Agency in captive victim characters

[Claire]

This is a question that is somewhat unique to our genre. Rape fantasy at its core involves the violation of a character against their will. That naturally reduces their agency, especially if the story involves the character being in captivity for a prolonged period of time. But in a story, a character that makes no choices quickly becomes boring. How do you solve that issue as a writer? I struggled with that problem in Record Chaser and contemplated the isssue a lot because of that. Here are some of my thoughts.


Keep the narrative short

I think this is the simplest solution that most stories default to. You don't write a long story but describe the rape as a single encounter. Of course the victim might be robbed of agency during the assault, but you can give them agency before and after. You essentially avoid the issue by making the loss of agency not permanent. There is also the limited agency of the victim of whether they resist as much as they can or comply to reduce the harm.


Focus the narrative on the rapist

I think this is the second obvious option to go for. You make it so that who the victim is doesn't matter. The story focuses completely on the rapist and their pov. The victim is merely a tool for the story. What they go through only matters in how it affects the rapist.

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But what if you want to tell a longer story that features a victim as an important pov character who gets violated repeatedly? I think this is where dealing with the issue becomes truly difficult. What can the return to their pov offer if all their thoughts and feeling either revolve around the horror, the pain and the humiliation of the situation, or describe how numb they already are? This very quickly looses any sense of progression.


Blackmail

One thing you could try as an author is to write a blackmail scenario. This is what @LaLia does in her story Im Netz des Fremden. It's a long story about a college student getting blackmailed by a powerful man. She is not (permanently) held captive, she is supposed to keep living her normal life as a college student, to keep living in her apartment. The entire story revolves around her trying to find a way out of her predicament between the repeated rapes she is subjected too. Her agency lies in her trying to find a way out and the assaults become tests of endurance for her.

I think this approach can be generalized to putting the victim into a situation where the solution to their situation is not as simple as just running away if they could. Basically, you make them choose to stay in their hopeless situation out of fear for the consequences. That in and of itself is a meaningful, plot relevant choice the character makes. And their personal character arc can involve coming to a different choice over time.


Flawed rapists

But what do you do if the victim is truly in a classical horror scenario: Deranged rapist keeps them in a cell to rape them repeatedly. If they could run away, they would be free, the story would be over. This scenario can very quickly become repetitive and boring. While you may vary the kind of abuse you subject your victim to, the reactions and emotional responses to what is done to the victim are inherently limited. At some point the victim will break in one way or another and then your victim character is stale and their pov is just uninteresting.

@RapeU solved the issue in his story The Blowout by having two characters captive at the same time and by giving the group of rapists conflict within their group. This allowed the two victims to interact with each other and to manipulate their captors. Basically, he gave the victims a possible escape that they can make plans for.

That approach can also be generalized. In such a capivity scenario where the power lies objectively 100% with the rapist you can only give the victims agency by making the rapist(s) unwilling or unable to exert their absolute power over the victim. Maybe they want the victim to end up liking them, maybe they don't want to kill them, maybe they get attached to the victim. Whatever it is, the victim needs some angle they can play with. If the rapist truly has no limits in what they can or are willing to do and only care about using the victim's body, then there is almost no way to keep the victim pov interesting over a prolonged period of time. If every resistance can be broken by holding a knife to the victim's throat and the rapist is willing to do whatever it takes to break any form of resistance, then I would caution against dwelling on the victim's pov.

I think the character combination of cruel rapist who is willing to do whatever it takes and who stays the same sadist psychopath throughout the entire story, and a captive victim with 0 agency is inherently unsuited for a long story.

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But now I would like to hear from you. Did you ever struggle with giving a victim agency? Did you ever attempt to write a longer story with a captive victim?

[Shocker]

Now that is an interesting question, and one I will have to type a second response to, as I don’t want to type a longer opinion piece on a cellphone.

A victim’s agency might not always in the forefront, but every human being has agency while breathing, first and foremost to keep on breathing.

I had extended discussions with female members on various boards about forced oral sex. As I would consider the mouth to be the only orifice that can’t be entered without either assent of the victim or preparation (ring gag). And I’m not only looking here at the revenge angle but also the potential for creating an opportunity to escape. The for me surprising consensus was that a sufficient threat to one’s health (use of a weapon) or loved ones (typically offspring) would convince even plucky ladies to go down on their knees and suck. When it comes to agency survival trumps all.

