Yes, being a survivor of any crime is a positive reputation. As I mentioned on my other post, imagine if Grace survived the sex tape blackmail, and then being a high profile lawyer working on cases involving for other women in similar situation. Yes, that's a big positive reputation, both for her and for the law firm (look at how Kylie's case is already about a woman/Jill being harassed by a man/Tybalt).
It is unlikely it will be as black and white as what you said. Grace is having an affair with a married colleague as well as potentially many other guys whom Benoit have knowledge of, which means they are likely to be in the same industry or have working relationship with their firm. Prior to any blackmail, this indiscretion (and not accounting for taste) will already reflect a weakness in her judgement. A positive spin on this is quite contrived.
One of the biggest case of similar nature is that of Monica Lewinsky. While there is no blackmail, her sex scandal with the president did her no favors. Sure, she got her book deal and such. But in reality, people have consistently mocked or parodied her despite the fact of "she did the right thing".
I do not wish this type of "success" on anyone else tbh.
You are right that Benoit believes that he has the upper hand. Otherwise he wouldn't have even attempted to blackmail Grace. However, that doesn't change the fact that he is objectively in a weaker position. That is not subjective. Once again, this is why I questioned the writer, not the character. The blackmail plot simply didn't make sense.
Imagine if your neighbor sent you a text trying to blackmail you with your sex tape that he secretly recorded. What would you do? You'd just go to the police and say "Hey, my neighbor literally sent a text with this trying to blackmail me and admitting that he made secret recording of me having sex, can you please arrest him?" and done. See how stupid that attempt to blackmail you? Because he's in such a weak position.
Now let's make a small modification as I mentioned on my earlier post. Imagine if your neighbor actually called you over to his house, then verbally told you that he has a sex tape of yours, showed the sex tape on his phone, then blackmailed you into paying him money so he doesn't spread the sex tape. If you tried to go to the police, it'd be a case of hearsay because you have no evidence whatsoever. He is in much stronger position for this case.
I put forward that as the game is a 0.1, we do not have the full facts of the story at the moment. Both your examples based on your narrative which you can easily shift to accomodate any direction as you wish. In this game's case, we do not have enough details to establish such a "power" positioning yet.
You keep on focusing on the characters. I have said in the past that I'm talking about the plot line. I'm fine with Benoit being an idiot. But I'm not fine the plot portrayed Grace to be in the weak position when even within the plot itself she's actually the one with the stronger position.
Presentation aside, the characters and the story are correlated. The plotline define how characters act in a certain manner while the characters give "life" to the plot.
I'll put it this way, if in the future there's a twist that would change the plot, it actually means it's poor storytelling. Not because of the twist itself, but because the current portrayal of the blackmail basically leaves no room for assumption. The current blackmail plot relies solely on Grace feeling defeated and not wanting to take action, but it is contrary to the fact that she's in the stronger position. That's why it's bad, because the progression of the blackmail plot contradicted the fact that has been presented.
Just want to emphasize that it has never about Grace or Benoit as characters (I'm perfectly fine with characters making stupid decisions as long as it's within reason). It's about the storywriting of the blackmail plot not making sense.
I will refrain from commenting here as the more we discuss, the more its obvious it is to me that we are working with a very limited amount of facts. I will leave it to the future updates of the game to define or to answer the story progression.
