hmm

Ryland was assaulted. He was given the illusion of choice, then when he picked wrong, they did it anyway. He had his consent, his dignity, and his life violently ripped away from him. They violated his consent and drugged him and murdered him and no one hesitated. None of the people he had called friends for these 2 years hesitated to violate and kill him. His life had less value because he didn’t live the way everyone else did.

In every way but sexually, Ryland was raped. I know that’s a strong word, but that’s what it is. Using replacement words takes the weight of the actual concept away and makes it seem somehow more digestible, but it shouldn’t be easy to digest! And that argument could be made, too, with the existence of the Foley catheter and rectal tubing involved in the coma life support.

80% of all rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. its not a stranger, he wasn’t just in the wrong place at the wrong time, it was people he had given up two years of his life to work with every day on something that would benefit the world (and in the book, he was MUCH closer with the entire team than he was in the movie!) These were people that knew him. They knew his sense of humor, his passions, his favorite candies and favorite movies and songs. They looked at someone who trusted them as a friend and were able to decide to assault and murder him against his will with no hesitation.

The nature and situation surrounding what happened to him was not treated with the weight it should have been. Is he not plagued with nightmares? Is he not uncomfortable in his body, uncomfortable with touch? Is he not deeply disturbed in a way that only forms from the realization that something horrific was done to him and he can’t remember the details, that there are others in the world who have seen him at his most vulnerable and made the choice to harm him? Is there no visceral rage that encompasses him when remembering that others felt entitled enough to make a decision for him because they thought they knew him better than he knew his own feelings (and the following hate when he remembers that they were right?)

Yes, I understand the concept of the trolley problem, but it’s human nature to feel like the people you care about are exceptions to these rules. That’s what being Alive and Conscious is - having the mental capacity for affection. It’s what sets intelligent species apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s what it means to be human.

I genuinely cannot fathom how anyone could do that to someone, regardless of the reason. I wouldn’t want my survival on this planet to be at the cost of the rape of another. Trolley problem or not. And the way that the fandom treats Eva Stratt despite this is so genuinely hurtful, how she “did what she had to do to save the world.” Her actions are evil and unforgivable, regardless of the reasoning. All villains think they’re in the right, and Stratt is the villain of PHM.

And unlike Supernatural, no one loved Ryland to the point of intervention. Loved him to the point of doing the impossible just to make sure he made it out okay.

He had to travel 16 light years away to be treated like his life was worth something, to be valued based on who he was and not on his value to others.