46 replies to this topic

[farsal]

I haven't voted yet because I have a couple questions.

Have the original writers of BG 2 ever commented or alluded to the possibility that Irenicus raped Imoen? Also, if Irenicus did rape Imoen than why not the PC too?

The pc is the primary character, and I have always thought that Irenicus finds the pc more interesting than Imoen. After all, Irenicus uses the pc's soul for himself not Imoen's soul which he gives to Bohdi.

So if rape were to be done then it would seem to me that the pc would have been his primary target. Certainly, there is no hint in the game that the pc has been sexually assaulted or that rape has anything to do with arousing Bhaal and facillitating the retrieval of the pc's soul.

Loch27, among others, seems to have a sound point. What would be the point of raping any of them? The murder of the thieves seems to be more to the point.

[farsal]

Please, see this 33 page thread ( http://www.shsforums...?showtopic=3599 ) that argues back and forth, pro and contra, striving to answer these particular questions. It is a good if long read.

You are so mean. I decided to spare myself the 33 page discussion. I voted no to Irenicus raping Imoen.

In the game, we never really hear the pc's reaction to the torture. There are a several passing comments on the subject but the comments are shallow. Why not have Imoen and the pc have a discussion about their mutual experiences?

I don't think the general story needs anymore drama. The story has so much angst already, why add more? I think the rape aspect would tilt the story to parody.

[Kulyok]

Oh, I just see it. So many character reactions...

PC1A: "Imoen, I am worried for you. You never said a word about what happened to you in Irenicus' lair."
PC1B: "So, Imoen, at last somebody of the opposite gender paid some attention to you, eh? I never thought you liked it rough."
PC2A: "Imoen... I am so sorry that you were tortured. If you need a friend, or perhaps more than a friend, I am ready to listen."
PC2B: "Everybody in Candlekeep liked YOU! You, not me! You got what you deserved!"
PC3A: "Irenicus did that? Oh, how horrible! My poor, poor Imoen... Say, would you like a foot massage?"
PC3B: "He raped you? Well, then, I suppose you're spoiled goods. Korgan, help yourself."
PC4A: "Imoen, I suffered at Irenicus' hands, too! Stop telling me how horrible it was, I KNOW!"
PC4B: "Tortured, were you? Raped, weren't you? (yawn) Now, go and tell somebody else, be a good girl."
PC5A: "How could he? You, so innocent, so cheerful, so fresh..."
PC5B: "Who in their right mind would like to make love to you? Eww, you're ugly! You're disgusting!"

Every single reply is what one of my PC's wanted to say to her. I guess it'll be rather difficult to write such a discussion, and include these and more in.

[Kellen]

I would have to say she was. Irenicus was searching for love ever since Ellisime left him. He searched for it in the Dryads and I believe he searched for it in Immy.

"I doubt he took pleasure in her company, he's beyond that."

How would she know he's beyond that unless he had tried to take pleasure in her company. THe number of times Immy remarks little things that seem to confirm or deny it are to numerous to count however and so I say leave it as mysterious as it is. Otherwise you will have lots of people unhappy.

Alternatively you make a was raped and wasn't raped mod.

[Darnoc]

Hm, I see that this poll is already closed. Well, it doesn't matter, since I'm going to give my opinion anyway.

I am interested in this particullary question, since I am trying to write a fanfic-novel based on SoA+ToB. It won't be just a simple retelling, I intend to change lots of things, which seemed wrong to me or add new things, which I think should be there. I also try to give more insights into the different characters. A lot more. This won't be just a simple good-versus-evil story. Characters will have problems, will fail, will do things which they later regret (even from an ethical point of view).

So of course when I tried to outline Imoen's character, I stumbled upon this question: Was Imoen raped or not?

In my opinion, Irenicus wouldn't do it. He does things, because he thinks they would be useful to whatever he wants to achieve (in this case, stealing Imoen's soul). So he is rather a pragmatic, emotionless person. But if he thought, raping Imoen would achieve this, he would of course do it. Perhaps not himself, since I doubt he would be able to have any feelings for anyone and it is impossible (logically) to rape someone without being able to feel lust. It would be just another experiment for him. Probably would take an ogre, orc or some other humanoid beast to do the job in order to reach maximum results.

