Post by Scott on Aug 18, 2006 0:31:41 GMT -5
vandergraafk challenged a Charmed fan, who had argued that the sisters had committed acts of evil. to do the following:
Define evil, first of all. Second, name actions that the sisters and/or Leo committed that fit this definition. Third, explain why these actions are as bad as anything Cole cum the Source or as Belthazor ever did.
The Charmed fan replied:
Let's see:
*Piper bribed a Customs officer to purchase non-inspected fruit at a cheap price. Granted, she didn't know that the fruit was a health hazard, but she should have considered it, considering she knowingly purchased fruit that had not been inspected.
*Prue tried to beat a Seeker to death out of her anger and desire for revenge against that inspector's death. She didn't do it to protect any innocence. And since Cole managed to convince her to stop, she must have realized that she had done wrong.
*Piper, Paige and Phoebe killed Cole when he was possessed by the Source with extreme prejudice . . . in other words without bothering to find out what really happened to him. They judged him by his past, jumped to conclusions and murdered him.
*Paige abused her orbing powers by placing her boyfriend in jail, because she found out that he was married. She abused her power out of anger.
*Phoebe and Paige ripped Darryl's soul of his body without his consent. Because they needed it to get Leo out of Valhalla. And they needed Leo to end the spell he had cast on Piper. They did this with personal gain in mind.
*Phoebe and Paige set up Rick, Phoebe's old classmate, to be murdered by demons. No need for me to go into details. It's been debated before.
*Leo had murdered Gideon in cold blood. Since it took an act of evil to make the world normal again, Gideon was not in a position to protect himself and Leo wanted revenge for Chris' death . . . it was an act of evil.
*Phoebe, Paige and Piper helped the Avatars to cast a spell upon the human population . . . without the latter's consent. And they did it for personal gain - so they could end their demon hunting days.
Everytime you demand that I prove that the Charmed Ones have committed evil, I would provide this list. This is third time I have provided it. And every time, you would dismiss these acts as irrevelant. Just because they are the stars of the show, does not mean that the Charmed Ones are incapable of evil or bad deeds. The above list, alone, proves that they are capable of being just as evil as Cole. He may have been doing it for over a century, but the sisters and Leo have allowed evil into their hearts . . . just as Cole has.
Vandergraafk replied as follows:
Okay, now we have the bill of particulars. You know this is beginning to resemble the debate on the Declaration of Independence. To recall: the American rebels drew up a list of alleged grievances against King George III. Examined individually and as a whole they hardly amount to a case for rebellion, let alone revolution. But, then the Americans were aiming for something else, weren't they? A constitutionally bound executive with delineated and separated powers that may be implicit - to a certain extent - in the unwritten British constitution, but is clearly way different than the British system it replaced - inefficiently at first with the Articles of Confederation, and somewhat more efficiently - but not much - later with the U.S. Constitution. We can discuss, debate and deride ad nauseum the merits of the bill of particulars, but let's not forget the ultimate point. Ljones wishes to destroy the notion that the Charmed Ones are a force for good. Maybe they do good acts, but too many times they do so out of self-interest, arrogance, hubris and a twisted sense of self-righteousness.
Perhaps that's why I asked for a definition of evil. We didn't get one and as others have correctly pointed out that one of the bill of particulars, playing fast and loose with federal restrictions (and California restrictions) on importing foreign fruits and vegetables, is an illegal act, not an act of unadulterated evil! Piper played fast and loose and paid a heavy price. She ultimately bore responsibility, a responsibility she acknowledged, for the death of the good Dr. Williamson in Astral Monkey, a researcher puzzled by her miraculous recovery through (divine) intervention.
Particular #2: Prue must have known she was wrong when Cole persuaded her to cease pounding on the Seeker for having offed the female inspector.
Let's see. Prue assumed that the female inspector was an innocent. She saw someone - the Angel of Death - shadowing her and concluded - wrongly - that the Angel of Death was the bad guy and that the inspector had to be saved. Later, she comes to the realization that it was the Seekers who were the threat. Prue was unable to alter destiny and out of frustration pounded on one of the Seekers. Anger, yes! An act of evil! Not under any definition that I can think of. Besides, as you correctly point out, she ultimately listens to Cole.
I'm surprised you don't add "standly idly by while Inspector Davidson is killed by the Seekers" to this particular bill. Oh, that's right. Prue is with the Angel of Death who is able to persuade Prue that destiny cannot be defeated!
Particular #3: Killing Cole cum the Source
Discussed, debated, analyzed to death. See my comments in Contradicting. You never respond to our points. And your points are poorly crafted!
Particular #4: Paige and her lying boyfriend.
