Regardless of your interpretation of Alison’s hidden inner motives, do you acknowledge that you were mistaken when you said the thousands didn’t get a mention?

You outright said that they didn’t get a mention.

OK.

…there’s also like, all of the people in the hospital. Not the nurses and doctors but the patients he was dealing with.

Sure. Alex Celosar 2020: “Collateral damage: deal with it.”

So are you self-aware or do you really lack any and all self-reflection and critical distance

People die sure. That’s not the problem she’s having. The problem is she didn’t even realize she was causing it. Also a little more care and she could have been mitigating it rather than quite possibly randomly making it far worse. It’s one of those “I didn’t realize, I could have done so much better and saved even more lives”.

Collateral happens. You feel bad. Believe me though, you feel WORSE if you find out you could have prevented a lot of it if you knew a little better. And that is from personal experience.

Interesting point. I’m not sure there are any innocent victims, but we know for a fact he’s offed a few non-innocents along the way – such as the people behind the attack on the hospital. It’s entirely possible there have been innocents, but against that there’s the potential he is going to say many more, even possibly everyone.

Which comes back around to the same debate we’ve been having over Alison’s actions aand the end justifying the means.

But that’s the thing. There’s NO WAY she could have know they were there. As far as she knew, the are had been evacuated at the time.

It was still the guy’s fault for not evacuating when he should have. He didn’t, he knew the risks and stayed anyway and died. Thus, it was his own fault.

I’m not a soldier but I know a little about combat. You should never chuck a projectile at a building unless you have no alternative. Even if it had been empty, the property damage from battles ruins human lives.

And I’m sure leaving the robot alone would have killed human lives. Homes can be rebuilt. Lives taken cant be given back.

And just to remind everyone, Alison was a kid. Kids are incredibly short sighted when it comes to the consequences of their actions (that part of the brain isn’t fully developed until you’re in your early 20s). I also have little doubt that her handlers did everything they could to shelter her from any aftermath reports that would have forced some introspection on her. If you don’t see the dead body being pulled from the rubble, it’s not real to you.

The biggest difference between Max and Alison is that Alison seems to be is trying to face the reality she’s now aware of; Max is simply refusing to see it.

Yeah, I feel his obvious sociopatholgy is more likely a product of his power rather then him being an unfortunate recipient of this power. He would be unable to function in a world where every other person’s emotions were just as important to him as his own. So either as a defense mechanism, or possibly an actual secondary power, his brain doesn’t register others emotions as especially important. He’d have killed himself and/or gone completely insane if they did.

Explain to me how you get from the fact that she has had fantasies about going all out murderous with her powers to effect societal change, to your saying now that her motivation for strong-arming Max was solely how Feral’s suffering was affecting Alison, with no regard for Feral herself or for the others’ whose lives would be saved by strong-arming Max.
Because again, I don’t see how your interpretation is justified by the text. Looks more like a non-sequitur.

“She literally never speaks about them other than a means to sway Max to his side.”

She’s not discussing her moral justifications at that point, but instead is explaining why she dismissed Max’s tale of woe rather than making an effort to feel more empathy for how he views his situation (having a super power that let’s him make others stronger, without letting him directly do super things). She gives an understandable response: because he had just shown that he had no empathy for Feral or the suffering of countless others who would be helped if he cooperated. I don’t really understand what it is you think she was supposed to say, or how this supports your view in any way. You’re coming off to me as just being determined to ascribe bad motivations to Alison whenever humanly possible.

“She chose this life for herself, a choice Alison never respected”
This is just flat out wrong. Alison may have felt Feral’s choice was misguided, but she’s shown enormous respect for Feral’s decision. She basically broke up with Max because she felt Max wasn’t giving Feral’s sacrifice its due, and she moved heaven and earth (and compromised her own morals) to give Feral a partial out that would not compromise Feral’s moral judgment. We see with Alison’s controversial treatment of Max what it can look like when Alison doesn’t respect the choice you’ve made…

I’m with you that she at least seems to think she hasn’t properly developed certain skills/mindsets due to her ability to rely on strength and invulnerability—I wouldn’t have considered her that stunted prior to the Max mess, and don’t know how strongly I agree with her, but fair enough.

And I’m certainly open to the idea that her unusual background has warped her perspective, though I think in the last couple of years she’s done a lot to unwarp it.

But the idea that she, in general, hasn’t been careful doesn’t sit right with me. She was horrified when her roommate in college abused her presence to assault the police, she makes a point of never drinking alcohol for fear that she might do damage through either poor decisions or clumsy movement, and despite her understandable fantasies of killing people the moments when she has actually leaned on her powers without government sanction are very few, and are accompanied by extenuating circumstances which have tied the commenters in knots.

It’s also worth thinking about how unusual her situation is, and the pressures that go along with it. She really does live in a paper world where any movement she makes by reflex, or any sudden physical venting of frustration, could result in people’s deaths. But she’s forced to deal with a world full of people who surprise her, antagonize her, who harm and threaten others, who refuse to cooperate for the common good, etc. She really does deserve that ticker-tape parade for generally not killing people as she goes about her business.