Off course if the story is running over an extended period of time, the constant threat to the victims life recedes, additional aspects come to bear such as escape, terminating the dependency and later retribution. As authors it’s our job to deal with those agencies, even if they are not adressed as being present in the victim.

You mentioned blackmail, which is such a fine method of constantly exceeding pressure on a victim. A victim who is in a position to lose something, one cannot threaten somebody with social exposure if that someone is already outcast. The “fun” of the exercise is to see what can be reasonably demanded, before the more basic agency of survival overrides the fear of being ostracized.

As much as I enjoy writing blackmail stories, I try to make certain of keeping my real name unconnected to my user account, because blackmail is only fun if you are the blackmailer.

So in a nutshell, victims have agency, but in most stories the primary concern is going to survive.

[KittyUmbrass]

I tend to approach the agency of the victim from the point of view of, "How can she affect the rapist's actions, or produce a reaction?" As long as the rapist has motives and emotions driving them, the victim can find triggers or push the wrong triggers in all sorts of ways to influence (even if only for the worse) what happens to her.

Even in passages where she has no physical or vocal capacity to act, she can respond to her situation: process, plan, hope and dream. The outcome may be certain, but her choices are still hers.

And that comes to where my depiction of agency kind of differs from what Shocker wrote above. When RPing as victim, and in some of my stories, the victim will be defiant to the bitter end, preferring death to surrender and violation. But whether the choice is "survival at all costs" or "break my body but you will never have my mind", it is still a choice, and one that might need to be repeatedly affirmed before reaching a conclusion. (Although, as Shocker says, eventually threats made but not carried out lose their potency - on the other hand there's plenty of scope for development in "You said you would kill me!" "I lied!")

For longer stories or multiple rapes, agency can be challenging to maintain. But if I'm writing victim POV (and I usually do) I tend to avoid "same rapist, same setting" things. Even if it is the same rapist, I want to let something else vary and have an arc between the two. Sometimes escape and re-capture offer that possibility. Sometimes, it's a new confrontation where the original power dynamic and status of the victim and rapist have shifted, either dramatically or subtly. More often, I just have different rapists at different parts of a journey or life passage, meaning she can make different choices, have different reactions, learn different lessons or chastise herself for failing to learn. Even "shadow strings pulling" snares where the evil antagonist has laid plans to guide her choices and lead her into his trap, still pivot on her having a sense of choice and the chance to see through the web in time (whether she actually does or not).

In a story I don't think I've reposted here, I posited a timeline-alteration agency and those who qualify get to change one event in their past for the better. The protagonist chooses to erase the rape she suffered as a university student. However, each time she erases one rape, she is raped at a later point in the timeline because she repeated the same mistakes and made herself a target. Her agency to learn from her mistake is erased by her own desire to prevent the assault from happening, but also, her agency in changing the timeline is what leads to each alternative timeline rape.

[Lucius]

Keep the narrative short

I think this is the simplest solution that most stories default to. You don't write a long story but describe the rape as a single encounter. Of course the victim might be robbed of agency during the assault, but you can give them agency before and after. You essentially avoid the issue by making the loss of agency not permanent. There is also the limited agency of the victim of whether they resist as much as they can or comply to reduce the harm.

Absolutely, that's the default option.

Focus the narrative on the rapist

I think this is the second obvious option to go for. You make it so that who the victim is doesn't matter. The story focuses completely on the rapist and their pov. The victim is merely a tool for the story. What they go through only matters in how it affects the rapist.

That's an interesting one. I personally find it exciting when the rapist thinks himself above talking to the victim at all, but when the victim is just a body, even a beauteous one, it makes for a duller story, at least by my lights.

But what if you want to tell a longer story that features a victim as an important pov character who gets violated repeatedly? I think this is where dealing with the issue becomes truly difficult. What can the return to their pov offer if all their thoughts and feeling either revolve around the horror, the pain and the humiliation of the situation, or describe how numb they already are? This very quickly looses any sense of progression.

The first thing I'm thinking of is a story where the venturesome girl -- a prostitute, a criminal, a detective, a tomb raider -- ends up in rape trouble on separate occasions. Her actions and choices might well drive the story plot -- and leave her pretty sore down there. How about making it two, three, or even six girls? You might say it's a multiplication of 'Keep the narrative short' approach, but if there's a good overarching tale to tell, it'll work out.

