Author Topic: EP390: Cerbo un Vitra ujo  (Read 55261 times)

jtshea

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Reply #50 on: April 10, 2013, 01:45:15 PM
That was a really ugly story.  I can accept ugliness as a means to make a point.  I already knew all the points this story might have made, though.  Haves can exploit have-nots in ever more terrible ways as tech advances?  Check.  Young lovers can do stupid things?  Check.  Poor people can be pushed into awful acts by their poverty?  Check.  Rapists exist and they are evil?  Check.  So, listening to it left me in the detestable position of "watching" a rape for nothing more than entertainment.  I like myself less for having listened through to the end.


This, and I respect Escape Pod just a little less for picking this story. 

I've been subscribed since day one and have never been so....  at a loss for words at the end of a story. It barely fits the science fiction definition,  It started ok... but at the end I was actually yelling at my car stereo "Really?! You are going there with this?  Really?!?"  Psycho horror stuff porn.  Classy.

So, if this story was a clever plot to get people to register on the forum.  Well played!

I miss Steve and Mur.



Kaa

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Reply #51 on: April 10, 2013, 03:01:29 PM
I miss Steve and Mur.

In all likelihood, Mur was still in charge when this story was selected, given the speed of turnaround. (Not a dig; just a statement of the way things are.)

One thing I wanted to add, though, was that this story certainly is not 'fun' in any definition of the word that I recognize. In that sense, I do think Escape Artists should probably have run this on Pseudopod where there is no expectation for the stories to be "fun." Is it science fiction? Yes. Is it horror? Yes. Is it fun? Absolutely under no circumstances. And that's where I think the mistake was made.

I would have listened to the story anyway--I listen to all three 'casts, and a number of others. But there are others here who scrupulously avoid Pseudopod.

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eytanz

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Reply #52 on: April 11, 2013, 05:57:08 AM
Moderator note: Ok, ok, time to cool things down a bit, everyone (and I include myself in this) - let's keep this thread to discussions of this episode. I'm going to leave the discussion as it is for now; if people want to start a different thread about the relationship between SF and horror, feel free to continue the discussion there - if people do so, I'll go back and move some of the relevant posts out of this thread once I have some more time - but please keep in mind that we ask you to respect your interlocutors. Thank you!



Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #53 on: April 11, 2013, 06:59:20 AM
It's funny, but critiques about the technical aspects that I control don't bother me, but when the validity of the art (for which I am really just another audience member) is called into question on a completely subjective basis, I get itchy.
It's not funny at all. It means that you are a mature adult who can accept criticism about something that he can improve upon, but when it comes to something that you have no impact on, the only thing you can do is get itchy.

And now back to our discussion about the story.
Having let it sink in for a while, and gotten over the shock aspect of the story, I think that it is an interesting piece of speculative fiction. Science fiction at its best holds a mirror up to society and says "This is where we're heading!" (Or in the case of Star Trek, "This is where we can be heading if we all smoke something really groovy!").
That's what this story does. In my mind the true horror of this story is the society where body snatchers are a real thing, and they are other humans. And they do it for personal gain. (And sometimes they don't even need to snatch, just pay some cash).
Every time a new discovery is made, a new procedure perfected, a new patent is awarded, ethical questions arise. Some weightier than others, but nonetheless, ethical questions. We need to answer them in such a way as to better our interests as a species, but also to maintain our humanity. This story is a glimpse at what can happen if we don't.
So as speculative fiction: this story rocked. But I don't think I want to listen to it ever again.

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eytanz

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Reply #54 on: April 11, 2013, 03:06:41 PM
I'm on my phone now so I can't really do too much but let me be clear - when I said "feel free to continue the discussion but not in this thread" that's exactly what I meant. I will split the discussion when I am able. In the meanwhile, any post that is not directly on the topic of the actual episode will be deleted and the person who posts it may be banned. If anyone wants to discuss this, please do so over PM or your posts run the same risk.



matweller

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Reply #55 on: April 11, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
And that's my major complaint with this story - that the rape doesn't have any consequences, it's just another check box in the "bad guy is bad" column.

