Strong Female Protagonist II

[Fjolnir]

He's definitely going to explain why feeling guilt here makes her less of a tyrant than she thinks she is, and point her in a direction where she can seek help...

[Kantaki]

Which is a weak point of the story, IMO. It would have had more of a point if it didn't go out of its way to demonize the victims of supervigilantism. Moonshadow Mary is "pretty sure" that all the people she killed were really guilty; the John Galt parody had it coming, etc. Everything is fine, there's no real moral dilemma.

That he had it coming doesn't change that Ali’s stunt was utterly wrong.
If if really had helped to safe „countless lifes” it would still be questionable at best, but since the only change seems to be that Tara only has to spend a few hours every month for her organ donations- without actually donating more -Alison basically tortured someone just to improve a friends life.
Still a noble goal, but if anything it makes her means worse.
One could even argue that the fact that Max kida deserved some of this makes the situation worse.
Just because it makes Alison’s actions easier to accept.

Mary... Well, lets just say that even if every single of her victims was guilty murdering them would still be... iffy in most cases.

So yeah, even if (some of) the victims* were jerks I consider the way both characters acted in those situations pretty much wrong.

*Most of those we got to see I guess.

[Guancyto]

Which is a weak point of the story, IMO. It would have had more of a point if it didn't go out of its way to demonize the victims of supervigilantism. Moonshadow Mary is "pretty sure" that all the people she killed were really guilty; the John Galt parody had it coming, etc. Everything is fine, there's no real moral dilemma.

Re: Mary, apparently the Punisher story that absolutely everyone wants to write and no editor will ever sign off on is "Punisher gets the wrong guy and kills someone who didn't do anything."

Which means that everyone, absolutely everyone he kills is super guilty. Which is frankly absurd! When you are a roving vigilante murder-machine, you will eventually mess up by sheer statistics. Goodness knows the, y'know, actual justice system messes up by sheer statistics, even before you start getting into misconduct (prosecutors gotta get them conviction statistics. Withholding evidence that would help the defense? That sounds like "winning"!)

Mary is almost certainly correct that she is better equipped than the legal system to ensure that consequences fall upon the guilty (by an order of magnitude, even). But she's not perfect. Can't be. That would make her an absurd caricature like the Punisher.

[virgileso]

If if really had helped to safe „countless lifes” it would still be questionable at best, but since the only change seems to be that Tara only has to spend a few hours every month for her organ donations- without actually donating more -Alison basically tortured someone just to improve a friends life.

That's not what the doctor explained. Tara not only has to spend less than a part time job under the knife, but she is donating several orders of magnitude more, to the point of being able to supply the world with blood and organs at a greater rate than their infrastructure can process. That truly and objectively is saving countless lives. You don't have to be some kind of utilitarian monster gargling out twisted Spock quotes to accept what she's done as ultimately good - this is one of the most extreme variations of the trolley problem imaginable, and accepting the most extreme version absolutely does not make you beholden to the opposite extreme.

A big annoyance on my part is that Al has already committed worse crimes than what she did to Max, but people are reacting as if this act is worse (dramatically so, for some). Not as big of annoyance as the rhetoric that accepting strong-arming one guy for a couple hours to save countless lives means you must therefore accept even someone like the greatest possible superhero.

There are existential concerns about the act in terms of Al letting loose and becoming Disproportionate Retribution Woman and/or Dictator Supreme because of her individual power level, but that's hardly a new insight with her character. As her other crimes haven't made her devolve into some variation on Cleaver, it's not a big concern in practice, at least compared to before this arc. A more legitimately founded worry is her continued lack of concern about Max - she's only accepting the horror of what she's done in terms of the act itself, with no actual concern of the person wronged. That is arguably sociopathic and definitely selfishness on her part, which is both very consistent of her character (kudos on the author) and probably the real issue.

[Kantaki]

That's not what the doctor explained. Tara not only has to spend less than a part time job under the knife, but she is donating several orders of magnitude more, to the point of being able to supply the world with blood and organs at a greater rate than their infrastructure can process. That truly and objectively is saving countless lives. You don't have to be some kind of utilitarian monster gargling out twisted Spock quotes to accept what she's done as ultimately good - this is one of the most extreme variations of the trolley problem imaginable, and accepting the most extreme version absolutely does not make you beholden to the opposite extreme.

Eh, to be honest?
Might have misinterpreted the explanation.
The way I understood it the fourty hours a month would yield the same amount of organs that they got from the 24/7 operation before the boost and any more would give them trouble from the logistics.

But even if she can provide enough organs for everyone who needs them I still wouldn't say it saves countless lives.
It is at very least exaggerated.
I mean there is no way they get those organs everywhere where they are needed.
Even if they solve the various logistical problems.

