#moral debate

[100you]

Tvd Unpopular Opinion

I don’t hate the Augustine storyline in The Vampire Diaries the way a lot of people do… and honestly, I think that’s because I don’t come at it from the same place because yeah what the Augustine Society did was cruel torture is never okay, experiments on people are never okay that part isn’t even up for debate.

But I think people forget what the in universe world actually is vampires are not just “people with trauma,” They are predators who have been killing humans for centuries not all accidentally, not always out of necessity a lot of the times it’s literally because they’re bored, petty, childish, angry, emotional or just don’t care and I just can’t ignore that.

When I think about characters like Damon or Klaus I partially understand their pain I really do but understanding someone and excusing what they’ve done are two completely different things because at the end of the day, it’s still a human life being taken am I supposed to say oh Damon might have killed the girl on the side of the road but he has trauma poor witty baby...oh Klaus made a parent kill thee child to cause a distraction oh his daddy beat him like screw them there pain isn't special these are innocent people lives that they have no right to screw with for there convenience.

A person who had a whole life that didn’t revolve around being a vampire’s food source and the show constantly wants me to feel like the vampires are the ones suffering the most but if I’m being honest… I don’t see it that way because I keep thinking about how many people have died in that universe, not just the ones we see the ones we don’t see, the families that never get closure, the people who just disappear, the lives that are just gone and vampires have been doing that for centuries.

So when people in the fandom say Augustine Society is immoral I can’t fully agree not because I think it’s right but because I don’t think vampires have earned that level of sympathy in the first place and the whole “it’s their nature” argument… I don’t know, that just doesn’t sit right with me either because if vampires are allowed to be predators by nature, then why is it so wrong when humans respond to that threat or treat them like how they act a bunch of wild predators that get put down if they are a danger.

Why is one side allowed to be dangerous and uncontrollable, but the other side is expected to just… accept it? I don’t think humans in that world would just sit back and let themselves be killed, If anything Augustine feels like something that had to exist in a world where vampires already had the upper hand for so long ago while that doesn’t make it good it also doesn’t make vampires innocent and maybe that’s the part people don’t like because it makes the situation uncomfortable.

It means there isn’t a clear “right” side just two sides that have both caused harm in different ways and for me… I just don’t feel obligated to automatically sympathize with the side that has spent centuries taking lives without consequences and then want to pull the trauma care when there victims or humans treat them like how they've treated humans for centuries.

[ephyrya]

Morality question: does every single person who’s ever killed someone, no matter the reason, deserve to be punished the exact same?

Also. Hi! This is the day three prep check in for project Ephyrya, a lore based Minecraft role play series, and I’d appreciate all the support I can get. (The question above it lore related my stance is in the video)

[froggos-are-superior]

I don't understand how people can condemn Light's actions while still supporting L. The entire point of the series is that they're both terrible people with janked moral compasses.

Kira claims to be justice, but with all the blood on his hands, you're left to wonder if it was ever about saving lives, or if it was about fueling his god complex. Perhaps his true intentions were lost somewhere along the way.

L claims to be justice, and the series seems to portray L as having the moral high ground, so to speak. However, L is just as bad, morally, as Kira. L used Lind L. Tailor as an experiment to try to trap Kira. For those who may argue that it's acceptable because Tailor was a death row criminal and it provided valuable insight into the Kira case, I'm afraid that simply proves L's hypocrisy. By justifying L's hand in Tailor's murder by saying he was a criminal, you fall back onto the same logic that Kira uses. They both see criminals as disposable. The same goes for the ends justifying the means explanation. Kira and L were frightfully similar.

The confinement of Misa Amane was another troubling incident that I feel gets overlooked. L instructed Watari to do anything to get Misa to talk. There was a very strong implication that she was tortured. There is no justification for that. Even Kira never resorted to torturing anybody.

