History Main / RapePortrayedAsRedemption

[[RapeAsDrama And then she is raped]]. Or in tamer stories, rape is attempted and she either fights off her assailant(s) or gets rescued right before she's violated.

* Anaru from ''Anime/AnohanaTheFlowerWeSawThatDay'' is an extremely passive girl who goes with the crowd. The flaw steadily gets worse throughout the series, up until the climax for her story arc. Here, her "friends" leave her out with a known creep, and he takes her out to a love hotel, implying that he wants sex. Anaru gets socially trapped and due to her passive nature was unable to escape the situation on her own. Fortunately, [[spoiler:Yukiatsu comes out from around the block, and manages to deescalate the situation and helps Anaru go back home. Anaru is more assertive of herself after the event. This opens up Yukiatsu and Anaru, and the two are able to begin communicating with each other. Ultimately, the whole cast's problem is lack of communication, and it is because of the Yukiatsu rescue that these old friends (and eventually the whole group) are able to make amends with each other.]]

* The [[{{Hentai}} h-manga]] ''Bullied Revenge Hypnosis'' revolves round Akitaka Kazuki, hypnotizing Izumi Nogani, Minako Sanada, and Sae Hinata, [[TheDreaded the most]] [[GirlPosse feared girls in school]] [[PayEvilUntoEvil to become]] [[SexSlave his personal harem]] by [[HypnoFool planting the command that they want to have his children]]. The girls' backstory shows that [[TheBully they relish the idea of humiliating their victims into helplessness]], which includes teachers, and earn spending money through blackmail, but after Akitaka completely breaks their free will, they mellow out considerably and [[ReformedBully give up their bullying ways]]. Howver, after they each give birth to a baby, [[ExtremeLibido they drive Akitaka to exhaustion]] because [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor he planted the idea]] of having his ''[[ExactWords children]]''.

* Happens in a surprisingly high number of {{Fanfic}}s involving [[Literature/HarryPotter Bellatrix Lestrange]].

* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers Galaxy Rangers]]'' Fanfic ''Isn't Life Strange,'' this hits Daisy O'Mega. While she was on her way to exchange information on an impending Crown attack for a pardon of her impressive rap sheet, being caught and brutalized by her former partner-in-crime Macross along with being tossed in [[MindRape the Psychocrypt]] was enough for her to give up crime and go back to [[BountyHunter bounty hunting for the good guys]] after her pardon went through.
* A few fanfics giving this treatment to ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'''s bitchy sister, Quinn, were famously a source of much controversy within the fandom.
* ''Fanfic/{{Hivefled}}''; Mindfang, as in canon, mind-controls and rapes her slaves, while under the impression it's helping them by letting them have some "fun". She then gets psychically and situationally manipulated into unwanted sex herself and realises it doesn't feel helpful at all. Whether the lesson actually sticks has yet to be shown, though, and her current favourite slave is still angry about her treatment.

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* Creator/FlanneryOConnor was a big fan of this one. Although few instances of rape exist in her fiction, she nonetheless typically regarded extreme acts of violence against prideful, self-righteous people as acts of salvation -- something to snap them out of their foolishness. See "Good Country People" and "Revelation", for examples.
* ''Literature/InterpreterOfMaladies'' has the story "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar". Bibi suffers from frequent seizures and illnesses, and while the townspeople try to provide for her and even throw out her relatives who abuse her, they don't enable her to provide for herself. It is only after she is [[spoiler:raped and impregnated that they give her the resources she needs to care for her children, and Bibi is able to overcome her illness to become successful. This, of course, is at the cost of her dignity]].
* Diana Mayo, female protagonist of ''Literature/TheSheik''. It's not-so-subtly implied that her repeated rape and the subsequent StockholmSyndrome that cause her to become more subservient and feminine are karmic retribution for being so [[ValuesDissonance "unnaturally"]] cold and "unfeminine".

