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Cliches you can't stand

Zor said:
Well yes, Revenge is both Irrational and Selfish.

Killing X because X killed your family, prompting the children and loved ones of X to kill you in old age in retaliation, inspiring your kids to continue a pointless generational cycle of murder.
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And who's fault would that be?

A pointless generational cycle of murder started with the one who did the murder first. To pretend otherwise would be an admission of victim blaming.

Setting out for revenge means that you feel that your entitled to kill someone regardless of if it would make the world better or not because you want an endorphin hit and you think it would let you handle grief, something that it most likely won't.
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Setting out for revenge is not a entitlement, it's a choice, just like pretending that the injustice that has been placed on the victim never happened is also a choice.

The former is a rational response, the later is an Irrational lecture based on nonsense.

DracoDracul said:
Also there is a lot of incentive to push anti-vengence narratives because the people that do the most actions that would prompt vengeance are the people at the top.
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Yeah, and people love to bring up laws and shit, without thinking for a second about the fact that laws are just as useless or as corrupt when it comes to murder.

I think people just never put their perspective in the eyes of victim, because that would require an actual observation, and not expectations that go into their own favor of how the victim should act according to them.
 
The very first surviving codices of laws we know of explicitly forbid revenge killings.

It's like it's old hat or something to murder your brother's murderer.
 
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And also why it keeps getting hammered home. Personally staving in the skull of the person who offended or injured you is viscerally, instinctively satisfying, so if you want people to not do it, it has to be reinforced constantly.
 
Rule 3: Be Civil — Personal Attacks Aren’t Kosher
I wondered if there was a chance this time Kingcrusader wouldn't dive into a full-throated advocacy of vengeful murder.
 
Kingcrusader said:
And who's fault would that be?

A pointless generational cycle of murder started with the one who did the murder first. To pretend otherwise would be an admission of victim blaming.
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It takes two to tango. Just because some horrible thing happened to you does not justify doing some horrible thing to others. Especially since a scuffle by someone who was in the wrong kicking someone in the groin can can could escalate to the sons of the recipiant of that kick to the nadgers locking a dozen children of the offender's clan in a house and setting it on fire.

The objective is to resolve issues efficiently, systematically and with a minimum of human suffering. The response to "b...but his great great great grandad did a bad thing a hundred and sixty years ago" is one word: IRRELEVANT.

Setting out for revenge is not a entitlement,
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Yes it is. The Vengeance Seeker presumes that they have the Right to inflict suffering and death on those that they have perceived (and the fact that they may be operating on Bad Data is not to be overlooked) to have wronged them. This also by extension means that the Vengeance Seeker's right to vengeance trumps those of his target, as well anyone who ends up as collateral damage.

Kingcrusader said:
Yeah, and people love to bring up laws and shit, without thinking for a second about the fact that laws are just as useless or as corrupt when it comes to murder.
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Okay, would you rather live in a modern first would country with a functioning legal system in which the Rule of law Stands but is not 100% effective in all situations or in a land divided among clans of at most a few thousand people mired in an endless series of armed conflicts over petty grudges in which bands of warriors regularly launch raids against each other?
I think people just never put their perspective in the eyes of victim,
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No, there's plenty of Revenge Porn out there in modern media. "They took everyone away from him, now he's out for payback". Too fucking much if you ask me.

Zor
 
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I think a lot of dead people had something pithy and quotable to say about vengeance. Almost all of the ones I know of boil down to 'this shit is bad, don't do this shit'.
 
Zor said:
The objective is to resolve issues efficiently, systematically and with a minimum of human suffering. The response to "b...but his great great great grandad did a bad thing a hundred and sixty years ago" is one word: IRRELEVANT.
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Yes, and without systems in place to actually facilitate that then your moral objections are equally irrelevant.

That's my issue with your argument. It's not that revenge is an effective means of conflict resolution, it's that you're so focused on moral grandstanding that you're willfully ignoring the systemic reasons for why it exists. It's not just humans are dumb dumbs who don't know better. If there is no means to provide alternative to vengeance then people are going to pursue vengeance, it doesn't matter if you think it's right or wrong. It's how humans work.
 
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Yeah, vengeance is bad both because it causes social corrosion (your society very quickly breaks down if everyone is doing revenge to everyone else) and is caused by social corrosion (if you do not trust that your grievances will be reliably addressed, you are more likely to resort to revenge) and that creates a really nasty cycle.

And of course once you start doing revenge shit, it spalshes onto more than just your target which creates cause for revenge against you, which splashes onto more than just you, and so on. Like, there's a very good reason that revenge is generally considered to be a moral ill, and it's not because we as a society believe people shouldn't be punished for doing bad things.
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
Yes, and without systems in place to actually facilitate that then your moral objections are equally irrelevant.

That's my issue with your argument. It's not that revenge is an effective means of social conflict resolution, it's that you're so focused on moral grandstanding that you're willfully ignoring the systemic reasons for why it exists. It's not just humans are dumb dumbs who don't know better. If there is no means to provide alternative to vengeance then people are going to pursue vengeance, it doesn't matter if you think it's right or wrong. It's how humans work.
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Those are hardly contradictory. A lot of basic human impulses are intensely stupid.

(Vengeance in a lawless context probably isn't fair to describe that way, because when the choices are 'blood feud' and 'just be preyed on' door A has its merits.)
 
Aineko said:
(Vengeance in a lawless context probably isn't fair to describe that way, because when the choices are 'blood feud' and 'just be preyed on' door A has its merits.)
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This is what I mean yeah, I don't think vengeance is inherently smart but going the opposite direction and assuming it's all just stupidity is missing the forest for the trees.

It's both monkey-brained and game theory. Humans, much like ogres, have layers.
 
