Quote:
Originally Posted by sikvod00
I know I'm stating the obvious, but that explanation only cuts it in anime and other works of fiction. For me at least, once you've killed enough innocent people in the most brutal way, I don't care what your sob story is: You have to be stopped by any means necessary. The more you slaughter people, the less sympathy I can muster, even if you yourself are a victim of circumstance.
Tigers have to kill in order to live. They don't do it for vengeance, out of spite, or anything like that. A more apt analogy would be that Lucy has been (unfortunately) programmed to indiscriminately kill all humans due to a deeply embedded hatred of them; there's a human-like feature to her motive....
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In traditional English and American law, it was the intention that counted. If you kill someone without intending to, or even while your judgment is impaired, you are not guilty. That has changed -- for the worse, in my opinion -- in recent times. It is not the results of your actions you should be condemned for, but the intentions behind them. In that sense, Lucy is innocent, like a soldier is innocent when he kills someone he is told is an enemy, even if the orders are mistaken.
That doesn't mean you don't kill or imprison the soldier -- or Lucy -- if it will stop further killing. But they are still innocent.
How about the example of a cat torturing a mouse and then not eating it? Happens all the time, and I never blame the cat. It's just its nature. As it became Lucy's.
Of course, another reason we can muster some sympathy for these murderous characters is that we have an instinct for violence ourselves, and fiction is a safe way to indulge it. Maybe you imply that idea in what you wrote.
This is a bit of a digression, based on Kid Ying's post, but I think anime characters work best when they access our subconscious, like myth. I think Diana and Lucy do that. Their beauty/cuteness is just one of the means by which they do that. The violence is another.
I'm uncomfortable with the expression "sob story," since it seems to me to come from another movie. One's childhood background can definitely make one more vulnerable to doing wrong, but one is still responsible for one's actions in that case. I'm talking about cases where one's judgment is seriously impaired, like by madness or brainwashing. Probably Diana is responsible, as the detective was. What sympathy I have for her is more based on her stylishness and those subconscious/mythical factors I mentioned.
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