Trigger Warning and Spoilers
The Poison of Power
Worth the Candle book 5 has a really, really good sex scene. It’s never really erotic, but incredibly impactful and meaningful instead. It slowly ratchets up the discomfort level over time, getting more and more into a bad situation, without showing an outright terrible scene. Most importantly, I think, is that what happened was unintended and complex.
Bethel didn’t realize that she was being transgressive and raped2 June, who in turn was torn on this himself. He did partially enjoy it, even if it caused severe emotional and psychological damage. He even felt bad about making this visible to others, so he hid it away, tried to make Bethel think that he liked it, that there could be another time. Didn’t bring it up to anyone for a while.
(For context, Bethel is a sentient magic item that can be any shape that sort of constitutes a house but she also has many more powers beyond that, including just having attained the power to manifest a human-like body that she can fully control and feel bodily sensations through)
Power
Part of the reason this turned into rape is because Bethel has previously shown no compulsion to exert threats of violence and follows through on any threats she makes. She’s also quick to anger and lashes out easily.
This is already bad in itself, but beyond that, she also has enormous amounts of power. Within her large sphere-of-influence she can kill basically kill anyone instantly, or, take her time and have them suffer in a myriad of different, gruesome ways. She has enormous amounts of power, but anything but absolute power comes with risk:
In Ch.167 (Beached) things start escalating. June tells the others what happened, that he’s felt terrible over the last few days, particularly when he’s in Bethel’s proximity, that he doesn’t feel safe anymore. This crossed a line for Amaryllis and plots to kill Bethel start immediately.
“It was Amaryllis, wasn’t it?!” [accused Bethel]
“Primarily? Yes”, said Valencia. “This is the watershed, the moment that distinguished between being able to live within you and not. She could put up with threats so long as those were idle threats and violence so long as it was directed against the right targets. I wouldn’t frame it as her waiting for a reason to act against you. I would frame it as an eventuality that she had hoped would never come, and yet you’re here”, said Bethel.
But these plans don’t get made as an extreme overreaction, not because they don’t want to use other paths, but because Bethel has large amounts of power over them. The fact that she’s brutal, as well as quick to anger and lash out, makes this only worse.
And any attempts at talking to Bethel, to confront her with what she’s done wrong, that she’s forced her will onto others and hurt them – just like all the people that have abused her all this time ago, are too likely to result in the death of those who try to talk to her.
And once you realize this, larger measures have to be taken.
“I would never hurt him,” said Bethel. “He knows that I never would.”
“He doesn’t know you wouldn’t hurt him,” said Valencia. “When you pushed him back onto the bed, he was thinking about what escalation would be like if he fought harder […]. If he struggled, you could overpower him. If he screamed, you might cut his vocal cords. He had Prince’s Invulnerability, but you could have wiped it away in an instant. If you had wanted to, you could have unmade the door to his room and locked him in there, never to see the light of day again unless you willed it, unless he did as you told him to.”
“What course of action did they propose instead?” asked Bethel. “It was between destroying you, capturing you, or fleeing entirely”, said Valencia.
It’s not just that power corrupts, but that it also poisons relationships.
Large power differentials mean that one side cannot feel safe, which poisons the relationship, creates a barrier that will always enforce some distance.
Large amounts of power in both sides doesn’t quite eliminate that. Just because you now have mutually assured destruction, doesn’t make for a good relationship.
The Conversation
Yet, despite all this, Val takes the risk of a (potentially gruesome) death upon herself, eats a devil to boost her insights and diplomatic skills, and talks to Bethel.
I also really liked this chapter (168: Hollow), how she managed to slowly make Bethel understand how what she has done, even if it’s understandable how and where she went wrong and that it wasn’t ill intend, wrong. To have her admit to her errors, to show that trust has been broken, that it can be rebuilt but that it takes time. Why June isn’t the one talking to her and why he hasn’t. Why he needs time. That she needs to keep her distance.
That not just this incidence was a problem, but how each show of violence, each retelling of murders she’s committed against abusers and those that followed, each threat-as-joke, each little misuse of her vast powers all added up. All contributed to this.
“Fuck!” Bethel swore. […] “He should be the one here telling me this.”
“He’s afraid of you now”, said Valencia, “over the last few days he’s been thinking of every threat you’ve ever made against him, every description of murder and torture you’ve regaled him with, and it has steadily been poisoning his opinion of you even more than it was right after you had sex.”
[…]
“I didn’t exercise power against him”, said Bethel. […] “I didn’t hurt him in the slightest; […]. I never suggested that I would, and I never said that I would.”
“When people exercised power against you, was it always with a threat?” asked Valencia. “Sometimes they would tell you to do things, and you wouldn’t know how they would react if you said no, even if you said no in a deferential way. Even if you had your own good reasons, even if you were perfectly compliant in all other ways.”
I also liked how briefly Bethel’s paranoia and trust issues showed through:
“You were sent here to manipulate me”, said Bethel, eyes narrowing.
