[HoosierDaddy]

Coltaine is your typical conservative, and that's why he is such a hero and successful. He follows a much more rational and comprehensible philosophy of the ends always justifying the means, so it really isn't much of a surprise that Whiskeyjack got killed considering he didn't have the balls to subject the mother's of the dead seed to Dragnipur. Coltaine, on the other hand, would have lived it it wasn't for that pussy High Fist and his treacherous slime of an adviser (who I'm pretty sure were outed as liberals in their conversations).

Edit: Cleaned up second sentence as it was somewhat confusing.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 24 March 2013 - 04:30 PM

[Ulysses]

no you writing the above is trolling. keep your grammar classes to yourself

[Ulysses]

coltaine is a hero
WJ is a pompous liberal douche

[Tehol the Only]

Never mind that the army of cannibal murderers would have been more than happy to remain a bunch of peaceful farmers if not for the influence of a near-godly entity who decides to ravage to world out of spite.
Rake was essentially about to commit those tenescowri to eternal punishment for crimes they were MADE to commit. Let's just admit it, faced with the choice between cannibalism and death by starvation, i'd choose cannibalism all day every day.(and you would too, probably) This happened lots of times in our world. Murder for survival maybe deserves death in response(maybe, mind you), but certainly not retribution till the end of time.
I don't think i would react as WJ did (i'd prob just stay on the "who cares" side), but calling someone a pompous douche because he follows his own moral concepts(however silly they are) is stupid and pretentious, since you automatically assume that your morality is better that his/hers.

Also, some people you can like, others you can't, deal with it. This is true for both real life persons and book characters..

I second the feeling we're being trolled , just wanted to give a somewhat polite answer.

[Spoilsport Stonny]

Yes. It wasnt just death, it was Dragnipur.

[Abyss]

My recall may be off, but i vaguely think WJ at least in part trying to protect Rake, not the Tenescowri witches... meaning he liked Rake, knew how much Rake hated using Dragnipur, and was trying to convince him not to for his own sake.

Given the risk the witches represented, that left only execution as an option.



Which isn't any version of Liberalism i'm acquainted with. Rather, it's compassion for a friend.

[Tehol the Only]

Abyss, on 24 March 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

he liked Rake, knew how much Rake hated using Dragnipur, and was trying to convince him not to for his own sake.

.


Yep i think WJ at the time already knew something about how incredibly straining is for rake to carry the Dragnipur's weight.

To risk himself to ease the life of a godlike being just because he's a friend is a completely irrational action.... and beautiful in its own way. It's stuff like this that makes SE's characters feel so real.

This post has been edited by Tehol the Only: 24 March 2013 - 06:38 PM

[Mott]

This idea that because WJ is a soldier in an empire that he therefore must leave his sense of morality or self behind is a bit simplistic I think, he's been shown since the prologue of GoTM to have an awareness of what his job entails and to not always like it. In MoI he is part of what is thought to be a rebel army, they've split away, during this pretense he's grown close to the people he was before fighting against as enemies of the empire, and as Abyss points out, he's even developed friendships with them, so his job has not killed his empathy by any stretch of the imagination, in some ways I think it has developed it and made acts like this more precious.

I don't want to say too much pertaining to the rest of MoI if you haven't yet finished it but there is a character later on who may give you some insight into the way the Pannion army works and how awful and twisted a life it is. Does this excuse what these women did? No, of course not. And was it depraved? To the extreme. They were however in extreme circumstances, influenced by a bitter, vengeful God-figure. I don't think it is wrong to have sympathy for them, it doesn't equate to condoning their actions and they were executed, but Dragnipur? Eternal suffering for them and for its bearer? I like WJ all the more for not wanting that for both these people and Rake.

Also, soldiers throughout the series struggle with what is expected of them, the things they have done, their sense of humanity, their place and role in war and in the world. Just a heads up.

[Ulysses]

listen, I am a firm believer in retribution. I have heard similiar excuses for those who helped the nazis(because they had no choice) well I still would line them up against a wall and kill them

[Puck]

Then you are completely missing the message of the whole series.

[worry]

Makes sense, I suppose. If you then submit to being killed for the murders you just committed. And then someone has to execute the person who just executed you. And so on and so on.

I would ask you to make up your mind though. Do you want retribution or do you want justice?

[worry]

Puck, on 24 March 2013 - 11:13 PM, said:

Then you are completely missing the message of the whole series.

Well he hasn't finished the whole series, he's just commenting on where he's gotten to so far. I mean there are plenty of non-liberals throughout the series for him to enjoy when he gets to them.

[Puck]

worrywort, on 24 March 2013 - 11:17 PM, said:

Puck, on 24 March 2013 - 11:13 PM, said:

Then you are completely missing the message of the whole series.

Well he hasn't finished the whole series, he's just commenting on where he's gotten to so far. I mean there are plenty of non-liberals throughout the series for him to enjoy when he gets to them.

True enough, but it's not like there aren't enough hints before and in MoI that compassion matters or that being judgemental is a not what the cool kids do.



Even if it's fun occasionally.

..err, did I just say that?

