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I would, without igniting the gender debate again, disagree with the assertion that grimdark novels are solely mechanistic in their approach to violence, or that a focus on the emotional context in which violence occurs, makes it less horrifying. I'd say the opposite.
And unlike Harlequin, with whom I otherwise agreed, I like some of Abercrombie's books because I thought his writing was full of voice and because the violence had an emotional context that made it feel more real to me. I didn't find the descriptions of battles or torture dry and mechanistic at all. I've no idea how accurate or realistic they would be from the viewpoint of someone who has been through these things, but they felt real enough to me because of the viewpoint character's investment in them. It wasn't just about the splatter, though I thought some of the latter was beside the point and more than was needed to get the point across. It's not the blood and guts that makes something horrifying to me, it's the effect they have on the characters.
Actually, one of the more horrifying torture scenes I remember in a novel was in one of the first Elric stories I read where he's at a banquet where someone is being tortured as dinner time entertainment, and Elric is bored. The fact that someone could be bored with something so awful as watching a man be fed his own liver was rather troubling.
One of the most disturbing rape scenes I ever read was of a woman raping a young man (in Cherryh's Cyteen). The long-term effects on his psyche (PTSD) was handled well, imo, as was the fact that he couldn't tell anyone, because this woman was powerful and had a very special, protected status in her society (actually pretty spot on with regards to all the sex crimes coming out now). I don't actually recall how graphic the sex part of the scene was, but it was the emotional impact that stays with me as a reader.
And unlike Harlequin, with whom I otherwise agreed, I like some of Abercrombie's books because I thought his writing was full of voice and because the violence had an emotional context that made it feel more real to me. I didn't find the descriptions of battles or torture dry and mechanistic at all. I've no idea how accurate or realistic they would be from the viewpoint of someone who has been through these things, but they felt real enough to me because of the viewpoint character's investment in them. It wasn't just about the splatter, though I thought some of the latter was beside the point and more than was needed to get the point across. It's not the blood and guts that makes something horrifying to me, it's the effect they have on the characters.
Actually, one of the more horrifying torture scenes I remember in a novel was in one of the first Elric stories I read where he's at a banquet where someone is being tortured as dinner time entertainment, and Elric is bored. The fact that someone could be bored with something so awful as watching a man be fed his own liver was rather troubling.
One of the most disturbing rape scenes I ever read was of a woman raping a young man (in Cherryh's Cyteen). The long-term effects on his psyche (PTSD) was handled well, imo, as was the fact that he couldn't tell anyone, because this woman was powerful and had a very special, protected status in her society (actually pretty spot on with regards to all the sex crimes coming out now). I don't actually recall how graphic the sex part of the scene was, but it was the emotional impact that stays with me as a reader.
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