Rapist! Murderer! Kill them! · 7:54pm Oct 3rd, 2016
I've mentioned this before, but it remains relevant. The need for brutal and swift justice.
I think I just realized where it comes from, even as I typed that last half-sentence. In this world where justice is so often subverted and the law can't be trusted to be on the side of right at any time, people are becoming sensitive to seeing even a hint of darkness where they come to escape it. Shades of grey where they want a colorful land of perfection is unwanted and met with severe frowns and calls for that missing justice, now, not later. No, I don't care if there may be a reason. It doesn't matter what the reason is. Bob killed Joe. Mary raped Steve. Paul stole from Billy. They deserve to be punished, period.
Hopefully it will be painful.
Am I alone in finding that line of thinking to be... practically painful? That's the sort of thinking that got us where we are. I don't want it.
It also happens to be pretty awful for a serial writer (which I am) since anything that has a cliffhanger that hints at this sort of thing is seen as a miscarriage of justice and a reason to be angry.
Why aren't people curious anymore?
Bob murders Steve. Why did Bob do that? Is Steve really dead? I hope he's alright. How will Jane react!?
These are all great questions.
I hope Bob dies in a fire, preferably with his dog.
This is just negativity, and depressing. Or so I feel.
You?
I kinda agree with you
I do have my view that my morals and my personal code affect quite a lot and this happens to align with some of that code
I blame instant gratification. When people can stream entire seasons in hours people do not like waiting for things they want. People are just so hooked on your stories that waiting a whole day drives them crazy! I say make them wait!
Agreed, but...
What can anyone do?
I believe in the need for justice done right. Now more than ever crimes are tried in the media and the verdict is always guilty.
"Person of interest" Guilty.
"Suspect" Guilty.
"Accused" Guilty.
American news has made an art form out of this, nothing positive is the norm. Orphanage burns down? Story is about how there's nowhere to send the orphans, forget that the additional attention had them all adopted within 24 hours.
FiMFiction has a vengeance boner, man.
I'm not kidding. During the course of writing "Have You Considered My Servant, Twilight?" I got PMs describing in detail the excruciatingly violent revenge Twilight should visit upon Luna for the audacity of giving her a bad dream.
Empathy and general compassion are harder to find than you'd expect.
Yeah... just how many complain about how X character should be punished, or how this reformed character didn't suffer enough to earn it, or any of the BS..... it gets really really freaking annoying, and people miss the whole POINT behind punishment, to protect people. Punishments shouldn't be to cause someone to suffer in turn, it should be to prevent someone from hurting others in the first place, a deterrent.
It's one of the things I love so much about Equestria, that the Ponies really do follow through on the belief, the only times we've really seen anyone 'punished' beyond having to fix the mess they made, (Actually deliberately punished, not simply having to deal with natural consequences of their actions) it was because that was the only way to keep others safe from them.
4238725 my condolences and my sincere empathy on that matter.
4238725 And it's completely antithetical to the show, where everypony gets forgiven for everything. Multiple times, if necessary.
I mean, sure, there's a certain amount of comedic irony you can get by putting a more realistic slant on crime and punishment but you can only do that so many times before it stops being funny, and when you're deadly serious about it that number of times might be on the order of zero.
I'm with you in this.
We- no, speaking only for myself, I come here looking for a different path [heh...] to tread when it comes to personal interactions. Magic Pony Land is the place where disagreements can be resolved by taking a step back and learning about the person you disagree with instead of ignoring or actively silencing them, or avoiding having the same done to me. I may not be friends with everyone when the day is done and it's time to rest, but I don't need to sleep with hate and anger burning in my heart.
I've tried on occasion to engage the angrier voices on the comments to try and learn a little and maybe suggest another path to resolving the hurts that might be fueling the intense feelings, but to date have only had a couple of folks even respond to polite (I hope) inquiry and an attempt at conversation.
Why is this? No real idea, but in the portion of the world where I live, I'm bombarded from all directions with the idea that compromise is Evil and the only way to deal with differing opinions is to prevent those that hold them from speaking, to dehumanize those that think differently. The very idea that I might learn about why people think differently is considered naive and met with derision and scorn by those that would call themselves leaders. This may contribute to the atavistic desire for swift, draconian justice to even the most minor of offenses in the shared fantasy setting of Equestria.
On the balance the voices calling the for swift, violent justice are few but they tend to be so loud that they drown out more reasoned responses or discourage any sort of response at all.