[Oldwolf]

Imoen alludes to the fact that Irrenicus raped her in one of the late game dialogs between the PC and her also the reason Irrenicus keeps the dryads is to try to ignite passion in himself (as Dryads are suppose to be very alluring creatures) so him raping Imoen is probably true, he locked her in a room and beat her and tortured her and she admits she went crazy in there and ended up killing someone that Jon sent in there to rape her, it doesn't sound from the implication of that dialog like it was the first time she had been sexually used, Irrenicus wanted to break her, her happy go lucky cheerfulness was suppressing the Bhaal essence he wanted for Bhodi, he needed to break her down and sexual abuse is one of the oldest and most prevalant tortures used to break women.

[Tempest]

Not sure if I've ever seen a bigger gap between post dates. Oldwolf, Mirrabo's Imoen Romance is not considered canon. Imoen doesn't have *any* dialogues with the main character after Spellhold in unmodded BG2. Yes, in the Imoen Romance and several fanfic tales, there was sexual abuse against Imoen and/or Charname, but officially, it's a question mark.

[Oldwolf]

From the Dryad's area at the start of BG2:

Dryad 1:We are his possessions.
Dryad 2:His servants.
Dryad 3:His concubines. Please help us to escape!

Imoen to the Dryads:I used to dream... but he doesn't. Your charms don't work on him anymore, do they?

Dryad 1:How do you know of this? He has touched you as we, hasn't he? Irenicus searches for something he cannot find, and he looks within those that have no more idea than he.

They were his concubines and couldn't instill passion in him anymore, they recognized that he tried to regain a glimpse of that old passion by using Imoen and responded to her that they could tell "He has touched you as we"

Edited by Oldwolf, 22 May 2007 - 08:10 PM.

[Solar's Harper]

To break someone like Imoen, who rarely allows for things to get her down, rape was probably the last trick Irenicus had up his sleeve. Personally, I'd hate to even think of the possibility since she's my favorite character to begin with, but realisticlly speaking, I'd say that Irenicus got someone such as that duerger mentioned in the rommance mod by Lord Mirrabo to rape her instead of doing it himself since he still holds himself in such high regard.
Regardless, he's still guilty of it, because his "experiments" still have much the same effects of an actual rape, torture would only be putting it in "nicer" terms

[Delight]

Regardless, he's still guilty of it, because his "experiments" still have much the same effects of an actual rape, torture would only be putting it in "nicer" terms

I think that the main problem with threads like this is that people can't imagine the effects of a real torture and try to replace it with something that they can imagine as something that would do "worser" damage.

[G3CK0]

Well, this is certainly an interesting topic, and one that I hadn't actually considered until reading through this forum. Although it's been a over a month since the last post, I thought I'd throw my own thoughts into the fray anyway. Basically, no, I don't for any minute believe that the character of Irenicus would have sexually assaulted Imoen. Quite simply, I don't see what Irenicus would have gained from doing such a thing. As has been mentioned several times now, Irenicus experiment upon the PC and Imoen in order to gleam some fraction of insight into their condition as one of the Children. At the risk of saying something controversial, rape is an incredibly personal thing, and it's the IMPERSONAL that personifies the character of Irenicus. He is cold, detached and clinical, and something as emotionally turbulent as rape is startlingly out of character for him. But, that's just my opinion. I'm sure that plenty of people disagree.

Toodles,

G3CK0

[Solar's Harper]

This is gonna be a long debate I guess.
You are right G3CK0 that Irenicus has nothing really to gain from any form of sexual assault, be it from him or an underling or what-have-you.
But not once throughout all the time we know Irenicus have we seen him refrain from causing the most damage possible, which could go to show that he would not be above such things, if he thinks it would speed along his attempts to draw Bhaal's essence out into the open, where his rituals can try to steal Imoen's and the PC's divine souls with a plenty amount of taint in them. He wouldn't care if they died from the ritual, or from psycholocial damage caused by whatever "experiments" he put them under.

I think only those invovled could really answer this question, the fact remains that while you start off in SOA in Irenicus's company and only then has he been using knifes, psychological attacks and magic for torture, who knows when it would've developed further if the Shadow Thieves had not intervened followed shortly by the Coweled Wizards. (Which I swear I'll kill them all if they touched Imoen anytime before Irenicus broke free!!!)

