Informed Wrongness: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* In the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime episode "Challenge of the Samurai", Ash Ketchum spends much of the episode being berated by [[Unwitting Instigator of Doom|the titular character]] for not finishing what he started (not stopping a Weedle from escaping, thus letting it summon a swarm of Beedrill). However, the only reason the Weedle escaped was because the Samurai surprised him as he was about to capture it, because he didn't have the courtesy to wait until Ash was done catching it. Yet Ash is meant to accept responsibility for what went wrong, even though ''nothing'' was his fault, and even though he defeats the Samurai, he's still short one Weedle which would someday evolve into a Beedrill.

** As a more general example, Team Rocket is rightfully lambasted for trying to steal Pokemon that already belong to trainers... but they're also reacted to in exactly the same way when they attempt to catch wild Pokemon, the same thing the protagonists are (supposed to be) doing. The series seems to imply that their methods are somehow in the wrong when catching wild Pokemon, and that the only "fair" way to catch a wild Pokemon is to have one of your own beat it up first.

* Another Marvel example. Skarr, Son Of The Hulk, was hit with this really hard throughout his entire miniseries. The narration and tone constantly informed us that he was bordering on being a [[Complete Monster]] if he wasn't already one. And while he certainly did a few [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|morally dubious things in his quest to stop the slavers and slaughterers rampaging across the planet]], they were phrased in such overblown ways to make them seem worse than they were that it just seemed melodramatic (with one of his "worst" offenses being a ''bluff'' of [[Pay Evil Unto Evil]]). This culminated in Skarr being wrong for ''not wanting Galactus to eat his planet'' because, apparently, Galactus eating the planet was for the greater good... keep in mind, Earth superheroes regularly bluff Galactus with '''destroying the entire universe''' to make him leave Earth alone, which means he just goes off and eats someone else's planet.

 

* In ''[[My Immortal]]'', being a "prep" or a "poser", rather than a "goff", is bad because... the story says so!

 

== Film ==

* In an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', they developed a [[Logic Bomb]] that could have wiped out the Borg race. It eventually goes unused because killing the whole species would be genocide. But... it's [[Horde of Alien Locusts|the BORG]]! Their entire existence is [[Exclusively Evil|one long series of massive genocides]]! [[Fridge Logic|Besides]], they're a collective consciousness, so you're in some sense only killing the one individual responsible for all the horror and death. Eventually the show itself confronted the issue in the episode where Lore took control of the Borg separated from the collective; Picard admits that although he may have made the moral choice in not using the logic bomb, it may not have been the right choice.

** However, later episodes also show that it wouldn't have worked anyway, so it would have been an immoral action to no real point.

** As Picard pointed out in the above Star Trek example, and as Helo points out in this case, it's a matter of whether the ends justify the means. If humanity is willing to wipe out another entire race of sentient beings, would we deserve to be the race that survived the conflict? The dissenters argue that we should hold onto what makes humanity worth saving even if it means facing nearly impossible odds.

** Another possible counterargument is that the genocide is not ''advisable'' because it would not be guaranteed to be total (there is a nonzero, and maybe nontrivial, possibility that the Cylons can get a warning out in time for the furthest away resurrection ships out of range to disconnect themselves and avoid the plague spread), and doing it and failing to get a 100.00% kill would motivate the surviving Cylons to absolutely exterminate the human race without the slightest possibility of reconciliation or even just eventually giving up on the pursuit, thus locking humanity into total doom (as the only possibilities for humanity are Cylons exterminate humanity, humans exterminate Cylons, or some type of eventual peaceful resolution... and a failed genocide attempts means #2 is not achievable and #3 is no longer possible). Unfortunately for the episode quality that's not the argument Helo made, so he still looks like an idiot.