The rape doesn't have to have consequence, the crime in and of itself is inconsequential to the scene it's a circumstance of the journey. The fact that Grete chooses to endure it to find her love and either save him or bless him with release is the whole beauty of it. She didn't have to go to Doc's house, and she certainly didn't have to go to the office, but she knew there was a chance that her love needed her and that she was the only one in the universe that could do anything to help him. So she chose to go on a potential suicide mission, knowing what it would entail -- remember she flirted with Doc to get there in the first place and maintained the charade to continue -- and none of that mattered to her to accomplish her mission.

That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.

And my complaint with the "eeew-yicky!" people is that they're letting the act cloud their judgement. It was self sacrifice like in any of 100 movies where the male hero gets shot to shreds to save his girl or his kid, and many of these same people would cheer the sacrifice. In this case it's sex instead of bullets and a girl instead of a hero against the odds, but the end result in both cases is chosen self sacrifice for love, and that may be the single greatest thing anyone has to offer. It's Biblical. It's Shakespearean. It's the very definition of "epic."



JDoug

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Reply #56 on: April 11, 2013, 11:02:17 PM
I liked the idea of self-sacrifice. Part of thinks I'm clutching it like a drowning man does to a piece of timber. If she was sacrificing herself, then it was a good ending. Not a happy ending, but something good came of it. She won, in so far as the fates allowed her to.

What frustrates me is that I didn't pick this idea when I was listening to the story. Twice now. I'm reluctant to do so a third time. I think the problem for me is a lack of choice on her part. See, I do agree that she wasn't a victim - she made an initial choice to seek Kaj out and was aware of the dangers. But although it was a choice, it wasn't a sacrifice. To try and explain, using a no-doubt flawed metaphor: A soldier might chose to sign up to fight, well aware of the risks involved. That's the choice. Three months, later, he's faced with another choice when a grenade lands right in the middle of his squad - does he throw himself on the grenade. This is a separate choice, but it is also more than that, it is a sacrifice. The first choice (to sign up) was accepting a degree of risk, the second choice is accepting an inevitability of death.

In the story Grete continually (and knowingly in my opinion) chooses to enter into situations where the level of risk to herself increases. At what point does it become a sacrifice? Her fate is sealed is when she enters into the hospital room with Doc, she will be raped, then dismembered into parts. Grete has at no point chosen this as an inevitable outcome though, merely entered into situations where the likelyhood of it increased, until it was a certainty. The other, darker side too this is that whether she 'saves' Kaj or not, the same thing will happen to her. By the time she enters Kaj's hospital room, she has nothing left to sacrifice......

If the authors purpose of the story was about the sacrifices of Grete, I think it would be simple enough to rewrite the story so that a more 'active' choice was available for her to make in the last few segments - even if it's just Grete admitting to herself enroute to the hospital what she's getting into. That would probably make the story at least marginally more 'enjoyable' for sum. I'm not sure it'd be a better story though. What made this story sickeningly tragic for me was Grete's endless hope that maybe, just maybe Kaj was ok and that everything else might just work out. As I've (tried to, no doubt badly) said before, I don't think this is a story we're meant to like, but it doesn't mean it's not worth listening to.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2013, 11:06:50 PM by JDoug »



Frungi

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Reply #57 on: April 11, 2013, 11:05:15 PM
That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.

Except she didn’t make him think he was getting his way; she let him have his way. She did manage to kill Kaj, but the doc didn’t even seem to care about that once he had her. He got exactly what he wanted—and more, it seemed, once he realized she’d known Kaj—and she lost absolutely everything. I think it’s more suicidal shaggy dog than self-sacrifice, honestly, since there was nothing gained from the sacrifice.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2013, 11:14:06 PM by Frungi »



Peevester

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Reply #58 on: April 12, 2013, 12:29:18 AM
What Frungi said!

The more you think about this story, the more you realize that everyone, other that Kaj and Grete, are either perpetrating or complicit in this crime.

If it's been going on for any length of time, even the state is in on it, given that Grete could track Kaj using the kind of forensic evidence that the police would have no problems following if they had a mind to.

Nihilist stories are just not for me. I don't want to be entertained by something this ugly. It reminds me of a Douglas Adams gag. The story made me feel bad, and I feel good about feeling bad about it. If I had initially liked it, I would have felt bad about liking it, and then felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it.

