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Post by Sadrick on Apr 22, 2017 9:14:24 GMT -5
From the dialogue exchanged at the crossroads leading to the afterlife in Season 1's finale, Prue and Andy converse the latter's untimely fate. The tragic circumstances are lamented and Prue vows to kill Rodriguez in retribution, but Andy cuts her off in the hopes of dissuading her from a set path that he seemed to perceive as being unseemly for someone who is so family oriented and committed to doing good things. In the end, Prue is forced to kill Rodriguez in self-defence, but what she said afterward really caught my attention, "We may not be murderers but we're no angels either". What that implies is that she and her sisters aren't rigidly aligned with the actions of only one moral extremity. They are capable of killing for reasons necessitating such actions. It's this same attitude that prompted her to finally relent in letting Williamson, a human who had become mentally unstable from the powers injected into his bloodstream, die. What's ironic is that Prue was arguably responsible for the most human deaths of any sister on the show.
We know the sisters are very much capable of doing some morally questionable things. They're only human, after all. With what Andy knew of the sisters and their exploits up until that point, did he really believe the sisters to be infallibly pure in moral character?
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Post by Elle Em on Apr 23, 2017 7:07:33 GMT -5
It all revolves around what they had to do to save themselves or an innocent. They didn't ask for their powers or the responsibilities that came with them. Evil attacked, and they vanquished that evil. I think Andy understood that.
However, in the case of Rodriguez, he may not have understood that he would be too much of a danger to the sisters and others to let live. Rodriguez killed his partner and Andy, and would have kept trying to kill the sisters. It wasn't a case of letting him go and hoping he doesn't come back.
I think the fact that they somehow had Rodriguez tied to the chair and unable to defend himself or fight back might have been a factor. Murderer or not, it might have felt wrong to the sisters to vanquish someone in such a manner. Yet knowing what he did and would do in the future, is he deserving of the chance to fight back?
Ultimately, I think it comes down to the fact that bad things are going to happen no matter what, and the sisters find themselves in the middle of that. In the case of Williamson, yes, Prue killed him. But it wasn't in cold blood. She would have saved him if she could, but she saw no other way out of the situation. At that point, others were in danger. The situation had to stop, even if not everyone could be saved. It was no doubt a hard decision to make, but the business of being a Charmed One is messy, and I think that Prue made the only move she could.
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Esmeralda
Charmed
S2 "What If...?"
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Post by Esmeralda on Apr 23, 2017 8:20:12 GMT -5
Once Andy knew that Rodriguez was a demon or warlock (hard to tell before Season Three), I don't think he would've had any troubles with them doing that at all.
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Post by Sadrick on Apr 23, 2017 9:33:16 GMT -5
With the powers at their disposal, you would think the sisters to be capable of conceiving a strategy for ensuring that any and all innocents whom they encounter are saved, though. What was preventing the sisters from calling Leo to teleport onto the scene and orb Williamson away? Materialising anything of their desire was evidently possible. It implies that the sisters either were too unimaginative to think of a more unorthodox approach to restraining Williamson or his survival wasn't paramount to the integrity of their characters -- which is questionable since it was their lack of concern which inadvertently precipitated Williamson's descent into madness.
You also have to wonder about the myriad of other supernatural entities they came across. Were the warlocks they faced not human at some point? Could they not have been disempowered and then handed over to the authorities? How is it that some of their actions can be reconciled when the idea of an alternative solution will have forever been there in the back of their minds? Take Ashley Fallon, for instance. Contrary to the typical psyche of many nefarious minded enemies of the sisters, she exhibited a surprising measure of depth with the reasons for why she became what she was.
It's clear this woman's grief and sense of vulnerability caused her to desperately seek out anything that would help give her comfort and security. From what we see in her actions in the episode itself, it's an emotional detachment from the relations with others. She refuses to form any kind of connection with other people because of what she went through -- instead choosing to live moment by moment with fleeting gratification in the form of sex. Her afflictions exacerbate into a full blow magically inspired psychosis with a transformation into a ravenous beast that mutilates the bodies of men and removes their hearts.
