OOTS #595 - The Discussion Thread

[foil_fedora]

Use what? A ticking stick?

If you mean the only reason for using the word "murder" then we are again in the realm of tautology ("read a book" as One Ton Tony was told by his puppet hand):

It's evil because it's murder and it's murder because that is what is evil.

I don't care at all about the discussion of justification... I just love seeing a reference to One-Ton Tony and Handy!

"Gravity is a harsh mistress." - The Tick

[spectralphoenix]

Killing prisoners without trial isn't murder in core D&D (even if it is in every D&D source that discusses prisoners)

Would this include the BoVD definition of murder (killing for "nefarious purposes?") You yourself admitted that V's actions may have been strictly necessary for the preservation of the fleet (NOT V's preservation, since s/he could just Shadow Walk away at any time.) As far as "avoiding inconvienience" goes, K wrapped up in a trial would be no more inconvienient than K reduced to atoms. Long term, the "inconvienience" V saved was K not starting a civil war that kills hundreds of innocents and puts the fate of the world in peril. V gains nothing from this act, and didn't appear to be motivated by anger or vengeance. So I don't see how his purpose could be defined as evil.

So really, what we're left with is my original conclusion - i.e. that the BoXD are self-contradictory wastes of perfectly good trees.

[Carteeg_Struve]

*Disintegrates* this thread.

*Gust of Winds* the posts away to the ethers.

"Can we PLEASE resume reading about them saving the world?"

(Come on Rich! If we don't get a new comic soon, your server is going to run out of hard drive space from all of these posts. )

[darkriku2000]

Hm... That end was about half right, I still think that Elan should have been the one to finish it, maybe stabbed/drowned him or something, I haven't seen Elan do any major violent acts yet, the closest thing was when he cut his brother up

[Liwen]

Agree. I've rarely seen such activity on a single thread in such short time. However, only the Giant may decide to post a new comic and we have no say in the matter.

So... let's keep hoping that by midnight we will have a new update!

BTW : Elan is soooooooo gonna be mad again. Happens to him a lot these days.

[darkriku2000]

BTW : Elan is soooooooo gonna be mad again. Happens to him a lot these days.

I hope so. It's about time Elan got his just deserts (hopefully against his brother)

[David Argall]

What would be real-world justification that would make killing an unarmed prisoner, being dleieved to the magistrates, not murder?

That you can make a better decision than the court can.
Statistically, this is unlikely. The court routinely has better training, better skills, and more time to consider the matter. But a 99-1 shot does come thru 1 in a hundred times. There definitely and obviously are times when killing the slob is the best moral decision.
We can identify two possible ways the individual decision can be superior. It can be right when the court would be wrong. V gets a point here since we know Kubota to need killing.
Alternately, it may simply be less trouble. Again V gets the point. A trial is routinely expensive, the more so we try to make sure justice is served. And Kubota tells us that his trial could be a real disaster. There are definite advantages to V offing him.

Your position amounts to saying that somehow trials have some magical ability to be perfect. Once we acknowledge they are mortal, and thus flawed, we see that V's action can not be automatically condemned just for the lack of a trial.

As an American, it's my impression that Americans generally believe that American law applies everywhere.

All legal systems apply wherever they can and want to enforce it. The minor fact you are a foreigner in a foreign country and dealing with other foreigners will not prevent any country that wants to from prosecuting you for whatever they deem a crime if they can get their hands on you. [Of course, having a bigger government behind you tends to discourage that and so it doesn't happen all that often, but a claim of lack of jurisdiction will work only if the government feels like letting it work.]

[Kaihaku]

All legal systems apply wherever they can and want to enforce it. The minor fact you are a foreigner in a foreign country and dealing with other foreigners will not prevent any country that wants to from prosecuting you for whatever they deem a crime if they can get their hands on you. [Of course, having a bigger government behind you tends to discourage that and so it doesn't happen all that often, but a claim of lack of jurisdiction will work only if the government feels like letting it work.]

So, you responded with a paragraph saying American law applies everywhere and Americans are often immune to local laws because America's the jerk with the strongest military in the world?

I think recent events in Texas provide a much clearer demonstration of that...

"International Law? Screw International Law, this is Texas, we're executing those mexicans!"

Well, the tide is turning and even Texas is soon going to have to deal with the fact acting like a total prick for the last twenty years, if not longer, was a bad idea.

[Dervag]

Though some who have "fallen down the stairs" or "killed themselves by strangulation and the bruises were from their death throes, honest gov, my mate the sarge will back me up" have not ended in prosecution for acts that you say are not permitted.

Do you approve of such conduct?

If you do, then we should have a long discussion about the role of police in a civilized society.

If you don't, then how does that fit in with your analysis of the situation in Strip 595?
_______________

That you can make a better decision than the court can.
Statistically, this is unlikely. The court routinely has better training, better skills, and more time to consider the matter. But a 99-1 shot does come thru 1 in a hundred times. There definitely and obviously are times when killing the slob is the best moral decision.
We can identify two possible ways the individual decision can be superior. It can be right when the court would be wrong. V gets a point here since we know Kubota to need killing.
Alternately, it may simply be less trouble. Again V gets the point. A trial is routinely expensive, the more so we try to make sure justice is served. And Kubota tells us that his trial could be a real disaster. There are definite advantages to V offing him.