[LinearPhilosopher]

Personally i'd like to make a a distinction between morally permissible and morally excusable behavior. While the tenescowri did commit reprehensible acts (we all know the details) considering the extrem situation they were in, while it does not justify their acts, and it does not make then moral being, it does make them morally excusable.

It's like killing a creature for subsitence. Yeah you're killing something it's not morally just behavior, but it is morally excusable. Best you can do is feed yourself and your kin and not let the animal die in vain by making full use of it's body.

@op, if you think THAT is liberalism, boy are you far to the left. You want liberalism try John Stuart Mill 's work "on liberty"

This post has been edited by BalrogLord: 25 March 2013 - 02:55 AM

[Abyss]

Ulysses, on 24 March 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

listen, I am a firm believer in retribution...

All well and good.
But are you a firm believer in retribution AT ANY COST?
...because that is the crux of what Whiskeyjack did when he tried to stop Rake, then did the killings himself.


(@Ulysses - As an aside, I want to point out here that this isn't a bunch of dinos jumping down a relatively new arrival's throat just for the hell of it. You raised a point for discussion and it's a good one, and there's a number of views that disagree with you to different degrees. And at least one grammar-nazi, but we'll overlook that for the sake of discussion... also, i fixed your thread title. )

[Khellendros]

Abyss, on 25 March 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

Ulysses, on 24 March 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

listen, I am a firm believer in retribution...

All well and good.
But are you a firm believer in retribution AT ANY COST?
...because that is the crux of what Whiskeyjack did when he tried to stop Rake, then did the killings himself.


(@Ulysses - As an aside, I want to point out here that this isn't a bunch of dinos jumping down a relatively new arrival's throat just for the hell of it. You raised a point for discussion and it's a good one, and there's a number of views that disagree with you to different degrees. And at least one grammar-nazi, but we'll overlook that for the sake of discussion... also, i fixed your thread title. )

Huh, I assumed the original title was a play on words "Whiskey Jacks [off] Liberalism".

[Gnaw]

Ulysses, on 23 March 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

So I am new to the board. I am reading the series for the first time. I just recently completed the wheel of time series and had previously attempted to read gardens of the moon. on my second drive I finished it and loved it more then any book from the WOT series.

So two books done in one month and half way through Memories of Ice. I don't know what happened but Erickson just completely turned me off on whiskey jack . without spoiling any thing I just cannot believe that whiskey jack would wish to protect any group of people who rape,kill and mane people, let alone eat them. lets not mention what these folks did to the children.

the specific interaction with rake and his attempting to protect a certain group of scum just rubs me the wrong way.

I will never be able to look at whiskey jack the same way.

Gnaw, on 23 March 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

Ulysses, on 23 March 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

the specific interaction with rake and his attempting to protect a certain group of scum just rubs me the wrong way.

I think you're missing the fate that those particular scum were facing. There are things worse than death. Especially in fantasy worlds.

Abyss, on 25 March 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

Ulysses, on 24 March 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

listen, I am a firm believer in retribution...

All well and good.
But are you a firm believer in retribution AT ANY COST?
...because that is the crux of what Whiskeyjack did when he tried to stop Rake, then did the killings himself.


(@Ulysses - As an aside, I want to point out here that this isn't a bunch of dinos jumping down a relatively new arrival's throat just for the hell of it. You raised a point for discussion and it's a good one, and there's a number of views that disagree with you to different degrees. And at least one grammar-nazi, but we'll overlook that for the sake of discussion... also, i fixed your thread title. )

I made an assumption that affected the rest of the commenters. If Ulysses is referring to a conversation between Korlat and WJ on page 554, he might have a point. Valid or not is up for discussion. As someone else pointed out, it doesn't reach "liberalism" level. The witches/Dragnipur thing comes later.

Spoiler

This is before the Malazans and Rake every reach Capustan. WJ tells Korlat that the Malazans would not support an slaughtering the 200,000 Tenescowri peasants. Anaster and the leaders, but not the followers. Because they were victims of the Seer as much as the Tenescowri's victims.

[Sinisdar Toste]

Ulysses, on 24 March 2013 - 04:31 PM, said:

coltaine is a hero
WJ is a pompous liberal douche

the positive rep i gave this post was meant to be negative. neg repped further down the page to make up for it. try and avoid ad hominem attacks, it's not gonna get your arguments very far.

[Khestrassa]

Ulysses, on 24 March 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

. they deserved the suffering that rake was going to give them. did they give those children a peaceful, painless death or did they roast them alive.

This is classic liberal speak, let's make the lethal injection as humane as possible. Never mind the family of four which was tortured.

I strongly believe in the Saudi way...blood for blood, justice for those injured.

Mark my words, you are Forkrul Assail. You dont understand that all now, but you will after finishing the series.

[Gnaw]

Khestrassa, on 26 March 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

Ulysses, on 24 March 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

. they deserved the suffering that rake was going to give them. did they give those children a peaceful, painless death or did they roast them alive.

This is classic liberal speak, let's make the lethal injection as humane as possible. Never mind the family of four which was tortured.

I strongly believe in the Saudi way...blood for blood, justice for those injured.

Mark my words, you are Forkrul Assail. You dont understand that all now, but you will after finishing the series.