The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Defend the Dungeon - Vol. 1 Ch. 10
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@Vasqueztion
Fair enough. Maybe "overnight" was not the best hyperbole. I guess she has had "enough" time to have a change of heart in your eyes. On the other hand, I don't think there's any reason for her to feel attached to the skeleton enough to take arrows to the back. She was basically using him to do her dirty work so she could get rewards. I see this as a purely business relationship, so there is no strong enough motivation for her to risk her life for him. It's a badly motivated choice for a person that has been shown to value profit over human life.
To me this is not really believable. The psychological motivation for her actions is weak. Once you are desensitized to killing people daily, your value of another's life wouldn't be too great. One of her main traits was selfishness, I don't see why it had to be changed to fit the narrative.
Also, the fact that she's murdering supposedly "bad" people, doesn't really change much. She's not doing this for justice, she's doing this for coin. Also I don't even want to open the can of worms that the definition "bad people" is. So I would argue that her ways are actually that "bad".
@GurenNoOu: Letting your guard down around someone doesn't mean that you would risk your life for him. She has no reason not to trust him since they both benefit from their deal. If anything he could have killed her on numerous occasions, so she has no reason to not trust him. However there's a big difference between taking arrows to the back for someone, and trusting that someone that he won't kill you in your sleep.
Fair enough. Maybe "overnight" was not the best hyperbole. I guess she has had "enough" time to have a change of heart in your eyes. On the other hand, I don't think there's any reason for her to feel attached to the skeleton enough to take arrows to the back. She was basically using him to do her dirty work so she could get rewards. I see this as a purely business relationship, so there is no strong enough motivation for her to risk her life for him. It's a badly motivated choice for a person that has been shown to value profit over human life.
To me this is not really believable. The psychological motivation for her actions is weak. Once you are desensitized to killing people daily, your value of another's life wouldn't be too great. One of her main traits was selfishness, I don't see why it had to be changed to fit the narrative.
Also, the fact that she's murdering supposedly "bad" people, doesn't really change much. She's not doing this for justice, she's doing this for coin. Also I don't even want to open the can of worms that the definition "bad people" is. So I would argue that her ways are actually that "bad".
@GurenNoOu: Letting your guard down around someone doesn't mean that you would risk your life for him. She has no reason not to trust him since they both benefit from their deal. If anything he could have killed her on numerous occasions, so she has no reason to not trust him. However there's a big difference between taking arrows to the back for someone, and trusting that someone that he won't kill you in your sleep.
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Taking arrows for a skeleton in armor, eh? Seems like the dumbest choice any adventurer could make, especially how effective arrows/bolts are against Mr Skelly...
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@criver
Honestly, I get where you're coming from. But you're stereotyping. I also never assumed a "change of heart" as there wasn't one to begin with. If you have been reading the topics up till now, you'll know I'm in the camp of, "she's not that as bad as you're making her out to be." And we see that in the previous chapters, as their time together has brought them closer. Sure, she may be using him for personal gain, but you have to ask yourself:
"Would someone who's only in it for themselves share spoils? And would someone in it for themselves let down their guard enough to fall asleep on someone's lap they didn't fully trust?"
Again, I get you. Once you get used to killing, your worldview changes. But even killers have moral compasses (sometimes). Maybe she's an orphan to the system, maybe her lover was killed and their murderer got away with it, maybe she was raped and pillaged, we don't know her story aside from, 'I am an assassin that is killing scum.' So we have to take her word on that, at least in till new information arises.
Once again, agreed with you on how a little too fast and too furious the pace is going. As why you would take a shot(s) for a "monster" is something roughly unheard of. However, we also know that he has a relationship leveler in his stats. So maybe that played a part? Who knows.
Honestly, I get where you're coming from. But you're stereotyping. I also never assumed a "change of heart" as there wasn't one to begin with. If you have been reading the topics up till now, you'll know I'm in the camp of, "she's not that as bad as you're making her out to be." And we see that in the previous chapters, as their time together has brought them closer. Sure, she may be using him for personal gain, but you have to ask yourself:
"Would someone who's only in it for themselves share spoils? And would someone in it for themselves let down their guard enough to fall asleep on someone's lap they didn't fully trust?"
Again, I get you. Once you get used to killing, your worldview changes. But even killers have moral compasses (sometimes). Maybe she's an orphan to the system, maybe her lover was killed and their murderer got away with it, maybe she was raped and pillaged, we don't know her story aside from, 'I am an assassin that is killing scum.' So we have to take her word on that, at least in till new information arises.
Once again, agreed with you on how a little too fast and too furious the pace is going. As why you would take a shot(s) for a "monster" is something roughly unheard of. However, we also know that he has a relationship leveler in his stats. So maybe that played a part? Who knows.
