Discussion Just because it is fiction, doesn't mean it is alright

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by herosaver, Jan 10, 2021.

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  1. herosaver

    herosaver Active Member

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    Recently I've been read many novels and mangas and realize that SO SO SO many of them are toxic! They are filled with rape, abuse, killing, and loving the ML all over again. After reading them, I am just SHOCKED at the treatment and characterization of the female lead and male lead. Moreover, I am more shocked at the comments that say that it is work of fiction so people should not get too hunged up on them. But like ... these characters and their actions in these novels are perpetuating SEXIST views!

    For example, I once asked my friends (guys & girls) if when on a date, do they split the bill (assuming hetero relationship). And not surprising my guy friends said, "No. I just pay it because I'm a man." While the girls said, "Sure why not. If we both ate, I don't mind splitting the bill." However, when I asked if it would be more romantic if a guy paid for it all, not to my surprise again, the girls answered that "Yes" it would be more romantic.

    This situation is just a super small scene that happens in so so so so so so many novels. However, it is always hidden. For example, RICH OVERBEARING CEO takes poor little girl to the MOST EXPENSIVE RESTURANT in the city and then pays everything for her. She is unhappy about being dragged here (this is when she still doesn't love him back) but is happily eating the food and thinking nothing about splitting the bill since "he dragged me here and it's a waste to waste good food. He is rich so this makes it all right."

    While I understand that in this situation, to the CEO it probably isn't much for him to pay it all (since he dragged her too) but to then just helplessly accept it? Why? Couldn't you have NOT let him dragged you? Couldn't you have walked away even afterwards? Couldn't you have eaten and still split the bill? I get that you might see like you are undermining him and his wealth but ... he did drag you here did he not? Do you really need to care about his self-esteem at the moment?

    These subtle scenes and ideas play out so much in real life and perpetuate them into sexist views. As when I asked my friends, while the girls were fine with splitting the bill, they also thought it to be more romantic to have the guy pay. Guys also understand this too so that is why they feel so pressured and forced to pay for dates to set the mood.

    Scenes and ideologies like these are spread throughout these novels entirely!!! From cheating and abusive partners to making them just low self-esteem lonely individual who needed MC's (girl) attention so MC should forgive and forget ML past actions. Etc.

    One of the most angry moments I've read in these novels are when you read that MC (girl) was raped by ML. But of course ... they dodge that bullet real quick. No mention of MC being traumatize and heartbroken. At most, she is only angry for a bit, and then ML buys her tons of food and stuff and then she is happy since they are in love.

    But this is SOOO toxic. Rape is NEVER okay. Even if you both are in love, you should still address this. Letting toxic behavior go un-notice and un-talked about will only let future ones be the same. In these novels, I never understand why and how the female MC are not talking about being raped by ML? Are they afraid that he will leave them if they talked about it?

    If so, that is a problem. If talking about a harm (possibly crime) that the ML did to MC leads to the ML flipping out on MC and leaving her, does the MC really want to be with this kind of ML?

    Anyways, this idea is present in SO SO SO SO SO many novels, and in real life you've probably seen and heard many things similar to it. Where girls stay and forgive their cheating, abusive, etc. boyfriend. (this is not to say their are other circumstances as to why they stay but that the ideologies within these novels as serve as a belief into supporting them to stay). In these situations, the girl always justifies or completely ignores and is unaware of their partner's toxic behavior. (additionally the guy in the relationship also doesn't view his action as toxic. Novels influences both guys and girls. The guy probably thinks "this is okay. I was just angry at the time. I did that because I just loved her so much. Let's just wait for her to cooldown and I'll buy her a gift blah blah")

    Anyways, my point is that novels and other media work, even if they are fiction, can still be DANGEROUS! While they may not be directly the cause of dangerous behavior, by constantly and through many many many times showing these type of scenes and messages, we start to normlize and okay them: "Oh, novel started out with MC (girl) being raped by a drunk handsome CEO ML. Okay. To read or not ... well he is handsome and she is pretty so let's continue. I know they will be happy in the end anyways."

    Like this ... is not normal BUT it is sad that it is common. We read rape scene and now we become numb, we simply categorize it as "to read or not to read" when I feel that we should be truly disgusted and horrified that this ROMANCE novel starts with a rape scene. Instead, we have normalize it so much and categorize it as "oh well, just another rape mc novel turn true love".

