Phoebe & Paige killing human and Cole killing Human!

[sky1]

This thread is specific to 2 events, no more then that.

In "Hyde School Reunion" Phoebe and Paige help in killing a mortal. To protect Chris, and guy was a criminal!

In "Witches in Tights" Cole kills a mortal to protect sisters (Phoebe) from outing them as witches. The guy is also a criminal, letting poor people die and kicking them out of their homes. Their is also the events from "All Hell Breaks Loose" where we find out what happens if the secret is made public. And Cole having intact memory of that time.


Now one is portrayed as justified and fair. Phoebe and Paige killing criminal to save someone they care about from death. While Cole killing a criminal to protect sisters as evil.


Now I think we can all agree both were outrages and should have never happened. But lets discuss it from in show view! And not from outside point of view. There were circumstances and context that was important. Lets also for a second forget the sisters plot armor.

Phoebe and Paige should have been able to find other way to resolve situation. Same goes for Cole. Why kill him? With his vast amount of powers he could have resolved it some other way to.


Also important is their instinct. Their first thought that came to them when trying to fix this problems. Phoebe and Paige is really surprising. Paige should have orbed the gun etc etc. Why was their first move to kill human. Which goes against their own personalities and everything they stand for.

I am more lenient to Cole here. He was 100+ years old demon. While technically not a demon in S5. We saw what happens when you absorb to much demonic powers (Phoebe in "Witch Wars" was starting to go evil hours after absorbing small amount of powers. While Cole had untold amount of demonic powers). It's not surprising his were: People he cared about in danger. Woman he loves in danger. Kill the guy.


What are your guys opinion on this?

[Sadrick]

Phoebe and Paige are hypocrites, plain and simple. You can't espouse this philosophical pretense of incorruptible humanity and goodness while in the same breath needlessly sentencing man to a fairly gruesome death. Like you explained, they were the ones with the powers and the training. Neutralising the immediate threat posed by Rick's firearm should have been a simple matter of Paige articulating its designation. Rick was a kidnapper and murderer but I think under the circumstances, it would have been just as easy to disarm and incapacitate him before calling Daryl in order to take him back into custody.

What's unfortunate about their intentional set-up is that I might not harbour so much dislike towards them if they had been more self-reflecting of their own fallibility. They might be the Charmed Ones but they're also human -- flawed, spiteful, aggressive, and sometimes unethical humans. In their minds, what could have driven them to facilitate a man's death like this? Was it a simple inkling regarding self-preservation? An overly volatile trigger finger? Spite because of the damage Rick had done and for having endangered their lives so much? It would have been better for them to come clean regarding this action, "I allowed my frustration/fear/resentment to get the better of me and it resulted in the death of someone. It was an unnecessary death that could have been avoided. Being who I am, I understand that I'm held to a higher standard of decency, but because of what I am, a human being, I know that I'm prone to errors in judgement. I can't guarantee that it won't happen again, but this action was unbecoming of what I am supposed to represent and it will be etched into my heart and conscience for the rest of my life."

Cole's actions against Edward Miller were egregious, but I think given the nature of Cole's upbringing and the values instilled from an early age, you have the conditional factor of environment playing into his psyche. He was raised to trust no one and to show no mercy against his enemies -- compassion, love, trust were all probably foreign concepts to him for the most part. It takes more than just a few weeks of being a chronologically dysfunctional human with no real time to adjust to the human world in a proper way for all of that indoctrination to be filtered out. Prue actually alludes to this inversive instillment of personality traits when they're in the alternate dimension together, "If you want to try your hand at being good, your first instinct shouldn't be to kill." It's easier said than done, though. Given the circumstances, I'm not sure how Cole would have been able to persuade Edward Miller into giving up the tape. It was either accept Miller's blackmail or have the magical exposure contents get publicised. Magically changing Miller's thoughts would have been the logical thing to do, but that's still a violation of ethics in its own right.

Phoebe and Paige were brought up with a strict moral compass. They were taught the difference between right and wrong. In their pubescent years it's true that a rebellious streak found them at odds with authority figures at times, true, but they knew when too much was too much. Whatever petty criminality or rambunctiousness they exhibited was never taken past a certain point. Fundamentally their hearts were in the right place. Although, when you look at their conduct during the Season 6 incident, you can't help but wonder if their moral code hadn't been depraved in some manner.

[gzv969]

In the case of phoebe and Paige, memory dust or a spell to make Rick forget the last 24 hours and what he was doing could have done the trick.

[ljones]

I don't think that Cole's upbringing should have given him any sliver of an excuse for his murder of Edward Miller. He could have found another solution to deal with the man's blackmail. Pure and simple.

Phoebe and Paige's murder of Rick Guttridge is no more excusable. Like Cole, they could have found another way to deal with Rick as a threat - teleporting the gun from his hand and erasing his memory.

Cole, Phoebe and Paige are equally guilty. I don't think we should view their actions differently, because of their upbringing. Plenty of people have been raised decently and ended up committing some terrible deed. And I feel that both the series and the fans should view them as such, regardless of their upbringing.

[gzv969]

Cole was a demon. A demon with unlimited powers trying to be good. He was bound to do evil. It’s in his nature. So I wouldn’t blame him. It’s no different than blaming a demon. Just like when the demon made drake so angry that he gave into his powers and blasted the innocent out the window. He just gave into he evil side for s moment.

On the other hand Paige and phoebe had no excuse.

[ljones]

Cole was a demon. A demon with unlimited powers trying to be good. He was bound to do evil. It’s in his nature.

It's in the nature of all human beings to do evil. Demons are not alone in that regard.
Which means, the sisters AND Cole had no excuses for their actions.