@Vasqueztion:
Precisely - this is rushed and that's a big issue. There is currently not enough psychological motivation for her actions. And while there may be a perfectly good reason why she would risk her life for the skeleton, we weren't shown that reason - this is very important. That's why it's bad writing. Consider the second half of your post - one shouldn't have to come up with different scenarios to fill in plot holes - that's the author's job. Rather than killing characters off for shock value, the author could have taken the time to flesh them out. He's just introducing characters, doesn't develop them, and just kills them off - it's no wonder that one can't feel anything when they die, since they're such 1 dimensional characters. That was my main point.
Now onto your point: you say that she's not as "bad". I would disagree, and here's why: she is a murderer, and she profits off murder. She's supposedly killing "only bad people". She's still a murderer though. That's without taking into account the fact that a cutthroat with a vested interest is probably not the best judge of who's "bad".
Also regarding this: "Would someone who's only in it for themselves share spoils? And would someone in it for themselves let down their guard enough to fall asleep on someone's lap they didn't fully trust?" - it's a mutually beneficial deal - they both profit off of it. She only stands to gain by using him, so "sharing spoils" is her rather giving him a fraction of what he could have taken himself in the first place. And I have already addressed the issue with trust - he has had numerous occasions in which he could have killed her, and he didn't, so there's no reason for her to believe that would change randomly. Additionally they both benefit from this, so once again there's no reason for her to believe that he would kill her in her sleep. If you could point out one reason why she should not be dropping her guard around him this may hold more water.
Precisely - this is rushed and that's a big issue. There is currently not enough psychological motivation for her actions. And while there may be a perfectly good reason why she would risk her life for the skeleton, we weren't shown that reason - this is very important. That's why it's bad writing. Consider the second half of your post - one shouldn't have to come up with different scenarios to fill in plot holes - that's the author's job. Rather than killing characters off for shock value, the author could have taken the time to flesh them out. He's just introducing characters, doesn't develop them, and just kills them off - it's no wonder that one can't feel anything when they die, since they're such 1 dimensional characters. That was my main point.
Now onto your point: you say that she's not as "bad". I would disagree, and here's why: she is a murderer, and she profits off murder. She's supposedly killing "only bad people". She's still a murderer though. That's without taking into account the fact that a cutthroat with a vested interest is probably not the best judge of who's "bad".
Also regarding this: "Would someone who's only in it for themselves share spoils? And would someone in it for themselves let down their guard enough to fall asleep on someone's lap they didn't fully trust?" - it's a mutually beneficial deal - they both profit off of it. She only stands to gain by using him, so "sharing spoils" is her rather giving him a fraction of what he could have taken himself in the first place. And I have already addressed the issue with trust - he has had numerous occasions in which he could have killed her, and he didn't, so there's no reason for her to believe that would change randomly. Additionally they both benefit from this, so once again there's no reason for her to believe that he would kill her in her sleep. If you could point out one reason why she should not be dropping her guard around him this may hold more water.
@criver
in real life, killing someone, even for your own profit, isn't generally considered enough to consider one a bad person. Those that do think it's enough are usually those religious nuts harassing soldier's families at their funerals. That's the thing, a soldier is someone who is paid to fight and kill others, but is not considered a bad person for doing so.
In reality, actions are never wrong in and of themselves. What makes something wrong is the context to which you do it. What makes a sexual act either romance or rape is a matter of the person involved and the timing, the context. Self defense and murder are also decided the same way. So, just like how we don't condemn someone as a murderer in real life on the ground that they killed someone and nothing more, even if they were paid to do it, you probably shouldn't condemn her for it without considering the circumstance.
in real life, killing someone, even for your own profit, isn't generally considered enough to consider one a bad person. Those that do think it's enough are usually those religious nuts harassing soldier's families at their funerals. That's the thing, a soldier is someone who is paid to fight and kill others, but is not considered a bad person for doing so.
In reality, actions are never wrong in and of themselves. What makes something wrong is the context to which you do it. What makes a sexual act either romance or rape is a matter of the person involved and the timing, the context. Self defense and murder are also decided the same way. So, just like how we don't condemn someone as a murderer in real life on the ground that they killed someone and nothing more, even if they were paid to do it, you probably shouldn't condemn her for it without considering the circumstance.
