Odds and Ends

[statsman]

Thanks for the kind words, kamakazi. It's funny- I like Ennis' "Crossed", not for the shock and horror but for the musings about the nature of evil. I think he is onto a good point- what is an evil person? An evil person is somebody who does evil things to you, no matter their manner, personal ethics, or motives. He is getting into big issues here, and doing it very subtly, which I like.

That said, I'm not crazy about "Preacher". I guess it's an OK story, but it rambles quite a bit, and seems to take on some big themes (religion is bad) without really addressing them thoroughly. For example- if religion is so bad or stupid, isn't there a begged question about why humanist societies always seem to build death camps? I don't think I dislike it just because I disagree with the ideas. For example, I think "Watchmen" is brilliant despit thinking that Moore's key idea (putting missiles in Europe would bring on a nuclear war) is not only wrong, but proven wrong. It's a masterpiece because of the other stuff- the characters, the narrative flow, the style of presentation. Those elements are all so strong that it doesn't matter that Moore's anti-Reagan/Thatcher screed was made ineffectual by history. Modern readers just gloss over that part.

I enjoyed "The Shadow". Cranston has always been kind of a dick, which plays to Ennis' strength.

[Simon Rogerson]

For example, I think "Watchmen" is brilliant despit thinking that Moore's key idea (putting missiles in Europe would bring on a nuclear war) is not only wrong, but proven wrong. It's a masterpiece because of the other stuff- the characters, the narrative flow, the style of presentation. .

Good point there. As a piece of storytelling Watchmen is right out of the top drawer, but try explaining the plot with the genetically engineered psychic monster bomb to anyone and watch them blink at you. They even had to change it for the slavish movie.

[Garth]

- Sean Noonan from Hitman
- Amy, the rich friend of Jesse and Tulip
- Featherstone
- The activist and social worker from "The Slavers" arc of Punisher
- Some folks from the Dicks saga (hey, I know people like those!)

Boris: decent bloke. FACT.

[Garth]

How about Custer's dad?

or the young Aussie lietenant in Battlefields: Happy Valley?

or Butcher's grandfather?

...or the guy in the Unknown Soldier story, who would rather die than sign up to be a costumed freak?

...all of which had one thing in common- they were soldiers. It's like Ennis is going to keep doing this until we figure out that war comics are what the industry should be making.

Oh no, they're on to me!

[Garth]

Maybe things are different in England. Maybe it IS just a giant rape-fest. I dunno. Never been there. But I do know this: claiming that ten percent of the female population has been raped is so monumentally dunderheaded that even my prodigious literary skills are incapable of describing it. It's about as rational as claiming that ten percent of men are vampires, but just don't admit it. In fact, I'm going to claim it right now. I interviewed several hundred men, and ten percent of them are marthafocking Nosferatu. But they would only admit it to me. They'd never tell anyone else, because they're afraid of being staked in the heart by bands of roving villagers.

Now, from the article: "It means women raped at home do not identify the experience as rape, or report it." Okay then, so who exactly is calling it "rape"? The people doing the survey? How did that go? Was it something like:
Interviewer: "Ma'am, have you had a close encounter with a penis recently?"
Housewife: "Well, yes, I've had sex."
Interviewer: "Are you aware you were raped?"
Housewife: "No."
Interviewer: "Well, you were."
Housewife: "No, I wasn't."
Interviewer: "So we'll mark you down as 'Raped, but in denial.' Thanks for your time."

Rape isn't "I was tired, but my husband talked me into it anyway". Nor is rape "I was really drunk at the time." I've had my share of sex with both the weary and the inebriated, and it was not, by any definition, rape. I've even had sex where ropes and latex were involved, and that wasn't rape either. Rape is when I tell Boris to leave me alone, and he punches me in the jaw and has sex with me anyway.

Rape is too horrible of a thing to cheapen by applying the term to every single instance in which two people have sex, and then one ends up feeling angry or guilty after the fact. I remember seeing a news article about a chick in Israel who sued a guy for rape because he told her he was Jewish when he actually wasn't. Sheese. That's not her being raped, that's her being a bigoted asshole. Imagine if a White Supremacist could sue a sex partner for "rape" because she found out that the guy had a Black grandfather.

...and that's it for my rant.

I suspect in reality it's quite a bit more than 10%, and that very much includes women in the US and elsewhere - certainly not just in merry old England. That doesn't mean that an equivalent portion of the male population is necessarily committing rapes, as rapists are usually repeat offenders. We're not talking about inebriated sex or passive-aggressively coerced sex; we're talking about violent, non-consensual sex. We're also not talking about annual incidence; we're talking about the percentage who have been raped at one point in their lives.

However, an appallingly large percentage of the population, both male and female, do believe that women by definition cannot be raped by their husbands. I would wager that far more women than you imagine are routinely punched in the jaw and forced to have sex with their husbands. And most of those do go unreported, even, I suspect, by strong-willed social worker types.

Aside from the V'd up offspring it produced, the most unrealistic aspect of the Black Noir/Becky rape is that it was perpetrated by a stranger. The majority are perpetrated by friends or family of the victim.

We as a species are a shower of absolute cunts.

[MisterS]

As for Becky not telling anyone, her diary said that she knew Butcher would make a suicide run at the Homelander if she told him.

And addressing the diary and how suspicious it is- I like to write. I am plotting a book series, chapter by chapter. The summary alone of the first three is over 80,000 words. And I can attest that there are some moments where you just want to say "Fuck it" and push the easy explanation and solution forward. You try to earn it, but nonetheless sometimes you go with a time saver- like the part in mine where the heroes are collecting magical artifacts- there's no reason for them to be as close together as they are other than the fact they don;t have cars and air transport in this series, but I decided to give a very simple reason for that. And I actually got a lot of mileage out of that. Someone who's constrained by the 24 page format month after month might have a few every now and again as well.

I guess you could say I'm still making parallels to Butcher and The Saint of Killers. In the Saint's case, The Lord orchestrated certain events to make the Saint who he came to be. The diary, while a convenient Deux ex Machina, could serve a similar purpose for Mallory to get Butcher to work for him.

Its just a thought of course...