Yes, Paige did place her two-timing boyfriend in jail to prevent him from exposing magic. She knew that her truth spell would wear off in time (it did). And, yes, she did place an undue burden on Darryl (placing an innocent in jail for no reason violated habeas corpus) and she did abuse her powers as a witch. Again, is this an act of evil comparable to anything Cole ever did? Besides, Paige, as a novice, is condemned in a certain way to repeat mistakes the others had already made, i.e., using powers for personal gain! Maybe what we needed was another episode of Morality Bites involving Paige to hammer home the truth. Evil, no!
Particular #5 Borrowing Darryl's soul
Let's see. They did do this without the consent of Darryl. And consent is very important. One only has to recall the drug experiments used on prisoners in Philadelphia and the Tuskegee experiment involving African Americans to worry about the lack of effective consent being given by test subjects. (The fact that some researchers are proposing again to test drugs on prisoners indicates the issue is important.)
One might argue that since the outcome was good (no harm ensued to Darryl and he seems to have enjoyed the ride), then the failure to obtain consent is moot. I disagree, as I suppose many of would. Rather, the question is one of urgency. Were the sisters - Paige and Phoebe - so pressed for time that consent could not be obtained and that Darryl would just have to trust them?
In reviewing this episode, I find no urgency compelling Darryl's soul to be taken without his consent. Should the sisters have tried to persuade Darryl? Yes. Could they have been reasonably assured of success? Possibly.
Darryl initially would have disagreed and emphatically said no. But, what were the alternatives? To take a fallen soldier, police officer, firefighter or some other dedicated public servant's essence might not have been possible and might have risked exposure of Magic and worse might have altered destiny. Darryl, already used to Magic, might have been persuaded to go along. After all, the sisters had risked their lives repeatedly for him. He owed them in a sense!
So, what should we conclude? Yes, the sisters should have taken the time to persuade Darryl. They stood a good chance of persuading him. Was the failure to obtain consent an act of evil? I don't know. Since it did have a positive result, it certainly cannot be viewed as an act of unadulterated evil. But, it is irksome! This is perhaps an example of what I meant when I wrote elsewhere choices (compromises) have to be made, although I am not wholly persuaded that this was a compromise that had to be made.
Particular #6 Setting up Rick in Hyde School Reunion
This has been discussed to death. You failed to persuade us then. You won't persuade us now. What we agreed upon was that the resolution of this particular action was not an example of fine writing. In fact, there are many problems inherent in this episode. Had the episode been written better, Rick may not have been vanquished by the scabber demons and been turned over to the police. Writers guilty, sisters, whatever!
Particular #7 Leo's execution of Gideon
Should Leo have detained Gideon and placed him before the Council of Elders or even the Tribunal? Maybe. But I don't think the writers wanted to go that route. They wanted to explore the consequences for Leo - and the sisters - of Leo acting as judge, jury and executioner. Leo certainly paid a price in terms of mental and marital health. The Avatars tormented him, Grams derided him (for hanging out in the Underworld). Piper grew estranged from him. He eventually dies - as an Avatar - a just but disconnected punishment for executing Gideon. Redemption occurs only because Leo realizes belatedly the danger the Avatars pose and offers himself as atonement for all of these injudicious acts.
Is what Leo did an act of evil, something comparable to what demons, Cole or even the Source routinely do? Without a definition of evil, I am at a loss to conclude one way or another. I will state emphatically that Leo was wrong to execute Gideon. I believe he paid a price - several times over - death, resurrection and the ultimate fall from grace. Leo acted not out of evil motives, but out of revenge over the death of Chris and the attempted turning of Wyatt. However, a father's grief is no excuse to take the law into one's own hands. But, evil does not act of grief. It commits acts of revenge, destruction and depradation because it's evil. As Barbas claimed meekly in his defense in Crimes and Witch-Demeanors after his plot has been exposed: "Whadya expect? I'm a demon!" Precisely.
We expect more of Leo and maybe the writers should have delivered more, but he was punished to a certain extent!
Particular #8: Utopia
Again, we have the issue of consent. The sisters in their legitimate desire to rid the world of evil and allow a civilization to unfold where the temptations of evil are not present fail to seek the consent of those who presumably would benefit from their actions. But, this is the case with all revolutionaries. Not even the American rebels had the consent of the colonists. Indeed, they might not have even had the consent of a majority. (A lot of colonists left for England or Canada. Certainly, they did not have the consent of native Americans - consider the six tribes who were forced to leave upper New York for southern Ontario - or the domestic slave population who would have been freed from slavery in the South sooner had the British won than later as a result of the Civil War and Civil Rights.) Consent is never going to occur when a revolution is on the burner!