No doubt, she has a moral requirement to take care (at least that’s my own esthetic judgment, as Gurwara might say). A legal one, too, at least so long as she’s considering herself answerable to the U.S. government. But I really don’t think you, or a person with a gun, can rightly compare yourself with Alison, for some of the reasons she sets forth on the herself when discussing the tickertape parade she’s due. She has super-strength and durability without having been granted super accuracy, super coordination, super judgment, super emotional control, super reflexes, or super discipline. And she isn’t restrained by the consequences, the normal fear of retaliation by others or state punishment that even a “large, powerful person” like you has to keep you in check. So, ok, the ticker-tape parade is a bit much, but for my own part I’m tremendously impressed at how little collateral damage she does in her daily life.

I’m up to date on grrl power, am a practicing lawyer, and have spent a long time training bjj/submission wrestling, with some other martial arts experience thrown in here or there. So…you may have to just agree to let me disagree here instead of assuming I don’t have the right background to appreciate the issue’s the way you do. Yeah, she shouldn’t literally be celebrating for not killing people in a given day. But given her situation, I’m pretty impressed with how she tends to conduct herself—-pending resolution of the present crisis, of course.

I really feel like we are talking past each other at this point. Of course she doesn’t get a pass as a matter of law for being strong. But she does seem to get one as a matter prosecutorial discretion, as we’ve seen, because the state isn’t able to impose the law on her with force, and apparently doesn’t want to make that obvious.

Of course she should show restraint and take extraordinary care, and what I have been saying to you is that on the whole, she does and has, all things considered. The crisis now comes from changes in that pattern.

“There are certain basic concepts to keep in mind, like “the backstop.”
As Maxima put it, “look at what’s behind your target. Assume you will
miss and hit that instead.”

Those Grrlpower strips about thinking about and avoiding collateral damage were really good, a point you so rarely see made.

Alison’s sort of the anti-Sydney (Grrlpower’s heroine), but Maxima would be just as good for her.

Though I’m not sure introducing her to Dabbler would be safe; what’s the minimum safe distance when Alison’s head explodes?

If the only reason you don’t enact your violent fantasies is a fear of the consequences, you are probably not a very good person.
Almost all of us can take out a few people before we are stopped. The main reason most people don’t do this is because we aren’t vile people, not because we fear the consequences for ourselves.
Is a violent fantasy not simply unrealistic not only because we would get caught, but also because we don’t have it in us, morally, to hurt other people on that level?
If I got the chance to murder someone who wasn’t being a danger to anyone, but who I personally despised, without any consequences, I can assure you that I and many others would not take this opportunity. Because most people have a conscience, which is one of the main reasons most people don’t go around finding loopholes in the law to kill other people.

Also: the page you link to is one of my absolute favorites in the comic, and one that I don’t think reflects badly on Alison at all. For whatever that’s worth.

Naw. Having the opportunity to think outside the box is much different than having a responsibility to think outside the box. She could always choose to do nothing but play video games all day. That would be a cop-out, but that’s her choice, unless you are into absolute morals (I’m not).

*chuckling quietly*

I think committing an atrocity is narrative shorthand, though, the way rape, and PTSD, and a whole lot of other things are narrative shorthand, and probably used just as badly. It’s about all the things you do that has you take your experience and worldview another step further away from the mean of your societies. A few standard deviations outside, for whatever reasons (and they don’t have to come packaged in single incidents, and really, single incidents, even big ones, are probably easier to get past than that slow accumulation over years and years… though again, there are also those social narratives around atrocities) and you start thinking that there is no possible way to relate to the people around you. The things they care about are not your things.

I don’t think she was happy with the choice, no; I think she thinks it was the correct choice of the alternatives available to her. “Regrettable necessity which can be forgiven” is a fine way of putting it.

If she never forgives herself, it will be for neglecting to cultivate her diplomacy skills in advance. I think she’ll be able to forgive herself just fine for, specifically, choosing “hurt Max” over “let everyone die.” In fact, given everything we know about her, I don’t think she could ever in a million years have forgiven herself for letting all of that suffering continue when it was within her power to end it.

The problem, based on what Alison’s said so far, isn’t which option she chose; it’s that those were the only ones she felt she had. Even the persona she constructed specifically to call herself out on this isn’t suggesting that she should have walked away and let everyone die. It’s just saying that she could have tried other tactics to achieve her desired ends. The necessity of the ends themselves doesn’t appear to be up for debate, in Alison’s mind.

I don’t think I’m interpreting her position through my own analysis. I’m actually going out of my way to leave my own opinions out of it. I’m specifically describing the conclusions I’ve drawn about Alison’s position and where the real conflict for her lies, based on what she’s said over the last few pages. T

I did not argue that she’s a strict utilitarian. I said that she’s expressed that she would not reverse this specific decision she made–meaning she believes it was the right choice of the options she had–but that on this page, she narrows in on the real source of her guilt. Her believing that saving Feral/the thousands was necessary, even at the cost of hurting Max, does not necessarily make her a utilitarian. The reason that she couldn’t compromise on boosting Feral is its own question, which I am not addressing here.

