|
Flesh Forge posted:Yeah but he was just a rapist scumbag Murder is always wrong, even if the victim is really bad. This doesn't mean killing people is always wrong, but murder is.
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 23:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 23:29 |
|
|
Obviously it's not murder when the murderee is a rapist, because you can only murder people and rapists aren't people
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 23:37
|
|
|
Good luck Paladin.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 00:01
|
|
|
The writing is not...great, but it makes sense. Alison is a modern day collage (female) version of superman. But since she a modern person with a typical outlook on life she wants to help but have no idea on how to do it. So even though she meets all these crazy assholes with dumb and/or delusional goals (moonshadow yes but also feral, since she basically only wanted to be punished of her dubious past with her ridiculously painful organ donation bullshit) but she can't really say much to stop them because while they are crazy at least they believe in something goddammit. And she doesn't. But yeah, this comic needs an editor.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 03:05
|
|
|
Comic needs a cupcake product placement.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 04:58
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:It's a bit disjointed but her two first points are "I think what Mary's torture and murder schtick is wrong" and "I think it was wrong of me to do anything about it". Iunno man. She didn't say it was wrong to stop Moonshadow. What she said was, "was that the best thing I could be doing?" What Alison is having a crisis about here is related to what Pintsize said to her earlier in this issue; she's basically just going to college like a normal person and not really doing anything with her powers. She's worried she's wasting her time waiting for an opportunity that might never actually come up, and stuff like stopping Moonshadow, while good, is just a distraction from the problems she really should be worrying about. She's not suggesting that Moonshadow is more moral than her, she's saying she's been more effective. She may have saved a few starfish (by murdering seagulls) while Alison has been trying to figure out a way to sweep the whole beach clean at once and accomplished nothing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 05:00
|
|
|
I hope this is the endpoint of this comic
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 07:13
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:She didn't say it was wrong to stop Moonshadow. To be fair it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that the comic's justifying Moonshadow's actions when she's mentioned in the same breath as the woman living in perpetual organ donor hell. I mean, a charitable interpretation is that Alison putting the woman that's ending countless lives and the woman that's saving countless lives on the same level is showing how Allison's view of the world is messed up, I'm just not feeling that charitable to the comic anymore.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 11:00
|
|
|
This comic is bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 11:09
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:She didn't say it was wrong to stop Moonshadow. What she said was, "was that the best thing I could be doing?" What Alison is having a crisis about here is related to what Pintsize said to her earlier in this issue; she's basically just going to college like a normal person and not really doing anything with her powers. She's worried she's wasting her time waiting for an opportunity that might never actually come up, and stuff like stopping Moonshadow, while good, is just a distraction from the problems she really should be worrying about. Allison says, "Moonshadow wants to use lethal violence as a tool for social change. I think that's wrong. Pintsize thinks fighting crime of any type is correct and good. I think that's wrong." It's pretty hard for me to interpret this other than "Moonshadow's type of crime should not be opposed." Yes it's vague, because imo Mulligan is being a bit of a weasel, but to me it's super blatant. quote:She's not suggesting that Moonshadow is more moral than her, she's saying she's been more effective. She may have saved a few starfish (by murdering seagulls) while Alison has been trying to figure out a way to sweep the whole beach clean at once and accomplished nothing. Also, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this. e: If you're saying that Allison thinks Moonshadow's torture and murder spree has been effective at anything aside from making people dead in gruesome ways (and I feel that it has not) then you're endorsing a pretty deplorable thing there (or at least Allison is) Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Oct 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 11:14
