Torture in Fics (please read)

"By this reasoning, it should be entirely up to parents to know exactly what their kids are up to, pretty much looking right over their shoulders the entire time. I don?t think parents have this responsibility. I think that a parent should be able to see that the kid is on a Star Wars message board that claims to be PG, and trust that it lives up to its claims. I?m not saying that the kid should have the run of the Internet, and I think that parents should verify that the sites their kids visit are appropriate. But theForce.net is at first glance an appropriate site, and I don?t think most parents would think twice about letting their kid read stories on a PG Star Wars message board."


First of all your right, and second of all your wrong. A parent better know what their kids are doing to the best of their abilities, and given that they are surfering the net at home they should be standing and looking over their shoulder. I have a firm belief that parents are not that gullable (after all, they are supposed to be smarter and savvier than the kids). Glances don't mean jack even if it is Star Wars or even Barney or Disney. They need to be there, with their kids, at all times.

Someone suggested a PG-13 forum. Why not a G or PG forum? Why do authors have to move their fics from this thread based on their content because others that do not like it want it removed or banned? Why can't the ones that do not like such stories to be shared on the same forum with theirs ask for their own forum instead of beating a drum and saying certain criteria has to have it's own forum or be banned?

Of course, that's my flawed opinion. We all have them.

Honestly, and hopefully I'm concluding here, folks that do not like Obi-torture or the way others write their stories can do what other writers that have done extreme things in SW do:

Create your own website (Yahoo has a free service), post your stories there, and have an email to get responses, or open a website of your own that has a message board capability. Add your website to search engines so folks can find them. Promote to your friends and neighbors and ask them to spread the word.

Or like anyone that has a free will: don't read. It's like watching TV: don't like what's on, change the channel, or turn it off.

Hear Hear!

Sorry for the quick post...gotta tone down the violence in my next fic post

I suggest we end this discussion here before people start feeling insulted and claiming that you are implying that they read and write torture fics simply because they are not allowed to read or write sadistic porn here on the boards, and that sadism is their sexual preference because these fics appeal to them.

You've given us your reasons for asking us to only allude to torture, not to spell it out. Some of us draw the line a little more widely than you do. The admins seem to have found a compromise; they have allowed us to convey some details, but not to get too graphic, and not to have too much torture in one story, and have suggested tangible guidelines. We know what's official now, so what more is there to say?

Absolute right. It's not my place to tell anyone how to write either. And I hopefully I didn't insult folks with my points.

"Child abuse is illegel(S?)"

It's only illegel if the cops do something about it. 99.9% of children will admit they have been spanked by their parents before. And the cops and courts will say it's puishment when it could be more

"How many songs do you hear with torture in it?"

"What would you do" talks about how a girl ran away with her sister so their father couldn't rape them. But wait, that's sex.

Oh and two more things, I wouldn't stop writing the fics that I want to write because you don't think they're provable

second: I'M 14 AND I WRITE OBI-TORTURE

Since I am well-known for how badly I treat my characters and often accused of senseless, pointless torture, I'd like to say a few things.

First, Gandolf, I'd like to commend you and thank you for bringing this point up in the first place and discoursing on it so eloquently. The element of torture in any form of writing must have its limits as well as its purposes.

Now onto my comments.

I do not condone torture. Before the masses scream "hypocrite" and "turncoat," let me explain. I have read a great deal of fan fiction. I have seen countless stories in which the authors proudly proclaim it to be a torture-fic. In other words, the point of the story is not character development or exploration of a storyline and relationships, but delighting, yea, reveling in the pain of another human being, albeit fictional. I find this sort of thing absolutely apalling.

Worse, I have seen perfectly good stories ruined by the fact that authors are willing to destroy the cast of their story without explaining or possibly even knowing why.

The descriptions I just gave qualify what I consider to be senseless torture.

Now, you may say, justifiably, "what torture isn't senseless?"

I believe JediGaladriel referred to "putting them through the emotional paces" or "through the emotional wringer." This is often an apt description, because in Michael A. Stackpole's The Bacta War, Elscol says, "Nonsense. Pain is how we know we're alive."