Your position amounts to saying that somehow trials have some magical ability to be perfect. Once we acknowledge they are mortal, and thus flawed, we see that V's action can not be automatically condemned just for the lack of a trial.

I think the exact opposite is true. Trials are necessary and proper because you are mortal and your judgement may be flawed.

We see V's motives exposed quite clearly in Strip 596. Stripping out the humorous fourth-wall breaking, V had no idea who Kubota was or what Kubota might have done to deserve punishment. V neither knew nor cared who he was killing. He killed Kubota only to save time, consoling others with the thought that Kubota probably- not certainly, but probably, deserved to die for some crime or other.
________________

So we can see that V definitely did not have enough information or knowledge to justify execution without trial. However, we didn't know that a few hours ago, so I will construct an argument independent of that knowledge. Here goes, constructed in the form of a logical argument aimed at V:
________________

Dear V:

Anything you know about whether or not Kubota is a criminal who deserves to die is admissable as evidence in a court of law. If nothing else, you can testify. Your sworn testimony is evidence, even though it is not always enough evidence to convict someone of a crime.

If there is enough evidence in your mind to justify killing Kubota, then that evidence should persuade a reasonable person that Kubota should be executed. In which case a reasonable person (such as the court of Hinjo) will kill him, and you will be out at most the modest amount of time and energy it takes to explain what you already know.

If, on the other hand, the evidence does not persuade that reasonable person, then the problem is all too likely to be on your end, not his. Perhaps the evidence that convinced you is "the voices in my head say he's evil" or "he has a creepy mustache." Those things are not sufficient evidence to justify murder in the mind of a reasonable person. They might justify it in the mind of an unreasonable person. But if you were satisfied with such evidence, it would be a sign that you yourself are unreasonable. In which case you are not justified in killing him.

Here's the key- you are not the ideal person to evaluate your own rationality. As observation of many other people, including your mental equals (such as other elven wizards) reveals, most unreasonable people are not aware that they are being unreasonable.

At this time, all you really know is that you, personally, are convinced Kubota should die. But you are not in a good position to evaluate whether that decision is rational, based on good evidence, or irrational, based on bad evidence.

Therefore, you alone are not the best possible judge of whatever evidence you may have about Kubota. If your evidence really is good, it ought to convince a court. You are not an incompetent fool, and can surely present a rational argument to convince reasonably intelligent beings if need be.

If, on the other hand, your evidence isn't good, and your faith in it is the product of bias or irrationality, then having another rational person in the decision loop could prevent a costly error.

Sincerely, Dervag.
___________________

This is a general statement, and it is the reason I believe that trials are necessary even when someone appears 'obviously' deserves to die. No one person can accurately evaluate whether they are being reasonable or sane about such an important decision. In V's case, we have excellent reasons to question his command of his own rational faculties, and this argument is doubly important.

[Firelock_ny]

Remo Williams is authorised by the US government to use extreme sanction against anyone posing a threat to national security.

Just like the executioner in the case that finds Kabuto guilty.

Either the just execution is Evil or this act by Remo (and therefore the argument good people don't do that) is good.

The branch of the US government authorizing Remo
isn't necessarily good - I haven't read many of
his books, I suspect his bosses are more pragmatic
than good. I have read enough Mack Bolan
(that is, about two books) to be rather certain
that he's at best neutral, and Frank Castle
(the Punisher) is at best neutral, possibly
even evil, or even too obsessed with revenge
to be still considered sane. Leastwise,
Batman thought so. ;-)

I think a Paladin can act as an executioner
(as in, kills a helpless prisoner when ordered
to) in only certain very limited situations.

--
Walt

[Raging Gene Ray]

I think a Paladin can act as an executioner
(as in, kills a helpless prisoner when ordered
to) in only certain very limited situations.

Remember when Miko held that druglord between the bars of the rhino cage and the rhino crushed his head? That was awesome.

Remember when O-Chul kicked that Hobgoblin into the Snarl and somehow caused all the gods to suddenly agree on everything, snapping the Snarl out of existence? That was beautiful.

Remember when Hinjo dressed up in cardboard boxes covered in aluminum foil and pretended he was a robot? That was funny.

But this...this is not funny...because V isn't wearing any blue...and how can anything be anything without blue?

[DrivinAllNight]

I so LOOOOOOOOVE , that was so Awesome
And I just noticed that Humanoid dust looks the same as Dragon dust, albeit the clothes are the only difference.

[Shatteredtower]

First, do you think V would have reacted the same way if it had been a misguided but good person obstructing their path?

Based on the most recent strip, it wouldn't have mattered. V would have done exactly the same thing if it had been Therkla Elan had tied up, even if the only reason he'd tied her up was to keep her from killing Kubota (for whatever reason he might have to wish to prevent it).

Second, look at Miko; was she really interested in making the world a better place, or was she just absorbed in selfish self-righteousness? How pure were her motives? And yet, until she murdered a Good man, she had never in her life performed an evil act.