This is the
beatbest* I can do to address your concerns. Any in-depth answer to your question would likely be enough to hang a Masters or even PhD level dissertation on to even scratch the surface.*edit:typos, however, can DIAF.
4238802 Did you've read the story about Twilight taking starlight to court.
4238812 No?
4238829 http://www.fimfiction.net/story/312640/twilight-brings-starlight-glimmer-to-court
4238807 I think we're on the same page, at least where the bloodlust comes in.
Can you imagine the reactions of these readers though, if you suddenly gave them what they wanted? For instance, in Ocean of the Sky, readers were very literally demanding that the Siren be (again literally) burned at the stake for the crimes of mind control and menacing they're dolphin-pony waifu. Now imagine in the next chapter everything had gone grim-dark and the poor siren really was tied up and burned alive. I somehow doubt the same readers who demanded that outcome would be happy to see it play out, as we've discussed a dark story is a hard sale.
There may be reasons for mercy, but if they really did the crime, they should really be punished. Otherwise the strong rule and the weak suffer and there is no justice at all.
4238960 Bob is having a nice day.
A fist comes down from the sky. He is killed instantly.
Joe, standing nearby, gasps with shock and dismay! He wants justice!
Tom is a giant. Being a giant in a small world is hard. Oops, he tripped. His arms flail before he smacks into the ground, ow. It's okay, that wasn't so... What's this stuff on my hand? Oh no!
Should Tom be 'punished'? Would it help Bob? Would it help Joe? Would it make this less likely to happen again?
Meh, forget it. Tom's a giant. He deserves to die anyway. That's the safest answer anyway, right?
4238985
Tom stabs Bob in the face on purpose.
Bill sees him do it.
Tom says he's really sorry.
Rainbows?
Edit: What I'm getting at is that it doesn't matter if Tom just got the knife for his birthday, or everyone in his family has knives or even that his parents told him murder was cool. He knew what would happen, and he did it. He is a murderer.
4238987 Um... You're not even going to answer?
4238993 I did answer. You're claiming that all wrongdoing is an accident, but characters like the siren in the seapony story are fully responsible criminals. That's why they deserve to be punished. The victim can forgive if they want to, but the authorities are morally obligated to punish criminals to protect their people.
Edit: I didn't say burned at the stake though. A few months in prison would be fine.
4238996 You didn't. I gave a specific situation. What do you do with that giant?
I did not propose anything, save that eradicating the giant would surely be the safest answer.
4239004 Fine, he should be charged with manslaughter, which is a few years in prison. Same as if a little person had done the same thing. Your turn.
4239006 Great, that's a fine legal answer.
It says nothing of personal ethics. It also doesn't really help any of the people actually involved. The dead person? Still dead. The living person? He probably wanted a lot worse for the giant. The giant? Well, now he's in jail
Net result: government expenditure, an embittered human, and possibly a psychologically damaged giant if the prison they shove him in is anything like the sort we have RL.
Winners: No one.
4239016 That's not the point. If crime isn't punished, everyone will do it. If I can get out of a murder charge by making a sad face, what's to stop me from shooting up the donut shop to save $5?
4239019 Of course. Giants need to learn to not trip, or jail is the answer.
4239030 As I said before, you chose the most ridiculous example. Your other comments suggest your original blog is trying to defend the mind-jacking siren, who knowingly and willfully abused a whole town. There is still no defense for that.
4239045 Sure there was. You didn't like it, but she did have a reason. Did you finish that story?
4239050 No. But I read the part where you explained her reason. She was paid. That doesn't get you off in any court anywhere, nor should it.
4239053 You are kind of officially part of the problem there. She had more reasons, and it doesn't matter. You've made your judgement.
4239056 She mind-controlled the freaking town! What about them, huh? There are no rights unless people who violate others' rights are punished.
At no time did you ever say she didn't really do that, nor did you say that she didn't know she was controlling them. All of her motivation boils down to she wanted to. It doesn't matter why she wanted to, because her victims aren't her. They didn't want her to, but she did anyway.
That is a bad thing. An evil thing. Why does nobody understand this?
4239068 Do you really want to know? It comes far later in the story. It's never even clearly laid out, but I can break it down, if you want.
4239086 Ok. I'm not just ranting, I thought about this carefully. What am I missing?
Cliffhangers lack closure by nature. That combined with the trope that they tend to happen at moments when the audience is most invested emotionally, reactions tend to get blown out of proportion.
