Sorry to continue the hijack, but what was the divine intervention? I don’t recall that part. But it’s been a long time since I saw that episode.
Was that the protoganist of Lord Foul’s Bane? That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the title. But I don’t know if he could be considered a “good” person overall.
It wasn’t a safe alternative. It was a stupid chance to take. At least one (relative) innocent got killed while they were looking for a way to re-ensoul Angel.
I’m not sure I’d call Xander’s situation jealousy, either. He was with Cordelia at that point, no? (And possibly flirting with Willow as well.) Since we are not privy to any internal monologues from him, or any conversations with anybody else about his motives, I think it just as reasonable to think him motivated by a higher emotion: his love for Buffy and his desire not to see her get murdered.
It was childish and irresponsible for Willow to want to tell Buffy she was working on the re-ensoulment spell. Not only would that knowledge not help Buffy do what she needed to do in any way, it would have hindered her, endangering her and making it more likely that what’s-his-name would be awakened and Hell unleashed on the world.
It’s this:
[spoiler]Willow tries to perform the spell, initially fails. Then she is suddenly and obviously possessed by some external power; her flagging energy returns, her eyes go white, and she suddenly has the power to do what she never could before. We’re clearly meant to think it was not her power alone, or even primarily, that was responsible.
And in view of the complete run of both series, I feel safe in saying Jasmine who playing a hand. Or another of the Powers That Be. Or, possibly, the Senior Partners.[/spoiler]
We’ll discuss that after you bring me some sugar-free ginger snaps, sirrah.
But who watches the WATCHMEN, then?
Fair enough. I would only note, in passing, that it isn’t necessary to describe Willow’s actions at almost any point in the series as childish and irresponsible - simply saying that Willow is doing them is more than sufficient. Terrifying character. Adorable, of course, but easily as terrifying as anything else on the show’s run - an astonishingly powerful and deeply insecure woman who could do horrible things to dear friends and never understand that she’d wronged them. (Which is, by the way, the only reason I don’t think she’s eligible for this thread - conscience is too badly broken.)
Spoiler for Miéville’s Perdido Street Station:
We’re led all along to believe that Yagharek’s crime was merely the violation of some tribal taboo that no one outside his culture would understand. Only at the end of the book is it revealed that it was rape.
Covenent is in no way a “good” guy. In fact, he’s an awful, reprehensible person whose *least *crime is probably the infamous rape. Wasn’t the series actually conceived as a “lets see how far we can take the antihero” experiment? It sure reads like it.
Albus Dumbledore, however, is an undisputed “good” guy who has to do some very bad things to Harry, beginning with his choice for Harry’s fosterage and extending through his (Dumbledore’s) death. I think he’s the Moral Message, really: sometimes good people have to do bad things to prevent even worse things.
[SPOILER]I still thing he was wronged at the end, though. Yes, his crime was horrible. But he paid for that - paid in blood and terror as the knife cut through the skin and sinew and bone of one wing, and then rose to begin anew with the other. He paid in despair as he walked god knows how far across the world before the story began. And he was redeemed by any reasonable standard - how many lives were saved by Yagharek’s bravery and selflessnes and skill? What Yagharek did to the woman in his tribe was unforgiveable - but we needn’t forgive his crime to recognize the injustice in leaving a genuine hero maimed and broken.
What’s-his-face can’t get past that, though, and so he betrays Yag. Shameful
[/SPOILER]
Deep Space Nine, Benjamin Sisko in In the Pale Moonlight.
“So… I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all… I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would. Garak was right about one thing, a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it… Computer, erase that entire personal log.”
Does Paul Kersey fit your bill?
But that was pre-reformation. Yes?
Yes - throughout the series, Xander’s attitude towards Angel and Spike was in some ways the most reasonable - he remembered from episode to episode that however necessary it was to work with them for pragmatic reasons, these are deeply dangerous people, who would quite possibly kill him and everyone he loved the moment external constraints were released (now jealousy might have helped him see this more clearly from time to time).
I have to disagree here. The reason that Mr. Orange shot her was purely instinctive. She shot him as he opened the door. As he hits the ground, he shoots her just as a reflex.
I think the look on his face afterwards was more of a “what the fuck did I just do?” kinda thing. I don’t think he intended to do it.
Louis Wu in Ringworld Engineers chose to
- kill 1.5 trillion people in order to save 28.5 trillion.
That’s got to rank right up there.
Even though it didn’t end up happening, I’d say that counts.
Skald, master, I’d forgotten about that part. Did we ever find out who it was that helped her out? I thought maybe it was the First Evil, given his later screw-with-Angel antics.
Walter White & Jesse Pinkman
Since the First Evil was trying to kill Angel in the Xmas episode (Atonement?), I’m going to say no. I assume with very little actual “evidence” that the Powers That Be in general, and possibly Jasmine in particular, saved Angel with the snowstorm, and they seem most likely to be behind Willow’s sudden uptick in mojo.
Jean Luc Picard.
Had a chance to eliminate the Borg with a computer virus. Decided he couldn’t commit genocide. Borg continue being Borg.
Well, how about Agatha Christie’s Curtain, the final Hercule Porot mystery?
An elderly, seemingly feeble Hercule Poirot, who has been portrayed as a good, pious and virtuous man in numerous Agatha Christie mysteries, commits murder.
Poirot has discovered a real-life Iago, a catalyst of murder. Poirot figures out that this seemingly quiet, unassuming individual has a gift for pushing people’s buttons, and has manipulated numerous persons into committing murder. This man has committed absolutely no crime, and can never be arrested for anything he’s done.
So, Poirot decides to murder this person, in the name of justice.