Last week’s discussion was AWESOME. Some great, opposing point of views were shared and I really appreciate how respectful and thoughtful everyone is around here. There’s more meat to chew on in these little webcomics than might at first appear, and you guys get that.
Tangerine has been struggling with the big decision of whether to obey Pilatius and save his sons or not. Where do you guys land on this? What do you think of his son Michael’s arguments against it? Either way, the decision is about to be made. Wednesday.
Anyone else see Ender’s Game last week? Both my oldest and I had read the book and we both mostly liked it. There were even some things I loved about it. The Battle Room scenes were amazing and I thought the movie handled the reveal and fall out from the big twist at the end rather well. My biggest complaint is that it just moved too quickly. Given the short runtime of 114 minutes, I don’t see why another 15 minutes couldn’t have been added to enhance the character relationships and perhaps give us one more battle in the Battle Room. I look forward to the extended version, if there is one. Did you see it? What did you think?
Wow this was a well written strip! I can sympathize with tangerine and his son…although If i were tangerine…i’m afraid i’d have to kill to keep those that are important to him safe…at least until he can come up with a back up plan. (what’s to keep pilatius from lying and after tangerine does his killing he decides to kill all 3!?)
While it’s true that there’s nothing really to prevent Pilatius from double crossing Tangerine, Tangerine’s position isn’t exactly strong.
Parenting changes the game. Once you’re a father, it’s not really about you anymore. I can’t condone murder, but I think a lot of parents would choose their kids over… almost anyone.
I think you’re probably right, but I hope you’re not. I don’t think I could ever hurt an innocent to save my own. Not that Zurida is exactly innocent… which is a big part of Tangerine’s struggle.
The fact that we are talking about Zurida would make it rather easy for me. Not just that she used to do bad stuff, she will obviously continue to do that. By killing her, Tangerie would (hopefully, if he isn’t double-crossed) save his sons and prevent the deaths of thousands of other conscious beings in the universe.
I come across like a hard liner, but I believe in this case it is okay to draw the “killing Hilter”-comparison without breaking Godwin’s law.
But what if you really, really, really want an omlet?
Then we will see if Tangerine wants to break those eggs, yes?
It’s an interesting comment. But I’d have to disagree … to an amount. If you are in a situation where you have to kill someone to do something important … we’ll say save a hundred lives, you should seek other options. Hypothetical situation here of course.
If you take that “final option” immediately, knowing the consequences, without looking for other options exist, then I cannot say that is the “proper” choice. Once you know there is no other choice but the “unspeakable act” … then one could say that perhaps killing the man is the only “proper” choice available. Note I’m not saying it IS a proper choice, just the only one available. If I was in that situation I’d still try and go for maiming or the like as opposed to killing.
It’s very much like a quote from a series by Stephen R Donaldson.
Do not hurt when holding is enough
Do not wound when hurting is enough
Do not maim when wounding is enough
And kill not when maiming is enough
The greatest warrior is he who does not need to kill
That said, yes, I agree, parenting does change a lot of things. So not only does he have to struggle with the moral dilemma of trying to avoid that “man” he used to be, but he has to deal with his obligations as a father.
I like this line of thinking and it make sense to me. Sometimes, violent action is required, but we shouldn’t resort to it unless we have to.
Where Tangerine’s dilemma gets tricky is where his sons are involved. Is there a special morality that applies when our own family is involved? I personally don’t think so, but it seems, based on today’s comments, that many of you might say there is some special morality in the mix.
As I said before, the only way to win is to not play the game. Once you let them know that they have power over you, then it never ends, ever. And then you will have done something indefensible for someone reprehensible.
Killing, by itself, is not always wrong. There are situations where it’s unavoidable but what is wrong in this situation is giving in to the game that the villains are playing. Tangerine doesn’t have to do that.
See, before I was for him fighting on the side of the angels, all of whom were opposed to actual killing, and thinking he was basically a weenie to fall back on his religion as a copout. Now the villains want to extort him into being a cold-blooded hit man, which is actually *against* his nature as a hero.
And where is the guarantee that they will do anything other than kill the boys anyway? Are these trustworthy folks? Look, if they’re willing to stick it to Zurida (even if she was sticking it to them anyway) what in the world is keeping them from disposing of all of you once you’re done being their stooge?
They’re all evil, for corn’s sake. There’s a third option that they don’t want you to know about. They call them the Devil’s choices for a reason. They’re usually lies.
You speak a lot of truth here. One of the things a lot of superhero fiction insists upon is that there is always another way–usually to justify a hero’s stance against killing. Is that the case here? What would not playing the game look like for Tangerine? What third option does he have?
I’m very interested to see where Brock is going to take this. Pilatius has no reason not to spare Tangerine’s sons because it isn’t going to matter if he get’s his way. Once he has possession of the Guthrie he’ll exterminate the entire human race, them included. While Tangerine isn’t aware of this, given his previous extreme moral standpoint, I doubt he of all people would believe that he can trust Pilatius. I imagine he’ll accept and then try to find a way to rescue his sons. I also doubt Pilatius and the others are going to put all their eggs in a Tangerine shaped basket either. Tangerine may just be a distraction and there’s no guarantee he’s even capable of taking out The Mistress of Worlds. Pilatius wanted Dark/Star Maiden out of the picture to. If I was him: Phase 1. Send Tangerine to assassinate Zurida. He’s probably out of his league but he might get lucky. More importantly he can serve as a distraction. Phase 2. Send Dark/Star Maiden to actually do the job. One of the two will end up dead, and if he’s lucky, both. Step 3. Have another agent standing by with some of Bezuel’s “crazy” poison to scramble Zurida’s brain like they did to Dark Maiden. It would still remove her as an obstacle.
As you can imagine, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking through how all this plays out. Surprisingly, however, just yesterday I rejiggered the finale to this chapter. We’ll end up in largely the same place as I intended, but the impact on Tangerine will be a little greater and a little more definitive.
I’ll be interested in reading your thoughts at that time.
I don’t know what to say about this as this is truly a test of Tangerine’s morals and motivations…I mean I’m surprised to see the Emo kid act caring enough to get through his father…he really must care about him after all, right ?
Still, this is some suspense moment as I cannot wait to see where the creative team take it..as this strip does have it dark moments. š
Muwahaha.
‘preciate the comment, Marcus. You correctly identified what, for me, was the point of spotlighting Tangerine in this chapter: I want to test him. It’s not enough to change your ways, you have to be tested.
This just occurred to me, but among the strange things Jerry has done for his plan (or in general), he actually bribed that foster family into visiting him, and still (seemingly) enjoyed it despite knowing the visits true nature, then payed them off as Dr.Klein. Spy Girl visiting him just then was pure happenstance, even if she was keeping him company for a bit on visitation day before her family arrived.
Nice! I don’t know if anyone else has ever called that out, but that was something I certainly knew at the time and I looked forward to people picking up on it later. As with a lot of things before Chapter 9, that scene was a little more complicated than at first appeared.
I love this philosophical talk about guilt an all that but honestly, did we need Mega Mat back? The only character I do not like in this comic…
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Aaaaaaand I’m officially now a huge fan of Captain Emo. (Not that I wasn’t before. But. Wow.)