@Meridis:
I am quoting myself here: "Also I don't even want to open the can of worms that the definition "bad people" is." from my comment before my last one. "bad" and "good" are somewhat subjective, so I'd rather not argue about this in a manga comment section - there are whole books on the subject. I won't argue about this topic, because I do not believe that this is the right place to do so, I'll just present my arguments why I believe that killing for money is on average considered "wrong", you can take what you find useful from these and you are of course free to disagree. I won't however argue over this, because this topic deserves a thread of its own. Killing someone with the primary motivation being profit tramples over the conventional moral values of most societies - in that regard it is considered "bad". It also means that the killer puts personal wealth above human life and doesn't really have much empathy, this is typical for sociopaths and psychopaths, not for your average person. I don't believe that any of these qualities fit with the definition of "good" of people on average.
Also people do condemn others if they killed someone "and nothing more" for money, in fact we send such people in prison because we condemn them, it's illegal for a reason outside of war.
The killer's circumstances also do not change the results of his actions, his victims end up dead at the end of the day, the only thing that circumstances can do is explain his actions. I don't think that there are circumstances that can excuse one for killing for money as a main motivation, but that's my opinion.
As for your soldier example - I do believe that soldiers that go to kill with their main motivation being money are not upstanding citizens of society. I can understand people fighting to protect their country from a foreign invader, since they don't really have an option, I cannot excuse people that go to fight a war for oil, influence or whatever other bs reason. Note that this doesn't mean that I condone the harassment of grieving people.
I am quoting myself here: "Also I don't even want to open the can of worms that the definition "bad people" is." from my comment before my last one. "bad" and "good" are somewhat subjective, so I'd rather not argue about this in a manga comment section - there are whole books on the subject. I won't argue about this topic, because I do not believe that this is the right place to do so, I'll just present my arguments why I believe that killing for money is on average considered "wrong", you can take what you find useful from these and you are of course free to disagree. I won't however argue over this, because this topic deserves a thread of its own. Killing someone with the primary motivation being profit tramples over the conventional moral values of most societies - in that regard it is considered "bad". It also means that the killer puts personal wealth above human life and doesn't really have much empathy, this is typical for sociopaths and psychopaths, not for your average person. I don't believe that any of these qualities fit with the definition of "good" of people on average.
Also people do condemn others if they killed someone "and nothing more" for money, in fact we send such people in prison because we condemn them, it's illegal for a reason outside of war.
The killer's circumstances also do not change the results of his actions, his victims end up dead at the end of the day, the only thing that circumstances can do is explain his actions. I don't think that there are circumstances that can excuse one for killing for money as a main motivation, but that's my opinion.
As for your soldier example - I do believe that soldiers that go to kill with their main motivation being money are not upstanding citizens of society. I can understand people fighting to protect their country from a foreign invader, since they don't really have an option, I cannot excuse people that go to fight a war for oil, influence or whatever other bs reason. Note that this doesn't mean that I condone the harassment of grieving people.
@criver
and I believe that much of Vasqueztion's point from the beginning has been that she would not qualify as a bad person by your own statements. Her background and why she's doing this hasn't been discussed yet. So it is still to early to say she's doing it for nothing more than money.
Also, my point was that war is a context where we don't condemn them for it. Hence, there exists a context where it is considered, if not good, atleast not bad. Also, it's high handed to say that you don't condone becoming a soldier for their personal profit. Regions of the population are intentionally left impoverished by the actual bad people, those who decided that we should have a war over oil in the first place, in order to coerce those people into becoming soldiers.
What it actually comes down to is if she is killing for wealth and not money. If it's money, there can be a justification if the targets were criminals (note that I don't believe in the death penalty, but my country does and thats the law here). It's that generals on the boards of arms manufacturers and politicians being feed money by oil companies killing people innocent people (remember that drone strikes have a 95% miss rate so even if you don't consider how they manufacture enemies, they still kill some random unrelated person a lot of the time) for money they don't even need.
This comes to the point that Vasqueztion seems to have been trying to make this entire time. She may belong to an assassins guild but she only picks thieves, rapists, murders, etc as her targets (since the guild itself does things like slavery and drug trafficking and pays little for these targets, this is probably her personal choice). We haven't gotten to the part where they explain why she became an assassin in the first place and it will probably be something like saving an orphanage or something. If that's the case, she would be killing bad people to help the innocent, which parallels my soldier example. Even if that isn't the case, because there exist context where one could be payed to kill people for money that is considered morally upright (it's not even like she's prioritizing the money either, she shirks higher profits in favor of the right targets) and she is likely to fall into that context if your looking at the tropes, it's to early to consider her a bad person.
and I believe that much of Vasqueztion's point from the beginning has been that she would not qualify as a bad person by your own statements. Her background and why she's doing this hasn't been discussed yet. So it is still to early to say she's doing it for nothing more than money.