4239089
A: She isn't a mercenary, she is friends with the worried mother.
B: Said mother isn't just a mother. She's the queen of the sea ponies.
So... She was literally an acting agent of a foreign nation. If there was to be reprisals, it would be more logically directed at that nation.
In the end, it was still a huge cultural snafu. The ponies could have taken it as a reason to hate the sea world and all its ponies, but they did not.
Was that foolish on their part?
Was the siren an evil creature for doing what sirens are literally crafted by nature to do? Is a shark evil when it nibbles your tender flesh?
But wait, I can hear you say, she's sentient!
Great, that means she can be taught better. I nominate that be done instead. She's not evil, just ignorant.
Ignorance is its own kind of evil. Let's defeat that.
I found myself guilty of wishing bloody vengeance on occasion, but then I'm a terrible person. At least I'm still polite enough to keep it to myself and let the author tell their story.
Edit: Most of the time, anyway.
4239104
If she had diplomatic immunity, then she was safe from punishment regardless of her guilt. That does explain why she was forgiven in this case. However, for the sake of philosophy, let's ignore the practicality of punishing her and consider the ethics.
Humans by nature are cruel and violent. Good people control themselves carefully at all times to keep their nature from ruling them. Bad people do whatever they like, and what they like is evil. Animals follow their nature. Civilized people - including magical ponies - do not.
Creatures that are "sentient" or "sapient" or whatever term you prefer have the ability to consider the consequences of their actions, as well as the impact on other creatures. The queen never told the siren to mind-control the town. Her orders were to retrieve Cherry. So the responsibility for the decision is still on the siren. She was not ignorant, she knew exactly what her powers could do.
Why do I make such a big deal about her crime?
If you put a firecracker in your neighbor's mailbox, that's just a harmless joke, right? No, you are interfering with his rights. Maybe he loses a package, maybe he loses an arm, or maybe he just needs to repair the mailbox, wasting his time, but that is still you hurting him. It is the job of government, whether monarchy or democracy, to protect the rights of its people.
In a perfect world, they could stop evil by making evil impossible to do. In the real world, all they can do is try to make it impractical by punishing the evil ones. As you said, the siren had a reason to do what she did. That is why there needs to be a stronger reason for her to not do it.
I don't want to see badguys punished just because I like suffering. I want to see badguys punished because that's what a lawful society must do if it truly values the rights of its citizens. The punishment does not have to be severe, but there must be consequences.
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
4239145 Now we're wading hip deep. The inherent 'evil' of humanity is something you can spend your whole life arguing and get no further than where you started. Smarter men than either of us have tried.
4239160 I think we've both said what we needed to say. I hope you at least agree that there is a point where evil must be stopped, even if we disagree about where that point is.
4238725 It frustrates me we see this so often, every time I read a story with an antagonist there's always these creepy readers demanding the antagonist suffer horrible physical punishment.
4239227 I mean I too wish for justice in stories but there's a weirdness in how they express it.
4239280 I like the idea that Equestria has more of a restorative justice approach, myself.
4239289 Same, actually. In general I value compassion over blind retribution.
Opinion shared. There's more to everything than us humans see.
Eh.
I am pretty much in the middle.
I look at the how and why first if it is available. Depending on the reasons there could be a very viable shot at redemption.
If however the antagonist is unrepentant and/or the author gives you nothing to see as far as reasons for their actions then yeah it might be odd if not down right idiotic to jump right to redemption.
It seems like a reflection of the culture of the reader, I think.
Its...an idealistic train of thought, in a way. For a world where all is just and the 'evil' ones get their comeuppance. Pay evil unto evil. Perhaps it is, as you said, due to the plan dissatisfaction one gets from real world events. Take a commonly occuring tragedy in the news as of late, police brutality. One would expect the upholders of the law be punished as the law demands for harming an innocent, but that doesn't actually happen. And when people expect that but get the opposite, the offending officer being set relatively free and the victim being blamed and punished for another's actions, they carry that with them, remembering it, consciously or otherwise. Maybe all these venganceboners are just a sign of people's opinions of things applied in a different way.
Of course, in story terms, I find that audiences are more sympathetic to extreme crimes like these if they get to know the one who committed the act before it occurs.
You know, the first time I saw happy tree friends I though "OMG! this is horrible" but five years later it was like 'this is flipping hilarious!' Somehow I had finally keyed into the humor that made the marqui de sade famous. Which is weird, because I found JTHM and Squee so thought provoking when I believed happy tree friends horrible. Think of it as the jokeresque sort of mentality behind literally every abridged series and southpark episode ever.
