This is something I loved about Hitman. Theres a bit of set dressing appeal around violent infiltration, but by and large, 47 uses social manipulation, knocks out only a few people, and only kills his targets, who are terrible people that make the world worse.
It also has a nice quote in a cutscene. (Paraphrased)
“We don’t take sides. ICA always remains neutral.”
“I hate to break it to you, but neutrality is a side. It’s the side of the status quo.”Kinda like how we get people like trump for president, or any wealthy powerful person for that matter. Like the serialized fictional bad guy, they get away with it and keep getting to do shitty things because the hero can never just end the antagonist. All this fighting and legal consequences for the rabble, but when comes to actually punishing the rich or powerful person? Nah…they’re (job creators, too big to fail, might hurt their future, etc.) They go low, we go high…and do nothing.
Batman is super full of shit in this department
Bateman, on the other hand…
Batman allow innocent to be harmed just so he can uphold his moral high ground.
That’s the problem with contrived writing to keep escalating stakes. And the necessity of not killing off a character to keep using them.
I advocate for a return to Golden/Silver Age shenanigans for this reason. Make the Joker a prankster again, not a mass murderer in funny make-up.
To be fair, if my kill count was at 69420, I’d need a REALLY good reason to kill one more
If I were at 69419, he’d be dead without a second thought
If you missed 69420, don’t worry about it, because 69422 is 69420, too.
See, this is why I regret dropping out of high school.
DUDE!
SWEET!
Im feeling this way while playing AC Shadows. I just killed two dozen guys to get to a dude I decided to spare
Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge? That you?
For me, the best version of this is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Aang spends an entire arc lamenting how he may need to spill blood and kill the Fire Lord. Meanwhile the very same Aang had previously sunk an entire naval fleet single-handedly.
How many thousands of sailors, most of them probably people drafted against their will, did you kill that day Aang? Remember when you literally sliced entire ships in half? Your hands cut through steel, would you have even felt the flesh you were cutting through? Or how about all those ships you sank? A fair number sank instantly. You think everybody got out safely from those ships? Or how about that time you destroyed that giant drill machine, the one manned by thousands of soldiers, outside the walls of Ba Sing Se? You think everyone managed to miraculously escape that fireball? And those are just the major battles. How about the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fire nation soldiers you casually tossed around like rag dolls with your powers of air, water, and earth during dozens of minor skirmishes? What are the odds you managed to toss all these men around like playthings and NOT have a few of them have their skulls bashed open on rocks when they hit the ground wrong?
The point of this is not to condemn Aang’s actions through the series. His actions were fully justified, as he was fighting a war against an expansionist colonial military power. What he did was an objective good. But by the time he’s hand wringing about having to kill Fire Lord Ozai, Aang had almost certainly already taken hundreds of lives. Hell, he probably killed hundreds just in that final climactic battle against the airship armada. The Hindenburg disaster saw 1/3 of the passenger and crew parish. And that was from an airship that crashed when it was already landing and close to the ground. Aang was dropping ships from miles in the sky. Maybe some soldiers with fire bending powers could somehow slow their own descent enough to survive, maybe they had some parachutes. But there’s zero chance that Armada didn’t have a fatality rate at least comparable to the Hindenburg disaster.
So Aang blithely kills hundreds of conscripts without a second thought. But then he has a crisis of conscience that takes multiple episodes to resolve, and that crisis of conscience is all about…Fire Lord Ozai? This is like if someone nonchalantly participated in the Firebombing of Dresden and then suddenly developed complex moral doubts about putting a bullet in Hitler’s head. Aang had already killed hundreds of people that Ozai had sent to their deaths. No one was forcing Ozai. He wasn’t a conscript. He had full autonomy; he’s the absolute ruler of the Fire Nation. He doesn’t even have a Congress or Parliament to answer to. He has absolute total moral responsibility for every evil thing the Fire Nation has done. Yet, when it comes to actually holding the powerful accountable, suddenly Aang wants to talk about the morality of killing.
I like the way that Aang took Ozai’s bending powers.