** The ''{{Literature/Nibelungenlied}}'' plays this straight with Brunhild, who needs a [[PlayingCyrano Cyrano]] figure not only to woo her but to rape her into submission, as well. However, once Brunhild finds out what happens (from [[PlayingCyrano Siegfried's]] boastful wife), she is out for blood and sets in motion the plot to assassinate Siegfried, and once that is achieved, she disappears from the story, leaving Gunther without a wife but with a sister now hellbent on avenging Siegfried. In some versions, ''e.g.'' the Fritz Lang/Thea von Harbou film, Brunhild commits suicide once Siegfried is dead.

* {{Averted}} in Stieg Larsson's ''Literature/{{Millennium Trilogy}}'', which has Lisbeth Salander playing the bad girl doing bad things bit perfectly. [[spoiler:She's raped by the person designated as her primary caretaker-twice. Instead of reforming or becoming a {{broken bird}}, she submits her tormentor to the same torture he put her through and then tattoos "I am a sadistic pig, a pervert, and a rapist." on his chest and stomach before threatening to destroy him if he ever crosses her again. She never tells anyone about the rape (until it comes up in her trial), and she doesn't soften up.]]

* Creator/MichaelMoorcock's ''Gloriana'' ends with [[spoiler:the titular queen being raped by her sometime-lover and sometime-enemy; this is portrayed as a spiritual cure for a lot of things that have been plaguing her life, and they marry and live HappilyEverAfter.]] When a feminist friend pointed out the UnfortunateImplications to Moorcock, he agreed, {{facepalm}}ed, and ''rewrote the ending'' so that [[spoiler:Gloriana's redemption comes from her standing up against her would-be rapist, asserting her power, and making him realize that he loves her and doesn't want to hurt her, and then they have mind-blowing ''consensual'' [[IntimateHealing emotionally-healing and curse-breaking sex]]]]. Subsequently, Moorcock became a crusader ''against'' gratuitous violence against women in fiction.

* This is what most people believe of sorceri in ''Literature/FrostflowerAndThorn'', since these men and women will lose their [[VirginPower unholy powers]] along with their virginity. Subverted [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil very]] [[RapeAsDrama hard]] in the novel itself, as sorceri are innocent victims of bigotry and the [[spoiler:VirginPower thing isn't real, just an excuse to rape them out of hatred.]]

* [[AlphaBitch Paige]] on ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration''. Before the episode in which she was raped, she was your typical bitchy popular girl. She had also shunned Ashley and started treating her badly. She ended up becoming much nicer to the other students, welcoming Ashley back into her circle of friends, and becoming friends with less popular ones.

* On Series/VeronicaMars, Parker is an annoying ditz and seen as promiscuous until she's raped. Afterward, she's more mature and becomes a good friend to Veronica and Mac.
* Gemma in ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'' is softer after her rape in season 2
* A unique inversion happens with Spike in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Attempting to rape Buffy after she ended their destructive romance led him to realize just how evil he was. Spike immediately set out on a redemption quest to regain his soul and complete his HeelFaceTurn.

* While it was merely an AttemptedRape, the 'going after' of Elizabeth Patterson in ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' has undertones of this since this is the main impetus that got her back into the arms of her high school sweetheart Anthony, who saved her. Considering Anthony's the CreatorsPet, though.... (also considering he asked her to wait for him, as ''his divorce hadn't gone through yet...'')

* Done in ''Theatre/DarkOfTheMoon''. It's found out that Barbara was impregnated by a witch, and is taken to a church to be redeemed. Their best idea is allowing a former suitor to rape her right in the middle of the service.

* A variant of this trope happens in ''Anime/InfiniteRyvius'': Kozue whose boyfriend counts as privileged on the ship, infuriates people around her with her spoiled and selfish behavior (she's not doing it on purpose but fails to read the warning signs). In the end, a group of girls assault her and it's implied that she's raped. After this, her behavior changes dramatically, but she doesn't recover from the trauma -- especially as the incident makes her boyfriend react in a way that has horrible consequences for everyone on the ship. She does not "improve" after the incident.

