Discussion Question of Right & Wrong: Should these girls be killed?

Currently reading a Chinese apocalypse novel (with gaming elements). So far so good. I liked the MC's nature and his sense of right and wrong. He was always willing to lend a hand to others and stand up for those too weak to defend themselves.

But around Chapter 400-something, he did something that made me want to drop this novel. In this story arc, the group he was traveling with ran into disciplinary problems. So he got permission from the officer in charge (army colonel) to do something about that. First of all, he called for a morning assembly at 8 and he included a warning that late comers will be severely dealt with. So far so good.

On that day, however, there were 14 latecomers. He killed the first one in front of the assembly. Which was fine with me. Because the dead man was a murderer and rapist. Then the MC ordered the soldiers to exile the remaining 13 into the zombie infested wasteland. Which was NOT fine with me. Sure 11 of the latecomers were assholes anyway. Some of them were trying to test the MC's patience while the others were just too lazy to bother coming in early.

However, the remaining 2 latecomers were just girls who had been forced to keep the murderer/rapist company. If they had dared to leave his room early to go to the assembly, they would've died horribly right there and then. They had no power and no say in whether to attend the assembly or not.

But they, too, were sent into exile by the MC... Even though he knew what the murderer/rapist was like.

So what's your take on this? Should the MC have at least spared the 2 girls? Or do you think it was right for him to exile the girls along with the others?

P.S: The title has been withheld because I don't want to do spoilers. But if you want to know the title, you can always PM me. It's only available in Chinese though.

 

Not really much context to go on, but from the little you described, the protagonist didn't seem as fair as he should have been...



in the interest of true impartiality, he should've killed them all!

 

Girls held against their will and not purposely late I would not give them the same punishment as the rest. He could have still punished them as they are still late but it could have been something else.

Same with Korean ones as well really. That’s why I hardly read apocalypse novels.

 

He should of just killed the first guy and then punished the others some minor punishment since he has already established his authority through killing the guy.
He is just losing manpower through doing that, none of the others besides the rapist deserve anything close to the punishment they got

 

They are in apocalypse. Tough times, tough measures. If they need discipline, then they should put down iron-clad laws that are not negotiable. In another setting, I'd argue the girls should've been spared, but here they just had tough luck.

 

maybe it is personality development?
like tried of being a good guy, just want to be cold-blooded.
If that's the case, I have no problem with that.
After all, those two girls are useless to the group from the way you describe it.

 

that's dumb asf and he should've spared them. could've had two new loyal followers who could end up being strong because they felt very grateful

 

Yeah Chinese Novels have the way over the top over reaction guy. Same as Japanese Novels have the submissive keep everyone happy bitch guy. They're both terrible, and for some reason way too common.

 

Here is the question, is them being late something that warrants his actions in the first place. Even killing the murder/rapist for it seems wrong. Now if he did it for those crimes, that would be 1 thing, but if he did it simply cause he is late that would be wrong. The crime should warrant the punishment.

Overall, there are many issues with the punishment in general. Usually, it is better to start with lighter punishment to get the message across. Or if you are gonna heavily punish, punish 1 person to make an example rather then everyone. The other issue is it seems inefficient to just banish people. You are better off just forcing high risk missions on them. If they end up dead or run away, it is same as banishment, if they succeed, the group benefits. Waste of human resources.

As for if the 2 girls should receive the same punishment as the 14 overall? The answer is yes. It doesn't matter about circumstances end of the day. If you end up being soft, then it just means others will abuse your softness. You can break rules, then blame a scapegoat. Your goal if you are already dishing out such harsh punishment is to make it clear that rules are above all circumstances. The only reason why they remained with him was because they feared him more than they feared breaking the rules.

 

I agree with you. He shouldn't have killed the first guy. I had to go through military training and there are tons of disciplinary measures, that work almost immediately. There is no reason for killing. This heavy punishment doesn't make any sense.

 

Every modern law codex is written differently for a reason. All in all its the average chinese novel and doesn't make any sense whatsoever anyway but oh well...