There are at least two good aspects about it:
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Aang teaches the viewers that there are sometimes non-violent solutions to hard problems that appear at first glance as if violence was the only solution. And i think it’s worth it trying to find these non-violent solutions. Aang was telling himself that he needed to kill Ozai after he spoke to the previous avatars on the Lion Turtle’s back; he then just luckily encountered the Lion Turtle and found another way.
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The other interesting aspect that i find about the Lion Turtle is that it teaches us that besides the bending of the four elements, Lion Turtles bent the energy inside humans, which i understand in the way that Lion Turtles drove human development forward through some process maybe similar to evolution(?), and that just opens up a very interesting potential for side-stories. What else did the Lion Turtles bend? What other tricks do they have?
There’s more things that i like about the Lion Turtle. For example, it says to Aang:
“Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light.”
What does that mean? What is the purifying light that the Lion Turtle talks about? Is there, maybe, a psychological state which conquers the harmful behavior without exercising violence?
Maybe that message only makes sense to Aang, because he’s an air nomad and believes in these ways. Maybe the Lion Turtle would have said something different to a water bender, or to another person in general.
What would the Lion Turtle have said in that case?
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Aang was very explicitly not in control of himself during the invasion of the north, and he became scared of his power due to his experiences with the avatar state.
The whole moral conundrum is about him consciously choosing to kill the Fire Lord. Yes, he most likely caused deaths before, but not consciously & deliberately.
I dunno, I think that take lacks a bit of object permanence. Just because you don’t have to see the killing directly, doesn’t mean you’re any less morally responsible. Shielding soldiers from the direct outcomes of the violence they cause is like the defualt way of programming them and getting them to continue. A big reason why the US uses drones so much because its easier to get someone to press a button behind a screen than shoot someone in front of them.
Causing many many deaths not consciously or deliberatley is worse IMO if you wanna judge the two against each other, it shows a flippance with lives and a lack of consideration of consequences of ones’ own actions. Killing Ozai woulf have been pointed and deserved, one death with a direct positive effect, which in my eyes is much more valid and less morally questionable than hundreds of offscreen deaths.
My argument isn’t that Aang didn’t see the killing directly, it’s that he was possessed by a very powerful and angry spirit, so he didn’t have control over his actions.
Also, Aang managed to achieve the same effect - arguably an even more positive one - by not killing Ozai. Sure, killing him would have been simpler, but the show directly shows us that it would not have been better.
Sure, there is that difference. But the series doesn’t even address the fact that he’s already killed hundreds of people. Intentionally or not, it’s still absurd to hand wring about killing when you’ve already killed hundreds of people, accidentally or not, and the one person you’re worrying about taking down is literal genocidal maniac. To me that just sounds like not being willing to take responsibility for your own actions. Intentionally or not, Aang killed hundreds of people. And it’s not like he never went into the Avatar state again after taking out the Northern fleet. Hell, he fought Ozai while in the Avatar state. Maybe he should have just “accidentally” killed Ozai while in the Avatar state and just washed his hands of moral culpability, just like he did all the other people he killed before then.
Regardless, Aang found a way to make peace with the fact that he had taken hundreds of lives. But when the person in question is someone of power and renown? Then it becomes something to fret over.
Hell, he fought Ozai while in the Avatar state. Maybe he should have just “accidentally” killed Ozai while in the Avatar state
Remember that he didn’t just enter the avatar state during the northern water tribe attack, he spiritually fused with the raging ocean spirit. I feel like that gives him a bit more moral innocence than just straight up killing people on his own. It’s also worth noting he almost did exactly this. After smacking his back on the rock and reawakening his avatar state, he barely regained control before straight up killing Ozai.
That said… I actually hate the way he solved his unwillingness to kill the fire lord. An entire season of struggling over it and then suddenly some deus ex machina lion turtle pops up out of nowhere with no foreshadowing and just gives him the answer right before the final fight. Super lame and unearned ending to his moral struggle imo.
So if I kill while high on drugs it’s a-okay, right?
moreso if you were drugged unwittingly, or against your will.
Plus I thought Avatar Yang Chen’s argument was amazing. She told Aang that his duties to protect people as the Avatar outweighed his spiritual need to be a pacifist.
