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[songoftime]

Dear everyone,

Hi. My name is Link. I have been on the ship for seven months. [And still formats everything he writes on his MID like a letter, apparently.] A lot of things have happened. They've made me think a lot about something I didn't think about at all back where I'm from. But I still don't have an answer. So I thought I would ask everyone what they thought.

When is it OK to kill? I know sometimes you have to hunt in order to eat. So as long as you are not wasteful or mean about it, that's OK, I think. Sometimes you have to defend people or stop a bad person from hurting other people. I know that's very important. But sometimes it's good people hurting other people and they won't listen to you. Sometimes it's someone who doesn't know better. Sometimes you fight because you don't understand them and you think you are defending others. How do you know when it is right and when it is wrong?

One time my previous teacher Alice told me that it's hard even for grown-ups to know what is right and what is wrong. She said everyone has to decide for themselves. I am still thinking about what she meant every day. I think there have to be some things that are always good and some things that are always evil. But it's getting harder to know what those things are the more I think about it. So I would like to know what everyone else has decided for yourselves, if that's okay.

Thank you,
Link

[With just the slightest bit of poking around at the information about the MID that posted this, it becomes clear very quickly that this is coming from a kid... Yeah.]

Comments

[vengeance_driven]

Sorry you got to ask these questions at your age.

I don't know. Mostly I think that people kill because they want something to stop. I mean, some people are just fucking [no delete that part...] psycho and do it to feel better or because it makes them feel more important. But others kill to make something that is bad to them go away. Someone that hurt them, someone that scares them, maybe to stop someone from doing something they won't like to happen.

It might be bad to just them. Or someone might have tricked them into thinking it's bad. It doesn't make it okay, just a fact that it happens.

[warandpeace]

☄ private
I can't answer that. Some people seem to be made to hold a gun or a sword, have a talent for it. It doesn't answer if that's okay or not, though.

But I think you should spend some time being more than a fighter, too. Being a person.

Are you alright?

[songoftime]

It's okay. [Link doesn't know what else to say. Someone had to stop Ganondorf. Killing monsters... He thought it was the only way to get through the temples. He doesn't know any more. But... He knows now that he's... the Hero. He was meant to stop Ganondorf. He thinks he would be thinking about this no matter what. And... He's okay with facing these questions if it means he can do good. Actually do good.]

Thank you for answering. People who hurt other people to make themselves feel better or to feel important, I think that sounds evil. But killing in order to make bad things stop, I think that's why a lot of monsters get killed where I am from. People are scared and the monsters are trying to hurt them.

But that doesn't make it okay? Will you explain that more please? [That's the kind of thing he's struggling with, and he wants to hear more about that.]

private

[songoftime]

I am okay. But I have been thinking a lot. I have been thinking about this a lot for a long time.

I am one of those people. The people who are made to hold a sword. It's a long story but I never really thought about it until I was brought to the Moira.

It's hard.

[vengeance_driven]

A thing that is bad to one person might not be bad to another. Like someone might kill someone so they don't go to the cops about something they did. They're stopping the cops from finding out. Or someone might kill someone because they get all kinds of leniency from important people. Good gifts, good land, good business, while this other person can't manage to make their life better. The other guy didn't do anything, isn't really a jerk, but he has so much stuff the other person couldn't get anything. So the other guy kills him so he'll stop having all the stuff.

Or maybe a certain type of person has a history of hurting your type of people. Not everyone of their type does, just a few. Then someone tells you, "you got to kill these guys or they won't stop hurting you." So you kill them to stop your people from being hurt. But it's not like you know which ones are the few assholes slimeballs in the whole other group.

"Bad" is in the eye of the beholder.

[warandpeace]

It's fine. I could sort of tell. Not many people have magic swords they're intended to wield and have to practice with them at a young age.

[Just saying.]

What happened that made you think about it?

[songoftime]

There have been a lot of things I guess. Not long after I came here, I talked to another kid. We thought maybe we were from the same world. They talked about monsters being trapped underground by humans. They're the one who made me first think about whether killing monsters was a good thing or a bad thing.

["Okay, okay... I guess if you really want to think of yourself as a murderer, you can."]

And then Alice helped attack someone, and we talked about that, too. That's when she told me what I mentioned. And then the Caducans attacked us.

[warandpeace]

I remember being pretty angry at Alice because Rinzler is my friend. But I saw him do things she never did. And Peter did things she never saw, either. I'm angry, but she did what she thought was right under the circumstances.

Are those monsters very much like the monsters here?

[songoftime]

If she did what she thought was right, but then is wrong instead

[There's a long pause here. Link doesn't know how to explain why that confuses him. But it's been a big stumbling block for him.]

How are we supposed to know what's right and wrong? I don't want to hurt anyone because I thought I was doing the right thing. I'm supposed to help people, not hurt them.

The monsters here are a lot nicer. The Stalfos in Hyrule and Termina are dangerous. They don't try to talk to anyone, they just attack people. Stalfos happen when grown-ups get lost in the Lost Woods.