P.S. Matt, you should lay off phrases like "female victimization whiners" and  "eeew-yicky! people". That's really uncalled for, and an incorrect characterization besides.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2013, 12:41:19 AM by Peevester »



Scattercat

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Reply #59 on: April 12, 2013, 05:13:23 AM
Y'know, every now and then I really wonder what the heck the world looks like to other people.  Some of y'all appear to have heard a completely different story on a different podcast from me.  Possibly in a different language.



Frungi

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Reply #60 on: April 12, 2013, 05:31:20 AM
Y'know, every now and then I really wonder what the heck the world looks like to other people.  Some of y'all appear to have heard a completely different story on a different podcast from me.  Possibly in a different language.
Care to elaborate?



matweller

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Reply #61 on: April 12, 2013, 05:31:32 AM
That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.

Except she didn’t make him think he was getting his way; she let him have his way. She did manage to kill Kaj, but the doc didn’t even seem to care about that once he had her. He got exactly what he wanted—and more, it seemed, once he realized she’d known Kaj—and she lost absolutely everything. I think it’s more suicidal shaggy dog than self-sacrifice, honestly, since there was nothing gained from the sacrifice.

Except that this is her story. What Doc got out of it or thinks he did is obviously not the author's point or the main character's concern. Grete's suffering and triumph at all costs is.

Look, I'm not trying to change anybody's mind about this story. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work and we can all walk away friends. We run a lot of stories that don't connect for me. I usually choose not to comment on them because I don't want to offend the authors who read the forum with my opinion and because I don't want to cloud the appreciation of the people for who those stories do have value.

If a story doesn't work for someone, I think it's absolutely valid to come here and make that statement, and I encourage it as a way for the editors to know the consensus and hopefully take that into consideration with future decisions. But I will be happy to be just as dismissive of people who choose to be dismissive about anything by saying it isn't 'good' or it isn't 'art' or it isn't 'worthy' -- especially when it comes wrapped in a package that clearly states "this may not be a good one for you, please spare yourself any discomfort and skip this one." Those are all subjective positions and every bit as dismissive to the author, the staff and the audience as any terse phrase I may have sent in the direction of the proverbial "other three fingers."

I'll stop now. Feel free to have the last word. My intent was never to insult, only to say to some people "I know this was gritty, but I hope you can see how someone might find deeper meaning here than you may have taken time to consider."



eytanz

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Reply #62 on: April 12, 2013, 10:44:44 AM
Ok, the discussion about whether SF should be/has historically been "fun" and the relationship between SF and horror has been moved to a seperate thread. It was not entirely possible to make a fully clean break because some posts covered both that topic and this episode. If people feel like their comments on this particular episode belong here, they are free to make them again in this thread - but please keep the discussion of SF in general to the other thread.



chemistryguy

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Reply #63 on: April 12, 2013, 11:40:05 AM
That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.

Except she didn’t make him think he was getting his way; she let him have his way. She did manage to kill Kaj, but the doc didn’t even seem to care about that once he had her. He got exactly what he wanted—and more, it seemed, once he realized she’d known Kaj—and she lost absolutely everything. I think it’s more suicidal shaggy dog than self-sacrifice, honestly, since there was nothing gained from the sacrifice.

Except that this is her story. What Doc got out of it or thinks he did is obviously not the author's point or the main character's concern. Grete's suffering and triumph at all costs is.

Look, I'm not trying to change anybody's mind about this story. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work and we can all walk away friends. We run a lot of stories that don't connect for me. I usually choose not to comment on them because I don't want to offend the authors who read the forum with my opinion and because I don't want to cloud the appreciation of the people for who those stories do have value.

If a story doesn't work for someone, I think it's absolutely valid to come here and make that statement, and I encourage it as a way for the editors to know the consensus and hopefully take that into consideration with future decisions. But I will be happy to be just as dismissive of people who choose to be dismissive about anything by saying it isn't 'good' or it isn't 'art' or it isn't 'worthy' -- especially when it comes wrapped in a package that clearly states "this may not be a good one for you, please spare yourself any discomfort and skip this one." Those are all subjective positions and every bit as dismissive to the author, the staff and the audience as any terse phrase I may have sent in the direction of the proverbial "other three fingers."