What are we as viewers supposed to take away from this humanisation of the monster? The sisters never had this sensitive information brought to light. They just elected to kill her, no questions asked. How does it reflect in their characters to slaughter a person whose grief-stricken isolation from companionship maddened her into becoming a beast that they callously put down? No surprise, Andy conveniently omitted this detail from his conversation with Prue at the crossroads.
Can we also neglect how easily they brushed off the death of a warlock who was shown to be considerate of his half-brother? Countless times Paul acted as the voice of reason to his brazen older brother who rigidly clung to the ideology of becoming an anti-Power of Three. Paul's life was comprised of more than just the vociferations of Greg or hunting down powers for evil shenanigans. In fact, he even seemed willing to respect Brendan's wishes to follow his own path. Does standing in opposition to Greg the warlock zealot and choosing to kill himself in a murder-sacrifice pact seem like the act of an emotionless killer? Kyra already proved that demons were capable of feeling emotions. What Paul did here was nothing short of commendable. But do the Charmed Ones or Brendan seem to care about this act of self-sacrifice for him? No, it doesn't even seem to phase them, and the latter is aspiring to become a priest. Really?
There's other examples of this two-faced lack of consistency for those who, in spite of being at odds with the sisters, still manage to show some semblance of humanity. Even for those who were proverbially twirling their mustaches until the bitter end, did the likes of Whittaker Berman deserve to die? What was preventing Prue from repelling him to the side and physically compelling him to end the dream session? If Prue was truly beginning to seize control of the dream sequence then she could have taken a different approach to throwing Whittaker off a building to his death.
When I reexamine everything up until Andy made that statement, it makes me question if Prue can really be called a compassionate heroine. There's clearly a pattern of dark emotionless detachment with some of these deaths; even if Prue wasn't directly responsible for some, she was still blatantly complicit.
What are your thoughts on this issue?
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Post by Elle Em on Apr 24, 2017 8:47:16 GMT -5
Part of the problem is that the sisters had no way of knowing that if they spared the life of someone potentially dangerous that they wouldn't just turn around and try to kill them again, or perhaps continue going after innocent people.
In the case of Fallon, the woman was so emotionally damaged that she literally turned into a monster that then murdered innocent people. I don't know what else the sisters were supposed to do in that situation. As Piper proved when she was temporarily a Wendigo herself, they didn't have the means to physically restrain her. And all the Book said was how to vanquish a Wendigo, not disempower or weaken one. Fallon was so far gone that I don't know if anything could have brought her back. This was within the first year of the sisters being witches, and during the final vanquish scene, Andy was missing and Piper's life was on the line. I think to kill Fallon was the only course of action they could be expected to take here.
It's a tragic situation for Fallon, no doubt. I'd like to think there's a second chance out there for anybody who's willing to take it. Especially when someone has had a past where they haven't always been as they are, or when they show some sign of not being blindly willing to hurt others, it would be great if they were able to come back from it. But especially in the case of the Wendigo, I don't think there were any realistic options. Perhaps if they were more experienced or had more time to deal with the situation, there might have been.
If I recall correctly, Paul's death was an accident. But in that situation, I too would have liked there to be some mention about how it really wasn't his fault, and that Brendan was disappointed he died. Again, in the moment of the final fight, and considering the situation as a whole, I don't know if it would have been possible for the sisters or Brendan to sway Paul to their side without endangering their own lives even further. Paul chose his side, even if he did have redeemable characteristics.
Berman is one that did not need to die. Prue could indeed have just thrown him to the side and woken up. But maybe somewhere in the back of her mind was the thought that it would only be a temporary solution. And also if she felt her life was in immediate danger, it may have influenced her decision.
I agree with you that a lot of these deaths either should not have happened or should have been given more thought. It's just that the sisters are only human with no real training for how to deal with these situations. And everyone who died who we've been discussing either did truly awful things or aligned themselves with others who did. It doesn't mean the Charmed Ones are qualified to hand out death sentences, but I don't blame them for reacting to situations around them.
