Author Topic: PC164: A Hunter’s Ode To His Bait  (Read 19473 times)

kibitzer

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Reply #50 on: July 22, 2011, 03:22:31 AM
I wasn't offended, but then I had just read some fanfic about Severus Snape having an orgy with the Teletubbies.

(shakes head)

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danooli

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Reply #51 on: July 22, 2011, 11:28:10 AM
Personally, I was waiting for the Uberunicorn to say, "I'm the lasht and greatesht of my kind. Inshtead of killin' meh, we ought t' team up, for profit." And then they'd go from village to village, tricking the townspeople into paying Duncan for slaying the wild, rabid unicorn.

awesome.   ;D



mbrennan

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Reply #52 on: July 28, 2011, 11:11:37 PM
I'm another one who was expecting unicorn bestiality or something at the end, after being told it would be "shocking."  (Man, the Internet has done bad things to our brains.)  Sex up against a carcass . . . okay, yeah, that's gross, but people have a well-documented tendency to want to get it on right after battle, so, hey.

"Young woman's power lies in her sexuality" is a bothersome trope, but not *shocking*, and I think the treatment of it here was pretty good.  Duncan was into her, but wasn't nearly as creepy about it as he could have been, and I liked that ultimately a) Eleanor turned out to have as much or more of the hunter's drive as he did, and b) she's the one who actually killed the beast in the end, making her more than just bait.

(As for all the gendered connotations inherently built into the setup, what with virginity and long horns and all that -- I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend, wherein I suggested that "riding the unicorn" ought to be a euphemism for a woman losing her virginity.)

As for the story more generally, I enjoyed it, though I would have *really* liked more development/explanation of why Duncan was out to kill magic things.  Because I tend to assume I ought to side with the protagonist's perspective unless given reason not to, I figured magic actually was a malevolent, detrimental force in that world, but I don't think we ever got much of an answer, one way or another.



LaShawn

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Reply #53 on: August 26, 2011, 10:08:42 PM
I'm surprised, people. I'm very, very, very surprised. No one saw the shocking part of the story? No one? Really?

It's right there, when Duncan pushes away the young man and tells Eleanor that they're leaving. And they leave. The least they could do, the *least* they could do, was get a doggie bag. I mean, leaving all that food! Are they nuts?

Yes, right. Of course I'm joking. Now here's the serious part: This story, if you think about it, can be easily the Conan story told from the POV of the demons who work with the Ice Princess.

Think about it. Eleanor is sent out to seduce unicorns, big hulking beasts who can easily kill, and lure them to their deaths. How is this different from the Conan story? Mm, actually, many differences. The unicorns aren't trying to have sex with her. They're just submitting to her, becoming tame. Even that last scene with the old unicorn--perhaps the unicorn was aroused by her (man, that's a sentence I hope never to write again), but even there, it's a seduction of wills. What I found disturbing was that both Duncan and Eleanor admitted that they weren't doing it for the wealth. They were doing it for the power they had over the unicorns.

Now, what if that unicorn had been driven to bloodlust, or just plain overall lust--would it be the same story, or something darker? Think about that.

::blithely skips away after resurrecting the whole Conan controversy::


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Reply #54 on: October 27, 2011, 01:37:37 PM
I think this is the third story in the last several where the intro gave me a misconception about the story that didn't really come true.  After Ghosts of New York, I am very inclined to believe the pre-episode warning, but I listened on and I was wincing as I imagined where this could go.  I was figuring it would go one of two places:
1.  At first I figured Duncan might rape the little girl
2.  Later I figured that there would be some unicorn horn rape and I was really hoping that would not happen.
Yeah, the sex on the corpse thing was icky, but not particularly unexpected after the rest of the story.  I found the first slain unicorn to be much more surprising.

Anyway, I liked this story quite well.  Mostly for the very believable characters therein.  And after all that wincing I'm very glad it didn't go to the places I was worried it would go.  I can see the motivations of the two characters for ending up where they ended up.  I don't think their relationship is healthy or that it will last, but no one ever said it had to.  This story is about the single passionate moment they share together, and the rest of their lives is a setpiece for that.

I liked how she ended up being as much of a hunter as him, and even slow me picked up that she was hunting him like the old unicorn, for good or bad.  She's a teenager, with hormones raging, and he's given her a reasonably good life (certainly better than her parents), and she has picked up his predatorial nature.  Whether it's a good message to send about female sexuality or not (I'll let someone else debate that point), I can completely understand why she would want him.  And I can completely understand why he would want her as well.  That's good writing.


As for the story more generally, I enjoyed it, though I would have *really* liked more development/explanation of why Duncan was out to kill magic things.  Because I tend to assume I ought to side with the protagonist's perspective unless given reason not to, I figured magic actually was a malevolent, detrimental force in that world, but I don't think we ever got much of an answer, one way or another.

It seemed to me that Duncan hunted unicorns for the same reason that we hear stories about rich big game hunters in years past who travel to Africa so that they can shoot elephants and the like, and then turn the giant feet into umbrella stands to mark the glories of their hunting days.  I'm not sure I'll ever be in a place where I could experience that drive to kill for fun, but that's where his motivation seemed to be rooted.



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Reply #55 on: October 27, 2011, 04:29:45 PM
Oh, and on the subject of unicorns:



justenjoying

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Reply #56 on: January 09, 2012, 06:13:20 AM
I'm usally not a fan of unicorn stories, but I will make an exception for this one. The beggining made me prepare myself for hating any outcome, but I found that I came to care about the characters so much that the ending was perfect. It was just a love story after all, and it made my heart really get going a few times there.



