Just another way of pushing my limits. I had convinced myself I didn’t care about the people I was hurting or about this guy I’d just killed, and maybe I didn’t. Maybe I don’t, still. Dunno. But it was so pointless.”
If Alec’s detached attitude isn’t entirely the result of Heartbreaker’s power, this kind of thing would likely contribute to it. He’d start detaching himself from the things Heartbreaker made him do, and it’d snowball into a detachment from pretty much everything.
He shrugged, “I didn’t see a real reason to stay. Walked away. Changed my name, got fresh ID, changed my villain name too.”
Why did you stay a villain? Why do you still want to impress your father (as discussed in 3.8)? Was that what he did with his power, make you permanently want to impress him? It would make sense to do that when he’s trying to raise children to be his parahuman servants.
He’d killed someone on his father’s orders, which made him the second killer in the group. Armsmaster must have dug up that detail & drawn the right conclusions after connecting Alec to his prior alter ego.
(The ampersand seems out of place here.)
Yeah, we know from Coil that the Protectorate is aware of Alec’s past, so Armsy almost certainly knew about that.
“When did this happen, this killing?” I asked, quiet, “How old were you when you killed that guy?”
“Hmm. I’d been gone for about two years before the boss got in touch with me, which was about this time last year, so three years ago. I would’ve been twelve or thirteen.”
Sheesh.
Was that forgivable? He’d been made to do it, he’d been in fucked up circumstances with no real moral compass to go by, still a kid. The way he described it, though, it didn’t sit well with me. Cold blooded murder.
Ahh, a good old philosophical question right there. Are you still accountable for morally bad actions if someone forced you to do them?
Immanuel Kant would say that yes, if you have the option to refuse to do something bad (which you almost always have, just at varying costs to yourself), it’s your responsibility to refuse – though Kant was also the guy who’d rather have you giving up your children’s location to a murderer than tell a lie. He did have a point, though – is it selfish to put more weight on the bad things that may happen to yourself if you don’t than on the bad things that definitely happen to others if you do?
Worth noting in this particular scenario is that Heartbreaker would probably kill the victims anyway, and I think Alec knew that. Realistically, Alec and the world didn’t actually stand anything to gain, other than a clearer conscience for Alec, from him not murdering.
The cold-blooded part was a defense mechanism. A way for Alec to handle being forced to do this without breaking apart and becoming another tool for Heartbreaker to spread more violence.
Was it wrong to murder this guy? Yes. Did Alec have a choice? Yes. Do I blame Alec for doing it? Not one bit.
Krixwell Liveblogs 