Murder and Killing in Fiction

[Sigyn]

I want to know what people think about murder and killing in fiction.  When do you think it is okay for a good guy character to kill someone else?  I'm wondering because my brother-in-law just had to read a book where the main character hunts down other characters who are "bad" and kills them. Apparently, the justification for killing these other characters was because the author designated them as bad.  Do you think that's justification?  I'm curious.

[Maxwell]

dude it's book, i dont think he needs to be justified.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

uh, isn't murder killing?  And isn't killing Murder?

[fuzzyoctopus]

I always thought that murder was cold-blooded by description.  Like you think, "I'm going to kill him because he beat up my sister."   But then there's just killing, where you're doing something else, like trying to defend something, and someone gets killed in the process.

[Archon]

I see the two as being interchangeable, that is why what matters most is who writes the history books. "Cold blooded murder" can be interchanged with "justified killing" depending on point of view. Personally, I think it all depends on the author and how they want to portray their protagonist. If you make them very violent you run the risk of having people misinterpret the violence and ruining the book for them. If you feel that the risk is worth it and that the killing is invaluable to the plot, then put it in.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

murder is a legal definition. ANd, in fact, you can kill someone illegally and not be guilty of murder, "Manslaughter" is another legal definition.

Anyway, killing someone just because they're "Bad" doesn't generally work for a heroic style character. There have to be reasons in text for doing it, and there has to be a lack of viable alternatives. Death and killing can show up in an uplifting book (apologies to the non-Mormons) but we see Teancum adn Gideon and Cap. Moroni, and the other Moroni, and Mormon, and Nephi and Benjamin and Mosiah all doing it, and they're all men of god, most of them prophets, and the Book of Mormon is still uplifting. the thing is they didn't take pleasure it in, they reveal they were even a little conflicted by it but didn't feel they had a choice, and they did it for very specific reasons. That's how it should work in any book if you want the reader to sympathize/empathize with the character.

of course, sometimes you can get away with ignoring the viable alternatives, if you've built up a LOT of sympathy and the reader wants revenge too. But I prefer not to do it that way, myself. That's not the sort of feeling I want to evoke.

[fuzzyoctopus]

I just feel a great big "whatever".  Killing and violence, in general, doesn't bother me, unless it's over the top.  What's too much?  It's like pornography - "I'll know it when I see it."

Fight Club - way too much.

My husband is playing Fable right now- that kind of violence doesn't bother me.  However the other night he got really mad at a frustrating quest in the game and responded by taking his angelicly-good character and going on a 20-min killing rampage, slaughtering everything in sight.

That bothered me.

I don't worry about violence in fiction because there are editors who keep people within bounds, and if it's you or me or someone you know writing it, all you have to do is hand it to three friends and say "Is this scene too violent?"

end of story.

[Skar]

I see the two as being interchangeable, that is why what matters most is who writes the history books. "Cold blooded murder" can be interchanged with "justified killing" depending on point of view. ...

I submit that cold-blooded murder and justified killing are not interchangeable.  As an example the Germans who killed GIs in combat in WWII are not accused of or portrayed as having committed cold-blooded murder, despite our having been the winners there and therefore having written the history books.  (atrocities aside)  

There is also a third category, not exactly cold-blooded murder but certainly not justified killing, called "crimes of passion." Hot blooded murder?  These killings create all sorts of conflict and opportunities for satisfying repentance and/or come-uppance in stories.

More apologies to the non-mormons.  Teancum killed the enemy king in his sleep twice in the BOM.  The first time he did it and escaped scot-free.  The second time he fumbled it, and got caught and killed.  The only real difference between the two incidents is that in the second one, where he died, he "...in his anger did go forth..."

So, the lesson here is that justified killing must be performed in cold-blood.

[fuzzyoctopus]

This relates disturbingly to the movie "Hero" that I revived the post on yesterday...

[Entsuropi]

It's a bad week for archon it seems.

[House of Mustard]

It makes up for the fact that he never received the newbie smackdown.

[Nicadymus]

Homicide is the killing of a human being.

Under the Common Law there are several degrees of murder and manslaughter, all of which are homicide.

Common Law Murder can be summed up in this way:
The unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.  Malice aforethought is acting with a depraved heart from the followng states of mind:
(1) Intent to kill.
(2) An awareness that human life is being unjustifieably risked  (Kadish & Schulhofer, Criminal Law Examples and Explanations, 3rd Ed.)

Statutory 1st Degree Murder is defined as follows:
Deliberate and premeditated killing of a human being.  Premeditation is determined when the accused actually reflected on the killing even if only briefly.  All other intentional killings are murder in the second degree.  (Kadish & Schulhofer, Criminal Law Examples and Explanations, 3rd Ed.)

Then there is the Model Penal Code definition which would require its own posting to explain.

In a nutshell, the definition of murder used depends upon the jurisdiction that you are in.

Hopefully that helps in this discussion.

[Lieutenant Kije]

The two forces at work here are the morality of the setting and characters of the book, and the morality of the reader.

If the reader is completely opposed to any kind of killing (to cite an extreme example) then no amount of justification will satisfy them, and they might not enjoy the book.  If the reader has no qualms about any form of killing (another extreme) they won't need justification at all.  Most people fall between those two extremes, and most people I imagine have a tolerance for reading morality that doesn't perfectly fit theirs.  But anything that strays too far from a person's morality will probably bother them.  Ultimately the reader decides what's okay and what's not.

I think your question, Sigyn, mostly points at the second morality: that morality craeted by the author for their book.  Morality should be considered and explained in novels.  Either it's assumed that the morality of the created world of the book is roughly the same as our world, or it's different and the differences are highlighted and described in detail.  If the differences are not described then the reader will naturally assume no difference in book morality and reality morality, and not understand why characters are acting the way they are, and probably not enjoy the book.

In my opinion I think the good guy can kill and it's alright, but the killing has to be explained.  Either it's exlained through justification, or explained through means of inner conflict (they kill but are conflicted about how they feel about it.)  It appears that in the book your cuñado read the author doesn't attempt to explain the morality of the world he created.  Unless he/she explains why the bad characters are bad, it wouldn't make sense to me.

[Archon]

It's a bad week for archon it seems.

You have NO idea. But that is a different story. The board is fine, at least I have managed to stimulate some conversation. I havent seen the board this lively in a while, and it is fun to actually have intelligent debate, as opposed to typical high school conversation.

[House of Mustard]

Just as a reminder, Archon, I argue just for the sake of arguing.  I'm sorry for my belittling comments (on the other thread), and I'll knock that off.  I just love the debate.