Mex5150

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Reply #57 on: January 14, 2012, 07:55:12 PM

Hi,

Like seemingly everybody else, I too was waiting for the shocking ending that never arrived.

I really enjoyed this story, I liked the girl, and could even identify with the hunter.

I expected a very different outcome, but I'm not sure how much of that was my imagination on what I would do with the story, or how much it was to do with the intro. I really do wish they would leave the story to itself and not spoil it in the intro.

-Mex



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Reply #58 on: January 16, 2012, 02:15:13 PM

Hi,

Like seemingly everybody else, I too was waiting for the shocking ending that never arrived.

I really enjoyed this story, I liked the girl, and could even identify with the hunter.

I expected a very different outcome, but I'm not sure how much of that was my imagination on what I would do with the story, or how much it was to do with the intro. I really do wish they would leave the story to itself and not spoil it in the intro.

-Mex



On the whole, I agree with you.  But listeners have asked emphatically and repeatedly to be warned about stories they might wish to skip because of their graphic nature.  We simply try to be accommodating to people's wish not to hear stuff they'd rather not hear.  This sometimes gets vaguely spoilery, and that sort of sucks, you're right. 

The situation is not much helped by my complete lack of understanding of movie ratings and the sort of stuff that bothers American audiences.  Mostly Dave takes care of the ratings and warnings and I don't think about them.  It's actually quite a lot of work, trying to pair up an MPAA rating to a text and then trying to give warnings for listeners whose squeamishness encompasses a fairly broad spectrum (that is to say, we've both been gobsmacked by the outrage and heat generated over some of the things we've run that we thought were completely inoffensive and/or appropriate in the context of the story).  If I had to tag the episodes with a rating and come up with warnings, it wouldn't get done.  (Now you know who to blame the next time there's no rating or warning for an episode).  That'd be great for you, perhaps, but not so much for others, who've been quite adamant and vocal in their desire for this feature.

Try skipping the intro, or listen to it at 2x.  It's certainly easier to skip the intro than it is to know what part of a story to fast forward over because it might be triggery or upsetting. 

I can't assert that someone heard our warning and avoided this story and are happier for it, but if they did, it's not too likely they'd show up on the forum to say so (though it does happen from time to time that people thank us for warning them away from a story). 

I'd hesitate to take the consensus of this story's forum thread as representing all or even a majority of listeners.

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Reply #59 on: January 18, 2012, 02:37:32 PM
I can't assert that someone heard our warning and avoided this story and are happier for it, but if they did, it's not too likely they'd show up on the forum to say so (though it does happen from time to time that people thank us for warning them away from a story).  

I'd hesitate to take the consensus of this story's forum thread as representing all or even a majority of listeners.

Yup.  Taking the opinions in this thread as a summary of all listener opinions would be a major sampling error.  If the warning was completely successful, then that means that anyone who would've been offended chose not to listen, and therefore would not be likely to comment at all.  My guess is that, if you hadn't posted the warning, someone would've commented to say that you should've posted one--but there's no way to prove that without inventing a machine to peek into parallel time streams.

I guess my squeamishness threshold is pretty high, though, in general.  I tend to only be bothered by extremes such as pedophilia, cannibalism, genital mutilation.  

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Reply #60 on: January 18, 2012, 02:42:05 PM
I can't assert that someone heard our warning and avoided this story and are happier for it, but if they did, it's not too likely they'd show up on the forum to say so (though it does happen from time to time that people thank us for warning them away from a story).  

I'd hesitate to take the consensus of this story's forum thread as representing all or even a majority of listeners.

Yup.  Taking the opinions in this thread as a summary of all listener opinions would be a major sampling error.  If the warning was completely successful, then that means that anyone who would've been offended chose not to listen, and therefore would not be likely to comment at all.  My guess is that, if you hadn't posted the warning, someone would've commented to say that you should've posted one--but there's no way to prove that without inventing a machine to peek into parallel time streams.

Don't forget, though, the General Internet Negativity Bias. People aren't as likely to comment about things they like, unless they really like it, while they are quite likely to comment about things they don't like, to all levels of not liking from "Eh... not so great actually" to "I couldn't finish it" to "even the title made my barf!"

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Reply #61 on: January 18, 2012, 05:40:22 PM
I can't assert that someone heard our warning and avoided this story and are happier for it, but if they did, it's not too likely they'd show up on the forum to say so (though it does happen from time to time that people thank us for warning them away from a story).  

I'd hesitate to take the consensus of this story's forum thread as representing all or even a majority of listeners.

Yup.  Taking the opinions in this thread as a summary of all listener opinions would be a major sampling error.  If the warning was completely successful, then that means that anyone who would've been offended chose not to listen, and therefore would not be likely to comment at all.  My guess is that, if you hadn't posted the warning, someone would've commented to say that you should've posted one--but there's no way to prove that without inventing a machine to peek into parallel time streams.

Don't forget, though, the General Internet Negativity Bias. People aren't as likely to comment about things they like, unless they really like it, while they are quite likely to comment about things they don't like, to all levels of not liking from "Eh... not so great actually" to "I couldn't finish it" to "even the title made my barf!"

True, true.  But doesn't that suggest the same thing?  If there hadn't been a warning and there had been a small population that would've had a problem with it, they would've been more likely to speak up?