Personally, what this story is opening up for me is the question of what makes a character too morally dark for me to sympathize. I also find it interesting how different characters get viewed differently based on... I don't know.
For example, take the eternal pseudo-hero Thomas Covenant. He's basically a jerk (the phrase
Asshole Leper Hero comes to mind). He even - famously - has an attack of rage and helplessness and sexually assaults someone. A lot of people lose sympathy with him at that point and stop reading the series - and even though I love the series, I can't really blame them. Covenant's crime is a tough one to read past, and even when told that he regrets it and spends pretty much the rest of his life trying to atone.
Then we have Marla Mason, who is - I am given to believe - wildly popular. However, what's the real difference? I'd argue that her actions in this story are roughly morally equivalent. She doesn't use (as much) physical violence, but she exerts humiliating power over someone, completely removing his ability to influence the course of his own life, forever. One could even argue that what Covenant does is ultimately less bad - his victim, at least, has a
chance to put her life back together (she never really does, but that's a different story).
Author's Note: I don't actually want to get into that argument - I'm not entirely sure, myself - and I don't think it's the point. Comparing shades of moral atrocity is ultimately kind of boring and pointless, and besides, that would
totally derail the thread.
The difference for me is that Covenant is reflective and tormented. He does something seriously wrong. It's treated as a terrible act by everyone around him. We get a chance to look inside his head, at the hellish vistas his act opens up inside him. He spends a long time trying to fix it for others, and finally, trying to fix the thing inside himself that led him to do something like that. Mason - it seems at this point - is not. For me, that's the real killer.
Now, I know you could argue that this is a short story, and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series. That's fair. And, if all I'd read of Thomas Covenant was the rape incident, I'd probably have not read any further. Reading what came before it gave me the inertia to read what came after. I accept that Marla Mason might be in the same category. If my to-read pile wasn't so big, I'd even pledge to read Marla Mason next and find out for myself. As it stands, I'll say that she isn't off my list, but neither, realistically, is she likely to be next.
What I find interesting, though, is the audience's reaction to the story Pratt actually wrote. Pratt clearly knows his audience, because it seems like most people buy Marla Mason as a hero, even after a story like this. Even after a
short story like this. The same isn't true of many readers after half a novel, in Thomas Covenant's case.
I wonder why.