[songoftime]

[Link sits on this for a long moment, reads it over and over, slowly. He doesn't know what a "cop" is, but he can understand the general principle otherwise, he thinks. (He's missing the point about an authority figure being involved, though.)

That second example... Link thinks it would have been better for the person with all the stuff to share it, or for the other person to ask for them to share. He doesn't know if he understands why someone would kill about it. Land is important for food, though, so if someone is starving... But still. If the other person isn't a jerk, why not ask? He sets that one aside for later.

That last one, though... It makes him think of something Ratchet said. That when people don't feel safe, then they'll try to solve the problem themselves.]

I see what you mean now. Thank you.

But are there some things that are always bad? Are there times where it's clear?

[warandpeace]

Are you pretty confident the monsters here are different?

Maybe you could talk to Fi about yours.

[songoftime]

[There's another long delay.]

No.

But if the Stalfos back home are like the Stalfos here, I



What do I do?

[vengeance_driven]

Yeah, there are.

Like bad dictators that kill lots and lots of people. And I think men that do terrible things to women and children. ...And me, personally? I'm not too big on traitors but some people will take and leave that.

You see? In the eye of the beholder.

[songoftime]

Yes. This must be what Alice meant when she said everyone has to decide for themselves.

What is a dictator?

[warandpeace]

[Miller's taken killing so casually for so long, accepted it as a part of his life. Describing to a kid how he shouldn't feel guilty? ...This boy should have had a chance to grow up before these questions came up.]

Sometimes you have to be okay with deciding your life is more important than the person that's coming after you, threatening to kill you. Good or bad, you need to survive. And sometimes other people need you to help them survive because they can't do it by themselves.

Did I tell you the monsters here made me nervous when I met them?

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[saveyourserpent]

If it's something that's bothering you in the first place, think too hard about it and it'll eat you alive.

At this point, the closest thing I've got to an answer is 'it happens' and like hell that's any kind of helpful. You'll have those who think it's always okay, those who think it's never okay, and those who kill who seem to have a problem with others doing the same, but refuse to take credit for their own misdeeds.

[Ahem.]

At the end of the day, sometimes you've just got to go with what feels right for you, I suppose.

[Helpful.]

[songoftime]

[Link takes a couple of deep breaths. That's an okay way to think...? He -- He thinks he can do that. Even if there are still some questions he has about it.]

Yeah. I am okay with protecting other people. I am okay with fighting for the people who can't. I am still worried though about maybe if there's a way to stop monsters without killing them. The ones that aren't doing it because they're evil but because they're hungry or something.

No, you didn't.

[vengeance_driven]

A leader who decides everything for you and if you try to do otherwise he hurts you real bad. Either with prison or actually sending guys to kick the shit out of you rough you up.

[songoftime]

[There's a pause.]

Oh. I knew someone like that. He hurt a lot of people. He is the one who cursed the Great Deku Tree. When he became king he drove the land into darkness.

[warandpeace]

Sometimes you don't get the time to stop them peacefully. Or they don't leave you with a choice even if you do, like the Cadacuns. And sometimes it's not possible for you to make someone changed into something terrible better, even if you would like to.

While the monsters here don't exactly look like them, the dark eyeholes, the pale parts, they don't look exactly the same but it's close enough to remind me of the things that took my arm and leg. They're a lot different, though. The things that attacked me only wanted to kill. They couldn't think. The monsters here have thoughts and emotions and motivations.

Sounds like yours don't have all that much to think about.

[vengeance_driven]

I know guys that drive lands into darkness got the whole villain routine pretty down.

text

[songoftime]

[Link understands what that first line means. These thoughts have been plaguing him ever since they started... and... Unless he finds an answer, they're probably always going to bother him.

The rest only confirms what Alice said, what Niko has been saying. Though there's something in particular that stands out to him.]

So taking credit for it is important. ["Credit" seems like an odd choice. "Responsibility" would be a better word, one he'd like better, but Link probably won't think of that unless someone points it out.] Why do people have a problem with other people killing when they kill, too?

[songoftime]

What he did is the reason why I

[... no. He doesn't think he actually wants to say that.]

had to learn to fight really good. I fought to stop him. I didn't kill him, though. He got sealed inside the Sacred Realm instead.

[songoftime]

One time, I signed up to the buddy system to help new people. The person I was sent to help said something like that, too. We were talking about the hunters and the whales then.

Most of the monsters back home didn't talk. But maybe they just talked in a way I couldn't understand without magic, like the whales. Stalfos attacked me first, and I thought it was because they were evil, but the monster here said maybe they were scared and that's why.

I don't know. I think about it a lot. I don't know if there's a way for me to find out while I'm here. But I'm scared I killed monsters who weren't bad. Not just Stalfos, but all kinds.

Re: text

[saveyourserpent]

Well, not quite credit, exactly. You've got to own up to what you're doing, you know? Someone's always going to think that someone else is in the wrong, that what they do is more righteous or something. And maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong. But if you take out the particulars, we're all doing the same damn thing, and some people seem to forget that.

That make sense?