[virgileso]

But even if she can provide enough organs for everyone who needs them I still wouldn't say it saves countless lives.
It is at very least exaggerated.
I mean there is no way they get those organs everywhere where they are needed.
Even if they solve the various logistical problems.

I am using the literal definition of the word countless. She regrows her heart 8-10 times in a minute rather than a day now, which is over 1400 times faster. In 40 hours of operation, she is providing as many organs as she would have in nearly four years before she was upgraded. This is orders of magnitude more lives saved than the previous arrangement, and with infrastructure being the only real bottleneck (as I stated before), it is non-trivial to estimate the number of lives that will be saves. Hence, my use of the word 'countless'; but it's doubtless a dramatic improvement.

[Frozen_Feet]

Re: Mary, apparently the Punisher story that absolutely everyone wants to write and no editor will ever sign off on is "Punisher gets the wrong guy and kills someone who didn't do anything."

Hmmm? Not sure what you're trying to get at, but: I don't know how many stories there are where Punisher killed the wrong guy, but he has pursued the wrong guy (f.ex. Spiderman) multiple times and there are more idealistic superheroes who basically attack Punisher on sight because of his objectionable methods. Heck, in Civil War storyline Punisher shot a couple of ex-villains who showed up to help the anti-registeration side; he was immediately chastised for it.

Also, there is a storyline where Punisher admits to himself and the police who capture him that what he does is probably wrong and doesn't make the world a better place.

[137beth]

New one is up. That's...still not a lot.
For that matter, I don't think I know any professors who aren't happy to talk about their work.

[Traab]

I think he is trying really hard to distract her. Its hard to focus on how depressed and emo you are when the person you are talking to is confusing the hell out of you. Might make it easier to hear what he is saying and accept it if she has just stumbled her way out of the pit of despair for a moment.

[Leewei]

New one is up. That's...still not a lot.
For that matter, I don't think I know any professors who aren't happy to talk about their work.

She's getting his two cents' worth.

[Morquard]

There's a theory that I heard, that if you pay for some service, or opinion, you're more likely to accept it. It's why when a psychologist tells people what they really already know, and what everyone around them already told them, somehow it now makes much more sense. It might be that even this small amount of money is enough to trigger that response from the brain.

Or it's simply to confuse and distract her, so she's more open to some other point of view.

Or he just likes messing with people.

[The Glyphstone]

Or all of the above. She offered him a penny for his thoughts, and now he's giving her his two cents' worth.

[Traab]

Ok, so the latest update is awesome. I wonder if he is still working towards the whole, "There is no real right answer here, as any stance can be logically justified." angle. Because lets face it, both sides of this debate are totally correct. She is a criminal for her actions, and her actions have just saved thousands of lives, potentially hundreds of thousands, while at the same time greatly improving ferals quality of life for the cost of scaring the crap out of a jackass and forcing him to do something good. So yeah, this isnt something the professor can actually decide, as its up to allison to decide if what she did was something she can live with. Also, I cant help but be a bit surprised that she was willing to tell this unmitigated ass about this serious issue of hers. Dude flunked her out of his class and has made it fairly clear that he means it.

[BRC]

Ok, so the latest update is awesome. I wonder if he is still working towards the whole, "There is no real right answer here, as any stance can be logically justified." angle. Because lets face it, both sides of this debate are totally correct. She is a criminal for her actions, and her actions have just saved thousands of lives, potentially hundreds of thousands, while at the same time greatly improving ferals quality of life for the cost of scaring the crap out of a jackass and forcing him to do something good. So yeah, this isnt something the professor can actually decide, as its up to allison to decide if what she did was something she can live with. Also, I cant help but be a bit surprised that she was willing to tell this unmitigated ass about this serious issue of hers. Dude flunked her out of his class and has made it fairly clear that he means it.

Eh, it makes sense to me.

She's worried that she's headed down the path of well-intentioned Tyranny. Accountable to no-one, effectively above the law, and able to enforce her will on just about anybody.

In fact, she did just that. She used her power to force jerkface to do something against his will. That's a slippery slope, and she knows it. She's trying to get some perspective here But, she doesn't have a lot of people she can talk about it with, because who would be willing to call her out?

Who would be willing to tell the girl who just saved countless lives, and freed another from perpetual agony "Yeah, you're a monster"? Who would be willing to tell the living superweapon that she was wrong?

Well, this particular unmitigated ass already did just that. He flunked her (While giving an entire class a free pass) for a teaching moment, and referred to her general good-will axiom (We're all in this together) as "The Axiom of a Tyrant". He's clearly not afraid of hurting her feelings or pissing her off.

