Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27079851-20171120082917/@comment-27295021-20171202153718

Okay, guys, I am not going to quote anyone or reply to any one spesific post directed at me, I am simply going to say this once and for all:

I am NOT saying that it isn't  a big deal. And to be honest, I don't even know where the idea that I am trying to justify rape came from, as I find the idea of doing such a thing to be completely and utterly redicilous. The crime in question is horrible and disgusting and unforgivable, and when I read of it in the newspaper or hear about it in the media, of course I get as angry about it as the next bloke with the slightest shred of humanity and common sense and decency. But when it happens in fiction, and particularly fiction like Once Upon a Time, in universes with magic and dragons and that are so clearly detached from reality - then I have problems taking it seriously. Why? I don't know to be honest, but it's certainly not because I wouldn't care if I heard about something like this happen to someone outside the televition. Initially, even when I watched those episodes, the concept of rape didn't even cross my mind. I don't know why. Maybe it is the whole "fairy tale" theme, where everything that's supposed to be dramatic and brutal is replaced by puffs of multicolored smoke and balls of bad CGI flames from their hands. Maybe I'm just a bit dumb. In any case, I know that it had nothing to do with indifference to the concept of rape.

Maybe I just have a different association of the word than I should have. When I hear the word "rape", two consnting adults having sex only for one of them to turn out to be someone else by switching one actor/actress into another in a puff of purple or green mist isn't what pops into mind. Something far, far grotesque does. It might very well be that both examples should, that I ought to have been able to see the distinction, but I didn't. And had I known there were even the faintest chance of anyone getting upset over it, I'd have reconsidered my position long ago.

So just to stop this potential conflict in its tracks before I really offend someone

All I ever meant to say was that crimes seen in movies, such as someone being shot dead in an action movie or being raped, to use this example, don't upset me that much because I know that at the end of the day, it didn't really happen and that the actors were probably talking about the scene over coffee at some point or another both before and after the scene was shot. Do that mean I never get emotionally involved when I watch televition? Well, no. I cry every time Mufasa die. In this episode of Ghost Whisperer, Melinda, a woman who can see the dead, and there is this scene where this little five year old were playing on the train tracks just as the train could be heard in the distance. Horrified, she called for the boy to get out of there, and he does as he is told, walking up to her to find out what all the fuss is about. Upon being questioned about what he was doing there, the boy told her that he was waiting for his mom, who had told him that if he ever got lost, he was to stay where he was, and she would come and find him. As Melinda opened her mouth to answer, she noticed something hanging on the fence not far from where they stood and walked over to check it out; A small image of the boy nailed to the fence, surrounded by flowers. The boy was dead and didn't know. Again - I cried. Same thing with the end of Pay It Forward. I didn't find it particularly easy to watch Ramsy Bolton torture Reek in Game of Thrones either, to tell you the truth. I did care when Bellatrix Lestrange killed Sirius Black in the fifth book, and I didn't like that he wouldn't appear again in later books. But after I put the book down - Sirius Black was still not a real person, so I got over it.

As for romanticising the crotesque.. I reacted more strongly about 13 Reasons Why, because the look and feel of the show was so much closer to that of the real world and the chances that teenagers and young adults who's already suicidal will be so much more likely to be influenced to act on those throughts than people are likely to start raping others because of watching OUAT. Especially since the former pretty much presented sudicidal thoughts as something other people in your life can't help you with. In truth - I had trouble seeing why people got as worked up over it as they did, considering the act taking place wasn't real, but came from a tv show with actors. The reactions I read here was almost as strong as people discussing rape in real life, and I didn't really get it at first. But that, I think, was only because I failed to consider all the potentially unstated implications of that opinion that came with how I presented it, and for that, I apologize.

If anyone think I'm okay with the act of rape, or is indifferent to the suffering of its victims, I am not. If anyone got offended by what I wrote, I can do nothing but hope that you will accept my sincere apology.