BUUUUUUT, using transactional analysis it has be argued that bloodlust or conquest isn't really a genuine or honest fetish that the Child ego state derives pleasure from to begin with. It's more a form of hysteria or brainwashing that has to be conditioned by the Parent ego state and again must be reinforced by parental injunctions in order to become fully integrated into the persona of the adapted child... Bloodlust or Conquest could be a form of rebellion against learned helplessness that was generated by withholding, damaging, or corrupting the tools (or coping mechanisms) which would allow the another person to grow under normal circumstances becasue they were crippled out of a problem, concern, issue, conflict, or crisis (like forcing the idea that greed is "evil." or the misinformed belief that humility and humiliation go hand in hand) Something along the lines of, "The other party is condemned, is under contract, and deserves to die anyway. Why offer them services that would make them feel like they can do something to change their fate, instead of offering some assistance in getting their final reward sooner with less suffering or challenge?"
And, if the Child (or whatever creature) were given the tools to acquire what they needed in order to sustain themselves independently, while still metaphorically enslaved by the material possessions of a world that makes sense to them, while remaining of __inferior mind__ (like a zombie without attending skills) or perhaps lacking in the __superior moral compass__ afforded those who can use 'calculus and 'trigonometry to justify the morality of their actions (you know instead of blindly assuming most people want to avoid personal loss, physical or verbal assault, or genuinely believing the law, duty, common sense, and public decency keep the peace) they could potentially become an uncontrollable, if not unmanageable, or easily manipulated monster.
For instance, let's argue that Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash represent different aspects of the same person(ality). Rainbow Dash is the adapted child or presenting self that doesn't really get pleasure from pranking others. But, she does it anyway becasue of a compulsion that was conditioned one halloween when Fluttershy's friends pointed out how totally lame uninvited guests were, she (Fluttershy) was wounded but then Starlight Glimmer showed up and she had a fetish for wounded children or (if you want it to sound less kinky perhaps Starlight Glimmer had a Pygmalion complex of some kind) and she thought she was going to redeem Fluttershy's wounded spirit, by uplifting her game, and transforming her new personal project into her idea of the perfect prankster, after a bit of marketing and rebranding fluttershy goes from being electrasol to finish... or Rainbow Dash (I shouldn't have to explain it further if you saw the apple cart derby episode you can pretty much figure out where this is going, only fluttershy really didn't have the strength of character to fight the power).
The basic idea is like a father introducing their child to playboy, most heterosexual males will be attracted to certain parts of the female anatomy anyway, but the ol' man wants you to appreciate the artistry of the articles and composition context of the way the lady parts are presented thus transforming a guilty pleasure into an act of snobbery. Plus, you know, a person getting pleasure from introducing a child to a deviant hobby that corrupts absolutely is creepy. It's not exactly explaining the origin of the species through once upon a mattress.
Well, not exactly without reason. The problem with the "terrible swift sword" is that the less time you spend making sure that the punished party is actually guilty, the more often you will end up in fact punishing an innocent.
Since the entire point of justice is to protect the innocent, I think this really ultimately leads the concept ad absurdum. If people cannot trust justice to be just, then what good is it? Does it even exist at all, in a real sense? It's why I think that capital punishment is really a bad idea out of purely practical considerations. When it turns out you were wrong, you can release an imprisoned person. The dead stay dead, though - and the only reason executing an innocent isn't treated as murder is because the same people who'd have to be punished are the ones whose job is to decide what deserves to be punished in the first place.
4244800 Entirely true!
I'm... not sure how that quite hooks into cliffhanger overreactions, except to say that they're silly. If that is the thrust, I agree!
4244827
It was more a comment on the concept of miscarriages of justice. Why exactly this kind of cliffhanger would bother people more than any other I have really no idea, either.
it took me a whole day to calm down enough to post more than a furious rant on this, so i guess its time to try to tabulate my bitching
1.