[137beth]

And Guwara's 2 Cents explanation continues.

[Traab]

Yeah, its basically boiling down to a far more longwinded version of, "Hell if I know, either argument can be fully justified, its a matter of opinion in the end, not objective fact. I cant say you are right or wrong as if I was discussing simple truth, because matters of morals and ethics are rarely ever so clear cut."

[Kantaki]

The Prof is as helpful as a axe to the face.
Very. Under the right circumstances.

And for Alison those are the right circumstances.

[Lethologica]

In Soviet Russia, duck watches you.

[Ibrinar]

I think the real lesson she should learn is that she threatens in the wrong way. Violent threats well nobody likes violent threats. She could have tried making some subtile threats about exposing him. But what she really should have done is get the government involved . Convince them that he is to useful to not use and let them make up some legal fiction to press someone into service and threaten him punish him for non compliance with the usual ways. It would have taken longer but seeing how useful permanent power boosts are I see a decent chance of it working. The ethical question doesn't actually change that much, but it will feel differently.

(Okay she probably doesn't want them to start forcing supers into working for them so not actually an good option.)

[Vinyadan]

I'll be honest, after the "I want 2 pennies, not just one" thing, I was hoping that the Prof would take off with a "do you find that numbers are important in this case?" and follow through with a deconstruction of democracy and rule by majority, finally exalting the goods of authoritarianism, and why it's the best option. I would have laughed so hard.

[Dragonus45]

Re: Mary, apparently the Punisher story that absolutely everyone wants to write and no editor will ever sign off on is "Punisher gets the wrong guy and kills someone who didn't do anything."

Which means that everyone, absolutely everyone he kills is super guilty. Which is frankly absurd! When you are a roving vigilante murder-machine, you will eventually mess up by sheer statistics. Goodness knows the, y'know, actual justice system messes up by sheer statistics, even before you start getting into misconduct (prosecutors gotta get them conviction statistics. Withholding evidence that would help the defense? That sounds like "winning"!)

Mary is almost certainly correct that she is better equipped than the legal system to ensure that consequences fall upon the guilty (by an order of magnitude, even). But she's not perfect. Can't be. That would make her an absurd caricature like the Punisher.

I think they did follow an idea like that with the Ultimate Punisher when he accidentally shot Ultimate Peter Parker and believed he had killed him. He pretty much walked up to the nearest cop put a gun in the guys hand and begged him to shoot him.

That's not what the doctor explained. Tara not only has to spend less than a part time job under the knife, but she is donating several orders of magnitude more, to the point of being able to supply the world with blood and organs at a greater rate than their infrastructure can process. That truly and objectively is saving countless lives. You don't have to be some kind of utilitarian monster gargling out twisted Spock quotes to accept what she's done as ultimately good - this is one of the most extreme variations of the trolley problem imaginable, and accepting the most extreme version absolutely does not make you beholden to the opposite extreme.

A big annoyance on my part is that Al has already committed worse crimes than what she did to Max, but people are reacting as if this act is worse (dramatically so, for some). Not as big of annoyance as the rhetoric that accepting strong-arming one guy for a couple hours to save countless lives means you must therefore accept even someone like the greatest possible superhero.

There are existential concerns about the act in terms of Al letting loose and becoming Disproportionate Retribution Woman and/or Dictator Supreme because of her individual power level, but that's hardly a new insight with her character. As her other crimes haven't made her devolve into some variation on Cleaver, it's not a big concern in practice, at least compared to before this arc. A more legitimately founded worry is her continued lack of concern about Max - she's only accepting the horror of what she's done in terms of the act itself, with no actual concern of the person wronged. That is arguably sociopathic and definitely selfishness on her part, which is both very consistent of her character (kudos on the author) and probably the real issue.

For me the reason this act seemed to cross a line has a lot to do with her otherwise being a champion for consent and a person right to make their own choices about themselves and their bodies. Then she turns around and uses physical force to demand someone perform acts they would rather not, and on top of it all the characterization of Galtbot 5000 took a supreme left turn down the toilet for the sake of making Alison's act suddenly have moral grey. Which is also ironic that they are so willing to blame the victim. He was asking for it really. And all of that literally right after an arc about a madwoman serial killer targeting accused rapists on rather shaky evidence and interrogations involving notoriously unreliable truth serums that still portrayed her as right after capturing and torturing a clearly innocent man before using him him to commit an act of domestic terrorism by proxy resulting in his death. The hypocrisy of the authors bothers me as much as anything Al is doing here.

[137beth]

And the self-arguing seems to have concluded.

