posted 02-07-2010 10:53 AM               

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Give me room to cast my eel spear and let follow what may.

posted 02-07-2010 02:00 PM            

cheychey he did seem upset, but they did seem to grow closer towards then end and perhaps Liir felt a some kind of responsibility or even gratitude towards her, which was multiplied when the baby was born, and born green. Liir was clearly upset when he thought there may have been something between Candle and Trism, maybe he was jealous of her and not of him? but there are still feelings.

Personally I am not rooting for a relationship between then but I do have big hopes they will both appear in the 4th book.

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This is my signature.

posted 02-07-2010 08:16 PM            

But, if you calm down for a moment, I will try to explain the situation a little better. Candle was forced to care for Liir and she was also locked in the room with him by Yackle. Firstly, it seems to me she was guiding him out of the darkness with her music, bringing him back to life. She noticed different chords affected him differently and she was running on instinct. She realised that times were becoming desperate and while she panicked, Yackle locked her in, freaking her out more. She didn't know what to do, she took off her dress to try to signal for help and lost it out the window, then, she lay on Liir, like something told her too, and she had sex with Liir, like something told her to, or she like she just 'knew' it was what she had to do.
Now, She couldn't just have had sex with Liir just because she wanted to, Liir would have had to have become aroused. Maybe this was what she took as a sign of what to do, who knows. He was still unconscious so yeah, it's still rape. But the sense I got from this section of the book was that it was destiny. Great powers were at work and Yackle knew what would happen and that it was what was required to bring him back to life.

Once life settles for Liir and he isn't on the run, maybe he can go into therapy **joking** What about philosophy club in Wicked? Did this enrage you as well? You kept reading and I can't see how this scene in SOAW is

posted 02-09-2010 02:22 AM            

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This is my signature.

posted 02-10-2010 07:56 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by cheychey:
First of all, I read the book. Second, the intention of my post is stated (I won't summarize it for you). Third, yes I think it's gross to say that rape is necessary, or that Candle's magical vision of spiritual specialness is relevant to the fact that that she did something horrible that people are saying is okay. That's not an overreaction.

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Yes. It is. Gosh. Candle was only laying on him to share his body warmth. Evrything els just happened; she followed her instincts. And it DID save Liir's life. We know that from how he--how do I put it?--didn't die. Candle was only making him remembr his past all the way back to the present, leading him from his deathly coma, and the sex just happened to be what pushed him back into Life for sure. I'd understand your being upset if, say, Liir was angry at Candle, but he's not, so yeah.

Elphaba Lives!

posted 02-17-2010 08:54 PM            

Elphaba Lives!"

posted 06-21-2010 08:19 PM               

[This message has been edited by rhymes with (edited 06-22-2010).]

posted 07-03-2010 05:50 PM            

Think of it this way: if Liir had been concious (but still unmovable and dying), do you think that he would have told Candle to rape him to save his life? Or do you think he would said no and let himself die?
I don't think he would have given up. Or maybe he would've?

I wanted to add that Candle had NO experience with medicine. There were herbs and such in the cupboard, but she had no clue what to do with them. So what were her choices again? Instinct, or let Liir die.

"You can't leave," said Mother Yackle. "There's no one else here to do what needs to be done."

[This message has been edited by History (edited 07-03-2010).]

posted 07-10-2010 06:15 PM               

History, I hope to God that you don't apply this sort of logic to real life situations. This is just disgusting if you actually believe it to be true.

Not to mention that the legal definition of rape in every decent country does include sex with an unconscious person.

I am very dismayed to see Candle's rape of Liir excused by so many here. I don't think she should be seen as a completely awful person--in addition to the factors others have mentioned, she was young and probably not taught not to do such things. But that doesn't mean her actions weren't wrong.

posted 07-11-2010 06:25 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Fiyercrow:
"Now the definition of rape is forcing someone into having sex. I think that because Liir was unconcious, he was not forced into doing it, so therefore it was probably not rape."

History, I hope to God that you don't apply this sort of logic to real life situations. This is just disgusting if you actually believe it to be true.

Not to mention that the legal definition of rape in every decent country does include sex with an unconscious person.

I am very dismayed to see Candle's rape of Liir excused by so many here. I don't think she should be seen as a completely awful person--in addition to the factors others have mentioned, she was young and probably not taught not to do such things. But that doesn't mean her actions weren't wrong.

