Err, I guess "Egelric finds Elfleda" is pretty disturbing too, at least at that point in the story. You don't really see that coming.

Two other disturbing chapters for me was Egelric finds Elfleda and Egelric enters the nightmare house. Its so sad how he arrived home and found two of his wives dead.

I went with Cat's rape too. The idea of Kia's is more disturbing, but it was never made explicit, whereas Cat's is quite graphic.

The other thing that stops me from picking "Hila sees the most high" is the eerily detached POV in it, since it's being witnessed by a little girl who doesn't understand what's happening. It is agonizing to watch, but it doesn't feel like we are experiencing it in the way we are with Cat's POV.

I think my original plans for the Egelric & Maire chapters are more disturbing than what I eventually wrote. Because, like you said Karen, Maire was asking for it. Maire never does seem quite like a victim, no matter what he does to her.

I guess I can see that. There is a sort of cognitive dissonance reading that chapter, like sometimes in movies where there will be a scene of violence or devastation accompanied by pretty, wistful music. Almost more chilling that way.

But perhaps because I wrote them both, Cat's rape is definitely the chapter that made me the most ill. Once I had made the decision to do what I did to those four young elves, writing the chapter wasn't that big an obstacle. Except for the part where Surr was dying and sort of slowly curling up and stretching out on the ground, I don't think I did a lot of detail of the attack or injuries.

But with Cat, writing all the stuff about the knife, and the wound, and the pain, and the blood, and the rape, and the cold ground, and the going blind... that still makes me sick to read it, so you can imagine how I felt writing it. It was also my first really graphic or violent chapter.

I also got pretty shaken writing the Egelric & Maire chapters, especially the first. I tend to get myself pretty worked up whenever anything intense is going on, so I can draw from my own physical experience for details, but that one was particularly overwhelming, as I recall. The sexual part of Cat's rape was pretty business-like compared to that scene.

I suppose in asking the question I was thinking more about which chapter was most immediately disturbing. There are probably some past chapters that seem quite mundane on first read, but when you go back and see what they were leading up to, they become disturbing in context. So I definitely wasn't thinking that far.

Does Dasi's death seem so bad to you now because you are one of the few Lar fans out there? It was the first time we really saw the tragedy of his life at all, I think. He did seem somewhat shaken by what they did to Cat, but that chapter was really the first sign of his humanity.

I love that chapter (and find it disturbing) but I have a hard time deciding how much of that is just due to my love of Lar, and how much the chapter on its own merits. I think it's safe to say it didn't disturb me in the same way then that it does now, though the blood and violence was a bit much for my tastes even then.

*scampers off to reread it*

I do think you're right about that...it has a lot to do with my love of Lar and just seeing the incredible tragedy of him. It was awful and very sad the first time I read it, but now I can hardly bear to read it. It's the last parts of it that get me the most, how had no one left to love and to love him, seeing the last person he cared for die. And that last picture! That's just painful, right there.
Yeah, Hila sees the most high was the one with the biggest impact the first time around. So I will stay with that one.
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I'm romantic, literary, cynical, and a diehard Alred Sebright groupie.

I thought Llen was more disturbing than Imin in that one. But maybe that is just because I know Llen better than you do so far.

I definitely thought when the two little girls, Kia and her friend, were attacked that was the worst one.