"what doesn't make you worse off makes you better off"

Something like. It's not quite as tautological as it sounds on first blush - you aren't left exactly the same. Which may be obvious, but isn't a tautology.

I have a thing about Nietzsche being misused but not enough scholarship to be really authoritative about it. But considering how broken he was, I doubt he meant that suffering universally leads to strength.

That's a good question, brenda. Somewhere in the back of my head I'm thinking that they said something about a series of rapes, but then they only ever talked about the one that was recanted. Anyone remember better, or do I have to find the tape?

Er, or go to work?

Which is completely separate from his involvement in BDSM.

But if he weren't into BDSM, would he have chained her? He's definitely arrogant, no doubt. But part of his arrogance causes/is manifested¹ in an attitude that BDSM will cure anything that ails ya.

So his action was a result of his personality, and his interests intertwined.

¹: God, I type that manfisted three times.

No, see, I think what led him to chain up Rebecca and freak is that he's an arrogant boy who thinks he's smarter than he is.

I think he took himself too seriously, and taking the BDSM too seriously is a part of that. Doesn't make it a judgment on BDSM outside of Brandt. I think.

to chain up Rebecca and freak

In the reenactment/flashback, was it actually established that Brandt freaked out? Or is that what Creepy Bossman assumed?

Or it could just be semantics. I call what Rebecca did "freaking out." And so when I think of Brandt freaking out, I can't picture him flipping out in the same way that she did.

I *can* picture him saying "Oh, holy FUCK, I thought you wanted this, crap sonofabitch crap crap crap," and letting her out of the cuffs. Which I wouldn't call freaking out as much as making a HUGE error in judgement (or, perhaps, a total LACK of judgement), and getting a rude awakening.

Again, it's not a big thing and could be semantics.

That's a good question, brenda. Somewhere in the back of my head I'm thinking that they said something about a series of rapes, but then they only ever talked about the one that was recanted. Anyone remember better, or do I have to find the tape?

I thought the ex accused him of rape, then recanted. Then the investigating officer became so determined to prove him guilty, he started following him and then got caught up in the fantasy and started committing the actual crimes (the rapes and then the murders? because they started out as rapes and then progressed to murders, right?) against the women who associated with Brandt--making him a natural suspect on all of them. Or am I confused, too?

It's semantics for me, Steph. It's what I'm calling freaking on his side.

No, see, I think what led him to chain up Rebecca and freak is that he's an arrogant boy. Which is completely separate from his involvement in BDSM.

Well, having the chains there at all was related to his involvement in BDSM. But I completely agree with you otherwise.

He was after him for a (series of?) rapes. Did they establish whether he was or wasn't guilty of those, though?

All we know for sure is that the charges were dropped.

My semantics are like yours, Steph.

I'm not calling him perfect! I'm saying there's a difference between playing at something, and not being the best (or even, honestly, good) at it. I think they imply very different mindsets. Brandt took BDSM seriously -- probably too seriously, which is what led him to chain up Rebecca and then freak. That's not playing, in my book.

Hmm, I _think_ I see the disconnect. I say that he's "playing" at S&M because he's not following the established rules and expectations, he's doing what he thinks S&M is. He talked about how the general consensus is that the submissive has the power, but if he really believed that, he wouldn't have tried to tie Rebecca up. He didn't release her because she said the safe word, he released her because she scared him.

An analogy to what I mean-- a guy reads a book about sculpture, buys a spot welder and welds together a bunch of scrap metal and calls it art. To him, it is art, he worked very hard at it, and it's legitimate. However, critics and dealers may call it junk.