And enough good ones, for good reasons, to be eligible for the paladin class. For all her many failings, she remained dedicated to serving a higher cause right up until the very end. Whether she was hoping for a reward at the end is less relevant than the fact that the chance to see her horse again was deemed reward enough for a lifetime of service (no matter how badly she bungled it toward the end).

Third, we have at least one example of a Lawful Good judgment that rested entirely on results, rather than intent; while the whole thing was, basically, a frame-up, no one in the Sapphire Guard seemed to raise an eyebrow at the possibility of people being found guilty for accidentally weakening the foundations of reality itself, and with a death sentence on top of it.

Executing someone for negligent behaviour, carrying reasonable potential of having world-shattering consequences, may not exemplify lawful good behaviour, but it isn't contrary to the tenets of law of good either.

V just shot someone for the sake of convenience. It doesn't matter that there are bigger issues at hand. It doesn't matter that Kubota is an evil, ambitious man with tremendous political influence. It doesn't even matter that it's damned satisfying to see him cut down in the middle of his smug speech.

It's still wrong. It's as wrong as running someone over because you had to get to a phone in time to stop a nuclear war. It may turn out to be necessary, but a good person would never claim it was right.

Fourth and last, isn't killing evil people and creatures for whatever money they have on them the basic definition of what Good adventuring PCs do with their time?

Nope. People in every edition have managed to play the game without ever killing a single being that intended them (or anyone else) harm, even without the benefits of the Book of Exalted Deeds. I've seen adventures devoted to rescuing others from natural disasters or minimizing the dangers such events pose, negotiating peaceful resolutions to conflicts between hostile communities, rediscovering things lost, or even expanding the boundaries on what is known. This may not be the most common approach for a lot of adventurers (even those in good-aligned parties, rather than neutral-ish ones), but even many of those have done at least a few quests that didn't call for a single killing.

(To my amusement, 4th Edition makes this easier than any previous one. A wizard casting meteor swarm, for example, always has the option in this ruleset to knock unconscious anyone it would otherwise reduce to 0 hp. A ruleset decried by some for limiting choices actually gives everyone the option to utilize cartoon violence.)

Someone else in this thread wrote to make the point that a paladin is a holy warrior. (My apologies for not attributing to that individual, but I've already gone over the last eight pages of the thread three times trying to find it again.) Fair enough, but there's nothing in the definition of a warrior that requires one to be a killer -- not even its root word. It is possible to wage war without ever killing anyone, though the latter goal may make it more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to do so successfully.

Oh, we don't have to prove that it's true. You have to prove that it's false.

You may as well have written, "The moon is made of green cheese," as that. It would have no less relevant to what I'd written.

Suppose Kubota had been a man pointing a gun (well, wand) at Elan, rather than brandishing- indeed, flaunting- his political prowess, which is just as dangerous.

Wrong example. A better comparison would be to a man holding an unstrung bow in one hand and a quiver in the other. There's nothing Kubota could have done between the time Elan grabbed him and when V killed him.

Would one need to prove that this attack was guaranteed to hit before any measures of self-defense on Elans' (or his friends') parts were justified?

Attacking someone who might take action against you at some future date is not self-defense.

V was protecting her friend Elan from imminent danger. Her actions were justified.

Uh... not by an argument of "imminent danger".

No, he's not harmless. He could say "Ninja! Sneak attack!" and get Elan killed.

Or he could say, "Ninja! Sneak attack!" and nothing happens, whether it's because there aren't any ninja around or because none choose to obey the command. For that matter, there could have been ninja present that would have acted even if he was gagged and unable to make the request. Since he is entirely at the mercy of other parties -- Elan, V, and the hypothetical ninja rescue team -- in all of these cases, he is unable to help himself.

You might as well claim that he wouldn't have been helpless even if he was rendered permanently paralyzed so long as there was someone capable of casting detect thoughts working for him.

They are trained to shoot guns.

They are allowed to kill in the line of duty.

They are paid.

What part of that ISN'T "paid killers"?

The part that does not require a police officer to ever kill anyone in the line of duty. "Allowed" is not the same as "required". It is not the same as being granted carte blanche to kill, either.

Police officers are not paid to kill. They are paid to maintain the peace and the public order. The fact that some officers have, at some point in their careers, found it necessary to kill in order to perform that duty -- and been vindicated in that decision upon review of their actions (not always the case) -- does not mean that they are paid to kill. It certainly does not make them mass murderers, despite your earlier claim that:

The only difference between a mass murderer and a good cop is how they feel about killing.

Put another way, you wrote: "A good cop, like a mass murderer, kills lots of people, but doesn't feel as good about it."

That's false. A lot of good cops never kill anyone, intentionally or accidentally. Calling them, or those who have found it necessary to use lethal force in the line of duty, "paid killers" is false and offensive.

First- all of this talk of "wow, s/he committed an evil act, now s/he's changed alignment" is silly. Alignment doesn't worth that way.

True.

Second, sometimes an act that would be normally evil isn't.

I believe the question was, "If they're situational, how can they be ethics?"

Now let's look at your example:

If you said NO, realize you just admitted that shooting an unarmed defenseless child (who is posing no direct risk to you) in the back is not an evil act.

