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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 8217808" data-attributes="member: 177">I don't argue that she should be immune.  I argue that they are ineffective and pointless in such cases.  I'm going to keep this to the realm of psychology.  I have no desire to get into the politics of punishment.  In addition, we are talking about comic books, so I am not going to cite support for assertions like I would in a public policy piece.  You're free to disagree.  I'm not going to argue over their truth.  I will merely present them."Consequences" as we normally talk about them, have pretty limited utility.  We should establish a few things:1) Consequences need to have a positive end result to be useful.  If the basic reason for consequences is "They hurt me, so they deserve to be hurt," that is vengeance, and vengeance is not justice.  2) Outside of financial considerations, consequences do not generally help the victims.  If one has been abused or assaulted, we generally want the perpetrator punished.  However, this does not generally lead to better outcomes for the victim.  There may be specific situations where it is relevant, but broadly, the idea of "closure"[sup]1[/sup] in this sense is fundamentally flawed, as it does not help the victim process or resolve the issues they are left with.  To put it colloquially, seeing the perpetrator go to jail does not typically lessen the time it takes to stop having the nightmares.Consequences can sometimes be a teaching tool, but they are a poor one, at best.  Humans don't respond to negative stimuli significantly differently from other mammals - swatting your dog after they pee in the house is an unreliable form of training a dog, and it isn't really all that more effective on humans.  But, in cases of major psychological or emotional distress, the person can know the act was wrong, but do it anyway.Consequences can sometimes act as a deterrent, but... we see how well that works.  We have been levelling consequences on people for bad behavior for ages, but we still have crime.  At best, consequences act in the cost-benefit analysis of an action.  That doesn't apply when the person is not driven by cost/benefit analysis, like in cases great acute anger, psychological disturbance or trauma.  When the behavior isn't rational, assessment of cost goes out the window.There is a last form of consequence - removing the person from society as a protection for the rest of us.  This is what happens to Agatha - locked away where she cannot hurt anyone.  But, Wanda seems to have removed herself from society.  For another, it is not clear that any mortal force can imprison her.  Killing her may be equally difficult.  So, I'm not sure what consequences you think should be levelled at her that would make the situation better.Our culture at large has a great many misunderstandings about grief.  We may say that everyone has suffered something that has caused grief, but for purposes of this discussion, the issue isn't grief itself, so much as grief and loss that were not successfully processed that causes issues.  Again, "consequences" would not help her process her grief.That we like to see it does not mean it will actually help us.  See (2) above.Sure.  But consequences (aka "punishment") won't make it better, either.If you hadn't realized, Monica has her own unresolved issues around a death and recent events. She also remarks that she'd have done the same, if she'd had the power.  This is to let the audience know that Wanda's failing is a very basic human one.  Any human can have it.  Many do have it.  Wanda's not a villain for why she did what she did, but only because she had the power to do it.  Or, alternatively, everyone is potentially a villain, so maybe we should be careful in our judgements.The telling line, however, is the one that follows, from Wanda, "That wouldn't change what they think of me," tells us Wanda realizes something about it all.  To the people of the town, Wanda's issues are not the point, and she recognizes that, and doesn't think ill of them for it.  And that there's really nothing Wanda can do to make it better at this point.I, at least, was not trying to tell you what to believe.  Much like we don't tell you why you should care.  If you don't like it, that's fine.  Continuing to gripe to folks who do like it does not seem to serve a useful purpose, though, so maybe you want to consider how you want to engage with this thread, if at all.1. "Closure" does sometimes have an impact when the primary issue is about not knowing something - if a person has disappeared, learning finally that they are conclusively dead can help a mourner finally process the result.</blockquote>

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