I'll stop now. Feel free to have the last word. My intent was never to insult, only to say to some people "I know this was gritty, but I hope you can see how someone might find deeper meaning here than you may have taken time to consider."

This story has generated some of the best conversation of any feedback to date. 

Much of what you've written had been on my mind as well, and I'm very happy to not be the only dissenting voice in the group.  I agree that this is a tale of self sacrifice.  It speaks to us, and perhaps some would like to close their ears to what it has to say.  Which one of us wouldn't readily lay down our life to save our loved ones?  I think one of the issues people take up with this one (aside from the graphic nature of the story itself) is that all is lost. 

After sacrificing all that she is, does she really save Kaj?  She releases him, but is that the same?  Maybe his last thoughts are of how he is escaping this hell, but Grete is stepping in to take his place.  That is Shakespearean.  A tale of epic tragedy if ever there was one.  And despite all of the pain that Grete places on herself, nobody wins except for the doctor, and it pisses people off.  Getting pissed off can be a good thing, situation dependent of course.

It is what it is.  I'm glad I listened and very glad to read all the subsequent feedback. 


silva42

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Reply #64 on: April 12, 2013, 01:43:26 PM
She understood the rules of her universe, but wasn’t willing or able to put one and one together. If he had sold his eyes my choice, why wouldn’t he contact her? Brother and sister seem to be missing? Nothing strange there. If she knew they took his eyes and his hands, and other parts – why would she  think they wouldn’t do the same to her?



TheArchivist

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Reply #65 on: April 12, 2013, 03:47:14 PM
She understood the rules of her universe, but wasn’t willing or able to put one and one together. If he had sold his eyes my choice, why wouldn’t he contact her? Brother and sister seem to be missing? Nothing strange there. If she knew they took his eyes and his hands, and other parts – why would she  think they wouldn’t do the same to her?
Exactly. The problem with claiming this was about sacrifice is that, with a modicum of intelligence (and given that she manages to hack into the security systems, I really don't think we can excuse portrayal of her without it), she should have known it was futile. Laying down one's life for one's fellow men (or beloved) is noble sacrifice. Laying down one's life for no purpose whatever is just plain stupid.



Me

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Reply #66 on: April 12, 2013, 09:14:02 PM
This was the closest I have come to snuff porn in my life.

It made me feel disgusted with myself and with Escape Pod to the extent that, after a few days of consideration and after 8 years with the podcast, I have now cancelled my subscription.



Scattercat

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Reply #67 on: April 12, 2013, 10:07:33 PM
Y'know, every now and then I really wonder what the heck the world looks like to other people.  Some of y'all appear to have heard a completely different story on a different podcast from me.  Possibly in a different language.
Care to elaborate?

Not particularly.

Quote from: Me
It made me feel disgusted with myself and with Escape Pod to the extent that, after a few days of consideration and after 8 years with the podcast, I have now cancelled my subscription.

Congratulations on saving money by missing the point?  Unless you meant your iTunes subscription and not a donation subscription, in which case, uh, thanks for sharing?  Bye?



Frungi

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Reply #68 on: April 12, 2013, 10:10:46 PM
I have now cancelled my subscription.
Wow, bit of an extreme reaction, I think. Especially for an episode that had a warning at the start.

Hm… it wouldn’t be too hard, I think, to draw a comparison between sensitive listeners who choose to listen past the warning, and Grete in this story.



Peevester

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Reply #69 on: April 13, 2013, 12:59:23 PM
It made me feel disgusted with myself and with Escape Pod to the extent that, after a few days of consideration and after 8 years with the podcast, I have now cancelled my subscription.

As Steve always said, next time there's completely different words in a different order. Judging the whole 'cast based on one arguably poor decision is a bad move.