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Post by Sadrick on Apr 24, 2017 16:14:26 GMT -5
That benighted ignorance and proneness to human error is what vindicates the sisters somewhat. But we see how their spells are already powerful enough to accelerate the flow of time. Pushing forward the clock until daytime when Fallon's wendigo transformation would have ceased was a possible non-fatal solution. A more grotesque option would have been to sever the limbs and cripple her or put her into a comatose state. The only limitations to what they're magically capable of is their own imaginations. Granted, you could offer the allowances of the sisters not having any obligation to save or rehabilitate Fallon when they knew nothing of her past. She had presented herself as an aggressive danger to not only men whom she came into contact with, but the sisters as well.
So my final conclusion on the question of Fallon's meritoriousness for salvaging by the sisters is that she may have had the right mindset of not being too far engulfed in the depravity of murder and carnage to pore over the perceivably unjust circumstances that lead her into becoming what she was. In a way, she hadn't completely lost perspective of her humanity. The tonality of her voice when explaining her history to Andy even suggests some residual emotional feeling for the life she used to lead. But given the mindset of the sisters and what they had to work with, their actions are arguably justified, albeit certainly not without some ethical questionability.
Relating to Paul -- a comment from Brendan as he's meeting with his brothers before the attempted murder of the woman on the table directly suggests that he was aware of Paul's hesitation in trying to convert him.
If Brendan knows about Paul's disagreement with Greg then he must also be aware of the apparent depth of concern Paul must feel for him. Unlike Greg, he tried to appeal to Brendan's sense of negotiation with brotherly amiability instead of threats or musings of becoming the most powerful coven in the world.
Paul was under the overbearing impetus of his older brother. He suggested on one or two occasions that they leave, but Greg refused. Now bear in mind that these two have likely been very close since childhood as they are actually full blooded brothers who presumably lived together under the same roof. With the decades spent looking up towards your older sibling for guidance and support, do you really think it would be so easy for Paul to just drop everything immediately and shift over to his half-brother and some strange belligerent witches' side? This was a delicate matter that needed a far greater amount of attention to hopefully change the course of. Unfortunately, Paul wasn't given that luxury. In fact, with everything Brendan knows about him, he wasn't even given a respectable last word. It was evidently easier to just brush the tragic demise off as another statistic in the war against evil.
Again, myopic perception of a crucially life and death situation is what gives Prue some vindication. But as viewers, we knew that Andy and Darryl had appeared in Whitaker Berman's lab to arrest him just moments before his death. His death was an unneeded consequence which may have been averted if Prue chose to stick to the arbitrary tenet of not killing humans if it can be helped; that is unless she wasn't aware of his status as a human.
Besides the already mentioned names, Gabriel Statler was another human fatality -- with whom the sisters had full knowledge of his status as a mortal. His life was literally in their hands and they chose to kill rather than have him incarcerated or perhaps drained of his memories.
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Post by hollowbox on May 14, 2017 15:34:05 GMT -5
Prue did kill the Dream Sorcerer, who was actually a mortal. But I guess that was in self-defense, and she appeared not to have any other options to escape his control.
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ljones
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Post by ljones on May 15, 2017 20:05:46 GMT -5
Prue didn't kill Rodriguez because he was a demon. She actually gave him a chance to walk away. He didn't take the chance and tried to kill the sisters again. Prue used her telekinesis to finally kill him.
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Aaeiyn
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Post by Aaeiyn on Aug 23, 2021 15:48:51 GMT -5
Prue didn't kill Rodriguez because he was a demon. She actually gave him a chance to walk away. He didn't take the chance and tried to kill the sisters again. Prue used her telekinesis to finally kill him. Pretty much. In response to the OP, I believe Andy is correct in claiming that Prue is not a murderer. She has every right to defend, herself, and we see that against Ms. Hellfire & Abby. Two mortals with the intention in killing her. That should be safe grounds for anyone to defend themselves. |
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