Also, my point was that war is a context where we don't condemn them for it. Hence, there exists a context where it is considered, if not good, atleast not bad. Also, it's high handed to say that you don't condone becoming a soldier for their personal profit. Regions of the population are intentionally left impoverished by the actual bad people, those who decided that we should have a war over oil in the first place, in order to coerce those people into becoming soldiers.
What it actually comes down to is if she is killing for wealth and not money. If it's money, there can be a justification if the targets were criminals (note that I don't believe in the death penalty, but my country does and thats the law here). It's that generals on the boards of arms manufacturers and politicians being feed money by oil companies killing people innocent people (remember that drone strikes have a 95% miss rate so even if you don't consider how they manufacture enemies, they still kill some random unrelated person a lot of the time) for money they don't even need.
This comes to the point that Vasqueztion seems to have been trying to make this entire time. She may belong to an assassins guild but she only picks thieves, rapists, murders, etc as her targets (since the guild itself does things like slavery and drug trafficking and pays little for these targets, this is probably her personal choice). We haven't gotten to the part where they explain why she became an assassin in the first place and it will probably be something like saving an orphanage or something. If that's the case, she would be killing bad people to help the innocent, which parallels my soldier example. Even if that isn't the case, because there exist context where one could be payed to kill people for money that is considered morally upright (it's not even like she's prioritizing the money either, she shirks higher profits in favor of the right targets) and she is likely to fall into that context if your looking at the tropes, it's to early to consider her a bad person.
@Meridis: See this is exactly why I said that I don't want to argue about "good" and "bad", everybody has a different definition of those. But I will try to understand your point of view and explain mine nevertheless.
Note that my arguments as to why I consider her to be pretty amoral are based on what we have seen in the story up till now. My issue with your and Vasqueztion's arguments is that from what I gather they are based on "what if"s for the most part.
There's no justification to her killing people, even if they are criminals. As I mentioned she's not really in a position to judge others, being a cutthroat and having a vested interested in her victims dying, so that she could profit. You both mention how she could have her circumstances. But the people she kills also have "their circumstances". She's not holier than thou, she's a killer that kills for coin from what we have seen up till now.
About your soldier analogy - there are jobs other than the military, I also do not think it is correct to assume that the majority of people in the military are there because otherwise they would starve to death. They have made the conscious decision to work where they may have to kill another person under orders, regardless of the morality of that.
I don't believe I am being high handed either, this is just honestly how I feel. I would rather go to jail than participate in a war I believe is unnecessary. It definitely beats having to kill innocent people imo.
Note that my arguments as to why I consider her to be pretty amoral are based on what we have seen in the story up till now. My issue with your and Vasqueztion's arguments is that from what I gather they are based on "what if"s for the most part.
There's no justification to her killing people, even if they are criminals. As I mentioned she's not really in a position to judge others, being a cutthroat and having a vested interested in her victims dying, so that she could profit. You both mention how she could have her circumstances. But the people she kills also have "their circumstances". She's not holier than thou, she's a killer that kills for coin from what we have seen up till now.
About your soldier analogy - there are jobs other than the military, I also do not think it is correct to assume that the majority of people in the military are there because otherwise they would starve to death. They have made the conscious decision to work where they may have to kill another person under orders, regardless of the morality of that.
I don't believe I am being high handed either, this is just honestly how I feel. I would rather go to jail than participate in a war I believe is unnecessary. It definitely beats having to kill innocent people imo.
@criver
I'm not saying it is a 'what if'. I'm saying that it is innocent until proven guilty. For that to work, you have to consider possible explanations where someone is not guilty and eliminate them until there is no other explanation than their guilt. So I'm saying that, if you can consider that there are cases where someone can be payed to fight and kill others, which even in the case of defending their country a soldier is still payed, (further, even if you do not believe it, there MUST be certain justifications allowed like self defense.) then you should withhold your judgment of her until her case is stated. I'm not saying to think of her as a good person, I'm saying that you should not judge her character by the story up to now, as both in-story and real life that would be to early to judge. It would violate the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
So, I'm not actually arguing that she's good or bad, I'm saying, "hold your judgement".
As for participating in a war just to benefit some war profiteering asshole, I feel the same way. I would not and have not joined the military because of that, however, I did grow up on a military base. I know the circumstances that bring a lot of the soldiers there and its not a noble thing. Like I said, its an intentional machination to force large groups of people into poverty so that they could join the military. They also isolate the area from other job opportunities and have soldiers walking around in their kids schools to indoctrinate them. It isn't a matter of being arrested or joining the military, they don't do that anymore. It's a matter of letting your kids starve or joining. The root of the problem isn't that the soldiers won't abstain, but that those in power see the people as their own personal toys. So I do believe it is high-handed to hold them accountable for it when it really comes down the the choices of our ruling class. Please have more sympathy for the plight of them for the soldiers are suffering in their own way as well.
