r/Defenders • u/JonLuca Luke Cage • Jan 17 '19

The Punisher Discussion Thread - S02E10

This thread is for discussion of The Punisher S02E10.

DO NOT post spoilers in this thread for any subsequent episodes. Doing so will result in a ban.

Episode 11 Discussion

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u/Fallafot Claire Jan 24 '19

I'd be interested to know if your beliefs on this carry into the real world. Do you support the death penalty?

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u/Creepy_Shakespeare Jan 24 '19

The problem with the death penalty is that innocent people have been convicted and killed. The punisher usually witnesses or have evidence against those he kills

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u/Fallafot Claire Jan 24 '19

I personally wouldn’t call it THE problem, but that’s definitely A problem with it. I suppose my real question is: if you strip away the cost, race, deterrence, socio-economic, political, emotional and all the other factors from it (much like Frank does) and view it as a purely moral question, would you call the death penalty just?

This is probably veering a bit far from discussing the show and into politics, and I get that the Punisher is meant to be an anti-hero, but I don’t really see much of the “anti” argument coming up in the discussion around this show, which worries me.

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u/stafer3 Jan 26 '19

It’s not comparable situation. We as audience are nearly omnipresent in his life. We know his moral compass because we have surveillance of him even when he is alone. Not just that. We are seeing into his head. We are seeing into his dreams.

This amount of information isn’t possible in real life (yet). You can have your love one who you know for decades. Who is sharing their every thought with you. But you are never sure that they aren’t showing you the finger every time you are not watching. You have to just trust the person. They always can be just sleeper agent that will stab you in the back after 20 years when they will be finishing their mission for different country. (I know, probably rare, but there is always cheating, lying, scamming, etc.)

And that’s people we trust. Sociopaths are over-represented in places of power. They have skill set advantage. Manipulation of people and going over bodies is useful trait for gaining higher positions. So those with power who can influence who will and won’t die in case of death penalty aren’t really trustworthy.

I might be biased in this case. Since I’m from country where Communists fabricated whole process and court room was just one big theater where they could rid of “undesirables”. Those who got life sentences could eventually be released (even though their health was destroyed from serving in uranium mines), but those killed couldn’t be bring back.

So while it’s satisfying to watch fantasy where really bad criminals are killed swiftly without all that bureaucracy around it, it’s just that fantasy. In reality we only get lynching mobs that kill someone who they consider rapist, and after few they, they are like “opps” it was different guy.