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Define Ethics? It's like trying to determin what is 'Normal'. It can't be done. The whole concept of ethics works under the assumption that the world is black and white when frankly it's not. The world, the people and animals in it are shades of grey. Even the kindest and generous of people can have serious flaws or dark aspects about them self. Or on the flip side the cruel and the violent can have traits that are actually positives. We're a real funny bunch on this planet.

In terms of fan-fiction making the characters have flaws or introducing themes such as Homosexuality or Bisexuality and even violence in your stories makes the world of Balto that little more real and interesting (After all it's set in a very harsh time and in an even harsher place, there's no way these characters have no flaws). Otherwise you do that disney thing of pretending such things don't exist, that evil is bad and good is heroic when it just doesn't work that way.

Take Balto himself for example, his major flaw is his self loathing. It makes him depressed, angry and sometimes bitter.These themes have to be explored one way or another, otherwise what's the point?

Well said, Slayguy. Well said!

Exactly! Or as someone else once said, "one might as well dissect a soap bubble"

The only time I've ever seen flawless people is in movies... but the best movies at least acknowledge that people can't be perfect. The ones that don't are just... corny, cheesy, stupid, whatever. If fanfiction was the same way, it wouldn't be much different.

I don't really know what else to say, since Slayguy pretty much hit the nail square on the head!

Hey, I never said characters had to be perfect. There's room to make mistakes, as I know very well from having made some of my own. Heck, in one of my stories (not on this site) the main character ends up taking part in a robbery (granted, he was tricked). What bothers me is that people do one of two things: either they ascribe unrealistic immoralities to certain characters, often without reason (such as Balto cheating on Jenna or vice-versa), or they have "good" characters behave in an immoral manner with no remorse. Often they do both, which is worse still. And when they try to cover it up with the whole "They're just dogs," excuse, well, that's just plain dumb. Besides, Swords, your argument is self-defeating in a way because you claim that there is no such thing as absolute immorality and yet speak of flawless people existing only in movies. If there is no right or wrong, how can people be anything but flawless? You cannot have flaws if flaws do not exist.

Slayguy, you spoke of Balto's self-loathing. This is a point in your favor, but as I said above, I have never asked for characters to be perfect. Indeed, many vices are things that are intrinsically good taken to an unhealthy level or in an unhealthy direction. Sex, for example, is in itself good. It is the only way that our species, and indeed the vast majority of species, can continue to exist. But when it is taken outside of its appropriate boundaries, it becomes wrong. On the matter of Balto's self-loathing, his virtue could only be truly displayed as he overcame his doubt by means of his courage and determination. Thus, Balto's doubt (his self-loathing, as you describe it) makes the story all the more morally based by having him overcome that problem, as well as by contrasting it to Steele's haughty arrogance. However, a majority of the stories I am objecting to do just the opposite, depicting vice as virtue and virtue as vice. Most of the stories I have come across with, for example, homosexuality, depict straight characters as either ignorant, or as foaming-at-the-mouth murderers. I can give you some exact points from stories on this site if you desire.

"Flawless" meant that they are 100% true to everything they say and claim about themselves all the time. It doesn't have to go with morals. To give an example, in the movie "3:10 to Yuma", the leader of a gang of outlaws (played by Russel Crowe) claims himself to be all bad, saying "if I wasn't as mean as all of them (the rest of his gang) combined, I wouldn't last ten minutes as their leader." As he's about to get on the 3:10 to Yuma train, which will take him to prison, the rest of his gang shoots up his lone escort (Christian Bale) but since he's not dead yet, the gang gives their leader his pistol back, and waits for him to ride off with them or shoot the escort and then ride off with them. What he does, actually, is he shoots everyone in his gang, and gets on the train. Quite simply, that is one of many examples in the movie that the outlaw leader is not 100% of the person he claims or has everyone thinking he is. If he was, the movie wouldn't have been very good, and an actor like Russel Crowe probably wouldn't have wanted to be in it.