I'm not saying it is a 'what if'. I'm saying that it is innocent until proven guilty. For that to work, you have to consider possible explanations where someone is not guilty and eliminate them until there is no other explanation than their guilt. So I'm saying that, if you can consider that there are cases where someone can be payed to fight and kill others, which even in the case of defending their country a soldier is still payed, (further, even if you do not believe it, there MUST be certain justifications allowed like self defense.) then you should withhold your judgment of her until her case is stated. I'm not saying to think of her as a good person, I'm saying that you should not judge her character by the story up to now, as both in-story and real life that would be to early to judge. It would violate the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
So, I'm not actually arguing that she's good or bad, I'm saying, "hold your judgement".
As for participating in a war just to benefit some war profiteering asshole, I feel the same way. I would not and have not joined the military because of that, however, I did grow up on a military base. I know the circumstances that bring a lot of the soldiers there and its not a noble thing. Like I said, its an intentional machination to force large groups of people into poverty so that they could join the military. They also isolate the area from other job opportunities and have soldiers walking around in their kids schools to indoctrinate them. It isn't a matter of being arrested or joining the military, they don't do that anymore. It's a matter of letting your kids starve or joining. The root of the problem isn't that the soldiers won't abstain, but that those in power see the people as their own personal toys. So I do believe it is high-handed to hold them accountable for it when it really comes down the the choices of our ruling class. Please have more sympathy for the plight of them for the soldiers are suffering in their own way as well.
@Meridis:
Innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply here anymore, since she has been proven guilty - she is a murderer. Both you and Vasqueztion emphasize that "possible explanations" should be considered. The first issue with this is that you shouldn't have to think up of explanations (hence my comment about the "what ifs"), this is the author's job, and since he hasn't provided any you shouldn't assume there are any (yet). The second issue with this is that "possible explanations" do not make her any less guilty, they can only serve to explain her actions, not to excuse them. Also this is not how "innocent until proven guilty works": "you have to consider possible explanations where someone is not guilty and eliminate them until there is no other explanation than their guilt" - you only need to prove the person guilty, you do not have to disprove all possible explanations, the set of all possible explanations is infinite in the general case.
I agree with you that self defense can be a valid argument, however, it doesn't make you any less guilty of murder, it just serves to back up the fact that your motivations were not amoral. Note that this is not the case here, she 's not killing people in self-defense, she is killing for coin. So I am not sure why you mention self-defense. I also think it's fairly safe to judge her character based on what I've seen till now, she murders people for money. I don't think any explanation would change this, it's inexcusable.
As for your soldiers comment, let me just say that a person is accountable for his own actions. Sure, there are people that use others, however one is still accountable for his own actions. If you kill somebody under orders you are still accountable for your own actions. A person always has a choice, sometimes the alternative is just not pretty, so to rationalize amoral decisions people simply shrug off responsibility, which is basically a way to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
On a side note, please use "paid" rather than "payed" since I always think of ships when you write "payed".
Innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply here anymore, since she has been proven guilty - she is a murderer. Both you and Vasqueztion emphasize that "possible explanations" should be considered. The first issue with this is that you shouldn't have to think up of explanations (hence my comment about the "what ifs"), this is the author's job, and since he hasn't provided any you shouldn't assume there are any (yet). The second issue with this is that "possible explanations" do not make her any less guilty, they can only serve to explain her actions, not to excuse them. Also this is not how "innocent until proven guilty works": "you have to consider possible explanations where someone is not guilty and eliminate them until there is no other explanation than their guilt" - you only need to prove the person guilty, you do not have to disprove all possible explanations, the set of all possible explanations is infinite in the general case.
I agree with you that self defense can be a valid argument, however, it doesn't make you any less guilty of murder, it just serves to back up the fact that your motivations were not amoral. Note that this is not the case here, she 's not killing people in self-defense, she is killing for coin. So I am not sure why you mention self-defense. I also think it's fairly safe to judge her character based on what I've seen till now, she murders people for money. I don't think any explanation would change this, it's inexcusable.
As for your soldiers comment, let me just say that a person is accountable for his own actions. Sure, there are people that use others, however one is still accountable for his own actions. If you kill somebody under orders you are still accountable for your own actions. A person always has a choice, sometimes the alternative is just not pretty, so to rationalize amoral decisions people simply shrug off responsibility, which is basically a way to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
On a side note, please use "paid" rather than "payed" since I always think of ships when you write "payed".
