Would You Have Done the Same?

[Kean]

With good intentions lies the way to Hell.

I can't help but feel that Willow's intentions/actions are not all that dissimilar to (Spoilers for S8)

Spoiler

To Angel as Twilight and him basically saying that the world ending would mean that everyone would finally be happy/at peace. Because the pain of living would be over.

Willow wasn't in any position to making altruistic decisions than he was. I don't believe Willow was any less selfish than he. And I can't imagine you calling his actions kind.

And it also brings up an interesting question about death and murder in general, are all killings merciful then? If we take up the belief that we need to be put out of misery, each and every pathetic one of us, then there is no murder. In fact, bringing a life into the world would be viewed as criminal.

That's truly not a world I care for.

 

[InsaneMystic]

With good intentions lies the way to Hell.

While that's certainly a stance I agree with, it raises the question why Buffy doesn't just find another career that makes her happier, and if Spike wasn't spot on when he told Wood that Nikki didn't love him enough to quit the Slayer job for him. (I think the latter one, especially, is a problem for you. 😛)

To put it simply, even arriving in Hell does not invalidate the fact that you had good intentions. If it did, every good guys first and foremost duty would be "do nothing"... so hands off the drowning child, lest the road to Hell be paved. 😉

I can't help but feel that Willow's intentions/actions are not all that dissimilar to (Spoilers for S8)

Spoiler

To Angel as Twilight and him basically saying that the world ending would mean that everyone would finally be happy/at peace. Because the pain of living would be over.

Partially agreed this far.

Willow wasn't in any position to making altruistic decisions than he was. I don't believe Willow was any less selfish than he. And I can't imagine you calling his actions kind.

She had global empathy, that's the main difference. Willow felt our pain and wanted it to end. The spoiler dude basically doesn't care if the world goes to hell as long as he gets his way,

Spoiler

be it because of some "symbolic message" to W&H or a plate of space cookies

.

I guess we'd be bringing this thread off track delving into our could-not-be-any-more-different opinions about *that guy* though, so let's keep focused on Will, okies? 😉

And it also brings up an interesting question about death and murder in general, are all killings merciful then? If we take up the belief that we need to be put out of misery, each and every pathetic one of us, then there is no murder. In fact, bringing a life into the world would be viewed as criminal.

From a "pained Messiah" viewpoint (which DarklyEmpathicWillow had, and which I can very much understand and relate to even if I don't share it), that's exactly the correct conclusion to draw. In such a world, the good guys kill everyone they care for, and only a selfish bastard would ever willingly have children. A grim worldview indeed, but it is logically consistent.

 

[Kean]

She had global empathy, that's the main difference. Willow felt our pain and wanted it to end. The spoiler dude basically doesn't care if the world goes to hell as long as he gets his way,

She had partial global empathy. She felt a certain aspect of human emotion, totally. If she had had full human empathy she would have been open to the full range of what people feel, which include joy, happiness and love. Put simply, if Willow was fully empathetic to me, she would have felt my pain, my dismay and my hopelessness. But she also would have felt my joy, and love and conviction.

If Willow had experienced absolute human empathy she would have known, what we all know, what stops us all just giving in, that pain is not all we feel. That the reason we withstand it is because we have the capability to feel happiness and we have the hope that we can feel it. Even after the greatest trauma and the worst sorrow.

 

[InsaneMystic]

FetalPig agrees: 'near' psychotic? lol

Yep, 'near'. She still was a lot more coherent than the acutely psychotic people I've had contact with IRL (there's been a fair share. :sigh: ). I'd rate DarkWillow as "borderline" in the original meaning of the word (not as in the specific personality disorder of that name) - very severely neurotic, but just short of a full-blown psychosis.

She had partial global empathy. She felt a certain aspect of human emotion, totally. If she had had full human empathy she would have been open to the full range of what people feel, which include joy, happiness and love. Put simply, if Willow was fully empathetic to me, she would have felt my pain, my dismay and my hopelessness. But she also would have felt my joy, and love and conviction.