If done right, characters are not permanently scarred by experience, but permanently shaped. I will not deny the fact that in my stories, I have explored an appalling number of forms of torture. My scenes all-too-often drive people to profanity or tears.

But, despite my titles as Sadistic Sith and Homicidal Missionary (earned for being the only person on a planning thread clamoring for the point when I could kill a certain character), I believe that there is only one point at which torture is, well, for lack of a better word, appropriate. Torture, pain, emotional crisis, or anything of the like should be used for the shaping and improving of a character, not for some perverse enjoyment.

To revel in pain is to demean it, to pretend that suffering, while something we all have to endure, is something that should be a joyous occasion. It is not and it will never be. Did we laugh when we saw the World Trade Center collapse? Did we dance for joy when Princess Diana died? I think not.

Why, then, do people flock eagerly to any mention of agony? Again referring to these tragic events, I will hypothesize that there is not one person whose way of thinking and course of life will not be, in some way, affected by it. In stories, I believe that that effect is what good authors need to be aiming for when scribing out torture. Anything more is gratuitous.

As for what my readers jokingly call "the forbidden S", I agree with anyone who wishes to keep this a family-oriented site. I am often mocked for being "squiggy" about the subject, but this is not correct. I am respectful. I recognize that the two greatest powers we are endowed with are that of giving and taking life. To deal with such power arbitrarily is the worst form of disrespect. I not only feel discomfited or even outraged by this disrespect, but I feel a lesser person for being subjected to it. I do not, by any means, respect the method of jumping into bed rather than dealing with emotion.

There's my input. Probably not worth the two cents that were invested, but it's there, nonetheless.

Okay -- it was a holiday, so I couldn't respond here, and haven't had a chance to read everything. A couple of things:

1. The question of underlying motives for writing torture fics really is inappropriate... no one lives in anyone else's head; we should deal with the surface question, which is, Are graphic torture scenes outside the boundaries set for the boards by the administration.

2. That's been answered -- if the scenes are too graphic, they don't belong. The new question is, What is too graphic?

That's a difficult question, because I sincerely doubt that people are saying, "Boy, this is way too graphic... let's see what happens when I post it." So that's something we need to discuss.

My thought, based on the passages from the published works, is that in the case of RotJ, the lightning scene would be a PG -- it mentions what's happening, mentions that it is, in fact, painful, then moves immediately into the plot of the scene, which is the Emperor's taunting and ultimately Luke's calling for Vader's help. There's not an excrutiating description of where each bolt of lightning goes, or of the Emperor aiming to cause maximum pain, or anything like that. It's allusive.

The Maul passage would be about PG13; it involves blood, so it's inherently messier, and it does mention what kind of hurt is caused... but again, as soon as it's established, the focus shifts into the plot -- what sick lesson is Palpatine trying to teach with this? Again, the reader is aware that the pain is happening throughout the scene, but the camera, so to speak, doesn't linger.

BTW, right now, no plan includes closing current threads. Finish them as they would normally be finished. We're talking about being more careful in the future.

Also, I too am 14 and have written torture. Nothing too gruesome, but I have wrote it and read torture. Doesn't affect me.

NOTE: I replied here also as ThatJediGirl.

::Bows head in acknowledgment of JG.:: I agree about the delving into mind-reading. My apologies if I've attempted it. My observations are based on experience and perception only.

Gandolf, thank you for explaining what you meant by that statement. It makes sense now

In my mind, when a writer writes sex into a story the writer is at least being completely honest, with no pretensions, about what they are writing.

Ahh, the art of mind reading...

But I still don't see torture as a replacement for sex (can people actually get aroused from reading torture? I certainly hope not...), but if that's what you want to believe, I can't change your mind.
That?s child abuse, and illegal in the US, Canada, Great Briton, and most other Western nations. Recently in Ontario children were taken from their parents because the parents refused to guarentee that they would not spank their children.