* ''Series/{{House}}'' whump fanfics, or at least the more famous ones, have him being raped to BreakTheHaughty. Slightly included in the series proper too, as he goes to jail after season 7 and gets abuse including unshown but mentioned rape, and is a slightly nicer ass in season 8.

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* The movie ''Film/SororityBoys'' combines this trope with DisguisedInDrag, where circumstances force a sexist fraternity brother to dress in drag and pretend to be a woman. One of his fraternity brothers feeds him a roofie and anally rapes him (believing him to be a woman throughout).
* The climactic scene of Butch saving Marcellus Wallace from being raped by the hillbillies in ''Film/PulpFiction'' plays with this trope, since this scene is more about [[ConscienceMakesYouGoBack Butch's]] [[WhatYouAreInTheDark redemption]] than Marcellus'.

* This could be the point of the Carver arc in ''Series/NipTuck'': [[SerialKiller The Carver]] selects beautiful models (both female and male), brutally rapes them and disfigures their faces. In one case, the Carver rapes a ''male'' victim, hinted to be a {{jerkass}} prior to the rape, making him pathetic, broken and emasculated.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': We never find out ''all'' the details of what Ramsay Snow, the Bastard of Bolton, did to Theon, but it is very heavily hinted that there was at least some kind of sexual abuse involved (not even counting what we see outright on [[spoiler:Jeyne's]] wedding night). [[spoiler:Sure enough, Theon, who spent the last book where we saw him being thoroughly loathsome, becomes the Woobie. The torture helped, but the sexual abuse was the horrible icing on the cake.]]

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* ''Film/WeddingCrashers'' is about two friends who crash weddings and have sex with women they find at said weddings, the theory being that watching a marriage makes women much easier targets than, say, in a bar (open bars help too). One of Vince Vaughn's conquests turns out to be a nutcase who won't let him go and does increasingly insane things to him, including rape. Keeping in line with the trope, he goes from being an unrepentant womanizer to [[spoiler:falling madly in love with her and marrying her by the film's end]].

* [[spoiler:Jason]] from ''Series/TrueBlood'' is kidnapped and gang-raped by at least a dozen women. He seems to think of it as punishment for all of the casual sex he was having. The payoff for this storyline was him getting together with [[spoiler:Jessica.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''

** In ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'', [[spoiler:RichBitch Nanami is assaulted by her brother Touga as a part of her BreakTheHaughty process]] and [[spoiler:Juri's "friend" Shiori is manipulated by her and Juri's old flame Ruka into a sexual relationship, then dumped in a very humiliating manner]]
** In ''Anime/{{Penguindrum}}'', [[spoiler:StalkerWithACrush Ringo is nearly raped. ''Twice''. First by a man whom she drugged to have sex with, later by a woman who sees her as a ReplacementGoldfish for her dead sister.]]

One particularly disturbing version is where a HeteronormativeCrusader rapes a gay person, justifying their crime with claims that the sex act will [[CureYourGays "cure" them of their homosexuality]]. Modern works will usually cast the rapist as a villain, but in earlier works, the rapist may very well be the ''hero'', and (due to contemporary misunderstanding of what homosexuality was) [[RapeAndSwitch the cure may very well work]].

* ''The Rapeman'', a BlackComedy manga, features a masked PsychoForHire who rapes women at the request of clients for various reasons. Most of the chapters have the protagonist raping good women as part of somebody's [[DisproportionateRetribution overblown revenge]] or to discredit them, such as when a stepmother gets her own daughter raped to force the girl to look for her own man and stop meddling in her parents' relationship. In a few other scenarios, the targets are female criminals who Rapeman violates in order to make them peaceful, law-obeying women -- and ''that's'' what the anime adaptation focused on, making him seem like some kind of superhero. It ran for 13 volumes before being canceled, remarkably spawning said anime and ''four'' [[LiveActionAdaptation live-action movies]]. The sheer absurdity of its premise earned it a sizeable cult audience in the USA -- including music producer Steve Albini, who named a noise rock band after it.