If Willow had experienced absolute human empathy she would have known, what we all know, what stops us all just giving in, that pain is not all we feel. That the reason we withstand it is because we have the capability to feel happiness and we have the hope that we can feel it. Even after the greatest trauma and the worst sorrow.

I still find it kind of her to want your pain to end, and I can give her credit for that. Even though the solution her pain-crazed mind made her come up with was... well, a tad radical. 😉

(I won't go too deep into discussing the partial vs. full empathy bit - I think that she had full empathy, but her own focus on pain blinded her to the hopeful/happy stuff she received. It's a moot point though, akin to whether the tree falling in a forest makes a sound if noone is there to hear it. 😀 The only emotion she was aware of was humanity's pain, we can agree on that.)

 

[FetalPig]

DarklyEmpathicWillow had super-empathy - she was connected with everything, so she was at that moment the one person on Earth best suited to judge what your pain is like. "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows like Willow..." 😉
(Still, see the next paragraph...)

I'm repeating myself, but that's exactly what I mean when I say her kindness was misguided. Willow was near psychotic with her own grief, so yes, that did of course massively twist her capability for judgment and eventually invalidates her logic. Of course she did not have the "right" to end the world.

I can't overlook her motivation, though. She wanted to end all our suffering, and that's something I have to give her credit for - and something that definitely wouldn't have occurred to DarkWillow without the empathy mojo.

Just because she was connected to everything doesn't make her a viable empath. She is absolutely NOT in the best position to judge because she hasn't resolved her own feelings. So she resonates with the pain of the world without noticing the joy, the hope, the excitement, the love, the food, the flowers, the birdsong etc etc. All she can feel is what she is the pain. She doesn't notice what keeps us going through the tough times.
So I still say there was no kindness, only a desperate need to not have to feel. And a thin ice veneer of logic of the top.

 

[brinkster130]

DarklyEmpathicWillow had super-empathy - she was connected with everything, so she was at that moment the one person on Earth best suited to judge what your pain is like.

I suppose, although I would question whether or not she was able to objectively look at each individuals pain to judge it. My guess would be that since she is feeling all the pain in the world at once she simply wants it to end to put herself out of the misery she is in.

I think we may be on to something there, but it may get too philosophical. 🙂

I consider freedom of pain a very high value, and I do not consider life itself the "ultimate" value. I firmly think that there are cases of "better off dead", even though of course I agree with [MENTION=10617]FetalPig[/MENTION] though that noone else but yourself should ever have the right to decide your life is so bad that you fall into that category (as a German, I'd have to be fully history-blind not to agree there...). e.g., while I would never go around euthanizing blind people, I firmly hold that if I should ever lose my eyesight, I'll most definitely be better off dead and will make sure that my life meets its end, quickly. So, eyesight is a higher subjective value than life; happy blind people baffle me, even though I know they exist.

I think it's a generic problem with kindness - and the one problem with the Golden Rule - that we are subjective creatures and thus see everything in the world tinted by our own feelings, perceptions, values etc.. (As the most simple example - I'm an exceedingly private and introverted person, so "do unto others..." leads me to just leave people alone most of the time, which to a more sociable person of course feels like me neglecting them.) I think it isn't possible to be kind without making assumptions about what the other side wants, assumptions that will always be less than objective and tinted by what you would want in the other's situation. (Willow even did follow the Golden Rule - she tried to do unto others, all others, what she wanted to be done unto herself.)

You make a good point, how we all perceive and feel kindness is different. So what could have been kindness on Willow's part certainly wouldn't be kindness for everyone in the word.

Like [MENTION=2555]LadyLavinia[/MENTION] said, Willow is a control freak - enough to qualify as a full blown Messiah complex in this case, in fact. I ask you, though: If someone is feeling all the pain in the world, and has the means to end it, and actually decides to end it because he can - how is that not kindness? Like I said to [MENTION=7585]Kean[/MENTION] earlier, thousands of people have used exactly this argument in the question if God exists, that a kind and loving God would have to intervene to exterminate suffering.

I totally agree that Willow is a control freak and she certainly does have a full blown Messiah complex going on here. Personally, like I mentioned above, I still question whether or not she was able to honestly look at and judge all the pain she was feeling; or if she was simple overwhelmed and almost consumed by it. Maybe I question that because I believe if she had been about to do that she would have seen that for many many people destroying the would would not have help them or been perceived as kindness to them.

