This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
This page and others like it would be interesting if we could show the moral/philosophical traditions that inspire these tropes. I'd say this one is a specifically Christian viewpoint (though found much more often in philosophy than action. Why does it always seems to work out that way?). The stupid part comes only when writers/readers/audiences want their heroes to be High Christians (or perhaps High Aeschylusians) with say, Tolkien's heroes releasing Saruman and even giving him tobacco, but are secretly lusting for blood, so we get copouts like Grima killing Saruman so the heroes' hands are clean.
O! Even the most merciful and civilized of hearts lurks the repressed spirits of the archaic Furies: snakecrowned, puss-dripping hag-goddesses of vengeance, as black as their mother Night, who will punish wrongdoing at all costs in disregard of both morality (according to Christians) and the social order (according to the Oresteia. In fact I think Aeschylus invented the Endless Cycle of Revenge lesson.) —rbloom
Ununnilium: The thing is, that's a sticky issue as it is; these tropes are an ingrained part of the culture, and often don't have a single, simple origin. It'd add a lot of mass to the entry without, IMHO, adding a lot of value.
- Really, it depends on the type of villain. I believe few Christians IRL would have a problem with Batman killing someone like the Joker, who has escaped the legal system countless times and killed thousands without remorse. "Turning the other cheek" is not a suicide pact. That kind of end for the Joker would very much be in line with sowing and reaping. It honestly depends on weather a karmic death or a 'Judge' fits the story better.
rbloom: It's just that I've seen this trope dismissed in movie reviews as anachronistic, touchy-feely modernism, when it's in fact One of the Oldest Ones in the Book.
Bring The Noise: Cut the following, too confused. If this is an example, can someone clean it up and reinstate please?
"* Movie example — Daredevil: "I'm not the bad guy!"
- That's not an example of this. He shouts that to try and explain himself to a kid that just watched him mercilessly beat a mook nearly to death. He's trying to convince himself that he really is a good guy, despite his brutal tactics (such as strapping a badguy to a train track).
- Yes, but he says it to Kingpin, too, after refusing to murder him.
- That's more of an Ironic Echo. The first time, he's trying to convince himself that he's the hero. When he says it to the Kingpin, it's with more conviction, meaning he's realized and accepted that, yes, he is the good guy."
- That's not an example of this. He shouts that to try and explain himself to a kid that just watched him mercilessly beat a mook nearly to death. He's trying to convince himself that he really is a good guy, despite his brutal tactics (such as strapping a badguy to a train track).
"Note also that so very very few heroes answer this challenge with a simple 'The difference between me and you is I'm going to kill someone guilty and you've been murdering people who were innocent.' And this makes the trope a Broken Aesop."
Possible Values Dissonance? Declaring this a broken Aesop assumes a pro death penalty stance, as someone from the UK this aesop makes perfect sense to me, and is one of the major reasons for my opposition to the death penalty.
Chuckg: Not necessarily pro-death-penalty, as its possible to be anti-death-penalty and yet still support the usage of lethal force in self-defense or immediate defense of another. (IOW, justifiable homicide during a combat situation, as opposed to killing execution style.)
puritybrown: I find that paragraph to be tending a bit too much towards the "cynical" end of the sliding scale. Sometimes this trope is a Broken Aesop because the rest of the story doesn't back up the "killing is wrong/killing does bad things to people" moral. Sometimes, though, there really isn't a good reason for the hero to kill the villain other than revenge. I mean, I think it's reasonable to say that, all other things being equal, it's bad to kill somebody in cold blood if there's a feasible alternative. I feel like that paragraph should be rewritten, but I'm not sure how.
Danel: Yeah - there's really a massive difference between those cases where they simply let the villain go, and those cases where it's merely aggressively murderizing them they reject, preferring instead to - or at least intending to - turn them in to legitimate authorities to pay the legal penalties for their crimes.
If you kill the Buddha because you saw him on the road, will you become just like him?
Eddie Van Helsing: I ran the Buddha over, but the only enlightenment I achieved was the knowledge that running over the Buddha is a waste of a perfectly good car. Next time I'll just use a sledgehammer.
Amitai: So how is this different from He Who Fights Monsters?
Some New Guy: Because that's for people who have crossed that line. This refers to those who are in danger of crossing the line.
