We, The Infected

The last few days I was obsessed with the character of "The Punisher" and in one of his Movies, he said this: Those who do evil to others - the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists - you will come to know me well. Frank Castle is dead. Call me... The Punisher. You guys think that the Punisher would punish Eli and Oskar if he got the chance? Will you be in favor of The Punisher? What's your opinion about the morality of this character?

Well, you can´t put right violence using more violence. I think there´s no morality in the punisher. Just Nihilism. Eli and Oskar, if they got caught, they should be taken to care and have their diesease researched. Eventually they will be brought to justice using the criminal prosecution of our democratic system. I´m really not a big fan of the "law of the stronger one"

The picture reminds me of the manga style of forum member Dominic.

Real life versus fiction. I applaud Eli taking out the bullies at the swimming pool. I would not approve of that in real life. But like Oskar stabbing the tree, most of us can let off steam by fantasizing about vengeance. I doubt whether reading about it leads to it. What if, instead, some people who are already violent and unstable wrap themselves in fiction as a way rationalizing a path that they are already on? If not rationalizing, then fantasizing and self-dramatizing?

He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done. - Leonardo Da Vinci. I think this quote resumes in a good way the personality and inner thoughts of Frank Castle A.K.A. The Punisher.

Real live versus fiction. Capital punishment has been a fact of daily life since before man invented writing, I'm guessing, and it's generally been in the spirit of "who does wrong must be punished" or as a deterrent. I'd characterise the "must be punished" camp as adherents to a kind of moral arithmetic we all learned before the first grade and the "deterrent" camp as being somewhat more forward-looking. I agree with Phobos that you can't set a past wrong right with another wrong, but I also can't see that it's particularly safe to abstain from making the effort on humanitarian grounds; there are plenty of yahoos around who'll cheerfully commit the worst kinds of crimes if they don't have to worry about being punished for them. For far too many of us, law has no value if it has no force.

I've never seen this Punisher thing, or, at least, I don't remember it. Could this character be similar in outlook to Rorschach from "The Watchmen"? This guy is about as black and white as it's possible to get. I think for him there's no difference between sexual promiscuity and mass murder. "I used to be too soft on criminals", he said, "I used to let them live".

My own view towards the "mass murder" scene in either LTROI or LMI isn't as simple as dongregg's. In so many ways, people taken in large numbers act (and react) so much like gas molecules, being relatively quiet and neighbourly until somebody puts a lit torch under the gas bottle. Unlike gas molecules, we can choose to be more rational and more analytical. If the story behind the boys' deaths were to become more widely known, that their mistreatment of one lone little boy had been steadily worsening until it had boiled over into attempted murder, then maybe (mind, just maybe) folks around would take note and try to keep their boys safer by teaching them more civilised behaviour and the concept of potential consequences rather than just taking their knives and their video games away.

Of course, that's easy for us to say. We were there at the pool, we saw what had been building up for a while, and we watched Eli detonate. In real life, all we really know about what happened at this school or that is what the authorities or the press decided to share with us, and we have no guarantee the sharing wasn't somehow filtered in order to protect ongoing investigation or because of the priorities imposed by commercial journalism ("if it bleeds, it leads" because blood and sex sell column inches and air minutes... and if it doesn't bleed, it leaves?). I have little doubt some of our schools got shot up because the guys with the guns were just born rabid lunatics, but I have much less doubt it's true what Sue Snell said at the proceedings after Carrie White wiped out a high school: "You can only push people so far, and then they break".

That's a lesson we're going to have to learn over and over and over again, I fear.

As for Punisher, if he's anything like Rorschach, if he were ever to run across Eli and understand what she is, her long, tragic past and continued suffering wouldn't even be a blip on the furthest reaches of his moral radar. She kills people who don't deserve killing, so she's a rat, and you don't put rats on trial and give them suspended sentences. You just exterminate them.

it's like JAL has stated in the commentary of the movie. Don´t pour acid on your face and be nice to each other. Also in all the violence that Eli and Oskar will cause in their relationship, i can´t really see a happy end. It ´s all sadness and despair in the end. If you where asked "would you like eternal life, but you will become a Vampire" what would you choose?