Flawed rapists

But what do you do if the victim is truly in a classical horror scenario: Deranged rapist keeps them in a cell to rape them repeatedly. If they could run away, they would be free, the story would be over. This scenario can very quickly become repetitive and boring. While you may vary the kind of abuse you subject your victim to, the reactions and emotional responses to what is done to the victim are inherently limited. At some point the victim will break in one way or another and then your victim character is stale and their pov is just uninteresting.

Then you can end the story. Take the common 'rebel woman captured by the Romans' scenario -- executing her in the end doesn't automatically make the story worse, moreover, it's a natural progression! Which I've consciously avoided One Morning in Potaissa.

I think the character combination of cruel rapist who is willing to do whatever it takes and who stays the same sadist psychopath throughout the entire story, and a captive victim with 0 agency is inherently unsuited for a long story.

I suppose so. A lot can be done by switching points of view, adding twists and turns, but it's a difficult talk.

[SoftGameHunter]

I love this topic. I've given a lot of thought to agency in my quest to become a real author, but it's always interesting to bring it back to the genre I cut my teeth on. There are a lot of answers, as the posters above have made clear, and many more too.

One answer I liked a lot when I was much younger is simple: don't give them any. And to be honest, this is a valid answer. It's not the only valid answer, and like any option it can fail. But just give her no agency, or negligible and trivial amounts, like how loud to scream or how quickly she stops crying. If the story's focus is on the suffering of the victim, then the story is the string of horror, confusion, pain, disgust, and shame that comes from that helpless despair. This can sustain a story for quite a while in the right situation. If the story is wank or slish fuel, then it can repeat itself with roughly the same period as one sitting and reading requires. If the focus is on the pleasure of the perp, then he has the agency, and the story can be the creativity of his interaction with his victim. Maybe he has to battle his own demons. Or perhaps he has to take steps to elude discovery. This is actually the easier case, because you just have to ask one question: if the story were rewritten about a jewel heist rather than a kidnapping, would it be good? Now bonus points if the jewels cry and scream a lot.

As everyone has pointed out, the longer a story, the harder that approach is. And there's a reason I liked the no-agency option when I was younger even for longer stories. I was writing to wank, and when I picked it up later, it was a fresh start for me. My first ever long story was one I started in college when I had word processing with encryption options so I didn't risk someone opening the file. I took an NPC from the D&D campaign I ran in high school, a busty ranger girl, and decided to have her kidnapped and enslaved. (And since she was based on a well-known Dragon Magazine cover, I can show you what she looks like. This is her: SGH's raped ranger girl) Over a span of two and a half years I wrote two hundred single-spaced pages of rape, torture, abuse, forced labor, public humiliation, and more, over and over. Once in a while I'd have her try to escape and fail quickly, or mouth off to a guard and be extra punished. But mostly it was writing down every torture and rape scene I saw in other movies and apply them to her before jacking it. Her role in my head was to scream and cry a lot. And FWIW, when she was an NPC I ran her as mega-bitch for comedic effect, so she had this coming.

Needless to say, I wasn't writing to an audience even if I had one. Agency didn't matter in the slightest. Agency meant the story men got careless. I gave her some, but only to take it away. I don't recommend this approach if you're writing to an audience of other people unless it's a short story, but I think this is preaching to the choir.

This genre, though, thrives on helplessness. I think the larger and better response is that we should pay very close attention to how much agency a victim needs to be an effective character. She doesn't need as much as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider or Princess Leia or someone like that. The genre sets the standard, and just as every tiny victory for the victims in these stories can take on outsized importance in her head, every bit of independent action she has in the tale can take on a world of meaning for her agency in the story. Let the little acts matter, and have her and him both know that they matter. She might struggle just to get better food or looser bonds, and he might equally struggle to keep his absolute control. Tiny acts for huge stakes are the keys here, and a story that recognizes this can thrive as much as any thriller or epic.

[Vela Nanashi]

Lots of good ideas and thoughts in this thread, here is some partially tangential drivel from me, not sure it fits here but this thread made me think of this so here it is

For noncon stories one thing that appeals to my liking is when the victim does not entirely break, but endures and grows stronger from it, and my personal favourite is if the victim eventually gets the upper hand and wins, of course winning can look different, I have I think written some weird stories where a victim sort of changes her captor, gets the upper hand but decides to keep their captor I will have to look if I have one of those to post later, and yeah that is very unlikely to happen for multiple reasons, but a fantasy, a story, is allowed to bend what is realistic.