The question is rather two-fold: what vision of a better world did the sisters have to offer and what prompted the sisters to embrace revolution - as opposed to evolution - as the means to achieve utopia? (If you see this as the debate between Rosa Luxemburg and the German Social Democrats after World War I, you are not mistaken. Both wanted socialism. They just weren't certain how to get there!)
Well, in some respects the sisters bought a pig in the poke. They were not skilled enough to ask the sort of probing questions that any advocate for radical change surely would have to address before embracing revolution. Everything rested on a) Phoebe's vision, one that even mortals embraced in Ordinary Witches and b) the baselessness of Agent Brodie's charge that the Avatars had killed his parents. Since the Avatars were not Evil and did seem to promise a utopian future, the sisters went along: Phoebe with ovarian enthusiasm, Piper with a yearning for normality and Paige, reluctantly at best! Give them credit for putting a stop to the Avatars when shown the error of their ways. Punishment: there was none! What they did here was far worse than what any had done to merit the intervention of the Tribunal! Bad, writers, bad!
I leave it open to anyone to write an alternate Charmed future where the sisters have to deal with their abuse of power by having to win back their powers bit by bit! Piper should have lost the power to blow up things, Phoebe the power to have premonitions and Paige maybe her ability to serve as a cosmic taxi (I hold her less accountable!).
Did they commit heinous evil here? No! Their motives were mixed, but mostly good. They acted prematurely on insufficient information and failed to ask probing questions - and blew off Paige when she tried to. But, this is not evil. Hubris, yes. Evil, no!
Now, we can discuss this bill of particulars in depth ad nauseum. But, let's not forget the fundamental point. You assert that these constitute evil misdeeds! But, you've not shown it. In my analysis, I can find support for any such conclusion. I asked above for a definition of evil. You didn't provide one, but did highlight my paragraph where I asked for one. So, I assume you are putting forth these misdeeds as evil acts.
I also asked you to compare this to a truly evil act? Let's see. Cole kills a witch - part of wiping out a local coven - simply because he has been requested to. He, Belthazor, is an assasin. There's no question that he will do this. There's no question that he will not be held to account for this. It's expected of him. He's a demon, after all! Now, Cole later kills another witch but only because Raymer has exercised mind control and held Cole's father's soul hostage! The latter is not an evil act, the former is! Phoebe came to understand this difference!
Define evil, first of all. Second, name actions that the sisters and/or Leo committed that fit this definition. Third, explain why these actions are as bad as anything Cole cum the Source or as Belthazor ever did.
The Charmed fan replied:
Let's see:
*Piper bribed a Customs officer to purchase non-inspected fruit at a cheap price. Granted, she didn't know that the fruit was a health hazard, but she should have considered it, considering she knowingly purchased fruit that had not been inspected.
*Prue tried to beat a Seeker to death out of her anger and desire for revenge against that inspector's death. She didn't do it to protect any innocence. And since Cole managed to convince her to stop, she must have realized that she had done wrong.
*Piper, Paige and Phoebe killed Cole when he was possessed by the Source with extreme prejudice . . . in other words without bothering to find out what really happened to him. They judged him by his past, jumped to conclusions and murdered him.
*Paige abused her orbing powers by placing her boyfriend in jail, because she found out that he was married. She abused her power out of anger.
*Phoebe and Paige ripped Darryl's soul of his body without his consent. Because they needed it to get Leo out of Valhalla. And they needed Leo to end the spell he had cast on Piper. They did this with personal gain in mind.
*Phoebe and Paige set up Rick, Phoebe's old classmate, to be murdered by demons. No need for me to go into details. It's been debated before.
*Leo had murdered Gideon in cold blood. Since it took an act of evil to make the world normal again, Gideon was not in a position to protect himself and Leo wanted revenge for Chris' death . . . it was an act of evil.
*Phoebe, Paige and Piper helped the Avatars to cast a spell upon the human population . . . without the latter's consent. And they did it for personal gain - so they could end their demon hunting days.
Everytime you demand that I prove that the Charmed Ones have committed evil, I would provide this list. This is third time I have provided it. And every time, you would dismiss these acts as irrevelant. Just because they are the stars of the show, does not mean that the Charmed Ones are incapable of evil or bad deeds. The above list, alone, proves that they are capable of being just as evil as Cole. He may have been doing it for over a century, but the sisters and Leo have allowed evil into their hearts . . . just as Cole has.
