First, I suppose I should specify what I mean with „redemption“, because fandom has a whole range of definitions going from „villain is written with sympathetic traits and tragic background explaing his/her actions“ via „villain confronts own misdeeds, does act in attempt to make up for them /acts to help others from this point onwards“ to „villain is proven to have been not a villain at all and accepted by other heroes as fellow hero after they apologize for ever having seen that person as a villain and/or are revealed as the true villains“ (this would be one favourite fanfic trope). Sometimes, in specific circumstances and for some people, it even seems to mean just „villain should have sex with hero(ine) and be declared their one true love to blast all other loves“. (At least some of the participants in the Spike Wars back in the day gave me the impression that this was what the meant when wanting redemption for Spike. Cough.)

As for the characters named below: my own definition of what I mean when I say that I don’t want this characters to be redeemed doesn’t include sympathetic writing, or the occasional non-hostile relationship with a heroic character. But what my definition of „redemption“ for the purpose of this list does include is for the villain in question to turn another leaf, realise their misdeeds and trying to atone for them, and it most definitely includes „villain revealed to have been right and misjudged all along“.

In no particular order, listed by fandom:

( Spoilers for Babylon 5, Blake's 7, Spartacus and I, Claudius ensue )

The Other Days

Today's fandomsecrets has, for about the fifth or sixth time that I recall, a secret involving Once Upon A Time character Regina Mills aka The Evil Queen and the fact that back in season 1, she had a non-consensual sexual relationship with a male supporting character (he was the one non-consenting). Now Regina did a lot of other villainous things (including ordering massacres), but I don't think any of them, with the arguable exception of her gaslighting her son, is brought up and argued about more. (I may be wrong about that, since I try to keep away from most OuaT fannish discussions unless I know the people in question.) Cue usual "oh no she didn't!"/"oh yes she did", as well as "if she was a male character, this wouldn't even be a question" (both from the "oh yes she did" side in the sense that a male ruler ordering a female prisoner who is revolted by him into his bedchamber would not be interpreted as anything but a rapist, and from the "oh no she didn't" side (which argues that male fictional rapists get excused all the time). In between, someone points out that Regina did a whole lot of other stuff which doesn't get argued about, and why is rape treated as the ultimate crime? Good question, and not just regarding Regina. It's the crime most often named when people argue why they can't root for the redemption of character X and/or the crime most argued to not even have been committed by X from people who want said character redeemed (or see him, and in rarer cases her, already as good).

Now I think that "more/less evil" isn't a criteria you can put on rape versus, say, murder. They're both heinous actions. But it's still worth noting that as far as fannish discussions are concerned, the killing score of sympathetic villains/morally ambiguous characters seems to bother fans a whole lot less than if their canon shows them committing, or trying to committ, a rape. At a guess, part of this is that fantasy violence (especially if the canon avoids showing much of the resulting dead bodies and gore) is easier to dissociate from real life, while rape is not. And then, there is probably the fear: "I like this character, maybe I even love him/her or fantasize about him/her, I want this character to succeed, to win, to be loved - but this character committed rape. What does this say about me? Therefore, this character hasn't really committed rape. The fantasy surroundings make it not count. Or I take the Doylist appraoch and declare it was the writers (whereas the character's other actions which endeared him/her to me in the first place were of course Watsonian and only the character). Or: the character was himself/herself a victim and so traumatized that she/he can't be held accountable for their actions. Or the ever popular: hero X did something just as bad, so there!"

I decided to do some self inventory and see which of the characters whom I like (in varying degrees ranging "mildly fond" to "love and adore") comitted rape in their canons, and how fannish discussion (if it exists at all) handles that. Let's start with the Romans, because if you are in a slave owning society, and among the owners, and also not in a show that deliberately avoids the issue, chances are that you're guilty as charged, but even so, some characters go above and beyond:

Rome: Mark Antony, definitely. One of his very first scenes shows him having sex with a peasant woman against a tree mid-travelling. I doubt he bothered to ask her first. There is also an episode in which he wants to have sex before getting out of bed, Atia is not in the mood and orders one of her slaves to accommodate him. Which btw means Atia is enabling said rape. Also a rapist: Pullo. Who is in love with his slave (later freedwoman, even later wife) when having sex with her but doesn't bother to ask for her consent, either and is shocked when finding out that upon being freed, she wants to marry a fellow slave (cue death of male slave). I'm fond of Mark Antony, Atia and Pullo. I think the only one whose actions get debated in this context is Pullo, with the argument being "but he thought Eirene was already in love with him!" and/or "different times". Well, yes, different times, and presumably he did think she was in love with him until disabused of the notion. He still didn't ask, and she was his property at the time, to do with as he pleased. The scene as shown also had her enduring, not responding, to his caresses.

