Khan - New IDW mini series - SPOILERS!!!!!
- Thread starter DimesDan
- Start date
At least this guy has figured out that nuKhan isn't Khan.
As much as I'm disappointed with the fact that it appears he'll always look like Cumberbatch in the whole thing, the writer seems to have really done his homework. The artists, too, seem to have done a pretty good job, look at the booster equipped DY-100, for example.
I'm not comfortable with the "evil for evil's sake" bit. Khan wanted power, yes, but I think he believed his motives were benevolent, that he deserved to rule for the greater good. "Space Seed" says that he didn't start wars of aggression and that there were no massacres under his rule.
As for the "booster equipped DY-100," that's based on an illustration created for the Star Trek Chronology and later used in the Encyclopedia and in the set dressings for the 602 Club in ENT.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:DY_100_painting.jpg
As for the "booster equipped DY-100," that's based on an illustration created for the Star Trek Chronology and later used in the Encyclopedia and in the set dressings for the 602 Club in ENT.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:DY_100_painting.jpg
About time somebody got back to basics.
Who cares what Khan believed? Evil is evil, whether or not Khan THINKS he is evil does not change the fact THAT he is.
And anyone who thinks Khan is such a good guy should really read Seeds of Dissent.
Well he does say:
Basically he's saying that while Khan might think he's a good guy ruling for the greater good, that he's still a meglomaniac and still evil. He's trying to disabuse the whole "the guy's puppy died as a kid and therefore he was traumatized" stuff.
Basically he's saying that while Khan might think he's a good guy ruling for the greater good, that he's still a meglomaniac and still evil. He's trying to disabuse the whole "the guy's puppy died as a kid and therefore he was traumatized" stuff.
But the point is that, while Khan did evil, he didn't do it "for evil's sake." He didn't just go "Okay, I'll be the villain of the story." He did what he did for the sake of the greater good as he perceived it.
^ Again, irrelevant. Evil is evil; reasons don't matter.
Based on the interview alone, I'm inclined to think he's just saying that Khan's just willing to do evil things and that's part of his personality, even if he believes himself to be justified. I just think you're perhaps blowing that one line about evil for evil's sake as meaning something it's not meant to mean in the context of the interview.
Which is pretty much being consistent about Khan, lets remember that for all the best of the tyrants stuff he was planning to take the Enterprise's senior officers and torture them to death in a decompression chamber while making the rest of them watch until they did his bidding and then when he got his ass kicked was planing to blow the whole ship up.
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Right. A "decent" tyrant is still a tyrant.
Of course, do you realize that refusing to see the world in anything but an utterly uncompromising view of black-vs-white, us-vs-them, makes you evil, right?
But a decent tyrant is still decent. If you had a choice between a Hitler who was not going to exterminate the Jews, and the Hitler we got, wouldn't you opt for the moderate one?
Is it an either or between those two?
It's like how Stalin apologists love to claim dude defeated fascism.
Okay, great. How many people wound up dead anyway?
It's like how Stalin apologists love to claim dude defeated fascism.
Okay, great. How many people wound up dead anyway?
I'm not debating morality here. I'm talking about characterization and the intelligence of the writing. Three-dimensional villains, characters who have comprehensible motivations and internal contradictions, are more interesting to read about than one-dimensional villains whose writers see them as simply "evil" and thus make no effort to understand or relate to. When I write villains, I try to get into their heads, to figure out how their choices and beliefs make sense to them and why they think what they're doing is right, even if their morality is totally twisted from my perspective. Seeing a character as "evil for evil's sake" seems distancing to me, like the speaker is looking at them from the outside and is uninterested in delving into such character complexities. I hope that's not what the writer meant by that line, but it's not an encouraging statement.
No, I don't think so.
The very concept of a 'decent tyrant' is a contradiction.
Well, that's kinda the point I was making, right? Evil people never think they are.
Name me a leader from history before the rise of democracy. They are all 'tyrants' to one extent or another, a leader who controlled their power base through the sometimes ruthless destruction of opponents: lauded national heroes like Elizabeth I of England, Louis XIV of France, Qin Shi Huang who united China, Salahadin who fought the crusaders, Richard Lionheart who retook Jerusalem, Louis IX of France and its most celebrated ruler, William the Conqueror of England, Henry V of England, etc.... Each did things morally objectionable, but equally each were 'decent tyrants', who brought prosperity, success or purpose to nations and empires in distress.
Well, that's kinda the point I was making, right? Evil people never think they are.
Well, the moment I start massacring innocent people because they're not genetically perfect, then you can call me evil.
That being said: I hope at least that we're all in agreement that Khan's actions, while some of them may be explainable (i.e. doing what he did to save his crew), that doesn't make them justified. Explanation is not justification.
Right?
