If you want a really interesting take on it, the first enforcer for Genome X in the first season of Mutant X had a very compelling story with that sort of thing.
With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
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- Location
- Estonia
Well, to be fair, those mook kills are usually combat kills. Usually by the time the hero's companions, bystanders or the villain themself start trying to convince the hero to spare the villain, then the villain is already swaying over a chasm (figuratively or literally), about to fall, and it would effectively be execution.
You could have a consistent moral code of having no problem killing in a fight, but always having to accept a surrender. Killing vs. executing, necessary kill vs. an unnecessary one and etc.
How realistic such an attitude is, depends on whether you have trustworthy and competent authorities to give the villain to, or not. DC, for example, often does not.
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- Location
- Ashtabula
I fail to see the difference....and would probably have an argument with someone who did.
Then again I always take issue when someone complains that "You killed him in cold blood!!"
So? Your point?
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
He sounds like an extreme example of the trope (so does the kid in the armour that Maxx mentioned, which I suspect was also an anime), but then, I think Japan has a lot of those, likely because conformity is so important to Japanese culture; 'the nail that stick up will be hammered down,' and all that. 'Being normal' is treated as a virtue to a Dursleyish level, I think, at least for a lot of people. Japanese schools having kids assigned to a class, and the teachers moving around from room to room, is likely a symptom of that.
Basically, it's sadly believable that a Japanese teenager might literally have a phobia of being different, or being seen as different, and Japanese writers might find it interesting to write a story about a teenager with such a phobia being the one to get powers... and also, the writers might want to include a moral lesson that encourages kids who don't have that phobia to try to fit in anyway, with all the negative effects that can bring.
A lot of them are trying to imitate the movie version of the Wizard of Oz (without necessarily considering why they made that choice), which was trying to do exactly that.
O_O Holy shit, dude! Wow. Please accept these virtual Hugs, you need them.
- Location
- Estonia
The difference is that, out of some misplaced suicidal loyalty, the mooks didn't give the hero a choice. The villain did.
Killing someone who is currently assaulting you with lethal intent and capability does not carry with itself much any capacity for moral judgement (unless you are a radical pacifist). It's kill or be killed. Deciding to not spare the now helpless villain does, by definition. You judged them unworthy of life, while you could have chosen otherwise, without (immediate) risk to your own survival. Therefore it's no longer self defence, but execution under your own moral authority.
Not even saying the latter is always immoral, but it is clearly different.
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- Location
- Oceanside
I'm pretty sure that's directly concerning racial discrimination, not gender identity.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In terms of how other people react to it, yes, but unlike race, M'gann can easily hide her "true self" from others as long as she's not among people who already know, which more closely parallels gender identity than it does racial identity. Admittedly, I've never been all that involved in either of those, so my assessment may be off.
- Location
- Alabama
To add to that point, M'gann creating her own identity, by mimicking another, draws huge parallels to a transgender person dressing differently than their biological sex, especially during those early years of discovering those aspects of yourself and trying to find your true self.
Also, on a similar note, WoGreg is that M'gann is pansexual, so that's fun.
Edit: She's even quoted in the episode Image something akin to "This IS who I am!" when called out by Psimon. If that can't be viewed as a trans-analogue, then I don't know what is.
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I absolutely agree with that, to the point where I find self-sacrificing heroes to be tiresome and boring. That's not what I was getting at though.
If you're the kind of person who'd give up superpowers instead of using them to help people, then you are also the sort of person who could easily keep the powers but sit around playing videogames instead of going out on patrol.
If you think having powers gives you the obligation to go out and save people, then why aren't you already doing that without powers?
It's the giving up powers thats dishonest to me, because you're admitting that you don't want to do it, but rather than just stop you want to make it look like you were forced to stop.
'I can't be a superhero anymore, I don't have any powers' is just an excuse. If you gave the powers up yourself then you chose to stop, so be honest and just say 'I don't want to do this anymore' without giving up your powers.
- Location
- Oceanside
I'm still not seeing it. While there may be many parallels between all kinds of discrimination and attempts to rebel against, avoid, or conform to those views, she was explicitly hiding from and ashamed of her racial identity.
