I wanna do this one more time: Was Mal wrong when he shot that surrendering guy in Serenity?

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Friday, June 6, 2014 05:29
VIEWED: 19444
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M52NICKERSON

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 12:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by m52nickerson:
For me justice does not come into the equation. Mal is simply not above doing immoral things when it suits him. That includes killing unarmed people, which is murder.
Maybe you missed a piece of Firefly wisdom "When someone tries to kill you, you try an' kill 'em right back."
Mal was willing to ignore that until pushed to it by Crow.

I had a fight once where a kid got me in a headlock & banged my head into a wood door. I got out of the lock, twisted him about, got him in a similar headlock & banged HIS head into a brick wall, which ended the fight. So, m52, I guess I was wrong to use force in excess of what my attacker had used, eh? I should have banged HIS head into a wood door, right? I should have calmed my adrenaline surge and talked down my need for pugilistic irony... measured the situation more carefully... considered the law as it applies to personal combat...

Have you EVER had a fight in your life where blood was drawn?

Here are some simple rules of reality, bro:
Don't jump off a tall building if you don't want to die.
Don't fight a tiger bare handed if you don't want to die.
Don't tell a guy you just unsuccessfully tried to kill that you'll never stop until he's dead if you don't want to die.
Basically, once you set actions in motion, the consequences may or may not be to your liking.

You did not do anything wrong in your fight. The fight was still going on, you were still in danger. Had you stomped on the guys head once the fight was done, that would have been to far.

As I said I can understand why Mal kill Crow, I can also understand why Mal knew someone was going to have to kill Dobson. Those reasons don't change what we call Mal's actions. They don't make Mal a good person in those instances.

I'm always amazed at the lengths people will go to save character and people they like from certain labels.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 12:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by m52nickerson:
Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
You're assuming that 1) "killing unarmed" is a specific determination of "murder" (it is not), 2) the Alliance pilot didn't have a pistol on him (unlikely), and 3) that Crow's efforts to kill Mal just prior to the trussing him up in front of an engine to get some concessions doesn't count as facing Mal while armed.

You'd get better mileage out of focusing on the fact the Alliance pilot was surrendering.

In both cases those people were not a threat at the time in which Mal killed them. That is murder.

Can we understand why Mal killed them, yes. Does it change what it was, no.

Okay, agreed. I've even said that it is still murder.

But the unarmed thing and those poor helpless people Mal killed so immorally? Come on. No way.

For the pilot that's like saying a guy in a broken down tank that mowed over a bunch of pedestrians first is unarmed and harmless. He's still in an Alliance designed war machine at the time for cryin' out loud.

For Dobson that's like saying a guy who's trying to abduct a child for some seedy torture pr0n (government funded or not) and pointing a gun around when he's known to shoot on a hair-trigger is a cuddly teddy bear.

And for Crow... The guy couldn't be harmless and unarmed unless you literally sawed his arms off.

CHRISISALL

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 12:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by m52nickerson:
I'm always amazed at the lengths people will go to save character and people they like from certain labels.

Well, I'm amazed at how institutions control our thinking to such a degree. A Cop shoots a kid he believes has a gun, that's acceptable. A Soldier shoots a kid he believes has a weapon, acceptable. Mal shoots a confirmed dirtbag killer not really caring if he might have a weapon or not, and he's a murderer.
But an institution finding said surrendering soldier guilty of treason against Parliament & multiple murders sentencing him to death is okay, because, y'know, a body of men with titles is so much more morally correct than a single principled one with no shiny badge or active military rank.
Ugh, I got a piece of sarcasm stuck in my teeth....

SECOND

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 7:26 PM

You guys have been far too harsh on the Alliance's soldiers. If the massacre of the townspeople of Haven happened in Baghdad, 2007, it would have been legal.

There is a classified US military video depicting the slaying in 2007 of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement". www.collateralmurder.com/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 8:42 PM

Quote:
You guys have been far too harsh on the Alliance's soldiers. If the massacre of the townspeople of Haven happened in Baghdad, 2007, it would have been legal.

Because the US's steady march towards fascist authoritarianism and thus moving the goalposts on what is and isn't acceptable behaviour in terms of military conduct, it's interpretation of the Rules of Engagement, and interrogation/torture should be embraced whole-heartedly by it's citizens.

This should also be our primary consideration in determining whether an action was legal or ethical.

*RASPBERRY*

How about no. That shit don't fly.

SECOND

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 9:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Quote:
You guys have been far too harsh on the Alliance's soldiers. If the massacre of the townspeople of Haven happened in Baghdad, 2007, it would have been legal.

*RASPBERRY*

How about no. That shit don't fly.

It would fly in Hollywood. Once the Alliance propagandist-screenwriters get to work, it will fly in the Alliance.

I've got a more outrageous and real example that turns the Alliance soldier that Mal kills into the hero. You can ridicule me it you wish. This one might have even been noticed by Joss Whedon because it happened in 1993 in the real world. Or, at least, Joss might have seen the movie. It is very similar to the Haven Massacre – it is the Battle of Mogadishu (1993). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993)

It has a helicopter shot down just like the Alliance gunship is shot down by Book. Thousands of people, mostly townspeople of Mogadishu, get wounded or even killed, just like townspeople of Haven.

Imagine the Alliance, rather than Americans, going into Mogadishu looking for the terrorist leader using the alias "Malcolm Reynolds". See the movie Black Hawk Down where 1000 Somalians die, which is even more people than died at Haven.

The few Americans that died were the heroes of the movie. High schools were named for them. The soldier that Mal kills will get a high school once the Alliance’s Hollywoodization of the Battle of Haven comes out.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 10:50 PM

Ah. You're talking about propaganda instead of what outsiders like us might say is moral/ethical.

In that case, yes, child-killing village massacring butchers have been hailed as heroes before, and probably will be again. And according to the Alliance, Mal is the real terrorist.

Doesn't mean that's right. But that point of view because of the inherent corruption we have seen in the Alliance and the real world will always exist.

CHRISISALL

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 11:58 PM

Byte, you GO, girl!

SECOND

Wednesday, June 4, 2014 12:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Ah. You're talking about propaganda instead of what outsiders like us might say is moral/ethical.

In that case, yes, child-killing village massacring butchers have been hailed as heroes before, and probably will be again. And according to the Alliance, Mal is the real terrorist.

Doesn't mean that's right. But that point of view because of the inherent corruption we have seen in the Alliance and the real world will always exist.

Just a quick note: everyone, and I mean you, too, have assumed that the man Mal killed was a killer of the townsfolk. Everybody is assuming he's either pilot or weapons officer or ship commander. He is none of those. He was just a military deserter. He was a stowaway. That's why he survived. He was not with the crew. He was in the back. He thought he could sneak away when the gunship landed on moon called Haven. When he pops up, Mal kills him to underline a point so that even that jackass, Jayne, will understand. Mal is a very troubled man.

See how easy it is to make Mal into the bad guy? And nobody, not even Joss, can prove from what is in the movie or comics that the man Mal killed was not some conscientious objector who was deserting by stowing away in the gunship.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

CHRISISALL

Wednesday, June 4, 2014 12:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
He was just a military deserter. He was a stowaway. That's why he survived. He was not with the crew. He was in the back. He thought he could sneak away when the gunship landed on moon called Hawen.

Then He knew upon surrendering that he was takin' his chances. He should have stayed put & shut up, but he rolled the dice & he lost.
Still not Mal's fault.

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