So what I'm saying is that of course there are flaws. I didn't say there weren't any. Flaws don't have to always be moral flaws. They can be flaws in one's personality and image. In stories, there are two different kinds of characters: round/dynamic characters, and flat/static characters. Round/dynamic characters are usually the main characters, and they change throughout the story as it progresses. Flat/static characters stay the same. They are usually unimportant secondary characters or they're just there as a sort of literary measuring device to in a way measure how much the dynamic characters have changed. Stories that have all static characters are often the stereotypical portrayals of whatever they are, such as the "dumb blonde" or the "dumb jock" and such, and they follow a rather stereotypical (and if you ask me, a rather stupid) storyline.

Besides, I didn't even imply that there was no right or wrong! If I did, then I'm sorry for the confusion. I just said that people's ideas of right and wrong vary (however much or little) depending on the individual. Flawless people can only exist in the imagination of human beings. Absolute immorality is an example of flawlessness. It is a way of describing flawlessness in antagonists, in how they are 100% of the bad guy they're all hyped up to be, 100% of the time from the moment they were born. Even in the real world, those people can't possibly exist. Even if a person labeled as "bad" has a momentary impulse to do something good, then right there, it's a flaw in his overall bad personality. Even 99.99999% is not flawless.

Apolgy accepted, and you are absolutely right. Bad guys often do start out good and then take the wrong path (Anakin Skywalker, for instance). To use an example available to everyone on this site, my antagonist Pete was probably (although I have not yet been able to include this in a story) a really nice guy before his mother's betrayal (as Pete saw it) of the memory of Pete's father by taking another mate. That sense of betrayal, in turn, led Pete to despise the puppies that his mother had with her new mate, Rex. Even now, for all his nastiness, Pete is not always so much imorral to the extent of characters like, for example, Steele. He is more a-moral; he cares only about his own enjoyment, regardless of how it harms others. He is a parasite, really, and yet in Toby Part Two, Toby and Luna managed to convince him to do something good. So you are right, Bad guys do sometimes have good inclinations. But does that in itself make them good guys? No. I'm reminded of a Cherokee story I heard once, about a grandfather telling his grandson that there are two wolves at war within every one of us: one representing all that it good, and the other being all things evil. When his grandson asked, "Which one wins?" the grandfather answered, "The one you feed."
As for your statement that people have different ideas of right and wrong, you are right. I have repeatedly stated that people have differing ideas, just as different kids may get different answers on a math test. THe question remains: Which is the real answer? When you get right down to it, there have to be moral laws or there cannot be good guys or bad guys. In other words, without moral law, movies like Balto are totally meaningless!

Actually, normalcy can be defined inasmuch as it is known whether something is or is not normal. For example, a person with two heads is not normal. A person with one eye green and the other blue is not normal. That does not mean there is anything wrong about them, but it does make the person abnormal. Now let's say that Balto suddenly started hitting on every girl in sight right in front of Jenna. That would be extremely abnormal (not to mention extremely dangerous).
Now, there are a lot of people who claim there is no right or wrong, and I've always found it a waste of time to try to get through to them about an objective standard of right and wrong. But there are certain things that can be defined as right or wrong with very little question based on their results. For example, selling drugs to kids gets them involved in something that is dangerous to their health, and the dealer knows his targets are probably not yet ready yet (experientially speaking) to defend themselves effectively against his sales pitch. Selling drugs to kids is harmful, and often results in the deaths of said kids. Ergo, it is wrong.

Normality is a point of veiw, everyone has a different sense of normal. In some places in the world it is normal for kids to be hooked on drugs, it's unfortunate and I wish I could change that, but to them it is normal. Ordinary just doesn't exist because you cannot define it, I mean what is normal the way you live your life or the way I live mine?. And BTW a person with one blue eye and another green doesn't make them 'abnormal' that's just obsurd, is slightly more unique granted but not in any way abnormal.

Taken from Webster's online dictionary:
Main Entry: 1ab·nor·mal
Pronunciation: \(?)ab-?n?r-m?l, ?b-\
Function: adjective
: deviating from the normal or average : unusual, exceptional <abnormal behavior>
Ergo, unusual is abnormal. Please note that I never said there is anything categorically wrong with abnormality. But it does exist. I note with interest that you are unable to counter my statement about a person with two heads being abnormal. Perhaps you think that example not worth addressing on the grounds that no such person exists. Well, they do. They're called conjoined twins (or more commonly, Siamese Twins). I'm pretty sure being joined at the neck is unusual, even for Siamese twins. But I know directly that such people do, in fact, exist.

