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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9364738" data-attributes="member: 6801228">I was recently reading a Superhero comic with a character named "Even Steven". Even Steven is a strange character, but he follows a very strict moral outlook. He believes that in a fair fight, Good will always beat evil, because Evil generally cheats instead of fighting fair. His power set allows him to copy another person's abilities, matching them exactly in strength and ability. You are fighting a goon with a chain? You form a chain that matches it exactly. Another goon drives a semi into the fight? You summon a semi to drive into that semi. Even Steven. In the climatic fight of the arc, the villain has a magical power-up McGuffin and starts ripping through the city with blizzard powers and causing a lot of harm to a lot of people. The good guys start fighting him, and are getting wrecked, one character loses her (mechanical) legs. Even Steven appears, saying the fight was fair before, but now that they are injured it isn't fair, and he will take over. He starts fighting the villain on equal terms... still devastating the city, still putting people's lives at risk. The other heroes regroup, and come up with a plan. They slip into the fight, steal the McGuffin, and weaken the villain to the point he gets knocked out by Even Steven. Even Steven FREAKS OUT. The fight was not fair. He did not win fairly, or honorably. He won because of deceit. The fact that the villain was stopped, that people were not injured, that people did not die.... does not matter to him. What matters is he was not able to prove good was superior in a fair fight.This, to me, illustrates the issue with something like stating that "Doing good must be difficult, therefore stealth is a last resort". Because it places personal honor above the health and safety of others. The rest of the party did not take an oath, they are not paladins, but when the paladin boldly walks up to the bandit fort, declares their intentions, and challenges the leader to a duel because it is the right and honorable way to attempt to rescue the captives... what the paladin has effectively done is put their desires for "Fairness" over the safety and well-being of those captives. And it bothers me to call this out as the ideal of good. Being good shouldn't be about making sure you appear good and honorable. And doing something that actively harms others just to make sure you aren't "cheating" while you rescue people from death... is just about appearing good.</blockquote>

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