4239016
this assumes that the giant has had no previous contact with the equine race and has no idea they are there. in this case he can be charged as though he was heavy earth moving equipment, the more power to do harm you have the higher your responsibility for diligence is, lives literally depend on you being incredibly careful. superman's world of cardboard speech comes to mind here, if that giant splattered a pony by falling down there's not much preventing him from wiping out a town with an ill timed stumble besides his own consideration of the consequences thereof. punishing him is not meant to help HIM, its meant to make the value of the life of a pony clear both to other giants and to the ponies themselves.
this is basically true, though ideally not the jail part for logistical reasons if nothing else. if you can accidentally murder someone my tripping then yes, you better step with EXTREME care, if its seriously just brushed off as an accident then that means that this is just "something that happens", meaning giants DON'T consider ponies lives to be worth the extra care and consideration required to not kill them while living amongst them.
as far as what to do with the giant, assuming this really is the first time this has happened and you can actually say with CERTAINTY that it truly was an accident (magic ftw) then this is one of the cases where you actually could use restorative justice for a fatal crime and its a better idea because imprisoning a giant would be a real bitch from a logistical standpoint, as well as the reasons you pointed out. having the giant help out around the community for a long time would go a ways to help calm the panicky ponies and also make sure doughnut Joe knows the giant truly understands the weight of his actions, while also making sure OTHER giants understand the weight of a ponies life deserves consideration AND, with proper supervision, it would help establish how to let ponies and giants function together without deaths AND help make sure that giants and ponies understand each other, preventing ponies from thinking they are just monsters.
which brings me handily to the second thing
2. it took me a long time to get to this and i was going to be far angrier but something occurred to me on rereading the story. ponies don't value their minds, independence and continued existence nearly as much as humans do, which explains a lot of their actions and reactions. in particular people (and me) reacted from the perspective of a human being, whereas to a pony mind control doesn't seem to be the true ultimate unforgivable sin but rather more like an assault charge , where you might be able to apologize and make up without there being hard feelings. that would explain their actions towards sand surprise as her reason is utterly insignificant compared to the crime from a human perspective but is about right from an equine one, which fits in with cannon as they forgave starlight glimmer for worse despite her having a generally stupid reason for mind controlling that town for years. the REAL problem is that her hostile actions caused a lot of damage, pinkie pie was beaten remember, and she just gave a forced apology and they took that at face value. which is about right given equine priorities and also probably consistent with the show but it leaves a bad taste from our perspective.
3. this should probably have gone first but in this case the medium works against you. its actually fairly rare for villains to have real reasons for their crap in fanfiction, when we saw mayor mare acting like a jerk i immediately slotted her into the stereotype that, say, estee would put one of her villains that she makes to rant into. its also a reasonable assumption in that case because we don't know the personalities you have proscribed to the characters. as far as i could tell, this was just what pony-ville ponies are like in your universe as we have had no interaction with them previously. you said in the comments one time that the reason they were acting out of character is because it was out of character for them, but usually the reason ponies are acting out of character is just that that is what the author says they should act like. its the most common reason for ooc characters and a reasonable assumption based on past experience with fanfiction. if you want people to be curious and suspect something is afoot then you need to establish their character in story previously so we can contrast it with their current actions, which i understand would be problematic since I'm pretty sure this was a paid story and a page of filler for character explanations is a bit much but, well, that's rather necessary for mysteries in fanfic sadly.
4.
this seems to assume both that this is a recent thing, and that this is something born from things people have SEEN, as opposed to something people have LIVED for years. its one thing to see on the news that some guy was shot and his shooter was unpunished, that's something that happened to someone else, it stays in the back of your mind but isn't going to have you frothing. very many bronies are here to escape from the REALITY of people doing horrible things to them and getting off Scot free with crocodile tears and a fake apology, or much more likely, a slap on the wrist and time to refine their technique and think up new and exotic punishments for the "homo squealer" or some-such, to just dismiss it like your blogs seem to do is infuriating. that kind of experience colors or defines your world view for years and its not just something you ignore with the rationale that unlike humans these creatures can actually be reasonably expected to have learned a lesson and MEAN an apology without significant cause to change their views. your gonna have some venting from people projecting onto your characters is what I'm getting at.
that's all I can easily put to page right now. after all that you might think i dislike your stories, I actually really like your world. amusingly I actually like it partly for the reasons listed, its like xenofiction and gives me good memories of Watership Down. characters that don't think like humans are a welcome change from the usual as it makes me have to try to imagine how they function on a societal level and deal with problems that we would encounter with their perspective on events and morality. what would these ponies do with villains like the dazzling for instance, characters who would genuinely wish them harm for purely selfish reasons. well I have to end this somewhere so ill just say your characters are well written and the fact you can inspire such passionate responses is a good sign. keep writing and have a good day.