Rendering most of the planet uninhabitable to me poses a direct risk to me. Threatening the lives of everyone I know poses a direct risk to me. Having said that, shooting the child is still evil according to most definitions I can find for the word. And I'd still shoot.

In a friend's game, a paladin had to deal with a society cursed with cannibalism -- they could only survive by eating other humans. After successfully containing this group, he prayed for guidance, asking if there was some means by which he could save this community. Receiving no answer, he then killed every one of them, adult and child -- and spent the remainder of the game seeking to atone for what he felt he'd had to do. His GM didn't force that on him -- we never even learned if he'd lost his paladin status between acting and atoning -- but it was the best handling I've seen for one of those "impossible" dilemmas people liked to throw at paladins in an effort to show how "unplayable" the class was.

Good people don't try to excuse the evil they do. If they believe that killing others is evil, they may still do so to protect themselves or others, but they won't then try to turn around and claim it as a good act. One way or another, they will try to address that wrong, no matter how necessary it seemed.

Still believe in black/white morality?

Sure. Two wrongs don't make a right, even when the second is the only way to get the first addressed. There must still be consequences to both wrongs.

[hamishspence]

The post by Shatteredtower expresses my own views, pretty well, and in clearer language than some of mine. A "Necessary" evil act, no matter how necessary, is still an evil act. My much earlier Machiavelli reference is pretty appropiate here, to sum up :

it may be necessary to do evil in the defense of others, but recognize for the moment that what you are doing is evil, and do not call it good.

However, this was the interpretation of the point Machiavelli was trying to get across, by the editor of that edition of that particular book: the Discouses, on how republics are ruled. Some people might disagree that that was what machiavelli was trying to say.

Given that "The ends justify the means" is listed as a common motivation of evil characters in Champions of ruin, one should remember that it is possible for an evil character to have a genuinely good motivation for his evil deeds. That doesn't upgrade him to neutral or good, it just makes him a very sympathetic evil.

V's motivation was not that. Elans motivation for accepting it, in the first part of strip 596, had an element of "ends justified means" Until he realized that wasn't why V did it.

[PandaCthulhu]

I have a theory... from V's actions, the way V is looking now, and the 4 words said to the right person in the right place for the wrong reason ("disintegrate, Gust of Wind"), that V's path to ultimate power is about to be opened... and that V will become a Baelnorn.

[David Argall]

Based on the most recent strip, it wouldn't have mattered. V would have done exactly the same thing if it had been Therkla Elan had tied up,

But Elan wouldn't have tied up Therkla. He wouldn't have had to for starters, and probably would not have been able to. Your example supports V's assumption that anyone tied up by Elan was a valid target.

V just shot someone for the sake of convenience.

And for being a major villain.

It's still wrong. It's as wrong as running someone over because you had to get to a phone in time to stop a nuclear war. It may turn out to be necessary, but a good person would never claim it was right.

And D&D PCs go around killing loads of people for just such good causes.

People in every edition have managed to play the game without ever killing a single being that intended them (or anyone else) harm,

Technically true, but statistically false. Not 1% of the characters in Living Greyhawk for example met such a standard.

Attacking someone who might take action against you at some future date is not self-defense.

Of course it is. This is a standard part of defensive war. Now the fact that when historians actually look at such claims, they validate very few [and are accused of bias for not condemning some of those they pass] tells us that such ideas are dangerous and used far more often to justify attacks than to justify defenses, but that does not refute the concept.
And from the facts before us, V would have a fine case here. Kubota has shown a persistent series of attacks, and shows no sign of stopping. The chance of a future attack, assuming Kubota lives, is close to 100%.

You might as well claim that he wouldn't have been helpless even if he was rendered permanently paralyzed so long as there was someone capable of casting detect thoughts working for him.

So what makes you think that is unlikely?

[deworde]

To be fair, he may have just been sweeping up the mess.
Seriously, we really don't know what planet V's brainship's orbiting at the moment. For all we know he killed Kubota because of the moustache.

I KNEW IT!

[Zurpl]

...

[Kaytara]

I KNEW IT!

...

So what kinds of things will be going through my mind tomorrow? :D

[Shatteredtower]

But Elan wouldn't have tied up Therkla.

Though it's irrelevant to the point, you're correct -- but only based on events as they played out. It's not hard to think of alternate scenarios in which what you're claiming is ridiculous. If it was the only way to restrain her from attacking someone, he'd have tried it. If it was part of some brilliant (or not so brilliant -- this is Elan, after all) ruse, he'd have done it.

He wouldn't have had to for starters...

Again, irrelevant to the point, and the possibility of a ruse makes it doubly so. Besides, what's so unlikely about having to restrain someone who looks up to you in a moment of duress?

...and probably would not have been able to.

The Use Rope skill can be used untrained, and it's Dexterity based. Kubota's poison could have as easily be Dexterity based, allowing him a chance to gloat before he killed his minion by more conventional means. The dent in her Escape Artist checks would probably have allowed her to best Elan's Use Rope check in five rounds, but not under supervision. A quick escape check would have pretty much have been right out.

And then again, this might very well have been a ruse. For that matter, the ruse could have involved disguising Therkla -- the ninja, remember -- as Kubota to lure out any of his agents that now deemed her untrustworthy.

