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Freedom vs accountability
Jan. 5th, 2016 11:43 amI'm reading a long fic and Stark just gave Fury a 'suck it, boss' speech, after smashing through a SHIELD base and kidnapping/freeing someone, where the punchline was the Avengers are going independent
and
as long as they do less damage than the Chitauri they can do as they damn well please because the world needs them.
I stalled right there, because that? That is a supervillain origin speech. And I don't think the fic knows it.
( Read more... )
A world that needs superheroes so much they'll let them smash all the things is a world with some pretty major problems, many of them now superheroes.
And yeah, sometimes it's as clear as aliens pouring through a portal or a robot overlord crashing a flying city, so someone's got to do something. The story really pumps up the contrast so you can't exactly argue for pacifism. Diplomatic solutions don't work when you don't even know the enemy exists or acknowledge their sentience/sapience/rights.
Not cool. Don't think there's RL equivalents. Not pretty ones, anyways.
But as I understand it the whole law and courts and trials thing is there to see if the actions taken were reasonable, proportionate, vaguely legal. So why shouldn't a superhero be subject to those same processes of law?
... the usual comic book answer is their utter corruption, but if the story stops there it's pushing a morally bankrupt rule by titans that I want no part of.
... so basically I just sat down and wrote out which side of the superhero civil war I'd be on.
Accountability is a necessary prerequisite of civilisation.
Freedom's necessary too, but not to the extent you can stand there and go You Can't Make Me over laws about if you're allowed to hit people and never answer for it.
Bad laws need fixing, but bringing down civilisation and letting rip with the might-makes-right is not the way to do it.
(ugh, okay, so my Chaotic Neutral tendencies are all D-:< right now)
Bad law needs fixing, bad systems need protesting, bad regimes even need replacing, but people just standing there saying they're outside of law and beyond judgement because they've got the biggest weapons? Are the problem. Never the solution.
... why am I reading superhero stories if...
*sigh*
and
as long as they do less damage than the Chitauri they can do as they damn well please because the world needs them.
I stalled right there, because that? That is a supervillain origin speech. And I don't think the fic knows it.
( Read more... )
A world that needs superheroes so much they'll let them smash all the things is a world with some pretty major problems, many of them now superheroes.
And yeah, sometimes it's as clear as aliens pouring through a portal or a robot overlord crashing a flying city, so someone's got to do something. The story really pumps up the contrast so you can't exactly argue for pacifism. Diplomatic solutions don't work when you don't even know the enemy exists or acknowledge their sentience/sapience/rights.
Not cool. Don't think there's RL equivalents. Not pretty ones, anyways.
But as I understand it the whole law and courts and trials thing is there to see if the actions taken were reasonable, proportionate, vaguely legal. So why shouldn't a superhero be subject to those same processes of law?
... the usual comic book answer is their utter corruption, but if the story stops there it's pushing a morally bankrupt rule by titans that I want no part of.
... so basically I just sat down and wrote out which side of the superhero civil war I'd be on.
Accountability is a necessary prerequisite of civilisation.
Freedom's necessary too, but not to the extent you can stand there and go You Can't Make Me over laws about if you're allowed to hit people and never answer for it.
Bad laws need fixing, but bringing down civilisation and letting rip with the might-makes-right is not the way to do it.
(ugh, okay, so my Chaotic Neutral tendencies are all D-:< right now)
Bad law needs fixing, bad systems need protesting, bad regimes even need replacing, but people just standing there saying they're outside of law and beyond judgement because they've got the biggest weapons? Are the problem. Never the solution.
... why am I reading superhero stories if...
*sigh*