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:Allison says, "Moonshadow wants to use lethal violence as a tool for social change. I think that's wrong. Pintsize thinks fighting crime of any type is correct and good. I think that's wrong." It's pretty hard for me to interpret this other than "Moonshadow's type of crime should not be opposed." Yes it's vague, because imo Mulligan is being a bit of a weasel, but to me it's super blatant. This webcomic desperately needs an editor, or an author and artist who don't plug their ears to criticism when people point out that guns don't fire the entire cartridge. This could be a very emotional point in the comic; our She's got a really strong conflict but she's written so poorly, and this chapter is so bloated with wasted scenes and monologues that it's hard to care at this point. Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Oct 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 14:44
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:Allison says, "Moonshadow wants to use lethal violence as a tool for social change. I think that's wrong. Pintsize thinks fighting crime of any type is correct and good. I think that's wrong." It's pretty hard for me to interpret this other than "Moonshadow's type of crime should not be opposed." Yes it's vague, because imo Mulligan is being a bit of a weasel, but to me it's super blatant. ...but that's the exact line where she says it's wrong? This doesn't seem particularly confusing to me. Alison lists three people that she feels have done wrong things, and explains why they're wrong (in Moonshadow's case "lethal violence" is supposed to be an explanation). I'm not sure how you interpret this as Alison saying she's correct or shouldn't be opposed. The line about fighting crime of any type doesn't mean one should fight crime of no type, ever, it's a callback to what Sonar told her about the Guardians destroying conventional criminals and being asked to go after drug offenders. Pintsize is 100% okay with this because his brief is "crime-fighting", full stop. The idea of superheroes beating up people guilty of nonviolent drug offenses doesn't trouble him. What she's primarily questioning in this monologue is not the morality of Moonshadow's actions. It's her own motivations for going after her. She's saying, "did I try to stop Moonshadow because it was the best thing I could do at that moment, or was I doing it just because I wanted her to acknowledge that I'm right about changing the world and she's wrong?" The question she's asking is about whether complete inaction until a perfect solution can be found is actually the right thing to do, a question that has come up in this thread multiple times as we've talked about the comic. Flesh Forge posted:e: If you're saying that Allison thinks Moonshadow's torture and murder spree has been effective at anything aside from making people dead in gruesome ways (and I feel that it has not) then you're endorsing a pretty deplorable thing there (or at least Allison is) It has been very, very effective. None of the people she killed will ever rape anyone ever again. You might say, "but it isn't right to murder dozens or maybe even hundreds of people in order to prevent one or two rapes", and I would agree with you, and Alison would agree with you, but Moonshadow wouldn't. That's what she's decided is right. She kills rapists and thereby saves anyone that they might rape in the future from being raped. It's the entire point of her little starfish speech. Even if her murder spree causes no social change at all, and doesn't fix the whole beach, at the very least she will feel she's saved any future victims of the particular rapists she has murdered. She clearly also wants to discourage other people from committing rape, since they might think "this would be fun, but then I might get murdered by a crazy invisible superhero", but that effect is harder to judge while the number of rapes that can be committed by dead people can clearly be seen to be zero.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 19:02
|
|
|
quote:It has been very, very effective. None of the people she killed will ever rape anyone ever again. You might say, "but it isn't right to murder dozens or maybe even hundreds of people in order to prevent one or two rapes", and I would agree with you, and Alison would agree with you, but Moonshadow wouldn't. That's what she's decided is right. She kills rapists and thereby saves anyone that they might rape in the future from being raped. It's the entire point of her little starfish speech. Even if her murder spree causes no social change at all, and doesn't fix the whole beach, at the very least she will feel she's saved any future victims of the particular rapists she has murdered. She clearly also wants to discourage other people from committing rape, since they might think "this would be fun, but then I might get murdered by a crazy invisible superhero", but that effect is harder to judge while the number of rapes that can be committed by dead people can clearly be seen to be zero. I remember the little starfish story too! Mary tells it while she's torturing a rapist to death, with a knife! Hmm yes, when you remind me of that no wait it's still pretty loving deplorable ugh. Congratulations on being successfully pandered to I guess. e: Mary says, "And they're still going to say I turned villain! Pouty face!!" Allison says, "..."
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
So some innocent people will be getting a few words carved into them and killed (even Mary acknowledges this), if it discourages even one rape it was totally worth it!
