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[Skeletondog]

(Long post ahead. Yes, in advance, I know I think too much, sue me.  )

When it comes to enjoying a character, (unless they're meant to be a villain,) there's usually a certain moral line that can't be crossed before it damages one's ability to actually like the character. While obviously in a brutal setting we're often willing to overlook many things we wouldn't in real life, for many of us, one thing that instantly crosses the line is rape, or sexual abuse in general.

I want to like Zevran. I really, really do. He's a wonderfully written character with some of the funniest lines in the game - and I also love that he's a romance option for gay male characters, considering how rare (almost nonexistant) that is.

But my ability to simply accept the character and remain immersed in the game at the same time is damaged by the fact that in order to do so, I have to convince myself that line hasn't been crossed.

As you get to know Zevran, twice he tells stories about being seduced by his marks (at least, presuming the two stories he tells are two different women.) And... well, when you think about it, it sounds like he basically raped them. As far as it sounds, they only had sex with him for fear of death. Just imagine if he had been the one to suggest it to them, and it becomes all the more clear - "Sleep with me and I won't kill you." They may have been the ones to suggest it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's someone sleeping with him only for fear of death.
(Something tells me this will act as a written invitation for people to try to explain why sex-to-avoid-death wouldn't be rape if it were the idea of the person about to die, but hey.)

Frankly, I get this feeling that the writers weren't really considering the weight of what Zev was describing. The way it's told, it's as if the stories are suppossed to be funny - and  there's no option to discuss or react in a way you'd expect a character to be able to react to a rapist. You can say "you used her!" as if it's on par with sleeping with someone to steal their wallet - besides that, nada.

So! Because I want to be able to enjoy this character, I try to lay it out in my head in a way that makes it not as bad as it sounds. It's not an easy task.

Maybe he's just trying to test the Warden? But he tells those stories twice, so... yeah. 

He didn't realize what he was doing? This, I find plausible - as someone who'd been tortured and brainwashed into viewing death as almost trivial and sex as always desirable, it does make sense that he might not have been able to understand at the time why someone would sleep with him if she really didn't want to. ...But really, 'he didn't realize it was rape' isn't much of a justification.

So then, I'm basically left with thinking, well, errr... ummm... okay, we don't know who these people were... maybe they weren't that afraid! Maybe they really were just calm and wily and not reluctant! ...oh, except for the part where he says that one was begging on her knees for her life before seducing him. ...Er, maybe she wasn't afraid when she thought it was working! And so uh, she really did want it, because...!

...Okay, yeah, that's difficult to swallow.

Did anyone else find this disturbing? Anyone find a better way to frame it so it's not as bad? And wtf, Bioware?

EDIT: Good lord, I was asking about Zevran, not Leliana. Please don't assume I hadn't thought about Leliana just because I'm posting about Zevran. Chill.

Modifié par Skeletondog, 26 février 2010 - 06:44 .

[David Gaider]

Zevran laughs at your need for justification.



...and then he makes out with your sister.

[David Gaider]

Some people will apparently read what they want to see into just about anything.



Zevran is not a rapist. Rape implies force, sex done against someone's will. His targets were seduced, yes, but deceit does not equal rape. Whatever you're seeing beyond that is your own doing.

[David Gaider]

krylo wrote...
I find this vaguely offensive.

You don't need to be vague about it. Go ahead, be offended.

This reminds me a little of the female poster who blazed in here once to cry that the writers were misogynists because of the existence of the "stinky panties" line, and when everyone laughed at her she ran to her LJ to whine to her friends about what horrible, horrible people we were and her friends all expressed outrage at the state of the world if such people as us existed in it.

If you want to think of what Zevran did as rape -- meh. Go ahead. He's also a murderer, many times over. Picking it apart and trying to seperate his actions from the fact that he was there to murder these people and not solely to have sex with them (as if there were a fine line between the two, morally speaking) strikes me as a little tiresome. But, hey, whatever floats your boat.

Modifié par David Gaider, 27 février 2010 - 07:17 .

[David Gaider]

This is simply not true. Rape does not imply force. Rape is non-consensual sex.

I didn't realize when I clarified it to be "against someone's will" that this meant something other than non-consensual. I did not suggest that the force used needed to be physical.

Speaking solely about the mage, we have no idea whether she would have been seduced and deceived by Zevran with him killing her later because that wasn't what happened. She begged for her life, may or may not have given him a ****** depending on interpretation, then continued to have sex with him while plotting his demise. It's not force in the strictest definition, but it's also not consent. She had sex with him solely for the purposes of getting away. If that isn't duress, then I don't know what is.

Yes, he had sex with her (the ****** thing is conjured out of thin air, honestly), but it was at her initiation. He was not there to make her have sex with him, he was there to kill her. You can decide for yourself whether you think that's better or worse -- I would say worse. The fact that he consented to have sex with her, knowing what her game was, does not constitute rape anywhere other than in the privileged modern mindset.

I am not claiming that Zevran ever forced himself on someone, but I think that that only reason the mage had sex with him is because she thought it would save her life. That's duress and to think otherwise is naive.

I would say that trying to single out the questionable morality of him agreeing to have sex with her when he's already there to kill her to be naive. He's not the nicest guy, but I'm pretty sure that's already established. His target was no innocent flower, herself. To compare her to some innocent rape victim that he pounced upon is trying to push the comparison a little far.

Modifié par David Gaider, 28 février 2010 - 02:19 .

[David Gaider]

Monica21 wrote...
I think you're missing the point. Why did she initiate sex? Was it because he was charming or because she wanted to save herself? If it's the latter, then that consitutes rape no matter where you are. She didn't have a "game" until her life was at stake, so his consent is meaningless.

She initiated sex because she thought she could manipulate him with it. She knew she was in trouble, and she knew he was the assassin sent after her. She was using the weapon she had at her disposal. She was also quite successful, as it turns out.

All sex that occurs outside of a pleasant exchange of phone numbers is not rape. Rape is an act of violence, whether it is physical or not. Zevran did not force himself on her. You may not think he's the most upstanding guy for agreeing to have sex with her instead of gutting her like he was supposed to, but a rapist? Sorry, I won't accept that. Even in a modern court, the circumstances absolutely do matter.