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[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Monster
--noun

1. 1. an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure
   2. one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior or character

a threatening force

1. an animal of strange or terrifying shape
2. one unusually large for its kind

something monstrous, especially: a person of unnatural or extreme ugliness, deformity, wickedness, or cruelty

Once I would have said that I had never met anyone who could be called a monster. That nobody who was still able to think and feel could truly be a monster.

I'm not sure of that any more. But if people can be monsters, then what makes a person a monster? Is it their power? Or is it their will? If a person has the power to cause destruction, even if they don't want to, is that person a monster?

I want to think that a person's power doesn't make them a monster so long as they don't wish to use it to do harm. But it's possible to harm others without meaning to. Even if you're only trying to do something good, it's hard to know what will happen. I think, probably, not many monsters know that they are monsters.

If you try to help someone, and it ends up hurting many other people later on, what is the right answer?

If you think that, by killing someone now, you could keep many other people from being hurt in the future, what is the right answer?

This is something I have been wondering about lately.

[ooc: and I now apologize if "monster" no longer looks like a word.]

Comments

Voice

[lyingbrat.livejournal.com]

I think... What makes people monsters is bad intentions. And I think it's not that monsters don't know they're monsters, it's that they don't care.

voice

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

I would like to think that's true, but... people can also do horrible things with good intentions.

[voice]

[notyourutopian]

You cannot kill someone because of what they might do.

[voice] sorry for threadjacking!

[iknowyourfear.livejournal.com]

That's what self-defense is. You take the other person out because they might take you out.

[voice]

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

That's what I believe as well. But... whether a person chooses to kill someone or save them, they're responsible for what happens after that, aren't they?

voice

[iknowyourfear.livejournal.com]

We know what we are. Believe me.

voice

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

...you believe that you are a monster?

voice

[taughttolisten.livejournal.com]

It is... I believe that the truly monstrous is a combination of intent and action. Intent can be misguided; action can be accidental--the two together cause the greatest pain.

voice

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

You mean, both the intent to do harm, and the actions which cause harm?

[Text]

[themysciran]

[Oh, this post hits her right to the bone.]

A monster is someone who does harm without conscience.

[Text]

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Without conscience...

Do you think that it's possible for a person's conscience to be wrong?

[Voice]

[shiromadoushi]

I think it's intent. Someone who wants to cause harm, who's happy when people are hurting, who wants nothing more than destruction... that person is a monster.

[and now private]

Is everything all right?

[Voice; private]

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

It's just something I've been thinking about, since Leo came back.

[Voice| private]

[satisfiedsigner]

[quietly] Can a monster like that change?

[video]

[crabulous]

All this talk of monsters is making me sad.

[video]

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm very sorry. I wasn't trying to upset anyone...

[voice]

[trueltning_fury]

It's nothing but an epithet.

People can refer to other people as monsters all they want, for their own reasons. It doesn't make them monsters. Call a thing whatever you want, a word will not transform a thing. An epithet will not make a person, no matter how horrible, cruel, or dangerous they may be, into a creature.

...and those who would attempt to do so merely want an excuse to exterminate monsters without remorse.

[voice]

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

I... I suppose I had never thought of it that way before.

Video

[nosleepinventor.livejournal.com]

You can't just say that a person who kills is a monster, because if someone's attacking you then maybe you should kill them, and sometimes police officers have to kill people too. And the police aren't monsters. And then there's the debate over the death penalty, or abortion and if those are murder or not and if the people who carry them out are monsters, but if that's the case then there are a lot of monsters.

And people can be monsters while they think they're doing good. I mean, Hitler thought he was doing a good thing, and he killed millions of people. So it can't just be about intentions because then Hitler wouldn't be thought of as a monster but a policeman who had to kill someone in the line of duty and knew it was wrong to do would be a monster. And that's just wrong.

Maybe it has something to do with hate? Hitler hated a lot of people and that's why he killed them. He thought it was the right thing, but he was still killing millions of people. If you hate, you go bad because you don't think of people as people, and when you don't think of people as people you can do horrible things without realizing that they're wrong or even caring.

So that's what I think. If you do things without caring that you're hurting people and just think about yourself then you're a monster.

Does that help?

video

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

[because it's video, she gets to see the slow headtilt as Matsuka parses this]

...actually, I think it might. Not thinking of people as people, and not caring if anyone is being hurt... I think that makes sense.

What you said about hate is probably right, too... although, don't you think that people often hate because they have been hurt?

permatext

[purmoncul.livejournal.com]

No, it's intent. A person can't help what they're born as, or even what happens to them after in a lot of cases, but it's what they do with that after, that makes them monstrous.

Harming people by accident is sad, but not monstrous. Knowing that you could harm someone and not doing anything to stop it, that's monstrous.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd like to believe too, but the more I think about it the more complicated it seems.

Then, do you think that someone can have good intentions that are still wrong?

voice/private

[soldieringblue]

[TREADING VERY CAREFULLY...]

What are you implying, Jonah...? [because if you're thinking what i think you're thinking...]

voice/private

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Ah - I'm not trying to imply anything, really. I'm just trying to understand.

It's... it's something that's been on my mind. Especially since Leo came back.

[Comment not here]

[small-berserker.livejournal.com]

[But Lily is following all public parts of this discussion pretty intently]

voice forever

[diesarock]

It seems... that the 'monsters' are ones who aren't human... or don't act in the way ordinary humans do.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

That isn't what you believe, is it, Terra?

[prodigitalson.livejournal.com]

Pitiful.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

I just want to understand.

[voice]

[satisfiedsigner]

Tch. There is no right answer. "Right answers" are decided by whoever wins in the end. And whoever loses will still think they're wrong.


..."Monsters" aren't always monsters to their friends.

[voice]

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Then, if there is no right answer... how would you choose?