They both were so certain they stood for justice, for everything right in the world. Light Yagami was just a serial killer hiding behind the justification that he was making the world a better place. L Lawliet never cared about anybody's safety, nor did he actually care about any of the criminal victims. It was never about stopping the killings for L. It was about the challenge, the allure of the mystery he could not easily solve. They both became too obsessed with one another to stay true to the goals they originally had. I believe that was their downfall.

I suppose what this tangent was intended to mean is that it's a bit obtuse to claim that L was a 'better person' than Kira. I will forever be a Kira stan and apologist, but they were really both terrible human beings.

[garden-bug]

This post discusses the value of the application of moral values to stories not typically considered literature. Lit students and writers, enjoy (I can promise you it doesn’t go into much depth but hopefully it’s a little interesting).

Please only respond if you have read Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn. Do not respond based on the Ahsoka series or Filoni’s depiction of the character I don’t think Filoni understands this character either.

I need to know. What is Thrawn?

Thrawn is 100% a moral character.

Thrawn is morally ambiguous (he’s an anti-villain, does it for the greater good)

Thrawn is 100% immoral.

This annoys me. I don’t like to critically analyse morality.

Voting ended onDec 8, 2023

Just rbd somebody who thought the entire fandom was obsessed with good vs evil and applying certain moral values. Been thinking about this and can’t figure out what’s wrong with that in the slightest. Anyway, I need to know what we all think cause I’m curious now.

Some thoughts on the value of the application of moral values to stories below (read at your own risk oh my god sorry). Disclaimer: I am a literature student.

My experience of this fandom is positive overall. We like Thrawn but understand his moral ambiguity (unless… you don’t. In which case, what books have you been reading and do you understand what moral ambiguity is? It doesn’t mean he’s a ‘bad’ character. If anything it’s a good thing because it makes him more interesting. Compare morally ambiguous Zahn’s Thrawn to the much less ambiguous and more evil Filoni’s Thrawn. Which is a better character? See, we’re analysing morality here.)

Genuinely, if you picked one of the 100% options and have a good reason let me know why because that’s so interesting to me. You must have a very black and white world view.

For anyone who picked the last option, you’ve just undermined one of the major reasons we study literature and the value and intrigue of stories to society (and my uni degree lol). Interesting choice. You must have had some bad experiences in this fandom.

(Also DNI in that case. I’m not interested in a debate on whether critical analysis of morality is interesting you can read my final essay. Also BORING. CRINGE. Idk just DNI or do so I can block you I guess because interacting with someone when they said DNI is an interesting moral choice as well since we’re on the topic.)

As I said before, you can still enjoy a character and acknowledge (and appreciate) their moral flaws. ‘Good character’ and ‘good morals’ are not synonymous. Why does people talking about morality annoy you so much? I’m sure they appreciate the character more than you for it. (Unless they’re being 100% about it in which case fair enough that’s annoying BUT bear in mind it’s unrealistic to expect people to address the moral ambiguity of an entire story in a post about one specific aspect. Some people will tho they are cool.)

[valenteal]

Dazai Osamu and Anakin Skywalker are two of the greatest characters ever written for all the same reasons and their stories and personalities mirror each other. Anakin is a truly good person who turns bad because he was manipulated and lost everything he loved and stayed bad until he had someone to love and protect again. Dazai is a truly bad person who choose to be good because he lost the only person he truly loved and stayed good because he gained more people to care about him that he wanted to be better for. Anakin was manipulated and Dazai is a manipulator, Dazai has trouble connecting with other people while Anakin gets too easily attached. They both make the audience question what makes someone a “good person.” They both remind us how important it is to have a support system. They both have done terrible things, committed atrocities, and yet we can’t help but feel bad for the, want them to have better lives.