As someone else said, if the genders of the two characters were reversed, we probably wouldn't even be having this debate.

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Oh my, are you taking this way too seriously or What? And besides that, we all know Candle saved his life. Again: she Saved His Life. The ends justifies the means...well, sometimes...and this is one of those times. (The Life and Times, that is. *winkwink*) You wouldn't be pointing the Big Red Blame Finger if she, say, saved your life. And besides that, Liir would've most probably been a virgin his whole life if candle didn't do what she did. He should be mucho grateful. (Im joking of course. )

And now, back to Kiamo Ko! BOOM! **disapears in a puff of purple smoke**

posted 07-11-2010 08:09 PM               

There is no such thing as taking the issue of rape "too seriously."

I know someone who was raped. Others around her tried to make her feel responsible for this by excusing the rapist's behavior. "How can it be rape if you let him into your room and kissed him?" said the doctor who she trusted to take care of her when she couldn't stop bleeding. Others echoed these sentiments, and the guilt and shame she felt because of this victim-blaming made her so depressed she eventually made not one, but two suicide attempts. This is not rare, as anyone who knows anything about rape victims knows.

"How can it be rape when Liir got an erection/was attracted to Candle/was asleep/didn't feel violated/when it was DESTINY," say you people. Can you, for one second, put yourselves in the shoes of a rape victim or their loved ones and think about how such justifications would make you feel? How it would completely trivialize and diminish your own experiences, how it might make you second-guess whether what happened to you was really all that wrong, and that maybe you're the one at fault for being too weak and stupid? And that after going through an experience where your agency and power is completely taken away, being further disempowered by having your experiences denied and told you're taking it "too seriously?"

Now obviously my friend's experience and Liir's are different in many ways. But that doesn't make Liir's experience not rape. Whatever justifications exist for it, it still meets both the legal and the moral definition.

I can maybe buy the idea that Candle's rape of Liir saves his life, although I think that is somewhat of a dangerous message. Yes, this situation is likely not to come up in anybody's real life. But the fact that so many here are justifying it in other ways (it's not rape because he's asleep?!) is what worries me. I can't let sentiments like "It's not rape if the victim enjoys it" stand, and that's a totally separate issue from just the book itself. History was speaking generally, not just about the book. I don't entirely hold this against Maguire, because I think he presented this as a complicated issue and simply had the characters react, rather than make a judgment. He probably expected people to be a little bit disgusted at Candle's actions, even if they understood the purpose and didn't think it made her an awful person. But I do think it would have been helpful for him to make Liir feel a little more violated, or at least have somebody point out the wrongness of the situation, because clearly there are some readers out there who don't understand the legal and moral definition of rape, and that is a sad and dangerous state of affairs. It truly worries me.

"And besides that, Liir would've most probably been a virgin his whole life if candle didn't do what she did. He should be mucho grateful. (Im joking of course. )"

I don't care if it's a joke, the idea that dying a virgin is worse than being raped is atrocious and not at all funny in a world where people make excuses for rape every single day.

posted 07-12-2010 08:51 AM               

To me, the key difference is that the Philosophy Club scene was presented as something to get outraged over. The tone was one of disgust. The audience is clearly not supposed to see what's going on here as acceptable.

With Candle's rape of Liir, it's a lot more complex than that. The tone is not that clear, nor is the author's intent. Again, I don't want to criticize Maguire too harshly on this, in no small part because I recently met the man and he was just as awesome and kind as I'd hoped he would be. But I think when writing about rape, there are some responsibilities one has. Maguire knows that literature has the power to shape our perceptions, so we can't just say "It's just a book" or "Oz is not our world." That's more insulting to Maguire's work than any legitimate criticism would be, because it implies that what he does doesn't really matter, it's only entertainment.

What I'm trying to say is that while the Philosophy Club scene is outrageous, it is so in a good way--the scene is designed to provoke outrage and it effectively meets that goal. For those who were outraged (or, in my case, simply a bit uncomfortable, and only outraged by Internet commenters after the fact) by the Candle rape scene, it's different, because we don't know what exactly we were supposed to be feeling. Which isn't necessarily a bad writing choice; ambivalence is a worthy emotion to strike in and of itself, and one Maguire returns to over and over again in his books, with a great deal of effectiveness. But with this particular issue, I feel that there are so many people in the real world who already don't understand basic lines of consent, and that they might use this scene to justify their dangerous attitudes toward rape.

posted 07-12-2010 06:36 PM               

What a downright ignorant statement.

