Readers perception of a scene

[Hans]

In my current WIP I have a scene about which I am not sure how the reader will perceive it. I will have this scene but could change the follow up of it according to the presumed reaction.
My MC is on a travel working as a handmaiden. The travel party gets abducted, with the mistress of my MC as the main target. The employer of the abductors shows no interest in anyone than the main target, so the MC is left to the bandits. Some of them make it very clear that after they reached their goal she will be the center of their amusement. What protects her now is only that they are in a hurry.
Not all of them agree, some even show disgust.
Nobody suspects the MC to be a magic user because these normally are high class, not handmaiden. She uses this to infect them with an accelerated disease that kills them within a day. This magic is not directed it kills everyone around with the exception of my MC and her current Mistress who is protected against magic for reasons out of the control of my MC.

So on a scale from justified self defense to cold blooded murder where would you think here reaction will be seen?

((And once again I notice I make some errors in every English sentence I write. But how to correct it is beyond me.))

Edit: Sorry to the moderators, I wanted to post in "writing questions", Seems I got the wrong button.

 

[Steerpike]

I find self-defense to be a bit of a stretch in that scenario, though I think she would be justified in striking out to the extent necessary to protect herself or to get away. I think the method of killing is going to be as problematic as anything else. Infecting people with a fast-acting disease is, in my view, kind of a nasty or maybe even evil thing to do. I don't have a problem with a character like that, if that is what you are going for, but if not it is worth noting that her willingness to kill people "slowly" using what is essentially a biological weapon will color your readers' view of her.

 

[Telcontar]

The act seems justified to me. There was every reason to believe the bandits meant her harm, from what I understand. However, you also mention that it has "collateral damage" of a sort. Are innocent people killed, ie other abductees? Did the handmaiden know this would happen? Is either she or the main target important enough to justify their deaths in order to prevent capture of these two?

Steerpike is entirely correct that, regardless of whether or not the reader feels the act itself is justified, the manner in which the handmaiden kills the bandits reflects heavily upon her. Perhaps the disease was the only thing she could think of, but if there were less ugly or destructive ways to use magic to get away, and the handmaiden did not take those routes, then it reflects upon her.

 

[gavintonks]

This is not a scene as you have not written it out yet as that is the only time it will resonate with a reader. Currently it is an outline of an event. The response from a reader will be how well it is written not whether people are murdered are collateral damage or friendly fire or any other acronyms for murder in a specific context

 

[Endymion]

gavitonks has a good point. As always.

 

[Hans]

Thank you for the responses.
She is very limited in that she is bound and gagged. She rots away her bonds, but there is no way she alone could go up against a group of battle trained armored men.
Now we have rot and disease, see a pattern in her magic style? There is a reason she keeps it a secret in an area where magic users tend to be upper class.
Innocent are killed, shew knew it and in an objective view she is not important.
I gave an outline here because the scene is currently only a first draft and I write in German. So even if I would post it here not many here could tell anything about it. But I agree that the final writing of it will heavily affect the response.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I like the idea of her magic being something dark and unconventional. However, does it match with her personality? If I commanded a destructive magic, I might be hesitant to use it, maybe threaten a foe before I hauled out the big guns.

You could try posting it anyways.

Wir haben hier Leute, die Deutsch sprechen. Mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut, aber wenn Sie Hilfe brauchen die Übersetzung auf Englisch, ich könnte es versuchen. Ich verstehe mehr als ich schreiben kann.

Okay I used a translator to help me out with sentence structure there, but still I read better than I write.

 

[Penpilot]

Personally I don't have a problem with it. I think it'd be one of many valid responses to the situation. She can feel bad about killing, but its almost a situation where it's either her or them. However, this will color the perception of the character by the reader. Now we know what she's willing to do to protect herself. So if faced with similar situation, there's going to be questions of why she doesn't go all dark again. Of course this could be one of her personal struggles through the story.

 

[Fluffypoodel]

I think self defense is valid. Your MC is trying to save the life of her mistress as well as her own life. I think that you can change the perception of the scene by what kind of bandits these really are. If you portray them as bad people then the reader will understand. Personally I like the fact that some of them seem like normal people caught up in the life of highwaymen. If your MC has no other alternative than to kill all of the=m in order to escape then that allows you to explore the ramifications of such an action and how it affects your MC. Is she guilty? Does she wish that she did something different? Or does she feel justified? I think that this sort of moral ambiguity adds a lot to character development as well as building a relationship with the reader. We want to see our MC make the wrong decision from time to time to see how they react ot it. Seems like you have a good turning point for your character and if I were you I would run with it. Good luck.

