Would you had let Fred kill Professor Seidel?
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Ethan Reigns
Scooby
Professor Seidel from "Supersymmetry" 4x05 was never going to be subject to the law. Out of hundreds of students in a university, having several go missing over a period of years is neither strange nor alarming if you assume the normal reasons for such disappearances - dropping out due to lack of interest (it is established that the people who were gone were among the best students, so low marks would not be the cause) or leaving to follow a significant other, joining a cult, yada, yada.
This seems to be a similar question to whether Willow was right to kill Warren.
Both Seidel and Warren were capable of doing something that would never be expected or accepted by legal authorities - in Warren's case, magic and in Prof Seidel's case, transference of someone to another dimension and both were capable of leaving no evidence. Before Fred got there, Seidel summoned a demon to fight Angel, so he was still a killer who could not be connected to his crimes. Note that Fred accosted Prof Seidel with a crossbow but chanted the words to open the portal instead because she just wanted to make sure he got the treatment she did. Having him disappear into a hell dimension was not the same as killing him - she knew that because she had not been killed. If she had wanted him dead, the crossbow would have been adequate. Gunn was the person who killed Seidel, not Fred.
This seems to be a similar question to whether Willow was right to kill Warren.
Both Seidel and Warren were capable of doing something that would never be expected or accepted by legal authorities - in Warren's case, magic and in Prof Seidel's case, transference of someone to another dimension and both were capable of leaving no evidence. Before Fred got there, Seidel summoned a demon to fight Angel, so he was still a killer who could not be connected to his crimes. Note that Fred accosted Prof Seidel with a crossbow but chanted the words to open the portal instead because she just wanted to make sure he got the treatment she did. Having him disappear into a hell dimension was not the same as killing him - she knew that because she had not been killed. If she had wanted him dead, the crossbow would have been adequate. Gunn was the person who killed Seidel, not Fred.
JReed1985
JReed1985
My Opinion
If Fred did kill Seidel her vengence would have slowly consumed her and she wouldn't be the sweet woman she once was.
Gunn I think did the noble thing of saving Fred's innocence by killing Seidel for her. It's sad that Gunn's course of action cost his relationship with Fred as she didn't look at him the same way again.
If Fred did kill Seidel her vengence would have slowly consumed her and she wouldn't be the sweet woman she once was.
Gunn I think did the noble thing of saving Fred's innocence by killing Seidel for her. It's sad that Gunn's course of action cost his relationship with Fred as she didn't look at him the same way again.
kittenpoker
Raising penguins in Guam
I'm aware I'm in the minority here, but yes, I would have let her.
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Zeppelin92
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I feel like both series' seem to think that killing a regular person even after said person had ruined nearly your whole life will leave you guilt ridden for the rest of your days. I think Fred should have done it. That's out of principle though, just like I personally think Warren got what he deserved.
white avenger
white avenger
It goes without saying (I hope) that the man needed killing just about as much as anyone on the show ever did, with the possible exceptions of Warren, Caleb, and a few others. Having said that, I do believe that, since Fred was the offended party, it was her choice whether to do it herself or let someone else do it for her. I just don't buy into the whole, "It would have slowly consumed her," argument. This is a girl who managed to survive alone for an extended period alone on a world where people were considered one step below cattle. If she could handle that without any permanent side effects, ridding the world of that sort of vermin shouldn't have bothered her all that much, if at all, and if there was anyone who should have known that, it was Charles Gunn, because he would have felt the same way if he had been the one thrown into another dimension with, supposedly, no hope of escape.
He was human and so human rules apply. I would have tried to stop her. The same way I would have tried to stop Willow from killing Warren. I don't see why Faith gets sent to prison for killing human beings but the likes of Fred and Willow are justified, no matter what the crimes of their would be victims were. We have laws and courts to deal with people.
S
Sweet J
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white avenger
white avenger
Agreed, to a point. Willow killed Warren for murdering Tara. Human laws apply there, and Willow was wrong for taking he law into her own hands. Faith killed one person by accident, then several others while working for Wilkins. Both cases of humans killing humans in violation of human law.
Technically, Professor Seidel violated no provable human laws. There was no admissible evidence, no witnesses whose testimony would have been admitted as anything but the ramblings of a deluded person. Just try and get any District Attorney to take his case to court, or one judge who would be willing to hear it.
Seidel's crimes were beyond the reach of human law, and if he were to be stopped, human law wasn't capable of doing it. Yes, he in effect murdered students, or at least sent them to almost certain death or worse, but there was no possible way to prove it. Given those facts, the only way to make sure that he was stopped had to be what actually happened, and the one person most justified in doing so would have to be one of his victims. In other words, Fred.
What Gunn did was noble and commendable, but, in the end, destroyed his relationship with Fred much more surely than if he had allowed her to do it, then been there to support her if she needed it, which I, personally, don't think would have been the case. As I said before, I saw Fred as a lot tougher lady that most folks apparently do.
Blaze
exactly what I was going to say
Ethan Rayne.
The initiative packaged Ethan Rayne up nice and neatly, again pretty much everything you just wrote could be applied to Rayne, and yet with a phone call the Initiative(or what was left of it, willow etc) could have taken Seidel away.
There was an alternative, now had all other approaches been exhausted, then and only then, would killing him be justified - as letting him go would probably result in even more (I'm sending you to a horrible place) indirect deaths. At the very least I would have tried cutting out his tongue so he couldn't chant, and thus making him pretty harmless, before I resorted to outright killing him.
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white avenger
white avenger
What the Initiative did to Ethan Rayne was illegal. He stood no trial, faced no accusers. He was locked away without any semblance of Due Process, in violation of his guaranteed Constitutional Rights. Also, the Initiative isn't a law enforcement organization. They were established to handle matters dealing with vampires and demons, beings who have no such Constitutional rights to violate, so what they did to Ethan Raynes, justifiable as it might have seemed, was just as illegal as what Gunn did to Professor Seidel. Plus which, I seriously doubt that either Gunn or Fred even knew about their existence. Angel did, certainly, but I don't believe that, even if he knew any way to contact them, he would have done so, considering the results of his two previous encounters with them.