    But of course, some might say that they feel that way about rape in novels but not in actual life ... however, rather we know it or not, upon reading so so many of these novels we are becoming ever so slight more and more desensitize to rape situations. To the point where we still feel that rape is wrong but it is not to the same as murder as an outsider involved in real life rape situation. Instead we just think, "poor victim to have gotten rape. Rape is horrible. I hope justice is served." (this is not to say everyone is at this level of concern when it comes to rape, but the majority of outsiders in rape situations that I've seen have had this perspective. To them, rape is surely wrong. But not as bad as murder and such ... I hope I am making sense here."

    And where did this idea come from? From novels, movies, and media. Both fiction and non-fiction ones! Anyways, I believe authors should be accountable. Drama, profit, and fiction are one thing but at the same time acknowledgement of their work being read and instilled into people's lives are another thing. People are reading them and even if they are fiction work meant to be enjoyed, many many messages are being sent to readers as they read them and so to just dismiss it that authors work hard (they do!) and so we shouldn't hold it against them ... that is not taking responsibility.

    However, I don't want to just be a complainer, so here I would have a suggestion to authors who want to still include these type of situations in their novel. Please make spend some time on the victim overcoming these challenges. MC was rape, MC needs to realize that and find a way to come to terms with it. MC can't just brush past it and ignore it forever as it is lost in the novel's flash back text. MC needs to confront ML and address it and then, depending on the author, make MC respond. Also, it can't be just MC gets angry, pouts for a few days, ignores ML (but still living with him), ML waits quietly for her to come around. ML does nothing (or buys her something she has been really wanting) and then MC forgives him. (or the extreme route, ML saves MC after almost dying so MC totally forgives and forgets being rape by ML before). I know this is hard but that is the responsibility that comes with including dangerous topics like rape -> love. It sells because readers understand that if MC is able to overcome rape and then love ML, it is romantic. And the reason it sells is just that, rape -> love is really really really HARD! So authors who include it in their work should understand this too.

    Anyways, just my thoughts. In this post, I am not targeting for blaming anyone. I just wanted to address what I've read and point out the aftermath of these works in real life.
     
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  2. Shio

    Shio Moderator Staff Member

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    I think the dangerous things are the 'dragged' part and 'no is just another way of saying yes' mindset.

    Those novel are brain-dead, and there's no point in promoting them by complaining about them.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
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  3. otaku31

    otaku31 Well-Known Member

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    I have said it before and I'll say it again: it's ultimately the reader's responsibility to clearly recognize and separate fiction and IRL. I've also heard that nowadays after a work has been published, it's no longer the author's "intentions/views" that hold primacy, but the readers' own interpretations that give meaning to it... the so called author accountability has been diluted.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
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  4. Mr.Tiemos

    Mr.Tiemos Clifford’s Big Little Cousin, Loves Hugs

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    OP’s been on a Chinese Novel/Manga track!
     
  5. lucjanssens

    lucjanssens a very ¨rabbit¨ bunny

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    they do that because it is easier than writing real romance
    you know, with real character development
     
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  6. Sabruness

    Sabruness Cultured Yuri Connoisseur

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    Ahh, this probably brings a bit of nostalgia to many NUFfers. Someone who is just unable to comprehend the sheer insanity of rapey ML psycho novels and feels the need to vent before their head explodes.

    @herosaver dont worry about it. I think most NUFfers have gone through this phase where you just want to bang your head against something in protest at a genre and type of novel that perpetuates such toxic attitudes yet is so popular with the very demographic which is demeaned.
    then again, look at 50 shades. that's popularity proves that the delusion of being treated as a thing by a rich, powerful, handsome psycho man is way too appealing to some women.

    TL;DR: Welcome to the club. here's your card, complimentary t-shirt and brain bleach to cleanse your mind after all the garbage MLs
     
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  7. TDDM

    TDDM Well-Known Member

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    I honestly don't like stuff like that and i mostly don't read stuff like that. But you also have to realize that they say if its fantasy its okay. But if it were novel based on real live ther could be almost the same plot and evil with exceptin of the fantasy parts like magic. And also it's how peopole were raised yea we should try to brake those sterotypes but we should do it through stuff like school education, parenting and media at young age so that people understand it from young age.
     
