Thomas Harewood - Would You Kill 42 People?

Would you kill 42 people to save your (presumably only) child?

I love my children but I wouldn't kill 42 innocent people in order to save their lives.
I think Harewood should have done more to evacuate the building before blowing it up. Actually his daughter had already had the blood tranfusion by then so why not run to the authorities?

 

I don't have kids but I expect that if the choice was 42 strangers (or even coworkers) or my child, I'd choose her every time. They're just people. She's my family.

 

^ So how would you go about explaining to her that you are now a murderer?

 

People who aren't going through things like this think rationaly. People who are, sometimes don't.

 

You'd be the first one killed, so you wouldn't have to, if we're using the same scenario as the film.

 

I don't think I would, no. But who can say for sure?

I can say for sure though, that if Khan cured my daughter before I had to kill 42 people (as he does in the film) I'd bundle my family up and get the hell out of there so that I didn't have to go through with it. And I'd let my co-workers know that some dude was planning to blow them all up. Heck, Khan was just standing there in the street waiting to be snatched up by the constabulary.

 

Let her Mother explain it to all the children of the bombing victims who have now lost a Mother or Father. She can explain how it was worth it to save her daughter.

I'm being a bit harsh here I know. But it just seemed that Harewood was basically excused by Marcus because he was under duress.

And I'm thinking if I was in one of those theoretical positions where if you press the button and either your daughter was killed or 42 friends - I would pick my daughter to live. But in the scenario in the film there seemed to be some ways out for Harewood, even if it involved breaking his word or just warning some people.

 

I don't think anyone would know for sure until they were placed in that situation.

 

^^^This exactly, every time. I am selfish, and when placed in that position I'm honest enough with myself to know what my decision would be.

If you are the kind of person that would let your child die in front of you if it meant saving others, then I applaud your morality. As for me, no fuc$ing way.

Khan said it best:

"Is there anything you would not do for your family?"

 

She'd find out soon enough.

 

Given the fact that Harewood worked for Section 31, and reported to Marcus, I would say that he would be aware of the unpleasantness that could come from disobeying Harrison/Khan.

Also, as a general remark and has been mentioned, we get the privilege of watching the film and being objective-somewhat, because I cried during that scene. However, Harewood was not rational. He saw and opportunity to save his daughter's life, and he took it. It wasn't noble, it wasn't right or humane, but he did it because he wasn't thinking. He had a gun to his head that said "My daughter is going to die" and he was desperate.

Under such circumstances, humans can rationalize anything.

 

Friendly disagree. He probably could give 2 sh!ts less about Section 31 or his job. All he cared about was his daughter and his family. He sacrificed his life and others for her. Even trade.

I speak from experience having 4 children.

I can agree that when it comes to them, rationality is thrown completely out the window. I would do ANYTHING to insure their survival. He probably came from the same mindset. Khan knew this and picked Harewood specifically.

Does it make me a bad person, maybe. But I wouldn't care. All I would care about is that she lived to see another day. All we do as parents is to insure the safety and longevity of our offspring. This was no different.

 

To those who would kill 40 people to save one child, what if your child was 18 years old? Or 25? Or 30? And what if they begged you to save the 40 people? (Genuine question, I'm curious as to what the tipping point is.)

 

The classic variation of the Harewood Dilemma is if you saw a child, not related to you, about to be hit by a car, would you try to save that child at the possible cost of your own life?

It's another kind of question I don't know the answer to, because I'm not a parent, and am physically unable to react fast enough.

It's like that news story a few years ago, where a man fell onto the subway tracks as a train was arriving, and a stranger jumped down and covered him with his own body, saving him. How many of us would think that quickly?

 

My answer would be yes.

But you guys are stating to make me feel like a bad parent because I wouldn't kill 'innocent' people/do anything to save my kids.
Still I did ask the question in the first place. I think I'm going to apologise to them now.
Luckily most of us will never be put in the situation to have to make that decision.

But I disagree that Harewood traded his life for hers so was in some way a hero. If it had been just his life then in some ways maybe.

But he traded other people lives for her. Why did those people need to die? Just to punish Marcus. Like he cared. Harewood could have given them a warning to evacuate saying there was a bomb in the building and then stayed there and met his fate. But for some reason if he was going to die then why not take out everyone else.
I don't know - maybe he hated his co-workers.

 

Killing 42 other children's parents, and other parent's children? Good thinking.

 

I agree. My point was more that I didn't think he felt he had an escape from Khan.

I agree that it is completely irrational. I have two children and I would give anything, including my own life, for them. So, I understand Harewood's dilemma, and how myopic that would make me. Again, it might make me a bad person, but I never claimed perfection

Tosk, what's the tipping point? When it comes to my own children, I don't know. I honestly don't, because I don't think rationally about every aspect of my children. I want to raise them to be moral, honest and healthy children and give them every opportunity to succeed. I like to think of myself as a moral person, so maybe I would turn it down, but that's me being rational and not under the gun.

I have watched friends struggle with powerlessness with children having disease that they can't control, and can imagine that if someone offered them the power to cure their child, it would take a lot of willpower to turn it down.

 

The other factor is how Khan presented the choice. It may have been something like, 'Help me, and your daughter lives. Refuse me, and you both die.'

 

That's probably the key variable in Harewood's decisions, yes.

But we can always speculate on further variables. 23rd century medicine was helpless in face of the child's ailment. Khan's blood worked, though. This blood is known to be helpful for the victims of warp cores, a characteristically limited-access cause of illness; what if the daughter's illness was also due to Starfleet or its S31, either directly or indirectly? (Say, perhaps it was genetic, and due to something daddy himself had undergone in Starfleet service - some sort of exposure or even experimentation?)

Khan was also an extremely smooth talker in "Space Seed". Perhaps he convinced Harewood that destroying the S31 lab would (besides obviously aiding Khan in his own designs, whatever those were) be good for mankind an sich, removing 42 evildoers and their evil doings from this world?

As for daddy being a murderer, that's a familiar situation for war veterans. Why did they kill dozens, hundreds or perhaps thousands? Perhaps to stop them from killing the little girl with their bayonets; perhaps to stop them from propagating an ideology that would make life less enjoyable for the girl; perhaps something in between. Most (that I know) are happier hearing that the murders were for their own sake than learning that daddy killed because he was a crack shot and/or liked to hear the victims scream.

Timo Saloniemi

 

This is a very tricky question. I think many out there who are parents would instinctively answer "Yes, I would". But placed in that situation, would they really?

I think the fact that people do commit such acts like this from time to time (for their own reasons, usually because they're complete whack-jobs) shows us that, placed in the right context, there are people out there who would sacrifice the many in order to protect the few. Especially if the few are people they know and care about and the many are complete strangers they wouldn't know from a bar of soap.

Adding complexity to Harewood's actions is that the people he killed were NOT complete strangers: they were his co-workers, and some of them probably even his friends.

At the end of the day if it wasn't a suicide mission then I don't think he could've done it. He's too decent a person to be able to kill and then face down the innocent families of those he murdered. But he never had to face that guilt, because he took his own life with them.