"I know how important real rape is and this has nothing to do with real life situations."

Again, this is more offensive to Gregory Maguire, and to every writer and artist out there, than any other criticism could possibly be.

There is no such thing as "just a book." Books have tons of power. They can change the way we see the world. Good writers, like Maguire, know this. This is part of why they write.

Maguire has said that his entire reason for writing SOAW was seeing the pictures out of Abu Ghraib, and feeling like he had to do something about it. The only thing he could do was write this story.

And you're going to tell me that this "has nothing to do with real life situations?" Yeah, go ahead and tell that to Gregory Maguire. He'll laugh in your face.

Literature is not real life, but it does have a strong relationship with real life. The stronger this relationship, the better the literature.

The relationship between Maguire's Oz and our own world has always been strong, which is why his books have struck such a chord with fans.

That you, supposedly a fan, are so quick to dismiss the impact of Maguire's hard work by calling it "just a book" in order to win an argument, shows immense disrespect and ingratitude toward the very book you are attempting to defend. It also shows a complete ignorance of the relationship between the media we consume and our real lives.

posted 07-13-2010 05:29 PM            

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Kike Lzn
"You say Wicked like it's a bad thing."

posted 07-18-2010 09:23 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fiyercrow:
"Oh my, are you taking this way too seriously or What?"

There is no such thing as taking the issue of rape "too seriously."

I know someone who was raped. Others around her tried to make her feel responsible for this by excusing the rapist's behavior. "How can it be rape if you let him into your room and kissed him?" said the doctor who she trusted to take care of her when she couldn't stop bleeding. Others echoed these sentiments, and the guilt and shame she felt because of this victim-blaming made her so depressed she eventually made not one, but two suicide attempts. This is not rare, as anyone who knows anything about rape victims knows.

"How can it be rape when Liir got an erection/was attracted to Candle/was asleep/didn't feel violated/when it was DESTINY," say you people. Can you, for one second, put yourselves in the shoes of a rape victim or their loved ones and think about how such justifications would make you feel? How it would completely trivialize and diminish your own experiences, how it might make you second-guess whether what happened to you was really all that wrong, and that maybe you're the one at fault for being too weak and stupid? And that after going through an experience where your agency and power is completely taken away, being further disempowered by having your experiences denied and told you're taking it "too seriously?"

Now obviously my friend's experience and Liir's are different in many ways. But that doesn't make Liir's experience not rape. Whatever justifications exist for it, it still meets both the legal and the moral definition.

I can maybe buy the idea that Candle's rape of Liir saves his life, although I think that is somewhat of a dangerous message. Yes, this situation is likely not to come up in anybody's real life. But the fact that so many here are justifying it in other ways (it's not rape because he's asleep?!) is what worries me. I can't let sentiments like "It's not rape if the victim enjoys it" stand, and that's a totally separate issue from just the book itself. History was speaking generally, not just about the book. I don't entirely hold this against Maguire, because I think he presented this as a complicated issue and simply had the characters react, rather than make a judgment. He probably expected people to be a little bit disgusted at Candle's actions, even if they understood the purpose and didn't think it made her an awful person. But I do think it would have been helpful for him to make Liir feel a little more violated, or at least have somebody point out the wrongness of the situation, because clearly there are some readers out there who don't understand the legal and moral definition of rape, and that is a sad and dangerous state of affairs. It truly worries me.

"And besides that, Liir would've most probably been a virgin his whole life if candle didn't do what she did. He should be mucho grateful. (Im joking of course. )"

I don't care if it's a joke, the idea that dying a virgin is worse than being raped is atrocious and not at all funny in a world where people make excuses for rape every single day.

I hope that you all are just really young and immature, and you'll grow to realize that your attitudes and beliefs about rape are completely wrong before you ever have the chance to act on those beliefs.

