Mat and Tylin (Book 7, PG-13)

[Elania al'Manir]

Did anyone else feel uncomfortable with how Tylin treated Mat? At the beginning of Chapter 29, The Festival of Birds, she straight up rapes him.

But since you wish to play roughly. . . . Hands at your sides. Move.” The knifepoint gave a direction. He shuffled backward on tiptoe rather than have his neck sliced....

[Tylin] kept him tiptoeing backward, until suddenly his shoulders bumped against something that stopped him. With that flaming dagger never easing a hair, he could not move his head, but eyes that had been focused on her face darted. They were in the bedchamber, a flower-carved red bedpost hard between his shoulder blades. Why would she bring him...? His face was suddenly as crimson as the bedpost. No. She could not mean to.... It was not decent! It was not possible!
“You can’t do this to me,” he mumbled at her, and if his voice was a touch breathy and shrill, he surely had cause....

Mat put a hand over his eyes and tried very hard not to weep. When he uncovered them, she was gone.
Climbing out of the bed, he tucked the sheet around him; for some reason, the notion of walking around bare felt uncomfortable. The bloody woman might leap out of the wardrobe. The garments he had been wearing lay on the floor. Why bother with laces, he thought sourly, when you can just cut somebody’s clothes off! She had no call to slice up his red coat that way, though. She had just enjoyed peeling him with her knife.

Tylin mentions after she's done that he seemed to enjoy himself, and hints that he's good in bed, but there was never any explicit consent. He tried to avoid her as much as possible beforehand, and continued trying to avoid her afterwards. If their roles had been reversed, we would have seen this even more so as a case of rape.

Why do you think this was included? Was it just a plotline that was supposed to be amusing, with Mat being chased rather than doing the chasing? Or was this supposed to be an actual message that men have this issue too?

 

[Aduiavas Ida]

Yeah, this scene makes me uncomfortable too, and I think it is supposed to. It shows that there is such a thing as male rape, and just the fact that this was let through PG-13 shows how little focus there is on that...

 

[Elania al'Manir]

I was on the fence calling it PG-13, but I figured that there are enough 13-year-old having sex, and if they're doing that, they should be able to talk about rape.

 

[Aduiavas Ida]

And I also think that it is vague enough so that if you really have no experience in that field, you can think they tied each other up for fun Believe 13-year-old me would not have taken these hints...

 

[Sailea Nerid]

I don't know to me it sounds like he didn't want it at first and rationally he thought it would be a bad idea but afterwards just gave up to the attraction that existed between them too This is of course my point of view. Now, I can't see this as a rape because it's not from a legal point a view...at least not according to the international law and according to the legislation of the countries I am familiar with.

 

[Elania al'Manir]

Here in the US, we've had a lot of attention called to the subject lately. Several places here have started adopting laws that say, if both people didn't explicitly say "yes," it's rape. Not saying "no" isn't the same as saying "yes."

 

[Sailea Nerid]

Well, I am not familiar with this particular pieces of legislation but knowing the basics of the USA law I suppose there is some test that is adopted in order to determine when the confirmation is explicit otherwise it does not make sense for me as a lawyer.

In our specific example, however, I believe that the 'the part of the deed that was not described' if I may say so makes the things too vague for us to really say if it was a crime or not...in this case I already stated my opinion

 

[Rhed al'Tere]

I'm on the side of it being rape.

It's been a while since I've read this book, but from what I remember, Tylin keeps Mat hostage to be her sex toy. She ties him up, starves him, doesn't let him leave the palace (or has him followed if he does? Can't remember.).

I don't think it's possible to argue that it's not because he enjoyed himself and/or wanted it...no part of the quoted passage makes it look like Mat enjoyed it. He wants to cry afterward! Furthermore, it's possible to orgasm during a rape (the body doing its thing to reduce trauma), so that's not an argument that he must have wanted to have sex with Tylin.


I think Jordan wrote this meaning for it to be amusing -- the player gets what's coming to him. And maybe, in the time it was written, it was. But now, as we look back on it, it strikes a more sour note than "Haha, look at Mat squirm!"

 

[Sailea Nerid]

Well in most countries around the world women can't be convicted with rape at all, legally I mean, although they could be for some other offences that could involve actions of such nature. My point was that in order to talk about rape there should be a general universal definition of this offence and there is no such (at least I don't know about it)

 

[Rhed al'Tere]

Isn't the definition forcing someone to have sex against their will?

 

[Sailea Nerid]

In general and for most people yes but it varies greatly from country to country. For example, the legal definition under Bulgarian law is the act of copulatory committed against a female without her consent using force or threats or taking advantage of the helpless condition of that person. So you see that only a female could be raped under our law which I do not agree with but that's how it is at the moment. In other countries, unfortunately a great number of them, marital rape does not exist *sigh* Under British law males also could raped but again there should be penetration in certain areas of the body of the victim plus, if they haven't changed it recently, females could not be convicted for rape. Another thing that varies is what a threat actually is, meaning how broad the term is and what it actually includes. So that's what I meant.

Well I suppose I see all those problems because I can't stop thinking as a lawyer but I hope I clarified my point. Also, I am sorry I am hijacking the thread but this is kind of a hobby of mine - seeing legal problems in crimes committed in a book...we used to play a lot on this back at law school

 

[Ealandrelle Melyma]

Perhaps if it was broadened slightly - so would what happened with Tylin be considered a form of sexual assault?

 

[Rhed al'Tere]

If we define rape simply as penetration without consent, then probably Tylin didn't rape Mat.

So I suppose technically it was sexual assault, as Eala brings up. Whatever you want to call it, it wasn't consensual adult activities going on.

 

[Sailea Nerid]

Again it would depend on what we understand as a consent and I am not talking about laws here. Because... (I hope I am not violating any rule regarding our younger members here if I do I will fix it immediately) my point is that I also had affairs when I didn't want to have such relations with a certain person for various reasons, like he was having bad influence on me or I knew we are not good for each other but those feelings were not directed to the act itself and being a weak person from time to time I did it and was very sorry afterwards but didn't feel violated...so I guess it depends whether Mat felt violated or just regretted it because he didn't want to get involved with her.

I read again those passages and I don't really think we have enough information to say 100% 'Aha, it's like this'. So I suppose everything depends on how Mat felt regarding the very act itself. If he felt violated I agree with all of you that it was a form of sexual assault.

 

[Kram Saman]

Oh, yes, my favourite topic recently. I always love to watch or participate when this topic is brought up regularly because of all the denial for discussion on equal terms by the "righteous" fans. If Robert Jordan wanted with this scene to grab people's attention and to be talked about, well, he achieved the goal spectacularly.
It is nice to see that here this discussion is much more tamed than usual.:clap

 

[Rhed al'Tere]

The Tumblr discussions can be quite heated.

 

[Sailea Nerid]

We are all calm and mature people (most of the time)

 

[Kram Saman]

The Tumblr discussions can be quite heated.

Please, tell me more about it. I am in the freaking center of all the heat there. Mature adults on Tumblr not even close.

 

[Rhed al'Tere]

Oh, then you already know all about it. :P

 

[Kram Saman]

Unfortunately I know very well all about it. Every freaking time I try to say my opinion, every freaking time it is forbidden to doubt ""the facts".
Same can be said for the Facebook group. This topic open the rage in people as no other else. Sometimes I wonder why I am such masochist to stick my nose in it.