All The Tropes

Rape and Revenge: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Rape and Revenge (view source)

Revision as of 04:27, 8 April 2014

231 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (categories and general cleanup)
m (Mass update links)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|''This woman has just [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition]]... but no jury in America would ever convict her!''|[[Tagline]] for ''[[I Spit Onon Your Grave]]''}}
 
The character, or someone close to the character, has been [[Rape Asas Drama|raped]]. And now it's time to settle the score. It might develop into a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] or [[Axe Crazy]] vigilantism, but it might also take a far more sophisticated turn.
 
Of course, the rape doesn't have to technically be rape. It could be a ongoing case of sexual harassment or stalking that finally make the victim snap. However, due to [[Double Standard|Double Standards]], this narrative is [[Double Standard Rape (Female Onon Male)|normally limited]] to female characters.
 
The revenge can be divided into three kinds:
Line 27:
== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''Salaryman Kintaro'', the titular character's blind girlfriend is raped and badly beaten. Kintaro, the leader of a badass gang, [[Sarcasm Mode|calmly and rationally]] decides to lead his gang on a driving rampage through the city. Scaring every other gang in the city into joining him, the rampage ends with ten thousand gangsters against the entire police force. When the rampage eventually stops, 3 men claim to be the rapists and are willing to take the punishment. However, Kintaro reveals that he knows it's not them. After a stirring speech about remembering this day, he peacefully surrenders to police.
* In ''[[Berserk]]'', Guts took violent revenge during his childhood on a pederast soldier named Donovan. Guts was raped after his adoptive father Gambino sold him to Donovan for the night. During the battle the following day, Guts followed Donovan when he ventured away from the main group and [[Unfriendly Fire|brutally]] [[Cold-Blooded Torture|killed him.]] In addition, his vendetta against Griffith in general after the Eclipse has very heavy undertones of this, given {{spoiler|[[Rape Asas Drama|what Griffith did]] to his [[Love Interest]] Casca right in front of him, and [[Mind Rape|the way it all but mirrored Guts' own traumatic childhood experience]]}}.
* Suboshi tries to rape Miaka in ''[[Fushigi Yuugi]]'' because his [[Love Interest]] Yui was raped {{spoiler|or so she thinks}}, and blames it on Miaka for not answering her calls for help and obsessing over Tamahome, whom Yui also liked. {{spoiler|In actuality, the only reason Miaka didn't help Yui was because she couldn't ''hear'' Yui from outside of the book after changing out of her school uniform.}}
* ''Words Worth'' has an [[Played for Laughs|absolutely hilarious]] take on this: highlighted in the exchange between [[Lady of Black Magic|Maria]] and Prince Astral; wherein, she blasts him twenty years into the future, and utterly devastates him, in a fit of rape-induced rage.
Line 36:
'''Maria: (snide grin)''' "You actually think I enjoyed having some nasty Shadow man [[Buffy-Speak|thingy]] inside me?! Heh, you must be crazy! Now you bastard, turned beast, I'll remove you from this world forever, [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch|and EVER!!"]]<br />
'''Maria: ([[Power Echoes|ominous echo]])''' [[Kamehame Hadoken|"Mystral Window!!"]] }}
* In ''[[Narutaru (Manga)|Narutaru]]'', {{spoiler|after the infamous "test tube" incident at the hands of [[Alpha Bitch|Aki]] [[Complete Monster|Honda]] and her vicious [[Girl Posse]], [[Lonely Rich Kid]] Hiroko Kaizuka gets her hands on one of the series Shadow Dragons and proceeds to take violent revenge upon the Girl Posse in what proves to be her [[Start of Darkness]]. The absolute worst death of the entire rampage is reserved for Aki Honda herself, who gets raped with the Shadow Dragon's clawed finger before being ripped in half}}.
 
 
Line 42:
* In ''[[The Authority]]'', Apollo is subdued and then raped by a member of a government-sponsored superteam given the directive to neutralize The Authority. In a later confrontation, this same super is paralyzed from the waist down by Apollo and the last we see of him is a look of horror on his face as The Midnighter, Apollo's boyfriend, stands over him with an evil grin, holding a rusty, but operational jackhammer.
* At the end of Chuck Austen's heinously ''bad'' Church of Humanity arc in ''[[X-Men|Uncanny X-Men]]'', we find that this entire arc was an elaborate revenge scheme headed up by the leader of the aforementioned church, who was previously a Catholic nun who'd been raped by a priest and wanted to destroy the Catholic Church in retaliation, annihilate mutantkind just because she hated them, and set herself up as a sort of messiah to prove her importance all in one fell swoop.
* In the ''[[Batman (Comic Book)|Batman]]'' comics, the vigilante Pagan got her start by extracting violent revenge on the men who raped her sister (who later committed suicide).
* ''[[Fables]]'' makes this Snow White's backstory. Yes, the Seven Dwarfs.
 