Spartacus: nearly every Roman character, sooner or later, but re: the topic in question, let's stick with Batiatus and Lucretia, both of whom use their slaves as sexual toys for themselves and for other people. I don't think I've seen anyone saying Batiatus isn't guilty, but I did some some debate around Lucretia, specifically, her relationship with the gladiator Crixus. (The debate nexter brings up all the other slaves Lucretia and Batiatus use to turn themselves on at all.) The "oh no she didn't" argument usually goes thusly: she developed genuine feelings for him, then she thought he also loved her, and then there was that one time where she didn't have sex with him when he didn't want to because she was concerned for his life (plot reasons). This ignores that Spartacus isn't subtle about the whole ownership point: Crixus and Lucretia first start to have sex because she orders him to, he is her property, and the fact she doesn't insist that one time doesn't negate all the other times. (Not to mention Lucretia's reaction once she finds out Crixus loves someone else.) Lucretia is played by Lucy Lawless, and she was one of my favourite characters on the show. She's also, no question about it, a rapist. (Ditto, of course, her husband, whom I was also fond of, horrible person who he was.)

Moving on to contemporary shows with long lived characters:

Highlander: Methos, obviously. Universal fannish favourite, and for quite a while, he was mine, too. (Then Amanda overtook him.) (I still like Methos a lot, though.) He's also, no question about it, a rapist, over a really long time. And wouldn't you know, while fandom never tried to explain the pillaging part in "rape and pillage" away, or the massacring of "tens of thousands", au contraire, thought that Methos' Bronze Age raider past made him even more interesting than he'd already been, it solved the "rape" part by vilifying the surviving victim of same and/or write stories in which Methos was the one raped (by other characters), which made him so traumatized that he, da capo, al fine. Oh, and of course times were different.

Buffy and Angel: oh, the can of worms to dwarf most others, and I really don't want the discussion to end up in a reiteration of the Spike Wars, but it would be cheating not to bring the Buffyverse up. So: Angel(us): definitely a rapist, and not just in a metaphorical bloodsucking vampire way. (There are the servant girl in the Amends flashback and Holtz' wife, and the implication is certainly that there were others.) (And driving mortal Drusilla into insanity culminated in Angel and Darla having sex in front of her before Angel turned her; what do you want to bet they left it at taking her blood?) Spike: see above re: Spike Wars, avoidance of same. But even leaving out Seeing Red, he mentioned multiple rapes in Never Leave Me, which however often gets dismissed as "he just wanted to get Buffy to stake him on that occasion" (well, yes, but that doesn't mean he made that up; over at AtS, near the end of Damages, a key Spike self realization is his admittance that while he wasn't Dana's tormentor, he did do similar things to a great many other people). Darla: while we don't see her having on screen sex with an unwilling victim, she certainly gets a kick of watching her darling boy doing so. Faith: when about to strangle Xander, she sexually assaulted him as well (and he did say no repeatedly). I do like Angel, Spike and Faith, a lot. Darla is my overall AtS favourite.

Torchwood: my own assumption when watching the Torchwood pilot, in which, among other things, Owen uses a alien pheromene McGuffin to make himself sexually irresistable when going out) was that when he used it on the boyfriend of the girl he'd been hitting on, he made a quick getaway as opposed to having a threesome, so that on this particular occasion, no sex took place. However, the original intention certainly had been to have sex with the girl, who showed no inclination to respond to his overtures before he used the pheromene McGuffin. Which, yes, makes Owen an attempted rapist (and since I doubt this was the first time he used the McGuffin, I'd be ready to drop the "attempted".) Owen was my favourite TW character during the first two seasons.

Being Human: Mitchell and Hal, step forward. Definitely, like Angelus, guilty of rape in the literally sexual as well as the blood taking vampire sense. Neither of them were my favourites in their canons, but I definitely had times of being fond of both, and my Mitchell issues weren't due to him having raped people (also my Mitchell issues were brilliantly resolved by canon, but that's another story).