You're overthinking this. "This is who I am" is hardly a statement exclusive to matters of gender identity, as it can be applied to self-identity in general.
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- Location
- Alabama
I don't think I'm overthinking it, but allegories like this are always subjective, just like basically everything else is in media.
There's also this AskGreg response on the topic. While it proves that it wasn't conscious on the creators' parts, he acknowledges that it's a useful metaphor, in his opinion.
- Location
- Ashtabula
Honestly, while it was animated, I really don't think it was anime. I wish I could at least remember what channel it was on, but this was like the early days of us having cable so I haven't got a clue.
Ehehe....sorry for darkening everything up.
But 99 times out of 100 the hero and villain were just locked in battle.
Meh, I just always look at it as the writer suddenly trying to get all "moral" for the critics. Because hell, almost always after the hero spares the villain, the villain just tries to kill him again anyway. But that's just "Cleaner" somehow.
- Location
- australia
.... I am having a very strong urge to strangle/beat this fictional kid into a coma dispite my completely lack of physical/ ma training or Experian.....
Was.. was he meant to be a villain protagonist or something? How the hell did they try to keep him remotely sympathetic after trying to beat a loving parent to death with his bare (armored) hands for literally saving his life?!?!???
I keep finding myself wondering what the metrics of "victims saved" vs "lost oppertunities to save others" would be if Bruce had simply "accidentally" snapped Napier's neck/ accidentally driven the bone around his nose into his brain or soemthing than willingly spent the rest of his life in prison would be...
Was.. was he meant to be a villain protagonist or something? How the hell did they try to keep him remotely sympathetic after trying to beat a loving parent to death with his bare (armored) hands for literally saving his life?!?!???
I keep finding myself wondering what the metrics of "victims saved" vs "lost oppertunities to save others" would be if Bruce had simply "accidentally" snapped Napier's neck/ accidentally driven the bone around his nose into his brain or soemthing than willingly spent the rest of his life in prison would be...
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Pizza
Everybody's just people.
- Location
- My house
Well, to be fair to the Narnia books, if you've met lion-Jesus and know the charitable interpretation of the Bible to be true, dying in a train wreck isn't so bad, since you just go to heaven and live it up there.
While we're on the subject of books and lessons, I've never read the Animorphs series but the more I hear, the more I'm convinced they're a Trojan horse designed to instill children with existential dread.
I'm also wondering just what the Magic Treehouse was supposed to teach. Neat world and natural history facts, sure, but anything else? Why was Merlin having them do all this again?
While we're on the subject of books and lessons, I've never read the Animorphs series but the more I hear, the more I'm convinced they're a Trojan horse designed to instill children with existential dread.
I'm also wondering just what the Magic Treehouse was supposed to teach. Neat world and natural history facts, sure, but anything else? Why was Merlin having them do all this again?
Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Hah~~~ You responded much more politely than I would have to that. There's not a lot of trans representation out there and having someone say you're overthinking things, even if it's just a matter of interpretation, well, it's not good.
- Location
- Australia
You still have a bunch of issues with stuff like the problem of evil, the 1940s blitz and why God is playing favourites with 4 random kids.
Legend of Ruina
Growing eyes on the inside
So does that make her a transhuman?
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Probably, yeah. The author says the intent was more to talk about the tough subjects of war and trauma, but really, Yeerks are paranoia fuel made manifest.
Wasn't it Morgan le Fay? And apparently she needed to get King Arthur out of a funk, and apparently two random kids collecting random junk from across history did the job? I dunno, man.
- Location
- The Outer Plane Of Munchkinry.
Point of interest: People who use sign language actually tend to do this.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Do which? Go for descriptive nicknames? Speak while signing?
- Location
- The Outer Plane Of Munchkinry.
The former; i heard it described as using something like usernames.
Mandated (part 10)
- Location
- Hampden Park
23rd October
21:37 GMT +2
"What was it like for you?"
About the same, probably. The ritual's been the same since the Heavenly Guardians came into existence. Jade pauses. Your-? Ah, the ambassador..?
"Was there, tried to make a speech of some kind. We're not even from the same country!"