Vandergraafk replied as follows:
Okay, now we have the bill of particulars. You know this is beginning to resemble the debate on the Declaration of Independence. To recall: the American rebels drew up a list of alleged grievances against King George III. Examined individually and as a whole they hardly amount to a case for rebellion, let alone revolution. But, then the Americans were aiming for something else, weren't they? A constitutionally bound executive with delineated and separated powers that may be implicit - to a certain extent - in the unwritten British constitution, but is clearly way different than the British system it replaced - inefficiently at first with the Articles of Confederation, and somewhat more efficiently - but not much - later with the U.S. Constitution. We can discuss, debate and deride ad nauseum the merits of the bill of particulars, but let's not forget the ultimate point. Ljones wishes to destroy the notion that the Charmed Ones are a force for good. Maybe they do good acts, but too many times they do so out of self-interest, arrogance, hubris and a twisted sense of self-righteousness.
Perhaps that's why I asked for a definition of evil. We didn't get one and as others have correctly pointed out that one of the bill of particulars, playing fast and loose with federal restrictions (and California restrictions) on importing foreign fruits and vegetables, is an illegal act, not an act of unadulterated evil! Piper played fast and loose and paid a heavy price. She ultimately bore responsibility, a responsibility she acknowledged, for the death of the good Dr. Williamson in Astral Monkey, a researcher puzzled by her miraculous recovery through (divine) intervention.
Particular #2: Prue must have known she was wrong when Cole persuaded her to cease pounding on the Seeker for having offed the female inspector.
Let's see. Prue assumed that the female inspector was an innocent. She saw someone - the Angel of Death - shadowing her and concluded - wrongly - that the Angel of Death was the bad guy and that the inspector had to be saved. Later, she comes to the realization that it was the Seekers who were the threat. Prue was unable to alter destiny and out of frustration pounded on one of the Seekers. Anger, yes! An act of evil! Not under any definition that I can think of. Besides, as you correctly point out, she ultimately listens to Cole.
I'm surprised you don't add "standly idly by while Inspector Davidson is killed by the Seekers" to this particular bill. Oh, that's right. Prue is with the Angel of Death who is able to persuade Prue that destiny cannot be defeated!
Particular #3: Killing Cole cum the Source
Discussed, debated, analyzed to death. See my comments in Contradicting. You never respond to our points. And your points are poorly crafted!
Particular #4: Paige and her lying boyfriend.
Yes, Paige did place her two-timing boyfriend in jail to prevent him from exposing magic. She knew that her truth spell would wear off in time (it did). And, yes, she did place an undue burden on Darryl (placing an innocent in jail for no reason violated habeas corpus) and she did abuse her powers as a witch. Again, is this an act of evil comparable to anything Cole ever did? Besides, Paige, as a novice, is condemned in a certain way to repeat mistakes the others had already made, i.e., using powers for personal gain! Maybe what we needed was another episode of Morality Bites involving Paige to hammer home the truth. Evil, no!
Particular #5 Borrowing Darryl's soul
Let's see. They did do this without the consent of Darryl. And consent is very important. One only has to recall the drug experiments used on prisoners in Philadelphia and the Tuskegee experiment involving African Americans to worry about the lack of effective consent being given by test subjects. (The fact that some researchers are proposing again to test drugs on prisoners indicates the issue is important.)
One might argue that since the outcome was good (no harm ensued to Darryl and he seems to have enjoyed the ride), then the failure to obtain consent is moot. I disagree, as I suppose many of would. Rather, the question is one of urgency. Were the sisters - Paige and Phoebe - so pressed for time that consent could not be obtained and that Darryl would just have to trust them?
In reviewing this episode, I find no urgency compelling Darryl's soul to be taken without his consent. Should the sisters have tried to persuade Darryl? Yes. Could they have been reasonably assured of success? Possibly.
Darryl initially would have disagreed and emphatically said no. But, what were the alternatives? To take a fallen soldier, police officer, firefighter or some other dedicated public servant's essence might not have been possible and might have risked exposure of Magic and worse might have altered destiny. Darryl, already used to Magic, might have been persuaded to go along. After all, the sisters had risked their lives repeatedly for him. He owed them in a sense!
So, what should we conclude? Yes, the sisters should have taken the time to persuade Darryl. They stood a good chance of persuading him. Was the failure to obtain consent an act of evil? I don't know. Since it did have a positive result, it certainly cannot be viewed as an act of unadulterated evil. But, it is irksome! This is perhaps an example of what I meant when I wrote elsewhere choices (compromises) have to be made, although I am not wholly persuaded that this was a compromise that had to be made.
