I voluntarily omitted the legal aspect since laws differ from states and countries but feel free to add more info to your comments (I myself come from a country where rape is increadibly hard to convict without hard evidence [France] which can give some insight too).

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This sprung from a discussion among friends after watching iBoy and Masey Williams performance as a rape victim, the contrast of coping mechanism in contrast to MC's multiple near death experiences and so on.

Regardless of the show, we ended discussing the gravity and consequences of murder and rape and quite frankly I was surprised on the variety of opinions on such a matter.

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- On one side, most of them [all male] believed rape to be a more punishable act. According to them, the trauma and baggage are huge and do not fade easily even with time. Life is preserved, but what kind of life is it ? There are also countless reccords of suicide post rape which undoubtly lead to a worse outcome than simple murder.

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- On another note, [only female] believed that while rape is a terrible thing, it is not irreversable like murder. Death is the end, GAME OVER.

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I'll spare the lecture on rape culture seemingly rampant in the west (my understanding is that rape culture prevails so long as the rate rape exceeds zero), and ask you this PPD. Which is "worse" by your standards ?

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To me, the recovery from rape trauma share many aspects to that of a mental mutilation. It is something akin to torture, that can effectively be dealt in a worse manner than death should your perpetrator wishes to. I'll the numerous case of leaving a rape victim alive wishing only to die to your discret imagination.

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But ruling out those clear outliers, I still believe the possibility of recovery better than no recovery. So my vote goes to murder.