Yeah, but she’s forgetting about Aang’s cultural duty to his people. He’s the last Air Nomad. If Aang intentionally takes a life, then that cultural aspect of the Air Nomads is dead forever in his eyes.
She also didn’t know he’d magically find a magical being that would give him to power to permanently strip Ozai of his powers.
Though, to be fair, he only found that magical being because he kept searching for a different solution. Had he given up and listened to everyone, he wouldn’t have met the turtle.
Wasn’t he already on the turtle’s back when questioning the past avatars about his moral conundrum?
Had he chosen to listen to one of them, he would on the next day have still noticed that the island had moved away and found the lion head. But I get your drift, he still searched within his own mind after his friends told him to finish Ozai off.
Sure, he was on the turtles back, but I think the show explicitly tells us the turtle only came because of his strong will to finish the fight without killing Ozai. Had he been convinced by his previous lives, his will wouldn’t have been strong enough to summon the turtle.
Also, even if the turtle had still come and taught him the technique, he’d have been overpowered by Ozais spirit during the final confrontation. Aang only defeated him during their battle of wills because of his unwavering spirit.
Clearly some people’s lives are more valuable than others’ /s
I mean, you’re not wrong without the /s, but it is hilarious whos lives are considered important in media…
Maybe it’s inserted into media on purpose, training us like a subtle shock collar to hesitate if somehow, one of the commoners manages to get within range of an authoritarian boss-man.
/Crazy conspiracy lol
Aang is carrying an entire culture on his back. If he loses his way as an Air Nomad, then the genocide of his people is complete, and the world will never again be restored to balance.
Lol I cringed so hard at that.
Also
Legend of Korra spoilers
Aang being the merciful idiot he is and letting Yakone live is why his recincarnation had to deal with the Amon problem. 🤦♂️ ::
wrong bracket in the Link.
Also: good writeup, I like it :)
Thanks! Fixed.
I get the vague impression that this is meant to subtly influence western society into believing that the masses aren’t truly people, that only the ones steering our collective wheels are actually human. Green arrow basically said as much for like… 5 seasons. Then it got weirder.
There’s no conspiracy. It’s just people being lazy about good writing.
Also it doesn’t happen just in western society. There are plenty of asian movies which fall in the same problem.
There were a few moments in the Marvel Universe. Spider-Man even had his first movie based off the common man and results of super hero actions to create new baddies. But the one that stands out to me is in Iron Man 3, where Tony is going to fire on one of the bad guys in the compound and the guy throws down his gun and says, “Honestly, I hate working here. They are so weird.”
Nah it’s just shit writing. Occam’s razor and all that.
I get the vague impression that this is meant to subtly influence western society into believing that the masses aren’t truly people
Tinfoil hat theory would be that the evil leaders of real life (the ceos, the billionaires, etc) are planting the seeds so that if their plans fail and a revolution comes, they won’t be summarily executed
What of they don’t have to intentionally plant seeds? They just cancel anything that makes their power fantasy uncomfortable? :3
Could you imagine?
“For the crimes of economy-scale larceny, murder, environmental collapse, bribery, tax evasion, and, uhh, sexual battery of a pack of golden retrievers, how do you plea?”
“C’mon, I’m just a little guy!”
“D’aww”
I’m not an expert, but I’m like five-nines certain a guillotine does not make a “D’aww” sound when activated.
We could build that in. Glue on some googly eyes too.
A nice clownly guffaw right before impact would be delightful.
Arrow only ran for 2 seasons and a brief 9-episode third season. Such a shame he got shanked and thrown off a mountain to end the series.
That show was so damn weird. Felt like the writers were trapped on an island where they were forced to keep writing about the island
“The island is all that we know, and we write what we know. Send help.”
I get the vague impression that this is meant to subtly influence western society into believing that the masses aren’t truly people,
Well, people can think two things at once. And whilst people may think that non-fleshed out nameless movie henchmen “aren’t truly people”, I don’t think they apply the same standard to random people irl.
The abundance of people voting against their interests around the world, both historically and presently, seemingly solely to spite a specific group, was what initially spurred the thought. There has to be dehumanization at some step in the process and something to spur and reinforce it.
