Killing a hero that is seriously helpful against the planet ending kaiju isn't what I'd call badass. More along the lines of selfish and stupid.

 

This is exactly the problem.

People simultaneously want to treat Taylor like a hero (or compare her to heroes) and they also want to use shitty, villain actions to justify their positive disposition towards her. (which leads to the absurd situation where bad shit that happens to her is wrong because it's bullying or something)

It's pretty fucking strange that the death of Alexandria is what's being used here. Not her moving after having Lung burn her arm or acting Lab Rat's device while falling after being eviscerated or whatever. All of them are better than this case which is basically one string of idiotic actions from Taylor culminating in a pointless death because of a power that Taylor wasn't even aware of (Armsmaster says that Alexandria misread Taylor because of some freaky power thing)

Also: there's no comparison between Harry naming a child after Snape and this shit. Snape is a bit of an ass, but Harry was never beaten by Snape. Snape could insult him, hurt him, cause him all manner of inconvenience but Harry never broke. He didn't retreat into himself and give up on his schooling and activities and dreams, he continued being Harry. If Voldemort couldn't do it Snape certainly wouldn't. Harry chose to name a child after Snape to remember his sacrifice-the main good thing about him. That's not weakness, that's power. He's granting him a boon, which shows just how beyond it he is.

Which is another thing completely.Harry is unrealistically unflappable.

Pretty sure that Sophia starts this. The example you want is her hitting Emma.

 

Selfish and stupid? You forget that Taylor thought that Alexandria killed one of her teammates. There is no way Taylor could have made a rational decision at the time. Besides, I have a lot more respect for a protagonist that kills her teammate's killer than one who does nothing because it would be the right thing to do. Selfish, maybe. But anything less would not be believable.

Taylor is not a good person. Regardless of her rationalizations, she stole, maimed, kidnapped and murdered - which puts her far below in the moral scale than her bullies- even Sophia never killed anyone intentionally. Sophia may be a terrible person, but bullying, apart from physical bullying, isn't really a crime. Objectively and in the eyes of the law, Taylor was much worse than Sophia. The bullying thing is no more of a excuse for Taylor than shitty parents are an excuse for Jack Slash.

Despite her moral myopia, she makes for an excellent protagonist. Even when her choices are amoral, she still has readers cheering for her. Take the previous example of Alexandria and Tagg's murder. The scene is clearly written in a way that presents Taylor as a victim and Alexandria as a bitch, despite Alexandria only doing what Taylor has done several times before. When Alexandria kills one of the Undersiders (as presumed then), everyone wanted her to die. We cheered as Taylor killed her and Tagg. That Alexandria was a hero who fought in every Endbringer battle, and that Tagg was a mere civilian were both irrelevant at the time.

TL;DR Taylor might not always do the morally correct thing, but she almost always does what the reader can identify the most with. The few of those who dislike her can suck it.

 

I'm pretty sure Sophia killed intentionally. At the very least, she deliberately loaded her crossbow with deadly ammunition and resented the PRT when they stopped her.

/derailment

 

I really like Taylor as a character - she's really compelling, and all credits to Wildbow as an author.

What I find really hilarious, and wrong, is people trying to justify all of Taylor's actions - in particular, the murder of Alexandria. While it was understandable, isn't it the case that Taylor (using the Undersides) was basically threatening massive unlawful violence if her demands weren't met? I don't see much to sympathize with here.

 

Eh, I'm pretty sure most people were like 'DIE, BITCH, DIE!' when Alexandria apparently killed one of the Undersiders.

Anyway, both Firefly (featuring Sexy!Mary-sue!Mentor!Fem!Lung) and Speak with the Dead (featuring Neo-Nazi!Semi-dead!Taylor with Glastig Uaine's shard) have updated. Unfortunately, not much happened in either update, but they seem to be setting the stage for latter events nicely.

