Well they have been persecuted, treated differently, or bullied by others. For example, I know two autistic people who are adults, coming on middle age, with no wives, no real prestigious jobs, because of their conditions and they are probably going to live alone till they die. They are not dumb. They got around average scores on their IQ tests, when I asked, in conversation, but it's because of their social skills that causes them to be treated this way. Is being a second class citizen, that will die alone, is not enough to want to strike back and make a point. Even if you are sacrificing your so, a lot of people do that cause they believe in a greater good that is bigger than them to make.
So raping someone is "a greater good"? (And I want to make it clear, in case this post is ever seen out of context, that I'm not talking about the autistic person or anyone else in real life. I'm talking about the original poster's fictional character, who is apparently....raping someone as a way to save society from itself?)
It is to them, after they have put up with so much and feel like they need to make a point. Not a greater good to most people of course. It's kind of like how in some stories, you have terrorists thinking what they are doing is right, for a greater good, even though most agree that it's not. In this case though, instead of terrorism we have a serial rapist, if that makes sense.
It really, really doesn't make sense to me, no. To go back to my analogies earlier in this thread, can you just as easily imagine this guy torturing toddlers for the greater good?
A) What point is possibly being made? B) In those stories we typically go "oh, yeah, they think they're doing the right thing but that's sad because they're actually just objectively making the world a worse place by murdering a ton of people". We're not asked to empathize with said terrorists, really, only understand that it's unfortunate that someone trying to do the right thing is so misled and hopeless. These are not sympathetic or redeemable characters, which you seem to want your guy to be.
By doing it they are trying to send a message to their victims and society. Well the one guy has to turn against the villain, and attempt to stop him. He doesn't have to be sympathetic, the audience just has to accept him attempting to stop him, and think of it as a problem.
It's more than that. In this case the women were treating them differently aside from sex. Just in a general sense. Even a co-worker picking on him cause of a mental handicap could be it. However, since he is wearing a disguise, the co-worker would not know it was him. I get what you are saying but these are the villains and I think the villains are allowed to make evil decisions. If I am doing that the wrong way, can you be more specific as to what I am doing wrong compared to other villains in stories that commit evil actions?
But he's striking back at a specific group of people (women) who are not solely responsible for his persecution. Esp in a society where violence against women is depressingly commonplace, can you see the poor implications of using rape as a plot device here? Character is going "%100 of society has wronged me, thus I will figuratively strike back at %50 of society in a way largely considered exclusive to them". Regardless of the existence and prevalence of male rape victims, it's a crime treated almost unanimously as a 'women's problem'. Using rape here isn't consistent logic imo. Like, you're saying he doesn't have to be sympathetic, but the title of the thread regards whether he's crossing a line. If he's a full-fledged bad dude as treated by the narrative, it doesn't matter if he crossed a moral lines. This is what bad dudes tend to do. Sorry if this has been said before (long thread) but possibly consider thinking of this character as predominantly villainous with an inkling of good in him rather than a victim who lashed out one time but should be forgiven.
So? How does that take away a woman's choice with regard to sex? Because those are villains. You want us to be sympathetic with this guy. More problematic, you want us to see him as redeemable. I could have some sympathy for Hannibal, considering what he witnessed in his childhood. But that doesn't make him redeemable. That doesn't make what he did to the census taker a forgivable blow against society. The core of this seems to be that the man feels that society owes him willing women for sex, just because he wants sex. And that any individual woman that he targets should be forced to fulfill that societal obligation. And that his forcing her to fulfill that obligation is a heroic act. And you seem to need us to find that idea, though not accurate, at least somewhat understandable. And it's not understandable. It's contemptible. It's repulsive. It's the logic of a small child that rips the wings off of flies. No, it's worse--it's the logic of a small child that rips the wings off of flies and is proud of himsef for doing so. I'm confident that there are people who think that way, who delude themselves that indulging their sadistic impulses is an heroic act. But there is no way, absolutely no way, that I'm ever going to find that child, that child sitting at a table, pulling at wings with tweezers, occasionally giggling to himself, "Serves 'em right! Serves 'em right! Mommy, Mommy, I'm a brave hero!" anything but nightmarishly contemptible. That giggling child, that's how I see your rapist.
Okay thanks. Perhaps I should not present him as redeemable though, even though he has to turn against the villain out of guilt and tries to stop him, thus setting the chain of plot events in motion that I need. Since this is a more minor character, how can I get the reader to say themselves "Okay this guy is trying to redeem himself even though I don't see him as redeemable. It's okay that I don't see him as redeemable, but I understand what he is trying to do for the sake of the plot going a certain way". How do I get the reader to say that to themselves, and accept it on those terms, instead of the reader actually thinking that he is suppose to be redeemable, when he's not.
Why does he need to be redeemable? Why does there need to be guilt? There are dozens of possible reasons for him to turn against the villain. Why do you need to turn human psychology inside out for what is apparently a minor plot point?
