Should Amazons be shown as remorseful

[slvn]

I'm all for the 'modernization' of these Amazons. I'm all for seeing 'progress' in their ways of thinking. Honestly, I just don't see remorse. This isn't to say it isn't there... but I just don't see it. The only thing resembling any kind of remorse I've seen from these Amazons is this graphic below my text.

That one panel is kind of a lot, given that we only have about two pages of images of the Amazons's bad deeds.( ETA--I count 9 panels of Heph's story, so if one ninth of that story shows something along the lines of remorse, then that's not a bad start. :) I'm tempted to say two ninths, because I notice that the Amazons carrying the sons are not just hooded--they also have noticeably bent shoulders, a traditional marker of remorse.)

But I would agree with you that we haven't seen actual, unambiguous, widespread remorse yet. The question of the thread is "SHOULD Amazons be shown as remoseful?" I would say yes, they should, because showing complex, mixed, changing feelings would be more interesting than having the Amazons feel all one way about this stuff. And also because, for the reasons I mentioned in the above posts, it seems feasible that they would have some potential for remorse, which, even if it's only potential so far, may become active remorse once Diana (and perhaps some of her age peers, if they share her innocence) confront the guilty Amazons.

You might say that the Amazons seem incapable of remorse because we have heard Aleka make misandrist remarks and we have had some indications that her sentiments are widely shared. But again, I think misandry could easily be part of a rationalization. Few people want to say that "we raided some noble, good people." If you feel you have to raid someone, it's a lot easier to think of them as inferior and savage.

[jabu46]

Yes, and that was wrong.

Logically [and I am a big fan of logic - go Spock] I can understand the Amazons reason for what they did. It does not alter the immoratily of it.



The situations do not equate. The Amazons are not suffering oppression. Quite the contrary, they apparently live in an island paradise. They choose to go out and kill others.

Those poorer parts of Africa would not be in the state they are in except for real people acting like the fictional Amazons here. Hate and fear causing people to act in their own best interest and oppressing others for their own percieved survival. Its a vicious cycle but I have to believe that is not one mandated by universal law.



There's your answer right there. Maybe they don't. If they want to live in isolation fine, but if that means they die out then they die out. Their desire to survive does not give them any excuse to kill others when they are other options available. My mother would describe that as 'wanting to have your cake and eat it too.'

And from what I have seen, they didn't do this for kicks, no. Doesn't matter. They did it. Deathstroke and the Joker dont have the same motivations to murder people, but that doesnt mean they aren't both guilty.



The only question here is a simple one - what woud Wonder Woman do? Would Diana approve of them killing those men for babies? Will she allow the practice to continue? Part of my high senese of morality you talk about comes from reading Wonder Woman. Let that be the guide on whether this was necessary or right.

I don't think we've seen any part of Diana that would approve of it. so far,, she refused to kill a minotaur as a child. she told frikkin HADES she loved him, and loves everybody. Hera is totally vulnerable in front of her now, and aside from the fact that she needs to keep her alive, she actually seems to feel sorry for her. She just last issue embraced a bitter god child as a sister that was trying to kill her. I could go on. Where is it being shown that this isn't the compassionate WW from before?

he didn't even approve of how the magazines were seemingly being treated, and was about to fight Hephaestus for their freedom. If that's not Wonder Woman, I dunno what is.

Now I will say this: once the Amazons do come back, and I'm sure they will, if they still practice this and Diana actually approves, I'LL even say Azzarello went too far. I'm betting money though that not only does she not approve, but Hippolyta no longer allows it and has remorse for it. There may be some amazons that don't, but that's a society. different people have different views. Some people defend slavery as it had a purpose to it.

as far as it being immoral, I won't argue you, but like I said, it's a different time, and different circumstances. You and I don't have to worry about our survival in anyway like that, so since we've never been in that situation, neither ones of us knows what we would do for sure.

[cgh]

There's no hard choice here. These guys are a threat - lets kill them, we hate them anyway.

Hard choices are when you risk your own safety to help others or do what's right. Screwing over other people is the easiest thing human beings do, and why in the comics Ares is so powerful.

I saw no indication of hatred. On the contrary, it's a very hard choice to kill these guys in order to guarantee the safety of their society. Every indication is that they killed them out of necessity rather than fun. That's a hard row to hoe, but luckily the Amazons can make those tough decisions.

Back in "the day" of neat resolutions, they would have replaced this with hypnosis or something so everyone goes home happy. Maybe we'll see something like that, but maybe not, and we'll have to live with this unsettling reproductive strategy.

[UsagiTsukino]

How do you think the amazons should change when they return?

[brettc1]

I saw no indication of hatred. On the contrary, it's a very hard choice to kill these guys in order to guarantee the safety of their society. Every indication is that they killed them out of necessity rather than fun. That's a hard row to hoe, but luckily the Amazons can make those tough decisions.

Back in "the day" of neat resolutions, they would have replaced this with hypnosis or something so everyone goes home happy. Maybe we'll see something like that, but maybe not, and we'll have to live with this unsettling reproductive strategy.

You dont need to kill people for fun for it to be wrong. Is the German soldier executing civilian prisoners making a hard decision, or would it be harder to say "No, this is wrong even if I am only following orders."

And if you see no inidications of hatred, I would suggest re-reading #2 and #3. Their comments about men are pretty plainly based on disgust for all things male.

Again, the only moral compass you need for this is to imagine the Amazons sex raiders going up to Wonder Woman and calmly explaining that they are going to go out and boink some men and then kill them for the good of their society. In Diana's response is all you need to know about the morality of this course of action.

[slvn]

And if you want to remain a hidden, secretive, society and island, the LAST thing you need is a ship full of sailors going back to their respective ports to talk and brag about "women who came out of the water" and made it with everybody. Because then they won't be that secret anymore. And eventually it will get around so much that people will go looking for them, and maybe eventually find them.

They didn't need to raid, though, did they? They could have just sailed into some ports, split up, gone to the local pubs, and met some willing men. The men might not have been particularly curious about where these women came from, and if they were, the Amazons could have just mentioned some far off place.

This is one reason why I'm curious why went about things the way they did, and I think there's a lot more to be told about it.

And who knows what the Amazons will say about it when they come back? Maybe they don't do it anymore.

Good point. There wouldn't be much point trying to keep Themyscira a secret anymore; it's already been talked about on TMZ. They could replace the raids with a reality TV show: Who Wants to Mate With an Amazon?

And if you see no inidications of hatred, I would suggest re-reading #2 and #3. Their comments about men are pretty plainly based on disgust for all things male.

Historians still question to what degree racism resulted in slavery and to what degree slavery resulted in racism. It seems intuitive that racism was the cause and slavery was an effect, but when you look closer, you see that racism became much more prominent when black people had become widely seen as slaves and when slaveowners needed to justify their actions by insisting on the natural inferiority of the people they had enslaved. There could be the same "chicken and egg" question here; do they kill men because they hate men, or do they deem men hateful to justify killing them?

[UsagiTsukino]

How would you like the amazons to be changed?