That happened in Ontario? Oh wait, Ontario in the States, or Ontario in Canada, or where? But anyways, I'm not even gonna go into the whole spanking issue. All I will say is that I don't understand how a country can make something like spanking illegal, and yet enforce capital punishment... ?

You?re joking, right? If [kissing]?s allowed in a G rated Disney film, I don?t think that anyone outside of Islamic Fundamentalist countries considers it graphic sex.

I have to disagree on that one. Believe me, it might not be as widely accepted as you think. Every culture has different perspectives on proxemics and acceptable behaviour. And although many of these cultural aspects have changed over the years from communication with other people around the world, there may still be more than one group that finds even kissing as unacceptable in public. In the traditional Chinese culture, for example, kissing isn't a normal occurance. Notice how there was no kissing in Mulan? Please don't make the discomfort of seeing people kiss seem like a horrible thing, or else you might unintentionally insult someone for their cultural beliefs.

But if you really want to compare to movies... Decapitation is allowed in a PG-13 movie. Final Destination contained many many gruesome scenes of death involving strangulation and multiple stabbings just to name a few, and it was rated 14A. Again, it's all relative...

If Writer X puts a warning that his new fic has an orgy scene, does that mean that if a kid browsing a PG forum finds this story and reads it, it?s his parents fault? Obviously not.

A child should be taught obedience, be it obeying their parents, or obeying the age warning. If they cannot obey, then it is ultimately the parents responsibility to teach them to obey. It isn't the author's fault that the child ignores the ratings.

And I still stand by my theory about the acceptance of violence over sex. It's a matter of awareness. Think back... which were you aware of first? Violence or sex?

"There is no such word ?Overscore in the English language. But in response to your question, I have a question of my own: is it necessary to actually show the torture in order for the author to get across her or her underlying message? Is the simple fact that the torture is occurring integral to the story, or is a vivid description of the process necessary? "

My apologies...overscore is not a word. I hope "overshadow" better suits your grammarcheck. And to answer your question, no, graphic torture does not have to be included in order to convey an underlying message. I suppose that personally, I just consider it an author's free choice to get meanings across. I do realize that this debate is not entirely about whether its morally right or wrong, because if it were, we'd be here forever. The underlying concern, to my understanding, is whether or not these stories should be included in a place that is considered a youth-friendly environment.

I'm not sure there can be one straight answer to that when you're dealing with something that spans internationally

The question is what level is acceptable -- I think we can all agree that there's a point at which violence becomes pornographic (not in the sexual sense; just in the over-the-top sense, or, as Josh put it "excessive in nature").

Unfortunately, there's no clear definition of where that line is (on sex or violence). The government and courts haven't done very well at figuring that out, and it's clear that there are differing opinions. We need to figure out what the standards at the board are, and stick with them.

Just got home from work here, tired and wiped out, so you won?t have to sit through one of the monster replies I?ve been giving so far in this thread. But there are a few small points I want to mention before I crash and burn tonight. I?ll try to respond to everyone later, assuming that I get the time tomorrow?


Knight Obi Wan:
?I do realize that this debate is not entirely about whether it?s morally right or wrong, because if it were, we'd be here forever.?
In my mind, it?s not about whether it?s right or wrong, but whether it is appropriate for a PG forum. I have nothing personal against torture fic or smut or slash or a hamburger or Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey, but they all have their time and place. I don?t drink myself, but I don?t believe that there is anything wrong with drinking (when someone else is driving ), but a five year olds birthday party would be an inappropriate place to be seen with a bottle of Smirnoff in hand. Teen Burger at A&W is good, Teen Burger at an International Vegetarians Convention is not. There is nothing wrong with smut, or torture, or slash, but I think all three are the domain of older readers.


Jedi-Faith
Ontario in Canada. And capital punishment is not happening here- we won?t even extradite a person if there is a chance that they might face the Death Penalty.


