Something I wanted to get off of my mind...

[ShatteredEyes]

I don't get why people are calling Sorya "evil." The only evil type thing that she has done was tempt him to join the Astarotzi gang, she was clearly nice to him, and others as long as they were with her. She also then seeing Rhue in grief about killing Lexus, decided to tell the truth about her to him. Yes, she had the worst timing on the planet, but she had the right idea.

[DSOK]

I don't get why people are calling Sorya "evil." The only evil type thing that she has done was tempt him to join the Astarotzi gang, she was clearly nice to him, and others as long as they were with her.

It would have something to do with the fact that the she's a leader in a gang of murderous professional criminals.

[SockHyren]

I don't get why people are calling Sorya "evil." The only evil type thing that she has done was tempt him to join the Astarotzi gang, she was clearly nice to him, and others as long as they were with her. She also then seeing Rhue in grief about killing Lexus, decided to tell the truth about her to him. Yes, she had the worst timing on the planet, but she had the right idea.

Now that I think about it, your absolutely right. She did hide some things, but then agian, what organization (evil or not) doesn't hide things...

It would have something to do with the fact that the she's a leader in a gang of murderous professional criminals.

Well, if we use that logic, then every single person on the Way is unforgivably evil and must be killed in some horrenously f'ed up way. For example, we have the Guided, who are for some reason trapped in the Old Testement; The Vigilance, who are just murderers who kill the other murderers and say it's in the name of Justice; The Blood Lyn who are killers for Hire and obviously, the Blue Scarves, who are self-explanitory. SO, if we used your logic, it would be completely just if Rhue decided to rip out a Machine Gun (Not Seriously) and pumped ever person on the Way with 50 pounds of F*** you. Then, being that he's evil for killing every person he met, he should shoot himself. You get what I'm saying? I'm not stating this as proof, just something to think about.

The main reason people tend to show mercy to "evil" characters who are willing to change (Cetsa, for example), is because of just that, thier willing to ochange themselves. No, one good deed doesn't wipe away years of evil doing, but, it's a start on the road to rehibilitation. And we have to remember that we're not perfect either, and shouldn't judge others as if thier unforgivable, or else we end up as raving fanatics with rocks in our hands (Like the Guided!).

Side Note: The Way Needs Kim Kaphawn! XD

[Sage Of The Wise]

Well, the Paradons would still be alive, and maby some random NCP's that aren't important enough to do somthing evil.

[Greatchickenman]

Yeah, when i played, Sorya didnt die...


Btw, there is no such thing as good or evil. People do bad things. People do good things. People repent for the bad they do. People make up for the good things they do with bad. There is not one selfless person in the world.

[SockHyren]

Yeah, when i played, Sorya didnt die...

I had to use the in-game stats, since I could never get my Plunge stat above three (And that's after 2 episodes...). I would play ep 1-5 over agian to see if I could raise it, but since I'm such a lazy bastard, I don't. (And yet, I keep playing Pokemon...I'm just weird like that)

Btw, there is no such thing as good or evil. People do bad things. People do good things. People repent for the bad they do. People make up for the good things they do with bad. There is not one selfless person in the world.

I can agree with most of the stuff you said, except for the selfish part. There are selfish people on earth, hell, I'm working on that myself. But let's not get into that (Debates on Life styles never end good...)

[Greatchickenman]

I said there is not one selfless person in the world. Meaning everyone is selfish. Some just arent as selfish as others.

[SockHyren]

Oh! Aren't I a non-reading dumbass! XP LOL! Sorry about that! Anyway, yeah, I agree with what you said, it couldn't be more straight foward than that.

[DSOK]

It would have something to do with the fact that the she's a leader in a gang of murderous professional criminals.

Well, if we use that logic, then every single person on the Way is unforgivably evil and must be killed in some horrenously f'ed up way.

I have two things to say to this. First, is it somehow impossible for everybody in a game to be evil? Evil is not defined by comparison to some average level of morality. Evil is measured on an absolute scale. If everyone's behaves evilly, then they're all evil--end of story.

Second, the above doesn't apply, because what you've said is totally ridiculous, and there are lots of people on The Way who are clearly not evil.

For example, we have the Guided, who are for some reason trapped in the Old Testement;

Many (most perhaps) of the Guided are evil, yes.

The Vigilance, who are just murderers who kill the other murderers and say it's in the name of Justice;

They eliminate murders only because that is justice. Your argument in this instance is actually circular, but I'll leave it to you to puzzle out how.

