Why shouldn't we kill the bad guy after defeating him

[Relique du Madde]

POST REMOVED.

Tappa talk decided to post a reply to another thread here!

 

[jonesy]

Trust me there have been good "small" stories however, they haven't appeared in Uncanny X-Men, though ymmv.

For instance, X-Schism only had two "tie in books" The first one was horrible (Prelude) and was basically the writter talking about how awesome Cyclops is and how everyone lovesCyclopse. The official tie in story in Generation Hope actually was better then X-Schism and focused for the most part on Idie

Psst. I think you replied to the wrong thread.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I noticed... tapa talk is acting wierd. I wonder why it opened the wrong thread when I pressed reply...

I'll have to copy paste into the right thread when I'm at a pc..

-Sent via Tapatalk

 

[Elf Witch]

The difference between real life and fiction is that in real life the bad guy does not keep escaping the asylum to do it again. Sure some bad guys get away with it, but how common is it.

Son of Sam is still locked up. Ted Bundy was executed for his crimes.

It is not like the Joker or the Riddler.

In real life I want justice not vengeance. So I want the courts to decide not some hot shot with a gun and a badge.

In fiction we know the bad guys is bad and doing it the deed. But in real life we could be wrong. And saying oops sorry does not help the dead.

This is just me but I don't like fiction where the hero is a killer like The Punisher. Batman is better than the Joker because he does not kill and I like that.

 

[Ahnehnois]

To extend the Batman reference, sometimes the BBEG isn't bad. For example, Catwoman is in some parts of the canon a nemesis who later becomes his most powerful ally.

And, speaking more broadly, how many people are there, in life or in fiction, who are truly "bad". If you've got a demon in front of you, kill it unless there's a use for it. If you've got a person, stop and think.

There's also the golden rule angle. Many adventureres are profiteering opportunists who fight whatever's in their way. If you meet another such party and fight them, would you expect to be mercilessly slaightered if you lost, or simply left to tend to your wounds in defeat while the enemies looted whatever there was to loot?

 

[Janx]

If the irredeemably evil Gollum had been killed, the One Ring would not have been destroyed and the ultimate evil (Sauron) would have triumphed. You won't find that sort of sentiment in many fantasy novels, and I always loved LotR for that.

If they had just taken a flying eagle, Gandalf could have shoved Frodo off as they flew over.

 

[jonesy]

If they had just taken a flying eagle, Gandalf could have shoved Frodo off as they flew over.

If they had taken a flying eagle Sauron would have noticed them.

 

[Chairman7w]

I pretty much disagree with all that. I'm from the "Kill em and be done with it" side of things.

I think many more lives would be SAVED with this attitude. The deterrent effect of knowing that if you step out of line you get killed would save WAY more.

And from a practical side, think of all the money that would be saved. No trials, WAY less jails and recitative crime.

I wish I was King of the World.

First, because Humans are not prescient. Nobody knows what someone will or won't do in the Future.

And Second, because it's not as easy a thing as you might think.



This maybe true for a fictional character. And in real life is also likely true for the masses who didn't actually participate in the killing (like the people of Gotham). But for the person who does this in real life, it is not that simple.

Killing someone changes you, even when justified or in self defense. Ask any cop or soldier who's ever had to kill someone and they'll tell you, they do not just go home and sleep well. They may understand logically that it was something that had to be done, but it stays with you and weighs upon you, and never really completely goes away...ever.

Taking a life is a monumental thing. You're not just killing them in the moment, you are killing them in the future. Everything they would have been is now gone. And no matter how unemotional a person may be or seem, unless one is a true psychopath, it's virtually impossible to not feel an involuntary empathy for the person they just killed. You see it in the dying persons eyes. You see the end of thought, personality, character, being...LIFE...in those eyes. And in that moment, justified or not, necessary or not, self defense or not, it is an extremely hard thing to see, and impossible to forget. Once the adrenaline is gone, once the rage or fear has faded, the true impact is always felt and cannot be escaped.

There is always a price.

 

[Chairman7w]

And there are reformed serial killers, as strange as that might sound.

Not in my world.

 

[Janx]

I pretty much disagree with all that. I'm from the "Kill em and be done with it" side of things.

I think many more lives would be SAVED with this attitude. The deterrent effect of knowing that if you step out of line you get killed would save WAY more.

And from a practical side, think of all the money that would be saved. No trials, WAY less jails and recitative crime.

I wish I was King of the World.

I recall a sociology class where the point was made that some study showed that death penalties don't discourage crime. I think to sum up, the actual penalty doesn't discourage crime, because the criminal does not think he will get caught.

This is backed up by another factoid I heard on NPR, that a lot of the accounting fraud happens in places where there are not checks to what the accountant is doing. Basically, he sees the system is lax, that he can't get caught, so he does it.

So for non-psychopaths, the barrier to entry for a life of crime is prevention/rapid detection rather than punishment.