* In ''Manga/KillingBites'', Yuugo participates in a coup detat to remove the Mitsukado faction from power, killing the leader Youzan and raping his granddaughter Youko as a form of CruelMercy to punish her for treating her gladiators like pawns while still sparing her life. He then spends 2 years needlessly treating her like a sex slave until she runs away to seek sanctuary from the Ishida faction and turns into a polite OfficeLady. This only interests Yuugo further, and the story manages to turn an egregious 180º spin on his portrayal by making Youko fall in love with him after he saves her from other rapists. She later kisses Yuugo, much to his shock, and admits he made her mature from the bratty and haughty girl she used to be.
* ''The Rapeman'', a BlackComedy manga, took this to its logical conclusion: A {{superhero}} who raped female criminals in order to make them peaceful, law-obeying women. It ran for 13 volumes before being canceled, remarkably spawning both an anime and ''four'' [[LiveActionAdaptation live-action movies]]. The sheer absurdity of its premise earned it a sizeable cult audience in the USA -- including music producer Steve Albini, who named a noise rock band after it.

* In ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', Setsuna Dinoponera is a lonely girl who is too violent and prideful to make any friends. After beating up several people in the Arachnid Hunt battle royale and being defeated by the heroine Alice, Setsuna is ambushed by an assassin under the orders of the man who called her there in the first place and is tossed to a crowd of rape-zombies while paralyzed. [[SavedForTheSequel In the sequel]], ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', it is revealed that everything was a a cruel and convoluted plan to make Setsuna an ambulant source of antibodies for curing the zombie outbreak. This forces Setsuna to learn humility and empathy so she can work with Chiyuri, her OnlyFriend, to save Japan.

* ''The Rapeman'', a BlackComedy manga, took this to its logical conclusion: A {{superhero}} who raped female criminals in order to make them peaceful, law-obeying women. It ran for 13 volumes before being canceled, remarkably spawning both an anime and ''four'' [[LiveActionAdaptation live-action movies]]). The sheer absurdity of its premise earned it a sizeable cult audience in the USA -- including music producer Steve Albini, who named a noise rock band after it.

* In ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', Setsuna Dinoponera is a lonely girl who is too violent and prideful to make any friends. After beating up several people in the Arachnid Hunt battle royale and being defeated by the heroine Alice, Dinopo is ambushed by another assassin under the orders of the man who called her there in the first place and is tossed to a crowd of rape-zombies while paralyzed. [[SavedForTheSequel In the sequel]], ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', it is revealed that Alice forcing Dinoponera to sting herself with ant venom made her resistant to the zombifying virus and that she did have a friend, Chiyuri, [[RememberTheNewGuy the whole time]]. This convoluted plan to make Dinopo a LivingMacguffin forces her to learn humility and empathy so she can work with Chiyuri to stop the zombie outbreak.

* ''The Rapeman'', a BlackComedy manga, took this to its logical conclusion: A {{superhero}} who raped female criminals in order to make them peaceful, law-obeying women. Though it only ran for 9 issues before being canceled (though it remarkably spawned both an anime and ''four'' [[LiveActionAdaptation live-action movies]]), the sheer absurdity of its premise nonetheless earned it a sizeable cult audience in the USA -- including music producer Steve Albini, who named a noise rock band after it.

** Promiscuous troublemaker Marty Saybrooke on ''Series/OneLifeToLive'' was the centerpiece of the multiple Emmy-winning gang rape UmbrellaStory back in the early 1990s and promptly became the show's heroine in the aftermath--her ''rapist'' all but lampshaded this by suggesting that she be grateful to him as she'd done a 180 from being the town pariah to the local MasterOfAll.