The Blood Lyn who are killers for Hire

The Blood Lyn are mercenaries. That's not the most noble profession, in general, but its not completely incompatable with morality. Kloe, while hardly a paragon of virtue, seems, at root, to be a caring but troubled person. She murdered only in an understandable fit of passion.

and obviously, the Blue Scarves, who are self-explanitory.

Yep, they're evil (at least the real Blue Scarves, not necessarily all the poseurs in Estrana).

SO, if we used your logic, it would be completely just if Rhue decided to rip out a Machine Gun (Not Seriously) and pumped ever person on the Way with 50 pounds of F*** you. Then, being that he's evil for killing every person he met, he should shoot himself. You get what I'm saying?

No.

Seriously, I have no idea what you are talking about.

You people seem to have very little conception of what evil really means. I attribute it to two things in the main. One is typical adolescent solipsism and the consequent desire that everyone should be judged by their innermost emotional worthiness. The other is that you get so used to killing people in electronic RPGs that you forget the actual moral and ethical consequences attendant upon such killing. This is something easily glossed over in most games, but in The Way, where ethos is such an integral part of the story, these things must be considered more carefully, in a more realistic scheme of morality.

[SockHyren]

I have two things to say to this. First, is it somehow impossible for everybody in a game to be evil?

First off, did I ever say that? Really, if I did i must be dumber than I thought, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Nor did I imply that in my first statement. You just effectively put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head, but that's nothing to bitch about...

Evil is measured on an absolute scale. If everyone's behaves evilly, then they're all evil--end of story.

That's one of the points I was trying to get across. But apparently, you read it wrong.

They eliminate murders only because that is justice. Your argument in this instance is actually circular, but I'll leave it to you to puzzle out how.

That is justice in your OPINION. No, I'm not saying to let all of the murderers of the world out and let them have cookies and children. But, executing them doesn't make us exactly better than they are. Agian, this is only my opinion, I'm not forcing this on you as truth. But, of what I've heard about executions, the people there are basically saying "I wish he'd suffer!" or, "I wish I could kill him myself". Do I blame them? NO, but is it right? Agian, No. And yes, I see how my statement was circular and I should have worded it differently, I admit to that (Total puzzling time, 5 seconds). But, I also forgot to mention that the Vigilance or, more or less, Totalitarian in thier beliefs. The head councilman made it clear that he DIDN'T think that the peopleknew anything that was good for them, and from that statement I draw that if you gave them a chane, they would put themselves up as supreme, and basically enforce thier laws so feircely that it would spring a rebelion.

Second, the above doesn't apply, because what you've said is totally ridiculous, and there are lots of people on The Way who are clearly not evil.

Can you point some out to me? I mean, I do know some of them are NOT evil, but, there's alot of them who are.

Many (most perhaps) of the Guided are evil, yes.

How is that? Yes, they did some bigotted things that are evil, but what else they do? I only say this because, like the Vigilance, they for the most beleived that they wanted what was best for the public (i.e. they didn't want wanderes to settle because they didn't want another catastrophe (like Jarwen) to happen). Does that mean that all of the things they do are perfectly right, Hell no. But, they do have a positive motive, right?

The Blood Lyn are mercenaries. That's not the most noble profession, in general, but its not completely incompatable with morality. Kloe, while hardly a paragon of virtue, seems, at root, to be a caring but troubled person. She murdered only in an understandable fit of passion.

Yes, the Blood Lyn are mercenaries, and killing is part of the job, I'm not belittling that. But I DO have something have something to say on the part about Mistress Attatchment Issue (Kloe).
Kloe DID kill out of a fit of passion, but is that exactly a valid excuse? I mean, the woman who ran her huisband over multiple times was also in an "understandable fit of passion", BUT in no way does that belittle the fact that you killed someone. Yes, the mayor might have had it comming, but, in no way of the word is that right. The Blood Lyn knew this, and even Gaius figured it out, and that's why The Bloods wanted her dead.

Yes, Kloe IS a caring person deep down, and can be shown mercy due to that. But so is Cetsa. Cetsa, like Kloe, isn't a paragon of virtue, BUT unlike Kloe, she was willing to not only fess up to it, she was willing, and started to change. This shows when she told Rhue (Although Scatha had to Help) that she was lying when she said she was Serena, and how she really got the pendant. Even if Scatha had to push her a bit into it (thought not that much), that took alot of guts to Tell somone like Rhue that (Being that Rhue, in a way, lives in Fantasy land and likes to kill those who don't match thier words to his idea of what thet should be), and there is the fact that she didn't Kill anyone when they were in the Pit; she EVEN tried to help Slade, the guy who put her in jail, and ended up stabbed because of it. You can also add the fact that, even though of her Badit Lord status, she dosn't like to kill and only does it as a last resort.