Particular #6 Setting up Rick in Hyde School Reunion
This has been discussed to death. You failed to persuade us then. You won't persuade us now. What we agreed upon was that the resolution of this particular action was not an example of fine writing. In fact, there are many problems inherent in this episode. Had the episode been written better, Rick may not have been vanquished by the scabber demons and been turned over to the police. Writers guilty, sisters, whatever!
Particular #7 Leo's execution of Gideon
Should Leo have detained Gideon and placed him before the Council of Elders or even the Tribunal? Maybe. But I don't think the writers wanted to go that route. They wanted to explore the consequences for Leo - and the sisters - of Leo acting as judge, jury and executioner. Leo certainly paid a price in terms of mental and marital health. The Avatars tormented him, Grams derided him (for hanging out in the Underworld). Piper grew estranged from him. He eventually dies - as an Avatar - a just but disconnected punishment for executing Gideon. Redemption occurs only because Leo realizes belatedly the danger the Avatars pose and offers himself as atonement for all of these injudicious acts.
Is what Leo did an act of evil, something comparable to what demons, Cole or even the Source routinely do? Without a definition of evil, I am at a loss to conclude one way or another. I will state emphatically that Leo was wrong to execute Gideon. I believe he paid a price - several times over - death, resurrection and the ultimate fall from grace. Leo acted not out of evil motives, but out of revenge over the death of Chris and the attempted turning of Wyatt. However, a father's grief is no excuse to take the law into one's own hands. But, evil does not act of grief. It commits acts of revenge, destruction and depradation because it's evil. As Barbas claimed meekly in his defense in Crimes and Witch-Demeanors after his plot has been exposed: "Whadya expect? I'm a demon!" Precisely.
We expect more of Leo and maybe the writers should have delivered more, but he was punished to a certain extent!
Particular #8: Utopia
Again, we have the issue of consent. The sisters in their legitimate desire to rid the world of evil and allow a civilization to unfold where the temptations of evil are not present fail to seek the consent of those who presumably would benefit from their actions. But, this is the case with all revolutionaries. Not even the American rebels had the consent of the colonists. Indeed, they might not have even had the consent of a majority. (A lot of colonists left for England or Canada. Certainly, they did not have the consent of native Americans - consider the six tribes who were forced to leave upper New York for southern Ontario - or the domestic slave population who would have been freed from slavery in the South sooner had the British won than later as a result of the Civil War and Civil Rights.) Consent is never going to occur when a revolution is on the burner!
The question is rather two-fold: what vision of a better world did the sisters have to offer and what prompted the sisters to embrace revolution - as opposed to evolution - as the means to achieve utopia? (If you see this as the debate between Rosa Luxemburg and the German Social Democrats after World War I, you are not mistaken. Both wanted socialism. They just weren't certain how to get there!)
Well, in some respects the sisters bought a pig in the poke. They were not skilled enough to ask the sort of probing questions that any advocate for radical change surely would have to address before embracing revolution. Everything rested on a) Phoebe's vision, one that even mortals embraced in Ordinary Witches and b) the baselessness of Agent Brodie's charge that the Avatars had killed his parents. Since the Avatars were not Evil and did seem to promise a utopian future, the sisters went along: Phoebe with ovarian enthusiasm, Piper with a yearning for normality and Paige, reluctantly at best! Give them credit for putting a stop to the Avatars when shown the error of their ways. Punishment: there was none! What they did here was far worse than what any had done to merit the intervention of the Tribunal! Bad, writers, bad!
I leave it open to anyone to write an alternate Charmed future where the sisters have to deal with their abuse of power by having to win back their powers bit by bit! Piper should have lost the power to blow up things, Phoebe the power to have premonitions and Paige maybe her ability to serve as a cosmic taxi (I hold her less accountable!).
Did they commit heinous evil here? No! Their motives were mixed, but mostly good. They acted prematurely on insufficient information and failed to ask probing questions - and blew off Paige when she tried to. But, this is not evil. Hubris, yes. Evil, no!
Now, we can discuss this bill of particulars in depth ad nauseum. But, let's not forget the fundamental point. You assert that these constitute evil misdeeds! But, you've not shown it. In my analysis, I can find support for any such conclusion. I asked above for a definition of evil. You didn't provide one, but did highlight my paragraph where I asked for one. So, I assume you are putting forth these misdeeds as evil acts.
I also asked you to compare this to a truly evil act? Let's see. Cole kills a witch - part of wiping out a local coven - simply because he has been requested to. He, Belthazor, is an assasin. There's no question that he will do this. There's no question that he will not be held to account for this. It's expected of him. He's a demon, after all! Now, Cole later kills another witch but only because Raymer has exercised mind control and held Cole's father's soul hostage! The latter is not an evil act, the former is! Phoebe came to understand this difference!