Let us make sure the subject matter is clear. This will be a discussion about the TV show Grimm which is a fantasy. So please, no rants about vigilante cops in the real world. OK?
It has come up before on the show and in discussions on this forum. Just how far should Nick and the Crew go when dealing with wesen? (I refuse to call them the 'scobby gang'. C'mon people! Really!?
)
Nick has usually tried to keep things within the bounds of law enforcement. Wesen are caught and dealt with like any other criminal. This has sometimes meant playing a little loose with the truth, but generally Nick has tried to be a good cop.
But, of course there have been times when the have had to deal with wesen "old school" and off the grid. Usually because if they tried to take it into a court room
they would be the ones locked up!
Still, allowing yourself to become judge, jury and executioner can very easily turn into a dark place indeed. So, where do you draw the line? Is it acceptable to kill a wesen murderer only when you can't prove it in court? Or is it acceptable to do it anytime? Bringing them before the bar is just preferable?
And what do you do about regular people who have knowledge of wesen but are not part of the team? Like the ghost hunter in the latest episode. He has video of a wesen fully woged. Do you kill him and destroy it? Discredit him and get him locked up in an asylum knowing it will destroy his life? Just let it get out there and hope everyone believes it faked?
If it became known to the general public that wesen were real, it would set off pogroms and purges that would make the Salem Witch Trials and the Inquisition look like a Sunday School outings! Or is that a valid premise? Would the knowledge of wesen existence among regular people really cause that reaction? Or is that an antiquated view of humanity? Remember that ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda were not all that long ago, but many Western societies have become fairly tolerant of the 'other'.
So some very grim (
) but necessary and Machiavellian decisions have to be made. Just how far can they go in order to protect the greater good?
That is the subject for discussion. Have at it and I hope it's interesting for everyone!
(01-31-2015, 09:11 AM)wfmyers1207 Wrote: [ -> ]If it became known to the general public that wesen were real, it would set off pogroms and purges that would make the Salem Witch Trials and the Inquisition look like a Sunday School outings! Or is that a valid premise? Would the knowledge of wesen existence among regular people really cause that reaction? Or is that an antiquated view of humanity? Remember that ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda were not all that long ago, but many Western societies have become fairly tolerant of the 'other'.
Some people will have a fear reaction and make any historical purging (including the 1940s death camps/showers/ovens known as the holocaust) look like love and kindness.
Then you are going to have your "enlightened scientist" who will declare they are not human so need to be studied. This studying will include anything you can have as a nightmare to see what they react too. I mean this from poking and prodding through beating and rape, right up to having them alive and awake while disected. WE ARE NOT PRETTY in our science experemnents.
You will have a couple final segments of the population that will react by anything from helping them escape to worshiping them.
In real life we have people that have done enough body modifications to be equivalent to a woge. From looking like reptiles to looking like cats. In this day and time a full woge would become such a media spectacle the wesen would become a celebrity. The problem would be violent wesen would get the whole community labeled terrorist. Using the shows social makeup, wesen would be viewed like a UFO event. The Portland mob mentality would be driven by the powers that be having it beneficial for wesen to be keep a secret. A lot of wesen abilities benefits are they give you the ability to be outside the norm. If wesen become the norm then their abilities become the norm. There goes the advantage.
(01-31-2015, 11:25 PM)syscrash Wrote: [ -> ]In real life we have people that have done enough body modifications to be equivalent to a woge. From looking like reptiles to looking like cats. In this day and time a full woge would become such a media spectacle the wesen would become a celebrity. The problem would be violent wesen would get the whole community labeled terrorist. Using the shows social makeup, wesen would be viewed like a UFO event. The Portland mob mentality would be driven by the powers that be having it beneficial for wesen to be keep a secret. A lot of wesen abilities benefits are they give you the ability to be outside the norm. If wesen become the norm then their abilities become the norm. There goes the advantage.
I would have to disagree with what is before 'The problem would be.' The person (human) who modifies their body is still a person (human). Most people still look at them and in the back of their minds think 'freak.' When you get someone, something born different and they tell you this is totally normal for them. It has been like this forever. They say they are the basis for our legends most people will freak in one way or another, The result will be the behaviors I outlined by population segments. Especially because the first thing the media will do is interviews and someone will mention that they have compultions to hunt aum, ah..... there goes the fear reaction. Those that would persecute and those that would aid/worship are flip sides of the same coin on how to respond to fear.
Oh the science professors will tell you they are not acting out of fear or malice. I might actually believe them. They think if something is learned it is worth it. I will remind you that it means putting aside all compassion to study something objectively. So they may feel no malice. That does not make the kind of experiments they would dream up right. Under how much pain can they woge? Is there a limit? Is there a way to stop them or make the effects stronger? How sensitive to light, sound, temperature, pressure are they? How much of each till their senses over load? How long can the Nyad go without water, how much do they need, a glass or bucket enough or do they need a tub or pool, it obviously does not need to be pure (their natural environments are oceans and rivers) but what are the limits?