But; only according to how you post, I don't read minds, you'll more than likely try to shjot this arguement down, when you clearly used the same arguement (The "She's good deep down" one) to defend Kloe (Do I smell the Main Character Clause(sp?)?).

No.

Seriously, I have no idea what you are talking about.

You people seem to have very little conception of what evil really means. I attribute it to two things in the main. One is typical adolescent solipsism and the consequent desire that everyone should be judged by their innermost emotional worthiness.

You do the same thing man(The Kloe statement).

The other is that you get so used to killing people in electronic RPGs that you forget the actual moral and ethical consequences attendant upon such killing. This is something easily glossed over in most games, but in The Way, where ethos is such an integral part of the story, these things must be considered more carefully, in a more realistic scheme of morality.

Agian, no matter how many words you put into it, you do the same thing. No, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but, what I do see in you arguements are judging minor and "obviously" villian like characters while you judge major and somewhat "good" characters with the "He/She's good deep down" arguement, or the Main Character Clause as I call it. Agian, I'm not the smartest person in the world, and I might have missed somethings, I'm just going on what I've seen.

[DSOK]

First off, did I ever say that? Really, if I did i must be dumber than I thought, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Nor did I imply that in my first statement. You just effectively put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head, but that's nothing to bitch about...

You said--erroneously--that according to my logic, everybody on The Way would be evil. Since you pretty obviously seemed to disagree with what you perceived to be my logic, one would think you might doubt its conclusions. In fact, you presented the idea that everyone should be evil as a subject for mockery; my inference that you didn't agree with that possibility followed pretty naturally.

If you meant something else, fine. I just don't have the faintest idea what.

Evil is measured on an absolute scale. If everyone's behaves evilly, then they're all evil--end of story.

That's one of the points I was trying to get across. But apparently, you read it wrong.

Reading your original post, I do see an embryo of this. However, that was all in the last paragraph. My concern was to respond to your statements in the next-to-last paragraph, predicated as they were on a gross misstatement of my thinking. I will withdraw this particluar point as a criticism of what you said.

That is justice in your OPINION. No, I'm not saying to let all of the murderers of the world out and let them have cookies and children. But, executing them doesn't make us exactly better than they are. Agian, this is only my opinion, I'm not forcing this on you as truth. But, of what I've heard about executions, the people there are basically saying "I wish he'd suffer!" or, "I wish I could kill him myself". Do I blame them? NO, but is it right? Agian, No.

Here, I think we find the crux of your confusion. I may (I don't recall) have said that I didn't think Cetsa and/or Strata were entitled to any mercy, but that doesn't mean that I'm against mercy for them. I don't think they must be "drug out into the street and shot," but, neither do I believe that the Vigilance Council's policy of doing this is wrong. There are many ways of reaching justice.

Can you point some out to me? I mean, I do know some of them are NOT evil, but, there's alot of them who are.

Rhan, Rhan's unfortunate girlfriend, Alan, Scatha, Dirk, Slade, Jed, Lyrra, Traziun....

Many (most perhaps) of the Guided are evil, yes.

How is that? Yes, they did some bigotted things that are evil, but what else they do? I only say this because, like the Vigilance, they for the most beleived that they wanted what was best for the public (i.e. they didn't want wanderes to settle because they didn't want another catastrophe (like Jarwen) to happen). Does that mean that all of the things they do are perfectly right, Hell no. But, they do have a positive motive, right?

This is where again you seem to think that evil is somehow relatively determined. It is not whether a killer believes what he is doing is wrong that makes it murder, it is whether it is wrong. The Vigilantes--an effectively governmental organization--kill for the same reasons that the State of Texas kills. You may argue the moral worthiness of this punishment (and it is clearly not morally neutral), but it is not evil. The Guided kill people because they settle. This is evil. The idea that they want to prevent settling to avoid another disaster like the burning of Janwen is a totally bogus justifcation. It's like the famous quote from the Vietnam war, "We had to detroy the village to save it."

There's actually an even more apt Vietnam analogy. Many people at home in America opposed the war because they didn't want to see people--our boys--dying overseas in some unwinnable conflict. They came to hate the government, the war, and even the returning soldiers. The veterans came back and were treated like garbage for fighting in a war that many people opposed; yet the main reason for that opposition in the first place was people's concern about those selfsame soldiers. The Guided do much the same thing as the anti-war protesters, except the Guided's version is even bloodier and worse. They kill the settlers, to prevent the settlers from being killed in some later disaster.