Except that… You literally are.
Ugh. "I hope one day to be able to take you and.. Jade…"
Don't even think about calling us One and Two.
"Back to Earth Prime. Show you what Britain's supposed to be."
I'd like that too, but he's the Britain you have to deal with while you're here.
I nod, focusing my attention on our target. Just because Khyber's dead, that didn't suddenly mean that his underlings all vanished. Picking up spies and traitors was simply a matter of subjecting everyone in critical areas or roles to basic telepathic scans, but those who'd actually undergone augmentation are a trickier business. Ghostwolves are a pain; hiding to avoid detection but still operating, still attacking.
We're still not exactly sure what Khyber's ultimate goal was. And given how thoroughly my fellow Heavenly Guardian He Who Follows killed him, I doubt that we'll ever find out. But he had cybernetically enhanced operatives sneaking around the world for decades, if not centuries. They're far more accustomed to irregular action than to direct combat. This is a return to normalcy for them.
Ophidian's Gaze.
My normal vision disappears, being replaced by swirling traces of want and need. Ghostwolves usually have spiritual training in addition to their cybernetics, but this close to an objective…
There. The image is.. distorted, but there's someone who very much wishes to be inside the military dockyard where a relatively small quantity of the cyberware taken from other cyborgs killed during the war is being stored. I can't tell whether the individual is following the last orders they received in the least crazy way they can, trying to get parts for their own repairs or getting parts to make more like them.
"Spotted… One."
There's never-
Just one. / -just one.
I feel a momentary itch on the left side of my chest. Purely psychosomatic, but if someone punches holes in you hard enough it's very difficult to forget. I… Despite its obvious utility, I don't like using my ring this way. It's.. too.. distracting. And… Though there was a.. sort of amnesty for Khyber's followers immediately after the war, that deadline has come and gone. Anyone we take alive will be interrogated until the ISA has learned everything they know, then if they're still alive they'll be executed. Using the Ophidian's Gaze I see people's most fundamental desires, and.. to an extent, experience them myself. I'm… Still not comfortable enough with killing to.. be entirely happy about.. directly experiencing the personhood of someone I'm about to kill.
Still. Needs must where Khyber drives.
…homeeatrest…
Pretty typical. Routines are habit forming, and even doing something you enjoy gets wearing after a while.
…homeawayavoid…
And not everyone's fortunate enough to have a job they tolerate.
…hornycompany…
Ah, not that one. Most of the Ghostwolves examined so far kept their reproductive systems, but often the neurochemical or hormonal modifications they had made them rather disinterested in sex. Strangely, that appears not to be a problem Khyber himself had. Or maybe he just lay forwards and thought of Persia.
U-uhh.
…sustainrevengemachine…
Aaaaaand there we go.
"Found another one." The chador does have the advantage of looking quite a lot like the red robes the Ghostwolves prefer to wear when in uniform. "Marking target. You got anything?"
No unusual activity amongst the personnel, no unusual bank transfers and no one requesting access to materials without a good explanation.
"How about that musical.. thing Rot Lop Fan and you do?"
Ghostwolves have vibration nullification fields. They don't sound any different to anyone else until they go active.
"Do the locals have any sort of idea how many there actually are around here?"
No. No one knows who the original Dream King's spymaster was, so they're even more limited in that regard than we are.
I remember well the comic in which Harun al-Rashid moved all of the glory of his kingdom into the Dreaming. I can't imagine what that must have been like, having your whole world vanish because your king desired eternity more than his people's happiness. But the thing about the Dreaming is that people in the real world can access it. Bits that used to be part of the material world are even more accessible, particularly to people who live in the region affected. So when enough people started dreaming of a glorious city, some of the more experimental type of magic user started investigating the subject. Long story short, it looks like the particularity of the people affected stayed on Earth, but the idea of them was taken into the Dream. Connect to that idea when you're awake, and all sorts of strange things happen.
As Dream Prince, Karram was able to channel the core concepts of the ideal Crown Prince. He gained strength, resilience, skill with weapons and enhanced charisma at the cost of partially becoming someone else for a large chunk of the time. As Dream King… Well, that happened while I was off Earth. But the point is, other Dreamers can also gain supernatural levels of ability in a field if they can make a connection to the skills of the person who did that job for Harun al-Rashid in the Dreaming.
