I was listening to Outside by Ada Hoffmann. At first the neurodiversity topic was a bit thick but it all meshed quite well into a story that made Cthulhu-style madness and AI-gods and cyber-angels interesting.
Sadly, there is a torture scene towards the end.
Ugh.
WTF is wrong with people putting torture scenes in fiction books.
A bit later, I’m listening to the next book, eating some self made bread after going for a short run, having a good time. I’m listening to Ascendant Wars: Hellfire and there’s another fucking torture scene coming up. What the hell. I start skipping. I’m angry. I don’t care what they’re saying. Next chapter! Oh, he’s waking up and the maltreatment goes on? Fuck this shit.
I am this close imagining that’s this must be a consequence of the authors living in torture-accepting society. This Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib shit is eating your children.
@eli_oat mentioned Christian themes. We talked a bit about Gene Wolfe’s book that I still haven’t read because the main character is a torturer.
The tetralogy chronicles the journey of Severian, a journeyman torturer who is disgraced and forced to wander… – The Book of the New Sun, on Wikipedia
The Book of the New Sun, on Wikipedia
I’m am definitely not going to read it. So is torture a specifically Christian trait? I don’t know. I grew up in a light Christian culture. It’s only when I go visit a catholic canton like Vallais that I’m starting to notice the crosses everywhere. Roman torture devices for slaves. Seeing a victim of torture memorialised in so many road bends, on so many hill tops, on so many house walls does make you think. Why wallow in this disgusting shit? Why is this the most important iconography we have? Yuck.
@tfb said that “this amount of torture is new. And it being fucking celebrated by media is absolutely new.” I think he’s on to something. At the same time that we know for certain that no good information can be gained through torture, our TV series are full of stories where violence is used to extract truth from people. And in fiction, it always works. The kids watching this shit grow up to be our political leaders and then we think that treating people harshly in pre-trial detention does something magic to people, to prisoners of war – and I don’t care if they mislabel the victims of this mistreatment as enemy combatants. That doesn’t change the ethics of torture one iota. We’re now living in a world where some people believe in torture and are ever more at ease talking about it. They don’t call it torture, but it is torture.
I think seeing it in our fiction is just a sign of the accursed times we live in.
Anyway, I’m now reading Battle Mage Farmer: Domestication, by Seth Ring. Wish me luck.
Battle Mage Farmer: Domestication
#Books #Torture
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That’s so screwed up. It’s so common in TV too, being a key story point of a recent episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. And I couldn’t tell if they intended to show it positively or negatively (why show it at all though ugh)
– lizsugar 2023-07-20 04:13 UTC
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Unhappy times 😟
– Alex 2023-07-20 07:41 UTC
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I have noticed that as well and it sucks so much. Most TV series I try to watch turn out being more military propaganda than entertainment, and violence, rape and torture have become integral to entertainment. Very scary times to live in.
– Sarah K 2023-07-20 13:24 UTC
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Yeah, that’s another thing: Inevitably, the story has to make sure all the readers understand who the evil party is and the best way to show this is to add some sexual violence. Ugh. It disappoints on so many levels. Are evil deeds without sexual violence not evil enough? Why is it that sexual violence seems to be the easiest to accept to readers?
When I saw the very first episode of Game of Thrones, I knew that I couldn’t watch the rest of it. The latent callousness of everybody ensured this.
Watched the first episode of Rome and when the soldier casually rapes a shepherd, a citizen casually suffers injury, and a criminal is casually nailed to the cross, I know that this is not for me.
I think what I find strangest of all is that I never hear a friend of mine telling me, “oh no, I would never watch that, it’s way too cruel.” As if cruelty is never a reason to skip a word.
I’m only half-joking when I tell my wife that the only movies I am ready to watch must be OK for 12 year olds.
– Alex 2023-07-20 15:45 UTC
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Yep, I feel the same. I suspect there’s a thing about “shocking content” that you can see for example in Game of Thrones. We stopped watching series it after n events that were unnecessarily explicit. It doesn’t help the drama, because if that was the intent, they could have done the same... differently.
And it has happened with other series. If it is a trend, I don’t like it.
– jjm 2023-07-22 13:53 UTC
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Honestly I’m annoyed by the amount of torture in modern media, but I don’t see how it’s sick...
Maybe its a generational thing. I grew up reading “whump” fanfics a lot. I think its less about watching the characters get beaten down, but more them getting back up. It can definitely be overdone, but I like it when used sparingly.
Also its hard for me to tell sarcasm, so if you’re being sarcastic about the christian thing then pardon me, but Christ dying on the cross is literally *the* most important part of christian theology. Essentially what the whole universe was building up to. And culturally, to ancient romans Christ dying in such a debasing way was proof of God’s love for human beings. It makes sense why modern christians use it so much.
– Rachel 2023-07-25 08:23 UTC
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Well… I’m not a Christian and didn’t study theology, but it being literally the most important part of Christian theology seems like an exaggeration. Simply the amount of text dedicated to it in the Bible seems like a counter indication to me. Culturally, the sacraments seems more important to me in our daily lives, even among non-believers, starting with marriages and burials. Rituals are important, too: confession (depending), pilgrimages, attending church. Important visual moments from the bible that could have been picked: building a ship and be saved from the flood, returning from a mountain with commandments, the seven tough years, loneliness on the lake. And the miracles: water to wine, endless fish and bread, healing the sick, the last supper, the resurrection, the ascension… so many things, and many of them depicted in churches, for sure, but out there in catholic regions of Switzerland at least, as seen from the road, as seen in hotel rooms: it’s always an emaciated man dying at the cross. What I’m noting is that this particular moment is extremely emphasized – overemphasized by a considerable margin. The only other representation I saw during my last trip was the Sacred Heart: on two pictures in a hotel.
I had to look up what “whump” fandom is. For other people not knowing what it is, I saw this summary from r/FanFiction:
Whump is a genre that focuses on pain and suffering. The main plot is often a person (sometimes referred to as the “whumpee”, especially in the tumblr whump community, of which I’m a member) struggling to endure number of unpleasant events. These can be inflicted by another person (the “whumper”), or by the environment.
I didn’t know this existed.
– Alex 2023-07-25 17:10 UTC