Another aspect of what I like about this type of story is to explore the feelings around things, even things I hate, and I mostly do that from victim point of view as that is where it is the most intense, and there are so many stories from captor point of view that fo a good job there, victim point of view feels like it is a lot rarer to me.

[RapeU]

I created a character who was experimented sexually on over a period of time. As a result, she couldn’t get an orgasm on her own. And she wasn’t much of a looker. She has a flat chest with almost no boobs.

When a serial rapist targets her, she has full agency and actually wants to be raped just so she could get off. The rapist almost doesn’t do it, but she insists that she’ll behave just like a victim so that he could get off.

They end up marrying when the rapist realizes others don’t feel as good as her.

Later, she’s targeted again by someone else and taunts her rapist by getting into it like a lover would, something that particular rapist didn’t want. He wanted the crying and screaming.

[AdmiralPiet]

I too think that some form of agency on part of the victim is almost always possible.
Even gagged, blindfolded, tied down naked and spread egled at the mercy of the rapist: Will she just let it all happen, or rear up in her bonds screaming into her gag?
Even in s Sci-Fi or Fantasy mind control scenario where the victim can perform no outward actions one could still describe her state of mind.

Of course one has to consider what kind of story is to be told.
If the focus is more on describing a fantasy, building a mental image for the reader (as I mentioned in my replies on "The Breaking"), the agency of the victim is less important .

An author that works more with the psychological effects of the abuse might find it more difficult to work with this, the longer a given story goes on.

The only cases where agency goes out the window is total mind control or raping a coma patient or similar...

[Claire]

I love the responses in this thread. Seems like the topic hit a nerve.

So one recurring element I see in the responses is that a victim has always agency to a degree:

A victim’s agency might not always in the forefront, but every human being has agency while breathing, first and foremost to keep on breathing.

Even in passages where she has no physical or vocal capacity to act, she can respond to her situation: process, plan, hope and dream. The outcome may be certain, but her choices are still hers.

And that comes to where my depiction of agency kind of differs from what Shocker wrote above. When RPing as victim, and in some of my stories, the victim will be defiant to the bitter end, preferring death to surrender and violation. But whether the choice is "survival at all costs" or "break my body but you will never have my mind", it is still a choice

I too think that some form of agency on part of the victim is almost always possible.
Even gagged, blindfolded, tied down naked and spread egled at the mercy of the rapist: Will she just let it all happen, or rear up in her bonds screaming into her gag?

I agree with all of that. I mentioned in the Non-fiction - Business or Pleasure? thread that I find Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning a deeply inspirational book. It's of course not about sexual violence but about the time he spent in a concentration camp. And he highlights very much how, even under the conditions he and the other prisoners lived in, choice existed. To me, his book culminates in the quote:

"What then is man?" Thus we ask the question again. He is a being that always decides what it is.

I highlighted the "always" here because I think that is the part that the replies I quoted get at. And I think that's true, for the most part at least. But I also think that given what the replies mentioned is hard to turn into a long story. When @AdmiralPiet talks about how a victim can choose to just let it happen or to scream into her gag and struggle against her cuffs, then that is a choice, yes. But that can carry maybe a scene, maybe you can make a small point of it by mentioning later in the story that a victim still keeps fighting back on day 30 of their captivity. But if you write a long story with repeated assaults, then this would become stale very quickly.

So maybe asking how to give a victim agency is not the right way to frame this question. But how do you make the agency they do have feel meaningful in a way that doesn't become boring in a longer story? I think just pointing out that there is always some form of agency is not enough to solve that problem.

You could focus on what the Victor Frankl quote gets at: identity and meaning. That is kind of the route I went for with Record Chaser. But even then I had to come up with moment to moment actions for the victim (and rapist) to reflect that. And that was really difficult and the main reason why writing the story took me forever after chapter 5. I even cut an entire chapter I originally wanted to write because I couldn't find a way to make it mean anything for the characters. The protagonist gets raped 14 times (more depending on how you actually count that) but the story shows only 4 of those in detail. And the moment the rapes ended and the victim was free, the story became much easier to write again.

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I'll leave it at that for now. I will respond to the other posts that don't deal with the "there is always agency" angle in a separate reply. The topic is so rich, it's hard to address everything that's brought up in a single reply without writing having to write a 10,000 word essay.