And of course, it is also irrelevant to the point.

Your example supports V's assumption that anyone tied up by Elan was a valid target.

No, David, it does not. Elan could have easily have been leading a bound Kazumi around, trying to determine if she was likely to kill any more witnesses before letting her go. Or Daigo, because the knots were too tight and he was looking for a sharper weapon with which to cut the ropes. (This is Elan, remember? Rational thinking is not always his strong suite.)

Or he could have been holding Sabine, disguised as Kubota, captive (and the party doesn't know if she'd just come back from her outer plane, as shown in an earlier strip). Or one of Kubota's body doubles, a guy that had never done anything more evil than give his boss a perfect alibi.

V hasn't really been paying attention. He caught a few words, leapt to a conclusion, and killed a man.

For being an inconvenience to the elf. Not for being evil. Not for being a villain. Not because he might arrange for Elan's death. No, V killed him to avoid a trial, which makes the action (if not necessarily the actor) evil.

And D&D PCs go around killing loads of people for just such good causes.

Once again, you're making statements irrelevant to the point. The fact that PCs -- even good PCs -- have done such things does not make them good or right things to do.

Technically true, but statistically false.

What you're saying is that you have no argument, and are merely engaging in sophistry. Quel surprise.

Of course it is.

No, it's not. If it turned out that my new neighbour is a guy who'd done time for killing four men, killing him for no more cause than that would still be wrong. It wouldn't become any more right just because he said "You remind me of a guy I once killed," one day, though I'd have the option to charge him with uttering threats on the basis of that statement.

This is a standard part of defensive war.

Shooting people who've made no aggressive move against you is not self-defense. The United States can declare war on Canada because our Department of National Defense once drafted strategies for war against our southern neighbour, but can't honestly claim it was acting in self defense.

Now the fact that when historians actually look at such claims, they validate very few [and are accused of bias for not condemning some of those they pass] tells us that such ideas are dangerous and used far more often to justify attacks than to justify defenses, but that does not refute the concept.

Your final statement in the above quoted text is not supported by the rest of it. If you haven't been attacked or facing an imminent, plausible threat of being attacked, any violent action you take cannot be defined as defense.

And from the facts before us, V would have a fine case here.

It might, if that was why V killed him. It wasn't, and thus V has no case.

Kubota has shown a persistent series of attacks, and shows no sign of stopping.

If V, Durkon, and Elan went off to save the world, which is what V wants to do, we have no reason to believe that Kubota would attack them. They're not in his way. To Nale, that wouldn't matter, but Kubota doesn't work like that. He's more goal oriented; anything that doesn't get in the way of those goals can be ignored.

V doesn't care about Hinjo or Azure City. He does care about saving the world. Killing Kubota wasn't necessary toward achieving the latter end -- it just got rid of a distraction.

So what makes you think that is unlikely?

Why do you keep grasping for the irrelevant straws, David? It would not matter if Kubota does have such resources. I'd expect him to have them, but it doesn't change the fact that even with them, he himself would not be the threat. His servitors are perfectly capable of acting on his behalf without his direction -- or even in direct contradiction to his wishes. He was basing his entire Therkla defense on the latter argument because it's a reasonable possibility.

As long as he's at the mercy of others -- allies or enemies -- he is helpless.

[Eric]

Why do you keep grasping for the irrelevant straws, David? It would not matter if Kubota does have such resources

Well have a look in your fist. There's plenty of horse bedding material in that mitt.

a) Bad Guy
b) Evil Monologue: "You'll never prove a thing"
c) Evil Comeuppance: "Fair enough, I won't bother with proof". Zap.


The act removed a bad guy.

It WAS a bad guy.

It was a good result (avoiding all the pain and suffering).

It wasn't under AC jurisdiction.

It was a helpless captive.

It wasn't a powerless one.

It was a powerful captive that would and could cause more trouble even while in court and captive.

As I said earlier, if you can't hit a man when he's down, what do you do when he kicks you in the nuts then drops to the floor? Walk (limp) away?

Each time he does it, do you still just accept "you can't hit a man when he's down"?

What if he goes "Sorry, I surrender", do you not give them a return whack to the jewels? No? Never? Even if he kicks you when he's surrendered and just says "I surrender" before you can hit back?

[Shatteredtower]

The act removed a bad guy.

The act also puts a good guy, still struggling to maintain his power base, in a bad spot.

V does not care.

It WAS a bad guy.

And killing him because you want to skip his trial rather than, y'know, just skipping his trial, is not a good act.

It was a good result (avoiding all the pain and suffering).

Even if that was true -- and Elan points out that it's not -- V wasn't interested in good results.

It wasn't under AC jurisdiction.

He's on a vessel in the AC fleet. What makes you think there's no such thing as jurisdiction on naval vessels? It's not like the concept is alien to nomadic cultures either.

It was a helpless captive.

All that matters. The rest, the bit about being a powerful captive, is just wishful thinking.

It was a powerful captive that would and could cause more trouble even while in court and captive.

Even if that was true, V was unconcerned with that possibility, and acted only to avoid personal inconvenience.

Regardless of whether or not Kubota deserved to be killed in such a fashion (and I agree with those who deem it to be poetic justice), V's reasons for doing so were evil.

