Condoning a Crime

L

LadyLavinia

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I have noticed a trend in action TV shows, in which the main protagonist(s) will commit an act that is considered wrong or a crime and is usually excused by the shows' fans. Acts such as Angel arranging for Buffy, Connor and the Fang Gangs' memories to be wiped and ordering Lorne to kill Lindsey MacDonald, Buffy killing that vampire whore who had been used by Riley and molesting Spike, Spike's near rape of Buffy, Wes murdering Knox and stabbing Charles, both Charles and Fred being involved in Professor Siedel's death and etc. Many of these actions have been condoned or excused by the fans, because these characters are supposed to be the "good guys" or the victim was a "bad guy". The heroes. And many fans seem unwilling to accept their actions as bad, or realize that these characters need to pay a price for their actions.
 
I don't know is it just a phenomena you're pointing out, or should we be angry at someone, or something? If so who?

Should we be angry at that characters for being many-sided and wrestling with moral ambiguity, or should we be mad at the writers for creating these little alternate realities where the characters deal with the same kinds of issues of who, or what can we forgive, that we all do in real life.

Actually correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I know what you're really getting at.

You're posting you're fear that maybe the rest of us don't see the shades of grey, that possibly we are seeing black and white in a grey world and that can lead to hypocrisy. Is that it?
 
I'm not sure the reason, but I somehow agree with some of those cases. Some of them I belive, especially on Angel, the characters thought the deaths were just. They had killed others, so their life was taken. But what's wrong with Buff killing that vamp? Sorry - I might of missed that one.
 
OK well now I have to agree with Prophecy Girl. Did I miss something? Did the "Is Buffy a killer thread" go to a 100 posts, and now you want to rehash the same stuff over here?

It's interesting though, because now I'm finding myself in the same kind of morality soup the characters of Buffy/Angel often find themselves in.

I don't want to be a bad guy, and close the thread. It's a legitimate issue to discuss. On the other hand it's been discussed and is being discussed on at least one other thread I know of.

I could merge the 2 but this is the same issue only with multiple characters.

I could send this to Inside/Out and let them worry about it. It is kind of borderline. Multiple characters, Issues of the way Whedon writers handle moral ambiguity. It kind of belongs here. On the other hand it's a Buffy/Angelverse issue question. I could send it to Inside/out and nobody would fault me.

If I do though, I know I'll just be doing it for my own comfort. I'm personally tired of seeing the same examples hashed an rehashed, and I have to read the stuff in the Whedonverse forum. It's a mod responsibility thing. So I'd be doing it for personal reasons. Would that make me a bad guy? Would I be picking on Lady Lavina.

Are you beginning to see my point? Life is full of gray spots. Buffy and Angel are full of gray spots. Is that a bad thing? Does any decision made in a gray area necessarily prove the person is a good or evil character? Shouldn't the decision be made more on the totality of their character, or in the case of fictional characters, shouldn't we be trying to decipher the direction the creators are pushing us in rather than arbritrarily writing them off as bad writers because they don't always allow the characters to make the decisions we think they should make?
 
:sigh: No ones trying to stir up trouble or anything. It's just that Lady Lavinias opinion has been rehashead and rehashed and rehashed and I was just wondering why another topic stating the exact same things is needed?
 
Hehe, I know. I'm just messin' w/ ya. :hihi: It is an intriguing topic, or at least one I've heard tossed about over and over in even stuffier climes, namely a college film class. Anyway, pardon my momentary orneriness. I'll be going now, tail between my legs . . .
 
God save me from fast posters 🙂

I sometimes make a quick point for position, then go back and edit.

I think if you go back, and reread the post, you'll find it's not the one you thought you read.

Go ahead you guys continue on. Let's see it goes something like, "Buffy had every right to kill the vamp-girl in the alley", then Lady Lavina says, "If she does that she doing it for personal motives, and that makes her a bad person".

Oh and Chasing Charisma, don't you dare go. LOL. If I have to read this same old tired stuff. I demand a fresh perspective.
 
LadyLavinia said:
Acts such as Angel arranging for Buffy, Connor and the Fang Gangs' memories to be wiped
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As that doesn't and can't happen in real life its not a crime.

Buffy killing that vampire whore who had been used by Riley
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Buffy Slayer, Slayer slays vampires.

Spike's near rape of Buffy
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It was "near" and a hell of a lot of actual rapes go by without any kind of legal reprecussions
 
I think the point of showing these characters as good guys despite some of the things they've done, just goes to show that we don't live in a world of black or white, no matter how good a person in, I bet they have some gray areas in their life. But we're human beings, "to err is human, to forgive is divine". Fans realize that overall, these people have saved countless lives and the existence of the universe as we know it (fictionally speaking of course...it is a TV show), but when it comes down to it, they're all human (or human-like) characters who are not perfect and do make mistakes regarding judgement.
 