I don't think at any point should the reader/viewer be forced to accept that something is happening or a character is doing something just to make the plot go a certain way. If something doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. If the plot hinges on something that doesn't make sense, then the plot doesn't make sense, and things begin to fall apart.
Okay what other reasons are there then? I can't use the victim being a mob boss's sister. In fact I cannot have the character know the victim for the plot to work. The main villain knows the victim, but for this character the victim has to be stranger for the plot to work. And there doesn't have to be guilt necessarily, but I feel that no one has given me a reason not to have guilt. Even in stories, evil villains feel guilty for immoral reasons. That doesn't mean we the audience are suppose to be agree with his/her guilt. What is the reader's problem with it exactly? Since when do readers have to agree with a villain's guilt? I agree the reader should not accept it if it does not make sense. Alright let's break it down then, what does not make sense? I mean in The Silence of the Lambs for example you have a serial killer so crazy that he is using women's skin to make his own woman suit, even though logic will tell you that there is no way he can walk around in public and pass a woman from doing that. Villains, do all sorts of crazy things in movies, and I cannot find where I am going wrong? You tell me why it's crazy, but you don't point out how I am also following the tradition of that it's okay for a villain to be crazy, or what I am doing differently compared to others. I want to do it the right way, I just feel that there is just a lot being left out that needs to be accounted for in order to effectively improve it. But if stories like the Silence of the Lambs are able to make sense out of insanely illogical crimes like that, what I can do to make mine make more sense?
Experiencing guilt after something like this would be very uncommon if not impossible. You're talking about someone who feels put upon by the world to the extent he was driven to kidnapping and (nearly) rape and who, as far as I can ascertain, was specifically driven not by anger but by a sense of justice. What happens to make him realize there's anything to be guilty about? As for reasons, I mean, it's your story - finding reasons that fit is sort of your job. You're the one with the most intimate knowledge of your work and who can pick at the threads and figure out how to make things fit.
I've answered these questions. I've answered the Silence of the Lambs question at least twice. I begin to wonder if you've even read any of my posts, or if you're just extracting a few key words and ignoring the rest.
Yes you're right, you did answer them by saying the villain was suffering from a different kind of abuse while growing up. I am no psychologist and will ask more of them and research more. But you say a lot of sources will not discuss the root cause, so it's hard to know what's what as well. I see your point izzybot, he needs something more to make him change, right? In other stories a lot of times, a character will plan on killing someone and then realize they cannot do it. Such as in Eastern Promises when a character had to murder in the end, and actually took the victim to the place he was going to do it, but then when the moment came, he couldn't. I was planning on having it this way hear, that the moment he sees the victim's helpless blindfolded face, he cannot do it. What if the main villain told this character that they are just going to kidnap her, wear disguises and scare her into making her feel bad about how she treats people like us. Then after the scares are not working so well, the villain then orders him to rape her since they have to take it to a new level. This is when this character starts feeling guilt, because rape was not what he signed up for originally. Is that better, or does that help?
Either this person is fundamentally broken, or he's not. If he's broken, the guilt and redemption doesn't make sense. If he's not broken, the kidnapping doesn't make sense. Nothing you have suggested allows both of those things--the kidnapping, and the redemption--to be combined and make any sense at all.
Okay thanks. What if the villain does the kidnapping on his own, but then talks him into coming to check it later, not knowing what it is. Only before he brings him to see, he makes him promise that the secret will not leave the room. Then he explains that he did it for them. Will this make more sense, or would the villain logically talk more about it before bringing him in directly?
I can see the kidnapping in that sense. ETA: The kidnapping without foreknowledge of rape, then he tries for two minutes before he realizes his anger doesn't justify it. Rape is a crime for control, not pleasure.
In which sense? The one where the character does not know about it till invited later, or the one where he helps with it, but then cannot rape later, cause it's not what he signed on for?
I admittedly have no degrees to motion to Price is Right style, but I have studied psychology (esp 'abnormal') pretty extensively. Please take my word on this. Sexual assault typically stems from one of two things: having experienced sexual assault yourself in the past, and/or failing to see your victim as an actual person. But yeah, this new scenario would alter your character's mental make-up on a pretty fundamental level. He's going from someone who planned a rape he considered justified to someone who got roped into the situation and went "nope". He could still have a victim complex or what have you w/r/t the world at large, but isn't 'broken' in a way that makes sexual assault acceptable to him. Only kidnapping and fearmongering. Which seems more plausible, if your other villainous character is sort of the ringleader or 'alpha' or whatever you want to call it and this guy is more of a follower type. This would allow for him to be more sympathetic, if that's what you want, and his 'redemption' arc is then more about his struggle to come to term with / make up for having almost done something that went 'too far'. OR if you're going with the second thing (I'm not too fast, sorry), then there's no real redemption for him to have. He didn't do anything wrong, presumably - he just showed up. Feeling personally guilty wouldn't make much sense. Guilty over not turning the guy in, sure, totally, but he wouldn't have the whole ... 'almost raped someone' guilty conscience.
