- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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How else do you think bullets get made, a factory?
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Jun 11, 2015 03:16
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May 10, 2024 05:02
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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* I've heard that the main criticism there is actually aimed at trying to come to grips with being a super-soldier who kills dozens to hundreds to people and how that changes someone. If so, fair enough; but 1) that's like deconstructing James Bond movies on the grounds nobody could save the world 15 times; the movies work because the fans expect continuity, it's never meant to be "realistic," and 2) some soldiers have done exactly that and turned out fine [so far as anyone can tell, anyway].
I think it's more: how violence can't make things better even if you don't have to worry about losing.
The choice facing Walker now is a good example. For Walker, I think the real choice is between shooting one of the men or attack the snipers, while everybody not player controlled have to play Konrad's game because they can't defeat four snipers with the drop on them.
But the situation hasn't changed, water is still scarce enough to kill over, and law and order has still broken down. It's just four more people are dead.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:10
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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In this scenario, or as an abstract principle?
Either way, it seems like the point is that once someone breaks the rules and uses force, you have to use force to stop them. Nobody asked Konrad to take over the ruins and turn peoples' lives into a game for his opponents, but he did (well, I think; if I remember right this section has a really stupid Schrodinger's twist). Walker has to shoot somebody or he dies. Like Tim said, he can at least come out ahead in utilitarian logic if he kills someone who tried to kill someone else (by stealing the water he'd need to survive). Life is full of no-win dilemmas, this one just happens to involve bullets. 
Edit: Ha ha, including bullets dropped from the heavens by rifle fairies, apparently. Thanks for checking CJ.
If the latter, I have to admit I never thought of The Line as a vehicle for pacifism, but I can see where you're coming from. Even then, of course, you run into the problem where the person who uses force first sets the rules. Whether Walker had retreated or died, somebody will be coming with a lot of guns to dislodge Konrad and his troops (either to cover things up and pretend it never happened or kill him). Whether force is actually used or not, the threat of violence has to be present to stop someone like that. I joke about it but it's not really funny, that modern-day pacifism expired in 2014 when ISIS went independent. You have thousands of people willing to stake their lives on literally raping and pillaging everything they can, and only military resistance is even slowing them down. You can argue as a philosophical point that "violence doesn't make things better," and as a bald statement that's true; but it's also true that sometimes a lack of reciprocal violence on a victim's behalf makes things a hell of a lot worse, heh.
More the video game mentality, I said. Call of Duty is a bad example of what I'm talking about since the player has so little agency. I'm was thinking more like how RPGs usually have some third way to resolve a dispute between two factions that let's you ally with both of them. Generally this means you have to fight forces from both factions, far harder than fighting just one with the help of the other.
In fact, the player probably did die and had to reload a save, so it's something that should have been outright impossible. Completely off the table, like driving to ISIS's capital from Paris on one tank of gas.
Bill O'Reilly did something similar to what I was thinking of when he suggested his 25,000 mercenary army solution to ISIS. Like even if you granted that it would work and just ride rough shod over the realities on the ground, it wouldn't change the conditions that gave rise to ISIS.
It's not violence is wrong, more like you can't just do whatever you want and trust to being able to make it all better with more violence.
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Jul 2, 2015 20:20
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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They deserve to die for what they've done. They all deserve to die.
Why? As far as I can tell, post rewrite, the 33rd hasn't done anything worse than implement martial law.
Brutal, yeah, but it's hard to see why they deserve to die or why the CIA thought they would ruin America's reputation.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:29
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Jun 11, 2015 03:16