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 20:33
|
|
|
Why stop at just rapists? Why not kill murderers too? Embezzlers? Thieves? Drug traffickers? Tax evaders? Scammers? Internet trolls? I mean if you would just kill 100% of all humanity, you'd get rid of crime forever. Seems like a good idea.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 20:57
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:So some innocent people will be getting a few words carved into them and killed (even Mary acknowledges this), if it discourages even one rape it was totally worth it! That is exactly her belief, yes. She's very explicit about it. She is a character who profoundly objects to rape and is totally okay with torture and murder if it prevents any rape at all. You are welcome to think that's deplorable. It is! But it shouldn't be controversial that that's actually what the character believes, since she says as much. And it shouldn't be controversial that it's effective, because of course dead people don't commit rapes. The moral argument against this is not that it doesn't work, it's that some trades aren't worth making. If I murdered every single human being on the earth, there'd never be a human-on-human rape ever again! Most people would probably consider that a bad trade even though it would be 100% effective.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 20:58
|
|
|
It also happens to be true that it doesn't work. After all, there's only one crazy invisible person with a knife. She's just a fancier vigilante, and those are nothing new. If this character didn't have superpowers, it wouldn't even be a story.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 21:08
|
|
|
Again, it doesn't work as a global solution to the problem, but it works for a handful of specific people. That's all Moonshadow has aspired to with her little speech. She'd love to solve the problem globally, but she doesn't have the tools to do that (or doesn't believe she does). She just has the power to turn invisible, a knife, and a lot of combat training, so she picked a path that she could actually do and went for it. The fact that her path is horribly, horribly wrong is just kind of an inconvenience to her that she can brush off since she's okay classifying rapists in the same mental box she presumably used to put supervillains in when she fought them. Alison wants to solve the global issue. But what's hitting her now is that all of the people who have just decided to go for something might actually be having more of an effect on the world than she is or ever will, positive or negative, since the solution she's looking for might not even exist.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 21:17
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:That is exactly her belief, yes. She's very explicit about it. She is a character who profoundly objects to rape and is totally okay with torture and murder if it prevents any rape at all. You are welcome to think that's deplorable. It is! But it shouldn't be controversial that that's actually what the character believes, since she says as much. And it shouldn't be controversial that it's effective, because of course dead people don't commit rapes. The moral argument against this is not that it doesn't work, it's that some trades aren't worth making. If I murdered every single human being on the earth, there'd never be a human-on-human rape ever again! Most people would probably consider that a bad trade even though it would be 100% effective. I'm not at all bothered that this is what the character believes, what bothers me is how Mulligan portrays this belief as a reasonable thing and is something that should be thought-provoking for any civilized person. This is done throughout the entire chapter and it's horrible. There is no real moral argument here. e: It also bothers me quite a lot that Allison pretty clearly buys into Mary's belief, at least partly, although I've already heard your disagreement about this. Also, Mary admits that for the great majority of her murders, she made them look like accidents 
Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Oct 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 21:53
|
|
|
I think that the war criminals might've been the most polite and reasonable people in the whole chapter. Seriously. Although my pet theory for that is that they're strawmen for people on the internet who are trying to argue civilly about how wrong Moonshadow is.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:I'm not at all bothered that this is what the character believes, what bothers me is how Mulligan portrays this belief as a reasonable thing and is something that should be thought-provoking for any civilized person. This is done throughout the entire chapter and it's horrible. I don't feel like that's happening at all? It seems to me that the author thought that "you shouldn't inviso-murder people because they probably maybe are criminals" didn't need to be said out loud, and thus didn't say it out loud. This is turning out to be a mistake because the work doesn't make its own opinions on the matter clear in context, so the one who gets to talk the most about her position is Mary.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 22:56
|
|
|
Part of the reason it doesn't work is because pretty much everyone seems to get the chance to deliver their philosophy exhaustively in a live narrative. It's much less intuitive that something doesn't need to be said aloud when pretty much everything else does get said aloud. Also, Alison's conversation with the doctor was the approximate time to expect a 'by the way this is terrible' note, and instead it was mostly 'Eh, what do you expect?'
