Taming of the Guide
| Sentinel Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Taming of the Guide |
| Author(s): | Elaine |
| Date(s): | |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | The Sentinel |
| External Links: | online here |
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Taming of the Guide is a Jim/Blair story by Elaine.
Reactions and Reviews
AU set on a planet where sentinels are known and respected (and, in fact, a sentinel is the monarch) and guides are equally known and respected. Jim is a sentinel without a guide; Blair is brought in (under highly suspicious circumstances) and is made a guide against his will (i.e., he's raped by Jim).I waffled over this one for a long time. On the one hand, there's a lot of mitigating circumstances to the rape (Jim's in bad shape due to his senses; Blair is so out of it that he's not able to protest until they're already having sex), and the hurt/comfort aspects of the story are well done and are (by far) the bulk of the story. On the other hand Elaine makes a point of emphasizing that Jim *does* realize that he's raping Blair and still doesn't stop. And while he takes full responsibility for that later and spends a really long time afterwards trying to make up for it, that doesn't remove the fact that this story is one where a person is raped and then falls in love with his rapist.
What kills me the most is that there is absolutely no reason for Jim to rape Blair. Plot-wise there are plenty of other reasons for Blair to hate Jim in the beginning of the story without putting rape on the list. Continuity-wise, it goes completely against every sentinel-guide rule Elaine sets up in her own universe to have a sentinel intentionally continue to violate and hurt his guide once he realizes what he's doing. Character-wise, it's vastly OOC for Jim (both from canon and from his character in this story) to rape anyone, much less Blair.
In the end, the rape ruined the fic for me because I just can't bring myself to find a happy ending in a person falling in love with the person who intentionally raped him. Which is a shame, because if that one (completely not necessary) element of the story had been removed, I would have highly recommended it. Heck, even if the rape had been unintentional (which is how it started), I would have recommended it. Having Jim make a conscious decision to rape Blair, however, is just not something I can get over.[1]