 

Meh. Apparently the PRT deserves whatever Taylor does to them because they didn't up and fix Brockton Bay after a giant kaiju and a bunch of murder-nomads hit it.

By the same measure Taylor is perfectly justified in trying to change the very foundations of the PRT through blackmail on top of subverting democracy and rule of law and the idea that they would fight back in any way that would disadvantage her is just absurd.


Yes, I've actually had this discussion before.

You assume that the writer writing the protagonist in a way that puts them in a position where people can empathize at all matters to the way we judge that character.

I didn't ask if Wildbow writes in a way that makes Taylor more acceptable than she otherwise would be.I don't care because This is evident. The sort of convenient corruption in the PRT is the sort of thing people who write shitty, "gritty" works about Hard Cops/Whoever making Hard Choices also do to give their shitty, "gritty" protagonists a pass. This is probably most evident in Sophia's reveal and Armsmaster's actions during the Leviathan battle. What a convenient way to taint the law enforcement organization right when Taylor had some info they needed!

I didn't ask anything. I said that the fandom is completely compromised in how they judge her actions, not that they empathized. Empathizing is okay. Once you start twisting yourself into pretzels and rationalizing then you're making an argument. And arguments have to meet more rigorous standards than emotions.

Pretty sure that Wildbow said that most incidents were accidental and less than five or so.She accidentally killed one guy by dropping him but some of the other examples we got were basically her doing Dark Knight stuff without realizing that this isn't the 90s , like trying to nail people to the walls or floors with bolts and hurting them.

 

I'm pretty sure nobody has the moral high-ground in Worm. Taylor doesn't, but neither does anyone else. Isn't that one of the main themes?

Alexandria set up the protectorate with civilian/un-powered oversight, so other capes couldn't get into the position, then uses her civilian identity as the supposed oversight. Which she uses to cover up for/participate in Cauldron kidnapping and experimenting on people, then releasing their mutated throwaways into the public.

Her methods of "interrogation" involve tricking a unstable 15 year old with powers into thinking that she was in the process of going out and murdering her friends. I'm not sure what Alexandria was expecting there.

I suppose that's besides the point though.

Was it selfish to get revenge? Sure. But I've never met anyone in my life that would do nothing after someone kills a friend of theirs, just because the killer does good things publicly. Maybe if thought about in an abstract manner, or years later. But the day of? The hour of?

Do people that selfless/alien exist? Yeah, probably. It's not a common reaction, and it definitely wouldn't have been even slightly believable in someone like Taylor. I don't think that's something I could respect in a protagonist, either.

 

Alexandria was working on Cauldron's behalf here. She wanted Skitter to attack her and escape back to her warlord life to continue Cauldron's Parahuman State experiment. It was for the same reason that someone as unreasonable as Tagg was made to be the director of Brockton Bay. Everything was working to plan- until Skitter killed her.

 

We absolutely agree. So long as we're talking about character actions. It makes sense for her to do what she did.It's also selfish. I don't really care if it's "normal" that's just a value judgement (masquerading as a fact) you attach to actions you know are "wrong" but don't find abominable because you empathize. The more the stakes rise, for me, the less important normal human emotions are to the moral calculus, especially if you choose to be there (Taylor chose to involve herself).

It's quite simple really: I have no problem with protagonists being selfish if we're discussing story. I just find the sort of logic that usually follows this incident hilariously dumb. But that hasn't been the case here.

It's actually trivially easy to argue that Cauldron was indeed moral. This is why God gave us utilitarianism. For the lols you can construct the argument in seconds. I might go troll the Morality thread on SB when I finish my paper actually

It's quite telling that a lot of people -even the characters in the story- hate them for failing as much as anything else. It's far more convenient than any other argument.

 

The bigger the stakes the more people are willing to let slide in search of a solution to the problem.

 

"Forgiveable" is very much distinct from "moral", however.

 

I'm not sure who you mean here, Taylor or Cauldron?