Once upon a Time: and we're back to Regina. Who isn't my favourite, but I like her and am certainly on board with her current storyline. In addition to being a multiple murderer, guilty of mental and physical torture on various occasions, and the kidnapper to dwarf all other kidnappers (it's hard to beat transferring everyone in Storybrooke from one dimension to another in order to play out her fantasy scenario, but Regina is also a kidnapper on the mundane literal level, see also: Hansel and Gretel, Owen), she is most definitely a rapist.

And now for the future - including the wretched Prophets of DS9 would be cheating, because while they do committ rape I never could stand them, and they're not fannishly popular, either, so they don't qualify.

Babylon 5: I was going back and thro whether or not to include this example, because it's not sexual non-con, and if you start to include fantasy metaphors, you don't have to bother to differentiate with all the vampires between literal rape and blood taking to begin with. But still: what happens in the episode Dust to Dust is a mental assault/violation which gets textually, on screen, called a rape (Bester, who ought to know, explains the effect of Dust that way in the exposition scene early on), so I'll include it. Anyway, the perpetrator, G'Kar, who hits rock bottom here, followed by enlightenment, is most definitely among my favourite B5 characters.


In conclusion: I seem to be fond of a lot of fictional rapists. (Or fictional versions of historical characters, in the Roman cases.) The fact they raped people isn't why I like them, obviously, but neither did it stop me from liking them (or prevent me from ever developing sympathy, in the cases where the rapes happen early on). Whereas I don't think there is a rapist among the few fictional characters I have a visceral loathing for, come to think of it, which presumably goes to show rape isn't one of my triggers, at least not in the sense of reacting with "I no longer like this character" or "I have to explain this away in order to continue liking this character". I think my own inner self justification for this, beyond "but they're interesting", is to keep their victims in mind (and in both Methos' and Spike's cases, write fanfiction from their pov). (The other day I came across yet another variation of "but how rude and horrid are the Charmings and the rest of Storybrooke for not wanting to have dinner with Regina mid season 2" . Err. Just about anyone from the Enchanted Forest, with the exception of Rumplestilskin who did his share to form her and besides is guilty of centuries more crimes, is justified in not wanting to socialize with Regina for the rest of their lives. ) (Though since Regina has interesting interactions with other characters, I'm glad some are around her anyway.) And not to prettify anything they've done. Especially when/if I want them to redeem themselves.

Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show

Right now, it's Spartacus. The violence is off the charts, the Zack Snyder style aesthetics for fight scenes are completely over the top, and there's just a vague nod to history now and then... but. The characters (female and male) are really memorable. As depictions of slavery go, from the slaves' pov, it's actually better than several more artistic books and tv shows I've watched. As befits a show where the central issue is a slave rebellion. And when I say "better", I mean both more honest about what it's like to not own your own body and how, once you're free, this has long term after effects instead of leaving you just fine and dandy. Even the odd nomen using English Steven DeKnight and friends came up with for dialogue has grown on me. ( "Gratitude" for "Thank you", or sentences like "Words were spoken in haste to trusted friend".) There is complete male nudity to go with the female nudity (unlike, say, Game of Thrones), and same sex relationships to go with the het ones. And they're unafraid to change their format with every season instead of, as I expected them to at first, dragging out the gladiator plot endlessly in order to have an excuse for arena scenes.

All this being said, it's still the type of show that makes you, or rather, me, feel a bit guilty for liking it. And thus: a guilty pleasure. :)


( The rest of the days )

Dear Yuletide Author,

thank you so much for writing a story for me! We share at least one fandom, and so I hope my request(s) are somewhat enjoyable to write for you. As far as general likes and dislikes go, I'm not that hard to please: gen, slash, het, any combination thereof, whatever floats your boat is fine with me. The same goes with tragedy versus fluff. I'm as prone to wish happiness upon my favourite characters as the next fan, but let's face it, sometimes the story just demands angst, misery, or even death. So whether you write something cheerful or absolutely heartbreaking or a mixture of both is entirely up to you; as long as the characterisation is good; I'm game.

As for my idea re: good characterisation: something that neither edits out flaws - and considering one of the canons I requested had the two characters I requested casually discussing their dinner arrangements while raping a helpless third party, the term "flaw" can be an euphemism with some of the characters - nor ignores layers, conflicting motivations, more dimensionality etc. I dislike vilifying a canon partner in order to bring a 'ship about, but since none of my requests lends itself to such a plot, that should not be a problem.