Do I believe that terribly written media is the sole impetus for the US falling apart? No. But I do see symptoms in random places.
By story logic, the henchmen really weren’t “true people”, but metaphors for environment difficulties. For example, a young adult watching superhero comics would think of homeworks, social media negativities, etc.
I have no idea why Jedi Survivor decided to do that with one random empire guy.
Everybody else got their fucking arms and legs cut off.
Fallout 3. Slaughter the vault of police officers (who you grew up knowing), but grow a conscience when you meet the overseer. Take out armies of enclave soldiers, but let the weirdo Colonel Autumn walk away.
This is because the villain has slain 69,421 people. Killing him would give the hero the same bodycount, and thus make them exactly the same.
You’re killing me.
69,421.5
Edit: Please update when you’re fully dead, OP, so I can finalize the new count.
RIP, Stumpy.
because they want us to kill each other, the low ranking riffraff and feel nothing over that, but not the big badd bbillionaires and friends
Fucking Moon Knight. That dude’s whole thing is killing mother fuckers at the top, he prides himself on being a murderer of murderers and crime bosses and he’s not going to give a fuck what you think of his moral stance, yet at the end of the Disney+ series he decides he’s a fucking universalist or some shit? Fuck that! Moon Knight is a straight up murderer, he would be the first person to tell you that he is a murderer and that he don’t give a fuck how anyone feels about it.
Also, they didn’t use the song Dead Moon Night by Dead Moon when there was a dead Moon Knight. Fuck that show.
Yeah, but Steven and Marc haven’t reached that point in their character development yet. They don’t fully understand who they are and what Moon Knight is. They don’t know about Jake. Jake does kill people in cold blood. The implication is that in season 2, Steven and Marc will have to come to terms with that, just as they both came to terms with each other. This is an origin story.
They should have made a show about a different character. They did Moon Knight wrong.
Not many Marvel superheroes with schizophrenia and DID. I value the show because of the representation. I’ve never seen such a good depiction of plurality on TV. And I’m also a fan of Moon Knight in the comics. My favourite run is From The Dead. I love the sass with which he informs the somnologist that a Paladin of Khonsu is well qualified to treat dream problems.
It still suffers from the issue this post is talking about. I’m not telling anyone not to like it, there was a lot of good things going on with it but the kaiju battle and not killing the big bad after slaughtering a ton of henchmen was a bridge too far for me.
Movies that are just about punching the bad guy are boring. Like Man Of Steel. Snyder failed to connect the character themes and drama to the action in a meaningful way.
Seeing Marc, Steven, and Jake grapple with how to oppose Amit’s ideology, and disagree, is great. Steven and Marc are broken, foolish men. But they have ideals and values. They think the only way to defeat Amit ideologically is to make a stand against killing bad people. I mean, she’s a god. She gets stronger when people follow her ideology. Steven and Marc think the answer is to find a way to disable the enemy without killing, and thereby prove Amit’s ideology wrong and weaken her.
And Jake doesn’t give a fuck, like the more traditional depictions of Moon Knight.
I want to see a season 2 where the three come to understand one another, and where these religious questions are grappled with on a deeper level. As you say, killing bad people isn’t always wrong. Perhaps they could have a discussion about how the pantheon exists for a reason, and you can’t just destroy one of your gods with no consequences. Killing bad people has its place, the problem is just that Amit wanted to be too powerful.
I mean, couldn’t that moon knight be the personality that deus ex machina’s everything in the disney+ show? The personality that they show has taken over by the end? (or became more prominent, I dunno’, it’s been years since I’ve seen it)
Fuck that. Deus ex machina is just a fancy way to say bullshit writing that disregards everything. If they wanted that kind of story they should have used a different character.
Media targeted at a large audience tends to dumb moral and philosophical conundrums down to the simplest possible gesture instead of taking the ideas seriously.
There is actually a youtube channel called “Dhar Mann” filled with stupid scenarios and end with the moral “So you see, this is why you don’t treat the poor-looking guy badly… because he might be secretly rich and was about to give you a big tip on the bill”. Not because you should have common decency, but because “he might be a secret rich person” 🤦♂️
You’re gonna die laughing of the cringe if you ever watch those videos 🤣