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Where do you come from? Where do they make people like you? (Is it FuddyDuddyLand?) I want to go there and start a riot, just to bother everybody.

posted 07-18-2010 06:25 PM               

I'm quite surprised to see this sort of "Dude, you're harshing my mellow" response on a "Wicked" message board, of all places. The book is about a passionate activist who speaks her mind, fights injustice, and understands the power of words. And History's comment was at least as offensive as "Animals should be seen and not heard." Think to yourself, What Would Elphie Do? OK, probably something more effective than send an anonymous message board comment. But still, she'd be pissed.

As for your comment "I don't think she meant it like that," I don't really understand how the sentence "I think that because Liir was unconcious, he was not forced into doing it, so therefore it was probably not rape" can mean anything other than what it says. If you have an alternate interpretation, I'd be interested to hear it.

WitchBoy, you quote a comment of mine in which I reveal something very personal--that a friend of mine was raped and tried to kill herself because of the incident--and your response is to call me a fuddy-duddy and express total disbelief at my position on this issue? Why don't you go see the Wizard and ask for a heart and a brain, in that order.

posted 07-18-2010 07:21 PM            

This rape happened in a story, in a fantasy story. It's not something that happened at a party, or in the stairwell of a building. It is not a real scenario. In fact it's not something that is likely to happen is it? This is why people's attitude towards this part of the story might be somewhat 'relaxed'.
It is horrible that your friend was raped. I am disgusted that you use it to fuel your opinion. You are using your friend’s misfortune to make people around here feel bad about themselves, when they have done nothing wrong. People aren't laughing at Liir or at Candle or at rape. They aren't running round saying how hilarious rape is, so I really do not understand why you have set up your soap box here. If you want to speak out about rape, why not go to places where people ARE making light of real rape cases?
In regards to the story, this scene is important, not because it was rape, but because it was written in a way that leads the reader to believe that Candle saved Liir's life. It is implied, by what Yackle says and because of the results of Candle's actions that it was meant to be. Because this is a fantasy story, who is to say people would react differently if Liir was the one to bring Candle 'back to life'. This was not a vicious, violent act. It was not a power struggle, or an animal act. This was a mysterious, mythical happening that is profound and confusing and wondrous. But most importantly, it is mystifying, we don't know how or why it worked, but it did. It is within the theme and the tone of the book. This really is not a story for young people, but I do not believe that GM is in anyway glamorising rape.

Now, if you want to make yourself useful, why not find "The World According to Garp" forum and start brow beating those members. Or as previously mentioned, The American Psycho forum where BEE does in fact glamorise and make light of violence towards women and rape. Go find a REAL cause, a real case of rape, a real injustic and go beat those people around the head with your opinions and leave these kids alone.

posted 07-18-2010 08:45 PM               

I'm sorry, but if someone truly believes that having sex with unconscious people isn't rape, then I don't know what would stop that person from actually committing such an act.

And even if History herself wouldn't do so, other people who see such views expressed and accepted might come to believe they are true, and commit rape against an unconscious person.

Let me make this clear, since see I haven't done so yet: I am not saying History is a terrible person. I am not suggesting any action be taken against her. I am saying, wholeheartedly, that what she said was wrong and dangerous and worthy of getting pissed over.

Muse1176,

I have explained numerous times that my outrage is not directed at the scene itself, and that I can understand and accept Candle's motivation, so I don't know why you found it necessary to once again defend this part of the book. I get it.

And as I have also already explained, History was not just commenting on this part of the story; she was making a general statement about rape. The way it was worded clearly suggests that it applies to real world situations, not just fictional ones. That is why the argument that this is not about real life fails.

The belief that it can't be rape if the victim is asleep is a REAL PROBLEM, one that is very much worth fighting. But thanks for telling me to find a "real cause." Why do you assume I haven't? I comment on real instances of rape all the time on other sites.

My intention was not to make anyone feel bad about themselves or "beat people over the head with my opinions." That would be useless. My intention was to clear up a very dangerous misconception, so that no one reading this comes away thinking that it's OK to have sex with an unconscious person. My intention is to do what I can to prevent rape. There is nothing wrong at all in pointing out the experiences of my friend in order to meet that goal. Some good might as well come out of that tragedy.

I am glad that most of you disagree with History's statement. But if that is so, then I do not understand how I became the bad guy in this situation. Is the idea that it can't be rape if the victim is asleep simply wrong, but not wrong enough to get angry about?

posted 07-18-2010 10:41 PM            

Calm down, that's all they were trying to say. Maybe you point might have been clearer if you had.