https://www.tumblr.com/vintagerobin/822141255925530624/i-do-think-its-funny-when-someones-argument?source=share
Asking on the basis of this, what do you think of the differences in Barry's and Wally's approach to morals ?
I tend to think that Wally might appear a little fluid/ looser in terms of his moral code but recent re readings of the Flash had me thinking that Barry might be the one to deviate a lot more, aka the rouges mind wipe etc etc?
( I do think Wally is whole lot more reformative, but I also think he's willing to do a lot more fucked up things)
I mean I think they're sort of... inverses of each other. Mirrors and foils, as they often are.
Barry believes in incarceration and punishment more broadly, he has overall less faith in the concept of reform and a more black and white concept of justice. He can sometimes come across pretty chilling in his judgements of people, eg the whole situation with rewriting Roscoe Dillon's personality, where he admitted that he saw him more as an experiment than a person - and still kind of fails to recognize his personhood even when he acknowledges that he made a mistake. At the same time he has a really enormous capacity to forgive personal hurt - for the biggest example he ultimately forgives Eobard for murdering his loved ones, ruining his childhood and generally tormenting him for essentially his whole life. Given time and some effort he can learn to forgive literally anything.
Wally very much believes in reform, he's had extensive character building arcs where he learned some of the failures of the system and the reasons why people might commit crime, but also he just has a tendency to relate with people on a basic level and ultimately sees everyone as just a person. He shows up to the Rogues' party when he's invited as a joke and actually bonds with them, he becomes friends with Hartley and changes a number of his views over the course of that friendship, overall he's just very willing to change how he thinks, to give benefit of doubt and to believe that others always have the capacity to do the same. That said he is MUCH less forgiving than Barry. There's a reason that more of the list of the fates worse than death inflicted by a Flash belongs to Wally than anyone else. It takes a lot to get him to this point of course but once you do you're going to suffer and suffer horribly and he's not even going to feel all that bad about it. Once he well and truly hates you that's pretty much it.