After everything Anakin did as Vader can he truly be redeemed? Yes, because he wasn’t in his right mind. He basically had 20 year long psychotic break. I think his situation is much simpler than Dazai’s because at his core Anakin is a kind and selfless person. A lot of people say his love for Padmé was selfish but it wasn’t. The Jedi didn’t provide him with the support he needed, she was quite literally his entire support system because the Jedi code made Anakin’s needs taboo and forbidden. He needed something stable and constant in his life. He needed someone who loved him unconditionally, someone who could get him out of his own head. But the Jedi are unattached, untethered by the mortal plane, at least according to Yoda. He didn’t understand that when Anakin is untethered he isn’t peaceful like other Jedi, he’s just uncontrolled.

Does Dazai deserve his new life in the ADA? He feels no remorse for everything he’s done, and his reasons for choosing to do good are completely selfish. This makes it harder to answer, because when he can get away with it he slips back into old patterns. Personally I believe in redemption, that people can change and deserve the chance to. I think society focuses too much on punishment for punishment’s sake. But punishment is a tool for teaching and is useless when not used in conjunction with rewards. Punishment for its own sake does nothing but give us sadistic satisfaction and a feeling of false righteousness that is easily manipulated and exploited. So, in the end, I would say prevention should be the goal, and I’m not sure if I would say Dazai should be given the chance to do good or be stopped and prevented from doing more bad. It’s a gamble, because he has the potential to do a lot of good given the right opportunities. But containing him, keeping him form hurting anyone else is probably the safer option, though it is admittedly unrealistic as the prison arc clearly demonstrates. So I guess giving him the opportunity to do good is the only viable option even if it is risky. As long as he does more harm than good I can be content with his place in the ADA. As long as he puts in effort I will not view him as a villain or as someone who doesn’t deserve what they have. Because in the end he is going against his very nature, struggling to do good and obtain happiness and that is something I have to respect.

[dawnjaco22]

[delavian-chocolates]

I was also rewatching The Collaborator during my daily sick moment from a sinusitis that never ends. Oh My God, I did not recall that the one who spilled the truth about the resistance hiding place was actually Kai Opaka, the most spiritual-wise person on the show. I thought it was Kai Winn all along. Wow, DS9 has a really good writing ability to humanize its characters with many flaws, some of them very serious ones, without making us forget how cruel and dehumanizing war is at the end – with everyone. I think it was Odo that told Kira something like this: “even the nicest people can make huge mistakes depending on how far you get them to their limits”. I forgot how good that episode was! Maybe that’s why Opaka was so willing to stay on that forever war-zoned planet. In personal terms, maybe she wanted to repair the thing she was obliged to do to the universe and her Prophets.

[froggos-are-superior]

I have heard incessant arguments about Light's mental state. Specifically about whether he was always a morally compromised sociopath vs whether the Death Note corrupted him.

My take on this is that the answer is both. Yes, Light was egotistical and morally compromised before the Death Note came into play. No, Yotsuba!Light and Kira!Light were not the same person.

Light is arguably the most complex character that Death Note has to offer. His spiraling devolution in both sanity and morality weaves a powerful cautionary tale about narcissism and the absolute corruption that trails behind every wielder of the death note. However, as the narrative went on, it became harder and harder to distinguish whether Light was motivated by thoughts of a better world, or by satisfying his growing ego. But was this a change brought on by the Death Note, or simply drawn out by it? Is there a difference? The show gives several haunting parallels to his actions and beliefs at the very beginning of his journey to his personality and dreams in the moments leading up to his demise. It would be difficult to argue that he had the same intentions and mindset at the start and at the end of his journey. He became the very thing he had once sworn to destroy, treating both allies and enemies are nothing more but pawns upon his chess board; their only use to help him achieve his goals-- regardless of who he had to sacrifice or how many lines he willingly crossed. I believe he always had the capability to become like this- with or without the Death Note's interference. Would it have been as extreme? Probably not. But everyone arguing that his personality beforehand was tranquil and pacifistic clearly missed the part where he's screeching about and calling himself God after only five days with the Note.

TL:DR- my man had quite a few screws loose already but the Death Note certainly ripped the hinges off his door