Line 55:
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* ''[[The Brave One]]'' - after being brutalized by a gang of thugs (who also kill her boyfriend and steal her dog), the protagonist gradually turns vigilante.
* In ''[[Kill Bill (Film)|Kill Bill]]'', one of the "sidequests" is to murder the guy who raped her while she was in a coma. The main storyline (and the backstory of one of the antagonists) also have heavy overtones of Rape And Revenge.
* As does the movie and manga that it draws inspiration from, ''[[Lady Snowblood]]''. The title character's mother was raped by four men who murdered her family, and she took revenge upon the first one before being caught by the police and thrown in prison. Upon the title character's birth, her mother charged her with the task of completing her vengeance by killing her other three tormentors.
* This is also the trigger event of the ''[[Joshuu Sasori (Film)|Joshuu Sasori]]'' series, another influence on Kill Bill. Matsu is seduced by a detective, who persuades her to go undercover in a nightclub run by Yakuza he's targeting. Then he engineers a tip-off, resulting in Matsu being captured and gang-raped, purely so he can then catch them in the act of raping her. She tried to kill him and fails, leading to her imprisonment; her desire for revenge is what keeps her going.
* The [[Exploitation Film]] ''[[Thriller a- A Cruel Picture]]'' (aka ''They Call Her One-Eye'') is about a young woman who is abducted, given heroin until she develops an addiction, and is forced to prostitute herself to some rather rough clients. For some reason, her captors [[Fridge Logic|give her plenty of free time to herself]], so she learns how to fire a gun, drive a car, and [[I Know Karate|perform martial arts]], allowing her to ultimately take revenge against her tormentors.
* ''[[I Spit On Your Grave (Film)|I Spit Onon Your Grave]]'' is built entirely on this trope and does it [[Up to Eleven|quite over the top]].
** Wes Craven's ''[[The Last House On the Left (Film)|The Last House Onon the Left]]'' is often compared to ''[[I Spit On Your Grave (Film)|I Spit Onon Your Grave]]'', as it is thematically similar. Although in this case, two girls are raped and murdered, and it's the parents of one of the girls who take vengeance. The [[R Emake]] is slightly different.
*** Remarkably enough, ''Last House on the Left'' is an Americanized, contemporary version of [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''The Virgin Spring'' (1960), which has the story in a medieval setting.
* ''[[Ms. 45]]'': "A shy and mute seamstress goes insane after being attacked and raped twice in one day, in which she takes to the streets of New York after dark and randomly kills men with a .45 caliber gun." - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082776/ IMDB] plot summary.
* The [[Dirty Harry]] movie ''[[Sudden Impact]]'' has Harry investigating a series of murders by a woman out for revenge against her rapists.
* In ''[[Gran Torino (Film)|Gran Torino]]'', the main character makes friends with a girl, who is later raped by gang members. He gets revenge on them by sending them to jail {{spoiler|at the cost of his own life}}.
* The French film ''[[Irreversible]]'' (2002): two friends of a girl called Alex brutally kill her rapist. {{spoiler|[[Mistaken Identity|But they don't.]]}}
* The fantasy movie ''[[Red Sonja (Film)|Red Sonja]]'' has this as the basic premise... With the added fantasy element of a female deity manifesting to heal the character after the violation, thus making her ready to become a hero.
** While not being the main plotline in the same way, this is also an important part of the backstory for the comicbook character that the movie is built on.
* The title character of ''[[Hannie Caulder]]'', who trained under a retired gunslinger to get revenge on three vicious outlaws who murdered her husband, one of whom raped her. After almost getting killed in taking down the first bandit due to hesitation, when she finds the second bandit, the one who raped her, she lays into him with utter rage, blasting him straight to hell.
* How about ''[[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo]]''? {{spoiler|Lisbeth Salander}} takes a brutal retribution against her rapist.
* Another [[Exploitation Film]], ''[[Axe (Filmfilm)|Axe]]'', also features this trope as a central theme.
* Examples with male victims are ''Vulgar'' and [[Troma]]'s ''Father's Day''.
* In ''[[Descent]]'', the main character Maya is raped at the beginning of the movie. This act was done by someone who was initially a [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|nice guy]] and potential love interest. Cue the inevitable downfall of everything that was right in her world. That is, '''UNTIL''' she {{spoiler|invites her rapist back over to her place. He thinks he's coming for a good time, but she has other plans in mind: [[Rape and Revenge|having him tied to a bed and raped by another man]] while she watches with utter hatred in her eyes}}.
Line 86:
* In ''[[Tess Of The D Ubervilles|Tess of the D'Ubervilles]]'', Tess murders Alec, who deflowers her when she was young and later forces her to become his mistress to save her family from financial ruin. Now it's ambiguous how consensual (if there was any consent involved) their first "sexual" act was, but it was clear that Tess had a vague understanding of sex and even rejected his initial advances. It's implied out of despair she becomes his mistress soon after the rape (because Victorian standards would stipulate she belongs to him) until she finds the courage to leave him. Then, Tess later becomes Alec's mistress a second time to save her family, then she fiercely murders him, not just to be with the husband who abandons her, but because Alec clearly wronged her.
* In ''Dirty Weekend'', the protagonist Bella is a shy little woman who have been stalked by a [[Always Male|predator]] for a while and finally [[Axe Crazy|snaps]]. Her "revenge" is of the slippery slope kind, eventually including a man who merely politely flirted with her.
* In the third book of the ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|Twilight]]'' series ''Eclipse'' it's implied that this trope happened to {{spoiler|Rosalie. It's not outright stated that she was raped, but at the very least she was severely beaten and later killed the guys who did it, which included her ''fiance''}}.
* In the first book of ''[[The Millennium Trilogy]]'', one of the main plotlines is the female protagonist getting revenge on a man who had raped her. This remains one of the underlying themes in the whole trilogy, {{spoiler|as it turns out that she had been abused during her childhood as well.}}
* In the book of ''[[The Bible|Genesis]]'', Dinah's brothers kill Shechem (and all the men in his village) after he "lay with her by force," or "subdued her," or "violated her." Their father was not impressed.
Line 93:
* [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Heralds of Valdemar|Vows & Honor]]'' stories has Tarma becoming SwordSworn to go after the bandits who murdered her entire clan, gang-raped her, and left her for dead.
* In [[David Eddings]]' ''Regina's Song'', One girl of a pair of identical twins is raped and murdered, {{spoiler|inspiring the other to hunt down and messily murder sexual predators in her search for the man responsible}}.
* In ''[[Strands Of Starlight]]'', protagonist [[Blessed Withwith Suck|Miriam]] is raped by a man whom she has just [[Healing Hands|saved from the brink of death]]. The entire plot revolves around Miriam's thirst for vengeance and the lengths she is willing to go to in order to get it, including being transformed into {{spoiler|an [[Our Elves Are Better|Elf]]}}, learning [[Took a Level In Badass|swordsmanship]] and eventually {{spoiler|[[Took a Level In Kindness|letting her rapist live]] after using magic to [[Mind Rape|change his personality completely]] }}.
* In ''Medalon'', Jennifer Fallon's first book in the ''Demon Child'' trilogy, the female protagonist is repeatedly raped and forced to keep quiet about it for the sake of the man she cares about. Then of course, her rapist decides to threaten ''him'' instead. [[Berserk Button|Really. Bad. Move.]] Two books later, she ''properly'' gets revenge for what he did to her. By that time she's a [[Physical God]] who became a [[Magnificent Bastard]] by taking down an entire religion, rearranging the political landscape of an entire continent, took another god to the cleaners, and still had time afterwards to set up an entirely new form of governance for her home country. Let's just say that the words [[Fate Worse Than Death]] have seldom been more suitably applied by the time she's done with him.
* In [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''Epitaphs of the War: 1914-1918'' this chilling epitaph is written:
Line 101:
So it was learned among the heathen hosts<br />
How much a freeborn woman’s favour costs. }}
* The climax of ''Is-A-Man'' by [[JTJ. T. Edson]] has Annie Singing Bear taking revenge on four Mexicans who raped a member of her tribe. She kills three of them and the fourth, who shows cowardice rather than fighting her honourably, she castrates.
 
