Private Military Contractors/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

* I've noticed a trend in a lot of media for mercenaries to be portrayed as almost universally despised as untrustworthy and amoral--[[A Song of Ice and Fire]] and [[Fire Emblem]] come to mind. But where did this idea come from? Historically mercenaries were highly valued, from Swiss pikemen to Genoese crossbowmen, and they're widely used today as well. Why do writers consistently portray potential employers as being extremely skeptical of hiring mercenaries? In both the examples I mentioned the mercenaries are heroic, or at least less villainous, protagonists, which makes it especially strange that they would be functioning at all if everyone was so biased against their existence.

** The way I see it, it works like this in common perception: People who are willing to kill other people for your cause out of conviction, loyalty, or duty are valuable allies, while people who are willing to kill other people for your cause solely because you ''pay'' them to do so are merely [[Career Killers|hired thugs]]. As for mercenaries being employed at all even where nobody likes them, remember that mercs do have a few practical advantages over regular troops from the employer's point of view -- mainly that they tend to come already trained and more often than not equipped, which may actually save money in the short run and definitely does save time if you need more warm bodies on the battlefield on short notice, and that as 'outsiders' they're considerably more ''expendable'' if need be as well.