> IMO the Char-Un (and the Pentans) practise no more unsavoury practices
> than anybody else does. People seem to be fixated on a Char-Un
> propensity for rape. I don't know where this comes from.
I fear it probably comes from over-eager extrapolation from Hetman Ignatieff's character sheet in "Life of Moonson" (by Chris Gidlow):
"You are considered a brutal and blood-thirsty maniac by most sane Lunars. They are correct. You glory in destruction and death. You like nothing better than to burn, rape and kill."
source: www.etyries.com/moonson/ignatieff.htm
Now, that's never been an overwhelming element in my view of Char Un culture. I think Hetman Ignatieff is an outstandingly unsavoury type, even for the Char Un. Chris himself has never dwelt on the rape/chaos incidence on the taiga, and for my part I don't think anyone else should waste time considering it. This hobby is supposed to be about *fun* stuff, not detailed descriptions of rape, necrophilia and mutilation.
As background, Chris was at one point upset by a Tarsh War player's attempts to "whitewash" the Lunar Army's actions, so that they really *weren't* looting and pillaging and destroying innocent Tarshite livelihoods; his up-front characterisation of Ignatieff in "Life of Moonson" may have been a conscious reaction to that. Again, when I've run "Tarsh War" -- or any other game, for that matter -- there have never been "foreground" rapes, disembowellments, impalements, etc., even when the Maran cultists sliced General Thrax into tiny gobbets in the last game I ran. Such unpleasantness stays out of focus, as IMO it always should -- especially on mailing lists aimed at attracting new players to our bizarre hobby.
Cheers, Nick
--__--__--
Powered by hypermail