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For me, the issue is how spotty narratives are when they apply morality, and vengeance is a really common "rubber stamp" morality applied blindly.

For example, vigilantism not only has all the problems of vengeance but several more problems, and yet plenty of vigilante characters will give a very preachy lecture about revenge while actively ignoring the way they are doing all the same things.

Or you will have a character slaughtering their way across a battlefield and get stopped from killing the leader because that would be revenge.
Really? You stopped them there? Not at any of the earlier points?

It can end up with some really jarring dissonance.
 
Zor said:
It takes two to tango. Just because some horrible thing happened to you does not justify doing some horrible thing to others. Especially since a scuffle by someone who was in the wrong kicking someone in the groin can can could escalate to the sons of the recipiant of that kick to the naggers locking a dozen children of the offender's clan in a house and setting it on fire.
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I really don't know if this is a bit or not.

How does it take two to tango when the victim didn't do anything first? This makes no sense. And why are you exaggerating the conception of revenge like this?

Zor said:
Okay, would you rather live in a modern first would country with a functioning legal system in which the Rule of law Stands but is not 100% effective in all situations or in a land divided among clans of at most a few thousand people mired in an endless series of armed conflicts over petty grudges in which bands of warriors regularly launch raids against each other.
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This is a weird form of a gotcha question that I ever been asked. But I will answer anyway; I would rather live in neither of those.
 
Miath said:
I think a lot of dead people had something pithy and quotable to say about vengeance. Almost all of the ones I know of boil down to 'this shit is bad, don't do this shit'.
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Depends on the culture, really. In some cases the dead would say "why haven't my descendants got on with the job already?" See the samurai clan who opened every meeting with "has the time come to avenge ourselves upon the Tokugawa?" until the Tokugawa Shogunate finally began to display signs of fragility, whereupon they got to work, generations after their defeat by the Tokugawa.
 
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History has shown us that there are times where conditions are intolerable and one has little other option. If you're from the United States like I am then a basic elementary history class should demonstrate that. It is the story of the American Revolution after all. Now, revenge as portrayed in fiction is often personal rather than systematic, but that's a matter of scale rather than a problem with the concept as a whole.

History has also shown us how horrible things can go with revenge after all. To keep with looking at revolution there's the terrors following the French revolution, but speaking of revenge specifically there's some examples of killings, revenge killings, revenge killings for the revenge killings that end up with generations of families forced to live in heavily fortified compounds because they risk getting shot if they step outside them.

I think it's important to keep in mind when conditions are intolerable, but equally important is knowing when to stop. There's very few circumstances where Malice can be considered a virtue.
 
I have vague American history memories about multigenerational clan violence visited upon members of two opposing clans with nary a thought given to 'law' or 'order'. i.e. the personal revenge cycle.
 
Kingcrusader said:
How does it take two to tango when the victim didn't do anything first? This makes no sense. And why are you exaggerating the conception of revenge like this?
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Someone kills your father. In revenge, you kill that person. In revenge, that person's child kills you. In revenge, your child kills that person's child. In revenge, that person's child's child kills your child. And so on. After three generations, who is actually at fault no longer matters and is, in fact, likely completely forgotten. Those two families are still murdering each other, though.

This isn't some made-up scenario, either; this is what happens when revenge is part of a society, because, guess what! Taking revenge on someone is always, always, always grounds for someone to take revenge on you in return.
 
Kingcrusader said:
How does it take two to tango when the victim didn't do anything first? This makes no sense.
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Because instead of sitting down and settling things, their response was to go around murdering each other, each act of murder laying the foundation the next round of violence. Both parties have blood on their hands because instead of things being sorted out. Leaving aside the entirely possible fact that the act of Revenge was perpetrated on Bad Data and other complicating circumstances.

And why are you exaggerating the conception of revenge like this?
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It aint no exaggeration. It happened. A lot. Millions of people died pointless deaths because of a desire for revenge. Hell, the narratives of national vengeance were a driving force behind some of the most murderous wars and regimes in human history.

This is a weird form of a gotcha question that I ever been asked. But I will answer anyway; I would rather live in neither of those.
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Nope, this is a dodge. Between these two options, which would you go into?

Zor
 
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It probably varies with character arcs/themes/stuff.

Personally, I tend to enjoy plots about mercy/forgiveness/redemption.
 
Queshire said:
History has shown us that there are times where conditions are intolerable and one has little other option. If you're from the United States like I am then a basic elementary history class should demonstrate that. It is the story of the American Revolution after all. Now, revenge as portrayed in fiction is often personal rather than systematic, but that's a matter of scale rather than a problem with the concept as a whole.
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I would argue against framing the American Revolution this way both as I think it's a misleading depiction of the runup and because it may imply unnecessary restraints on self-determination.

Also, actual interstate revenge attacks seem unlikely to contribute to any kind of stability, even the shaky armed deterrence that is the hope on the personal level.
 
Civilization has been a thousands of years long experiment in formalizing the seeking of redress.
When this formal system fails, or people consider it having failed (not necessarily the same thing), is when revenge comes into picture (assuming the person/s seeking revenge is/are not psychopath/s).

Revenge is a powerful theme for a story, but it only works when, for whatever reason, society has failed the person seeking it.
Because if the person could have sought, and likely received, justice through more formalized means, but instead demands personal satisfaction, it generally speaks poorly of the person seeking vengeange.
 
Zor said:
Nope, this is a dodge. Between these two options, which would you go into?
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I already gave you an answer.

Valmond said:
Revenge is a powerful theme for a story, but it only works when, for whatever reason, society has failed the person seeking it.
Because if the person could have sought, and likely received, justice through more formalized means, but instead demands personal satisfaction, it generally speaks poorly of the person seeking vengeange.
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What are formalized means in this case?
 
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