Yet, the one who made the definition for normal/abnormal had still done that; made a definition out of his subjective point of view.

Sorry, but... all the socalled "definitions" is actually made by people and their subjective points of view.
(If I worded it correctly).

First off, you should know that the term "Siamese" is politically incorrect because that's the term they used for them at a time when such twins were commonly used as freak show spectacles. Second off, conjoined twins are abnormal in the medical sense, and the sense that they're not seen that often (at least, I don't think so). Normal behavior and customs, however, are completely subjective. I mean, there are some cultures in Asia where they put these rings on girl's necks to stretch them to make them longer! And they can't take them off, because then their necks would break if that did happen. They think that's normal practice. And in China, people used to believe it was normal to have women's feet bound so their foot size stayed about the size they were when they were 5. Of course, now it's illegal in China, but they used to believe that was normal. Seriously, nobody can define "normal" and have everyone in the world agree with all their hearts! It just can't be done!

Ethics is no different. There is no right answer, because everyone has a different set of ethics. I mean, if everyone was taught the exact same things from birth in the exact same way, then maybe universal ethics would be possible. But since everyone was brought up differently, it honestly isn't possible. It was like the Articles of Confederation. (the document that outlined the government before the constitution was written) The Articles of Confederation required that if anything was to be added on to the Articles, then every one of the 13 states had to agree unanimously. Of course, whenever something was proposed, nothing was ever decided, because one or two states did not agree, even when every other state did. Think of it this way, if everyone on this site was forced to stay online until we agreed on... I don't know, what color the site should be, and we had to stay online until everyone on the site was 100% happy with the choice they made, some of us would either lie about it to get off, or we would all stay online forever.

Let me apologize on the matter of the phrase "Siamese twins." I was simply trying to put things in common terms, since some people might not be familiar with the term "conjoined." That aside, since the topic here is ethics and not normalcy, normalcy is just a straw man argument which has no real bearing on this matter.
My main topic, ethics, is another matter. Ethics can be defined, at least to some extent. For example, ask anyone who has seen the consequences of adultery and / or divorce if it's OK for couples to cheat on each other. Chances are, they will say no. Most of the people pushing to say that certain things are not immoral have never been subjected to the consequences of said things, or else are in denial of them. I have examples I'd rather not give, but I will if I must.


Right, just like the Constitution of the United States was based on the "subjective" views of the Founding Fathers. Go out on the street and ask as many people as you like. 99 out of 100 will tell you that if the dictionary says a word means something, that's what it means. Science, law, and virtually all of human history are founded on the question of what is normal or not normal. Ergo, to say there is no normal is pretty much the same as it would be if you listened to Isaac Newton talking about the law of gravity and then told him, "That's what you think."
On a side note, your argument (error-fraught though it is) was worded correctly, aside from the fact that there should be a dash in "so-called."

You know, DT, you really ought to learn how to argue without eventually resorting to low blows. You want respect for anything that happens to spew forth from your mouth, but you're totally unwilling to extend the same to anyone else. Well, I'll tell you what. You wanna fight dirty, just PM me. I'll bury you. You don't need to be condescending to Swords because he doesn't agree with you. Pointing out a minor typo is unnecessary and nit-picky. Don't do it. And to tell someone that their argument is full of errors is totally silly. I happen to think YOUR argument is full of errors. But I'm kind enough to keep that to myself.


P.S. Your theory about someone telling Isaac Newton "that's what you think" DID happen. A particular philosopher, who's name escapes me right at the moment, did just that. He theorized that you can never prove anything. Just because every apple you've seen dropped has fallen to the ground is in no way proof that they always will. Perhaps, the 9 billionth time you do it, it won't. Just because every brick you've ever seen thrown at a window has broken the window doesn't mean that it wasn't just a huge coincidence. So before you run off at the mouth and try to laugh at someone, maybe you better read up a little more.

Besides, an argument about scientific fact is in no way comparable to an argument about subjective morals, straw man.

It has been decided by the mods as a whole that this topic needs to be locked. All this seems to be is a debate on ethics that is getting nowhere. I hold no grudges against anyone who has posted on this topic, and neither do the mods. This is in no way anything personal.

Topic locked