@criver
You cannot prove guilt while there is the possibility of innocence. It's not enough in a trail to say that someone killed someone, the result changes based on intent and circumstances.
You will not be arrested for murder if it is for self defense. My point with that is that killing someone does not equate to murder in and of itself. They have to figure out your apparent intentions. That's where the difference between man-slaughter and murder comes from, intent.
Soldiers can be executed for disobedience and cannot be held accountable for following orders. Also, again consider that powerful warmongers take advantage of the impoverished to keep the war machine going. That's why they spread out manufacturing across pretty much all states in America and make it the main source of income in many of them. Real life villainy is not simple. It does not go away with simply taking a moral stand. If so, we'd be free of it 1,000 times over. Real evil uses dependence and coercion. They create problems where others must obey them to solve. This forces people who, if they were not good where just normal, to act out said evil's whims. This is why so little has changed in reality. The evil gain power and authority in the form of money won through illicit means and use that power to coerce normal people to perpetuate that power as they pass it from generation to generation like an aristocracy. The main reason why America's 8 wars continue is because we haven't taken an honest look at poverty and how the only thing that seems to be 'helping' them is the crumbs passed to them by a warmonger. There would be many more to oppose war if so many didn't have a gun up to their head. So it's not as simple as everyone being accountable for their own actions, just as you can't say it isn't rape for a boss to threaten to fire someone for not sleeping with them because they could have found another job.
Sorry, in all of this the 'payed' vs 'paid' thing must have slipped my notice.
You cannot prove guilt while there is the possibility of innocence. It's not enough in a trail to say that someone killed someone, the result changes based on intent and circumstances.
You will not be arrested for murder if it is for self defense. My point with that is that killing someone does not equate to murder in and of itself. They have to figure out your apparent intentions. That's where the difference between man-slaughter and murder comes from, intent.
Soldiers can be executed for disobedience and cannot be held accountable for following orders. Also, again consider that powerful warmongers take advantage of the impoverished to keep the war machine going. That's why they spread out manufacturing across pretty much all states in America and make it the main source of income in many of them. Real life villainy is not simple. It does not go away with simply taking a moral stand. If so, we'd be free of it 1,000 times over. Real evil uses dependence and coercion. They create problems where others must obey them to solve. This forces people who, if they were not good where just normal, to act out said evil's whims. This is why so little has changed in reality. The evil gain power and authority in the form of money won through illicit means and use that power to coerce normal people to perpetuate that power as they pass it from generation to generation like an aristocracy. The main reason why America's 8 wars continue is because we haven't taken an honest look at poverty and how the only thing that seems to be 'helping' them is the crumbs passed to them by a warmonger. There would be many more to oppose war if so many didn't have a gun up to their head. So it's not as simple as everyone being accountable for their own actions, just as you can't say it isn't rape for a boss to threaten to fire someone for not sleeping with them because they could have found another job.
Sorry, in all of this the 'payed' vs 'paid' thing must have slipped my notice.
@Meridis:
I think we don't see eye to eye on the definitions of guilty and murder, so let's get that out of the way first. I agree that manslaughter and murder are different things. However, in this specific case that we are talking about, she killed people intentionally and this is definitely murder, at least if we go by the common and legal definitions. She is guilty of murder by any conventional definitions of the word guilty and the word murder. As I already mentioned, her killing people for coin is not self-defense, so there's no reason to bring that up either. Whatever circumstances she may have had, I think that just off the fact that she's murdering people for coin she is morally corrupt. So I don't believe that she can be categorized as "not as bad".
"Soldiers can be executed for disobedience and cannot be held accountable for following orders." - They can't be held accountable legally, they can be held accountable morally. Performing inhumane acts under orders doesn't exempt you from responsibility - you're as much of a monster as the one giving the orders, if not worse. The fact that you have to choose between your own life and performing inhumane acts, doesn't change the end result, at least not for the victim, so there's no reason to believe that it should change from a moral viewpoint either, it probably semi-works as an excuse if one can't sleep at night though. The worse part is that in most cases it's not even the soldier's life that's at stake but rather comfort and wealth. Fear certainly is a good motivation, but a person's desires are an even better one. And while I agree with most of the other things you say after this, I do not see how this changes anything. Everybody has circumstances, that however doesn't exempt anybody from moral accountability. Can pain, misery and poverty influence people's decisions? Sure. However this is not an excuse for performing despicable acts.
