Forum - View topic

EP. REVIEW: Maria the Virgin Witch

The "conversion" of Martha' felt rather shoddily done. The whole scene feels a bit rushed for a major development in what's been a significant plot-thread of the series. She was getting medicine from Person A, which helps her, then she gets medicine from Person B, which apparently helps her as well, so she's quite happy to believe Person A was evil when she's told so? There's probably a logic in there somewhere and the scene could definitely have been made to work, but the rather cursory treatment in episode 8 just didn't convince me.

Rogueywon wrote:

The "conversion" of Martha' felt rather shoddily done. The whole scene feels a bit rushed for a major development in what's been a significant plot-thread of the series. She was getting medicine from Person A, which helps her, then she gets medicine from Person B, which apparently helps her as well, so she's quite happy to believe Person A was evil when she's told so? There's probably a logic in there somewhere and the scene could definitely have been made to work, but the rather cursory treatment in episode 8 just didn't convince me.

To me it felt more she realized the pressure that was being applied to her by the bishops. If she didn't denounce Maria she knew she and her family would be on the wrong side of the Church. Not that she instantly had a change of heart and now believes Maria to be the devil.

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

It makes it more objectifying because making her rape into a transaction does much more to take away her personhood.

You have this completely backwards.

Objectification:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In social philosophy, objectification means treating a person as a thing...

According to the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, a person might be objectified if one or a selection of the following properties are adhered to:

Instrumentality - as a tool for another's purposes: "The objectifier treats the object as a tool of his or her purposes"

Denial of Autonomy - as if lacking in agency or self-determination: "The objectifier treats the object as lacking in autonomy and self-determination"

Violability - as if permissible to damage or destroy (Violence): "The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into"

If the goal of a rape existing in a narrative is to "make the rapist evil to the audience," the action becomes completely created for and focused on the characterization of the "bad man," which absolutely objectifies the victim. The woman in this case becomes a means to an end, a "thing that happened" to paint another character as evil, only mattering as a victim or consequence of some other person's actions. "She" could be anyone. A woman that's assaulted to show that a rapist is EVIL is very directly being treated as an object by the story.

The action becomes a commentary on the despicable nature and lack of humanity of the rapist.

Chibikangaroo wrote:

However, when it becomes transactional, it becomes a more direct commentary on the perceived lack of personhood of the victim. Here, we have a man of God and another dude entering into a transaction, logically deciding how and when she will be raped, as if she is just some piece of meat being traded in the market.

YES. This is de-objectification, not the reverse! This is a story grabbing you and directly telling you "Isn't it awful that this person is being treated like a thing? Isn't it awful that these two complex, partially sympathetic dudes are considering this?"

I thought that perhaps the haze was indicative that the "medicine" she was under had left her in a susceptible state. The church did not really give her some miracle cure but actually something that had dulled her pain and clouded her mind (a drug).

Also, episode 8 marks a break with the historical realism that the show has gone with for its non-magical elements so far. The depiction of medicine is completely wrong, both in its effectiveness and in how it is administered. I'd accepted that a witch's medicine could sit outside those rules because of magic (the witches have, so far, sat alone outside the "realistic" world). But given that a major point of the series is that the Church doesn't actually have magic itself, the Bishop's medicine should have no such power.

Rogueywon wrote:

Also, episode 8 marks a break with the historical realism that the show has gone with for its non-magical elements so far. The depiction of medicine is completely wrong, both in its effectiveness and in how it is administered. I'd accepted that a witch's medicine could sit outside those rules because of magic (the witches have, so far, sat alone outside the "realistic" world). But given that a major point of the series is that the Church doesn't actually have magic itself, the Bishop's medicine should have no such power.

How is it wrong? And what power do you think it's showing? It's not like they didn't have medicines at that time which could help certain kinds of ailments.

And I don't think you guys are giving Martha enough credit. She knows Maria well, and she's not a fool. Given where her gaze is tracking, the flash to a saddened Maria, and the way the birds fly off, her "I understand" is an indicator that she realizes that the Church can no longer be openly refuted if she wants to consider the well-being of her family. (That is definitely historically accurate, too, as the waves of witch-burnings in Europe get underway not too long after this point.) The direction here is actually very specific about how it is framing the scene.

How is it wrong? And what power do you think it's showing? It's not like they didn't have medicines at that time which could help certain kinds of ailments.

Not necessarily. The shows that Gabriella gave, for example, are ones where the victim of the attempted rape (or the actual rape) is one of the main characters. This is often the case. The two girls in SAO and Satsuki from KlK are fully realized characters that are integral to the plot and in some instances, drivers of the plot. They aren't just random faceless, nameless girls thrown in for a quick scene so they can be raped just to show how evil the bad guy is. If you wanted an example of something like that, you could look at the girl that Galfa has sex with when he pisses off that knight. THAT would be an example of a throw-away girl who was just put in there for the sole purpose of being a sexual tool. The examples we were talking about however involve victims who are important characters. Usually the audience is made to identify with them and sympathize with them. Their personhood is strengthened in the aftermath, whereas the villain's humanity is stripped away.

The difference is that, when it becomes transactional, there isn't the same ratio of: Villain humanity going down, victim humanity going up. In the transactional situation, the villain is portrayed as simply doing something he/she has a right to do, as they would have a right to sell some livestock or buy some grain (or in the case of this show, buy a prostitute.) As for the victim, it's not a question of their humanity going up as it is that their humanity is totally stripped away. They aren't a person, they are an object. Again, this is the essence of objectification.

