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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/private

[soldieringblue]

[pause, considering.]

...I don't believe there is such a thing as a monster as a monster itself. It's...not a species or a whole thing on its own; it's an aberration of something that already exists. That aberration depends on the ones who dictate what is natural and what is unnatural.

voice/private

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

So, in the end, it's just a word people use for something that's different?

If that's the case then I suppose there's no use in worrying about it, is there...

voice/private

[soldieringblue]

Perception is everything, Jonah. It's what moves us to choose or not choose, and so long as that's true, then...there will always be cause to be concerned if you are the one perceived as the monster.

voice/private

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Even so, there's nothing that I can do about it.

voice/private

[soldieringblue]

To change it? Perhaps...or perhaps not. Many things change, ourselves and others. I would never say it was something so simple, especially in our case, but...

voice/private

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's really just... that I'm starting to doubt myself a little.

voice/private

[soldieringblue]

[quiet, but firmly resolved:] You are no monster, Jonah.

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[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

...Thank you. I'm happy to hear you say that.