As I said earlier, if you can't hit a man when he's down, what do you do when he kicks you in the nuts then drops to the floor? Walk (limp) away?

The sensible thing to do is have him charged with assault. Civil charges are also a possibility.

One thing you don't do in the circumstances you just described, however, is break the arms of a guy you just saw do that to someone you know. That will earn you assault charges -- and rightly so.

V was the bystander. He wasn't out for justice, or interested in doing his friend a favour, so we can't even try to defend his actions based on either of those arguments, which also render the alignment of his victim -- and said victim's prior actions -- entirely irrelevant.

Whether V is neutral or lawful good, the act was evil.

[Eric]

The act also puts a good guy, still struggling to maintain his power base, in a bad spot.

A bad spot he would have been in if Kabuto were alive and facing trial.

And killing him because you want to skip his trial rather than, y'know, just skipping his trial, is not a good act.

Unless the court was rigged, or powerless to prosecute. Which Kabuto has said is the case

Even if that was true -- and Elan points out that it's not -- V wasn't interested in good results.

Actually, he says that it isn't *certain* that Kabuto would make good on his boast, but it was likely. That's not what you make out.

He's on a vessel in the AC fleet. What makes you think there's no such thing as jurisdiction on naval vessels? It's not like the concept is alien to nomadic cultures either.

But it isn't AC is it, where they hve jurisdiction. I drink alcohol and that is illegal in Saudi Arabia. That doesn't matter because I'm not there.

Even if someone from SA is here watching me drink.

All that matters. The rest, the bit about being a powerful captive, is just wishful thinking.

Kabuto was powerful. He was a privileged class. A noble. A local (not northerner) and knew how to influence his peers. He still has all the resources of a noble to draw on, no matter that he's tied up.

You just don't want to count that as power because that doesn't make you right.

Even if that was true, V was unconcerned with that possibility, and acted only to avoid personal inconvenience.

No, it also avoided justice being failed to be carried out. Stop just reading noe panel where V says "20-30 strips" avoided was a good idea. Elan thought it was acceptable too.

Regardless of whether or not Kubota deserved to be killed in such a fashion (and I agree with those who deem it to be poetic justice), V's reasons for doing so were evil.

No they weren't. Dead bad guy is good. Approach was neutral and risky. Approach did end up with a bad guy dead. And V didn't think that a good person or innocent was going to be disintegrated. So no, it wasn't evil.

No matter how many times you say it.

The sensible thing to do is have him charged with assault. Civil charges are also a possibility.

Why?

One thing you don't do in the circumstances you just described, however, is break the arms of a guy you just saw do that to someone you know. That will earn you assault charges -- and rightly so.

Jury nullification. If that person had assaulted a six year old.

If they assaulted me and by luck I broke their arms, nope.

etc.

V was the bystander. He wasn't out for justice, or interested in doing his friend a favour, so we can't even try to defend his actions based on either of those arguments, which also render the alignment of his victim -- and said victim's prior actions -- entirely irrelevant.

He was there, saw a bad guy. Heard bad guy give evil monologue about how he'd get away with it and killed the bad guy.

The rest of it is what YOU think V is thinking.

Whether V is neutral or lawful good, the act was evil.

You still repeat it but you're still wrong.

[David Argall]

It's not hard to think of alternate scenarios in which what you're claiming is ridiculous.

And it is not hard to show these alternate scenarios are ridiculous.

If it was the only way to restrain her from attacking someone, he'd have tried it.

Tied does not mean succeed, and we would assume he would more likely fail than not.

If it was part of some brilliant (or not so brilliant -- this is Elan, after all) ruse, he'd have done it.

But the idea of a ruse puts any blame on the one trying the ruse. If I make a fake rape and get shot by someone trying to defend my "victim", I have no claim against my shooter that an actual rapist would not have. The very idea of a ruse is to fool people, and they can not be blamed for being fooled.

Again, irrelevant to the point,

When claiming something is irrelevant, you are supposed to explain why. Otherwise you have a mindless way to dismiss all inconvenient facts and arguments.

what's so unlikely about having to restrain someone who looks up to you in a moment of duress?

I'm not sure what you mean here. A moment of distress maybe? However the basic answer seems to be that if somebody looks up to me, I effectively never have to tie them up. In general, I can restrain them with words.

...can be ... could have ... would probably have...

Or to combine the net possibility, durn unlikely.

Elan could have easily have been leading a bound Kazumi around, trying to determine if she was likely to kill any more witnesses before letting her go. Or Daigo, because the knots were too tight and he was looking for a sharper weapon with which to cut the ropes. (This is Elan, remember? Rational thinking is not always his strong suite.)

And in either case, why would he be wandering the deck with them instead of leaving them in their cabin? And Kazumi has not been killing any witnesses that Elan cares about. And he has the sharpest weapon he is at all likely to find in any period of time needed to cut him loose.

Or he could have been holding Sabine, disguised as Kubota, captive (and the party doesn't know if she'd just come back from her outer plane, as shown in an earlier strip).

She would be a valid target, rather obviously.

Or one of Kubota's body doubles, a guy that had never done anything more evil than give his boss a perfect alibi.