Just an aside... the scientist may actually 'cure' the male Nyads fertility problems. They discover that Nyad males can produce babies with silkies. Ah, scotts wesen that look like seals but the mating must occur on dry land. Male issue are Nyad males that are fertile with both silkies and Nyads. Females issue are silkies that do not need to mate with Nyads on land to produce children. That is eventually the Nyad problem could be solved but they have to face Silkie males that want to do to them what they have been doing to humans and have the means to do so.
I went here because I do not believe the consequences would be one sided or limited in any way. The results we get from human interference is never simple or easily predictable. We have been using fire for 10,000 years and we are just now finding we have been damaging our environment with it.
The series has already introduced the concept they are chimeras, having two completely different sets of genetics in one organism. That means wesen are totally human and non human at the same time. They would respond to our mistreatment in very human ways and some ways we would never dream of. Add to that I am sure they know our technology as well as we do. They would have access to everything up to nuclear weapons and emp bombs. They are in our military according to the series. So, you have a civil war brewing that could put us right back in the stone age.
Nick seems to weigh each infraction in terms of using established legal channels to prosecute it. If he sees that a particular case cannot work its way through that system to achieve justice, then he seems to turn to a second criteria. It's not much of a leap to realize that most of his cases fall into the second category. And then it becomes stickier to see the difference between justice and vengeance because he must become his own law. Renard has stated more than once that his Grimm has a conscience. Perhaps that is the only tool he can use right now to dispense proper justice, case by case - always using what constitutes 'the greater good' as his yardstick. So in the difficult moral decisions he has to make, it may be that he has to kill to stop a further threat or even in some instances to avenge. Just as long as it never, ever becomes easy to decide; there should be no unthinking slaughter of wesen by a Grimm, as in the old days. Nick has a foot in both worlds, he walks the line pretty good so far, imo.
On the subject of how humans would respond to knowing about the existence of the wesen world, my prediction would be: Panic in the streets, chaos, and mayhem at this point in time. In a few generations, when we have escaped the bonds of our own time and space limitations and can freely explore the universe (because we'll most likely encounter some wholly different and advanced life forms), a resounding 'yes' to a common knowledge of wesen right here on planet Earth. Don't know why, but we seem to have it written into our genetic code that we should fear that which is different; maybe further evolution of the human race will improve on that!
(01-31-2015, 09:11 AM)wfmyers1207 Wrote: [ -> ]And what do you do about regular people who have knowledge of wesen but are not part of the team? Like the ghost hunter in the latest episode. He has video of a wesen fully woged. Do you kill him and destroy it? Discredit him and get him locked up in an asylum knowing it will destroy his life? Just let it get out there and hope everyone believes it faked?
Why do anything atm? He has already published the public will do him in. 2 out of 3 people seeing this are going to scream PHOTO SHOPPED. Have you seen the video of the fairies in england? Google it, it is on YouTube, they appear to be about 1 to 2 inches tall and are in flight. This is irl and no one believes it is real. The public will do the discrediting themselves and the gang can sit back an cry in sympathy with poor fool for going public. None of them would go public with it, they all have a good idea of what the outcome is. Wu best of all. He spent enough time in that light colored robe eating tapioca and playing jacks with out the jacks or the ball.
Video evidence is only as good as the reputation of the person presenting it. He is a kid without proper credentials for what he is attempting. He has not been a journalist for 15 to 20 years, he probably does not have a degree in biology or any field that would make him an 'expert.' I sat watching them doing the same thing that eventually made me quit watching SciFi channel. I was saying a lot of things can cause em fields including a simple coil of wire attached to a long wire (combine this with a high imp speaker and a diode you have a crystal radio) but without the other two you merely have a frequency trap that will radiate when it has enough energy stored. The reason I choose this as the example is it pulls its energy from broadcasts that resonate at its innate frequency so would not require the house to have electricity and can accidentally be created during construction or installation of say lighting arresters or grounding rods. I did this till the lights flashed. That was screwy if they were being honest about no electricity to the house. Knowing some people will cheat for a story I would begin wandering more about them than ghosts at that point. As I said I quit watching the SciFi channel over shows that used bad science and was passed off as scientific investigations of ghosts etc.
I was a licensed HAM radio operator for years. I used that same equipment field strength meters, ect. to create more than one antenna and match it to a transmitter so as NOT to blow out their finals. A lot more than one... I was the young one at a lot of antenna raising parties so I was the guy that got to climb the tower to do the checks.