[…]
“You’re suggesting that he lives somewhere else”, said Bethel, crossing her arms.
“I am”, replied Valencia. “More to the point, I’m suggesting that you leave the Isle of Poran”.
“This was the plan all along!”, said Bethel, “this spring cleaning, the promise that the Tung would have a place to go for a week, even this time away on the beach, even the Locus being removed from me”.
“No”, said Valencia. “Juniper wanted a private conversation with the Locus.[…] The Tung were temporarily removed for your benefit, at your request, and everything else was simply kismet”.
which really is another topic, but a past relationship has shown me how ingrained suspicion comes at an enormous cost to relationships.
Bethel reacts really well here, accepts what Val is saying and not delving into things conspiring against her.
A scene I really liked
(This is all one continuous scene from Ch. 167: Beached, I’m just adding comments on what I liked about which parts)
I like how she pivots to not just reassure but really making it clear that she’s on his side on this, so he knows and feels that he can relax on that front and doesn’t have to have his guard up
“Shit,” said Amaryllis. She pulled back slightly and allowed her furrowed brow to relax. “I’m doing this wrong, I’m not – Juniper, I love you and care about you, and I want to support you in whatever way helps you get through this. Let’s get that clear, before anything else. I’m in your corner.”
“I know,” I said, but it still felt good to hear.
“Good,” she replied. “I don’t want you to forget that.” She let out a breath.
On the complications of “fault” and responsibility
“You feel responsible, I understand that. But it’s on her, not on you.”
“It’s a little bit on me,” I said. I could see the places where I was soft when I should have been firm, where I might have led her on, the way my no had been a weak one, the fact that there were pros and cons, not just cons. I should have been stronger.
“You said no,” replied Amaryllis. “She didn’t listen. So far as I’m concerned, that’s where the conversation on culpability ends.”
“That’s a hard line,” I said.
I like how she’s refocusing this on how he’s dealing with this right now, as well as the going along with him not liking certain kinds of questions anymore
Amaryllis nodded. “I don’t think that we should be talking about criminal justice right now. How are you doing?”
“I’ve always hated that question,” I replied. “I got asked that a lot, after Arthur died.”
“Sorry,” said Amaryllis. “I just … I care about you. You’re my best friend. I thought that today was going to lift your spirits, and I didn’t realize that it wasn’t just malaise.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry,” said Amaryllis. “It’s not your fault.” She paused. “Do you also hate when people ask you if there’s anything they can do?”
“A bit,” I admitted. “Only because there’s so rarely anything that they can do.”
“You’ll let me know?” asked Amaryllis.
Appendix
Extracting quotes from audiobook
I’m listening to the book, rather than reading it. I know there’s a free version available, but it’s a bit hard to find the exact position easily and the audio version might have received editing. 3
To get the quotes easily, Whisper Flow was really helpful, it already pre-formats things and could partially distinguish between which parts were direct speech and what was just narration.
Previously I recorded using my laptop and had it transcribe using the API for AssemblyAI, which is good but takes much more effort plus the recording isn’t as clean in the first place.
Thoughts on the word “rape” and its usage
I have complicated feelings towards this word since it’s very black-and-white. Whilst it’s easy to draw a clear line: if there’s no consent4 then it’s rape.
But at least to me this term has incredibly heavy weight, which makes it unclear how to use:
To maintain the weightiness of the term, only the most clear-cut unambiguous, worst cases should be called ‘rape’. Anything else dilutes it, makes it less heavy, makes it less of an extremely terrible thing.
But then this makes anything-but-the-worst-cases not be rape… and therefore hard to talk about. We need concept handles to discuss things.
So, the alternative is to call anything that crosses the line ‘rape’, which makes it easier to call out things that are not OK (even if they’re not the worst-case scenario). This is important, but the term is incredibly charged, so it will elicit defensiveness.
Law has ‘manslaughter’5 and ‘murder’6, which is a great distinction and I think we need something vaguely like this to discuss rape better.
One word to discuss bad, beyond-the-line but unintentional situations. A word that isn’t nearly as strongly charged and respectively makes admitting, acknowledging, or bringing it up easier.
And one word word to describe when this was done intentionally, maliciously, etc.
Footnotes
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I hide this to avoid spoilers, but also in case just getting reminded of concepts can trigger bad states in them. ↩
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I have complicated feelings towards this word, see this section ↩
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(this is just post-hoc, I actually just didn’t think of it bc I’ve been doing this workflow of recording and transcribing my bookmarks of audiobooks where this wasn’t an option) ↩
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except, there’s also consensual non-consent (CNC) ↩
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voluntary manslaughter is e.g. homicide in the heat of rage
involuntary manslaughter is criminal negligance leading to someone else’s death ↩ -
1st degree murder requires premeditation (or police murder or felony murder)
2nd degree murder is “an intentional act with malice aforethought but lacks premeditation”For both footnotes: findlaw.com ↩