We of course do not even know if one exists. And we would treat his killer the same as we would the killer of Kubota.

V hasn't really been paying attention. He caught a few words, leapt to a conclusion, and killed a man.

And it was the correct conclusion, and the man needed killing.

For being an inconvenience to the elf. Not for being evil. Not for being a villain. Not because he might arrange for Elan's death. No, V killed him to avoid a trial, which makes the action (if not necessarily the actor) evil.

Now we have V's own statement that this is wrong. V killed him for being tied up by Elan, and thus clearly a major villain. He did not kill him just for causing the trial. She killed him for all the reasons listed.
Consider a divorce. She might not dump him for chasing other women, or for drinking, or for being broke, or for snoring. But she can dump him for the combination. The fact that without the snoring she might have put up with the rest does not mean they are not complaints she has.

Once again, you're making statements irrelevant to the point. The fact that PCs -- even good PCs -- have done such things does not make them good or right things to do.

Quite the contrary. They continue to be good PCs. Their alignment do not change. If they get away with it, we can not insist that somehow V is not to be allowed to.

What you're saying is that you have no argument, and are merely engaging in sophistry. Quel surprise.

A more common form of sophistry is claim someone has no argument and then make no attempt to show that.
In the case at hand, it has been pointed out that vast numbers of good aligned PCs have engaged in behavior like which you wish to denounce, and have stayed good aligned PCs. Your response is effectively "not all of them". The response that effectively "Yes, all of them", the exceptions being too rare to worry about, is an argument.

No, it's not. If it turned out that my new neighbour is a guy who'd done time for killing four men, killing him for no more cause than that would still be wrong. It wouldn't become any more right just because he said "You remind me of a guy I once killed," one day, though I'd have the option to charge him with uttering threats on the basis of that statement.

Technical point: He has not uttered a threat, at least not just on that statement.
Basic point: You are correct, but irrelevant.
Your neighbor who has killed four men is something like a 10% chance of killing again. His statement does not change that statistic [tho it might increase the chance you will be #5 instead of somebody else.] A 100% loss of a life to avoid a 10% loss? Clearly a bad idea.
But what are our odds with Kubota? Well, based on past history, it is effectively a 100% certainity of many lives being lost. [Of course Kubota might be executed after trial, but the net result then is the same as if V offs him right away. So we need only consider the cases with a different result.]
We can save dozens? hundreds? thousands? of lives? Sure sounds like a good reason to dice Kubota.

Shooting people who've made no aggressive move against you is not self-defense.

Practically speaking, true. In theory, no.
Self-defense is just that, defending yourself. It doesn't matter whether the attacker has yet done anything or not. If it is certain he is going to attack, you are free to attack first. When you see him attacking, you have very good evidence he is attacking. When you don't, you need evidence that there is an attack coming.
Now as a practical matter, you are almost never going to be in a position where the other party has made no aggressive moves, and if you are, you are likely to have a very hard time convincing the cop he was about to attack you. But if the Hulk starts turning green and ruining his shirt, you don't have to wait until "Hulk Smash" before acting.

If you haven't been attacked or facing an imminent, plausible threat of being attacked, any violent action you take cannot be defined as defense.

Now imminent is in the definition for practical reasons also. If the threat is not imminent, you are routinely able to avoid the threat by non-lethal means. But there are the exceptions. You got 30 days, and Big Tony as a cellmate unfortunately. He has raped you every morning for a week or two. You don't have to wait until he starts again to defend yourself.
In our current case, we can predict continued attacks again Hinjo in particular, and any other who get in the way, or are just in the wrong place. We thus do not have to wait until the attack is imminent to justly off Kubota.

It might, if that was why V killed him. It wasn't, and thus V has no case.

Indirectly it was, and that is sufficient.

If V, Durkon, and Elan went off to save the world, which is what V wants to do,

That is what Durkon wants to do. V's efforts are centered on finding Haley, and this pretty much requires staying with the fleet. Once Haley is located, V presumably will be eager to leave, but on current evidence, V does not want to leave.

V doesn't care about Hinjo or Azure City. He does care about saving the world. Killing Kubota wasn't necessary toward achieving the latter end -- it just got rid of a distraction.

Which means it is easier now to reach his goal. That it is only a little bit easier does not change that it is easier.

His servitors are perfectly capable of acting on his behalf without his direction -- or even in direct contradiction to his wishes.

This is not in evidence. We have no information about what his servitors would do without direction from him, and most of the directions they might go are beneficial to Hinjo and friends. We do have evidence of how they behave when ordered by him, which is to carry out attacks.
Do you wish to argue he was somehow holding them back?

As long as he's at the mercy of others -- allies or enemies -- he is helpless.

We have a mob boss confined to a hospital bed. He is at the mercy of the cops and the medical staff. He can still order a hit on the witnesses against him. He is hardly helpless.
Kubota is very like our mob boss. If he can contact his subordinates at all, he can order them to do various crimes. He is not helpless.

Trials are necessary and proper because you are mortal and your judgement may be flawed.

Trials are a good idea because of that, but as already noted, the flaws of mortality work both ways. We know the trial will also be flawed, and that means there will be times when non-trial methods will be better.

