Oh Sailor, why'd you do it? What'd you do that for?
I have been feeling rather contemplative lately. I would say philosophical, but I don't really know anyone off the top of my head to back me up. Heh. Today's question has been: Does intention or motivation really matter or is it only the acts which we do that tell whether or not we are judged to be good?
I first became drawn to the question for two reason. One is that I often create really quite grey characters. They are not heroes, nor are they villains. They do things that are incredibly morally questionable. Take for example my assassin Vorruna. She kills people often for fun, indeed she feels unstable when she DOESN'T kill people after a while, and has a business where she sells people because life itself is a joke to her. However on the flip side of that she willingly puts her life and her soul at risk to save the world from various demons and mind-rending horrors that others flee in terror from. She intends sometimes to be a menace and never really wants to be the hero. Does the fact that she does not intend to be a hero invalidate all her good acts because they were not done nobly? Does the fact that she intends to be known as a monster make only her evil acts matter, regardless of the fact that she has done some things more bravely than knights?
The other reason I was drawn to it is because I have all the sympathy in the world for all the devils apparently. I love well developed villains in things, Loki from the comics being at the forefront of that nowadays. His motives are not always bad. He wants to rule over a kingdom and be treated as an equal to his kingly brother. Sometimes ,depending on which canon you are going by, his ultimate goal is to even make a peace between the Jotun and the Aesir- ending their war once and for all. On the surface, other than the fact that those that want power usually end up being corrupt, that doesn't seem to be too bad of a motive. Peace is even what most people would consider to be admirable. But the way he goes about everything is what defines him as being judged to be evil. He doesn't care that he needs to banish his own brother to rule or lie to get what he wants, all he cares about is his end goal. Does that make his intentions, assuming them to be good, less noble because of the acts he does to see them through? Does it even matter what you intended to happen once you start storming cities to achieve your goals? Or does the question of whether or not it matters solely hinge upon whether or not you succeed with your greater goals?
I tend to be of the school that it does not matter what you intend to do, what matters is what you do. Don't get me wrong: I love finding out people's reasoning and thought stream processes. There is a kind of obscene pleasure I get out of picking apart the brains of serial killers and finding out the motivations behind why they do every act they do. Their intentions may be simplistic at time, but it is odd how some people can mutilate bodies and still see themselves as good. Sometimes you can even read their stories and understand why they turned out the way they did. But the best of the motivations does not balance out the horrific acts that they did. It doesn't matter if you intend to do something wonderful if all you acts end up doing a lot of damage along the way. Eventually, though that line will vary depending on which case you are talking about, you cross a line where your goals no longer matter and you become defined by your acts. If I judged everyone based upon what they intended to happen or what motivated them I could hardly hate anyone. And yet some people NEED to be hated, at least for a period of time, or punished for what they did because of what they did.
All this is not to say that I don't believe in redemption stories, but that will be a ramble for a different days.
What about you guys? Any thoughts?
I first became drawn to the question for two reason. One is that I often create really quite grey characters. They are not heroes, nor are they villains. They do things that are incredibly morally questionable. Take for example my assassin Vorruna. She kills people often for fun, indeed she feels unstable when she DOESN'T kill people after a while, and has a business where she sells people because life itself is a joke to her. However on the flip side of that she willingly puts her life and her soul at risk to save the world from various demons and mind-rending horrors that others flee in terror from. She intends sometimes to be a menace and never really wants to be the hero. Does the fact that she does not intend to be a hero invalidate all her good acts because they were not done nobly? Does the fact that she intends to be known as a monster make only her evil acts matter, regardless of the fact that she has done some things more bravely than knights?
The other reason I was drawn to it is because I have all the sympathy in the world for all the devils apparently. I love well developed villains in things, Loki from the comics being at the forefront of that nowadays. His motives are not always bad. He wants to rule over a kingdom and be treated as an equal to his kingly brother. Sometimes ,depending on which canon you are going by, his ultimate goal is to even make a peace between the Jotun and the Aesir- ending their war once and for all. On the surface, other than the fact that those that want power usually end up being corrupt, that doesn't seem to be too bad of a motive. Peace is even what most people would consider to be admirable. But the way he goes about everything is what defines him as being judged to be evil. He doesn't care that he needs to banish his own brother to rule or lie to get what he wants, all he cares about is his end goal. Does that make his intentions, assuming them to be good, less noble because of the acts he does to see them through? Does it even matter what you intended to happen once you start storming cities to achieve your goals? Or does the question of whether or not it matters solely hinge upon whether or not you succeed with your greater goals?
I tend to be of the school that it does not matter what you intend to do, what matters is what you do. Don't get me wrong: I love finding out people's reasoning and thought stream processes. There is a kind of obscene pleasure I get out of picking apart the brains of serial killers and finding out the motivations behind why they do every act they do. Their intentions may be simplistic at time, but it is odd how some people can mutilate bodies and still see themselves as good. Sometimes you can even read their stories and understand why they turned out the way they did. But the best of the motivations does not balance out the horrific acts that they did. It doesn't matter if you intend to do something wonderful if all you acts end up doing a lot of damage along the way. Eventually, though that line will vary depending on which case you are talking about, you cross a line where your goals no longer matter and you become defined by your acts. If I judged everyone based upon what they intended to happen or what motivated them I could hardly hate anyone. And yet some people NEED to be hated, at least for a period of time, or punished for what they did because of what they did.
All this is not to say that I don't believe in redemption stories, but that will be a ramble for a different days.
What about you guys? Any thoughts?