(I apologize here to any non-Americans who may not follow all this.)

Yes, the Blood Lyn are mercenaries, and killing is part of the job, I'm not belittling that. But I DO have something have something to say on the part about Mistress Attatchment Issue (Kloe).
Kloe DID kill out of a fit of passion, but is that exactly a valid excuse? I mean, the woman who ran her huisband over multiple times was also in an "understandable fit of passion", BUT in no way does that belittle the fact that you killed someone. Yes, the mayor might have had it comming, but, in no way of the word is that right. The Blood Lyn knew this, and even Gaius figured it out, and that's why The Bloods wanted her dead.

Killing in the heat of passion is not an excuse, but it is mitigation. One can commit an isolated evil act without being essentially evil. (You seem to believe that I have said otherwise, but I have not.)

The Blood Lyn wanted Kloe dead not for any moral reason, but because she had violated their rules. She had killed her employer. This not only loses the group a customer, it also calls into question their basic trustworthyness as mercenaries.

Yes, Kloe IS a caring person deep down, and can be shown mercy due to that. But so is Cetsa. Cetsa, like Kloe, isn't a paragon of virtue, BUT unlike Kloe, she was willing to not only fess up to it, she was willing, and started to change. This shows when she told Rhue (Although Scatha had to Help) that she was lying when she said she was Serena, and how she really got the pendant. Even if Scatha had to push her a bit into it (thought not that much), that took alot of guts to Tell somone like Rhue that (Being that Rhue, in a way, lives in Fantasy land and likes to kill those who don't match thier words to his idea of what thet should be), and there is the fact that she didn't Kill anyone when they were in the Pit; she EVEN tried to help Slade, the guy who put her in jail, and ended up stabbed because of it. You can also add the fact that, even though of her Badit Lord status, she dosn't like to kill and only does it as a last resort.

There's no reason why Cetsa can't receive mercy, but her death still serves the cause of justice. Her charitable acts are not very compelling. Scatha basically forces her to tell the truth, and her statement that she preferred not to kill is self-serving and uncorroborated. (That is not to say the Violet does not believe it herself, but it's easy to fool oneself into believing one is a better person than one actually is.) There is also the unanswered philosophical question of whether preferring not to kill, yet doing it anyway, makes one less evil at all!

But; only according to how you post, I don't read minds, you'll more than likely try to shjot this arguement down, when you clearly used the same arguement (The "She's good deep down" one) to defend Kloe (Do I smell the Main Character Clause(sp?)?).

I was careful not call Kloe "good." I said she was "caring." Her compounded evil is, thus far, not so great that it could not be redeemed. Cetsa, on the other hand, had murdered so many, that she could really only make good on her past by knowingly going to her death in order to save someone. That's not how she dies. She attempts to help Slade, with no expectation that there will be risk to her. This is not sufficient atonement for her crimes.

Agian, no matter how many words you put into it, you do the same thing. No, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but, what I do see in you arguements are judging minor and "obviously" villian like characters while you judge major and somewhat "good" characters with the "He/She's good deep down" arguement, or the Main Character Clause as I call it. Agian, I'm not the smartest person in the world, and I might have missed somethings, I'm just going on what I've seen.

Yes, you missed that I never called anybody "good deep down." I think many of the major characters are evil; I mentioned a few above who don't seem evil, per se, but they may not show any particular evidence of good either. (Scatha, for example, is not evil, but she clearly does not base what she decides to do on a primarily moral decision-making process.)

And merely because I do not mention somebody as evil, that does not mean I consider them good. (Recall my earlier remark that it's quite possible for everyone in the game to be evil.) One specific example in this regard is important. I have not passed any moral judgements on Rhue, because he is clearly enchanted. Real-world standards of morality cannot apply to somebody under the influence of mind control magic. Until we know more about the nature of whatever is affecting Rhue's consciousness, it is impossible to ascertain where he stands on the good-evil axis.

[Alundra]

I like big butts... i mean big posts

[blaksun]

I agree. DSOK, that post was too long, and we, the Internet Folk, do not have the attention span required to read a post of that magnitude.
FAILKEDEDED.

v.v

[Dr. Casey]

Nah, long and interesting posts are hard not to read. Hyren's doing a good job too.

[Telephalsion]

I havent read it, it's 1 am