It was quite a scandal when they learned that he had both male and female concubines. Which is not to say that people don't try to channel those skills.
Gonow!
The chameleon systems employed by Ghostwolves are highly effective, as are the magics they employ to encourage people to ignore and avoid them. Fortunately for me they only work against conventional vision.
"They're moving. Do we take them now, or wait for them to breach the perimeter?"
There are fewer civilians inside. Plus, I put an EMP mine in each of the crates.
"Earth-EMP mine or the good stuff?"
If anyone asks, it's an Earth mine.
I grin. Ghostwolves are hardened against Earth's EMP devices… Well, the infantry grade ones. Artillery scale ones are a different matter. But the Green Lantern Corps under Sinestro has become a good deal more 'open minded' about sharing low lethality weapons amongst its members. Given how comic-Sinestro started his own Corps in order to force the Guardians to relax the 'no killing' rule, I'm a little concerned about how long he'll be satisfied with keeping it to 'low'. But for now…
The patches of orange beneath us move, passing through the outer fence and heading for the wall-.
They just went through the fence. They still haven't fixed the electrical induction problem with their phase shifters.
I blink back into normal vision-. She's right. The steel of the fence now has a weak magnetic charge where they went through.
"Fighting an omniscient foe would be a little tricky." I blink again as the Ghostwolves go up the wall with impressive speed. "Attack as they land, or wait for them to penetrate further?"
Two Lanterns against two Ghostwolves? I don't see the point in waiting.
"Agreed. Three, two, now."
We drop through the cloud cover energy pulses firing!
21:37 GMT +2
"What was it like for you?"
About the same, probably. The ritual's been the same since the Heavenly Guardians came into existence. Jade pauses. Your-? Ah, the ambassador..?
"Was there, tried to make a speech of some kind. We're not even from the same country!"
Except that… You literally are.
Ugh. "I hope one day to be able to take you and.. Jade…"
Don't even think about calling us One and Two.
"Back to Earth Prime. Show you what Britain's supposed to be."
I'd like that too, but he's the Britain you have to deal with while you're here.
I nod, focusing my attention on our target. Just because Khyber's dead, that didn't suddenly mean that his underlings all vanished. Picking up spies and traitors was simply a matter of subjecting everyone in critical areas or roles to basic telepathic scans, but those who'd actually undergone augmentation are a trickier business. Ghostwolves are a pain; hiding to avoid detection but still operating, still attacking.
We're still not exactly sure what Khyber's ultimate goal was. And given how thoroughly my fellow Heavenly Guardian He Who Follows killed him, I doubt that we'll ever find out. But he had cybernetically enhanced operatives sneaking around the world for decades, if not centuries. They're far more accustomed to irregular action than to direct combat. This is a return to normalcy for them.
Ophidian's Gaze.
My normal vision disappears, being replaced by swirling traces of want and need. Ghostwolves usually have spiritual training in addition to their cybernetics, but this close to an objective…
There. The image is.. distorted, but there's someone who very much wishes to be inside the military dockyard where a relatively small quantity of the cyberware taken from other cyborgs killed during the war is being stored. I can't tell whether the individual is following the last orders they received in the least crazy way they can, trying to get parts for their own repairs or getting parts to make more like them.
"Spotted… One."
There's never-
Just one. / -just one.
I feel a momentary itch on the left side of my chest. Purely psychosomatic, but if someone punches holes in you hard enough it's very difficult to forget. I… Despite its obvious utility, I don't like using my ring this way. It's.. too.. distracting. And… Though there was a.. sort of amnesty for Khyber's followers immediately after the war, that deadline has come and gone. Anyone we take alive will be interrogated until the ISA has learned everything they know, then if they're still alive they'll be executed. Using the Ophidian's Gaze I see people's most fundamental desires, and.. to an extent, experience them myself. I'm… Still not comfortable enough with killing to.. be entirely happy about.. directly experiencing the personhood of someone I'm about to kill.
Still. Needs must where Khyber drives.