Casper_Knightshade
?Or like anyone that has a free will: don't read. It's like watching TV: don't like what's on, change the channel, or turn it off.?
You?re missing my point. I don?t care about Torture fic in of itself except that I find it distasteful. I find Lasagna distasteful too, but I don't try to convince restaurants not to serve it. I don?t mind smut myself. I?ve read smut stories, from Anne Rice?s books about Beauty to Dark Angels: Tales of Lesbian Vampires. But if I were to find a fic on this board with sex scenes in it like was found in say, The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, I?d have created a similar thread to protest that. It?s not about what sort of fiction I enjoy reading; it?s about what I consider to be PG.

About the ratings: I think we?re starting to get into a different topic here, artistic integrity vs. ethical considerations. Would you mind if I created a new thread to discuss that on its own? I think that it?s its own issue, and deserves it?s own discussion, without the baggage that this thread caries with it.


I?ll leave you with a link for thought?
A search of Yahoo for the keywords ?Torture? and ?Fiction? reveals this on the web pages matches page.
Ignoring the book reviews and history pages, the sites that do deal with Internet fiction have a distinct tendency to link torture and sex.

quoting JediGaladriel
>>1. The question of underlying motives for writing torture fics really is inappropriate... no one lives in anyone else's head; we should deal with the surface question, which is, Are graphic torture scenes outside the boundaries set for the boards by the administration.<<


I don't know, I think it has some place in the discussion. Both readers and authors on the board have been open and honest in the past that they enjoy reading and writing torture. There's even 'torture <insert character here> clubs'.

I'm not trying to run anybody down here. Having a fetish for torture is fairly common, and something a person has no control over whatsoever. It would be ridiculous and hypocritical to call it 'dirty' or 'sick'.

However, if you do enjoy that kind of thing, it's impossible to tell if your writing is too graphic for readers who don't enjoy it. A good test would be to replace Obi-Wan in your stories with a completely different character, for example Leia. Or maybe if you have a brother around Obi-Wan's age, try that. Actually, that's probably not a good idea, knowing what brothers can be like

Gandolf,

Oh, that happened here? Wow, I should pay more attention to the local news...

And by the way, I live in Canada.. in Ontario.. in Toronto and Hamilton. I'm quite aware of the fact that there is no death penalty here, and that we don't extradite people to other countries if they might face capital punishment. I wasn't talking about Canada...

Ignoring the book reviews and history pages, the sites that do deal with Internet fiction have a distinct tendency to link torture and sex.

Sites that have the tendency to link torture with sex usually link it in the form of sexual torture, not torture as a replacement to sex. Sites that contain torture independent of sex do exist, it's just that instead of calling it torture, they may call it hurt/comfort instead.. or on my site, they all go under angst. Categories and labels can be just as vague as ratings... It's ALL relative, because it's ultimately your site, your method of sorting, your rules.

In a way, I guess one could see the label of torture to a story as a form of advertisement for it, which I believe is wrong. I'd like to believe, however, that authors who place the word "torture" in the description were doing so as a warning and not only a way to draw readers to stories.

OK, I just got home from school, and since it was a holiday, I couldn't post...

I can't go and answer everyone's comments -- and there are a lot of great comments here -- because that would take just forever plust a couple of centuries, but...

You have to understand that you can't just say "The parents should watch where their children are going and should be at the computer with them," and not take any blame for anything. THe truth of the matter is that, in a perfect world, this would be what parents would do, but the don't do that. In a perfect world, parents wouldn't entrust kids with a $2000 computer alone, but they do that. You don't have any control over whehter they do that or not.

And you can't put all blame on the parents -- if one did, we wouldn't have to moderate these message boards at all, since then we could say that people could post whatever crap they want, and it's the parents fault if the kids see it, since there's warnings. Then the JC would just turn into just another SC.

The fact of the matter is that this is "TheForce.Net's Jedi Council", if you look at the top banner. This forum belongs to Joshua Griffin, pretty much, and he makes the rules. So if he says "family friendly", then those are the rules. And those are the rules here at the JC: Family friendly. All the policies and rules here at the JC stem from those two rules, and they are global rules for hte whole message board; fan fictino is not exempt from it, and even if there are warnings, it doesn't stop a rogue kid who doesn't know what "Obi-Torture" is, or any of the other genre types. just like the "Are you 18?" messages at FFN, they don't stop a kid.