*ahem* s'cus me, just had to release that anger for a bit.

Point is, you're in his company for an undisclosed amount of time, but it wasn't long that much is certain. So unless he is more peverted and twisted than we all thought, I'd suspect it wouldn't be until after Spellhold is in his grasp, and probably some day during your voyage there, seeing how Imoen is still seen resisting just before you arrive in Byrnlaw.

Edit: Typo

Edited by Solar's Harper, 04 September 2007 - 04:34 PM.

[KedorLao]

I'd have to throw my vote to the no group as well.

I think Irenicus would have 'mind' raped Imoen, but as mentioned before, I got the feeling that he was quite beyond all physical motivations by the time that he captured <charname> and company. I always viewed the capture and torture taking place over a couple of weeks and no longer than a month. However, his lair and plans seem to allude to Irenicus having descended into ruin for a lot longer than when you were captured. I feel that his experiments at trying to clone Elliseme and his encounters with the dryads all occurred before he even got the idea of capturing Bhaal essence and obtaining Godhood. Not to mention I'm not convinced that his experiments with the dryads wasn't perhaps an attempt at trying to obtain immortality. I mean, he kept those 'things' in jars so long that they lost their memories and he had entirely forgotten about them (they appeared to believe that Irenicus was going to bring them back to life, suggesting that his previous plans were to escape death and not become a god).

But, just my two cents. I would think that, the best way to write a mod, would be to take a page from the writers and just be ambiguous about the situation.

[Isilven]

I happen to think it may be that he did, but not physically. Mind-rape, probably, physical rape...maybe (if done with inanimate objects).
I know it's said in Lord Mirrabbo's mod...but it IS alluded to in BG2. When you enter the dryad's place and Imoen does her "So beautiful!" line. The dryads are happy to have such a pretty vivacious person around, and Imoen says something "Your charms don't work on him anymore, do they?"
The dryads answer with "He has touched you as he has touched us!?" I assumed it was that he used them for concubines, but I'm not sure what other "charms" dryads have. I assumed the sexual, probably because of nymphs.

[Gwen]

I would have to vote no. There were times while I was playing the game that I thought maybe it had happened.

The argument that he was trying to instill emotion, as he had used the dryads just doesn't fit. Rape is a crime of anger, not of passion or lust.
That Irenicus had 'touched' the dryads might have something to do with their magic. He was after all highly regarded among the elves and one of the best mages they had. (Demin talks of this) So maybe he had used his magic and theirs to try and get emotion. Oh the possibilites are endless.

Immy and the PC were there for one reason and one reason only. Revenge. Without their souls he could not go on his little rampage, like the madman he is, and kill all the elves and become a God. KedorLao mentioned the 'things' in the jars, which I would have to agree Irenicus was looking for a way to escap death. As for the clones... he was clinging to the memory of his lover, which he could no longer feel for. (It is all discussed at the Tree of Life).

Can't dryads charm people in a non sexual way as well? Kind of like the 'friends' spell or such?

[Delight]

The dryads answer with "He has touched you as he has touched us!?" I assumed it was that he used them for concubines, but I'm not sure what other "charms" dryads have. I assumed the sexual, probably because of nymphs.

Charm Person.

[Solar's Harper]

Yes they can, which generally is why I pickup some charm protection before raging into combat against such enemies (though I hate to see them as enemies, sometimes it does happen).

It may have indeed been only a failed plan to instill emotion back into Irenicus, though it is quite obvious that despite what is said, he does still have one emotion: anger.

Didn't I say this would be quite the long debate?

Anyways I'm sticking with the 'Yes' vote but I will simply state again, that there is no sure way of telling. Irenicus still holds many secrets to us, revenge is his most obvious one so we need to dig deeper than that. And remember that he did actually say he was suprised that the PC survived, as he was suprised with Imoen. But from his tone, it was obvious he didn't care what the result, just as long as he got what he wanted.

Besides, he may have figured out a way to stop the PC from returning to Bhaal just after or before death. Who knows? Definetely not me.

If he indeed did find a way, repeating procedure would be less risky for his side at least, not so for the PC or Imoen.

Edited by Solar's Harper, 04 September 2007 - 04:33 PM.