…homeeatrest…
Pretty typical. Routines are habit forming, and even doing something you enjoy gets wearing after a while.
…homeawayavoid…
And not everyone's fortunate enough to have a job they tolerate.
…hornycompany…
Ah, not that one. Most of the Ghostwolves examined so far kept their reproductive systems, but often the neurochemical or hormonal modifications they had made them rather disinterested in sex. Strangely, that appears not to be a problem Khyber himself had. Or maybe he just lay forwards and thought of Persia.
U-uhh.
…sustainrevengemachine…
Aaaaaand there we go.
"Found another one." The chador does have the advantage of looking quite a lot like the red robes the Ghostwolves prefer to wear when in uniform. "Marking target. You got anything?"
No unusual activity amongst the personnel, no unusual bank transfers and no one requesting access to materials without a good explanation.
"How about that musical.. thing Rot Lop Fan and you do?"
Ghostwolves have vibration nullification fields. They don't sound any different to anyone else until they go active.
"Do the locals have any sort of idea how many there actually are around here?"
No. No one knows who the original Dream King's spymaster was, so they're even more limited in that regard than we are.
I remember well the comic in which Harun al-Rashid moved all of the glory of his kingdom into the Dreaming. I can't imagine what that must have been like, having your whole world vanish because your king desired eternity more than his people's happiness. But the thing about the Dreaming is that people in the real world can access it. Bits that used to be part of the material world are even more accessible, particularly to people who live in the region affected. So when enough people started dreaming of a glorious city, some of the more experimental type of magic user started investigating the subject. Long story short, it looks like the particularity of the people affected stayed on Earth, but the idea of them was taken into the Dream. Connect to that idea when you're awake, and all sorts of strange things happen.
As Dream Prince, Karram was able to channel the core concepts of the ideal Crown Prince. He gained strength, resilience, skill with weapons and enhanced charisma at the cost of partially becoming someone else for a large chunk of the time. As Dream King… Well, that happened while I was off Earth. But the point is, other Dreamers can also gain supernatural levels of ability in a field if they can make a connection to the skills of the person who did that job for Harun al-Rashid in the Dreaming.
It was quite a scandal when they learned that he had both male and female concubines. Which is not to say that people don't try to channel those skills.
Gonow!
The chameleon systems employed by Ghostwolves are highly effective, as are the magics they employ to encourage people to ignore and avoid them. Fortunately for me they only work against conventional vision.
"They're moving. Do we take them now, or wait for them to breach the perimeter?"
There are fewer civilians inside. Plus, I put an EMP mine in each of the crates.
"Earth-EMP mine or the good stuff?"
If anyone asks, it's an Earth mine.
I grin. Ghostwolves are hardened against Earth's EMP devices… Well, the infantry grade ones. Artillery scale ones are a different matter. But the Green Lantern Corps under Sinestro has become a good deal more 'open minded' about sharing low lethality weapons amongst its members. Given how comic-Sinestro started his own Corps in order to force the Guardians to relax the 'no killing' rule, I'm a little concerned about how long he'll be satisfied with keeping it to 'low'. But for now…
The patches of orange beneath us move, passing through the outer fence and heading for the wall-.
They just went through the fence. They still haven't fixed the electrical induction problem with their phase shifters.
I blink back into normal vision-. She's right. The steel of the fence now has a weak magnetic charge where they went through.
"Fighting an omniscient foe would be a little tricky." I blink again as the Ghostwolves go up the wall with impressive speed. "Attack as they land, or wait for them to penetrate further?"
Two Lanterns against two Ghostwolves? I don't see the point in waiting.
"Agreed. Three, two, now."
We drop through the cloud cover energy pulses firing!
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
It's unfortunate that I'm finding it rather hard to get into this arc due to the constant feeling of 'okay that's neat but when is this going to go back to the real story,' because it does seem quite interesting.
Z000
If this is trash, then find me in the dumpster
- Location
- Viet Nam
me too, i just keep looking for the Orange quotation
cause this stuff, Meh
- Location
- Australia
Mr Zoat, these corrections are from your Story Only thread.
them
we
taken
- Status