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 23:02
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I don't feel like that's happening at all? It seems to me that the author thought that "you shouldn't inviso-murder people because they probably maybe are criminals" didn't need to be said out loud, and thus didn't say it out loud. If that's the case, the author is bad at being an author.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 23:06
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:I'm not at all bothered that this is what the character believes, what bothers me is how Mulligan portrays this belief as a reasonable thing and is something that should be thought-provoking for any civilized person. This is done throughout the entire chapter and it's horrible. There is no real moral argument here. The problem is that the strongest arguments against it are "random extrajudicial killings of people are wrong" and "you shouldn't give people the death penalty for rape". And Alison doesn't feel that she can make those arguments because she herself has engaged in extrajudicial killings before. (Some by accident, but we've seen at least one in the comic that was on purpose, and she threatened to kill a bunch of other people and was only talked down by Patrick, and in the latter case none of those people had committed murder in front of her.) SlothfulCobra posted:I think that the war criminals might've been the most polite and reasonable people in the whole chapter. Seriously. I believe you are correct about both of these things. The problem with the second one isn't so much that they make those arguments in the way they do (because Moonshadow's reply doesn't totally cover them), but that their being rapists undercuts them unnecessarily. Patrick also raises the argument that violence isn't a great tool for social change, and we buy it more from him, but then he undercuts it by casually admitting to all kinds of murders. (Although I guess we don't know if he was telling the truth about that part.) To combine the above, the best thing for this chapter would have been to have a different, non-murderous character raise these objections at some point. I don't know precisely who; Clevin, maybe. Somebody who can justifiably say that maybe it's a bad idea to have a vigilante rapist murderer because murdering people in cold blood isn't a good long-term solution to anything and that murdering people is wrong even if they're rapists. I think the reason that doesn't exist, based on the one time I actually did ask the writer for clarification on a point the comic was making, is that he's allergic to stating too specific a position on these things. He wants to put the moral arguments on the table and let people hash them out, and putting that argument in the mouth of an innocent would make it too obviously The Correct Position. You can say that there's no reasonable argument in favor of vigilante killings, but lots of people disagree; even people in this thread disagreed earlier in the chapter, and the entirety of superhero comics is founded on the idea of vigilante violence being okay, if not actual killings. So he's just putting the arguments in and letting the reader decide, which can sometimes read as endorsing the wrong things.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 23:06
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I don't feel like that's happening at all? It seems to me that the author thought that "you shouldn't inviso-murder people because they probably maybe are criminals" didn't need to be said out loud, and thus didn't say it out loud. No, Doctor Rapestatistics was super loud and clear. The party scene where Our Friend Daterapist gets choked out was pretty clear to me as well (and the reaction of a lot of people in this very thread, not to mention the comic's own comments section). idonotlikepeas posted:The problem is that the strongest arguments against it are "random extrajudicial killings of people are wrong" and "you shouldn't give people the death penalty for rape". And Alison doesn't feel that she can make those arguments because she herself has engaged in extrajudicial killings before. (Some by accident, but we've seen at least one in the comic that was on purpose, and she threatened to kill a bunch of other people and was only talked down by Patrick, and in the latter case none of those people had committed murder in front of her.) This is such a weird line of reasoning. Once I made a mistake, therefore I should never try to prevent this mistake being elsewhere. Apply this logic, for example, to rape and a reformed rapist - no wait we're killing all of them never mind e: There are a couple of old cliches that spring to mind: "The end does not justify the means" and "With great power comes great responsibility." I realize a large part of this comic is an attempt to deconstruct comics tropes but it's really going in a horrible direction with that. Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Oct 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 23:18
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:This is such a weird line of reasoning. Once I made a mistake, therefore I should never try to prevent this mistake being elsewhere. Apply this logic, for example, to rape and a reformed rapist - no wait we're killing all of them never mind That is actually a very powerful argument, but it only works if she considers it to be a mistake. She can only make that argument if she's willing to take extrajudicial killing off the table for herself, as a tactic she might use in the future. I'm not sure it's represented as a positive aspect of her character, but I don't think she's taken anything off the table yet.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 23:27
|
|
|
If she (Allison) does not consider it (killing people unilaterally and sometimes unjustly) to be a mistake then wow yeah this has gone in a very bad direction indeed. e: for one thing it completely pisses all over the rather good portrayal of Allison's reaction to the collateral damage she caused in the fight with Cleaver at the school. Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Oct 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 23:29
|
|
|