I tend to agree with nerd4hire, life is full of gray. The point is that TV shows deal with these gray areas on a larger scale than we do in "real" life. There wouldn't be too many people who would watch a show where n4h is making his choice whether to move a thread (I'd watch it... lol).

It comes down to the age old question, if a man is stealing bread to feed his family, is it still wrong? By the black and white logic he should be put in jail and his family should starve. But human morality makes this a gray area in our minds. TV shows deal with this question, just on a larger scale.
 
P
ProphecyGirl
totally agree....24601 indeed.
J
JustAnnie
You said it so well!
some things can and have to be pardoned for different reasons. Like murder if you murder for self-defence. Or if you are protecting the lifes of other people from someone who wants well... to kill them etc. etc.
 
My opinion = we can't expect the characters to be perfect. Otherwise, how would we relate to them at all? Everyone's made mistakes in their lives and I personally think that that's why we're so quick to forgive.
 
Life is grey, good shows involve grey characters things aren't black and white. These characters don't even for give them selves sometimes. (Buffy slays a vamp so thats a crime now?)

I don't understand how you can watch or claim yourself a fan of a show that you obvioulsly don't like. I mean every comment I have read of yours has been negative.
 
Obligatory Mod Warning: No Member-bashing. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, I just want everyone to know, you can't go there.

Having said that I'd like to say I personally feel justified in bashing the idea itself. (It's an entirely different thing)

I've been noticing the central idea of these repetitive threads attacking the good guys of BTVS and ATS seems to have less to do with discovering an interesting quality common in Whedonverse writing, and more to do with beating home a personal moral belief.

The author seems to believe depictions of characters who attempt to follow the path of the righteous, and do the right thing is in some way a wrong thing, because people choosing to try to be good don't always succeed, and occasionally fall short of he mark. The assumption being it's wrong to choose to try to be good, because it becomes hypocritical. You can't be good, the belief preaches, because the darker side of your humanity gets in the way.

One thing that is really admittedly irritating about this belief is the way it always seems to be presented with a kind of repetitive insistence that the reader should feel the same way. In my opinion it's nothing more than a sneaky way of trying to convince someone to believe the way you do without stating what the belief actually is in clear speach.

The first time I came across that particular philosophy of good is bad, bad is good was in The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor Levi. I thought it was sophistry and flim flam then, and still do.
 
Yes. And the corollory to that is that evil is normalized as the default position, thus, I think, justifying evil acts. After all, if we are evil by default, we can't help ourselves, but we are being true to our nature. It's a very convenient way to assuage the guilt one might feel when viewing someone trying to do good. If the person doing good doesn't succeed totally, and doesn't act perfectly they are hypocrites. This allows the rationalization of not doing good as the avoidance of being a hypocrite. Very convenient for the morally lazy folks who may espouse this belief, eh?
 
You guys are really amazing. You're accusing me of being narrow-minded or not being aware of the "gray" area of real-life morality. Believe me, I'm quite aware.

But I've noticed how willing you are to condone or dismiss the crimes of the shows' major characters for some very shallow reasons. Simply because they ARE major characters and allegedly the "good guys".

Now, I like most of the characters on the show. But I'm not desperate enough to dismiss or excuse what is obviously a wrong or a crime committed by a certain character, because a particular character happens to be a favorite . . . or that I refuse to see that a favorite character is capable of being evil. And I'm not just talking about Jossverse shows. I'm also talking about other shows on the air, like CHARMED and "24".
 
Why aren't you willing to admit that a character (or person) for that matter should not be judged on a single act, but rather have the total of their actions looked upon when determining whether they fall under the catergory or "good" or "bad"?

Yes Angel, Wesley, Gunn, Cordelia, and Fred did bad things, but if you look at all the good they did and the lives they saved, it greatly outweighs the bad.
 
Cordelia said:
Why aren't you willing to admit that a character (or person) for that matter should not be judged on a single act, but rather have the total of their actions looked upon when determining whether they fall under the catergory or "good" or "bad"?

Yes Angel, Wesley, Gunn, Cordelia, and Fred did bad things, but if you look at all the good they did and the lives they saved, it greatly outweighs the bad.
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There's a reason the judge of souls in Egyptian mythology used a scale to weigh the souls of the departed. They knew, as we should, that we all do bad and good in our time. Attempting to do good and failing isn't hypocracy...it's a reason to not stop. It's always easier to give up and let inertia rule, but truly good people keep on attempting to do the right thing...of course, what is right in any situation is subjective, to some extent. Thus, grey, grey, grey...
 
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