If Taylor chooses to get involved in world-ending shit then...she can't be allowed to "slide" if she makes emotional decisions. That's the price.

If it's Cauldron...I dunno, slide implies a moral compromise for pragmatic reasons. It's not a compromise, it's a responsibility. You're not sliding because it's necessary , you're jumping because it's your duty. Well...that's what utilitarianism says anyway.

That's just me being pedantic, but that usually happens with this topic.

 

Unfortunately, the definition of the word disagrees with you. A badass is "someone who is tough, uncompromising, or intimidating".

Even if we ignore the whole 'became a temporary god, subverted an entire race of super people, and killed a bigger, angrier god' thing and use Alexandria's death as our primary example of Taylor being a badass instead (which in my opinion is kind of weird, but oh well), murdering the leader of the organization that is single-handedly holding back the planet ending kaiju because she hurt your friends seems pretty fucking tough, uncompromising, and intimidating.

 

The entire holding cell scene was a clusterfuck for morality purposes that I think you can honestly make a case for Taylor's actions being (somewhat) reasonable. She was using lethal force in the defense of life when the threatened party was not doing anything that forfeited their right to life. It doesn't matter that Alexandria was bluffing; if you say "I'm going to kill these people if you don't stop me" then even if you're at the depths of the Mariana Trench, you've still got a slight high ground. The government doesn't just get to grab a drug lord's infant son and threaten to kill him if said drug lord doesn't give himself up.

But yes, Wildbow's greatest writing strength was getting us on the exact same wavelength as the protagonist so that we more than empathized; we became the character. Hence why all the people who believe Taylor did nothing wrong.

The bigger issue with Cauldron is that it ended up being kind of stupid. Between the Eidolon reveal, Contessa, Case 53s, Contessa, and Doctor Mother it just fell flat. Then again, the series kind of jumped the shark a bit after the timeskip...

 

Your comparison is misleading. Like on every level.

• The Undersiders are not innocent the children of drug lord. They are criminals. They have attacked two PRT Directors,killed another, moved to subvert the federal authority and now their leader is making it clear that they will go even further in their attempts to blackmail the US government. They are ,in short, terrorists and traitors.
  
• They have no active kill order against them -to my knowledge- but, if they happen to die while they are resisting arrest then...shit happens? No cop would ever be blamed because that's what happens to dangerous criminals who resist arrest with superpowers.
  
  Imagine if Osama claimed that he was going to blow up three airports. Would you then complain if his terrorist group got chased by Seal Team Six and some died?
  
• Taylor didn't use lethal force in defense of life. She used legal force for revenge.
  
• If she did use lethal force in defense of the lives of terrorists against the agent appointed or kept by the lawful authority defending itself against blackmail she is still guilty. Her actions are understandable but she is no more innocent than a Jihadi is if they have to kill a police officer to save another terrorist. Even if that terrorist was my bestest friend.
  
• Alexandria was called in by the acting PRT Director to help solve the problem created by Taylor herself. She said that she was going to capture or kill the Undersiders. Taylor, with her power, is in a position to stop this process by either getting them to surrender or surrendering herself. In fact, she gives Alexandria info to help capture them safely. And Alexandria pretends to use that info, she doesn't just act like she's kill them just cause.
  
  You do not get to use your men to blackmail the government and then whine when those men die as they execute their terrorism. YOU-the commander- killed them,because no government agency can ignore such threats and actions.

Taylor killed Alexandria and Tagg because she was pissed. That's fine (it's not but we understand). This is something else.

 

Alexandria had absolutely no need to kill the Undersiders; they posed zero threat to her. IIRC, she had implied that she had killed one and was going to do it again. It was murder, plain and simple when the Undersiders were not able to threaten her life nor were they threatening the life of anyone else.

It's a question of reasonable force. The Undersiders really are mewling infants in comparison to Alexandria. There's a reason you don't get to shoot people who are posing no direct harm to others, even if you know they rob banks.

