NuclearShadow said:
It seems the OP makes a very large mistake in his position.
If you'll let me paint you a picture: A fate WORSE than Death is a life filled with Nothing but pain, sadness, and/or fear. It is a place where hope and joy are not even possible. A life like that is one where death is a mercy and suicide is simply an escape that one you couldn't be blamed for taking.
Alright so he takes the position of things can be worse than death if they are instances of extreme suffering. Then goes on to say this.
Now I know what many people are going to say. Rape bothers you more than Murder, therefore it is worse than Murder. But this is wrong.
See the problem? If not let me explain. A rape does not have to be a single one time occurrence. A person could be raped many times and held against their will. This could quickly lead up to the very suffering that he previously admits is worse than death.
Such abuse could happen for many years and there have been cases of this.
Even in the case of a single case of rape it could involve brutality as well. Leaving not only immense mental harm but physical as well. While rape is never a gentle act it certainly has a wide range of how severe the harm that can be inflicted upon the victim.
A bit off of what my point is but I have to address this.
Fine, you say, but how can you justify rape in a videogame? Or ever for that matter? In the same exact way, by the same exact logic, as stabbing or shooting a villain to death. If you can say that a death sentence is a fine way to punish someone for evil deeds then rape as a (at best) equivalent evil is just as justifiable.
What on Earth are you talking about? When does a hero in any story ever rape a villain?
If a hero ever did such a act that would certainly degrade the hero status. Murdering villains is usually only linked to villains that can only be stopped if they were killed.
You never have to rape someone, nor does this make sense as a punishment.
Your throwing a unrealistic solution to the problem to begin with. If a armed suspect is in a shoot out with the police you would really support the option of the police trying to subdue the suspect and rape them? Then I guess sending the suspect free after as the only other two options would be death on the spot or best case scenario capture and imprisonment.
If you were to argue that villains should be capable of rape in fictional story-lines for the
sake of building the character into a one that is easily despised and to see how vile they are than you would have a debatable point that has merit behind it. But to throw the hero into being the rapist situation is just down right ridiculous. Rape is a act of evil and it is never a necessity unlike killing which unfortunately is sometimes required.
Hi! So there're several posts I'd like to get around to, but I'd like to clear up some misunderstandings in this one first.
Also, in the future, please refer to me in the second person (you) rather than third person (he) if only because it reads more like we're having a conversation. I... I don't know why that bothers me.
Back on topic:
1) You probably didn't read the post I made a bit after the original, but I later realized that saying flat out that Rape is not a fate worse than death a generalization. I've already said that generalizations cannot be correct, so the statement is hypocritical, and I've since retracted it. I've left the original post unedited because I think it should stand warts and all so that people, much like yourself, can weigh in on any/all the ideas presented.
2) I didn't say that you as the player were a hero. Which could be confusing since I referred to your foes as villains. I should have said protagonist/antagonist which are morality-neutral.
My point though is that, even in the service of a good cause, killing a person is an evil thing. There's always a choice not to, even if it's not a good choice. You can let a person get away, or hurt/kill you, steal such and such, hurt others, or whatever it is you mean to stop them from doing. These choices are obviously not preferable but they do exist. Making the choice to kill is evil and must never be approached lightly.
Now the thing about many videogames is that "justified" killing has absolutely nothing to do with justice. Many times you the player are the villain, and your justifications for slaughtering people are because you're bored, it's fun, they have something you want, or looked at you funny. Many times your justification to kill is extremely flimsy. Even when killing your enemies, who themselves can range in morality from good-person to bad-person, there are many instances in games where your character kills an already defeated foe that they didn't need to at all. Or badly hurts/tortures them. Think of games like GTA or Prototype. Does this, "Murdering villains is usually only linked to villains that can only be stopped if they were killed." fit with such games?
Is it more wrong to have an evil character rape someone than wholesale slaughter/maim their terrified defenseless foes?
The police example is a little off. How often is a police officer personally invested in the crimes of a criminal he's going after? But do I think that a "good" character could rape an "evil" one in lieu of something like torture or murder? Maybe, it's definitely a conversation that should be had.
I don't believe I mentioned this in the first post, and I won't ask you to sift through sll the others to find it, but at one point I said:
" ... my gf survived her rape and has been living a really happy life for years now. That said, I have no doubt at all that if she met her attackers and could figure out how to kill them without landing herself in jail for the rest of her life she absolutely would. Hell, I absolutely would and technically these people I've never met have never wronged me.
Now as a poor alternative to their grizzly murders (which I get away with Scott free) we could settle for them
being raped in return. Of course I don't think I could get into it myself, but I wouldn't feel the tiniest bit guilty about sending them to prison where they could be raped by burly men covered in racist tattoos. Which still kind of feels like they're getting off easy, but one could hope the tattooed fellas visit them often over the years. And that's the essence of the passage you referred to, if you can justify murdering evil people can't you justify raping them? Or are me and my girl alone on this one?"