Flesh Forge posted:No, Doctor Rapestatistics was super loud and clear. The party scene where Our Friend Daterapist gets choked out was pretty clear to me as well (and the reaction of a lot of people in this very thread, not to mention the comic's own comments section). Exactly. There are plenty of places in the comic where it is explicitly spelled out that rape is bad and there needs to be a solution. The only person actively shown as coming up with a solution is Moonshadow, who is solving the problem via torture and murder. This is the extreme end of physical coercion, a problem-solving method that Allison was shown using herself when she was choking out the date rapist. Allison directly confronts Moonshadow both physically and intellectually, and loses on both grounds: Moonshadow escapes, facing no real setback, while shooting down everything Allison says. Now we're being shown Allison saying that she thinks Moonshadow is wrong, but also stating that at least Moonshadow was out there trying and even asking if she was "really the worst thing happening in the world at that moment". In isolation, all of these things make sense as points of dramatic tension. This is a comic about someone as physically powerful as Superman failing to come to grips with a world whose problems are not solved by punching things into the dirt. Of course rape is bad and there needs to be a solution. Of course there's a villain using an evil solution to a real problem, that's great drama and it happens all the time in comics. Of course taking already-questionable methods used by the hero to the extreme creates a great contrast between hero and villain. Of course the hero loses the initial confrontation, so that she can lick her wounds and come back for a satisfying conclusion. Of course the hero is facing a moment of personal crisis about her helplessness against real problems: this is what the entire comic is about. But it's all added together so unskillfully. We are presented, in-comic, with exactly one class of solution for dealing with rape (violence) and exactly one type of person able to deal with it (superheroes). We have been presented, in-comic, with no strong opposition to the idea that what Moonshadow is doing might not be the worst way to handle the problem. The only person who has voiced a strong opinion about the matter was Allison, who was soundly defeated (physically, mentally, and now emotionally!) when she attempted to exert her will on the world. This creates the message, jutting awkwardly out of the subtext, that Moonshadow is right. If this is the author's intention, then, wow; if it isn't, then, uh, wow. So, yes, it does need to be explicitly spelled out that murdering people on suspicion of a crime is wrong, because the comic is doing a great job of implicitly stating otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 00:27
|
|
|
blastron posted:Exactly. There are plenty of places in the comic where it is explicitly spelled out that rape is bad and there needs to be a solution. The only person actively shown as coming up with a solution is Moonshadow, who is solving the problem via torture and murder. This is the extreme end of physical coercion, a problem-solving method that Allison was shown using herself when she was choking out the date rapist. Allison directly confronts Moonshadow both physically and intellectually, and loses on both grounds: Moonshadow escapes, facing no real setback, while shooting down everything Allison says. Now we're being shown Allison saying that she thinks Moonshadow is wrong, but also stating that at least Moonshadow was out there trying and even asking if she was "really the worst thing happening in the world at that moment". I actually interpreted the conversation between Mary and Allison at the dam - what should have been the chapter climax  - more as, Allison busts in and says "Gosh Mary what you're doing is wrong!" Mary says, "Oh yeah well did you think about THIS" and Allison wrings her hands and visibly wavers. And continues to waver right on into Robot Leg Lady's capitalist paradise condo.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 00:39
|
|
|
I'm actually still totally cool with date rapist guy getting choked out but making it retroactively "justified" rather than keeping it a truly ambiguous situation (or even justifying how horrified everybody was towards Allison) was a real cop-out. Dr. Rape Statistics' spiel was absolutely condoning violence behind her back while outwardly condemning it but I thought her point re: the change in the world's power dynamic was interesting on the face of it. But I doubt the comic will really bite into the harsh and unpleasant realities of living in a world where superpowered morality warlords impose their own order on the unpowered masses, however hypocritical their values may be. Because that's not what it's about. It's about social justice, ideology spiels, and a privileged and fundamentally self-centered, if well-meaning, protagonist whose flaws may be intentional but it's difficult to tell just how intentional they are. Mulligan really needs an editor and a devil's advocate to bounce ideas and situations off of. Because when there's a distinct lack of valid counterpoints all you're left with is a moral Sue bearing her super-cross.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 02:59
|
|
T.G. Xarbala posted:Because when there's a distinct lack of valid counterpoints all you're left with is a moral Sue bearing her super-cross. Which is another problem with that office scene I think. Patrick was the only real counterpart to Allison and the scene ended with tearing him down as much as possible. quote:I'm actually still totally cool with date rapist guy getting choked out but making it retroactively "justified" rather than keeping it a truly ambiguous situation (or even justifying how horrified everybody was towards Allison) was a real cop-out. I keep coming back to this, but the reveal that Miles actually was a serial sexual harasser/rapist was probably the most hamhanded thing in the chapter. (Aside from showing the judge being personally abusive before Mary killing him).
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 03:25
|
|
|
I think that the real lesson is that rape is super loving hard to write about well, and if you're the sort of person writing a webcomic you might as well consider it poison and not tackle it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 04:23
|
|
|
Yeah basically.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 08:46
|
|
|
Oh hey, a page that is good.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2015 09:34
|
|
|
Paladin has always been an amazing interior designer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2015 10:53
|
|
|
She's got some really expensive and time consuming hobbies.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2015 15:54
|
|
|
So did Allison ever get that box of capecakes?
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2015 16:00
|
|
|
Except for the part where this is just a lead in to another set of monologues.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2015 17:49
|
|
|
Just happy to see a nice page that's interesting to look at and doesn't make me wince, okay? 
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2015 18:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 23:29 |
|
|
Plus it's Paladin, so maybe we'll get some cool imagery to go with the monologue instead of just staring out the window.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2015 18:26
|
|
