with books i tend to read anything. if a scene gets too disturbing or graphic, especially if it involves kids, then i just skim over it, my mind can fill in the blanks. there are movies that i just avoid entirely because of graphic violence: monster, dead man walking. i guess rape scenes especially. and the conversation earlier about men not being as disturbed, not true. i think it gives husbands and boyfriends such a sense of powerlessness(apologies for grammar) and grief and shame that they can't protect their loved ones from this.
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Plot points you can't stomach?
- Thread starter Ashlea
- Start date
I guess I do pretty much the same thing - that is, I tend to skim over a scene if I find it too disturbing. But then, I also tend to just stay away from the types of books that would be most likely to cantain such scenes (primarily, violence against women). This is particularly true now that authors and screen writers don't just kill off female characters, but drench the act in all manner of degredation, mutilation, etc.
I don't care that they do so, I just choose not to read/watch it.
I also really dislike authors who contrive plot elements to grind their own personal, political axes. I'm not offended by that, as a general rule - it just turns me off.
I don't care that they do so, I just choose not to read/watch it.
I also really dislike authors who contrive plot elements to grind their own personal, political axes. I'm not offended by that, as a general rule - it just turns me off.
I really do not see the point of skimming over stuff. I mean... it's a book, you gotta read it all. (Unless it is a boring text book) But it is all a matter of taste I suppose.
I don't care what I read. I'm not squeamish. It doesn't effect me... it effects the character which I may feel for and I want to see them through this. Books can't all be good and happy happy, that's too Hollywoody and boring.
I want to read more things with rape scenes in them, and torture and death!!! The books by Diana Gabaldon are full of gritty stuff and personally I enjoy it because I feel as if I'm there. It is so realistic.
But that is my taste, if I didn't like her methods I wouldn't read it. I don't believe in censorship. I think we should read and watch everything no matter how old we are. If it offends you... then good. It happens out there.
Nothing much offends me at all really... I might be shocked or outraged, but that's just emotion that such scenes should emote.
I don't care what I read. I'm not squeamish. It doesn't effect me... it effects the character which I may feel for and I want to see them through this. Books can't all be good and happy happy, that's too Hollywoody and boring.
I want to read more things with rape scenes in them, and torture and death!!! The books by Diana Gabaldon are full of gritty stuff and personally I enjoy it because I feel as if I'm there. It is so realistic.
But that is my taste, if I didn't like her methods I wouldn't read it. I don't believe in censorship. I think we should read and watch everything no matter how old we are. If it offends you... then good. It happens out there.
Nothing much offends me at all really... I might be shocked or outraged, but that's just emotion that such scenes should emote.
Zolipara
New Member
Witchchild said:
Personally thats one of the reasons G.R.R.Martin restored my faith in fantasy. Its refreshing to read a book where i dont know whats going to happen. The characters are not always saved in the last second as usual in fantasy. But yes it can be a bit annoying when you realise every main character above the age of 15 has been killed off. It gives the story a touch of realism.
As for the topic i dont think there is any plot points i cant stomach.
Safia said:
i'm offended by violence be it sexual, physical, or emotional. everyone should be. but should it be avoided or removed, no way. i think it is important in writing. i feel that the only way we can grow and learn that such behaviour is unacceptable is by learning about it, seeing the effects of it etc. i'm not looking for a hollywood ending and i don't avoid something because it is disturbing, i mean good grief, turn on the news. that being said, i also experiance empathy for the characters in the books i read, sometimes because i have experianced something similar or sometimes because the horror is so overwhelming ie: holocaust stories, that the only way i can imagine it is by reading their stories. but i have young children and it is too easy to imagine the faces of them mixed in with the masses. so sometimes when something cuts a little too close to the bone i skim over, not because i don't want to know and be in the dark, but because my mind will travel there all on it's own, unprompted, and i don't need to take the scenic route.
novella
Active Member
The Stupid, the Implausible, and the Just Plain Bad
It's interesting that this discussion has focused on plot points that are emotionally or viscerally upsetting.
The plot devices I can't stomach are of the PD James variety, in which some far-fetched scenario unfolds at the last minute, with some unlikely, implausible culprit with an unrevealed motive coming out of nowhere. These denouements are often set in some implausible place, like a stormy island hideaway or a convent or a dungeon. Lots of times, someone is holding onto a roof's edge with their fingernails while they finally confess and then fall into an abyss. Time to throw book at wall.
