It can be,, but not, I firmly think, in this particular instance. For a start, his predatory/manipulative behaviour had been escalating since he turned the recording device on. He doesn't say it in those moments when he's succeeded in calming her -- he speaks it at the very highest point of her terror and vulnerability. It carries a great deal more mockery and snide power assertion, while also sounding like a line from a bad
movie - like something he's rehearsed in his head, you know? I'd honestly be less inclined to take that simple sentence so very seriously as I am, were not for his history of frightening women in car parks and stalking drunks girls... were it not for the obvious enjoyment he'd gotten from scaring girls on his balcony before, by picking them up... and the horrible manipulation I can witness in the transcript. Were it not for the fact that I truly believe he was recording his cruel, manipulative behaviour for future amusement and self-lubricated enjoyment. And the sheer nastiness of his words preceding, the anger I *do* see in those, the sheer rage -- and then this suddenly "playful" phrase pops out, out of nowhere, out of context with what's happening..
Nope, that's a rape script. I have to look it that way. Never mind the physical 'rape' part, that wasn't what got him off - it's all about his perception and enjoyment of control and power.
What I am not entirely clear on at this point is whether he truly intended her death. I can, however, fully see Tostee potentially losing control of his fantasies. Like he did, when he thought he was in a Hollywood car chase... And I think it was less a matter of 'whether' something like this would happen but of 'how soon', with him.
