Mortimers sister

[iceman]

Why does mortimers sister kill herself and not Indio when she clearly has the chance when he is raping her. She could always shoot herself after, if she couldn't live with herself.

Callous B*****d aren't I...

[JJ_Snakes]

I've thought that her intention was to kill Indio, but it just went wrong, you know.

[iceman]

JJ could be right, but you also have to remember a few cultural things about the Anglo-Saxon upper classes (British and North American) in the timeframe:

-they raised their women to be pretty much useless and incapable of self-defense, even in families with some kind of military/combat tradition (like the Lee dynasty of history).  Their menfolk were supposed to protect them, and if necessary, avenge them.  Failure to do so on the part of the men was considered a profoundly shameful thing...

-so shameful, in fact, that there was a tendency to push the blame off on the victim (she was complicit in what happened, blahblahblah)-the moral code of the period also invited this.

-Generally, if her birth family or family by marriage were decent people and genuinely attached to the victim, she could rely on them to have the assailant brought to justice and keep the gossips from tearing into her too much.  However, popular culture in this period tended to imply that even an innocent victim should be unable to live with the shame of this: her chances of marrying (a second time, in this case) within her own class were nil, she should be too sensitive to ever forget what happened to her, the "proper" thing to do would be to go temporarily insane and commit suicide or waste away and die.

-Now, the only member of the young woman's family that we meet in FAFDM doesn't seem like the kind to pressure her into Redeeming Her Honor with Her Own Death, or any nonsense like that.  He seems like the ruthlessly practical sort who would much rather she have killed Indio, and left her brother (assuming he was in the general vicinity) to tamper with the crime scene to make it look like her husband saved her from Indio and died in the process, thus saving her reputation and keeping the real tragedy of what happened to her private.  Buuuut, he's her brother.  He would most likely not have in charge of raising her, or of forming her ideas on the subject.

So, basically, from that POV, this is a tragedy of a young woman who found herself in a horrible situation and chose the "idealistic", horribly wrong-headed and unpragmatic solution that her culture recommended to her, when there were alternatives open to her.  Very Leone

Bloody Hell I'm knackered after that

[dave jenkins]

What about the idea that Mortimer's sister was so bummed by the fact that her old man got iced that she didn't want to live anymore? What does she care about Indio? No matter what happens to him, she's still without the man she loves. And she's just seen him gunned down in front of her. She would be so depressed that she would want to die.... which is what she did.

[DJIMBO]

ive always thought its suicide. If you think about it her husbands just been killed and she cant stand the indignity of being raped by his killer. Simple as that.

[iceman]

ive always thought its suicide. If you think about it her husbands just been killed and she cant stand the indignity of being raped by his killer. Simple as that.

Surely if she wanted to kill herself she could still have killed Indio then topped herself after.
Another thing..why did Indio leave the gun so close for her to pick it up..I dont think he did it on purpose because doesn't he look shocked when the gun goes off?

[dave jenkins]

Surely if she wanted to kill herself she could still have killed Indio then topped herself after.

Sure, but  why? You're assuming that she would think like you and want revenge. Move outside your testosterone-enhanced world and channel Frail, dude. Her only thought is to die, and she gets there as fast as she can.

[redyred]

Also, I guess it's arguable that the trauma she gave to Indio was kind of a revenge in itself - he's obviously pretty disturbed over it.