  8. runsing

    runsing status : bleeding, health -10/s Novel Updates Staff

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    author A take ideas from what he hear/read/watch/experienced in real life.
    added to that, he also read these type of publication,
    combined, he then put them into his own story.
    author B use their own experience, as well as reading author A's work
    author C
    author D

    you get the idea.

    if ppl didn't change irl, the novels never will.
    it's a neverending circle, really.
     
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  9. ATrueStory

    ATrueStory Villainesses, Historical Shit, Noble Circuses

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    yeah, it's called the death of the author trope
    link https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfTheAuthor
    Funny its a troupe on its own.

    As someone who writes for a living, I am not entertaining these kinds of opinions (and I think the majority of my colleagues and acquaintances can relate) until these same people experience how to write for other people. They think it so easy stringing words together and we could do it in our sleep. That's just the writing, not yet the pitching. Some rando thinks every material has to be ground-breaking or unique or different. Guess what? there are more people who want the formulaic stuff even it offends people. I don't understand that just because I write for a living, I have to abide to some rando's morals. If I create a character, I can kill that character or make him/her suffer as I wish.

    Sure, readers have their opinions. But if you're writing for a living, it's not just some readers' or the masses' voices who matter. Publisher's voices matter. Marketing people's voices matter. Actual critics' perspective voice matter. Client's voice matters. Unless you're paying for my work, didn't pirate my material or actual literary critic, you're just a random online who like to read and never will write the stories you like.

    Ever heard of creative license? I bet you don't,
    And for the nth time, yes, authors, writers or scriptwriters are not accountable for fiction writing.
     
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  10. herosaver

    herosaver Active Member

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    This is why it is dangerous, for now, we are saying "oh just another MC being raped by the handsome ML. Eventually it will turn to true love." are we going to be in the future "oh, just another child being raped by the handsome ML. Eventually it will turn to true love." ... normalizing everything just because it is fiction.
     
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  11. Rakshanu

    Rakshanu Immortal Ero

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    Worst is, a large number of these CEO/Rape them all MC authors are women...

    So women... enjoy writing stories.. which demean women to nothing more than a tool for sex, used by ML whenever he wants to do it whether or not the woman wants it and a treated like a stray animal you can hit and abuse anytime.... for WOMEN readers... who enjoy them.

    So I say,
    Achievement Unlocked : Self Destruction

    And the young minds who read all these without much experience, think its okay to rape women into submission and abuse them or women themselves think, big bad men who rape them and then buy them stuff are perfect husband stuff.
    We murder our society on our own, no need of aliens.
     
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  12. herosaver

    herosaver Active Member

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    True ... but I believe some work should never see the light of day. But like you said in the end, people will always talk. So as a reviewer all I can do is WARN people about dangerous plots in novels that I believe it dangerous and leave low ratings with an explanation for those who care to read. It's up to them if they want to read it or not.

    This post was more to ask authors to reconsider their work, they have the power to do whatever they like, kill off characters and make characters suffer rape and abuse by their own moral standard yes, but to say, doesn't matter to me what other's think. I do what I want, when what you want can potentially harm others in their thoughts and ideas ... that is just wrong.

    Of course, you can do whatever you feel like, just hopes the ideas in your novels don't one day get back at you. I guess it is easy to write rape -> love when you've never been raped before. Empathy ... such as hard thing ... I don't wish for rape for anyone but if authors want to write something so horrible and tramuatic in real life and the trivialize it in their novel, they should first experience it and then see if they can trivialize it as they wrote.
     
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  13. Lydia

    Lydia Well-Known Member

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    I agree with your underlying views; there are actions and thoughts one will be willing to overlook when it comes to fiction that they would otherwise condemn in real life and I’m of the same mind: “If it is not accepted IRL, why accept/choose to ignore the depravity just because it’s a story?!”

    People seem oblivious to the fact that this is exactly how desensitisation works. Exposing yourself to flawed and questionable story lines over time will still influence you whether on or a small-scale or a much deeper level. Eventually it starts to erode what you consider to be “normal/acceptable” behaviour. If the wider population takes on this attitude, it’s highly likely it could result in a subversion of right and wrong (imagine a thousand people who think stealing is not wrong and a hundred people who think otherwise, overtime the hundred people will be more likely to change their views in order to fit in, the so-called herd mentality) - that’s far too risky to brush aside. It’s one thing to have a niche or low amount of such works in the market - you know everyone has their own preferences no matter how debased it is - but there’s a remarkably high level of them; novels are now over-saturated with r*pe/abuse/exploitation of minors**/racism, etc. I really don’t think “oh it’s just fiction” should be the leading argument against those who question the why of it all.


