• KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    5 days ago

    You really need to interrogate your ethical beliefs a bit further.

    Like you’ve been indoctrinated into a tangled framework of refusing to see the violence of the status quo - the violence that provides the empire with its wealth, the violence that preserves the sanctity of property and private fiefs, the violence that deprives the public of their survival needs, the violence that subjugates and marginalizes everyone who doesn’t fit into the ruling class’s machine, the violence that quickly crushes anyone who dares challenge this inequitable and monstrous system - as violence while simultaneously condemning everything that goes against it as violence. You’ve got the Hollywood movie morality system where the hero’s moral triumph is in refusing to enact vengeance, in refusing to permanently end the threat the villain poses (which may be conveniently resolved as the narrative contrives to see the villain simply die by happenstance, the hero’s goal accomplished but his hands unstained), and the villain’s moral failing is in breaking from prescribed methods of the status quo to accomplish some goal (especially when it sets up the villain as someone with a righteous cause or legitimate grievance who’s just “going too far” which then requires the swerve to make sure the audience starts rooting against them).