In effect, should the US Government threaten to execute imprisoned family members of known criminals if they don't give themselves up? "So Chris, you're in on a drug charge. But your brother runs a gang, so we're going to kill you in 24 hours unless he turns himself in. Kthxbai."

Tagg is a different case, one I'm not going to try and defend, but when Taylor had good reason to believe that Alexandria is going to kill someone then she has the right to stop her. Granted, killing her is a worse way of doing so than just giving her what she wants, but Alexandria's actions (as they seemed) were worse.

Again, they're duking it out at the lowest moral ground you can get, but the situation grants Taylor a moral anthill in comparison. Especially when you look at the resources that Alexandria could have called upon rather than going through the whole murdertime.

tl;dr: Alexandria dun goofed harder than Taylor, but they both goofed something fierce

 

Scrib is right, actually. On all the points that matter.

1) Since Taylor was basically threatening to attack innocents (in this case, the PRT) so as to force concessions:

Calle: "It serves as insurance for my client, and it serves to signal the Undersiders to stand down, should they be considering any sort of aggression for the capture of their leader and friend".

Taylor says, "Don’t tell your people to stop underestimating me, only to slip up and expect to win wholesale against the rest of the Undersiders."

Tagg: "Your arrogance boggles the fucking mind. You want to change the world, and you think a confession on television and the threat of your friends attacking the PRT will be incentive enough?"

The entire reason why Alexandria was called in was because there was a looming deadline - the Undersiders attacking come evening.

2) If the Undersiders died as Alexandria fought them to prevent the threat of (1) massive lawless violence, then surely that's justified?

3) Even if (3) were not justifiable, Taylor killing Alexandria was revenge - not self-defence, since no one was in immediate danger.

Again, all credits to Wildbow for making people sympathize with Taylor in this case when there is precious little to sympathize with. It's quite telling that what really pissed Taylor off people the fake-assaults was them calling her father in - she think this is a low blow, and blackmail - despite the fact that she herself is engaging in actual blackmail via the threat of city-wide violence; and that she is a minor, and talking to the parents of minors... is both normal and common-sensical whenever the minor is in actual or purported trouble.

 

It's funny how the argument I started turned into one about Taylor's morality. I never said she was a good person; I said she was awesome.

Also, Taylor is more of a badass than Harry because Taylor actually does shit. Yeah, Harry stood up to Voldemort at 11 and a basilisk and shit. But every victory he ever had he lucked into. He either just happened to have special mommy love magic, or a phoenix, or matched wands, or backup at the right time, or the allegiance of his opponent's wand. The absolute only time he won on his own merit was his stand off against the dementors at the end of Prisoner.

Taylor, at least, fights her damn battles.

P.S. Also that thing about forgiving Snape and the Malfoys. Bitch move.

 

What Wildbow did well in Worm is gave most characters a good reason for doing what they do. The little interludes also gave you enough perspective to understand everyone's motivations, but due to most of the story being about Taylor, we found ourselves sympathizing with her justifications the most.

Take Tagg for instance. From Taylor's point of view, he seems like a petty, unreasonable warmonger who was getting in the way of all her efforts to do good and help the people of Brockton Bay from real threats. From Tagg's (and the PRT's) point of view, allowing her to get her way would mean a collapse of ordered society and lead to damage on a larger scale than just BB.

This goes the opposite way with Cauldron, where we side with Taylor as she judges the lack of humanity in their actions and the nonchalant way they seem to consider human lives. From their point of view, they probably see Taylor as the petty, small minded one who refuses to understand that the alternative is a lot worse than that.

Really, everyone had acceptable motivations for doing what they were doing, just with different perspectives on each issue. Different priorities, different concerns and different scale of world view.


But yeah, favourite badass Taylor moment for me was her staring down Dragon and Defiant in the cafeteria, using Jack Slash as her role model on how to act. While she may have been anxious on the inside, she put up a completely badass front.