    **there’s an entire culture of media, games, movies, etc. geared towards paedophilia, for example, especially in Japan (think “shota/loli-con”), and no one there bats an eye or even speaks out against it because it’s “part of their culture”. It’s really sickening.
     
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  14. herosaver

    herosaver Active Member

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    As you've said, many of the authors writing these are woman, yet they wonder why are men so toxic? Hard to say when you write romantic novels normalizing a ML who can rape and abuse you with the justification of love. When you write a ML who can chain a girl to the wall because he suspected her of cheating.

    I get that we should seperate fiction and real life but do these events not happen in real life? Do guys not rape and abuse women with the justification that it was out of love? Do guys not find ways to chain (whether physical or metaphorically) women due to anxiousness about them cheating on them? How many women have died by their boyfriend because the boyfriend felt jealous and afraid of ever being seperated from their girlfriend?

    Like in real life, women always say men are trash and toxic but ... most ideas of romance and ideals of being man comes from media like novels and movies. Girls don't like nice and quiet men instead they like tough and strong men, but tough and strong men often are hard to control and when they lash out the woman is hurt and they cry "why are men so bad." And the way tough and strong men lash out at girls is through novel ideas "she doesn't want me if I'm weak. So I have to show her I'm strong. I can't let her walk all over me. Yep, let's lock her up and show her that I am a man!"

    ... Yep fictional work ... does nothing on real life.
     
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  15. Rakshanu

    Rakshanu Immortal Ero

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    The authors(Especially JP/CN/KR) should not have authority/control to write about rape
    9999/10000 rapes are written off as, nothing more than, oh the woman enjoyed that rape , oh the woman addicted to the rape, Rapist and victim have lovely ending.
     
  16. ATrueStory

    ATrueStory Villainesses, Historical Shit, Noble Circuses

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    You're the guy who had been advocating censorship in one of your threads and now, you're trying to guilt-trip anyone who writes something that offends you to experience a horrible thing?
    So you want people to murder or rape first before they write it? Isn't that the antithesis of fiction, the one you keep trying to tie tie to the real world?
    Just be straight and say that you want authors to suffer because you don't like what they write and even if you have every chance to ignore it, you keep doubling down your morals on people who can write.
     
  17. Rakshanu

    Rakshanu Immortal Ero

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    In the end, Authors care about money the most, and if selling their morality is the way for it, A majority of them do it without much thought.


    And you will be extremely dumb to think fiction does not effect real life.
    The fictional Weeb culture has a to major degree normalized otaku culture to a positive look worldwide, desentisized the utter disgust one normally felt for incest, Helped in homo sexuality coming out, Workaholic culture being the norm, Losing virginity as school student be the barrier for coolness.

    Fiction is the biggest infuence in current world where people from kids are exposed to it and act according to it.
     
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  18. Kawalan

    Kawalan 〚 Don't Stare 〛

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    As bad as they may be, banning or prohibiting the writing fiction of that depicts rape won't solve whatever you're hurting about, if you don't like it just don't read it.
     
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  19. Rakshanu

    Rakshanu Immortal Ero

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    No, but authors cant brush everything off, with it is just a fiction bro, we dont advocate anything - When they know fiction shapes the reality slowly.

    An author who believes his works will have no social effects is just one living in denial to escape responsibility or the guilt for normalizing horrid crimes.

    Then write it sensibly and depict what horribleness it does. Instead making it Men are chads for raping and women enjoy getting raped.
    A young child who will grow up reading these fictions in mass, will have thinking of it as COMMON, because a vast majority are published under all ages tags.

    Just because it doesn't effect your morality and mindset as an adult, does not mean it will not affect of an underaged child with not fully developed mind.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 10, 2021
  20. ATrueStory

    ATrueStory Villainesses, Historical Shit, Noble Circuses

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    Let's say I agree with you, what the punishment then?
    Breaking fingers?
    Solitary jail?
    Revoked citizenship?
    being a political prisoner?
    Confiscation of assets?

    Should I count you like him who advocates for censorship?

    I ask him the same question and @herosaver has yet to reply.
    If you are so committed to this ideal, then why don't advocate for censorship since it does the same?

    or are the same whose cat got your tongue and you don't like what exactly you're advocating?
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
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