This is a common problem with mysteries. I think of it as the 80/20 problem, because the author makes 80 percent of the book follow one reasonable, well-plotted path, and the last 20% is pure junk thrown together to get the book finished.
It's interesting that this discussion has focused on plot points that are emotionally or viscerally upsetting.
The plot devices I can't stomach are of the PD James variety, in which some far-fetched scenario unfolds at the last minute, with some unlikely, implausible culprit with an unrevealed motive coming out of nowhere. These denouements are often set in some implausible place, like a stormy island hideaway or a convent or a dungeon. Lots of times, someone is holding onto a roof's edge with their fingernails while they finally confess and then fall into an abyss. Time to throw book at wall.
This is a common problem with mysteries. I think of it as the 80/20 problem, because the author makes 80 percent of the book follow one reasonable, well-plotted path, and the last 20% is pure junk thrown together to get the book finished.
Drizzt Do'Urden
New Member
Well, think about it. What's more interesting, a mystery unfolding before your eyes, or waiti9ng for the guy you know to be the culprit to confess? I think it's just as well writen, but the Suspence is always going to die in the end, hence you lsoe interest.
True@1stLight
New Member
Safia said:
Censorship's detriment is prohitbiting people from obtaining something that they would otherwise want to. I don't believe it implies any idea about what we should read.
Safia said:
Do the scenes themselves really determine what emotions we "should" emote? Each persons reaction to a given scene would seemingly be different, I don't think it's that an event holds an emotion in it that is transferred to us when we see it.
honeydevil
Active Member
SillyWabbit said:
i believe you, but i personally think it is a different feeling to feel helpless as a victim and feel helpless to support your loved ones, or to stop the general crime!! how tall you are?? 1,80 m? it is just an awful feeling as a little girl to lie there while somebody does things to you, you can't stop, you know, it is different for a 2 meter guy!!!
no offence, please!!
Sitaram
kickbox
This thread is of interest to me.... I keep trying to compose my thoughts, but am being called away, so I shall post this reminder to myself, and return here in a bit, to edit this and add my thoughts...
One thought, which I want to elaborate on later. It is in Plato's Republic, in one of the early books, I have the passage reference elsewhere. Someone is passing by the place of public execution, and struggles with his ambivalence; torn between revulsion at the carnage, and a morbid desire to look. The urge to look wins out, and he curses his eyes saying something like "There, you win! Have your fill of looking at this dreadful scene!"
One thought, which I want to elaborate on later. It is in Plato's Republic, in one of the early books, I have the passage reference elsewhere. Someone is passing by the place of public execution, and struggles with his ambivalence; torn between revulsion at the carnage, and a morbid desire to look. The urge to look wins out, and he curses his eyes saying something like "There, you win! Have your fill of looking at this dreadful scene!"
namedujour
New Member
Perhaps you personally do. However, if you happened to wander into discussion forums when the Kobe Bryant case was going full swing, you'd be disturbed and dismayed, listening to the men.Wabbit said:
I was angry and disgusted.
When people have the cover of anonymity, their true selves are revealed. The men called the victim a number of names, the most flattering of which was "whore." The "c" word was used most often. They got their biggest laughs finding new and imaginative derogatory terms for her, and attacked anyone who suggested they should be a little "kinder" (I took all kinds of abuse because I went in there swinging). They described the things someone needed to do to her, to "punish" her for bringing Bryant to trial. They were exceptionally descriptive, stomach-turning, vengeful, painful and evil things they were wishing on her.
So, when a woman is a victim of rape, she mostly hides it. Why set herself up for a psychological rape as well? The Kobe Bryant trial probably set rape back 50 years in the minds of women who might otherwise have stepped forward to tell police they were raped.
I think in some respects men don't view women as entirely "human", since they can wish that kind of pain on them, or be completely insensitive to it when it's brought to their attention. In some respects, that insensitivity "dehumanizes" men, at least in the minds of women.
There are exceptions, of course. I just never saw them on those boards, and I haunted them, looking. Because it was important to me to find it. And I didn't.
pwilson
New Member
I haven't read her books either, but have heard the same complaints.Sitaram said:
The reason I mentioned this in the first palce was that I recently finished reading Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I felt his didactic rants took away from an otherwise interesting novel.