[quote=Dervag] Now there has been a fair amount of yelling about BED of late, so let's note what it says about trials.
P. 11. "...in general, it is often preferable to bring evildoers to justice in the form of legitimate legal authority rather than meting out justice oneself."

IN GENERAL, OFTEN,
These are averages words. They pretty much mean there are times when one is better off not bringing to the authority and doing the deed oneself.

PREFERABLE
And this means that there is no presumption that doing it oneself is in any way other than good, and possibly the highest good. There will be cases where it is better to turn them over to the law, but that does not mean administering justice oneself is anything but good. It may be, or it may not be.

BED does not condemn V for avoiding a trial.

V had no idea who Kubota was or what Kubota might have done to deserve punishment. V neither knew nor cared who he was killing.

He did, however, know that Kubota merited killing. The rest is trivial detail.

He killed Kubota only to save time, consoling others with the thought that Kubota probably- not certainly, but probably, deserved to die for some crime or other.

You are simply ignoring what V said. He said Kubota did deserve killing. "Probably" was Elan's term, and V was reminding him of that.

, constructed in the form of a logical argument aimed at V:
________________

Dear V:

[From V:"Dervag

I did not save time by killing this Kubota in order to waste it on drivel.
-V-"]

If there is enough evidence in your mind to justify killing Kubota, then that evidence should persuade a reasonable person that Kubota should be executed.

Legal analysis: Obviously wrong. While courts have many rules designed to bring out the truth, they also have rules that hide it. The justifications may or may not be valid, but V can easily have sufficient justification without being able to bring it into court.
In the case at hand, we know V to be correct. Kubota deserved killing and his death removes a problem. A trial result can be no more than equal, and has a definite risk of being inferior.

This is a general statement, and it is the reason I believe that trials are necessary even when someone appears 'obviously' deserves to die. No one person can accurately evaluate whether they are being reasonable or sane about such an important decision.

But in practice they must. Your argument effectively argues that everybody is always incompetent, which is not changed by then being groups or judges.

[katkin]

ahhh justification that belkar agrees with. V should be ashamed of hir actions... whatever the motive.

awesome comic, Giant!

[Warren Dew]

Of course it is. This is a standard part of defensive war.

I think you're thinking of "preemptive" war, where you attack an enemy because you think they are about to attack you. A "defensive" war is one fought on your own territory when the other party attacks, for example if you're using the strategy of trading space for time.

And killing him because you want to skip his trial rather than, y'know, just skipping his trial, is not a good act.

A minor observation: I think Vaarsuvius wanted Elan and Durkon to skip the trial too - not that that changes the moral evaluation of the act.

A more common form of sophistry is claim someone has no argument and then make no attempt to show that.
In the case at hand, it has been pointed out that vast numbers of good aligned PCs have engaged in behavior like which you wish to denounce, and have stayed good aligned PCs.

Can you point to them? I don't remember any examples of good aligned PCs - or NPCs, for that matter - killing prisoners.

But in practice they must. Your argument effectively argues that everybody is always incompetent, which is not changed by then being groups or judges.

Statistically, a group of people all making the same mistake is considerably less likely than a single person making that mistake. An actual being of pure law and good, as opposed to Roy's dad in disguise, might be immune from mistakes.

[AlexanderRM]

Can you point to them? I don't remember any examples of good aligned PCs - or NPCs, for that matter - killing prisoners.


Statistically, a group of people all making the same mistake is considerably less likely than a single person making that mistake. An actual being of pure law and good, as opposed to Roy's dad in disguise, might be immune from mistakes.

#1. There's a specific listing of the "hostage situation" in the DMG- it makes it pretty clear that it's a legitimate dilemma. I, however, do not consider there to be any choice- do you know how often the good guy NOT killing the villain is used in comic books as a cheap, stupid way to simply have a recurring villain? Far too often. When you've captured the evil villain who has killed dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people, you kill them. The only thing that could come about from them not being killed is even more deaths.
#2. Yes, but in the case of a trial, you need actual evidence to convict someone. It was made FAR too clear that Kubota WAS going to get away with that: there's no way he could have survived that long as a noble in a city ruled by Paladins if he couldn't.

[David Argall]

I think you're thinking of "preemptive" war, where you attack an enemy because you think they are about to attack you. A "defensive" war is one fought on your own territory when the other party attacks, for example if you're using the strategy of trading space for time.

These might be better terms, but the terms used were correct for our purposes. A preemptive war is justified as a defensive war, and the saying goes that "the best defense is a good offense." So yes, you can have a defensive war and still fight entirely on the other guy's land. As noted, this is much more likely to be propaganda than fact, but it is not automatically false.

Can you point to them? I don't remember any examples of good aligned PCs - or NPCs, for that matter - killing prisoners.

In comic, the case of Roy & the goblins in 11. However the statement covers the entire D&D world and is not limited to killing prisoners.

Statistically, a group of people all making the same mistake is considerably less likely than a single person making that mistake.

When we say statistically, we are saying "sometimes, and sometimes not."
So we are saying here that there are times when we don't bother with a trial. These times will be relatively rare for the normal person, but they are not zero, particularly for the PC whose life is far from normal.