We also know from her characterization throughout the comic that she feels a heavy sense of responsibility to implement world-changing solutions, which is why I say I doubt she could have forgiven herself for failing to implement this one.

Like I said before, notice that even her “brutal self-honesty” persona isn’t lambasting her for choosing to hurt Max instead of walking away. This whole debate Alison’s having with herself takes it as a given that Feral had to be boosted, one way or another. At this point “they” are only debating the methods by which that end was achieved.

Although alternatively, she might get torn up about the accidental one because it’s something she didn’t intend; but decide to stand firm on the one that she did intend.

She explicitly said that, given the opportunity to undo what she did to Max in exchange for returning Feral to perpetual torture, she wouldn’t do so.

She regrets being unable to convince him without having to compel him. She doesn’t regret not walking away.

Are you going with dictionary definitions here? Considering that legal definitions involve things like sleep deprivation and a lot of other things that aren’t obviously severe pain.

Also… do you have experience with joint locks? Because the whole point is that you have mechanical advantage over someone’s joint, which you can then increase, putting pressure on the joint capsule, and, depending on the lock, threatening dislocation. This is why they give you so much control over a person – you can pretty arbitrarily increase the amount of pain if they fight you. They often have a pretty non-violent reputation, because most people back off fairly quickly, and in that case they don’t do major damage. But if what you want to do is make them hurt, and especially if strength is no object (though again, they give you mechanical advantage, so you don’t need a ton of strength), oh, yeah, they can deliver pain.

(Time was, if guys tried to grope me at social – or, for that matter, professions, yay tech in the nineties – occasions, putting them in a joint lock was my standard response. This was generally not that big a deal – I mean, it was embarrassing for them, sure, but most of them stopped fighting it pretty quickly, and once it was clear they got the “no touching without permission” rule, I let them go. And if anyone did try to fight it, I was already in control of the situation, and they were only going to be hurting themselves.)

There’s even a pre-control “Hey, I have you, so let’s not go there,” level, where force isn’t really being used, but you can kind of feel the potential for it. If you know what you’re doing, you have a lot of control over the outcome.

(There are exceptions, especially when you’re weaker than the person you’re locking and they’re fighting it a lot – you might end up injuring them, because the only other option is to let them escape. And, of course, depending, sometimes people can get out of them, based either on strength or skill.

I know sometimes my combination of strength and flexibility means I can slip out of things – but I think a lot of that’s surprise factor, and people who are familiar with the vagaries of my body can lock me just fine.)

In all but a few boundary cases.

While your personal stories about joint locks are inspiring, I’m sure, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Nothing that we’ve seen or that Alison has admitted to convinces me that she “tortured” anyone. Since we’re going all “personal experience” here, are you a military service member? Have you been through SERE training? I can tell you from personal experience that sleep deprivation DEFINITELY causes severe pain.

Tylikcat answered this one, but failed to add something taught by Fiore dei Liberi, a martial arts instructor of the 15th century. When explaining how to grapple with multiple attackers.

Step one: use footwork and positioning to line them up so they can only come at you one at a time.
Step two: get one of them in a joint lock.
Step three: BREAK THE JOINT.
Step four: throw them at their comrades and repeat the process.

The reason a joint lock is controlling is because you can easily step up the pressure to turn it into pain. And the reason it’s painful is because if you add MORE pressure… you can shatter hinge joints (such as the elbows or knees), pop ball joints (such as the shoulders and hips), and cause all kinds of damage to ligaments, tendons, and muscles. That’s why the referee in MMA bouts declares the fight to be over once someone fully establishes a joint lock – because if the defeated fighter refuses to tap out, then they’re looking at a crippling, career ending injury. The referee ending the fight saves both joints and pride.

Looking back on that page, Patrick says that her pardon was done in exchange for the tests to see if her organs were compatible, not for the constant donations. But then, this information is given to Alison by Patrick who has demonstrated himself to be a lying, manipulative jerkass that many readers no longer like. I find that no one in this comic is a reliable narrator; I can’t trust anything they say.
As for Feral, you may be right, after all as soon as she was released she almost immediately picked up her self-destructive habits again.

I’m arguing that this form of middle ground is one which has still not entered her mind.
Since she never adresses it and never has in the past.

I take issue with that statement because she only focused on the “manipulation” part and sneakily equated it to the “convincing” part by not adressing it.

She might have called herself out for having to find a middle ground, but she neglected to mention the real wrong she commited with that argument, which is subtly implying that convincing a person is the same as manipulating them.
If she had stated that this was what was wrong instead of the vague “there is something in the middle” I wouldn’t have been so caustic.
I admit, I’m reading between the lines, but it’s pretty frustrating that she did not correct herself where it truly mattered in a way that made clear whether she truly understood that what she said was asinine.

As it is, there is the lingering doubt that she sees convincing a person with sound arguments to chance their mind or with incentive to perform services that they would not have done for free on the same level as blackmailing, because you changed someone’s mind without resorting to violence.

That is one possible reading.