JKR and believing when people tell you who they are

[BuntingEllacott]

I'm reading one of the Strike books, and one character is described as openly despicable, obsessed with death, violence, intimidation. The character is not taken at face value - even though he openly claims to be evil, amoral bastard, women 'fall over themselves to get him'.

As with much of JKR's writing, I end up pondering her insight here. It's absolutely true that there are male predators who are brazen about their predilictions and are given a pass, and sometimes even painted as more alluring because of it.

It just occured to me how much this fitted with 'when someone tells you who they are, believe them.'

It's like we have a collective mental block that wants to dismiss open evil. I suspect The Gift of Fear is probably appropriate to mention here, too.

I also think this tendency to want to dismiss the open threats and worst excesses that women have faced these past few years springs from this underlying thought that a man who is openly horrible must be putting on a front, or be justified somehow in his bad behaviour.

As with much of JKR's writing, I end up pondering her insight here. It's absolutely true that there are male predators who are brazen about their predilictions and are given a pass, and sometimes even painted as more alluring because of it.

This might not be the most insightful observations (mine not yours) but yes, there must be as it is well documented that convicted serial killers or men on death row are sent considerable quantities of 'fan mail' or women wishing to be pen pals and more. Some have even married those 'pen pals'. It is a very odd phenomena to me but I confess not one I have looked too much into. I find it not just odd but creepy and if I think about it too much it makes me angry at those women so in an out of character sense of self preservation I have avoided digging into this.

'insightful OF observations'

I think it's related to 'hiding in plain sight'. There is a widespread belief that people (men) who threaten or abuse are always covert and secretive about their behaviour. Conversely there is the belief that people (men) who are openly aggressive and interested in violence / fetishism would never be so stupid and obvious as to actually follow it through. Words and consensual behaviours are just a harmless expression of it - like Christian Grey. They're not REALLY threatening. Just playing.

It genuinely astonishes me the women who line up to dismiss and normalise male aggression and threat. Look at the threads on here - women post about men openly being hostile, aggressive and creepy and it's put down to the men 'just being nice' or 'chivalrous' or 'shy' or their assumed mental health problems.

Yesterday a poster talked about a strange man who tried to get her to go in his car and one of the first replies was along the lines of 'he was probably just being nice and helpful'.

I think there are a percentage of women who have Stockholm syndrome associated with the patriarchy. Its the only explanation I can come up with for some of the female reactions and mindsets I have witnessed in relation to abusive male behaviour. It seems to be more prevalent in women from highly patriarchal societies as well.

I don’t think it’s Stockholm syndrome, I think it’s Hybristophilia, or bonnie and Clyde syndrome.

But back to op, yes Iv found when men’s say, ‘ oh I’m rubbish , you don’t want to be with me” plenty of women swoon to show how understanding they are and how the love of a good women will change them, it’s all a bit, “ I’m not like the other girls” .

the stereotype of the "wounded brooding 'hero'" whose repeated rudeness/anger/abuse of the 'heroine' is a sign that he loves her really and more than that needs her to save him is a staple of so many films and TV dramas its no wonder that girls and women absorb from a very young age that its their job in life to fix troubled men and put up with any amount of crap for them to do this

and yes totally agree Bunting - there does seem to be a belief that if a man is being openly hostile, violent and abusive, that somehow this is OK because he probably doesnt mean it really....

Kit19

Nail on head. It's a literary trope where it's treated like a vocation- a role as a very personal missionary; improving the world by improving one man.

It really is everywhere - heroes behave badly until the love of a good woman saves or softens them, redemption narratives seem to grab the popular imagination fiercely.

The stereotype of the "wounded brooding 'hero'" whose repeated rudeness/anger/abuse of the 'heroine' is a sign that he loves her really and more than that needs her to save him

Yes, Mr Darcy / Mr Rochester.

@FKATondelayo

The stereotype of the "wounded brooding 'hero'" whose repeated rudeness/anger/abuse of the 'heroine' is a sign that he loves her really and more than that needs her to save him

Yes, Mr Darcy / Mr Rochester.

dialled up to 12 in Sandition where the heroine has a genuinely lovely potential love interest who as well as being handsome is kind, respectful and shares her interests

but no of course the writers have her fall for the guy who belittles her publicly

but of course....

(the actress who played the heroine in Sandition said that in real life there was no way she would put up with being treated like that)

YY. Appreciating all the more the way JKR is writing the love story in Strike, tbh. Despite the Jane Eyre-esque parallels, she quite effectively makes it clear that Strike is not a bad man in need of redemption, he continually subverts Robin's expectations that have been coloured by her experiences with shitty men, shares her interests, treats her respectfully, keeps to decent boundaries and apologizes and acknowledges when he cocks up, rather than her fixing him.

I think it might have cured me of my lifelong attachment to the bad-boy-redeemed trope.

Strike is one of the very male characters who isnt shown as needing fixing by a woman

I also find it very interesting that JKR also shows him as having been in a toxic and abusive relationship. Sometimes writers will pull the "crazy ex" stuff to excuse male characters behaviour but JKR shows what it is like if your ex genuinely was "crazy" and the impact that has

Yesterday a poster talked about a strange man who tried to get her to go in his car and one of the first replies was along the lines of 'he was probably just being nice and helpful'.

I sometimes wonder if replies like that come from a man who wishes it were a bit easier to entice a woman into his car.

You can’t fix us men, when we’re broken it’s up to our own commitment to healing and self knowledge to pull ourselves up. The reason I suspect some women do this is out of co-dependency, because whilst it’s true that Female attention and support may act as a band-aid, no true healing has taken place thus the idea is the broken man becomes entirely emotionally dependent on the woman. Of course this always backfires spectacularly when the man concerned is narcissist, psychopathic or disordered in some similar fashion.

I’ve seen some interviews of women who fall for incarcerated killers, and some of the stated reasons Include that the man being locked up means he has no realistic way of cheating.