[Traab]

Ok so, a bit of that went over my head, did he basically just lead her to understand she was following her own personal axiom when she did what she did? So this wasnt a departure from her own character, it was actually the way she is supposed to act if she wants to hold true to her beliefs. At least if you take them to one of their logical extremes. Still not sure if this is going to help her or not, if her actions are right or not, but I get the feeling he doesnt intend to give her a yes or no answer as he could have done that in a far less exhausting fashion.

[tomandtish]

Re: Mary, apparently the Punisher story that absolutely everyone wants to write and no editor will ever sign off on is "Punisher gets the wrong guy and kills someone who didn't do anything."

I think they did follow an idea like that with the Ultimate Punisher when he accidentally shot Ultimate Peter Parker and believed he had killed him. He pretty much walked up to the nearest cop put a gun in the guys hand and begged him to shoot him.

It's actually a major part of the plot in the Punisher: Warzone movie.

[BRC]

For me the reason this act seemed to cross a line has a lot to do with her otherwise being a champion for consent and a person right to make their own choices about themselves and their bodies. Then she turns around and uses physical force to demand someone perform acts they would rather not, and on top of it all the characterization of Galtbot 5000 took a supreme left turn down the toilet for the sake of making Alison's act suddenly have moral grey. Which is also ironic that they are so willing to blame the victim. He was asking for it really. And all of that literally right after an arc about a madwoman serial killer targeting accused rapists on rather shaky evidence and interrogations involving notoriously unreliable truth serums that still portrayed her as right after capturing and torturing a clearly innocent man before using him him to commit an act of domestic terrorism by proxy resulting in his death. The hypocrisy of the authors bothers me as much as anything Al is doing here.

I think what you are calling "Hypocrisy", is what the authors are trying to set up as a deliberate parallel.


The Last Arc was about the classic "Well-intentioned Extremist" villain, whose ideals at least generally line up with those of the audience/protagonist, but whose methods are clearly immoral and unacceptable.
Moonshadow Thought she was doing the right thing, and her targets were clearly *******s, but in the end she was still very much wrong. I don't know where you got the idea that we were supposed to think that Moonshadow was right. We (And Allison), sympathize with her viewpoint, but still disagree (Allison was trying to bring her in until the very end, but she got away).
Moonshadow does a Bad Thing (Murder) to Bad People (Rapists), For a Good End (Justice)

This whole comic is partially a thought experiment, and this arc is about Allison making the same kind of transgression. She does a Bad Thing (Forcing him to use his powers, less bad than murdering him, but still pretty bad), to a Bad Person (Guy's a jerk, not as bad as Moonshadow's targets, just a garden-variety *******), for a Good End (Getting Feral out of perpetual Torment, saving countless lives).

The whole "Ends justify the means" question is exactly what this arc is supposed to be asking.

Last Arc

Means: Cold-Blooded Murder because Moonshadow decided they were guilty.
Ends: Justice, kind of?
Outcome: "Yeah, these guys deserved to be punished, but by the justice system, not by an invisible vigilante murderer". Ends DO NOT justify the means.

This arc
Means: From what we can tell, Allison violated his personal autonomy, forcing him to do something he very much did not want to do.
Ends: Countless lives saved, one of the most selfless people to ever live freed from perpetual agony.

Murder is more evil than forcing the ******* to use his powers. Helping Feral is more good than getting Justice for the victims.

If the Greater Evil doesn't justify the Lesser Good, does this lesser evil justify this greater good?

That's what this arc is supposed to make us think about, and I'd be surprised if they come out with a solid answer.

[Traab]

OH MY GOD HE IS TROLLING HER SO DANG HARD RIGHT NOW! I am so turned and twisted around that I cant even begin to comprehend if he even has a point or is just insisting on covering every angle possible to drive allison into insanity. I mean, im pretty sure his point is still "There is no objective factual answer here, literally every standpoint can be argued, and most of them are correct." but I think she is going to punt him into outer space if he whiplashes her a couple more times.

[The Glyphstone]

Meanwhile, the comments section is entirely about ducks and the creepiness thereof. They've got their priorities in order.

[Ibrinar]

Ducks are creepy. It is known!

[Dragonus45]

I don't know where you got the idea that we were supposed to think that Moonshadow was right.

Description of Moonshadow from official page.

MARY KIM/MOONSHADOW
FIRST APPEARANCE: ISSUE 1, LATEST APPEARANCE: ISSUE 5
Used to be in the Guardians, using her light bending powers to fight supervillains; lately she’s struck out on her own and has been fighting a different kind of evil.

[The Glyphstone]

Just says she's fighting a different kind of evil. Doesn't say anything about her methods; I also distinctly took the Moonshadow arc as commentary along the lines of 'she who fights monsters yadaa yadaa', by showing how Mary had started with benevolent intentions and gone full Knight Templar psycho by the end.