I don't agree. The story isn't grabbing us and directly telling us how awful it is. If that were the case, we wouldn't see the two guys as partially sympathetic. We would see them as totally evil. You are drawing your own conclusion about what the story is telling us based upon your interpretation, not based on anything that the story is directly telling us. The only thing we are directly being told is that these two guys appear to have the legitimacy to decide that Maria is a possession of sorts and that they can stand there casually deciding when and how she will be raped. When they do that, there is no bolt of lightning that comes down from the heavens and strikes them dead. No evil music plays. They don't twirl any mustaches. They are portrayed as completely rational businessmen entering into a business transaction.

@Kangaroo

I really think you're taking it way too far, and honestly you are the only one that feels like Maria being treated as something less than a person is actually the show's message. I still don't get what difference does the so called "transactional rape" means, it is another horryfing method villains commonly use to destroy the protagonists, just like killing their parents, or friends, burning down their village, and it's there to make us really feel the villain is doing the evil thing, Bernard's case probably strikes stronger since it is shown as an abuse of power rather than an unhealthy and creepy lust on Maria, I don't even see Galfa being happy or glad that he is going to rape a witch.

I mean, yeah, fantastic, you deconstructed what basically Bernard is doing, but you're interpreting it as if the show is supposed to have that message and it's obviously it is not. You're just putting Bernard in the position of the protagonist (the one we should root for, which is actually Maria) instead of the villain and taking the wrong conclusion out of it.

With Galfa and the other woman in episode 5 , you can tell much more about how these issues were managed in those years (about honor, property of women [Galfa clamored that while he seduced her, she accepted him by free will to have sex for one night] and how Galfa treats the knight and her after that, in a "dat sucks but I don't care, that's how things are", and therefore, the rest of the world) and it was a Galfa episode destinated to define Galfa and from the point of view of Galfa and Joseph, not the others (you don't see either the knight killing himself).

If your view of conflicts are "if you try to analyze one side [villain], then you detest the other [victim]", well, I disagree for obvious reasons. Just because villains have a motivation behind their horrible actions, it doesn't mean they are not wrong or "geez, victims, don't blame them so much".

What... So unless a scene and characters are like what you said, is going to be "justifying rape now the victim doesn't matter"? 1-It's a crime motivated by hate and revenge, they explicitly said it. 2-Galfa calls Bernard a devil when he proposes that and he excuses it as he can, just look the framing and music back then. Unless you want a cartel in screen saying "THIS IS WRONG, THIS IS WRONG", I don't know what you mean, the show is so blatantly obvious about it, it's like whenever you see a bully beating a kid somebody said "oh no, bullying is wrong", it goes without saying. If your solution is "make the rapists totally evil monsters with nothing that would drive a character with hate and revenge to such acts, just because rapists spend all day raping and saying how evil they are and will be for eternity, or else you are justifying their actions", well, then I'll just say I completely disagree and that doesn't help to analyze and trying to solve an issue that is more complex than "villains and victims".

Don't you realize you are just making my point? You are saying again and again that the woman who Galfa had sex with in that episode was completely objectified and had no purpose in the story whatsoever other than be used sexually by Galfa and for Galfa's development.

Straw man argument. This was never argued.

Hey, Hope was the one saying the show was directly saying they were evil and doing the opposite of objectification. My point was that she is wrong.

The narrative is framing Bernard as an evil hypocritical slimeball as hard as it possibly can, and Galfa as a tragic victim of his own ambition. They're not good men, but even bad men don't sit around going "bwa ha ha, I enjoy being evil." Even bad men do what they believe to be right or justified in some way. It's your part as the viewer to see this and say "They're wrong. This is wrong."

I think you are correct here that the story is intending us to see this scene as a sort of mafia type situation. . . However, I don't think that is a good explanation about why Martha doesn't set them straight after Bernard leaves.

I could go into a lot of detail here if necessary, but the medical practice of the time was not so big on taking medicine. Prayer and letting blood (via leeches or incision) were more common. Where oral medicine was administered, it was likely to be a purgative (in which case, Martha would not be lying sweetly in bed but would be busy being... erm... messily biological). The idea that you take a pill or drink a liquid that makes you better is a modern one, in Europe at least.

If a minor role or being in the story because of other character is being objectified, that would mean 80% of minor characters in fiction are because they are "tools for the plot or characters". Which I'd understand if she was the only one, but the knight is as much as her so it's not only her

Then what do you mean with "transactional rape is wrong because it portraits the villains as doing something they have the right to do"? Assuming you don't mean the show supports that message, then it's the characters who think that, and that's the point, we learn about how their mindsets come to the conclusion and why it's wrong.

Bad men =/= Totally evil nothing-good men. About the sympathy thing, nobody is like "ohh poor misguided men, I would do the same in that situation", it's "well, I know now why their mindset would go to that conclusion, even though it's totally wrong and despicable", and the simpathy aspect comes from their previous grief and lives being ruined before, not their despicable actions afterwards.

After she has sex with him, she becomes a non-actor and disappears completely after the fight.

I don't recall saying anything about transactional rape being "wrong." I said it is more objectifying of Maria. It's not as if there is a certain type of rape that is right vs wrong. All of them are "wrong." I am only speaking to the effect that this "transactional" type has on Maria's character. I think it objectifies her more than normal.

We have none of that kind of depth with Bernard and Galfa, so I am not seeing where the sympathy is flowing from other than the pure fact that their decision to rape Maria is so business-like, and people find that less galling than if one of them were lusting after her.