 

[Amanita]

I can understand what's bothering you very well, Hans.
As tavintonks said, it's hard to make a final decisions without knowing about the context of the scene. One of the questions you should be asking yourself: Do you want your main character to be seen as purely good or is she supposed to play a more ambigious role? In the first case, it would be hard to let her do that and keep her that way even if the bandits would have raped here. If she's the main character in a darker story, it shouldn't be much of a problem.
For the readers feelings, the nature of the disease might also be important. Is it something like a heard attack or more like the intestines dissolving or something along those lines? The first might cause less bad feelings.
Another option would be having your character not kill her would-be rapists but use her powers on their relevant organs in a way that would make carrying out the deed impossible. This might put some male readers off too though.

I'm having similar problems myself and I'm not sure what can or cannot be fed to readers either. Not all ways of killing are equal to many people.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I was curious why she displays such a corrupting form of magic. Is that normal for your world? Something she was born with and can't control? Are people unable to learn more magic if they wish? If it were me, and I had the chance to either rot someone's guts out or scare them off with a fireball, I'd use the fire. However, my characters have killed without remorse before, and I think depending on the intensity and pace of the scene, doing what you have to to survive is instinct.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I think it would be interesting if things like this happened due to her lack of control on the magic. Killing is such an inhumane way may be something she didn't fully intend but it happened.
This could create a lot of inner conflict for her as a magic user & also be a reason for a power limit.

 

[Hans]

I like the idea of her magic being something dark and unconventional. However, does it match with her personality? If I commanded a destructive magic, I might be hesitant to use it, maybe threaten a foe before I hauled out the big guns.

About her character: She grew up as some kind of swamp witch. I searched for an other name, but this one (actually "Sumpfhexe") stuck. In these swamps where she learned survival "eat or be eaten" is brutal every day reality. My MC learned very fast, and after completing her education at a rather young age she thought live could have more in store for her than sitting in the swamps and scaring local simpletons.
Magic is forbidden in most part of the world with exception of the place she went to learn some "real magic". But at that time she only has access to her swamp based training.
Al magic in my world is spirit based, which maces many typical phantasy magic effects like fireballs very hard to do.

You could try posting it anyways.

Thank you. I will come back to that once I have something presentable, not a first draft.

Do you want your main character to be seen as purely good or is she supposed to play a more ambigious role?

Amanita, I don't know if you follow my posts in the Weltenbastler forum. There I once wrote that all of my current bigger characters are different kinds of assholes. All of them. The MC is no exception.

For the readers feelings, the nature of the disease might also be important. Is it something like a heard attack or more like the intestines dissolving or something along those lines?

It is a kind of fever, speeded up with some blood magic. Blood has a big effect on the spirits. She uses mosquitoes instead of daggers and her own blood, but it still leans into a dangerous direction.

Another option would be having your character not kill her would-be rapists but use her powers on their relevant organs in a way that would make carrying out the deed impossible. This might put some male readers off too though.

I already have a sect that preserves some special magic only available to young boys by castrating them before puberty. They also might have some great singers.
But back to my MC, this would not help her to get away. Maybe make things even worse for her.
My first thoughts of this scene had her actually raped. This would have made it possible to infect the rapers with direct body contact instead using the much less reliable mosquitoes. I dropped that at a very early planning stage.


To all others: It will definitely have an effect on her. She puts off a tough girl routine at first, but once the stress wears off and she is alone with her memories ... I do not want her to go full PTSD but she will have to chew on it for a long time.

Thanks again for all answers.

 

[Amanita]

My first thoughts of this scene had her actually raped. This would have made it possible to infect the rapers with direct body contact instead using the much less reliable mosquitoes.

This would probably make readers sympathize with her reaction more easily. I'm sure you're having good reasons to have changed this though.
I haven't visited the Weltenbastler-Forum often during the last weeks because I'm not really doing much world-building at the moment, that's why I didn't know. In a relatively grey and grey setting, this shouldn't come as such a shock to the readers.