I think we don't see eye to eye on the definitions of guilty and murder, so let's get that out of the way first. I agree that manslaughter and murder are different things. However, in this specific case that we are talking about, she killed people intentionally and this is definitely murder, at least if we go by the common and legal definitions. She is guilty of murder by any conventional definitions of the word guilty and the word murder. As I already mentioned, her killing people for coin is not self-defense, so there's no reason to bring that up either. Whatever circumstances she may have had, I think that just off the fact that she's murdering people for coin she is morally corrupt. So I don't believe that she can be categorized as "not as bad".
"Soldiers can be executed for disobedience and cannot be held accountable for following orders." - They can't be held accountable legally, they can be held accountable morally. Performing inhumane acts under orders doesn't exempt you from responsibility - you're as much of a monster as the one giving the orders, if not worse. The fact that you have to choose between your own life and performing inhumane acts, doesn't change the end result, at least not for the victim, so there's no reason to believe that it should change from a moral viewpoint either, it probably semi-works as an excuse if one can't sleep at night though. The worse part is that in most cases it's not even the soldier's life that's at stake but rather comfort and wealth. Fear certainly is a good motivation, but a person's desires are an even better one. And while I agree with most of the other things you say after this, I do not see how this changes anything. Everybody has circumstances, that however doesn't exempt anybody from moral accountability. Can pain, misery and poverty influence people's decisions? Sure. However this is not an excuse for performing despicable acts.
@criver
I was making the point that, even in our world, defining someone as a bad person because they killed someone is far to rigid as we have so many exceptions. The thing is, these exceptions are so few because of the structure of our society. If someone is openly murdering people, it normally wouldn't be a public official (I said openly murdering) and if they where, we are suppose to have proper channels to contact and deal with it (though they have been trying to remove such channels lately or add fees for using them). So what the hell do you do in a world that has none of that? What do you do when the crime bosses and government officials are teaming up to screw over the weak? I'm of the position that there SHOULD be proper methods to stop abuse built into a strong government. But I would not say that someone is morally wrong for resorting to killing when the proper method of stopping murderers has been removed from government. This is part of the context of the story. The ways of dealing with this that would be morally right for our circumstances do not exist in this setting or most fantasy settings.
There is more than just the victim's viewpoint and the one killed for disobeying would be another victim. That's why, in real life, we need systemic reform and not to just criticize the people being ordered around like it would somehow be ok for police to constantly be told to shoot at the slightest inkling of danger and then jail them when they randomly shoot someone. Note: I'm differentiating between police that are toying with others lives or are members of known terrorist organizations (those who are doing it intentionally) and those who are merely paranoid or incompetent. More to the point, you cannot and should not demand moral behavior out of someone when it's actually at the expense of their life(again differentiating between people who are actually in danger and people who are too stupid to realize if there's an actual threat or who have actively sought out a threat where they had no right too), as that denies them their basic rights as a human or as a living organism.
Though, I do agree with you that using fear of poverty as an excuse to ignore morals isn't justified. Just bear in mind that the kind of poverty you endure can vary and there are kinds that will get you killed. Even I'm my supposedly 'great' country people die a lot from being unable to afford healthcare all because some assholes want to ignore how having everyone under medicare cost the government and people less than what we pay private healthcare and it's subsidies. Um, but, yeah, I concede that you're right that going in to the military just for money knowing that your going to probably kill someone or assist in doing so is morally wrong as you don't have someone pointing a gun at your head as an excuse yet. I still don't have the heart to criticize them for it, though. It's like that NRA guy said when he went onto Sacha Baren Cohen's show. They've been trying to pass laws that would let them teach kids to shoot and kill before they develop a moral compass. Knowing stuff like this, I don't have it in me to criticize anyone for being morally wrong if this is all they really know. I think my hearts broken a little now...
I was making the point that, even in our world, defining someone as a bad person because they killed someone is far to rigid as we have so many exceptions. The thing is, these exceptions are so few because of the structure of our society. If someone is openly murdering people, it normally wouldn't be a public official (I said openly murdering) and if they where, we are suppose to have proper channels to contact and deal with it (though they have been trying to remove such channels lately or add fees for using them). So what the hell do you do in a world that has none of that? What do you do when the crime bosses and government officials are teaming up to screw over the weak? I'm of the position that there SHOULD be proper methods to stop abuse built into a strong government. But I would not say that someone is morally wrong for resorting to killing when the proper method of stopping murderers has been removed from government. This is part of the context of the story. The ways of dealing with this that would be morally right for our circumstances do not exist in this setting or most fantasy settings.