Did I hate this story? Yeah, pretty much. Do I think that Escape Artists should have placed it differently? Sure. Do I think less of them for carrying it? NO. Art can't hurt you, even if you think it's bad art.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2013, 11:16:31 PM by Peevester »



Scumpup

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Reply #70 on: April 14, 2013, 01:10:18 AM
IRL I have worked law enforcement, residential treatment, and at a mortuary.  I've searched through the weeds for a dead kid's head.  I've "therapized" the guy who pimped out his retarded sister.  I've looked over the sights of my service pistol and been a couple ounces of trigger pull away from taking a life.  The bad guys win often enough in real life that I don't need to read fictional accounts of the same just for shiggles. Tastes and appetites.  This one met neither of mine.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2013, 01:14:55 AM by Scumpup »



12obin

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Reply #71 on: April 15, 2013, 08:10:09 PM
Okay, I skimmed the 4 pages so far of this thread. A lot of what I had to say has been said. Here's what I don't think has been said yet, in a series of unrelated points.

-I'm really uncomfortable about the disparaging tone used by a few people here in reference to "sensitive" listeners.

-As a survivor of sexual/physical abuse, I sort of enjoy rape stories? I find comfort or something in...maybe it's like listening to metal when you're angry, or watching a sad movie and having a good cry. Like you're not alone and it's not all your fault. Anyway, the part some people would have cut out of this story was the only part that rang really true to me. In particular, the way Doc made *some* effort to play out a seduction the first time, and then the second time it was just like "this is what's happening now. we both know you have no say in it." That seemed really real. And relatedly, as much as I also wanted Grete to attack Doc in the end, her brokenness made sense to me.

-Writing: meh. Not too into it overall. Reading: so good. So good. I initially found the story extremely compelling, all the way through, and only thinking back on it did I start to find plot holes and silliness of characters as pointed out here already by others. I realized that I thought the story was better because it was so well-read.



chemistryguy

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Reply #72 on: April 16, 2013, 10:35:14 AM
-As a survivor of sexual/physical abuse, I sort of enjoy rape stories? I find comfort or something in...maybe it's like listening to metal when you're angry, or watching a sad movie and having a good cry. Like you're not alone and it's not all your fault.

This is a viewpoint that probably would have never occurred to me.  Thank you for sharing.


Mercurywaxing

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Reply #73 on: April 17, 2013, 12:19:35 AM
While I understand all the visceral reactions to this story, I have to admit that for me it all just laid there flat.  It is, simply, a bad story because the author telegraphed everything.  When an author mentions "remarkable eyes" that's fine, but when she ticks off body parts like "perfect teeth" and "delicate fingers" the laws of short story economy begin to come into play.  Next we hear of a child allotment, see how the mom was ignoring her, the he shouldn't have had a scholarship, and finally learn abouts body harvesters.  It was so obvious that any power the rest of the story had was muted.

When his eyes showed up all I did was sit back and wait for his teeth and fingers.  By then it was clear that he would be harvested down even more by the time we saw him because he has to reappear for there to be any hope of power left in this particular depiction of cosmetic harvesting.

The sex scene was simply poorly handled.  There was nothing in the character of Grete to suggest that she would be willing to offer sex for information.  Up to this point she had been a halfway decent detective.  It would be clear to anybody who lives in this society what had happened and that the authorities condone it or look the other way.  The only shock left in the story is viewing Kaj, and there were many other ways to get her there.

Throughout the story my mind kept wandering over to other, far superior, stories about body harvesting that managed to depict the horror of the idea with much greater power.  In particular one that tried to do the same thing - a school, a woman in love, an air of mystery about what exactly is happening, social commentary- only with well developed characters.  (I won't tell you the book for fear of spoilers, but if you know sci-fi and don't know the novel I'm talking about your head must be in a hole.)



Bdoomed

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Reply #74 on: April 17, 2013, 07:55:44 AM
Hooooooly wow what did I just listen to?!  That was intense, haunting, absolutely horrific, and evil.  I quite enjoyed it.  I found it kinda predictable, but the journey was interesting nonetheless. 

It felt like some bits of game of thrones, where everything seems so unfair to the character you really like, the world goes topsy turvy, and then he/she is dead.  And you hate the author for it, but can't stop reading.

To the more sensitive listeners with... Adverse reactions... There was quite the disclaimer... Norm made no pretense about this story. 

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?