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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]

[trueltning_fury]

I'm accustomed to monsters. They inhabit the deep wilds everywhere in my world. At times I think it's insulting to compare people to them...but then, there are times when I'd like to think it's more an insult to the monsters.

[voice]

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

People are very complicated. It must be much simpler to be a monster.

[voice]

[trueltning_fury]

Perhaps. Nothing to do all day but sleep, hunt, and pick up anything shiny from the corpses of travelers you maul? I expect it would be a pretty simple life.