There is more than just the victim's viewpoint and the one killed for disobeying would be another victim. That's why, in real life, we need systemic reform and not to just criticize the people being ordered around like it would somehow be ok for police to constantly be told to shoot at the slightest inkling of danger and then jail them when they randomly shoot someone. Note: I'm differentiating between police that are toying with others lives or are members of known terrorist organizations (those who are doing it intentionally) and those who are merely paranoid or incompetent. More to the point, you cannot and should not demand moral behavior out of someone when it's actually at the expense of their life(again differentiating between people who are actually in danger and people who are too stupid to realize if there's an actual threat or who have actively sought out a threat where they had no right too), as that denies them their basic rights as a human or as a living organism.
Though, I do agree with you that using fear of poverty as an excuse to ignore morals isn't justified. Just bear in mind that the kind of poverty you endure can vary and there are kinds that will get you killed. Even I'm my supposedly 'great' country people die a lot from being unable to afford healthcare all because some assholes want to ignore how having everyone under medicare cost the government and people less than what we pay private healthcare and it's subsidies. Um, but, yeah, I concede that you're right that going in to the military just for money knowing that your going to probably kill someone or assist in doing so is morally wrong as you don't have someone pointing a gun at your head as an excuse yet. I still don't have the heart to criticize them for it, though. It's like that NRA guy said when he went onto Sacha Baren Cohen's show. They've been trying to pass laws that would let them teach kids to shoot and kill before they develop a moral compass. Knowing stuff like this, I don't have it in me to criticize anyone for being morally wrong if this is all they really know. I think my hearts broken a little now...
@Meridis: This is exactly why I said that I didn't want to go into the "bad" vs "good" argument - it's not so much about it being rigid, but rather about it being subjective. This doesn't change the fact that on average she would be perceived as a morally corrupt person in our society, and I don't believe that would be wrong either. The rest of your first paragraph kinda digresses into "public officials" and "what if" scenarios. Since I do not see how this is relevant (correct me if I am wrong), I'll just leave it at that. I am not sure how any of this is part of the context of the story.
Sure there's more than only the victim's viewpoint, however how a society treats the weakest and poorest is often the best indicator of the "moral standards" of that society. To add to this, the viewpoint of a person that serves as a proxy for some monster to perform despicable acts is hardly relevant when it comes to morality. I am not demanding morality out of anybody either, I am saying that performing despicable acts is immoral, regardless of your circumstances. Somebody's life being on the line doesn't exempt him from accountability. As I mentioned numerous times already - circumstances can explain why a person did something, but they can't erase what he did. Your argument about denying basic rights also does not hold any water, since the killer also denies the victim's rights. The fact that soldiers are taught not to think for themselves and just obey orders doesn't make them any less accountable for their actions, it just makes it easier for them to kill people by tricking their conscience with the excuses that "they didn't have a choice" or that "they are not responsible", since it was done under orders. The obvious issue here being that they did have a choice and are responsible for their deeds, cognitive dissonance and reality are two different things. Sure, this is tragic and sad. However it's not a reason to act as if people are not responsible for their actions. We already have a precedent from WW2 of what an average human can do under orders, that would otherwise be unthinkable for him. This is precisely why it is important that people realize that they are responsible for their actions, even if they are ordered to do something, or if they have their "circumstances". Basically, the belief that you're not doing something morally corrupt and the reality of it are two entirely different things. Also, nobody is beyond critique, people should be made aware that they are doing something wrong, even if it is not to their liking. When and how this should be done is an entirely different matter.
Sure there's more than only the victim's viewpoint, however how a society treats the weakest and poorest is often the best indicator of the "moral standards" of that society. To add to this, the viewpoint of a person that serves as a proxy for some monster to perform despicable acts is hardly relevant when it comes to morality. I am not demanding morality out of anybody either, I am saying that performing despicable acts is immoral, regardless of your circumstances. Somebody's life being on the line doesn't exempt him from accountability. As I mentioned numerous times already - circumstances can explain why a person did something, but they can't erase what he did. Your argument about denying basic rights also does not hold any water, since the killer also denies the victim's rights. The fact that soldiers are taught not to think for themselves and just obey orders doesn't make them any less accountable for their actions, it just makes it easier for them to kill people by tricking their conscience with the excuses that "they didn't have a choice" or that "they are not responsible", since it was done under orders. The obvious issue here being that they did have a choice and are responsible for their deeds, cognitive dissonance and reality are two different things. Sure, this is tragic and sad. However it's not a reason to act as if people are not responsible for their actions. We already have a precedent from WW2 of what an average human can do under orders, that would otherwise be unthinkable for him. This is precisely why it is important that people realize that they are responsible for their actions, even if they are ordered to do something, or if they have their "circumstances". Basically, the belief that you're not doing something morally corrupt and the reality of it are two entirely different things. Also, nobody is beyond critique, people should be made aware that they are doing something wrong, even if it is not to their liking. When and how this should be done is an entirely different matter.
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