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| - The tendency of movies to depict the villain's associated armies, tribes, barbarian hordes, and bands of mercenaries as being prone to raping the women of a town they're overrunning, while the armies, tribes, barbarian hordes, and mercs that are working for the hero are usually clean of this particular atrocity. Often a case of Values Dissonance. Behavior that was often tolerated or even approved strikes us as horrifying and disgusting and reserved only for the villains. Dead Baby Comedy may invoke Aren't You Going To Ravish Us? As this is a rape trope, No Real Life Examples, Please
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| abstract
| - The tendency of movies to depict the villain's associated armies, tribes, barbarian hordes, and bands of mercenaries as being prone to raping the women of a town they're overrunning, while the armies, tribes, barbarian hordes, and mercs that are working for the hero are usually clean of this particular atrocity. It would preclude all audience sympathy to portray a heroic character as having a tolerance (or even worse a taste) for forcing himself on captive women. A protagonist may have other character flaws that reveal him to be a Badass, or a hard-bitten hero. He may plunder the enemy's gold, burn the enemy's crops, torch the enemy's buildings and may visit bordellos, but in most stories there will be no rape or tolerance of it in his outfit. Rape will be forbidden, and malefactors will be dealt with. Movies that involve historical generals, chiefs or warlords will generally treat it as a given that they didn't tolerate such things, unless such leaders are the villains of the work. Sometimes the all-too-common occurrence of officers who did disapprove being limited in their ability to control their men will be shown, since it still leaves the hero sympathetic. Although we'd never tolerate it from a hero, rape remains one of the many depraved behaviors we may expect from a villain. Villains being villains, rape while pillaging will still be the order of the day when the evil enemy soldiers attack a village full of protagonists, and will be used to underline exactly how ruthless and vile The Enemy is. Individual mooks might be above this, but an army full of them ... not so much. Often a case of Values Dissonance. Behavior that was often tolerated or even approved strikes us as horrifying and disgusting and reserved only for the villains. Also possibly symptomatic of The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Whichever side we the audience are supposed to identify with is simply going to be assumed not to do that sort of thing, whatever their attitude to other atrocities. Too many subversions go to the opposite extreme, painting whatever era or world they're set in as a No Woman's Land Crapsack World, which is an oversimplification at best, sometimes outright Demonization. Modern audiences like to be told that they're much more civilized than their ancestors, even if their ancestors have to get varying degrees of Historical Villain Upgrade in the process. History itself is often taught this way, as well, because it's useful to whatever ideology dominates an educational system to try and show how much better the ideology has made things since the Bad Old Days. This trope is probably not going anywhere. There's no shame in audiences demanding minimal standards of conduct from characters courting their support, and writers are wise to remember this. Having pirates that act like pirates, or Vikings that act like Vikings would alienate the audience, which is something to be avoided with far more care than historical inaccuracy. Dead Baby Comedy may invoke Aren't You Going To Ravish Us? See also Politically-Correct History and Historical Hero Upgrade. Subversions often involve Historical Villain Upgrade, Crapsack World, No Woman's Land. As this is a rape trope, No Real Life Examples, Please Examples of The Women Are Safe with Us include:
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