Especially given that an apocalyptic setting should be short on resources. Including the human ones. This punishment is absolutely braind ead.

 

Death punishment for... Being late to an assembly?

I don't care about apocalyptic settings, this is ridiculous on its own.

First problem: It doesn't matter if there was an advance warning about how "latecomers will receive a heavy punishment" or whatever. You don't give a death penalty to people that came in late.

Second problem is... Why is a punishment only being given to the assholes because they came in late? Does this mean it would be fine for them to continue raping people or whatever if they came to the assembly in time? This is just absurd, to say the least.

Third problem is... Why haven't the rapist been dealt with earlier? You have a large group and someone is known of raping other people in your group, and you're keeping this person around? This is disgusting enough on a normal setting, but you now also want to risk the women on your group getting pregnant in the middle of an apocalypse? Do you have the resources to feed the babies that might be born? It's not only disgusting, but just horribly inefficient from a leadership standpoint in multiple aspects. You are risking getting deadweights on your team, and you are also risking losing all trust that the hurt parties have on you, since you are doing nothing about the rapist.

Fourth problem are the circumstances. You don't simply ignore the circumstances of the people involved. If someone points a gun to your head, and tells you to steal something... But both you and the guy with the gun end up getting caught... You shouldn't receive any punishment whatsoever, or at most you should receive a light punishment. You had no choice there, it's your live or the laws. Nobody will give up their life for law... It's just... Dumb, seriously. Circumstances can't be ignored.
I mean... There are laws specifically about self-defense, yanno? Like... There are punishments for cases of excessive self-defense, and those are judged entirely by the circumstances... And then there are also laws allowing you to even kill in self-defense if needed, because... Yanno, circumstances forced you to. It couldn't be helped. Even murder can be okay if the circumstances push you towards it.
In this case, the raped girls were being kept against their will. They had no choice on the matter... What's next? Will the MC also exile an elderly that had a medical emergency which led to them being late to the assembly? Because that's also an equally unavoidable circumstance. It was beyond the girls' control, so they obviously shouldn't be punished by it.


Seriously, nothing about this case makes any sense. It's wrong no matter how I look at it.

 

In apocalypse they should get more helping hands than not. Coming late doesnt really warrant of being exiled, a bit of desciplinary should suffice.
Even killing the rapist guy out of being late its just a bad taste. It shows that anyone can be killed no metter how loyal they are or their contribution if they make mistakes.
Controling through fear is fine and all but most of em wont hesitate to stab him in the back when theyre given a chance seing how relentless he is.

 

Maybe the author wants to make him become the next villain? Control people through fear is the easiest but like a double-edged sword. It's also the first step in becoming a tyranny if he continues to kill people like that. I want to know the ending, lol.

He said sth like, "the latecomers will be severely dealt." that means he can choose different punishments for each latecomer based on situations. Still, he prefers the most cold-heart one and lacks flexibility. Good luck with the story's development if the author still has good sense.

 

Sounds like a shitty story.

 

Okay, regarding the first and second problems... It's just how things were then. The group had nearly been wiped out once due to an insurrection attempt and the day before the assembly, they had just made a decision to accept more survivors into the group (it's a military mission to get survivors to the capital). So to prevent potential insurrections, the MC made the decision to exile latecomers.

As for the third problem...The military group (the one with the MC in it) had only just come upon this new group of survivors. The MC had his hands full dealing with the leaders of the new group during his initial contact with them. But he already had plans to execute this murderer/rapist afterward. So even if the murderer/rapist had come in early, he still would have died.

I totally agree with what you said about problem number 4. The girls should have been spared because circumstances were beyond their control.

 

So, MC punishes the rape victims for being held back by their captors?

This MC seems like an actual villain.

 

Yup. From what I've read of Chinese Apocalypse novels is that they seem to exist for two reasons: the first is to give an excuse for characters to have superpowers (and progression systems), and the second is to give opportunities for the protagonist to be cruel. I don't care for the one, and I despise the other so I've been mostly ignoring the genre. Actually, that's not entirely true: one of the writers I follow wrote one of these books, and it's way better than the others I've come across.