And to totally blame the parents, saying "I'll write what I write and that's too bad" is to be irresponsible; because one is responsible for what they write -- yes, you can publish whatever you want and write about whatever you want, but you can't go publish a super-duper-dark horror story (take It by Steven King, for example) and then put it on the kids' shelf in the library.

And it's not a matter of who is here and how old the people here are -- the word from above is "Family friendly", and so those are the words that we follow. If your story is not family friendly, perhaps this is not the place to post it -- there are other fan fiction boards and sites out there, you know. Every writer here of torture of some kind should perhaps consider whether their story is "family friendly".

If someone considers the closing of a fan fiction "censorship", perhaps it is. Then again, the editing out of swear words and the locking of religious threads (since they are banned) throughout the rest of the JC can be considered censorship to an extent as well. Remember: THE JC IS ***NOT*** A DEMOCRACY! Perhaps the best analogy is an oligarchy or junta.

And also, some of you should prehaps be informed of some of your own history. This is hearesay, but from what I have heard, the Fan Fiction forum was originally created without approval from TFN staff. An admin (in the UBB days, every moderator/manager/administrator had full admin powers) created the forum, and there was much discussion and debate about it among the top TFN ranks; in the end it was kept. The main reason is that there is a vast gray area with fan fiction -- even more than with spam and spoilers -- in terms of what is acceptable and what is not.

So I put out this plea to all of you: Instead of making a policy, please self-censor your fan fiction. Please consider before you post a story or a post whether it is family-friendly and appropriate for this message board.

--Mr. P

Thanks, Mr. P -- that was roughly what I was going to say, though of course my tendency would be to dance around a little more.

First, I want to re-iterate that discussion of motives and ages of writers really has nothing whatsoever to do with what we need to talk about. Frankly, I don't care how old anyone is, what his or her job is, or whether he or she is using torture as a replacement for anything else. That's not my business here. Even the question of good writing isn't the question here -- I certainly think Jane Jinn is one of the best fan writers out there, and asking her to alter "Friends Like These" in any way was a wrench to me as someone who appreciates plain old good writing.

The business we have to be about is figuring out what is "excessive in nature" in these stories. I think that using the published books as a guide is a good idea -- they certainly allude to such scenes, and we are even privy to them, but in no case that I can think of (though I admit, I'm not an EU-nik and might be missing something) do the books become overly graphic. They usually establish what the pain is and that it is, in fact, painful, then go on with whatever the point of the scene really is.

Let's talk about where the line is now.

It's been a holiday, I just got back from it. Just want to put my two cents in.

I haven't been in the fan fiction forum lately, my problem, not the fault of any writers. I haven't written SW fan fic in a while and I am no longer addicted to it (I can just see my little voice-in-the-head saying 'that's what you think). But I do want to say that writers should use their brains. This is a PG forum as Mr. P, etc, have said. PG. As in, do you think a ten year old could see it. I have read maybe three obi-torture fics (USJS, I'm pretty sure are considered obi-torture, please correct me if I'm wrong) on the 'net. I've also heard about others. Most seem to be angst or hurt/comfort. I had absolutely no idea that there was graphic torture on these boards, as some seem to be insinuating. (again, I've haven't been reading lately, I wouldn't know). That would surprise me greatly. Sure, I've seen/read/(even written, but don't tell anyone ) my share of graphic torture. But I'm almost sixteen, I can basically do what I want with movies, books, in general. (I have yet to have the desire to see a NC-17 movie...) My parents couldn't care less what I do online. It's up to the kids themselves to police themselves online. Some do, some don't, I won't get into that now.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. My last cent. It seems to me that writers are mostly a mature bunch. It also seems to me that readers come in all shapes, sizes, colors (although I have yet to see a purple reader), backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Writers should be aware that this is a PG board. If they want to write a PG-13 fic, they should be aware that there are places to do that but it may not necessarily be here. Warnings are fine. But I would dread the day that I would open a thread here and see graphic Luke torture. (//doesn't mention the thread called simply "round robin" about interrogating Luke). I have no problem with it, usually...but there are kids running around these boards (and I know I'm going to get flamed for saying 'kids' since, I'm sure someone will point out, I can't even drive yet), especially with Eppy 2 coming out so soon. I don't care how dark Eppy 2 will be, I'm not into spoilers, I know nothing about it. The thing is, SW is reated PG and so is this forum. Think: would Luca$ put it into the movies. Not the books, he didn't write any other them. The movies. Sure, we see the needle and we see some electricity. "The electricity jumped from the needle onto his skin. He screamed in pain." would basically be how I would describe Han's torture scene.


