I think Agnes was doing what she had to do to survive in a very bad situation -- and one which has surely occurred throughout human history, and well back into the evolutionary history of pre-human hominids. The only likely outcomes for a young girl captured by a band of lawless men like Martin's mercenaries are A) being gang-raped by all of them, or B) engaging the attention of one of them, preferably the alpha of the pack, so to speak, strong enough to protect her from the others. Gang rapes have a tendency to escalate in violence, a positive feedback effect which often results in severe injury or death; the other outcome is vastly preferable from the victim's point of view.
Looked at from the evolutionary standpoint, once a female has been raped by every male in the group, no particular male has any strong interest in her survival or that of any child she may conceive afterwards, because the probability of the child being *his* is quite low. On the other hand, if she can attract the group leader's interest, he will be inclined to protect her from rape by the others, and protect her children as they are most likely to be his own.
I think that in the beginning, Agnes was mostly faking her attraction to Martin, and completely faking her "enjoyment" of that first rape. However, the ploy worked, and she then needed to keep it up. I suspect it's difficult to fake emotion like that convincingly without actually feeling it at least somewhat, and she might also have felt a degree of gratitude toward Martin because he did protect her, and genuine attraction simply because he was, at least physically, a remarkably attractive man -- a natural alpha male type. (Hauer is among the most magnetic actors of his generation; IMHO, his charisma even eclipsed that of Harrison Ford in *Blade Runner*.) When it came down to it, she couldn't bring herself to let him die, even though she certainly wanted to escape him and rejoin Steven.
reply
share
richard-III
15 years ago
"I think Agnes was doing what she had to do to survive in a very bad situation -- and one which has surely occurred throughout human history (...)
"Looked at from the evolutionary standpoint, once a female has been raped by every male in the group, no particular male has any strong interest in her survival or that of any child she may conceive afterwards (...)
"I think that in the beginning, Agnes was mostly faking her attraction to Martin, and completely faking her "enjoyment" of that first rape."
Thank you for this interesting and intelligent post. I agree that Agnes had little alternative if she wanted to survive. Sadly, the judgement of outsiders is often negative: slut, whore, calculating b'tch, etc. What ordeal would posters here have chosen - rather be gangraped and wasted (killed) than do what Agnes did? I doubt it. If there is a point to sacrifice, like protecting someone else, some people will choose to sacrifice themselves. But here, Agnes clearly had only one real option and she took it.
Your further points about the group round it up well.
"The Beamer Xperience: 9 feet wide home cinema bliss."
reply
share