Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT Strips 3626 to 3630 (4th to 8th December 2017)

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Tova:
Not really. Not that I've noticed anyway. I guess they just find Tilly cute and amusing? I don't think they are thinking too hard about it.

Anathema, I know.

badbum61:

--- Quote from: JoeCovenant on 04 Dec 2017, 03:21 ---
--- Quote from: Marco on 04 Dec 2017, 02:39 ---
--- Quote from: traroth on 04 Dec 2017, 01:41 ---
--- Quote from: Akima on 04 Dec 2017, 01:34 ---
--- Quote from: Gyrre on 03 Dec 2017, 22:47 ---
--- Quote from: badbum61 on 03 Dec 2017, 22:08 ---Tucson, Tucumcari, Tehachapi, Tonopah...

--- End quote ---
Tilapia, Tepaché, Tetch, Titch...

--- End quote ---
Tarpon, Trigger, Tokamak, Tarantula...

--- End quote ---

Tagliatelle, Turtle, Tyranosaurus, Terminator, Thesaurus, Telephone, Trepan...

--- End quote ---

Tinytoon, Tiamat, Telecaster, Teetotaler, Tacobell, Titanomachy...

--- End quote ---
Tedious, Tepid, Terrible, Tilled

--- End quote ---

Tila Tequila?

TheEvilDog:
Ewww, no.

Shjade:

--- Quote from: Case on 04 Dec 2017, 07:24 --- (click to show/hide)
Uhm - 'concerned' is not the word I'd use in that context (cf. below), but as they say: YMMV (and the subject may be a lacking a few sammiches ...)


--- Quote from: Shjade on 03 Dec 2017, 20:08 --- He values the ends over the means, but he's not indifferent to the means. If he were, he wouldn't have had the moral event horizon breakdown at the end when he realized he was on the wrong side, because oh well, I guess I was wrong, but whatever, who cares how wrong it was.

Basically the Operative just...er...operates on a utilitarian sense of ethics.
--- End quote ---

Hmmmh - Way it looked to me is that basically he likes killing just as much as he likes showing off that he's really good at it and the whole "utilitarian ethics mumbojumbo" is merely his way of not acknowledging to himself that his enjoyment of brutality is what it's all about for him. He's not merely 'not indifferent to the means' - he is actually rather enthusiastic about them, and his whole pseudo-philosophical blurb is designed to obfuscate - primarily to himself - that for him, the means is the end, really.

We're talking about a dude who engineers an gravity-assisted 'suicide' and then (apparently sincerely) congratulates the victim on their honourable death (conveniently forgetting the 'involuntary' element) - instead of simply killing the mark in the fastest, least painful way, which is what a 'concerned utilitarian killer' would have done. He even 'offers' the latter option to the victim ("would you rather be killed in your sleep, like an ailing pet?"), just before making him a stage-prop in the enactment of his own 'honourable suicide'.

Methinks that his epiphany at the end is not so much about him realizing he was on the wrong side all along as it is about him running out of flimsy excuses for not acknowledging that he really, really likes what he does, and that this is his reason for doing it. Recall that Shepherd Book all-but-admitted to Mal that he'd been sort of an 'Operative' once ("The man they like to send is a man who believes hard") before mending his ways after he realized the callousness of the whole outfit  - methinks that 'concerned' is a word more appropriate for the likes of him. Also recall that Mal immediately distrusts the Operative's 'epiphany', whereas he trusted Book implicitly.

Also: (click to show/hide):laugh:
--- End quote ---

I suppose that comes down to whether you think he's sincere in trying to confer honor and nobility on the act of suicide for the good of the many, or if he was being sarcastic about it to rub salt in the proverbial wound because he just really wanted to kill the guy.

I got the impression it was option #1, myself.

There's also the heavily implied notion that Shepherd Book is an ex-Operative, and that the Operative is likely going to go down a similar route himself post-conclusion, which would require a pretty drastic perspective shift from amorality compared to the much smaller one of misguided utilitarianism. Not impossible, but seems less likely.

But hey, it's all fiction, so whatevs. :D

OldGoat:
Comic's up! 

Hannelore is unquestionably a mammal.

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