How many innocents would you kill to save the life of the person you love most?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yes, it’s one of those long ridiculous hypotheticals again. If you hate these, why are you still reading? Anyway, here’s the sitch:

For purposes of today’s silliness, you are a legendary badass. with the combined abilities of Aragorn, Jack Bauer, Angus MacGyver, and that guy Mandy Patinkin played on Criminal Minds.* You have on your person a variety of firearms, ammunition, & blades.† Sadly, you have also attracted the interest of a certain sadistic monster who shall remain nameless.‡ This vicious freak has kidnapped the human being you love most – husband, wife**, child,†† parent, lover, friend, whatever-- and placed them in the requisite automated death trap, where, in precisely two hours, they will be decapitated, stabbed, shot, incinerated, and dismembered.‡ ‡

You are standing outside the labyrinthine citadel where your loved one is being held. You know where their cell is; you know how penetrate the maze, make your way to the cell, and disarm the murderous devices therein. That knowledge includes your own assessment that the only safe way (for your loved one) to do so is from inside the cell.*** Furthermore, from your own assessment of the madman’s mad mind, you judge that he’ll let you and your loved one depart if you can make it through the maze and out again, as he is only doing this for yuks.

There’s one little snag, though. Within the citadel are a dozen guards, each deadly in his own right. The thing is, they aren’t bad guys. They have been led to believe that you’re the villain of the piece, an assassin come to murder the captive, whom they, being mensches, intend to protect with their lives. None of them speak any language you know, and they’re all the type to keep fighting to the last breath. You have no way to call anyone to assist, interpret, or vouch for you. Your tactical assessment of the situation is that, even if there were no opposition in the citadel, it would take you 105 minutes to get to your loved one and free them from the cell, leaving you only a quarter hour to deal with the mooks.

Clock’s ticking. How many of these noble, misguided warriors are you willing to kill to save the life of the one person you love most?

  • Jason Montoya? Jeffrey Gideon? No, wait, it was Inigo Geiger, I think.
    † Please note that this does not include sci-fi tech like Star Trek phasers or universal translators; for that matter, you don’t have any tasers, tear gas grenades, or other less-lethal weaponry.
    ‡ Totally not me, though. I can prove it logically.
    ** Told you the sadistic monster wasn’t me. Rhymers do not harm female noncombatants, or even threaten them.
    †† That goes double for kids, noncombatant or otherwise.
    ‡ ‡ There’s no kill like overkill.
    *** I mentioned the mad engineering skills, yes?
2

The situation is a lot easier than I thought it would be, as the guards will probably attack first. If they don’t and I can just walk through, all the better! If there’s a non-lethal way to do it, sure, if it can be done pragmatically.

But I’m not likely to spend much time worrying about it. They’re warriors; they’ll die like warriors; for a misguided reason, sure, but in their own minds it will have been for a good reason, and that is a good death.

So, outta my way or else!

3

the hell you been?

4

I have been where I always am. It was the rest of YOU who were missing.

5

Mooks goin’ down. With a smile on my lips and a song in my heart, I shall slay them all to rescue my beloved.

I will, however, honor their corpses and heads by building an altar of them, whereupon I shall disembowel said sadistic monster for the edification of all and the amusement of the children.

6

Finally, a logical and relevant poll thread in which to vote. Thanks.

7

I’ll see if I can take down the first one or two without killing them, but if that proves ineffective or too time-consuming, then sorry folks, you’re all toast.

8

Kill a few mooks? Why don’t you give us a question that actually requires some introspection? Of course I’d wipe those mooks the hell out. I’d strangle an orphanage full of infants with kite string to save the life of one of my loved ones.

9

You didn’t make that very hard, Skald. You’re a little out of practice. A lifetime of action movies has rendered me immune to the death of redshirts. They’re not innocents, they’re soldiers. They put themselves in harms way.

I was sure that the way would be guarded by elaborate Rube Goldberg baby killing devices, spring loaded with adorable big-eyed cherubs.

In which case, none.
(Skald is back, Skald is back, Skald is back!)

10

Sorry, chaps, today’s just not your day.

11

All of them.

12

Can we assume these mooks signed up knowing full well they might have to die in order to fulfill their duty? If so, then they gon’ die. And, if not, they still gon’ die, but they can have my pity along with my sword. (Or whatever weapon you’ve given me, of course.)

13

The mooks are heros. They have been deceived. Their intent is not to harm your beloved, but to save your beloved’s life from the person intending to murder him or her, i.e., you. They do not deserve to die.

I am not capable of writing that one, sorry. Anyway, how do you figure the mooks are not innocent? The only purpose to the setup is for the Big Bad to fuck with your head; he needs them to be innocents so he can get his yuks. Otherwise he’d have just shot your beloved and been done with it.

I have added a note to your file.

14

None of us deserve* to die, Skald, yet we all do. Their time is just today.

*I’m being generous here. Don’t ruin the moment.

15

Well, they gonna.

I am surprised to hear myself say it, but I’d mow 'em down like NPCs if it meant the life of my beloved.

Also, welcome back.

16

Something occurs to me. It’s a weakness of the original scenario that the mooks, if it were possible to ask them, would probably agree that you should kill them; after all, they are heroes willing to die to protect the prisoner. They just don’t know who the real villain is. But would your beloved be willing for you to kill 10 innocent on her or his behalf?

Obrigado.

17

Yes. She’s very selfish that way. :smiley:

18

Skald is back!

19

They’re not exactly innocents. In a line of work like that, they have a moral imperative to make sure that they’re not working for an evil psychopath. At the very least, they’ve demonstrated negligence in not noticing that the room with the prisoner is locked from the outside and contains a death trap, and they should also be questioning why they were all selected such that none of them speaks the most widely-used international language in the world which also happens to be the primary language of their captive.

Therefore, given the circumstances, I will not hesitate to neutralize the threat posed by any of them I encounter, in the most reliable way available to me. If possible, I will do so using nonlethal means, but my goal is to neutralize the threat.

20

I think the approach here is pretty straightforward. They may be well intentioned and merely deceived, but good intentions doesn’t make one innocent. All but the truly evil, motivated to destroy, or the selfish, are some variation of well intentioned. So the more pertinent issue are their actual choices. They’ve chosen to be soldiers and, unfortunately, chosen the wrong side, whereas the captured beloved has not chosen to fight or at least has not chosen that side. They are soldiers and soldiers have made a conscious choice to value their cause above their own lives. So we’re really not comparing the value of the lives of the mooks vs. the life of a beloved, but rather the value of their cause vs. the life of the beloved, and so the latter wins. To make any other valuation would, in my view, diminish the value of the lives and choices involved in the balance.

That said, I do still value life as the greatest against anything else, and so faced with an opportunity to avoid killing a mook while still fulfilling the greater goal of saving the beloved, then that should be done. So, basically C.