 
Line 112:
* The plot of season 5 of ''[[Dexter]]'' centers around {{spoiler|Lumen enlisting Dexter to help off the people who raped and tortured her}}.
* The very title of an episode of ''Hunter'', which has McCall being raped and Hunter being shot (after he beats up the guy) by a foreign diplomat who is protected by immunity. An incensed Hunter follows the man back to his country, kills him and escapes.
* Renee Walker of ''[[Twenty Four|24]]'' stabs her rapist [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|15 times with a table knife.]]
* ''The Judge'', a 30-minute syndicated courtroom drama that aired in the late 1980s, had a case where the litigants -- three college-aged students, a man and two women -- were involved in a cycle of rape and revenge; all three claimed "he/she raped me over and over again." In the end, Judge Franklin (the show's main protagonist) was appalled and scolded them all ... and was so disgusted that he refused to end the proceeding with his standard "be good to each other" tagline.
 
 
== Music ==
* The entire point of "Janie's Got a Gun" by [[Aerosmith (Music)|Aerosmith]].
* And "Crow Jane" by [[Nick Cave]] and the Bad Seeds (several times over).
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nugXkgd_-84 Caleb Meyer]" by Gillian Welch.
Line 128:
 
== Theatre ==
* [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Titus Andronicus (Theatretheatre)|Titus Andronicus]]'' has this in spades.
 
 
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/882193"