" stand for, if we detangle it from SQQ's 5D chess with his own sexuality? We know Bing-mei cooks and cleans and gives waist massages. We also know Bing-mei shows affection freely, and isn't embarrassed to cry, and has a sensitive heart. A man who is caring instead of controlling, a man who is not afraid to be vulnerable and emotional... Bing-mei side is meant to represent the healthy / soft masculinity.

And Luo Binghe's arc is rooted in the struggle between healthy and toxic sides of masculinity. What I think is tripping up a lot of people is that he starts at the healthy place, in his "white lotus" days. He is caring, he is affectionate, he shows the full range of emotion.

Then, the world comes for him, and he falls (or, yknow, is pushed) into toxic patterns of behavior. He hides his vulnerability, the only show of emotion he allows himself are outbursts of anger, he tries to control the person he loves... and thus hurts people around him and himself. His breakdown at Maigu Ridge is about thinking he can never be good enough, no matter what he does - see, the very idea that there's some level of achievement that can make a person unequivocally lovable is a toxic masc mindset!..

But the thing is, him breaking down here - admitting that he can't "win", showing the messy, undesirable, emotional side of himself - demonstrating that he can't be the Bing-ge version - is what opens up a path for him to communicate with Shen Qingqiu. Giving him the genuine connection he needed, that Bing-ge could never have. And thus allowing him to destroy the toxic-masculinity-representing sword.

So, the evolution path the author charts out for Luo Binghe from there on is him growing into the healthy masculinity patterns. Starting with, again, putting caring about his partner above controlling him and letting SQQ be brought back to Cang Qiong. Which SQQ didn't actually want, but we've already covered that he's his own kind of freak(affectionate). And continuing to try to do better by SQQ and listen to him (eg the whole SQQ refusing to share a bed and LBH acceding so easily SQQ was left reeling, because he was planning to agree once LBH pushed). And learning that he can show emotion and be validated for it (see Return to Childhood extra with its "if you are unhappy, say so"). And accepting that he doesn't need to be perfect to be loved (the guy faceplanted trying to propose and still got his man...). And, hell - count 'doing his best to learn how to pleasure his partner in bed' with this as well!

So, once again, as a closing note: I simply can't agree that Luo Binghe doesn't grow and evolve. You just have to let go of your preconceived notions of what his character should be like, and learn to see, understand, and appreciate what's there. The same arc Shen Qingqiu, his most faithful reader, goes through.

For a book as meta as SVSSS, that's obviously no coincidence.

#cw rape mention #(assumption of rape is discussed and rebutted)#luo binghe #bingqiu #svsss #svsss meta #scum villain's self saving system #scum villain's self-saving system #mxtx #danmei novels

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