Well, a basically neutral character can do evil things from time to time, is how I look at it. And good things from time to time – the mechanism by which many neutral characters function in good-aligned parties. Changing alignments involves either a pattern of consistent behaviors (of which the killing of Kubota would be the first) or a Big Event (say, Miko slaying her lord).
Order of the Stick 596!
- Thread starter MichaelSomething
- Start date
On the other hand, Belkar giving Roy his ring of Jumping was a pretty subtle way of causing Roy's death.
Well... I don't know where you're going with this.
If you define "murder" as "the killing of a person under circumstances defined by law as murder," then yes, it was murder. But under that definition it isn't ultimately clear we should care. As Kubuta just finished explaining, the legal system that created that definition of murder was completely inadequate to the task of restraining him.
If you define "murder" as "unjustified killing," which tends to be the most culturally universal definition, it wasn't murder.
Maybe its the lawyer in me talking. But when someone goes out of their way to explain to you that there lots of really good, legitimate reasons why you should kill them, but haha, you're not going to because your personal morals won't let you, I think they're estopped from complaining when you do in fact kill them.
... I resolve an awful lot of moral questions with the principles of estoppel, now that I think about it.
catsclaw227
First Post
Yea, but V didn't know it was a criminal. (S)He guessed that it might be, but didn't want to find out for sure, so (s)he killed him. There's nothing Good about that at all.
LightPhoenix
First Post
Wrong. Here's why: V had no clue who Kubota was, or what he did, until Elan told V in this strip, by V's comment. Kubota could have been a helpless prisoner - V did not know for fact. V assumed. That is logic only in the sense that it's poor logic. Logical would have been to take six seconds to ask first.
Even were it logical, that doesn't make it Good (with a capital G). V had no conclusive proof Kubota's plan would work. Hell, V even knew the plan, so there was plenty of potential for non-violent ways of solving the problem.
Were this an isolated incident, I'd give the benefit of the doubt V was still Neutral. It hasn't been though; throughout this story V has shown a dangerous indifference to the well-being of allies, going so far as to leave one of them to die.
I've long since believed the whole purpose of this storyline is to show V's slide into Evil, so that when V does gain ultimate arcane power, it is for all the wrong reasons.
frankthedm said:
I could not disagree more, for two reasons. First, I think that good intentions/good action is better than good intention/bad action; and evil intention/"good" action (such as it is) is better than evil intention/bad action. In both cases, good action is preferable. Second, action follows intention; you don't have to act on intention.
I think this idea of intention versus action is the crux of the disagreement in these recent threads.
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