( Now for my actual requests: )

Encouraged by certain people of my friendly aquaintance and the fact Lucy Lawless plays a prominent role in it, I finally got around to marathoning Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (the prequel). What I knew before going in: Steven de Knight, aka he who wrote two of my favourite BTVS and AtS episodes (Dead Things and Deep Down respectively), was the show runner, Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi, the enterprising duo which gave us Xena and Hercules, were the producers, Lucy Lawless was in it, and it was supposedly incredibly trashy yet oddly compelling.

What I know now: it is indeed very trashy and oddly compelling. Imagine the most over the top Slave AU story in any of your fandoms, then maximise by ten. There is no dismemberment the show hasn't thought of and liked, the constant non-con sex is a given considering two thirds of the regular characters are slaves, and the general aesthetic owes something to 300 (going by luminosity's legendary vid, since I never watched 300 myself). What makes the end result the anti-Frank Miller, however, is that when an episode is titled Whore, this refers to the main character (that Spartacus guy you may have heard of) getting pimped out by his owners, not to one of the female characters. (Also some of the gladiators are gay, which I doubt Miller, F. would have gone for even in his better days.) Speaking of the female characters, I was promised much Lucy Lawless (in a meaty role, no pun intended), and lo, I got her. She's Lucretia, the wife of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus (aka the owner of the gladiator school Spartacus got trained in and broke out of). Lucretia and Batiatus (played by John Hannah, whom last I saw many years ago reciting W.H. Auden in Four Weddings and a Funeral) are two really well done villains, despicable enough in their actions that you yearn for their comeuppance yet also three dimensional, capable of more than one emotion (Lucy Lawless does that thing again where she can be terrifying, vicious and deeply vulnerable and tender in turn) and passionately devoted to each other. This is where the show departs from fanfic ground; in fanfic, villains capable of romantic love are usually presented as on the road to redemption, but this show in all its trashy guts and gore glory actually sees a difference between being capable to deeply love your partner (and both of them are shown as capable of giving up everything for each other when needs must while otherwise being the most greedy pair of social climbers you can imagine), and being aware the rest of humanity isn't there to be exploited to further your personal well being.

But if it had been only Lucretia and Batiatus who held my attention, I doubt I'd have managed to finish a season, let alone two. (See also: Camelot by the same network where the only character I found interesting was Morgana, which wasn't enough to keep me watching beyond two episodes.) The various gladiators and slave girls (displayed with equal opportunity frontal nudity by the show, and the perfect shapes are actually sort of justified by the plot as far as the gladiators are concerned, because that's how they make their living) make for an ensemble that grows on you (no, not like fungus), and for thematic reasons, one cliché that's utterly avoided is the devoted slave who is unthinkingly loyal to their master(s). (My favourite among the gladiators, Onaemaeus aka Doctore, played by Peter Mensah, is loyal to the school for a long time but competletely capable of having his less than respectful opinions about its owners.) While the tropes and clichés you expect from the genre (chiefest among them and indispensable in any gladiator film: ye gods, now I have to fight my dear friend!) are duly served up, there are some surprising twists (such as the widow of such a cliché who does a couple of very surprising things).

Historical veracity: err. Let me put it this way. The nastiness of what slavery (whether you were a member of the household or a gladiator) and the degradation that came with having no ownership of your own body and sexuality at all meant, strikes me as plausible enough. And Batiatus' obsession with raising his status and the Roman aristocracy's disdain do, too. But everything else, from minimal clothing in snowy Thrace to the gigantic arena in Capua which looks like something of the late Empire, not the Republic, to the bikini friendly shaved pubic hair is... questionable. Never mind, compared with the Stanley Kubrick/Kirk Douglas Spartacus, which pulls such stunts as letting an almost a century late member of the Gracchi show up in the form of Charles Laughton and gives the impression bisexuality only exists as part of Roman decadence (the infamous originally cut "snails and oysters" scene), it's downright authentic. And it avoids the hypocrisy of, say, Gladiator with its chastizing the audience for getting their kicks out of brutal violence while simultanously trying to entertain the audience by brutal violence. I'll be interested in how it will do in its third season which by plot necessity can't have any arena scenes anymore (except as flashbacks); battle scenes are someting different.

In conclusion: unabashed pulp fiction. Not a must, but if you're in the mood for extremely violent entertainment which manages to include some interesting characters, it might be the thing for you.