Just my two cents...

I don't know of any specific ones -- the only few I've read (pretty much, only USJS) were the hurt/comfort ones... otherwise, I don't read them, so I wouldn't know of any.

--Mr. P

May I please ask something? Are you talking about the original USJS (as in Ultra Stressed Jedi Students)? When it was said:

"(USJS, I'm pretty sure are considered obi-torture, please correct me if I'm wrong)"

As one of the original writers of USJS, I personally don't consider it to be a torture or hurt/comfort fic at all....maybe only recently but certainly not at the beginning (I can't talk about the spin-offs I have only read one).

[Correction] I can think of a couple of 'uncomforatble scenes" in USJS where various characters get hurt. I did a couple but that was purely because I wanted it to lead up to something as well as using personal experiance.

Anyway, I have used torture in my fics. I don't think that overt amounts are acceptable unless they are to prove something (such as a character who, although now a slave can't run away because of certain elements or being 'hurt' to make him fall into the path of other characters who later become central to the plot) Anyone who has read the Rohnin Darkhil Triology will know what I am talking about.

I think that the boards should remain family friendly as it is nice to have a place where you can come and read but I don't think that torture should be banned completely (like JediGaladriel I didn't like it that Jane Jinn had to change her story (because she is such an excellant writer) but I could understand it.

Anyway, in a long and round about route I have actually ended up saying nothing of real import so I will leave now.

Hugs
Kithera

Since I just found this thread, I will reply to several topics that may not be very recent.
***
I am in the process of writing a fic comcerning a reaction to Qui-Gon's death. (See link at the bottom of my sig) I rated it PG. Its plot is mostly angst. I got the impression somewhere that angst is a form of torture?? This is probably a misinterpretation.
I read Obi-Torture fics. Only if they're well written. I have my favorites, and the plots aren't all about just torturing the heck out of Obi-Wan. I think that there's an inner message to all of them: resisting the Dark Side, putting courage over anger and hate, endurance (I know, that one's lame), and even, at the end, mush my favorite part and bonding another favorite
Someone mentioned something about age. I'm 13. I'm not a newbie. I've been visiting the TFN JC since I was 11 (back before they instituted an age limit, obviously) I posted very infrequently as Padawan Red, for those of you that have been around here that long. I'm not new to writing either. I've been writing forever, even back in second grade I loved to write stories, but this isn't about me. I don't think I'm more prone to torture.
Abt. torture being a substitute for the S-word that isn't allowed on the boards (supposedly)I disagree. I'd rather read a torture story (with a plot and a message) than a love story. I'm sort of sick of FFN--they allow anything, and it's hard as heck to find a welll-written story (I know there are a few, but not nearly enough) I don't think that there should be a ban on torture. In some cases, it's an expression of feelings, a place to vent.
And an older few messages repied to:
Really?? They took kids away from their parents in Ontario because the parents couldn't promisethat they wouldn't spank them?? I think that's a little overboard.
And a remark about they might as well ban the news (it might have been Cheryl_Kenobi)Up until I was in sixth grade, I only saw the news once a month over at my grandparents' house. I thought Star Wars was stupid until one May night when I was 11, I got indocrinated (I saw Star Wars) And later, I heard that my parents actually encouraged the belief that Star Wars was stupid!! Well, that's all for now.