P.S. As an interesting aside... I wonder if you considered Jasmine to be the Big Bad of AtS S4? I still have not forgiven the Fang Gang to have prevented world peace; clearly the Bad Hair Dude was that season's Big Bad. (It also helps Jaz' stance that I consider freedom of choice a convenient human illusion, when I'm sure thar in fact we are fully determinated... 😛) I suppose there'd be considerable overlap in the demographics of people considering Willow ending the world an act of kindness, and the United States of Jasminia to be paradise on Earth even if a few dozen peeps would get eaten every day. 🙂

I did, yes. Jasmine high-jacked Cordy's body to return to earth and took away not only her free will but everyone else's too. She was imposing world peace by controlling everyone's mind. I guess our difference here is what we believe about free will/freedom of choice.

 

[Taake]

DarklyEmpathicWillow had super-empathy - she was connected with everything, so she was at that moment the one person on Earth best suited to judge what your pain is like.

I would argue the exact opposite. That by being connected with everything she would have been overwhelmed beyond her mental capacity (because who wouldn't? think Buffy in 'Earshot' or Cordy in 'To Shanshu in LA') and that she could not differentiate between one or the others pain. It was all just pain to her.

Therefore she could not, on an individual basis, judge what anyone elses pain was like at all. And therefore had no right or reason to end the suffering of anyone.

But I can certainly see why she would, in that state, feel like she was doing the world a favor.🙂

 

[InsaneMystic]

Therefore she could not, on an individual basis, judge what anyone elses pain was like at all. And therefore had no right or reason to end the suffering of anyone.

I fully agree on "no right", but I guess we'll have to ag-to-dis on the "no reason" part. Subjectively, I think she had every reason - it just gets back to the problem mentioned above, that your subjective paradise may be the next person's idea of hell. 🙂

But I can certainly see why she would, in that state, feel like she was doing the world a favor.

And that, to me, is the very definition of kindness - to (want to) do something that you feel is doing someone else a favor.

 

[FetalPig]

(tongue in cheek)
so kindness is more of a verb for you, where kindness is done to someone, rather than a noun where both parties agree that kindness has been given and received.

 

[InsaneMystic]

(tongue in cheek)
so kindness is more of a verb for you, where kindness is done to someone, rather than a noun where both parties agree that kindness has been given and received.

*ponders for a bit, then answers straight-faced*
I guess that sums it up nicely, yep. I think a better categorization than "noun vs. verb" would be "emotion vs. social exchange", though (boiling down to what I seem to end up debating half the time, apparently... "subjective vs. objective" 😉)

To me, kindness is something that one feels, and that's independent from the question if anyone else feels the same way. So by my defintion, you can hurt people by acting kindly (by your def. of "kindness as a social exchange" that would be impossible). In your opinion, resulting hurt would make the action unkind, in mine it would make it misguidedly kind. 🙂

 

[FetalPig]

Yep i think we are reaching an understanding. The gulf is still quite daunting though 😉

Setting aside my sense that kindness should be judged from the perspective of the recipient rather than the perpetrator, and ignoring the global negation of human rights, that whole side issue of the intended end of the human race is a bit of a stickler for me ....


EDIT still - what's another apoclypse between friends 🙂

 

[Willow My Love]

I don't think it was just because Tara died. I know she wanted vengeance on the Trio, but I don't think she wanted to destroy the world simply because her love was unjustly taken from her. It was the magic that Giles gave her that made her feel all the pain everyone in the world felt. In the end, she wanted to end not only her own suffering, but everyone else's as well. She didn't have the right to end it, no, but did she really stop to ask anyone? Was she in the state of mind to make a judgement call that maybe her initial reaction wasn't the perfect plan? Nope. She saw an option and it became the only one she had.

Now, were the question would I have reacted how Willow did had I had the means after Tara died? Yes. I would've done the exact same thing to Warren that Willow did. I think Willow was justified. I actually agree with Dawn on that fact.